Elk 02 The Joker by Edgar Wallace Page A

fifteen years ago, and secondly, that this is the second time she’s been dead!’
    He suddenly relaxed and laughed softly.
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ he warned her. ‘I know just the fictional detective whom I am imitating! The whole thing is rather complicated. Did I say coffee or dinner?’
    ‘You said coffee,’ she said.
    The popular restaurant into which they went was just a little overcrowded and after being served they lost no time in making their escape.
    They were passing along Coventry Street when a big car rolled slowly past. The man who was driving was in evening dress…they saw the sheen of his diamond studs, the red tip of his cigar.
    ‘Nobody on earth but the Splendid Harlow could so scintillate,’ said Jim. ‘What does he do in this part of the world at such an hour?’
    The car turned to the right through Leicester Square and passed down Orange Street at a pace which was strangely majestic. It was as though it formed part of and led a magnificent procession. The same thought occurred to both of them.
    ‘He should really travel with a band!’
    ‘I was thinking that, too,’ laughed the girl. ‘He frightened me terribly the night he came to the flat. I mean, when I opened the door to him. And I’m not easily scared. He looked so big and powerful and ruthless that my soul cowered before him!’
    They passed up deserted Long Acre; it was too early for the market carts to have assembled, and the street was a wilderness. Suddenly the girl found her hand held loosely in Jim Carlton’s. He was swinging it to and fro. The severer side of Miss Aileen Rivers closed its eyes and pretended not to see.
    ‘I’ve got a very friendly feeling for you,’ said Jim huskily. ‘I don’t know why, but I just have. And if you talk about the philandering constabulary, I will never forgive you.’
    Three men had suddenly debouched from a side street; they were talking noisily and violently and were moving slowly towards them. Jim looked round: the only man in sight was walking in the opposite direction, having passed them a minute or so before.
    ‘I think we’ll cross the road,’ he said. He took her arm, and, quickening his step, led her to the opposite sidewalk.
    The quarrelling three turned back and Jim stopped. ‘I want you to run back to the other end of Long Acre and fetch a policeman,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Will you do this for me? Run!’
    Obediently she turned and fled, and as she did so one of the three came lurching towards him.
    ‘What’s the idea?’ he said loudly. ‘Can’t we have an argument without you butting in?’
    ‘Stay where you are, Donovan,’ said Jim. ‘I know you and I know just what you’re after.’
    ‘Get him,’ said somebody angrily, and Jim Carlton whipped out the twelve inch length of jambok that he carried in his pocket and struck at the nearest man. As the flexible hide reached its billet the man dropped like one shot. In another second his two companions had sprung at the detective; and he knew that he was fighting, if not for his life, at any rate to save himself from an injury which would incapacitate him for months.
    Again the jambok reached home; a second man reeled.
    And then a taxicab came flying down Long Acre with a policeman on each footboard…
    ‘No, not Bow Street,’ said Jim, ‘take them to Cannon Row.’
    Aileen was in the taxicab, a most unheroic woman, on the verge of tears.
    ‘I guessed what they were after,’ said Jim, as they were driving home. ‘It is one of the oldest tricks in the world, that rehearsed street fight.’
    ‘But why? Why did they do it? Were they old enemies of yours?’ she asked, bewildered.
    ‘One,’ he said. ‘Donovan.’ He carefully avoided her second question.
    The presence of Mr Harlow in his lordly car was no accident. The car which passed down Orange Street was ostensibly carrying him to Vira’s Club, but there was a short cut which brought him through St Martin’s Lane to the end of Long Acre before the two