The Case Of The Smuggled Diamond Episode 1

For some seconds the telephone next to Dixon Hawke’s bed remained unanswered. Hawke, who had been up very late on an intricate case, stirred twice before he opened his eyes, realised that the phone was ringing, and sat up quickly.

He lifted the receiver and immediately a torrent of words, hurled into the microphone with a pronounced foreign accent, reached his ears.

“Hook, Hook, dat is right, pliz you come, pliz, pliz you come, most vital, most necessairy, pliz you come, ze dangair I am in is great, most great —”

Hawke interrupted the torrent, very wide awake now.

“You’re shouting too much,” he said carefully. “Speak more quietly and give me your name and address.”

“I geeve you what? Name an’— pliz, pliz, ’urry! I am at ze ’otel Grande, my name, it is —”

The speaker stopped abruptly. Hawke heard another voice, low-pitched and harsh, but he could not catch the words. Then the receiver was replaced at the other end of the line and silence ensued.

Dishevelled

Hawke slipped out of bed, calling: “Tommy, show a leg!”

Tommy Burke, hair dishevelled, and in his pyjamas, appeared in his doorway on the instant. He had been half-wakened by the phone ringing.

“Good man,” said Hawke. “Get some clothes on quickly and telephone for a taxi. I’ll tell you the trouble later.”

Within 10 minutes the famous detective and his youthful assistant were in a cab and on their way to the Grande Hotel. Dawn was just breaking.

All traces of sleepiness had disappeared from Hawke and Tommy, and the latter had been told the essentials of the urgent summons.

That done, Hawke added: “He was a foreigner, judging from his voice, and scared out of his wits. The other voice was English.”

Tommy’s eyes showed excitement. “It’s a queer business, all right, but what kind of luck are we going to have, searching through the Grande Hotel? It must have 500 bedrooms.”

Hawke eyed him humorously. “You must be more tired than you look, old son! It’s just turned half-past five. Not many people would put through a call at that time of day, and your job’s to find out from the operator which room the call came from.”

He finished as the taxi drew up outside the palatial hotel. A uniformed commissionaire was on duty, despite the hour.

“Wait, please,” Hawke said to his driver, while Tommy hurried into the foyer and then up a short flight of steps and along a passage to the telephone switchboard.

A tired girl was sitting listlessly in front of it, brightening when Tommy switched on his best smile and said pleasantly: “I’m awfully sorry to worry you so early, but my chief had a message from a client about half an hour ago, and we’ve forgotten the number of his room.”

He knew the girl might refer him to the desk, assuming he knew the “client’s” name, but he was lucky, for she said at once: “There’s only been two calls, and one was a long-distance. Room number — let me see — 307, that’s it, 307 made the local call.”

Danger signals

“Thanks no end,” said Tommy, and started back along the passage.

One wall of the short passage was unbroken, but from the other two doors opened, and standing by one of the doors was a tall, heavily-built man dressed in dark clothes.

“Excuse me, have you a match?” he asked.

“Er — no, I’m sorry,” said Tommy untruthfully; he did not want to waste a moment. He stepped to one side, but the big man loomed over him, and suddenly Tommy saw the danger signals.

He opened his mouth to shout, but a big hand closed over his mouth, and the cry was smothered. Then the man shot home a jab to the point which sent the youngster reeling backwards.

Tommy hadn’t a chance. The man was twice as powerful as he, and fought with a vicious ruthlessness. A second punch created a great sense of powerlessness in the youngster, the third made his head swim, and then he lost consciousness.

The hefty man looked about him quickly, heard a movement from the exchange, opened the nearest door and literally hurled Tommy inside. The door swung to just as the operator appeared, looking scared.

“Is — is anything the matter?” “Some fool of a porter nearly knocked me over,” snapped the big man. “What kind of a hotel is this?” He glowered at the girl, who apologised and went back to her switchboard.

The man made sure he was not observed, and then went in after Tommy, who was sprawled on the floor between a number of big laundry boxes, all on wheels.

The man lifted the unconscious youngster, opened a basket, and lowered Tommy, for whom there was plenty of room, into a half-sitting position.

Several towels were in the box, and the man wound one tightly about Tommy’s face. The ends were not long enough to be tied again, and he pulled more tightly, muttering: “That’ll look after you, you interfering little swipe!”

Sweating

Suddenly Tommy saw the danger. He opened his mouth to shout, but a hand closed over his mouth, and the cry was smothered

The hefty man was sweating when he left the laundry storeroom. He looked furtively right and left, but saw no one.

Wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, he stepped into the foyer. There were several people about, despite the earliness of the hour, and the man shrugged as he muttered half-aloud: “Two of them came, but I’m darned if I recognise the other. By Jupiter, there isn’t much time to spare!”

He hurried to a lift, grunting: “Third floor and make it snappy.”

Meanwhile, Dixon Hawke had waited for more than five minutes for Tommy. He imagined the youngster was having a difficult task to get information, but just as he was thinking he should investigate, he saw a short, tubby man step from the lift.

He was clearly a foreigner, and he was muttering to himself.

More tomorrow.

Dixon Hawke, along with his trusty sidekick Tommy Burke, appeared in several DC Thomson publications, starting around 1912.