The Worst Man in the World

Edgar Wallace

• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781649740199
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Crime & Mystery Literature
• Index: Literature

I am an ex-convict, and have spent twenty-five years in prison. This is the only honest way of making a living which does not bore me stiff. The spirit of adventure is never stronger in a man than on the day he is released from prison. The theory that prison crushes a man's spirit is all bunkum. One of the first things I did when I came out of prison was to look round for a nice genteel way of swindling the public. I came out of prison with the deputy's words ringing in my ears, "I think you are the worst man in the world."

The Last Crime

First published in The Premier Magazine, London, September 19, 1922

The last time I came out of prison with the deputy’s words ringing in my ears, “I think you are the worst man in the world,” was a remarkable day for me.

I can’t say that I was very much impressed by the deputy’s moral sayings. Advice and admonition are more or less superfluous to a man of intelligence, who knows when he is doing wrong, who knows what must be the inevitable end if he continues in his wrong-doing, and who certainly has no need of another’s point of view to urge him to the obvious course.

As I told the gentleman who wished to commit suicide, life is very sweet, and life does not necessarily mean freedom. It means the enjoyment of one’s faculties. And they can be as well enjoyed by a philosopher in gaol as they can in a Hyde Park Lane Flat.

Throughout my career of crime I had been under the mistaken impression that my real identity was unknown to my aristocratic friends and relations. I never dreamt that my brother-in-law, so respectable a man, should advertise the fact that he was related to a felon. Nor did I dream that my dear sister, that cold, heartless, and ambitious woman, would make the delinquencies of her brother a subject for tea-table conversation.

And yet that is precisely what had happened I found.

On the evening of my day of release I went to a theatre. I recovered my clothes from the place where I had stored them, and transferred some of the money I had on deposit at my bank, and it was a considerable sum, to my current account.

I dined well and wisely, and strolled across to the Hay market to see a certain play which I had heard about from an artistic-minded convict. Nobody, of course, knew me, and to the average member of the audience, I had the appearance of a youngish middle-aged man who had probably been abroad. My face was tanned with the glorious sun of Devon, I was fighting fit and in the best condition, and as nature has endowed me with my share of good looks, I flatter myself that I put up a presentable appearance.

After the show was over I got my coat from the cloak-room and strolled into the vestibule, intending to walk to my hotel. Suddenly I heard a sweet voice say:

“Excuse me!” and I turned to meet a glorious pair of blue eyes and one of the prettiest faces it has been my lot to look upon. “How do you do, Captain Penman?” (I have camouflaged my name, naturally.)

Nobody had called me “Penman” for years, and I could not for the life of me place her, although her face was familiar.

“You don’t know me, although we’ve met.”

A smile trembled at the corner of her beautiful mouth, as though she were quietly amused.

“I am afraid I am very rude indeed, for I do not recall you,” said I. “The fact is, I have been abroad.”

She shook her head at me.

“Captain Penman, that isn’t true,” she said, lowering her voice. “Will you see me home?”

Nothing pleased me better, and I called a cab arid followed her into it.

She lived in St. John Street, Adelphi, and had a comfortable flat with two eminently respectable servants, who were waiting up for her when she arrived.

“I am going to have coffee, will you take a cup with me?” she asked. “And please take off your coat, Captain Penman.”

She slipped her cloak from her dazzling white shoulders, and again looked at me quizzically.

“I know you are terribly puzzled as to where we met,” she said. “The truth is that our first meeting was more unconventional than our second. I was in bed when I saw you last.”

“In bed?” I gasped.

She nodded, still smiling.

“I think it was your first crime, Captain Penman, although perhaps your brother-in-law will not agree with me. And you escaped over the roofs of the houses in Portman Square, and you came into a room occupied—”

“Good lord, I remember!” I said. “You were the lady whose sleep I so brutally interrupted?”

She nodded.

My mind went back all those years, and I tried to recall the face that I had seen on that night. I remembered it was beautiful, but somehow I could not recall a definite vision.

“You are probably wondering why I am not in Portman Square now,” she said quietly, “My father died penniless, but fortunately I had had a training at an art school, and I wrote a little. I am now a magazine illustrator. Yes, your brother-in-law told us all about it,” she went on, after the coffee had come in and the servants had disappeared. “And your sister made no secret of the fact that she had been burgled by a man who held the Distinguished Service Order. What have you been doing? You have been in prison, I know.”

“Several times,” I admitted. “In fact, I am now one of the consistently regular patrons of Princetown’s principal hotel.”

She looked at me steadily, gravely, but not disapprovingly, I was glad to note.

“I have wanted to meet you for a long time,” she said. “And once, when I was on a sketching tour across Dartmoor, I stayed for two whole days in Princetown, hoping to see you marched out with the other men.”

“You should have called in and seen me at home,” said I; and she laughed at my irony.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

“I haven’t quite decided upon the type of crime, but it will be something exhilarating, you may be sure,” I said.

“Do you like it—this life?” she asked, and I shrugged.

“Of course you don’t like it, but I mean it isn’t altogether abominable to you?”

“Not at all,” said I. “It is very amusing in many ways. In some ways it is a bore.”

“Did you ever meet in your travels a man named Price Wold?”

I shook my head.

“Is he one of us?” I asked, and a half smile came and faded upon her lips.

“He is not a convicted scoundrel,” she said, and apologised hurriedly. “I mean he is a scoundrel but he has never been convicted. I wondered if you had ever heard of him. He was a soldier years ago. I am going to marry him,” she added simply.

I could only stare at her.

“Marry an ‘unconvicted scoundrel’?” said I. “You are taking rather a risk, aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“Mother doesn’t like it. She lives in the country with my aunt, and, poor soul, she doesn’t know the reason I am getting married is to save her dear feelings. I don’t know why I am telling you all this,” she said with a nervous little laugh. “It was sheer caprice that made me approach you. I was hoping you were feeling a little sad yourself so that we could commiserate with one another.”

“Why are you marrying this man?” I asked quietly. It seemed almost, as if f had known her for twenty years, we had fallen so quickly into the confidential strain.

“Because I must,” she said. “Captain Penman, I suppose you are so well acquainted with the follies of the world that you won’t be very shocked if I tell you that I had a love affair with my music master. In a sense it was quite innocent, though it might not have been but for the fact that my father found out in time. I had written him a number of letters; he was not a gentleman in the best sense of the word, though he was very fascinating to me.

“When I look back on that time I wonder if it was me at all,” she said thoughtfully. “The letters I wrote to him were—well, they were foolish, I never think of them without shuddering. I was only a child at the time, and in many ways an ignorant child. I learnt afterwards, when the affair was broken off, that the man had boasted of our close acquaintanceship. As a matter of fact, it was through his indiscretion that my father got to know, I was terribly cut up at the time, but I thought the whole thing was over and done with and the memory of Carlo had passed from my mind, when I learnt, about three years ago, that the letters were in the possession of Price Wold, whom I had met at my father’s dinners, and whom I had regarded as a very amiable middle-aged man, rather fat and talkative.”

“I see,” I said slowly, “Then your marriage is the price of the letters?”

She nodded,

“It sounds like a chapter from a ‘shocker,’ doesn’t it?” she said unsmilingly. “But that is the truth. He has told me in so many words that unless I consent to marry him he is going to make my mother acquainted with the contents of the letters. That would kill her. She is so sensitive to scandal that my father never told her a word about the affair.”

“Do you like him?” I asked.

“Who, Price Wold? I loathe him, I hate him!”

Her voice was vibrant with suppressed passion.

“I don’t mind his being so much older than I, but there is something repulsive about the man. And he is a criminal, Captain Penman, a real criminal, greater than any you have met in your travels. I am perfectly sure that he has been living on blackmail for years. When I saw you in the vestibule, I wondered for a second if you knew him or if you had any influence with him. I know that you are quite famous amongst the people of the underworld. Ah! You did not like to hear that. It is the first time you have shown any sign of discomfort!”

“I am not exactly proud of being a little hero amongst the crooks of London,” said I with some asperity, of which I was rather ashamed afterwards. “No, I do not know Mr. Wold, but if it will serve you in any way I will get acquainted with him. Where does he live?”

“At Babbington Chambers,” she said, but shook her head again. “I don’t think it would serve any useful purpose—meeting him, I mean. But it has been a great relief,” she smiled, “to lay my burden on you and to pour my woes into a sympathetic ear. You are really not going to commit any further crimes, are you, Captain Penman?” she asked earnestly. “I shall hate it, knowing you. I am sure I couldn’t sleep if I thought of you, now that I have met you, lying in a cell at Dartmoor or working with those horrid men in the fields.”

I was silent. She had introduced into my life a novel embarrassment.

“Let us hope for the best,” I said piously.

“But there is no sense in my hoping unless you are hoping, too,” she said, “and now I am going to turn you out, for I have to get up at half-past five in the morning to finish a sketch. I always work best in early morning.”

I had said good-bye to her, when I saw a long cord coiled upon the window ledge. I should not have spoken about it, but she followed the direction of my eyes.

“That is my milk cord,” she said, “and it is appropriate that you should see it, after I have been boasting of my early hours. The milkman comes at six o’clock, whistles, and I let down the cord. It saves me a journey downstairs at an hour when I am not usually fully clad.”

I don’t know whether it was the cord, and the train of thought which that set in motion, or whether I had already begun to think things out subconsciously, but I left Beryl Manton with my plan of operation almost complete. The clock of St. Clement’s Dane was chiming midnight when I came into the Strand, and, calling a taxi, I told him to drive me to the end of Knightsbridge, where Babbington Chambers was situated. I did not know, and had never heard of Wold, but I knew Babbington Chambers, an abiding place of the vulgarly rich and perhaps the most expensive flats in London.

The only man on duty at this time of night was the lift attendant, and as the lift was going up when I entered the swing doors, it was all to the good. Fortunately for me, my plan for getting upstairs unobserved failed, for the lift was an open one, and the attendant, an old soldier, checked its ascent.

“Are you looking for any number, sir?”

“Yes, I want Mr. Wold,” I said.

I should eventually have had to go to the attendant and ask him, for I found that only one or two flats had name plates.

“His is number sixteen on the third floor. I’ll take you up, sir.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“He’s got a party to-night,” said the attendant as the lift shot up. “I suppose you’re going to it, sir?”

“That is my intention,” said I.

I pressed the bell of No. 16, and a manservant opened the door. He seemed to take it for granted that I was one of the expected guests, for he took off my coat and hung up my hat.

“What name shall I give?”

“Captain Penman,” said I, using my own name for the first time for many years.

The drawing-room into which I was shown was crowded with people. They were mostly girls of the chorus-girl type and the kind of young man one meets at night clubs, and everybody seemed more or less—well, I will say jovial. I hesitate to describe any woman as being under the influence of drink.

I knew my man the moment my eyes lit upon him. He was broad and gross of build, tall, red-faced, and black-haired, and he came towards me with a look of doubt on his face.

“How do you do, Wold?” I said. “You don’t remember me? I am Eric Penman.”

“Glad to meet you,” he said; “but I don’t quite place you.”

“You invited me to come to your party a week ago,” said I.

I thought it was likely...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• The First Crime
• The Snake Woman
• On the Cornish Express
• The Master Criminal
• The House of Doom
• The Last Crime