Leaving England to-night, strange and most important information to give you in exchange for your kindness to-day. Come at once, trains every few minutes from Waterloo.
Loide, The Elms, Maypole Road, Wimbledon.
He paid the one and eightpence cost of the telegram, and then sought in the high road an ironmonger's.
There he bought two saws, a hammer, chisel, some nails, and some yards of webbing.
At a lamp shop he purchased a pound of candles, a ready trimmed bicycle lamp, and then hurried home with his purchases to The Elms.
Entering, he threw off his coat, and tucked up his shirt-sleeves.
Manual labor was not in his way, but he guessed from having seen workmen prepare for their tasks in that way that it was the correct thing to work coatless—he had some hard work ahead of him.
His bicycle lamp lighted, he set to work, drove four of his long French nails through the floor of the passage.
The four nails formed a square—a square yard.
With his bicycle lamp in hand, he went downstairs to the wine cellar. A stout old door yielded to the key.
Loide in his palmy days had been a lover of wine, and the cellar had been built to his order. It was the most lofty apartment in the house.
Air and light came to it through strong iron bars, which were on a level with the ground above. The roof was at least fourteen feet from the floor.
On to that roof, formed—apart from the cobwebs—of the rafters supporting the floor boards above, Loide threw the rays of his lantern.
Four bright, sharp points were sticking through the wood, dust, and cobwebs. He grunted with satisfaction as he noted the situation of the points of his nails.
He hurried out of the cellar, up the steps to where the heads of the nails were, and there his real hard work began.
He bored a hole with the aid of the chisel and hammer, then inserting the fret saw, worked through the width of one of the boards, working against the passage wall.
This operation he repeated the other side, and in a few minutes had a length of floor board up—a yard long.
With the larger saw he had bought, he was soon sawing through five other boards and their supports, and there presently gaped an opening more than a yard square.
He hurriedly put the boards together again as he had taken them up.
Going into a back room, he ripped some laths from the Venetian blinds. These he nailed to the floor boards, fastening them together as a lid for the hole he had made.
He tried it—it fitted well. But for his holding it, the lid would have fallen through the hole.
He cut the parcel of webbing open, and, leaning over the hole, nailed pieces along one side of the square beneath the floor boards.
When he had nailed the other ends of these pieces to his lid, he had a crude but perfectly hinged flap.
Rushing up-stairs, he dragged down two of the feather beds, one after the other, and dropped them through the hole.
That was what he counted as his mercy. He did not want to break any of the detective's limbs.
He just wanted information about the nineteen thousand pounds.
Two pieces of lath slightly tacked under the opposite side of the hole to prevent the lid falling through till trodden on, and he lowered the flap on its hinges.
Apart from the sawdust around, it looked a perfect floor. He swished away the dust, and stood up with a smile of satisfaction on his face.
He was dog tired with the work, but he had done all he needed to do. The snare was set—the trap was waiting.
Would the bird come to his call?
CHAPTER XXV
A WOULD BE SUICIDE
At Finsbury Circus next morning dentist Lennox was in attendance.
He had been growing very ill lately, mentally and physically, and this morning he had turned over in his bed with the intention of remaining in it for the day.
Dental patients were so few and far between that he did not fear losing much by his absence.
But when his wife—as was her custom—brought up his cup of tea, and morning letters, there was a post-card from Sawyer—his boy. It was to tell him that a patient would call about his teeth at eleven o'clock.
Despite his really ill condition, he bathed and dressed, and got to the city somehow.
He was in time for his appointment, and waited long for the coming patient. But eleven o'clock struck and he came not.
Calling Sawyer in, he questioned him minutely as to the person making the appointment, and the likelihood of his turning up later.
"Oh, he meant coming right enough, sir. Had been recommended here by a friend who had been."
"Oh, who was that?"
"Dunno his name, sir. That American agent, sir, what came the day Mr. Arthur went away."
The dentist controlled his emotion, checked an exhibition of it by gripping the arms of his chair, and inquired:
"What did he say?"
"Said the American gent had spoken very 'ighly of the painless manner in which you treated him when he called here."
The dead man, the cut up man, had spoken highly of his treatment!
The dentist's lip was kept from trembling by the grip of his teeth on it. He wiped away the beads of perspiration from his brow, and inquired:
"This gentleman who called was a friend of his?"
"Yus, sir; was most interested about him. Arst a lot of questions, sir, and showed me his picture which he had in his pocket."
Not a word from the dentist; he seemed frozen to his chair.
His head was turned from the boy. Could Sawyer have seen it, he would have wondered at the stony look of fright in his master's face.
For the dentist feared the worst. He guessed that the man coming was a detective. Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
He sat there, waiting—a prey to indescribable fear. Useless, he knew, to attempt to escape—perhaps even now the place was being watched.
Well! let them arrest him; it would be the end of all—of all the worry and trouble which he felt was hastening him to the grave.
And then he thought of his wife, of his girl child, and groaned aloud.
Was his widow to be shamed by his death; was he to cast a cloud over his child's life, to give people a chance of saying of her: "Her father was hanged for murder."
He groaned again in his mental agony.
Suicide! Ah! why had he not thought of that?
It would save all—the exposure, the torture of the trial, the disgraceful death at the hangman's hand. What a fool that the idea had not occurred to him before!
His brother died with his throat cut, why should he not do the same? Life with its overhanging fears and terrors was not worth the living to him. He would shuffle off this mortal coil.
He walked quietly to the door, and gently turned the key in the lock. Then he unlocked a small safe in the corner of the room, and from the drawer thereof he took out the nineteen Bank of England notes he had always been afraid to attempt to cash.
He looked at them and shuddered—blood money! Their rustle gave him no pleasure now.
To his desk—then inserting the notes in an envelope, he directed it on the outside, "To the Police, Scotland Yard."
His hand trembled so he could not write more. He had intended giving an explanation of the whole thing, but as he asked himself—who would believe so wildly improbable—so incredible—a story?
He sat, pen in his trembling fingers, intending to write to his wife, and then it occurred to him that to do so would mean ruin to her—that were his death ascribed to suicide, the moneys payable under his insurance policies would be forfeited.
The thought made him pause.
No, he must run no risk. Those scraped together premiums on the policies must not be lost.
He reflected that it was better to die. That then there would be an end to that grinding, scraping, pinching poverty at home—that looking at every sixpence before it was spent.
He was insured for fifteen hundred pounds—a policy issued for the benefit of his wife, so that she would get the whole sum without his creditors being able to touch a penny of it, or any deduction for death dues.
He thought how it would lighten the burden of the woman to whom he had been bound till death should them part.
Death! He feared it—feared it horribly. He loathed himself for his cowardice all the while he feared. It was his duty to destroy himself.
His daughter Edith, too—his little Edie—how different her future would be! She would be sent to a first-class school, where they turned out women, and not mechanical scholars, the result of the cramming process of the brass plated Seminary for Young Ladies.
He thought of all this as he considered how he should compass the death which was to bring about these things.
He must do it in such a way that no suspicion should arise; there must be no doubt about the death—it must be ascribed to an accident.
He looked around. His eyes rested on his dead brother's case of surgical instruments.
The case had remained in his rooms since—he shuddered at the recollection of their use. He walked to the side table and opened the box.
The cold glitter of the polished steel made him shudder again, and from his lips came the whispered prayer:
"Oh, God, give me courage to do this thing."
How should he make assurance doubly sure? By Sawyer's aid.
It was certain there would be an inquest, the boy's evidence would be essential—the last human being to see him alive. He must supply that witness with material.
He took one of the knives in his hand, gently turned the key in the lock, and walked into the outer room.
Sawyer hurriedly concealed the pages of "The Brass Bound Pirate of the Pacific, or the One Eyed Man in the Crimson Mask."
It was the sort of mental food his taste ran to. Exciting and cheap—dirt cheap.
"Do you know that fancy shop—bazar—just opposite the entrance to Liverpool Street Station, Sawyer?"
"Two or three doors from the corner? Yussir."
"They have some hones in the window."
"Some which, sir?"
"Sharpening stones. You will see them in the window at a shilling each."
"Yussir."
"Get me one. Here's a shilling. I want to sharpen this knife."
"Yussir."
"You understand what I want it for. To sharpen this knife."
"Yussir."
Sawyer went out, procured the required article, and returned with it to his employer.
"You will be going to dinner in half an hour, Sawyer?"
"Yussir."
"When you do so, go into the post-office and register this letter—it is already stamped."
"Yussir."
"Now, I'll sharpen my knife."
The dentist went into his room. His fingers rested on the key in the lock for a moment.
"No," he muttered; "a locked door would create suspicion. Besides, there is no need."
He unfastened his sleeve link, and rolled back the cuff of his shirt.
He was surgeon enough to know which opened vein would drain his body the quickest, for he intended to bleed to death.
It was an almost painless way—the drawback to it, its slowness.
Thrice he poised the knife, thrice the hand holding it dropped to his side, thrice he groaned in his despair—at his own cowardice.
"Oh, God," he prayed—and if ever heartfelt prayer ascended to the heavenly throne, one went up then—"give me strength and courage to do this thing. My life has been a useless one. Give me courage, God, to end it for my wife and child's sake."
A loud rapping at the door broke in on his prayer.
He had disregarded—had not heard the previous tapping. Relieved at the interruption, he opened the door.
He started when he did so. Was he too late?
For behind Sawyer, who had been knocking, there stood two men in the uniform of the police.
CHAPTER XXVI
GERALD WALKS INTO THE TRAP
Gerald was enveloped in an atmosphere of tobacco smoke which nearly choked his landlady when she entered the room.
A telegram had come for him, and it being, as she explained, "that dratted gal's night out," she had ascended the stairs with the message herself.
Gerald was thick in smoke, because he had an idea that his brain liked it; he thought better with a pipe in his mouth.
And he was as full of thought just then as a pomegranate is of pips.
He took the telegram, opened it, and raised his eyebrows at the contents.
"What's the meaning of it?" he muttered. "What can have happened since the morning? What more can he know?"
He was in no way suspicious that it was part of a trap.
He did not credit Loide with any revengeful feeling, because he had been dealt with leniently—let fly when his wings should have been clipped.
Was it possible that there was such a thing as gratitude in that tough old legal breast? He half smiled as he wholly doubted it.
And yet—well, he would go down and see what it was. Wimbledon was not far—he could soon get there and back.
He turned down his lamp, and, putting on his coat and hat, went out, took train to, and reached Wimbledon.
He had some difficulty in finding his way through the ill-lit streets, but at last he reached The Elms.
Through the slats of the Venetian blinds he saw the house well lighted. There was nothing dark or mysterious about it.
A faint suspicion which had been born en route subsided.
Clever Loide had foreseen and disarmed such suspicion by means of his pound of candles, lighted and distributed on the floors of the front rooms.
Gerald opened the gate and walked up the steps to the door. He knocked.
Presently he heard footsteps, and then a voice—a voice he recognized as the lawyer's—saying:
"That is all right, Mary; don't bother to open the door. I will. I know who it is—a gentleman I am expecting. Just put some coals on the dining-room fire, will you?"
Then there was a rattling of the lock, and the hall door swung open. The lawyer stood there.
"Come in," he said. "Excuse the condition of the hall; the white washers are at work."
Gerald entered, and the lawyer closed the door behind him.
"Straight on," he said. "My room is at the end of the passage, the door facing you."
Gerald walked on. Then suddenly the floor gave way beneath him.
With a cry he stretched out his hands, and gripped the edge of what he perceived to be a trap, saving himself from falling thereby. The lawyer saw this, and endeavored with his foot on Gerald's shoulder to thrust him down.
In turn Gerald released one hand, and made a grab at the lawyer's leg. Just in time Loide withdrew his limb, and Gerald replaced his hand on the edge of the opening, striving to draw himself up.
There was only one thing to be done, and the lawyer did it. He deliberately placed his feet, one on the fingers of each of the hands gripping the wood.
With a cry of pain Gerald released his hold, and fell to the feather bed below.
The lawyer knelt on the edge of the hole, and, throwing the rays of his lantern down, inquired:
"All right? You aren't hurt, are you?"
"What's the meaning of this devil's trick? Is this the gratitude you spoke of?"
"A little bit of it—just a little bit of it. I'm sorry; really, truly sorry to put you in such a position, but business, you know, business must be attended to."
"I've walked into your trap."
"Just nicely and comfortably."
"Like a fool."
"No, no, don't say that," said the lawyer soothingly. "You couldn't possibly foresee."
"What does it mean? What's your object? How long do you propose to keep me here?"
"Depends entirely on yourself."
"How?"
"Let me handle those nineteen thousand pound notes, and you shall have your liberty within twenty four hours."
"And if I don't do that?"
The grim smile on the lawyer's face seemed to answer him.
"Supposing I cannot?"
Once more the lawyer smiled. He stroked his chin and said quietly:
"You are not a fool. I don't think I am. Let's play this game, then, like men. You are here in my power. You've got to stop here till I handle those notes. I can't afford to let that time be a long one, so I must hurry things on a bit."
"You mean to torture me?"
"That's as you may choose to put it. You must remember that the torture will cease the moment you care to let it. You've got the check string in your hand."
"What do you intend doing?"
"Nothing, I hope, because I think you will see the game is mine, and hand over the pool."
"You think I have the notes on me?"
"No, I don't, or I should have adopted other means—rendered you unconscious while I despoiled you of them, and then perhaps popped you where you are for some hours while I cashed the notes and cleared out."
"What is it you want me to do, then?"
"Well, you made me sit down and write a note once, didn't you? I have a stylographic pen here, paper, and an envelope."
"Yes."
"I want you to write a letter, authorizing the giving up to the bearer of it the packet containing the notes."
"A letter—to whom?"
The lawyer laughed as he answered:
"To the custodian of them, of course."
"And if I can't—if I don't do that?"
"Then, my friend, you'll gain knowledge. You will know what it is to be hungry and thirsty. I don't know that the information will be of much service to you in the police force, but for all it's worth, it will be yours."
"You will starve me!"
"I shall keep you without bite or sup till you give me what I want, if it's for a day or a week, or—or as long as you can live. If you are obstinate enough, if ultimately your skeleton is found here—for I may tell you that rats abound in the cellar, and they are reputed to be excellent bone pickers—the fault will be yours, wholly yours, not mine."
There was silence for a few moments.
Gerald was in a cold sweat of fear and horror. He knew the lawyer well enough to know that an appeal to his mercy would be wasted.
If he told the truth—that he did not know where the notes were—he would not be believed. If he did convince the lawyer, then what might happen?
At the fellow's mercy he might be killed, just as the man on the boat had been. Human life, he knew, was no sacred thing to the man who held him prisoner.
To lie or to tell the truth—which should he do?
"How do you shape?" presently inquired the lawyer. "Will you make yourself as comfortable on those beds as you can for the night without bedclothes, and with rodent company, or will you give me the letter I ask for now?"
"I can't give it."
"Very well," said the lawyer, pretending to smile genially, although he was sick at heart at the answer. "Perhaps a night's reflection will make you change your mind;" he drew up the flap as he spoke.
"Good-night."
"God! Are you going to leave me here in the dark?"
"I am afraid so. I am sleeping in the house, and if the loneliness—but you will have plenty of company—if you should change your mind in the night, call out. I shall hear you, and bring a light."
"If I scream for help the neighbors——"
"Will not hear you. Grip that fact, and it will be a breath saver. This house stands off the road in its own grounds. There is not a living being within earshot."
"Leave me a light, man—it's inhuman."
"I am sorry you think that. However, it's your own fault, you know. Give me the letter I want, and I'll lower this lamp to you, and before this time to-morrow night you shall be as free as air."
He waited a minute, holding the flap in his hand. No answer.
"I am sorry you don't see your way to it. You don't mind my shutting this flap, do you? You'll get plenty of ventilation from the barred window. By the by, don't waste strength trying the bars. I tried them before you dropped down, and you can take my word that they are firm enough; while as to the door, it's as solid a piece of oak as was ever carpentered. Accept my assurance that you are as secure as it is possible to make you, will you? Good-night."
He put one of the pieces of lath across a corner of the opening as he spoke, and rested the flap on that.
The square border of light, which those eager eyes in the cellar looked up to, the light of the lamp through the cracks, gradually grew fainter and fainter—the lantern had been lifted.
The light faded, then all was darkness. The prisoner was alone.
CHAPTER XXVII
PECULIAR MESSENGERS
Gerald was alone for some time; he remained in the same position.
He was partly stunned by what had happened. It had all taken place so rapidly, and so unexpectedly, and he feared—greatly—the danger ahead.
Man to man, he would have feared nothing. He was not a coward.
But, as it was, he had a murderer to deal with, and his opponent had the keys.
He considered Loide's character, and he calculated that his own life was a small thing in the lawyers estimation. It was an unwholesome thought.
He turned his head slowly, and then very quickly, for he saw a glimmer of light. It was from the barred window.
The moon was shining, and would soon o'ertop the trees he could see silhouetted on what was his horizon.
He thought of escape—naturally. But it was a poor thought; he anticipated no success.
A point in his favor was his early athletic training. With finger or foothold he would have been a factor to reckon with in an attempt to get out.
Running the whole length of what was his roof were the supporting beams of the floor boards above. They afforded no grip if he got there—and he had to reach them.
He looked at the window. If he ran and sprang high enough, he would be able to grip the bars.
He essayed it—failed at first, but was clinging successfully the second time.
The width between the bars was not great enough for him to put his head through, but he threw up his left leg and hooked the toe of his boot so that he could rest there, and look round without the heavy strain on his arms.
In the semi-darkness he looked out on what appeared to be a long garden with high trees at the bottom.
Behind those trees he knew the moon was coming up, and that presently that awful darkness would be ended.
The rafters above him—they were his only hope of escape.
By means of the window he could reach those beams, and possibly the trap-door, but he feared—horribly feared—that his fingers would slip from the pieces of square wood, which it seemed impossible to grip.
He tried it, however. He got both legs up and through the rails till the thickness of his thighs prevented further protrusion.
He sat there with his calves out of window, resting a moment, and getting ready for his test of strength.
Then, his hands at the top of the bars, and his feet resting at their base, he stretched up first one hand and then the other.
He gripped easily the long timbers—gripped them easily while his weight was supported by his feet, but the moment he hung—well, that same moment he dropped to the ground.
In his fall he did not hurt himself at all—he was prepared for it.
He had known, even while testing it, that the task was a hopeless one; there was nothing to grip in the strict sense of the word; all he could do was to pinch the wood with his fingers, and the difficulty of that operation with one hundred and forty pounds depending is apparent.
He felt his way over to the beds, and lay down; his exertions had fatigued him a bit.
He lay very quietly, thinking—thinking of the possibility of escape, and realizing more and more how hopeless the idea was, how secure was the trap he was in.
He heard a sound and started up—the sound ceased. He called out:
"Who's there?"
And there was a scampering, scraping, scratching noise. What it was burst on him at once. He muttered:
"Rats!"
He was not afraid of them. His limbs were free.
He had read accounts of those rodents attacking living men, but he had looked upon them as mere fiction. He was content to think that he could beat them off if his voice failed to frighten them.
The moon o'ertopped the trees, and he was thankful. The light was a great comfort.
It shone into the cellar, and he lay there on the beds as in a patch of lime-light, the shadow of the bars running as great dark lines across the floor.
He put his hands under his head, and lay quite still, looking up at the moon. Presently a shadow was cast—there was something at the window!
He did not move, and then he saw what it was—a cat—a common or garden cat!
A well cared for, plump, collared member of the feline race—he could see the silver part of the leather collar in the moon's beams.
The cat looked in between the bars and listened. Then she stealthily ran or dropped, after the manner of her kind, down the wall on to the floor.
It was evident from her manner that this was not her first visit. The squeaking and scuttling of the rats had ceased as by magic.
The fear they had not felt for the man, they instinctively felt for the cat—their natural enemy.
Quite idly, without moving, Gerald said:
"Puss, puss; poor pussie."
The cat paused in her stealthy walk across the cellar floor. Gerald spoke again.
Perhaps she was reassured by his voice, for she did not run away when he stretched out his hand and scratched her neck and head; indeed, she came closer. Evidently Gerald had found her soft spot.
Another shadow! Another cat! Then another!
They followed the example of the first and dropped down—it was evidently a happy hunting ground for the neighboring cats.
Gerald was rather pleased than otherwise—they acted as a kind of police, so far as the rats were concerned.
The moon, as it climbed its way along the heavens, lighted up different parts of the cellar, and presently in looking round a ray of hope entered Gerald's heart—for there, on a nail in the wall, was a coil of wire!
There were possibilities in it.
He walked to the coil and took it down, and his heart sank again.
It was the thread-like wire used in bottling, and absolutely useless as a means of escape.
Then suddenly a thought occurred to him, which sent the blood rushing to his head, and set his pulse and heart beating faster.
"My God!" he said, "there's a chance yet."
From his breast pocket he drew his note-book and tore three leaves out. In the light of the moon with a pencil he wrote:
"For God's sake, whoever finds this, take it to the nearest police station. I am imprisoned without food or drink in the back cellar of The Elms, Maypole Road, Wimbledon, by a man who threatens to murder me. This is life or death. For God's sake, help."
"That ought to be strong enough," he muttered, as he reread it. "I don't know that I can add to it in any way."
Then he made two copies of the document, and folded all three into flat, long-shaped tapers.
He then broke off a couple of yards of the wire, and called a cat to him.
Scratching the cat, and fastening the note to the collar with the wire, was not altogether an easy task, but he accomplished it. Then he effected the same thing round the necks of the other two.
One had no collar at all, and Gerald had to make one with the wire. He succeeded, and then one by one he pitched the cats up to the window.
They looked round with ruffled fur at this indignity after such soothing treatment as they had been experiencing, and probably in their hearts thought that Gerald was no gentleman.
They evidenced this thought of him by walking away and leaving him.
He climbed up to the window bars, and watched them as well as he could.
They lingered, probably with a view to the formation of a choir; but Gerald said "Shoo!" and they fled. As they did so, he heard a clock striking.
Counting the strokes, he found it was ten o'clock. He had been in the cellar an hour only, and it seemed days.
He remembered the period of his residence in suburban lodgings. He remembered the care of the proprietors of cats then, how before going to bed they would patiently call "puss, puss, puss" at their back doors, in order to prevent their pets spending a night out.
He prayed earnestly that the owners of the feline trinity he had just let loose were affectionately disposed towards their cats. He hoped great things from those messages.
If not to-night, surely in the morning one of the three must bear fruit. He prayed so with all his heart and soul.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A PISTOL AND AN OPEN GRAVE
Eleven o'clock struck. In that upper room at The Elms, where he had left a feather bed, Loide lay smoking and thinking.
He was disappointed at the ill success of his scheme.
His talk of starving out the detective had been all bluff—starvation was a process which would fill too much time.
It would be three days before the man with the warrant touched English shores. Before that time expired, Loide must be away.
But he wanted to flit with the money—the nineteen thousand pounds.
A hundred and one ideas floated through his mind.
Would it be any use trying to bribe the man in the cellar? His life threatened, he would be justified in giving information as to the hiding-place of the notes.
What if he promised to give him a share of the spoil in untraceable gold? But he had not much faith in that idea.
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and replaced the latter in its pistol-shaped case—and that very act gave him an idea.
He had not been firm enough. He had not frightened the detective—that was evident from the man's silence.
Despite the rats and the darkness, he was holding on. Loide felt that he should have played his cards with a firmer hand.
He handled the pipe case—in the dimly lit room it looked remarkably like a pistol. He would play it for that.
Another detail entered his brain, and the humor of it rather appealed to him.
It was grim humor. It pertained to the digging of a grave in front of the barred window.
With the smile on his lips, pipe in his pocket, and lantern in hand, he descended the stairs. He walked slowly along the passage, and stepped across the trap.
Not a sound from the man below. The lawyer bit his lips in vexation.
He turned back and lifted the trap. The light from his lantern showed Gerald lying on the beds.
"Sleeping pretty comfortably?" queried the lawyer genially.
"Sleep! What do you think I'm made of?"
"Flesh and blood just at present. So you can't sleep, eh? We will alter that. You shall sleep soundly enough within the next hour, I promise you."
He let the flap fall as he spoke, and walked away in the direction of the back door.
Gerald heard the unfastening of the bolts, the descent of the stone steps into the garden, and presently a glimmer of light from the lantern showed through the window on to the cellar wall.
Springing to his feet, he jumped up to the bars and clung to them.
He could see Loide walking down the garden path, and saw him enter a sort of shed. Soon he came out, carrying a spade.
With this he walked in the direction of the window, and then, putting down the lantern on the ground, with the edge of the spade marked out a space on the earth, about six feet long and two feet wide.
The lawyer then started digging. He never turned his head to note if there was a face at the window, but from the corner of his eye he saw it and chuckled.
Could he have seen Gerald's appearance, he would have been still better pleased, for the eyes in the face at the window were protruding, and the hair on the head was almost on end. The shape of that hole the lawyer was digging caused the fright—it was the shape of a grave.
Steadily the lawyer went on with his task. He was really digging in the middle of a flower-bed, so that his work was not very difficult.
The hole got deeper and deeper, the digger standing in it and shoveling out the earth, and all the while the white face remained glued to the bars of the window.
As midnight struck, the task was finished. The lawyer stuck the spade into the earth, wiped his brow, put on his coat, and picked up his lantern.
As he mounted the steps leading into the house, Gerald dropped to the floor of the cellar, and waited, dreading—he knew not what.
The flap was flung up, and the lawyer bent over. In one hand Gerald could see a pistol!
This was laid down beside the lantern, and coolly squatting on the floor with folded arms, the lawyer addressed his prisoner.
"You have been down there some little time, policeman, and I dare say you have been thinking of the best way to get out—I guess that's what you would think."
"Yes, I have thought a little of it."
"Has anything struck you? I am asking you for information. I mean, how it would be possible for me to get you out through this hole."
"If you mean to let me out"—his heart gave a great leap as he spoke—"surely it would be better to open the door."
"No," said the lawyer, shaking his head. "I am not so young as I was. Age robs one of one's strength. Besides, you are a big, heavy fellow—by reason of that I have allowed a good two feet wide—I should never be able to drag you up the cellar stairs—I could drag you down all right."
"I could walk," said Gerald hoarsely, full of horrible thoughts engendered of the lawyer's last speech; "you wouldn't need to assist me."
Again the lawyer shook his head.
"I am afraid you don't quite understand the position," he said. "You wouldn't be able to help me. When you leave this cellar you will be beyond help."
"What do you mean?"
It was a startled, hoarse voice which came up from the cellar.
The lawyer picked up the pipe case, and then put it down again. It was an effective bit of byplay.
"You see, my dear fellow, I'm as sorry as sorry can be—but necessity knows no law. I tried to arrange things comfortably. You'll admit I was thoughtful; I did not even want to hurt a limb. I even took the trouble to break your fall with feather beds."
"Yes."
"But you didn't respond. I wanted those notes—now I have given up any idea of your telling me where they are. I thought I should cash them, and plant a couple of thousand pounds in gold where you would be able to find them later on. Your imprisonment here would have given you all the excuse you would have needed. But you did not clinch on to the idea."
"It was—it is—impossible."
"Just so, just so," replied the lawyer soothingly. "I admire that trait in any man's character; and seeing you're in the position you are, facing your own grave, why, damme, it positively borders on heroism."
"Heroism?"
"That's it, that's the word. I'm full of unqualified praise. But, as I said, necessity knows no law. As I said to myself when I loaded this pistol"—byplay again—"'it's a hundred pities to make holes in the man's head, and then plant him in the back garden,' but what would you do? There's no help for it."
"Ah, it strikes you so, does it? You see you could have earned your freedom and a couple of thousand pounds, and you prefer going over to the great majority."
"You don't mean to tell me that you are going to murder me in cold blood?"
"Afraid so, dear boy, afraid so. What's troubling me is, how the devil I am to get you out into the garden. Frankly, I don't want to leave you here to be nibbled by the rats—skeletons are such horrible things, and I'm a sensitive sort of beast when you come to know me. I have dug a nice comfortable little grave outside, and you'll be as snug as can be in it."
"You—murderer!"
"Just so, just so. I confessed as much to you once when you had me in your power, didn't I? The positions are reversed now you are in my power, but you don't make any confession of the whereabouts of these notes."
"I cannot."
"Just so, just so. As I have said before, it's heroism—beautiful heroism. I'll have to take my chance of dragging you up the cellar stairs, I suppose. There's no last sort of wish or request you have to make, have you"—byplay again—"before I put a bullet in your brain?"
CHAPTER XXIX
THE NEXT MOVE IN THE GAME
Before Gerald could answer the very unpleasant question, there came a sound which caused both men's hearts to cease beating for a moment, the one with hope, the other with fear.
For it was a loud hammering on the front door, and an authoritative voice crying:
"Open instantly, or we break in."
Looking at the door, the lawyer saw through the ground glass a round disk of light, such as a bull's-eye lantern throws, and then silhouetted a helmet—a policeman's helmet.
Loide stood in the passageway with a blanched face—irresolute—for a moment. There was not time to be so longer.
Then he rushed to the back door, and disappeared down the steps into the darkness.
His movements were quickened by the sound of breaking glass. A truncheon had shattered one of the panels in the door, and a coat sleeve, with a striped band round it, was thrust through the hole in the glass.
There was a hand in the sleeve, a hand feeling around for the catch, a policeman's hand.
The hand caught the catch, and presently the door opened.
Three men in uniform stood on the steps, a sergeant and two constables. They paused a moment listening, and then entered.
"Be careful," said the sergeant. "Throw your light ahead of you. Hullo! What's this?"
He was referring to the open trap which yawned at his feet.
He cast the light of his lantern down the hole, and a voice came up, saying:
"The police! Thank God!"
"Wasn't a hoax then, after all," said the sergeant grimly. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," came the voice; "all right now you have arrived. Had you been five minutes later you would have had a dead man to carry out."
"Who's the would-be murderer?"
"Escaped the back way as you entered the front. I heard him run down the steps."
"Jim, Jack, quick; scour the back, and see what you can find."
The men found nothing. They returned.
"He knew the lay of the land better than we did," said the sergeant; and then stooping over the opening in the floor, he continued, "How are we going to get you out of this?"
"That's the question which was put to me five minutes ago, only it was proposed to bring me out dead, not alive."
"Shall I try and borrow a ladder, sergeant?" inquired one of the men. "Or a pair of steps would do."
"Where the devil are you going to borrow such a thing at midnight? Slip off your belts. Here's mine; buckle them together. That's it."
He leaned over the hole, and lowered the length of leather.
"Just wrap the end round one wrist," he called out to the man below, "and hold on with the other hand. Got it? Now, Jim, Jack, grip this. Stand on the corner there and pull all together."
The long, strong pull of the three men brought Gerald's head above the hole.
"Catch hold of the side with your free hand," called out the sergeant; "that will relieve the weight. That's it. Stoop down, Jack, and catch his arms. There."
In another moment Gerald formed one of the four panting men in the passage.
"And now," inquired the sergeant, "what's the meaning of this little game? How did you come to get down there?"
"First tell me," inquired Gerald, "how you came to arrive in the very nick of time?"
"Well, your note—ingenious idea that—round the cat's neck, was noticed by the cat's owner. At first she thought it was a hoax, but ultimately she put on a bonnet and shawl, and came with it to the police station."
"Good woman!"
"It seemed a funny sort of story to find tied to a cat, and at first we shared in the belief that it was a hoax. We probably should have treated it so—for you don't find this kind of thing happening except in books, you know—but one of our men who was standing in the office had reported that two vans had cleared the furniture away from The Elms during the evening.
"I think that decided us. If it had not been for the fact that it was an empty house—empty houses form the backgrounds of a lot of crimes, you know—I don't think we should have taken notice of it."
"That would have been pleasant."
"You can't conceive how the police are hoaxed, or you wouldn't wonder. We seem to be fair game for the practical joker. But now, tell us, how did you get down that hole?"
"It's a long story," said Gerald, who for obvious reasons could not tell the true one. "I was lured here presumably by a madman, walked into that trap, and when you were knocking at the door, the fellow was standing over me with a pistol. He had dug a grave in the back garden—you can see it for yourself—and was intending to bury me in it."
"Who was it?"
"The man who lived here—Mr. Loide, the lawyer. I was his clerk. He sent for me to come here to-night, and I came down by train. When I got here—well, the man was mad; there can be no doubt of it."
"Just give me his description," said the sergeant; "we don't want madmen rambling about a quiet little place like Wimbledon. The sooner we spot the old gentleman the better. He seems to be shaping himself for a strait jacket."
"A quiet five minutes with him," replied Gerald viciously, as he clenched his fist, "would, I think, result in his being one of the sanest men in the country. I shouldn't forget in the interview that he tried to murder me."
"You don't want to take the law into your own hands. That's what we are around for. Now, give me his description."
Gerald gave it. Then the sergeant said:
"Your own name and address."
Gerald gave them.
While the sergeant had been eliciting these particulars, and writing an account of the affair, his men had searched the house from top to bottom, and reported absolute emptiness.
"Now I think we have done here. Better let us take the key," said the sergeant; "we'll go over the place again to-morrow. If he's as mad as you say he is, he's likely to come back. We may be able to clap hands on him if we keep watch."
The street door was locked, and the four men made their way to the high road.
"I would give something for a drink of brandy," said Gerald.
"I fear you are not in such dire distress as to warrant my knocking up a licensed victualer," replied the sergeant. "How would a cup of hot cocoa fit you? There's a stall at the corner."
Gerald sampled it, and found it grateful and comforting.
"Now, about sleeping. Will you come on to the station? We can give you a pitch there on a rug till the morning."
Gerald thanked them and walked to the police station. The next morning he was up betimes, and caught an early train back to London.
His astonished landlady let him in, and opined with a shaking head that there was only one end for young men who stopped out all night.
Gerald did not want to hear what the termination was, but made his way up-stairs.
In his own room he lay on his bed and slept. He had not found the bench at the police station of a soporific kind.
After the excitement of the preceding evening, he needed sleep, and he took his fill of it.
He did not awake till eleven o'clock; then he had breakfast, and mapped out his plans for the day.
He rehearsed his coming interview with the dentist—he did not suppose it would matter being an hour or so late—what he should say, what he should do, and then went out.
His landlady sarcastically inquired as he passed whether he thought he should sleep at home that night, and he answered by banging the door.
He made his way to Finsbury Circus, and entered the building in which the dentist had rooms. Sawyer opened the door.
"Is Mr. Lennox in?"
"Yessir; will you come inside? What name shall I say, sir?"
Then Gerald sat down and waited while the boy took his name in to his employer.
"Am I going to draw a prize or a blank," he muttered. "Am I coming out of this interview with the notes in sight, or failure?"
His interview with the dentist told him.
CHAPTER XXX
AT THE DENTIST'S
The dentist himself was left—the last time he was referred to in this chronicle—facing Sawyer and two policemen.
The sight of the policemen caused him to clutch at the door frame for support. He thought the moment of his arrest had come, and his knees seemed to take on a desire to figure as castanets.
The two men touched their caps and did not attempt to enter.
That surprised the dentist. It dawned on him that a salute was not the usual preliminary to an arrest.
One of the men had a note-book in his hand. He spoke:
"Sorry to intrude, sir, but there's a fête on at the Crystal Palace for the police orphanage. Your name's down on the books as subscribing something last year, and we thought we'd just ask if you'd be so kind as to remember the poor orphans again."
What a feeling, what an intense feeling of relief came over him!
Relief! He almost laughed, the tension for a minute had been so great.
"What did I give last year?" he inquired, in as natural a voice as he could assume.
"Five shillings, sir."
"Then here's the same again. That's all right."
The men thanked him and withdrew. The dentist closed the door and almost sobbed.
Then he changed his mind about the registered letter. Opening the door, he entered the outer room, and took it from Sawyer.
"I'll see to this," he said.
That police visit seemed to have roused some courage in him—it was an element in his nature that needed a lot of rousing.
Why should he be afraid of every shadow? Where was the need for it?
Unless he betrayed himself—and then he remembered the visit of the man yesterday, the man who had made an appointment for eleven o'clock that day.
What could that mean? His inquiries, his reference to the American, all this seemed suspicious.
He would wait another half hour and see. Perhaps after all there was no need for fright.
During that half hour Sawyer tapped at and opened the door.
"The gent that came yesterday, sir."
"His name?"
"Mr. Brown, sir."
"Show him in."
The dentist braced himself for the interview. He put the envelope containing the notes in his table drawer, and looked up as his visitor entered.
"Mr. Brown?"
"That's it."
"You were recommended here, I think, by some one whose teeth I attended to."
"Well, I don't think you attended to his teeth only."
"No."
"He was rather cut up by your treatment."
Gerald had his eyes fixed on the dentist, and when he had uttered that double meaning remark, he saw the man's face grow pale as death.
He knew then that his bolt had gone home; knew that he was on the right track at last.
He adopted bold measures. The dentist's appearance warranted them.
"Sit down, Mr. Lennox. You don't mind my turning the key in the door, so we shan't be disturbed, do you? That's it."
He seated himself opposite the dentist, and pulled out his hired-for-a-shilling handcuffs.
The effect of their production was electric. He was more than ever convinced that he was right.
"Of course," he said quietly, "you guess the game's up. That little game you and your brother played with Mr. George Depew when he came to have a tooth out?"
The dentist was incapable of an answer. He sat there as if turned to stone.
Gerald went on:
"I'm of the American detective force—you have perhaps heard of me, Detective Grabbem. I gave the name of Brown to your boy because I didn't want to give the show away."
Still no answer. Then Gerald said suddenly:
"Where are the nineteen thousand pound notes?"
For answer the tongue-tied dentist with trembling hand opened his drawer, and handed Gerald the envelope he had recently given to and taken from Sawyer.
"You intended them for the London police? I'm from New York."
Gerald opened the envelope and his eyes sparkled as he handled the notes.
As a measure of precaution he collated the numbers with the entries in his pocketbook—all were correct.
"I'll take charge of these," he said, as he put the notes in his pocket. "Thanks for saving me trouble."
Then Gerald's anxiety was to get away. He said:
"Out of gratitude for saving me bother, is there anything you would like me to do for you? Want to write to your friends or anything?"
He had got all he wanted, and he decided to leave with it as promptly as possible. The dentist found his tongue, and said:
"I would be grateful for half an hour for—for the purpose of writing to my friends."
"It's yours. There is no back way out of this house, I see. I'll just smoke a pipe outside. No tricks, mind. I'll be back in half an hour."
Gerald went out slowly, lighted a pipe within sight of the dentist's window, sauntered with his hands behind him, after the manner of one waiting, and then when he reached the corner, turned it, and bolted in the direction of Moorgate Street.
There he hailed a hansom and was rapidly driven to his lodgings. He was one of the happiest fares in a London cab that day.
And the dentist? He completed the unfinished work of the morning.
No need now for the subtleties of the sharpening stone—all was known. He might as well use the knife in the quickest possible way, and end it all speedily.
His old cowardice came over him. He loathed himself for it, stamped his foot and strove to attain the courage needed to draw that sharp surgeon's knife under his chin.
He knew its edge was razor-like, that one strong, firm draw and all would be over. But he lacked the nerve.
He almost laughed when he remembered that he had heard it said that a suicide is a coward—he imagined that it required more courage to take one's own life than another's.
He looked at the clock; he had fooled away five minutes. That braced him up—he must avoid the hangman's attention at any cost.
It was not the loss of his life which had deterred him so much as the method of losing it.
Then an idea occurred to him. He had the gas apparatus, why not—no sooner thought than he started to put the idea into execution.
He had a little bench whereat he worked in and about the repairing and making of false teeth.
At each end were small vises. He fastened the surgeon's long knife into it after the manner of a man who would sharpen a saw.
It was firm and rigid.
The gas apparatus he put on the bench itself, and leaned over to it, his neck almost touching the knife.
As he lost consciousness and the power of standing, he knew what would happen; the weight of his whole body would drag his neck on to the keen edge. Long before he could recover consciousness, all would be over.
Then he expelled a deep breath and inhaled the gas.
When Gerald's copy of the Star was brought up to him, a triple head-lined column caught his eye. It was captioned:
STRANGE DEATH
OF A WELL KNOWN
CITY DENTIST
and it went on to describe the ghastly details of the find in the dentist's room.
It was put down as a pure accident. The boy's evidence about the sharpening of the knives, the extraordinary position in which the body was found, were chronicled; there was not the breath of a suspicion of suicide.
Perhaps that soul which had taken its flight to another world knew naught of the happenings in this—would never know that the insurance office paid over the policy moneys, and that the wife and child the dead man had thought so much of benefited by the application of a golden salve in their time of grief.