“I haven’t come out to lecture you, and I shall not even ask you if, for my sake, you will go straight in the future. Because, Johnny”—she dropped a cool palm on the back of his hand—“I’m not going to do anything like the good fairy in the storybooks and try to save you from yourself.”
“I’m saved,” said Johnny with a quizzical smile. “You’re perfectly right: there was no reason why I should be a thief. I was the victim of circumstances. It was possibly the fascination of the game—no, no, it wasn’t that. One of these days I will tell you why I left the straight path of virtue. It is a long and curious story.”
She made no further reference to his fall, and throughout the lunch was her own gay self. Looking down at her hand, Johnny saw, with satisfaction, that the platinum wedding-ring she had worn had been replaced by a small, plain gold ring, ornamented with a single turquoise, and his breath came faster. He had first met her at a gymkhana, a country fair which had been organised for charity, and the ring had been the prize he had won at a shooting match, one of the gymkhana features—though it was stretching terminology to absurd lengths so to describe the hotch-potch of contests which went to the making of the programme—and had offered it to her as whimsically as it had been accepted. Its value was something under a pound; to Johnny, all the millions in the world would not have given him the joy that its appearance upon her finger gave him now.
After luncheon she returned to the unpleasant side of things.
“Johnny, you’re going to be very careful, aren’t you? Daddy says that Jeff Legge hates you, and he is quite serious about it. He says that there are no lengths to which Jeffrey and his father will not go to hurt you—and me,” she added.
Johnny bent over the table, lowering his voice.
“Marney, when this matter is settled—I mean, the release from your marriage—will you take me—whatever I am?”
She met his eyes steadily and nodded. It was the strangest of all proposals, and Jeffrey Legge, who had watched the meeting at the station, had followed her, and now was overlooking them from one of the balconies of the restaurant, flushed a deeper red, guessing all that that scene meant.
CHAPTER XXV
On Thursday afternoon, Emanuel Legge came out of the elevator at the Highlow Club, and, with a curt nod to Stevens, walked up the heavily carpeted corridor, unlocked the door of his tiny office and went in. For half an hour he sat before his desk, his hands clasped on the blotting-pad before him, motionless, his mind completely occupied by his thoughts. At last he opened his desk, pressed a bell by his side, and he had hardly taken his fingers from the push when the head waiter of the establishment, a tall, unpleasant-looking Italian, came in.
“Fernando, you have made all the arrangements about the dinner to-night?”
“Yes,” said the man.
“All the finest wines, eh? The best in the house?”
He peered at the waiter, his teeth showing in a smile.
“The very best,” said Fernando briskly.
“There will be four: myself and Major Floyd, Mr. Johnny Gray and Peter Kane.”
“The lady is not coming?” asked Fernando.
“No, I don’t think she’ll be dining with us to-night,” said Emanuel carefully.
When the waiter had gone, he rose and bolted the door and returned to an idle examination of the desk. He found extraordinary pleasure in opening the drawers and looking through the little works of reference which filled a niche beneath the pigeon-holes. This was Jeffrey’s desk, and Jeff was the apple of his eye.
Presently he rose and walked to a nest of pigeon-holes which stood against the wall, and, putting his hand into one, he turned a knob and pulled. The nest opened like a door, exposing a narrow, spiral staircase which led upward and downward. He left the secret door open and pulled down a switch, which gave him light above and below. For a second he hesitated whether he should go up or down, and decided upon the latter course.
At the foot of the stairs was another door, which he opened, passing into the cellar basement of the house. As the door moved, there came to him a wave of air so super-heated that for a moment he found difficulty in breathing. The cellar in which he found himself was innocent of furnishing, except for a table placed under a strong light, and a great, enclosed furnace which was responsible for the atmosphere of the room. It was like a Turkish bath, and he had not gone two or three paces before the perspiration was rolling down his cheeks.
A broad-shouldered, undersized man was sitting at the table, a big book open before him. He had turned at the sound of the key in the door, and now he came toward the intruder. He was a half-caste, and, beyond the pair of blue dungaree trousers, he wore no clothing. His yellow skin and his curiously animal face gave him a particularly repulsive appearance.
“Got the furnace going, eh, Pietro?” said Emanuel mildly, taking off his spectacles to wipe the moisture which had condensed upon the lenses.
Pietro grunted something and, picking up an iron bar, lifted open the big door of the furnace. Emanuel put up his hands to guard his face from the blast of heat that came forth.
“Shut it, shut it!” he said testily, and when this was done, he went nearer to the furnace.
Two feet away there ran a box-like projection, extending from two feet above the floor to the ceiling. A stranger might have imagined that this was an air shaft, introduced to regulate the ventilation. Emanuel was not a stranger. He knew that the shaft ran to the roof, and that it had a very simple explanation.
“That’s a good fire you’ve got, eh, Pietro? You could burn up a man there?”
“Burn anything,” growled the other, “but not man.”
Emanuel chuckled.
“Scared I’m going to put a murder point on you, are you? Well, you needn’t be,” he said. “But it’s hot enough to melt copper, eh, Pietro?”
“Melt it down to nothing.”
“Burnt any lately?”
The man nodded, rubbing his enormous arms caressingly.
“They came last Monday week, after the boss had been shot,” said the other. He had a curious impediment in his speech which made his tone harsh and guttural. “The fellows upstairs knew they were coming, so there was nothing to see. The furnace was nearly out.”
Emanuel nodded.
“The boss said the furnace was to be kept going for a week,” said Pietro complainingly. “That’s pretty tough on me, Mr. Legge. I feel sometimes I’d nearly die, the heat’s so terrible.”
“You get the nights off,” said Emanuel, “and there are weeks when you do no work. To-night I shall want you.… Mr. Jeff has told you?”
The dwarf nodded. Emanuel passed through the door, closing it behind him; and, contrasted with the heat of the room, it seemed that he had walked into an ice wall. His collar was limp, his clothes were sticking to him, as he made his way up the stairs, and, passing the open door of his office, continued until he reached the tiny landing which scarcely gave him foothold. He knocked twice on the door, for of this he had no key. After a pause came an answering knock, a small spy-hole opened and an inquiring and suspicious eye examined him.
When at last the door was opened, he found he was in a small room with a large skylight, heavily barred. At one end of the skylight was a rolled blind, which could be drawn across at night and effectively veil the glare of light which on occasions rose from this room.
The man who grinned a welcome was little and bald. His age was in the region of sixty, and the grotesqueness of his appearance was due less to his shabby attire and diminutive stature than to the gold-rimmed monocle fixed in his right eye.
In the centre of the room was a big table, littered with paraphernalia, ranging from a small microscope to a case filled with little black bottles. Under the brilliant overhead light which hung above the table, and clamped to the wood by glass-headed pins, was an oblong copper plate, on which the engraver had been working—the engraving tool was in his hand as he opened the door.
“Good morning, Lacey. What are you working at now?” asked Emanuel with a benevolent air of patronage appropriate to the proprietor in addressing a favourite workman.
“The new fives,” said the other. “Jeff wants a big printing. Jeff’s got brains. Anybody else would have said, ‘Work from a photographic plate’—you know what that means. After a run of a hundred, the impression goes wrong, and before you know where you are, there’s a squeak. But engraving is engraving,” he said with pride. “You can get all the new changes without photography. I never did hold with this new method—‘boobs’ are full of fellows who think they can make slush with a camera and a zinc plate!”
It was good to hear praise of Jeffrey, and Emanuel Legge purred. He examined the half-finished plate through his powerful glasses, and though the art of the engraver was one with which he was not well acquainted, he could admire the fine work which this expert forger was doing.
To the left of the table was an aperture like the opening of a service lift. It was a continuation of the shaft which led from the basement, and it had this value, that, however clever the police might be, long before they could break into the engraver’s room all evidence of his guilt would have been flung into the opening and consumed in the furnace fire.
“Jeffrey’s idea. What a mind!” said the admiring Lacey. “It reduces risk to what I might term a minimum. It is a pleasure working for Jeff, Mr. Legge. He takes no chances.”
“I suppose Pietro is always on the spot?”
Mr. Lacey smiled. He took up a plate from the table and examined it back and front.
“That is one I spoilt this morning,” he said. “Spilt some acid on it. Look!”
He went to the opening, put in his hand, and evidently pressed a bell, for a faint tinkle came from the mouth of the shaft. When he withdrew his hand, the plate that it held had disappeared. There came the buzz of a bell from beneath the table.
“That plate’s running like water by now,” he said. “There’s no chance of a squeak if Pietro’s all right. Wide! That’s Jeffrey! As wide as Broad Street! Why, Mr. Legge, would you believe that I don’t know to this day where the stuff’s printed? And I’ll bet the printer hasn’t got the slightest idea where the plates are made. There isn’t a man in this building who has got so much as a smell of it.”
Emanuel passed down to his own office, a gratified father, and, securely closing the pigeon-hole door, he went out into the club premises to look at Room 13. The table was already laid; a big rose-bowl, overflowing with the choicest blooms, filled the centre; an array of rare glass, the like of which the habitués of the club had never seen on their tables, stood before each plate.
His brief inspection of the room satisfied him, and he returned, not to his office but to Stevens, the porter.
“What’s the idea of telling the members that all the rooms are engaged to-night?” asked Stevens. “I’ve had to put off Lew Brady, and he pays.”
“We’re having a party, Stevens,” said Emanuel, “and we don’t want any interruption. Johnny Gray is coming. And you can take that look off your face; if I thought he was a pal of yours, you wouldn’t be in this club two minutes. Peter Kane’s coming too.”
“Looks to me like a rough house,” said Stevens. “What am I to do?” he asked sarcastically. “Bring in the police at the first squeal?”
“Bring in your friend from Toronto,” snapped Emanuel, and went home to change.
CHAPTER XXVI
Johnny was the first of the guests to arrive, and Stevens helped him to take off his raincoat. As he did so, he asked in a low voice:
“Got a gun, Captain?”
“Never carry one, Stevens. It is a bad habit to get into.”
“I never thought you were a mug,” said Stevens in the same voice.
“Any man who has been in prison is, ex officio, one of the Ancient Order of Muggery,” said Johnny, adjusting his bow in the mirror by the porter’s desk. “What’s going?”
“I don’t know,” said the other, bending down to wipe the mud from Johnny’s boots. “But curious things have happened in No. 13; and don’t sit with your back to the buffet. Do you get that?”
Johnny nodded.
He had reached the end of the corridor when he heard the whine of the ascending lift, and stopped. It was Peter Kane, and to him, in a low voice, Johnny passed on the porter’s advice.
“I don’t think they’ll start anything,” said Peter under his breath. “But if they do, there’s a nurse at Charing Cross Hospital who’s going to say: ‘What, you here again!’ ”
As Johnny had expected, his two hosts were waiting in Room 13. The silence which followed their arrival was, for one member of the party, an awkward one.
“Glad to see you, Peter,” said Emanuel at last, though he made no pretence of shaking hands. “Old friends ought to keep up acquaintances. There’s my boy, Jeffrey. I think you’ve met him,” he said with a grin.
“I’ve met him,” said Peter, his face a mask.
Jeffrey Legge had apparently recovered fully from his unpleasant experience.
“Now sit down, everybody,” said Emanuel, bustling around, pulling out the chairs. “You sit here, Johnny.”
“I’d rather face the buffet; I like to see myself eat,” said Johnny, and, without invitation, sat down in the position he had selected.
Not waiting, Peter seated himself on Johnny’s left, and it was Emanuel himself, a little ruffled by this preliminary upset to his plans, who sat with his back to the buffet. Johnny noticed the quick exchange of glances between father and son; he noticed, too, that the buffet carried none of the side dishes for which it was designed, and wondered what particular danger threatened from that end of the room.
By the side of the sideboard, in one corner, hung a long, blue curtain, which, he guessed, hid a door leading to No. 12. Peter, who was better acquainted with the club, knew that No. 12 was the sitting-room, and that the two made one of those suites which were very much in request when a lamb was brought to the killing.
“Now, boys,” said Emanuel with spurious joviality, “there is to be no bickering and quarrelling. We’re all met round the festive board, and we’ve nothing to do but find a way out that leaves my boy’s good name unsullied, if I may use that word.”
“You can use any word you like,” said Peter. “It’ll take more than a dinner party to restore his tarnished reputation.”
“What long words you use, Peter!” said Emanuel admiringly. “It’s my own fault that I don’t know them, because I had plenty of time to study when I was away ‘over the Alps.’ Never been over the Alps, have you, Peter? Well, when they call it ‘time,’ they use the right word. The one thing you’ve got there is time!”
Peter did not answer, and it was Jeffrey who took up the conversation.
“See here, Peter,” he said, “I’m not going to make a song about this business of mine. I’m going to put all my cards on the table. I want my wife.”
“You know where Lila is better than I,” said Peter. “She’s not in my employment now.”
“Lila nothing!” retorted Jeffrey. “If you fall for that stuff, you’re getting soft. I certainly married Lila, but she was married already, and I can give you proof of it.”
The conversation flagged here, for the waiter came in to serve the soup.
“What wine will you have, sir?”
“The same as Mr. Emanuel,” said Peter.
Emanuel Legge chuckled softly.
“Think I’m going to ‘knock you out,’ eh, Peter? What a suspicious old man you are!”
“Water,” said Johnny softly when the waiter came to him.
“On the water-wagon, Johnny? That’s good. A young man in your business has got to keep his wits about him. I’ll have champagne, Fernando, and so will Major Floyd. Nothing like champagne to keep your heart up,” he said.
Peter watched, all his senses alert, as the wine came, bubbling and frothing, into the long glasses.
“That will do, Fernando,” said Emanuel, watching the proceedings closely.
As the door closed, Johnny could have sworn he heard an extra click.
“Locking us in?” he asked pleasantly, and Emanuel’s eyebrows rose.
“Locking you in, Johnny? Why, do you think I’m afraid of losing you, like you’re afraid of losing Marney?”
Johnny sipped the glass of water, his eyes fixed on the old man’s face. What was behind that buffet? That was the thought which puzzled him. It was a very ordinary piece of furniture, of heavy mahogany, a little shallow, but this was accounted for by the fact that the room was not large, and, in furnishing, the proprietors of the club had of necessity to economise space.
There were two cupboard doors beneath the ledge on which the side dishes should have been standing. Was it his imagination that he thought he saw one move the fraction of an inch?
“Ever been in ‘bird’ before, Johnny?”
It was Emanuel who did most of the talking.
“I know they gave you three years, but was that your first conviction?”
“That was my first conviction,” said Johnny.
The old man looked up at the ceiling, pulling at his chin.
“Ever been in Keytown?” he demanded. “No good asking you, Peter, I know. You’ve never been in Keytown or any bad boob, have you? Clever old Peter!”
“Let us talk about something else,” said Peter. “I don’t believe for one moment the story you told me about Lila having been married before. You’ve told me a fresh lie every time the matter has been discussed. I’m going to give you a show, Emanuel, for old times’ sake. You’ve been a swine, and you’ve been nearer to death than you know, for, if your plan had come off as you expected it would, I’d have killed you.”
Emanuel chuckled derisively.
“Old Peter’s going to be a gunman,” he said. “And after all the lectures you’ve given me! I’m surprised at you, Peter. Now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” He rested his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands, his keen eyes, all the keener for the magnification of his spectacles, fixed hardly upon his sometime friend. “By my reckoning, you owe me forty thousand pounds, and I know I’m not going to get it without a struggle. Weigh in with that money, and I’ll make things easy for my son’s wife.” He emphasised the last word.
“You can cut that out!”
It was Jeffrey whose rough interruption checked his father’s words.
“There’s no money in the world that’s going to get Marney from me. Understand that.” He brought his hand down with a crash upon the table. “She belongs to me, and I want her, Peter. Do you get it? And what is more, I’m going to take her.”
Johnny edged a little farther from the table, and folding his arms across his chest, his lips parted in a smile. His right hand reached for the gun that he carried under his armpit: a little Browning, but a favourite one of Johnny’s in such crises as these. For the cupboard door had moved again, and the door of the room was locked: of that he was certain. All this talk of Marney was sheer blind to keep them occupied.
It had long passed the time when the plates should have been cleared and the second course make its appearance. But there was to be no second course at that dinner. Emanuel was speaking chidingly, reproachfully.
“Jeffrey, my boy, you mustn’t spoil a good deal,” he said. “The truth is——”
And then all the lights of the room went out. Instantly Johnny was on his feet, his back to the wall, his gun fanning the dark.
“What’s the game?” asked Peter’s voice sharply. “There’ll be a real dead man here if you start fooling.”
“I don’t know,” said Emanuel, speaking from the place where he had been. “Ring the bell, Jeff. I expect the switch has gone.”
There was somebody else in the room: Johnny felt the presence instinctively—a stealthy somebody who was moving toward him. Holding out one hand, ready to pounce the moment it touched, he waited. A second passed—five seconds—ten seconds—and then the lights went on again.
Peter was also standing with his back to the wall, and in his hand a murderous looking Webley. Jeffrey and his father were side by side in the places they had been when the lights went out. There was no fifth man in the room.
“What’s the game?” asked Peter suspiciously.
“The game, my dear Peter? What a question to ask! You don’t make me responsible for the fuses, do you? I’m not an electrician. I’m a poor old crook who has done time that other people should have done—that’s all,” said Emanuel pleasantly. “And look at the hardware! Bad idea, carrying guns. Let an old crook give you a word of advice, Peter,” he bantered. “I’m not surprised at Johnny, because he might be anything. Sit down, you damned fools,” he said jocularly. “Let’s talk.”
“I’ll talk when you open that door,” said Johnny quietly. “And I’ll put away my gun on the same condition.”
In three strides, Emanuel was at the door. There was a jerk of his wrist, and it flew open.
“Have the door open if you’re frightened,” he said contemptuously. “I guess it’s being in boob that makes you scared of the dark. I got that way myself.”
As he had turned the handle, Johnny had heard a second click. He was confident that somebody stood outside the door, and that the words Legge had uttered were intended for the unknown sentry. What was the idea?
Peter Kane was sipping his champagne with an eye on his host. Had he heard the noise, too? Johnny judged that he had. The extinguishing of the lights had not been an accident. Some secret signal had been given, and the lights cut off from the controlling switchboard. The doors of the buffet cupboard were still. Turning his head, Johnny saw that Jeffrey’s eyes were fixed on his with a hard concentration which was significant. What was he expecting?
The climax, whatever it might be, was at hand.
“It’s a wonder to me, Gray, that you’ve never gone in for slush.” Jeffrey was speaking slowly and deliberately. “It’s a good profession, and you can make money that you couldn’t dream of getting by faking racehorses.”
“Perhaps you will tell me how to start in that interesting profession,” said Johnny coolly.
“I’ll put it on paper for you, if you like. It’ll be easier to make a squeak about. Or, better still, I’ll show you how it’s done. You’d like that?”
“I don’t know that I’m particularly interested, but I’m sure my friend Mr. Reeder——”
“Your friend Mr. Reeder!” sneered the other. “He’s a pal of yours too, is he?”
“All law-abiding citizens are pals of mine,” said Johnny gravely.
He had put his pistol back in his jacket pocket, and his hand was on it.
“Well, how’s this for a start?”
Jeffrey rose from the table and went to the buffet. He bent down and must have touched some piece of mechanism; for, without any visible assistance, the lid of the buffet turned over on some invisible axis, revealing a small but highly complicated piece of machinery, which Johnny recognised instantly as one of those little presses employed by banknote printers when a limited series of notes, generally of a high denomination, were being made.
The audacity of this revelation momentarily took his breath away.
“You could pull that buffet to pieces,” continued Jeffrey, “and then not find it.”
He pressed a switch, and the largest of the wheels began to spin, and with it a dozen tiny platens and cylinders. Only for a few minutes, and then he cut off the current, pressed the hidden mechanism again, and the machine turned over out of sight, and the two astonished men stared at the very ordinary looking surface of a very ordinary buffet.
“Easy money, eh, Gray?” said Emanuel, with an admiring smirk at his son. “Now listen, boys.” His tone grew suddenly practical and businesslike as he came back to his chair. “I want to tell you something that’s going to be a lot of good to both of you, and we’ll leave Marney out of it for the time being.”
Johnny raised his glass of water, still watchful and suspicious.
“The point is——” said Emanuel, and at that moment Johnny took a long sip from the glass.
The liquid had hardly reached his throat when he strove vainly to reject it. The harsh tang of it he recognised, and, flinging the glass to the floor, jerked out his gun.
And then some tremendous force within him jerked at his brain, and the pistol dropped from his paralysed hand.
Peter was on his feet, staring from one to the other.
“What have you done?”
He leapt forward, but before he could make a move, Emanuel sprang at him like a cat. He tried to fight clear, but he was curiously lethargic and weak. A vicious fist struck him on the jaw, and he went down like a log.
“Got you!” hissed Emanuel, glaring down at his enemy. “Got you, Peter, my boy! Never been in boob, have you? I’ll give you a taste of it!”
Jeffrey Legge stooped and jerked open the door of the cupboard, and a man came stooping into the light. It was a catlike Pietro, grinning from ear to ear in sheer enjoyment of the part he had played. Emanuel dropped his hand on his shoulder.
“Good boy,” he said. “The right stuff for the right man, eh? To every man his dope, Jeff. I knew that this Johnny Gray was going to be the hardest, and if I’d taken your advice and given them both a knock-out, we’d have only knocked out one. Now they know why the lights went out. Pick ’em up.”
The little half-caste must have been enormously strong, for he lifted Peter without an effort and propped him into an arm-chair. This done, he picked up the younger man and laid him on the sofa, took a little tin box from his pocket, and, filling a hypodermic syringe from a tiny phial, looked round for instructions.
Jeffrey nodded, and the needle was driven into the unfeeling flesh. This done, he lifted the eyelid of the drugged man and grinned again.
“He’ll be ready to move in half an hour,” he said. “My knock-out doesn’t last longer.”
“Could you get him down the fire-escape into the yard?” asked Emanuel anxiously. “He’s a pretty heavy fellow, that Peter. You’ll have to help him, Jeff boy. The car’s in the yard. And, Jeff, don’t forget you’ve an engagement at two o’clock.”
His son nodded.
Again the half-caste swung up Peter Kane, and Jeffrey, holding the door wide, helped him to carry the unconscious man through the open window and down the steel stairway, though he needed very little help, for the strength of the man was enormous.
He came back, apparently unmoved by his effort, and hoisted Johnny on to his back. Again unassisted, he carried the young man to the waiting car below, and flung him into the car.
He was followed this time by Jeffrey, wrapped from head to foot in a long waterproof, a chauffeur’s cap pulled down over his eyes. They locked both doors of the machine, and Pietro opened the gate and glanced out. There were few people about, and the car swung out and sped at full speed toward Oxford Street.
Closing and locking the gate, the half-caste went up the stairs of the fire-escape two at a time and reported to his gratified master.
Emanuel was gathering the coats and hats of his two guests into a bundle. This done, he opened a cupboard and flung them in, and they immediately disappeared.
“Go down and burn them,” he said laconically. “You’ve done well, Pietro. There’s fifty for you to-night.”
“Good?” asked the other laconically.
Emanuel favoured him with his benevolent smile. He took the two glasses from which the men had drunk, and these followed the clothes. A careful search of the room brought to light no further evidence of their presence. Satisfied, Emanuel sat down and lit a long, thin cigar. His night’s work was not finished. Jeff had left to him what might prove the hardest of all the tasks.
From a small cupboard he took a telephone, and pushed in the plug at the end of a long flex. He had some time to wait for the number, but presently he heard a voice which he knew was Marney’s.
“Is that you, Marney?” he asked softly, disguising his voice so cleverly that the girl was deceived.
“Yes, daddy. Are you all right? I’ve been so worried about you.”
“Quite all right, darling. Johnny and I have made a very interesting discovery. Will you tell Barney to go to bed, and will you wait up for me—open the door yourself?”
“Is Johnny coming back with you?”
“No, no, darling; I’m coming alone.”
“Are you sure everything is all right?” asked the anxious voice.
“Now, don’t worry, my pet. I shall be with you at two o’clock. When you hear the car stop at the gate, come out. I don’t want to come into the house. I’ll explain everything to you.”
“But——”
“Do as I ask you, darling,” he said, and before she could reply had rung off.
But could Jeff make it? He would like to go himself, but that would mean the employment of a chauffeur, and he did not know one he could trust. He himself was not strong enough to deal with the girl, and, crowning impossibility, motor-car driving was a mystery—that was one of the accomplishments which a long stay in Dartmoor had denied to him.
But could Jeff make it? He took a pencil from his pocket and worked out the times on the white tablecloth. Satisfied, he put away his pencil, and was pouring out a glass of champagne when there was a gentle tap-tap-tap at the door. He looked up in surprise. The man had orders not under any circumstances to come near Room 13, and it was his duty to keep the whole passage clear until he received orders to the contrary.
Tap-tap-tap.
“Come in,” he said.
The door opened. A man stood in the doorway. He was dressed in shabby evening clothes; his bow was clumsily tied; one stud was missing from his white shirt-front.
“Am I intruding upon your little party?” he asked timidly.
Emanuel said nothing. For a long time he sat staring at this strange apparition. As if unconscious of the amazement and terror he had caused, the visitor sought to readjust his frayed shirt-cuffs, which hung almost to the knuckles of his hands. And then:
“Come in, Mr. Reeder,” said Emanuel Legge a little breathlessly.
CHAPTER XXVII
Mr. Reeder sidled into the room apologetically, closing the door behind him.
“All alone, Mr. Legge?” he asked. “I thought you had company?”
“I had some friends, but they’ve gone.”
“Your son gone, too?” Reeder stared helplessly from one corner of the room to the other. “Dear me, this is a disappointment, a great disappointment.”
Emanuel was thinking quickly. In all probability the shabby detective had been watching the front of the house, and would know that they had not left that way. He took a bold step.
“They left a quarter of an hour ago. Peter and Johnny went down the fire-escape—my boy’s car was in the yard. We never like to have a car in front of the club premises; people talk so much. And after the publicity we’ve had——”
Mr. Reeder checked him with a mild murmur of agreement.
“That was the car, was it? I saw it go and wondered what it was all about—Number XC. 9712, blue painted limousine—Daimler—I may be wrong, but it seemed like a Daimler to me; I know so little about motor-cars that I could be very easily mistaken, and my eyesight is not as good as it used to be.”
Emanuel cursed him under his breath.
“Yes, it was a Daimler,” he said, “one we bought cheap at the sales.”
The absent-minded visitor’s eyes were fixed on the table.
“Took their wine-glasses with them?” he asked gently. “I think it is a pretty custom, taking souvenirs of a great occasion. I’m sure they were very happy.”
How had he got in, wondered Emanuel? Stevens had strict orders to stop him, and Fernando was at the end of the L-shaped passage. As if he divined the thought that was passing through Legge’s mind, Mr. Reeder answered the unspoken question.
“I took the liberty of coming up the fire-escape, too,” he said. “It was an interesting experience. One is a little old to begin experiments, and I am not the sort of man that cares very much for climbing, particularly at night.”
Following the direction of his eyes, Emanuel saw that a small square of the rusty trousers had been worn, and through the opening a bony white knee.
“Yes, I came up the fire-escape, and fortunately the window was open. I thought I would give you a pleasant surprise. By the way, the escape doesn’t go any higher than this floor? That is curious, because, you know, my dear Mr. Legge, it might well happen, in the event of fire, that people would be driven to the roof. If I remember rightly, there is nothing on the roof but a square superstructure—store-room, isn’t it? Let me think. Yes, it’s a store-room, I’m sure.”
“The truth is,” interrupted Emanuel, “I had two old acquaintances here, Johnny Gray and Peter Kane. I think you know Peter?”
The other inclined his head gently.
“And they got just a little too merry. I suppose Johnny’s not used to wine, and Peter’s been a teetotaller for years.” He paused. “In fact, they were rather the worse for drink.”
“That’s very sad.” Mr. Reeder shook his head. “Personally, I am a great believer in prohibition. I would prohibit wine and beer, and crooks and forgers, tale-tellers, poisoners”—he paused at the word—“druggers would be a better word,” he said. “They took their glasses with them, did they? I hope they will return them. I should not like to think that people I—er—like would be guilty of so despicable a practice as—er—the petty theft of—er—wine-glasses.”
Again his melancholy eyes fell on the table.
“And they only had soup! It is very unusual to get bottled before you’ve finished the soup, isn’t it? I mean, in respectable circles,” he added apologetically.
He looked back at the open door over his spectacles.
“I wonder,” he mused, “how they got down that fire-escape in the dark in such a sad condition?”
Again his expressionless eyes returned to Emanuel.
“If you see them again, will you tell them that I expect both Mr. Kane and Mr. Johnny—what is his name?—Gray, that is it! to keep an appointment they made with me for to-morrow morning? And that if they do not turn up at my house at ten o’clock…”
He stopped, pursing up his lips as though he were going to whistle. Emanuel wondered what was coming next, and was not left long in doubt.
“Did you feel the cold very much in Dartmoor? They tell me that the winters are very trying, particularly for people of an advanced age. Of course,” Mr. Reeder went on, “one can have friends there; one can even have relations there. I suppose it makes things much easier if you know your son or some other close relative is living on the same landing—there are three landings, are there not? But it is much nicer to live in comfort in London, Mr. Legge—to have a cosy little suite in Bloomsbury, such as you have got; to go where you like without a screw following you—I think ‘screw’ is a very vulgar word, but it means ‘warder,’ does it not?”
He walked to the door and turned slowly.
“You won’t forget that I expect to meet Mr. Peter Kane and Mr. John Gray to-morrow at my house at half-past ten—you won’t forget, will you?”
He closed the door carefully behind him, and, with his great umbrella hooked on to his arm, passed along the corridor into the purview of the astounded Fernando, astounding the jailers on guard at the end.
“Good evening,” murmured Mr. Reeder as he passed.
Fernando was too overcome to make a courteous reply.
Stevens saw him as he came into the main corridor, and gasped.
“When did you come in, Mr. Reeder?”
“Nobody has ever seen you come in, but lots of people see you go out,” said Reeder good-humouredly. “On the other hand, there are people who are seen coming into this club whom nobody sees go out. Mr. Gray didn’t pass this way, or Mr. Kane?”
“No, sir,” said Stevens in surprise. “Have they gone?”
Reeder sighed heavily.
“Yes, they’ve gone,” he said. “I hope not for long, but they’ve certainly gone. Good night, Stevens. By the way, your name isn’t Stevens, is it? I seem to remember you”—he screwed up his eyes as though he had difficulty in recalling the memory—“I seem to remember your name wasn’t Stevens, let us say, eight years ago.”
Stevens flushed.
“It is the name I’m known as now, sir.”
“A very good name, too, an excellent name,” murmured Mr. Reeder as he stepped into the elevator. “And after all, we must try to live down the past. And I’d be the last to remind you of your—er—misfortune.”
When he reached the street, two men who had been standing on the opposite sidewalk crossed to him.
“They’ve gone,” said Mr. Reeder. “They were in that car, as I feared. All stations must be warned, and particularly the town stations just outside of London, to hold up the car. You have its number. You had better watch this place till the morning,” he said to one of them.
“Very good, sir.”
“I want you especially to follow Emanuel, and keep him under observation until to-morrow morning.”
The detective left on duty waited with that philosophical patience which is the greater part of the average detective’s equipment, until three o’clock in the morning; and at that hour, when daylight was coming into the sky, Emanuel had not put in an appearance. Stevens went off duty half an hour after Mr. Reeder’s departure. At two o’clock the head waiter and three others left, Fernando locking the door. Then, a few minutes before three, the squat figure of Pietro, muffled up in a heavy overcoat, and he too locked the door behind him, disappearing in the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue. At half-past three the detective left a policeman to watch the house, and got on the ’phone to Mr. Reeder, who was staying in town.
“Dear me!” said Mr. Reeder, an even more incongruous sight in pyjamas which were a little too small for him, though happily there were no spectators of his agitation. “Not gone, you say? I will come round.”
It was daylight when he arrived. The gate in the yard was opened with a skeleton key (the climb so graphically described by Mr. Reeder was entirely fictitious, and the cut in his trousers was due to catching a jagged nail in one of the packing-cases with which the yard was littered), and he mounted the iron stairway to the third floor.
The window through which he had made his ingress on the previous evening was closed and fastened, but, with the skill of a professional burglar, Mr. Reeder forced back the catch and, opening the window, stepped in.
There was enough daylight to see his whereabouts. Unerringly he made for Emanuel’s office. The door had been forced, and there was no need to use the skeleton key.
There was no sign of Emanuel, and Reeder came out to hear the report of the detective, who had made a rapid search of the club.
“All the doors are open except No. 13, sir,” he said. “That’s bolted on the inside. I’ve got the lock open.”
“Try No. 12,” said Reeder. “There are two ways in—one by way of a door, which you’ll find behind a curtain in the corner of the room, and the other way through the buffet, which communicates with the buffet in No. 13. Break nothing if you can help it, because I don’t want my visit here advertised.”
He followed the detective into No. 12, and found that there was no necessity to use the buffet entrance, for the communicating door was unlocked. He stepped into No. 13; it was in complete darkness.
“Humph!” said Mr. Reeder, and sniffed. “One of you go along this wall and find the switch. Be careful you don’t step on something.”
“What is there?”
“I think you’ll find… however, turn on the light.”
The detective felt his way along the wall, and presently his finger touched a switch and he turned it down. And then they saw all that Mr. Reeder suspected. Sprawled across the table was a still figure—a horrible sight, for the man who had killed Emanuel Legge had used the poker which, twisted and bloodstained, lay amidst the wreckage of rare glass and once snowy napery.
CHAPTER XXVIII
It was unnecessary to call a doctor to satisfy the police. Emanuel Legge had passed beyond the sphere of his evil activities.
“The poker came from—where?” mused Mr. Reeder, examining the weapon thoughtfully. He glanced down at the little fire-place. The poker and tongs and shovel were intact, and this was of a heavier type than was used in the sitting-rooms.
Deftly he searched the dead man’s pockets, and in the waistcoat he found a little card inscribed with a telephone number, “Horsham 98753.” Peter’s. That had no special significance at the moment, and Reeder put it with the other documents that he had extracted from the dead man’s pockets. Later came an inspector to take charge of the case.
“There was some sort of struggle, I imagine,” said Mr. Reeder. “The right wrist, I think you’ll find, is broken. Legge’s revolver was underneath the table. He probably pulled it, and it was struck from his hand. I don’t think you’ll want me any more, inspector.”
He was examining the main corridor when the telephone switchboard at the back of Stevens’s little desk gave him an idea. He put through a call to Horsham, and, in spite of the earliness of the hour, was almost immediately answered.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“I’m Mr. Kane’s servant,” said a husky voice.
“Oh, is it Barney? Is your master at home yet?”
“No, sir. Who is it speaking?”
“It is Mr. Reeder.… Will you tell Miss Kane to come to the telephone?”
“She’s not here either. I’ve been trying to get on to Johnny Gray all night, but his servant says he’s out.”
“Where is Miss Kane?” asked Reeder quickly.
“I don’t know, sir. Somebody came for her in the night in a car, and she went away, leaving the door open. It was the wind slamming it that woke me up.”
It was so long before Mr. Reeder answered that Barney thought he had gone away.
“Did nobody call for her during the evening? Did she have any telephone messages?”
“One, sir, about ten o’clock. I think it was her father, from the way she was speaking.”
Again a long interval of silence, and then:
“I will come straight down to Horsham,” said Mr. Reeder, and from the pleasant and conversational quality of his voice, Barney took comfort; though, if he had known the man better, he would have realised that Mr. Reeder was most ordinary when he was most perturbed.
Mr. Reeder pushed the telephone away from him and stood up.
So they had got Marney. There was no other explanation. The dinner party had been arranged to dispose of the men who could protect her. Where had they been taken?
He went back to the old man’s office, which was undergoing a search at the hands of a police officer.
“I particularly want to see immediately any document referring to Mr. Peter Kane,” he said, “any road maps which you may find here, and especially letters addressed to Emanuel Legge by his son. You know, of course, that this office was broken into? There should be something in the shape of clues.”
The officer shook his head.
“I’m afraid, Mr. Reeder, we won’t find much here,” he said. “So far, I’ve only come across old bills and business letters which you might find in any office.”
The detective looked round.
“There is no safe?” he asked.
All the timidity and deference in his manner had gone. He was patently a man of affairs.
“Yes, sir, the safe’s behind that panelling. I’ll get it open this morning. But I shouldn’t imagine that Legge would leave anything compromising on the premises. Besides, his son has had charge of the Highlow for years. Previous to that, they had a manager who is now doing time. Before him, if I remember right, that fellow Fenner, who has been in boob for burglary.”
“Fenner?” said the other sharply. “I didn’t know he ever managed this club.”
“He used to, but he had a quarrel with the old man. I’ve got an idea they were in jug together.”
Fenner’s was not the type of mentality one would expect to find among the officers of a club, even a club of the standing of the Highlow; but there was this about the Highlow, that it required less intelligence than sympathy with a certain type of client.
Reeder was assisting the officer by taking out the contents of the pigeon-holes, when his hand touched a knob.
“Hallo, what is this?” he said, and turned it.
The whole desk shifted slightly, and, pulling, he revealed the door to the spiral staircase.
“This is very interesting,” he said. He ascended as far as the top landing. There was evidently a door here, but every effort he made to force it ended in failure. He came down again, continuing to the basement, and this time he was joined by the inspector in charge of the case.
“Rather hot,” said Mr. Reeder as he opened the door. “I should say there is a fire burning here.”
It took him some time to discover the light connections, and when he did, he whistled. For, lying by the side of the red-hot stove, he saw a piece of shining metal and recognised it. It was an engraver’s plate, and one glance told him that it was the finished plate from which £5 notes could be printed.
The basement was empty, and for a second the mystery of the copper plate baffled him.
“We may not have found the Big Printer, but we’ve certainly found the Big Engraver,” he said. “This plate was engraved somewhere upstairs.” He pointed to the shaft. “What is it doing down here? Of course!” He slapped his thigh exultantly. “I never dreamt he was right—but he always is right!”
“Who?” asked the officer.
“An old friend of mine, whose theory was that the plates from which the slush was printed were engraved within easy reach of a furnace, into which, in case of a police visitation, they could be pushed and destroyed. And, of course, the engraving plant is somewhere upstairs. But why they should throw down a perfectly new piece of work, and at a time when the attendant was absent, is beyond me. Unless… Get me an axe; I want to see the room on the roof.”
The space was too limited for the full swing of an axe, and it was nearly an hour before at last the door leading to the engraver’s room was smashed in. The room was flooded with sunshine, for the skylight had not been covered. Reeder’s sharp eyes took in the table with a glance, and then he looked beyond, and took a step backward. Lying by the wall, dishevelled, mud-stained, his white dress-shirt crumpled to a pulp, was Peter Kane, and he was asleep!
They dragged him to a chair, bathed his face with cold water, but even then he took a long time to recover.
“He has been drugged: that’s obvious,” said Mr. Reeder, and scrutinised the hands of the unconscious man for a sign of blood. But though they were covered with rust and grime, Reeder found not so much as one spot of blood; and the first words that Peter uttered, on recovering consciousness, confirmed the view that he was ignorant of the murder.
“Where is Emanuel?” he asked drowsily. “Have you got him?”
“No; but somebody has got him,” said Reeder gently, and the shock of the news brought Peter Kane wide awake.
“Murdered!” he said unbelievingly. “Are you sure? Of course, I’m mad to ask you that.” He passed his hand wearily across his forehead. “No, I know nothing about it. I suppose you suspect me, and I don’t mind telling you that I was willing to murder him if I could have found him.”
Briefly he related what had happened at the dinner.
“I knew that I was doped, but dope works slowly on me, and the only chance I had was to sham dead. Emanuel gave me a thump in the jaw, and that was my excuse for going out. They got me downstairs into the yard and put me into the car first. I slipped out the other side as soon as the nigger went up to get Johnny. There were a lot of old cement sacks lying about, and I threw a couple on to the floor, hoping that in the darkness they would mistake the bundle for me. Then I lay down amongst the packing-cases and waited. I guessed they’d brought down Johnny, but I was powerless to help him. When the car had gone, and Pietro had gone up again, I followed. I suppose the dope was getting busy, and if I’d had any sense, I should have got over the gate. My first thought was that they might have taken my gun away and left it in the room. I tried to open the door, but it was locked.”
“Are you sure of that, Peter?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“How long after was this?”
“About half an hour. It took me all that time to get up the stairs, because I had to fight the dope all the way. I heard somebody moving about, and slipped into one of the other rooms, and then I heard the window pulled down and locked. I didn’t want to go to sleep, for fear they discovered me; but I must have dozed, for when I woke up, it was dark and cold, and I heard no sound at all. I tried the door of thirteen again, but could make no impression on it. So I went to Emanuel’s office. I know the place very well: I used to go in there in the old days, before Emanuel went to jail, and I knew all about the spiral staircase to the roof. All along I suspected that the hut they’d put on the roof was the place where the slush was printed. But here I was mistaken, for I had no sooner got into the room than I saw that it was where the engraver worked. There was a plate on the edge of a shaft. I suppose I was still dizzy, because I fumbled at it. It slipped through my hand, and I heard a clang come up from somewhere below.”
“How did you get into this room?”
“The door was open,” was the surprising reply. “I have an idea that it is one of those doors that can only be opened and closed from the inside. The real door of the room is in the room in Emanuel’s office. It is the only way in, and the only way out, both from the basement and the room on the roof. I don’t know what happened after that. I must have laid down, for by now the dope was working powerfully. I ought to let Marney know I’m all right. She’ll be worried.…”
He saw something in the detective’s face, something that made his heart sink.
“Marney! Is anything wrong with Marney?” he asked quickly.
“I don’t know. She went out last night—or rather, early this morning—and has not been seen since.”
Peter listened, stricken dumb by the news. It seemed to Mr. Reeder that he aged ten years in as few minutes.
“Now, Kane, you’ve got to tell me all you know about Legge,” said Reeder kindly. “I haven’t any doubt that Jeffrey’s taken her to the big printing place. Where is it?”
Peter shook his head.
“I haven’t the least idea,” he said. “The earlier slush was printed in this building; in fact, it was printed in Room 13. I’ve known that for a long time. But as the business grew, young Legge had to find another works. Where he has found it is a mystery to me, and to most other people.”
“But you must have heard rumours?” persisted Reeder.
Again Peter shook his head.
“Remember that I mix very little with people of my own profession, or my late profession,” he said. “Johnny and old Barney are about the only crooks I know, outside of the Legge family. And Stevens, of course—he was in jail ten years ago. I’ve lost touch with all the others, and my news has come through Barney, though most of Barney’s gossip is unreliable.”
They reached Barney by telephone, but he was unable to give any information that was of the slightest use. All that he knew was that the printing works were supposed to be somewhere in the west.
“Johnny knows more about it than I do, or than anybody. All the boys agree as to that,” said Barney. “They told him a lot in ‘boob.’ ”
Leaving Peter to return home, Mr. Reeder made a call at Johnny’s flat. Parker was up. He had been notified earlier in the morning of his master’s disappearance, but he had no explanation to offer.
He was preparing to give a list of the clothes that Johnny had been wearing, but Reeder cut him short impatiently.
“Try to think of Mr. Gray as a human being, and not as a tailor’s dummy,” he said wrathfully. “You realise that he is in very grave danger?”
“I am not at all worried, sir,” said the precise Parker. “Mr. Gray was wearing his new sock suspenders——”
For once Mr. Reeder forgot himself.
“You’re a damned fool, Parker,” he said.
“I hope not, sir,” said Parker as he bowed him out.
CHAPTER XXIX
It was five minutes past two in the morning when Marney, sitting in the drawing-room at the front of the house, heard the sound of an auto stop before the house. Going into the hall, she opened the door, and, standing on the step, peered into the darkness.
“Is that you, father?” she asked.
There was no reply, and she walked quickly up the garden path to the gate. The car was a closed coupé, and as she looked over the gate, she saw a hand come out and beckon her, and heard a voice whisper:
“Don’t make a noise. Come in here; I want to talk to you. I don’t want Barney to see me.”
Bewildered, she obeyed. Jerking open the door, she jumped into the dark interior, by the side of the man at the wheel.
“What is it?” she asked.
Then, to her amazement, the car began to move toward the main road. It had evidently circled before it had stopped.
“What is the matter, father?” she asked.
And then she heard a low chuckle that made her blood run cold.
“Go into the back and stay there. If you make a row, I’ll spoil that complexion of yours, Marney Legge!”
“Jeffrey!” she gasped.
She gripped the inside handle of the door and had half turned it when he caught her with his disengaged hand and flung her into the back of the car.
“I’ll kill you if you make me do that again.” There was a queer little sob of pain in his voice, and she remembered his wound.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“I’m taking you to your father,” was the unexpected reply. “Will you sit quiet? If you try to get away, or attempt to call assistance, I’ll drive you at full speed into the first tree I see, and we’ll finish the thing together.”
From the ferocity of his tone she did not doubt that he would carry his threat into execution. Mile after mile the car sped on, flashing through villages, slowing through the sparsely peopled streets of small towns. It was nearing three o’clock when they came into the street of a town and, looking through the window, she saw a grey façade and knew she was in Oxford.
In ten minutes they were through the city and traversing the main western road. And now, for the first time, Jeffrey Legge became communicative.
“You’ve never been in ‘boob,’ have you, angel?” he asked.
She did not answer.
“Never been inside the little bird-house with the other canaries, eh? Well, that’s an experience ahead of you. I am going to put you in jail, kid. Peter’s never been in jail either, but he nearly had the experience to-night.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “My father has not broken the law.”
“Not for a long time, at any rate,” agreed Jeffrey, dexterously lighting a cigarette with one hand. “But there’s a little ‘boob’ waiting for him all right now.”
“A prison?” she said incredulously. “I don’t believe you.”
“You’ve said that twice, and you’re the only person living that’s called me a liar that number of times.”
He turned off into a side road, and for a quarter of an hour gave her opportunity for thought.
“It might interest you to know that Johnny is there,” he said. “Dear little Johnny! The easiest crook that ever fell—and this time he’s got a lifer.”
The car began to move down a sharp declivity, and, looking through the rain-spattered wind-screen, she saw a squat, dark building ahead.
“Here we are,” he said, as the car stopped.
Looking through the window she saw, with a gasp of astonishment, that he had spoken the truth. They were at the door of a prison. The great, black, iron-studded gates were opening as she looked, and the car passed through under the deep archway and stopped.
“Get down,” said Jeff, and she obeyed.
A narrow black door led from the archway, and, following her, he caught her by the arm and pushed her through. She was in a narrow room, the walls of which were covered with stained and discoloured whitewash. A large fire-place, overflowing with ashes, a rickety chair and a faded board screwed to the wall were the only furniture. In the dim light of a carbon lamp she saw the almost indistinguishable words: “His Majesty’s Prison, Keytown,” and beneath, row after row of closely set regulations. A rough-looking, powerfully-built man had followed her into the room, which was obviously the gate-keeper’s lodge.
“Have you got the cell ready?”
“Yes, I have,” said the man. “Does she want anything to eat?”
“If she does, she’ll want,” said Jeff curtly.
He took off his greatcoat and hung it on a nail, and then, with Jeffrey’s hand gripping her arm, she was led again into the archway and across a small courtyard, through an iron grille gate and a further door. A solitary light that burnt in a bracket near the door, showed her that she was in a small hall. Around this, at the height of about nine feet from the ground, ran a gallery, which was reached by a flight of iron stairs. There was no need to ask what was the meaning of those two rows of black doors that punctured the wall. They were cells. She was in a prison!
While she was wondering what it all meant, a door near at hand was unlocked, and she was pushed in. The cell was a small one, the floor of worn stone, but a new bedstead had been fitted up in one corner. There was a washstand; and, as she was to discover, the cell communicated with another containing a stone bath and wash-place.
“The condemned cell,” explained Jeffrey Legge with relish. “You’ll have plenty of ghosts to keep you company to-night, Marney.”
In her heart she was panic-stricken, but she showed none of her fear as she faced him.
“A ghost would be much less repulsive to me than you, Jeffrey Legge,” she said, and he seemed taken aback by the spirit she displayed.
“You will have both,” he said, as he slammed the door on her and locked it.
The cell was illuminated by a feeble light that came through an opaque pane of glass by the side of the door. Presently, when her eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness, she was able to take stock of her surroundings. The prison must have been a very old one, for the walls were at one place worn smooth, probably by the back of some condemned unfortunate who had waited day after day for the hour of doom. She shuddered, as her imagination called to her the agony of soul which these four walls had held.
By standing on the bed she could reach a window. That also was of toughened glass, set in small, rusty frames. Some of the panes were missing, but she guessed that the outlook from the window would not be particularly promising, even supposing she could force the window.
The night had been unusually cold and raw for the time of year, and, pulling a blanket from the bed, she wrapped it about her and sat down on the stool, waiting for the light to grow.
And so sitting, her weary eyes closing involuntarily, she heard a stealthy tapping. It came from above, and her heart fluttered at the thought that possibly, in the cell above her, her father was held… or Johnny.
Climbing on to the bed, she rapped with her knuckles on the stone ceiling. Somebody answered. They were tapping a message in Morse, which she could not understand. Presently the tapping ceased. She heard footsteps above. And then, looking by chance at the broken pane of the window, she saw something come slowly downward and out of view. She leapt up, gripping the window pane, and saw a piece of black silk. With difficulty two fingers touched it at last and drew it gently in through the window pane. She pulled it up, and, as she suspected, found a piece of paper tied to the end.
It was a bank-note. Bewildered, she gazed at it until it occurred to her that there might be a message written on the other side. The pencil marks were faint, and she carried the note as near to the light as she could get.
“Who is there? Is it you, Peter? I am up above. Johnny.”
She suppressed the cry that rose to her lips. Both Johnny and her father were there. Then Jeffrey had not lied.
How could she answer? She had no pencil. Then she saw that the end of the cotton was weighted by a small piece of pencil, the kind that is found attached to a dance programme. With this unsatisfactory medium she wrote a reply and pushed it through the window, and after a while she saw it drawn up. Johnny was there—and Johnny knew. She felt strangely comforted by his presence, impotent though he was.
For half an hour she waited at the window, but now the daylight had come, and evidently Johnny thought it was too dangerous to make any further communications.
Exhausted, she lay down on the bed, intending to remain awake, but within five minutes she was sleeping heavily. The sound of a key in the lock made her spring to her feet. It was the man she had seen in the early morning; he was carrying a big tray, set with a clumsy cup and saucer, six slices of bread and butter, and an enormous teapot. He put it down on the bed, for want of a table, and without a word went out. She looked at the little platinum watch on her wrist: it was ten o’clock. Half an hour later the man came and took away the tray.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You’re in ‘boob,’ ” he said with quiet amusement. “But it is better than any other ‘boob’ you’ve ever been in, young lady. And don’t try to ask me questions, because you’ll not get a civil answer if you do.”
At two o’clock came another meal, a little more tastily served this time. It seemed, from the appearance of the plate, that Jeffrey had sent into Oxford for a new service specially for her benefit. Again she attempted to discover what had happened to her father, but with no more satisfactory result.
The weary day dragged through; every minute seemed an hour, every hour interminable. Darkness had fallen again when the last of the visits was made, and this time it was Jeffrey Legge. At the sight of his face, all her terror turned to wonder. He was ghastly pale, his eyes burnt strangely, and the hand that came up to his lips was trembling as though he were suffering from a fever.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I want you,” he said brokenly. “I want you for the life of my father!”
“What do you mean?” she gasped.
“Peter Kane killed my father last night,” he said.
“You’re mad,” she gasped. “My father is here—you told me.”
“I told you a lie. What does it matter what I told you anyway? Peter Kane escaped on the way to Keytown, and he went back to the club and killed my father!”