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Title: The Avenger
Author: Wallace, Edgar
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Avenger" ***
THE NOVELS OF
EDGAR WALLACE
The _Daily Mail_ says: “It is impossible not to be
thrilled by Edgar Wallace. Mr. Wallace has, in an
exceptional degree, the capacity to keep his readers on
tenter-hooks. His plots are always clever; his resources
of imagination unrivalled.”
CAPTAINS OF SOULS
THE MISSING MILLION
ROOM 13
THE FACE IN THE NIGHT
A KING BY NIGHT
THE MAN FROM MOROCCO
THE AVENGER
_Other new long representative novels by_
_Edgar Wallace will appear through the House_
_of_ JOHN LONG, LTD. LONDON
THE AVENGER
By
EDGAR WALLACE
[Illustration]
TENTH EDITION
London
John Long, Limited
12, 13 & 14 Norris Street, Haymarket
[_All Rights Reserved_]
Made and Printed
in Great Britain
Copyright, 1926, by
John Long, Limited
All Rights Reserved
CONTENTS
I. THE HEAD-HUNTER
II. MR. SAMPSON LONGVALE CALLS
III. THE NIECE
IV. THE LEADING LADY
V. MR. LAWLEY FOSS
VI. THE MASTER OF GRIFF
VII. THE SWORDS AND BHAG
VIII. BHAG
IX. THE ANCESTOR
X. THE OPEN WINDOW
XI. THE MARK ON THE WINDOW
XII. A CRY FROM A TOWER
XIII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED
XIV. MENDOZA MAKES A FIGHT
XV. TWO FROM THE YARD
XVI. THE BROWN MAN FROM NOWHERE
XVII. MR. FOSS MAKES A SUGGESTION
XVIII. THE FACE IN THE PICTURE
XIX. THE MIDNIGHT VISIT
XX. A NARROW ESCAPE
XXI. THE ERASURE
XXII. THE HEAD
XXIII. CLUES AT THE TOWER
XXIV. THE MARKS OF THE BEAST
XXV. THE MAN IN THE CAR
XXVI. THE HAND
XXVII. THE CAVES
XXVIII. THE TOWER
XXIX. BHAG’S RETURN
XXX. THE ADVERTISEMENT
XXXI. JOHN PERCIVAL LIGGITT
XXXII. GREGORY’S WAY
XXXIII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED
XXXIV. THE SEARCH
XXXV. WHAT HAPPENED TO ADELE
XXXVI. THE ESCAPE
XXXVII. AT THE TOWER AGAIN
XXXVIII. THE CAVERN OF BONES
XXXIX. MICHAEL KNOWS FOR SURE
XL. “THE WIDOW”
XLI. THE DEATH
XLII. CAMERA!
The Avenger
CHAPTER I
THE HEAD-HUNTER
CAPTAIN MIKE BRIXAN had certain mild and innocent superstitions. He
believed, for example, that if he saw a green crow in a field he would
certainly see another green crow before the day was out. And when, at
the bookstand on Aix la Chapelle station, he saw and purchased a dime
novel that was comprehensively intituled “Only an Extra, or the Pride of
Hollywood,” he was less concerned as to how this thrilling and dog-eared
romance came to be on offer at half a million marks (this was in the
days when marks were worth money) than as to the circumstances in which
he would again hear or read the word “extras” in the sense of a
supernumerary and unimportant screen actress.
The novel did not interest him at all. He read one page of superlatives
and turned for relief to the study of a Belgian time-table. He was
bored, but not so bored that he could interest himself in the
sensational rise of the fictitious Rosa Love from modest obscurity to a
press agent and wealth.
But “extra” was a new one on Michael, and he waited for the day to bring
its inevitable companion.
To say that he was uninterested in crime, that burglars were less
thrilling than golf scores, and the record of murders hardly worth the
reading, might convey a wrong impression to those who knew him as the
cleverest agent in the Foreign Office Intelligence Department.
His official life was spent in meeting queer continentals in obscure
restaurants and, in divers rôles, to learn of the undercurrents that
were drifting the barques of diplomacy to unsuspected ports. He had
twice roamed through Europe in the guise of an open-mouthed tourist; had
canoed many hundred miles through the gorges of the Danube to discover,
in little riverside beer-houses, the inward meanings of secret
mobilizations. These were tasks wholly to his liking.
Therefore he was not unnaturally annoyed when he was withdrawn from
Berlin at a moment when, as it seemed, the mystery of the Slovak Treaty
was in a way to being solved, for he had secured, at a cost, a rough but
accurate draft.
“I should have had a photograph of the actual document if you had left
me another twenty-four hours,” he reproached his chief, Major George
Staines, when he reported himself at Whitehall next morning.
“Sorry,” replied that unrepentant man, “but the truth is, we’ve had a
heart to heart talk with the Slovakian Prime Minister, and he has
promised to behave and practically given us the text of the treaty—it
was only a commercial affair. Mike, did you know Elmer?”
The Foreign Office detective sat down on the edge of the table.
“Have you brought me from Berlin to ask me that?” he demanded bitterly.
“Have you taken me from my favourite café on Unter den Linden—by the
way, the Germans are making small arm ammunition by the million at a
converted pencil factory in Bavaria—to discuss Elmer? He’s a clerk,
isn’t he?”
Major Staines nodded.
“He _was_,” he said, “in the Accountancy Department. He disappeared from
view three weeks ago, and an examination of his books showed that he had
been systematically stealing funds which were under his control.”
Mike Brixan made a little face.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “He seemed to be a fairly quiet and
inoffensive man. But surely you don’t want me to go after him? That is a
job for Scotland Yard.”
“I don’t want you to go after him,” said Staines slowly, “because—well,
he has been found.”
There was something very significant and sinister in his tone, and
before he could take the little slip of paper from the portfolio on the
desk, Michael Brixan knew what was coming.
“Not the Head-Hunter?” he gasped. Even Michael knew about the
Head-Hunter.
Staines nodded.
“Here’s the note.”
He handed the typewritten slip across to his subordinate, and Michael
read:
“You will find a box in the hedge by the railway arch at Esher.
“THE HEAD-HUNTER.”
“The Head-Hunter!” repeated Michael mechanically, and whistled.
“We found the box, and of course we found the unfortunate Elmer’s head,
sliced neatly from his body,” said Staines. “This is the twelfth head in
seven years,” Staines went on, “and in almost every case—in fact, in
every case except two—the victim has been a fugitive from justice. Even
if the treaty question had not been settled, Mike, I should have brought
you back.”
“But this is a police job,” said the young man, troubled.
“Technically you’re a policeman,” interrupted his chief, “and the
Foreign Secretary wishes you to take this case in hand, and he does this
with the full approval of the Secretary of State, who of course controls
Scotland Yard. So far, the death of Francis Elmer and the discovery of
his gruesome remains have not been given out to the press. There was
such a fuss last time that the police want to keep this quiet. They have
had an inquest—I guess the jury was picked, but it would be high
treason to say so—and the usual verdict has been returned. The only
information I can give you is that Elmer was seen by his niece a week
ago in Chichester. We discovered this before the man’s fate was known.
The girl, Adele Leamington, is working for the Knebworth Film
Corporation, which has its studio in Chichester. Old Knebworth is an
American and a very good sort. The girl is a sort of super-chorus-extra,
that’s the word——”
Michael gasped.
“Extra! I knew that infernal word would turn up again. Go on, sir—what
do you wish me to do?”
“Go along and see her,” said the chief. “Here is the address.”
“Is there a Mrs. Elmer?” asked Michael as he put the slip into his
pocket.
The other nodded.
“Yes, but she can throw no light upon the murder. She, by the way, is
the only person who knows he is dead. She had not seen her husband for a
month, and apparently they had been more or less separated for years.
She benefits considerably by his death, for he was well insured in her
favour.”
Michael read again the gruesome note from the Head-Hunter.
“What is your theory about this?” he asked curiously.
“The general idea is that he is a lunatic who feels called upon to mete
out punishment to defaulters. But the two exceptions disturb that theory
pretty considerably.”
Staines lay back in his chair, a puzzled frown on his face.
“Take the case of Willitt. His head was found on Clapham Common two
years ago. Willitt was a well-off man, the soul of honesty, well liked,
and he had a very big balance at his bank. Crewling, the second
exception, who was one of the first of the Hunter’s victims, was also
above suspicion, though in his case there is no doubt he was mentally
unbalanced a few weeks before his death.
“The typewritten notification has invariably been typed out on the same
machine. In every case you have the half-obliterated ‘u,’ the faint ‘g,’
and the extraordinary alignment which the experts are unanimous in
ascribing to a very old and out-of-date Kost machine. Find the man who
uses that typewriter and you have probably found the murderer. But it is
very unlikely that he will ever be found that way, for the police have
published photographs pointing out the peculiarities of type, and I
should imagine that Mr. Hunter does not use this machine except to
announce the demise of his victims.”
Michael Brixan went back to his flat, a little more puzzled and a little
more worried by his unusual commission. He moved and had his being in
the world of high politics. The finesses of diplomacy were his peculiar
study, and the normal abnormalities of humanity, the thefts and murders
and larcenies which occupied the attention of the constabulary, did not
come into his purview.
“Bill,” said he, addressing the small terrier that lay on the hearth-rug
before the fireless grate of his sitting-room, “this is where I fall
down. But whether I do or not, I’m going to meet an extra—ain’t that
grand?”
Bill wagged his tail agreeably.
CHAPTER II
MR. SAMPSON LONGVALE CALLS
ADELE LEAMINGTON waited till the studio was almost empty before she came
to where the white-haired man sat crouched in his canvas chair, his
hands thrust into his trousers pockets, a malignant scowl on his
forehead.
It was not a propitious moment to approach him: nobody knew that better
than she.
“Mr. Knebworth, may I speak to you?”
He looked up slowly. Ordinarily he would have risen, for this
middle-aged American in normal moments was the soul of courtesy. But
just at that moment, his respect for womanhood was something below zero.
His look was blank, though the director in him instinctively approved
her values. She was pretty, with regular features, a mop of brown hair
in which the sunshine of childhood still lingered. Her mouth firm,
delicately shaped, her figure slim—perfect in many ways.
Jack had seen many beautiful extras in his career, and had passed
through stages of enthusiasm and despair as he had seen them translated
to the screen—pretty wooden figures without soul or expression, gauche
of movement, hopeless. Too pretty to be clever, too conscious of their
beauty to be natural. Dolls without intelligence or initiative—just
“extras” who could wear clothes in a crowd, who could smile and dance
mechanically, fit for extras and nothing else all the days of their
lives.
“Well?” he asked brusquely.
“Is there a part I could play in this production, Mr. Knebworth?” she
asked.
His shaven lips curled.
“Aren’t you playing a part, Miss—can’t remember your name—Leamington,
is it?”
“I’m certainly playing—I’m one of the figures in the background,” she
smiled. “I don’t want a big part, but I’m sure I could do better than I
have done.”
“I’m mighty sure you couldn’t do worse than some people,” he growled.
“No, there’s no part for you, friend. There’ll be no story to shoot
unless things alter. That’s what!”
She was going away when he recalled her.
“Left a good home, I guess?” he said. “Thought picture-making meant a
million dollars a year an’ a new automobile every Thursday? Or maybe you
were holding down a good job as a stenographer and got it under your
toque that you’d make Hollywood feel small if you got your chance? Go
back home, kid, and tell the old man that a typewriter’s got a sunlight
arc beaten to death as an instrument of commerce.”
The girl smiled faintly.
“I didn’t come into pictures because I was stage-struck, if that is what
you mean, Mr. Knebworth. I came in knowing just how hard a life it might
be. I have no parents.”
He looked up at her curiously.
“How do you live?” he asked. “There’s no money in ‘extra’ work—not on
this lot, anyway. Might be if I was one of those billion dollar
directors who did pictures with chariot races. But I don’t. My ideal
picture has got five characters.”
“I have a little income from my mother, and I write,” said the girl.
She stopped as she saw him looking past her to the studio entrance, and,
turning her head, saw a remarkable figure standing in the doorway. At
first she thought it was an actor who had made up for a film test.
The newcomer was an old man, but his great height and erect carriage
would not have conveyed that impression at a distance. The tight-fitting
tail-coat, the trousers strapped to his boots, the high collar and black
satin stock belonged to a past age, though they were newly made. The
white linen bands that showed at his wrists were goffered, his
double-breasted waistcoat of grey velvet was fastened by golden buttons.
He might have stepped from a family portrait of one of those dandies of
the ’fifties. He held a tall hat in one gloved hand, a hat with a curly
brim, and in the other a gold-topped walking-stick. The face, deeply
lined, was benevolent and kind, and he seemed unconscious of his
complete baldness.
Jack Knebworth was out of his chair in a second and walked toward the
stranger.
“Why, Mr. Longvale, I am glad to see you—did you get my letter? I can’t
tell you how much obliged I am to you for the loan of your house.”
Sampson Longvale, of the Dower House! She remembered now. He was known
in Chichester as “the old-fashioned gentleman,” and once, when she was
out on location, somebody had pointed out the big, rambling house, with
its weed-grown garden and crumbling walls, where he lived.
“I thought I would come over and see you,” said the big man.
His voice was rich and beautifully modulated. She did not remember
having heard a voice quite as sweet, and she looked at the eccentric
figure with a new interest.
“I can only hope that the house and grounds are suitable to your
requirements. I am afraid they are in sad disorder, but I cannot afford
to keep the estate in the same condition as my grandfather did.”
“Just what I want, Mr. Longvale. I was afraid you might be offended when
I told you——”
The old gentleman interrupted him with a soft laugh.
“No, no, I wasn’t offended, I was amused. You needed a haunted house: I
could even supply that quality, though I will not promise you that my
family ghost will walk. The Dower House has been haunted for hundreds of
years. A former occupant in a fit of frenzy murdered his daughter there,
and the unhappy lady is supposed to walk. I have never seen her, though
many years ago one of my servants did. Fortunately, I am relieved of
that form of annoyance: I no longer keep servants in the house,” he
smiled, “though, if you care to stay the night, I shall be honoured to
entertain five or six of your company.”
Knebworth heaved a sigh of relief. He had made diligent inquiries and
found that it was almost impossible to secure lodgings in the
neighbourhood, and he was most anxious to take night pictures, and for
one scene he particularly desired the peculiar light value which he
could only obtain in the early hours of the morning.
“I’m afraid that would give you a lot of trouble, Mr. Longvale,” he
said. “And here and now I think we might discuss that delicate subject
of——”
The old man stopped him with a gesture.
“If you are going to speak of money, please don’t,” he said firmly. “I
am interested in cinematography; in fact, I am interested in most modern
things. We old men are usually prone to decry modernity, but I find my
chiefest pleasure in the study of those scientific wonders which this
new age has revealed to us.”
He looked at the director quizzically.
“Some day you shall take a picture of me in the one rôle in which I
think I should have no peer—a picture of me in the rôle of my
illustrious ancestor.”
Jack Knebworth stared, half amused, half startled. It was no unusual
experience to find people who wished to see themselves on the screen,
but he never expected that little piece of vanity from Mr. Sampson
Longvale.
“I should be glad,” he said formally. “Your people were pretty well
known, I guess?”
Mr. Longvale sighed.
“It is my regret that I do not come from the direct line that included
Charles Henry, the most historic member of my family. He was my
great-uncle. I come from the Bordeaux branch of Longvales, which has
made history, sir.” He shook his head regretfully.
“Are you French, Mr. Longvale?” asked Jack.
Apparently the old man did not hear him. He was staring into space.
Then, with a start:
“Yes, yes, we were French. My great-grandfather married an English lady
whom he met in peculiar circumstances. We came to England in the days of
the directorate.”
Then, for the first time, he seemed aware of Adele’s presence, and bowed
toward her.
“I think I must go,” he said, taking a huge gold watch from his fob
pocket.
The girl watched them as they passed out of the hall, and presently she
saw the “old-fashioned gentleman” pass the window, driving the
oldest-fashioned car she had ever seen. It must have been one of the
first motor-cars ever introduced into the country, a great, upstanding,
cumbersome machine, that passed with a thunderous sound and at no great
speed down the gravel drive out of sight.
Presently Jack Knebworth came slowly back.
“This craze for being screened certainly gets ’em—old or young,” he
said. “Good night, Miss—forget your name—Leamington, ain’t it? Good
night.”
She was half-way home before she realized that the conversation that she
had plucked up such courage to initiate had ended unsatisfactorily for
her, and she was as far away from her small part as ever.
CHAPTER III
THE NIECE
ADELE LEAMINGTON occupied a small room in a small house, and there were
moments when she wished it were smaller, that she might be justified in
plucking up her courage to ask from the stout and unbending Mrs. Watson,
her landlady, a reduction of rent. The extras on Jack Knebworth’s lot
were well paid but infrequently employed; for Jack was one of those
clever directors who specialized in domestic stories.
She was dressing when Mrs. Watson brought in her morning cup of tea.
“There’s a young fellow been hanging round outside since I got up,” said
Mrs. Watson. “I saw him when I took in the milk. Very polite he was, but
I told him you weren’t awake.”
“Did he want to see me?” asked the astonished girl.
“That’s what he said,” said Mrs. Watson grimly. “I asked him if he came
from Knebworth, and he said no. If you want to see him, you can have the
use of the parlour, though I don’t like young men calling on young
girls. I’ve never let theatrical lodgings before, and you can’t be too
careful. I’ve always had a name for respectability and I want to keep
it.”
Adele smiled.
“I cannot imagine anything more respectable than an early morning
caller, Mrs. Watson,” she said.
She went downstairs and opened the door. The young man was standing on
the side-walk with his back to her, but at the sound of the door opening
he turned. He was good-looking and well-dressed, and his smile was quick
and appealing.
“I hope your landlady did not bother to wake you up? I could have
waited. You are Miss Adele Leamington, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Will you come in, please?” she asked, and took him into the stuffy
little front parlour, and, closing the door behind her, waited.
“I am a reporter,” he said untruthfully, and her face fell.
“You’ve come about Uncle Francis? Is anything really wrong? They sent a
detective to see me a week ago. Have they found him?”
“No, they haven’t found him,” he said carefully. “You knew him very
well, of course, Miss Leamington?”
She shook her head.
“No, I have only seen him twice in my life. My dear father and he
quarrelled before I was born, and I only saw him once after daddy died,
and once before mother was taken with her fatal illness.”
She heard him sigh, and sensed his relief, though why he should be
relieved that her uncle was almost a stranger to her, she could not
fathom.
“You saw him at Chichester, though?” he said.
She nodded.
“Yes, I saw him. I was on my way to Goodwood Park—a whole party of us
in a char-à-banc—and I saw him for a moment walking along the
side-walk. He looked desperately ill and worried. He was just coming out
of a stationer’s shop when I saw him; he had a newspaper under his arm
and a letter in his hand.”
“Where was the store?” he asked quickly.
She gave him the address, and he jotted it down.
“You didn’t see him again?”
She shook her head.
“Is anything really very badly wrong?” she asked anxiously. “I’ve often
heard mother say that Uncle Francis was very extravagant, and a little
unscrupulous. Has he been in trouble?”
“Yes,” admitted Michael, “he has been in trouble, but nothing that you
need worry about. You’re a great film actress, aren’t you?”
In spite of her anxiety she laughed.
“The only chance I have of being a great film actress is for you to say
so in your paper.”
“My what?” he asked, momentarily puzzled. “Oh yes, my newspaper, of
course!”
“I don’t believe you’re a reporter at all,” she said with sudden
suspicion.
“Indeed I am,” he said glibly, and dared to pronounce the name of that
widely-circulated sheet upon which the sun seldom sets.
“Though I’m not a great actress, and fear I never shall be, I like to
believe it is because I’ve never had a chance—I’ve a horrible suspicion
that Mr. Knebworth knows instinctively that I am no good.”
Mike Brixan had found a new interest in the case, an interest which, he
was honest enough to confess to himself, was not dissociated from the
niece of Francis Elmer. He had never met anybody quite so pretty and
quite so unsophisticated and natural.
“You’re going to the studio, I suppose?”
She nodded.
“I wonder if Mr. Knebworth would mind my calling to see you?”
She hesitated.
“Mr. Knebworth doesn’t like callers.”
“Then maybe I’ll call on him,” said Michael, nodding. “It doesn’t matter
whom I call on, does it?”
“It certainly doesn’t matter to me,” said the girl coldly.
“In the vulgar language of the masses,” thought Mike as he strode down
the street, “I have had the bird!”
His inquiries did not occupy very much of his time. He found the little
news shop, and the proprietor, by good fortune, remembered the coming of
Mr. Francis Elmer.
“He came for a letter, though it wasn’t addressed to Elmer,” said the
shopkeeper. “A lot of people have their letters addressed here. I make a
little extra money that way.”
“Did he buy a newspaper?”
“No, sir, he did not buy a newspaper; he had one under his arm—the
_Morning Telegram_. I remember that, because I noticed that he’d put a
blue pencil mark round one of the agony advertisements on the front
page, and I was wondering what it was all about. I kept a copy of that
day’s _Morning Telegram_: I’ve got it now.”
He went into the little parlour at the back of the shop and returned
with a dingy newspaper, which he laid on the counter.
“There are six there, but I don’t know which one it was.”
Michael examined the agony advertisements. There was one frantic message
from a mother to her son, asking him to return and saying that “all
would be forgiven.” There was a cryptogram message, which he had not
time to decipher. A third, which was obviously the notice of an
assignation. The fourth was a thinly veiled advertisement for a new
hair-waver, and at the fifth he stopped. It ran:
“Troubled. Final directions at address I
gave you. Courage. Benefactor.”
“Some ‘benefactor,’” said Mike Brixan. “What was he like—the man who
called? Was he worried?”
“Yes, sir: he looked upset—all distracted like. He seemed like a chap
who’d lost his head.”
“That seems a fair description,” said Mike.
CHAPTER IV
THE LEADING LADY
IN the studio of the Knebworth Picture Corporation the company had been
waiting in its street clothes for the greater part of an hour.
Jack Knebworth sat in his conventional attitude, huddled up in his
canvas chair, fingering his long chin and glaring from time to time at
the clock above the studio manager’s office.
It was eleven when Stella Mendoza flounced in, bringing with her the
fragrance of wood violets and a small, unhappy Peke.
“Do you work to summer-time?” asked Knebworth slowly. “Or maybe you
thought the call was for afternoon? You’ve kept fifty people waiting,
Stella.”
“I can’t help their troubles,” she said with a shrug of shoulder. “You
told me you were going on location, and naturally I didn’t expect there
would be any hurry. I had to pack my things.”
“Naturally you didn’t think there was any hurry!”
Jack Knebworth reckoned to have three fights a year. This was the third.
The first had been with Stella, and the second had been with Stella, and
the third was certainly to be with Stella.
“I wanted you to be here at ten. I’ve had these boys and girls waiting
since a quarter of ten.”
“What do you want to shoot?” she asked with an impatient jerk of her
head.
“You mostly,” said Jack slowly. “Get into No. 9 outfit and don’t forget
to leave your pearl ear-rings off. You’re supposed to be a half-starved
chorus girl. We’re shooting at Griff Towers, and I told the gentleman
who lent us the use of the house that I’d be through the day work by
three. If you were Pauline Frederick or Norma Talmadge or Lillie Gish,
you’d be worth waiting for, but Stella Mendoza has got to be on this lot
by ten—and don’t forget it!”
Old Jack Knebworth got up from his canvas chair and began to put on his
coat with ominous deliberation, the flushed and angry girl watching him,
her dark eyes blazing with injured pride and hurt vanity.
Stella had once been plain Maggie Stubbs, the daughter of a Midland
grocer, and old Jack had talked to her as if she were still Maggie
Stubbs and not the great film star of coruscating brilliance, idol (or
her press agent lied) of the screen fans of all the world.
“All right, if you want a fuss you can have it, Knebworth. I’m going to
quit—now! I think I know what is due to my position. That part’s got to
be rewritten to give me a chance of putting my personality over. There’s
too much leading man in it, anyway. People don’t pay real money to see
men. You don’t treat me fair, Knebworth: I’m temperamental, I admit it.
You can’t expect a woman of my kind to be a block of wood.”
“The only thing about you that’s a block of wood is your head, Stella,”
grunted the producer, and went on, oblivious to the rising fury
expressed in the girl’s face. “You’ve had two years playing small parts
in Hollywood, and you’ve brought nothing back to England but a line of
fresh talk, and you could have gotten that out of the Sunday
supplements! Temperament! That’s a word that means doctors’ certificates
when a picture’s half taken, and a long rest unless your salary’s put up
fifty per cent. Thank God this picture isn’t a quarter taken or an
eighth. Quit, you mean-spirited guttersnipe—and quit as soon as you
darn please!”
Boiling with rage, her lips quivering so that she could not articulate,
the girl turned and flung out of the studio.
White-haired Jack Knebworth glared round at the silent company.
“This is where the miracle happens,” he said sardonically. “This is
where the extra girl who’s left a sick mother and a mortgage at home
leaps to fame in a night. If you don’t know that kinder thing happens on
every lot in Hollywood you’re no students of fiction. Stand forth, Mary
Pickford the second!”
The extras smiled, some amused, some uncomfortable, but none spoke.
Adele was frozen stiff, incapable of speech.
“Modesty don’t belong to this industry,” old Jack sneered amiably. “Who
thinks she can play ‘Roselle’ in this piece—because an extra’s going to
play the part, believe me! I’m going to show this pseudo-actress that
there isn’t an extra on this lot that couldn’t play her head off.
Somebody talked about playing a part yesterday—you!”
His forefinger pointed to Adele, and with a heart that beat tumultuously
she went toward him.
“I had a camera test of you six months ago,” said Jack suspiciously.
“There was something wrong with her: what was it?”
He turned to his assistant. That young man scratched his head in an
effort of memory.
“Ankles?” he hazarded a guess at random—a safe guess, for Knebworth had
views about ankles.
“Nothing wrong with them—get out the print and let us see it.”
Ten minutes later, Adele sat by the old man’s side in the little
projection room and saw her “test” run through.
“Hair!” said Knebworth triumphantly. “I knew there was something. Don’t
like bobbed hair. Makes a girl too pert and sophisticated. You’ve grown
it?” he added as the lights were switched on.
“Yes, Mr. Knebworth.”
He looked at her in dispassionate admiration.
“You’ll do,” he said reluctantly. “See the wardrobe and get Miss
Mendoza’s costumes. There’s one thing I’d like to tell you before you
go,” he said, stopping her. “You may be good and you may be bad, but,
good or bad, there’s no future for you—so don’t get heated up. The only
woman who’s got any chance in England is the producer’s wife, and I’ll
never marry you if you go down on your knees to me! That’s the only kind
of star they know in English films—the producer’s wife; and unless
you’re that, you haven’t——!”
He snapped his finger.
“I’ll give you a word of advice, kid. If you make good in this picture,
link yourself up with one of those cute English directors that set three
flats and a pot of palms and call it a drawing-room! Give Miss
What’s-her-name the script, Harry. Say—go out somewhere quiet and study
it, will you? Harry, you see the wardrobe. I give you half an hour to
read that script!”
Like one in a dream, the girl walked out into the shady garden that ran
the length of the studio building, and sat down, trying to concentrate
on the typewritten lines. It wasn’t true—it could not be true! And then
she heard the crunch of feet on gravel and looked up in alarm. It was
the young man who had seen her that morning—Michael Brixan.
“Oh, please—you mustn’t interrupt me!” she begged in agitation. “I’ve
got a part—a big part to read.”
Her distress was so real that he hastened to take his departure.
“I’m awfully sorry——” he began.
In her confusion she had dropped the loose sheets of the manuscript,
and, stooping with her to pick them up, their heads bumped.
“Sorry—that’s an old comedy situation, isn’t it?” he began.
And then he saw the sheet of paper in his hand and began to read. It was
a page of elaborate description of a scene.
“The cell is large, lighted by a swinging lamp. In centre is a
steel gate through which a soldier on guard is seen pacing to
and fro——”
“Good God!” said Michael, and went white.
The “u’s” in the type were blurred, the “g” was indistinct. The page had
been typed on the machine from which the Head-Hunter sent forth his
gruesome tales of death.
CHAPTER V
MR. LAWLEY FOSS
“WHAT is wrong?” asked Adele, seeing the young man’s grave face.
“Where did this come from?”
He showed her the sheet of typewritten script.
“I don’t know: it was with the other sheets. I knew, of course, that it
didn’t belong to ‘Roselle.’”
“Is that the play you’re acting in?” he asked quickly. And then: “Who
would know?”
“Mr. Knebworth.”
“Where shall I find him?”
“You go through that door,” she said, “and you will find him on the
studio floor.”
Without a word, he walked quickly into the building. Instinctively he
knew which of the party was the man he sought. Jack Knebworth looked up
under lowering brows at the sight of the stranger, for he was a stickler
for privacy in business hours; but before he could demand an
explanation, Michael was up to him.
“Are you Mr. Knebworth?”
Jack nodded.
“I surely am,” he said.
“May I speak to you for two minutes?”
“I can’t speak to anybody for one minute,” growled Jack. “Who are you,
anyway, and who let you in?”
“I am a detective from the Foreign Office,” said Michael, lowering his
voice, and Jack’s manner changed.
“Anything wrong?” he asked, as he accompanied the detective into his
sanctum.
Jack laid down the sheet of paper with its typed characters on the
table.
“Who wrote that?” he asked.
Jack Knebworth looked at the manuscript and shook his head.
“I’ve never seen it before. What is it all about?”
“You’ve never seen this manuscript at all?”
“No, I’ll swear to that, but I dare say my scenario man will know all
about it. I’ll send for him.”
He touched a bell, and, to the clerk who came:
“Ask Mr. Lawley Foss to come quickly,” he said.
“The reading of books, plots and material for picture plays is entirely
in the hands of my scenario manager,” he said. “I never see a manuscript
until he considers it’s worth producing; and even then, of course, the
picture isn’t always made. If the story happens to be a bad one, I don’t
see it at all. I’m not so sure that I haven’t lost some good stories,
because Foss”—he hesitated a second—“well, he and I don’t see exactly
eye to eye. Now, Mr. Brixan, what is the trouble?”
In a few words Michael explained the grave significance of the
typewritten sheet.
“The Head-Hunter!” Jack whistled.
There came a knock at the door, and Lawley Foss slipped into the room.
He was a thinnish man, dark and saturnine of face, shifty of eye. His
face was heavily lined as though he suffered from some chronic disease.
But the real disease which preyed on Lawley Foss was the bitterness of
mind that comes to a man at war with the world. There had been a time in
his early life when he thought that same world was at his feet. He had
written two plays that had been produced and had run a few nights.
Thereafter, he had trudged from theatre to theatre in vain, for the
taint of failure was on him, and no manager would so much as open the
brown-covered manuscripts he brought to them. Like many another man, he
had sought easy ways to wealth, but the Stock Exchange and the race
track had impoverished him still further.
He glanced suspiciously at Michael as he entered.
“I want to see you, Foss, about a sheet of script that’s got amongst the
‘Roselle’ script,” said Jack Knebworth. “May I tell Mr. Foss what you
have told me?”
Michael hesitated for a second. Some cautioning voice warned him to keep
the question of the Head-Hunter a secret. Against his better judgment he
nodded.
Lawley Foss listened with an expressionless face whilst the old director
explained the significance of the interpolated sheet, then he took the
page from Jack Knebworth’s hand and examined it. Not by a twitch of his
face or a droop of his eyelid did he betray his thoughts.
“I get a lot of stuff in,” he said, “and I can’t immediately place this
particular play; but if you’ll let me take it to my office, I will look
up my books.”
Again Michael considered. He did not wish that piece of evidence to pass
out of his hands; and yet without confirmation and examination, it was
fairly valueless. He reluctantly agreed.
“What do you make of that fellow?” asked Jack Knebworth when the door
had closed upon the writer.
“I don’t like him,” said Michael bluntly. “In fact, my first impressions
are distinctly unfavourable, though I am probably doing the poor
gentleman a very great injustice.”
Jack Knebworth sighed. Foss was one of his biggest troubles, sometimes
bulking larger than the temperamental Mendoza.
“He certainly is a queer chap,” he said, “though he’s diabolically
clever. I never knew a man who could take a plot and twist it as Lawley
Foss can—but he’s—difficult.”
“I should imagine so,” said Michael dryly.
They passed out into the studio, and Michael sought the troubled girl to
explain his crudeness. There were tears of vexation in her eyes when he
approached her, for his startling disappearance with a page of the
script had put all thoughts of the play from her mind.
“I am sorry,” he said penitently. “I almost wish I hadn’t come.”
“And I quite wish it,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. “What was
the matter with that page you took—you _are_ a detective, aren’t you?”
“I admit it,” said Michael recklessly.
“Did you speak the truth when you said that my uncle——” she stopped,
at a loss for words.
“No, I did not,” replied Michael quietly. “You uncle is dead, Miss
Leamington.”
“Dead!” she gasped.
He nodded.
“He was murdered, in extraordinary circumstances.”
Suddenly her face went white.
“He wasn’t the man whose head was found at Esher?”
“How did you know?” he asked sharply.
“It was in this morning’s newspaper,” she said, and inwardly he cursed
the sleuth-hound of a reporter who had got on to the track of this
latest tragedy.
She had to know sooner or later: he satisfied himself with that thought.
The return of Foss relieved him of further explanations. The man spoke
for a while with Jack Knebworth in a low voice, and then the director
beckoned Michael across.
“Foss can’t trace this manuscript,” he said, handing back the sheet. “It
may have been a sample page sent in by a contributor, or it may have
been a legacy from our predecessors. I took over a whole lot of
manuscript with the studio from a bankrupt production company.”
He looked impatiently at his watch.
“Now, Mr. Brixan, if it’s possible I should be glad if you would excuse
me. I’ve got some scenes to shoot ten miles away, with a leading lady
from whose little head you’ve scared every idea that will be of the
slightest value to me.”
Michael acted upon an impulse.
“Would you mind my coming out with you to shoot—that means to
photograph, doesn’t it? I promise you I won’t be in the way.”
Old Jack nodded curtly, and ten minutes later Michael Brixan was sitting
side by side with the girl in a char-à-banc which was carrying them to
the location. That he should be riding with the artistes at all was a
tribute to his nerve rather than to his modesty.
CHAPTER VI
THE MASTER OF GRIFF
ADELE did not speak to him for a long time. Resentment that he should
force his company upon her, and nervousness at the coming ordeal—a
nervousness which became sheer panic as they grew nearer and nearer to
their destination—made conversation impossible.
“I see your Mr. Lawley Foss is with us,” said Michael, glancing over his
shoulder, and by way of making conversation.
“He always goes on location,” she said shortly. “A story has sometimes
to be amended while it’s being shot.”
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“Griff Towers first,” she replied. She found it difficult to be uncivil
to anybody. “It is a big place owned by Sir Gregory Penne.”
“But I thought we were going to the Dower House?”
She looked at him with a little frown.
“Why did you ask if you knew?” she demanded, almost in a tone of
asperity.
“Because I like to hear you speak,” said the young man calmly. “Sir
Gregory Penne? I seem to know the name.”
She did not answer.
“He was in Borneo for many years, wasn’t he?”
“He’s hateful,” she said vehemently. “I detest him!”
She did not explain the cause of her detestation, and Michael thought it
discreet not to press the question, but presently she relieved him of
responsibility.
“I’ve been to his house twice. He has a very fine garden, which Mr.
Knebworth has used before—of course, I only went as an extra and was
very much in the background. I wish I had been more so. He has queer
ideas about women, and especially actresses—not that I’m an actress,”
she added hastily, “but I mean people who play for a living. Thank
heaven there’s only one scene to be shot at Griff, and perhaps he will
not be at home, but that’s unlikely. He’s always there when I go.”
Michael glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. His first
impression of her beauty was more than confirmed. There was a certain
wistfulness in her face which was very appealing; an honesty in the dark
eyes that told him all he wanted to know about her attitude toward the
admiration of the unknown Sir Gregory.
“It’s queer how all baronets are villains in stories,” he said, “and
queerer still that most of the baronets I’ve known have been men of
singular morals. I’m bothering you, being here, aren’t I?” he asked,
dropping his tone of banter.
She looked round at him.
“You are a little,” she said frankly. “You see, Mr. Brixan, this is my
big chance. It’s a chance that really never comes to an extra except in
stories, and I’m frightened to death of what is going to happen. You
make me nervous, but what makes me more panic-stricken is that the first
scene is to be shot at Griff. I hate it, I hate it!” she said almost
savagely. “That big, hard-looking house, with its hideous stuffed tigers
and its awful looking swords——”
“Swords?” he asked quickly. “What do you mean?”
“The walls are covered with them—Eastern swords. They make me shiver to
see them. But Sir Gregory takes a delight in them: he told Mr.
Knebworth, the last time we were there, that the swords were as sharp
now as they were when they came from the hands of their makers, and some
of them were three hundred years old. He’s an extraordinary man: he can
cut an apple in half on your hand and never so much as scratch you. That
is one of his favourite stunts—do you know what ‘stunt’ means?”
“I seem to have heard the expression,” said Michael absently.
“There is the house,” she pointed. “Ugh! It makes me shiver.”
Griff Towers was one of those bleak looking buildings that it had been
the delight of the early Victorian architects to erect. Its one grey
tower, placed on the left wing, gave it a lopsided appearance, but even
this distortion did not distract attention from its rectangular
unloveliness. The place seemed all the more bare, since the walls were
innocent of greenery, and it stood starkly in the midst of a yellow
expanse of gravel.
“Looks almost like a barracks,” said Michael, “with a parade ground in
front!”
They passed through the lodge gates, and the char-à-banc stopped
half-way up the drive. The gardens apparently were in the rear of the
building, and certainly there was nothing that would attract the most
careless of directors in its uninteresting façade.
Michael got down from his seat and found Jack Knebworth already
superintending the unloading of a camera and reflectors. Behind the
char-à-banc came the big dynamo lorry, with three sun arcs that were to
enhance the value of daylight.
“Oh, you’re here, are you?” growled Jack. “Now you’ll oblige me, Mr.
Brixan, by not getting in the way? I’ve got a hard morning’s work ahead
of me.”
“I want you to take me on as a—what is the word?—extra,” said Michael.
The old man frowned at him.
“Say, what’s the great idea?” he asked suspiciously.
“I have an excellent reason, and I promise you that nothing I do will in
any way embarrass you. The truth is, Mr. Knebworth, I want to be around
for the remainder of the day, and I need an excuse.”
Jack Knebworth bit his lip, scratched his long chin, scowled, and then:
“All right,” he said gruffly. “Maybe you’ll come in handy, though I’ll
have quite enough bother directing one amateur, and if you get into the
pictures on this trip you’re going to be lucky!”
There was a man of the party, a tall young man whose hair was brushed
back from his forehead, and was so tidy and well arranged that it seemed
as if it had originally been stuck by glue and varnished over. A tall,
somewhat good-looking boy, who had sat on Adele’s left throughout the
journey and had not spoken once, he raised his eyebrows at the
appearance of Michael, and, strolling across to the harassed Knebworth,
his hands in his pockets, he asked with a hurt air:
“I say, Mr. Knebworth, who is this johnny?”
“Which johnny?” growled old Jack. “You mean Brixan? He’s an extra.”
“Oh, an extra, is he?” said the young man. “I say, it’s pretty
desperately awful when extras hobnob with principals! And this
Leamington girl—she’s simply going to mess up the pictures, she is, by
Jove!”
“Is she, by Jove?” snarled Knebworth. “Now see here, Mr. Connolly, I
ain’t so much in love with your work that I’m willing to admit in
advance that even an extra is going to mess up this picture.”
“I’ve never played opposite to an extra in my life, dash it all!”
“Then you must have felt lonely,” grunted Jack, busy with his unpacking.
“Now, Mendoza is an artiste——” began the youthful leading man, and
Jack Knebworth straightened his back.
“Get over there till you’re wanted, you!” he roared. “When I need advice
from pretty boys, I’ll come to you—see? For the moment you’re _de
trop_, which is a French expression meaning that you’re standing on
ground there’s a better use for.”
The disgruntled Reggie Connolly strolled away with a shrug of his thin
shoulders, which indicated not only his conviction that the picture
would fail, but that the responsibility was everywhere but under his
hat.
From the big doorway of Griff Towers, Sir Gregory Penne was watching the
assembly of the company. He was a thick-set man, and the sun of Borneo
and an unrestricted appetite had dyed his skin a colour which was
between purple and brown. His face was covered with innumerable ridges,
his eyes looked forth upon the world through two narrow slits. The
rounded feminine chin seemed to be the only part of his face that
sunshine and stronger stimulants had left in its natural condition.
Michael watched him as he strolled down the slope to where they were
standing, guessing his identity. He wore a golf suit of a loud check in
which red predominated, and a big cap of the same material was pulled
down over his eyes. Taking the stub of a cigar from his teeth, with a
quick and characteristic gesture he wiped his scanty moustache on his
knuckles.
“Good morning, Knebworth,” he called.
His voice was harsh and cruel; a voice that had never been mellowed by
laughter or made soft by the tendernesses of humanity.
“Good morning, Sir Gregory.”
Old Knebworth disentangled himself from his company.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Don’t apologize,” said the other. “Only I thought you were going to
shoot earlier. Brought my little girl, eh?”
“Your little girl?” Jack looked at him, frankly nonplussed. “You mean
Mendoza? No, she’s not coming.”
“I don’t mean Mendoza, if that’s the dark girl. Never mind: I was only
joking.”
Who the blazes was his little girl, thought Jack, who was ignorant of
two unhappy experiences which an unconsidered extra girl had had on
previous visits. The mystery, however, was soon cleared up, for the
baronet walked slowly to where Adele Leamington was making a pretence of
studying her script.
“Good morning, little lady,” he said, lifting his cap an eighth of an
inch from his head.
“Good morning, Sir Gregory,” she said coldly.
“You didn’t keep your promise.” He shook his head waggishly. “Oh, woman,
woman!”
“I don’t remember having made a promise,” said the girl quietly. “You
asked me to come to dinner with you, and I told you that that was
impossible.”
“I promised to send my car for you. Don’t say it was too far away. Never
mind, never mind.” And, to Michael’s wrath, he squeezed the girl’s arm
in a manner which was intended to be paternal, but which filled the girl
with indignant loathing.
She wrenched her arm free, and, turning her back upon her tormentor,
almost flew to Jack Knebworth with an incoherent demand for information
on the reading of a line which was perfectly simple.
Old Jack was no fool. He watched the play from under his eyelids,
recognizing all the symptoms.
“This is the last time we shall shoot at Griff Towers,” he told himself.
For Jack Knebworth was something of a stickler on behaviour, and had
views on women which were diametrically opposite to those held by Sir
Gregory Penne.
CHAPTER VII
THE SWORDS AND BHAG
THE little party moved away, leaving Michael alone with the baronet. For
a period, Gregory Penne watched the girl, his eyes glittering; then he
became aware of Michael’s presence and turned a cold, insolent stare
upon the other.
“What are you?” he asked, looking the detective up and down.
“I’m an extra,” said Michael.
“An extra, eh? Sort of chorus boy? Put paint and powder on your face and
all that sort of thing? What a life for a man!”
“There are worse,” said Michael, holding his antagonism in check.
“Do you know that little girl—what’s her name, Leamington?” asked the
baronet suddenly.
“I know her extremely well,” said Michael untruthfully.
“Oh, you do, eh?” said the master of Griff Towers with sudden
amiability. “She’s a nice little thing. Quite a cut above the ordinary
chorus girl. You might bring her along to dinner one night. She’d come
with you, eh?”
The contortions of the puffy eyelids suggested to Michael that the man
had winked. There was something about this gross figure that interested
the scientist in Michael Brixan. He was elemental; an animal invested
with a brain; and yet he must be something more than that if he had held
a high administrative position under Government.
“Are you acting? If you’re not, you can come up and have a look at my
swords,” said the man suddenly.
Michael guessed that, for a reason of his own, probably because of his
claim to be Adele’s friend, the man wished to cultivate the
acquaintance.
“No, I’m not acting,” replied Michael.
And no invitation could have given him greater pleasure. Did their owner
realize the fact, Michael Brixan had already made up his mind not to
leave Griff Towers until he had inspected that peculiar collection.
“Yes, she’s a nice little girl.”
Penne returned to the subject immediately as they paced up the slope
toward the house.
“As I say, a cut above chorus girls. Young, unsophisticated, virginal!
You can have your sophisticated girls: there is no mystery to ’em! They
revolt me. A girl should be like a spring flower. Give me the violet and
the snowdrop: you can have a bushel of cabbage roses for one petal of
the shy dears of the forest.”
Michael listened with a keen sense of nausea, and yet with an unusual
interest, as the man rambled on. He said things which were sickening,
monstrous. There were moments when Brixan found it difficult to keep his
hands off the obscene figure that paced at his side; and only by
adopting toward him the attitude with which the enthusiastic naturalist
employs in his dealings with snakes, was he able to get a grip of
himself.
The big entrance hall into which he was ushered was paved with earthen
tiles, and, looking up at the stone walls, Michael had his first glimpse
of the famous swords.
There were hundreds of them—poniards, scimitars, ancient swords of
Japan, basket-hilted hangers, two-handed swords that had felt the grip
of long-dead Crusaders.
“What do you think of ’em, eh?” Sir Gregory Penne spoke with the pride
of an enthusiastic collector. “There isn’t one of them that could be
duplicated, my boy; and they’re only the rag, tag and bobtail of my
collection.”
He led his visitor along a broad corridor, lighted by square windows set
at intervals, and here again the walls were covered with shining
weapons. Throwing open a door, Sir Gregory ushered the other into a
large room which was evidently his library, though the books were few,
and, so far as Michael could see at first glance, the conventional
volumes that are to be found in the houses of the country gentry.
Over the mantelshelf were two great swords of a pattern which Michael
did not remember having seen before.
“What do you think of those?”
Penne lifted one from the silver hook which supported it, and drew it
from its scabbard.
“Don’t feel the edge unless you want to cut yourself. This would split a
hair, but it would also cut you in two, and you would never know what
had happened till you fell apart!”
Suddenly his manner changed, and he almost snatched the sword from
Michael’s hand, and, putting it back in its sheath, he hung it up.
“That is a Sumatran sword, isn’t it?”
“It comes from Borneo,” said the baronet shortly.
“The home of the head-hunters.”
Sir Gregory looked round, his brows lowered.
“No,” he said, “it comes from Dutch Borneo.”
Evidently there was something about this weapon which aroused unpleasant
memories. He glowered for a long time in silence into the little fire
that was burning on the hearth.
“I killed the man who owned that,” he said at last, and it struck
Michael that he was speaking more to himself than to his visitor. “At
least, I hope I killed him. I hope so!”
He glanced round, and Michael Brixan could have sworn there was
apprehension in his eyes.
“Sit down, What’s-your-name,” he commanded, pointing to a low settee.
“We’ll have a drink.”
He pushed a bell, and, to Michael’s astonishment, the summons was
answered by an under-sized native, a little copper-coloured man, naked
to the waist. Gregory gave an order in a language which was
unintelligible to Michael—he guessed, by its sibilants, it was
Malayan—and the servant, with a quick salaam, disappeared, and came
back almost instantly with a tray containing a large decanter and two
thin glasses.
“I have no white servants—can’t stand ’em,” said Penne, taking the
contents of his glass at a gulp. “I like servants who don’t steal and
don’t gossip. You can lick ’em if they misbehave, and there’s no
trouble. I got this fellow last year in Sumatra, and he’s the best
butler I’ve had.”
“Do you go to Borneo every year?” asked Michael.
“I go almost every year,” said the other. “I’ve got a yacht: she’s lying
at Southampton now. If I didn’t get out of this cursed country once a
year, I’d go mad. There’s nothing here, nothing! Have you ever met that
dithering old fool, Longvale? Knebworth said you were going on to
him—pompous old ass, who lives in the past and dresses like an
advertisement for somebody’s whisky. Have another?”
“I haven’t finished this yet,” said Michael with a smile, and his eyes
went up to the sword above the mantelpiece. “Have you had that very
long? It looks modern.”
“It isn’t,” snapped the other. “Modern! It’s three hundred years old if
it’s a day. I’ve only had it a year.” Again he changed the subject
abruptly. “I like you, What’s-your-name. I like people or I dislike them
instantly. You’re the sort of fellow who’d do well in the East. I’ve
made two millions there. The East is full of wonder, full of
unbelievable things.” He screwed his head round and fixed Michael with a
glittering eye. “Full of good servants,” he said slowly. “Would you like
to meet the perfect servant?”
There was something peculiar in his tone, and Michael nodded.
“Would you like to see the slave who never asks questions and never
disobeys, who has no love but love of me”—he thumped himself on the
chest—“no hate but for the people I hate—my trusty—Bhag?”
He rose, and, crossing to his table, turned a little switch that Michael
had noticed attached to the side of the desk. As he did so, a part of
the panelled wall at the farther end of the room swung open. For a
second Michael saw nothing, and then there emerged, blinking into the
daylight, a most sinister, a most terrifying figure. And Michael Brixan
had need for all his self-control to check the exclamation that rose to
his lips.
CHAPTER VIII
BHAG
IT was a great orang-outang. Crouched as it was, gazing malignantly upon
the visitor with its bead-like eyes, it stood over six feet in height.
The hairy chest was enormous; the arms that almost touched the floor
were as thick as an average man’s thigh. It wore, a pair of workman’s
dark blue overalls, held in place by two straps that crossed the broad
shoulders.
“Bhag!” called Sir Gregory in a voice so soft that Michael could not
believe it was the man’s own. “Come here.”
The gigantic figure waddled across the room to where they stood before
the fireplace.
“This is a friend of mine, Bhag.”
The great ape held out his hand, and for a second Michael’s was held in
its velvet palm. This done, he lifted his paw to his nose and sniffed
loudly, the only sound he made.
“Get me some cigars,” said Penne.
Immediately the ape walked to a cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and
brought out a box.
“Not those,” said Gregory. “The small ones.”
He spoke distinctly, as if he were articulating to somebody who was
deaf, and, without a moment’s hesitation, the hideous Bhag replaced the
box and brought out another.
“Pour me out a whisky and soda.”
The ape obeyed. He did not spill a drop, and when his owner said
“Enough,” replaced the stopper in the decanter and put it back.
“Thank you, that will do, Bhag.”
Without a sound the ape waddled back to the open panelling and
disappeared, and the door closed behind him.
“Why, the thing is human,” said Michael in an awe-stricken whisper.
Sir Gregory Penne chuckled.
“More than human,” he said. “Bhag is my shield against all trouble.”
His eyes seemed to go instantly to the sword above the mantelpiece.
“Where does he live?”
“He’s got a little apartment of his own, and he keeps it clean. He feeds
with the servants.”
“Good Lord!” gasped Michael, and the other chuckled again at the
surprise he had aroused.
“Yes, he feeds with the servants. They’re afraid of him, but they
worship him: he’s a sort of god to them, but they’re afraid of him. Do
you know what would have happened if I’d said ‘This man is my enemy?’”
He pointed his stubby finger at Michael’s chest. “He would have torn you
limb from limb. You wouldn’t have had a chance, Mr. What’s-your-name,
not a dog’s chance. And yet he can be gentle—yes, he can be gentle.” He
nodded. “And cunning! He goes out almost every night, and I’ve had no
complaints from the villagers. No sheep stolen, nobody frightened. He
just goes out and loafs around in the woods, and doesn’t kill as much as
a hen partridge.”
“How long have you had him?”
“Eight or nine years,” said the baronet carelessly, swallowing the
whisky that the ape had poured for him. “Now let’s go out and see the
actors and actresses. She’s a nice girl, eh? You’re not forgetting
you’re going to bring her to dinner, are you? What is your name?”
“Brixan,” said Michael. “Michael Brixan.”
Sir Gregory grunted something.
“I’ll remember that—Brixan. I ought to have told Bhag. He likes to
know.”
“Would he have known me again, suppose you had?” asked Michael, smiling.
“Known you?” said the baronet contemptuously. “He will not only know
you, but he’ll be able to trail you down. Notice him smelling his hand?
He was filing you for reference, my boy. If I told him ‘Go along and
take this message to Brixan,’ he’d find you.”
When they reached the lovely gardens at the back of the house, the first
scene had been shot, and there was a smile on Jack Knebworth’s face
which suggested that Adele’s misgivings had not been justified. And so
it proved.
“That girl’s a peach,” Jack unbent to say. “A natural born actress,
built for this scene—it’s almost too good to be true. What do you
want?”
It was Mr. Reggie Connolly, and he had the obsession which is perpetual
in every leading man. He felt that sufficient opportunities had not been
offered to him.
“I say, Mr. Knebworth,” he said in a grieved tone, “I’m not getting much
of the fat in this story! So far, there’s about thirty feet of me in
this picture. I say, that’s not right, you know! If a johnny is being
featured——”
“You’re not being featured,” said Jack shortly. “And Mendoza’s chief
complaint was that there was too much of you in it.”
Michael looked round. Sir Gregory Penne had strolled toward where the
girl was standing, and, in her state of elation, she had no room in her
heart even for resentment against the man she so cordially detested.
“Little girl, I want to speak to you before you go,” he said, dropping
his voice, and for once she smiled at him.
“Well, you have a good opportunity now, Sir Gregory,” she said.
“I want to tell you how sorry I am for what happened the other day, and
I respect you for what you said, for a girl’s entitled to keep her
kisses for men she likes. Aren’t I right?”
“Of course you’re right,” she said. “Please don’t think any more about
it, Sir Gregory.”
“I’d no right to kiss you against your will, especially when you’re in
my house. Are you going to forgive me?”
“I do forgive you,” she said, and would have left him, but he caught her
arm.
“You’re coming to dinner, aren’t you?” He jerked his head toward the
watchful Michael. “Your friend said he’d bring you along.”
“Which friend?” she asked, her eyebrows raised. “You mean Mr. Brixan?”
“That’s the fellow. Why do you make friends with that kind of man? Not
that he isn’t a decent fellow. I like him personally. Will you come
along to dinner?”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” she said, her old aversion gaining ground.
“Little girl,” he said earnestly, “there’s nothing you couldn’t have
from me. Why do you want to trouble your pretty head about this cheap
play acting? I’ll give you a company of your own if you want it, and the
best car that money can buy.”
His eyes were like points of fire, and she shivered.
“I have all I want, Sir Gregory,” she said.
She was furious with Michael Brixan. How dared he presume to accept an
invitation on her behalf? How dare he call himself her friend? Her anger
almost smothered her dislike for her persecutor.
“You come over to-night—let him bring you,” said Penne huskily. “I want
you to-night—do you hear? You’re staying at old Longvale’s. You can
easily slip out.”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind. I don’t think you know what you’re asking,
Sir Gregory,” she said quietly. “Whatever you mean, it is an insult to
me.”
Turning abruptly, she left him. Michael would have spoken to her, but
she passed, her head in the air, a look on her face which dismayed him,
though, after a moment’s consideration, he could guess the cause.
When the various apparatus was packed, and the company had taken their
seats in the char-à-banc, Michael observed that she had very carefully
placed herself between Jack Knebworth and the sulking leading man, and
wisely himself chose a seat some distance from her.
The car was about to start when Sir Gregory came up to him, and,
stepping on the running-board:
“You said you’d get her over——” he began.
“If I said that,” said Michael, “I must have been drunk, and it takes
more than one glass of whisky to reduce me to that disgusting condition.
Miss Leamington is a free agent, and she would be singularly ill-advised
to dine alone with you or any other man.”
He expected an angry outburst, but, to his surprise, the squat man only
laughed and waved him a pleasant farewell. Looking round as the car
turned from the lodge gates, Michael saw him standing on the lawn,
talking to a man, and recognized Foss, who, for some reason, had stayed
behind.
And then his eyes strayed past the two men to the window of the library,
where the monstrous Bhag sat in his darkened room, waiting for
instructions which he would carry into effect without reason or pity.
Michael Brixan, hardened as he was to danger of every variety, found
himself shuddering.
CHAPTER IX
THE ANCESTOR
THE Dower House was away from the main road. A sprawling mass of low
buildings, it stood behind untidy hedges and crumbling walls. Once the
place had enjoyed the services of a lodge-keeper, but the tiny lodge was
deserted, the windows broken, and there were gaps in the tiled roof. The
gates had not been closed for generations; they were broken, and leant
crazily against the walls to which they had been thrust by the last
person who had employed them to guard the entrance to the Dower House.
What had once been a fair lawn was now a tangle of weeds. Thistle and
mayweed grew knee-deep where the gallants of old had played their bowls;
and it was clear to Michael, from his one glance, that only a portion of
the house was used. In only one of the wings were the windows whole; the
others were broken or so grimed with dirt, that they appeared to have
been painted.
His amusement blended with curiosity, Michael saw for the first time the
picturesque Mr. Sampson Longvale. He came out to meet them, his bald
head glistening in the afternoon sunlight, his strapped fawn-coloured
trousers, velvet waistcoat and old-fashioned stock completely supporting
Gregory Penne’s description of him.
“Delighted to see you, Mr. Knebworth. I’ve a very poor house, but I
offer you a very rich welcome! I have had tea served in my little
dining-room. Will you please introduce me to the members of your
company?”
The courtesy, the old-world spirit of dignity, were very charming, and
Michael felt a warm glow toward this fine old man who brought to this
modern atmosphere the love and the fragrance of a past age.
“I should like to shoot a scene before we lose the light, Mr. Longvale,”
said Knebworth, “so, if you don’t mind the meal being a scrambling one,
I can give the company a quarter of an hour.” He looked round. “Where is
Foss?” he asked. “I want to change a scene.”
“Mr. Foss said he was walking from Griff Towers,” said one of the
company. “He stopped behind to speak to Sir Gregory.”
Jack Knebworth cursed his dilatory scenario man with vigour and
originality.
“I hope he hasn’t stopped to borrow money,” he said savagely. “That
fellow’s going to ruin my credit if I’m not careful.”
He had overcome his objection to his new extra; possibly he felt that
there was nobody else in the party whom he could take into his
confidence without hurt to discipline.
“Is he that way inclined?”
“He’s always short of money and always trying to make it by some fool
trick which leaves him shorter than he was before. When a man gets that
kind of bug in his head he’s only a block away from prison. Are you
going to stay the night? I don’t think you’ll be able to sleep here,” he
said, changing the subject, “but I suppose you’ll be going back to
London?”
“Not to-night,” said Michael quickly. “Don’t worry about me. I
particularly do not wish to give you any trouble.”
“Come and meet the old man,” said Knebworth under his breath. “He’s a
queer old devil with the heart of a child.”
“I like what I’ve seen of him,” said Michael.
Mr. Longvale accepted the introduction all over again.
“I fear there will not be sufficient room in my dining-room for the
whole company. I have had a little table laid in my study. Perhaps you
and your friends would like to have your tea there?”
“Why, that’s very kind of you, Mr. Longvale. You have met Mr. Brixan?”
The old man smiled and nodded.
“I have met him without realizing that I’ve met him. I never remember
names—a curious failing which was shared by my great-great-uncle
Charles, with the result that he fell into extraordinary confusion when
he wrote his memoirs, and in consequence many of the incidents he
relates have been regarded as apocryphal.”
He showed them into a narrow room that ran from the front to the back of
the house. Its ceilings were supported by black rafters; the open
wainscoting, polished and worn by generations of hands, must have been
at least five hundred years old. There were no swords over this
mantelpiece, thought Michael with an inward smile. Instead, there was a
portrait of a handsome old gentleman, the dignity of whose face was
arresting. There was only one word with an adequate description: it was
majestic.
He made no comment on the picture, nor did the old man speak of it till
later. The meal was hastily disposed of, and, sitting on the wall,
Michael watched the last daylight scene shot, and was struck by the
plastic genius of the girl. He knew enough of motion pictures and their
construction to realize what it meant to the director to have in his
hands one who could so faithfully reproduce the movements and the
emotions which the old man dictated.
In other circumstances he might have thought it grotesque to see Jack
Knebworth pretending to be a young girl, resting his elderly cheek coyly
upon the back of his clasped hand, and walking with mincing steps from
one side of the picture to the other. But he knew that the American was
a mason who was cutting roughly the shape of the sculpture and leaving
it to the finer artiste to express in her personality the delicate
contours that would delight the eye of the picture-loving world. She was
no longer Adele Leamington; she was Roselle, the heiress to an estate of
which her wicked cousin was trying to deprive her. The story itself he
recognized; a half-and-half plagiarism of “The Cat and the Canary,” with
which were blended certain situations from “The Miracle Man.” He
mentioned this fact when the scene was finished.
“I guess it’s a steal,” said Jack Knebworth philosophically, “and I
didn’t inquire too closely into it. It’s Foss’s story, and I should be
pained to discover there was anything original in it.”
Mr. Foss had made a tardy reappearance, and Michael found himself
wondering what was the nature of that confidential interview which the
writer had had with Sir Gregory.
Going back to the long sitting-room, he stood watching the daylight fade
and speculating upon the one mystery within a mystery—the extraordinary
effect which Adele had produced upon him.
Mike Brixan had known many beautiful women, women in every class of
society. He had known the best and the worst, he had jailed a few, and
had watched one face a French firing squad one grey wintry morning at
Vincennes. He had liked many, nearly loved one, and it seemed,
cold-bloodedly analysing his emotions, that he was in danger of actually
loving a girl whom he had never met before that morning.
“Which is absurd,” he said aloud.
“What is absurd?” asked Knebworth, who had come into the room unnoticed.
“I also wondered what you were thinking,” smiled old Mr. Longvale, who
had been watching the young man in silence.
“I—er—well, I was thinking of the portrait.” Michael turned and
indicated the picture above the fireplace, and in a sense he spoke the
truth, for the thread of that thought had run through all others. “The
face seemed familiar,” he said, “which is absurd, because it is
obviously an old painting.”
Mr. Longvale lit two candles and carried one to the portrait. Again
Michael looked, and again the majesty of the face impressed him.
“That is my great-great-uncle, Charles Henry,” said old Mr. Longvale
with pride. “Or, as we call him affectionately in our family, the Great
Monsieur.”
Michael’s face was half-turned toward the window as the old man
spoke. . . . Suddenly the room seemed to spin before his eyes. Jack
Knebworth saw his face go white and caught him by the arm.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing,” said Michael unsteadily.
Knebworth was staring past him at the window.
“What was that?” he said.
With the exception of the illumination from the two candles and the
faint dusk light that came from the garden, the room was in darkness.
“Did you see it?” he asked, and ran to the window, staring out.
“What was it?” asked old Mr. Longvale, joining him.
“I could have sworn I saw a head in the window. Did you see it, Brixan?”
“I saw something,” said Michael unsteadily. “Do you mind if I go out
into the garden?”
“I hoped you saw it. It looked like a monkey’s head to me.”
Michael nodded. He walked down the flagged passage into the garden, and,
as he did so, slipped a Browning from his hip, pressed down the
safety-catch, and dropped the pistol into his jacket pocket.
He disappeared, and five minutes later Knebworth saw him pacing the
garden path, and went out to him.
“Did you see anything?”
“Nothing in the garden. You must have been mistaken.”
“But didn’t you see him?”
Michael hesitated.
“I thought I saw something,” he said with an assumption of carelessness.
“When are you going to shoot those night pictures of yours?”
“You saw something, Brixan—was it a face?”
Mike Brixan nodded.
CHAPTER X
THE OPEN WINDOW
THE dynamo wagon was humming as he walked down the garden path, and with
a hiss and a splutter from the arcs, the front of the cottage was
suddenly illuminated by their fierce light. Outside on the road a
motorist had pulled up to look upon the unusual spectacle.
“What is happening?” he asked curiously.
“They’re taking a picture,” said Michael.
“Oh, is that what it is? I suppose it is one of Knebworth’s outfits?”
“Where are you going?” demanded Michael suddenly. “Forgive my asking
you, but if you’re heading for Chichester you can render me a very great
service if you give me a lift.”
“Jump in,” said the man. “I’m going to Petworth, but it will not be much
out of my way to take you into the city.”
Until they came to the town he plied Michael with questions betraying
that universal inquisitiveness which picture-making invariably incites
amongst the uninitiated.
Michael got down near the market-place and made his way to the house of
a man he knew, a former master at his old school, now settled down in
Chichester, who had, amongst other possessions, an excellent library.
Declining his host’s pressing invitation to dinner, Michael stated his
needs, and the old master laughed.
“I can’t remember that you were much of a student in my days, Michael,”
he said, “but you may have the run of the library. Is it some line of
Virgil that escapes you? I may be able to save you a hunt.”
“It’s not Virgil, maestro,” smiled Michael. “Something infinitely more
full-blooded!”
He was in the library for twenty minutes, and when he emerged there was
a light of triumph in his eye.
“I’m going to use your telephone if I may,” he said, and he got London
without delay.
For ten minutes he was speaking with Scotland Yard, and, when he had
finished, he went into the dining-room where the master, who was a
bachelor, was eating his solitary dinner.
“You can render me one more service, mentor of my youth,” he said. “Have
you in this abode of peace an automatic pistol that throws a heavier
shell than this?”
And he put his own on the table. Michael knew Mr. Scott had been an
officer of the Territorial Army, and incidentally an instructor of the
Officers’ Training Corps, so that his request was not as impossible of
fulfilment as it appeared.
“Yes, I can give you a heavier one than that. What are you
shooting—elephants?”
“Something a trifle more dangerous,” said Michael.
“Curiosity was never a weakness of mine,” said the master, and went out
to return with a Browning of heavy calibre and a box of cartridges.
They spent five minutes cleaning the pistol, which had not been in use
for some time, and, with his new weapon weighing down his jacket pocket,
Mike took his leave, carrying a lighter heart and a clearer
understanding than he had enjoyed when he had arrived at the house.
He hired a car from a local garage and drove back to the Dower House,
dismissing the car just short of his destination. Jack Knebworth had not
even noticed that he had disappeared. But old Mr. Longvale, wearing a
coat with many capes, and a soft silk cap from which dangled a long
tassel, came to him almost as soon as he entered the garden.
“May I speak to you, Mr. Brixan?” he said in a low voice, and they went
into the house together. “Do you remember Mr. Knebworth was very
perturbed because he thought he saw somebody peering in at the
window—something with a monkey’s head?”
Michael nodded.
“Well, it is a most curious fact,” said the old gentleman impressively,
“that a quarter of an hour ago I happened to be walking in the far end
of my garden, and, looking across the hedge toward the field, I suddenly
saw a gigantic form rise, apparently from the ground, and move toward
these bushes”—he pointed through the window to a clump in a field on
the opposite side of the road. “He seemed to be crouching forward and
moving furtively.”
“Will you show me the place?” said Michael quickly.
He followed the other across the road to the bushes, a little clump
which was empty when they reached it. Kneeling down to make a new
skyline, Michael scanned the limited horizon, but there was no sign of
Bhag. For that it was Bhag he had no doubt. There might be nothing in
it. Penne told him that the animal was in the habit of taking nightly
strolls, and that he was perfectly harmless. Suppose . . .
The thought was absurd, fantastically absurd. And yet the animal had
been so extraordinarily human that no speculation in connection with it
was quite absurd.
When he returned to the garden, he went in search of the girl. She had
finished her scene and was watching the stealthy movements of two screen
burglars, who were creeping along the wall in the subdued light of the
arcs.
“Excuse me, Miss Leamington, I’m going to ask you an impertinent
question. Have you brought a complete change of clothes with you?”
“Why ever do you ask that?” she demanded, her eyes wide open. “Of course
I did! I always bring a complete change in case the weather breaks.”
“That’s one question. Did you lose anything when you were at Griff
Towers?”
“I lost my gloves,” she said quickly. “Did you find them?”
“No. When did you miss them?”
“I missed them immediately. I thought for a moment——” She stopped. “It
was a foolish idea, but——”
“What did you think?” he asked.
“I’d rather not tell you. It is a purely personal matter.”
“You thought that Sir Gregory had taken them as a souvenir?”
Even in the half-darkness he saw her colour come and go.
“I did think that,” she said, a little stiffly.
“Then it doesn’t matter very much—about your change of clothing,” he
said.
“Whatever are you talking about?”
She looked at him suspiciously. He guessed she thought that he had been
drinking, but the last thing in the world he wanted to do at that moment
was to explain his somewhat disjointed questions.
“Now everybody is going to bed!”
It was old Jack Knebworth talking.
“Everybody! Off you go! Mr. Foss has shown you your rooms. I want you up
at four o’clock to-morrow morning, so get as much sleep as you can.
Foss, you’ve marked the rooms?”
“Yes,” said the man. “I’ve put the names on every door. I’ve given this
young lady a room to herself—is that right?”
“I suppose it is,” said Knebworth dubiously. “Anyway, she won’t be there
long enough to get used to it.”
The girl said good night to the detective and went straight up to her
apartment. It was a tiny room, smelling somewhat musty, and was simply
furnished. A truckle bed, a chest of drawers with a swinging glass on
top, and a small table and chair was all that the apartment contained.
By the light of her candle, the floor showed signs of having been
recently scrubbed, and the centre was covered by a threadbare square of
carpet.
She locked the door, blew out the candle and, undressing in the dark,
went to the window and threw open the casement. And then, for the first
time, she saw, on the centre of one of the small panes, a circular disc
of paper. It was pasted on the outside of the window, and at first she
was about to pull it off, when she guessed that it might be some
indicator placed by Knebworth to mark an exact position that he required
for the morning picture-taking.
She did not immediately fall asleep, her mind for some curious reason,
being occupied unprofitably with a tumultuous sense of annoyance
directed towards Michael Brixan. For a long time a strong sense of
justice fought with a sense of humour equally powerful. He was a nice
man, she told herself; the sixth sense of woman had already delivered
that information, heavily underlined. He certainly had nerve. In the end
humour brought sleep. She was smiling when her eyelids closed.
She had been sleeping two hours, though it did not seem two seconds. A
sense of impending danger wakened her, and she sat up in bed, her heart
thumping wildly. She looked round the room. In the pale moonlight she
could see almost every corner, and it was empty. Was it somebody outside
the door that had wakened her? She tried the door handle: it was locked,
as she had left it. The window? It was very near to the ground, she
remembered. Stepping to the window, she pulled one casement close. She
was closing the other when, out of the darkness below, reached a great
hairy arm and a hand closed like a vice on her wrist.
She did not scream. She stood breathless, dying of terror, she felt. Her
heart ceased beating, and she was conscious of a deadly cold. What was
it? What could it be? Summoning all her courage, she looked out of the
window down into a hideous, bestial face and two round, green eyes that
stared into hers.
CHAPTER XI
THE MARK ON THE WINDOW
THE Thing was twittering at her, soft, bird-like noises, and she saw the
flash of its white teeth in the darkness. It was not pulling, it was
simply holding, one hand gripping the tendrils of the ivy up which it
had climbed, the other hand firmly about her wrist. Again it twittered
and pulled. She drew back, but she might as well have tried to draw back
from a moving piston rod. A great, hairy leg was suddenly flung over the
sill; the second hand came up and covered her face.
The sound of her scream was deadened in the hairy paw, but somebody
heard it. From the ground below came a flash of fire and the deafening
‘tang!’ of a pistol exploding. A bullet zipped and crashed amongst the
ivy, striking the brickwork, and she heard the whirr of the ricochet.
Instantly the great monkey released his hold and dropped down out of
sight. Half swooning, she dropped upon the window-sill, incapable of
movement. And then she saw a figure come out of the shadow of the laurel
bush, and instantly recognized the midnight prowler. It was Michael
Brixan.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in a low voice.
She could only shake her head, for speech was denied her.
“I didn’t hit him, did I?”
With an effort she found a husk of a voice in her dry throat.
“No, I don’t think so. He dropped.”
Michael had pulled an electric torch from his pocket and was searching
the ground.
“No sign of blood. He was rather difficult to hit—I was afraid of
hurting you, too.”
A window had been thrown up and Jack Knebworth’s voice bawled into the
night.
“What’s the shooting? Is that you, Brixan?”
“It is I. Come down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
The noise did not seem to have aroused Mr. Longvale, or, for the matter
of that, any other member of the party; and when Knebworth reached the
garden, he found no other audience than Mike Brixan.
In a few words Michael told him what he had seen.
“The monkey belongs to friend Penne,” he said. “I saw it this morning.”
“What do you think—that he was prowling round and saw the open window?”
Michael shook his head.
“No,” he said quietly, “he came with one intention and purpose, which
was to carry off your leading lady. That sounds highly dramatic and
improbable, and that is the opinion I have formed. This ape, I tell you,
is nearly human.”
“But he wouldn’t know the girl. He has never seen her.”
“He could smell her,” said Mike instantly. “She lost a pair of gloves at
the Towers to-day, and it’s any odds that they were stolen by the noble
Gregory Penne, so that he might introduce to Bhag an unfailing scent.”
“I can’t believe it; it is incredible! Though I’ll admit,” said Jack
Knebworth thoughtfully, “that these big apes do some amazing things. Did
you shoot him?”
“No, sir, I didn’t shoot him, but I can tell you this, that he’s an
animal that’s been gunned before, or he’d have come for me, in which
case he would have been now fairly dead.”
“What were you doing round here, anyway?”
“Just watching out,” said the other carelessly. “The earnest detective
has so many things on his conscience that he can’t sleep like ordinary
people. Speaking for myself, I never intended leaving the garden,
because I expected Brer Bhag. Who is that?”
The door opened, and a slim figure, wrapped in a dressing-gown, came out
into the open.
“Young lady, you’re going to catch a very fine cold,” warned Knebworth.
“What happened to you?”
“I don’t know.” She was feeling her wrist tenderly. “I heard something
and went to the window, and then this horrible thing caught hold of me.
What was it, Mr. Brixan?”
“It was nothing more alarming than a monkey,” said he with affected
unconcern. “I’m sorry you were so scared. I guess the shooting worried
you more?”
“You don’t guess anything of the kind. You know it didn’t. Oh, it was
horrible, horrible!” She covered her face with her trembling hands.
Old Jack grunted.
“I think she’s right, too. You owe something to our friend here, young
lady. Apparently he was expecting this visit and watched in the garden.”
“You expected it?” she gasped.
“Mr. Knebworth has made rather more of the part I played than can be
justified,” said Mike. “And if you think that this is a hero’s natural
modesty, you’re mistaken. I did expect this gentleman, because he’d been
seen in the fields by Mr. Longvale. And you thought you saw him
yourself, didn’t you, Knebworth?”
Jack nodded.
“In fact, we all saw him,” Mike went on, “and as I didn’t like the idea
of a coming star (if I may express that pious hope) being subjected to
the annoyance of visiting monkeys, I sat up in the garden.”
With a sudden impulsive gesture she put out her little hand, and Michael
took it.
“Thank you, Mr. Brixan,” she said. “I have been wrong about you.”
“Who isn’t?” asked Mike with an extravagant shrug.
She returned to her room, and this time she closed her window. Once,
before she went finally to sleep, she rose and, peeping through the
curtains, saw the little glowing point of the watcher’s cigar, and went
back to bed comforted, to sleep as if it were only for a few minutes
before Foss began knocking on the doors to waken the company.
The literary man himself was the first down. The garden was beginning to
show palely in the dawn light, and he bade Michael Brixan a gruff good
morning.
“Good morning to you,” said Michael. “By the way, Mr. Foss, you stayed
behind at Griff Towers yesterday to see our friend Penne?”
“That’s no business of yours,” growled the man, and would have passed
on, but Michael stood squarely in his path.
“There is one thing which is a business of mine, and that is to ask you
why that little white disc appears on Miss Leamington’s window?”
He pointed up to the white circle that the girl had seen the night
before.
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Foss with rising anger, but there
was also a note of fear in his voice.
“If you don’t know, who will? Because I saw you put it there, just
before it got dark last night.”
“Well, if you must know,” said the man, “it was to mark a vision
boundary for the camera-man.”
That sounded a plausible excuse. Michael had seen Jack Knebworth marking
out boundaries in the garden to ensure the actors being in the picture.
At the first opportunity, when Knebworth appeared he questioned him on
the subject.
“No, I gave no instructions to put up marks. Where is it?”
Michael showed him.
“I wouldn’t have a mark up there, anyway, should I? Right in the middle
of a window! What do you make of it?”
“I think Foss put it there with one object. The window was marked at
Gregory’s request.”
“But why?” asked Knebworth, staring.
“To show Bhag Adele Leamington’s room. That’s why,” said Michael, and he
was confident that his view was an accurate one.
CHAPTER XII
A CRY FROM A TOWER
MICHAEL did not wait to see the early morning scenes shot. He had
decided upon a course of action, and as soon as he conveniently could,
he made his escape from the Dower House, and, crossing a field, reached
the road which led to Griff Towers. Possessing a good eye for country,
he had duly noted the field-path which ran along the boundary of Sir
Gregory Penne’s estate, and was, he guessed, a short cut to Griff; and
ten minutes’ walk brought him to the stile where the path joined the
road. He walked quickly, his eyes on the ground, looking for some trace
of the beast; but there had been no rain, and, unless he had wounded the
animal, there was little hope that he would pick up the track.
Presently he came to the high flint wall which marked the southern end
of the baronet’s grounds, and this he followed until he came to a
postern let in the wall, a door that appeared to have been recently in
use, for it was ajar, he noted with satisfaction.
Pushing it open, he found himself in a large field which evidently
served as kitchen garden for the house. There was nobody in sight. The
grey tower looked even more forbidding and ugly in the early morning
light. No smoke came from the chimneys; Griff was a house of the dead.
Nevertheless, he proceeded cautiously, and, instead of crossing the
field, moved back into the shadow of the wall until he reached the high
boxwood fence that ran at right angles and separated the kitchen garden
from that beautiful pleasaunce which Jack Knebworth had used the
previous morning as a background for his scenes.
And all the time he kept his eyes roving, expecting at any moment to see
the hideous figure of Bhag appear from the ground. At last he reached
the end of the hedge. He was now within a few paces of the gravelled
front, and less than half a dozen yards from the high, square grey tower
which gave the house its name.
From where he stood he could see the whole front of the house. The drawn
white blinds, the general lifelessness of Griff, might have convinced a
less sceptical man than Mike Brixan that his suspicions were unfounded.
He was hesitating as to whether he should go to the house or not, when
he heard a crash of glass, and looked up in time to see fragments
falling from the topmost room of the tower. The sun had not yet risen,
the earth was still wrapped in the illusory dawn light, and the hedge
made an admirable hiding-place.
Who was breaking windows at this hour of the morning? Surely not the
careful Bhag—so far he had reached in his speculations when the morning
air was rent by a shrill scream, of such fear that his flesh went cold.
It came from the upper room and ended abruptly, as though somebody had
put his hand over the mouth of the unfortunate from whom that cry of
terror had been wrung.
Hesitating no longer, Michael stepped from his place of concealment, ran
quickly across the gravel, and pulled at the bell before the great
entrance, which was immediately under the tower. He heard the clang of
the bell and looked quickly round, to make absolutely sure that Bhag or
some of the copper-coloured retainers of Griff Towers were not trailing
him.
A minute passed—two—and his hand was again raised to the iron
bell-pull, when he heard heavy feet in the corridor, a shuffle of
slippers on the tiled floor of the hall, and a gruff voice demanded:
“Who’s there?”
“Michael Brixan.”
There was a grunt, a rattle of chains, a snapping of locks, and the big
door opened a few inches.
Gregory Penne was wearing a pair of grey flannel trousers and a shirt,
the wristbands of which were unfastened. His malignant glare changed to
wonder at the sight of the detective.
“What do you want?” he demanded, and opened the door a few more inches.
“I want to see you,” said Michael.
“Usually call at daybreak?” growled the man as he closed the door on his
visitor.
Michael made no answer, but followed Gregory Penne to his room. The
library had evidently been occupied throughout the night. The windows
were shuttered, the electroliers were burning, and before the fire was a
table and two whisky bottles, one of which was empty.
“Have a drink?” said Penne mechanically, and poured himself out a
portion with an unsteady hand.
“Is your ape in?” asked Michael, refusing the preferred drink with a
gesture.
“What, Bhag? I suppose so. He goes and comes as he likes. Do you want to
see him?”
“Not particularly,” said Michael. “I’ve seen him once to-night.”
Penne was lighting the stub of a cigar from the fire as he spoke, and he
looked round quickly.
“You’ve seen him before? What do you mean?”
“I saw him at the Dower House, trying to get into Miss Leamington’s
room, and he was as near to being a dead orang-outang as he has ever
been.”
The man dropped the lighted spill on the hearth and stood up.
“Did you shoot him?” he asked.
“I shot at him.”
Gregory nodded.
“You shot at him,” he said softly. “That accounts for it. Why did you
shoot him? He’s perfectly harmless.”
“He didn’t strike me that way,” said Michael coolly. “He was trying to
pull Miss Leamington from her room.”
The man’s eyes opened.
“He got so far, did he? Well?”
There was a pause.
“You sent him to get the girl,” said Michael. “You also bribed Foss to
put a mark on the window so that Bhag should know where the girl was
sleeping.”
He paused, but the other made no reply.
“The cave man method is fairly beastly, even when the cave man does his
own kidnapping. When he sends an anthropoid ape to do his dirty work, it
passes into another category.”
The man’s eyes were invisible now; his face had grown a deeper hue.
“So that’s your line, is it?” he said. “I thought you were a pal.”
“I’m not responsible for your illusions,” said Michael. “Only I tell you
this”—he tapped the man’s chest with his finger—“if any harm comes to
Adele Leamington that is traceable to you or your infernal agent, I
shan’t be contented with shooting Mr. Bhag; I will come here and shoot
you! Do you understand? And now you can tell me, what is the meaning of
that scream I heard from your tower?”
“Who the hell do you imagine you’re cross-questioning?” spluttered
Penne, livid with fury. “You dirty, miserable little actor!”
Michael slipped a card from his pocket and put it in the man’s hand.
“You’ll find my title to question you legibly inscribed,” he said.
The man brought the card to the table-lamp and read it. The effect was
electrical. His big jaw dropped, and the hand that held the card
trembled so violently that it dropped to the floor.
“A detective?” he croaked. “A—a detective! What do you want here?”
“I heard somebody scream,” said Michael.
“One of the servants, maybe. We’ve got a Papuan woman here who’s ill: in
fact, she’s a little mad, and we’re moving her to-morrow. I’ll go and
see if you like?”
He looked toward Michael as though seeking permission. His whole
attitude was one of humility, and Michael required no more than the
sight of that pallid face and those chattering teeth to turn his
suspicion to certainty. Something was happening in this house that he
must get to the bottom of.
“May I go and see?” asked Penne.
Michael nodded. The stout man shuffled out of the room as though he were
in a hurry to be gone, and the lock clicked. Instantly Michael was at
the door, turned the handle and pulled. It was locked!
He looked round the room quickly, and, running to one of the windows,
flung back the curtain and pulled at the shutter. But this, too, was
locked. It was, to all intents and purposes, a door with a little
keyhole at the bottom. He was examining this when all the lights in the
room went out, the only illumination being a faint red glow from the
fire.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRAP THAT FAILED
AND then Michael heard a faint creak in one corner of the room. It was
followed by the almost imperceptible sound of bare feet on the thick
pile carpet, and the noise of quick breathing.
He did not hesitate. Feeling again for the keyhole of the shutter, he
pulled out his pistol and fired twice at the lock. The sound of the
explosion was deafening in the confined space of the room. It must have
had an electrical effect upon the intruder, for when, with a wrench, the
shutter opened, and at a touch the white blind sprang up, flooding with
light the big, ornate room, it was empty.
Almost immediately afterwards the door opened through which the baronet
had passed. If he had been panic-stricken before, his condition was now
pitiable.
“What’s that? What’s that?” he whimpered. “Did somebody shoot?”
“Somebody shot,” said Michael calmly, “and I was the somebody. And the
gentlemen you sent into the room to settle accounts with me are very
lucky that I confined my firing practice to the lock of your shutter,
Penne.”
He saw something white on the ground, and, crossing the room with quick
strides, picked it up. It was a scarf of coarse silk, and he smelt it.
“Somebody dropped this in their hurry,” he said. “I guess it was to be
used.”
“My dear fellow, I assure you I didn’t know.”
“How is the interesting invalid?” asked Michael with a curl of his lip.
“The lunatic lady who screams?”
The man fingered his trembling lips for a moment as though he were
trying to control them.
“She’s all right. It was as I—as I thought,” he said; “she had some
sort of fit.”
Michael eyed him pensively.
“I’d like to see her, if I may,” he said.
“You can’t.” Penne’s voice was loud, defiant. “You can’t see anybody!
What the hell do you mean by coming into my house at this hour of the
morning and damaging my property? I’ll have this matter reported to
Scotland Yard, and I’ll get the coat off your back, my man! Some of you
detectives think you own the earth, but I’ll show you you don’t!”
The blustering voice rose to a roar. He was smothering his fear in weak
anger, Michael thought, and looked up at the swords above the
mantelpiece. Following the direction of his eyes, Sir Gregory wilted,
and again his manner changed.
“My dear fellow, why exasperate me? I’m the nicest man in the world if
you only treat me right. You’ve got crazy ideas about me, you have
indeed!”
Michael did not argue. He walked slowly down the passage and out to meet
the first sector of a blazing sun. As he reached the door he turned to
the man.
“I cannot insist upon searching your house because I have not a warrant,
as you know, and, by the time I’d got a warrant, there would be nothing
to find. But you look out, my friend!” He waved a warning finger at the
man. “I hate dragging in classical allusions, but I should advise you to
look up a lady in mythology who was known to the Greeks as Adrastia!”
And with this he left, walking down the drive, watched with eyes of
despair by a pale-faced girl from the upper window of the tower, whilst
Sir Gregory went back to his library and, by much diligent searching,
discovered that Adrastia was another name for Nemesis.
Michael was back at the Dower House in time for breakfast. It was no
great tribute to his charm that his absence had passed unnoticed—or so
it appeared, though Adele had marked his disappearance, and had been the
first to note his return.
Jack Knebworth was in his most cheery mood. The scenes had been, he
thought, most successful.
“I can’t tell, of course, until I get back to the laboratory and develop
the pictures; but so far as young Leamington is concerned, she’s
wonderful. I hate predicting at this early stage, but I believe that
she’s going to be a great artiste.”
“You didn’t expect her to be?” said Michael in surprise.
Jack laughed scornfully.
“I was very annoyed with Mendoza, and when I took this outfit on
location, I did so quite expecting that I should have to return and
retake the picture with Mendoza in the cast. Film stars aren’t born,
they’re made; they’re made by bitter experience, patience and suffering.
They have got to pass through stages of stark inefficiency, during which
they’re liable to be discarded, before they win out. Your girl has
skipped all the intervening phases, and has won at the first time of
asking.”
“When you talk about ’my girl,’” said Michael carefully, “will you be
good enough to remember that I have the merest and most casual interest
in the lady?”
“If you’re not a liar,” said Jack Knebworth, “you’re a piece of cheese!”
“What chance has she as a film artiste?” asked Michael, anxious to turn
the subject.
Knebworth ruffled his white hair.
“Precious little,” he said. “There isn’t a chance for a girl in England.
That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true. You can count the
so-called English stars on the fingers of one hand; they’ve only a local
reputation and they’re generally married to the producer. What chance
has an outsider got of breaking into the movies? And even if they break
in, it’s not much good to them. Production in this country is streets
behind production either in America or in Germany. It is even behind the
French, though the French films are nearly the dullest in the world. The
British producer has no ideas of his own; he can adopt and adapt the
stunts, the tricks of acting, the methods of lighting, that he sees in
foreign films at trade shows; and, with the aid of an American
camera-man, he can produce something which might have been produced a
couple of years ago at Hollywood. It’s queer, because England has never
been left behind as she has been in the cinema industry. France started
the motor-car industry: to-day, England makes the finest motor-car in
the world. America started aviation: to-day, the British aeroplanes have
no superior. And yet, with all the example before them, with all the
immense profits which are waiting to be made, in the past twenty years
England has not produced one film star of international note, one film
picture with an international reputation.”
It was a subject upon which he was prepared to enlarge, and did enlarge,
throughout the journey back to Chichester.
“The cinema industry is in the hands of showmen all the world over, but
in England it is in the hands of peep-showmen, as against the Barnums of
the States. No, there’s no chance for your little friend, not in this
country. If the picture I’m taking makes a hit in America—yes. She’ll
be playing at Hollywood in twelve months’ time in an English
story—directed by Americans!”
In the outer lobby of his office he found a visitor waiting for him, and
gave her a curt and steely good morning.
“I want to see you, Mr. Knebworth,” said Stella Mendoza, with a smile at
the leading man who had followed Knebworth into his office.
“You want to see me, do you? Why, you can see me now. What do you want?”
She was pulling at a lace handkerchief with a pretty air of penitence
and confusion. Jack was not impressed. He himself had taught her all
that handkerchief stuff.
“I’ve been very silly, Mr. Knebworth, and I’ve come to ask your pardon.
Of course, it was wrong to keep the boys and girls waiting, and I really
am sorry. Shall I come in the morning? Or I can start to-day?”
A faint smile trembled at the corner of the director’s big mouth.
“You needn’t come in the morning and you needn’t stay to-day, Stella,”
he said. “Your substitute has done remarkably well, and I don’t feel
inclined to retake the picture.”
She flashed an angry glance at him, a glance at total variance with her
softer attitude.
“I’ve got a contract: I suppose you know that, Mr. Knebworth?” she said
shrilly.
“I’d ever so much rather play opposite Miss Mendoza,” murmured a gentle
voice. It was the youthful Reggie Connolly, he of the sleek hair. “It’s
not easy to play opposite Miss—I don’t even know her name. She’s
so—well, she lacks the artistry, Mr. Knebworth.”
Old Jack didn’t speak. His gloomy eyes were fixed upon the youth.
“What’s more, I don’t feel I can do myself justice with Miss Mendoza out
of the cast,” said Reggie. “I really don’t! I feel most awfully,
terribly nervous, and it’s difficult to express one’s personality when
one’s awfully, terribly nervous. In fact,” he said recklessly, “I’m not
inclined to go on with the picture unless Miss Mendoza returns.”
She shot a grateful glance at him, and then turned with a slow smile to
the silent Jack.
“Would you like me to start to-day?”
“Not to-day, or any other day,” roared the old director, his eyes
flaming. “As for you, you nut-fed chorus boy, if you try to let me down
I’ll blacklist you at every studio in this country, and every time I
meet you I’ll kick you from hell to Halifax!”
He came stamping into the office, where Michael had preceded him, a
raging fury of a man.
“What do you think of that?” he asked when he had calmed down. “That’s
the sort of stuff they try to get past you! He’s going to quit in the
middle of a picture! Did you hear him? That cissy-boy! That mouse! Say,
Brixan, would you like to play opposite this girl of mine? You can’t be
worse than Connolly, and it would fill in your time whilst you’re
looking for the Head-Hunter.”
Michael shook his head slowly.
“No, thank you,” he said. “That is not my job. And as for the
Head-Hunter”—he lit a cigarette and sent a ring of smoke to the
ceiling—“I know who he is and I can lay my hands on him just when I
want.”
CHAPTER XIV
MENDOZA MAKES A FIGHT
JACK stared at him in amazement.
“You’re joking!” he said.
“On the contrary, I am very much in earnest,” said Michael quietly. “But
to know the Head-Hunter, and to bring his crimes home to him, are quite
different matters.”
Jack Knebworth sat at his desk, his hands thrust into his trousers
pockets, a look of blank incredulity on the face turned to the
detective.
“Is it one of my company?” he asked, troubled, and Michael laughed.
“I haven’t the pleasure of knowing all your company,” he said
diplomatically, “but at any rate, don’t let the Head-Hunter worry you.
What are you going to do about Mr. Reggie Connolly?”
The director shrugged.
“He doesn’t mean it, and I was a fool to get wild,” he said. “That kind
of ninny never means anything. You wouldn’t dream, to see him on the
screen, full of tenderness and love and manliness, that he’s the poor
little jellyfish he is! As for Mendoza——” he swept his hands before
him, and the gesture was significant.
Miss Stella Mendoza, however, was not accepting her dismissal so
readily. She had fought her way up from nothing, and was not prepared to
forfeit her position without a struggle. Moreover, her position was a
serious one. She had money—so much money that she need never work
again; for, in addition to her big salary, she enjoyed an income from a
source which need not be too closely inquired into. But there was a
danger that Knebworth might carry the war into a wider field.
Her first move was to go in search of Adele Leamington, who, she learnt
that morning for the first time, had taken her place. Though she went in
a spirit of conciliation, she choked with anger to discover that the
girl was occupying the star’s dressing-room, the room which had always
been sacred to Stella Mendoza’s use. Infuriated, yet preserving an
outward calm, she knocked at the door. (That she, Stella Mendoza, should
knock at a door rightfully hers was maddening enough!)
Adele was sitting at the bare dressing-table, gazing, a little
awe-stricken, at the array of mirrors, lights and the vista of dresses
down the long alleyway which served as a wardrobe. At the sight of
Mendoza she went red.
“Miss Leamington, isn’t it?” asked Stella sweetly. “May I come in?”
“Do, please,” said Adele, hastily rising.
“Please _do_ sit down,” said Stella. “It’s a very uncomfortable chair,
but most of the chairs here are uncomfortable. They tell me you have
been ‘doubling’ for me?”
“‘Doubling’?” said Adele, puzzled.
“Yes, Mr. Knebworth said he was ‘doubling’ you. You know what I mean:
when an artiste can’t appear, they sometimes put in an understudy in
scenes where she’s not very distinctly shown—long shots——”
“But Mr. Knebworth took me close up,” said the girl quietly. “I was only
in one long shot.”
Miss Mendoza masked her anger and sighed.
“Poor old chap! He’s very angry with me, and really, I oughtn’t to annoy
him. I’m coming back to-morrow, you know.”
The girl went pale.
“It’s fearfully humiliating for you, I realize, but, my dear, we’ve all
had to go through that experience. And people in the studio will be very
nice to you.”
“But it’s impossible,” said Adele. “Mr. Knebworth told me I was to be in
the picture from start to finish.”
Mendoza shook her head smilingly.
“You can never believe what these fellows tell you,” she said. “He’s
just told me to be ready to shoot to-morrow morning on the South Downs.”
Adele’s heart sank. She knew that was the rendezvous, though she was not
aware of the fact that Stella Mendoza had procured her information from
the disgruntled Mr. Connolly.
“It _is_ humiliating,” Stella went on thoughtfully. “If I were you, I
would go up to town and stay away for a couple of weeks till the whole
thing has blown over. I feel very much to blame for your disappointment,
my dear, and if money is any compensation——” She opened her bag and,
taking out a wad of notes, detached four and put them on the table.
“What is this for?” asked Adele coldly.
“Well, my dear, you’ll want money for expenses——”
“If you imagine I’m going to London without seeing Mr. Knebworth and
finding out for myself whether you’re speaking the truth——”
Mendoza’s face flamed.
“Do you suggest I’m lying?”
She had dropped all pretence of friendliness and stood, a veritable
virago, her hands on her hips, her dark face thrust down into Adele’s.
“I don’t know whether you’re a liar or whether you are mistaken,” said
Adele, who was less afraid of this termagant than she had been at the
news she had brought. “The only thing I’m perfectly certain about is
that for the moment this is my room, and I will ask you to leave it!”
She opened the door, and for a moment was afraid that the girl would
strike her; but the broad-shouldered Irish dresser, a silent but
passionately interested spectator and audience, interposed her huge bulk
and good-humouredly pushed the raging star into the corridor.
“I’ll have you out of there!” she screamed across the woman’s shoulder.
“Jack Knebworth isn’t everything in this company! I’ve got influence
enough to fire Knebworth!”
The unrepeatable innuendoes that followed were not good to hear, but
Adele Leamington listened in scornful silence. She was only too relieved
(for the girl’s fury was eloquent) to know that she had not been
speaking the truth. For one horrible moment Adele had believed her,
knowing that Knebworth would not hesitate to sacrifice her or any other
member of the company if, by so doing, the values of the picture could
be strengthened.
Knebworth was alone when his ex-star was announced, and his first
instinct was not to see her. Whatever his intentions might have been,
she determined his action by appearing in the doorway just as he was
making up his mind what line to take. He fixed her with his gimlet eyes
for a second, and then, with a jerk of his head, called her in. When
they were alone:
“There are many things I admire about you, Stella, and not the least of
them is your nerve. But it is no good coming to me with any of that
let-bygones-be-bygones stuff. You’re not appearing in this picture, and
maybe you’ll never appear in another picture of mine.”
“Is that so?” she drawled, sitting down uninvited, and taking from her
bag a little gold cigarette case.
“You’ve come in to tell me that you’ve got influence with a number of
people who are financially interested in this corporation,” said Jack,
to her dismay. She wondered if there were telephone communication
between the dressing-room and the office, then remembered there wasn’t.
“I’ve handled a good many women in my time,” he went on, “and I’ve never
had to fire one but she didn’t produce the President, Vice-President or
Treasurer and hold them over my head with their feet ready to kick out
my brains! And, Stella, none of those hold-ups have ever got past.
People who are financially interested in a company may love you to
death, but they’ve got to have the money to love you with; and if I
don’t make pictures that sell, somebody is short of a perfectly good
diamond necklace.”
“We’ll see if Sir Gregory thinks the same way,” she said defiantly, and
Jack Knebworth whistled.
“Gregory Penne, eh? I didn’t know you had friends in that quarter. Yes,
he is a stockholder in the company, but he doesn’t hold enough to make
any difference. I guess he told you that he did. And if he held
ninety-nine per cent. of it, Stella, it wouldn’t make any difference to
old Jack Knebworth, because old Jack Knebworth’s got a contract which
gives him carte blanche, and the only getting out clause is the one that
gets _me_ out! You couldn’t touch me, Stella, no, ma’am!”
“I suppose you’re going to blacklist me?” she said sulkily.
This was the one punishment she most feared—that Jack Knebworth should
circulate the story of her unforgivable sin of letting down a picture
when it was half-shot.
“I thought about that,” he nodded, “but I guess I’m not vindictive. I’ll
let you go and say the part didn’t suit you, and that you resigned,
which is as near the truth as any story I’ll have to crack. Go with God,
Stella. I guess you won’t, because you’re not that way, but—behave!”
He waved her out of the office and she went, somewhat chastened. Outside
the studio she met Lawley Foss, and told him the result of the
interview.
“If it’s like that you can do nothing,” he said. “I’d speak for you,
Stella, but I’ve got to speak for myself,” he added bitterly. “The idea
of a man of my genius truckling hat in hand to this damned old Yankee is
very humiliating.”
“You ought to have your own company, Lawley,” she said, as she had said
a dozen times before. “You write the stuff and I’ll be the leading woman
and put it over for you. Why, you could direct Kneb’s head off. I
_know_, Lawley! I’ve been to the only place on God Almighty’s earth
where art is appreciated, and I tell you that a four-flusher like Jack
Knebworth wouldn’t last a light-mile at Hollywood!”
“Light-mile” was a term she had acquired from a scientific admirer. It
had the double advantage of sounding grand and creating a demand for an
explanation. To her annoyance, Foss was sufficiently acquainted with
elementary physics to know that she meant the period of time that a ray
of light would take to traverse a mile.
“Is he in his office now?”
She nodded, and without any further word Lawley Foss, in some
trepidation, knocked at his chief’s door.
“The truth is, Mr. Knebworth, I want to ask a favour of you.”
“Is it money?” demanded Jack, looking up from under his bushy brows.
“Well, it was money, as a matter of fact. There have been one or two
little bills I’ve overlooked, and the bailiffs have been after me. I’ve
got to raise fifty pounds by two o’clock this afternoon.”
Jack pulled open a drawer, took out a book and wrote a cheque, not for
fifty pounds, but for eighty.
“That’s a month’s salary in advance,” he said. “You’ve drawn your pay up
to to-day, and by the terms of your contract you’re entitled to one
month’s notice or pay therefore. You’ve got it.”
Foss went an ugly red.
“Does that mean I’m fired?” he asked loudly.
Jack nodded.
“You’re fired, not because you want money, not because you’re one of the
most difficult men on the lot to deal with, but for what you did last
night, Foss.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am taking Mr. Brixan’s view, that you fastened a white label
to the window of Miss Leamington’s room in order to guide an agent of
Sir Gregory Penne. That agent came and nearly kidnapped my leading
lady.”
The man’s lip curled in a sneer.
“You’ve got melodrama in your blood, Knebworth,” he said. “Kidnap your
leading lady! Those sort of things may happen in the United States, but
they don’t happen in England.”
“Close the door as you go out,” said Jack, preparing for his work.
“Let me say this——” began Foss.
“I’ll let you say nothing,” snarled Knebworth. “I won’t even let you say
‘good-bye.’ Get!”
And, when the door slammed behind his visitor, the old director pushed a
bell on his table, and, to his assistant who came:
“Get Miss Leamington down here,” he said. “I’d like contact with
something that’s wholesome.”
CHAPTER XV
TWO FROM THE YARD
CHICHESTER is not famous for its restaurants, but the dining-room of a
little hotel, where three people foregathered that afternoon, had the
advantage of privacy.
When Mike Brixan got back to his hotel he found two men waiting to see
him, and, after a brief introduction, he took them upstairs to his
sitting-room.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said, when the inspector had closed the door
behind him. “The fact is that sheerly criminal work is a novelty to me,
and I’m afraid that I’m going to make it a mystery to you,” he smiled.
“At the moment I’m not prepared to give expression to all my
suspicions.”
Detective Inspector Lyle, the chief of the two, laughed.
“We have been placed entirely under your orders, Captain Brixan,” he
said, “and neither of us are very curious. The information you asked
for, Sergeant Walters has brought.” He indicated his tall companion.
“Which information—about Penne? Is he known to the police?” asked
Michael, interested.
Sergeant Walters nodded.
“He was convicted and fined a few years ago for assaulting a servant—a
woman. Apparently he took a whip to the girl, and he very narrowly
escaped going to prison. That was the first time our attention was
attracted to him, and we made inquiries both in London and in the Malay
States and found out all about him. He’s a very rich man, and, being a
distant cousin of the late baronet, you may say he fluked his title. In
Borneo he lived up-country, practically in the bush, for fifteen or
twenty years, and the stories we have about him aren’t particularly
savoury. There are a few of them which you might read at your leisure,
Mr. Brixan—they’re in the record.”
Michael nodded.
“Is anything known of an educated orang-outang which is his companion?”
To his surprise, the officer answered:
“Bhag? Oh yes, we know all about him. He was captured when he was quite
a baby by Penne, and was brought up in captivity. It has been rather
difficult to trace the man, because he never returns to England by the
usual steamship line, so that it’s almost impossible to have a tag on
him. He has a yacht, a fine sea-going boat, the _Kipi_, which is
practically officered and manned by Papuans. What comes and goes with
him I don’t know. There was a complaint came through to us that the last
time he was abroad Penne nearly lost his life as the result of some
quarrel he had with a local tribesman. Now, Mr. Brixan, what would you
like us to do?”
Michael’s instructions were few and brief. That evening, when Adele
walked home to her lodgings, she was conscious that a man was following
her, and after her previous night’s adventure this fact would have
played havoc with her nerves but for the note she found waiting when she
got indoors. It was from Michael.
“Would you mind if I put a Scotland Yard man to watch you, to
see that you do not get into mischief! I don’t think there’s any
danger that you will, but I shall feel ever so much easier in my
mind if you will endure this annoyance.”
She read the letter and her brows knit. So she was being shadowed! It
was an uncomfortable experience, and yet she could not very well object,
could not indeed feel anything but a sense of warm gratitude toward this
ubiquitous and pushful young man, who seemed determined not to let her
out of his sight.
CHAPTER XVI
THE BROWN MAN FROM NOWHERE
WITH a brand-new grievance against life, Lawley Foss gathered his forces
to avenge himself upon the world that had treated him so harshly. And
first and most powerful of his forces was Stella Mendoza. There was a
council of war held in the drawing-room of the pretty little house that
Stella had taken when she joined the Knebworth Corporation. The third of
the party was Mr. Reggie Connolly. And as they were mutually
sympathetic, so were they mutually unselfish—characteristically so.
“We’ve been treated disgracefully by Knebworth, Mr. Foss, especially
you. I think, compared with your case, mine is nothing.”
“It is the way he has handled you that makes me sore,” said Foss
energetically. “An artiste of your standing!”
“The work you’ve done for him! And Reggie—he treated him like a dog!”
“Personally, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Reggie. “I can always find a
contract—it’s you——”
“For the matter of that, we can _all_ find contracts,” interrupted
Stella with a taste of acid in her voice: “I can have my own company
when I please, and I’ve got two directors mad to direct me, and two men
I know would put up every cent of money to give me my own company—at
least, they’d put up a lot. And Chauncey Seller is raving to play
opposite me, and you know what a star he is; and he’d let me be featured
and go into small type himself. He’s a lovely man, and the best juvenile
in this country or any other.”
Mr. Connolly coughed.
“The point is, can we get the money _now_?” asked Foss, practical for
once.
There was no immediate and enthusiastic assurance from the girl.
“Because, if not, I think I can get all I want,” said Foss surprisingly.
“I won’t say from whom, or how I’m going to get it. But I’m certain I
can get big money, and it will be easier to get it for some specific
object than to ask for it for myself.”
“Less risky?” suggested Connolly, with a desire to be in the
conversation.
It was an unfortunate remark, the more so since by chance he had hit the
nail on the head. Foss went a dull red.
“What the hell do you mean by ‘less risky’?” he demanded.
Poor Reggie had meant nothing, and admitted as much in some haste. He
had meant to be helpful, and was ready to sulk at the storm he had
aroused. More ready because, as the conversation had progressed, he had
faded more and more into the background as an inconsiderable factor.
There is nothing quite so disheartening to a conspirator as to find the
conspiring taken out of his hands, and Reggie Connolly felt it was the
moment to make a complete _volte face_, and incidentally assert what he
was pleased to call his “personality.”
“This is all very well, Stella,” he said, “but it looks to me as if I’m
going to be left out in the cold. What with your thinking about Chauncey
Seller—he’s let down more pictures than any two men I know—and all
that sort of thing, I don’t see that I’m going to be much use to you. I
don’t really. I know you’ll think I’m a fearful, awful rotter, but I
feel that we owe something to old Jack Kneb, I do really. I’ve
jeopardized my position for your sake, and I’m prepared to do anything
in reason, but what with pulling Chauncey Seller—who is a bounder of
the worst kind—into your cast, and what with Foss jumping down my
throat, well, really—really!”
They were not inclined to mollify him, having rather an eye to the
future than to the present, and he had retired in a huff before the girl
realized that the holding of Reggie would at least have embarrassed
Knebworth to the extent of forcing a retake of those parts of the
picture in which he appeared.
“Never mind about Connolly. The picture is certain to fail with that
extra: she’s bad. I have a friend in London,” explained Foss, after the
discussion returned to the question of ways and means, “who can put up
the money. I’ve got a sort of pull with him. In fact—well, anyhow, I’ve
got a pull. I’ll go up to-night and see him.”
“And I’ll see mine,” said Stella. “We’ll call the company The Stella
Mendoza Picture Corporation——”
Lawley Foss demurred. He was inclined to another title, and was prepared
to accept as a compromise the Foss-Mendoza or F.M. Company, a compromise
agreeable to Stella provided the initials were reversed.
“Who is Brixan?” she asked as Foss was leaving.
“He is a detective.”
She opened her eyes wide.
“A detective? Whatever is he doing here?”
Lawley Foss smiled contemptuously.
“He is trying to discover what no man of his mental calibre will ever
discover, the Head-Hunter. I am the one man in the world who could help
him. Instead of which,” he smiled again, “I am helping myself.”
With which cryptic and mystifying statement he left her.
Stella Mendoza was an ambitious woman, and when ambition is directed
toward wealth and fame it is not attended by scruple. Her private life
and her standard of values were no better and no worse than thousands of
other women, and no more belonged to her profession than did her passion
for good food and luxurious environment. The sins of any particular
class or profession are not peculiar to their status or calling, but to
their self-education in the matter of the permissible. As one woman
would die rather than surrender her self-respect, so another would lose
her self-respect rather than suffer poverty and hardship, and think
little or nothing of the act or the deceit she practised to gain her
ends.
After Foss had gone, she went up to her room to change. It was too early
to make the call she intended, for Sir Gregory did not like to see her
during the daytime. He, who had not hesitated to send Bhag on a
fantastic mission, was a stickler for the proprieties.
Having some letters to post, she drove into Chichester late in the
afternoon, and saw Mike Brixan in peculiar circumstances. He was the
centre of a little crowd near the market cross, a head above the
surrounding people. There was a policeman present: she saw his helmet,
and for a moment was inclined to satisfy her curiosity. She changed her
mind, and when she returned the crowd had dispersed and Michael had
disappeared, and, driving home, she wondered whether the detective had
been engaged professionally.
Mike himself had been attracted by the crowd which was watching the
ineffectual efforts of a Sussex policeman to make himself intelligible
to a shock-haired, brown-faced native, an incongruous figure in an
ill-fitting suit of store clothes and a derby hat which was a little too
large for him. In his hand he carried a bundle tied up in a bright green
handkerchief, and under his arm a long object, wrapped in linen and
fastened with innumerable strings. At the first sight of him Michael
thought it was one of Penne’s Malayan servants, but on second thoughts
he realized that Sir Gregory would not allow any of his slaves to run
loose about the countryside.
Pushing his way through the crowd, he came up to the policeman, who
touched his helmet rim and grinned.
“Can’t make head or tail of this fellow’s lingo, sir,” he said. “He
wants to know something, but I can’t make out what. He has just come
into the city.”
The brown man turned his big dark eyes upon Mike and said something
which was Greek to the detective. There was a curious dignity about the
native that even his ludicrous garments could not wholly dissipate, an
erectness of body, a carriage of head, an imponderable air of greatness
that instantly claimed Michael Brixan’s attention.
Then suddenly he had an inspiration, and addressed the man in Dutch.
Immediately the native’s eyes lit up.
“_Ja, mynheer_, I speak Dutch.”
Mike had guessed that he came from Malaya, where Dutch and Portuguese
are spoken by the better class natives.
“I am from Borneo, and I seek a man who is called Truji, an Englishman.
No, _mynheer_, I wish to see his house, for he is a great man in my
country. When I have seen his house I will go back to Borneo.”
Mike was watching him as he talked. It was a particularly good-looking
face, except for the long and ugly scar that ran from his forehead to
the point of his jaw.
A new servant for Gregory Penne, thought the detective, and gave him
directions. Standing by the policeman’s side, he watched the queer
figure with its bundles till it disappeared.
“Queer language, that, sir,” said the officer. “It was Dutch to me.”
“And to me,” chuckled Mike, and continued his way to the hotel.
CHAPTER XVII
MR. FOSS MAKES A SUGGESTION
IMMERSED in her beloved script, Adele Leamington sat on her bed, a box
of _marron glacé_ by her side, her knees tucked up, and a prodigious
frown on her forehead. Try as hard as she would, she found it impossible
to concentrate upon the intricate directions with which Foss invariably
tortured the pages of his scenarios. Ordinarily she could have mastered
this handicap, but, for some reason or other, individual thoughts which
belonged wholly to her and had no association with her art came flowing
forth in such volume that the lines were meaningless and the page, for
all the instruction it gave to her, might as well have been blank.
What _was_ Michael Brixan? He was not her idea of a detective, and why
was he staying in Chichester? Could it be . . . ? She flushed at the
thought and was angry with herself. It was hardly likely that a man who
was engaged in unravelling a terrible crime would linger for the sake of
being near to her. Was the Head-Hunter, the murderer, living near
Chichester? She dropped her manuscript to her knees at the appalling
thought.
The voice of her landlady aroused her.
“Will you see Mr. Foss, miss?”
She jumped up from the bed and opened the door.
“Where is he?”
“I’ve put him in the parlour,” said the woman, who had grown a little
more respectful of late. Possibly the rise of the extra to stardom was
generally known in that small town, which took an interest in the
fortunes of its one ewe lamb of a production company.
Lawley Foss was standing by the window, looking out, when she came into
the room.
“Good afternoon, Adele,” he said genially. (He had never called her by
her Christian name before, even if he had known it.)
“Good afternoon, Mr. Foss,” she said with a smile. “I’m sorry to hear
that you have left us.”
Foss lifted his shoulders in a gesture of indifference.
“The scope was a little too limited for my kind of work,” he said.
He was wondering if Mike had told her about the disc of paper on her
window, and surmised rightly that he had not. Foss himself did not
attach any significance to the white disc, accepting Gregory’s
explanation, which was that, liking the girl, he wished to toss some
flowers and a present, by way of a peace offering, through a window
which he guessed would be open. Foss had thought him a love-sick fool,
and had obliged him. The story that Knebworth had told he dismissed as
sheer melodrama.
“Adele, you’re a foolish little girl to turn down a man like Gregory
Penne,” he said, and saw by her face that he was on dangerous ground.
“There’s no sense in getting up in the air; after all, we’re human
beings, and it isn’t unnatural that Penne should have a crush on you.
There’s nothing wrong in that. Hundreds of girls have dinner with men
without there being anything sinister in it. I’m a friend of Penne’s, in
a way, and I’m seeing him to-night on a very important and personal
matter—will you come along?”
She shook her head.
“There may be no harm in it,” she said, “but there is no pleasure in it
either.”
“He’s a rich man and a powerful man,” said Foss impressively. “He could
be of service to you.”
Again she shook her head.
“I want no other help than my own ability,” she said. “I nearly said
‘genius,’ but that would have sounded like conceit. I do not need the
patronage of any rich man. If I cannot succeed without that, then I am a
hopeless failure and am content to be one!”
Still Foss lingered.
“I think I can manage without you,” he said, “but I’d have been glad of
your co-operation. He’s crazy about you. If Mendoza knew that, she’d
kill you!”
“Miss Mendoza?” gasped the girl. “But why? Does she—she know him?”
He nodded.
“Yes: very few people are aware of the fact. There was a time when he’d
have done anything for her, and she was a wise girl: she let him help!
Mendoza has money to burn and diamonds enough to fill the Jewel House.”
Adele listened, horror-stricken, incredulous, and he hastened to insure
himself against Stella’s wrath.
“You needn’t tell her I told you—this is in strict confidence. I don’t
want to get on the wrong side of Penne either,” he shivered. “That man’s
a devil!”
Her lips twitched.
“And yet you calmly ask me to dine with him, and hold out the bait of
Miss Mendoza’s diamonds!”
“I suppose you think she’s awful,” he sneered.
“I am very sorry for her,” said the girl quietly, “and I am determined
not to be sorry for myself!”
She opened the door to him in silence, and in silence he took his
departure. After all, he thought, there was no need for any outside
help. In his breast pocket was a sheet of manuscript, written on the
Head-Hunter’s typewriter. That ought to be worth thousands when he made
his revelation.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FACE IN THE PICTURE
MR. SAMPSON LONGVALE was taking a gentle constitutional on the strip of
path before his untidy house. He wore, as usual—for he was a creature
of habit—a long, grey silk dressing-gown, fastened by a scarlet sash.
On his head was his silk nightcap, and between his teeth a clay
churchwarden pipe, which he puffed solemnly as he walked.
He had just bidden a courteous good night to the help who came in daily
to tidy his living-rooms and prepare his simple meals, when he heard the
sound of feet coming up the drive. He thought at first it was the woman
returning (she had a habit of forgetting things); but when he turned, he
saw the unprepossessing figure of a neighbour with whom he was
acquainted in the sense that Sir Gregory Penne had twice been abominably
rude to him.
The old man watched with immobile countenance the coming of his
unwelcome visitor.
“’Evening!” growled Penne. “Can I speak to you privately?”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head courteously.
“Certainly, Sir Gregory. Will you come in?”
He ushered the owner of Griff Towers into the long sitting-room and lit
the candles. Sir Gregory glanced round, his lips curled in disgust at
the worn poverty of the apartment, and when the old man had pushed up a
chair for him, it was some time before he accepted the offer.
“Now, sir,” said Mr. Longvale courteously, “to what circumstances do I
owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“You had some actors staying here the other day?”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head.
“There was some fool talk about a monkey of mine trying to get into the
house.”
“A monkey?” said Mr. Longvale in gentle surprise. “That is the first I
have heard of monkeys.”
Which was true. The other looked at him suspiciously.
“Is that so?” he asked. “You’re not going to persuade me you didn’t
hear?”
The old man stood up, a picture of dignity.
“Do you suggest that I am lying, sir?” he said. “Because, if you do,
there is the door! And though it hurts me to be in the least degree
discourteous to a guest of mine, I am afraid I have no other course than
to ask you to leave my house.”
“All right, all right,” said Sir Gregory Penne impatiently. “Don’t lose
your temper, my friend. I didn’t come to see you about that, anyway.
You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
Mr. Longvale was obviously startled.
“I practised medicine when I was younger,” he said.
“Poor, too?” Gregory looked round. “You haven’t a shilling in the world,
I’ll bet!”
“There you are wrong,” said old Mr. Longvale quietly. “I am an extremely
wealthy man, and the fact that I do not keep my house in repair is due
to the curious penchant of mine for decaying things. That is an
unhealthy, probably a morbid predilection of mine. How did you know I
was a doctor?”
“I heard through one of my servants. You set the broken finger of a
carter.”
“I haven’t practised for years,” said Mr. Longvale. “I almost wish I
had,” he added wistfully. “It is a noble science——”
“Anyway,” interrupted Penne, “even if you can’t be bought, you’re a
secretive old devil, and that suits me. There’s a girl up at my house
who is very ill. I don’t want any of these prying country doctors nosing
around my private affairs. Would you come along and see her?”
The old man pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“I should be most happy,” he said, “but I am afraid my medical science
is a little rusty. Is she a servant?”
“In a way,” said the other shortly. “When can you come?”
“I’ll come at once,” said Mr. Longvale gravely, and went out, to return
in his greatcoat.
The baronet looked at the ancient garment with a smile of derision.
“Why the devil do you wear such old-fashioned clothes?” he asked.
“To me they are very new,” said the old man gently. “The garments of
to-day are without romance, without the thrill which these bring to me.”
He patted the overlapping cape and smiled. “An old man is entitled to
his fancies: let me be humoured, Sir Gregory.”
At the moment Mr. Sampson Longvale was driving to Griff Towers, Mike
Brixan, summoned by messenger, was facing Jack Knebworth in his office.
“I hope you didn’t mind my sending for you, though it was a fool thing
to do,” said the director. “You remember that we shot some scenes at
Griff Towers?”
Michael nodded.
“I want you to see one that we took, with the tower in the background,
and tell me what you think of—something.”
Wonderingly, Michael accompanied the director to the projection room.
“My laboratory manager pointed it out to me in the negative,” explained
Jack as they seated themselves and the room went dark. “Of course, I
should have seen it in the print.”
“What is it?” asked Michael curiously.
“That’s just what I don’t know,” said the other, scratching his head,
“but you’ll see for yourself.”
There was a flicker and a furious clicking, and there appeared on the
small screen which was used for projection purposes, a picture of two
people. Adele was one and Reggie Connolly the other, and Michael gazed
stolidly, though with rising annoyance, at a love scene which was being
enacted between the two.
In the immediate background was the wall of the tower, and Michael saw
for the first time that there was a little window which he did not
remember having seen from the interior of the hall; it was particularly
dark, and was lighted, even in daytime, by electric lamps.
“I never noticed that window before,” he said.
“It’s the window I want you to watch,” said Jack Knebworth, and, even as
he spoke, there came stealthily into view a face.
At first it was indistinct and blurred, but later, it came into focus.
It was the oval face of a girl, dark-eyed, her hair in disorder, a look
of unspeakable terror on her face. She raised her hand as if to beckon
somebody—probably Jack himself, who was directing the picture. That, at
least, was Jack’s view. They had hardly time to get accustomed to the
presence of the mystery girl when she disappeared, with such rapidity as
to suggest that she had been dragged violently back.
“What do you make of that?” asked Knebworth.
Michael bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Looks almost as though friend Penne had a prisoner in his dark tower.
Of course, the woman whose scream I heard, and who he said was a
servant! But the window puzzles me. There’s no sign of it inside. The
stairway leads out of the hall, but in such a position that it is
impossible that the girl could have been standing either on the stairs
or the landing. Therefore, there must be a fifth wall inside, containing
a separate staircase. Does this mean you will have to retake?”
Jack shook his head.
“No, we can back her out: she’s only on fifty feet of the film; but I
thought you’d like to see it.”
The lights came on again, and they went back to the director’s office.
“I don’t like Penne, for more reasons than one,” said Jack Knebworth. “I
like him less since I’ve found that he’s better friends with Mendoza
than I thought he was.”
“Who is Mendoza—the deposed star?”
The other nodded.
“Stella Mendoza—not a bad girl and not a good girl,” he said. “I’ve
been wondering why Penne always gave us permission to use his grounds
for shooting, and now I know. I tell you that that house holds a few
secrets!”
Michael smiled faintly.
“One, at least, of them will be revealed to-night,” he said. “I am going
to explore Griff Towers, and I do not intend asking permission of Sir
Gregory Penne. And if I can discover what I believe is there to be
discovered, Gregory Penne will sleep under lock and key this night!”
CHAPTER XIX
THE MIDNIGHT VISIT
MICHAEL BRIXAN had had sent down to him from town a heavy suit-case,
which contained precious little clothing. He was busy with its contents
for half an hour, when the boots of the hotel announced the arrival of
the motor-cycle that had been hired for him.
With a canvas bag strapped to his back, he mounted the machine, and was
soon clear of the town, swerving through the twisting lanes of Sussex
until he arrived at the Dower House, behind which he concealed his
machine.
It was eleven o’clock when he crossed the fields to the postern gate, on
the alert all the time for the soft-footed Bhag. The postern was closed
and locked—a contingency for which he was prepared. Unstrapping his
bag, he took therefrom a bundle of rods, and screwed three together. To
the top he fastened a big, blunt hook, and, replacing the remainder of
the rods, he lifted the hook till it rested on the top of the high wall,
tested its stability, and in a few seconds had climbed his “ladder” and
had jumped to the other side.
He followed the path that he had taken before, keeping close to the
bushes, and all the time watching left and right for Penne’s monstrous
servant. As he came to the end of the hedge, the hall door opened and
two men came out. One was Penne, and for a moment he did not recognize
the tall man by his side, until he heard his voice. Mr. Sampson
Longvale!
“I think she will be all right. The wounds are very peculiar. It looks
almost as if she had been scratched by some huge claw,” said Longvale.
“I hope I have been of assistance, Sir Gregory, though, as I told you,
it is nearly fifty years since I engaged in medical work.”
So old Longvale had been a doctor! Somehow this news did not surprise
Michael. There was something in the old man’s benevolence of countenance
and easy manner which would have suggested a training in that
profession, to one less analytical than Michael Brixan.
“My car will take you down,” he heard Sir Gregory say.
“No, no, thank you; I will walk. It is not very far. Good night, Sir
Gregory.”
The baronet growled a good night and went back into the dimly-lit hall,
and Michael heard the rattle of chains as the door was fastened.
There was no time to be lost. Almost before Mr. Sampson Longvale had
disappeared into the darkness, Michael had opened his canvas bag and had
screwed on three more links to his ladder. From each rod projected a
short, light, steel bracket. It was the type of hook-ladder that firemen
use, and Michael had employed this method of gaining entrance to a
forbidden house many times in his chequered career.
He judged the distance accurately, for when he lifted the rod and
dropped the hook upon the sill of the little window, the ladder hung
only a few inches short of the ground. With a tug to test the hook, he
went up hand over hand, and in a few seconds was prying at the window
sash. It needed little opening, for the catch was of elementary
simplicity, and in another instant he was standing on the step of a dark
and narrow stairway.
He had provided himself with an electric torch, and he flashed a beam up
and down. Below, he saw a small door which apparently led into the hall,
and, by an effort of memory, he remembered that in the corner of the
hall he had seen a curtain hanging, without attaching any importance to
the fact. Going down, he tried the door and found it locked. Putting
down his lantern, he took out a leather case of tools and began to
manipulate the lock. In an incredibly short space of time the key
turned. When he had assured himself that the door would open, he was
satisfied. For the moment his work lay upstairs, and he climbed the
steps again, coming to a narrow landing, but no door.
A second, a third and a fourth flight brought him, as near as he could
guess, to the top of the tower, and here he found a narrow exit.
Listening, after a while he heard somebody moving about the room, and by
the sound they made, he supposed they wore slippers. Presently a door
closed with a thud, and he tried the handle of the wicket. It was
unlocked, and he opened it gently a fraction of an inch at a time, until
he secured a view of the greater part of the chamber.
It was a small, lofty room, unfurnished with the exception of a low bed
in one corner, on which a woman lay. Her back was toward him,
fortunately; but the black hair and the ivory yellow of the bare arm
that lay on the coverlet told him that she was not European.
Presently she turned and he saw her face, recognizing her immediately as
the woman whose face he had seen in the picture. She was pretty in her
wild way, and young. Her eyes were closed, and presently she began
crying softly in her sleep.
Michael was half-way in the room when he saw the handle of the other
door turn, and, quick as a flash, stepped back into the darkness of the
landing.
It was Bhag, in his old blue overall, a tray of food in his great hands.
He reached out his foot and pulled the table toward him, placing the
viands by the side of the bed. The girl opened her eyes and sank back
with a little cry of disgust; and Bhag, who was evidently used to these
demonstrations of her loathing, shuffled out of the room.
Again Michael pushed the door and crossed the room, unnoticed by the
girl, looking out into the passage—not six feet away from him, Bhag was
squatting, glaring in his direction.
Michael closed the door quickly and flew back to the secret staircase,
pulling the door behind him. He felt for a key, but there was none, and,
without wasting another second, he ran down the stairs. The one thing he
wished to avoid was an encounter which would betray his presence in the
house.
He made no attempt to get out of the window, but continued his way to
the foot of the stairs, and passed through into the hall. This time he
was able to close the door, for there were two large bolts at the top
and the bottom. Pulling aside the curtain, he stepped gingerly into the
hall. For a while he waited, and presently heard the shuffle of feet on
the stairs and a sniff beneath the door.
His first act was to ensure his retreat. Noiselessly he drew the bolts
from the front door, slipped off the chain and turned the key. Then, as
noiselessly, he made his way along the corridor toward Sir Gregory’s
room.
The danger was that one of the native servants would see him, but this
he must risk. He had observed on each of his previous visits that, short
of the library, a door opened into what he knew must be an ante-room of
some kind. It was unlocked and he stepped into complete darkness.
Groping along the wall, he found a row of switches, and pulled down the
first. This lit two wall-brackets, sufficient to give him a general view
of the apartment.
It was a small drawing-room, apparently unused, for the furniture was
sheeted with holland, and the fire-grate was empty. From here it was
possible to gain access to the library through a door near the window.
He switched off the light, locked the door on the inside, and tried the
shutters. These were fastened by iron bars and were not, as in the case
of the library, locked. He pulled them back, let the blind up, and
gingerly raised a window. His second line of retreat was now prepared,
and he could afford to take risks.
Kneeling down, he looked through the keyhole. The library was
illuminated, and somebody was talking. A woman! Turning the handle, he
opened the door the fraction of an inch, and had a view of the interior.
Gregory Penne was standing in his favourite attitude, with his back to
the fire, and before him was a tray of those refreshments without which
life was apparently insupportable. Seated on the low settee, drawn up at
one side of the fireplace, was Stella Mendoza. She was wearing a fur
coat, for the night was chilly, and about her neck was such a sparkle of
gems as Michael had never seen before on a woman.
Evidently the discussion was not a pleasant one, for there was a heavy
scowl on Gregory’s face, and Stella did not seem too pleased.
“I left you because I had to leave you,” growled the man, answering some
complaint she had made. “One of my servants is ill and I brought in the
doctor. And if I had stayed it would have been the same. It’s no good,
my girl,” he said harshly. “The goose doesn’t lay golden eggs more than
once—this goose doesn’t, at any rate. You were a fool to quarrel with
Knebworth.”
She said something which did not reach Michael’s ears.
“I dare say your own company would be fine,” said Penne sarcastically.
“It would be fine for me, who footed the bill, and finer for you, who
spent the money! No! Stella, that cat doesn’t jump. I’ve been very good
to you, and you’ve no right to expect me to bankrupt myself to humour
your whims.”
“It’s not a whim,” she said vehemently, “it’s a necessity. You don’t
want to see me going round the studios taking any kind of job I can get,
do you, Gregory?” she pleaded.
“I don’t want to see you work at all, and there’s no reason why you
should. You’ve enough to live on. Anyway, you’ve got nothing against
Knebworth. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t have met me, and if
you hadn’t met me, you’d have been poorer by thousands. You want a
change.”
There was a silence. Her head was drooped, and Michael could not see the
girl’s face, but when she spoke, there was that note of viciousness in
her voice which told him her state of mind.
“You want a change too, perhaps! I could tell things about you that
wouldn’t look good in print, and you’d have a change too! Get that in
your mind, Gregory Penne! I’m not a fool—I’ve seen things and heard
things, and I can put two and two together. You think I want a change,
do you—I do! I want friends who aren’t murderers——”
He sprang at her, his big hand covering her mouth.
“You little devil!” he hissed, and at that instant somebody must have
knocked, for he turned to the door and said something in the native
dialect.
The answer was inaudible to Mike.
“Listen.” Gregory was speaking to the girl in a calmer tone. “Foss is
waiting to see me, and I’ll discuss this little matter with you
afterwards.”
He released her, and, going to his desk, touched the spring that
operated the mechanism of the secret door that led to Bhag’s quarters.
“Go in there and wait,” he said. “I’ll not keep you longer than five
minutes.”
She looked suspiciously at the door which had suddenly opened in the
panelling.
“No,” she said, “I’ll go home. To-morrow will do. I’m sorry I got rough,
Gregory, but you madden me sometimes.”
“Go in there!”
He pointed to the den, his face working.
“I’ll not!” Her face was white. “You beast, don’t you think I know? That
is Bhag’s den! Oh, you beast!”
His face was horrible to see. It was as though all the foulness in his
mind found expression in the demoniacal grimace.
Breathless, terrified, the girl stared at him, shrinking back against
the wall. Presently Gregory mastered himself.
“Then go into the little drawing-room,” he said huskily.
Mike had time to switch out the lights and flatten himself against the
wall, when the door of the room was flung open and the girl thrust in.
“It is dark!” she wailed.
“You’ll find the switches!”
The door banged.
Michael Brixan was in a dilemma. He could see her figure groping along
the wall, and stealthily he moved to avoid her. In doing so he stumbled
over a stool.
“Who’s there?” she screamed. “Gregory! Don’t let him touch me, Gregory!”
Again the piercing scream.
Mike leapt past her and through the open window, and, the sound of her
shrill agony in his ears, fled along the hedge. Swift as he was,
something sped more quickly in pursuit, a great, twittering something
that ran bent double on hands and feet. The detective heard and guessed.
From what secret hiding-place Bhag had appeared, whether he was in the
grounds at the moment Mike jumped, he had no time even to guess. He felt
a curious lightness of pocket at that moment and thrust in his hand. His
pistol was gone. It must have fallen when he jumped.
He could hear the pad of feet behind him as he darted at a tangent
across the field, blundering over the cabbage rows, slipping in furrows,
the great beast growing closer and closer with every check. Ahead of him
the postern. But it was locked, and, even if it had not been, the wall
would have proved no obstacle to the ape. The barrier of the wall held
Michael. Breathless, turning to face his pursuer, in the darkness he saw
the green eyes shining like two evil stars.
CHAPTER XX
A NARROW ESCAPE
MICHAEL BRIXAN braced himself for the supreme and futile struggle. And
then, to his amazement, the ape stopped, and his bird noise became a
harsh chatter. Raising himself erect, he beat quickly on his great hairy
chest, and the sound of the hollow drumming was awful.
Yet through that sound and above it, Michael heard a curious hiss—it
was the faint note of escaping steam, and he looked round. On the top of
the wall squatted a man, and Michael knew him at once. It was the
brown-faced stranger he had seen that day in Chichester.
The drumming and the hissing grew louder and then Michael saw a bright,
curved thing in the brown man’s hand. It was a sword, the replica of
that which hung above Sir Gregory’s fireplace.
He was still wondering when the brown man dropped lightly to the ground,
and Bhag, with a squeal that was almost human, turned and fled. Michael
watched the Thing, fascinated, until it disappeared into the darkness.
“My friend,” said Michael in Dutch, “you came at a good moment.”
He turned, but the brown man had vanished as though the earth had
swallowed him. Shading his eyes against the starlight, he presently
discerned a dark shape moving swiftly in the shadow of the wall. For a
second he was inclined to follow and question the brown man, but decided
upon another course. With some difficulty he surmounted the wall and
dropped to the other side. Then, tidying himself as well as he could, he
made the long circuit to the gate of Griff Towers, and boldly walked up
to the house, whistling as he went.
There was nobody in sight as he crossed the “parade ground,” and his
first step was to search for and find his pistol.
He must know that the girl was safe before he left the place. He had
seen her car waiting on the road outside. His hand was raised to the
bell when he heard footsteps in the hall, and listened intently: there
was no doubt that one of the voices was Stella Mendoza’s, and he drew
back again to cover.
The girl came out, followed by Sir Gregory, and from their tone, a
stranger unacquainted with the circumstances of their meeting might have
imagined that the visit had been a very ordinary one, in spite of the
lateness of the hour.
“Good night, Sir Gregory,” said the girl, almost sweetly. “I will see
you to-morrow.”
“Come to lunch,” said Gregory’s voice, “and bring your friend. Shall I
walk with you to the car?”
“No, thank you,” she said hastily.
Michael watched her till she was out of sight, but long before then the
big door of Griff Towers had closed, and the familiar rattle of chains
told him that it was closed finally.
Where was Foss? He must have gone earlier, if Foss it was. Michael
waited till all was quiet, and then, tip-toeing across the gravel,
followed the girl. He looked about for the little brown man, but he was
not in sight. And then he remembered that he had left the hook ladder
hanging to the window on the stairs, and went back to retrieve it. He
found the ladder as it had been left, unscrewed and packed it in the
canvas bag, and five minutes later he was taking his motor-cycle from
its place of concealment.
A yellow light showed in the window of Mr. Longvale’s dining-room, and
Michael had half a mind to call upon him. He could tell him, at any
rate, something of that oval-faced girl in the upper room of the tower.
Instead, he decided to go home. He was tired with the night’s work, a
little disappointed. The tower had not revealed as tremendous a secret
as he had hoped. The girl was a prisoner, obviously; had been kidnapped
for Sir Gregory’s pleasure, and brought to England on his yacht. Such
things had happened; there had been a case in the courts on curiously
parallel lines only a few months before. At any rate, it did not seem
worth while to put off his bedtime.
He had a hot bath, made himself some chocolate and, before retiring, sat
down to sum up his day’s experience. And in the light of recent
happenings he was less confident that his first solution of the
Head-Hunter mystery was the correct one. And the more he thought, the
less satisfied he was, till at last, in sheer disgust at his own
vacillation of mind, he turned out the light and went to bed.
He was sleeping peacefully and late the next morning when an unexpected
visitor arrived, and Michael sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.
“I’ve either got nightmare or it’s Staines,” he said.
Major Staines smiled cheerfully.
“You’re awake and normal,” he said.
“Has anything happened?” asked Michael, springing out of bed.
“Nothing, only there was a late dance last night and an early train this
morning, and I decided to atone for my frivolity by coming down and
seeing how far you had got in the Elmer case.”
“Elmer case?” Michael frowned. “Good Lord! I’d almost forgotten poor
Elmer!”
“Here’s something to remind you,” said Staines.
He fished from his pocket a newspaper cutting. Michael took it and read:
“Is your trouble of mind or body incurable? Do you hesitate on
the brink of the abyss? Does courage fail you? Write to
Benefactor, Box——”
“What is this?” asked Michael, frowning.
“It was found in the pocket of an old waistcoat that Elmer was wearing a
few days before he disappeared. Mrs. Elmer was going through his clothes
with the idea of selling them, when she found this. It appeared in the
_Morning Telegram_ of the fourteenth—that is to say, three or four days
before Elmer vanished. The box number at the end, of course, is the box
number of the newspaper to which replies were sent. There is a record
that four letters reached the ‘Benefactor,’ who, so far as we have been
able to discover, had these particular letters readdressed to a little
shop in Stibbington Street, London. Here they were collected by a woman,
evidently of the working class, and probably a charlady from the
appearance which has been circulated. Beyond that, no further trace has
been obtainable. Similar advertisements have been found by search in
other newspapers, but in these cases the letters were sent to an
accommodation address in South London, where apparently the same woman
collected them. With every new advertisement the advertiser changes his
address. She was a stranger to each neighbourhood, by the way; and from
what shopkeepers have told Scotland Yard, she seemed to be a little off
her head, for she was in the habit of mumbling and talking to herself.
Her name is Stivins—at least, that is the name she always gave. And the
notes she brought were usually signed ‘Mark’—that is to say, the notes
authorizing the shopkeepers to hand the letters to her. That she is a
native of London there is no doubt, but so far the police have not
trailed her.”
“And suppose they do?” asked Michael. “Do you connect the advertisement
with the murders?”
“We do and we do not,” replied the other. “I merely point out that this
advertisement is a peculiar one, and in all the circumstances a little
suspicious. Now what is the theory you wanted to give me?”
For an hour Michael spoke, interrupted at intervals by questions which
Staines put to him.
“It is a queer idea, almost a fantastical one,” said Staines gravely,
“but if you feel that you’ve got so much as one thread in your hands, go
right ahead. To tell you the truth,” in a burst of confidence, “I had a
horrible feeling that you had fallen down; and since I do not want our
department to be a source of amusement to Scotland Yard, I thought I’d
come along and give you the result of my own private investigations. I
agree with you,” he said later, as they sat at breakfast, “that you want
to go very, very carefully. It is a delicate business. You haven’t told
the Scotland Yard men your suspicions?”
Michael shook his head.
“Then don’t,” said the other emphatically. “They’d be certain to go
along and put the person you suspect under arrest, and probably that
would destroy the evidence that would convict. You say you have made a
search of the house?”
“Not a search: I’ve made a rough inspection.”
“Are there cellars?”
“I should imagine so,” said Michael. “That type of house usually has.”
“Outhouses where——?”
Michael shook his head.
“There are none, so far as I have been able to see.”
Michael walked down to the railway station with his chief, who told him
he was leaving in a much more cheerful frame of mind than he had been in
when he arrived.
“There’s one warning I’ll give to you, Mike,” said Staines as the train
was about to pull out of the station, “and it is to watch out for
yourself! You’re dealing with a ruthless and ingenious man. For heaven’s
sake do not underrate his intelligence. I don’t want to wake up one
morning to learn that you have vanished from the ken of man.”
CHAPTER XXI
THE ERASURE
MIKE’S way back did not lead through the little street where Adele
Leamington lived—at least, not his nearest road. Yet he found himself
knocking at the door, and learnt, with a sense of disappointment, that
the girl had been out since seven o’clock in the morning. Knebworth was
shooting on the South Downs, and the studio, when he arrived, was empty,
except for Knebworth’s secretary and the new scenario editor, who had
arrived late on the previous evening.
“I don’t know the location, Mr. Brixan,” said Dicker, the secretary,
“but it’s somewhere above Arundel. Miss Mendoza was here this morning,
asking the same question. She wanted Miss Leamington to go out to lunch
with her.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” said Michael softly. “Well, if she comes again,
you can tell her from me that Miss Leamington has another engagement.”
The other nodded wisely.
“I hope she won’t keep you waiting,” he said. “You never know, when
Jack’s on location——”
“I did not say she had an engagement with me,” said Michael loudly.
“That reminds me, Mr. Brixan,” said the secretary suddenly. “Do you
remember the fuss you made—I mean, there was—about a sheet of
manuscript that by some accident had got into Miss Leamington’s script?”
Michael nodded.
“Has the manuscript been found?” he asked.
“No, but the new scenario editor tells me that he was looking through
the book where Foss kept a record of all the manuscripts that came in,
and he found one entry had been blacked out with Indian ink.”
“I’d like to see that book,” said the interested Michael, and it was
brought to him, a large foolscap ledger, ruled to show the name of the
submitted scenario, the author, his address, the date received and the
date returned. Mike put it down on the table in Knebworth’s private
office and went carefully through the list of authors.
“If he sent one he has probably sent more,” he said. “There are no other
erasures?”
The secretary shook his head.
“That is the only one we’ve seen,” he said. “You’ll find lots of names
of local people—there isn’t a tradesman in the place who hasn’t written
a scenario or submitted an idea since we’ve been operating.”
Slowly Michael’s finger went up the column of names. Page after page was
turned back. And then his finger stopped at an entry.
“The Power of Fear: Sir Gregory Penne,” he read, and looked round at
Dicker.
“Did Sir Gregory submit scenarios, Mr. Dicker?”
Dicker nodded.
“Yes, he sent in one or two,” he said. “You’ll find his name farther
back in the book. He used to write scenarios which he thought were
suitable for Miss Mendoza. He’s not the man you’re looking for?”
“No,” said Michael quickly. “Have you any of his manuscript?”
“They were all sent back,” said Dicker regretfully. “He wrote awful
mush! I read one of them. I remember Foss trying to persuade old Jack to
produce it. Foss made quite a lot of money on the side, we’ve
discovered. He used to take fees from authors, and Mr. Knebworth
discovered this morning that he once took two hundred pounds from a lady
on the promise that he’d get her into the pictures. He wrote Foss a
stinging letter this morning about it.”
Presently Michael found Sir Gregory’s name again. It was not remarkable
that the owner of Griff Towers should have submitted a manuscript. There
was hardly a thinking man or woman in the world who did not believe he
or she was capable of writing for the films.
He closed the book and handed it back to Dicker.
“It is certainly queer, that erased entry. I’ll speak to Foss about it
as soon as I can find him,” he said.
He went immediately to the little hotel where Foss was staying, but he
was out.
“I don’t think he came home last night,” said the manager. “If he did,
he didn’t sleep in his bed. He said he was going to London,” he added.
Michael went back to the studio, for it had begun to rain, and he knew
that that would drive the company from location. His surmise was
correct: the big yellow char-à-banc came rumbling into the yard a few
minutes after he got there. Adele saw him, and was passing with a nod
when he called her to him.
“Thank you, Mr. Brixan, but we lunched on location, and I have two big
scenes to read for to-morrow.”
Her refusal was uncompromising, but Michael was not the type who readily
accepted a “No.”
“What about tea? You’ve got to drink tea, my good lady, though you have
fifty scenes to study. And you can’t read and eat too. If you do, you’ll
get indigestion, and if you get indigestion——”
She laughed.
“If my landlady will loan me her parlour, you may come to tea at
half-past four,” she said; “and if you have another engagement at five
o’clock, you’ll be able to meet it.”
Jack Knebworth was waiting for him when he went into the studio.
“Heard about that entry in the scenario book?” he asked. “I see you
have. What do you think of it?” Without waiting for a reply: “It looks
queer to me. Foss was an unmitigated liar. That fellow couldn’t see
straight. I’ve got a little bone to pick with him on the matter of a fee
he accepted from a screen-struck lady who wished to be featured in one
of my productions.”
“How’s the girl?” asked Michael.
“You mean Adele? Really, she’s wonderful, Brixan! I’m touching wood all
the time”—he put his hand on the table piously—“because I know that
there’s a big shock coming to me somewhere and somehow. Those things do
not happen in real life. The only stars that are born in a night are the
fireworks produced by crazy vice-presidents who have promised to do
something for Mamie and can’t break their word. And Mamie, supported by
six hundred extras and half a million dollars’ worth of sets, two
chariot races and the fall of Babylon, all produced regardless of
expense, manages to get over by giving a fine imitation of what the
Queen of Persia would look like if she’d been born a chorus girl and
trained as a mannequin. And she’s either got so few clothes that you
don’t look at her face, or so many clothes that you don’t notice her
acting.
“Those kind of stars are like the dust of the Milky Way: there is so
much splendour all round them that it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t
there at all. But this girl Leamington, she’s getting over entirely and
absolutely by sheer, unadulterated grey matter. I tell you, Brixan, it’s
not right. These things do not happen except in the imagination of press
agents. There’s something wrong with that kid.”
“Wrong?” said Michael, startled.
Knebworth nodded.
“Something radically wrong. There’s a snag somewhere. She’s either going
to let me down by vanishing before the picture’s through, or else she’s
going to be arrested for driving a car along Regent Street in a highly
intoxicated condition!”
Michael laughed.
“I think she’ll do neither,” he said.
“Heard about Mendoza’s new company?” asked old Jack, filling his pipe.
Michael pulled up a chair and sat down.
“No, I haven’t.”
“She’s starting a new production company. There’s never a star I’ve
fired that hasn’t! It gets all written out on paper, capital in big
type, star in bigger! It’s generally due to the friends of the star, who
tell her that a hundred thousand a year is a cruel starvation wage for a
woman of her genius, and she ought to get it all. Generally there’s a
sucker in the background who puts up the money. As a rule, he puts up
all but enough, and then she selects a story where she is never off the
screen, and wears a new dress every fifty feet of film. If she can’t
find that sort of story, why, she gets somebody to write her one. The
only time you ever see the other members of the company is in the long
shots. Half-way through the picture the money dries up, the company goes
bust, and all the poor little star gets out of it is the Rolls-Royce she
bought to take her on location, the new bungalow she built to be nearer
the lot, and about twenty-five per cent. of the capital that she’s taken
on account of royalties.”
“Mendoza will not get a good producer in England?”
“She may,” nodded Jack. “There _are_ producers in this country, but
unfortunately they’re not the men on top. They’ve been brought down by
the craze for greatness. A man who produces with a lot of capital behind
him can get easy money. He doesn’t go after the domestic stories, where
he’d be found out first time; he says to the money-bags: ‘Let’s produce
the Fall of Jerusalem. I’ve got a cute idea for building Ezekiel’s
temple that’s never been taken before. It’ll only cost a mere trifle of
two hundred thousand dollars, and we’ll have five thousand extras in one
scene, and we’ll rebuild the Colosseum and have a hundred real lions in
the arena! Story? What do you want a story for? The public love crowds.’
Or maybe he wants to build a new Vesuvius and an eruption at the rate of
fifty dollars a foot. There’s many a big reputation been built up on
sets and extras. Come in, Mr. Longvale.”
Michael turned. The cheery old man was at the door, hat in hand.
“I am afraid I am rather a nuisance,” he said in his beautiful voice.
“But I came in to see my lawyer, and I could not deny myself the
satisfaction of calling to see how your picture is progressing.”
“It is going on well, Mr. Longvale, thank you,” said Jack. “You know Mr.
Brixan?”
The old man nodded and smiled.
“Yes, I came in to see my lawyer on what to you will seem to be a
curious errand. Many years ago I was a medical student and took my final
examination, so that I am, to all intents and purposes, a doctor, though
I’ve not practised to any extent. It is not generally known that I have
a medical degree and I was surprised last night to be called out
by—er—a neighbour, who wished me to attend a servant of his. Now, I am
so hazy on the subject that I wasn’t quite sure whether or not I’d
broken the law by practising without registration.”
“I can relieve your mind there, Mr. Longvale,” said Michael. “Once you
are registered, you are always registered, and you acted quite within
your rights.”
“So my lawyer informed me,” said Longvale gravely.
“Was it a bad case?” asked Michael, who guessed who the patient was.
“No, it was not a bad case. I thought there was blood poisoning, but I
think perhaps I may have been mistaken. Medical science has made such
great advance since I was a young man that I almost feared to prescribe.
Whilst I am only too happy to render any service that humanity demands,
I must confess that it was rather a disturbing experience, and I
scarcely slept all night. In fact, it was a very disturbing evening and
night. Somebody, for some extraordinary reason, put a motor-bicycle in
my garden.”
Michael smiled to himself.
“I cannot understand why. It had gone this morning. And then I saw our
friend Foss, who seemed very much perturbed about something.”
“Where did you see him?” asked Michael quickly.
“He was passing my house. I was standing at the gate, smoking my pipe,
and bade him good night without knowing who he was. When he turned back,
I saw it was Mr. Foss. He told me he had been to make a call, and that
he had another appointment in an hour.”
“What time was this?” asked Michael.
“I think it must have been eleven o’clock.” The old man hesitated. “I’m
not sure. It was just before I went to bed.”
Michael could easily account for Foss’s conduct. Sir Gregory had hurried
him off and told him to come back after the girl had gone.
“My little place used to be remarkable for its quietness,” said Mr.
Longvale, and shook his head. “Perhaps,” turning to Knebworth, “when
your picture is finished you will be so good as to allow me to see it?”
“Why, surely, Mr. Longvale.”
“I don’t know why I’m taking this tremendous interest,” chuckled the old
man. “I must confess that, until a few weeks ago, film-making was a
mystery to me. And even to-day it belongs to the esoteric sciences.”
Dicker thrust his head in the door.
“Will you see Miss Mendoza?” he asked.
Jack Knebworth’s expression was one of utter weariness.
“No,” he said curtly.
“She says——” began Dicker.
Only the presence of the venerable Mr. Longvale prevented Jack from
expressing his views on Stella Mendoza and all that she could say.
“There’s another person I saw last night,” nodded Mr. Longvale. “I
thought at first you must be shooting—is that the expression?—in the
neighbourhood, but Mr. Foss told me that I was mistaken. She’s rather a
charming girl, don’t you think?”
“Very,” said Jack dryly.
“A very sweet disposition,” Longvale went on, unconscious of the utter
lack of sympathy in the atmosphere. “Nowadays, the confusion and hurry
which modernity brings in its trail do not make for sweetness of temper,
and one is glad to meet an exception. Not that I am an enemy of
modernity. To me, this is the most delightful phase of my long life.”
“Sweet disposition!” almost howled Jack Knebworth when the old man had
taken a dignified farewell. “Did you get that, Brixan? Say, if that
woman’s disposition is sweet, the devil’s made of chocolate!”
CHAPTER XXII
THE HEAD
WHEN Mike went out, he found Stella at the gate of the studio, and
remembered, seeing her, that she had been invited to lunch at Griff
Towers. To his surprise she crossed the road to him.
“I wanted to see you, Mr. Brixan,” she said. “I sent in word to find if
you were there.”
“Then your message was wrongly delivered to Mr. Knebworth,” smiled Mike.
She lifted one of her shoulders in demonstration of her contempt for
Jack Knebworth and all his works.
“No, it was you I wanted to see. You’re a detective, aren’t you?”
“I am,” said Michael, wondering what was coming next.
“My car is round the corner: will you come to my house?”
Michael hesitated. He was anxious, more than anxious, to speak to Adele,
though he had nothing special to tell her, beyond the thing which he
himself did not know and she could never guess.
“With pleasure,” he said.
She was a skilful motorist, and apparently so much engrossed in her
driving that she did not speak throughout the journey. In the pretty
little drawing-room from which he had a view of the lovely South Downs,
he waited expectantly.
“Mr. Brixan, I am going to tell you something which I think you ought to
know.”
Her face was pale, her manner curiously nervous.
“I don’t know what you will think of me when I have told you, but I’ve
got to risk that. I can’t keep silence any longer.”
A shrill bell sounded in the hall.
“The telephone. Will you excuse me one moment?”
She hurried out, leaving the door slightly ajar. Michael heard her
quick, angry reply to somebody at the other end of the wire, and then a
long interregnum of silence, when apparently she listened without
comment. It was nearly ten minutes before she returned, and her eyes
were bright and her cheeks flushed.
“Would you mind if I told you what I was going to tell you a little
later?” she asked.
She had been on the telephone to Sir Gregory: of that Michael was sure,
though she had not mentioned his name.
“There’s no time like the present, Miss Mendoza,” he said encouragingly,
and she licked her dry lips.
“Yes, I know, but there are reasons why I can’t speak now. Would you see
me to-morrow?”
“Why, certainly,” said Michael, secretly glad of his release.
“Shall I drive you back?”
“No, thank you, I can walk.”
“Let me take you to the edge of the town: I’m going that way,” she
begged.
Of course she was going that way, thought Michael. She was going to
Griff Towers. He was so satisfied on this matter that he did not even
trouble to inquire, and when she dropped him at his hotel, she hardly
waited for him to step to the side-walk before the car leapt forward on
its way.
“There’s a telegram for you, sir,” said the porter. He went into the
manager’s office and returned with a buff envelope, which Michael tore
open.
For a time he could not comprehend the fateful message the telegram
conveyed. And then slowly he read it to himself.
“A head found on Chobham Common early this morning. Come to
Leatherhead Police Station at once.
“STAINES.”
An hour later a fast car dropped him before the station. Staines was
waiting on the step.
“Found at daybreak this morning,” he said. “The man is so far unknown.”
He led the way to an outhouse. On a table in the centre of the room was
a box, and he lifted the lid.
Mike took one glance at the waxen face and turned white.
“Good God!” he breathed.
It was the head of Lawley Foss.
CHAPTER XXIII
CLUES AT THE TOWER
MICHAEL gazed in fascinated horror at the tragic spectacle. Then
reverently he covered the box with a cloth and walked out into the paved
courtyard.
“You know him?” asked Staines.
Michael nodded.
“Yes, it is Lawley Foss, lately scenario editor of the Knebworth Picture
Corporation. He was seen alive last night at eleven o’clock. I myself
heard, if I did not see him, somewhere about that time. He was visiting
Griff Towers, Sir Gregory Penne’s place in Sussex. Was there the usual
note?” he asked.
“There was a note, but it was quite unusual.”
He showed the typewritten slip: it was in the station inspector’s
office. One characteristic line, with its ill-aligned letters.
“This is the head of a traitor.” That and no more.
“I’ve had the Dorking police on the ’phone. It was a wet night, and
although several cars passed none of them could be identified.”
“Has the advertisement appeared?” asked Michael.
Staines shook his head.
“No, that was the first thing we thought of. The newspapers have
carefully observed, and every newspaper manager in the country has
promised to notify us the moment such an advertisement is inserted. But
there has been no ad. of any suspicious character.”
“I shall have to follow the line of probability here,” said Michael. “It
is clear that this man was murdered between eleven o’clock and three in
the morning—probably nearer eleven than three; for if the murderer is
located in Sussex, he would have to bring the head to Chobham, leave it
in the dark and return before it was light.”
His car took Michael back to Chichester at racing pace. Short of the
city he turned off the main road, his objective being Griff Towers. It
was late when he arrived, and the Towers presented its usual lifeless
appearance. He rang the bell, but there was no immediate reply. He rang
again, and then the voice of Sir Gregory hailed him from one of the
upper windows.
“Who’s there?”
He went out of the porch and looked up. Sir Gregory Penne did not
recognize him in the darkness, and called again:
“Who’s there?” and followed this with a phrase which Michael guessed was
Malayan.
“It is I, Michael Brixan. I want to see you, Penne.”
“What do you want?”
“Come down and I will tell you.”
“I’ve gone to bed for the night. See me in the morning.”
“I’ll see you now,” said Michael firmly. “I have a warrant to search
this house.”
He had no such warrant, but only because he had not asked for one.
The man’s head was hastily withdrawn, the window slammed down, and such
a long interval passed that Michael thought that the baronet intended
denying him admission. This view, however, was wrong. At the end of a
dreary period of waiting the door was opened, and, in the light of the
hall lamp, Sir Gregory Penne presented an extraordinary appearance.
He was fully dressed: around his waist were belted two heavy revolvers,
but this fact Michael did not immediately notice. The man’s head was
swathed in bandages; only one eye was visible; his left arm was stiff
with a surgical dressing, and he limped as he walked.
“I’ve had an accident,” he said gruffly.
“It looks a pretty bad one,” said Michael, observing him narrowly.
“I don’t want to talk here: come into my room,” growled the man.
In Sir Gregory’s library there were signs of a struggle. A long mirror
which hung on one of the walls was shattered to pieces; and, looking up,
Michael saw that one of the two swords was missing.
“You’ve lost something,” he said. “Did that occur in course of the
‘accident’?”
Sir Gregory nodded.
Something in the hang of the second sword attracted Michael’s attention,
and, without asking permission, he lifted it down from its hook and drew
the blade from the scabbard. It was brown with blood.
“What is the meaning of this?” he asked sternly.
Sir Gregory swallowed something.
“A fellow broke into the house last night,” he said slowly, “a Malayan
fellow. He had some cock and bull story about my having carried off his
wife. He attacked me, and naturally I defended myself.”
“And had you carried off his wife?” asked Michael.
The baronet shrugged.
“The idea is absurd. Most of these Borneo folk are mad, and they’ll run
amok on the slightest provocation. I did my best to pacify him——”
Michael looked at the stained sword.
“So I see,” he said dryly. “And did you—pacify him?”
“I defended myself, if that’s what you mean. I returned him almost as
good as he gave. You don’t expect me to sit down and be murdered in my
own house, do you? I can use a sword as well as any man.”
“And apparently you used it,” said Michael. “What happened to Foss?”
Not a muscle of Penne’s face moved.
“Whom do you mean?”
“I mean Lawley Foss, who was in your house last night.”
“You mean the scenario writer? I haven’t seen him for weeks.”
“You’re a liar,” said Michael calmly. “He was in here last night. I can
assure you on this point, because I was in the next room.”
“Oh, it was you, was it?” said the baronet, and seemed relieved. “Yes,
he came to borrow money. I let him have fifty pounds, and he went away,
and that’s the last I saw of him.”
Michael looked at the sword again.
“Would you be surprised to learn that Foss’s head has been picked up on
Chobham Common?” he asked.
The other turned a pair of cold, searching eyes upon his interrogator.
“I should be very much surprised,” he said coolly. “If necessary, I have
a witness to prove that Foss went, though I don’t like bringing in a
lady’s name. Miss Stella Mendoza was here, having a bit of supper, as
you probably know, if it was you in the next room. He left before she
did.”
“And he returned,” said Michael.
“I never saw him again, I tell you,” said the baronet violently. “If you
can find anybody who saw him come into this house after his first visit
you can arrest me. Do you think _I_ killed him?”
Michael did not answer.
“There was a woman upstairs in the tower. What has become of her?”
The other wetted his lips before he replied.
“The only woman in the tower was a sick servant: she has gone.”
“I’d like to see for myself,” said Michael.
Only for a second did the man cast his eyes in the direction of Bhag’s
den, and then:
“All right,” he said. “Follow me.”
He went out into the corridor and turned, not toward the hall but in the
opposite direction. Ten paces farther down he stopped and opened a door,
so cunningly set in the panelling, and so placed between the two shaded
lights that illuminated the corridor, that it was difficult to detect
its presence. He put in his hand, turned on a light, and Michael saw a
long flight of stairs leading back toward the hall.
As he followed the baronet, he realized that the “tower” was something
of an illusion. It was only a tower if viewed from the front of the
house. Otherwise it was an additional two narrow storeys built on one
wing of the building.
They passed through a door, up a circular staircase, and came to the
corridor where Michael had seen Bhag squatting on the previous night.
“This is the room,” said Penne, opening a door.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE MARKS OF THE BEAST
“ON the contrary, it is not the room,” said Michael quietly. “The room
is at the end of the passage.”
The man hesitated.
“Can’t you believe me?” he asked in an almost affable tone of voice.
“What a sceptical chap you are! Now come, Brixan! I don’t want to be bad
friends with you. Let’s go down and have a drink and forget our past
animosities. I’m feeling rotten——”
“I want to see that room,” said Michael.
“I haven’t the key.”
“Then get it,” said Michael sharply.
Eventually the baronet found a pass-key in his pocket, and, with every
sign of reluctance, he opened the door.
“She went away in a bit of a hurry,” he said. “She was taken so ill that
I had to get rid of her.”
“If she left here because she was ill she went into an institution of
some kind, the name of which you will be able to give me,” said Michael,
as he turned on the light.
One glance at the room told him that the story of her hasty departure
may have been accurate. But that the circumstances were normal, the
appearance of the room denied. The bed was in confusion; there was blood
on the pillow, and a dark brown stain on the wall. A chair was broken;
the carpet had odd and curious stains, one like the print of a bare
foot. On a sheet was an indubitable hand-print, but such a hand as no
human being had ever possessed.
“The mark of the beast,” said Michael, pointing. “That’s Bhag!”
Again the baronet licked his lips.
“There was a bit of a fight here,” he said. “The man came up and
pretended to identify the servant as his wife——”
“What happened to him?”
There was no reply.
“What happened to him?” asked Michael with ominous patience.
“I let him go, and let him take the woman with him. It was easier——”
With a sudden exclamation, Michael stooped and picked up from behind the
bed a bright steel object. It was the half of a sword, snapped clean in
the middle, and unstained. He looked along the blade, and presently
found the slightest indent. Picking up the chair, he examined the leg
and found two deeper dents in one of the legs.
“I’ll reconstruct the scene. You and your Bhag caught the man after he
had got into this room. The chair was broken in the struggle, probably
by Bhag, who used the chair. The man escaped from the room, ran
downstairs into the library and got the sword from the wall, then came
up after you. That’s when the real fighting started. I guess some of
this blood is yours, Penne.”
“Some of it!” snarled the other. “All of it, damn him!”
There was a long silence.
“Did the woman leave this room—alive?”
“I believe so,” said the other sullenly.
“Did her husband leave your library—alive?”
“You’d better find that out. So far as I know—I was unconscious for
half an hour. Bhag can use a sword——”
Michael did not leave the house till he had searched it from attic to
basement. He had every servant assembled and began his interrogation.
Each of them except one spoke Dutch, but none spoke the language to such
purpose that they made him any wiser than he had been.
Going back to the library, he put on all the lights.
“I’ll see Bhag,” he said.
“He’s out, I tell you. If you don’t believe me——” Penne went to the
desk and turned the switch. The door opened and nothing came out.
A moment’s hesitation and Michael had penetrated into the den, a
revolver in one hand, his lamp in another. The two rooms were
scrupulously clean, though a strange animal smell pervaded everything.
There was a small bed, with sheets and blankets and feather pillow,
where the beast slept; a small larder, full of nuts; a running water tap
(he found afterwards that, in spite of his cleverness, Bhag was
incapable of turning on or off a faucet); a deep, well-worn settee,
where the dumb servitor took his rest; and three cricket balls, which
were apparently the playthings of this hideous animal.
Bhag’s method of entering and leaving the house was now apparent. His
exit was a square opening in the wall, with neither window nor curtain,
which was situated about seven feet from the ground; and two projecting
steel rungs, set at intervals between the window and the floor, made a
sort of ladder. Michael found corresponding rungs on the garden side of
the wall.
There was no sign of blood, no evidence that Bhag had taken any part in
the terrible scene which must have been enacted the night before.
Going back to the library, he made a diligent search, but found nothing
until he went into the little drawing-room where he had hidden the night
before. Here on the window-sill he found traces enough. The mark of a
bare foot, and another which suggested that a heavy body had been
dragged through the window.
By this time his chauffeur, who, after dropping him at Griff Towers,
went on to Chichester, had returned with the two police officers, and
they assisted him in a further search of the grounds. The trail of the
fugitive was easy to follow: there were bloodstains across the gravel,
broken plants in a circular flower-bed, the soft loam of which had
received the impression of those small bare feet. In the vegetable field
the trail was lost.
“The question is, who carried whom?” said Inspector Lyle, after Michael,
in a few words, had told him all that he had learnt at the Towers. “It
looks to me as if these people were killed in the house and their bodies
carried away by Bhag. There’s no trace of blood in his room, which means
no more than that in all probability he hasn’t been there since the
killing,” said Inspector Lyle. “If we find the monkey we’ll solve this
little mystery. Penne is the Head-Hunter, of course,” the Inspector went
on. “I had a talk with him the other day, and there’s something
fanatical about the man.”
“I am not so sure,” said Michael slowly, “that you’re right. Perhaps my
ideas are just a little bizarre; but if Sir Gregory Penne is the actual
murderer, I shall be a very surprised man. I admit,” he confessed, “that
the absence of any footprints in Bhag’s quarters staggered me, and
probably your theory is correct. There is nothing to be done but to keep
the house under observation until I communicate with headquarters.”
At this moment the second detective, who had been searching the field to
its farthermost boundary, came back to say that he had picked up the
trail again near the postern gate, which was open. They hurried across
the field and found proof of his discovery. There was a trail both
inside and outside the gate. Near the postern was a big heap of leaves,
which had been left by the gardener to rot, and on this they found the
impression of a body, as though whoever was the carrier had put his
burden down for a little while to rest. In the field beyond the gate,
however, the trail was definitely lost.
CHAPTER XXV
THE MAN IN THE CAR
LIFE is largely made up of little things, but perspective in human
affairs is not a gift common to youth. It had required a great effort on
the part of Adele Leamington to ask a man to tea, but, once that effort
was made, she had looked forward with a curious pleasure to the
function.
At the moment Michael was speeding to London, she interviewed Jack
Knebworth in his holy of holies.
“Certainly, my dear: you may take the afternoon off. I am not quite sure
what the schedule was.”
He reached out his hand for the written time-table, but she supplied the
information.
“You wanted some studio portraits of me—‘stills,’” she said.
“So I did! Well, that can wait. Are you feeling pretty confident about
the picture, eh?”
“I? No, I’m not confident, Mr. Knebworth; I’m in a state of nerves about
it. You see, it doesn’t seem possible that I should make good at the
first attempt. One dreams about such things, but in dreams it is easy to
jump obstacles and get round dangerous corners and slur over
difficulties. Every time you call ‘camera!’ I am in a state of panic,
and I am so self-conscious that I am watching every movement I take, and
saying to myself ‘You’re raising your hands awkwardly; you’re turning
your head with a jerk.’”
“But that doesn’t last?” he said sharply, so sharply that she smiled.
“No: the moment I hear the camera turning, I feel that I _am_ the
character I’m supposed to be.”
He patted her on the shoulder.
“That is how you _should_ feel,” he said, and went on: “Seen nothing of
Mendoza, have you? She isn’t annoying you? Or Foss?”
“I’ve not seen Miss Mendoza for days—but I saw Mr. Foss last night.”
She did not explain the curious circumstances, and Jack Knebworth was so
incurious that he did not ask. So that he learnt nothing of Lawley
Foss’s mysterious interview with the man in the closed car at the corner
of Arundel Road, an incident she had witnessed on the previous night.
Nor of the white and womanly hand that had waved him farewell, nor of
the great diamond which had sparkled lustrously on the little finger of
the unknown motorist.
Going home, Adele stopped at a confectioner’s and a florist’s, collected
the cakes and flowers that were to adorn the table of Mrs. Watson’s
parlour. She wondered more than a little just what attraction she
offered to this man of affairs. She had a trick of getting outside and
examining herself with an impartial eye, and she knew that, by
self-repression and almost self-obliteration, she had succeeded in
making of Adele Leamington a very colourless, characterless young lady.
That she was pretty she knew, but prettiness in itself attracts only the
superficial. Men who are worth knowing require something more than
beauty. And Michael was not philandering—he was not that kind. He
wanted her for a friend at least: she had no thought that he desired
amusement during his enforced stay in a very dull town.
Half-past four came and found the girl waiting. At a quarter to five she
was at the door, scanning the street. At five, angry but philosophical,
she had her tea and ordered the little maid of all work to clear the
table.
Michael had forgotten!
Of course, she made excuses for him, only to demolish them and build
again. She was hurt, amused and hurt again. Going upstairs to her room,
she lit the gas, took the script from her bag and tried to study the
scenes that were to be shot on the following day, but all manner of
distractions interposed between her receptive mind and the typewritten
paper. Michael bulked largely, and the closed car, and Lawley Foss, and
that waving white hand as the car drove off. Curiously enough, her
speculations came back again and again to the car. It was new and its
woodwork was highly polished and it moved so noiselessly.
At last she threw the manuscript down and rose, with a doubtful eye on
the bed. She was not tired; the hour was nine. Chichester offered few
attractions by night. There were two cinemas, and she was not in the
mood for cinemas. She put on her hat and went down, calling _en route_
at the kitchen door.
“I am going out for a quarter of an hour,” she told her landlady, who
was in an approving mood.
The house was situate in a street of small villas. It was economically
illuminated, and there were dark patches where the light of the street
lamps scarcely reached. In one of these a motor-car was standing—she
saw the bulk of it before she identified its character. She wondered if
the owner knew that its tail light was extinguished. As she came up to
the machine she identified the car she had seen on the previous
night—Foss had spoken to its occupant.
Glancing to the left, she could see nothing of its interior. The blinds
on the road side were drawn, and she thought it was empty, and then
. . .
“Pretty lady—come with me!”
The voice was a whisper: she caught the flash and sparkle of a precious
stone, saw the white hand on the edge of the half-closed window, and, in
a fit of unreasoning terror, hurried forward.
She heard a whirr of electric starter and the purring of engines. The
machine was following her, and she broke into a run. At the corner of
the street she saw a man and flew toward him, as she made out the helmet
of a policeman.
“What’s wrong, miss?”
As he spoke, the car flashed past, spun round the corner and was out of
sight instantly.
“A man spoke to me—in that car,” she said breathlessly.
The stolid constable gazed vacantly at the place where the car had been.
“He didn’t have lights,” he said stupidly. “I ought to have taken his
number. Did he insult you, miss?”
She shook her head, for she was already ashamed of her fears.
“I’m nervy, officer,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think I will go
any farther.”
She turned back and hurried to her lodgings. There were disadvantages in
starring—even on Jack Knebworth’s modest lot. It was nervous work, she
thought.
She went to sleep that night and dreamt that the man in the car was
Michael Brixan and he wanted her to come in to tea.
It was past midnight when Michael rang up Jack Knebworth with the news.
“Foss!” he gasped. “Good God! You don’t mean that, Brixan? Shall I come
round and see you?”
“I’ll come to you,” said Michael. “There are one or two things I want to
know about the man, and it will create less of a fuss than if I have to
admit you to the hotel.”
Jack Knebworth rented a house on the Arundel Road, and he was waiting at
the garden door to admit his visitor when Michael arrived.
Michael told the story of the discovery of the head, and felt that he
might so far take the director into his confidence as to retail his
visit to Sir Gregory Penne.
“That beats everything,” said Jack in a hushed tone. “Poor old Foss! You
think that Penne did this? But why? You don’t cut up a man because he
wants to borrow money.”
“My views have been switching round a little,” said Michael. “You
remember a sheet of manuscript that was found amongst some of your
script, and which I told you must have been written by the Head-Hunter?”
Jack nodded.
“I’m perfectly sure,” Michael went on, “and particularly after seeing
the erasure in the scenario book, that Foss knew who was the author of
that manuscript, and I’m equally certain that he resolved upon the
desperate expedient of blackmailing the writer. If that is the case, and
if Sir Gregory is the man—again I am very uncertain on this
point—there is a good reason why he should be put out of the way. There
is one person who can help us, and that is——”
“Mendoza,” said Jack, and the two men’s eyes met.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE HAND
JACK looked at his watch.
“I guess she’ll be in bed by now, but it’s worth while trying. Would you
like to see her?”
Michael hesitated. Stella Mendoza was a friend of Penne’s, and he was
loath to commit himself irretrievably to the view that Penne was the
murderer.
“Yes, I think we’ll see her,” he said. “After all, Penne knows that he
is suspected.”
Jack Knebworth was ten minutes on the telephone before he succeeded in
getting a reply from Stella’s cottage.
“It’s Knebworth speaking, Miss Mendoza,” he said. “Is it possible to see
you to-night? Mr. Brixan wants to speak to you.”
“At this hour of the night?” she said in sleepy surprise. “I was in bed
when the bell rang. Won’t it do in the morning?”
“No, he wants to see you particularly to-night. I’ll come along with him
if you don’t mind.”
“What is wrong?” she asked quickly. “Is it about Gregory?”
Jack whispered a query to the man who stood at his side, and Michael
nodded.
“Yes, it is about Gregory,” said Knebworth.
“Will you come along? I’ll have time to dress.”
Stella was dressed by the time they arrived, and too curious and too
alarmed to make the hour of the call a matter of comment.
“What is the trouble?” she asked.
“Mr. Foss is dead.”
“Dead?” She opened her eyes wide. “Why, I only saw him yesterday. But
how?”
“He has been murdered,” said Michael quietly. “His head has been found
on Chobham Common.”
She would have fallen to the floor, had not Michael’s arm been there to
support her, and it was some time before she recovered sufficiently to
answer coherently the questions which were put to her.
“No, I didn’t see Mr. Foss again after he left the Towers, and then I
only saw him for a few seconds.”
“Did he suggest he was coming back again?”
She shook her head.
“Did Sir Gregory tell you he was returning?”
“No.” She shook her head again. “He told me he was glad to see the last
of him, and that he had borrowed fifty pounds until next week, when he
expected to make a lot of money. Gregory is like that—he will tell you
things about people, things which they ask him not to make public. He is
rather proud of his wealth and what he calls his charity.”
“You had a luncheon engagement with him?” said Michael, watching her.
She bit her lip.
“You must have heard me talking when I left him,” she said. “No, I had
no luncheon engagement. That was camouflage, intended for anybody who
was hanging around, and we knew somebody had been in the house that
night. Was it you?”
Michael nodded.
“Oh, I’m so relieved!” She heaved a deep sigh. “Those few minutes in
that dark room were terrible to me. I thought it was——” She hesitated.
“Bhag?” suggested Michael, and she nodded.
“Yes. You don’t suspect Gregory of killing Foss?”
“I suspect everybody in general and nobody in particular,” said Michael.
“Did you see Bhag?”
She shivered.
“No, not that time. I’ve seen him, of course. He gives me the creeps!
I’ve never seen anything so human. Sometimes, when Gregory was a
little—a little drunk, he used to bring Bhag out and make him do
tricks. Do you know that Bhag could do all the Malayan exercises with
the sword! Sir Gregory had a specially made wooden sword for him, and
the way that that awful thing used to twirl it round his head was
terrifying.”
Michael stared at her.
“Bhag _could_ use the sword, then? Penne told me he did, but I thought
he was lying.”
“Oh, yes, he could use the sword. Gregory taught him everything.”
“What is Penne to you?” Michael asked the question bluntly, and she
coloured.
“He has been a friend,” she said awkwardly, “a very good friend of
mine—financially, I mean. He took a liking to me a long time ago, and
we’ve been—very good friends.”
Michael nodded.
“And you are still?”
“No,” she answered shortly, “I’ve finished with Gregory, and am leaving
Chichester to-morrow. I’ve put the house in an agent’s hands to rent.
Poor Mr. Foss!” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. “Poor soul!
Gregory wouldn’t have done it, Mr. Brixan, I’ll swear that! There’s a
whole lot of Gregory that’s sheer bluff. He’s a coward at heart, and
though he has done dreadful things, he has always had an agent to do the
dirty work.”
“Dreadful things like what?”
She seemed reluctant to explain, but he pressed her.
“Well, he told me that he used to take expeditions in the bush and raid
the villages, carrying off girls. There is one tribe that have very
beautiful women. Perhaps he was lying about that too, but I have an idea
that he spoke the truth. He told me that only a year ago, when he was in
Borneo, he ‘lifted’ a girl from a wild village where it was death for a
European to go. He always said ‘lifted.’”
“And didn’t you mind these confessions?” asked Michael, his steely eye
upon her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“He was that kind of man,” was all she said, and it spoke volumes for
her understanding of her “very good friend.”
Michael walked back to Jack Knebworth’s house.
“The story Penne tells seems to fit together with the information
Mendoza has given us. There is no doubt that the woman at the top of the
tower was the lady he ‘lifted,’ and less doubt that the little brown man
was her husband. If they have escaped from the tower, then there should
be no difficulty in finding them. I’ll send out a message to all
stations within a radius of twenty-five miles, and we ought to get news
of them in the morning.”
“It’s morning now,” said Jack, looking toward the greying east. “Will
you come in? I’ll give you some coffee. This news has upset me. I was
going to have a long day’s work, but I guess we’ll have to put it off
for a day or so. The company is bound to be upset by this news. They all
knew Foss, although he was not very popular with them. It only wants
Adele to be off colour to complete our misery. By the way, Brixan, why
don’t you make this your headquarters? I’m a bachelor; there’s a ’phone
service here, and you’ll get a privacy at this house which you don’t get
at your hotel.”
The idea appealed to the detective, and it was at Jack Knebworth’s house
that he slept that night, after an hour’s conversation on the telephone
with Scotland Yard.
Early in the morning he was again at the Towers, and now, with the
assistance of daylight, he enlarged his search, without adding greatly
to his knowledge. The position was a peculiar one, as Scotland Yard had
emphasized. Sir Gregory Penne was a member of a good family, a rich man,
a justice of the peace; and, whilst his eccentricities were of a lawless
character, “you can’t hang people for being queer,” the Commissioner
informed Michael on the telephone.
It was a suspicious fact that Bhag had disappeared as completely as the
brown man and his wife.
“He hasn’t been back all night: I’ve seen nothing of him,” said Sir
Gregory. “And that’s not the first time he’s gone off on his own. He
finds hiding-places that you’d never suspect, and he’s probably gone to
earth somewhere. He’ll turn up.”
Michael was passing through Chichester when he saw a figure that made
him bring the car to a standstill with such a jerk that it was a wonder
the tyres did not burst. In a second he was out of the machine and
walking to meet Adele.
“It seems ten thousand years since I saw you,” he said with an
extravagance which at any other time would have brought a smile to her
face.
“I’m afraid I can’t stop. I’m on my way to the studio,” she said, a
little coldly, “and I promised Mr. Knebworth that I would be there
early. You see, I got off yesterday afternoon by telling Mr. Knebworth
that I had an engagement.”
“And had you?” asked the innocent Michael.
“I asked somebody to take tea with me,” and his jaw dropped.
“Moses!” he gasped. “I am the villain!”
She would have gone on, but he stopped her.
“I don’t want to shock you or hurt you, Adele,” he said gently, “but the
explanation for my forgetfulness is that we’ve had another tragedy.”
She stopped and looked at him.
“Another?”
He nodded.
“Mr. Foss has been murdered,” he said.
She went very white.
“When?” Her voice was calm, almost emotionless.
“Last night.”
“It was after nine,” she said.
His eyebrows went up in surprise.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, Mr. Brixan”—she spoke slowly—“at nine o’clock I saw the hand
of the man who murdered him!
“Two nights ago,” she went on, “I went out to buy some wool I wanted. It
was just before the shops closed—a quarter to eight, I think. In the
town I saw Mr. Foss and spoke to him. He was very nervous and restless,
and again made a suggestion to me which he had already made when he
called on me. His manner was so strange that I asked him if he was in
any trouble. He told me no, but he had had an awful premonition that
something dreadful was going to happen, and he asked me if I’d lived in
Chichester for any length of time, and if I knew about the caves.”
“The caves?” said Michael quickly.
She nodded.
“I was surprised. I’d never heard of the caves. He told me there was a
reference to them in some old history of Chichester. He had looked in
the guide-books without finding anything about them, but apparently
there were caves at some time or other near Chellerton, but there was a
heavy subsidence of earth that closed the entrance. He was so rambling
and so disjointed that I thought he must have been drinking, and I was
glad to get away from him. I went on and did my shopping and met one of
the extra girls I knew. She asked me to go home with her. I didn’t want
to go a bit, but I thought if I refused she would think I was giving
myself airs, and so I went. As soon as I could, I came away and went
straight home.
“It was then nine o’clock and the streets were empty. They are not very
well lit in Chichester, but I was able to recognize Mr. Foss. He was
standing at the corner of the Arundel Road, and was evidently waiting
for somebody. I stopped because I particularly did not wish to meet Mr.
Foss, but I was on the point of turning round when a car drove into the
road and stopped almost opposite him.”
“What sort of a car?” asked Michael.
“It was a closed landaulette—I think they call them sedans. As it came
round the corner its lights went out, which struck me as being curious.
Mr. Foss was evidently waiting for this, for he went up and leant on the
edge of the window and spoke to somebody inside. I don’t know what made
me do it, but I had an extraordinary impulse to see who was in the car,
and I started walking toward them. I must have been five or six yards
away when Mr. Foss stepped back and the sedan moved on. The driver put
his hand out of the window as if he was waving good-bye. It was still
out of the window and the only thing visible—the interior was quite
dark—when it came abreast of me.”
“Was there anything peculiar about the hand?”
“Nothing, except that it was small and white, and on the little finger
was a large diamond ring. The fire in it was extraordinary, and I
wondered why a man should wear a ring of that kind. You will think I am
silly, but the sight of that hand gave me a terrible feeling of fear—I
don’t know why, even now. There was something unnatural and abnormal
about it. When I looked round again, Mr. Foss was walking rapidly in the
other direction, and I made no attempt to overtake him.”
“You saw no number on the car?”
“None whatever.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t so curious.”
“You didn’t even see the silhouette of the man inside?”
“No, I saw nothing. His arm was raised.”
“What size was the diamond, do you think?”
She pursed her lips dubiously.
“He passed me in a flash, and I can’t give you any very accurate
information, Mr. Brixan. It may be a mistake on my part, but I thought
it was as big as the tip of my finger. Naturally I couldn’t see any
details, even though I saw the car again last night.”
She went on to tell him of what happened on the previous night, and he
listened intently.
“The man spoke to you—did you recognize his voice?”
She shook her head.
“No—he spoke in a whisper. I did not see his face, though I have an
idea that he was wearing a cap. The policeman said he should have taken
the number of the car.”
“Oh, the policeman said that, did he?” remarked Michael sardonically.
“Well, there’s hope for him.”
For a minute he was immersed in thought, and then:
“I’ll take you to the studio if you don’t mind,” said Michael.
He left her to go to her dressing-room, there to learn that work had
been suspended for the day, and went in search of Jack.
“You’ve seen everybody of consequence in this neighbourhood,” he said.
“Do you know anybody who drives a sedan and wears a diamond ring on the
little finger of the right hand?”
“The only person I know who has that weakness is Mendoza,” he said.
Michael whistled.
“I never thought of Mendoza,” he said, “and Adele described the hand as
‘small and womanly.’”
“Mendoza’s hand isn’t particularly small, but it would look small on a
man,” said Jack thoughtfully. “And her car isn’t a closed sedan, but
that doesn’t mean anything. By the way, I’ve just sent instructions to
tell the company I’m working to-day. If we let these people stand around
thinking, they’ll get thoroughly upset.”
“I thought that too,” said Michael with a smile, “but I didn’t dare make
the suggestion.”
An urgent message took him to London that afternoon, where he attended a
conference of the Big Five at Scotland Yard. And at the end of the
two-hour discussion, the conclusion was reached that Sir Gregory Penne
was to remain at large but under observation.
“We verified the story about the lifting of this girl in Borneo,” said
the quiet-spoken Chief. “And all the facts dovetail. I haven’t the
slightest doubt in my mind that Penne is the culprit, but we’ve got to
walk very warily. I dare say in your department, Captain Brixan, you can
afford to take a few risks, but the police in this country never make an
arrest for murder unless they are absolutely certain that a conviction
will follow. There may be something in your other theory, and I’d be the
last man in the world to turn it down, but you’ll have to conduct
parallel investigations.”
Michael ran down to Sussex in broad daylight. There was a long stretch
of road about four miles north of Chichester, and he was pelting along
this when he became aware of a figure standing in the middle of the
roadway with its arms outstretched, and slowed down. It was Mr. Sampson
Longvale, he saw to his amazement. Almost before the car had stopped,
with an extraordinary display of agility Mr. Longvale jumped on the
running-board.
“I have been watching for you this last two hours, Mr. Brixan,” he said.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“Come right in,” said Michael heartily.
“You are going to Chichester, I know. Would you mind instead coming to
the Dower House? I have something important to tell you.”
The place at which he had signalled the car to stop was exactly opposite
the end of the road that led to the Dower House and Sir Gregory’s
domain. The old man told him that he had walked back from Chichester,
and had been waiting for the passing of the car.
“I learnt for the first time, Mr. Brixan, that you are an officer of the
law,” he said, with a stately inclination of his head. “I need hardly
tell you how greatly I respect one whose duty it is to serve the cause
of justice.”
“Mr. Knebworth told you, I presume?” said Michael with a smile.
“He told me,” agreed the other gravely. “I went in really to seek you,
having an intuition that you had some more important position in life
than what I had first imagined. I confess I thought at first that you
were one of those idle young men who have nothing to do but to amuse
themselves. It was a great gratification to me to learn that I was
mistaken. It is all the more gratifying”—(Michael smiled inwardly at
the verbosity of age)—“because I need advice on a point of law, which I
imagine my lawyer would not offer to me. My position is a very peculiar
one, in some ways embarrassing. I am a man who shrinks from the eye of
the public and am averse from vulgar intermeddling in other people’s
affairs.”
What had he to tell, Michael wondered—this old man, with his habit of
nocturnal strolls, might have been a witness to something that had not
yet come out.
They stopped at the Dower House, and the old man got out and opened the
gate, not closing it until Michael had passed through. Instead of going
direct to his sitting-room, he went upstairs, beckoning Michael to come
after, and stopped before the room which had been occupied by Adele on
the night of her terrible experience.
“I wish you to see these people,” said Mr. Longvale earnestly, “and tell
me whether I am acting in accordance with the law.”
He opened the door, and Mike saw that there were now two beds in the
room. On one, heavily bandaged and apparently unconscious, was the
brown-faced man; on the other, sleeping, was the woman Michael had seen
in the tower! She, too, was badly wounded: her arm was bandaged and
strapped into position.
Michael drew a long breath.
“That is a mystery solved, anyway,” he said. “Where did you find these
people?”
At the sound of his voice the woman opened her eyes and frowned at him
fearfully, then looked across to the man.
“You have been wounded?” said Michael in Dutch, but apparently her
education had been neglected in respect of European languages, for she
made no reply.
She was so uncomfortable at the sight of him that Michael was glad to go
out of the room. It was not until they were back in his sanctum that Mr.
Longvale told his story.
“I saw them last night about half-past eleven,” he said. “They were
staggering down the road, and I thought at first that they were
intoxicated, but fortunately the woman spoke, and as I have never
forgotten a voice, even when it spoke in a language that was unfamiliar
to me, I realized immediately that it was my patient, and went out to
intercept her. I then saw the condition of her companion, and she,
recognizing me, began to speak excitedly in a language which I could not
understand, though I would have been singularly dense if I had had any
doubt as to her meaning. The man was on the point of collapse, but,
assisted by the woman, I managed to get him into the house and to the
room where he now is. Fortunately, in the expectation of again being
called to attend her, I had purchased a small stock of surgical dressing
and was able to attend to the man.”
“Is he badly hurt?” asked Michael.
“He has lost a considerable quantity of blood,” said the other, “and,
though there seems to be no arteries severed or bones broken, the wounds
have an alarming appearance. Now, it has occurred to me,” he went on, in
his oddly profound manner, “that this unfortunate native could not have
received his injury except as the result of some illegal act, and I
thought the best thing to do was to notify the police that they were
under my care. I called first upon my excellent friend, Mr. John
Knebworth, and opened my heart to him. He then told me your position,
and I decided to wait your return before I took any further steps.”
“You have solved a mystery that has puzzled me, and incidentally, you
have confirmed a story which I had received with considerable
scepticism,” said Mike. “I think you were well advised in informing the
police—I will make a report to headquarters, and send an ambulance to
take these two people to hospital. Is the man fit to be moved?”
“I think so,” nodded the old gentleman. “He is sleeping heavily now, and
has the appearance of being in a state of coma, but that is not the
case. They are quite welcome to stay here, though I have no convenience,
and must do my own nursing, which is rather a bother, for I am not
fitted for such a strain. Happily, the woman is able to do a great deal
for him.”
“Did he have a sword when he arrived?”
Mr. Longvale clicked his lips impatiently.
“How stupid of me to forget that! Yes, it is in here.”
He went to a drawer in an old-fashioned bureau, pulled it open and took
out the identical sword which Michael had seen hanging above the
mantelpiece at Griff Towers. It was spotlessly clean, and had been so
when Mr. Longvale took it from the brown man’s hands. And yet he did not
expect it to be in any other condition, for to the swordsman of the East
his sword is his child, and probably the brown man’s first care had been
to wipe it clean.
Michael was taking his leave when he suddenly asked:
“I wonder if it would give you too much trouble, Mr. Longvale, to get me
a glass of water? My throat is parched.”
With an exclamation of apology, the old man hurried away, leaving
Michael in the hall.
Hanging on pegs was the long overcoat of the master of Dower House, and
beside it the curly-rimmed beaver and a very prosaic derby hat, which
Michael took down the moment the old man’s back was turned. It had been
no ruse of his, this demand for a drink, for he was parched. Only
Michael had the inquisitiveness of his profession.
The old gentleman returned quickly to find Michael examining the hat.
“Where did this come from?” asked the detective.
“That was the hat the native was wearing when he arrived,” said Mr.
Longvale.
“I will take it with me, if you don’t mind,” said Michael after a long
silence.
“With all the pleasure in life. Our friend upstairs will not need a hat
for a very long time,” he said, with a whimsical little smile.
Michael went back to his car, put the hat carefully beside him, and
drove into Chichester; and all the way he was in a state of wonder. For
inside the hat were the initials “L. F.” How came the hat of Lawley Foss
on the head of the brown man from Borneo?
CHAPTER XXVII
THE CAVES
MR. LONGVALE’S two patients were removed to hospital that night, and,
with a favourable report on the man’s condition from the doctors,
Michael felt that one aspect of the mystery was a mystery no longer.
His old schoolmaster received a visit that night.
“More study?” he asked good-humouredly when Michael was announced.
“Curiously enough, you’re right, sir,” said Michael, “though I doubt
very much whether you can assist me. I’m looking for an old history of
Chichester.”
“I have one published in 1600. You’re the second man in the last
fortnight who wanted to see it.”
“Who was the other?” asked Michael quickly.
“A man named Foss——” began Mr. Scott, and Michael nodded as though he
had known the identity of the seeker after knowledge. “He wanted to know
about caves. I’ve never heard there were any local caves of any
celebrity. Now, if this were Cheddar, I should be able to give you quite
a lot of information. I am an authority on the Cheddar caves.”
He showed Michael into the library, and taking down an ancient volume,
laid it on the library table.
“After Foss had gone I looked up the reference. I find it occurs only on
one page—385. It deals with the disappearance of a troop of horsemen
under Sir John Dudley, Earl of Newport, in some local trouble in the
days of Stephen. Here is the passage.” He pointed.
Michael read, in the old-fashioned type:
“The noble Earl, deciding to await hi∫ arrival, carried two
_companie_∫ of hor∫e by night into the great caves which exi∫ted
in the∫e times. By the merciful di∫pen∫ation of God, in Who∫e
Hands we are, there occurred, at eight o’clock in the forenoon,
a great land∫lide which entombed and de∫troyed all the∫e knights
and ∫quires, and ∫ir John Dudley, Earl of Newport, ∫o that they
were never more ∫een. And the place of this happening is nine
miles in a line from this ∫ame city, called by the Romans
Regnum, or Ciffancea∫ter in the Saxon fa∫hion.”
“Have the caves ever been located?”
Mr. Scott shook his head.
“There are local rumours that they were used a century and a half ago by
brandy smugglers, but then you find those traditions local to every
district.”
Michael took a local map of Chichester from his pocket, measured off
nine miles, and with a pair of compasses encircled the city. He noted
that the line passed either through or near Sir Gregory’s estate.
“There are two Griff Towers?” he suddenly said, examining the map.
“Yes, there is another besides Penne’s place, which is named after a
famous local landmark—the real Griffin Tower (as it was originally
called). I have an idea it stands either within or about Penne’s
property—a very old, circular tower, about twenty feet high, and
anything up to two thousand years old. I’m interested in antiquities,
and I have made a very careful inspection of the place. The lower part
of the wall is undoubtedly Roman work—the Romans had a big encampment
here; in fact, Regnum was one of their headquarters. There are all sorts
of explanations for the tower. Probably it was a keep or blockhouse. The
idea I have is that the original Roman tower was not more than a few
feet high and was not designed for defence at all. Successive ages added
to its height, without exactly knowing why.”
Michael chuckled.
“Now if my theory is correct, I shall hear more about this Roman castle
before the night is out,” he said.
He gathered his trunks from the hotel and took them off to his new home.
He found that the dinner-table was laid for three.
“Expecting company?” asked Michael, watching Jack Knebworth putting the
finishing touches on the table—he had a bachelor’s finicking sense of
neatness, which consists of placing everything at equal distance from
everything else.
“Yuh! Friend of yours.”
“Of mine?”
Jack nodded.
“I’ve asked young Leamington to come up. And when I see a man of your
age turning pink at the mention of a girl’s name, I feel sorry for him.
She’s coming partly on business, partly for the pleasure of meeting me
in a human atmosphere. She didn’t do so well to-day as I wanted, but I
guess we were all a little short of our best.”
She came soon after, and there was something about her that was very
sweet and appealing; something that went straight to Michael’s heart and
consolidated the position she had taken there.
“I was thinking as I came along,” she said, as Jack Knebworth helped her
off with her coat, “how very unreal everything is—I never dreamt I
should be your guest to dinner, Mr. Knebworth.”
“And I never dreamt you’d be worthy of such a distinction,” growled
Jack. “And in five years’ time you’ll be saying, ‘Why on earth did I
make such a fuss about being asked to a skimpy meal by that punk
director Knebworth?’”
He put his hand on her shoulder and led her into the room, and then for
the first time she saw Michael, and that young man had a momentary sense
of dismay when he saw her face drop. It was only for a second, and, as
if reading his thoughts, she explained her sudden change of mien.
“I thought we were going to talk nothing but pictures and pictures!” she
said.
“So you shall,” said Michael. “I’m the best listener on earth, and the
first person to mention murder will be thrown out of the window.”
“Then I’ll prepare for the flight!” she said good-humouredly. “For I’m
going to talk murder and mystery—later!”
Under the expanding influence of a sympathetic environment the girl took
on a new aspect, and all that Michael had suspected in her was amply
proven. The shyness, the almost frigid reserve, melted in the company of
two men, one of whom she guessed was fond of her, while the other—well,
Michael was at least a friend.
“I have been doing detective work this afternoon,” she said, after the
coffee had been served, “and I’ve made amazing discoveries,” she added
solemnly. “It started by my trying to track the motor-car, which I
guessed must have come into my street through a lane which runs across
the far end. It is the only motor-car track I’ve found, and I don’t
think there is any doubt it was my white-handed man who drove it. You
see, I noticed the back tyre, which had a sort of diamond-shaped design
on it, and it was fairly easy to follow the marks. Half-way up the lane
I found a place where there was oil in the middle of the road, and where
the car must have stood for some time, and there—I found this!”
She opened her little handbag and took out a small, dark-green bottle.
It bore no label and was unstoppered. Michael took it from her hand,
examined it curiously and smelt. There was a distinctive odour, pungent
and not unpleasing.
“Do you recognize it?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Let me try.” Jack Knebworth took the bottle from Michael’s hand and
sniffed. “Butyl chloride,” he said quickly, and the girl nodded.
“I thought it was that. Father was a pharmaceutical chemist, and once,
when I was playing in his dispensary, I found a cupboard open and took
down a pretty bottle and opened it. I don’t know what would have
happened to me, only daddy saw me. I was quite a child at the time, and
I’ve always remembered that scent.”
“Butyl chloride?” Michael frowned.
“It’s known as the ‘death drop’ or the ‘knock-out drop,’” said
Knebworth, “and it’s a drug very much in favour with sharks who make a
business of robbing sailors. A few drops of that in a glass of wine and
you’re out!”
Michael took the bottle again. It was a commonplace bottle such as is
used for the dispensation of poisons, and in fact the word “Poison” was
blown into the glass.
“There is no trace of a label,” he said.
“And really there is no connection with the mysterious car,” admitted
the girl. “My surmise is merely guesswork—putting one sinister thing to
another.”
“Where was it?”
“In a ditch, which is very deep there and is flooded just now, but the
bottle didn’t roll down so far as the water. That is discovery number
one. Here is number two.”
From her bag she took a curious-shaped piece of steel, both ends of
which had the marks of a break.
“Do you know what that is?” she asked.
“It beats me,” said Jack, and handed the find to Michael.
“_I_ know what it is, because I’ve seen it at the studio,” said the
girl, “and you know too, don’t you, Mr. Brixan?”
Mike nodded.
“It’s the central link of a handcuff,” he said, “the link that has the
swivel.”
It was covered with spots of rust, which had been cleaned off—by the
girl, as she told him.
“Those are my two finds. I am not going to offer you my conclusions,
because I have none!”
“They may not have been thrown from the car at all,” said Michael, “but,
as you say, there is a possibility that the owner of the car chose that
peculiarly deserted spot to rid himself of two articles which he could
not afford to have on the premises. It would have been safer to throw
them into the sea, but this, I suppose, was the easier, and, to him, the
safer method. I will keep these.”
He wrapped them in paper, put them away in his pocket, and the
conversation drifted back to picture-taking, and, as he had anticipated:
“We’re shooting at Griff Tower to-morrow—the real tower,” said Jack
Knebworth. “It is one of the landmarks—what is there amusing in Griff
Tower?” he demanded.
“Nothing particularly amusing, except that you have fulfilled a
prediction of mine,” said Michael. “I knew I should hear of that darned
old tower!”
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE TOWER
MICHAEL was a little perturbed in mind. He took a more serious view of
the closed car than did the girl, and the invitation to the “pretty
lady” to step inside was particularly disturbing. Since the events of
the past few days it had been necessary to withdraw the detective who
was watching the girl’s house, and he decided to re-establish the guard,
employing a local officer for the purpose.
After he had driven Adele home, he went to the police station and made
his wishes known; but it was too late to see the chief constable, and
the subordinate officer in charge did not wish to take the
responsibility of detaching an officer for the purpose. It was only when
Michael threatened to call the chief on the telephone that he
reluctantly drew on his reserves and put a uniformed officer to patrol
the street.
Back again at Knebworth’s house, Michael examined the two articles which
the girl had found. Butyl chloride was a drug and a particularly violent
one. What use would the Head-Hunter have for that, he wondered.
As for the handcuff, he examined it again. Terrific force must have been
employed to snap the connecting links. This was a mystery to him, and he
gave it up with a sense of annoyance at his own incompetence.
Before going to bed he received a ’phone message from Inspector Lyle,
who was watching Griff Towers. There was nothing new to report, and
apparently life was pursuing its normal round. The inspector had been
invited into the house by Sir Gregory, who had told him that Bhag was
still missing.
“I’ll keep you there to-night,” said Michael. “To-morrow we will lift
the watch. Scotland Yard is satisfied that Sir Gregory had nothing to do
with Foss’s death.”
A grunt from the other end of the ’phone expressed the inspector’s
disagreement with that view.
“He’s in it somehow,” he said. “By the way, I’ve found a bloodstained
derby hat in the field outside the grounds. It has the name of Chi Li
Stores, Tjandi, inside.”
This was news indeed.
“Let me see it in the morning,” said Michael after long cogitation.
Soon after breakfast the next morning the hat came and was inspected.
Knebworth, who had heard most of the story from Michael, examined the
new clue curiously.
“If the coon wore Lawley’s hat when he arrived at Mr. Longvale’s, where,
in the name of fate, did the change take place? It must have been
somewhere between the Towers and the old man’s house, unless——”
“Unless what?” asked Michael. He had a great respect for Knebworth’s
shrewd judgment.
“Unless the change took place at Sir Gregory’s house. You see that,
although it is bloodstained, there are no cuts in it. Which is rum.”
“Very rum,” agreed Mike ruefully. “And yet, if my first theory was
correct, the explanation is simple.”
He did not tell his host what his theory was.
Accompanying Knebworth to the studio, he watched the char-à-banc drive
off, wishing that he had some excuse and the leisure to accompany them
on their expedition. It was a carefree, cheery throng, and its very
association was a tonic to his spirits.
He put through his usual call to London. There was no news. There was
really no reason why he should not go, he decided recklessly; and as
soon as his decision was taken his car was pounding on the trail of the
joy wagon.
He saw the tower a quarter of an hour before he came up to it: a squat,
ancient building, for all the world like an inordinately high sheepfold.
When he came up to them the char-à-banc had been drawn on to the grass,
and the company was putting the finishing touches to its make-up. Adele
he did not see at once—she was changing in a little canvas tent, whilst
Jack Knebworth and the camera man wrangled over light and position.
Michael had too much intelligence to butt in at this moment, and
strolled up to the tower, examining the curious courses which generation
after generation had added to the original foundations. He knew very
little of masonry, but he was able to detect the Roman portion of the
wall, and thought he saw the place where Saxon builders had filled in a
gap.
One of the hands was fixing a ladder up which Roselle was to pass. The
story which was being filmed was that of a girl who, starting life in
the chorus, had become the wife of a nobleman with archaic ideas. The
poor but honest young man who had loved her in her youth (Michael
gathered that a disconsolate Reggie Connolly played this part) was ever
at hand to help her; and now, when shut up in a stone room of the keep,
it was he who was to rescue her.
The actual castle tower had been shot in Arundel. Old Griff Tower was to
serve for a close-up, showing the girl descending from her prison in the
arms of her lover, by the aid of a rope of knotted sheets.
“It’s going to be deuced awkward getting down,” said Reggie
lugubriously. “Of course, they’ve got a rope inside the sheet, so
there’s no chance of it breaking. But Miss Leamington is really
fearfully awfully heavy! You try and lift her yourself, old thing, and
see how you like it!”
Nothing would have given Michael greater pleasure than to carry out the
instructions literally.
“It’s too robust a part for me, it is really,” bleated Reggie. “I’m not
a cave man, I’m not indeed! I’ve told Knebworth that it isn’t the job
for me. And besides, why do they want a close-up? Why don’t they make a
dummy that I could carry and sling about? And why doesn’t she come down
by herself?”
“It’s dead easy,” said Knebworth, who had walked up and overheard the
latter part of the conversation. “Miss Leamington will hold the rope and
take the weight off you. All you’ve got to do is to look brave and
pretty.”
“That’s all very well,” grumbled Reggie, “but climbing down ropes is not
the job I was engaged for. We all have our likes and our dislikes, and
that’s one of my dislikes.”
“Try it,” said Jack laconically.
The property man had fixed the rope to an iron staple which he had
driven to the inside of the tower, the top of which would not be shown
in the picture. The actual descent had been acted by “doubles” in
Arundel on a long shot: it was only the close-up that Jack needed. The
first rehearsal nearly ended in disaster. With a squeak, Connolly let go
his burden, and the girl would have fallen but for her firm grip on the
rope.
“Try it again,” stormed Jack. “Remember you’re playing a man’s part.
Young Coogan would hold her better than that!”
They tried again, with greater success, and after the third rehearsal,
when poor Reggie was in a state of exhaustion—
“Camera!” said Knebworth shortly, and then began the actual taking of
the picture.
Whatever his other drawbacks were, and whatever his disadvantages, there
was no doubt that Connolly was an artist. Racked with agony at this
unusual exertion though he was, he could smile sweetly into the upturned
face of the girl, whilst the camera, fixed upon a collapsible platform,
clicked encouragingly as it was lowered to keep pace with the escaping
lovers. They touched ground, and with one last languishing look at the
girl, Connolly posed for the final three seconds.
“That’ll do,” said Jack.
Reggie sat down heavily.
“My heavens!” he wailed, feeling his arms painfully. “I’ll never do that
again, I won’t really. I’ve had as much of that stuff as ever I’m going
to have, Mr. Knebworth. It was terrible! I thought I should die!”
“Well, you didn’t,” said Jack good-humouredly. “Now have a rest, you
boys and girls, and then we’ll shoot the escape.”
The camera was moved off twenty or thirty yards, and whilst Reggie
Connolly writhed in agony on the ground, the girl walked over to
Michael.
“I’m glad that’s over,” she said thankfully. “Poor Mr. Connolly! The
awful language he was using inside nearly made me laugh, and that would
have meant that we should have had to take it all over again. But it
wasn’t easy,” she added.
Her own arm was bruised, and the rope had rubbed raw a little place on
her wrist. Michael had an insane desire to kiss the raw skin, but
restrained himself.
“What did you think of me? Did I look anything approaching graceful? I
felt like a bundle of straw!”
“You looked—wonderful!” he said fervently, and she shot a quick glance
at him and dropped her eyes.
“Perhaps you’re prejudiced,” she said demurely.
“I have that feeling too,” said Michael. “What is inside?” He pointed.
“Inside the tower? Nothing, except a lot of rock and wild bush, and a
pathetic dwarf tree. I loved it.”
He laughed.
“Just now you said you were glad it was over. I presume you were
referring to the play and not to the interior of the tower?”
She nodded, a twinkle in her eye.
“Mr. Knebworth says he may have to take a night shot if he’s not
satisfied with the day picture. Poor Mr. Connolly! He’ll throw up his
part.”
At that moment Jack Knebworth’s voice was heard.
“Don’t take the ladder, Collins,” he shouted. “Put it down on the grass
behind the tower. I may have to come up here to-night, so you can leave
anything that won’t be hurt by the weather, and collect it again in the
morning.”
Adele made a little face.
“I was afraid he would,” she said. “Not that I mind very much—it’s
rather fun. But Mr. Connolly’s nervousness communicates itself in some
way. I wish you were playing that part.”
“I wish to heaven I were!” said Michael, with such sincerity in his
voice that she coloured.
Jack Knebworth came toward them.
“Did you leave anything up there, Adele?” he asked, pointing to the
tower.
“No, Mr. Knebworth,” she said in surprise.
“Well, what’s that?”
He pointed to something round that showed above the edge of the tower
top.
“Why, it’s moving!” he gasped.
As he spoke a head came slowly into view. It was followed by a massive
pair of hairy shoulders, and then a leg was thrown over the wall.
It was Bhag!
His tawny hair was white with dust, his face was powdered grotesquely.
All these things Michael noticed. Then, as the creature put out his hand
to steady himself, Michael saw that each wrist was encircled by the half
of a broken pair of handcuffs!
CHAPTER XXIX
BHAG’S RETURN
THE girl screamed and gripped Michael’s arm.
“What is that?” she asked. “Is it the Thing that came to my—my room?”
Michael put her aside gently, and ran toward the tower. As he did so,
Bhag took a leap and dropped on the ground. For a moment he stood, his
knuckles on the ground, his malignant face turned in the direction of
the man. And then he sniffed, and, with that queer twittering noise of
his, went ambling across the downs and disappeared over a nearby crest.
Michael raced in pursuit. By the time he came into view, the great ape
was a quarter of a mile away, running at top speed, and always keeping
close to the hedges that divided the fields he had to cross. Pursuit was
useless, and the detective went slowly back to the alarmed company.
“It is only an orang-outang belonging to Sir Gregory, and perfectly
harmless,” he said. “He has been missing from the house for two or three
days.”
“He must have been hiding in the tower,” said Knebworth, and Michael
nodded. “Well, I’m darned glad he didn’t choose to come out at the
moment I was shooting,” said the director, mopping his forehead. “You
didn’t see anything of him, Adele?”
Michael guessed that the girl was pale under her yellow make-up, and the
hand she raised to her lips shook a little.
“That explains the mystery of the handcuffs,” said Knebworth.
“Did you notice them?” asked Michael quickly. “Yes, that explains the
broken link,” he said, “but it doesn’t exactly explain the butyl
chloride.”
He held the girl’s arm as he spoke, and in the warm, strong pressure she
felt something more than his sympathy.
“Were you a little frightened?”
“I was badly frightened,” she confessed. “How terrible! Was that Bhag?”
He nodded.
“That was Bhag,” he said. “I suppose he’s been hiding in the tower ever
since his disappearance. You saw nothing when you were on the top of the
wall?”
“I’m glad to say I didn’t, or I should have dropped. There are a large
number of bushes where he might have been hidden.”
Michael decided to look for himself. They put up the ladder and he
climbed to the broad top of the tower and looked down. At the base of
the stonework the ground sloped away in a manner curiously reminiscent
of the shell-holes he had seen during the war in France. The actual
floor of the tower was not visible under the hawthorn bushes which grew
thickly at the centre. He caught a glimpse of the jagged edges of rock,
the distorted branches of an old tree, and that was all.
There was ample opportunity for concealment. Possibly Bhag had hidden
there most of the time, sleeping off the effects of his labour and his
wounds; for Michael had seen something that nobody else had noticed—the
gashed skin, and the ear that had been slashed in half.
He came down the ladder again and rejoined Knebworth.
“I think that finishes our work for to-day,” said Jack dubiously. “I
smell hysteria, and it will be a long time before I can get the girls to
come up for a night picture.”
Michael drove the director back in his car, and all the way home he was
considering this strange appearance of the ape. Somebody had handcuffed
Bhag: he ought to have guessed that when he saw the torn link. No human
being could have broken those apart. And Bhag had escaped—from whom?
How? And why had he not returned to Griff Towers and to his master?
When he had dropped the director at the studio he went straight on to
Gregory’s house, and found the baronet playing clock-golf on a strip of
lawn that ran by the side of the house. The man was still heavily
bandaged, but he was making good recovery.
“Yes, Bhag is back. He returned half an hour ago. Where he has been,
heaven knows! I’ve often wished that chap could talk, but I’ve never
wished it so much as I do at this moment. Somebody had put irons on him:
I’ve just taken them off.”
“Can I see them?”
“You knew it, did you?”
“I saw him. He came out of the old tower on the hill.” Michael pointed;
from where they stood, the tower was in sight.
“Is that so? And what the devil was he doing there?”
Sir Gregory scratched his chin thoughtfully.
“He’s been away before, but mostly he goes to a shoot of mine about
three miles away, where there’s plenty of cover and no intruders. I
discovered that when a poacher saw him, and, like a fool, shot at
him—that poacher was a lucky man to escape with his life. Have you
found the body of Foss?”
The baronet had resumed his playing, and was looking at the ball at his
feet.
“No,” said Michael quietly.
“Expect to find it?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Sir Gregory stood, his hands leaning on his club, looking across the
wold.
“What’s the law in this country, suppose a man accidentally kills a
servant who tried to knife him?”
“He would have to stand his trial,” said Michael, “and a verdict of
‘justifiable homicide’ would be returned and he would be set free.”
“But suppose he didn’t reveal it? Suppose he—well, did away with the
body—buried it—and let the matter slide?”
“Then he would place himself in a remarkably dangerous position,” said
Michael. “Particularly”—he watched the man closely—“if a woman friend,
who is no longer a woman friend, happened to be a witness or had
knowledge of the act.”
Gregory Penne’s one visible eye blinked quickly, and he went that
curious purple colour which Michael had seen before when he was
agitated.
“Suppose she tried to get money out of him by threatening to tell the
police?”
“Then,” said the patient Michael, “she would go to prison for blackmail,
and possibly as an accessory to or after the fact.”
“Would she?” Sir Gregory’s voice was eager. “She would be an accessory
if she saw—him cut the man down? Mind you, this happened years ago.
There’s a Statute of Limitations, isn’t there?”
“Not for murder,” said Michael.
“Murder! Would you call that murder?” asked the other in alarm. “In
self-defence? Rot!”
Things were gradually being made light to Michael. Once Stella Mendoza
had called the man a murderer, and Michael’s nimble mind, which could
reconstruct the scene with almost unerring precision, began to grow
active. A servant, a coloured man, probably, one of his Malayan slaves,
had run amok, and Penne had killed him—possibly in self-defence—and
then had grown frightened of the consequences. He remembered Stella’s
description—“Penne is a bluffer and a coward at heart.” That was the
story in a nutshell.
“Where did you bury your unfortunate victim?” he asked coolly, and the
man started.
“Bury? What do you mean?” he blustered. “I didn’t murder or bury
anybody. I was merely putting a hypothetical case to you.”
“It sounded more real than hypothesis,” said Michael, “but I won’t press
the question.”
In truth, crimes of this character bored Michael Brixan; and, but for
the unusual and curious circumstances of the Head-Hunter’s villainies,
he would have dropped the case almost as soon as he came on to it.
There was yet another attraction, which he did not name, even to
himself. As for Sir Gregory Penne, the grossness of the man and his
hobbies, the sordid vulgarity of his amours, were more than a little
sickening. He would gladly have cut Sir Gregory out of life, only—he
was not yet sure.
“It is very curious how these questions crop up,” Penne was saying, as
he came out of his reverie. “A chap like myself, who doesn’t have much
to occupy his mind, gets on an abstract problem of that kind and never
leaves it. So she’d be an accessory after the fact, would she? That
would mean penal servitude.”
He seemed to derive a great deal of satisfaction from this thought, and
was almost amiable by the time Michael parted from him, after an
examination of the broken handcuffs. They were British and of an old
pattern.
“Is Bhag hurt very much?” asked Michael as he put them down.
“Not very much; he’s got a cut or two,” said the other calmly. He made
no attempt to disguise the happenings of that night. “He came to my
assistance, poor brute! This fellow nearly got him. In fact, poor old
Bhag was knocked out, but went after them like a brick.”
“What hat was that man wearing—the brown man?”
“Keji? I don’t know. I suppose he wore a hat, but I didn’t notice it.
Why?”
“I was merely asking,” said Michael carelessly. “Perhaps he lost it in
the caves.”
He watched the other narrowly as he spoke.
“Caves? I’ve never heard about those. What are they? Are there any caves
near by?” asked Sir Gregory innocently. “You’ve a wonderful grip of the
topography of the county, Brixan. I’ve been living here off and on for
twenty years, and I lose myself every time I go into Chichester!”
CHAPTER XXX
THE ADVERTISEMENT
THE question of the caves intrigued Michael more than any feature the
case had presented. He bethought himself of Mr. Longvale, whose
knowledge of the country was encyclopædic. That gentleman was out, but
Michael met him, driving his antique car from Chichester. To say that he
saw him is to mistake facts. The sound of that old car was audible long
before it came into sight around a bend of the road. Michael drew up,
Longvale following his example, and parked his car behind that ancient
’bus.
“Yes, it is rather noisy,” admitted the old man, rubbing his bald head
with a brilliant bandana handkerchief. “I’m only beginning to realize
the fact of late years. Personally, I do not think that a noiseless car
could give me as much satisfaction. One feels that something is
happening.”
“You ought to buy a ——” said Michael with a smile, as he mentioned the
name of a famous car.
“I thought of doing so,” said the other seriously, “but I love old
things—that is my eccentricity.”
Michael questioned him upon the caves, and, to his surprise, the old man
immediately returned an affirmative.
“Yes, I’ve heard of them frequently. When I was a boy, my father told me
that the country round was honeycombed with caves, and that, if anybody
was lucky enough to find them, they would discover great stores of
brandy. Nobody has found them, as far as I know. There used to be an
entrance over there.” He pointed in the direction of Griff Tower. “But
many years ago——”
He retold the familiar story of the landslide and of the passing out of
two companies of gallant knights and squires, which probably the old man
had got from the same source of information as Michael had drawn upon.
“The popular legend was that a subterranean river ran into the sea near
Selsey Bill—of course, some distance beneath the surface of the water.
But, as you know, country people live on such legends. In all
probability it is nothing but a legend.”
Inspector Lyle was waiting for the detective when he arrived, with news
of a startling character.
“The advertisement appeared in this morning’s _Daily Star_,” he said.
Michael took the slip of paper. It was identically worded with its
predecessor.
“Is your trouble of mind or body incurable? Do you hesitate on
the brink of the abyss? Does courage fail you? Write to
Benefactor, Box——”
“There will be no reply till to-morrow morning. Letters are to be
readdressed to a shop in the Lambeth Road, and the chief wants you to be
ready to pick up the trail.”
The trail indeed proved to be well laid. At four o’clock on the
following afternoon, a lame old woman limped into the newsagent’s shop
on the Lambeth Road and inquired for a letter addressed to Mr. Vole.
There were three waiting for her. She paid the fee, put the letters into
a rusty old handbag and limped out of the shop, mumbling and talking to
herself. Passing down the Lambeth Road, she boarded a tramcar _en route_
for Clapham, and near the Common she alighted and, passing out of the
region of middle-class houses, came to a jumble of tenements and ancient
tumble-down dwellings.
Every corner she turned brought her to a street meaner than the last,
and finally to a low, arched alleyway, the paving of which had not been
renewed for years. It was a little cul-de-sac, its houses, built in the
same pattern, joined wall to wall, and before the last of these she
stopped, took out a key from her pocket and opened the door. She was
turning to close it when she was aware that a man stood in the entrance,
a tall, good-looking gentleman, who must have been on her heels all the
time.
“Good afternoon, mother,” he said.
The old woman peered at him suspiciously, grumbling under her breath.
Only hospital doctors and workhouse folk, people connected with charity,
called women “mother”; and sometimes the police got the habit. Her grimy
old face wrinkled hideously at this last unpleasant thought.
“I want to have a little talk with you.”
“Come in,” she said shrilly.
The boarding of the passage-way was broken in half a dozen places and
was indescribably dirty, but it represented the spirit of pure hygiene
compared with the stuffy horror which was her sitting-room and kitchen.
“What are you, horspital or p’lice?”
“Police,” said Michael. “I want three letters you’ve collected.”
To his surprise, the woman showed relief.
“Oh, is that all?” she said. “Well, that’s a job I do for a gentleman.
I’ve done it for years. I’ve never had any complaint before.”
“What is his name?”
“Don’t know his name. Just whatever name happens to be on the letters. I
send ’em on to him.”
From under a heap of rubbish she produced three envelopes, addressed in
typewritten characters. The typewriting Michael recognized. They were
addressed to a street in Guildford.
Michael took the letters from her handbag. Two of them he read; the
third was a dummy which he himself had written. The most direct
cross-examination, however, revealed nothing. The woman did the work,
receiving a pound for her trouble, in a letter from the unknown, who
told her where the letters were to be collected.
“She was a little mad and indescribably beastly,” said Michael in
disgust when he reported, “and the Guildford inquiries don’t help us
forward. There’s another agent there, who sends the letters back to
London, which they never reach. That is the mystery of the proceeding.
There simply isn’t such an address at London, and I can only suggest
that they are intercepted _en route_. The Guildford police have that
matter in hand.”
Staines was very worried.
“Michael, I oughtn’t to have put you on this job,” he said. “My first
thoughts were best. Scotland Yard is kicking, and say that the meddling
of outsiders is responsible for the Head-Hunter not being brought to
justice. You know something of inter-departmental jealousy, and you
don’t need me to tell you that I’m getting more kicks than I’m entitled
to.”
Michael looked down at his chief reflectively.
“I can get the Head-Hunter, but more than ever I’m convinced that we
cannot convict him until we know a little more about—the caves!”
Staines frowned.
“I don’t quite get you, Mike. Which caves are these?”
“There are some caves in the neighbourhood of Chichester. Foss knew
about them and suspected their association with the Head-Hunter. Give me
four days, Major, and I’ll have them both. And if I fail”—he
paused—“if I fail, the next time you say good morning to me, I shall be
looking up to you from the interior of one of the Head-Hunter’s boxes!”
CHAPTER XXXI
JOHN PERCIVAL LIGGITT
IT was the second day of Michael’s visit to town, and, for a reason
which she could not analyse, Adele felt “out” with the world. And yet
the work was going splendidly, and Jack Knebworth, usually sparing of
his praise, had almost rhapsodized over a little scene which she had
acted with Connolly. So generous was he in his praise, and so
comprehensive, that even Reggie came in for his share, and was willing
and ready to revise his earlier estimate of the leading lady’s ability.
“I’ll be perfectly frank and honest, Mr. Knebworth,” he said, in this
moment of candour, “Leamington is good. Of course, I’m always on the
spot to give her tips, and there’s nothing quite so educative—if I may
use the term——”
“You may,” said Jack Knebworth.
“Thanks,” said Connolly. “——as having a finished artiste playing
opposite to you. It doesn’t do me much good, but it helps her a lot; it
inspires courage and all that sort of thing. And though I’ve had a
perfectly awful, dreadful time, I feel that she pays for the coaching.”
“Oh, do you?” growled the old man. “And I’d like to say the same about
you, Reggie! But unfortunately, all the coaching you’ve had or ever will
get is not going to improve you.”
Reggie’s superior smile would have irritated one less equable than the
director.
“You’re perfectly right, Mr. Knebworth,” he said earnestly. “I can’t
improve! I’ve touched the zenith of my power, and I doubt whether you’ll
ever look upon the like of me again. I’m certainly the best juvenile
lead in this, and possibly in any country. I’ve had three offers to go
to Hollywood, and you’ll never believe who is the lady who asked me to
play against her——”
“I don’t believe any of it,” said Jack even-temperedly, “but you’re
right to an extent about Miss Leamington. She’s fine. And I agree that
it doesn’t do you much good playing against her, because she makes you
look like a large glass of heavily diluted beer.”
Later in the day, Adele herself asked her grey-haired chief whether it
was true that Reggie would soon be leaving England for another and a
more ambitious sphere.
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Jack. “There never was an actor that hadn’t
a better contract up his sleeve and was ready to take it. But when it
comes to a show-down, you find that the contracts they’re willing to
tear up in order to take something better, are locked away in a lawyer’s
office and can’t be got out. In the picture business all over the world,
there are actors and actresses who are leaving by the first boat to show
Hollywood how it’s done. I guess these liners would sail empty if they
waited for ’em! That’s all bluff, part of the artificial life of
make-believe in which actors and actresses have their being.”
“Has Mr. Brixan come back?”
He shook his head.
“No, I’ve not heard from him. There was a tough-looking fellow called at
the studio half an hour ago to ask whether he’d returned.”
“Rather an unpleasant-looking tramp?” she asked. “I spoke to him. He
said he had a letter for Mr. Brixan which he would not deliver to
anybody else.”
She looked through the window which commanded a view of the entrance
drive to the studio. Standing outside on the edge of the pavement was
the wreck of a man. Long, lank black hair, streaked with grey, fell from
beneath the soiled and dilapidated golf cap; he was apparently
shirtless, for the collar of his indescribable jacket was buttoned up to
his throat; and his bare toes showed through one gaping boot.
He might have been a man of sixty, but it was difficult to arrive at his
age. It looked as though the grey, stubbled beard had not met a razor
since he was in prison last. His eyes were red and inflamed; his nose
that crimson which is almost blue. His hands were thrust into the
pockets of his trousers, and seemed to be their only visible means of
support, until you saw the string that was tied around his lean waist;
and as he stood, he shuffled his feet rhythmically, whistling a doleful
tune. From time to time he took one of his hands from his pockets and
examined the somewhat soiled envelope it held, and then, as if satisfied
with the scrutiny, put it back again and continued his jigging vigil.
“Do you think you ought to see that letter?” asked the girl, troubled.
“It may be very important.”
“I thought that too,” said Jack Knebworth, “but when I asked him to let
me see the note, he just grinned.”
“Do you know who it’s from?”
“No more than a crow, my dear,” said Knebworth patiently. “And now let’s
get off the all-absorbing subject of Michael Brixan, and get back to the
fair Roselle. That shot I took of the tower can’t be bettered, so I’m
going to cut out the night picture, and from now on we’ll work on the
lot.”
The production was a heavy one, unusually so for one of Knebworth’s; the
settings more elaborate, the crowd bigger than ever he had handled since
he came to England. It was not an easy day for the girl, and she was
utterly fagged when she started homeward that night.
“Ain’t seen Mr. Brixan, miss?” said a high-pitched voice as she reached
the side-walk.
She turned with a start. She had forgotten the existence of the tramp.
“No, he hasn’t been,” she said. “You had better see Mr. Knebworth again.
Mr. Brixan lives with him.”
“Don’t I know it? Ain’t I got all the information possible about him? I
should say I had!”
“He is in London: I suppose you know that?”
“He ain’t in London,” said the other disappointedly. “If he was in
London, I shouldn’t be hanging around here, should I? No, he left London
yesterday. I’m going to wait till I see him.”
She was amused by his pertinacity, though it was difficult for her to be
amused at anything in the state of utter weariness into which she had
fallen.
Crossing the market square, she had to jump quickly to avoid being
knocked down by a car which she knew was Stella Mendoza’s. Stella could
be at times a little reckless, and the motto upon the golden mascot on
her radiator—“Jump or Die”—held a touch of sincerity.
She was in a desperate hurry now, and cursed fluently as she swung her
car to avoid the girl, whom she recognized. Sir Gregory had come to his
senses, and she wanted to get at him before he lost them again. She
pulled up the car with a jerk at the gates of Griff Towers, flung open
the door and jumped out.
“If I don’t return in two hours, you can go into Chichester and fetch
the police,” she said.
CHAPTER XXXII
GREGORY’S WAY
STELLA had left a note to the same effect on her table. If she did not
return by a certain hour, the police were to read the letter they would
find on her mantelpiece. She had not allowed for the fact that neither
note nor letter would be seen until the next morning.
To Stella Mendoza, the interview was one of the most important and vital
in her life. She had purposely delayed her departure in the hope that
Gregory Penne would take a more generous view of his obligations, though
she had very little hope that he would change his mind on the
all-important matter of money. And now, by some miracle, he had
relented; had spoken to her in an almost friendly tone on the ’phone;
had laughed at her reservations and the precautions which she promised
she would take; and in the end she had overcome her natural fears.
He received her, not in his library, but in the big apartment
immediately above. It was longer, for it embraced the space occupied on
the lower floor by the small drawing-room; but in the matter of
furnishing, it differed materially. Stella had only once been in “The
Splendid Hall,” as he called it. Its vastness and darkness had
frightened her, and the display which he had organized for her benefit
was one of her unpleasant memories.
The big room was covered with a thick black carpet, and the floor space
was unrelieved by any sign of furniture. Divans were set about, the
walls covered with eastern hangings; there was a row of scarlet pillars
up both sides of the room, and such light as there was came from three
heavily-shaded black lanterns, which cast pools of yellow light upon the
carpet but did not contribute to the gaiety of the room.
Penne was sitting cross-legged on a silken divan, his eyes watching the
gyrations of a native girl as she twirled and twisted to the queer sound
of native guitars played by three solemn-faced men in the darkened
corner of the room. Gregory wore a suit of flaming red coloured pyjamas,
and his glassy gaze and brute mouth told Stella all that she wanted to
know about her evil friend.
Sir Gregory Penne was no less and no more than a slave to his appetites.
Born a rich man, he had never known denial of his desires. Money had
grown to money in a sort of cellular progression, and when the normal
pleasures of life grew stale, and he was satiated by the sweets of his
possessions, he found his chiefest satisfaction in taking that which was
forbidden. The raids which his agents had made from time to time in the
jungles of his second home gave him trophies, human and material, that
lost their value when they were under his hand.
Stella, who had visions of becoming mistress of Griff Towers, became
less attractive as she grew more complaisant. And at last her attraction
had vanished, and she was no more to him than the table at which he sat.
A doctor had told him that drink would kill him—he drank the more.
Liquor brought him splendid visions, precious stories that wove
themselves into dazzling fabrics of dreams. It pleased him to place, in
the forefront of his fuddled mind, a slip of a girl who hated him. A
gross bully, an equally gross coward, he could not or would not argue a
theme to its logical and unpleasant conclusion. At the end there was
always his money that could be paid in smaller or larger quantities to
settle all grievances against him.
The native who had conducted Stella Mendoza to the apartment had
disappeared, and she waited at the end of the divan, looking at the man
for a long time before he took any notice of her. Presently he turned
his head and favoured her with a stupid, vacant stare.
“Sit down, Stella,” he said thickly, “sit down. You couldn’t dance like
that, eh? None of you Europeans have got the grace, the suppleness. Look
at her!”
The dancing girl was twirling at a furious rate, her scanty draperies
enveloping her like a cloud. Presently, with a crash of the guitars, she
sank, face downward, on the carpet. Gregory said something in Malayan,
and the woman showed her white teeth in a smile. Stella had seen her
before: there used to be two dancing girls, but one had contracted
scarlet fever and had been hurriedly deported. Gregory had a horror of
disease.
“Sit down here,” he commanded, laying his hand on the divan.
As if by magic, every servant in the room had disappeared, and she
suddenly felt cold.
“I’ve left my chauffeur outside, with instructions to go for the police
if I’m not out in half an hour,” she said loudly, and he laughed.
“You ought to have brought your nurse, Stella. What’s the matter with
you nowadays? Can’t you talk anything but police? I want to talk to
you,” he said in a milder tone.
“And I want to talk to you, Gregory. I am leaving Chichester for good,
and I don’t want to see the place again.”
“That means you don’t want to see me again, eh? Well, I’m pretty well
through with you, and there’s going to be no weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth on my part.”
“My new company——” she began, and he stopped her with a gesture.
“If your new company depends upon my putting up the money, you can
forget it,” he said roughly. “I’ve seen my lawyer—at least, I’ve seen
somebody who knows—and he tells me that if you’re trying to blackmail
me about Tjarji, you’re liable to get into trouble yourself. I’ll put up
money for you,” he went on. “Not a lot, but enough. I don’t suppose
you’re a beggar, for I’ve given you sufficient already to start three
companies. Stella, I’m crazy about that girl.”
She looked at him, her mouth open in surprise.
“What girl?” she asked.
“Adele. Isn’t that her name?—Adele Leamington.”
“Do you mean the extra girl that took my place?” she gasped.
He nodded, his sleepy eyes fixed on hers.
“That’s it. She’s my type, more than you ever were, Stella. And that
isn’t meant in any way disparaging to you.”
She was content to listen: his declaration had taken her breath away.
“I’ll go a long way to get her,” he went on. “I’d marry her, if that
meant anything to her—it’s about time I married, anyway. Now you’re a
friend of hers——”
“A friend!” scoffed Stella, finding her voice. “How could I be a friend
of hers when she has taken my place? And what if I were? You don’t
suppose I should bring a girl to this hell upon earth?”
He brought his eyes around to hers—cold, malignant, menacing.
“This hell upon earth has been heaven for you. It has given you wings,
anyway! Don’t go back to London, Stella, not for a week or two. Get to
know this girl. You’ve got opportunities that nobody else has. Kid her
along—you’re not going to lose anything by it. Speak about me; tell her
what a good fellow I am; and tell her what a chance she has. You needn’t
mention marriage, but you can if it helps any. Show her some of your
jewels—that big pendant I gave you——”
He rambled on, and she listened, her bewilderment giving place to an
uncontrollable fury.
“You brute!” she said at last. “To dare suggest that I should bring this
girl to Griff! I don’t like her—naturally. But I’d go down on my knees
to her to beg her not to come. You think I’m jealous?” Her lips curled
at the sight of the smile on his face. “That’s where you’re wrong,
Gregory. I’m jealous of the position she’s taken at the studio, but, so
far as you’re concerned”—she shrugged her shoulders—“you mean nothing
to me. I doubt very much if you’ve ever meant more than a steady source
of income. That’s candid, isn’t it?”
She got up from the divan and began putting on her gloves.
“As you don’t seem to want to help me,” she said, “I’ll have to find a
way of making you keep your promise. And you did promise me a company,
Gregory; I suppose you’ve forgotten that?”
“I was more interested in you then,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going back to my cottage, and to-morrow I’m returning to town,” she
said.
He looked first at one end of the room and then at the other, and then
at her.
“You’re not going back to your cottage; you’re staying here, my dear,”
he said.
She laughed.
“You told your chauffeur to go for the police, did you? I’ll tell _you_
something! Your chauffeur is in my kitchen at this moment, having his
supper. If you think that he’s likely to leave before you, you don’t
know me, Stella!”
He gathered up the dressing-gown that was spread on the divan and
slipped his arms into the hanging sleeves. A terrible figure he was in
the girl’s eyes, something unclean, obscene. The scarlet pyjama jacket
gave his face a demoniacal value, and she felt herself cringing from
him.
He was quick to notice the action, and his eyes glowed with a light of
triumph.
“Bhag is downstairs,” he said significantly. “He handles people rough.
He handled one girl so that I had to call in a doctor. You’ll come with
me without—assistance?”
She nodded dumbly; her knees gave way under her as she walked. She had
bearded the beast in his den once too often.
Half-way along the corridor he unlocked a door of a room and pushed it
open.
“Go there and stay there,” he said. “I’ll talk to you to-morrow, when
I’m sober. I’m drunk now. Maybe I’ll send you someone to keep you
company—I don’t know yet.” He ruffled his scanty hair in drunken
perplexity. “But I’ve got to be sober before I deal with you.”
The door slammed on her and a key turned. She was in complete darkness,
in a room she did not know. For one wild, terrified moment she wondered
if she was alone.
It was a long time before her palm touched the little button projecting
from the wall. She pressed it. A lamp enclosed in a crystal globe set in
the ceiling flashed into sparkling light. She was in what had evidently
been a small bedroom. The bedstead had been removed, but a mattress and
a pillow were folded up in one corner. There was a window, heavily
barred, but no other exit. She examined the door: the handle turned in
her grasp; there was not even a keyhole in which she could try her own
key.
Going to the window, she pulled up the sash, for the room was stuffy and
airless. She found herself looking out from the back of the house,
across the lawn to a belt of trees which she could just discern. The
road ran parallel with the front of the house, and the shrillest scream
would not be heard by anybody on the road.
Sitting down in one of the chairs, she considered her position. Having
overcome her fear, she had that in her possession which would overcome
Gregory if it came to a fight. Pulling up her skirt, she unbuckled the
soft leather belt about her waist, and from the Russian leather holster
it supported, she took a diminutive Browning—a toy of a weapon but
wholly business-like in action. Sliding back the jacket, she threw a
cartridge into the chamber and pulled up the safety-catch; then she
examined the magazine and pressed it back again.
“Now, Gregory,” she said aloud, and at that moment her face went round
to the window, and she started up with a scream.
Two grimy hands gripped the bars; glaring in at her was the horrible
face of a tramp. Her trembling hand shot out for the pistol, but before
it could close on the butt, the face had disappeared; and though she
went round to the window and looked out, the bars prevented her from
getting a clear view of the parapet along which the uncouth figure was
creeping.
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE TRAP THAT FAILED
TEN o’clock was striking from Chichester cathedral when the tramp, who
half an hour ago had been peering and prying into the secrets of Griff
Towers, made his appearance in the market-place. His clothes were even
more dusty and soiled, and a policeman who saw him stood squarely in his
path.
“On the road?” he asked.
“Yes,” whined the man.
“You can get out of Chichester as quick as you like,” said the officer.
“Are you looking for a bed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you try the casual ward at the workhouse?”
“They’re full up, sir.”
“That’s a lie,” said the officer. “Now understand, if I see you again
I’ll arrest you!”
Muttering something to himself, the squalid figure moved on toward the
Arundel Road, his shoulders hunched, his hands hidden in the depths of
his pockets.
Out of sight of the policeman, he turned abruptly to the right and
accelerated his pace. He was making for Jack Knebworth’s house. The
director heard the knock, opened the door and stood aghast at the
unexpected character of the caller.
“What do you want, bo’?” he asked.
“Mr. Brixan come back?”
“No, he hasn’t come back. You’d better give me that letter. I’ll get in
touch with him by ’phone.”
The tramp grinned and shook his head.
“No, you don’t. I want to see Brixan.”
“Well, you won’t see him here to-night,” said Jack. And then,
suspiciously: “My idea is that you don’t want to see him at all, and
that you’re hanging around for some other purpose.”
The tramp did not reply. He was whistling softly a distorted passage
from the “Indian Love Lyrics,” and all the time his right foot was
beating the time.
“He’s in a bad way, is old Brixan,” he said, and there was a certain
amount of pleasure in his voice that annoyed Knebworth.
“What do you know about him?”
“I know he’s in bad with headquarters—that’s what I know,” said the
tramp. “He couldn’t find where the letters went to: that’s the trouble
with him. But _I_ know.”
“Is that what you want to see him about?”
The man nodded vigorously.
“I know,” he said again. “I could tell him something if he was here, but
he ain’t here.”
“If you know he isn’t here,” asked the exasperated Jack, “why in blazes
do you come?”
“Because the police are chivvying me, that’s why. A copper down on the
market-place is going to pinch me next time he sees me. So I thought I’d
come up to fill in the time, that’s what!”
Jack stared at him.
“You’ve got a nerve,” he said in awe-stricken tones. “And now you’ve
filled in your time and I’ve entertained you, you can get! Do you want
anything to eat?”
“Not me,” said the tramp. “I live on the fat of the land, I do!”
His shrill Cockney voice was getting on Jack’s nerves.
“Well, good night,” he said shortly, and closed the door on his
unprepossessing visitor.
The tramp waited for quite a long time before he made any move. Then,
from the interior of his cap, he took a cigarette and lit it before he
shuffled back the way he had come, making a long detour to avoid the
centre of the town, where the unfriendly policeman was on duty. A church
clock was striking a quarter past ten when he reached the corner of the
Arundel Road, and, throwing away his cigarette, moved into the shadow of
the fence and waited.
Five minutes, ten minutes passed, and his keen eyes caught sight of a
man walking rapidly the way he had come, and he grinned in the darkness.
It was Knebworth. Jack had been perturbed by the visitor, and was on his
way to the police station to make inquiries about Michael. This the
tramp guessed, though he had little time to consider the director’s
movements, for a car came noiselessly around the corner and stopped
immediately opposite him.
“Is that you, my friend?”
“Yes,” said the tramp in a sulky voice.
“Come inside.”
The tramp lurched forward, peering into the dark interior of the car.
Then, with a turn of his wrist, he jerked open the door, put one foot on
the running-board, and suddenly flung himself upon the driver.
“_Mr. Head-Hunter, I want you!_” he hissed.
The words were hardly out of his mouth before something soft and wet
struck him in the face—something that blinded and choked him, so that
he let go his grip and fought and clawed like a dying man at the air. A
push of the driver’s foot, and he was flung, breathless, to the
side-walk, and the car sped on.
Jack Knebworth had witnessed the scene as far as it could be witnessed
in the half-darkness, and came running across. A policeman appeared from
nowhere, and together they lifted the tramp into a sitting position.
“I’ve seen this fellow before to-night,” said the policeman. “I warned
him.”
And then the prostrate man drew a long, sighing breath, and his hands
went up to his eyes.
“This is where I hand in my resignation,” he said, and Knebworth’s jaw
dropped.
It was the voice of Michael Brixan!
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE SEARCH
“YES, it’s me,” said Michael bitterly. “All right, officer, you needn’t
wait. Jack, I’ll come up to the house to get this make-up off.”
“For the Lord’s sake!” breathed Knebworth, staring at the detective.
“I’ve never seen a man made up so well that he deceived me.”
“I’ve deceived everybody, including myself,” said Michael savagely. “I
thought I’d caught him with a dummy letter, instead of which the devil
caught me.”
“What was it?”
“Ammonia, I think—a concentrated solution thereof,” said Michael.
It was twenty minutes before he emerged from the bathroom, his eyes
inflamed but otherwise his old self.
“I wanted to trap him in my own way, but he was too smart for me.”
“Do you know who he is?”
Michael nodded.
“Oh, yes, I know,” he said. “I’ve got a special force of men here,
waiting to effect the arrest, but I didn’t want a fuss, and I certainly
did not want bloodshed. And bloodshed there will be, unless I am
mistaken.”
“I didn’t seem to recognize the car, and I know most of the machines in
this city,” said Jack.
“It is a new one, used only for these midnight adventures of the
Head-Hunter. He probably garages it away from his house. You asked me if
I’d have something to eat just now, and I lied and told you I was living
on the fat of the land. Give me some food, for the love of heaven!”
Jack went into the larder and brought out some cold meat, brewed a pot
of coffee, and sat in silence, watching the famished detective dispose
of the viands.
“I feel a man now,” said Michael as he finished, “for I’d had nothing to
eat except a biscuit since eleven this morning. By the way, our friend
Stella Mendoza is staying at Griff Towers, and I’m afraid I rather
scared her. I happened to be nosing round there an hour ago, to make
absolutely sure of my bird, and I looked in upon her—to her alarm!”
There came a sharp rap at the door, and Jack Knebworth looked up.
“Who’s that at this time of night?” he asked.
“Probably the policeman,” said Michael.
Knebworth opened the door and found a short, stout, middle-aged woman
standing on the doorstep with a roll of paper in her hand.
“Is this Mr. Knebworth’s?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Jack.
“I’ve brought the play that Miss Leamington left behind. She asked me to
bring it to you.”
Knebworth took the roll of paper and slipped off the elastic band which
encircled it. It was the manuscript of “Roselle.”
“Why have you brought this?” he asked.
“She told me to bring it up if I found it.”
“Very good,” said Jack, mystified. “Thank you very much.”
He closed the door on the woman and went back to the dining-room.
“Adele has sent up her script. What’s wrong, I wonder?”
“Who brought it?” asked Michael, interested.
“Her landlady, I suppose,” said Jack, describing the woman.
“Yes, that’s she. Adele is not turning in her part?”
Jack shook his head.
“That wouldn’t be likely.”
Michael was puzzled.
“What the dickens does it mean? What did the woman say?”
“She said that Miss Leamington wanted her to bring up the manuscript if
she found it.”
Michael was out of the house in a second, and, racing down the street,
overtook the woman.
“Will you come back, please?” he said, and escorted her to the house
again. “Just tell Mr. Knebworth why Miss Leamington sent this
manuscript, and what you mean by having ‘forgotten’ it.”
“Why, when she came up to you——” began the woman.
“Came up to me?” cried Knebworth quickly.
“A gentleman from the studio called for her, and said you wanted to see
her,” said the landlady. “Miss Leamington was just going to bed, but I
took up the message. He said you wanted to see her about the play, and
asked her to bring the manuscript. She had mislaid it somewhere and was
in a great state about it, so I told her to go on, as you were in a
hurry, and I’d bring it up. At least, she asked me to do that.”
“What sort of a gentleman was it who called?”
“A rather stout gentleman. He wasn’t exactly a gentleman, he was a
chauffeur. As a matter of fact, I thought he’d been drinking, though I
didn’t want to alarm Miss Leamington by telling her so.”
“And then what happened?” asked Michael quickly.
“She came down and got in the car. The chauffeur was already in.”
“A closed car, I suppose?”
The woman nodded.
“And then they drove off? What time was this?”
“Just after half-past ten. I remember, because I heard the church clock
strike just before the car drove up.”
Michael was cool now. His voice scarcely rose above a whisper.
“Twenty-five past eleven,” he said, looking at his watch. “You’ve been a
long time coming.”
“I couldn’t find the paper, sir. It was under Miss Leamington’s pillow.
Isn’t she here?”
“No, she’s not here,” said Michael quietly. “Thank you very much; I
won’t keep you. Will you wait for me at the police station?”
He went upstairs and put on his coat.
“Where do you think she is?” asked Jack.
“She is at Griff Towers,” replied the other, “and whether Gregory Penne
lives or dies this night depends entirely upon the treatment that Adele
has received at his hands.”
At the police station he found the landlady, a little frightened, more
than a little tearful.
“What was Miss Leamington wearing when she went out?”
“Her blue cloak, sir,” whimpered the woman, “that pretty blue cloak she
always wore.”
Scotland Yard men were at the station, and it was a heavily loaded car
that ran out to Chichester—too heavy for Michael, in a fever of
impatience, for the weight of its human cargo checked its speed, and
every second was precious. At last, after an eternity of time, the big
car swung into the drive. Michael did not stop to waken the
lodge-keeper, but smashed the frail gates open with the buffers of his
machine, mounted the slope, crossing the gravel parade, and halted.
There was no need to ring the bell: the door was wide open, and, at the
head of his party, Mike Brixan dashed through the deserted hall, along
the corridor into Gregory’s library. One light burnt, offering a feeble
illumination, but the room was empty. With rapid strides he crossed to
the desk and turned the switch. Bhag’s den opened, but Bhag too was an
absentee.
He pressed the bell by the side of the fireplace, and almost immediately
the brown-faced servitor whom he had seen before came trembling into the
room.
“Where is your master?” asked Michael in Dutch.
The man shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he replied, but instinctively he looked up to the
ceiling.
“Show me the way.”
They went back to the hall, up the broad stairway on to the first floor.
Along a corridor, hung with swords, as was its fellow below, he reached
another open door—the great dance hall where Gregory Penne had held
revel that evening. There was nobody in sight, and Michael came out into
the hall. As he did so, he was aware of a frantic tapping at one of the
doors in the corridor. The key was in the lock: he turned it and flung
the door wide open, and Stella Mendoza, white as death, staggered out.
“Where is Adele?” she gasped.
“I want to ask you that,” said Michael sternly. “Where is she?”
The girl shook her head helplessly, strove to speak, and then collapsed
in a swoon.
He did not wait for her to recover, but continued his search. From room
to room he went, but there was no sign of Adele or the brutal owner of
Griff Towers. He searched the library again, and passed through into the
little drawing-room, where a table was laid for two. The cloth was wet
with spilt wine; one glass was half empty—but the two for whom the
table was laid had vanished. They must have gone out of the front
door—whither?
He was standing tense, his mind concentrated upon a problem that was
more vital to him than life itself, when he heard a sound that came from
the direction of Bhag’s den. And then there appeared in the doorway the
monstrous ape himself. He was bleeding from a wound in the shoulder; the
blood fell drip-drip-drip as he stood, clutching in his two great hands
something that seemed like a bundle of rags. As Michael looked, the room
rocked before his eyes.
The tattered, stained garment that Bhag held was the cloak that Adele
Leamington had worn!
For a second Bhag glared at the man who he knew was his enemy, and then,
dropping the cloak, he shrank back toward his quarters, his teeth bared.
Three times Michael’s automatic spat, and the great, man-like thing
disappeared in a flash—and the door closed with a click.
Knebworth had been a witness of the scene. It was he who ran forward and
picked up the cloak that the ape had dropped.
“Yes, that was hers,” he said huskily, and a horrible thought chilled
him.
Michael had opened the door of the den, and, pistol in hand, dashed
through the opening. Knebworth dared not follow. He stood petrified,
waiting, and then Michael reappeared.
“There’s nothing here,” he said.
“Nothing?” asked Jack Knebworth in a whisper. “Thank God!”
“Bhag has gone—I think I may have hit him; there is a trail of blood,
but I may not be responsible for that. He had been shot recently,” he
pointed to stains on the floor. “He wasn’t shot when I saw him last.”
“Have you seen him before to-night?”
Michael nodded.
“For three nights he has been haunting Longvale’s house.”
“Longvale’s!”
Where was Adele? That was the one dominant question, the one thought
uppermost in Michael Brixan’s mind. And where was the baronet? What was
the meaning of that open door? None of the servants could tell him, and
for some reason he saw that they were speaking the truth. Only Penne and
the girl—and this great ape—knew, unless——
He hurried back to where he had left a detective trying to revive the
unconscious Stella Mendoza.
“She has passed from one fainting fit to another,” said the officer. “I
can get nothing out of her except that once she said ‘Kill him, Adele.’”
“Then she has seen her!” said Michael.
One of the officers he had left outside to watch the building had a
report to make. He had seen a dark figure climbing the wall and
disappear apparently through the solid brickwork. A few minutes later it
had come out again.
“That was Bhag,” said Michael. “I knew he was not here when we arrived.
He must have come in through the opening while we were upstairs.”
The car that had carried Adele had been found. It was Stella’s, and at
first Michael suspected that the girl was a party to the abduction. He
learnt afterwards that, whilst the woman’s chauffeur had been in the
kitchen, virtually a prisoner, Penne himself had driven the car to the
girl’s house, and it was the sight of the machine, which she knew
belonged to Stella, that had lulled any suspicions she may have had.
Michael was in a condition bordering upon frenzy. The Head-Hunter and
his capture was insignificant compared with the safety of the girl.
“If I don’t find her I shall go mad,” he said.
Jack Knebworth had opened his lips to answer when there came a startling
interruption. Borne on the still night air came a scream of agony which
turned the director’s blood to ice.
“Help, help!”
Shrill as was the cry, Michael knew that it was the voice of a man, and
knew that that man was Gregory Penne!
CHAPTER XXXV
WHAT HAPPENED TO ADELE
THERE were moments when Adele Leamington had doubts as to her fitness
for the profession she had entered; and never were those periods of
doubt more poignant than when she tried to fix her mind upon the written
directions of the scenario. She blamed Michael, and was immediately
repentant. She blamed herself more freely; and at last she gave up the
struggle, rolled up the manuscript book, and, putting an elastic band
about it, thrust it under her pillow and prepared for bed. She had rid
herself of skirt and blouse when the summons came.
“From Mr. Knebworth?” she said in surprise. “At this time of night?”
“Yes, miss. He’s going to make a big alteration to-morrow and he wants
to see you at once. He has sent his car. Miss Mendoza is coming into the
cast.”
“Oh!” she said faintly.
Then she had been a failure, after all, and had lived in a fool’s
paradise for these past days.
“I’ll come at once,” she said.
Her fingers trembled as she fastened her dress, and she hated herself
for such a display of weakness. Perhaps Stella was not coming into the
cast in her old part; perhaps some new character had been written in;
perhaps it was not for “Roselle” at all that she had been re-engaged.
These and other speculations rioted in her mind; and she was in the
passage and the door was opened when she remembered that Jack Knebworth
would want the manuscript. She ran upstairs, and, by an aberration of
memory, forgot entirely where the script had been left. At last, in
despair, she went down to the landlady.
“I have left some manuscripts which are rather important. Would you
bring them up to Mr. Knebworth’s house when you find them? They’re in a
little brown jacket——” She described the appearance as well as she
could.
It was Stella Mendoza’s car; she recognized the machine with a pang. So
Jack and she were reconciled!
In a minute she was inside the machine, the door closed behind her, and
was sitting by the driver, who did not speak.
“Is Mr. Brixan with Mr. Knebworth?” she asked.
He did not reply. She thought he had not heard her, until he turned with
a wide sweep and set the car going in the opposite direction.
“This is not the way to Mr. Knebworth’s,” she said in alarm. “Don’t you
know the way?”
Still he made no reply. The machine gathered speed, passed down a long,
dark street, and turned into a country lane.
“Stop the car at once!” she said, terrified, and put her hand on the
handle of the door.
Instantly her arm was gripped.
“My dear, you’re going to injure your pretty little body, and probably
spoil your beautiful face, if you attempt to get out while the car is in
motion,” he said.
“Sir Gregory!” she gasped.
“Now don’t make a fuss,” said Gregory. There was no mistaking the
elation in his voice. “You’re coming up to have a little bit of supper
with me. I’ve asked you often enough, and now you’re going willy-nilly!
Stella’s there, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She held down her fears with an effort.
“Sir Gregory, you will take me back at once to my lodgings,” she said.
“This is disgraceful of you!”
He chuckled loudly.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you; nobody’s going to hurt you, and
you’ll be delivered safe and sound; but you’re going to have supper with
me first, little darling. And if you make a fuss, I’m going to turn the
car into the first tree I see and smash us all up!”
He was drunk—drunk not only with wine, but with the lust of power.
Gregory had achieved his object, and would stop at nothing now.
Was Stella there? She did not believe him. And yet it might be true. She
grasped at the straw which Stella’s presence offered.
“Here we are,” grunted Gregory, as he stopped the car before the Towers
door and slipped out on to the gravel.
Before she realized what he was doing, he had lifted her in his arms,
though she struggled desperately.
“If you scream I’ll kiss you,” growled his voice in her ear, and she lay
passive.
The door opened instantly. She looked down at the servant standing
stolidly in the hall, as Gregory carried her up the wide stairway, and
wondered what help might come from him. Presently Penne set her down on
her feet and, opening a door, thrust her in.
“Here’s your friend, Stella,” he said. “Say the good word for me! Knock
some sense into her head if you can. I’ll come back in ten minutes, and
we’ll have the grandest little wedding supper that any bridegroom ever
had.”
The door was banged and locked upon her before she realized there was
another woman in the room. It was Stella. Her heart rose at the sight of
the girl’s white face.
“Oh, Miss Mendoza,” she said breathlessly, “thank God you’re here!”
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE ESCAPE
“DON’T start thanking God too soon,” said Stella with ominous calm. “Oh,
you little fool, why did you come here?”
“He brought me. I didn’t want to come,” said Adele.
She was half hysterical in her fright. She tried hard to imitate the
calm of her companion, biting her quivering lips to keep them still, and
after a while she was calm enough to tell what had happened. Stella’s
face clouded.
“Of course, he took my car,” she said, speaking to herself, “and he has
caught the chauffeur, as he said he would. Oh, my God!”
“What will he do?” asked Adele in a whisper.
Stella’s fine eyes turned on the girl.
“What do you think he will do?” she asked significantly. “He’s a
beast—the kind of beast you seldom meet except in books—and locked
rooms. He’ll have no more mercy on you than Bhag would have on you.”
“If Michael knows, he will kill him.”
“Michael? Oh, Brixan, you mean?” said Stella with newly awakened
interest. “Is he fond of you? Is that why he hangs around the lot? That
never struck me before. But what does he care about Michael or any other
man? He can run—his yacht is at Southampton, and he depends a lot upon
his wealth to get him out of these kind of scrapes. And he knows that
decent women shrink from appearance in a police court. Oh, he’s got all
sorts of defences. He’s a worm, but a scaly worm!”
“What shall I do?”
Stella was walking up and down the narrow apartment, her hands clasped
before her, her eyes sunk to the ground.
“I don’t think he’ll hurt me.” And then, inconsequently, she went off at
a tangent: “I saw a tramp at that window two hours ago.”
“A tramp?” said the bewildered girl.
Stella nodded.
“It scared me terribly, until I remembered his eyes. They were Brixan’s
eyes, though you’d never guess it, the make-up was so wonderful.”
“Michael? Is he here?” asked the girl eagerly.
“He’s somewhere around. That is your salvation, and there’s another.”
She took down from a shelf a small Browning.
“Did you ever fire a pistol?”
The girl nodded.
“I have to, in one scene,” she said a little awkwardly.
“Of course! Well, this is loaded. That”—she pointed—“is the safety
catch. Push it down with your thumb before you start to use it. You had
better kill Penne—better for you, and better for him, I think.”
The girl shrank back in horror.
“Oh, no, no!”
“Put it in your pocket—have you a pocket?”
There was one inside the blue cloak the girl was wearing, and into this
Stella dropped the pistol.
“You don’t know what sort of sacrifice I’m making,” she said frankly,
“and it isn’t as though I’m doing it for somebody I’m fond of, because
I’m not particularly fond of you, Adele Leamington. But I wouldn’t be
fit to live if I let that brute get you without a struggle.”
And then impulsively she stooped forward and kissed the girl, and Adele
put her arms about her neck and clung to her for a second.
“He’s coming,” whispered Stella Mendoza, and stepped back with a
gesture.
It was Gregory—Gregory in his scarlet pyjama jacket and purple
dressing-gown, his face aflame, his eyes fired with excitement.
“Come on, you!” He crooked his finger. “Not you, Mendoza: you stay here,
eh? You can see her after, perhaps—after supper.”
He leered down at the shrinking girl.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you. Leave your cloak here.”
“No, I’ll wear it,” she said.
Her hand went instinctively to the butt of the pistol and closed upon
it.
“All right, come as you are. It makes no difference to me.”
He held her tightly by the hand and marched by her side, surprised and
pleased that she offered so little resistance. Down into the hall they
went, and then to the little drawing-room adjoining his study. He flung
open the door and showed her the gaily decorated table, pushing her into
the room before him.
“Wine and a kiss!” he roared, as he pulled the cork from a champagne
bottle and sent the amber fluid splashing upon the spotless tablecloth.
“Wine and a kiss!” He splashed the glass out to her so that it spilt and
trickled down her cloak.
She shook her head mutely.
“Drink!” he snarled, and she touched the glass with her lips.
Then, before she could realize what had happened, she was in his arms,
his great face pressed down to hers. She tried to escape from the
encirclement of his embrace, successfully averted her mouth and felt his
hot lips pressing against her cheek.
Presently he let her go, and, staggering to the door, kicked it shut.
His fingers were closing on the key handle when:
“If you turn that key I’ll kill you.”
He looked up in ludicrous surprise, and, at the sight of the pistol in
the girl’s hand, his big hands waved before his face in a gesture of
fear.
“Put it down, you fool!” he squealed. “Put it down! Don’t you know what
you’re doing? The damned thing may go off by accident.”
“It will not go off by accident,” she said. “Open that door.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then her thumb tightened on the
safety-catch, and he must have seen the movement.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” he screamed, and flung the door wide open.
“Wait, you fool! Don’t go out. Bhag is there. Bhag will get you. Stay
with me. I’ll——”
But she was flying down the corridor. She slipped on a loose rug in the
hall but recovered herself. Her trembling hands were working at the
bolts and chains; the door swung open, and in another instant she was in
the open, free.
Sir Gregory followed her. The shock of her escape had sobered him, and
all the tragic consequences which might follow came crowding in upon
him, until his very soul writhed in fear. Dashing back to his study, he
opened his safe, took out a bundle of notes. These he thrust into the
pocket of a fur-lined overcoat that was hanging in a cupboard and put it
on. He changed his slippers for thick shoes, and then bethought him of
Bhag. He opened the den, but Bhag was not there, and he raised his
shaking fingers to his lips. If Bhag caught her!
Some glimmering of a lost manhood stirred dully in his mind. He must
first be sure of Bhag. He went out into the darkness in search of his
strange and horrible servant. Putting both hands to his mouth, he
emitted a long and painful howl, the call that Bhag had never yet
disobeyed, and then waited. There was no answer. Again he sent forth the
melancholy sound, but, if Bhag heard him, for the first time in his life
he did not obey.
Gregory Penne stood in a sweat of fear, but, so standing, recovered some
of his balance. There was time to change. He went up to his ornate
bedroom, flung off his pyjamas, and in a short space of time was down
again in the dark grounds, seeking for the ape.
Dressed, he felt more of a man. A long glass of whisky restored some of
his confidence. He rang for the servant who was in charge of his car.
“Have the machine by the postern gate,” he said. “Get it there at once.
See that the gate is open: I may have to leave to-night.”
That he would be arrested he did not doubt. Not all his wealth, his
position, the pull he had in the county, could save him. This latest
deed of his was something more than eccentricity.
Then he remembered that Stella Mendoza was still in the house, and went
up to see her. A glance at his face told her that something unusual had
happened.
“Where is Adele?” she asked instantly.
“I don’t know. She escaped—she had a pistol. Bhag went after her. God
knows what will happen if he finds her. He’ll tear her limb from limb.
What’s that?”
It was the faint sound of a pistol shot at a distance, and it came from
the back of the house.
“Poachers,” said Gregory uneasily. “Listen, I’m going.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“That’s no damned business of yours,” he snarled. “Here’s some money.”
He thrust some notes into her hand.
“What have you done?” she whispered in horror.
“I’ve done nothing, I tell you,” he stormed. “But they’ll take me for
it. I’m going to get to the yacht. You’d better clear before they come.”
She was collecting her hat and gloves when she heard the door close and
the key turn. Mechanically he had locked her in, and mechanically took
no heed of her beating hand upon the panel of the door.
Griff Towers stood on high ground and commanded a view of the by-road
from Chichester. As he stood in the front of the house, hoping against
hope that he would see the ape, he saw instead two lights come rapidly
along the road.
“The police!” he croaked, and went blundering across the kitchen garden
to the gate.
CHAPTER XXXVII
AT THE TOWER AGAIN
ADELE went flying down the drive, intent only upon one object, to escape
from this horrible house. The gates were closed, the lodge was in
darkness, and she strove desperately to unfasten the iron catch, but it
held.
Looking back toward the oblong of light which represented the tower
door, she was dimly aware of a figure moving stealthily along the grass
that bordered each side of the roadway. For a moment she thought it was
Gregory Penne, and then the true explanation of that skulking shape came
to her, and she nearly dropped. It was Bhag!
She moved as quietly as she could along the side of the wall, creeping
from bush to bush, but he had seen her, and came in pursuit, moving
slowly, cautiously, as though he was not quite sure that she was
legitimate prey. Perhaps there was another gate, she thought, and
continued, glancing over her shoulder from time to time, and gripping
the little pistol in her hand with such intensity that it was slippery
with perspiration before she had gone a hundred yards.
Now she left the cover of the wall and came across a meadow, and at
first she thought that she had slipped her pursuer. But Bhag seldom went
into the open, and presently she saw him again. He was parallel with
her, walking under the wall, and showing no sign of hurry. Perhaps, she
thought, if she continued, he would drop his pursuit and go off. It
might be curiosity that kept him on her trail. But this hope was
disappointed. She crossed a stile and followed a path until she realized
it was bringing her nearer and nearer to the wall where her watcher was
keeping pace with her. As soon as she realized this, she turned abruptly
from the path, and found herself walking through dew-laden grasses. She
was wet to the knees before she had gone far, but she did not even know
this—Bhag had left cover and was following her into the open!
She wondered if the grounds were entirely enclosed by a wall, and was
relieved when she came to a low fence. Stumbling down a bank on to a
road which was evidently the eastern boundary of the property, she ran
at full speed, though where the road led she could not guess. Glancing
back, she saw, to her horror, that Bhag was following, yet making no
attempt to decrease the distance which separated them.
And then, far away, she saw the lights of a cottage. They seemed close
at hand, but were in reality more than two miles distant. With a sob of
thankfulness she turned from the road and ran up a gentle slope, only to
discover, to her dismay, when she reached the crest, that the lights
seemed as far away as ever. Looking back, she saw Bhag, his green eyes
gleaming in the darkness.
Where was she? Glancing round, she found an answer. Ahead and to the
left was the squat outline of old Griff Tower.
And then, for some reason, Bhag dropped his rôle of interested watcher,
and, with a dog-like growl, leapt at her. She flew upward toward the
tower, her breath coming in sobs, her heart thumping so that she felt
every moment she would drop from sheer exhaustion. A hand clutched at
her cloak and tore it from her. That gave her a moment’s respite. She
must face her enemy, or she herself must perish.
Spinning round, her shaking pistol raised, she confronted the monster,
who was growling and tearing at the clothing in his hand. Again he
crouched to spring, and she pressed the trigger. The unexpected loudness
of the explosion so startled her that she nearly dropped the pistol.
With a howl of anguish he fell, gripping at his wounded shoulder, but
rose again immediately. And then he began to move backward, watching her
all the time.
What should she do? In her present position he might creep from bush to
bush and pounce upon her at any moment. She looked up at the tower. If
she could reach the top! And then she remembered the ladder that Jack
Knebworth had left behind. But that would have been collected.
She moved stealthily, keeping her eye upon the ape, and though he was
motionless, she knew he was watching her. Then, groping in the grass,
her fingers touched the light ladder, and she lifted it without
difficulty and placed it against the wall. She had heard Jack say that
the ape could not have climbed the tower from the outside without
assistance, though it had been an easy matter, with the aid of the trees
growing against the wall inside, for him to get out.
Bhag was still visible; the dull glow of his eyes was dreadful to see.
With a wild run she reached the top of the ladder and began pulling it
up after her. Bhag crept nearer and nearer till he came to the foot of
the tower, made three ineffectual efforts to scale the wall and failed.
She heard his twitter of rage, and guided the ladder to the inside of
the tower.
For a long time they sat, looking at one another, the orang-outang and
the girl. And then Bhag crept away. She followed him as far as her keen
eyes could distinguish his ungainly shape, waiting until she was certain
he had gone, and then reached for the ladder. The lower rung must have
caught in one of the bushes below. She tugged, tugged again, tugged for
the third time, and it came away so smoothly that she lost her balance.
For a second she was holding the top of the wall with one hand, the
ladder with the other; then, half-sliding, half-tumbling, she came down
with a run, and picked herself up breathless. She could have laughed at
the mishap but for the eerie loneliness of her new surroundings. She
tried to erect the ladder again, but in the dark it was impossible to
get a firm foundation.
There must be small stones somewhere about, and she began to look out
for them. She reached the bottom of the circular depression, and pushing
aside a bush to make further progress, feeling all the time with her
feet for a suitable prop, suddenly she slipped. She was dropping down a
sloping shaft into the depths of the earth!
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE CAVERN OF BONES
DOWN, down, down she fell, one hand clawing wildly at the soft earth,
the other clenching unconsciously at the tiny pistol. She was rolling
down a steep slope. Once her feet came violently and painfully into
contact with an out-jutting rock, and the shock and the pain of it
turned her sick and faint. Whither she was going she dared not think. It
seemed an eternity before, at last, she struck a level floor and,
rolling over and over, was brought up against a rocky wall with a jolt
that shook the breath from her body.
Eternity it seemed, yet it could not have been more than a few seconds.
For five minutes she lay, recovering, on the rock floor. She got up with
a grimace of pain, felt her hurt ankle, and worked her foot to discover
if anything was broken. Looking up, she saw a pale star above, and,
guessing that it was the opening through which she had fallen, attempted
to climb back; but with every step she took the soft earth gave under
her feet and she slipped back again.
She had lost a shoe: that was the first tangible truth that asserted
itself. She groped round in the darkness and found it after a while,
half embedded in the earth. She shook it empty, dusted her stockinged
foot, and put it on. Then she sat down to wonder what she should do
next. She guessed that, with the coming of day, she would be able to
examine her surroundings, and she must wait, with what philosophy she
could summon, for the morning to break.
It was then that she became conscious that she was still gripping the
earth-caked Browning, and, with a half-smile, she cleaned it as best she
could, pressed down the safety-catch and, putting the weapon inside her
blouse, thrust its blunt nose into the waistband of her skirt.
The mystery of Bhag’s reappearance was now a mystery no longer. He had
been hiding in the cave, though it was her imagination that supplied the
queer animal scent which was peculiarly his.
How far did the cave extend? She peered left and right, but could see
nothing; then, groping cautiously, feeling every inch of her way, her
hand struck a stone pillar, and she withdrew it quickly, for it was wet
and clammy.
And then she made a discovery of the greatest importance to her. She was
feeling along the wall when her hand went into a niche, and by the
surface of its shelf she knew it was man-fashioned. She put her hand
farther along, and her heart leapt as she touched something which had a
familiar and homely feel. It was a lantern. Her other hand went up, and
presently she opened its glass door and felt a length of candle, and, at
the bottom of the lantern, a small box of matches.
It was no miracle, as she was to learn; but for the moment it seemed
that that possibility of light had come in answer to her unspoken
prayers. Striking a match with a hand that shook so that the light went
out immediately, she at last succeeded in kindling the wick. The candle
was new, and at first its light was feeble; but presently the wax began
to burn, and, closing the lantern door, her surroundings came into view.
She was in a narrow cave, from the roof of which hung innumerable
stalactites; but the dripping water which is inseparable from this queer
formation was absent at the foot of the opening where she had tumbled.
Farther along the floor was wet, and a tiny stream of water ran in a
sort of naturally carved tunnel on one side of the path. Here, where the
cave broadened, the stalactites were many, and left and right, at such
regular intervals and of such even shape that they seemed almost to have
been sculptured by human agency, were little caves within caves, narrow
openings that revealed, in the light of her lantern, the splendour of
nature’s treasures. Fairylike grottos, rich with delicate stone
traceries; tiny lakes that sparkled in the light of the lantern. Broader
and broader grew the cave, until she stood in a huge chamber that
appeared to be festooned with frozen lace. And here the floor was
littered with queer white sticks. There were thousands of them, of every
conceivable shape and size. They showed whitely in the gleam of her
lantern, in the crevices of the rocks. She stooped and picked one up,
dropping it quickly with a cry of horror. They were human bones!
With a shuddering gasp she half walked, half ran across the great
cavern, which began to narrow again and assumed the appearance of that
portion of the cave into which she had fallen. And here she saw, in
another niche, a second lantern, with new candle and matches. Who had
placed them there? The first lantern she had not dared to think about:
it belonged to the miraculous category. But the second brought her up
with a jerk. Who had placed these lanterns at intervals along the wall
of the cave, as if in preparation for an expected emergency? There must
be somebody who lived down here. She breathed a little more quickly at
the thought.
Going on slowly, she examined every foot of the way, the second lantern,
unlighted, slung on her arm. At one part, the floor was flooded with
running water; at another, she had to wade through a little subterranean
ford, where the water came over her ankle. And now the cave was curving
imperceptibly to the right. From time to time she stopped and listened,
hoping to hear the sound of a human voice, and yet fearing. The roof of
the cave came lower. There were signs in the roof that the stalactites
had been knocked off to afford head room for the mysterious person who
haunted these underground chambers.
Once she stopped, her heart thumping painfully at the sound of
footsteps. They passed over her head, and then came a curious humming
sound that grew in intensity, passed and faded. A motor-car! She was
under the road! Of course, old Griff Tower stood upon the hillside. She
was now near the road level, and possibly eight or nine feet above her
the stars were shining. She looked wistfully at the ragged surface of
the roof, and, steeling herself against the terrors that rose within
her, she went on. She had need of nerve, need of courage beyond the
ordinary.
The cave passage turned abruptly; the little grotto openings in the wall
occurred again. Suddenly she stopped dead. The light of the lantern
showed into one of the grottos. Two men lay side by side——
She stifled the scream that rose to her lips, pressing her hands tight
upon her mouth, her eyes shut tightly to hide the sight. They were
dead—headless! Lying in a shallow pool, the petrifying water came
dripping down upon them, as it would drip down for everlasting until
these pitiful things were stone.
For a long time she dared not move, dared not open her eyes, but at last
her will conquered, and she looked with outward calm upon a sight that
froze her very marrow. The next grotto was similarly tenanted, only this
time there was one man. And then, when she was on the point of sinking
under the shock, a tiny point of light appeared in the gloom ahead. It
moved and swayed, and there came to her the sound of a fearful laugh.
She acted instantly. Pulling open the door of the lantern, she stooped
and blew it out, and stood, leaning against the wall of the cave,
oblivious to the grisly relics that surrounded her, conscious only of
the danger which lay ahead. Then a brighter light blazed up and another,
till the distant spaces wherein they burnt were as bright as day. As she
stood, wondering, there came to her a squeal of mortal agony and a
whining voice that cried:
“Help! Oh, God, help! Brixan, I am not fit to die!”
It was the voice of Sir Gregory Penne.
CHAPTER XXXIX
MICHAEL KNOWS FOR SURE
IT was that same voice that had brought Michael Brixan racing across the
garden to the postern gate. A car stood outside, its lights dimmed.
Standing by its bonnet was a frightened little brown man who had brought
the machine to the place.
“Where is your master?” asked Michael quickly.
The man pointed.
“He went that way,” he quavered. “There was a devil in the big
machine—it would not move when he stamped on the little pedal.”
Michael guessed what had happened. At the last moment, by one of those
queer mischances which haunt the just and the unjust, the engine had
failed him and he had fled on foot.
“Which way did he go?”
Again the man pointed.
“He ran,” he said simply.
Michael turned to the detective who was with him.
“Stay here: he may return. Arrest him immediately and put the irons on
him. He’s probably armed, and he may be suicidal; we can’t afford to
take any risks.”
He had been so often across what he had named the “Back Field” that he
could find his way blindfolded, and he ran at top speed till he came to
the stile and to the road. Sir Gregory was nowhere in sight. Fifty yards
along the road, the lights gleamed cheerily from an upper window in Mr.
Longvale’s house, and Michael bent his footsteps in that direction.
Still no sight of the man, and he turned through the gate and knocked at
the door, which was almost immediately opened by the old gentleman
himself. He wore a silken gown, tied with a sash about the middle, a
picture of comfort, Michael thought.
“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Sampson Longvale, peering out into the darkness.
“Why, bless my life, it’s Mr. Brixan, the officer of the law! Come in,
come in, sir.”
He opened the door wide and Michael passed into the sitting-room, with
its inevitable two candles, augmented now by a small silver reading-lamp
that burnt some sort of petrol vapour.
“No trouble at the Towers, I trust?” said Mr. Longvale anxiously.
“There was a little trouble,” said Michael carefully. “Have you by any
chance seen Sir Gregory Penne?”
The old man shook his head.
“I found the night rather too chilly for my usual garden ramble,” he
said, “so I’ve seen none of the exciting events which seem inevitably to
accompany the hours of darkness in these times. Has anything happened to
him?”
“I hope not,” said Michael quietly. “I hope, for everybody’s sake,
that—nothing has happened to him.”
He walked across and leant his elbows on the mantelpiece, looking up at
the painting above his head.
“Do you admire my relative?” beamed Mr. Longvale.
“I don’t know that I admire him. He was certainly a wonderfully handsome
old gentleman.”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head.
“You have read his memoirs?”
Michael nodded, and the old man did not seem in any way surprised.
“Yes, I have read what purport to be his memoirs,” said Michael quietly,
“but latter-day opinion is that they are not authentic.”
Mr. Longvale shrugged his shoulders.
“Personally, I believe every word of them,” he said. “My uncle was a man
of considerable education.”
It would have amazed Jack Knebworth to know that the man who had rushed
hotfoot from the tower in search of a possible murderer, was at that
moment calmly discussing biography; yet such was the incongruous,
unbelievable fact.
“I sometimes feel that you think too much about your uncle, Mr.
Longvale,” said Michael gently.
The old gentleman frowned.
“You mean——?”
“I mean that such a subject may become an obsession and a very unhealthy
obsession, and such hero-worship may lead a man to do things which no
sane man would do.”
Longvale looked at him in genuine astonishment.
“Can one do better than imitate the deeds of the great?” he asked.
“Not if your sense of values hasn’t got all tangled up, and you ascribe
to him virtues which are not virtues—unless duty is a virtue—and
confuse that which is great with that which is terrible.”
Michael turned and, resting his palms on the table, looked across to the
old man who confronted him.
“I want you to come with me into Chichester this evening.”
“Why?” The question was asked bluntly.
“Because I think you’re a sick man, that you ought to have care.”
The old man laughed and drew himself even more erect.
“Sick? I was never better in my life, my dear sir, never fitter, never
stronger!”
And he looked all that he said. His height, the breadth of his
shoulders, the healthy glow of his cheeks, all spoke of physical
fitness.
A long pause, and then:
“Where is Gregory Penne?” asked Michael, emphasizing every word.
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
The old man’s eyes met his without wavering.
“We were talking about my great-uncle. You know him, of course?” he
asked.
“I knew him the first time I saw his picture, and I thought I had
betrayed my knowledge, but apparently I did not. Your
great-uncle”—Michael spoke deliberately—“was Sanson, otherwise
Longval, hereditary executioner of France!”
Such a silence followed that the ticking of a distant clock sounded
distinctly.
“Your uncle has many achievements to his credit. He hanged three men on
a gallows sixty feet high, unless my memory is at fault. His hand struck
off the head of Louis of France and his consort Marie Antoinette.”
The look of pride in the old man’s face was startling. His eyes kindled,
he seemed to grow in height.
“By what fantastic freak of fate you come to have settled in England,
what queer kink of mind decided you secretly to carry on the profession
of Sanson and seek far and wide for poor, helpless wretches to destroy,
I do not know.”
Michael did not raise his voice, he spoke in a calm, conversational
tone; and in the same way did Longvale reply.
“Is it not better,” he said gently, “that a man should pass out of life
through no act of his own, than that he should commit the unpardonable
crime of self-murder? Have I not been a benefactor to men who dared not
take their own lives?”
“To Lawley Foss?” suggested Michael, his grave eyes fixed on the other.
“He was a traitor, a vulgar blackmailer, a man who sought to use the
knowledge which had accidentally come to him, to extract money from me.”
“Where is Gregory Penne?”
A slow smile dawned on the man’s face.
“You will not believe me? That is ungentle, sir! I have not seen Sir
Gregory.”
Michael pointed to the hearth, where a cigarette was still smouldering.
“There is that,” he said. “There are his muddy footprints on the carpet
of this room. There is the cry I heard. Where is he?”
Within reach of his hand was his heavy-calibred Browning. A move on the
old man’s part, and he would lie maimed on the ground. Michael was
dealing with a homicidal lunatic of the most dangerous type, and would
not hesitate to shoot.
But the old man showed no sign of antagonism. His voice was gentleness
itself. He seemed to feel and express a pride in crimes which, to his
brain, were not crimes at all.
“If you really wish me to go into Chichester with you to-night, of
course I will go,” he said. “You may be right in your own estimation,
even in the estimation of your superiors, but, in ending my work, you
are rendering a cruel disservice to miserable humanity, to serve which I
have spent thousands of pounds. But I bear no malice.”
He took a bottle from the long oaken buffet against the wall, selected
two glasses with scrupulous care, and filled them from the bottle.
“We will drink our mutual good health,” he said with his old courtesy,
and, lifting his glass to his lips, drank it with that show of enjoyment
with which the old-time lovers of wine marked their approval of rare
vintages.
“You’re not drinking?” he said in surprise.
“Somebody else has drunk.”
There was a glass half empty on the buffet: Michael saw it for the first
time.
“He did not seem to enjoy the wine.”
Mr. Longvale sighed.
“Very few people understand wine,” he said, dusting a speck from his
coat. Then, drawing a silk handkerchief from his pocket, he stooped and
dusted his boots daintily.
Michael was standing on a strip of hearth-rug in front of the fireplace,
his hand on his gun, tense but prepared for the moment of trial. Whence
the danger would come, what form it would take, he could not guess. But
danger was there—danger terrible and ruthless, emphasized rather than
relieved by the suavity of the old man’s tone—he felt in the creep of
his flesh.
“You see, my dear sir,” Longvale went on, still dusting his boots.
And then, before Michael could realize what had happened, he had grasped
the end of the rug on which the detective was standing and pulled it
with a quick jerk toward him. Before he could balance himself, Michael
had fallen with a crash to the floor, his head striking the oaken
panelling, his pistol sliding along the polished floor. In a flash, the
old man was on him, had flung him over on his face and dragged his hands
behind him. Michael tried to struggle, but he was as a child in that
powerful grip, placed at such a disadvantage as he was. He felt the
touch of cold steel on his wrists, there was a click, and, exerting all
his strength, he tried to pull his other hand away. But gradually,
slowly, it was forced back, and the second cuff snapped.
There were footsteps on the path outside the cottage. The old man
straightened himself to pull off his silken gown and wrapped it round
and round the detective’s head, and then a knock came at the door. One
glance to see that his prisoner was safe, and Longvale extinguished the
lamp, blew out one of the candles, and carried the other into the
passage. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the Scotland Yard officer, who
was the caller, apologized for disturbing a man who had apparently been
brought down from his bedroom to answer the knock.
“Have you seen Mr. Brixan?”
“Mr. Brixan? Yes, he was here a few minutes ago. He went on to
Chichester.”
Michael heard the voices, but could not distinguish what was being said.
The silken wrapper about his head was suffocating him, and he was losing
his senses when the old man came back alone, unfastened the gown, and
put it on himself.
“If you make a noise I will sew your lips together,” he said, so
naturally and good-naturedly that it seemed impossible he would carry
his threat into execution. But Michael knew that he was giving chapter
and verse; he was threatening that which his ancestor had often
performed. That beautiful old man, nicknamed by the gallants of Louis’
court “Monsieur de Paris,” had broken and hanged and beheaded, but he
had also tortured men. There were smoke-blackened rooms in the old
Bastille where that venerable old hangman had performed nameless duties
without blenching.
“I am sorry in many ways that you must go on,” said the old man, with
genuine regret in his voice. “You are a young man for whom I have a
great deal of respect. The law to me is sacred, and its officers have an
especially privileged place in my affections.”
He pulled open a drawer of the buffet and took out a large serviette,
folded it with great care and fixed it tightly about Michael’s mouth.
Then he raised him up and sat him on a chair.
“If I were a young and agile man, I would have a jest which would have
pleased my uncle Charles Henry. I would fix your head on the top of the
gates of Scotland Yard! I’ve often examined the gates with that idea in
my mind. Not that I thought of you, but that some day providence might
send me a very high official, a Minister, even a Prime Minister. My
uncle, as you know, was privileged to destroy kings and leaders of
parties—Danton, Robespierre, every great leader save Murat. Danton was
the greatest of them all.”
There was an excellent reason why Michael should not answer. But he was
his own cool self again, and though his head was aching from the violent
knock it had received, his mind was clear. He was waiting now for the
next move, and suspected he would not be kept waiting long. What scenes
had this long dining-room witnessed! What moments of agony, mental and
physical! It was the very antechamber to death.
Here, then, Bhag must have been rendered momentarily unconscious.
Michael guessed the lure of drugged wine, that butyl chloride which was
part of the murderer’s equipment. But for once Longvale had misjudged
the strength of his prey. Bhag must have followed the brown folk to
Dower House—the man and woman whom the old man in his cunning had
spared.
Michael was soon to discover what was going to happen. The old man
opened the door of the buffet and took out a great steel hook, at the
end of which was a pulley. Reaching up, he slipped the end of the hook
into a steel bolt, fastened in one of the overhead beams. Michael had
noticed it before and wondered what purpose it served. He was now to
learn.
From the cupboard came a long coil of rope, one end of which was
threaded through the pulley and fastened dexterously under the
detective’s armpits. Stooping, Longvale lifted the carpet and rolled it
up, and then Michael saw that there was a small trap-door, which he
raised and laid back. Below he could see nothing, but there came to him
the sound of a man’s groaning.
“Now I think we can dispense with that, sir,” said Mr. Longvale, and
untied the serviette that covered the detective’s mouth.
This done, he pulled on the rope, seemingly without an effort, and
Michael swung in mid-air. It was uncomfortable; he had an absurd notion
that he looked a little ridiculous. The old man guided his feet through
the opening and gradually paid out the rope.
“Will you be good enough to tell me when you touch ground,” he asked,
“and I will come down to you?”
Looking up, Michael saw the square in the floor grow smaller and
smaller, and for an unconscionable time he swung and swayed and turned
in mid-air. He thought he was not moving, and then, without warning, his
feet touched ground and he called out.
“Are you all right?” said Mr. Longvale pleasantly. “Do you mind stepping
a few paces on one side? I am dropping the rope, and it may hurt you.”
Michael gasped, but carried out instructions, and presently he heard the
swish of the falling line and the smack of it as it struck the ground.
Then the trap-door closed, and there was no other sound but the groaning
near at hand.
“Is that you, Penne?”
“Who is it?” asked the other in a frightened voice. “Is it you, Brixan?
Where are we? What has happened? How did I get here? That old devil gave
me a drink. I ran out—and that’s all I remember. I went to borrow his
car. My God, I’m scared! The magneto of mine went wrong.”
“Did you shout when you ran from the house?”
“I think I did. I felt this infernal poison taking effect and dashed
out—I don’t remember. Where are you, Brixan? The police will get us out
of this, won’t they?”
“Alive, I hope,” said Michael grimly, and he heard the man’s frightened
sob, and was sorry he had spoken.
“What is he? Who is he? Are these the caves? I’ve heard about them. It
smells horribly earthy, doesn’t it? Can you see anything?”
“I thought I saw a light just then,” said Michael, “but my eyes are
playing tricks.” And then: “Where is Adele Leamington?”
“God knows,” said the other. He was shivering, and Michael heard the
sound of his chattering teeth. “I never saw her again. I was afraid Bhag
would go after her. But he wouldn’t hurt her—he is a queer devil. I
wish he was here now.”
“I wish somebody was here,” said Michael sincerely.
He was trying to work his wrists loose of the handcuffs, though he knew
that bare-handed he stood very little chance against the old man. He had
lost his pistol, and although, in the inside of his waistcoat, there
remained intact the long, razor-sharp knife that had cleared him out of
many a Continental scrape, the one infallible weapon when firearms
failed, he knew that he would have no opportunity for its employment.
Sitting down, he tried to perform a trick that he had seen on a stage in
Berlin—the trick of bringing his legs through his manacled hands and so
getting his hands in front of him, but he struggled without avail. There
came the sound of a door opening, and Mr. Longvale’s voice.
“I won’t keep you a moment,” he said. He carried a lantern in his hand
that swung as he walked, and seemed to intensify the gloom. “I don’t
like my patients to catch cold.”
His laughter came echoing back from the vaulted roof of the cave,
intensified hideously. Stopping, he struck a match and a brilliant light
appeared. It was a vapour lamp fixed on a shelf of rock. Presently he
lit another, and then a third and a fourth, and, in the white, unwinking
light, every object in the cave stood out with startling distinctness.
Michael saw the scarlet thing that stood in the cave’s centre, and,
hardened as he was, and prepared for that fearsome sight, he shuddered.
It was a guillotine!
CHAPTER XL
“THE WIDOW”
A GUILLOTINE!
Standing in the middle of the cave, its high framework lifted starkly.
It was painted blood-red, and its very simplicity had a horror of its
own.
Michael looked, fascinated. The basket, the bright, triangular knife
suspended at the top of the frame, the tilted platform with its dangling
straps, the black-painted lunette shaped to receive the head of the
victim and hold it in position till the knife fell in its oiled groove.
He knew the machine bolt by bolt, had seen it in operation on grey
mornings before French prisons, with soldiers holding back the crowd,
and a little group of officials in the centre of the cleared space. He
knew the sound of it, the “_clop!_” as it fell, sweeping to eternity the
man beneath.
“‘The Widow’!” said Longvale humorously. He touched the frame lovingly.
“Oh God, I’m not fit to die!” It was Penne’s agonized wail that went
echoing through the hollow spaces of the cavern.
“The Widow,” murmured the old man again.
He was without a hat; his bald head shone in the light, yet there was
nothing ludicrous in his appearance. His attitude toward this thing he
loved was in a sense pathetic.
“Who shall be her first bridegroom?”
“Not me, not me!” squealed Penne, wriggling back against the wall, his
face ashen, his mouth working convulsively. “I’m not fit to die——”
Longvale walked slowly over to him, stooped and raised him to his feet.
“Courage!” he murmured. “It is the hour!”
* * * * *
Jack Knebworth was pacing the road when the police car came flying back
from Chichester.
“He’s not there, hasn’t been to the station at all,” said the driver
breathlessly as he flung out of the car.
“He may have gone into Longvale’s house.”
“I’ve seen Mr. Longvale: it was he who told me that the Captain had gone
into Chichester. He must have made a mistake.”
Knebworth’s jaw dropped. A great light suddenly flashed upon his mind.
Longvale! There was something queer about him. Was it possible——?
He remembered now that he had been puzzled by a contradictory statement
the old man had made; remembered that, not once but many times, Sampson
Longvale had expressed a desire to be filmed in a favourite part of his
own, one that he had presented, an episode in the life of his famous
ancestor.
“We’ll go and knock him up. I’ll talk to him.”
They hammered at the door without eliciting a response.
“That’s his bedroom.” Jack Knebworth pointed to a latticed window where
a light shone, and Inspector Lyle threw up a pebble with such violence
that the glass was broken. Still there was no response.
“I don’t like that,” said Knebworth suddenly.
“You don’t like it any better than I do,” growled the officer. “Try that
window, Smith.”
“Do you want me to open it, sir?”
“Yes, without delay.”
A second later, the window of the long dining-room was prized open; and
then they came upon an obstacle which could not be so readily forced.
“The shutter is steel-lined,” reported the detective. “I think I’d
better try one of the upper rooms. Give me a leg up, somebody.”
With the assistance of a fellow, he reached up and caught the sill of an
open window, the very window from which Adele had looked down into the
grinning face of Bhag. In another second he was in the room, and was
reaching down to help up a second officer. A few minutes’ delay, and the
front door was unbarred and opened.
“There’s nobody in the house, so far as I can find out,” said the
officer.
“Put a light on,” ordered the inspector shortly.
They found the little vapour lamp and lit it.
“What’s that?” The detective officer pointed to the hook that still hung
in the beam with the pulley beneath, and his eyes narrowed. “I can’t
understand that,” he said slowly. “What was that for?”
Jack Knebworth uttered an exclamation.
“Here’s Brixan’s gun!” he said, and picked it up from the floor.
One glance the inspector gave, and then his eyes went back to the hook
and the pulley.
“That beats me,” he said. “See if you fellows can find anything
anywhere. Open every cupboard, every drawer. Sound the walls—there may
be secret doors; there are in all these old Tudor houses.”
The search was futile, and Inspector Lyle came back to a worried
contemplation of the hook and pulley. Then one of his men came in to say
that he had located the garage.
It was an unusually long building, and when it was opened, it revealed
no more than the old-fashioned car which was a familiar object in that
part of the country. But obviously, this was only half the
accommodation. The seemingly solid whitewashed wall behind the machine
hid another apartment, though it had no door, and an inspection of the
outside showed a solid wall at the far end of the garage.
Jack Knebworth tapped the interior wall.
“This isn’t brickwork at all, it’s wood,” he said.
Hanging in a corner was a chain. Apparently it had no particular
function, but a careful scrutiny led to the discovery that the links ran
through a hole in the roughly plastered ceiling. The inspector caught
the chain and pulled, and, as he did so, the “wall” opened inwards,
showing the contents of the second chamber, which was a second car, so
sheeted that only its radiator was visible. Knebworth pulled off the
cover, and:
“That’s the car.”
“What car?” asked the inspector.
“The car driven by the Head-Hunter,” said Knebworth quickly. “He was in
that machine when Brixan tried to arrest him. I’d know it anywhere!
Brixan is in the Dower House somewhere, and if he’s in the hands of the
Head-Hunter, God help him!”
They ran back to the house, and again the hook and pulley drew them as a
magnet. Suddenly the police officer bent down and jerked back the
carpet. The trap-door beneath the pulley was plainly visible. Pulling it
open, he knelt down and gazed through. Knebworth saw his face grow
haggard.
“Too late, too late!” he muttered.
CHAPTER XLI
THE DEATH
THE shriek of a man half crazy with fear is not nice to hear. Michael’s
nerves were tough, but he had need to drive the nails into the palms of
his manacled hands to keep his self-control.
“I warn you,” he found voice to say, as the shrieking died to an
unintelligible babble of sound, “Longvale, if you do this, you are
everlastingly damned!”
The old man turned his quiet smile upon his second prisoner, but did not
make any answer. Lifting the half-conscious man in his arms as easily as
though he were a child, he carried him to the terrible machine, and laid
him, face downwards, on the tilted platform. There was no hurry. Michael
saw, in Longvale’s leisure, an enjoyment that was unbelievable. He
stepped to the front of the machine and pulled up one half of the
lunette; there was a click, and it remained stationary.
“An invention of mine,” he said with pride, speaking over his shoulder.
Michael looked away for a second, past the grim executioner, to the
farther end of the cave. And then he saw a sight that brought the blood
to his cheeks. At first he thought he was dreaming, and that the strain
of his ordeal was responsible for some grotesque vision.
Adele!
She stood clear in the white light, so grimed with earth and dust that
she seemed to be wearing a grey robe.
“If you move I will kill you!”
It was she! He twisted over on to his knees and staggered upright.
Longvale heard the voice and turned slowly.
“My little lady,” he said pleasantly. “How providential! I’ve always
thought that the culminating point of my career would be, as was the
sainted Charles Henry’s, that moment when a queen came under his hand.
How very singular!”
He walked slowly toward her, oblivious to the pointed pistol, to the
danger in which he stood, a radiant smile on his face, his small, white
hands extended as to an honoured guest.
“Shoot!” cried Michael hoarsely. “For God’s sake, shoot!”
She hesitated for a second and pressed the trigger. There was no
sound—clogged with earth, the delicate mechanism did not act.
She turned to flee, but his arm was round her, and his disengaged hand
drew her head to his breast.
“You shall see, my dear,” he said. “The Widow shall become the Widower,
and you shall be his first bride!”
She was limp in his arms now, incapable of resistance. A strange sense
of inertia overcame her; and, though she was conscious, she could
neither of her own volition, move nor speak. Michael, struggling madly
to release his hands, prayed that she might faint—that, whatever
happened, she should be spared a consciousness of the terror.
“Now who shall be first?” murmured the old man, stroking his shiny head.
“It would be fitting that my lady should show the way, and be spared the
agony of mind. And yet——” He looked thoughtfully at the prostrate
figure strapped to the board, and, tilting the platform, dropped the
lunette about the head of Gregory Penne. The hand went up to the lever
that controlled the knife. He paused again, evidently puzzling something
out in his crazy mind.
“No, you shall be first,” he said, unbuckled the strap and pushed the
half-demented man to the ground.
Michael saw him lift his head, listening. There were hollow sounds
above, as of people walking. Again he changed his mind, stooped and
dragged Gregory Penne to his feet. Michael wondered why he held him so
long, standing so rigidly; wondered why he dropped him suddenly to the
ground; and then wondered no longer. Something was crossing the floor of
the cave—a great, hairy something, whose malignant eyes were turned
upon the old man.
It was Bhag! His hair was matted with blood; his face wore the powder
mask which Michael had seen when he emerged from Griff Towers. He
stopped and sniffed at the groaning man on the floor, and his big paw
touched the face tenderly. Then, without preliminary, he leapt at
Longvale, and the old man went down with a crash to the ground, his arms
whirling in futile defence. For a second Bhag stood over him, looking
down, twittering and chattering; and then he raised the man and laid him
in the place where his master had been, tilting the board and pushing it
forward.
Michael gazed with fascinated horror. The great ape had witnessed an
execution! It was from this cave that he had escaped, the night that
Foss was killed. His half-human mind was remembering the details.
Michael could almost see his mind working to recall the procedure.
Bhag fumbled with the frame, touched the spring that released the
lunette, and it fell over the neck of the Head-Hunter. And at that
moment, attracted by a sound, Michael looked up, saw the trap above
pulled back. Bhag heard it also, but was too intent upon his business to
be interrupted. Longvale had recovered consciousness and was fighting to
draw his head from the lunette. Presently he spoke. It was as though he
realized the imminence of his fate, and was struggling to find an
appropriate phrase, for he lay quiescent now, his hands gripping the
edge of the narrow platform on which he lay.
“Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!” he said, and at that moment Bhag
jerked the handle that controlled the knife.
Inspector Lyle from above saw the blade fall, heard the indescribable
sound of the thud that followed, and almost swooned. Then, from below:
“It’s all right, inspector. You may find a rope in the buffet. Get down
as quickly as you can and bring a gun.”
The buffet cupboard contained another rope, and a minute later the
detective was going down hand over hand.
“There’s no danger from the monkey,” said Michael.
Bhag was crooning over his senseless master, as a mother over her child.
“Get Miss Leamington away,” said Michael in a low voice, as the
detective began to unlock the handcuffs.
The girl lay, an inanimate and silent figure, by the side of the
guillotine, happily oblivious of the tragedy which had been enacted in
her presence. Another detective had descended the rope, and old Jack
Knebworth, despite his years, was the third to enter the cave. It was he
who found the door, and aided the detective to carry the girl to safety.
Unlocking the handcuffs from the baronet’s wrists, Michael turned him
over on his back. One glance at the face told the detective that the man
was in a fit, and that his case, if not hopeless, was at least
desperate. As though understanding that the man had no ill intent toward
his master, Bhag watched passively, and then Michael remembered how, the
first time he had seen the great ape, Bhag had smelt his hands.
“He’s filing you for future reference as a friend,” had said Gregory at
the time.
“Pick him up,” said Michael, speaking distinctly in the manner that
Gregory had addressed the ape.
Without hesitation, Bhag stooped and lifted the limp man in his arms,
and Michael guided him to the stairway and led him up the stairs.
The house was full of police, who gaped at the sight of the great ape
and his burden.
“Take him upstairs and put him on the bed,” ordered Michael.
Knebworth had already taken the girl off in his car to Chichester, for
she had shown signs of reviving, and he wanted to get her away from that
house of the dead before she fully recovered.
Michael went down into the cave again and joined the inspector. Together
they made a brief tour. The headless figures in the niches told their
own story. Farther on, Michael came to the bigger cavern, with its floor
littered with bones.
“Here is confirmation of the old legend,” he said in a hushed voice, and
pointed. “These are the bones of those warriors and squires who were
trapped in the cave by a landslide. You can see the horses’ skeletons
quite plainly.”
How had Adele got into the cave? He was not long before he found the
slide down which she had tumbled.
“Another mystery is explained,” he said. “Griff Tower was obviously
built by the Romans to prevent cattle and men from falling through into
the cave. Incidentally, it has served as an excellent ventilator, and I
have no doubt the old man had this way prepared, both as a hiding-place
for the people he had killed and as a way of escape.”
He saw a candle-lantern and matches that the girl had missed, and this
he regarded as conclusive proof that his view was right.
They came back to the guillotine with its ghastly burden, and Michael
stood in silence for a long time, looking at the still figure stretched
on the platform, its hands still clutching the sides.
“How did he persuade these people to come to their death?” asked the
inspector in a voice little above a whisper.
“That is a question for the psychologist,” said Michael at last. “There
is no doubt that he got into touch with many men who were contemplating
suicide but shrank from the act, and performed this service for them. I
should imagine his practice of leaving around their heads for
identification arose out of some poor wretch’s desire that his wife and
family should secure his insurance.
“He worked with extraordinary cunning. The letters, as you know, went to
a house of call and were collected by an old woman, who posted them to a
second address, whence they were put in prepared envelopes and posted,
ostensibly to London. I discovered that the envelopes were kept in a
specially light-proof box, and that the unknown advertiser had
stipulated that they should not be taken out of that box until they were
ready for posting. An hour after those letters were put in the mail the
address faded and became invisible, and another appeared.”
“Vanishing ink?”
Mike nodded.
“It is a trick that criminals frequently employ. The new address, of
course, was Dower House. Put out the lights and let us go up.”
Three lamps were extinguished, and the detective looked round fearfully
at the shadows.
“I think we’ll leave this down here,” he said.
“I think we will,” said Michael, in complete agreement.
CHAPTER XLII
CAMERA!
THREE months had passed since the Dower House had yielded up its grisly
secrets. A long enough time for Gregory Penne to recover completely and
to have served one of the six months’ imprisonment to which he was
sentenced on a technical charge. The guillotine had been re-erected in a
certain Black Museum on the Thames Embankment, where young policemen
come to look upon the equipment of criminality. People had ceased to
talk about the Head-Hunter.
It seemed a million years ago to Michael as he sat, perched on a table,
watching Jack Knebworth, in the last stages of despair, directing a
ruffled Reggie Connolly in the business of love-making. Near by stood
Adele Leamington, a star by virtue of the success that had attended a
certain trade show.
Out of range of the camera, a cigarette between her fingers, Stella
Mendoza, gorgeously attired, watched her some time friend and
prospective leading man with good-natured contempt.
“There’s nobody can tell me, Mr. Knebworth,” said Reggie testily, “how
to hold a girl! Good gracious, heavens alive, have I been asleep all my
life? Don’t you think I know as much about girls as you, Mr. Knebworth?”
“I don’t care a darn how you hold your girl,” howled Jack. “I’m telling
you how to hold _my_ girl! There’s only one way of making love, and
that’s _my_ way. I’ve got the patent rights! Your arm round her waist
again, Connolly. Hold your head up, will you? Now turn it this way. Now
drop your chin a little. Smile, darn you, smile! Not a prop smile!” he
shrieked. “Smile as if you liked her. Try to imagine that she loves you!
I’ll apologize to you, afterwards, Adele, but try to imagine it,
Connolly. That’s better. You look as if you’d swallowed a liqueur of
broken glass! Look down into her eyes—look, I said, not glare! That’s
better. Now do that again——”
He watched, writhing, gesticulating, and at last, in cold resignation:
“Rotten, but it’ll have to do. Lights!”
The big Kreisler lights flared, the banked mercury lamps burnt bluely,
and the flood lamps became blank expanses of diffused light. Again the
rehearsal went through, and then:
“Camera!” wailed Jack, and the handle began to turn.
“That’s all for you to-day, Connolly,” said Jack. “Now, Miss
Mendoza——”
Adele came across to where Michael was sitting and jumped up on to the
table beside him.
“Mr. Knebworth is quite right,” she said, shaking her head. “Reggie
Connolly doesn’t know how to make love.”
“Who does?” demanded Michael. “Except the right man?”
“He’s supposed to be the right man,” she insisted. “And, what’s more,
he’s supposed to be the best lover on the English screen.”
“Ha ha!” said Michael sardonically.
She was silent for a time, and then:
“Why are you still here? I thought your work was finished in this part
of the world.”
“Not all,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve still an arrest to make.”
She looked up at him quickly.
“Another?” she said. “I thought, when you took poor Sir Gregory——”
“Poor Sir Gregory!” he scoffed. “He ought to be a very happy man. Six
months’ hard labour was just what he wanted, and he was lucky to be
charged, not with the killing of his unfortunate servant but with the
concealment of his death.”
“Whom are you arresting now?”
“I’m not so sure,” said Michael, “whether I shall arrest her.”
“Is it a woman?”
He nodded.
“What has she done?”
“The charge isn’t definitely settled,” he said evasively, “but I think
there will be several counts. Creating a disturbance will be one;
deliberately endangering public health—at any rate, the health of one
of the public—will be another; maliciously wounding the feelings——”
“Oh, _you_, you mean?”
She laughed softly.
“I thought that was part of your delirium that night at the hospital, or
part of mine. But as other people saw you kiss me, it must have been
yours. I don’t think I want to marry,” she said thoughtfully. “I am——”
“Don’t say that you are wedded to your art,” he groaned. “They all say
that!”
“No, I’m not wedded to anything, except a desire to prevent my best
friend from making a great mistake. You’ve a very big career in front of
you, Michael, and marrying me is not going to help you. People will
think you’re just infatuated, and when the inevitable divorce comes
along——”
They both laughed together.
“If you have finished being like a maiden aunt, I want to tell you
something,” said Michael. “I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.”
“Of course you have,” she said calmly. “That’s the only possible way you
_can_ love a girl. If it takes three days to make up your mind it can’t
be love. That’s why I know I don’t love you. I was annoyed with you the
first time I met you; I was furious with you the second time; and I’ve
just tolerated you ever since. Wait till I get my make-up off.”
She got down and ran to her dressing-room. Michael strolled across to
comfort an exhausted Jack Knebworth.
“Adele? Oh, she’s all right. She really has had an offer from
America—not Hollywood, but a studio in the East. I’ve advised her not
to take it until she’s a little more proficient, but I don’t think she
wanted any advice. That girl isn’t going to stay in the picture
business.”
“What makes you think that, Knebworth?”
“She’s going to get married,” said Jack glumly. “I can recognize the
signs. I told you all along that there was something queer about her.
She’s going to get married and leave the screen for good—that’s her
eccentricity.”
“And whom do you think she will marry?” asked Michael.
Old Jack snorted.
“It won’t be Reggie Connolly—that I can promise you.”
“I should jolly well say not!” said that indignant young man, who had
remarkably keen ears. “I’m not a marrying chap. It spoils an artist. A
wife is like a millstone round his neck. He has no chance of expressing
his individuality. And whilst we are on that subject, Mr. Knebworth, are
you perfectly sure that I’m to blame? Doesn’t it strike you—mind you, I
wouldn’t say a word against the dear girl—doesn’t it strike you that
Miss Leamington isn’t quite—what shall I say?—seasoned in love—that’s
the expression.”
Stella Mendoza had strolled up. She had returned to the scene of her
former labours, and it looked very much as if she were coming back to
her former position.
“When you say ‘seasoned’ you mean ‘smoked,’ Reggie,” she said. “I think
you’re wrong.”
“I can’t be wrong,” said Reggie complacently. “I’ve made love to more
girls in this country than any other five leading men, and I tell you
that Miss Leamington is distinctly and fearfully immature.”
The object of their discussion appeared at the end of the studio, nodded
a cheery good night to the company and went out, Michael on her heels.
“You’re fearfully immature,” he said, as he guided her across the road.
“Who said so? It sounds like Reggie: that is a favourite word of his.”
“He says you know nothing whatever about love-making.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” she said shortly, and so baffling was her tone that
he was not prepared to continue the subject, until they reached the
long, dark road in which she lived.
“The proper way to make love,” he said, more than a little appalled at
his own boldness, “is to put one hand on the waist——”
Suddenly she was in his arms, her cool face against his.
“There isn’t any way,” she murmured. “One just does!”
THE END
JOHN LONG, LTD., PUBLISHERS, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1926
NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS LIMITED, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
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PASSIONATE YOUTH EDWARD CHARLES REED
_Author of “A Wise Fool,” the Prize-Winning Novel in the John_
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THE AVENGER EDGAR WALLACE
IT CAME TO PASS VERA, COUNTESS CATHCART
THE UNDYING FLAME ARTHUR APPLIN
THE SLEUTH HOUND GASTON LEROUX
JUDGE NOT CECIL H. BULLIVANT
THE SOLE CONDITION VERA CAUDWELL
SALTED DIAMONDS H. M. EGBERT
A MOTH AT MONTE LESLIE BERESFORD (“PAN”)
PETER CURTIS . . . HELEN G. DAVIES
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THE HUMMING-TOP LOUISE HEILGERS
THE SLAPPED WOMAN FREDERICK BROCK
THE MAN FROM MOROCCO EDGAR WALLACE
OUR TRESPASSES E. W. SAVI
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THE GREY PHANTOM’S RETURN HERMAN LANDON
HER LADYSHIP DECIDES CECIL H. BULLIVANT
THE MAJOR’S MASCOT NAT GOULD
THE OTHER MR. NORTH LESLIE BERESFORD (“PAN”)
THE CELLINI PLAQUE HAROLD MACGRATH
THE SMOKES OF SPRING A. M. BURRAGE
MINGLED WINE HELEN G. DAVIES
MRS. ORMESBY’S PROPOSAL EDWARD CHARLES REED
A KING BY NIGHT EDGAR WALLACE
STORM HALLIWELL SUTCLIFFE
A FATEFUL ESCAPADE E. W. SAVI
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G O O D G R A I N
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TRANSCRIBER NOTES
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