The timing and arrangement of the situation was flawless. Barraclough with his hands upheld, Harrison Smith masking the persuasive automatic from the view of the two girls and Dirk's fingers travelling caressingly toward the pocket in which his mascot reposed. It was hugely dramatic. Flora and Jane, robbed for the moment of the power of speech and action, clung to one another on the far side of the room, their gaze riveted on their hero, who, in this moment of crisis, was whistling a bar of ragtime and accepting defeat with smiling eyes.
Harrison Smith's left hand ran professionally over the contours ofBarraclough's coat to satisfy himself that there was no concealed weapon.
"Most opportune," he remarked, "and we had almost despaired of seeing you." Then in a lower voice—"All right, but no games."
"Thank you," said Barraclough, and lowering his arms he walked slowly to the writing table.
"And now you two nice little girls," said Harrison Smith, rubbing his hands together, "cut along and pick flowers. Much too nice an evening to be spending your time indoors. Off you go."
There was certainly a better chance of getting help if they could escape.Nothing was to be gained by staying. As they passed the table by whichBarraclough was standing he whipped an envelope from his pocket andthrust it in Flora's hand with the words:
"Post that for me—quick."
Flora seized the envelope and made a dash for the window but hardly covered half the distance before Dirk and Smith closed in upon her, fighting for possession of the paper. It was given to Jane to translate the actual meaning of this extraordinary performance and she alone saw Barraclough take the note case swiftly from his pocket and bury it under the foliage in the basket of roses. The others were too busily engaged to attend to such a trifle.
"Let them have it, Flora," said Barraclough, sweetly. "They are friends of mine. Do as I tell you."
"You girls get out," gasped Harrison Smith, coming down breathlessly with the envelope, and after Flora and Jane had escaped into the garden, "Cornered, Mr. Barraclough, and we've got the goods."
Anthony was smiling.
"Hadn't you better make sure?" said he.
The envelope was ripped open and a letter withdrawn.
"What's this?"
"I don't know—something my mother wrote. Oh, I wasn't born yesterday and if you think I carry the concession—search me." And to emphasise the uselessness of such a course he pulled out the lining of his inner pocket.
Dirk and Smith closed in threateningly.
"We mean to have that paper," they said in a single voice.
"Haven't you chosen rather a public place to get it?" he answered steadily. "Oh, I realise I'm cornered, but is this the place for the kill? After all, I'm not much good to you without that paper."
"Where 'ave you put it?" hissed Dirk, edging closer. "Where 'ave you put it, eh?"
"Aha, my friend, that's the point. But it won't be cleared up by breathing hops in my face."
The barrel of Harrison Smith's pistol pressed unpleasantly into his short ribs and Dirk's mascot "whump-whumphed" in the air above his head.
"A little persuasion."
"No, not even with a little persuasion." His voice rang high on a note of challenge. "If you want that paper, you'll have to accept my terms and my terms are stiff."
"I can tell you 'oo'll be stiff ternight if he don't——"
The sentence was never finished, for from the hall outside came the sound of Mrs. Barraclough's voice:
"I may be a little late for dinner, Cook, so don't put on the potatoes till the half hour."
"My mother," said Anthony, warningly.
With a curse and a growl Smith and Dirk backed away, pocketing their weapons, as Mrs. Barraclough in a long motor cloak and veil came into the room.
For a second she stood in the doorway, her eyes travelling from her son to the two men and back again. From the astonishment on her features Anthony read plainly enough that Flora and Jane had failed to find and advise her of the danger.
At this perilous stage a false move might mean the loss of everything. The one hope was to preserve a seeming of normality and at the same time convey a message as to the real significance of the situation. And like a flash came into his head a memory of boyhood scrapes and a mother who had never failed him in the hour of need. He whipped out his white handkerchief and with a single hand, an old conjuring trick, threw a knot in the centre and dangled it before Mrs. Barraclough's eyes. No message by wire or wireless ever reached its destination in quicker time than that old S. O. S. of school boy fame. He saw her tap out the "received" signal with a forefinger on the front of her cloak, then turned with a wave of the handkerchief to introduce the visitors.
"Mother dear, these are two friends of mine, Sergeant Hammersmith and Mr. Cappell." They were the first names to come into his head. He added—"This is my mother, gentlemen, and I am sure you will be grieved to hear she has lately suffered from very indifferent health."
To give herself a moment for reflection, Mrs. Barraclough removed her veiled motor bonnet and put it on the couch. Then she turned and descended upon Dirk with outstretched hands and a high pitched falsetto that fairly rang with welcome.
"Oh, my dear Sergeant Hammer, this is indeed a pleasure. How very kind of you to drop in. So few people drop in now-a-days; dropping in seems to have quite dropped out and I do so dearly love seeing anyone from Town. Of course we are so old world and out of the way down here that we never see anyone—no one at all—nobody and to hear news direct from——" She broke off abruptly, fixed her glasses and fell back in an attitude of amazed rapture—"Anthony, dear, do look. Isn't Sergeant Picklesnip exactly like the vicar—the old one, not the present incumbent, he's too high for me. I do hope——" She descended upon Harrison Smith and wrung him warmly by both hands—"I do hope you agree with me that the Roman influence is most dangerous." And before he had time to reply—"Ah, but I wish you had known Anthony when he was a little boy and wore sailor suits—white on Sundays with a cord and a whistle round his neck. My poor husband could not endure the whistle, so he took the pea out of it and then it only made an airy noise instead of a blast."
"Mother dear," Anthony interposed, "aren't you going down to the village?"
A suggestion to which Harrison Smith proved a ready seconder.
"Don't let us detain you, Madam," he beseeched.
"No, I won't, I won't. Besides, I mustn't be late. As Mr. Gladstone said in '84—and oh, what a hot summer that was—he said—'Detention is the mother of time.'"
At which Freddie Dirk, who knew something of both detention and time, shivered uncomfortably and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Never be late," continued Mrs. Barraclough, rallying her resources for a new oration, "although I was late once for a flower show at Weston-super-Mare—or was it a funeral, Anthony? At any rate, there were a lot of flowers there, so it may have been a wedding or a garden party. But really, I mustn't stay a moment longer. I've got to see a Mrs. Brassbound—poor dear, she's—Anthony, go away, you mustn't listen—I'm going to treat you as friends—there's going to be a baby—she's the wife of our village constable, you know—such a nice man—but as I've always said, Policemen will be Policemen."
"Yes, yes, yes," said Harrison Smith, whose patience was running out, "very interesting. I have a friend staying at the hotel. I wonder if I might use your telephone."
Mrs. Barraclough caught the warning in Anthony's eyes as she gave her consent. Also she caught a glint of light from the rose cutters that lay on the sofa.
What more natural than for a hostess to be seated while her guest made his call and what more fortunate than the fact that the telephone wire passed over the arm of the sofa on its way to the insulator in the floor. The snip of the scissors as she cut the wire was quite inaudible because of the good lady's flow of remarks on the subject of telephony.
"They may keep you waiting," she said and kept on chattering until Harrison Smith hung up the receiver in despair of being connected with his ally Bolt.
"And now, Madam, I feel sure we have kept you much too long," he said.
"You'd better be off, Mother," said Anthony, who although vaguely aware that she was endeavouring to create an atmosphere of vacuity, could not fathom the advantage to be gained.
"I'm going, dear, I'm going. I was thinking, that's all."
"Thinking," came from Dirk.
"Wondering if you two gentlemen could eat mutton. My dear brother who died in '93 had very strong views about mutton, especially when it was cold. He said——"
But the prospect of hearing what he said so shook the good manners of her visitors that they almost breasted her toward the bedroom door. They would probably have succeeded in their object had not Flora hurried in from the garden.
"The doctor is with her now," said Flora. "I've got the car ready."
Mrs. Barraclough became almost hysterical. There was no limit to the instructions she showered upon the hapless Flora. Were the vegetables in the car? Had she been sent for? Was Mr. Brassbound there, and finally, had Flora put the "you know" into the basket?
"The 'you know,'" said Flora, hazily.
"Silly, silly girl," wailed Mrs. Barraclough. "Sergeant Ealing, do excuse me whispering to my maid, but it is so difficult to speak out in public."
She dropped her voice to a confidential whisper only for the briefest space and Flora nodded gravely and said:
"Yes, Madam, I quite understand," and went out.
"And now I really must be going," said Mrs. Barraclough at her bedroom door. But she descended again upon her visitors, now purple with exasperation, and possessed herself of their hands.
"I have enjoyed your conversation so much, Mr. Ravenscourt, and yours, too, Sergeant Chiswick, but even the best of friends must part; as Anthony used to say when I bought him his first comb. Goodbye—goodbye." She paused dramatically. "Oh, I nearly forgot my salts—my salts. It's most important. The doctor said that I should never go anywhere without my salts."
It was only by exercise of something approaching violence that the garrulous old lady was finally induced to enter her bedroom and the door closed upon her.
"If ever anyone ought to be certified," declared Harrison Smith blindly.
"I am very much obliged to you, gentlemen," said Anthony. "I don't imagine she will be long now."
"For everyone's sake I 'ope she ain't," Dirk contributed.
But as though to discount this pious ambition came a call from behind the closed door.
"Anthony, dear, Anthony! Will you ring the bell for Jane, please?"
"The bell is at your elbow," said Anthony. "It is for you to decide, sir, whether it should be rung."
Harrison Smith tugged at the bell pull viciously.
"And, Anthony, dear, will you bring me my motoring bonnet?"
Anthony pointed at the motoring bonnet lying on the table next to the rose basket, wherein, hidden by the stalks and leaves, was the morocco letter case.
"Take the damn thing in yourself," said Harrison Smith.
It was Dirk who moved forward suspiciously as Barraclough picked up the bonnet and moved toward the bedroom. Harrison Smith waved him back.
"There's no other door. Keep a watch on the window," he ordered.
Anthony entered unmolested and at precisely that moment Bolt came in from the garden.
The united forces did not waste time in greetings.
"We've got him," said Harrison Smith. "He's in there with his mother."
This was evident enough, for the sound of their voices was audible, Mrs.Barraclough's high pitched tones crying out:
"Don't sit on the bed, dear, it creases the quilt."
"Better look out," Bolt warned. "He's as slippery as an eel."
"Trust me, we're just waiting to get rid of the old woman, and then——"
The other door opened and Jane scampered in, crying:
"Did 'ee ring, marm, did 'ee ring?"
"Put that basket of roses in the car, Jane," Mrs. Barraclough replied, and as Jane turned to obey, from the garden in rushed Flora and Conybeare, calling on their mistress to hasten.
"Mrs. Brassbound, Mrs. Brassbound," cried Flora. "There's not a moment to lose."
"Terrible bad she is, and cryin' out for 'ee, m'am."
In the midst of this confusion appeared a veiled and cloaked figure, apparently belonging to Mrs. Barraclough, who nervously flapped hands and hastened, surrounded by a babbling mob of servitors, toward the nearest window.
It did not occur to Barraclough's enemies to offer any resistance to this general exodus, their attention was absorbed by the bedroom door, which had shut with a snap and the click of a key. They waited just long enough for the party of cackling females to get out of the room and down the path, then rushed at the door with foot and shoulder. It stood up longer than might have been expected, but Bolt's weight was more than ordinary woodwork could withstand. The lock burst—the headings split and it fell inward with a crash.
Standing by the window, waving a knotted handkerchief to a disappearing car was Mrs. Barraclough. She scarcely wasted a glance upon the intruders.
"Damnation—done!" roared Harrison Smith, as the truth dawned upon him.
In a solid block they swung round to find themselves staring down the black barrel of a service revolver held dead rigid in the hands of Jane.
"Hands above your heads, please," she insisted.
"And if you'll first wait till dear Anthony turns the bend of the lane," cooed Mrs. Barraclough, "I'll go through their pockets and take away any nasty things I may find there. You put the roses in the car, Jane?"
"He's got it all right," came the answer.
"Dear roses," said Mrs. Barraclough, sentimentally.
A panel is not beaten into shape by force but by recurrent blows, light and accurate, and by the same cumulative process, Van Diest and his colleagues sought to shape the will of Richard Frencham Altar to their intention.
The fact that their effort had so far failed in no way discouraged the belief that eventually it would succeed. There was no doubt in their minds but that in time he would be brought to speak, but Cranbourne's unexpected disclosure that the opposition knew of their captive's whereabouts robbed them of their most valuable asset. Time, so to speak, was no longer to be relied upon and they were compelled to resort to a more expeditious method.
True it would be easy to remove the captive elsewhere but easy matters are apt to go wrong on performance. A clue might be provided where at present no clue existed. If Torrington brought a charge it would be based on hypothetical evidence and come to nothing. On the other hand unpleasant suspicions would certainly be aroused and neither Van Diest nor Hipps greatly desired to attract the attentions of the Police.
If Barraclough could be persuaded to disclose the secret all would be well. He would be generously rewarded not only for his confidence but also for a guarantee to disclose none of the privations to which he had been subjected. The affair would end in an atmosphere of sweet accord. Torrington's crowd would be knocked out of business and a spirit of peace and harmony would descend like a benison upon the hard working trio.
Could any solution be more satisfactory, but there was a fly in the ointment. Barraclough's resolution strengthened with adversity, he kept his tongue behind locked teeth and said precisely nothing.
At nine o'clock that night the Dutchman's big Rolls Royce delivered him and Ezra Hipps at Laurence's abode and Laurence himself came out to meet them.
"Well?" said Hipps.
But Laurence shook his head.
"Nothing doing at present."
"Has he had any food?"
"Not today. He's weak enough in all conscience."
"Sleep?"
"Damn little. He dropped off two or three times and I got the chaps to spray him with cold water. That kept him lively. Blayney and Parker are sleeping in the room now and taking shifts to watch him at night. Awfully sorry, you two, but I've done my best."
"I'll get right up," said Ezra P. Hipps. "Say, Auriole'll be along presently. Tell her to stand by. She may come in useful."
He marched heavily up the stairs and entered Richard's room.
Blayney was on duty sprawling watchful on a camp bed, his elbows propped on a kit bag.
"Get out, you," said Hipps, and the man obeyed. Then he turned toRichard.
The last few days had wrought a desperate change in his looks. Caverns had sunk in his cheeks and his eyes were ringed with black. That he stood in earnest need of a shave heightened the pallor of brow and temples.
He was seated, cramped rather, in an upright chair with chin down. His left hand beat a tattoo on the table top and he sucked the thumb of his right hand like a badly trained child at a make-belief meal.
"Taste good?" asked Hipps. "If I'd known you'd a fancy that way I'd have brought along a soother."
Richard removed his thumb and said, "Go to Hell!" very distinctly.
Hipps walked a few paces toward him and remarked:
"Still pretty fresh, I see."
"Leaking badly, but still afloat," came the reply.
"Durn me! but you're a sound citizen, Bud. I respect sand but I despise a fool."
"All right you do," mumbled Richard sleepily.
"Pretty tired?"
"Not sufficiently wide awake to listen to your talk, damn you!"
The American smiled nastily.
"Maybe not, but this is a case of having to. Say! ever been in one of those big machine shops and seen a giant flywheel swizzling round at three hundred revs. a minute? Guess you wouldn't be gink enough to put out a hand and try to stop it. Never saw any machine yet that develops more power than I can."
Richard shrugged a shoulder; it was too great an effort to shrug both of them.
"And I guess you ain't going to stop the fly-wheel of my destiny."
"You've had a sample," he replied with a touch of spirit.
Hipps came a step closer and hooked his foot round a leg of Richard's chair.
"Know anything about the third degree?" he demanded.
"What you've shown me."
Richard's voice sounded far away and disinterested.
"Show you some more. Stand up! Stand up! I can't bear a drowsy man." And he kicked the chair half across the room. "Don't hang on to that table—stand on your legs," and grasping Richard by his shirt front he forced him into an upright position and held him there. His voice hardened and rasped like a cross cut file as question after question boomed out with the relentless quality of minute guns.
"A year ago you went travelling."
"You say so." The replies were barely audible.
"During that time you tumbled on your find."
"If I did, I did."
"When was it you struck?"
"That's my affair."
"I've made it mine. When was it you struck?"
"During the six months," said Richard with a twinkle of dying humour.
"That answer won't do."
"Only one you'll get."
"I'm pretty close behind you, Anthony Barraclough."
Again the twinkle came and went as Richard gave answer.
"Still behind?"
"Anthony Barraclough, I've a complete list of the places you visited."
"Been buying a pocket atlas?"
"The actual places."
"Fine!"
"And I could hazard a guess where the locality is. Like me to try?"
"If it amuses you any."
The American's voice rose and filled the room, reverberant as thunder.
"P'r'aps it isn't so far away after all."
And out of the wreckage of his resources, Richard Frencham Altar brought up his big guns for a final effort at counter battery.
"P'r'aps it isn't, p'r'aps it is," he cried. "Why, you blasted fool, you'll get nothing from me—nothing. If you know so damn much go and find the place yourself."
Ezra Hipps seized him by the shoulders and flung him back against the wall.
"We mean to find out."
"Not from me—not from me," Richard repeated, but the power which had upheld him was dwindling fast. He knew, knew beyond question that in a few more moments the truth would be shaken out of him unless he could devise some means of slackening the strain. And then he had an inspiration.
"You fool! You fool!" he cried. "Can't you see what you've done, you and your idiot crew? As you've driven health from my body so, by your blasted privations, you've driven memory from my head."
He tottered drunkenly toward a chair and sat down all of a heap.
"What's that?" demanded Hipps, with real alarm.
"I can't remember," Richard laughed hysterically. "I can't remember what you want to know," and his head fell forward into his hands.
For nearly a minute, Hipps looked at him in silence and his face was very white indeed. Then with the breath escaping between his teeth he turned away.
It was sheer lunacy on the part of Richard to peep through his fingers to judge the effect of his words. For it is an established truth that the nerves of a man's back are sensitive to another's gaze.
Ezra Hipps swung round so quickly that Richard failed to cover his face in time. The mischief was done.
"Very clever," said the American and laughed. "Very clever and I nearly bought it, but not quite." He seized Richard's wrist and twisted it downward. "A word of advice against the future, Mister Barraclough. Next time you're working a crumple-up don't let the chap you're pulling it on see you looking at it between your fingers." He strolled up to the door whistling pensively and halted with his hand on the latch. "I'm doubting if you're going to be a whole lot of use to us for you're a tough case. When it comes up at Committee my thumb points down."
He went out and the bolt shot home behind him.
For a long while Richard rocked in his chair muttering. He felt very lonely and his throat ached, his head ached—he ached all over—a childish desire to snivel possessed him and could not be subdued. If only there had been a shoulder, some sweet, kind, soft shoulder to soak up the tired angry tears that fell and fell. A kindly shoulder, a gentle voice to drive away the horror of these nightmare days. Was all sweetness gone out of the world? Was the world no more than four square walls peopled with devils who asked and asked and asked? Was there nothing else but greed of money, hatred, want, and damnable persecution? A voice within cried aloud: "Why suffer it all? Why bear the brunt of other men's adventure?" Five thousand pounds. Was it a fair price for breaking one's body against rocks, for shattering one's soul against man unkind?
Wild uncontrollable resentment seized him and in its wave tossed him against the door of his prison battering at the panels with bare fists and shrieking aloud in a voice he could not recognise as his own.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! You've made a mistake. I'm not Bar'clough, nev' met him. Richard Frencham Altar I am—father shot himself—Torrington paying me five thousand—keep it up for three weeks—but you've made the course too stiff. I can't stay the distance. I can't stay the distance."
His knees gave way beneath him and he fell to the floor beating the boards and blubbering like a school-boy.
But there came no answer from the hollow empty house and presently the paroxysm passed and he looked up slowly seeing, as it were, a vision of himself false to every tradition of manhood he had held most dear.
"Coward!" he said. "Rotten blasted coward! Three weeks and this is the last day." He looked at his watch. "Only another hour and then I'm free to speak. Stick it for another hour. Stick it for another hour."
And the very saying of the words seemed to increase his stature, swell his chest, revitalise his manhood.
When a moment later the door opened and Van Diest chanting his perpetual hymn came quietly into the room he found Richard rocking on his heels beside a chair beating time to the music with a shaking forefinger while from his parched lips he emitted a pathetic pretence at whistling the same tune.
"S'bad," muttered Hugo Van Diest. "S'bad business. Must tink all the time and be worried by dese things. For God's sake you don't fidget. You tink all the suffering was wit you, but it was inside of me where the pain live."
"Ha ha!" said Richard.
"Discomfort is nutting. I haf before me the prospec' to be beat. It wass the torture to be beat. You know that."
"Not yet."
"Mus' be taught."
"Ha ha!" said Richard again and banged the dish cover against the table implements of a foodless tray that had marked the hour of a meal time.
"Don't fidget!" roared Van Diest, emitting a cloud of tobacco smoke.
"Don't smoke!" Richard countered in the same tone.
"I shmoke on purpose."
"And I fidget on purpose."
With a sweep of the hand he sent the tray with a crashing to the floor.
"Ach! Ach! Ach!" cried Van Diest, and was almost choked with a violent attack of coughing.
"I make you to speak! I make you to speak! What if I burn you with my cigar—what if I——" he stopped abruptly and dropped his voice almost to a whine. "You don't know how goot I make myself to you. I wass a very kind man. At my home I keep the birds."
"Poor darlings," said Richard.
"The canaries; and you look what I haf here. A portrait of my little granddaughter Sibelle. She sit on my knee the Sunday afternoon and listen to the tale of Hansell and Grethel. She call me Grandparkins."
Richard swept the photograph aside with the back of his hand.
"I'm not sitting on anyone's knee, Grandparkins," he said.
A bright purple ran over Van Diest's features in blotches and streaks.He rose to his feet and held out a quivering forefinger.
"You pay very heavy to make fun of my heart, Mister Barraclough. If you haf any senses at all you know that all mens wass the two mens—the home man and the business man—and the one hass nothing to do with the udter."
"Leave it at that," said Richard. "I'm not feeling altogether at home just now."
"That was your last word?"
"My last word."
"So!" said Van Diest. "So!" His eyebrows went up and down and he seemed lost in thought for a moment. Finally: "You go into the bedroom now please."
He gave the order slowly and to Richard's hypersensitive ears it held a threat of real and imminent danger. It sounded as the burial service must sound to a man who stands upon a trap with a knotted cord around his throat.
"No!" said Richard. "No!"
"The bedroom."
"No!"
An impasse. They stood like duellists trying to read intention in each other's eyes.
Hugo Van Diest made the mistake of his life when he abandoned mental force for violence. The hand he raised to strike Richard across the face never reached its mark; instead he felt himself go tottering backward across the room. There was not much force in the blow Richard struck, but the science was good and he put his weight into it. Van Diest took it on the point and as he measured his length on the floor he saw Richard make a dash for the door which had remained unlocked during the interview.
Ezra P. Hipps caught him on the landing outside and put on a jiu-jitsu armlock which closed the argument and sent Richard staggering toward his bedroom beaten it is true, but absurdly enough triumphant.
"Listen you," he gasped, his back against the panel. "You think I can be made to speak—you're wrong—You think I can be tortured and beaten and bullied into giving up the secret. You're wrong—wrong. There's something inside of me that'll lick you, lick you hollow. Do your damndest, my lads, my breaking point is outside your reach." And as a Parthian arrow he said "Blast you!" and banged the door.
A point of interest arises as to how long one determined girl armed with a revolver can hold up three desperate men also armed and further fortified by greed of gold. Your average tough is not greatly alarmed by a pistol in the hands of a woman. He banks on the theory that so long as she thinks she is aiming in his direction, he is moderately secure from harm. It is when she is pointing at some other object fear arises as to his safety and well being.
In this particular instance, however, there was an unusually threatening quality in the demeanour of Jane. She trained her gun like any artilleryman and in a manner not lightly to be dismissed by the casual process of a rush. Added to which the position in which these adventurers found themselves—a compact mass in a single doorway—did not offer good opportunities for acts of individual or concerted heroism. They formed, as it were, a unified target, the bull's-eye of which was the centre of Alfred Bolt's immense corporation. To suppose that any marksman, however indifferent, could fail to register a hit upon so broad an invitation was to betray unreason.
Dirk who had had previous experience in similar situations remarked with melancholy that the steely eyed Amazon who commanded their destinies kept carefully out of reach of his foot. This was a pity since he was contemplating trying the effect of kicking her on the knee-cap, a proceeding which if performed adroitly is often fruitful of happy results. Bolt, too, knew a very effective means of ramming his head into the solar plexus of an adversary, but this again was a form of attack dependent on proximity.
It was Harrison Smith's able staff work that won the day. An old enough trick, heaven knows, but one that generally works. He waited till her eyes were upon him, then shifted the direction of his gaze to a point somewhere behind Jane's back and nodded very quickly.
She is hardly to be blamed for having swung round, but in the second before she had recovered her wits and realised the bluff, the pistol had been snatched away and the three men were pouring through the French windows into the garden.
It was Mrs. Barraclough who caught her by the arm and prevented her from following.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Jane. "I've failed, failed."
"Nonsense, my dear," said the old lady. "You girls have been just wonderful." She pointed to an horizon of trees a mile away, where a cloud of dust showed against the shadows. "Look what a lovely start he has. My Anthony would never let himself be caught by a pack of such—such——" She hesitated for lack of a word and added "Dirty dogs" with astonishing vehemence.
"But what are we to do now?" wailed Jane.
"Let us walk down to the village church together and I don't think it would be wrong if we said a little prayer."
They had reached the front garden when the Ford car, making a considerable fuss about it, banged and snorted past the front gate.
There are those perhaps who will condemn Mrs. Barraclough's action, but let them remember she was a mother. After all it stands to the credit of any mid-Victorian lady who, notwithstanding the ravages of seventy years, is able to pick up a flower pot and hurl it accurately into a moving vehicle. The Reverend Prometheus Bolt caught the missile full in the side of the head and the last view the old lady had of him was under a shower of dirt and broken pottery, while from his lips arose a cloud of invective more azure than the skies.
From where the car had been standing appeared Cynthia the cook. In her hand she carried a watering can, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes wild.
"I'd have done in their car if you'd held 'em a moment longer," she panted indignantly. "Didn't have time to slash their tyres but I did manage to get about half a pint of water in the petrol tank before they slung me into the hedge."
And very valuable was the help thus afforded for within a mile the Ford had banged and snuffled itself to a standstill and twenty minutes were lost draining the tank and blotting up the rust coloured drops from the bottom of the float chamber. Both Dirk and Bolt were in favour of returning to the house in order to conduct a punitive campaign, but Harrison Smith would not hear of this.
"We must push the damn car all we know how," he said, Working feverishly at the union of the induction pipe with a spanner that didn't fit. "If we haven't caught up with them by eight o'clock I shall drop Bolt at a post office and he must get through to the Chief."
"What, the Dutchman?"
"No choice. It's infernal luck, but better that than let him get through with the thing."
"If you ask me, Smith," said Bolt critically. "If you ask my opinionI'd say you've made a bloomer of this show."
"You can keep your opinion till I do ask for it," came the retort."Get in. She's clear now."
He took a heave on the starting handle and jumped to his place at the wheel.
"Keep your eye on those tyre marks, Dirk. If you lose 'em I'll break your head."
And from the spirit of this remark it will be seen that kindliness and fellowship had gone by the board.
Hugo Van Diest struggled to his feet gasping for breath and stroking his chin with sympathetic fingers. Comparatively speaking, Richard's blow had been a light one, but the Dutchman's training had not fitted him for taking punishment. He was hurt, outraged and resentful.
"This young man wass very violent, Hipps," he muttered jerkily. "I donno—s'no use—seems."
"Are we beat, Chief?"
"I don't like this word 'beat.' Mus' be a way." He paused for a moment to recover his breath then turned to Laurence. "This Miss Craven, she hass not arrifed yet?"
"She's here. Came five minutes ago."
"She know how we stand, yes?"
Hipps nodded.
"She don't quite register on the line we've adopted to make him talk.Kind o' kept that in the background. Women are soft."
"Ask she come up," said Van Diest.
And Laurence went out passing Blayney who was on duty outside the door.
"What's the bend, Chief?" demanded Hipps.
Van Diest shook his head thoughtfully. "Donno, donno. Wass awful if we mus' do someting. Eh? Hipps, eh?"
And he tilted his head suggestively toward Richard's bedroom.
"His own damn fault," came the answer.
"But it wass a man's life, Hipps."
"I've no choice that way myself."
Van Diest began to pace the floor, his fingers tattooing on his chest and his head going from side to side.
"We ought to haf read better the character of this man. S'no good to know about the monies and not about the mens. We find ourselves in a terrible position. Ss! Terrible—terrible."
There was a clatter of footsteps on the stairs and Laurence, a telegraph form in his hand, burst into the room.
"What you haf there?"
"Can't make head nor tail of the damn thing. Read it aloud," criedLaurence excitedly.
Ezra Hipps moved over to his Chief's side as the old man picked out the code words and translated them aloud.
The message was simple enough.
"'Saw Barraclough Polperro this morning. Been following all day.Escaped in Panhard, probably will enter London by Portsmouth or GreatWestern Road. Am pursuing in Ford car. Obstruct. Harrison Smith.'"
It was handed in at eight o'clock and postmarked Wimborne.
"Saw Barraclough!" repeated Hipps. "Harrison Smith's gone crazy."
For a moment Van Diest said nothing, then remarked:
"Smart man, you know. Smart man."
"He's made a mistake," said Laurence. "How in hell could he seeBarraclough when——" There was no point in finishing the sentence.
"S'not often he make a mistake. Our opponents haf been ver' quiet, you know, ver' quiet. Perhaps now they draw the kipper across the path."
"He's got bats," said Hipps. "Been standing in the sun."
"I'd ignore the whole thing," said Laurence. "Ten to one it's a trick.A stunt put up by our adversaries."
"In our private code, Laurence? No, no, no. I tink it wass well we take some precautions with this gentlemen who wass so like our guest. You will telephone to Mr. Phillips please that I would like some of those roads that lead into London made—difficult." Then as Laurence seemed disposed to argue: "You haf your orders," he thundered.
As Laurence was leaving the room, Auriole came in and stood hesitating on the threshold.
"Ah! Miss Craven," said Van Diest stooping to kiss her fingers. "For you a little work. You will talk to our guest, yes? So stubborn he wass. You ver' clever woman, ver' gentle. You put your arms around him—so! You whisper, you beseech, you ver' sympathetic. P'r'aps you make 'im cry. Then he tell you what he refuse to tell us. S'understood?"
"Yes, I understand," said Auriole in a small voice.
"Goot! Then we go downstairs now. Come, Hipps." At the door he paused. "S'ver' important you succeed because we haf tried all the rest." He spoke the final words slowly and with great meaning, then turned and went out.
Auriole caught Ezra Hipps by the sleeve as he passed her.
"What does he means—'all the rest?'" she questioned.
The American scarcely paused in his stride. "Think it over," he said, and closed the door behind him.
With a heart that thumped hammer blows against her side, Auriole turned toward Richard's bedroom and paused with her hand on the latch. She felt as a traitor might feel who was seeking audience of his sovereign. For a traitor she was. False to her original employers, to her ideals and to a man who, even though he might have stirred in her the hope of a wedding had never willingly wrought her a single wrong. A dozen times in the last three days her hand had gone out to the telephone and the will had been there to confess to Cranbourne that her allegiance to his side existed no longer, but even in this her honesty had broken down. She saw herself, as she hesitated on the threshold, a wretched mercenary creature—the sport of greed and jealousy—self-centred and governed by thought of gain. It was not a pleasant reflection. For the doubtful blessing of being wife to an unscrupulous millionaire she had deafened her ears to the call of every decent instinct.
And now the Fates had so contrived that it rested with her to make the supreme final appeal and on her success or failure depended the safety and future of the man within. A horrible conviction came over her that these men who held Barraclough captive would indeed stop at nothing to gain their ends and that the innuendoes they had uttered were terribly in earnest. Unless he were persuaded to speak his very life would be forfeit, and it was this consideration that fortified her to make the effort.
Richard was sprawling on the wire mattress when she threw open the door. He raised a pair of hollow eyes that looked at her without recognition. Instinctively she shrunk away from him appalled at the changes in his face and bearing.
"What have they been doing to you?" was startled from her.
Richard hitched himself into a sitting posture and coughed.
"Who are you?" he said.
"Don't you even know me?"
He thought before replying.
"Yes, I know you. You're the woman who was jealous of someone."
"Someone! Is that how you speak of your sweetheart!"
"Wait a bit. It's coming back. Isabel, wasn't it? Isabel Irish.Well, what do you want?"
She came a little nearer.
"To be with you. I haven't seen you for a long time, now."
"You deserted me, didn't you? I m-missed you at first. Th' one bright spot your coming."
"Was it?" she whispered.
He staggered to his feet and walked rockily into the inner room.
"No! What'm I saying. Man with a sweetheart doesn't want you."
"Tony!"
"No, no. 'Cos you're the worst devil of the lot. Decoyed me to this damn place."
"Tony, I'm so sorry," her hand fell on his sleeve, but he drew away.
"Don't come near me. Don't touch me. I mustn't be touched."
"Then I'll sit over here," said she.
"Yes, there. No, get out. Leave me alone, d'y' hear?" His voice pitched up high and imperative, but as suddenly dropped again. "I beg your pardon. I'm not much of a man to talk to a woman jus' now."
"I think you're a very fine man, Tony."
"Ha! Yes. A devil of a fellow!"
"But so stubborn," she whispered.
"There you go," he cried. "I knew it. I knew you came here for that."
"Tony! Tony!" she implored. "This has gone too far. You've been splendid, but what's the use. Just think, my dear, how rich you'd be."
"I don't want to be rich. Rich men torture each other," he cried, steadying himself against the back of a chair.
"You've only to say one word and you can walk out of here without a care in the world."
The sound of violins was in her voice. The promise of life care-free and full of sunshine was in her eyes and the curve of her smile.
He tried to look away, but the appeal was too strong.
"I can walk out of here," he repeated. "Out of here!"
"Such a lovely world, too."
The touch of her breath on his cheek was like a breeze and the smell of her hair like violets.
"Yes, yes."
"A great big garden of a world," he crooned, and no song ever sounded sweeter.
He felt his power to resist was ebbing away—falling from him like a cloak. With a mighty effort, he replied:
"A garden full of Eves."
And he sat humped up upon the camp bed. Auriole glided toward him and slipped her arms round his neck. He made no effort to escape.
"Eves are rather nice," she whispered.
His head tilted back against her.
"Rather nice," he echoed. "Rather nice. Soft shoulders where a man can rest his head." A glorious drowsiness was stealing over his limbs, a blessed sense of drifting into unknown contentment. She drew up her knees and they sat huddled together on the narrow canvas bed like babes in a wood. He was barely conscious of her voice. It came to his ears as gently as the sound of waves running over sand.
"—all the wonderful things we could do, Tony. The plans we could make come true. We could go out to a fairy-like dinner together—in one of your wonderful cars you could fetch me—and the streets would be twinkling with lights like jewels in Aladdin's cave."
Then he found he was talking too.
"A farm in New Zealand," he said. "Great flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. I know the place. There are mountains with snow caps, green grass plains, black firs and running water. I could have all that—if only—But no."
"Nothing is out of reach, Tony. Everything can be yours at the price of a little sentence—just a little sentence."
"No, no."
"Yon need never see those others again, but just tell me. Men tell everything to women, they can't keep a secret from a woman. Nature never intended they should. That's why Nature made women the mothers because the first secret of life is theirs, and all the rest follow after."
"You're bad, bad," he moaned. "A cheat trying to get at me by kindness."
"And isn't kindness worth a little? Come, kneel down and whisper. It will be easy with your head in my lap and my arms around you. Kneel down and whisper."
Heaven perhaps could tell where Richard found that last speck of sand which gave him the power to spring to his feet, to shake off the subtle influence of touch and voice, and to answer in a voice that fairly rang with resolve:
"No, nothing—nothing."
To Auriole he looked almost godlike as he stood with clenched fists and every fibre quivering. It was in that instant of admiration and amazement she recognised him as another man and the cry burst from her lips:
"You're not Anthony Barraclough!"
Richard wavered visibly and for the first time she saw real fear in his eye.
"What are you saying? You're mad," he answered.
"You're not Anthony Barraclough!"
"I am. I am."
"No!" She seized him by the shoulders and stared into his face."You're different, your eyes, your mouth. Who are you?"
"Anthony Barraclough!" he cried.
"It's not true. Anthony would never have stood this. The men, yes.The torture, yes, but he always gives way to a woman. Who are you?"
"I've said," he answered brokenly. "I've said."
A turmoil of thoughts raced through her mind and she spoke them aloud.
"Anthony away getting the concession. You here taking his place. It was clever—clever. Damn them for letting you do it. And you've done it so wonderfully—borne all this when at a word you might——"
"Talking nonsense," he moaned desperately.
"And you don't know what the secret is. No one but Anthony does.That's true, isn't it?"
"I do know. I do know—won't say."
"You can't know. That's true, isn't it? Answer me—answer!"
And quite suddenly Richard Frencham Altar's world went all black and his knees gave way beneath him. He fell with his head in his hands crying and gasping like a broken hearted child. And Auriole came to him and put her arms round him and kissed his neck, his hair, and his poor thin hands.
"And I've helped in the torture," she sobbed. "Broken you down. Oh! what a beast. What a beast I am."
"Very tired," said Richard. "Want to go to sleep."
"There's no sleep for you in this house except——"
The door opened and Ezra Hipps walked in.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but how's things?"
"I was just coming," said Auriole with a quick pretence at light heartedness. "I have something important to say."
Hipps shook Richard by the shoulder.
"How's that memory?" he enquired.
Once again the last reserves were pushed into the line.
"Bad," said Richard. "Damn bad."
"Then I guess that ends the play," said the American.
"I want you," said Auriole. "Please."
They went out of the room together.
When Auriole slipped quietly into the room five minutes later she found Richard asleep on the camp bed with Blayney's kit bag tucked under his head.
Below stairs there existed a state of turmoil. She had exploded her bombshell as to Richard's false identity secure in the belief that it would result in his immediate liberation.
"But Hell! what are you thinking off?" Hipps had roared. "D'you imagine we can pass him out after what's happened? So long as the fellar's above ground we ain't safe."
"You can't mean——" she had cried.
"We're busy. Keep out of the path, kid."
She had left them rattling instructions through the telephone to a person called Phillips. The need of the moment from their point of view was to waylay the returning Barraclough.
Van Diest was shouting for his car and from the jargon of voices, Auriole learnt their intention of making an immediate descent upon the rival camp to demand terms. In the midst of the chaos Auriole slipped away, snatched up a bottle of champagne and some biscuits from the dining table and ran up the stairs to Richard's room.
Parker, who was at the door, shot the bolt after she entered and in so doing destroyed a foolish hope that she might succeed in getting Richard out of the house while the excitement relaxed observation. Her two seater car was under the trees at the end of the road and if they could reach it——
She seized Richard's arm and stifled the cry he gave with her other hand.
"Hush, hush, for pity's sake," she implored. "Here's some champagne—drink it. No, no, it isn't poison—drink—drink," and she filled a glass that stood upon the table. "Eat these biscuits too, and listen to me."
Of course he did not understand. He drank the champagne and ate the biscuits wolfishly while she talked. It was clear something had happened—some unlooked for reversal of feeling—but beside the food and drink nothing seemed to matter. The good wine felt like new life blood flowing through his veins.
"They're downstairs now," she said. "Making up their minds."
He found intelligence enough to ask:
"They know I'm not Barraclough?"
"I told them, yes."
"You shouldn't," he said simply.
"I thought they'd let you go."
"Well?" He refilled his glass.
"They said it wouldn't be possible now. That's why I've got to get you away—somehow—somehow."
She was moving desperately up and down the room as though by very desire she would create an opening in the walls.
"Get me away!" he said stupidly. "Why do you want to get me away?"
"Because you're a different man, a splendid man. And they're beasts and brutes."
It was all very confusing, very unbelievable. Richard had a faint impression that it was happening to someone else or in a dream. Why was this wonderful creature worrying about him. The wine was mounting to his head.
"A splendid man," he repeated senselessly. "And you want to get me away. Tha's kind—kind."
"I've a car outside if we could only reach it."
That was a droll thing to say, but it sounded real. He answered as though someone had actually spoken of a car outside and a chance of reaching it.
"Not a hope."
The bottle was empty now, which was a good thing.
"There must be. The windows!"
He shook his head as she ran toward them. If the beautiful lady wanted to play the escape game he might as well take an intelligent interest and play it sensibly.
"No good," said he. "Soon as you lift the shutter bar an alarm starts ringing and they all rush in."
"S'pose we did that," said Auriole with a sudden idea. "Worked in the dark, started the bell, and when they came in made a dash for it."
Sensible talk this, he must reply sensibly.
"No good. One of 'em always stands in the door."
"Then somehow we must get them away from the door into your bedroom."
That was logical, interesting, too.
"Of course we must get them away from the door. Tha's the idea. Tha's the idea," he said.
"Oh! can't you think of a way?" she begged.
It wasn't fair to ask questions. The game was of her invention, not his. Still, in common politeness one must take a hand, show a willingness. It would be awful if she lost patience with him and left him to his loneliness.
He answered that unspoken fear simply as a child.
"But you won't leave me alone again, will you?"
"Can't you realise I'm on your side," she said, shaking him by the arm.
"My side, yes," he repeated. "I'm glad you're on my side. We're friends aren't we?"
To this pleasant reflection he sat down on the hard chair and smiled happily. Friends is a lovely word to play with when one has been over long neglected. He wished she would sit too, and make a pillow for his head, but instead she was flitting from place to place acting in the oddest way. From the camp bed she had dragged Blayney's kit bag and was buttoning it into an old dressing gown provided for his use.
"I must have a head," she was saying, which sounded idiotic to Richard who saw that her own was beautiful.
He pointed to a bronze bust of Van Diest which had been placed on the mantelpiece a few days before, presumably to act as a reminder of the influence dominating the apartment.
"Try that one," he suggested, laughing inanely.
But Auriole did not laugh. She gave a glad cry and called on him to help. Together they carried the bust and soon had tied it securely inside the dressing gown.
It did not occur to Richard to ask the reason why this strange dummy had been created. It was all of a piece with the dream-like spirit which pervaded everything. Her explanation was voluntary.
"It's to put in your bed," she said. "We'll take out the electric bulbs, then start the bells going. When they come in and you don't answer they'll go into the bedroom. They'll find this and think it's you."
"Think this is me!" said Richard. "That's funny." He broke into a storm of laughter which ended as abruptly as it began, ended from a sudden realisation that all this folly and mummery was a real and solid effort to compass his escape. "Wait a bit," he said, rubbing his brow fiercely. "It's coming back. I see the idea. Bless you, for trying. We'll have a shot."
He dragged the dummy into the inner room by the waist cord of the dressing gown which was tied about its neck. The brain fog was gone. He was surprisingly clear headed now, and an unnatural vitality buoyed him up. The bedroom door swung to behind him and he heard Auriole cry:
"I'm doing the lights, be quick."
And at that moment he had a notion and acted upon it quickly. An old gas bracket over the door helped the operation. When he had finished he kicked over a chair and re-entered the now pitch dark room.
"I've got hold of the shutter bar," he heard her cry.
"Let her go," he answered.
And down in the hall below they heard the big alarm bell clang out the warning.
Clinging to each other's hands they waited, their backs flattened against the wall. And presently it came; the sound of men's footsteps dashing up the stairs. The door burst open and a number of dark shapes poured into the room. Framed in the open doorway, a black silhouette against the light from the well of the staircase, stood Blayney, a pistol in his hand.
There was a veritable hubbub of voices. "What's the matter with the lights?" "Where are the switches?" "Hell! that sucker is trying to put it over on us!" "The bedroom shutters—He's trying to escape." "For Lord's sake where's the door?"
Someone found the knob in the darkness and the bedroom door was flung open. There was a scream from Laurence. Then Hipps' voice bellowing:
"Great God! he's hanged himself."
Swinging from the lintel, shadowy against the grey light beyond was, apparently, the figure of Richard Frencham Altar dangling on a rope.
Even the perfectly trained Blayney deserted his post to leap forward and see, and in that instant of neglect, Richard and Auriole darted from the room and slammed and bolted the door.
Nor could Richard resist the temptation of lifting an exultant cry of, "Good-night, gentlemen," ere he was seized by Auriole and hurried down the stairs.
As they passed through the front garden and ran stumbling toward the waiting car they could hear above them the sound of curses and hammer blows echoing through the house.