French’s reply was a little brusque.
“What are you getting at, Quest?” he demanded. “You are not going to pretend that you can see from your room into this, are you?”
“If you’ll hold the object where I told you,” Quest replied, “I can see it. I promise you that. There, that’s right. Hold it steady. I’ve got the focus of it now. Say, French, where did you say that was found?”
“Just outside the Professor’s back gates,” French grunted, “but you’re not kidding me—”
“It’s a finger from the Professor’s skeleton you’ve got there,” Quest interrupted.
“How the blazes did you guess that?” the Inspector demanded.
“I’m not kidding,” Quest assured him. “I’ve got a phototelesme at work here. I’ve seen the bone all right. French, this is interesting. I must think it over.”
Quest hung up the receiver and rang off. Then he turned towards his two assistants.
“Another finger from the Professor’s skeleton,” he announced, “has been found just outside his grounds. What do you suppose that means?”
“Craig,” Lenora declared confidently.
“Craig on your life,” Laura echoed. “Say, Mr. Quest, I’ve got an idea.”
Quest nodded.
“Get right ahead with it.”
“Didn’t the butler at Mrs. Rheinholdt’s say that Craig belonged to a servants’ club up town? I know the place well. Let me go and see if I can’t join and pick up a little information about the man. He must have a night out sometimes. Let’s find out what he does. How’s that?”
“Capital!” Quest agreed. “Get along, Laura. And you, Lenora,” he added, “put on your hat. We’ll take a ride towards Mayton Avenue.”
The exact spot where the bone of the missing skeleton was discovered, was easily located. It was about twenty yards from a gate which led into the back part of the Professor’s grounds. The neighbourhood was dreary in the extreme. There were half-finished houses, little piles of building materials, heaps of stones, a watchman’s shed, and all the dreary paraphernalia of an abandoned building enterprise. Quest wasted very little time before arriving at a decision.
“The discovery of the bone so near the Professor’s house,” he decided, “cannot be coincidence only. We will waste no time out here, Lenora. We will search the grounds. Come on.”
They advanced towards the gate but found it locked. The wall was unusually high as though to obscure a view of anything that lay on the other side. Quest noticed with interest that, in places where it had shown signs of crumbling away, it had been repaired. He contemplated the lock thoughtfully and drew a little instrument from his pocket, an instrument which had the appearance of a many-sided key.
“Looks like storming the fortress, eh?” he remarked. “Here goes, any way.”
The gate swung open with a single turn of the wrist. Quest glanced for a moment at the lock and replaced the instrument in his pocket.
“The Professor’s not looking for visitors,” he muttered. “Gee! What a wilderness!”
It was hard to know which way to turn. Every path was choked with tangled weeds and bushes. Here and there remained one or two wonderful old trees, but the vegetation for the greater part consisted of laurel and other shrubs, which from lack of attention had grown almost into a jungle. They wandered about almost aimlessly for nearly half-an-hour. Then Quest came to a sudden standstill. Lenora gripped his arm. They had both heard the same sound—a queer, crooning little cry, half plaintive, half angry. Quest looked over his right shoulder along a narrow, overgrown path which seemed to end abruptly in an evergreen hedge.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed.
Lenora still clung to his arm.
“I hate this place,” she whispered. “It terrifies me. What are we looking for, Mr. Quest?”
“Can’t say that I know exactly,” the latter answered, “but I guess we’ll find out where that cry came from. Sounded to me uncommonly like a human effort.”
They made their way up as far as the hedge, which they skirted for a few yards until they found an opening. Then Quest gave vent to a little exclamation. Immediately in front of them was a small hut, built apparently of sticks and bamboos, with a stronger framework behind. The sloping roof was grass-grown and entwined with rushes. The only apology for a window was a queer little hole set quite close to the roof.
“The sort of place where the Professor might keep some of his pets,” Quest observed thoughtfully. “We’ll have a look inside, any way.”
There was a rude-looking door, but Quest, on trying it, found it locked. They walked around the place but found no other opening. All the time from inside they could hear queer, scuffling sounds. Lenora’s cheeks grew paler.
“Must we stay?” she murmured. “I don’t think I want to see what’s inside. Mr. Quest! Mr. Quest!”
She clung to his arm. They were opposite the little aperture which served as a window, and at that moment it suddenly framed the face of a creature, human in features, diabolical in expression. Long hair drooped over one cheek, the close-set eyes were filled with fury, the white teeth gleamed menacingly. Quest felt in his pocket for his revolver.
“Say, that’s some face!” he remarked. “I’d hate to spoil it.”
Even as he spoke, it disappeared. Quest took out the little gate opening apparatus from his pocket.
“We’ve got to get inside there, Lenora,” he announced, stepping forward.
She followed him silently. A few turns of the wrist and the door yielded. Keeping Lenora a little behind him, Quest gazed around eagerly. Exactly in front of him, clad only in a loin cloth, with hunched-up shoulders, a necklace around his neck, with blazing eyes and ugly gleaming teeth, crouched some unrecognisable creature, human yet inhuman, a monkey and yet a man. There were a couple of monkeys swinging by their tails from a bar, and a leopard chained to a staple in the ground, walking round and round in the far corner, snapping and snarling every time he glanced towards the new-comers. The creature in front of him stretched out a hairy hand towards a club, and gripped it. Quest drew a long breath. His eyes were set hard.
“Drop that club,” he ordered.
The creature suddenly sprang up. The club was waved around his head.
“Drop it,” Quest repeated firmly. “You will sit down in your corner. You will take no more notice of us. Do you hear? You will drop the club. You will sit down in your corner. You will sleep.”
The club slipped from the hairy fingers. The tense frame, which had been already crouched for the spring, was suddenly relaxed. The knees trembled.
“Back to that corner,” Quest ordered, pointing.
Slowly and dejectedly, the ape-man crept to where he had been ordered and sat there with dull, non-comprehending stare. It was a new force, this, a note of which he had felt—the superman raising the voice of authority. Quest touched his forehead and found it damp. The strain of those few seconds had been intolerable.
“I don’t think these other animals will hurt,” he said. “Let’s have a look around the place.”
The search took only a few moments. The monkeys ran and jumped around them, gibbering as though with pleasure. The leopard watched them always with a snarl and an evil light in his eye. They found nothing unusual until they came to the distant corner, where a huge piano box lay on its side with the opening turned to the wall.
“This is where the brute sleeps, I suppose,” Quest remarked. “We’ll turn it round, any way.”
They dragged it a few feet away from the wall, so that the opening faced them. Then Lenora gave a little cry and Quest stood suddenly still.
“The skeleton!” Lenora shrieked. “It’s the skeleton!”
Quest stooped down and drew away the matting which concealed some portion of this strange-looking object. It was a skeleton so old that the bones had turned to a dull grey. Yet so far as regards its limbs, it was almost complete. Quest glanced towards the hands.
“Little fingers both missing,” he muttered. “That’s the skeleton all right, Lenora.”
“Remember the message!” she exclaimed. “‘Where the skeleton is, the necklace may be also.’”
Quest nodded shortly.
“We’ll search.”
They turned over everything in the place fruitlessly. There was no sign of the necklace. At last they gave it up.
“You get outside, Lenora,” Quest directed. “I’ll just bring this beast round again and then we’ll tackle the Professor.”
Lenora stepped back into the fresh air with a little murmur of relief. Quest turned towards the creature which crouched still huddled up in its corner, its eyes half-closed, rolling a little from side to side.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
The creature obeyed. Once more its frame seemed to grow more virile and natural.
“You need sleep no longer,” Quest said. “Wake up and be yourself.”
The effect of his words was instantaneous. Almost as he spoke, the creature crouched for a spring. There was wild hatred in its close-set eyes, the snarl of something fiend-like in its contorted mouth. Quest slipped quickly through the door.
“Any one may have that for a pet!” he remarked grimly. “Come, Lenora, there’s a word or two to be said to the Professor. There’s something here will need a little explanation.”
He lit a cigar as they struggled back along the path. Presently they reached the untidy-looking avenue, and a few minutes later arrived at the house. Quest looked around him in something like bewilderment.
“Say, fancy keeping a big place like this, all overgrown and like a wilderness!” he exclaimed. “If the Professor can’t afford a few gardeners, why doesn’t he take a comfortable flat down town.”
“I think it’s a horrible place,” Lenora agreed. “I hope I never come here again.”
“Pretty well obsessed, these scientific men get,” Quest muttered. “I suppose this is the front door.”
They passed under the portico and knocked. There was no reply. Quest searched in vain for a bell. They walked round the piazza. There were no signs of any human life. The windows were curtainless and displayed vistas of rooms practically devoid of furniture. They came back to the front door. Quest tried the handle and found it open. They passed into the hall.
“Hospitable sort of place, any way,” he remarked. “We’ll go in and wait, Lenora.”
They found their way to the study, which seemed to be the only habitable room. Lenora glanced around at its strange contents with an expression almost of awe.
“Fancy a man living in a muddle like this!” she exclaimed. “Not a picture, scarcely a carpet, uncomfortable chairs—nothing but bones and skeletons and mummies and dried-up animals. A man with tastes like this, Mr. Quest, must have a very different outlook upon life from ordinary human beings.”
Quest nodded.
“He generally has,” he admitted. “Here comes our host, any way.”
A small motor-car passed the window, driven by Craig. The Professor descended. A moment or two later he entered the room. He gazed from Quest to Lenora at first in blank surprise. Then he held out his hands.
“You have good news for me, my friends!” he exclaimed. “I am sure of it. How unfortunate that I was not at home to receive you! Tell me—don’t keep me in suspense, if you please—you have discovered my skeleton?”
“We have found the skeleton,” Quest announced.
For a single moment the new-comer stood as though turned to stone. There was a silence which was not without its curious dramatic significance. Then a light broke across the Professor’s face. He gave a great gulp of relief.
“My skeleton!” he murmured. “Mr. Quest, I knew it. You are the greatest man alive. Now tell me quickly—I want to know everything, but this first of all.—Where did you find the skeleton? Who was the thief?”
“We found the skeleton, Professor,” Quest replied, “within a hundred yards of this house.”
The Professor’s mouth was wide open. He looked like a bewildered child. It was several seconds before he spoke.
“Within a hundred yards of this house? Then it wasn’t stolen by one of my rivals?”
“I should say not,” Quest admitted.
“Where? Where exactly did you find it?” the other insisted.
Quest was standing very still, his manner more reserved even than usual, his eyes studying the Professor, weighing every spoken word.
“I found it in a hut,” he said, “hidden in a piano box. I found there, also, a creature—a human being, I must call him—in a state of captivity.”
“Hidden in a piano box?” the Professor repeated wonderingly. “Why, you mean in Hartoo’s sleeping box, then?”
“If Mr. Hartoo is the gentleman who tried to club me, you are right,” Quest admitted. “Mr. Ashleigh, before we go any further I must ask you for an explanation as to the presence of that person in your grounds!”
The Professor hesitated for a moment. Then he slowly crossed the room, opened the drawer of a small escritoire, and drew out a letter.
“You have heard of Sir William Raysmore, the President of the Royal Society?” he asked.
Quest nodded.
“This letter is from him,” the Professor continued. “You had better read it.”
The criminologist read it aloud. Lenora looked over his shoulder:—
“To Professor Edgar Ashleigh, New York.“My dear Professor,“Your communication gratifies and amazes me. I can say no more. It fell to your lot to discover the skeleton of the anthropoid, a marvellous thing, in its way, and needing only its corollary to form the greatest discovery since the dark ages. Now you tell me that in the person of Hartoo, the last of the Inyamo Race of South America, you have found that corollary. You have supplied the missing link. You are in a position to give to the world a definite and logical explanation of the evolution of man. Let me give you one word of warning, Professor, before I write you at greater length on this matter. Anthropologists are afflicted more, even, than any other race of scientific men, with jealousy. Guard your secret well, lest the honour of this discovery should be stolen from you.“William Raysmore.”
“To Professor Edgar Ashleigh, New York.
“My dear Professor,
“Your communication gratifies and amazes me. I can say no more. It fell to your lot to discover the skeleton of the anthropoid, a marvellous thing, in its way, and needing only its corollary to form the greatest discovery since the dark ages. Now you tell me that in the person of Hartoo, the last of the Inyamo Race of South America, you have found that corollary. You have supplied the missing link. You are in a position to give to the world a definite and logical explanation of the evolution of man. Let me give you one word of warning, Professor, before I write you at greater length on this matter. Anthropologists are afflicted more, even, than any other race of scientific men, with jealousy. Guard your secret well, lest the honour of this discovery should be stolen from you.
“William Raysmore.”
A man and a woman stand listening to a large radio.QUEST AND LENORA RECEIVE THE MESSAGE FROM LAURA.
QUEST AND LENORA RECEIVE THE MESSAGE FROM LAURA.
A man and a woman look at a necklace.QUEST IS SURPRISED AT FINDING THE STOLEN NECKLACE IN THE BLACK BOX.
QUEST IS SURPRISED AT FINDING THE STOLEN NECKLACE IN THE BLACK BOX.
The Professor nodded deliberately as Quest finished the letter.
“Now, perhaps, you can understand,” he said, “why it was necessary to keep Hartoo absolutely hidden. In a month’s time my papers will be ready. Then I shall electrify the world. I shall write not a new page but a new volume across the history of science. I shall—”
The door was suddenly thrown open. Craig sprang in, no longer the self-contained, perfect man-servant, but with the face of some wild creature. His shout was one almost of agony.
“The hut, Professor! The hut is on fire!” he cried.
His appearance on the threshold was like a flash. They heard his flying feet down the hall, and without a moment’s hesitation they all followed. The Professor led the way down a narrow and concealed path, but when they reached the little clearing in which the hut was situated, they were unable to approach any nearer. The place was a whirlwind of flame. The smell of kerosene was almost overpowering. The wild yell of the leopard rose above the strange, half-human gibbering of the monkeys and the hoarse, bass calling of another voice, at the sound of which Lenora and even Quest shuddered. Then, as they came, breathless, to a standstill, they saw a strange thing. One side of the hut fell in, and almost immediately the leopard with a mighty spring, leapt from the place and ran howling into the undergrowth. The monkeys followed but they came straight for the Professor, wringing their hands. They fawned at his feet as though trying to show him their scorched bodies. Then for a single moment they saw the form of the ape-man as he struggled to follow the others. His strength failed him, however. He fell backwards into the burning chasm.
The Professor bade them farewell, an hour later, on the steps of the house. He seemed suddenly to have aged.
“You have done your best, Mr. Quest,” he said, “but Fate has been too strong. Remember this, though. It is quite true that the cunning of Hartoo may have made it possible for him to have stolen the skeleton and to have brought it back to its hiding-place, but it was jealousy—cruel, brutal, foul jealousy which smeared the walls of that hut with kerosene and set a light to it. The work of a lifetime, my dreams of scientific immortality, have vanished in those flames.”
He turned slowly away from them and re-entered the house. Quest and Lenora made their way down the avenue and entered the automobile which was waiting for them, almost in silence. The latter glanced towards his companion as they drove off.
“Say, this has been a bit tough for you,” he remarked. “I’ll have to call somewhere and get you a glass of wine.”
She tried to smile but her strength was almost gone. They drove to a restaurant and sat there for a some little time. Lenora soon recovered her colour. She even had courage to speak of the events of the afternoon when they re-entered the automobile.
“Mr. Quest,” she murmured, “who do you suppose burned the hut down?”
“If I don’t say Craig, I suppose you will,” he remarked. “I wonder whether Laura’s had any luck.”
They were greeted, as they entered Quest’s room, by a familiar little ticking. Quest smiled with pleasure.
“It’s the pocket wireless,” he declared. “Let me take down the message.”
He spelt it out to Lenora, who stood by his side:
“Have joined Servants’ Club disguised as your butler. Craig frequent visitor here ten years ago, comes now occasionally. Thursday evenings most likely time. Shall wait here on chance of seeing him.”
“Have joined Servants’ Club disguised as your butler. Craig frequent visitor here ten years ago, comes now occasionally. Thursday evenings most likely time. Shall wait here on chance of seeing him.”
“Good girl, that,” Quest remarked. “She’s a rare sticker, too.”
He turned away from the instrument and was crossing the room towards his cigar cabinet. Suddenly he stopped. He looked intently towards the sideboard.
“What is it?” Lenora asked.
He did not answer. She followed the direction of his gaze. Exactly in the same spot as before reposed another but somewhat larger black box, of the same shape and material as the previous one.
“Say, who put that there?” he demanded.
Lenora shook her head.
“I locked the door when we went out,” she assured him.
Quest took the box into his hands and removed the lid. It seemed half full of cotton-wool. On the top were a few lines of writing and beneath them the signature of the parted hands. He read the form out slowly:
“Drop all investigation. The hands that return these jewels command it.”
“Drop all investigation. The hands that return these jewels command it.”
Quest raised the cotton-wool. Beneath lay Mrs. Rheinholdt’s necklace!
Return to Table of Contents
Sanford Quest was smoking his after breakfast cigar with a relish somewhat affected by the measure of his perplexities. Early though it was, Lenora was already in her place, bending over her desk, and Laura, who had just arrived, was busy divesting herself of her coat and hat. Quest watched the latter impatiently.
“Well?” he asked.
Laura came forward, straightening her hair with her hands.
“No go,” she answered. “I spent the evening in the club and I talked with two men who knew Craig, but I couldn’t get on to anything. From all I could hear of the man, respectability is his middle name.”
“That’s the Professor’s own idea,” Quest remarked grimly. “I merely ventured to drop a hint that Craig might not be quite so immaculate as he seemed, and I never saw a man so horrified in my life. He assured me that Craig was seldom out of his sight, that he hadn’t a friend in the world nor a single vicious taste.”
“We’re fairly up against it, boss,” Laura sighed. “The best thing we can do is to get on to another job. The Rheinholdt woman has got her jewels back, or will have at noon to-day. I bet she won’t worry about the thief. Then the Professor’s mouldy old skeleton was returned to him, even if it was burnt up afterwards. I should take on something fresh.”
“Can’t be done,” Quest replied shortly. “Look here, girls, your average intellects are often apt to hit upon the truth, when a man who sees too far ahead goes wrong. Rule Craig out. Any other possible person occur to you?—Speak out, Lenora. You’ve something on your mind, I can see.”
The girl swung around in her chair. There was a vague look of trouble upon her face.
“I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me,” she began tentatively.
“Won’t hurt you if I do,” Quest replied.
“I can’t help thinking of Macdougal,” Lenora continued falteringly. “He has never been recaptured, and I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive. He had a perfect passion for jewels. If he is alive, he would be desperate and would attempt anything.”
Quest smoked in silence for a moment.
“I guess the return of the jewels squelches the Macdougal theory,” he remarked. “He wouldn’t be likely to part with the stuff when he’d once got his hands on it. However, I always meant, when we had a moment’s spare time, to look into that fellow’s whereabouts. We’ll take it on straight away. Can’t do any harm.”
“I know the section boss on the railway at the spot where he disappeared,” Laura announced.
“Then just take the train down to Mountways—that’s the nearest spot—and get busy with him,” Quest directed. “Try and persuade him to loan us the gang’s hand-car to go down the line. Lenora and I will come on in the automobile.”
“Take you longer,” Lenora remarked, as she moved off to put on her jacket. “The cars do it in half an hour.”
“Can’t help that,” Quest replied. “Mrs. Rheinholdt’s coming here to identify her jewels at twelve o’clock, and I can’t run any risk of there being no train back. You’d better be making good with the section boss. Take plenty of bills with you.”
“Sure! That’s easy enough,” Laura promised him. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
She hurried off and Quest commenced his own preparations. From his safe he took one of the small black lumps of explosive to which he had once before owed his life, and fitted it carefully in a small case with a coil of wire and an electric lighter. He looked at his revolver and recharged it. Finally he rang the bell for his confidential valet.
“Ross,” he asked, “who else is here to-day besides you?”
“No one to-day, sir.”
“Just as well, perhaps,” Quest observed. “Listen, Ross. I am going out now for an hour or two, but I shall be back at mid-day. Remember that. Mrs. Rheinholdt and Inspector French are to be here at twelve o’clock. If by any chance I should be a few moments late, ask them to wait. And, Ross, a young woman from the Salvation Army will call too. You can give her this cheque.”
Ross Brown, who was Quest’s secretary-valet and general factotum, accepted the slip of paper and placed it in an envelope.
“There are no other instructions, sir?” he enquired.
“None,” Quest replied. “You’ll look out for the wireless, and you had better switch the through cable and telegraph communication on to headquarters. Come along, Lenora.”
They left the house, entered the waiting automobile, and drove rapidly towards the confines of the city. Quest was unusually thoughtful. Lenora, on the other hand, seemed to have lost a great deal of her usual self composure. She seldom sat still for more than a moment or two together. She was obviously nervous and excited.
“What’s got hold of you, Lenora?” Quest asked her once. “You seem all fidgets.”
She glanced at him apologetically.
“I can’t help it,” she confessed. “If you knew of the many sleepless nights I have had, of how I have racked my brain wondering what could have become of James, you wouldn’t really wonder that I am excited now that there is some chance of really finding out. Often I have been too terrified to sleep.”
“We very likely shan’t find out a thing,” Quest reminded her. “French and his lot have had a try and come to grief.”
“Inspector French isn’t like you, Mr. Quest,” Lenora ventured.
Quest laughed bitterly.
“Just now, at any rate, we don’t seem to be any great shakes,” he remarked. “However, I’m glad we’re on this job. Much better to find out what has become of the fellow really, if we can.”
Lenora’s voice suddenly grew steady. She turned round in her place and faced her companion.
“Mr. Quest,” she said, “I like my work with you. You saved me from despair. Sometimes it seems to me that life now opens out an entirely new vista. Yet since this matter has been mentioned between us, let me tell you one thing. I have known no rest, night or day, since we heard of—of James’s escape. I live in terror. If I have concealed it, it has been at the expense of my nerves and my strength. I think that very soon I could have gone on no longer.”
Quest’s only reply was a little nod. Yet, notwithstanding his imperturbability of expression, that little nod was wonderfully sympathetic. Lenora leaned back in her place well satisfied. She felt that she was understood.
By Quest’s directions, the automobile was brought to a stand-still at a point where it skirted the main railway line, and close to the section house which he had appointed for his rendezvous with Laura. She had apparently seen their approach and she came out to meet them at once, accompanied by a short, thick-set man whom she introduced as Mr. Horan.
“This is Mr. Horan, the section boss,” she explained.
Mr. Horan shook hands.
“Say, I’ve heard of you, Mr. Quest,” he announced. “The young lady tells me you are some interested in that prisoner they lost off the cars near here.”
“That’s so,” Quest admitted. “We’d like to go to the spot if we could.”
“That’s dead easy,” the boss replied. “I’ll take you along in the hand car. I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Quest, some time ago.”
“How’s that?” the criminologist asked.
Mr. Horan expelled a fragment of chewing tobacco and held out his hand for the cigar which Quest was offering.
“They’ve been going the wrong way to work, these New York police,” he declared. “Just because there was a train on the other track moving slowly, they got it into their heads that Macdougal had boarded it and was back in New York somewhere. That ain’t my theory. If I were looking for James Macdougal, I’d search the hillsides there. I’ll show you what I mean when we get alongside.”
“You may be right,” Quest admitted. “Anyway, we’ll start on the job.”
The section boss turned around and whistled. From a little side track two men jumped on to a hand-car, and brought it round to where they were standing. A few yards away, the man who was propelling it—a great red-headed Irishman—suddenly ceased his efforts. Leaning over his pole, he gazed at Quest. A sudden ferocity darkened his coarse face. He gripped his mate by the arm.
“See that bloke there?” he asked, pointing at Quest.
“The guy with the linen collar?” the other answered. “I see him.”
“That’s Quest, the detective,” the Irishman went on hoarsely. “That’s the man who got me five years in the pen, the beast. That’s the man I’ve been looking for. You’re my mate, Jim, eh?”
“I guess so,” the other grunted. “Are you going to try and do him in?”
“You wait!”
“Now, then, you fellows,” Horan shouted. “What are you hanging about there for, Red Gallagher? Bring the carriage up. You fellows can go and have a smoke for an hour. I’m going to take her down the line a bit.”
The two men obeyed and disappeared in the direction of the section house. Quest looked after them curiously.
“That’s a big fellow,” he remarked. “What did you call him? Red Gallagher? I seem to have seen him before.”
“He was the most troublesome fellow on the line once, although he was the biggest worker,” the boss replied. “He got five years in the penitentiary and that seems to have taken the spirit out of him.”
“I believe I was in the case,” Quest observed carelessly.
“That so! Now then, young ladies,” Mr. Horan advised, “hold tight, and here goes!”
They ambled down the line for about half a mile. Then Horan brought them to a standstill.
“This is the spot,” he declared. “Now, if you want my impressions, you are welcome to them. All the search has been made on the right-hand side here, and in New York. I’ve had my eye on that hill for a long time. My impression is that he hid there.”
“I’ll take your advice,” Quest decided. “We’ll spread out and take a little exercise in hill climbing.”
“Good luck to you!” the boss exclaimed. “You’ll excuse my waiting? It ain’t a quarter of a mile back by the road, and I’m going a bit farther on, inspecting.”
Quest slipped something into his hand and the little party left the track, crossed the road, scrambled down a bank and spread out. In front of them was a slope some hundreds of feet high, closely overgrown with dwarf trees and mountain shrubs. It was waste land, uncultivated and uninhabited. Quest made a careful search of the shrubs and ground close to the spot which Horan had indicated. He pointed out to his two companions the spot where the grass was beaten down, and a few yards farther off where a twig had been broken off from some overhanging trees, as though a man had pushed his way through.
“This may have been done by the police search,” he remarked, “or it may not. Don’t spread out too far, girls, and go slowly. If we find any trace of James Macdougal on this hill-side, we are going to find it within fifty yards of this spot.”
They searched carefully and deliberately for more than half an hour. Then Lenora suddenly called out. They looked around to find only her head visible. She scrambled up, muddy and with wet leaves clinging to her skirt.
“Say, that guy of a section boss told me to look out for caves. I’ve been in one, sure enough! Just saved myself.”
They hurried to where she was. Quest peered into the declivity down which she had slipped. Suddenly he gave vent to a little exclamation. At the same time Laura called out. An inch or two of tweed was clearly visible through the strewn leaves. Quest, flat on his stomach, crawled a little way down, took out his electric torch from his pocket and brushed the stuff away. Then he clambered to his feet.
“Our search is over,” he declared gravely, “and your troubles, Lenora. That is Macdougal’s body. He may have slipped in as you did, Laura, or he may have crept there to hide, and starved. Anyhow, it is he.”
Lenora’s face sank into her hands for a moment. Quest stood on one side while Laura passed her arm around the other girl’s waist. Presently he returned.
“We can do no more,” he pointed out; “we must send for help to bring the body up.”
“I shall stay here, please,” Lenora begged. “Don’t think I’m foolish, please. I can’t pretend I am sorry, but I’ll stay till some one comes and takes—it away.”
“She is quite right,” Laura declared, “and I will stay with her.”
Quest glanced at his watch.
“That’s all right,” he declared. “I’ll have to get, but I’ll send some one along. Cheer up, Lenora,” he added kindly. “Look after her, Laura.”
“You bet!” that young woman declared brusquely.
Quest hastened along the road to the spot where he had left the car. The chauffeur, who saw him coming, started up and climbed to his seat. Quest took his place.
“Drive to the office,” he ordered.
The man slipped in his clutch. They were in the act of gliding off when there was a tremendous report. They stopped short. The man jumped down and looked at the back tire.
“Blow-out,” he remarked laconically.
Quest frowned.
“How long will it take?”
“Four minutes,” the man replied. “I’ve got another wheel ready. That’s the queerest blow-out I ever saw, though.”
The two men leaned over the tire. Suddenly Quest’s expression changed. His hand stole into his hip pocket.
“Tom,” he explained, “that wasn’t a blow-out at all. Look here!”
He pointed to the small level hole. Almost at once he stood back and the sunshine flashed upon the revolver clutched in his right hand.
“That was a bullet,” he continued. “Some one fired at that tire. Tom, there’s trouble about.”
The man looked nervously around.
“That’s a rifle bullet, sure,” he muttered.
The car was drawn up by the side of the road, a few yards past the section house. A little way farther up was the tool shed, and beyond, the tower house. There was no one in sight at either of these places. On the other side of the road were clumps of bushes, any one of which would prove sufficient for a man in hiding.
“Get on the wheel as quick as you can,” Quest directed. “Here, I’ll give you a hand.”
He stooped down to unfasten the straps which held the spare wheel. It was one of his rare lapses, realised a moment too late. Almost in his ears came the hoarse cry:
“Hands up, guvnor! Hands up this second or I’ll blow you to hell!”
Quest glanced over his shoulder and looked into the face of Red Gallagher, raised a little above the level of the road. He had evidently been hiding at the foot of the perpendicular bank which divided the road from the track level. A very ugly little revolver was pointed directly at Quest’s heart.
“My mate’s got you covered on the other side of the road, too. Hands up, both of you, or we’ll make a quick job of it.”
Quest shrugged his shoulders, threw his revolver into the road and obeyed. As he did so, the other man stole out from behind a bush and sprang for the chauffeur, who under cover of the car was stealing off. There was a brief struggle, then the dull thud of the railway man’s rifle falling on the former’s head. The chauffeur rolled over and lay in the road.
“Pitch him off in the bushes,” Red Gallagher ordered. “You don’t want any one who comes by to see. Now lend me a hand with this chap.”
“What do you propose to do with me?” Quest asked.
“You’ll know soon enough,” Red Gallagher answered. “A matter of five minutes’ talk, to start with. You see that hand-car house?”
“Perfectly well,” Quest assented. “My eyesight is quite normal.”
“Get there, then. I’m a yard behind you and my revolver’s pointing for the middle of your back.”
Quest looked at it anxiously.
“You have the air, my red friend,” he remarked, “of being unaccustomed to those delicate weapons. Do keep your fingers off the trigger. I will walk to the hand-car house and talk to you, with pleasure.”
He sprang lightly down from the road, crossed the few intervening yards and stepped into the hand-car house.
Gallagher and his mate followed close behind. Quest paused on the threshold.
“It’s a filthy dirty hole,” he remarked. “Can’t we have our little chat out here? Is it money you want?”
Gallagher glanced around. Then with an ugly push of the shoulder he sent Quest reeling into the shed. His great form blocked the doorway.
“No,” he cried fiercely, “it’s not money I want this time. Quest, you brute, you dirty bloodhound! You sent me to the pen for five years—you with your cursed prying into other people’s affairs. Don’t you remember me, eh? Red Gallagher?”
“Of course I do,” Quest replied coolly. “You garrotted and robbed an old man and had the spree of your life. The old man happened to be a friend of mine, so I took the trouble to see that you paid for it. Well?”
“Five years of hell, that’s what I had,” the man continued, his eyes flashing, his face twitching with anger. “Well, you’re going to have a little bit more than five years. This shed’s been burnt down twice—sparks from passing engines. It’s going to be burnt down for the third time.”
“Going to make a bonfire of me, eh?” Quest remarked.
“You can sneer, my fine friend,” the man growled. “You’ve had a good many comfortable years of wearing fine clothes and smoking twenty-five-cent cigars, swaggering about and hunting poor guys that never did you any harm. This is where we are going to get a bit of our own back. See here! We are locking this door—like that. It’s a lonely bit of the line. The man in the tower never takes his eyes off the signals and there ain’t a soul in sight. Me and my mate are off to the section house. Two minutes will see us there and back. We’re going to bring a can of oil and an armful of waste. Can you tell what for, eh? We’re going to burn the place to a cinder in less than three minutes, and if you’re alive when the walls come down, we’ll try a little rifle practise at you, see?”
“Sounds remarkably unpleasant,” Quest admitted. “You’d better hurry or the boss will be back.”
Gallagher finally slammed the door. Quest heard the heavy footsteps of the two men as they turned towards the section house. He drew a little case from his coat pocket.
“Just as well, perhaps,” he said softly to himself, “that I perfected this instrument. It’s rather close quarters here.”
He opened what seemed to be a little mahogany box, looked at the ball of black substance inside, closed it up, placed it against the far wall, untwisted the coil, stood back near the door and pressed the button. The result was extraordinary. The whole of the far wall was blown out and for some distance in front the ground was furrowed up by the explosion. Quest replaced the instrument in his pocket, sprang through the opening and ran for the tower house. Behind him, on its way to New York, he could see a freight train coming along. He could hear, too, Red Gallagher’s roar of anger. It was less than fifty yards, yet already, as he reached the shelter of the tower, the thunder of the freight sounded in Quest’s ears. He glanced around. Red Gallagher and his mate were racing almost beside it towards him. He rushed up the narrow stairs into the signal room, tearing open his coat to show his official badge.
“Stop the freight,” he shouted to the operator. “Quick! I’m Sanford Quest, detective—special powers from the chief commissioner.”
The man moved to the signal. Another voice thundered in his ears. He turned swiftly around. The Irishman’s red head had appeared at the top of the staircase.
“Drop that signal and I’ll blow you into bits!” he shouted.
The operator hesitated, dazed.
“Walk towards me,” Gallagher shouted. “Look here, you guy, this’ll show you whether I’m in earnest or not!”
A bullet passed within a few inches of the operator’s head. He came slowly across the room. Below they could hear the roar of the freight.
“This ain’t your job,” the Irishman continued savagely. “We want the cop, and we’re going to have him.”
Quest had stolen a yard or two nearer during this brief colloquy. Gallagher’s mate from behind shouted out a warning just a second too late. With a sudden kick, Quest sent the revolver flying across the room, and before the Irishman could recover, he struck him full in the face. Notwithstanding his huge size and strength, Gallagher reeled. The operator, who had just begun to realize what was happening, flung himself bodily against the two thugs. A shot from the tangled mass of struggling limbs whistled past Quest’s head as he sprang to the window which overlooked the track. The freight had already almost passed. Quest steadied himself for a supreme effort, crawled out on to the little steel bridge and poised himself for a moment. The last car was just beneath. The gap between it and the previous one was slipping by. He set his teeth and jumped on to the smooth top. For several seconds he struggled madly to keep his balance. He felt himself slipping every minute down to the ground which was spinning by. Then his right heel caught a bare ledge, scarcely an inch high. It checked his fall. He set his teeth, carefully stretched out his hand and gripped the back of the car. Then his knee touched something—a chain. He caught it with his other hand. He lay there, crouching, gripping wherever he could, his fingernails breaking, an intolerable pain in his knee, death spinning on either side of him….
Back behind the tower, Red Gallagher and his mate bent with horrified faces over the body of the signalman.
“What the hell did you want to plug him for?” the latter muttered. “He ain’t in the show at all. You’ve done us, Red! He’s cooked!”
Red Gallagher staggered to his feet. Already the horror of the murderer was in his eyes as he glanced furtively around.