“I'll show you,” said T. X. pleasantly.
Very gingerly he inserted the instrument in the small keyhole and turned it cautiously first one way and then the other. There was a sharp click followed by another. He turned the handle and the door of the safe swung open.
“Simple, isn't it!” he asked politely.
In that second of time Kara's face had undergone a transformation. The eyes which met T. X. Meredith's blazed with an almost insane fury. With a quick stride Kara placed himself before the open safe.
“I think this has gone far enough, Mr. Meredith,” he said harshly. “If you wish to search my safe you must get a warrant.”
T. X. shrugged his shoulders, and carefully unscrewing the instrument he had employed and replacing it in the case, he returned it to his inside pocket.
“It was at your invitation, my dear Monsieur Kara,” he said suavely. “Of course I knew that you were putting a bluff up on me with the key and that you had no more intention of letting me see the inside of your safe than you had of telling me exactly what happened to John Lexman.”
The shot went home.
The face which was thrust into the Commissioner's was ridged and veined with passion. The lips were turned back to show the big white even teeth, the eyes were narrowed to slits, the jaw thrust out, and almost every semblance of humanity had vanished from his face.
“You—you—” he hissed, and his clawing hands moved suspiciously backward.
“Put up your hands,” said T. X. sharply, “and be damned quick about it!”
In a flash the hands went up, for the revolver which T. X. held was pressed uncomfortably against the third button of the Greek's waistcoat.
“That's not the first time you've been asked to put up your hands, I think,” said T. X. pleasantly.
His own left hand slipped round to Kara's hip pocket. He found something in the shape of a cylinder and drew it out from the pocket. To his surprise it was not a revolver, not even a knife; it looked like a small electric torch, though instead of a bulb and a bull's-eye glass, there was a pepper-box perforation at one end.
He handled it carefully and was about to press the small nickel knob when a strangled cry of horror broke from Kara.
“For God's sake be careful!” he gasped. “You're pointing it at me! Do not press that lever, I beg!”
“Will it explode!” asked T. X. curiously.
“No, no!”
T. X. pointed the thing downward to the carpet and pressed the knob cautiously. As he did so there was a sharp hiss and the floor was stained with the liquid which the instrument contained. Just one gush of fluid and no more. T. X. looked down. The bright carpet had already changed colour, and was smoking. The room was filled with a pungent and disagreeable scent. T. X. looked from the floor to the white-faced man.
“Vitriol, I believe,” he said, shaking his head admiringly. “What a dear little fellow you are!”
The man, big as he was, was on the point of collapse and mumbled something about self-defence, and listened without a word, whilst T. X., labouring under an emotion which was perfectly pardonable, described Kara, his ancestors and the possibilities of his future estate.
Very slowly the Greek recovered his self-possession.
“I didn't intend using it on you, I swear I didn't,” he pleaded. “I'm surrounded by enemies, Meredith. I had to carry some means of protection. It is because my enemies know I carry this that they fight shy of me. I'll swear I had no intention of using it on you. The idea is too preposterous. I am sorry I fooled you about the safe.”
“Don't let that worry you,” said T. X. “I am afraid I did all the fooling. No, I cannot let you have this back again,” he said, as the Greek put out his hand to take the infernal little instrument. “I must take this back to Scotland Yard; it's quite a long time since we had anything new in this shape. Compressed air, I presume.”
Kara nodded solemnly.
“Very ingenious indeed,” said T. X. “If I had a brain like yours,” he paused, “I should do something with it—with a gun,” he added, as he passed out of the room.
“My dear Mr. Meredith,“I cannot tell you how unhappy and humiliated I feel that mylittle joke with you should have had such an uncomfortableending. As you know, and as I have given you proof, I havethe greatest admiration in the world for one whose work forhumanity has won such universal recognition.“I hope that we shall both forget this unhappy morning andthat you will give me an opportunity of rendering to you inperson, the apologies which are due to you. I feel thatanything less will neither rehabilitate me in your esteem,nor secure for me the remnants of my shattered self-respect.“I am hoping you will dine with me next week and meet a mostinteresting man, George Gathercole, who has just returnedfrom Patagonia,—I only received his letter this morning—having made most remarkable discoveries concerning thatcountry.“I feel sure that you are large enough minded and too much aman of the world to allow my foolish fit of temper todisturb a relationship which I have always hoped would bemutually pleasant. If you will allow Gathercole, who willbe unconscious of the part he is playing, to act aspeacemaker between yourself and myself, I shall feel thathis trip, which has cost me a large sum of money, will nothave been wasted.“I am, dear Mr. Meredith,“Yours very sincerely,“REMINGTON KARA.”
Kara folded the letter and inserted it in its envelope. He rang a bell on his table and the girl who had so filled T. X. with a sense of awe came from an adjoining room.
“You will see that this is delivered, Miss Holland.”
She inclined her head and stood waiting. Kara rose from his desk and began to pace the room.
“Do you know T. X. Meredith?” he asked suddenly.
“I have heard of him,” said the girl.
“A man with a singular mind,” said Kara; “a man against whom my favourite weapon would fail.”
She looked at him with interest in her eyes.
“What is your favourite weapon, Mr. Kara?” she asked.
“Fear,” he said.
If he expected her to give him any encouragement to proceed he was disappointed. Probably he required no such encouragement, for in the presence of his social inferiors he was somewhat monopolizing.
“Cut a man's flesh and it heals,” he said. “Whip a man and the memory of it passes, frighten him, fill him with a sense of foreboding and apprehension and let him believe that something dreadful is going to happen either to himself or to someone he loves—better the latter—and you will hurt him beyond forgetfulness. Fear is a tyrant and a despot, more terrible than the rack, more potent than the stake. Fear is many-eyed and sees horrors where normal vision only sees the ridiculous.”
“Is that your creed?” she asked quietly.
“Part of it, Miss Holland,” he smiled.
She played idly with the letter she held in her hand, balancing it on the edge of the desk, her eyes downcast.
“What would justify the use of such an awful weapon?” she asked.
“It is amply justified to secure an end,” he said blandly. “For example—I want something—I cannot obtain that something through the ordinary channel or by the employment of ordinary means. It is essential to me, to my happiness, to my comfort, or my amour-propre, that that something shall be possessed by me. If I can buy it, well and good. If I can buy those who can use their influence to secure this thing for me, so much the better. If I can obtain it by any merit I possess, I utilize that merit, providing always, that I can secure my object in the time, otherwise—”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I see,” she said, nodding her head quickly. “I suppose that is how blackmailers feel.”
He frowned.
“That is a word I never use, nor do I like to hear it employed,” he said. “Blackmail suggests to me a vulgar attempt to obtain money.”
“Which is generally very badly wanted by the people who use it,” said the girl, with a little smile, “and, according to your argument, they are also justified.”
“It is a matter of plane,” he said airily. “Viewed from my standpoint, they are sordid criminals—the sort of person that T. X. meets, I presume, in the course of his daily work. T. X.,” he went on somewhat oracularly, “is a man for whom I have a great deal of respect. You will probably meet him again, for he will find an opportunity of asking you a few questions about myself. I need hardly tell you—”
He lifted his shoulders with a deprecating smile.
“I shall certainly not discuss your business with any person,” said the girl coldly.
“I am paying you 3 pounds a week, I think,” he said. “I intend increasing that to 5 pounds because you suit me most admirably.”
“Thank you,” said the girl quietly, “but I am already being paid quite sufficient.”
She left him, a little astonished and not a little ruffled.
To refuse the favours of Remington Kara was, by him, regarded as something of an affront. Half his quarrel with T. X. was that gentleman's curious indifference to the benevolent attitude which Kara had persistently adopted in his dealings with the detective.
He rang the bell, this time for his valet.
“Fisher,” he said, “I am expecting a visit from a gentleman named Gathercole—a one-armed gentleman whom you must look after if he comes. Detain him on some pretext or other because he is rather difficult to get hold of and I want to see him. I am going out now and I shall be back at 6.30. Do whatever you can to prevent him going away until I return. He will probably be interested if you take him into the library.”
“Very good, sir,” said the urbane Fisher, “will you change before you go out?”
Kara shook his head.
“I think I will go as I am,” he said. “Get me my fur coat. This beastly cold kills me,” he shivered as he glanced into the bleak street. “Keep my fire going, put all my private letters in my bedroom, and see that Miss Holland has her lunch.”
Fisher followed him to his car, wrapped the fur rug about his legs, closed the door carefully and returned to the house. From thence onward his behaviour was somewhat extraordinary for a well-bred servant. That he should return to Kara's study and set the papers in order was natural and proper.
That he should conduct a rapid examination of all the drawers in Kara's desk might be excused on the score of diligence, since he was, to some extent, in the confidence of his employer.
Kara was given to making friends of his servants—up to a point. In his more generous moments he would address his bodyguard as “Fred,” and on more occasions than one, and for no apparent reason, had tipped his servant over and above his salary.
Mr. Fred Fisher found little to reward him for his search until he came upon Kara's cheque book which told him that on the previous day the Greek had drawn 6,000 pounds in cash from the bank. This interested him mightily and he replaced the cheque book with the tightened lips and the fixed gaze of a man who was thinking rapidly. He paid a visit to the library, where the secretary was engaged in making copies of Kara's correspondence, answering letters appealing for charitable donations, and in the hack words which fall to the secretaries of the great.
He replenished the fire, asked deferentially for any instructions and returned again to his quest. This time he made the bedroom the scene of his investigations. The safe he did not attempt to touch, but there was a small bureau in which Kara would have placed his private correspondence of the morning. This however yielded no result.
By the side of the bed on a small table was a telephone, the sight of which apparently afforded the servant a little amusement. This was the private 'phone which Kara had been instrumental in having fixed to Scotland Yard—as he had explained to his servants.
“Rum cove,” said Fisher.
He paused for a moment before the closed door of the room and smilingly surveyed the great steel latch which spanned the door and fitted into an iron socket securely screwed to the framework. He lifted it gingerly—there was a little knob for the purpose—and let it fall gently into the socket which had been made to receive it on the door itself.
“Rum cove,” he said again, and lifting the latch to the hook which held it up, left the room, closing the door softly behind him. He walked down the corridor, with a meditative frown, and began to descend the stairs to the hall.
He was less than half-way down when the one maid of Kara's household came up to meet him.
“There's a gentleman who wants to see Mr. Kara,” she said, “here is his card.”
Fisher took the card from the salver and read, “Mr. George Gathercole, Junior Travellers' Club.”
“I'll see this gentleman,” he said, with a sudden brisk interest.
He found the visitor standing in the hall.
He was a man who would have attracted attention, if only from the somewhat eccentric nature of his dress and his unkempt appearance. He was dressed in a well-worn overcoat of a somewhat pronounced check, he had a top-hat, glossy and obviously new, at the back of his head, and the lower part of his face was covered by a ragged beard. This he was plucking with nervous jerks, talking to himself the while, and casting a disparaging eye upon the portrait of Remington Kara which hung above the marble fireplace. A pair of pince-nez sat crookedly on his nose and two fat volumes under his arm completed the picture. Fisher, who was an observer of some discernment, noticed under the overcoat a creased blue suit, large black boots and a pair of pearl studs.
The newcomer glared round at the valet.
“Take these!” he ordered peremptorily, pointing to the books under his arm.
Fisher hastened to obey and noted with some wonder that the visitor did not attempt to assist him either by loosening his hold of the volumes or raising his hand. Accidentally the valet's hand pressed against the other's sleeve and he received a shock, for the forearm was clearly an artificial one. It was against a wooden surface beneath the sleeve that his knuckles struck, and this view of the stranger's infirmity was confirmed when the other reached round with his right hand, took hold of the gloved left hand and thrust it into the pocket of his overcoat.
“Where is Kara?” growled the stranger.
“He will be back very shortly, sir,” said the urbane Fisher.
“Out, is he?” boomed the visitor. “Then I shan't wait. What the devil does he mean by being out? He's had three years to be out!”
“Mr. Kara expects you, sir. He told me he would be in at six o'clock at the latest.”
“Six o'clock, ye gods'.” stormed the man impatiently. “What dog am I that I should wait till six?”
He gave a savage little tug at his beard.
“Six o'clock, eh? You will tell Mr. Kara that I called. Give me those books.”
“But I assure you, sir,—” stammered Fisher.
“Give me those books!” roared the other.
Deftly he lifted his left hand from the pocket, crooked the elbow by some quick manipulation, and thrust the books, which the valet most reluctantly handed to him, back to the place from whence he had taken them.
“Tell Mr. Kara I will call at my own time—do you understand, at my own time. Good morning to you.”
“If you would only wait, sir,” pleaded the agonized Fisher.
“Wait be hanged,” snarled the other. “I've waited three years, I tell you. Tell Mr. Kara to expect me when he sees me!”
He went out and most unnecessarily banged the door behind him. Fisher went back to the library. The girl was sealing up some letters as he entered and looked up.
“I am afraid, Miss Holland, I've got myself into very serious trouble.”
“What is that, Fisher!” asked the girl.
“There was a gentleman coming to see Mr. Kara, whom Mr. Kara particularly wanted to see.”
“Mr. Gathercole,” said the girl quickly.
Fisher nodded.
“Yes, miss, I couldn't get him to stay though.”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“Mr. Kara will be very cross, but I don't see how you can help it. I wish you had called me.”
“He never gave a chance, miss,” said Fisher, with a little smile, “but if he comes again I'll show him straight up to you.”
She nodded.
“Is there anything you want, miss?” he asked as he stood at the door.
“What time did Mr. Kara say he would be back?”
“At six o'clock, miss,” the man replied.
“There is rather an important letter here which has to be delivered.”
“Shall I ring up for a messenger?”
“No, I don't think that would be advisable. You had better take it yourself.”
Kara was in the habit of employing Fisher as a confidential messenger when the occasion demanded such employment.
“I will go with pleasure, miss,” he said.
It was a heaven-sent opportunity for Fisher, who had been inventing some excuse for leaving the house. She handed him the letter and he read without a droop of eyelid the superscription:
“T. X. Meredith, Esq., Special Service Dept., Scotland Yard, Whitehall.”
He put it carefully in his pocket and went from the room to change. Large as the house was Kara did not employ a regular staff of servants. A maid and a valet comprised the whole of the indoor staff. His cook, and the other domestics, necessary for conducting an establishment of that size, were engaged by the day.
Kara had returned from the country earlier than had been anticipated, and, save for Fisher, the only other person in the house beside the girl, was the middle-aged domestic who was parlour-maid, serving-maid and housekeeper in one.
Miss Holland sat at her desk to all appearance reading over the letters she had typed that afternoon but her mind was very far from the correspondence before her. She heard the soft thud of the front door closing, and rising she crossed the room rapidly and looked down through the window to the street. She watched Fisher until he was out of sight; then she descended to the hall and to the kitchen.
It was not the first visit she had made to the big underground room with its vaulted roof and its great ranges—which were seldom used nowadays, for Kara gave no dinners.
The maid—who was also cook—arose up as the girl entered.
“It's a sight for sore eyes to see you in my kitchen, miss,” she smiled.
“I'm afraid you're rather lonely, Mrs. Beale,” said the girl sympathetically.
“Lonely, miss!” cried the maid. “I fairly get the creeps sitting here hour after hour. It's that door that gives me the hump.”
She pointed to the far end of the kitchen to a soiled looking door of unpainted wood.
“That's Mr. Kara's wine cellar—nobody's been in it but him. I know he goes in sometimes because I tried a dodge that my brother—who's a policeman—taught me. I stretched a bit of white cotton across it an' it was broke the next morning.”
“Mr. Kara keeps some of his private papers in there,” said the girl quietly, “he has told me so himself.”
“H'm,” said the woman doubtfully, “I wish he'd brick it up—the same as he has the lower cellar—I get the horrors sittin' here at night expectin' the door to open an' the ghost of the mad lord to come out—him that was killed in Africa.”
Miss Holland laughed.
“I want you to go out now,” she said, “I have no stamps.”
Mrs. Beale obeyed with alacrity and whilst she was assuming a hat—being desirous of maintaining her prestige as housekeeper in the eyes of Cadogan Square, the girl ascended to the upper floor.
Again she watched from the window the disappearing figure.
Once out of sight Miss Holland went to work with a remarkable deliberation and thoroughness. From her bag she produced a small purse and opened it. In that case was a new steel key. She passed swiftly down the corridor to Kara's room and made straight for the safe.
In two seconds it was open and she was examining its contents. It was a large safe of the usual type. There were four steel drawers fitted at the back and at the bottom of the strong box. Two of these were unlocked and contained nothing more interesting than accounts relating to Kara's estate in Albania.
The top pair were locked. She was prepared for this contingency and a second key was as efficacious as the first. An examination of the first drawer did not produce all that she had expected. She returned the papers to the drawer, pushed it to and locked it. She gave her attention to the second drawer. Her hand shook a little as she pulled it open. It was her last chance, her last hope.
There were a number of small jewel-boxes almost filling the drawer. She took them out one by one and at the bottom she found what she had been searching for and that which had filled her thoughts for the past three months.
It was a square case covered in red morocco leather. She inserted her shaking hand and took it out with a triumphant little cry.
“At last,” she said aloud, and then a hand grasped her wrist and in a panic she turned to meet the smiling face of Kara.
She felt her knees shake under her and thought she was going to swoon. She put out her disengaged hand to steady herself, and if the face which was turned to him was pale, there was a steadfast resolution in her dark eyes.
“Let me relieve you of that, Miss Holland,” said Kara, in his silkiest tones.
He wrenched rather than took the box from her hand, replaced it carefully in the drawer, pushed the drawer to and locked it, examining the key as he withdrew it. Then he closed the safe and locked that.
“Obviously,” he said presently, “I must get a new safe.”
He had not released his hold of her wrist nor did he, until he had led her from the room back to the library. Then he released the girl, standing between her and the door, with folded arms and that cynical, quiet, contemptuous smile of his upon his handsome face.
“There are many courses which I can adopt,” he said slowly. “I can send for the police—when my servants whom you have despatched so thoughtfully have returned, or I can take your punishment into my own hands.”
“So far as I am concerned,” said the girl coolly, “you may send for the police.”
She leant back against the edge of the desk, her hands holding the edge, and faced him without so much as a quaver.
“I do not like the police,” mused Kara, when there came a knock at the door.
Kara turned and opened it and after a low strained conversation he returned, closing the door and laid a paper of stamps on the girl's table.
“As I was saying, I do not care for the police, and I prefer my own method. In this particular instance the police obviously would not serve me, because you are not afraid of them and in all probability you are in their pay—am I right in supposing that you are one of Mr. T. X. Meredith's accomplices!”
“I do not know Mr. T. X. Meredith,” she replied calmly, “and I am not in any way associated with the police.”
“Nevertheless,” he persisted, “you do not seem to be very scared of them and that removes any temptation I might have to place you in the hands of the law. Let me see,” he pursed his lips as he applied his mind to the problem.
She half sat, half stood, watching him without any evidence of apprehension, but with a heart which began to quake a little. For three months she had played her part and the strain had been greater than she had confessed to herself. Now the great moment had come and she had failed. That was the sickening, maddening thing about it all. It was not the fear of arrest or of conviction, which brought a sinking to her heart; it was the despair of failure, added to a sense of her helplessness against this man.
“If I had you arrested your name would appear in all the papers, of course,” he said, narrowly, “and your photograph would probably adorn the Sunday journals,” he added expectantly.
She laughed.
“That doesn't appeal to me,” she said.
“I am afraid it doesn't,” he replied, and strolled towards her as though to pass her on his way to the window. He was abreast of her when he suddenly swung round and catching her in his arms he caught her close to him. Before she could realise what he planned, he had stooped swiftly and kissed her full upon the mouth.
“If you scream, I shall kiss you again,” he said, “for I have sent the maid to buy some more stamps—to the General Post Office.”
“Let me go,” she gasped.
Now for the first time he saw the terror in her eyes, and there surged within him that mad sense of triumph, that intoxication of power which had been associated with the red letter days of his warped life.
“You're afraid!” he bantered her, half whispering the words, “you're afraid now, aren't you? If you scream I shall kiss you again, do you hear?”
“For God's sake, let me go,” she whispered.
He felt her shaking in his arms, and suddenly he released her with a little laugh, and she sank trembling from head to foot upon the chair by her desk.
“Now you're going to tell me who sent you here,” he went on harshly, “and why you came. I never suspected you. I thought you were one of those strange creatures one meets in England, a gentlewoman who prefers working for her living to the more simple business of getting married. And all the time you were spying—clever—very clever!”
The girl was thinking rapidly. In five minutes Fisher would return. Somehow she had faith in Fisher's ability and willingness to save her from a situation which she realized was fraught with the greatest danger to herself. She was horribly afraid. She knew this man far better than he suspected, realized the treachery and the unscrupulousness of him. She knew he would stop short of nothing, that he was without honour and without a single attribute of goodness.
He must have read her thoughts for he came nearer and stood over her.
“You needn't shrink, my young friend,” he said with a little chuckle. “You are going to do just what I want you to do, and your first act will be to accompany me downstairs. Get up.”
He half lifted, half dragged her to her feet and led her from the room. They descended to the hall together and the girl spoke no word. Perhaps she hoped that she might wrench herself free and make her escape into the street, but in this she was disappointed. The grip about her arm was a grip of steel and she knew safety did not lie in that direction. She pulled back at the head of the stairs that led down to the kitchen.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“I am going to put you into safe custody,” he said. “On the whole I think it is best that the police take this matter in hand and I shall lock you into my wine cellar and go out in search of a policeman.”
The big wooden door opened, revealing a second door and this Kara unbolted. She noticed that both doors were sheeted with steel, the outer on the inside, and the inner door on the outside. She had no time to make any further observations for Kara thrust her into the darkness. He switched on a light.
“I will not deny you that,” he said, pushing her back as she made a frantic attempt to escape. He swung the outer door to as she raised her voice in a piercing scream, and clapping his hand over her mouth held her tightly for a moment.
“I have warned you,” he hissed.
She saw his face distorted with rage. She saw Kara transfigured with devilish anger, saw that handsome, almost godlike countenance thrust into hers, flushed and seamed with malignity and a hatefulness beyond understanding and then her senses left her and she sank limp and swooning into his arms.
When she recovered consciousness she found herself lying on a plain stretcher bed. She sat up suddenly. Kara had gone and the door was closed. The cellar was dry and clean and its walls were enamelled white. Light was supplied by two electric lamps in the ceiling. There was a table and a chair and a small washstand, and air was evidently supplied through unseen ventilators. It was indeed a prison and no less, and in her first moments of panic she found herself wondering whether Kara had used this underground dungeon of his before for a similar purpose.
She examined the room carefully. At the farthermost end was another door and this she pushed gently at first and then vigorously without producing the slightest impression. She still had her bag, a small affair of black moire, which hung from her belt, in which was nothing more formidable than a penknife, a small bottle of smelling salts and a pair of scissors. The latter she had used for cutting out those paragraphs from the daily newspapers which referred to Kara's movements.
They would make a formidable weapon, and wrapping her handkerchief round the handle to give it a better grip she placed it on the table within reach. She was dimly conscious all the time that she had heard something about this wine cellar—something which, if she could recollect it, would be of service to her.
Then in a flash she remembered that there was a lower cellar, which according to Mrs. Beale was never used and was bricked up. It was approached from the outside, down a circular flight of stairs. There might be a way out from that direction and would there not be some connection between the upper cellar and the lower!
She set to work to make a closer examination of the apartment.
The floor was of concrete, covered with a light rush matting. This she carefully rolled up, starting at the door. One half of the floor was uncovered without revealing the existence of any trap. She attempted to pull the table into the centre of the room, better to roll the matting, but found it fixed to the wall, and going down on her knees, she discovered that it had been fixed after the matting had been laid.
Obviously there was no need for the fixture and, she tapped the floor with her little knuckle. Her heart started racing. The sound her knocking gave forth was a hollow one. She sprang up, took her bag from the table, opened the little penknife and cut carefully through the thin rushes. She might have to replace the matting and it was necessary she should do her work tidily.
Soon the whole of the trap was revealed. There was an iron ring, which fitted flush with the top and which she pulled. The trap yielded and swung back as though there were a counterbalance at the other end, as indeed there was. She peered down. There was a dim light below—the reflection of a light in the distance. A flight of steps led down to the lower level and after a second's hesitation she swung her legs over the cavity and began her descent.
She was in a cellar slightly smaller than that above her. The light she had seen came from an inner apartment which would be underneath the kitchen of the house. She made her way cautiously along, stepping on tip-toe. The first of the rooms she came to was well-furnished. There was a thick carpet on the floor, comfortable easy-chairs, a little bookcase well filled, and a reading lamp. This must be Kara's underground study, where he kept his precious papers.
A smaller room gave from this and again it was doorless. She looked in and after her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness she saw that it was a bathroom handsomely fitted.
The room she was in was also without any light which came from the farthermost chamber. As the girl strode softly across the well-carpeted room she trod on something hard. She stooped and felt along the floor and her fingers encountered a thin steel chain. The girl was bewildered-almost panic-stricken. She shrunk back from the entrance of the inner room, fearful of what she would see. And then from the interior came a sound that made her tingle with horror.
It was a sound of a sigh, long and trembling. She set her teeth and strode through the doorway and stood for a moment staring with open eyes and mouth at what she saw.
“My God!” she breathed, “London. . . . in the twentieth century. . . !”
Superintendent Mansus had a little office in Scotland Yard proper, which, he complained, was not so much a private bureau, as a waiting-room to which repaired every official of the police service who found time hanging on his hands. On the afternoon of Miss Holland's surprising adventure, a plainclothes man of “D” Division brought to Mr. Mansus's room a very scared domestic servant, voluble, tearful and agonizingly penitent. It was a mood not wholly unfamiliar to a police officer of twenty years experience and Mr. Mansus was not impressed.
“If you will kindly shut up,” he said, blending his natural politeness with his employment of the vernacular, “and if you will also answer a few questions I will save you a lot of trouble. You were Lady Bartholomew's maid weren't you?”
“Yes, sir,” sobbed the red-eyed Mary Ann.
“And you have been detected trying to pawn a gold bracelet, the property of Lady Bartholomew?”
The maid gulped, nodded and started breathlessly upon a recital of her wrongs.
“Yes, sir—but she practically gave it to me, sir, and I haven't had my wages for two months, sir, and she can give that foreigner thousands and thousands of pounds at a time, sir, but her poor servants she can't pay—no, she can't. And if Sir William knew especially about my lady's cards and about the snuffbox, what would he think, I wonder, and I'm going to have my rights, for if she can pay thousands to a swell like Mr. Kara she can pay me and—”
Mansus jerked his head.
“Take her down to the cells,” he said briefly, and they led her away, a wailing, woeful figure of amateur larcenist.
In three minutes Mansus was with T. X. and had reduced the girl's incoherence to something like order.
“This is important,” said T. X.; “produce the Abigail.”
“The—?” asked the puzzled officer.
“The skivvy—slavey—hired help—get busy,” said T. X. impatiently.
They brought her to T. X. in a condition bordering upon collapse.
“Get her a cup of tea,” said the wise chief. “Sit down, Mary Ann, and forget all your troubles.”
“Oh, sir, I've never been in this position before,” she began, as she flopped into the chair they put for her.
“Then you've had a very tiring time,” said T. X. “Now listen—”
“I've been respectable—”
“Forget it!” said T. X., wearily. “Listen! If you'll tell me the whole truth about Lady Bartholomew and the money she paid to Mr. Kara—”
“Two thousand pounds—two separate thousand and by all accounts-”
“If you will tell me the truth, I'll compound a felony and let you go free.”
It was a long time before he could prevail upon her to clear her speech of the ego which insisted upon intruding. There were gaps in her narrative which he bridged. In the main it was a believable story. Lady Bartholomew had lost money and had borrowed from Kara. She had given as security, the snuffbox presented to her husband's father, a doctor, by one of the Czars for services rendered, and was “all blue enamel and gold, and foreign words in diamonds.” On the question of the amount Lady Bartholomew had borrowed, Abigail was very vague. All that she knew was that my lady had paid back two thousand pounds and that she was still very distressed (“in a fit” was the phrase the girl used), because apparently Kara refused to restore the box.
There had evidently been terrible scenes in the Bartholomew menage, hysterics and what not, the principal breakdown having occurred when Belinda Mary came home from school in France.
“Miss Bartholomew is home then. Where is she?” asked T. X.
Here the girl was more vague than ever. She thought the young lady had gone back again, anyway Miss Belinda had been very much upset. Miss Belinda had seen Dr. Williams and advised that her mother should go away for a change.
“Miss Belinda seems to be a precocious young person,” said T. X. “Did she by any chance see Mr. Kara?”
“Oh, no,” explained the girl. “Miss Belinda was above that sort of person. Miss Belinda was a lady, if ever there was one.”
“And how old is this interesting young woman?” asked T. X. curiously.
“She is nineteen,” said the girl, and the Commissioner, who had pictured Belinda in short plaid frocks and long pigtails, and had moreover visualised her as a freckled little girl with thin legs and snub nose, was abashed.
He delivered a short lecture on the sacred rights of property, paid the girl the three months' wages which were due to her—he had no doubt as to the legality of her claim—and dismissed her with instructions to go back to the house, pack her box and clear out.
After the girl had gone, T. X. sat down to consider the position. He might see Kara and since Kara had expressed his contrition and was probably in a more humble state of mind, he might make reparation. Then again he might not. Mansus was waiting and T. X. walked back with him to his little office.
“I hardly know what to make of it,” he said in despair.
“If you can give me Kara's motive, sir, I can give you a solution,” said Mansus.
T. X. shook his head.
“That is exactly what I am unable to give you,” he said.
He perched himself on Mansus's desk and lit a cigar.
“I have a good mind to go round and see him,” he said after a while.
“Why not telephone to him?” asked Mansus. “There is his 'phone straight into his boudoir.”
He pointed to a small telephone in a corner of the room.
“Oh, he persuaded the Commissioner to run the wire, did he?” said T. X. interested, and walked over to the telephone.
He fingered the receiver for a little while and was about to take it off, but changed his mind.
“I think not,” he said, “I'll go round and see him to-morrow. I don't hope to succeed in extracting the confidence in the case of Lady Bartholomew, which he denied me over poor Lexman.”
“I suppose you'll never give up hope of seeing Mr. Lexman again,” smiled Mansus, busily arranging a new blotting pad.
Before T. X. could answer there came a knock at the door, and a uniformed policeman, entered. He saluted T. X.
“They've just sent an urgent letter across from your office, sir. I said I thought you were here.”
He handed the missive to the Commissioner. T. X. took it and glanced at the typewritten address. It was marked “urgent” and “by hand.” He took up the thin, steel, paper-knife from the desk and slit open the envelope. The letter consisted of three or four pages of manuscript and, unlike the envelope, it was handwritten.
“My dear T. X.,” it began, and the handwriting was familiar.
Mansus, watching the Commissioner, saw the puzzled frown gather on his superior's forehead, saw the eyebrows arch and the mouth open in astonishment, saw him hastily turn to the last page to read the signature and then:
“Howling apples!” gasped T. X. “It's from John Lexman!”
His hand shook as he turned the closely written pages. The letter was dated that afternoon. There was no other address than “London.”
“My dear T. X.,” it began, “I do not doubt that this letter will give you a little shock, because most of my friends will have believed that I am gone beyond return. Fortunately or unfortunately that is not so. For myself I could wish—but I am not going to take a very gloomy view since I am genuinely pleased at the thought that I shall be meeting you again. Forgive this letter if it is incoherent but I have only this moment returned and am writing at the Charing Cross Hotel. I am not staying here, but I will let you have my address later. The crossing has been a very severe one so you must forgive me if my letter sounds a little disjointed. You will be sorry to hear that my dear wife is dead. She died abroad about six months ago. I do not wish to talk very much about it so you will forgive me if I do not tell you any more.
“My principal object in writing to you at the moment is an official one. I suppose I am still amenable to punishment and I have decided to surrender myself to the authorities to-night. You used to have a most excellent assistant in Superintendent Mansus, and if it is convenient to you, as I hope it will be, I will report myself to him at 10.15. At any rate, my dear T. X., I do not wish to mix you up in my affairs and if you will let me do this business through Mansus I shall be very much obliged to you.
“I know there is no great punishment awaiting me, because my pardon was apparently signed on the night before my escape. I shall not have much to tell you, because there is not much in the past two years that I would care to recall. We endured a great deal of unhappiness and death was very merciful when it took my beloved from me.
“Do you ever see Kara in these days?
“Will you tell Mansus to expect me at between ten and half-past, and if he will give instructions to the officer on duty in the hall I will come straight up to his room.
“With affectionate regards, my dear fellow, I am,
“Yours sincerely,
“JOHN LEXMAN.”
T. X. read the letter over twice and his eyes were troubled.
“Poor girl,” he said softly, and handed the letter to Mansus. “He evidently wants to see you because he is afraid of using my friendship to his advantage. I shall be here, nevertheless.”
“What will be the formality?” asked Mansus.
“There will be no formality,” said the other briskly. “I will secure the necessary pardon from the Home Secretary and in point of fact I have it already promised, in writing.”
He walked back to Whitehall, his mind fully occupied with the momentous events of the day. It was a raw February evening, sleet was falling in the street, a piercing easterly wind drove even through his thick overcoat. In such doorways as offered protection from the bitter elements the wreckage of humanity which clings to the West end of London, as the singed moth flutters about the flame that destroys it, were huddled for warmth.
T. X. was a man of vast human sympathies.
All his experience with the criminal world, all his disappointments, all his disillusions had failed to quench the pity for his unfortunate fellows. He made it a rule on such nights as these, that if, by chance, returning late to his office he should find such a shivering piece of jetsam sheltering in his own doorway, he would give him or her the price of a bed.
In his own quaint way he derived a certain speculative excitement from this practice. If the doorway was empty he regarded himself as a winner, if some one stood sheltered in the deep recess which is a feature of the old Georgian houses in this historic thoroughfare, he would lose to the extent of a shilling.
He peered forward through the semi-darkness as he neared the door of his offices.
“I've lost,” he said, and stripped his gloves preparatory to groping in his pocket for a coin.
Somebody was standing in the entrance, but it was obviously a very respectable somebody. A dumpy, motherly somebody in a seal-skin coat and a preposterous bonnet.
“Hullo,” said T. X. in surprise, “are you trying to get in here?”
“I want to see Mr. Meredith,” said the visitor, in the mincing affected tones of one who excused the vulgar source of her prosperity by frequently reiterated claims to having seen better days.
“Your longing shall be gratified,” said T. X. gravely.
He unlocked the heavy door, passed through the uncarpeted passage—there are no frills on Government offices—and led the way up the stairs to the suite on the first floor which constituted his bureau.
He switched on all the lights and surveyed his visitor, a comfortable person of the landlady type.
“A good sort,” thought T. X., “but somewhat overweighted with lorgnettes and seal-skin.”
“You will pardon my coming to see you at this hour of the night,” she began deprecatingly, “but as my dear father used to say, 'Hopi soit qui mal y pense.'”
“Your dear father being in the garter business?” suggested T. X. humorously. “Won't you sit down, Mrs. ——”
“Mrs. Cassley,” beamed the lady as she seated herself. “He was in the paper hanging business. But needs must, when the devil drives, as the saying goes.”
“What particular devil is driving you, Mrs. Cassley?” asked T. X., somewhat at a loss to understand the object of this visit.
“I may be doing wrong,” began the lady, pursing her lips, “and two blacks will never make a white.”
“And all that glitters is not gold,” suggested T. X. a little wearily. “Will you please tell me your business, Mrs. Cassley? I am a very hungry man.”
“Well, it's like this, sir,” said Mrs. Cassley, dropping her erudition, and coming down to bedrock homeliness; “I've got a young lady stopping with me, as respectable a gel as I've had to deal with. And I know what respectability is, I might tell you, for I've taken professional boarders and I have been housekeeper to a doctor.”
“You are well qualified to speak,” said T. X. with a smile. “And what about this particular young lady of yours! By the way what is your address?”
“86a Marylebone Road,” said the lady.
T. X. sat up.
“Yes?” he said quickly. “What about your young lady?”
“She works as far as I can understand,” said the loquacious landlady, “with a certain Mr. Kara in the typewriting line. She came to me four months ago.”
“Never mind when she came to you,” said T. X. impatiently. “Have you a message from the lady?”
“Well, it's like this, sir,” said Mrs. Cassley, leaning forward confidentially and speaking in the hollow tone which she had decided should accompany any revelation to a police officer, “this young lady said to me, 'If I don't come any night by 8 o'clock you must go to T. X. and tell him—'!”
She paused dramatically.
“Yes, yes,” said T. X. quickly, “for heaven's sake go on, woman.”
“'Tell him,'” said Mrs. Cassley, “'that Belinda Mary—'”
He sprang to his feet.
“Belinda Mary!” he breathed, “Belinda Mary!” In a flash he saw it all. This girl with a knowledge of modern Greek, who was working in Kara's house, was there for a purpose. Kara had something of her mother's, something that was vital and which he would not part with, and she had adopted this method of securing that some thing. Mrs. Cassley was prattling on, but her voice was merely a haze of sound to him. It brought a strange glow to his heart that Belinda Mary should have thought of him.
“Only as a policeman, of course,” said the still, small voice of his official self. “Perhaps!” said the human T. X., defiantly.
He got on the telephone to Mansus and gave a few instructions.
“You stay here,” he ordered the astounded Mrs. Cassley; “I am going to make a few investigations.”
Kara was at home, but was in bed. T. X. remembered that this extraordinary man invariably went to bed early and that it was his practice to receive visitors in this guarded room of his. He was admitted almost at once and found Kara in his silk dressing-gown lying on the bed smoking. The heat of the room was unbearable even on that bleak February night.
“This is a pleasant surprise,” said Kara, sitting up; “I hope you don't mind my dishabille.”
T. X. came straight to the point.
“Where is Miss Holland!” he asked.
“Miss Holland?” Kara's eyebrows advertised his astonishment. “What an extraordinary question to ask me, my dear man! At her home, or at the theatre or in a cinema palace—I don't know how these people employ their evenings.”
“She is not at home,” said T. X., “and I have reason to believe that she has not left this house.”
“What a suspicious person you are, Mr. Meredith!” Kara rang the bell and Fisher came in with a cup of coffee on a tray.
“Fisher,” drawled Kara. “Mr. Meredith is anxious to know where Miss Holland is. Will you be good enough to tell him, you know more about her movements than I do.”
“As far as I know, sir,” said Fisher deferentially, “she left the house about 5.30, her usual hour. She sent me out a little before five on a message and when I came back her hat and her coat had gone, so I presume she had gone also.”
“Did you see her go?” asked T. X.
The man shook his head.
“No, sir, I very seldom see the lady come or go. There has been no restrictions placed upon the young lady and she has been at liberty to move about as she likes. I think I am correct in saying that, sir,” he turned to Kara.
Kara nodded.
“You will probably find her at home.”
He shook his finger waggishly at T. X.
“What a dog you are,” he jibed, “I ought to keep the beauties of my household veiled, as we do in the East, and especially when I have a susceptible policeman wandering at large.”
T. X. gave jest for jest. There was nothing to be gained by making trouble here. After a few amiable commonplaces he took his departure. He found Mrs. Cassley being entertained by Mansus with a wholly fictitious description of the famous criminals he had arrested.
“I can only suggest that you go home,” said T. X. “I will send a police officer with you to report to me, but in all probability you will find the lady has returned. She may have had a difficulty in getting a bus on a night like this.”
A detective was summoned from Scotland Yard and accompanied by him Mrs. Cassley returned to her domicile with a certain importance. T. X. looked at his watch. It was a quarter to ten.
“Whatever happens, I must see old Lexman,” he said. “Tell the best men we've got in the department to stand by for eventualities. This is going to be one of my busy days.”