CHAPTER XVTWO FROM THE YARD
Chichesteris not famous for its restaurants, but the dining-room of a little hotel, where three people foregathered that afternoon, had the advantage of privacy.
When Mike Brixan got back to his hotel he found two men waiting to see him, and, after a brief introduction, he took them upstairs to his sitting-room.
“I’m glad you’ve come,” he said, when the inspector had closed the door behind him. “The fact is that sheerly criminal work is a novelty to me, and I’m afraid that I’m going to make it a mystery to you,” he smiled. “At the moment I’m not prepared to give expression to all my suspicions.”
Detective Inspector Lyle, the chief of the two, laughed.
“We have been placed entirely under your orders, Captain Brixan,” he said, “and neither of us are very curious. The information you asked for, Sergeant Walters has brought.” He indicated his tall companion.
“Which information—about Penne? Is he known to the police?” asked Michael, interested.
Sergeant Walters nodded.
“He was convicted and fined a few years ago for assaulting a servant—a woman. Apparently he took a whip to the girl, and he very narrowly escaped going to prison. That was the first time our attention was attracted to him, and we made inquiries both in London and in the Malay States and found out all about him. He’s a very rich man, and, being a distant cousin of the late baronet, you may say he fluked his title. In Borneo he lived up-country, practically in the bush, for fifteen or twenty years, and the stories we have about him aren’t particularly savoury. There are a few of them which you might read at your leisure, Mr. Brixan—they’re in the record.”
Michael nodded.
“Is anything known of an educated orang-outang which is his companion?”
To his surprise, the officer answered:
“Bhag? Oh yes, we know all about him. He was captured when he was quite a baby by Penne, and was brought up in captivity. It has been rather difficult to trace the man, because he never returns to England by the usual steamship line, so that it’s almost impossible to have a tag on him. He has a yacht, a fine sea-going boat, theKipi, which is practically officered and manned by Papuans. What comes and goes with him I don’t know. There was a complaint came through to us that the last time he was abroad Penne nearly lost his life as the result of some quarrel he had with a local tribesman. Now, Mr. Brixan, what would you like us to do?”
Michael’s instructions were few and brief. That evening, when Adele walked home to her lodgings, she was conscious that a man was following her, and after her previous night’s adventure this fact would have played havoc with her nerves but for the note she found waiting when she got indoors. It was from Michael.
“Would you mind if I put a Scotland Yard man to watch you, to see that you do not get into mischief! I don’t think there’s any danger that you will, but I shall feel ever so much easier in my mind if you will endure this annoyance.”
“Would you mind if I put a Scotland Yard man to watch you, to see that you do not get into mischief! I don’t think there’s any danger that you will, but I shall feel ever so much easier in my mind if you will endure this annoyance.”
She read the letter and her brows knit. So she was being shadowed! It was an uncomfortable experience, and yet she could not very well object, could not indeed feel anything but a sense of warm gratitude toward this ubiquitous and pushful young man, who seemed determined not to let her out of his sight.
CHAPTER XVITHE BROWN MAN FROM NOWHERE
Witha brand-new grievance against life, Lawley Foss gathered his forces to avenge himself upon the world that had treated him so harshly. And first and most powerful of his forces was Stella Mendoza. There was a council of war held in the drawing-room of the pretty little house that Stella had taken when she joined the Knebworth Corporation. The third of the party was Mr. Reggie Connolly. And as they were mutually sympathetic, so were they mutually unselfish—characteristically so.
“We’ve been treated disgracefully by Knebworth, Mr. Foss, especially you. I think, compared with your case, mine is nothing.”
“It is the way he has handled you that makes me sore,” said Foss energetically. “An artiste of your standing!”
“The work you’ve done for him! And Reggie—he treated him like a dog!”
“Personally, it doesn’t matter to me,” said Reggie. “I can always find a contract—it’s you——”
“For the matter of that, we canallfind contracts,” interrupted Stella with a taste of acid in her voice: “I can have my own company when I please, and I’ve got two directors mad to direct me, and two men I know would put up every cent of money to give me my own company—at least, they’d put up a lot. And Chauncey Seller is raving to play opposite me, and you know what a star he is; and he’d let me be featured and go into small type himself. He’s a lovely man, and the best juvenile in this country or any other.”
Mr. Connolly coughed.
“The point is, can we get the moneynow?” asked Foss, practical for once.
There was no immediate and enthusiastic assurance from the girl.
“Because, if not, I think I can get all I want,” said Foss surprisingly. “I won’t say from whom, or how I’m going to get it. But I’m certain I can get big money, and it will be easier to get it for some specific object than to ask for it for myself.”
“Less risky?” suggested Connolly, with a desire to be in the conversation.
It was an unfortunate remark, the more so since by chance he had hit the nail on the head. Foss went a dull red.
“What the hell do you mean by ‘less risky’?” he demanded.
Poor Reggie had meant nothing, and admitted as much in some haste. He had meant to be helpful, and was ready to sulk at the storm he had aroused. More ready because, as the conversation had progressed, he had faded more and more into the background as an inconsiderable factor. There is nothing quite so disheartening to a conspirator as to find the conspiring taken out of his hands, and Reggie Connolly felt it was the moment to make a completevolte face, and incidentally assert what he was pleased to call his “personality.”
“This is all very well, Stella,” he said, “but it looks to me as if I’m going to be left out in the cold. What with your thinking about Chauncey Seller—he’s let down more pictures than any two men I know—and all that sort of thing, I don’t see that I’m going to be much use to you. I don’t really. I know you’ll think I’m a fearful, awful rotter, but I feel that we owe something to old Jack Kneb, I do really. I’ve jeopardized my position for your sake, and I’m prepared to do anything in reason, but what with pulling Chauncey Seller—who is a bounder of the worst kind—into your cast, and what with Foss jumping down my throat, well, really—really!”
They were not inclined to mollify him, having rather an eye to the future than to the present, and he had retired in a huff before the girl realized that the holding of Reggie would at least have embarrassed Knebworth to the extent of forcing a retake of those parts of the picture in which he appeared.
“Never mind about Connolly. The picture is certain to fail with that extra: she’s bad. I have a friend in London,” explained Foss, after the discussion returned to the question of ways and means, “who can put up the money. I’ve got a sort of pull with him. In fact—well, anyhow, I’ve got a pull. I’ll go up to-night and see him.”
“And I’ll see mine,” said Stella. “We’ll call the company The Stella Mendoza Picture Corporation——”
Lawley Foss demurred. He was inclined to another title, and was prepared to accept as a compromise the Foss-Mendoza or F.M. Company, a compromise agreeable to Stella provided the initials were reversed.
“Who is Brixan?” she asked as Foss was leaving.
“He is a detective.”
She opened her eyes wide.
“A detective? Whatever is he doing here?”
Lawley Foss smiled contemptuously.
“He is trying to discover what no man of his mental calibre will ever discover, the Head-Hunter. I am the one man in the world who could help him. Instead of which,” he smiled again, “I am helping myself.”
With which cryptic and mystifying statement he left her.
Stella Mendoza was an ambitious woman, and when ambition is directed toward wealth and fame it is not attended by scruple. Her private life and her standard of values were no better and no worse than thousands of other women, and no more belonged to her profession than did her passion for good food and luxurious environment. The sins of any particular class or profession are not peculiar to their status or calling, but to their self-education in the matter of the permissible. As one woman would die rather than surrender her self-respect, so another would lose her self-respect rather than suffer poverty and hardship, and think little or nothing of the act or the deceit she practised to gain her ends.
After Foss had gone, she went up to her room to change. It was too early to make the call she intended, for Sir Gregory did not like to see her during the daytime. He, who had not hesitated to send Bhag on a fantastic mission, was a stickler for the proprieties.
Having some letters to post, she drove into Chichester late in the afternoon, and saw Mike Brixan in peculiar circumstances. He was the centre of a little crowd near the market cross, a head above the surrounding people. There was a policeman present: she saw his helmet, and for a moment was inclined to satisfy her curiosity. She changed her mind, and when she returned the crowd had dispersed and Michael had disappeared, and, driving home, she wondered whether the detective had been engaged professionally.
Mike himself had been attracted by the crowd which was watching the ineffectual efforts of a Sussex policeman to make himself intelligible to a shock-haired, brown-faced native, an incongruous figure in an ill-fitting suit of store clothes and a derby hat which was a little too large for him. In his hand he carried a bundle tied up in a bright green handkerchief, and under his arm a long object, wrapped in linen and fastened with innumerable strings. At the first sight of him Michael thought it was one of Penne’s Malayan servants, but on second thoughts he realized that Sir Gregory would not allow any of his slaves to run loose about the countryside.
Pushing his way through the crowd, he came up to the policeman, who touched his helmet rim and grinned.
“Can’t make head or tail of this fellow’s lingo, sir,” he said. “He wants to know something, but I can’t make out what. He has just come into the city.”
The brown man turned his big dark eyes upon Mike and said something which was Greek to the detective. There was a curious dignity about the native that even his ludicrous garments could not wholly dissipate, an erectness of body, a carriage of head, an imponderable air of greatness that instantly claimed Michael Brixan’s attention.
Then suddenly he had an inspiration, and addressed the man in Dutch. Immediately the native’s eyes lit up.
“Ja, mynheer, I speak Dutch.”
Mike had guessed that he came from Malaya, where Dutch and Portuguese are spoken by the better class natives.
“I am from Borneo, and I seek a man who is called Truji, an Englishman. No,mynheer, I wish to see his house, for he is a great man in my country. When I have seen his house I will go back to Borneo.”
Mike was watching him as he talked. It was a particularly good-looking face, except for the long and ugly scar that ran from his forehead to the point of his jaw.
A new servant for Gregory Penne, thought the detective, and gave him directions. Standing by the policeman’s side, he watched the queer figure with its bundles till it disappeared.
“Queer language, that, sir,” said the officer. “It was Dutch to me.”
“And to me,” chuckled Mike, and continued his way to the hotel.
CHAPTER XVIIMR. FOSS MAKES A SUGGESTION
Immersedin her beloved script, Adele Leamington sat on her bed, a box ofmarron glacéby her side, her knees tucked up, and a prodigious frown on her forehead. Try as hard as she would, she found it impossible to concentrate upon the intricate directions with which Foss invariably tortured the pages of his scenarios. Ordinarily she could have mastered this handicap, but, for some reason or other, individual thoughts which belonged wholly to her and had no association with her art came flowing forth in such volume that the lines were meaningless and the page, for all the instruction it gave to her, might as well have been blank.
WhatwasMichael Brixan? He was not her idea of a detective, and why was he staying in Chichester? Could it be . . . ? She flushed at the thought and was angry with herself. It was hardly likely that a man who was engaged in unravelling a terrible crime would linger for the sake of being near to her. Was the Head-Hunter, the murderer, living near Chichester? She dropped her manuscript to her knees at the appalling thought.
The voice of her landlady aroused her.
“Will you see Mr. Foss, miss?”
She jumped up from the bed and opened the door.
“Where is he?”
“I’ve put him in the parlour,” said the woman, who had grown a little more respectful of late. Possibly the rise of the extra to stardom was generally known in that small town, which took an interest in the fortunes of its one ewe lamb of a production company.
Lawley Foss was standing by the window, looking out, when she came into the room.
“Good afternoon, Adele,” he said genially. (He had never called her by her Christian name before, even if he had known it.)
“Good afternoon, Mr. Foss,” she said with a smile. “I’m sorry to hear that you have left us.”
Foss lifted his shoulders in a gesture of indifference.
“The scope was a little too limited for my kind of work,” he said.
He was wondering if Mike had told her about the disc of paper on her window, and surmised rightly that he had not. Foss himself did not attach any significance to the white disc, accepting Gregory’s explanation, which was that, liking the girl, he wished to toss some flowers and a present, by way of a peace offering, through a window which he guessed would be open. Foss had thought him a love-sick fool, and had obliged him. The story that Knebworth had told he dismissed as sheer melodrama.
“Adele, you’re a foolish little girl to turn down a man like Gregory Penne,” he said, and saw by her face that he was on dangerous ground. “There’s no sense in getting up in the air; after all, we’re human beings, and it isn’t unnatural that Penne should have a crush on you. There’s nothing wrong in that. Hundreds of girls have dinner with men without there being anything sinister in it. I’m a friend of Penne’s, in a way, and I’m seeing him to-night on a very important and personal matter—will you come along?”
She shook her head.
“There may be no harm in it,” she said, “but there is no pleasure in it either.”
“He’s a rich man and a powerful man,” said Foss impressively. “He could be of service to you.”
Again she shook her head.
“I want no other help than my own ability,” she said. “I nearly said ‘genius,’ but that would have sounded like conceit. I do not need the patronage of any rich man. If I cannot succeed without that, then I am a hopeless failure and am content to be one!”
Still Foss lingered.
“I think I can manage without you,” he said, “but I’d have been glad of your co-operation. He’s crazy about you. If Mendoza knew that, she’d kill you!”
“Miss Mendoza?” gasped the girl. “But why? Does she—she know him?”
He nodded.
“Yes: very few people are aware of the fact. There was a time when he’d have done anything for her, and she was a wise girl: she let him help! Mendoza has money to burn and diamonds enough to fill the Jewel House.”
Adele listened, horror-stricken, incredulous, and he hastened to insure himself against Stella’s wrath.
“You needn’t tell her I told you—this is in strict confidence. I don’t want to get on the wrong side of Penne either,” he shivered. “That man’s a devil!”
Her lips twitched.
“And yet you calmly ask me to dine with him, and hold out the bait of Miss Mendoza’s diamonds!”
“I suppose you think she’s awful,” he sneered.
“I am very sorry for her,” said the girl quietly, “and I am determined not to be sorry for myself!”
She opened the door to him in silence, and in silence he took his departure. After all, he thought, there was no need for any outside help. In his breast pocket was a sheet of manuscript, written on the Head-Hunter’s typewriter. That ought to be worth thousands when he made his revelation.
CHAPTER XVIIITHE FACE IN THE PICTURE
Mr. Sampson Longvalewas taking a gentle constitutional on the strip of path before his untidy house. He wore, as usual—for he was a creature of habit—a long, grey silk dressing-gown, fastened by a scarlet sash. On his head was his silk nightcap, and between his teeth a clay churchwarden pipe, which he puffed solemnly as he walked.
He had just bidden a courteous good night to the help who came in daily to tidy his living-rooms and prepare his simple meals, when he heard the sound of feet coming up the drive. He thought at first it was the woman returning (she had a habit of forgetting things); but when he turned, he saw the unprepossessing figure of a neighbour with whom he was acquainted in the sense that Sir Gregory Penne had twice been abominably rude to him.
The old man watched with immobile countenance the coming of his unwelcome visitor.
“ ’Evening!” growled Penne. “Can I speak to you privately?”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head courteously.
“Certainly, Sir Gregory. Will you come in?”
He ushered the owner of Griff Towers into the long sitting-room and lit the candles. Sir Gregory glanced round, his lips curled in disgust at the worn poverty of the apartment, and when the old man had pushed up a chair for him, it was some time before he accepted the offer.
“Now, sir,” said Mr. Longvale courteously, “to what circumstances do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“You had some actors staying here the other day?”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head.
“There was some fool talk about a monkey of mine trying to get into the house.”
“A monkey?” said Mr. Longvale in gentle surprise. “That is the first I have heard of monkeys.”
Which was true. The other looked at him suspiciously.
“Is that so?” he asked. “You’re not going to persuade me you didn’t hear?”
The old man stood up, a picture of dignity.
“Do you suggest that I am lying, sir?” he said. “Because, if you do, there is the door! And though it hurts me to be in the least degree discourteous to a guest of mine, I am afraid I have no other course than to ask you to leave my house.”
“All right, all right,” said Sir Gregory Penne impatiently. “Don’t lose your temper, my friend. I didn’t come to see you about that, anyway. You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
Mr. Longvale was obviously startled.
“I practised medicine when I was younger,” he said.
“Poor, too?” Gregory looked round. “You haven’t a shilling in the world, I’ll bet!”
“There you are wrong,” said old Mr. Longvale quietly. “I am an extremely wealthy man, and the fact that I do not keep my house in repair is due to the curious penchant of mine for decaying things. That is an unhealthy, probably a morbid predilection of mine. How did you know I was a doctor?”
“I heard through one of my servants. You set the broken finger of a carter.”
“I haven’t practised for years,” said Mr. Longvale. “I almost wish I had,” he added wistfully. “It is a noble science——”
“Anyway,” interrupted Penne, “even if you can’t be bought, you’re a secretive old devil, and that suits me. There’s a girl up at my house who is very ill. I don’t want any of these prying country doctors nosing around my private affairs. Would you come along and see her?”
The old man pursed his lips thoughtfully.
“I should be most happy,” he said, “but I am afraid my medical science is a little rusty. Is she a servant?”
“In a way,” said the other shortly. “When can you come?”
“I’ll come at once,” said Mr. Longvale gravely, and went out, to return in his greatcoat.
The baronet looked at the ancient garment with a smile of derision.
“Why the devil do you wear such old-fashioned clothes?” he asked.
“To me they are very new,” said the old man gently. “The garments of to-day are without romance, without the thrill which these bring to me.” He patted the overlapping cape and smiled. “An old man is entitled to his fancies: let me be humoured, Sir Gregory.”
At the moment Mr. Sampson Longvale was driving to Griff Towers, Mike Brixan, summoned by messenger, was facing Jack Knebworth in his office.
“I hope you didn’t mind my sending for you, though it was a fool thing to do,” said the director. “You remember that we shot some scenes at Griff Towers?”
Michael nodded.
“I want you to see one that we took, with the tower in the background, and tell me what you think of—something.”
Wonderingly, Michael accompanied the director to the projection room.
“My laboratory manager pointed it out to me in the negative,” explained Jack as they seated themselves and the room went dark. “Of course, I should have seen it in the print.”
“What is it?” asked Michael curiously.
“That’s just what I don’t know,” said the other, scratching his head, “but you’ll see for yourself.”
There was a flicker and a furious clicking, and there appeared on the small screen which was used for projection purposes, a picture of two people. Adele was one and Reggie Connolly the other, and Michael gazed stolidly, though with rising annoyance, at a love scene which was being enacted between the two.
In the immediate background was the wall of the tower, and Michael saw for the first time that there was a little window which he did not remember having seen from the interior of the hall; it was particularly dark, and was lighted, even in daytime, by electric lamps.
“I never noticed that window before,” he said.
“It’s the window I want you to watch,” said Jack Knebworth, and, even as he spoke, there came stealthily into view a face.
At first it was indistinct and blurred, but later, it came into focus. It was the oval face of a girl, dark-eyed, her hair in disorder, a look of unspeakable terror on her face. She raised her hand as if to beckon somebody—probably Jack himself, who was directing the picture. That, at least, was Jack’s view. They had hardly time to get accustomed to the presence of the mystery girl when she disappeared, with such rapidity as to suggest that she had been dragged violently back.
“What do you make of that?” asked Knebworth.
Michael bit his lip thoughtfully.
“Looks almost as though friend Penne had a prisoner in his dark tower. Of course, the woman whose scream I heard, and who he said was a servant! But the window puzzles me. There’s no sign of it inside. The stairway leads out of the hall, but in such a position that it is impossible that the girl could have been standing either on the stairs or the landing. Therefore, there must be a fifth wall inside, containing a separate staircase. Does this mean you will have to retake?”
Jack shook his head.
“No, we can back her out: she’s only on fifty feet of the film; but I thought you’d like to see it.”
The lights came on again, and they went back to the director’s office.
“I don’t like Penne, for more reasons than one,” said Jack Knebworth. “I like him less since I’ve found that he’s better friends with Mendoza than I thought he was.”
“Who is Mendoza—the deposed star?”
The other nodded.
“Stella Mendoza—not a bad girl and not a good girl,” he said. “I’ve been wondering why Penne always gave us permission to use his grounds for shooting, and now I know. I tell you that that house holds a few secrets!”
Michael smiled faintly.
“One, at least, of them will be revealed to-night,” he said. “I am going to explore Griff Towers, and I do not intend asking permission of Sir Gregory Penne. And if I can discover what I believe is there to be discovered, Gregory Penne will sleep under lock and key this night!”
CHAPTER XIXTHE MIDNIGHT VISIT
Michael Brixanhad had sent down to him from town a heavy suit-case, which contained precious little clothing. He was busy with its contents for half an hour, when the boots of the hotel announced the arrival of the motor-cycle that had been hired for him.
With a canvas bag strapped to his back, he mounted the machine, and was soon clear of the town, swerving through the twisting lanes of Sussex until he arrived at the Dower House, behind which he concealed his machine.
It was eleven o’clock when he crossed the fields to the postern gate, on the alert all the time for the soft-footed Bhag. The postern was closed and locked—a contingency for which he was prepared. Unstrapping his bag, he took therefrom a bundle of rods, and screwed three together. To the top he fastened a big, blunt hook, and, replacing the remainder of the rods, he lifted the hook till it rested on the top of the high wall, tested its stability, and in a few seconds had climbed his “ladder” and had jumped to the other side.
He followed the path that he had taken before, keeping close to the bushes, and all the time watching left and right for Penne’s monstrous servant. As he came to the end of the hedge, the hall door opened and two men came out. One was Penne, and for a moment he did not recognize the tall man by his side, until he heard his voice. Mr. Sampson Longvale!
“I think she will be all right. The wounds are very peculiar. It looks almost as if she had been scratched by some huge claw,” said Longvale. “I hope I have been of assistance, Sir Gregory, though, as I told you, it is nearly fifty years since I engaged in medical work.”
So old Longvale had been a doctor! Somehow this news did not surprise Michael. There was something in the old man’s benevolence of countenance and easy manner which would have suggested a training in that profession, to one less analytical than Michael Brixan.
“My car will take you down,” he heard Sir Gregory say.
“No, no, thank you; I will walk. It is not very far. Good night, Sir Gregory.”
The baronet growled a good night and went back into the dimly-lit hall, and Michael heard the rattle of chains as the door was fastened.
There was no time to be lost. Almost before Mr. Sampson Longvale had disappeared into the darkness, Michael had opened his canvas bag and had screwed on three more links to his ladder. From each rod projected a short, light, steel bracket. It was the type of hook-ladder that firemen use, and Michael had employed this method of gaining entrance to a forbidden house many times in his chequered career.
He judged the distance accurately, for when he lifted the rod and dropped the hook upon the sill of the little window, the ladder hung only a few inches short of the ground. With a tug to test the hook, he went up hand over hand, and in a few seconds was prying at the window sash. It needed little opening, for the catch was of elementary simplicity, and in another instant he was standing on the step of a dark and narrow stairway.
He had provided himself with an electric torch, and he flashed a beam up and down. Below, he saw a small door which apparently led into the hall, and, by an effort of memory, he remembered that in the corner of the hall he had seen a curtain hanging, without attaching any importance to the fact. Going down, he tried the door and found it locked. Putting down his lantern, he took out a leather case of tools and began to manipulate the lock. In an incredibly short space of time the key turned. When he had assured himself that the door would open, he was satisfied. For the moment his work lay upstairs, and he climbed the steps again, coming to a narrow landing, but no door.
A second, a third and a fourth flight brought him, as near as he could guess, to the top of the tower, and here he found a narrow exit. Listening, after a while he heard somebody moving about the room, and by the sound they made, he supposed they wore slippers. Presently a door closed with a thud, and he tried the handle of the wicket. It was unlocked, and he opened it gently a fraction of an inch at a time, until he secured a view of the greater part of the chamber.
It was a small, lofty room, unfurnished with the exception of a low bed in one corner, on which a woman lay. Her back was toward him, fortunately; but the black hair and the ivory yellow of the bare arm that lay on the coverlet told him that she was not European.
Presently she turned and he saw her face, recognizing her immediately as the woman whose face he had seen in the picture. She was pretty in her wild way, and young. Her eyes were closed, and presently she began crying softly in her sleep.
Michael was half-way in the room when he saw the handle of the other door turn, and, quick as a flash, stepped back into the darkness of the landing.
It was Bhag, in his old blue overall, a tray of food in his great hands. He reached out his foot and pulled the table toward him, placing the viands by the side of the bed. The girl opened her eyes and sank back with a little cry of disgust; and Bhag, who was evidently used to these demonstrations of her loathing, shuffled out of the room.
Again Michael pushed the door and crossed the room, unnoticed by the girl, looking out into the passage—not six feet away from him, Bhag was squatting, glaring in his direction.
Michael closed the door quickly and flew back to the secret staircase, pulling the door behind him. He felt for a key, but there was none, and, without wasting another second, he ran down the stairs. The one thing he wished to avoid was an encounter which would betray his presence in the house.
He made no attempt to get out of the window, but continued his way to the foot of the stairs, and passed through into the hall. This time he was able to close the door, for there were two large bolts at the top and the bottom. Pulling aside the curtain, he stepped gingerly into the hall. For a while he waited, and presently heard the shuffle of feet on the stairs and a sniff beneath the door.
His first act was to ensure his retreat. Noiselessly he drew the bolts from the front door, slipped off the chain and turned the key. Then, as noiselessly, he made his way along the corridor toward Sir Gregory’s room.
The danger was that one of the native servants would see him, but this he must risk. He had observed on each of his previous visits that, short of the library, a door opened into what he knew must be an ante-room of some kind. It was unlocked and he stepped into complete darkness. Groping along the wall, he found a row of switches, and pulled down the first. This lit two wall-brackets, sufficient to give him a general view of the apartment.
It was a small drawing-room, apparently unused, for the furniture was sheeted with holland, and the fire-grate was empty. From here it was possible to gain access to the library through a door near the window. He switched off the light, locked the door on the inside, and tried the shutters. These were fastened by iron bars and were not, as in the case of the library, locked. He pulled them back, let the blind up, and gingerly raised a window. His second line of retreat was now prepared, and he could afford to take risks.
Kneeling down, he looked through the keyhole. The library was illuminated, and somebody was talking. A woman! Turning the handle, he opened the door the fraction of an inch, and had a view of the interior.
Gregory Penne was standing in his favourite attitude, with his back to the fire, and before him was a tray of those refreshments without which life was apparently insupportable. Seated on the low settee, drawn up at one side of the fireplace, was Stella Mendoza. She was wearing a fur coat, for the night was chilly, and about her neck was such a sparkle of gems as Michael had never seen before on a woman.
Evidently the discussion was not a pleasant one, for there was a heavy scowl on Gregory’s face, and Stella did not seem too pleased.
“I left you because I had to leave you,” growled the man, answering some complaint she had made. “One of my servants is ill and I brought in the doctor. And if I had stayed it would have been the same. It’s no good, my girl,” he said harshly. “The goose doesn’t lay golden eggs more than once—this goose doesn’t, at any rate. You were a fool to quarrel with Knebworth.”
She said something which did not reach Michael’s ears.
“I dare say your own company would be fine,” said Penne sarcastically. “It would be fine for me, who footed the bill, and finer for you, who spent the money! No! Stella, that cat doesn’t jump. I’ve been very good to you, and you’ve no right to expect me to bankrupt myself to humour your whims.”
“It’s not a whim,” she said vehemently, “it’s a necessity. You don’t want to see me going round the studios taking any kind of job I can get, do you, Gregory?” she pleaded.
“I don’t want to see you work at all, and there’s no reason why you should. You’ve enough to live on. Anyway, you’ve got nothing against Knebworth. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t have met me, and if you hadn’t met me, you’d have been poorer by thousands. You want a change.”
There was a silence. Her head was drooped, and Michael could not see the girl’s face, but when she spoke, there was that note of viciousness in her voice which told him her state of mind.
“You want a change too, perhaps! I could tell things about you that wouldn’t look good in print, and you’d have a change too! Get that in your mind, Gregory Penne! I’m not a fool—I’ve seen things and heard things, and I can put two and two together. You think I want a change, do you—I do! I want friends who aren’t murderers——”
He sprang at her, his big hand covering her mouth.
“You little devil!” he hissed, and at that instant somebody must have knocked, for he turned to the door and said something in the native dialect.
The answer was inaudible to Mike.
“Listen.” Gregory was speaking to the girl in a calmer tone. “Foss is waiting to see me, and I’ll discuss this little matter with you afterwards.”
He released her, and, going to his desk, touched the spring that operated the mechanism of the secret door that led to Bhag’s quarters.
“Go in there and wait,” he said. “I’ll not keep you longer than five minutes.”
She looked suspiciously at the door which had suddenly opened in the panelling.
“No,” she said, “I’ll go home. To-morrow will do. I’m sorry I got rough, Gregory, but you madden me sometimes.”
“Go in there!”
He pointed to the den, his face working.
“I’ll not!” Her face was white. “You beast, don’t you think I know? That is Bhag’s den! Oh, you beast!”
His face was horrible to see. It was as though all the foulness in his mind found expression in the demoniacal grimace.
Breathless, terrified, the girl stared at him, shrinking back against the wall. Presently Gregory mastered himself.
“Then go into the little drawing-room,” he said huskily.
Mike had time to switch out the lights and flatten himself against the wall, when the door of the room was flung open and the girl thrust in.
“It is dark!” she wailed.
“You’ll find the switches!”
The door banged.
Michael Brixan was in a dilemma. He could see her figure groping along the wall, and stealthily he moved to avoid her. In doing so he stumbled over a stool.
“Who’s there?” she screamed. “Gregory! Don’t let him touch me, Gregory!”
Again the piercing scream.
Mike leapt past her and through the open window, and, the sound of her shrill agony in his ears, fled along the hedge. Swift as he was, something sped more quickly in pursuit, a great, twittering something that ran bent double on hands and feet. The detective heard and guessed. From what secret hiding-place Bhag had appeared, whether he was in the grounds at the moment Mike jumped, he had no time even to guess. He felt a curious lightness of pocket at that moment and thrust in his hand. His pistol was gone. It must have fallen when he jumped.
He could hear the pad of feet behind him as he darted at a tangent across the field, blundering over the cabbage rows, slipping in furrows, the great beast growing closer and closer with every check. Ahead of him the postern. But it was locked, and, even if it had not been, the wall would have proved no obstacle to the ape. The barrier of the wall held Michael. Breathless, turning to face his pursuer, in the darkness he saw the green eyes shining like two evil stars.
CHAPTER XXA NARROW ESCAPE
Michael Brixanbraced himself for the supreme and futile struggle. And then, to his amazement, the ape stopped, and his bird noise became a harsh chatter. Raising himself erect, he beat quickly on his great hairy chest, and the sound of the hollow drumming was awful.
Yet through that sound and above it, Michael heard a curious hiss—it was the faint note of escaping steam, and he looked round. On the top of the wall squatted a man, and Michael knew him at once. It was the brown-faced stranger he had seen that day in Chichester.
The drumming and the hissing grew louder and then Michael saw a bright, curved thing in the brown man’s hand. It was a sword, the replica of that which hung above Sir Gregory’s fireplace.
He was still wondering when the brown man dropped lightly to the ground, and Bhag, with a squeal that was almost human, turned and fled. Michael watched the Thing, fascinated, until it disappeared into the darkness.
“My friend,” said Michael in Dutch, “you came at a good moment.”
He turned, but the brown man had vanished as though the earth had swallowed him. Shading his eyes against the starlight, he presently discerned a dark shape moving swiftly in the shadow of the wall. For a second he was inclined to follow and question the brown man, but decided upon another course. With some difficulty he surmounted the wall and dropped to the other side. Then, tidying himself as well as he could, he made the long circuit to the gate of Griff Towers, and boldly walked up to the house, whistling as he went.
There was nobody in sight as he crossed the “parade ground,” and his first step was to search for and find his pistol.
He must know that the girl was safe before he left the place. He had seen her car waiting on the road outside. His hand was raised to the bell when he heard footsteps in the hall, and listened intently: there was no doubt that one of the voices was Stella Mendoza’s, and he drew back again to cover.
The girl came out, followed by Sir Gregory, and from their tone, a stranger unacquainted with the circumstances of their meeting might have imagined that the visit had been a very ordinary one, in spite of the lateness of the hour.
“Good night, Sir Gregory,” said the girl, almost sweetly. “I will see you to-morrow.”
“Come to lunch,” said Gregory’s voice, “and bring your friend. Shall I walk with you to the car?”
“No, thank you,” she said hastily.
Michael watched her till she was out of sight, but long before then the big door of Griff Towers had closed, and the familiar rattle of chains told him that it was closed finally.
Where was Foss? He must have gone earlier, if Foss it was. Michael waited till all was quiet, and then, tip-toeing across the gravel, followed the girl. He looked about for the little brown man, but he was not in sight. And then he remembered that he had left the hook ladder hanging to the window on the stairs, and went back to retrieve it. He found the ladder as it had been left, unscrewed and packed it in the canvas bag, and five minutes later he was taking his motor-cycle from its place of concealment.
A yellow light showed in the window of Mr. Longvale’s dining-room, and Michael had half a mind to call upon him. He could tell him, at any rate, something of that oval-faced girl in the upper room of the tower. Instead, he decided to go home. He was tired with the night’s work, a little disappointed. The tower had not revealed as tremendous a secret as he had hoped. The girl was a prisoner, obviously; had been kidnapped for Sir Gregory’s pleasure, and brought to England on his yacht. Such things had happened; there had been a case in the courts on curiously parallel lines only a few months before. At any rate, it did not seem worth while to put off his bedtime.
He had a hot bath, made himself some chocolate and, before retiring, sat down to sum up his day’s experience. And in the light of recent happenings he was less confident that his first solution of the Head-Hunter mystery was the correct one. And the more he thought, the less satisfied he was, till at last, in sheer disgust at his own vacillation of mind, he turned out the light and went to bed.
He was sleeping peacefully and late the next morning when an unexpected visitor arrived, and Michael sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes.
“I’ve either got nightmare or it’s Staines,” he said.
Major Staines smiled cheerfully.
“You’re awake and normal,” he said.
“Has anything happened?” asked Michael, springing out of bed.
“Nothing, only there was a late dance last night and an early train this morning, and I decided to atone for my frivolity by coming down and seeing how far you had got in the Elmer case.”
“Elmer case?” Michael frowned. “Good Lord! I’d almost forgotten poor Elmer!”
“Here’s something to remind you,” said Staines.
He fished from his pocket a newspaper cutting. Michael took it and read: