pressed upon his master a succession of articles that were not required.
Over this usually complacent attendant the unattractive features of
Madame Ferraja appeared to exercise a stealthy fascination, for a dozen
times the lady detected his eyes questioning her face and a dozen times
he looked guiltily away again. But his incongruities could not delay for
more than a few minutes the opening of the door.
"I do not accompany you, sir?" he inquired, with the suggestion plainly
tendered in his voice that it would be much better if he did.
"Not this time, Parkinson."
"Very well, sir. Is there any particular address to which we can
telephone in case you are required, sir?"
"Mr Greatorex has instructions."
Parkinson stood aside, his resources exhausted. Madame Ferraja laughed a
little mockingly as they walked down the drive.
"Your man-servant thinks I may eat you, Signor Carrados," she declared
vivaciously.
Carrados, who held the key of his usually exact attendant's
perturbation--for he himself had recognized in Madame Ferraja the
angelic Nina Brun, of the Sicilian tetradrachm incident, from the moment
she opened her mouth--admitted to himself the humour of her audacity.
But it was not until half-an-hour later that enlightenment rewarded
Parkinson. Inspector Beedel had just arrived and was speaking with
Greatorex when the conscientious valet, who had been winnowing his
memory in solitude, broke in upon them, more distressed than either had
ever seen him in his life before, and with the breathless introduction:
"It was the ears, sir! I have her ears at last!" poured out his tale of
suspicion, recognition and his present fears.
In the meanwhile the two objects of his concern had reached the gate as
the summoned taxicab drew up.
"Seven Heronsbourne Place," called Carrados to the driver.
"No, no," interposed the lady, with decision, "let him stop at the
beginning of the street. It is not far to walk. My husband would be on
the verge of distraction if he thought in the dark that it was the
arrival of the police;--who knows?"
"Brackedge Road, opposite the end of Heronsbourne Place," amended
Carrados.
Heronsbourne Place had the reputation, among those who were curious in
such matters, of being the most reclusive residential spot inside the
four-mile circle. To earn that distinction it was, needless to say, a
cul-de-sac. It bounded one side of Heronsbourne Park but did not at any
point of its length give access to that pleasance. It was entirely
devoted to unostentatious little houses, something between the villa and
the cottage, some detached and some in pairs, but all possessing the
endowment of larger, more umbrageous gardens than can generally be
secured within the radius. The local house agent described them as
"delightfully old-world" or "completely modernized" according to the
requirement of the applicant.
The cab was dismissed at the corner and Madame Ferraja guided her
companion along the silent and deserted way. She had begun to talk with
renewed animation, but her ceaseless chatter only served to emphasize to
Carrados the one fact that it was contrived to disguise.
"I am not causing you to miss the house with looking after me--No. 7,
Madame Ferraja?" he interposed.
"No, certainly," she replied readily. "It is a little farther. The
numbers are from the other end. But we are there. _Ecco!_"
She stopped at a gate and opened it, still guiding him. They passed into
a garden, moist and sweet-scented with the distillate odours of a dewy
evening. As she turned to relatch the gate the blind man endeavoured
politely to anticipate her. Between them his hat fell to the ground.
"My clumsiness," he apologized, recovering it from the step. "My old
impulses and my present helplessness, alas, Madame Ferraja!"
"One learns prudence by experience," said Madame sagely. She was
scarcely to know, poor lady, that even as she uttered this trite
aphorism, under cover of darkness and his hat, Mr Carrados had just
ruined his signet ring by blazoning a golden "7" upon her garden step to
establish its identity if need be. A cul-de-sac that numbered from the
closed end seemed to demand some investigation.
"Seldom," he replied to her remark. "One goes on taking risks. So we are
there?"
Madame Ferraja had opened the front door with a latchkey. She dropped
the latch and led Carrados forward along the narrow hall. The room they
entered was at the back of the house, and from the position of the road
it therefore overlooked the park. Again the door was locked behind them.
"The celebrated Mr Carrados!" announced Madame Ferraja, with a sparkle
of triumph in her voice. She waved her hand towards a lean, dark man who
had stood beside the door as they entered. "My husband."
"Beneath our poor roof in the most fraternal manner," commented the dark
man, in the same derisive spirit. "But it is wonderful."
"The even more celebrated Monsieur Dompierre, unless I am mistaken?"
retorted Carrados blandly. "I bow on our first real meeting."
"You knew!" exclaimed the Dompierre of the earlier incident
incredulously. "Stoker, you were right and I owe you a hundred lire. Who
recognized you, Nina?"
"How should I know?" demanded the real Madame Dompierre crossly. "This
blind man himself, by chance."
"You pay a poor compliment to your charming wife's personality to
imagine that one could forget her so soon," put in Carrados. "And you a
Frenchman, Dompierre!"
"You knew, Monsieur Carrados," reiterated Dompierre, "and yet you
ventured here. You are either a fool or a hero."
"An enthusiast--it is the same thing as both," interposed the lady.
"What did I tell you? What did it matter if he recognized? You see?"
"Surely you exaggerate, Monsieur Dompierre," contributed Carrados. "I
may yet pay tribute to your industry. Perhaps I regret the circumstance
and the necessity but I am here to make the best of it. Let me see the
things Madame has spoken of, and then we can consider the detail of
their price, either for myself or on behalf of others."
There was no immediate reply. From Dompierre came a saturnine chuckle
and from Madame Dompierre a titter that accompanied a grimace. For one
of the rare occasions in his life Carrados found himself wholly out of
touch with the atmosphere of the situation. Instinctively he turned his
face towards the other occupant of the room, the man addressed as
"Stoker," whom he knew to be standing near the window.
"This unfortunate business _has_ brought me an introduction," said a
familiar voice.
For one dreadful moment the universe stood still round Carrados. Then,
with the crash and grind of overwhelming mental tumult, the whole
strategy revealed itself, like the sections of a gigantic puzzle falling
into place before his eyes.
There had been no robbery at the British Museum! That plausible
concoction was as fictitious as the intentionally transparent tale of
treasure trove. Carrados recognized now how ineffective the one device
would have been without the other in drawing him--how convincing the two
together--and while smarting at the humiliation of his plight he could
not restrain a dash of admiration at the ingenuity--the accurately
conjectured line of inference--of the plot. It was again the familiar
artifice of the cunning pitfall masked by the clumsily contrived trap
just beyond it. And straightway into it he had blundered!
"And this," continued the same voice, "is Carrados, Max Carrados, upon
whose perspicuity a government--only the present government, let me in
justice say--depends to outwit the undesirable alien! My country; O my
country!"
"Is it really Monsieur Carrados?" inquired Dompierre in polite sarcasm.
"Are you sure, Nina, that you have not brought a man from Scotland Yard
instead?"
"_Basta!_ he is here; what more do you want? Do not mock the poor
sightless gentleman," answered Madame Dompierre, in doubtful sympathy.
"That is exactly what I was wondering," ventured Carrados mildly. "I am
here--what more do you want? Perhaps you, Mr Stoker----?"
"Excuse me. 'Stoker' is a mere colloquial appellation based on a
trifling incident of my career in connection with a disabled liner. The
title illustrates the childish weakness of the criminal classes for
nicknames, together with their pitiable baldness of invention. My real
name is Montmorency, Mr Carrados--Eustace Montmorency."
"Thank you, Mr Montmorency," said Carrados gravely. "We are on opposite
sides of the table here to-night, but I should be proud to have been
with you in the stokehold of the _Benvenuto_."
"That was pleasure," muttered the Englishman. "This is business."
"Oh, quite so," agreed Carrados. "So far I am not exactly complaining.
But I think it is high time to be told--and I address myself to
you--why I have been decoyed here and what your purpose is."
Mr Montmorency turned to his accomplice.
"Dompierre," he remarked, with great clearness, "why the devil is Mr
Carrados kept standing?"
"Ah, oh, heaven!" exclaimed Madame Dompierre with tragic resignation,
and flung herself down on a couch.
"_Scusi_," grinned the lean man, and with burlesque grace he placed a
chair for their guest's acceptance.
"Your curiosity is natural," continued Mr Montmorency, with a cold eye
towards Dompierre's antics, "although I really think that by this time
you ought to have guessed the truth. In fact, I don't doubt that you
have guessed, Mr Carrados, and that you are only endeavouring to gain
time. For that reason--because it will perhaps convince you that we have
nothing to fear--I don't mind obliging you."
"Better hasten," murmured Dompierre uneasily.
"Thank you, Bill," said the Englishman, with genial effrontery. "I won't
fail to report your intelligence to the Rasojo. Yes, Mr Carrados, as you
have already conjectured, it is the affair of the Countess X. to which
you owe this inconvenience. You will appreciate the compliment that
underlies your temporary seclusion, I am sure. When circumstances
favoured our plans and London became the inevitable place of meeting,
you and you alone stood in the way. We guessed that you would be
consulted and we frankly feared your intervention. You were consulted.
We know that Inspector Beedel visited you two days ago and he has no
other case in hand. Your quiescence for just three days had to be
obtained at any cost. So here you are."
"I see," assented Carrados. "And having got me here, how do you propose
to keep me?"
"Of course that detail has received consideration. In fact we secured
this furnished house solely with that in view. There are three courses
before us. The first, quite pleasant, hangs on your acquiescence. The
second, more drastic, comes into operation if you decline. The
third--but really, Mr Carrados, I hope you won't oblige me even to
discuss the third. You will understand that it is rather objectionable
for me to contemplate the necessity of two able-bodied men having to use
even the smallest amount of physical compulsion towards one who is blind
and helpless. I hope you will be reasonable and accept the inevitable."
"The inevitable is the one thing that I invariably accept," replied
Carrados. "What does it involve?"
"You will write a note to your secretary explaining that what you have
learned at 7 Heronsbourne Place makes it necessary for you to go
immediately abroad for a few days. By the way, Mr Carrados, although
this is Heronsbourne Place it is _not_ No. 7."
"Dear, dear me," sighed the prisoner. "You seem to have had me at every
turn, Mr Montmorency."
"An obvious precaution. The wider course of giving you a different
street altogether we rejected as being too risky in getting you here.
To continue: To give conviction to the message you will direct your man
Parkinson to follow by the first boat-train to-morrow, with all the
requirements for a short stay, and put up at Mascot's, as usual,
awaiting your arrival there."
"Very convincing," agreed Carrados. "Where shall I be in reality?"
"In a charming though rather isolated bungalow on the south coast. Your
wants will be attended to. There is a boat. You can row or fish. You
will be run down by motor car and brought back to your own gate. It's
really very pleasant for a few days. I've often stayed there myself."
"Your recommendation carries weight. Suppose, for the sake of curiosity,
that I decline?"
"You will still go there but your treatment will be commensurate with
your behaviour. The car to take you is at this moment waiting in a
convenient spot on the other side of the park. We shall go down the
garden at the back, cross the park, and put you into the car--anyway."
"And if I resist?"
The man whose pleasantry it had been to call himself Eustace Montmorency
shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't be a fool," he said tolerantly. "You know who you are dealing
with and the kind of risks we run. If you call out or endanger us at a
critical point we shall not hesitate to silence you effectively."
The blind man knew that it was no idle threat. In spite of the cloak of
humour and fantasy thrown over the proceedings, he was in the power of
coolly desperate men. The window was curtained and shuttered against
sight and sound, the door behind him locked. Possibly at that moment a
revolver threatened him; certainly weapons lay within reach of both his
keepers.
"Tell me what to write," he asked, with capitulation in his voice.
Dompierre twirled his mustachios in relieved approval. Madame laughed
from her place on the couch and picked up a book, watching Montmorency
over the cover of its pages. As for that gentleman, he masked his
satisfaction by the practical business of placing on the table before
Carrados the accessories of the letter.
"Put into your own words the message that I outlined just now."
"Perhaps to make it altogether natural I had better write on a page of
the notebook that I always use," suggested Carrados.
"Do you wish to make it natural?" demanded Montmorency, with latent
suspicion.
"If the miscarriage of your plan is to result in my head being
knocked--yes, I do," was the reply.
"Good!" chuckled Dompierre, and sought to avoid Mr Montmorency's cold
glance by turning on the electric table-lamp for the blind man's
benefit. Madame Dompierre laughed shrilly.
"Thank you, Monsieur," said Carrados, "you have done quite right. What
is light to you is warmth to me--heat, energy, inspiration. Now to
business."
He took out the pocket-book he had spoken of and leisurely proceeded to
flatten it down upon the table before him. As his tranquil, pleasant
eyes ranged the room meanwhile it was hard to believe that the shutters
of an impenetrable darkness lay between them and the world. They rested
for a moment on the two accomplices who stood beyond the table, picked
out Madame Dompierre lolling on the sofa on his right, and measured the
proportions of the long, narrow room. They seemed to note the positions
of the window at the one end and the door almost at the other, and even
to take into account the single pendent electric light which up till
then had been the sole illuminant.
"You prefer pencil?" asked Montmorency.
"I generally use it for casual purposes. But not," he added, touching
the point critically, "like this."
Alert for any sign of retaliation, they watched him take an
insignificant penknife from his pocket and begin to trim the pencil. Was
there in his mind any mad impulse to force conclusions with that puny
weapon? Dompierre worked his face into a fiercer expression and touched
reassuringly the handle of his knife. Montmorency looked on for a
moment, then, whistling softly to himself, turned his back on the table
and strolled towards the window, avoiding Madame Nina's pursuant eye.
Then, with overwhelming suddenness, it came, and in its form altogether
unexpected.
Carrados had been putting the last strokes to the pencil, whittling it
down upon the table. There had been no hasty movement, no violent act to
give them warning; only the little blade had pushed itself nearer and
nearer to the electric light cord lying there ... and suddenly and
instantly the room was plunged into absolute darkness.
"To the door, Dom!" shouted Montmorency in a flash. "I am at the window.
Don't let him pass and we are all right."
"I am here," responded Dompierre from the door.
"He will not attempt to pass," came the quiet voice of Carrados from
across the room. "You are now all exactly where I want you. You are both
covered. If either moves an inch, I fire--and remember that I shoot by
sound, not sight."
"But--but what does it mean?" stammered Montmorency, above the
despairing wail of Madame Dompierre.
"It means that we are now on equal terms--three blind men in a dark
room. The numerical advantage that you possess is counterbalanced by the
fact that you are out of your element--I am in mine."
"Dom," whispered Montmorency across the dark space, "strike a match. I
have none."
"I would not, Dompierre, if I were you," advised Carrados, with a short
laugh. "It might be dangerous." At once his voice seemed to leap into a
passion. "Drop that matchbox," he cried. "You are standing on the brink
of your grave, you fool! Drop it, I say; let me hear it fall."
A breath of thought--almost too short to call a pause--then a little
thud of surrender sounded from the carpet by the door. The two
conspirators seemed to hold their breath.
"That is right." The placid voice once more resumed its sway. "Why
cannot things be agreeable? I hate to have to shout, but you seem far
from grasping the situation yet. Remember that I do not take the
slightest risk. Also please remember, Mr Montmorency, that the action
even of a hair-trigger automatic scrapes slightly as it comes up. I
remind you of that for your own good, because if you are so ill-advised
as to think of trying to pot me in the dark, that noise gives me a fifth
of a second start of you. Do you by any chance know Zinghi's in Mercer
Street?"
"The shooting gallery?" asked Mr Montmorency a little sulkily.
"The same. If you happen to come through this alive and are interested
you might ask Zinghi to show you a target of mine that he keeps. Seven
shots at twenty yards, the target indicated by four watches, none of
them so loud as the one you are wearing. He keeps it as a curiosity."
"I wear no watch," muttered Dompierre, expressing his thought aloud.
"No, Monsieur Dompierre, but you wear a heart, and that not on your
sleeve," said Carrados. "Just now it is quite as loud as Mr
Montmorency's watch. It is more central too--I shall not have to allow
any margin. That is right; breathe naturally"--for the unhappy Dompierre
had given a gasp of apprehension. "It does not make any difference to
me, and after a time holding one's breath becomes really painful."
"Monsieur," declared Dompierre earnestly, "there was no intention of
submitting you to injury, I swear. This Englishman did but speak within
his hat. At the most extreme you would have been but bound and gagged.
Take care: killing is a dangerous game."
"For you--not for me," was the bland rejoinder. "If you kill me you will
be hanged for it. If I kill you I shall be honourably acquitted. You can
imagine the scene--the sympathetic court--the recital of your
villainies--the story of my indignities. Then with stumbling feet and
groping hands the helpless blind man is led forward to give evidence.
Sensation! No, no, it isn't really fair but I can kill you both with
absolute certainty and Providence will be saddled with all the
responsibility. Please don't fidget with your feet, Monsieur Dompierre.
I know that you aren't moving but one is liable to make mistakes."
"Before I die," said Montmorency--and for some reason laughed
unconvincingly in the dark--"before I die, Mr Carrados, I should really
like to know what has happened to the light. That, surely, isn't
Providence?"
"Would it be ungenerous to suggest that you are trying to gain time? You
ought to know what has happened. But as it may satisfy you that I have
nothing to fear from delay, I don't mind telling you. In my hand was a
sharp knife--contemptible, you were satisfied, as a weapon; beneath my
nose the 'flex' of the electric lamp. It was only necessary for me to
draw the one across the other and the system was short-circuited. Every
lamp on that fuse is cut off and in the distributing-box in the hall you
will find a burned-out wire. You, perhaps--but Monsieur Dompierre's
experience in plating ought to have put him up to simple electricity."
"How did you know that there is a distributing-box in the hall?" asked
Dompierre, with dull resentment.
"My dear Dompierre, why beat the air with futile questions?" replied Max
Carrados. "What does it matter? Have it in the cellar if you like."
"True," interposed Montmorency. "The only thing that need concern us
now----"
"But it is in the hall--nine feet high," muttered Dompierre in
bitterness. "Yet he, this blind man----"
"The only thing that need concern us," repeated the Englishman, severely
ignoring the interruption, "is what you intend doing in the end, Mr
Carrados?"
"The end is a little difficult to foresee," was the admission. "So far,
I am all for maintaining the _status quo_. Will the first grey light of
morning find us still in this impasse? No, for between us we have
condemned the room to eternal darkness. Probably about daybreak
Dompierre will drop off to sleep and roll against the door. I,
unfortunately mistaking his intention, will send a bullet through----
Pardon, Madame, I should have remembered--but pray don't move."
"I protest, Monsieur----"
"Don't protest; just sit still. Very likely it will be Mr Montmorency
who will fall off to sleep the first after all."
"Then we will anticipate that difficulty," said the one in question,
speaking with renewed decision. "We will play the last hand with our
cards upon the table if you like. Nina, Mr Carrados will not injure you
whatever happens--be sure of that. When the moment comes you will
rise----"
"One word," put in Carrados with determination. "My position is
precarious and I take no risks. As you say, I cannot injure Madame
Dompierre, and you two men are therefore my hostages for her good
behaviour. If she rises from the couch you, Dompierre, fall. If she
advances another step Mr Montmorency follows you."
"Do nothing rash, _carissima_," urged her husband, with passionate
solicitude. "You might get hit in place of me. We will yet find a better
way."
"You dare not, Mr Carrados!" flung out Montmorency, for the first time
beginning to show signs of wear in this duel of the temper. "He dare
not, Dompierre. In cold blood and unprovoked! No jury would acquit you!"
"Another who fails to do you justice, Madame Nina," said the blind man,
with ironic gallantry. "The action might be a little high-handed, one
admits, but when you, appropriately clothed and in your right
complexion, stepped into the witness-box and I said: 'Gentlemen of the
jury, what is my crime? That I made Madame Dompierre a widow!' can you
doubt their gratitude and my acquittal? Truly my countrymen are not
all bats or monks, Madame." Dompierre was breathing with perfect freedom
now, while from the couch came the sounds of stifled emotion, but
whether the lady was involved in a paroxysm of sobs or of laughter it
might be difficult to swear.
* * * * *
It was perhaps an hour after the flourish of the introduction with which
Madame Dompierre had closed the door of the trap upon the blind man's
entrance.
The minutes had passed but the situation remained unchanged, though the
ingenuity of certainly two of the occupants of the room had been
tormented into shreds to discover a means of turning it to their
advantage. So far the terrible omniscience of the blind man in the dark
and the respect for his markmanship with which his coolness had inspired
them, dominated the group. But one strong card yet remained to be
played, and at last the moment came upon which the conspirators had
pinned their despairing hopes.
There was the sound of movement in the hall outside, not the first about
the house, but towards the new complication Carrados had been strangely
unobservant. True, Montmorency had talked rather loudly, to carry over
the dangerous moments. But now there came an unmistakable step and to
the accomplices it could only mean one thing. Montmorency was ready on
the instant.