The laughter ceased as suddenly as it had begun and, as if by a
concerted signal, every light in the room went out. A voice rang out,
Steadman fancied from the figure on the dais.
“Arms up! inspector. Arms up! Mr. Steadman.” Then another ripple of
that horrible laughter. “Ah, I forgot! Our wonderful chairs make all
such commands a superfluity! And so, inspector, you are going to have
your wish—you are going to meet the Yellow Dog at last! But I fear, I
greatly fear that when that interview is over you will not be in a
position to make your discoveries known to that wonderful Scotland
Yard, of which you have been so distinguished a member.” The emphasis
on the “have been” was ominous.
But there was no fear in the inspector's voice as it rapped out:
“Be careful what you do, Yellow Dog. He laughs best who laughs last. I
warn you that this house is virtually in the hands of the police.”
“Is that so, my dear inspector?”
There was another laugh, but this time John Steadman fancied there was
some subtle change in the quality.
“But I rather think the police do not know where this house ends, and
those of others begin!”
“Shall I supply you with the names of the others? The police know more
than you think, you dog!” said the inspector daringly.
“And less than they think,” said the raucous voice mockingly, “or you
and your friend would hardly find yourselves here, dear inspector.”
“Damnation!” Steadman knew that the detective was struggling fiercely
from those clutching, enveloping arms.
“In case, however, that there is just the thinnest substratum of truth
in your statement, Furnival,” the mocking voice went on, “perhaps we
had better waste no more time but get on to business.”
The silvery bell tinkled again, the light was switched on.
Steadman saw that all the golden chairs were empty, that there was
apparently no one in the room with the inspector and himself but that
figure on the dais. He saw that the inspector had given up struggling
and that by some means he had managed to tear the yellow mask from his
face, which was unwontedly scarlet from his efforts to free himself.
“Strip!” ordered that voice from the platform.
In an instant a dozen hands had seized Steadman. It seemed that there
were countless, yellow-masked men in the room. He had not even been
conscious of their coming, until he had felt them and those ruthless,
yellow, claw-like fingers catching at him on all sides at once. The
gripping arms of the chair had released him, but it was in vain that
he sought to release himself—he was conscious, vaguely, that the
inspector was fighting too. But neither the inspector nor Steadman was
in fighting condition. Both of them were elderly men who in their
young days had not been athletic, and their efforts now were hopeless.
Their garments were rent from them, the contents of their pockets were
passed to the man on the platform, who commented upon them
sarcastically.
“Automatics! Dear, dear! And you never had a chance to use them,
either! Shows how differently things pan out to our anticipations,
doesn't it, inspector? And police whistles? If we were only to sound
one how the scene would change! You did not neglect any precautions,
did you, inspector?”
And while the jeering questions went on the grasping yellow fingers
were going on too, until the prisoners stood mother naked before their
tormentors, their bare limbs bound round and round with cords.
“So now we come to grips,” said the masked man, and this time Steadman
thought he caught something faintly familiar, and one question that
had troubled him of late was answered for ever. “I hope you'll not be
much inconvenienced by this return to a state of nature,” the man on
the platform went on. “I fear you may be rather cold, but it is
unavoidable under the circumstances, and it will not be for long. Then
I feel sure you will neither of you be cold any more. Now, now,
inspector!”
For a while John Steadman stood motionless, his short-sighted eyes
peering at that yellow-clad figure; the inspector was swearing big
strange oaths.
“You do look so funny, you know, inspector”—and this time Steadman
could almost have fancied there was a feminine echo in that vile
laughter—“and your language is too dreadful. But this outrage, as you
call it, had to be. Clothes are so identifiable, as I am sure you have
learnt in your wide experience, my dear inspector. But now this
conversation, interesting as it is, must end. And I think we must
silence that unruly member of yours, inspector!”
The silver bell tinkled sharply. In an instant those soft hands had
seized the two men and gags were thrust into their mouths, and tied
with cruel roughness. Then bandages were bound over their eyes and
rougher, harder hands held their pinioned arms on either side and
pulled them sideways.
Steadman felt certain they were being taken out by the door by which
they entered, and very carefully his trained legal mind was noting
down every slightest indication of the direction in which they were
being taken. A farewell laugh came from the platform.
“So this is really good-bye. I trust, I do trust that your poor bare
feet may not be hurt by the path along which you have to travel. But
in case some injury should be unavoidable let me assure you it will
not be for long, that much sooner than you probably anticipate the
pain will be over.”
Steadman could have fancied that there was something hysterical in
that last laugh. But he had not time to think of it, to speculate as
to the identity of the figure on the dais that the yellow domino and
the mask concealed. He was being hurried along at a rate that did not
give him time to raise his naked, shackled feet. They dragged
helplessly along the stone pavement, for, once they had left that
sinister yellow room, there were no carpets. Two or three times
Steadman felt wood and guessed they were being taken through rooms,
and several times for a few paces there would be oilcloth. Once his
knee was banged against something that he felt certain was the corner
of a wooden chair; once a splinter ran into his foot. It was evident
that either they were being taken in and out or that many of the
houses in that neighbourhood must have means of communication, and
must necessarily be in the occupation of members of the Yellow Gang.
At last there was a pause, a door was unlocked and they were pushed
inside a room with bare plank floor. They were propped up against the
wall; something was thrown on the boards; the bandage over Steadman's
eyes was pulled roughly off. A voice with a harsh, uncouth accent,
singularly unlike the soft purring voice that had spoken from the dais
in the Yellow Room, said abruptly:
“The Great Yellow Dog has sent you these two rugs. They will serve to
keep you warm. He regrets very much that you will be kept waiting. But
unfortunately it is low tide and the river is not up yet.”
Then the door was closed, they heard the key turn; the captives were
left alone in their prison.
Steadman's eyes, aching from the tight bandage, were full of water:
for a few minutes he could see nothing. He would have given worlds to
rub his eyes, but he could not move his arms one inch upwards.
However, as the mist before his eyes cleared he saw that they were
both propped up against a plain whitewashed wall, in a room that was
absolutely bare, except that a fur rug lay at his feet and another at
the feet of the inspector farther along.
Steadman could turn his head, almost the only movement that was free,
and he saw that the detective had fared worse at the hands of their
capturers than he had himself. Furnival's face was grazed on the
forehead and cheek. It was flecked with blood and slime. As Steadman
watched, his fellow-sufferer sank on the rug at his feet with a
muffled sound of utter exhaustion. Steadman was not inclined to give
up easily and, leaning there, he tried to work the knot of the string
that tied his gag, but in vain. The members of the Yellow Gang had
done their work thoroughly. He looked round the room. It was
absolutely bare of furniture and indescribably dirty. It was lighted
dimly by a small window set rather high and guarded by iron bars. As
Steadman's dazed faculties returned he became aware of a lapping sound
and realized that the river must be just outside. The full meaning of
that last message from the Yellow Dog dawned upon him now.
As Steadman gazed round the room and then at his exhausted companion,
the conviction forced itself upon him that, as far as all human
probability lay, their very moments were numbered. Try as he would he
could not free his hands. There appeared to be no possibility of
escape except by the door or window, and he had heard the door locked
and saw that it was of unusual stoutness, while the iron bars across
the window spoke for themselves. In his present helpless condition
what gleam of hope could there be?
He followed Furnival's example and dropped on the rug at his feet,
finding the fall unpleasantly hard even with the rug over the floor.
As he lay there trying to rest his aching bones, while his eyes
watched the particularly solid-looking door hopelessly, he became
aware of a faint, sliding, grating sound. With a sudden accession of
hope he glanced around him. The inspector, lying on his rug,
apparently heard nothing. For a few minutes—they seemed to him an
eternity—Steadman could see nothing. He was telling himself that the
noise he heard must be that of some mouse or rat gnawing in the
woodwork, when his eye caught a faint movement under the door. Hope
sprang up again as he watched.
Yes, there could be no mistake, something was moving! There was just a
narrow space under the door; had there been a carpet it would have
been useless, but, as it was, that sliding, scraping sound continued
and presently he saw that it was the blade of a knife that was coming
through, a short, sharp blade it looked like, and he guessed that it
was the handle that was proving the difficulty. Presently, however, it
was overcome, and with an apparently sharp push from behind knife and
handle both came through. Something white, a piece of paper, was
fastened to the latter. Steadman lay and gazed at it. The distance
between him and the door, short though it was, seemed, in his present
state, almost insurmountable, and yet in that knife and bit of paper
lay his only chance of life. And there was so little time! Not one
tiny second to be wasted. By some means he must get possession of the
knife.
The door was on the same side as that on which he was lying and the
distance from the edge of the rug to the knife was, as far as he could
judge, something like six or eight feet, more than double his own
height. Bound as he was he could move neither arms nor legs to help
himself. Common sense told him that the only way he could reach the
knife was by rolling towards it. And rolling would be no easy matter.
Still, it was not an impossibility and as long as he was on the rug
not particularly painful. But crossing the bare boards was a very
different proposition—dragging his naked feet inch by inch across the
roughened dirty surface was a terrible job.
More than once he told himself that he could not do it, that he must
lie still and give up. But John Steadman was nothing if not dogged. He
had not attained the position he had occupied at the Bar by giving way
under difficulties, and at last his task was accomplished. He lay just
in front of the door with the knife close to his side. But his
difficulties were by no means over yet. Unable as he was to move his
hands, how was he to cut the strong cords which bound him. Fortunately
for him his hands were not fastened separately, but his arms were tied
round his body tightly, the cord going round again and again. It was a
method very effective so long as the cord was intact, but Steadman saw
directly that, if he could cut it in one place, to free himself
altogether would be easy enough. The question was, how was the cord to
be cut in that one place? Steadman lay on the ground tied up so that
he could not even free one finger, and the knife lay close to him
indeed but with the blade flat on the ground.
He lay still for a moment, contemplating the situation. He saw at once
that his only hope was in the handle. At the juncture where the blade
entered it, the blade was, of course, raised a little from the ground.
Now if he could by any means push the knife along until he could rest
his arm on the handle, thus tipping the blade up, if only a trifle,
and work the cord against it, he might fray the cord through and thus
free himself. It was simple enough to recognize that that was what
ought to be done, however, and quite another matter to do it. Time
after time Steadman rolled over imagining that this time he must be on
the handle, only to find that he had inadvertently pushed it away.
With the perseverance of Bruce's spider he at last succeeded. Arms,
back and sides were grazed and bleeding, but the knife blade was at
least a quarter of an inch from the ground. To get the end of the cord
against it, to wriggle so that it was brought into contact with the
blade forcefully enough to make any impression upon it was anything
but easy, but it did not present the apparently insuperable obstacles
that he had successfully grappled with in reaching the door and
turning the knife round. Strand by strand the cord was conquered and
at last Steadman was free. Free, with bruised and bleeding skin and
stiffened limbs, and naked as he came into the world.
Escape, even now, did not look particularly easy; but the barrister
had not been successful so far to give up now. The first thing to do
was to free the inspector. Scrambling up from the sitting position to
which he had raised himself he found Furnival lying on his rug
regarding him with astonished eyes, and making vain attempts to
wriggle towards him. At the same moment his eye was caught by the
folded piece of paper which was attached to the knife handle by a
piece of string, and which he had noticed when he lay on his rug. He
caught it up in his hands and unfolded it. Across the inside was
scrawled a couple of lines of writing:
“The window looks straight on to the river, the bars across can be
moved upwards. Jump out into the water at once. It is your only
chance. If you delay it will be too late—from one who is grateful.”