THE MARK ON THE WINDOW
THE Thing was twittering at her, soft, bird-like noises, and she saw the
flash of its white teeth in the darkness. It was not pulling, it was
simply holding, one hand gripping the tendrils of the ivy up which it
had climbed, the other hand firmly about her wrist. Again it twittered
and pulled. She drew back, but she might as well have tried to draw back
from a moving piston rod. A great, hairy leg was suddenly flung over the
sill; the second hand came up and covered her face.
The sound of her scream was deadened in the hairy paw, but somebody
heard it. From the ground below came a flash of fire and the deafening
‘tang!’ of a pistol exploding. A bullet zipped and crashed amongst the
ivy, striking the brickwork, and she heard the whirr of the ricochet.
Instantly the great monkey released his hold and dropped down out of
sight. Half swooning, she dropped upon the window-sill, incapable of
movement. And then she saw a figure come out of the shadow of the laurel
bush, and instantly recognized the midnight prowler. It was Michael
Brixan.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in a low voice.
She could only shake her head, for speech was denied her.
“I didn’t hit him, did I?”
With an effort she found a husk of a voice in her dry throat.
“No, I don’t think so. He dropped.”
Michael had pulled an electric torch from his pocket and was searching
the ground.
“No sign of blood. He was rather difficult to hit—I was afraid of
hurting you, too.”
A window had been thrown up and Jack Knebworth’s voice bawled into the
night.
“What’s the shooting? Is that you, Brixan?”
“It is I. Come down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
The noise did not seem to have aroused Mr. Longvale, or, for the matter
of that, any other member of the party; and when Knebworth reached the
garden, he found no other audience than Mike Brixan.
In a few words Michael told him what he had seen.
“The monkey belongs to friend Penne,” he said. “I saw it this morning.”
“What do you think—that he was prowling round and saw the open window?”
Michael shook his head.
“No,” he said quietly, “he came with one intention and purpose, which
was to carry off your leading lady. That sounds highly dramatic and
improbable, and that is the opinion I have formed. This ape, I tell you,
is nearly human.”
“But he wouldn’t know the girl. He has never seen her.”
“He could smell her,” said Mike instantly. “She lost a pair of gloves at
the Towers to-day, and it’s any odds that they were stolen by the noble
Gregory Penne, so that he might introduce to Bhag an unfailing scent.”
“I can’t believe it; it is incredible! Though I’ll admit,” said Jack
Knebworth thoughtfully, “that these big apes do some amazing things. Did
you shoot him?”
“No, sir, I didn’t shoot him, but I can tell you this, that he’s an
animal that’s been gunned before, or he’d have come for me, in which
case he would have been now fairly dead.”
“What were you doing round here, anyway?”
“Just watching out,” said the other carelessly. “The earnest detective
has so many things on his conscience that he can’t sleep like ordinary
people. Speaking for myself, I never intended leaving the garden,
because I expected Brer Bhag. Who is that?”
The door opened, and a slim figure, wrapped in a dressing-gown, came out
into the open.
“Young lady, you’re going to catch a very fine cold,” warned Knebworth.
“What happened to you?”
“I don’t know.” She was feeling her wrist tenderly. “I heard something
and went to the window, and then this horrible thing caught hold of me.
What was it, Mr. Brixan?”
“It was nothing more alarming than a monkey,” said he with affected
unconcern. “I’m sorry you were so scared. I guess the shooting worried
you more?”
“You don’t guess anything of the kind. You know it didn’t. Oh, it was
horrible, horrible!” She covered her face with her trembling hands.
Old Jack grunted.
“I think she’s right, too. You owe something to our friend here, young
lady. Apparently he was expecting this visit and watched in the garden.”
“You expected it?” she gasped.
“Mr. Knebworth has made rather more of the part I played than can be
justified,” said Mike. “And if you think that this is a hero’s natural
modesty, you’re mistaken. I did expect this gentleman, because he’d been
seen in the fields by Mr. Longvale. And you thought you saw him
yourself, didn’t you, Knebworth?”
Jack nodded.
“In fact, we all saw him,” Mike went on, “and as I didn’t like the idea
of a coming star (if I may express that pious hope) being subjected to
the annoyance of visiting monkeys, I sat up in the garden.”
With a sudden impulsive gesture she put out her little hand, and Michael
took it.
“Thank you, Mr. Brixan,” she said. “I have been wrong about you.”
“Who isn’t?” asked Mike with an extravagant shrug.
She returned to her room, and this time she closed her window. Once,
before she went finally to sleep, she rose and, peeping through the
curtains, saw the little glowing point of the watcher’s cigar, and went
back to bed comforted, to sleep as if it were only for a few minutes
before Foss began knocking on the doors to waken the company.
The literary man himself was the first down. The garden was beginning to
show palely in the dawn light, and he bade Michael Brixan a gruff good
morning.
“Good morning to you,” said Michael. “By the way, Mr. Foss, you stayed
behind at Griff Towers yesterday to see our friend Penne?”
“That’s no business of yours,” growled the man, and would have passed
on, but Michael stood squarely in his path.
“There is one thing which is a business of mine, and that is to ask you
why that little white disc appears on Miss Leamington’s window?”
He pointed up to the white circle that the girl had seen the night
before.
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Foss with rising anger, but there
was also a note of fear in his voice.
“If you don’t know, who will? Because I saw you put it there, just
before it got dark last night.”
“Well, if you must know,” said the man, “it was to mark a vision
boundary for the camera-man.”
That sounded a plausible excuse. Michael had seen Jack Knebworth marking
out boundaries in the garden to ensure the actors being in the picture.
At the first opportunity, when Knebworth appeared he questioned him on
the subject.
“No, I gave no instructions to put up marks. Where is it?”
Michael showed him.
“I wouldn’t have a mark up there, anyway, should I? Right in the middle
of a window! What do you make of it?”
“I think Foss put it there with one object. The window was marked at
Gregory’s request.”
“But why?” asked Knebworth, staring.
“To show Bhag Adele Leamington’s room. That’s why,” said Michael, and he
was confident that his view was an accurate one.