A NARROW ESCAPE
MICHAEL BRIXAN braced 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:
“Is your trouble of mind or body incurable? Do you hesitate on
the brink of the abyss? Does courage fail you? Write to
Benefactor, Box——”
“What is this?” asked Michael, frowning.
“It was found in the pocket of an old waistcoat that Elmer was wearing a
few days before he disappeared. Mrs. Elmer was going through his clothes
with the idea of selling them, when she found this. It appeared in the
_Morning Telegram_ of the fourteenth—that is to say, three or four days
before Elmer vanished. The box number at the end, of course, is the box
number of the newspaper to which replies were sent. There is a record
that four letters reached the ‘Benefactor,’ who, so far as we have been
able to discover, had these particular letters readdressed to a little
shop in Stibbington Street, London. Here they were collected by a woman,
evidently of the working class, and probably a charlady from the
appearance which has been circulated. Beyond that, no further trace has
been obtainable. Similar advertisements have been found by search in
other newspapers, but in these cases the letters were sent to an
accommodation address in South London, where apparently the same woman
collected them. With every new advertisement the advertiser changes his
address. She was a stranger to each neighbourhood, by the way; and from
what shopkeepers have told Scotland Yard, she seemed to be a little off
her head, for she was in the habit of mumbling and talking to herself.
Her name is Stivins—at least, that is the name she always gave. And the
notes she brought were usually signed ‘Mark’—that is to say, the notes
authorizing the shopkeepers to hand the letters to her. That she is a
native of London there is no doubt, but so far the police have not
trailed her.”
“And suppose they do?” asked Michael. “Do you connect the advertisement
with the murders?”
“We do and we do not,” replied the other. “I merely point out that this
advertisement is a peculiar one, and in all the circumstances a little
suspicious. Now what is the theory you wanted to give me?”
For an hour Michael spoke, interrupted at intervals by questions which
Staines put to him.
“It is a queer idea, almost a fantastical one,” said Staines gravely,
“but if you feel that you’ve got so much as one thread in your hands, go
right ahead. To tell you the truth,” in a burst of confidence, “I had a
horrible feeling that you had fallen down; and since I do not want our
department to be a source of amusement to Scotland Yard, I thought I’d
come along and give you the result of my own private investigations. I
agree with you,” he said later, as they sat at breakfast, “that you want
to go very, very carefully. It is a delicate business. You haven’t told
the Scotland Yard men your suspicions?”
Michael shook his head.
“Then don’t,” said the other emphatically. “They’d be certain to go
along and put the person you suspect under arrest, and probably that
would destroy the evidence that would convict. You say you have made a
search of the house?”
“Not a search: I’ve made a rough inspection.”
“Are there cellars?”
“I should imagine so,” said Michael. “That type of house usually has.”
“Outhouses where——?”
Michael shook his head.
“There are none, so far as I have been able to see.”
Michael walked down to the railway station with his chief, who told him
he was leaving in a much more cheerful frame of mind than he had been in
when he arrived.
“There’s one warning I’ll give to you, Mike,” said Staines as the train
was about to pull out of the station, “and it is to watch out for
yourself! You’re dealing with a ruthless and ingenious man. For heaven’s
sake do not underrate his intelligence. I don’t want to wake up one
morning to learn that you have vanished from the ken of man.”