THE SEARCH
“YES, it’s me,” said Michael bitterly. “All right, officer, you needn’t
wait. Jack, I’ll come up to the house to get this make-up off.”
“For the Lord’s sake!” breathed Knebworth, staring at the detective.
“I’ve never seen a man made up so well that he deceived me.”
“I’ve deceived everybody, including myself,” said Michael savagely. “I
thought I’d caught him with a dummy letter, instead of which the devil
caught me.”
“What was it?”
“Ammonia, I think—a concentrated solution thereof,” said Michael.
It was twenty minutes before he emerged from the bathroom, his eyes
inflamed but otherwise his old self.
“I wanted to trap him in my own way, but he was too smart for me.”
“Do you know who he is?”
Michael nodded.
“Oh, yes, I know,” he said. “I’ve got a special force of men here,
waiting to effect the arrest, but I didn’t want a fuss, and I certainly
did not want bloodshed. And bloodshed there will be, unless I am
mistaken.”
“I didn’t seem to recognize the car, and I know most of the machines in
this city,” said Jack.
“It is a new one, used only for these midnight adventures of the
Head-Hunter. He probably garages it away from his house. You asked me if
I’d have something to eat just now, and I lied and told you I was living
on the fat of the land. Give me some food, for the love of heaven!”
Jack went into the larder and brought out some cold meat, brewed a pot
of coffee, and sat in silence, watching the famished detective dispose
of the viands.
“I feel a man now,” said Michael as he finished, “for I’d had nothing to
eat except a biscuit since eleven this morning. By the way, our friend
Stella Mendoza is staying at Griff Towers, and I’m afraid I rather
scared her. I happened to be nosing round there an hour ago, to make
absolutely sure of my bird, and I looked in upon her—to her alarm!”
There came a sharp rap at the door, and Jack Knebworth looked up.
“Who’s that at this time of night?” he asked.
“Probably the policeman,” said Michael.
Knebworth opened the door and found a short, stout, middle-aged woman
standing on the doorstep with a roll of paper in her hand.
“Is this Mr. Knebworth’s?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Jack.
“I’ve brought the play that Miss Leamington left behind. She asked me to
bring it to you.”
Knebworth took the roll of paper and slipped off the elastic band which
encircled it. It was the manuscript of “Roselle.”
“Why have you brought this?” he asked.
“She told me to bring it up if I found it.”
“Very good,” said Jack, mystified. “Thank you very much.”
He closed the door on the woman and went back to the dining-room.
“Adele has sent up her script. What’s wrong, I wonder?”
“Who brought it?” asked Michael, interested.
“Her landlady, I suppose,” said Jack, describing the woman.
“Yes, that’s she. Adele is not turning in her part?”
Jack shook his head.
“That wouldn’t be likely.”
Michael was puzzled.
“What the dickens does it mean? What did the woman say?”
“She said that Miss Leamington wanted her to bring up the manuscript if
she found it.”
Michael was out of the house in a second, and, racing down the street,
overtook the woman.
“Will you come back, please?” he said, and escorted her to the house
again. “Just tell Mr. Knebworth why Miss Leamington sent this
manuscript, and what you mean by having ‘forgotten’ it.”
“Why, when she came up to you——” began the woman.
“Came up to me?” cried Knebworth quickly.
“A gentleman from the studio called for her, and said you wanted to see
her,” said the landlady. “Miss Leamington was just going to bed, but I
took up the message. He said you wanted to see her about the play, and
asked her to bring the manuscript. She had mislaid it somewhere and was
in a great state about it, so I told her to go on, as you were in a
hurry, and I’d bring it up. At least, she asked me to do that.”
“What sort of a gentleman was it who called?”
“A rather stout gentleman. He wasn’t exactly a gentleman, he was a
chauffeur. As a matter of fact, I thought he’d been drinking, though I
didn’t want to alarm Miss Leamington by telling her so.”
“And then what happened?” asked Michael quickly.
“She came down and got in the car. The chauffeur was already in.”
“A closed car, I suppose?”
The woman nodded.
“And then they drove off? What time was this?”
“Just after half-past ten. I remember, because I heard the church clock
strike just before the car drove up.”
Michael was cool now. His voice scarcely rose above a whisper.
“Twenty-five past eleven,” he said, looking at his watch. “You’ve been a
long time coming.”
“I couldn’t find the paper, sir. It was under Miss Leamington’s pillow.
Isn’t she here?”
“No, she’s not here,” said Michael quietly. “Thank you very much; I
won’t keep you. Will you wait for me at the police station?”
He went upstairs and put on his coat.
“Where do you think she is?” asked Jack.
“She is at Griff Towers,” replied the other, “and whether Gregory Penne
lives or dies this night depends entirely upon the treatment that Adele
has received at his hands.”
At the police station he found the landlady, a little frightened, more
than a little tearful.
“What was Miss Leamington wearing when she went out?”
“Her blue cloak, sir,” whimpered the woman, “that pretty blue cloak she
always wore.”
Scotland Yard men were at the station, and it was a heavily loaded car
that ran out to Chichester—too heavy for Michael, in a fever of
impatience, for the weight of its human cargo checked its speed, and
every second was precious. At last, after an eternity of time, the big
car swung into the drive. Michael did not stop to waken the
lodge-keeper, but smashed the frail gates open with the buffers of his
machine, mounted the slope, crossing the gravel parade, and halted.
There was no need to ring the bell: the door was wide open, and, at the
head of his party, Mike Brixan dashed through the deserted hall, along
the corridor into Gregory’s library. One light burnt, offering a feeble
illumination, but the room was empty. With rapid strides he crossed to
the desk and turned the switch. Bhag’s den opened, but Bhag too was an
absentee.
He pressed the bell by the side of the fireplace, and almost immediately
the brown-faced servitor whom he had seen before came trembling into the
room.
“Where is your master?” asked Michael in Dutch.
The man shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he replied, but instinctively he looked up to the
ceiling.
“Show me the way.”
They went back to the hall, up the broad stairway on to the first floor.
Along a corridor, hung with swords, as was its fellow below, he reached
another open door—the great dance hall where Gregory Penne had held
revel that evening. There was nobody in sight, and Michael came out into
the hall. As he did so, he was aware of a frantic tapping at one of the
doors in the corridor. The key was in the lock: he turned it and flung
the door wide open, and Stella Mendoza, white as death, staggered out.
“Where is Adele?” she gasped.
“I want to ask you that,” said Michael sternly. “Where is she?”
The girl shook her head helplessly, strove to speak, and then collapsed
in a swoon.
He did not wait for her to recover, but continued his search. From room
to room he went, but there was no sign of Adele or the brutal owner of
Griff Towers. He searched the library again, and passed through into the
little drawing-room, where a table was laid for two. The cloth was wet
with spilt wine; one glass was half empty—but the two for whom the
table was laid had vanished. They must have gone out of the front
door—whither?
He was standing tense, his mind concentrated upon a problem that was
more vital to him than life itself, when he heard a sound that came from
the direction of Bhag’s den. And then there appeared in the doorway the
monstrous ape himself. He was bleeding from a wound in the shoulder; the
blood fell drip-drip-drip as he stood, clutching in his two great hands
something that seemed like a bundle of rags. As Michael looked, the room
rocked before his eyes.
The tattered, stained garment that Bhag held was the cloak that Adele
Leamington had worn!
For a second Bhag glared at the man who he knew was his enemy, and then,
dropping the cloak, he shrank back toward his quarters, his teeth bared.
Three times Michael’s automatic spat, and the great, man-like thing
disappeared in a flash—and the door closed with a click.
Knebworth had been a witness of the scene. It was he who ran forward and
picked up the cloak that the ape had dropped.
“Yes, that was hers,” he said huskily, and a horrible thought chilled
him.
Michael had opened the door of the den, and, pistol in hand, dashed
through the opening. Knebworth dared not follow. He stood petrified,
waiting, and then Michael reappeared.
“There’s nothing here,” he said.
“Nothing?” asked Jack Knebworth in a whisper. “Thank God!”
“Bhag has gone—I think I may have hit him; there is a trail of blood,
but I may not be responsible for that. He had been shot recently,” he
pointed to stains on the floor. “He wasn’t shot when I saw him last.”
“Have you seen him before to-night?”
Michael nodded.
“For three nights he has been haunting Longvale’s house.”
“Longvale’s!”
Where was Adele? That was the one dominant question, the one thought
uppermost in Michael Brixan’s mind. And where was the baronet? What was
the meaning of that open door? None of the servants could tell him, and
for some reason he saw that they were speaking the truth. Only Penne and
the girl—and this great ape—knew, unless——
He hurried back to where he had left a detective trying to revive the
unconscious Stella Mendoza.
“She has passed from one fainting fit to another,” said the officer. “I
can get nothing out of her except that once she said ‘Kill him, Adele.’”
“Then she has seen her!” said Michael.
One of the officers he had left outside to watch the building had a
report to make. He had seen a dark figure climbing the wall and
disappear apparently through the solid brickwork. A few minutes later it
had come out again.
“That was Bhag,” said Michael. “I knew he was not here when we arrived.
He must have come in through the opening while we were upstairs.”
The car that had carried Adele had been found. It was Stella’s, and at
first Michael suspected that the girl was a party to the abduction. He
learnt afterwards that, whilst the woman’s chauffeur had been in the
kitchen, virtually a prisoner, Penne himself had driven the car to the
girl’s house, and it was the sight of the machine, which she knew
belonged to Stella, that had lulled any suspicions she may have had.
Michael was in a condition bordering upon frenzy. The Head-Hunter and
his capture was insignificant compared with the safety of the girl.
“If I don’t find her I shall go mad,” he said.
Jack Knebworth had opened his lips to answer when there came a startling
interruption. Borne on the still night air came a scream of agony which
turned the director’s blood to ice.
“Help, help!”
Shrill as was the cry, Michael knew that it was the voice of a man, and
knew that that man was Gregory Penne!