MICHAEL KNOWS FOR SURE
IT was that same voice that had brought Michael Brixan racing across the
garden to the postern gate. A car stood outside, its lights dimmed.
Standing by its bonnet was a frightened little brown man who had brought
the machine to the place.
“Where is your master?” asked Michael quickly.
The man pointed.
“He went that way,” he quavered. “There was a devil in the big
machine—it would not move when he stamped on the little pedal.”
Michael guessed what had happened. At the last moment, by one of those
queer mischances which haunt the just and the unjust, the engine had
failed him and he had fled on foot.
“Which way did he go?”
Again the man pointed.
“He ran,” he said simply.
Michael turned to the detective who was with him.
“Stay here: he may return. Arrest him immediately and put the irons on
him. He’s probably armed, and he may be suicidal; we can’t afford to
take any risks.”
He had been so often across what he had named the “Back Field” that he
could find his way blindfolded, and he ran at top speed till he came to
the stile and to the road. Sir Gregory was nowhere in sight. Fifty yards
along the road, the lights gleamed cheerily from an upper window in Mr.
Longvale’s house, and Michael bent his footsteps in that direction.
Still no sight of the man, and he turned through the gate and knocked at
the door, which was almost immediately opened by the old gentleman
himself. He wore a silken gown, tied with a sash about the middle, a
picture of comfort, Michael thought.
“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Sampson Longvale, peering out into the darkness.
“Why, bless my life, it’s Mr. Brixan, the officer of the law! Come in,
come in, sir.”
He opened the door wide and Michael passed into the sitting-room, with
its inevitable two candles, augmented now by a small silver reading-lamp
that burnt some sort of petrol vapour.
“No trouble at the Towers, I trust?” said Mr. Longvale anxiously.
“There was a little trouble,” said Michael carefully. “Have you by any
chance seen Sir Gregory Penne?”
The old man shook his head.
“I found the night rather too chilly for my usual garden ramble,” he
said, “so I’ve seen none of the exciting events which seem inevitably to
accompany the hours of darkness in these times. Has anything happened to
him?”
“I hope not,” said Michael quietly. “I hope, for everybody’s sake,
that—nothing has happened to him.”
He walked across and leant his elbows on the mantelpiece, looking up at
the painting above his head.
“Do you admire my relative?” beamed Mr. Longvale.
“I don’t know that I admire him. He was certainly a wonderfully handsome
old gentleman.”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head.
“You have read his memoirs?”
Michael nodded, and the old man did not seem in any way surprised.
“Yes, I have read what purport to be his memoirs,” said Michael quietly,
“but latter-day opinion is that they are not authentic.”
Mr. Longvale shrugged his shoulders.
“Personally, I believe every word of them,” he said. “My uncle was a man
of considerable education.”
It would have amazed Jack Knebworth to know that the man who had rushed
hotfoot from the tower in search of a possible murderer, was at that
moment calmly discussing biography; yet such was the incongruous,
unbelievable fact.
“I sometimes feel that you think too much about your uncle, Mr.
Longvale,” said Michael gently.
The old gentleman frowned.
“You mean——?”
“I mean that such a subject may become an obsession and a very unhealthy
obsession, and such hero-worship may lead a man to do things which no
sane man would do.”
Longvale looked at him in genuine astonishment.
“Can one do better than imitate the deeds of the great?” he asked.
“Not if your sense of values hasn’t got all tangled up, and you ascribe
to him virtues which are not virtues—unless duty is a virtue—and
confuse that which is great with that which is terrible.”
Michael turned and, resting his palms on the table, looked across to the
old man who confronted him.
“I want you to come with me into Chichester this evening.”
“Why?” The question was asked bluntly.
“Because I think you’re a sick man, that you ought to have care.”
The old man laughed and drew himself even more erect.
“Sick? I was never better in my life, my dear sir, never fitter, never
stronger!”
And he looked all that he said. His height, the breadth of his
shoulders, the healthy glow of his cheeks, all spoke of physical
fitness.
A long pause, and then:
“Where is Gregory Penne?” asked Michael, emphasizing every word.
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
The old man’s eyes met his without wavering.
“We were talking about my great-uncle. You know him, of course?” he
asked.
“I knew him the first time I saw his picture, and I thought I had
betrayed my knowledge, but apparently I did not. Your
great-uncle”—Michael spoke deliberately—“was Sanson, otherwise
Longval, hereditary executioner of France!”
Such a silence followed that the ticking of a distant clock sounded
distinctly.
“Your uncle has many achievements to his credit. He hanged three men on
a gallows sixty feet high, unless my memory is at fault. His hand struck
off the head of Louis of France and his consort Marie Antoinette.”
The look of pride in the old man’s face was startling. His eyes kindled,
he seemed to grow in height.
“By what fantastic freak of fate you come to have settled in England,
what queer kink of mind decided you secretly to carry on the profession
of Sanson and seek far and wide for poor, helpless wretches to destroy,
I do not know.”
Michael did not raise his voice, he spoke in a calm, conversational
tone; and in the same way did Longvale reply.
“Is it not better,” he said gently, “that a man should pass out of life
through no act of his own, than that he should commit the unpardonable
crime of self-murder? Have I not been a benefactor to men who dared not
take their own lives?”
“To Lawley Foss?” suggested Michael, his grave eyes fixed on the other.
“He was a traitor, a vulgar blackmailer, a man who sought to use the
knowledge which had accidentally come to him, to extract money from me.”
“Where is Gregory Penne?”
A slow smile dawned on the man’s face.
“You will not believe me? That is ungentle, sir! I have not seen Sir
Gregory.”
Michael pointed to the hearth, where a cigarette was still smouldering.
“There is that,” he said. “There are his muddy footprints on the carpet
of this room. There is the cry I heard. Where is he?”
Within reach of his hand was his heavy-calibred Browning. A move on the
old man’s part, and he would lie maimed on the ground. Michael was
dealing with a homicidal lunatic of the most dangerous type, and would
not hesitate to shoot.
But the old man showed no sign of antagonism. His voice was gentleness
itself. He seemed to feel and express a pride in crimes which, to his
brain, were not crimes at all.
“If you really wish me to go into Chichester with you to-night, of
course I will go,” he said. “You may be right in your own estimation,
even in the estimation of your superiors, but, in ending my work, you
are rendering a cruel disservice to miserable humanity, to serve which I
have spent thousands of pounds. But I bear no malice.”
He took a bottle from the long oaken buffet against the wall, selected
two glasses with scrupulous care, and filled them from the bottle.
“We will drink our mutual good health,” he said with his old courtesy,
and, lifting his glass to his lips, drank it with that show of enjoyment
with which the old-time lovers of wine marked their approval of rare
vintages.
“You’re not drinking?” he said in surprise.
“Somebody else has drunk.”
There was a glass half empty on the buffet: Michael saw it for the first
time.
“He did not seem to enjoy the wine.”
Mr. Longvale sighed.
“Very few people understand wine,” he said, dusting a speck from his
coat. Then, drawing a silk handkerchief from his pocket, he stooped and
dusted his boots daintily.
Michael was standing on a strip of hearth-rug in front of the fireplace,
his hand on his gun, tense but prepared for the moment of trial. Whence
the danger would come, what form it would take, he could not guess. But
danger was there—danger terrible and ruthless, emphasized rather than
relieved by the suavity of the old man’s tone—he felt in the creep of
his flesh.
“You see, my dear sir,” Longvale went on, still dusting his boots.
And then, before Michael could realize what had happened, he had grasped
the end of the rug on which the detective was standing and pulled it
with a quick jerk toward him. Before he could balance himself, Michael
had fallen with a crash to the floor, his head striking the oaken
panelling, his pistol sliding along the polished floor. In a flash, the
old man was on him, had flung him over on his face and dragged his hands
behind him. Michael tried to struggle, but he was as a child in that
powerful grip, placed at such a disadvantage as he was. He felt the
touch of cold steel on his wrists, there was a click, and, exerting all
his strength, he tried to pull his other hand away. But gradually,
slowly, it was forced back, and the second cuff snapped.
There were footsteps on the path outside the cottage. The old man
straightened himself to pull off his silken gown and wrapped it round
and round the detective’s head, and then a knock came at the door. One
glance to see that his prisoner was safe, and Longvale extinguished the
lamp, blew out one of the candles, and carried the other into the
passage. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and the Scotland Yard officer, who
was the caller, apologized for disturbing a man who had apparently been
brought down from his bedroom to answer the knock.
“Have you seen Mr. Brixan?”
“Mr. Brixan? Yes, he was here a few minutes ago. He went on to
Chichester.”
Michael heard the voices, but could not distinguish what was being said.
The silken wrapper about his head was suffocating him, and he was losing
his senses when the old man came back alone, unfastened the gown, and
put it on himself.
“If you make a noise I will sew your lips together,” he said, so
naturally and good-naturedly that it seemed impossible he would carry
his threat into execution. But Michael knew that he was giving chapter
and verse; he was threatening that which his ancestor had often
performed. That beautiful old man, nicknamed by the gallants of Louis’
court “Monsieur de Paris,” had broken and hanged and beheaded, but he
had also tortured men. There were smoke-blackened rooms in the old
Bastille where that venerable old hangman had performed nameless duties
without blenching.
“I am sorry in many ways that you must go on,” said the old man, with
genuine regret in his voice. “You are a young man for whom I have a
great deal of respect. The law to me is sacred, and its officers have an
especially privileged place in my affections.”
He pulled open a drawer of the buffet and took out a large serviette,
folded it with great care and fixed it tightly about Michael’s mouth.
Then he raised him up and sat him on a chair.
“If I were a young and agile man, I would have a jest which would have
pleased my uncle Charles Henry. I would fix your head on the top of the
gates of Scotland Yard! I’ve often examined the gates with that idea in
my mind. Not that I thought of you, but that some day providence might
send me a very high official, a Minister, even a Prime Minister. My
uncle, as you know, was privileged to destroy kings and leaders of
parties—Danton, Robespierre, every great leader save Murat. Danton was
the greatest of them all.”
There was an excellent reason why Michael should not answer. But he was
his own cool self again, and though his head was aching from the violent
knock it had received, his mind was clear. He was waiting now for the
next move, and suspected he would not be kept waiting long. What scenes
had this long dining-room witnessed! What moments of agony, mental and
physical! It was the very antechamber to death.
Here, then, Bhag must have been rendered momentarily unconscious.
Michael guessed the lure of drugged wine, that butyl chloride which was
part of the murderer’s equipment. But for once Longvale had misjudged
the strength of his prey. Bhag must have followed the brown folk to
Dower House—the man and woman whom the old man in his cunning had
spared.
Michael was soon to discover what was going to happen. The old man
opened the door of the buffet and took out a great steel hook, at the
end of which was a pulley. Reaching up, he slipped the end of the hook
into a steel bolt, fastened in one of the overhead beams. Michael had
noticed it before and wondered what purpose it served. He was now to
learn.
From the cupboard came a long coil of rope, one end of which was
threaded through the pulley and fastened dexterously under the
detective’s armpits. Stooping, Longvale lifted the carpet and rolled it
up, and then Michael saw that there was a small trap-door, which he
raised and laid back. Below he could see nothing, but there came to him
the sound of a man’s groaning.
“Now I think we can dispense with that, sir,” said Mr. Longvale, and
untied the serviette that covered the detective’s mouth.
This done, he pulled on the rope, seemingly without an effort, and
Michael swung in mid-air. It was uncomfortable; he had an absurd notion
that he looked a little ridiculous. The old man guided his feet through
the opening and gradually paid out the rope.
“Will you be good enough to tell me when you touch ground,” he asked,
“and I will come down to you?”
Looking up, Michael saw the square in the floor grow smaller and
smaller, and for an unconscionable time he swung and swayed and turned
in mid-air. He thought he was not moving, and then, without warning, his
feet touched ground and he called out.
“Are you all right?” said Mr. Longvale pleasantly. “Do you mind stepping
a few paces on one side? I am dropping the rope, and it may hurt you.”
Michael gasped, but carried out instructions, and presently he heard the
swish of the falling line and the smack of it as it struck the ground.
Then the trap-door closed, and there was no other sound but the groaning
near at hand.
“Is that you, Penne?”
“Who is it?” asked the other in a frightened voice. “Is it you, Brixan?
Where are we? What has happened? How did I get here? That old devil gave
me a drink. I ran out—and that’s all I remember. I went to borrow his
car. My God, I’m scared! The magneto of mine went wrong.”
“Did you shout when you ran from the house?”
“I think I did. I felt this infernal poison taking effect and dashed
out—I don’t remember. Where are you, Brixan? The police will get us out
of this, won’t they?”
“Alive, I hope,” said Michael grimly, and he heard the man’s frightened
sob, and was sorry he had spoken.
“What is he? Who is he? Are these the caves? I’ve heard about them. It
smells horribly earthy, doesn’t it? Can you see anything?”
“I thought I saw a light just then,” said Michael, “but my eyes are
playing tricks.” And then: “Where is Adele Leamington?”
“God knows,” said the other. He was shivering, and Michael heard the
sound of his chattering teeth. “I never saw her again. I was afraid Bhag
would go after her. But he wouldn’t hurt her—he is a queer devil. I
wish he was here now.”
“I wish somebody was here,” said Michael sincerely.
He was trying to work his wrists loose of the handcuffs, though he knew
that bare-handed he stood very little chance against the old man. He had
lost his pistol, and although, in the inside of his waistcoat, there
remained intact the long, razor-sharp knife that had cleared him out of
many a Continental scrape, the one infallible weapon when firearms
failed, he knew that he would have no opportunity for its employment.
Sitting down, he tried to perform a trick that he had seen on a stage in
Berlin—the trick of bringing his legs through his manacled hands and so
getting his hands in front of him, but he struggled without avail. There
came the sound of a door opening, and Mr. Longvale’s voice.
“I won’t keep you a moment,” he said. He carried a lantern in his hand
that swung as he walked, and seemed to intensify the gloom. “I don’t
like my patients to catch cold.”
His laughter came echoing back from the vaulted roof of the cave,
intensified hideously. Stopping, he struck a match and a brilliant light
appeared. It was a vapour lamp fixed on a shelf of rock. Presently he
lit another, and then a third and a fourth, and, in the white, unwinking
light, every object in the cave stood out with startling distinctness.
Michael saw the scarlet thing that stood in the cave’s centre, and,
hardened as he was, and prepared for that fearsome sight, he shuddered.
It was a guillotine!