A PISTOL AND AN OPEN GRAVE
Eleven o'clock struck. In that upper room at The Elms, where he had left
a feather bed, Loide lay smoking and thinking.
He was disappointed at the ill success of his scheme.
His talk of starving out the detective had been all bluff--starvation
was a process which would fill too much time.
It would be three days before the man with the warrant touched English
shores. Before that time expired, Loide must be away.
But he wanted to flit with the money--the nineteen thousand pounds.
A hundred and one ideas floated through his mind.
Would it be any use trying to bribe the man in the cellar? His life
threatened, he would be justified in giving information as to the
hiding-place of the notes.
What if he promised to give him a share of the spoil in untraceable
gold? But he had not much faith in that idea.
He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and replaced the latter in its
pistol-shaped case--and that very act gave him an idea.
He had not been firm enough. He had not frightened the detective--that
was evident from the man's silence.
Despite the rats and the darkness, he was holding on. Loide felt that he
should have played his cards with a firmer hand.
He handled the pipe case--in the dimly lit room it looked remarkably
like a pistol. He would play it for that.
Another detail entered his brain, and the humor of it rather appealed to
him.
It was grim humor. It pertained to the digging of a grave in front of
the barred window.
With the smile on his lips, pipe in his pocket, and lantern in hand, he
descended the stairs. He walked slowly along the passage, and stepped
across the trap.
Not a sound from the man below. The lawyer bit his lips in vexation.
He turned back and lifted the trap. The light from his lantern showed
Gerald lying on the beds.
"Sleeping pretty comfortably?" queried the lawyer genially.
"Sleep! What do you think I'm made of?"
"Flesh and blood just at present. So you can't sleep, eh? We will alter
that. You shall sleep soundly enough within the next hour, I promise
you."
He let the flap fall as he spoke, and walked away in the direction of
the back door.
Gerald heard the unfastening of the bolts, the descent of the stone
steps into the garden, and presently a glimmer of light from the lantern
showed through the window on to the cellar wall.
Springing to his feet, he jumped up to the bars and clung to them.
He could see Loide walking down the garden path, and saw him enter a
sort of shed. Soon he came out, carrying a spade.
With this he walked in the direction of the window, and then, putting
down the lantern on the ground, with the edge of the spade marked out a
space on the earth, about six feet long and two feet wide.
The lawyer then started digging. He never turned his head to note if
there was a face at the window, but from the corner of his eye he saw it
and chuckled.
Could he have seen Gerald's appearance, he would have been still better
pleased, for the eyes in the face at the window were protruding, and
the hair on the head was almost on end. The shape of that hole the
lawyer was digging caused the fright--it was the shape of a grave.
Steadily the lawyer went on with his task. He was really digging in the
middle of a flower-bed, so that his work was not very difficult.
The hole got deeper and deeper, the digger standing in it and shoveling
out the earth, and all the while the white face remained glued to the
bars of the window.
As midnight struck, the task was finished. The lawyer stuck the spade
into the earth, wiped his brow, put on his coat, and picked up his
lantern.
As he mounted the steps leading into the house, Gerald dropped to the
floor of the cellar, and waited, dreading--he knew not what.
The flap was flung up, and the lawyer bent over. In one hand Gerald
could see a pistol!
This was laid down beside the lantern, and coolly squatting on the floor
with folded arms, the lawyer addressed his prisoner.
"You have been down there some little time, policeman, and I dare say
you have been thinking of the best way to get out--I guess that's what
you would think."
"Yes, I have thought a little of it."
"Has anything struck you? I am asking you for information. I mean, how
it would be possible for me to get you out through this hole."
"If you mean to let me out"--his heart gave a great leap as he
spoke--"surely it would be better to open the door."
"No," said the lawyer, shaking his head. "I am not so young as I was.
Age robs one of one's strength. Besides, you are a big, heavy fellow--by
reason of that I have allowed a good two feet wide--I should never be
able to drag you up the cellar stairs--I could drag you down all right."
"I could walk," said Gerald hoarsely, full of horrible thoughts
engendered of the lawyer's last speech; "you wouldn't need to assist
me."
Again the lawyer shook his head.
"I am afraid you don't quite understand the position," he said. "You
wouldn't be able to help me. When you leave this cellar you will be
beyond help."
"What do you mean?"
It was a startled, hoarse voice which came up from the cellar.
The lawyer picked up the pipe case, and then put it down again. It was
an effective bit of byplay.
"You see, my dear fellow, I'm as sorry as sorry can be--but necessity
knows no law. I tried to arrange things comfortably. You'll admit I was
thoughtful; I did not even want to hurt a limb. I even took the trouble
to break your fall with feather beds."
"Yes."
"But you didn't respond. I wanted those notes--now I have given up any
idea of your telling me where they are. I thought I should cash them,
and plant a couple of thousand pounds in gold where you would be able to
find them later on. Your imprisonment here would have given you all the
excuse you would have needed. But you did not clinch on to the idea."
"It was--it is--impossible."
"Just so, just so," replied the lawyer soothingly. "I admire that trait
in any man's character; and seeing you're in the position you are,
facing your own grave, why, damme, it positively borders on heroism."
"Heroism?"
"That's it, that's the word. I'm full of unqualified praise. But, as I
said, necessity knows no law. As I said to myself when I loaded this
pistol"--byplay again--"'it's a hundred pities to make holes in the
man's head, and then plant him in the back garden,' but what would you
do? There's no help for it."
"No--help--for--it?"
"Ah, it strikes you so, does it? You see you could have earned your
freedom and a couple of thousand pounds, and you prefer going over to
the great majority."
"You don't mean to tell me that you are going to murder me in cold
blood?"
"Afraid so, dear boy, afraid so. What's troubling me is, how the devil I
am to get you out into the garden. Frankly, I don't want to leave you
here to be nibbled by the rats--skeletons are such horrible things, and
I'm a sensitive sort of beast when you come to know me. I have dug a
nice comfortable little grave outside, and you'll be as snug as can be
in it."
"You--murderer!"
"Just so, just so. I confessed as much to you once when you had me in
your power, didn't I? The positions are reversed now you are in my
power, but you don't make any confession of the whereabouts of these
notes."
"I cannot."
"Just so, just so. As I have said before, it's heroism--beautiful
heroism. I'll have to take my chance of dragging you up the cellar
stairs, I suppose. There's no last sort of wish or request you have to
make, have you"--byplay again--"before I put a bullet in your brain?"