"On the whole," I decided, "I have seen as much as I care to of these
proceedings. I will find my way back again and await your return,
Baroness."
The man laughed scornfully. No art of mine could conceal the scowl which
disfigured his face.
"Too late, Mr. Englishman," he said. "You know too much. Remain where
you are."
I looked down the muzzle of a particularly unpleasant-looking revolver,
which instinct told me the man at the other end would not hesitate to
use. At the same time I heard the sharp click of the door being closed
behind me.
"Quite unnecessary," I declared, waving my hand towards the revolver.
"If you wish me to stay, I am entirely at your service. In fact, to tell
you the truth," I went on, "I am beginning to feel a certain amount of
curiosity about this enterprise."
Sara's reputed brother laughed harshly.
"You'll have time to get over that," he said.
Warned by his tone, Sara stepped out of the shadows of the room.
"He is not to be hurt!" she exclaimed. "That was a promise."
There was silence. The room in which we were was unlit save by the
little points of fire from the electric torches carried by the Baroness
and her companion. There was something sinister in the sound of their
soft breathing against the background of deep and solemn stillness.
Suddenly a tongue of light flashed from Sara's own torch. I saw then
that the others were too much engrossed to be even considering my fate.
With a tape measure in his hand, the man was tapping certain places upon
the wall. Presently he made a mark with a pencil and turned around. His
face was livid with excitement.
"Nothing seems to have been touched here," he muttered.
"Nothing has been touched," the Baroness assented calmly. "Other rooms,
as you know, have been ransacked, the grounds have been dug up, and the
tower almost pulled to pieces. But here, where you sat in state and
pulled the legs out of the spiders' bodies and the souls out of your
poor human victims, well, no one has thought of looking here."
The man chuckled, but there was a certain malevolent uneasiness in his
expression as he stared at the speaker.
"My victims were not all unwilling, eh?" he demanded.
The Baroness had been feeling along the wall. She touched a switch, and
a dull glow of light shone through a dust-encrusted globe set in the
ceiling.
"There is still a connection," she said. "It is better so? You need have
no fear. The shutters are tightly closed. No one will know that human
beings have dared to penetrate into the spider's parlour."
I had my first comprehensive view of the room--a bare, official-looking
apartment, with a huge writing table near the window, a heap of empty
champagne bottles and cigar boxes in one corner. There was dust
everywhere. It seemed, indeed, as though the room might not have been
opened for many months.
"You need have no fear," the Baroness repeated. "The shutters are fast
closed. You can look around on the scene of your former triumphs. The
telephone wires have been cut. Nothing else has been altered."
They stood facing one another, the man and the woman. From my point of
vantage in the background, I was conscious of a subtle change in the
Baroness. The cold stolidity, almost woodenness of her deportment, had
gone. Her lips were parted a little, and there was something menacing in
the gleam of her white teeth. Her eyes held expression, expression which
I could not analyse. She seemed to bristle with sensation. The man who
faced her had become uneasy.
"We talk too much," he muttered. "It is enough for me that you have
obeyed my orders and left all here untouched."
"It is true," she acknowledged. "Searchers have almost wrecked this wing
of the chateau and destroyed my grounds, in search of your spoil, but
this bare little room--no! It seemed so harmless, so empty, and besides,
there were many who shuddered to come near it."
He busied himself once more with the wall. Suddenly he took a knife from
his pocket and cut down a great strip of the wall paper. A little cry of
triumph broke from his lips. His fingers seemed to feel a crack. He
pushed and tugged till the sweat ran down his face. Finally, with a
rumble, a sliding door opened to the extent of about a foot. He paused
to gain breath and turned back to the Baroness with a leer of triumph.
"Your treasure hunters were but simpletons," he scoffed. "They saw as
far as the end of their noses."
He seemed to become suddenly conscious that no one was looking at him.
We were all staring at that gradually widening aperture in the wall,
staring at the menacing figure which had unexpectedly appeared there.
The man on whose behalf we had embarked upon this expedition swung
abruptly around. His lips opened but no sound came. He stood shaking and
choking. Mr. Thomson, wiping the dust from his clothes, stepped into the
room.
"Excellently timed," he said, nodding pleasantly at me. "Count----"
The trapped man's recovery was amazing. I doubt whether Mr. Thomson,
quick though he was, would have escaped the bullet from that suddenly
upraised revolver, but for the Baroness. I have never before nor since
looked upon anything so marvellous as her swift action. She struck his
arm such a blow that we heard the cracking of the bone, caught him by
the shoulders as though he had been a boy, flung him on to the floor,
and was there with her hand upon his throat, and all the devils ever
born of a woman's hatred glaring out of her face as she leaned over him.
It took the three of us to drag her away while there was still a spark
of life in the man. When at last we succeeded, he was unconscious, and
the marks of her fingers were there, as though photographed on his
throat. Mr. Thomson raised a whistle to his lips and blew it.
"I think, perhaps," he remarked, "the police will be kinder."
* * * * *
The little supper party which we had grown accustomed to expect after
each period of utility to our chief took place on the following night
under somewhat unusual circumstances--in the saloon of the steamship
_Zeebrugge_, one of the new Dover and Ostend fleet. We were pitching
pretty heavily and facing a northwest gale, but it happened that we were
all pretty good sailors, and though the high seas came thundering
against the closed portholes, and the electric lights swung above our
heads, we were quite able to do justice to a very excellent repast.
There were so few passengers that the chief steward winked at our
smoking in a corner of the saloon, and over our last glass of wine our
host threw a little cautious light upon the meaning of our latest
adventure.
"The particularly unpleasant gentleman," he observed, "upon whom you
inflicted a likeness--a very excellent likeness--to Mr. Leonard Cotton,
was, as you have doubtless surmised, at one time known as the Count von
Hantzauel, whose notorious deeds in Brussels during the German
occupation are infamous throughout the world."
"I wouldn't have insulted Leonard to such an extent if I'd had the least
idea beforehand who he was going to turn out to be," I declared.
"I shall hate my own face more than ever," Leonard groaned.
Mr. Thomson smiled amiably.
"Von Hantzauel certainly seemed to have the gift," he observed, "of
making his name hated even amongst those who were personally strangers
to him. The Baroness Spens, as you may have surmised, was one of those
who, unfortunately for her, had been forced into a certain degree of
association with him. He made his headquarters in her house and sowed
the seeds of a hatred of which last night he reaped the harvest. Forgive
my somewhat confused metaphor. You follow me, I dare say."
"Why was he such an idiot as to come back?" Rose enquired.
"Because," Mr. Thomson explained, "it was the Baroness' wish. The
Baroness Spens is a very clever and unforgiving woman, and she has been
several years laying her plans for getting von Hantzauel back into
Brussels."
"But the inducement?" Rose persisted.
"Von Hantzauel," Thomson explained, "followed in the footsteps of his
illustrious chief. He was a collector of such trifles as jewellery,
money, and all manner of _objets d'arts_ of a small and portable
character. With the aid of a German smith whom he sent for when in
residence at Brussels, he constructed a very ingenious hiding place in
the chateau for his loot. When the reversal of fortunes came, he was one
of those pig-headed, obstinate asses who refused to believe in what was
coming, and he only escaped from Brussels by a miracle. Since then he
has used every argument to persuade the Baroness to bring his little
collection over the frontier to Holland. The Baroness played with him as
a cat might with a mouse. She declared that his hiding place was so
ingenious that even with the plan he had sent her she had failed to
discover it. Then she reminded him of the past and declared that the
treasure should not leave her house without a visit from him. Finally,
as you know, she succeeded. The visit was arranged for. The whole affair
called for a certain amount of diplomacy. The direct intervention of
the Belgian police would have meant the arrest of von Hantzauel on the
frontier. The affair had to be managed differently. The Baroness is an
old friend of mine and she sought my aid."
"In what capacity?" I asked quickly. "And what has become of the
treasure?"
Mr. Thomson smiled vaguely. He listened for a moment to the bump of the
sea against the portholes. Then he filled our glasses.
"An answer to those questions just now is scarcely possible," he
replied. "We will call them, if you please, Conundrum Number Three."