THE STRONG-ROOM
I wonder how often a sense of humour has saved a man from desperation?
Perhaps only the Easterns have thoroughly appreciated that divine gift.
I have interpolated the adventure of Inspector Bristol in order that
the sequence of my story be not broken; actually I did not learn it
until later, but when, on the following day, the whole of the facts
came into my possession, I laughed and was glad that I could laugh, for
laughter has saved many a man from madness.
Certainly the Fates were playing with us, for at a time very nearly
corresponding with that when Bristol found himself bound and helpless
in Bank Chambers I awoke to find myself tied hand and foot to my own
bed! Nothing but the haziest recollections came to me at first, nothing
but dim memories of the awful being who had lured me there; for I
perceived now that all the messages proceeded, not from Bristol, but
from Hassan of Aleppo! I had been a fool, and I was reaping the fruits
of my folly. Could I have known that almost within pistol shot of me
the Inspector was trussed up as helpless as I, then indeed my situation
must have become unbearable, since upon him I relied for my speedy
release.
My ankles were firmly lashed to the rails at the foot of my bed; each
of my wrists was tied back to a bedpost. I ached in every limb and my
head burned feverishly, which latter symptom I ascribed to the powerful
drug which had been expelled into my face by the uncanny weapon carried
by Hassan of Aleppo. I reflected bitterly how, having transferred my
quarters to the Astoria, I could not well hope for any visitor to my
chambers; and even the event of such a visitor had been foreseen and
provided against by the cunning lord of the Hashishin. A gag, of the
type which Dumas has described in “Twenty Years After,” the poire
d’angoisse, was wedged firmly into my mouth, so that only by preserving
the utmost composure could I breathe. I was bathed in cold
perspiration. So I lay listening to the familiar sounds without and
reflecting that it was quite possible so to lie, undisturbed, and to
die alone, my presence there wholly unsuspected!
Once, toward dusk, my phone bell rang, and my state of mind became
agonizing. It was maddening to think that someone, a friend, was
virtually within reach of me, yet actually as far removed as if an
ocean divided us! I tasted the hellish torments of Tantalus. I cursed
fate, heaven, everything; I prayed; I sank into bottomless depths of
despair and rose to dizzy pinnacles of hope, when a footstep sounded on
the landing and a thousand wild possibilities, vague possibilities of
rescue, poured into my mind.
The visitor hesitated, apparently outside my door; and a change, as
sudden as lightning out of a cloud, transformed my errant fancies. A
gruesome conviction seized me, as irrational as the hope which it
displayed, that this was one of the Hashishin—an apish yellow dwarf, a
strangler, the awful Hassan himself!
The footsteps receded down the stairs. And my thoughts reverted into
the old channels of dull despair.
I weighed the chances of Bristol’s seeking me there; and, eager as I
was to give them substance, found them but airy—ultimately was forced
to admit them to be nil.
So I lay, whilst only a few hundred yards from me a singular scene was
being enacted. Bristol, a prisoner as helpless as myself, watched the
concluding business of the day being conducted in the bank beneath him;
he watched the lift descend to the strongroom—the spying apparatus
being slightly adjusted in some way; he saw the clerks hastening to
finish their work in the outer office, and as he watched, absorbed by
the novelty of the situation, he almost forgot the pain and discomfort
which he suffered...
“This little peep-show of ours has been real useful,” Dexter confided
out of the darkness. “I got an impression of the key of the strongroom
door a week ago, and Carneta got one of the keys of the safe only this
morning, when she lodged her box of jewellery with the bank! I was at
work on that key when you interrupted me, and as by means of this
useful apparatus I have learnt the combination, you ought to see some
fun in the next few hours!”
Bristol repressed a groan, for the prospect of remaining in that
position was thus brought keenly home to him.
The bank staff left the premises one by one until only a solitary clerk
worked on at a back desk. His task completed, he, too, took his
departure and the bank messenger commenced his nightly duty of sweeping
up the offices. It was then that excitement like an anaesthetic dulled
the detective’s pain—indeed, he forgot his aching body and became
merely a watchful intelligence.
So intent had he become upon the picture before him that he had not
noticed the fact that he was alone in the office of the Congo Fibre
Company. Now he realized it from the absolute silence about him, and
from another circumstance.
The spying apparatus had been left focussed, and on to the screen
beneath his eyes, bending low behind the desks and creeping,
Indian-like, around, toward the head of the stair which communicated
with the strongroom and the apartment used by the messenger, came the
alert figure of Earl Dexter!
It may be a surprise to some people to learn that at any time in the
day the door of a bank, unguarded, should be left open, when only a
solitary messenger is within the premises; yet for a few minutes at
least each evening this happens at more than one City bank, where one
of the duties of the resident messenger is to clean the outer steps.
Dexter had taken advantage of the man’s absence below in quest of
scrubbing material to enter the bank through the open door.
Watching, breathless, and utterly forgetful of his own position,
Bristol saw the messenger, all unconscious of danger, come up the
stairs carrying a pail and broom. As his head reached the level of the
railings The Stetson Man neatly sand-bagged him, rushed across to the
outer door, and closed it!
Given duplicate keys and the private information which Dexter so
ingeniously had obtained, there are many London banks vulnerable to
similar attack. Certainly, bullion is rarely kept in a branch
storeroom, but the detective was well aware that the keys of the case
containing the slipper were kept in this particular safe!
He was convinced, and could entertain no shadowy doubt, that at last
Dexter had triumphed. He wondered if it had ever hitherto fallen to the
lot of a representative of the law thus to be made an accessory to a
daring felony!
But human endurance has well-defined limits. The fading light rendered
the ingenious picture dim and more dim. The pain occasioned by his
position became agonizing, and uttering a stifled groan he ceased to
take an interest in the robbery of the London County and Provincial
Bank.
Fate is a comedian; and when later I learned how I had lain strapped to
my bed, and, so near to me, Bristol had hung helpless as a butchered
carcass in the office of the Congo Fibre Company, whilst, in our
absence from the stage, the drama of the slipper marched feverish to
its final curtain, I accorded Fate her well-earned applause. I laughed;
not altogether mirthfully.