THE passage of a motor-car through Dunford in the night-time was too
common a happening to disturb sleepers or excite the curiosity of a
wakeful person. To-night John Corrie was wakeful, as he so often was
till long after midnight, and it is probable that he was not aware of the
big car’s approach till it stopped at his own door. Being a dealer in
motor-spirit, he at once perceived a reason for the stoppage. More than
once in the last few years he had been called in similar wise to the
receipt of custom, though never quite so late as this. On the last
occasion he had, without opening the door, curtly refused supplies.
Nowadays, however, he could not afford to turn money away at any hour of
the twenty-four. So in shirt, trousers, and slippers he was into the
shop almost as soon as the expected knock fell. Still, it was better to
make certain before opening.
“What do ye want?” he called, hand on key.
“Petrol.”
He opened . . . and next moment his arms were behind him while steel
clicked on his wrists.
“A single sound by way of alarm, John Corrie,” said a quiet, cold voice,
“and you’re a ruined man. We are not after your money, but we’re going
to have the whole precious truth out of you.”
The speaker, as the half-fainting Corrie perceived in the light of a
portable lamp, which some one had placed on the counter, was accompanied
by three men, two of them in the garb of mechanics. The third he
recognized as the person recently inquiring about Kitty.
“What do ye want wi’ me?” he whimpered.
“Where is your sister?” asked Risk.
“In her bed. She’s ill.”
“Then we shall do nothing to disturb her, and you had better follow our
example. West, find a chair, and put him on it—over at the door.” He
indicated the exit to the dwelling-house.
Near the opposite end of the shop, which was fairly spacious, the
mechanics were already busy. On rubber-shod feet they made scarce a
sound. Within the space of a few minutes they had rigged up a framework,
about nine feet square, and stretched a white screen upon it. Risk
unpacked the contents of a box of polished wood, while West kept guard on
the prisoner.
At last, with a show of courage, Corrie demanded: “What daft-like
performance is this? A magic lantern—”
Risk came quickly behind him. “We’re going to show you a few pictures,
Corrie,” he said pleasantly, “and afterwards we shall be glad to hear how
they strike you. Meantime I’m going to gag you—keep still, it won’t
hurt.”
At the end of ten minutes one of the men murmured, “All ready, sir,” to
which Risk replied, “Wait till I give the word,” and stationed himself
where he could watch every movement on Corrie’s part. The lamp was put
out, but through the blinded windows a little moonlight filtered, giving
a ghostly touch to the man in the chair.
“Number one,” said Risk softly.
The screen was illuminated. Upon it appeared a face, that of the late
Hugh Carstairs. A glimpse and it was gone. Corrie gave a jerk.
“Two,” muttered Risk, and Kitty Carstairs smiled and disappeared.
“Three.” A man’s visage with an uncertain grin—Symington.
Then, for an instant, the screen held a certificate for 500 shares in the
Zenith Gold Mines. Corrie sat as if frozen, but at the next he quivered,
for he beheld a portion of a letter which he knew was in his safe.
“Six.” Behold! Sam, the postman, holding a copy of the _Western Weekly_
in one hand and staring at a letter in the other. Again Corrie gave a
jerk.
“Seven.” A five-pound note of the National Bank of Scotland.
“Eight.” A rear view of Corrie’s cottage, a ladder against the ivy, and
a man of Corrie’s build reaching into an open window. And then there was
a pause.
“Now,” said Risk, “we are going to have a little cinema entertainment, a
scene from a drama of real life which I believe would interest the
public, not to mention the police.”
As he spoke the door from the dwelling-house was opened a few inches,
silently, unobserved.
“Go ahead,” said Risk.
What followed was, as the perpetrator would have been first to admit, a
piece of barefaced “fake.” Yet its one glaring divergence from fact and
its several minor discrepancies could not neutralize the main dire truth
of the story. As a film it had been a costly and difficult piece of
work; as a spectacle it would have impressed any audience. The only
question Risk asked himself now was: Would it attain the single object to
which it had been devoted?
The screen was again illuminated, but not brightly. Corrie, sweating
with apprehension, gazed in a sort of fascination at the outside of his
own home. Soon he saw a muffled figure which he could scarce have denied
as his own, so familiar it was, even to the slight limp of the left leg,
emerge and steal down the lonely road, with fugitive glances here and
there. It vanished and immediately there appeared a shanty that might
have been the postman’s. Towards it came the muffled figure. It passed
behind the shanty. A strangled sound came from Corrie’s throat as he
tried to scream, “I didna!” The familiar figure came back, went to the
door and . . . Corrie shut his eyes. But he could not keep them so.
When he looked again the shanty was blazing at the rear. Suddenly, the
door was torn inwards and Sam, the postman, or his double, dropped a
hatchet and staggered forth in agony. He reeled across the road, fell on
the grass and lay heaving. Then into the picture crept the muffled
figure, raised a bludgeon and smote once, twice; knelt, lingered, and
rose with a letter in its hand. Then all movement ceased for, perhaps,
ten seconds. And then, as by an invisible hand, the black muffler was
snatched away, and there was the face of John Corrie, and no other, a
mask of guilty terror.
The prisoner, breaking from West’s detaining hold, pitched forward to the
floor, and grovelled.
“What are ye doing to my brother?” The harsh voice of a woman startled
them all.
Gaunt, ghostly, Rachel Corrie strode forward and halted beside the
miserable creature whom she loved.
“Pack o’ lies!” she cried. “It was me that set fire to the house; it was
me that stole the Zeniths, and sold them to Symington; but I’ve got them
back, all but one certificate. Ye cowards! what mean ye by treating an
old man—” She broke off, fell on her knees and whispered: “John, it’s
all right. Ye’re safe, dearie, quite safe.”
Risk, who had sent the wondering mechanics outside, turned the key and
came over to the group. He stooped and unlocked the handcuffs,
unfastened the gag.
“Miss Corrie,” he said gently, “I’m sorry you have suffered this, but it
was vital that we should get at the truth.” He signed to West, and
between them they lifted Corrie to the chair. He was not unconscious,
but stupefied.
The woman got to her feet and began to chafe her brother’s hands.
“Listen,” she said in a low voice, “promise—swear—that he’ll never be
troubled again, and I’ll put in your hands the nine certificates—”
“I’m afraid we want even more than that, Miss Corrie,” said Risk.
“What do ye want? Money for the other? Well—”
“A full account of your brother’s bargains with Symington.”
“I can give ye that, too—if ye promise.”
“And we must know at once where your niece is—where Symington has hidden
her.”
“God!” Rachel’s jaw dropped. “Hidden her?” she gasped after a moment.
Suddenly she shook her brother, not harshly. “John, what’s this they’re
saying? Kitty hid away by Symington! Speak, man!—oh, but surely ye ken
nothing about such a black business! . . . Yet speak, John! Where’s
Kitty?”
“To save yourself from penal servitude, Corrie,” said Risk solemnly,
“tell me where she is.”
Corrie groaned and hopelessly answered—
“Before God, I dinna ken.”
Risk and West looked at each other. For once, at least, the man had told
the truth. They could not doubt it. And so the great effort had ended
in failure.
There was a grievous silence. At last West spoke.
“I suppose, Miss Corrie, you never heard of Symington having another
address than White Farm—of late, I mean.”
Rachel started. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “Can I trust ye no to hurt him?”
They assured her, and she ran unsteadily into the dwelling-house. During
her absence Corrie made one remark. It was characteristic.
“The mill was na insured. I’m completely ruined.”
Rachel returned. “See!” She handed him the folded paper she had
inadvertently taken from Symington’s strong box. “And take the Zeniths,”
she added. “Oh, the curse they’ve brought to this house.”
At the lamp Risk examined the document. Drawing a quick breath, he said:
“Miss Corrie, this is our last hope; we must act on it without delay. As
for the shares, you will kindly keep them till I send you a certificate
to take the place of the missing one, and then you and your brother can
deliver the lot, in whatever way you choose, to Miss Carstairs.”
“Ye would trust us!” gasped the woman.
Risk just glanced at the abject Corrie. “I believe it is what Miss
Carstairs would do herself,” he said, and added, with a faint smile:
“I’ve got a good sister, too. Well, you shan’t be further disturbed.
Those things”—he indicated the screen and apparatus—“can be put aside,
and I’ll have them taken away later on. Come, West. There’s not a
moment to lose.”
They entered the car and, twenty minutes later, the special train waiting
for them at Kenny Junction. And as they were whirled South, somewhere in
Yorkshire, a great train roared past bearing the sleeping Symington to
the rudest awakening of his
life. He had laid himself down in his berth, still savage with chagrin
at his blunder in bringing his two prisoners face to face before they
were sufficiently subdued, yet confident as ever of ultimate victory.
Poor little Kitty! Plucky though she was, she was bound to give in once
hunger and distress got the upper hand.
Symington, however, had made a second blunder, though he remained
ignorant of it. He had left Kitty with a new horror to brood on and had
thereby rendered her so much more desperate and helpless; but he had left
her, also, a straw, so to speak, on the flood of her despair. Her
intelligence did not perceive it at once; hours had passed and her spirit
was well-nigh exhausted when it drifted into her ken. She clutched it
because there was nothing else to lay hold on. Would it serve at all?
Was the situation altered by the fact that her persecutor was going
away—nay, he must have gone three hours ago!—for the night?
Suddenly she sprang from the couch. Danger? What danger would she not
dare in order to help—to save—Colin? Her mind was still very clear. She
thought quickly. Then acted.
She switched off the lights, groped her way behind the curtain to the
bed, and lay down. On the wall, convenient to her hand, was a
bell-button. She gave it a long pressure, then waited—in vain. Again
she rang; again and yet again. At the end of ten minutes she began to
fear for her scheme, but just then she heard shuffling steps in the
passage. The bolt was drawn, the door opened, and a voice demanded
crossly to know what she wanted at two in the morning.
Kitty groaned and cried: “Oh, I can’t bear it any longer. Please bring
some food—bread, water—anything. I’m too weak to get up.”
“All right,” was the sulky reply, “but you might have taken it when it
was there for you.”
At the re-bolting of the door Kitty got up. Presently she was leaning
against the wall just behind the door. She trembled all over; her heart
thumped; she feared she was going to faint. Would the woman never
return?
At last she came, threw open the door, and still drowsy and grumbling,
proceeded with an untidy tray in the direction of the bed. She was at
the curtain when Kitty darted from her corner and out into the passage.
Bang went the door, home went the trusty bolt!
A single light glowed in the passage. Without pause Kitty ran next door,
shot the bolt, to the next again, and treated it likewise. From within a
man’s voice called sleepily: “What’s up?” Then she had to take the
support of the wall, her hand to her heart—but not for long. The trapped
woman began a noisy protest. Kitty went back and said as firmly as she
could—
“If you make another sound, I swear you’ll get no mercy later. The man’s
bolted in too.”
“You can’t get out of the basement,” bawled the prisoner. “The
stair-door’s locked, and he took the key with him.”
“Very well. Our friends will be here in the morning”, Kitty retorted
brazenly, “and I don’t think you’ll ever see your master again, unless in
the police court.”
The woman began to whine.
“Hold your tongue,” said Kitty, and left her.
She ran to the place where she had seen Colin. Through the bars she
beheld him huddled on the sofa. A large earthenware jug lay smashed in a
pool on the floor.
With her heart overflowing, her eyes half blind with tears, she tore back
the bolt. He did not move at her entrance, not even when she fell on her
knees beside him.
“Oh, Colin, Colin!”
His hands fell from his white, pinched face and tired eyes. He regarded
her in a vague fashion.
“Kitty,” he said dreamily, “by any beautiful chance, did you mean what
you said about your lips?”
And then it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should
be in each other’s arms.
* * * * *
“There must be a kitchen and larder somewhere. Are you able to come and
look, Colin?”
They were both pretty shaky, but they went exploring along that stone
passage like lovers in a sequestered country lane.
They discovered a comfortable kitchen, with two basket easy chairs, and a
well-stocked larder.
“We must eat awfully little to begin with,” said the wise Kitty. “And
you must sit in that nice chair till I prepare it.”
They partook cautiously of some very light dainties, and sipped a little
wine and water; and then Colin felt equal to a wash-up; and then they
made love; and then Colin went along to give the man, who was inclined to
be boisterous, a word of warning; and then they made more love, and
talked a little sense as well; but the sense made them very sleepy and
for a space they forgot even each other; and when Colin woke up he beheld
Kitty preparing something for breakfast; and it was such a delicious
sight to behold her with her sleeves rolled up that he was almost angry
when Risk and West, having forced a silent entrance to the house, smashed
their way down to the basement.
* * * * *
Later, safely at Hilda’s flat, Kitty would have thanked Risk, but he
stopped her almost at the first word.
“No, Miss Carstairs,” he said, with a rueful smile, “I have found out
that I’m not clever. I thought I was till I met your aunt. I have to
thank her for saving me from a bitter failure. I believe she will yet
save her unhappy brother. And,” he paused for a moment, “I think we may
leave Mr. Symington to receive his punishment from her—unless you would
prefer—”
“Oh, let him go,” she cried with a shudder. “I hope I may never see him,
or Dunford, again. . . . I want to ask you a question, Mr. Risk. Do
I—do I owe you a hundred pounds?”
“Alas, no,” he answered meaningly; “I’m not the lucky man.”
“Ah!” said Hilda, “I was sure of it all the time!”
“Colin!” exclaimed Kitty before she could prevent it, and blushed
adorably.
Colin turned inquiringly from his talk with West. “Yes, dearest,” he
said quite naturally, and then blushed also.
There was an interesting silence till the young man stammered: “By the
way, hasn’t Kitty told you we were engaged?”
“Well,” remarked Hilda, when the congratulations were over, “I must say I
never thought of Mr. Symington as a match-maker!”