Whichelo was at once practical.
He turned, and glanced quickly at the long window. It was securely
barred, horizontally, as well as vertically. Then he pushed a table
forward, clambered upon it, and exerting all his strength, endeavoured
to wrench one, then another, of the bars from its socket.
A silly action. He could not stir one of them.
"Paulton has locked us in," he said, as he stood again beside me.
"Paulton!" I echoed.
"Yes--or Henderson. They and the Baroness--for whom I believe the
police are seeking--are in hiding somewhere here. I thought it likely
they would end by coming, as this is about the last place the police
will be likely to search. They arrived yesterday, little knowing that I
was in the vicinity. They're hiding in here. I happen to know this,
though they don't know that I know it."
"But why can they have locked us in?"
"I can't say. Probably they're up to some of their old rascality. They
are full of ingenuity, and defy the police at every turn. The first
thing we have to do is to get out."
He looked about the long, narrow pantry. Soon his gaze fell upon a
long-handled American fire-axe, suspended in a corner against the wall,
beside a portable fire-extinguisher. He smiled, and crossed the room.
"When I lived abroad," he remarked, as he took down the axe and felt its
balance, "I was rather a good tree-feller. Now, this I call a really
beautiful axe."
Drawing himself to his full height as he spoke, he held the axe out at
arm's length, admiring it.
"Its balance is perfect, and there's not an ounce of useless weight
anywhere, either in the head, or in the stem. That is where American
axes outclass our British axes entirely. Your axe of British
manufacture is a clump of block steel stuck on the end of a heavy,
clumsy stem. `Sound British stuff,' it is, so the ironmonger will tell
you. `Last a lifetime. Last for ever.' And that is just what you
don't want, Mr. Ashton. In these days we don't need axes, or
agricultural implements, or machinery, or anything else made to `last
for ever.' We want things made to last just long enough to give
something better, time to be invented, and some improvements to be made,
and no longer. That practice of the British nation of making things to
`last for ever,' has been the curse of our declining country for the
past fifty years."
"But what do you want the axe for?" I asked, anxious to stop his sudden
flow of oratory.
"What do I want it for?" he exclaimed. "Stand back, and I'll show you."
He stepped towards the door, and measured his distance from it with the
axe-stem. Then, without removing his coat, or even rolling up his
sleeves, he gripped the stem by its extreme end with both hands. With a
"whizz" the axe described a complete circle over his head, then
descended. The blade, striking the lock in the very middle, wrecked it
completely. Another "whizz," another blow, and the lock fell in
fragments on to the floor, with a metallic clatter. A third blow, and
the door flew open.
I was about to go out into the passage, when Whichelo caught me by the
shoulder and pulled me back.
"Scatter-brained Englishman!" he exclaimed, half in jest. "Doesn't it
occur to you that Paulton may be, and probably is, waiting with a gun?"