THE EAST TOWER
With a cigarette between my lips I sat at the open window, looking
out upon the skeleton trees of the orchard; for the buds of early
spring were only just beginning to proclaim themselves.
The idea of sleep was far from my mind. The attractive modern
furniture of the room could not deprive the paneled walls of the musty
antiquity which was their birthright. This solitary window deeply set
and overlooking the orchard upon which the secret stair was said to
open, struck a note of more remote antiquity, casting back beyond the
carousing days of the Stuart monarchs to the troublous time of the
Middle Ages.
An air of ghostly evil had seemed to arise like a miasma within the
house from the moment that we had been disturbed by the unaccountable
rapping. It was at a late hour that we had separated, and none of us,
I think, welcomed the breaking up of our little party. Mrs. Oram, the
housekeeper, had been closely questioned by Smith--for Homopoulo, as a
new-comer, could not be expected to know anything of the history of
Graywater Park. The old lady admitted the existence of the tradition
which Nayland Smith had in some way unearthed, but assured us that
never, in her time, had the uneasy spirit declared himself. She was
ignorant (or, like the excellent retainer that she was, professed to
be ignorant) of the location of the historic chamber and staircase.
As for Homopoulo, hitherto so irreproachably imperturbable, I had
rarely seen a man in such a state of passive panic. His dark face was
blanched to the hue of dirty parchment and his forehead dewed with
cold perspiration. I mentally predicted an early resignation in the
household of Sir Lionel Barton. Homopoulo might be an excellent butler,
but his superstitious Greek nature was clearly incapable of sustaining
existence beneath the same roof with a family ghost, hoary though the
specter's antiquity might be.
Where the skeleton shadows of the fruit trees lay beneath me on the
fresh green turf my fancy persistently fashioned a black-clad figure
flitting from tree to tree. Sleep indeed was impossible. Once I
thought I detected the howling of the distant leopards.
Somewhere on the floor above me, Nayland Smith, I knew, at that moment
would be restlessly pacing his room, the exact situation of which I
could not identify, because of the quaint, rambling passages whereby
one approached it. It was in regard to Kâramaneh, however, that my
misgivings were the keenest. Already her position had been strange
enough, in those unfamiliar surroundings, but what tremors must have
been hers now in the still watches of the night, following the ghostly
manifestations which had so dramatically interrupted Nayland Smith's
story, I dared not imagine. She had been allotted an apartment
somewhere upon the ground floor, and Mrs. Oram, whose motherly
interest in the girl had touched me deeply, had gone with her to her
room, where no doubt her presence had done much to restore the girl's
courage.
Graywater Park stood upon a well-wooded slope, and, to the southwest,
starting above the trees almost like a giant Spanish priest, showed a
solitary tower. With a vague and indefinite interest I watched it. It
was Monkswell, an uninhabited place belonging to Sir Lionel's estate
and dating, in part, to the days of King John. Flicking the ash from
my cigarette, I studied the ancient tower wondering idly what deeds
had had their setting within its shadows, since the Angevin monarch,
in whose reign it saw the light, had signed the Magna Charta.
This was a perfect night, and very still. Nothing stirred, within or
without Greywater Park. Yet I was conscious of a definite disquietude
which I could only suppose to be ascribable to the weird events of
the evening, but which seemed rather to increase than to diminish.
I tossed the end of my cigarette out into the darkness, determined to
turn in, although I had never felt more wide awake in my life. One
parting glance I cast into the skeleton orchard and was on the point
of standing up, when--although no breezed stirred--a shower of ivy
leaves rained down upon my head!
Brushing them away irritably, I looked up--and a second shower dropped
fully upon my face and filled my eyes with dust. I drew back, checking
an exclamation. What with the depth of the embrasure, due to the great
thickness of the wall, and the leafy tangle above the window, I could
see for no great distance up the face of the building; but a faint
sound of rustling and stumbling which proceeded from somewhere above
me proclaimed that some one, or something, was climbing either up or
down the wall of the corner tower in which I was housed!
Partially removing the dust from my smarting eyes, I returned to the
embrasure, and stepping from the chair on to the deep ledge, I grasped
the corner of the quaint, diamond-paned window, which I had opened to
its fullest extent, and craned forth.
Now I could see the ivy-grown battlements surmounting the tower (the
east wing, in which my room was situated, was the oldest part of
Graywater Park). Sharply outlined against the cloudless sky they
showed ... and the black silhouette of a man's head and shoulders
leant over directly above me!
I drew back sharply. The climber, I thought, had not seen me, although
he was evidently peering down at my window. What did it mean?
As I crouched in the embrasure, a sudden giddiness assailed me, which
at first I ascribed to a sympathetic nervous action due to having seen
the man poised there at that dizzy height. But it increased, I swayed
forward, and clutched at the wall to save myself. A deadly nausea
overcame me ... and a deadly doubt leapt to my mind.
In the past, Sir Lionel Barton had had spies in his household; what
if the dark-faced Greek, Homopoulo, were another of these? I thought
of the '45 port, of the ghostly rapping; and I thought of the man who
crouched upon the roof of the tower above my open window.
My symptoms now were unmistakable; my head throbbed and my vision grew
imperfect; there had to be an opiate in the wine!
I almost fell back into the room. Supporting myself by means of the
chair, the chest of drawers, and finally, the bed-rail, I got to my
grip, and with weakening fingers, extracted the little medicine-chest
which was invariably my traveling companion.
* * * * * *
Grimly pitting my will against the drug, but still trembling weakly
from the result of the treatment, internal and subcutaneous, which I
had adopted, I staggered to the door out into the corridor and up the
narrow, winding stairs to Smith's room. I carried an electric
pocket-lamp, and by its light I found my way to the triangular,
paneled landing.
I tried the handle. As I had expected, the door was locked. I beat
upon it with my fist.
"Smith!" I cried--"Smith!"
There was no reply.
Again I clamored; awaking ancient echoes within the rooms and all
about me. But nothing moved and no answering voice rewarded my efforts;
the other rooms were seemingly unoccupied, and Smith--was drugged!
My senses in disorder, and a mist dancing before my eyes, I went
stumbling down into the lower corridor. At the door of my own room I
paused; a new fact had suddenly been revealed to me, a fact which the
mazy windings of the corridors had hitherto led me to overlook. Smith's
room was also in the east tower, and must be directly above mine!
"My God!" I whispered, thinking of the climber--"he has been murdered!"
I staggered into my room and clutched at the bed-rail to support
myself, for my legs threatened to collapse beneath me. How should I
act? That we were victims of a cunning plot, that the deathful Si-Fan
had at last wreaked its vengeance upon Nayland Smith I could not doubt.
My brain reeled, and a weakness, mental and physical, threatened to
conquer me completely. Indeed, I think I must have succumbed, sapped
as my strength had been by the drug administered to me, if the sound
of a creaking stair had not arrested my attention and by the menace
which it conveyed afforded a new stimulus.
Some one was creeping down from the landing above--coming to my room!
The creatures of the Yellow doctor, having despatched Nayland Smith,
were approaching stealthily, stair by stair, to deal with _me!_
From my grip I took out the Browning pistol. The Chinese doctor's
servants should have a warm reception. I burned to avenge my friend,
who I was persuaded, lay murdered in the room above. I partially
closed the door and took up a post immediately behind it. Nearer came
the stealthy footsteps--nearer.... Now the one who approached had
turned the angle of the passage....
Within sight of my door he seemed to stop; a shaft of white light
crept through the opening, across the floor and on to the wall beyond.
A moment it remained so--then was gone. The room became plunged in
darkness.
Gripping the Browning with nervous fingers I waited, listening
intently; but the silence remained unbroken. My gaze set upon the spot
where the head of this midnight visitant might be expected to appear,
I almost held my breath during the ensuing moments of frightful
suspense.
The door was opening; slowly--slowly--by almost imperceptible degrees.
I held the pistol pointed rigidly before me and my gaze remained fixed
intently on the dimly seen opening. I suppose I acted as ninety-nine
men out of a hundred would have done in like case. Nothing appeared.
Then a voice--a voice that seemed to come from somewhere under the
floor snapped:--
"Good God! it's Petrie!"
I dropped my gaze instantly ... and there, looking up at me from the
floor at my feet, I vaguely discerned the outline of a human head!
"Smith!" I whispered.
Nayland Smith--for indeed it was none other--stood up and entered the
room.
"Thank God you are safe, old man," he said. "But in waiting for one
who is stealthily entering a room, don't, as you love me, take it for
granted that he will enter _upright_. I could have shot you from the
floor with ease! But, mercifully, even in the darkness, I recognized
your Arab slippers!"
"Smith," I said, my heart beating wildly, "I thought you were drugged--
murdered. The port contained an opiate."
"I guessed as much!" snapped Smith. "But despite the excellent tuition
of Dr. Fu-Manchu, I am still childishly trustful; and the fact that I
did not partake of the crusted '45 was not due to any suspicions which
I entertained at that time."
"But, Smith, I saw you drink some port."
"I regret to contradict you, Petrie, but you must be aware that the
state of my liver--due to a long residence in Burma--does not permit
me to indulge in the luxury of port. My share of the '45 now reposes
amid the moss in the tulip-bowl, which you may remember decorated the
dining table! Not desiring to appear churlish, by means of a simple
feat of legerdemain I drank your health and future happiness in claret!
"For God's sake what is going on, Smith? Some one climbed from your
window."
"I climbed from my window!"
"What!" I said dazedly--"it was you! But what does it all mean?
Kâramaneh----"
"It is for her I fear, Petrie, now. We have not a moment to waste!"
He made for the door.
"Sir Lionel must be warned at all cost!" I cried.
"Impossible!" snapped Smith.
"What do you mean?"
"Sir Lionel has disappeared!"