/J. G. Reeder/ came downstairs, and those who saw his face realised
that it was not the tragedy he had almost witnessed which had made him
so white and drawn.
He found Gray in Daver’s office, waiting for his call to London. It
came through as Reeder entered the room, and he took the instrument
from his subordinate’s hand. He dismissed the death of Daver in a few
words, and went on:
“I want all the local policemen we can muster, Simpson, though I think
it would be better if we could get soldiers. There’s a garrison town
five miles from here; the beaches have to be searched, and I want
these caves explored. There is another thing: I think it would be
advisable to get a destroyer or something to patrol the water before
Siltbury. I’m pretty sure that Flack has a motor boat--there’s a
channel deep enough to take it, and apparently there is a cave that
stretches right under the cliff.… Miss Belman? I don’t know. That is
what I want to find out.”
Simpson told him that the gold-wagon had been seen at Sevenoaks, and
it required a real effort on Mr. Reeder’s part to bring his mind to
such a triviality.
“I think soldiers will be best. I’d like a strong party posted near
the quarry. There’s another cave there where Daver used to keep his
wagons. I have an idea you might pick up the money to-night. That,” he
added, a little bitterly, “will induce the authorities to use the
military!”
After the ambulance had come and the pitiable wreck of Daver had been
removed, he returned to the man’s suite with a party of masons he had
brought up from Siltbury. Throwing open the lid of the divan, he
pointed to the stone floor.
“That flag works on a pivot,” he said, “but I think it is fastened
with a bolt or a bar underneath. Break it down.”
A quarter of an hour was sufficient to shatter the stone flooring, and
then, as he had expected, he found a narrow flight of stairs leading
to a square stone room which remained very much as it had been for six
hundred years. A dusty, bare apartment, which yielded its secret.
There was a small open door and a very narrow passage, along which a
stout man would walk with some difficulty, and which led to behind the
panelling of Daver’s private office. Mr. Reeder realised that anybody
concealed here could hear every word that was spoken. And now he
understood Daver’s frantic plea that he should lower his voice when he
spoke of the marriage. Crazy Jack had learnt the secret of his
daughter’s degradation--from that moment Daver’s death was inevitable.
How had the madman escaped? That required very little explanation. At
some remote period Larmes Keep had evidently been used as a show
place. He found an ancient wooden inscription fixed to the wall, which
told the curious that this was the torture-chamber of the old Counts
of Larme; it added the useful information that the dungeons were
immediately beneath and approached through a stone trap. This the
detectives found, and Mr. Reeder had his first view of the vaulted
dungeons of Larmes Keep.
It was neither an impressive nor a thrilling exploration. All that was
obvious was that there were three routes by which the murderer could
escape, and that all three ways led back to the house, one exit being
between the kitchen and the vestibule.
“There is another way out,” said Reeder shortly, “and we haven’t found
it yet.”
His nerves were on edge. He roamed from room to room, turning out
boxes, breaking open cupboards, emptying trunks. One find he made: it
was the marriage certificate, and it was concealed in the lining of
Olga Crewe’s dressing-bag.
At seven o’clock the first detachment of troops arrived by motor van.
The local police had already reported that they had found no trace of
Margaret Belman. They pointed out that the tide was falling when the
girl left Larmes Keep, and that, unless she was lying on some
invisible ledge, she might have reached the beach in safety. There
was, however, a very faint hope that she was alive. How faint, J. G.
Reeder would not admit.
A local cook had been brought in to prepare dinner for the detective,
but Reeder contented himself with a cup of strong coffee--food, he
felt, would have choked him.
He had posted a detachment in the quarry, and, returning to the house,
was sitting in the big hall pondering the events of the day, when Gray
came flying into the room.
“Brill!” he gasped.
J. G. Reeder sprang to his feet with a bound.
“Brill?” he repeated huskily. “Where is Brill?”
There was no need for Gray to point. A dishevelled and grimy figure,
supported by a detective, staggered through the doorway.
“Where have you come from?” asked Reeder.
The man could not speak for a second. He pointed to the ground, and
then, hoarsely:
“From the bottom of the well… Miss Belman is down there now!”
Brill was in a state of collapse, and not until he had had a stiff
dose of brandy was he able to articulate a coherent story. Reeder led
a party to the shrubbery, and the windlass was tested.
“It won’t bear even the weight of a woman, and there’s not sufficient
rope,” said Gray, who made the test.
One of the officers remembered that, in searching the kitchen, he had
found two window-cleaners’ belts, stout straps with a safety-hook
attached. He went in search of these, whilst Mr. Reeder stripped his
coat and vest.
“There’s a gap of four feet half-way down,” warned Brill. “The stone
came away when I put my foot on it, and I nearly fell.”
Reeder, his lamp swung round his neck, peered down into the hole.
“It’s strange I didn’t see this ladder when I saw the well before,” he
said, and then remembered that he had only opened one half of the
flap.
Gray, who was also equipped with a belt, descended first, as he was
the lighter of the two. By this time half a company of soldiers were
on the scene, and by the greatest of good fortune the unit that had
been turned out to assist the police was a company of the Royal
Engineers. Whilst one party went in search of ropes, the other began
to extemporise a hauling gear.
The two men worked their way down without a word. The lamps were
fairly useless, for they could not show them the next rung, and after
a while they began to move more cautiously. Gray found the gap and
called a halt whilst he bridged it. The next rung was none too secure,
Mr. Reeder thought, as he lowered his weight upon it, but they passed
the danger zone with no other mishap than that which was caused by big
pebbles dropping on Reeder’s head.
It seemed as though they would never reach the bottom, and the strain
was already telling upon the older man, when Gray whispered:
“This is the bottom, I think,” and sent the light of his lamp
downwards. Immediately afterwards he dropped to the rocky floor of the
passage, Mr. Reeder following.
“Margaret!” he called in a whisper.
There was no reply. He threw the light first one way and then the
other, but Margaret was not in sight, and his heart sank.
“You go farther along the passage,” he whispered to Gray. “I’ll take
the other direction.”
With the light of his lamp on the ground, he half walked, half ran
along the twisting gallery. Ahead of him he heard the sound of a
movement not easily identified, and he stopped to extinguish the
light. Moving cautiously forward, he turned an angle of the passage
and saw at the far end indication of daylight. Sitting down, he looked
along, and after a while he thought he saw a figure moving against
this artificial skyline. Mr. Reeder crept forward, and this time he
was not relying upon a rubber truncheon. He thumbed down the
safety-catch of his Browning and drew nearer and nearer to the figure.
Most unexpectedly it spoke.
“Olga, where has your father gone?”
It was Mrs. Burton, and Reeder showed his teeth in an unamused grin.
He did not hear the reply: it came from some recessed place, and the
sound was muffled.
“Have they found that girl?”
Mr. Reeder listened breathlessly, craning his neck forward. The “No”
was very distinct.
Then Olga said something that he could not hear, and Mrs. Burton’s
voice took on her old whine of complaint.
“What’s the use of hanging about? That’s the way you’ve always treated
me.… Nobody would think I was your mother.… I wonder I’m not dead, the
trouble I’ve had.… I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t murder me some
day, you mark my words!”
There came an impatient protest from the hidden girl.
“If you’re sick of it, what about me?” said Mrs. Burton shrilly.
“Where’s Daver? It’s funny your father hasn’t said anything about
Daver. Do you think he’s got into trouble?”
“Oh, damn Daver!”
Olga’s voice was distinct now. The passion and weariness in it would
have made Mr. Reeder sorry for her in any other circumstances. He was
too busy being sorry for Margaret Belman to worry about this fateful
young woman.
She did not know, at any rate, that she was a widow. Mr. Reeder
derived a certain amount of gruesome satisfaction from the superiority
of his intelligence.
“Where is he now? Your father, I mean?”
A pause, as she listened to a reply which was not intelligible to Mr.
Reeder.
“On the boat? He’ll never get across. I hate ships, but a tiny little
boat like that…! Why couldn’t he let us go, when we got him out? I
begged and prayed him to… we might have been in Venice or somewhere by
now, doing the grand.”
The girl interrupted her angrily, and then Mrs. Burton apparently
melted into the wall.
There was no sound of a closing door, but Mr. Reeder guessed what had
happened. He came forward stealthily till he saw the bar of light on
the opposite wall, and, reaching the door, listened. The voices were
clear enough now; clearer because Mrs. Burton did most of the talking.
“Do you think your father knows?” She sounded rather anxious. “About
Daver, I mean? You can keep that dark, can’t you? He’d kill me if he
knew. He’s got such high ideas about you--princes and dukes and such
rubbish! If he hadn’t been mad he’d have cleared out of this game
years ago, as I told him, but he’d never take much notice of me.”
“Has anybody ever taken any notice of you?” asked the girl wearily. “I
wanted the old man to let you go. I knew you would be useless in a
crisis.”
Mr. Reeder heard the sound of a sob. Mrs. Burton cried rather easily.
“He’s only stopping to get Reeder,” she whimpered. “What a fool trick!
That silly old man! Why, I could have got him myself if I was wicked
enough!”
From farther along the corridor came the sound of a quick step.
“There’s your father,” said Mrs. Burton, and Reeder pulled back the
jacket of his Browning, sacrificing the cartridge that was already in
the chamber, in order that there should be no mistake.
The footsteps stopped abruptly, and at the same time came a booming
voice from the far end of the passage. It was asking a question.
Evidently Flack turned back: his footsteps died away. Mr. Reeder
decided that this was not his lucky day.
Lying full length on the ground, he could see John Flack clearly. A
pressure of his finger, and the problem of this evil man would be
settled eternally. It was a fond idea. Mr. Reeder’s finger closed
around the trigger, but all his instincts were against killing in cold
blood.
Somebody was coming from the other direction. Gray, he guessed. He
must go back and warn him. Coming to his feet, he went gingerly along
the passage. The thing he feared happened. Gray must have seen him,
for he called out in stentorian tones:
“There’s nothing at the other end of the passage, Mr. Reeder----”
“Hush, you fool!” snarled Reeder, but he guessed that the mischief was
done.
He turned round, stooped again and looked. Old John Flack was standing
at the entrance of the tunnel, his head bent. Somebody else had heard
the detective’s voice. With a squeak of fear, Mrs. Burton had bolted
into the passage, followed by her daughter--an excursion which
effectively prevented the use of the pistol, for they completely
masked the man whose destruction J. G. Reeder had privately sworn.
By the time he came to the end of the passage overlooking the great
cave, the two women and Flack had disappeared.
Mr. Reeder’s eyesight was of the keenest. He immediately located the
boat, which was now floating on an even keel, and presently saw the
three fugitives. They had descended to the water’s edge by a
continuance of the long stairway which led to the roof, and were
making for the rocky platform which served as a pier for the craft.…
Something smacked against the rock above his head. There was a shower
of stone and dust, and the echoes of the explosion which followed were
deafening.
“Firing from the boat,” said Mr. Reeder calmly. “You had better lie
down, Gray--I should hate to see so noisy a man as you reduced to
compulsory silence.”
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Reeder,” said the penitent detective. “I had no
idea----”
“Ideas!” said Mr. Reeder accurately.
_Smack… smack!_
One bullet struck to the left of him, the other passed exactly between
him and Gray. He was lying down now, with a small projection of rock
for cover.
Was Margaret on the boat? Even as the thought occurred to him, he
remembered “Mrs. Burton’s” inquiry. As he saw another flash from the
deck of the launch, he threw forward his hand. There was a double
explosion which reverberated back from the arched roof, and although
he could not see the effect of his shots, he was satisfied that the
bullets fell on the launch.
She was pushing off from the side. The three Flacks were aboard. And
now he heard the crackle and crash of her engine as her nose swung
round to face the cave opening. And then into his eyes from the
darkening sea outside the cave flashed a bright light that illuminated
the rocky shelf on which he lay, and threw the motor boat into relief.
The destroyer!
“Thank God for that!” said Mr. Reeder fervently.
Those on the motor launch had seen the vessel and guessed its portent.
The launch swung round until her nose pointed to where the two
detectives lay, and from her deck came a roar louder than ever. So
terrible was the noise in that confined space that for a second Mr.
Reeder was too dazed even to realise that he was lying half buried in
a heap of debris, until Gray pulled him back to the passage.
“They’re using a gun, a quick-firer!” he gasped.
Mr. Reeder did not reply. He was gazing, fascinated, at something that
was happening in the middle of the cave, where the water was leaping
at irregular intervals from some mysterious cause. Then he realised
what was taking place. Great rocks, disturbed by the concussion, were
falling from the roof. He saw the motor boat heel over to the right,
swing round again, and head for the open. It was less than a dozen
yards from the cave entrance when, with a sound that was
indescribable, so terrific, so terrifying, that J. G. Reeder was
rooted to the spot, the entrance to the cave disappeared!