you. We are now dealing with it in advance." Then, turning to his
wife, he exclaimed: "Those necessary telegrams? You have them all
ready. Get busy, and send them. I've arranged with Jimmy, in
Birmingham, and Hylda, in Paris, to send others at certain times."
"Great Scott, Bernie! Your brain is wonderful!" exclaimed Ena in
admiration. "How can you think out all these details in such a short
space of time?"
"When one is in danger one takes due precaution--and at once. I always
do so," he laughed. "This fellow and his girl have tried to spy upon
us--and we have to deal with them as they would deal with us. If they
discovered anything they would at once tell the police, and very soon
our game would be up. Hence, we have to put matters square at the least
possible risk to ourselves," he added.
He took up the glass from which Gerald had drunk the excellent port, and
carried it into the small kitchen, where he carefully washed it.
Afterwards Ena handed him a small phial which he also carefully washed,
and then half filled it with something he took from his pocket. The
bottle was full of that cheap, but pungent, perfume--oil of verbena.
When he had half filled the small bottle, he corked it and placed it in
a cupboard in the kitchen, thus removing all trace of the deleterious
liquid which the little phial had previously contained.
Lilla had gone out, but half an hour later she drove up to the door in a
small open car. The manner in which she pulled up showed her to be a
good driver.
The inhabitants of the whole block of flats--those houses piled upon one
another, which are admittedly cheap to run, but which are so very
expensive from a health point of view--were asleep when, assisted by the
two women, and treading softly, they placed Durrant in the car, heavy
and unconscious owing to the drug which had been given him.
Lilla then mounted to the driver's seat, and, leaving Ena to close the
flat and return to Upper Brook Street as best she could, Boyne and his
wife, with their unconscious victim in the bottom of the car, sped out
across Hampstead Heath, and northward upon the Great North Road.
Not till forty-eight hours afterwards did Gerald Durrant slowly and
painfully awake to a knowledge of his surroundings. By that time
Marigold and the others had been reassured by the telegrams.
Gerald's first impression was of a strange, rather healthful smell--a
smell of tar. He looked around. The ceiling of the room was low--a
ceiling which badly required whitewashing. Before him was a small
square window--a very small window. And he was lying fully dressed upon
a narrow iron bedstead.
Apparently the house was an old cottage, but quite unfamiliar. He tried
to think, but his brain was addled. His memory refused to serve him.
The sun was shining in at the window, and the little room seemed close
and stuffy. It was the sunset, he gathered.
Try how he would, he could recollect absolutely nothing. All he could
recollect were the faces of those two women whom he had assisted in
their distress.
He strove to think. At last, he recollected how Mrs. Evans had given
him that glass of good port, and how afterwards they had chatted
together. Then all was blank.
Of time he had no idea. What, he wondered, would Marigold think of his
absence? And what would they think at the office?
His first impulse was to wire to Wimbledon Park and to Mincing Lane.
Yes, it was imperative that he should do so.
Yet he knew not where he was, for as he raised himself upon his elbow
from the bed, he saw that the only look-out from the small window was a
high brick wall, apparently the wall of a warehouse. The room was dusty
and uncleanly. There was no carpet--nothing save a very ragged square
of black-and-white linoleum. He got up and, dazed as he was, he tried
the door. It was strongly bolted from without!
He shouted--yelled at the top of his voice, but nobody came. Upon the
little deal table he saw something which told him that he was a
prisoner--a jug containing some water, and a plate with some
unwholesome-looking cooked meat and some bread.
He examined them with a rising feeling of indignation. Then, in a fury,
he raised a heavy wooden chair, and savagely attacked the door. Time
after time, he took it by its leg and banged it upon the door, making a
tremendous noise. Yet the strong oak resisted every attempt, until,
piece by piece, the chair was broken up. Then he looked around for
something stronger. There was a rusty iron fender. This he took up, and
using it as a battering ram struck the door repeatedly. But the fender
being of cast iron broke in half, but made no injury to the door.
He crossed to the window and, smashing the glass, tried to open it. But
outside were strong iron bars. He was indeed a prisoner!
In desperation he flung the mattress from the bed, and, taking down the
bedstead, attacked the door vigorously with one of the iron bars. He
used the end--for it was hammered out--as a crowbar and succeeded after
long effort in inserting it between the door and the lintel, but so well
was it secured by bolts that he had no power to force it open, and in
the end the thin iron bent, and thus became useless.
Presently he hammered on the floor, and tried to awaken somebody, still
all to no purpose. In the meanwhile, darkness was falling and soon he
would, he knew, be without light. Notwithstanding that his head was
aching terribly, and there was a feeling as though his skull was slowly
being crushed in a vice, he set to work to liberate himself in another
way.
He tore aside the old linoleum, and succeeded in forcing up one of the
dirty floor-boards. This he followed by another, and yet a third, until
below was revealed the plaster of the ceiling of the room underneath.
Then, taking a heavy piece of the bedstead, he struck down with all his
might.
The iron struck the plaster, but, contrary to his expectation, he was
unable to force a hole through the ceiling. Then, suddenly, to his
dismay, he discovered that what he had believed to be plaster was
concrete--that the floor was a fireproof one, and that being so, any
attempt to penetrate it without proper tools was foredoomed to failure.
He gazed about him, utterly bewildered.
What could have happened after he had drunk that glass of port so kindly
offered him by the handsome Mrs. Evans? That he was in the hands of
enemies it was plain, but who were they? He wondered whether his
incarceration in that place had any connection with his inquisitiveness
concerning Bernard Boyne.
He reflected. Boyne had not been cognisant of being followed. He was
convinced of that. Had he been so, he would not have paid those
nocturnal visits to Pont Street and Upper Brook Street.
In the evening light he stood utterly perplexed. At his feet he saw that
the boards were discoloured by a large brown stain some three feet in
diameter. One part of it was thick, as though dark paint had been
spilled there. He bent to examine it more closely, and from the wood
scraped a portion of the thick substance with his finger-nail.
The stuff seemed curiously sticky, very much like paint. He took it
across to the window, and there examined it minutely in the light,
rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger.
Next moment a cry of horror escaped him. "Great Heavens!" he gasped.
"Why--it's blood!"
Apparently there had been a pool of blood there, but it had nearly all
dried up, save that portion which had not yet become completely
hardened.
What could it mean?
He returned to the spot which had been immediately beneath where he had
lain upon the bed. Had some previous occupant of that barred room been
foully done to death while sleeping? It certainly seemed that such was
the explanation.
"Who brought me here, I wonder?" he said aloud to himself, as the
ghastly suggestion crept over him. "What is Marigold thinking of my
disappearance? What can they think of it at the office?"
Across the narrow room he paced in frantic anger at having been so
entrapped without the slightest motive. The dead silence of the place
oppressed him. Without knowledge of where he was, either in London or
in the country, he set his teeth and regretted the moment when he went
to the assistance of the two women. Yet, surely, they could have
nothing to do with his detention there? The absence of motive held him
completely perplexed.
In the fast-fading light he made a complete and minute inspection of
that chamber wherein he had made the gruesome discovery. If someone had
really been done to death in that place recently, then there might be
other traces of the tragedy. Further, how was he to know that he, in
turn, would not fall a victim!
Hastily, because the light was going, he turned out a cupboard, but
found nothing save a quantity of newspapers. Some rubbish in the rusty
fireplace he examined, but his search there was also fruitless.
Then he turned his attention to a long, narrow double-doored cupboard
let into the wall close to the bed. One door was bolted from within,
and the other locked. To force it open was only the work of a few
moments. Within he found a quantity of feminine apparel of good
quality, a skirt, shoes, and other things.
One object which he took up caused him to ejaculate another cry of
horror, and to hold his breath.
He carried it across to the broken window, and there bent to see if what
he suspected was the actual truth.
Yes! He satisfied himself that it was. What he held in his hand was a
woman's cream _crepe-de-chine_ blouse, prettily trimmed with lace, but
the neck, chest, and all over the left sleeve were stained with blood!
"Then the victim was a woman!" he gasped aloud.
Quickly he examined all the other articles of attire, but found no
traces of blood upon any other. He decided to keep his knowledge to
himself, so that when he escaped, as he intended to do, he might at once
inform the police of what he had found. Therefore he instantly set to
work to replace the floor-boards, and recover them with the old piece of
linoleum which hid the great ugly stain. Then, restoring the room to
order in the best way possible, he replaced the blouse and the other
feminine garments where he had found them, and was able--after a great
deal of difficulty, for it was nearly dark--to place the two doors of
the cupboard together in such a way that they closed, so that all trace
of them being forced was thus removed.
That some unknown woman had recently lost her life in that place was now
quite certain. After he had put the place in order again--all save
re-erecting the bedstead, for this could not be done, neither could he
mend the broken chair--he stood in the darkness pondering. It was
impossible to remain in that horrible place all night. If he slept he
might be attacked, as the poor woman had probably been. And in his
half-dazed condition he needed sleep badly.
His one thought was of Marigold.
"What will she think, poor girl!" he cried aloud in his anguish. "What
has she done now that I am missing?"
He listened. There was no sound save the chiming of a church clock in
the distance, followed by the shrill whistle of a locomotive. Then he
heard the long-drawn siren of a ship repeated three times, but some
distance away. Evidently the place was near a river, or perhaps by the
sea. That would account for the smell of tar.
Then all became quiet again. The silence and darkness began to get upon
his nerves until he could stand it no longer. The thought that a dark
tragedy had been perpetrated upon that very spot where he stood filled
him with horror.
Therefore at last he again went to the window, and began to send up some
unearthly yells in a fierce endeavour to attract the attention of
somebody outside.
Time after time he repeated his shouts, but nobody answered. He could
hear the voices of two common women gossiping, and though he could not
see them he shouted to them. But they only deigned to yell back.
"Oh, shut up! Do shut up--whoever you are!"
Suddenly he recollected that drunken brawls and cries for help are only
too frequent in lower-class neighbourhoods, therefore his cries for
assistance, though they must be heard, were being disregarded.
So he desisted, and resolved to remain patient a further quarter of an
hour, and then resume his cries for help.
He was standing in the darkness near the window when a slight and
curious movement behind him caused him to turn sharply.
Beneath the door he saw a light, but whoever was there wore rubber soles
to their shoes, for they made no sound. The slight noise which had
fallen upon his strained ears was the slow and stealthy drawing of a bar
outside the door.
Someone was creeping noiselessly in!
On tiptoe he crossed, and, seizing the bar of iron, sprang behind the
door, his hand raised ready to fell any person who entered.
The handle of the door was very slowly turned, but next second--ere he
became aware of it--a strange thing happened.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*LOST DAYS*
As the door of the room in which he was imprisoned slowly opened, and he
stood ready to attack the new-comer and fight for his liberty, he became
suddenly blinded and rendered utterly powerless by a burst of heavy grey
smoke.
He drew one whiff of it, and, reeling, fell senseless upon the floor.
Then, as the fumes which had rendered him unconscious slowly cleared,
there stood in the dim light a form wearing an exact replica of the
white cloak and hood which Bernard Boyne used when he visited that
upstairs room in Hammersmith. The window being broken, and now that the
door was open too, the fumes quickly dispersed, yet Gerald lay there
where he had fallen, pale as death, and breathing only slightly.
"A heavy dose!" laughed the hooded man grimly. "He won't get over it
for quite a long time!"
And then he turned and left, leaving the door still open, so that all
trace of the poisonous vapour which he had released from a heavy iron
cylinder should be removed.
An hour later he returned, but without his cloak, for the gas-mask was
no longer needed. He carried an electric torch, which he flashed into
the white face of the unconscious victim.
"You'll soon go away--never to return!" growled the mysterious man
aloud; and then suddenly by the reflection of the light his face became
revealed.
It was Bernard Boyne.
"The fellow knows too much--and so does the girl!" he muttered to
himself. "We must deal with her next. But she's not yet dangerous.
Still, as Lilla says, in our business we can't afford to take any risks.
So stay there for the present, my friend," he added.
And bending he felt the prostrate man's pulse in the professional manner
of a medical man. Then, apparently well satisfied, he crossed the room,
closed the window and, after locking the door outside again, descended
the stairs.
When young Durrant at last began to slowly recover his senses, he
awakened to find himself seated in an arm-chair in a small and not
uncomfortable cabin on board a ship. The vessel was rolling heavily,
and ever and anon the waves swept up past the porthole, partially
obscuring the light.
He drew his hand across his fevered brow and endeavoured to think. But
all was hazy, uncertain, and unreal. Was he still dreaming? he asked
himself. He placed both his hands upon the arms of the leather-covered
chair and felt them. No! It was no dream! He was on a ship at sea!
Suddenly across his brain swept recollections of that room in which he
had been imprisoned--that gruesome chamber with its unmistakable
evidence of a tragedy--the place in which some unknown woman had been
foully done to death. He remembered his meeting with those two ladies
outside Kensington Gardens, their hospitality and its dire result. At
any rate, there was one satisfaction, that his enemies, whoever they
were, had spared his life.
He rose, his limbs feeling very sore and stiff. How long had elapsed
since he had so suddenly met that mysterious burst of smoke he had no
idea. Nor had he any knowledge of where he had been, or where that room
of tragedy was situated. All remained a complete blank.
In rising to his feet he nearly fell owing to the heavy roll of the
vessel--a steamer evidently, for he could feel the vibration of the
engines. Unsteadily he opened the door, and found himself in a narrow
gangway, with several cabins on either side. Opposite him a door stood
open, revealing a burly, dark-bearded man in uniform lounging in a
chair, smoking a pipe and reading a book.
Hearing Gerald's footsteps he turned his head.
"Hulloa!" he cried roughly. "Got over your drunk then, Mr. Simpson?
Come in here!"
"Thanks," was Durrant's reply. "But I never drink, and my name is not
Simpson."
"Ah! I thought you'd say that! Sit down, anyway," the captain
remarked, with a good-humoured laugh. "Yesterday when we had a chat,
you didn't deny that your name was George Simpson, did you?"
"I don't remember having had a chat with you yesterday," replied Gerald,
amazed at the captain's words.
"Ah! You don't remember much, do you? Got a very bad memory, I know."
"No, I've got a pretty good memory, and to my knowledge I've never seen
you in my life before."
"And yet you spent last night with me, and drank more than you ought to
have done. Whisky is a bad thing for you, young fellow. You should
leave it alone. Never drink till you're forty-five. That's what I
say."
Durrant sank into the chair, and gazed around the captain's cabin
absolutely bewildered.
"What ship is this?" he asked at last.
"You asked me that yesterday. This is the _Pentyrch_, of Sunderland,
bound from Hull to Singapore," was the reply.
"And we are on our way there!" gasped the young man in blank dismay.
"Yes. Three days out."
"Where are we now?"
"Off Finisterre."
"Will you tell me your name, Captain?" Durrant asked quite calmly.
"Bowden--John Bowden. And I live at Empress Villa, Queen Street,
Sunderland. Aged forty-one; married; two kids. Anything more?"
"Yes, a lot," was the other's reply.
"You asked me a lot of questions about the ship last night, and I told
you. We've got a general cargo, and after Singapore we go to Batavia,
then to Wellington, New Zealand, and back home."
"How long shall we be away?"
"Oh! perhaps nine months--perhaps more if I get other orders," was
Bowden's breezy reply. "This old tub ain't very fast, you know. She
isn't one of your slap-up liners. We never have passengers. I don't
like 'em. Only Mr. Morton asked me to take you out for the benefit of
your health, and I consented."
"Mr. Morton! Who's he?"
"A friend of yours, isn't he?"
"I don't know anyone of that name," declared Gerald astounded.
Captain Bowden looked straight into the young man's face for a few
moments in silence, and then, nodding his head, said:
"Ah! Of course!"
"Why of course?" asked Gerald in annoyance at the captain's tone.
The other only shrugged his shoulders, and continued puffing at his big
briar pipe.
Gerald was utterly mystified.
Since that moment when he had lost consciousness in the presence of the
two ladies he had assisted until the present, all his recollections were
blurred and indistinct. Bowden had accused him of drinking heavily the
night before. Yet he felt certain that he had never previously set eyes
upon the black-bearded man before him. His unknown enemies had spared
his life, but they had sent him out upon a nine months' voyage,
evidently to get rid of him for some reasons known to themselves.
Was Bernard Boyne at the bottom of it all? He wondered. Yet Boyne
could not know anything of his efforts to unravel the mystery of his
life. How could he possibly know?
"Look here, Captain Bowden," he said firmly at last. "Let us be frank
with each other."
"I'm always frank, young man--too frank for some people!" was the bluff
seafarer's reply.
"Well, be frank with me. Tell me--do you know any man named
Boyne--Bernard Boyne?"
"Never heard the name before," snapped the other. "What about him?"
And he crossed his legs encased in his heavy sea-boots.
"Well, I thought perhaps you might know him," Durrant said. Then,
catching sight of the coat he was wearing, he was surprised to see that
it was unfamiliar--a heavy blue-serge suit, such as he had never before
possessed. The mystery increased as each moment passed.
"No. I don't know any man named Boyne. Who and what is he?"
"He's an insurance agent at Hammersmith."
"That's somewhere in London, ain't it?"
"Yes. I'm a Londoner."
"Oh, are you? Yes, I thought so."
"Why did you think so?" asked Durrant.
"Because I know you come from Liverpool."
"You're trying to be funny!"
"Oh, no, I'm not! It's you who always tries to be funny, young fellow.
You sat with me here, in my cabin, last night, and yet to-day you deny
having done so."
Gerald rose from his chair, intending to firmly withstand the
black-bearded fellow's ridiculous allegations, but at that instant he
felt that same half-intoxication creeping over him, and he subsided.
"Captain Bowden, I'm sorry to tell you that I honestly think you are
lying to me," he said a moment later.
"Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Simpson. I won't retort because you'll
be ill if I do. We're in for bad weather in the Bay, I'm afraid. Glass
falling with a run."
"I've never been to sea before," remarked Gerald hopelessly, yet
surprised that the captain should take his challenge so mildly.
"Well, you'll get your sea-legs on this voyage, I can tell you," laughed
the heavy-jowled captain.
At that moment the first mate came in, holding himself as he stood
against the heavy rolling of the tramp steamer.
"Cargo is shifting a bit in number four hold, sir," he said. "Shall I
tell Jenkins to call the men and see to it?"
"Yes. Do what the devil you like, Hutton," snapped the captain. "I see
we're in for hellish weather. Look at the glass!"
"I noticed it half an hour ago, sir. We shall catch it strong after
sundown."
"Yes, we shall. Better make everything tight now."
Then, turning to Durrant, Captain Bowden, refilling his pipe, remarked:
"That's the worst of these cursed old tubs. But you see, after the war
they can't get new ones. All those labour troubles on the Clyde have
interfered with shipbuilding. I was promised a brand-new boat a year
ago. But she's still on the stocks. When she goes out I shall do the
ferry trade from the Levant to London--four weeks out and home."
"But, now tell me--who put me on board this ship?" asked Gerald.
"Who put you on board? why, your friend, Mr. Morton."
"My friend? Why, I don't know the man!"
Bowden smiled, and showed that he was not convinced.
"What was this fellow Morton like?" inquired Durrant eagerly. "Describe
him to me."
"Oh! a rather tall, lean, herring-gutted chap, with a baldish head, and
narrow little eyes," was the reply. "But you can't tell me that you
don't know him. Why, you were with him when I promised to take you on
this trip."
"With him!" echoed Gerald. "I certainly was not."
"Ah! The worst of you, Mr. Simpson, is that you're so forgetful,"
exclaimed the breezy captain.
"I'm not forgetful!" cried Durrant resentfully, rising to his feet
again, and steadying himself from the slow roll of the ship. "How did
you come to know this mysterious friend of mine--Morton, you say is his
name?"
"That's my affair! You don't believe me, so why should I bother to
answer your questions?"
"I don't believe you when you say that I was here with you yesterday,"
was Gerald's frank reply.
"No, because your brain is addled," laughed Bowden deeply, knocking the
ashes from his pipe. At that moment the ship's bell clanged loudly,
marking the time. It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon.
"Yes, it is addled, I admit," said Durrant. "I've been the victim of a
foul plot. I--well, let me tell you."
"Oh! I don't want to hear it all over again. You've already told me
twice how you assisted two ladies in Kensington, how they took you to
their house, and gave you a dose of drug. Then, how you found yourself
imprisoned in a house, and all that long rigmarole. Spare me
again--won't you?" the captain begged.
Durrant stood aghast.
"But I've never told you anything about it!" he said. "I've never told
a living soul about my strange adventure."
"Look here, Mr. Simpson," said the captain, rising from his chair with
slow deliberation. "I'm beginning to think that you're not quite in
your right senses. You told us all about it last night in this very
cabin--how you had been entrapped, drugged, and taken away."
"Yes. That is quite true, but I have never told anyone of it."