reached the orchard behind. Here a few outhouses were scattered, and,
clearing these, he came to the meadow, where Mirabelle’s one cow
ruminated in the lazy manner of her kind. Half hidden by a thick-boled
apple-tree, the watcher waited, and presently, as he expected, he saw a
head appear through the boundary hedge. After an observation the pedlar
sprang into the meadow and stood, taking stock of his ground. He had
left his tray and his bag, and, running with surprising swiftness for a
man of his age, he gained a little wooden barn, and, pulling open the
door, disappeared into its interior. By this time the guard had been
joined by his companion and they had a short consultation, the man with
the pipe going back to his post before the house, whilst the other
walked slowly across the meadow until he came to the closed door of the
barn.
Wise in his generation, he first made a circuit of the building, and
discovered there were no exits through the blackened gates. Then,
pulling both doors open wide:
“Come out, bo’!” he said.
The barn was empty, except for a heap of hay that lay in one corner and
some old and wheelless farm-wagons propped up on three trestles awaiting
the wheelwright’s attention.
A ladder led to a loft, and the guard climbed slowly. His head was on a
level with the dark opening, when:
“Put up your hands!”
He was looking into the adequate muzzle of an automatic pistol.
“Come down, bo’!”
“Put up your hands,” hissed the voice in the darkness, “or you’re a dead
man!”
The watcher obeyed, cursing his folly that he had come alone.
“Now climb up.”
With some difficulty the guard brought himself up to the floor level.
“Step this way, and step lively,” said the pedlar. “Hold your hands
out.”
He felt the touch of cold steel on his wrist, heard a click.
“Now the other hand.”
The moment he was manacled, the pedlar began a rapid search.
“Carry a gun, do you?” he sneered, as he drew a pistol from the man’s
hip pocket. “Now sit down.”
In a few seconds the discomfited guard was bound and gagged. The pedlar,
crawling to the entrance of the loft, looked out between a crevice in
the boards. He was watching not the house, but the hedge through which
he had climbed. Two other men had appeared there, and he grunted his
satisfaction. Descending into the barn, he pulled away the ladder and
let it fall on the floor, before he came out into the open and made a
signal.
The second guard had made his way back by the shortest cut to the front
of the house, passing through the garden and in through the kitchen
door. He stopped to shoot the bolts, and the girl, coming into the
kitchen, saw him.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t know, miss.” He was looking at the kitchen windows: they were
heavily barred. “My mate has just seen that pedlar go into the barn.”
She followed him to the front door. He had turned to go, but, changing
his mind, came back, and she saw him put his hand into his hip pocket
and was staggered to see him produce a long-barrelled Browning.
“Can you use a pistol, miss?”
She nodded, too surprised to speak, and watched him as he jerked back
the jacket and put up the safety catch.
“I want to be on the safe side, and I’d feel happier if you were armed.”
There was a gun hanging on the wall and he took it down.
“Have you any shells for this?” he asked.
She pulled open the drawer of the hall-stand and took out a cardboard
carton.
“They may be useful,” he said.
“But surely, Mr.——”
“Digby.” He supplied his name.
“Surely you’re exaggerating? I don’t mean that you’re doing it with any
intention of frightening me, but there isn’t any danger to us?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a queer feeling—had it all morning. How far is
the nearest house from here?”
“Not half a mile away,” she said.
“You’re on the ’phone?”
She nodded.
“I’m scared, maybe. I’ll just go out into the road and have a look
round. I wish that fellow would come back,” he added fretfully.
He walked slowly up the garden path and stood for a moment leaning over
the gate. As he did so, he heard the rattle and asthmatic wheezing of an
ancient car, and saw a tradesman’s trolley come round a corner of
Heavytree Lane. Its pace grew slower as it got nearer to the house, and
opposite the gate it stopped altogether. The driver getting down with a
curse, lifted up the battered tin bonnet, and, groping under the seat,
brought out a long spanner. Then, swift as thought, he half turned and
struck at Digby’s head. The girl heard the sickening impact, saw the
watcher drop limply to the path, and in another second she had slammed
the door and thrust home the bolts.
She was calm; the hand that took the revolver from the hall-table did
not tremble.
“Alma!” she called, and Alma came running downstairs.
“What on earth——?” she began, and then saw the pistol in Mirabelle’s
hands.
“They are attacking the house,” said the girl quickly. “I don’t know who
‘they’ are, but they’ve just struck down one of the men who was
protecting us. Take the gun, Alma.”
Alma’s face was contorted, and might have expressed fear or anger or
both. Mirabelle afterwards learnt that the dominant emotion was one of
satisfaction to find herself in so warlike an environment.
Running into the drawing-room, the girl pushed open the window, which
commanded a view of the road. The gate was unfastened and two men, who
had evidently been concealed inside the trolley, were lifting the
unconscious man, and she watched, with a calm she could not understand
in herself, as they threw him into the interior and fastened the
tailboard. She counted four in all, including the driver, who was
climbing back to his seat. One of the new-comers, evidently the leader,
was pointing down the road towards the lane, and she guessed that he was
giving directions as to where the car should wait, for it began to go
backwards almost immediately and with surprising smoothness, remembering
the exhibition it had given of decrepitude a few minutes before.
The man who had given instructions came striding down the path towards
the door.
“Stop!”
He looked round with a start into the levelled muzzle of a Browning, and
his surprise would, in any other circumstances, have been comical.
“It’s all right, miss——” he began.
“Put yourself outside that gate,” said Mirabelle coolly.
“I wanted to see you . . . very important——”
_Bang!_
Mirabelle fired a shot, aimed above his head, towards the old poplar.
The man ducked and ran. Clear of the gate he dropped to the cover of a
hedge, where his men already were, and she heard the murmur of their
voices distinctly, for the day was still, and the far-off chugging of
the trolley’s engine sounded close at hand. Presently she saw a head
peep round the hedge.
“Can I have five minutes’ talk with you?” asked the leader loudly.
He was a thick-set, bronzed man, with a patch of lint plastered to his
face, and she noted unconsciously that he wore gold ear-rings.
“There’s no trouble coming to you,” he said, opening the gate as he
spoke. “You oughtn’t to have fired, anyway. Nobody’s going to hurt
you——”
He had advanced a yard into the garden as he spoke.
_Bang, bang!_
In her haste she had pressed butt and trigger just a fraction too long,
and, startled by the knowledge that another shot was coming, her hand
jerked round, and the second shot missed his head by the fraction of an
inch. He disappeared in a flash, and a second later she saw their hats
moving swiftly above the box. They were running towards the waiting car.
“Stay here, Alma!”
Alma Goddard nodded grimly, and the girl flew up the stairs to her room.
From this elevation she commanded a better view. She saw them climb into
the van, and in another second the limp body of the guard was thrown out
into the hedge; then, after a brief space of time, the machine began
moving and, gathering speed, disappeared in a cloud of dust on the
Highcombe Road.
Mirabelle came down the stairs at a run, pulled back the bolts and flew
out and along the road towards the still figure of the detective. He was
lying by the side of the ditch, his head a mass of blood, and she saw
that he was still breathing. She tried to lift him, but it was too great
a task. She ran back to the house. The telephone was in the hall: an
old-fashioned instrument with a handle that had to be turned, and she
had not made two revolutions before she realized that the wire had been
cut.
Alma was still in the parlour, the gun gripped tight in her hand, a look
of fiendish resolution on her face.
“You must help me to get Digby into the house,” she said.
“Where is he?”
Mirabelle pointed, and the two women, returning to the man, half lifted,
half dragged him back to the hall. Laying him down on the brick floor,
the girl went in search of clean linen. The kitchen, which was also the
drying place for Alma’s more intimate laundry, supplied all that she
needed. Whilst Alma watched unmoved the destruction of her wardrobe, the
girl bathed the wound and the frightened nurse (who had disappeared at
the first shot) applied a rough dressing. The wound was an ugly one, and
the man showed no signs of recovering consciousness.
“We shall have to send Mary into Gloucester for an ambulance,” said
Mirabelle. “We can’t send nurse—she doesn’t know the way.”
“Mary,” said Alma calmly, “is at this moment having hysterics in the
larder. I’ll harness the dog-cart and go myself. But where is the other
man?”
Mirabelle shook her head.
“I don’t like to think what has happened to him,” she said. “Now, Alma,
do you think we can get him into the drawing-room?”
Together they lifted the heavy figure and staggered with it into the
pretty little room, laying him at last upon the settee under the window.
“He can rest there till we get the ambulance,” began Mirabelle, and a
chuckle behind her made her turn with a gasp.
It was the pedlar, and in his hand he held the pistol which she had
discarded.
“I only want you”—he nodded to the girl. “You other two women can come
out here.” He jerked his head to the passage. Under the stairs was a big
cupboard and he pulled the door open invitingly. “Get in here. If you
make a noise, you’ll be sorry for yourselves.”
Alma’s eyes wandered longingly to the gun she had left in the corner,
but before she could make a move he had placed himself between her and
the weapon.
“Get inside,” said the pedlar, and Mirabelle was not much surprised when
Aunt Alma meekly obeyed.
He shut the door on the two women and fastened the hatch.
“Now, young lady, put on your hat and be lively!”
He followed her up the stairs into her room and watched her while she
found a hat and a cloak. She knew only too well that it was a waste of
time even to temporize with him. He, for his part, was so exultant at
his success that he grew almost loquacious.
“I suppose you saw the boys driving away and you didn’t remember that I
was somewhere around? Was that you doing the shooting?”
She did not answer.
“It couldn’t have been Lew, or you’d have been dead,” he said. He was
examining the muzzle of the pistol. “It was you all right.” He chuckled.
“Ain’t you the game one! Sister, you ought to be——”
He stopped dead, staring through the window. He was paralysed with
amazement at the sight of a bare-headed Aunt Alma flying along the
Gloucester Road. With an oath he turned to the girl.
“How did she get out? Have you got anybody here? Now speak up.”
“The cupboard under the stairs leads to the wine cellar,” said Mirabelle
coolly, “and there are two ways out of the wine cellar. I think Aunt
Alma found one of them.”
With an oath, he took a step towards her, gripped her by the arm and
jerked her towards the door.
“Lively!” he said, and dragged her down the stairs through the hall,
into the kitchen.
He shot back the bolts, but the lock of the kitchen door had been
turned.
“This way.” He swore cold-bloodedly, and, her arm still in his powerful
grip, he hurried along the passage and pulled open the door.
It was an unpropitious moment. A man was walking down the path, a
half-smile on his face, as though he was thinking over a remembered
jest. At the sight of him the pedlar dropped the girl’s arm and his hand
went like lightning to his pocket.
“When will you die?” said Leon Gonsalez softly. “Make a choice, and make
it quick!”
And the gun in his hand seemed to quiver with homicidal eagerness.
_Chapter XV_ _Two “Accidents”_
THE pedlar, his face twitching, put up his shaking hands.
Leon walked to him, took the Browning from his moist grip and dropped it
into his pocket.
“Your friends are waiting, of course?” he said pleasantly.
The pedlar did not answer.
“Cuccini too? I thought I had incapacitated him for a long time.”
“They’ve gone,” growled the pedlar.
Gonsalez looked round in perplexity.
“I don’t want to take you into the house. At the same time, I don’t want
to leave you here,” he said. “I almost wish you’d drawn that gun of
yours,” he added regretfully. “It would have solved so many immediate
problems.”
This particular problem was solved by the return of the dishevelled Alma
and the restoration to her of her gun.
“I would so much rather you shot him than I,” said Leon earnestly. “The
police are very suspicious of my shootings, and they never wholly
believe that they are done in self-defence.”
With a rope he tied the man, and tied him uncomfortably, wrists to
ankles. That done, he made a few inquiries and went swiftly out to the
barn, returning in a few minutes with the unhappy guard.
“It can’t be helped,” said Leon, cutting short the man’s apologies. “The
question is, where are the rest of the brethren?”
Something zipped past him: it had the intensified hum of an angry wasp,
and a second later he heard a muffled “Plop!” In a second he was lying
flat on the ground, his Browning covering the hedge that hid Heavytree
Lane.
“Run to the house,” he called urgently. “They won’t bother about you.”
And the guard, nothing loth, sprinted for the cover of walls.
Presently Leon located the enemy, and at a little distance off he saw
the flat top of the covered trolley. A man walked slowly and invitingly
across the gap in the hedge, but Gonsalez held his fire, and presently
the manœuvre was repeated. Obviously they were trying to concentrate his
mind upon the gap whilst they were moving elsewhere. His eyes swept the
meadow boundary—running parallel, he guessed, was a brook or ditch
which would make excellent cover.
Again the man passed leisurely across the gap. Leon steadied his elbow,
and glanced along the sight. As he did so, the man reappeared.
_Crack!_
Gonsalez aimed a foot behind him. The man saw the flash and jumped back,
as he had expected. In another second he was writhing on the ground with
a bullet through his leg.
Leon showed his teeth in a smile and switched his body round to face the
new point of attack. It came from the spot that he had expected: a
little rise of ground that commanded his position.
The first bullet struck the turf to his right with an angry buzz, sent a
divot flying heavenward, and ricochetted with a smack against a tree.
Before the raised head could drop to cover, Gonsalez fired; fired
another shot to left and right, then, rising, raced for the shelter of
the tree, and reached it in time to see three heads bobbing back to the
road. He waited, covering the gap, but the people who drew the wounded
man out of sight did not show themselves, and a minute later he saw the
trolley moving swiftly down the by-road, and knew that danger was past.
The firing had attracted attention. He had not been back in the house a
few minutes before a mounted policeman, his horse in a lather, came
galloping up to the gate and dismounted. A neighbouring farm had heard
the shots and telephoned to constabulary head-quarters. For half an hour
the mounted policeman took notes, and by this time half the farmers in
the neighbourhood, their guns under their arms, had assembled in
Mirabelle’s parlour.
She had not seen as much of the redoubtable Leon as she could have
wished, and when they had a few moments to themselves she seized the
opportunity to tell him of the call which Lee had made that morning.
Apparently he knew all about it, for he expressed no surprise, and was
only embarrassed when she showed a personal interest in himself and his
friends.
It was not a very usual experience for him, and he was rather annoyed
with himself at this unexpected glimpse of enthusiasm and hero-worship,
sane as it was, and based, as he realized, upon her keen sense of
justice.
“I’m not so sure that we’ve been very admirable really,” he said. “But
the difficulty is to produce at the moment a judgment which would be
given from a distance of years. We have sacrificed everything which to
most men would make life worth living, in our desire to see the scales
held fairly.”
“You are not married, Mr. Gonsalez?”
He stared into the frank eyes.
“Married? Why, no,” he said, and she laughed.
“You talk as though that were a possibility that had never occurred to
you.”
“It hasn’t,” he admitted. “By the very nature of our work we are
debarred from that experience. And is it an offensive thing to say that
I have never felt my singleness to be a deprivation?”
“It is very rude,” she said severely, and Leon was laughing to himself
all the way back to town as at a great joke that improved upon
repetition.
“I think we can safely leave her for a week,” he reported, on his return
to Curzon Street. “No, nothing happened. I was held up in a police trap
near Newbury for exceeding the speed limit. They said I was doing fifty,
but I should imagine it was nearer eighty. Meadows will get me out of
that. Otherwise, I must send the inevitable letter to the magistrate and
pay the inevitable fine. Have you done anything about Johnson Lee?”
Manfred nodded.
“Meadows and the enthusiastic Mr. Washington have gone round to see him.
I have asked Washington to go because”—he hesitated—“the snake is a
real danger, so far as he is concerned. Elijah Washington promises to be
a very real help. He is afraid of nothing, and has undertaken to stay
with Lee and to apply such remedies for snake-bites as he knows.”
He was putting on his gloves as he spoke, and Leon Gonsalez looked at
him with a critical admiration.
“Are you being presented at Court, or are you taking tea with a
duchess?”
“Neither. I’m calling upon friend Oberzohn.”
“The devil you are!” said Leon, his eyebrows rising.
“I have taken the precaution of sending him a note, asking him to keep
his snakes locked up,” said Manfred, “and as I have pointedly forwarded
the carbon copy of the letter, to impress the fact that another exists
and may be brought in evidence against him, I think I shall leave
Oberzohn & Smitts’ main office without hurt. If you are not too tired,
Leon, I would rather prefer the Buick to the Spanz.”
“Give me a quarter of an hour,” said Leon, and went up to his room to
make himself tidy.
It was fifteen minutes exactly when the Buick stopped at the door, and
Manfred got into the saloon. There was no partition between driver and
passenger, and conversation was possible.
“It would have been as well if you’d had Brother Newton there,” he
suggested.
“Brother Newton will be on the spot: I took the precaution of sending
him a similar note,” said Manfred. “I shouldn’t imagine they’ll bring
out their gunmen.”
“I know two, and possibly three, they won’t bring out.” Gonsalez grinned
at the traffic policeman who waved him into Oxford Street. “That
Browning of mine throws high, Manfred: I’ve always had a suspicion it
did. Pistols are queer things, but this may wear into my hand.” He
talked arms and ammunition until the square block of Oberzohn & Smitts
came into sight. “Good hunting!” he said, as he got out, opened the
saloon door and touched his hat to Manfred as he alighted.
He got back into his seat, swung the little car round in a circle, and
sat on the opposite side of the road, his eyes alternately on the
entrance and on the mirror which gave him a view of the traffic
approaching him from the rear.
Manfred was not kept in the waiting-room for more than two minutes. At
the end of that time, a solemn youth in spectacles, with a little bow,
led him across the incurious office into the presence of the illustrious
doctor.
The old man was at his desk. Behind him, his debonair self, Monty
Newton, a large yellow flower in his buttonhole, a smile on his face.
Oberzohn got up like a man standing to attention.
“Mr. Manfred, this is a great honour,” he said, and held out his hand
stiffly.
An additional chair had been placed for the visitor: a rich-looking
tapestried chair, to which the doctor waved the hand which Manfred did
not take.
“Good morning, Manfred.” Newton removed his cigar and nodded genially.
“Were you at the dance last night?”
“I was there, but I didn’t come in,” said Manfred, seating himself. “You
did not turn up till late, they tell me?”
“It was of all occurrences the most unfortunate,” said Dr. Oberzohn, and
Newton laughed.
“I’ve lost his laboratory secretary and he hasn’t forgiven me,” he said
almost jovially. “The girl he took on yesterday. Rather a stunner in the
way of looks. She didn’t wish to go back to the country where she came
from, so my sister offered to put her up for the night in Chester
Square. I’m blessed if she didn’t lose herself at the dance, and we
haven’t seen her since!”
“It was a terrible thing,” said Oberzohn sadly. “I regard her as in my
charge. For her safety I am responsible. You, I trust, Mr. Newton——”
“I don’t think I should have another uneasy moment if I were you,
doctor,” said Manfred easily. “The young lady is back at Heavytree Farm.
I thought that would surprise you. And she is still there: that will
surprise you more, if you have not already heard by telephone that your
Old Guard failed dismally to—er—bring her back to work. I presume that
was their object?”
“My old guard, Mr. Manfred?” Oberzohn shook his head in bewilderment.
“This is beyond my comprehension.”
“Is your sister well?” asked Manfred blandly.
Newton shrugged his shoulders.
“She is naturally upset. And who wouldn’t be? Joan is a very
tender-hearted girl.”
“She has been that way for years,” said Manfred offensively. “May I
smoke?”
“Will you have one of my cigarettes?”
Manfred’s grave eyes fixed the doctor in a stare that held the older man
against his will.
“I have had just one too many of your cigarettes,” he said. His words
came like a cold wind. “I do not want any more, Herr Doktor, or there
will be vacancies in your family circle. Who knows that, long before you
compound your wonderful elixir, you may be called to normal
immortality?”
The yellow face of Oberzohn had turned to a dull red.
“You seem to know so much about me, Mr. Manfred, as myself,” he said in
a husky whisper.
Manfred nodded.
“More. For whilst you are racing against time to avoid the end of a life
which does not seem especially worthy of preservation, and whilst you
know not what day or hour that end may come, I can tell you to the
minute.” The finger of his gloved hand pointed the threat.
All trace of a smile had vanished from Monty Newton’s face. His eyes did
not leave the caller’s.
“Perhaps you shall tell me.” Oberzohn found a difficulty in speaking.
Rage possessed him, and only his iron will choked down the flames from
view.
“The day that injury comes to Mirabelle Leicester, that day you go
out—you and those who are with you!”
“Look here, Manfred, there’s a law in this country——” began Monty
Newton hotly.
“I am the law.” The words rang like a knell of fate. “In this matter I
am judge, jury, hangman. Old or young, I will not spare,” he said
evenly.
“Are you immortal too?” sneered Monty.
Only for a second did Manfred’s eyes leave the old man’s face.
“The law is immortal,” he said. “If you dream that, by some cleverly
concerted coup, you can sweep me from your path before I grow dangerous,
be sure that your sweep is clean.”
“You haven’t asked me to come here to listen to this stuff, have you?”
asked Newton, and though his words were bold, his manner aggressive,
there were shadows on his face which were not there when Manfred had
come into the room—shadows under his eyes and in his cheeks where
plumpness had been.
“I’ve come here to tell you to let up on Miss Leicester. You’re after
something that you cannot get, and nobody is in a position to give you.
I don’t know what it is—I will make you a present of that piece of
information. But it’s big—bigger than any prize you’ve ever gone after
in your wicked lives. And to get that, you’re prepared to sacrifice
innocent lives with the recklessness of spendthrifts who think there is
no bottom to their purse. The end is near!”