THE HOUSE OF THE LIONS
However much Fay had expected the brig and irons, he was mistaken in
both surmises.
The lieutenant-commander of the destroyer and MacKeenon were openly
solicitous regarding their captives’ welfare. The cabin assigned to
Saidee Isaacs was just off the ward-room. It had been used by an Admiral
during the years of the war. It was fitted with the simple, serviceable
things which are found on all his Majesty’s better ships—running hot and
cold water in bath and wash-stand—a bed instead of a bunk—white walls
and cork-tiled deck.
Fay was shown an ensign’s cabin which had recently been vacated. He
turned as he felt the powerful throbbing of the giant engines of the
destroyer. MacKeenon stood in the doorway with his legs braced across
the alley-way. The Scotch detective smiled dryly and regarded the
pockets of Fay’s overcoat with concern.
“A hae no doot,” he said, “that ye are armed. Mind passing over any
wicked thing in that direction? There’s much powder about.”
Fay dipped his right hand into his pocket and passed to MacKeenon the
little silver-plated revolver which Saidee Isaacs had given to him. The
inspector snapped it open and dropped the cartridges into the palm of
his right hand. “A better keep these,” he suggested. “Any more,
Chester?”
“Nothing,” said Fay.
“Now the package ye got from the embassy’s safe.” The request was almost
cheerful as if the inspector expected no trouble at all in this
connection. Fay stared at him and shook his head.
“I have no package,” he said.
“What, mon—no packet! Ye made considerable mess of the safe in Holland.
A hear from reliable sources that ye took the outer door, the day door
and the inner box like a blacksmith.”
Fay removed his overcoat, tossed his cap on the bunk, then stepped
toward MacKeenon.
“You can search me,” he offered. “I didn’t bungle that job—as you think.
I’m not going to talk with you until I see Sir Richard. I may be
misquoted. You well know that anything I say may be used against me.”
MacKeenon straightened himself, waited until the leaping destroyer had
taken the downswing of a long glide, then he tapped Fay’s pockets with
professional concern. He finished with the overcoat and the cap. His
lips wore a puzzled expression as he stepped back through the door.
“Ye gave the package to the girl?” he asked.
“See her! I’ll not talk and I don’t think she will. I got what I was
sent after!”
“Ye got it! Where is it?”
“In London—where Sir Richard is—I shall explain everything. Up to that
time and place, questions are useless, Mac.”
The inspector sniffed and ran his keen eyes over the cabin. He turned
and glanced up the alley-way.
“Come on deck when ye want to,” he said softly. “Ye’ll find oil-skins
and boots in the ward-room. We’re slithering toward the North o’ England
at a tremendous rate. We’ll be there, this time tomorrow. A’y’ll give ye
that long to think things over.”
Fay watched him disappear toward the bow of the destroyer. He sat down
and lowered his face in his hands. The noises of their swift passage
drove out all thoughts of escape. There were many alert men on the boat.
Discipline was stern and thorough. The trap had been well sprung. It was
the first stage of the journey back to Dartmoor.
He reviewed the series of events. It seemed that he had been gripped by
a relentless urging since the hour MacKeenon had stood in that
stone-lined courtyard at Dartmoor. There flashed over his brain the
swirl and surge of affairs. He thought of every little detail—the cipher
papers—the coming of Dutch Gus—the package in the embassy’s safe—the
smoked-glasses.
But one phase of the matter was illuminating. The others were blurred
and destroying. Saidee Isaacs had cleared herself in a satisfactory
manner. She was shown up in loyal colors. He no longer had any doubt of
her.
He rose, thrust his arms in the sleeves of his coat, and pulled his cap
down over his head. He glanced into a tiny mirror. His beard on chin and
upper lip showed prominently. He had not shaved for days. There was a
fighting light in his eyes, however, which had always been with him.
“I’m not beat!” he declared as he passed out the cabin and into a
narrow, steel-lined alley-way. “I’ll find Saidee and talk things over.”
The alley-way terminated at a ladder which led to the deck. Flanking
this ladder, to port and starboard, were two closed doors. Fay went up
and lifted a hatch. He staggered to the duck-boards and gripped an iron
railing. He glanced about with his eyes widening at the wilderness of
water and fog and spindrift.
The super-destroyer was knifing westward like a hurtled javelin. Her
four funnels belched fire and oily smoke. Her superstructure of nested
boats, ventilators, pilot-house, chart-house, battened guns and two
taper signal-masts vibrated and throbbed under the steady hammering of
the high-speed engines.
The dawn was breaking to the eastward. A yellow light was on the fog. A
sea bird wheeled and fell astern. A great wave curled the sharp bow,
combed the flush decks and seethed to leeward.
Fay wound his fingers about the rail and turned until he faced the after
part of the destroyer. A few of the crew were on deck. They crouched in
the lee of shelters. The stern gun had a jaunty tilt to its long muzzle.
A mark showed on the sponson where a German shell had exploded.
Saidee Isaacs appeared in oil-skins and a yellow southwester. She was
followed by the lean form of MacKeenon. They worked forward and stood by
Fay’s side. They swayed with the movements of the fast-flying destroyer.
“Yon is Scotland,” said MacKeenon. “Ye are in the heart of the North
Sea.”
“Where do we land?” asked Fay.
“The Firth o’ Tay—at Dundee or Perth.”
Saidee Isaacs pulled down the brim of her southwester and stared
forward. She pressed her fingers against Fay’s arm.
“We’ll be in London by tomorrow afternoon,” she said warningly.
Fay nodded. He was helpless. There was no possible escape from facing
Sir Richard.
“A have sent a wireless,” said MacKeenon between gusts of wind. “They
will be expecting distinguished guests,” he added dryly. “A warn ye both
that if ye have the cipher-key or know where it can be gotten—don’t
destroy it or cause it to be whisked away. It is also the key to
Dartmoor.”
“Then I’m gone,” thought Fay as he glanced at the girl. She shook her
head slightly. Her fingers uncoiled from the rail. Her hand passed
slowly over her mouth. She had indicated silence without MacKeenon
catching the motion.
Fay dropped his eyes and glanced at the hatch. “Let’s go below,” he
said. “I’m getting wet and cold up here. How about some breakfast, Mac?”
“Ye shall both be served,” said the Scot. “A shall breakfast with ye
both.”
The morning passed in the silence of the ward-room. Afternoon deepened
the light that came through the port-holes. Green changed to opal, and
opal to gray. Fog swirled and wound the destroyer with a protecting
cloak. The speed was not reduced until the old mine barrier was reached
off the Scotch coast. A shot gave the warning. Voices called from ship
to ship. Once the bright flare of a two-second light flashed and was
gone. They entered the Firth of Tay and glided for the anchorage off
Dundee.
“A quick passage,” was all that MacKeenon said as the rattle of the
anchor chain followed the shutting down of the engines.
Fay waited in the ward-room as Saidee Isaacs went for her hat and
gloves. She returned within a minute. She stood erect and faced the Scot
as two ensigns came down through the companion and saluted.
“Ye go with us,” said the inspector. “There shall be a mon or twa
waiting in Dundee. Passage has been booked for the south. A think it
will be long after midnight when we board the Royal Scotsman for London.
A hae no doot ye’ll thank the commander for me.”
The ensigns stared at the girl admiringly. They saluted and started up
the ladder which led to the deck. Fay preceded Saidee Isaacs. MacKeenon
waited discreetly, then climbed rapidly upward. The group stood on the
dark deck of the destroyer. Lights showed where ships rode at anchor. A
diadem of fire rimmed the quays and water front. A hotel added its glow
over the city’s housetops. All this was a glimpse of England to Fay. He
turned as he heard a metallic sound. MacKeenon had opened a pair of
handcuffs. They clicked softly upon the cracksman’s protesting right
wrist.
“A can take no chances,” apologized the vigilant inspector.
Saidee Isaacs started. She wheeled with flaming cheeks and glowing eyes
toward the inspector.
“Take them off!” she exclaimed hotly. “What do you mean?”
MacKeenon carefully gripped the loose end of the cuffs and felt to see
if Fay’s wrist was clamped tight enough.
“A have my orders,” he said craftily.
“From whom?” The girl’s voice was tense and demanding.
“From the Yard. A can do nothing else than what A’ve done. In the train
A’y’ll take them off. A shall take them off.”
“Never mind,” said Fay slowly. “He’s got some kind of a warrant. I’m on
parole—you know.”
MacKeenon chuckled and snapped his eyes. “Ye are that,” he said, “and
here comes the boat. Step this way, Chester.”
A whale-boat rowed by two sailors glided alongside the flush-deck of the
destroyer. The seamen upended oars and reached for a grating. They
waited.
MacKeenon, with Fay in tow, led the way over the duck-boards and down a
flat ladder to the boat. He stepped aft and made room on the stern seat
for the cracksman. Saidee Isaacs sprang aboard and glided to the bow.
The two ensigns stood at attention. They saluted as the sailors shoved
off and started rowing.
The shore was reached at a Government quay, piled high with North Sea
stores. An auto was standing at the head of the quay. The driver blew
three blasts on his horn. MacKeenon answered the signal by raising his
hand. A man came gliding between the boxes and bales and stared at Fay.
He turned toward MacKeenon.
“A’ve booked a compartment on the Royal Scotsman,” he said like an
inferior to a superior. “Ye should reach London by noon. Sir Richard has
wired me he will be waiting at the House of the Two Lions.”
“Scotland Yard,” whispered Saidee Isaacs into Fay’s ear.
MacKeenon caught the sly aside and smiled like a crafty manhunter.
“A hae no doot it is,” he said, staring at Saidee Isaacs. “It’s a quiet
branch of the Criminal Investigation Division.”
The inspector led the way to the waiting motor. The drive to the station
was made in silence. A wait ensued as the Dundee detective went within
the train-shed and arranged for the compartment. He came back rubbing
his dry hands. He nodded toward MacKeenon.
“Ye go through a side door,” he said. “A’y’ll follow ye—to see that ye
get there. A had a slip-up in this spot once. My mon got clean away.”
The Scot glanced at Fay with a glitter in his eyes. The cracksman
shivered slightly. He could not help the movement. There was that to the
inspector’s which spoke of blood-hunting instincts bred in their bones.
“They’re all the same,” he whispered to Saidee Isaacs. “I told you they
were all the same.”
She signaled caution and followed him through to the train-shed.
MacKeenon spoke to the guard. The compartment was unlocked. They entered
and sat down.
The Dundee detective stood on the running-board with his watch in hand
and his eyes glued upon the station-master, who wore more medals than a
German field marshal of Hohenzollern days.
“Ye’re off,” he announced, snapping shut his watch. “A wish ye all a
pleasant trip.”
The train pulled out of the long station and struck across the city. It
plunged into a covered bridge and out upon highland. It took the
switches and shunts like a scared cat on a fence. It tunneled the fog
and the night—south-bound for Edinburgh and London.
MacKeenon reached and tried both doors of the compartment. He turned,
fished into his vest pocket, and brought forth a tiny key.
“A’y’ll take off the darbies, now,” he said, slipping the key into the
barrel lock of the handcuffs. “Ye can rest easier.”
“It is about time!” declared Saidee Isaacs as she pressed herself into a
corner of the leather cushions and pulled her hat down over her eyes.
Fay examined his wrist with concern. A red band showed there. He worked
his fingers, stared at them, then brought forth a cigarette from his
pocket and, declining the light offered by MacKeenon, struck his own
match upon the bottom of his heel.
Dawn crimsoned the drawn shades of the compartment. The guard appeared
at a station and took the inspector’s orders for a basket of rather
frugal proportions. The three ate breakfast in silence. The last scrap
was finished by MacKeenon, who remarked dryly:
“Three and six! A minds the time when it was two and four.”
Fay took this statement to mean that the inspector had spent rather more
money than he expected for the breakfast. He watched the thrifty Scot
make an entry in a notebook. His eyes wandered from this to Saidee
Isaacs. She had pressed her face to a window and was peering out. She
turned and held the shade up for him.
He caught a streaky glimpse of English meadows and estates. The trees
were very green. The lawns sloped down to the rails like great seas of
velvet. Hedges and well-trimmed clumps and flower-crescents flickered
by.
Fay flashed her a quick signal. He could escape! MacKeenon might be
bowled over. The door could be broken open. There was all of the North
Country to hide in. A flying leap from the train would take him from the
grasping hand of the Yard. The girl shook her head. She had a plan which
she could not reveal to him. She steadied her eyes and smiled a slow,
enigmatic smile of caution now, but freedom later.
MacKeenon glanced at his watch. It was evident that the train would be
late. This was such an unusual thing for the Royal Scotsman that he made
inquiry of the guard as the great station at Peterborough was reached.
The guard explained the matter by mentioning troop movements back from
France. The policing of Germany consisted of a mere handful of the
former force.
It was graying dusk when the inspector rose and brought out the
handcuffs. Saidee Isaacs turned from the window and flashed a protest as
Fay’s wrist was nipped and gyved to MacKeenon’s left hand.
She held her tongue and stood erect. The train glided through the murk
of a London station-yard. Switch-point lights flashed—green and white. A
roar sounded of hollow sheds. A grinding of brakes announced the last
stop. The guard appeared, drew out a great bunch of keys and unlocked
the door. He thrust his head inside.
“Hall hout!” he said. “They’re waiting for you, inspector.”
Fay, on the end of a bright steel chain, followed the detective. Saidee
Isaacs, who might have dropped back, stepped up loyally. The three
hurried through a curious crowd and glided out of a side door.
The same black car, with its H.M.S. plates, that had brought Fay to
London from Dartmoor, was waiting. The same driver sat in the front
seat. In the rear, holding an inviting door, stood the little old man
who had followed the cracksman to Holland. His bundle lay on the seat.
It was the nipper grip of the Yard—and perfect team-work!
The ride south and then west through the crowded throng of City clerks
and busses was made in utter silence. MacKeenon sat between Fay and the
girl. The little old man, whose eyes were as bright as a terrier’s,
watched everything. The pouches on the sides of his jaw were leathern
and long. He sniffed at times. More times, he coughed with a distressing
rasp like a growl or a low bark.
The car turned into the street upon which was the House of the Two
Lions. The brakes went on with a clamp. The throttle was slowed as the
driver lifted his foot from the pedal. He sprang out to the curb. A
smell of hot oil permeated the night air. A double glow from two lamps
illuminated the front of the house. A man stood waiting!
Sir Richard nodded his head to MacKeenon after the inspector had hurried
Fay across the pavement and up the flight of steps. The chief of the
bureau glanced keenly at Saidee Isaacs. He said nothing. His manner was
cold. His great jaw snapped shut. It was like a double trap to Fay.
The light in the hallway was barely sufficient to reveal a flight of
stairs leading upward and a closed door at the end. Toward this door Sir
Richard stepped, threw it open, and bowed as MacKeenon led his suspect
into the center of the huge room, where first Fay had seen the cipher
sheets.
The cracksman studied this room as MacKeenon, at a nod from Sir Richard,
rattled out the handcuff key and turned the bolt in the snap-lock.
There were the same three tin boxes upon the long mahogany table. There
was also evidence everywhere that clerks had been copying the cipher.
Five American typewriters stood on tables at one end of the room. The
lights in the overhead cluster were brilliant. The air tasted of
pipe-smoke.
Saidee Isaacs stood by the door which led to the hallway. The little old
man crept to her side and waited for Sir Richard to speak. Fay leaned
against the corner of the long table and rubbed his wrist.
“You double-crossed me!” he exclaimed bitterly. “You said I could go to
Holland scot-free, and you’ve had every Scotch inspector in the Yard
after me. How do you expect to get results if you do that?”
“Yes—how does he expect it?” said Saidee Isaacs.
Sir Richard stared from the girl to Fay. He brought his lower lip over
his upper one. His eyes were curtained by his furrowed brows. His
right-hand fingers toyed with a watch-charm which hung from a heavy gold
chain.
Turning suddenly, he moved a chair behind the table, sat down, leaned
back, thrust his thumbs in the arm-holes of his silk-lined vest and
nodded toward the door.
MacKeenon closed the door, locked it and came back to Fay’s side. He
passed the key toward Sir Richard, who motioned for him to lay it on the
table.
“Now that everybody has had their say,” said the chief, with an icy
glitter in his eyes. “Now that they have,” he continued, “I suppose it’s
my turn.”
“Fay, what did you do with the package you got from the safe?”
The question was shot directly at the cracksman. It was phrased so that
there was no possible evasion.
It was a long minute before Fay answered. He laid both palms on the
table and leaned toward Sir Richard as he said:
“What did I do with it—why, I threw it away!”
Sir Richard flushed hotly. He half rose from his chair. His thumbs came
out of the arm-pits of his vest. He grasped the edge of the table and
tilted his chair forward.
“Threw it away! What did you do that for? You got it and then threw it
away?”
“Yes, I got it,” Fay said between rigid lips. “I got what those German
bunglers got—what Dutch Gus was after. I got the package and threw it
into the North Sea. You sent me on a wild-goose chase—if ever there was
one.”
“How’s that?”
“How! Why, damn it man, I’m no fool! Here I go after a strong-box, find
that the outer door and the day door is ripped wide-open by a bunch of
blacksmiths, beat them to the keister and get the package you sent me
for—only to find that the package contains a cheap pair of
smoked-glasses! A shilling pair, if ever there was one!”
Fay paused and stood erect. He whipped off his cap and, turning, glanced
at Saidee Isaacs. She stepped forward and nodded confirmation. Fay went
on:
“You’ve been badly gulled, Sir Richard! Mononsonburg, whose name was on
the package, must have left the smoked-glasses at the embassy, and the
report got to your people, as well as to the Germans, that it was the
key to the cipher. I’m through with the whole mess! Send me back to
Dartmoor!”
“Smoked-glasses?” repeated Sir Richard, rising and leaning over the
table with his finger pointing like a gun at Fay.
“Yes—smoked-glasses! An ordinary pair of ordinary glasses!”
“And you threw them away?”
“Ask her,” said Fay, turning to the girl.
The chief of the investigation bureau sat back, thrust his thumbs in his
vest-holes, and whistled slowly. He closed his pursed lips and glared
across the polished table. Inch by inch his eyes raised to the
cracksman. For the first time since leaving the prison, Fay felt the
grip of fear. There was that in the manhunter’s eyes to warn him of
coming danger.
He stepped back and away from the table. He came full into the level
squint of MacKeenon’s eyes. The air of the great room grew tense with
things about to happen.
Saidee Isaacs gripped Fay’s sleeve with a pressure of confidence.
“Tell him everything,” she said in a low whisper.
MacKeenon stepped between the girl and Fay. He clicked the handcuffs
suggestively as he dropped a hand into his coat pocket.
“Coom on,” he said, bringing out the cuffs.
“No, Mac!” Sir Richard snapped. “Not yet! The smoked-glasses he threw
away interest me—the trifle—lighter than air.”
Fay shrugged his narrow shoulders and advanced to the table. He waited
for Sir Richard to speak.
“Describe them,” said the chief, leaning back. “What were those glasses
like, Fay?”
“Ordinary! I saw nothing at all that would interest you in them. They
were dark—almost opaque. They had cheap German-silver bows.”
“Where are they now?” Sir Richard’s voice held the grating edge of an
inquisitor’s.
“They’re in the North Sea off the Holland coast. I’d say they went to
the bottom in about thirty feet of water. I threw them off a cliff. She
knows.” Fay turned toward Saidee Isaacs.
“He did, Sir Richard,” said the girl quickly. “He and I were together.
We had rowed ashore from a sinking ship. I forget its name. Dutch Gus
had the package and Chester took it from him. He sank the ship to get
it.”
“Ah,” said the chief, “that was enterprise—at any rate. Now where on the
Holland coast could I send a man to dive for the glasses?”
Fay glanced about the room. “If you get a good chart I’ll show you,” he
said.
Sir Richard rubbed his hands. “That’ll keep,” he declared. “We’ll
remember it, though. Now, Fay, one other matter before I turn you over
to MacKeenon.”
“What is it?”
“How did it happen that you went to Arendal? What took you there?”
“I was trying to connect with a man named Harry Raymond.”
“Ace-in-the-hole Harry?”
“Yes! The deep-sea cardsharper!”
“What did you want to meet him for?”
“Last time I saw him he wore a pair of glasses like the pair I threw
away on the Holland coast. Saidee made me go after him—or suggested that
I should.”
“No, it was his idea,” said the girl staunchly.
“Whoever thought of it,” Sir Richard said, “must have been sure there
was some connection between the two pairs of glasses.”
Fay caught the deduction which had caused the chief’s remark. He felt
like a felon before a Crown’s counsel. He bit his upper lip and toyed
with his cap which lay on the table. The bright cluster of bulbs over
his head brought out the clean-cut details of Sir Richard’s features.
He realized that the man whom he faced was the keenest ferret in all of
Europe. The chief was balked, but only temporarily. There was no beating
him. An inkling of the methods which had cost the underworld so many of
its choicest lights came to Fay. He recalled that Foley the Goat had
been caught by the mere matter of losing a coat-button. Then there was
the Marble Arch affair, where Scotland Yard had brought home the crime
to its instigators by the slender clue of five black hairs perfumed with
a certain Italian hair-tonic which only one shop in Soho poured upon the
heads of its customers.
Trifles had beaten the best-laid plans of those who lived beyond the
law. And now the hounds were snarling over another trifle—as Sir Richard
said—lighter than air. The chief had caught the thin wedge between the
two pairs of smoked-glasses. He had guessed what Fay already knew. He
glanced up at the cracksman and smiled broadly.
“So your friend, Harry-in-the-hole, wore the same kind of glasses? That
simplifies matters. It may solve the cipher for us!”
“That’s what I thought,” said Fay positively.
Sir Richard stared at the ceiling and the bright electric cluster.
“Let’s see,” he mused. “Ace-in-the-hole Harry—what an awful monacker,
Fay—was arrested at the Crystal Palace for trimming a pigeon out of his
shirt—almost. Then he appeared again at Bow Street charged with running
a buffet flat in the West End—Brick Street, I think. They fleeced
everybody there at banker and broker and baccarat, or was it chemin de
fer?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Fay.
“He paid ten pounds fine, I think, and disappeared. Now, you say, he was
on the boats with smoked-glasses. Then those glasses had some close
relation to the cards. I think we’re getting there—”
Sir Richard’s right fingers crept to his vest pocket in abstraction. He
stared at Saidee Isaacs and then dropped his eyes toward his vest. He
brought out a small ring upon which was a single flat key. He toyed with
this key as MacKeenon crept forward with the loose pouches of his
leathern jaw hanging down.
“Bring me the boxes!” he said, pointing toward the three tin boxes which
stood at the end of the table.
MacKeenon set them in front of Sir Richard.
“It may be, Mac,” said the chief. “It may be that we have reached the
end of the quest. There is something in what Fay has told us, after all.
He’s a bungler and a fool and all o’ that, but he has enterprise.
Suppose you go back to the coach house and tell the driver to give you
those goggles from out the side pocket of the tonneau of the car that
brought you down. I think I heard him take the car around the house.
Tell him I want all of the goggles he has got.”
The inspector glanced at Fay.
“Go on,” said Sir Richard, “I’ll watch him.”
“Now you, Fay,” the chief continued as MacKeenon unlocked the door and
vanished through the hallway. “Fay, you can’t steal! You’re a shining
mark for us. You’ve got the nerve of the damned—but you overlook the
essential trifles. That finger-print up over the transom in Hatton
Gardens—for instance. The dropped hotel-key in Chicago—wasn’t it? And
now the smoked-glasses. You should not have thrown them away.”
“She told me I shouldn’t have done it,” said Fay, turning toward Saidee
Isaacs. He was surprised to notice that the girl had stepped halfway
toward the door. Her eyes turned swiftly away from a spot on the wall.
She nodded her head as Sir Richard glanced keenly at her.
“She told you, eh? She was right. A woman’s intuition is a sound compass
to steer by. Saidee has a clever brain—when she uses it. She helped get
these for us.”
Sir Richard pointed toward the first tin box. “She aided in getting them
through Switzerland. She did well—but they are scraps of paper without
the key that will solve them. That key may lie in the smoked-glasses. It
may go deeper than that. You thought it was a trifle. Let me tell you,
candidly, there are no trifles in this world. What do you wager that the
trifle you threw away solves the secret of the entire German dye
industry?”
“About three minutes start that it doesn’t,” said Fay as he glanced at
the girl out of the corners of his eyes.
Sir Richard rubbed his hands and picked up the nearest box. He inserted
the key as the little old man crept out of the gloom and came toward the
table. Saidee Isaacs took one step in the direction of the door and the
wainscoting near the chamfering. She stood pensively, with her hands at
her sides as MacKeenon glided into the room and tossed a pair of
yellow-tinted goggles upon the table.
Sir Richard picked up these goggles and lifted a sheet of paper out of
the box. He held the glasses in one hand—the paper in the other. His
eyes traveled over the lines of typing. He adjusted the goggles and
leaned his head forward.
Slowly the chief’s gaze ran from left to right and back again along the
sheet. He fingered the goggles abstractedly. He moved his eyes closer to
the page. He drew them away—a foot or more.
“Not smoked enough,” he said musingly. “These glasses won’t do, I’m
afraid. They’re very weak. Very weak indeed.”
Fay stood on the balls of his feet. He thrust a hand halfway out toward
his cap which was between MacKeenon and the little old man. He waited
then with every nerve strained to the leaping point.
Sir Richard glanced at the electric cluster, blinked his eyes, then
resumed his scrutiny through the goggles of the typed page. He lifted a
second sheet and peered at this. He seemed, to the poised cracksman,
like a scientist examining a beetle with a double microscope. His brow
darkened with a welling frown of annoyance. His chin lifted slightly.
His glance darted toward Fay in final resolution. His eyes flamed.
“Mac, you may take him back to—” he started to say when Saidee Isaacs’
fingers closed over the black knob of the switch which controlled all of
the lights in the room. A click sounded like a revolver being cocked.
The place was plunged into inky darkness. An exclamation of surprise
came from the two detectives. This was followed by a gasp from Sir
Richard. This last was mingled exasperation and wonder.
Fay heard, as he snatched up the cap and darted after Saidee Isaacs, the
quick, braying of MacKeenon:
“He’s goon, mon! Fay is goon!”
The inspector blundered against the half-closed door. He bumped his head
in the darkness. Recoiling, he heard Sir Richard exclaim:
“Come here, Mac! Come here!”
Fay heard this cry as he leaped through the front door and sprang after
the fleeing form of the girl. He wondered at the reason for it. His feet
did not seem to touch the ground.
He gained her side as she crossed the dewy lawn of a garden and glided
through box-wood hedges which led west and to another street than the
one upon which was the House of the Two Lions.
“Are they following us?” she asked, turning her head and glancing at
him. “Is anybody coming?” she repeated, breathing swiftly.
“No! No!” he answered, staring through the dark arch of green trees.
“No, Saidee, they are not! No one has come out of the house. I don’t
understand why they didn’t follow us—do you?”
“They’ve found something more important, then—” she said intuitively. “I
believe they have found the key to the cipher!”