A FRIEND IN NEED
Shortly before nine o’clock that evening, Ashton Sanborn, or Mr. Davis,
as he preferred to be known, waved a hand to Bill and Osceola and drove
off along the highway. A minute or two later the road swung past the
stone wall, fragrant with late honeysuckle, that bounded the Fanely
estate. But instead of entering the drive, he kept going straight ahead
for several miles.
When at last he felt that the lads had been given time enough to reach
their destination, he turned the car round at a crossroad and came back,
driving slowly. This time he turned in between the stone gate posts that
marked the entrance. The bluestone road bed wound like a huge snake
through wooded acres, and half a mile from the highway, entered a grove
of tall elms that belted broad lawns landscaped with flower gardens and
shrubs. The immense grey stone house looked much more like a public
institution than a private dwelling.
Mr. Davis parked his car before a wide stone terrace. He walked sedately
up the steps and rang the doorbell. While he waited he studied the
beautiful outer door, intricately fashioned of wrought iron and glass.
He could not see into the house, for a curtain was drawn close to the
glass on the inside.
The door noiselessly opened, and framed in the ornate entrance stood a
middle-aged man in evening dress. His left arm was held close to his
body by a black silk sling.
“Ashton Sanborn!”
Mr. Davis peered closely at the man, who now looked as if he would
willingly have bitten off his tongue for the ejaculation. But a moment
later the recognition was mutual.
The secret service man smiled. “Blessed if it isn’t my friend Serge
Kolinski! Fancy meeting you here, and without your mustache—no wonder I
hardly recognized you!” Mr. Davis advanced with outstretched hand, while
the Pole backed away.
While Sanborn stared at him, the man glanced furtively over his shoulder
into the gloom of the spacious hall. He seemed to be in the grip of some
overwhelming fear. Then, wetting his dry lips with the tip of his
tongue, he turned to the detective.
“Mr. Sanborn—I—you must clear out of here—get away!” His speech now bore
no trace of the foreign accent which the girls had mentioned. “You’ve
always played the white man to me, Mr. Sanborn—never tried to frame me,
or—But clear out, sir—do you hear?”
Sanborn laughed shortly. “I thought you knew me better than that,
Kolinski.”
“Look here, Mr. Sanborn—don’t say I haven’t warned you—don’t say I’ve
done you dirt!” Kolinski’s whisper was almost inaudible.
Mr. Davis frowned uneasily. The man’s fear was so genuine, his manner so
agitated, that the detective felt a creepy feeling touch his spine. He
shuddered involuntarily, then pulled himself together.
“I’d like to speak to Professor Fanely, Kolinski—”
“Don’t do it, Mr. Sanborn, don’t do it—you—”
“Show Mr. Ashton Sanborn into the library, Kolinski!”
The high-pitched, wheezing voice was cold and toneless, yet held an
undercurrent of evil. Kolinski shivered, then placed a trembling
forefinger on his lips.
“Y-y-yessir.”
“Then go to your room. I’ll attend to you later. You talk too much.”
Ashton Sanborn followed the thoroughly frightened Kolinski across the
wide hall and into the library. It was empty, but a bright fire blazed
on the hearth at the other end of the room. Shades were drawn over the
windows. The room felt stuffy, and oppressively warm. Kolinski retired
without a word. The unseen master’s voice had apparently withered his
power of speech.
Sanborn stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing about the
room, waiting for Professor Fanely to appear. The four walls were lined
to the ceiling with books, and the place was austerely furnished.
Sanborn felt uneasy, not only in Kolinski’s behalf, but somehow
obscurely, in his own. There was something sinister in the very
atmosphere. The wheezing voice and its unspoken menace echoed in his
brain....
Five minutes passed. He wondered if Bill and Osceola were outside the
windows, or whether they had been waylaid in the grounds by Fanely’s
men. He took out his watch and looked at it. The five minutes extended
to ten.
Ashton Sanborn began to fret at the delay. But the thought that this
discourtesy was probably intentional somewhat curbed his impatience. He
sat down in an armchair and pulled out his pipe and tobacco. If
Professor Fanely chose to ignore his visit, then old Fanely would have
to put up with breach of etiquette on his part. He was just on the point
of lighting it, when a gentle, cultured voice spoke immediately behind
him.
“That’s right, Mr. Sanborn. Make yourself at home!”
Ashton Sanborn swung round in his chair. Standing not three feet away,
exuding goodwill with a benign smile, and rubbing his hands together,
was the biggest man the detective had ever seen. Sanborn was startled,
not so much at the man’s presence, but that he had not heard him enter
the room. It seemed uncanny that such a huge man could move so quietly.
The secret service man jumped to his feet.
“Good evening! I called to see Professor Fanely. My card, apparently, is
not needed.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Sanborn. We—er—have heard of you, although, speaking for
myself, I have never, to my knowledge, had the pleasure of seeing you
before.” The big fellow stared down on Sanborn from his superior height.
“Professor Fanely is not at home, Mr. Sanborn.”
“Out?”
“Ah! I’m afraid I express myself rather badly. I mean to convey to you
that Professor Fanely is indisposed.”
“But I thought I heard him speak in the hall a moment ago?”
“Oh, no. No, that was certainly not Professor Fanely. Oh, dear me, no.”
He laughed—an unpleasant sound, for all its softness. “That was Mr.—but
his name does not matter. He is upstairs now, attending to Mr. Kolinski,
our estimable butler. You must not place too much reliance on our
Kolinski’s chatter, you know. He does not always tell the truth. In
fact, to put it bluntly, Mr. Sanborn, Mr. Kolinski is not—er—unfamiliar
with the inside of a jail!”
“I know that well enough. I’ve been instrumental in sending him up the
river twice, myself.”
“Oh, dear me! Fancy that, now!”
There came a silence, during which Sanborn had the vaguely uncomfortable
feeling that a third presence had somehow entered the room. Mechanically
he lit his pipe, and, blowing the first mouthful of smoke upward, he
carelessly subjected the ceiling to a covert scrutiny. Nothing doing. He
stooped and tapped the bowl of his pipe on an ashtray which rested on a
small table. No one on the left hand side of the room. He turned round
quickly, ostensibly to adjust a cushion on his easy chair. A flutter of
a curtain hanging near the door caught his eye. Then he seated himself
and leaned back comfortably.
“Yes,” he answered the big man’s unspoken inquiry. “That is why I
called—to warn you against Kolinski. But as you are already aware of his
past delinquencies—well,—” he shrugged his shoulders and stood up. “This
is beside the point, now, don’t you think? Perhaps you had better ring
for the man so that I may place him under arrest.”
“They’ll never bring him in here!”
Bill Bolton swung the curtain back and stepped into the room, a revolver
grasped in his gloved right hand. “Stick ’em up, Lambert,” he told the
big man. “That’s right—stick ’em up and keep ’em up!”
“But Bill—” Sanborn began, his eyes on the man called Lambert who had
complied with the curt order and was reaching toward the ceiling.
Bill shook his head impatiently. “No time for argument, sir. They are on
to your visit and don’t intend to let you leave the house alive.
Kolinski is their sacrifice in this deal. He’s probably been killed by
this time.”
“Are you sure about this, Bill? How could you possibly learn—”
“We’ve got to hustle,” Bill cut him short. “Explain later. Oh, I’m sure
enough, never fear!”
A colored rope was attached to the curtain. He disengaged it and tossed
it to Sanborn.
“Now you—” he indicated Lambert, “take a walk to that chair and sit
down.”
There was a murderous gleam in Lambert’s eyes as he retreated. He knew,
of course, that these two were acting in conjunction, but could not
understand these new secret service methods.
“Now tie him up. I’ll keep him covered. He’s got a gun. Better relieve
him of it. His game was to shoot you just as soon as your back was
safely turned.”
Ashton Sanborn did as he was told, cheerfully, albeit wonderingly. How
Bill could have gained his information and what he was up to now were as
yet unsolved mysteries. He took away the man’s gun, a blue-nosed
automatic. Then, carefully, he tied Lambert’s arms to the back of the
chair and roped his legs securely.
“Better lock the door,” was Bill’s next suggestion. “I’ll gag him.”
The detective hurried to the door. There was no key in the lock. He
clutched the handle—rattled it—pulled—The door did not budge.
“What’s up, sir?” Bill’s voice betrayed his apprehension.
“_Locked!_”
“Then we’re in for it.” It was not so much the words as the way they
were spoken that impressed the secret service man.
“But—if it’s trouble, Bill, we must find a way out,” he said calmly.
“There is no way. They’re likely to come in on us through that door any
minute now.” Bill’s voice was steady, but Sanborn knew he was attempting
to conceal his strong excitement.
“If the door’s locked on the outside, we’d better barricade it on the
inside.” He looked round the room for a suitable means of fortification,
and his eyes fell upon the huge Lambert.
The man’s face was pale, almost haggard, and beads of sweat stood out
upon his forehead. He was afraid.
In spite of their potential danger, Sanborn smiled as the thought struck
him. “Here, Bill, give me a hand.”
Young Bolton immediately saw the possibility. Together the pair dragged
the mutely protesting Lambert to the door, and planted him firmly in his
chair against the panels. Over two hundred-weight of solid humanity—an
effective barrier.
“Now then, Bill. Where’s Osceola?”
“Outside the window. Or he was.” Bill’s voice was little more than a
whisper. “We got here more than ten minutes before you drove up—legged
it fast across the grounds, without running into a soul. The windows on
this side of the house are too high to see into from the ground. Luckily
Osceola spied a ladder leaning against an elm, on the way here, where
some tree surgeon had left it, I guess. Anyway, it was just what we
wanted, so we hiked over and toted it back. I climbed it and cut a hole
in the glass just above the window-catch. I couldn’t see into the room
because of the shade, but I could hear, all right. That big goop over
there was talking with Professor Fanely. And by the way, there’s
absolutely no doubt that old Fanely is the guy we’re after. His voice is
the one I heard in the cupola. Osceola recognized it, too. Of course,
when I got the piece of glass out of the window, they were in the midst
of a conversation. I gathered that you’d been followed to New York
today. Evidently they knew nothing about your conference, but the
cabinet member was spotted going into the same office where you had been
trailed. So, the old bird had figured out just about what did happen in
New York. Take it from me, there are no flies on that old fellow! He
guessed how you would be sure that he, Fanely, was the kidnapper from
Deborah’s description, and how the lad from Washington would laugh at
the idea. He even had the hunch that you would show up tonight! And
while they were talking, Kolinski came in and said that a phone message
had come through from the lodge, and that you were on the way up.”
“But I wonder how they guessed my identity?”
“Your car license—Kolinski said so. Those things seem to be working for
both sides in this business. Kolinski, the poor chap, was scared to
death, apparently. The old man had it in for him because he made the
initial mistake of dropping that silver cartwheel out of his car, and
making it possible for the girls to identify him. But he was only in the
room a couple of minutes. When he’d gone, the Professor said that as
soon as you came they’d go upstairs. They planned that after Kolinski
had ushered you in here, they’d put him out of the way. And the next
move was for Lambert to come down here and do the same for you. Of
course, old Fanely thought you’d come armed, so he cautioned the big guy
to watch his step. If it hadn’t been for that,—well, I guess I’d have
been too late.” Bill bit his lip. “I don’t see how the old buzzard
imagined he could avoid government suspicion by doing you in, as well as
Kolinski—Well, that’s about all of it. When you rang the bell, they went
out of here, so I unfastened the window catch and hopped in.”
“Good work, Bill. You’re the sort of a chap a man needs on a job like
this—”
Bill grinned and shook his head. “I’m all right as far as I go, but I
guess—“ he motioned toward the barricaded door—“I just didn’t go far
enough. But Osceola’s outside somewhere, I thought he’d better stay on
watch. So maybe—”
There was a knock on the door. They looked at each other and waited.
“Well, Lambert? Is the dear Mister Ashton Sanborn, alias Davis—er—_non
compos_—I mean _hors de combat_?” A pause. “So, my dear Lambert, you
have failed, eh?” A fierce menace in the words now.
The bound man’s face turned a sickly gray, and Sanborn felt a momentary
pity for him. Then they heard whispered instructions outside the door,
and the sound of running feet. Sanborn tried a bluff.
“Hi! you!—there’s a posse of police surrounding the house!”
A cackling laugh that ended in a snarl.
“Yes, I saw _him_ go!”
“So he got away all right? Thanks very much. He should be back by this
time, with about thirty others.” Sanborn listened intently in an effort
to ascertain whether or not his shot had gone home. Then—“They are only
awaiting my signal.”
“Then why not signal, my dear Sanborn?”
A second later a shot rang out. Simultaneously a round hole, splintered
at the edges, appeared in the upper panel of the door, and a bullet
whistled past the detective and buried itself in the opposite wall. The
hole in the panel was about two inches above Lambert’s head, and with
protruding eyes the wretched man endeavored to shrink into the chair.
Bill and Sanborn dropped to all fours and were making for the window,
when a second shot was fired. This time it came from outside the house
and shattered the lower window sash. Both the detective and young Bolton
went flat on the floor. Sanborn beckoned to Bill to move closer. As the
lad wriggled over the carpet toward him, the older man spoke to him in a
low whisper.
“Sorry I got you into this. When they rush the place, start firing. We
may be able to fight our way out—one of us, anyway.”
“Maybe—but—too bad we’re a good four miles from town. If Osceola got
away to telephone the police, it’s going to be a near thing before they
get here. But all I want is to get one shot at old Fanely!”
As if in reply to his name, the high, wheezing voice spoke again from
beyond the door. “You gentlemen in there,” and they heard a horrible
chuckle, “will be interested to know that your friend Chief Osceola ran
foul of my men, after all. He is now taking a well-earned rest in the
lodge. Good night, my dear gentlemen. Pleasant dreams, and may you
awake—in heaven!”
As if to place a period on this unanswered monologue, another shot
splintered through the door panels.