“Phew!” said Alan, and wiped his streaming forehead. “I’ve heard the expression ‘dead to the world’, but this is certainly the first time I’ve seen a man in that state.”
He shook the dazed lawyer, but he might as well have shaken himself for all the effect it had upon the slumberer.
“Thank Gawd!” said a voice behind. It was Hackitt’s trembling voice. “I never thought I’d be glad to see that old bird alive!”
Alan glanced up at the chandelier that hung from the ceiling. “Put on the lights,” he said. “See if you can wake him, doctor.”
“Have you tried burning his ears?” suggested the helpful Hackitt, and was sternly ordered to be quiet. “Can’t a man express his emotions?” asked Mr. Hackitt wrathfully. “There’s no law against that, is there? Didn’t I tell you, Mr. Wembury? He’s doped! I’ve seen him like that before—doped and dizzy!”
“Hackitt, where were you in this room when you felt the hand?” asked Alan. “Take the cuff off.”
The handcuff was unlocked, and Hackitt moved to a place almost opposite the door. Between the door and the small settee was a supper table, which Wembury had seen the moment he came into the room. So Mary had not come: that was an instant cause of relief. “I was here,” said Hackitt. “The hand came from there.”
He pointed to the mystery door, and Wembury saw that the bolts were shot, the door locked, and the key hung in its place on the wall. It was impossible that anybody could have come into the room from that entrance without Meister’s assistance.
He next turned his attention to the window. The chintz curtains had been pulled across; Hackitt had noticed this immediately. He had left them half-drawn and window and grille open.
“Somebody’s been here,” he said emphatically. “I’m sure the old man hasn’t moved. I left the bars unfastened.”
The door leading to Mary’s little office room was locked. So was the second door, which gave to the private staircase to Meister’s own bedroom. He looked at the bolts again, and was certain they had not been touched that night. It was a dusty room; the carpet had not been beaten for months, and every footstep must stir up a little dust cloud. He wetted his finger, touched the knob of the bolt, and although he had handled it that afternoon, there were microscopic specks to tell him that the doorway had not been used.
Atkins was working at the sleeping Meister, shaking him gently, encouraged thereto by the uncomfortable snorts he provoked, but so far his efforts were unsuccessful. Wembury, standing by the supper table, looked at it thoughtfully.
“Supper for two,” he said, picked up a bottle of champagne and examined it. “Cordon Rouge, ‘11.”
“He was expecting somebody,” said Dr. Lomond wisely and, when Wembury nodded: “A lady!”
“Why a lady?” asked Wembury irritably. “Men drink wine.”
The doctor stooped and picked up a small silver dish, piled high with candy.
“But they seldom eat chocolates,” he said, and Wembury laughed irritably.
“You’re becoming a detective in spite of yourself. Meister has —queer tastes.”
There was a small square morocco case under the serviette that the doctor moved. He opened it. From the velvet bed within there came the glitter and sparkle of diamonds.
“Is he the kind of man who gives these things to his—queer friends?” he asked with a quiet smile.
“I don’t know.” Wembury’s answer was brusque to rudeness.
“Look, governor!” whispered Hackitt.
Meister was moving, his head moved restlessly from side to side. Presently he became aware that he was not alone.
“Hallo, people!” he said thickly. “Give me a drink.”
He groped out for an invisible bottle.
“I think you’ve had enough drink and drugs for one night, Meister. Pull yourself together. I’ve something unpleasant to tell you.”
Meister looked at him stupidly.
“What’s the time?” he asked slowly.
“Half-past twelve.”
The answer partially sobered the man.
“Half-past twelve!” He staggered rockily to his feet. “Is she here?” he asked, holding on to the table.
“Is who here?” demanded Wembury with cold deliberation.
Mr. Meister shook his aching head.
“She said she’d come,” he muttered. “She promised faithfully … twelve o’clock. If she tries to fool me—”
“Who is the ‘she’, Meister?” asked Wembury, and the lawyer smiled foolishly.
“Nobody you know,” he said.
“She was coming to keep you company, I suppose?”
“You’ve got it … .Give me a drink.” The man was still dazed, hardly conscious of what was going on around him. Then, in his fuddled way, he saw Hackitt.
“You’ve come back, eh? Well, you can go again!”
“Hear what he says?” asked the eager Hackitt. “He’s withdrawn the charge!”
“Have you lost your cash-box?” asked Wembury.
“Eh? Lost … ?” He stumbled towards the drawer and pulled it open. “Gone!” he cried hoarsely. “You took it!” He pointed a trembling finger to Sam. “You dirty thief … !”
“Steady, now,” said Wembury, and caught him as he swayed. “We’ve got Hackitt; you can charge him in the morning.”
“Stole my cash-box!” He was maudlin in his anger and drunkenness. “Bit the hand that fed him!”
Mr. Hackitt’s lips curled.
“I like your idea about feeding!” he said scornfully. “Cottage pie and rice puddin’!”
But Meister was not listening. “Give me a drink.”
Wembury gripped him by the arm. “Do you realise what this means?” he asked. “The Ringer is in Deptford.”
But he might have been talking to a man of wood.
“Good job,” said Meister with drunken gravity, and tried to look at his watch. “Clear out: I’ve got a friend coming to me.”
“Your friend has a very poor chance of getting in. All the doors of this room are fastened, except where Atkins is on duly, and they will remain fastened.”
Meister muttered something, tripped and would have fallen if Wembury had not caught him by the arm and lowered him down into the chair.
“The Ringer! …” Meister sat with his head on his hands. “He’ll have to be clever to get me … I can’t think tonight, but tomorrow I’ll tell you where you can put your hands on him, Wembury. My boy, you’re a smart detective, aren’t you?” He chuckled foolishly. “Let’s have another drink.”
He had hardly spoken the words when two of the three lights in the chandelier went out.
“Who did that?” asked Wembury, turning sharply. “Did anybody touch the board?”
“No, sir,” said Atkins, standing at the door and pointing to the switch. “Only I could have touched it.”
Hackitt was near the window, examining the curtains, when the light had diverted his attention.
“Come over this side of the room: you’re too near that window,” said Wembury.
“I was wondering who pulled the curtains, Mr. Wembury,” said Hackitt in a troubled voice. “I’ll swear it wasn’t the old man. He was sleeping when I left him and you couldn’t get any answer by telephone, could you?”
He took hold of the curtain and pulled it aside and stared out into a pale face pressed against the pane: a pale, bearded face, that vanished instantly in the darkness.
At Hackitt’s scream of terror Alan ran to the window. “What was it?”
“I don’t know,” gasped Sam. “Something!”
“I saw something, too,” said Atkins.
Danger was at hand. There was a creeping feeling in Alan Wembury’s spine, a cold shiver that sent the muscles of his shoulders rippling involuntarily.
“Take that man,�
� he said.
The words were hardly out of his lips when all the lights in the room went out.
“Don’t move, anybody!” whispered Alan. “Stand fast! Did you touch the switch, Atkins?”
“No, sir.”
“Did any of you men touch the switch?”
There was a chorus of Noes.
The red light showed above the door.
Click!
Somebody had come into the room!
“Atkins, stand by Meister—feel along the table till you find him. Keep quiet, everybody.”
Whoever it was, was in the room now. Alan heard the unquiet breathing, the rustle of a soft foot on the carpet, and waited. Suddenly there was a flicker of light. Only for a second it showed a white circle on the door of the safe, and was gone.
An electric hand lamp, and they were working at the safe. Still he did not move, though he was now in a position that would enable him to cut across the intruder’s line of retreat.
He moved stealthily, both hands outstretched, his ears strained for the slightest sound. And then suddenly he gripped somebody, and nearly released his hold in his horror and amazement.
A woman! She was struggling frantically.
“Who are you?” he asked hoarsely.
“Let me go!” Only a whispered voice, strained, unrecognisable.
“I want you,” he said, and then his knee struck something sharp and hard. It was the corner of the settee, and in the exquisite pain his hold was released. In another second she had escaped … when he put out his hands he grasped nothing.
And then he heard a voice—deep, booming, menacing.
“Meister, I have come for you … .”
There was the sound of a cough—a long, choking cough … .
“A light, somebody!”
As Wembury shouted, he heard the thud of a closing door.
“Strike a match. Haven’t any of you men torches?”
And when the lights came on they looked at one another in amazement. There was nobody in the room save those who had been there when the lights went out, and the door was locked, bolted, had not been touched; the key still hung on the wall.
Alan stared; and then his eyes, travelling along the wall, were arrested by a sight that froze his blood.
Pinned to the wall by his own swordstick drooped Maurice Meister, and he was dead!
From somewhere outside the room came a laugh: a long, continuous, raucous laugh, as at a good joke, and the men listened and shivered, and even the face of Dr. Lomond changed colour.
CHAPTER 46
It was an hour after Meister’s body had been removed and Dr. Lomond was making a few notes.
He was the reverse of nervous. And yet twice in the last half-hour he had heard a queer sound, that he could not but associate with human movements.
“I’m going to see Mr. Wembury,” he said to the waiting constable. “I’ll leave my bag here.”
“Mr. Wembury said he was coming back, sir, if you care to wait,” Harrap told him. “The sergeant’s going to make a search of the house. There ought to be some queer things found here. Personally,” he added, “I’d like to have the job of searching the pantry or the wine-cellar, or wherever he keeps the beer.”
Again Lomond heard a sound. He went to the door leading to Meister’s room and, pulling it open, stared. Alan Wembury was coming down the stairs.
“There are three ways into the house. I’ve found two of them,” he said.
Atkins, who had been searching some of the lower rooms, came in at that moment.
“Have you finished?” asked Wembury.
“Yes, sir. Meister was a fence all right.”
Alan nodded slowly. “Yes, I know. Is your relief here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. You can go. Good night, Atkins.”
Lomond was looking at Wembury narrowly. He waited until the man had gone before he drew up a chair to the supper table.
“Wembury, my boy, you’re worried about something—is it about Miss Lenley?”
“Yes—I’ve been to see her.”
“And, of course, it was she who came into the room at that awkward moment?”
Alan stared at him.
“Lomond, I’m going to take a risk and tell you something, and there is no reason why I shouldn’t, because this business has altered all The Ringer stuff. What happened tonight may mean ruin to me as a police officer … and still I don’t care. Yes, it was Mary Lenley.”
The doctor nodded gravely.
“So I supposed,” he said.
“She came to get a cheque that Meister told her young Lenley had forged—a pure invention on Meister’s part.”
“How did she get into the room?” asked Lomond.
“She wouldn’t tell me that—she’s heartbroken. We took her brother, and although I’m certain he will get off, she doesn’t believe that.”
“Poor kid! Still, my boy—happy ending and all that sort of thing,” said Lomond with a yawn.
“Happy ending! You’re an optimist, doctor.”
“I am. I never lose hope,” said Lomond complacently. “So you’ve got young Lenley? That laugh we heard—ugh!”
Wembury shook his head.
“That wasn’t Lenley! There is no mystery about the laugh—one of the Flanders Lane people going home—normally tight. The policeman on duty outside the house saw him and heard him.”
“It sounded in the house,” said Lomond with a shiver. “Well, The Ringer’s work is done. There’s no danger to anybody else, now.”
“There’s always danger enough—” began Wembury, and lifted his head, listening. The sound this time was more distinct.
“What was that? Sounded like somebody moving about the house,” said Lomond. “I’ve heard it before.”
Alan rose. “There is nobody in the house except the fellow outside. Officer!”
Harrap came in. “Yes, sir?”
“None of our people upstairs?”
“Not that I know of, sir.”
Wembury went to the door, opened it and shouted: “Anybody there?” There was no answer. “Just wait here. I’ll go and see.”
He was gone quite a long time. When he returned his face was pale and drawn.
“All right, officer, you can go down,” he said shortly, and when the man saluted and went out: “There was a window open upstairs—a cat must have got in.”
Lomond’s eyes did not leave his face.
“You look rather scared. What’s the matter?” he demanded.
“I feel rather scared,” admitted Wembury. “This place stinks of death.”
But the answer did not satisfy the shrewd Lomond.
“Wembury—you saw something or somebody upstairs,” he challenged.
“You’re a thought-reader, aren’t you?” Alan’s voice was a little husky.
“In a way, yes,” said the other slowly. “At this moment you are thinking of Central Inspector Bliss!”
Wembury started, but he was relieved of the necessity for replying. There was a tap at the door and the policeman entered.
“It has just been reported to me, sir, that a man has been seen getting over the wall,” he said.
Wembury did not move.
“Oh! … How long ago?”
“About five minutes, sir.”
“Was that the cat?” asked Lomond satirically, but Alan did not answer.
“You didn’t see him?” he asked.
“No, sir; it happened when I was up here,” said Harrap. “Excuse me, sir; my relief’s overdue.”
Wembury snapped round impatiently. “All right, all right. You can go!”
There was a long silence after the man had gone.
“What do you make of that?” asked Lomond.
“
It may have been one of the reporters; they’d sit on a grave to get a story.”
Again came the sound of footsteps—stealthy footsteps moving in the room upstairs.
“That’s not a cat, Wembury.”
The nerves of Alan Wembury were at breaking point. “Damn the cat!” he said. “I don’t know what it is, and I am not going up to see. Doctor, I am sick and tired of the case—heartily sick of it.”
“So am I,” nodded Lomond. “I am going home to bed.” He got up with a groan. “Late hours will be the death of me.”
“Have a drink before you go.” Alan poured out a stiff whisky with a hand that shook.
Neither man saw the bearded face of Inspector Bliss at the window or heard the grille open noiselessly as the Scotland Yard man came noiselessly into the room.
“Do you know, doctor,” said Alan, “I don’t hate The Ringer as much as I should.”
Lomond paused with his glass raised.
“There are really no bad men who are all bad—except Meister —just as there are no really good men who are all good.”
“I want to tell you something, Lomond”—Alan spoke slowly—“I know The Ringer.”
“You know him—really?”
“Yes; well.” And then, with fierce intensity: “And I’m damned glad he killed Meister.”
Bliss watched the scene from behind the curtain of the alcove, his eyes never leaving the two.
“Why? Did he get Mary Lenley?” Lomond was asking.
“No, thank God—but it was only by luck that she was saved. Lomond, I—I can tell you who is The Ringer.”
Slipping from the shadow of the curtains. Bliss came towards Lomond, an automatic in his hand.
“You can tell me, eh—then who is The Ringer?”
A hand stretched out and snatched at his hat.
“You!” said the voice of Bliss. “I want you—Henry Arthur Milton!”
Lomond leapt to his feet.
“What the hell—?”
No longer was he the grey-haired doctor. A straight, handsome man of thirty-five stood in his place.
“Stand still!” Alan hardly recognised his own voice.
“Search him!” said Bliss, and Alan stripped off the ‘doctor’s’ overcoat.
The Ringer, Book 1 Page 21
