The girl looked up at him. Her eyes were grave and steady.
“Robin,” she said at last, “you love me, don’t you?”
Quick colour came into the boy’s face.
“Oh, my dear,” he said helplessly, “you know I do.”
She slipped her hand into his, a simple gesture of such complete confidence that he felt as though his heart must burst.
“Why don’t you tell me the truth, then?”
The calm, childlike eyes were still peering into his own.
“You think that Daddy is my enemy, don’t you? I mean, you think that he’s the—the Dealer that Madame Julie spoke about? Oh, Robin, why don’t you tell me the truth?”
The boy sat down in the old basket chair before the fire, and, because it seemed the most natural thing in the world to do, drew the girl close to him so that her head lay on his shoulder and his arms closed round her protectingly.
“My darling,” he said, and his voice sounded helpless and tortured, “I don’t know about your father. Heaven help me, I don’t know. There’s only one thing I’m sure of, and that is that it’s not safe to let you out of my sight even for a moment.”
She clung to him.
“You don’t know Daddy,” she said. “Oh, Robin, I love you so, and I believe in you as implicitly as I do in myself, but you’re wrong about Daddy. Something monstrous, something evil has got hold of him. Don’t laugh at me! It’s the way I feel, only I don’t know how to put it any better. But when I saw Daddy in the garden at that dreadful place, although it was he, although it was his face, there was something different about him, something I can’t explain. It was like—yes, it was like the thing that was strange about Sir Ferdinand Shawle when he came to fetch me from Mrs. Phipps’s house. I can only describe it by saying that it was something different, something strange, something wicked.”
Robin held her very close to him. She was trembling violently, and he could feel her heart beating against his own. His own desire at that moment was to protect her, to save her from the menacing horror which hovered over her.
He was also wildly and ridiculously happy. Whatever the future had in store for them, whatever terrors the past had contained, she had said, “I love you.” She had said it and she had meant it, and she lay in his arms with her head heavy and warm against his shoulder.
They sat there for some time in silence. The little brass clock on the mantelpiece ticked noisily, and the old house creaked and groaned around them.
Robin was listening intently. The period of waiting was getting on his nerves. Besides, there had been that unusual coster barrow with its attendant outside the house all day.
Robin had noticed him the first thing in the morning, and for that reason had not gone out. He knew from experience that the man was not an ordinary police watcher. His disguise was just a little theatrical.
But of one thing he had been certain. The man was watching the house, and who else could there be in that quiet little establishment to interest any spy save Jennifer and himself?
He had not mentioned the matter to the girl for fear of alarming her unduly, but his heart was uneasy. If their hiding place was discovered, Jennifer was in danger again.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he started violently at the soft knock on the door panel, which disturbed them eventually.
But it was only Mrs. Phipps’s daughter, a thin-faced, bright-eyed young woman who put her head round the door.
“Mr. Robin,” she said, “there’s a lady to see you. Shall I show her in?”
Robin turned to Jennifer and motioned her to take refuge through the other door which the room contained. But he was too late.
A tall figure brushed past the woman, and the next moment Madame Julie, smartly dressed as usual but pale and wide-eyed, hurried into the room.
“Oh, Robin, I had to come. You’re the only person in the world who can help me.”
She spoke impulsively, crossing the room towards the two young people, her hands outstretched.
Mrs. Phipps’s daughter tactfully withdrew, and Jennifer clung to the newcomer’s arm. Robin remained grave. He had arranged with Madame Julie that she should not visit the house save in a case of extreme emergency, lest she bring the place to the notice of anyone who might be shadowing her.
She seemed to sense the thought that passed through his mind, for she spoke quickly.
“I took every precaution, Robin. If anyone followed me here, he was a wizard. I doubled back on my tracks a dozen times, and finally, when I stepped out of my taxi at the door, I’m sure there wasn’t a soul in sight.”
Robin had not time to speak, for Jennifer cut in.
“What is it, Madame?” she said. “You look terrified.”
The woman nodded. “I am.”
Glancing about her as though she feared that even here she might be spied upon, she opened her handbag and drew out an envelope addressed to Robin.
“It’s from my husband. He wanted me to send it by post, but I knew you couldn’t get it before the morning. Oh, Robin, I helped you once! It’s your turn now.”
The boy tore open the envelope and read the hastily pencilled note within.
“Dear Grey,” it ran. “By the time you get this I shall have succeeded or failed utterly, I have discovered that Rolls & Knighton are the solicitors with whom Morton Blount dealt late in his life. In the old days before I went to the service of Sir Ferdinand Shawle, I had a friend who worked with Rolls & Knighton, and I remember he told me that the firm had an ingeniously hidden stronghold for their clients’ private papers, which obviated the use of safe deposits.
“One Saturday afternoon he showed me the place. We were both boys at the time, and I remember the notion struck me as being old-fashioned and amusing. I did not dream then that his information would ever be of service to me. I am now pretty sure that Morton Blount knew of this hiding place and it was that which decided him to use the firm.
“I am going out after that box tonight. Its discovery will bring to justice one of the greatest villains unhung. It will also free little Miss Fern from the menace which hangs over her, and I hope and trust will furnish evidence which, in bringing down the scoundrel who framed me, will clear me for ever from the charge of which I was so wrongfully convicted.”
As Robin finished reading, he glanced up from the paper and met the dark, panic-stricken eyes of his visitor.
“Have you read this?” he inquired.
She nodded, white-lipped.
“I begged him not to go, but he’s made up his mind. Oh, Robin, don’t you see? He’ll be caught and taken back to prison, and this time he won’t even have right on his side. Stop him—please! You’re in with the police. You can go anywhere. You can even take the box. It’s different for you... But for him it means the same terrible business all over again.”
She looked from one to the other of the young people piteously, and then, in spite of herself, her iron control broke down and the tears welled up in her dark eyes.
“I can’t lose him again,” she said brokenly. “I can’t! I can’t!”
Robin glanced from the letter in his hand to the two women on the sofa. There were two deep furrows across his forehead, and his eyes were hard and bright with anxiety.
“When was he going to make his attempt? Do you know?”
“I think he said something about eleven o’clock.”
“But it’s almost that now.”
Robin glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece in alarm.
“I know.”
Madame Julie’s voice was muffled. She looked suddenly much older. There were lines beneath her eyes and at the corners of her mouth.
Jennifer went over to Robin and put her arms round his neck.
“Please—please, dear,” she whispered. “We must pay them back somehow for what they’ve done for us. Don’t you see?—this is our chance.”
“You’ll have to hurry,” Madame Julie pleaded. “You’ll have to hurry. But it’s perfectly safe. No one follo
wed me. I’m sure of it.”
Robin did not appear to hear. He walked slowly across the room and, taking care to keep himself hidden as much as possible behind the window post, moved back the blind an inch or two and peered out.
The mysterious coster with his barrow had disappeared.
He stood for a moment peering down into the empty street. Then he turned back into the room.
“Look here, Madame Julie,” he said slowly, “I shall go down after Sacret now. If possible I shall persuade him to change his mind. At any rate the whole story of the box must go before the police. You must rely on me to do what I can in engineering a new trial for your husband. But in return I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything—anything!”
It was impossible to mistake the urgent sincerity in the woman’s tear-filled voice.
Robin regarded her steadily.
“I want you to stay here, Madame Julie. Don’t let Jennifer out of your sight for a moment.”
“But Robin, this is ridiculous,” Jennifer began.
“My dear, you must let me be the best judge of that,” he said gently and went on speaking to the elder woman. “In the case of any—well, of any emergency, I want you to ring up Scotland Yard. Ask for Inspector Whybrow and tell him the story. I can rely on you, can’t I?”
The dark eyes met his gravely.
“Implicitly,” she said.
Robin glanced at the clock. It was a quarter to eleven and he was some distance from the city. He turned again to Jennifer and kissed her cheek.
“Good-bye, dear,” he whispered. “Stay where you are. Don’t go out under any pretext whatsoever. Good-bye, my darling.”
Madame Julie and the girl stood listening in the little room to his departing footsteps hurrying down the stairs.
CHAPTER 26
The Face
“GOOD-NIGHT, sir.”
The constable looked curiously at Robin as the boy, his collar turned up, hurried down the broad dark street whose tall houses contained numberless legal offices. Bedford Row is not a busy thoroughfare at eleven o’clock at night, and the policeman turned his head to look after the swiftly retreating figure who had hailed him with such brusque familiarity.
He did not know Robin by sight, but he guessed that the young man was a detective, and he wondered casually if anything was afoot.
Robin walked halfway down the Row and then turned abruptly to the left and entered the narrow cul-de-sac known as Quality Passage, where the old established firm of Messrs. Rolls & Knighton had their offices.
The little court was forlorn and ghostly in the light of the single street lamp of old-fashioned pattern which hung from a bracket at its farther end.
Robin began to tread warily. His intention was to take up his position in the dark doorway of the lawyer’s offices and wait until the man he sought should come along.
Instinct told him that he should have put the whole matter before Inspector Whybrow first, but there had been no time, and his primary object was to save the convict from an act of folly which would certainly endanger his chances of regaining his permanent freedom.
The houses in the court were old-fashioned Georgian residences converted in the last century into offices. Their basement areas were protected by giant spiked railings which shed strange shadows on the glistening pavement, wet after a recent shower.
Robin glanced round him. There was not a light in a single window, and the loneliness of a big empty city, which is like no other loneliness in the world, seemed to close down upon him.
He found the office he sought at last. An old-fashioned doorway at: the far end of the court housed a board covered with faded gilt letters.
“Rolls & Knighton,” he read. “Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths. Second Floor.”
He stepped into the shadow of the doorpost which swallowed him completely and stood waiting.
He remained there for some moments and was startled to hear a clock somewhere over in the city strike the first quarter. He was much later than he supposed. Perhaps Sacret had already arrived and was even now engaged upon his dangerous business.
Robin stretched out a hand and pressed the door behind him gently. It moved.
For a moment he stood hesitating. His own position was questionable, and he knew that he was doing a very dangerous thing in entering enclosed premises at such a time of night.
Gradually his caution gave way beneath the weight of his reasoning. He thought of Madame Julie, of Jennifer’s appeal, and of the foolish but well-meaning Sacret racing headlong into prison in his attempt to free himself and Jennifer from the fate which hovered over them.
Robin moved cautiously. The little yard was still deserted. Not a breath of wind stirred in its narrow precincts.
The door swung open silently, and the boy’s feet sank into a rough, old-fashioned doormat. A wave of musty, tobacco-scented air came out to meet him, and he became aware of that rustling, lively atmosphere which suffuses all very old houses at night.
He drew the torch from his pocket and swept it over the scene.
He was in a broad, old-fashioned hallway with doors on either side and a flight of stairs winding up into the darkness above. These were uncarpeted, and their surface was highly polished.
At this moment, somewhere high above him in the house, he heard a sound. Someone had moved a chair or other piece of furniture across an uncarpeted floor. The little sound, so ordinary and unexciting by day, took on a strange significance in that ghostly, silent house.
Robin, who had snapped off his torch instinctively at the first movement, was conscious of an odd, sinking sensation in his heart, and he reproached himself angrily for his nerviness.
Hastily thrusting all emotion from his mind, he reviewed the situation coldly. It was evident that someone was in the building. Ninety-nine chances in a hundred it was Sacret carrying out his avowed project.
But there was a hundredth chance that the other occupant of this otherwise deserted building was not Sacret at all, but some clerk working late, perhaps not even in Rolls & Knighton’s own office.
In this case it behooved Robin to advance with caution. He did not fancy having to explain his business to the police, should they be hastily summoned by a burglar-fearing tenant.
He continued to move very quietly, therefore, keeping his torch dimmed by his handkerchief and shining it only upon his immediate path.
The stairs creaked abominably. Even by walking on the extreme sides, the noise they made seemed to be loud enough to wake half the inhabitants of London.
Robin plodded on.
On the first floor everything was silent as the grave, and he ascertained that each door was locked. As he stood there listening, one foot upon the second flight, he again heard that faint but terrifying sound which told of other human occupation in the building.
Yes, there was no doubt about it. The sounds came from the second floor.
He crept on, turning his torch out completely now and pulling himself upwards by the banisters.
As he reached the top stair he paused. He could tell by the current of air streaming out in his face that one of the doors in this hallway stood open. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness by this time, and gradually he made out the faint grey rectangular shape of the opening directly facing him.
A faint light from the street lamp in the court below was so diffused by the time it entered the grimy windows of Messrs. Rolls & Knighton’s outer office that it shed only the faintest possible radiance in that gloomy apartment, a pale grey stain in the darkness, no more.
Holding his breath, Robin crept forward.
He was aware now of the presence of another being somewhere in that dusty room. It was not even that he could hear a breath, but rather he could feel that some other entity was existing a few feet from him.
He reached the doorpost, laid his hand upon it, and peered into the darkness that was only slightly more dense than that from which he had come. Gradually the bulk
y shapes of furniture became visible to his eyes.
And then something moved.
He saw a shadow pass swiftly and silently across the room and drop into position behind something that he supposed was a desk, a shadow that was only visible by its movement.
Robin waited. The uncanny sensation which had seized him down in the hall had now returned a hundred times more strong. He felt his collar tightening, and he was aware of a prickling sensation beneath the band of his hat.
He was straining his eyes, forcing them by very will power to penetrate that greyish darkness.
At last he made out what it was at which he peered, and the discovery quickened his heart painfully. He was staring straight into the face of someone who sat not ten feet away from him, the eyes, he knew, looking directly into his own.
Robin whipped up his torch. The blinding beam of light stabbed the darkness like a dagger and fell directly upon the figure at the old-fashioned flat-topped desk.
Robin’s jaw fell open. His eyes dilated, and blood surged into his temples and drummed madly in his ears. The world seemed to reel about him, the building rocked and trembled beneath his feet, for the face that peered into his own with eyes cold and malicious in their intensity was the face of the man whom he had last seen lying on the under bunk of the ambulance which had taken him to the nursing home, the face of the man he knew to be dead, the face of Rex Bourbon.
Robin stood staring at the figure peering at him across the desk.
As he stared, the figure moved.
The apparition was so startling and awe-inspiring after his ghostly journey upstairs that the shock temporarily paralyzed him, and the hand in which he held the torch focussed on that dreadful, leering face was steady, frozen into immobility.
As he stared, cold fear gripping at his backbone, he felt rather than saw a black iron-bound box lying on the desk beneath the figure’s hand.
The whole incident only took a moment. A second later the figure had moved. Robin caught a gleam of steel, and before he could duck something struck him with overwhelming force.
There was a muted explosion in the dusty room, the torch clattered out of the boy’s hand, rolled along the floor, and went out, and Robin pitched forward on the boards, a thin trickle of blood oozing from his temple and creeping down his face.
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