Eunice, watching him through the open door, saw his pitiable collapse. In a second he had changed from the cool, self-possessed man who had sneered at danger into a babbling fretful child who cursed and wrung his hands, issuing incoherent orders only to countermand them before his messenger had left the room.
“Kill Steele!” he screamed. “Kill him, Bronson. Damn him—no, no, stay! Get the machine ready… we leave tonight.”
He turned to the girl, glaring at her.
“We leave tonight, Eunice! Tonight you and I will settle accounts!”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
HER heart sank, and it came to her, with terrifying force, that her great trial was near at hand. She had taunted Digby with his cowardice, but she knew that he would show no mercy to her, and unwillingly she had played into his hands by admitting that she knew she was the heiress to the Danton fortune and that she had known his character, and yet had elected to stay in his house.
The door was slammed and locked, and she was left alone. Later she heard for the second time the splutter and crash of the aeroplane’s engines as the Spaniard tuned them up.
She must get away—she must, she must! She looked round wildly for some means of escape. The windows were fastened. There was no other door from the room. Her only hope was Jim, and Jim, she guessed, was a close prisoner.
Digby lost no time. He dispatched Silva in the car, telling him to make the coast as quickly as possible, and to warn the captain of the Pealigo to be ready to receive him that night. He wrote rapidly a code of signals. When in sight of the sea Bronson was to fire a green signal light, to which the yacht must respond. A boat must be lowered on the shoreward side of the yacht ready to pick them up. After the messenger had left he remembered that he had already given the same orders to the captain, and that it was humanly impossible for the Spaniard to reach the yacht that night.
Digby had in his calmer moments made other preparations. Two inflated life-belts were taken to the aeroplane and tested, signal pistols, landing lights, and other paraphernalia connected with night flying were stowed in the fuselage. Bronson was now fully occupied with the motor of the aeroplane, for the trouble had not been wholly eradicated, and Digby Groat paced up and down the terrace of the house, fuming with impatience and sick with fear.
He had not told the girl to prepare, that must be left to the very last. He did not want another scene. For the last time he would use his little hypodermic syringe and the rest would be easy.
Fuentes joined him on the terrace, for Fuentes was curious for information.
“Do you think that the finding of Villa’s body will bring them after us here?”
“How do I know?” snapped Digby, “and what does it matter, anyway? We shall be gone in an hour?”
“You will,” said the Spaniard pointedly, “but I shan’t. I have no machine to carry me out of the country, and neither has Xavier, though he is better off than I am—he has the car. Couldn’t you take me?”
“It is utterly impossible,” said Digby irritably. “They won’t be here tonight, and you needn’t worry yourself. Before the morning, you will have put a long way between you and Kennett Hall.”
He spoke in Spanish, the language which the man was employing, but Fuentes was not impressed.
“What about that man?” He jerked his thumb to the west wing, and a thought occurred to Digby. Could he persuade his hitherto willing slave to carry out a final instruction?
“He is your danger,” he said. “Do you realize, my dear Fuentes, that this man can bring us all to destruction? And nobody knows he is here, except you and me.”
“And that ugly Englishman,” corrected Fuentes.
“Masters doesn’t know what has happened to him. We could tell him that he went with us!”
He looked at the other keenly, but Fuentes was purposely stupid.
“Now what do you say, my dear Fuentes,” said Digby, “shall we allow this man to live and give evidence against us, when a little knock on the head would remove him for ever?”
Fuentes turned his dark eyes to Digby’s, and he winked.
“Well, kill him, my dear Groat,” he mocked. “Do not ask me to stay behind and be found with the body, for I have a wholesome horror of English gaols, and an unspeakable fear of death.”
“Are you afraid?” asked Digby.
“As afraid as you,” said the Spaniard. “If you wish to kill him, by all means do so. And yet, I do not know that I would allow you to do that,” he mused, “for you would be gone and I should be left. No, no, we will not interfere with our courageous Englishman. He is rather a fine fellow.” Digby turned away in disgust.
The “fine fellow” at that moment had, by almost super-human effort, raised himself to his feet. It had required something of the skill of an acrobat and the suppleness and ingenuity of a contortionist, and it involved supporting himself with his head against the wall for a quarter of an hour whilst he brought his feet to the floor; but he had succeeded.
The day was wearing through and the afternoon was nearly gone before he had accomplished this result. His trained ear told him that the aeroplane was now nearly ready for departure, and once he had caught a glimpse of Digby wearing a lined leather jacket. But there was no sign of the girl. As to Eunice, he steadfastly kept her out of his thoughts. He needed all his courage and coolness, and even the thought of her, which, in spite of his resolution, flashed across his mind, brought him agonizing distress.
He hopped cautiously to the window and listened. There was no sound and he waited until Bronson—he guessed it was Bronson—started the engines again. Then with his elbow he smashed out a pane of glass, leaving a jagged triangular piece firmly fixed in the ancient putty. Carefully he lifted up his bound hands, straining at the rope which connected them with the bonds about his feet, and which was intended to prevent his raising his hands higher than the level of his waist.
By straining at the rope and standing on tiptoe, he brought the end of the connecting link across the sharp jagged edge of the glass. Two strokes, and the rope was severed. His hands were still bound and to cut through them without injury to himself was a delicate operation. Carefully he sawed away, and first one and then the other cord was cut through. His hands were red and swollen, his wrists had no power until he had massaged them.
He snapped off the triangular piece of glass and applied it to the cords about his feet, and in a minute he was free. Free, but in a locked room. Still, the window-sash should not prove an insuperable obstacle. There was nothing which he could use as a weapon, but his handy feet smashed at the frames, only to discover that they were of iron. Jonathan Danton’s father had had a horror of burglars, and all the window-frames on the lower floor had been made in a foundry. The door was the only egress left and it was too stout to smash.
He listened at the keyhole. There was no sound. The light was passing from the sky and night was coming on. They would be leaving soon, he guessed, and grew frantic. Discarding all caution, he kicked at the panels, but they resisted his heavy boots, and then he heard a sound that almost stopped his heart beating.
A shrill scream from Eunice. Again and again he flung his weight at the door, but it remained immovable, and then came a shout from the ground outside. He ran to the window and listened.
“They are coming, the police!”
It was the Spaniard’s throbbing voice. He had run until he was exhausted. Jim saw in stagger past the window and heard Digby say something to him sharply. There was a patter of feet and silence.
Jim wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his coat and looked round desperately for some means of getting out of the room. The fireplace! It was a big, old-fashioned fire-basket, that stood on four legs in a yawning gap of chimney. He looked at it; it was red with rust and it had the appearance of being fixed, but he lifted it readily. Twice he smashed at the door and the second time it gave way, and dropping the grate with a crash he flew down the passage out of the house.
As he
turned the corner he heard the roar of the aeroplane and above its drone the sound of a shot. He leapt the balustrade, sped through the garden and came in sight of the aeroplane as it was speeding from him.
“My God!” said Jim with a groan, for the machine had left the ground and was zooming steeply up into the darkening sky.
And then he saw something. From the long grass near where the machine had been a hand rose feebly and fell again. He ran across to where he had seen this strange sight. In a few minutes he was kneeling by the side of Fuentes. The man was dying. He knew that long before he had seen the wound in his breast.
“He shot me, senor,” gasped Fuentes, “and I was his friend… I asked him to take me to safety… and he shot me!”
The man was still alive when the police came on the spot; still alive when Septimus Salter, in his capacity of Justice of the Peace, took down his dying statement.
“Digby Groat shall hang for this, Steele,” said the lawyer; but Jim made no reply. He had his own idea as to how Digby Groat would die.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE lawyer explained his presence without preliminary, and Jim listened moodily.
“I came with them myself because I know the place,” said Mr. Salter, looking at Jim anxiously. “You look ghastly, Steele. Can’t you lie down and get some sleep?”
“I feel that I shall never sleep until I have got my hand on Digby Groat. What was it you saw in the paper? Tell me again. How did they know it was Villa?”
“By a receipt in his pocket,” replied Salter. “It appears that Villa, probably acting on behalf of Digby Groat, had purchased from Maxilla, the Brazilian gambler, his yacht, the Pealigo—”
Jim uttered a cry.
“That is where he has gone,” he said. “Where is the Pealigo?”
“That I have been trying to find out,” replied the lawyer, shaking his head, “but nobody seems to know. She left Havre a few days ago, but what her destination was, nobody knows. She has certainly not put in to any British port so far as we can ascertain. Lloyd’s were certain of this, and every ship, whether it is a yacht, a liner, or a cargo tramp, is reported to Lloyd’s.”
“That is where he has gone,” said Jim.
“Then she must be in port,” said old Salter eagerly. “We can telegraph to every likely place—”
Jim interrupted him with a shake of his head.
“Bronson would land on the water and sink the machine. It is a very simple matter,” he said. “I have been in the sea many times and there is really no danger, if you are provided with life-belts, and are not strapped to the seat. It is foul luck your not coming before.”
He walked weakly from the comfortable parlour of the inn where the conversation had taken place.
“Do you mind if I am alone for a little while? I want to think,” he said.
He turned as he was leaving the room.
“In order not to waste time, Mr. Salter,” he said quietly, “have you any influence with the Admiralty? I want the loan of a seaplane.”
Mr. Salter looked thoughtful.
“That can be fixed,” he said. “I will get on to the ‘phone straight away to the Admiralty and try to get the First Sea Lord. He will do all that he can to help us.”
Whilst the lawyer telephoned, Jim made a hasty meal. The pace had told on him and despair was in his heart.
The knowledge that Digby Groat would eventually be brought to justice did not comfort him. If Eunice had only been spared he would have been content to see Digby make his escape, and would not have raised his hand to stop him going. He would have been happy even if, in getting away, the man had been successful in carrying off the girl’s fortune. But Eunice was in his wicked hands and the thought of it was unendurable.
He was invited by the local police-sergeant to step across to the little lock-up to interview the man Masters, who was under arrest, and as Mr. Salter had not finished telephoning, he crossed the village street and found the dour man in a condition of abject misery.
“I knew he’d bring me into this,” he bewailed, “and me with a wife and three children and not so much as a poaching case against me! Can’t you speak a word for me, sir?”
Jim’s sense of humour was never wholly smothered and the cool request amused him.
“I can only say that you tried to strangle me,” he said. “I doubt whether that good word will be of much service to you.”
“I swear I didn’t mean to,” pleaded the man. “He told me to put the rope round your shoulders and it slipped. How was I to know that the lady wasn’t his wife who’d run away with you?”
“So that is the story he told you?” said Jim.
“Yes, sir,” the man said eagerly. “I pointed out to Mr. Groat that the lady hadn’t a wedding-ring, but he said that he was married all right and he was taking her to sea—”
“To sea?”
Masters nodded.
“That’s what he said, sir—he said she wasn’t right in her head and the sea voyage would do her a lot of good.”
Jim questioned him closely without getting any further information. Masters knew nothing of the steamer on which Digby and his “wife” were to sail, or the port at which he would embark.
Outside the police station Jim interviewed the sergeant.
“I don’t think this man was any more than a dupe of Groat’s,” he said, “and I certainly have no charge to make against him.”
The sergeant shook his head.
“We must hold him until we have had the inquest on the Spaniard,” he said, and then, gloomily, “to think that I had a big case like this right under my nose and hadn’t the sense to see it!”
Jim smiled a little sadly.
“We have all had the case under our noses, sergeant, and we have been blinder than you!”
The threat of a renewed dose of the drug had been sufficient to make Eunice acquiescent. Resistance, she knew, was useless. Digby could easily overpower her for long enough to jab his devilish needle into her arm.
She had struggled at first and had screamed at the first prick from the needle-point. It was that scream Jim had heard.
“I’ll go with you; I promise you I will not give you any trouble,” she said. “Please don’t use that dreadful thing again.”
Time was pressing and it would be easier to make his escape if the girl did not resist than if she gave him trouble.
The propeller was ticking slowly round when they climbed into the fuselage.
“There is room for me, senor. There must be room for me!”
Digby looked down into the distorted face of the Spaniard who had come running after him.
“There is no room for you, Fuentes,” he said. “I have told you before. You must get away as well as you can.”
“I am going with you!”
To Digby’s horror, the man clung desperately to the side of the fuselage. Every moment was increasing their peril, and in a frenzy he whipped out his pistol.
“Let go,” he hissed, “or I’ll kill you,” but still the man held on.
There were voices coming from the lower path, and, in his panic, Digby fired. He saw the man crumple and fall and yelled to Bronson: “Go, go!”
Eunice, a horrified spectator, could only stare at the thing which had been Digby Groat, for the change which had come over him was extraordinary. He seemed to have shrunk in stature. His face was twisted, like a man who had had a stroke of paralysis.
She thought this was the case, but slowly he began to recover.
He had killed a man! The horror of this act was upon him, the fear of the consequence which would follow overwhelmed him and drove him into a momentary frenzy. He had killed a man! He could have shrieked at the thought. He, who had so carefully guarded himself against punishment, who had manoeuvred his associates into danger, whilst he himself stood in a safe place, was now a fugitive from a justice which would not rest until it had laid him by the heel.
And she had seen him, she, the woman at his side, and would go
into the box and testify against him! And they would hang him! In that brick-lined pit of which Jim Steele had spoken. All these thoughts flashed through his mind in a second, even before the machine left the ground, but with the rush of cold air and the inevitable exhilaration of flight, he began to think calmly again.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
BRONSON had killed him, that was the comforting defence. Bronson, who was now guiding him to safety, and who would, if necessary, give his life for him. Bronson should bear the onus of that act.
They were well up now, and the engines were a smooth “b-r-r” of sound. A night wind was blowing and the plane rocked from side to side. It made the girl feel a little sick, but she commanded her brain to grow accustomed to the motion, and after a while the feeling of nausea wore off.
They could see the sea now. The flashing signals of the lighthouses came from left and right. Bristol, a tangle of fiery spots, lay to their left, and there were tiny gleams of light on the river and estuary.
They skirted the northern shore of the Bristol Channel and headed west, following the coastline. Presently the machine turned due south, leaving behind them the land and its girdle of lights. Twenty minutes later Bronson fired his signal pistol. A ball of brilliant green fire curved up and down and almost immediately, from the sea, came an answering signal. Digby strapped the girl’s life-belt tighter, and saw to the fastening of his own.
“Fix my belt.” It was Bronson shouting through the telephone, and Digby, leaning forward, fastened the life-belt about the pilot’s waist. He fastened it carefully and added a, stout strap, tying the loose end of the leather in a knot. Down went the machine in a long glide toward the light which still burnt, and now the girl could see the outlines of the graceful yacht and the green and red lights it showed. They made a circle, coming lower and lower every second, until they were spinning about the yacht not more than a dozen feet from the sea. Bronson shut off his engines and brought the machine upon the water, less than fifty feet from the waiting boat.
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