“Your voice carries too far, young lady.” It was Peter’s sibilant whisper. “That was a narrow squeak.”
“For me or you?”
“For me—therefore for you,” said Peter. “Two guns, eh?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, bewildered.
“One on each hip—I saw them. Now go in, shut the window, and draw the blinds, and don’t put on your light.”
She sat in the darkness for a long time. Then she heard a sound that brought her heart to her mouth. A ladder was being put against her window. She sat and quaked. She had fastened the casement. She dared not look, and only a shadow, which almost seemed imaginary, showed on the curtain. Then she heard a soft, thudding sound, as though somebody was hitting a piece of iron with a hammer which had been carefully muffled.
Her first thought was to fly downstairs, but terror held her, and in her terror was that curiosity which is natural in a healthy girl.
After about ten minutes the hammering stopped. She heard the rasp of feet on the rungs of the ladder, and the scrape of it as it was taken away. She went carefully to the window, drew the curtain aside a fraction of an inch, and looked out. She could just see the man…it was the gardener!
Then she saw what he had been doing. Across her window stretched, in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross, two steel rods. They had this effect, that they made it impossible for the window to open.
Peter had seen the manœuvre, watching at a respectful distance. He waited till Standey had carried the ladder back to a big greenhouse, then he crept forward and saw the work he had been doing.
Something pretty bad was going to happen to-night. He wondered just what it would be.
He had a lot of work to do, and he had already lost a considerable amount of time. He got back to the hut in the wood, fitted a jemmy together, and wrenched off the staple which held the door.
He was not unprepared for what he saw: a yawning hole in the middle of the hut, roughly supported by tree trunks that must have been cut for the purpose. A home-made ladder led to the depths. He went down quickly, reached the bottom, and saw the black mouth of a tunnel.
The floor was of rock and ascended; but the going was dangerous. At the very stir of his feet great lumps of earth fell from the roof, and he was glad to get back to the ladder and the outer air.
He reached the little lane and went on foot for a hundred yards. Near where he had parked his car four men were waiting for him.
“Well, Peter, have you found anything?”
It was the voice of his chief inspector, and with him were another Scotland Yard man and two heads of the Berkshire police.
“The whole gang is here,” reported Peter. “Lee Smitt, Red Fanderson, and Joe Kelly. Smitt is posing as a professor with a knowledge of the occult. The curious thing is that he’s been a member of this golf club for about twenty years. He has probably visited the country before, and I shouldn’t be surprised to find that he’s a member of some of the most exclusive clubs in town. Fanderson’s been working as a gardener—I believe he did some gardening when he was in Dartmoor—and Joe Kelly is back at his old job—butler-valet, with the grand old name of Higgins.”
“We can pinch ’em,” said his chief thoughtfully, “and charge ’em with returning to the country after being deported——”
“I’m not here to pinch ’em for being deported,” said Peter almost savagely. “I’m here to wipe out the lie that put Sam Allerway into a suicide’s grave. That’s highly dramatic, but it’s highly sincere. If you pinched them now you wouldn’t get the stuff. Eight hundred and thirty thousand Canadian dollars, all lying snug.”
“Where?” asked one of the Berkshire chiefs.
“In Hannay’s house.”
“I don’t see how it can be in Hannay’s house,” said one of the men. “Why should they have put it there?”
“I’ll tell you why later.”
“How did you stumble on this, Peter? When you phoned me yesterday I thought you’d gone crazy.”
Peter Dunn told the story of the night when the little cruiser was tied up to Hannay’s land.
“It was just a ghost story told by an hysterical maid,” he said, “until the butler came down to return the rug. The moment I heard his voice I knew it was Kelly. I’d heard it in court—there was no mistaking it. I identified the gardener and Lee Smitt the next day. They’ve got nerve, but they’re desperate. There are eight hundred and thirty thousand Canadian dollars, and that’s a lot of money.”
“Why should it be in Hannay’s house?” The question was asked again.
“I’ll tell you all about that one of these days,” said Peter. “I’m going back now. Whatever is going to happen will happen to-night. I want the house closed on all sides, including the river.”
“The Bucks police are sending a motor-boat patrol,” said one of the Berkshire men. “I’ve got fifty plain-clothes officers within half a mile. When do you think you’ll want us, and how are we to know?”
Peter Dunn explained his plan of operations; but, like many other carefully made plans, it was doomed to failure. Happily he did not know this as he went back quickly towards Chesterford and its strange guests.
6
When Pat went back to the drawing room she saw Herzoff shoot a quick, penetrating glance in her direction; then his eyes dropped. She realized he had seen that something had happened. She caught a glimpse of her face in a mirror: it was alight with excitement.
There was danger, here: she knew it. And Peter Dunn was at hand. That gave the danger a beautiful relish.
Her father was reading. Mr. Herzoff was working out a patience puzzle. Suddenly Hannay put down his book.
“I think I’ll get another dog,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of your—” he made a wry face—“fiancé. That was a joke in the worst possible taste, Pat—wandering about Chesterford. It doesn’t amuse me at all.”
“What are you reading, Daddy?”
“One of the Famous Trials series. I must say it doesn’t seem an appropriate book to be reading in the circumstances.”
Herzoff looked up calmly.
“What is it called?”
He knew well enough what the title was; he had seen it.
“It’s the trial of those three fellows who robbed the Canadian Bank of Commerce about ten years ago,” said Mr. Hannay. “I suppose they got away with the money.”
“I’ve forgotten what it was all about.”
Herzoff went on dealing out the cards calmly and systematically.
“By Jove!” Mr. Hannay was struck with the brilliance of the thought. “There’s a big haul for somebody. They got twelve years. I suppose they’re out by now.”
“They were deported,” said Pat. “I read it in the newspapers.”
Pat suddenly lifted her head.
“What was that?”
It was the sound of moaning, and it came from the window. Pat set her teeth, went across and pulled back the curtains with a jerk. She almost swooned. Framed in the window was the face of a woman, hideous, white, streaked with wet red. Her untidy grey hair was falling over her forehead.
With a scream the girl snatched the curtains back again and ran blindly back to her father. He had seen it, too.
“The tramp woman,” said Herzoff in a low tone. “That is a manifestation I did not expect to see.”
He spun round. From somewhere outside came the sound of struggle. There was a crash against the door that led onto the veranda, and then a single pistol-shot rang out.
It was Hannay who opened the door, and Peter Dunn staggered in. There was a streak of blood on his forehead; in his hand was an automatic. He closed the door quickly, turned the key, and for a second stood with his back to the door, eyeing two people who were amazed to see him and one who had murder in
his heart.
Peter staggered across to the table and lifted the telephone.
“Dead, eh? Telephones don’t have ghosts, Mr. Herzoff, do they?”
Herzoff did not reply.
Pat was by his side.
“You’re hurt!” she said tremulously.
“Take my handkerchief—it’s in my pocket,” said Peter. “It’s all right, it might have been worse.”
“I’ll get some water for you.”
It was Herzoff who made this gesture.
“Yes, but don’t trouble to get a priest; I’m not dead yet, Herzoff.”
He watched the man leave the room, then he lugged out of his pocket a clumsy-looking pistol, and handed it to Mr. Hannay.
“Do you mind taking this out onto your lawn and shooting it in the air? It’s nothing more deadly than a Véry light, and I think you can go with safety.”
He turned to the girl.
“Have you lost the key of your cellar?”
She nodded. She was not even surprised that he asked the question. By now Peter Dunn was the embodiment of all knowledge and understanding.
“I thought it might be the case. Will you get me some water?”
She ran into the dining room and came back with a glassful.
“Thank you, darling.”
Mr. Hannay winced.
Peter drank the glassful at a gulp, and then, taking the girl’s face in his hands, he kissed her. Mr. Hannay was petrified.
“What the devil do you mean by that?” he stormed.
“He meant to kiss me by that,” said Pat quietly. “Didn’t you?”
“Delightful,” said a voice from the doorway.
It was Herzoff.
“You can lie down in my room if you wish, Mr. Dunn,” he said.
He walked towards him leisurely, his hands in his pockets.
“I’m afraid you left an unpleasant stain on that door.”
Peter turned his head. He did not feel the life preserver that hit him.
“Don’t move, and don’t scream, either of you!” snarled Herzoff. “And put that Véry light down, Hannay.”
“What——” began Mr. Hannay.
“And don’t ask questions. Come in, you boys.”
The big gardener and the butler came in.
“Take him up to my room and tie him up. As for you, young lady, you can go to your room for the moment. When I want you I’ll come for you. If you scream or try to attract attention, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
She walked past him, almost overtook the men as they turned into Herzoff’s room, and presently reached her own. She slammed the door and locked it. She was dazed. Such things could not happen in England, she told herself again and again. She was having a bad dream and presently would wake up.
Mr. Hannay had submitted to being bound to a chair. To him the world’s end had come. Here he was, in his own drawing room, being scientifically tied by a man whom he had regarded as…It was unbelievable.
“If I’d known who you were——” he said huskily.
Herzoff smiled.
“That’s rather a foolish remark. After all, I’ve laid your ghosts: you owe me something for that. If you’d accepted the handsome offer I made to you when I wanted to rent the house, you would not have been troubled. Unfortunately, you very stupidly ignored that offer, and I had to frighten you—and you hadn’t sufficient sense to be frightened.”
He left his host and went up the stairs two at a time to his own room. Peter was lying on the bed, fastened hand and foot. He looked at him for a moment, then went on to Pat’s room.
“Patricia!” he called softly. “It’s Mr. Herzoff speaking.”
She did not answer. He knew she had heard.
“I am the only person who can get you out of this house alive,” he said. “Take a chance with me, and I’ll keep the others off.”
“I’d sooner die!”
He heard and smiled.
“Sooner have my gorilla, would you? Well, maybe you can have him. I don’t know why Red has taken such a fancy to you, but women have been his weakness all his life….I’m giving you a chance—do a little forgetting and come with me.”
Again he waited for a reply, but none came.
“You don’t suppose anybody’s getting out of this house to tell the police who we are, do you? A great chance they’ve got! I’m phoning to a London newspaper to-night, telling them that you and your father have left for the Continent. Think that over—it means something…it means that you will not be found for a long time after I’ve left England.”
When he got back to his own room he interrupted a flow of invective from the big gardener.
“That fellow took a shot at me!” growled Red Fanderson.
“If you’d been doing your job you wouldn’t have been there,” said Herzoff, and pulled up a chair to the side of the bed. “Well, Mr. Peter Dunn?”
“You’ll go back for life for this,” said Peter between his teeth.
Herzoff was amused.
“Why didn’t you keep out of it? You’ve not been detailed; you took the job on as a holiday task, I understand. What do you want?”
“I want the money you stole from the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and a portion of which you made the judge believe Sam Allerway had taken. The money’s in this house, under Hannay’s cellar. You cached it here by accident. The other house belongs to you, doesn’t it?”
He saw the man’s expression change and chuckled.
“Got it first time! You bought the other house before you committed the robbery. I was checking up the dates. The night you got away from London in that second-hand car, you intended coming here to hide it in the cellar of the house you’d bought; but in the dark you went to the wrong house. They both looked alike in the days before Hannay started building—and one of you picked the wrong house, got into it, and buried your stuff under the cellar, and when you came out of quod you couldn’t get it. You tried to build a tunnel from the gardener’s hut, but the bedrock was too near the surface.”
“We built the tunnel all right,” growled Lee Smitt, and he was speaking the truth.
Peter was momentarily surprised.
He saw somebody standing in the doorway, watching him. He lifted his eyes and smiled at the hideous woman whose appearance at the window had so badly frightened Pat. Before she pulled off her tousled wig and began wiping the make-up from her face, he recognized the pretty Joyce.
“You might introduce me to your daughter, Smitt. She hasn’t been through my hands—yet.”
But Lee Smitt had other matters to consider.
“We’ve got to work hard to-night, Red,” he said, “and get that stuff out. There’s only another yard to dig.”
“And hard you’ll have to work!” mocked Peter.
Lee Smitt was looking at him with an odd expression. Presently he reached out and tapped the big “gardener” on the shoulder.
“Get that girl, Red. She’s yours!”
Peter’s face went white and drawn.
“If you hurt her…”
“If I hurt her or don’t hurt her you’ll be quite unconscious of the fact by to-morrow,” said Lee Smitt curtly. “Help get him down to the cellar. There’ll be a big hole there when those boxes come out, Mr. Dunn, and we’ll want three people to put in it. That’s all—three.”
Pat heard their heavy feet as they carried Peter along the passage. And then she heard another sound—somebody was trying the handle of her door.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“Open the door, little darling.”
It was the voice of the big gardener, and for a moment she swayed and had to hold onto the wall for support.
“You can’t come in here. The door’s
locked. If you don’t go away I’ll scream.”
“Sure you’ll scream.” The answer had seemed to amuse him. “You’ll scream more in a minute. Open that door…”
The door shook as he threw his weight against it. She was terrified. She ran to the window, and then understood the significance of those two cross bars which prevented the window being opened.
A panel splintered under the fist of the big man, and she looked round in frantic despair….Her eyes fell upon the book. Advice to a Young Lady of Fashion. It was a straw, and she clutched at it. She pulled the book out from the shelf. It was unusually heavy, and when she opened it she saw the reason: embedded in the very centre of the pages, which had been cut out to receive it, was a small automatic pistol. With trembling hand she took it out, and dropped the book on the floor as the door ripped open.
He was standing there, his face inflamed, his pale eyes like two balls of white fire.
“If you come near me I’ll shoot!”
“Shoot, eh?”
He took one step into the room. The crash of the explosion deafened her. With horror she saw the man crumple up and go down with a crash to the floor, and she ran past him, still gripping the gun in her hand. The wonder was that in her excitement her convulsive clutch did not explode another shot.
She turned on the lights of the drawing room as she went in. Her father was sitting, trussed up in a chair. She tried to untie his bonds but could not. Then, on the floor, near the garden door, she saw the clumsy-looking pistol. She turned the key of the lock and ran outside. Aiming the pistol high in the air, she fired. It was an odd experience.
She was in the house again before the Véry light illuminated the countryside.
Where had they taken Peter? The library was empty. She passed into the kitchen and heard sounds. The cellar door was open, and she looked in. Then she heard the voices more clearly. It was Peter who was speaking.
“If you hurt that girl you’d better kill me.”
“You’ll be killed all right,” said Herzoff. “Snap into it, Joe: we’ve got to be away from here by daylight. Joyce, you take the girl’s car and clear—don’t wait for us.”
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 172
