It was rather stuffy in the workshop, and the panorama of cool greenery which he could see from the window was immensely inviting. The Saint felt an overpowering desire to stretch his legs and take his problems out for a saunter in the fresh air; and he did not see how Ivar Nordsten could object. He went to the outer door of the suite; and then, as he turned the handle, his heart stopped beating for an instant.
The door was locked; and he appreciated for the first time some of the qualities which made Ivar Nordsten such a successful man.
VI
"CURIOUSER and curiouser," said the Saint mildly and went back to the armchair to do some more thinking.
He realized that when he had surmised that Nordsten would not have let him depart easily with his knowledge if he had refused his commission, he hadn't guessed the half of it. Nordsten would not let him depart easily with His knowledge anyhow. Simon had a sudden grim foreboding that there could be only one end, in Nordsten's mind, to that strange employment. He saw the financier's point of view very clearly, but it didn't help him far with his own plans.
He lighted another cigarette in the chain that had already filled two ashtrays, and strolled back to the window. The casements were only half opened, and he flipped one of the props off its peg and flung the window wide. Leaning out with his forearms folded on the sill to admire the view and take in his fresh air as best he could, he saw a black-haired man with a scarred face walk round the corner of the house and look up. Simon restrained a prompt impulse to wave cheerily to him and watched the man saunter up underneath the window and stop there seemingly wrapped in intense contemplation of a cluster of antirrhinums. Even then he did not quite grasp the significance of the scarred stroller until the door behind him opened and he looked round to see the saturnine features of the butler.
"Did you require anything, Mr. Vickery?" he said.
Simon completed his turn and rested his elbows on the ledge behind him.
"How did you know?" he asked.
"I thought I heard you moving about, sir."
Simon nodded.
"I went to the door," he said, "and it was locked."
The butler's sallow features were expressionless.
"It was locked by Mr. Nordsten's instructions, sir. He wished to make certain that none of the staff except myself should enter these rooms. What is it you were requiring, sir?"
"I ran out of cigarettes," said the Saint casually. "Can you get me some?"
After the butler had gone, Simon examined the window again, and found the tiny electric con-facts in the upper hinge which had doubtless sounded a warning somewhere in the house when he moved the casement; and he realized that no estimate he had formed of Ivar Nordsten's thoroughness was too high.
At six o'clock the butler came in again with a complete outfit of evening clothes. Simon had a bath and changed--the suit fitted him very well-- and at a quarter to seven the butler returned and ushered him down to the library with all the ceremony that might have been accorded to a particularly honoured guest. Nordsten was already there, with the broad ribbon of some foreign order across his white shirtfront. He rose with a smile.
"I'm glad Trusaneff was able to judge your size," he said, glancing at the set of the Saint's coat. "Will you have a Martini, or would you prefer sherry?"
To Simon Templar it was one of the most quietly macabre evenings in his experience. In the vast panelled dining room, lighted only by clusters of candles, they sat at one end of a table which could have seated twenty without crowding. A periwigged footman stood behind each of their chairs like a guardian statue which only came to life in the act of forestalling any trivial need and returned immediately afterwards to immobility. The butler stood at the end of the room, supervising nothing but the perfection of service: sometimes he would look up and move a finger, and one of the statues would respond in silent obedience. There were six courses, each served with a different wine, each taken with the solemn ritual of a formal banquet. Without seeming to be conscious that every word which was spoken thrummed eerily through the shadowy emptiness of the room, Nordsten talked as naturally as if all the vacant places at the long table were filled; and Simon had to admit that he was a charming conversationalist. But he said nothing that gave the Saint any more information than he had already.
"I have always believed in the survival of the fittest," was his only illuminating remark. "Business men are often criticized for using 'sharp' methods; but after all, high finance is a kind of war, and in war you use the most effective weapons you can find, without considering the feelings of the enemy."
Nevertheless, when the Saint was back in his bedroom--the butler escorted him there on the pretext of finding out whether he desired to order anything special for breakfast--he felt that he had learned something, even if that something was only a confirmation of what he had already deduced from quite a different angle. And this was that a man who was capable of putting on such a show of state for one insignificant guest, and who believed so clearly and logically in the survival of the fittest, would not find it hard to rationalize any expedient which helped him towards his unmistakable goal of power.
Abstractedly the Saint took off his shoes, his collar and tie, his stiff shirt. Whatever benefits he might have derived from it, that dinner had put the finishing touch to his feeling of being a passive calf in process of fattening for the slaughter; and it was not a feeling that fitted very easily on his temperament. He pulled off his socks, because the night was sultry, and drifted about the room in his singlet and trousers, smoking a cigarette. As if he had never thought of it before, it came to him, as he paced up and down, that his bare feet were absolutely soundless on the carpet. Almost absentmindedly he picked up the white waistcoat which he had discarded. In one pocket of it was a burglarious instrument with which he had taken the precaution of providing himself before he left his own home, with a nebulous eye to possible voyages of exploration on the Nordsten premises, and which he had thoughtfully transferred from his day suit when he changed. . . .
He watched, with the lights out, until the strip of light under the outer door of his suite turned black as the corridor lights were switched off; and then he waited half an hour longer before he set to work on the lock. He realized that it was not outside the realms of probability that the same thoroughness which had caused those minute electric contacts to be fitted to the windows might have provided some similar system of alarms on the door; but that was a risk which had to be taken, and possibly several glasses of Ivar Nordsten's excellent port on top of twelve hours' enforced passivity had made him a trifle light-headed. Every now and then he stopped, motionless, without even breathing, and listened for any whisper of sound that might betray a guard prowling around the passages; but he could hear nothing. And at last he was able to turn the handle noiselessly and slip out into the silent darkness of the house.
A tentative needle of light skimmed away from the Saint's hand, dabbed at the floor and walls, and vanished again. It came from the masked bulb of a tiny pocket torch which was another semi-burglarious instrument that he had brought with him. And thereafter, with only that one brief glimpse of the route ahead to refresh his memory, he disappeared into the blackness like a roving ghost.
His objective, in so far as he had an objective at all, was the library where cocktails had been served before dinner. If there were any intriguing developments to be unearthed in that house, the library seemed the obvious place to begin a search for them; and he had always been a sublime optimist.
He reached the head of the staircase and stopped there to listen. A pale blue glimmer of light came through the studio window on the stairway and achieved little more than taking the harsh deadness off the dark for half a flight. A faint musty smell touched the Saint's sensitive nostrils; and he stood for a moment breathing it silently, like a wild animal, with an invisible frown creasing his forehead. But the associations of it eluded him, and with a slight shrug he set one foot stealthily on the first downward step.
/> As he did so he heard the scratching.
It was a queer soft noise, like some very light-footed thing with nailed shoes pacing across a parquet floor. It seemed to take one or two steps, while he listened with his heart beating a shade faster; then it stopped; then it came again. And then the silence came down once more.
Simon remained motionless, a mere patch of shadow in the dark, so still that he could feel the blood pounding steadily in his veins. It came to him, with great clarity, that there were healthier places for him to be abroad at midnight than the house of Ivar Nordsten. He had a momentary vision of the very comfortable bed that was already turned down for him in the very comfortable bedroom to which he had been assigned, and wondered what on earth could have made him impervious to its very obvious enticement. But the scratching sound was not repeated; and at length, with a wry grin, he went on. He wouldn't stand much chance of completing his tour of investigation, he reflected ruefully, if a mouse could scare him so easily. . . .
At last he stepped down on the floor of the hall. An infinitesimal glimmer of the light from the stairway window still reached there--enough to take him to the library door without the use of his torch. Very gently he turned the handle; and as he did so he heard the scratching again.
In a flash he had whipped round and shot the pencil beam of his torch towards it. Even as he did so, he realized that his nerves had got the better of him, but the impulse was too strong for reason. And as he turned, his right hand leapt to the automatic at his hip with a grim feeling that if by any chance the scratching had a human origin it would relieve him considerably to discover it.
The dimmed beam gave too feeble a light to show him any details. He saw nothing but a black shadow which filled one far corner, and a pair of eyes that caught the light and held it in two steady yellowish reflections as large as walnuts; and one of the happiest moments of his life began when he had got through the library door and shut it behind him.
Breathing a trifle deeply, he fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lighted it, keeping his flashlight switched on. If complete disaster had been the price, he couldn't have denied his nerves that time-honoured consolation. Whatever the black shadow with the yellow eyes might be, he felt that his system could stand a snifter of tobacco and an interval of thoughtful repose before looking at it again. Meanwhile he was on the sanctuary side of the library door, and he was stubbornly resolved to make the most of it. His torch showed him that the curtains were drawn, and with a reckless movement of his hand he switched on the lights and turned to a survey of the room.
Only the immutable law of averages can account for what followed. If a man looks for things often enough, it is reasonable to assume that at some time or other he must stumble on the right hiding place at the first attempt; and the Saint had searched for things often enough in his life, even if on that occasion he didn't know what he was looking for.
The toe of one bare foot was kicking meditatively at the edge of the carpet. The corner rolled over. His thoughts ran, more or less: "Nothing important would be left out for any inquisitive servant to get hold of. There isn't a safe. It might be a dummy bookcase, like I've got. But excavations are also possible. . . ."
Somehow he found himself looking down at a trapdoor cut in the oak planking of the floor.
It lifted easily. Underneath was a hinged stone slab with an iron ringbolt, smooth and unrusted. Without hesitation he took hold of it and lifted. It required all his strength to raise the slab, but he managed it.
He looked down into black darkness; but from the bottom of the darkness came a faint sound of shuffling movement. With a creepy tingle working across his scalp, he picked up his torch again and sent the beam down the shaft.
Ten feet below him, a face looked up with dull staring eyes that blinked painfully even in the faint ray of his flashlight. There was something hideously familiar about it, as if it were the blanched wreck of a face which he ought to know. And in another second his blood ran cold as he realized that it was the face of Ivar Nordsten.
VII
The face was not quite the same. The nose was less dominant, the complexion had a yellow tinge which the financier's did not have, the eyes lacked the faded brightness which Nordsten's possessed; but it was recognizable. It had given the Saint such a shock that he found it difficult to speak naturally.
"Hullo, sunshine," he said at length. "And who are you?"
The man's mouth worked hungrily, like an animal's.
"All right," he said, in a curiously stiff hoarse whisper, as if he had half forgotten how to use his voice. "I'm used to it now. You can't make me suffer any more."
"Who are you?" Simon repeated.
"I'm you," said the man huskily. "I know now. I've thought it all out. I'm you--Nordsten!"
The Saint's nerves were steady enough now. Somehow, that last shock had been a homoeopathic dose, wiping out everything else; he was left with the dizzy certainty that the trail had turned into a stranger course than anything he had dreamed of, and with a grim curiosity to find out where it led.
"I'm here to help you, you fathead," he said. "Tell uncle what it's all about."
The man below him laughed, a horrible quivering dry cackle which sent an uncanny chill down the Saint's spine, as if a spider had crawled there, in spite of the recovered steadiness of his nerves.
"Help me! Ha-ha! That's funny. Help me like you've been helping me for two years. Help me to keep alive so that I can die at the right time! I know. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Then the wild voice fell to a whisper. "Help," it breathed, with a fearful intensity. "How long? How long?"
"Listen," said the Saint urgently. "I------"
An then, as if his command had turned back on himself, he broke off and listened. He could hear the scratching again. It was outside the library door--on the door itself. . . . There was a faint thud; and then an instant's electric silence, while he strained his ears for he knew not what. . . And then, shattering the stillness of the house, came a frightful coughing scream that rang up and down the scale in an eldritch howl of vocal savagery that stopped the breath in his throat.
Looking down stupidly through the trapdoor, Simon saw the parchment face of the man who looked like Nordsten turn whiter. The dull eyes dilated, and the stiff unnatural voice rose in a sobbing cry.
"No, no, no, no," it shrieked. "Not now! Not now! I didn't mean it. I'm not ready yet! I'm not------"
The hairs prickled on the nape of Simon's neck; and then, with an effort that hardened his eyes to mere slits of arctic blue, he got up from his knees and lifted the heavy stone trapdoor again.
"I'll see you later," he said shortly and lowered the trap much quicker than he had raised it.
In another second he had fitted the square of dummy parquet over it, and he was rolling out the carpet again to cover up the traces of his inspection. Whatever else his curiosity might demand to know, there was the screeching shadow with the yellow eyes to be accounted for first-- everyone in the house must have been awakened by that unearthly yell, and he would achieve nothing by being discovered where he was. Whatever it might be, the Thing in the hall had to be dealt with first, and he preferred to take it on the run rather than let his nerves get the better of him again. With his automatic in his hand, he went back to the door and switched out the lights. No one would ever know what it cost him to turn the handle of the door with that screaming horror waiting for him on the other side, but he did it; and his nerves were like ice as he drew the door sharply back and waited for whatever his fate might be.
Something soft and yet heavy hissed past him and landed on the parquet beside the central rug with the same scratching noise as he had heard before, and once again his nostrils twitched to the queer musty odour which they had detected on the stairs. In the pitch darkness he heard the claws of the beast scrabbling for a turning hold on the polished oak, and kicked out instinctively with his bare foot. His toes bedded into something furry and muscular, and for the second time that fiendish worrying ye
ll wailed through the blackness.
Simon whipped up his gun; but something like a hot iron ripped down his forearm before he could fire, and the automatic was brushed effortlessly out of his hand. He felt hot fetid breath on his face and smashed his fist into something soft and damp; and then he went down under the clawing spitting weight of the brute with its shrill snarl of fury ringing in his ears.
More by luck than judgment he found the animal's throat with his hands; and probably it was that fluke, and the reprieve of a second or two it gave him, which saved him from serious injury, "Sheba!"
The lights had gone up in the hall, and he heard running footsteps. He had never been so breathlessly thankful to hear anything in his life. A whip lashed, and the huge black panther on top of him roared again and stepped back, turning its head with bared fangs. Simon took his chance and rolled clear--it was the fastest roll he had ever performed in his acrobatic career.
"Back!" shouted Nordsten furiously and lashe at the panther again.
It was one of the most amazing demonstrations of brutal fearlessness which Simon had ever witnessed. Nordsten simply advanced step by step, swinging the wire-tipped rawhide back and forth in a steady rhythm of flailing punishment; and as he went forward, the panther went back. Quite obviously it had never been tame, and no attempt had ever been made to tame it. Nordsten dominated it by nothing but his own savage courage. Its yellow eyes blazed with the most horrible intelligent hatred which the Saint had ever dreamed of seeing in the eyes of an animal; it clawed and bit at the slashing whip with deep growls of murderous rage; but it went back. Nordsten's face was black with anger, and he had no more pity than fear. He drove the brute right across the hall into a corner, lashed it half a dozen times more when it could retreat no farther--and then turned his back on it. It crouched there, staring after him, with a steady rumbling of frightful viciousness burring in its throat.
12 The Saint in London (The Misfortunes of Mr Teal) Page 12
