The men exchanged glances, but only Dangle spoke.
‘I guess you have, old girl,’ he conceded. ‘But finish out this job and you’ll live like a lady for the rest of your life.’
‘It’ll be a poor look out for you if I don’t,’ she grumbled, and Sime having opened the door, she passed out, followed by the others. Cheyne, watching breathlessly, saw a light spring up in a ground floor window, fortunately not below him, but at the far end of the house.
His heart beat quickly. Was it possible that his great chance had come already and that the gang had delivered themselves into his hands? A little coolness, a little daring, a little nerve, and he believed he could carry off a coup that would entirely reverse the situation. The document on the wall must surely be that which these criminals had stolen from him. Could he not regain it while they were downstairs at their supper? He decided with fierce delight that he would try. It was an adventure after his own heart.
Carefully he grasped the lower sash and pressed gently upwards. To his delight it moved. With infinite care he pushed it higher and higher until at last he was able to work his way into the room. Evidently he had not been heard, as the muffled sounds of conversation continued to rise unbrokenly from the supper room. He tiptoed lightly across the room and gazed in surprise at the document fixed to the wall.
It was certainly not the copy of a birth or marriage certificate nor anything connected with a claim to a barony! It was a sheet of tracing linen some fifteen inches high by twelve wide, covered with little circles spaced irregularly and without any apparent plan, like the keys of a typewriter gone mad. Some of these circles contained numbers and others letters, also arranged without apparent plan. The only thing he could read about the whole document was a phrase, written in a circle from the centre like the figures on a clock dial: ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’
Cheyne stared in amazement, but soon realising that his time might be short, he silently removed the drawing pins, folded the tracing and thrust it into his pocket. Then turning to the camera, he withdrew the dark slide, opened first one and then the other of its shutters, closed them again and replaced it in the camera. A few seconds sufficed to open and close the shutters of the other slide lying on the table. With a hurried glance round to make sure that no other paper was lying about which might also have formed part of the contents of Price’s envelope, he tiptoed back to the window and prepared to make his escape.
But as he laid his hand on the blind he was halted by a sound from below. Someone had opened what was evidently the back door of the house and had stepped out on the ground below the window. Then Sime’s voice came, grumbling and muffled: ‘Where the blazes do you keep the: darned stuff? How can I find it in the dark?’ There was a moment’s pause, then in a changed voice a sudden sharp call of ‘Here, James! Look here quickly! What’s this?’
He had seen the ladder! Cheyne realised that his retreat was cut off!
A sudden tumult arose downstairs. Hasty feet ran towards the garden and voices spoke low and hurriedly beneath the window. Cheyne saw that his only hope lay in instant action. He silently hurried across the room, tore the door open and ran to the head of the stairs. His hope was that he might slip down and out of the front door while the others were still at the back of the house.
But he was just too late. As he reached the stairs he heard steps approaching the hall below. His retreat was cut off in this direction also.
There remained only one thing to do and he did it almost without thought. Opening the next door to that of the sitting-room, he stepped noiselessly inside, closing the door save for a narrow chink through which he could hear and see what was happening.
Two of the men had raced up to the sitting-room, and peeping out, Cheyne saw that they were Blessington and Sime. In a moment they were out again and running down, shouting: ‘It’s gone, James! The tracing’s gone!’ Sounds indicative of surprise and consternation arose from below, but Cheyne could no longer hear the words. Then through the window, which also looked out over the garden, he heard Dangle’s voice: ‘Keep guard of the house, Susan and Blessington. Come with me, Sime,’ and the sound of two pairs of feet rushing away towards the lane.
Instinctively Cheyne realised that his chance had come. It was now or never. If he could not escape while two of the conspirators were away, he would have no chance when all four were present.
He came out of his hiding-place and peeped through the well down into the hall. The electric light had been turned on and the hall was brilliantly illuminated. In it stood Blessington, glancing alternately up the stairs and out through a door to the back. In his hand he held an automatic pistol, and from the look of fury and desperation on his face Cheyne had no doubt that he would not hesitate to use it if he saw him.
‘They must have only just gone!’ Blessington cried through the door with a lurid oath, and Susan’s voice answered with another equally vivid string of blasphemy.
Cheyne stood tense, scarcely daring to breathe and on the qui vive to take advantage of any chance that might offer. But Blessington wasn’t going to give chances. He stood there with his pistol raised, and unarmed as Cheyne was, he recognised the hopelessness of trying to rush him.
He thought there might be a chance of escape from some of the other rooms and silently crept about in the hope of finding a window or skylight from which he might perhaps obtain access to a downspout. But so far as he could ascertain in the dark there was nothing of the kind, and after a few minutes had passed he retraced his steps and set himself to watch Blessington.
He wondered whether he could make some noise with the ladder which would attract the two watchers to the garden and thus enable him to make a bolt for the front door, but while he was considering this he heard other voices which revealed the fact that Dangle and Sime had returned. Then Dangle’s voice sounded in the hall: ‘’Fraid they’ve got away, but we’d better search the house again to make sure. You stick at the stairs, Susan, while we do the lower rooms.’
Steps sounded below as the men moved from room to room. Cheyne’s heart was pounding as it had done on different occasions before his ship had gone into action during the war, but he was calm and collected and determined to take the least chance that offered.
Presently he heard the men joining Susan in the hall. Now was the only chance he was likely to get and at all costs he must make the most of it. He hurried back to the sitting-room window, and setting his teeth, lifted the blind and silently crawled out.
So far he had not been seen, and as rapidly as he dared he climbed down the ladder. Another five seconds and he would have got clear away, but at that moment the alarm was given. One of the men, looking out of a window, saw him in the now fairly clear light of the moon. Hurried steps sounded and Blessington appeared at the open door.
Fearful of his pistol, Cheyne leaped for his life. He landed on his feet, staggered, recovered himself and darted like a hare across the flower beds. With any ordinary luck he should have got clear away, but Blessington had picked up a broom as he ran, and this he threw with fatal aim. It caught Cheyne between the legs and he fell headlong. Other steps came hurrying up. By the light streaming from the back door he saw an arm raised. It fell and something crashed with a sickening thud on his head.
He saw a vivid shower of sparks, there was a roaring in his ears, great dark waves seemed to rise up and encompass him, and he remembered no more.
7
Miss Joan Merrill
After what seemed ages of forgetfulness a confused sense of pain began to make itself felt in Maxwell Cheyne’s being, growing in force and definition as he gradually struggled back to consciousness. At first his whole body ached sickeningly, but as time passed the major suffering concentrated itself in his head. It throbbed as if it would burst, and he felt a terrible oppression, as if the weight of the universe rested upon it. So on the border line of consciousness he hovered for still further ages of time.
Presently by gradual stages the me
mory of his recent adventure returned to him, and he began vaguely to realise that the murderous attempt which had been made on him had failed and that he still lived.
Encouraged by this reassuring thought, he hesitatingly essayed the feat of opening his eyes. For a time he gazed, confused by the dim shapes about him, but at last he came more fully to himself and was able to register what he saw.
It was almost dark, indeed most of the arc over which his eyes could travel was perfectly so. But here and there he noticed parallelograms of a less inky blackness, and after some time the significance of these penetrated his brain and he knew where he was.
He was lying on his back on the ground in the half-built house from which he had taken the ladder, and the parallelograms were the openings in the walls into which doors and windows would afterwards be fitted. Against the faint light without, which he took to be that of the moonlit sky, he could see dimly the open joists of the floor above him, a piece of the herring-bone strutting of which cut across the space for one of the upstairs windows.
Feeling slightly better he tried his pocket, to find, as he expected, that the tracing was gone. Presently he attempted some more extensive movement. But at once an intolerable pang shot through him, and, sick and faint, he lay still. With a dawning horror he wondered whether his back might not be broken, or whether the blow on his head might not have produced paralysis. He groaned aloud and sank back once more into unconsciousness.
After a time he became sentient again, sick and giddy, but more fully conscious. While he could not think collectedly, the idea became gradually fixed in his mind that he must somehow get away from his present position, partly lest his enemies might return to complete their work, and partly lest, if he stayed, he might die before the workmen came in the morning. Therefore, setting his teeth, he made a supreme effort and, in spite of the terrible pain in his head, succeeded in turning over on to his hands and knees.
In this new position he remained motionless for some time, but presently he began to crawl slowly and painfully out towards the road. At intervals he had to stop to recover himself, but at length after superhuman efforts he succeeded in reaching the paling separating the lot from Hopefield Avenue. There he sank down exhausted and for some time lay motionless in a state of coma.
Suddenly he became conscious of the sound of light but rapid footsteps approaching on the footpath at the other side of the paling, and once more summoning all his resolution he nerved himself to listen. The steps drew nearer until he judged their owner was just passing and then he cried as loudly as he could: ‘Help!’
The footsteps stopped and Cheyne gasped out: ‘Help! I’ve hurt my head: an accident.’
There was a moment’s silence and then a girl’s voice sounded.
‘Where are you?’
‘Here,’ Cheyne answered, ‘at the back of the fence.’ He felt dimly that he ought to give some explanation of his predicament, and went on in weak tones: ‘I was looking through the house and fell. Can you help me?’
‘Of course,’ the girl answered. ‘I’ll go to the police station in Cleeve Road—it’s only five minutes—and they will look after you in no time.’
This was not what Cheyne wanted. He had not yet decided whether he would call in the police and he was too much upset at the moment to consider the point. In the meantime, therefore, it would be better if nothing was said.
‘Please not,’ he begged. ‘Just send a taxi to take me to a hospital.’
The girl hesitated, then replied: ‘All right. Let me see first if I can make you a bit more comfortable.’
The effort of speaking and thinking had so overcome Cheyne that, he sank back once more into a state of coma, and it was only half consciously that he felt his head being lifted and some soft thing like a folded coat being placed beneath. Then the girl’s pleasant voice said: ‘Now just stay quiet and I shall have a taxi here in a moment.’ A further period of waiting ensued and he felt himself being lifted and carried a few steps. A jolting then began which so hurt his head that he fainted again, and for still further interminable ages he remembered no more.
When he finally regained his faculties he found himself in bed, physically more comfortable than he could have believed possible, but utterly exhausted. He was content to lie motionless, not troubling as to where he was or how he came there. Presently he fell asleep and when he woke he plucked up energy enough to open his eyes.
It was light and he saw that he was in hospital. Several other beds were in the ward and a nurse was doing something at the end of the room. Presently she came over, saw that he was awake, and smiled at him.
‘Better?’ she said cheerily.
‘I think so,’ he answered weakly. ‘Where am I, nurse?’
‘In the Albert Edward Hospital. You’ve had a nasty knock on your head, but you’re going to be all right. Now you’re to keep quiet and not talk.’
Cheyne didn’t want to talk and he lay motionless, luxuriating in the complete cessation of effort. After a time a doctor came and looked at him, but it was too much trouble to be interested about the doctor, and in any case he soon disappeared. Sometimes when he opened his eyes the nurse was there and sometimes she wasn’t, and other people seemed to drift about for no very special reason. Then it was dark in the ward, evidently night again. The next day the same thing happened, and so for many days.
He had been troubled with the vague thoughts of his mother and sister, and on one occasion when he was feeling a little less tired than usual he had called the nurse and asked her to write to his sister, saying that he had met with a slight accident and was staying on in town for a few days. Miss Cheyne telegraphed to know if she could help, but the nurse, without troubling her patient, had replied: ‘Not at present.’
At last there came a time when Cheyne began to feel more his own man and able, without bringing on an intolerable headache, to think collectedly about his situation. And at once two points arose in his mind upon which he felt an immediate decision must be made.
The first was: What answer should he return to the inevitable questions he would be asked as to how he met with his injury? Should he lodge an information against Messrs Dangle, Sime and Co., accuse them of attempted murder and put the machinery of the law in motion against them? Or should he stick to his tale that an accident had happened, and keep the affair of Hopefield Avenue to himself?
After anxious consideration he decided on the latter alternative. If he were to tell the police now he would find it hard to explain why he had not done so earlier. Moreover, with returning strength came back the desire which he had previously experienced, to meet these men on their own ground and himself defeat them. He remembered how exceedingly nearly he had done so on this occasion. Had it not been for the accident of something being required from the garden or outhouse he would have got clear away, and he hoped for better luck next time.
A third consideration also weighed with him. He was not sure how far he himself had broken the law. House-breaking and burglary were serious crimes, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that others might not consider his excuse for these actions as valid as he did himself. In fact he was not sure how he stood legally. Under the circumstances would his proper course not have been to lodge an information against Dangle and Sime immediately on getting ashore from the Enid, and let the police with a search warrant recover Price’s letter? But he saw at once that that would have been useless. The men would have denied the theft, and he could not have proved it. His letter to his bank manager would have been evidence that he had handed it over to them of his own free will. No, to go to the police would not have got him anywhere. In his own eyes he had been right to act as he had, and his only course now was to pursue the same policy and keep the police out of it.
When, therefore, a couple of days later the doctor, who had been puzzled by the affair, questioned him on it, he made up a tale. He replied that he had for some time been looking for a house in the suburbs, that the outline of that in question had appeale
d to him, and that he had climbed in to see the internal accommodation. In the semi-darkness he had fallen, striking his head on a heap of bricks. He had been unconscious for some time, but had then been able to crawl to the street, where the lady had been kind enough to have him taken to the hospital.
This brought him back to the second point which had been occupying his mind since he had regained the power of consecutive thought: the lady. What exactly had she done for him? How had she got him to the hospital and secured his admission? Had she taken a taxi, and if so, had she herself paid for it? Cheyne felt that he must see her to learn these particulars and to thank her for her kindness and help.
He broached the subject to the nurse, who laughed and said she had been expecting the question. Miss Merrill had brought him herself to the hospital and had since called up a couple of times to inquire for him. The nurse presumed the young lady had herself paid for the taxi, as no question about the matter had been raised.
This information seemed to Cheyne to involve communication with Miss Merrill at the earliest possible moment. The nurse would not let him write himself, but at his dictation she sent a line expressing his gratitude for the lady’s action and begging leave to call on his leaving the hospital.
In answer to this there was a short note signed
‘Joan Merrill,’ which stated that the writer was pleased to hear that Mr Cheyne was recovering and that she would see him if he called. The note was headed 17 Horne Terrace, Burton Street, Chelsea. Cheyne admired the hand and passed a good deal of his superabundant time speculating as to the personality of the writer and wondering what a Chelsea lady could have been doing in the Hendon suburbs after midnight on the date of his adventure. When, therefore, a few days later he was discharged from the hospital, he betook himself to Chelsea with more than a little eagerness.
Horne Terrace proved to be a block of workers flats, and inquiries at No. 17 produced the information that Miss Merrill occupied Flat No. 12—the top floor on the left-hand side. Speculating still further as to the personality of a lady who would choose such a dwelling, Cheyne essayed researches into the upper regions. A climb which left him weak and panting after his sojourn in bed brought him to the fifth floor, on which one of the doors bore the number he sought. To recover himself before knocking he felt constrained to sit down for a few moments on the stairs, and as he was thus resting the door of No. 12 opened and a girl came out.
Inspector French and the Cheyne Mystery Page 8
