by Molly Thynne
Then, as Carol watched, Lady Dalberry did a thing which made the girl clutch at the wall behind her for support and kept her, for the next ten minutes, glued to the spot, sick with the realization of her own danger, yet too fascinated to move.
When, at last, she crept back along the balcony to her sitting-room she was too terrified to control her movements. The catch of her window slipped out of her hand and it swung to behind her with a noise that brought her heart to her mouth. She did not wait to discover if the sound had disturbed Lady Dalberry, but, like a hunted thing, sped along the passage to her own room. In her blind panic she made a mistake which she was bitterly to regret later. She switched off the light in the passage.
Once safely in her room she began feverishly to dress. She was conscious of one thing only: she could not stay another hour in her aunt’s flat. She threw on the first garments that her hand fell on, and, wrapping herself in her fur coat, stealthily opened the door of her room and listened.
There was no sign of any movement anywhere, and the passage stretched ahead of her, pitch dark now and silent as the grave. She dared not risk the noise of the click of the switch controlling the passage light, and was obliged to grope her way as best she could. Her whole mind was concentrated on reaching the front door and getting out of the flat unobserved, and she blessed the fates that had placed Lady Dalberry’s room round the angle of the passage, so that she would not have to pass it on her way out.
Very carefully she felt her way into the hall. She had almost reached the door when her sleeve caught in a silver tray that stood on the table and brought it clattering to the ground.
Transfixed with terror she stood clutching the edge of the table, listening for the inevitable sound of her aunt’s door opening. But the silence remained unbroken, and at last, by sheer force of will, she shook off the spell that bound her and felt her way in the direction of the hall door.
She found it and, with a blessed feeling of relief, turned the handle. The door opened and a beam of light from the lamp in the corridor outside fell across the threshold.
Then a hand closed over her mouth from behind, jerking her head backwards and stifling the scream that rose to her lips. She made a frantic, ineffectual effort to free herself, but the hand slipped down on to her throat and began to tighten inexorably.
There was no further sound in the dark hall, but, after a short space, the hall door was closed and latched quietly from within.
CHAPTER XXI
Jasper Mellish was feeling at odds with the world.
A succession of things had happened to exasperate him. The first of these was the arrival of Dalberry the night before. He had dropped Mrs. Verrall at New Scotland Yard on his way back from Berrydown, and had left her in the capable hands of Shand, who had undertaken to find her a safe lodging, after which he had called on Mellish to break to him the rencontre between her and Lady Dalberry. Mellish, who hated to see his plans go agley, had retired to bed thoroughly out of sorts.
He woke next morning to find that Carol’s solicitors had made an appointment for him at 9:30 am, which he could not evade, and by the time he had heaved himself out of his comfortable bed nearly two hours earlier than was his custom, he was feeling very peevish indeed.
The business interview was a short one, and he got back to his rooms soon after ten, rather worse tempered, if anything, than when he had started out. The root of his grievance, though he would have hesitated to admit it, was the realization that his guardianship of Carol was about to end. Much as he had grumbled at the responsibility and all the trouble it had caused him, it had kept him in constant touch with her, and the pleasure he had derived from her company was quite out of proportion to the frequent annoyance she had managed to cause him. The thought that, after to-day, he would find himself in the comparatively obscure position of a trustee not only rankled, but made him feel a little forlorn. The truth was that he had grown to look upon her almost as a child of his own, and was beginning to realize, for the first time, the full strength of his affection for her.
“Did you give Miss Summers my message?” he asked, as his man helped him off with his coat.
“Miss Summers hasn’t rung up this morning, sir,” answered Jervis imperturbably.
Mellish swung round.
“Not rung up? Have you tried to get her?”
“I rang up the flat, sir, knowing you wished to fix the appointment for this afternoon, and her ladyship answered. She said Miss Summers was not at home. I asked if she could tell me where I could find her, and she said she believed she was lunching at Mrs. Carthew’s, where she had spent the night. I tried twice to ring up Mrs. Carthew, but the line was engaged.”
Mellish’s frown deepened. Carol had undertaken to leave the flat early that morning, and go straight to her friends the Carthews, telling Lady Dalberry that she was going to spend the night with them, but there had been no suggestion of her either dining or sleeping with them the night before. He was certain that, when she had left Berrydown, she had had no intention of going anywhere but to the flat. And if she had gone there, why had she not rung him up directly after breakfast, according to her promise?
With an impatient snort he heaved himself once more into his coat. To-day he was leaving nothing to chance.
“I’ll go round to the flat myself,” he said, as he took his hat from a rather pained Jervis, who was already aware that this was one of those days when one can do nothing right.
Mellish found Lady Dalberry at home.
“I’m trying to get on the track of Carol,” he said, wasting no time on preliminaries. “As you know, this is rather an important day for her, and there are certain arrangements I must make for this afternoon. Have you any idea where I can catch her?”
Lady Dalberry shook her head.
“How inconsiderate of her,” she said sympathetically. “But you know what these young people are, Mr. Mellish. She dined out last night, and rang up about ten o’clock to say that she was spending the night and would be back this afternoon. She said nothing about any appointment with you.”
Mellish looked ruffled.
“Bother the child!” he exclaimed. “I’d better ring her up at the Carthews’. May I use your telephone?”
For a fleeting second Lady Dalberry looked disconcerted. Then she threw out her hands in a little gesture of despair.
“I am so sorry,” she cried. “There seems nothing I can do to help you. The telephone has been out of order ever since breakfast. I have rung them up from the hall downstairs, but no one has come yet. I tried it just now. It was no good.”
Mellish turned heavily towards the door.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can get her from my rooms.”
Lady Dalberry rose with alacrity. It struck him that, in spite of her invitation to wait for Carol, she was not sorry to see him go.
On his way out his eyes fell on a photograph of the late Lord Dalberry that stood on a table near the door.
“A good portrait, that, of Adrian,” he remarked. “I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
Lady Dalberry winced. Evidently she found it difficult, even now, to speak of her dead husband.
“It was taken in America,” she said gently. “It is the one I have always liked best.”
“He’d changed very little,” went on Mellish thoughtfully. “Did he keep up his music, I wonder? It used to be a great hobby with him.”
Lady Dalberry smiled.
“It is nice that you should remember that. He was always playing, of course, and, when he had the chance, he would go to hear good music; but we lived far away from the towns, you know, and it was not easy to keep it up.”
“Of course. Just so,” agreed Mellish vaguely, as he took his leave.
On his way through the hall he paused opposite the telephone.
“Troublesome things,” he commented, his keen eyes on the instrument. “I often wish they’d never been invented.”
His face was impassive as he stepp
ed out of the lift into the hall of the Escatorial and wished the lift-boy a benevolent “good-morning,” but he was seriously perturbed. For one thing, he had seen the cut wires behind the telephone; for another, Lady Dalberry had fallen into the trap he had laid for her with a completeness that, at any other time, would have caused him acute satisfaction. Now he could only wish, with all his heart, that his suspicions had been aroused sooner and that he had thought of applying his test earlier. It was no doubt its very simplicity that had proved Lady Dalberry’s undoing, but it was conclusive, for nobody could have known Lord Dalberry for long without discovering that not only was he unable to play any kind of instrument, but that he was so tone deaf as to be incapable of telling one time from another, and detested music in consequence.
Curiously enough, with all his acumen, Mellish had never, until now, suspected Lady Dalberry’s bona fides. Her papers had been in order; indeed he knew that her credentials had been carefully gone into by the solicitors to the estate, who had found everything above suspicion. Until to-day she had never made the smallest slip. Now the magnitude of his discovery appalled him. He made up his mind to locate Carol at once, and then get into immediate touch with Shand.
He was so immersed in thought that he did not notice a car standing at the door of the Escatorial or see the woman getting out of it until she called him by name.
He looked up quickly and recognized Mrs. Carthew.
“Have you been to see Carol?” she asked. “I’ve come to return her bag and find out what time we’re to expect her to-day.”
“She’s out,” he answered. “I had an idea that she had already gone to you.”
“We expected her early this morning, but she never turned up. I want her for a matinee this afternoon. She left this when she dined with us the night before last. I wonder she hasn’t missed it.”
She held out a gold-mesh bag which he recognized as Carol’s.
There was nothing in his manner to betray the fact that he had received one of the greatest shocks of his life.
“I’m afraid I must lay claim to her for this afternoon,” he said regretfully. “You know it’s her twenty-first birthday, and there are all sorts of ceremonies attached to the day. Very tedious ones, from her point of view, I’m afraid. I’ll take the bag, if you like, and return it to her, and I’ll tell her to ring you up and let you know when to expect her.”
They stood for a few minutes chatting until Mellish, with admirably concealed relief, handed her into her car.
Then he hailed the nearest taxi and told the man to drive to New Scotland Yard.
“I’m in a hurry. Avoid as many traffic blocks as you can,” he told him resignedly.
He overtook Shand on the Embankment and picked him up. It did not take Mellish long to put him in possession of the facts, and he was quick to see the gravity of the situation.
“You think that Lady Dalberry is aware that Miss Summers did not spend the night with her friends?” he asked.
“I am certain that the woman who calls herself Lady Dalberry is in this up to the hilt,” snapped Mellish, whose anxiety was fast becoming unbearable.
In answer to Shand’s swift glance of interrogation he described how Lady Dalberry had fallen into the trap he had set for her.
“I acted on impulse,” he said, “and I’m thankful now that I did. It struck me suddenly that her grief for her husband had, all along, been a little overdone. But I can’t understand it. It seems incredible that she should have managed to hoodwink the solicitors to that extent. I naturally took her for granted. But I’m certain now that she never knew Adrian Culver.”
“I’m on my way to keep an appointment with Mrs. Verrall in my room,” said Shand thoughtfully. “She was to be there at twelve, and it’s close on that now. We’ve got all Conyers’s belongings at the Yard, and I want her to look at one or two things. They may suggest something to her. I’ll send a man down to the Escatorial now to keep an eye on both the flats while I have a word with Mrs. Verrall. I fancy the time will be well spent.”
“For God’s sake make it as short an interview as possible,” urged Mellish.
They found Mrs. Verrall waiting in Shand’s room. After a word of explanation Shand went to a cupboard and took out the suitcase she had been looking at when she was surprised in Conyers’s lodgings. He placed it on the table and threw it open.
“We found this packet of photographs at the bottom of the case,” he said, handing a fat bundle to her. “Will you see if you can identify any of them?”
She ran through them quickly. Most of them were familiar to her, but the names she gave conveyed nothing to either of the two men. She had almost finished her inspection, and was turning over the contents of an envelope full of snapshots, when she gave a sudden cry of mingled surprise and excitement.
“It’s the same man!” she exclaimed. “The one whose photo was stolen from me that night!”
She handed a snapshot to Shand. It was of a group of three men, standing in a doorway, with the sun shining full on their faces. No Press photograph could have been clearer.
She pointed to the figure in the centre of the group.
“That’s the man! I’m certain of it! The one on his left is Eric himself, and I know the other, a man called Culick.” Shand turned the photograph round. On the back was written, in pencil, a date and the names of the three men. The first two were, as she had said, Conyers and Culick. Shand gave a little gasp of triumph as he read the third. It was Strelinski!
“That’s what I’ve been waiting for,” he said slowly. There was an immense satisfaction in his voice. “I felt that name would crop up sooner or later. Now we can get to work.”
He handed the photograph to Mellish.
“A very nice trio,” he went on, “if we’re to include the lady who calls herself Lady Dalberry. We’ve got her, and, unless things have gone very much agley, we can lay our hands on de Silva. But Strelinski’s my man! Unless I’m very much mistaken, he’s got two murders at least to his count. Do you remember the descriptions given by the steward on the Enriqueta and Conyers’s taxi-driver? ‘Slim, medium height, with fair, almost white, hair.’ Look at that snapshot!”
Mellish was looking at it. The man’s hair showed white in the photograph, but his face was that of a young man and his eyes had photographed dark, a sure sign that they were brown, not blue.
“I’ve seen this fellow before, somewhere,” said Mellish meditatively. “Let me have a pencil, will you?”
Shand took one from the writing-table and handed it to him. Mellish laid the snapshot flat on his knee and worked on it for a minute.
“How’s that?” he said at last, passing it to Shand.
Before he could speak, Mrs. Verrall, who was peering over his shoulder, gave a cry.
“It’s de Silva!” she exclaimed.
Mellish had blacked in the hair and eyebrows, leaving the features untouched, and the likeness was unmistakable.
“He did it uncommonly well,” he admitted. “But then the man was an actor by profession. And his eyes were naturally brown, which made all the difference. He only needed a sallow make-up and a dark wig to make himself unrecognizable. Conyers must have seen his hair that night, or else I doubt if he’d have spotted him. The man’s an artist in his way.”
Shand picked up his hat.
“We’re up against something bigger than I thought,” he said gravely. “The sooner we get a move on the better. I shan’t be happy till I see Miss Summers safely out of their hands. The whole of this business was planned months ago in South America, and it looks as if she’d been their objective from the beginning. Why they have waited until now to bring matters to a head, I don’t understand.”
Mellish laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and propelled him in the direction of the door.
“I do,” he answered, with a note of anguish in his voice. “Miss Summers came of age this morning. She is her own mistress now. She can sign away every penny she’s got, and she will, if these peo
ple are what I take them to be.”
Shand nodded.
“The money’s the least important part of the business now,” he said soberly.
He glanced at Mellish. The fat man’s face was drawn with anxiety.
“I know,” he snapped. “We’ve got to make Lady Dalberry talk. And at once, if we’re to get Miss Summers out of Strelinski’s hands alive.”
CHAPTER XXII
Carol’s return to consciousness was merciful in its slowness. Her first sensation was one of pain, a dull ache that racked her whole body and a sense of oppression that made even breathing difficult. Then, as she moved her head in an instinctive effort to find relief, the discomfort centered itself in her throat and neck. Still too dazed to reason, she tried to raise her hands.
With a shock that jerked her back into full consciousness of her surroundings, she realized that her arms were bound tightly to her sides.
For a time she lay motionless, her brain growing clearer each moment. She remembered now her frenzied attempt to escape from her aunt’s flat and the horror of the silent struggle in the dark hall. Slowly the whole sequence of events came back to her, and she came near to fainting again as the significance of her position dawned on her. She realized, only too well, into whose hands she had fallen, and a sick terror invaded her, leaving her shaking and powerless in its grip.
A sound in a room near by roused her, and, urged by a blind instinct to escape, she managed to raise herself to a sitting position, only to fall back, sick and dizzy, miserably conscious of her own helplessness.
At last her brain steadied and she was able to open her eyes. As she moved her head she realized that part of her discomfort was due to a muffler which passed over her mouth and was tied tightly at the back of her neck. She tried to shift it, but, after a vain effort that made her head swim, gave up the attempt and concentrated her attention on her surroundings.
