The Man of Dangerous Secrets

by Maxwell March

  Inspector Mowbray continued to look dubious, but Inspector Whybrow’s kindly smile did not alter.

  “Suppose you tell us about it,” he suggested.

  Mr. Knighton fidgeted. It was evident that he was loath to come to his point. Finally he took a deep breath.

  “Our agents, whom we have to employ from time to time on very secret and confidential matters, inform us that Miss Jennifer Fern went off in a motorcar the day before yesterday to a destination unknown. They also suggest that you, Inspector, would probably know where she is at the present moment, and also——”

  He paused.

  Inspector Mowbray’s face had become an inscrutable mask, and even Whybrow was finding it difficult to maintain his genial disinterested smile. The mention of Jennifer’s name had been a complete surprise to the two policemen, and their interest had been instantly whipped to fever point.

  Having gone so far, evidently Mr. Knighton decided to take the plunge.

  “Frankly, Inspector,” he said, “what principally interests our firm is to find out the exact condition of Miss Fern at the moment. In other words, is she alive or dead. You see,” he went on rapidly, “while we knew where she was it was perfectly easy for us to keep a check on the state of her health. For reasons which, naturally, I cannot go into at the moment, it is tremendously important to us that we should know instantly if anything should happen to Miss Fern, if she should die, or”—he hesitated—“get married, for instance.”

  “This information is important to you as the executors of the late Morton Blount?”

  “Executors in a certain matter, yes.” Mr. Knighton sighed. “This procedure is not very professional, I’m afraid, but in these circumstances I hardly see how I can tell you any less. Oh, dear, this is very awkward! You must forgive me, Inspector, but you see my difficulty. It is imperative that we should know immediately, if not the whereabouts, at least the condition of Miss Jennifer Fern. I came to you, Inspector, because I understood from our private inquiry agent that you would be most likely to assist me in this matter.”

  Inspector Whybrow’s eyes had narrowed, and he did not speak for some moments. At last, however, he turned round slowly and addressed his visitor.

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you very much, Mr. Knighton,” he said, “unless you feel disposed to tell me very much more than you have done at present.”

  “Oh, dear me, no, I’ve said too much already.”

  The little man’s tone was horrified, and the inspector knew from experience that here was a wall of professional prejudice which he could never hope to break down.

  He did not attempt it, therefore, but shrugged his shoulders.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, Mr. Knighton, I can assure you to the best of my knowledge that the lady is still alive and unmarried. But apart from that I’m afraid I cannot help you. Is that all?”

  Mr. Knighton rose.

  “Yes,” he said. “I thank you for your information, Inspector, and believe me I appreciate your difficulty, which I take it is very much the same as my own. Unfortunately we’re both professional men who cannot afford to discuss our clients’ business with the frankness which it sometimes requires.

  “Oh, there is one other thing. Of course I’ve reported this to our local police in the ordinary way. But last night an attempt at burglary was made upon our office. The safe was untouched, but our papers were rifled. Fortunately our more important dispatch boxes are kept elsewhere, and an old ledger containing the names of our clients of the past ten years or so was the only thing taken. Very odd and very irritating. Well, now, since I have your assurance, Inspector, that Miss Fern is all right at the moment, I will not trouble you any longer.”

  As soon as the formal good-byes had been said and the little man had been conducted to the lift by the constable on duty outside the door, Inspector Whybrow met Mowbray’s inquiring glance and nodded.

  Mowbray reached for the telephone and called a house department.

  “Inspector Mowbray speaking,” he said. “A Mr. Knighton has just left this office. Set a good man onto him. Oh, and by the way, he reports a rather interesting burglary at his office in Quality Passage. I want it cleared up thoroughly. Inspector Whybrow and I feel it may have an important bearing on the Bellew case. ... Thank you. Good-bye.”

  As he put down the receiver he stared at his colleague in amazement.

  “What are you looking so infernally pleased about?” he demanded.

  Inspector Whybrow’s eyes were dancing.

  “I believe we’re onto it,” he said. “I believe we’ve found the two keys that are going to lead us to the heart of this labyrinth. One is that infernal ass who has just gone out of the room. No one steals a ledger like that without some very good purpose. And the other——”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and took out something in an official folder.

  “—and the other is this. This little scrap of paper which we found by the telephone in Sir Henry Fern’s office.”

  Inspector Mowbray regarded it with interest. It was not often that Jack Whybrow became so enthusiastic.

  It was a torn and yellowed scrap, crudely printed and much crumpled, the mutilated playbill which Robin had taken from the dead hand of Rex Bourbon.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Mind of a Demon

  “MY DEAR young lady, you’re rambling.”

  Dr. Crupiner spoke sharply as he stood looking down at the girl who sat upright in the narrow bed, her curls clinging to her damp forehead, her eyes dilated with fear.

  “Rambling,” he went on, waving his hand with an airy gesture. “You’ve had a nightmare. You are being very well cared for, and I had thought until this moment that you were making satisfactory progress. But if you persist in taking up this absurd attitude, well”—a faint smile passed over his insignificant face—“we shall have to resort to other treatment.”

  Jennifer sat staring at the man. She could see his eyes behind the thick gold-rimmed pince-nez, and something in their pale depths sent a thrill of concentrated horror through her slender form.

  Suddenly she realized what it was that had so frightened her about the little doctor from the very beginning.

  He was mad!

  The thought shot through her brain and left her cold and numb. He was insane with the awful insanity of a man of brilliant brain turned by cruelty into something inhuman.

  “But I heard,” she began, “I heard them talking. I am not a lunatic—you know I am not insane—and to suit some foul purpose of your own you are going to operate on me. You are going to destroy my reason. Don’t you see, you monster, I’d much rather you killed me!”

  They were alone in the little room with the high window looking out over the desolate mud flat. It was growing dusk, and the air had become unaccountably cold. Jennifer knew herself to be helpless, knew that however loudly she might scream she could never be heard by the outside world, knew that however piteously she might implore she could never hope to dissuade the smiling figure before her from his project.

  Suddenly he began to laugh. His smug round face became contorted, and as the sound of his laughter rose higher and higher and its echoes were thrown back from the walls of the little room, Jennifer felt that she must faint.

  The experience was indescribably horrible. Her terror had almost left her now. It had become so great that her nerves could not stand it, and instead she felt exhausted and strangely impersonal, as if the whole hideous nightmare were not happening to her but to some other person whom she did not know.

  Dr. Crupiner seated himself on the end of the bed.

  “So you overheard the nurses talking, did you?” he said. “What did they say? Eh, what did they say?”

  His playful mood changed suddenly, and as he repeated the question he shot out a hand and caught her wrist, twisting it with sudden viciousness which made her cry out with pain.

  “Can you remember the exact words? Tell me—tell me!”

  His face was very near h
er own now. She felt his breath upon her cheek and saw the hot, angry, lunatic eyes peering at her from behind the thick lenses.

  She wrenched herself free from him and sprang out of bed, to fling herself screaming against the door.

  There was a commotion in the passage outside, and Nurse Edith’s voice was heard demanding anxiously if anything were amiss.

  Instantly Dr. Crupiner straightened himself, his eyes softened as though a veil had been drawn down behind the pupils, his bland, rather foolish smile returned, and he stepped forward to open the door.

  “I’m afraid our patient has a bad attack of nerves, Nurse,” he said, and went on in the same soothing voice which had nevertheless an undercurrent of something sinister in its tone: “Apparently she has been troubled by dreams, dangerous dreams about overhearing two nurses talking somewhat indiscreetly.”

  Jennifer saw the woman’s face grow grey with fear, and as she bustled forward to take the girl’s arm her hand was trembling.

  “Poor child,” she said with a certain amount of real feeling in her tone. “Come and lie down now, my dear. You’ll need all the sleep you can get.”

  Jennifer permitted herself to be helped back into bed, and as the nurse straightened the coverlet she glanced across the room to see Dr. Crupiner standing in the doorway.

  It was only for an instant, but as she looked at him she saw the veil slip once again from behind his eyes, saw the hot, red, mad-dog light appear in them. Then he caught sight of her and smiled as blandly as ever.

  “Good-night, Miss Fern,” he said. “Let me wish you pleasanter dreams.”

  As soon as the door had closed behind him, Jennifer turned to the nurse.

  “What are they going to do?” she begged piteously. “Tell me, what’s going to happen to me? That man’s mad. I know it. I saw it in his eyes. What I heard you say to Nurse Agnes isn’t true, is it? They’re not going to destroy my mind? If they kill me I could bear it. It wouldn’t be so bad. But this is inhuman. Tell me—tell me!”

  She caught hold of the woman’s hand on the last word. It was trembling and icy cold.

  “Tell me!” she persisted.

  The woman moistened her dry lips with her tongue, and her eyes wandered towards a panel in the heavy door.

  Jennifer followed her gaze, and once again the thrill of horror shot down her spine. A tiny plaque which she had not noticed in the door before had slid back silently, and through it there peered two sharp eyes.

  Nurse Edith settled down on a chair at the far end of the room, while Jennifer lay quaking in the narrow bed.

  How long she remained there she did not know, and she had passed into a fitful sleep, disturbed by horrifying visions of the mad doctor and his assistants, when the moment she most dreaded arrived.

  Suddenly the room was flooded with a blaze of powerful light and she sat up in alarm to find it thronged with white-coated figures, chief among them Dr. Crupiner himself.

  A strangled cry escaped the girl, and instantly he turned to her. Beckoning to Nurse Agnes, who had followed him to the bedside, he took a hypodermic from the tray she carried.

  “Just a little,” Jennifer heard him murmur. “Just enough to make her drowsy, or we shall have difficulty in getting her to the theatre.”

  Before the girl could protest, a swab of iodine had been dashed upon her arm and she felt the swift stab of the needle. She was conscious of a strange, numbing sensation which, while it prevented her from any acute realization of her terrible position, did not impair her powers of observation.

  The rest was no more real than one of the dreams from which she had been so violently awakened. She felt herself being lifted onto a wheeled stretcher and covered with thick blankets.

  Then she was wafted down the corridor, followed by the white-coated figures whose features seemed to have become shadowy and indistinct, although she knew that somewhere amongst them was the horrible little doctor with the thick pince-nez behind which his eyes glowed, hot and dangerous like those of a rabid dog.

  They did not descend the staircase but went on to an apartment on the same floor, but at the other end of the house from her own bedroom.

  The air was very dry, the atmosphere warm, and there was an overpowering smell of disinfectants.

  Jennifer struggled to overcome the powerful drug which held her prisoner. She knew where she was now. She recognized the great arc lamps, the faint sickly smell of ether, and then, as she was brought quickly forward, she saw the table itself.

  She was in the operating theatre of Dr. Crupiner’s infamous establishment on the east coast.

  She strove to sit up. She saw the anæsthetist with his gruesome paraphernalia, the hooded and masked figures in their white coats and rubber gloves. They pressed about her.

  She was lifted off the stretcher and put on the table. The blankets still covered her.

  The drug which held her was becoming more potent in its effect. She felt she must lose consciousness. She could not even raise her hand. And then there was a slight rustle in the room as the white-coated forms turned to look at another of their number who had just entered by the small door on the other side of the room.

  Jennifer caught a glimpse of him coming towards her. She saw the white overall which enveloped him from head to foot, saw the long rubber gloves pulled up high over his wrists.

  As he came nearer she saw the cap covering his hair and the tight cloth bound over his nose and mouth, leaving only his eyes visible.

  She remembered the conversation she had overheard between the nurses: the young student ... very brilliant ... a diabolical thing ... Crupiner got hold of him.

  Jennifer struggled to speak. This man was young; probably no older than herself. Surely she could appeal to him. Surely she could shake off this numbing drug which overpowered her and kept her still and silent.

  She stared into the eyes, her own dark with agony and appeal.

  And then, as she stared, something that was half bewilderment and half incredulity swept over her. She would know those eyes anywhere. She would recognize them in any circumstances, at any time as long as she should live.

  She knew they recognized her, too. She saw the look of startled horror come into them as he saw her face.

  Jennifer’s senses slipped away from her. This last shock was too much for her battered nerves.

  But as she slid into oblivion it was delight and not fear which flooded her heart, for she knew that the eyes which had peered down at her above the surgeon’s mask were the eyes of Robin Grey.

  “Jennifer!”

  Robin’s lips formed the word beneath his linen mask. He stood looking down at the still form on the grim operating table. She was the last person he had expected to see when he had entered this brilliant, terrifying room with its vivid lights and crowd of strange, white-robed figures.

  His own story was simple. Left to himself in his prison, he had at length been able to force his way into the robing room, into which at first he had only been able to peer.

  Even so, his escape from the building had been impractical, since he had discovered that the robing room led directly into the theatre, which was always securely locked when not in use.

  He had been planning a sensational dash for freedom when his chance had come.

  A young man had been shown into the robing room, and while Robin watched him from the temporarily re-erected grille he had observed that the newcomer, a dissolute-looking youth very much of his own height and build, was very much under the influence of drink.

  It was then that the scheme had occurred to him which had brought him to his present dramatic situation.

  It had not been difficult to overpower the man and to adopt the overall and mask, which disguised him completely.

  As he looked back upon it his hair rose. It had never occurred to him for a moment that the clever but intoxicated youngster might be the actual surgeon in charge of an operation. At worst he had supposed him to be an assistant attending upon some more reliable man, and
he had hoped in the tension of the moment to be able to slip out of the theatre unobserved.

  His alarm had known no bounds, however, when, the moment he opened the robing-room door, he was confronted by a nurse who led him directly across the room to the table where a patient lay silent and terrified awaiting the knife.

  The next moment he had looked down and seen Jennifer.

  Robin’s brain froze. He had been in many tight corners in his life, but this was simply beyond the scope of his experience. He had no idea where he was, save that it was some distance from London, and he fancied he had at times noticed the tang of the sea in the air.

  He had known, of course, that he was in the hands of enemies, but not until this moment had he quite realized how desperate were the hands into which he had fallen.

  He had no notion what the operation on Jennifer might be, but he knew enough from that one agonized glance he had received from her to realize that she was in mortal danger, that she was surrounded by fiends, by unscrupulous enemies who wished her definite harm.

  But apart from his first feeling of relief and delight at the knowledge that he had come in time, his next sensation was one of despair. At any moment now he must be discovered.

  He glanced sharply round the room. There were six men and four women present. Unarmed as he was, he knew he could not hope to be a match for such numbers.

  Jennifer lay white and very still. Just for an instant the horrifying fear that she was dead shot through his mind, but he breathed again when he saw her eyelids flutter and her lips move faintly.

  The anæsthetist stepped forward.

  Robin’s forehead grew cold and damp beneath his linen cap. He had no weapons, nothing save the gruesome implements of the profession to which he was supposed to belong.

  He shrank from touching these, since he knew that any false handling, any show of ignorance, would immediately arouse the suspicions of those about him and he must be discovered.