I listened with the uncertain fear that comes to the newly waked. Then I heard it again – on the wall near my head this time. A board creaked. Someone was groping his way down the dark corridor without. Presently he stopped, and a faint line of illumination sprang out under my door. It winked, and then grew still. He had lit a candle.
Assurance came with the streak of light.
What was he doing, groping in the dark, if he had a candle with him? I crept over to the door, opened it, and stared cautiously out.
About a score feet away a man was standing – a striking figure against the light he carried. His back was towards me, but I could see that his hand was shading the candle from his eyes while he stared into the shadows that clung about the further end of the corridor.
Presently he began to move forward.
The picture-gallery and the body of the house lay behind me. The corridor in which he stood terminated in a window, set deep into the stone of the old walls. The man walked slowly, throwing the light to right and left. His attitude was of nervous expectation – that of a man who looked for something that he feared to see.
At the window he stopped, staring about him and listening. He examined the fastenings, and then tried a door on his right. It was locked against him. As he did so I caught his profile against the light. It was Harbord, the secretary. From where I stood he was not more than forty feet away. There was no possibility of a mistake.
As he turned to come back I retreated into my room, closing the door. The fellow was in a state of great agitation, and I could hear him muttering to himself as he walked. When he had passed by I peeped out to see him and his light dwindle, reach the corner by the picture-gallery, and fade into a reflection – a darkness.
I took care to turn the key before I got back into bed.
I woke again at seven, and, hurrying on my clothes, set off to tell Peace all about it. I took him to the place, and together we examined the corridor. There were only two rooms beyond mine. The one on the left was an unoccupied bedroom; that on the right was a large store-room, the door of which was locked. The housekeeper kept the key, we learnt upon inquiry. Whom had Harbord followed? The problem was beyond me. As for Inspector Peace, he did not indulge in verbal speculations.
It was in the central hall that we encountered the secretary on his way to the breakfast-room. The man looked nervous and depressed; he nodded to us, and was passing on, when Peace stopped him.
‘Good morning, Mr Harbord,’ he said. ‘Can I have a word with you?’
‘Certainly, Inspector. What is it?’
‘I have a favour to ask. My assistant and myself have our hands full here. If necessary could you help us by running up to London, and…’
‘For the day?’ he interrupted.
‘No. It may be an affair of three or four days.’
‘Then I must refuse. I am sorry, but…’
‘Don’t apologise, Mr Harbord,’ said the little man, cheerfully. ‘I shall have to find someone else – that is all.’
We walked into the breakfast-room, and a few minutes later Ransom appeared with a great bundle of letters and telegrams in his hand. He said not a word to any of us, but dropped into a chair, tearing open the envelopes and glancing at their contents. His face grew darker as he read, and once he thumped his hand upon the table with a crash that set the china jingling.
‘Well, Inspector?’ he said at last.
The little detective’s head shook out a negative.
‘Perhaps you require an incentive,’ he sneered. ‘Is it a matter of a reward?’
‘No, Mr Ransom; but it is becoming one of my personal reputation.’
‘Then, by thunder! you are in danger of losing it. Why don’t you and your friend hustle, instead of loitering around as if you were paid by the day? I tell you, man, there are thousands – hundreds of thousands – melting, slipping through our fingers, every hour, every hour.’
He sprang from his seat and started his walk again – up and down, up and down, as we had first seen him.
‘Shall you be returning to London?’
At the question the manager halted in his stride, staring sharply down into the inspector’s bland countenance.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I shall stay here, Mr Addington Peace, until such time as you have something definite to tell me.’
‘I have an inquiry to make which I would rather place in the hands of someone who has personal knowledge of Mr Ford. Neither Mr Harbord nor yourself desire to leave Meudon. Is there anyone else you can suggest?’
‘There is Jackson – Ford’s valet,’ said the manager, after a moment’s thought. ‘He can go, if you think him bright enough. I’ll send for him.’
While the footman who answered the bell was gone upon his errand, we waited in an uneasy silence. There was the shadow of an ugly mystery upon us all. Jackson, as he entered, was the only one who seemed at his ease. He stood there – a tall figure of all the respectabilities.
‘The inspector here wishes you to go to London, Jackson,’ said the manager. ‘He will explain the details. There is a fast train from Camdon at eleven.’
‘Certainly, sir. Do I return tonight?’
‘No, Jackson,’ said Peace. ‘It will take a day or two.’
The man took a couple of steps towards the door, hesitated, and then returned to his former place.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ he began, addressing Ransom. ‘But I would rather remain at Meudon under present circumstances.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ thundered the manager.
‘Well, sir, I was the last to see Mr Ford. There is, as it were, a suspicion upon me. I should like to be present while the search continues, both for his sake – and my own.’
‘Very kind of you, I’m sure,’ growled Ransom. ‘But you either do what I tell you, Jackson, or you pack your boxes and clear out. So be quick and make up your mind.’
‘I think you are treating me most unfairly, sir. But I cannot be persuaded out of what I know to be my duty.’
‘You impertinent rascal!’ began the furious manager. But Peace was already on his feet with a hand outstretched.
‘Perhaps, after all, I can make other arrangements, Mr Ransom,’ he said. ‘It is natural that Jackson should consider his own reputation in this affair. That is all, Jackson; you may go now.’
It was half an hour afterwards, when the end of breakfast had dispersed the party, that I spoke to Peace about it, offering to go to London myself and do my best to carry out his instructions.
‘I had bad luck in my call for volunteers,’ he said.
‘I should have thought they would have been glad enough to get the chance of work. They can find no particular amusement in loafing about the place all day.’
‘Doubtless they all had excellent reasons,’ he said with a smile. ‘But, anyway, you cannot be spared, Mr Phillips.’
‘You flatter me.’
‘I want you to stay in your bedroom. Write, read, do what you like, but keep your door ajar. If anyone passes down the corridor, see where he goes, only don’t let him know that you are watching him if you can help it. I will take my turn at half past one. I don’t mean to starve you.’
I obeyed. After all, it was, in a manner, promotion that the inspector had given me; yet it was a tedious, anxious time. No one came my way, barring a sour-looking housemaid. I tried to argue out the case, but the deeper I got the more conflicting grew my theories. I was never more glad to see a friendly face than when the little man came in upon me.
The short winter’s afternoon crept on, the inspector and I taking turn and turn about in our sentry duty. Dinner-time came and went. I had been off duty from nine, but at ten thirty I poured out a whisky and soda and went back to join him. He was sitting in the middle of the room smoking a pipe in great apparent satisfaction.
‘Bedtime,
isn’t it?’ I grumbled, sniffing at his strong tobacco.
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘The fact is, we are going to sit up all night.’
I threw myself on a couch by the window without reply. Perhaps I was not in the best of tempers; certainly I did not feel so.
‘You insisted on coming down with me,’ he suggested.
‘I know all about that,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t complained, have I? If you want me to shut myself up for a week I’ll do it; but I should prefer to have some idea of the reason why.’
‘I don’t wish to create mysteries, Mr Phillips,’ he said kindly; ‘but, believe me, there is nothing to be gained in vague discussions.’
I know that settled it as far as he was concerned, so I nodded my head and filled a pipe. At eleven he walked across the room and switched off the light.
‘If nothing happens, you can take your turn in four hours from now,’ he said. ‘In the meanwhile get to sleep. I will keep the first watch.’
I shut my eyes; but there was no rest in me that night. I lay listening to the silence of the old house with a dull speculation. Somewhere far down in the lower floor a great gong-like clock chimed the hours and quarters. I heard them every one, from twelve to one, from one to two. Peace had stopped smoking. He sat as silent as a cat at a mouse hole.
It must have been some fifteen minutes after two that I heard the faint, faint creak of a board in the corridor outside. I sat up, every nerve strung to a tense alertness. And then there came a sound I knew well, the soft drawing touch of a hand groping in the darkness as someone felt his way along the panelled walls. It passed us and was gone. Yet Peace never moved. Could he have fallen asleep? I whispered his name.
‘Hush!’
The answer came to me like a gentle sigh.
One minute, two minutes more and the room sprang into sight under the glow of an electric hand-lamp. The inspector rose from his seat and slid through the door, with me upon his heels. The light he carried searched the clustered shadows but the corridor was empty, nor was there any place where a man might hide.
‘You waited too long,’ I whispered impatiently.
‘The man is no fool, Mr Phillips. Do you imagine that he was not listening and staring like a hunted beast? A noisy board, a stumble, or a flash of light, and we should have wasted a tiring day.’
‘Nevertheless he has got clear away.’
‘I think not.’
As we crept forward I saw that a strip of the oak flooring along the walls was grey with dust. If it had been in such a neglected state in the afternoon I should surely have noticed it. In some curiosity I stooped to examine the phenomenon.
‘Flour,’ whispered the little man, touching my shoulder.
‘Flour?’
‘Yes. I sprinkled it myself. Look – there is the first result.’
He steadied his light as he spoke, pointing with his other hand. On the powdery surface was the half footprint of a man.
The flour did not extend more than a couple of feet from the walls, so that it was only here and there that we caught up the trail. We had passed the bedroom on the left – yet the footprints still went on; we were at the store-room door, yet they still were visible before us. There was no other egress from the corridor. The tall window at the end was, as I knew, a good twenty feet from the ground. Had this man also vanished off the earth like Silas Ford?
Suddenly the inspector stopped, grasping my arm. The light he held fell upon two footprints set close together. They were at right angles to the passage. Apparently the man had passed into the solid wall!
‘Peace, what does this mean?’
You, sir, sitting peaceably at home, with a good light and an easy conscience, may think I was a timid fool; yet I was afraid – honestly and openly afraid. The little detective heard the news of it in my voice, for he gave me a reassuring pat upon the back.
‘Have you never heard of a “priest’s hole”?’ he whispered. ‘In the days when Meudon Hall was built, no country-house was without its hiding-place. Protestants and priests, Royalists and Republicans, they all used the secret burrow at one time or another.’
‘How did he get in?’
‘That is what we are here to discover; and as I have no wish to destroy Mr Ford’s old oak panels I think our simplest plan will be to wait until he comes back again.’
The shadows leapt upon us as Peace extinguished the light he carried. The great window alone was luminous with the faint starlight that showed the tracery of its ancient stonework; for the rest, the darkness hedged us about in impenetrable barriers. Side by side, we stood by the wall in which we knew the secret entrance must exist.
It may have been ten minutes or more when from the distance – somewhere below our feet, or so it seemed to me – there came the faint echo of a closing door. It was only in such cold silence that we could have heard it. The time ticked on. Suddenly, upon the black of the floor, there shone a thin reflection like the slash of a sword – a reflection that grew into a broad gush of light as the sliding panel in the wall, six feet from where we stood, rose to the full opening. There followed another pause, during which I could see Peace draw himself together as if for some unusual exertion.
A shadow darkened the reflection on the floor, and a head came peering out. The light but half displayed the face, but I could see that the teeth were bare and glistening, like those of a man in some deadly expectation. The next moment he stepped across the threshold.
With a spring like the rush of a terrier, Addington Peace was upon him, driving him off his balance with the impact of the blow. One loud scream he gave that went echoing away into the distant corridors. But, before I could reach them, the little detective had him down, though he still kicked viciously until I lent a hand. The click of the handcuffs on his wrists ended the matter.
It was Ford’s valet, the man Jackson.
We were not long by ourselves. I heard a quick patter of naked feet from behind us, and Harbord, the secretary, came running up, swinging a heavy stick in his hand. Ransom followed close at his heels. They both stopped at the edge of the patch of light in which we were, staring from us to the gaping hole in the wall.
‘What in thunder are you about?’ cried the manager.
‘Finding a solution to your problem,’ said the little detective, getting to his feet. ‘Perhaps, gentlemen, you will be good enough to follow me.’
He stepped through the opening in the wall, and lifted the candle which the valet had placed on the floor whilst he was raising the panel from within. By its light I could see the first steps of a flight which led down into darkness.
‘We will take Jackson with us,’ he continued. ‘Keep an eye on him, Mr Phillips, if you please.’
It was a strange procession that we made. First Peace, with the candle, then Ransom, with the valet following, while I and Harbord brought up the rear. We descended some thirty steps, formed in the thickness of the wall, opened a heavy door, and so found ourselves in a narrow chamber, some twelve feet long by seven broad. Upon a mattress at the further end lay a man, gagged and bound. As the light fell upon his features, Ransom sprang forward, shouting his name.
‘Silas Ford, by thunder!’
With eager fingers we loosened the gag and cut the ropes that bound his wrists. He sat up, turning his long, thin face from one to the other of us as he stretched the cramp from his limbs.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said he. ‘Well, Ransom, how are things?’
‘Bad, sir; but it’s not too late.’
He nodded his head, passing his hands through his hair with a quick, nervous movement.
‘You’ve caught my clever friend, I see. Kindly go through his pockets, will you? He has something I must ask him to return to me.’
We found it in Jackson’s pocket-book – a cheque, antedated a week, for five thousand pounds, with a covering letter to th
e manager of the bank. Ford took the bit of stamped paper, twisting it to and fro in his supple fingers.
‘It was smart of you, Jackson,’ he said, addressing the bowed figure before him. ‘I give you credit for the idea. To kidnap a man just as he was bringing off a big deal – well, you would have earned the money.’
‘But how did you get down here?’ struck in the manager.
‘He told me that he had discovered an old hiding-place – a “priest’s hole” he called it, and I walked into the trap as the best man may do sometimes. As we got to the bottom of that stairway he slipped a sack over my head, and had me fixed in thirty seconds. He fed me himself twice a day, standing by to see I didn’t holloa. When I paid up he was to have twenty-four hours’ start; then he would let you know where I was. I held out awhile, but I gave in tonight. The delay was getting too dangerous. Have you a cigarette, Harbord? Thank you. And who may you be?’
It was to the detective he spoke.
‘My name is Peace, Inspector Addington Peace, from Scotland Yard.’
‘And I owe my rescue to you?’
The little man bowed.
‘You will have no reason to regret it. And what did they think had become of me, Inspector?’
‘It was the general opinion that you had taken to yourself wings, Mr Ford.’
* * * * *
It was as we travelled up to town next day that Peace told me his story. I will set it down as briefly as may be.
‘I soon came to the conclusion that Ford, whether dead or alive, was inside the grounds of Meudon Hall. If he had bolted, for some reason, by-the-way, which was perfectly incomprehensible, a man of his ability would not have left a broad trail across the centre of his lawn for all to see. There was, moreover, no trace of him that our men could ferret out at any station within reasonable distance. A motor was possible, but there were no marks of its presence next morning in the slush of the roads. That fact I learnt from a curious groom who had aided in the search, and who, with a similar idea upon him, had carefully examined the highway at daybreak.
More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes Page 27