Mr Clitheroe swallowed. He was very white.
‘My friend,’ he said, in a rasping voice, ‘you think you can do what you like with me! Suppose you are wrong?’
‘We will talk about that, too, in a little while,’ answered Mahdi, without moving an eyelid. ‘I still wait.’
But Nadine did not. She was out of the room in a flash, slamming the door behind her. She heard an oath, while she raced across the hall. Before her was the front door, and for once it looked friendly. She stretched out her hand for the handle.
Then two arms wound themselves round her legs, and she felt herself falling. The arms tightened, forcing her feet together. Ted Flitt was performing his one effective accomplishment.
‘Let me go!’ she gasped.
‘Not ’arf!’ grunted the human octopus as it dragged her down.
‘I’ll give you ten pounds—twenty!’
This time the human octopus did not deign to reply. He merely gripped harder. She lost her balance, and tottered to the ground, while a fierce face suddenly appeared above her, a face framed in agitated white hair.
‘Hold her, Ted,’ said the owner of the fierce face. ‘By God, she’s dangerous!’
The words sounded ironically in her ears. Pinioned by her feet, half-stunned by her fall, and surrounded by three determined men, it was difficult at that moment to conceive that she formed a source of danger to any one. But the three determined men were taking no chances. A handkerchief descended over her eyes. When she attempted to cry out a gag was forced into her mouth. Then she was lifted from the ground, and consciousness slipped away as she was borne through the darkness…
‘And now, Mr Clitheroe,’ said Mahdi, when they were back in the room, ‘we will think about you.’
‘And also about yourself,’ replied Mr Clitheroe. ‘I warn you, Mahdi, there’s going to be trouble if I have any more of your dictation.’
‘And about myself,’ nodded the Indian calmly. ‘Let us think about myself first. Being the more important, it should be so. Now, Mr Clitheroe—what about myself?’
‘Oh, drop that tone!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘You’ve no right to it! Didn’t the girl fool you?’
‘And you, also.’
‘Yes, but that was the result of your own folly! A chit of a girl dupes you, and yet you can still come here and act as though you never made errors, and were qualified to sit in judgment on those who have—’
‘You admit you have made errors, then?’
‘Of course I’ve made errors! My greatest error has been standing so much from you, Mr Mahdi.’
‘Yet, if I had not returned here just now—like a Jack-in-the-box, I think you said?—and if I had not been in a mood to profit by my error and not to hide it from myself, as you try to hide your errors from yourself, the girl would have completed her deception and, under pretext of telephoning to me, would have telephoned to the police.’
‘Idiot!’ retorted Mr Clitheroe. ‘Do you s’pose I wasn’t on to it? I wouldn’t have let her telephone.’
‘You couldn’t have let her telephone,’ answered Mahdi. ‘I have cut the telephone wires.’
Now the old man’s eyes blazed furiously.
‘Cut my telephone wires?’ he cried, pale with anger. Only when he was expressing violent indignation could he feel entirely free from the other’s influence. ‘Without consulting me?’
‘In future, Mr Clitheroe, I do not consult you.’
‘Oh! Don’t you? Well, I don’t consult you, either! And let me remind you, sir, that you are in a house where I rule, and—since you have chosen to cut my telephone wires—you are not in a position to communicate with anybody outside this house unless I permit you to. Wharton and Flitt will obey me, not you, and I can get rid of you in two seconds if I want to. For ever, Mahdi! Just by pressing a button!’
‘You will never get rid of me, Mr Clitheroe,’ answered the Indian, ‘because I am bigger than you are. But do you know what would happen even if you did get rid of me?’
‘For one thing, I should keep all I make!’
‘Oh, no, Mr Clitheroe. You would not keep all you make. Nor would you get anything when you were making nothing. I am bigger than you, but there is some one who is bigger than I, and that some one is watching both of us, and Wharton, and Flitt. If you killed me, as you would like to, or if Wharton killed you, as he would like to, or if Flitt killed Wharton, as he would like to, the one who is bigger than us all would allow none to survive. We survive while we function, and we function while we form a complete and flawless organisation. There are plenty of other organisations if ours ceases to exist. We are a mere incident, Mr Clitheroe, to the brain that runs us. The only way for us to survive, if we fail in our part, is to kill that brain, and the brain is far too big for that. Only the trusted and the chosen know in whose head the biggest brain works. You do not know it, Mr Clitheroe.’
‘But you do?’ came the sneering question.
‘Perhaps.’
A sudden idea flashed into the old man’s mind. Not too wisely, he voiced it.
‘Suppose you and I worked together, Mahdi,’ he said, ‘and became that biggest brain?’
‘How could we do that?’
‘If—say—some accident happened to the biggest brain! If the biggest brain itself ceased to exist!’
As a rule, Mahdi’s face was expressionless. Expressionless, at least, to western comprehensions. But now it lost its mask, and became so wholly contemptuous that Mr Clitheroe winced as though he had been struck.
‘If there were any chance that I should use my knowledge against the bigger brain,’ replied the Indian, ‘do you suppose I would possess that knowledge? You talk like a child, Mr Clitheroe. It is time you learned your limitations. Indeed, I am here to tell you of them. From this moment you take your orders from me, and at the first sign of disobedience there will be an end of you. While your success is a mere incident to the bigger brain we have been talking of, and means most to you, your failure will not be tolerated. Do you understand?’ Mr Clitheroe did not reply. ‘Or shall I make the position clearer? I can!’
‘Damn you!’ muttered Mr Clitheroe with sudden sulky impotence. ‘Have it your own way.’
Mahdi smiled. Superficially, for a moment, he looked almost pleasant.
‘The child is wise,’ he said sarcastically. ‘There is some hope for him. Now, listen. I shall soon leave you. It is, I regret, inevitable. But I shall return before you have any further visitors, and I shall be in the house while you are receiving these further visitors in the manner we have decided on.’
‘Does this mean you will join in the reception of the visitors?’ asked Mr Clitheroe, just managing to control himself.
‘Oh, no.’
‘Or interfere?’
‘I will interfere only if it becomes a necessity,’
‘And who will judge of that?’
‘I, naturally.’
‘Very well, Mr Mahdi,’ snapped the old man, glowering. ‘It seems I have no choice. I am grateful, at any rate, for the small mercy of your preliminary absence. You are not the companion I love best in all the world!’
‘On my side,’ answered Mahdi, ‘I shall sadly miss your ingenuous charm, Mr Clitheroe.’
He rose, and walked towards the door. Mr Clitheroe rose also.
‘I wonder what would happen if I really killed you, Mahdi,’ said the old man.
‘You would not be at the funeral,’ smiled Mahdi.
‘Then I must let some one else kill you,’ replied Mr Clitheroe, ‘or I shall miss a pleasure.’
Ted Flitt let the Indian out, and not for the first time, spat after him.
‘Yes; why not Ted Flitt?’ mused Mr Clitheroe, watching.
CHAPTER XXVII
WHEN MORNING CAME—
THE dark hours crept by, the hours of temporary oblivion. On a hard wooden floor outside a bottomless cupboard an out-of-work sailor slept. Near a front door with a sliding panel a stunted bloke whose nose was almost as crooke
d as his character strove not to sleep. In a study an old man nodded. By an oblong chest a big man dozed. And elsewhere, at other points in the enveloping blackness of night, lay others who were to awaken to a day of varying emotions.
But two people of our acquaintance did not sleep. One was Mahdi. The other was Mr Eustace Moberley Hope. Business and pleasure kept these two from their respective beds.
The clocks chimed three, and four; then five, and six. The towers of churches grew gradually distinct. The tower of the church nearest to Jowle Street, however, remained almost obliterated. Although the hue of the concealing curtain changed from black to gray, there was no other indication that the night was being slain.
Few people passed through Jowle Street. None from choice. A milkman took it in his round. A postman trudged its length. From one or two doors, as the morning advanced, depressed people emerged, and went to work, or to look for work. But, for the most part, the residents of Jowle Street stayed inside, as though they had lost their heart for movement and adventure. A town can take it out of you. So can a street.
The milkman, the postman, a shabby youth delivering papers, five residents, and a cart, provided the only signs of movement in the gloomy, foggy thoroughfare until five minutes to ten. Then another figure slipped into Jowle Street, a dark, lithe figure, like, a shadow in the mist. At No. 26 it vanished. Jowle Street was empty again.
But not for long. A second figure, more portly, turned into the street, trudging along with even, measured steps. A constable, this time, whose mind was very far away from the horror through which he unconsciously walked. He was absorbed in the homely occupation of a cross-word puzzle, and he was trying to capture nothing more forbidding than a vegetable of seven letters ending in ‘i.’
Unlike the figure that had preceded him, he did not pause at No. 26. The house meant nothing to him. He trudged on, seeking his vegetable, and vanished beyond. And, as he vanished, a third figure appeared.
The third figure did pause at No. 26. It was a girl. She paused and stared at the front door, and afterwards, still hesitating, glanced up and down the road. Then, as though suddenly afraid of her hesitation, she ran quickly up the low steps and rang.
Other visitors had been kept waiting on that doorstep. She was not. The door opened almost immediately, and an old man peered at her.
‘I’m glad you’ve come, Miss Sherwin,’ said the old man. ‘I was afraid you might not.’
‘Even after your letter?’ demanded the girl.
‘Yes, even after my letter,’ replied the old man. ‘Every one is not as wise as you. Let us go into my study and talk there.’
‘The quicker the better,’ she answered. ‘I want to get this over.’
‘So do I,’ nodded the old man, as they crossed the hall to the study door. ‘So do I. And if I could have got it over when you called last night I would have done so. But the—the people we have to meet were not here then, and, in the circumstances—’
‘The people we have to meet?’ interposed the girl. ‘Who are those?’
Her voice was terribly anxious. Her eyes, when you peered into them, betrayed a sleepless night. The old man smiled sympathetically at her.
‘You will know very soon, Miss Sherwin,’ he said. ‘But let us take things in their proper sequence. It will be best. We must enter into this matter with clear minds. No confusion. Don’t you agree?’
‘Oh, please stop talking like that!’ she exclaimed. They were now in the study, and she sank into a chair. ‘Tell me at once what you meant by your letter. Why is Douglas—Mr Randall—in danger, and how can my coming here prevent it?’
‘You will learn that, also, very soon. But please answer one or two questions of my own first. You have not spoken to Mr Randall about this?’
‘You told me particularly not to.’
‘We do not always do what we are told.’
‘But you said it would increase his danger if I spoke to him—or to anybody! It was difficult, though. Last night he took me to a dance, and when he saw how worried I was—naturally I couldn’t help showing that—he kept on questioning me. In the end I made him take me home. I couldn’t stand any more. And I haven’t slept a wink.’
‘Poor child!’ murmured the old man. ‘And you have no idea at all what this danger is?’
‘I’m waiting for you to tell me, Mr Clitheroe.’
‘No suspicion of any kind? Not from any other source?’
‘None.’
Mr Clitheroe nodded. He seemed relieved. The front door bell rang.
‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘Here is another visitor.’
The girl jumped to her feet, all nerves.
‘Who is it?’ she exclaimed.
‘Excuse me a second,’ he said. ‘I will let him in.’
He left the room, and the girl waited with her hand at her breast. Voices sounded in the hall. Suddenly she started.
‘Douglas!’ she cried,
A young man entered. He looked as anxious as she, and no less astonished.
‘Doris!’ he exclaimed, stopping short. ‘Why, how—?’
He turned to the old man behind him, and his voice was almost threatening.
‘Why didn’t you tell me Miss Sherwin would be here?’ he demanded.
‘Be patient, be patient, my dear young people!’ responded Mr Clitheroe reprovingly. ‘Here am I, in a terribly difficult position, doing my best for your happiness, and you both jump down my throat as though I were some—some malefactor! Sit down again, Miss Sherwin, I beg. And you sit down, too, Mr Randall. Then I will tell you the whole story, and I think you will agree that I have acted for the best. One moment.’
He ran back to the door and looked into the hall. The young man and the girl watched him, then glanced at each other.
‘We had better not raise our voices,’ said Mr Clitheroe, returning into the room and closing the door. ‘If what I am about to tell you angers you, or excites you—as it may—try and keep calm, I beg. You can do so by remembering that the trouble will have been completely dealt with by the time you leave. At least,’ he added, with a little frown, ‘that is my intention and my hope.’
‘But what is the trouble?’ demanded the young man. ‘What is this danger that threatens Miss Sherwin? And why all this secrecy?’
‘Threatens me?’ cried the girl. ‘I thought it threatened you!’
‘It threatens both of you,’ interposed Mr Clitheroe, ‘since when people are engaged the happiness of one involves the happiness of the other. Is that not so? And may I once more remind you of the necessity for keeping control of ourselves and for lowering our voices? I don’t know whether you noticed a rather unpleasant little fellow in the hall? He is not supposed to be there, but I caught a glimpse of him as I went to the front door just now—’ He paused, and looked towards the door, then made a sudden dart and opened it. As he did so, Ted Flitt scurried away. ‘There! What did I tell you?’ muttered Mr Clitheroe, as he closed the door again with a frown. ‘Now I hope you are satisfied that we must keep hold of ourselves.’
As the door closed behind him, Ted Flitt grinned. The grin vanished, however, as a voice addressed him from out of the shadows.
‘Do not smile yet, Mr Flitt,’ said the voice smoothly. ‘This is only the beginning. There is a long way to go yet.’
‘Dam that Indian!’ thought Mr Flitt. ‘I’d send ’im a longer way if I knew ’ow!’
Meanwhile, in the study, Mr Clitheroe continued with his discourse.
‘In order to explain the letters I wrote to each of you,’ he was saying, ‘I must go back quite a number of years. I am a stranger to you, but I knew your father well, Mr Randall, and at one time we were actually in partnership together. That was when you were quite a small boy, and when I was nearly appointed your guardian.’
‘My guardian!’ exclaimed Douglas.
‘Yes. But, unfortunately, there was a—a misunderstanding concerning the matter of profits, and—well, it ended our association. I imagined I was entitled to
a larger share than actually fell to me, but I preferred not to push the point. Perhaps you should not be ungrateful to me for that, Mr Randall, since you are at this moment enjoying the full fruits of your late father’s business.’
‘Look here, sir!’ interposed Douglas. ‘Are you insinuating that my father—’
‘I am insinuating nothing,’ retorted Mr Clitheroe. ‘I am simply explaining a position that bears upon the present situation. Otherwise I would not dig up the past. There would be no object in it. I am explaining to you, Mr Randall, how I enter into the present situation, and how a rascal who is attempting to blackmail you came to approach me first.’
His two listeners stared at him unbelievingly. They seemed incapable of speech.
‘I see you do not like the word blackmail,’ remarked the old man. ‘Nor do I. It is a horrid word. But sometimes it has to be dealt with. And when this rascal wrote to me, imagining that I was actually your guardian, Mr Randall, what was I to do? He thought I was your guardian because he had been employed in your father’s business at the! time I was in it, and he knew of what was on the carpet—but he was dismissed for theft before your father and I quarrelled. So now, like a bad penny, he turns up again, having apparently raked up something reflecting on your honour, Mr Randall—or purporting, shall we say, to reflect on your honour—and demands money from me—from me, Mr Randall to keep him quiet.’
‘Where is the lying beast?’ asked Douglas, pale with indignation. ‘Let me deal with him.’
‘I intend that you shall,’ answered Mr Clitheroe, with a grim smile, ‘but let me finish my story first. There isn’t much more. When he first approached me I could have turned him straight on to you, if I had chosen—’
‘Yes, why didn’t you?’ demanded Douglas hotly.
‘Because it occurred to me that the matter could be settled much more quietly at my house than at yours or Miss Sherwin’s,’ said Mr Clitheroe, ‘and I was willing to undergo that inconvenience for the sake of my old partner’s son. Of course, if you wish, I can drop right out of it,’ he added. ‘You can both go home, and our friend will follow you and create his scandal right under the noses of your families and friends. I thought, however, that—with my assistance—we might deal with him more effectively here. Was I right, or wrong?’
The House Opposite Page 18