‘What do you mean?’
‘S’sh; not so loud! I mean to say that I think it was opened from above. Of course I may have touched something that released it, but I don’t think so. Stop here, Batty, and, if after ten minutes we have not returned or called to you to follow us, go back for assistance.’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
‘I don’t know how the other trapdoor opens from below, but you’ll have to try and find out.’ Then in a louder voice, he added, ‘Well, I don’t know how I opened it, but it is open, so come along, Bill. Let me get on to your shoulders again!’
He soon clambered through the opening, and Billy drew himself up and joined him. They found themselves in a small untidy room, furnished poorly in the native fashion. It was unoccupied and unlighted, and the only door, a solid-looking affair, was closed. Wallace flashed the torch round, but found nothing of interest.
‘Somebody seems to have been using paraffin in this room rather carelessly,’ said he sniffing. ‘Well, there’s nobody here, so let us get on, but go carefully, old chap!’
They crossed to the door, and found it resist their efforts to open it.
‘Blow it!’ said Billy disgustedly. ‘We’re done after all.’
‘Let us try and break it open!’
Together they threw themselves against it, but hardly made an impression. There was nothing solid enough in the room to use as a battering ram, and presently they looked at each other ruefully.
‘As you say, we are done,’ remarked Leonard. ‘Dorin must be well away by this. The only thing to do is to return, and hope that we shall catch the blighter later on.’
At that moment the trapdoor shut with a bang.
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Billy. ‘We’re caught!’
They hurriedly crossed to the spot, and examined it, but the trap fitted so neatly into the floor that it was hard to see it. There was nothing to show them how it worked and, although they made a careful examination of the wall in expectation of finding a button similar to that which had controlled the trapdoor in the other house, they found nothing. Then for the first time they both became aware of a faint crackling sound, which momentarily became louder, and a smell of burning.
‘The fiend has set the place on fire!’ exclaimed Brien.
‘That accounts for the smell of paraffin,’ said Leonard grimly. ‘We have walked into our own crematorium!’
The crackling grew louder, smoke came in under the door, and presently the room was thick with it. Then a tongue of flame showed, and the door was seen to be on fire.
‘This place will be a furnace in a moment with all the paraffin that is about,’ said Wallace. ‘We’ve got to force our way through the trap, or be roasted alive!’
They jumped on the trapdoor, singly, and then together; they crashed the rickety-looking table on to it with such force that it was smashed to pieces, but there was hardly a dent in the object of their attack. Then throwing himself on the floor, Leonard shouted to Batty below, and presently heard a faint voice replying.
‘Go and get that plank of wood from over the hole,’ he yelled, ‘and try and smash this trapdoor open, and for God’s sake hurry! Do you hear me?’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’ came back faintly.
Wallace rose from the floor, and looked at Billy. Tongues of flame were eating farther and farther through the door, and presently one side of the room was blazing. The smoke had become so thick that they were finding the greatest difficulty in breathing, and the heat was terrible. The paraffin-saturated furniture caught fire in an incredibly short space of time, then the door crashed down, and, in a moment, the room was a furnace.
Gasping, choking, burning, the two friends clasped hands.
‘It’s a rotten finish, old chap,’ gulped Wallace hoarsely, ‘but we’ve had a good innings. I wish I could have seen Molly and the little chap first.’
‘And I Phyllis and the kids,’ whispered Billy. ‘Well, it’s just fate, and as we’ve lived together, so we die together.’
And the two stood holding hands in a firm grip. Two British gentlemen prepared to face death, as they had faced life, cleanly and without a tremor of fear. Faintly to their ears came the sound of Batty belabouring the trapdoor with the plank, and through his agony Leonard smiled.
‘Good old Batty!’ he gasped, and then sank to his knees as the fumes overcame his senses. Sobbing in his effort to obtain breath, Billy dragged his great friend as far from the actual flames as he could, and then collapsed himself.
The walls began to crumble in, the skin on the bodies of the two men started to blister with the heat, their clothes to smoulder, and their hair to singe. Then, when it appeared that it was only a matter of time before all that would he left of them would be charred remains, Batty’s plank came clean through the trapdoor. The crash roused Wallace from his semi-conscious state. He looked at the plank with almost unseeing eyes, but with his last remnants of sense he noticed that the fastening had been exposed to view, and dragging his revolver somehow from his pocket with his nerveless fingers, he put it right up against the catch, and tried to smile; but the result was a horrible caricature, on account of his blistered face and hairless eyelids.
‘My last shot!’ he croaked, and fired.
There was a deafening report, but wonder of wonders, the trapdoor shivered a moment, and then fell downwards with a crash. Wallace gave an almost horrible cackle in his efforts to express his relief, and feebly shook his companion. Brien raised his head in drunken fashion.
‘We’re saved, Billy,’ gasped Leonard. ‘Go down.’
‘No, you go first!’ choked Billy.
But even in this crisis Leonard insisted on his companion seeking safety first. Aided by him, Billy dragged himself somehow through the hole, and fell to the ground below. The whole room was in flames now, and as he painfully drew himself inch by inch to the opening, Wallace knew that his clothes were on fire. He felt himself grasped in Batty’s strong arms, and then the sailor pulled him through and, throwing himself on his beloved master, extinguished the flames.
Somehow the two men, aided by the herculean efforts of Batty, and more than half-unconscious, staggered along the underground passage; somehow they reached the room under Dorin’s office. But once there Wallace swayed giddily, and would have fallen had not Batty’s arms been about him. He caught sight of Billy’s face in the rays of the flash lamp which the sailor held in one hand.
‘Oh, Billy!’ he gasped chokingly. ‘You do look a freak.’
And with a feeble cackle of laughter he sank into complete unconsciousness.
‘Well, you’re not a picture postcard,’ replied Billy hoarsely, and sitting down on the ground he gently rolled on to his side and followed suit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Arrival of Ata Ullah
Major Watkins was a very thorough man and, as soon as Wallace and his two companions had disappeared below in chase of Dorin, he set to work, and searched the whole establishment with great care. First he had the wounded man removed to hospital in the charge of two policemen and a young doctor, and then sent all the prisoners to headquarters in a motor van, which was waiting. After that, assisted by a dozen detectives, both English and Indian, he examined the premises from top to bottom. So particular was he that scarce a pin escaped his notice, and the result of his thoroughness was that all manner of secret hiding places were discovered, in which were collections of the most inflammatory documents, denouncing British rule and promising Bolshevik aid to drive the British out of India, and form an ideal republic under the aegis of the Russian Soviet.
Every scrap of literature was removed to headquarters, there to undergo further and more careful examination, and at last the Commissioner had cleared out the whole place and was left alone in the building with a subordinate.
He was in two minds whether to wait for Wallace and his companions to return, or to leave the establishment and await them at the police station. He decided on the latter course, and was taking a final look round the o
ffice, when he heard a muffled knocking coming from below. He immediately crossed to the button in the wall – taking care to stand away from the trapdoor – and pressed it. The trap fell at once and he kept his finger on the button to prevent it returning to its place.
‘Hullo!’ he called. ‘Is that you, Sir Leonard?’
‘It’s all of us, sir,’ replied Batty’s voice. ‘Sir Leonard and Major Brien is unconscious, an’ I want someone to ’elp me get ’em aloft.’
‘What has happened?’ gasped the Commissioner.
‘They almost got burnt to death, sir. Can yer get a ladder?’
With an exclamation of mingled sympathy and anger, Watkins sent his assistant to find a ladder. There was one in a storeroom close by, which was soon pushed through the opening, its weight preventing the trapdoor from springing back into place. The Major and the policeman descended to Batty’s aid, and the three between them with great care lifted the inert bodies through the opening and into the room above. When he saw the blistered features and burnt clothes of the two men, Watkins started back in horror.
‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, and ordered his subordinate to telephone for a doctor immediately, then he turned to Batty. ‘What in Heaven’s name has happened?’ he asked.
The sailor gave a graphic description of all that had taken place and Watkins listened, his anger growing stronger every moment.
‘The fiend!’ he cried, at the end of the recital. ‘The utter fiend!’
The doctor very soon put in an appearance, and the Commissioner explained what had happened. The former conducted a rapid examination.
‘They are both badly burnt,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think it is very serious. Sir Leonard is in the worse condition. We had better get them to hospital immediately. What I fear most is shock.’
‘We’ll take them to my bungalow,’ said Watkins. ‘Send for an ambulance at once, Halliday!’
The policeman hurried off, and the doctor looked gravely at the Commissioner.
‘Where is Waller?’ he asked.
‘He is responsible for this business,’ replied Watkins grimly. ‘He is a Russian spy, and it was while searching for him that Sir Leonard and Major Brien were trapped and almost burnt to death.’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed the doctor, and for some moments afterwards he repeated to himself in tones of absolute amazement, ‘Waller a spy! Good God!’
Presently the ambulance arrived. Wallace and Brien were rapidly conveyed to the Commissioner’s house, where they were at once put to bed in the same room and a nurse sent for. The doctor immediately cleansed and bandaged their burns, and then set about restoring them to consciousness. Billy was the first to regain his senses, and he stared round him in a wondering sort of way, before he remembered the events of the evening; then he shuddered and sat weakly up in bed.
‘Where is Sir Leonard Wallace?’ he demanded in a voice which seemed to him to come from a long way off.
‘Here!’ replied the doctor, endeavouring to push him back on to his pillows.
‘Is he very badly hurt?’ asked Billy in a tone of great anxiety.
‘Pretty badly, but he’ll soon be all right again.’
‘Thank God!’ muttered Billy, and sank back with a great sigh of relief.
At last Leonard came round, and he too lay for a time gazing at the ceiling in a perplexed sort of way. Then he saw the Commissioner, and tried to smile.
‘Hullo, Watkins!’ he whispered. ‘Where am I, and what has happened?’
‘You’ve been badly burnt, Sir Leonard!’
‘Oh, yes. I remember now. Is Major Brien all right?’
Yes, he is in the next bed to you.’
Wallace looked round.
‘Hullo, Billy!’ he said. ‘By Jove, you’ve got enough bandages on you!’
‘So have you! I can only see your eyes and mouth, and your right hand’s completely hidden.’
Leonard regarded his bandaged hand.
‘Why all this?’ he asked.
Watkins looked at him with a smile in which a great relief showed.
‘Your hand and face, and some parts of your body are almost raw,’ he said. ‘You must have been in the middle of the flames for a minute or two. Major Brien isn’t so badly burnt as you are.’
‘Well, that’s something!’ replied Wallace. ‘But it’s just my luck that this hand should be burnt. I wouldn’t have minded the artificial one. By the way,’ he added suddenly. ‘Where’s Batty? He saved our lives!’
Batty was sent for, and both Wallace and Brien tried to thank him, but the moment was fraught with emotion and they found it difficult to express themselves. Batty wiped something away from his eyes with the back of his sleeve.
‘I only did my dooty, sir,’ he said. ‘An’ I’d like to know wot she’d ’ave ’ad ter say to me, if I ’adn’t ’auled you out, sir.’
‘Well, Batty, neither Major Brien, nor I, nor she, will ever forget it.’
‘That’s all right, sir! Don’t make such a fuss about it! I’d like ter get ’old o’ the swine wot trapped you!’
‘That reminds me,’ said Leonard to Watkins. ‘We’ve got to get on his track again. So I’m going to get up!’
‘Excuse me,’ said the doctor, ‘but you’re going to do nothing of the sort.’
‘Oh, and who are you?’ asked Wallace.
‘I’m a doctor, and this lady is a nurse.’ He brought forward a capable-looking woman in a nurse’s uniform.
Leonard looked from one to the other.
‘I am very glad to see you, Nurse,’ he said, ‘but I assure you I don’t want any nursing.’
‘You will, for several days, Sir Leonard,’ said the doctor.
‘Nonsense, man! I’ll be all right tomorrow.’
‘I’m afraid I must forbid you to move for some time.’
‘Oh, well, we’ll see,’ said Leonard, smiling painfully. ‘I’ll stop here tonight anyhow to please you, and we’ll continue the argument in the morning. In the meantime, Watkins,’ he added to the Commissioner, ‘do everything you possibly can to get Dorin. Have the docks and stations guarded, and the whole city searched! He must be caught if possible.’
‘I have taken every precaution,’ replied the Commissioner, ‘and the whole neighbourhood of the house that was burnt is being searched at this moment.’
‘Good! I suppose there wasn’t anything left of that house, was there?’
‘I don’t know yet, Sir Leonard. I am waiting now for the report.’
Wallace gave orders to Batty to return to the aeroplane and inform Forsyth and Hallows of the events of the evening. He also asked the Commissioner to send a party of policemen to take Levinsky to the jail and keep him there for the time being. The doctor then decided that he had spoken quite enough, and insisted upon giving him a sleeping draught, which he took after protesting feebly. Billy was also made to swallow the same mixture, and presently the two of them were fast asleep.
The doctor called early the next morning, and found that the twain had just awakened. He examined them with care, and with the nurse’s assistance dressed their burns. Then he stood at the end of Wallace’s bed and smiled.
‘I have never met anybody with such iron constitutions as you two gentlemen possess,’ he said. ‘Why, the shock you received would have killed most people; and here you are, apart from the burns, very little the worse for your ordeal.’
‘I am glad to hear it, Doctor,’ said Leonard. ‘Therefore, you can have no objection to our getting up?’
‘I couldn’t think of it,’ replied the doctor. ‘You must have at least three days in bed.’
‘Nonsense! I have far too much work to do to laze about in bed. Please don’t argue, but just send Batty to me!’
The doctor protested, but in vain. Wallace had made up his mind to rise, and nothing could alter his determination; at last the medical man shrugged his shoulders and gave in.
‘You are taking a very grave risk,’ he said, ‘and must not hold me responsible
if any ill effects ensue.’
‘Bless you!’ said Leonard cheerfully. ‘I shall never blame you whatever might happen. I think perhaps it would be wise if Major Brien stopped in bed, though.’
Billy snorted, and sat up.
‘Not on your life!’ he growled.
‘Well, you’d better wait a minute or two, Sir Leonard,’ said the doctor. ‘I think Major Watkins and your airman are rather anxious to see you.’
‘Send them in,’ said Wallace impatiently. ‘I have an appointment soon after nine, and I don’t want to miss it. What is the time now?
‘Twenty past eight,’ replied the doctor, and went to call Watkins and Forsyth.
The two entered the room with very serious countenances. Watkins expressed his delight at hearing that Wallace and Brien were so much better, and Forsyth started to make sympathetic enquiries, but Leonard interrupted him.
‘I can see that both of you have something unpleasant to report, from the look on your faces,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
Forsyth looked at the Commissioner, who nodded, and the airman turned to Leonard.
‘I am sorry to have to tell you, Sir Leonard,’ he said, ‘that your prisoner has escaped from the plane!’
‘What!’ exclaimed Billy, and Wallace swore.
‘You remember, of course, that you left Woodhouse and Green to look after him?’ went on Forsyth, and his two listeners nodded. ‘Hallows and I stopped there until all the petrol and oil, which Major Watkins had ordered, was aboard, and then went into Karachi. We returned just before midnight and found Green lying seriously wounded outside the saloon, while Woodhouse was inside unconscious from a blow on the back of the head. He came here with me so that you could question him, but he knows very little.’
‘Bring him in!’ commanded Wallace tersely, and as Forsyth left the room, he turned to Major Watkins, ‘Why wasn’t I informed of this before?’ he demanded.
‘You were asleep, Sir Leonard, and the doctor gave orders that you were not to be disturbed.’
‘Oh, damn the doctor!’ exclaimed the other, then smiled. ‘That’s a bit unreasonable,’ he added, ‘but think of the time that has been lost!’
The Mystery of Tunnel 51 (Wallace of the Secret Service Series) Page 24