by Sax Rohmer
“Find it all right, miss?”
“Yes, but there’s no one at home. I want to write a note and I should like you to go and slip it under the door for me. It is so lonely there, it has made me feel quite nervous. I can mind the cab!”
The man smiled and touched his cap. Taxi-men are possessed of intuitions; and this one knew perfectly well that he had a good fare and one that would pay him well enough for his trouble.
“Certainly, miss, with pleasure.”
“Have you a piece of paper and a pencil?”
The man tore a leaf from a notebook and handed Zoe a pencil. Using the book as a pad, she, by the light of the near-side lamp, wrote:
“Your meeting at The Cedars known to Mr. Alden. Don’t go.”
“It is such a tiny piece of paper,” she said. “He — they may not see it.”
“I believe I’ve got an envelope somewhere, miss. It’s got the company’s name and address printed on it, and it won’t be extra clean, but — —”
“Oh, thank you! If you could find it — —”
It was found, and proved to be even more dirty than the man’s words had indicated. Zoe enclosed the note, wetted a finger of her glove, and stuck down the lapel.
“Will you please put it under the door?”
“Yes, miss. Shan’t be a minute.”
He was absent but a few moments.
“Back to Charing Cross Station,” directed Zoe, and got into the cab again.
She had done her best. But, throughout the whole of the journey to the Strand, her mind was occupied with dire possibilities. It almost alarmed her, this too keen interest which she found herself taking in the fortunes of Séverac Bablon.
At Charing Cross the taxi-man received a sovereign. It was more than double his fare. He knew, then, that his professional instincts had not misled him, but that he had been driving an American millionairess.
In the foyer of the Astoria, Mary Evershed was waiting, with Mrs. Wellington Lacey in stately attendance. Mary was simply radiant. She sprang forward to meet Zoe, both hands outsretched.
“Wherever have you been?” she cried.
“Picture show!” said Zoe, with composed mendacity, glancing at the aristocratic chaperon.
“I could not possibly wait until the morning,” Mary ran on, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “I had to run along here straight from horrid, stuffy Downing Street to tell you. Dick has inherited a fortune.”
“What!” said Zoe, and grasped both her friend’s hands. “Inherited a fortune!”
“Well — not quite a fortune, perhaps — five thousand pounds.”
And John Jacob Oppner’s daughter, a real chum to the core, never even smiled. For she knew what five thousand pounds meant to these two, knew that it meant more than five hundred thousands meant to her; since it meant the difference between union and parting, between love and loss, meant that Sir Richard Haredale could now shake off the fetters that bound him, and look the world in the face.
“Oh, Mary,” she said, and her pretty eyes were quite tearful. “How very, very glad I am! Isn’t it just great! It sounds almost too good to be true! Come right upstairs and tell me all about it!”
In Zoe’s cosy room the story was told, not a romantic one in its essentials, but romantic enough in its potential sequel. A remote aunt was the benefactress; and her death, news of which had been communicated to Sir Richard that evening, had enriched him by five thousand pounds and served to acquaint him, at its termination, with the existence of a relation whom he had never met and rarely heard of.
Mr. Oppner came in towards the close of the story, and offered dry congratulations in that singular voice which seemed to have been preserved, for generations, in sand.
“He ought to invest it,” he said. “Runeks are a good thing.”
“You see,” explained Mary. “He hasn’t actually got it yet, only the solicitor’s letter. And he says he will be unable to believe in his good luck until the money is actually in the bank!”
“Never let money lie idle,” preached Oppner. “Banks fatten on such foolishness. Look at Hague. Ain’t he fat?”
Though it must have been imperceptible to another, Zoe detected, in her father’s manner, a suppressed excitement; and augured from it a belief that the capture of Séverac Bablon was imminent.
However, when Mary was gone, Mr. Oppner said nothing of the matter which, doubtless, occupied his mind, and Zoe felt too guilty to broach the subject. They retired at last, without having mentioned the name of Séverac Bablon.
Zoe found sleep to be impossible, and lay reading until long past one o’clock. But when the book dropped from her hands, she slept soundly and dreamlessly.
In the morning she scanned her mail anxiously. But there was nothing to show that her warning had been received. Could it be that Séverac Bablon had suddenly deserted the cottage for some reason, and that he would to-night walk, blindly, into the trap prepared for him?
She was anxious to see her father. And his manner, at breakfast, but dimly veiled an evident exultation. He ate very little, leaving her at the table, with one of his dry though not unkindly apologies, to go off with the stoical Mr. Alden.
If only she had a friend in whom she might confide, whose advice she might seek. Zoe laughed a little to think how excited she was on behalf of Séverac Bablon and how placidly she surveyed the possibility of her father’s being relieved of a huge sum of money.
“That’s the worst of knowing Pa’s so rich!” she mused philosophically.
The morning dragged wearily on. Noon came. Nothing and nobody interested Zoe. She went to be measured for a gown and could not support the tedium of the operation.
“Send someone to the Astoria to-morrow,” she said. “I just can’t stand here any longer.”
In the afternoon she called upon Sheila Vignoles, but everyone, from Lord Vignoles to the butler, irritated her. She came away with a headache. With the falling of dusk, her condition grew all but insupportable. Her father had been absent all day. She had met no one who would be likely to know anything about the night’s expedition.
She sat looking out from her window at the Embankment, where lights were now glowing, point after point, through the deepening gloom.
It was as she stood there, vainly wondering what was going forward, that her father, his spare figure enveloped in a big motor coat, his cap pulled down upon his brow, walked along Richmond High Street beside Mr. Alden.
“By the time we get there,” said the latter, rolling the inevitable cheroot from one corner of his mouth to the other, “it will be dark enough for our purpose. It’s a warm night, and dry, which is fortunate, and I’ve marked a place right opposite the gate where we can lie all snug until we’re wanted.”
“Can you rely on Sullivan’s men?”
“He’s sending eight of the best. At his office, this afternoon I went over a plan of the place with them. It’s impossible to march a troop up to the house to reconnoitre. They know exactly what they’ve got to do. It will be covered all around. A cat won’t be able to come out of The Cedars, sir, without being noted!”
“Yep. And when we march up to the door?”
“Directly it’s opened,” explained Alden patiently, “I’ll hold it open! Then, in go five Sullivan men, Martin and you. But there’ll still be a man covering every egress from the house. If anybody tries to get out there’ll be someone to hold him up and to whistle for more help if it’s needed.”
“Seems all right,” said Oppner; “if we don’t get loaded up with lead. Is this place much further? We seem to have been walkin’ up this blame hill for hours.”
“See that white milestone? Well, the first gate is fifty yards beyond, on the right.”
“Have the crowd arrived yet?”
“Some of them. They’re drafting up singly and in couples. There ought to be four on the river side of the place by now, and Martin waiting somewhere around the front.”
“Four to come, yet?”
�
�Yep. Two for the other gate of the drive, and two for the lane that leads down to the river.”
They plodded on in silence. Abreast of the milestone, but without stopping, Alden whistled softly.
He was answered from somewhere among the trees bordering the left of the road.
“That’s Martin!” he said. “Come on, Mr. Oppner, through this gap in the fence.”
Mr. Oppner crawled, in undignified silence, through the gap indicated.
“You see,” explained Alden’s voice out of the gloom, “farther along are open rails and dense bushes. That’s where we’re going to watch from. We’ll see every soul that comes up.”
“You’re stone sure it’s to-night they arranged?”
Patiently, Alden replied: “Stone sure.”
“Because,” drawled Oppner, stumbling along in the darkness, “this is not in my line.”
“Sss!” came from close at hand.
Mr. Oppner started.
“That you, Martin?” from Alden.
“Yes; no one has gone in yet. But a ground floor room is lighted up, and also the conservatory.”
“Right.”
There was a momentary faint gleam of light. Mr. Alden was consulting his electrically-lighted watch.
“Time they were all posted,” he said. “Martin, do the rounds. Hustle!”
Martin was heard slipping away through the bushes. Then came silence. Oppner and Alden were now at a point directly opposite a gate, and in full view of the house. Many of the windows were illuminated.
“Does the lawn slope down to the towpath?” came Oppner’s voice.
“Sure. There are men on the towpath.”
Silence fell once more. From somewhere down the road, in the direction of Richmond, was wafted a faint tinkling sound. Oppner heard Alden moving.
“I’ll have to leave you for a minute,” said the detective. “Don’t be scared if Martin comes back.”
Without waiting for a reply, Alden departed. Mr. Oppner heard him brushing against the bushes in passing. Crouching there uncomfortably, and looking out across the road to the gateway of The Cedars, Oppner saw a singular thing, a thing that made him wonder.
He saw Alden run swiftly across from the gap in the fence by which they had entered their hiding-place, to the gate opposite. He saw him run in. Then he disappeared. Whilst Oppner was thrashing his brains for a solution to this man[oe]uvre, a faint rattling sound drew his gaze down the hill.
Someone was approaching on a bicycle!
Almost holding his breath, he watched. Nearer came the rider, and nearer. Immediately before the gate of The Cedars he dismounted. He was a telegraph messenger.
At that moment Alden came strolling out, smoking his cigar and pulling on a pair of gloves.
“Hullo, boy!” he said; his voice was clearly audible to the listening Oppner. “Got a wire for me? I’ve been expecting it all the evening.”
The boy opened his wallet, but with some hesitation.
“Dr. Phillips,” continued Alden, “that right?”
The boy hesitated no longer.
“Phillips, yes, sir,” he said, and handed the telegram to Alden.
With a nonchalant air which excited Mr. Oppner’s admiration, Alden walked to a lamp some little distance away, tore open the yellow envelope, and read the message.
“All right, boy,” he said. “No reply. Here, catch!”
He tossed the boy a coin, and with a touch of genius which showed him to be a really great detective, halted a moment, scratched his chin, and as the boy again mounted his bicycle, re-entered the gate of The Cedars.
“That’s real cute!” murmured Oppner.
The boy having ridden off, Alden slipped warily out on to the road, ran across, and was lost to view. Presently a rustling in the bushes told of his return to Oppner’s side.
“It’s from Sheard,” whispered the detective. “Our man must have written him further particulars, same as he said he’d do. It just reads: ‘Detained. S.’ But it was handed in at Fleet Street, and I haven’t any doubt who sent it.”
“He’s smart, is Sheard,” said Mr. Oppner. “He smelled trouble, or maybe he got wise to us — —”
“Sss!”
“That you, Martin?” — from Alden.
“All right. Everybody seems to be posted. They’re all finely out of sight, too.”
“Good. The newspaper man isn’t coming. See me get the wire?”
“Yes. I wonder if the rest will come.”
“Hope so. I don’t want to have to open the ball, because until some visitors have gone in we haven’t got any real evidence that Séverac Bablon is there himself.”
“Quiet,” said Martin.
A measured tread proclaimed itself, drew nearer, and a policeman passed their hiding-place. When the regular footsteps had died away again:
“If he knew who’s leased The Cedars,” murmured Alden, “he’d be a sergeant sooner than he expects.”
Which remark was the last contributed by any of the party for some considerable time. Alden’s description of the road before The Cedars as a lonely one was fully justified. From the time of Martin’s return until that when the big car drove up and turned into the drive, not a solitary pedestrian passed their hiding-place.
A laggard moon sailed out from a cloud-bank and painted the road white as far as the eye could follow it. Then came a breeze from the river, to sing drearily through the trees. In the intervals, when the breeze was still, its absence seemed in some way, to stimulate the watchers’ power of hearing, so that they could detect vague sounds which proceeded from the river. The creak of oars told of a late rower on the stream — a voice was wafted up to them, to be drowned in the sighing of the leaves set swaying by the new breeze.
Then came the car.
The whirr of the motor announced its coming from afar off; but, so swiftly did it travel, that it was upon them a moment later. As it swung around and on to the drive of The Cedars its number showed clearly.
“3509,” said Martin. “That’s Mr. Antony Elschild!”
“Gee!” said Oppner, and his sandy voice shook somewhat, perhaps owing to the chill of the breeze. “This is getting real exciting!”
The car was delayed some little time before the door of the house, then driven around, and out at the further gate of the drive. It returned by the way it had come, racing down the hill at something considerably exceeding the legal speed. The thud-thud-thud of the motor died away, and became inaudible.
“I’m glad the police aren’t with us, and yet sorry,” said Oppner. “This is a whole-hog conspiracy properly. No wonder he was so hard to catch; look at the class of people he’s got in with him! Think of Elschild! Gee! There’s goin’ to be a scene in a minute.”
“For the present,” said Alden, “we’ll make no move; we’ll just sit tight. There’s maybe a lot to arrive yet.”
Just before the breeze came creeping up from the river again, thud-thud-thud was borne to their ears. Another car was approaching.
CHAPTER XVI
THE LAMP AND THE MASK
“10761,” said Alden. “I wonder whose car that is.”
None of the watchful trio had any idea. But whomever was within it, the second car performed exactly the same man[oe]uvres as the first, and, a few moments after its appearance, was lost to sight and hearing once more.
But a matter of seconds later, came the familiar thud-thud-thud; and a third car plunged up the hill and went swinging around the drive. Again, no one of the three was able to recognise the number. Out by the further gate of the drive it passed, turned, and flashed by them in the darkness, to go leaping down the slope.
“Three,” said Alden. “I wonder if there’s any more.”
His tone was thoughtful.
“Say,” began Mr. Oppner, “we’d better get on with it now, because — —”
“I know,” Alden interrupted, “there may be only one more to come? You’re thinking that, after all those expected have arrived, there’l
l be trouble in getting the door to open?”
“I was thinking that, too,” said Martin. “Maybe they’re all arrived as it is; but we stand a still worse chance if we wait.”
“Come on,” said Mr. Oppner, with a rising excitement evident in his voice. “We know there’s one big fish in the net, anyway!”
Thud-thud-thud!
“There’s another car coming,” cried Alden. “Hurry up, Mr. Oppner! This way. Mind your head through this broken part. We’ll be on the steps as the car comes around the drive!”
They crept through the gap below and ran across the road, Oppner as actively as either of his companions. Already, the white beam of the headlight was cutting-the gloom, below, where the road was heavily bordered with trees.
“Just in time!”
Past the gate they ran, and pattered on to the drive. Behind them, a big car was just spinning past the gate. As it came leaping along the drive Alden ran up the four stone steps to the door and jammed his thumb hard against the bell button.
At the same moment, Martin whistled shrilly, three times.
Whereupon affairs began to move in meteoric fashion.
Several people came bundling out of the car. From the gloom all about it there sounded the scamper of hurrying feet.
The door was thrown open, and a blaze of light swept the steps.
Alden leapt over the threshold, pistol in hand, yelling at the same time:
“Follow me, boys!”
Like the swoop of heated play to a goal burst a human wave upon the steps. Oppner and Martin were swept irresistibly upward and inward. They were surrounded, penned in. Then:
“Break away, you goldarned idiot!” rose Alden’s angry voice ahead.
The lights went out. The door slammed.
“Alden!” cried Mr. Oppner. “Alden!”
Someone pinioned him from behind.
“There’s a mistake, you blamed ass!” he screamed. “I ain’t one of ’em! Alden! Martin!”
A hand was pressed firmly over his mouth, and with veins swelling up and eyes starting from his head in impotent fury, Mr. Oppner was hustled forward through the darkness.
Around him a number of people seemed to be moving, and when he found his feet upon stairs, several unseen hands were outstretched to thrust him upward. The darkness was impenetrable.