Brenda laughed.
“You mean our visitors?”
“There you are,” said Virgil. “What did I say?”
“We do not lodge bandits,” said Brenda, coldly enough. “These are two English gentlemen, who—”
“Since when have they been here?” said the sergeant.
“They came to us five days ago.”
“And are they within?”
“I believe,” said Brenda, “that they are taking their tea.”
“Then tell them the police would like to speak with them here.”
“No. Wait a moment,” said Virgil. “First show us their car.” He turned to the police. “If this fellow identifies it—”
“I think, perhaps,” said the sergeant, but Virgil cut him short.
“Can’t you see,” he said, “how much it’ll strengthen your hand?”
“Very well,” said the other, reluctantly.
Brenda hesitated. Then she passed down the steps and led them away to the left and out of my sight…
In a flash we were both at the door en route for our sitting-room. As we entered the hall, Lady Elizabeth Virgil slipped from behind the front door.
“And now?” she said.
“We may,” said Herrick, “we may have to call upon you. We shan’t if we can help it, but Percy, er, knows no law.”
She smiled and nodded.
“All right.”
And then we were back in our room and had shut the door.
The position was delicate – and showed forth very clearly the infamous skill with which Percy had laid his plans. He had, of course, been looking for some such arrival as ours: and the moment he heard that we had been seen in Gola, he gave his waiting bullies the word to strike. By fastening suspicion on us, he was making sure their escape with their precious goods: for time that is lost in such matters is irretrievably lost, and by the time a scent has been found to be false, the one which is true has faded and died away. And we had played straight into his hands. Our movements of the last four days had been in all respects such movements as kidnappers make: our map of the district was marked as kidnappers would have marked it: and neither movements nor markings could be accounted for – except by the truth.
Quite apart from the fact that I could speak no German, Herrick was plainly the man to play our difficult hand. His wit was far quicker than mine, and he had, besides, an address which would have unsettled the hottest enemy.
“We’ve no time to discuss,” he said, “the line we should take. But I think we must get dear Percy to help us out. This means giving something away, but charity sometimes comes off.”
“You mean,” said I.
“I’m not quite sure,” said Herrick. “I have an idea, but it’s still in a state of flux. Should it take shape, I have a horrid feeling that Percy is going to perspire. And now don’t talk for a moment. If—”
Here Brenda flew in with her summons, fairly aglow with excitement and ready for any mischief that we might command.
“Have they found a map?” I said, rising.
“They are now inspecting it, sir – with their eyes half out of their heads.”
“Good,” said Herrick. “Where’s Winter?”
“At tea in the kitchen, sir.”
“Tell him to stay there,” said Herrick. “And if he should be sent for, to tell the truth – except, of course, on one point. He’s never seen my lady at any time.”
Brenda nodded and fled, and we strolled out of the house and into the drive. The police and Virgil were there, but the smith was not to be seen. I afterwards found that he had been left with the Rolls – to raise the alarm in case we should try to make off.
I had wondered if Percy Virgil would know me again, for, while I had had good reason to study him and his ways, I had been to him no more than one of several guests at a country hotel. But he did – immediately. And though he would have concealed it, I saw him start…
Herrick was addressing the police.
“Good evening, gentlemen. I’m told that you wish to see us. If we can be of service in any way…”
The police seemed taken aback. I suppose that we did not resemble the men they had expected to see.
Then the sergeant took off his hat.
“The matter is serious,” he said.
“Of course,” said Herrick. “Otherwise you would first have asked us before inspecting our car.”
The sergeant swallowed, and Virgil put in his oar.
“You may be strangers,” he said, “but that doesn’t put you above the law of the land.”
“Nor, I trust,” said Herrick, “beyond the traditional courtesy of its inhabitants. What is your rank in the police?”
Virgil flushed.
“I am not in the police,” he said.
“Then why,” said Herrick, “did you presume to address me?”
“My name is—”
“I have no desire,” said Herrick, “to hear your name.” He returned to the police. “You were saying that the matter was serious…”
Virgil looked ready to burst, but the sergeant went straight to the point.
“I will be plain,” he said. “A lady has been abducted – a lady of high degree. She was kidnapped early this morning upon her father’s estate…at Brief…some ten miles from here.” He held up our map. “I think you will hardly deny that you know where that is.”
“I have known where Brief was,” said Herrick, “for twenty-three years.”
The others stared.
Then —
“We are dealing with the present,” said Virgil.
Herrick raised his eyebrows.
“Allow me to suggest,” he said, “that you should keep to yourself such, er, discoveries as you may make.” He turned again to the police. “Yes, gentlemen?”
The sergeant cleared his throat.
“In view, sir, of what has occurred, I must ask you to explain the markings upon this map.”
“With pleasure,” said Herrick.
“And I sincerely advise you to tell the truth.”
“You will find,” said Herrick, “that we have nothing to hide.” He fingered his chin. “I stayed at Brief, as a child, in 1912. My mother and the Countess Rudolph were very close friends. Happening to be at Innsbruck a week ago, I felt a strong desire to visit the castle again. For various reasons I did not wish to leave cards. Much has happened, you know, in twenty-three years. My mother, the Count of Brief and the Countess Rudolph have died, the Lady Elizabeth has been born and, worst of all, I’m told that a vulgar blackguard, the son of an uncle of hers, has the run of the place.”
A ghastly silence succeeded these moving words, the police regarding the gravel with goggling eyes and Virgil, dark red in the face, surveying Herrick with the glare of a baited beast.
Herrick continued agreeably.
“We, therefore, came here from Innsbruck on Sunday last. On Monday we started out to try to discover some spot from which we could view the castle, without going into the grounds. We only found one, and that was – too far away. Determined not to be beaten, we tried for the next three days – with the aid of that map. And all in vain… Last night we reviewed the position, and found it this – that we must either trespass or else go empty away.
“Now I do not like trespassing, but neither, I frankly confess, do I like going empty away, and in the end we decided to rise very early this morning, enter the park from the north and have a good look at the castle before anybody was up. And so…we did.”
For a moment I thought that Virgil was going to faint. All the colour was out of his face, which looked peaked and thin, and he did not seem to be breathing, but might have been turned to stone. Then a shiver ran through him, and a hand went up to his mouth.
But the police had no eyes for him. The two were staring at Herrick as though they would read his soul.
“At what times,” said the sergeant, “did you enter and leave the estate?”
“We entered at four and w
e left about half-past six.”
There was an electric silence.
Then —
“I am bound to inform you,” said the sergeant, “that what you have just admitted makes your position most grave. The outrage was committed this morning at six o’clock.”
“Perhaps,” said Herrick. “It was not committed by us.”
The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
“I shall have to—”
“I think it is clear,” said Virgil, “that this gentleman is telling the truth.” The two police stared upon him as though he were out of his mind. “I mean, if he were guilty, he would scarcely have made an admission which put the rope round his neck.”
As soon as he could speak —
“But, sir,” cried the sergeant, “a rope round the neck is harmless, unless it is tight. If every rogue was believed because he told such truths as could do him no harm—”
“These gentlemen,” said Virgil, “have not the appearance of rogues.”
The sergeant put a hand to his head.
“But they were there – in the park…at the hour that the business was done. Why, this map alone would warrant—”
“That is explained,” said Virgil. “And what they say is quite true. The foothills conceal the castle except from the bridge which crosses the Vials of Wrath.”
“Perhaps. But that does not mean—”
“Enough,” said Virgil, swiftly. “For me they have cleared themselves. It only remains for you to beg their pardon and make a fresh cast. Good God, man, when time is so precious, do you propose to waste it in prying into two strangers’ private affairs?”
With a manifest effort, the sergeant controlled his voice.
“Sir,” he said, “if you do not wish to wait, you must leave us here. I have a sow by the ear, and until I know it’s the wrong one, I will not let go.” With that, he returned to Herrick. “You have said too much or too little. You were at Brief this morning from four until half-past six. Kindly relate what you did there – from first to last.”
“With very great pleasure,” said Herrick, folding his arms. “We left our car at the mouth of the northern drive – after instructing our chauffeur, first, to seek some petrol, and then to wait in a wood a little way off. You will understand that we did not wish to be seen.”
“Is your chauffeur here?” said the sergeant.
“He is. If you would like to see him—”
“Proceed, if you please.”
“Before we had walked very far, we heard a car coming behind us, using the drive. At once we lay down in the bracken until it had passed.”
His face like a mask, Virgil took out his case and selected a cigarette: but I saw a bead of sweat fall on to the gold.
“It was not your car?” said the sergeant, plainly impressed.
Producing a notebook, his fellow made ready to write.
“It was not our car,” said Herrick. “Others were abroad this morning…within the confines of Brief.”
“Describe this car, if you please.”
“It was closed and its blinds were drawn: its number-plate was obscured – I imagine, with oil and dust.”
The sergeant turned to his fellow, pencil in hand.
“Have you got that down?”
The other nodded and Herrick resumed his tale, relating how the car had been met and had then been backed down the drive and into the track.
“There three people got out, and the man who had met them came up.”
“Would you know them again, sir?”
“I should.”
As the answer went down, I saw Virgil wipe his face.
“One of the three,” said Herrick, “was a woman. She had a dog on a lead.”
“A dog?” cried the police, together.
“A long-haired, black-and-white dog: a mongrel, about that size.”
Struggling with his emotion —
“Sir,” cried the sergeant, “I beg that you will forgive me if I have seemed something short. I have to do my duty, and your interest in Brief seemed strange. But now I know that you are telling the truth. The dog you describe was found at large in the park.”
“My friend,” said Herrick, smiling, “I’ve nothing on earth to forgive. You’ve been very fair with me – I shall tell your Chief Constable so, when you’ve laid these swine by the heels.”
Though the moment called for some speech, Virgil said nothing at all – because, I imagine, he dared not trust his voice. Grey-faced, his eyes like slits, he stood a little apart, unconsciously wringing to fragments the cigarette he had taken, but had not lit.
But the police were too much excited to care for these things.
Respectfully thanking Herrick and handing him back our map, the sergeant begged that he would describe “the delinquents you so providentially saw” – and Herrick complied with a gusto which did my heart good.
His picture of Percy Virgil was actually taken from life. Lazily surveying his victim, he drew a merciless portrait of that unprincipled man: and I find it hard to believe that a rogue was ever so trounced.
Not daring to retire – much less, of course, to protest – he was forced to hear dictated a report of his personal appearance which would have provoked the most forbearing of men, and, what was far worse, to endure the utmost apprehension for fear that the police should be struck by the startling resemblance the portrait bore to himself. Over all, the realization that his shocking secret was ours must have been like an iron in his soul, which Herrick’s careless disdain continually turned.
His tormentor then repeated the horribly damning words which Virgil had said to his creatures before they had entered the wood, and when the sergeant seemed puzzled about the use of ‘the wire’, suggested that it might have been used to trip a galloping horse.
Under cover of the flush of excitement which this suggestion induced, Herrick encouraged the impression that we had no more to disclose: this the police were ready enough to accept, because they were eager to broadcast without delay the very full descriptions of the persons they hoped to arrest. Protesting their gratitude, the sergeant requested our names, and while Herrick was writing these down, turned and exhorted Virgil to enter and start the car.
“If you’ll take us to Gabble, sir, I can get on to Innsbruck from there, and in less than two hours from now every police station in Austria will be alive with orders to search for the people we want.”
“Splendid,” said Virgil, somehow. He turned to Herrick and bowed. “Please believe that I shall not forget today…and that I am a man who invariably pays his debts.”
“Is that a threat?” said Herrick.
I saw the police open their eyes, and Virgil in desperation let himself go.
“It’s a warning,” he snarled. “I do not believe your tale of the numberless car. That you saw a dog this morning proves nothing at all – except that you were at hand when the outrage was done. And who would think of so using a coil of wire – except a man who had planned to employ it that way?”
“Come, come, sir,” said the sergeant. “You said yourself just now that these gentlemen—”
“I have changed my mind,” spat Virgil, “as you have changed yours.”
“I have just remembered,” said Herrick, “that one of the men was called Max. Not the leader – the burly man, who got out of the car. The leader was sharp with him, as, indeed, with them all. I think that, if you could find them, they might give the leader away.”
“And the name of the leader?” sneered Virgil. “Quite sure you didn’t hear that?”
Herrick raised his eyebrows, before he returned to the police.
“You would not believe me,” he said, “if told you the leader’s name. And so I prefer that you should apply to Max. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll write it down for you, and I’ll seal it up. And when Max has opened his mouth, you may break the seal. Thus I shall corroborate him, and he will corroborate me.”
“Sir,” cried the sergeant, “I bes
eech you to tell it us now.”
“I will write it down,” said Herrick. “Or, better still, Mr Exon shall write it down. You will observe that I have not mentioned the name: yet he will go off and write it – which goes to show that he knows it as well as I.”
With that, he turned to me and asked me to do as he said.
When I returned to the drive Virgil was back in his car, beside himself with passion and shouting down the sergeant who seemed very much surprised.
“And if you choose,” he concluded, “to take your cue from a couple of lying hounds who, if you had done your duty, would now be under arrest – by God, you can take it alone.”
With that he started his engine, let in his clutch, and swung the car violently round. With storming gears, it squirted between the chestnuts and on to the road of approach. Then he changed brutally up, and it scudded out of earshot, just as an angry wasp sails out of a breakfast-room.
The police stared after the fellow with open mouths: then they turned to see Herrick with a hand to his chin.
“I gather,” he said, “that you find his behaviour strange.”
“I can’t understand it,” said the sergeant. “Ten minutes ago—”
“Quite so,” said Herrick. “In fact, ten minutes ago he did his very best to get you away – because, when he heard the hour at which we had entered the park, he did not wish you to hear what I might have to tell.” He took the envelope from me and held it out. “You may open that now, if you please, and read the name of the leader whom Max will betray. After that you shall have some tea, and then, we’ll drive you to Gabble to take what action you please.”
The sergeant ripped the envelope open and he and his fellow together peered at the sheet.
Percy Elbert Virgil
I thought they would never look up.
When at last they did, they seemed dazed; and Herrick called for Brenda and told her to give them some tea.
Her back to our sitting-room door, Lady Elizabeth Virgil looked very grave.
“Mr Herrick,” she said, “you put up a wonderful show. I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds: I never knew that a hand could be played so well. But you’ve ‘scotch’d the snake, not kill’d it.’ And the sooner the police find Max – well, the better for your bodily health. Have you any arms, you two?”
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