Female of the Species

by Sapper

  It was Sinclair who noticed it first, and nudged us both to draw our attention because speaking was ill-advised. The flame was decreasing in size. Now it was burning fitfully: at times it shot out to its original length – at others it almost died away. And then suddenly it went out altogether.

  He took a piece of paper from his pocket and a pencil.

  “Go on at the keyhole,” he wrote. “Don’t speak unless it’s essential. Room full of carbon dioxide, but no more coming now.”

  One, two, three – suck; one, two, three – suck, till my back was aching and I cursed Darrell and the others for not coming. Surely to Heaven it must be at least three hours by now since we had left them. And then another ghastly thought struck me. Even when they did come how were they going to open the door without a key? And there was no key in the keyhole.

  One, two, three – suck. Damn this confounded woman and all her works. I felt that I would willingly have given the whole of my extremely modest fortune and then some to have had the privilege of putting her in the room, and laughing at her from the other side of the door.

  One, two, three – suck: it was becoming utterly intolerable. Once I chanced it and took a breath in the room, and it felt as if an eiderdown had been pressed over my mouth. Carbon dioxide – used up air. Old tags of chemistry came back to me in the intervals of one, two, three – suck.

  Suddenly we all of us paused instinctively: a key had been put in the keyhole. The bolt was turning, and with our heads feeling as if iron bands were fastened round them we stood and watched. Trying not to breathe, and with our lungs bursting for air we watched the door open. A hand came round the edge – a hand with a curious red scar on the middle finger. It was the man who had dragged the thing away from me earlier in the evening.

  I signed furiously to Drummond, but as he said afterwards it was a matter of complete indifference to him whose hand it was. All he wanted was air, and a grip on somebody’s throat. He got both, and he was not feeling amused.

  He was a big man – the owner of the hand, and he was wearing some form of respirator. He was also a powerful man, but as I have said Drummond was not feeling amused. He shot across the room, did the owner of the hand, as if he’d been kicked from close quarters by a mule – whilst we shot into the passage. Then having locked the door and removed the key we sat down and just breathed. And if anybody is ever in doubt as to what is the most marvellous sensation in the world, they may take it from me that it consists of just breathing – under certain circumstances.

  From the other side of the door came the sound of furious blows. He seemed to be hurling himself against it with the whole weight of his body.

  “What about it, Hugh?” said Toby. “The respirator he has on is only of use against carbon monoxide.”

  “Then let him have a whack at breathing through the keyhole,” said Drummond grimly. “Gosh! I wouldn’t go through that last half-hour again for twenty thousand quid. Besides I want my other little pal, and if I can find him he’ll eat his finger here and now.”

  But of neither the woman nor him was there any trace. The room was empty; the birds had flown. And as we stood in the passage at the foot of the stairs that led to the room they had been in, the only sound that broke the silence was the hoarse shouting of the man who was caught in the trap that had been laid for us.

  “I think we’ll let the swab out,” remarked Drummond thoughtfully. “We might get something out of him.”

  And it is possible we might have, had not the last little effort in that pleasing country mansion taken place. It was purely accidental, and I was responsible for it. About a yard along the passage beyond the fork a steel bar was sticking out from the wall. It looked strong: it looked quite capable of bearing my weight. So I sat on it, and found it was not capable of bearing my weight. It collapsed under me, and I found myself on the floor. And even as I picked myself up there came from the room we had left a frenzied scream of fear, and a strange rushing noise.

  Stupidly we stared at the door, focussing our torches on it. From underneath it water was pouring through. From each side, getting higher and higher, it came trickling out, until it shot like a jet from a fountain through the keyhole.

  “Run,” roared Drummond. “Run like hell. If that door gives we’re done. We’ve let the lake in.”

  It was true: the meaning of the phrase about the bodies not being recovered was clear at last. We raced wildly along the passage back towards the house. Would the door hold long enough? And it did – by about five seconds. We heard the crash as it gave when we were in the lowest part, and we pounded on up the rise. Behind us came the swish of the water now pouring unchecked through the open doorway. It came in a wall six feet high along the passage, and like a huge wave breaking on the shore it hurled itself after us two feet above the level of the mere, and then, angry and swirling, receded to its proper height.

  In front of us we could see the opening into the house: behind us black and evil-looking the water still eddied and heaved. A chair which had been swept along by the torrent bobbed up and down on the surface and then gradually became still. But of the man who had been in the room there was no trace. Hidden somewhere in that underground labyrinth his body still remains, and the waters of the mere have sealed his tomb.

  Slowly we climbed the last bit of the passage and stepped into the room.

  “Thank the Lord,” said Jerningham, “you’re all right. We were just coming to find you, when the most extraordinary upheaval took place in the lake.”

  Dawn had come, and we followed him to the window outside.

  “It’s almost died away now,” he went on. “But about five minutes ago, right out there in the centre the water began to heave. Almost like a whirlpool. What’s happened?”

  “An airy nothing,” remarked Drummond. “They’ve tried to gas us, and they’ve tried to drown us, and–”

  He broke off suddenly staring across the mere.

  “It’s a difficult light to see in,” he said,” but isn’t there someone moving over there in the undergrowth?”

  Personally I could see nothing, but after a moment or two he nodded.

  “There is. I see ’em. Two. Back from the window, boys: this matter requires thought. No one has come out this way, I take it?”

  “Not a soul,” said Darrell.

  “Then,” said Drummond to Sinclair and me, “those two on the other side are fish-faced Lizzie and her gentleman friend.”

  “Shall we round ’em up?” remarked Toby.

  Drummond lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

  “I think not,” he said at length. “Look here – let us consider this matter, because it seems to me that we have come to the parting of the ways. I suppose nobody has a bottle of Bass? Bad staff work. However, let us pull ourselves together, and get the grey matter to function.”

  He sighed profoundly.

  “A ghastly hour to do so, but I have the glimmerings of an idea. Now first of all there were in this house four individuals that we know of. First, the legless bird who got a brick on his head. Now it’s possible that what she said in her note was right, and that he wasn’t one of the party, but just went with the house. Anyway it doesn’t matter, he is out of it.”

  He held out an enormous finger.

  “That’s one. Secondly, there’s the bloke who pulled him off Dixon, and whose face we saw through the hole in the ceiling. He, dear little chap, is very dead down below there. He’s drowned.”

  Another finger joined the first.

  “And short of sending down a diver his body can never be recovered. Nor any other body that might be down there. Do you get me?”

  “Not the slightest,” said Jerningham cheerfully. “Are there any more down below?”

  “No – and at the same time, yes,” remarked Drummond.

  “Lucid as ever,” murmured Peter Darrell. “Hasn’t anybody got any beer to give him?”

  Drummond grinned gently.

  “It does sound a bit involved,” he agre
ed. “But it isn’t really. The passage we went down runs under the mere. Moreover, since the good-looking lady and gentleman whom we called did not come out this way they must either still be below, or they got out some other. If they are below they also are drowned, if, on the other hand, they got out…”

  “Then they’re not,” said Algy brightly.

  “Sit on his head,” remarked Darrell.

  “There were two people moving on the other side of the mere,” pursued Drummond. “So let us assume that the passage continues under the water and comes out in the undergrowth opposite. Further, that those two escaped. What then, my brave hearts – what then? What message of fun and laughter are they going to give to our little Irma?”

  He paused triumphantly, and Algy scratched his head.

  “Dashed if I know,” he burbled.

  “Sit on his head,” repeated Darrell morosely.

  “The last thing they saw of us,” went on Drummond, “was when we were locked in that confounded room with carbon something or other pouring into it. And if old Toby hadn’t had a brain storm, that is the last that anyone would ever have seen of us. Do you get me now? For the purposes of this little affair that is the last that anyone will see of us.”

  We sat staring at him, realising at length what he was driving at.

  “But look here,” said Toby doubtfully, “if we’re going on with the chase they’re bound to find out.”

  “Why?” demanded Drummond. “We’ve disguised ourselves pretty often before. Peter, Ted and Algy will carry on as before: you, Dixon and I are dead. Drowned, laddie, in the cold, dark waters of the mere.”

  “By Jove! Hugh,” said Darrell thoughtfully, “I believe that is a thundering good idea.”

  “I’m certain it is,” said Drummond. “Look here,” he went on gravely, “we’ve seen enough tonight to realise that this isn’t a game of Kiss in the Ring. I confess that I hadn’t thought that she would go to quite the lengths she has done. It is by a sheer piece of luck only that one or all of us are not dead now. Don’t let there be any mistake about that. She meant to kill us – or some of us. And that gives us a foretaste of what is to come. If she has gone to these lengths in the earlier stages of the hunt, we’re going to have the devil’s own time later. Well – what’s she going to say to herself? She knows us of old. She knows that if we three had been killed, you three would not give up. She’ll expect you after her.”

  Darrell nodded. “Quite right.”

  “So we’ll have the hunter hunted,” went on Drummond cheerfully. “You’ll be chasing clues; they’ll be chasing you and we’ll be chasing them.”

  “There’s one small flaw in your otherwise excellent scheme,” I put in. “How are they to know that the next clue is contained in this morning’s Times? Only we three saw her message to that effect, and we’re dead.”

  “Damn the man,” said Drummond. “He’s quite right.”

  “Let’s wait until we see the message,” remarked Jerningham. “It may be obviously intended for you, in which case we should naturally spot it. Or it may prove necessary for us all six to cover our traces. Let’s leave that for a bit. The thing that must be done at once is for you three to go to ground here somewhere, and for us three to register alarm and despondency. We’ll go and search the grounds, and if by any chance we run into your two pals, we’ll pretend we’re looking for you. Ask them to help, or if they’ve seen you.”

  “You’re right, Ted,” said Drummond. “Go to it. We’ll lie up here.”

  Chapter 9

  In which we get the second clue

  And so began the second phase in this strange game. I know that I was feeling most infernally tired and yet sleep would not come. My brain was too busy with the amazing happenings of the previous night. Once again I saw that luminous face being dragged away from me through the darkness, and I fell to wondering what the poor brute had really been. Was the woman right in what she had written: had this hideous, demented creature been the sole occupant of the house for years, and thus given it its bad reputation? Living by day in the secret passage under the mere, and coming out at night if it thought intruders were about. With a shudder I glanced through the open door where it still lay with the stone on top of it; anyway, death had been quick.

  And then my thoughts turned to the amazing brain that had planned it all. What manner of woman could this be who dealt out flippant notes and death alternately? The labour of preparing the mechanism for dropping that heavy stone and then pulling it up again must have been enormous.

  And suddenly Drummond spoke half to himself and half to me.

  “She means to get us all: nab the whole bunch. She won’t rest till she does.” Then he smiled a little grimly. “And you thought it was a joke.”

  “Guilty,” I acknowledged. “You must admit though that it’s a little unusual.”

  He laughed shortly, and then he began to frown.

  “I can stand anything on two legs or on four,” he grunted, “but these mechanical devices don’t give a fellow a chance. And I’m uneasy about those other three. Seems to me we’re letting them bear the brunt from now on. She’ll concentrate on them.”

  He relapsed into a moody silence, and I said nothing. There seemed to be nothing to say. What he feared was quite correct, or so it appeared to me. Only the merest luck had saved several of our lives that night, and luck could not be expected to continue indefinitely. Any one of us might have pulled that fifth bolt instead of the wretched creature who now lay dead underneath it. And then, had there been time to wind it up, another might have been bagged as well.

  That was the devil of it all: we weren’t confronting ordinary dangers and risks – but specially and cunningly prepared ones. It was a case of the German booby-traps over again, where the most harmless-looking objects hid delay-action mines.

  “What the dickens are we going to do with that body?” said Drummond suddenly.

  “Why not put it into the water,” said Sinclair, “and then close the passage up?”

  “Not a bad idea. Stoop as you pass the window, in case those two are still outside.”

  And so we lifted the stone sufficiently to extricate it, and carried it down the passage to the water’s edge. More wreckage had appeared to join the chair: the place smelt and felt like a charnel-house. We toppled the poor brute in, and beat it for the house: anything was better than that dank death-trap. And then we pushed on the sixth ring and the secret door slipped back into position.

  “Thank the Lord that’s over,” said Toby with a sigh of relief. “And all I can say is that I hope in future she confines her activities to the open air.”

  Footsteps on the stairs made us step back hurriedly, but it proved to be only the other three returning.

  “What luck?” cried Drummond.

  “I think we’ve done the trick, old boy,” said Darrell. “We ran into them on the other side – a woman of repulsive aspect and a man with his hand bound up. We were running round in small circles pretending to look for you. Incidentally, what you thought was right: that passage comes out near a broken-down old ruin on the other side. There was a rusty iron door which they had presumably opened. And when we saw them we told ’em the tale. Asked them if they’d noticed the extraordinary upheaval in the lake, and enquired with the utmost agitation if they’d seen three men anywhere about. Said we’d been ghost-hunting. I don’t know if they believed us or not, but I don’t see that it matters very much if they did. We never let on by the quiver of an eyelid that we suspected them.”

  “What did they say?” said Drummond.

  “ ‘If your friends have been ghost-hunting,’ the man said, ‘I fear they’ve found a very substantial one. My wife and I were out for an early morning stroll, when we suddenly saw the upheaval in the lake. And if you will look down that passage’ – he pointed through the opening – ‘you will see the water. I fear that your friends must have inadvertently found a most dangerous piece of mechanism, which I have heard of often but never beli
eved to be really existent. Nothing more nor less, in fact, than a diabolical arrangement for flooding the whole of this underwater passage which comes out into the house on the other side. Doubtless you found the opening there.’

  “‘We did,’ I saw…registering horror and despondency.

  “‘Then if your friends have not come out that end, I very much fear they must all be drowned. For they certainly haven’t come out this.’

  “‘How dreadful!’ said the woman, and Algy made hoarse noises presumably meant to indicate grief.”

  “They were damned good,” said Algy plaintively.

  “My dear man, you sounded like a cow with an alcoholic stomach cough,” said Jerningham.

  “But what happened finally?” demanded Drummond.

  “They drifted off, and it seemed to us they were still on the look-out for something. And then it suddenly struck us what it was. It’s the other bloke: the one who is drowned down below. So we sprinted back here, in order to prevent them coming at any rate yet. As there seem to be only the two openings they’re almost bound to come and examine this end as soon as we are gone. And it was going to mess things up a bit if they found all you three here. So what I suggest is this. You three must go to ground in real earnest somewhere. And you must wait until we give you the all clear – in a day or two or perhaps a week.”

  “Go to blazes,” said Drummond.

  “We in the meanwhile will go and drown our sorrows in beer, and later on we’ll bring you the corks to smell. We’ll also get a copy of The Times, and then will come the problem of smuggling you out of this house unseen. We’ll have to discuss that later.”

  “Right you are, Peter,” said Drummond. “You’ve about hit it. Incidentally, where shall we go to ground?”

  He glanced round, and finally stared at the ceiling.

  “That seems to me to be the best spot,” he remarked thoughtfully. “We know it can be inhabited because that bird was up there. And if those two come we might be able to hear something. Only how the deuce do we get up there? A chair on the top of the table and I might reach.”