“You are facing the wood.”
Jute shut his eyes.
“I turn to the right,” he said, “and go as far as the tower. Then I turn again and walk along by the wall. At the end of that I come to another tower. There’s a door there.”
“In the tower?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“You go through that and down steps till you come to a hall. Cross this to the door in front. That leads you into a room out of which runs a flight of stairs.”
“Yes.”
“Go down them, and they’ll bring you into her room.”
“Or the chapel?” said Mansel quietly.
Jute started violently. Then he glared at Mansel, with a working face.
“That’s one lie,” said Mansel.
Jute let himself go.
Out of a foam of imprecation odd sentences thrust, like timbers plunging in a flood.
“I’ll see you, you one-legged — . . . Put it over, you movie king . . . When next I meet you, I’ll cut my name on your back . . . We’ve got the goods, and, by — , we’ll make you sweat . . . ‘Cut flowers’ won’t be in it . . . I’ll make you covet the day you played me up.”
Mansel put his pipe in his pocket and rose to his feet.
“You refuse to answer?”
A beastly light slid into Jute’s bloodshot eyes.
“My answer’s here,” he said, glancing down at his coat. “You were to have had it to-night, but, if you’re not too ‘pressed for time,’ perhaps you’ll look at it now.”
To this day I cannot tell what possessed the man.
I suppose he could not forgive Mansel for beating him at his own game; the thought that all the antics of Hannibal Rouse had been gravely accepted at exactly their proper worth, the memory of the trap into which he had so readily rushed and the bitter reception which he had met at Gath had, I think, inspired a hatred which knew no law. And now to be again confounded, outwitted and scornfully reduced had sent the blood to his head.
“What do you mean?” said Mansel.
“Try my inside pocket,” said Jute.
At a nod from Mansel I stepped to the fellow’s side and took a bulging envelope out of his coat.
“That’s my answer,” said Jute, “to all your back-chat to-day. And, between you and me, Big Willie, I guess it’s pretty complete.”
Mansel ripped open the paper and took out a white silk blouse . . . ,
I thought he would never move.
After a long time, very slowly he lifted his head.
“Call the servants,” he said, “and put the gag in his mouth.”
He spoke so low that I scarcely heard what he said; but, with his words, I knew that Jute’s hour was come.
For a moment the glade seemed misty, and my knees loose. Then my head cleared.
I saw Jute’s eyes follow Hanbury, as he stepped to the oak; then his gaze flashed to me, as I picked up the cotton waste. When I approached, he recoiled.
Sharply he looked at Mansel, and caught his breath.
“You—you’d never dare,” he said hoarsely.
At last we had the gag in his mouth . . .
“This man,” said Mansel, “is engaged in one of the vilest crimes. In his lust for money he is not content to play even that filthy game according to its filthy rules.” He held up the blouse. “He is trying to win by taking Mrs. Pleydell’s clothes from her back and advertising that outrage to make me throw in my hand. I do not think that a man who does that is fit to live.”
His eyes bulging out of his head, Jute fell upon his knees.
Mansel turned to Hanbury and me.
“You will return to the cars and wait there until I send.”
We did as he said.
Two hours later, Rowley brought us back to the dell.
Mansel was sitting smoking, with a distant look in his eyes; as he worked, jacketing a crow-bar, Carson was whistling to himself; Bell was wiping a spade with a handful of grass.
The contented mien of the servants, if nothing else, showed that the world was the cleaner.
By half past one the next morning all of us, except Bell, were standing upon the roof of the Castle of Gath.
The night was starlit, but the moon had set.
Each of us carried a knife as well as a pistol and wore a coil of rope, like a sash. Bell was at the foot of the ladders, with a signal-cord in his hand, and Tester was back in the wood, guarding the cars.
The castle was built four-square, as college buildings, about a great courtyard. Its roof was flat and paved and so made a spacious rampart, which the battlements fenced upon one hand and a massive balustrade upon the other.
Indeed, standing there in the starlight, we seemed to be upon some ectype of the walls of Babylon, upon which, if I rightly remember, six chariots could be driven abreast.
Peering between the balusters, I could see the ripple of the water of which the bookseller had written and could hear it fall out of the basin on its way to the terrace and the cliff.
Now the basin was our first objective; and, since a rope provides the most silent path, we let one fall to the courtyard, and Carson and I went down.
We gained the basin and passed to the channel it fed. This was ten inches deep, and its floor was as smooth as glass. I followed the channel along till I came to the arch. This was shut by a gate, beneath which the water flowed. The gate was of iron and exactly fitted the arch; a man might have lain in the channel and crawled underneath, but, no doubt to foil such cunning, the channel was barred with a grating, through which the water fussed. I tested the bars and found them firm as rock.
I made my way back to Carson, and together we sought the rope down which we had come. Upon this Carson pulled twice, when a hundredweight of fine rope was lowered into our arms. We carried this to the grating and laid it down. To its end were attached three floats weighted with lead. With these in my hand, I thrust my arm under the grating as far as I could. Then I released them, and Carson paid out the rope. Now if there was another grating, this would arrest the floats; but, if there was not, the floats would leap with the water and carry the rope down the cliff. With a hand on the sliding rope, I waited for the check. But none came; only a sudden pull told us that the floats had leapt. There were eight hundred feet of cord, and, when we had paid them all out, we returned for more. Six hundred feet more we lowered, and that was as much as we had. The end we made fast to the grating below the water line. Then we went back to the rope down which we had come, and at a signal the others pulled us up.
Whatever the night might bring forth, we had taken at least one trick; for, though this time we might fail to release Adèle, we had now a way up to the terrace which the enemy would not dream of and a desperate man might take.
We were now beneath the shadow of the tower to the right of the gateway as you came from the wood; the south-west tower, from which Adèle had signalled, lay the length of the castle away.
So far as we knew, there were two ways into that tower from the open air—one by the roof and another by the steps from the terrace upon which we had seen Adèle. The windows which lighted the tower were not to be reached, and the conical roof of the tower gave us no hope. And, since the way by the roof was plainly the first to try, we began to steal over the pavement, one by one.
Mansel went first; the rest of us followed, at one-minute intervals. Only Rowley stood fast, with a signal cord in each hand.
I had gone most of the way, when I felt a hand on my arm.
At once I stopped, and Hanbury, who was before me, spoke in my ear.
“There’s an alarm-cord, knee-high, two paces from where you stand. Tell Carson and then come on.”
He left me to wait for Carson and disappeared.
I was desperately afraid of fouling the cord, so I went on my stomach until the danger was past. I afterwards found that the others had done the same.
Mansel and Hanbury were waiting, when I came to the tower. And, as we had expected
, the was a door . . . .
The door was of wood, very massive and studded with iron. It was shut and locked, or bolted, upon the other side. Whether we could have forced it, I do not know; but Jack Sheppard himself could not have had it open without making noise enough to awaken the dead.
And there, of course, was our principal handicap.
The door of Adèle’s apartment was sure to be locked; but that we were ready to force, no matter what noise we made; until, however, we were standing without her door, we dared make no manner of sound, for, the instant the alarm was raised, Rose Noble was certain to fly to his prisoner’s side and, if he was there before us, to put her life in the balance against our further advance.
There was nothing to be done but to try the terrace steps.
In silence we passed to the battlements, and from there looked down upon the terrace and the sliding ribbon of water that cut it in two. It was quieter here than in the courtyard, where the four walls gave back sound; the steady rustle of the cascade was only just to be heard.
In a moment a rope was dangling, and Mansel and George went down.
That the steps would offer an entrance we had great hope, for the bookseller’s guide had said nothing of any door, but only that the steps led out of the “gallery of stone.”
Carson and I stood like statues, he holding the signal cord and I with the rope in my hand.
Two gentle pulls from below told us to take the strain, and a moment later Hanbury was by our side.
He put his lips to my ear.
“There’s a door at the top of the steps—locked. Mansel’s reconnoitring the terrace and then coming up.”
I confess that my spirits sank.
To enter by some window seemed now the only way; and we had already decided that, if we were put to such a shift, we must essay some window that looked upon the terrace below. What windows looked into the courtyard we neither knew nor cared, for anyone at work in the courtyard would be working in a four- walled trap and could be observed and commanded from any side.
Now the windows that looked upon the terrace were those of the royal rooms. They were not barred, because, I suppose, with guards upon the roof and in the galleries, no one could have come upon the King.
Again, that the royal apartments would be occupied was most unlikely. The caretakers might have been bribed, but they would certainly stipulate that the state rooms were not to be used. The last thing we wanted to do was to force an entrance into an occupied room.
Finally, the windows of the royal apartments had the world to themselves, for the towers which flanked the terrace were presenting two empty walls. Of no other side of the castle could the same thing be said.
Now which of the seven windows might be the best to essay we could not tell, but reason suggested that the one which was nearest Adèle should be the first to be tried. This we supposed to be serving the antechamber which admitted directly into the “gallery of stone.”
It was our belief that if we could reach the gallery we should have the control we sought, for, so far as we could determine, no one could enter the tower without passing through the gallery, unless he came down from the roof by the door which we had found shut. This belief we found to be just: the gallery was the key to the tower, and whoever held the gallery held Adèle. But one thing we did not suspect, namely, that there was a way into the gallery of which the bookseller’s guide said nothing at all.
A quarter of an hour went by before Mansel gave us the signal to hoist him up.
As he alighted, I perceived that he was drenched to the skin.
At once he drew us together and spoke very low.
“At the head of each flight of steps there’s a massive door; both doors are fast. The door at the mouth of the archway is shut and locked. I managed to pass beneath it, by lying down in the channel and working my way along. In the side of the archway I found a flight of steps—a very steep spiral staircase, that comes to a sudden end. I’m certain it serves a trap-door. If the bookseller’s guide is sound, that trap-door should be in the King’s Closet. That would be natural enough.
“We can’t go that way to-night, because the trap-door is fast. At least, I imagine it is, because I can’t move the slab I found at the top of the stairs; but, if we can enter the Closet by some other way to-night, we can unbar the trap-door, and then, when we come by the terrace, we shall have our way in. Don’t think I’ve no hope of to-night, because I have; but, if we fail this time, we shall certainly fail the next—unless we can turn this failure into a stepping-stone.”
With that he told Carson to let him have his shoes, because they were dry, and then to stand fast where he was, with the signal cord in his hand. George and I were to follow the way he went.
We moved as before, one by one, and, when again I found him, he was standing above the archway through which the water flowed.
I knew that below us was a window of three long lights.
An instant later Mansel was descending the wall.
This time we used two ropes, one fastened about him and the other down which he slid. When he jerked the one about him, we were to make this fast; and, if he should pull it five times, George was to go for Carson and they were to let me down.
Wet to the skin, clinging like a fly to the wall, with only one hand to help him, without a glimmer of light, Mansel worked upon that window for half an hour. I was kneeling directly above him, but I never heard a sound. Indeed, I could not believe that he was at work, but supposed that he had seen someone within the room and was content to watch them from where he hung. Yet all the time he was drawing the wrought-iron latch—a feat which, had he not done it, I would have put beyond the power of man.
At last the ropes trembled and then swung slack in my hands. An instant later he signalled that he was within the room.
When I came down, he swung me in like a baby and asked for my torch.
The room was stately and full of the smell of age. The floor was of polished oak; the walls were panelled head high and tapestried above. The furniture was rich and massive, but very stiff, and had been ranged in order against the walls. A heavy carpet, much smaller than the room, lay in the midst of the floor, but all the furniture stood clear upon the oak. The two doors were conspicuous, for their frames rose above the panelling and each of them was fitted with a box lock of polished steel.
With one consent we turned to the door upon our left.
Very slowly, with infinite care, Mansel drew the spring latch. At once the door yielded, and Mansel set it wide. Not until he had wedged it with a morsel of rubber did we pass on.
So we entered the King’s Bedchamber.
Not even the unjust light of the torch could deny the majesty of that room.
I never beheld a chamber so fit to lodge a king, and all the standards of greatness which the fairy-tales I read as a child had set in my heart were in a twinkling supplanted by what I saw.
The ceiling was of black oak, picked out with gold. The walls were panelled head-high; between the panels stood pilasters, picked out with gold. The carving of the panels and pilasters was very deep. Above the panelling hung tapestries, very rich in colour, presenting hunting scenes. The bedstead was four-posted: each of the posts was carved into the life-size semblance of a man-at-arms; coverlet, canopy and curtains were of what seemed to be a crimson faced cloth, very fine to look at and clearly of a great weight; all the stuffs and hangings with which the furniture was done were of the same dignity. The floor was of polished oak.
We stole across to the door in the farther wall.
This admitted us to the royal dining-room.
This chamber resembled the Closet and was of much the same size. A handsome table stood in the midst of the floor.
We wasted no time but passed on.
A moment later we stood in the antechamber.
This was small, but notable. The walls were not panelled, but covered with tapestry. Two massive, high- backed chairs were all the furniture.
&nb
sp; The door we now found before us was not at all like those through which we had come. It admitted of course to the gallery which led to the tower; and it was like a church door, that is to say, iron-studded, and Gothic in shape. A wrought-iron lock of great size was fixed upon the inside, and above this a simple latch which lad only to be lifted to be freed.
If hope could but open gates, I think this door would lave crumbled before our eyes; but hope cannot open gates, and—the door was fast.
Mansel stood very still.
At length he gave a short sigh and touched me upon he arm. A moment later we were moving the way we lad come.
When we were again in the Closet, he put his mouth to my ear.
“Take a message to Hanbury. He and Carson will bring every tool we have to the south-west tower; then they will let fall a rope to the window of the antechamber, moving it to and fro until we take hold; when we do that they will come and take up the ropes which are hanging outside this room.”
When I returned, Mansel was down on his knees by a hole in the floor. On the carpet, now drawn to one side, lay a square of polished wood. The recess which he had disclosed was floored by a grey, stone slab; this had a ring in its midst and was rudely locked into place by a pair of hasps and staples, the pins of which Mansel had withdrawn.
Gently I lifted the slab, to disclose the winding stair which led to the archway below.
“Can you hold it?” breathed Mansel.
I nodded.
At once he replaced the square of polished wood; then he laid the carpet, face downward, between my legs.
I lowered the slab.
Using the carpet as a sledge, we drew the slab into the Bedchamber and up to the King’s bed. There we transferred it to my coat, and, lifting the crimson valence, thrust it beneath the bedstead and out of sight.
To restore the carpet to its place, close the window and take the wedge from the door took but a moment of time.
Then Mansel gave me a cloth and bade me polish the woodwork where we had stepped, especially about the casement which we had used.
When I had done so, he overlooked all with the torch.
Then we stole out of the room and closed the door.
Blind Corner and Perishable Goods Page 29