Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 100

With a little gesture of despair, Quest turned away from the instrument which seemed suddenly to have become so terribly unresponsive, and looked across the vista of square roofs and tangled masses of telephone wires to where the lights of larger New York flared up against the sky. From his attic chamber, the roar of the City a few blocks away was always in his ears. He had forgotten in those hours of frenzied solitude to fear for his own safety. He thought only of Lenora. Under which one of those thousands of roofs was she being concealed? What was the reason for this continued silence? Perhaps they had taken her instrument away—perhaps she was being ill-used. The bare thought opened the door to a thousand grim and torturing surmises. He paced restlessly up and down the room. Inaction had never seemed to him so wearisome. From sheer craving to be doing something, he paused once more before the little instrument.

“Lenora, where are you?” he signalled. “I have taken a lodging in the Servants’ Club. I am still in hiding, hoping that Craig may come here. I am very anxious about you.”

Still no reply! Quest drew a chair up to the window and sat there with folded arms looking down into the street. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. The instrument quivered—there was a message at last! He took it down with a little choke of relief.

“I don’t know where I am. I am terrified. I was outside the garage when I was seized from behind. The Hands held me. I was unconscious until I found myself here. I am now in an attic room with no window except the skylight, which I cannot reach. I can see nothing—hear nothing. No one has hurt me, no one comes near. Food is pushed through a door, which is locked again immediately. The house seems empty, yet I fancy that I am being watched all the time. I am terrified!”

Quest drew the instrument towards him.

“I have your message,” he signalled. “Be brave! I am watching for Craig. Through him I shall reach you before long. Send me a message every now and then.”

Then there was a silence.

Quest was conscious of an enormous feeling of relief and yet an almost maddening sense of helplessness. She was imprisoned by the Hands. She was in their power, and up till now they had shown themselves ruthless enough. A room with a roof window only! How could she define her whereabouts! His first impulse was to rush madly out into the street and search for her. Then his common sense intervened. His one hope was through Craig. Again he took up his vigil in front of the window. Once more his eyes swept the narrow street with its constant stream of passers-by. Each time a man stopped and entered the building, he leaned a little further forward, and at each disappointment he seemed to realise a little more completely the slenderness of the chance upon which he was staking so much. Then suddenly he found himself gripping the window-sill in a momentary thrill of rare excitement. His vigil was rewarded at last. The man for whom he was waiting was there! Quest watched him cross the street, glance furtively to the right and to the left, then enter the club. He turned back to the little wireless and his fingers worked as though inspired.

“I am on Craig’s track,” he signalled. “Be brave.”

He waited for no reply, but opened the door and stealing softly out of the room, leaned over the banisters. His apartment was on the fourth story. The floor below was almost entirely occupied by the kitchen and other offices. The men’s club room was on the second floor. From where he stood he heard the steward of the club greeting Craig. He was a big man with a hearty voice, and the sound of his words reached Quest distinctly.

“Say, Mr. Craig, you’re an authority on South America, aren’t you? I bought some beans in the market this morning which they told me were grown down there, and my chef don’t seem to know what to make of ’em. I wonder whether you would mind stepping up and giving him your advice?”

Craig’s much lower voice was inaudible but it was evident that he had consented, for the two men ascended to the third floor together. Quest watched them enter the kitchen. A moment or two later the steward was summoned by a messenger and descended alone. Quest ran quickly down the stairs and planted himself behind the kitchen door. He had hardly taken up his position before the handle was turned. He heard Craig’s last words, spoken as he looked over his shoulder.

“You want to just soak them for two hours longer than any other beans in the world. That’s all there is about it.”

Craig appeared and the door swung back behind him. Before he could utter a cry, Quest’s left hand was over his mouth and the cold muzzle of an automatic pistol was pressed to his ribs.

“Turn round and mount those stairs, Craig,” Quest ordered.

The man shrunk away, trembling. The pistol pressed a little further into his side.

“Upstairs,” Quest repeated firmly. “If you utter a cry I shall shoot you.”

Craig turned slowly round and obeyed. He mounted the stairs with reluctant footsteps, followed by Quest.

“Through the door to your right,” the latter directed. “That’s right! Now sit down in that chair facing me.”

Quest closed the door carefully. Craig sat where he had been ordered, his fingers gripping the arms of the chair. In his eyes shone the furtive, terrified light of the trapped criminal.

Quest looked him over a little scornfully. It was queer that a man with apparently so little nerve should have the art and the daring to plan such exploits.

“What do you want with me?” Craig asked doggedly.

“First of all,” Quest replied, “I want to know what you have done with my assistant, the girl whom you carried off from the Professor’s garage.”

Craig shook his head.

“I know nothing about her.”

“She locked you in the garage,” Quest continued, “and sent for me. When I arrived, I found the garage door open, Lenora gone and you a fugitive.”

Bewilderment struggled for a moment with blank terror in Craig’s expression.

“How do you know that she locked me in the garage?”

Quest smiled, stretched out his right arm and his long fingers played softly with the pocket wireless.

“In just the same way,” he explained, “that I am sending her this message at the present moment—a message which she will receive and understand wherever she is hidden. Would you like to know what I am telling her?”

The man shivered. His eyes, as though fascinated, watched the little instrument.

“I am saying this, Craig,” Quest continued. “Craig is here and in my power. He is sitting within a few feet of me and will not leave this room alive until he has told me your whereabouts. Keep up your courage, Lenora. You shall be free in an hour.”

The trapped man looked away from the instrument into Quest’s face. There was a momentary flicker of something that might have passed for courage in his tone.

“Mr. Quest,” he said, “you are a wonderful man, but there are limits to your power. You can tear my tongue from my mouth but you cannot force me to speak a word.”

Quest leaned a little further forward in his chair, his gaze became more concentrated.

“That is where you are wrong, Craig. That is where you make a mistake. In a very few minutes you will be telling me all the secrets of your heart.”

Craig shivered, drew back a little in his chair, tried to rise and fell back again helpless.

“My God!” he cried. “Leave me alone!”

“When you have told me the truth,” Quest answered, swiftly, “and you will tell me all I want to know in a few moments…. Your eyelids are getting a little heavy, Craig. Don’t resist. Something which is like sleep is coming over you. You see my will has yours by the throat.”

Craig seemed suddenly to collapse altogether. He fell over on one side. Every atom of colour had faded from his cheeks. Quest leaned over him with a frown. The man was in a stupor without a doubt, but it was a physical state of unconsciousness into which he had subsided. He felt his pulse, unbuttoned his coat, and listened for a moment to the beating of his heart. Then he crossed the room, fetched the pitcher of water and dashed some of its contents in Craig’s face. In a few moments the man opened his eyes and regained consciousness. His appearance, however, was still ghastly.

“Where am I?” he murmured.

“You are here in my room, at the Servants’ Club,” Quest replied. “You are just about to tell me where I shall find Lenora.”

Craig shook his head. A very weak smile of triumph flickered for a moment at the corners of his lips.

“Your torture chamber trick won’t work on me!” he exclaimed. “You can never—”

The whole gamut of emotions seemed already to have spent themselves in the man’s face, but at that moment there was a new element, an element of terrified curiosity in the expression of his eyes as he stared towards the door.

“Is this another trick of yours?” he muttered.

Quest, too, turned his head and sprang instantly to his feet. From underneath the door came a little puff of smoke. There was a queer sense of heat of which both men were simultaneously conscious. Down in the street arose a chorus of warning shouts, increasing momentarily in volume. Quest threw open the door and closed it again at once.

“The place is on fire,” he announced briefly. “Pull yourself together, man. We shall have all we can do to get out of this.”

Craig turned to the door but staggered back almost immediately.

“The stairs are going!” he shrieked. “It is the kitchen that is on fire. We are cut off! We cannot get down!”

Quest was on his hands and knees, fumbling under his truckle bed. He pulled out a crude form of fire escape, a rough sort of cradle with a rope attached.

“Know how to use this?” he asked Craig quickly. “Here, catch hold. Put your arms inside this strap.”

“You are going to send me down first?” Craig exclaimed incredulously.

Quest smiled. Then he drew the rope round the table and tied it.

“You would like to have a chance of cutting the rope, wouldn’t you, when I was half way down?” he asked grimly. “Now then, don’t waste time. Get on to the window-sill. Don’t brake too much. Off you go!”

Yard by yard, swinging a little in the air, Craig made his descent. When he arrived in the street, there were a hundred willing hands to release him. Quest drew up the rope quickly, warned by a roar of anxious voices. The walls of the room were crumbling. Volumes of smoke were now pouring in underneath the door, and through the yawning fissures of the wall. Little tongues of flame were leaping out dangerously close to the spot where he must pass. He let fall the slack of the rope and leaned from the window to watch it anxiously. Then he commenced to descend, letting himself down hand over hand, always with one eye upon that length of rope that swung below. Suddenly, as he reached the second floor, a little cry from the crowd warned him of what had happened. Tongues of flame curling out from the blazing building, had caught the rope, which was being burned through not a dozen feet away from him. He descended a little further and paused in mid-air.

A shout from the crowd reached him.

“The cables! Try the cables!”

He glanced round. Seven or eight feet away, and almost level with him was a double row of telegraph wires. Almost as he saw them the rope below him burned through and fell to the ground. He swung a little towards the side of the house, pushed himself vigorously away from it with his feet, and at the farthest point of the outward swing, jumped. His hands gripped the telegraph wires safely. Even in that tense moment he heard a little sob of relief from the people below.

Hand over hand he made his way to the nearest pole and slipped easily to the ground. The crowd immediately surged around him. Some one forced a drink into his hand. A chorus of congratulations fell upon his deafened ears. Then the coming of the fire engines, and the approach of a police automobile diverted the attention of the on-lookers. Quest slipped about amongst them, searching for Craig.

“Where is the man who came down before me?” he asked a bystander.

“Talking to the police in the car over yonder,” was the hoarse reply. “Say, Guv’nor, you only just made that!”

Quest pushed his way through the crowd to where Craig was speaking eagerly to Inspector French. He stopped short and stooped down. He was near enough to hear the former’s words.

“Mr. French, you saw that man come down the rope and swing on to the cables? That was Quest, Sanford Quest, the man who escaped from the Tombs prison. He can’t have got away yet.”

Quest drew off his coat, turned it inside out, and replaced it swiftly. He coolly picked up a hat some one had lost in the crowd and pulled it over his eyes. He passed within a few feet of where Craig and the Inspector were talking.

“He was hiding in the Servants’ Club,” Craig continued, “he had just threatened to shoot me when the fire broke out.”

“I’ll send the word round,” French declared. “We’ll have him found, right enough.”

For a single moment Quest hesitated. He had a wild impulse to take Craig by the neck and throw him back into the burning house. Then he heard French shout to his men.

“Say, boys, Sanford Quest is in the crowd here somewhere. He’s the man who jumped on to the cable lines. A hundred dollars for his arrest!”

Quest turned reluctantly away. Men were rushing about in all directions looking for him. He forced a passage through the crowd and in the general confusion he passed the little line of police without difficulty. His face darkened as he looked behind at the burning block. A peculiar sense of helplessness oppressed him. His pocket wireless was by now a charred heap of ashes. His one means of communication with Lenora was gone and the only man who knew her whereabouts was safe under the protection of the police.