Читать книгу Tales of Mystery & Suspense: 25+ Thrillers in One Edition - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 98

Craig’s surprise was real enough as he opened the back door of the Professor’s house on the following morning and found Lenora standing on the threshold.

“I am very sorry, Miss Lenora,” he apologised. “The front door bell must be out of order. I certainly didn’t hear it ring. Mr. Ashleigh is in his study, if you wish to see him.”

Lenora smiled pleasantly.

“To tell you the truth,” she said, “I really do not want to see him,—at least, not just yet. I came to this door because I wanted a little talk with you.”

Craig’s attitude was perfect. He was mystified, but he remained respectful.

“Will you come inside?” he invited.

She shook her head.

“I am afraid,” she confided, “of what I am going to say being overheard. Come with me down to the garage for a moment.”

She pointed to the wooden building which stood about fifty yards away from the house. Craig hesitated.

“If you wish it, miss,” he assented doubtfully. “I will get the keys.”

He disappeared for a moment and came out again almost immediately afterwards with a bunch of keys in his hand. He seemed a little disturbed.

“I am doing as you wish, Miss Lenora,” he said, “but there is nobody about here likely to overhear, and I have no secrets from my master.”

“Perhaps not,” Lenora replied, “but I have. The Professor is a dear,” she added hastily, “but he is too wrapped up in his scientific work to be able to see things like men of ordinary common-sense.”

“That is quite true,” Craig admitted. “Mr. Ashleigh has only one idea in his life…. This way, then, if you please, miss.”

He opened the door of the garage, leaving the keys in the lock, and they both passed inside. The place was gloomy and lit only by a single narrow window near the roof. The only vehicle it contained was the Professor’s little car.

“You can say what you please here without the slightest fear of being overheard, miss,” Craig remarked.

Lenora nodded, and breathed a prayer to herself. She was nearer the door than Craig by about half-a-dozen paces. Her hand groped in the little bag she was carrying and gripped something hard. She clenched her teeth for a moment. Then the automatic pistol flashed out through the gloom.

“Craig,” she threatened, “if you move I shall shoot you.”

It seemed as though the man were a coward. He began to tremble, his lips twitched, his eyes grew larger and rounder.

“What is it?” he faltered. “What do you want?”

“Just this,” Lenora said firmly. “I suspect you to be guilty of the crime for which Sanford Quest is in prison. I am going to have you questioned. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear. If you are guilty, there will be some one here before long who will extract the truth from you.”

The man’s face was an epitome of terror. Even his knees shook. Lenora felt herself grow calmer with every moment.

“I am going outside to send a message,” she told him. “I shall return presently.”

“Don’t go,” he begged suddenly. “Don’t leave me!”

She turned around.

“Why not?”

He drew a step nearer. Once more the few inches of blue steel flashed out between them.

“None of your games,” she warned him. “I am in earnest, and I am not afraid to shoot.”

“I won’t come any nearer,” he promised, “but listen! I am innocent—I have done nothing wrong. If you keep me here, you will do more harm than you can dream of.”

“It is for other people to decide about your innocence,” Lenora said calmly. “I have nothing to do with that. If you are wise, you will stop here quietly.”

“Have you said anything to Mr. Ashleigh, miss?” the man asked piteously.

“Not a word.”

An expression of relief shone for a moment upon his face. Lenora pointed to a stool.

“Sit down there and wait quietly,” she ordered.

He obeyed without a word. She left the place, locked the door securely, and made her way round to the other side of the garage—the side hidden from the house. Here, at the far corner, she drew a little pocket wireless from her bag and set it on the window-sill. Very slowly she sent her message,—

“I have Craig here in the Professor’s garage, locked up. If our plan has succeeded, come at once. I am waiting here for you.”

There was no reply. She sent the message again and again. Suddenly, during a pause, there was a little flash upon the plate. A message was coming to her. She transcribed it with beating heart:

“O.K. Coming.”

The guard swung open the wicket in front of Quest’s cell.

“Young woman to see you, Quest,” he announced. “Ten minutes, and no loud talking, please.”

Quest moved to the bars. It was Laura who stood there. She wasted very little time in preliminaries. Having satisfied herself that the guard was out of hearing, she leaned as close as she could to Quest.

“Look here,” she said, “Lenora’s crazy with the idea that Craig has done these jobs—Craig, the Professor’s servant, you know. We used the phototelesme yesterday afternoon and saw him burn something in the Professor’s study. Lenora went up straight away and got hold of the ashes.”

“Smart girl,” Quest murmured, nodding approvingly. “Well?”

“There are distinct fragments,” Laura continued, “of embroidered stuff such as the Salvation Army girl might have been wearing. We put them on one side, but they aren’t enough evidence. Lenora’s idea is that you should try and get hold of Craig and hypnotise him into a confession.”

“That’s all right,” Quest replied, “but how am I to get hold of him?”

Laura glanced once more carelessly around to where the guard stood.

“Lenora’s gone up to the Professor’s again this afternoon. She is going to try and get hold of Craig and lock him in the garage. If she succeeds, she will send a message by wireless at three o’clock. It is half-past two now.”

“Well?” Quest exclaimed. “Well?”

“You can work this guard, if you want to,” Laura went on. “I have seen you tackle much worse cases. He seems dead easy. Then let me in the cell, take my clothes and leave me here. You did it before when you were trying to hunt down those men in Chicago, and not a soul recognised you.”

Quest followed the scheme in his mind quickly.

“It is all right,” he decided, “but I am not at all sure that they can really hold me on the evidence they have got. If they can’t, I shall be doing myself more harm than good this way.”

“It’s no use unless you can get hold of Craig quickly,” Laura said. “He is getting the scares, as it is.”

“I’ll do it,” Quest decided. “Call the guard, Laura.”

She obeyed. The man came good-naturedly towards them.

“Well, young people, not quarrelling, I hope?” he remarked.

Quest looked at him steadfastly through the bars.

“I want you to come inside for a moment,” he said.

“What for?” the man demanded.

“I want you to come inside for a moment,” Quest repeated softly. “Unlock the door, please, take the key off your bunch and come inside.”

The man hesitated, but all the time his fingers were fumbling with the keys. Quest’s lips continued to move. The warder opened the door and entered. A few minutes later, Quest passed the key through the window to Laura, who was standing on guard.

“Come in,” he whispered. “Don’t step over him. He is sitting with his back to the wall, just inside.”

Laura obeyed, and entered the cell. For a moment they were breathless with alarm. A passing warder looked down their avenue. Eventually, however, he turned in the other direction.

“Off with your coat and skirt like lightning, Laura,” Quest ordered. “This has got to be done quickly or not at all.”

Without a word, and with marvellous rapidity, the change was effected. Laura produced from her hand-bag a wig, which she pinned inside her hat and passed over to Quest. Then she flung herself on to the bed and drew the blanket up to her chin.

“How long will he stay like that?” she whispered, pointing to the warder, who was sitting on the floor with his arms folded and his eyes closed.

“Half an hour or so,” Quest answered. “Don’t bother about him. I shall drop the key back through the window.”

A moment or two later, Quest walked deliberately down the corridor of the prison, crossed the pavement and stepped into a taxicab. He reached Georgia Square at five minutes to three. A glance up and down assured him that the house was unwatched. He let himself in with his own key and laughed softly as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. The house was strangely quiet and deserted, but he wasted no time in looking around. He ran quickly upstairs, paused in his sitting-room only to take a cigar from the cabinet, passed on to the bedroom, threw Laura’s clothes off, and, after a few moments’ hesitation, selected from the wardrobe a rough tweed suit with a thick lining and lapels. Just as he was tying his tie, the little wireless which he had laid on the table at his side began to record the message. He glanced at the clock. It was exactly three.

“I have Craig here in the Professor’s garage, locked up. If our plan has succeeded, come at once. I am waiting here for you.”

Quest’s eyes shone for a moment with satisfaction. Then he sent off his answering message, put on a duster and slouch hat, and left the house by the side entrance. In a few moments he was in Broadway, and a quarter of an hour later a taxicab deposited him at the entrance to the Professor’s house. He walked swiftly up the drive and turned towards the garage, hoping every moment to see something of Lenora. The door of the place stood open. He entered and walked around. It was empty. There was no sign of either Craig or Lenora!…

Quest, recovered from his first disappointment, stole carefully out and made a minute examination of the place. Close to the corner from which Lenora had sent her wireless message to him, he stooped and picked up a handkerchief, which from the marking he recognised at once. A few feet away, the gravel was disturbed as though by the trampling of several feet. He set his teeth. For a single moment his own danger was forgotten. A feeling which he utterly failed to recognise robbed him of his indomitable nerve. He realised with vivid but scarcely displeasing potency a weakness in the armour of his complete self-control.

“I’ve got to find that girl,” he muttered. “Craig can go to hell!”

He turned away and approached the house. The front door stood open and he made his way at once to the library. The Professor, who was sitting at his desk surrounded by a pile of books and papers, addressed him, as he entered, without looking up.

“Where on earth have you been, Craig?” he enquired petulantly. “I have rung for you six times. Have I not told you never to leave the place without orders?”

“It is not Craig,” Quest replied quietly. “It is I, Professor—Sanford Quest.”

The Professor swung round in his chair and eyed his visitor in blank astonishment.

“Quest?” he exclaimed. “God bless my soul! Have they let you out already, then?”

“I came out,” Quest replied grimly. “Sit down and listen to me for a moment, will you?”

“You came out?” the Professor repeated, looking a little dazed. “You mean that you escaped?”

Quest nodded.

“Perhaps I made a mistake,” he admitted, “but here I am. Now listen, Professor. I know this will be painful to you, but give me your best attention for a few minutes. These young women assistants of mine have formed a theory of their own about the murder in my flat and the robbery of the jewels. Hold on to your chair, Professor. They believe that the guilty person was Craig.”

The Professor’s face was almost pitiful in its blank amazement. His mouth was wide open like a child’s, words seemed absolutely denied to him.

“That’s their theory,” Quest went on. “They may be right or they may be wrong—Lenora, at any rate, has collected some shreds of evidence. They hatched a scheme between them, clever enough in its way. They locked Craig up in your garage and got me out of the Tombs in Laura’s clothes. I have come straight up to find your garage open and Lenora missing.”

The Professor rose to his feet, obviously making a tremendous effort to adjust his ideas.

“Craig locked up in my garage?” he murmured. “Craig guilty of those murders? Why, my dear Mr. Quest, a more harmless, a more inoffensive, peace-loving and devoted servant than John Craig never trod this earth!”

“Maybe,” Quest replied, “but come out here, Mr. Ashleigh.”

The Professor followed his companion out to the garage. Quest showed him the open door and the marks of footsteps around where he had picked up the handkerchief.

“Now,” he said, “what has become of your man Craig, and what has become of my assistant Lenora?”

“Perhaps we had better search the house,” the Professor suggested. “Craig? My dear Mr. Quest, you little know—”

“Where is he, then?” Quest interrupted.

The Professor could do nothing but look around him a little vaguely. Together they went back to the house and searched it without result. Then they returned once more to the garage.

“I am going back,” Quest announced. “My only chance is the wireless. If Lenora is alive or at liberty, she will communicate with me.”

“May I come, too?” the Professor asked timidly. “This matter has upset me thoroughly. I cannot stay here without Craig.”

“Come, by all means,” Quest assented. “I will drive you down in your car, if you like.”

The Professor hurried away to get his coat and hat, and a few minutes later they started off. In Broadway, they left the car at a garage and made their way up a back street, which enabled them to enter the house at the side entrance. They passed upstairs into the sitting-room. Quest fetched the pocket wireless and laid it down on the table. The Professor examined it with interest.

“You are marvellous, my friend,” he declared. “With all these resources of science at your command, it seems incredible that you should be in the position you are.”

Quest nodded coolly.

“I’ll get out of that all right,” he asserted confidently. “The only trouble is that while I am dodging about like this I cannot devote myself properly to the task of running down this fiend of the Hands. Just one moment, Professor, while I send off a message,” he continued, opening the little instrument. “Where are you, Lenora?” he signalled. “Send me word and I will fetch you. I am in my own house for the present. Let me know that you are safe.”

The Professor leaned back, smoking one of Quest’s excellent cigars. He was beginning to show signs of the liveliest interest.

QUEST AND LAURA CHANGE CLOTHES SO THAT QUEST MAY MAKE HIS ESCAPE.

ONE OF THE CLUB’S BUTLERS TURNS IN A FIRE ALARM.

“Quest,” he said, “I wish I could induce you to dismiss this extraordinary supposition of yours concerning my servant Craig. The man has been with me for the best part of twenty years. He saved my life in South America; we have travelled in all parts of the world. He has proved himself to be exemplary, a faithful and devoted servant. I thought it absurd, Mr. Quest, when you were suspected of these crimes. I should think it even more ridiculous to associate Craig with them in any way whatever.”

“Then perhaps you will tell me,” Quest suggested, “where he is now, and why he has gone away? That does not look like complete innocence, does it?”

The Professor sighed.

“Appearances are nothing,” he declared. “Craig is a man of highly nervous susceptibilities. The very idea of being suspected of anything so terrible would be enough to drive him almost out of his mind. I am convinced that we shall find him at home presently, with some reasonable explanation of his absence.”

Quest paced the room for a few moments, moodily.

There was a certain amount of reason in the Professor’s point of view.

“Anyway, I cannot stay here much longer, unless I mean to go back to the Tombs,” he declared.

“Surely,” the Professor suggested, “your innocence will very soon be established?”

“There is one thing which will happen, without a doubt,” Quest replied. “My auto and the chauffeur will be discovered. I have insisted upon enquiries being sent out throughout the State of Connecticut. They tell me, too, that the police are hard on the scent of Red Gallagher and the other man. Unless they get wind of this and sell me purposely, their arrest will be the end of my troubles. To tell you the truth, Professor,” Quest concluded, “it is not of myself I am thinking at all just now. It is Lenora.”

The Professor nodded sympathetically.

“The young lady who shut Craig up in the garage, you mean? A plucky young woman she must be.”

“She has a great many other good qualities besides courage,” Quest declared. “Women have not counted for much with me, Professor, up till now, any more than they have done, I should think, with you, but I tell you frankly, if any one has hurt a hair of that girl’s head I will have their lives, whatever the penalty may be! It is for her sake—to find her—that I broke out of prison and that I am trying to keep free. The wisest thing to do, from my own point of view, would be to give myself up. I can’t bring myself to do that without knowing what has become of her.”

The Professor nodded again.

“A charming and well-bred young woman she seems,” he admitted. “I fear that I should only be a bungler in your profession, Mr. Quest, but if there is anything I can do to help you to discover her whereabouts, you can count upon me. Personally, I am convinced that Craig will return to me with some plausible explanation as to what has happened. In that case he will doubtless bring news of the young lady.”

Quest, for the third or fourth time, moved cautiously towards the window. His expression suddenly changed. He glanced downwards, frowning slightly. An alert light flashed into his eyes.

“They’re after me!” he exclaimed. “Sit still, Professor.”

He darted into his room and reappeared again almost immediately. The Professor gave a gasp of astonishment at his altered appearance. His tweed suit seemed to have been turned inside out. There were no lapels now and it was buttoned up to his neck. He wore a long white apron; a peaked cap and a chin-piece of astonishing naturalness had transformed him into the semblance of a Dutch grocer’s boy.

“I’m off, Professor,” Quest whispered. “You shall hear from me soon. I have not been here, remember!”

He ran lightly down the steps and into the kitchen, picked up a basket, filled it haphazard with vegetables and threw a cloth over the top. Then he made his way to the front door, peered out for a moment, swung through it on to the step, and, turning round, commenced to belabour it with his fist. Two plain-clothes men stood at the end of the street. A police automobile drew up outside the gate. Inspector French, attended by a policeman, stepped out. The former looked searchingly at Quest.

“Well, my boy, what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I cannot answer get,” Quest replied, in broken English. “Ten minutes already have I wasted. I have knocked at all the doors.”

French smiled.

“You can hop it, Dutchie,” he advised. “By-the-bye, when was that order for vegetables given?” he added, frowning for a moment.

“It is three times a week the same,” Quest explained, whipping the cloth from the basket. “No word has been sent to alter anything.”

The Inspector pushed him hurriedly in the direction of the street.

“You run along home,” he said, “and tell your master that he had better leave off delivering goods here for the present.”

Quest went off, grumbling. He walked with the peculiar waddle affected by young Dutchmen of a certain class, and was soon out of sight round the corner of the street. French opened the door with a masterkey and secured it carefully, leaving one of his men to guard it. He searched the rooms on the ground floor and finally ascended to Quest’s study. The Professor was still enjoying his cigar.

“Say, where’s Quest?” the Inspector asked promptly.

“Have you let him out already?” the Professor replied, in a tone of mild surprise. “I thought he was in the Tombs prison.”

The Inspector pressed on without answering. Every room in the house was ransacked. Presently he came back to the room where the Professor was still sitting. His usually good-humoured face was a little clouded.

“Professor,” he began—“What’s that, Miles?”

A plain-clothes man from the street had come hurrying into the room.

“Say, Mr. French,” he reported, “our fellows have got hold of a newsie down in the street, who was coming along way round the back and saw two men enter this house by the side entrance, half-an-hour ago. One he described exactly as the Professor here. The other, without a doubt, was Quest.”

French turned swiftly towards the Professor.

“You hear what this man says?” he exclaimed. “Mr. Ashleigh, you’re fooling me! You entered this house with Sanford Quest. You must tell us where he is hiding.”

The Professor knocked the ash from his cigar and replaced it in his mouth. His clasped hands rested in front of him. There was a twinkle of something almost like mirth in his eyes as he glanced up at the Inspector.

“Mr. French,” he said, “Mr. Sanford Quest is my friend. I am here in charge of his house. Believing as I do that his arrest was an egregious blunder, I shall say or do nothing likely to afford you any information.”

French turned impatiently away. Suddenly a light broke in upon him, he rushed towards the door.

“That damned Dutchie!” he exclaimed.

The Professor smiled benignly.