Part 5 (1/2)

He smiled at my description and the laughter-lines about his mouth creased into a myriad wrinkles. ”You have them exactly,” he remarked.

”No, I haven't seen them,” I said. ”They seem to have disappeared into nothingness.”

Curiously enough the news, instead of pleasing, seemed to disappoint him. ”They evidently mean business,” he said in a semi-undertone. It seemed almost as if he was speaking his thoughts out aloud.

He glanced up at me with brooding eyes and brows drawn close together.

”We'll hear from them presently,” he murmured, ”and then the end won't be far away.”

”Cheer up,” I said hastily, ”They've got a long way to go yet, and I don't think they'll find me altogether pleasant to deal with.”

”If you knew all about it,” he said, and then he hesitated. For just the fraction of a second he trembled on the point of divulging everything, and then his old cautiousness re-a.s.serted itself and the impulse died away.

”That'll be all,” he said briskly. ”Just keep your eyes and your ears open, Jim, and, as you say, we'll beat them yet.”

But I rather fancied from his tone that he meant that last sentence the other way about.

I came awake instantly. The noise that had awakened me still echoed in my ears and, though I could not put a name to it, I could have sworn that it came from the room where Bryce did his typing. It was a very faint noise, not the kind to bring a heavy sleeper instantly awake. But my nerves work like a hair-trigger, and the almost noiseless pad of a cat across the room at night is sufficient to rouse me. What I had heard had been so faint that a less matter-of-fact man might have imagined that he had dreamt it. But I knew better. I don't dream.

The obvious thing was to slip out of bed at once and investigate. I didn't. I knew a trick worth two of that. I sat up and listened. It might be a wandering tabby that had blundered into a piece of furniture; perhaps the window had creaked; it might be any one of half a hundred things. If there was an intruder in the house I felt certain that presently I would hear something more. No man, no matter how careful he be, can move with a complete absence of sound.

Five minutes pa.s.sed, ten, a quarter of an hour. Nothing happened. And then, just as I was beginning to despair, I heard it again. It was a little plainer this time. Somebody had sc.r.a.ped a chair across the floor and it had creaked slightly.

That was more than enough for me. I slipped out of bed, but I did not hurry. Many a man with the prize almost within his grasp has lost it simply because he has rushed at it with his eyes shut. I didn't dawdle, but I said to myself, ”The more haste the less speed, Jim,” and accordingly I took my time. Of course if I had fancied that there was one chance in a hundred of the man getting away, I would have been on the spot like a shot, but I guessed from what I had heard that the visitor was in no hurry, and certainly hadn't the faintest suspicion that anyone in the house was aware of his presence. I got my clothes on somehow and took a grip of my long Colt by the barrel end. I didn't want to shoot unless there was no other way out of it, and anyway a revolver-shot kicks up such an infernal racket inside a house and brings on the scene quite a number of people who'd be better at home and in bed.

I slunk down the pa.s.sage like a shadow, walking as if I were treading on eggs. Very softly I tried the door. To my disgust it was locked. Now the only time Bryce ever locked it was when he was at work inside, so I knew that my man was still within reach. As if to make a.s.surance doubly sure I caught, as I stepped back, the faint gleam of a pencil of light from under the doorway.

The position as I summed it up was this:--The intruder had entered through the door and had quietly locked it behind him. That would have been the first noise I had heard. Then he had hunted about for whatever he wanted and, once it had been found, he had drawn the chair up to the table and settled down to a prolonged study of the matter. That would explain the two sounds. Now as my man had come in through the door he was almost certain to go out the same way and, in the interests of peace and quiet, the proper course to take was to sit down and wait until he decided to come out.

I can't say how long I waited there. It seemed like hours, but of course at the outside it could not have been many minutes. I would dearly have liked to smoke, but I rather fancied that the other man's nose would be sure to scent me out. Also a sc.r.a.pe of a match in a still house at the dead of night sounds like a bomb-explosion. So I just squatted down on my heels and cursed my man under my breath. I was in deadly fear most of the time that he would make a noise of some kind and bring the other inhabitants down about my ears. He was my meat, and I meant to eat him myself.

At length the pencil of light went out. Somebody moved stealthily across the room and the key turned softly in the lock. I balanced the gun in my hand and got ready to swing. It was pitch-dark in the hall and I could not see an inch in front of me, but I had my fingers right up against the jamb of the door and I could feel it opening. The man was breathing with a barely perceptible wheeze and, if I had not been listening for something of the kind, I might have missed it altogether. But it was quite loud enough for me to position the fellow, and the next instant I flopped out of the darkness on to him. He gave a surprised little gasp, a sort of sizzling like the air escaping out of a punctured tyre, and went down on the mat underneath me. I had taken him so completely off his guard that there was no need for me to use my gun. I got one hand on his throat in the most approved style of the garrotte and just pressed.

He wriggled a little at first, but I kept up the same even pressure, and presently he went limp. I knew then that he was harmless for the next ten minutes, so I released my hold, slipped my useless Colt into my pocket, and made to stand up. But at that precise moment the electric light in the hall went on, and a silvery voice said, ”Hands up, please!”

In the astonishment of the moment I shot my hands heavenwards and turned round to view the new arrival. It was just as I thought. Moira had blundered into my little surprise party, and she was doing her level best to annex all the honors for herself. She was standing with one hand on the light switch and the other held Bryce's automatic. Her face was very pale, and the hand that held the revolver wasn't quite as steady as I could have wished. She blinked a little at me--her eyes seemed blinded by the sudden radiance--and I don't think she recognised me for the moment, so much do one's ordinary clothes make the man.

It was clearly up to me to disillusion her and persuade her either to put down the revolver or hold it in a way less calculated to alarm the peaceful public.

”You'd better put down that infernal thing, Moira,” I said calmly, ”or you'll be doing someone damage. The mere sight of you makes me nervous, Diana.”

There was a studied insult in the last word, but I think somehow she must have missed it in the excitement of the moment, for she lowered her gun and ran towards me.

”Oh, it's you!” she cried surprisedly.

”It's me,” I said dourly, and I dropped my hands into a more convenient position. ”In fact it's so much me that I'd be obliged if you'd keep quiet for a while and help me look after this gentleman on the floor. I want to examine him, and I don't think I'll be able to do it in comfort if you wake the rest of the family.”

”Who is he?” she asked, showing by the subdued note of her voice that she had taken my warning to heart.

”That's more than I can say,” I answered. ”I discovered him in the room there, and when he came out I promptly sat on him.”

”But what did he want?”