Part 38 (1/2)

Leaving the second man to give us warning if we were noticed, Pickering and myself sauntered along to the house.

It was nearly eleven o'clock, and there were few pa.s.sers-by, yet we did not wish to be discovered, for our investigations were to be made strictly in secret, prior to the police taking action.

Was I acting judiciously, I wondered? Would the revelation I had made reflect upon Sybil herself? Would those men who used that house hurl against her a terrible and relentless vendetta?

Whether wisely or unwisely, however, I had inst.i.tuted the inquiry, and could not now draw back.

The inspector himself took the small bag containing a serviceable-looking housebreaker's jemmy and other tools, and as we came to the area handed it down to the man below. Then both of us scrambled over the locked gate and descended the steps to the bas.e.m.e.nt door by which it had been decided to enter.

The plain-clothes man was something of a mechanic, I could see, for he was soon at work upon the lock, yet although he tried for a full quarter of an hour to open the door, it resisted all his efforts.

”It's bolted,” he declared at last, wiping the perspiration from his brow. ”We must try the front door. That's no doubt only on the latch.

If we force this they'll know we've been here, while if we force the latch we can put that right again before we leave.”

”Very well, Edwards,” was the inspector's reply. ”Go up alone and do it. It won't do for us both to be up with you. Force the latch, and let us trust to luck to be able to put it right again. We'll have to lay a trap here--of that I feel sure.”

The man ascended to the door above us, but scarcely had he done so when we heard the hoa.r.s.e cry of ”_Star_--extrar spe-shall!” from the further end of the street--the pre-arranged signal warning us of someone approaching.

Edwards therefore slipped down the steps and walked in the opposite direction until the two men who had entered the street had pa.s.sed. Then Edwards sprang up the steps again, and after trying the lock with a number of keys we suddenly heard a low crack, and then there was silence.

”All right,” he whispered to us over the railings, and a minute later we were standing inside the dark hall of the house wherein I had so nearly lost my life. Edwards closed the door behind us noiselessly, and we were compelled to grope forward in the pitch darkness, for the inspector deemed it wise to draw down the blinds before lighting our lanterns, for fear our movements should attract notice from without.

Edwards entered the front room on the right, stumbling over some furniture, and pulled down the dark holland blind, while a moment later a rapping on the front door announced the arrival of the man who had been watching to cover our movements.

The policemen's lanterns, when lit, revealed an old-fas.h.i.+oned room furnished solidly in leather--a dining-room, though there were no evidences of it having been recently used. Behind it, entered by folding doors, was another sitting-room with heavy well-worn furniture covered with old-fas.h.i.+oned horsehair. In the room was a modern roll-top writing-table, the drawers of which Pickering reserved for future investigation.

”Be careful of the stairs,” I said, as Edwards started to ascend them.

”The dangerous ones are nearly at the top of the second storey. There's no danger on the first floor.”

”All right, sir,” replied the man. ”I'll be wary, you bet!” and we climbed to the first floor, the rooms of which, to our surprise, were all empty, devoid of any furniture save two or three broken chairs. In one room was a cupboard, which, however, was locked.

Again we turned to the stairs, Edwards and his companion ascending each stair slowly and trying the one higher with their hands. They were covered with new carpet of art green, different to the first flight, which were covered in red.

When a little more than half-way up to the top landing, Edwards suddenly exclaimed,--

”Here it is, sir!” and instantly we ascended to his side.

Kneeling on the stairs, he pressed his hands on the step above, whereupon that portion of the stairway up to the landing swung forward upon a hinge, disclosing a black abyss beneath.

I looked into it and shuddered. Even Pickering himself could not restrain an expression of surprise and horror when he realised how cunningly planned was that death-trap. The first six stairs from the top seemed to hang upon hinges from the landing. Therefore with the weight of a person upon them they would fall forward and pitch the unfortunate victim backwards before he could grasp the handrail, causing him to fall into the pit below.

”Well,” remarked Pickering, amazed, as he pushed open the stairs and peered into the dark blackness below, ”of all the devilish contrivances I've ever seen in my twenty-one years' experience in London, this is one of the most simple and yet the most ingenious and most fatal?”

”No doubt there's a secret way to render the stairs secure,” I remarked.

”No doubt, but as we don't know it, Edwards, one of you had better go down and get something to lay over the stairs--a piece of board, a table--anything that's long enough. We don't want to be pitched down there ourselves.”

”No, sir,” remarked Edwards' companion, whose name was Marvin. ”I wouldn't like to be, for one. But I daresay lots of 'em have gone down there at times.”

”Most probably,” snapped the inspector, dismissing the man at once to get the board.