Part 40 (1/2)

He glanced at his watch.

”Are you still anxious to try that plan of yours after what you've seen?”

She nodded. She went uncertainly from the room. Marvin stumbled after them. They helped him down the stairs and to a sofa in the lower hall.

Garth led Nora to the west door.

”We've less than ten minutes,” he said, ”and I don't understand. I'd rather you kept out of it.”

In silence and with determination she slipped on the white gown she had brought and draped the white veil over her face. Garth, shaking his head, arranged a screen just within the doorway. He turned out the electric lamp, lighted a single candle, and placed it on a stand at some distance.

”Wait behind the screen,” he said. ”Actually, Nora, unless we are dealing with something beyond the human, the result is certain. I shall be at the other end of the hall just within the library door. Anybody coming from the interior of the house must pa.s.s me. I'll grab the woman.

I'll see she makes no outcry. I'll keep her out of the way for she must be human to that extent. When you hear the two raps open the door and take the bomb. According to Alsop's description you won't be suspected in this light. A little over five minutes! I'll get Alsop and his crew out of the library and where their precious skins will be safe.”

He touched her hand in farewell. Her fingers were very cold. She s.h.i.+vered and slipped behind the screen. He went to the library, knocked, entered, and closed the door. The faces that greeted him were restless with misgiving.

”I want you all out of this room now, please,” Garth said. ”I've delayed moving you as long as I dared, so, if anything goes wrong, those outside won't know you have left. Take them to the back part of the house, Mr.

Alsop. Into the cellar, if you like. It's safest. In fifteen or twenty minutes I hope you will be able to resume your conference in perfect security.”

Without words the men gathered up their papers and filed out.

Garth, left alone in the room, turned out the light, went to the window, slipped behind the curtain, opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, and peered through.

The darkness was still unrelieved. Through that darkness, he knew, men crept on an errand of fanaticism and death. Through that silence he was momentarily expectant of the audible evidence of their approach. But he could hear nothing, see nothing. He couldn't wait. It was necessary for him to go to the door from behind which he was to ambush the veiled woman in order that Nora might take her place.

As he thrust the curtain aside a thin, tinkling sound stole from the silence of the room. He felt his way to the telephone and lifted the receiver.

”h.e.l.lo!” he whispered. ”h.e.l.lo!”

The inspector's hoa.r.s.e voice came to him, lowered to a note of caution.

”You, Garth? I'm in the gardener's cottage. Tell me Alsop and his people are safe.”

”Yes,” Garth said. ”Hurry! Hurry! What's up?”

”For Heaven's sake, be careful,” the inspector answered, ”because, Garth, all your dope was right. There are four of them in the grounds now, and one carries a thing that looks like a bomb. Are you going to get away with it? The veiled woman--”

”She's in the house,” Garth murmured. ”I'm waiting. I must go. Hus.h.!.+ I hear--”

He broke off. Through the appalling quietness of the house he had heard distinctly from the direction of the west door two sharp raps. He flashed his light at the clock over the mantel. Its hands pointed exactly to nine o'clock. Yet he had seen no one pa.s.s the dim frame of the library doorway--nothing white.

He ran through. In the wan candle light he could see the slender figure in the white gown and the flowing veil slip from behind the screen and open the door. Then Nora would get the bomb, but where was the real veiled woman? What unaccountable intuition had warned her away?

Garth slipped along the hall, clinging to the shadow of a tapestry. He knew from the black patch at the end of the corridor that the door was wide. In that dark patch he suddenly saw the silhouette of a man. The hands were stretched out as if to meet the hands which Nora appeared to offer for the bomb. But the man carried no bomb. In the dim light Garth thought at first that he carried nothing. Then he understood his mistake, and he cried out, drawing his own revolver, darting forward:

”Nora! Look out!”

He had seen that the man's fingers fondled an automatic, raised it, aimed it at the confident, expectant figure.

”For police spies!” the man called.