Part 16 (1/2)

”Who is this Colonel Simpson?” she asked. ”Could not he be exposed in the Press? Could not he be held up to execration? Could not you, Mr.

Goodrick,” she said, flas.h.i.+ng upon the editor, who had hitherto remained in the background and said no word, ”could not you tell the world of the wickedness of this Colonel Simpson?”

The little man with the straw-coloured moustache and the keen eyes smiled.

”Miss Marriott,” he said, ”you realise very little as yet. You do not know what the forces of capitalism and monopoly mean. Day by day we are driving our chisels into the basis of the structure, and some day it will begin to totter; some day, again, it will fall, but not yet, not yet. Mr. Simpson is a mere n.o.body. He is a machine. His object in life is to get as much money as he can out of the vast properties which he controls for another. He is an agent, nothing more.”

”Then who does this really belong to? Who is really responsible?” Mary asked.

Fabian Rose looked at her very meaningly.

”Once more,” he said, ”I will p.r.o.nounce that ill-omened name--the Duke of Paddington.”

”Let us go away,” Mr. Conrad said suddenly. He noticed that Mary's face was very pale, and that she was swaying a little.

They went out into the hall and stood there for a moment undecided as to what to do.

Mary seemed about to faint.

Suddenly from the back of the hall, steps were heard coming towards them, and in a moment more the face of a clean-shaven man appeared. He was mounting from the stairs that led down into what had once been the kitchens or cellars of the old house.

Just half of his body was visible, when he stopped suddenly, as if turned to stone.

As he did so the bearded Inspector Brown stepped quickly forward and caught him by the shoulder.

”Ah, it is you, is it?” he said. ”Come up and let us have a look at you.”

The man's face grew absolutely white, then, with a sudden eel-like movement, he twisted away from under the inspector's hand and vanished down the stairs.

In a flash the inspector and his companion were after him.

”Come on!” they shouted to the others, ”come on, we shall want you!”

Rose and Conrad dashed after them. Mary could hear them stumbling down the stairs, and then a confused noise of shouting as if from the bowels of the earth.

She was left alone, standing there with Mr. Goodrick, when she suddenly became aware that the staircase leading to the upper part of the house had become crowded with noiseless figures, looking down upon what was toward with motionless, eager faces.

”What shall we do?” Mary said. ”What does it all mean?”

”I am sure I don't know,” Goodrick answered, ”but if you are not afraid, don't you think we had better follow our friends? I suppose the inspector is after some thief or criminal whom he has just recognised.”

”I am not afraid,” Mary said.

”Come along, then,” he answered, and together they went to the end of the hall and stumbled down some greasy steps.

A light was at the bottom, red light through an open door, and they turned into a sort of kitchen.

There was n.o.body there, but one man who crouched in a corner and a fat, elderly Jewish woman, whose mouth dropped in fear, and whose eyes were set and fixed in terror, like the eyes of a doll.