Part 25 (1/2)

”Yes, it is Durette. He has been here since yesterday.”

Lemerre and the three who followed him stepped into it, and it backed away from the stage and, turning, sped swiftly outwards from Geneva.

The gay lights of the shops and the restaurants were left behind, the cool darkness enveloped them; a light breeze blew over the lake, a trail of white and tumbled water lengthened out behind and overhead, in a sky of deepest blue, the bright stars shone like gold.

”If only we are in time!” said Hanaud, catching his breath.

”Yes,” answered Lemerre; and in both their voices there was a strange note of gravity.

Lemerre gave a signal after a while, and the boat turned to the sh.o.r.e and reduced its speed. They had pa.s.sed the big villas. On the bank the gardens of houses--narrow, long gardens of a street of small houses--reached down to the lake, and to almost each garden there was a rickety landing-stage of wood projecting into the lake. Again Lemerre gave a signal, and the boat's speed was so much reduced that not a sound of its coming could be heard. It moved over the water like a shadow, with not so much as a curl of white at its bows.

Lemerre touched Hanaud on the shoulder and pointed to a house in a row of houses. All the windows except two upon the second floor and one upon the ground floor were in absolute darkness, and over those upper two the wooden shutters were closed. But in the shutters there were diamond-shaped holes, and from these holes two yellow beams of light, like glowing eyes upon the watch, streamed out and melted in the air.

”You are sure that the front of the house is guarded?” asked Hanaud anxiously.

”Yes,” replied Lemerre.

Ricardo s.h.i.+vered with excitement. The launch slid noiselessly into the bank and lay hidden under its shadow. Hanaud turned to his a.s.sociates with his finger to his lips. Something gleamed darkly in his hand. It was the barrel of his revolver. Cautiously the men disembarked and crept up the bank. First came Lemerre, then Hanaud; Ricardo followed him, and the fourth man, who had struck the match under the trees, brought up the rear. The other three officers remained in the boat.

Stooping under the shadow of the side wall of the garden, the invaders stole towards the house. When a bush rustled or a tree whispered in the light wind, Ricardo's heart jumped to his throat. Once Lemerre stopped, as though his ears heard a sound which warned him of danger. Then cautiously he crept on again. The garden was a ragged place of unmown lawn and straggling bushes. Behind each one Mr. Ricardo seemed to feel an enemy. Never had he been in so strait a predicament. He, the cultured host of Grosvenor Square, was creeping along under a wall with Continental policemen; he was going to raid a sinister house by the Lake of Geneva. It was thrilling. Fear and excitement gripped him in turn and let him go, but always he was sustained by the pride of the man doing an out-of-the-way thing. ”If only my friends could see me now!” The ancient vanity was loud in his bosom. Poor fellows, they were upon yachts in the Solent or on grouse-moors in Scotland, or on golf-links at North Berwick. He alone of them all was tracking malefactors to their doom by Leman's Lake.

From these agreeable reflections Ricardo was shaken. Lemerre stopped.

The raiders had reached the angle made by the side wall of the garden and the house. A whisper was exchanged, and the party turned and moved along the house wall towards the lighted window on the ground floor. As Lemerre reached it he stooped. Then slowly his forehead and his eyes rose above the sill and glanced this way and that into the room. Mr.

Ricardo could see his eyes gleaming as the light from the window caught them. His face rose completely over the sill. He stared into the room without care or apprehension, and then dropped again out of the reach of the light. He turned to Hanaud.

”The room is empty,” he whispered.

Hanaud turned to Ricardo.

”Pa.s.s under the sill, or the light from the window will throw your shadow upon the lawn.”

The party came to the back door of the house. Lemerre tried the handle of the door, and to his surprise it yielded. They crept into the pa.s.sage. The last man closed the door noiselessly, locked it, and removed the key. A panel of light shone upon the wall a few paces ahead. The door of the lighted room was open. As Ricardo stepped silently past it, he looked in. It was a parlour meanly furnished.

Hanaud touched him on the arm and pointed to the table.

Ricardo had seen the objects at which Hanaud pointed often enough without uneasiness; but now, in this silent house of crime, they had the most sinister and appalling aspect. There was a tiny phial half full of a dark-brown liquid, beside it a little leather case lay open, and across the case, ready for use or waiting to be filled, was a bright morphia needle. Ricardo felt the cold creep along his spine, and s.h.i.+vered.

”Come,” whispered Hanaud.

They reached the foot of a flight of stairs, and cautiously mounted it.

They came out in a pa.s.sage which ran along the side of the house from the back to the front. It was unlighted, but they were now on the level of the street, and a fan-shaped gla.s.s window over the front door admitted a pale light. There was a street lamp near to the door, Ricardo remembered. For by the light of it Marthe Gobin had seen Celia Harland run so nimbly into this house.

For a moment the men in the pa.s.sage held their breath. Some one strode heavily by on the pavement outside--to Mr. Ricardo's ear a most companionable sound. Then a clock upon a church struck the half-hour musically, distantly. It was half-past eight. And a second afterwards a tiny bright light shone. Hanaud was directing the light of a pocket electric torch to the next flight of stairs.

Here the steps were carpeted, and once more the men crept up. One after another they came out upon the next landing. It ran, like those below it, along the side of the house from the back to the front, and the doors were all upon their left hand. From beneath the door nearest to them a yellow line of light streamed out.

They stood in the darkness listening. But not a sound came from behind the door. Was this room empty, too? In each one's mind was the fear that the birds had flown. Lemerre carefully took the handle of the door and turned it. Very slowly and cautiously he opened the door. A strong light beat out through the widening gap upon his face. And then, though his feet did not move, his shoulders and his face drew back. The action was significant enough. This room, at all events, was not empty. But of what Lemerre saw in the room his face gave no hint. He opened the door wider, and now Hanaud saw. Ricardo, trembling with excitement, watched him. But again there was no expression of surprise, consternation, or delight. He stood stolidly and watched. Then he turned to Ricardo, placed a finger on his lips, and made room. Ricardo crept on tiptoe to his side. And now he too could look in. He saw a brightly lit bedroom with a made bed. On his left were the shuttered windows overlooking the lake. On his right in the part.i.tion wall a door stood open. Through the door he could see a dark, windowless closet, with a small bed from which the bedclothes hung and trailed upon the floor, as though some one had been but now roughly dragged from it. On a table, close by the door, lay a big green hat with a brown ostrich feather, and a white cloak. But the amazing spectacle which kept him riveted was just in front of him. An old hag of a woman was sitting in a chair with her back towards them. She was mending with a big needle the holes in an old sack, and while she bent over her work she crooned to herself some French song. Every now and then she raised her eyes, for in front of her, under her charge, Mlle. Celie, the girl of whom Hanaud was in search, lay helpless upon a sofa. The train of her delicate green frock swept the floor. She was dressed as Helene Vauquier had described. Her gloved hands were tightly bound behind her back, her feet were crossed so that she could not have stood, and her ankles were cruelly strapped together. Over her face and eyes a piece of coa.r.s.e sacking was stretched like a mask, and the ends were roughly sewn together at the back of her head. She lay so still that, but for the labouring of her bosom and a tremor which now and again shook her limbs, the watchers would have thought her dead. She made no struggle of resistance; she lay quiet and still. Once she writhed, but it was with the uneasiness of one in pain, and the moment she stirred the old woman's hand went out to a bright aluminium flask which stood on a little table at her side.

”Keep quiet, little one!” she ordered in a careless, chiding voice, and she rapped with the flask peremptorily upon the table. Immediately, as though the tapping had some strange message of terror for the girl's ear, she stiffened her whole body and lay rigid.