The double thirteen

By R. McNair Wilson

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Title: The double thirteen

Author: Anthony Wynne


        
Release date: October 26, 2026 [eBook #79867]

Language: English

Original publication: Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1926

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79867

Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOUBLE THIRTEEN ***




 THE
 DOUBLE THIRTEEN

 BY
 ANTHONY WYNNE
 AUTHOR OF
 “THE SIGN OF EVIL.”





 PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
 J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
 1926




 [COPYRIGHT]

 COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY THE RED STAR NEWS COMPANY
 COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY




 CONTENTS

 I. Hon. Robert Barling
 II. The Face at The Window
 III. A Midnight Visit
 IV. Mr. Danatoff’s Appointment
 V. The First Clew
 VI. What Biles Knew
 VII. Olva’s Midnight Drives
 VIII. The Afternoon Caller
 IX. Barling Yields His Secrecy
 X. The Car on The By-road
 XI. Flight in The Dark
 XII. The Sight in The Garage
 XIII. Doctor Hailey’s Discovery
 XIV. The Mysterious Car Owner
 XV. Finger-prints That Identify
 XVI. Biles Ties a Hard Knot
 XVII. The Death Blade
 XVIII. Over The Phone
 XIX. The Masked Revelers
 XX. At The Carnival
 XXI. Were They Guilty?
 XXII. The Lighted Window
 XXIII. Voices in The Night
 XXIV. A Drop of Blood
 XXV. Olva Disappears
 XXVI. The Marks on The Poker
 XXVII. A Trick
 XXVIII. Fooling The Police
 XXIX. The Man in The Green Car
 XXX. Baiting a Hook
 XXXI. The Trail of a Bullet
 XXXII. Luck is a Trump
 XXXIII. One Man is Guilty
 XXXIV. The Secret Message
 XXXV. The Light on The Ceiling
 XXXVI. A Lady in The Case
 XXXVII. An Instant of Peril
 XXXVIII. A Dead Man’s Money
 XXXIX. It is Written
 XL. The Mysterious Mr. Browning
 XLI. Borrodean Hears Some News
 XLII. What Hailey Knew
 XLIII. Lord Borrodean Speaks
 XLIV. Marked For a Victim
 XLV. Sharing a Secret
 XLVI. Who Killed Danatoff?
 XLVII. “Thomas Smith, Esq.”
 XLVIII. Behind Closed Doors
 XLIX. “He Whose Eyes Glared”
 L. A Hypnotist’s Power
 LI. In the Limousine
 LII. A Woman’s Hand
 LIII. The Driver Escapes
 LIV. Before The Chase Ended
 LV. As Darkness Fell
 LVI. At the Rising of The Moon
 LVII. The Faces in The Tower
 LVIII. Beneath The Mask
 LIX. Cheating The Law
 LX. Into The Depths
 LXI. The Reading of The Cipher
 LXII. Church Bells and Evening




 THE DOUBLE THIRTEEN




 PART I




 CHAPTER I.
 HON. ROBERT BARLING

“My dear Fleury, if life held nothing except this roast chicken,
life would be worth living.”

The head waiter of the Monopole Hotel bowed.

“I am glad that _m’sieur_ is satisfied. That signifies much; is it not
so? But the roast chicken”--a smile flickered on his lips--“it is not
so simple as it looks.”

But the young man whom he served withered that enthusiasm with a
glance which declared that he had extended his interest in the matter
to its utmost limits.

The head waiter retired, a little crestfallen, perhaps, but still well
pleased with the compliment he had received. Was not the Hon. Robert
Barling the most distinguished of all those whom it is worth while
serving with the very best?

True, a young man of melancholy aspect, little given to
familiarity--but with taste, discretion, knowledge. He signed to the
waiter whom he had appointed to attend the distinguished visitor and
whispered some new directions in his ear.

The dinner proceeded in exquisite leisure. The Hon. Bob tasted a
cutlet which was scarcely less what it seemed to be than the chicken
he had approved. The wine waiter brought a bottle, lying snugly in its
cradle, and reverently refilled his glass with the magnificent
Mantrachet which he specially favored. The noble wine gathered points
of golden light to its bosom.

He sipped it as though he scarcely realized what he was doing. His
eyes were curiously vacant. Nevertheless, they wandered from table to
table of the huge dining room as though, unconsciously, he was looking
for some one. Even when the last of the courses had been served and he
was sipping his coffee, that search continued. He sighed deeply. Then
he took a golden cigarette case from his pocket and lit a very thin
cigarette of a type unknown to the open market.

He was a tall young man, of excessively restrained manner. His friends
said of him that he was starving himself to death because the world
contained nothing good enough for him to eat. They said also that he
had already driven half the tailors in Saville Row into lunatic
asylums, because they could not live up to his ideas of a perfectly
fitting coat or a waistcoat cut without a flaw.

And they added that his valet had been selected out of ten thousand
candidates. But most of them did him the compliment of slavish
imitation, even to the weary expression which, of late months, his
eyes had begun to assume.

These eyes were decidedly interesting. They were gray, and rather
large, and the lids drooped on them in a manner which challenged
curiosity. Women especially always found themselves wondering what
secret sorrow this very rich, very popular young man was nursing in
his heart. There were men, though, tough, rough men who had followed
Bob Barling into action in France and who knew that the gray eyes
could smile in the face of death.

His car was waiting for him at the door of the hotel. He told his
driver to take him to Brook Street, and the man did not ask him for
the number. He lay back on the cushions as though a sudden fatigue had
overwhelmed him. The big _Hispano Suiza_ glided into the traffic of
the Haymarket like a great cat. A few minutes later it came to the
curb of its destination. A commissionaire opened the door, and the
Hon. Bob passed under the awning which had been erected in front of
the house.

He was early, he whose rule it was always to be late. He greeted his
host and hostess on the stairs and walked into the ballroom. The gray
eyes opened wide for a moment and their glance was eager and
expectant, but the next instant they had drooped again.

He made his way to one of the windows and stood there as though he had
posted himself at a vantage point. It seemed that he knew very few of
his fellow guests. His face was quite impassive, but the corners of
his mouth twitched occasionally in a nervous fashion.

The band played a fox trot and the floor became crowded. He drew back
a little to avoid the dancers. Several girls glanced at him as they
passed--envious glances, for the most part. But he noticed nothing.
Always his eyes were fixed on the doorway.

And then, suddenly, he started. His tall, lean figure seemed to
stiffen. The indifferent expression faded from his face. A close
observer would have noticed that his hands were tightly clenched, as
though he were making a supreme effort to master himself.

The cause of this change in Bob Barling’s attitude was the entry of a
young girl, with a pale, rather melancholy face. She was not, at a
first glance, very striking-looking, but there was a quality in her
expression which challenged attention--a curious, aloof quality, as
though her thoughts were far away from the world in which she lived.

The young man made his way round the room to her side. As he
approached she raised her eyes and saw him. For a moment a look of
anxiety crossed her face.

“You see, I await you,” he whispered.

“Oh, yes--always.”

She began to dance with him. They went round the room without
speaking. It seemed that the far-away look in her eyes faded a little
as she gave herself to the rhythm of the music, as though, in dancing,
she had found again a little of that inward self which at other
moments was so imperfectly realized.

“My mother is not feeling very well tonight,” she told him. “She will
not come into the ballroom.”

He said that he was sorry. His voice seemed strangely excited, so that
she glanced up into his face. Their eyes met.

“My God, Olva, how beautiful you are!”

It was tremendously unlike him--the tone, the manner, the thrill which
made the words a confession of uncontrollable longing.

For an instant she seemed to relinquish her self-control.

“Oh, please,” she whispered, “you know you promised.”

“But I shall break my promise. I have come here to break it.” He added
in tones which were defiant. “I have come here because that promise
must be broken.”

He led her out of the room and they sat down behind some palms which
partially screened them from their fellow-guests. He leaned forward
toward her with his elbows set on his knees and his chin in his hands.

“When I made that promise,” he declared, “I didn’t know how serious it
was. I didn’t realize that the world holds nothing for me except you.”

Olva Vorloff closed her eyes. Her lips trembled, but she remained
silent, as though she were debating with herself, feverishly, what she
should do with him.

“Last night I didn’t sleep at all. I have scarcely slept since I saw
you. I think I know what it feels like to go mad.”

“But, dear, if I do not love you.”

“I shall make you love me.”

She opened her eyes widely and looked up in his face.

“Will you?”

There was not a trace of resentment in her tones. For an instant she
seemed to have put away the shadowy side of her nature and to have
become merely a young girl approaching timidly to her happiness. He
put out his hands and laid them on hers.

“Even if you said that you hated me, I should not be discouraged.
Olva, I love you so completely that I scarcely care at all whether or
not you love me in return. If you do not come to me of your own free
will I will take you.”

As he spoke his face assumed a stern expression, which made him seem
older and harder. It was scarcely possible to recognize the exquisite
youth who had dined so languidly an hour before.

“How will you take me?” she asked.

He looked into her big, clear eyes and smiled in spite of himself.
There was a childlike quality about this Russian girl which he had
never experienced in any other women. An English girl who had suffered
as she had suffered and lost as she had lost would have been changed
in that terrible process.

“I don’t know yet. And, anyhow, it will not be necessary, because I
know that you love me.” Again his voice had fallen to a whisper. “Is
it not so?”

She bowed her head, but he caught the word “Yes,” spoken very faintly
with just a trace of a foreign accent.

His hand tightened on her hand.

“Then we are engaged, because I know that Countess Vorloff will not
refuse me. We must go and find her.”

“No, please.” Her eyes were beseeching. “I want to talk to you first.”

She leaned forward in her chair and looked at him so intently that
even _he_ felt a sense of embarrassment. It seemed as if she would
read his soul.

“In Russia,” she declared, “we say of love that it transforms the
spirit. Those who love are changed beyond recognition.”

“I believe that.”

“They have new strength--so that nothing is able to harm them any
more.”

“Yes.”

Again her eyes drooped. He looked at her and felt himself thrilled by
the divine quality of her beauty. So, he thought, it must have shone
in her girlhood days, when the splendid world of St. Petersburg waited
to do her homage and life seemed to have denied her nothing of
happiness or comfort.

Since then, the bitterness of death had been her portion, insult,
cruelty, privation, the long terror of imprisonment and the horror of
flight. If only it had been granted to him to stand beside her during
that ordeal.

“My darling,” he whispered, “nothing shall harm you any more. I swear
it!”

She glanced up, and then, suddenly, he saw dawn in her eyes a look of
such extreme fear as he had never before witnessed in a human face.
She clutched his arm with hands from which the blood seemed to have
ebbed away.

Instinctively he glanced behind him.

There was no one in sight.




 CHAPTER II.
 THE FACE AT THE WINDOW

He did his best to comfort her, and after a few moments she regained
her self-control.

“I am haunted--haunted,” she cried. “When I least expect them the
spectres of the past rise up before my eyes. That day when they
dragged my father from us and we knew that we should not see him
again.” She stopped suddenly and glanced wildly about her. “Oh,
quickly, take me away from here--home. I must not stay here. Do you
understand?”

He conducted her to her mother, bowing ceremoniously before that lady,
whose eyes seemed so dim toward the world.

Olva had recovered herself somewhat, but her face was still dreadfully
pale, and he observed that she continued to tremble. He had seen a
child behave in that way after it had been frightened, a small niece
of his own, whose dry sobbing had actually for a time punctuated her
laughter, as though forgetfulness penetrated but slowly to the deeper
places of the spirit.

“Olva says that she is tired,” he explained, “and that you are not
feeling well. May I beg the honor of taking you home? My car is
waiting.”

Countess Vorloff glanced from his anxious face to that of her
daughter. She nodded.

“It is so kind,” she said enigmatically.

She was an old woman, yet the beauty of her girlhood had not wholly
faded; nor the simplicity of her manner, which must, when she was
young, have been a great charm. Bob thought that in this respect
mother and daughter were strangely alike. Or perhaps it was the race
to which they belonged. With its faults, the aristocracy of old Russia
was exquisitely simple and straightforward; “an aristocracy of
children,” as one of its closest observers has written of it.

He told a footman to call his car, and a moment later they were
rolling through the streets. Olva seemed to enjoy that gliding motion,
for she smiled without speaking. But her mother was voluble. As
always, she kept harking back to the days of her glory in the
Petersburg of the eighties. It had become an obsession with her.

“So it was, through streets like these, but to the music of the sleigh
bells. And now there is death--death. Ah, _mon Dieu_, how good was
life in those days.” Her voice trailed away and she sighed deeply.
Then a new flood of memory swept her spirit.

“Olva’s father, my poor, dear husband, had official duties at the
Winter Palace, which often kept him there till a late hour. And
sometimes I would call for him on my way home from a ball or party and
we would drive back together across the crisp snow of the Prospect,
which was jeweled like a woman’s corsage.”

The car slackened pace and stopped at number ten South Street. Bob
alighted and handed out the Countess. Then he gave his hand to Olva.
She bent to him and whispered:

“I shall not ask you to come in tonight. I am very tired, you see.”

She followed her mother quickly across the pavement and disappeared
into the house. On the threshold she turned her head for an instant
and Bob saw that she was still smiling. He lingered until the door was
shut, and then told his man to take him to the Mayfair Club.

He threw himself back on the cushions of the car in great confusion
and perplexity of mind. The happiness which he should have felt was
tempered by a nameless anxiety, almost a fear. Why had Olva consented
so reluctantly to his wooing, seeing that, as she had confessed, she
loved him? And what apparition of terror was it which had risen
suddenly in her eyes? At such a moment it was doubly hard to be
compelled to leave her, when his whole nature desired ardently to
bring her protection and comfort.

And yet, he told himself a moment later, her word was easily
comprehensible when the fact of her bitter sufferings was taken into
account. Her father had been one of the first to perish at the hands
of the Bolshevists. She and her mother had spent nearly a year in the
Peter and Paul fortress, and had only made their escape because they
happened to possess a friend whose power was great among the new
rulers of Russia.

The countess had dropped a hint that the services of this unknown had
not been entirely disinterested. Happily, her prudent husband had
invested considerably in British Funds during the early days of the
war.

He sent his car away when he reached the club. The distance to his
house in Curzon street was nothing, and, in any case, he liked walking
in London after midnight. He gave his hat and gloves to the man at the
door and strolled into a big, exotically decorated room, where half a
dozen young men and girls were dancing in a curiously languid fashion.

He sat down at one of the small tables which flanked the walls and
ordered a whiskey and soda. A moment later the music stopped and one
of the girls came across the floor to him.

“Why, you great stranger!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been all
this time?” She sat down and waved her late partner away. “But I know,
of course--following in the footsteps of the lovely Olva _n’est ce
pas_? I saw her this very afternoon in Bond Street.”

“My dear Beryl, you see everything, of course.”

“Not everything! But what I do not see, I guess; and that is better
still, as a rule.”

Bob glanced at her pretty, naughty face. Beryl Lestrange belonged to
pleasure as the stars belong to the night--one of the multitude of
rich girls who rather mysteriously seem to suffer no restrictions on
their complete freedom of action. Of her antecedents he knew nothing
at all.

“Jack Derwent brought me along from the Wincomes,” she told him.
“Those dear people, you know, who have taken Windermere House. It’s at
least three sizes too big for them. All sorts of people there--kind of
human zoo, with the emphasis on the Small Cats’ House.”

The rather weary violin began to play again and they got up and
danced.

“The Countess Olva had a very handsome man shopping with her this
afternoon,” she said. “A big, tall man, with the kind of eyes which
women remember.” She raised her shoulders in a gesture of mock terror.
“You know--which look through you to the horizon.”

Bob did not answer her. She glanced up and saw that, in some way, she
had vexed him. Was he so jealous of the girl that he could not bear to
hear of a possible rival? A little shudder of mischief ran along her
nerves. She tossed her beautiful golden head impatiently.

“Always,” she declared, “when I have found a man’s eyes thrill me, I
have found also that that man had foreign blood in his veins, just as
I have myself. Englishmen lack the power to make a woman’s head go
dizzy. A pity, is it not?”

“Possibly, if one covets dizziness.”

His voice was hard. She felt sorry, suddenly, that she had teased him.
She changed the subject, bidding him observe that the club was
beginning to fill up.

“One wonders where they all come from--and at the same hour. It is
possible to be so regular in irregularity. The next stage to night
clubs, believe me, is the nursery, where at least boisterous innocence
is unequivocal.”

He took her back to their table. The troubled look was big in his eyes
now. He did not even so much as glance at the people who greeted him
as they passed into the room.

“Tell me,” he asked in low tones, “what the man you saw with the
Countess Olva was really like.”

His voice was pleading, as though he awaited her answer in great
anxiety.

“Tall--I said that, didn’t I? With a big forehead and a big chin. And
then those queer eyes of his.”

Bob bit his lips.

“There was nothing else--nothing special about his appearance?”

She thought a moment.

“Why, yes,” she declared. “He had a scar on his left cheek. I
distinctly remember noticing it and wondering if he had got it in a
duel.”

The young man’s expression changed. He rose abruptly.

“Thank you,” he said.

“What, you aren’t going yet? At one o’clock!”

“I am tired tonight, you see.”

He strode out of the room, an easy, athletic figure. Beryl followed
him with her eyes till he disappeared behind the group of palms in the
entrance hall.

He walked toward Piccadilly, and when he reached it turned in the
direction of Hyde Park Corner. The thoughts which tormented him
quickened his steps. He came to the top of St. James’s Street and
paused for a moment to allow a cab to go by. Then he strode on past
the Ritz to the railings of the Green Park.

He paused there and stood a moment irresolute. What Beryl Lestrange
had told him filled his mind now, to the exclusion of every impression
coming from the outside world. Her idle tongue had forced on him an
anxiety he would have given anything to have escaped.

Just after Olva had implored him to take her away from the dance they
had passed a man, obviously a foreigner, with a deep scar on his left
cheek.

Olva, so far as he could recollect, had shown no sign of recognition
and yet at the time he had experienced a curious feeling that they
knew each other. That was what had prompted him to ask Beryl to
describe the fellow.

Possibly the fact that the man’s eyes had searched his own face so
intently had given him that feeling. Beryl was quite right in what she
had said about the compelling quality of his eyes. But why had these
two disowned their acquaintance in his presence? And could there be
any connection between the fear the girl had shown so suddenly and the
coming of this mysterious stranger?

He tried to recollect the scene in its minute details and realized at
once that the man, whoever he was, might have been watching them from
the door of the ballroom as they sat together. In that case he would
be facing Olva the whole time. Yet a single step would bring him
inside the doorway, and so place him out of sight.

He began to walk briskly again as his perplexity increased. It was
surely incredible that a friend with whom one went shopping in the
afternoon should have become an object of extreme terror by nightfall.
Yet that was the conclusion to which he seemed to be coming, for he
felt no manner of doubt that Beryl had told him the truth.

He crossed Piccadilly and entered the bottom of Park Lane. Was it
possible that this man was connected in some way with the terrible
experiences in Russia which Olva and her mother had undergone?

If so, his sudden appearance when she did not expect to see him might
serve to open the sealed doors of memory. That would just barely
account for her agony of apprehension. He told himself that it would
not furnish even a bare explanation of her lack of recognition. Unless
indeed--.

He stopped again in sudden relief, as the idea took shape in his mind.
Olva had walked with her eyes downcast on the floor. He distinctly
remembered noticing that. It was just possible that she might have
passed the stranger without seeing him at all.

He observed a cab approaching and signaled to the driver to stop. Then
he noticed that the flag was lowered. He was about to resume his walk
when an exclamation of amazement broke from his lips.

The light of the street lamp had fallen on the window of the vehicle,
revealing a woman’s face.

_It was Olva._

He sprang forward, but the cab was traveling quickly. A moment later
he saw the tail-lamp disappear round the bend into Piccadilly. A
private car followed. He ran down the street after it, searching in
vain for some means by which to carry on the pursuit, but there was no
cab in sight. At the corner of Park Lane he stood, out of breath,
viewing the wide space of Hyde Park Corner, which appeared for the
moment to be utterly deserted.




 CHAPTER III.
 A MIDNIGHT VISIT

Bob stood irresolute. Had the cab gone down toward Victoria, or had
it turned into Knightsbridge? He ran along to the gates of the Park
and scanned both roadways. As it happened, they were both empty at the
moment. A sense of chill despair gripped his heart.

He had no doubt whatever that the girl whom he had seen in the cab was
Olva. The street lamp had given him a full view of her face, though
she had certainly not observed him. How pale she had looked, how
anxious, as though she had set her mind to the accomplishment of some
terrible duty!

A cab swung into sight from Park Lane. He hailed it, and got into it.

“Drive along Knightsbridge,” he told the man, “as fast as you can.”

They lurched away. Bob sat at the window scanning the street in front
of him and craning his neck to search every side street they passed.
They came to the Albert Hall, and he ordered the driver to turn down
into Kensington. A few seconds later they reached the Cromwell Road.
Bob knocked on the glass.

“Turn back to Curzon Street, number fifty--drive slowly.”

He flung himself back on the hard leather cushions. He had known from
the beginning that the quest was hopeless, but his restless nerves had
not allowed him to relinquish it until the last feeble chance was
exhausted. Now, in the reaction of feeling which followed his failure,
he experienced a sense of depression greater than he had ever known
before. He closed his eyes, scarcely daring to think. Yet his thoughts
rushed on in spite of him.

It was certain that, at this hour of the morning, the girl he loved
could not be going on any ordinary errand. Had she not told him she
was tired and meant to get to bed early? She had abstained, too, from
asking him into the house. Thus something must have
happened--something unexpected and terrible, to make her change her
plans and go out again, alone, on her mysterious mission.

He tortured his brain to imagine what this emergency might be. Then a
darker thought came to haunt him. Was it possible that Olva had
planned this midnight expedition beforehand? That would explain why
she had wished to return home early. It would explain, too, her
reluctance to sit up and talk to him. It might even explain the
strange episode of the man with the scarred face.

He opened his eyes. The cab was passing the High Court Hotel. He
sprang forward and shouted to the driver to stop.

As the vehicle came to the curb he turned and looked out of the rear
window. Then he leaned back stiffly on his seat. A man, dressed in a
long, foreign-looking cloak and slouch hat, came abreast of the cab
and stood a moment as though waiting for its occupant to alight.

Bob bent down sharply, cursing himself at the same time for being a
fool. When he looked up again the man walked some distance away.

He opened the offside window and told the driver to follow, no matter
where he went. He had caught a glimpse of the fellow as he passed
under one of the street lamps. It was the man with the scarred face.

That individual walked very slowly and looked round several times.
Then he turned up the collar of his cloak and drew his hat down. It
was obvious that he was anxious to avoid recognition.

Bob sat back watching his every movement. Beryl’s description of his
tall figure tallied exactly. His carriage, too, stiffer than that of
an Englishman, was quite characteristic. He looked, it had to be
admitted, exceedingly distinguished.

A cab passed, going slowly toward Piccadilly. The stranger hailed it
and got in. The vehicle continued on its way to Hyde Park Corner and
turned left-handed toward Park Lane. A moment later it had swung to
the right toward Park Street.

Bob caught his breath. Was it possible that the fellow was going to
the Vorloff’s house in South Street? He had not long to wait for
assurance on that point. Almost before his own driver realized it the
cab they were following had drawn up at number ten. They drove on past
it and stopped on the opposite side of the street in front of a block
of flats.

Bob saw the stranger get out and ascend the steps. To his amazement,
the door was opened at once and the man passed inside. But the cab
awaited him. Then, after about ten minutes, he reappeared on the
doorstep. He ran down the steps and reëntered the vehicle, which at
once swung round and disappeared in the direction of the Park.

“Follow it!”

They sighted their quarry at Hyde Park Corner. It returned to the High
Court Hotel. The stranger paid off the cabman there and strode into
the building. Bob’s driver turned to receive fresh orders.

“You had better take me to Curzon Street now.”

For a moment, in the excitement of the pursuit, the young man had
almost forgotten his anxiety. But now it returned to him a
hundredfold. What could be the meaning of these mysterious doings? He
could not doubt that Olva must have returned home in time to receive
her visitor, since it was incredible that the old Countess had
remained up till that hour.

Her health, as he knew, was exceedingly precarious. Nor could he doubt
that the visit had been prearranged. No one, least of all a man such
as this, would dream of rousing a household at that hour without
having been invited beforehand to do so.

It followed that the woman he loved had gone shopping with the man in
the morning; had shown extreme fear at the sight of him in the
evening--so much so that she had passed him without a sign of
recognition, after having begged to be taken home at once--and then
had received him secretly in the small hours of the morning at her own
home.

Further, before receiving him, she had gone away on some mysterious
midnight errand. The mystery, he realized, was too deep to be solved
by any piecing together of the scraps of evidence which Fortune and
his own anxiety had afforded him. Fear and horror descended on his
spirit.

He paid the cabman and let himself into the house with his latchkey.
He went immediately to his smoking-room. It was decorated in the deep
tones of red--the russets of autumn--in which his heart specially
delighted. Every detail expressed his fastidious, yet easy taste. It
expressed also the strength of character which underlay his _savoir
faire_. He poured himself out a whisky and soda and drank it at a
gulp.

Then he lit one of his thin cigarettes--discarding it a moment later
for an Abdullah, which seemed to offer the soothing his fevered nerves
demanded. He sank down into one of his great armchairs and sat gazing
in front of him, attempting once again to read the terrible riddle
which had become now the riddle of his own fate.

He fell asleep at that task. He was awakened by the sharp ringing of
the telephone bell in the room. He started to his feet. The gray light
of an October morning was already in the sky. He strode across the
room and took the instrument from its stand.

“Yes, this is Mr. Barling’s house. Mr. Barling speaking. Who is that?
What! Countess Vorloff.”

His hands tightened on the instrument so that the blood was driven
from his knuckles. The Countess’s voice, always a trifle guttural,
came to him thickly on the wires. She was telling him that Olva had
gone out during the night and had not returned, and asking him,
clearly in an agony of apprehension, if, as her most intimate friend,
he could throw any light on the mystery.

“But she returned before two o’clock, surely,” he cried. “I saw a
visitor myself call at that hour.”

“No, no! It is not so! She has not come.”

“I assure you the man was admitted to the house.”

In his anxiety he did not care whether or not she knew of his doings
the night before.

“Ah yes, I know. There was a letter for him which she left with the
servant. But herself is gone. _Mon Dieu_, it is terrible, is it not?”

“You mean you did not know she was going out?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

The voice thrilled with fear. The horrors of the revolutionary days in
Petersburg had left their indelible mark.

Bob glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to six. He promised to come
around immediately to South Street.




 CHAPTER IV.
 MR. DANATOFF’S APPOINTMENT

The Countess Vorloff’s fears were so acute and her nerves so cruelly
shaken that it took Bob a considerable time to discover exactly what
had happened on the previous evening. At last, however, he ascertained
that as soon as Olva and her mother entered the house the former went
to the library to write a letter. She remained there till the old lady
had gone to bed.

Then she summoned their manservant and gave him a closed envelope,
unaddressed, which she told him he was to hand to a man who would call
about two A.M. On no account was the letter to leave his possession
until then; he was not even to lay it on the hall table.

The manservant noticed that the letter had been carefully sealed with
the purple wax which the Countess Olva always affected. After she had
given these instructions Olva went to her room. About half an hour
later she appeared in the hall wearing outdoor clothes, and told the
man to call a cab immediately. He did not hear the instructions which
she gave to the driver.

They were seated in the Countess’s boudoir, where a fire had already
been lighted.

The servant was summoned at Bob’s request. He was a Russian, named
Peter Nikolaiovitch, who had lived for many years in England. He
corroborated the story in every detail.

“Was the Countess Olva quite calm, did you notice, when she gave you
these orders?” the young man asked.

“She was perfectly calm, sir. But she was very pale in the face--much
paler than usual.”

“She did not strike you as being afraid of--of anything?”

“I thought she seemed anxious.”

Bob paused a moment and knit his brow.

“Did the gentleman who called for the letter give you his name?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you ask him to give it?”

“No, sir. Her ladyship told me not to ask any questions.”

“I see.”

Bob thought a moment.

“You have not seen this visitor before?”

“Yes, sir; I have seen him before, but I think only twice.” The man
seemed to hesitate. “He called earlier in the evening when I was out.
Her ladyship’s maid opened the door to him.”

“Ah!” Bob drew his breath sharply. “Do you happen to know if the maid
told him where her mistress was to be found?”

“Yes, sir. She told him their ladyships had gone to the dance in Brook
Street.”

Bob drew a deep breath. He glanced at the Countess, but now she seemed
to have become indifferent to what was passing. Her old eyes looked
out across the terrible vista of the years, seeing only ruin and fear.
It was obvious that already she had imagined some new, terrible
catastrophe as the cause of her daughter’s disappearance.

“The gentleman had a scar on his cheek? Am I right?”

“Yes, sir; on his left cheek.”

The young man considered a moment.

“Her ladyship,” he asked, “goes out occasionally at night?”

“Yes, sir.”

Again he glanced at the Countess. The vacant look in her eyes had not
changed. He signed to the man that he might retire.

“Will you tell me,” he asked the old lady, “why you should be so
anxious this time, seeing that your daughter has gone away before in
the same manner and at the same hour?”

Countess Vorloff started. She must have been listening more carefully
than was apparent, because she answered at once.

“Olva left a note for me, as well as for her visitor. I could not
sleep and rang the bell for some medicine I take. My maid found the
note under the door of my bedroom.”

“May I see it?”

She handed him a crumpled sheet of paper which she had been clutching
in her hand. He spread it out. The letter was written in French, the
language mother and daughter used in familiar conversation. He read:


 My Dear Mother:

 I must go away to-night. I may not be able to return home for some
 time. Do not worry about me, and please do not try to find me. I shall
 be quite safe. I dare not say more at present.

                                                          Olva.

 P.S.--Please, above all things, do not call in the police, however
 long I am absent from home.


He looked up with a new fear in his eyes.

“You have no idea where--where she goes to on these occasions?”

“None, none. Before I have supposed it was to dance. In London now it
is the fashion to turn night into day--for young people. And Olva will
not permit that I interfere in her life. Ah, _mon Dieu_, if only I had
been firm with her as I was with her poor, dear father. But when she
was ill with her nerves in Petersburg the doctor told me I must not
cross her wishes.”

“I do not think that Olva has ever frequented night clubs?”

His tones were calm, but there was a challenging ring in his voice.

The Countess shook her head. “It may not be so, but I wish that it
were so, because I have fear. You do not understand, M. Barling, the
dangers which we must run, even in your good London.” A sigh that was
nearly a sob shook her body. “Olva has no fear,” she added, “but I--I
am made of fear altogether.”

She looked, he thought, a pathetic figure in her loneliness. And
especially so because, in spite of her anxieties, she managed to
retain the dignity of her caste and its stoical acceptance of Fate.
When he spoke again his voice was very gentle:

“Will you tell me, Countess,” he asked, “just what it is that you
fear? Perhaps, if I knew, I might be better able to help you.”

She shook her head.

“I do not know what I fear. Olva has not told me--anything.”

“She is not mixed up with a political plot of any sort?”

The Countess seemed to shrink back in her chair. Instinctively she
drew the folds of the cloak she was wearing more tightly about her.
The memory of Siberia had not yet faded from her thoughts.

“It may be so,” she whispered. “I do not know.”

Bob rose and stood by the fireplace. His gray eyes were as full of
trouble as her eyes, but a resolute line had hardened at the corners
of his mouth.

“I must tell you, Countess,” he declared in stern tones, “that last
night I asked Olva to marry me, and she consented. I wanted to speak
to you about it at once, but she said she was very tired and would not
invite me to come into the house.”

As he spoke, the old lady had leaned forward in her chair. Her face
lost its weariness, and an eager expression transformed it.

“Ah,” she said, “but I am so glad--so glad. My little Olva, when she
is married to you, will be a Russian no longer.” She stopped and her
happiness faded as suddenly as it had come. Her eyes seemed to search
the room. She exclaimed, “You will find her for me, is it not so,
because you love her?”

“I swear that I shall not rest a moment until I have found her.”

He gave the Countess a description of what had happened the night
before, and of the appearance of the man with the scarred face, hoping
that she might be able to identify him. But she knew nothing of these
acquaintances of her daughter. Whatever the nature of Olva’s private
business might be, she kept it scrupulously to herself.

He waited until the old lady had become somewhat reassured, and then
drove back to Curzon Street. An hour later, and looking as fresh as
though he had spent the night in bed, he entered his car and told the
driver to take him to the High Court Hotel. It was just eight o’clock.

When he reached the hotel he went at once to the inquiry office.

“May I trouble you,” he said to the clerk on duty, “to send up my card
to one of your visitors whose name has, for the moment, escaped my
memory. He has a deep scar on his left cheek, and is a Russian.”

The man behind the desk raised his head sharply.

“M. Danatoff.”

“Ah, yes. That is his name. Perhaps you can tell him on the phone that
Mr. Barling, of fifty Curzon Street, would like to speak to him.”

The man turned to the private exchange behind him. He put a stop into
one of the holes and raised the receiver.

“Mr. Danatoff?”

He gave the message and then turned to the visitor.

“Mr. Danatoff says that he will come down in a few minutes and see you
in the lounge, sir.”

He signed to a waiting page boy to conduct Bob to that apartment. It
was quite empty. The young man sat down and lit a cigarette. At least,
he had taken a first step in getting into touch with Danatoff, who
certainly knew more about Olva’s doings than anybody else whom it
would be possible to approach.

He wondered how the man would take his visit, and whether or not he
would show embarrassment. His attitude might furnish an important clew
to the mystery which just now seemed to be so impenetrable. He got up
and strode across the room to the window. Even supposing that it was
true that Olva was mixed up with some political plot, why should this
impose on her the necessity of running away from home without even
giving her mother--to say nothing of himself--an indication of her
whereabouts.

England was a free country, in which anybody who was not a criminal
could go and come without restraint. He tried to think of some
possible set of circumstances which might afford a reason for her
strange conduct. He could think of none. Yet he was sure that she had
not acted lightly in what she had done.

Olva’s was a gentle, sympathetic nature, which made the hurting of any
living thing impossible to her. She would, he knew, have spared her
friends the terrible anxiety they were now suffering had it lain
within her power to do so.

That idea brought him no comfort, because it only served to emphasize
the urgency of the call which the girl he loved had obeyed. She had
not dared to resist, not even to delay. And she had been forced to
bury the secret, whatever it might be, in her own heart. The sight of
her pale, drawn face as the lamplight had given it to him the night
before rose in his mind. He caught his breath in the bitterness of his
spirit.

He glanced at his watch. A quarter of an hour had passed since
Danatoff had promised to come to him. He walked out to the entrance
hall and was about to inquire whether the man he sought had appeared
when a young fellow, coming from the direction of the lift, tripped
and sank on his knee beside him. He bent and assisted him to rise. As
he did so the stranger fixed on him a pair of eyes the sight of which
made him gasp. They blazed, though whether with fury or excitement he
was unable to say. Instinctively he shrank back from that terrible
gaze.

“I thank you.”

A smile curled the stranger’s lips and the fire in his eyes was
quenched. Bob advanced to the clerk and asked him to send up and say
that he was in a great hurry.

When the page had gone on this errand he strolled across to the front
entrance of the hotel. He watched with listless eyes the people
entering and leaving, men and women of many types with this in
common--that they accepted the best of life as their inalienable
right. In his own bitterness of spirit he almost hated them for their
complacency.

The page who had gone to Danatoff’s room emerged from the lift and
came to him.

“Mr. Danatoff must have gone out, sir,” he announced. “His bedroom is
empty.”




 CHAPTER V.
 THE FIRST CLEW

“He can’t have gone out.”

Bob’s voice was raised for once almost to a shout. The clerk at the
desk glanced up anxiously from his work.

“He is not in his room, sir.”

The page had the insistence of all pages. He would go on saying that
till the very end of time.

The young man strode across to the desk.

“Mr. Danatoff answered you on the phone, didn’t he?” he demanded in
anxious tones.

“Yes, sir.”

“You are quite sure that you got his message correctly--about waiting
for him in the lounge?”

The man stiffened slightly.

“I am absolutely sure, sir.”

“It’s very strange. The boy you sent up says that he has gone out. His
room is empty.”

“That is scarcely possible, sir. I have watched everyone coming from
the lifts and I could scarcely have missed him, I think. I’ll send up
again.”

He called an older man and gave him instructions to inquire from the
servants on the floor the exact movements of the Russian.

“It is possible, you see, that he may have ordered a bath before you
called.”

The man was absent only a few minutes. He confirmed the page’s
statement. Mr. Danatoff had certainly gone out. Indeed, one of the
chambermaids, who was making the bed in the next room to his, had
heard his door open some time before and seen him pass on his way to
the lift.

Bob glanced at the clerk as this piece of evidence was given. He
looked utterly bewildered.

“I can’t understand it, sir,” he declared. “But possibly he may have
passed when I was speaking to some one else. There have been one or
two inquiries here. Still, I kept my eyes open.”

“I fear there is no doubt about it.”

Bob’s voice was weary with chagrin and disappointment.

“Shall I give him a message from you when he returns?”

The young man shook his head.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that in the circumstances he is not likely to
return--for the present, at any rate.”

He handed gratuities to the servants who had helped him, and left the
hotel. He told his driver to take him home again at once.

Now, for the first time in his life, he was absolutely at a loss what
to do next. The confidence in his own powers to trace the missing girl
which he had felt when he set out from Curzon Street had utterly
deserted him. It was obvious that Nature had not included the gifts
necessary to a successful detective among those with which she had
endowed him. He cursed himself for being a fool, a dolt.

Of course, the midnight visitor to South Street would not wish to be
interviewed by anybody, least of all by a man whose name had already
been coupled in society with that of Olva Vorloff. Any idiot might
have guessed that he would act exactly as he had acted, and so make
good his escape from the hotel. If only he had had the sense to wait
in the entrance hall. Then, at least, he might have tracked his man
down and got to grips with him.

His butler informed him that breakfast was served. He went to the
dining room. The morning papers were laid ready and he glanced through
them as he ate, a proceeding which caused his servants to exchange
glances. As a rule their master breakfasted as fastidiously as he
dined. The papers recorded the fact that a certain Grand Duke had
proclaimed himself Tsar of Russia. He pushed them away and went back
to his smoking room.

What was he to do? What did the police do in such circumstances? There
seemed to be nothing to indicate any first step. The thought crossed
his mind that it was a pity Olva had made the request that the police
should not, in any circumstances, be called in. Had she not done that
he would have gone at once to Scotland Yard and put the matter in
competent hands.

It was difficult to understand why she should fear the British police
so greatly, because she must know quite well that there was all the
difference in the world between their methods and those of the
terrible Russian _Tcheka_. Her political activities, supposing that
she was dabbling in politics, were not crimes in England. Unless,
indeed--

The fear clutched his heart so suddenly that he felt himself grow
pale. Then the blood surged again to his face. It was
impossible--impossible. Nevertheless, they had murdered her father in
cold blood--and her friends. They would have murdered her mother and
herself had not Providence intervened.

He tried to place himself in that position, the position of a man who
had seen his father led away to the slaughter, to the torture of a
mock trial, and the ignominy of secret murder. The position of a man
whose family and caste had been proscribed and trampled in the dust.

Would he cherish, in these circumstances, the ideas about murder
which, as a free Englishman, had been born in his blood? The
Bolshevist devils were established in London; they had been received
with honor. He had heard that the whole country was honeycombed with
their spies. Might it not seem even an act of piety to the daughter of
their innocent victim?

He paced the room as the terrible possibility took shape in his mind.
His gray eyes were full of anguish now--the anguish of a strong man
who finds himself helpless in the hands of Fate. If only he could
reach her! If only he could talk to her and dissuade her, or, at the
very worst, stand beside her and shield her from the dangers which
threatened!

It was horrible to think that while he remained impotent, like a
chained creature, she might be taking steps which no power on earth
could enable her to retrace. He had a vision of her gentle, tragic
beauty face to face with a new catastrophe. It wrung his heart. Was
there no quarter to which he could turn for help?

He sat down and pressed his hands on his brow, forcing himself to
think. At least he knew that she had gone westward--probably toward
Knightsbridge. That might bring her to Kensington, or take her farther
to Hammersmith and Kew. Suppose that she had gone to attend some
secret meeting, she must have returned long ago. Yet she did not
expect to return, clearly. So that this journey had been planned
beforehand, with a definite object in view. Wherever she had gone she
had remained.

He started up. If he could find the cabman who had driven her he might
achieve real progress! That, he told himself, should not be difficult,
because at that hour of the night girls do not often drive away from
houses in the West End. The man would be certain to remember his
beautiful fare.

He worked at that exhausting task for an hour and obtained no
satisfaction. Either the man who answered his call was quite sure that
none of the usual frequenters of the rank had driven Olva, or else he
professed to know nothing about the matter. From the gruffness of some
of the replies it was made to appear that cab-ranks are normally
subjected to a good deal of practical joking in the shape of spurious
inquiries.

He had almost decided that the quest was useless when suddenly Fortune
favored him. To his usual question the answer came in a matter-of-fact
voice:

“Yes, sir; I drove the lady myself. I remember it quite well. Down
Park Lane, sir, and on through Knightsbridge.”

Bob’s hands shook.

“Where did you take her to?”

“To a garage in the Hammersmith Broadway.”

“Look here, my man, if you will come now, at once, to fifty Curzon
Street--Mr. Barling’s house--I’ll give you five pounds, with possibly
more to follow.”

He hung up the receiver. His expression had changed from utter
despondency to resolute eagerness. Here at last was a definite clew,
something he could work on immediately. He would get the man to drive
him straight to Hammersmith, the garage, and begin his inquiries on
the spot.

He reached for a cigarette and lit it.

The door of the room opened and his butler entered with a card on a
silver tray. He presented the tray to his master.

Bob read:


                        DETECTIVE INSPECTOR BILES
                            New Scotland Yard


He staggered to his feet with a suppressed exclamation of horror.

“Quickly! Show him in!” he cried to the astonished servant.




 CHAPTER VI.
 WHAT BILES KNEW

Inspector Biles was a tall, lean man whose eyes and mouth seemed to
be very widely separated. This peculiarity of his face gave him a
cold, rather inhuman appearance, yet he was, in fact, a very good
fellow, if a trifle severe in his point of view. He glanced round the
exquisite room in which he found himself noting much in little time,
according to the manner of his profession. Then he looked squarely
into Bob’s eyes.

The latter, who was holding his card between finger and thumb, bowed.

“To what do I owe the honor of your visit, inspector?” His tones were
not impolite, but neither were they cordial. The detective’s eyes
flickered.

“To an event which took place this morning at the High Court Hotel,”
he said in quiet tones. As he spoke he watched the young man closely
and noted that he started.

“Well?”

“The room occupied by a certain Mr. Danatoff, a Russian, was broken
into and, or so we have reason to believe, certain papers belonging to
him stolen. It has been reported to us that while this robbery was
going on you were awaiting that gentleman in the hotel lounge.”

“Good God, so that is the explanation!”

Bob drew a deep breath. He motioned his visitor to a chair and offered
him a box of cigars. Biles sat down, but declined to smoke.

“In the circumstances I felt that it might be within your power to
give us some information. I should tell you in the first place,
however, that the robbery was not discovered until you had left the
hotel. A servant then noticed that several of the drawers in the room
had been forced open. Their contents had been rummaged, evidently by
some one in a very considerable hurry.”

“So that Danatoff was not there at all.”

“Apparently not.”

The young man lit one of his thin cigarettes. The vision of a pair of
wild eyes, looking into his own, rose suddenly and dramatically in his
memory.

“It is rather a complicated story,” he said, “but I can tell you this
much without betraying any confidence--that I had special and urgent
reasons for wishing to talk to the Russian. I got the clerk to ring up
his bedroom and give my name. He said he would see me in the lounge. I
waited there, but he did not put in an appearance. The boy who was
sent up to his room found it empty.”

He drew a deep whiff of smoke and allowed it to pass slowly between
his lips. The detective remained silent a moment. Then he declared:

“You will pardon me if I say that leaves us pretty much where we stood
before. Possibly you may not have realized in what direction my
thoughts are turned.”

He paused. Bob’s face remained completely impassive.

“The thief was in possession of the key of Mr. Danatoff’s bedroom
door. That is certain, because the door was observed to be shut a few
minutes before, and it cannot be opened except by key. It would seem
to follow that he must have obtained the key from Mr. Danatoff
himself.”

“Yes.”

“And yet, it seems unlikely that any one would voluntarily surrender
such an object to a man who, having obtained possession of it, so
greatly abused his possession.”

There was a cold ring in Biles’s voice which chilled his hearer in
spite of himself.

“You mean,” he exclaimed, leaning forward in his chair in an attitude
of tense expectancy.

“That the evidence available at present points to a theft of the key
rather than to a voluntary surrender of it.”

Bob nodded. He removed the ash from his cigarette against the side of
an exquisite little silver tray of Indian workmanship.

“But in that case,” he said, “why has not the Russian returned to
report the theft?”

“Exactly. It is the question I have already asked myself.”

The detective’s eyes seemed to be riveted on the face of his
companion. The young man felt the sense of fear which had haunted him
earlier in the morning return with new intensity. The truth, as this
policeman already saw it, began to rise starkly before him.

“You mean that you suspect foul play?”

Biles raised his left shoulder very slightly in a gesture which was
habitual with him.

“That, perhaps,” he declared, “would be putting it rather high. But
you will admit that the possibility cannot be overlooked in the
present state of our knowledge, especially as Mr. Danatoff is reputed
to be concerned in various political matters of a more or less
dangerous kind. In any case, he seems to have left the hotel twice
during the small hours of last night. On the second occasion he did
not return.”

Again Bob was aware of the close scrutiny of the blue eyes opposite to
him; but he felt also that the information this man desired of him
must not be accorded. At all costs he would protect the secret of the
woman he loved. He rose and stood in front of the fire.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I cannot help you there, inspector. My
business was of a purely private character. Of course, if there is
anything I can do to make your task easier, you have only to command
me.”

It was obvious that he was anxious to bring the interview to an end,
but Biles made no movement to gratify his wishes.

“I regret,” he said in slow tones, “that it should be my duty to do
so, but I have one or two questions to ask before I go which I must
urge you to answer as fully and candidly as possible.”

His words had a menacing ring. Bob felt himself flush to the eyes.

“What-- Do you?”

He restrained himself just in time.

“Believe me, I do not.” The detective’s expression remained absolutely
impassive. “I accuse nobody. I am merely asking, as I must ask, for
such information as I can obtain.”

“Very well. Go on.”

Biles closed his eyes and opened them again suddenly.

“You have known Mr. Danatoff for some time?” he asked.

“I have never spoken a word to him in my life.”

“Yet you were present, were you not, on the first occasion when he
left the High Court Hotel last night?”

The young man started violently.

“How can you know that?” he exclaimed.

“Because you stopped your cab at the hotel entrance in order to avoid
being seen by the man you were following. The porter on duty saw you;
he happens to know you by sight.”

The Scotland Yard man had not raised his voice in the slightest. He
continued in the same level tones.

“Not unnaturally, the man’s curiosity was aroused. When Mr. Danatoff
returned he went out and entered into conversation with his cabman
who, it appears, frequently ranks his cab opposite the High Court
Hotel. The cabman stated that his fare had called at number ten South
Street, which as I think you know, is the house occupied at present by
Countess Vorloff and her daughter.”

Bob had managed to regain his self-possession. He tossed the end of
his cigarette into the fireplace.

“I can only repeat,” he declared, “that I am entirely unacquainted
with Mr. Danatoff, and that my reason for taking an interest in his
movements was a personal one.”

“I should like, nevertheless, to know that reason.”

Biles’s voice was just a trifle more commanding than it had been. His
companion faced him with admirable candor.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I couldn’t tell you.”

The detective’s eyes narrowed menacingly.

“You see, Mr. Barling,” he snapped, “it comes to this. The whole of
London society knows that you have been constantly with Countess Olva
Vorloff during the past season. Gossip declares that you are about to
become engaged to her. Last night you are seen following, shall I say
shadowing, a Russian who calls in the small hours at her house and
then mysteriously disappears after, apparently, having surrendered the
key of his bedroom to a thief.”

He paused. Bob nodded.

“Quite so,” he said lightly. “I can see what you are driving at. I am
the jealous lover who has discovered a mysterious rival and means to
sift the matter to the bottom--even to the extent of searching my
rival’s papers for letters, and, if necessary, hitting him over the
head in order to do so.”

He broke off. Biles’s face had become very stern.

“That is not my idea,” he declared. “From the information in my
possession it is certain that you played no part in Danatoff’s
disappearance. But the same cannot be said so confidently of the
Countess Olva.”

“What are you insinuating?”

The young man had no coolness now. His face was thrust forward; his
hands twitched.

“I am insinuating nothing, but, as you know, this lady disappeared
from her home last evening before Danatoff called on her. She left a
letter for Danatoff. On receipt of that letter he also disappeared. I
have myself been to South Street and confirmed these facts.”

“Well?”

“These two are Russians. In political affairs papers, documents,
frequently possess the very highest value. It may be necessary, on
occasion, to go to any length, all lengths, to obtain--shall we say a
plan, or a list of names.”

“I see.”

The young man’s face had become as grim as that of his interlocutor.
Once again he had himself under control.

“In other words Mr. Barling, what were the instructions about
following Danatoff and about visiting the High Court Hotel this
morning which you received from the Countess Olva?”

Bob drew a deep breath. “That,” he declared, “is a question I can
answer. I received absolutely no instructions of any sort from her
about this man or any other man. What is more, she has never so much
as mentioned his name in my hearing.”

Biles rose. “Thank you,” he said crisply. He turned to the door.




 CHAPTER VII.
 OLVA’S MIDNIGHT DRIVES

As soon as the detective had left him Bob sank down into one of his
armchairs. He had managed to retain his courage in front of the
fellow, but now, when the ordeal had ended, his courage seemed to ebb.
The stark facts of the situation assailed him with overwhelming force.

And there was added to them another, new consideration: If he
attempted to find the woman he loved he might be the means, however
unwitting, of betraying her into the hands of her enemies. He rose at
that thought and rang the bell. For the future he would act with new
circumspection, with all the care and caution of which he was capable.
The determination seemed to bring back his habitual coolness of
manner.

A footman answered his summons.

“Has the cab I ordered come for me?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. It is waiting now at the door, sir.”

It was evident that the man was greatly surprised that his master
should have summoned a cab in this way. But his impassive features
remained impassive. Bob’s servants were reputed the most excellent in
London.

“Good. See that he doesn’t go away. Tell him I shall come in a few
minutes.”

The servant retired, more astonished than ever. Bob mounted the stairs
to his bedroom and changed into an old lounge suit of dark blue. He
told his butler that he didn’t know when he would be back.

The cabman, when he interrogated him on the pavement, was quite
certain about his fare of the night before. He had taken a very
considerable interest in the lady when she told him to drive to a
garage at that strange hour of the night. He described her so
accurately that Bob had not the slightest doubt of his _bona fides_.
The young man gave him the five pounds which he had promised and told
him to drive him at once to Hammersmith.

The vehicle was an old one and ground and grated in its gears as it
lurched along, but he was too preoccupied to notice that. Like most
fastidious people, he could easily forget his fastidiousness when the
occasion demanded attention to more serious matters. He wondered what
he should do when he reached the garage. And then the thought came to
him that, after all, Inspector Biles had been able to obtain an
immense amount of information of real value in a very short space of
time.

He was an expert, no doubt, but it was an article of their creed,
strengthened overwhelmingly during the years of his war service, that
what one man can do another can do also, given the will and the
courage. He had both, in this case, for there could not be the
slightest doubt that the girl he loved had the most urgent need for
his help.

The garage was quite a small one. It was situated in a street opening
on the Hammersmith Broadway. He told his cabman to wait for him and
walked into the yard. A young fellow about his own age came to meet
him.

“I am right in thinking,” he began, drawing a bow at a venture, “that
the Countess Olva Vorloff keeps her car here?”

The man stared at him and then shook his head.

“No, sir. One or two ladies keep their cars here, but no one of that
name.”

Bob bit his lip. It was certain that Olva had come to the garage. The
cabman was quite positive, too, that he had seen her enter it.

“The lady I mean,” he said, “is fair with rather a pale face. She came
here last night very late.”

The man’s expression changed.

“Oh, that’s Miss Seymour,” he declared. “She has kept her car here for
a year or more. Goes out often at night, she does.”

There was a hint of mystery in the tones, which the young man
resented. So Olva had an assumed name for her midnight escapades! He
drew a sharp breath.

“She went out as usual last night, I take it?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. About two o’clock or thereabouts. Mostly she’s a bit
earlier than that. Seemed upset about something or other, she did. But
it ain’t our business, of course, to ask questions of our customers.”
The man hesitated a moment, then he inquired, “You’ll be from the
police, perhaps?”

“No.”

He seemed disappointed at this information. It was evident that he
fully expected official inquiries, sooner or later, into the strange
habits of his client. Again Bob felt his resentment stirring.

“Miss Seymour did not tell you where she was going?” he demanded in
cold accents.

“Oh, no, sir. She never does tell that to anybody. Just walks in here
and asks if the car--it’s a little Hillman coupé she has--is ready;
gets in--starts the engine, and away.”

“I see. And how long is she usually about on these occasions?”

The man hesitated. Bob realized that he was watching him narrowly and
guessed that the impression that he was a detective from Scotland Yard
remained in spite of his denial.

“The time varies a bit. Sometimes it’s as short as four hours,
sometimes it’s eight hours or more.” He broke off and lowered his
voice. “But the distance don’t vary any.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, sir, it’s a bit queer, as you will allow, when a young lady
like ’er goes off drivin’ alone in the middle of the night. Makes yer
think, it does. So I took the notion, a few weeks back, of seeing just
how many miles she ’appens to cover in ’er journeys. There’s a
mileometer on the car.”

“Yes?” The eagerness in Bob’s voice was but feebly repressed.

“Well, the first time I watched it was sixty-eight miles and four
furlongs; the second time it was sixty-eight miles and three furlongs,
and the third time it was sixty-eight miles and two furlongs. That
should mean that ’er destination is thirty-four miles from ’ere or
near about.”

Bob took a tiny engagement book from his pocket and made a note of the
figures.

“Did you notice anything else?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. Each time the car ’as come back it ’as ’ad red dust on the
inside of the wings--like the stuff they make carriage drives of.”

“So.” Bob glanced round the yard while he racked his brain to think of
any other question which it would be useful to ask. His eye
encountered a big road map of the South of England hanging on the
wall, an advertisement of some petrol firm. “By the way, do you know
the country well round about London?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“Let me see. Thirty-four miles. How far out would that takes us? And,
by the way, which direction did Miss Seymour take?”

“Always the same--west along the Broadway.”

He noted that fact also. Then he returned his book to his pocket.

“Thank you,” he said. “You have saved me a great deal of trouble, I
think. Is this your own garage, or are you only employed here?”

“It’s my father’s garage.”

Bob slipped a Treasury note into the young fellow’s hand and returned
to his cab. He told the driver to take him back to Curzon Street. On
the way he tried to think of the roads leading out of London to the
west. There was the Great West Road to Staines, and the Bath Road, and
north of that again, the main road to Oxford.

Going thirty miles out on these three main arteries one would come to,
respectively, the neighborhoods of Ascot, Maidenhead, and High
Wycombe. But there were so many crossroads and inter-crossroads that
that information seemed to be nearly valueless. He wondered if many of
the houses round London had red carriage drives.

It was just possible that Cane, his chauffeur, might know. He had been
employed for a time at Amersham, in Bucks, and was a most observant
fellow. Bob determined to have him in and ask him the moment he got
home.

Then his mind changed to the strange journeys which Olva was
apparently in the habit of making. He could understand her taking an
interest in the politics of the Russian colony in London. But why
should that interest compel her to make secret excursions to the
country? What was it which occurred at the house with the red carriage
drive? He sat up on the springless cushions and gazed with distracted
eyes at the people in the streets.

When he reached home he went at once to the telephone and rang up a
number on the Mayfair exchange.

“Is that Dr. Hailey’s house? This is Mr. Robert Barling speaking. I
wonder if I could see the doctor this afternoon? Yes, my business is
most urgent. Very urgent indeed.”




 CHAPTER VIII.
 THE AFTERNOON CALLER

When he left Bob Barling, Inspector Biles took a cab to South
Street, to the Vorloff’s house. He had already visited that house but
there were one or two supplementary points on which he desired further
information. It was his most cherished professional principle that no
detail is too small to be worth verifying.

He was shown into the Countess’s boudoir by Peter Nikolaiovitch, who
appeared to regard his return as ill-omened. The man belonged to the
tall, lean type of Russian. He had the remote melancholy of his race,
the dogged, faithful melancholy which sent battalions of the Russian
army during the Great War unarmed against the rifles and guns of the
Germans. Biles glanced at his pale cheeks and noted that he was
disturbed; he made up his mind to question him. On his first visit he
had spoken only to the Countess herself.

In the first place, however, he found himself under the necessity of
soothing the fears of that poor lady. Countess Vorloff was in great
distress and the return of the policeman quickened all her anxieties.
Her scared face was weary with the old and the new sorrows which had
come upon her. Her eyes were reddened with weeping.

“I am deeply sorry to trouble you again,” Biles said gently. “But if
we are to find your daughter we must make the fullest possible
inquiries. I am sure that you will realize this.”

“Ah yes, I will not hinder you, sir. But it is all so dark, is it not?
And already I have suffered so much.”

She bowed her head and the detective pitied her. He thought that she
was like a stately old ship driven from port and broken by the waves
and the winds. In her helplessness and weakness there was something
indescribably pathetic.

“I would like, if I may,” he suggested, “to ask a few questions of
your servants. They are Russians, are they not?”

The old woman nodded.

“Peter Nikolaiovitch, who admitted you, is a Russian,” she declared,
“though he has lived for some years in England and speaks your
language perfectly; and my maid also, Sophie Ivanovna. She has
preferred service in England to the life she might have enjoyed in
Moscow. Alas, even our service is but beggarly now! Sophie is maid to
Olva as also to myself, and Peter must drive our car as well as act
the part of our butler.”

She spoke with a resignation which was new in Biles’s experience and
which astonished him by its naïveté.

He bowed.

“May I call the man first?” he asked adding, “perhaps you will not
mind if I talk to him in another room, alone.”

At the Countess’s request he rang the bell. The servant who had
admitted him answered it. The old lady spoke to him in Russian and he
bowed low in response. He turned to Biles.

“Will you follow me, sir, if you please.”

They went to the dining room. The detective sat down and took his
notebook from his pocket. He glanced at an entry he had made and then
replaced the book. When he looked up he saw the deep eyes of the man
watching him. The conviction that the information he sought would not
easily be come by hardened in his mind.

“It was to you, was it not,” he began, “that the Countess Olva
intrusted the letter she left for M. Danatoff?”

“Yes, sir.”

“M. Danatoff is frequently at the house?”

“No, sir. He comes very seldom.”

The man seemed to hesitate a moment. Then he added: “He came last
night, in the first place, at eight o’clock, after her ladyship had
gone out. I did not see him, but the maid who answered the door gave
him the address to which she had gone, because he said his business
with her was very urgent.”

“Ah!” Biles’s eyes narrowed with eagerness.

“What address did she give him?” he asked sharply.

“Number forty-eight Brook Street. Her ladyship had gone to a dance.”

The detective nodded. That statement, as he knew was correct. So
Danatoff had been following the beautiful Russian girl all the
evening.

“Did he go to Brook Street?”

The man shook his head. “I do not know, sir.”

“He left no message on his first visit?”

“No, sir.”

“Did he telephone during the evening?”

“Some one telephoned, sir, after their ladyships returned from the
dance, but I do not know who this was, because the Countess Olva
answered the call herself.”

“You heard, perhaps, what she said?”

The man shook his head again.

“No, sir.”

Biles thought for a moment.

“How was M. Danatoff dressed when he called in the early hours of the
morning?” he asked.

“He was dressed in a brown suit and he wore a large cloak and a slouch
hat.”

“Hm! He must have changed his clothes, then, after he left the dance.”

“Yes, sir--undoubtedly.”

“So that, apparently he expected to go out after making his call?”

“Apparently, sir.”

“You saw the mark on his cheek, I take it?”

“Yes, sir.”

So far the man had retained his Slavonic calm, but it was obvious that
he was not at his ease. Biles watched him for a moment with the cold
gaze which he had often found so useful in dealing with prevaricators.
The man did not flinch.

“Tell me,” he asked, “did the Countess Olva receive any other visitor
during yesterday?”

He had no sooner spoken than a thrill of satisfaction ran along his
nerves. This time he had certainly come to the matter which the
servant was anxious to hide from him. The pale cheeks reddened and the
melancholy eyes grew resentful. There was no reply.

The detective repeated his question in somewhat severe tones, but
still Peter Nikolaiovitch maintained his silence. A frown gathered on
Biles’s brow.

“Listen to me,” he declared. “In England, as you should know, the
police do not act as they act in your native country. I have not come
here to get you to betray your mistress or her secrets. I have come to
ask you to help me to find her. The Countess Olva is perhaps in great
danger of her life; it may be that she has already lost her life.”

The man drew a deep breath.

“My mistress,” he said, “asked that I should not tell any one about
what took place yesterday afternoon.”

“At that time she could not know what was coming to her during the
night.”

Biles spoke cautiously, because he guessed that this man would not be
intimidated by any show of anger, or by any threats. He saw that his
argument had exerted some effect.

“Yet, she was very particular on that point, sir, for she asked me
again and again; oh, yes, many times.”

The detective thought a moment.

“I repeat,” he said in quiet tones, “that I am asking you this
question to help your mistress. Unless we know who her visitors have
been we cannot hope to rescue her from the danger in which she is now
almost certainly placed.”

Peter Nikolaiovitch shook his head. But this gesture was merely an
indication that he was communing with his own spirit, weighing up the
pros and cons of the course open to him. Biles recognized the fact and
awaited his decision without impatience.

“Very well, sir,” he declared at last, “I will tell you, because I
fear, as you fear, that disaster has come to her ladyship. Yesterday
afternoon about five o’clock, I admitted a visitor to her presence--a
young man.”

The detective betrayed no feeling of any sort.

“A Russian?” he asked.

“Yes, sir; I am sure of that, because I heard the first words which he
spoke when he entered the room.”

“Did he tell you his name?”

“Mr. Tsarov.”

“Tsarov? It is not a common name, is it?”

“No, sir.” The man shifted his position uneasily, as though fresh
doubts were gathering in his mind. “I think,” he added, “that her
ladyship did not know her visitor by this name, because when she saw
him she cried out in great surprise, yet I had already announced him
to her.”

Biles’s eyes narrowed.

“Do you remember the words which she made use of?”

“She cried: ‘What! you!’ The visitor answered, ‘My dear Olva, surely
you are not surprised that I also have lived through the storm?’ I did
not hear any more of their conversation, but my mistress had become
very pale and I could see that she was afraid--oh, yes, very much
afraid.”

The detective nodded.

“You did not return to the room while the stranger was there?”

“Yes, sir. Her ladyship rang the bell and told me to bring tea. As I
was entering the room I heard her say, ‘In this country crime is still
crime, remember.’ Mr. Tsarov did not reply. But when I was carrying in
the tea things a little later he exclaimed, ‘I cannot afford to be
squeamish when so much is at stake!’ I heard no more at all of their
conversation.”

Biles rose from his chair.

“There is just one other thing I wish to ask you,” he said. “Will you
describe the appearance of this Mr. Tsarov--as accurately as you can?”

“He seemed to be a young man and yet his face was not that of a boy.”
The servant hesitated a moment. “It was his eyes which I noticed most.
They were very strange, glaring eyes, which seemed to threaten those
on whom they were turned. Otherwise he was not distinguished; of
medium height, with brown hair and clean-shaven.”


The maid, Sophie Ivanovna, was a strikingly pretty girl with a mass of
short curly hair. She had big luminous eyes, set in her still face of
the type so characteristic of her people. She seemed restless under
the detective’s scrutiny, but answered his questions in a clear, firm
voice. She corroborated the man’s story in every respect.

“How many servants are there in this house?” Biles asked.

“But Peter Nikolaiovitch and myself, and a woman who comes sometimes
to clean. It is a small house. I am cook for their ladyships as well
as maid.”

When he was alone Biles made a careful note of his examination. It was
a precaution he never, by any chance, neglected. He read his notes
over after he had completed them, then he turned back to the notes he
had made earlier in the day. Everything, so far as he could see,
tended to support the idea he had formed, that a close connection
existed between the disappearance of Olva Vorloff and the burglary at
the High Court Hotel. The connecting link between these two events was
Bob Barling. It was urgently necessary that he should obtain more
information about that interesting young man.

He put his notebook back into his pocket and walked out into the hall.
Peter Nikolaiovitch was waiting for him and handed him his hat and
gloves. He signaled to a passing cab and told the driver to take him
to twenty-two Harley Street.




 CHAPTER IX.
 BARLING YIELDS HIS SECRECY

The address which he had given was that of Dr. Eustace Hailey. Biles
and Dr. Hailey were old friends. They had met, in the first instance
when the detective suffered from a nervous breakdown. Doctor Hailey’s
passion for amateur detective work had served thereafter as the link
binding them together. Moreover, his extensive knowledge of London
society had often served his friend from Scotland Yard in good stead.
It was of this last knowledge that Biles now sought to avail himself.

Dr. Hailey was busy with a patient when he reached the house, and so
he had leisure to collect his thoughts. The matter in which he
specially desired to be informed was the character of young Barling
and the names of young Barling’s friends.

He had been quite favorably impressed by the fellow himself, but his
experience was against placing too much trust on such impressions. No
one, he knew, can be more charming than your born rogue who is not
troubled by any scruples of conscience, and so is entirely at his
ease, even when his crime is but a few hours old.

Bob Barling, moreover, was the sort of man about whom women concern
themselves. The detective set a good deal of store by this. Men of
that type are always getting into scrapes which, as a rule, are none
of their making. They have some quality of mind which betrays their
judgment and sets up, instead of it, a code of honor invented by women
for their own purposes.

Consequently, they are habitually doing foolish things and putting
themselves in ridiculous positions. A woman has only to weep in order
to galvanize them into frantic states of energy or aggressiveness.

A cold smile bent his lips as this thought crossed his mind. What
fools men were! Even those in whom women took no interest, for they
always secretly envied the other kind their misfortunes. He sighed and
glanced out of the long Georgian windows at the dreary street--the
“Valley of the Shadow of Death,” as Harley Street has been ominously
nicknamed.

“Dr. Hailey will see you, sir.”

It was the smooth voice of Jenkins, the doctor’s butler, who was
reputed to be able, with a word, to mollify the most violent of his
master’s mental patients. Biles followed him to the consulting room.

His entries to that room had been legion, yet he never entered it
without experiencing a fresh thrill. Dr. Hailey always seemed so much
bigger, so much more “impressive by reason of his size”--as one of his
colleagues had put it, than he had expected. The present occasion was
no exception to this rule. The great round face, the huge shoulders,
the towering height of the man overwhelmed him anew. No wonder he was
called the “Harley Street Giant.”

And yet Dr. Hailey did not give the impression of sheer bulk which
quite small stout men often give. His bigness was proportioned like
the bigness of a ship. It was manifestly healthy, strong, robust.
Moreover, it was greatly genial. There was a kindness in the large
face, with its rather listless eyes, which was magical.

“Well, my dear Biles,” the doctor cried, “to what fresh horror do I
owe the delight of seeing you again?”

Biles took the hand extended to him and met the genial smile with the
rather acidulated expression of satisfaction which was his own nearest
approach of it.

“I’m afraid,” he declared, “that, as yet, the horror is to seek.”

He sat down in the chair which Dr. Hailey indicated and accepted a
cigar, the end of which he bit off.

“What I want to know,” he said abruptly, “is anything you can tell me
about a young man named Robert Barling--the Hon. Robert Barling.”

“What!” The doctor’s large eyes opened wide. “Surely you can’t mean
that you suspect Bob Barling of anything?”

“I didn’t say I suspected him. And I don’t--except of being a fool
where women are concerned.”

Dr. Hailey shook his head.

“There, my friend, you are greatly mistaken. Bob Barling is more
indifferent to women than any man I have ever known--except, perhaps,
yourself. I happen to know, because I attended his elder brother, the
present Lord Greenshire, for shellshock after the war, and saw a great
deal of Bob then, and he has remained one of my friends.”

The detective lit his cigar with slow deliberation.

“Is it possible,” he asked, “that you have not heard of his
infatuation for that Russian girl?”

“Olva Vorloff? Of course. But that is a serious love affair, my dear
Biles. I was speaking of women in general.”

“Serious or not, it has landed your young friend in a very awkward
predicament.”

Biles’s tone was grave. Yet he felt a secret satisfaction that he had
so greatly astonished the doctor. He gave him a short but
comprehensive account of the investigations he had carried out. He
concluded:

“So you see there can be little doubt that our young friend, Barling,
was acting under orders from the lady. And the fact that he was doing
so appears to me to throw a rather sinister light on the coincidence
of her disappearance on the same night as that on which the man
Danatoff disappeared.”

Doctor Hailey’s expression was puzzled. He sighed deeply.

“I think I should tell you,” he announced, “that Barling rang me up
this afternoon to make an appointment. He may arrive at any moment
now. I imagine, from what you say, that he wants to ask my help in his
present trouble.”

The detective frowned.

“He was anything but helpful himself this morning,” he declared.

“Yet it might be useful to meet him again. It is possible that he may
have realized, in the interval since your visit, that he was foolish
not to be quite frank with you. The fear of Scotland Yard is more
prevalent that even you, my dear Biles, quite realize.”

Biles did not reply for a moment. It was clear that his suspicions of
Bob were deep-seated and that no mere assurance that he was a good
fellow was likely to remove them. A detective lives by his observation
of facts. It is his business to discount opinions which run contrary
to the evidence before him.

“Very well,” he said shortly.

A few minutes later Jenkins entered the room to announce that Bob was
waiting. The young man strode in quickly, but drew back the moment his
eyes encountered the detective.

“Forgive me!” he exclaimed, addressing the doctor. “I did not know
that you were engaged.”

“I am not engaged.” Dr. Hailey rose and held out his hand. “Inspector
Biles, whom I believe you have met already today, is a very old friend
of mine. He has come to consult me about the case which I think is
also the occasion of your coming. I have proposed to him that we
should join our forces.”

The young man’s brows contracted. His face, the doctor observed, was
drawn with anxiety. His imperturbable manner had for once deserted
him.

“Is that possible?” he asked in frigid tones. “You see, there are
reasons which I cannot enter into, that forbid my being entirely frank
in this matter.”

He stood irresolute near the door.

Doctor Hailey bowed.

“I am aware of these reasons, my dear fellow,” he said. “If I may say
so, they are less weighty than you think.”

“How can you be aware of them?” The tones were sharp. Bob’s gray eyes
held a challenge.

“By using common sense, I think. It is obvious, isn’t it, that you
knew last night that the Countess Olva had left home?”

Bob started.

“I do not see that it is obvious,” he declared.

Doctor Hailey shrugged his huge shoulders. “I’m afraid,” he remarked,
“that you have not troubled to see this affair as an outsider such as
myself is likely to see it. I asked myself, naturally, what had caused
you to go to the neighborhood of the High Court Hotel in the small
hours of the morning. There is only one answer, I think.”

Biles, who had been listening intently, nodded.

“That is just what I said,” he declared. “He went because he had been
requested to go.”

“Not at all, my dear Biles.” The doctor’s voice was hurried, as though
he feared the effect on Bob of the Scotland Yard man’s interpolation.
“It is quite obvious that that was not the reason. Why should a woman,
who is sure that a man is going to call upon her, trouble to set a spy
on his movements at the time of the call?”

The detective looked a trifle nonplussed.

“Was she sure?” he asked.

“She left a note for him.”

“Still, she may have had reasons for fearing that he would not keep
his appointment.”

Doctor Hailey shook his head. “That is stretching the probabilities,”
he said crisply, “especially in view of the fact that the true
explanation stares us in the face. Danatoff, from what you have told
me, is a very easy person to recognize, because of the scar on his
cheek. Any one driving past him in a lighted street would notice him
at once.”

He turned to Bob.

“The point is, why, having noticed him, you should stop your cab and
watch his movements.”

“I have already refused to answer that question.”

“My dear fellow, it answers itself. The only possible answer is that,
at the moment, you were anxious about Countess Olva. Don’t forget that
we have your own statement that you never spoke a word to Danatoff in
your life and that we know he was present, along with yourself, at the
dance in Brook Street.”

Bob frowned, but did not reply.

“I’m afraid,” Biles said, “that I do not follow that reasoning. Why
should he be anxious about the lady? He had left her at her own home
some hours before.”

As he spoke a gleam of triumph shone in the detective’s blue eyes.

“Clearly, because he had just seen her driving away from her home.”

Doctor Hailey watched Bob narrowly while he said this. He saw the
young man flush and then recover himself. He added:

“There is no other possible explanation that I can conceive, none at
least that does not strain probability to the breaking point. Would
any newly engaged man leave the girl he loved to embark by herself on
a dangerous adventure in which he was to play only the minor and
ignoble part of a spy?

“Would he consent to watch another man, of whom he knew nothing, being
received at her home in the small hours? Would any girl be so foolish
as to ask her lover to perform such a service?”

The doctor’s voice was scathing. He had the satisfaction of observing
that Biles’s confidence had been shaken. Again he addressed himself to
Bob.

“If I may say so, you are acting foolishly in withholding your
confidence from the police in this business.” He declared, “What you
have been trying to hide isn’t worth hiding, and, in any case, such an
attitude is calculated to injure rather than help the woman you love.
Why should you fear a full investigation of the facts? Is it possible
that you suspect the Countess Olva yourself?”

The shot told. Bob reddened to his eyes.

“My God, no!” he cried. “Olva is above any suspicion.”

“In that case, I can see nothing to prevent your helping Inspector
Biles with all the information at your disposal.”

The doctor’s tones were still rather severe. He added:

“To attempt to look for her yourself, behind the backs of the police,
is mere folly, for which the price may easily be a heavy one. So far
as I can see, there is need of swift action--urgent need.”

Bob’s expression became troubled. He was still standing near the door,
but the resentment which had dictated that course had faded from his
eyes. The ease with which the doctor had read the secret of his
accidental meeting with Olva the night before convinced him that his
own powers as a detective were contemptible. He must have expert help
in looking for her, and the sooner the better.

He strode across to Biles and held out his hand.

“Believe me,” he said, “I am as anxious as you are that this horrible
mystery should be cleared up. It is quite true that I happened to see
the Countess Olva last night as I was returning home. She was in a cab
going toward Hyde Park Corner. I tried to follow her and failed. Then
I saw Danatoff coming out of the hotel and followed him to South
Street and back. That was why I tried to obtain an interview with him
this morning.”




 CHAPTER X.
 THE CAR ON THE BY-ROAD

When Bob had told the story of his visit to the Hammersmith garage
Biles rang up Scotland Yard. He gave orders that a description of the
Hillman coupé registered in the name of Miss Seymour and garaged at
Hammersmith, should be circulated at once to the county police.

Doctor Hailey had left the room for a moment. He returned with a large
roll of maps in his hand--a few of the hundreds of maps which he
collected with so much zeal and enthusiasm. He spread one of these out
on the table of his consulting-room, and then opened a pair of fine
calipers. The map was a small-scale survey of the district west of
London.

He placed one point on the area marked as Hammersmith and then
extended the instrument, according to the scale, to give a radius of
thirty-four miles. The free point swept round from Bagshot to the
Chilterns. He glanced up at his two companions.

“The house with the red drive must lie somewhere near, or actually
upon, this red line,” he declared. “That is certain, because the three
figures shown by the speedometer of the Countess Olva’s car tally so
closely. Any kind of circular or round-about route must have resulted
in comparatively wide differences.”

He took another map from the roll and opened it. It was a large scale
sheet of the district round Bagshot--the kind of map soldiers approve
of, whereon every separate hedge and ditch is marked.

“This covers a distance of six miles, east to west,” he declared, “so
that it is quite probable that the place we are seeking may actually
be marked on it.”

“But look at the number of places which are marked,” Bob said, in
tones of great pessimism. It was clear that he had already discounted
this enterprise in advance.

Doctor Hailey raised his eyebrows.

“That merely means,” he remarked, “that we shall have to work a little
harder.” He indicated a village with his finger. “We need not,
however, labor in vain. It is not villages or farms which must concern
us, but large houses. Houses large enough, at any rate, to possess
carriage drives of their own, red carriage drives, at that. This one,
for example.”

His finger traveled along the main Bagshot-Portsmouth Road and rested
on an estate, the house of which was shown in the middle of an
extensive coppice. He bent down over the map and read the name of the
place: “Highill Manor.” He strode to a bookcase where were a
formidable array of county directories. He selected a volume and
turned its pages quickly.

“Here we are,” he cried, “‘Highill Manor Elizabethan house, standing
in two hundred acres. Present owner, Sir Shirley Sharp.’” His voice
had the enthusiastic ring of a schoolboy’s intent on his hobby. “Be a
good fellow, Bob, and look up that worthy knight in _Who’s Who_.” He
indicated the whereabouts of the fat red volume to which he referred
with a sweep of his great arm.

The young man did as he was asked. Sir Shirley, it appeared, was a
retired Indian official, a judge who had received quite a bewildering
number of small decorations. Doctor Hailey nodded.

“I fancy,” he declared, “that we can conclude with some assurance that
it is not to Highill Manor that the Countess Olva is in the habit of
going in the small hours.”

He replaced the directory and returned to the map.

“The next place is this house on the Ascot side--‘The Grange.’”

Again he carried out his patient investigation, and again and again
until every likely spot on the map had been accounted for. Both Bob
and the detective found themselves carried away by his zeal and worked
diligently to help him, the one by hunting up the houses in the
directory, the other by ascertaining particulars of their owners. It
seemed, however, that their efforts, so far as this neighborhood was
concerned were destined to prove unavailing.

Its inhabitants, as a class, were so sternly respectable that the mere
idea of secret plottings, or even secret meetings among them, could be
dismissed offhand. Moreover, there was not a single empty house in the
whole district. Doctor Hailey rolled up the map and spread another in
its place--that of the district beyond High Wycombe in the direction
of Oxford.

The change was striking, whereas in the Bagshot area all had been
“ribbons and empire building,” in this district there was a pleasant
worldliness of the market place. Stockbrokers and company promoters
seemed to mingle on these heights with the luminaries of the
professions. In many cases even _Who’s Who_ was silent.

The doctor’s finger traveled to the barren stretch above Wycombe
itself, and came to a house standing alone on what seemed to be a
raised plateau surrounded by marsh land. He gave the name “Moorfields
Lodge.” Biles turned the pages of his directory:

“Hullo!” he declared, “it is marked as being untenanted at present.”
He read on for an instant. “The owner, it seems, is Lord Borrodean, of
Maidstone Abbey.”

“What sort of a house is it?”

“Early Stuart--reputed to have been occupied by King Charles I. on his
way to Oxford at the beginning of the civil war. Cromwell also stayed
in it for a few days. After the Restoration it was owned for a time by
the Duchess of Portland.”

“By Jove!” Bob cried, “I believe I know the place. It stands high
above the main road, looks enormous from the distance, but that may be
because it is shut in by big trees.”

He paused to watch Doctor Hailey measuring the distance from the house
to High Wycombe. He noticed that the calipers were moving over the map
at a greatly increased rate of speed. When the doctor glanced up from
his work his usually dull eyes were bright.

“I make the distance just a shade over thirty-four miles from
Hammersmith,” he announced.

He straightened himself and felt in his waistcoat pocket for the
little silver box which always reposed there. He opened the box with
great deliberation, while Bob and the detective exchanged smiles. He
took a large pinch of snuff in a manner which endowed that once
popular habit with all its old-time impressiveness.

“I have a feeling, my dear Biles,” he confessed, “that it would be
interesting to make a journey to this romantic old house.”

The buzz of the telephone bell interrupted him. He raised the
instrument and lifted the receiver.

“Yes--yes, this is twenty-two Harley Street. No, he has not gone away.
He is here with me now. Hold on a moment. Scotland Yard wants you,
Biles.”

The detective took the telephone. A moment later he exclaimed in
astonishment. They heard him asking for precise details of some
locality, the nature of which they could only guess. His voice seemed
to become more eager as the conversation proceeded.

He set the instrument down and turned to the doctor.

“By gad, Hailey!” he cried, “I congratulate you on the accuracy of
your deductions. The Wycombe police have just found the missing car in
a by-road which leads to the very Moorfields Lodge you have
discovered.”

The doctor’s expression, instead of acknowledging the tribute became
clouded over. He replaced his snuffbox in his pocket with a hurried
gesture.

“In that case, my dear Biles,” he declared, “the sooner you are on the
spot yourself the better.”

The detective nodded. He hesitated a moment and then glanced at his
friend.

“I suppose I cannot tempt you?”

Doctor Hailey’s genial smile spread on his face.

“I have it!” he declared in tones which thrilled. “Bob will be a good
fellow and call up his big car from wherever he keeps it; and
meanwhile you will join me in a very early tea. It is just on three
o’clock. We should get out to Wycombe by five or thereabouts.”




 CHAPTER XI.
 FLIGHT IN THE DARK

Bob drove the _Hispano Suiza_ himself. It was fitted with a moving
partition which enabled him to do this without separating himself from
his companions. The huge car purred its way through Regent’s Park and
so by Avenue Road to Swiss Cottage. In the Finchley Road he let it
make its own pace. They swept out to Golden Green and thence to Hendon
and the new cross-country avenue to Harrow.

Doctor Hailey was lying back with his eyes closed. As the pace of this
car increased on this modern road his lips parted. Speed of this
exquisite, impulsive kind thrilled him. It was, he told himself, the
reward of science, of man’s infinite labor against overwhelming odds,
against darkness and doubt and superstition and weakness. He reflected
that only knowledge, accurate observation and meticulous application
are certain. The art of the detective is the art of civilization.

His mind drifted to the case which they were about to investigate. He
had maintained an optimistic attitude before his young friend, but
there could be no doubt that Olva Vorloff’s disappearance had its
sinister aspect. It coincided too closely in point of time with the
disappearance of Danatoff to be entirely unconnected with that event.

Besides, there was the letter. What could she have written to the
fellow? And why, in any case, if she were making an appointment with
him, had she not remained to receive him in person? It certainly did
look as though, in this matter, the girl was acting on behalf of
somebody else.

That somebody else might well be the man with the glaring eyes, who
had given the name Tsarov, for this mysterious individual was
evidently on terms of intimacy with Olva. Moreover, there could be
little doubt, from what Bob had said, that it was he who had ransacked
Danatoff’s bedroom at the High Court Hotel.

But how had he obtained the key of the bedroom door? If Danatoff had
been robbed he must soon have become aware of the fact. And, in any
event, he would naturally return to his hotel within a short space of
time. What was it which had prevented him from returning?

Doctor Hailey’s face became grave as the obvious reason presented
itself to his mind. He turned to the detective at his side:

“The Countess Olva’s letter to her mother,” he asked, “did not specify
how long she was likely to be away, did it?”

“No. She merely said that she would be in no danger, and that the
police were not to be called in.”

The doctor’s head went forward. His eyes closed again. That could only
mean that she had a more or less clear idea of what was likely to
happen during the night and the following days. He wondered who the
man with the glaring eyes could be. The police believed that they knew
most of the Russians in England, but they had no record of this
particular individual.

He realized that it was futile to make theories. The evidence was too
scanty and of too contradictory a character. He found his snuffbox and
regaled himself with a large pinch.

The car was running through Uxbridge. It swung out on the main Oxford
Road and so traveled by Gerrard’s Cross and Beaconsfield to Wycombe.
Bob drew up at the local police station, as Biles had asked him. The
detective got out and strode into the building. He returned in a few
minutes with the local sergeant, who was to act as their guide.

This man described how the Hillman coupé had been found, quite
accidentally by a farm laborer. It had evidently been involved in an
accident. The laborer had met one of the local police on the high road
and told him of his discovery. Not long afterwards, as it happened,
the description of the vehicle was circulated by Scotland Yard.

“Have you seen the car yourself?” Biles asked.

“No sir. But I sent a constable out to the place as soon as I knew you
were looking for it.”

They had left the town. The sergeant directed Bob to take the first
turning on his right. The big car swung into a narrow by-way between
high hedges. A moment later it drew up. A few yards ahead, drawn right
across the road, was the missing Hillman.

They descended and went forward to examine it. The vehicle had
evidently been pulled up sharply, because there were wheel marks, the
kind of marks which locked wheels make on a soft surface, leading
right up to it. The side of the car was indented, as though from a
violent blow, and the door on that side had been partially wrenched
from its hinges.

Biles exclaimed in astonishment.

“Good God, there has been a collision! Only the bonnet of another car
could have done that.”

The sergeant nodded.

“That was the conclusion my man came to. It’s very strange, because
the house is empty and this road only leads up to the back door.” He
added, “The carriage drive is some distance away along the main road.”

Bob stood beside Doctor Hailey, a short distance away from the
policeman. His face was very grave.

“Do you think that--that she can have been injured?” he asked in low
tones.

“I should not think so. The side panels are bent, not broken. She
could easily escape by that door on the opposite side.”

“Yes, but where--?”

The young fellow turned away. Doctor Hailey went forward to inspect
the vehicle. There could be no manner of doubt that a collision had
taken place. The tracks of the following car were plainly visible. At
the point where they ended the surface of the road showed depressions
made by the rebound of the tires. These were not, however, very deep,
so that apparently, the following vehicle had been traveling
comparatively slow.

That was the impression conveyed also by the damaged panels of the
Hillman coupé. Had they been struck with great force they must have
been broken, whereas they were but indented.

“I don’t think,” Biles said, “that this can have been a skid merely.
The wheeltracks are not spread at all. She must have turned the car
across the road deliberately.”

He turned to Doctor Hailey, who was examining the tracks closely. The
doctor nodded.

“There is no doubt,” he declared, “that she manœuvred the vehicle
into its present position.”

He pointed to the reversed tracks which ran out from the front of the
car. Then he walked round to the uninjured side and bent to examine
the ground beside it.

“I rather fancy,” he said, “that the occupant of the vehicle had
descended before the accident took place. Look!”

He indicated the toe-mark of a woman’s shoe on the soft surface, and
beyond it a complete footprint. Beyond that again was another
footprint, and then another.

“If the accident had found her in the car it is most unlikely that she
would have been able to run so steadily as these footprints indicate
that she did run.”

“Run?” the detective queried sharply.

“Without doubt. Look at the shape of that heel-mark. It is so much
less clear than the toe-mark accompanying it. There is none of the
sharp precision of the walker’s heel. I should say myself that the
girl was running as fast as her legs would carry her, running almost
on tiptoe.”

He strode a few paces up the road and once more bent down. Bob had
followed him at a short distance.

“She stumbled here,” he declared. “Look at the slip made by her foot
over that stone. It is quite certain that she was running fast.”

He straightened himself, sighing as he did so. He turned to the young
man.

“There is no doubt that this flight and the position of the car bear a
close relationship to one another. The Countess Olva was being pursued
by some one of whom she stood in very considerable fear.”




 CHAPTER XII.
 THE SIGHT IN THE GARAGE

From the point where they stood the house was visible among its
trees--a dark, rather forbidding-looking building of evidently vast
proportions. Obviously it was toward it that the girl had run, but
there was no indication that her pursuer had followed her.

Biles had searched the car thoroughly, but found nothing. He joined
the other two and they walked up the hill toward Moorfields Lodge. The
sun was about to set and its level rays illuminated the autumn
foliage. A riot of color, red and crimson and saffron, mingling with
the faded greens of summer, was spread before them. The chill of
autumn rose from the damp ground and there were wisps of mist, like
ghosts, among the trees.

In the diminishing light the great house, as they approached it,
seemed strangely sinister. The windows were unshuttered, but they were
so begrimed with dust that even the red sunlight scarcely brightened
them. Not a sign of life was visible anywhere in the gloomy façade
which had looked out on so many changing and changeful years.

“Look!” Bob cried as they came to the top of the hill, “the red
carriage drive!”

It was covered with weeds, moss-grown in places. They could detect
wheel-tracks on the faded red surface.

They came to the front door round the side of the house. As they did
so the doctor exclaimed in wonder at the beauty of the scene. The sun
had finally disappeared over a low spur of the Chilterns, leaving
behind him a vast curtain of light, woven, as it seemed, of
translucent threads of gold. Atoms of gold hung suspended in the still
air. Below, on the slopes leading to the house, beech leaves and oak
leaves and great chestnut fans wore the gorgeous apparel of death.

“What a spectacle! My dear Biles, this Wycombe country is the most
satisfying in all England.”

The detective assented grimly. He was no admirer of scenery. At the
moment his interest was fully engaged by the heavy door of the house,
which appeared to be securely bolted and barred against any intruder.
He advanced and shook it, after the fashion of his calling. It
resisted him solidly. He turned to the sergeant.

“Who has the keys, do you know?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“We could scarcely break it open, even if we wanted to. Possibly the
back door may be less difficult.” He strode off to reconnoiter.

Doctor Hailey turned from his contemplation of the sunset and gave the
door another but much less violent shake. A look of surprise came into
his face. He signalled to Bob, who was standing beside him, to repeat
the operation.

“What do you make of it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Is it bolted inside?”

“I feel sure of that. A door which is merely locked is made less
steady. There is no play here above or below the lock.”

“In that case entrance must have been made by the back door.”

“Presumably.”

They walked round the house and found Biles and sergeant surveying
another door. It opened from a wide yard surrounded by out-buildings.
The detective turned and shook his head as they approached.

“It’s locked, too,” he informed them. “All the same, I fancy whoever
entered the place last night must have used this door.”

The doctor repeated the examination he had made of the first door.
Again, bewilderment showed in his expression. He pointed to a spider’s
web which extended from the wall of the house to the woodwork of the
door.

“I don’t think,” he said in quiet tones, “that anybody used this door
last night, or, indeed any night within the last week.” He added, “And
I am prepared to hazard the opinion that the same applies to the front
door also.”

The sergeant shook his head. “You must be mistaken. There are no other
doors. And it’s quite obvious the lady was making for the house.”

Doctor Hailey glanced at him, but did not reply. He turned from the
door and surveyed the yard. The out-buildings were not connected with
the house, and consequently entry could not have been effected through
any of these.

“There may be a secret passage,” Bob suggested. “The old houses often
possessed them.”

The doctor did not appear to hear him. He was gazing intently at a
point on the ground about halfway across the yard. He strode away from
the others and stooped down. They saw him pick up some object. He
examined it and then stooped again. They heard him exclaim in
astonishment. Biles walked across to him.

“Look at that,” said Doctor Hailey.

He held out a fragment of plate glass for his friends’ inspection.
Though the light was dwindling rapidly the detective saw that other
similar fragments were scattered on the cobblestones.

“Well?”

“It is too thick to have belonged to an ordinary window, especially a
window at the back of the house.”

“Quite so.” The doctor’s eyes were apparently listless. “It is not,
however, too thick for the windscreen of a motor car.”

“By gad! But in that case--” Biles paused and looked bewildered. He
added, “The screen of the Hillman coupé was not broken, was it?”

“No. This must have belonged to another car.”

Bob and the sergeant of police had joined them. They helped to pick up
some more of the fragments, which seemed to be very widely scattered.
The surface of the glass was bright, proving that the accident had
occurred recently. Doctor Hailey turned to the garage door. It was
secured by a big padlock.

“Can you open this, Biles?”

“I don’t know.”

The detective produced a bunch of strange-looking keys. He fitted one
or two of them into the lock, but they failed to turn it. He was about
to give up the enterprise when an exclamation of astonishment broke
from him. The padlock had opened in his hands.

“Good heavens, it isn’t locked at all!”

He removed it and pulled on the big door, which rolled back on its
overhead wheels. The rear of a closed car was disclosed to view.
Doctor Hailey strode round to the front of it. They heard him cry out
in horror and amazement.




 PART II




 CHAPTER XIII.
 DOCTOR HAILEY’S DISCOVERY

Huddled up on the driver’s seat of the car, with his chest supported
against the wheel, was the body of a man. His head hung limp and
ghastly, and his hands had slipped to his sides.

The doctor opened the door and grasped one of the hands. It was as
cold as marble.

He released it again and bowed his head. A sense of horror, swift and
compelling, held all four men in silence. Their eyes traveled from the
piteous, dead figure to the jagged edges of the shattered windscreen.

Biles was the first to recover himself. He had an electric torch in
his pocket and flashed it on the terrible spectacle. As he did so Bob
uttered a cry:

“_Danatoff!_”

The detective raised the dead face. There was no mark upon it save the
old healed scar on the left cheek. The features were composed.
Evidently M. Danatoff had suffered little in his final moments.

The sergeant found a switch on the wall of the garage and turned on
the light. Then the cause of the Russian’s death was made plain. A
deep stain showed on the front of his waistcoat. The doctor unbuttoned
the garment and exposed the skin.

A small wound, the livid edges of which contrasted vividly with the
surrounding pallor, was situated immediately under the left breast.
Danatoff had been struck through the heart. The mystery of the broken
windscreen was explained.

“The murderer,” Biles declared in tones which he contrived to render
matter-of-fact, “must have pushed the car in here. That would not be
difficult, because the ground slopes downward from the yard to the
garage. It is obvious that the shot was fired outside.”

“The car was stationary at the time,” Bob said, “otherwise it would
have continued its way and struck against the wall, and there is not a
scratch on the paint anywhere.”

He was standing in front of the vehicle, examining the dumb irons.
Doctor Hailey noticed that his expression had become tense with
anxiety. He glanced at Biles and saw a hard glitter in the eyes of
that professional man-hunter. Murder, to a detective, is a challenge
calling forth an instant and instinctive response.

They lifted the body from the car and laid it out on the stone floor
of the garage. The doctor noticed that the lining of one of the
pockets of the dead man’s coat had been pulled out. He called his
companion’s attention to this fact. The detective passed his hands
rapidly through all the pockets. He extracted a purse containing a
small sum of money and a fountain pen. He laid those objects on the
narrow work table which ran along the end of the shed.

“It’s pretty obvious,” he declared, “that the attack must have been
premeditated. No doubt the poor fellow was lured to his doom, and shot
as soon as he reached the yard.”

Biles drew Doctor Hailey aside.

“It’s obvious, of course,” he insisted in low tones, “that the
Countess Olva played a big part in all this--possibly the only part.
In the circumstances, and with all deference to you, my dear Hailey,
young Barling cannot remain here with us. I am ready to believe that
he knows as little as we do, but the coroner’s jury is bound to take
his conduct in following Danatoff about into consideration, and also
the fact of his intimacy with the Russian girl.”

Biles spoke with some difficulty, and it was evident that he expected
opposition. But Doctor Hailey assented at once.

“I quite agree with you,” he declared, “and I will speak to him.”

He approached the young man, whose features had become haggard during
the past hour. He told him what the detective had said. Bob cried out
in strong protest:

“But that is monstrous! Have we not come to find Olva? And we are as
much in the dark on that matter as ever before. I cannot abandon the
search at this stage surely.”

“The police, you see, have power to do as they think fit in a case of
this kind.”

The doctor’s voice had a ring of finality.

“They don’t suspect me--or, at least, if they do, the remedy is in
their own hands. I am free to act as I choose.”

Doctor Hailey laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulders.

“I think,” he said, “that in this matter also you must consider not
your own feelings, but those of the woman you love. I should be merely
insulting your intelligence if I pretended that, just at the moment,
no suspicion attaches to the Countess Olva. As her _fiancé_, your
position here is really impossible.”

He paused. Bob had turned pale. He looked up with beseeching eyes.

“What does he--Biles--suggest?” he asked hoarsely. “What has he said
to you?”

The doctor did not reply. He led the way to the door of the garage and
they passed out into the silence of evening. Already the long shadows
were gathering about the walls of the old house. The young man
repeated his question in tones of still greater anxiety.

“You see,” Doctor Hailey said, “it is known that the murdered man
received a letter from the Countess Olva last night and that on
receipt of it he left his hotel never to return. It is known also that
his room was burglarized this morning. Tonight we find him murdered
within a few yards of the girl’s car. His pockets, too, have been
searched, just as, later on, his bedroom was searched.”

“But what does that prove?” There was a desperate note in the boy’s
voice which touched the older man deeply.

“It doesn’t prove anything,” he said, placing emphasis on the verb in
a manner which sounded deadly in spite of him. “But it presents a case
which obviously requires an answer. Why did your _fiancée_ come here
at all? Why did she write to Danatoff? What was it brought the
murdered man to such a place at such a time?

“Why, again, did the Countess draw her car across the road, and who
ran into her car--because, obviously, Danatoff’s car has been involved
in no collision of any sort. Biles is a good fellow but he has what I
call ‘the Scotland Yard mind.’ The most obvious explanation, according
to that point of view, is nearly always the correct one.”

Bob bowed his head.

“I see,” he declared in tones of deep apprehension. He moved away a
few paces and then swung round and returned to his friend. “But you
will stay, won’t you? Because you believe that Olva is innocent. Oh,
promise me that you will not leave the case until the truth has been
made plain.”

“I will do all that I can do.” Doctor Hailey opened his snuffbox and
took a small pinch. “You realize, of course, that there will be an
inquest tomorrow or the day after, at Wycombe. They are sure to invite
you to give evidence. Perhaps it would be as well to stay the night in
the town.”

Bob went away into the darkness, a tall, lonely figure, bowed a
little, the doctor thought, under the weight of the horrible anxiety
which had been laid on him so suddenly. Doctor Hailey returned to the
garage. As he entered he saw Biles rising from his knees with a look
of triumph in his eyes. The detective held a small object in his hand
which he was scrutinizing with close attention.

“Look!” he cried, “a bronze hairpin. The Countess Olva, as you know,
has golden hair.”

The doctor took the hairpin and glanced at it. He nodded in his rather
melancholy fashion.

“It must have fallen from her head while she was awaiting her victim
in here. My own theory of the crime is that she allowed him to open
the garage door and then fired.”

He paused and turned his gaze on the body at their feet.

“It’s political, of course. Danatoff was concerned in the business of
getting people out of Soviet Russia--we have had our eye on him and
his activities for some time. Probably the girl had taken pay from the
_Tcheka_. They have their agents everywhere. I wonder why they chose
this place of all others. If only these conspirators could get over
their fear of London and realize that the very minute they leave it
they are playing into the hands of the police.”

Doctor Hailey had taken more snuff, a sign as Biles knew, that his
brain was active. When the other finished he asked:

“It would be interesting to know how she got away from here?”

“Oh, probably walked into Wycombe and caught the early train.” The
detective turned to the sergeant: “There is a train to London about
six, isn’t there?”

“Yes, sir, six-ten.”

“But that leaves us with the difficulty of the collision, doesn’t it?”
the doctor remarked. “Why should the Hillman coupé have been drawn
across the road, and what car was it which bumped into it?”

Biles evidently had not taken this matter into his calculation.

“That certainly is a difficulty,” he confessed, “because there is no
doubt at all that a collision did take place and that Danatoff’s car
was not involved in it. It is just possible that the girl had an
accomplice and that their cars fouled in the dark in that narrow
roadway.”

“Possibly.” Doctor Hailey’s voice was not enthusiastic. He stood
looking down at the dead face, with its livid scar and fine clear-cut
features. Danatoff had certainly been a very handsome man.

“I suppose the inquest will take place tomorrow?”

“I think so. There is enough evidence, in spite of the gaps, to
justify it, and to secure a verdict of murder against the Countess
Olva right away.” Biles glanced round the garage with an air of
satisfaction.

“I fancy,” he added, “that we can’t learn much more here. The next
thing to do is to circulate a description of the girl to the police.
Will you be ready to assist at the autopsy, if the coroner calls upon
you?”

“Yes.”

Doctor Hailey’s voice was rather hurried. He had been examining the
broken windscreen of the car, while Biles was speaking. Suddenly he
strode to the pile of fragments of glass which had been collected in
the yard. He lifted one of these, the largest, and held it out in
front of him.

Then he came to the front of the car and attempted to fit it into the
ragged hole in the screen. As he did so he uttered an exclamation of
astonishment. The fragment was definitely thinner than the plate from
which it was supposed to have been derived.




 CHAPTER XIV.
 THE MYSTERIOUS CAR OWNER

Biles possessed a mind of the rigid type. Once he had constructed
his theory of a crime he resented the intrusion of new facts which
might have the effect of upsetting it. But the fact which Doctor
Hailey now brought to his notice was not of this order. It confirmed
his theory, and so he hailed it with immense satisfaction.

“A second car!” he declared, in the tones of a man whose last doubts
had been removed.

“It seems so.”

Doctor Hailey took a pinch of snuff.

“Then I am right, after all, in thinking that the girl must have
possessed an accomplice.”

The detective paused and then added:

“That explains the damage to the Hillman coupé. No doubt they arrived
at the same time and fouled in the narrow roadway. The accomplice
would naturally back his car out and bring it round by the front
avenue, while the girl made her way up to the house on foot.”

“No doubt she was rather frightened and so ran through the wood. The
second car must have shared in the damage inflicted by the shooting,
and hence the two types of broken glass.”

Biles’s voice had grown more confident as he spoke. He recalled the
afternoon visit of the man Tsarov to the Vorloff’s house in South
Street and his prolonged interview with Olva.

“They must have arranged the details of the crime at the meeting,” he
told the doctor. “Probably the girl’s surprise at seeing the fellow
was pure affectation, a mere pretense to deceive her servants. No
doubt they considered it safer to reach the scene of the murder
separately.”

Biles turned to the sergeant.

“It will be necessary to keep a watch on this place. Can you spare the
men?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Very well, we can go back to Wycombe now, I think. Tomorrow morning
we may be able to reconstruct the crime to some extent by piecing the
broken glass together. That may possibly indicate the direction in
which the shots were fired. It will be necessary for me to go back to
London after dinner. I suppose there will be no difficulty about
getting a car?”

“None, sir; I’ll see to that.”

They rolled the door of the garage into position and replaced the
padlock, though it was impossible to secure it. The night was clear
and the sky had become filled with stars. They walked down through the
quiet woods to the main road. As they entered the town the sergeant
left them and then went on alone to the “Red Lion.”

“I must put the facts of the case as we have discovered them before
the chief at once,” Biles said. “He will have left the Yard, of
course, but I shall get him at his house in Kensington. I propose to
come back here immediately afterwards, so as to start again first
thing in the morning.”

Doctor Hailey nodded.

“If I may,” he declared, “I shall stay here. No doubt our worthy host
will be able to supply me with a sleeping suit.”

They engaged a private sitting room and ordered dinner to be served in
it. When the servant, who conducted them upstairs, had lighted the
fire and gone away Biles took from his pocket the articles he had
removed from the dead man’s person; he laid them on the mantelpiece
and scrutinized them.

The purse was an ordinary pigskin type; it contained some small
change. The fountain pen was a “Christy,” and bore no marks of
identification. He turned to the doctor, who had seated himself in an
armchair and who seemed to be preparing to doze.

“It seems obvious, doesn’t it,” he said, “that Tsarov is the man we
must look for. I have very little doubt, in my own mind, that he was
the occupant of the car which collided with the Hillman coupé and in
which the murderers escaped.”

Doctor Hailey inclined his head.

“It may be so,” he agreed.

“Meanwhile, I have taken the number of Danatoff’s car. The sergeant is
making inquiries about it at once. My own view is that the murdered
man was in some plot or conspiracy with these others, but that they
had reason to suspect him of treachery.

“I fancy that explains the search of his bedroom this morning.
Probably they had discovered that he was acting as an agent for their
enemies as well as for themselves and that he carried important
papers.”

“But in that case,” Doctor Hailey asked, “why did the Countess Olva
pass him without acknowledgment at the Brook Street dance?”

Biles shrugged his shoulders.

“If you will forgive my saying so, we have only Barling’s statement
for that. Even if it is true, it is not surprising. A girl would
naturally wish to avoid a man whose murder she had planned a few hours
earlier. That may be why she left for Moorfields Lodge before his
midnight visit to South Street.”

He paused. The case, so far as he could see, was complete. It remained
only to discover the whereabouts of the Countess Olva and her
accomplice, Tsarov, the man with the glaring eyes. He did not
anticipate very great difficulty here, because Scotland Yard’s net is
drawn tightly enough round the foreign population of London, whether
that population happens to be situated in the East End or in the West.

A waiter came into the room to set the table for dinner. Doctor Hailey
asked him:

“Do you happen to know if a Mr. Barling has taken a room in the hotel
for the night?”

The man shook his head.

“I don’t know, sir, but I’ll inquire.” He went away and returned with
the information that no gentleman of that name had engaged a room. The
news caused Biles to contract his brows.

“I wish I felt as sure of our young friend as you do, my dear doctor,”
he remarked.

There was no reply. Doctor Hailey appeared to be falling deeper and
deeper into study. The detective went away to wash his hands. When he
came back the soup was on the table. They did not speak much during
the meal, though the doctor tried to open several subjects of
conversation.

Biles, the man-hunter, was too much occupied with his hunting. Just as
the waiter was about to uncork the half bottle of port which Doctor
Hailey had ordered, the door of the room opened and the sergeant of
police came in. He appeared to be somewhat excited, and his big red
face glowed.

“Excuse me, sir,” he apologized, “but I have been able to trace the
car in which the body of the murdered man was found. I managed to get
through to the County Hall in London before they closed for the night.
The car is registered in the name of Browning and the address is given
as ten Jermyn Street. I found the party in the telephone book and rang
up the number. He was not at home.”

Biles’s eyes gleamed.

“Did you ask, sergeant, how long he had been absent from home?” he
demanded ironically.

The policeman’s expression became grave.

“Yes, sir, I did; and that is the queer part of it. Mr. Browning only
left his flat at five o’clock this afternoon.”

“What!”

“I think there is no doubt about that, sir. I was speaking to his
servant, who is quite positive on the subject.”

The detective drew a sharp breath.

“But we happen to know that he was murdered last night.”

His voice challenged his subordinate unmistakably.

“Yes, sir, that is so. But the man was positive all the same.”

The sergeant moved uneasily from one foot to the other.

“It might be,” he ventured, “that the car we found at Moorfields did
not belong to the murdered man, after all.”




 CHAPTER XV.
 FINGER-PRINTS THAT IDENTIFY

When Biles left him to return to London, Doctor Hailey went to bed.
He felt rather ill at ease, though he could scarcely explain this
feeling. The explanation of the crime which the Scotland Yard man had
evolved seemed a reasonable one. There could be no doubt that it was
Olva Vorloff’s letter which had lured Danatoff to his doom; nor was it
possible to doubt that the girl had been present at Moorfields Lodge
at the time of the murder.

The inference was scarcely to be resisted that she had played, if not
the chief, at least a very important part in the crime. Her conduct
before she left London supported that idea--the reluctance she had
shown to meet Danatoff face to face, her interview with the mysterious
Russian during that afternoon, her warning to her mother not to call
in the police. Taken together, all these constituted a damning chain
of evidence.

And yet, for some reason, they did not carry that absolute conviction
to his mind which brings release from anxiety. He tried to discover
the reason for his hesitancy and realized that it lay in his knowledge
of Bob Barling. Bob, he was assured, loved this Russian girl with all
the strength of his soul.

Doctor Hailey was no sentimentalist, but his experience of men and
women had convinced him that lovers are less frequently deceived in
one another than is commonly supposed. Love may be blind where the
details of character are concerned, but it is singularly
clear-sighted, as a rule, when faced by the larger issues. It wanted,
he told himself, a very great deal of proving that such a man as
Barling had set his affections irrevocably on a cold-blooded assassin.

For that actually was what it amounted to. No doubt the girl and her
mother had suffered severely; no doubt they had ample reason to hate
the gang of ruffians who ruled Russia at the moment. But these
feelings could not justify murder, except to a mind essentially
perverted or diseased.

They could not justify it, even if the intended victim had proved
himself a traitor to those who trusted and relied on him. There is in
assassination a quality of vileness which has rendered it loathsome
and hideous to all noble minds from the beginning.

Thus it followed that either Bob Barling had entirely misread his
_fiancée’s_ character or the Countess Olva was acting in this matter
under a form of compulsion which she was powerless to resist. He tried
to think what compulsion it would be possible to bring to bear on her,
but could arrive at no answer to his query.

She was free; she had money. In England her life was certainly not in
any danger because of her political activities. Nor was it possible to
entertain the idea that there was anything in her past which might
serve as the occasion of blackmail--at least, of blackmail to commit
murder.

His mind grew weary in this search, and he fell asleep. When he awoke
it was day. Biles was standing by his bedside. He sat up sharply.

“My dear Biles, what a shock you gave me!”

The detective looked very tired, but his air of confidence showed that
he was well pleased with the course of events.

“I’ve just got back from London,” he declared. “I had a busy night,
but not an unfruitful one.” He lowered his voice. “There is absolutely
no doubt now that the car in which Danatoff’s body was found did not
belong to him. I have traced the fellow Browning in whose name it is
registered, and he bears no sort of resemblance to the murdered man.”

“But there are the best reasons for thinking that he is our friend
Tsarov, the girl’s accomplice, masquerading under a false name.” He
paused, and added, “It seems he returned to Jermyn Street early
yesterday morning and spent the day indoors. He went out about nine
o’clock last night, just after the police sergeant here rang him up.
The statement that it was a servant who was answering the telephone
was untrue. Browning keeps no servant.”

He stopped. Doctor Hailey inclined his head.

“I see.”

“The flat is a mere office--an address. I ascertained from the
doorkeeper that Browning has used it very little, and always in the
same way. He comes, as a rule, toward evening and then goes out again.
Mostly, he returns in the small hours of the morning and stays till
breakfast time, when he finally disappears. Yesterday the doorkeeper
did not notice him come back, but thinks that he may have done so.”

“What are your reasons,” Doctor Hailey asked, “for supposing that
Browning and Tsarov are really one and the same man?”

The detective took his pipe from his pocket and filled it before he
replied.

“Browning,” he said, “always wears a heavy overcoat with a high collar
and has a big slouch hat over his eyes, so that the doorkeeper has
never had a perfectly clear view of his features. But the description
of his height and build correspond closely with the description of
Tsarov which I had from the Vorloff’s servant.”

Doctor Hailey’s wits were gradually mustering.

“If I recollect,” he remarked, “Tsarov also struck the servant as
having very peculiar, glaring eyes.”

“Yes.” Biles struck a match and lit his pipe. “And young Barling noted
the same thing about the man he encountered in the High Court Hotel. I
questioned the doorkeeper in Jermyn Street on that point, but he
declared that he had never seen Browning’s eyes at all and so could
not say what they were like.”

He paused again and struck a second match.

“Happily, another means of identifying Tsarov with Browning is
available. In the Jermyn Street flat there were a number of
finger-prints. I had those copied at once. I have just been up to
Moorfields Lodge and compared the copies with a finger-print I noticed
last night on the broken windscreen of the car. The identity is
certain.”

The doctor’s eyes became vague.

“That, my dear Biles,” he said gently, “proves only that Browning was
in the car; it does not, surely, prove that Browning is Tsarov.”

There was a hint of reproach in his tones, but the detective showed no
sign of resentment.

“Of course not. But, taken in conjunction with the fact that we have
found the same finger-print on a mirror in Danatoff’s room at the High
Court Hotel, it is, I think, very significant. Unless we are to
disbelieve everything which Barling told us, Tsarov certainly did
visit that hotel on the morning following the crime. There was no
doubt about his glaring eyes on that occasion.”

He paused a moment to allow these considerations to sink into the
doctor’s mind. Then he added:

“Presumably, the finger-prints in Jermyn Street are Browning’s. If so,
then Browning was an occupant, on the night of the murder, of the car
in which Danatoff’s body was found. He was also the man who broke into
Danatoff’s room at the High Court Hotel.”

“But we happen to know that this thief had peculiar glaring eyes and
that a man named Tsarov, with the same glaring eyes, called on the
Countess Olva the day before--that is to say, on the day of the
murder. The conclusion is, I think, irresistible that Browning and
Tsarov are the same person.”

Doctor Hailey nodded. “I congratulate you, my dear Biles,” he said,
“and I apologize for my doubts. So that it follows that this man is
the real villain of the plot.”

The detective contracted his brow.

“I confess,” he remarked, “that I don’t see the justification for that
view. My own idea is that the woman was the chief actor. I feel quite
confident that she summoned Tsarov in the first instance. When a man
has a woman in his power he invariably, in my experience, sends for
her to attend him. He does not go to dance attendance on her.”

The doctor had risen and found his snuffbox. He took a large pinch.

“I wonder,” he inquired, “why Tsarov should have put the body in his
car and used Danatoff’s car to escape in?”

“Because the windscreen of his own car was so badly smashed.”

“But, my dear Biles, we know that the glass was broken in Danatoff’s
car also.”




 CHAPTER XVI.
 BILES TIES A HARD KNOT

The detective nodded. “Quite so. I have been looking into that
matter. Some of the fragments of the thinner type of glass have glue
adhering to their edges. In other words, they are from a window with a
wooden frame. That shows the car to have been an old-fashioned coupé
or landaulette--probably the former. A broken window in such a vehicle
is a small matter. It can easily be dropped out of sight.”

Biles’s pipe had gone out. He relit it carefully, while his companion
prepared for his bath.

“The inquest,” he announced, “is timed for tomorrow morning. The
autopsy is to take place this afternoon, and I have been instructed to
invite you to be present, if you so desire.”

He went away. When Doctor Hailey rejoined him at breakfast his
enthusiasm had not abated in the least.

“Sergeant Jones has just been here,” he announced. “He came to tell me
that the Yard has rung up to say it is still without information about
Tsarov or the Countess. It looks like proving a more difficult search
than I expected.

“By the way, I am having a sharp watch kept on young Barling--for his
own sake as well as mine. He returned home last night and then went to
South Street to the Vorloff’s. He remained there till eleven o’clock.”

Doctor Hailey’s eyes clouded. He raised his coffee cup to his lips
without responding. Biles’s capacity as a detective was very great,
perhaps supremely great, but he lacked one element of the complete
sleuth--knowledge of the human mind in its nobler manifestations. All
men and all women were potential criminals in this man’s eyes.

As soon as the meal was over they drove to Moorfields Lodge. The body
of the murdered man had been removed to the local mortuary, but
otherwise everything was exactly as they had left it the night before.
Biles told the policeman on duty to wheel the car out into the yard,
so as to bring its windscreen immediately over the spot where the
broken glass had been discovered. He seated himself in the vehicle and
bent forward.

“My idea now is,” he told Doctor Hailey, “that Tsarov arrived on the
scene after the murdered man. In that case Danatoff’s car would be
standing in the yard, probably on my left. I fancy Danatoff had
already alighted, and I think that the girl fired at him just as her
accomplice appeared.

“She must have missed in the first instance, because Danatoff
certainly defended himself--as the broken windscreen proves. It is
quite possible that her first bullet smashed the window of Danatoff’s
car instead of hitting him. That would account for the fragments of
thinner glass. In any case, the unfortunate man would not see his real
assailant, because of the glare from Tsarov’s headlights, and would
naturally assume that the attack was coming from the newly-arrived
car. The headlights, on the other hand, would illuminate him and so
furnish an easy target.”

“Tsarov, if you are right,” Doctor Hailey said, “took a very
considerable risk, did he not? It was highly probable that if the
victim was armed he would be hit.”

Biles shook his head.

“You forget,” he remarked, “that Tsarov knew the attack was coming. No
doubt, as soon as the girl began to shoot he took the precaution of
ducking from behind the scuttle-dash of his car. That would afford him
pretty safe shelter.”

He got out of the car and led the doctor across the yard to a point
near the corner of the house. He pointed to a number of recently made
scars on the old brickwork.

“That is where the murdered man’s bullets struck,” he declared. “If
you examine them you will see that he was probably standing near the
garage door at the moment when he fired. He was evidently about to
enter the garage, where apparently the secret meeting to which he had
been summoned was to be held.”

Doctor Hailey nodded. He treated his friend to a glance of admiration.

“You have the bullets?” he asked.

“We have two of them. The others must have glanced off.”

“Are they different from the bullets fired at Danatoff?”

Biles’s face clouded for an instant.

“Unhappily,” he said, “I have not been able to recover any of those
latter. One of them, no doubt, is hidden in the man’s body. But, for
some reason, those which missed him have not scarred the wall behind.”

The doctor’s eyes narrowed.

“That is certainly strange is it not?” he asked. He added: “I suppose
there is no fresh light on the cause of the accident to the Hillman
coupé?”

“None. That is another point which I have not been able to clear up to
my satisfaction. The only thing that seems quite certain is that a
collision did take place.”

He stood for a moment with bent brows and then turned to his
companion:

“Suppose we go down and reëxamine the ground,” he suggested. “I
ordered them to leave the car in case it should be necessary to do
that.”

They walked down through the woods, along a footpath which cut off an
angle of the carriage-way leading to the back door. The ground was
strewn with newly-fallen leaves. Nevertheless the doctor kept a sharp
lookout. Before they had advanced far he stopped and called his
companion’s attention to a foot-print on the soft earth. It was a
woman’s, obviously that of Olva Vorloff, for they saw that it
corresponded exactly to the prints they had already found near the
car.

“She was running even when she got up here,” Doctor Hailey said. “The
reason which compelled her to do that must have been an urgent one.”

He stood for a moment, looking round him. Then he stepped off the path
and went a short distance down the steep bank in the direction of the
main road. Biles saw that his eyes were searching the ground with
eagerness. When he had descended about fifty yards he stooped down.
Then he arose and beckoned his companion to join him.

“Look there; a man’s foot-print, going in the same direction as the
girl, but at a lower level. Running, too.”

The detective bent and examined the fresh evidence closely. He nodded
as he stood erect again.

“There is no doubt of it.”

He rubbed his long chin in the manner which was habitual with him when
a new difficulty arose. Doctor Hailey watched with a sympathy born of
complete understanding of his feelings.

“Possibly one of the policemen may have come up this way last night.”

He glanced at the doctor, but the latter shook his head.

“The boot which made this impression is a fine one,” he declared.
“Look at the shape of the heel-mark and how clean-cut it is. Look at
the sole--without a trace of a nail.”

As he spoke, Doctor Hailey moved down the bank in a direction parallel
to that taken by the footpath. He soon found further examples of his
clew, and was able to trace the foot-prints right down to the spot
where the collision had occurred. They ended there.

“So,” he said, “it is obvious that this fellow, whoever he may be,
arrived by car, crashed into the Hillman coupé and then got out and
ran as fast as he could up through the woods toward the house. He was
not Tsarov because Tsarov’s car has certainly not been in a collision
of this sort.”

“Of course not.” Biles’s face had cleared again. “_But he was
Danatoff, my dear doctor._ And that, don’t you see, gives us the
complete answer to the riddle which you propounded. Danatoff must have
meant in the first instance to reach the house by the back way.

“Probably the conspirators knew that he always used that way, and laid
their plans accordingly. If the Hillman coupé was drawn across the
road at this spot their victim would be certain to collide with it,
because, owing to the bend in the road, he would not see it until too
late to pull up.”

He drew a sharp breath.

“Danatoff,” he added, “would naturally be very much mystified, and
possibly alarmed. He would make all haste to seek an explanation at
the house, where, in view of this new evidence, I think we must
conclude both Tsarov and the girl were awaiting his arrival.”

“You mean that you think he left his car down here?” Doctor Hailey
asked.

“Yes. He would naturally do that. It would take too long to back it
out and bring it round by road.”

Doctor Hailey closed his eyes.

“But in that case, my dear Biles,” he asked, “how do you account for
the fact that we found pieces of broken glass--of recently broken
glass--not belonging to Tsarov’s car, in the yard?”

The detective shook his head.

“That certainly is a difficulty,” he confessed.




 CHAPTER XVII.
 THE DEATH BLADE

Doctor Hailey attended the autopsy, much as he disliked doing so. He
felt that he owed this service to Bob Barling and, moreover, his own
interest in the case was now thoroughly aroused. Brilliant as had been
the unraveling of the mystery by Biles, there were flaws in the chain
of evidence which keenly excited his curiosity.

The examination, which was conducted by a local doctor named Wallace,
had scarcely begun when an astonishing discovery was made. This was
nothing less than the presence in the wound of a long knife-blade of
the rounded stiletto type. The two medical men gazed at one another in
astonishment.

“So he was stabbed and not shot.”

Doctor Hailey affixed his eyeglass and bent over the long,
deadly-looking blade.

“As always,” he said in self-reproachful tones, “when one is in a
hurry gross mistakes are committed. I confess that I did little more
than glance at the wound last night. Because it was a small and round
wound I jumped to a conclusion.”

“My dear fellow, I formed exactly the same opinion myself, and I made
quite a careful examination before you arrived.”

Doctor Wallace was a genial man with the brisk air which most doctors
in large country practices possess. He handed the stiletto to his
companion, who carried it to the window of the rather dingy room. The
blade was of exquisite workmanship, and richly chased. It bore a tiny
coat of arms on one side and on the other the letter V surmounted by a
coronet. Doctor Hailey pointed out these features to his colleague.

“That clinches the matter, I suppose,” Doctor Wallace exclaimed. “V
can only stand for Vorloff in this case.”

“I think so.”

They completed their work. Danatoff had been struck through the heart
and must have perished instantly. Doctor Hailey returned to the Red
Lion, where Biles was awaiting him. He told the detective what they
had discovered.

“My God! So he cannot have defended himself at all.”

“I should imagine not.”

“But there is the car with its smashed windscreen to prove that he
did--and the bullet marks on the wall, too.”

The doctor did not reply. He knew how bitter must be his friend’s
feelings at this sudden disruption of his theory of the crime. He felt
for his snuffbox and took a pinch in his most leisurely fashion.

“What do you make of it?” Biles asked in tones of considerable
weariness.

“I don’t know. As yet I have been unable to arrive at any conclusion.”

“In any case, there is no doubt about the part played by the girl.
She, and she alone, could have been possessed of that knife.” He
thought a moment and then added: “I wonder why it got broken in that
fashion.”

“The blade is very slender, you know.”

“Still, if he died instantaneously, his body would tend to slip down.
People who are mortally wounded fall, as a rule, on their faces, don’t
they?”

“As a rule. Sometimes, however, they recoil with enough strength to
fling themselves backwards. It may have been so in this case. Heart
wounds are not necessarily fatal instantaneously--that is, if they
miss the ‘bundle,’ the nerve connecting the various chambers of the
organ. I know a man now who is walking the streets of London with a
German bullet actually imbedded in his heart.”

Biles raised his head sharply:

“So he may have been able to shoot after all?”

“I could not deny the possibility. But frankly, it is that and no
more.”

They relapsed into silence. Doctor Hailey took more snuff, his
companion puffed vigorously at the long black cigar he was smoking--a
type of cigar which competed with his pipe in his affections. At last
the doctor asked:

“Have you any of the bullets you found in the yard?”

Biles felt in his pocket and drew out a small specimen box.

“This one was found,” he said, “just after you left me. It had been
pressed into the earth by somebody’s foot.”

He handed it across to his friend, who took it and scrutinized it. It
had been faceted and twisted by its impact against the wall of the
house.

“It seems to have been fired at an angle to the wall.”

“Yes.”

“Consequently, if Danatoff really did shoot after he was struck by the
assassin he must have fallen at a spot not very far from the garage
door.”

Biles assented. “The direction of the bullet marks on the wall brought
me to that conclusion, as I think I told you,” he said.

“Yet there was no sign of blood there,” the doctor declared. “I looked
carefully, both last night and this morning. Nevertheless, the front
of the murdered man’s waistcoat was deeply stained with blood.”

“On the other hand, he might have staggered a few paces before he
fell. You did not examine any other part of the yard, did you?”

“No. I was testing a theory of my own, and when it failed I left the
matter.”

They returned to the scene of the crime. One of the dead man’s shoes
had been fetched from the mortuary and Biles took this and fitted it
into the footmarks which Doctor Hailey had discovered in the wood. The
shoe fitted so exactly as to leave no doubt that the print had been
made by it. They followed the track of the footmarks right up to the
edge of the wood, where they disappeared on the red carriage drive.

Suddenly Biles uttered an exclamation. He pointed to another footmark
a few feet lower down the slope and going in the direction away from
the house. Doctor Hailey, who held the shoe, bent down and fitted it
to the new mold. Again the result left no doubt that Danatoff had been
the author of that print.

The two men looked at each other in amazement. By common consent they
began to follow the fresh tracks which were clearly visible on the
soft earth. The footmarks led them down through the trees at a
slightly lower level than that at which they had just ascended. They
came to the London-Oxford Road near the point where the backway to the
house left it.

Obviously Danatoff had climbed the low wall at this point and entered
the roadway. They moved along the wall a few steps in the direction of
the backway and came on the footmarks again just before they reached
it. The man, apparently, had reclimbed the wall in order to return to
his car. His path for the last fifty yards lay over a patch of stony
ground, which accounted for the fact that this clew had so far been
overlooked. Doctor Hailey took a memorandum book from his pocket and
made a quick sketch which he handed to Biles.

“So, after all,” he remarked, “he must have arrived at the house in
his car and not on foot.”

Biles nodded. “So that the difficulty of the thin glass is removed and
also the fact of the wide distribution of the glass over the yard. But
that only seems to bring us to a new difficulty. Do you know, my dear
doctor, that this case is beginning to get a little on my nerves.”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

“So far,” he said in soothing tones, “every fresh fact has justified
you, is it not so?”

They mounted again to the house, the detective leading the way. When
they reached the yard Biles stood still and turned to his companion:

“Danatoff must have had his suspicions aroused,” he declared.
“Probably he remained some time on the edge of the wood spying out the
land. He would see very little if Tsarov’s car had not arrived. That
fact may have reassured him and caused him to go down again and bring
up his own car.

“I suppose he had a look at the main road to satisfy himself that
there was nobody about. If we grant that he had just descended from
his car when Tsarov drove round the corner of the house the situation
becomes clear, I think.”

“You mean?” The doctor’s voice had a new note of eagerness.

“I mean that he may have seen the man at the wheel and recognized him.
These Russians all know one another. Thus he may have understood that
he was caught in a trap, and so begun shooting there and then.” The
detective swung round and pointed with his outstretched arm to the
garage door. “But the girl was there, behind him, waiting with her
knife.” His tones rang triumphantly. Here, at last, was the complete
explanation.

He added: “She must have jumped forward while he was shooting at her
accomplice and dealt him his death blow before he had time to recover
from the shock of her sudden appearance. He would almost certainly
lurch toward his car in his agony and fear, and so fall some distance
from the place where he was struck. Probably, too, his pistol was
flung through the window of his car as he fell.”

Doctor Hailey had bent down while Biles was speaking. He pointed now
to a small stain on the ground at their feet.

“I think you are right,” he declared, “for that, unless I am mistaken,
is blood.”

When they returned to the hotel a new piece of evidence awaited them.
It was a sheet of thin paper, folded twice, which the sergeant of
police had discovered in the lining of one of the sleeves of the dead
man’s coat. Biles glanced at it and then handed it to his companion.

“I wonder if this is what cost him his life?” he asked grimly.

The paper was inscribed in this way:

[Illustration]

Doctor Hailey glanced at the cipher with eyes which gleamed. Such
puzzles gave him sheer delight. He raised his eyeglass and scrutinized
it for some moments in silence.

“There are thirteen figures in each line,” he said.

“The figure twelve occurs more frequently than any other. Let us see.”
He counted. “It occurs fifteen times in the eight lines. On that
showing we should be entitled to call it the letter E--though somehow
I doubt the value of this time-honored method of analysis in the
present case. Quite frankly, my dear Biles, I have never before seen a
cipher of this type.”

The detective nodded.

“They would be sure to take every possible care,” he stated. “After
all, once across the frontiers of Russia it is a matter of life and
death. Probably the figures represent a list of the names of the
people they can or cannot rely on for the guidance of the messengers
they send out with money. There’s a pretty extensive campaign being
conducted to get people out of that hapless country--and no wonder.”

The doctor did not reply. He had seated himself and was going over the
cipher. Biles saw him take out his memorandum book and make lists of
figures and then more lists. A smile dawned on the detective’s thin
lips. There was a broad streak of the schoolboy, he reflected, in this
distinguished physician’s character which was liable at any moment to
overcome his otherwise highly developed faculties.

That was one of the secrets of Doctor Hailey’s charm. It proved his
disinterestedness, so to speak. He stood watching him for a few
minutes and then rang the bell and ordered whiskies and soda. A moment
later the servant returned to say that he was wanted on the phone.

When he came back Doctor Hailey was still at work on his new-found
puzzle. Biles announced in tones of great bitterness:

“That was the Yard, to say that Bob Barling has given them the slip.
He left his house in Curzon Street early this afternoon and the fellow
whom I told off to watch him lost sight of him in Piccadilly Circus.
It is more than vexing, because I had relied on his evidence tomorrow
morning at the inquest.”

Doctor Hailey raised his head from his task. His eyes had suddenly
become greatly troubled.

“With your consent, my dear Biles,” he said, “I am going up to London
now to look for him.”




 CHAPTER XVIII.
 OVER THE PHONE

As he drove to London in the car he had hired at the Red Lion,
Doctor Hailey attempted to clear his mind. He could not dispute the
fact that the theory of the crime which Biles had elaborated was a
very satisfying one. It seemed to cover every scrap of evidence which
they had collected. What was more it had proved itself capable of
absorbing each new clew.

That, as he well understood, is the real test of any theory. In
detective work, as in science, it is the exception which disproves the
rule. He took from his pocket the plans he had made and reëxamined
them by the dim roof-light of the vehicle. Then he put them away once
more and closed his eyes. He could not discover a single flaw in the
carefully constructed chain.

And yet, what he called the “psychological argument” against this
solution remained. Everything was right except the actors in the grim
drama, who seemed to have been cast in the wrong parts.

It was a slender enough objection to a case which he realized would
convince any jury that might be summoned to adjudicate on it. British
juries are not open to psychological pleadings. Like British
detectives they have few prejudices and a strong sense of evidence.
Moreover it would assuredly not strike them as surprising that a
beautiful Russian Countess should commit murder.

A faint smile flickered on his lips as this thought crossed his mind.
For how much the label on a man or woman counted! For how little,
comparatively, the spirit which animated! Indeed, spirits and
temperaments were bestowed according to label, just as a tailor
distributes his “readymades” according to numbered sizes. Russian
countesses, sailors, policemen, doctors, clergymen, men of the
world--all possessed their reach-me-down characters warranted to bring
conviction to the minds of the readers of Sunday newspapers.

When the car turned into Curzon Street he was still pursuing this line
of thought. He put it away from him the moment the vehicle stopped at
number fifty. He ascended the steps of the house and rang the bell.
Then he turned round to watch the gradual approach of a man whom he
had already observed coming down the street. There was a lamp opposite
the house, so that he was able to see the fellow’s face quite clearly.

Doctor Hailey recognized the alert police officer under a manner of
indifference. So Biles believed that Bob’s absence from home was only
temporary.

The servant who opened the door recognized his visitor and greeted him
deferentially.

“Unhappily,” he said in response to the doctor’s question, “Mr.
Barling is not at home. Nor do we know when he is likely to return.”

“In that case I will come in, if I may,” Doctor Hailey said.

He entered the hall and the servant closed the door.

“The fact is that I’ve been helping your master about a matter which
is causing him grave anxiety,” he told the man. “I am most uneasy
about him, for reasons which I cannot discuss. It is very important
indeed that I should find him at once. You must help me in that. You
do not know, I suppose, why he went away this afternoon or where he
went to?”

The man’s face became grave. He shook his head.

“I have no idea, sir. He told me merely that he would not be back to
dinner and that he would not require anything when he came in.”

“Did he receive any letter or telegram before he left?”

“No, sir; I think not. I took his morning letters up to him myself.
There were about the usual number but there has been nothing at all
since.”

“What about the telephone?”

“I can’t say for certain, because there is a switch into the library.
When Mr. Barling goes into that room he very often makes the
connection himself.”

As he spoke the telephone bell rang. The man strode away to answer the
call. Doctor Hailey followed him. He entered the library just as the
receiver was being lifted. The man listened a moment and then said:

“Very good, sir. Excuse me, sir, but Doctor Hailey has just called to
see you. He says his business is urgent and will you please speak to
him.”

He held out the instrument to the doctor, who took it eagerly.

“Barling? Hailey speaking. My dear fellow, I am so glad to hear you. I
was afraid. What is that?”

The voice at the other end had become faint suddenly as though the
speaker had withdrawn himself from the instrument. It broke off
altogether. The doctor’s eyes darkened impatiently. Then a woman’s
voice was distinctly audible, saying: “No, absolutely no.”

“Hullo. Yes, Hailey speaking. I did not catch what you said.”

Bob’s voice came clear and emphatic.

“Look here, old man, I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t talk to you just
now. Don’t worry about me. I’m as right as rain.”

Then followed the unmistakable click of the receiver being hung up.

“Are you cut off, sir?” the servant asked, noticing the look of
astonishment on the doctor’s face.

“No.” He put the instrument down on the table and turned to the man.
“Why did your master ring up?”

“To say he would probably stay away the night.”

Doctor Hailey lifted the telephone again and asked the operator from
what exchange the last call had come. He was told Hampstead. His eyes
grew blank. He stood looking down on the rich carpet as though he
expected to find a solution of the difficulty in its intricate
pattern. Then he cast a quick glance over the desk on which the
telephone stood. He walked round the desk and seated himself in the
armchair which was drawn up to it.

As he did so he uttered an exclamation. He reached forward and lifted
a small memorandum block from the table.

Its surface was quite clean, but several pages had been torn off and
on the page now left uppermost there were faint impressions, clearly
those of the last note made. He saw the letter “B” and then, a little
space beyond, “swick,” thus “B--swick.” He carried the block to the
window and examined it with close attention. Then he brought it back
to the desk and focussed his eyeglass on it at various distances from
the eye. The figure 1 preceded the B. He wrote down the first words
that occurred to him--Bellswick, Billswick, Bruns--

He exclaimed eagerly. He could see now that the word was almost
certainly Brunswick. He glanced at the following word and concluded
that it was intended to signify Rd., though only a very faint
impression had been left on the paper.




 CHAPTER XIX.
 THE MASKED REVELERS

He turned to the servant:

“You have a Post Office Directory?”

“I think we have a small directory, sir.”

“Bring it, will you?”

The man left the room. He returned in a few minutes with a volume
which the doctor realized could help him but little. He glanced
through its pages and then handed it back.

“I’m afraid it will not serve my purpose,” he said. “I must have a
complete list of the streets.”

He got up and prepared to go away. The servant accompanied him to the
door and called a cab. He drove straight to Harley Street and went at
once to his study, where the latest edition of all the chief
directories awaited him. There were, it seemed, two streets bearing
the name of Brunswick in the Hampstead area--Brunswick Road, on the
top of the hill, beside the Heath, and Brunswick Avenue, near Swiss
Cottage. It was probable that both of them contained many telephones
because that area is inhabited largely by well-to-do city men.

He picked up his own telephone and asked to be put through to the
controller’s office in Queen Victoria Street. Then he asked for Mr.
Oldish.

“This is Hailey speaking. Hailey--Eustace Hailey. How are you, my dear
Peter?”

Peter Oldish had been his friend since they were at Uppingham
together. That boyish alliance had ripened and mellowed with the
passing of the years. It had developed, in the case of Oldish, into a
profound admiration for the doctor’s gifts which made him ready and
eager to give any help in his power.

Within a few minutes he had switched his friend on to a subordinate
official, who told him crisply that sixty-five telephones were
installed in the two Brunswick thoroughfares in Hampstead. Of these,
thirty-one were at numbers not beginning with the figure 1. There thus
remained thirty-four subscribers whose addresses ranged from number
one to number nineteen and from number one hundred to number one
hundred and ninety-nine.

“It is Brunswick Road rather than Brunswick Avenue which interests me.
How many have you there?”

“Only six. Brunswick Road consists of big houses, standing on their
own grounds. The numbers only go up to twelve.”

At his request, Dr. Hailey was furnished with the numbers of these
telephones and with the names of their subscribers. He turned up the
names in the telephone book, but obtained no further enlightenment.
Then he glanced at his watch. It was nine o’clock. He rang the bell
for his butler, Jenkins.

“I shall not have dinner,” he told him. “You leave some cold supper
for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was obvious that Jenkins did not approve of this arrangement.

“Meantime, call me a cab. I am going up to Hampstead--to Brunswick
Road.”

When the vehicle started he threw himself back uneasily on the
cushions. He felt profoundly anxious about Bob, the more so now that
the suspicion was hardening in his mind that the woman’s voice he had
heard on the telephone at Curzon Street was Olva’s.

Could anything be more likely than that she would appeal to her lover
in her emergency and ask him to shelter her from the police? Nor was
it possible to doubt that he would assist her by every means in his
power.

This thought made the pace of the taxicab, as it crawled its way up
Fitzjohn’s Avenue, seem interminably slow. The boy would never stop to
think of the consequences of his chivalry; nor would even the fact
that the police already had evidence more than sufficient to send his
_fiancée_ to the scaffold influence him. The Barlings, for all their
foible of luxuriousness, were a tough breed. Thus, even if he
succeeded in finding Bob, his enterprise would probably be in vain.

He wondered for a moment whether its success might not complicate
instead of help matters, and whether, therefore, he had not better
abandon it. But that idea, which had vexed him since he left Curzon
Street, was, after all, a cowardly one. To yield to it would be to
abandon his friend and admit at the same time that Olva was guilty.

And, in spite of all the evidence, he was not ready to make such
admission. His duty surely lay in giving such assistance toward
clearing up this terrible affair as might rest in his power.

Brunswick Road proved to be one of those quaint, old-world
thoroughfares which make Hampstead the most attractive of all the
outlying areas of London. The houses stood behind their brick walls,
over which ivy strayed deliciously, its polished leaves reflecting the
gleam of the widely separated street lamps.

An air of remoteness dwelt among its trees. He had instructed the
driver to go slowly along the whole length of the road in the first
instance, but he realized now that this method would afford him no
information. So he stopped the cab and got out, telling the man to
wait for him.

At that moment the sound of a girl’s laughter came to him from one of
the nearby doorways. A man’s voice answered her. He felt a thrill of
excitement tingle along his nerves. The voice was unmistakably Bob’s.
He sprang forward in time to see a big car emerge slowly from the
carriage drive and swing out into the road. As it passed him he had a
clear view of its occupants through the open side window.

They were a man and a girl, both wearing fancy dress and both masked.

The car sped swiftly away toward London. It had disappeared from view
before he was able to reach his cab. He sprang into that vehicle,
shouting to the driver to follow as quickly as he possibly could.




 CHAPTER XX.
 AT THE CARNIVAL

Unhappily, as the Scotland Yard man who had been told to keep an eye
on Bob had discovered earlier in the day, following a motor car is not
easy in the streets of London. There are so many chances to be
encountered, any one of which may defeat the most skilful driver.
Though his taxicab took great risks all the way to Baker Street,
Doctor Hailey saw no more of the big limousine.

He gave up the chase there and told the man to take him home.

When he reached Harley Street it was past ten o’clock. He paid off the
cab and entered his house with a feeling of great despondency. He had
failed just when success seemed to be within his grasp--for he had not
the slightest doubt that the man he had seen was Bob. He told himself
he would know that voice among a hundred.

He went to his dining room and sat down to the cold meal which had
been provided for him. Was it possible that they were escaping from
London in these garish costumes? Or were they going to some dance? He
could not believe the latter explanation, because the risk of
detection for the girl would be terrible, supposing that by some
mischance, her mask slipped from her face.

All the evening papers had now got wind of the sensation, and her
picture had been reproduced in each of them.

But if they left London where could they go? Bob, so far as he knew,
did not possess a country house, and he certainly could not take a
girl wanted by the police to his brother’s place. Nor was it likely
that they would be so foolish as to make for any of the ports,
knowing, as they must know, that every police officer and embarkation
official there would be on the lookout for them.

He rose from the table and went back to his library. He picked up the
_Evening News_ and read the account of the “Moorfields Lodge Mystery”
through with great care. The report was accurate, so far as it went,
though rather exaggerated importance was attached to the presence of
the damaged Hillman coupé and to the Countess Olva’s use of an
_alias_ at the Hammersmith garage.

No attempt, however, was made to offer any solution. He turned the
pages of the paper to look at the illustrations of the scene of the
crime, promised at the end of the article. As he did so he started. On
the same page as these pictures was an article headed:


                     To-Night’s Great Carnival
                Mirth and Mystery at the Albert Hall
                    No Admittance Except by Mask


He glanced down the column and then laid the paper aside. He rose to
his feet. Was it possible that, after all, they had flung their
anxieties to the winds and gone dancing? The temptation held out by
the masks would be great, and they were young and in love and
desperate! Moreover, that was the last place anyone would be likely to
look for a woman over whose head a charge of murder was hanging.

He looked up the number of the Albert Hall and inquired whether or not
he could still obtain a box for the evening. He was referred to an
address in the neighborhood where the office for the ball was
situated. A woman’s voice informed him that two boxes on the grand
tier had been returned for resale. The price was fifty guineas.

“Very well, I will take one of them.”

He went to his bedroom and changed into a costume which he had had
made for him the previous winter and in which he had scored a
considerable success. It represented Sir John Falstaff. He pulled on a
heavy overcoat and put his mask in his pocket. Then he strode through
to the garage at the back of the house and got into the very smart
coupé which he habitually drove himself.

He parked the vehicle with the others in front of Albert Hall Mansions
and entered the great building. In the cloakroom he put on his mask.
Then he strolled round the circular corridor until he discovered his
name on the door of his box. He entered and shut the door behind him.

The scene was magnificent, more magnificent, he thought, than any
which he had previously witnessed in the same building. The vast floor
was crowded with dancers on whom the red and yellow and blue rays of
lights were focussed from the great lanterns in the roof. The colors
mingled and were dissociated again with kaleidoscopic effect.

Then they swept upward over the battlements which constituted the
scheme of decoration. The effect was of some medieval revelry taking
place in the shadow of a great stronghold, and the masked faces
intensified that impression. The watcher felt himself transported to a
magic past, full of strange and alluring adventure.

Doctor Hailey, in spite of his keen powers of deduction and analysis,
was very susceptible to “atmosphere” of this kind. He experienced a
subtle joy, which astonished him anew and made him wonder why he so
seldom indulged himself.

He told himself that a man who habitually starves any social instinct
loses something of the completeness of his character. He sat back in
his chair with half closed eyes, giving himself up to the rhythm of
the music and watching the play of colors on the masked faces and
exquisite costumes.

As usual, one saw more lovely women on this floor in five minutes than
in as many hours anywhere else. Albert Hall dances are as cosmopolitan
as Epsom Downs on Derby Day, and scarcely less interesting. All manner
of men and all manner of women meet on that splendid floor. All
nations, too, and all ranks.

He saw a lovely, golden-haired girl, whose success in a recent
_première_ was still echoing in the newspapers. She was masked like
the others, but she wore the bizarre costume of her part, so that the
world might recognize her. The velvet strip over her eyes seemed only
to enhance the subtle quality of her beauty.

Then his eyes strayed to another girl with hair like beaten copper,
whose dancing attracted attention even in that careless throng. He
smiled, believing that he recognized the lady and then again doubted
his recognition. Even the smallest mask, he told himself, was
certainly a most efficient means of disguise.

The music stopped and the floor became less crowded. It resembled now
a scene in an Eastern bazaar. Troupes of people stood about talking,
or strolled from side to side to greet their friends in the boxes. A
few had removed their masks, preparatory to going to supper. Doctor
Hailey glanced at his watch and found that it was nearly midnight.

He left his box and walked along the corridor till he came to one of
the passages leading to the floor. He moved slowly round the huge
amphitheater toward the orchestra. As he reached it a card was
displayed with the name of the next dance, and almost simultaneously
the conductor raised his baton. He drew back among some palms which
flanked the platform.

The moving tide of dancers began to flow again under the moving
lights. Then voices grew quieter until, mingled with the music, they
recalled the murmuring of a summer sea.

Radiant eyes gleamed from behind the masks and red lips smiled. Far
above, seated at what seemed to be the windows of the great
circumambient fortress, men and women crowded the fronts of the boxes
to gaze on the enchanting spectacle.

“I have promised, have I not?”

Doctor Hailey felt himself stiffen. The voice had come to him
unmistakably, with its clipped, well-bred accents. He turned his head
sharply. It was Bob Barling dressed as a Pierrot. The girl with whom
he was dancing wore a peasant costume which might have belonged to
Spain or Italy. She was tall, graceful, and, he judged, beautiful,
though her mask obscured the greater part of her face.

He caught his breath in an exclamation of amazement. The sheer
boldness of this performance thrilled him. He waited until they
returned following Bob’s tall figure meanwhile with riveted gaze. As
they drew near he had a clear view of them and tried to impress the
details of their costumes on his mind. He felt no doubt now that the
girl was Olva.

Her golden hair gleamed splendidly under the lamps. Her dancing, too,
possessed that mysterious quality of _abandon_ which no Englishwoman
ever displays. They passed so near to him that he must have heard even
a whisper, but they were not speaking at all.

At the far end of the Hall they left the crowd of dancers and
disappeared from view. Doctor Hailey lingered, wondering whether or
not he should follow them. But just then, glancing up at the tiers of
boxes, he saw them appear and seat themselves in one of these, where
supper had already been laid out.




 CHAPTER XXI.
 WERE THEY GUILTY?

The box was immediately above his own, so that he must lose sight of
them entirely if he went there. He considered a moment and then
mounted the stair to the second gallery and made his way into the
large box reserved for representatives of the press. In that throng,
he knew, he would pass entirely unnoticed. He sat down in the front of
the box and turned his gaze to the man and woman whose audacity still
held his imagination enthralled.

They had not removed their masks, but they were eating their supper
with, so far as could be seen at that distance, complete equanimity.
He observed the girl raise her glass and touch Bob’s glass before she
drank. Then the young man leaned toward her with a champagne bottle in
his hand and gave her more wine. And again they raised their glasses
to one another.

He turned from them and let his eyes wander over the gay throng below.
But he was no longer watching these people. His mind was busy instead
with the problem which this daring adventure had created. What was his
duty in relation to these lovers, one of whom he had been delighted to
call his friend? There was no warrant out, of course, against Bob
Barling, but Olva was definitely “wanted” as a person accused of
murder. Even to give her shelter was a crime of the most serious
character.

Then he tried to think what must happen if he took no action in the
matter. Where would they go when the ball was over? The house at
Hampstead might give them shelter for a time, but, sooner or later,
the police would be certain to discover it.

When that happened Bob would be charged as an “accessory after the
fact,” and possibly convicted of murder. It would be asserted that he
had known from the outset of the crime and had condoned it, and his
action in following the murdered man from the High Court Hotel to
South Street would be made use of to prove his complicity.

He got up and left the box. To whom, he wondered did the house in
Hampstead belong, and how had they gained entrance to it? He was
compelled to admit that the fact of its being available when required
was an ugly one. It certainly suggested very strongly that
preparations had been made in advance of the crime.

That assuredly would be Biles’s reading of the case, and Biles’s
readings usually convinced the juries to whom they were submitted. The
thought crossed his mind that this murder must have deeper roots than
any mere matter of politics. If Bob were indeed a party to it--and he
had by no means brought himself to accept so terrible a
conclusion--then the victim must have possessed some sinister power
over Olva and must, in his last days, have been exercising that power
with ruthless violence.

He came to his box and sat down. He found his snuffbox in a remote
pocket of his costume and took a large pinch. That theory, and that
theory alone, would account for what seemed to have happened. The
Barlings, as he knew, were a wild breed when it came to matters of
chivalry. They would go to great lengths to defend the honor or safety
of their womenfolk. Nevertheless, they were not the kind of people to
leave the actual work of vengeance to a woman’s hand. Why had not Bob
gone to Moorfields with Olva in the first instance?

Suddenly he started. Was it certain that he had not gone? By his own
confession he had followed Danatoff to South Street and then followed
him back again to his hotel. After that, he had stated, he went home,
but what proof was there of the accuracy of his statement? Biles
clearly had not believed it; nor had it been corroborated in any way.
It would not be corroborated, because the servants must have all gone
to bed before their master returned.

He took another pinch of snuff and then closed his eyes. The band was
playing a curious throbbing dance, very popular at the moment. The
words, which he had heard somewhere, beat on his brain, “What shall I
do--if you--get flu-- What shall I do?”

Then words and music faded as the thought grew clear in his mind that
Bob had had plenty of time to go down to Wycombe in pursuit of
Danatoff and return again to Curzon Street before 6 A.M., the time
when Olva Vorloff’s mother rang him up on the telephone. The journey
need not occupy more than an hour and a half, because the roads would
be quite empty. That would leave a margin of about an hour for the
doings at the Lodge.

The doctor sighed deeply. In that case Bob himself had almost
certainly struck the fatal blow. Probably he had gone down in his own
car and driven right up to the house at which, as he knew, Olva and
Danatoff would have already arrived. If Danatoff’s purpose with the
girl was a shameful one, he would instantly realize his danger when he
saw Bob and quite probably open fire on him.

With a start of astonishment Doctor Hailey realized that this was
equivalent to saying that Bob and the man Browning, in whose name the
car with the shattered windscreen was registered, were the same
person. But, in that case, what of the finger-prints discovered by
Biles? Was it possible that Bob himself had visited the murdered man’s
room at the High Court Hotel?

Doctor Hailey leaned forward in the new anxiety which was gripping
him. He had to admit that such a visit was quite possible. It might
have been made in company with the man Tsarov, who was clearly
connected in the same way with the business.

Bob could then go downstairs and demand an interview with Danatoff,
knowing that Tsarov would answer the telephone. He did not, for the
moment, see what object they could have in behaving in that fashion,
but that, after all, was a detail. No doubt Olva had been conveyed at
once to the house at Hampstead or, more probably, dropped there on the
return journey from Wycombe.

As he reached this point in his theory the doctor felt a sense of
horror such as even he had not formerly experienced. When he had
convinced himself that Bob was the last man to have any dealings of
any sort with murder he had left out of account the one possibility
which might, which must, qualify that conviction.

No Barling would regard killing as murder when that killing saved a
beloved woman’s honor from the defilement of a scoundrel in the act of
threatening it. Nor would any member of that family dream of
confessing such a crime--and so perhaps obtaining mercy for
himself--if the confession entailed a scandal in which his _fiancée_
must be involved.

That stark truth had begun to fill his mind when, suddenly, he caught
sight of the couple whose fate so greatly oppressed him gliding past
his box in each other’s arms. The girl was still entirely
self-possessed, but he thought that Bob was unusually flushed about
the neck, and that he danced with a less easy grace. Probably the
champagne which he had drunk had gone to his head, for the nervous
strain of the last twenty-four hours must have been terrific. The
human brain possesses only a limited resistance of any stress, whether
of life or of liquor.

They came back down the hall, but now the colored lights were in play
again, so that it was difficult to form any judgment. Showers of tiny
balloons, released from receptacles in the room, floated down on the
dancers, who were, in addition, enveloped in streamers of colored
papers thrown from the boxes. The light caressed these gay toys,
producing a strange, wild effect which seemed to intoxicate the
spirits of the dancers.

The pace of the music quickened until a delirious note was mingled
with its rhythm. Men and women gave themselves to the impulse of the
moment. There were cries of excitement and the laughter of women, and,
now and then, small explosions of the balloons which had fallen among
the dancers’ feet.

And then suddenly the band stopped and the great white lamps shone
again on the scene.

Doctor Hailey searched the gay mob to find the lovers, but could not.
He hurried from his box to the floor and looked up at the box which
they had occupied, only to discover it empty.

He strode back to the gallery and made his way to the entrance hall,
where the main cloakrooms were situated. He was just in time to see
Bob present his ticket for his hat and coat.




 CHAPTER XXII.
 THE LIGHTED WINDOW

Doctor Hailey got his coat and went out to his car. He boarded the
vehicle and sat watching the entrance of the hall until Bob appeared
with his companion. The young man came to the edge of the curb and
waved his hand for a taxi. Then he turned to the girl and seemed to
lurch against her.

A policeman who was standing near took his arm and steadied him. Then
the cab drove up and the couple entered it. The doctor moved slowly
from his position.

It was obvious that Bob had drunk too much champagne, but, in the
circumstances, that was scarcely to be wondered at. Only now, when he
was far removed from the events of the last days, would the full
meaning of these events become apparent to him.

And such a revelation, as the doctor well knew, must be almost
unbearable to a mind so delicately poised and fastidious as his. Olva,
accustomed to the horrors of the Bolshevist reign of terror, would
scarcely react to circumstances which, in her lover’s case, must prove
overwhelming.

The taxi he was following ran straight to Hyde Park Corner and then
turned up Park Lane. It dived, thereafter, into Mayfair, came to
Oxford Street at Orchard Street, and continued its way by Baker Street
and Regent’s Park. Obviously the destination was Brunswick Road,
Hampstead. Doctor Hailey slackened speed so as to arouse no possible
suspicion in these empty thoroughfares.

He ascended Fitzjohn’s Avenue slowly and mounted on a low gear to the
crest of the Heath. He took his car down the semi-circular road which
communicates with the Vale of Heath and left it drawn up at the curb
just where Brunswick Road takes off. He walked slowly along in the
direction of the house from which earlier in the evening the couple he
was following had emerged.

When he came to the house he saw the tail lamp of the cab gleaming
like a ruby through the bushes. A moment later the vehicle lurched
down the short drive and emerged on the road. He strolled on,
wondering at the foolhardiness which had betrayed the secret of this
refuge to a driver with whom, possibly, the police might ultimately
get into touch. Why had they not returned as they went in the private
car?

The explanation, perhaps, lay in the fact that Bob was no longer
master of himself. It was quite likely that he had forgotten his car
when he summoned the cab. Olva would be too glad to get him safely
away to offer any objection, even if the danger of the step occurred
to her.

He walked back toward the house, the number of which was ten. There
was nobody in sight and silence dwelt everywhere. When he came to the
gate he glanced round to assure himself that he was not observed and
then slipped inside and moved to the shelter of the shrubbery which
surrounded the house. The night was rather cold, and he felt a trifle
shivery in his thin costume. Nevertheless, he was determined not to
relinquish the enterprise until he gained every scrap of information
which might be available.

The house was a large Georgian building standing in fairly extensive
grounds. By the dim light of a clouded moon he saw that it was
separated from its neighbors on each side by strips of lawn, flanked
by bushes. Wooden railings indicated the boundaries. He crept up
toward the front and took careful stock of the windows.

They were all dark; nor was there any light showing anywhere. The
house, indeed, gave the impression of being untenanted, because the
shutters of the windows on the ground floor had been closed. Keeping
as near as possible to the shrubbery he moved round the left side of
the building and came to the back. That also was dark and
deserted-looking.

He approached one of the windows and tried to peer in, but was unable
to see any thing. The room he thought must be the kitchen, but, if so,
it did not appear to have been in use very recently, for the glass of
the windows was covered with dust.

He stood a moment, with his ear to the sill, trying to detect any
sound which might indicate that the place was, in fact, inhabited. He
heard nothing. The uneasy thought came to him that, possibly, his
entrance to the grounds had been observed.

That would explain the absence of any sign of life--for he could not
for a moment doubt that Bob and his companion had entered the house.
But, in the young man’s present state, a careful watch was, to say the
least of it, unlikely. He began to wonder whether or not he had better
go away and leave them. After all, it was not his business to act the
spy on his friends.

That mood lasted, however, only for an instant. Whatever the doubts
which might have crossed his mind, he had no proof of any sort that
Bob Barling was seriously involved. Indeed, the young man’s behavior
on the previous day had been such as to discount the theory of his
complicity. He had spoken and acted with the frankness of complete
innocence. Doctor Hailey recalled that fact with a sense of deep
satisfaction.

He even blamed himself for having given his suspicions too free a
range. It was fatal in detective work, as he knew, to leave the
personal element out of one’s calculations, and yet that was precisely
the fault of which he had been guilty. He recalled with a sense of
bitterness that he had accused Biles of the very same error only a few
hours before.

His duty was clear--to pursue the inquiry on which he had embarked to
its conclusion with a perfectly open mind. Unless his knowledge of his
fellows was greatly at fault the discovery of the truth must aid, and
not injure, those whom he had learned to trust and respect.

He had just reached this conclusion when he started slightly. There
had come to him faintly, as though through a closed door, the echoes
of a woman’s laughter.

The sound seemed to proceed from that side of the house which, so far,
he had not inspected. He walked toward it, stepping carefully on the
damp grass. He came to the corner of the building and then suddenly
bent down.

Right in front of him and but a few paces distant, the gleam from a
lighted window shone out against the darkness of night. It fell
garishly across the lawn to the shrubbery, which it illuminated
brightly.

He crept out, in the shadow, to a distance which he judged to be safe
and then moved forward again to a point from which he could hope to
obtain a view of the room and its occupants.

An exclamation of amazement broke from his lips as he achieved his
purpose.

Seated at a table facing him was Bob Barling, his mask removed, his
face flushed and bloated with wine, his eyes apparently half closed.
The girl was beside him, bending over him with her arms around his
neck. She seemed to be in the act of kissing his brow.

Suddenly she straightened herself and turned to the window, laughing
gaily. Doctor Hailey strangled a second cry of amazement on his lips.

Her mask was gone. This was not Olva Vorloff at all, but a woman he
had never seen before, a woman whose beautiful face was marred by the
ineffaceable signs of a life of reckless pleasure.

A sense of lively disgust swept his mind. So this was the explanation,
this wretched, vulgar spectacle!

Doctor Hailey was a man of the world, but there are various meanings
attached to that much-abused term. The idea that he could have been so
grossly mistaken in Bob overwhelmed him. He put it away from him. But
there was the evidence before his eyes, evidence which he could not,
if he would, refuse to accept.

The young man from whom he had pictured as risking everything for the
woman he loved, whom he had even seen as a criminal in love’s defence,
was no more than a common _débauché_, a fellow so devoid of decent
feeling that he could forget the plight of his _fiancée_ in an hour
and give himself with reckless abandon to vicious conduct of the
crudest description. Biles had been right after all; his cold mind had
perceived a side of Bob’s character which the eyes of his friends
never recognized.

The doctor prepared to make his escape from the garden. Not here,
certainly, would he discover the evidence which he sought, and the
idea of continuing to witness this revolting scene was hateful to him.
He took a step forward on to the lawn, his earlier caution abandoned.
As he did so Bob staggered to his feet and stood leering across the
room at the girl, who had retired to a corner and was now regarding
him with a mocking, pleasure-haunted smile.

“Sit down, boy!” she cried in tones which carried through the panes of
the window.

She pouted as she spoke in a manner so provocative that Doctor Hailey
watched in spite of himself. The young man took a step toward her and
then lurched against the table. Suddenly he gathered himself together
and almost sprang to her side. He seized her by the shoulders as an
angry schoolmaster might have seized a troublesome small boy. His red
face was thrust toward her face.

“For God’s sake,” he shouted hoarsely, “don’t play with me!”

But the effort seemed to exhaust his resolution. The weak, bibulous
look which the doctor had noticed in the first instance returned to
his eyes. He lurched and then, to steady himself, flung his arms round
the girl’s neck. They sank together on to a sofa to which, with
considerable skill, she had managed to guide him.

Doctor Hailey could endure no more. He turned on his heel and strode
down the lawn toward the gate. A sense of utter weariness and
disillusionment possessed his spirit. Never again, he felt, could he
put his trust in any one whom he had not proved to the very hilt.
Never again.

He stood still suddenly, riveted to the ground.

A woman’s crying, piteous, heart-broken, thrilled in the silence.




 CHAPTER XXIII.
 VOICES IN THE NIGHT

The sound continued in varying cadences. It was the most
grief-stricken which, Doctor Hailey thought, he had ever heard, as
though hope had been cast down from her in a strong spirit.

And then suddenly the silence fell again, and there came a new sound
as of heavy shutters being closed. At the same moment the beam of
light issuing from the room behind him was cut off.

He remained standing still, gazing at the dark outline of the house,
his mind a prey to all manner of new anxieties. What had occurred in
that room since he left his point of observation? What fresh, terrible
event had happened to wring from those mocking lips so bitter a
recantation of their folly? What was happening there even now, while
he stood irresolute?

His mind cleared suddenly as the face of the sea is cleared of mist.
He strode back to the side of the house and posted himself before the
darkened window. Not a gleam of light escaped from the closed
shutters. He came on tiptoe to the sill and bent down to listen. There
was no sound in the room. He waited, but the silence remained
unbroken. An owl hooted in the distance. Far away, like a wind moving
among great trees, the voice of London whispered her immemorial
message.

He turned from the window and glanced about him. It might be possible
to gain an entrance to the house elsewhere and so come to the room
from within. But even if he succeeded in that enterprise, what
assurance had he that his intrusion would be of service?

Both Bob and his companion had been drinking and it was possible that
this mood of folly had merely given place to a lachrymose state. Such
swift transitions were common enough. Yet the cry which he had heard
had not suggested that explanation.

He moved back a few paces toward the boundary fence in order to gain a
clearer view of the upper windows. They did not seem to be shuttered,
as the lower windows were, but their height from the ground and the
fact that the walls were bare of any creeper made that a matter of no
consequence. Without a ladder it would be impossible to reach them. He
passed his hand across his brow in an anxious gesture. There seemed to
be nothing for it but to abandon a hopeless enterprise.

He had just reached this decision when the sound of a twig snapping
close behind him came to his ears. The sound was clear and
unmistakable. He bent down and strained his eyes to penetrate the
shadows of the bushes. A moment later he saw a dark figure emerge a
few paces away from him and begin to cross the lawn. It showed up
distinctly in the weak moonlight.

He moved forward, keeping well within the shelter of the shrubbery.
The figure came to the shuttered window and then he heard a gentle
tapping on the glass pane. It was followed by the sound of the opening
of the shutters, but, because the room was now in darkness, he was
unable to see who had opened them. A voice with a strong foreign
accent exclaimed in tones of great relief.

“So it is you. I thank God! When he jumped to close the shutters I
feared very much.”

Doctor Hailey heard a laugh, which was clearly that of the girl who
was Bob’s companion.

“Oh,” she cried, “that was his last kick. He went to sleep after it
and I turned out the lights. Listen!”

Her tones were cheerful and confident and betrayed none of the fear
which had sounded in the cry of a few minutes ago. She spoke again,
but in accents so low that he could not hear her. Nor did he dare risk
showing himself on the lawn.

“I think it is good,” the man answered her. He seemed to hesitate a
moment and then repeated that statement. Then he left the window as
quickly as he had approached it and came back across the lawn. The
doctor waited until he had reëntered the shrubbery before attempting
to follow him.

The man went straight on to the low fence which separated the house
from its next door neighbor. He climbed over the fence and dived into
the shrubbery on the opposite side of it. Doctor Hailey was just in
time to see him hurry across the open space beyond to the door of the
house. He entered, shutting the door behind him.

Hailey waited a moment and then followed across the lawn. The door was
a heavy one and he realized at once that it would be a matter of
extreme difficulty to force it. He left it and crept along to the
window on the left hand side. It was unshuttered. He climbed up on to
the sill and inspected the catch.

As he anticipated, it was of an old-fashioned pattern. If only he had
brought his pocket knife with him! But he had left that, with his
other personal belongings, when he changed into his fancy costume. He
stood irresolute, trying to think of some means of replacing it.

Then his hand encountered the top of the dagger which was part of his
costume. He drew the thin blade and inserted it carefully between the
sashes. He pressed on. The catch was released with a sharp click.

He put his thumbs on the top of the lower sash and raised it gently a
few inches. Then he descended again and pushed it up from below. He
climbed carefully into the room. The window was curtained, but even
after he had drawn the curtains well back he was unable to see
anything. Adopting a well-tried thief’s trick, he went down on his
hands and knees and crept round the room until he had located the
door. When he turned the handle it opened readily.

The hall, however, was as dark as the room had been. He stood
listening on the threshold. Not a sound, not even the ticking of a
clock disturbed the heavy silence. He moved cautiously along the wall
in a direction away from the front door, testing each step with the
toe of his shoe before he took it. That precaution saved him from
disaster at the foot of the stairs, which he quickly reached. Without
delay he seated himself and removed both his shoes. Then he began to
ascend the broad flight.

Near the top of it a faint murmur of voices reached his ears and made
him pause. The sound was coming from somewhere on the left, but
whether from a room near at hand or far away he was unable to decide.
Nor could he detect a single word. He finished his ascent and advanced
along the passage to which the staircase had brought him.

The voices grew clearer now. They were coming from a room at the back
of the house, the door of which he found easily. It was shut. He put
his ear to one of the panels and listened.

The conversation was being carried on in a foreign language--in
Russian, he thought. A man and a woman were taking part in it. The
man’s voice was strong and commanding, but the replies which the woman
made sounded faint and indistinct.

Should he enter the room at once and confront them? But to do that
would merely be to give them warning of his presence. They were
probably armed and would soon overpower him.

Suddenly the talk ended and he heard footsteps crossing the floor. He
withdrew hurriedly from his position and went on tiptoe farther along
the passage till he came to a second door on the same side. He stood
straight up against it, trusting to the recess it afforded to hide
him.

The alarm, however, was a false one. A moment later the conversation
was resumed in the same tones. With great surprise he observed that it
was not less distinctly audible than it had been before.

That could only mean that the two rooms communicated with each other
and that the means of communication was open. He grasped the
door-handle beside him and, using an infinite care, attempted to turn
it. The lock moved without noise of any kind. He pushed the door ajar
and peered into the room beyond.

It was unlighted, but a strong beam of light from a second door which
he saw was standing half open penetrated its darkness. The voices came
to him now with absolute distinctness, the man’s voluble and eager,
the woman’s colorless, like the voice of a sick person in a delirium.
He stole into the room, half closing the door behind him. Then he
tiptoed forward to a point from which he might hope to gain a view of
what was passing in the next apartment.

The sight which met his eyes was stranger than anything which his
imagination had dared to picture.




 CHAPTER XXIV.
 A DROP OF BLOOD

Lying on a sofa, with her splendid golden hair half obscured by a
bandage which encircled her brow, was Olva Vorloff.

Her eyes were closed. Her hands, white and frail-looking as lilies,
were folded on her breast. A look, strange, cold, expressionless,
composed her features. But it was not this which held Doctor Hailey’s
attention spellbound. At the foot of the sofa, gazing down on the
girl, and all the while as he gazed pouring out in a dull monotone a
torrent of words, was the most extraordinary-looking being whom he had
ever seen.

It was the man’s eyes which fascinated him. They were small, but they
glared so terribly that they seemed to possess his whole face; and
they had a quality of passion which was like kindled flame.

The doctor approached as near to the open door as he dared. As he did
so the man stooped down and lifted one of Olva’s hands. She opened her
eyes and at the same moment an expression of grief and despair came
into her face.

It seemed that, at that moment, the man’s eyes lost something of their
wildness. They appeared to fall before Olva’s eyes, and when he raised
them again they were gentler; but even so, they had not lost their
passionate intensity.

“Oh, no, no; I don’t believe it. It isn’t true!” the girl cried in
bitter accents. “You shall not make me believe that it is true.”

He answered her in Russian. He came to her side and raised her up to a
sitting posture. Then he sat down beside her and took her hand in his
hands. He raised it to his lips and kissed it reverently.

She did not resist him. Indeed she lifted her eyes to his face as
though his words had consoled her. She spoke to him, too, in Russian,
evidently replying to a question which he had asked. Doctor Hailey saw
the terrible eyes gleam anew. Then another question was asked and
answered.

Suddenly a frown gathered on Olva’s brow. Her expression changed and
she raised her hand in a gesture of repudiation. The light flamed in
her hair, lending a weird, unearthly quality to her beauty.

The man rose and stood with his back to the doctor. He seemed to have
thrust out his hands toward the girl. Then he stood hesitating a
moment.

And gradually, her opposition to him passed and her face recovered its
look of serenity. She closed her eyes.

He laid her gently back on the couch and then stood some distance from
her, gazing at her fixedly. It was obvious that he was disconcerted.
He spoke again, in very low tones. He seemed to be repeating the same
words over and over, like an incantation. At last he called her by
name.

“Olva! Olva!”

She opened her eyes. They were calm now, and full of confidence in
him. She held out her hand to him and he came and knelt beside her. He
spoke and she answered him quite freely, without a trace of the
resentment she had shown a few moments before.

And, after that, silence fell in the room. Doctor Hailey noticed that
Olva was dressed in a plain tailor-made coat and skirt, the clothes
she had no doubt put on to go to Moorfields. He noticed, too, that at
frequent intervals she passed her hand over her brow, as though the
bandage encircling it covered a painful wound.

Her eyes closed again and she seemed to have fallen asleep. The man
rose and stood beside her for a few seconds. Then he turned and went
to the door leading to the passage. At the same moment a telephone
bell in some neighboring room began to ring with the brazen insistence
of its kind.

The sound aroused the girl. She started up and glanced wildly about
her. Then she seemed to recollect herself. Her face became suddenly
deadly pale. Doctor Hailey saw tears start to her eyes. She rose from
the couch and stood a moment looking vacantly toward him. Then she
walked with quick steps to the window of the room and threw it open.

He started forward, seized by a sudden dread that she was going to
throw herself out. But a moment later he saw that this was not her
object. She had come to watch. She raised her hands to her eyes,
peering into the darkness like a lookout man on a ship. Then, as
suddenly as she had opened the window, she closed it again. She turned
and seemed to totter back into the room. Her cheeks were bloodless and
her eyes stared. She groped at the empty air with her hands.

A moan, heart-broken and very pitiful escaped her lips. Next moment
she had fallen full length on the rich carpet.

The doctor sprang to her assistance. He knelt beside her and put his
fingers on her pulse. It flickered faintly beneath them. He chafed her
hands and then her cheeks and her brow where the bandage left it
exposed. Suddenly he bent down and put his ear to her chest. A look of
consternation appeared on his face.

He seized her arms and began to swing them vigorously in the manner of
those who work to restore persons from the effects of drowning. Then
he listened again and then again resumed his labor. The horror in his
eyes grew deeper. He bent over the pallid face. Surely he must be
mistaken! There must be some fault surely in his observation. If only
he had carried his hypodermic syringe!

Suddenly a cry escaped him. On her right forearm, from which the
sleeve had been drawn back by his efforts, there had appeared a tiny
spot of blood. Beside it was a puncture mark, which showed up clearly
on the white skin.

Dismay darkened his eyes. He snatched again at her pulse with
trembling fingers.

_It had ceased to beat._

He staggered to his feet and sprang to the door of the room, shouting
in his rage and horror.

And next moment a great darkness was spread before his eyes and he
felt himself being hurled to destruction.




 PART III




 CHAPTER XXV.
 OLVA DISAPPEARS

When Doctor Hailey came to himself he was lying in a dark room in a
silent house.

He struggled to his feet and, as he did so, he felt his head throb
painfully. He put his hand up to his brow and held it a moment, trying
to collect his thoughts. Then he groped his way through the darkness
till he felt the wall.

He stood leaning against it with his mind whirling with strange
fancies. For the moment the exact character of his whereabouts was not
clear to him, and the throbbing in his head made recollection a
painful process. A great desire to lie down again almost defeated his
strength of will.

Then gradually he began to remember. He moved along the wall, pausing
every few steps to rest and recover his control of himself, which
still threatened to desert him.

“Ah!”

He had come to a doorway. In his confusion he very nearly fell through
it, but he managed to save himself. He ran his fingers up and down the
side of the aperture until he found the electric switch.

Suddenly, as the room was flooded with light, his mind became clear,
so that he remembered all the events which had led up to his
experiences in this place.

He cried out in horror.

The body of Olva had been snatched away!

He staggered across to the sofa on which he had first seen her lying.
He sat down on it and covered his face with his hands. What did it all
mean? What did it all mean? A sense of overwhelming weakness came upon
him, so that he felt he could no longer struggle against the darkness
and mystery which surrounded him.

Then a caution uttered by his professor of surgery at Cambridge years
before echoed queerly in his memory: “Always remember, gentlemen, when
you are called to treat a head injury, that the patient cannot for the
moment be relied on, however self-possessed he may seem to be.” He
drew a deep breath and rose again to his feet, determined that his
weakness should not defeat the strong purpose which, even now, he felt
urging him to new effort.

As he did so his eyes caught sight of a steel poker lying on the floor
near the door of the room, the weapon, no doubt, with which he had
been struck down.

He passed into the adjoining room, where he had stood to watch the
strange scene between the girl and the man with the glaring eyes. It
was empty also. A clock on the mantelpiece indicated the hour of
four-thirty. He glanced at his watch and saw that this was correct. So
he had been unconscious only about an hour.

He opened the door leading to the passage and peered out cautiously.
There was no gleam of light anywhere and the silence of the house was
profound. He strained his ears, but not a whisper reached them. He
found another switch and illuminated the passage.

Then he walked to the head of the stairs and went down to the ground
floor. There was a telephone in the hall, and the idea occurred to him
that he might ring up his house and summon his man, Jenkins, but he
decided against that course. He looked into all the rooms, including
the kitchen and offices. The house was absolutely deserted.

He mounted the stairs again and found his hat lying in the room where
he had fallen. The pain in his head was less severe now, but he could
feel a lump above his left ear. Evidently the man had struck him from
behind just as he was about to rush out of the room. That meant that
the fellow had returned by way of the adjoining apartment. He had no
doubt whatever that he was Tsarov, Olva’s accomplice at Moorfields.

He descended to the front door. It was not locked. He pushed it open
and passed out into the chill of a London dawn, leaving it unfastened
behind him. He walked along Brunswick Road in the direction of the
Heath.

The cold made him giddy and he had to stop for a moment and support
himself against the railings of one of the houses. But he struggled
on, because if the scoundrel into whose methods he had obtained an
insight was to be brought to justice there was not a moment to lose.
Evidently Tsarov had quite miscalculated the force of his blow or the
thickness of his victim’s skull. He must have left him for dead.

_But he had really killed Olva._

That knowledge somehow had not till this moment penetrated the
doctor’s brain. Now it came upon him with fresh and vivid horror, so
that he exclaimed aloud. Not a shadow of doubt could exist that the
puncture mark which he had seen on the poor girl’s forearm was made by
a hypodermic needle.

The drop of blood showed that the injection had been given only a few
moments before. It was that injection, clearly, which had paralyzed
her limbs and caused her to fall, and which, as its influence extended
swiftly along her nerves, had brought her pulse to a standstill.

He paused again and once more sought the support of the railing.
Morphia did not act so quickly as this, nor, so far as he knew, did
any of the drugs which a man such as Tsarov was likely to possess.

Was it possible that the wound she had suffered had so greatly reduced
her strength as to render her more than usually susceptible to the
influence of narcotics? Or had his obvious attempts to hypnotize her
exercised a greater effect than had been immediately apparent?

In any case, what had he done with her body and why should he have
carried it away from the house, seeing that it must greatly impede his
own movements? Doctor Hailey could think of no answer to these
questions. Then suddenly a new fear clutched at his heart.

Had the fate which had been meted out to Olva overtaken Bob Barling
also?

He turned as the dreadful possibility presented itself to his mind and
began to retrace his steps. His memory seemed to be working in
compartments, so that he could only recall one thing at a time. He
came to the carriage-way of the house and struggled up the drive
toward the window of the room where he had seen Bob and his companion
after their return from the ball.

The window remained shuttered and dark. A dismal silence enveloped the
whole house.

He put his ear to the glass, but heard no sound. He walked round to
the door and shook it, but it was locked. He leaned against it,
wondering what he ought to do next. In his fancy costume he felt
chilly and uncomfortable, in spite of the fact that his overcoat was a
thick one. Suppose that Bob was lying in that room, dying for lack of
skilled attention.

The thought gave him new energy. He left his position and made his way
as fast as he could through the shrubbery to the other house. He
entered it and hurried to the telephone, giving the operator the
number of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. A
crisp voice answered him almost immediately.

“This is Dr. Eustace Hailey speaking. I have been assisting Inspector
Biles.”

“Do you wish to speak to Inspector Biles, sir?”

“But he is not at the Yard; he is at Wycombe.”

“He is here now, sir.”

A moment later Biles’s voice spoke. Doctor Hailey gave him the address
in Brunswick Road and begged him to come out without a moment’s delay.
He added:

“Bring some one with you who can open locked doors.”

He put the instrument down and went back to the upstairs room to wait
for the detective. He found his snuffbox and took a pinch, and that
familiar action still further restored his faculties. He felt no doubt
that it was his appearance in the house which had driven Tsarov away,
because the fellow, so long as he believed himself to be alone, had
been most unhurried in his actions. He must have decamped in very
great haste or he would certainly have made sure that his enemy was
really dead.

But why, in that case, had he taken the body of the girl with him?

There was nothing, surely, to be gained by such a course, and
everything to be lost. Had he left her behind him her death would
probably have remained unsuspected, or, at any rate, undiscovered for
a long period. As it was, he ran the very gravest risks, since a
corpse is the most difficult of all the evidences of crime to dispose
of satisfactorily.




 CHAPTER XXVI.
 THE MARKS ON THE POKER

He took another pinch of snuff. Was it possible that after all he
had been mistaken and Olva was not dead? The pulse, he knew, is an
unreliable guide in these matters, because it may disappear altogether
while the heart still continues to beat.

But in that case the mystery grew deeper. Why should Tsarov wish to
administer drugs to his accomplice before carrying her away with him?
There could be no manner of doubt that the girl had been present at
Moorfields when Danatoff was murdered. Tsarov, too, had played a part
in that tragedy. Thus, it might be assumed that they stood or fell
together, unless indeed--

He paced the floor of the room as the new idea gathered force in his
mind. His weakness seemed to have passed, consumed suddenly by the
rising flame of his enthusiasm.

Tsarov was clearly an expert hypnotist. Those terrible eyes of his
possessed powers of compulsion which, in the case of a weak girl,
might well be limitless. And once the will has been surrendered almost
anything becomes possible.

Doctor Hailey had studied hypnotism and suggestion profoundly. He had
spent months at the famous clinics of Nancy and Paris, and, moreover,
had witnessed the experiments of the most distinguished exponents of
this strange branch of medicine. He had no illusions as to the
terrible power which is possessed by a really gifted practitioner.

It would be the easiest thing in the world to suggest to such a girl
as Olva that her duty to her dead father demanded a signal punishment
of one of the allies of his murderers.

If the hypnotic influence had been firmly established indeed, the
killing of such a person could be presented as an act of virtue.

But even the most susceptible “subjects,” as he well knew, are apt at
times to prove refractory. They are especially difficult to deal with
when the suggestion given to them runs counter to their own instincts
or scruples. Thus, it is quite simple to make a doctor perform such an
act as the writing of a prescription or the driving of a motor car;
but it is excessively difficult to make him disclose information about
his patients.

In the latter case the whole strength of his moral nature resists the
suggestion of the hypnotist. Moreover, even when this resistance is
overcome, it is always liable to gather new force and so to reassert
itself.

Was that, the doctor wondered, the explanation of the sudden ill will
which Olva had shown against Tsarov? Her resentment had appeared to
flash out without provocation and it had exercised an immediate and
very marked effect on the man, causing him to redouble his efforts to
bend her to his will.

He took more snuff. Tsarov’s safety, if this reading of the case was
correct, depended absolutely on his power over the girl. If she
succeeded in breaking away from control, her natural abhorrence of the
crime of murder must reassert itself and drive her to full confession.
So that every sign of resentment on her part would constitute a fresh
argument for making away with her altogether--now that her usefulness
as a decoy was ended.

He got up and went to the window. He could just see the dim outline of
the house opposite. He stood gazing at it a few moments in silence.
Suddenly he started.

He turned back a few paces and once more looked out of the window.
Then he glanced at the heavy curtains which were gathered at either
side of the casement. Clearly they had not been drawn recently.

A look of amazement filled his eyes. If Tsarov had intended that Olva
should witness the scene between Bob Barling and the girl with whom he
had been dancing he could not have planned things better. Indeed, it
was certain that she must have witnessed it.

He caught his breath. So that was the explanation of her cry--of her
frantic gazing out into the night.

His brain reeled anew as he tried to fit this fresh discovery into the
scheme of the evidence now in his possession. Why, if Olva had served
her purpose as the murderer of Danatoff, should it be necessary to
torment her with the spectacle of her lover in the arms of a strange
woman?

The sound of an approaching car came to his ears. He descended to the
front door and threw it open. At the same moment the vehicle swung
into the carriage drive. Biles got out and ran up the steps. When he
first saw his friend an exclamation of amazement escaped him.

“Good God, my dear doctor, what has happened to you?”

Doctor Hailey had forgotten his fancy costume. He dismissed the
recollection of it with a wave of his hand.

“You have brought your housebreaking tools?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then come with me.”

They traversed the shrubbery to the next house. The doctor led the way
to the front door.

“I fancy you had better try here, to begin with,” he said.

Biles opened the bag he carried and selected a long bar of shining
steel. He drove the end of it between the door and the jamb and threw
his weight on the shaft. There was a snapping sound; the door burst
open and the lock fell clattering to the stone floor.

The detective flashed his electric torch into the darkness. It
revealed only emptiness. They went forward across the big entrance
hall and came to the open door of a room. Doctor Hailey exclaimed as
the beam of light showed them the white tablecloth with its
furnishings of bottles and glasses. He felt for the switch and turned
on the lights.

The room was empty.

He glanced at the shuttered windows and then back at the door by which
they had just entered. He turned to his companion.

“We must search the whole house.”

Biles nodded. Experience had taught him that his friend never acted
without reason, and he was content to wait for explanations till those
might be given him. They passed from room to room, looking into every
cupboard and receptacle. But the place was absolutely empty. They
returned to the apartment they had entered in the first instance.

“Thank God!” Doctor Hailey exclaimed. “That anxiety at any rate, is
removed.”

He turned to his companion with his snuffbox in his hand.

“I fancy,” he added, “that my wits are not at their sharpest. I might
have guessed that we should find this place empty.”

He sat down at the table and helped himself to a pinch. Then he
afforded his friend an account of the night’s adventures. Biles
listened to the narrative without comment of any sort.

“I thank my Fates,” he declared fervently, when it was finished, “that
it was only a poker with which the scoundrel was armed.”

His stern features were gentle. He had a great affection for the
doctor which, as a rule, he hid in his heart. Doctor Hailey rose and
fixed his eyeglass in his eye with some deliberation. His overcoat had
fallen open revealing his costume.

He looked a strange, wild figure, a figure his companion thought,
which might have stepped out of some grotesque dream. Yet his native
dignity had not forsaken him. His big, calm face with its gentle smile
was as composed as ever.

He crossed the floor to the window and opened the shutters. As he did
so the light from a window opposite streamed into the room. He turned
to the detective and waved his hand.

“That is the room in which Olva Vorloff was closeted with the Russian.
You see that the window commands a full view of this apartment?”

Biles inclined his head. The doctor returned to the chair he had
occupied during the telling of his story.




 CHAPTER XXVII.
 A TRICK

“The question which puzzled me as soon as my wits were capable of
being puzzled,” he declared, “was why the Russian should have exerted
so much energy to maintain his influence over the girl, once she had
served his purpose. There are easy methods of getting rid of awkward
people when one is without scruple. I had reached the provisional
conclusion that some new enterprise must be in preparation when I
happened to look out of that window.”

He paused and took snuff again.

“It was then that my muddled brain began to act once more. I recalled
Tsarov’s visit to this house and his conversation with the girl who
had accompanied Bob Barling to the Albert Hall.

“I recalled, too, the cry of distress which I had heard just as I was
about to leave the garden. Then, and not till then, I realized that
the disgusting spectacle which was presented in this room must have
been witnessed by the Countess Olva in all its details.”

His eyeglass fell from his eye. He made a gesture of repudiation.

“To think, my dear Biles,” he cried, “that our wits can be scattered
so easily by the mere knock of a poker. The truth that Tsarov had set
this stage for the purpose of destroying Bob’s reputation in the eyes
of the girl was surely obvious from the beginning, and yet I can
assure you I did not even suspect it till the chance which caused me
to glance out across the shrubbery forced it on me.”

He readjusted his eyeglass. They left the room fully illuminated and
crossed to the opposite house. Biles rang up Scotland Yard on the
phone and then joined his companion in the room in which Olva had been
imprisoned. From the window of this room a clear view of the apartment
they had just quitted could be obtained.

“You see for yourself,” Doctor Hailey said.

“Yes.” The detective’s brow contracted. “But what reason could he have
for this elaborate scheme?”

“I think there is only one possible explanation--that Tsarov, in
addition to being her accomplice in murder, is the Countess Olva’s
lover.”

“What!”

“It is not so impossible as it may seem. Before the war in Russia, as
probably you know, the society of Petersburg developed a wild craze
for hypnotism, and hundreds of women and girls put themselves in the
hands of scoundrels like the monk Rasputin, who pretended to be
endowed with special powers.

“It is probable in the highest degree that the old Countess Vorloff
was one of the victims of the prevailing fashion. Her daughter, who
must have been eleven or twelve at the time, no doubt shared her
experiences. It was one of the sinister aspects of that craze that
quite young children were used as mediums.”

Doctor Hailey paused and took a large pinch of snuff.

“The fellow having renewed his influence,” he added, “has ended by
falling violently in love.”

“But surely he has the girl completely in his power now. What need to
trouble about rivals?”

Biles’s look of incredulity had deepened from moment to moment.

“My dear fellow, she is not completely in his power. On the contrary,
there was a moment, even in the short period during which I watched
them, when she seemed to be about to break from him altogether. That,
undoubtedly, was why he used his hypodermic needle to supplement his
hypnotic influence and make it possible to get her away quietly from
this house.

“And, mark you, she had just seen her _fiancé_ arrive at the house
opposite, hopelessly drunk, in fancy dress with a strange woman. She
had seen him embrace that woman. If anything was calculated to subdue
her resistance and make her yield surely it was that terrible
spectacle.”

“You mean?”

“That Tsarov’s influence was most incomplete--like that of so many
hypnotists. He could compel this girl to share his crimes, apparently,
but not his love; and he was frantically in love with her. Those
terrible eyes of his positively devoured her.”

The doctor paused again. His companion made no comment.

“The fact is, my dear Biles,” he continued, “that hypnotism is
probably the most grossly misunderstood of all the branches of
medicine. The ideas about it entertained by the public and the truth
as its practitioners know it are as widely separated as the poles. The
hypnotic suggestion, like any other suggestion, can be refused.

“Its acceptance depends on a great many different factors and
circumstances, of which disposition, moral training, and emotional
needs are the most important. I witnessed an experiment once at the
great clinic at Nancy in which a very experienced psychiatrist tried
to make a girl disavow her _fiancé_.

“The attempt was a complete failure. Yet the same doctor had easily
persuaded this girl, a few moments before, that she was a very old
woman and induced her to hobble about the room and mumble her jaws
like any old hag.

“Tsarov no doubt represented the murder of Danatoff to Olva as an act
of filial piety--the avenging of her father’s death at the hands of
the Bolshevists. But that kind of persuasion evidently proved utterly
ineffectual as a means of quenching her love for Bob Barling.”

Biles was pacing the floor of the room in the restless fashion which
characterized him when he was engaged in thinking out a difficult
problem.

“If you are right,” he declared, “the fellow will probably try now to
escape to Russia with the girl. I have already given orders to watch
every ship of the Soviet Government which comes to this country, but
their organization is terribly complete and efficient, and they have
vast resources. I wonder who the girl was who decoyed Barling and
doped him at the Albert Hall.

“Have you ever noticed what a number of crimes seem to be connected
with these big balls? It was certainly a clever idea to put the young
fool into fancy dress and bring him back doped at that hour. Your
ordinary criminal would have conducted the whole business here from
beginning to end and so, probably, bungled it hopelessly.”

He stopped in his walk. Doctor Hailey had picked up the poker with
which Tsarov had struck him and was examining it closely. He came to
his side. The doctor looked up with a new eagerness in his face.

“You don’t happen to have a copy with you of the finger-print you
discovered on the windscreen of the car?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not, but I could certainly identify the print if I saw it
again.”

“There are a number of prints on this metal.”

The detective took the poker and carried it to the middle of the room
to a point situated immediately under the electric lamp. He glanced at
the polished shaft and then breathed on it once or twice. A look of
great perplexity came into his eyes. At last he raised his head.

“These marks,” he declared, “are quite different from the other ones.
I am absolutely certain on that point.”

“They were undoubtedly made by Tsarov’s fingers.”

Silence fell in the room. It was broken by Biles.

“The reason,” he said, “why I came up to Scotland Yard last night was
that two men reported there yesterday in connection with the case.
They were driving a big motor lorry to Covent Garden on the night of
the murder. Just outside of High Wycombe a man appeared in the roadway
and signaled to them to stop.

“He said his car had broken down in a byway and asked them to take him
to London. From the description they gave of him it is quite certain
that he was not Tsarov. He left them near the High Court Hotel.”

Doctor Hailey adjusted his eyeglass.

“So,” he remarked, “Browning and Tsarov are not the same person after
all.”




 CHAPTER XXVIII.
 FOOLING THE POLICE

Biles sent his car away and accompanied Doctor Hailey to the place
where he had left his coupé. As they drove to Harley Street the first
streaks of dawn were appearing in the eastern sky. It was a clear,
cold morning. The doctor lit the gas fire in his study and fetched a
decanter from the dining room. He poured out two stiff glasses of
whisky.

“I am coming with you to the inquest,” he told his companion. “Then I
mean to run back here and call on Bob Barling. I calculate that he
should return home about midday--after the effects of his orgy have
passed off. No doubt the girl received orders to take him away at
once, as soon as my presence in the house was discovered. They would
naturally think that the police were hot on their tracks. Probably
they have convenient addresses in half the suburbs.”

Biles nodded. “They have addresses everywhere,” he declared
laconically.

He sipped his whisky slowly. His expression was worried and his eyes
had a faraway look which betokened his preoccupation. The discovery of
the finger-prints on the poker, taken in conjunction with the
statements of the Covent Garden marketmen, had upset his calculations
very considerably.

It was now quite certain, as Doctor Hailey had pointed out, that
Tsarov and Browning were different persons. That meant that Tsarov had
not been the only associate of Olva Vorloff in the grim drama at
Moorfields. Browning had also played a part. Further, Browning, as
well as Tsarov, had visited the murdered man’s bedroom at the High
Court Hotel, because his finger-prints had been discovered there also.

Had he acted throughout as the ally of the criminals, or was he
Danatoff’s friend? One thing could be said with assurance: Danatoff
had not traveled to Moorfields with him, because the footprints in the
wood and the wheel marks at the scene of the collision in the byway
showed that the murdered man had brought his own vehicle.

Moreover, Browning had not come forward to help the police, as a
friend of Danatoff’s might surely, in the circumstances, he expected
to do. On the other hand, he had apparently been dispossessed of his
car and compelled to find his own way back to London in the middle of
the night.

Biles sighed and cut the cigar with which Doctor Hailey had provided
him.

“This case,” he confessed, “is getting on my nerves.”

“You mean the matter of Browning?”

“Yes. The fellow, whoever he is, seems to have played an incredible
part. I cannot for the life of me fit him into any rational theory of
the crime.”

The doctor did not reply. He left the room to go and change his
clothes. Biles again rang up Scotland Yard.

“Make inquiries,” he ordered his clerk, “as to the ownership of
numbers ten and twelve Brunswick Place, Hampstead. Find out who the
agents are and when and to whom the houses have been let recently.
Possibly the next door neighbors may know some facts about the present
occupants.”

He hung up the receiver and returned to his reflections. In all this
confusion it was at least certain that Olva Vorloff had struck the
fatal blow and that Tsarov had acted as her accomplice.

Doctor Hailey returned to the room and announced that his big Daimler
car would take them back to Wycombe.

“I have rung up my driver,” he explained, “and told him to bring it
round as soon as possible. I am too tired to drive any farther
myself.” He sat down in one of his deep armchairs and passed his hand
across his brow. He added:

“I wish I knew for a fact that Bob Barling was safe.”

“There would be no object in using foul play in his case,” Biles said.
“He has served his turn and his recollection of what has occurred is
not likely to be vivid. Murder is seldom committed without a good
reason, in my experience.”

“Possibly not.” The doctor contracted his brows. “I suppose Tsarov
meant to leave the house with Olva before dawn in any case. His use of
the hypodermic needle indicates that pretty clearly. Had I not turned
up Bob would probably have been left in Brunswick Road. My fancy dress
would show the Russian that I had been to the ball and hence knew of
the young man’s presence in the opposite house.”

He lifted the phone and gave the number of Bob’s house in Curzon
Street. The servant who answered declared that his master had not yet
returned.

“Will you tell him,” Doctor Hailey said, “to ring me up at the Red
Lion at Wycombe as soon as he comes in.”

The car came to the door and they began their journey at once. The sky
was full of light now, though the sun had not yet mounted above the
horizon. The doctor lay back on the cushions with closed eyes and
impassive features.

His brain had gone to sleep again and he made no further effort to
rouse it. It was his rule to leave the first grappling with new
problems to the subconscious mind which never sleeps; that was the
essential preliminary, in his experience, to successful analysis and
deduction.

They reached the Red Lion in a little over an hour and a half. Biles
ordered breakfast at once. He was about to ascend the stair when the
manager appeared from his office.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but the police sergeant rang up an hour
ago to speak to you. He said the matter was very urgent and would you
communicate with him as soon as you arrived.”

“Really. May I use your telephone?” He followed the manager back to
his office. But at that moment the figure of the big policeman loomed
in the doorway.

“Ah, at last!” he cried in tones of relief.

“What is it?” Biles asked.

His usually calm temper was somewhat ruffled and his tones were
abrupt.

“Can I see you a moment, sir, alone?”

They went upstairs. Doctor Hailey was standing in the room. The
sergeant closed the door with a show of caution.

“The fact is,” he declared, “that I didn’t like to come up here and
interfere with anything without your permission. That was why I rang
up an hour ago, as soon as I got the message. Unfortunately you were
away.”

Biles cut him short with an impatient gesture.

“I don’t understand. What message?”

“The same as you got yourself, sir; about the murdered man’s clothes.
I knew you had one of his shoes here, because, if you remember, you
sent for it yesterday.”

“I got no message. I have been in London, at Scotland Yard, all
night.”

“What!”

The policeman’s face expressed consternation and amazement.

“But,” he stammered, “the message came from the Yard and they said
they had rung you up here and told you about it.”

Biles’s lean face grew tense in a moment.

“What was its nature?” he demanded in tones which rang like a pistol
shot.




 CHAPTER XXIX.
 THE MAN IN THE GREEN CAR

“They wanted Danatoff’s clothes. The chief had ordered a special
investigation and a car was being sent down at once. I was to make a
parcel of them and give it to the driver.”

“Good God! You don’t mean to say you did that?”

The unhappy man wilted under his superior’s stern gaze.

“Yes, sir, I did.” He added in accents which were piteous, “I told him
you had taken a shoe, but that I couldn’t get it till you returned to
the hotel. He had everything else--coat and waistcoat and trousers.”

Biles began to pace the floor.

“I suppose you realize now that the message was a bogus one?” he
cried. “In all probability it came from one of the gang of murderers
for whom we are searching.” He stopped abruptly and swung round. “What
was the driver of the car like?” he demanded.

“I scarcely know, sir, because it was still dark when he came to the
station. He seemed to be a big man, and I think he was clean shaven,
with a rather heavy type of face.”

The detective turned to Doctor Hailey.

“That doesn’t conflict with the description of Browning I had from the
marketmen. Good God! To think the fellow may actually have been within
our grasp this very morning and we have allowed him to escape.” He
swung round again on the discomfited sergeant.

“What time did he come?”

“About an hour and a half ago, sir. He was driving a big closed car
and he put the parcel of clothes in the back of it. He didn’t wait a
moment.”

“You don’t know the make of the car, I suppose, nor the number?”

The man shook his head. “I didn’t notice,” he said in melancholy
tones.

Biles resumed his nervous pacing of the floor.

“I suppose,” he declared, “that it was that cipher he was looking for.
Thank God you were in front of him there. Evidently it possesses more
value than I had ascribed to it--though I guessed this was a political
murder at the outset. You have it, doctor, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

Doctor Hailey took his pocketbook from his pocket and opened it. He
extracted the sheet which had been found sewn into the murdered man’s
jacket. He scrutinized it with fresh interest.

“Probably,” the detective said, “it is the key to some document they
took from their victim’s body. No doubt the burglaries at the High
Court Hotel were carried out in order to find it. When they drew blank
there they would naturally think of the clothes.”

His exasperation broke out again: “Surely you might have known,” he
exclaimed to the sergeant, “that Scotland Yard does not conduct its
business in that fashion. Common prudence would have suggested ringing
up the chief and making sure before you acted.”

“But the message came from the chief, sir.”

The sergeant turned to go away. As he reached the door Doctor Hailey
asked:

“Was the car built with the driver’s seat inside or was it the
ordinary chauffeur-driven type?”

“The driver was in front, outside of the closed body.”

“How was he dressed?”

“In a chauffeur’s uniform, sir, with a big coat.”

The doctor contracted his brow.

“The car was painted dark green, am I right?”

“Yes, sir, I did notice that.” The policeman’s face expressed a shade
of relief. He lingered expectantly, evidently hoping that some further
questions which he could answer satisfactorily would be asked him but
Doctor Hailey had obtained all the information he wanted. When he and
Biles were alone again he said:

“The car in which Bob Barling and the girl drove from Hampstead to the
Albert Hall was painted dark green. It is just possible that the same
man acted as their driver.”

“And that man is Browning.” Biles’s expression had become eager again.
“If he is one of Tsarov’s creatures we have the explanation of his
return to London on the night of the murder in the market wagon.

“Your infatuated lover would naturally wish to have the Countess Olva
to himself. He knew, probably, that it would be quite easy to obtain a
lift in one of the dozens of vehicles which use that road every
night.”

Doctor Hailey inclined his head.

“On the other hand,” he observed, “it seems clear that the Danatoff
affair is not yet closed. I fancy our friend Tsarov will be compelled
to postpone his departure for Russia until such time as he has
obtained possession of the secret for which the crime was committed.”

As he spoke he picked up the paper containing the cipher which he had
laid on the mantelpiece. He fixed his eyeglass in his eye and regarded
it with close attention.

“If it is a key, as you suggest,” he declared, “it must be a very
complicated one. Every line, it is true has thirteen figures in it,
but that is the only point of any significance which I have been able
to grasp. I thought at first that the basis of it might be a pack of
cards on the principle that fifty-two divided by four is thirteen. But
that idea has carried me no further.”

He handed the paper to Biles, who glanced at it without enthusiasm and
then returned it.

“Even if we could read it,” he said, “we should not be much the
wiser.”

He seemed to be about to give way to a fresh outburst of exasperation
at the manner in which the police had allowed themselves to be
outwitted, but at that moment the door of the room was thrown open and
the sergeant strode in, carrying in his hands a bundle of clothing.

“One of my fellows found them,” he declared, “lying at the side of the
London road beyond the town. He has just brought them to the station.”

His expression was triumphant, as though he felt that this discovery
exonerated him completely.

“So,” Biles remarked, “it didn’t take the fellow long to discover that
he had been sold a pup.”

Doctor Hailey raised his head from the contemplation of the cipher
which he had resumed.

“Have the clothes been cut about at all?” he asked.

“No, sir. I looked to see if he had done that, but everything is
exactly as it was when they were handed over. My man, of course, had
opened the linings when we examined them at the station.”

The doctor took a pinch of snuff.

“That seems rather strange, doesn’t it?” he remarked in slow tones.

There was no answer. Biles asked:

“Will the coroner accept my suggestion and adjourn the inquest?”

“I think so, sir. I told him, as you directed me, that you were
anxious to avoid summoning many witnesses as yet, and he left
everything in my hands. There will only be yourself and the doctors in
addition to my own men.”




 CHAPTER XXX.
 BAITING A HOOK

The Coroner’s Court was crowded long before the hour fixed for the
inquest of Danatoff. The case was arousing an immense amount of public
interest, and all the London newspapers were represented by their
“crime experts”--eager-looking young men with reputations to make or
sustain.

Biles’s evidence created something of a sensation. His cold manner and
precise way of speaking always impressed jurors profoundly. But, in
the present instance, these were perhaps less convincing than the
array of facts and deductions which he was in a position to present.
In answer to the coroner, a local doctor, who treated him with marked
deference, he admitted frankly that there were still points in the
case which were not fully cleared up.

“The police have made no arrest so far?”

“No, sir, but from information which has reached them that may be
remedied soon, I think.”

“The murdered man had not been robbed, I take it?”

“I am not sure. I found his purse in his pocket. It contained only a
small sum of money, so that it is possible he may have carried a
notecase as well.”

Medical evidence was given as to the findings at the autopsy, and
Doctor Hailey entered the box to corroborate the statements of his
professional colleague. He made no mention of his adventures of the
previous night.

The police sergeant was the next witness. His evidence was purely
formal and related to the communications, which he had had, since the
discovery of the crime, with the estate agent of Lord Borrodean, the
owner of Moorfields. The place had not been let at all and
consequently its use was entirely unauthorized.

In answer to the coroner, the sergeant stated that the agent had come
over from Maidstone Abbey the day before and had informed him that the
padlock on the door of the garage was not that which had originally
been placed there.

At the conclusion of this statement the coroner addressed the jury. He
told them that, in his view, the facts warranted only one verdict.

“Nevertheless,” he added; “I propose, in the meantime, to adjourn the
inquest, because I am informed by the police that the ends of justice
would not be served by the hearing, at the present juncture, of
further evidence. A number of clews are now being followed up and
discussion of them could only serve to enlighten the criminals and
make the task of the police more difficult.”

When the court closed Biles and Doctor Hailey returned to the Red
Lion.

“Thank Heaven,” the detective said, “that we have got over that. I was
afraid that he might insist on finishing the case within a day or two
and dragging people down from London to give evidence. In my
experience that sort of thing, at this stage of the investigation,
always plays the mischief with our work.”

He threw himself down on the old-fashioned horse-hair sofa, which was
the principal piece of furniture in the room. He looked very tired and
rather dispirited, the doctor thought, as though the fresh
complication of the last few hours had bewildered without stimulating
him.

“So far as I can see,” he declared, “we shall get no further until we
have discovered what part this fellow Browning has played, and that
will be a job to tax all our resources. I mean to go up to London this
afternoon and organize a new search for a motor car with slight damage
to its front bumper and radiator.

“It is just possible that they may have omitted or been unable to
remove all traces of the collision. And I am going to make a close
canvass of every likely house agent. The birds may have flown, but
they have come to roost somewhere.”

His voice was not so hopeful as the words it uttered. He filled his
pipe and lit it with great deliberation.

“Remember,” Doctor Hailey said, “that the cipher is still in our
possession. Sooner or later, unless I am mistaken, there will be a
fresh effort to obtain it. That bait should be capable of concealing a
hook, surely.”

The detective contracted his brow.

“How can you set such a trap without arousing suspicion?” he demanded.

“There is the press. Every London paper is represented down here by a
so-called ‘crime expert.’ Suppose you were to announce that a cipher
had been discovered and was being examined by somebody or other famous
in this branch of investigation?”

“Um!” Biles raised himself on his elbow. “It’s an idea, certainly. I
believe one of our own fellows did a lot of that work for the
Admiralty during the war. He’s retired now and lives at Hendon.”

Doctor Hailey was standing in front of the fire. He had his snuffbox
in his hand and helped himself to a pinch before he replied.

“Probably he would be ready to take the risk for a consideration,” he
suggested.

Half and hour later Mr. Harold Webb, of the _Daily Tribune_, was shown
into the room. Biles received him with great geniality.

“The fact is,” he confessed, “this case is giving us a good deal of
trouble. That must be my excuse for asking you to come here.”

Mr. Webb, who was a young man with a keen face and black hair oiled
back on his head, nodded sagaciously.

“I am entirely at your service,” he declared in crisp tones.




 CHAPTER XXXI.
 THE TRAIL OF A BULLET

Bob Barling had not returned to Curzon Street when Biles left the
Red Lion shortly after midday, nor had any news of him been obtained
by two o’clock in the afternoon, at which time Doctor Hailey rang up
his house.

The doctor mounted the stairs from the manager’s office with slow
steps. A sense of impending disaster weighed on his spirit. Four days
had now elapsed since the murder of Danatoff and, in spite of all that
had occurred, they seemed to be as far as ever from any solution of
the mystery.

He came to the sitting room and stood looking out of the window with
dull eyes. His car was standing in the yard below, and he wondered
whether he should or should not postpone his return to London. It was
difficult to see what end could be served by further investigation in
that bewildered field, whereas, as he knew, the scene of a murder is
always the best place to look for fresh evidence bearing on its
committal.

If the trap which Biles had set tempted Tsarov and his accomplices to
a new effort, good and well; but if it failed to tempt them the
chances of achieving any progress were very slender.

He turned away and sat down by the fire. If the Russians had not
released Bob, then the darkest anxieties as to his safety were
warranted. They would not, assuredly, for long burden themselves with
his custody at a time when the entire police force of the country were
mobilized to track them down. Tsarov had achieved his purpose and it
was certain that he had associates ready, at his bidding, to commit
any kind of devilry.

He got up and went down to the yard, where his driver was awaiting his
further orders. There were a number of people standing about, and his
big car seemed to be the attracting a good deal of attention. His eyes
gladdened at the sight of its shining panels and appearance of easy
strength.

“I think,” he told the man, “that I shall not return to London today,
after all. I wish you to take me a mile or two on the Oxford Road.”

“Very good, sir,” the man hesitated a moment. “I think it may be
difficult to get a garage for the car tonight,” he declared, “because
already they are nearly full up and there is a big local market
tomorrow.”

Doctor Hailey shrugged his shoulders. Such details at the moment, had
lost their interest for him. He entered the vehicle and lay back on
the deep cushions.

When they reached the end of the byway leading to Moorfields he told
his man to wait for him and walked toward the spot where the Hillman
coupé had been left standing. The police had driven it away, but the
wheel-tracks still showed clearly on the soft surface of the road.

He examined them again without reaching any new conclusion. Then he
struck up toward the house along the line taken by Olva Vorloff. He
examined the ground and the surrounding bushes and trees very closely
as he went. On several occasions he turned and looked back toward the
roadway.

It was clear that if Olva had been escaping from some pursuer she must
have been well within his sight during the whole of her passage from
car to house. The bushes were small and the trees widely separated and
becoming bare of foliage. He bent and examined one of the footprints,
now grown a trifle faint.

There could be no doubt that his early impression was fully justified.
She had been running as fast as her legs would carry her. He
straightened himself and took a pinch of snuff. It was his experience
that a frightened woman always quickens her pace, just as a frightened
man almost invariably tries to control his feelings by walking slower.

Yet what had the girl feared? It could scarcely be Danatoff, since he
had come to Moorfields, surely, at her own invitation. That disposed
of the possible bearing on the case of the second line of footsteps
further down the wood, which were his.

Nor could it well be Tsarov, since there was absolutely nothing to
show that he had entered the wood at all. And, in any case, her
attitude to that man in the house in Brunswick Road made it
sufficiently obvious that her feelings toward him were not actuated by
deadly fear.

There remained only Browning, that mysterious individual who seemed to
have played so many parts in this drama without affording the smallest
clew to his identity. Browning had certainly come down from the house
on foot, since he had actually been seen by the marketmen walking in
the high road. Was it conceivable that he had encountered the girl
leaving her car and threatened her?

He sighed deeply and turned round again to see if the place where he
was standing was visible from the whole length of the byroad.

And then suddenly he started forward.

He came with swift strides to one of the trees which flanked his path
and set his gaze, now grown eager and alert, on a white scar situated
about six feet up the brown trunk. He put his eyeglass in his eye and
contemplated the mark with deliberate care.

There could be no doubt at all. The scar had been made by a bullet.
Its surface, where the bark had been stripped off, was traversed by a
narrow line, a kind of groove, which could have been produced in no
other fashion.

A further inspection of the wood convinced him that the bullet had
been fired from below and not from above. That is to say, it had been
fired by some one standing at or near the place where Danatoff’s
foot-prints had been found.

Once again eagerness gave place to bewilderment and perplexity. Here
was evidence which, in other circumstances, he would have described as
convincing, indeed as conclusive, to show that Danatoff had certainly
fired at the girl as she ran from him. Yet by no stretch of the
imagination could he bring himself to accept it unless he changed his
whole conception of the crime and looked at Olva, not as the
aggressor, but as the person threatened.




 CHAPTER XXXII.
 LUCK IS A TRUMP

Was it possible to do that? Was it conceivable that the girl had
fled from home in order to escape the attentions or threats of this
man and that he had divined her purpose and followed her? But, if so,
why had she strolled with him in Bond Street the same morning, and why
had he passed her without recognition at the Brook Street dance? The
letter which she had left for her mother was certainly not the kind of
missive which a woman in deadly fear was likely to write.

He dismissed that theory and returned to the place where he had first
noticed the scar on the tree. He examined the ground here with special
care and soon had his reward.

Faintly outlined on the earth, close to one of the footmarks, were the
imprints of a hand with outstretched fingers. So the girl had stumbled
when the shot was fired at her.

He drew a sharp breath. That, of course, was the explanation of the
fact that her head, when he saw her in Hampstead, was swathed in
bandages!

He looked toward the house, wondering whether the assailant might have
been standing in the main avenue, but a glance was sufficient to
dispose of that idea. The bullet had come from below--on that point,
at least, there was no room for doubt of any sort. Moreover, it had
wounded the girl. In other words, Olva, when she reached the house,
must have been in a very sore plight.

In that plight, wounded and haunted by deadly fear, she had plunged
her knife in Danatoff’s breast.

He recalled his own feelings when regaining consciousness after the
blow which Tsarov had struck him. At such a moment one did not
distinguish very clearly between friend and foe. If Danatoff had been
awaiting her in the yard--

But would she, in that case, have been armed with the terrible knife
which he had himself extracted from the dead man’s chest?

He walked on slowly to the yard, which seemed now strangely empty and
deserted. He could arrive at no conclusion of any sort. Olva’s wound,
whatever its immediate effect might have been, had been slight enough
apparently.

It was just possible, too, that Danatoff had been attacked at the time
when his car collided with the Hillman coupé and had managed, in the
first instance, to beat off his assailant. In that case he would
certainly fire at any one within sight--especially in the
semi-darkness of a night illuminated only by a half moon.

He identified over again the various spots in the yard which had borne
witness to the events of the tragedy. Then he took from his pocket the
sketches he had made on his last visit and attempted to correct them
in the light of more recent information.

That recalled to his mind the fact that Danatoff was certainly armed,
as the bullet marks on the wall had demonstrated. The murdered man,
perhaps, in pursuing Olva, ran straight into a trap. But no! Because
his footsteps showed that he had turned back at the edge of the wood
and gone down again to his car.

Doctor Hailey had further recourse to his snuffbox. No wonder this
case had forced Biles to confess that even his cool head was turned by
it. The puzzle seemed to defy every attempt at solution.

And yet, as he reflected, there must be some explanation into which
all these diverse scraps of evidence would fit accurately. Detective
work was exactly like scientific research work. There was always a
master-key to be discovered which, when found, would unlock all the
different problems.

He thought of Sir Ronald Ross, toiling in the blazing heat of an
Indian jungle to find the mosquito which is the bearer from victim to
victim of the terrible malaria poison; and of how, at last, when
strength and even hope were at a point of exhaustion, the very insect
he sought among all the thousands of its related types, settled in
front of his eyes on the wall of the room in which he was working.

He glanced up with new resolution on his face and once more let his
eyes roam across the tiles at his feet.

A moment later he stooped down and picked up the end of a black shoe
lace to which the metal point still adhered.

He stood contemplating his find during many minutes. The lace seemed
to be comparatively old, and he guessed that no considerable amount of
force had been exerted in breaking it.

Then a look of fresh eagerness came into his eyes.

He returned quickly to his car and told his driver to take him to the
police station in Wycombe.




 CHAPTER XXXIII.
 ONE MAN IS GUILTY

As soon as he reached the police station, Doctor Hailey asked for
the sergeant and was conducted to a small office behind the outer one,
where that good man sat, pen in hand, in his shirt sleeves, writing a
report.

He sprang to his feet as the doctor entered.

“You have the shoe which Danatoff was wearing when he was murdered?”
Doctor Hailey asked in the crisp tones he always assumed when his mind
was working quickly.

“Yes, doctor. It was found with the rest of the clothes by the
roadside.”

“The body has not yet been buried?”

“No, sir; not till tomorrow.” The man sighed. “I’m afraid,” he added,
“that it will have to be a parish funeral. We have found no relatives
or friends.”

He spoke in low tones as though, in his mind, this form of disposal of
a human body represented the very last degree of humiliation.

“Can I see the body?”

The policeman hesitated at this request, which his instinct told him
was irregular. But Doctor Hailey was Biles’s colleague in this affair
and, above all things, especially in view of the disaster of the
bundle of clothing, he was anxious to stand well with the Scotland
Yard man.

“It has been handed over to the parochial authorities for burial,” he
declared, with just a trace of formality in his tones.

Doctor Hailey frowned slightly.

“Is it still lying in the mortuary?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I should like to see it.”

The sergeant’s hesitation gave place to compliance. He conducted the
doctor to the house of the mortuary-keeper and summoned that official
to lend his assistance.

They came to the low building which Doctor Hailey had already visited
at the time of the autopsy.

As the door opened a breath of cold, damp air assailed their nostrils,
air unsunned and stagnant, which seemed to be charged with the
exhalations of death. The sergeant raised his voice instinctively, as
though he desired to cheer himself, but the silence of the long room,
with its pale tables, absorbed all the tones.

Danatoff’s body had been placed in a plain black coffin--the kind of
coffin, Doctor Hailey thought, which is white on the underside, where
a thrifty authority will have stayed its hand in the expenditure of
paint. The paint seemed to have sunk into the wood, giving it an
appearance similar to that resulting when an ink-bottle is spilled on
a deal table.

The coffin lid had been screwed down, but the screws were not many and
were quickly removed. Doctor Hailey turned to the policeman and took
the shoe which he was carrying. He raised one of the dead feet and put
the shoe on it.

The shoe fitted pretty well, but it was slightly too wide, so that its
sides lay together over the top of the foot even before the laces had
been drawn taut. Such a shoe must, sooner or later, blister such a
foot at the heel, and yet Danatoff’s foot showed no sign of having
been blistered.

He handed gratuities to the two men and announced that he was
satisfied with his investigation. He walked back to the hotel, taking
the shoe with him. The other shoe, which Biles had employed to test
the foot-marks in the wood, was still in the private sitting room. He
examined it and saw that its lace, like that of its neighbor, was
intact.

So the broken lace had not come from this pair, at any rate.

He no longer doubted its origin in the smallest degree. It had come
from the shoes which Danatoff was wearing when he reached Moorfields,
but which had been removed from his feet after the murder was
committed.

The owner of the shoes he was now looking at had, clearly, possessed
bigger feet than his victim, broader feet. It had been necessary for
him when he effected the exchange of footwear with Danatoff to strain
the laces of the latter’s shoes. In doing that he had broken one of
them.

He sat down beside the fire and closed his eyes. So, after all, it was
not Danatoff who had pursued Olva up through the wood to the house and
fired at her as she ran. And it was not Tsarov either, because he had
distinctly noticed the small hands and feet of that man.

There was only Browning left, and he tried to visualize the part
played by this actor when, suddenly, his thoughts assumed fantastic
shapes and began to make riot with his reason. An immense weariness,
the aftermath of the adventures at Hampstead and of his labors during
the day, stole over his brain.

When he awoke the fire had gone out and the room was cold. He stumbled
to his feet and switched on the light. It was nearly eight o’clock. He
rang the bell and told the servant who answered it to relight the fire
and order his dinner.

“And I will have the wine list, please.”

Another servant brought the list to him. He scanned it carefully and
then raised his eyebrows in sudden satisfaction. He had not expected
to find _Chateau Yquem_ included in this cellar.

“I will have half a bottle of that vintage,” he declared, indicating
the choice wine with his finger.

He ate his dinner slowly, struggling all the while to resist the
seductions of an almost overwhelming desire to go to sleep again. The
splendid claret glowed under the lamp in his glass, casting a golden
shadow on the white tablecloth. Somehow that appearance seemed to be
charged with good omen, as though a sign was given him of coming
enlightenment.

He raised the wine to his lips and sipped it thriftily, experiencing
its exquisite bouquet and delicately aromatic flavor with the joy of a
lover of wine whose palate has never been spoiled by tobacco smoke.
Its genial spirit wooed him from his depression and rekindled his
wits. He told himself that he had narrowed the issue to a single
necessity--the finding of Browning.




 CHAPTER XXXIV.
 THE SECRET MESSAGE

He set the glass down and lay back in his chair, while the waiter
removed the sweet which he had scarcely tasted and set a decanter of
tawny port on the table. He took his snuffbox from his pocket and laid
it on the white cloth before him.

So, after all, what he called the psychological clew, the clew which
is furnished by character and personality rather than by any material
thing, had not failed him, even when he had allowed himself to be
diverted from his path. Appearance had lied about Bob Barling.

It had lied again when it presented Olva Vorloff as a cold-blooded
assassin. The blow she had struck was aimed when she stood in sheer
terror of her life and while she was still suffering from the shock of
horror which the bullet wound must have occasioned.

Those dreadful footsteps in the wood were explanation enough, surely,
of her action in drawing her car across the road and fleeing for
safety to the shelter of the house. At such a moment of anguish any
one who stood in her path would be her enemy.

He rose from the table and prepared to go to bed. Just then the waiter
came back to tell him that Inspector Biles wished to speak to him on
the telephone. He descended to the manager’s office and lifted the
receiver in hands rendered slow by the terrible weariness which again
assailed him.

“Yes. Hailey speaking.”

“There is no news, no news of anybody. Barling has not returned, and
every attempt to find the girl or her accomplices has failed.”

He returned to the sitting room and made a last supreme effort to
conquer his weariness. The haunting conviction that the solution of
the mystery lay almost within his grasp, if only his mind was
quickened to receive it, spurred him to a fresh endeavor.

Should he allow these precious hours, in which perhaps the last hopes
of his friend were being extinguished, to slip fruitlessly by, he
would not afterwards forgive himself. He stooped down and took the
shoes of the dead man; he set them on the table in front of him. Then
he took the broken lace from his pocket and placed it beside them on
the table.

The shoes had been bought in St. James’s Street, of one of the most
renowned makers in London. Their workmanship was of the very highest
order of excellence. He tested the thin soles against the edge of the
table and noted their strength and flexibility. Material of this kind
was costly beyond the purchasing powers of any but the largest purses.
These shoes were quite new and seemed to have been little worn.

He compared their finely-woven laces with the rougher material of the
other lace which, or so he judged, had belonged to footwear of a
vastly inferior type. Even the enameling of the metal points differed
entirely in the two cases.

That on the fine laces was smooth and unscratched, as though the same
meticulous care which had been devoted to the weaving of the fabric
had been devoted also to this minor detail of its efficiency. That on
the broken lace--

He started suddenly and bent down low over the table. He put his hand
up and took his eyeglass, focussing it on the tiny black cylinder.
Then he arose, pushing his chair back so that it fell behind him on
the carpet. He turned to the mantelpiece and searched it for a pin he
had noticed there while examining the contents of Danatoff’s purse the
day before.

He found it behind the purse and at once lifted the broken shoelace
from the table. With the pin point he removed, fragment by fragment,
the minute seal of black wax which, as he had just observed, closed
the extremity of the metal cylinder. When that was done he passed the
pin into the cylinder and then moved it sideways, like a surgeon
probing a dangerous wound.

He withdrew it very slowly.

As he did so there appeared to view the end of a thin strip of tissue
paper which had lain rolled up within and which was inscribed, as he
saw, with many figures.




 CHAPTER XXXV.
 THE LIGHT ON THE CEILING

The tissue paper rolled in his hands, revealing the fact that its
quality was much tougher than its thinness might have suggested. He
spread it out with fingers which shook and gazed on the strange
message which it bore.

He saw a line of numerals, written so closely that he had to focus his
eyeglass on them to read them.

The figures were these:

[Illustration]

They were set down in two continuous lines, each of which contained
forty-one integers. He opened his pocketbook and took from it the copy
he had made of the other cipher which had been discovered in the
lining of Danatoff’s jacket. There could be no doubt that the two were
identical in their character.

They were not, however, identical messages. Indeed the arrangement of
the figures differed completely in the two cases. Those from the
shoelace were not presented in groups of thirteen, as were those from
the jacket, nor, in the former case, had any attempt been made to
indicate such a grouping.

He took paper and pencil and set to work to solve the puzzle his
interest in which was now quickened almost to fever heat. He carried
his writing materials to the armchair beside the fire, because the
night was cold and the room a little chilly. He noticed that the
figures four, seventeen and twenty occurred five times in the course
of the message.

That, in all probability, was the word the. If so, E was represented
by twenty. He counted up and found that there were only seven twenties
in the whole series of figures. It was improbable in the highest
degree that the letter E would occur so seldom--unless, indeed, this
message was written in Russian.

That possibility--or rather probability--came as a damper to his
enthusiasm. Doctor Hailey was a good linguist in a general way, but
Russian was not included in his repertory of foreign tongues. He lay
back, gazing with melancholy eyes at the little figures which seemed
to be executing some complicated dance with the paper before him, as
if mocking his discomfiture.

The dancing of the figures grew slower and slower.

He rose up suddenly and shook himself. He moved to the table and put
out his hand to the pitiless light which had tormented his eyes while
he slept. He switched it out and then returned to his chair. He could
contend no longer against the massed and marshaled forces of Nature.


He awoke slowly, as though his memory called him in a whisper to the
tasks awaiting him. His head was thrown back on the chair; he opened
his eyes and saw only the dim reflection of the fire on the ceiling.

And yet, how cold it was!

A soft sound, the sound of a light footstep on the carpeted floor,
came soothingly to his ear. The reflection of the firelight moved
swiftly away across the dim whitewash.

And then suddenly, as though some vital energy had been discharged
along every nerve of his body, he was completely and acutely awake.

He knew that somebody, somebody whose movements were stealthy and
swift, was in the room. The light that he had seen was the light of an
electric torch.

He moved his head a very little so that his eyes could reach the place
where the light was now shining. As he did so, he strangled on his
lips a cry of sheer amazement.




 CHAPTER XXXVI.
 A LADY IN THE CASE

Standing not five paces from his chair, her face clearly illuminated
by the reflection of the lamp, was the girl whom he had last seen with
Bob Barling at the house in Brunswick Road, Hampstead--the girl who
had accompanied the young man to the Albert Hall and, presumably,
administered to him there the narcotic which had brought about his
collapse and degradation.

He watched her beautiful, pleasure-haunted face with a thrill of new
wonder. She had the loveliness which is so nearly spirituality and yet
which falls so fatally short of that gift.

Her short, well-bred nose, with its infinite provocation, was marred
by the utter weakness, in a moral sense, of her mouth; it was
strangely belied too, by the big mysterious eyes which seemed to
possess a velvety quality in this light. But, over and above these
merely feminine qualities, the face possessed a determination,
actually a hardness, which was unmistakable.

The girl was bending forward over the table, apparently engrossed in
the study of some object lying there. She was dressed, so far as he
could see, in a walking costume and she wore a small hat, from under
the brim of which her golden hair strayed in short curls.

He moved himself very slowly, and with the utmost care, so that he
commanded a clear view of her. Then he saw that she had a pencil in
her hand and was making entries with it in a small notebook. He could
not, from his position, determine whether or not she was copying
another document, but he thought so. His hand moved to the writing
materials on his own lap. They were no longer there.

She ceased writing and stood erect. The lamp lay on the table and her
face was dim toward him. But the shadows which enveloped it only
served to add to its beauty. In a mysterious way they softened the
impression of hardness. She was astonishingly like Olva Vorloff. He
told himself that all women with that type of face are the ready
victims of men such as Tsarov. They possess the psychic temperament on
which the hypnotist produces his most profound impressions.

She stooped and began to gather some objects from the table. He
thought that she was about to leave the room.

With a sudden, instantaneous coordination of all his muscles he sprang
from his chair and was beside her.

The light was extinguished in that instant.

He put out his hand and grasped her. He felt her move swiftly with the
lithe strength of a panther to free herself. His grip tightened. She
shrank down and then recoiled and flung away from him. But he still
held her.

“It is no use,” he said in low tones. “I shall not release you. At the
same time I do not wish--”

He cried out in pain. There was a jingling sound from the fireplace
behind him, and then he felt the girl’s fists raining blows on his
face.

She fought like a tiger-cat with nails bared to wound him. He felt
blood trickling on his cheeks.

But his temper was roused and he abated nothing of his hold on her. It
was obvious that she could not for long cope with a strength so vastly
superior to her own. Indeed, already her efforts seemed to be
flagging.

“Please release me,” she whispered at last, “and I will explain
everything.”

“I can’t trust you.”

“I know; because you saw me last night with Mr. Barling.”

“Precisely.”

“I will tell you something if you release me.” Her voice came in a sob
and he realized that she was on the point of tears.

“You can tell me that now.”

“I am Bob’s friend. My name is Beryl Lestrange. You must have heard
him speak of me.”

“I have never heard him mention your name.”

She sighed deeply. Suddenly a pitiful little laugh escaped her lips.

“Oh, you are holding me tight!” she cried.

Doctor Hailey felt his resolution ebbing. There was a sentimental
trait in his character which he had never been able to master.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded in tones he tried to make
relentless.

“Trying to save the man I love.”

“What!”

“Oh, can’t you understand? Bob is in deadly danger and I am partly
responsible for it. They told me that it was a joke--a wager.”

“I don’t believe you. How can your coming to this room help him in any
way?”

She did not reply for a moment. Then he heard her sobbing. He wondered
what she should do next and was unable to make up his mind.

“I will promise not to try to escape if you will allow me to be free,”
she cried. “You can take me to the door and lock it if you like.”

He considered a moment. Finally he conducted her, limp and
unresisting, to the door of the room. He disengaged one of his hands
and turned the key in the lock; he pulled out the key. Then he
switched up the light and set her at liberty. As he did so she caught
sight of his scarred face and exclaimed in horror.

“Oh, you poor thing. I am so sorry.”

She found her handkerchief and approached him with, he thought,
genuine tenderness in her eyes. He signed to her not to come near.
Already the delicacy of this position was beginning to weigh on his
spirit.

“You realize,” he declared, “that I have no option but to hand you
over to the police. I don’t know why you are here, but I am able to
hazard a guess.”

She sank down on a chair and covered her face with her hands.

“What am I to do!” she cried in helpless bitterness.

“We must wait until the morning.” He drew a deep breath and then
added, “You were sent to steal or copy the cipher found on Danatoff’s
body. Do you deny it?”

She did not raise her head. Its golden hair shone splendidly under the
lamps, reminding him of the _Chateau Yquem_ he had drunk at dinner.
The phrases of an old monkish writer he had read years before came
absurdly to his memory.

“Try to describe the loveliest woman your imagination has ever
approached. Endeavor, afterwards, that shall present to the sense the
perfume of the rose, the fragrance of a bed of thyme; master in a
written page the full flavor of the peach and your prentice hand may
turn to your Bordeaux bins.”

His expression, for the moment, had lost its sternness.

The girl raised her head at last and showed him her face, wet with
tears and fresh as rose petals. Her melancholy eyes were full of
pleading.

“I was compelled, forced, to come here,” she said. “Will you not
believe that?”

“Yes, I will believe that. I will believe it more readily, though, if
you tell me who forced you.”

“The man Tsarov.”

“Who is in love with Olva Vorloff?”

She started. “How do you know?”

“Never mind. It is enough that I know.”

Her eyes had filled with tears again.

“Bob Barling is in love with Olva Vorloff,” she exclaimed bitterly.

She stood up. A smile of triumph gleamed on lips grown suddenly and
strangely insolent.

Doctor Hailey realized that he was looking down the barrel of an
automatic pistol.




 CHAPTER XXXVII.
 AN INSTANT OF PERIL

He contrived to look unconcerned, but he knew that she had
penetrated that mask.

So that was why she had bent over the table in an attitude of such
apparent humility--that she might extract this weapon from a
receptacle which had been out of her reach while he continued to hold
her! Was ever a man befooled so greatly as he had allowed himself to
be befooled?

“I am going to shoot you,” she declared in calm tones, “if you do not
open that door at once and then give me the key.”

Her eyes glowed as she spoke and the melancholy in them was transmuted
to a wild quality with which his professional experience had made him
all too familiar. He realized that, like so many girls of her type and
class Beryl Lestrange had a streak of insanity in her composition. And
she was under the influence and compulsion of Tsarov. He entertained
not the smallest doubt that she meant exactly what she said. His eyes
traveled from her face to the window.

She saw and understood.

“You would not be able to reach it,” she said.

He bowed. In his extremity he felt for his snuffbox and took a large
pinch. He saw curiosity mingle for an instant with the wildness in her
eyes.

“I am not specially anxious to be shot,” he remarked.

“Of course not.” The tones mocked him. “My dear Doctor Hailey, you
must live to bring dozens and dozens more criminals to justice. What
would your poor Inspector Biles do without you?”

Her pink finger moved uneasily on the trigger.

“I am waiting,” she added impudently. He did not move. He was thinking
now of his friend, Bob Barling, and of the fate which, all too
probably, had overtaken that splendid boy. Who was this woman that he
should yield to her? His native courage rejected the idea of
submission no matter what his refusal to submit might cost him. He
resolved and was at peace with himself.

Her finger blanched as she strained on the fatal catch. A queer sense
of unreality stole over him. He recalled the fact that an airman of
his acquaintance had told him once that such a feeling had come to him
when nose-diving, as he supposed to death, over the North Sea during
the war. He remembered the very words which the young fellow had used:
“As soon as I gave up trying to save myself it was quite easy. And oh,
the comfort of it!”

He looked up. The tiny circle of steel gleamed in the lamplight.

“Well?”

The girl’s eyes seemed to lose a little of their steadiness.

“I do not wish to shoot you,” she declared suddenly. “You are a brave
man.”

He shrugged his shoulders and then took a further pinch of snuff, but
his eyes were not removed for an instant from her finger.

“You will open the door?”

“No!”

She fired. He heard the bullet hiss past his ear and go thudding into
the wall behind. Next moment he had dived under the table.

In this position the legs of her chair were just within his reach. He
grasped them and with a tremendous heave of his shoulders swung the
chair upwards, flinging its occupant back towards the fender. The
pistol flew out of her hand and fell some yards away on the skirting
board. He came to it and seized it.

Beryl stumbled to her feet. Her face was terribly pale, and she was
shaking violently.

“Oh, God!” she cried, “I thought I had killed you!”

“Happily not.” His voice was crisp now and his manner decided. Her
fear was transmuted instantly to fury. She glared at him.

And then an amazing thing happened.

With a movement swift as the recoil of a hunted animal she stretched
up her hands and grasped the electric lamp suspended above the table.
She tore it from its bracket and flung it on the floor, where the bulb
exploded noisily. Next instant she had reached the window. She flung
it open and leaped out into the chill darkness of the night.




 CHAPTER XXXVIII.
 A DEAD MAN’S MONEY

Doctor Hailey reached the window just a moment too late. He glanced
out with a sense of horror, which deepened when he perceived that the
yard was so wrapped in shadow as to make any observation impossible.
With fear clutching at his heart he unlocked the door of the room and
sprang out into the corridor. Other people were before him, because
the noise of the pistol shot had brought several visitors from their
beds.

“Quick!” he shouted. “Some one has just fallen from a window.”

He rushed past them to the head of the stair and went crashing down to
the front door. He pulled back the bolt which secured it and tried to
wrench it open. But the stout timbers resisted him. He passed his
hands swiftly up and down the lock, endeavoring to discover the
fastening which had eluded him. One of the other visitors joined him
and struck a match.

The door was secured by an upper bolt running into the lintel above.
He drew it down with a snap.

And then he remembered that the gates of the yard were closed at night
and that, without a key, he could not enter it from the street.

“Do you know where the back door is situated?”

The man at his side did not know. They found the switch and turned on
the lights. A door covered with green baize faced them at the far end
of the hall. The doctor strode to it and threw it open. He passed into
the narrow corridor beyond and came to another door, which opened as
soon as he turned the handle. A faint smell of cooking and the distant
glow of a fire warned him that he had entered the kitchen. He
hesitated, wondering whether to go on or turn back.

And just then he heard behind him the unmistakable sound of a motor
engine being started.

He turned from the kitchen and with outstretched, groping hands made
his way along the corridor. A moment later another door, this time a
heavy structure, like the one at the front of the house, barred his
passage.

He unlocked it and sprang out into the yard.

The sound of the engine was fainter now, as though it had been
throttled down, but he could still hear it. He stood trying to
accustom his eyes to the darkness. Then an exclamation broke from his
lips.

The yard had been suddenly flooded with light.

The light, reflected from the painted doors of the yard, revealed the
outline of his own car. He ran toward it, but as he did so the huge
car lurched forward. He held his breath in spite of himself. At the
same instant, or so it seemed, there was a crash of breaking wood and
metal and the doors of the yard fell away, shattered before the
terrific blow which they had sustained.

The car lurched through the aperture and swung out into the roadway,
its tail lamp, for the moment, casting a blood-red gleam on the newly
accomplished destruction. Then it vanished from sight. Doctor Hailey
rushed after it, but already, when he reached the street, it had left
the hotel far behind.

“My God!”

He turned and saw that others as well as himself had witnessed the
astounding spectacle. They were gathered in a knot at the front door.
He brushed past them and strode to the manager’s office, nearly
knocking down that distressed official on the way.

“Quick,” he urged, “ring up the police at Beaconsfield, at Gerrard’s
Cross, at Uxbridge--everywhere you can think of on the way to London.
No, don’t ask me any questions just now.”

The bewildered man did as he was told.

“What am I to say?” he asked when he had put the first call through.

“Say a thief--a woman--driving a big Daimler car, the headlights of
which are probably injured, is likely to pass going in the direction
of London. Tell them to stop the car at all costs.”

Doctor Hailey waited until his orders had been carried out. Then he
told the manager what had occurred. He added:

“It’s our only chance of catching her. I know the speed of my car,
and, obviously, she knows how to drive it. What I cannot understand is
how she escaped injury. The drop from my window is certainly not less
than fourteen feet--probably it is more.”

“She escaped,” the man declared, “because a flivver, with the hood up,
was standing in the yard just under your window. I had to keep it
there same as I had to keep your Daimler, because the garages are
full. She must have come down straight on to the hood.”

The excellent fellow permitted himself a chastened smile as he
commented:

“I guess she got the pleasantest surprise of her life, don’t you
think?”

“I think so. When did she come to the hotel, in the first instance?”

“Last night by the last train in. She had a dressing case only--said
she was going back to London by the eight-thirty in the morning.” The
manager pointed to the register which lay open on his desk. “There’s
her signature.”

Doctor Hailey adjusted his eyeglass. He read the name Beryl Lestrange.
It was written in a clear, firm hand which bore only the faintest
traces of ornamentation.

The telephone bell rang. The man jumped to the instrument and lifted
the receiver. He listened a moment and then turned to the doctor.

“That’s the Beaconsfield police. No sign of the car yet. They say,
have you rung up Marlowe and Maidenhead, or will they do it
themselves?”

“Tell them to do it themselves. Tell them to take every step they can
think of.”

Doctor Hailey went upstairs and then remembered that the lights in the
room were smashed. He returned to the office and got a candle. He set
it on the table and stood looking round the apartment in which he had
so nearly come to disaster. He sighed, thinking that the enigma of
woman would never be solved.

Girls with golden hair and pink cheeks were the kind of girls he
admired most, and Beryl Lestrange was exactly what his friends called
his “type.” Even now he could scarcely believe that she had
deliberately tried to kill him. Then he told himself that it was
Tsarov, and not the girl, who was responsible. She was in the clutches
of that ruffian, just as Olva Vorloff had been when she struck at
Danatoff.

How strange was the influence of such men over womankind! Again and
again, in his professional life, he had been confronted with cases of
the same sort. Women seemed to have no resistance where the scoundrel
possessed of what they called “psychic” qualities was concerned.

The truth was that women asked of life more than men asked. They
demanded a continuity of emotional experience which it lay beyond the
mental equipment of most husbands and lovers to supply. That was the
explanation of half the bitterness and quarreling in the world. Tsarov
and his kind, on the contrary, had unlimited stocks of excitement and
interest at their disposal.

He moved across the room to the armchair in which he had been sleeping
when the girl entered. As he did so, he caught sight of a piece of
paper lying on the floor. He stooped and picked it up.

It was the strip he had taken from the point of the shoe lace. His
notebook lay beside it and the lace too. But his copy of the cipher
had disappeared.

He returned to the table for the candle and searched round the chair
to make sure that the missing sheet had not slipped away from the
others when they fell from his knees. He moved the candle to and fro
over the surface of the carpet and the fender. The paper was nowhere
to be seen. He was just about to relinquish the search altogether when
a glint of white metal from an object lying in the fender caught his
eye.

He stooped and picked it up. It was a half-crown.

Close beside it lay some other coins. He collected a florin, two
single shillings, three pennies, and a halfpenny. He searched the
hearthrug and found another shilling and a sixpence, and then, on the
skirting board between the fireplace and the window, a penny and a
halfpenny.

He brought these finds to the table and counted them. The total sum
was ten shillings and eleven pence.

Excitement was in his eyes now, because while he was searching, he had
remembered the jingling sound he had heard when he first seized Beryl
Lestrange. She had flung these coins away from her--flung them, as he
now realized, in his face.

Suddenly he cried out.

The sum of ten shillings and eleven pence was the exact amount found
in the purse of the murdered man! He seized his candle again and
turned to the mantelpiece.

Danatoff’s fountain pen was lying where Biles had put it, but his
purse was no longer there.

With hands which were unsteady he set the candle on the table and drew
his notebook to him.




 CHAPTER XXXIX.
 IT IS WRITTEN

He worked for an hour, scarcely lifting his head during the whole
period, except when the manager came to the room to tell him that the
fugitive car had not, so far, been seen by any of the police scouts
sent out to look for it. There was actually impatience in the doctor’s
glance as the good fellow went on to explain that in all probability
the girl had made use of the network of crossroads lying between
Wycombe and Amersham, and so worked her way round to the north of
London.

“It is quite possible.”

The manager went away. Doctor Hailey resumed his labors for a period
and then suddenly rose up and began pacing the room. He took snuff
several times. Once he strode to the window and looked out at the
yard.

“Good Heavens!”

He sprang back to the table and snatched up his pencil. A moment later
a cry broke from his lips.




 CHAPTER XL.
 THE MYSTERIOUS MR. BROWNING

He glanced at his watch. It was six A.M.

He rose and descended with slow steps to the manager’s office. He
found the poor man asleep in his chair, waiting, apparently, for the
telephone to wake him. He put a hand on his shoulder and roused him.

“Can you give me a car to go to London at once?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man shook himself and rose.

“I do badly without my sleep,” he apologized.

“My man can drive it. He will return with it at once. There is no need
to disturb your own people.”

“It’s not a Daimler, sir.”

“That’s all right. I shall take full responsibility.”

Half an hour later Doctor Hailey was on his way to London. His face
retained the grave expression which had come to it before he left the
hotel. Indeed, it seemed to have grown graver as his mind wrestled
with the new problem so suddenly presented to it.

Before the car entered London he took Beryl Lestrange’s pistol from
his pocket and opened it. It contained five unfired cartridges. He put
it back in his pocket again. When he reached Harley Street his usually
dull eyes were glowing.

His butler had breakfast ready and he sat down at once, but not before
he had fetched his copy of _Burke’s Peerage_ from his library. He
opened this volume before he began to eat and read from it at
intervals during the course of his meal. As he read his excitement
increased.

He went to his study and glanced through the morning papers. They
contained columns of news about the “Moorfields Mystery.” The
information that the cipher had been brought to London to be
interpreted was prominently displayed.

Alas! There would be no further necessity now for Biles’s trap. One of
the papers made great capital of “the mysterious Mr. Browning.”

He consulted a time-table. He had scarcely opened it when the
telephone bell buzzed angrily. He lifted the receiver.

“Is that Doctor Hailey’s house?”

“Yes; Doctor Hailey speaking.”

“Your car has been found, sir, on the Spaniards Road, above Hampstead
Heath.”

“Who are you?”

“The Hampstead police. We had a message this morning about it from
Beaconsfield. The car is deserted. The bonnet and wings have been
damaged.”

“Very well, I’ll send my driver up as soon as he returns from Wycombe.
Perhaps you will take charge of it till then.”

He hung up the receiver. He had bigger game to hunt now than Miss
Beryl Lestrange, or even Tsarov. He opened the time-table again. Then
he glanced at his watch. It was after nine o’clock. He rang up the
bootmaker in St. James’s Street whose name was on Danatoff’s shoes. A
moment later he rang the bell.

“Get me a cab, Jenkins,” he ordered.

His butler, who was scarcely less an imposing figure than himself,
bowed and retired. A moment later a cab had come to the curb. He told
the driver to take him to Charing Cross Railway Station.

It was just after eleven o’clock when he emerged from the station at
Maidstone. He engaged a taxicab and gave the address “Maidstone
Abbey.” The cab was an elderly vehicle whose best days, probably, had
been passed on London streets. It emitted strange and sorrowful noises
as it climbed the steep ascent from the roadway. On the high ground,
however, its pace was quite respectable. Doctor Hailey sat well back
on the smooth leather cushions, and once his hand traveled to his
pocket and lingered there a moment or two.

The abbey gates, huge, wrought-metal structures of the kind favored by
the Victorians, were closed. Nor did the lodge-keeper seem to be in
any anxiety to open them. The cabman hooted in vain and at last
descended from his seat and went to reconnoiter. He brought back the
message that the visitor “must give his name, which would then be
telephoned to the house.”

Doctor Hailey hesitated. It was clear that he had not expected this
check.

“Will you say that Mr. Browning is here,” he told the man at last.

He sat fidgeting with his eyeglass as though he half repented of the
step he had taken and was considering alternative plans of action. The
cabman went to the door of the lodge to await the answer to the
message. A few minutes elapsed and then the lodge-keeper emerged and
began to open the gates. A shade of astonishment crossed the doctor’s
face.

The avenue was richly wooded with splendid oaks and beeches, such as
are only seen in South County English parks. Its generous curves
disclosed new beauties in a succession that, for all its swiftness,
was never bewildering. Delicious vistas of pasture lands, stretching
to warm horizons, greeted the visitor’s eye, creating an illusion of
summer even under the winter sky.

And then the avenue broke from the woodland and dipped down to an old
bridge with high stone parapets which moss and lichen had transfigured
from their native gray to a mosaic of green and pale gold. Across the
bridge and rising, as it seemed, from the banks of the little stream
which ran before its face, was the abbey itself, one of the most
glorious of Tudor remains.

It was built of red brick, “hallowed,” in apt phrase, by the centuries
and rendered fairer by the small-leafed ivy which strayed over it. The
doctor caught his breath, for the sunlight lay mellow on the
bewitching facade and sparkled on the surface of the water below it.
The sheer delight of the spectacle banished, for the moment, even the
dark forebodings which had pursued him all the way from London.

The cab swung across the bridge and mounted the incline leading to the
front door.

Doctor Hailey descended and told the man to wait for him. He rang the
great bell which, in spite of its size, moved easily. A footman in
livery opened the door.

“Is Lord Borrodean at home?”

The man stood back to allow him to enter. He found himself in a vast
hall, the stained glass windows of which emitted a gentle light which
made striking contrast with the golden sunshine he had just quitted.
The silence of the years seemed to dwell under this dim room, beneath
which tattered flags and old weapons hung in profusion as though
history had left something of her material self to decorate this
mansion.

“His lordship will see you in the library.”




 CHAPTER XLI.
 BORRODEAN HEARS SOME NEWS

The footman took Doctor Hailey’s hat and gloves and then conducted
him across the wide parquet floor, with its great skins and deep rugs,
to a door situated near the main staircase of the house. He opened it
and the doctor found himself once again in the sunlight, with the
winsome meadows stretching before his eyes.

He glanced round at the room and restrained a sigh of wonder. There
was, he thought, nothing in the whole world to compare with these old
English county houses. The richness of their beauty seemed to defy
description, even as it defied all analysis.

They belonged to the soil of England as truly as her villages and her
gardens and her solemn woodlands with their comfortable trees. Indeed,
they expressed her spirit--that slow, stern faith which builds in
defiance of time and season, leaving always to Nature herself the task
of completing and mellowing the structure.

The oak paneling was wonderful beyond even his expectation, perfection
of workmanship being wedded in every inch of its glorious surface to
that ripe beauty which neither craftsmanship nor care can bestow. The
great open fireplace with its massive iron “dogs.”

He heard a step behind him and turned sharply.

An oldish man, with a face lined with heavy sorrow, stood before him.
He carried his left arm in a sling.

“Lord Borrodean?”

“Yes, sir.”

The owner of Maidstone Abbey suggested in a striking manner his rich
inheritance. He possessed a face which all women called “beautiful”--a
cold face, yet with the living traces of tenderness and sympathy. His
gray eyes were unflinching in their truth. As he looked into them
Doctor Hailey felt himself gasp with horror. Then his eyes traveled to
Lord Borrodean’s footwear and the sense of horror was increased.

“The name which I gave a few minutes ago to your lodge-keeper,” he
said, “is not my own name--”

He broke off. Lord Borrodean’s face had become ashy pale. He seemed to
totter and reached out his hand to the back of a chair to steady
himself. Doctor Hailey took a step forward, but the old man waved him
back with a gesture so imperious that he desisted instantly.

“What is your name?” he asked in frigid tones.

“Hailey--Eustace Hailey.”

“What! The Doctor?”

“Yes.”

The silence in the great room became oppressive. Lord Borrodean had
recovered himself completely and seemed to be measuring his antagonist
with his cold eyes as, doubtless, his ancestors had measured the men
they fought and discomfited in earlier days.

“Why have you come here?” he demanded at last.

“I have come to visit Mr. Browning.”

Again the pale cheeks grew paler. Again the old man seemed to sway on
his feet. But once more the tough spirit which animated him came to
his support.

“I do not understand you,” he declared in measured tones.

“In that case,” Doctor Hailey said, “I shall beg leave to enlighten
you, for the matter cannot be delayed. Let me explain at once that my
friend, Inspector Biles of Scotland Yard, has invited my assistance in
the affair which is now, I believe, spoken of as ‘The Moorfields
Mystery’--the affair of the murder of a Russian named Danatoff.”

“Stop!” Lord Borrodean raised a minatory hand. “I say at once that I
refuse to discuss that horrible business with anybody. Moorfields is
my property, but that fact does not entitle the police to molest me,
as they have recently attempted to do.”

He turned to the door. The interview so far as he was concerned, was
at an end. Doctor Hailey stood his ground.

“Possibly not,” he remarked in cool tones. “But the matter wears a
somewhat different complexion, I think, when it can be shown that you
yourself were present at the tragedy which the police are now
investigating.”

His eyes, as he spoke, were fixed sternly on the old man’s face. Lord
Borrodean wilted visibly.

“You do not deny it?”

“Forgive me, I have not been very well lately. I cannot see you
further.”

The doctor bit his lip.

“Lord Borrodean,” he said in quiet tones, “I must urge you, beg you,
not to adopt this attitude. Believe me the matter is far too serious
to be dismissed in any cavalier fashion. The evidence that you are
concerned, deeply implicated would be a fitter description, in the
Moorfields tragedy, is, I think, conclusive. You cannot, believe me,
hope to escape the inevitable consequences of this discovery.”

He paused. The old man had sunk into a chair while he was speaking. He
sat now looking before him with strangely tortured eyes.

“What do you want of me?” he said in tones so low that the doctor
could scarcely hear them.

“I want you to tell me exactly what happened on the fatal night.”

Lord Borrodean did not seem to hear that adjuration. His face remained
almost expressionless.

“It is quite true,” he said, “I was at Moorfields on the night of the
murder.”




 CHAPTER XLII.
 WHAT HAILEY KNEW

He motioned Doctor Hailey to a chair and remained silent until he
had seated himself.

“I have not spoken,” he declared, “for two reasons, the validity of
which I leave to your judgment. The first is, that I am unable to
throw any light on the crime, and the second that if my presence at
the house were known terrible disaster might befall innocent men and
women whose safety is at present in my keeping.”

He turned his head to the doctor as he said this, challenging him with
his eyes. Doctor Hailey frowned slightly.

“I fear that does not carry us very far,” he remarked in cold tones.

“I can tell you no more.”

“My dear sir, imagine yourself, for a moment, in the witness box.”

“No, no. It shall not be!” The old man’s tones rang out so that his
hearer was startled. His eyes flashed and a deep flush of scarlet
mounted to his brow.

“It is inevitable.”

The surge of anger spent itself. Lord Borrodean bowed his head.

“If you choose to ask me any questions you may have framed in your
mind,” he said, “I will answer them so far as I can do so without
danger to others.”

Doctor Hailey took his notebook from his pocket.

“It is recorded in _Burke’s Peerage_,” he declared, “that your son,
the Hon. Michael Borrodean, married in nineteen hundred and thirteen
while Military Attaché at the British Embassy in St. Petersburg, the
Countess Tatiana Ivanovna, daughter of a Russian nobleman named
Sergius. That is correct?”

“It is correct. I furnished that information myself.”

“Your son came to England at the outbreak of war and rejoined the
Coldstream Guards. He fought through the war and then joined the
Wrangel Expedition against the Bolshevists?”

The old man bowed. “Just so.”

“In that expedition he lost his life?”

“‘Wounded and missing’ was the official description at first. It was
not for many months that I received definite assurance of his death.”

Lord Borrodean’s voice broke as he said these words, but he recovered
himself immediately.

“So that you have very special and personal reasons for disliking the
present rulers of the Russian Empire?”

“That is manifest.”

Doctor Hailey’s voice became more gentle.

“To some extent at any rate,” he queried, “the same is true of the
Countess Olva?”

“Yes; her father was murdered.”

Lord Borrodean’s eyes became rather blank as he made this statement.

“The murdered man, Danatoff, was known to you?”

“He was known to me.”

“And to the Countess Olva?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And you had arranged to meet him at Moorfields on Monday night?”

The old man bowed his head.

“Yes.”

He spoke the monosyllable sharply.

Doctor Hailey resolved to play at once the strongest card in his hand.
He took his pocketbook from his pocket and extracted from it the
broken shoe lace he had found at Moorfields. He handed it, without
comment, to his companion.

The effect was more startling even than he had anticipated. Indeed for
a moment he feared that Lord Borrodean had fainted, so still and
lifeless did his face become.

“Where did you find this?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“At Moorfields, in the yard.”

Doctor Hailey raised his head and looked the old man squarely in the
eyes.

“I am aware,” he stated, “of the secret connected with it. I have
extracted the paper and read its message.” He added: “That is the
reason why I have come here this morning.”

Lord Borrodean closed his eyes. His body seemed to sway slightly, as
though he were recovering from some blow which had nearly vanquished
him.

“What is the message?” he asked in tones the anxiety of which he did
not even attempt to hide.

“This: ‘Very urgent, or may denounce Borrodean.’”

“Oh, my God!”

Again the terrible silence fell in the room. The soft notes of a clock
floated on the sunny air. Suddenly the old man leaned forward toward
his visitor.

“The shoes from which this lace was torn are in the possession of the
police, I take it?” he asked.

Doctor Hailey hesitated. They had reached the crisis which it had been
his object from the beginning to precipitate. When he spoke his tones
were slow and deliberate:

“They are not in possession of the police,” he said. “They were
removed from the dead man’s body and replaced by another pair of
shoes.”

“What!”

Lord Borrodean started from his chair. Fear of the most deadly kind
was imprinted on his features. The doctor eyed him with cool
hostility.

“I should have imagined,” he observed, “that by this time you must
have realized the futility of further concealment.”

His mouth hardened as he spoke, but his companion’s expression did not
change.

“What do you mean?” he asked in staccato accents.

“I mean that I have reason to suppose--good reason--that the shoes
which Danatoff was wearing when his body was found by the police
belonged to yourself.”

Lord Borrodean’s face lost its pallor in an instant. His eyes blazed.

“You fool!” he cried. He repeated the words in accents of
extraordinary bitterness.

Doctor Hailey had waited until the storm had spent itself, but his
composure was visibly less than it had been. He was forced to
acknowledge that this was by no means the reception he had anticipated
for his accusation.

“The shoes were made by your bootmaker,” he declared; “they resemble
very closely those you are now wearing. By no conceivable possibility
could they belong to any of the other actors in the crime.”

He paused a moment and then added: “You will scarcely deny that the
car registered in the name of Browning is your car, or that the flat
leased by Browning in Jermyn Street is your flat; or that you paid a
visit, surreptitiously, to Danatoff’s room in the High Court Hotel?
Moreover, do not forget that the message of which the murdered man was
the bearer--”

He stopped suddenly. To his astonishment he saw that Lord Borrodean
was not even listening to him.




 PART IV




 CHAPTER XLIII.
 LORD BORRODEAN SPEAKS

Doctor Hailey counted that moment among the most humiliating of his
life. He had come to Maidstone Abbey to extract a confession which, he
believed, would be the means of rescuing Bob Barling from terrible
danger. He had taken this course, too, without consulting Biles,
because he foresaw that the latter’s hesitation to arrest a man in
Lord Borrodean’s position without evidence of the most conclusive
kind, must bring about prolonged and possibly fatal delay. And he had
failed.

He did not doubt his failure from the moment at which he perceived
that his accusations had lost interest for the individual against whom
they were leveled. That, perhaps, is the supreme proof of innocence.
Bewilderment and self-reproach laid hold of his spirit.

He wondered whether or not he should go away at once and leave to the
police the task of probing further Lord Borrodean’s connection with
the mystery. However deeply they probed, it was certain that they
would not find the evidence of guilt which, in his blindness, he had
supposed must be immediately forthcoming.

Lord Borrodean’s voice roused him from this bitter reflection.

“I have made up my mind,” the old man declared in sorrowful tones,
“that I cannot longer keep to myself the terrible secret which
oppresses me. So far as I can see, in face of this overwhelming
catastrophe, all promises are void.”

He was speaking more to himself than to his visitor. His eyes had a
far-away look and the expression of anxiety on his face was
intensified. He came to where the doctor was sitting and stood before
him.

“What I am about to tell you,” he said, “will place the safety of many
people in your hands. I can only pray God that you will use the
knowledge with discretion.”

His features were quite calm now and his bearing had resumed its
native dignity. He remained a few seconds and then returned to his own
chair. He leaned forward grasping one of the arms of it with his
uninjured hand.

“The fact is,” he declared, “that my son Michael was not killed. His
great knowledge of the Russian language and of Russian customs and
ways of life saved him. He escaped from this prison and at the present
moment is living in disguise in Petersburg, conducting a wide
organization, the object of which is to snatch as many as possible of
their victims from the hands of the Bolshevists. He has some
employment in connection with the National Theatre.”

He paused a moment; then he added:

“Happily, there is almost no limit to the cupidity of some of these
people. Provided the price can be paid, salvation is procurable in a
considerable number of instances.”

His hands moved restlessly, opening and closing on the massive wooden
arm of the chair.

“I should explain, perhaps,” he continued, “that my son’s dear wife
was one of the earliest victims of the Revolution. They killed her as
they killed so many others, in secret, regardless of the fact that, as
the wife of an Englishman, she was no longer one of their own people.

“You will understand now, I think, why he has undertaken this work and
why he is pursuing it with the most complete contempt for its dangers.
I need not tell you that if his identity were suspected for a single
moment, he would pay instant forfeit with his life.”

He paused again. Doctor Hailey inclined his head.

“There is no doubt on that score,” he said.

Lord Borrodean passed his hand across his brow in a gesture of
infinite weariness.

“I have been acting during the past two years,” he said, “as the chief
organizer of the work in this country, and because of the terrible
danger threatening my boy and his friends in Russia, I have left no
stone unturned to secure and maintain the most absolute secrecy in
regard to all my actions. No precaution I can say honestly, which
human wit has been able to suggest, has ever been neglected.”

He rose and began to pace the room with restless steps.

“I made up my mind, in the first instance, as soon as I got into
communication with my boy that I must have help in carrying on the
work. My own knowledge of Russia and Russian affairs is but trifling.
After long consideration, I decided, for reasons with which I need not
trouble you just now, to approach the Countess Olva Vorloff-- She is
my son’s late wife’s first cousin.”

There was a strange huskiness in his voice as he pronounced that name.
He seemed, too, to pause for a moment and then to increase the
rapidity of his speaking.

“I made her my confidant in everything--she only. The others have
enjoyed at most but half-knowledge. That was a part of my system of
defense against the espionage of which, sooner or later, we were bound
to become the object. But I met her very seldom and never in
public--never even in London.

“It was arranged that all conferences should take place in the garage
at Moorfields and that we should each travel there separately in our
own cars very late at night. Moreover, the cars used for this purpose
were registered under assumed names and kept in public garages. There
were, of course, flaws even in that scheme, but it served us well
until this fearful trouble occurred.”




 CHAPTER XLIV.
 MARKED FOR A VICTIM

He paused in his pacing of the floor and swung round toward the
doctor:

“Our agent, Danatoff, always met us at Moorfields,” he declared. “He
retained a room permanently at the High Court Hotel and was known
there as a merchant with big interests in Poland. He traveled between
London and Warsaw at frequent intervals and he had rooms also in one
of the principal hotels in that city.

“He had orders, when he reached London, to walk up Bond Street between
noon and half past twelve o’clock and on the days his return might be
expected the Countess Olva always visited that street. They met, thus,
quite openly and casually. Sometimes they spoke to one another, but,
more often merely bowed. But it was arranged that a meeting at
Moorfields should always take place on the night following these
encounters.

“The Countess used to summon me by telephone and invariably employed a
public call office for this purpose. We had, further, an arrangement
in which Danatoff shared, that if we happened to meet at any time and
did not wish to recognize each other, we should glance down for a
moment before passing. These, Doctor Hailey, are only a few of the
precautions we took for the preservation of my beloved boy.”

Lord Borrodean resumed his seat and covered his face with his hand.
The doctor watched him with a growing sense of uneasiness. This
disclosure explained much; but it raised new doubts and new anxieties.
A feeling that he dared not wait here much longer, while the sands, in
all probability, were running out swiftly elsewhere for Bob and
perhaps for Olva, too, caused him to shift uneasily in his chair. The
old man glanced up in quick comprehension.

“I am sorry to detain you so long,” he apologized, “but it seemed
necessary to make this explanation in view of what has occurred since.
The rest is soon told. On Monday last at one o’clock in the afternoon,
or thereabouts, I received the message to come to Moorfields.

“I arrived there, I think, about three A.M., and drove up the main
carriageway to the house. I had only my side lamps on, as I always
avoided the use of headlights for fear of attracting attention, but
nevertheless, I got a clear view of the yard as I entered it--”

His voice fell to a whisper and it seemed to the doctor that he
shuddered.

“_The yard was quite empty of vehicles. Yet Olva Vorloff was standing
there with blood streaming down her face, and a pistol in her hand.
The moment that she saw my car appear, she raised the weapon and began
to fire at me._”

He sprang up again, as the terrible recollection flooded his mind.

“At first,” he cried, in tones suddenly grown strident, “I scarcely
realized what had occurred; but the crash of the breaking glass and
the screech of the bullets past my ears soon brought enlightenment. I
flung the door open and threw myself out into the shadows which
surrounded the vehicle. And just then a strange thing happened. The
girl seemed to totter forward. She fell full length on the tiles of
the yard and the pistol fell out of her hand with a clatter.

“I jumped to her side and saw that she had fainted. There was a big
wound on the side of her head and she was bleeding freely. I tried to
lift her up, when suddenly another bullet came whizzing past my ear. I
glanced up and saw a man standing at the edge of the shrubbery with a
pistol in his hand.

“I distinctly saw the gleam of the barrel in the moonlight. I
realized, then, the nature of the trap into which I had been lured. My
only thought was for my son. I relinquished the girl and made a dash
for the avenue, and as I did so, he shot at me again. The bullet
struck my left shoulder, just above the joint.

“He fired several times, but failed to inflict any other wounds, nor
did he pursue me further than the front of the house. Happily, when I
reached the main road a market wagon was passing on its way to London.
A few minutes after I had entered it, a big car, traveling at a
tremendous speed, passed us going in the same direction.

“I can say honestly that I scarcely noticed the pain of my wound
during the terrible hours which followed. My one anxiety was to assure
myself that the man who had attempted to assassinate me was not
Danatoff--for in that case I realized that all hope for my dear son
must be abandoned.

“I left the wagoners at the High Court Hotel and entered that
building. A very sleepy night porter answered my summons and, I fancy,
took me for some late reveler returning to his room. At any rate, he
asked no questions. I mounted the stair and went straight to
Danatoff’s bedroom. To my horror, the door was standing ajar. He had
gone-- At that moment, a kind of frenzy overcame me, because I
searched the room from the floor to ceiling.”

Lord Borrodean’s voice broke as he said this, and Doctor Hailey saw
that his eyes were moist. But his proud lips did not falter.

“I closed the bedroom door and left the hotel soon after that,” he
concluded, “and drove to the garage where Danatoff kept his car. The
car had not been taken out. Then I drove to Jermyn Street and--let me
confess it--gave myself up to despair.”




 CHAPTER XLV.
 SHARING A SECRET

Doctor Hailey had listened to this recital in silence; and, even
now, when it was finished, he found himself so completely at a loss to
understand it that he would gladly have postponed further discussion
until he had had an opportunity of collecting his thoughts. But
already the chill of early afternoon was in the air. He rose to his
feet and walked to the window, gazing vacantly over the meadows.

“You are quite clear in your own mind,” he asked after a few minutes,
“that the Countess Olva was awaiting your coming?”

“I have not the slightest doubt on that score. She stood facing the
avenue, with her weapon ready for instant use.”

The doctor turned and remained with his back to the window.

“It is just possible, however, is it not, that she may have expected
another car with another occupant?”

“The other car would have been Danatoff’s and, as you know, she had
already succeeded in killing him. God knows, I have tried to resist
it, but the conclusion is inevitable that she has played the traitor.
That shoelace is the final, most convincing proof of all.”

Doctor Hailey took a pinch of snuff.

“There,” he said, “I venture to disagree with you. If the murderer had
known the significance of the shoelace, he would scarcely have left
the broken end of it lying in the yard.”

He spoke very deliberately, but Lord Borrodean was not convinced.

“That,” he declared, “might apply to a person acting calmly. But this
girl was laboring under fearful excitement. Even during the few
moments I was able to observe her, I saw that her eyes were wild and
her features distorted.” He broke off, and then added:

“Moreover, the fact that you have been able to read the cipher proves
that some one in possession of that secret must have unwittingly
afforded you a clew to it. Even Danatoff was ignorant of its exact
nature and no one, so far as I know, has ever been able to discover it
unaided. Olva Vorloff invented the cipher. She alone shared the secret
with me.”




 CHAPTER XLVI.
 WHO KILLED DANATOFF?

Before he left Maidstone Abbey, Doctor Hailey did what he could to
ease Lord Borrodean’s anxieties. He felt great pity for the old man
whose love for his son had become something nearly approaching a
mania. It was terrible to think that all the elaborate precautions he
had taken had been unavailing.

He gave him an account of the progress so far made in the elucidation
of the case, and supplied, in so doing, a few rags of evidence tending
to the conclusion that the secret of the cipher might still remain
inviolate. That hope was strengthened somewhat by the fact that Lord
Borrodean’s precautions had not been confined to England, but had
extended also to Warsaw.

As he drove away from the Abbey, however, the doctor experienced a
sharp reaction from this rather forced optimism. So far as he could
see, no real progress of any kind had been achieved. On the contrary,
the investigation had come to one of those blank walls which are the
bane of the detective’s life. With danger increasing every hour and
the possible sources of information becoming fewer and progressively
less hopeful, the outlook was black indeed.

He had an empty compartment in the train and lay back with closed eyes
in the attitude which experience had taught him was most favorable to
the accurate working of his mind. Once again, he tried to reconstruct
the scene of the murder, in the light of fresh evidence. There could
be no doubt now that the car in which Lord Borrodean reached
Moorfields--the car in which Danatoff’s body was found--had brought no
other actor to the scene of the tragedy. Any idea that Tsarov had
traveled in it might be dismissed once for all.

How then had Tsarov traveled? How had Danatoff traveled? The
investigations carried out by Biles and himself had been quite
thorough enough to make it practically certain that only three cars
took part in the night’s work--Lord Borrodean’s car, the Hillman
coupé which belonged to Olva Vorloff, and the car which at one period
or another, had been in collision with the Hillman coupé.

Danatoff had undoubtedly traveled in one or the other of those two
vehicles, because the hour of the murdered man’s visit to South Street
made it absolutely certain that he had not reached Wycombe by train.

He opened his eyes suddenly and sat erect. Could it be that Danatoff
had traveled in the Hillman coupé with Olva? She had left a message
for him in which she might have made an appointment with him near the
garage in Hammersmith, where she kept her car. Had she killed him
actually in the vehicle?

But no. That was impossible. There were no footmarks except her own,
anywhere near the Hillman coupé. The damp surface of the byway was a
witness which could be trusted implicitly in this respect.

In that case, Danatoff must have traveled in the third car with Tsarov
and his accomplice--the man who had pursued Olva through the wood and
wounded her. In other words, he must have been seated in the car while
the chase of the girl by the accomplice was going on, because no one
except the accomplice had left the vehicle while it remained in the
byway.

He took out his pocketbook and glanced again at the drawings he had
made when he visited Moorfields with Biles. It followed that Olva
could not have struck the fatal blow until the accomplice returned to
the car and drove it up to the house. But before he did that, this
fellow shot at and wounded Lord Borrodean, while the latter was
bending over the prostrate figure of the girl.

_So that Olva had no opportunity of striking at Danatoff until after
her own encounter with Lord Borrodean._

He exclaimed aloud. After her own encounter with Lord Borrodean, as he
now knew, she had been lying in a fainting condition, bleeding freely
from a severe wound in the head. _In such a state she could have not
injured a mouse._

He drew a sharp breath. And yet, there was the knife with its telltale
monogram. Olva must have brought that weapon with her from South
Street-- Unless, indeed--

He started forward suddenly and a new look of horror crept into his
eyes--

From Charing Cross he drove straight to Harley Street, but no message
of any kind awaited him there. Evidently the inquiries of the police
had proved fruitless. He rang up Scotland Yard and asked for Biles.

“Has anything happened?”

“Nothing. All my inquiries have failed completely.”

“And Barling?”

“No, he has not returned.”

The detective’s voice sounded weary and anxious. Doctor Hailey thought
that the readers of fiction, who pass easily from incident to incident
of the crime that is described for their amusement, have no idea of
the days and even weeks which, in real life, so often elapse between
one event and another.

The long exhausting process of search, so essential if reliable
conclusions are to be reached, finds little place in these attractive
narratives. Nor are the failures, those dismal negations of effort
accorded, as a rule, more than a casual reference.

He glanced at his watch. It was half past four. He summoned his butler
and told him to wrap up Danatoff’s shoes, which he had brought with
him from Wycombe, and then call him a cab. Ten minutes later, he was
entering the shop of Messrs. Penn & Bricklayer, Shoemakers.




 CHAPTER XLVII.
 “THOMAS SMITH, ESQ.”

The last-named partner of this illustrious firm received him. He
asked if it would be possible to have a few minutes’ conversation in
private and was at once conducted into an office which lacked nothing
in the way of comfort. Mr. Bricklayer opened a box of cigars.

“Thank you, I don’t smoke.”

Doctor Hailey began to untie his parcel. He withdrew one of the shoes
and handed it to his companion.

“This is your manufacture is it not?” he asked in his gentlest tones.

“Undoubtedly.”

Mr. Bricklayer balanced the shoe in his hand, with the satisfaction of
a good craftsman who is not afraid to test the quality of his own
work.

“For whom did you make it?”

The shoemaker raised his eyebrows. He treated his visitor to a glance
which would have done credit to a Harley Street specialist repudiating
unwarranted curiosity about his patients.

“I do not think,” he said in slow tones, “that it is exactly my
business to answer such a question.”

He was a lean man, with blue eyes and rather hawk-like features.
Obstinacy dwelt with him. The doctor bowed.

“Of course not,” he apologized. “But this is an exceptional case. I am
a medical man and these shoes have been given me by the police for a
reason which I cannot at present divulge, but which has a bearing on
a recent crime. I thought that, as you made them, you might be able to
throw some light on the identity of their owner.”

He rose as he spoke and prepared to go. Mr. Bricklayer raised a
cautious hand. Mention of the police had exercised on him the effect
which it exercises on so many people in this country. Doctor Hailey,
in spite of his anxiety, restrained a smile.

“I should have to consult my fitter,” he declared evasively.

The doctor thought a moment. Then he said:

“I will take you into my confidence to this extent,” he declared. “You
are now holding in your hand the shoe which was removed from the
murdered body of the Russian who was found stabbed in the garage at
Moorfields near Wycombe.”

The shoemaker’s face paled perceptibly.

“The Moorfields Mystery,” he exclaimed in awestruck tones.

“Exactly. Let me further remind you that you are Lord Borrodean’s
shoemakers and that he is the owner of Moorfields.”

Mr. Bricklayer’s breathing became disturbed.

“You do not suggest--” he gasped.

“No; I rang you up this morning in Lord Borrodean’s name and ordered a
fresh pair of shoes and thus obtained the information I wanted. But I
have learned since then that I was mistaken in thinking that these are
his shoes.”

He watched the man’s face narrowly as he made this disclosure. It was
obvious that Mr. Bricklayer was becoming greatly frightened and that
his fear was overwhelming his natural obstinacy. He played his last
card.

“The police, you see, have reason to believe that the shoes did not
belong to Danatoff, the murdered man, and the question naturally
arises how, if this is correct, were they obtained by him. Did he, for
example, get them through the agency of one of your employees--”

Doctor Hailey spoke these last words in stern tones. His face wore an
accusing look, which was excellently simulated. He raised his eyeglass
and fixed it in his eye with much deliberation. The shoemaker wilted
visibly.

“That is impossible,” he stammered; “quite impossible, I do assure
you.”

“And yet, there are the facts.”

Mr. Bricklayer glanced anxiously about him. He removed his hands as
though already he felt the cold steel of the handcuffs on his wrists.
To be implicated in a murder--

“Wait a moment,” he said in hoarse tones.

He left the room with the shoe in his hand. Ten minutes later he came
back carrying a pair of lasts. He fitted one of them into the shoe to
demonstrate that it undoubtedly belonged to it--a demonstration which
was convincing, no doubt, to a craftsman such as himself, but which
left the doctor quite cold.

“You see?”

Doctor Hailey nodded. He opened his snuffbox and took a pinch with
much deliberation.

“The name on the last,” Mr. Bricklayer said, “is Thomas Smith, Esq.,
and the address, 25a Queen Elizabeth’s Mansions, S.W.”




 CHAPTER XLVIII.
 BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Doctor Hailey told his cabman to take him to that address. He paid
him off and entered the palatial flats with brisk step. He was
transported at once to the first floor.

“Fourth door on the left,” the liftman told him crisply, “at the end
of the corridor.”

He rang the bell and the door was opened at once by a very smartly
dressed maidservant.

“Is Mr. Smith at home?” he asked.

The girl smirked rather insolently.

“This is Miss Beryl Lestrange’s flat,” she said with a sidelong
glance. The doctor restrained a start and stood his ground.

“I am aware of that,” he declared in stern tones. “But I have come to
see Mr. Smith. I have an appointment with him which is very
important--”

He watched the effect of his words. The maid evidently was not
accustomed to such callers.

“You had better come in and wait,” she declared. “He and Miss
Lestrange will be back soon.” She added: “I was just going out when
you came,” and her voice told him she also had an appointment and did
not wish to break it.

“I can wait alone,” he said.

She conducted him along a richly carpeted corridor and opened a door
at the end of it. As the interior of the room beyond was revealed, he
was unable to restrain a gasp of astonishment.

It was, without exception, the most remarkable room he had ever set
his eyes on--and the most interesting. The mural decorations alone
would have held him fascinated--those tremendous silhouettes flung on
the dead white walls, as by the hands of some giant. They were
strange, bizarre, in a sense horrible; yet they were the work of a
genius. Even the frightful mingling of the faces, human faces and the
faces of satyrs, possessed a quality of wonder which held his
imagination in thrall.

And the furniture was in keeping with the decoration. Undated, almost
indescribable, it yet belonged both to comfort and utility in spite of
the riot of new colors which it displayed. He glanced about him in a
kind of awe. The whole effect was strange and in a vague way,
menacing; it expressed a quality of the mind at once stern and
ruthless and dreadful--

He sat down on a great sofa, the coverings of which were slashed with
streaks of flame-colored velvet. His eyes traveled from the
wrought-iron fireplace to the brickwork which surrounded it and
furnished a mantel-shelf above. The shelf was covered with small
objects, the large number and the very nature of which seemed to
obscure them, and he crossed the floor to examine them.

And then suddenly, he bent forward with a swift gesture. He picked up
one of the curios and held it in his hands, which became immediately
unsteady.

It was the handle of a dagger from which the blade had been broken
away.

He turned it over and drew his breath in a gasp. The handle was
decorated with the identical V and the identical coronet which he had
seen on the knife-blade taken from Danatoff’s heart.

He slipped this damning piece of evidence into his pocket. At the same
moment he heard the noise of a door being shut and then the sound of
voices, a man’s and a woman’s, in the hall of the flat. He stood
listening with bated breath. The thumping of his own heart sounded
loudly in his ears.

But whoever the new arrivals might be, they did not immediately come
to the room in which he awaited them. The sound of their voices grew
faint again and he thought he heard a door being shut.

Probably the maid who had admitted him had gone out already. In that
case it might be some considerable time before they became aware of
his presence. He wondered if he should open the door and announce
himself.

But the discovery which he had just made caused him to hesitate about
embarking on such a course. It was true he was armed, but he could
form no idea of the resources or number of his adversaries. He moved
toward the door in the hope of obtaining some further knowledge.

And suddenly the silence was pierced by a cry of terror and dismay
which seemed to sound the very depth of human agony.

He sprang to the door and flung it wide open.

The cry was repeated, this time in feebler accents. It came from a
room further along the corridor, the door of which was shut. He rushed
to it and turned the handle. The door resisted his effort. He shouted,
but there was no reply.

He sprang back and hurled himself against the door. But in vain. Then
he ran to the front door of the flat and opened it. He passed out and
hurried along the corridor to the lift. He rang the bell, but for some
reason the cage was delayed below stairs. He sprang down to the
entrance hall and shouted to the porter to come to his assistance.

“God knows,” he cried, “there is some horrible business afoot--
Murder--”

The man stared at him and then, seeing that he was in terrible
earnest, followed him to the lift. The servant who had opened the door
of the flat to him was standing some distance away from the cage
talking to a man in a brown overcoat. He called her and she joined
them with scared, anxious face. They went up and then ran along the
corridor in a body.

The door of the flat had been closed. The girl opened it and they
broke in. Doctor Hailey cried out in consternation. The room which he
had tried to enter five minutes before was revealed to him now, empty
and deserted.

His companions looked at him with amazement, in which suspicion was
mingled. The porter declared:

“There ain’t nobody ’ere,” in tones which suggested that, in all
probability, he and his friends were the victims of some ruse.

Doctor Hailey brushed past them and strode into the room where he had
waited in the first instance. It was empty also. Then he went from
door to door, while the group of servants stood together just inside
the front entrance watching him. The flat was deserted. He turned to
the porter.

“Is there any other way of leaving the building?”

The man pointed a laconic finger toward the corridor.

“There’s the fire escape out there,” he said in tones which betrayed
the doubts he felt about his questioner’s sanity.

Doctor Hailey rushed out and turned in the direction indicated. He saw
the circular staircase clearly outlined against the lights of an
opposite window. He sprang toward it and flung open the glass door
which separated it from the corridor. He descended three steps at a
time, so that the iron railing and footpieces trembled under his
weight. He came to the ground just within the main courtyard of the
block, at a spot where the lighting was rather defective.

Nevertheless, he was in time to see a big car glide away toward the
public street.

He ran out to look for a cab, but the street was deserted.




 CHAPTER XLIX.
 “HE WHOSE EYES GLARED”

He found a cab and drove straight to the Vorloff’s house in South
Street.

Sophie Ivanovna, the Countess’s maid, admitted him. She told him that
her mistress was very unwell and that she must ask permission before
taking him upstairs. She left him standing in the hall, while she went
to carry his message.

She returned and announced in her broken English that the Countess
would see him. He followed her across the rich carpet and up the
stairs, and was immediately ushered into the drawing-room--one of
those overgrown apartments so characteristic of Mayfair, which seem to
be in process of swallowing all the other rooms in the house.

The Countess sat huddled in a big chair by the fire. In the rather dim
light, she looked like some ancient bird, too old for flight, which
has crept to a dim corner to eke out its last days. She scarcely
turned her head until he was beside her.

“I am sorry, my dear lady,” he said, “to inflict this visit on you.
But I am one of those who are trying to find your daughter and have
thought that you might be ready to help me.”

The old woman looked up, revealing her haggard, careworn face.

“Doctor Hailey?” she asked simply.

“Yes.”

She nodded her head as though his coming was not unexpected.

“I have heard,” she declared. “It is good of you.” Then, for a moment,
her eyes seemed to lighten up. “There is no word--nothing?” she
demanded in piteous tones.

“There is, perhaps, a very little--an idea.”

The Countess sighed. “So they have said to me before, your police
inspector, Sophie, Peter Nikolaiovitch all--but you do not find my
poor little Olva--”

She indicated a chair and Doctor Hailey sat down. He fixed his
eyeglass in his eye and then leaned forward toward her. He took the
hilt of the dagger from his pocket and held it out for her inspection.

“Tell me about it,” he said in tones which he managed to control with
a great effort.

She took the wrought silver in her hand and then turned fearful eyes
toward him.

“_Mon Dieu_, it is the poignard of my husband, the Count Vorloff,
which hangs always in the hall by the door.”

“In the entrance hall?”

“Yes.”

“You have not missed it before--”

She shook her head. “In these days I have not looked--”

He closed his eyes, as if to hide from her the process of his mind. In
the terrible moments of his drive to the house, a new vision of the
case had come to him. He bent close to the old woman and spoke in a
voice of deep earnestness.

“Tell me, Countess,” he asked, “was your daughter at any time
afraid--very much afraid--of a man with strange, glaring eyes, named
Tsarov?”

It was as though he had stabbed her to the heart. She shrank from him,
an object of pity and dismay.

“Ah no, it is not true,” she cried wildly. “He is dead. I have known.”

Her eyes were wide with terror.

“He is not dead. I have reason to fear that at this moment the
Countess Olva is in his power.”

The mother uttered a low cry, like that of an animal wounded to death.
She buried her old face in her hands and he saw that her body
trembled. He had the impression of age attempting feebly to shelter
itself from a hostile world. All that had been her life was withered
to ashes and yet she lived.

“I believe,” he said gently, “that it was to escape from that man that
your daughter left home, in the first instance--because he possessed
the terrible power to read all the secrets of her thoughts and
because, at that moment, she was the guardian of a secret on which the
lives of her friends depended.”

He paused, watching the effect on her of his carefully chosen words,
but she did not raise her head. He let his eyeglass fall from his eye.

“You see, this man Tsarov had called on her earlier that day, just
when she knew that a fresh, and still more dangerous secret was about
to be told her. She had to escape, lest she should hear the new secret
and then perhaps be forced to betray it--”

He paused again and this time he had his reward. The Countess raised
her eyes to his face.

“It is true,” she said simply. “He thought that, in a remote way, she
was thanking him.”

“You were aware, then, that Tsarov had called?”

“Ah, no, no.” She shook her head quickly. “I have known nothing of
this. But the past--I have known all of that.”

She broke off and then turned toward him. Her expression now was
infinitely sorrowful.

“Listen,” she cried in low tones; “your England gives herself now to
the occult, to spiritualism and hypnotism and the rest. It was so also
in my country in the year before the war, when our world lived as yet
and we might look beyond into the years-- At that time, women talked
less of their frocks, and more of their souls--”

She paused. Her hands were twitching. He bowed his head.

“So I have heard,” he declared.

“Not all,” she went on, “but of those who were my friends, very many.”

A deep sigh interrupted her. Then she put out her thin hand and
grasped Doctor Hailey’s wrist.

“My little Olva was but eleven years, yet she was old for her years.
She was not well and the doctors could not cure her. One day the
Princess Michael came to us and told me that I must take her to a new
doctor who would cure her for certain--Doctor Tsarov.

She pronounced that name in accents so low that he could scarcely hear
her. She added:

“_He whose eyes glare._”




 CHAPTER L.
 A HYPNOTIST’S POWER

She released his wrist and spread out her hands in a gesture which
at once excused and condemned.

“After that, I have no strength left.”

“And your daughter?”

“Ah, it is terrible! You do not know her, but I will tell you. She is
so full of gentleness. Doctor Tsarov has told me himself that she is
the most easy to hypnotize of any child he has ever treated. There is
not resistance, as in the others. He has told me also it will be so
good a cure--”

She bowed her head.

“We have gone to see him every day and sometimes two times a day and
we have spent, I know not what money. At last my husband will not
allow that it may continue.”

Her voice had risen slightly as she spoke. It grew harsh as she went
on to describe the scenes which had taken place between herself and
Count Vorloff in consequence of his order that she should not again
visit Doctor Tsarov.

“_Mon Dieu_,” she cried. “If he had but known that I had no strength
at all to refuse the command which Doctor Tsarov gave me!”

She paused again. Doctor Hailey drew a deep breath.

“You went back?” he asked.

“So!” Again she gripped his wrist. “Listen! He has compelled my poor
Olva to tell him that her father, the Count Vorloff, will very soon
make an application to the police against him. It was a secret that
not I, even would tell--”

She looked up in his face with haunted eyes.

“You know what it meant, perhaps, when a nobleman of the old Russia
acted so?” she asked. She did not wait for him to reply, but added, in
tones the anguish of which chilled him:

“And then the punishment of the good God came to me. There was one
night when my poor child is standing in the bedroom of my husband and
myself with a pistol loaded in her hands--so.”

She extended her thin arm in front of her.

“I have jumped up. But she sleeps, will you believe, with her eyes
wide open?”

The room became silent, so that Doctor Hailey could distinctly hear a
man’s footstep on the stair without. The footsteps passed and then
returned. The horror of that terrible moment, it seemed, would haunt
this woman’s memory, seared as it was with horrors, till the very end.

For her husband, after he had disarmed the sleeping child, had gone
out, there and then, and wreaked his vengeance personally on the
ruffian whose influence had grown to such hideous proportions. And
when he returned, he had refused to have further dealings of any sort
with the wife he suspected of having betrayed him.

The Countess revealed this last tragedy in faltering sentences broken
by long periods of silence. She did not once relax the fixity of her
posture, which gave the impression that her body had been turned to
stone.

“After that Olva was taken from me and sent to a school.”

“And Doctor Tsarov?”

“I do not know.” She shuddered. “When the revolution came, it was he
who has denounced my husband to the _Tcheka_ of which he is become an
agent. Olva has not known; but I know.”

Doctor Hailey rose.

“I thank you, dear Countess,” he said. He raised her poor fingers to
his lips. “With God’s help, we shall yet succeed,” he added
enigmatically.

She raised her head as though to challenge him.

“My Olva has not killed this man?” she cried.

“I am quite certain that she has not killed him.”




 CHAPTER LI.
 IN THE LIMOUSINE

Doctor Hailey left the Countess Vorloff in her drawing-room. When he
glanced back at her from the door of the room, she had resumed her
huddled, crouching attitude, a posture without hope and without help.
He felt himself chill at the spectacle, as life chills at the
spectacle of death.

He closed the door very carefully behind him and stood a moment
irresolute on the threshold. The house was strangely silent. He
strained his ears, but could hear no sound of any kind.

He descended the stair to the landing between the floors. He remained
here a moment looking out under the heavy curtains of the window. Then
he came to the entrance hall. He moved swiftly over the thick carpet
to the door and then suddenly knelt down and switched on the tiny
electric lamp he always carried. He moved the spot of light backward
and forward over the heavy tile.

“Ah!”

He bent closer, so that his face nearly touched the carpet. He had
found what he sought. A stain, faintly outlined on the dark red
fabric. It was situated quite close to the dining room door and a rug
had been partially drawn over it.

He stood up and looked about him with inquiring eyes. Then he moved to
the staircase.

He mounted the stair to the landing again and very carefully raised
the window. Just under it was a low roof running back from the house
toward an outbuilding, the form of which was clearly silhouetted
against a street lamp. He raised the window a little further, and put
his head out.

The roof came right up to the house and was joined to its walls. It
covered, evidently, a passage communicating with the outbuilding. He
withdrew his head and stood listening again, as though he expected to
hear some sound of sinister meaning. But the house was absolutely
quiet.

With a quick movement, he pushed the window further up. He climbed
onto the sill and very slowly and carefully lowered himself out of it
till his feet touched the roof below. In this position he could still
look down on the dimly-lighted hall. He raised his hand and softly
drew the window shut behind him--leaving, however, a sufficient gap to
permit of his reopening it, should he be compelled to return the same
way.

Then he crouched down and waited under the shadow of the wall until
his eyes should grow accustomed to the darkness. It was a chill night,
with the promise of fog in the air, that indefinable harshness and
smokiness which seems to dry the throat at every breath. The flat,
leaded surface of the passageway, damp with deposited moisture,
reflected dully the lights in the mews beyond.

He listened again, but heard nothing except the distant sound of the
traffic in the surrounding streets. He arose and moved very cautiously
along the roof, stepping as softly as a cat in spite of his
considerable weight. After a few moments, he turned and looked back at
the house. There was a light in one window only and that window was
thickly blinded. He went forward again with greater assurance and came
to the outbuilding.

As he had anticipated, this was a coach-house converted into a garage.
There were long, corrugated glass windows in the roof, which had
certainly not been there in the old days. On the other hand, the loft
above the stable retained its early shape and appearance.

A gutter ran between the two sections of the building. He reached up
to it and gradually hoisted himself from the roof of the communicating
way. He advanced across the gutter until he came to within a few feet
of the end of it. Then he crouched down again and peered out into the
mews below.

The mews was empty. It was but a small yard with stables on one side
and a high wall on the other. He waited until he had assured himself
that he was not observed and then dropped down from his position to
the ground. A moment later he had reached the doors of the
coach-house.

He tried them. They were unlocked. He entered the garage and drew the
door shut behind him. Then he groped his way forward in the darkness
until his hands encountered the bonnet of a car.

He touched the button of his electric torch, and flashed it on the
vehicle. It was a Daimler limousine of the largest size. He saw with
astonishment that the blinds of all the windows were drawn. He moved
round to one of the doors, the polished handle of which reflected the
beam of light. He opened it and glanced inside. Lying heaped on the
wide floor of the car were a number of magnificent sable rugs--a
relic, doubtless, of the Vorloff’s Petersburg days. He lifted one of
these, the better to examine it.

And then he started back, gasping and pale with the new horror which
assailed him.




 CHAPTER LII.
 A WOMAN’S HAND

Emerging from the dark folds of the fur and white with the waxen
whiteness of death, was a woman’s hand.

The exquisitely manicured nails shone in the light. A diamond ring on
one of the fingers gleamed urgently. Doctor Hailey touched the hand.
It was cold.

He pulled away the rugs surrounding it. And then, a cry broke from his
lips.

Looking up at him with wide open, sightless eyes was the girl whom he
had last seen, pistol in hand, threatening him in his room at the Red
Lion Hotel at Wycombe, the girl whose personal courage had won his
admiration, even in that extremity.

He bent over her dead face, gazing at it with eyes into which the
tears had started, in spite of him. She had lost nothing of her
loveliness. Indeed, the fingers of Death had smoothed away from her
features all the hard lines which so greatly marred them during her
lifetime, only the sweetness and gentleness were left. The forlorn
spirit of a smile seemed, even now, to haunt her lips.

He drew the covering away from her body and exclaimed afresh at what
he saw. Then he pulled the rugs back into position, so that she was
again completely enshrouded. He stood leaning up against the wall of
the garage as though sudden faintness had come upon him.

And just then the sound of footfalls approaching came to him from the
direction of the house. He sprang to the door of the car and stood
listening with bated breath. The footsteps drew nearer--a man’s, heavy
and measured. He extinguished his torch and climbed into the vehicle,
closing the door silently behind him. He threw himself down beside the
pile of rugs, drawing the topmost of these over him in such a way as
not to uncover the dead girl’s body.

The handle of a door at the back of the garage was turned sharply and
next instant he heard the click of a switch. The heavy footsteps moved
across the stone floor to the outer doors leading into the mews. These
were unlocked and thrown wide open, so that they creaked on their
hinges. Then the man returned and climbed into the driver’s seat of
the car. He set the engine running.

There was a faint sound of the releasing of brakes and the big vehicle
began to move, gliding out softly into the yard. It stopped just
beyond the doors and its driver descended again. The doctor heard him
lock up the garage. A moment later the hum of passing traffic told him
that they had entered a street.

His position was greatly uncomfortable; yet he dared not change it
without risking the success of the whole desperate enterprise. If he
failed now-- But, hard on the heels of that thought came another,
which chilled his hopes and his heart. Was it probable that a
ruthlessness which had not spared the lovely girl, whose body lay
beside him, would spare any other human creature from whose knowledge
danger was to be apprehended?

The sound of the traffic increased suddenly to that subdued roaring
which characterizes London’s main arteries. This was Regent or Oxford
Street or Piccadilly-- Probably not the latter, since the sound was
immediately hushed again. The splendid car glided forward at a swifter
pace than it had hitherto attained.

Doctor Hailey contrived to move the rug away from his eyes. He looked
up and saw that the interior of the car was completely shrouded in
darkness. The blinds were a more efficient means of concealment than
he had dared believe they would be. His limbs ached, so that he felt
he could no longer endure the pain of them. He raised himself on his
elbow, and looked up.

The blinds screening the driver from the interior of the vehicle were
also drawn. With infinite care, he moved to a sitting posture and then
contrived to lean back against the seat of the car. He was safe from
detection, unless the fellow pulled up and opened the door. He came
close to one of the side windows and peered out round the edge of the
blind. He was just in time to recognize the dim outline of the Church
in St. John’s Wood.

The car turned into Finchley Road, and went out to Golders Green.
Could it be that they were bound once more for Wycombe? But no! The
vehicle ran straight on through Finchley and Barnet to the great North
Road. It mounted the incline to Potter’s Bar at a pace which the
doctor judged could not be less than forty miles an hour. Ten minutes
later, on the lonely stretch between that village and Hatfield, the
speed was at least ten miles an hour greater.

He wondered to what part of the country they were traveling. And then,
the questions which still remained unanswered in his mind, assailed
him once more. He closed his eyes and tried to give himself to their
solution, in spite of the immense weariness which assailed him.

Half an hour later, he was sunk in profound sleep.




 CHAPTER LIII.
 THE DRIVER ESCAPES

Doctor Hailey awoke with a start.

There was a sound of shouting; then the car seemed to bump over an
obstacle. He peered out and was just in time to see a man’s face go
past the window--the face of a policeman.

The car bounded forward, as though its driver had opened his throttle
to the very widest possible extent. The doctor crept up to the seat of
the vehicle and mounted it, after satisfying himself that the blinds
were still drawn. He looked out of the back window.

In the distance he could see a light on the road, which appeared to
move slightly, though he couldn’t be sure about this. The car lurched
round a sharp bend of the road and flung him down again on the floor;
the pace now seemed to be terrific. He heard another vehicle go by and
its passing was swift as a flash.

Evidently they had run into one of the police patrols which are a
regular feature of the North Road at night--and which, doubtless, had
received orders from Scotland Yard to search all outgoing cars. He
felt a new horror at the thought that the obstacle they had passed
over was probably a human body--

He gathered himself up and peered out again. He recognized the hotel
at Welwyn. So he had only been asleep for a few minutes. The pace of
the car slackened a little as it mounted the steep hill above the
Garden Suburb. Then it sped away again over the rolling uplands which
stretch as far as Baldock.

The police would certainly communicate with all the stations to the
North, though it might take them some time to do this. The patrol had
been posted, he thought, about a mile on the London side of Welwyn,
but doubtless they had bicycles; so that in another hour at the
latest, the road in front of the car would be blocked.

That thought had scarcely flashed across his mind when he felt the
brakes of the vehicle being strongly applied. A moment later, it had
come to a standstill. He covered himself with his rug, though not
before his hand had closed on the barrel of his pistol.

An intense desire to bring this hideous experience to an end forthwith
assailed him. But, in that case, he must relinquish his only hope of
reaching Bob Barling--and so, perhaps, rob his friend of his sole
chance of salvation.

He heard another vehicle, evidently a heavy one, approaching from the
direction of Baldock. It drew up and a gruff voice demanded what was
the matter.

“Sorry to trouble you, but here’s a half a quid if you’ll lend me a
hand with the engine. She’s got stuck up somehow--”

The voice was clear and sounded well-bred. There was a shuffling noise
and then a stifled exclamation.

The doctor sprang up, but the voices continued. He ventured to peer
out and saw a big wagon with dim lights. He saw also two figures
standing close together. One of them had his hands above his head.

Suddenly they separated and he heard some one climbing to the driving
seat of the car. A moment later, the wagon began to move backward. Its
light swung round in a semi-circle. Then he caught a glimpse of its
tail lamp. He heard it go lurching away into the darkness.

He sprang out of the car. As he did so, the man who had been seated in
front leaped from the driver’s seat and went rushing off into the
woods which flanked the road. The doctor stood a moment, pistol in
hand, wondering what he should do. The fellow evidently was
panic-stricken at this fresh threat to his life, and it would be a
mere waste of time to go in pursuit of him. Far away, he could still
distinguish the rear lamp of the wagon. As he watched, it disappeared
suddenly from view.

He sprang into the driver’s seat of the car and set the engine
running. He let in the clutch and the beautiful mechanism glided
forward. He gave full throttle and then switched up the headlights
which had been turned down. A minute later, he saw the wagon again,
with its ungainly pile of goods, toiling in front of him. He sounded
his horn and observed it draw to the side. He passed it at a rate of
speed which the meter declared was between forty and fifty miles.

He drove on across the empty land for another two miles, to a place
where the road begins to descend to the valley. Then he slackened pace
until he reached a byway running at right angles to the main
thoroughfare.

He drove into this, and quickly descended, leaving the big car with
only her sidelamps burning. Before he abandoned her, he rearranged the
rugs, reverently, over the body of the dead girl. Then he inspected
the front of the car with his electric lamp.

He came back to the main road and took up a position behind a clump of
briars, with a little coppice behind him. The full moon was struggling
with heavy clouds and a chill wind was blowing. The place seemed
extraordinarily wild and deserted. A heavy silence, broken now and
then by the hooting of owls and by the sound of the wind among distant
trees, possessed it.

He glanced at his watch and saw that it was half past ten. Then a
blaze of misty-white light, which stood up like a pillar in the sky,
warned him that a big car was approaching from Baldock. It came
sweeping into view, dazzling him with its glaring lamps.

He moved behind the bush until it had gone past, leaving inky
blackness behind it. A moment later, he heard it baying like a great
dog, as it rounded a bend above. Then, two small, blinking lights,
shining from the same direction, warned him that the wagon was
approaching.




 CHAPTER LIV.
 BEFORE THE CHASE ENDED

It came down the incline slowly and heavily. He crouched down and
attempted to obtain a glimpse of it driver as it went by, but the cab
was shrouded in darkness. He sprang out and as the tail lamp showed,
seized hold of the first available projection.

He grasped this and swung himself up, easily scaling the low side of
the vehicle. He found himself, a moment later, among a heaving mass of
packages, most of which seemed to contain large articles of furniture.
He crouched down among them, trying to find a position in which he
would be sheltered from prying eyes.

The wagon entered Baldock and passed through without incident, though
he saw that the local police station was brightly illuminated and that
a constable was standing on the doorstep.

No doubt they were making ready to scour the country, since the wanted
car should have reached the town long before this. He reflected that,
soon enough, the terrified wagoner would make his way to one of the
villages and raise the alarm. Their present mode of travel could not
avail them much longer.

They drove through several low-lying villages in which coils of mist
lay on the roadway. Then the doctor recognized the frontage of the
George at Buckden, a hostelry where he had often put up on his
northward journeyings and which always delighted him afresh with its
old-world air of comfort and repose. The wagon slackened speed. He
moved from his position among the furniture and dropped quietly down
into the road.

He rang the bell of the Inn, and when he was admitted, asked to see
the proprietor.

“Ah, Doctor Hailey!” that good man cried. He advanced with
outstretched hand and smiling face and added, “Your car is there, I
suppose?”

He moved to the door to summon his garageman as he spoke, but the
doctor raised a warning hand. He came and whispered in the
hotelkeeper’s ear, causing that worthy’s face to undergo a startling
change of expression.

“Can you do it?” Doctor Hailey asked.

“Yes--for you--”

He led the way to the yard. His man, who had been summoned from the
back of the house, opened one of the lockups and disclosed a small
closed car.

“Excellent! Is she full up with gas?”

“I think so. I have only been as far as Huntingdon today.”

Doctor Hailey got in and started the engine. A moment later, he was on
the North Road again; the little car seemed to be full of life and
carried him gayly behind its big, bright lights. Two miles beyond the
village, he came on the wagon, drawn close into the side of the road.
He passed it slowly, scrutinizing it as he did so. It was empty and
deserted.

He stopped and descended and looked into the cab and among the crates
and packages. Then he reëntered his car and drove on at the fastest
speed of which the little vehicle was capable. The memory of Dick
Turpin, riding this very road, on his gallant Black Bess, flashed
across his mind.

Barnaby Moor and Stanmore were passed in that way and yet he had had
no sight of his missing quarry. It was probable that a big car had
been secured at the last raid and that it was being driven at its top
speed. With a thrill of fear, he asked himself what fate had befallen
the hapless occupants.

Leaving dispossessed drivers on the highway, with so many villages
near at hand, was a method which could not be pursued
indefinitely--and which the man he was pursuing would certainly not
follow from any lack of murderous instinct. He swept through the
narrow, empty streets of Grantham and so on toward Newark. And then,
suddenly, he uttered an exclamation. In front of him he could see the
red lamps of a level crossing, with the smaller tail lamp of a car
just beneath them.

A train ran through, belching fire as it went; the red lamps swung
away. A moment later, he was bumping over the rails with the car which
he had seen in the distance, about a furlong in front of him.

His headlights revealed the fact that it was an open tourer of the
less expensive type. He could see the driver’s back quite distinctly.
There were no passengers. He slackened pace a little, so as to avoid
passing the vehicle, and presently allowed himself to fall well
behind. The width of this splendid road, and its comparative
straightness, made it easy to keep the quarry steadily in view.

They reached Doncaster at three A.M., but the car in front did not
slow down. It swept along the famous race course at forty miles an
hour and went past the policeman on duty in the centre of the town at
the same pace. Doctor Hailey wondered if the driver had realized that
he was being followed.

The next moment he saw the car swerve to the side and disappear in a
side street. He attempted to imitate that daring feat, but his own
little vehicle was not equal to it. The wheels skidded on the smooth
stones sets of the tramline and he was hurled sidewise against the
wall.




 CHAPTER LV.
 AS DARKNESS FELL

When he jumped out and inspected it, he found that the car was
heavily damaged. The nearside back wheel had been wrenched out of the
true, and was wedged against the side panels. He stood gazing at it
with an expression of bitter regret.

The policeman he had just passed approached him, and asked if he had
injured himself. Then he told him the address of the nearest garage.
The doctor slipped a coin into his hand and strode off in the
direction indicated. He saw the illuminated sign and was about to
enter within its radius when two men appeared from the open gateway of
the yard. He heard a voice declare:

“I shall probably not want her till after midday, as I have some
business in the morning. You say the Danus Hotel?”

It was the voice he had heard on the road between Welwyn and Baldock.

He drew into the shadow of one of the houses and waited. The speaker
moved off across the street and dived into an opening opposite. He
followed him at a long distance and saw him turn across the main
highway by which they had entered the town. He passed the hotel and
took the road which, a finger-board declared, led to the railway
station.

Doctor Hailey reached the station a few minutes later and glanced at
one of the timetables posted up on the walls. He saw that a main line
express from London to Newcastle was due in about ten minutes. There
was another train from the North also due, but he thought that he
might disregard this.

He took a ticket to Newcastle and then approached the platform
cautiously, looking up and down before he emerged from the shelter of
the booking office. A tall man was standing a short distance away,
apparently gazing down at the line. The doctor withdrew from the
station and strolled down the empty street and then back again.

Far off, he could now hear the roar of the approaching train. He
waited until it was about to enter the station and then again walked
on to the platform. He was just in time to see the man he was
following begin to mount the footbridge to the “down” line.

The train thundered in and drew up with much grinding of brakes. Small
clouds of steam rose from under the sleeping cars, all the windows of
which were closely drawn. He crossed the bridge and came down to the
platform. An official glanced at his ticket.

“First-class carriages at the back of the train,” he directed crisply.

The carriages were brightly lighted. He opened the door of the first
one he came to, which was empty. He got in and switched out the
lights. The train stopped at York, but he had small anxiety that the
man he was following would descend from there. Had this been his
destination, he would have continued his journey by car. He assured
himself that that idea was correct and then closed his eyes. He slept
until the train began to slow down at its destination.

It was half past six o’clock. He sat back from the window to await the
passing of his quarry along the platform. The man, however, did not
come. He descended quickly and was just in time to see him
disappearing into the vestibule of the Station Hotel. He followed, but
when he reached the vestibule, found it empty. He walked to the
office, where a timid-looking clerk was busy making entries in a large
book.

A printed form lay on the desk beside him. It had been filled up only
a moment before, because the undried ink shone in the lamplight.
Doctor Hailey asked for a bedroom. When the clerk was getting his key,
he observed that the last visitor had gone to No. 44. His own number
was 47.

“Any luggage, sir?”

“No.”

The man eyed him with some surprise, but offered no further comment.
He went upstairs to his room. He located at No. 44 and stood a moment
listening at the door. He heard the unmistakable sound of some one
throwing himself down on a spring mattress.

He entered his own room and seated himself in an armchair. The desire
to sleep was now overpowering, yet he must not sleep. He rang the bell
and, when his summons was answered, asked if it would be possible to
obtain some tea. After that, he ordered a bath. When he had
breakfasted, he rang up a doctor in the town whom he knew and invited
him to come down to the hotel as soon as possible. Then he wrote two
telegrams to Biles.

The first was addressed to Scotland Yard and he sent it off at once.
The second was addressed to the Central Hotel, Newcastle, and
contained only the words “direction as transmitting office.” He put it
in an envelope on the outside of which he inscribed the words, “Please
hand to a police constable at once--very urgent.”


Just after darkness had fallen, he drove out of Newcastle in the car
which his friend had obtained for him. Right ahead, going very fast on
the wide North Road, the tail lamp of another vehicle winked back at
him maliciously.




 CHAPTER LVI.
 AT THE RISING OF THE MOON

The chase continued through Morpeth to Alnwick. Doctor Hailey had
not used his headlights the whole way and on several occasions had had
narrow escapes. He drove through the ancient Bondgate at a pace which
earned him the unfavorable attention of a policeman standing near it.
The man shouted.

Doctor Hailey turned and threw toward him the second telegram, which
he had addressed to Biles at Newcastle. A moment later, he was
climbing one of the steepest hills it had ever been his lot to
encounter. But still the red lamp beckoned from the height above him.

He bent forward and switched out all his own lights. They crossed
Alnwick Moor and came to a clump of trees which marks the summit of
it. And then, suddenly, the red gleam was extinguished. Doctor Hailey
quickened his pace and saw it, a moment later, far below, going down
into the mists of the wide valley of the Aln. Then he saw it swerve to
the right and grow steadily brighter. The car had stopped.

He applied his brakes and drew into the side of the road. The night
was very dark, but that strange glimmer which belongs to the Northern
heights in clear weather when the moon is about to rise, enabled him
to walk down the road quickly. The red light swung round and then
became stationary again, and he heard the click of a field gate being
shut. The car moved slowly away to the left. He advanced to the gate
and opened it. As he did so, he saw the lights of the car discover the
walls of a house. A few minutes later they were extinguished. The thud
of heavy doors being closed came to his ears.

He crept forward and came to the wall. He did not dare to use his
lamp, and so he groped along the rough stone with his hands until he
reached the doors. He percussed them lightly with his fingers. They
were thick and solid as the walls themselves. A terrible sense of
helplessness overcame him.

He stood back from the wall, wondering what to do. And at that moment,
the edge of the moon appeared above the ridge which he had just
descended. The silver light beamed in generous tide through the
pinewoods, revealing a new world of exquisite and enchanting
loveliness.

He gasped with wonder. Above him, rising grim and dark, were the
battlements of a strong tower on which, it seemed, watchmen, armed and
accoutered, kept their vigil. The tremendous sweep of the vale lay
white and misty before him.

He knew those figures. Others, exactly like them, stood on the
battlements of Alnwick Castle, further down the valley, splendid and
thrilling relics of the border warfare between Percy and Douglas. They
had been fashioned for this very moonlight, out of the good cheviot
stone, so that, when Scottish raiders approached from the north or
west, they might find the walls manned and ready to receive them.

This was one of the outpost towers of the great Earls of
Northumberland, a unit of that ring which hedged about their central
stronghold. The consummate daring of choosing such a place--and
breaking into it--warned him anew of the magnitude of the task he had
undertaken. He moved slowly round the walls searching for any possible
loophole by which to effect an entry.

As he came to the end of this tour, the moon rose clear of the tall
pines. By her light, he saw the dim façade of a great house in the
valley below and the huge massif of the Cheviots rising like some
heaped-up shadow to the deep sky. A strange exhilaration was in the
air, as if, in this solitude, the old world lingers by night with all
its romance and ecstasy. He seemed to hear the marching of armed men
on these heaths, or the winding of horns, as some mighty hunt swept up
the valley at his feet.

“Help! Help!”

The words rang clear and shrill in the silence the frantic cry of a
woman in direst need. It was followed by a swift, scuffling sound, and
then the silence swallowed all its echoes. Doctor Hailey felt the
perspiration break out on his brow. He started forward, so that his
hand touched the walls.

The sound had come from a point immediately over the place where he
was standing. There was a narrow slit in the wall there, a window
designed to enable an archer to discharge his arrows without making
himself a target at the same time. He staggered back to obtain a
better view of it, and, as he did so, exclaimed aloud. The slit had
been filled up, but not so completely as to prevent a faint glimmer of
light escaping from the room beyond. He strained his eyes to detect
any possible means of reaching it.

There was no possible means. He made a second inspection of the tower,
straining his eyes to obtain a view of those portions of the wall
which were thrown into shadow by the moon. He took his electric lamp
from his pocket and touched the switch. Then he strode forward and
came to the rain-pipe which his light had revealed.

His heart quickened as he observed that it had been recently attached.
He grasped it in his two hands and threw his whole weight on it,
testing its strength. It resisted his weight. Then he glanced upward
to the pale sky and experienced a sense of shrinking which, for a
moment, nearly unmanned him.

The next instant he had bent down and was removing his shoes. He took
his watch out of his pocket and his snuffbox, and laid them in the
shoes. Then he tore up some of the loose turf which flanked the wall,
and filled his pockets with the loose earth lying below it.

And after that, he began to climb. He was able to get his fingers
between the pipe and the wall and thus secure a good grip. But, for
all that, he realized within a moment of the beginning of his effort
that success could not reward him. Strong man as he was, his weight
must defeat his strength long before those giddy heights were
attained.

Yet he struggled on, because there was nothing else that he could
attempt.

And then, suddenly, a cry of amazement escaped him.

His hands had come to a sharp bend in the pipe, as though it curved
away from some opening in the wall. Was it possible that the shadows
had hid from him some unsuspected means of entry? His fingers
encountered a ledge and he drew himself painfully up to it. And then,
a fresh exclamation of wonder broke from his lips.

Before him was a window which, at some recent period, had been set in
the wall of the tower--possibly to enable it to be used for some
modern purpose. The glass, in the deep shadow, had reflected no gleam
of light, and so had been invisible from the ground below. He put his
hands under the sash and it moved easily to their pressure. He raised
it gently to a height sufficient to enable him to enter.

Next moment, his foot rested on a solid stone. He felt for his lamp
and set it alight.

He was standing in a stairway which, he could see, wound spirally up
from the ground. He listened, but heard no sound. He began to ascend
the steps which, his lamp showed him, had been carefully renovated.
The worn hollows in the ancient stone were filled with concrete. He
came to a door and halted beside it.

He judged that this must be the first floor of the tower. He lifted
the flimsy-looking latch and opened it. To his amazement, the door
communicated with nothing but empty air. His lamp, when he flashed it
downward, shone on the glass screen of a car standing far below--the
car he had seen pass through the outer doors. So the tower was partly
fallen into decay! That, no doubt, explained the renovation work which
had recently been carried out.

He continued his ascent, and then, suddenly, crouched down against the
wall of the staircase.

The sound of hurrying footsteps had come to him so clearly and
distinctly that he told himself his presence in the tower had been
discovered and that his foes were rushing to assail him.




 CHAPTER LVII.
 THE FACES IN THE TOWER

The sound ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Then he heard a voice,
which seemed to come from close beside him, say:

“Why not admit that you have failed?”

The tones were strangely mocking, but they carried a sinister
significance as well--as though the speaker mocked, as a prelude to
terrible action.

Another voice answered him--the voice he had heard in the house in
Hampstead, but strangely weak and piteous now. The Russian language,
he thought, lends itself to the expression of the emotions.

Where were these voices coming from? He moved a step farther up the
stairs and had his answer. The staircase ended abruptly. Right
opposite to the end of it, but separated by an empty space, was a
room, the inner wall of which seemed to consist of loosely set beams
of wood, some of which had been torn away.

Light was streaming from between the beams. He understood now why the
door below had led only into vacancy. The tower, as originally
designed, had possessed two rooms on each floor, communicating with
two separate staircases and intercommunicating with one another.

He leaned forward, straining to obtain a view of the interior of the
room. A spectacle strange and moving and terrible was revealed to his
gaze.

Standing in the center of the floor was a tall man, whom he recognized
instantly as the individual he had pursued from London. The man’s face
was toward him, but he was now wearing a black mask over his eyes. He
held a pistol in his hands and was pointing it at some one whom the
doctor could not see.

At his feet, her golden hair in wild disorder about her shoulders,
Olva Vorloff knelt in an attitude of supplication. But it was not this
spectacle which chilled his blood and filled him with new horror as he
gazed upon it. It was the face of Tsarov, seen through another gap in
the boarding.

Doctor Hailey was sufficiently familiar with the linaments of Death.
He had witnessed most of the expressions, good and bad, with which
human creatures take their last leave of this world. But not before
had he beheld this living, glaring death which leered and grinned at
him across the emptiness of the night.

He watched the man, fascinated and appalled. His lips were moving
quickly, but they emitted no sound. His eyes held their wild
expression, but the wildness was not malice any longer, but white
fear.

The man in the mask inclined his head toward the girl at his feet.

“Danatoff,” he demanded, “carried a secret message--other than the
cipher which I found in the safe in his room at the High Court Hotel,
or that document which the police state they cut from the lining of
his coat; am I right?”

His tones were cold and threatening. The doctor strained his ears to
catch Olva’s reply. It came in tones so low that he only just heard
it.

“He may have done--”

The man in the mask stamped his foot.

“It is certain that he did. I have seen the cipher which the police
found--read it, too. It is a mere sham--a bait for fools.” He paused
and then demanded: “Where was the real message hidden?”

His voice cracked like a pistol. The girl shrunk away from him and
uttered a moaning cry. And then Doctor Hailey, who had moved his
position a little, felt his blood run cold. Another opening in the
boarding of the partition had revealed to him the cause of her terror
and anguish. He saw Bob Barling straining wildly against the ropes
which bound him to one of the wooden pillars supporting the roof of
the tower.

The young fellow was still dressed in the Pierrot costume he had worn
at the Albert Hall ball; but it was torn and ragged now and begrimed
with dust. His hair was in great disorder and straggled across his
brow. His unshaven face seemed to have grown terribly wan and wasted.

“Will you answer me?”

The man in the mask raised his pistol again and pointed it at Bob. At
the same moment, Tsarov took a step forward and spoke in Russian,
hoarsely and with great effort. The masked man cut him short.

“You have had your opportunity,” he declared in terrible tones, “and
you failed.”

Bob Barling cried:

“For God’s sake, Olva tell him nothing--nothing. He is bluffing you,
because he is not sure himself.”

There was a moment of tense silence and then the man in the mask spoke
again.

“So,” he said, “that is your reading of the situation, is it, my young
friend?”

“It is.”

Bob’s eyes, Doctor Hailey observed, with a thrill of admiration and
wonder, were quite calm. He thought that even the scoundrel in the
mask was impressed by their clear gaze. He dropped his bantering tone
immediately and made a gesture in the direction of his unhappy
accomplice.

“Tsarov,” he declared, “does not apparently share your optimism and I
warn you that he has a more extensive knowledge of my character than
you possess. He has failed me only in one point after serving me well
in many, whereas your influence over this woman has all but ruined my
enterprise. Yet he fears what he fears.”

He took a step back as he spoke and then addressed the girl:

“For the last time, will you tell me where that secret message is
hidden?” Olva sprang to her feet. She rushed to Bob and stood with her
body outstretched before his body. Her proud, beautiful face was
raised in splendid defiance.

A shot rang out.

There was a scream of anguish and Dr. Hailey saw Tsarov throw up his
hands and pitch forward on the floor of the room. A faint coil of
smoke came from the barrel of the masked man’s pistol. He raised his
shoulders in a gesture of utter contempt.

The color ebbed away from the girl’s face. She sank down to her knees.

“I will tell you--”

Dr. Hailey took careful aim, but he hesitated even now to pull the
trigger, because the distance and the arrangement of the boarding made
accurate shooting a matter of supreme difficulty. He heard Olva’s
piteous voice declare that the real message had been carried in the
metal points of Danatoff’s shoe laces.

The masked man received the news with a cry of delighted astonishment.
He bent and removed one of his own shoes, while the shrinking girl
watched him with terrified eyes. He glanced at it and nodded.

“So,” he said, “it will be unnecessary for me to return to London
after all.”

His voice rose clear above the moanings of Tsarov, who still lived. He
appeared to hesitate a moment. Then again he raised his arm. Olva
uttered a terrible, despairing cry--

_Dr. Hailey fired._

The man in the mask remained standing, so that the doctor told himself
he had missed his aim. And then, slowly, as though his muscles
relinquished their power only by degrees, he sank down. The pistol
fell from his hand with a clatter on the floor.

The doctor waited for a moment to assure himself that he had indeed
achieved his purpose. Then he rushed down from his position of vantage
and crossed the bottom of the tower to begin the ascent of the
stairway on the opposite side.




 CHAPTER LVIII.
 BENEATH THE MASK

A moment later he burst into the room. Olva lay at Bob’s feet in a
dead faint. Close beside her the man in the mask sat, with his back
against the wall and his hands pressed to his body. There was a stain
of blood on the floor beside him.

Dr. Hailey began to tug at the knots with which Bob was bound. He
released him and turned his attention to the girl, who had begun to
revive. He saw now that her hands were secured behind her back. He
unbound them and chafed her swollen wrists. She sat up and looked
wildly about her.

“Oh, no, no,” she cried in the same piteous tones she had used when
pleading with her captor a few moments before. Bob put his arms about
her and drew her close to him. But her courage was not shaken. She
rose to her feet.

At the same moment the doctor snatched the mask from the face of the
wounded man. She turned and saw his face and uttered a cry of horror.

“_Peter Nikolaiovitch!_”

She stood gazing at this servant in whom she had placed complete trust
with eyes that were infinitely reproachful. His own eyes met hers in
cold hostility.

Dr. Hailey, who had satisfied himself that the wound was not mortal,
stood up and came to her side.

“The man,” he declared in his gentle tones, “who murdered Danatoff at
your home in South Street and then took his body in your mother’s car
to Moorfields. The man who tried to shoot you as you ran through the
wood--”

A groan interrupted him. He crossed the floor to where Tsarov was
lying and knelt down beside that unhappy wretch. He opened the man’s
waistcoat and shirt and, as he did so, his eyes became grave. Tsarov
saw that look and understood.

“I am dying, is it not so?” he whispered in his broken English.

The doctor made no reply. He rose up and returned to Olva and Bob.

“There is nothing here, I suppose,” he asked, “that we can give him?”

“Nothing,” said Bob. “They have kept us without food since we arrived.
That scoundrel--”

Olva glanced at him. She left them and went to Tsarov’s side. They saw
Her raise his head on her arm. Dr. Hailey fixed his eyeglass in his
eye and felt for his snuffbox. Then he remembered that he had left it
behind him on the ground outside the tower.

“I don’t understand,” Bob said, “how Danatoff can have been murdered
at South Street, because I saw him leave the house a few minutes after
he entered it.”

“My dear friend, you saw Peter Nikolaiovitch leave in the hat and
cloak of the man he had just murdered.”

Dr. Hailey started. They heard the sound of voices outside the tower.

“It must be Biles,” he exclaimed. “I sent him a wire from Newcastle
early this morning and another from Alnwick.”

He handed his pistol to Bob.

“Keep him covered,” he directed, pointing to Peter, “while I go
downstairs and admit him.”




 CHAPTER LIX.
 CHEATING THE LAW

Biles had the Alnwick policeman who had picked up Dr. Hailey’s note
with him. They had experienced no difficulty, because the constable
had seen the cars take the moor road. At the only crossroad the tracks
of the two vehicles had been plainly marked and had led them to the
doctor’s empty car. They entered the tower and Dr. Hailey led the way
up the narrow staircase.

“What does it all mean?” the detective queried in bewilderment.

“That you will see, my dear Biles, for yourself.”

The doctor opened the door and stood aside to allow the detective to
enter. As he did so the latter uttered a cry of amazement. He remained
gazing at the strange spectacle with incredulous eyes.

Olva was still bending over Tsarov and her hand was laid on his brow.
She raised her other hand in mute warning. Dr. Hailey came quickly to
her side.

“He’s just going, I’m afraid,” she said, softly.

Tsarov’s face was calm now and his terrible eyes were closed. His lips
moved as though he was trying to speak, but they emitted no sound.

“Has he said anything?”

“Only that it was my love of Bob which defeated him. I think he meant
it as a kind of tribute.”

The girl’s beautiful, dreamy eyes were mist-clouded.

“I see.”

Dr. Hailey put his finger on the dying man’s pulse. He could barely
feel it. Biles came and stood looking down at a scene the meaning of
which was still completely hidden from him. The Alnwick constable,
true to his type, remained on guard at the door of the room. They
heard a screech owl fly past the tower with dismal crying. Then the
last faint tinge of life ebbed gently away. Olva shut her eyes and
turned from the body.

“He was murdered,” Dr. Hailey told Biles, “half an hour ago by the man
who is lying over there.”

“What! Peter Nikolaiovitch?”

“Yes.”

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and spread it over Tsarov’s
dead face. Then he rose to his feet. Bob, he saw, had not for an
instant taken his eyes from the Russian. He stood, a wild, disheveled
figure in his garish rags with the pistol cocked ready in his hand.
Olva had come beside him and was leaning on his shoulder.

The doctor turned to Biles and told him briefly what had happened
since they parted at the Red Lion at Wycombe. He spoke in low tones,
quickly.

“Lord Borrodean’s story, in conjunction with our own investigations,
made it absolutely certain, of course, that the Countess Olva had not
killed Danatoff. They made it certain, too, that the murdered man had
traveled to Wycombe with his murderer.”

He paused. He could see that Peter Nikolaiovitch was following his
words with close attention. The Russian’s sullen eyes were fixed on
Biles’s face.

“Good God!” the detective ejaculated.

“The idea that Danatoff would travel willingly with any stranger to
such a rendezvous was absurd, of course.” He continued: “His orders
from Lord Borrodean on that subject were too emphatic. The conclusion
appeared to me to be irresistible that a corpse and not a living man
had been brought down from London in the third motor car.”

“What, then, of the knife bearing the Vorloff monogram?”

Dr. Hailey raised his eyeglass to his eye and inserted it with
deliberation:

“That, my dear Biles, was the clew which unlocked the riddle. My
inquiries began from that starting point. They were complete when I
found the bloodstain on the hall carpet at South Street and the
covered way leading from the house to the garage. I knew then that the
man whom Bob saw returning to the High Court Hotel on the night of the
murder was not Danatoff, as he supposed, but Danatoff’s murderer,
Peter Nikolaiovitch, the only person who had free access to the
Vorloff’s house--to the knife.”

“_My God, he’s swallowed something!_”

Bob’s cry rang out in the silence. In an instant Dr. Hailey was at the
wounded man’s side. Peter Nikolaiovitch received him with a
contemptuous shrug of his shoulders.

“Too late, my dear doctor,” he said in cool tones.

Biles exclaimed: “We can get him down to Alnwick to a doctor. My car
is there.”

“I fancy I have about ten minutes left me. If you think it worth
while.”

Again the broad shoulders were raised and dropped. A cynical smile
curled the thin lips. Peter Nikolaiovitch moved on his elbow and then,
for a moment, seemed to suffer a pang of distress. Dr. Hailey turned
to the detective and shook his head.

“It is useless, I think,” he declared laconically.

Suddenly the Russian sat up. The blood surged to his cheeks.




 CHAPTER LX.
 INTO THE DEPTHS

“_Mon Dieu_,” Peter Nikolaiovitch exclaimed. “I have deserved
success! You shall hear.” His eyes swept Dr. Hailey’s eyes. “You know
much, but you do not know all. Listen, in spite of all the cares and
precautions of milord Borrodean and milady, I--I alone--discovered the
secret of their meetings with Danatoff at the house at Wycombe. When
Danatoff returned from Warsaw this week I went to his room at the High
Court Hotel while he was out and searched it. But I found only a
locked safe.”

He moved uneasily again.

“I have read in the papers,” he continued, “that Tsarov was the robber
at the hotel. They did not know of my robbery on the day before.
Tsarov always was my servant--like the woman, Beryl Lestrange.

“Because I had heard about his influence with the Countess Vorloff and
milady Olva in the old days in Petersburg I sent to Russia for him
when I entered the Vorloff house. He was useful. He took for me the
houses in Hampstead and this place--and other places. And when the
time came I mean that he should be more useful still.”

He paused and Dr. Hailey saw his cheeks become dusky.

“This affair of Danatoff was very urgent. When I came from the hotel I
made up my mind to drag from milady Olva all her secrets and I ordered
Tsarov to come to South Street and attempt to reassert his old
influence over her.”

Dr. Hailey took a step forward because the flush in the man’s face had
deepened. But Peter Nikolaiovitch waved him back.

“Not yet!” he cried. He drew a deep breath and passed his hand across
his brow.

“But already, I confess it, I had made a mistake--the first. Danatoff
discovered that his room had been searched. He was afraid and so came
to South Street to see milady and give her the cipher in case an
attack should be made on him that night on his way to Wycombe. Alas!
it was Sophie Ivanovna who opened the door to him. She told him that
milady had gone to Brook Street to a dance.”

Again he paused, but only for an instant.

“Milady went away to Wycombe that night and left a letter with me for
Danatoff. I opened it and read it and knew that my chance had come. I
was ready when he stood on the step of the door. Then I opened the
door and he came in. I struck. He fell without uttering a sound and
the handle of the knife snapped off as he fell.”

His voice failed. They glanced at one another in horror at the
coolness of the man upon the very threshold of death.

“I took his keys and his hat and cloak and drove back to the hotel. In
the safe was a message written in cipher--that and nothing else. The
idea flashed across my brain that the key to the cipher was already on
its way to Wycombe in the custody of milady, who must have had it from
Danatoff at the ball in Brook Street.

“His coming to South Street had been but a ruse to throw the enemy,
who had tried already that day to rob him, off the scent. I rushed
back to South Street and lifted the body in my arms and carried it
along the passage to the garage. I threw it into the car and drove out
at once on the road to Wycombe. But milady drew her car across the
road to bar my way.”

His face had become livid. Its expression changed suddenly and he
writhed in agony. Then his muscles relaxed again and he lay still
breathing with difficulty. Dr. Hailey heard Olva tell Bob that she had
supposed it was Tsarov who was pursuing her when she drew her coupé
across the road and again when she fired at the car in the yard at
Moorfields.

“You had better not speak any more,” he warned. “The rest of the story
is known to us and you are only exhausting yourself.”

Peter Nikolaiovitch lay back and closed his eyes. But a moment later,
he had recovered himself.

“It is not known to you,” he cried, “except the affair with Lord
Borrodean at Moorfields. By good fortune milady failed to recognize
her friend. She supposed Tsarov had followed her up to the house to
kill her. When I saw her shooting, I knew that she could not have
given away to him the key of the cipher. I tried to kill him, but he
escaped me. So I brought up my car and changed my shoes with Danatoff
that it might seem he had been alive at the house, and then picked her
up from the ground where she lay and put her into the car.

“As I did that, I broke one of the windows by accident. I put
Danatoff’s body in Lord Borrodean’s car, where you found it. We drove
back quickly to Hampstead where Tsarov awaited me. I left her there,
still in a faint, with him and returned to South Street. It was but
five o’clock and not even Sophie Ivanovna knew that I had been away--”

He appeared to have revived a little. His eyes shone eagerly now as
though he was recounting a story of heroic and worthy deeds. Suddenly,
however, his face became overshadowed. He declared:

“It was then that I made the second mistake. I listened to Tsarov when
I should have acted on the plan I had formed already myself. You see,
I had not found anything, not a scrap of paper even, in milady Olva’s
possession. Nor had Tsarov himself, whom I sent to the hotel again
that morning to make yet another search, been more successful. It was
necessary to force the lips of milady. But Tsarov’s influence was not
equal to the task.”

A grim look came into his eyes.

“For me, there is but one force--you have seen. But Tsarov was a good
talker. He explained his failure to exercise his old influence by
saying that milady’s love of M. Barling had changed her spirit. ‘So,’
he said, ‘let us show her her betrothed in the arms of a woman of the
town. Then she will speak.’”

Peter Nikolaiovitch turned to Olva, who was clinging to Bob with an
expression on her face of deepening horror.

“You know what you know. He was right, my doctor of psychology, and
also he was wrong. It is not so easy to kill the love of a woman. But
it is easy to use it. Because M. Barling was unfaithful, you yielded
only the secret of the purse; but when his life was threatened--ah!”

A fresh spasm seized him. His face assumed a wild expression and his
voice grew loud and strident.

“It was that business of the Albert Hall which ruined everything,” he
cried. “When M. Barling was trapped, I gave the order to take him and
milady up here at once. Had that been done, there would have been no
secrets afterwards. But Tsarov begged for but six hours’ delay in
which to make his great experiment. ‘You shall possess all their
secrets,’ he promised, ‘before I have started with them on my journey
to Northumberland.’”

Suddenly, before they guessed what he was about, Peter Nikolaiovitch
stood up. Madness glared from his eyes.

“I am betrayed!” he shouted. “Beryl, Tsarov--all have betrayed me. But
I shall kill--all--all--”

Dr. Hailey sprang forward and seized him, but with a swift movement of
his body he tore himself free. Next moment he had sprung to the
boarding at the side of the room. He hurled himself against the crazy
planks.

There was a sound of ripping, tearing wood as the feeble structure
gave way under his assault. Then silence. Then a sickening thud came
from the bottom of the tower a hundred feet below.




 CHAPTER LXI.
 THE READING OF THE CIPHER

Dr. Hailey took a pinch of snuff.

“My dear Biles,” he said, “the Countess Olva, in running away from
South Street, was doing the only thing which she could do, if she was
to keep faith with those who trusted her. She has not told me as yet,
but I have no doubt at all that she meant to confess everything to
Lord Borrodean and ask his protection against Tsarov.

“If that plan had been successful, she would have accompanied him to
Maidstone Abbey for a time. From what Lord Borrodean told me, I quite
realize that she could not have made such a confession to Danatoff;
and she dared not meet Danatoff until she had confessed and was safe.”

They were seated in a private room of the Swan Hotel at Alnwick. The
detective inclined his head. An immense admiration for his friend
shone in his eyes.

“But why not wait for the man at South Street and go down to Wycombe
with him?” he asked eagerly.

“Because Tsarov had threatened to return that night. As I read the
situation, the girl was obsessed by so lively a fear of that strange
creature, that she would have gone to the ends of the earth to avoid
him. Moreover, she could not take the really terrible risk of his
meeting Danatoff and so, perhaps, penetrating the secret from another
direction.”

He added after a moment:

“The fact is that Peter Nikolaiovitch was coming to the end of his
resources. These murders of his accomplices--Beryl and Tsarov and the
way in which he incriminated Tsarov to the police a few days ago show
how fearful he was of being exposed by them. It is the old story. They
knew too much.”

Dr. Hailey was fingering his beloved snuffbox. He helped himself to a
large pinch.

The door of the room opened and Bob Barling, temporarily accommodated
with a suit of the landlord’s clothes, entered the room.

“Thank God, Olva is not yet down,” he said fervently. “I advised her
last night to spend the whole day in bed.”

He came to the fireplace and lit a cigarette. His face was rather
haggard, but his eyes had recovered something of their mirth.

“What sort of dope do you suppose it was,” he asked the doctor, “which
that fellow took last night?”

“I don’t know. Possibly the same kind that poor Beryl Lestrange
administered to you at the Albert Hall-- How long, by the way, did the
effects of it last?”

“Goodness knows. I remember the ball and nothing after that until I
woke up, feeling like nothing on earth, in that infernal tower. I was
in the room below mad with thirst; nobody came near me for hours--”

He broke off and seemed to shake the terrible memory from him.

“There is one thing I do want enlightenment about!” he exclaimed after
a moment, “and that is the cipher. I have been looking at the bit of
paper you gave me last night and I can’t for the life of me, make head
or tail of it.”

Dr. Hailey smiled.

“It’s simple enough when you get the hang of it,” he declared.

He rose and crossed the room, and took a sheet of paper from the
writing desk. He brought it back to the table and sat down with it in
front of him.

“It so happens,” he said, “that there are twenty-six letters in the
alphabet. That is exactly half the number of cards in a pack.
Danatoff’s purse contained thirteen coins, which again is half the
number of letters in the alphabet. Suppose now, we write down the
numbers up to 52 in double columns, thus:

[Illustration]

“And suppose we take the thirteen coins and look at the dates on
them.”

“Ah!” Bob’s eyes sparkled.

“The dates are--” He consulted his notebook. “1901, 1904, 1906, 1908,
1909, 1911, 1912, 1915, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1922, and 1923. We can
ignore the 19’s, and take only the actual years--1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11,
12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, and 23.

“Now suppose we strike these numbers from our first column of
figures--we shall be left, shall we not, with thirteen numbers? That
is not a complete alphabet. But, if we go further and strike out the
corresponding figures in the second column, then we shall have
twenty-six numbers left--enough to make an alphabet. In this way:”

[Illustration]




 CHAPTER LXII.
 CHURCH BELLS AND EVENING

The doctor then took the strip of paper he had extracted from the
shoelace at Wycombe and spread it out. He scored out the numbers which
he had scored out on his columns and then wrote above the remaining
numbers the letters to which they corresponded.

“So,” he said, “here is the message as I first deciphered it.”

[Illustration]

“‘Very urgent, or may denounce, Borrodean.’ My mistake lay in failing
to realize that there is a comma between the word ‘denounce,’ and the
signature of the message. Here is the whole message as I have since
deciphered it from the other slips which Inspector Biles took from the
shoelaces Peter Nikolaiovitch was wearing--that is to say, from the
laces of the shoes he stole from Danatoff’s body.”

The doctor opened his notebook and read:


 “Highness awaits ship. Five hundred each DRIVA, NOBOLSKY. Skipper.
 Very urgent, or may denounce, Borrodean.”


Bob gazed at the words in fascinated silence. The names were those of
men in authority in Russia, as he knew. Had Peter Nikolaiovitch
obtained them, there must have been a terrible vengeance. Probably,
too, hundreds of lesser people were involved.

“Who is Borrodean?” he asked.

“Lord Borrodean’s son.”

“And ‘his highness’?”

“I don’t know.”

Dr. Hailey pointed to another entry in his book: “That is the
translation of the message found in Danatoff’s coat,” he said, “which,
I fancy, is also the message which Peter Nikolaiovitch found in the
safe at the High Court Hotel.”

Bob read:


 “Operations must cease. No hope. Enemy too strong. Careful.”


“That is a fake, of course?”

“Yes. It didn’t take the Russian long to discover that after he had
obtained the secret of the purse.”

They became silent. Dr. Hailey took more snuff.

“Lord Borrodean told me,” he said, “that Danatoff had rooms in a hotel
in Warsaw. A shoemaker in that city acted as the agent. When a
messenger came from Russia, he called on this man and left his shoes.
They were then forwarded, in the ordinary way, to Danatoff at the
hotel. Thus, no meetings ever took place.

“The purse of coins was brought in small Russian money to a café
where one of the waiters, an agent of Borrodean’s, received it. He
handed to Danatoff, as change, thirteen Polish coins of the same date;
English coins were substituted when the poor fellow set out for
London. Thus, or so it was hoped, no suspicion could possibly be
aroused. But all plans are liable to fail sometimes--”

Bob turned to him, when he finished speaking, with eyes full of
admiration and wonder:

“How did you ever manage to read the cipher yourself?” he asked.

To his surprise, he saw the doctor’s face become gloomy.

“I read it because that poor young lady who accompanied you to the
Albert Hall supplied me with the key by attempting to steal it. As I
told you, she flung the coins on the floor after I had seen her making
notes of their numbers.

“And at the same time, she stole my copy of the first cipher. After
that it was merely a case of putting two and two together--since the
only figures on a coin are the date of it.” He paused and sighed.
“Nevertheless, that task took me many hours, because of the difficulty
of the double thirteen.”

“The double thirteen?”

“I mean the fact that each of the thirteen numbers on the coins
canceled out two figures--a figure in both columns.”

Dr. Hailey screwed his eyeglass firmly into his eye:

“You knew Beryl Lestrange?” he asked in slow tones.

“A little. I used to dance with her sometimes. Nobody knew anything
more than that. She rang me up and said that she could help me to find
Olva. I am never a very careful person and I was mad with anxiety.” He
added, “She had my costume ready for me when I reached her house in
Hampstead.”

His voice trailed away. Dr. Hailey sat looking vacantly before him.
His eyeglass descended.

And just then the bells of the churches in this exquisite old town
began to ring for Evensong.

There was a light step in the corridor without and the door opened.

It was Olva.

Bob rose and went to meet her.

 THE END




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Anthony Wynne was a pseudonym of Scottish physician Dr. Robert McNair
Wilson.

This story was originally serialized in _Flynn’s_ in September 1925.
It was also published as _The Double-Thirteen Mystery_.

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g., footprint/foot-print, tail
lamp/tail-lamp, façade/facade, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Abandon the use of drop-caps.

Punctuation: fix a couple quotation mark pairings.

[Chapter IX]

“more prevalent that even you my dear Biles, quite realize” add a
comma after _you_.

[Chapter X]

Change (“By _jove_!” Bob cried, “I believe I know the place) to
_Jove_.

[Chapter XVI]

“It was highly _probably_ that if the victim was armed he would” to
_probable_.

[Chapter XX]

“her eyes seemed only to _enchance_ the subtle quality of her beauty”
to _enhance_.

[Chapter XXI]

“It would not be _corrobated_, because the servants” to _corroborated_.

[Chapter XXXI]

“in spite of all that had _occured_, they seemed to be” to _occurred_.

[Chapter XXXVIII]

“Close beside it _day_ some other coins” to _lay_.

[Chapter XLI]

(“Forgive, me, I have not been very well lately) delete the first
comma.

[Chapter XLIV]

(“I scarcely realized what had _occured_; but the crash) to _occurred_.

[Chapter LI]

“windows in the roof, _whch_ had certainly not been there” to _which_.

[Chapter LVII]

“Doctor Hailey was sufficiently _familar_ with the linaments” to
_familiar_.

[Chapter LX]

“when she drew her _coupe_ across the road and again” to _coupé_.

[Chapter LXII]

“The purse of coins was brought in small Russian money to a _cafè_” to
_café_.

[End of text]






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