commenced--then a sound broke that electric stillness; a soft shuffling sound, like that which had heralded the approach of the Arabian dwarf. It was all the more obvious now since the back of the fireplace had been displaced, and it resembled that of a heavy body moving in a narrow space.
Sounds of movement grew suddenly louder and then ceased altogether.
Silence fell again. This, I believe, was the least endurable moment of all. Every sense told me that someone was peering out into the room. But I hadn't the slightest idea what to expect--nor, if attack were coming, what form it would take! Soft padding. Silence. A whispered phrase came like a hiss out of the darkness:
'Enta raih fen?' (Where has he gone?) The words were Arab--but not spoken by an Arab!
Yet I gathered that the speaker, in what I judged to be a state of excitement, had aban- doned his own tongue in favour of that of the murderous dwarf, whose absence clearly puzzled him. But I had little time for thought.
There came a rush, and a crash which shook the room... a shot!-- a flash of dim light and the tinkle of broken glass! The bullet had shattered the window above my head.... Then:
'The switch, Greville!' came Nayland Smith's voice. 'Over the bed!'
I sprang up as well as my cramped limbs would permit, jumped onto the bed, and groped for the pendant switch.
A sound of panting and gurgling came from somewhere down on the carpet between the bed and the fireplace; loud banging on the floor. Presently I found the switch, and was dazzled when the room became flooded with light. I jumped across to the other side of the bed. I could hear racing footsteps in the corridor outside, excited voices, move- ment all about....
At my feet sprawled a man in pyjamas, his head thrown back and his eyes staring upward, almost starting from their sockets. Nayland Smith knelt upon him, his right hand clutching the throat of the prostrate man, his left pressing to the floor sinewy brown fingers in which a pistol was gripped.
'Get his gun!' he snapped, without releasing that stranglehold.
I slipped around the combatants and snatched the pistol from that virile grasp. As I stooped, I had my first proper view of the captive.... He was the man I had seen in the corridor-- Mr. Solkel!
A bell was ringing furiously. Someone was banging on the outer door. 'Open!' Smith panted. Half under the bed lay the hideous dwarf, motionless.
Weymouth's voice was raised outside in the corridor now:
'Hello, there!' he bellowed. 'Open this door! Be quick, or we shall have to force it! '
'Open!' Smith rapped irritably.
I turned and ran to the door.
One glance of incredulity Weymouth gave; then, followed by Fletcher and two others who wore the Park Avenue livery, he rushed past me.
'Good God!' I heard. 'Sir Denis!' Then:
'Are you mad, sir? You're strangling Sw&zi Pasha!'
3
'Our first captures!' said Nayland Smith.
An overcoated figure in charge of two detectives dressed as footmen disappeared from the suite.
'Your mistake, Weymouth, was natural enough. In appearance he is Swazi Pasha. '
'He is,' said Dr. Petrie, who had joined us in the apartment--all the hotel had been aroused by the shot. 'I met Swazi in Cairo only a year ago; and if the man under arrest is not Swazi Pasha, then I shall never trust my eyes again. '
'Really, Petrie?' said Nayland Smith, and smiled in that way which lent him such a boyish appearance. 'Yet'-- he pointed to the open fireplace--'the metal back of this recess has been removed very ingeniously. It has been reattached to the opening which it was designed to mask, but to-night as you see it hangs down in the ventilation shaft by reason of the fact that a stout piece of canvas has been glued to the back so as to act as a hinge.
'Can you suggest any reason why Swazi Pasha should remove the back of his fireplace and why he should climb down a rope ladder from the apartment of a certain Mr. Solkel in the middle of the night?'
It was Weymouth who answered the question, and:
'I admit I can't, Sir Denis,' he said.
'No wonder! The details of this amazing plot are only beginning to dawn upon me by degrees. In addition to the ladder which undoubtedly communicates with Room 41 above us, there's this stout length of rope with a noose at the end. Can you imagine what purpose it was intended to serve?'
We all stared into the recess. As Smith had said and as we all had noticed, such a ladder as he described hung in the shaft, possibly as a means of communication between the two floors. A length of rope had been carried into the room. The noose with which it ended lay upon the carpet at our feet.
'I shall make a suggestion,' Smith went on. Mr. Solkel has been occupying Number 41,1 understand, for a week past. He has employed his time well! We shall find that the imitation tiling at the back of his fireplace has been removed in a similar fashion to this ... because Suite Number 5 was reserved for Swazi Pasha as long as a month ago. The purpose of the ladder is obvious enough. A moment's consideration will convince us, I believe, of the use to which this noose was intended to be put. The business of the dwarf, a highly trained specialist--now in Vine Street Police Station--was quietly to enter Swazi Pasha's room and to silence him with a wad of cotton-wool which you recall he clutched in his hand, and which was saturated with some narcotic. The smell is still perceptible. Possibly you, Petrie, can tell us what it is?'
Petrie shook his head doubtfully; but:
'I have preserved it,' he said. 'It's upstairs. Some preparation of Indian hemp, I think. '
'Cannabis indica was always a favourite, I seem to recall, with this group,' Smith said grimly. 'Probably you are right. The pasha being rendered quietly unconscious, it was the duty of the dwarf to slip the noose under his arms and to assist the man waiting in the room above to haul the body up. These dwarfs, of whom the first living specimen now lies in a cell in Vine Street--the only hashishin, I believe ever captured by European police--have the strength of gorillas, although they are of small stature. The body of the insensible man being carried up to Number 41 by this dwarf on the rope ladder, assisted by the efforts of 'Mr. Solkel' above, the pasha was to be placed in bed. Once there, no doubt it was their amiable intention to dispose of him in some manner calculated to suggest that he had died of heart failure.
'Solkel would have taken his place.
'The distressing death of an obscure guest from Smyrna would have been hushed up as much as possible by the hotel authori- ties--and Mr. Solkel would have lunched with the prime minister in the morning. I am even prepared to believe that the back of the fireplace in Number 41 would have been carefully replaced; although I fail to see how the same could have been done for this one. The dwarf, no doubt, could have been dispatched by the new pasha in a crate as a piece of baggage to some suitable address. '
'But how did the dwarf get in?' I exclaimed.
'Almost certainly in the wardrobe trunk which Mr. Solkel received to-day,' Weymouth answered.
'You're right,' Smith confirmed.
'But,' I cried, 'how could the impostor, granting his extraordinary resemblance to Swazi Pasha, have carried on? '
'Quite easily,' Smith assured me. 'He knew all that Swazi knew. He was perfectly familiar with the latter's movements and with his peculiarly secluded life. He was intimately acquainted with his domestic affairs. '
'But,' said Petrie, 'who is he? '
'Swazi Pasha's twin brother,' was the astonishing reply; 'his deadly enemy, and a member of the Council of Seven. '
'But the real Swazi Pasha? '
'Is at the Platz Hotel,' Smith replied, 'masquerading as a member of his own suite.'
He was silent for a moment, and then:
'The first time I ever used a sandbag,' he said reflectively, weighing one of those weapons in his hand. 'But having actually reached Victoria without incident, I deter- mined that this was the point of attack. A transfer of overcoats was made on the train, and the muffled gentleman who entered the Park Avenue was not Swazi Pasha, but I! Multan Bey, the secretary, escaped at a suit- able moment and left me in sole possession of Suite Number 5.
