He and I stood still for a moment, listening again. A subdued scrambling sound which might almost have been made by a rat came to my ears.
“Here goes!” snapped Smith.
It was as he fired once, twice, and muffled detonations echoed weirdly about the place that I thought of Flammario—turned and found she was not there!
“Smith!” I cried, “Flammario has gone!”
“Can’t help that!” he cried. “Those shots will have brought up the raid squad.”
I followed him into a store-room lighted by a single lamp suspended from rafters.It contained nothing more than the usual lumber of suburban households, representing, I suspected some of the effects of the former occupant. Then I saw something else.
There was one window, a low gable window. That part of it made to open was not wide enough to permit the passage of a man’s body, but the frame of the larger part beneath had been forced out of place; fragments of glass lay on the floor, suggesting that, leaning through the opening above, someone who had been in the attic had knocked the glass in from the outside and then forced the sash. As Smith craned out: “A balcony just below,” he reported, “running outside those rooms we have already seen. And, hello!—a stair up to it from the garden!”
He turned and ran to the door.
“You understand, Kerrigan?” he cried. “Fu Manchu’s thugs got here before us! The man Cabot, who had Ardatha locked in that room below, bolted up here to save himself. What he had planned to do he has done: forced a way through this window, dropped on to the balcony below and, unless the police catch him—made a clean get- away!”
We were running along the lower passage now, making for the staircase.
A theory to account for the remarkable behaviour of Flammario at the moment that Smith and I had entered the loft had just begun to form in my mind as we ran down the stairs, across, and out through the kitchen to the back porch. The balcony from which the fugitive had made his escape ran along this side of the house. As we came into the darkness there. Smith, a pace ahead of me, pulled suddenly and grasped my wrist with a grip that hurt.
A high, piercing shriek, followed by gurgling, sobbing sounds split the silence frightfully.
As that dreadful cry died away I heard a shout, a sound of running footsteps. The police were closing in. Two paces forward we moved hesitantly, and there, half in shadow and half silhouetted against a silver curtain of moonlight, I saw Flammario. She stood at the foot of the steps leading down from the balcony. Her cloak had slipped: she looked like a sculptured Fury.
Hearing us, she turned in our direction. I could see the glitter of her amber eyes. Then, stepping into the shadows at her feet she retrieved the sable cloak, and threw it about her shoulders.
“I reckon that balances our account, Lou,” she panted.
Captain Beecher raced up to join us, followed by two other police officers, as a ray from Smith’s torch shone fully down upon a man who lay there. He was prone, but in falling had twisted his head sideways, as if at the moment that death came he had looked swiftly behind him. Staring eyes held a question which had been horribly answered.
It was the man of Panama.
His fingers were embedded in the turf on which he lay, and
Police Captain Beecher glanced from the dead man to the fur-wrapped figure of Flammario, whose tawny eyes regarded him contemptuously.
“So we have you on the books at last!”
“Forget it!” rapped Smith; “she won’t run away. The girl, the girl who was captive here, has been carried off. She must not be smuggled out of Colon. Advise the port. Hold all outgoing shipping till further orders. Spare no efforts.”
But what with frustrated hopes and new fears, such a cloak of misery had descended upon me that I could not think consistently. There was movement all about; the issuing of rapid orders; men hurrying away. And presently, reaching me as if from a distance, came Smith’s words: “Take care of Flammario. After all, she has done her best for us. Return straight to the hotel.”
A hand touched my arm. I looked into brilliant amber eyes.
“Drive me back, please,” said Flammario, “or I shall be late for my show.”
Of what she said to me on the way back, this red-handed murderess, I recollect not one word. I know that her arms were about me. I presume it was a normal gesture employed whenever she found herself alone in a man’s company. I think, just before we reached the side entrance to The Passion Fruit Tree, that she kissed me on the lips, that I started back. She laughed huskily. I would have left her at the door, but: “You have lost your girl friend,” she said; “you must want a drink.” I think in her half-savage way she was trying to be sympathetic. “Go through there to the bar. If you wait, I have drink with you.”
As she ran towards her dressing-room, I opened the back door to the bar. It was true that suddenly, and only at that moment, did I realize how badly I needed a stiff brandy and soda. The barman turned swiftly, but recognizing me, allowed me to pass.
There was no one in the bar; and he had just placed my drink before me when the lights went out.
Morbid curiosity induced me to walk out on to the balcony. A subdued, excited hum of conversation rose from below: evidently there had been other arrivals. Then, to the muted strains of the unseen band. Flammario entered.
She stood there picked up by the lime and slowly began to dance—her lips set in the eternal, voluptuous smile of the African dancers of all time, the smile which lives forever upon the painted walls of Ancient Egypt.
CHAPTER XXV
A GREEN HAND
“Smith?” I said, “He’s not dying.”
“Thank God, no.”
He and I stood looking down at Sir Lionel Barton where he lay livid, his breathing scarcely perceptible. I turned to a man wearing a white jacket who stood at the front of the bed.
“You are sure, doctor?” Andrews nodded and his smile was reassuring.
“He’s had an emetic and I’ve washed him out with permanganate of potassium,” he replied. “Also, I’ve poured coffee down his throat—very strong. Fortunately he has a constitution like a bullock. Oh, he’ll be all right. I have given him a shot of atropine. We’ll have him round before long.”
“But how,” I said, looking about from face to face, “did this happen? What of the police officer on duty outside?”
“Went the same way!” repliedDr. Andrews; “but not for the same reason; nor is he responding so well.”
“How do you account for that?”
“You see”—the doctor took up a tumbler from a side-table—”this contains whisky, and also (I have tested it) a big shot of opium. In other words. Sir Lionel Barton has swallowed a narcotic and I have thoroughly washed him out. But the sergeant of police smoked a drugged cigarette.”
“What!”
“Yes,” snapped Smith. “I have the remains of the packet: they are all drugged.”
“But surely he could taste it?”
“No.” The physician shook his head. “Indian hemp was used in this case, and the brand of cigarette was of a character which”—he shrugged his shoulders—”would disguise almost anything.”
“But where could the man have obtained these cigarettes?”
“Don’t ask me, Kerrigan,” said Smith wearily. “As well ask why Barton, alone in these apartments, permitted someone to drug his whisky.”
“But was he alone here when you returned?”
“He was found alone. I was recalled from police headquarters, and from there I phoned you. They had discovered the police sergeant unconscious in the corridor. Naturally the management came in here, and found Barton.”
