“I propose that I withdraw to the kitchenette and there gag myself and tie myself up to your satisfaction. You, of course, would keep me covered all the time and it would be quite impossible for me to play you any trick. Or, if you preferred it, I could do the tying up in this room.”
Again he glanced at the door as if he could not keep his eyes off it. This time he slowly shifted the point at which he was looking to just behind Pyke, while he allowed relief and satisfaction to grow on his face. Once more he hurriedly withdrew his gaze and looked at Pyke.
“I noticed a clothes line in the kitchenette which would do,” he went on, but now absentmindedly, and giving quick, as if involuntary, glances behind Pyke. “If you agree, I’ll back in there and get it down. If I attempt to play you false you can shoot.”
He paused, and looking directly behind Pyke, allowed a slight triumphant smile to appear on his lips.
Pyke had obviously followed the direction of his glances and he had been getting more and more uneasy. At French’s smile he could stand it no longer. For the tenth of a second he glanced behind him. And at that moment, French, standing braced and ready, sprang. Like lightning he dropped his head while his left fist struck the other’s right wrist upwards.
Instantly Pyke fired and a hot iron seemed to sear the crown of French’s head. But he was not disabled. Seizing Pyke’s right wrist with his left hand, he drove with his right for the man’s chin.
But Pyke ducked and he missed. Then the two men, clinching with their free hands, began a voiceless struggle for their lives. Pyke’s desperate efforts were to turn the pistol inwards, French’s to prevent him. Locked together, they swayed backwards and forwards. Then French tripped over a chair and they swung with a crash against the table. It gave way, and staggering across its wreckage, they fell. French found himself underneath and redoubled his efforts, but he was hampered by the blood from his wound, which ran down and blinded one of his eyes. Fortunately, he was the stronger man, and in spite of his handicap, slowly his strength and weight began to tell. Gradually he forced Pyke’s arm round until the other had to roll over on his back to save its dislocation.
Both men were now gasping and sobbing from want of breath. But French with a superhuman effort dropped Pyke’s left arm, and seizing his collar, twisted it tight. Pyke laid out with his free arm, but he was weakening, and French, spent and giddy, but thankful, felt he could hold on in spite of the blows, and that the affair was now only a matter of time.
And then, lying grimly clinging to the choking man’s collar, he felt a real thrill of delight as he saw the door slowly open, just as he had pictured it. Carter at last! It was over.
But it was not Carter who appeared. There, gazing down on them, with amazement printed on her features, was Mrs. Berlyn.
It did not take her long to appreciate the situation, and with a muffled scream she threw herself on the heaving mass.
“Give me the pistol, Stanley,” she cried, softly. “I’ll settle him.”
But Pyke was beyond coherent thought. Half insensible, he still kept his hand locked and she could not release the fingers. French, seeing the end, put all his remaining strength into a shrill cry of “Help!” before he felt the woman’s fingers tighten round his throat.
Letting go of the now unconscious Pyke, he tried desperately to loosen their clinging grip. But he was too weak. Choking, he struggled impotently, while gradually it grew darker, and he sank slowly into a roaring abyss of nothingness.
XX
Conclusion
When French struggled back into consciousness he found himself lying on the floor of that upper room with Sergeant Carter bending solicitously over him.
“He’s coming to,” he heard him say as if from a great distance. “He’ll be none the worse in a few minutes.”
“I’m all right,” French whispered, faintly. “What about—”
“Both safe as a house,” Carter answered. “I thought you were taking too long over the job and was coming up the fire escape when I heard you shout. Lucky I got up in time. But it was a near thing, Mr. French; just as near a thing as I should like to see. Don’t you be in any hurry. You’ve all the day before you. Take a nip of this brandy that Harvey has brought.”
The stimulant made French once again feel his own man, and he sat up to find that his assailants had been safely handcuffed. Mrs. Berlyn sat in one of the wicker armchairs, deadly pale and with an expression of murderous hate in her eyes. Pyke was still unconscious, and the others at once turned their attention to him, with the result that presently he, too, revived. The taxi was waiting and before many minutes had passed both prisoners were lodged in the cells.
When French sat down in his own room to think over this unexpected development he very soon saw that he had made a terrible error in his handling of the case. Never before had he blundered so inexcusably! The clue to the truth was there in his hand and he had missed it. Though even now he could not understand all that had happened, he saw enough to appreciate his mistake, to locate the point at which he had strayed from the
