“Mary,” said Alma calmly, “is at this moment having hysterics in the larder. I’ll harness the dogcart and go myself. But where is the other man?”
Mirabelle shook her head.
“I don’t like to think what has happened to him,” she said. “Now, Alma, do you think we can get him into the drawing-room?”
Together they lifted the heavy figure and staggered with it into the pretty little room, laying him at last upon the settee under the window.
“He can rest there till we get the ambulance,” began Mirabelle, and a chuckle behind her made her turn with a gasp.
It was the pedlar, and in his hand he held the pistol which she had discarded.
“I only want you”—he nodded to the girl. “You other two women can come out here.” He jerked his head to the passage. Under the stairs was a big cupboard and he pulled the door open invitingly. “Get in here. If you make a noise, you’ll be sorry for yourselves.”
Alma’s eyes wandered longingly to the gun she had left in the corner, but before she could make a move he had placed himself between her and the weapon.
“Inside,” said the pedlar, and Mirabelle was not much surprised when Aunt Alma meekly obeyed.
He shut the door on the two women and fastened the hatch.
“Now, young lady, put on your hat and be lively!”
He followed her up the stairs into her room and watched her while she found a hat and a cloak. She knew only too well that it was a waste of time even to temporize with him. He, for his part, was so exultant at his success that he grew almost loquacious.
“I suppose you saw the boys driving away and you didn’t remember that I was somewhere around? Was that you doing the shooting?”
She did not answer.
“It couldn’t have been Lew, or you’d have been dead,” he said. He was examining the muzzle of the pistol. “It was you all right.” He chuckled. “Ain’t you the game one! Sister, you ought to be—”
He stopped dead, staring through the window. He was paralysed with amazement at the sight of a bareheaded Aunt Alma flying along the Gloucester Road. With an oath he turned to the girl.
“How did she get out? Have you got anybody here? Now speak up.”
“The cupboard under the stairs leads to the wine cellar,” said Mirabelle coolly, “and there are two ways out of the wine cellar. I think Aunt Alma found one of them.”
With an oath, he took a step towards her, gripped her by the arm and jerked her towards the door.
“Lively!” he said, and dragged her down the stairs through the hall, into the kitchen.
He shot back the bolts, but the lock of the kitchen door had been turned.
“This way.” He swore cold-bloodedly, and, her arm still in his powerful grip, he hurried along the passage and pulled open the door.
It was an unpropitious moment. A man was walking down the path, a half-smile on his face, as though he was thinking over a remembered jest. At the sight of him the pedlar dropped the girl’s arm and his hand went like lightning to his pocket.
“When will you die?” said Leon Gonsalez softly. “Make a choice, and make it quick!”
And the gun in his hand seemed to quiver with homicidal eagerness.
XV
Two “Accidents”
The pedlar, his face twitching, put up his shaking hands.
Leon walked to him, took the Browning from his moist grip and dropped it into his pocket.
“Your friends are waiting, of course?” he said pleasantly.
The pedlar did not answer.
“Cuccini too? I thought I had incapacitated him for a long time.”
“They’ve gone,” growled the pedlar.
Gonsalez looked round in perplexity.
“I don’t want to take you into the house. At the same time, I don’t want to leave you here,” he said. “I almost wish you’d drawn that gun of yours,” he added regretfully. “It would have solved so many immediate problems.”
This particular problem was solved by the return of the dishevelled Alma and the restoration to her of her gun.
“I would so much rather you shot him than I,” said Leon earnestly. “The police are very suspicious of my shootings, and they never wholly believe that they are done in self-defence.”
With a rope he tied the man, and tied him uncomfortably, wrists to ankles. That done, he made a few inquiries and went swiftly out to the barn, returning in a few minutes with the unhappy guard.
“It can’t be helped,” said Leon, cutting short the man’s apologies. “The question is, where are the rest of the brethren?”
Something zipped past him: it had the intensified hum of an angry wasp, and a second later he heard a muffled “Plop!” In a second he was lying flat on the ground, his Browning covering the hedge that hid Heavytree Lane.
“Run to the house,” he called urgently. “They won’t bother about you.” And the guard, nothing loth, sprinted for the cover of walls.
Presently Leon located the enemy, and at a little distance off he saw the flat top of the covered trolley. A man walked slowly and invitingly across the gap in the hedge, but Gonsalez held his fire, and presently the manoeuvre was repeated. Obviously they were trying to concentrate his mind upon the gap whilst they were moving elsewhere. His eyes swept the meadow boundary—running parallel, he guessed, was a brook or ditch which would make excellent cover.
Again the man passed leisurely across the gap. Leon steadied his elbow, and glanced along the sight. As he did so, the man reappeared.
Crack!
Gonsalez aimed a foot behind him. The man saw the flash and jumped back, as he had expected. In another second he was writhing on the ground with a bullet through his leg.
Leon showed his teeth in a smile and switched his body round to face the new point of attack. It came from the spot that he had expected: a little rise of ground that commanded his position.
The first bullet struck the turf
