Again his host hesitated. “I don’t know. I’m almost afraid that I did,” he confessed. “I remember telling the postmaster that I was going to talk to Mr. Poole about poor Barberton—Mr. Barberton was very well known in this neighbourhood.”
“That is extremely unfortunate,” said Leon.
He was thinking of two things at the same time: the whereabouts of the missing lawyer, and the wonderful cover that the wall between the window and the floor gave to any man who might creep along out of sight until he got back suddenly to send the snake on its errand of death.
“How many men have you got in the grounds, by the way, Meadows?”
“One, and he’s not in the grounds but outside on the road. I pull him in at night, or rather in the evening, to patrol the grounds, and he is armed.” He said this with a certain importance. An armed English policeman is a tremendous phenomenon, that few have seen.
“Which means that he has a revolver that he hasn’t fired except at target practice,” said Leon. “Excuse me—I thought I heard a car.”
He got up noiselessly from the table, went round the back of Mr. Lee, and, darting to the window, looked out. A flowerbed ran close to the wall, and beyond that was a broad gravel drive. Between gravel and flowers was a wide strip of turf. The drive continued some fifty feet to the right before it turned under an arch of rambler roses. To the left it extended for less than a dozen feet, and from this point a path parallel to the side of the house ran into the drive.
“Do you hear it?” asked Lee.
“No, sir, I was mistaken.”
Leon dipped his hand into his side pocket, took out a handful of something that looked like tiny candies wrapped in coloured paper. Only Meadows saw him scatter them left and right, and he was too discreet to ask why. Leon saw the inquiring lift of his eyebrows as he came back to his seat, but was wilfully dense. Thereafter, he ate his dinner with only an occasional glance towards the window.
“I’m not relying entirely upon my own lawyer’s advice,” said Mr. Lee. “I have telegraphed to Lisbon to ask Dr. Pinto Caillao to come to England, and he may be of greater service even than Poole, though where—” The butler came in at this moment.
“Mrs. Poole has just telephoned, sir. Her husband has had a bad accident: his car ran into a tree trunk which was lying across the road near Lawley. It was on the other side of the bend, and he did not see it until too late.”
“Is he very badly hurt?”
“No, sir, but he is in the Cottage Hospital. Mrs. Poole says he is fit to travel home.”
The blind man sat open-mouthed.
“What a terrible thing to have happened!” he began.
“A very lucky thing for Mr. Poole,” said Leon cheerfully. “I feared worse than that—”
From somewhere outside the window came a “snap!”—the sound that a Christmas cracker makes when it is exploded. Leon got up from the table, walked swiftly to the side of the window and jumped out. As he struck the earth, he trod on one of the little bonbons he had scattered and it cracked viciously under his foot.
There was nobody in sight. He ran swiftly along the grass-plot, slowing his pace as he came to the end of the wall, and then jerked round, gun extended stiffly. Still nobody. Before him was a close-growing box hedge, in which had been cut an opening. He heard the crack of a signal behind him, guessed that it was Meadows, and presently the detective joined him. Leon put his fingers to his lips, leapt the path to the grass on the other side, and dodged behind a tree until he could see straight through the opening in the box hedge. Beyond was a rose-garden, a mass of pink and red and golden blooms.
Leon put his hand in his pocket and took out a black cylinder, fitting it, without taking his eyes from the hedge opening, to the muzzle of his pistol. Meadows heard the dull thud of the explosion before he saw the pistol go up. There was a scatter of leaves and twigs and the sound of hurrying feet. Leon dashed through the opening in time to see a man plunge into a plantation.
“Plop!”
The bullet struck a tree not a foot from the fugitive.
“That’s that!” said Leon, and took off his silencer. “I hope none of the servants heard it, and most of all that Lee, whose hearing is unfortunately most acute, mistook the shot for something else.”
He went back to the window, stopping to pick up such of his crackers as had not exploded.
“They are useful things to put on the floor of your room when you’re expecting to have your throat cut in the middle of the night,” he said pleasantly. “They cost exactly two dollars a hundred, and they’ve saved my life more often than I can count. Have you ever waited in the dark to have your throat cut?” he asked. “It happened to me three times, and I will admit that it is not an experience that I am anxious to repeat. Once in Bohemia, in the city of Prague; once in New Orleans, and once in Ortona.”
“What happened to the assassins?” asked Meadows with a shiver.
“That is a question for the theologian, if you will forgive the well-worn jest,” said Leon. “I think they are in hell, but then I’m prejudiced.”
Mr. Lee had left the dining-table and was standing at the front door, leaning on his stick; and with him an interested Mr. Washington.
“What was the trouble?” asked the old man in a worried voice. “It is a great handicap not being able to see things. But I thought I heard a shot fired.”
“Two,” said Leon promptly. “I hoped you hadn’t heard them. I don’t know who the man was, Mr. Lee, but he certainly
