“You must have used a silencer: I did not hear the shots fully. Did you catch a view of the man’s face?”
“No, I saw his back,” he said. Leon thought it was unnecessary to add that a man’s back was as familiar to him as his face. For when he studied his enemies, his study was a very thorough and complete one. Moreover, Gurther ran with a peculiar swing of his shoulder.
He turned suddenly to the master of Rath Hall. “May I speak with you privately for a few minutes, Mr. Lee?” he asked. He had taken a sudden resolution.
“Certainly,” said the other courteously, and tapped his way into the hall and into his private study.
For ten minutes Leon was closeted with him. When he came out, Meadows had gone down to his man at the gate, and Washington was standing disconsolately alone. Leon took him by the arm and led him on to the lawn.
“There’s going to be real trouble here tonight,” he said, and told him the arrangement he had made with Mr. Johnson Lee. “I’ve tried to persuade him to let me see the letter which is in his safe, but he is like rock on that matter, and I’d hate to burgle the safe of a friend. Listen.”
Elijah Washington listened and whistled.
“They stopped the lawyer coming,” Gonsalez went on, “and now they’re mortally scared if, in his absence, the old man tells us what he intended keeping for his lawyer.”
“Meadows is going to London, isn’t he?”
Leon nodded slowly.
“Yes, he is going to London—by car. Did you know all the servants were going out tonight?”
Mr. Washington stared at him.
“The women, you mean?”
“The women and the men,” said Leon calmly. “There is an excellent concert at Brightlingsea tonight, and though they will be late for the first half of the performance, they will thoroughly enjoy the latter portion of the programme. The invitation is not mine, but it is one I thoroughly approve.”
“But does Meadows want to go away when the fun is starting?”
Apparently Inspector Meadows was not averse from leaving at this critical moment. He was, in fact, quite happy to go.
Mr. Washington’s views on police intelligence underwent a change for the worse.
“But surely he had better stay?” said the American. “If you’re expecting an attack … they are certain to marshal the whole of their forces?”
“Absolutely certain,” said the calm Gonsalez. “Here is the car.”
The Rolls came out from the back of the house at that moment and drew up before the door.
“I don’t like leaving you,” said Meadows, as he swung himself up by the driver’s side and put his bag on the seat.
“Tell the driver to avoid Lawley like the plague,” said Leon. “There’s a tree down, unless the local authorities have removed it—which is very unlikely.”
He waited until the tail lights of the machine had disappeared into the gloom, then he went back to the hall.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the butler, struggling into his greatcoat as he spoke. “Will you be all right—there is nobody left in the house to look after Mr. Lee. I could stay—”
“It was Mr. Lee’s suggestion you should all go,” said Gonsalez briefly. “Just go outside and tell me when the lights of the charabanc come into view. I want to speak to Mr. Lee before you go.”
He went into the library and shut the door behind him. The waiting butler heard the murmur of his voice and had some qualms of conscience. The tickets had come from a local agency; he had never dreamt that, with guests in the house, his employer would allow the staff to go in its entirety.
It was not a charabanc but a big closed bus that came lumbering up the apology for a drive, and swept round to the back of the house, to the annoyance of the servants, who were gathered in the hall.
“Don’t bother, I will tell him,” said Leon. He seemed to have taken full charge of the house, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of well-regulated servants.
He disappeared through a long passage leading into the mysterious domestic regions, and returned to announce that the driver had rectified his error and was coming to the front entrance: an unnecessary explanation, since the big vehicle drew up as he was telling the company.
“There goes the most uneasy bunch of festive souls it has ever been my misfortune to see,” he said, as the bus, its brakes squeaking, went down the declivity towards the unimposing gate. “And yet they’ll have the time of their lives. I’ve arranged supper for them at the Beech Hotel, and although they are not aware of it, I am removing them to a place where they’d give a lot of money to be—if they hadn’t gone!”
“That leaves you and me alone,” said Mr. Washington glumly, but brightened up almost at once. “I can’t say that I mind a rough house, with or without gunplay,” he said. He looked round the dark hall a little apprehensively. “What about fastening the doors behind?” he asked.
“They’re all right,” said Leon. “It isn’t from the back that danger will come. Come out and enjoy the night air … it is a little too soon for the real trouble.”
But here, for once, he was mistaken.
Elijah Washington followed him into the park, took two paces, and suddenly Leon saw him stagger. In a second he was by the man’s side, bent and peering, his glasses discarded on the grass.
“Get me inside,” said Washington’s voice. He was leaning heavily upon his companion.
With his arm round his waist, taking half his weight, Leon pushed the man into the hall but did not close the door. Instead, as the American sat down with a thud upon a hall seat, Leon fell to the ground, and peered along the artificial skyline he had created. There was no movement, no sign of any attacker. Then and only then did he shut the door and drop the bar, and pushing
