“I guess something got me then,” muttered Washington.
His right cheek was red and swollen, and Leon saw the telltale bite; saw something else. He put his hand to the cheek and examined his fingertips.
“Get me some whisky, will you?—about a gallon of it.”
He was obviously in great pain and sat rocking himself to and fro.
“Gosh! This is awful!” he groaned. “Never had any snake that bit like this!”
“You’re alive, my friend, and I didn’t believe you when you said you were snake-proof.”
Leon poured out a tumbler of neat whisky and held it to the American’s lips.
“Down with Prohibition!” murmured Washington, and did not take the glass from his lips until it was empty. “You can give me another dose of that—I shan’t get pickled,” he said.
He put his hand up to his face and touched the tiny wound gingerly—“It is wet,” he said in surprise.
“What did it feel like?”
“Like nothing so much as a snakebite,” confessed the expert.
Already his face was puffed beneath the eyes, and the skin was discoloured black and blue.
Leon crossed to the fireplace and pushed the bell, and Washington watched him in amazement.
“Say, what’s the good of ringing? The servants have gone.”
There was a patter of feet in the hall, the door was flung open and George Manfred came in, and behind him the startled visitor saw Meadows and a dozen men.
“For the Lord’s sake!” he said sleepily.
“They came in the charabanc, lying on the floor,” explained Leon, “and the only excuse for bringing a charabanc here was to send the servants to that concert.”
“You got Lee away?” asked Manfred.
Leon nodded.
“He was in the car that took friend Meadows, who transferred to the charabanc somewhere out of sight of the house.”
Washington had taken a small cardboard box from his pocket and was rubbing a red powder gingerly upon the two white-edged marks, groaning the while.
“This is certainly a snake that’s got the cobra skinned to death and a rattlesnake’s bite ain’t worse than a dog nip,” he said. “Mamba nothing! I know the mamba; he is pretty fatal, but not so bad as this.”
Manfred looked across to Leon.
“Gurther?” he asked simply, and Gonsalez nodded.
“It was intended for me obviously, but, as I’ve said before, Gurther is nervous. And it didn’t help him any to be shot up.”
“Do you fellows mind not talking so loud?” He glanced at the heavy curtains that covered the windows. Behind these the shutters had been fastened, and Dr. Oberzohn was an ingenious man.
Leon took a swift survey of the visitor’s feet; they wore felt slippers.
“I don’t think I can improve upon the tactics of the admirable Miss Leicester,” he said, and went up to Mr. Lee’s bedroom, which was in the centre of the house and had a small balcony, the floor of which was formed by the top of the porch.
The long French windows were open and Leon crawled out into the darkness and took observation through the pillars of the balustrade. They were in the open now, making no attempt to conceal their presence. He counted seven, until he saw the cigarette of another near the end of the drive. What were they waiting for? he wondered. None of them moved; they were not even closing on the house. And this inactivity puzzled him. They were awaiting a signal. What was it to be? Whence would it come?
He saw a man come stealthily across the lawn … one or two? His eyes were playing tricks. If there were two, one was Gurther. There was no mistaking him. For a second he passed out of view behind a pillar of the balcony. Leon moved his head … Gurther had fallen! He saw him stumble to his knees and tumble flat upon the ground. What did that mean?
He was still wondering when he heard a soft scraping, and a deep-drawn breath, and tried to locate the noise. Suddenly, within a few inches of his face, a hand came up out of the darkness and gripped the lower edge of the balcony.
Swiftly, noiselessly, Gonsalez wriggled back to the room, drew erect in the cover of the curtains and waited. His hand touched something; it was a long silken cord by which the curtains were drawn. Leon grinned in the darkness and made a scientific loop.
The intruder drew himself up on to the parapet, stepped quietly across, then tiptoed to the open window. He was not even suspicious, for the French windows had been open all the evening. Without a sound, he stepped into the room and was momentarily silhouetted against the starlight reflected in the window.
“Hatless,” thought Leon. That made things easier. As the man took another stealthy step, the noose dropped over his neck, jerked tight and strangled the cry in his throat. In an instant he was lying flat on the ground with a knee in his back. He struggled to rise, but Leon’s fist came down with the precision of a piston-rod, and he went suddenly quiet.
Gonsalez loosened the slipknot, and, flinging the man over his shoulder, carried him out of the room and down the stairs. He could only guess that this would be the only intruder, but left nothing to chance, and after he had handed his prisoner to the men who were waiting in the hall, he ran back to the room, to find, as he had expected, that no other adventurer had followed the lead. They were still standing at irregular intervals where he had seen them last. The signal was to come from the house. What was it to be? he wondered.
He left one of his men on guard in the room and went back to the study, to find that the startled burglar was an old friend. Lew Cuccini was looking from one of his captors to the other, a picture of dumbfounded chagrin. But the most extraordinary discovery that Leon made on his return to the study was that the
