“Where is Gurther?” asked Manfred.
Cuccini grinned up into his face.
“You’d better find out, boss,” he said. “He’ll fix you. As soon as I shout—”
“Cuccini—” Leon’s voice was gentle. The point of the long-bladed knife that he held to the man’s neck was indubitably sharp. Cuccini shrank back. “You will not shout. If you do, I shall cut your throat and spoil all these beautiful carpets—that is a genuine silken Bokhara, George. I haven’t seen one in ten years.” He nodded to the soft-hued rug on which George Manfred was standing. “What is the signal, Cuccini?” turning his attention again to the prisoner. “And what happens when you give the signal?”
“Listen,” said Cuccini, “that throat-cutting stuff don’t mean anything to me. There’s no third degree in this country, and don’t forget it.”
“You have never seen my ninety-ninth degree.” Leon smiled like a delighted boy. “Put something in his mouth, will you?”
One of the men tied a woollen scarf round Cuccini’s head.
“Lay him on the sofa.”
He was already bound hand and foot and helpless.
“Have you any wax matches? Yes, here are some.” Leon emptied a cut-glass container into the palm of his hand and looked blandly round at the curious company. “Now, gentlemen, if you will leave me alone for exactly five minutes, I will give Mr. Cuccini an excellent imitation of the persuasive methods of Gian Visconti, an excellent countryman of his, and the inventor of the system I am about to apply.”
Cuccini was shaking his head furiously. A mumble of unintelligible sounds came from behind the scarf.
“Our friend is not unintelligent. Any of you who say that Signor Cuccini is unintelligent will incur my severest displeasure,” said Leon.
They sat the man up and he talked brokenly, hesitatingly.
“Splendid,” said Leon, when he had finished. “Take him into the kitchen and give him a drink—you’ll find a tap above the kitchen sink.”
“I’ve often wondered, Leon,” said George, when they were alone together, “whether you would ever carry out these horrific threats of yours of torture and malignant savagery?”
“Half the torture of torture is anticipation,” said Leon easily, lighting a cigarette with one of the matches he had taken from the table, and carefully guiding the rest back into the glass bowl. “Any man versed in the art of suggestive description can dispense with thumbscrews and branding irons, little maidens and all the ghastly apparatus of criminal justice ever employed by our ancestors. I, too, wonder,” he mused, blowing a ring of smoke to the ceiling, “whether I could carry my threats into execution—I must try one day.” He nodded pleasantly, as though he were promising himself a great treat.
Manfred looked at his watch.
“What do you intend doing—giving the signal?”
Gonsalez nodded.
“And then?”
“Letting them come in. We may take refuge in the kitchen. I think it would be wiser.”
George Manfred nodded. “You’re going to allow them to open the safe?”
“Exactly,” said Leon. “I particularly wish that safe to be opened, and since Mr. Lee demurs, I think this is the best method. I had that in my mind all the time. Have you seen the safe, George? I have. Nobody but an expert could smash it. I have no tools. I did not provide against such a contingency, and I have scruples. Our friends have the tools—and no scruples!”
“And the snake—is there any danger?”
Leon snapped his fingers.
“The snake has struck for the night, and will strike no more! As for Gurther—”
“He owes you something.”
Leon sent another ring up and did not speak until it broke on the ceiling.
“Gurther is dead,” he said simply. “He has been lying on the lawn in front of the house for the past ten minutes.”
XVII
Written in Braille
Leon briefly related the scene he had witnessed from the balcony.
“It was undoubtedly Gurther,” he said. “I could not mistake him. He passed out of view for a second behind one of the pillars, and when I looked round he was lying flat on the ground.”
He threw his cigarette into the fireplace.
“I think it is nearly time,” he said. He waited until Manfred had gone, and, going to the door, moved the bar and pulled it open wide.
Stooping down, he saw that the opening of the door had been observed, for one of the men was moving across the lawn in the direction of the house. From his pocket he took a small electric lamp and sent three flickering beams into the darkness. To his surprise, only two men walked forward to the house. Evidently Cuccini was expected to deal with any resistance before the raid occurred.
The house had been built in the fifteenth century, and the entrance hall was a broad, high barn of a place. Some Georgian architect, in the peculiar manner of his kind, had built a small minstrel gallery over the dining-room entrance and immediately facing the study. Leon had already explored the house and had found the tiny staircase that led to this architectural monstrosity. He had no sooner given the signal than he dived into the dining-room, through the tall door, and was behind the thick curtains at the back of the narrow gallery when the first two men came in. He saw them go straight into the study and push open the door. At the same time a third man appeared under the porch, though he made no attempt to enter the hall.
Presently one of those who had gone into the study came out and called Cuccini by name. When no answer came, he went grumbling back to his task. What that task was, Leon could guess, before the peculiarly acrid smell of hot steel was wafted to his sensitive nostrils.
By crouching down he could see the legs of the men
