Monty opened a door and pushed her in before him, and she stared into the face of Dr. Oberzohn.
He wore a black velvet dressing-gown that had once been a regal garment but was now greasy and stained. On his egg-shaped head he had an embroidered smoking-cap. His feet were encased in warm velvet slippers. He put down the book he had been reading, rubbed his glasses on one velvet sleeve, and then: “So!” he said.
He pointed to the remains of a fire.
“Sit down, Mirabelle Leicester, and warm yourself. You have come quickly, my friend,”—he addressed Monty.
“I’m black and blue all over,” growled Newton. “Why couldn’t we have a car?”
“Because the cars were engaged, as I told you.”
“Did you—” began Newton quickly, but the old man glanced significantly at the girl, shivering before the fire and warming her hands mechanically.
“I will answer, but you need not ask, in good time. This is not of all moments the most propitious. Where is your woman?”
He had forgotten Joan, and went out to find her shivering in the passage.
“Do you want her?” he asked, poking his head in the door.
“She shall go with this girl. You will explain.”
“Where are you going to put her?”
Oberzohn pointed to the floor.
“Here? But—”
“No, no. My friend, you are too quick to see what is not meant. The gracious lady shall live in a palace—I have a certain friend who will no longer need it.”
His face twitched in the nearest he ever approached to a smile. Groping under the table, he produced a pair of muddy Wellingtons, kicked off his slippers and pulled on the boots with many gasps and jerks.
“All that they need is there: I have seen to it. March!”
He led the way out of the room, pulling the girl to her feet, and Newton followed, Joan bringing up the rear. Inside the factory, Oberzohn produced a small hand torch from his pocket and guided them through the debris till he came to that part of the floor where the trap was. With his foot he moved the covering of rubbish, pulled up the trap and went down.
“I can’t go down there, Monty, I can’t!” said Joan’s agitated voice. “What are you going to do with us? My God! if I’d known—”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Newton roughly. “What have you got to be afraid of? There’s nothing here. We want you to look after her for a day or two. You don’t want her to go down by herself: she’d be frightened to death.”
Her teeth chattering, Joan stumbled down the steps behind him. Certainly the first view of her new quarters was reassuring. Two little trestle beds had been made; the underground room had been swept clean, and a new carpet laid on the floor. Moreover, the apartment was brilliantly lit, and a furnace gave almost an uncomfortable warmth which was nevertheless very welcome, for the temperature had dropped 20° since noon.
“In this box there are clothes of all varieties, and expensive to purchase,” said Oberzohn, pointing to a brand-new trunk at the foot of one of the beds. “Food you will have in plenty—bread and milk newly every day. By night you shall keep the curtain over the ventilator.” On the wall was a small black curtain about ten inches square.
Monty took her into the next apartment and showed her the wash-place. There was even a bath, a compulsory fixture under the English Factory Act in a store of this description, where, in the old days, men had to handle certain insanitary products of the Coast.
“But how do we get out, Monty? Where do we get exercise?”
“You’ll come out tomorrow night: I’ll see to that,” he said, dropping his voice. “Now listen, Joan: you’ve got to be a sensible girl and help me. There’s money in this—bigger money than you have ever dreamed of. And when we’ve got this unpleasant business over, I’m taking you away for a trip round the world.”
It was the old promise, given before, never fulfilled, always hoped for. But this time it did not wholly remove her uneasiness.
“But what are you going to do with the girl?” she asked.
“Nothing; she will be kept here for a week. I’ll swear to you that nothing will happen to her. At the end of a week she’s to be released without a hair of her head being harmed.”
She looked at him searchingly. As far as she was able to judge, he was speaking the truth. And yet—
“I can’t understand it,”—she shook her head, and for once Monty Newton was patient with her.
“She’s the owner of a big property in Africa, and that we shall get, if things work out right,” he said. “The point is that she must claim within a few days. If she doesn’t, the property is ours.”
Her face cleared.
“Is that all?” She believed him, knew him well enough to detect his rare sincerity. “That’s taken a load off my mind, Monty. Of course I’ll stay and look after her for you—it makes it easier to know that nothing will happen. What are those baize things behind the furnace—they look like boxes?”
He turned on her quickly.
“I was going to tell you about those,” he said. “You’re not to touch them under any circumstances. They belong to the old man and he’s very stuffy about such things. Leave them just as they are. Let him touch them and nobody else. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and, to his surprise, pecked his cheek with her cold lips.
“I’ll help you, boy,” she said tremulously. “Maybe that trip will come off after all, if—”
“If what?”
“Those men—the men you were talking about—the Four Just Men, don’t they call themselves? They scare me sick, Monty! They were the people who took her away before, and they’ll kill us—even Oberzohn says that. They’re after him. Has he”—she hesitated—“has he killed anybody? That snake stuff … you’re not in it, are you, Monty?”
She looked more like a child than a sophisticated woman, clinging to
