By straining at the rope and standing on tiptoe, he brought the end of the connecting link across the sharp jagged edge of the glass. Two strokes, and the rope was severed. His hands were still bound and to cut through them without injury to himself was a delicate operation. Carefully he sawed away, and first one and then the other cord was cut through. His hands were red and swollen, his wrists had no power until he had massaged them.
He snapped off the triangular piece of glass and applied it to the cords about his feet, and in a minute he was free. Free, but in a locked room. Still, the window-sash should not prove an insuperable obstacle. There was nothing which he could use as a weapon, but his handy feet smashed at the frames, only to discover that they were of iron. Jonathan Danton’s father had had a horror of burglars, and all the window-frames on the lower floor had been made in a foundry. The door was the only egress left and it was too stout to smash.
He listened at the keyhole. There was no sound. The light was passing from the sky and night was coming on. They would be leaving soon, he guessed, and grew frantic. Discarding all caution, he kicked at the panels, but they resisted his heavy boots, and then he heard a sound that almost stopped his heart beating.
A shrill scream from Eunice. Again and again he flung his weight at the door, but it remained immovable, and then came a shout from the ground outside. He ran to the window and listened.
“They are coming, the police!”
It was the Spaniard’s throbbing voice. He had run until he was exhausted. Jim saw him stagger past the window and heard Digby say something to him sharply. There was a patter of feet and silence.
Jim wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his coat and looked round desperately for some means of getting out of the room. The fireplace! It was a big, old-fashioned fire-basket, that stood on four legs in a yawning gap of chimney. He looked at it; it was red with rust and it had the appearance of being fixed, but he lifted it readily. Twice he smashed at the door and the second time it gave way, and dropping the grate with a crash he flew down the passage out of the house.
As he turned the corner he heard the roar of the aeroplane and above its drone the sound of a shot. He leapt the balustrade, sped through the garden and came in sight of the aeroplane as it was speeding from him.
“My God!” said Jim with a groan, for the machine had left the ground and was zooming steeply up into the darkening sky.
And then he saw something. From the long grass near where the machine had been a hand rose feebly and fell again. He ran across to where he had seen this strange sight. In a few minutes he was kneeling by the side of Fuentes. The man was dying. He knew that long before he had seen the wound in his breast.
“He shot me, señor,” gasped Fuentes, “and I was his friend … I asked him to take me to safety … and he shot me!”
The man was still alive when the police came on the spot; still alive when Septimus Salter, in his capacity of Justice of the Peace, took down his dying statement.
“Digby Groat shall hang for this, Steele,” said the lawyer; but Jim made no reply. He had his own idea as to how Digby Groat would die.
XLIV
The lawyer explained his presence without preliminary, and Jim listened moodily.
“I came with them myself because I know the place,” said Mr. Salter, looking at Jim anxiously. “You look ghastly, Steele. Can’t you lie down and get some sleep?”
“I feel that I shall never sleep until I have got my hand on Digby Groat. What was it you saw in the paper? Tell me again. How did they know it was Villa?”
“By a receipt in his pocket,” replied Salter. “It appears that Villa, probably acting on behalf of Digby Groat, had purchased from Maxilla, the Brazilian gambler, his yacht, the Pealigo—”
Jim uttered a cry.
“That is where he has gone,” he said. “Where is the Pealigo?”
“That I have been trying to find out,” replied the lawyer, shaking his head, “but nobody seems to know. She left Havre a few days ago, but what her destination was, nobody knows. She has certainly not put in to any British port so far as we can ascertain. Lloyd’s were certain of this, and every ship, whether it is a yacht, a liner, or a cargo tramp, is reported to Lloyd’s.”
“That is where he has gone,” said Jim.
“Then she must be in port,” said old Salter eagerly. “We can telegraph to every likely place—”
Jim interrupted him with a shake of his head.
“Bronson would land on the water and sink the machine. It is a very simple matter,” he said. “I have been in the sea many times and there is really no danger, if you are provided with life-belts, and are not strapped to the seat. It is foul luck your not coming before.”
He walked wearily from the comfortable parlour of the inn where the conversation had taken place.
“Do you mind if I am alone for a little while? I want to think,” he said.
He turned as he was leaving the room.
“In order not to waste time, Mr. Salter,” he said quietly, “have you any influence with the Admiralty? I want the loan of a seaplane.”
Mr. Salter looked thoughtful.
“That can be fixed,” he said. “I will get on to the phone straight away to the
