“Did you go back to look for the gate locker?” asked Mr. Havelock, who had returned to his old buoyant manner.
“Yes,” said Slick, as he started the car. “I didn’t find him, though. Traces of him—yes, but not him.”
“Was he wounded?” asked Sybil quickly.
“Well, if he was wounded, it wasn’t serious,” said Dick cautiously.
“I wish to heaven you had killed the brute,” snapped Havelock viciously. “Br-r!”
He had borrowed an overcoat from the caretaker, and dozed in this all the way to town. They overtook and passed through a corner of the storm near Leatherhead. But the three people were too occupied with their own thoughts even to notice the incident. They put Mr. Havelock down at his house in St. John’s Wood, and Sybil, who was feeling very guilty for having brought an elderly man on this unpleasant adventure, was suitably apologetic.
“It is nothing, and I’m really not so wet as our friend,” said Mr. Havelock good-humouredly. “And I’m certainly not worried about what we saw. It is what I didn’t see that concerns me.”
“What you didn’t see?” repeated the girl.
Havelock nodded.
“Our friend has discovered a great deal more than he has told us, and I’m not so sure that the discovery is a pleasant one. However, we will talk about that in the morning.”
He hurried into his house, and Dick turned the car towards Coram Street.
“I won’t let you come in, Mr. Martin,” she said, when he set her down. “Will you promise to go straight home and take a hot bath and change your clothes at once?”
It was a promise easy to make, for his soul ached for the smell of hot water.
He was no sooner out of his bath and into dry clothes than he called up Sneed.
“I’m sorry to wake you up,” said Dick exultantly, “but I wonder if you would come along and have dinner with me? I have three chapters to tell you.”
Sneed grunted his dissatisfaction with the scheme, but after a while he agreed, though his promise was so vague and garnished with so many reservations that Dick was surprised when the bell rang and he opened the door to the big man, who walked wearily into the study and dropped into the first comfortable chair.
“Got the warrant for that raid tonight,” he said. “We operate at ten o’clock.”
“You told the Chief Constable of Sussex eleven-fifteen,” said Dick, in surprise.
Inspector Sneed sighed.
“I want to get it over before the local Sherlocks arrive,” he said. “Besides, somebody might tip off Stalletti. You never know. Trust nobody, Dick, not in our profession. I suppose you haven’t spilt this story to anybody?”
Dick hesitated.
“Yes, I’ve told a little to Mr. Havelock, and, of course, a lot to Miss Lansdown.”
Sneed groaned.
“Havelock’s all right, but the lady—oh, my heavens! Never trust a woman, my son. I thought that was the first article in a policeman’s creed. She’ll be having people in to tea and telling ’em all about it. I know women.”
“Have you told anybody?” demanded Dick.
Inspector Sneed’s smile was very superior.
“Nobody except the chief and my wife,” he said inconsistently. “A wife’s different. Besides, she’s got toothache and she hates opening her mouth anyway. A woman with toothache never betrays a confidence. Make a note of that when you write your book.”
It was the inspector’s belief that every police officer in the force was secretly engaged in preparing his reminiscences; a delusion of his which had its justification in a recently printed series of articles that had appeared in a Sunday newspaper.
“Now, what have you got to tell me?”
He listened with closed eyes whilst Martin told him of the afternoon spent at the Selford tombs. When he came to the part where the iron grille had been locked on the party, Sneed opened his eyes and sat up.
“Somebody else had a key,” he said unnecessarily. “Nothing in that vault, you say?”
“Nothing that I could see, except the stone casket,” said Dick.
“Humph!” He passed the palm of his hand round his big face rapidly. “Seven keys,” he mused. “Seven locks. Two you’ve got, five somebody else has got. Get the five—or, better still, blow in the door with dynamite.”
Dick took out his long cigarette holder and puffed a cloud of smoke to the ceiling.
“There seems hardly any excuse for that. I fiddled with one of the keyholes a little, and I can tell you it’s a lock that the best man in the world won’t be able to pick. Pheeney failed.”
Sneed jerked up his head.
“Pheeney! Good Lord! I’d forgotten him! Let me have a look at the key.”
Dick took it from his pocket and gave it to the stout man, who turned it over and over on the palm of his hand.
“I don’t know one like that,” he confessed. “Italian, you say? Well, possibly. You didn’t see the barebacked lad?”
“I caught a glimpse of him. He’s as quick and as slippery as an eel—poor devil!”
Inspector Sneed looked up sharply.
“You’re in my way of thinking, eh? That this is one of Stalletti’s experiments?”
He was very thoughtful and did not speak for a long time.
“The gas must have been there all the time. And, of course, they knew you were coming. And then, I have an idea, the presence of Havelock took them by surprise. It’s only an idea, and I don’t know why I think so.”
He rose with difficulty.
“Well,” he said, “we’ll see tonight. Have your car but don’t bring your gun, because you’re not supposed to be present, and I’d hate for there to be any unofficial shooting.”
XVI
At half past nine that night Dick Martin’s car pulled up by the side of the road half a mile short of Gallows Cottage, and, dimming his lights, he sat down to wait for the arrival of the police car. He heard the whir of it long before its bright headlamps came into sight, and, starting up his engine, he waited for it to fly past before he followed. The
