“The position,” he began, in his old oracular manner, “is a little irregular. It is not customary for me to receive young ladies who fall into hysterics, and I confess that I was considerably alarmed—my dear wife is prostrate with anxiety. She said, and very rightly: ‘The position is a very awkward one for you, Bertram. Suppose this young lady suggests that you administered to her some noxious drug, and that you are detaining her against her will—although you and I are well aware that her illness was brought about by—um—natural causes, a censorious world may well look sceptically upon our explanation.’ ”
Sybil waited, knowing full well that, if Mrs. Cody had made any kind of speech, it would not have been in those terms.
“Therefore, it has occurred to me,” Mr. Cody went on, “that it would be an excellent idea if you of your own free will, made a statement to this effect, that I, Bertram Cody, Doctor of Literature and Law, have behaved with the greatest kindness and propriety, and that I placed you in this locked room only for one purpose—namely, to restrain you from doing a serious injury to yourself.”
She glanced at the paper on the table.
“I can hardly confess that I’m mad,” she said, with a half smile.
“I do not expect you to do that,” said Mr. Cody hastily. “That reference to your condition of mind does not appear in this document. It is merely a—um—certificate of my probity, very dear to me. A mere whim of mine, but I am a whimsical person.” He smiled broadly, picked up the pen, gave it to her.
“Can I read the document?” she asked.
“Is it necessary?” He was almost reproachful. “If you will sign this, I will see that you are conducted at once to your mother.”
“You told me my mother was on her way,” interrupted Sybil suspiciously.
“My idea,” the man went on, calmness itself, “was to meet her halfway. I have telephoned, asking her to stay at the Mitre Inn, Dorking.”
He handed the pen to the girl, and again she hesitated. The document was written on a quarto sheet and was closely typewritten. His large hand covered the paper, leaving her only the space to write. She was anxious to be gone, and, in her fear, clutched at any hope of freedom. The point of the pen had touched the paper when she saw a line visible through his extended fingers which arrested her movement.
‘Should the said Sybil Ellen Lansdown predecease the said Bertram Albert Cody …’
“What is this paper?” she asked.
“Sign it!” His voice was harsh, his manner changed as suddenly as a tropical sky.
“I shall not sign any document that I haven’t read,” she replied, and laid down the pen.
The smile left his face hard and menacing.
“You will sign that, or, by God, I’ll—”
He checked himself with an effort, and strove again to recover the appearance of geniality.
“My dear young lady,” he said, with a queer admixture of irritation and blandness, “why trouble your pretty little head about the wording of legal documents? I swear to you that this letter merely exculpates me from any—”
“I will not sign it,” she said.
“You won’t, eh?”
He gathered up the document and thrust it into his pocket. She shrank back as he advanced towards her. Suddenly she darted to the door and tried to pull it open. Before she could succeed, he had caught her by the waist and flung her back.
“You’ll wait here, my young lady, till you change your mind. You will wait without food. If I had my way, without sleep. I’ve given you a chance for your life, you poor fool, and you haven’t had the sense to grasp it. Now you can stay here until you recover your reason!”
In another second he had passed through the door, slamming it after him. She heard the bolts shot home with a sinking heart.
For a time she was too paralysed by her discovery to make any fresh attempt to escape. But after a while she took hold of herself and regained a little of her self-possession, though she so trembled that, when she stood upon the chair to try the skylight again, she could scarcely maintain her balance.
When she saw that escape by that way was impossible, she made preparations to keep the door against an intruder. She tried to pull the bed from the wall, but it was a heavy oaken affair and beyond her strength. A rickety washstand was the only prop she could find, and the back of this she wedged beneath the door handle and sat down to wait.
Hour followed hour, and there was no sound in the house, and at last, overcome by weariness, she lay down on the bed and, in spite of all her efforts to keep awake, was soon fast asleep.
She woke with a wildly beating heart and sat up. She had heard a sound in the passage outside; a shuffling, stealthy sound, which her guardian senses had heard in her deepest slumber. What was it? She listened, and for a long time there was nothing to break the silence. Then, from somewhere below, she heard a dull crash, as though something heavy had fallen. She listened, her hand on her heart, striving to check her racing pulse.
“Ow-w-w!”
She shuddered and almost fainted with horror. It was a squeal she heard, the squeal of a terror-stricken animal—another, deeper, guttural, horrible!
She listened at the door, her senses tense, and heard a faint, deep sobbing, then heard no more. Ten minutes passed, a quarter of an hour, and then there came to her ears the noise which had first aroused her—the shuffling of bare feet upon a hard, smooth surface. She had caught a glimpse of the
