“Here,” said Murgatroyd, “wake up. Sir Jasper’s calling you.”
“Calling me what?” asked Wilfred, coming to himself with a start.
“Calling you very loud,” growled the butler.
It was indeed so. From the upper regions of the house there was proceeding a series of sharp yelps, evidently those of a man in mortal stress. Wilfred was reluctant to interfere in any way if, as seemed probable, his employer was dying in agony; but he was a conscientious man, and it was his duty, while in this sinister house, to perform the work for which he was paid. He hurried up the stairs; and, entering Sir Jasper’s bedroom, perceived the baronet’s crimson face protruding from the top of the indoor Turkish Bath.
“So you’ve come at last!” cried Sir Jasper. “Look here, when you put me into this infernal contrivance just now, what did you do to the dashed thing?”
“Nothing beyond what was indicated in the printed pamphlet accompanying the machine, Sir Jasper. Following the instructions, I slid Rod A into Groove B, fastening with Catch C—”
“Well, you must have made a mess of it, somehow. The thing’s stuck. I can’t get out.”
“You can’t?” cried Wilfred.
“No. And the bally apparatus is getting considerably hotter than the hinges of the Inferno.” I must apologize for Sir Jasper’s language, but you know what baronets are. “I’m being cooked to a crisp.”
A sudden flash of light seemed to blaze upon Wilfred Mulliner.
“I will release you, Sir Jasper—”
“Well, hurry up, then.”
“On one condition.” Wilfred fixed him with a piercing gaze. “First, I must have the key.”
“There isn’t a key, you idiot. It doesn’t lock. It just clicks when you slide Gadget D into Thingummybob E.”
“The key I require is that of the room in which you are holding Angela Purdue a prisoner.”
“What the devil do you mean? Ouch!”
“I will tell you what I mean, Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere. I am Wilfred Mulliner!”
“Don’t be an ass. Wilfred Mulliner has black hair. Yours is red. You must be thinking of someone else.”
“This is a wig,” said Wilfred. “By Clarkson.” He shook a menacing finger at the baronet. “You little thought, Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere, when you embarked on this dastardly scheme, that Wilfred Mulliner was watching your every move. I guessed your plans from the start. And now is the moment when I checkmate them. Give me that key, you Fiend.”
“ffiend,” corrected Sir Jasper, automatically.
“I am going to release my darling, to take her away from this dreadful house, to marry her by special licence as soon as it can legally be done.”
In spite of his sufferings, a ghastly laugh escaped Sir Jasper’s lips.
“You are, are you?”
“I am.”
“Yes, you are!”
“Give me the key.”
“I haven’t got it, you chump. It’s in the door.”
“Ha, ha!”
“It’s no good saying ‘Ha, ha!’ It is in the door. On Angela’s side of the door.”
“A likely story! But I cannot stay here wasting time. If you will not give me the key, I shall go up and break in the door.”
“Do!” Once more the baronet laughed like a tortured soul. “And see what she’ll say.”
Wilfred could make nothing of this last remark. He could, he thought, imagine very clearly what Angela would say. He could picture her sobbing on his chest, murmuring that she knew he would come, that she had never doubted him for an instant. He leapt for the door.
“Here! Hi! Aren’t you going to let me out?”
“Presently,” said Wilfred. “Keep cool.” He raced up the stairs.
“Angela,” he cried, pressing his lips against the panel. “Angela!”
“Who’s that?” answered a well-remembered voice from within.
“It is I—Wilfred. I am going to burst open the door. Stand clear of the gates.”
He drew back a few paces, and hurled himself at the woodwork. There was a grinding crash, as the lock gave. And Wilfred, staggering on, found himself in a room so dark that he could see nothing.
“Angela, where are you?”
“I’m here. And I’d like to know why you are, after that letter I wrote you. Some men,” continued the strangely cold voice, “do not seem to know how to take a hint.”
Wilfred staggered, and would have fallen had he not clutched at his forehead.
“That letter?” he stammered. “You surely didn’t mean what you wrote in that letter?”
“I meant every word and I wish I had put in more.”
“But—but—but—But don’t you love me, Angela?”
A hard, mocking laugh rang through the room.
“Love you? Love the man who recommended me to try Mulliner’s Raven Gipsy Face-Cream!”
“What do you mean?”
“I will tell you what I mean. Wilfred Mulliner, look on your handiwork!”
The room became suddenly flooded with light. And there, standing with her hand on the switch, stood Angela—a queenly, lovely figure, in whose radiant beauty the sternest critic would have noted but one flaw—the fact that she was piebald.
Wilfred gazed at her with adoring eyes. Her face was partly brown and partly white, and on her snowy neck were patches of sepia that looked like the thumbprints you find on the pages of books in the Free Library: but he thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He longed to fold her in his arms: and but for the fact that her eyes told him that she would undoubtedly land an uppercut on him if he tried it he would have done so.
“Yes,” she went on, “this is what you have made of me, Wilfred Mulliner—you and that awful stuff you call the Raven Gipsy Face-Cream. This is the skin you loved to touch! I took your advice and bought one of the large jars at seven and six, and see the result! Barely twenty-four hours after the first application, I could have walked into any circus and named my own terms as the Spotted Princess of the Fiji Islands. I fled here to my childhood home, to hide myself. And the first thing that happened”—her voice broke—“was that my favourite hunter shied at me and tried to bite pieces out of his manger: while Ponto, my
