She looked suspiciously at the door which had suddenly opened in the panelling.
“No,” she said, “I’ll go home. Tomorrow will do. I’m sorry I got rough, Gregory, but you madden me sometimes.”
“Go in there!”
He pointed to the den, his face working.
“I’ll not!” Her face was white. “You beast, don’t you think I know? That is Bhag’s den! Oh, you beast!”
His face was horrible to see. It was as though all the foulness in his mind found expression in the demoniacal grimace.
Breathless, terrified, the girl stared at him, shrinking back against the wall. Presently Gregory mastered himself.
“Then go into the little drawing-room,” he said huskily.
Mike had time to switch out the lights and flatten himself against the wall, when the door of the room was flung open and the girl thrust in.
“It is dark!” she wailed.
“You’ll find the switches!”
The door banged.
Michael Brixan was in a dilemma. He could see her figure groping along the wall, and stealthily he moved to avoid her. In doing so he stumbled over a stool.
“Who’s there?” she screamed. “Gregory! Don’t let him touch me, Gregory!”
Again the piercing scream.
Mike leapt past her and through the open window, and, the sound of her shrill agony in his ears, fled along the hedge. Swift as he was, something sped more quickly in pursuit, a great, twittering something that ran bent double on hands and feet. The detective heard and guessed. From what secret hiding-place Bhag had appeared, whether he was in the grounds at the moment Mike jumped, he had no time even to guess. He felt a curious lightness of pocket at that moment and thrust in his hand. His pistol was gone. It must have fallen when he jumped.
He could hear the pad of feet behind him as he darted at a tangent across the field, blundering over the cabbage rows, slipping in furrows, the great beast growing closer and closer with every check. Ahead of him the postern. But it was locked, and, even if it had not been, the wall would have proved no obstacle to the ape. The barrier of the wall held Michael. Breathless, turning to face his pursuer, in the darkness he saw the green eyes shining like two evil stars.
XX
A Narrow Escape
Michael Brixan braced himself for the supreme and futile struggle. And then, to his amazement, the ape stopped, and his bird noise became a harsh chatter. Raising himself erect, he beat quickly on his great hairy chest, and the sound of the hollow drumming was awful.
Yet through that sound and above it, Michael heard a curious hiss—it was the faint note of escaping steam, and he looked round. On the top of the wall squatted a man, and Michael knew him at once. It was the brown-faced stranger he had seen that day in Chichester.
The drumming and the hissing grew louder and then Michael saw a bright, curved thing in the brown man’s hand. It was a sword, the replica of that which hung above Sir Gregory’s fireplace.
He was still wondering when the brown man dropped lightly to the ground, and Bhag, with a squeal that was almost human, turned and fled. Michael watched the Thing, fascinated, until it disappeared into the darkness.
“My friend,” said Michael in Dutch, “you came at a good moment.”
He turned, but the brown man had vanished as though the earth had swallowed him. Shading his eyes against the starlight, he presently discerned a dark shape moving swiftly in the shadow of the wall. For a second he was inclined to follow and question the brown man, but decided upon another course. With some difficulty he surmounted the wall and dropped to the other side. Then, tidying himself as well as he could, he made the long circuit to the gate of Griff Towers, and boldly walked up to the house, whistling as he went.
There was nobody in sight as he crossed the “parade ground,” and his first step was to search for and find his pistol.
He must know that the girl was safe before he left the place. He had seen her car waiting on the road outside. His hand was raised to the bell when he heard footsteps in the hall, and listened intently: there was no doubt that one of the voices was Stella Mendoza’s, and he drew back again to cover.
The girl came out, followed by Sir Gregory, and from their tone, a stranger unacquainted with the circumstances of their meeting might have imagined that the visit had been a very ordinary one, in spite of the lateness of the hour.
“Good night, Sir Gregory,” said the girl, almost sweetly. “I will see you tomorrow.”
“Come to lunch,” said Gregory’s voice, “and bring your friend. Shall I walk with you to the car?”
“No, thank you,” she said hastily.
Michael watched her till she was out of sight, but long before then the big door of Griff Towers had closed, and the familiar rattle of chains told him that it was closed finally.
Where was Foss? He must have gone earlier, if Foss it was. Michael waited till all was quiet, and then, tiptoeing across the gravel, followed the girl. He looked about for the little brown man, but he was not in sight. And then he remembered that he had left the hook ladder hanging to the window on the stairs, and went back to retrieve it. He found the ladder as it had been left, unscrewed and packed it in the canvas bag, and five minutes later he was taking his motorcycle from its place of concealment.
A yellow light showed in the window of Mr. Longvale’s dining-room, and Michael had half a mind to call upon him. He could tell him, at any rate, something of that oval-faced girl in the upper room of the tower. Instead, he decided to go home. He was tired with the night’s work, a little disappointed. The tower had not revealed as tremendous a secret
