The door slammed on her and a key turned. She was in complete darkness, in a room she did not know. For one wild, terrified moment she wondered if she was alone.
It was a long time before her palm touched the little button projecting from the wall. She pressed it. A lamp enclosed in a crystal globe set in the ceiling flashed into sparkling light. She was in what had evidently been a small bedroom. The bedstead had been removed, but a mattress and a pillow were folded up in one corner. There was a window, heavily barred, but no other exit. She examined the door: the handle turned in her grasp; there was not even a keyhole in which she could try her own key.
Going to the window, she pulled up the sash, for the room was stuffy and airless. She found herself looking out from the back of the house, across the lawn to a belt of trees which she could just discern. The road ran parallel with the front of the house, and the shrillest scream would not be heard by anybody on the road.
Sitting down in one of the chairs, she considered her position. Having overcome her fear, she had that in her possession which would overcome Gregory if it came to a fight. Pulling up her skirt, she unbuckled the soft leather belt about her waist, and from the Russian leather holster it supported, she took a diminutive Browning—a toy of a weapon but wholly businesslike in action. Sliding back the jacket, she threw a cartridge into the chamber and pulled up the safety-catch; then she examined the magazine and pressed it back again.
“Now, Gregory,” she said aloud, and at that moment her face went round to the window, and she started up with a scream.
Two grimy hands gripped the bars; glaring in at her was the horrible face of a tramp. Her trembling hand shot out for the pistol, but before it could close on the butt, the face had disappeared; and though she went round to the window and looked out, the bars prevented her from getting a clear view of the parapet along which the uncouth figure was creeping.
XXXIII
The Trap That Failed
Ten o’clock was striking from Chichester cathedral when the tramp, who half an hour ago had been peering and prying into the secrets of Griff Towers, made his appearance in the marketplace. His clothes were even more dusty and soiled, and a policeman who saw him stood squarely in his path.
“On the road?” he asked.
“Yes,” whined the man.
“You can get out of Chichester as quick as you like,” said the officer. “Are you looking for a bed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you try the casual ward at the workhouse?”
“They’re full up, sir.”
“That’s a lie,” said the officer. “Now understand, if I see you again I’ll arrest you!”
Muttering something to himself, the squalid figure moved on toward the Arundel Road, his shoulders hunched, his hands hidden in the depths of his pockets.
Out of sight of the policeman, he turned abruptly to the right and accelerated his pace. He was making for Jack Knebworth’s house. The director heard the knock, opened the door and stood aghast at the unexpected character of the caller.
“What do you want, bo’?” he asked.
“Mr. Brixan come back?”
“No, he hasn’t come back. You’d better give me that letter. I’ll get in touch with him by phone.”
The tramp grinned and shook his head.
“No, you don’t. I want to see Brixan.”
“Well, you won’t see him here tonight,” said Jack. And then, suspiciously: “My idea is that you don’t want to see him at all, and that you’re hanging around for some other purpose.”
The tramp did not reply. He was whistling softly a distorted passage from the “Indian Love Lyrics,” and all the time his right foot was beating the time.
“He’s in a bad way, is old Brixan,” he said, and there was a certain amount of pleasure in his voice that annoyed Knebworth.
“What do you know about him?”
“I know he’s in bad with headquarters—that’s what I know,” said the tramp. “He couldn’t find where the letters went to: that’s the trouble with him. But I know.”
“Is that what you want to see him about?”
The man nodded vigorously.
“I know,” he said again. “I could tell him something if he was here, but he ain’t here.”
“If you know he isn’t here,” asked the exasperated Jack, “why in blazes do you come?”
“Because the police are chivvying me, that’s why. A copper down on the marketplace is going to pinch me next time he sees me. So I thought I’d come up to fill in the time, that’s what!”
Jack stared at him.
“You’ve got a nerve,” he said in awestricken tones. “And now you’ve filled in your time and I’ve entertained you, you can get! Do you want anything to eat?”
“Not me,” said the tramp. “I live on the fat of the land, I do!”
His shrill Cockney voice was getting on Jack’s nerves.
“Well, good night,” he said shortly, and closed the door on his unprepossessing visitor.
The tramp waited for quite a long time before he made any move. Then, from the interior of his cap, he took a cigarette and lit it before he shuffled back the way he had come, making a long detour to avoid the centre of the town, where the unfriendly policeman was on duty. A church clock was striking a quarter past ten when he reached the corner of the Arundel Road, and, throwing away his cigarette, moved into the shadow of the fence and waited.
Five minutes, ten minutes passed, and his keen eyes caught sight of a man walking rapidly the way he had come, and he grinned in the darkness. It was Knebworth. Jack had been perturbed by the visitor, and was on his way to the police station to make inquiries about Michael. This the tramp guessed, though
