Still no sight of the man, and he turned through the gate and knocked at the door, which was almost immediately opened by the old gentleman himself. He wore a silken gown, tied with a sash about the middle, a picture of comfort, Michael thought.
“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Sampson Longvale, peering out into the darkness. “Why, bless my life, it’s Mr. Brixan, the officer of the law! Come in, come in, sir.”
He opened the door wide and Michael passed into the sitting-room, with its inevitable two candles, augmented now by a small silver reading-lamp that burnt some sort of petrol vapour.
“No trouble at the Towers, I trust?” said Mr. Longvale anxiously.
“There was a little trouble,” said Michael carefully. “Have you by any chance seen Sir Gregory Penne?”
The old man shook his head.
“I found the night rather too chilly for my usual garden ramble,” he said, “so I’ve seen none of the exciting events which seem inevitably to accompany the hours of darkness in these times. Has anything happened to him?”
“I hope not,” said Michael quietly. “I hope, for everybody’s sake, that—nothing has happened to him.”
He walked across and leant his elbows on the mantelpiece, looking up at the painting above his head.
“Do you admire my relative?” beamed Mr. Longvale.
“I don’t know that I admire him. He was certainly a wonderfully handsome old gentleman.”
Mr. Longvale inclined his head.
“You have read his memoirs?”
Michael nodded, and the old man did not seem in any way surprised.
“Yes, I have read what purport to be his memoirs,” said Michael quietly, “but latter-day opinion is that they are not authentic.”
Mr. Longvale shrugged his shoulders.
“Personally, I believe every word of them,” he said. “My uncle was a man of considerable education.”
It would have amazed Jack Knebworth to know that the man who had rushed hotfoot from the tower in search of a possible murderer, was at that moment calmly discussing biography; yet such was the incongruous, unbelievable fact.
“I sometimes feel that you think too much about your uncle, Mr. Longvale,” said Michael gently.
The old gentleman frowned.
“You mean—?”
“I mean that such a subject may become an obsession and a very unhealthy obsession, and such hero-worship may lead a man to do things which no sane man would do.”
Longvale looked at him in genuine astonishment.
“Can one do better than imitate the deeds of the great?” he asked.
“Not if your sense of values hasn’t got all tangled up, and you ascribe to him virtues which are not virtues—unless duty is a virtue—and confuse that which is great with that which is terrible.”
Michael turned and, resting his palms on the table, looked across to the old man who confronted him.
“I want you to come with me into Chichester this evening.”
“Why?” The question was asked bluntly.
“Because I think you’re a sick man, that you ought to have care.”
The old man laughed and drew himself even more erect.
“Sick? I was never better in my life, my dear sir, never fitter, never stronger!”
And he looked all that he said. His height, the breadth of his shoulders, the healthy glow of his cheeks, all spoke of physical fitness.
A long pause, and then:
“Where is Gregory Penne?” asked Michael, emphasizing every word.
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
The old man’s eyes met his without wavering.
“We were talking about my great-uncle. You know him, of course?” he asked.
“I knew him the first time I saw his picture, and I thought I had betrayed my knowledge, but apparently I did not. Your great-uncle”—Michael spoke deliberately—“was Sanson, otherwise Longval, hereditary executioner of France!”
Such a silence followed that the ticking of a distant clock sounded distinctly.
“Your uncle has many achievements to his credit. He hanged three men on a gallows sixty feet high, unless my memory is at fault. His hand struck off the head of Louis of France and his consort Marie Antoinette.”
The look of pride in the old man’s face was startling. His eyes kindled, he seemed to grow in height.
“By what fantastic freak of fate you come to have settled in England, what queer kink of mind decided you secretly to carry on the profession of Sanson and seek far and wide for poor, helpless wretches to destroy, I do not know.”
Michael did not raise his voice, he spoke in a calm, conversational tone; and in the same way did Longvale reply.
“Is it not better,” he said gently, “that a man should pass out of life through no act of his own, than that he should commit the unpardonable crime of self-murder? Have I not been a benefactor to men who dared not take their own lives?”
“To Lawley Foss?” suggested Michael, his grave eyes fixed on the other.
“He was a traitor, a vulgar blackmailer, a man who sought to use the knowledge which had accidentally come to him, to extract money from me.”
“Where is Gregory Penne?”
A slow smile dawned on the man’s face.
“You will not believe me? That is ungentle, sir! I have not seen Sir Gregory.”
Michael pointed to the hearth, where a cigarette was still smouldering.
“There is that,” he said. “There are his muddy footprints on the carpet of this room. There is the cry I heard. Where is he?”
Within reach of his hand was his heavy-calibred Browning. A move on the old man’s part, and he would lie maimed on the ground. Michael was dealing with a homicidal lunatic of the most dangerous type, and would not hesitate to shoot.
But the old man showed no sign of antagonism. His voice was gentleness itself. He seemed to feel and express a pride in crimes which, to his brain, were not crimes at all.
“If you really wish me to go into Chichester with you tonight,
