From the cupboard came a long coil of rope, one end of which was threaded through the pulley and fastened dexterously under the detective’s armpits. Stooping, Longvale lifted the carpet and rolled it up, and then Michael saw that there was a small trap-door, which he raised and laid back. Below he could see nothing, but there came to him the sound of a man’s groaning.
“Now I think we can dispense with that, sir,” said Mr. Longvale, and untied the serviette that covered the detective’s mouth.
This done, he pulled on the rope, seemingly without an effort, and Michael swung in midair. It was uncomfortable; he had an absurd notion that he looked a little ridiculous. The old man guided his feet through the opening and gradually paid out the rope.
“Will you be good enough to tell me when you touch ground,” he asked, “and I will come down to you?”
Looking up, Michael saw the square in the floor grow smaller and smaller, and for an unconscionable time he swung and swayed and turned in midair. He thought he was not moving, and then, without warning, his feet touched ground and he called out.
“Are you all right?” said Mr. Longvale pleasantly. “Do you mind stepping a few paces on one side? I am dropping the rope, and it may hurt you.”
Michael gasped, but carried out instructions, and presently he heard the swish of the falling line and the smack of it as it struck the ground. Then the trap-door closed, and there was no other sound but the groaning near at hand.
“Is that you, Penne?”
“Who is it?” asked the other in a frightened voice. “Is it you, Brixan? Where are we? What has happened? How did I get here? That old devil gave me a drink. I ran out—and that’s all I remember. I went to borrow his car. My God, I’m scared! The magneto of mine went wrong.”
“Did you shout when you ran from the house?”
“I think I did. I felt this infernal poison taking effect and dashed out—I don’t remember. Where are you, Brixan? The police will get us out of this, won’t they?”
“Alive, I hope,” said Michael grimly, and he heard the man’s frightened sob, and was sorry he had spoken.
“What is he? Who is he? Are these the caves? I’ve heard about them. It smells horribly earthy, doesn’t it? Can you see anything?”
“I thought I saw a light just then,” said Michael, “but my eyes are playing tricks.” And then: “Where is Adele Leamington?”
“God knows,” said the other. He was shivering, and Michael heard the sound of his chattering teeth. “I never saw her again. I was afraid Bhag would go after her. But he wouldn’t hurt her—he is a queer devil. I wish he was here now.”
“I wish somebody was here,” said Michael sincerely.
He was trying to work his wrists loose of the handcuffs, though he knew that barehanded he stood very little chance against the old man. He had lost his pistol, and although, in the inside of his waistcoat, there remained intact the long, razor-sharp knife that had cleared him out of many a Continental scrape, the one infallible weapon when firearms failed, he knew that he would have no opportunity for its employment.
Sitting down, he tried to perform a trick that he had seen on a stage in Berlin—the trick of bringing his legs through his manacled hands and so getting his hands in front of him, but he struggled without avail. There came the sound of a door opening, and Mr. Longvale’s voice.
“I won’t keep you a moment,” he said. He carried a lantern in his hand that swung as he walked, and seemed to intensify the gloom. “I don’t like my patients to catch cold.”
His laughter came echoing back from the vaulted roof of the cave, intensified hideously. Stopping, he struck a match and a brilliant light appeared. It was a vapour lamp fixed on a shelf of rock. Presently he lit another, and then a third and a fourth, and, in the white, unwinking light, every object in the cave stood out with startling distinctness. Michael saw the scarlet thing that stood in the cave’s centre, and, hardened as he was, and prepared for that fearsome sight, he shuddered.
It was a guillotine!
XL
“The Widow”
A guillotine!
Standing in the middle of the cave, its high framework lifted starkly. It was painted blood-red, and its very simplicity had a horror of its own.
Michael looked, fascinated. The basket, the bright, triangular knife suspended at the top of the frame, the tilted platform with its dangling straps, the black-painted lunette shaped to receive the head of the victim and hold it in position till the knife fell in its oiled groove. He knew the machine bolt by bolt, had seen it in operation on grey mornings before French prisons, with soldiers holding back the crowd, and a little group of officials in the centre of the cleared space. He knew the sound of it, the clop! as it fell, sweeping to eternity the man beneath.
“ ‘The Widow’!” said Longvale humorously. He touched the frame lovingly.
“Oh God, I’m not fit to die!” It was Penne’s agonized wail that went echoing through the hollow spaces of the cavern.
“The Widow,” murmured the old man again.
He was without a hat; his bald head shone in the light, yet there was nothing ludicrous in his appearance. His attitude toward this thing he loved was in a sense pathetic.
“Who shall be her first bridegroom?”
“Not me, not me!” squealed Penne, wriggling back against the wall, his face ashen, his mouth working convulsively. “I’m not fit to die—”
Longvale walked slowly over to him, stooped and raised him to his feet.
“Courage!” he murmured. “It is the hour!”
Jack Knebworth was pacing the road when the police car came flying back from Chichester.
“He’s not there, hasn’t been to the station at all,” said the driver
