How had Adele got into the cave? He was not long before he found the slide down which she had tumbled.
“Another mystery is explained,” he said. “Griff Tower was obviously built by the Romans to prevent cattle and men from falling through into the cave. Incidentally, it has served as an excellent ventilator, and I have no doubt the old man had this way prepared, both as a hiding-place for the people he had killed and as a way of escape.”
He saw a candle-lantern and matches that the girl had missed, and this he regarded as conclusive proof that his view was right.
They came back to the guillotine with its ghastly burden, and Michael stood in silence for a long time, looking at the still figure stretched on the platform, its hands still clutching the sides.
“How did he persuade these people to come to their death?” asked the inspector in a voice little above a whisper.
“That is a question for the psychologist,” said Michael at last. “There is no doubt that he got into touch with many men who were contemplating suicide but shrank from the act, and performed this service for them. I should imagine his practice of leaving around their heads for identification arose out of some poor wretch’s desire that his wife and family should secure his insurance.
“He worked with extraordinary cunning. The letters, as you know, went to a house of call and were collected by an old woman, who posted them to a second address, whence they were put in prepared envelopes and posted, ostensibly to London. I discovered that the envelopes were kept in a specially lightproof box, and that the unknown advertiser had stipulated that they should not be taken out of that box until they were ready for posting. An hour after those letters were put in the mail the address faded and became invisible, and another appeared.”
“Vanishing ink?”
Mike nodded.
“It is a trick that criminals frequently employ. The new address, of course, was Dower House. Put out the lights and let us go up.”
Three lamps were extinguished, and the detective looked round fearfully at the shadows.
“I think we’ll leave this down here,” he said.
“I think we will,” said Michael, in complete agreement.
XLII
Camera!
Three months had passed since the Dower House had yielded up its grisly secrets. A long enough time for Gregory Penne to recover completely and to have served one of the six months’ imprisonment to which he was sentenced on a technical charge. The guillotine had been re-erected in a certain Black Museum on the Thames Embankment, where young policemen come to look upon the equipment of criminality. People had ceased to talk about the Headhunter.
It seemed a million years ago to Michael as he sat, perched on a table, watching Jack Knebworth, in the last stages of despair, directing a ruffled Reggie Connolly in the business of lovemaking. Near by stood Adele Leamington, a star by virtue of the success that had attended a certain trade show.
Out of range of the camera, a cigarette between her fingers, Stella Mendoza, gorgeously attired, watched her some time friend and prospective leading man with good-natured contempt.
“There’s nobody can tell me, Mr. Knebworth,” said Reggie testily, “how to hold a girl! Good gracious, heavens alive, have I been asleep all my life? Don’t you think I know as much about girls as you, Mr. Knebworth?”
“I don’t care a darn how you hold your girl,” howled Jack. “I’m telling you how to hold my girl! There’s only one way of making love, and that’s my way. I’ve got the patent rights! Your arm round her waist again, Connolly. Hold your head up, will you? Now turn it this way. Now drop your chin a little. Smile, darn you, smile! Not a prop smile!” he shrieked. “Smile as if you liked her. Try to imagine that she loves you! I’ll apologize to you, afterwards, Adele, but try to imagine it, Connolly. That’s better. You look as if you’d swallowed a liqueur of broken glass! Look down into her eyes—look, I said, not glare! That’s better. Now do that again—”
He watched, writhing, gesticulating, and at last, in cold resignation:
“Rotten, but it’ll have to do. Lights!”
The big Kreisler lights flared, the banked mercury lamps burnt bluely, and the flood lamps became blank expanses of diffused light. Again the rehearsal went through, and then:
“Camera!” wailed Jack, and the handle began to turn.
“That’s all for you today, Connolly,” said Jack. “Now, Miss Mendoza—”
Adele came across to where Michael was sitting and jumped up on to the table beside him.
“Mr. Knebworth is quite right,” she said, shaking her head. “Reggie Connolly doesn’t know how to make love.”
“Who does?” demanded Michael. “Except the right man?”
“He’s supposed to be the right man,” she insisted. “And, what’s more, he’s supposed to be the best lover on the English screen.”
“Ha ha!” said Michael sardonically.
She was silent for a time, and then:
“Why are you still here? I thought your work was finished in this part of the world.”
“Not all,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve still an arrest to make.”
She looked up at him quickly.
“Another?” she said. “I thought, when you took poor Sir Gregory—”
“Poor Sir Gregory!” he scoffed. “He ought to be a very happy man. Six months’ hard labour was just what he wanted, and he was lucky to be charged, not with the killing of his unfortunate servant but with the concealment of his death.”
“Whom are you arresting now?”
“I’m not so sure,” said Michael, “whether I shall arrest her.”
“Is it a woman?”
He nodded.
“What has she done?”
“The charge isn’t definitely settled,” he said evasively, “but I think there will be several counts. Creating a disturbance will be one; deliberately endangering public health—at any rate, the health of one of the public—will be another; maliciously wounding the feelings—”
“Oh, you, you
