A quiet German voice spoke out of the brightness, cold, and inexplicably horrible in its tonelessness.
“I have covered the girl with red hair with my revolver; my assistant has the woman on the left as his aim. If there is any movement from anybody other than those I shall command, we shall both fire. Put your hands over your heads. Everybody! … So.”
XXI
The Point of View of Benjamin Dawlish
It was all over very quickly.
There was no way of telling if the cold merciless voice behind the blinding lights was speaking truth or no, but in the circumstances it was impossible not to regard it.
The little party stood there, hands raised above their heads; then hurrying footsteps echoed down the stone corridor behind them and their erstwhile prisoners surrounded them.
The German had lied when he spoke of his assistant, then. The man must have slipped into the house by the other door and released the men in the brewhouse.
“You will now go up to a room on the top floor to which my men will lead you. Anyone who makes the least attempt to escape will be shot instantly. By ‘shot’ I mean shot dead.”
The voice of Benjamin Dawlish came clearly to them from behind the wall of light. The icy tonelessness which had made the voice so terrible on the first hearing was still there and Abbershaw had a vision of the expressionless face behind it, heavy and without life, like a mask.
The spirit of the little group was momentarily broken. They had made their attempt and failed in the very moment when their success seemed assured.
Again unarmed, they were forced back into the house and placed in a room on the top floor at the far end of the long gallery where Albert Campion had had his fight with the butler. It was a long narrow room, oak-panelled, but without a fireplace, and lighted only from a single narrow iron-barred window.
Even as Abbershaw entered it, a feeling of misgiving overcame him. Other rooms had possibilities of escape; this held none.
It was completely empty, and the door was of treble oak, iron-studded. It had doubtless been used at one time as a private chapel, possibly in those times when it was wisest to hold certain religious ceremonies behind barred doors.
The only light came from a hurricane lantern which one of the men had brought up with him. He set it on the floor now so that the room was striped with grotesque shadows. The prisoners were herded down to the end of the room, two men keeping them covered the whole time.
Martin Watt set Prenderby down in a corner, and Jeanne, still crying quietly, squatted down beside him and took his head in her lap.
Abbershaw darted forward towards their captors.
“This is absurd,” he said bitterly. “Either let us interview Mr. Dawlish downstairs or let him come up to us. It’s most important that we should come to a proper understanding at last.”
One of the men laughed.
“I’m afraid you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in a curiously cultured voice. “As a matter of fact I believe Mr. Dawlish is coming up to talk to you in a moment or so. But I’m afraid you’ve got a rather absurd view of the situation altogether. You don’t seem to realize the peculiar powers of our chief.”
Wyatt leaned against the oak panelling, his arms folded and his chin upon his breast. Ever since the incident in the brewhouse he had been peculiarly morose and silent. Mr. Campion also was unusually quiet, and there was an expression on his face that betrayed his anxiety. Meggie and Anne stood together. They were obviously very frightened, but they did not speak or move. Chris Kennedy fumed with impotent rage, and Martin Watt was inclined to be argumentative.
“I don’t know what the damn silly game is,” he said, “but whatever it is it’s time we stopped playing. Your confounded ‘Chief’ may be the great Pooh-Bah himself for all I care, but if he thinks he can imprison nine respectable citizens for an indefinite period on the coast of Suffolk without getting himself into serious trouble he’s barmy, that’s all there is to it. What’s going to happen when inquiries start being made?”
The man who had spoken before did not answer, but he smiled, and there was something very unpleasant and terrifying about that smile.
Further remarks from Martin were cut short by steps in the corridor outside and the sudden appearance of Mr. Benjamin Dawlish himself, followed by Gideon, pale and stiff from his adventure, but smiling sardonically, his round eyes veiled, and his wicked mouth drawn all over to one side in the “O” which so irritated Abbershaw.
“Now look here, sir.” It was Martin Watt who spoke. “It’s time you had a straight talk with us. You may be a criminal, but you’re behaving like a lunatic, and—”
“Stop that, young man.”
Dawlish’s deep unemotional voice sounded heavily in the big room, and instantly the boy found that he had the muzzle of a revolver pressed against his ribs.
“Shut up,” a voice murmured in his ear, “or you’ll be plugged as sure as hell.”
Martin relapsed into helpless silence, and the German continued. He was still unblinking and expressionless, his heavy red face deeply shadowed in the fantastic light. He looked at them steadily from one to the other as if he had been considering them individually, but there was no indication from his face or his manner to betray anything of his conclusions.
“So,” he said, “when I look at you I see how young you all are, and it does not surprise me any longer that you should be so foolish. You are ignorant, that is why you are so absurd.”
“If you’ve come here to be funny—” Martin burst out, but the gun against his ribs silenced him, and the German went on speaking in his inflexible voice as if there had been no interruption.
“Before I explain to
