But there it was in cold print, officially admitted, and communicated to the early morning press by the Government with unnatural haste.
Owing to the unusual importance of the prisoner, and the character of the offence alleged against her, extraordinary precautions were taken to guard her. The patrol which usually visits the ward in which her cell was situated, was doubled, and instead of hourly, half-hourly visits were paid by the officers on duty. It is not customary to look into every cell on these occasions, but at three o’clock this morning the wardress—Mrs. Hardy—looked through the observation hole and saw the prisoner was there. At six o’clock when the cell door was opened, Drummond was missing. The bars of the window were intact, and the door had not been tampered with.
A search of the prison grounds showed no trace of her footsteps, and it is almost impossible that she could have escaped over the wall. It is equally impossible that she could have left by the ordinary means, since it would have necessitated her passing through six separate doors, none of which had been forced, or through the gatekeeper’s lodge, which is occupied throughout the night.
This new proof of the Crimson Circle’s omnipotence and extraordinary powers is very disconcerting, coming, as it does, at a moment when the lives of Cabinet Ministers are threatened by this mysterious gang.
Yale glanced at the clock. It was half-past eleven. And then he looked at the newspaper and saw that his servant had brought him an early edition of one of the evening papers. He was out of bed in a second and, not waiting for breakfast, rushed off to headquarters, to find Inspector Parr in a very good humour, considering all the circumstances.
“But this is incredible, Parr, it is impossible! She must have friends in the prison!”
“That is my idea entirely,” said Parr. “I told the Commissioner in the identical words that she must have friends in the prison. Otherwise,” he said after a pause, “how did she get out?”
Yale looked at him suspiciously. It did not seem the moment or the occasion for flippant talk, and Inspector Parr’s tone was undoubtedly flippant.
XLI
Who Is the Crimson Circle?
Yale learnt no more details than those he had already read, and took a taxi to his city office, which he had not visited for two days.
The escape of Thalia Drummond was a much more important affair than Parr seemed to think. Parr! An awful thought occurred to Derrick Yale. John Parr! That stolid, stupid-looking man—it was impossible! He shook his head, yet put his mind resolutely to the task of piecing together every incident in which Inspector Parr had figured, and in the end:
“Impossible!” he muttered again, as he walked slowly up the stairs to his office, declining the invitation of the lift-boy.
The first thing he noticed when he unlocked the door was that the letter-box was empty. It was a very large letter-box, with a patent flap device, designed so that it was impossible for an outside pilferer to extract any of its contents. The wire cage reached almost to the floor, and letters that came through the slot in the door had to fall through revolving aluminium blades, which made the letter thief’s task a hopeless one. And the letter-box was empty! There was not so much as a tradesman’s circular.
He closed the door quietly and went into his own room. He took no more than a pace into the interior and then stopped. Every drawer in his desk was open. The little steel safe by the side of the fireplace, concealed from view by the wooden panelling, had been unlocked, and the door was now open. He looked under the desk. There was a tiny cupboard, which only an expert could have found, and here Derrick Yale had kept the more intimate documents connected with the Crimson Circle case.
He saw nothing but a broken panel and the mark of the chisel that had wrenched it free.
He sat for a long time in his chair, staring out of the window. There was no need to ask who was the artist. He could guess that. Nevertheless, he made a few perfunctory inquiries, and the lift boy supplied him with all the information he needed.
“Yes, sir, your secretary has been this morning, the pretty young lady. She came in soon after the offices were open. She was only here about an hour, and then she left.”
“Did she carry a bag?”
“Yes, sir. A little bag,” said the boy.
“Thank you,” said Derrick Yale, and went back to headquarters, to pour into the phlegmatic Mr. Parr’s ear a tale of rifled desk and stolen documents.
“Now, I’m going to tell you, Parr, what I have told nobody else, not even the Commissioner,” said Yale. “We think of the Crimson Circle organisation as being run by a man. I happen to know that this girl has met the man who initiated her into the mysteries of the gang, whatever they are. But I also know that, so far from being the master, this mysterious gentleman in the motorcar, takes his orders, as everybody else does, from the real centre of the organisation—which is Thalia Drummond!”
“Good Lord!” said the inspector.
“You wonder why I had her in my office? I told you it was because I thought she would bring us closer to the Circle. And I was right.”
“But why dismiss her?” asked the other quickly.
“Because she had done something which merited dismissal,” said Yale, “and if I had not fired her then and there, she would have known that I was keeping her in my office with an object. I might have saved myself the trouble, apparently,” he smiled, “because this morning’s work proves that she knew what my game was.” His thin, delicate face darkened,
