“It’s your fate that is sealed,” she declared confidently. “Mr. French knows all about you. You’ve been warning me, now I’ll warn you. If anything happens to me, you’ll hang! That’s the way things are, Mr. Style. Mr. French knows all about Thurza Darke and he’s taken precautions to prevent you repeating that. There’s my warning to you.”
Brave words, and yet Molly had scarcely spoken them before she felt sick with terror. It was a ghastly mistake to have said that about Thurza Darke! If they believed it, it would remove her, Molly’s, chief safeguard. If they thought the murder of Thurza could be brought home to them it would not save them to spare Molly. The penalty was the same for one murder as for two.
But this point of view did not seem to strike Style. He shook his head regretfully.
“Very well, fool,” he snarled. “If you want to commit suicide, you can,” and turning on his heel, he strode out, slamming and locking the door.
In spite of her almost frantic state of mind Molly felt a good deal better when she had finished the plate of cold roast beef and the bottle of cider which she found on the tray. If she could but get the news of her whereabouts through to French she would be almost happy. Oh, to know that he was on the way to her help! Was there nothing that she could do?
Once again she lay down on the bed while she racked her brains over the problem. Was there nothing that she could do?
For an hour and more she tossed, then once again she heard footsteps and the door was unlocked. This time it was Gwen Lestrange. She carried a pair of sheets, a can of hot water, soap and other toilet requisites.
“Here you are, you little fool,” she said contemptuously as she dumped her burden on the floor. “You don’t deserve these, but we are not so bad as you imagine. But I warn you that unless you do as we want you’ll not need them by tomorrow night.”
She did not wait for a reply, but went out quickly, locking the door after her.
Though Gwen’s manner was so ungracious, the articles she had brought made a deal of difference to Molly. After a wash and brush up she felt so much happier than when a little later she spread the sheets on her bed and turned in, she found herself actually comfortable. Then her anxiety and fatigues brought their own recompense and she slept dreamlessly. Indeed, when she woke it was broad daylight.
About Gwen brought her some breakfast and then began another weary and interminable day. She would not have believed had someone told her previously how slowly time could pass. Hour after hour she lay on her bed racking her brains over the problem of escape. Tales she had read of imprisoned heroines recurred to her, but in all of them some valiant young man had invariably appeared in the nick of time and had carried out the rescue. But in her case there was no such hero. She had herself to depend on and no one else in the world.
Except French. Again and again she pictured French following along that endless road from London. Momentarily she expected to hear the tumult of his arrival. But still the interminable silence remained unbroken.
Suddenly an idea flashed into her mind and she lay still, wondering whether there could be anything in it. The more she thought, the less sanguine she grew. However, it was better than nothing. A forlorn hope, but still a hope.
Again eagerly listening, she once more built her tower on the bed. Once more she climbed to the skylight. From her pocket she produced a penny. Could she turn the screw with it?
Alas, no! The edge was too wide to enter the slot. One encouraging fact, however, she noticed which she had missed before. The wood round the screw was decayed. If only she could get something to fit the slot she felt sure the screw would not be hard to turn.
Twenty minutes’ wrestling with the problem brought her another gleam of hope. Going to the fireplace, she knelt down and began rubbing the edge of the penny on the hearthstone. And then hope changed once more to eagerness. The penny was deeply scratched. With perseverance she was sure she could rub its edge thin enough.
But she had not counted on the labour involved. She rubbed till her whole body ached before she succeeded. And then it was only to find that owing to the curve of the penny’s edge it rose out of the slot when she tried to turn it.
This problem, however, was easier. Another exhausting period of rubbing on the hearthstone and she had ground a flat place on the disc, long enough to meet her purpose.
Few would blame her that she shed a few tears when, after all her weary work, she found she was still no nearer her goal. She could not turn the screw. But once more she pulled herself together. She had gone so far she would not be beaten. And very little further thought gave her the solution.
While she was considering some better way of gripping her penny, her eyes fell on the tongs. They were old-fashioned with a hinge and flat meeting faces, not the more modern spring kind with claw ends. It was the work of a few seconds to grip the penny in the tongs and try again.
But even yet she was not through. She found she could not hold the tongs tightly enough to prevent them opening. But she would not be beaten. Looking round in desperation her eye fell on the broken leg of the bedstead. In a moment she was kneeling on the floor unwinding the cord which held it in place. Another few seconds and the legs of the tongs were tied tightly on
