She doubted if she had the nerve to hold her emotions and her fears in control to that extent, but even while she reflected she was fingering one of the dresses on the bed. And scarcely conscious of what she was doing she changed and wandered out down the old oaken staircase.
An uneasy feeling that hidden eyes were watching her every movement possessed her, but that she put down to her shaken nerves. A gloomy quiet brooded over the house. Once she gently opened one of the massive doors and peeped into a sombre panelled room furnished as a study. A dog growled and she had a glimpse of a big Alsatian wolfhound rising menacingly from the hearth. She hurriedly closed the door. Apart from that she heard no sound of life about the place.
Avoiding the morning-room which she had seen Hughes enter on their arrival, she strolled with an appearance of nonchalance that cost her an effort to maintain into the grounds. They had a derelict and unkempt appearance. Indeed, viewed from the outside the whole house and its domain afforded a singular contrast from the well-kept if gloomy interior.
Ragged and untrimmed shrubs, overgrown flowerbeds, lank grass and ill-kept gravel paths all told of neglect that, she noted, must have been deliberately intended to convey an impression to any visitor straying in the vicinity. The tall weather-beaten concrete wall, however, showed no sign of deterioration. She followed it round till she came to the wrought iron gates of the drive. They were closed and a steel chain secured by an efficient modern padlock held them.
Penelope glanced around. Then she shook the gates. They were immovable. A wild notion had come to her and she thoughtfully examined the spikes on the top. They were not so formidable. An active person with a little care might scale the gates without injury.
She set a foot on one of the twirls of the iron and gripping the bars pulled herself up. Her hand had reached the topmost spikes and she was seeking farther foothold when she heard a discreet cough. Tom, the valet, who had accompanied Hughes, was standing a few yards back chewing a straw and regarding her speculatively. With as much dignity as she could muster she lowered herself to the grounds.
“I shouldn’t try that again if I were you, miss,” he said respectfully. “You might hurt yourself. Besides, all those things are wired to alarms in the house.”
The girl stooped to brush herself. When she arose she flashed an ingenuous smile towards the man.
“I just wanted a look round,” she explained, “I wasn’t trying to run away. I want to know where I am.”
Tom shifted his straw to another angle, and before answering flung it to the ground. “There’s miles of marshes round this place, miss. Acres and acres with big dykes crisscrossing them and no roads to speak of. I’d be afraid of trying to cross a maze like that.”
“But, Tom—your name is Tom, isn’t it?—I can feel the sea.”
“Yes, miss. The sea’s away about a mile over there.” He waved an arm vaguely to the right. “Difficult to get to and a lonely waste of shingle if you do.”
“I see. Then if there’s no chance of my getting away why are you watching me?”
The glimmer of an appreciative smile showed on the immobile face of the valet. “I’m not exactly spying on you, miss. Mr. Hughes was afraid that as you didn’t know the district you might get into trouble—fall into one of the dykes perhaps. So one of us will be always keeping an eye on you.”
She bit her lip. “Very considerate of Mr. Hughes. Do you suppose he means to starve me as well as keep me a prisoner?”
“I was to tell you, miss, that Mr. Hughes is waiting for you in the dining-room.”
It would be doing an injustice to the imperturbability of the well-trained Tom, to suggest that he had shown in any manner that he was prepared for certain contingencies. But Penelope was not lacking in observation and reason. These qualities were perhaps sharpened by the emergency with which she was faced. It had not escaped her that the well-fitting jacket of the valet sagged a little on the right hand side as though something heavy reposed in his pocket.
She moved closer to him. “You might as well show me the way,” she said and fell into step by his right hand.
They had not moved a couple of yards when she acted. Before he could be aware of her purpose her hand had dropped swiftly to his pocket and had closed over the butt of a small automatic pistol. Her surmise had been right.
He sprang silently towards her but recoiled as he heard the click of the safety catch and the blue barrel was thrust into his face.
“Now then. Open that gate,” she demanded.
“I haven’t got the key,” he declared, his eyes searching her face for the slightest sign of hesitation, of distraction. Give him one fraction of a second start, he told himself, and he would have that gun away from her.
But Penelope was keyed for anything. “If you don’t open that gate in ten seconds,” she said, with some surprise at the steadiness of her own voice, “I shall shoot.”
Sullenly he began to search his pockets. “One,” she counted, “two—three—four—five—six—seven—”
A key rattled on the ground in front of her. She made no move to touch it. His intention was evident to her. “Pick that up,” she ordered, “and open the gate. Quick. Eight—nine.”
His face still a mask he reluctantly obeyed. Tense she waited for the faintest suspicious movement. The key slipped into the lock.
A hand stole from behind her and struck her wrist a sharp blow. The pistol dropped from her grip. The soft voice of Larry Hughes was in her ears as she saw him
