“It’s all very well,” I said, “but I don’t see how this is going to end. We can’t keep up the pace long. At this rate it will be only a matter of hours till they get me.”
We pretty well barricaded ourselves in the flat, and, at his earnest request, I restored to Chapman his revolver. Then I got the clue I had been longing for.
It was about eleven o’clock, while we were sitting smoking, when the telephone bell rang. It was Felix who spoke.
“I have news for you,” he said. “The hunters have met the hunted and one of the hunters is dead. The other is a prisoner in our hands. He has confessed.”
It had been black murder in intent. The frontier police had shadowed the two men into the cup of a glen where they met Tommy and Pitt-Heron. The four had spoken together for a little, and then Tuke had fired deliberately at Charles and had grazed his ear. Whereupon Tommy had charged him and knocked the pistol from his hand. The assailant had fled, but a long shot from the police on the hillside had toppled him over. Tommy had felled Saronov with his fists, and the man had abjectly surrendered. He had confessed, Felix said, but what the confession was he did not know.
VII
I Find Sanctuary
My nervousness and indecision dropped from me at the news. I had won the first round, and I would win the last, for it suddenly became clear to me that I had now evidence which would blast Lumley. I believed that it would not be hard to prove his identity with Pavia and his receipt of the telegram from Saronov; Tuke was his creature, and Tuke’s murderous mission was his doing. No doubt I knew little and could prove nothing about the big thing, the Powerhouse, but conspiracy to murder is not the lightest of criminal charges. I was beginning to see my way to checkmating my friend, at least so far as Pitt-Heron was concerned. Provided—and it was a pretty big proviso—that he gave me the chance to use my knowledge.
That I foresaw, was going to be the difficulty. What I knew now Lumley had known hours before. The reason of the affair at Antioch Street was now only too clear. If he believed that I had damning evidence against him—and there was no doubt he suspected it—then he would do his best to stop my mouth. I must get my statement lodged in the proper quarter at the earliest possible moment.
The next twenty-four hours, I feared, were going to be too sensational for comfort. And yet I cannot say that I was afraid. I was too full of pride to be in a funk. I had lost my awe of Lumley through scoring a point against him. Had I known more I should have been less at my ease. It was this confidence which prevented me doing the obvious safe thing—ringing up Macgillivray, telling him the gist of my story, and getting him to put me under police protection. I thought I was clever enough to see the thing through myself. And it must have been the same overconfidence which prevented Lumley getting at me that night. An organisation like his could easily have got into the flat and done for us both. I suppose the explanation is that he did not yet know how much I knew and was not yet ready to take the last steps in silencing me.
I sat up till the small hours, marshalling my evidence in a formal statement and making two copies of it. One was destined for Macgillivray and the other for Felix, for I was taking no risks. I went to bed and slept peacefully and was awakened as usual by Waters. My man slept out, and used to turn up in the morning about seven. It was all so normal and homely that I could have believed my adventures of the night before a dream. In the summer sunlight the ways of darkness seemed very distant. I dressed in excellent spirits and made a hearty breakfast.
Then I gave the docile Chapman his instructions. He must take the document to Scotland Yard, ask to see Macgillivray, and put it into his hands. Then he must ring me up at once at Down Street and tell me that he had done this. I had already telephoned to my clerk that I would not be at the Temple that day.
It seems a simple thing to travel less than a mile in the most frequented part of London in broad daylight, and perform an easy act like carrying a letter; but I knew that Lumley’s spies would be active, and would connect Chapman sufficiently with me to think him worth following. In that case there might be an attempt at violence. I thought it my duty to tell him this, but he laughed me to scorn. He proposed to walk, and he begged to be shown the man who would meddle with him. Chapman after last night was prepared to take on all comers. He put my letter to Macgillivray in his inner pocket, buttoned his coat, crushed down his felt hat on his head, and defiantly set forth.
I expected a message from him in half an hour, for he was a rapid walker. But the half hour passed, then the three-quarters, and nothing happened. At eleven I rang up Scotland Yard, but they had no news of him.
Then I became miserably anxious, for it was clear that some disaster had overtaken my messenger. My first impulse was to set out myself to look for him, but a moment’s reflection convinced me that that would be playing into the enemy’s hands. For an hour I wrestled with my impatience, and then a few minutes after twelve I was rung up by St. Thomas’s Hospital.
A young doctor spoke, and said that
