The front door was not bolted, and for a moment or two we stood listening in the tiny hall. The silence was absolute, and a light from a lamp outside shining through a window showed us the stairs.
“His rooms are on the first floor,” I whispered.
“Then let’s go and have a look at ’em,” answered Toby.
With the revolver in my hand I led the way. One or two stairs creaked loudly, and I heard Sinclair cursing under his breath at the noise. But no one appeared, and as we stood outside the door of Robin’s sitting-room and laboratory combined, the only sound was our own breathing.
“Come on, old man,” said Toby. “The longer we leave it the less we’ll like it. I’ll open the door, and you cover anyone inside with your gun.”
With a quick jerk he flung the door wide open, and we both stood there peering into the room. Darkness again and silence just like the rest of the house. But there was one thing different: a faint, rather bitter smell hung about in the air.
I groped for the switch and found it, and we stood blinking in the sudden light. Then we moved cautiously forward and began an examination.
In the centre of the room stood the desk, littered, as usual, with an untidy array of books and papers. The telephone stood on one corner of it, and I couldn’t help thinking of that sudden anguished cry for help that had been shouted down it less than a quarter of an hour before. If only it could speak and tell us what had happened!
“Good Lord! Look at that,” muttered Toby. “It’s blood, man: the place is running in blood.”
It was true. Papers were splashed with it, and a little trickle oozed sluggishly off the desk on to the carpet.
The curtains were drawn, and suddenly Toby picked up a book and hurled it at them.
“One of Drummond’s little tricks,” he remarked. “If there’s anyone behind you can spot it at once, and with luck you may hit him in the pit of the stomach.”
But there was no one there: there was no one in the room at all.
“Where’s that door lead to?” he asked.
“Gaunt’s bedroom,” I answered, and we repeated the performance.
We looked under the bed, and in the cupboard: not a sign of anybody. The bed was turned down ready for the night, with his pyjamas laid in readiness, and in the basin stood a can of hot water covered with a towel. But of Robin or anyone else there was no trace.
“Damned funny,” said Toby, as we went back into the sitting-room.
“What’s that scratching noise?”
It came from behind the desk, and suddenly a little short-tailed, tawny-coloured animal appeared.
“Holy smoke!” cried Toby, “it’s a guinea-pig. And there’s another of ’em, Stockton: dead.”
Sure enough a little black one was lying rigid and stretched out close to the desk.
“Better not touch it,” I said warningly. “Leave everything as it is.”
And then a thought struck Toby.
“Look here, Stockton, he can’t have been whispering down the phone. Isn’t there anyone else in the house who would have heard him?”
“There is no other lodger,” I said. “His landlady is probably down below in the basement, but she’s stone deaf. She’s so deaf that Gaunt used generally to write things down for her in preference to talking.”
“I think we ought to see the old trout, don’t you?” he said, and I went over and rang the bell.
“She may or may not hear it,” I remarked, as we waited. “Incidentally, what on earth is this strange smell?”
Sinclair shook his head.
“Search me. Though from the look of those bottles and test-tubes and things I assume your pal was a chemist.”
A creaking on the stairs, accompanied by the sounds of heavy breathing, announced that the bell had been heard, and a moment later the landlady appeared. She stared at us suspiciously until she recognised me, which seemed to reassure her somewhat.
“Good evening,” I roared. “Have you seen Mr. Gaunt tonight?”
“I ain’t seen him since yesterday morning,” she announced. “But that ain’t nothing peculiar. Sometimes I don’t see ’im for a week at a time.”
“Has he been in the house here since dinner?” I went on.
“I dunno, sir,” she said. “He comes and he goes, does Mr. Gaunt, with ’is own key. And since ’e pays regular, I puts up with ’im in spite of all those ’orrors and chemicals and things. I even puts up with ’is dog, though it does go and cover all the chairs with white ’airs.”
“Dog,” said Toby thoughtfully. “He’d a dog, had he?”
“A wire-haired terrier called Joe,” I said. “Topping little beast.”
“Then I wonder where the dickens it is?” he remarked. “Good Lord! what’s all that?”
From the hall below came the sound of many footsteps, and the voice of our taxi-driver.
“This will give the old dame a fit,” said Toby with a grin. “I’d forgotten all about our instructions to that stouthearted Jehu.”
There were two policemen and the driver who came crowding into the room amidst the scandalised protests of the landlady.
“Five minutes was up, sir, so I did as you told me,” said the driver.
“Splendid fellow,” cried Toby. “It’s all right, constable: that revolver belongs to my friend.”
The policeman, who had picked it up suspiciously from the desk, transferred his attention to me.
“What’s all the trouble, sir?” he said. “Don’t be alarmed, mother: no one’s going to hurt you.”
“She’s deaf,” I told him, and he bellowed in her ear to reassure her.
And then, briefly, I told the two constables exactly what had happened. I told them what I knew of Gaunt’s intentions after he had left me, of the cry for help over the telephone, and of our subsequent movements. The only thing I did not feel it incumbent on me to mention was the object of his meeting with the Australian. I felt that their stolid brains would hardly appreciate the matter, so I left it at business.
“Quarter of an hour you say, sir, before you got
