Seeing is Believing

The Plough. His shoes and trouser-legs were soaking. Worse than this were the twinges of disquiet he experienced as the hour grew later.

'Rather odd experience, what?' inquired the major, comfortably pulling at a cheroot. 'I'll tell you an odder. At Poona, in nineteen-o-nine…'

Out in the hall, the telephone rang.

Courtney jumped up.

'That's probably for me,' he said. 'You don't mind if I answer it?'

'My dear chap!' said the major. 'Dammit. Not at all. Do.'

When he took down the receiver, a female voice spoke. It spoke in a quick, stealthy whisper, shaking with terror so that the words were barely distinguishable.

'I want to speak to the doctor.'

'Wrong number,' Baid Courtney wearily. 'What number did you want?'

The voice grew softly frenzied. 'I want double-four, double-four. Isn't that double-four, double-four?'

'Yes, that's right. But there's no doctor here. Doctor who?'

'The big doctor!'

Light broke on him. 'You mean Sir Henry Merrivale? Isn't that Mrs. Propper speaking?'

'Yes, yes, yes! (S-s-hh! Daisy, if you carry on like that we'll both get our throats cut!) Oh, my God.'

'Mrs. Propper! Listen! This is Courtney here. Mr. Courtney.'

'His secretary?'

'Well — yes. What is it? What's wrong?'

The voice grew even softer. 'Sir, you've got to come over here. Somebody's got to come over here. There's a man in the house. A burglar. I saw him climb in through the winder.'

Score another for psychic fits!

'Listen, Mrs. Propper. Can you hear me? Right! Go down and wake up Mr. Fane, Mr. Hubert Fane…'

'I wouldn't stir out of this room,' said the voice passionately, 'not if you was to give me all the money in the Bank of England.'

'But where are you speaking from?'

'I'm speaking from my bedroom. There's an extension telephone here. Oh, sir, for God's sake send the big doctor over here. Or come yourself. I wouldn't go near them nasty police, after what they said to me today, not if you was to give me—'

'Right. I'll come straight away. But somebody's got to let me in.'

There was a fierce, whispered colloquy with an even more frightened Daisy.

'When you get here,' muttered Mrs. Propper, who was gratifyingly quick-witted as a conspirator, 'give three rings on the doorbell — one, two, three — so's we'll know it's you. Then we'll run downstairs and let you in.'

'Right. Good-by.'

The tone of his voice, though he tried to keep it casual, was such as to bring Major Adams popping out of the library.

'Anything up, old chap?'

'That was the Fanes' cook. There's a burglar in the house. I'm going over there now.'.'

The major's eyes gleamed.

'Is there, by Jove? Need any help?'

'No, thanks. I can manage.'

The major was depressed. But he was sportsman enough to see that this was the other fellow's shot.

'Take a mack from the hatrack. Wait here. Back in half a second. Know just what you want.'

He darted upstairs. He returned lovingly carrying a three-thirty express rifle which, at a conservative estimate, would have stopped a charging tiger at five hundred yards.

'Take it along,' he said. 'Always wondered what one of these things would do to a burglar. Nobody ever burgles this house, dammit. Take it with you. Might be useful. What?'

'But I can — '

'My dear chap, not another word. Bain won't hurt it. Fell in the river with it once myself. If you don't feel up to potting the blighter, you can use it to intimidate him with. Or I can get you a pair of knuckledusters, if you'd rather? Might be useful. What?'

He was already bustling Courtney into a mackintosh. The raincoat, several sizes too small, set Courtney's wrists some inches out of the sleeves and threatened to crack across the shoulders.

'What I mean is, I can't go about firing rifles at burglars in other people's houses! In the first place, it's illegal. In the second place, if I used this thing on him they'd have to scrape him off the walls. In the third place —'

'Here's your hat,' said the major, jamming it down on his head. 'Better hurry. Good hunting, my dear chap. If I hear any rumpus I'll come and lend a hand.'

The door closed, and he was shut out in the rain.

He set out at a run. But the path was slippery, the gate greasy, the pavement of Fhzherbert Avenue like a water-chute. He had to slow down, or he would have gone head over ears.

It was a tropical rain which must have made many of the residents feel at home. There was no thunder or lightning; only a steady driving deluge which struck the pavement to rebound up again under your chin and in which you could not even have heard yourself shout.

Even the street-lamps were hardly visible. Courtney put his head down and butted along against the downpour. He could feel his hat and collar growing sodden, and the heavy squelch of his shoes. But the thought which crowded out all others in this roaring gloom was that Mrs. Propper's intruder was not a burglar of the sort she thought — and that Ann Browning, alone except for an equally terrified Vicky Fane, was shut up in a room which already held enough unpleasant memories.

His skin felt clammy. He was glad he had the rifle, now.

When he reached the gate, he was running again. Beyond the front lawn, 'The Nest' showed dim and whitish through the sheen of rain. And there was no light in the house.

He ran up the path, feeling the breath rasp in his lungs. Whatever this 'burglar' might be doing, he would hardly continue it if he heard somebody at the door. Courtney glanced up at the windows of Vicky's bedroom. They were dark, but they might only be curtained.

With a deep wave of thankfulness he pounded up the front steps.

He gave Mrs. Propper's signal, three short rings at the doorbell, and waited.

Nothing stirred in the house. He could hear only the rustling roar of the rain, the rush from a water-spout, the drumming on his own body. The minutes dragged by, and still nothing happened. In desperation, he again gave the signal of three sharp rings, before he realized where the trouble lay.

The doorbell did not work.

Eighteen

He stood back and studied the house.

No doubt about the bell being out of order. It had a distinctive ring which could be heard clearly in the hall and outside.

And a 'burglar' who puts bells out of order-He tried the front door, but it was locked. The proper thing to attract attention, according to accepted canons, was to throw a handful of gravel against a window. But he saw no gravel. And since Mrs. Propper, he remembered, slept on the top floor of the house, the chances of scoring an audible bit with a handful of gravel in the rain were remote even if he had known which room she slept in.

At the foot of the front steps he found half a brick. Weighing this in his hand, he considered. People like H.M. or Major Adams might announce their arrival at somebody's house by chucking half a brick through a pane of glass, but its effect on frightened women might be worse than that of the burglar.

If he could attract the attention of Ann or Vicky, though—

And there was a gravel path through the rose-garden, at the back of the house.