Part 14

Carver showed no inclination to find a sympathetic listener, even when they were back at the flat, and he had a modest whiskey and soda before him.

“The truth is,” he said at last, in answer to a direct question, “I have reason to believe that I am being most carefully watched.”

“By whom?” asked the startled Tab.

“By the murderer of Trasmere,” said the detective quietly. “It is a humiliating confession for a man of my experience and proved courage to make, but I am afraid to go home tonight, for I have a large premonition that our unknown friend is preparing something particularly startling in the way of trouble for me.”

“Then you really want to stay the night here?” said Tab as the fact dawned upon him.

Carver nodded.

“Your instinct is marvellously developed,” said he. “That is just what I want to do, if it is not inconvenient. The fact is, I had not the moral courage to ask you before. It isn’t very pleasant to admit----”

“Oh shush!” said Tab scornfully. “You are no more scared of the murderer than I am.”

“I am more accessible to him in my own lodgings,” said the detective and that sounded fairly true. “If I stayed in a hotel I should be even more accessible, so I am going to make use of you, Tab. How do you feel about it?”

“You can bring your belongings and stay here until the case is over,” invited Tab. “I don’t think that Rex’s old bed is made up.”

“I prefer the sofa, anyway. Luxury enfeebles and vitiates a man as it enfeebles and vitiates a nation----”

“If you are going to be oracular, I am retiring to bed,” said Tab.

He went into his room, brought out a rug and a pillow and threw them on to the broad settee.

“I’d like to say,” said Carver, as Tab was leaving him for the last time, “how surprisingly good you look in evening kit. The difficulties of making a reporter look like a gentleman must be almost insuperable, but you have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations.”

Tab chuckled.

“You’re indecently humorous tonight,” he said.

He hadn’t been in bed five minutes before the light went out of the sitting-room. Mr. Carver was apparently settling himself to sleep.

Tab’s dreams were happy, but they were strangely mixed. Within five minutes of his head touching the pillow, he was carrying Ursula through her scented garden and his heart was full of gratitude to providence that this great and wonderful prize had come to him. And then in his dream he began to feel uncomfortable. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the sinister figure of Yeh Ling watching him and he was in the garden no longer, but on the slope of a hill flanked by two huge pillars, and Yeh Ling stood at the entrance of his queer house arrayed in dull gold brocade.

“_Bang.... Bang!_”

Two shots in rapid succession.

XXX

He woke with a start. There was a rush of feet in the sitting-room and then--crash!

He was out of bed in a second and into the sitting-room. Carver was nowhere to be seen and he felt by the draught that the door of the flat was wide open. He put his hand on the light switch and a voice from the darkness said:

“Don’t touch that light!”

It came from outside the door and it was Carver who was speaking.

Below came the thud of the street-door closing.

Carver came hurriedly into the room, passed him, ran to the window and looked out.

“You can put it on now,” said Carver. A red welt was slashed across his face and it was bleeding slightly.

He put up his hand and looked at it.

“That was a narrow squeak,” he said. “Yes, he’s gone. I could have taken a chance and run downstairs after the door slammed, but even that might have been a fake to lure me into the open.”

The whole building was awake now. Tab heard the sound of unlocking doors and voices speaking from above and below.

“It was the cigar that gave me away,” said Carver ruefully. “I was a fool to smoke. He must have seen the red end in the darkness, and on the whole I think he shot pretty accurately.”

There was a small Medici print hanging by the side of the window. The glass was shattered. A round bullet-hole showed on the white shoulder of Beatrice D’Este.

Carver fingered the hole carefully.

“That looks to me like an automatic,” he said. “He is getting quite modern. The last time he killed a man he used a type of revolver which was issued by the Chinese government to its officers some fifteen years ago. We know that from the shape of the bullet,” he went on unconcerned. “There is somebody at the door, Tab. You had better go and explain we have had another attack of burglaritis.”

Tab was gone some ten minutes, quieting the tenants of the flats. When he returned he found Carver examining the track of the second bullet, which had struck the lower window sash and which had drilled a neat little hole.

“Probably hit the wall opposite,” said Carver, squinting through.

“The man below found this on the stairs,” said Tab.

It was a small green-handled knife in a lacquered scabbard.

“Pseudo-Chinese,” said Carver. “It may even be the genuine article.” He pulled out the knife, tested the razor-like edge, “And sharp,” he said. “I had an idea he didn’t mean to use his gun.”

“Now,” said Tab, facing the detective squarely, “we will dispense with all light and airy persiflage and come down to sober affidavits. You expected this attack. That is why you came tonight with your fake story of a literary-minded nephew.”

“I did and I didn’t,” said Carver frankly. “When I told you that the attack would be made on me, I half believed it, but as I couldn’t find an excuse for getting you to stay with me, and, moreover, as I have no accommodation for a man of your luxurious habits, I decided on the whole I’d take a chance by staying here.” He looked at his watch. “Two o’clock,” he said. “He must have come about a quarter of an hour ago, and I will give him this credit, that I did not hear the door open. Fortunately there was a clothes hook behind the door and sometime or other you hung an old hat there. It was hearing this hat fall that made me realise that either I was growing deaf, or else the stealthy personage was unusually soft-footed. He must have seen first my cigar, and then my outline as I rose, for like a fool, I hadn’t pulled the settee away from the window. He was back in the lobby in a flash and before I knew what had happened he had fired twice, slammed the door and gone. He was still in the hall when I went out, but it was so dark that I could see nothing.”

“I thought I heard the door first.”

“Because you were asleep,” smiled the detective, “and you hear the last sound first. No, I will give you a guarantee that he shot at me before he shut the door.” His eyes narrowed. “I wonder,” he said softly.

“What?”

“I wonder if your friend has had a duplicate of this attack? Where is he staying?”

“I think we ought to warn him, anyway,” said Tab. “Our visitor came in the first place to burgle Rex’s trunks and probably he doesn’t know that Rex isn’t staying here. He is at the Pitt Hotel.”

Carver got the telephone directory and discovered the number. It was some time before he had an answer, for the clerks at the Pitt Hotel are not accustomed to calls at that hour of the morning. Presently he got into touch with a porter.

“I don’t know whether he is staying here, but I will find out,” said that official.

It was ten minutes before he had made the discovery.

“Yes, he is in Room 180. Shall I put you through?”

“If you please,” said Carver. He heard the click and clug of the connection being made and after an appreciable delay Rex’s sleepy voice answered him.

“Hullo, who is that? What the devil do you want?”

“I’ll talk to him,” whispered Tab and took the receiver from the detective’s hands.

“Is that you Rex?”

“Hullo, who is that, Tab? What’s the idea?”

“We have had a visitor,” said Tab. “You remember I told you about the burglar? Well, he came again tonight.”

“The devil he did.”

“In fact, we’ve turned the old flat into a shooting gallery,” said Tab, “and Carver wonders whether you have had a similar experience.”

“Not I,” was the cheerful reply. “It is as much as a man’s life’s worth to wake me out of my sleep.”

Tab grinned.

“Keep your door locked.”

“And my telephone receiver off,” said the other. “I’ll let you know if anything happens. Is Carver there?”

“Yes,” said Tab.

Carver went to the ’phone.

“He wants to speak to you.”

Carver had made a signal and now he took the receiver in his hand.

“I am sorry you have been disturbed, Mr. Lander,” he said, “but I’d like you to know officially that we warn you that an attempt has been made to get into this flat at--well ten minutes ago. What time would that be?”

“That would be about a quarter of two, I guess,” said Rex’s voice. “Thank you for telling me, Inspector, but I am not at all scared.”

Carver put the receiver on the hook and rubbed his hands.

“Do you think they will go there? What on earth is amusing you?” asked Tab irritably.

“I am intensely amused, I admit,” said Carver, “at the queer and simple error that our murderer made.”

Early in the morning Carver called at the Pitt Hotel and personally interviewed a sleepy-eyed Rex, who sat up in bed in violently striped pyjamas and expostulated with commendable mildness upon the interruption to his night’s sleep.

“I am one of those people,” he said severely, “who require at least twelve hours’ heavy slumber. Heaven having endowed me with the means whereby I can gratify my wishes in this respect, it is a little short of an outrage that Tab and you should call me up even to tell me that the flat has been burgled again.”

Reporting his interview on his return to the flat, Carver offered a few remarks on the vagaries of masculine fashions, particularly in relation to pyjamas, and came back at a tangent to the very serious events of the past twelve hours.

“I think you’ll be all right tonight,” he said. “At any rate, I am leaving you to your own devices. Bolt the door and put a trip wire between a couple of chairs.”

“Oh nonsense!” said Tab. “He will not come again tonight.”

Carver scratched his chin.

“What is tonight.”

“Saturday.”

“The fatal Saturday eh?” he said. “No, perhaps not. What are you doing today?”

“I am driving a friend into the country, or rather she is driving me,” said Tab promptly. “It is my week-end off, but I shall be back in town tonight.”

Carver nodded.

“Ring me up the moment you are back. Will you promise that?”

And Tab laughed.

“Certainly I will if it is any satisfaction to you.”

“If you don’t ring me, I shall ring you at intervals throughout the night,” threatened Carver. “I have already warned Lander. Above all, Lander must not sleep at this flat.”

“Don’t you think that by now they will have discovered that he is no longer living in the flat?” asked Tab.

“They may or may not,” was the reply, “and--” he hesitated, “I don’t think I should talk about this to Miss Ardfern. In fact, I would rather you didn’t.”

Tab had had no intention of alarming Ursula, and he could make that promise without reservation.

XXXI

She came to Doughty Street and picked him up and they were at Stone Cottage in time for lunch. The weather was still unsettled, but Tab had passed the stage where weather made any difference to him.

Though he did not tell her of his sensational experience, he did mention his dream.

“Ursula?” he asked. “You like Yeh Ling, don’t you? So do I, as a matter of fact, but do you absolutely trust him?”

She considered before she spoke.

“Yes, I think I do,” she said. “He has been a most faithful friend. Think, Tab, without my knowledge, all these years he has been watching over me. I should be a most ungrateful girl if his loyalty did not move me.”

Tab thought that there might be some other explanation of Yeh Ling’s devotion but wisely said nothing.

“Do you know,” she said, “that he keeps a man watching this house day and night? I only discovered it by accident when I was engaged in revolver shooting. Perhaps Yeh Ling told you that I nearly shot one of his sentinels.”

“He is a strange man,” admitted Tab, “but my dream rather impressed me--”

“Even the first part of your dream hasn’t come true yet,” she suggested demurely and he picked her up in his arms there and then.

Happily the so-easily scandalized Mr. Turner was engaged elsewhere.

His heart was full of love and gratitude when he left her in the sweet-smelling dusk and mounting his bicycle, which he had brought strapped to the back of Ursula’s car, started on his leisurely way home.

Half-way he had a puncture which delayed him, and it was nearly ten o’clock when he wheeled the machine into the garage where it was maintained.

The last part of the journey was made through a heavy driving rain and he was wet through by the time he reached Doughty Street.

A hot bath and a change of clothing brightened him and he was filling his cigarette case preparatory to going out to take a meal, when he was called to the telephone. He expected to be greeted by Carver but it was Rex who was speaking and his voice was eager and urgent.

“Is that you Tab? My boy, I’ve made the most wonderful discovery!”

“What is that?” asked Tab wondering.

“You are not to breathe a word to Carver, you understand, Tab? This is the most extraordinary discovery. Tab!” his voice shook, “I have found how the murder was committed!”

“The Trasmere murder?”

“Yes,” came the quick reply. “I know how the man got in and out of the vault. I was in there this afternoon inspecting the work that has been done and I found it by accident. It is all so simple, Tab, how the key got on to the table, and--everything. Can you meet me at Mayfield?”

“At Mayfield?”

“I’ll be waiting outside the door for you. I don’t want any of Carver’s men to see us.”

“Why not?” asked Tab.

“Because,” said Rex’s voice deliberately, “Carver is in this murder up to his neck!”

Tab nearly dropped the receiver from his hands.

“You are mad,” he said.

“Am I? You shall judge for yourself. And Yeh Ling is in it--hurry!”

Tab ran to the larder and pushed a handful of biscuits into his pocket, put on his raincoat, and went out into the vile night, his mind in a state of chaos.

Carver!

And Yeh Ling was in it too!

The wind had risen and half a gale swept through the deserted Peak Avenue as he strode along to the house of mystery. He did not see Rex until he passed through the gate. That young man was standing under the shelter of the portico by the door. Nearby in the concrete yard Tab saw a car.

“We’ll find our way on in the dark. I’ve got a pocket lamp,” he whispered, and Tab stepped into the dark, deserted hall, with its musty scent and its strangely oppressive atmosphere of decay and neglect.

Rex’s voice was trembling with excitement.

“We can put the lights on after we get into the corridor,” he said.

He found his way across the room by the light of the lamp, unlocked the door and led the way into the passage.

“Shut that door, Tab,” he hissed and when Tab had obeyed he turned on all the lights.

Near the end of the corridor Tab saw a great heap of bricks and a board covered with mortar; the work of bricking up the vault had begun and the first course stretched across the open doorway of the vault.

Rex stepped over the brick-work and illuminated the empty interior.

“There!” said Rex triumphantly and pointed to the table.

“What is it?” asked Tab in amazement.

“Hold both sides of the table and pull.”

“But the table is fixed on to the floor; we noticed that before,” said Tab.

“Do as I tell you,” said Rex impatiently.

Tab leant over the table, and gripping both edges firmly pulled....

XXXII

He awoke to consciousness with a sense of dull pain at the back of his neck and a feeling of restriction. He was sitting against the wall propped up, and when he tried to bring up a hand to rub his aching neck, he found they would not move. He opened his eyes and looked around and the first thing he noticed was that his feet were strapped together. He stared stupidly at the fastening, and tried to move his hands--but they were in a curious position. He was handcuffed behind. To the connecting links a cord had been fastened and passed under him to the strap.

“What--” he began and heard somebody laugh softly.

Looking up he saw Rex. That young man was sitting on the edge of the table smoking.

“Feel better?” he asked politely.

“What is the meaning of this, Rex?”

“It means that, as I promised, you have found the murderer of dear Uncle Jesse,” said Rex, his baby blue eyes gleaming. “I killed Jesse Trasmere. I also killed that drunken beast Brown. I didn’t intend killing Brown,” he went on reflectively. “Unfortunately he left me no alternative. He recognised me in the park at the time when I was supposed to be in Naples.”

“Didn’t you go abroad?” gasped Tab, the minor deception for the moment bulking largely.

Rex shook his head.

“I didn’t go any farther than the mouth of the river,” he said. “I came off with the pilot. The cables and wireless messages that I sent were despatched by the steward, whom I paid for that purpose. I never left town.”

Tab could say nothing.

“If you had done as I wished,” said Rex with an odd note of reproach in his voice, “I should have made you a rich man, Tab, but like the sneaking swine you are, you took the woman who was fore-ordained to be my wife! Your beastly lips have touched hers, my goddess!” His voice quavered.

Tab, staring at him, realized that he was in the presence of a madman.

“You think I am mad,” said Rex, as though he was guessing the other’s thoughts. “Perhaps I am, but I adore her. I killed Jesse Trasmere because I wanted her, could not wait for her, needed the money to possess her.”

In a flash there came to Tab, Ursula’s words: “I killed Jesse Trasmere. I was the indirect cause.”

So she knew! That was the explanation of her strange attitude when Rex had come into the room.

And Yeh Ling knew, and had come soft-footed to the door of the private dining-room ready to leap upon the visitor if he showed any signs of hostility. Yeh Ling, the watchful, the soft-footed one, the everlasting guardian--in his heart Tab Holland thanked God for Yeh Ling.

Rex went out of the vault and was gone for five minutes. When he came back he was carrying a writing-pad which he put on the table, pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I am going to give you the scoop of your life, Tab,” he said. There was no mockery in his voice, it was, if anything, very serious and gentle.

“I am going to write a full confession of how I killed all three of you.”

Tab said nothing. This whimsical act of the man was in keeping with the theory of lunacy. For half-an-hour, he listened to the scratching of a pen and the rustle of paper as one by one the sheets were covered, blotted, and neatly put aside. What was his end to be? Rex would kill him; he had no doubt whatever on this score. The man was impervious to appeal and it was senseless to call for help. His voice would never escape the confinement of that underground room.

Carver and he had made an experiment after Trasmere’s death. He had stayed in the vault and fired a blank cartridge whilst Carver was outside the house listening, but no sound had come out.

Tab looked round for the sign of a weapon, but if Lander had brought one, it was not visible.

“There, I’ve said everything, and here it shall stay on the table and when they find your bones they will know why you died.”

Watching him, Tab saw him sign his name with a flourish, the old flourish which had often amused him.

“What are you going to do, Lander?” he asked quietly and Lander smiled.

“Have no fear,” he said, “I am not going to disfigure your athletic body or do you any violence. You are going to stay here and die.”

Tab fixed him with an unwavering glance.

“You don’t suppose--” he began, but thought better of it.

“I don’t suppose that your friend Mr. Carver will not come in search of you, that was what you were going to say, but believe me, Mr. Carver will never find you. In the first place he would not come here, for nobody knows that you are here. He didn’t even suspect that I was your visitor last night.”

“Have you a clock in your room?” said Tab, a light dawning on him.

The other frowned.

“In my bedroom, at the hotel?” he was surprised into saying.

“You haven’t!” said Tab triumphantly. “Good old Carver! He asked you the time when he was talking on the telephone, didn’t he? And you replied. He knew you were the man who came into the flat. He knew that when he called you up, you would be fully dressed and have a watch in your pocket.”

“Oh,” said the other blankly, and then: “He came to see me this morning, damn him! It was to discover whether there was a clock in the room eh?” he grinned, but there was no humour in those bared teeth. “He doesn’t know you are here, anyway,” he said. “Goodbye, Tab. Do you remember how you tried to make a reporter of me, and how I used to sit at the office studying crime? Well, I found a new trick in those cuttings, and I have been waiting years to put it into practice.”

No other word he spoke, but took something from his pocket, it was a reel of stout cotton. Then from his waistcoat he produced a new pin, and with great care and solemnity tied the thread to the end of the pin, Tab watching him intently. And all the time he was working, Rex Lander was humming a little tune, as though he were engaged in the most innocent occupation. Presently, he stuck the point of the pin in the centre of the table, and pulled at it by the thread he had fastened.

Apparently he was satisfied. He unwound a further length of cotton and when he had sufficient, he threaded the key upon it, carrying it well outside the door. The end he brought back into the vault, pushing it through one of the air-holes. Then he closed the door carefully. He had left plenty of slack for his purpose and Tab heard the click of the lock as it was fastened and his heart sank. He watched the door fascinated and saw that Lander was pulling the slack of the cotton through the air-hole. Presently the key came in sight under the door. Higher and higher came the sagging line of cotton and the key rose until it was at the table’s level, slid down the taut cotton and came to rest on the table. Tighter drew the strain on the thread, and presently the pin came out, passed through the hole in the key, leaving it in the exact centre of the table.

Tab watched the bright pin as it was pulled across the floor and through the ventilator.

That was the secret of the pin!

The last time the thread must have slipped or possibly the point of the pin had caught in the wood-work of the door and had fallen where he had found it. Or the man may have left it in the vault and it had been left in the passage after Trasmere’s death to add mystery to mystery.

“Did you see?” Lander’s voice shook with pride. “Simple, eh? And quick, Tab?”

Tab did not answer.

“I am a rotten architect, eh, Tab, but by Jingo, I’m a good bricklayer! Have you seen me lay bricks, Tab? I know so much about it that I fired the two workmen today, and said I was going to get somebody else to finish the job, Tab, I’m finishing it.”

Tab crossed his hands and tried to snap the connecting links of the cuff, but he could not get purchase. He had been so tied that he could hardly move. His head was aching terribly and he knew the cause; one of the first things he had seen on recovering consciousness, was the sand-bag which Rex Lander had used as he was leaning across the table, fooled into believing that some secret passage would be revealed when he pulled.

Rex was singing softly and mingled with his voice came the click and ring of trowel on brick, that scraping sound that bricklayers make, that tap, tap, tap of the trowel as it knocked the bricks into place.

“I shall probably be working all night,” Lander interrupted his singing to say, talking with his mouth against the ventilator. “I ought to have put the light out, but it is too late now.”