Part 10

They murmured their agreement and the meal went on without any extraordinary incident. Mr. Washington was one of those adaptable people who dovetail into any environment in which they find themselves. He was as much at home at Rath Hall as though he had been born and bred in the neighbourhood. Moreover, he had a special reason for jubilation: he had found a rare adder when walking in the woods that morning, and spent ten minutes explaining in what respect it differed from every other English adder.

“Is it dead?” asked Meadows nervously.

“Kill it?” said the indignant Mr. Washington. “Why should I kill it? I saw a whole lot of doves out on the lawn this morning—should I kill ’em? No, sir! I’ve got none of those mean feelings towards snakes. I guess the Lord sent snakes into this world for some other purpose than to be chased and killed every time they’re seen. I sent him up to London to-day by train to a friend of mine at the Zoological Gardens. He’ll keep him until I’m ready to take him back home.”

Meadows drew a long sigh.

“As long as he’s not in your pocket,” he said.

“Do you mind?”

Leon’s voice was urgent as he signalled Washington to move yet farther to the left, and when the big man moved his chair, Leon nodded his thanks. His eyes were on the window and the darkening lawn. Not once did he remove his gaze.

“It’s an extraordinary thing about Poole, my lawyer,” Mr. Lee was saying. “He promised faithfully he’d be at Rath by seven o’clock. What is the time?”

Meadows looked at his watch.

“Half-past eight,” he said. He saw the cloud that came over the face of the blind owner of Rath Hall.

“It is extraordinary! I wonder if you would mind——”

His foot touched a bell beneath the table and his butler came in.

“Will you telephone to Mr. Poole’s house and ask if he has left?”

The butler returned in a short time.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Poole left the house by car at half-past six.”

Johnson Lee sat back in his chair.

“Half-past six? He should have been here by now.”

“How far away does he live?”

“About fifteen miles. I thought he might have come down from London rather late. That is extraordinary.”

“He may have had tyre trouble,” said Leon, not shifting his fixed stare.

“He could have telephoned.”

“Did anybody know he was coming—anybody outside your own household?” asked Gonsalez.

The blind man hesitated.

“Yes, I mentioned the fact to the post office this morning. I went in to get my letters, and found that one I had written to Mr. Poole had been returned through a stupid mistake on my part. I told the postmaster that he was coming this evening and that there was no need to forward it.”

“You were in the public part of the post office?”

“I believe I was.”

“You said nothing else, Mr. Lee—nothing that would give any idea of the object of this visit?”

Again his host hesitated.

“I don’t know. I’m almost afraid that I did,” he confessed. “I remember telling the postmaster that I was going to talk to Mr. Poole about poor Barberton—Mr. Barberton was very well known in this neighbourhood.”

“That is extremely unfortunate,” said Leon.

He was thinking of two things at the same time: the whereabouts of the missing lawyer, and the wonderful cover that the wall between the window and the floor gave to any man who might creep along out of sight until he got back suddenly to send the snake on its errand of death.

“How many men have you got in the grounds, by the way, Meadows?”

“One, and he’s not in the grounds but outside on the road. I pull him in at night, or rather in the evening, to patrol the grounds, and he is armed.” He said this with a certain importance. An armed English policeman is a tremendous phenomenon, that few have seen.

“Which means that he has a revolver that he hasn’t fired except at target practice,” said Leon. “Excuse me—I thought I heard a car.”

He got up noiselessly from the table, went round the back of Mr. Lee, and, darting to the window, looked out. A flower-bed ran close to the wall, and beyond that was a broad gravel drive. Between gravel and flowers was a wide strip of turf. The drive continued some fifty feet to the right before it turned under an arch of rambler roses. To the left it extended for less than a dozen feet, and from this point a path parallel to the side of the house ran into the drive.

“Do you hear it?” asked Lee.

“No, sir, I was mistaken.”

Leon dipped his hand into his side pocket, took out a handful of something that looked like tiny candies wrapped in coloured paper. Only Meadows saw him scatter them left and right, and he was too discreet to ask why. Leon saw the inquiring lift of his eyebrows as he came back to his seat, but was wilfully dense. Thereafter, he ate his dinner with only an occasional glance towards the window.

“I’m not relying entirely upon my own lawyer’s advice,” said Mr. Lee. “I have telegraphed to Lisbon to ask Dr. Pinto Caillao to come to England, and he may be of greater service even than Poole, though where——”

The butler came in at this moment.

“Mrs. Poole has just telephoned, sir. Her husband has had a bad accident: his car ran into a tree trunk which was lying across the road near Lawley. It was on the other side of the bend, and he did not see it until too late.”

“Is he very badly hurt?”

“No, sir, but he is in the Cottage Hospital. Mrs. Poole says he is fit to travel home.”

The blind man sat open-mouthed.

“What a terrible thing to have happened!” he began.

“A very lucky thing for Mr. Poole,” said Leon cheerfully. “I feared worse than that——”

From somewhere outside the window came a “snap!”—the sound that a Christmas cracker makes when it is exploded. Leon got up from the table, walked swiftly to the side of the window and jumped out. As he struck the earth, he trod on one of the little bon-bons he had scattered and it cracked viciously under his foot.

There was nobody in sight. He ran swiftly along the grass-plot, slowing his pace as he came to the end of the wall, and then jerked round, gun extended stiffly. Still nobody. Before him was a close-growing box hedge, in which had been cut an opening. He heard the crack of a signal behind him, guessed that it was Meadows, and presently the detective joined him. Leon put his fingers to his lips, leapt the path to the grass on the other side, and dodged behind a tree until he could see straight through the opening in the box hedge. Beyond was a rose-garden, a mass of pink and red and golden blooms.

Leon put his hand in his pocket and took out a black cylinder, fitting it, without taking his eyes from the hedge opening, to the muzzle of his pistol. Meadows heard the dull thud of the explosion before he saw the pistol go up. There was a scatter of leaves and twigs and the sound of hurrying feet. Leon dashed through the opening in time to see a man plunge into a plantation.

“_Plop!_”

The bullet struck a tree not a foot from the fugitive.

“That’s that!” said Leon, and took off his silencer. “I hope none of the servants heard it, and most of all that Lee, whose hearing is unfortunately most acute, mistook the shot for something else.”

He went back to the window, stopping to pick up such of his crackers as had not exploded.

“They are useful things to put on the floor of your room when you’re expecting to have your throat cut in the middle of the night,” he said pleasantly. “They cost exactly two dollars a hundred, and they’ve saved my life more often than I can count. Have you ever waited in the dark to have your throat cut?” he asked. “It happened to me three times, and I will admit that it is not an experience that I am anxious to repeat. Once in Bohemia, in the city of Prague; once in New Orleans, and once in Ortona.”

“What happened to the assassins?” asked Meadows with a shiver.

“That is a question for the theologian, if you will forgive the well-worn jest,” said Leon. “I think they are in hell, but then I’m prejudiced.”

Mr. Lee had left the dining-table and was standing at the front door, leaning on his stick; and with him an interested Mr. Washington.

“What was the trouble?” asked the old man in a worried voice. “It is a great handicap not being able to see things. But I thought I heard a shot fired.”

“Two,” said Leon promptly. “I hoped you hadn’t heard them. I don’t know who the man was, Mr. Lee, but he certainly had no right in the grounds, and I scared him off.”

“You must have used a silencer: I did not hear the shots fully. Did you catch a view of the man’s face?”

“No, I saw his back,” he said. Leon thought it was unnecessary to add that a man’s back was as familiar to him as his face. For when he studied his enemies, his study was a very thorough and complete one. Moreover, Gurther ran with a peculiar swing of his shoulder.

He turned suddenly to the master of Rath Hall.

“May I speak with you privately for a few minutes, Mr. Lee?” he asked. He had taken a sudden resolution.

“Certainly,” said the other courteously, and tapped his way into the hall and into his private study.

For ten minutes Leon was closeted with him. When he came out, Meadows had gone down to his man at the gate, and Washington was standing disconsolately alone. Leon took him by the arm and led him on to the lawn.

“There’s going to be real trouble here to-night,” he said, and told him the arrangement he had made with Mr. Johnson Lee. “I’ve tried to persuade him to let me see the letter which is in his safe, but he is like rock on that matter, and I’d hate to burgle the safe of a friend. Listen.”

Elijah Washington listened and whistled.

“They stopped the lawyer coming,” Gonsalez went on, “and now they’re mortally scared if, in his absence, the old man tells us what he intended keeping for his lawyer.”

“Meadows is going to London, isn’t he?”

Leon nodded slowly.

“Yes, he is going to London—by car. Did you know all the servants were going out to-night?”

Mr. Washington stared at him.

“The women, you mean?”

“The women and the men,” said Leon calmly. “There is an excellent concert at Brightlingsea to-night, and though they will be late for the first half of the performance, they will thoroughly enjoy the latter portion of the programme. The invitation is not mine, but it is one I thoroughly approve.”

“But does Meadows want to go away when the fun is starting?”

Apparently Inspector Meadows was not averse from leaving at this critical moment. He was, in fact, quite happy to go. Mr. Washington’s views on police intelligence underwent a change for the worse.

“But surely he had better stay?” said the American. “If you’re expecting an attack . . . they are certain to marshal the whole of their forces?”

“Absolutely certain,” said the calm Gonsalez. “Here is the car.”

The Rolls came out from the back of the house at that moment and drew up before the door.

“I don’t like leaving you,” said Meadows, as he swung himself up by the driver’s side and put his bag on the seat.

“Tell the driver to avoid Lawley like the plague,” said Leon. “There’s a tree down, unless the local authorities have removed it—which is very unlikely.”

He waited until the tail lights of the machine had disappeared into the gloom, then he went back to the hall.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the butler, struggling into his greatcoat as he spoke. “Will you be all right—there is nobody left in the house to look after Mr. Lee. I could stay——”

“It was Mr. Lee’s suggestion you should all go,” said Gonsalez briefly. “Just go outside and tell me when the lights of the char-à-banc come into view. I want to speak to Mr. Lee before you go.”

He went into the library and shut the door behind him. The waiting butler heard the murmur of his voice and had some qualms of conscience. The tickets had come from a local agency; he had never dreamt that, with guests in the house, his employer would allow the staff to go in its entirety.

It was not a char-à-banc but a big closed bus that came lumbering up the apology for a drive, and swept round to the back of the house, to the annoyance of the servants, who were gathered in the hall.

“Don’t bother, I will tell him,” said Leon. He seemed to have taken full charge of the house, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of well-regulated servants.

He disappeared through a long passage leading into the mysterious domestic regions, and returned to announce that the driver had rectified his error and was coming to the front entrance: an unnecessary explanation, since the big vehicle drew up as he was telling the company.

“There goes the most uneasy bunch of festive souls it has ever been my misfortune to see,” he said, as the bus, its brakes squeaking, went down the declivity towards the unimposing gate. “And yet they’ll have the time of their lives. I’ve arranged supper for them at the Beech Hotel, and although they are not aware of it, I am removing them to a place where they’d give a lot of money to be—if they hadn’t gone!”

“That leaves you and me alone,” said Mr. Washington glumly, but brightened up almost at once. “I can’t say that I mind a rough house, with or without gun-play,” he said. He looked round the dark hall a little apprehensively. “What about fastening the doors behind?” he asked.

“They’re all right,” said Leon. “It isn’t from the back that danger will come. Come out and enjoy the night air . . . it is a little too soon for the real trouble.”

But here, for once, he was mistaken.

Elijah Washington followed him into the park, took two paces, and suddenly Leon saw him stagger. In a second he was by the man’s side, bent and peering, his glasses discarded on the grass.

“Get me inside,” said Washington’s voice. He was leaning heavily upon his companion.

With his arm round his waist, taking half his weight, Leon pushed the man into the hall but did not close the door. Instead, as the American sat down with a thud upon a hall seat, Leon fell to the ground, and peered along the artificial skyline he had created. There was no movement, no sign of any attacker. Then and only then did he shut the door and drop the bar, and pushing the study door wide, carried the man into the room and switched on the lights.

“I guess something got me then,” muttered Washington.

His right cheek was red and swollen, and Leon saw the tell-tale bite; saw something else. He put his hand to the cheek and examined his finger-tips.

“Get me some whisky, will you?—about a gallon of it.”

He was obviously in great pain and sat rocking himself to and fro.

“Gosh! This is awful!” he groaned. “Never had any snake that bit like this!”

“You’re alive, my friend, and I didn’t believe you when you said you were snake-proof.”

Leon poured out a tumbler of neat whisky and held it to the American’s lips.

“Down with Prohibition!” murmured Washington, and did not take the glass from his lips until it was empty. “You can give me another dose of that—I shan’t get pickled,” he said.

He put his hand up to his face and touched the tiny wound gingerly.

“It is wet,” he said in surprise.

“What did it feel like?”

“Like nothing so much as a snake-bite,” confessed the expert.

Already his face was puffed beneath the eyes, and the skin was discoloured black and blue.

Leon crossed to the fire-place and pushed the bell, and Washington watched him in amazement.

“Say, what’s the good of ringing? The servants have gone.”

There was a patter of feet in the hall, the door was flung open and George Manfred came in, and behind him the startled visitor saw Meadows and a dozen men.

“For the Lord’s sake!” he said sleepily.

“They came in the char-à-banc, lying on the floor,” explained Leon, “and the only excuse for bringing a char-à-banc here was to send the servants to that concert.”

“You got Lee away?” asked Manfred.

Leon nodded.

“He was in the car that took friend Meadows, who transferred to the char-à-banc somewhere out of sight of the house.”

Washington had taken a small cardboard box from his pocket and was rubbing a red powder gingerly upon the two white-edged marks, groaning the while.

“This is certainly a snake that’s got the cobra skinned to death and a rattlesnake’s bite ain’t worse than a dog nip,” he said. “Mamba nothing! I know the mamba; he is pretty fatal, but not so bad as this.”

Manfred looked across to Leon.

“Gurther?” he asked simply, and Gonsalez nodded.

“It was intended for me obviously, but, as I’ve said before, Gurther is nervous. And it didn’t help him any to be shot up.”

“Do you fellows mind not talking so loud?” He glanced at the heavy curtains that covered the windows. Behind these the shutters had been fastened, and Dr. Oberzohn was an ingenious man.

Leon took a swift survey of the visitor’s feet; they wore felt slippers.

“I don’t think I can improve upon the tactics of the admirable Miss Leicester,” he said, and went up to Mr. Lee’s bedroom, which was in the centre of the house and had a small balcony, the floor of which was formed by the top of the porch.

The long French windows were open and Leon crawled out into the darkness and took observation through the pillars of the balustrade. They were in the open now, making no attempt to conceal their presence. He counted seven, until he saw the cigarette of another near the end of the drive. What were they waiting for? he wondered. None of them moved; they were not even closing on the house. And this inactivity puzzled him. They were awaiting a signal. What was it to be? Whence would it come?

He saw a man come stealthily across the lawn . . . one or two? His eyes were playing tricks. If there were two, one was Gurther. There was no mistaking him. For a second he passed out of view behind a pillar of the balcony. Leon moved his head . . . Gurther had fallen! He saw him stumble to his knees and tumble flat upon the ground. What did that mean?

He was still wondering when he heard a soft scraping, and a deep-drawn breath, and tried to locate the noise. Suddenly, within a few inches of his face, a hand came up out of the darkness and gripped the lower edge of the balcony.

Swiftly, noiselessly, Gonsalez wriggled back to the room, drew erect in the cover of the curtains and waited. His hand touched something; it was a long silken cord by which the curtains were drawn. Leon grinned in the darkness and made a scientific loop.

The intruder drew himself up on to the parapet, stepped quietly across, then tiptoed to the open window. He was not even suspicious, for the French windows had been open all the evening. Without a sound, he stepped into the room and was momentarily silhouetted against the starlight reflected in the window.

“Hatless,” thought Leon. That made things easier. As the man took another stealthy step, the noose dropped over his neck, jerked tight and strangled the cry in his throat. In an instant he was lying flat on the ground with a knee in his back. He struggled to rise, but Leon’s fist came down with the precision of a piston-rod, and he went suddenly quiet.

Gonsalez loosened the slip-knot, and, flinging the man over his shoulder, carried him out of the room and down the stairs. He could only guess that this would be the only intruder, but left nothing to chance, and after he had handed his prisoner to the men who were waiting in the hall, he ran back to the room, to find, as he had expected, that no other adventurer had followed the lead. They were still standing at irregular intervals where he had seen them last. The signal was to come from the house. What was it to be? he wondered.

He left one of his men on guard in the room and went back to the study, to find that the startled burglar was an old friend. Lew Cuccini was looking from one of his captors to the other, a picture of dumbfounded chagrin. But the most extraordinary discovery that Leon made on his return to the study was that the American snake-charmer was his old cheerful self, and, except for his unsightly appearance, seemed to be none the worse for an ordeal which would have promptly ended the lives of ninety-nine men out of a hundred.

“Snake-proof—that’s me. Is this the guy that did it?” He pointed to Cuccini.

“Where is Gurther?” asked Manfred.

Cuccini grinned up into his face.

“You’d better find out, boss,” he said. “He’ll fix you. As soon as I shout——”

“Cuccini——” Leon’s voice was gentle. The point of the long-bladed knife that he held to the man’s neck was indubitably sharp. Cuccini shrank back. “You will not shout. If you do, I shall cut your throat and spoil all these beautiful carpets—that is a genuine silken Bokhara, George. I haven’t seen one in ten years.” He nodded to the soft-hued rug on which George Manfred was standing. “What is the signal, Cuccini?” turning his attention again to the prisoner. “And what happens when you give the signal?”

“Listen,” said Cuccini, “that throat-cutting stuff don’t mean anything to me. There’s no third degree in this country, and don’t forget it.”

“You have never seen my ninety-ninth degree.” Leon smiled like a delighted boy. “Put something in his mouth, will you?”

One of the men tied a woollen scarf round Cuccini’s head.

“Lay him on the sofa.”

He was already bound hand and foot and helpless.

“Have you any wax matches? Yes, here are some.” Leon emptied a cut-glass container into the palm of his hand and looked blandly round at the curious company. “Now, gentlemen, if you will leave me alone for exactly five minutes, I will give Mr. Cuccini an excellent imitation of the persuasive methods of Gian Visconti, an excellent countryman of his, and the inventor of the system I am about to apply.”

Cuccini was shaking his head furiously. A mumble of unintelligible sounds came from behind the scarf.

“Our friend is not unintelligent. Any of you who say that Signor Cuccini is unintelligent will incur my severest displeasure,” said Leon.

They sat the man up and he talked brokenly, hesitatingly.

“Splendid,” said Leon, when he had finished. “Take him into the kitchen and give him a drink—you’ll find a tap above the kitchen sink.”

“I’ve often wondered, Leon,” said George, when they were alone together, “whether you would ever carry out these horrific threats of yours of torture and malignant savagery?”

“Half the torture of torture is anticipation,” said Leon easily, lighting a cigarette with one of the matches he had taken from the table, and carefully guiding the rest back into the glass bowl. “Any man versed in the art of suggestive description can dispense with thumbscrews and branding irons, little maidens and all the ghastly apparatus of criminal justice ever employed by our ancestors. I, too, wonder,” he mused, blowing a ring of smoke to the ceiling, “whether I could carry my threats into execution—I must try one day.” He nodded pleasantly, as though he were promising himself a great treat.

Manfred looked at his watch.

“What do you intend doing—giving the signal?”

Gonsalez nodded.

“And then?”

“Letting them come in. We may take refuge in the kitchen. I think it would be wiser.”

George Manfred nodded.

“You’re going to allow them to open the safe?”

“Exactly,” said Leon. “I particularly wish that safe to be opened, and since Mr. Lee demurs, I think this is the best method. I had that in my mind all the time. Have you seen the safe, George? I have. Nobody but an expert could smash it. I have no tools. I did not provide against such a contingency, and I have scruples. Our friends have the tools—and no scruples!”

“And the snake—is there any danger?”

Leon snapped his fingers.

“The snake has struck for the night, and will strike no more! As for Gurther——”

“He owes you something.”

Leon sent another ring up and did not speak until it broke on the ceiling.

“Gurther is dead,” he said simply. “He has been lying on the lawn in front of the house for the past ten minutes.”

_Chapter XVII_ _Written in Braille_

LEON briefly related the scene he had witnessed from the balcony.