Graywater Park stood upon a well-wooded slope, and, to the southwest,
starting above the trees almost like a giant Spanish priest, showed a
solitary tower. With a vague and indefinite interest I watched it. It
was Monkswell, an uninhabited place belonging to Sir Lionel's estate
and dating, in part, to the days of King John. Flicking the ash from
my cigarette, I studied the ancient tower wondering idly what deeds
had had their setting within its shadows, since the Angevin monarch,
in whose reign it saw the light, had signed the Magna Charta.
This was a perfect night, and very still. Nothing stirred, within or
without Greywater Park. Yet I was conscious of a definite disquietude
which I could only suppose to be ascribable to the weird events of
the evening, but which seemed rather to increase than to diminish.
I tossed the end of my cigarette out into the darkness, determined to
turn in, although I had never felt more wide awake in my life. One
parting glance I cast into the skeleton orchard and was on the point
of standing up, when—although no breezed stirred—a shower of ivy
leaves rained down upon my head!
Brushing them away irritably, I looked up—and a second shower dropped
fully upon my face and filled my eyes with dust. I drew back, checking
an exclamation. What with the depth of the embrasure, due to the great
thickness of the wall, and the leafy tangle above the window, I could
see for no great distance up the face of the building; but a faint
sound of rustling and stumbling which proceeded from somewhere above
me proclaimed that some one, or something, was climbing either up or
down the wall of the corner tower in which I was housed!
Partially removing the dust from my smarting eyes, I returned to the
embrasure, and stepping from the chair on to the deep ledge, I grasped
the corner of the quaint, diamond-paned window, which I had opened to
its fullest extent, and craned forth.
Now I could see the ivy-grown battlements surmounting the tower (the
east wing, in which my room was situated, was the oldest part of
Graywater Park). Sharply outlined against the cloudless sky they
showed ... and the black silhouette of a man's head and shoulders
leant over directly above me!
I drew back sharply. The climber, I thought, had not seen me, although
he was evidently peering down at my window. What did it mean?
As I crouched in the embrasure, a sudden giddiness assailed me, which
at first I ascribed to a sympathetic nervous action due to having seen
the man poised there at that dizzy height. But it increased, I swayed
forward, and clutched at the wall to save myself. A deadly nausea
overcame me ... and a deadly doubt leapt to my mind.
In the past, Sir Lionel Barton had had spies in his household; what
if the dark-faced Greek, Homopoulo, were another of these? I thought
of the '45 port, of the ghostly rapping; and I thought of the man who
crouched upon the roof of the tower above my open window.
My symptoms now were unmistakable; my head throbbed and my vision grew
imperfect; there had to be an opiate in the wine!
I almost fell back into the room. Supporting myself by means of the
chair, the chest of drawers, and finally, the bed-rail, I got to my
grip, and with weakening fingers, extracted the little medicine-chest
which was invariably my traveling companion.
Grimly pitting my will against the drug, but still trembling weakly
from the result of the treatment, internal and subcutaneous, which I
had adopted, I staggered to the door out into the corridor and up the
narrow, winding stairs to Smith's room. I carried an electric
pocket-lamp, and by its light I found my way to the triangular,
paneled landing.
I tried the handle. As I had expected, the door was locked. I beat
upon it with my fist.
"Smith!" I cried—"Smith!"
There was no reply.
Again I clamored; awaking ancient echoes within the rooms and all
about me. But nothing moved and no answering voice rewarded my efforts;
the other rooms were seemingly unoccupied, and Smith—was drugged!
My senses in disorder, and a mist dancing before my eyes, I went
stumbling down into the lower corridor. At the door of my own room I
paused; a new fact had suddenly been revealed to me, a fact which the
mazy windings of the corridors had hitherto led me to overlook. Smith's
room was also in the east tower, and must be directly above mine!
"My God!" I whispered, thinking of the climber—"he has been murdered!"
I staggered into my room and clutched at the bed-rail to support
myself, for my legs threatened to collapse beneath me. How should I
act? That we were victims of a cunning plot, that the deathful Si-Fan
had at last wreaked its vengeance upon Nayland Smith I could not doubt.
My brain reeled, and a weakness, mental and physical, threatened to
conquer me completely. Indeed, I think I must have succumbed, sapped
as my strength had been by the drug administered to me, if the sound
of a creaking stair had not arrested my attention and by the menace
which it conveyed afforded a new stimulus.
Some one was creeping down from the landing above—coming to my room!
The creatures of the Yellow doctor, having despatched Nayland Smith,
were approaching stealthily, stair by stair, to deal with
me!
From my grip I took out the Browning pistol. The Chinese doctor's
servants should have a warm reception. I burned to avenge my friend,
who I was persuaded, lay murdered in the room above. I partially
closed the door and took up a post immediately behind it. Nearer came
the stealthy footsteps—nearer.... Now the one who approached had
turned the angle of the passage....
Within sight of my door he seemed to stop; a shaft of white light
crept through the opening, across the floor and on to the wall beyond.
A moment it remained so—then was gone. The room became plunged in
darkness.
Gripping the Browning with nervous fingers I waited, listening
intently; but the silence remained unbroken. My gaze set upon the spot
where the head of this midnight visitant might be expected to appear,
I almost held my breath during the ensuing moments of frightful
suspense.
The door was opening; slowly—slowly—by almost imperceptible degrees.
I held the pistol pointed rigidly before me and my gaze remained fixed
intently on the dimly seen opening. I suppose I acted as ninety-nine
men out of a hundred would have done in like case. Nothing appeared.
Then a voice—a voice that seemed to come from somewhere under the
floor snapped:—
"Good God! it's Petrie!"
I dropped my gaze instantly ... and there, looking up at me from the
floor at my feet, I vaguely discerned the outline of a human head!
"Smith!" I whispered.
Nayland Smith—for indeed it was none other—stood up and entered the
room.
"Thank God you are safe, old man," he said. "But in waiting for one
who is stealthily entering a room, don't, as you love me, take it for
granted that he will enter
upright
. I could have shot you from the
floor with ease! But, mercifully, even in the darkness, I recognized
your Arab slippers!"
"Smith," I said, my heart beating wildly, "I thought you were drugged—
murdered. The port contained an opiate."
"I guessed as much!" snapped Smith. "But despite the excellent tuition
of Dr. Fu-Manchu, I am still childishly trustful; and the fact that I
did not partake of the crusted '45 was not due to any suspicions which
I entertained at that time."
"But, Smith, I saw you drink some port."
"I regret to contradict you, Petrie, but you must be aware that the
state of my liver—due to a long residence in Burma—does not permit
me to indulge in the luxury of port. My share of the '45 now reposes
amid the moss in the tulip-bowl, which you may remember decorated the
dining table! Not desiring to appear churlish, by means of a simple
feat of legerdemain I drank your health and future happiness in claret!
"For God's sake what is going on, Smith? Some one climbed from your
window."
"I climbed from my window!"
"What!" I said dazedly—"it was you! But what does it all mean?
Kâramaneh—"
"It is for her I fear, Petrie, now. We have not a moment to waste!"
He made for the door.
"Sir Lionel must be warned at all cost!" I cried.
"Impossible!" snapped Smith.
"What do you mean?"
"Sir Lionel has disappeared!"
We were out in the corridor now, Smith showing the way with the light
of his electric pocket-lamp. My mind was clear enough, but I felt as
weak as a child.
"You look positively ghastly, old man," rapped Smith, "which is no
matter for wonder. I have yet to learn how it happened that you are
not lying insensible, or dead, as a result of the drugged wine. When
I heard some one moving in your room, it never occurred to me that it
was
you
."
"Smith," I said—"the house seems as still as death."
"You, Kâramaneh, and myself are the only occupants of the east wing.
Homopoulo saw to that."
"Then he—"
"He is a member of the Si-Fan, a creature of Dr. Fu-Manchu—yes,
beyond all doubt! Sir Lionel is unfortunate—as ever—in his choice
of servants. I blame my own stupidity entirely, Petrie; and I pray
that my enlightenment has not come too late."
"What does it all mean?—what have you learnt?"
"Mind these three steps," warned Smith, glancing back. "I found my
mind persistently dwelling upon the matter of that weird rapping,
Petrie, and I recollected the situation of Sir Lionel's room, on the
southeast front. A brief inspection revealed the fact that, by means
of a kindly branch of ivy, I could reach the roof of the east tower
from my window."
"Well?"
"One may walk from there along the roof of the southeast front, and
by lying face downwards at the point where it projects above the main
entrance look into Sir Lionel's room!"
"I saw you go!"
"I feared that some one was watching me, but that it was you I had
never supposed. Neither Barton nor his man are in that room, Petrie!
They have been spirited away! This is Kâramaneh's door."
He grasped me by the arm, at the same time directing the light upon a
closed door before which we stood. I raised my fist and beat upon the
panels; then, every muscle tensed and my heart throbbing wildly, I
listened for the girl's voice.
Not a sound broke that deathly stillness except the beating of my own
heart, which, I thought, must surely be audible to my companion.
Frantically I hurled myself against the stubborn oak, but Smith thrust
me back.
"Useless, Petrie!" he said—"useless. This room is in the base of the
east tower, yours is above it and mine at the top. The corridors
approaching the three floors deceive one, but the fact remains. I have
no positive evidence, but I would wager all I possess that there is a
stair in the thickness of the wall, and hidden doors in the paneling
of the three apartments. The Yellow group has somehow obtained
possession of a plan of the historic secret passages and chambers of
Graywater Park. Homopoulo is the spy in the household; and Sir Lionel,
with his man Kennedy, was removed directly the invitation to us had
been posted. The group will know by now that we have escaped them, but
Kâramaneh ..."
"Smith!" I groaned, "Smith! What can we do? What has befallen her? ..."
"This way!" he snapped. "We are not beaten yet!"
"We must arouse the servants!"
"Why? It would be sheer waste of priceless time. There are only three
men who actually sleep in the house (excepting Homopoulo) and these
are in the northwest wing. No, Petrie; we must rely upon ourselves."
He was racing recklessly along the tortuous corridors and up the oddly
placed stairways of that old-world building. My anguish had reinforced
the atropine which I had employed as an antidote to the opiate in the
wine, and now my blood, that had coursed sluggishly, leapt through my
veins like fire and I burned with a passionate anger.
Into a large and untidy bedroom we burst. Books and papers littered
about the floor; curios, ranging from mummied cats and ibises to
Turkish yataghans and Zulu assegais, surrounded the place in riotous
disorder. Beyond doubt this was the apartment of Sir Lionel Barton.
A lamp burned upon a table near to the disordered bed, and a
discolored Greek statuette of Orpheus lay overturned on the carpet
close beside it.
"Homopoulo was on the point of leaving this room at the moment that I
peered in at the window," said Smith, breathing heavily. "From here
there is another entrance to the secret passages. Have your pistol
ready."
He stepped across the disordered room to a little alcove near the foot
of the bed, directing the ray of the pocket-lamp upon the small,
square paneling.
"Ah!" he cried, a note of triumph in his voice—"he has left the door
ajar! A visit of inspection was not anticipated to-night, Petrie!
Thank God for an Indian liver and a suspicious mind."
He disappeared into a yawning cavity which now I perceived to exist in
the wall. I hurried after him, and found myself upon roughly fashioned
stone steps in a very low and narrow descending passage. Over his
shoulder—
"Note the direction," said Smith breathlessly. "We shall presently
find ourselves at the base of the east tower."
Down we went and down, the ray of the electric lamp always showing
more steps ahead, until at last these terminated in a level, arched
passage, curving sharply to the right. Two paces more brought us to a
doorway, less, than four feet high, approached by two wide steps. A
blackened door, having a most cumbersome and complicated lock, showed
in the recess.
Nayland Smith bent and examined the mechanism intently.
"Freshly oiled!" he commented. "You know into whose room it opens?"