The Trail of Fear (12 page)

CHAPTER XII

TRAPPED AGAIN

He opened the door. Almost at once the little hall became full of policemen above whose voices rose the valet's querulous tone of remonstrance.

“'Ere, 'ere, what is it?”

Then the night porter's voice, questioning: “Mr. Challoner's in, isn't he? These gentlemen would like…”

“I suppose so. I don't know.”

He moved away to the bedroom door, opened it, looked in and came back. “Yes,” he added, “but he's asleep.”

Another voice, evidently a detective, suddenly took up the running: “Never mind that at present. Just listen to me for a moment, my man. I am a detective and we want your help. The facts are these. There are two men, whom the police want, somewhere in this block.”

“Gumme!” ejaculated the valet.

“They were chased into the building, and the only time they could have got through the hall without being noticed was when the porter was taking a resident up to his flat. They haven't gone out since and if they haven't made a get-away at the top or hidden in the box rooms, which we are now searching, it is just possible that they got by some trick into the flat to which the porter…”

“Mr. Challoner's flat?”

“Exactly. Now just answer a few questions, please. The porter said he was alone when he came up. He did not actually see him enter, so it is possible that they might have either forced a way in or got in under some pretext. Did you see anyone or hear voices when he came in?”

In the darkness Sam and Rezaire held their breath. If he had been awake and heard them, instant search would follow, for the porter knew the young man had been alone when he was brought up in the lift.

“No, I didn't hear anything.”

“Are you certain? The porter says he thought he heard conversation as the lift went down.”

“Yes, certain. I was asleep.”

“Don't you usually wait up?”

“No. Sometimes he brings in friends to have a drink and sometimes he's very late, and sometimes…”

“Sometimes,” interpolated the night porter, “he's just a bit…” He broke off and winked.

“Was he tonight?” continued the detective.

“Just slightly,” replied the other glancing across at the valet for confirmation.

“How do you know these men didn't take advantage of his condition to force their way in as friends?”

Again Rezaire held his breath. This man was too quick witted. At this rate, they would soon be discovered.

“I dunno!” The valet scratched his head. Then an idea seemed to strike him and he went to the dining-room.

“There's only one glass been used,” he said from the door. “He'd have had a drink with them for certain if he'd thought they were friends.”

The two detectives conferred together for a moment. Evidently they were arguing that on the one hand, if Rezaire and Sam had got in under guise of friendship, they would have had a drink when Challoner did; on the other hand, if they had made their way in by force, Challoner would not have had a drink at all.

Then the other detective spoke: “Is your master still asleep?”

“He was when I looked in just now.”

“Why hasn't he come out at all this talking?”

“Yes,” went on the first man quickly, “and why was the hall light on and the dining-room light? That shows there's something unusual. Wouldn't he have turned them off?”

“No,” interposed the valet scornfully. “You don't know 'is nibs. His lordship's bedroom light's on too.” He walked to the bedroom door and peeped in again. Then he flung it open. “He sometimes forgets,” he went on with meaning, “to turn 'em out, and to take his trousers off—and,” he added, “me to get a decent crease in 'em again.”

Through the open door, Mr. Challoner in shirt and trousers was displayed sprawling across the bed—mouth open, breathing stertorously. The night porter laughed.

“Does he look as though he were in a state to remember to clean his teeth, and blow out the candle?” began the valet again sarcastically, urged on by the laugh he had received, but the detective silenced his attempts at humor with a few curt words.

Then they walked into the bedroom and looked at the young man's inert figure. The reek of whisky came up to them and they returned to the hall.

“I don't think they're in here,” one of them said t at last.

“Don't see how they can be,” returned the other.

“If they had been, for instance, the first thing they would have done is to have put the lights out when they heard us coming. He, being tight, left 'em on.”

“If they didn't come here, is there a door or window outside in the building anywhere else, where they…”

“None, except the box rooms, and Harrison's doing that now.”

“Still, I don't know. There's one thing we didn't think of. They might have got in here without the young fellow knowing at all.”

“Oh, I don't know, that's rather…”

“Not at all…”

Their voices dropped. Rezaire heard one of them say something about a “search warrant” and the other replied that they'd have to “chance that.”

After a while they went to the door, and one of them said to the valet: “All right, you can go back to bed again; but we may come back later on…”

Then they filed out.

The door banged behind him, leaving the valet standing in the empty hall with a dazed look.

Behind the curtain Rezaire and Sam drew silent breaths of relief. Those had been tense moments. Rezaire smiled as he remembered how his forethought in laying Challoner on the bed, in putting away the two glasses they had used, and in leaving the light on had misled the police. It was always the little things which counted more than the big ones, because it was always in the little things that the less clever men made mistakes. Rezaire had so trained himself that it had almost become second nature to him to think of these small items, even though at the moment he had not really anticipated that the police would enter the flat.

The valet moved about in the hall for a bit, and then snapped out the light. They heard him doing something rather strenuous in the bedroom; probably undressing his master or at least taking the trousers off that he might crease them. Fortune had certainly aided Rezaire in that it was apparently not an unusual occurrence for Mr. Challoner to go to bed with his clothes on. After a while the man came out again and went back along the little passage. A door banged and silence fell in the flat once more.

Sam at length ventured to move, stretching his legs.

“Gee, but I'm cramped,” he whispered.

“So'm I. We had a bit of luck.”

“Yes. Why didn't they have a look round while they were about it?”

“I suppose the arguments didn't seem in favor of our being here. Besides, they're still doing the box rooms up top. Perhaps they can't legally search the place on spec, unless they actually saw us go in.”

“What shall we do now?”

“Well, personally,” returned Rezaire, “I think I shall go to sleep.”

“Go to what?”

“Go to sleep! I'm dead beat; it's about half past eleven; and Heaven knows how much more chivying about we shall have to do. It's the first opportunity I've had, and I'd be a fool not to take it.”

“But where…”

“Here! I don't want to move for fear of bringing that valet fellow out on us. His suspicions are now unconsciously aroused, so we'd better let him get to sleep. Also, if we sleep for a couple of hours, the police may have given up and we may have a chance of getting out. It's no good trying to get out now.”

“The streets will be quieter too,” added Sam, a trifle dubiously. “I must say I'm sick of running about in crowds and having to hit someone every few minutes.”

“Well, there you are then! Let's sleep!”

“What about keeping watch?”

“That'll be all right. I can wake up at any time or at any noise.”

Sam grunted and settled himself more comfortably.

There had been but a few minutes' silence when Sam suddenly nudged Rezaire.

“Say,” his fierce whisper came out of the darkness, “I don't deny you're clever enough, and you've saved me two or three times. But don't you go getting too clever. If you think you're going to steal off while I'm asleep and leave me you're bloody well mistaken. I'll get you for it, if it takes me a week, and the way I'll cut you up will make you long for prison or even the rope. You won't tell me where your get-away is, but I'm going to stick to you till you show me. You've got to take me safe there or you'll…”

“Oh, stow it! I won't give you away,” lied Rezaire, but the cold fear of Sam suddenly settled about his heart once more. When he did cast Sam off, he would have to be very careful that someone was waiting to snap him up quick.

Silence fell again. Rezaire, utterly exhausted by all he had gone through, wondered for a moment what the police were doing and how he would get out. He was fairly certain that, when they found nothing upstairs they would have the house watched until dawn. Then weary in body and mind he fell asleep.

Some while later he awoke with a sudden jerk and looked at his watch. It was one o'clock. He had been asleep about an hour and a half. Some indefinable sense of something not quite right had roused him and he listened intently without moving. He could just hear voices outside on the landing—evidently the police still on the trail.

He leaned across with his hand and touched Sam gently so as to rouse him without making him speak. In a moment Sam had come to and both sat up in the confined space, cramped and stiff.

Rezaire crawled outside the curtain, turned round and put his ear close to Sam's.

“One o'clock,” he whispered. “The streets'll be empty enough now. But the police are still outside on the landings and stairs. I don't think they're yet certain that we're not in this fiat.”

“Any other way out?” asked Sam.

“We'll have a look round and see.”

They got to their feet and stealthily set off on their tour of inspection. The flat was not a big one; a small hall, dining-room, sitting-room, two bedrooms, and at the back a tiny kitchen, and a room where obviously the valet slept. The windows, as far as they could see, gave either onto Jermyn Street or else on to a small well or courtyard at the back, but the flat was far too high up from these to be of any use. There was no fire escape or other means of getting out save by the main stairway and the hall, where the detectives were. They stood in the dark kitchen, their cursory search over, and Sam scratched his head.

“Damn it!” he muttered. “Isn't there any way out of the back?”

“Evidently not.”

“There ought to be a back door.”

“Well, there isn't.”

“How do the tradesmen bring the meat and so on? These toffs surely don't have a bloke walking in at the front door with two or three pounds of fresh beef!”

“No, they…” Rezaire broke off suddenly and half turned to the window. He had had an idea. Almost at the same moment another thought apparently supervened in his mind and he checked himself.

“What?” asked Sam sharply.

“Nothing,” replied Rezaire, gradually turning his back on the window. “I'm as much at sea as you are.”

But he had not been quick enough. Sam was suspicious. He knew as surely as he stood there that his companion had thought of something and then had instantly decided not to tell him.

“Look here,” he demanded, “what were you going to say?”

“Nothing, I tell you”

“You—well will tell me,” Sam blustered, “you little—or I'll—well cut you up!”

“Stop your fool mouth, Sam,” returned Rezaire undaunted. He was not afraid of Sam's threats at the moment because he knew Sam had nothing to go upon. Also Sam could not put them into effect as long as he held the secret of escape. He was calling Sam's bluff and Sam wavered.

“If I'd got any plan worth telling you,” he went on, “I'd spit it out, but I thought of something and decided it wasn't possible.”

At his matter-of-fact statement and calm tones Sam subsided, muttering: “I thought you'd got hold of a way out of here and then determined to keep it for yourself.”

“You're a fool, Sam,” returned the other. “How many plans have I thought of this evening and kept to myself?”

“I'm—I'm sorry,” said Sam, completely mollified, and Rezaire breathed again. For Sam had been right. He had just thought of something and in the same instant had decided not to tell it to Sam. He had remembered suddenly that in nearly every one of these service flats the kitchen window had an outside lift to the courtyard below for the use of tradesmen, a small platform running on a cable, and a pulley, on which groceries and meat were placed and drawn up. If there was one in this flat it would provide a possible means of escape.

Nonchalantly he made his way to the window and under some pretext peered out into the darkness. Yes, he had been right. There against the sky beyond he could just see two thin black lines that were the cables stretching up to the pulley above. Where the lift itself was he could not make out. If he were to get away by it, it would have to be first pulled up level with the window. And Heaven only knew how once in it he could be able to regulate the descent. But one thing was certain: there would only be room for one at a time.

He turned away as Sam came to his side.

“Nothing there,” he lied. He certainly was not going to tell Sam. There was only a way of escape for one, and he had found it. They could not both use it, and he would not let Sam go first because he did not trust him to send it up again. Once Sam found himself clear of the place, he might decide to go off on his own. Sam, on the other hand, suspicious, overbearing, and yet dependent on him, would never let him go first for fear of the same thing. And he would be quite right, for it seemed to Rezaire the ideal way of escaping from Sam at last. His brain began to evolve schemes for getting a chance at it by himself.