Daredevil
knuckle ... saw the slight backward tremble of the hammer of his
revolver.
"Don't be a fool!" he snapped tensely. "An automatic's quicker than
an uncocked revolver. I can shoot a fraction of a second before you
can, and I never miss!"
Snooper's finger relaxed, and the masked man rose slowly from his
crouching position.
"That's why you'll drop that gat," went on Storm's monotonous,
unrecognisable voice. It was perfectly level, and yet he was playing
the most terrific gamble of nerve in his career. He was banking,
betting, coldly and unruffledly threatening on the infinitesimal
margin of time's advantage the difference of weapons gave him.
"You're poaching, Snooper. Your business is to fence, not to crack
cribs yourself ... taking the bread out of the poor burglar's
mouth.... I shall have to report you to the Larcenists' Union,
Snooper, really I shall...."
His voice trailed away.
Brome slackened the muscles of his forearm preparatory to making his
own gamble, for he knew how desperate was his position. And yet he
need not have been afraid, for Storm had taken one of those swift,
inspirational, entirely characteristic decisions of his. But, not
knowing this, Eddie Brome watched keenly for the faintest wavering of
the gun-metal grey eyes.... He stirred slightly, and the _crack!_ of
another speck of potassium chlorate under his foot was like a gunshot
in the stillness.
For a decimal of a split second it distracted his attention.
A fine tongue of flame licked out from the muzzle of Storm's
automatic, and the roar of the explosion was shattering. The bullet
struck Brome's revolver from his hand, and it clattered to the floor
while his arm fell limply to his side, suddenly paralysed by the
shock.
Storm dropped his gun into his pocket and leapt. His fist crashed
into Snooper's face, and the big man slid limply to the ground.
Storm had his back to the drawn curtains, and behind him he heard,
quite distinctly, a stifled gasp. In one lightning spring he was
beside the window, his back flattened against the wall, watching and
listening. No one entered, and he drew back the edge of the curtain
a centimetre. There was nothing to be seen, but as he let the cloth
fall back he caught the gentle crunch of stealthy footsteps on gravel.
He was across the room in a flash, had turned out the lights, and was
back at the window. He slipped between the curtains and swung
himself out, dropping to the path with hardly a sound. At the corner
of the building a dim grey shape moved suddenly and vanished.
Storm jumped the path and raced along the turf to where he had seen
the figure. There was no sign of it, but he could glimpse the small
area in front of the house, and he saw the two black burly forms
which pounded up the tiled approach, their lanterns dancing as they
ran.
"Damn these police.... But it's no use getting rattled, Horace!" he
murmured.
With which sound piece of philosophy he doubled back to the window
and returned to the room he had left. His one shot had already
raised the alarm, and he had much to do, yet he moved without flurry.
On the floor in front of the safe he continued his interrupted task
by the light of his torch. It was finished in a few moments, and
then he closed the safe and replaced the wallet of tools in his
pocket. As he crossed to the door he saw that Snooper had vanished
and, on the strength of his decision, was glad that he had not hit
the fence harder.
There was, however, small time for these reflections, for the
constables outside were already thundering on the front door. He
flitted upstairs like a shadow, temporarily unperturbed by the
problem of how he was to escape, and made a speedy, methodical search
of all the upstairs rooms. The door of one remained shut when he
turned the handle noiselessly, and from within came a faint sound of
cautious movement.
Coolly he twisted into the next room, and, looking out and down, he
saw the policemen climb in through the window he had left open for
his own bolt-hole.
"Jerusalem!" he breathed. "They've both gone in--the poor, damned
boobs! I ought to take their numbers, really, and report them for
incompetence.... However...."
He flung a leg over the sill and looked up, for although his way of
escape was temporarily clear he was anxious to see the man in the
adjoining room. Above his head ran a stout gutter, and, testing it
with his weight, he decided that it would hold. He swung out into
space and risked his way along the side of the building. In a few
hair-raising seconds he could see into one corner of the lighted
room, and then a loose section of pipe rattled in his hand, and the
blind whirred down almost in his face.
Without hesitation he turned and made his way as swiftly as he dared
back to the window he had left. He got his legs inside, and then
grabbed the top of the sash and wrenched his body down and inwards
with all his strength. Even as he did so, the shot he had feared and
sought thus to dodge rang out, and something seared across his
shoulder.
"Here--none of that, sir!" commanded a voice, and the next instant
the lights went up.
Raegenssen stood on the threshold, cold murder flaming in his eyes.
Behind him were the two constables, holding him back, and one of them
was clutching the Swede's wrist to prevent him firing the second
round he was wrestling and straining to loose off. He was in evening
dress, with his mane of fair hair dishevelled and his Viking beard
awry with the struggle.
"Take that man!" he screamed, and one of the constables released his
hold and came towards Storm.
"Dear me," murmured Storm. "Siegfried, my Pelican, you seem annoyed!"
His hand went to his pocket, and whipped into view again immediately
with a vision of snarling death. He fired in between the men until
the magazine was exhausted, and for a moment they recoiled
instinctively. It gave him his chance. With a light laugh he leapt
for the little group in the doorway.
Raegenssen staggered back from the sideways smash of Storm's elbow,
and in the same movement Storm hit one of the policemen regretfully
but scientifically on the point of the jaw. An instant later he was
sprinting down the passage.
He sprang to the banisters, and went whirling down, as the Swede
fired again. The bullet sang harmlessly past Storm's head, and a
whistle shrilled urgently. The three men came stumbling down in his
wake, but he had the start of them, and he had ducked back into the
shadows of the hall and vanished into the library before they could
switch on the downstairs lights. They were still groping about when
he passed through the still open window and scudded across the back
lawn the way he had come.
He found his car, stripped off his disguise, and had his hand on the
door when he noticed that there was someone huddled up in the front
seat. He glanced keenly around him, and then kept his right hand on
the gun in his pocket as he turned his electric flash on the face of
the intruder.
"Hullo, Kit," said Susan calmly,
When he had disposed of the police Raegenssen collected the papers
from his safe and studied each one of them closely. Then he replaced
them and went to the kitchen at the back of the house, where he
brewed himself some coffee, and, armed with this, returned to the
library and lighted a cigar.
Half-way through the smoke he discarded the stump fastidiously and
rose. At one end of the room was a small writing-desk, which he
unlocked, drawing down the folding front. Then he took off his coat
and white waistcoat and began to work.
A tiny reading-lamp on the top of the desk was all the light in the
room. He looked a grotesque figure, his leonine head stooped over
his work, his glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose,
his protruding tongue following the movements of his hands, with the
direct light bringing out his angular face in high relief.
It was two hours later that he heard the sound--the creak of a board
under a wary foot. He laid down his stylo carefully and switched out
the reading-lamp. On the threshold of the library he halted. The
hall was in darkness. Facing him, though he could not see them, were
three doors, and he had left each one of them slightly ajar. Almost
certainly his study would be the goal of this new trespasser, he
decided, and passed over the heavy carpet without sound. He was just
outside the study door when he heard a curious noise--three
deliberate claps. It was so obviously designed to attract attention
that another man would have paused, but Raegenssen was a man without
fear. He slid through the opening and stood with his back to the
wall, every sense on the alert.
"Who iss that?" he demanded.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" boomed back a mocking voice.
It was disguised, yet there was something familiar in it which he
could not place. His searching fingers located the electric light
switch, but he flicked the lever over and back without results. The
wires were cut--he found the loose ends hanging free a foot further
down.
"What is...?" he said.
And then came a rollicking chuckle that, unemotional as he was,
seemed to set a fine thread of ice vibrating in his spine.
"Maddock!" he roared uncertainly, and then he saw a shadow move, and
stumbled forward.
He touched cloth, and with a deep-throated grunt he closed. The
unknown struck at him with something that whistled as it fell, but
Raegenssen bowed his head and the life-preserver thudded agonisingly
into his shoulder instead of into his skull. He grabbed the
striker's hand, and for a short while they swayed and panted in the
darkness. His opponent was heavy and strong above the average, but
he was no match for the giant Swede. Presently they fell together,
and Raegenssen heaved himself astride the writhing man and sought to
gather in the arms that struck viciously at him.
"Now we shall see," he growled, and then a chance blow crashed into
his solar plexus and he rolled limply away, gasping in a torment of
nausea.
It was some minutes before he could rise, his great chest heaving
painfully, and by that time he knew that the unknown had gone. He
reeled across the hall, bent almost double, and snapped on the lights
in his library. Every drawer and cupboard had been hurriedly rifled,
and their contents strewn on the floor, but he gave the damage
scarcely a glance. From among the wreckage he retrieved a flashlight
and went back to the study, switching on the lights in the hall on
his way. He went over every inch of the room in search of anything
his late visitor might have lost in the struggle, and it was quite
early in his hunt that he saw something winking up at him from the
carpet.
It was a little silver triangle.
CHAPTER IX
SPECIMENS OF JOURNALESE
Storm trod on the self-starter. The powerful engine woke to life
with no more than a whispering purr. Like a long shadow the Hirondel
slid out of the cart track and down the deserted road between ghostly
files of street lamps.
He switched on his lights as he turned into the Finchley Road.
It had been a merry evening, and not without those thrilling moments
after which his heart yearned; and it had left him with things to
ponder. He wanted to know the reason for Snooper Brome's appearance
in the home of Oscar Raegenssen, and he wanted to know what the
hurriedly lowered blind in an upstairs room had hidden from him, but
it was typical of the man that he accepted Susan's arrival as though
it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Lucky you found me," he remarked. "Now I can take you along to the
Elysion, and we can consume bacon and eggs."
He made no effort to discover the reason for her presence, but she
enlightened him of her own accord.