Daredevil
Hannassay? The Triangle had murdered him. She knew little about
him, except that he held a minor position in the Home Office. Was he
connected with any of the other three? ... The recollection of his
interest in Mattock, to which Storm had attached some import, came to
her in a flash. She wrestled with the circumstances of that case.
Mattock had been Hannassay's secretary, and had forged his employer's
name to a cheque; Hannassay had prosecuted him without mercy, and
Mattock had gone to prison. Therefore Mattock had a grudge against
Hannassay. Then how did the others fit in? She was certain that
Raegenssen belonged somewhere in that complicated jig-saw--she had a
distinct recollection of the afternoon when the Hirondel had skidded
into him. Raegenssen had been knocked half unconscious, and she had
heard him speak as he was coming round: if he had been partially
stunned, his brain would have functioned without the restraint which
his caution imposed upon it in ordinary life, and he might have let
fall a hint of Something. And that Something had had an astounding
effect on Storm, Mattock, and Uncle Joe. She could even picture
their different expressions--Storm's tense inscrutability, Mattock's
passion, and Uncle Joe's excitement. What was it Raegenssen had
mumbled? Some girl's name ... _Sylvia_! That was it. Then where
did Sylvia come in, and who was Sylvia--why should she have such an
incredible influence upon three men brought together practically by a
fluke?
Another idea came tapping at Susan's brain. She could not quite
place it--it was something which hammered at the doors of her
conscious mind and yet just missed gaining ingress. A cold wind
seemed suddenly to lap her spine, sending a shiver up her back to the
nape of her neck. She had a numbing sensation of being on the verge
of a bottomless precipice, of being on the threshold of some terrible
realisation. There was something enormously significant attached to
that name, and yet it was only a superficial association. It wasn't
the name itself, but ... but ... but the way it was
said--Raegenssen's voice!
For a space the fog that had thwarted her memory rolled back and
blotted out understanding in a maddeningly, impenetrable vapour of
obscurity; and then, through the mist, dawned a slow nimbus of
realisation. Raegenssen's voice! Never in her life, she would have
sworn, had she spoken to a man named Raegenssen, and yet the
remembered timbre of his incoherent mutter "_Sylvia ... Sylvia ..._"
struck a responsive chord which vibrated through her consciousness
with ever-increasing assurance.
Conviction came against her will, fighting for expression against all
the massed forces of logic and reasoning. It was ridiculous,
smacking of hallucination, incredible--and yet, pluck that awakened
chord ever so distrustfully, it rang true every time. Millimetre by
millimetre, battling doggedly against the overwhelming odds, common
sense gave ground before the onslaught of primeval instinct. She was
sound of mind and body, had never had cause to doubt the stability of
her senses; therefore, insane as the idea might seem, it must be
granted due audience. And so, with every breathless second, that
clear, single note of belief sang in greater and greater volume. She
knew she was right, knew she could rely on the combined depositions
of hearing and memory ...
_She knew Raegenssen's voice, and it was the voice of a man who had
spoken to her recently!_
The full light of understanding blinded her, and her hands came down
suddenly to grip the arms of her chair. Now that all darkness had
been swept away by that last swift incandescence of knowledge, she
was amazed that she had never seen and gripped that stark fact
before. Perhaps it was because she had not thought to place
sufficient importance on the incident, and therefore had not turned
it over in her mind and inspected it from every angle. Certainly,
circumstances had allied to lull her into accepting the salient,
startling truth as a thing of no account. Of course, one may always
find a full-grown African rhinoceros in a soap factory, but the
possibility falls short of the commonly endorsed probabilities of
normal life, so that anyone seeking African rhinoceros heads
automatically for Africa instead of taking his chance in an
expedition to Port Sunlight. In exactly the same way, her
subconscious mind had so scoffed at the idea of Oscar Raegenssen
being no more than the Mr. Hyde of somebody else's Dr. Jekyll, that
the censor on guard between conscious and subconscious had barred out
the suggestion. Nevertheless--and, now, she would have sworn to
it--Raegenssen was somebody else. Or, conversely, somebody else was
Raegenssen. In dress, deportment, face and figure there was only the
most far-fetched possible similarity; in the ordinary way, that
difference was likely to extend to voice also; all the same, there
remained one dogmatic heads-I-win-tails-you-lose certainty by way of
bed-rock on which to start rebuilding every theory about the Alpha
Triangle. And that that certainly had some very intimate relation to
the Triangle was an assumption which brooked no question.
Her head was spinning like a high-pressure dynamo; the glimpse of
infinite leagues of the Unknown which her new-found wisdom gave her
was appalling. She had a grip on one salient fact, and she was sure
that attached to that fact was the thread which, properly trailed,
would lead to the centre of the labyrinth. Whose, then, was that
momentous Voice? She racked her brain for inspiration; but having
obliged so far, memory baulked at that last fence. She realised the
difficulty of divorcing voice from all association of appearance and
demeanour. Storm might have the various compartments of his
reminiscence more efficiently docketed and cross-indexed than hers
were--but how could one describe a voice? It seemed hopeless unless
one happened to be an expert imitator, and that ability was not among
her talents. Still she thought she should get in touch with him:
even while he was on his way she might succeed in remembering the
owner of the Voice. She had a ludicrous vision of herself seated in
the Chief Commissioner's room at New Scotland Yard, her head swathed
in ice compresses, what time the heads of the Criminal Investigation
Department hovered and tiptoed around her, waiting in anxious silence
for a clue to fall from her lips ...
She smiled to herself, but the impulse to ring up Storm persisted.
Where would he be at that hour? Most probably at his flat, she
decided promptly.
She was on the point of getting up from her chair to fetch the
telephone, when----
BOOM! ... _--oom! ... --oom! ..._
The muffled thunder of a distant explosion came echoing and reëchoing
through the ether. And not so very distant either, for the thud of
it was louder than anything she had ever heard--it shook the earth
and rattled the windows in their frames. She sat up with a jump, and
saw that Ann had dropped her work and was staring about in amazement.
Even Terry looked up with a surprised expression; and then he leaned
heavily on the table.
"Concentration!" he breathed reverently. "What absorption! What
industry! I hope you're all takin' a lesson from me. I'm goin' to
register a Deed Poll changing my name to Rip Van Winkle. When I
started this pestilential job it was June, and now they're already
lettin' off fireworks and burning the image of Mr. Fawkes. Still, I
suppose to anyone of my vast intelligence----
"Shut up!" commanded his wife rudely. "Susan, whatever was it?"
"Fireworks, I tell you," said Terry. "This is the Fifth, and they're
celebratin' Brock's Benefit."
And then, stealing through the open windows, from the east, came the
dull roar of a hubbub which swelled with every minute. Came, ever so
thin and faint, a horrible, sobbing cry.... The racket grew ... not
so very far away they heard shouts, a screaming babel of police
whistles, and the patter of running feet...
Terry moved over to the window and peered out over their shoulders,
but they could see nothing.
"Not an air-raid, surely? Don't say I've slept all through the Great
War, daddy," he murmured, but there was not much jesting in his
manner.
They listened. Windows were being flung open and people were coming
out into the streets. The shouting had come nearer--men were
spreading the news to everyone within range of voices, but as yet it
was impossible to make out what was being yelled. Until, gradually,
to the three of them, came a glimmer of comprehension. The Triangle.
That ruthless organisation had been abroad again that night,
spreading death and disaster in some terrific fashion at which for
the nonce they could only guess.
On the pavement outside the two detectives who guarded the house were
staring into the darkness, speculating about the cause of the
disturbance.
"What was it?" Terry called through the window, and one of them
looked up and shook his head.
"Can't say, sir. The Triangle threatened to blow up some places, and
Piccadilly Circus was first on the list--the noise seemed to come
from that direction, but I couldn't swear to it."
Storm's flat was near Piccadilly. A little pang ripped into Susan's
heart, and she caught her breath. But it wasn't likely that he'd be
in the damage, she reassured herself doubtfully. The Albany was some
way from Piccadilly Circus, and London was so big that, even if he
were out that night, it was umpteen thousand to one against his
having been near the explosion. And, anyhow, it wasn't certain that
Piccadilly Circus had been mined, although logic was inclined to
support that hypothesis....
Still they listened, and while they did so a handful of men and women
ran past, laughing, dashing off to "see the fun." And then, through
the night air, came an ominous silence, a murmuring stillness which
was perplexing until they realised that it was caused by a sudden
stoppage of all the traffic running on the near south and east. And
through that hush came a new sound, approaching rapidly. It
increased, until it could be recognised as the splutter of a
high-powered car tearing through the streets towards them. As it
sped nearer, it could all but be identified, and the suspicion it
roused made Susan clutch the window sill in unaccountable terror.
That loud, rising and falling snort and purr was the voice of a
Hirondel--Storm's car. Was Storm himself driving? The fear that It
might be carrying his maimed or lifeless body filled her with a
shuddering dread.
_Was_ it the Hirondel? The car broke into sight now, rocking down
the road with its twin headlights ablaze. It drew almost abreast of
them, and then swerved across the road and jerked to a standstill
before the door with all its brakes screaming in protest at the rough
handling.
One of the detectives ran to open the door, and Susan watched,
striving not to flinch, to see who should descend.
It was not Storm---it was a uniformed policeman. The man spoke a
curt word to the detective, and then ran up the steps.
Susan had the door open for him before he could ring.
"What is it?" she cried. "_Quick!_ Tell me--is he--is Captain Arden
hurt?"
The man twiddled a button.
"Yes, miss--er--well, not much." The constable was confused.
"He's--er--he wants to see you ... and..."
"Yes, _yes_!" The girl stamped her foot impatiently. "Go on. Tell
me the worst--I shan't faint or do anything silly. Is he--seriously
injured?"
"Well, miss, you never know," said the policeman huskily. "The
doctors say--
"Where is he?"
"St. George's Hospital--on his way there, anyhow. He sent me to
fetch you. That's his car."
"I'll come right away," she said pantingly. "Hurry!"