Terror keep
coverlet over him and was asleep in five minutes.
Margaret Belman had it in her mind to send up to his room after
eleven, before she herself retired, to discover whether there was
anything he wanted, but fortunately she changed her mind--fortunately,
because Mr. Reeder had planned to snatch five solid hours’ sleep
before he began his unofficial inspection of the house, or
alternatively before the period arrived when it would be necessary
that he should be wide awake.
At two o’clock to the second he woke and sat up on the edge of the
bed, blinking at the light. Opening one of his trunks, he took out a
small wooden box from which he drew a spirit stove and the
paraphernalia of tea-making. He lit the little lamp, and while the
tiny tin kettle was boiling he went to the bathroom, undressed, and
lowered his shivering body into a cold bath. He returned fully
dressed, to find the kettle boiling.
Mr. Reeder was a very methodical man; he was, moreover, a careful man.
All his life he had had a suspicion of milk. He used to wander round
the suburban streets in the early hours of the morning, watch the cans
hanging on the knockers, the bottles deposited in corners of
doorsteps, and ruminate upon the enormous possibilities for wholesale
murder that this light-hearted custom of milk delivery presented to
the criminally minded. He had calculated that a nimble homicide,
working on systematic lines, could decimate London in a month.
He drank his tea without milk, munched a biscuit, and then,
methodically clearing away the spirit-stove and kettle, he took from
his grip a pair of thick-soled felt slippers and drew them on his
feet. In his trunk he found a short length of stiff rubber, which, in
the hands of a skilful man, was as deadly a weapon as a knife. This he
put in the inside pocket of his jacket. He put his hand in the trunk
again and brought out something that looked like a thin rubber
sponge-bag, except that it was fitted with two squares of mica and a
small metal nozzle. He hesitated about this, turning it over and over
in his hand, and eventually this went back into the trunk. The stubby
Browning pistol, which was his next find, Mr. Reeder regarded with
disfavour, for the value of firearms, except in the most desperate
circumstances, had always seemed to him to be problematical.
The last thing to be extracted was a hollow bamboo, which contained
another, and was in truth the fishing-rod for which he had once
expressed a desire. At the end of the thinner was a spring loop, and
after he had screwed the two lengths together he fitted upon this loop
a small electric hand-lamp and carefully threaded the thin wires
through the eyelets of the rod, connecting them up with a tiny switch
at the handle, near where the average fisherman has his grip. He
tested the switch, found it satisfactory, and when this was done he
gave a final look round the room before extinguishing the table lamp.
In the broad light of day he would have presented a somewhat comic
figure, sitting cross-legged on his bed, his long fishing-rod reaching
out to the middle of the room and resting on the footboard; but at the
moment Mr. J. G. Reeder had no sense of the ridiculous, and moreover
there were no witnesses. From time to time he swayed the rod left and
right, like an angler making a fresh cast. He was very wide awake, his
ears tuned to differentiate between the normal noises of the
night--the rustle of trees, the soft purr of the wind--and the sounds
which could only come from human activity.
He sat for more than half an hour, his fishing-rod moving to and fro,
and then he was suddenly conscious of a cold draught blowing from the
door. He had heard no sound, not so much as the clink of a lock; but
he knew that the door was wide open.
Noiselessly he drew in the rod till it was clear of the posts of the
bed, brought it round towards the door, paying out until it was a
couple of yards from where he sat--with one foot on the ground now,
ready to leap or drop, as events dictated.
The end of the rod met with no obstruction. Reeder held his breath…
listening. The corridor outside was heavily carpeted. He expected no
sound of footsteps. But people must breathe, thought Mr. Reeder, and
it is difficult to breathe noiselessly. Conscious that he himself was
a little too silent for a supposedly sleeping man, he emitted a
lifelike snore and gurgle which might be expected from a middle-aged
man in the first stages of slumber.…
Something touched the end of the rod, pushing it aside. Mr. Reeder
turned the switch and a blinding ray of light leapt from the lamp and
focussed in a circle on the opposite wall of the corridor.
The door was open, but there was nothing human in sight.
And then, despite his wonderful nerve, his flesh began to go goosey,
and a cold sensation tingled up his spine. Somebody was there--hiding…
waiting for the man who carried the lamp, as they thought, to emerge.
Reaching out at full arm’s-length, he thrust the end of the rod
through the doorway into the corridor.
_Swish!_
Something struck the rod and snapped it. The lamp fell on the floor,
lens uppermost, and flooded the ceiling of the corridor. In an instant
Reeder was off the bed, moving swiftly, till he came to the cover
afforded by the wide-open door. Through the crack he had a limited
view of what might happen outside.
There was a deadly silence. In the hall downstairs a clock ticked
solemnly, whirred and struck the quarter to three. But there was no
movement; nothing came within the range of the upturned lamp, until…
He had just a momentary flash of vision. The thin, white face, the
hairy lips parted in a grin, wild, dirty white hair, and a bald crown,
a short bristle of white beard, a claw-like hand reaching for the
lamp.…
Pistol or rubber? Mr. Reeder elected for the rubber. As the hand
closed over the lamp he left the cover of the room and struck. He
heard a snarl like that of a wild beast, then the lamp was
extinguished as the apparition staggered back, snapping the thin wire.
The corridor was in darkness. He struck again and missed; the violence
of the stroke was such that he overbalanced and fell on one knee, and
the truncheon flew from his grasp. He threw out his hand, gripped an
arm, and with a quick jerk brought his capture into the room and
switched on the light.
A round, soft hand, covered with a silken sleeve…
As the lights leapt to life, he found himself looking into the pale
face of Olga Crewe!
CHAPTER X
/For/ a moment they stared at one another, she fearful, he amazed.
Olga Crewe!
Then he became conscious that he was still gripping the arm, and let
it drop. The arm fascinated Mr. Reeder: he scarcely looked at anything
else.
“I am very sorry,” said Mr. Reeder. “Where did you come from?”
Her lips were quivering; she tried to speak, but no words came. Then
she mastered her momentary paralysis and began to speak, slowly,
laboriously.
“I--heard--a noise--in--the--corridor--and--came--out. A
noise--I--was--frightened.”
She was rubbing her arm mechanically; he saw a red weal where his hand
had gripped. The wonder was that he had not broken her arm.
“Is--anything--wrong?”
Every word was created and articulated painfully. She seemed to be
considering its formation before her tongue gave it sound.
“Where is the light-switch in the hall?” asked Mr. Reeder. This was a
more practical matter--he lost interest in her arm.
“Opposite my room.”
“Turn it on,” he said, and she obeyed meekly.
Only when the corridor was illuminated did he step out of his room,
and even then in some doubt, if the Browning in his hand meant
anything.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked again. By now she had taken command of
herself. A little colour had come to her white face, but the live eyes
were still beholding terrible visions.
“Did you see anything in the passage?” he answered.
She shook her head slowly.
“No, I saw nothing--nothing. I heard a noise and I came out.”
She was lying: he did not trouble to doubt this. She had had time to
pull on her slippers and find the flimsy wrap she wore, and the fight
had not lasted more than two seconds. Moreover, he had not heard her
door open; therefore it had been open all the time, and she had been
spectator or audience of all that had happened.
He went down the corridor, retrieved his rubber truncheon, and came
back to her. She was half standing, half leaning against the
door-post, rubbing her arm. She was staring past him so intently that
he looked round, though there was nothing to be seen.
“You hurt me,” she said simply.
“Did I? I’m sorry.”
The mark on the white flesh had gone blue, and Mr. Reeder was
naturally a sympathetic man. Yet, if the truth be told, there was
nothing of sorrow in his mind at that moment. Regret, yes. But the
regret had nothing to do with her hurt.
“I think you’d better go to your bed, young lady. My nightmare is
ended. I hope yours will end as quickly, though I shall be surprised
if it does. Mine is for the moment; yours, unless I am greatly
mistaken, is for life!”
Her dark, inscrutable eyes did not leave his face as she spoke.
“I think it must have been a nightmare,” she said. “It will last all
my life? I think it will!”
With a nod she turned away, and presently he heard her door close and
the lock fasten.
Mr. Reeder went back to the far side of his bed, pulled up a chair and
sat down. He did not attempt to close the door. Whilst his room was in
darkness and the corridor lighted, he did not expect a repetition of
his bad and substantial dream.
The rubber truncheon was a mistake, he admitted regretfully. He wished
he had not such a repugnance to a noisier weapon. He laid the pistol
on the cover of the bed within reach of his hand. If the bad dream
came again----
Voices!
The murmur of a whispered colloquy and a fierce, hissing whisper that
dominated the others. Not in the corridor, but in the hall below. He
tiptoed to the door and listened.
Somebody laughed under his breath, a strange blood-curdling little
mutter of a laugh; and then he heard a key turn and a door open and a
voice demand:
“Who is there?”
It was Margaret. Her room faced the head of the stairs, he remembered.
Slipping the pistol into his pocket, he ran round the end of the bed
and into the corridor. She was standing by the banisters, looking down
into the dark. The whispering voices had ceased. She saw him out of
the corner of her eye and turned with a start.
“What is wrong, Mr. Reeder? Who put the corridor light on? I heard
somebody speaking in the vestibule.”
“It was only me.”
His smile would in ordinary circumstances have been very reassuring,
but now she was frightened, childishly frightened. She had an insane
desire to cling to him and weep.
“Something has been happening here,” she said. “I’ve been lying in bed
listening, and haven’t had the courage to get up. I’m horribly scared,
Mr. Reeder.”
He beckoned her to him, and as she came, wondering, he slipped past
her and took her place at the banisters. She saw him lean over and the
light from a hand-lamp sweep the space below.
“There’s nobody there,” he said airily.
She was whiter than he had ever seen her.
“There _was_ somebody there,” she insisted. “I heard their feet moving
on the tiled paving after you put on your flash-lamp.”
“Probably Mrs. Burton,” he suggested. “I thought I heard her
voice----”
And now came a newcomer on the scene. Mr. Daver had appeared at the
end of the corridor. He wore a flowered silk dressing-gown buttoned up
to his chin.
“Whatever is the matter, Miss Belman?” he asked. “Don’t tell me that
he tried to get into _your_ window! I’m afraid you’re going to tell me
that! I hope you’re not, but I’m afraid you will! Dear me, what an