The Air Pirate
disregard of my presence. He may or may not have known that I was
conscious; quite obviously he didn't care twopence one way or the other.
And that meant one thing and one thing only.
Before the Pirate Ship fled from its lair for the last time John
Custance would have ceased to exist in the body.
"... Now for Sir John. How do you feel, Vargus? You took a nasty toss,
and it's damned lucky for you we turned up when we did! Do you feel
strong enough to drag Sir John into my room? If so, I'll go ahead and
turn on the lights."
"I'm quite strong enough for _that_," said Mr. Vargus, with a nasty
laugh, and in a few seconds he had me by the heels, and was towing me
like a log over an uneven floor. It was only by stiffening the muscles
of my neck till they cracked that I could keep my head from bruising
badly. Then a cloth of some sort was dropped on my face and tied round
my head. I felt myself carried for a yard or two, put into a chair with
an upright back, and then lashed securely to it by strong cords.
"I'll call you when I want you again," said the voice of Helzephron. "Go
and help the others load the ship. And remember that we must take every
round of ammunition we can stow in her. Twenty-four hours' rations will
be ample. We can renew those at any time. Shells are quite another
matter. Sacrifice everything to them."
A door closed. I heard the creak of a chair as Helzephron sat down.
There was a long silence, and through the cloth I could feel that he was
watching me.
The duel to the death began. I was as a naked man before another with a
sword. I braced every nerve and stiffened my will!
"You are in a very unpleasant predicament, Sir John Custance."
The voice was passionless, even a little weary.
"I think it's mutual, Mr. Helzephron," was my answer, and I put an
accent on the "_Mister_." He should have no honourable military title
from me.
"Well, that is possible. Indeed, I admit that you have seriously
deranged my plans. But the trumps are mine, after all. With your
intelligence you must be aware that you have a very short time to live."
"I don't doubt that, but I dispute your estimate of your hand."
"May I ask why?"
"With pleasure. I don't care twopence about my own life in comparison
with my duty to society. You care a good deal for yours, and you also
have a short time in front of you. If it is any satisfaction to you to
know, you're in a net from which even the particular minor devils that
preside over thieves can't free you."
Thus I lied bravely. A good deal, I thought, might depend on my ability
to get the scoundrel into a furious rage, and, anyway, it was a delight
to insult him.
A sharp breath told me that I had drawn blood.
"You use dangerous language, Sir John. You'll be sorry if you go on."
"Now, look here," I rapped out, in the tone I should have used to an
impudent office boy, "please understand that you can't frighten me. I
know that bounders of your type don't understand a gentleman and how he
feels about things. I only assure you that you will waste your time. And
time _ought_"--I said it with meaning--"to be worth more to you now than
all the valuables you picked from the pockets of the _Atlantis_
passengers."
He came up to me, and I thought that this was the moment. But he only
tore the cloth from my head and returned to his chair.
I looked round with interest. The room, no doubt part of the cavern
system into which the mine had penetrated, was matchboarded all round.
The boarding was painted white, and a cluster of electrics hung from the
ceiling. There was a carpet on the floor, a couple of arm-chairs, a
writing-table, and a big steel safe. In one corner was another door than
the entrance one, partly concealed by a green curtain hanging from a
brass rod.
Helzephron himself sat opposite. The handsome, hawk-like face was badly
bruised. He stared at me with concentrated malignancy. Then he smiled,
with a flash of large white teeth.
"Really, I should hardly have known you," he said.
"I should have recognized you anywhere, even with the bruises!" I
replied. "Mr. Ashton left you your teeth, I see."
His face grew dark. He nodded twice. "I thought that," he said, half to
himself.
"I saw the whole thing, and it was most amusing, Mr. Helzephron. I was
sitting in the smaller arm of the gallery at the 'Mille Colonnes,'
behind a centre-piece of flowers. I, _and my companion_, had concealed a
periscope in the flowers, and got the whole thing framed, as it were. It
gave a zest to the Burgundy. But I thought you'd have made a better
fight of it!"
The man leapt from his chair with a savage curse and took two steps
towards me, with clenched fist and lifted arm.
I looked up in that convulsed and purple face.
"Quite so!" I said quietly. "I'm tied up. It's quite safe to hit me."
If he was going to torture me, and I had few illusions on the matter, I
was having my innings now. He _had_ been a gentleman once, he had been a
brave soldier. It was because I knew this that I could stab him.
He didn't strike. He began to walk up and down the room, swallowing his
rage with an almost superhuman effort--being what he was. Perhaps shame
helped him, perhaps it was cunning, but he sat down again, and though he
trembled, his voice was calm.
"So you think me a coward, do you?" he said. "I'll do you the justice to
say that you're none."
My mind was working with an insight that it has never possessed before
or since. The key to the man's psychology was in my hand at last.
All criminals are vain. In great criminals vanity assumes colossal
proportions until it becomes a real madness. Criminologists call it
megalomania. It is egotism fostered and indulged to the point of
monstrosity, when all moral considerations are swept away, and the
subject thinks himself superior to all law, and glories in his
greatness.
_Lord of himself, that heritage of woe!_ I think Byron said that.
"You've correctly expressed me," I told him.
"Perhaps your detective work has not gone so far as to inform you that I
hold the Victoria Cross?" Yes! he was mad! No sane man of his extraction
would have said that.
"It is a distinction above all others, Mr. Helzephron. And you'll have
another very soon. Indeed, you'll never be forgotten. You'll be historic
as the one V.C. who was degraded. They'll do it the day before they hang
you at Pentonville, and it will be in the _Gazette_."
He grew quite white, whether from anger or shame I do not know. But I
went on. Something inside me that was not myself seemed to be speaking.
"You've been living quite an artificial life, you see, surrounded by
your amicable young friends and the artistic Mr. Vargus. You, no doubt,
think of yourself as of a very glorious order. Making war on society,
Ajax defying the thunder, King of the air, and all that sort of thing.
I'll bet anything you've compared yourself to Napoleon a thousand
times! It's the way the late Kaiser of Germany fell. It's called
megalomania. But you aren't anything of the sort, you know. You are a
cowardly thief, who steals and murders for the sake of his pocket. You
asked me a question and I've answered it."
He heard each word. His eyes became glassy and his jaw dropped. For all
the world he was like an evil child who hears the truth about itself,
and all the power was wiped out of his face as chalk marks are wiped off
a blackboard.
He got up abruptly, and left the room by the curtained door. He was away
for ten minutes. When he returned he was his old self, but with an
addition--he had been drinking back his devilishness. There was a strong
odour of brandy as he entered. His eyes were full and liquid, and he was
amazingly vital. I knew that I could hurt him no longer. He wore
impenetrable armour. He sat down and lit a cigarette. He smiled with an
evil good-humour. It was his hour now.
"Well, we've got acquainted at last," he began in an easy conversational
tone. "You've been excessively clever in hunting me down, and your
powers of insult are exceptional. I admit again that you have smoked me
out here, but as to putting an end to my activities, that's a very
different story. Your people can't get at me once I'm out of this snug
retreat, and they can't force an entry here until I'm gone. So much as
between the Commissioner of Police and the Pirate. You've had your say
and I've had mine."
"Then there is nothing more to be said."
"Excuse me, as man to man, there's a good deal. I purchased an evening
paper on the afternoon of the evening when I was attacked by your hired
bully."
At last the conversation was growing interesting.
"With stolen money?" I asked impudently. But it fell dead flat. I don't
think he even heard me.
"The paper made public some news that I had already gathered from
another source. The news of your engagement, Sir John Custance."
We stared at each other in dead silence for half a minute.
"To Miss Constance Shepherd," he went on.
I said nothing.
"... Who at this moment is not twenty yards away from you, and who will
fly with me to-night to where all your police boats will never find us."
"By force."
"Well, up to the present I admit that I have had to take the law into my
own hands. I am a man who believes in getting what he wants. Your
arrival, the fact that you're my guest for a short time, has given my
thoughts quite a new direction."
I saw that there was a deep and sinister meaning in what he said, but
not an inkling of the abominable truth came to me. He understood that
from my face, and he laughed out loud.
"Oh, this is going to be enormously refreshing!" he cried. "This is
going to make everything worth while!"
My heart turned to stone as I watched that unholy merriment.
When he had finished laughing, he said: "Miss Shepherd does not know as
yet that I have the honour of entertaining you. I am about to inform
her. And then, if she wishes it, as no doubt she will, you must really
meet. Journeys end in lovers' meetings, they say."
He was about to add something when there was a knock at the door. Mr.
Vargus came in.
"All loaded," he said, looking nervously at me, as if wondering what had
passed during his absence. "All loaded and everything ready for a start.
The others have gone up to the house."
"Well, there's nothing to report, or they would have telephoned down.
There is no hurry for an hour yet...."
Helzephron took the short man by the arm and drew him into a corner of
the room. They whispered together for nearly ten minutes. I could not
catch a word.
Then Vargus nodded with an air of triumphant comprehension, and left the
room.
"On second thoughts," said Helzephron, "I am not going to prepare Miss
Shepherd. We will let it be in the nature of a pleasant surprise."
He disappeared through the green-curtained door.
CHAPTER XV
LED OUT TO DIE
In relating what is immediately to follow I shall do so with as plain
and unvarnished a narrative as my pen can command. You will read of what
Constance and I endured, but do not ask me to do more than hint at the
anger of my soul. It is impossible to describe, at least it would
require the pen of a Dante or a Milton, nor would I describe it if I
could. It is bad enough to live that hour again even faintly and in
imagination. To call it up into full memory--soul memory--is a task for
which I have not the least inclination. You shall, therefore, have the
facts with very little comment upon them.
I think it's about all you'll need.
Helzephron was away for a considerable time. During his absence Vargus
peeped in once and looked at me. I won't describe his face.
When the hawk-faced man returned, he dragged my chair to the far end of
the room, and pushed the writing-table in front of it to form a