behind the wainscot, and, after that, somewhere about the place where she judged the portrait of Sir Godfrey to be, two tiny points of brilliant flame radiated into the room, thin and keen, like a pair of lances. They moved slowly, much as slender searchlights might have done, Ella caught sight of them, all that fine courage and resolution returned.
Here were the eyes, those sinister eyes looking out from the notorious portrait as more than one unfortunate occupant of the room had professed to see them. And those eyes had been responsible for more than one tragedy. But upon this occasion, however, they were exercising no hypnotic effect upon the woman who lay there watching them from the bed. As Ella lay perfectly still, watching intently, the eyes moved lower down, until they remained some five feet or so from the oak-panelled wall. It was only just for a moment that they seemed to hesitate there, for they advanced slowly into the room, and swept with brilliant intensity across the bed.
Ella Nettleship, with half-veiled eyes, lay as still as death until the lights were switched off in the direction of the dressing-table. Here they concentrated for a second or two, and it seemed to Ella that she could see a hand stretched out in the direction of her jewel case. Evidently she was not wrong, for she saw the lure lifted from the table, and, with that, she gently pressed the bulb in the palm of her hand.
Then she lay perfectly still for possibly ten seconds before she heard the door of the bedroom creak, and it seemed to her that she could catch the sound of her husband’s heavy breathing. And if she were right, it was up to him now to do the rest. Then something whizzed across the room, there came a choking sort of cry from the direction of the dressing table, and, after a short struggle, a mighty object collapsed with a dull thud on the floor. Followed a rush across the room, and a heavy impact as two bodies came together, and immediately there was a grunt and a groan as the intruder and the newcomer grappled with one another. A curse broke out of somewhere in the centre of the velvety darkness, and then another cry that seemed to be squeezed out of the centre of the gloom with more groans that stopped suddenly in the midst of a heavy fall. But assuredly those curses did not proceed from Nettleship’s lips, and with this comfortable feeling, Ella reached out her hand for the box of matches on the little table by the side of the bed, and lighted her pair of candles.
As the flare lifted and dimly illuminated the room, Ella saw a strange sight. A man was lying on the floor by the dressing-table with Nettleship standing over him. Around the unfortunate intruder’s neck was a cord, at the end of which were two brass balls that seemed to be twisted so tightly that the man lying there could barely breathe. But be that as it might, he was absolutely helpless, and Nettleship, breathing heavily, was bending over him with the air of a conqueror.
“You can get up, Ella,” he gasped triumphantly. “I’ve got him all right. That was a real lucky shot of mine with a lasso. I could just make out the shape of his head in the gleam of those little torches that he has fastened to his mask, and I chanced it. So you see that my two years amongst the Texas cowboys were not wasted. Here, come along, Chiffner.”
The steward came promptly enough, for, standing outside, he had heard all that was going on. He helped to remove the choking lasso from the throat of the man lying there, and lifted him to his feet. He cried out suddenly, “Gaylor!” he exclaimed. “It’s Jim Gaylor.”
“Ah, precisely as I had expected,” Nettleship exclaimed. “Ella, this is Mr. James Gaylor, the son of the late baronet’s butler. A regular bad lot, and only recently back in the neighbourhood after a long term of penal servitude. When I learnt this fact from Chiffner, I was pretty sure who was at the bottom of all the trouble. I can’t understand why they didn’t suspect it before. You see, as he was born here, he must have known all about the house and the secret passage leading from the back of the old monastery to the back of this room.”
“I didn’t know it, sir,” Chiffner said.
“Well, as you have only recently come here to look after the place, how should you? You are quite right, Ella, when you said there was a missing space of eight feet, and that is right behind Sir Godfrey’s portrait, which is painted on a sliding panel. This chap knew all about it, and very good use of his knowledge he has made. All these months he has been able to play the ghost of the haunted room, and well he has done it, for he has done no work since he came out of gaol, and he seems to have had plenty of money to spend in the bar downstairs. He hung about there, night after night, waiting for some one to take Room Five, and once he knew that a visitor was there, then the rest was easy. Chiffner, you had better telephone to the police station. I can look after this man till you come back.”
The unfortunate Gaylor seemed to be taking no interest in the proceedings. He lay on the floor, weak and helpless, and evidently still suffering deeply from the cruel pressure of the lasso about his throat.
Ella smiled up into her husband’s face,
“You have done splendidly,” she said.
“Well, in a way I have,” Nettleship said. “But most of the credit belongs to you. It was you who found out all about that missing space, and gave me the clue to the secret entrance to the house. Well, I managed to find that, and when I discovered that one of the men who came to drink here was the son of the late baronet’s butler it seemed to me that I knew exactly where to put my hand on the criminal. You see, he was just the sort of man to know all about the mysteries of the house, and his past made him suspect. Now, let’s get him out of the way, and go quietly to bed. This ought to be a rattling good Christmas for us, and when it is over we’ll just go back to London and get into that little flat of ours without further delay.”
A Policeman’s Business
(Edgar Wallace)
There was living at Somers Town at that time a little man named Jakobs.
He was a man of some character, albeit an unfortunate person with “something behind him.” The something behind him, however, had come short of a lagging. “Carpets” (three months’ hard labour) almost innumerable had fallen to his share, but a lagging had never come his way.
A little wizened-faced man, with sharp black eyes, very alert in his manner, very neatly dressed, he conveyed the impression that he was enjoying a day off, but so far as honest work was concerned Jakobs’ day was an everlasting one.
Mr. Jakobs had been a pensioner of Colonel Black’s for some years. During that period of time Willie Jakobs had lived the life of a gentleman. That is to say, he lived in the manner which he thought conformed more readily to the ideal than that which was generally accepted by the wealthier classes.
There were moments when he lived like a lord — again he had his own standard — but these periods occurred at rare intervals, because Willie was naturally abstemious. But he certainly lived like a gentleman, as all Somers Town agreed, for he went to bed at whatsoever hour he chose, arose with such larks as were abroad at the moment, or stayed in bed reading his favourite journal.
A fortunate man was he, never short of a copper for a half-pint of ale, thought no more of spending a shilling on a race than would you or I, was even suspected of taking his breakfast in bed, a veritable hallmark of luxury and affluence by all standards.
To him every Saturday morning came postal orders to the value of two pounds sterling from a benefactor who asked no more than that the recipient should be happy and forget that he ever saw a respected dealer in stocks and shares in the act of rifling a dead man’s pockets.
For this William Jakobs had seen.
Willie
