On the table the lamp was still burning but its rays were neutralized by the glare of a crimson dawn which Desmond could see flushing the sky through the shattered panes of the French window. In the centre of the floor lay a long object covered by a tablecloth, beside it a table overturned with a litter of broken gla.s.s strewn about the carpet.
The woman"s sobbing ceased. The corporal came back into the room.
"She"ll be quiet now, sir," he said, "I told her to get you and the gentlemen a cup o" tea."
Then, to Desmond, he said:
"Nasty ding you got, sir! My word, I thought they"d done for you when I come in at the winder!"
The telephone on the desk tingled sharply. The door opened at the same moment and a shabby little old man with sandy side whiskers and moleskin trousers came briskly in.
His appearance had a curious effect on the patient on the settee.
Despite the doctor"s restraining hand, he struggled into a sitting position, staring in bewilderment at the shabby old man who had gone straight to the telephone and lifted the receiver.
And well might Desmond stare; for here was Mr. John Hill, the odd man, talking on the telephone. And his voice...
"Well?" said the man at the telephone, curtly.
"Yes, speaking. You"ve got her, eh? Good. What"s that? Well, that"s something. No trace of the others? d.a.m.n!"
He slammed down the receiver and turned to face the settee.
"Francis!" cried Desmond.
And then he did a thing highly unbecoming in a field officer. He burst into tears.
CHAPTER XX. THE ODD MAN
Desmond and Francis Okewood sat in the dining-room of the Mill House finishing an excellent breakfast of ham and eggs and coffee which old Martha had prepared for them.
Francis was still wearing Mr. John Hill"s greasy jacket and moleskins, but the removal of the sandy whiskers and a remarkable wig, consisting of a bald pate with a fringe of reddish hair, had gone far to restore him to the semblance of his former self.
Desmond was feeling a good deal better. His head had escaped the full force of the smashing blow dealt at him by Strangwise with the b.u.t.t of his pistol. He had instinctively put up his arm to defend his face and the thickly padded sleeve of Bellward"s jacket had broken the force of the blow. Desmond had avoided a fractured skull at the price of an appalling bruise on the right forearm and a nasty laceration of the scalp.
Francis had resolutely declined to enlighten him as to the events of the night until both had breakfasted. After despatching the corporal of military police to hurry the housekeeper on with the breakfast, Francis had taken his brother straight to the dining-room, refusing to let him ask the questions which thronged his brain until they had eaten and drunk. Only when all the ham and eggs had disappeared, did Francis, lighting one of Mr.
Bellward"s cigars, consent to satisfy his brother"s curiosity.
"It was only yesterday morning," he said, "that I landed at Folkstone from the Continent. How I got the Chief"s message recalling me and how I made my escape through the Turkish lines to Allenby"s headquarters is a long story which will keep. The Chief had a car waiting for me at Folkstone and I reached London in time to lunch with him. We had a long talk and he gave me carte blanche to jump into this business now, when and where I thought I could best help you."
Desmond smiled bitterly.
"The Chief couldn"t trust me to make good on my own, I suppose,"
he said.
"The Chief had a very good idea of the character of the people you had to deal with, Des.," retorted Francis, "and he was a trifle apprehensive that the role you were playing might lead to complications, supposing the gang were to see through your impersonation. He"s a wonderful man, that, Des., and he was dead right--as he always is."
"But how?" asked Desmond. "Did the crowd spot me?"
"No," answered the other; "but it was your disguise which was responsible for the escape of Strangwise--"
"What?" cried Desmond. "He"s escaped after all!"
Francis nodded.
"Yes," he said, "got clear away and left no trace. Wait a minute and you shall hear! When I have told my story, you shall tell yours and between us, we"ll piece things together!
"Well, when I left the Chief yesterday, I came down here. The description of Mr. John Hill, your odd man, rather tickled my fancy. I wanted badly to get at you for a quiet chat and it seemed to me that if I could borrow Mr. Hill"s appearance for a few hours now and then I might gain access to you without rousing any suspicion. You see, I knew that old Hill left here about dusk every afternoon, so I guessed the coast would be clear.
"Clarkson"s fitted me out with the duds and the make-up and I got down to Wentfield by half-past six. The fog was so infernally thick that it took me more than an hour to get here on foot. It must have been close on eight o"clock when I pushed open your front gate. I thought of going boldly into the kitchen and asking for you, but, fortunately, I decided to have a preliminary prowl round the place. Through a c.h.i.n.k in the curtains of the library I saw you and a stranger talking together. The stranger was quite unknown to me; but one thing about him I spotted right off. I saw that he was disguised; so I decided to hang about a bit and await developments.
"I loafed around in the fog for about half an hour. Then I heard a car coming up the drive. I hid myself in the rhododendron bush opposite the front door and saw two men and a woman get out. They hurried into the house, so that I didn"t have a chance of seeing their faces. But I got a good, glimpse of the chauffeur as he bent down to turn out the headlights. And, yes, I knew him!"
"Max, they called him," said Desmond.
"His name was Mirsky when last I saw him," answered Francis, "and mine was Apfelbaum, if you want to know. He was a German agent in Russia and as ruthless and unscrupulous a rascal as you"ll find anywhere in the German service. I must say I never thought he"d have the nerve to show his face in this country, though I believe he"s a Whitechapel Jew born and bred. However, there he was and the sight of his ugly mug told me that something was doing. But like a fool I decided to hang on a bit and watch, instead of going right off in that car and fetching help from Stanning."
"It was just as well you waited," said Desmond, "for if you"d gone off at once they must have heard the car and the fat would have been in the fire straight away!"
And he told Francis of the loud dispute among the confederates in the library, the noise of which had effectually covered the sound of the departing ear.
Francis laughed.
"From my observation post outside," he said, "I could only see you, Des, and that blackguard, Mug, as you two were sitting opposite the window. I couldn"t see more than the feet of the others. But your face told me the loud voices which reached me even outside meant that a crisis of some sort was approaching, so I thought it was time to be up and doing. So I sneaked round to the front of the house, got the engine of the car going and started off down the drive.
"I had the very devil of a job to get to Stanning. Ever since you"ve been down here, the Chief has had special men on duty day and night at the police-station there. I didn"t dare stop to light the head-lamps and as a result the first thing I did was to charge the front gate and get the back wheel so thoroughly jammed that it took me the best part of twenty minutes to get the blooming car clear. When at last I got to the station, I found that Matthews, the Chief"s man, you know, had just arrived by car from London with a lot of plain-clothes men and some military police. He was in the very devil of a stew. He told me that Bellward had escaped, that the Chief was out of town for the night and ungetatable, and that he (Matthews) had come down on his own to prevent the gaff being blown on you and also to recapture Mr. Bellward if he should be mad enough to make for his old quarters.
"I told Matthews of the situation up at the Mill House. Neither of us was able to understand why you had not telephoned for a.s.sistance--we only discovered later that the telephone had been disconnected--but I went bail that you were up against a very stiff proposition. I told Matthews that, by surrounding the house, we might capture the whole gang.
"Matthews is a cautious cuss and he wanted a good deal of persuading, so we lost a lot of time. In the end, he wouldn"t take my advice to rush every available man to the scene, but only consented to take two plainclothes men and two military police.
He was so precious afraid of upsetting your arrangements. The Chief, it appears, had warned everybody against doing that. So we all piled into the car and I drove them back to the Mill House.
"This time I left the car at the front gate and we went up to the house on foot. We had arranged that Matthews and one of the military police, both armed, should stay and guard the car, while the two plainclothes men and the other military policeman, the corporal here, should accompany me to the house. Matthews believed my yarn that we were only going to "investigate." What I intended to do in reality was to round up the whole blessed lot.
"I put one of the plain-clothes men on the front door and the other round at the back of the house. Their orders were to stop anybody who came out and at the same time to whistle for a.s.sistance. The corporal and I went to our old observation post outside the library window.
"The moment I glanced into the room I knew that matters had reached a climax. I saw you--looking pretty blue, old man--facing that woman who seemed to be denouncing you. Max stood beside you with a pistol, and beside him was our friend, Mortimer, with a regular whopper of an automatic. Before I had time to move, the plain-clothes man at the back of the house whistled. He had found the secret door with Bellward and the woman coming out of it.
"Then I saw Mortimer fire point-blank at you. I had my gun out in a second, but I was afraid of shooting, for fear of hitting you as you went for the other man.
"But the corporal at my side wasn"t worrying much about you. Just as you jumped he put up his gun and let fly at Mortimer with a sense of discrimination which does him infinite credit. He missed Mortimer, but plugged Max plumb through the forehead and my old friend dropped in his tracks right between you and the other fellow. On that we hacked our way through the French window. The corporal found time to have another shot and laid out a tall, odd-looking man..."
"No. 13," elucidated Desmond.
"... When we got inside we found him dead across the threshold of the door leading into the hall. Behrend we caught hiding in a brush cupboard by the back stairs. As for the others--"
"Gone?" queried Desmond with a sudden sinking at his heart.
Francis nodded.