Vera, finding that nothing would dissuade me, had ended by giving me the bunch of keys which I had forgotten she still possessed--the keys I had taken from old Taylor"s pocket. "If you are determined to do this mad thing, d.i.c.k," she had said to me, kissing me fondly, "you may as well get in with the key, instead of house-breaking." On the bunch were the key which would unlock the iron gate, and the one of the little door.
This greatly simplified matters, for there were no bolts on the little door, as there were upon the front door and on the tradesmen"s door.
The light appeared in the same window on the first floor at exactly twenty minutes past two. Standing in Belgrave Street with my constable friend, who was now on duty, I saw it flicker suddenly. Without further delay we both went round Crane"s Alley. n.o.body was about. Not a sound anywhere. Noiselessly I unlocked the iron gate, then the little door...
"Good luck, sir," the policeman whispered, as I crept into the dark, low-roofed pa.s.sage. "And if you want any help, remember you"ve got the whistle."
There were two little stone-walled cellar-pa.s.sages, and I took the one to the right. Before I had gone a yard I uttered an exclamation. I was up against a great veil of grey cobwebs which hung from everywhere and was stretched right across the stone pa.s.sage. So thick were they that I had to push into them to make my way along. How I regretted I had not brought a stick! Suddenly something damp creepy, large, horrible, ran across my face, then another, and another.
Ugh! My blood ran cold at their touch, for I hate spiders.
I pulled out my electric torch. Its sudden glare sent scores of spiders scurrying in all directions. I could actually hear them--nay, I could smell them, and, wherever I looked, I could see them. The sight made me shudder, for they were not, apparently, house-spiders of the usual variety--but large, fat, oval-bodied things, with curved legs, and with protruding heads that seemed to look at me. Indeed, I don"t think that in the whole of my life I have ever spent moments that I less like to dwell upon than the two minutes it took me to push my way through that loathsome tangle of evil-smelling cobwebs alive with spiders. I would not go through such an experience again for any sum.
At last I got through them, and I recollect thinking, as I emerged, how foolish I had been to take the wrong turning.
Of course, when Vera had led me out we must have come by the other pa.s.sage, as there had been no cobwebs then. And that led me further to wonder whether at that time the pa.s.sage had not been in regular use by some person or persons. I did not for a moment believe that old Taylor had been so conscientious as to keep either pa.s.sage free of cobwebs, seeing how utterly neglected had been the rest of the house.
In the servants" quarters, where I presently found myself, I recognised at once that same acrid smell of dry rot I had noticed when last in the house, only now it was more "p.r.o.nounced." Noiselessly I crept along, in my rubber shoes, to the hall. Everywhere the deathly stillness was so intense that one seemed almost to feel it. Cautiously I crept up the front stairs, keeping close to the wall in order to prevent their creaking. My electric torch proved most useful.
I was outside the door of the drawing-room that overlooked Belgrave Street--the first room I had entered on that previous occasion--the room into which I had peered the night before, as I stood upon the ladder. A tiny ray of faint light percolated through the keyhole. I listened, hardly breathing, but could hear no sound at all, except my own heart-beats.
Should I turn the handle gently, slowly push the door ajar, and peep in?
It might squeak. Should I fling open the door and rush in? Faced with a problem, I was undecided. I admit that at that moment I felt inclined to run away. Instead, I stood motionless, hesitating, frightened at my own temerity. Had I, after all, been wise in disregarding Vera"s good advice?
I thought of that curious brown stain I remembered so distinctly upon the ceiling in this very room. It had been in the right hand corner-- the corner farthest from me. What was above that corner? Ah, I knew just where that spot would be in the room above.
Suddenly an idea struck me. I would creep up to the next floor and enter the room above. I had taken from the bunch about eight keys I thought might prove of use. Vera had told me which they were. All were loose in different pockets, each with a tag tied to it, bearing the name of the room it belonged to.
The room upstairs was in darkness, but the door of it was not locked.
Cautiously I entered, pushed to the door behind me, and then pressed the b.u.t.ton of my electric torch.
Everything was in disorder. Most of the dusty furniture had been pushed into a corner. Some of it was still covered with sheets, but much of it was not. Clearly people had been in here a good deal of late. I picked my way between various pieces of furniture across to the corner I sought. On arriving there I started, and at once switched off my light.
In the floor at that corner, was a big hole, a very big hole indeed, several feet across.
The carpet had been rolled back. The boards had all been ripped up.
Two of the beams below them had been sawed across, and about three feet of each of these beams removed. The ceiling of the room below had been smashed away--this I judged to be the exact spot where the brown stain had been--and, as I cautiously bent forward, and craned my neck, I could see right down into the drawing-room.
Voices were murmuring--men"s voices. The sight upon which my gaze rested made me recoil.
Stretched out on the floor, right below me, was a human body-- shrivelled, dry, quite brown, but undoubtedly a body. It looked exactly like a mummy, a mummy five feet or more in length. Beside it knelt two figures. As I looked, I saw them slowly lift the body from the floor, one man holding either end of it. In a moment or two they had carried it out of sight. And the men who had taken it away were Sir Charles Thorold and the man I had known as Davies, but whose name I now knew to be Whichelo.
This was more, a great deal more than I had expected or even dreamt I should see when I entered the house of mystery.
What could it all mean? Had there been foul play? And if so, had Thorold had a hand in it? I could not think this possible. And yet what other construction could I possibly place upon what I had just witnessed?
I did not know what to think, much less had I any idea of what I ought now to do. And then, all at once, an inspiration came to me.
I took several long breaths. Then, setting my voice at a low, unnatural pitch, I gave vent to a deep, long-drawn-out wail, gradually raising my voice until it ended in a weird shriek.
The stillness below became intense. I paused for perhaps half-a-minute.
Then I slowly repeated the wail, ending this time in a kind of unearthly yell.
I knew I had achieved my purpose--knew that the men below were terrified, panic-stricken. I could picture them kneeling beside the shrivelled corpse, literally petrified by horror, their eyes starting from their sockets, their faces bloodless.
Then I walked with measured tread about the floor, the dull "plunk plunk" of my rubber soles sounding, in the depth of the night, and in the stillness of that unoccupied house--ghostly even to me. Next I began to push the furniture about, and a moment later I slammed the door.
There was a wild, a frantic stampede. Both men had sprung to their feet and were dashing headlong down the stairs. I pursued them in the darkness! They heard the quick patter of my rubber shoes upon the stairs behind them, and it seemed to give them wings. Furniture was knocked spinning in the darkness. A terrific crash echoed through the house as, in their blind rush, they hurled on to the stone floor of the hall a big china vase the height of a man which had stood upon a pedestal. A door slammed. Then another, more faintly, a long way down some corridor.
Then once more all was still.
Chuckling at the grim humour of the situation, I went slowly up the stairs again. There was still a light in the first-floor room. I pushed the door open and walked boldly in.
I halted, surprise had petrified me.
The sight that my eyes rested upon I shall not forget as long as ever I live!
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
CONTAINS ANOTHER REVELATION.
I stood still in horror, my eyes riveted upon the shrivelled human body.
It was stretched out upon several chairs placed side by side. The sight was most gruesome.
Near it, upon the floor, was an ordinary packing-case, in the bottom of which a quant.i.ty of wood shavings had been pressed down, to form a sort of bed. At once I realised that this box had been prepared for the reception of the body.
It was about to be smuggled out of the house!
But how did it come to be there? Whose body was it? How long had it been dead? And how had the man--for I saw it was the body of a man, apparently a man of middle-age--come by his death?
It was not the sight of the Thing that had startled me, however, for I had expected to see it there.
What had taken my breath away had been the sight of great heaps of coin upon the floor, gold coin which had evidently just been emptied out of the little sacks close by. Near by were some gla.s.s bottles containing powdered metal, some bottles of coloured fluid, and various implements-- a couple of metal moulds, a ladle, a miniature hand-lathe, several files, and some curiously-fashioned tools which I judged must be finishing tools used in the manufacture of coin.
The truth was plain--a ghastly unexpected truth.
Thorold and Whichelo were, or had been, in some way concerned in issuing base coin, though to me it seemed hardly possible that Sir Charles could actually be implicated. I picked up a handful of the shining coins, and let them fall between my fingers in a golden stream. If they were not golden French louis they were certainly fine imitations. All the coins were French twenty and ten-franc pieces, I noticed. There were no British coins among them, nor were there coins of any other nation. In all, there must have been several thousands of them.
When I had recovered from my surprise, I began to examine the body more closely. With my electric torch I ran a flash all along it and to and fro. It was the body of a man about thirty, I definitely decided, and it was swathed in brown rags. I had seen bodies in the catacombs in Rome and in Paris that looked like this, and also in South America I had seen some.
South America! My thought of that continent set up a fresh train of thought in my mind. It made me think of Mexico, and the thought of Mexico, though not in South America, brought the tall, dark man, Whichelo, back to me vividly. He had been in Mexico a great deal at one time, Vera had told me. And this mummified body lying in front of me-- yes, it singularly resembled the mummified bodies I had seen in Mexico when on my travels about the world.
What had caused death? Critical inspection with my electric torch showed distinctly a fracture at the base of the skull, as though it had been struck with some blunt implement, such as a hammer.
Yes, there could be no doubt that the skull had been severely fractured.
I should have held the theory that the poor fellow had been attacked from behind, felled to the ground with some iron weapon. I wondered greatly how long the man had been dead. No expert knowledge was needed to decide that he must have been dead a number of years. And where had the body been hidden all this time?
Instinctively I glanced at the ceiling--at the gaping hole in it--and instantly I knew. This mummified body had been hidden away, buried between the ceiling and floor! It had been in that corner, where the hole now was. And the brown stain I had noticed in the corner of the ceiling...
But the money? Why, of course, the money must have been there, too. A thought struck me. I picked up some of the coins again, and glanced at the dates. Twenty-five or thirty years ago they were dated, yet they looked quite new. Clearly, then, they had not been in circulation.