CHAPTER XXIII
The request was a strange one, Berrington thought.
Not that he failed to trust Mary Sartoris. In spite of everything, he had faith in her. Whatever she was doing in that queer household, no shadow of shame or disgrace could possibly lie on her.
And yet what could she want that letter for? Again, what was the need to drag Beatrice Darryll into this black business? The more Berrington thought it over, the more puzzled he became. Only one thing was tolerably clear – Sir Charles Darryll had valuable interests somewhere, interests of which he had been in utter ignorance, and which these ruffians had determined to obtain and apply to their own ends.
Still, Berrington hesitated. He did not know what would be for the best. If he declined to write that letter it might be the worse for him and everybody else in the long run; if he did write the letter it might possibly prove harmful to Beatrice. Certainly Carl Sartoris had that end in view. Then there was another thing to take into consideration. Had Inspector Field got safely away?
Berrington could not be absolutely certain, for the reason that there had been no attempt to rescue him which was Field's obvious duty when he escaped. Yet a great many hours had passed and there had been no attempt of the kind.
Very thoughtfully Berrington took paper and pen and ink from the drawer in the table. He was not surprised to see that the paper bore the address "100, Audley Place." So Beatrice was to be lured there for some reason, or other, and Berrington was to be used for the purpose. He threw the pen down and determined that he would do nothing in the matter. He had barely come to this conclusion when the whistle in the tube sounded very faintly. It might have been no more than the wind in the pipe, and yet on the other hand it might have been meant for a cautious message. Berrington crossed over and asked a question in a low voice. Immediately a reply came in the faintest possible whisper.
"It is I who speak," the voice said. "Mary, you know. By accident I have a chance of a few words with you again. My brother thinks that I am in ignorance of everything. He told me that you had left the house and that everybody had gone. At the same time he declined to have the servants back yet, and that aroused my suspicions. You can hear me?"
"My dearest girl, I can hear you perfectly well," Berrington replied. "Where is your brother now? Can you speak freely to me for a time?"
"For a minute or two perhaps, certainly not more. Carl has gone into the conservatory for something; he may be back almost at once. He told me that you had gone. I did not believe it for a minute, so I watched and listened. Then I found out that you were a prisoner here; I found out all about the letter."
"The letter to Beatrice Darryll, you mean?"
"Yes, yes. Don't ask me why they desire to get her here, because I can't tell you, – I don't know. But there is something about Burmah and ruby mines that I fail to understand. It has something to do with Sir Charles Darryll and Miss Violet Decié's father."
"Shall we ever get to the bottom of this business!" Berrington exclaimed. "But why should you particularly want me to write that letter?"
"Because I shall be chosen as the messenger," the girl said eagerly. "There are no servants here; the rest of my brother's friends are busy elsewhere. I gather that the letter is urgent; that being the case, I shall be chosen to take it. You see, I am supposed to know nothing whatever about it. I shall be able to see Miss Darryll myself."
Berrington expressed his appreciation of the suggestion. Perhaps Mary might find herself in a position to do more than that.
"Very well," he said. "Under the circumstances I am to write that letter with the understanding that you are going to convey it to its destination and warn Miss Darryll. But you must do more than that, Mary. It is impossible that I can remain a prisoner here like this. The thing is a daring outrage in the middle of London; it sounds more like a page from a romance than anything else. At all risks, even to the brother by whom you are standing so nobly, you must do this thing for me. After you have seen Miss Darryll you are to go down to Scotland Yard and ask for an interview with Inspector Field. Tell him where I am to be found and – "
"Oh, I cannot, Philip, dearest," came the trembling whisper. "My own brother – "
"Who has been the curse of your life and mine," Berrington said sternly. "What do you suppose you gain by standing by him in this fashion? Sooner or later he must come within grip of the law, and so all your sufferings will be futile. If there was anything to gain by this self-sacrifice I would say nothing. But to spoil your life for a scoundrel like that – "
"Don't say it, Phil," Mary's voice pleaded. "Please don't say it. If you love me as you once seemed to do, have a little patience."
All the anger melted out of Berrington's heart. He had intended to be hard and stern, but that gentle, pleading voice softened him at once. Knowing Mary as he did, he could imagine what her life had been these last three years. Her sense of duty was a mistaken one, perhaps, but it was nobly carried out, all the same. Sooner or later the effort must be lost, and it occurred to Berrington that it would be cruel to hurry the end. Besides, there would be a greater satisfaction to him to feel that he had beaten Sartoris at his own game.
"I love you now as I loved you in the happy years gone by," he said. "Indeed, I love you more, for I know how you have suffered, dearest. Mind you, I am not afraid. I do not regard myself as being in any great danger here – that is not the point. So I will write the letter and you shall deliver it when you please. What is that?"
There was a sudden commotion at the far end of the speaking tube, and something like the sound of wheels. Berrington bent his head eagerly to listen.
"Is there anybody there?" he asked.
"My brother is coming back," Mary said in a voice so faint that Berrington could hardly catch the words. "I must fly. If he knows that I have been here he will have his suspicions. I will speak to you again as soon as possible."
The whistle was clapped to, and the conversation ended. There was nothing for it now but patience. Berrington took the pen and began to write the letter. He wondered if he could possibly warn Beatrice between the lines. There was yet a chance that Mary might not be the messenger.
Berrington racked his brains, but all to no purpose. He must leave the matter to chance, after all. The speaking tube was going again, for the whistle trilled shrilly. Sartoris was at the other end again; he seemed to be on very good terms with himself.
"What about that letter?" he asked. "Have you changed your mind yet? Solitary confinement worked sufficiently on your nerves yet? Not that there's any hurry."
"What shall I gain if I write the letter?" Berrington asked.
"Gain! Why, nothing. The cards are all in my hands, and I play them as I please. 'Yours not to reason why, yours not to make reply,' as Tennyson says. For the present you are a prisoner, and for the present you stay where you are. But one thing for your comfort. The sooner that letter is written and dispatched, the sooner you will be free. We are not taking all these risks for nothing, and our reward is close at hand now, I may tell you. If you don't write that letter I shall have to forge it, and that takes time. Also a longer detention of your handsome person. If you consent to write that letter you will be free in eight and forty hours. Don't address the envelope."
Berrington checked a desire to fling the suggestion back in the speaker's teeth. It angered him to feel that he was in the power of this little cripple, and that events in which he should have taken a hand were proceeding without him. But it was no time for feeling of that kind.
"I admit the defeat of the moment," he said. "I will write that letter at once. But look to yourself when my time comes."
Sartoris laughed scornfully, as he could afford to do. Berrington could hear him humming as he clapped in the whistle, and then silence fell again. The letter was finished and sealed at length, and pushed under the door as Sartoris had directed. A little later and there came the sound of a footstep outside and a gentle scratching on the door panel.
"Is that you, Mary?" Berrington asked, instantly guessing who it was. "Have you come for the letter?"
"Yes, I have," was the whispered reply. "My brother could not manage to get up the stairs. He has one of his very bad attacks to-day. He has not the least idea that I know anything. He said he dropped an unaddressed letter on this landing last night, and he asked me to fetch it. I dare not stay a minute."
"Don't go quite yet," Berrington pleaded. "I have had a brilliant idea. I can't stop to tell you what it is just now. The switch of the electric light has been removed from here. Can you tell me where I can find it?"
"You want more light?" Mary asked. "Well, it is a little dreary in there with only a lamp. The switch was taken off some time ago when the walls were being done, and the electricians forgot to replace it. It is somewhere in the room, for I recollect seeing it. But unless you understand that kind of work – "
"Oh, soldiers understand something of everything," said Berrington cheerfully. "I shall be able to manage, no doubt. I won't detain you any longer."
Mary slipped away, and Berrington commenced to make a careful search of the room. He found what he wanted presently, in a little blue cup on the overmantel, and in a few minutes he had fixed the switch to the wall. As he pressed the little brass stud down, the room was flooded with a brilliant light.
"There's some comfort in being able to see, at any rate," Berrington reflected. "It's ten chances to one that my little scheme does not come off, yet the tenth chance may work in my favour. I'll wait till it gets dark – no use trying it before."
Berrington dozed off in his chair, and soon fell into a profound sleep. When he came to himself again, a clock somewhere was striking the hour of eleven. There was no stream of light through the little round ventilator in the shutter, so that Berrington did not need to be told that the hour was eleven o'clock at night.
"By Jove, what a time I've slept," the soldier muttered. "What's that?"
Loud voices downstairs, voices of men quarrelling. Berrington pulled the whistle out of the tube and listened. Someone had removed the whistle from the other end, or else it had been left out by accident, for the sound came quite clear and distinct.
It was the voice of Sartoris that was speaking, a voice like a snarling dog.
"I tell you you are wrong," Sartoris said. "You tried to fool me, and when we make use of you and get the better of you, then you whine like a cur that is whipped. Don't imagine that you have your poor misguided wife to deal with."
"My wife has nothing to do with the case," the other man said, "so leave her out."
Berrington's heart was beating a little faster as he glued his ear to the tube. He did not want to miss a single word of the conversation.
"This grows interesting," he said softly. "A quarrel between Sartoris and Stephen Richford. Evidently I am going to learn something."
CHAPTER XXIV
Every word of the conversation was quite plain and distinct. Richford seemed to be very vexed about something, but on the other hand Sartoris appeared to be on the best of terms with himself.
"You tried to get the better of us," he was saying. "You thought that clever people like ourselves were going to be mere puppets in the play, that we were going to pull your chestnuts for you. You with the brains of a rabbit, and the intelligence of a tom cat! That low cunning of yours is all very well in the City, but it is of no use with me. Where are those diamonds?"
"Those diamonds are so safe that we can't touch them," Richford sneered.
"Very well, my friend. Believe me, we shall know how to act when the time comes. But you are wasting time here. You should be in Edward Street long ago. Edward Street in the Borough; you know the place I mean. The others are there, Reggie and Cora and the rest, to say nothing of the object of our solicitous desires. You follow me?"
"Oh, yes, I follow everything, confound you," Richford growled. "You are trying to frighten me with your cry of danger. As if I was fool enough to believe that story."
"You can just please yourself whether you believe it or not," Sartoris replied. "But the danger is real enough. I have had the salt two days now in succession. It is true that it came by post and was not addressed to me here, but it is proof positive of the fact that our yellow friends are on the right track at last. They may even be outside now. That is why I want you to go as far as Edward Street without delay."
Richford seemed to be convinced at last, for he made no reply.
"And you need not worry about your wife for the present," Sartoris went on. "So long as she is your wife you come in for your share of the plunder when the division takes place. Nor need you let her know that you married her for her fortune, and not for her pretty face. People will be surprised to discover what a rich man Sir Charles really was."
Berrington started with surprise. A great flood of light had been let in on the scene in the last few words of this overheard conversation. So there was a large fortune somewhere, and this was at the bottom of this dark conspiracy. The conversation trailed off presently, and Berrington heard no more. But his heart was beating now with fierce exultation, for he had heard enough. Without knowing it, Sir Charles Darryll had been a rich man. But those miscreants knew it, and that was the reason why they were working in this strange way. A door closed somewhere and then there was silence. It was quite evident that Richford had left the house.
A minute or two later and Berrington got his flash signal at work. He used it over and over again for an hour or so in the hope that the house was being watched. A great sigh of satisfaction broke from him presently when he knew the signal was being answered. Once more there was an irritating delay and then the quick tapping of the reply. Field was not far off, and Field had grasped the scheme. Also he had to send for somebody to translate the flashing signs. Berrington understood it now as well as if he had been outside with the police.
He sent his messages through quickly now, and received his replies as regularly. Nor did he forget to impart the information he had discovered relative to the house in Edward Street, Borough. On the whole it had not been a bad night's work.
A restless desire to be up and doing something gripped Berrington. He wandered impatiently about the room, listening at the tube from time to time, in the hope of getting something fresh. Down below he could hear the sharp purring of the electric bell and the shuffle of Sartoris's chair over the floor of the hall. Then there was a quick cry which stopped with startling suddenness, as if a hand had gripped the throat of somebody who called out with fear.
For a little time after that, silence. Then voices began to boom downstairs, voices in strange accents that seemed to be demanding something. Evidently foreigners of some kind, Berrington thought, as he strained his ears to catch something definite. Sartoris seemed to be pleading for somebody, and the others were stern and determined. It was some time before Berrington began to understand what nationality the newcomers were. A liquid voice was upraised.
"Burmah," Berrington cried. "I thought I knew the tongue. Burmese beyond a doubt. I wish those fellows would not speak quite so quickly. I wish that I had learned a little more of the language when I had the opportunity. Ah, what was that?"
A familiar phrase had struck home to the old campaigner. One of the newcomers was saying something about rubies. There were ruby mines in Burmah, some of which had never been explored by white men. Sir Charles Darryll had been out there in his younger days and so had his friend, the Honourable Edward Decié. Suppose that rubies had something to do with the papers that Sartoris declared Sir Charles possessed. Berrington was feeling now that his weary hours of imprisonment had by no means been wasted. He heard Sartoris's sullen negative, a sound of a blow, and a moan of pain, then silence again.
Perhaps those strangers downstairs were applying torture. Berrington had heard blood-curdling stories of what the Burmese could do in that way. Bad as he was, Sartoris had never lacked pluck and courage, and he was not the man to cry out unless the pain was past endurance. The guttural language returned; it was quite evident that Sartoris was being forced to do something against his will.
"You shall have it," he said at last. "I'll ask my secretary to bring the papers down."
There was a shuffling of Sartoris's chair across the floor, and then a puff of wind came up the tube. Very quickly Berrington replaced the whistle. It flashed across him that Sartoris was going to call him to assist to get rid of those yellow friends downstairs. But how was that going to be done so long as the door was locked?
"Are you there?" Sartoris asked in French, and in a whisper, so low that Berrington could hardly hear. "Speak to me, Colonel, and use the same language that I am using."
"All right," Berrington replied. "Anything wrong downstairs? What can I do to help you?"
"Come down as quickly as possible. Take your boots off, and creep into my study. I am in the hands of two Burmese, members of a society to which I belonged at one time. They have come to have my life or certain information that I decline to give them. You know enough of the East to be able to appreciate my danger."
The story was more or less of a lie, as Berrington was perfectly well aware, but there was a large amount of truth in it, nevertheless. Berrington smiled to himself.
"There is one little hitch in the programme," he said. "You seem to forget that I am a prisoner here, behind a door that is protected by steel."
"I had forgotten that for the moment," Sartoris proceeded rapidly. "But it is quite possible to open the door from the inside, if you know the secret. Turn the handle four times to the right quickly and firmly, and then three times to the left, and the door will open. I dare not say any more, as these fellows are beginning to look at me suspiciously. One minute more, and I have finished. There is an old Dutch bureau at the top of the stairs by your door. In the second drawer on the right is a loaded revolver. You may want to use it – "
The voice suddenly ceased, and a cry of pain floated up again. All the old fighting spirit raged in Berrington's veins now. He was going to be free, he would have a weapon that he well knew how to use in his hands, and he had obtained information of the most valuable kind. With his hand on the knob of the door he followed directions. Four times to the right and three to the left! A pull, and the door came open.
Berrington was free at last. As soon as he realised that fact his professional caution came back to him. He kicked off his boots, and finding the Webley revolver, loaded in all chambers, he crept like a cat down the stairs, and looked into the study.
Sartoris lay back in his chair with his hands bound to his sides. Round his head the two strangers had strung a piece of knotted whipcord which one of them was drawing tighter and tighter with the aid of a penknife twisted in the bandage. The face of the victim was ghastly white, his eyes rolled, and the great beads poured down his cheeks. Berrington had heard of that kind of torture before. His blood was boiling now, not that he had any cause for sympathy with the little man in the chair.
"My God, I can't stand this much longer," Sartoris moaned. "Will that fellow never come! Or has he failed to understand my instructions? My brain is blazing. Help, help."
Berrington strode into the room, resolutely but softly. The little yellow man who was administering the torture seemed to have his whole heart in his work; he graduated the torture to a nicety. He seemed to understand exactly how much the victim could stand without losing life and reason altogether. He was like a doctor with an interesting patient.
"I think you will tell me where to find what we desire?" he said smoothly.
"And then we can depart and trouble the gentleman no more," said the other man, who was looking on as coolly as if at some landscape. "Why put us to all this trouble?"
"I'll tell you," Sartoris moaned. "If you will look in the – God be praised!"
The last words came with a yell, for the startled eyes had caught sight of Berrington standing grimly in the background. The latter's left hand shot out and the Burmese who held the penknife in the cord staggered across the room from the force of a blow on the temple, which, had it taken full effect, would have felled him like an ox.
Before he could recover from the full impact of the blow, Berrington was on the other man. Then the two closed on him as he backed to the wall and raised his revolver.
"You see that I am too many for you," he said. "Put down those knives."
For two long cutting knives were gleaming in the light of the electrics. Nothing daunted, the pair made a rush at Berrington, who fired right and left. He had no intention that the shots should be fatal, but they both took effect, one in the shoulder and the other in the arm. When the smoke cleared away Berrington and Sartoris were alone. A cold stream of air pouring into the room testified to the fact that the front door had not been closed by the miscreants in their escape. Berrington cut the cord around the victim's head and bathed his forehead with water. A little brandy seemed to effect something in the way of a cure.
"My God, that was awful, awful," Sartoris moaned. "A second more and I should have died. Would you mind shutting the front door? The cold air makes me feel like death. That's better. I dare say you wonder what those fellows were doing here?"
There was just a touch of slyness in the question. Berrington smiled to himself. He wondered what Sartoris would say if he only knew how much the listener had overheard.
"I suppose your sins are finding you out," he said. "They generally do. Personally, I have no curiosity on the subject at all. And I have not the slightest doubt that your punishment, though pretty severe, was at the same time well deserved. And now, sir, as fate has given me the whip hand of you, have you any reason to urge why I should stay in this house any longer? I take it that you are not quite in a position to place your electric battery at work from this room as you did from the other. If you like to – "
Berrington paused, as there was a loud knocking at the door. Sartoris's pale face grew still paler as he listened. Then he forced a smile to his pallid lips.
"Don't take any heed," he said eagerly. "Let them go away again under the impression that nobody is at the house. Let them knock all night if they like."
But Berrington was already half-way to the door.