CHAPTER IV
THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER
There was not a sound. That stillness, weird, unnerving, that permeated,as it were, everywhere through that mysterious house, was, if that werepossible, accentuated now. The four masked men in evening dress, fiveincluding their leader, for the man who had appeared in that other roomwith the rabbit was not here, were as silent, as motionless, as the deadman who was lashed there in the chair. And to Jimmie Dale it seemed atfirst as though his brain, stunned and stupefied at the shock, refusedits functions, and left him groping blindly, vaguely, with only asort of dull, subconscious realisation of menace and a deadly peril,imminent, hanging over him.
He tried to rouse himself mentally, to prod his brain to action, topit it in a fight for life against these self-confessed criminals andmurderers with their mask of culture, who surrounded him now. Was therea way out? What was it the Tocsin had said--"the most powerful andpitiless organisation of criminals the world has ever known--the stake afortune of millions--her life!" There had, indeed, been no overemphasisin the words she had used! They had taken pains themselves to make thatominously clear, these men! Every detail of the strange house, with itsluxurious furnishings, its cleverly contrived appointments, breatheda horribly suggestive degree of power, a deadly purpose, and anorganisation swayed by a master mind; and, grim evidence of themerciless, inexorable length to which they would go, was the ghastlywhite face of the dead chauffeur, bound hand and foot, in the chairbefore him!
That EMPTY glass in the hand of one of the men! He could not take hiseyes from it--except as his eyes were drawn magnetically to that FULLglass in the hand of one of the others. What height of sardonic irony!He was to drink that other glass, to die because he refused to answerquestions that for years, with every resource at his command, riskinghis liberty, his wealth, his name, his life, with everything that hecared for thrown into the scales, he had struggled to solve--and failed!
And then the leader spoke.
"Mr. Dale," he said, with cold significance, "I regret to admit thatyour pseudo taxicab driver was so ill-advised as to refuse to answer theSAME questions that I have put to you."
Five to one! That was the only way out--and it was hopeless. It was theonly way out, because, convinced that he could answer those questions ifhe wanted to, these men were in deadly earnest; it was hopeless, becausethey were--five to one! And probably there were as many more, twice orthree times as many more within call. But what did it matter how manymore there were! He could fight until he was overpowered, that was allhe could do, and the five could accomplish that. Still, if he couldknock the full glass out of that man's hand, and gain the door, thenperhaps--he turned quickly, as the door opened. It was as though theyhad read his thoughts. A number of men were grouped outside in thecorridor, then the door closed again with a cordon ranged against itinside the room; and at the same instant his arms and wrists were caughtin a powerful grasp by the two men immediately behind him, who all alonghad enacted the role of guards.
Again the leader spoke.
"I will repeat the questions," he said sharply. "Where is the womanwhose ring was found on that man there in the chair? And where is thepackage that you two men had with you in the taxicab to-night?"
Jimmie Dale glanced from the tall, straight, immaculately clothed figureof the speaker, from the threatening smile on the set lips that justshowed under the edge of the mask, to the dead man in the chair. He hadfaced the prospect of death before many times, but it had come with theheat of passion accompanying it, it had come quickly, abruptly, withevery faculty called into action to combat it, without time to dwellupon it, to sift, weigh, or measure its meaning, and if there had beenfear it had been subordinate to other emotions. But it was differentnow. He could not, of course, answer those questions; nor, he wasdoggedly conscious, would he have answered them if he could--and therewas no middle course.
Death, within the next few moments, stared him in the face; and itseemed curiously irrelevant that, in a sort of unnatural calmness, heshould be attempting to analyse his feelings and emotions concerning it.All his life it had seemed to him that the acme of human mentaltorture was the cell of a condemned criminal, with the horror of itshopelessness, with the time to dwell upon it; and that the acme ofthat torture itself must be that awful moment immediately precedingexecution, when anticipation at last was to merge into soul-sickeningreality.
Strange that thought should come! Strange that he should be framing abrain picture of such a scene, vivid, minute in detail! No--not strange.He was picturing himself. The analogy was not perfect, it was true, hehad not had the months, weeks, days and hours of suspense; but it wasperfect enough to bring home to him with appalling force the realisationof his position. He was standing as a condemned man might stand in thoselast, final moments, those moments which he had imagined must be themost terrible that could exist in life; but that dismay of soul, thehorror, the terror were not his--there was, instead, a smouldering fury,a passionate amazement that it was his own life that was threatened. Itseemed impossible that it could be his voice that was speaking now insuch quiet, measured tones.
"Is it worth while, will it convince you now, any more than before, torepeat that there is some mistake here? I am no more able to answer yourquestions than you are yourselves. I never saw that man in the chairthere in my life until the moment that I hailed him in his cab to-night.I do not know who the woman is to whom that ring belongs, much less doI know where she is. And if there was a package of any sort in thetaxicab, as you state, I never saw it."
The lips under the mask curved into a lupine smile.
"Think well, Mr. Dale!" The man's voice was low, menacing. "Ethically,if you so choose to consider it, your refusal may be the act of a braveman; practically, it is the act of--a fool. Now--your answer!"
"I have answered you," said Jimmie Dale--and, relaxing the muscles inhis arms, let them hang limply for an instant in the grip of the two menbehind him. "I have no other answer."
It was only a sign, a motion of the leader's hand--but with it, quickas a lightning flash, Jimmie Dale was in action. The limp arms tautenedinto steel as he wrenched them loose, and, whirling around, he whippedhis fist to the chin of one of the two guards.
In an instant, with the blow, as the man staggered backward, the roomwas in pandemonium. There was a rush from the door, and two, three, fourleaping forms hurled themselves upon Jimmie Dale. He shook them off--andthey came again. There was no chance ultimately, he knew that; it wasonly the elemental within him that rose in fierce revolt at the thoughtof tame submission, that bade him sell his life as dearly as he could.Panting, gasping for breath, dragging them by sheer strength as theyclung to him, he got his back to the wall, fighting with the savage furyand abandon of a wild cat.
But it could not last. Where one man went down before him, tworemorselessly appeared--the room seemed filled with men--they poured inthrough the door--he laughed at them in a half-demented way--moreand more of them came--there was no play for his arms, no room tofight--they seemed so close around him, so many of them upon him, thathe could not breathe--and he was bending, being crushed down as by anintolerable weight. And then his feet were jerked from beneath him, hecrashed to the floor, and, in another moment, bound hand and foot, hewas tied into a chair beside that other chair whose grim occupant sat insuch ghastly apathy of the scene.
The room cleared instantly of all but the original five. His head wasdrawn suddenly, violently backward, and clamped in that position; anda metal instrument, forced into his mouth, while his lips bled in theirresistance, pried jaws apart and held them open.
"One drop!" the leader ordered curtly.
The man with the full glass bent over him, and dipped a glass rod intothe liquid. The drop glistened a ruby red on the end of the rod--andfell with a sharp, acrid, burning sensation upon Jimmie Dale's tongue.
For a moment Jimmie Dale's animation, mental and physical, seemed sweptaway from him in, as it were, a hiatus of hideous suspense. What was itt
o be like this passing? Why did it not act at once, as it had acted onthe rabbit they had showed him in the other room? Yes, he remembered!It took more than one drop for a man; and besides, this was diluted.One drop had no effect on a man; it required--Good God, ONE DROP EVENOF THIS WAS ENOUGH? He strained forward in the chair until the sweat ingreat beads sprang from his forehead, strained and fought and tore athis bonds in a paroxysm of madness to free himself while there stillremained a little strength. There was something filming before his eyes,a numbed feeling was creeping through his limbs, robbing them, sappingthem of their vitality and power. He felt himself slipping away into astate of utter weakness, and his brain began to grow confused.
A voice seemed to float in the air near him: "For the last time--willyou answer?"
With a supreme effort, Jimmie Dale strove to rally his tottering senses.Did they not understand the stupendous mockery of their questions? Didthey not understand that he did not know? He had told them so--perhapshe had better tell them so again.
"I--" He tried to speak, and found the words thick upon his tongue."I--do not--know."
The glass itself was thrust abruptly between his lips. Some of thecontents spilled and trickled upon his chin, and then a flood of it,burning, fiery, poured down his throat. A flood of it--and it needed butTHREE drops and there had been TEN in the glass!
So this was death--a hazy, nebulous thing! There was no pain. It waslike--like--nothingness. And out of the nothingness SHE came. Strangethat she should come! Alone she had fought these fiends and outwittedthem for--how long was it? Three years! She would be more than everalone now. Pray God she did not finally fall into their clutches!
How it burned now, that fatal draught they had forced down his throat,and how it gripped at him and seemed to eat and bore its way into thevery tissues! It was the end, and--no! It was STIMULATING him! Strengthseemed to be returning to his limbs; it seemed as though he were beingcarried, as though the bonds about him were being loosened; and now hisbrain seemed to be growing clearer.
He roused up with a startled exclamation. He was back in the same roomin which he had first returned to consciousness after the accident. Hewas on the same couch. The same masked figure was at the same desk. Hadhe been dreaming? Was this then only some horrible, ghastly nightmarethrough which he had passed?
No, it had been real enough; his clothes, rent and torn, and the bloodupon his hands, where the skin had been scraped from his knuckles in thefight, bore evidence to that. He must then have lost consciousness fora while, though it seemed to him that at no moment, hazy, irrationalthough his brain might have been, had he become entirely oblivious towhat was taking place around him. And yet it must have been so!
The eyes from behind the mask were fixed steadily upon him, and belowthe mask there was the hard, unpleasant set to the lips that Jimmie Dalehad grown accustomed to expect.
The man spoke abruptly.
"That you find yourself alive, Mr. Dale," he said grimly, "is noconfession of weakness upon the part of those with whom you have had todeal here. To bear witness to that there is one who is not alive, as youhave seen. That man we knew. With you it was somewhat different. Yourpresence in the taxicab was only suspicious. There was always thepossibility that you might be one of those ubiquitous 'innocentbystanders.' Your name, your position, the improbability that you couldhave anything in common with--shall we say, the matter that so deeplyinterests us?--was all in your favour. However, presumption andprobability are the tools of fools. We do not depend upon them--we applythe test. And having applied the test, we are convinced that you havetold the truth--that is all."
He rose from his chair brusquely. "I shall not apologise to you for whathas happened. I doubt very much if you are in a frame of mind to acceptanything of the sort. I imagine, rather, that you are promising yourselfthat we shall pay, and pay dearly, for this--that, among other things,we shall answer for the murder of that man in the other room. All thiswill be quite within your province, Mr. Dale--and quite fruitless.To-morrow morning the story that you are preparing to tell now wouldsound incredible even in your own ears; furthermore, as we shall takepains to see that you leave this place with as little knowledge of itslocation as you obtained when you arrived, your story, even if believed,would do little service to you and less harm to us. I think of nothingmore, Mr. Dale, except--" There was a whimsical smile on the lips now."Ah, yes, the matter of your clothes. We can, and shall be glad to makereparation to you to the slight extent of offering you a new suit beforeyou go."
Jimmie Dale scowled. Sick, shaken, and weak as he was, the cool,imperturbable impudence of the man was fast growing unbearable.
The man laughed. "I am sure you will not refuse, Mr. Dale--since weinsist. The condition of the clothes you have on at present might--I say'might'--in a measure support your story with some degree of tangibleevidence. It is not at all likely, of course; but we prefer to discounteven so remote a possibility. When you have changed, you will be motoredback to your home. I bid you good-night, Mr. Dale."
Jimmie Dale rubbed his eyes. The man was gone--through a door at therear of the desk, a door that he had not noticed before, that was noteven in evidence now, that was simply a movable section of the wallpanelling--and for an instant Jimmie Dale experienced a sense ofsickening impotence. It was as though he stood defenceless, unarmed,and utterly at the mercy of some venomous power that could crush what itwould remorselessly and at will in its might.
The place was a veritable maze, a lair of hellish cleverness. He hadno illusions now, he laboured under no false estimate of either theingenuity or the resources of this inhuman nest of vultures to whommurder was no more than a matter of detail. And it was against these menthat henceforth he was to match his wits! There could be no truce, noarmistice. It was their lives, or hers, or his! Well, he was alive now,the first round was over, and so far he had won. His brows furrowedsuddenly. Had he? He was not so sure, after all. He was conscious of adisquieting, premonitory intuition that, in some way which he could notexplain, the honours were not entirely his.
He was apparently--the "apparently" was a mental reservation--quitealone in the room. He got up from the couch and walked shakily acrossthe floor to the desk. A revolver lay invitingly upon the blotting pad.It was his own, the one they had taken from him after the accident.Jimmie Dale picked it up, examined it--and smiled a little sarcasticallyat himself for his trouble. It was unloaded, of course. He was twirlingit in his hand, as a man, masked as every one in the house was masked,and carrying a neatly folded suit over his arm, entered from thecorridor.
"The car is ready as soon as you are dressed," announced the otherbriefly. He laid the clothes upon the couch--and settled himselfsignificantly in a chair.
Jimmie Dale hesitated. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, recrossedthe room, and began to remove his torn garments. What was the use! Theywould certainly have their own way in the end. It wasn't worth anotherfight, and there was nothing to be gained by a refusal except to offer asop to his own exasperation.
He dressed quickly, in what proved to be an exceedingly well-fittingsuit; and finally turned tentatively to the man in the chair.
The other stood up, and produced a heavy black silk scarf.
"If you have no objections," he said curtly, "I'll tie this over youreyes."
Again Jimmie Dale shrugged his shoulders.
"I am glad enough to get out on any conditions," he answeredcaustically.
"'Fortunate' would be the better word," rejoined the othermeaningly--and, deftly knotting the scarf, led Jimmie Dale blindfoldedfrom the room.