“Right as to one point, but wrong on the other. Mrs. Beresford—you see, I know all about you—Mrs. Beresford will not be brought here. That is a little precaution I took. It occurred to me that just probably your friends in high places might be keeping you shadowed. In that case, by dividing the pursuit, you could not both be trailed. I should still keep one in my hands. I am waiting now—”
He broke off as the door opened. The chauffeur spoke.
“We’ve not been followed, sir. It’s all clear.”
“Good. You can go, Gregory.”
The door closed again.
“So far, so good,” said the “Duke.” “And now what are we to do with you, Mr. Beresford Blunt?”
“I wish you’d take this confounded eyeshade off me,” said Tommy.
“I think not. With it on, you are truly blind—without it you would see as well as I do—and that would not suit my little plan. For I have a plan. You are fond of sensational fiction, Mr. Blunt. This little game that you and your wife were playing today proves that. Now I, too, have arranged a little game—something rather ingenious, as I am sure you will admit when I explain it to you.
“You see, this floor on which you are standing is made of metal, and here and there on its surface are little projections. I touch a switch—so.” A sharp click sounded. “Now the electric current is switched on. To tread on one of those little knobs now means—death! You understand? If you could see . . . but you cannot see. You are in the dark. That is the game—Blindman’s Buff with death. If you can reach the door in safety—freedom! But I think that long before you reach it you will have trodden on one of the danger spots. And that will be very amusing—for me!”
He came forward and unbound Tommy’s hands. Then he handed him his cane with a little ironical bow.
“The blind Problemist. Let us see if he will solve this problem. I shall stand here with my pistol ready. If you raise your hands to your head to remove that eyeshade, I shoot. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear,” said Tommy. He was rather pale, but determined. “I haven’t a dog’s chance, I suppose?”
“Oh! that—” the other shrugged his shoulders.
“Damned ingenious devil, aren’t you?” said Tommy. “But you’ve forgotten one thing. May I light a cigarette by the way? My poor little heart’s going pit-a-pat.”
“You may light a cigarette—but no tricks. I am watching you, remember, with the pistol ready.”
“I’m not a performing dog,” said Tommy. “I don’t do tricks.” He extracted a cigarette from his case, then felt for a match box. “It’s all right. I’m not feeling for a revolver. But you know well enough that I’m not armed. All the same, as I said before, you’ve forgotten one thing.”
“What is that?”
Tommy took a match from the box, and held it ready to strike.
“I’m blind and you can see. That’s admitted. The advantage is with you. But supposing we were both in the dark—eh? Where’s your advantage then?”
He struck the match.
“Thinking of shooting at the switch of the lights? Plunging the room into darkness? It can’t be done.”
“Just so,” said Tommy. “I can’t give you darkness. But extremes meet, you know. What about light?”
As he spoke, he touched the match to something he held in his hand, and threw it down upon the table.
A blinding glare filled the room.
Just for a minute, blinded by the intense white light, the “Duke” blinked and fell back, his pistol hand lowered.
He opened his eyes again to feel something sharp pricking his breast.
“Drop that pistol,” ordered Tommy. “Drop it quick. I agree with you that a hollow cane is a pretty rotten affair. So I didn’t get one. A good sword stick is a very useful weapon, though. Don’t you think so? Almost as useful as magnesium wire. Drop that pistol.”
Obedient to the necessity of that sharp point, the man dropped it. Then, with a laugh, he sprang back.
“But I still have the advantage,” he mocked. “For I can see, and you cannot.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Tommy. “I can see perfectly. The eyeshade’s a fake. I was going to put one over on Tuppence. Make one or two bloomers to begin with, and then put in some perfectly marvellous stuff towards the end of lunch. Why, bless you, I could have walked to the door and avoided all the knobs with perfect ease. But I didn’t trust you to play a sporting game. You’d never have let me get out of this alive. Careful now—”
For, with his face distorted with rage, the “Duke” sprang forward, forgetting in his fury to look where he put his feet.
There was a sudden blue crackle of flame, and he swayed for a minute, then fell like a log. A faint odour of singed flesh filled the room, mingling with a stronger smell of ozone.”
“Whew,” said Tommy.
He wiped his face.
Then, moving gingerly, and with every precaution, he reached the wall, and touched the switch he had seen the other manipulate.
He crossed the room to the door, opened it carefully, and looked out. There was no one about. He went down the stairs and out through the front door.
Safe in the street, he looked up at the house with a shudder, noting the number. Then he hurried to the nearest telephone box.
There was a moment of agonising anxiety, and then a well-known voice spoke.
“Tuppence, thank goodness!”
“Yes, I’m all right. I got all your points. The Fee, Shrimp, Come to the Blitz and follow the two strangers. Albert got there in time, and when we went off in separate cars, followed me in a taxi, saw where they took me, and rang up the police.”
“Albert’s a good lad,” said Tommy. “Chivalrous. I was pretty sure he’d choose to follow you. But I’ve been worried, all the same. I’ve got lots to tell you. I’m coming straight back now. And the first thing I shall do when I get back is to write a thumping big cheque for St. Dunstan’s. Lord, it must be awful not to be able to see.”
Nine
THE MAN IN THE MIST
Tommy was not pleased with life. Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives had met with a reverse, distressing to their pride if not to their pockets. Called in professionally to elucidate the mystery of a stolen pearl necklace at Adlington Hall, Adlington, Blunt’s Brilliant Detectives had failed to make good. Whilst Tommy, hard on the track of a gambling Countess, was tracking her in the disguise of a Roman Catholic priest, and Tuppence was “getting off” with the nephew of the house on the golf links, the local Inspector of Police had unemotionally arrested the second footman who proved to be a thief well-known at headquarters, and who admitted his guilt without making any bones about it.
Tommy and Tuppence, therefore, had withdrawn with what dignity they could muster, and were at the present moment solacing themselves with cocktails at the Grand Adlington Hotel. Tommy still wore his clerical disguise.
“Hardly a Father Brown touch, that,” he remarked gloomily. “And yet I’ve got just the right kind of umbrella.”
“It wasn’t a Father Brown problem,” said Tuppence. “One needs a certain atmosphere from the start. One must be doing something quite ordinary, and then bizarre things begin to happen. That’s the idea.”
“Unfortunately,” said Tommy, “we have to return to town. Perhaps something bizarre will happen on the way to the station.”
He raised the glass he was holding to his lips, but the liquid in it was suddenly spilled, as a heavy hand smacked him on the shoulder, and a voice to match the hand boomed out words of greeting.
“Upon my soul, it is! Old Tommy! And Mrs. Tommy too. Where did you blow in from? Haven’t seen or heard anything of you for years.”
“Why, it’s Bulger!” said Tommy, setting down what was left of the cocktail, and turning to look at the intruder, a big square-shouldered man of thirty years of age, with a round red beaming face, and dressed in golfing kit. “Good old Bulger!”
“But I say, old chap,” said Bulger (whose
real name, by the way, was Marvyn Estcourt), “I never knew you’d taken orders. Fancy you a blinking parson.”
Tuppence burst out laughing, and Tommy looked embarrassed. And then they suddenly became conscious of a fourth person.
A tall, slender creature, with very golden hair and very round blue eyes, almost impossibly beautiful, with an effect of really expensive black topped by wonderful ermines, and very large pearl earrings. She was smiling. And her smile said many things. It asserted, for instance, that she knew perfectly well that she herself was the thing best worth looking at, certainly in England, and possibly in the whole world. She was not vain about it in any way, but she just knew, with certainty and confidence, that it was so.
Both Tommy and Tuppence recognised her immediately. They had seen her three times in The Secret of the Heart, and an equal number of times in that other great success, Pillars of Fire, and in innumerable other plays. There was, perhaps, no other actress in England who had so firm a hold on the British public, as Miss Gilda Glen. She was reported to be the most beautiful woman in England. It was also rumoured that she was the stupidest.
“Old friends of mine, Miss Glen,” said Estcourt, with a tinge of apology in his voice for having presumed, even for a moment, to forget such a radiant creature. “Tommy and Mrs. Tommy, let me introduce you to Miss Gilda Glen.”
The ring of pride in his voice was unmistakable. By merely being seen in his company, Miss Glen had conferred great glory upon him.
The actress was staring with frank interest at Tommy.
“Are you really a priest?” she asked. “A Roman Catholic priest, I mean? Because I thought they didn’t have wives.”
Estcourt went off in a boom of laughter again.
“That’s good,” he exploded. “You sly dog, Tommy. Glad he hasn’t renounced you, Mrs. Tommy, with all the rest of the pomps and vanities.”
Gilda Glen took not the faintest notice of him. She continued to stare at Tommy with puzzled eyes.
“Are you a priest?” she demanded.
“Very few of us are what we seem to be,” said Tommy gently. “My profession is not unlike that of a priest. I don’t give absolution—but I listen to confessions—I—”
“Don’t you listen to him,” interrupted Estcourt. “He’s pulling your leg.”
“If you’re not a clergyman, I don’t see why you’re dressed up like one,” she puzzled. “That is, unless—”
“Not a criminal flying from justice,” said Tommy. “The other thing.”
“Oh!” she frowned, and looked at him with beautiful bewildered eyes.
“I wonder if she’ll ever get that,” thought Tommy to himself. “Not unless I put it in words of one syllable for her, I should say.”
Aloud he said:
“Know anything about the trains back to town, Bulger? We’ve got to be pushing for home. How far is it to the station?”
“Ten minutes” walk. But no hurry. Next train up is the 6:35 and it’s only about twenty to six now. You’ve just missed one.”
“Which way is it to the station from here?”
“Sharp to the left when you turn out of the hotel. Then—let me see—down Morgan’s Avenue would be the best way, wouldn’t it?”
“Morgan’s Avenue?” Miss Glen started violently, and stared at him with startled eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking of,” said Estcourt, laughing. “The Ghost. Morgan’s Avenue is bounded by the cemetery on one side, and tradition has it that a policeman who met his death by violence gets up and walks on his old beat, up and down Morgan’s Avenue. A spook policeman! Can you beat it? But lots of people swear to having seen him.”
“A policeman?” said Miss Glen. She shivered a little. “But there aren’t really any ghosts, are there? I mean—there aren’t such things?”
She got up, folding her wrap tighter round her.
“Goodbye,” she said vaguely.
She had ignored Tuppence completely throughout, and now she did not even glance in her direction. But, over her shoulder, she threw one puzzled questioning glance at Tommy.
Just as she got to the door, she encountered a tall man with grey hair and a puffy face, who uttered an exclamation of surprise. His hand on her arm, he led her through the doorway, talking in an animated fashion.
“Beautiful creature, isn’t she?” said Estcourt. “Brains of a rabbit. Rumour has it that she’s going to marry Lord Leconbury. That was Leconbury in the doorway.”
“He doesn’t look a very nice sort of man to marry,” remarked Tuppence.
Estcourt shrugged his shoulders.
“A title has a kind of glamour still, I suppose,” he said. “And Leconbury is not an impoverished peer by any means. She’ll be in clover. Nobody knows where she sprang from. Pretty near the gutter, I dare say. There’s something deuced mysterious about her being down here anyway. She’s not staying at the hotel. And when I tried to find out where she was staying, she snubbed me—snubbed me quite crudely, in the only way she knows. Blessed if I know what it’s all about.”
He glanced at his watch and uttered an exclamation.
“I must be off. Jolly glad to have seen you two again. We must have a bust in town together some night. So long.”
He hurried away, and as he did so, a page approached with a note on a salver. The note was unaddressed.
“But it’s for you, sir,” he said to Tommy. “From Miss Gilda Glen.”
Tommy tore it open and read it with some curiosity. Inside were a few lines written in a straggling untidy hand.
I’m not sure, but I think you might be able to help me. And you’ll be going that way to the station. Could you be at The White House, Morgan’s Avenue, at ten minutes past six?
Yours sincerely,
Gilda Glen.
Tommy nodded to the page, who departed, and then handed the note to Tuppence.
“Extraordinary!” said Tuppence. “Is it because she still thinks you’re a priest?”
“No,” said Tommy thoughtfully. “I should say it’s because she’s at last taken in that I’m not one. Hullo! what’s this?”
“This,” was a young man with flaming red hair, a pugnacious jaw, and appallingly shabby clothes. He had walked into the room and was now striding up and down muttering to himself.
“Hell!” said the red-haired man, loudly and forcibly. “That’s what I say—Hell!”
He dropped into a chair near the young couple and stared at them moodily.
“Damn all women, that’s what I say,” said the young man, eyeing Tuppence ferociously. “Oh! all right, kick up a row if you like. Have me turned out of the hotel. It won’t be for the first time. Why shouldn’t we say what we think? Why should we go about bottling up our feelings, and smirking, and saying things exactly like everyone else. I don’t feel pleasant and polite. I feel like getting hold of someone round the throat and gradually choking them to death.”
He paused.
“Any particular person?” asked Tuppence. “Or just anybody?”
“One particular person,” said the young man grimly.
“This is very interesting,” said Tuppence. “Won’t you tell us some more?”
“My name’s Reilly,” said the red-haired man. “James Reilly. You may have heard it. I wrote a little volume of Pacifist poems—good stuff, although I say so.”
“Pacifist poems?” said Tuppence.
“Yes—why not?” demanded Mr. Reilly belligerently.
“Oh! nothing,” said Tuppence hastily.
“I’m for peace all the time,” said Mr. Reilly fiercely. “To Hell with war. And women! Women! Did you see that creature who was trailing around here just now? Gilda Glen, she calls herself. Gilda Glen! God! how I’ve worshipped that woman. And I’ll tell you this—if she’s got a heart at all, it’s on my side. She cared once for me, and I could make her care again. And if she sells herself to that muck heap, Leconbury—well, God help her. I’d as soon kill her with my own hands.”
And on this, s
uddenly, he rose and rushed from the room.
Tommy raised his eyebrows.
“A somewhat excitable gentleman,” he murmured. “Well, Tuppence, shall we start?”
A fine mist was coming up as they emerged from the hotel into the cool outer air. Obeying Estcourt’s directions, they turned sharp to the left, and in a few minutes they came to a turning labelled Morgan’s Avenue.
The mist had increased. It was soft and white, and hurried past them in little eddying drifts. To their left was the high wall of the cemetery, on their right a row of small houses. Presently these ceased, and a high hedge took their place.
“Tommy,” said Tuppence. “I’m beginning to feel jumpy. The mist—and the silence. As though we were miles from anywhere.”
“One does feel like that,” agreed Tommy. “All alone in the world. It’s the effect of the mist, and not being able to see ahead of one.”
Tuppence nodded.
“Just our footsteps echoing on the pavement. What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“I thought I heard other footsteps behind us.”
“You’ll be seeing the ghost in a minute if you work yourself up like this,” said Tommy kindly. “Don’t be so nervy. Are you afraid the spook policeman will lay his hands on your shoulder?”
Tuppence emitted a shrill squeal.
“Don’t, Tommy. Now you’ve put it into my head.”
She craned her head back over her shoulder, trying to peer into the white veil that was wrapped all round them.
“There they are again,” she whispered. “No, they’re in front now. Oh! Tommy, don’t say you can’t hear them?”
“I do hear something. Yes, it’s footsteps behind us. Somebody else walking this way to catch the train. I wonder—”
He stopped suddenly, and stood still, and Tuppence gave a gasp.
For the curtain of mist in front of them suddenly parted in the most artificial manner, and there, not twenty feet away, a gigantic policeman suddenly appeared, as though materialised out of the fog. One minute he was not there, the next minute he was—so at least it seemed to the rather superheated imaginations of the two watchers. Then as the mist rolled back still more, a little scene appeared, as though set on a stage.