CHAPTER XXV
THE HOUSE OF HASHISH
Along the leads from Frith Street we worked our perilous way. From thetop landing of a French restaurant we had gained access, by means ofa trap, to the roof of the building. Now, the busy streets of Soho werebelow me, and I clung dizzily to telephone standards and smoke stacks,rarely venturing to glance downward upon the cosmopolitan throng,surging, dwarfish, in the lighted depths.
Sometimes the bulky figure of Inspector Weymouth would loom upgrotesquely against the star-sprinkled blue, as he paused to takebreath; the next moment Nayland Smith would be leading the way again,and I would find myself contemplating some sheer well of blackness,with nausea threatening me because it had to be negotiated.
None of these gaps were more than a long stride from side to side; butthe sense of depth conveyed in the muffled voices and dimmed footstepsfrom the pavements far below was almost overpowering. Indeed, I amconvinced that for my part I should never have essayed that nightmarejourney were it not that the musical voice of Karamaneh seemed to becalling to me, her little white hands to be seeking mine, blindly, inthe darkness.
That we were close to a haunt of the dreadful Chinamen I waspersuaded; therefore my hatred and my love cooperated to lend me acoolness and address which otherwise I must have lacked.
"Hullo!" cried Smith, who was leading--"what now?"
We had crept along the crown of a sloping roof and were confronted bythe blank wall of a building which rose a story higher than thatadjoining it. It was crowned by an iron railing, showing blacklyagainst the sky. I paused, breathing heavily, and seated astride thatdizzy perch. Weymouth was immediately behind me, and--
"It's the Cafe de l'Egypte, Mr. Smith!" he said, "If you'll look up,you'll see the reflection of the lights shining through the glass roof."
Vaguely I discerned Nayland Smith rising to his feet.
"Be careful!" I said. "For God's sake don't slip!"
"Take my hand," he snapped energetically.
I stretched forward and grasped his hand. As I did so, he slid downthe slope on the right, away from the street, and hung perilously fora moment over the very cul de sac upon which the secret door opened.
"Good!" he muttered "There is, as I had hoped, a window lighting thetop of the staircase. Ssh!--ssh!"
His grip upon my hand tightened; and there aloft, above the teemfulstreets of Soho, I sat listening ... whilst very faint and muffledfootsteps sounded upon an uncarpeted stair, a door banged, and allwas silent again, save for the ceaseless turmoil far below.
"Sit tight, and catch!" rapped Smith.
Into my extended hands he swung his boots, fastened together by thelaces! Then, ere I could frame any protest, he disengaged his handfrom mine, and pressing his body close against the angle of thebuilding, worked his way around to the staircase window, which wasinvisible from where I crouched.
"Heavens!" muttered Weymouth, close to my ear, "I can never travelthat road!"
"Nor I!" was my scarcely audible answer.
In a anguish of fearful anticipation I listened for the cry and thedull thud which should proclaim the fate of my intrepid friend; butno such sounds came to me. Some thirty seconds passed in this fashion,when a subdued call from above caused me to start and look aloft.
Nayland Smith was peering down from the railing on the roof.
"Mind your head!" he warned--and over the rail swung the end of alight wooden ladder, lowering it until it rested upon the crestastride of which I sat.
"Up you come!--then Weymouth!"
Whilst Smith held the top firmly, I climbed up rung by rung, notdaring to think of what lay below.
My relief when at last I grasped the railing, climbed over, and foundmyself upon a wooden platform, was truly inexpressible.
"Come on, Weymouth!" rapped Nayland Smith. "This ladder has to belowered back down the trap before another visitor arrives!"
Taking short, staccato breaths at every step, Inspector Weymouthascended, ungainly, that frail and moving stair. Arrived beside me,he wiped the perspiration from his face and forehead.
"I wouldn't do it again for a hundred pounds!" he said hoarsely.
"You don't have to!" snapped Smith.
Back he hauled the ladder, shouldered it, and stepping to a squareopening in one corner of the rickety platform, lowered it cautiouslydown.
"Have you a knife with a corkscrew in it?" he demanded.
Weymouth had one, which he produced. Nayland Smith screwed it intothe weather-worn frame, and by that means reclosed the trapdoorsoftly, then--
"Look," he said, "there is the house of hashish!"