Again Bundle opened her mouth, and again shut it without speaking.
“Right you are,” agreed Bill. “Who’ll take first duty?”
“Shall we spin for it?”
“Might as well.”
“All right. Here goes. Heads you first and I second. Tails, vice versa.”
Bill nodded. The coin spun in the air. Jimmy bent to look at it.
“Tails,” he said.
“Damn,” said Bill. “You get first half and probably any fun that’s going.”
“Oh, you never know,” said Jimmy. “Criminals are very uncertain. What time shall I wake you? Three?”
“That’s about fair, I think.”
And now, at last, Bundle spoke:
“What about me?” she asked.
“Nothing doing. You go to bed and sleep.”
“Oh!” said Bundle. “That’s not very exciting.”
“You never know,” said Jimmy kindly. “You may be murdered in your sleep while Bill and I escape scot-free.”
“Well, there’s always that possibility. Do you know, Jimmy, I don’t half like the look of that countess. I suspect her.”
“Nonsense,” cried Billy hotly. “She’s absolutely above suspicion.”
“How do you know?” retorted Bundle.
“Because I do. Why, one of the fellows at the Hungarian Embassy vouched for her.”
“Oh!” said Bundle, momentarily taken aback by his fervour.
“You girls are all the same,” grumbled Bill. “Just because she’s a jolly good-looking woman—”
Bundle was only too well-acquainted with this unfair masculine line of argument.
“Well, don’t you go and pour confidences into her shell-pink ear,” she remarked. “I’m going to bed. I was bored stiff with that drawing room and I’m not going back.”
She left the room. Bill looked at Jimmy.
“Good old Bundle,” he said. “I was afraid we might have trouble with her. You know how keen she is to be in everything. I think the way she took it was just wonderful.”
“So did I,” said Jimmy. “It staggered me.”
“She’s got some sense, Bundle has. She knows when a thing’s plumb impossible. I say, oughtn’t we to have some lethal weapons? Chaps usually do when they’re going on this sort of stunt.”
“I have a bluenosed automatic,” said Jimmy with gentle pride. “It weighs several pounds and looks most dangerous. I’ll lend it to you when the time comes.”
Bill looked at him with respect and envy.
“What made you think of getting that?” he said.
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy carelessly. “It just came to me.”
“I hope we shan’t go and shoot the wrong person,” said Bill with some anxiety.
“That would be unfortunate,” said Mr. Thesiger gravely.
Eighteen
JIMMY’S ADVENTURES
Our chronicle must here split into three separate and distinct portions. The night was to prove an eventful one and each of the three persons involved saw it from his or her own individual angle.
We will begin with that pleasant and engaging youth, Mr. Jimmy Thesiger, at a moment when he has at last exchanged final good nights with his fellow conspirator, Bill Eversleigh.
“Don’t forget,” said Bill, “three a.m. If you’re still alive, that is,” he added kindly.
“I may be an ass,” said Jimmy, with rancorous remembrance of the remark Bundle had repeated to him, “but I’m not nearly so much of an ass as I look.”
“That’s what you said about Gerry Wade,” said Bill slowly. “Do you remember? And that very night he—”
“Shut up, you damned fool,” said Jimmy. “Haven’t you got any tact?”
“Of course I’ve got tact,” said Bill. “I’m a budding diplomatist. All diplomatists have tact.”
“Ah!” said Jimmy. “You must be still in what they call the larval stage.”
“I can’t get over Bundle,” said Bill, reverting abruptly to a former topic. “I should certainly have said that she’d be—well, difficult. Bundle’s improved. She’s improved very much.”
“That’s what your Chief was saying,” said Jimmy. “He said he was agreeably surprised.”
“I thought Bundle was laying it on a bit thick myself,” said Bill. “But Codders is such an ass he’d swallow anything. Well, night-night. I expect you’ll have a bit of a job waking me when the times comes—but stick to it.”
“It won’t be much good if you’ve taken a leaf out of Gerry Wade’s book,” said Jimmy maliciously.
Bill looked at him reproachfully.
“What the hell do you want to go and make a chap uncomfortable for?” he demanded.
“I’m only getting my own back,” said Jimmy. “Toddle along.”
But Bill lingered. He stood uncomfortably, first on one foot and then on the other.
“Look here,” he said.
“Yes?”
“What I mean to say is—well, I mean you’ll be all right and all that, won’t you? It’s all very well ragging but when I think of poor Gerry—and then poor old Ronny—”
Jimmy gazed at him in exasperation. Bill was one of those who undoubtedly meant well, but the result of his efforts would not be described as heartening.
“I see,” he remarked, “that I shall have to show you Leopold.”
He slipped his hand into the pocket of the dark-blue suit into which he had just changed and held out something for Bill’s inspection.
“A real, genuine, bluenosed automatic,” he said with modest pride.
“No. I say,” said Bill, “is it really?”
He was undoubtedly impressed.
“Stevens, my man, got him for me. Warranted clean and methodical in his habits. You press the button and Leopold does the rest.”
“Oh!” said Bill. “I say, Jimmy?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful, won’t you? I mean, don’t go loosing that thing off at anybody. Pretty awkward if you shot old Digby walking in his sleep.”
“That’s all right,” said Jimmy. “Naturally, I want to get value out of old Leopold now I’ve bought him, but I’ll curb my bloodthirsty instincts as far as possible.”
“Well, night-night,” said Bill for the fourteenth time, and this time really did depart.
Jimmy was left alone to take up his vigil.
Sir Stanley Digby occupied a room at the extremity of the west wing. A bathroom adjoined it on one side, and on the other a communicating door led into a smaller room, which was tenanted by Mr. Terence O’Rourke. The doors of these three rooms gave on to a short corridor. The watcher had a simple task. A chair placed inconspicuously in the shadow of an oak press just where the corridor ran into the main gallery formed a perfect vantage ground. There was no other way into the west wing, and anyone going to or from it could not fail to be seen. One electric light was still on.
Jimmy ensconced himself comfortably, crossed his legs and waited. Leopold lay in readiness across his knee.
He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes to one—just an hour since the household had retired to rest. Not a sound broke the stillness, except for the far-off ticking of a clock somewhere.
Somehow or other, Jimmy did not much care for that sound. It recalled things. Gerald Wade—and those seven ticking clocks on the mantelpiece . . . Whose hand had placed them there, and why? He shivered.
It was a creepy business, this waiting. He didn’t wonder that things happened at spiritualistic séances. Sitting in the gloom, one got all worked up—ready to start at the least sound. And unpleasant thoughts came in on a fellow.
Ronny Devereux! Ronny Devereux and Gerry Wade! Both young, both full of life and energy; ordinary, jolly, healthy young men. And now, where were they? Dank earth . . . worms getting them . . . Ugh! why couldn’t he put these horrible thoughts out of his mind?
He looked again at his watch. Twenty minutes past one only. How the time crawled.
Extraordinary girl, Bundle!
Fancy having the nerve and daring actually to get into the midst of that Seven Dials place. Why hadn’t he had the nerve and initiative to think of that? He supposed because the thing was so fantastic.
No 7. Who the hell could No 7 be? Was he, perhaps, in the house at this minute? Disguised as a servant. He couldn’t, surely, be one of the guests. No, that was impossible. But then, the whole thing was impossible. If he hadn’t believed Bundle to be essentially truthful—well, he would have thought she had invented the whole thing.
He yawned. Queer, to feel sleepy, and yet at the same time strung up. He looked again at his watch. Ten minutes to two. Time was getting on.
And then, suddenly, he held his breath and leaned forward, listening. He had heard something.
The minutes went past . . . There it was again. The creak of a board . . . But it came from downstairs somewhere. There it was again! A slight, ominous creak. Somebody was moving stealthily about the house.
Jimmy sprang noiselessly to his feet. He crept silently to the head of the staircase. Everything seemed perfectly quiet. Yet he was quite certain he had really heard that stealthy sound. It was not imagination.
Very quietly and cautiously he crept down the staircase, Leopold clasped tightly in his right hand. Not a sound in the big hall. If he had been correct in assuming that the muffled sound came from directly beneath him, then it must have come from the library.
Jimmy stole to the door of it, listened, but heard nothing; then, suddenly flinging open the door, he switched on the lights.
Nothing! The big room was flooded with light. But it was empty.
Jimmy frowned.
“I could have sworn—” he murmured to himself.
The library was a large room with three windows which opened on to the terrace. Jimmy strode across the room. The middle window was unlatched.
He opened it and stepped out on to the terrace, looking from end to end of it. Nothing!
“Looks all right,” he murmured to himself. “And yet—”
He remained for a minute lost in thought. Then he stepped back into the library. Crossing to the door, he locked it and put the key in his pocket. Then he switched off the light. He stood for a minute listening, then crossed softly to the open window and stood there, Leopold ready in his hand.
Was there, or was there not, a soft patter of feet along the terrace? No—his imagination. He grasped Leopold tightly and stood listening. . . .
In the distance a stable clock chimed two.
Nineteen
BUNDLE’S ADVENTURES
Bundle Brent was a resourceful girl—she was also a girl of imagination. She had foreseen that Bill, if not Jimmy, would make objections to her participation in the possible dangers of the night. It was not Bundle’s idea to waste time in argument. She had laid her own plans and made her own arrangements. A glance from her bedroom window shortly before dinner had been highly satisfactory. She had known that the grey walls of the Abbey were plentifully adorned with ivy, but the ivy outside her window was particularly solid looking and would present no difficulties to one of her athletic propensities.
She had no fault to find with Bill’s and Jimmy’s arrangements as far as they went. But in her opinion they did not go far enough. She offered no criticism, because she intended to see to that side of things herself. Briefly, while Jimmy and Bill were devoting themselves to the inside of the Abbey, Bundle intended to devote her attentions to the outside.
Her own meek acquiescence in the tame rôle assigned to her gave her an infinity of pleasure, though she wondered scornfully how either of the two men could be so easily deceived. Bill, of course, had never been famous for scintillating brain power. On the other hand, he knew, or should know, his Bundle. And she considered that Jimmy Thesiger, though only slightly acquainted with her, ought to have known better than to imagine that she could be so easily and summarily disposed of.
Once in the privacy of her own room, Bundle set rapidly to work. First she discarded her evening dress and the negligible trifle which she wore beneath it, and started again, so to speak, from the foundations. Bundle had not brought her maid with her, and she had packed herself. Otherwise, the puzzled Frenchwoman might have wondered why her lady took a pair of riding breeches and no further equine equipment.
Arrayed in riding breeches, rubber-soled shoes, and a dark-coloured pullover, Bundle was ready for the fray. She glanced at the time. As yet, it was only half past twelve. Too early by far. Whatever was going to happen would not happen for some time yet. The occupants of the house must all be given time to get off to sleep. Half past one was the time fixed by Bundle for the start of operations.
She switched off her light and sat down by the window to wait. Punctually at the appointed moment, she rose, pushed up the sash and swung her leg over the sill. The night was a fine one, cold and still. There was starlight but no moon.
She found the descent very easy. Bundle and her two sisters had run wild in the park at Chimneys as small children, and they could all climb like cats. Bundle arrived on a flower bed, rather breathless, but quite unscathed.
She paused a minute to take stock of her plans. She knew that the rooms occupied by the Air Minister and his secretary were in the west wing; that was the opposite side of the house from where Bundle was now standing. A terrace ran along the south and west side of the house, ending abruptly against a walled fruit garden.
Bundle stepped out of her flower bed and turned the corner of the house to where the terrace began on the south side. She crept very quietly along it, keeping close to the shadow of the house. But, as she reached the second corner, she got a shock, for a man was standing there, with the clear intention of barring her way.
The next instant she had recognized him.
“Superintendent Battle! You did give me a fright!”
“That’s what I’m here for,” said the Superintendent pleasantly.
Bundle looked at him. It struck her now, as so often before, how remarkably little camouflage there was about him. He was large and solid and noticeable. He was, somehow, very English. But of one thing Bundle was quite sure. Superintendent Battle was no fool.
“What are you really doing here?” she asked, still in a whisper.
“Just seeing,” said Battle, “that nobody’s about who shouldn’t be.”
“Oh!” said Bundle, rather taken aback.
“You, for instance, Lady Eileen. I don’t suppose you usually take a walk at this time of night.”
“Do you mean,” said Bundle slowly, “that you want me to go back?”
Superintendent Battle nodded approvingly.
“You’re very quick, Lady Eileen. That’s just what I do mean. Did you—er—come out of a door, or the window?”
“The window. It’s easy as anything climbing down this ivy.”
Supertintendent Battle looked up at it thoughtfully.
“Yes,” he said. “I should say it would be.”
“And you want me to go back?” said Bundle. “I’m rather sick about that. I wanted to go round on to the west terrace.”
“Perhaps you won’t be the only one who’ll want to do that,” said Battle.
“Nobody could miss seeing you,” said Bundle rather spitefully.
The Superintendent seemed rather pleased than otherwise.
“I hope they won’t,” he said. “No unpleasantness. That’s my motto. And if you’ll excuse me, Lady Eileen, I think it’s time you were going back to bed.”
The firmness of his tone admitted no parley. Rather crestfallen, Bundle retraced her steps. She was halfway up the ivy when a sudden idea occurred to her, and she nearly relaxed her grip and fell.
Supposing Superintendent Battle suspected her.
There had been something—yes, surely there had been something in his manner that vaguely suggested the idea. She couldn’t help laughing as she crawled over the sill into her bedroom. Fancy the solid Superintendent suspecting her!
Though she had so far obeyed Battle’s orders
as to returning to her room, Bundle had no intention of going to bed and sleeping. Nor did she think that Battle had really intended her to do so. He was not a man to expect impossibilities. And to remain quiescent when something daring and exciting might be going on was a sheer impossibility to Bundle.
She glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes to two. After a moment or two of irresolution, she cautiously opened her door. Not a sound. Everything was still and peaceful. She stole cautiously along the passage.
Once she halted, thinking she heard a board creak somewhere, but then convinced that she was mistaken, she went on again. She was now in the main corridor, making her way to the west wing. She reached the angle of intersection and peered cautiously round—then she stared in blank surprise.
The watcher’s post was empty. Jimmy Thesiger was not there.
Bundle stared in complete amazement. What had happened? Why had Jimmy left his post? What did it mean?
At that moment she heard a clock strike two.
She was still standing there, debating what to do next, when suddenly her heart gave a leap and then seemed to stand still. The door handle of Terence O’Rourke’s room was slowly turning.
Bundle watched, fascinated. But the door did not open. Instead the knob turned slowly to its original position. What did it mean?
Suddenly Bundle came to a resolution. Jimmy, for some unknown reason, had deserted his post. She must get hold of Bill.
Quickly and noiselessly, Bundle fled along the way she had come. She burst unceremoniously into Bill’s room.
“Bill, wake up! Oh, do wake up!”
It was an urgent whisper she sent forth, but there came no response to it.
“Bill,” breathed Bundle.
Impatiently she switched on the lights, and then stood dumbfounded.
The room was empty, and the bed had not even been slept in.
Where then was Bill?
Suddenly she caught her breath. This was not Bill’s room. The dainty negligée thrown over a chair, the feminine knickknacks on the dressing table, the black velvet evening dress thrown carelessly over a chair—Of course, in her haste she had mistaken the doors. This was the Countess Radzky’s room.