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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost House, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lost House
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Posting Date: October 15, 2008 [EBook #1807]
+Last Updated: September 26, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST HOUSE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Aaron Cannon
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOST HOUSE
+
+by Richard Harding Davis
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+It was a dull day at the chancellery. His Excellency the American
+Ambassador was absent in Scotland, unveiling a bust to Bobby Burns,
+paid for by the numerous lovers of that poet in Pittsburg; the First
+Secretary was absent at Aldershot, observing a sham battle; the Military
+Attache was absent at the Crystal Palace, watching a foot-ball match;
+the Naval Attache was absent at the Duke of Deptford's, shooting
+pheasants; and at the Embassy, the Second Secretary, having lunched
+leisurely at the Artz, was now alone, but prepared with his life to
+protect American interests. Accordingly, on the condition that the story
+should not be traced back to him, he had just confided a State secret to
+his young friend, Austin Ford, the London correspondent of the New York
+REPUBLIC.
+
+“I will cable it,” Ford reassured him, “as coming from a Hungarian
+diplomat, temporarily residing in Bloomsbury, while en route to his post
+in Patagonia. In that shape, not even your astute chief will suspect its
+real source. And further from the truth than that I refuse to go.”
+
+“What I dropped in to ask,” he continued, “is whether the English are
+going to send over a polo team next summer to try to bring back the
+cup?”
+
+“I've several other items of interest,” suggested the Secretary.
+
+“The week-end parties to which you have been invited,” Ford objected,
+“can wait. Tell me first what chance there is for an international polo
+match.”
+
+“Polo,” sententiously began the Second Secretary, who himself was a
+crackerjack at the game, “is a proposition of ponies! Men can be trained
+for polo. But polo ponies must be born. Without good ponies----”
+
+James, the page who guarded the outer walls, of the chancellery,
+appeared in the doorway.
+
+“Please, Sir, a person,” he announced, “with a note for the Ambassador,
+he says it's important.”
+
+“Tell him to leave it,” said the Secretary. “Polo ponies----”
+
+“Yes, Sir,” interrupted the page. “But 'e won't leave it, not unless he
+keeps the 'arf-crown.”
+
+“For Heaven's sake!” protested the Second Secretary, “then let him keep
+the half-crown. When I say polo ponies, I don't mean----”
+
+James, although alarmed at his own temerity, refused to accept the
+dismissal. “But, please, Sir,” he begged; “I think the 'arf-crown is for
+the Ambassador.”
+
+The astonished diplomat gazed with open eyes.
+
+“You think--WHAT!” he exclaimed.
+
+James, upon the defensive, explained breathlessly.
+
+“Because, Sir,” he stammered, “it was INSIDE the note when it was thrown
+out of the window.”
+
+Ford had been sprawling in a soft leather chair in front of the open
+fire. With the privilege of an old school-fellow and college classmate,
+he had been jabbing the soft coal with his walking-stick, causing it to
+burst into tiny flames. His cigarette drooped from his lips, his hat
+was cocked over one eye; he was a picture of indifference, merging upon
+boredom. But at the words of the boy his attitude both of mind and body
+underwent an instant change. It was as though he were an actor, and the
+words “thrown from the window” were his cue. It was as though he were
+a dozing fox-terrier, and the voice of his master had whispered in his
+ear: “Sick'em!”
+
+For a moment, with benign reproach, the Second Secretary regarded the
+unhappy page, and then addressed him with laborious sarcasm.
+
+“James,” he said, “people do not communicate with ambassadors in notes
+wrapped around half-crowns and hurled from windows. That is the way one
+corresponds with an organ-grinder.” Ford sprang to his feet.
+
+“And meanwhile,” he exclaimed angrily, “the man will get away.”
+
+Without seeking permission, he ran past James, and through the empty
+outer offices. In two minutes he returned, herding before him an
+individual, seedy and soiled. In appearance the man suggested that
+in life his place was to support a sandwich-board. Ford reluctantly
+relinquished his hold upon a folded paper which he laid in front of the
+Secretary.
+
+“This man,” he explained, “picked that out of the gutter in Sowell
+Street, It's not addressed to any one, so you read it!”
+
+“I thought it was for the Ambassador!” said the Secretary.
+
+The soiled person coughed deprecatingly, and pointed a dirty digit at
+the paper. “On the inside,” he suggested. The paper was wrapped around
+a half-crown and folded in at each end. The diplomat opened it
+hesitatingly, but having read what was written, laughed.
+
+“There's nothing in THAT,” he exclaimed. He passed the note to Ford. The
+reporter fell upon it eagerly.
+
+The note was written in pencil on an unruled piece of white paper. The
+handwriting was that of a woman. What Ford read was:
+
+“I am a prisoner in the street on which this paper is found. The house
+faces east. I think I am on the top story. I was brought here three
+weeks ago. They are trying to kill me. My uncle, Charles Ralph Pearsall,
+is doing this to get my money. He is at Gerridge's Hotel in Craven
+Street, Strand. He will tell you I am insane. My name is Dosia Pearsall
+Dale. My home is at Dalesville, Kentucky, U. S. A. Everybody knows me
+there, and knows I am not insane. If you would save a life take this at
+once to the American Embassy, or to Scotland Yard. For God's sake, help
+me.”
+
+When he had read the note, Ford continue to study it. Until he was quite
+sure his voice would not betray his interest, he did not raise his eyes.
+
+“Why,” he asked, “did you say that there's nothing in this?”
+
+“Because,” returned the diplomat conclusively, “we got a note like that,
+or nearly like it, a week ago, and----”
+
+Ford could not restrain a groan. “And you never told me!”
+
+“There wasn't anything to tell,” protested the diplomat. “We handed
+it over to the police, and they reported there was nothing in it. They
+couldn't find the man at that hotel, and, of course, they couldn't find
+the house with no more to go on than----”
+
+“And so,” exclaimed Ford rudely, “they decided there was no man, and no
+house!”
+
+“Their theory,” continued the Secretary patiently, “is that the girl is
+confined in one of the numerous private sanatoriums in Sowell Street,
+that she is insane, that because she's under restraint she IMAGINES
+the nurses are trying to kill her and that her relatives are after
+her money. Insane people are always thinking that. It's a very common
+delusion.”
+
+Ford's eyes were shining with a wicked joy. “So,” he asked
+indifferently, “you don't intend to do anything further?”
+
+“What do you want us to do?” cried his friend. “Ring every door-bell in
+Sowell Street and ask the parlor-maid if they're murdering a lady on the
+top story?”
+
+“Can I keep the paper?” demanded Ford. “You can keep a copy of it,”
+ consented the Secretary. “But if you think you're on the track of a big
+newspaper sensation, I can tell you now you're not. That's the work of a
+crazy woman, or it's a hoax. You amateur detectives----”
+
+Ford was already seated at the table, scribbling a copy of the message,
+and making marginal notes.
+
+“Who brought the FIRST paper?” he interrupted.
+
+“A hansom-cab driver.”
+
+“What became of HIM?” snapped the amateur detective.
+
+The Secretary looked inquiringly at James. “He drove away,” said James.
+
+“He drove away, did he?”' roared Ford. “And that was a week ago! Ye
+gods! What about Dalesville, Kentucky? Did you cable any one there?”
+
+The dignity of the diplomat was becoming ruffled.
+
+“We did not!” he answered. “If it wasn't true that her uncle was at that
+hotel, it was probably equally untrue that she had friends in America.”
+
+“But,” retorted his friend, “you didn't forget to cable the State
+Department that you all went in your evening clothes to bow to the new
+King? You didn't neglect to cable that, did you?”
+
+“The State Department,” returned the Secretary, with withering reproof,
+“does not expect us to crawl over the roofs of houses and spy down
+chimneys to see if by any chance an American citizen is being murdered.”
+
+“Well,” exclaimed Ford, leaping to his feet and placing his notes in
+his pocket, “fortunately, my paper expects me to do just that, and if it
+didn't, I'd do it anyway. And that is exactly what I am going to do now!
+Don't tell the others in the Embassy, and, for Heaven's sake, don't tell
+the police. Jimmy, get me a taxi. And you,” he commanded, pointing at
+the one who had brought the note, “are coming with me to Sowell Street,
+to show me where you picked up that paper.”
+
+On the way to Sowell Street Ford stopped at a newspaper agency, and
+paid for the insertion that afternoon of the same advertisement in three
+newspapers. It read: “If hansom-cab driver who last week carried note,
+found in street, to American Embassy will mail his address to X. X. X.,
+care of GLOBE, he will be rewarded.”
+
+From the nearest post-office he sent to his paper the following cable:
+“Query our local correspondent, Dalesville, Kentucky, concerning Dosia
+Pearsall Dale. Is she of sound mind, is she heiress. Who controls
+her money, what her business relations with her uncle Charles Ralph
+Pearsall, what her present address. If any questions, say inquiries come
+from solicitors of Englishman who wants to marry her. Rush answer.”
+
+Sowell Street is a dark, dirty little thoroughfare, running for only
+one block, parallel to Harley Street. Like it, it is decorated with the
+brass plates of physicians and the red lamps of surgeons, but, just as
+the medical men in Harley Street, in keeping with that thoroughfare,
+are broad, open, and with nothing to conceal, so those of Sowell Street,
+like their hiding-place, shrink from observation, and their lives are as
+sombre, secret, and dark as the street itself.
+
+Within two turns of it Ford dismissed the taxicab. Giving the soiled
+person a half-smoked cigarette, he told him to walk through Sowell
+Street, and when he reached the place where he had picked up the paper,
+to drop the cigarette as near that spot as possible. He then was to turn
+into Weymouth Street and wait until Ford joined him. At a distance of
+fifty feet Ford followed the man, and saw him, when in the middle of
+the block, without apparent hesitation, drop the cigarette. The house in
+front of which it fell was marked, like many others, by the brass
+plate of a doctor. As Ford passed it he hit the cigarette with his
+walking-stick, and drove it into an area. When he overtook the man, Ford
+handed him another cigarette. “To make sure,” he said, “C4 go back
+and drop this in the place you found the paper.” For a moment the man
+hesitated.
+
+“I might as well tell you,” Ford continued, “that I knocked that last
+cigarette so far from where you dropped it that you won't be able to use
+it as a guide. So, if you don't really know where you found the paper,
+you'll save my time by saying so.” Instead of being confused by the
+test, the man was amused by it. He laughed appreciatively admitted.
+“You've caught me out fair, governor,” “I want the 'arf-crown, and I
+dropped the cigarette as near the place as I could. But I can't do it
+again. It was this way,” he explained. “I wasn't taking notice of the
+houses. I was walking along looking into the gutter for stumps. I see
+this paper wrapped about something round. 'It's a copper,' I thinks,
+'jucked out of a winder to a organ-grinder.' I snatches it, and runs.
+I didn't take no time to look at the houses. But it wasn't so far from
+where I showed you; about the middle house in the street and on the left
+'and side.”
+
+Ford had never considered the man as a serious element in the problem.
+He believed him to know as little of the matter as he professed to know.
+But it was essential he should keep that little to himself.
+
+“No one will pay you for talking,” Ford pointed out, “and I'll pay you
+to keep quiet. So, if you say nothing concerning that note, at the end
+of two weeks, I'll leave two pounds for you with James, at the Embassy.”
+
+The man, who believed Ford to be an agent of the police, was only too
+happy to escape on such easy terms. After Ford had given him a pound on
+account, they parted.
+
+From Wimpole Street the amateur detective went to the nearest public
+telephone and called up Gerridge's Hotel. He considered his first step
+should be to discover if Mr. Pearsall was at that hotel, or had ever
+stopped there. When the 'phone was answered, he requested that a message
+be delivered to Mr. Pearsall.
+
+“Please tell him,” he asked, “that the clothes he ordered are ready to
+try on.”
+
+He was informed that no one by that name was at the hotel. In a voice of
+concern Ford begged to know when Mr. Pearsall had gone away, and had he
+left any address.
+
+“He was with you three weeks ago,” Ford insisted. “He's an American
+gentleman, and there was a lady with him. She ordered a riding-habit of
+us: the same time he was measured for his clothes.”
+
+After a short delay, the voice from the hotel replied that no one of the
+name of Pearsall had been at the hotel that winter.
+
+In apparent great disgust Ford rang off, and took a taxicab to his rooms
+in Jermyn Street. There he packed a suit-case and drove to Gerridge's.
+It was a quiet, respectable, “old-established” house in Craven Street,
+a thoroughfare almost entirely given over to small family hotels much
+frequented by Americans.
+
+After he had registered and had left his bag in his room, Ford returned
+to the office, and in an assured manner asked that a card on which he
+had written “Henry W. Page, Dalesville, Kentucky,” should be taken to
+Mr. Pearsall.
+
+In a tone of obvious annoyance the proprietor returned the card, saying
+that there was no one of that name in the hotel, and added that no such
+person had ever stopped there. Ford expressed the liveliest distress.
+
+“He TOLD me I'd find him here,” he protested., “he and his niece.” With
+the garrulousness of the American abroad, he confided his troubles to
+the entire staff of the hotel. “We're from the same town,” he explained.
+“That's why I must see him. He's the only man in London I know, and I've
+spent all my money. He said he'd give me some he owes me, as soon as I
+reached London. If I can't get it, I'll have to go home by Wednesday's
+steamer.” And, complained bitterly, “I haven't seen the Tower,
+nor Westminster Abbey.”
+
+In a moment, Ford's anxiety to meet Mr. Pearsall was apparently lost
+in a wave of self-pity. In his disappointment he appealing, pathetic
+figure.
+
+Real detectives and rival newspaper men, even while they admitted Ford
+obtained facts that were denied them, claimed that they were given him
+from charity. Where they bullied, browbeat, and administered a third
+degree, Ford was embarrassed, deprecatory, an earnest, ingenuous,
+wide-eyed child. What he called his “working” smile begged of you not
+to be cross with him. His simplicity was apparently so hopeless, his
+confidence in whomever he addressed so complete, that often even the
+man he was pursuing felt for him a pitying contempt. Now as he stood
+uncertainly in the hall of the hotel, his helplessness moved the proud
+lady clerk to shake her cylinders of false hair sympathetically,
+the German waiters to regard his predicament with respect; even the
+proprietor, Mr. Gerridge himself, was ill at ease. Ford returned to his
+room, on the second floor of the hotel, and sat down on the edge of the
+bed.
+
+In connecting Pearsall with Gerridge's, both the police and himself had
+failed. Of this there were three possible explanations: that the girl
+who wrote the letter was in error, that the letter was a hoax, that the
+proprietor of the hotel, for some reason, was protecting Pearsall, and
+had deceived both Ford and Scotland Yard. On the other hand, without
+knowing why the girl believed Pearsall would be found at Gerridge's,
+it was reasonable to assume that in so thinking she had been purposely
+misled. The question was, should he or not dismiss Gerridge's as a
+possible clew, and at once devote himself to finding the house in Sowell
+Street? He decided for the moment at least, to leave Gerridge's out of
+his calculations, but, as an excuse for returning there, to still retain
+his room. He at once started toward Sowell Street, and in order to find
+out if any one from the hotel were following him, he set forth on foot.
+As soon as he made sure he was not spied upon, he covered the remainder
+of the distance in a cab.
+
+He was acting on the supposition that the letter was no practical joke,
+but a genuine cry for help. Sowell Street was a scene set for such
+an adventure. It was narrow, mean-looking, the stucco house-fronts,
+soot-stained, cracked, and uncared-for, the steps broken and unwashed.
+As he entered it a cold rain was falling, and a yellow fog that rolled
+between the houses added to its dreariness. It was now late in the
+afternoon, and so overcast the sky that in many rooms the gas was lit
+and the curtains drawn.
+
+The girl, apparently from observing the daily progress of the sun, had
+written she was on the west side of the street and, she believed, in
+an upper story. The man who picked up the note had said he had found
+it opposite the houses in the middle of the block. Accordingly, Ford
+proceeded on the supposition that the entire east side of the street,
+the lower stories of the west side, and the houses at each end were
+eliminated. The three houses in the centre of the row were outwardly
+alike. They were of four stories. Each was the residence of a physician,
+and in each, in the upper stories, the blinds were drawn. From the front
+there was nothing to be learned, and in the hope that the rear might
+furnish some clew, Ford hastened to Wimpole Street, in which the houses
+to the east backed upon those to the west in Sowell Street. These houses
+were given over to furnished lodgings, and under the pretext of renting
+chambers, it was easy for Ford to enter them, and from the apartments
+in the rear to obtain several hasty glimpses of the backs of the three
+houses in Sowell Street. But neither from this view-point did he gather
+any fact of interest. In one of the three houses in Sowell Street
+iron bars were fastened across the windows of the fourth floor, but in
+private sanatoriums this was neither unusual nor suspicious. The bars
+might cover the windows of a nursery to prevent children from falling
+out, or the room of some timid householder with a lively fear of
+burglars.
+
+In a quarter of an hour Ford was again back in Sowell Street no wiser
+than when he had entered it. From the outside, at least, the three
+houses under suspicion gave no sign. In the problem before him there was
+one point that Ford found difficult to explain. It was the only one that
+caused him to question if the letter was genuine. What puzzled him was
+this: Why, if the girl were free to throw two notes from the window, did
+she not throw them out by the dozen? If she were able to reach a window,
+opening on the street, why did she not call for help? Why did she not,
+by hurling out every small article the room contained, by screams, by
+breaking the window-panes, attract a crowd, and, through it, the police?
+That she had not done so seemed to show that only at rare intervals
+was she free from restraint, or at liberty to enter the front room that
+opened on the street. Would it be equally difficult, Ford asked himself,
+for one in the street to communicate with her? What signal could he give
+that would draw an answering signal from the girl?
+
+Standing at the corner, hidden by the pillars of a portico, the water
+dripping from his rain-coat, Ford gazed long and anxiously at the blank
+windows of the three houses. Like blind eyes staring into his, they told
+no tales, betrayed no secret. Around him the commonplace life of the
+neighborhood proceeded undisturbed. Somewhere concealed in the single
+row of houses a girl was imprisoned, her life threatened; perhaps even
+at that moment she was facing her death. While, on either side, shut
+from her by the thickness only of a brick wall, people were talking,
+reading, making tea, preparing the evening meal, or, in the street
+below, hurrying by, intent on trivial errands. Hansom cabs, prowling
+in search of a fare, passed through the street where a woman was being
+robbed of a fortune, the drivers occupied only with thoughts of a
+possible shilling; a housemaid with a jug in her hand and a shawl over
+her bare head, hastened to the near-by public-house; the postman made
+his rounds, and delivered comic postal-cards; a policeman, shedding
+water from his shining cape, halted, gazed severely at the sky, and,
+unconscious of the crime that was going forward within the sound of his
+own footsteps, continued stolidly into Wimpole Street.
+
+A hundred plans raced through Ford's brain; he would arouse the street
+with a false alarm of fire and lead the firemen, with the tale of a
+smoking chimney, to one of the three houses; he would feign illness,
+and, taking refuge in one of them, at night would explore the premises;
+he would impersonate a detective, and insist upon his right to search
+for stolen property. As he rejected these and a dozen schemes as
+fantastic, his brain and eyes were still alert for any chance advantage
+that the street might offer. But the minutes passed into an hour, and
+no one had entered any of the three houses, no one had left them. In the
+lower stories, from behind the edges of the blinds, lights appeared,
+but of the life within there was no sign. Until he hit upon a plan of
+action, Ford felt there was no longer anything to be gained by remaining
+in Sowell Street. Already the answer to his cable might have arrived at
+his rooms; at Gerridge's he might still learn something of Pearsall.
+He decided to revisit both these places, and, while so engaged, to send
+from his office one of his assistants to cover the Sowell Street houses.
+He cast a last, reluctant look at the closed blinds, and moved away. As
+he did so, two itinerant musicians dragging behind them a small street
+piano on wheels turned the corner, and, as the rain had now ceased, one
+of them pulled the oil-cloth covering from the instrument and,
+seating himself on a camp-stool at the curb, opened the piano. After
+a discouraged glance at the darkened windows, the other, in a hoarse,
+strident tenor, to the accompaniment of the piano, began to sing. The
+voice of the man was raucous, penetrating. It would have reached the
+recesses of a tomb.
+
+“She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore,” the vocalist wailed. “The
+shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure.”
+
+The effect was instantaneous. A window was flung open, and an indignant
+householder with one hand frantically waved the musicians away, and with
+the other threw them a copper coin.
+
+At the same moment Ford walked quickly to the piano and laid a
+half-crown on top of it.
+
+“Follow me to Harley Street,” he commanded. “Don't hurry. Take your
+time. I want you to help me in a sort of practical joke. It's worth a
+sovereign to you.”
+
+He passed on quickly. When he glanced behind him, he saw the two men,
+fearful lest the promised fortune might escape them, pursuing him at a
+trot. At Harley Street they halted, breathless.
+
+“How long,” Ford demanded of the one who played the piano, “will it take
+you to learn the accompaniment to a new song?”
+
+“While you're whistling it,” answered the man eagerly.
+
+“And I'm as quick at a tune as him,” assured the other anxiously. “I can
+sing----”
+
+“You cannot,” interrupted Ford. “I'm going to do the singing myself.
+Where is there a public-house near here where we can hire a back room,
+and rehearse?”
+
+Half an hour later, Ford and the piano-player entered Sowell Street
+dragging the piano behind them. The amateur detective still wore his
+rain-coat, but his hat he had exchanged for a cap, and, instead of a
+collar, he had knotted around his bare neck a dirty kerchief. At the
+end of the street they halted, and in some embarrassment Ford raised his
+voice in the chorus of a song well known in the music-halls. It was a
+very good voice, much too good for “open-air work,” as his companion
+had already assured him, but, what was of chief importance to Ford, it
+carried as far as he wished it to go. Already in Wimpole Street four
+coins of the realm, flung to him from the highest windows, had testified
+to its power. From the end of Sowell Street Ford moved slowly from house
+to house until he was directly opposite the three in one of which he
+believed the girl to be. “We will try the NEW songs here,” he said.
+
+Night had fallen, and, except for the gas-lamps, the street was empty,
+and in such darkness that even without his disguise Ford ran no risk of
+recognition. His plan was not new. It dated from the days of Richard
+the Lion-hearted. But if the prisoner were alert and intelligent, even
+though she could make no answer, Ford believed through his effort she
+would gain courage, would grasp that from the outside a friend was
+working toward her. All he knew of the prisoner was that she came from
+Kentucky. Ford fixed his eyes on the houses opposite, and cleared his
+throat. The man struck the opening chords, and in a high barytone, and
+in a cockney accent that made even the accompanist grin, Ford lifted his
+voice.
+
+“The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,” he sang; “'tis summer,
+and the darkies are gay.”
+
+He finished the song, but there was no sign. For all the impression he
+had made upon Sowell Street, he might have been singing in his chambers.
+“And now the other,” commanded Ford.
+
+The house-fronts echoed back the cheering notes of “Dixie.” Again Ford
+was silent, and again The silence answered him. The accompanist glared
+disgustedly at the darkened windows.
+
+“They don't know them songs,” he explained professionally. “Give 'em,
+'Mollie Married the Marquis.'”
+
+“I'll sing the first one again,” said Ford. Once more he broke into the
+pathetic cadences of the “Old Kentucky Home.” But there was no response.
+He was beginning to feel angry, absurd. He believed he had wasted
+precious moments, and, even as he sang, his mind was already working
+upon a new plan. The song ceased, unfinished.
+
+“It's no use!” he exclaimed. Remembering himself, he added: “We'll try
+the next street.”
+
+But even as he spoke he leaped forward. Coming apparently from nowhere,
+something white sank through the semi-darkness and fell at his feet.
+It struck the pavement directly in front of the middle one of the
+three houses. Ford fell upon it and clutched it in both hands. It was a
+woman's glove. Ford raced back to the piano.
+
+“Once more,” he cried, “play 'Dixie'!”
+
+He shouted out the chorus exultantly, triumphantly. Had he spoken it in
+words, the message could not have carried more clearly.
+
+Ford now believed he had found the house, found the woman, and was
+eager only to get rid of his companion and, in his own person, return to
+Sowell Street. But, lest the man might suspect there was in his actions
+something more serious than a practical joke, he forced himself to sing
+the new songs in three different streets. Then, pretending to tire of
+his prank, he paid the musician and left him. He was happy, exultant,
+tingling with excitement. Good-luck had been with him, and, hoping that
+Gerridge's might yet yield some clew to Pearsall, he returned there.
+Calling up the London office of the REPUBLIC, he directed that one of
+his assistants, an English lad named Cuthbert, should at once join him
+at that hotel. Cuthbert was but just out of Oxford. He wished to become
+a writer of fiction, and, as a means of seeing many kinds of life at
+first hand, was in training as a “Pressman.” His admiration for Ford
+amounted to almost hero-worship; and he regarded an “assignment” with
+his chief as a joy and an honor. Full of enthusiasm, and as soon as a
+taxicab could bring him, he arrived at Gerridge's, where, in a corner of
+the deserted coffee-room, Ford explained the situation. Until he could
+devise a way to enter the Sowell Street house. Cuthbert was to watch
+over it.
+
+“The number of the house is forty,” Ford told him; “the name on the
+door-plate, Dr. Prothero. Find out everything you can about him without
+letting any one catch you at it. Better begin at the nearest chemist's.
+Say you are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and ask the man to mix
+you a sedative, and recommend a physician. Show him Prothero's name and
+address on a piece of paper, and say Prothero has been recommended to
+you as a specialist on nervous troubles. Ask what he thinks of him. Get
+him to talk. Then visit the trades-people and the public-houses in the
+neighborhood, and say you are from some West End shop where Prothero,
+wants to open an account. They may talk, especially if his credit is
+bad. And, if you find out enough about him to give me a working basis,
+I'll try to get into the house to-night. Meanwhile, I'm going to make
+another quick search of this hotel for Pearsall. I'm not satisfied he
+has not been here. For why should Miss Dale, with all the hotels in
+London to choose from, have named this particular one, unless she had
+good reason for it? Now, go, and meet me in an hour in Sowell Street.”
+
+Cuthbert was at the door when he remembered he had brought with him from
+the office Ford's mail and cablegrams. Among the latter was the one for
+which Ford had asked.
+
+“Wait,” he commanded. “This is about the girl. You had better know what
+it says.” The cable read:
+
+“Girl orphan, Dalesville named after her family, for three generations
+mill-owners, father died four years ago, Pearsall brother-in-law until
+she is twenty-one, which will be in three months. Girl well known,
+extremely popular, lived Dalesville until last year, when went abroad
+with uncle, since then reports of melancholia and nervous prostration,
+before that health excellent--no signs insanity--none in family. Be
+careful how handle Pearsall, was doctor, gave up practice to look
+after estate, is prominent in local business and church circles, best
+reputation, beware libel.”
+
+For the benefit of Cuthbert, Ford had been reading the cable aloud. The
+last paragraph seemed especially to interest him, and he read it twice,
+the second time slowly, and emphasizing the word “doctor.”
+
+“A doctor!” he repeated. “Do you see where that leads us? It may explain
+several things. The girl was in good health until went abroad with her
+uncle, and he is a medical man.”
+
+The eyes of Cuthbert grew wide with excitement.
+
+“You mean poison!” he whispered. “Slow poison!”
+
+“Beware libel,” laughed Ford nervously, his own eyes lit with
+excitement. “Suppose,” he exclaimed, “he has been using arsenic? He
+would have many opportunities, and it's colorless, tasteless; and
+arsenic would account for her depression and melancholia. The time when
+he must turn over her money is very near, and, suppose he has spent
+the money, speculated with it, and lost it, or that he still has it and
+wants to keep it? In three months she will be of age, and he must make
+an accounting. The arsenic does not work fast enough. So what does he
+do? To save himself from exposure, or to keep the money, he throws her
+into this private sanatorium, to make away with her.”
+
+Ford had been talking in an eager whisper. While he spoke his cigar had
+ceased to burn, and to light it, from a vase on the mantel he took a
+spill, one of those spirals of paper that in English hotels, where the
+proprietor is of a frugal mind, are still used to prevent extravagance
+in matches. Ford lit the spill at the coal fire, and with his
+cigar puffed at the flame. As he did so the paper unrolled. To the
+astonishment of Cuthbert, Ford clasped it in both hands, blotted out
+the tiny flame, and, turning quickly to a table, spread out the charred
+paper flat. After one quick glance, Ford ran to the fireplace, and,
+seizing a handfull of the spills, began rapidly to unroll them. Then he
+turned to Cuthbert and, without speaking, showed him the charred
+spill. It was a scrap torn from the front page of a newspaper. The
+half-obliterated words at which Ford pointed were DALESVILLE COUR ----
+
+“His torn paper!” said Ford. “The DALESVILLE COURIER. Pearsall HAS been
+in this hotel!” He handed another spill to Cuthbert.
+
+“From that one,” said Ford, “we get the date, December 3. Allowing three
+weeks for the newspaper to reach London, Pearsall must have seen it
+just three weeks ago, just when Miss Dale says he was in the hotel. The
+landlord has lied to me.”
+
+Ford rang for a waiter, and told him to ask Mr. Gerridge to come to the
+smoking-room.
+
+As Cuthbert was leaving it, Gerridge was entering it, and Ford was
+saying:
+
+“It seems you've been lying to the police and to me. Unless you desire
+to be an accessory to a murder, You had better talk quick!”
+
+An hour later Ford passed slowly through Sowell Street in a taxicab,
+and, finding Cuthbert on guard, signalled him to follow. In Wimpole
+Street the cab drew up to the curb, and Cuthbert entered it.
+
+“I have found Pearsall,” said Ford. “He is in No. 40 with Prothero.”
+
+He then related to Cuthbert what had happened. Gerridge had explained
+that when the Police called, his first thought was to protect the good
+name of his hotel. He had denied any knowledge of Pearsall only because
+he no longer was a guest, and, as he supposed Pearsall had passed out
+of his life, he saw no reason, why, through an arrest and a scandal, his
+hotel should be involved. Believing Ford to be in the secret service of
+the police, he was now only too anxious to clear himself of suspicion by
+telling all he knew. It was but little. Pearsall and his niece had been
+at the hotel for three days. During that time the niece, who appeared
+to be an invalid, remained in her room. On the evening of the third
+day, while Pearsall was absent, a call from him had come for her by
+telephone, on receiving which Miss Dale had at once left the hotel,
+apparently in great agitation. That night she did not return, but in the
+morning Pearsall came to collect his and her luggage and to settle his
+account. He explained that a woman relative living at the Langham Hotel
+had been taken suddenly ill, and had sent for him and his niece. Her
+condition had been so serious that they had remained with her all night,
+and his niece still was at her bedside. The driver of a four-wheeler,
+who for years had stood on the cab-rank in front of Gerridge's, had
+driven Pearsall to the Langham. This man was at the moment on the rank,
+and from him Ford learned what he most wished to know.
+
+The cabman remembered Pearsall, and having driven him to the Langham,
+for the reason that immediately after setting him down there, and while
+“crawling” for a fare in Portland Place, a whistle from the Langham had
+recalled him, and the same luggage that had just been taken from the top
+of his cab was Put back on it, and he was directed by the porter of the
+hotel to take it to a house in Sowell Street. There a man-servant had
+helped him unload the trunks and had paid him his fare. The cabman did
+not remember the number of the house, but knew it was on the west side
+of the street and in the middle of the block.
+
+Having finished with Gerridge and the cab-man, Ford had at once gone
+to the Langham Hotel, where, as he anticipated, nothing was known of
+Pearsall or his niece, or of any invalid lady. But the hall-porter
+remembered the American gentleman who had driven up with many pieces of
+luggage, and who, although it was out of season, and many suites in the
+hotel were vacant, had found none to suit him. He had then set forth on
+foot, having left word that his trunks be sent after him. The address he
+gave was a house in Sowell Street.
+
+The porter recalled the incident because he and the cabman had grumbled
+over the fact that in five minutes they had twice to handle the same
+boxes.
+
+“It is pretty evident,” said Ford, what Pearsall had in mind, but chance
+was against him. He thought when he had unloaded his trunks at the
+Langham and dismissed the cabman he had destroyed the link connecting
+him with Gerridge's. He could not foresee that the same cabman would be
+loitering in the neighborhood. He should have known that four-wheelers
+are not as plentiful as they once were; and he should have given that
+particular one more time to get away. His idea in walking to the Sowell
+Street house was obviously to prevent the new cabman from seeing him
+enter it. But, just where he thought he was clever, was just where he
+tripped. If he had remained with his trunks he would have seen that the
+cabman was the same one who had brought them and him from Craven Street,
+and he would have given any other address in London than the one he did.
+
+“And now,” said Ford, “that we have Pearsall where we want him, tell me
+what you have learned about Prothero?”
+
+Cuthbert smiled importantly, and produced a piece of paper scribbled
+over with notes.
+
+“Prothero,” he said, “seems to be THIS sort of man. If he made your
+coffee for you, before you tasted it, you'd like him to drink a cup of
+it first.”
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+“Prothero,” said Cuthbert, “is a man of mystery. As soon as I began
+asking his neighbors questions, I saw he was of interest and that I was
+of interest. I saw they did not believe I was an agent of a West End
+shop, but a detective. So they wouldn't talk at all, or else they talked
+freely. And from one of them, a chemist named Needham, I got all I
+wanted. He's had a lawsuit against Prothero, and hates him. Prothero got
+him to invest in a medicine to cure the cocaine habit. Needham found
+the cure was no cure, but cocaine disguised. He sued for his money, and
+during the trial the police brought in Prothero's record. Needham let me
+copy it, and it seems to embrace every crime except treason. The man is
+a Russian Jew. He was arrested and prosecuted in Warsaw, Vienna,
+Berlin, Belgrade; all over Europe, until finally the police drove him to
+America. There he was an editor of an anarchist paper, a blackmailer, a
+'doctor' of hypnotism, a clairvoyant, and a professional bigamist. His
+game was to open rooms as a clairvoyant, and advise silly women how to
+invest their money. When he found out which of them had the most money,
+he would marry her, take over her fortune, and skip. In Chicago, he was
+tried for poisoning one wife, and the trial brought out the fact that
+two others had died under suspicious circumstances, and that there
+were three more unpoisoned but anxious to get back their money. He was
+sentenced to ten years for bigamy, but pardoned because he was supposed
+to be insane, and dying. Instead of dying, he opened a sanatorium in
+New York to cure victims of the drug habit. In reality, it was a sort of
+high-priced opium-den. The place was raided, and he jumped his bail and
+came to this country. Now he is running this private hospital in Sowell
+Street. Needham says it's a secret rendezvous for dope fiends. But they
+are very high-class dope fiends, who are willing to pay for seclusion,
+and the police can't get at him. I may add that he's tall and muscular,
+with a big black beard, and hands that could strangle a bull. In
+Chicago, during the poison trial, the newspapers called him 'the Modern
+Bluebeard.”'
+
+For a short time Ford was silent. But, in the dark corner of the cab,
+Cuthbert could see that his cigar was burning briskly.
+
+“Your friend seems a nice chap,” said Ford at last. “Calling on him will
+be a real pleasure. I especially like what you say about his hands.”
+
+“I have a plan,” began the assistant timidly, “a plan to get you into
+the house-if you don't mind my making suggestions?”
+
+“Not at all!” exclaimed his chief heartily.
+
+“Get me into the house by all means; that's what we're here for. The
+fact that I'm to be poisoned or strangled after I get there mustn't
+discourage us.'”
+
+“I thought,” said Cuthbert, “I might stand guard outside, while you got
+in as a dope fiend.”
+
+Ford snorted indignantly. “Do I LOOK like a dope fiend?” he protested.
+
+The voice of the assistant was one of discouragement.
+
+“You certainly do not,” he exclaimed regretfully. “But it's the only
+plan I could think of.”
+
+“It seems to me,” said his chief testily, “that you are not so very
+healthy-looking yourself. What's the matter with YOUR getting inside as
+a dope fiend and MY standing guard?”
+
+“But I wouldn't know what to do after I got inside,” complained the
+assistant, “and you would. You are so clever.”
+
+The expression of confidence seemed to flatter Ford.
+
+“I might do this,” he said. “I might pretend I was recovering from a
+heavy spree, and ask to be taken care of until I am sober. Or I could
+be a very good imitation of a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
+I haven't been five years in the newspaper business without knowing all
+there is to know about nerves. That's it!” he cried. “I will do that!
+And if Mr. Bluebeard Svengali, the Strangler of Paris person, won't take
+me in as a patient, we'll come back with a couple of axes and BREAK in.
+But we'll try the nervous breakdown first, and we'll try it now. I will
+be a naval officer,” declared Ford. “I made the round-the-world cruise
+with our fleet as a correspondent, and I know enough sea slang to fool
+a medical man. I am a naval officer whose nerves have gone wrong. I have
+heard of his sanatorium through----” “How,” asked Ford sharply, “have I
+heard of his sanatorium?”
+
+“You saw his advertisement in the DAILY WORLD,” prompted Cuthbert.
+“'Home of convalescents; mental and nervous troubles cured.'”
+
+“And,” continued Ford, “I have come to him for rest and treatment. My
+name is Lieutenant Henry Grant. I arrived in London two weeks ago on the
+MAURETANIA. But my name was not on the passenger-list, because I did not
+want the Navy Department to know I was taking my leave abroad. I have
+been stopping at my own address in Jermyn Street, and my references are
+yourself, the Embassy, and my landlord. You will telephone him at once
+that, if any one asks after Henry Grant, he is to say what you tell him
+to say. And if any one sends for Henry Grant's clothes, he is to send MY
+clothes.”
+
+“But you don't expect to be in there as long as that?” exclaimed
+Cuthbert.
+
+“I do not,” said Ford. “But, if he takes me in, I must make a bluff of
+sending for my things. No; either I will be turned out in five minutes,
+or if he accepts me as a patient I will be there until midnight. If I
+cannot get the girl out of the house by midnight, it will mean that
+I can't get out myself, and you had better bring the police and the
+coroner.”
+
+“Do you mean it?” asked Cuthbert.
+
+“I most certainly do!” exclaimed Ford.
+
+“Until twelve I want a chance to get this story exclusively for our
+paper. If she is not free by then it means I have fallen down on it, and
+you and the police are to begin to batter in the doors.”
+
+The two young men left the cab, and at some distance from each other
+walked to Sowell Street. At the house of Dr. Prothero, Ford stopped and
+rang the bell. From across the street Cuthbert saw the door open and
+the figure of a man of almost gigantic stature block the doorway. For a
+moment he stood there, and then Cuthbert saw him step to one side, saw
+Ford enter the house and the door close upon him. Cuthbert at once ran
+to a telephone, and, having instructed Ford's landlord as to the part
+he was to play, returned to Sowell Street. There, in a state nearly
+approaching a genuine nervous breakdown, he continued his vigil.
+
+Even without his criminal record to cast a glamour over him, Ford would
+have found Dr. Prothero, a disturbing person. His size was enormous, his
+eyes piercing, sinister, unblinking, and the hands that could strangle a
+bull, and with which as though to control himself, he continually pulled
+at his black beard, were gigantic, of a deadly white, with fingers long
+and prehensile. In his manner he had all the suave insolence of the
+Oriental and the suspicious alertness of one constantly on guard, but
+also, as Ford at once noted, of one wholly without fear. He had not
+been over a moment in his presence before the reporter felt that to
+successfully lie to such a man might be counted as a triumph.
+
+Prothero opened the door into a little office leading off the hall, and
+switched on the electric lights. For some short time, without any effort
+to conceal his suspicion, he stared at Ford in silence.
+
+“Well?” he said, at last. His tone was a challenge.
+
+Ford had already given his assumed name and profession, and he now ran
+glibly into the story he had planned. He opened his card-case and looked
+into it doubtfully. “I find I have no card with me,” he said; “but I am,
+as I told you, Lieutenant Grant, of the United States Navy. I am all
+right physically, except for my nerves. They've played me a queer trick.
+If the facts get out at home, it might cost me my commission. So I've
+come over here for treatment.”
+
+“Why to ME?” asked Prothero.
+
+“I saw by your advertisement,” said the reporter, “that you treated
+for nervous mental troubles. Mine is an illusion,” he went on. “I see
+things, or, rather, always one thing-a battle-ship coming at us head on.
+For the last year I've been executive officer of the KEARSARGE, and the
+responsibility has been too much for me.”
+
+“You see a battle-ship?” inquired the Jew.
+
+“A phantom battle-ship,” Ford explained, “a sort OF FLYING DUTCHMAN.
+The time I saw it I was on the bridge, and I yelled and telegraphed the
+engine-room. I brought the ship to a full stop, and backed her. But it
+was dirty weather, and the error was passed over. After that, when I saw
+the thing coming I did nothing. But each time I think it is real.” Ford
+shivered slightly and glanced about him. “Some day,” he added fatefully,
+“it WILL be real, and I will NOT signal, and the ship will sink!”
+
+In silence, Prothero observed his visitor closely. The young man seemed
+sincere, genuine. His manner was direct and frank. He looked the part he
+had assumed, as one used to authority.
+
+“My fees are large,” said the Russian.
+
+At this point, had Ford, regardless of terms, exhibited a hopeful
+eagerness to at once close with him, the Jew would have shown him the
+door. But Ford was on guard, and well aware that a lieutenant in the
+navy had but few guineas to throw away on medicines. He made a movement
+as though to withdraw.
+
+“Then I am afraid,” he said, “I must go somewhere else.”
+
+His reluctance apparently only partially satisfied the Jew.
+
+Ford adopted opposite tactics. He was never without ready money. His
+paper saw to it that in its interests he was always able at any moment
+to pay for a special train across Europe, or to bribe the entire working
+staff of a cable office. From his breast-pocket he took a blue
+linen envelope, and allowed the Jew to see that it was filled with
+twenty-pound notes. “I have means outside my pay,” said Ford.
+
+“I would give almost any price to the man who can cure me.” The eyes of
+the Russian flashed avariciously.
+
+“I will arrange the terms to suit you,” he exclaimed. “Your case
+interests me. Do you See this mirage only at sea?”
+
+“In any open place,” Ford assured him. “In a park or public square, but
+of course most frequently at sea.”
+
+The quack waved his great hands as though brushing aside a curtain.
+
+“I will remove the illusion,” he said, “and give you others more
+pretty.” He smiled meaningfully--an evil, leering smile. “When will you
+come?” he asked. Ford glanced about him nervously.
+
+“I shall stay now,” he said. “I confess, in the streets and in my
+lodgings I am frightened. You give me confidence. I want to stay near
+you. I feel safe with you. If you will give me writing-paper, I will
+send for my things.”
+
+For a moment the Jew hesitated, and then motioned to a desk. As Ford
+wrote, Prothero stood near him, and the reporter knew that over his
+shoulder the Jew was reading what he wrote. Ford gave him the note,
+unsealed, and asked that it be forwarded at once to his lodgings.
+
+“To-morrow,” he said, “I will call up our Embassy, and give my address
+to our Naval Attache.
+
+“I will attend to that,” said Prothero.
+
+“From now you are in my hands, and you can communicate with the outside
+only through me. You are to have absolute rest--no books, no letters,
+no papers. And you will be fed from a spoon. I will explain my treatment
+later. You will now go to your room, and you will remain there until you
+are a well man.”
+
+Ford had no wish to be at once shut off from the rest of the house. The
+odor of cooking came through the hall, and seemed to offer an excuse for
+delay.
+
+“I smell food,” he laughed. “And I'm terrifically hungry. Can't I have a
+farewell dinner before you begin feeding me from a spoon?”
+
+The Jew was about to refuse, but, with his guilty knowledge of what was
+going forward in the house, he could not be too sure of those he allowed
+to enter it. He wanted more time to spend in studying this new patient,
+and the dinner-table seemed to offer a place where he could do so
+without the other suspecting he was under observation.
+
+“My associate and I were just about to dine,” he said. “You will wait
+here until I have another place laid, and you can join us.”
+
+He departed, walking heavily down the hall, but almost at once Ford,
+whose ears were alert for any sound, heard him returning, approaching
+stealthily on tiptoe. If by this maneuver the Jew had hoped to discover
+his patient in some indiscretion, he was unsuccessful, for he found Ford
+standing just where he had left him, with his back turned to the
+door, and gazing with apparent interest at a picture on the wall. The
+significance of the incident was not lost upon the intruder. It taught
+him he was still under surveillance, and that he must bear himself
+warily. Murmuring some excuse for having returned, the Jew again
+departed, and in a few minutes Ford heard his voice, and that of another
+man, engaged in low tones in what was apparently an eager argument.
+
+Only once was the voice of the other man raised sufficiently for Ford to
+distinguish his words. “He is an American,” protested the voice; “that
+makes it worse.”
+
+Ford guessed that the speaker was Pearsall, and that against his
+admittance to the house he was making earnest protest. A door, closing
+with a bang, shut off the argument, but within a few minutes it was
+evident the Jew had carried his point, for he reappeared to announce
+that dinner was waiting. It was served in a room at the farther end of
+the hall, and at the table, which was laid for three, Ford found a man
+already seated. Prothero introduced him as “my associate,” but from his
+presence in the house, and from the fact that he was an American, Ford
+knew that he was Pearsall.
+
+Pearsall was a man of fifty. He was tall, spare, with closely shaven
+face and gray hair, worn rather long. He spoke with the accent of
+a Southerner, and although to Ford he was studiously polite, he was
+obviously greatly ill at ease. He had the abrupt, inattentive manners,
+the trembling fingers and quivering lips, of one who had long been
+a slave to the drug habit, and who now, with difficulty, was holding
+himself in hand.
+
+Throughout the dinner, speaking to him as though, interested only as
+his medical advisers, the Jew, and occasionally the American, sharply
+examined and cross-examined their visitor. But they were unable to trip
+him in his story, or to suggest that he was not just what he claimed to
+be.
+
+When the dinner was finished, the three men, for different reasons, were
+each more at his ease. Both Pearsall and Prothero believed from the new
+patient they had nothing to fear, and Ford was congratulating himself
+that his presence at the house was firmly secure.
+
+“I think,” said Pearsall, “we should warn Mr. Grant that there are in
+the house other patients who, like himself, are suffering from nervous
+disorders. At times some silly neurotic woman becomes hysterical, and
+may make an outcry or scream. He must not think ----”
+
+“That's all right!” Ford reassured him cheerfully. “I expect that. In a
+sanatorium it must be unavoidable.”
+
+As he spoke, as though by a signal prearranged, there came from the
+upper portion of the house a scream, long, insistent.
+
+It was the voice of a woman, raised in appeal, in protest, shaken with
+fear. Without for an instant regarding it, the two men fastened their
+eyes upon the visitor. The hand of the Jew dropped quickly from his
+beard, and slid to the inside pocket of his coat. With eyes apparently
+unseeing, Ford noted the movement.
+
+“He carries a gun,” was his mental comment, “and he seems perfectly
+willing to use it.” Aloud, he said: “That, I suppose is one of them?”
+
+Prothero nodded gravely, and turned to Pearsall. “Will you attend her?”
+ he asked.
+
+As Pearsall rose and left the room, Prothero rose also.
+
+“You will come with me,” he directed, “and I will see you settle in your
+apartment. Your bag has arrived and is already there.”
+
+The room to which the Jew led him was the front one on the second story.
+It was in no way in keeping with a sanatorium, or a rest-cure. The walls
+were hidden by dark blue hangings, in which sparkled tiny mirrors, the
+floor was covered with Turkish rugs, the lights concealed inside lamps
+of dull brass bedecked with crimson tassels. In the air were the odors
+of stale tobacco-smoke, of cheap incense, and the sickly, sweet smell of
+opium. To Ford the place suggested a cigar-divan rather than a bedroom,
+and he guessed, correctly, that when Prothero had played at palmistry
+and clairvoyance this had been the place where he received his dupes.
+But the American expressed himself pleased with his surroundings, and
+while Prothero remained in the room, busied himself with unpacking his
+bag.
+
+On leaving him the Jew halted in the door and delivered himself of a
+little speech. His voice was stern, sharp, menacing.
+
+“Until you are cured,” he said, “you will not put your foot outside this
+room. In this house are other inmates who, as you have already learned,
+are in a highly nervous state. The brains of some are unbalanced. With
+my associate and myself they are familiar, but the sight of a stranger
+roaming through the halls might upset them. They might attack you, might
+do you bodily injury. If you wish for anything, ring the electric bell
+beside your bed and an attendant will come. But you yourself must not
+leave the room.”
+
+He closed the door, and Ford, seating himself in front of the coal fire,
+hastily considered his position. He could not persuade himself that,
+strategically, it was a satisfactory one. The girl he sought was on the
+top or fourth floor, he on the second. To reach her he would have to
+pass through Well-lighted halls, up two flights Of stairs and try
+to enter a door that would undoubtedly be locked. On the other hand,
+instead of wandering about in the rain outside the house, he was now
+established on the inside, and as an inmate. Had there been time for a
+siege, he would have been confident of success. But there was no time.
+The written call for help had been urgent. Also, the scream he had
+heard, while the manner of the two men had shown that to them it was a
+commonplace, was to him a spur to instant action. In haste he knew there
+was the risk of failure, but he must take that risk.
+
+He wished first to assure himself that Cuthbert was within call, and to
+that end put out the lights and drew aside the curtains that covered the
+window. Outside, the fog was rolling between the house-fronts, both rain
+and snow were falling heavily, and a solitary gas-lamp showed only a
+deserted and dripping street. Cautiously Ford lit a match and for an
+instant let the flame flare. He was almost at once rewarded by the sight
+of an answering flame that flickered from a dark doorway. Ford closed
+the window, satisfied that his line of communication with the outside
+world was still intact. The faithful Cuthbert was on guard.
+
+Ford rapidly reviewed each possible course of action. These were
+several, but to lead any one of them to success, he saw that he must
+possess a better acquaintance with the interior of the house. Especially
+was it important that he should obtain a line of escape other than the
+one down the stairs to the front door. The knowledge that in the rear of
+the house there was a means of retreat by a servants' stairway, or over
+the roof of an adjoining building, or by a friendly fire-escape, would
+at least, lend him confidence in his adventure. Accordingly, in spite of
+Prothero's threat, he determined at once to reconnoitre. In case of his
+being discovered outside his room, he would explain his electric bell
+was out of order, that when he rang no servant had answered, and that he
+had sallied forth in search of one. To make this plausible, he unscrewed
+the cap of the electric button in the wall, and with his knife cut off
+enough of the wire to prevent a proper connection. He then replaced the
+cap and, opening the door, stepped into the hall.
+
+The upper part of the house was, sunk in silence, but rising from the
+dining-room below, through the opening made by the stairs, came the
+voices of Prothero and Pearsall. And mixed with their voices came also
+the sharp hiss of water issuing from a siphon. The sound was reassuring.
+Apparently, over their whiskey-and-soda the two men were still lingering
+at the dinner-table. For the moment, then--so far, at least, as they
+were concerned--the coast was clear.
+
+Stepping cautiously, and keeping close to the wall, Ford ran lightly
+up the stairs to the hall of the third floor. It was lit brightly by a
+gas-jet, but no one was in sight, and the three doors opening upon it
+were shut. At the rear of the hall was a window; the blind was raised,
+and through the panes, dripping in the rain, Ford caught a glimpse of
+the rigid iron rods of a fire-escape. His spirits leaped exultantly. If
+necessary, by means of this scaling ladder, he could work entirely
+from the outside. Greatly elated, he tiptoed past the closed doors and
+mounted to the fourth floor. This also was lit by a gas-jet that showed
+at one end of the hall a table on which were medicine-bottles and a tray
+covered by a napkin; and at the other end, piled upon each other and
+blocking the hall-window, were three steamer-trunks. Painted on each
+were the initials, “D. D.” Ford breathed an exclamation.
+
+“Dosia Dale,” he muttered, “I have found you!” He was again confronted
+by three closed doors, one leading to a room that faced the street,
+another opening upon a room in the rear of the house, and opposite,
+across the hallway, still another door. He observed that the first two
+doors were each fastened from the outside by bolts and a spring lock,
+and that the key to each lock was in place. The fact moved him with
+indecision. If he took possession of the keys, he could enter the rooms
+at his pleasure. On the other hand, should their loss be discovered, an
+alarm would be raised and he would inevitably come under suspicion. The
+very purpose he had in view might be frustrated. He decided that where
+they were the keys would serve him as well as in his pocket, and turned
+his attention to the third door. This was not locked, and, from its
+position, Ford guessed it must be an entrance to a servants' stairway.
+
+Confident of this, he opened it, and found a dark, narrow landing, a
+flight of steps mounting from the kitchen below, and, to his delight an
+iron ladder leading to a trap-door. He could hardly forego a cheer. If
+the trap-door were not locked, he had found a third line of retreat, a
+means of escape by way of the roof, far superior to any he might attempt
+by the main staircase and the street-door.
+
+Ford stepped into the landing, closing the door behind him and though
+this left him in complete darkness, he climbed the ladder, and with
+eager fingers felt for the fastenings of the trap. He had feared to
+find a padlock, but, to his infinite relief, his fingers closed upon
+two bolts. Noiselessly, and smoothly, they drew back from their sockets.
+Under the pressure of his hand the trap door lifted, and through the
+opening swept a breath of chill night air.
+
+Ford hooked one leg over a round of the ladder and, with hands frees
+moved the trap to one side. An instant later he had scrambled to the
+roof, and, after carefully replacing the trap, rose and looked about
+him. To his satisfaction, he found that the roof upon which he stood ran
+level with the roofs adjoining its to as far as Devonshire Street,
+where they encountered the wall of an apartment house. This was of
+seven stories. On the fifth story a row of windows, brilliantly lighted,
+opened upon the roofs over which he planned to make his retreat. Ford
+chuckled with nervous excitement.
+
+“Before long,” he assured himself, “I will be visiting the man who owns
+that flat. He will think I am a burglar. He will send for the police.
+There is no one in the world I shall be so glad to see!”
+
+Ford considered that running over roofs, even when their pitfalls were
+not concealed by a yellow fog, was an awkward exercise, and decided that
+before he made his dash for freedom, the part of a careful jockey would
+be to take a preliminary canter over the course. Accordingly, among
+party walls of brick, rain-pipes, chimney-pipes, and telephone wires,
+he felt his way to the wall of the apartment house; and then, with a
+clearer idea of the obstacles to be avoided, raced back to the point
+whence he had started.
+
+Next, to discover the exact position of the fire-escape, he dropped to
+his knees and crawled to the rear edge of the roof. The light from the
+back windows of the fourth floor showed him an iron ladder from the edge
+of the roof to the platform of the fire-escape, and the platform itself,
+stretching below the windows the width of the building. He gave a sigh
+of satisfaction, but the same instant exclaimed with dismay. The windows
+opening upon the fire-escape were closely barred. For a moment he was
+unable to grasp why a fire-escape should be placed where escape was
+impossible, until he recognized that the ladder must have been erected
+first and the iron bars later; probably only since Miss Dale had been
+made a prisoner.
+
+But he now appreciated that in spite of the iron bars he was nearer that
+prisoner than he had ever been. Should he return to the hall below, even
+while he could unlock the doors, he was in danger of discovery by those
+inside the house. But from the fire-escape only a window-pane would
+separate him from the prisoner, and though the bars would keep him at
+arm's-length, he might at least speak with her, and assure her that
+her call for help had carried. He grasped the sides of the ladder and
+dropped to the platform. As he had already seen that the window farthest
+to the left was barricaded with trunks, he disregarded it, and passed
+quickly to the two others. Behind both of these, linen shades were
+lowered, but, to his relief, he found that in the middle window the
+lower sash, as though for ventilation, was slightly raised, leaving
+an opening of a few inches. Kneeling on the gridiron platform of the
+fire-escape, and pressing his face against the bars, he brought his eyes
+level with this opening. Owing to the lowered window-blind, he could see
+nothing in the room, nor could he distinguish any sound until above the
+drip and patter of the rain there came to him the peaceful ticking of
+a clock and the rattle of coal falling to the fender. But of any sound
+that was human there was none. That the room was empty, and that the
+girl was in the front of the house was possible, and the temptation
+to stretch his hand through the bars and lift the blind was almost
+compelling. If he did so, and the girl were inside, she might make an
+outcry, or, guarding her, there might be an attendant, who at once would
+sound the alarm. The risk was evident, but, encouraged by the silence,
+Ford determined to take the chance. Slipping one hand between the bars
+he caught the end of the blind, and, pulling it gently down, let the
+spring draw it upward. Through an opening of six inches the room lay
+open before him. He saw a door leading to another room, at one side an
+iron cot, and in front of the coal fire, facing him, a girl seated in a
+deep arm-chair. A book lay on her knees, and she was intently reading.
+
+The girl was young, and her face, in spite of an unnatural pallor and an
+expression of deep melancholy, was one of extreme beauty. She wore over
+a night-dress a long loose wrapper corded at the waist, and, as though
+in readiness for the night, her black hair had been drawn back into
+smooth, heavy braids. She made so sweet and sad a picture that Ford
+forgot his errand, forgot his damp and chilled body, and for a moment
+in sheer delight knelt, with his face pressed close to the bars, and
+gazed at her.
+
+A movement on the part of the girl brought him to his senses. She closed
+the book, and, leaning forward, rested her chin upon the hollow of her
+hand and stared into the fire. Her look was one of complete and hopeless
+misery. Ford did not hesitate. The girl was alone, but that at any
+moment an attendant might join her was probable, and the rare chance
+that now offered would be lost. He did not dare to speak, or by any
+sound attract her attention, but from his breast-pocket he took the
+glove thrown to him from the window, and, with a jerk, tossed it through
+the narrow opening. It fell directly at her feet. She had not seen the
+glove approach, but the slight sound it made in falling caused her to
+start and turn her eyes toward it. Through the window, breathless, and
+with every nerve drawn taut, Ford watched her.
+
+For a moment, partly in alarm, partly in bewilderment, she sat
+motionless, regarding the glove with eyes fixed and staring. Then she
+lifted them to the ceiling, in quick succession to each of the closed
+doors, and then to the window. In his race across the roofs Ford had
+lacked the protection of a hat, and his hair was plastered across his
+forehead; his face was streaked with soot and snow, his eyes shone with
+excitement. But at sight of this strange apparition the girl made no
+sign. Her alert mind had in an instant taken in the significance of the
+glove, and for her what followed could have but one meaning. She knew
+that no matter in what guise he came the man whose face was now pressed
+against the bars was a friend.
+
+With a swift, graceful movement she rose to her feet, crossed quickly to
+the window, and sank upon her knees.
+
+“Speak in a whisper,” she said; “and speak quickly. You are in great
+danger!”
+
+That her first thought was of his safety gave Ford a thrill of shame and
+pleasure.
+
+Until now Miss Dosia Dale had been only the chief feature in a newspaper
+story; the unknown quantity in a problem. She had meant no more to him
+than had the initials on her steamer-trunk. Now, through her beauty,
+through the distress in her eyes, through her warm and generous nature
+that had disclosed itself with her first words, she became a living,
+breathing, lovely, and lovable woman. All of the young man's chivalry
+leaped to the call. He had gone back several centuries. In feeling, he
+was a knight-errant rescuing beauty in distress from a dungeon cell. To
+the girl, he was a reckless young person with a dirty face and eyes
+that gave confidence. But, though a knight-errant, Ford was a modern
+knight-errant. He wasted no time in explanations or pretty speeches.
+
+“In two minutes,” he whispered, “I'll unlock your door. There's a ladder
+outside your room to the roof. Once we get to the roof the rest's easy.
+Should anything go wrong, I'll come back by this fire-escape. Wait at
+the window until you see your door open. Do you understand?”
+
+The girl answered with an eager nod. The color had flown to her cheek.
+Her eyes flashed in excitement. A sudden doubt assailed Ford.
+
+“You've no time to put on any more clothes,” he commanded.
+
+“I haven't got any!” said the girl.
+
+The knight-errant ran up the fire-escape, pulled himself over the edge
+of the roof, and, crossing it, dropped through the trap to the landing
+of the kitchen stairs. Here he expended the greater part of the two
+minutes he had allowed himself in cautiously opening the door into the
+hall. He accomplished this without a sound, and in one step crossed the
+hall to the door that held Miss Dale a prisoner.
+
+Slowly he drew back the bolts. Only the spring lock now barred him from
+her. With thumb and forefinger he turned the key, pushed the door gently
+open, and ran into the room.
+
+At the same instant from behind him, within six feet of him, he heard
+the staircase creak. A bomb bursting could not have shaken him more
+rudely. He swung on his heel and found, blocking the door, the giant
+bulk of Prothero regarding him over the barrel of his pistol.
+
+“Don't move!” said the Jew.
+
+At the sound of his voice the girl gave a cry of warning, and sprang
+forward.
+
+“Go back!” commanded Prothero. His voice was low and soft, and
+apparently calm, but his face showed white with rage.
+
+Ford had recovered from the shock of the surprise. He, also, was in a
+rage--a rage of mortification and bitter disappointment.
+
+“Don't point that gun at me!” he blustered.
+
+The sound of leaping footsteps and the voice of Pearsall echoed from the
+floor below.
+
+“Have you got him?” he called.
+
+Prothero made no reply, nor did he lower his pistol. When Pearsall was
+at his side, without turning his head, he asked in the same steady tone:
+
+“What shall we do with him?”
+
+The face of Pearsall was white, and furious with fear.
+
+“I told you----” he stormed.
+
+“Never mind what you told me,” said the Jew. “What shall we do with him?
+He knows!”
+
+Ford's mind was working swiftly. He had no real fear of personal danger
+for the girl or himself. The Jew, he argued, was no fool. He would not
+risk his neck by open murder. And, as he saw it, escape with the girl
+might still be possible. He had only to conceal from Prothero his
+knowledge of the line of retreat over the house-tops, explain his
+rain-soaked condition, and wait a better chance.
+
+To this end he proceeded to lie briskly and smoothly.
+
+“Of course I know,” he taunted. He pointed to his dripping garments.
+“Do you know where I've been? In the street, placing my men. I have this
+house surrounded. I am going to walk down those stairs with this young
+lady. If you try to stop me I have only to blow my police-whistle----”
+
+“And I will blow your brains out!” interrupted the Jew. It was a most
+unsatisfactory climax.
+
+“You have not been in the street,” said Prothero. “You are wet because
+you hung out of your window signalling to your friend. Do you know why
+he did not answer your second signal? Because he is lying in an area,
+with a knife in him!”
+
+“You lie!” cried Ford.
+
+“YOU lie,” retorted the Jew quietly, “when you say your men surround
+this house. You are alone. You are NOT in the police service, you are
+a busybody meddling with men who think as little of killing you as they
+did of killing your friend. My servant was placed to watch your window,
+saw your signal, reported to me. And I found your assistant and threw
+him into an area, with a knife in him!”
+
+Ford felt the story was untrue. Prothero was trying to frighten him.
+Out of pure bravado no sane man would boast of murder. But--and at the
+thought Ford felt a touch of real fear--was the man sane? It was a most
+unpleasant contingency. Between a fight with an angry man and an insane
+man the difference was appreciable. From this new view-point Ford
+regarded his adversary with increased wariness; he watched him as he
+would a mad dog. He regretted extremely he had not brought his revolver.
+
+With his automatic pistol still covering Ford, Prothero spoke to
+Pearsall.
+
+“I found him,” he recited, as though testing the story he would tell
+later, “prowling through my house at night. Mistaking him for a burglar,
+I killed him. The kitchen window will be found open, with the lock
+broken, showing how he gained an entrance. Why not?” he demanded.
+
+“Because,” protested Pearsall, in terror, “the man outside will
+tell----”
+
+Ford shouted in genuine relief.
+
+“Exactly!” he cried. “The man outside, who is not down an area with a
+knife in him, but who at this moment is bringing the police--he will
+tell!”
+
+As though he had not been interrupted, Prothero continued thoughtfully:
+
+“What they may say he expected to find here, I can explain away later.
+The point is that I found a strange man, hatless, dishevelled, prowling
+in my house. I called on him to halt; he ran, I fired, and unfortunately
+killed him. An Englishman's home is his castle; an English jury----”
+
+“An English jury,” said Ford briskly, “is the last thing you want to
+meet---- It isn't a Chicago jury.”
+
+The Jew flung back his head as though Ford had struck him in the face.
+
+“Ah!” he purred, “you know that, too, do you?” The purr increased to a
+snarl. “You know too much!”
+
+For Pearsall, his tone seemed to bear an alarming meaning. He sprang
+toward Prothero, and laid both hands upon his disengaged arm.
+
+“For God's sake,” he pleaded, “come away! He can't hurt you--not alive;
+but dead, he'll hang you--hang us both. We must go, now, this moment.”
+ He dragged impotently at the left arm of the giant. “Come!” he begged.
+
+Whether moved by Pearsall's words or by some thought of his own,
+Prothero nodded in assent. He addressed himself to Ford.
+
+“I don't know what to do with you,” he said, “so I will consult with
+my friend outside this door. While we talk, we will lock you in. We can
+hear any move you make. If you raise the window or call I will open the
+door and kill you--you and that woman!”
+
+With a quick gesture, he swung to the door, and the spring lock snapped.
+An instant later the bolts were noisily driven home.
+
+When the second bolt shot into place, Ford turned and looked at Miss
+Dale.
+
+“This is a hell of a note!” he said
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Outside the locked door the voices of the two men rose in fierce
+whispers. But Ford regarded them not at all. With the swiftness of
+a squirrel caught in a cage, he darted on tiptoe from side to side
+searching the confines of his prison. He halted close to Miss Dale and
+pointed at the windows.
+
+“Have you ever tried to loosen those bars?” he whispered.
+
+The girl nodded and, in pantomime that spoke of failure, shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+“What did you see?” demanded Ford hopefully.
+
+The girl destroyed his hope with a shake of her head and a swift smile.
+
+“Scissors,” she said; “but they found them and took them away.” Ford
+pointed at the open grate.
+
+“Where's the poker?” he demanded.
+
+“They took that, too. I bent it trying to pry the bars. So they knew.”
+
+The man gave her a quick, pleased glance, then turned his eyes to the
+door that led into the room that looked upon the street.
+
+“Is that door locked?”
+
+“No,” the girl told him. “But the door from it into the hall is
+fastened, like the other, with a spring lock and two bolts.”
+
+Ford cautiously opened the door into the room adjoining, and, except for
+a bed and wash-stand, found it empty. On tiptoe he ran to the windows.
+Sowell Street was deserted. He returned to Miss Dale, again closing the
+door between the two rooms.
+
+“The nurse,” Miss Dale whispered, “when she is on duty, leaves that door
+open so that she can watch me; when she goes downstairs, she locks and
+bolts the door from that room to the hall. It's locked now.”
+
+“What's the nurse like?”
+
+The girl gave a shudder that seemed to Ford sufficiently descriptive.
+Her lips tightened in a hard, straight line.
+
+“She's not human,” she said. “I begged her to help me, appealed to her
+in every way; then I tried a dozen times to get past her to the stairs.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+The girl frowned, and with a gesture signified her surroundings.
+
+“I'm still here,” she said.
+
+She bent suddenly forward and, with her hand on his shoulder, turned the
+man so that he faced the cot.
+
+“The mattress on that bed,” she whispered, “rests on two iron rods. They
+are loose and can be lifted. I planned to smash the lock, but the noise
+would have brought Prothero. But you could defend yourself with one of
+them.”
+
+Ford had already run to the cot and dropped to his knees. He found the
+mattress supported on strips of iron resting loosely in sockets at the
+head and foot. He raised the one nearer him, and then, after a moment of
+hesitation, let it drop into place.
+
+“That's fine!” he whispered. “Good as a crowbar.'” He shook his head in
+sudden indecision. “But I don't just know how to use it. His automatic
+could shoot six times before I could swing that thing on him once. And
+if I have it in my hands when he opens the door, he'll shoot, and he may
+hit you. But if I leave it where it is, he won't know I know it's there,
+and it may come in very handy later.”
+
+In complete disapproval the girl shook her head. Her eyes filled with
+concern. “You must not fight him,” she ordered. “I mean, not for me. You
+don't know the danger. The man's not sane. He won't give you a chance.
+He's mad. You have no right to risk your life for a stranger. I'll not
+permit it----”
+
+Ford held up his hand for silence. With a jerk of his head he signified
+the door. “They've stopped talking,” he whispered.
+
+Straining to hear, the two leaned forward, but from the hall there came
+no sound. The girl raised her eyebrows questioningly.
+
+“Have they gone?” she breathed.
+
+“If I knew that,” protested Ford, “we wouldn't be here!”
+
+In answer to his doubt a smart rap, as though from the butt of a
+revolver, fell upon the door. The voice of Prothero spoke sharply:
+
+“You, who call yourself Grant!” he shouted.
+
+Before answering, Ford drew Miss Dale and himself away from the line of
+the door, and so placed the girl with her back to the wall that if the
+door opened she would be behind it. “Yes,” he answered.
+
+“Pearsall and I,” called Prothero, “have decided how to dispose of
+you--of both of you. He has gone below to make preparations. I am on
+guard. If you try to break out or call for help, I'll shoot you as I
+warned you!”
+
+“And I warn you,” shouted Ford, “if this lady and I do not instantly
+leave this house, or if any harm comes to her, you will hang for it!”
+ Prothero laughed jeeringly.
+
+“Who will hang me?” he mocked.
+
+“My friends,” retorted Ford. “They know I am in this house. They know
+WHY I am here. Unless they see Miss Dale and myself walk out of it in
+safety, they will never let you leave it. Don't be a fool, Prothero!” he
+shouted. “You know I am telling the truth. You know your only chance for
+mercy is to open that door and let us go free.”
+
+For over a minute Ford waited, but from the hall there was no answer.
+
+After another minute of silence, Ford turned and gazed inquiringly at
+Miss Dale.
+
+“Prothero!” he called.
+
+Again for a full minute he waited and again called, and then, as there
+still was no reply, he struck the door sharply with his knuckles. On the
+instant the voice of the Jew rang forth in an angry bellow.
+
+“Keep away from that door!” he commanded.
+
+Ford turned to Miss Dale and bent his head close to hers.
+
+“Now, why the devil didn't he answer?” he whispered. “Was it because he
+wasn't there; or is he planning to steal away and wants us to think
+that even if he does not answer, he's still outside?” The girl nodded
+eagerly.
+
+“This is it,” she whispered. “My uncle is a coward or rather he is very
+wise, and has left the house. And Prothero means to follow, but he wants
+us to think he's still on guard. If we only KNEW!” she exclaimed.
+
+As though in answer to her thought, the voice of Prothero called to
+them.
+
+“Don't speak to me again,” he warned. “If you do, I'll not answer, or
+I'll shoot!”
+
+Flattened against the wall, close to the hinges of the door, Ford
+replied flippantly and defiantly:
+
+“That makes conversation difficult, doesn't it?” he called.
+
+There was a bursting report, and a bullet splintered the panel of the
+door, flattened itself against the fireplace, and fell tinkling into the
+grate.
+
+“I hope I hit you!” roared the Jew.
+
+Ford pressed his lips tightly together. Whatever happy retort may have
+risen to them was forever lost. For an exchange of repartee, the moment
+did not seem propitious.
+
+“Perhaps now,” jeered Prothero, “you'll believe I'm in earnest!”
+
+Ford still resisted any temptation to reply. He grinned apologetically
+at the girl and shrugged his shoulders. Her face was white, but it was
+white from excitement, not from fear.
+
+“What did I tell you?” she whispered. “He IS mad--quite mad!”
+
+Ford glanced at the bullet-hole in the panel of the door. It was on a
+line with his heart. He looked at Miss Dale; her shoulder was on a level
+with his own, and her eyes were following his.
+
+“In case he does that again,” said Ford, “we would be more comfortable
+sitting down.”
+
+With their shoulders against the wall, the two young people sank to
+the floor. The position seemed to appeal to them as humorous, and, when
+their eyes met, they smiled.
+
+“To a spectator,” whispered Ford encouragingly, “we MIGHT appear to
+be getting the worst of this. But, as a matter of fact, every minute
+Cuthbert does not come means that the next minute may bring him.”
+
+“You don't believe he was hurt?” asked the girl.
+
+“No,” said Ford. “I believe Prothero found him, and I believe there may
+have been a fight. But you heard what Pearsall said: 'The man outside
+will tell.' If Cuthbert's in a position to tell, he is not down an area
+with a knife in him.”
+
+He was interrupted by a faint report from the lowest floor, as though
+the door to the street had been sharply slammed. Miss Dale showed that
+she also had heard it.
+
+“My uncle,” she said, “making his escape!”
+
+“It may be,” Ford answered.
+
+The report did not suggest to him the slamming of a door, but he saw no
+reason for saying so to the girl.
+
+With his fingers locked across his knees, Ford was leaning forward, his
+eyes frowning, his lips tightly shut. At his side the girl regarded
+him covertly. His broad shoulders, almost touching hers, his strong
+jaw projecting aggressively, and the alert, observant eyes gave her
+confidence. For three weeks she had been making a fight single-handed.
+But she was now willing to cease struggling and relax. Quite happily
+she placed herself and her safety in the keeping of a stranger. Half
+to herself, half to the man, she murmured: “It is like 'The Sieur de
+Maletroit's Door.”'
+
+Without looking at her, Ford shook his head and smiled.
+
+“No such luck,” he corrected grimly. “That young man was given a choice.
+The moment he was willing to marry the girl he could have walked out of
+the room free. I do not recall Prothero's saying I can escape death by
+any such charming alternative.” The girl interrupted quickly.
+
+“No,” she said; “you are not at all like that young man. He stumbled in
+by chance. You came on purpose to help me. It was fine, unselfish.”
+
+“It was not,” returned Ford. “My motive was absolutely selfish. It was
+not to help you I came, but to be able to tell about it later. It is my
+business to do that. And before I saw you, it was all in the day's work.
+But after I saw you it was no longer a part of the day's work; it became
+a matter of a life time.”
+
+The girl at his side laughed softly and lightly. “A lifetime is not
+long,” she said, “when you are locked in a room and a madman is shooting
+at you. It may last only an hour.”
+
+“Whether it lasts an hour or many years,” said Ford, “it can mean to me
+now only one thing----” He turned quickly and looked in her face boldly
+and steadily: “You,” he said.
+
+The girl did not avoid his eyes, but returned his glance with one as
+steady as his own. “You are an amusing person,” she said. “Do you feel
+it is necessary to keep up my courage with pretty speeches?”
+
+“I made no pretty speech,” said Ford. “I proclaimed a fact. You are the
+most charming person that ever came into my life, and whether Prothero
+shoots us up, or whether we live to get back to God's country, you will
+never leave it.”
+
+The girl pretended to consider his speech critically. “It would be
+almost a compliment,” she said, “if it were intelligent, but when you
+know nothing of me--it is merely impertinent.”
+
+“I know this much of you,” returned Ford, calmly; “I know you are fine
+and generous, for your first speech to me, in spite of your own danger,
+was for my safety. I know you are brave, for I see you now facing death
+without dismay.”
+
+He was again suddenly halted by, two sharp reports. They came from
+the room directly below them. It was no longer possible to pretend to
+misinterpret their significance.
+
+“Prothero!” exclaimed Ford, “and his pistol!”
+
+They waited breathlessly for what might follow: an outcry, the sound of
+a body falling, a third pistol-shot. But throughout the house there was
+silence.
+
+“If you really think we are in such danger,” declared Miss Dale, “we are
+wasting time!”
+
+“We are NOT wasting time,” protested Ford; “we are really gaining time,
+for each minute Cuthbert and the police are drawing nearer, and to move
+about only invites a bullet. And, what is of more importance,” he went
+on quickly, as though to turn her mind from the mysterious pistol-shots,
+“should we get out of this alive, I shall already have said what under
+ordinary conditions I might not have found the courage to tell you in
+many months.” He waited as though hopeful of a reply, but Miss Dale
+remained silent. “They say,” continued Ford, “when a man is drowning his
+whole life passes in review. We are drowning, and yet I find I can see
+into the past no further than the last half-hour. I find life began only
+then, when I looked through the bars of that window and found YOU!”
+
+With the palm of her hand the girl struck the floor sharply. “This is
+neither the time,” she exclaimed, “nor the place to----”
+
+“I did not choose the place,” Ford pointed out. “It was forced upon me
+with a gun. But the TIME is excellent. At such a time one speaks only
+what is true.”
+
+“You certainly have a strange sense of humor,” she said, “but when you
+are risking your life to help me, how can I be angry?”
+
+“Of course you can't,” Ford agreed heartily; “you could not be so
+conventional.”
+
+“But I AM conventional!” protested Miss Dale. “And I am not USED
+to having young men tell me they have 'come into my life to
+stay'--certainly not young men who come into my life by way of a
+trap-door, and without an introduction, without a name, without even a
+hat! It's absurd! It's not real! It's a nightmare!”
+
+“The whole situation is absurd!” Ford declared. “Here we are in the
+heart of London, surrounded by telephones, taxicabs, police--at least,
+hope we are surrounded by police and yet we are crawling around
+the floor on our hands and knees dodging bullets. I wish it were
+a nightmare. But, as it's not”--he rose to his feet--“I think I'll
+try----”
+
+He was interrupted by a sharp blow upon the door and the voice of
+Prothero.
+
+“You, navy officer!” he panted. “Come to the door! Stand close to it so
+that I needn't shout. Come, quick!”
+
+Ford made no answer. Motioning to Miss Dale to remain where she was, he
+ran noiselessly to the bed, and from beneath the mattress lifted one of
+the iron bars upon which it rested. Grasping it at one end, he swung the
+bar swiftly as a man tests the weight of a baseball bat. As a weapon it
+seemed to satisfy him, for he smiled. Then once more he placed himself
+with his back to the wall. “Do you hear me?” roared Prothero.
+
+“I hear you!” returned Ford. “If you want to talk to me, open the door
+and come inside.”
+
+“Listen to me,” called Prothero. “If I open the door you may act the
+fool, and I will have to shoot you, and I have made up my mind to let
+you live. You will soon have this house to yourselves. In a few moments
+I will leave it, but where I am going I'll need money, and I want the
+bank-notes in that blue envelope.” Ford swung the iron club in short
+half-circles.
+
+“Come in and get them!” he called.
+
+“Don't trifle with me!” roared the Jew, “I may change my mind. Shove the
+money through the crack under the door.”
+
+“And get shot!” returned Ford. “Not bit like it!”
+
+“If, in one minute,” shouted Prothero, “I don't see the money coming
+through that crack, I'll begin shooting through this door, and neither
+of you will live!”
+
+Resting the bar in the crook of his elbow, Ford snatched the bank-notes
+from the envelope, and, sticking them in his pocket, placed the empty
+envelope on the floor. Still keeping out of range, and using his iron
+bar as a croupier uses his rake, he pushed the envelope across the
+carpet and under the door. When half of it had disappeared from the
+other side of the door, it was snatched from view.
+
+An instant later there was a scream of anger and on a line where Ford
+would have been, had he knelt to shove the envelope under the door,
+three bullets splintered through the panel.
+
+At the same moment the girl caught him by the wrist. Unheeding the
+attack upon the door, her eyes were fixed upon the windows. With her
+free hand she pointed at the one at which Ford had first appeared. The
+blind was still raised a few inches, and they saw that the night was lit
+with a strange and brilliant radiance. The storm had passed, and from
+all the houses that backed upon the one in which they were prisoners
+lights blazed from every window, and in each were crowded many people,
+and upon the roof-tops in silhouette from the glare of the street lamps
+below, and in the yards and clinging to the walls that separated them,
+were hundreds of other dark, shadowy groups changing and swaying. And
+from them rose the confused, inarticulate, terrifying murmur of a mob.
+It was as though they were on a race-track at night facing a great
+grandstand peopled with an army of ghosts. With the girl at his side,
+Ford sprang to the window and threw up the blind, and as they clung to
+the bars, peering into the night, the light in the room fell full upon
+them. And in an instant from the windows opposite, from the yards below,
+and from the house-tops came a savage, exultant yell of welcome, a
+confusion of cries' orders, entreaties, a great roar of warning. At the
+sound, Ford could feel the girl at his side tremble.
+
+“What does it mean?” she cried.
+
+“Cuthbert has raised the neighborhood!” shouted Ford jubilantly. “Or
+else”--he cried in sudden enlightenment--“those shots we heard.”
+
+The girl stopped him with a low cry of fear. She thrust her arms between
+the bars and pointed. In the yard below them was the sloping roof of the
+kitchen. It stretched from the house to the wall of the back yard. Above
+the wall from the yard beyond rose a ladder, and, face down upon the
+roof, awry and sprawling, were the motionless forms of two men. Their
+shining capes and heavy helmets proclaimed their calling.
+
+“The police!” exclaimed Ford. “And the shots we thought were for those
+in the house were for THEM! This is what has happened,” he whispered
+eagerly: “Prothero attacked Cuthbert. Cuthbert gets away and goes to the
+police. He tells them you are here a prisoner, that I am here probably
+a prisoner, and of the attack upon himself. The police try to make an
+entrance from the street--that was the first shot we heard--and are
+driven back; then they try to creep in from the yard, and those poor
+devils were killed.”
+
+As he spoke a sudden silence had fallen, a silence as startling as had
+been the shout of warning. Some fresh attack upon the house which the
+prisoners could not see, but which must be visible to those in the
+houses opposite was going forward.
+
+“Perhaps they are on the roof,”' whispered Ford joyfully. “They'll be
+through the trap in a minute, and you'll be free!”
+
+“No!” said the girl.
+
+She also spoke in a whisper, as though she feared Prothero might hear
+her. And with her hand she again pointed. Cautiously above the top
+of the ladder appeared the head and shoulders of a man. He wore a
+policeman's helmet, but, warned by the fate of his comrades, he came
+armed. Balancing himself with his left hand on the rung of the ladder,
+he raised the other and pointed a revolver. It was apparently at the two
+prisoners, and Miss Dale sprang to one side.
+
+“Standstill!” commanded Ford. “He knows who YOU are! You heard that yell
+when they saw you? They know you are the prisoner, and they are glad
+you're still alive. That officer is aiming at the window BELOW us. He's
+after the men who murdered his mates.”
+
+From the window directly beneath them came the crash of a rifle, and
+from the top of the ladder the revolver of the police officer blazed in
+the darkness. Again the rifle crashed, and the man on the ladder jerked
+his hands above his head and pitched backward. Ford looked into the face
+of the girl and found her eyes filled with horror.
+
+“Where is my uncle, Pearsall?” she faltered. “He has two rifles--for
+shooting in Scotland. Was that a rifle that----” Her lips refused to
+finish the question.
+
+“It was a rifle,” Ford stammered, “but probably Prothero----”
+
+Even as he spoke the voice of the Jew rose in a shriek from the floor
+below them, but not from the window below them. The sound was from
+the front room opening on Sowell Street. In the awed silence that had
+suddenly fallen his shrieks carried sharply. They were more like the
+snarls and ravings of an animal than the outcries of a man.
+
+“Take THAT!” he shouted, with a flood of oaths, “and THAT, and THAT!”
+
+Each word was punctuated by the report of his automatic, and to the
+amazement of Ford, was instantly answered from Sowell Street by a
+scattered volley of rifle and pistol shots.
+
+“This isn't a fight,” he cried, “it's a battle!”
+
+With Miss Dale at his side, he ran into the front room, and, raising the
+blind, appeared at the window. And instantly, as at the other end of the
+house, there was, at sight of the woman's figure, a tumult of cries, a
+shout of warning, and a great roar of welcome. From beneath them a man
+ran into the deserted street, and in the glare of the gas-lamp Ford saw
+his white, upturned face. He was without a hat and his head was circled
+by a bandage. But Ford recognized Cuthbert. “That's Ford!” he cried,
+pointing. “And the girl's with him!” He turned to a group of men
+crouching in the doorway of the next house to the one in which Ford was
+imprisoned. “The girl's alive!” he shouted.
+
+“The girl's alive!” The words were caught up and flung from window to
+window, from house-top to house-top, with savage, jubilant cheers. Ford
+pushed Miss Dale forward.
+
+“Let them see you,” he said, “and you will never see a stranger sight.”
+
+Below them, Sowell Street, glistening with rain and snow, lay empty, but
+at either end of it, held back by an army of police, were black masses
+of men, and beyond them more men packed upon the tops of taxicabs and
+hansoms, stretching as far as the street-lamps showed, and on the roofs
+shadowy forms crept cautiously from chimney to chimney; and in the
+windows of darkened rooms opposite, from behind barricades of mattresses
+and upturned tables, rifles appeared stealthily, to be lost in a sudden
+flash of flame. And with these flashes were others that came from
+windows and roofs with the report of a bursting bomb, and that, on the
+instant, turned night into day, and then left the darkness more dark.
+
+Ford gave a cry of delight.
+
+“They're taking flash-light photographs,” he cried jubilantly. “Well
+done, you Pressmen!” The instinct of the reporter became compelling.
+“If they're alive to develop those photographs to-night,” he exclaimed
+eagerly, “Cuthbert will send them by special messenger, in time to catch
+the MAURETANIA and the REPUBLIC will have them by Sunday. I mayn't be
+alive to see them,” he added regretfully, “but what a feature for the
+Sunday supplement!”
+
+As the eyes of the two prisoners became accustomed to the darkness, they
+saw that the street was not, as at first they had supposed, entirely
+empty. Directly below them in the gutter, where to approach it was to
+invite instant death from Prothero's pistol, lay the dead body of a
+policeman, and at the nearer end of the street, not fifty yards from
+them, were three other prostrate forms. But these forms were animate,
+and alive to good purpose. From a public-house on the corner a row of
+yellow lamps showed them clearly. Stretched on pieces of board, and mats
+commandeered from hallways and cabs, each of the three men lay at full
+length, nursing a rifle. Their belted gray overcoats, flat, visored
+caps, and the set of their shoulders marked them for soldiers.
+
+“For the love of Heaven!” exclaimed Ford incredulously, “they've called
+out the Guards!”
+
+As unconcernedly as though facing the butts at a rifle-range, the
+three sharp-shooters were firing point-blank at the windows from which
+Prothero and Pearsall were waging their war to the death upon the
+instruments of law and order. Beside them, on his knees in the snow, a
+young man with the silver hilt of an officer's sword showing through the
+slit in his greatcoat, was giving commands; and at the other end of
+the street, a brother officer in evening dress was directing other
+sharp-shooters, bending over them like the coach of a tug-of-war team,
+pointing with white-gloved fingers. On the side of the street from which
+Prothero was firing, huddled in a doorway, were a group of officials,
+inspectors of police, fire chiefs in brass helmets, more officers of
+the Guards in bear-skins, and, wrapped in a fur coat, the youthful Horne
+Secretary. Ford saw him wave his arm, and at his bidding the cordon of
+police broke, and slowly forcing its way through the mass of people came
+a huge touring-car, its two blazing eyes sending before it great
+shafts of light. The driver of the car wasted no time in taking up his
+position. Dashing half-way down the street, he as swiftly backed the
+automobile over the gutter and up on the sidewalk, so that the lights
+in front fell full on the door of No. 40. Then, covered by the fire from
+the roofs, he sprang to the lamps and tilted them until they threw their
+shafts into the windows of the third story. Prothero's hiding-place
+was now as clearly exposed as though it were held in the circle of a
+spot-light, and at the success of the maneuver the great mob raised an
+applauding cheer. But the triumph was brief. In a minute the blazing
+lamps had been shattered by bullets, and once more, save for the fierce
+flashes from rifles and pistols, Sowell Street lay in darkness.
+
+Ford drew Miss Dale back into the room.
+
+“Those men below,” he said, “are mad. Prothero's always been mad, and
+your Pearsall is mad with drugs. And the sight of blood has made them
+maniacs. They know they now have no chance to live. There's no fear
+or hope to hold them, and one life more or less means nothing. If they
+should return here----”
+
+He hesitated, but the girl nodded quickly. “I understand,” she said.
+
+“I'm going to try to break down the door and get to the roof,” explained
+Ford. “My hope is that this attack will keep them from hearing, and----”
+
+“No,” protested the girl. “They will hear you, and they will kill you.”
+
+“They may take it into their crazy heads to do that, anyway,” protested
+Ford, “so the sooner I get you away, the better. I've only to smash the
+panels close to the bolts, put my arm through the hole, and draw the
+bolts back. Then, another blow on the spring lock when the firing is
+loudest, and we are in the hall. Should anything happen to me, you must
+know how to make your escape alone. Across the hall is a door leading to
+an iron ladder. That ladder leads to a trap-door. The trap-door is open.
+When you reach the roof, run westward toward a lighted building.”
+
+“I am not going without you,” said Miss Dale quietly; “not after what
+you have done for me.”
+
+“I haven't done anything for you yet,” objected Ford. “But in case I get
+caught I mean to make sure there will be others on hand who will.”
+
+He pulled his pencil and a letter from his pocket, and on the back of
+the envelope wrote rapidly: “I will try to get Miss Dale up through the
+trap in the roof. You can reach the roof by means of the apartment house
+in Devonshire Street. Send men to meet her.”
+
+In the groups of officials half hidden in the doorway farther down the
+street, he could make out the bandaged head of Cuthbert. “Cuthbert!” he
+called. Weighting the envelope with a coin, he threw it into the air. It
+fell in the gutter, under a lamp-post, and full in view, and at once
+the two madmen below splashed the street around it with bullets. But,
+indifferent to the bullets, a policeman sprang from a dark areaway and
+flung himself upon it. The next moment he staggered. Then limping, but
+holding himself erect, he ran heavily toward the group of officials. The
+Home Secretary snatched the envelope from him, and held it toward the
+light.
+
+In his desire to learn if his message had reached those on the outside,
+Ford leaned far over the sill of the window. His imprudence was all but
+fatal. From the roof opposite there came a sudden yell of warning,
+from directly below him a flash, and a bullet grazed his forehead and
+shattered the window-pane above him. He was deluged with a shower of
+broken glass. Stunned and bleeding, he sprang back.
+
+With a cry of concern, Miss Dale ran toward him.
+
+“It's nothing!” stammered Ford. “It only means I must waste no more
+time.” He balanced his iron rod as he would a pikestaff, and aimed it at
+the upper half of the door to the hall.
+
+“When the next volley comes,” he said, “I'll smash the panel.”
+
+With the bar raised high, his muscles on a strain, he stood alert
+and poised, waiting for a shot from the room below to call forth an
+answering volley from the house-tops. But no sound came from below. And
+the sharp-shooters, waiting for the madmen to expose themselves, held
+their fire.
+
+Ford's muscles relaxed, and he lowered his weapon. He turned his eyes
+inquiringly to the girl. “What's THIS mean?” he demanded. Unconsciously
+his voice had again dropped to a whisper.
+
+“They're short of ammunition,” said the girl, in a tone as low as his
+own; “or they are coming HERE.”
+
+With a peremptory gesture, Ford waved her toward the room adjoining and
+then ran to the window.
+
+The girl was leaning forward with her face close to the door. She held
+the finger of one hand to her lips. With the other hand she beckoned.
+Ford ran to her side.
+
+“Some one is moving in the hall,” she whispered. “Perhaps they are
+escaping by the roof? No,” she corrected herself. “They seem to be
+running down the stairs again. Now they are coming back. Do you hear?”
+ she asked. “It sounds like some one running up and down the stairs. What
+can it mean?”
+
+From the direction of the staircase Ford heard a curious creaking sound
+as of many light footsteps. He gave a cry of relief.
+
+“The police!” he shouted jubilantly. “They've entered through the roof,
+and they're going to attack in the rear. You're SAFE!” he cried.
+
+He sprang away from the door and, with two swinging blows, smashed the
+broad panel. And then, with a cry, he staggered backward. Full in
+his face, through the break he had made, swept a hot wave of burning
+cinders. Through the broken panel he saw the hall choked with smoke, the
+steps of the staircase and the stair-rails wrapped in flame.
+
+“The house is on fire!” he cried. “They've taken to the roof and set
+fire to the stairs behind them!” With the full strength of his arms and
+shoulders he struck and smashed the iron bar against the door. But the
+bolts held, and through each fresh opening he made in the panels the
+burning cinders, drawn by the draft from the windows, swept into the
+room. From the street a mighty yell of consternation told them the fire
+had been discovered. Miss Dale ran to the window, and the yell turned
+to a great cry of warning. The air was rent with frantic voices. “Jump!”
+ cried some. “Go back!” entreated others. The fire chief ran into the
+street directly below her and shouted at her through his hands. “Wait
+for the life-net!” he commanded. “Wait for the ladders!”
+
+“Ladders!” panted Ford. “Before they can get their engines through that
+mob----”
+
+Through the jagged opening in the door he thrust his arm and jerked
+free the upper bolt. An instant later he had kicked the lower panel into
+splinters and withdrawn the second bolt, and at last, under the savage
+onslaught of his iron bar, the spring lock flew apart. The hall lay open
+before him. On one side of it the burning staircase was a well of flame;
+at his feet, the matting on the floor was burning fiercely. He raced
+into the bedroom and returned instantly, carrying a blanket and a towel
+dripping with water. He pressed the towel across the girl's mouth and
+nostrils. “Hold it there!” he commanded. Blinded by the bandage, Miss
+Dale could see nothing, but she felt herself suddenly wrapped in the
+blanket and then lifted high in Ford's arms. She gave a cry of protest,
+but the next instant he was running with her swiftly while the flames
+from the stair-well scorched her hair. She was suddenly tumbled to her
+feet, the towel and blanket snatched away, and she saw Ford hanging from
+an iron ladder holding out his hand. She clasped it, and he drew her
+after him, the flames and cinders pursuing and snatching hungrily.
+
+But an instant later the cold night air smote her in the face, from
+hundreds of hoarse throats a yell of welcome greeted her, and she found
+herself on the roof, dazed and breathless, and free.
+
+At the same moment the lifting fire-ladder reached the sill of the
+third-story window, and a fireman, shielding his face from the flames,
+peered into the blazing room. What he saw showed him there were no lives
+to rescue. Stretched on the floor, with their clothing in cinders and
+the flames licking at the flesh, were the bodies of the two murderers.
+
+A bullet-hole in the forehead of each showed that self-destruction and
+cremation had seemed a better choice than the gallows and a grave of
+quick-lime.
+
+On the roof above, two young people stood breathing heavily and happily,
+staring incredulously into each other's eyes. Running toward them across
+the roofs, stumbling and falling, were many blue-coated, helmeted angels
+of peace and law and order.
+
+“How can I tell you?” whispered the girl quickly. “How can I ever thank
+you? And I was angry,” she exclaimed, with self-reproach. “I did not
+understand you.” She gave a little sigh of content. “Now I think I do.”
+
+He took her hand, and she did not seem to know that he held it.
+
+“And,” she cried, in wonder, “I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME!”
+
+The young man seemed to have lost his confidence. For a moment he was
+silent. “The name's all right!” he said finally. His voice was still a
+little shaken, a little tremulous. “I only hope you'll like it. It's got
+to last you a long time!”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost House, by Richard Harding Davis
+
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