The Powers and Maxine Part 18

I replied according to instructions. I wished to see Monsieur Gestre.

"Monsieur Gestre is away," murmured the voice behind the little window.

I thought quickly. Gestre was probably the "pal" whom "J.M." had been in such a hurry to find. "Very well," said I, "I'll see his friend, the Englishman who arrived this evening. I have an appointment with him."

"Ah, I understand. I remember. Is it not that Monsieur has been here already? He now returns, as he mentioned that he might do?"

Again my thoughts made haste to arrange themselves. The "monsieur" who had called had probably also arrived late, after the concierge had gone to bed in his dim box, and become too drowsy to notice such details as the difference between voices, especially if they were those of foreigners. Perhaps if I explained that I was not the person who had said he would come again, but another, the man behind the window would consider me a complication, and refuse to let me pa.s.s at such an hour without a fuss. And of all things, a fuss was what I least wanted--for Maxine's sake, and because of the treaty. I decided to seize upon the advantage that was offered me.

"Quite right," I said shortly. "I know the way." And so began to mount the stairs. Flight after flight I went up, meeting no one; and on the fifth floor I found that I had reached the top of the house. There were no more stairs to go up.

On each of the floors below there had been a dim light--a jet of gas turned low. But the fifth floor was in darkness. Someone had put out the light, either in carelessness or for some special reason.

There were several doors on each side of the pa.s.sage, but I could not be sure that I had reached the right one until I'd lighted a match. When I was sure, I knocked, but no answer came.

"He can't be out," I said to myself, cheerfully. "He's got tired of waiting and dropped asleep, that's all."

I knocked again. Silence. And then for a third time, loudly, keeping on until I was sure that, if there were anyone in the room, no matter how sound asleep, I must have waked him.

After all, he had gone out, but perhaps only for a short time. Surely, he would soon come back, lest he should miss the keeper of the diamonds.

I had very little hope that, even on the chance of my arriving while he was away, he would have left the door open. Nevertheless I tried the handle, and to my surprise it yielded.

"That must be because the lock's broken and only a bolt remains," I thought. "So he had to take the risk. All the better. This looks as if he'd be back any minute. He wouldn't like giving the enemy a chance to find his lair and step into it before him." It was dark in the room, and I struck another wax match just inside the threshold. But I had hardly time to get an impression of bareness and meanness of furnishing before a draught of air from an open window blew out the struggling flame and at the same instant banged the door shut behind me.

CHAPTER XIII

IVOR FINDS SOMETHING IN THE DARK

There was a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a signalling finger.

If I could steer my way to the window and pull back the drawn curtains I might be able to let in light enough to find matches on mantelpiece or table. Then, what good luck if I should discover the case containing the treaty and go off with it before "J.M." came back! It was not his, and he was a thief: therefore, I should be doing him no wrong and Maxine de Renzie much good by taking it, if he had left it behind, not too well hidden when he went out.

Guided in the darkness by a slight breeze which still came through the window, though the door was now shut, I shuffled across the uncarpeted floor, groping with hands held out before me as I moved.

In a moment I brushed against a table, then struck my shin on something which proved to be the leg of a chair lying over-turned on the floor. I pushed it out of the way, but had gone on no more than three or four steps when I caught my foot in a rug which had got twisted in a heap round the fallen chair. I disentangled myself from its coils, only to slip and almost lose my balance by stepping into some spilled liquid which lay thick and greasy on the bare boards.

The warm hopefulness which I had brought into this dark, silent room was chilled and dying now.

"I'm afraid there's been a struggle here," I thought. And if there had been a struggle--what of the treaty?

There seemed to be a good deal of the spilled liquid, for as I felt my way along, more anxious than ever for light, the floor was still wet and slippery; and then, in the midst of the puddle, I stumbled over a thing that was heavy and soft to the touch of my foot.

A queer tingling, like the sting of a thousand tiny electric needles p.r.i.c.kled through my veins, for even before I stooped and laid my hand on that barrier which was so heavy and yet so soft as it stopped my path, I knew what it would prove to be.

It was as if I could see through the dark, to what it hid. But though there was no surprise left, there was a shock of horror as my fingers touched an arm, a throat, an upturned face. And my fingers were wet, as I knew my boots must be. And I knew, too, with what they were wet.

I'm ashamed to say that, after the first shock of the discovery, my impulse was to get away, and out of the whole business, in which, for reasons which concerned others even more than myself, it would be unpleasant to be involved, just at this time especially. I could go downstairs now, past the sleeping concierge, and with luck no one need ever know that I had been in this dark room of death.

But as quickly as the impulse came, it went. I must stop here and search for the treaty, no matter what happened, until I had found it or made sure it was not to be found; I must not think of escape. If there were matches in the room, well and good; if not, I must go elsewhere for them, and come back. It was a grim task, but it had to be done.

Somehow, I got to the mantelpiece; and there luckily, among a litter of pipes and bottles and miscellaneous rubbish, I did lay my hand on a broken cup containing a few matches. I struck one, which showed me on the mantel an end of a candle standing up in a bed of its own grease. I lighted it, and not until the flame was burning brightly did I look round.

There was but a faint illumination, yet it was enough to give me the secret of the room. I might have seen all at a glance as I came in, before the light of my last match was blown out by the wind, had not the door as I opened it formed a screen between me and the dead man on the floor.

He lay in the midst of the wildest confusion. In falling, he had dragged with him the cover of a table, and a gla.s.s lamp which was smashed in pieces, the spilled oil mingling with the stream of his blood. A chair had been overturned, and a broken plate and tumbler with the tray that had held them were half hidden in the folds of a disordered rug.

But this was not all. The struggle for life did not account for the condition of other parts of the room. Papers were scattered over the floor: the drawers of an old escritoire had been jerked out of place and their contents strewn far and near. The doors of a wardrobe were open, and a few shabby coats and pairs of trousers thrown about, with the pockets wrong side out or torn in rags. A chest of drawers had been ransacked, and a narrow, hospital bed stripped of sheets and blankets, the stuffing of the mattress pulled into small pieces. The room looked as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and as I forced myself to go near the body I saw that it had not been left in peace by the murderer.

The blood-stained coat was open, the pockets of the garments turned out, like those in the wardrobe, and all the clothing disarranged, evidently by hands which searched for something with frenzied haste and merciless determination.

The cunning forethought of the wretched man had availed him nothing. I could imagine how joyously he had arrived at this house, believing that he had outwitted the enemy. I pictured his disappointment on not finding the friend who could have helped and supported him. I saw how he had planned to defend himself in case of siege, by locking and bolting the door (both lock and bolt were broken); I fancied him driven by hunger to search his friend's quarters for food, and fearfully beginning a supper in the midst of which he had probably been interrupted. Almost, I could feel the horror with which he must have trembled when steps came along the corridor, when the door was tried and finally broken in by force without any cry of his being heard. I guessed how he had rushed to the window, opened it, only to stare down at the depths below and return desperately, to stand at bay; to protest to the avengers that he had not the jewels; that he had been deceived; that he was innocent of any intention to defraud them; that he would explain all, make anything right if only they would give him time.

But they had not given him time. They had punished him for robbing them of the diamonds by robbing him of his life. They had made him pay with the extreme penalty for his treachery; and yet in the flickering candle-light the stricken face, blood-spattered though it was, seemed to leer slyly, as if in the knowledge that they had been cheated in the end.

The confusion of the room promised badly for my hopes, nevertheless there was a chance that the murderers, intent only on finding the diamonds or some letters relating to their disposal, might, if they found the treaty, have hastily flung it aside, as a thing of no value.

Though the corridors of the house were lit by gas, this room had none, and the lamp being broken, I had to depend upon the bit of candle which might fail while I still had need of it. I separated it carefully from its bed of grease on the mantel, and as I did so the wavering light touched my hand and shirt cuff. Both were stained red, and I turned slightly sick at the sight. There was blood on my brown boots, too, and the grey tweed clothes which I had not had time to change since arriving in Paris.

I told myself that I must do my best to wash away these tell-tale stains before leaving the room; but first I would look for the treaty.

I began my search by stirring up the ma.s.s of scattered papers on the floor, and in spite of the horror which gripped me by the throat, I cried "hurrah!" when, half hidden by the twisted rug, I saw the missing letter-case. It was lying spread open, back uppermost, and there came an instant of despair when I pounced on it only to find it empty. But there was the treaty on the floor underneath; and lucky it was that the searchers had thrown it out, for there were gouts of blood on the letter-case, while the treaty was clean and unspotted.

With a sense of unutterable relief which almost made up for everything endured and still to be endured, I slipped the doc.u.ment back into the pocket from which it had been stolen.

At that moment a board creaked in the corridor, and then came a step outside the door.

My blood rushed up to my head. But it was not of myself I thought; it was of the treaty. If I were to be caught here, alone with the dead man, my hands and clothing stained with his blood, I should be arrested. The treaty must not be found on me. Yet I must hide it, save it. I made a dash for the window, and once outside, standing on the narrow balcony, I threw the candle-end into the room, aiming for the fire-place. Faint starlight, sifting through heavy clouds, showed me a row of small flower-pots standing in a wooden box. Hastily I wrapped the treaty in a towel which hung over the iron railing, lifted out two of the flower-pots (in which the plants were dead and dry), laid the flat parcel I had made in the bottom of the box, and replaced the pots to cover and conceal it. Then I walked back into the room again. A hand, fumbling at the handle of the door, pushed it open with a faint creaking of the hinges. Then the light of a dark lantern flashed.

DIANA FORREST'S PART

CHAPTER XIV

DIANA TAKES A MIDNIGHT DRIVE

Some people apparently understand how to be unhappy gracefully, as if it were a kind of fine art. I don't. It seems too bad to be true that I should be unhappy, and as if I must wake up to find that it was only a bad dream.

I suppose I've been spoiled a good deal all my life. Everybody has been kind to me, and tried to do things for my pleasure, just as I have for them; and I have taken things for granted--except, of course, with Lisa.