The Voice from the Void: The Great Wireless Mystery Part 41

"No doubt I am dangerous," he said aloud to himself on the second morning. "Dangerous to those into whose hands I have now fallen--that vampire woman who is actually the friend of Elma! Gad! I can't fathom it. The whole affair is quite beyond my comprehension. Why did my own father warn me of the pair? If he knew them as crooks, why did he not himself openly expose them them--except--except--that--"

And he paused, gazing fixedly up at the little window.

"Except--that--that perhaps the dear old dad dare not tell the truth!

He may have had some secret!"

He walked slowly and with difficulty around that small stone chamber.

His father had died without revealing to him the truth about Gray and the woman Crisp. Why?

"I wonder if Elma will believe me?" he said aloud, in a strange whisper which echoed weirdly around those lime-washed walls. "Will she believe that letter I wrote her regarding the Wad Sus concession? I should have told her so with my own lips, only--only at Park Lane that night I was not wanted. Elma was not at home. Oh! when shall I learn the truth of all this--when shall I be able to explain it all to Elma? When shall I see Barclay?"

He was silent for some minutes. Then another mystery was the ident.i.ty of the person who, being his janitor, supplied him with food. Two further days went by. When he slept, exhausted, his food was renewed-- by whose hands?

As he grew stronger in those days since the recovery of his senses he had striven to reach the window and look out. But he had never been able to do so. The little window was fully eight feet above the floor and he had nothing to mount upon to grip its ledge. Time after time he ran at it and sprang in the air, but in his weakened condition he always fell too short.

So he gave it up as hopeless. Escape, he realised, was quite impossible. Yet where he was held captive he knew not. His enemies had taken all precautions. They were determined to hold him prisoner, apparently to gain time.

Why?

One day he had slept heavily all the morning, probably snoring, as he knew he did, when he was awakened by a movement near him. He opened his eyes stealthily but made no sign.

Before him, moving across the room, he saw the dim figure of a man in respectable black who carried in his hand a plate containing food.

Suddenly the beam of light from the high window lit up his janitor's face, and in an instant he recognised it as the countenance of a man he had seen in his dreams while he had been held prisoner at Willowden--it was, in fact, the old criminal who posed as Gray's butler--the man Claribut.

For a few seconds Roddy watched, and then with a sudden effort he sprang up and threw himself upon the fellow at a second when his back was turned.

"What the devil do you mean by keeping me here!" he demanded, as he threw his arms around the man's neck and attempted to throw him to the ground.

Claribut, taken entirely off his guard, tried to throw off his a.s.sailant, uttering a fierce imprecation the while, but the pair were Locked in a deadly embrace. Roddy, though young and athletic, was still too weak to overcome the old man's defence.

Around the narrow stone walls they reeled. The door stood open, and Roddy, with a frantic effort, tried to force Claribut towards it, but the old criminal, who had been very athletic in his time, always prevented him.

Roddy, weakened and ill, fought for his life, and gradually succeeded in getting his opponent towards the door. He fell and rolled in the dust, but the young fellow would not release his hold. The open door was before him and he was determined to escape.

Twice he was near it and endeavoured to throw off his captor, but old Claribut always kept with him and held him by the throat until he was nearly choked.

Roddy again struggled to his feet, and with both hands at Claribut's throat at last had the advantage. He saw the man's face purple and his eyes starting. He was close to the door, and if he could only cast the choking man from him he could escape.

He drew a long breath for a last frantic effort, but as he did so, Claribut, who had succeeded in drawing a lead-weighted life-preserver from his pocket, raised it and brought it down with crashing force upon the young man's skull.

And Roddy Homfray fell like a log upon the stones.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

THE DEATH-TRAP.

When Roddy again became conscious of his surroundings he found himself lying in a corner of the place, so weak that he was scarcely able to move his arms. His head was throbbing, and placing his hand upon it, he found himself suffering from a long scalp wound.

He lay for quite an hour staring up at the plaster ceiling which was peeling after many years of neglect. He tried to recall what had occurred.

Mistily he remembered his desperate fight for liberty, and how old Claribut had eventually clubbed him with a short, pliable life-preserver.

It seemed to be again morning. His lips were parched, his throat contracted, and he felt feverish and ill. Water was there, and he managed to reach it.

"What can I do?" he cried faintly to himself. "I must get out of this.

I must! How many days have I been here, I wonder?" and again his hand felt his chin. The growth of beard had increased, and by it he knew that already he must have been there a week--or even more.

For the hundredth time he glanced at the heavy old door, and saw how a small panel had been sawn out near the bottom to admit the introduction of the plate and jug. The mysterious hand that fed him was that of the old man whom he recollected as having been at Willowden. Outwardly the old fellow seemed feeble, but he certainly was the reverse when put to the test.

Roddy ambled across to where his raincoat lay upon the stones. In its pocket was the cigar-box, two coils of wire--aerial and "earth"--and the head-'phones. He opened the box and, as far as he could discover, it was intact. But of what use was it?

He sighed and slowly packed it back into the pocket of the coat, which afterwards he dropped back upon the spot whence he had picked it up.

Suddenly he heard a footstep outside and the panel in the door was slid back, the grey evil face of old Claribut being revealed in the aperture.

"Hulloa!" he exclaimed with a harsh laugh. "So you've come to your senses again--eh? I hope you liked what I gave you for attacking me, young man?"

"I only tried to escape," was Roddy's reply.

"Well, that you won't do," the other laughed. "You'll never leave here alive. I'll take good care of that."

"Oh! We shall see," replied Roddy, whose stout heart had not yet forsaken him. It was not the first time in his life that he had been in a tight corner, and after all he was ever optimistic. The only thing that troubled him was the wound in his head.

"You were useful once," said the evil-faced old criminal. "But now you are of no further use. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, I do; and no, I don't," was Roddy's defiant reply.

"Well, you're only an enc.u.mbrance," he said. "And you're young to die like a rat in a hole?"

"That's very interesting," Roddy remarked grimly. "And who's going to be my executioner, pray?"

"You'll learn that in due course," said his evil-faced janitor, who then opened the door after removing two strong bars.

Roddy instantly sprang at him, but he found himself so weak that he was as a child in Claribut's hands.

The old man seized him, and dragging him out roughly thrust him down some spiral atone stairs and into a stone chamber below the one in which he had been confined. It was about the same size and smelt damp and mouldy. The window, strongly barred, was as high up as the one in the chamber above. When he had bundled the helpless man down the stairs, with one hand, he took the raincoat and flung it into the chamber after him.

All Roddy's protests and struggles were useless. In his weak physical state, still more exhausted by loss of blood from his wound, he was helpless as a child, as Claribut flung him upon the damp shiny stones, saying with a laugh of triumph:

"You'll stay there and die--now that you're no longer wanted!"

Next second Roddy, lying where he had been flung, heard the door being bolted and barred.

He was again alone!

He raised himself slowly and painfully from the slimy stones and gazed around. The walls were green and damp and the place smelt muddy.

Suddenly his eager ears caught the faint ripple of water. There was a river flowing outside!