The Wharf By The Docks Part 17

It by no means increased the confidence of Max as to his own safety to observe what elaborate precautions had been used by the occupants of the house to secure themselves from observation. He could no longer doubt that he was in a house which was the resort of persons of the worst possible character, and in a position of the gravest danger.

While opposite the window, he listened eagerly for some sound in the pa.s.sage outside. If a foot-pa.s.senger should pa.s.s, he would risk everything and shout for help with all the force of his lungs.

Even while he indulged this hope, he felt that it was a vain one. It was now late; traffic on the river had almost ceased; there was no attraction for idlers on the landing-stage in the cold and the darkness.

He continued his investigations.

At the next angle in the wall he came to more shelves, decayed, broken, left by the last tenant as not worth carrying away. And presently his feet came upon something harder, colder than the boards; it was a hearthstone, and it marked the place where, before the room was turned into a shop, there had been a small fireplace. And on the other side of this, near the wall, was a collection of rubbish, over the musty items of which Max stumbled as he went. Old boxes, bits of carpet, broken bricks; every sort of worthless lumber.

And so, without accident, without incident, without hearing a sound but the faint noise of his own movements, Max got back to the point where he had started.

Then he paused and listened at the inner door.

In spite of everything, he refused to yield to the suggestion that Carrie had anything to do with his incarceration. Would she not, on finding that he had disappeared, make an effort to get him out?

While he was standing between doubt and hope, on the alert for any sound on the other side which should suggest the presence of the girl herself and give him the cue to knock at the door again, his attention was attracted by a slight noise which thrilled him to the marrow; for it came, not from outside, but from some part of the room itself, in which he had supposed himself to be alone with the dead body of a man.

Instantly he put his back to the door and prepared to stand on the defensive against the expected attack of an invisible a.s.sailant.

That was the awful part of it, that he could not see. For a moment he thought of creeping back to the rubbish heap in the corner and trying to find, amongst the odds and ends lying there, some sort of weapon of defense. But a moment's reflection told him that the act of stooping, of searching, would put him more at the mercy of an a.s.sailant than ever.

There was absolutely nothing to do but to wait and to listen.

And the noise he heard was like the drawing of a log of wood slowly along the floor. This was followed by a dull sound, like the falling of a log to the earth.

And then there followed two sounds which made his flesh creep: The first was the creaking, and cracking of wooden boards, and the second was a slow, sliding noise, which lasted, intermittently for what seemed an hour.

When the latter noise ceased something fell heavily to the ground. That was a sound there was no mistaking, and then the creaking went on for what seemed a long time, and ceased suddenly in its turn.

And then, again, there was dead silence, dead stillness.

By this time Max was as cold as ice, and wet from head to foot with the sweat of a sick terror. What the sounds meant, whence they proceeded, he could not tell, but the horror they produced in him was unspeakable, never to be forgotten.

He did not move for a long time after the sounds had ceased. He wanted to shout, to batter with his fists on the doors, the window. But a hideous paralysis of fear seemed to have taken possession of him and benumbed his limbs and his tongue.

Max was no coward. He was a daring rider, handy with his fists, a young man full of spirit and courage to the verge of recklessness, as this adventure had proved. But courage must have something to attack, or at least to resist, before it can make itself manifest; and in this sickening waiting, listening, watching, without the use of one's eyes, there was something which smacked of the supernatural, something to damp the spirits of the bravest man.

There was nothing to be gained, there was, perhaps, much to be risked, by a movement, a step. So Max felt, showing thereby that he possessed an instinct of sane prudence which was, in the circ.u.mstances, better than bravery.

And presently he discerned a little patch of faint light on the floor, which gradually increased in size until he was able to make out that it was thrown from above, and from the corner above the rubbish heap.

Max kept quite still. The relief he felt was exquisite. If once he could have a chance of seeing the man who was in the room with him, and who he could not doubt was the person who had thrown him in, Max felt he should be all right. In a tussle with another man he knew that he could hold his own, and a sight of the ruffian would enable him to judge whether bribery or force would be the better weapon with him.

In the meantime he watched the light with anxious eyes, determined not to move and risk its extinction until he had been able to examine every corner of the little shop.

And as he looked, his eyes grew round, and his breath came fast.

There was no counter left, no furniture at all behind which a man could hide. And the room, except for the rubbish in the corner, a small, straggling heap, was absolutely bare.

There was no other creature in it, dead or alive, but himself.

CHAPTER XII.

ESCAPE.

An exclamation, impossible to repress, burst from the lips of Max.

At the same moment he made a spring to the left, which brought him under the spot in the floor above through which the light was streaming.

And he saw through a raised trap-door in the flooring above the shrewish face of old Mrs. Higgs, and the very same candle in the very same tin candlestick that he had seen in use in the adjoining room.

The old woman and the young man stared at each other for a moment in silence. It seemed to Max that there was genuine surprise on her face as she looked at him.

"Well, I never!" exclaimed she, as she lowered the candle through the hole, and looked, not only at him, but into every corner of the shop.

"Well, I never! How did you get in there, eh?"

Max was angry and sullen. How could he doubt that she knew more about it than he did! On the other hand, he was not in a position to be as rude as he felt inclined to be.

"You know all about that, I expect," said he, shortly.

"I? How should I know anything about it? I only know that I lost sight of you very quickly, and couldn't make out where you'd got to."

"Well, you know now," said Max, shortly, "and perhaps you'll be kind enough to let me out."

In spite of himself his voice shook. As the old woman still hesitated, he measured with his eye the distance between the floor where he stood and the open trap-door above. It was too far for a spring. Mrs. Higgs seemed to divine his thoughts, and she laughed grimly.

"All right," said she. "All right. I'll come down. I wonder who can have put you in there now! It's one of those young rascals from over the way, I expect. They are always up to something. Don't you worry yourself; I'm coming!"

Her tone had become so rea.s.suring that Max began to wonder whether the old woman might not be more innocent of the trick which had been played upon him than he had supposed. This impression increased when Mrs. Higgs went on:

"Why didn't you holloa out when you found yourself inside?"

"It wouldn't have been of much use," retorted Max. "I thumped on the door and made noise enough to wake the city."

"Well, I thought I heard a knock, some time ago," said Mrs. Higgs, who seemed still in no hurry to fulfill her promise of coming down. "But I thought it was nothing of any consequence, as I didn't hear it again."

"Where were you then?" To himself he added: "You old fool!"

"Eh?" said Mrs. Higgs.

Max repeated the question.

"Well, first I was downstairs, and then I came up here."

At last Max saw in the old woman's lackl.u.s.ter eyes a spark of malice.