Whatsoever a Man Soweth Part 24

In sheer desperation I groped forward slowly and carefully, my face to the black, slimy wall, feeling it forward with my hands. If I stumbled the force of the torrent would, I knew, take me off my feet and I should most probably meet with an awful death. Cautiously I crept along, how far I cannot tell. Each moment seemed an hour, and each step a mile, until of a sudden the wall ended!

Only the black swiftly-flowing flood lay before me. I put out my hand in the darkness, but only grasped the air.

Next moment, however, I discovered that the sewer took a sudden turn, almost at right angles, and that I had come to the corner. Yes. The wall continued! So I groped on and on, my hands travelling over bricks worn smooth by the action of the cleansing flood.

I hoped to encounter one of those men whom I had often seen descend from the street in high boots and carrying a miner's lamp, but I was, alas!

alone. The very absence of the workmen told me the terrible truth. It was the time for the automatic flushing!

On I groped in frantic haste, the rats scuttling from my path, the darkness complete; the noise of the black waters deafening. I recollected that as we had driven from the Empire it had commenced to rain, and thus was the torrent accounted for.

Of a sudden, I discerned before me something. What it was I could not distinguish. I crept on, and saw that it was like a small patch of faint grey. Then, approaching nearer, I found that it was a single ray of faint daylight which, penetrating from far above, fell upon the black waters. It was day. I had been in that gruesome place all night.

My heart leapt within me as I went forward to it, finding that above was a round, well-like shaft, which led to the surface, while in the wall were iron footholds.

I gained the bottom, and grasping the small, rusted iron rails commenced a slow and difficult ascent.

Not an instant too soon, however, for ere I had placed my foot upon the first rung of the ladder a noise like thunder sounded from the tunnel, and the black waters rose angrily to meet me, washing about my legs as I climbed higher up, and filling the sewer to its roof.

For a few moments the water remained at that level, and then the torrent slowly receded to its original height as the flushing wave rushed on towards the outfall.

A cold perspiration broke out upon me. I saw how I had been within an ace of death, and shuddered as I glanced below.

Then, ascending as quickly as my shattered nerves and swimming head would allow, I found above me a closed grating, through which I could hear the roar of the London traffic above.

I shouted, but could attract no attention.

To push up the iron was impossible, for I saw that it was locked.

A woman pa.s.sed close by, and I shouted to her. She turned and looked in an opposite direction, surprised to see no one. She never suspected anyone being beneath the roadway.

An omnibus rumbled over me, and I saw that it was a green "Bayswater,"

from which I concluded that I must be beneath Oxford Street.

Again and again I shouted for help, but could attract no notice. My position was far from secure, compelled to cling on to those iron footholds in the brickwork.

At last I saw a newsboy close to me. My shout startled him, but when he discerned my face beneath the bars he came closer, and asked,--

"'Alloa, guv'nor! What's up?"

"I'm a prisoner here," I explained. "Go and fetch a policeman."

"My gum!" exclaimed the urchin in his surprise. "It's the first time I've ever 'eard of a bloke gettin' locked down the sewer." And he went off at once to call a constable.

The officer came quickly, and after a brief explanation he sent the lad somewhere to the house of one of the sewermen, I think, for the key.

Meanwhile, a small crowd quickly collected around the grating, and I was subjected to a good deal of good-humoured banter until the man came with the key, and I once again found myself at the surface, a dirty, dishevelled, pitiable-looking object in evening dress. I was in Oxford Street, at the corner of Hart Street, Bloomsbury.

Both constable and sewer-man were curious to know how I got in, whereupon I explained that I had been the victim of a plot in some house, of the exact situation of which I was unaware.

The two men exchanged glances--meaning glances I saw them to be.

"Was it anywhere near Portland Place?" asked the big fellow in blue jersey and sea-boots.

"I don't know. I saw Poland Street written up. Why?"

"Well, because there's something mysterious goes on in a house somewhere near here. Only a month ago we found the body of a young woman drowned in the main sewer at the corner of Charing Cross Road, and the affair is a mystery. The police 'ave kept it out of the papers while they make inquiries. We're trying to find out what house has direct communication with the sewer, but up to the present we've not been successful. It's a good job," he added, "that you weren't caught by the flush, for it must just be going down at this time."

I explained how narrowly I had escaped death, and then in reply to the constable described the dastardly plot of which I had been the victim.

"Of course, sir, you won't mind making a full statement at the police station, will you?" the officer said. "The discovery of the poor woman in the sewer the other day has shown that there is some house in which people mysteriously disappear. It is evidently to that house you were invited. You will be able to a.s.sist us to identify it."

I shook my head, saying: "I fear that I'll never be able to recognise it again, for I really took no notice of its exterior. It lies somewhere east of Regent Street, that is all I know."

"Depend upon it that more than one person has been swept down by the flush," declared the sewer-man. "A man's body was found down at the outfall at Beckton about three months ago. He was in evening dress, and evidently a gentleman, our foreman said, but where he came from was a complete mystery. My own idea is that the house has no direct communication with the sewer, for if it had, we should have discovered it. You say, sir, that you fell through a hole in the stairs?"

I replied in the affirmative.

"Exactly. You dropped down into a cellar or somewhere in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and then, while you were insensible, they put you into the sewer-- through some manhole, perhaps, of which they have a duplicate key. The house must be near a manhole. That's my belief."

"Then you don't think that I fell plumb into the sewer?"

"Certainly not. You were thrown into the sewer while insensible down a manhole, without a doubt. It's lucky you just escaped the flush. The villain evidently knew that the flush is at eight o'clock in the morning, and that we don't go down till afterwards. And when we go, well, the victim has, of course, disappeared. By Jove! sir," added the big muscular man, standing astride in his big, high boots, "you've had a narrow shave, and no mistake."

I admitted I had. I was forced to repeat my explanation to a brown-bearded, good-humoured inspector who came up, and who afterwards gave me his name as Pickering. The officer was most interested, therefore promising to call at the Tottenham Court Road police station later I gave him a card and took a hansom back to Bolton Street.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

AROUSES SUSPICIONS REGARDING SYBIL.

Ellice Winsloe believed me dead.

There was no doubt about that. And knowing what I now did, I intended that he should remain secure in that belief.

Domville had not returned, a fact which caused me the gravest apprehensions. I recollected that defiant voice in the night. Had he also fallen a victim?

Budd called in my doctor, who dressed the wound in my head and carefully bandaged it. He was curious to know the cause, but I merely explained that I had sustained a rather bad fall. Perhaps he attributed it to too much wine on the previous night--probably he did.

"You'll have to rest for a day or two," he said, "you had a nasty blow."

But I was uncommunicative, therefore he soon afterwards left.

Budd was, of course, inquisitive, but my explanation was that I had had an accident, and had fallen in the mud. My clothes were, of course, ruined, my hands grazed and torn, and across my eye was a nasty gash where I must have struck a sharp stone.

My brain was awhirl, and after the doctor's departure I swallowed some brandy and lay down on the bed awaiting Eric.

Had he shared the same fate? If so, to try and find him in the sewer was useless. The flush had pa.s.sed, and would sweep him away to his death.

Of course, I had no real proof that he had been in that house other than overhearing his voice. I recalled every word, and now more than ever was I convinced that he had been behind that closed door, held by enemies.