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The Pawns Count, a fiction by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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CHAPTER V |
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_ So far as Sandy Graham was concerned, his unconsciousness might have lasted an hour or a day. As a matter of fact, it was scarcely a minute after the disappearance of Fischer and his confederates when he was conscious of a rush of cold air in the place, and beheld the vision of a tiny flash of light at the lower end of the gloomy building. Immediately afterwards he heard the soft closing of a door and beheld a tall, shadowy figure slowly approaching. He lay quite still and looked at it, and his heart began to beat with hope. One of the lights had been left burning, and there was something in the bearing and attitude of the man who finally came to a standstill by his side, which was entirely reassuring. "Lutchester!" he faltered. "My God, how did you get here?" "Offices of a young lady," Lutchester observed, producing a knife from his pocket. "Allow me!" He cut the cords which still secured Graham's limbs. Then he looked around him. "How did they bring you here?" he whispered. "I suppose there is a passage from the restaurant?" "Up through a trapdoor there," Graham explained, pointing. Lutchester stood over it and listened intently. Then he turned around, lifted the glass of brandy from the table, smelt it approvingly, and tasted it. "Excellent!" he pronounced. "The 1840. Allow me!" He refilled the glass and handed it to Sandy, who gulped down the contents. The effect was almost instantaneous. In less than a minute he had staggered to his feet. "Feel strong enough to walk about fifty yards?" Lutchester inquired. "I'd walk to hell to get out of this place!" was the prompt reply. Lutchester took his arm, and they passed down the dusty aisle between the worm-eaten and decaying benches and through the outside door, which Lutchester closed and locked behind them. The rush of cold air was like new life to Graham. "I can walk all right now," he muttered. "My God, we'll give these fellows hell for this!" They made their very difficult way across a plot of ground from which a row of dilapidated cottages had been razed to the ground. The fog still hung around them and seemed to bring with it a curious silence, although the dying traffic from one of the main thoroughfares reached them in muffled notes. Lutchester climbed to the top of a pile of rubbish and then, turning around, held out his hand. "Up here," he directed. Graham struggled up until he stood by his companion's side. The latter stood quite still, listening for a moment. Then he climbed a little higher and swung around, holding out his hand once more. "I'm on top of the wall," he said. "Come on." Graham's knees were shaking, but with Lutchester's help he staggered up and reached his side. On the pavement below a man in chauffeur's livery was standing, holding out his hands, and by the side of the curbstone a closed car was waiting. Somehow or other the two reached the pavement. Lutchester almost pushed his companion into the limousine and stepped in after him. The chauffeur sprang to his seat and the car glided off. Graham just realised that there was a woman by his side whose face was vaguely familiar. Then the waves broke in upon his ears once more. "I was right, then, it seems," Pamela observed approvingly. "You were just the man for this little affair." Lutchester sighed. "Unfortunately," he confessed, "a messenger boy would have been as effective. I stumbled over to the chapel--rubber shoes, you observe," he remarked, pointing downwards--"and soon discovered that blinds had been let down all round and that there were people inside. There was just a faint chink in one, and I caught a glimpse of several men, your friend Oscar amongst them. Having," he went on, "an immense regard for my personal safety, I was hesitating what means to adopt when the lights were lowered, and it seemed to me that the men were disappearing." "Do go on," Pamela murmured. "This is most exciting." "In a sense it was disappointing," Lutchester complained. "I had pictured for myself a dramatic entrance ... a quiet turning of the key, a soft approach--owing to my shoes," he reminded her--"a cough, perhaps, or a breath ... discovery, me with a revolver in my hand pointed to the arch-villain--'If you stir you're a dead man!' ... Natural collapse of the villain. With my left hand I slash the bonds which hold Graham, with my right I cover the miscreants. One of them, perhaps, might creep behind me, and I hesitate. If I move my revolver the other two will get the drop on me--I think that is the correct expression? A wonderful moment, that, Miss Van Teyl!" "But it didn't happen," she protested. "Ah! I forgot that," he acknowledged. "Still, I was prepared, I had the revolver all right. But as you say, it didn't happen. I made my way to the chapel door, let myself in, found our friend lying in a half-comatose state upon one of the blue plush Henry sofas, in the shadow of a horrible deal pulpit. I gathered that he had been left there to reflect upon his sins. There was a bottle of remarkably fine brandy within reach, which I tested, and with which I dosed our friend here. I then cut away his bonds, arm in arm we walked down the aisle, I locked up the place, threw the key away, kicked my shins half-a-dozen times crossing that disgusting little plot of land, climbed boldly to the top of the wall, and behold!" Pamela smiled upon him in congratulatory fashion. "On the whole," she said, "I am quite glad that I telephoned to you." "You showed a sound discretion," he admitted. "If he had not been lame," she confessed, "I should have sent to Captain Holderness." "That would have been a great mistake," Lutchester assured her. "Holderness is a good fellow but devoid of imagination. He is great on constituted authority. He would have probably marched up with a squad of heavy-footed policemen--and found nothing." "Yet I must confess," Pamela persisted, with a frankness unaccountable even to herself, "that if I could have thought of any one else I should never have telephoned to you." "And why not?" "Because I should not have classified you as being of the adventurous type," she declared. Lutchester looked injured. "After all," he protested, "that is not my fault. That is due to your singular lack of perception. However, I am able to return the compliment. I, for my part, should have thought that you were more interested in the fashions than in paying exceedingly rash visits to degenerate orientals and negroes." "Perhaps some day," she remarked, "we may understand one another better." He met her gaze with a certain seriousness. "I hope that we may," he said. For some reason they were both silent for a moment. Her tone had changed a little when she spoke again. "You are sure," she asked, "that you do not mind my leaving the rest of this affair in your hands? There are reasons, which I cannot tell you of just now, which make me anxious not to appear in it at all." "I accept the charge as a privilege," he assented. "We are within a few yards of my rooms now. I promise you that I will look after Captain Graham and advise him as to the proper course for him to pursue." The car came to a standstill. "This then," she said, holding out her hand, "will be good-by for the present." He held her fingers for a moment without reply. Quite suddenly she decided that she liked him. Then he lifted Graham, who was half asleep, half unconscious, to his feet, and assisted him from the car. "Where shall I tell the man to go to?" he inquired. "He knows," she answered with sudden taciturnity. "Wherever it may be, then," he replied, "bon voyage!" _ |
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