Weymouth's voice was raised outside in the corridor now:
"Hello, there!" he bellowed. "Open this door! Be quick, or we shall have to force it! "
"Open!" Smith rapped irritably.
I turned and ran to the door.
One glance of incredulity Weymouth gave; then, followed by Fletcher and two others who wore the Park Avenue livery, he rushed past me.
"Good God!" I heard. "Sir Denis!" Then:
"Are you mad, sir? You're strangling Sw&zi Pasha!"
3
"Our first captures!" said Nayland Smith.
An overcoated figure in charge of two detectives dressed as footmen disappeared from the suite.
"Your mistake, Weymouth, was natural enough. In appearance he is Swazi Pasha. "
"He is," said Dr. Petrie, who had joined us in the apartment--all the hotel had been aroused by the shot. "I met Swazi in Cairo only a year ago; and if the man under arrest is not Swazi Pasha, then I shall never trust my eyes again. "
"Really, Petrie?" said Nayland Smith, and smiled in that way which lent him such a boyish appearance. "Yet"--he pointed to the open fireplace--"the metal back of this recess has been removed very ingeniously. It has been reattached to the opening which it was designed to mask, but to-night as you see it hangs down in the ventilation shaft by reason of the fact that a stout piece of canvas has been glued to the back so as to act as a hinge.
"Can you suggest any reason why Swazi Pasha should remove the back of his fireplace and why he should climb down a rope ladder from the apartment of a certain Mr. Solkel in the middle of the night?"
It was Weymouth who answered the question, and:
"I admit I can't, Sir Denis," he said.
"No wonder! The details of this amazing plot are only beginning to dawn upon me by degrees. In addition to the ladder which undoubtedly communicates with Room 41 above us, there's this stout length of rope with a noose at the end. Can you imagine what purpose it was intended to serve?"
We all stared into the recess. As Smith had said and as we all had noticed, such a ladder as he described hung in the shaft, possibly as a means of communication between the two floors. A length of rope had been carried into the room. The noose with which it ended lay upon the carpet at our feet.
"I shall make a suggestion," Smith went on. Mr. Solkel has been occupying Number 41,1 understand, for a week past. He has employed his time well! We shall find that the imitation tiling at the back of his fireplace has been removed in a similar fashion to this ... because Suite Number 5 was reserved for Swazi Pasha as long as a month ago. The purpose of the ladder is obvious enough. A moment's consideration will convince us, I believe, of the use to which this noose was intended to be put. The business of the dwarf, a highly trained specialist--now in Vine Street Police Station--was quietly to enter Swazi Pasha's room and to silence him with a wad of cotton-wool which you recall he clutched in his hand, and which was saturated with some narcotic. The smell is still perceptible. Possibly you, Petrie, can tell us what it is?"
Petrie shook his head doubtfully; but:
"I have preserved it," he said. "It's upstairs. Some preparation of Indian hemp, I think. "
"Cannabis indica was always a favourite, I seem to recall, with this group," Smith said grimly. "Probably you are right. The pasha being rendered quietly unconscious, it was the duty of the dwarf to slip the noose under his arms and to assist the man waiting in the room above to haul the body up. These dwarfs, of whom the first living specimen now lies in a cell in Vine Street--the only hashishin, I believe ever captured by European police--have the strength of gorillas, although they are of small stature. The body of the insensible man being carried up to Number 41 by this dwarf on the rope ladder, assisted by the efforts of 'Mr. Solkel' above, the pasha was to be placed in bed. Once there, no doubt it was their amiable intention to dispose of him in some manner calculated to suggest that he had died of heart failure.
"Solkel would have taken his place.
"The distressing death of an obscure guest from Smyrna would have been hushed up as much as possible by the hotel authori- ties--and Mr. Solkel would have lunched with the prime minister in the morning. I am even prepared to believe that the back of the fireplace in Number 41 would have been carefully replaced; although I fail to see how the same could have been done for this one. The dwarf, no doubt, could have been dispatched by the new pasha in a crate as a piece of baggage to some suitable address. "
"But how did the dwarf get in?" I exclaimed.
"Almost certainly in the wardrobe trunk which Mr. Solkel received to-day," Weymouth answered.
"You're right," Smith confirmed.
"But," I cried, "how could the impostor, granting his extraordinary resemblance to Swazi Pasha, have carried on? "
"Quite easily," Smith assured me. "He knew all that Swazi knew. He was perfectly familiar with the latter's movements and with his peculiarly secluded life. He was intimately acquainted with his domestic affairs. "
"But," said Petrie, "who is he? "
"Swazi Pasha's twin brother," was the astonishing reply; "his deadly enemy, and a member of the Council of Seven. "
"But the real Swazi Pasha? "
"Is at the Platz Hotel," Smith replied, "masquerading as a member of his own suite."
He was silent for a moment, and then:
"The first time I ever used a sandbag," he said reflectively, weighing one of those weapons in his hand. "But having actually reached Victoria without incident, I deter- mined that this was the point of attack. A transfer of overcoats was made on the train, and the muffled gentleman who entered the Park Avenue was not Swazi Pasha, but I! Multan Bey, the secretary, escaped at a suit- able moment and left me in sole possession of Suite Number 5.
"I didn't know what to expect, but I was prepared for anything. And you must remember, Petrie"--turning to the latter -- "that I had had some little experience of the methods of this group! I heard the sound, faint though it was, high up in the ventilation shaft--the same which disturbed you, Greville. Then a hazy idea of what to expect dawned on my mind. A sandbag, the history of which I must tell you later, was in my trunk in the lobby. As I came out to secure it, since I considered it to be the most suitable instrument for my purpose, I heard your soft but rapid footsteps, Greville. I realized that someone was approaching the door; that he must be stopped knocking or ringing at all costs, since my purpose was to catch the enemy red-handed."
There was a pause, and then:
"It's very late," said Dr. Petrie slowly, his gaze set upon Nayland Smith; "but I think. Smith, you owe us some further explanation. "
"I agree," Nayland Smith replied quietly.
4
It was a strange party which gathered in the small hours in Dr. Petrie's sitting-room. Petrie's wife, curled up in a shadowy comer of the divan, seemed in her fragile beauty utterly apart from this murderous business which had brought us together. Yet I knew that in the past she had been intimately linked with the monstrous organisation which again was stretching out gaunt hands to move pieces on the chessboard of the world. Weymouth, in an armchair, smoked in stolid silence. Petrie stood on the hearthrug watching Nayland Smith. And I, seated by the writing-table, listened to a terse, unemotional account of an experience such as few men have passed through. Nayland Smith, speaking rapidly and smoking all the time--striking many matches, for his pipe constantly went out-- paced up and down the room.
"You have asked me, Petrie," he said, "to explain why I allowed you to believe that I was dead. The answer is this: I had learned during my investigations in Egypt that an inquirer who has no official existence possesses definite advantages. My dear fellow"--he turned impulsively to the doctor --"I knew it would hurt, but I knew there was a cure. Forgive me. The fate of millions was at stake. I will tell you the steps by which I arrived at this decision.