He saw dimly a room of twenty years before: a room of flounces, of lace curtains, of once-polished mahogany, its mirrors glimmering against white-papered walls. H.M. seemed especially interested in the windows.
He ran his hands carefully round the frame of each, even climbing laboriously up on a chair to examine the tops. He borrowed a box of matches from Bill; and the little spurts of light, following the rasp of the match, rasped against nerves as well. The hope died out of his face, and his companions saw it.
“H.M.,” Bill said for the dozenth time, “where is she?”
“Son,” replied H.M. despondently, “I don’t know.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Eve said abruptly. Her voice was a small scream. “I kn-know it’s all a trick! I know Vicky’s a faker! But let’s get out of here. For God’s sake let’s get out of here!”
“As a matter of fact,” Bill cleared his throat, “I agree. Anyway, we won’t hear from Vicky until tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, yes, you will,” whispered Vicky’s voice out of the darkness.
Eve screamed.
They lighted a lamp.
But there was nobody there.
Their retreat from the cottage, it must be admitted, was not very dignified.
How they stumbled down that ragged lawn in the dark, how they piled rugs and picnic-hampers into the car, how they eventually found the main road again, is best left undescribed.
Sir Henry Merrivale has since sneered at this — “a bit of a goosy feeling; nothin’ much,” — and it is true that he has no nerves to speak of. But he can be worried, badly worried; and that he was worried on this occasion may be deduced from what happened later.
H.M., after dropping in at Claridge’s for a modest late supper of lobster and Pêche Melba, returned to his house in Brook Street and slept a hideous sleep. It was three o’clock in the morning, even before the summer dawn, when the ringing of the bedside telephone roused him.
What he heard sent his blood pressure soaring.
“Dear Sir Henry!” crooned a familiar and sprite-like voice.
H.M. was himself again, full of gall and bile. He switched on the bedside lamp and put on his spectacles with care, so as adequately to address the ’phone.
“Have I got the honor,” he said with dangerous politeness, “of addressin’ Miss Vicky Adams?”
“Oh, yes!”
“I sincerely trust,” said H.M., “you’ve been havin’ a good time? Are you materialized yet?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m afraid,” there was coy laughter in the voice, “that must be a little secret for a day or two. I want to teach you a really good lesson. Blessings, dear.”
And she hung up the receiver.
H.M. did not say anything. He climbed out of bed. He stalked up and down the room, his corporation majestic under an old-fashioned nightshirt stretching to his heels. Then, since he himself had been waked up at three o’clock in the morning, the obvious course was to wake up somebody else; so he dialed the home number of Chief Inspector Masters.
“No, sir,” retorted Masters grimly, after coughing the frog out of his throat, “I do not mind you ringing up. Not a bit of it!” He spoke with a certain pleasure. “Because I’ve got a bit of news for you.”
H.M. eyed the ’phone suspiciously.
“Masters, are you trying to do me in the eye again?”
“It’s what you always try to do to me, isn’t it?”
“All right, all right!” growled H.M. “What’s the news?”
“Do you remember mentioning the Vicky Adams case yesterday?”
“Sort of. Yes.”
“Oh, ah! Well, I had a word or two round among our people. I was tipped the wink to go and see a certain solicitor. He was old Mr. Fred Adams’s solicitor before Mr. Adams died about six or seven years ago.”
Here Masters’s voice grew triumphant.
“I always said, Sir Henry, that Chuck Randall had planted some gadget in that cottage for a quick getaway. And I was right. The gadget was...”
“You were quite right, Masters. The gadget was a trick window.”
The telephone, so to speak, gave a start.
“What’s that?”
“A trick window.” H.M. spoke patiently. “You press a spring. And the whole frame of the window, two leaves locked together, slides down between the walls far enough so you can climb over. Then you push it back up again.”
“How in lum’s name do you know that?”
“Oh, my son! They used to build windows like it in country houses during the persecution of Catholic priests. It was a good enough second guess. Only... it won’t work.”
Masters seemed annoyed. “It won’t work now,” Masters agreed. “And do you know why?”
“I can guess. Tell me.”
“Because, just before Mr. Adams died, he discovered how his darling daughter had flummoxed him. He never told anybody except his lawyer. He took a handful of four-inch nails, and sealed up the top of that frame so tight an orangoutang couldn’t move it, and painted ’em over so they wouldn’t be noticed.”
“Uh-huh. You can notice ’em now.”
“I doubt if the young lady herself ever knew. But, by George!” Masters said savagely. “I’d like to see anybody try the same game now!”
“You would, hey? Then will it interest you to know that the same gal has just disappeared out of the same house AGAIN?”
H.M. began a long narrative of the facts, but he had to break off because the telephone was raving.
“Honest, Masters,” H.M. said seriously, “I’m not joking. She didn’t get out through that window. But she did get out. You’d better meet me,” he gave directions, “tomorrow morning. In the meantime, son, sleep well.”
It was, therefore, a worn-faced Masters who went into the Visitors’ Room at the Senior Conservatives’ Club just before lunch on the following day.
The Visitors’ Room is a dark sepulchral place, opening on an air-well, where the visitor is surrounded by pictures of dyspeptic-looking gentlemen with beards. It has a pervading mustiness of wood and leather. Though whiskey and soda stood on the table, H.M. sat in a leather chair far away from it, ruffling his hands across his bald head.
“Now, Masters, keep your shirt on!” he warned. “This business may be rummy. But it’s not a police matter — yet.”
“I know it’s not a police matter,” Masters said grimly. “All the same, I’ve had a word with the Superintendent at Aylesbury.”
“Fowler?”
“You know him?”
“Sure. I know everybody. Is he goin’ to keep an eye out?”
“He’s going to have a look at that ruddy cottage. I’ve asked for any telephone calls to be put through here. In the meantime, sir—”
It was at this point, as though diabolically inspired, that the telephone rang. H.M. reached it before Masters.
“It’s the old man,” he said, unconsciously assuming a stance of grandeur. “Yes, yes! Masters is here, but he’s drunk. You tell me first. What’s that?”
The telephone talked thinly.
“Sure I looked in the kitchen cupboard,” bellowed H.M. “Though I didn’t honestly expect to find Vicky Adams hidin’ there. What’s that? Say it again! Plates? Cups that had been...”
An almost frightening change had come over H.M.’s expression. He stood motionless. All the posturing went out of him. He was not even listening to the voice that still talked thinly, while his eyes and his brain moved to put together facts. At length (though the voice still talked) he hung up the receiver.
H.M. blundered back to the centre table, where he drew out a chair and sat down.
“Masters,” he said very quietly, “I’ve come close to makin’ the silliest mistake of my life.”