‘You know?’ The other’s voice had dropped to a whisper.
‘I didn’t say so,’ replied Carlo Lewin coolly. ‘I said I had an idea. But I’ll know for certain by this time tomorrow. I’ll ring you up in the evening and tell you the price arranged. We go fifty-fifty. Is that agreed?’
Tom Young did not reply. He was standing in an attitude of strained attention, casting quick glances around him as though his ear had suddenly detected some unusual sound.
With a muttered word to Lewin, he crossed the room and jerked up the window-blinds.
There was nothing to be seen except the river with its dark and glittering lights. But still the man was not satisfied. For nearly a minute he stood without moving, then with a murmur of apology hurried from the room.
Alan Gilmour did not wait further. Looking down on the scene in Tom Young’s private room, he had noted the man’s sudden uneasiness. He himself had made no noise that he was aware of, yet Young’s restless movements suggested that he was conscious of something unusual in the vicinity.
With a final glance into the room, Alan stepped down quietly from the top of the table. A faint illumination filtered through the dusty fanlight, and he tiptoed over to the door. This he had drawn shut behind him, and he was on the point of opening it when he drew back.
Was that a sound he heard in the next room? He thought he could discern the soft tread of a foot on the bare boards; but perhaps it was mere imagination. He listened carefully. He knew full well what a false move might mean. What he had just heard left no doubt about the kind of people he would have to deal with if they discovered him here. Then with a gasp of relief he remembered the rats he had seen: no doubt they swarmed up in dozens from the river at high tide, and the noise he had noticed was the scurry of their feet within the skirting of the wall.
Alan opened the door, closing it carefully behind him. The room seemed darker than before. He had left the window wide open in case he should require to make a hurried exit; and for this precaution he was grateful. It was impossible that Tom Young could have detected his presence, for the man had not even glanced in the direction of the fanlight. But to wait in this place any longer, in the hopes of gaining further information, would mean running the wildest risks. In the darkness he groped his way towards the window, but before he had taken three paces he drew up bewildered.
Was this the same room he had been in before? It seemed to have changed. The open window should have been on his left, and though his eyes strained into the darkness to catch a glimpse of the square opening, with the river lights beyond, he could see nothing but blackness in front of him. He put out his hand. His fingers brushed the wall. Inch by inch, he crept forward. And then, with a start, he knew the truth.
The shutters had been silently closed. He could feel the iron bar that held them in position. That was the faint noise he had heard! And while Alan stood there, trying to pull himself together, there was a gentle click from the direction of the door.
He stood rigid. Out on the river he caught the raucous hoot of a tug-boat’s siren, and the echoing voice of a bargeman rang out in reply. But here in this empty room there was a stillness that was almost electric. Then from out of the dark a quiet voice began to speak. . . .
Alan’s mind was clearer now. He realized that he was cornered—that his only chance was to act at once, and he gathered himself together.
The voice spoke again. The mellow tones were those of Tom Young, but Alan did not wait. With a sudden rush he was back beside the door. As he flung it open, the beam of an electric torch made a white splash on the wall beside him. Tom Young called on him sharply to stop; but Alan leaped across the threshold, and slammed the door behind him. At the same instant there was the crack of a revolver, and a bullet buried itself with a thud in the doorpost.
A couple of strides took Alan Gilmour to the window. It was the same old-fashioned type as that in the next room, and the fastening of the casement was thickly rusted with damp. Aware that three or four seconds at the most stood between him and capture, Alan smashed at it desperately with his fist. At last the thing gave way; the window swung open; and though the space was narrow, he crushed himself through. There was light enough to see that the boathouse roof came to an end five or six feet distant, and to miss it meant a straight drop into the river. It was an unpleasant alternative; but nothing compared with the ugly prospect of coming to close grips with Tom Young. Balancing himself on the sill, Alan jumped.
With a gasp of relief he landed on the edge of the roof, though he stumbled and sprawled forward on all fours. As he dropped lightly on the wooden pier below, he heard an opened door inside the house crash back against the wall. Two more revolver shots rang out from the window, and presently a figure could be seen moving on the pier, but by this time Alan had sent his rowing-boat shooting downstream into the shelter of a group of barges, and the tall house above ‘The Green Lantern’ had faded into the darkness.
The moment the street door closed behind Mr. Carlo Lewin, Tom Young hurried back along the corridor and began to mount the stairs.
On the third floor he paused and glanced along the passage. Then he remembered that the room occupied by Mr. Julius Brown was empty, Mr. Brown being out for the evening, and Tom Young passed silently on.
At the distant end of the corridor he quietly unlocked the door, and fastened it carefully behind him before he crept up the narrow staircase to the attics above. Nobody except Mr. Young himself ever explored the maze of corridors at the top of the house; for the door at the foot of the narrow stair had a curious lock, and he kept the key in his own possession. Many of the apartments in the house below were unfurnished, and had long ago been resigned to the ravages of damp and mildew. There were people who suspected that not all of the rooms on the top floor of the house were equally empty and derelict. But their curiosity had never been satisfied.
CHAPTER XIX
MR. CARLO LEWIN MAKES A MOVE
Leaving Clement’s Stairs behind, Alan Gilmour hurried through the network of narrow streets towards the main thoroughfare, and boarded a bus which took him across Tower Bridge, where he asked a police constable to direct him to the nearest telephone box.
Inspector Tripp must be told: it was inevitable. In that ornate, faded room at ‘The Green Lantern,’ Alan had overheard things about Lord John that completely altered the field of investigation. But could he tell Tripp his story without bringing in Elizabeth Marlowe? . . . Supposing the detective asked him point-blank what had taken him to ‘The Green Lantern’ in the first instance, how could he avoid admitting that he had gone there to deliver a letter from Elizabeth? As Alan put through a call to the Inspector’s flat at Westminster he realized that the forthcoming interview was likely to be a difficult one.
Learning that Tripp was still busy at Scotland Yard, Alan called him up there, and was connected almost at once.
‘This is Gilmour speaking. I’ve got some news for you, Inspector.’
‘Good news, I hope,’ said Tripp cheerfully. ‘I was going out, but I’ll wait for you.’