“What is it?” Fleurette whispered. “Isn’t he there?”
“Just gone out with the Commissioner. But excuse me a moment——” He spoke into the mouthpiece again. “Would it be possible, sir, to reach them at their destination?”
“Yes,” Faversham replied. “It’s some kind of store. I’ll instruct the people downstairs to get in touch with the officer in charge. Do you wish him to give Dr. Petrie any particular message?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind, sir,” he replied. “Tell Dr. Petrie that his daughter has returned.”
“What!” Faversham exclaimed. “Are you sure? Where is she?”
“She’s here, sir.”
“Good God! I’ll get through immediately; this is splendid news!”
“Thank you, sir.”
Fey replaced the receiver, and came out of the lobby.
“Excuse me one moment, Miss,” he said.
He went into the adjoining room and focussed his glasses upon that spot far below where the itinerant match vendor plied his trade.
The man was standing up—and at the very moment that Fey focussed upon him, he sat down again!
Fey placed the glasses on the table, and returned to the sitting-room.
Fleurette had thrown herself into an armchair and was lighting a cigarette. She felt that she needed something to steady her nerves. The mystery of that hiatus between her parting from Alan on the steamer and her awakening in that little Surrey cottage, was terrifying.
“Excuse me, Miss,” said Fey. “But did you by any chance go to the window a moment ago? I mean, just as I went out to the telephone?”
“Yes.” Fleurette nodded. “I did. I remember staring down at the Embankment, thinking how desolate it looked.”
Fey nodded.
“Why do you ask, Fey?”
“I was only wondering. You see I am sort of responsible for you.”
Very thoughtfully, but to Fleurette’s great amazement he went out into the lobby, took up a large briar pipe, lighted it, and began with an abstracted air to walk up and down the room. Astonishment silenced her for a moment, and then:
“Fey!” she exclaimed. “Are you mad?”
Fey took the pipe from between his teeth, and: “Sir Denis’s orders, Miss,” he explained.
CHAPTER
46
GALLAHO EXPLORES
A stifled boom of an explosion snapped the tension which had prevailed in Sam Pak’s shop from the moment that the man from Kinloch’s had finally been satisfied about the position of the charge, to that when, up there on street level, he had pressed the button.
The time occupied in these methodical preparations had driven Gallaho to the verge of lunacy, and now:
“Come on!” he shouted, making for the head of a descending stairway concealed behind the curtain at the end of the bar. “There’s been time for a hundred murders. Let’s hope we’re not too late!”
The stairway led to a kitchen in which was the ingenious door which in turn communicated with that long underground corridor. The masked door was open now and a length of cable lay along the passage.
“Wait for the fumes to clear,” came a voice from behind.
“Fumes be damned!” growled Gallaho; then: “Hell! What’s that?”
A black jagged hole appeared in the wall beside the iron door. A bluish acrid vapour showed in the torch-light But at the moment that the party led by Gallaho entered the passage-way, there came from somewhere beyond the iron door a rending crash as if a battering ram had been driven through concrete.
Now, hard upon it, followed an awful sound of rushing waters echoing, roaring down into some unsuspected depth!
Part of the wall above and to the right of the gap collapsed, and water began to spray out into the passage ....
“I was afraid of this—did I not warn you?” The voice was Schumann’s. “This place is below the tidal level. It is the Thames breaking in!”
“God help them!” groaned Trench, “if they’re down there!”
Ignoring the vapour and the drenching spray, Galllaho, shining the ray of his torch ahead, ducked, and peered through the jagged opening.
“Be careful! The whole place may collapse!”
The spectacle before the detective was an awe-inspiring one. Within a foot of his right hand, a smooth torrent of yellowish water poured out of some unseen gap, crashed upon a dim structure of wood and iron beneath, and from thence leapt out into the darkness of an incredible pit.
His iron nerve was momentarily shaken.
The depth indicated by the tumult of that falling water staggered him. Trench entered behind Gallaho.
“Stand clear of the water!” the latter bellowed in his ear. “It would sweep you off like a fly!”
He shone the powerful light downwards. There were wooden stairs in an iron framework. The torrent was breaking upon the first platform below, and thence descending, a great, shimmering, yellow coil, to unknown depths. Others were pushing through, but:
“Stand back!” Gallaho shouted. “There’s no more room between the water and the edge!”
Trench pressed his lips to Gallaho’s ear.
“This must be the shaft leading down to the tunnel.” He yelled. “But no one could pass that platform where the water is falling.”
Gallaho turned and pushed the speaker back through the opening into the passage. Startled faces watched them climbing through.
“Forester!” he cried. “Up to the room in the wooden outbuilding. We want all the rope and all the ladder you have!”
“Right!” said Forester, whose usually fresh colouring had quite deserted him, and set off at a run.
Gallaho turned to Trench.
“Did you notice the heat coming up from that place?”
Trench nodded, moistening his dry lips.
“And the smell?”
“I don’t like to think about the smell, Inspector,” he said unsteadily.
At which moment:
“Inspector Gallaho!” came a cry, “you’re wanted on the telephone upstairs.”
“What’s this?” growled Gallaho and ran off.
It was possible to make oneself heard in the corridor, and: “I believe that place leads down to hell,” said Trench. “If so it will run the Thames dry.”
“What’s the inspector’s idea about a rope ladder, Sergeant?”
“I don’t know, unless he thinks he can swing clear of the waterfall to a lower platform. He’s a braver man than I am if he is going to try it.”
There were muttered questions and doubtful answers; fearful glances cast upward at the roof of the passage. Schumann and the works manager had gone out and around to the river front, to endeavour to locate the spot at which the water was entering the cellars.
And now, came Merton, the exA.B. trailing a long rope ladder. As he reached the passage way he pulled up, brushing perspiration from his eyes, and:
“Here I say!” he exclaimed, staring at the spray-masked gap beside the iron door. “I’m not going in there for anybody!”
“You haven’t been asked to,” came Gallaho’s growling voice.
All turned as the detective-inspector came along the dimly lighted passage with his curious, lurching walk.
“Any news?” Trench asked.
“The Old Man’s on his way down.” (The Old Man referred to was the Commissioner of Police.) Dr. Petrie’s with him— the girl’s father.”
“Whew!” whistled Trench.
“The queer thing is, though, that the girl’s turned up.”
“What!”
“She’s at Sir Denis’s flat; they had the report at the Yard only a few minutes ago.”
He divested himself of his tightly fitting blue overcoat, and, turning to Merton:
“I want you to come through there with me,” he said, “because you understand knots and ropes, and I can rely on you. I want you to lash that ladder where I’ll show you to lash it.”
“But I say, Gallaho!” Forester exclaimed . . .