Wallace Edgar
The Secret House

If T. B. Smith had followed him here, and if he had taken the drastic step of surrounding the house with police, there was hope that he might be rescued from his present unhappy plight. If not, he had the promise which Farrington had given of his release on terms.

He heard the whirr of the descending lift; this time it was the elevator by which he himself had descended. It came to a halt at the floor level and the steel gates swung open invitingly. He must take his chance; anyway, anything was better than remaining in this underground room.

He stepped into the lift and pulled the gates close after him. To his surprise they answered readily, and as the lock snapped the lift went upwards slowly. Two overhanging electric lamps illuminated the little elevator. They were dangerous to him. With the steel barrel of his pistol he smashed the bulbs and crouched down in the darkness, his finger on the trigger, ready for any emergency.

T. B. Smith was standing in the hall, and behind him three hard-featured men from the Yard. Before him was Dr. Fall, imperturbable and obeying as ever.

"You are perfectly at liberty to search the house," he was saying, "and, as far as Count Poltavo is concerned, there is no mystery whatever. He is one of the people who have been attracted here by curiosity, and at the present moment he is inspecting the wonders of our beautiful establishment."

There was something of truth in his ironic tone, and T. B. was puzzled.

"Will you kindly produce Count Poltavo?"

"With pleasure," said the secretary.

It was at that moment that the lift door opened and Poltavo stepped out, pistol in hand.

He saw the group and took in its significance. He had now to decide in that moment with whom he should run. His mind was made up quickly; he knew he had no friends in the police force; whatever prosperity awaited him must come from Farrington and his influence.

"An interesting weapon you have in your hand, Count," drawled T. B. "Do I understand that you have been inspecting the art treasures of the Secret House in some fear of your life?"

"Not at all," said Poltavo, as he slipped the pistol into his pocket. "I have merely been engaged in a little pistol practice in the underground shooting gallery; it is an interesting place; you should see it."

Dr. Fall's eyes did not leave the face of his late prisoner, and Poltavo saw an approving gleam in the dark eyes.

"I should not, ordinarily, take the trouble to inspect your shooting gallery," said T. B. Smith with a smile, "because I know that you are not speaking the exact truth, Count Poltavo. My own impression is that you have every reason to be thankful for my arrival. In the present circumstances, perhaps, it would be advisable to look over a portion of your domain which, so far, has escaped my inspection."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"It is hardly a shooting gallery, but since it is so far removed from the living portion of the house we sometimes use it for that purpose," he said. "I have not the slightest objection to your descending."

T. B. entered the lift. It was in darkness, as a result of Poltavo's precautions.

"I will go alone," said T. B., and Fall, with a little bow, closed the gates, and the lift descended.

They waited some time; Fall had the power, from where he was, of closing the gates below and bringing the lift up again. This Poltavo knew to his cost, but there were good reasons why the doctor should not exercise his knowledge, and in a few minutes the lift came back to its original position and T. B. stepped out.

"Thank you, I have learned all I want to know," he said with a keen glance at Poltavo. "Really, you have an extraordinary house, Dr. Fall."

"It is always open to your inspection," said the doctor, with a heavy smile.

T. B. was fingering the little electric lamp, which he carried in his hand, in an absent-minded manner. Presently he put it into his pocket, and, with a nod to his host, walked across the hall. He turned suddenly and addressed Poltavo.

"When you were trapped in this house," he said, quietly, "and expected considerable trouble in escaping from the trap, you took the precaution, like the careful man that you are, of inscribing a message which might aid those who came to your relief. This message has now served its purpose," he smiled, as he saw the look of consternation on Poltavo's face, "and you will be well advised to invite your friend to wipe it out"; and with another nod he passed from the house, followed by his three men.

"What does this mean?" asked Fall, quickly.

"I – I – " stammered Poltavo, flustered for once in his life, "wrote on the side of the lift a few words only, nothing incriminating, my dear doctor, just a line to say that I was imprisoned below."

With a curse Fall dashed into the little elevator.

"Bring a light," he said, and struck a match to read the scrawl which Poltavo had written. Fortunately there was nothing in it which betrayed the great secret of the house, but it was enough, as he realized, to awaken the dormant suspicion, even supposing it was dormant, of this indefatigable detective.

"You have made a nice mess of things," he said to Poltavo, sternly; "see that you do not make a greater. We will forgive you once, but the second attempt will be fatal."

CHAPTER XII

The distant chime of Little Bradley church had struck one o'clock, when T. B. Smith stepped from the shadow of the hedge on the east side of the Secret House, and walked slowly toward the road. Two men, crouched in the darkness, rose silently to meet him.

"I think I have found a place," said T. B., in a low voice. "As I thought, there are electric alarms on the top of the walls, and electric wires threaded through all the hedges. There is a break, however, where, I think, I can circumvent the alarm."

He led the way back to the place from which he had been making his reconnaissance.

"Here it is," said T. B.

He touched a thin twine-like wire with his finger. The third man put the concentrated ray of an electric lamp upon it.

"I can make another circuit for this," he said, and pulled a length of wire from his pocket. Two minutes later, thanks to quick manipulation of his wire, they were able to step in safety across the wall and drop noiselessly into the grounds.

"We shall find a man on duty," whispered T. B.; "he is patrolling the house, and I have an idea that there are trip-wires on the lawn."

He had fixed a funnel-like arrangement to the head of his lamp, and now he carefully scrutinized the ground as he walked forward. The funnel was so fixed that it showed no light save on the actual patch of ground he was surveying.

"Here is one," he said, suddenly.

The party stepped cautiously over the almost invisible line of wire, supported a few inches from the ground by steel uprights, placed at regular intervals.

"They fix these every night after sunset; I have watched them doing it," said T. B. "There is another line nearer the house."

They found this, too, and carefully negotiated it.

"Down!" whispered T. B. suddenly, and the party sank flat on the turf.

Ela for a moment could not see the cause for alarm, but presently he discerned the slow moving figure of the sentry as it passed between them and the house. The man was walking leisurely along, and even in the starlight they could see the short rifle slung at his shoulder. They waited until he had disappeared round the corner of the house, and then crossed the remaining space of lawn. T. B. had been carrying a little canvas bag, and now he put his hand inside and withdrew by the ears a struggling rabbit.

"Little friend," he whispered, "You must be sacrificed in the cause of scientific criminal investigation."

He mounted the steps which led to the entrance hall. The steel-beaded curtain still hung before the door almost brushing the mat as he had seen it. He released the rabbit, and the startled beast, after a vain attempt to escape back to the lawn, went with hesitating hop on to the mat, and then, at a threatening gesture from T. B., pushed his nose to the hanging curtain to penetrate his way to safety. Instantly as he touched it there was a quick flicker of blue light, and the unfortunate animal was hurled back past T. B. to the gravel path below. The detective descended hastily and picked it up. It was quite dead. He felt the singed hair about its head, and murmured a sympathetic "vale."

"As I suspected," he said in a low voice, "an electric death-trap for anybody trying to get into the house that way. Now, Johnson."

The third man was busy pulling out a pair of rubber boots; he took from his pocket a pair of thick rubber gloves, and made his way with confidence up the steps. He leant down and tried to pull the mat from its place, but that was impossible. He gathered up the beads cautiously with his hands; he was free, by reason of his boots and his hand-covering, from the danger of a shock, but he took good care that no portion of the curtain touched any other part of his body. Very cautiously he drew the bead "chick" aside, looping it back by means of strong rubber bands, and then T. B. went forward. In the meantime he had followed the other's example, and had drawn stout rubber goloshes over his feet and had put on gloves of a similar material. The lock that he had noticed earlier in the day was of a commonplace type; the only danger was that the inmates had taken the precaution of bolting or chaining the door, but apparently they were content with the protection which their electric curtain might reasonably be expected to afford. The door opened after a brief manipulation of keys, and T. B. stepped into the hall. He listened, all his senses strained, for the sound of a warning bell, but none came. Ela and the other man followed.

"Better remain in the hall," said T. B. "We shall have to chance the guard not noticing what has happened to the curtain, anyway; perhaps he will not be round for some time," he added, hopefully.

They made a quick scrutiny of the hall, and found no indication of cables or of wires which would suggest that an alarm had been fixed. T. B. stole carefully up the stairs, leaving the two men to guard the hall below. At every landing he halted, and listened, but the house was wrapped in silence, and he searched the third floor without mishap.

He recognized the corridor, having taken very careful note of certain peculiarities, and a scratch on the side of the lift door, which he had mentally noted for future reference, showed him he was on the right track.

Unerringly and swiftly he passed along the passage till he came to the big rosewood doors which opened upon the invalid's bedroom. He turned the handle gently, it yielded, and he stepped noiselessly through the door, and pushed the inner door cautiously. The room was dimly illuminated, evidently by a night light, thought T. B., and he pressed the door farther open that he might secure a better view of the apartment, and then he gasped, for this was not the room he had been in before.

It was a sumptuously arranged bureau, panelled in rosewood, and set about with costly furniture. A man was sitting at the desk, busily writing by the light of a table lamp; his back was toward T. B. The detective pushed the door farther open, and suddenly the man at the desk leapt up, and turning round, confronted the midnight visitor.

T. B. had only time to see that his face was hidden behind a black mask which extended from his forehead to his chin. As soon as he saw T. B. standing in the doorway, he reached out his hand. Instantly the room was in darkness, and the door, which T. B. was holding ajar, was suddenly forced back as if by an irresistible power, flinging the detective into the corridor, which almost simultaneously was flooded with light. T. B. turned to meet the smiling face of Dr. Fall.

The big man, with his white, expressionless countenance, was regarding him gravely, and with amused resentment.

Where he had come from T. B. could only conjecture; he had appeared as if by magic and was fully dressed.

"To what do I owe the honour of this visit, Mr. Smith?" he said, in his dry, grim way.

"A spirit of curiosity," said T. B., coolly. "I was anxious to secure another peep at your Mr. Moole."

"And how did he look?" asked the other, with a faint smile.

"Unfortunately," said T. B., "I have mistaken the floor, and instead of seeing our friend, I have unexpectedly and quite unwittingly interrupted a gentleman who, for reasons best known to himself, has hidden his face."

Dr. Fall frowned.

"I do not quite follow you," he said.

"Perhaps if I were to follow you back to the room," said T. B. good-humouredly, "you might understand better."

He heard a strange wailing sound and a shivering motion beneath his feet, as though a heavy traction engine were passing close to the house.

"What is that?" he asked.

"It is one of the unpleasant consequences of building one's house over a disused coal-mine," said the doctor easily; "but as regards your strange hallucination," he went on, "I should rather like to disabuse your mind of your fantastic vision."

He walked slowly back to the room which T. B. had quitted, and the inner door yielded to his touch. It was in darkness. Dr. Fall put his hand inside the room and there was a click of a switch.

"Come in," he said, and T. B. stepped into the room.

It was the room he had left in the earlier part of the day. There was the blue square of carpet and the silver bedstead, and the same yellow face and unwinking eyes of the patient. The walls were panelled in myrtle, the same electrolier hung from the ceiling as he had seen on his previous visit. Smith gasped, and passed his hand over his forehead.

"You see," said the secretary, "you have been the victim of a peculiar and unhappy trick of eyesight; in fact, Mr. Smith, may I suggest that you have been dreaming?"

"You may suggest just what you like," said T. B. pleasantly. "I should like to see the room below and the room above."

"With pleasure," said the other; "there is a storeroom up above which you may see if you wish."

He led the way upstairs, unlocked the door of the room immediately over that which they had just left, and entered. The room was bare, and the plain deal floor, the distempered walls, and the high skylight showed it to be just as the doctor had described, a typical storeroom.

"You do not seem to use it," said T. B.

"We are very tidy people," smiled the doctor; "and now you shall see the room below."

As they went down the stairs again they heard the curious wail, and T. B. experienced a tremulous jar which he had noted before.

"Unpleasant, is it not?" said Dr. Fall. "I was quite alarmed at that at first, but it has no unpleasant consequences."

On the second floor he entered the third room, immediately below that in which the sick Mr. Moole was lying. He unlocked this door and they entered a well-furnished bedroom; on a more elaborate scale than that which T. B. had seen before.

"This is our spare bedroom," said Dr. Fall, easily; "we seldom use it."

T. B. slipped into the apartment and made a quick scrutiny. There was nothing of a suspicious character here.

"I hope you are satisfied now," said Dr. Fall as he led the way out, "and that your two friends below are not growing impatient."

"You have seen them, then," said T. B.

"I have seen them," said the other gravely. "I saw them a few moments after you entered the hall. You see, Mr. Smith," he went on, "we do not employ anything so vulgar as bells to alarm us. When the entrance door opens, a red light shows above my bed. Unfortunately, the moment you came in I happened to be in an adjoining room at work. I had to go into my bedroom to get a paper, when I saw the light. So, though I am perhaps inaccurate in saying that I have been keeping you under observation from the moment you arrived, there was little you did which was not witnessed. I will show you, if you will be good enough to accompany me to my room."

"I shall be delighted," said T. B.

He was curious to learn anything that the house or its custodian could teach him. Dr. Fall's room was on the first floor, immediately over the entrance hall, a plain office with a door leading to a cosily, though comparatively expensively furnished bedroom. By the side of the doctor's bed was a round pillar, which looked for all the world like one of those conventional and useless articles of furniture which the suburban housewife employs to balance a palm upon.

"Look down into that," said the doctor.

T. B. obeyed. It was quite hollow, and a little way down was what appeared to be a square sheet of silver paper. It was unlike any other silver paper because it appeared to be alive. He could see figures standing against it, two figures that he had no difficulty in recognizing as Ela and Johnson.

"It is a preparation of my own," said the doctor. "I thought of taking out a patent for it. An adjustment of mirrors throws the image upon a luminous screen which is so sensitive to light that it can record an impression of your two friends even in the semi-darkness of the hall."

"Thank you," said T. B.

There was nothing to do but to accept his defeat as graciously as possible. For baffled he was, caught at every turn, and puzzled, moreover, by his extraordinary experience.

"You will find some difficulty in opening the door," said the pleasant Doctor Fall.

"In that I think you are mistaken," smiled T. B.

The doctor stopped to switch on the light, and the two discomforted detectives watched the scene curiously.

"We have left the door ajar."

"Still I think you will find a difficulty in getting out," insisted the other. "Open the door."

Ela pulled at it, but it was impossible to move the heavy oaken panel.

"Electrically controlled," said the doctor; "and you can neither move it one way nor the other. It is an ingenious idea of mine, for which I may also apply for a patent one of these days."

He took a key from his pocket and inserted it in an almost invisible hole in the oak panelling of the hall; instantly the door opened slowly.

"I wish you a very good night," said Doctor Fall, as they stood on the steps. "I hope we shall meet again."

"You may be sure," said T. B. Smith, grimly, "that we shall."

CHAPTER XIII

Doris Gray was face to face with a dilemma. She stood in a tragic position; even now, she could not be sure that her guardian was dead. But dead or alive, he had left her a terrible problem, for terrible it seemed to her, for solution.

She liked Frank Doughton well enough, but she was perhaps too young, had too small a knowledge of the great elements of life to appreciate fully her true feelings in the matter; and then the influence of this polished man of the world, this Count of the Roman Empire as he described himself, with his stories of foreign capitals, his easy conversation, his acquaintance with all the niceties of social intercourse, had made a profound impression upon her. At the moment, she might not say with any certainty, whether she preferred the young Englishman or this suave man of the world.

The balance was against Frank, and the command contained in the will, the knowledge that she must, so she told herself, make something of a sacrifice, was a subject for resentment. Not even the sweetest girl in the world, obeying as she thought the command of a dead man, who was especially fond and proud of her, could be compensated for the fact that he had laid upon her his dead hands, charging her to obey a command which might very easily be repugnant and hateful to her.

She did not, in truth, wish to marry anybody. She could well afford to allow the question of her fortune to lapse; she had at least five years in which to make up her mind, as to how she felt toward Frank Doughton. She liked him, there was something especially invigorating and wholesome in his presence and in his very attitude towards her. He was so courteous, so kindly, so full of quick, strong sympathy and yet – there were some depths he could not touch, she told herself, and was vague herself as to what those depths were.

She was strolling in Green Park on a glorious April morning, in a complacent mood, for the trees were in fresh green bud and the flower beds were a blaze of colour, when she met Frank, and Frank was so obviously exhilarated that something of his enthusiasm was conveyed to her. He saw her before she had seen him, and came with quickening footsteps toward her.

"I say," he said explosively, "I have some splendid news!"

"Let us sit down," she said, with a kindly smile, and made a place for him by her side on a bench near by. "Now, what is this wonderful news?"

"You remember Mr. Farrington gave me a commission to find the missing heir of Tollington?"

She nodded.

"Well, I have found him," he said, triumphantly; "it is an extraordinary thing," he went on, "that I should have done so, because I am not a detective. I told Mr. Farrington quite a long time ago that I never expected to make any discovery which would be of any use to him. You see Mr. Farrington was not able to give me any very definite data to work on. It appears that old Tollington had a nephew, the son of his dead sister, and it was to this nephew that his fortune was left. Tollington's sister had been engaged to a wealthy Chicago stockbroker, and the day before the wedding she had run away with an Englishman, with whom her family was acquainted, but about whom they knew very little. She guessed that he was a ne'er-do-well, who had come out to the States to redeem his fallen fortune. But he was not a common adventurer apparently, for he not only refused to communicate with the girl's parents, although he knew they were tremendously wealthy, but he never allowed them to know his real name. It appears that he was in Chicago under a name which was not his own. From that moment they lost sight of him. In a roundabout way they learned that he had gone back to England and that he had by his own efforts and labours established himself there. This news was afterwards confirmed. The girl was in the habit of writing regularly to her parents, giving neither her surname nor address. They answered through the columns of the London Times. That is how, though they knew where she was situated, all efforts to get in touch with her proved to be unavailing; and when her parents died, and her brother renewed his search, he was met with a blank wall. You see," Frank went on, a little naïvely, "it is quite impossible to discover anybody when their name is not even known to one."

"I see," smiled the girl; "and have you succeeded where all these people have failed?"

"I have hardly progressed so far as that," he laughed. "What I have discovered is this: that the man, who seventy years ago left the United States with the sister of old Tollington, lived for some years in Great Bradley."

"Great Bradley!" she said, in surprise; "why, isn't that where Lady Constance Dex lives?"

He nodded.

"Everybody seems to live there," he said, ruefully; "even our friend," he hesitated.

"Our friend?" she repeated, inquiringly.

"Your friend Poltavo is there now," he said, "permanently established as the guest of Dr. Fall. You have heard of the Secret House? – but everybody in England has heard of it."

"I am afraid that everybody does not include me," she smiled, "but go on with your story; how did you find that he lived in Great Bradley?"

"Well, it was rather a case of luck," he explained. "You see, I lived some years in Great Bradley myself; that is where I first met your uncle. I was a little boy at the time. But it wasn't my acquaintance with Great Bradley which helped me. Did you see in the paper the other day the fact that, in pulling down an old post office building, a number of letters were discovered which had evidently slipped through the floor of the old letter-box, and had not been delivered?"

"I read something about it," she smiled; "forty or fifty years old, were they not?"

He nodded.

"One of these," he said, quietly, "was addressed to Tollington, and was signed by his sister. I saw it this morning at the General Post Office. I happened to spot the paragraph, which was sent in to my paper, to the effect that these letters had been undelivered for forty or fifty years, and fortunately our correspondent at Great Bradley had secured a list of the addresses. I saw that one of these was to George Tollington of Chicago, and on the off chance I went down to Great Bradley. Thanks to the courtesy of the Postmaster-General I was able to copy the letter. It was a short one."

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper.

"Dear George," he read, "this is just to tell you that we are quite well and prosperous. I saw your advertisement in the Times newspaper and was pleased to hear from you. Henry sends to you his kindest regards and duties.

"Your loving sister,

"Annie."

"Of course, it is not much to go on," he said apologetically, folding the letter up and replacing it in his pocket. "I suppose Great Bradley has had a constant procession of Annies, but at any rate it is something."

"It is indeed," she smiled.

"It means quite a lot to me, or at least it did," he corrected himself. "I had an arrangement with your uncle, which was approved by the other trustees of the estate. It means a tremendous lot," he repeated. There was some significance in his tone and she looked up to him quickly.

"In money?" she asked.

"In other things," he said, lowering his voice. "Doris, I have not had an opportunity of saying how sorry I am about the will; it is hateful that you should be forced by the wishes of your guardian to take a step which may be unpleasant to you."

She coloured a little and turned her eyes away.

"I – I do not want to take advantage of that wish," he went on awkwardly. "I want you to be happy. I want you to come to me for no other reason than the only one that is worth while; that you have learned to care for me as I care for you."

Still she made no response and he sighed heavily.

"Some day," he said, wistfully, "I had hoped to bring in my hands all the material advantages which a man can offer to the woman he loves."

"And do you think that would make a difference?" she asked quickly.

"It would make this difference," he replied, in the same quiet tone, "that you could not think of me as one who loved you for your fortune, or one who hoped to gain anything from the marriage but the dearest, sweetest woman in the world."

The eyes which she turned upon him were bright with unshed tears.

"I do not know how I feel, Frank," she said. "I am almost as much a mystery to myself as I must be to you. I care for you in a way, but I am not sure that I care for you as you would like me to."

"Is there anybody else?" he asked, after a pause.

She avoided his glance, and sat twining the cord of her sunshade about her fingers.

"There is nobody else – definitely," she said.

"Or tentatively?" he insisted.

"There are always tentative people in life," she smiled, parrying his question. "I think, Frank, you stand as great a chance as anybody." She shrugged her shoulders. "I speak as though I were some wonderful prize to be bestowed; I assure you I do not feel at all like that. I have a very humble opinion of my own qualities. I do not think I have felt so meek or so modest about my own qualities as I do just now."

He walked with her to the end of the park, and saw her into a taxicab, standing on the pavement and watching as she was whirled into the enveloping traffic, out of sight.

As for Doris Gray, she herself was suffering from some uneasiness of mind. She needed a shock to make her realize one way or the other where her affections lay. Poltavo loomed very largely; his face, his voice, the very atmosphere which enveloped him, was constantly present with her.

She reached Brakely Square and would have passed straight up to her room, but the butler, with an air of importance, stopped her.

"I have a letter here, miss. It is very urgent. The messenger asked that it should be placed in your hands at the earliest possible moment."

She took the letter from him. It was addressed to her in typewritten characters. She stripped the envelope and found yet another inside. On it was typewritten:

"Read this letter when you are absolutely alone. Lock the door and be sure that nobody is near when you read it."

She raised her pretty eyebrows. What mystery was this? she asked. Still, she was curious enough to carry out the request. She went straight to her own room, opened the envelope, and took out a letter containing half a dozen lines of writing.

She gasped, and went white, for she recognized the hand the moment her eyes fell upon it. The letter she held in her shaking hand ran:

"I command you to marry Frank Doughton within seven days. My whole fortune and my very life may depend upon this."

It was signed "Gregory Farrington," and heavily underlined beneath the signature were the words, "Burn this, as you value my safety."

***

T. B. Smith stepped briskly into the office of his chief and closed the door behind him.

"What is the news?" asked Sir George, looking up.

"I can tell you all the news that I know," said T. B., "and a great deal that I do not know, but only surmise."

"Let us hear the facts first and the romance afterwards," growled Sir George, leaning back in his chair.

"Fact one," said T. B. drawing up a chair to the table, and ticking off his fact on the first finger of his hand, "is that Gregory Farrington is alive. The man whose body was picked up in the Thames is undoubtedly the gentleman who was shot in the raid upon the Custom House. The inference is, that Gregory was the second party in the raid, and that the attempt to secure the trunk of the admirable Dr. Goldworthy was carefully conceived. The box apparently contained a diary which gave away Gregory to one who had it in her power to do him an immense amount of harm."

"You refer to Lady Constance Dex?" asked the chief, interestedly.

T. B. nodded.

"That is the lady," he said. "Evidently Farrington has played it pretty low down upon her; was responsible for the death of her lover, and, moreover, for a great deal of her unhappiness. Farrington was the man who told George Doughton about some scandal of her youth, and Doughton, that high-spirited man, went straight off to Africa without communicating with the lady or discovering how far she was guilty in the matter. The documents in the box would, I surmise, prove this to Lady Dex's satisfaction, and Farrington, who was well informed through his agents on the Coast, would have every reason for preventing these letters getting into the hands of a woman who would be remorseless in her vengeance."