Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 14

"If you cannot wait," replied Fridji, "you must go without."

"You must not speak to me like that. You know very well that parlour-maids say 'ma'am' and are expected to be respectful."

"Parlour-maids! I am no parlour-maid."

"Indeed?" said Amaryllis.

"Here--I am mistress!"

"Oh!" said Amaryllis.

"And you are prisoner--I tell you."

"Yes?" said Amaryllis. "I'm afraid you've let yourself be dragged into a very wicked crime for which you will be severely punished."

"Punis.h.!.+ To punish _me_! Drag in! But me? Me? Me? I am not dragged. I lead."

"Really?" said Amaryllis.

"The head is mine. I plan. And, because you will never leave this place I do not mind to tell you that it is I have done it. All this. We have the New Drug. I hold the man that shall make it and sell it. I am the leader. I get the key. I catch you by the throat, there in The Manor House, my pretty, red-haired mistress! I catch you while my Melchard, who is clever, p.r.i.c.k your arm with the needle. I--I--I!"

"Oh, yes," said Amaryllis. "But I do not think you are wise to tell all this to me."

"Because you tell again? Oh, no, ma'am! I squeeze harder next time--and there are other things. This is good old establish firm, no risk taken."

And Dutch Fridji came slowly towards Amaryllis.

"You make love with my Alban," she said, "an' I stop it." Lifting her skirt, she fetched from a sheath in her stocking a sharp-pointed knife.

"I have enough of you. Two months I must say 'ma'am'! And now, it is Alban!"

"You mean to kill me?" asked Amaryllis.

Dutch Fridji was like the nightmare vision of a Fury.

For a moment Amaryllis was paralyzed. But Fridji liked the clatter of her own tongue.

"It is that I mean," she said. "To kill you very slow. Your beautiful frock, it burn now. Soon your shoes, your stockings, your long petticoat, the corset shall burn, till there shall not be a shred they can say was yours. And then the body shall be burned--but first carve and chopped like meat at table."

Amaryllis gasped and shuddered, giving fuel to the blaze, so that it crackled once more into fierce indiscretion.

"I tell you things. Oh, yes, I tell. For the last one that died--it was a pity. He did not know before--knew not ever what was coming to him and to each part of him. That spoil the flavour of my dish, do you see?"

A flourish of the knife put expressive finish to the words.

Amaryllis backed into the corner between bed and door, speaking any word that came. On equal terms she would have fought for life like a cat, but the knife----

"Mr. Melchard doesn't want me to be killed," she said.

For a moment Fridji's rage choked her.

"I'll scream, and he'll come with his men."

"With this I have sent him running from your door," cried Fridji. "It is locked this side, and you will bleed to die before they break it."

Not rus.h.i.+ng, but creeping, Dutch Fridji approached.

Amaryllis raised her eyes towards the window and the strip of sky it framed, in silent supplication. And already, half through the window, she saw her answer.

And Fridji saw her victim's face flush with hope, and turned to see its cause.

Through the opening which Amaryllis had left between sill and sash, his hands on the floor, his chin almost touching it, while his legs from knee to feet were still outside the window, she saw d.i.c.k Bellamy.

Fridji, with blood in her mind, knife in her hand, and the proof of Amaryllis' face that this was an enemy, sprang to deal with the defenceless intruder.

Amaryllis had seen the lank black hair, no longer sleek, and had received one gleam from the uplifted blue eyes; and now knew terror such as she had not felt even for herself.

Nothing, it seemed, could come between the knife and d.i.c.k Bellamy--d.i.c.k who had come to her. And then she saw his left arm dart forward--an arm that seemed, on the floor, to shoot out to twice its natural length--and its fingers gripped Fridji's left ankle, jerking it towards him.

The woman fell backwards, and Amaryllis caught her from behind.

"Stop her mouth," said d.i.c.k from the floor.

And the girl, her long hands almost meeting round Fridji's slender neck, squeezed with all her strength, forcing the head and shoulders to the ground.

Fridji gaped for breath.

"Stuff her mouth--blanket," said d.i.c.k, with his feet almost clear of the window-sill, yet keeping his hold on the ankle.

Amaryllis forced the corner of the coverlet between Fridji's teeth and held it there, keeping up the pressure of the other hand on the throat.

"That's what they did to me," she thought.

d.i.c.k stood beside her.

"Change with me," he whispered, and slid his left hand round the front of Dutch Fridji's neck. Amaryllis stood up.

By the hold of his left, d.i.c.k raised the woman almost to her feet and, measuring his distance, struck her with his right fist on the left side of the neck directly below the ear--a short, sharp blow, the sound of which affected the watching girl with a pang of physical sickness.

It might have been the noise made by a butcher flinging a slab of raw steak upon his block.

d.i.c.k let the woman's body gently back to the floor, and Amaryllis saw that she was unconscious as a corpse.

"Is she dead?" she said softly.

"For five minutes--p'r'aps ten," he answered. "Where's the key?"

Amaryllis picked it up from the floor.