The Black Box Part 25

"The young lady who shut Craig up in the garage, you mean? A plucky young woman she must be."

"She has a great many other good qualities besides courage," Quest declared. "Women have not counted for much with me, Professor, up till now, any more than they have done, I should think, with you, but I tell you frankly, if any one has hurt a hair of that girl's head I will have their lives, whatever the penalty may be! It is for her sake--to find her--that I broke out of prison and that I am trying to keep free. The wisest thing to do, from my own point of view, would be to give myself up.

I can't bring myself to do that without knowing what has become of her."

The Professor nodded again.

"A charming and well-bred young woman she seems," he admitted. "I fear that I should only be a bungler in your profession, Mr. Quest, but if there is anything I can do to help you to discover her whereabouts, you can count upon me. Personally, I am convinced that Craig will return to me with some plausible explanation as to what has happened. In that case he will doubtless bring news of the young lady."

Quest, for the third or fourth time, moved cautiously towards the window.

His expression suddenly changed. He glanced downwards, frowning slightly.

An alert light flashed into his eyes.

"They're after me!" he exclaimed. "Sit still, Professor."

He darted into his room and reappeared again almost immediately. The Professor gave a gasp of astonishment at his altered appearance. His tweed suit seemed to have been turned inside out. There were no lapels now and it was b.u.t.toned up to his neck. He wore a long white ap.r.o.n; a peaked cap and a chin-piece of astonis.h.i.+ng naturalness had transformed him into the semblance of a Dutch grocer's boy.

"I'm off, Professor," Quest whispered. "You shall hear from me soon. I have not been here, remember!"

He ran lightly down the steps and into the kitchen, picked up a basket, filled it haphazard with vegetables and threw a cloth over the top. Then he made his way to the front door, peered out for a moment, swung through it on to the step, and, turning round, commenced to belabour it with his fist. Two plain-clothes men stood at the end of the street. A police automobile drew up outside the gate. Inspector French, attended by a policeman, stepped out. The former looked searchingly at Quest.

"Well, my boy, what are you doing here?" he asked.

"I cannot answer get," Quest replied, in broken English. "Ten minutes already have I wasted. I have knocked at all the doors."

French smiled.

"You can hop it, Dutchie," he advised. "By-the-bye, when was that order for vegetables given?" he added, frowning for a moment.

"It is three times a week the same," Quest explained, whipping the cloth from the basket. "No word has been sent to alter anything."

The Inspector pushed him hurriedly in the direction of the street.

"You run along home," he said, "and tell your master that he had better leave off delivering goods here for the present."

Quest went off, grumbling. He walked with the peculiar waddle affected by young Dutchmen of a certain cla.s.s, and was soon out of sight round the corner of the street. French opened the door with a masterkey and secured it carefully, leaving one of his men to guard it. He searched the rooms on the ground floor and finally ascended to Quest's study. The Professor was still enjoying his cigar.

"Say, where's Quest?" the Inspector asked promptly.

"Have you let him out already?" the Professor replied, in a tone of mild surprise. "I thought he was in the Tombs prison."

The Inspector pressed on without answering. Every room in the house was ransacked. Presently he came back to the room where the Professor was still sitting. His usually good-humoured face was a little clouded.

"Professor," he began--"What's that, Miles?"

A plain-clothes man from the street had come hurrying into the room.

"Say, Mr. French," he reported, "our fellows have got hold of a newsie down in the street, who was coming along way round the back and saw two men enter this house by the side entrance, half-an-hour ago. One he described exactly as the Professor here. The other, without a doubt, was Quest."

French turned swiftly towards the Professor.

"You hear what this man says?" he exclaimed. "Mr. Ashleigh, you're fooling me! You entered this house with Sanford Quest. You must tell us where he is hiding."

The Professor knocked the ash from his cigar and replaced it in his mouth.

His clasped hands rested in front of him. There was a twinkle of something almost like mirth in his eyes as he glanced up at the Inspector.

"Mr. French," he said, "Mr. Sanford Quest is my friend. I am here in charge of his house. Believing as I do that his arrest was an egregious blunder, I shall say or do nothing likely to afford you any information."

French turned impatiently away. Suddenly a light broke in upon him, he rushed towards the door.

"That d.a.m.ned Dutchie!" he exclaimed.

The Professor smiled benignly.

CHAPTER VII

THE UNSEEN TERROR

1.

With a little gesture of despair, Quest turned away from the instrument which seemed suddenly to have become so terribly unresponsive, and looked across the vista of square roofs and tangled ma.s.ses of telephone wires to where the lights of larger New York flared up against the sky. From his attic chamber, the roar of the City a few blocks away was always in his ears. He had forgotten in those hours of frenzied solitude to fear for his own safety. He thought only of Lenora. Under which one of those thousands of roofs was she being concealed? What was the reason for this continued silence? Perhaps they had taken her instrument away--perhaps she was being ill-used. The bare thought opened the door to a thousand grim and torturing surmises. He paced restlessly up and down the room. Inaction had never seemed to him so wearisome. From sheer craving to be doing something, he paused once more before the little instrument.

"Lenora, where are you?" he signalled. "I have taken a lodging in the Servants' Club. I am still in hiding, hoping that Craig may come here. I am very anxious about you."

Still no reply! Quest drew a chair up to the window and sat there with folded arms looking down into the street. Suddenly he sprang to his feet.

The instrument quivered--there was a message at last! He took it down with a little choke of relief.

"I don't know where I am. I am terrified. I was outside the garage when I was seized from behind. The Hands held me. I was unconscious until I found myself here. I am now in an attic room with no window except the skylight, which I cannot reach. I can see nothing--hear nothing. No one has hurt me, no one comes near. Food is pushed through a door, which is locked again immediately. The house seems empty, yet I fancy that I am being watched all the time. I am terrified!"

Quest drew the instrument towards him.

"I have your message," he signalled. "Be brave! I am watching for Craig.

Through him I shall reach you before long. Send me a message every now and then."

Then there was a silence.

Quest was conscious of an enormous feeling of relief and yet an almost maddening sense of helplessness. She was imprisoned by the Hands. She was in their power, and up till now they had shown themselves ruthless enough.

A room with a roof window only! How could she define her whereabouts! His first impulse was to rush madly out into the street and search for her.

Then his common sense intervened. His one hope was through Craig. Again he took up his vigil in front of the window. Once more his eyes swept the narrow street with its constant stream of pa.s.sers-by. Each time a man stopped and entered the building, he leaned a little further forward, and at each disappointment he seemed to realise a little more completely the slenderness of the chance upon which he was staking so much. Then suddenly he found himself gripping the window-sill in a momentary thrill of rare excitement. His vigil was rewarded at last. The man for whom he was waiting was there! Quest watched him cross the street, glance furtively to the right and to the left, then enter the club. He turned back to the little wireless and his fingers worked as though inspired.

"I am on Craig's track," he signalled. "Be brave."

He waited for no reply, but opened the door and stealing softly out of the room, leaned over the banisters. His apartment was on the fourth story.

The floor below was almost entirely occupied by the kitchen and other offices. The men's club room was on the second floor. From where he stood he heard the steward of the club greeting Craig. He was a big man with a hearty voice, and the sound of his words reached Quest distinctly.