The Black Box Part 6

The girl nodded. She understood. She led Lenora from the room. Quest resumed his breakfast. A few minutes later, Inspector French was announced. Quest nodded in friendly manner.

"Some coffee, Inspector?"

"I'd rather have those diamonds!" the Inspector replied.

Quest threw them lightly across the table.

"Catch hold, then."

The Inspector whistled.

"Say, that's bright work," he acknowledged. "I believe I could have laid my hands on the man, but it was the jewels that I was afraid of losing."

"Just so," Quest remarked. "And now, French, will you be here, please, at midnight with three men, armed."

"Here?" the Inspector repeated.

Quest nodded.

"Our friend," he said, "is going to be mad enough to walk into h.e.l.l, even, when he finds out what he thinks has happened."

"It wasn't any of Jimmy's lot?" the Inspector asked.

Sanford Quest shook his head.

"French," he said, "keep mum, but it was the elderly family retainer, Macdougal. I felt restless about him. He has lost the girl--he was married to her, by-the-bye--and the jewels. No fear of his slipping away. I shall have him here at the time I told you."

"You've a way of your own of doing these things, Mr. Quest," the Inspector admitted grudgingly.

"Mostly luck," Quest replied. "Take a cigar, and so long, Inspector. They want me to talk to Chicago on another little piece of business."

It was a few minutes before midnight when Quest parted the curtains of a room on the ground floor of his house in Georgia Square, and looked out into the snow-white street. Then he turned around and addressed the figure lying as though asleep upon the sofa by the fire.

"Lenora," he said, "I am going out. Stay here, if you please, until I return."

He left the room. For a few moments there was a profound silence. Then a white face was pressed against the window. There was a crash of gla.s.s. A man, covered with snow, sprang into the apartment. He moved swiftly to the sofa, and something black and ugly swayed in his hand.

"So you've deceived me, have you?" he panted. "Handed over the jewels, chucked me, and given me the double cross! Anything to say?"

A piece of coal fell on to the grate. Not a sound came from the sofa.

Macdougal leaned forward, his white face distorted with pa.s.sion. The life-preserver bent and quivered behind him, cut the air with a swish and crashed full upon the head.

The man staggered back. The weapon fell from his fingers. For a moment he was paralysed. There was no blood upon his hand, no cry--silence inhuman, unnatural! He looked again. Then the lights flashed out all around him.

There were two detectives in the doorway, their revolvers covering him,--Sanford Quest, with Lenora in the background. In the sudden illumination, Macdougal's horror turned almost to hysterical rage. He had wasted his fury upon a dummy! It was sawdust, not blood, which littered the couch!

"Take him, men," Quest ordered. "Hands up, Macdougal. Your number's up.

Better take it quietly."

The handcuffs were upon him before he could move. He was trying to speak, but the words somehow choked in his mouth.

"You can send a wireless to Lord Ashleigh," Quest continued, turning to French. "Tell him that the diamonds have been recovered and that his daughter's murderer is arrested."

"What about the young woman?" the Inspector asked.

Lenora stood in an att.i.tude of despair, her head downcast. She had turned a little away from Macdougal. Her hands were outstretched. It was as though she were expecting the handcuffs.

"You can let her alone," Sanford Quest said quietly. "A wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and besides, I need her. She is going to work for me."

Macdougal was already at the door, between the two detectives. He swung around. His voice was calm, almost clear--calm with the concentration of hatred.

"You are a wonderful man, Mr. Sanford Quest," he said. "Make the most of your triumph. Your time is nearly up."

"Keep him for a moment," Sanford Quest ordered. "You have friends, then, Macdougal, who will avenge you, eh?"

"I have no friends," Macdougal replied, "but there is one coming whose wit and cunning, science and skill are all-conquering. He will brush you away, Sanford Quest, like a fly. Wait a few weeks."

"You interest me," Quest murmured. "Tell me some more about this great master?"

"I shall tell you nothing," Macdougal replied. "You will hear nothing, you will know nothing. Suddenly you will find yourself opposed. You will struggle--and then the end. It is certain."

They led him away. Only Lenora remained, sobbing. Quest went up to her, laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"You've had a rough time, Lenora," he said, with strange gentleness.

"Perhaps the brighter days are coming."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LORD ASHLEIGH ACCUSES LENORA OF BEING IMPLICATED IN THE CRIME, BUT QUEST DECIDES TO THE CONTRARY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IAN MACDOUGAL IS GIVEN A LIFE SENTENCE FOR THE MURDER OF THE DAUGHTER OF LORD ASHLEIGH.]

CHAPTER III

THE HIDDEN HANDS

1.

Sanford Quest and Lenora stood side by side upon the steps of the Courthouse, waiting for the automobile which had become momentarily entangled in a string of vehicles. A little crowd of people were elbowing their way out on to the sidewalk. The faces of most of them were still shadowed by the three hours of tense drama from which they had just emerged. Quest, who had lit a cigar, watched them curiously.

"No need to go into Court," he remarked. "I could have told you, from the look of these people, that Macdougal had escaped the death sentence. They have paid their money--or rather their time, and they have been cheated of the one supreme thrill."

"Imprisonment for life seems terrible enough," Lenora whispered, shuddering.

"Can't see the sense of keeping such a man alive myself," Quest declared, with purposeful brutality. "It was a cruel murder, fiendishly committed."