How Jill Trelawney made a slip, and
there was a lot more paddling and
general merriment
1
LORD ESSENDEN shifted his feet.
More than ten minutes had passed since the Saint had left the room. Essenden's arms, wearied almost to paralysis by the strain of the position of surrender which he had been compelled to adopt, had sagged lower and lower until now they hung straight down and aching at his sides.
Jill Trelawney had permitted the movement — it was the only thing to do. Sheer fatigue enforced it. But she never let her eyes stray an inch from their relentless concentration, and the gun she held was as unwavering as if it had been gripped in the hand of an automaton. And Essenden was too wise to attempt to put into practice any of the bold bids for freedom that flashed in theory through his brain. He knew that, so far as Jill Trelawney was concerned, there could be little to choose between any of the possible excuses for rendering vacant the barony of Essenden in the county of Oxford.
But the time passed; and Jill Trelawney, tirelessly watching her prisoner, was troubled by the first stirrings of anxiety.
She owed much to Simon Templar. Whatever questions might be asked about her association with him, and the various conflicting debits and credits therein involved, there was one fact that stood away above all discussions or dispute. Forty-eight hours before, he had thrown up a new and promising career to rescue her from under the very nose of the law. That was an item on one side of the ledger which could hardly be cancelled by any number of contra accounts.
And still Simon Templar had not come back.
She had no idea what could have happened to him — if anything had happened. But it was not in her nature to dawdle along and hope for the best. He should have returned by then, and he had not returned. The reason for the delay might be made apparent in due course; but she was not inclined to leave it to chance.
"Essenden!"
Her voice crisped into the silence that had fallen upon the room with Simon Templar's exit; and Essenden started.
"The Saint has been gone a long time," said the girl — quietly and sufficiently.
"He may have met with some difficulty—"
"Or he may have met with some — accident."
The sentence was an accusation, and she was watching Essenden closely, but his face betrayed nothing.
"The slab in front of the safe may have stuck—"
"Then we'll go and help him to open it."
Essenden's eyes evaded her searching scrutiny.
"I don't see—"
"But I do!" She was sure now. "Essenden, you'll come down to that cellar — with me!"
A muscle twitched in the shadow of Essenden's drooping moustache; and again the girl spoke.
"You don't want to go down there. Exactly. There's " something down there which might be dangerous… Oh, yes, I saw it in your face! And that's why we're going."
She opened the door.
"March!"
"I don't—"
Jill Trelawney's eyebrows lowered over her frosty stare.
"I said — March!"
Essenden opened his mouth, and closed it again. He went to the door.
"Get a move on."
"It's your own funeral, if you insist on going down there."
"I do insist. Get on!"
He obeyed. The door under the main staircase was open, and the light was on. Essenden led straight to it; and Jill followed, tensely alert for the faintest hint of treachery. They went down the flight of steps. The iron-barred door at the far end of the wine cellar had also been left open by the Saint in his passage.
They followed the tunnel, with Essenden moving slowly and hesitantly in the lead, hardly spurred on by the girl's tongue, and Jill Trelawney keyed up to a tingling wariness. But he went on without an attempt at active resistance, and scrambled in front of her down the last ten yards of steep furrowed slope. She descended after him, slowly, with infinite precautions against a false step that might have given him a chance to turn the tables.
"Where now?"
"This is the cave."
He turned the angle of the passage, and she followed quickly.
But not quite quickly enough.
He had played his card superbly — with such an innocent naturalness had he vanished for one instant from her sight. But when she herself rounded the corner, she could not see him.
Then he stepped out of a dark crevice in the rock beside her, and grappled desperately.
He had a hold on her gun wrist before she could move. He was not really such a silly little man as the Saint had called him, and he was much too strong for her. His sudden vicious wrench at her wrist took her unawares, and her automatic clattered down to the stone.
He pushed her roughly away and picked up the gun.
"Now look at my cave!"
She retreated before him. He had changed completely. He was confident, cruel, bestial, transformed. He pointed.
"And Mr. Templar!"
She saw Simon Templar lay stretched out on the floor of the cavern. He was alive. She heard his breath come in a long tortured gasp. About his bare left ankle was locked a contrivance of shining steel, like a pair of skeleton jaws at the end of a length of chain which vanished into the dark stream beside him.
"An invention of my own," said Essenden, in a queerly high-pitched voice, "for the discouragement of poachers. But it has caught something better than a poacher tonight!"
He laughed, squeakily; and suddenly she realized that he was mad.
"Caught!" he babbled. "I hid it in the stream. Whatever happened, I meant to send him down here. Then he would have to step into the stream to get at the safe. Safe! I put that slab in yesterday, myself, just to catch him. I knew that when he didn't come back, you'd bring me down to look for him, and then I'd catch you as well. Those four men upstairs were only part of the surprise I had waiting for you. If I'd seemed too easy, you'd have suspected something. And didn't you see that that was why I pretended I didn't want to come down here? That was to make you all the more determined to bring me down. And it worked!"
He laughed again, a shrill giggle that pricked the hairs on the nape of the girl's neck.
"But he isn't moving!"
"Of course he isn't," leered Essenden. "It has a very strong spring, my little contrivance — and yet the turn of a small key will release it. I have the key in my pocket. But until the key is used, it will go on hurting."
"You — devil!"
The Saint turned his head with a set twisted smile on his lips.
"No vulgar abuse, Jill," he said huskily. "I haven't used any — and I've been lying here ten minutes, and I dropped my gun in the stream and couldn't find it again."
"My dear!"
"God bless you," said the Saint through his teeth, "for those kind words."
She ran to him, falling on her knees beside him, careless of what Essenden might do. The Saint's face was white with pain, but he kept smiling.
And he said, in a ghost of a whisper: "Liar — gun — left-hand coat pocket — you have it. Your need may yet be greater than mine, sister… Watch your chance—"
Essenden came closer. He flung out his left hand in a grandiose gesture.
"My little cave!" he cackled. "Look at it well, because it's the last thing you'll ever see. The tunnel was bricked up once, but I opened it up again — and this is what I found. But I've never explored it properly. You might get lost, and then if you were caught by the tide —"
He shook to another burst of maniacal merriment.
"You see, this is one shore of a huge underground lake, and it has its own tides, twice a day. When the tide comes up, it reaches nearly to the low part of the roof over your head. That's why the last few steps are so worn away. The water does that… It's long past low tide now. In less than two hours the tide will be up. Oh, yes, and you'll be here to see it… creeping up… while you're chained here. Till it comes right over your heads… up and up… and up—"
"And up," murmured the Saint.
"And you will be here — both of you." Essenden turned his pale eyes upon the girl. "Both of you. I'd have saved you, Jill, but you're too dangerous. You'll have to stay here, too. And I shall wall up the tunnel again, with my own hands, and no one will ever know."
The girl knelt beside the Saint. With one hand she stroked the damp hair back from his forehead; the other hand crept slowly, infinitely slowly, towards his pocket. But the gun that Essenden held still covered them both, and there was the cunning of madness in his eyes.
"I shall chain you up here, and leave you," he rambled on. "Then I shall go upstairs and send the others home. I shall pay them well, and they will ask no questions… Aaaaah!"
He pounced, suddenly, like a tiger; and the girl let out an involuntary cry. Her hand was in the Saint's pocket, but it had encountered the muzzle instead of the butt of his automatic. Foolishly, she tried to work round to the butt. The gun came out of the Saint's pocket as Essenden tore at her wrist; then it fell onto the rock.
Simon rolled over and snatched at it. Essenden kicked. The gun shot away from under the Saint's fingers, spun clattering over the uneven floor, and plopped into the stream a dozen feet away.
"You must have played football for Borstal," said the Saint appreciatively.
He grabbed swiftly at Essenden's ankle, and Essenden kicked backwards. His heel struck the Saint between the eyes, half stunning him…
Jill felt herself hurled backwards. She caught Essenden's right wrist, and he stumbled and tripped. They fell together into the shallow stream. Then, with the strength of madness, he pinioned her arms and heaved her up against the rock face. He groped around with one hand, holding her there with his other hand and the weight of his body. A chain was brought across her body; then she heard it grate metallically through a socket. There was a click, and he stepped back, panting. "That's got you!"
She kicked savagely at him; but he dropped on one knee and gathered in her legs. A second chain snapped about her knees, holding her helpless. And Simon Templar, with the whole world still reeling about him from that savage kick between the eyes, was straining at the relentless grip on his ankle with the strength of a prisoned giant.
"Got you!" babbled Essenden. "Got you both! But I dropped my gun—"
He splashed about in the stream on all fours, muttering to himself, searching. Then presently he stood up, empty-handed.
"It doesn't matter. I don't need a gun now."
"You do!" rapped the Saint. "I've got another somewhere—"
He was straining at something that seemed to have caught in his hip pocket.
Essenden screamed, and leapt on him. And the Saint laughed. This time he did not miss his hold. As Essenden fell on him, Simon fastened two sinewy hands upon the peer's throat.
On the floor, the two men rolled and fought together like wild beasts. Simon Templar had the strength and speed of a tiger, but insanity had suddenly made Essenden superhuman. Pinned to the floor by the steel trap as effectively as if he had been anchored to a mountain, the only chance that the Saint had lay in keeping his hold on Essenden's windpipe, and on that effort alone he concentrated, while Essenden kicked and writhed and tore at face and fingers with claw-like hands. They rolled over and over, gasping. Simon knew it could not last.
He was weak with pain. He thought his left ankle might be broken, and certainly his left leg seemed to have severed connection with his body from the knee downwards. Unless Essenden weakened soon. Well, there would be plenty of opening for other candidates for the distinction of being the two most unpopular plagues inflicted upon Scotland Yard. The Saint held on desperately, feeling his strength ebbing with every second of that nightmare struggle; but Essenden, a man possessed, seemed to be breaking every known law of human endurance. He fought on, when anyone else should have been unconscious.
And then one of his flailing fists caught Simon in the face.
It was not for the first time in that fight. But this time it so happened that Simon was on his back, his head lifted a bare inch from the floor. And the blow dashed the Saint's head with sickening force against the stone.
A wave of spangled blackness swept over his vision, and all the remaining strength went out of him. He felt his fingers torn easily away from Essenden's throat, and heard Essenden draw breath in one long, quavering sob. The Saint was rolled away like a child.
As his sight cleared, he saw Essenden crawling away out of his reach.
He lay still, his chest heaving, utterly done in, and watched Essenden scramble to his feet at a safe distance.
"Beaten you — again… And you won't — get — another chance!"
Essenden gasped out the words in a rasping clamour of triumph. He reeled towards Jill Trelawney, one hand caressing his larynx jerkily, and stood swaying before her with his face contorted.
"You too, my beauty! You don't know what a lot of trouble you've given me. You ought to pay for my trouble. I meant to leave you here and go back at once. But there's plenty of time before the tide comes up—"
"You fool! D'you think you can get away with this?"
Jill Trelawney stood with her head held high, the contempt undimmed in her imperious eyes, and her beauty made more vivid by its unwonted pallor. Her voice never faltered.
"Why not?" demanded Essenden hazily.
"Because the police are coming here. Because I told the police to come here in time to arrest you—"
"Arrest me?" Essenden chuckled. "There's nothing to arrest me for. There aren't any papers. You didn't believe that story, did you? The only evidence there is is here!" He tapped his forehead. "But I'll never give it. I could clear your father's name, but I never will. He was a meddler, and he had to go. Now you've started meddling as well, and you've got to go, too."
"The police will search the house," said Jill steadily. "They can't help finding this place. And then they will take you and hang you."
And even as she spoke, she knew that her bluff fell on deaf ears. Essenden paused to let her speak, but her words made no impression on his brain. Probably he never even heard them.
"Now you've got to go," he mouthed. "But not — before — I've made you — pay for my — trouble!"
He lurched forward, reaching out pawing hands.
And Simon Templar, lashing himself to the last bitter effort, tore futilely at the chain that held him.
In so doing, he rolled over on his face. And right under his nose was a little cluster of gleaming metal shapes.
A bunch of keys!
2
He stared at them like a man in a trance. And then, like a man in a trance, he gathered them into his hand and felt them, felt the smooth hard cold contact of them, wondering if that ghastly adventure had unhinged his brain.
But the keys might have fallen out of Essenden's pocket in the fight.
He shot a sidelong glance at Essenden; but for the moment Essenden had forgotten his existence.
Even so, he could not take a chance.
He rolled away, still seeming to wrestle with his chain, and splashed into the little stream.
Under cover of the water, he could try every key on the bunch without being observed.
"Hold on, Jill!"
His voice rang in the cave with the old unconquerable Saintly lilt as clear in it as sunlight, and Essenden turned to bare his teeth again and laugh.
"You'll never get away, Templar! I made sure of that when I anchored the trap. But you can try…"
His hands pawed again at the girl's dress.
"But you, Jill," he crooned — "Jill! Such a pretty name, Jill! Pretty Jill — do you still hate me? You shouldn't hate me…"
The Saint worked frantically.
The icy water in which he was half immersed did more than cover his movements. The chill of it stung his aching wearied body into new life.
He found a key that fitted, and felt a fresh surge of hope.
Jill Trelawney had not once cried out. She had not spoken. She had not even answered his encouragement. But as the key he tried turned in the lock, and the steel jaws snapped away from his ankle, he heard her choke back a little moan.
The sound made him forget that for half an hour his left ankle had been locked in the crushing grip of Essenden's man trap. He tried to leap at Essenden, and felt stupidly surprised when his leg gave under him and sent him sprawling.
Essenden whipped round in a flash.
"So you've got loose!"
"I have so," said the Saint.
He had scrambled up onto one knee when Essenden's rush bowled him over again; and once more they were entangled in a mad battle.
If the Saint had ever fought with the frenzy of despair, this was that time. It was his second chance. One chance he had been given, and he had lost out on it. Now he was given the second chance which he had no right to ask; and if he threw that away, he could not expect another. This time he had to win.
And he heard Jill Trelawney speak.
"Oh, Simon! Good man!"
He could not spare the breath to answer. The bunch of keys was in his pocket now; and with Essenden out of the way, he could release the girl in a moment. But to dispose of Essenden.
The man had the strength of ten, while the Saint's strength had already been cut down by half by the various punishings he had received. The strongest part of the Saint was his fingers, and with these he strove to take up again his first grip. He reached up for Essenden's throat, found it, circled the windpipe, tightened his hold crushingly. Essenden's face went red. His eyes dilated enormously, and the air wheezed painfully into his starved lungs; but he fought on like an animal at bay.
Simon dropped his chin on his chest and tried with his arms to ward off or at least break the force of the blows that Essenden rained upon him. But when he was guarding his face, Essenden drove his fist into his stomach. In the ordinary way, he would have made nothing of the blow, but at that moment he was weakened and unprepared for it. He gasped and rolled over, fighting down a flood of nausea that threatened to choke him, keeping his stranglehold grimly.
It so happened that the stone floor jutted up immediately under his arm.
It caught him in the elbow, in such a way that a twinge of numbing agony shot up his arm like an electric shock. The fingers of his right hand relaxed, and with a snarl of exultation, Essenden tore both his hands away and breathed again.
Hardly knowing what he did, the Saint wrenched one arm free and lashed out blindly.
He felt the punch jar a thinly covered bone, and Essenden sagged sideways, suddenly limp.
Simon dragged himself to his feet and limped over towards Jill, fumbling in his pocket.
The stream beside the wall had been four feet wide when he had first seen it. Now it was twice that width, and there was a turbulent flurry in its dark waters.
Essenden must have mistaken the time of the tide. And it rose with an appalling speed. While the Saint fought with the lock that held Jill's chains, he felt the cold water creeping up his legs; and when the chains fell away it was up to his knees. The stream was now a racing river as many yards wide as it had once been feet, and one edge of it was still spreading over the floor of the cave.
And Essenden was getting up again.
"Look out!" cried the girl.
Simon turned; and as he did so his bare foot fell on a familiar hardness.
Even so, it was a miscalculation on his part to try to pick up the gun.
He got it into his hand; but Essenden kicked his wrist, and the automatic fell into the stream again. Essenden plunged frantically; and the Saint, with only one sound leg to stand on, was sent staggering back against the wall. And by some miracle Essenden's hand found the gun without a second's groping.
With the face of a fiend, Essenden took deliberate aim. And the Saint, flattened against the wall, looked death in the eyes.
The second chance — thrown away.
Of course, he ought to have settled Essenden thoroughly, when he had the advantage, instead of relying on a lasting effect from the lucky blow he had landed on the man's jaw.
The strengthening current an inch above the Saint's knees now, seemed to be trying to pluck his feet from under him and whirl him away. That underground tide must grow in a few more minutes into something with the power and ferocity of a maelstrom. And the Saint would be shot, and the tide would carry him away with it into the unfathomed depths from which it rose. Without a trace… And that would be the end…
With a queer feeling of carelessness, Simon Templar gathered his muscles for the shock of the bullet.
Then he saw Jill Trelawney moving.
She was struggling towards Essenden; and in another step her movement would bring her into the line of fire.
With a cry, the Saint hurled himself forward.
He fell. It was impossible to hurl oneself effectively through that swelling torrent. As he went down, he heard the report of Essenden's shot go booming and reechoing through the cave.
Then his hand closed upon an ankle.
He jerked, with all his force; and as he fought up. through the flood he saw Essenden spinning into the water.
One hand especially he saw — a hand holding a gun, waving wildly as Essenden fell.
In shallower water, Simon caught the hand and the gun, and twisted the gun right round so that it aimed into Essenden's own body.
"Now shoot!" gasped the Saint.
Essenden squinted at him.
"You're another meddler," said Essenden, and tightened his finger on the trigger.