Chapter VI

Henry moved to the wall under the staircase and pressed a button, which set the mechanism of a secret panel in the wall into action. The panel slid back. Henry stepped through the opening, and switched on the lights at the head of the secret passage stairs.

Poking his head out, he beckoned to Niki. The valet picked up the senseless form of the reporter, flung it over his shoulder as easily as he might handle a bag of flour, then passed through the secret doorway and followed Henry down the steps into the cellar.

Never, in my wildest fancy, could I have believed my extremely law-abiding and kindly dispositioned brother capable of such an act; it smacked of the sinister days of mediaeval times. Realizing the state he was in, his mind frenzied by anger and alcohol, I decided to let him carry out his own nefarious plan, and get out of the mess he had made the best way he could.

As I pictured the reporter coming out of the knockout blow, in his prison-cell below, a cold shiver ran down my spine. To me, it would have been frightening beyond endurance. While not exactly a prison, this underground section, like the secret panel in the wall, had been copied from the ancient Normandy castle, of which ours was an exact model. Opening off a narrow corridor were five cell-like rooms of stone and cement, with heavy steel doors. Four of them were in use, for wine and general storage purposes. The fifth, at the end of the corridor, was empty. The place was kept scrupulously clean, of course; it had outside ventilation and was electrically lighted.

About five minutes later Henry re-appeared, accompanied by Niki, to whom he gave instructions to remain on watch in the hall for the remainder of the night. Closing the secret panel, and apparently satisfying Olinski that he had made his prisoner comfortable for the night, they finally stepped into the elevator and went upstairs to bed.

As soon as they had gone, Niki switched off the ceiling and wall lights in the hall, leaving only the dim illumination of a lamp on the side table. He then curled himself up on a divan, and must have gone immediately to sleep.

I looked up suddenly from the sleeping watchman-valet to see a slim, whitish figure dart from the far side of the gallery, and disappear up the rear stairs, where a soft gleam of light penetrated from the corridor above. Convinced that Pat was still wandering restlessly about the castle, and wondering if she, too, had viewed the regrettable scene in the hall below, I sank back in my chair and passed into unhappy meditation.

Feeling a certain curiosity as to what she might be up to, I remained in concealment to await events. I had not long to wait. Presently she re-appeared, creeping softly down the rear stairs. In her right hand she carried a flashlight; in the left, an object which glistened and jingled as she walked, which I took to be Orkins' collection of house keys.

She wore a satiny dressing gown of ivory-white, which trailed behind her like a bridal garment as she crossed the gallery and descended the staircase. Carelessly thrown over her lovely head was a filmy, white scarf, which billowed about her shoulders like a summer's cloud. There was every indication in her movements that she was on her way to locate the reporter, alleviate his distress, or, perhaps, release him. In spite of her hazardous undertaking, I could not avoid staring after her in deep admiration.

When she espied Niki on the divan, she switched off the flashlight. After satisfying herself, apparently by his heavy breathing, that he was asleep, she proceeded to open the secret panel. Its mechanism was familiar to her; she knew her way into the vaults below.

Immediately she had disappeared through the doorway in the wall, I went into action. Quietly but swiftly, I crept down the staircase. I stepped through the panel opening and stood at the head of the stone steps, where I watched her slow and careful descent of the winding stairs, in the shaky circle of light of her torch. I felt no trepidation over her safety; she was well acquainted with the geography of the place. My only fear was that the reporter might turn her adventurous visit to his own advantage. This seemed unlikely, for he had given me the impression that he was enough of a soldier of fortune to find amusement in his present predicament, despite his brutal treatment. This thought was uppermost in my mind when I heard his voice, raised in an exclamation of surprise.

I could well understand his note of surprise as he tried to connect the circumstances that had so recently and violently placed him in his present situation, with this after-midnight visit of a beautiful young lady in trailing white, lighting her way with an electric torch and jangling a bunch of keys.

"My dear young person, are you playing ghost--or what?" he addressed her, speaking through a small opening in his cell-door, through which, in its ancient pattern, food was passed to prisoners. "I am honored by your visit, of course, but isn't it a little--unconventional?"

"Lots of things are unconventional," was Pat's ready reply.

I could hear distinctly every word they said, owing to the peculiar acoustic properties of the cellar.

"Please don't tell me that you're bringing me a cup of tea!"

"I should adore some," said Pat.

"Adore some--what?"

"Some iced tea," she replied. "It's very hot and stuffy down here. You must be very uncomfortable."

"Oh, I'm okay," the reporter returned, sarcastically. "I've got a nice, soft cement floor to sleep on, and--oh, say! what I would really like is a good stiff highball. My jaw, you know--"

"Yes, I know all about it," Pat interrupted. "Niki must have given you an awful crack. I saw everything from the gallery in the hall!"

"Sympathetic, eh?"

"I very much regret to say I am," Pat answered. "I think my Uncle Henry is treating you outrageously. But he's rather eccentric, as you know, and tonight, I'm afraid he's a little tight, or he wouldn't have done a terrible thing like this."

"Ah, so you're Miss Patricia Preston, the society girl with so much money and leisure she doesn't know what to do with them," McGinity said quickly. "Your photo, sitting next to Prince Matani, at the polo tournament at Meadow Brook last week, in the box with your Aunt Jane, appeared in our Sunday rotogravure section. Don't tell me you've fallen for a foreign gink like that?"

Pat must have stared at him, thunderstruck, for she said, with a gasp: "How do you know so much?"

"I happen to know, and I have my own reasons for knowing," the reporter replied. "We won't discuss that for the moment. Suppose you answer my question?"

There was a pause, then Pat said: "No; it isn't like that. It isn't what you think at all."

"Well, I'm very glad to hear that," said the reporter. "Now, I'll tell you something you don't know. Your father, Allston Preston, and my dad were classmates at college--great pals."

"Really?"

"And on the same football team, at Columbia. Inseparable, until they each met the right girl and got married. Your father married into riches and society. My old man wed a poor but beautiful typist."

"I can hardly believe that they were friends," said Pat. "It seems so--fantastic." She paused, then went on, musingly: "Oh, but I would like to think they were--friends. I'm sure your father was capable and qualified, or he wouldn't have been such a close friend of my father."

"And, now, think what capabilities and qualifications his son, Bob McGinity, holds, also a graduate of Columbia."

"McGinity?" said Pat. "Bob McGinity! Oh, now, I remember. Surely--"

"Yes; I was the Columbia fullback, and I'll bet you a dollar to a doughnut, I was photographed more often than you are, now. But being a college graduate and a fullback didn't get me anywhere, so I went into newspaper work. I'm only a cub, but I've got ambitions. After what happened tonight, I suppose you think I'm a pretty rotten reporter."

"I wouldn't express it in that way, exactly," said Pat. "You had your nerve and persistency all right, yet you failed in your immediate object, didn't you? that of obtaining honestly"--she emphasized the word honestly--"the confirmation of Uncle Henry's discovery."

"Then you think I deserved the awful crack the Filipino gave me, and this temporary imprisonment, I take it, until after my paper goes to press?"

"I would like to think that you didn't," said Pat complacently. "However, I'm not in sympathy with Uncle's plan of locking you up here for the night. I couldn't sleep with a clear conscience without making certain you were not seriously hurt. I know you must be nearly starved. So, if you'll agree not to try and escape, or get in touch with your office on the phone, I'll take you upstairs, and get you something to eat, also liniment for your jaw. I consider that you should be very grateful to me."

"Am I grateful?" the reporter replied; "I'm tickled pink. But, after all, what's the use?" he added, rather despairingly. "I've failed. Failed miserably."

"On the contrary, I believe you to be on the way to possible success, in getting all the information you want from Uncle Henry. But you've got to go after him in a different way. Perhaps you need an assistant--an ally."

"Do I need an ally? Oh, boy! And hungry? I could eat my shirt, really. But I'm not hurt as much as you think. What's a little sock in the jaw?"

"Then you'll agree to my proposition?"

A moment's pause, then: "How can my troubles interest you so much? Tell me."

With an attempt at bravado, Pat replied: "I have no personal interest. My whole idea is to get Uncle Henry out of the fix he's got himself into--with you."

The reporter sighed. "I'm incredibly foolish to imagine that you would be interested in me--personally. All the same, I'm eternally grateful, and give you my word I'll not give you the slip, or phone my office."

There was a heavy lock and bolt to negotiate, and when I heard the jingle of the keys and the snapping back of the lock, discretion counselled that I vanish from the scene. I had overheard enough to convince me that Pat was well able to look after herself. The comforting discovery that the reporter's father had been a close friend of Pat's parent had eased the situation immensely.

And yet the uneasy fear assailed me that Pat might get the worst of the bargain. How was one to know that the reporter was as honest and harmless as he sounded? At all costs, I felt, that remote contingency must be guarded against.