Chapter X: Part 10

Dr. Oberzohn closed the door on them and re-entered his study, his big mouth twitching with amusement. He pulled the cord again and closed the ventilator he had opened. It was only a few days before that he had discovered that there were dried leaves in the ventilator shaft, and that the opening of the inlet made them rustle, disturbingly for a man who was engaged in a profound study of the lesser known, and therefore the more highly cultured, philosophers.

_Chapter XXXI_ _The Things in the Box_

HE heard the soft purr of engines, and, looking through the hall window, saw the dim lights of the car approaching the house, and turned out the hall lamp. There he waited in the darkness, till the door of the limousine opened and Gurther jumped out.

“I respectfully report that it is done, Herr Doktor,” he said.

Oberzohn nodded.

“The woman of Newton—where is she?”

“She is inside. Is it your wish that I should bring her? She was very troublesome, Herr Doktor, and I had to use the needle.”

“Bring her in—you!” He barked to the chauffeur. “Help our friend.”

Together they lifted the unconscious girl, but carried her no farther than the steps. At this point Oberzohn decided that she must return to the prison. First they sent the chauffeur away; the car was garaged at New Cross (it was one of Oberzohn’s three London depots), where the man also lived. After he had gone, they carried Joan between them to the factory, taking what, to Gurther, seemed an unnecessarily circuitous route. If it was unnecessary, it was at least expedient, for the nearest way to the factory led past the yawning hole that the doctor had dug with such labour.

There was no mistaking Oberzohn’s arrival this time. The trap went up with a thud, and Mirabelle listened, with a quickly beating heart, to the sound of feet coming down the stone stairs. There were two people, and they were walking heavily. Somehow she knew before she saw their burden that it was Joan. She was in evening dress, her face as white as chalk and her eyes closed; the girl thought she was dead when she saw them lay her on the bed.

“You have given her too much, Gurther,” said Oberzohn.

Gurther?

She had not recognized him. It was almost impossible to believe that this was the dapper young man who had danced with her at the Arts Ball.

“I had to guess in the dark, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther.

They were talking in German, and Mirabelle’s acquaintance with that language was very slight. She saw Gurther produce a small flat case from his pocket, take out a little phial, and shake into the palm of his hand a small brown capsule. This he dissolved in a tiny tube which, with the water he used, was also extracted from the case. Half filling a minute syringe, he sent the needle into Joan’s arm. A pause, and then:

“Soon she will wake, with your kind permission, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther.

Mirabelle was not looking at him, but she knew that his hot eyes were fixed on her, that all the time except the second he was operating, he was looking at her; and now she knew that this was the man to be feared. A cold hand seemed to grip at her heart.

“That will do, Gurther.” Oberzohn’s voice was sharp. He, too, had interpreted the stare. “You need not wait.”

Gurther obediently stalked from the room, and the doctor followed. Almost before the trap had fastened down she was by the girl’s side, with a basin of water and a wet towel. The second the water touched her face, Joan opened her eyes and gazed wildly up at the vaulted ceiling, then rolling over from the bed to her knees, she struggled to her feet, swayed and would have fallen, had not Mirabelle steadied her.

“They’ve got him! They’ve got my boy . . . killed him like a dog!”

“What—Mr.—Mr. Newton?” gasped Mirabelle, horrified.

“Killed him—Monty—Monty!”

And then she began to scream and run up and down the room like a thing demented. Mirabelle, sick at heart, almost physically sick at the sight, caught her and tried to calm her, but she was distracted, half mad. The drug and its antidote seemed to have combined to take away the last vestige of restraint. It was not until she fell, exhausted, that Mirabelle was able to drag her again to the bed and lay her upon it.

Montague Newton was dead! Who had killed him? Who were the “they”? Then she thought of Gurther in his strange attire; white dress-front crumpled, even his beard disarranged in the struggle he had had with the overwrought woman.

In sheer desperation she ran up the steps and tried the trap, but it was fast. She must get away from here—must get away at once. Joan was moaning pitiably, and the girl sat by her side, striving to calm her. She seemed to have passed into a state of semi-consciousness; except for her sobs, she made no sound and uttered no intelligible word. Half an hour passed—the longest and most dreadful half-hour in Mirabelle Leicester’s life. And then she heard a sound. It had penetrated even to the brain of this half-mad girl, for she opened her eyes wide, and, gripping Mirabelle, drew herself up.

“He’s coming,” she said, white to the lips, “coming . . . the Killer is coming!”

“For God’s sake don’t talk like that!” said Mirabelle, beside herself with fear.

There it was, in the outer room; a stealthy shuffle of feet. She stared at the closed door, and the strain of the suspense almost made her faint. And then she saw the steel door move, slowly, and first a hand came through, the edge of a face . . . Gurther was leering at her. His beard was gone, and his wig; he was collarless, and had over his white shirt the stained jacket that was his everyday wear.

“I want you.” He was talking to Mirabelle.

Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, but she did not speak.

“My pretty little lady——” he began, and then, with a shriek, Joan leapt at him.

“Murderer, murderer . . . ! Beast!” she cried, striking wildly at his face. With a curse, he tried to throw her off, but she was clinging to him; a bestial lunatic thing, hardly human.

He flung her aside at last, and then he put up his hand to guard his face as she leapt at him again. This time she went under his arm and was through the door in a flash. He heard the swift patter of her feet on the stairs, and turned in pursuit. The trap was open. He stumbled and tripped in the dark across the floor of the gaunt factory. Just as she reached the open, he grabbed at her and missed. Like a deer she sped, but he was fleeter-footed behind her; and suddenly his hand closed about her throat.

“You had better go out, my friend,” he said, and tightened his grip.

As she twisted to avoid him, he put out his foot. There was a grating snap, something gripped his legs, and the excruciating pain of it was agonizing. He loosened his hold of her throat, but held her arm tightly. With all his strength he threw her against the wall and she fell in a heap. Then, leaning down, he forced apart the cruel jagged teeth of the man-trap on to which he had put his foot, and drew his leg clear. He was bleeding; his trouser leg was torn to ribbons. He stopped only long enough to drag the girl to her feet, and, throwing her across his shoulder as though she were a sack, he went back into the factory, down the stairs, and threw her on to the bed with such violence that the spring supports broke. It had a strange effect upon the dazed woman, but this he did not see, for he had turned to Mirabelle.

“My little lady, I want you!” he breathed.

Blood was trickling down from his wounded calf, but he did not feel the pain any more; felt nothing, save the desire to hurt those who hunted him; wanted nothing but the materialization of crude and horrid dreams.

She stood, frozen, paralysed, incapable of movement. And then his hand came under her chin and he lifted her face; and she saw the bright, hungry eyes devouring her, saw the thin lips come closer and closer, could not move; had lost all sentient impressions, and could only stare into the eyes of this man-snake, hypnotized by the horror of the moment.

And then a raging fury descended upon him. Narrow fingers tore at his face, almost blinding him. He turned with a howl of rage, but the white-faced Joan had flown to the furnace and taken up a short iron bar that had been used to rake the burning coals together. She struck at him and missed. He dodged past her and she flung the bar at him, and again missed him. The iron struck the green box, behind the furnace, there was a sound of smashing glass. He did not notice this, intent only upon the girl, and Mirabelle closed her eyes and heard only the blow as he struck her.

When she looked again, Joan was lying on the bed and he was tying one of her hands to the bed-rail with a strap which he had taken from his waist. Then Mirabelle saw a sight that released her pent speech. He heard her scream and grinned round at her . . . saw where she was looking and looked too.

Something was coming from the broken green box! A black, spade-shaped head, with bright, hard eyes that seemed to survey the scene in a malignant stare. And then, inch by inch, a thick shining thing, like a rubber rope, wriggled slowly to the floor, coiled about upon itself, and raised its flat head.

“Oh, God, look!”

He turned about at the sight, that immovable grin of his upon his face, and said something in a guttural tongue. The snake was motionless, its baleful gaze first upon the sinking girl, then upon the man.

Gurther’s surprise was tragic; it was as though he had been confronted with some apparition from another world. And then his hand went to his hip pocket; there was a flash of light and a deafening explosion that stunned her. The pistol dropped from his hand and fell with a clatter to the floor, and she saw his arm was stiffly extended, and protruding from the cuff of his coat a black tail that wound round and round his wrist. It had struck up his sleeve. The cloth about his biceps was bumping up and down erratically.

He stood straightly erect, grinning, the arm still outflung, his astonished eyes upon the coil about his wrist. And then, slowly his other hand came round, gripped the tail and pulled it savagely forth. The snake turned with an angry hiss and tried to bite back at him; but raising his hand, he brought the head crashing down against the furnace. There was a convulsive wriggle as the reptile fell among the ashes.

“Gott in himmel!” whispered Gurther, and his free hand went up to his arm and felt gingerly. “He is dead, gracious lady. Perhaps there is another?”

He went, swaying as he walked, to the green box, and put in his hand without hesitation. There was another—a bigger snake, roused from its sleep and angry. He bit twice at the man’s wrist, but Gurther laughed, a gurgling laugh of pure enjoyment. For already he was a dead man; that he knew. And it had come to him, at the moment and second of his dissolution, when the dread gates of judgment were already ajar, that he should go to his Maker with this clean space in the smudge of his life.

“Go, little one,” he said, grinning into the spade-face. “You have no more poison; that is finished!”

He put the writhing head under his heel, and Mirabelle shut her eyes and put her hands to her ears. When she looked again, the man was standing by the door, clinging to the post and slipping with every frantic effort to keep himself erect.

He grinned at her again; this man of murder, who had made his last kill.

“Pardon, gracious lady,” he said thickly, and went down on his knees, his head against the door, his body swaying slowly from side to side, and finally tumbled over.

She heard Oberzohn’s harsh voice from the floor above. He was calling Gurther, and presently he appeared in the doorway, and there was a pistol in his hand.

“So!” he said, looking down at the dying man.

And then he saw the snake, and his face wrinkled. He looked from Mirabelle to the girl on the bed, went over and examined her, but did not attempt to release the strap. It was Mirabelle who did that; Mirabelle who sponged the bruised face and loosened the dress.

So doing, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Come,” said Oberzohn.

“I’m staying here with Joan, until——”

“You come at once, or I will give you to my pretty little friends.” He pointed to the two snakes on the floor who still moved spasmodically.

She had to step past Gurther, but that seemed easier than passing those wriggling, shining black ropes; and, her hand in his, she stumbled up the dark steps and eventually into the clean, sweet air of the night.

He was dressed for a journey; she had noticed that when he appeared. A heavy cloth cap was on his curious-shaped head, and he looked less repulsive with so much of his forehead hidden. Though the night was warm, he wore an overcoat.

They were passing between the wall and the factory when he stopped and put his hand before her mouth. He had heard voices, low voices on the other side of the wall, and presently the scrape of something. Without removing his hand from her face, he half dragged, half pushed her until they were clear of the factory.

She thought they were going back to the house, which was in darkness, but instead, he led her straight along the wall, and presently she saw the bulk of the barge.

“Stay, and do not speak,” he said, and began to turn a rusty wheel. With a squeak and a groan the water-gates opened inwards.

What did he intend doing? There was no sign of a boat, only this old dilapidated barge. She was presently to know.

“Come,” he said again.

She was on the deck of the barge, moving forward to its bow, which pointed towards the open gate and the canal beyond.

She heard him puff and groan as he strained at a rope he had found, and then, looking down, she saw the front of the barge open, like the two water-gates of a lock. Displaying remarkable agility, he lowered himself over the edge; he seemed to be standing on something solid, for again he ordered her to join him.

“I will not go,” she said breathlessly, and turning, would have fled, but his hand caught her dress and dragged at her.

“I will drown you here, woman,” he said, and she knew that the threat would have a sequel.

Tremblingly she lowered herself over the edge until her foot touched something hard and yet yielding. He was pushing at the barge with all his might, and the platform beneath her grew in space. First the sharp nose and then the covered half-deck of the fastest motor-boat that Mr. Oberzohn’s money could buy, or the ingenuity of builders could devise. The old barge was a boat-house, and this means of escape had always been to his hand. It was for this reason that he lived in a seemingly inaccessible spot.

The men who had been on the canal bank were gone. The propellers revolving slowly, the boat stole down the dark waters, after a short time slipped under a bridge over which street-cars were passing, and headed for Deptford and the river.

Dr. Oberzohn took off his overcoat and laid it tenderly inside the shelter of the open cabin, tenderly because every pocket was packed tight with money.

To Mirabelle Leicester, crouching in the darkness of that sheltered space, the time that passed had no dimension. Once an authoritative voice hailed them from the bank. It was a policeman; she saw him after the boat had passed. A gas-lamp showed the glitter of his metal buttons. But soon he was far behind.

Deptford was near when they reached a barrier which neither ingenuity nor money could pass; a ragged nightbird peered down curiously at the motor-boat.

“You can’t get through here, guv’nor,” he said simply. “The lock doesn’t open until high tide.”

“When is this high tide?” asked Oberzohn breathlessly.

“Six o’clock to-morrow morning,” said the voice.

For a long time he saw, stricken to inactivity by the news, and then he sent his engines into reverse and began circling round.

“There is one refuge for us, young miss,” he said. “Soon we shall see it. Now I will tell you something. I desire so much to live. Do you also?”

She did not answer.

“If you cry out, if you will make noises, I will kill you—that is all,” he said; and the very simplicity of his words, the lack of all emphasis behind the deadly earnestness, told her that he would keep his word.

_Chapter XXXII_ _The Search_

“’WARE man-traps,” said Gonsalez.

The white beam of his lamp had detected the ugly thing. He struck at it with his stick, and with a vicious snap it closed.

“Here’s one that’s been sprung,” he said, and examined the teeth. “And, what’s more, it has made a catch! There’s blood here.”

Manfred and Digby were searching the ground cautiously. Then Manfred heard the quick intake of his breath, and he stooped again, picked up a strip of braided cloth.

“A man’s,” he said, and his relief betrayed his fear. “Somebody in evening dress, and quite recent.” He looked at his finger. “The blood is still wet.”

Digby showed him the ventilator grating through which he had smelt the incense, and when Leon stooped, the faint aroma still remained.

“We will try the factory first. If that draws blank, we’ll ask Dr. Oberzohn’s guidance, and if it is not willingly given I shall persuade him.” And in the reflected light of the lamp George Manfred saw the hard Leon he knew of old. “This time I shall not promise: my threat will be infinitely milder than my performance.”

They came to the dark entry of the factory, and Manfred splashed his light inside.

“You’ll have to walk warily here,” he said.

Progress was slow, for they did not know that a definite path existed between the jagged ends of broken iron and debris. Once or twice Leon stopped to stamp on the floor; it gave back a hollow sound.

The search was long and painfully slow: a quarter of an hour passed before Leon’s lamp focussed the upturned flagstone and the yawning entrance of the vault. He was the first to descend, and, as he reached the floor, he saw, silhouetted in the light that flowed from the inner room, a man, as he thought, crouching in the doorway, and covered him.

“Put up your hands!” he said.

The figure made no response, and Manfred ran to the shape. The face was in the shadow, but he brought his own lamp down and recognized the set grin of the dead man.

Gurther!

So thus he had died, in a last effort to climb out for help.

“The Snake,” said Manfred briefly. “There are no marks on his face, so far as I can see.”

“Do you notice his wrist, George?”

Then, looking past the figure, Gonsalez saw the girl lying on the bed, and recognized Joan before he saw her face. Half-way across the room he slipped on something. Instinctively he knew it was a snake and leapt around, his pistol balanced.

“Merciful heaven! Look at this!”

He stared from the one reptile to the other.

“Dead!” he said. “That explains Gurther.”

Quickly he unstrapped Joan’s wrists and lifted up her head, listening, his ear pressed to the faintly fluttering heart. The basin and the sponge told its own story. Where was Mirabelle?

There was another room, and a row of big cupboards, but the girl was in no place that he searched.

“She’s gone, of course,” said Manfred quietly. “Otherwise, the trap would not have been open. We’d better get this poor girl out of the way and search the grounds. Digby, go to——”

He stopped.

If Oberzohn were in the house, they must not take the risk of alarming him.

But the girl’s needs were urgent. Manfred picked her up and carried her out into the open, and, with Leon guiding them, they came, after a trek which almost ended in a broken neck for Leon, to within a few yards of the house.

“I presume,” said Gonsalez, “that the hole into which I nearly dived was dug for a purpose, and I shouldn’t be surprised to learn it was intended that the late Mr. Gurther should find a permanent home there. Shall I take her?”

“No, no,” said Manfred, “go on into the lane. Poiccart should be there with the car by now.”

“Poiccart knows more about growing onions than driving motor-cars.” The gibe was mechanical; the man’s heart and mind were on Mirabelle Leicester.

They had to make a circuit of the stiff copper-wire fence which surrounded the house, and eventually reached Hangman’s Lane just as the head-lamps of the Spanz came into view.

“I will take her to the hospital and get in touch with the police,” said Manfred. “I suppose there isn’t a near-by telephone?”

“I shall probably telephone from the house,” said Leon gravely.

From where he stood he could not tell whether the door was open or closed. There was no transom above the door, so that it was impossible to tell whether there were lights in the passage or not. The house was in complete darkness.

He was so depressed that he did not even give instructions to Poiccart, who was frankly embarrassed by the duty which had been imposed upon him, and gladly surrendered the wheel to George.

They lifted the girl into the tonneau, and, backing into the gate, went cautiously up the lane—Leon did not wait to see their departure, but returned to the front of the house.

The place was in darkness. He opened the wire gate and went silently up the steps. He had not reached the top before he saw that the door was wide open. Was it a trap? His lamp showed him the switch: he turned on the light and closed the door behind him, and, bending his head, listened.

The first door on the right was Oberzohn’s room. The door was ajar, but the lamps were burning inside. He pushed it open with the toe of his boot, but the room was empty.

The next two doors he tried on that floor were locked. He went carefully down to the kitchens and searched them both. They were tenantless. He knew there was a servant or two on the premises, but one thing he did not know, and this he discovered in the course of his tour, was that Oberzohn had no bedroom. One of the two rooms above had evidently been occupied by the servants. The door was open, the room was empty and in some confusion; a coarse night-dress had been hastily discarded and left on the tumbled bedclothes. Oberzohn had sent his servants away in a hurry—why?

There was a half-smoked cigarette on the edge of a deal wash-stand. The ash lay on the floor. In a bureau every drawer was open and empty, except one, a half-drawer filled with odd scraps of cloth. Probably the cook or the maid smoked. He found a packet of cigarettes under one pillow to confirm this view, and guessed they had gone to bed leisurely with no idea that they would be turned into the night.

He learned later that Oberzohn had bundled off his servants at ten minutes’ notice, paying them six months’ salary as some salve for the indignity.

Pfeiffer’s room was locked; but now, satisfied that the house was empty, he broke the flimsy catch, made a search but found nothing. Gurther’s apartment was in indescribable disorder. He had evidently changed in a hurry. His powder puffs and beards, crepe hair and spirit bottles, littered the dressing-table. He remembered, with a pang of contrition, that he had promised to telephone the police, but when he tried to get the exchange he found the line was dead: a strange circumstance, till he discovered that late that evening Meadows had decided to cut the house from all telephonic communication, and had given orders accordingly.

It was a queerly built house: he had never realized its remarkable character until he had examined it at these close quarters. The walls were of immense thickness: that fact was brought home to him when he had opened the window of the maid’s room to see if Digby was in sight. The stairs were of concrete, the shutters which covered the windows of Oberzohn’s study were steel-faced. He decided, pending the arrival of the police, to make an examination of the two locked rooms. The first of these he had no difficulty in opening. It was a large room on the actual ground level, and was reached by going down six steps. A rough bench ran round three sides of this bare apartment, except where its continuity broke to allow entrance to a further room. The door was of steel and was fastened.

The room was dusty but not untidy. Everything was in order. The various apparatus was separated by a clear space. In one corner he saw a gas engine and dynamo covered with dust. There was nothing to be gained here. The machine which interested him most was one he knew all about, only he had not guessed the graphite moulds. The contents of a small blue bottle, tightly corked, and seemingly filled with discoloured swabs of cotton-wool, however, revived his interest. With a glance round the laboratory, he went out and tried the second of the locked doors.

This room, however, was well protected, both in the matter of stoutness of door and complication of locks. Leon tried all his keys, and then used his final argument. This he carried in a small leather pouch in his hip pocket; three steel pieces that screwed together and ended in a bright claw. Hammering the end of the jemmy with his fist, he forced the claw between door and lintel, and in less than a minute the lock had broken, and he was in the presence of the strangest company that had ever been housed.

Four electric radiators were burning. The room was hot and heavy, and the taint of it caught his throat, as it had caught the throat of the Danish servant. He put on all the lights—and they were many—and then began his tour.

There were two lines of shelves, wide apart, and each supporting a number of boxes, some of which were wrapped in baize, some of which, however, were open to view. All had glass fronts, all had steel tops with tiny air-holes, and in each there coiled, in its bed of wool or straw, according to its requirements, one or two snakes. There were cobras, puff-adders, two rattlesnakes, seemingly dead, but, as he guessed, asleep; there was a South American _fer-de-lance_, that most unpleasant representative of his species; there were little coral snakes, and, in one long box, a whole nest of queer little things that looked like tiny yellow lobsters, but which he knew as scorpions.

He was lifting a baize cover when:

“Don’t move, my friend! I think I can promise you more intimate knowledge of our little family.”

Leon turned slowly, his hands extended. Death was behind him, remorseless, unhesitating. To drop his hand to his pocket would have been the end for him—he had that peculiar instinct which senses sincerity, and when Dr. Oberzohn gave him his instructions he had no doubt whatever that his threat was backed by the will to execute.

Oberzohn stood there, a little behind him, white-faced, open-eyed with fear, Mirabelle Leicester.

Digby—where was he? He had left him in the grounds.

The doctor was examining the broken door and grunted his annoyance.

“I fear my plan will not be good,” he said, “which was to lock you in this room and break all those glasses, so that you might become better acquainted with the Quiet People. That is not to be. Instead, march!”

What did he intend? Leon strolled out nonchalantly, but Oberzohn kept his distance, his eyes glued upon those sensitive hands that could move so quickly and jerk and fire a gun in one motion.

“Stop!”

Leon halted, facing the open front door and the steps.

“You will remember my sainted brother, Señor Gonsalez, and of the great loss which the world suffered when he was so vilely murdered?”

Leon stood without a quiver. Presently the man would shoot. At any second a bullet might come crashing on its fatal errand. This was a queer way to finish so full a life. He knew it was coming, had only one regret; that this shaken girl should be called upon to witness such a brutal thing. He wanted to say good-bye to her, but was afraid of frightening her.

“You remember that so sainted brother?” Oberzohn’s voice was raucous with fury. Ahead of him the light fell upon a face.

“Digby! Stay where you are!” shouted Leon.

The sound of the explosion made him jump. He saw the brickwork above the doorway splinter, heard a little scuffle, and turned, gun in hand. Oberzohn had pulled the girl in front of him so that she afforded a complete cover: under her arm he held his pistol.

“Run!” she screamed.

He hesitated a second. Again the pistol exploded and a bullet ricochetted from the door. Leon could not fire. Oberzohn so crouched that nothing but a trick shot could miss the girl and hit him. And then, as the doctor shook free the hand that gripped his wrist, he leapt down the steps and into the darkness. Another second and the door slammed. He heard the thrust of the bolts and a clang as the great iron bar fell into its place. Somehow he had a feeling as of a citadel door being closed against him.

Dr. Oberzohn had returned unobserved, though the night was clear. Passing through the open water-gate he had tied up to the little quay and landed his unwilling passenger. Digby, according to instructions, had been making a careful circuit of the property, and at the moment was as far away from the barge as it was humanly possible to be. Unchallenged, the doctor had worked his way back to the house. The light in the hall warned him that somebody was there. How many? He could not guess.

“Take off your shoes,” he growled in Mirabelle’s ear, and she obeyed.

Whatever happened, he must not lose touch of her, or give her an opportunity of escape. Still grasping her arm with one hand and his long Mauser pistol in the other, he went softly up the steps, got into the hall and listened, locating the intruder instantly.

It all happened so quickly that Mirabelle could remember nothing except the desperate lunge she made to knock up the pistol that had covered the spine of Leon Gonsalez. She stood dumbly by, watching this horrible old man fasten the heavy door, and obediently preceded him from room to room. She saw the long cases in the hot room and shrank back. And then began a complete tour of the house. There were still shutters to be fastened, peep-holes to be opened up. He screwed up the shutters of the servants’ room, and then, with a hammer, broke the thumb-piece short.

“You will stay here,” he said. “I do not know what they will do. Perhaps they will shoot. I also am a shooter!”

Not satisfied with the lock that fastened her door, he went into his workshop, found a staple, hook and padlock, and spent the greater part of an hour fixing this additional security. At last he had finished, and could put the situation in front of four very interested men.

He unlocked the door of the concrete annexe and called the crestfallen gunmen forth, and in a very few words explained the situation and their danger.

“For every one of you the English police hold warrants,” he said. “I do not bluff, I know. This afternoon I was visited by the police. I tell you I do not bluff you—me they cannot touch, because they know nothing, can prove nothing. At most I shall go to prison for a few years, but with you it is different.”

“Are they waiting outside?” asked one suspiciously. “Because, if they are, we’d better move quick.”

“You do not move, quick or slow,” said Oberzohn. “To go out from here means certain imprisonment for you all. To stay, if you follow my plan, means that every one of you may go free and with money.”

“What’s the idea?” asked Cuccini. “Are you going to fight them?”

“Sure I am going to fight them,” nodded Oberzohn. “That is my scheme. I have the young miss upstairs; they will not wish to do her any harm. I intend to defend this house.”

“Do you mean you’re going to hold it?” asked one of the staggered men.

“I will hold it until they are tired, and make terms.”

Cuccini was biting his nails nervously.

“Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, boss,” he growled. “I’ve got an idea you’ve roped us into this.”

“You may rope yourself out of it!” snapped Oberzohn. “There is the door—go if you wish. There are police there; make terms with them. A few days ago you were in trouble, my friend. Who saved you? The doctor Oberzohn. There is life imprisonment for every one of you, and I can hold this house myself. Stay with me, and I will give you a fortune greater than any you have dreamt about. And, more than this, at the end you shall be free.”

“Where’s Gurther?”

“He has been killed—by accident.” Oberzohn’s face was working furiously. “By accident he died,” he said, and told the truth unconvincingly. “There is nothing now to do but to make a decision.”

Cuccini and his friends consulted in a whisper.

“What do we get for our share?” he asked, and Oberzohn mentioned a sum which staggered them.

“I speak the truth,” he said. “In two days I shall have a gold-mine worth millions.”

The habit of frankness was on him, and he told them the story of the golden hill without reservations. His agents at Lisbon had already obtained from the Ministry an option upon the land and its mineral rights. As the clock struck twelve on June 14, the goldfield of Biskara automatically passed into his possession.

“On one side you have certain imprisonment, on the other you have great monies and happiness.”

“How long will we have to stay here?” asked Cuccini.

“I have food for a month, even milk. They will not cut the water because of the girl. For the same reason they will not blow in the door.”

Again they had a hasty consultation and made their decision.

“All right, boss, we’ll stay. But we want that share-out put into writing.”

“To my study,” said Oberzohn promptly, “march!”

He was half-way through writing the document when there came a thunderous knock on the door and he got up, signalling for silence. Tiptoeing along the passage, he came to the door.

“Yes—who is that?” he asked.

“Open, in the name of the law!” said a voice, and he recognized Meadows. “I have a warrant for your arrest, and if necessary the door will be broken in.”

“So!” said Oberzohn, dropped the muzzle of his pistol until it rested on the edge of the little letter-slit and fired twice.

_Chapter XXXIII_ _The Siege_

BUT Meadows had already been warned to keep clear of the letter-box, and the bullets eventually reached one of the railway viaducts, to the embarrassment of a road ganger who happened to be almost in the line of fire.

Meadows slipped down the steps to cover. Inside the wire fence a dozen policemen were waiting.

“Sergeant, go back to the station in the police car and bring arms,” he said. “This is going to be a long job.”

Gonsalez had made a very careful reconnaissance of the ground, and from the first had recognized the difficulties which lay ahead of the attacking party. The wall rose sheer without any break; such windows as were within reach were heavily shuttered; and even the higher windows, he guessed, had been covered. The important problem in his mind was to locate the room in which the girl was imprisoned, and, making a mental review of the house, he decided that she was either in the servants’ apartment or in that which had held Gurther. By the light of the lantern he made a rapid sketch plan of the floors he had visited.

Meadows had gone away to telephone to police head-quarters. He had decided to re-establish telephone connection with the doctor, and when this was done, he called the house and Oberzohn’s voice answered him.

The colloquy was short and unsatisfactory. The terms which the doctor offered were such as no self-respecting government could accept. Immunity for himself and his companions (he insisted so strongly upon this latter offer that Meadows guessed, accurately, that the gang were standing around the instrument).

“I don’t want your men at all. So far as I am concerned, they can go free,” said Meadows. “Ask one of them to speak on the ’phone.”

“Oh, indeed, no,” said Oberzohn. “It is ridiculous to ask me that.”

He hung up at this point and explained to the listening men that the police had offered him freedom if he would surrender the gang.

“As I already told you,” he said in conclusion, “that is not the way of Dr. Oberzohn. I will gain nothing at the expense of my friends.”

A little later, when Cuccini crept into the room to call police head-quarters and confirm this story of the doctor, he found that not only had the wire been cut, but a yard of the flex had been removed. Dr. Oberzohn was taking no risks.

The night passed without any further incident. Police reserves were pouring into the neighbourhood; the grounds had been isolated, and even the traffic of barges up and down the canal prohibited. The late editions of the morning newspapers had a heavily head-lined paragraph about the siege of a house in the New Cross area, and when the first reporters arrived a fringe of sightseers had already gathered at every police barrier. Later, special editions, with fuller details, began to roll out of Fleet Street; the crowd grew in density, and a high official from Scotland Yard, arriving soon after nine, ordered a further area to be cleared, and with some difficulty the solid wedge of humanity at the end of Hangman’s Lane was slowly pushed back until the house was invisible to them. Even here, a passage-way was kept for police cars and only holders of passes were allowed to come within the prohibited area.

The three men, with the police chief, had taken up their head-quarters in the factory, from which the body of Gurther had been removed in the night. The Deputy Commissioner, who came on the spot at nine, and examined the dead snakes, was something of a herpetologist, and pronounced them to be veritable _fers-de-lance_, a view from which Poiccart differed.

“They are a species of African tree snakes that the natives call _mamba_. There are two, a black and a green. Both of these are the black type.”

“The Zoo mamba?” said the official, remembering the sensational disappearance of a deadly snake which had preceded the first of the snake mysteries.

“You will probably find the bones of the Zoo mamba in some mole run in Regent’s Park—he must have been frozen to death the night of his escape,” said Poiccart. “It was absolutely impossible that at that temperature he could live. I have made a very careful inspection of the land, and adjacent to the Zoological Gardens is a big stretch of earth which is honeycombed by moles. No, this was imported, and the rest of his menagerie was imported.”

The police chief shook his head.

“Still, I’m not convinced that a snake could have been responsible for these deaths,” he said, and went over the ground so often covered.

The three listened in polite silence, and offered no suggestion.

The morning brought news of Washington’s arrival in Lisbon. He had left the train at Irun, Leon’s agent in Madrid having secured a relay of aeroplanes, and the journey from Irun to Lisbon had been completed in a few hours. He was now on his way back.

“If he makes the connections he will be here to-night,” he told Manfred. “I rather think he will be a very useful recruit to our forces.”

“You’re thinking of the snakes in the house?”

Leon nodded.

“I know Oberzohn,” he said simply, and George Manfred thought of the girl, and knew the unspoken fears of his friend were justified.

The night had not been an idle one for Oberzohn and his companions. With the first light of dawn they had mounted to the roof, and, under his direction, the gunmen had dismantled the four sheds which stood at each corner of the parapet. Unused to the handling of such heavy metal, the remnants of the Old Guard gazed in awe upon the tarnished jackets of the Maxim guns that were revealed.

Oberzohn understood the mechanism of the machines so thoroughly that in half an hour he had taught his crew the method of handling and sighting. In the larger shed was a collapsible tripod, which was put together, and on this he mounted a small but powerful searchlight and connected it up with one of the plugs in the roof.

He pointed to them the three approaches to the house: the open railway arches and the long lane, at the end of which the crowd at that moment was beginning to gather.

“From only these places can the ground be approached,” he said, “and my little quick-firers cover them!”

Just before eleven there came down Hangman’s Lane, drawn by a motor tractor, a long tree-trunk, suspended about the middle by chains, and Oberzohn, examining it carefully through his field-glasses, realized that no door in the world could stand against the attack of that battering-ram. He took up one of the dozen rifles that lay on the floor, sighted it carefully, resting his elbow on the parapet, and fired.

He saw the helmet of a policeman shoot away from the head of the astonished man, and fired again. This time he was more successful, for a policeman who was directing the course of the tractor crumpled up and fell in a heap.

A shrill whistle blew; the policemen ran to cover, leaving the machine unattended. Again he fired, this time at the driver of the tractor. He saw the man scramble down from his seat and run for the shelter of the fence.

A quarter of an hour passed without any sign of activity on the part of his enemies, and then eight men, armed with rifles, came racing across the ground towards the wire barrier. Oberzohn dropped his rifle, and, taking a grip of the first machine-gun in his hand, sighted it quickly. The staccato patter of the Maxim awakened the echoes. One man dropped; the line wavered. Again the shrill whistle, and they broke for cover, dragging their wounded companion with them.

“I was afraid of that,” said Leon, biting his knuckles—sure evidence of his perturbation.

He had put a ladder against the wall of the factory, and now he climbed up on to the shaky roof and focussed his glasses.

“There’s another Maxim on this side,” he shouted down. And then, as he saw a man’s head moving above the parapet, he jerked up his pistol and fired. He saw the stone splinters fly up and knew that it was not bad practice at four hundred yards. The shot had a double effect; it made the defenders cautious and aroused in them the necessary quantity of resentment.

He was hardly down before there was a splutter from the roof, and the whine and snap of machine-gun bullets; one slate tile shivered and its splinters leapt high in the air and dropped beside his hand.

The presence of the girl was the only complication. Without her, the end of Oberzohn and his companions was inevitable. Nobody realized this better than the doctor, eating a huge ham sandwich in the shelter of the parapet—an unusual luxury, for he ate few solids.

“This will be very shocking for our friends of Curzon Street,” he said. “At this moment they bite their hands in despair.” (He was nearly right here.)

He peeped over the parapet. There was no policeman in sight. Even the trains that had roared at regular intervals along the viaduct had ceased to run, traffic being diverted to another route.

At half-past twelve, looking through a peep-hole, he saw a long yellow line of men coming down Hangman’s Lane, keeping to the shelter of the fence.

“Soldiers,” he said, and for a second his voice quavered.

Soldiers they were. Presently they began to trickle into the grounds, one by one, each man finding his own cover. Simultaneously there came a flash and a crack from the nearest viaduct. A bullet smacked against the parapet and the sound of the ricochet was like the hum of a bee.

Another menace had appeared simultaneously; a great, lumbering, awkward vehicle, that kept to the middle of the lane and turned its ungainly nose into the field. It was a tank, and Oberzohn knew that only the girl’s safety stood between him and the dangling noose.

He went down to see her, unlocked the door, and found her, to his amazement, fast asleep. She got up at the sound of the key in the lock, and accepted the bread and meat and water he brought her without a word.

“What time is it?”

Oberzohn stared at her.

“That you should ask the time at such a moment!” he said.

The room was in darkness but for the light he had switched on.

“It is noon, and our friends have brought soldiers. Ach! how important a woman you are, that the whole army should come out for you!”

Sarcasm was wasted on Mirabelle.

“What is going to happen—now?”

“I do not know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They have brought a diabolical instrument into the grounds. They may use it, to give them cover, so that the door may be blown in. At that moment I place you in the snake-room. This I shall tell our friends very quickly.”

She gazed at him in horror.

“You wouldn’t do anything so wicked, Mr. Oberzohn!”

Up and down went the skin of his forehead.

“That I shall tell them and that I shall do,” he said, and locked her in with this comfortless assurance.

He went into his study and, fastening the door, took two strands of wire from his pocket and repaired the broken telephone connections.

“I wish to speak to Meadows,” he said to the man who answered him—a police officer who had been stationed at the exchange to answer any call from this connection.

“I will put you through to him,” was the reply.

For a moment the doctor was surprised that Meadows was not at the exchange. He did not know then that a field telephone line had been organized, and that the factory head-quarters of the directing staff was in communication with the world.

It was not Meadows, but another man who answered him, and by his tone of authority Oberzohn guessed that some higher police official than Meadows was on the spot.

“I am the doctor Oberzohn,” he barked. “You have brought a tank machine to attack me. If this approaches beyond the wire fence, I shall place the woman Leicester in the home of the snakes, and there I will bind her and release my little friends to avenge me.”

“Look here——” began the officer, but Oberzohn hung up on him.

He went out and locked the door, putting the key in his pocket. His one doubt was of the loyalty of his companions. But here, strangely enough, he underrated their faith in him. The very mildness of the attack, the seeming reluctance of the soldiers to fire, had raised their hopes and spirits; and when, a quarter of an hour later, they saw the tank turn about and go out into Hangman’s Lane, they were almost jubilant.

“You’re sure that he will carry out his threat?” asked the police chief.

“Certain,” said Leon emphatically. “There is nothing on earth that will stop Oberzohn. You will force the house to find a man who has died by his own hand, and——” He shuddered at the thought. “The only thing to be done is to wait for the night. If Washington arrives on time, I think we can save Miss Leicester.”

From the roof Dr. Oberzohn saw that the soldiers were digging a line of trenches, and sent a spatter of machine-gun bullets in their direction. They stopped their work for a moment to look round, and then went on digging, as though nothing had happened.

The supply of ammunition was not inexhaustible, and he determined to reserve any further fire until the attack grew more active.

Looking over the top of the parapet to examine the ground immediately below, something hot and vicious snicked his ear. He saw the brickwork of the chimney behind him crumble and scatter, and, putting up his hand, felt blood.

“You’d better keep down, Oberzohn,” said Cuccini, crouching in the shelter of the parapet. “They nearly got you then. They’re firing from that railway embankment. Have you had a talk with the boss of these birds?”

“They are weakening,” said Oberzohn promptly. “Always they are asking me if I will surrender the men; always I reply, ‘Never will I do anything so dishonourable.’”

Cuccini grunted, having his own views of the doctor’s altruism.

Late in the afternoon, a flight of aeroplanes appeared in the west: five machines flying in V formation. None of the men on the roof recognized the danger, standing rather in the attitude and spirit of sightseers. The machines were flying low; with the naked eye Cuccini could read their numbers long before they came within a hundred yards of the house. Suddenly the roof began to spout little fountains of asphalt. Oberzohn screamed a warning and darted to the stairway, and three men followed him out. Cuccini lay spread-eagled where he fell, two machine-gun bullets through his head.

The fighting machines mounted, turned and came back. Standing on the floor below, Oberzohn heard the roar of their engines as they passed, and went incautiously to the roof, to discover that the guns of flying machines fire equally well from the tail. He was nearer to death then than he had ever been. One bullet hit the tip of his finger and sliced it off neatly. With a scream of pain he half fell, half staggered to safety, spluttering strange oaths in German.

The aeroplanes did not return. He waited until their noise had died away before he again ventured to the roof, to find the sky clear. Cuccini was dead, and it was characteristic of his three friends that they should make a thorough search of his pockets before they heaved the body over the parapet.

Oberzohn left the three on the roof, with strict instructions that they were to dive to cover at the first glint of white wings, and went down into his study. The death of Cuccini was in some ways a blessing. The man was full of suspicion; his heart was not in the fight, and the aeroplane gunner had merely anticipated the doctor’s own plan.

Cuccini was a Latin, who spoke English well and wrote it badly. He had a characteristic hand, which it amused Oberzohn to copy, for the doctor was skilful with his pen. All through the next three hours he wrote, breaking off his labours at intervals to visit the guard on the roof. At last he had finished, and Cuccini’s sprawling signature was affixed to the bottom of the third page. Oberzohn called down one of the men.

“This is the statement of Cuccini which he left. Will you put your name to his signature?”

“What is it?” asked the man surlily.

“It is a letter which the good Cuccini made—what generosity! In this he says that he alone was to blame for bringing you here, and nobody else. Also that he kept you by threats.”

“And you?” asked the man.