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 damned 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 masses 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 passers-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.
“Say, Mr. Craig, you’re an authority on South America, aren’t you? I bought some beans in the market this morning which they told me were grown down there, and my chef don’t seem to know what to make of ’em. I wonder whether you would mind stepping up and giving him your advice?”
Craig’s much lower voice was inaudible but it was evident that he had consented, for the two men ascended to the third floor together. Quest watched them enter the kitchen. A moment or two later the steward was summoned by a messenger and descended alone. Quest ran quickly down the stairs and planted himself behind the kitchen door. He had hardly taken up his position before the handle was turned. He heard Craig’s last words, spoken as he looked over his shoulder.
“You want to just soak them for two hours longer than any other beans in the world. That’s all there is about it.”
Craig appeared and the door swung back behind him. Before he could utter a cry, Quest’s left hand was over his mouth and the cold muzzle of an automatic pistol was pressed to his ribs.
“Turn round and mount those stairs, Craig,” Quest ordered.
The man shrunk away, trembling. The pistol pressed a little further into his side.
“Upstairs,” Quest repeated firmly. “If you utter a cry I shall shoot you.”
Craig turned slowly round and obeyed. He mounted the stairs with reluctant footsteps, followed by Quest.
“Through the door to your right,” the latter directed. “That’s right! Now sit down in that chair facing me.”
Quest closed the door carefully. Craig sat where he had been ordered, his fingers gripping the arms of the chair. In his eyes shone the furtive, terrified light of the trapped criminal.
Quest looked him over a little scornfully. It was queer that a man with apparently so little nerve should have the art and the daring to plan such exploits.
“What do you want with me?” Craig asked doggedly.
“First of all,” Quest replied, “I want to know what you have done with my assistant, the girl whom you carried off from the Professor’s garage.”
Craig shook his head.
“I know nothing about her.”
“She locked you in the garage,” Quest continued, “and sent for me. When I arrived, I found the garage door open, Lenora gone and you a fugitive.”
Bewilderment struggled for a moment with blank terror in Craig’s expression.
“How do you know that she locked me in the garage?”
Quest smiled, stretched out his right arm and his long fingers played softly with the pocket wireless.
“In just the same way,” he explained, “that I am sending her this message at the present moment—a message which she will receive and understand wherever she is hidden. Would you like to know what I am telling her?”
The man shivered. His eyes, as though fascinated, watched the little instrument.