Quest drew a little breath.
“It gave me a turn,” he admitted. “Say, this is a slow taxi!”
The Inspector glanced out of the window.
“If this is the young lady you’re looking for,” he said, “you’ll be in plenty of time, never fear. What I am hoping is that we may be able to catch my fellows before they try to rush the place. You understand, with your experience, Mr. Quest, that there are two things we’ve got to think of. We not only want to put our hand upon the guilty persons, but we want to bring the crime home to them.”
“I see that,” Quest assented. “How much farther is this place?”
“We’re there,” Hardaway told him.
He stopped the cab and they got out. A man who seemed to be strolling aimlessly along, reading a newspaper, suddenly joined them.
“Well, Dixon?” his chief exclaimed.
The man glanced around.
“I’ve got three men round at the back, Mr. Hardaway,” he said. “It’s impossible for any one to leave the place.”
“Anything fresh to tell me?”
“There are two men in the place besides the governor—butler and footman, dressed in livery. They sleep out, and only come after lunch.”
Hardaway paused to consider for a moment.
“Look here,” Quest suggested, “they know all you, of course, and they’ll never let you in until they’re forced to. I’m a stranger. Let me go. I’ll get in all right.”
Hardaway peered around the corner of the street.
“All right,” he assented. “We shall follow you up pretty closely, though.”
Quest stepped back into the taxi and gave the driver a direction. When he emerged in front of the handsome grey stone house he seemed to have become completely transformed. There was a fatuous smile upon his lips. He crossed the pavement with difficulty, stumbled up the steps, and held on to the knocker with one hand while he consulted a slip of paper. He had scarcely rung the bell before a slightly parted curtain in the front room fell together, and a moment later the door was opened by a man in the livery of a butler, but with the face and physique of a prize-fighter.
“Lady of the house,” Quest demanded. “Want to see the lady of the house.”
Almost immediately he was conscious of a woman standing in the hall before him. She was quietly but handsomely dressed; her hair was grey; her smile, although a little peculiar, was benevolent.
“You had better come in,” she invited. “Please do not stand in the doorway.”
Quest, however, who heard the footsteps of the others behind him, loitered there for a moment.
“You’re the lady whose name is on this piece of paper?” he demanded. “This place is all right, eh?”
“I really do not know what you mean,” the woman replied coldly, “but if you will come inside, I will talk to you in the drawing-room.”
Quest, as though stumbling against the front-door, had it now wide open, and in a moment the hall seemed full. The woman shrieked. The butler suddenly sprang upon the last man to enter, and sent him spinning down the steps. Almost at that instant there was a scream from upstairs. Quest took a running jump and went up the stairs four at a time. The butler suddenly snatched the revolver from Hardaway’s hand and fired blindly in front of him, missing Quest only by an inch or two.
“Don’t be a fool, Karl!” the woman called out. “The game’s up. Take it quietly.”
Once more the shriek rang through the house. Quest rushed to the door of the room from whence it came, tried the handle and found it locked. He ran back a little way and charged it. From inside he could hear a turmoil of voices. White with rage and passion, he pushed and kicked madly. There was the sound of a shot from inside, a bullet came through the door within an inch of his head, then the crash of broken crockery and a man’s groan. With a final effort Quest dashed the door in and staggered into the room. Lenora was standing in the far corner, the front of her dress torn and blood upon her lip. She held a revolver in her hand and was covering a man whose head and hands were bleeding. Around him were the debris of a broken jug.
“Mr. Quest!” she screamed. “Don’t go near him—I’ve got him covered. I’m all right.”
Quest drew a long breath. The man who stood glaring at him was well-dressed and still young. He was unarmed, however, and Quest secured him in a moment.
“The girl’s mad!” he said sullenly. “No one wanted to do her any harm.”
Hardaway and his men came trooping up the stairs. Quest relinquished his prisoner and went over to Lenora.
“I’ve been so frightened,” she sobbed. “They got me in here—they told me that this was the street in which my aunt lived—and they wouldn’t let me go. The woman was horrible. And this afternoon this man came. The brute!”
“He hasn’t hurt you?” Quest demanded fiercely, as he passed his arm around her.
She shook her head.
“He would never have done that,” she murmured. “I had my hatpin in my gown and I should have killed myself first.”
Quest turned to Hardaway.
“I’ll take the young lady away,” he said. “You know where to find us.”
Hardaway nodded and Quest supported Lenora down the stairs and into the taxi-cab, which was still waiting. She leaned back and he passed his arm around her.
“Are you faint?” he asked anxiously, as they drove towards the hotel.
“A little,” she admitted, “not very. But oh! I am so thankful—so thankful!”
He leaned a little nearer towards her. She looked at him wonderingly. Suddenly the colour flushed into her cheeks.
“I couldn’t have done without you, Lenora,” he whispered, as he kissed her.
Lenora had almost recovered when they reached the hotel. Walking up and down they found the Professor. His face, as he came towards them, was almost pitiful. He scarcely noticed Lenora’s deshabille, which was in a measure concealed by the cloak which Quest had thrown around her.
“My friend!” he exclaimed—“Mr. Quest! It is the devil incarnate against whom we fight!”
“What do you mean?” Quest demanded.
The Professor wrung his hands.
“I put him in our James the Second prison,” he declared. “Why should I think of the secret passage? No one has used it for a hundred years. He found it, learnt the trick—”
“You mean,” Quest cried—
“He has escaped!” the Professor broke in. “Craig has escaped again! They are searching for him high and low, but he has gone!”
Quest’s arm tightened for a moment in Lenora’s. It was curious how he seemed to have lost at that moment all sense of proportion. Lenora was safe—the relief of that one thought overshadowed everything else in the world.
“The fellow can’t get far,” he muttered.
“Who knows?” the Professor replied dolefully. “The passage—I’ll show it you some day and you’ll see how wonderful his escape has been—leads on to the first floor of the house. He must have got into my dressing-room, for his old clothes are there and he went away in a suit of mine. No one