The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ raised and lowered at will. Where is that contrivance? Can you find it?”

      The expert thought he could. And, sure enough, after some ineffectual searching, he came upon another button well hid amid the tapestry on the wall, which, when pressed, caused something to be disengaged which gradually lowered the cage within reach of Mr. Gryce’s hand.

      “We will not send this poor bird aloft again,” said he, detaching the cage and holding it for a moment in his hand. “An English starling is none too common in this country. Hark! he is going to speak.”

      But the sharp-eyed bird, warned perhaps by the emphatic gesture of the detective that silence would be more in order at this moment than his usual appeal to “remember Evelyn,” whisked about in his cage for an instant, and then subsided into a doze, which may have been real, and may have been assumed under the fascinating eye of the old gentleman who held him. Mr. Gryce placed the cage on the floor, and idly, or because the play pleased him, old and staid as he was, pressed another button on the table—a button he had hitherto neglected touching—and glanced around to see what color the light would now assume.

      But the yellow glare remained. The investigation which the apparatus had gone through had probably disarranged the wires. With a shrug he was moving off, when he suddenly made a hurried gesture, directing the attention of the expert to a fact for which neither of them was prepared. The opening which led into the antechamber, and which was the sole means of communication with the rest of the house, was slowly closing. From a yard’s breadth it became a foot; from a foot it became an inch; from an inch——

      “Well, that is certainly the contrivance of a lazy man,” laughed the expert. “Seated in his chair here, he can close his door at will. No shouting after a deaf servant, no awkward stumbling over rugs to shut it himself. I don’t know but I approve of this contrivance, only——” here he caught a rather serious expression on Mr. Gryce’s face—“the slide seems to be of a somewhat curious construction. It is not made of wood, as any sensible door ought to be, but of——”

      “Steel,” finished Mr. Gryce in an odd tone. “This is the strangest thing yet. It begins to look as if Mr. Adams was daft on electrical contrivances.”

      “And as if we were prisoners here,” supplemented the other. “I do not see any means for drawing this slide back.”

      “Oh, there’s another button for that, of course,” Mr. Gryce carelessly remarked.

      But they failed to find one.

      “If you don’t object,” observed Mr. Gryce, after five minutes of useless search, “I will turn a more cheerful light upon the scene. Yellow does not seem to fit the occasion.”

      “Give us rose, for unless you have some one on the other side of this steel plate, we seem likely to remain here till morning.”

      “There is a man upstairs whom we may perhaps make hear, but what does this contrivance portend? It has a serious look to me, when you consider that every window in these two rooms has been built up almost under the roof.”

      “Yes; a very strange look. But before engaging in its consideration I should like a breath of fresh air. I cannot do anything while in confinement. My brain won’t work.”

      Meanwhile Mr. Gryce was engaged in examining the huge plate of steel which served as a barrier to their egress. He found that it had been made—certainly at great expense—to fit the curve of the walls through which it passed. This was a discovery of some consequence, causing Mr. Gryce to grow still more thoughtful and to eye the smooth steel plate under his hand with an air of marked distrust.

      “Mr. Adams carried his taste for the mechanical to great extremes,” he remarked to the slightly uneasy man beside him. “This slide is very carefully fitted, and, if I am not mistaken, it will stand some battering before we are released.”

      “I wish that his interest in electricity had led him to attach such a simple thing as a bell.”

      “True, we have come across no bell.”

      “It would have smacked too much of the ordinary to please him.”

      “Besides, his only servant was deaf.”

      “Try the effect of a blow, a quick blow with this silver-mounted alpenstock. Some one should hear and come to our assistance.”

      “I will try my whistle first; it will be better understood.”

      But though Mr. Gryce both whistled and struck many a resounding knock upon the barrier before them, it was an hour before he could draw the attention of Styles, and five hours before an opening could be effected in the wall large enough to admit of their escape, so firmly was this barrier of steel fixed across the sole outlet from this remarkable room.

Chapter V.

       Five Small Spangles

       Table of Contents

      Such an experience could not fail to emphasize Mr. Gryce’s interest in the case and heighten the determination he had formed to probe its secrets and explain all its extraordinary features. Arrived at Headquarters, where his presence was doubtless awaited with some anxiety by those who knew nothing of the cause of his long detention, his first act was to inquire if Bartow, the butler, had come to his senses during the night.

      The answer was disappointing. Not only was there no change in his condition, but the expert in lunacy who had been called in to pass upon his case had expressed an opinion unfavorable to his immediate recovery.

      Mr. Gryce looked sober, and, summoning the officer who had managed Bartow’s arrest, he asked how the mute had acted when he found himself detained.

      The answer was curt, but very much to the point.

      “Surprised, sir. Shook his head and made some queer gestures, then went through his pantomime. It’s quite a spectacle, sir. Poor fool, he keeps holding his hand back, so.”

      Mr. Gryce noted the gesture; it was the same which Bartow had made when he first realized that he had spectators. Its meaning was not wholly apparent. He had made it with his right hand (there was no evidence that the mute was left-handed), and he continued to make it as if with this movement he expected to call attention to some fact that would relieve him from custody.

      “Does he mope? Is his expression one of fear or anger?”

      “It varies, sir. One minute he looks like a man on the point of falling asleep; the next he starts up in fury, shaking his head and pounding the walls. It’s not a comfortable sight, sir. He will have to be watched night and day.”

      “Let him be, and note every change in him. His testimony may not be valid, but there is suggestion in every movement he makes. To-morrow I will visit him myself.”

      The officer went out, and Mr. Gryce sat for a few moments communing with himself, during which he took out a little package from his pocket, and emptying out on his desk the five little spangles it contained, regarded them intently. He had always been fond of looking at some small and seemingly insignificant object while thinking. It served to concentrate his thoughts, no doubt. At all events, some such result appeared to follow the contemplation of these five sequins, for after shaking his head СКАЧАТЬ