CHAPTER XIII
THE ROOM BELOW
I ran into the sitting-room, to discover Nayland Smith craning out ofthe now widely opened window. The blind had been drawn up, I did notknow by whom; and, leaning out beside my friend, I was in time toperceive some bright object moving down the gray stone wall. Almostinstantly it disappeared from sight in the yellow banks below.
Smith leapt around in a whirl of excitement.
"Come in, Petrie!" he cried, seizing my arm. "You remain here,Weymouth; don't leave these rooms whatever happens!"
We ran out into the corridor. For my own part I had not the vaguestidea what we were about. My mind was not yet fully recovered from thefrightful shock which it had sustained; and the strange words of thedying man--"the golden pomegranates"--had increased my mentalconfusion. Smith apparently had not heard them, for he remained grimlysilent, as side by side we raced down the marble stairs to thecorridor immediately below our own.
Although, amid the hideous turmoil to which I had awakened, I hadnoted nothing of the hour, evidently the night was far advanced. Not asoul was to be seen from end to end of the vast corridor in which westood ... until on the right-hand side and about half-way along, adoor opened and a woman came out hurriedly, carrying a small hand-bag.
She wore a veil, so that her features were but vaguely distinguished,but her every movement was agitated; and this agitation perceptiblyincreased when, turning, she perceived the two of us bearing downupon her.
Nayland Smith, who had been audibly counting the doors along thecorridor as we passed them, seized the woman's arm without ceremony,and pulled her into the apartment she had been on the point ofquitting, closing the door behind us as we entered.
"Smith!" I began, "for Heaven's sake what are you about?"
"You shall see, Petrie!" he snapped.
He released the woman's arm, and pointing to an arm-chair near by--
"Be seated," he said sternly.
Speechless with amazement, I stood, with my back to the door, watchingthis singular scene. Our captive, who wore a smart walking costume andwhose appearance was indicative of elegance and culture, so far haduttered no word of protest, no cry.
Now, whilst Smith stood rigidly pointing to the chair, she seatedherself with something very like composure and placed the leather bagupon the floor beside her. The room in which I found myself was one ofa suite almost identical with our own, but from what I had gathered ina hasty glance around, it bore no signs of recent tenancy. The windowwas widely opened, and upon the floor lay a strange-looking contrivanceapparently made of aluminum. A large grip, open, stood beside it, andfrom this some portions of a black coat and other garments protruded.
"Now, madame," said Nayland Smith, "will you be good enough to raiseyour veil?"
Silently, unprotestingly, the woman obeyed him, raising her glovedhands and lifting the veil from her face.
The features revealed were handsome in a hard fashion, but heavilymade-up. Our captive was younger than I had hitherto supposed; ablonde; her hair artificially reduced to the so-called Titian tint.But, despite her youth, her eyes, with the blackened lashes, were fullof a world weariness. Now she smiled cynically.
"Are you satisfied," she said, speaking unemotionally, "or," holdingup her wrists, "would you like to handcuff me?"
Nayland Smith, glancing from the open grip and the appliance beside itto the face of the speaker, began clicking his teeth together, wherebyI knew him to be perplexed. Then he stared across at me.
"You appear bemused, Petrie," he said, with a certain irritation. "Isthis what mystifies you?"
Stooping, he picked up the metal contrivance, and almost savagelyjerked open the top section. It was a telescopic ladder, and moreingeniously designed than anything of the kind I had seen before.There was a sort of clamp attached to the base, and two sharply pointedhooks at the top.
"For reaching windows on an upper floor," snapped my friend, droppingthe thing with a clatter upon the carpet. "An American device whichforms part of the equipment of the modern hotel thief!"
He seemed to be disappointed--fiercely disappointed; and I found hisattitude inexplicable. He turned to the woman--who sat regarding himwith that fixed cynical smile.
"Who are you?" he demanded; "and what business have you with the Si-Fan?"
The woman's eyes opened more widely, and the smile disappeared fromher face.
"The Si-Fan!" she repeated slowly. "I don't know what you mean,Inspector."
"I am not an Inspector," snapped Smith, "and you know it well enough.You have one chance--your last. To whom were you to deliver the box?when and where?"
But the blue eyes remained upraised to the grim tanned face with alook of wonder in them, which, if assumed, marked the woman aconsummate actress.
"Who are you?" she asked in a low voice, "and what are you talkingabout?"
Inactive, I stood by the door watching my friend, and his face was afruitful study in perplexity. He seemed upon the point of an angryoutburst, then, staring intently into the questioning eyes upraisedto his, he checked the words he would have uttered and began to clickhis teeth together again.
"You are some servant of Dr. Fu-Manchu!" he said.
The girl frowned with a bewilderment which I could have sworn was notassumed. Then--
"You said I had one chance a moment ago," she replied. "But if youreferred to my answering any of your questions, it is no chance atall. We have gone under, and I know it. I am not complaining; it'sall in the game. There's a clear enough case against us, and I amsorry"--suddenly, unexpectedly, her eyes became filled with tears,which coursed down her cheeks, leaving little wakes of blackness fromthe make-up upon her lashes. Her lips trembled, and her voice shook."I am sorry I let him do it. He'd never done anything--not anythingbig like this--before, and he never would have done if he had notmet me...."
The look of perplexity upon Smith's face was increasing with everyword that the girl uttered.
"You don't seem to know me," she continued, her emotion growingmomentarily greater, "and I don't know you; but they will know me atBow Street. I urged him to do it, when he told me about the box to-dayat lunch. He said that if it contained half as much as the Kurentreasure-chest, we could sail for America and be on the straight allthe rest of our lives...."
And now something which had hitherto been puzzling me became suddenlyevident. I had not removed the wig worn by the dead man, but I knewthat he had fair hair, and when in his last moments he had opened hiseyes, there had been in the contorted face something faintly familiar.
"Smith!" I cried excitedly, "it is Lewison, Meyerstein's clerk! Don'tyou understand? don't you understand?"
Smith brought his teeth together with a snap and stared me hard inthe face.
"I do, Petrie. I have been following a false scent. I do!"
The girl in the chair was now sobbing convulsively.
"He was tempted by the possibility of the box containing treasure," Iran on, "and his acquaintance with this--lady--who is evidently nostranger to felonious operations, led him to make the attempt with herassistance. But"--I found myself confronted by a new problem--"whatcaused his death?"
"His ... _death_!"
As a wild, hysterical shriek the words smote upon my ears. I turned,to see the girl rise, tottering, from her seat. She began groping infront of her, blindly, as though a darkness had descended.
"You did not say he was dead?" she whispered, "not dead!--not ..."
The words were lost in a wild peal of laughter. Clutching at herthroat she swayed and would have fallen had I not caught her in myarms. As I laid her insensible upon the settee I met Smith's glance.
"I think I know that, too, Petrie," he said gravely.