The Secret of Chimneys

The man’s eyes were fixed on the packet of letters which Anthony had caught up.

‘I will get out when you have given me what I have come for.’

‘And what’s that, may I ask?’

The man took a step nearer.

‘The memoirs of Count Stylptitch,’ he hissed.

‘It’s impossible to take you seriously,’ said Anthony. ‘You’re so completely the stage villain. I like your getup very much. Who sent you here? Baron Lollipop?’

‘Baron?–’ The man jerked out a string of harsh sounding consonants.

‘So that’s how you pronounce it, is it? A cross between gargling and barking like a dog. I don’t think I could say it myself–my throat’s not made that way. I shall have to go on calling him Lollipop. So he sent you, did he?’

But he received a vehement negative. His visitor went so far as to spit upon the suggestion in a very realistic manner. Then he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper which he threw upon the table.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look and tremble, accursed Englishman.’

Anthony looked with some interest, not troubling to fulfil the latter part of the command. On the paper was traced the crude design of a human hand in red.

‘It looks like a hand,’ he remarked. ‘But, if you say so, I’m quite prepared to admit that it’s a Cubist picture of Sunset at the North Pole.’

‘It is the sign of the Comrades of the Red Hand. I am a Comrade of the Red Hand.’

‘You don’t say so,’ said Anthony, looking at him with much interest. ‘Are the others all like you? I don’t know what the Eugenic Society would have to say about it.’

The man snarled angrily.

‘Dog,’ he said. ‘Worse than dog. Paid slave of an effete monarchy. Give me the memoirs, and you shall go unscathed. Such is the clemency of the Brotherhood.’

‘It’s very kind of them, I’m sure,’ said Anthony, ‘but I’m afraid that both they and you are labouring under a misapprehension. My instructions are to deliver the manuscript–not to your amiable society, but to a certain firm of publishers.’

‘Pah!’ laughed the other. ‘Do you think you will ever be permitted to reach that office alive? Enough of this fool’s talk. Hand over the papers, or I shoot.’

He drew a revolver from his pocket and brandished it in the air.

But there he misjudged his Anthony Cade. He was not used to men who could act as quickly–or quicker than they could think. Anthony did not wait to be covered by the revolver. Almost as soon as the other got it out of his pocket, Anthony had sprung forward and knocked it out of his hand. The force of the blow sent the man swinging round, so that he presented his back to his assailant.

The chance was too good to be missed. With one mighty, well-directed kick, Anthony sent the man flying through the doorway into the corridor, where he collapsed in a heap.

Anthony stepped out after him, but the doughty Comrade of the Red Hand had had enough. He got nimbly to his feet and fled down the passage. Anthony did not pursue him, but went back into his own room.

‘So much for the Comrades of the Red Hand,’ he remarked. ‘Picturesque appearance, but easily routed by direct action. How the hell did that fellow get in, I wonder? There’s one thing that stands out pretty clearly–this isn’t going to be quite such a soft job as I thought. I’ve already fallen foul of both the Loyalist and the Revolutionary parties. Soon, I suppose, the Nationalists and the Independent Liberals will be sending up a delegation. One thing’s fixed. I start on that manuscript tonight.’

Looking at his watch, Anthony discovered that it was nearly nine o’clock, and he decided to dine where he was. He did not anticipate any more surprise visits, but he felt that it was up to him to be on his guard. He had no intention of allowing his suitcase to be rifled whilst he was downstairs in the Grill Room. He rang the bell and asked for the menu, selected a couple of dishes and ordered a bottle of Chambertin. The waiter took the order and withdrew.

Whilst he was waiting for the meal to arrive, he got out the package of manuscript and put it on the table with the letters.

There was a knock at the door, and the waiter entered with a small table and the accessories of the meal. Anthony had strolled over to the mantelpiece. Standing there with his back to the room, he was directly facing the mirror, and idly glancing in it he noticed a curious thing.

The waiter’s eyes were glued on the parcel of manuscript. Shooting little glances sideways at Anthony’s immovable back, he moved softly round the table. His hands were twitching and he kept passing his tongue over his dry lips. Anthony observed him more closely. He was a tall man, supple like all waiters, with a clean-shaven, mobile face. An Italian, Anthony thought, not a Frenchman.

At the critical moment Anthony wheeled round abruptly. The waiter started slightly, but pretended to be doing something with the salt-cellar.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Anthony abruptly.

‘Giuseppe, monsieur.’

‘Italian, eh?’

‘Yes, monsieur.’

Anthony spoke to him in that language, and the man answered fluently enough. Finally Anthony dismissed him with a nod, but all the while he was eating the excellent meal which Giuseppe served to him, he was thinking rapidly.

Had he been mistaken? Was Giuseppe’s interest in the parcel just ordinary curiosity? It might be so, but remembering the feverish intensity of the man’s excitement, Anthony decided against that theory. All the same, he was puzzled.

‘Dash it all,’ said Anthony to himself, ‘everyone can’t be after the blasted manuscript. Perhaps I’m fancying things.’

Dinner concluded and cleared away, he applied himself to the perusal of the memoirs. Owing to the illegibility of the late Count’s handwriting, the business was a slow one. Anthony’s yawns succeeded one another with suspicious rapidity. At the end of the fourth chapter, he gave it up.

So far, he had found the memoirs insufferably dull, with no hint of scandal of any kind.

He gathered up the letters and the wrapping of the manuscript which were lying in a heap together on the table and locked them up in the suitcase. Then he locked the door, and as an additional precaution put a chair against it. On the chair he placed the water-bottle from the bathroom.

Surveying these preparations with some pride, he undressed and got into bed. He had one more shot at the Count’s memoirs, but felt his eyelids drooping, and stuffing the manuscript under his pillow, he switched out the light and fell asleep almost immediately.

It must have been some four hours later that he awoke with a start. What had awakened him he did not know–perhaps a sound, perhaps only the consciousness of danger which in men who have led an adventurous life is very fully developed.

For a moment he lay quite still, trying to focus his impressions. He could hear a very stealthy rustle, and then he became aware of a denser blackness somewhere between him and the window–on the floor by the suitcase.

With a sudden spring, Anthony jumped out of bed, switching the light on as he did so. A figure sprang up from where it had been kneeling by the suitcase.

It was the waiter, Giuseppe. In his right hand gleamed a long thin knife. He hurled himself straight upon Anthony, who was by now fully conscious of his own danger. He was unarmed and Giuseppe was evidently thoroughly at home with his own weapon.

Anthony sprang to one side, and Giuseppe missed him with the knife. The next minute the two men were rolling on the floor together, locked in a close embrace. The whole of Anthony’s faculties were centred on keeping a close grip of Giuseppe’s right arm so that he would be unable to use the knife. He bent it slowly back. At the same time he felt the Italian’s other hand clutching at his windpipe, stifling him, choking. And still, desperately, he bent the right arm back.

There was a sharp tinkle as the knife fell on the floor. At the same time, the Italian extricated himself with a swift twist from Anthony’s grasp. Anthony sprang up too, but made the mistake of moving towards the door to cut off the other’s retreat. He saw, too late, that the chair and the water-bottle were just as he had arranged them.

Giuseppe had entered by the window, and it was the window he made for now. In the instant’s respite given him by Anthony’s move towards the door, he had sprung out on the balcony, leaped over to the adjoining balcony and had disappeared through the adjoining window.

Anthony knew well enough that it was of no use to pursue him. His way of retreat was doubtless fully assured. Anthony would merely get himself into trouble.

He walked over to the bed, thrusting his hand beneath the pillow and drawing out the memoirs. Lucky that they had been there and not in the suitcase. He crossed over to the suitcase and looked inside, meaning to take out the letters.

Then he swore softly under his breath.

The letters were gone.