"This little peep-show of ours has been real useful," Dexter confided out of the darkness. "I got an impression of the key of the strongroom door a week ago, and Carneta got one of the keys of the safe only this morning, when she lodged her box of jewellery with the bank! I was at work on that key when you interrupted me, and as by means of this useful apparatus I have learnt the combination, you ought to see some fun in the next few hours!"
Bristol repressed a groan, for the prospect of remaining in that position was thus brought keenly home to him.
The bank staff left the premises one by one until only a solitary clerk worked on at a back desk. His task completed, he, too, took his departure and the bank messenger commenced his nightly duty of sweeping up the offices. It was then that excitement like an anaesthetic dulled the detective's pain — indeed, he forgot his aching body and became merely a watchful intelligence.
So intent had he become upon the picture before him that he had not noticed the fact that he was alone in the office of the Congo Fibre Company. Now he realized it from the absolute silence about him, and from another circumstance.
The spying apparatus had been left focussed, and on to the screen beneath his eyes, bending low behind the desks and creeping, Indian-like, around, toward the head of the stair which communicated with the strongroom and the apartment used by the messenger, came the alert figure of Earl Dexter!
It may be a surprise to some people to learn that at any time in the day the door of a bank, unguarded, should be left open, when only a solitary messenger is within the premises; yet for a few minutes at least each evening this happens at more than one City bank, where one of the duties of the resident messenger is to clean the outer steps. Dexter had taken advantage of the man's absence below in quest of scrubbing material to enter the bank through the open door.
Watching, breathless, and utterly forgetful of his own position, Bristol saw the messenger, all unconscious of danger, come up the stairs carrying a pail and broom. As his head reached the level of the railings The Stetson Man neatly sand-bagged him, rushed across to the outer door, and closed it!
Given duplicate keys and the private information which Dexter so ingeniously had obtained, there are many London banks vulnerable to similar attack. Certainly, bullion is rarely kept in a branch storeroom, but the detective was well aware that the keys of the case containing the slipper were kept in this particular safe!
He was convinced, and could entertain no shadowy doubt, that at last Dexter had triumphed. He wondered if it had ever hitherto fallen to the lot of a representative of the law thus to be made an accessory to a daring felony!
But human endurance has well-defined limits. The fading light rendered the ingenious picture dim and more dim. The pain occasioned by his position became agonizing, and uttering a stifled groan he ceased to take an interest in the robbery of the London County and Provincial Bank.
Fate is a comedian; and when later I learned how I had lain strapped to my bed, and, so near to me, Bristol had hung helpless as a butchered carcass in the office of the Congo Fibre Company, whilst, in our absence from the stage, the drama of the slipper marched feverish to its final curtain, I accorded Fate her well-earned applause. I laughed; not altogether mirthfully.
Chapter 27
THE SLIPPER
Someone was breaking in at the door of my chambers!
I aroused myself from a state of coma almost death-like and listened to the blows. The sun was streaming in at my windows.
A splintering crash told of a panel broken. Then a moment later I heard the grating of the lock, and a rush of footsteps along the passage.
"Try the study!" came a voice that sounded like Bristol's, save that it was strangely weak and shaky.
Almost simultaneously the Inspector himself threw open the bedroom door — and, very pale and haggard-eyed, stood there looking across at me. It was a scene unforgettable.
"Mr. Cavanagh!" he said huskily—"Mr. Cavanagh! Thank God you're alive! But" — he turned—"this way, Marden!" he cried, "Untie him quickly! I've got no strength in my arms!"
Marden, a C.I.D. man, came running, and in a minute, or less, I was sitting up gulping brandy.
"I've had the most awful experience of my life," said Bristol. "You've fared badly enough, but I've been hanging by my wrists — you know Dexter's trick! — for close upon sixteen hours! I wasn't released until Carter, an office boy, came on the scene this morning!"
Very feebly I nodded; I could not talk.
"The strong-room of your bank was rifled under my very eyes last evening!" he continued, with something of his old vigour; "and five minutes after the Antiquarian Museum was opened to the public this morning quite an unusual number of visitors appeared.
"I saw the bank manager the moment he arrived, and learned a piece of news that positively took my breath away! I was at the Museum seven minutes later and got another shock! There in the case was the red slipper!"
"Then," I whispered-"it hadn't been stolen?"
"Wrong! It had! This was a duplicate, as Mostyn, the curator, saw at a glance! Some of the early visitors — they were Easterns — had quite surrounded the case. They were watched, of course, but any number of Orientals come to see the thing; and, short of smashing the glass, which would immediately attract attention, the authorities were unprepared, of course, for any attempt. Anyway, they were tricked. Somebody opened the case. The real slipper of the Prophet is gone!"
"They told you at the bank—"
"That you had withdrawn the keys! If Dexter had known that!"
"Hassan of Aleppo took them from me last night! At last the Hashishin have triumphed."
Bristol sank into the armchair.
"Every port is watched," he said. "But—"
Chapter 28
CARNETA
"I am entirely at your mercy; you can do as you please with me. But before you do anything I should like you to listen to what I have to say."
Her beautiful face was pale and troubled. Violet eyes looked sadly into mine.
"For nearly an hour I have been waiting for this chance — until I knew you were alone," she continued. "If you are thinking of giving me up to the police, at least remember that I came here of my own free will. Of course, I know you are quite entitled to take advantage of that; but please let me say what I came to say!"
She pleaded so hard, with that musical voice, with her evident helplessness, most of all with her wonderful eyes, that I quite abandoned any project I might have entertained to secure her arrest. I think she divined this masculine weakness, for she said, with greater confidence—
"Your friend, Professor Deeping, was murdered by the man called Hassan of Aleppo. Are you content to remain idle while his murderer escapes?"
God knows I was not. My idleness in the matter was none of my choosing. Since poor Deeping's murder I had come to handgrips with the assassins more than once, but Hassan had proved too clever for me, too clever for Scotland Yard. The sacred slipper was once more in the hands of its fanatic guardian.
One man there was who might have helped the search, Earl Dexter. But Earl Dexter was himself wanted by Scotland Yard!
From the time of the bank affair up to the moment when this beautiful visitor had come to my chambers I had thought Dexter, as well as Hassan, to have fled secretly from England. But the moment that I saw Carneta at my door I divined that The Stetson Man must still be in London.