“Yes, dear, it did. You see,1 had been so worried about Mike. I thought he was working too hard. In his way, dear, he’s rather a treasure. Dr. Pardoe, who is a neighbor of ours, suggested, almost playfully, that I consult the professor.”
“And your nerves improved?”
“Enormously. I began to sleep again. But these queer lapses came on. I told him. He reassured me. I’m not at all certain, dear, that we have discovered anything after all. Your lapses began before you had ever seen him.”
“Yes.” Camille was thinking hard. “The trouble doesn’t seem to be with the professor’s treatment, after all. Quite apart from which, I have no idea if I ever consulted him at all.”
“No, dear—I quite understand.” Stella squeezed her hand, sympathetically. “You have no idea how completely I understand.”
They were crossing the library, together, when there came a sudden, tremendous storm of barking. It swept in upon the peace of Falling Waters, a hurricane of sound.
“Whatever is it?” Camille whispered.
As if in answer to her question, Sam entered through open French windows. He had removed his topcoat, his cerise scarf, and his slate-grey hat. He wore the sort of checked suit for which otherwise innocent men have been lynched. He grinned happily at Camille.
“Morning, lady.”
“Good morning, Sam. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Pleasant surprise, eh? Same with me.” The barking continued; became a tornado. “There’s a guy outside says he’s brought some dogs.”
“Oh!” Stella’s face lighted up. “Now we shall be safe! How splendid. Have they sent all the dogs?”
“Sounds to me like they sent all they had.”
“And a kennelman?”
Stella hadn’t the slightest idea who Sam was, but she accepted his striking presence without hesitation.
“Sure. He’s a busy guy, too.”
“I must go and see them at once!” She put her arm around Camille. “Do come with me, dear!”
Camille smiled at Sam.
“I should love to.”
“The guy is down there by the barbed-wire entanglements.” Sam stood in the window, pointing. “You can’t miss him. He’s right beside a truckload of maybe a couple hundred dogs.”
Camille and Stella hurried out, Stella almost dancing with excitement.
Their voices—particularly Stella’s—were still audible even above the barrage of barking, when Nayland Smith and Michael Frobisher came into the library.
“You have a fair assortment of sporting guns and an automatic or two,” Smith was saying. “But you’re low on ammunition.’
“Do you expect a siege?”
“Not exactly. But I expect developments.”
Nayland Smith crossed to the glazed cabinet and stood before it, pulling at the lobe of his ear. Then he tilted his head sideways, listening.
“Dogs,” he rapped. “Why all the dogs?”
Frobisher met his glance almost apologetically.
“It’s Mrs. F.’s idea. I do try to keep all this bother from her, but she seems to have got onto it. She ordered a damned pack of these German police dogs from some place. There’s a collection of kennels down there like a Kaffir village. She’s had men at work for a week fixing barbed wire. Falling Waters is a prison camp!”
“Not a bad idea. I have known dogs to succeed where men and machines failed. But, tell me”—he pointed to the cabinet—”how does this thing work?”
“Well—it’s simple enough in principle. How it works I don’t know. Ground plan of the property. Anyone moving around, when it’s connected up, marks his trail on the scoreboard.”
“I see.”
“I’m having Craig overhaul it, when he has time. If you’ll step into my study again for just a minute, I’ll get the chart of the layout, which will make the thing more clear.”
Nayland Smith glanced at his wrist-watch.
“I can give you just ten minutes, Mr. Frobisher.”
They returned to Frobisher’s study.
Sunshine poured into the empty library. A beautiful Italian casket, silver studded with semi-precious stones, glowed as though lighted by inner fires, or become transparent. The pure lines of the Discus Thrower were sharply emphasized. Barking receded as the pack was removed to the “Kaffir village” erected at Mrs. Frobisher’s command.
Then Michael Frobisher came back. Crossing to the desk, he sat down and unlocked a drawer. He took out a chart in a folder, a chart which indicated points of contact surrounding the house as well as free zones. He pressed a bell button and waited, glancing about him.
Stein came in and Frobisher turned.
“Take this to Sir Denis in the study. Tell him I’ll be right along in two minutes.”
Stein nodded and went out with the folder.
Frobisher dialed a number, and presently:
“Yes—Frobisher,” he said nervously. “Sir Denis Nayland Smith is here . . . They’re onto us . . . Looks like all that money has been poured down the sewers . . . Huston Electric doesn’t have a chance.
He became silent, listening intently to someone on the other end of the line. His eyes kept darting right and left, furtively. Then: “Got ‘em all here, back of the drawer in this desk,” he said, evidently in reply to a question . . . “That’s none too easy . . . Yes, I’ll have it in my hands by tonight, but . . . All right, give me the times.’
Frobisher pulled an envelope from a rack and picked up a pencil.
“It mayn’t be possible,” he said, writing rapidly. “Remember that . . . Nayland Smith is only one danger—”
He broke off. “Have to hang up. Call you later.”
Stein, standing in the arched opening, was urgently pointing in the direction of the study. Frobisher nodded irritably and passed him on his way to rejoin Nayland Smith.
And, as Stein in turn retired, Sam stepped out from behind that Spanish screen which formed so artistic a background for the big walnut desk.
Without waste of time, he opened the drawer which Frobisher had just closed.
Chewing industriously, he studied the scribbled lines. Apparently they conveyed little or nothing to his mind for he was about to replace the envelope, and no doubt to explore further, when a dull, heavy voice spoke right behind him.
“Put up your hands. I have been watching you.”
Stein had re-entered quite silently, and now had Sam covered by an automatic!
Sam dropped the envelope, and slowly raised his hands.
“Listen!—happen to have a postage stamp? That’s what I was looking for.”
Stein’s reply was to step closer and run his hands expertly over Sam’s person. Having relieved him of a heavy revolver and a flash-lamp, he raised his voice to a hoarse shout:
“Mr. Frobisher! Dr. Craig!”
“Listen. Wait a minute—”
There came the sound of a door thrown open. Michael Frobisher and Nayland Smith ran in. Frobisher’s florid coloring changed a half tone.
“What’s this. Stein? What goes on?”
“This man searches your desk, Mr. Frobisher. I catch him doing it.”
As he spoke, he glanced significantly down at the envelope which Sam had dropped. Nayland Smith saw a look of consternation cross Frobisher’s face, as he stooped, snatched it up, and slipped it into his pocket. But there was plenty of thunder in his voice when he spoke.