At that he laughed in my face. ‘A proposition — you! To save yourself from Cappock’s deed-box, you will tell the Baron where we can find Schmidt’s daughter, perhaps?’ He crossed the room to where I stood, rather unsteadily supporting myself against the wall, and he was laughing softly to himself. ‘Or perhaps you know where Schmidt himself is?’
‘So you don’t know where Schmidt is?’ That pleased me a lot, for I felt that if Schmidt were at liberty and no longer wanted by the police, he might be able to do something.
‘No, but I think you may be able to help us there,’ he replied.
I had complete control of myself again now. ‘I think it would be best if you took me to Baron Marburg,’ I said. I spoke calmly, confidently, and I saw at once that my sudden change of mood puzzled him. ‘Baron Marburg,’ I went on, ‘plans to wreck this country and assume the powers of a dictator under the post-war German control. He thinks, I suppose, that because he is Baron Marburg, he is above suspicion. And whilst he is dreaming of power, he is in imminent danger of losing his life.’ I felt the thrill I always had when delivering my final address to the jury. ‘You wonder why he is in imminent danger of his life? Well, I can answer that for you, Sedel. It is because of your bungling. My God, man, do you think you can murder men with impunity in this country as you can in Germany? You killed Burston. And the police know it. You were fool enough to send him straight from a party at your house to his death. Did you never pause to think that that might immediately link you with his death? Why did Burston take the Birling Gap road? And why, when he knew the country so well, did he turn left, instead of right, at the foot of the Belle Toute? You might have got away with it, if the British Secret Service had not been on your track. You knew what Evan Llewellin was? You knew he was a secret agent. You know that Schmidt is no longer wanted for his murder? But do you know why? Because a petty thief saw and described the two men who murdered Llewellin. And now will you take me to your chief?’
I looked him full in the face, and his eyes would not meet mine. But his fear made him venomous. ‘What’s it matter?’ he snapped, half to himself. ‘We have the engine. Soon we shall have Schmidt. As for you,’ and he suddenly faced me, his eyes glittering, ‘you will not harm us. The talk of a madman can harm no one. That is what you’ll be when I have finished with you. Mad! Do you hear? Mad! Tomorrow you go back to your box.’ And he turned on his heel with his laugh like a soft giggle. His henchman followed him, and the door closed behind them with a dull thud. A key grated in the lock. An instant later the light went out and I was in the dark.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sudden darkness is frightening. Few people ever experience the real horrors of the darkness. I don’t mean the darkness of a room when you are fumbling for the light. I mean the darkness that shuts down on you like blindness and you have no power to control. The darkness in that vault was complete and utter. There were no windows or ventilation shafts through which even the faintest glimmer of luminosity could penetrate. It closed in around me, and everything was blank. It was as though my eyes had been walled up. And in that darkness I felt stifled, as though I had been buried alive. The mood of sudden inexplicable confidence in which I had addressed Sedel was gone. I remembered only his final words.
He had said I would go mad. And I knew he was right. The mere thought of that foul box made me clench my teeth to control my hysteria. I knew I could not stand it. As I stood in the impenetrable darkness of that vault, I found I was shaking like a leaf. Then the blackness all about me seemed to close in and I found my way to the wall to convince myself that I was not bounded by limitless darkness. The feel of those cold smooth stones was almost comforting. I think I am no more of a coward than the next man and darkness did not usually hold any terrors for me. But I had never known darkness such as this. It was black and with no change in shade anywhere. It pressed down relentlessly on my wide, staring eyeballs as I searched it.
And then I suddenly remembered my fountain-pen torch. I kept it in the breast pocket of my jacket for use in the blackout. It was still there, and in an instant its pale light flooded the vault. There was my coffin, shining black against the dungeon grey of the walls. I crossed to the vault door and tried it. It was an old iron-studded affair, and, though I shook it with all my strength, it held as firm as though it were a part of the wall. And then, as I leant against it, I noticed a plate of food lying on the floor. Evidently Sedel had brought it in and in the heat of the moment had forgotten to draw my attention to it. There was a roll and some ham. I seized upon it hungrily.
I have never eaten a more peculiar meal. I sat cross-legged on the floor of that vault with the plate on my lap. The monogram JL printed on the plate filled my heart with longing for the commonplace humdrum world somewhere above me. Yesterday, maybe, this plate had been used in a Lyon’s teashop. Now the last meal of a doomed man was being eaten off it. I have not often enjoyed a meal so much, for I was hungry. They had provided me with a knife and fork. The only thing I lacked was water. And my need of it grew. It was not until I had swallowed the last mouthful of ham that I realised how salt it had been. And then a new horror dawned on me and I realised just what a fiend Sedel was. Besides the horror of that box, I was to know the agony of thirst. I pushed the empty plate from me and climbing to my feet, searched frantically round the vault. But the walls were blocks of solid stone about a foot high by two feet long and the iron-studded door was quite immovable. I searched the floor and played the light of my torch on the roof, but I knew there was no hope of escape. And then I suddenly had a fear that my torch would give out. I switched it off and found the darkness bearable since, by the pressure of my finger on the pen clip, I could light my cell. And so, in a mood of utter despair, I settled myself against the wall farthest from the box and tried to sleep. Sleep did not come easily. After a while I fancy I dozed off. But almost instantly, it seemed, I was awake. And I knew I was not alone. My nerves were all to pieces and I opened my mouth to scream. But I think I was too petrified to make the necessary effort. Something was moving on the other side of the vault. Then came the sound of metal against crockery. It had touched my plate. And then my fingers closed about the torch.
In the sudden light I found myself staring across the room at the largest rat I think I have ever seen. It was dark and sleek, with eyes that gleamed redly. It bared its teeth at the light. Then suddenly it dived across the cell and vanished into a corner. I lay for a moment, staring at the empty vault, wondering whether my eyes had played me a trick. But then I remembered that I had heard rats scampering about the floor when I had been inside the tin box. The rat had left behind it a faint unpleasant smell. My mind struggled for a moment to account for the smell. And then I realised suddenly that what I had seen had been a sewer rat. And I almost retched at the thought. There could be no doubt about it. No rat but a sewer rat would be so large and vilely sleek.
Then my mind suddenly remembered a story told me by a City journalist. He had described it as true. The directors of the Bank of England had, some years ago, received an anonymous letter, stating that the writer could gain access to the vaults of the bank at any time. And when they had taken no notice, the fellow had written again, asking them to meet him in the vaults on a given night. And when they went down there, the fellow appeared through the floor from an old sewer. They had paid him the better part of a thousand pounds for his trouble. Supposing the sewers ran close to this vault? The rats came and went. And where the rats could go, perhaps a man could.