XXII

Outside the door in the darkened passage a man was listening intentive. He had trailed Digby Groat all that evening, and had followed him into the house. Hearing a movement of footsteps within, he slipped into a side passage and waited. Eunice flew past the entrance to the passage and Jim Steele thought it was time that he made a move. In a few minutes the house would be aroused, for he guessed that the old woman had collapsed. It was a desperate, mad enterprise of his, to enter the great household at so early an hour, but he had a particular reason for wishing to discover the contents of a letter which he had seen slipped into Digby’s hand that night.

Jim had been following him without success until Digby Groat had alighted at Piccadilly Circus apparently to buy a newspaper. Then a stranger had edged close to him and Jim had seen the quick passage of the white envelope. He meant to see that letter.

He reached the ground floor in safety and hesitated. Should he go into the laboratory whither Digby was certain to come, or should he⁠—? A hurried footstep on the stairs above decided him: he slipped through the door leading to Digby’s study. Hiding-place there was none: he had observed the room when he had been in there a few days previously. He was safe so long as nobody came in and turned on the lights. Jim heard the footsteps pass the door, and pulled his soft felt hat farther over his eyes. The lower part of his face he had already concealed with a black silk handkerchief, and if the worst came to the worst, he could battle his way out and seek safety in flight. Nobody would recognize him in the old grey suit he wore, and the soft collarless shirt. It would not be a very noble end to the adventure, but it would be less ignominious than being exposed again to the scorn of Eunice.

Suddenly his heart beat faster. Somebody was coming into the library. He saw the unknown open the door and he crouched down so that the big library table covered him from observation. Instantly the room was flooded with light; Jim could only see the legs of the intruder, and they were the legs of Digby Groat. Digby moved to the table, and Jim heard the tear of paper as an envelope was slit, and then an exclamation of anger from the man.

“Mr. Groat, please come quickly!”

It was the voice of Eunice calling from the floor above, and Digby hurried out, leaving the door open. He was scarcely out of sight before Jim had risen; his first glance was at the table. The letter lay as Digby had thrown it down, and he thrust it into his pocket. In a second he was through the doorway and in the passage. Jackson was standing by the foot of the stairs looking up, and for the moment he did not see Jim; then, at the sight of the masked face, he opened his mouth to shout a warning, and at that instant Jim struck at him twice, and the man went down with a crash.

“What is that?” said Digby’s voice, but Jim was out of the house, the door slammed behind him, and was racing along the sidewalk toward Berkeley Square, before Digby Groat knew what had happened. He slackened his pace, turned sharp to the right, so that he came back on his track, and stopped under a street light to read the letter.

Parts of its contents contained no information for him. But there was one line which interested him:

“Steele is trailing you: we will fix him tonight.”

He read the line again and smiled as he walked on at a more leisurely pace.

Once or twice he thought he was being followed, and turned round, but saw nobody. As he strolled up Portland Place, deserted at this hour of the night save for an occasional car, his suspicion that he was being followed was strengthened. Two men, walking one behind the other, and keeping close to the railings, were about twenty yards behind him.

“I’ll give you a run for your money, my lads,” muttered Jim, and crossing Marylebone Road, he reached the loneliest part of London, the outer circle of Regent’s Park. And then he began to run: and Jim had taken both the sprint and the two-mile at the ’Varsity sports. He heard swift feet following and grinned to himself. Then came the noise of a taxi door shutting. They had picked up the “crawler” he had passed.

“That is very unsporting,” said Jim, and turning, ran in the opposite direction. He went past the cab like a flash, and heard it stop and a loud voice order the taxi to turn, and he slackened his pace. He had already decided upon his plan of action⁠—one so beautifully simple and so embarrassing to Digby Groat and his servitors, if his suspicions were confirmed, that it was worth the bluff. He had dropped to a walk at the sight of a policeman coming toward him. As the taxi came abreast he stepped into the roadway, gripped the handle of the door and jerked it open.

“Come out,” he said sternly.

In the reflected light from the taximeter lantern he saw the damaged face of an old friend.

“Come out, Jackson, and explain just why you’re following me through the peaceful streets of this great city.”

The man was loath to obey, but Jim gripped him by the waistcoat and dragged him out, to the taxi-driver’s astonishment.

The second man was obviously a foreigner, a little dark, thin-faced man with a mahogany face, and they stood sheepishly regarding their quarry.

“Tomorrow you can go back to Mr. Digby Groat and tell him that the next time he sets the members of the Thirteen Gang to trail me, I’ll come after him with enough evidence in each hand to leave him swinging in the brick-lined pit at Wandsworth. Do you understand that?”

“I don’t know what you mean about tomorrow,” said the innocent Jackson in an aggrieved tone. “We could have the law on you for dragging us out of the cab.”

“Try it, here comes a policeman,” said Jim. He gripped him by the collar and dragged him toward the interested constable. “I think this man wants to make a charge against me.”

“No, I don’t,” growled Jackson, terrified as to what his master would say when he heard of this undramatic end to the trailing of Jim.

“Well, then, I make a charge against him.”

It was the bluff that Jim had planned, a bluff which might very well come off. “I charge him with being in possession of weapons for the purpose of committing a felony. I further charge him under the Arms Act with having no licence to carry firearms.”