It was that same voice that had brought Michael Brixan racing across the garden to the postern gate. A car stood outside, its lights dimmed. Standing by its bonnet was a frightened little brown man who had brought the machine to the place.

“Where is your master?” asked Michael quickly.

The man pointed.

“He went that way,” he quavered. “There was a devil in the big machine⁠—it would not move when he stamped on the little pedal.”

Michael guessed what had happened. At the last moment, by one of those queer mischances which haunt the just and the unjust, the engine had failed him and he had fled on foot.

“Which way did he go?”

Again the man pointed.

“He ran,” he said simply.

Michael turned to the detective who was with him.

“Stay here: he may return. Arrest him immediately and put the irons on him. He’s probably armed, and he may be suicidal; we can’t afford to take any risks.”

He had been so often across what he had named the “Back Field” that he could find his way blindfolded, and he ran at top speed till he came to the stile and to the road. Sir Gregory was nowhere in sight. Fifty yards along the road, the lights gleamed cheerily from an upper window in Mr. Longvale’s house, and Michael bent his footsteps in that direction.

Still no sight of the man, and he turned through the gate and knocked at the door, which was almost immediately opened by the old gentleman himself. He wore a silken gown, tied with a sash about the middle, a picture of comfort, Michael thought.

“Who’s that?” asked Mr. Sampson Longvale, peering out into the darkness. “Why, bless my life, it’s Mr. Brixan, the officer of the law! Come in, come in, sir.”

He opened the door wide and Michael passed into the sitting-room, with its inevitable two candles, augmented now by a small silver reading-lamp that burnt some sort of petrol vapour.

“No trouble at the Towers, I trust?” said Mr. Longvale anxiously.

“There was a little trouble,” said Michael carefully. “Have you by any chance seen Sir Gregory Penne?”

The old man shook his head.

“I found the night rather too chilly for my usual garden ramble,” he said, “so I’ve seen none of the exciting events which seem inevitably to accompany the hours of darkness in these times. Has anything happened to him?”

“I hope not,” said Michael quietly. “I hope, for everybody’s sake, that⁠—nothing has happened to him.”

He walked across and leant his elbows on the mantelpiece, looking up at the painting above his head.

“Do you admire my relative?” beamed Mr. Longvale.

“I don’t know that I admire him. He was certainly a wonderfully handsome old gentleman.”

Mr. Longvale inclined his head.

“You have read his memoirs?”

Michael nodded, and the old man did not seem in any way surprised.

“Yes, I have read what purport to be his memoirs,” said Michael quietly, “but latter-day opinion is that they are not authentic.”

Mr. Longvale shrugged his shoulders.

“Personally, I believe every word of them,” he said. “My uncle was a man of considerable education.”

It would have amazed Jack Knebworth to know that the man who had rushed hotfoot from the tower in search of a possible murderer, was at that moment calmly discussing biography; yet such was the incongruous, unbelievable fact.

“I sometimes feel that you think too much about your uncle, Mr. Longvale,” said Michael gently.

The old gentleman frowned.

“You mean⁠—?”

“I mean that such a subject may become an obsession and a very unhealthy obsession, and such hero-worship may lead a man to do things which no sane man would do.”

Longvale looked at him in genuine astonishment.

“Can one do better than imitate the deeds of the great?” he asked.

“Not if your sense of values hasn’t got all tangled up, and you ascribe to him virtues which are not virtues⁠—unless duty is a virtue⁠—and confuse that which is great with that which is terrible.”

Michael turned and, resting his palms on the table, looked across to the old man who confronted him.

“I want you to come with me into Chichester this evening.”

“Why?” The question was asked bluntly.

“Because I think you’re a sick man, that you ought to have care.”

The old man laughed and drew himself even more erect.

“Sick? I was never better in my life, my dear sir, never fitter, never stronger!”

And he looked all that he said. His height, the breadth of his shoulders, the healthy glow of his cheeks, all spoke of physical fitness.

A long pause, and then:

“Where is Gregory Penne?” asked Michael, emphasizing every word.

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

The old man’s eyes met his without wavering.

“We were talking about my great-uncle. You know him, of course?” he asked.

“I knew him the first time I saw his picture, and I thought I had betrayed my knowledge, but apparently I did not. Your great-uncle”⁠—Michael spoke deliberately⁠—“was Sanson, otherwise Longval, hereditary executioner of France!”

Such a silence followed that the ticking of a distant clock sounded distinctly.

“Your uncle has many achievements to his credit. He hanged three men on a gallows sixty feet high, unless my memory is at fault. His hand struck off the head of Louis of France and his consort Marie Antoinette.”

The look of pride in the old man’s face was startling. His eyes kindled, he seemed to grow in height.

“By what fantastic freak of fate you come to have settled in England, what queer kink of mind decided you secretly to carry on the profession of Sanson and seek far and wide for poor, helpless wretches to destroy, I do not know.”

Michael did not raise his voice, he spoke in a calm, conversational tone; and in the same way did Longvale reply.

“Is it not better,” he said gently, “that a man should pass out of life through no act of his own, than that he should commit the unpardonable crime of self-murder? Have I not been a benefactor to men who dared not take their own lives?”

“To Lawley Foss?” suggested Michael, his grave eyes fixed on the other.

“He was a traitor, a vulgar blackmailer, a man who sought to use the knowledge which had accidentally come to him, to extract money from me.”

“Where is Gregory Penne?”

A slow smile dawned on the man’s face.

“You will not believe me? That is ungentle, sir! I have not seen Sir Gregory.”

Michael pointed to the hearth, where a cigarette was still smouldering.

“There is that,” he said. “There are his muddy footprints on the carpet of this room. There is the cry I heard. Where is he?”

Within reach of his hand was his heavy-calibred Browning. A move on the old man’s part, and he would lie maimed on the ground. Michael was dealing with a homicidal lunatic of the most dangerous type, and would not hesitate to shoot.

But the old man showed no sign of antagonism. His voice was gentleness itself. He seemed to feel and express a pride in crimes which, to his brain, were not crimes at all.

“If you really wish me to go into Chichester with you tonight, of course I will go,” he said. “You may be right in your own estimation, even in the estimation of your superiors, but, in ending my work, you are rendering a cruel disservice to miserable humanity, to serve which I have spent thousands of pounds. But I bear no malice.”

He took a bottle from the long oaken buffet against the wall, selected two glasses with scrupulous care, and filled them from the bottle.

“We will drink our mutual good health,” he said with his old courtesy, and, lifting his glass to his lips, drank it with that show of enjoyment with which the old-time lovers of wine marked their approval of rare vintages.

“You’re not drinking?” he said in surprise.

“Somebody else has drunk.”

There was a glass half empty on the buffet: Michael saw it for the first time.

“He did not seem to enjoy the wine.”

Mr. Longvale sighed.

“Very few people understand wine,” he said, dusting a speck from his coat. Then, drawing a silk handkerchief from his pocket, he stooped and dusted his boots daintily.

Michael was standing on a strip of hearthrug in front of the fireplace, his hand on his gun, tense but prepared for the moment of trial. Whence the danger would come, what form it would take, he could not guess. But danger was there⁠—danger terrible and ruthless, emphasized rather than relieved by the suavity of the old man’s tone⁠—he felt in the creep of his flesh.

“You see, my dear sir,” Longvale went on, still dusting his boots.

And then, before Michael could realize what had happened, he had grasped the end of the rug on which the detective was standing and pulled it with a quick jerk toward him. Before he could balance himself, Michael had fallen with a crash to the floor, his head striking the oaken panelling, his pistol sliding along the polished floor. In a flash, the old man was on him, had flung him over on his face and dragged his hands behind him. Michael tried to struggle, but he was as a child in that powerful grip, placed at such a disadvantage as he was. He felt the touch of cold steel on his wrists, there was a click, and, exerting all his strength, he tried to pull his other hand away. But gradually, slowly, it was forced back, and the second cuff snapped.

There were footsteps on the path outside the cottage. The old man straightened himself to pull off his silken gown and wrapped it round and round the detective’s head, and then a knock came at the door. One glance to see that his prisoner was safe, and Longvale extinguished the lamp, blew out one of the candles, and carried the other into the passage. He was in his shirtsleeves, and the Scotland Yard officer, who was the caller, apologized for disturbing a man who had apparently been brought down from his bedroom to answer the knock.

“Have you seen Mr. Brixan?”

“Mr. Brixan? Yes, he was here a few minutes ago. He went on to Chichester.”

Michael heard the voices, but could not distinguish what was being said. The silken wrapper about his head was suffocating him, and he was losing his senses when the old man came back alone, unfastened the gown, and put it on himself.

“If you make a noise I will sew your lips together,” he said, so naturally and good-naturedly that it seemed impossible he would carry his threat into execution. But Michael knew that he was giving chapter and verse; he was threatening that which his ancestor had often performed. That beautiful old man, nicknamed by the gallants of Louis’ court “Monsieur de Paris,” had broken and hanged and beheaded, but he had also tortured men. There were smoke-blackened rooms in the old Bastille where that venerable old hangman had performed nameless duties without blenching.

“I am sorry in many ways that you must go on,” said the old man, with genuine regret in his voice. “You are a young man for whom I have a great deal of respect. The law to me is sacred, and its officers have an especially privileged place in my affections.”

He pulled open a drawer of the buffet and took out a large serviette, folded it with great care and fixed it tightly about Michael’s mouth. Then he raised him up and sat him on a chair.

“If I were a young and agile man, I would have a jest which would have pleased my uncle Charles Henry. I would fix your head on the top of the gates of Scotland Yard! I’ve often examined the gates with that idea in my mind. Not that I thought of you, but that some day providence might send me a very high official, a Minister, even a Prime Minister. My uncle, as you know, was privileged to destroy kings and leaders of parties⁠—Danton, Robespierre, every great leader save Murat. Danton was the greatest of them all.”

There was an excellent reason why Michael should not answer. But he was his own cool self again, and though his head was aching from the violent knock it had received, his mind was clear. He was waiting now for the next move, and suspected he would not be kept waiting long. What scenes had this long dining-room witnessed! What moments of agony, mental and physical! It was the very antechamber to death.

Here, then, Bhag must have been rendered momentarily unconscious. Michael guessed the lure of drugged wine, that butyl chloride which was part of the murderer’s equipment. But for once Longvale had misjudged the strength of his prey. Bhag must have followed the brown folk to Dower House⁠—the man and woman whom the old man in his cunning had spared.

Michael was soon to discover what was going to happen. The old man opened the door of the buffet and took out a great steel hook, at the end of which was a pulley. Reaching up, he slipped the end of the hook into a steel bolt, fastened in one of the overhead beams. Michael had noticed it before and wondered what purpose it served. He was now to learn.

From the cupboard came a long coil of rope, one end of which was threaded through the pulley and fastened dexterously under the detective’s armpits. Stooping, Longvale lifted the carpet and rolled it up, and then Michael saw that there was a small trap-door, which he raised and laid back. Below he could see nothing, but there came to him the sound of a man’s groaning.

“Now I think we can dispense with that, sir,” said Mr. Longvale, and untied the serviette that covered the detective’s mouth.

This done, he pulled on the rope, seemingly without an effort, and Michael swung in midair. It was uncomfortable; he had an absurd notion that he looked a little ridiculous. The old man guided his feet through the opening and gradually paid out the rope.

“Will you be good enough to tell me when you touch ground,” he asked, “and I will come down to you?”

Looking up, Michael saw the square in the floor grow smaller and smaller, and for an unconscionable time he swung and swayed and turned in midair. He thought he was not moving, and then, without warning, his feet touched ground and he called out.

“Are you all right?” said Mr. Longvale pleasantly. “Do you mind stepping a few paces on one side? I am dropping the rope, and it may hurt you.”

Michael gasped, but carried out instructions, and presently he heard the swish of the falling line and the smack of it as it struck the ground. Then the trap-door closed, and there was no other sound but the groaning near at hand.

“Is that you, Penne?”

“Who is it?” asked the other in a frightened voice. “Is it you, Brixan? Where are we? What has happened? How did I get here? That old devil gave me a drink. I ran out⁠—and that’s all I remember. I went to borrow his car. My God, I’m scared! The magneto of mine went wrong.”

“Did you shout when you ran from the house?”

“I think I did. I felt this infernal poison taking effect and dashed out⁠—I don’t remember. Where are you, Brixan? The police will get us out of this, won’t they?”

“Alive, I hope,” said Michael grimly, and he heard the man’s frightened sob, and was sorry he had spoken.

“What is he? Who is he? Are these the caves? I’ve heard about them. It smells horribly earthy, doesn’t it? Can you see anything?”

“I thought I saw a light just then,” said Michael, “but my eyes are playing tricks.” And then: “Where is Adele Leamington?”

“God knows,” said the other. He was shivering, and Michael heard the sound of his chattering teeth. “I never saw her again. I was afraid Bhag would go after her. But he wouldn’t hurt her⁠—he is a queer devil. I wish he was here now.”

“I wish somebody was here,” said Michael sincerely.

He was trying to work his wrists loose of the handcuffs, though he knew that barehanded he stood very little chance against the old man. He had lost his pistol, and although, in the inside of his waistcoat, there remained intact the long, razor-sharp knife that had cleared him out of many a Continental scrape, the one infallible weapon when firearms failed, he knew that he would have no opportunity for its employment.

Sitting down, he tried to perform a trick that he had seen on a stage in Berlin⁠—the trick of bringing his legs through his manacled hands and so getting his hands in front of him, but he struggled without avail. There came the sound of a door opening, and Mr. Longvale’s voice.

“I won’t keep you a moment,” he said. He carried a lantern in his hand that swung as he walked, and seemed to intensify the gloom. “I don’t like my patients to catch cold.”

His laughter came echoing back from the vaulted roof of the cave, intensified hideously. Stopping, he struck a match and a brilliant light appeared. It was a vapour lamp fixed on a shelf of rock. Presently he lit another, and then a third and a fourth, and, in the white, unwinking light, every object in the cave stood out with startling distinctness. Michael saw the scarlet thing that stood in the cave’s centre, and, hardened as he was, and prepared for that fearsome sight, he shuddered.

It was a guillotine!