XXXII

He awoke to consciousness with a sense of dull pain at the back of his neck and a feeling of restriction. He was sitting against the wall propped up, and when he tried to bring up a hand to rub his aching neck, he found they would not move. He opened his eyes and looked around and the first thing he noticed was that his feet were strapped together. He stared stupidly at the fastening, and tried to move his hands⁠—but they were in a curious position. He was handcuffed behind. To the connecting links a cord had been fastened and passed under him to the strap.

“What⁠—” he began and heard somebody laugh softly.

Looking up he saw Rex. That young man was sitting on the edge of the table smoking.

“Feel better?” he asked politely.

“What is the meaning of this, Rex?”

“It means that, as I promised, you have found the murderer of dear Uncle Jesse,” said Rex, his baby blue eyes gleaming. “I killed Jesse Trasmere. I also killed that drunken beast Brown. I didn’t intend killing Brown,” he went on reflectively. “Unfortunately he left me no alternative. He recognised me in the park at the time when I was supposed to be in Naples.”

“Didn’t you go abroad?” gasped Tab, the minor deception for the moment bulking largely.

Rex shook his head.

“I didn’t go any farther than the mouth of the river,” he said. “I came off with the pilot. The cables and wireless messages that I sent were despatched by the steward, whom I paid for that purpose. I never left town.”

Tab could say nothing.

“If you had done as I wished,” said Rex with an odd note of reproach in his voice, “I should have made you a rich man, Tab, but like the sneaking swine you are, you took the woman who was foreordained to be my wife! Your beastly lips have touched hers, my goddess!” His voice quavered.

Tab, staring at him, realized that he was in the presence of a madman.

“You think I am mad,” said Rex, as though he was guessing the other’s thoughts. “Perhaps I am, but I adore her. I killed Jesse Trasmere because I wanted her, could not wait for her, needed the money to possess her.”

In a flash there came to Tab, Ursula’s words: “I killed Jesse Trasmere. I was the indirect cause.”

So she knew! That was the explanation of her strange attitude when Rex had come into the room.

And Yeh Ling knew, and had come soft-footed to the door of the private dining-room ready to leap upon the visitor if he showed any signs of hostility. Yeh Ling, the watchful, the soft-footed one, the everlasting guardian⁠—in his heart Tab Holland thanked God for Yeh Ling.

Rex went out of the vault and was gone for five minutes. When he came back he was carrying a writing-pad which he put on the table, pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I am going to give you the scoop of your life, Tab,” he said. There was no mockery in his voice, it was, if anything, very serious and gentle.

“I am going to write a full confession of how I killed all three of you.”

Tab said nothing. This whimsical act of the man was in keeping with the theory of lunacy. For half-an-hour, he listened to the scratching of a pen and the rustle of paper as one by one the sheets were covered, blotted, and neatly put aside. What was his end to be? Rex would kill him; he had no doubt whatever on this score. The man was impervious to appeal and it was senseless to call for help. His voice would never escape the confinement of that underground room.

Carver and he had made an experiment after Trasmere’s death. He had stayed in the vault and fired a blank cartridge whilst Carver was outside the house listening, but no sound had come out.

Tab looked round for the sign of a weapon, but if Lander had brought one, it was not visible.

“There, I’ve said everything, and here it shall stay on the table and when they find your bones they will know why you died.”

Watching him, Tab saw him sign his name with a flourish, the old flourish which had often amused him.

“What are you going to do, Lander?” he asked quietly and Lander smiled.

“Have no fear,” he said, “I am not going to disfigure your athletic body or do you any violence. You are going to stay here and die.”

Tab fixed him with an unwavering glance.

“You don’t suppose⁠—” he began, but thought better of it.

“I don’t suppose that your friend Mr. Carver will not come in search of you, that was what you were going to say, but believe me, Mr. Carver will never find you. In the first place he would not come here, for nobody knows that you are here. He didn’t even suspect that I was your visitor last night.”

“Have you a clock in your room?” said Tab, a light dawning on him.

The other frowned.

“In my bedroom, at the hotel?” he was surprised into saying.

“You haven’t!” said Tab triumphantly. “Good old Carver! He asked you the time when he was talking on the telephone, didn’t he? And you replied. He knew you were the man who came into the flat. He knew that when he called you up, you would be fully dressed and have a watch in your pocket.”

“Oh,” said the other blankly, and then: “He came to see me this morning, damn him! It was to discover whether there was a clock in the room eh?” he grinned, but there was no humour in those bared teeth. “He doesn’t know you are here, anyway,” he said. “Goodbye, Tab. Do you remember how you tried to make a reporter of me, and how I used to sit at the office studying crime? Well, I found a new trick in those cuttings, and I have been waiting years to put it into practice.”

No other word he spoke, but took something from his pocket, it was a reel of stout cotton. Then from his waistcoat he produced a new pin, and with great care and solemnity tied the thread to the end of the pin, Tab watching him intently. And all the time he was working, Rex Lander was humming a little tune, as though he were engaged in the most innocent occupation. Presently, he stuck the point of the pin in the centre of the table, and pulled at it by the thread he had fastened.

Apparently he was satisfied. He unwound a further length of cotton and when he had sufficient, he threaded the key upon it, carrying it well outside the door. The end he brought back into the vault, pushing it through one of the air-holes. Then he closed the door carefully. He had left plenty of slack for his purpose and Tab heard the click of the lock as it was fastened and his heart sank. He watched the door fascinated and saw that Lander was pulling the slack of the cotton through the air-hole. Presently the key came in sight under the door. Higher and higher came the sagging line of cotton and the key rose until it was at the table’s level, slid down the taut cotton and came to rest on the table. Tighter drew the strain on the thread, and presently the pin came out, passed through the hole in the key, leaving it in the exact centre of the table.

Tab watched the bright pin as it was pulled across the floor and through the ventilator.

That was the secret of the pin!

The last time the thread must have slipped or possibly the point of the pin had caught in the woodwork of the door and had fallen where he had found it. Or the man may have left it in the vault and it had been left in the passage after Trasmere’s death to add mystery to mystery.

“Did you see?” Lander’s voice shook with pride. “Simple, eh? And quick, Tab?”

Tab did not answer.

“I am a rotten architect, eh, Tab, but by Jingo, I’m a good bricklayer! Have you seen me lay bricks, Tab? I know so much about it that I fired the two workmen today, and said I was going to get somebody else to finish the job, Tab, I’m finishing it.”

Tab crossed his hands and tried to snap the connecting links of the cuff, but he could not get purchase. He had been so tied that he could hardly move. His head was aching terribly and he knew the cause; one of the first things he had seen on recovering consciousness, was the sandbag which Rex Lander had used as he was leaning across the table, fooled into believing that some secret passage would be revealed when he pulled.

Rex was singing softly and mingled with his voice came the click and ring of trowel on brick, that scraping sound that bricklayers make, that tap, tap, tap of the trowel as it knocked the bricks into place.

“I shall probably be working all night,” Lander interrupted his singing to say, talking with his mouth against the ventilator. “I ought to have put the light out, but it is too late now.”

“You poor lout,” said Tab contemptuously. “You poor cheap lunatic! I can’t be angry with you, you unspeakable fat man!”

He heard the quick intake of the other’s breath and knew that he had touched him on the raw.

“Don’t you realise,” said Tab remorselessly, “that the very first place Carver will look will be this vault and when he finds it is bricked up, the very first thing he will do, will be to tear it down and all your fine explanations will not stop him. And then what will he find? The confession, which, in your crazy vanity, you have made, and my statement.”

“You’ll be dead,” howled Lander and went to work frantically.