Chapter Fifty. Face to Face.

That a Park Lane drawing-room should be transformed into the interior of a log-built house of the Russian steppe was surely unsuspected by any of those who passed up and down that renowned thoroughfare every day.

The popular idea associated that long row of millionaires’ houses facing Hyde Park with luxuriant saloons, priceless paintings, old Persian carpets, and exquisite furniture. Who would believe that behind those windows with their well-kept curtains, and brisé-brisé of silk and lace, was a room arranged with such care, with the snowy road and moonlight shown beyond the false window?

“With what object, I wonder, is all this?” asked Charlie, speaking in an undertone, as though to himself. There was something weird and uncanny about the scene with that white streak of brilliance falling like a bar across the place, an indescribable something which made it plain that all had been arranged with some evil design by the old man.

No second glance was needed to show that every bit of furniture, and every article in the place was genuine. They were no stage properties, but real things, brought from some far-distant spot in Eastern Russia. But with what motive?

Ay, that was the question!

They had turned, and were about to withdraw from the place, Max leading the way, when suddenly he halted, for his quick ears caught some sound. It was a curious, low, whirring noise, followed almost instantly by a swift swish close to him, so near, indeed, that it caused a current of air in his face as some object passed him from above.

At the same moment the noise of mechanism ceased.

For a few seconds both intruders hesitated.

Charlie asked breathlessly what it could be, whereupon his friend turned on the light, and the truth stood revealed.

By an ace he had escaped with his life!

At the door, in order to prevent the egress of any intruder, a cunning but dastardly mechanical device had been placed. A long iron lever, to which was attached a keen-edged Japanese cutlass, had come forth from its hiding-place in the lintel of the door, and, descending with terrific force, had only just escaped cutting Max down.

Both men saw the means by which old Statham guarded the secret of that room, and shuddered. To enter was easy, but it was intended that he who entered might not emerge alive.

Apparently one of the floor boards just within the door was loose, and, being trodden upon, the weight released the spring or mechanism, and the razor-edged cutlass shot forth with murderous force.

“By Jove!” gasped Charlie. “I had no idea the old man set traps for the unwary. We’d better be careful!”

“Yes. That was indeed a narrow escape!” whispered Max. “It would have been certain death. Let’s get out of it.”

The steel lever was down, the point of the cutlass touching the floor. Therefore they were both compelled to step over the death-trap in order to leave the remarkable apartment.

Then with careful hands Charlie tried the next door. It was locked.

Brief examination showed it to be the door of the back drawing-room, which had been thrown into the larger room with the mysterious purpose of constructing that striking rural interior.

So they crossed to the third door, on the opposite side of the landing, and, with greatest caution lest another pitfall should lurk there, opened it.

That night of investigation was full of surprises.

The instant Max flashed on his light the pair drew back with low exclamations of horror.

The small apartment was unfurnished. It contained only one object—gruesome and unexpected. In the centre of the place, upon the black trestles, stood a coffin of polished oak with shining electro handles and fittings.

The lid, they noticed, was screwed down. Was it possible that it contained an unburied corpse. Did that white-enamelled door upon the stairs conceal from the world the evidence of a crime?

For a moment both men stood in that bare, uncarpeted room, rooted to the spot.

The secret of Sam Statham stood revealed.

Then with a sudden effort Charlie crept forward, nearer the coffin, and read upon its plate the words, plainly engraved:

JEAN ADAM. AGED 49.

Then Adam had been entrapped there—and had lost his life!

Both men started as the tragic truth dawned upon them. Adam was old Sam’s most bitter enemy. He was dead—in his coffin—yet the millionaire had, up to the present, been unable to dispose of the remains. There was no medical certificate, therefore burial was impossible.

The weird stories which both men had heard of nocturnal visitors to that house who had never been seen to emerge, and of long boxes like coffins which more than one person said they had seen being brought out and loaded upon four-wheeled cabs all now flashed across their minds.

Of a verity that house was a house of grim shadows, for murder was committed there. Men entered alive, and left it dead.

Max stood by the coffin of the man who had so cleverly sought to entice him away to Constantinople with stories of easily obtained wealth, and remained there breathless in wonder. He recollected Sam’s words, and saw in them a bitter hatred of the Franco-English adventurer. Had he carried this hatred to the extreme limit—that of secret assassination?

Charlie, on his part, stood silent also. He knew well that upon the death of Adam depended the future prosperity of his master. He was well aware, alas! that Adam, having suddenly reappeared, had vowed a terrible and crushing vengeance upon the head of the great firm of Statham Brothers.

But old Sam, with his usual crafty forethought and innate cunning, had forestalled him. The adventurer had been done to death, and was already in his coffin!

In his cool audacity old Sam had actually prepared the lead-lined coffin with its plate ready inscribed!

Its secret arrival at night had evidently been witnessed, and had given rise to strange and embellished stories.

The last occasion Max had seen Adam was one night three weeks before when, dining with two other men in the gallery of the Trocadero Restaurant, he had seen him below seated with a rather young and good-looking lady in an evening-dress of black net. The pair were laughing together, and it struck him that the companion of the adventurer might be French. He had afterwards discovered that she was Lorena Lyle, daughter of the old hunchback engineer who was his partner in certain ventures.

“The girl who met me in Paris and gave me warning!” Rolfe exclaimed.

“Yes, the same. They dined together that night and hurried out to get to the theatre.”

“And you’ve never seen him since?”

“No. Ten days ago, I wrote to the National Liberal Club giving him an appointment, but he never kept it.”

“Because he was lying here, I suppose,” remarked Charlie with bated breath, adding: “This, Max, is all utterly incomprehensible. How dare the old man do such a thing?”

“He’s been driven into a corner, and as long as he preserves his secret he will still remain a power in the land.”

“But his secret is out—we have laid it bare.”

“At risk of our lives—eh?” remarked Max, shuddering again as he recollected his own narrow escape of a few minutes before.

They stood before the mortal remains of the man who had sworn vengeance upon Statham, neither of them speaking. Presently, however, Charlie proposed that they should make further investigation on the floor above.

Closing the door of the death-chamber, they stole noiselessly up the wide, thickly-carpeted staircase to the next landing, where four white doors opened. Which they should enter first they were undecided. They were faced by a serious problem. In either of those four chambers the old millionaire might be asleep. To enter might awaken him.

This they had no desire to do. They expected to be able to open the iron door from within and pass down the stairs into the hall, and so into the street without detection. That was their intention. To return by the way they had come would be impossible.

Together they consulted in low whispers, and, both agreed, Charlie very carefully turned the handle of the door nearest them. It yielded, and they crept forward and within. At first Max feared to show his light, yet as they found no carpet beneath their feet, and as they felt a vague sense of space in the darkness, he became bolder, and pressed the button of his little lamp.

It was, like the other apartments, entirely devoid of furniture! The upper part of those premises, believed by the world to be filled with costly furniture and magnificent antiques, seemed empty. Charlie was amazed. He had heard many romantic stories of why the old man never allowed a stranger to ascend the stairs, but he had never dreamed that the fine mansion was unfurnished.

The next room they examined was similar in character, rather larger, with two long windows overlooking the Park. They were, however, carefully curtained, and the blinds were down. Beyond a rusty old fender before the fireplace and a roll of old carpet in a corner, it, however, contained nothing.

They passed to the third apartment, likewise a front room, and Max slowly turned the door-handle. In the darkness they stepped within, and again finding it uncarpeted, he shone his light across the place.

Next instant the pair drew back, for sitting up upon a low, iron camp bedstead, glaring at them with eyes haggard and terrified, was old Sam Statham himself.

The room was bare save an old painted washstand and chest of drawers, dirty, uncarpeted, and neglected. The low, narrow bed was covered by an old blue and white counterpane, but its occupant sat glaring at the intruders, too terrified to speak.

In the darkness he probably could not recognise who it was. The electric light blinded him. Next second, however, he touched the switch near his hand, and the wretched room became illuminated, revealing the two intruders.

He tried to speak, but his lips refused to articulate. The old man’s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth.

He knew that his carefully-guarded secret was out!