Page:Weird Tales Volume 24 Issue 4 (1934-10).djvu/72

470 him by tricks so cheap and threadbare that he felt a flush of anger rise to his cheeks as he pictured himself as a shallow-witted modern Don Quixote, tilting at windmills at the behest of a wily adventuress.

By heaven! she had not seen the last of him yet! He would let her see that double-crossing was a pastime that two could play at. "Keep as far away as possible from that young lady," had been Inspector Renshaw's advice, and there seemed to be no doubt that it had been tendered with all good faith. But if the police officer had deliberately planned to bring Hugh Trenchard and Joan Endean together he could scarcely have hit on a better plan, for the young doctor was now all eagerness to confront her, to tax her openly with her duplicity, and show that he had repudiated the promise of blind allegiance which she had exacted from him. Of course, he argued, her escape from Torside Sanatorium, and the subsequent attempt of Dawker to recapture her, was a carefully staged farce intended to lull his suspicions and enable her to play the part of the persecuted heroine. He felt himself shiver as the thought crossed his mind that the seemingly obtuse Sergeant Jopling might not have been so far from the truth after all when he had suspected that it was her hand that had guided the fatal dagger on the night Silas Marie was slain.

"Well, I suppose you two gentlemen are quite capable of looking after yourselves for tonight, so me and my men will be off." With a start Hugh realized that the inspector had risen to take his departure. "But I should not advise you to leave the front door on the latch—like it was when we entered." Renshaw laughed as he added: "The next stick-up gang that makes free of the house might not let you off as lightly as we did."

The two friends joined in the laugh at their expense.

"Oh, we shan't be caught napping the second time!" Ronnie said confidently. "I intend to lock my bedroom door and go through the early-Victorian ceremony of looking under the bed before I blow out the candle."

Inspector Renshaw shook his head dubiously.

"Locks don't seem to be of much account in this house," he mused aloud. "The local sergeant was telling me that he suspected the walls were honeycombed with secret passages and I don't know what else."

"Don't take any notice of him," grinned Ronnie. "His mind is still vibrating with the thrill of the one and only crook drama he saw in London. If we had given him a free hand, I believe he'd have ripped down every square foot of oak panelling and turned the carved chimney-pieces into so much firewood. He does not seem to be very prolific in ideas, but when one does happen to penetrate his brain, well, I reckon it would require a surgical operation to get it out again. I suppose he has told you all about the mysterious letter that dropped from nowhere on to the hall-stand?"

There was a faint smile on the inspector's lips as he nodded his head.

"The only thing he hasn't told me is how the thing managed to get there," he said quietly. "There was one of his men at the front door, one at the back, and one on the roof. The sergeant himself was sitting in the front room, and any one coming downstairs would have had to pass the open door of the room. Yet the letter was found lying on the hall-stand. You must agree that it is a bit of a mystery."

Ronnie Brewster laughed.

"I bet it wouldn't be a mystery if I had