The Gallows of Chance E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Believe it or not, here is an Oppenheim story without a single scene laid in Monte Carlo. And high time, too, for that lode, profitable as it no doubt has been, has shown signs, of petering out. The entire action of this novel takes place in England, and most of the characters, with the exception of a few detectives, belong to the upper classes. Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946) was an English novelist, in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers. He wrote more than 100 novels between 1887 and 1943. „The Gallows of Chance” was first published in 1933.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER I

EVEN the butler’s voice seemed to reflect the general regret at the departure from Keynsham Hall of a popular guest.

"Sir Humphrey’s car has arrived, your lordship,” he announced. “It will be round at the front in a few minutes.”

A slim, clean-shaven man of early middle-age, tall and with a slight stoop, still wearing the boots, gaiters, and heavy tweeds of a long shooting day, rose reluctantly to his feet to take leave of his fellow-guests and his host and hostess, Lord Edward Keynsham and his sister, Lady Louise. That he was well liked amongst them was evident, for they all added an obviously sincere word of regret at his departure. Louise, who kept house for her brother, was perhaps more silent than the others, but in her tone was a curious little note of disturbance. This was the most favoured of her visitors and she hated losing him.

"I do think,” she protested, looking into his face almost as though she hoped he might still change his mind, “that you could do everything that was necessary from here. We are so civilised, really, considering that we are in the heart of the country–telephone night and day, and all that sort of thing, and a racing car in the garage for you if necessary. I would drive you up myself and guarantee you sixty.”

"It is one of those matters in which we ought not to interfere, my dear,” her brother intervened firmly. “Humphrey knows the ropes better than we do, and I’m sure he knows how much we would like him to stay. He will give us another few days, I hope, when we shoot the woods.”

"We shall miss you at the high birds,” someone from the background remarked pleasantly.

"Come into the library for one moment,” Louise begged, “and I will give you that book I promised.”

"Don’t keep him long,” Lord Edward enjoined. “It is later than he planned to start already.”

"Only a minute.”

They crossed the hall. Sir Humphrey opened the door of the library, and his companion closed it firmly behind them. She looked up into his face anxiously. They were a very good-looking couple as they stood on the hearthrug in the firelight–Louise slim and willowy, with clear, ivory complexion only slightly flushed by the day in the open air, and deep blue eyes in which lurked a shade of trouble at that particular moment.

"Humphrey, dear,” she asked, “is there anything wrong I don’t know about?”

"Not a thing,” he assured her. “It’s only this wretched business which makes me hurry away.”

"But it all seems rather queer,” she went on. “Why didn’t Edward send yon up in one of our own cars?”

"He wants them for the shooting to-morrow, I expect. A hired one does just as well for me.”

"I wish I could take you myself,” she sighed.

He shook his head.

"Too rough a night, my dear,” he observed. “Don’t you worry about me. I have enjoyed my three days immensely, and I shall come again before the season’s over if Edward asks me.”

"I hope you will,” she answered. “You look strong, of course; but I think–as everyone else does–that you work too hard, and I know you sleep badly, although you won’t confess it.”

"I’m a little run down,” he admitted carelessly; “but even these three days have done me a lot of good. I’m always glad to come here, Louise. You know that.”

Her hand rested on his for a moment.

"And I am always glad to have you,” she assured him, with a slow but very attractive smile.

The door was somewhat noisily opened. Lord Edward came in.

"If you’re ready, Humphrey,” he said. “Best for you not to get up to town too late.”

Sir Humphrey bade his hostess good-bye once more. Keynsham walked with him out into the hall and waited whilst he was helped by one of the servants into his thick shooting-cape. Both men were of striking, though differing, appearance. Sir Humphrey Rossiter, for twelve years a brilliant figure at the Bar, and now a Cabinet Minister, conformed, upon the whole, almost too closely to type. There was a slightly ascetic cast to his otherwise well-shaped and very human features. His clear grey eyes, his firm mouth and jaw were all distinctly legal. His host, on the other hand, was often quoted as being the handsomest mail in London. He was six feet three in height and powerfully built. His mouth was irresistibly humorous and his fearless blue eyes seemed to challenge the whole world to be as happy and contented as he was himself. The brown hair–innocent yet of a single fleck of grey–was brushed back from his forehead, and there was just the slightest upward twist at the back of his ears. His features were absolutely of the aristocratic type, and there were no indications in his presence or expression of the commercial gifts which had enabled him to restore the fortunes of an impoverished family. He was entirely in the atmosphere as he stood upon the broad steps of his magnificent home speeding the parting guest.

"I expect they’re putting your traps in. Humphrey,” he said. “The car will be round from the back quarters directly. You will have a wild night, I’m afraid; but directly you get well away from us the roads are wonderful. You ought to get up to town in three hours.”

"I shall be up in plenty of time,” Sir Humphrey declared, pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe with long, nervous fingers. “All that is really necessary is for me to be at the other end of the telephone where I can communicate with somebody very important if the unexpected should happen. It is a sort of necessity that is not a necessity, if you know what I mean. If by any thousandth chance anything should turn up and I was away at a shooting party I should get a terrible roasting from those gentlemen in the opposition Press.”

"I suppose there is no chance,” Lord Edward asked hesitatingly, “of anything turning up?”

There was no mistaking the note of wistfulness, almost of eagerness, in his tone. His departing guest, who had been through a good deal of that kind of thing during the last few days, shook his head almost curtly.

"I can see no possibility of anything of the sort,” he confessed.

"Sorry,” Keynsham apologised. “One cannot help being interested in the poor fellow, though. The last-minute reprieve of a convicted murderer always seems to me the most dramatic incident that could possibly happen.”

"I’m afraid, in this particular case,” his companion observed, “there is no hope of anything of the sort. You people have all been very good down here not bothering me with questions, especially since I know where your sympathies are, of course, and where mine are, too, as a human being, I will admit. This is not a question, however, where sentiment can be allowed to intrude.”

"Of course, everyone understands that,” Keynsham sighed.

Sir Humphrey watched the lights of the car coming up the avenue.

"I regret it as much as any of you,” he said, “but I am afraid there is not a chance for poor Brandt. Between ourselves, his case has worried me more than any since I’ve been in office. It wasn’t only knowing the man, and his wife being a dear friend–one has to forget that sort of thing–but the whole affair seemed so unnecessary. A man lost his temper and killed another. There will have to be a new definition of manslaughter before I could send a man to the gallows cheerfully.”

"He was always a man of violent temper,” Lord Edward remarked sadly; “and, after all, Benham was such an out-and-out bounder. Clever actor, of course; but I couldn’t stand the sight of him.”

"No more could I, if it comes to that,” Sir Humphrey acquiesced; “but, after all, the law is omnipotent, and the law says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

The car had drawn up below and a footman, with a rug over his arm, was holding open the door.

"The beginning of the week after next we shall shoot the home woods,” Keynsham reminded his departing guest. “I’ll let you know the exact date.”

"You are very kind,” Sir Humphrey declared, blowing out the match with which he had just lighted his pipe. “If I can work it I shall be glad to have another couple of days–some time before the season is over, at any rate. We poor devils are kept pretty close at it nowadays, though. Good-bye. Many thanks for a delightful shoot. I like your new way of driving the lower woods. Seems to me you keep the birds much better in hand. My regards to Louise, and once more my regrets.”

The car drove off and Lord Edward, shivering a little, hurried back to the warm and comfortable hall. The little company all looked up at his coming.

"Did you get anything out of him at all?” one of the guests asked eagerly.

Lord Edward nodded.

"Just at the last moment,” he confided. “I daren’t ask him anything direct, of course, but I went as far as I could. He told me straight he was for it.”

Louise shivered.

"I didn’t like that man,” she admitted; “but I can’t see that killing anyone in a fight is murder.”

"These legal fellows have water in their veins, not blood,” her brother declared irritably. “Why, Rossiter confessed out there on the doorstep that he wasn’t satisfied with the present definition of manslaughter. Why the mischief can’t he or some of the other big-bugs change it, then? You heard what the Lord Chief Justice himself said the other day? He acknowledged that there were extenuating circumstances, as he called them, in the case, but they were not such as the law could take any account of.”

"We have not had a Home Secretary for years,” an elderly man asserted from the background, “who would have been so insensible. We know perfectly well that there’s nothing the King likes better than, to sign a reprieve.”

"No good now, I’m afraid,” Louise sighed. “What about tubs and a rubber before dinner?”

"Dinner!” her neighbour groaned, as he rose to his feet. “I’ve eaten a whole plateful of buttered toast.”

"My digestion is ruined,” another extraordinarily healthy-looking young man remarked, also preparing to depart. “The only time I have an appetite nowadays is for these illicit meals. I never tasted muffins like those in my life.”

"All the way from Norwich, my dear Charles, to satisfy your greed,” his hostess confided, smiling. “Never mind; I have an idea that with the help of a cocktail you will be able to glance at something to eat at half-past eight.”

"One has one’s hostess’s feelings to consider,” the young man observed, with an air of mock resignation. “Is it short coats to-night, Louise?”

"Short coats for everyone,” she announced. “You’ll be without a host, as you know. Edward has to go into Norwich on political business. And don’t be late, any of you,” she enjoined. “I had no bridge last night, and I like to play before dinner. You can keep your white ties till to-morrow, when you’ll have to dance. Au revoir, everybody.”

The pleasantly tired little crowd drifted away to their rooms. Soon the dozen bathrooms of Keynsham Hall were all in requisition, to the great content of their occupants. Everyone was feeling the pleasant glow resulting from a day in the open air with healthy and ample exercise. Even the near-by tragedies of life and death do little more than scratch the surface of other people’s day-by-day existence.  

Sir Humphrey Rossiter, the youngest Home Secretary who had ever filled the post, leaned back in the corner of his hired limousine with his feet upon the opposite seat, his arms folded and his pipe firmly between his teeth. Although nothing about his appearance or the quality of his shooting during the last few days would have denoted the fact, he knew very well that he was distinctly nervy. His late host’s tentative, almost apologetic, queries as to the cause celèbre which had occupied the columns of the daily papers during the last few weeks had filled his brain again with the very ideas from which he had been anxious to escape.

The whole principle was wrong, he told himself savagely. The case of this fellow Cecil Brandt, for instance. There was no doubt whatever that he had killed another man. He had been brilliantly defended, had had a perfectly fair trial, a very capable jury had found him guilty of murder, and a Judge who, if he erred at all, was considered to err on the side of leniency had sentenced him to death. Surely as the law stood that should be the end of it. These petitions, all this Press rhetoric, this wave of sympathy created for the condemned man came too late. There had been some slight technical quibble about the charge being reduced to one of manslaughter, which, for the simple reason that the prisoner had refused to give evidence and the prosecution had been ruthless, had borne no fruit. Cecil Brandt had been found guilty of murder. It was unfair that after the verdict, after Judge and jury had done their duty according to their convictions, the eyes of the whole world should have been fixed upon him–Humphrey Rossiter. The whole business had become a torment. The newspapers had made covert appeals, he had been flooded with anonymous letters–some of them very graciously and eloquently written–and other signed communications from people high in the estimation of their fellows concerning this unfortunate man. They had bombarded him from every quarter and in every possible manner, heedless of the fact that he had only the right to interfere if further evidence had transpired after the trial or if considerations had arisen which had not been presented to the Judge or jury. It was too late now to talk of extenuating circumstances, because no extenuating circumstances had been shown. The wheels of justice had spun, were spinning now, to their appointed end, and it was not for him to thrust a tardy interference into the spokes. He knew quite well what everyone was hoping for from him, and he was passionately aware that it was entirely and utterly unreasonable. It had even been hinted that a certain private telephone wire to a very august personage was being kept open to the last minute in case he should have any suggestion or appeal to make. The whole thing was maudlin, he told himself angrily. There were moments during the first half-hour of that drive, with the wind booming across the open heaths and the rain streaming down the closed windows, when he could honestly have confessed that he was sorry he had ever taken office. He was supposed to be a hard man. People would probably think him harder still after to-night. Yet at the bottom of his heart he was suffering agonies because to-morrow morning at eight o’clock Cecil Brandt, a man who had dined with him at his house, a man who had married the woman for whom he had always had a fervent admiration, was to be hanged...

He refilled his pipe and tried to think of other things. He thought of those few years of perfect happiness which his invalid wife had enjoyed in the contemplation of his success. He thought of some of his successful speeches in the House. He had never fancied himself as an orator, but somehow or other the fluency of the law courts had begotten the eloquence which had brought him an amazing measure of Parliamentary success. Pleasant thoughts, but somehow insufficient on this one particular evening. Continually he found himself back in the condemned prison cell of Wandsworth Gaol. A tribute to law and order! That was what this sentence had meant. A just and faithful tribute. None the less so because the victim belonged to a class of society seldom seen in the dock of a criminal court. In one of his speeches only a few weeks ago the Right Honourable Sir Humphrey Rossiter had pointed out to an appreciative audience that in no country in the world were the laws administered with such unflinching determination as in England, and that in no country in the world were crimes of violence so little known and so few of them undetected. There had been a great burst of applause and everyone had smiled a smile of fatuous self-satisfaction. Some sacrifice had to be made to reach this happy state. Sentiment had sometimes to be strangled, generous impulses to be checked. Sympathies could not exist in the making or dispensing of the law. It was just that Cecil Brandt should die. His death was a tribute to the unflinching inevitability of the law.

The not too pleasant meditations of Sir Humphrey Rossiter were brought to an abrupt and amazing end. He had been vaguely conscious, just after they had rounded a bend in the road, of a red light not more than twenty yards ahead. He felt the sudden application of the brakes, the slight rocking and skidding of the car, which was brought skilfully enough almost to a standstill. Then followed a series of unexpected and bewildering happenings. Someone had sprung up by the side of the chauffeur, had gripped him by the arm and, with extended finger, was pointing down the road. Both his own doors were flung open, admitting a scurry of rain and wind. Two men, strangely disguised in white masks, entered, one from either side. Sir Humphrey looked at them in amazement, but his demand for an explanation was never fully spoken. The last thing of which he was conscious was that he was being pinioned in his place by one man, whilst another was bending over him with a handkerchief in his hand. A sickly smell of some sort of anaesthetic brought with it a temporary wave of unconsciousness. He fancied that he felt the fierce breath of a man upon his cheek, fancied that in the distance he heard the report of a gun and a cry. He fancied many things, but it was an hour before he was sure.

CHAPTER II

SIR HUMPHREY ROSSITER opened his eyes and found himself in what seemed to be the unusually large cell of a prison. The floor was certainly of stone, the walls of plaster, the deal table before him uncompromising in its severity. The windows were high and barred. The furniture consisted mainly of a single bench, and the only illumination was supplied by candles at the further end of the table. Exactly opposite to him was seated a man wearing a white mask.

"Where am I?” was Sir Humphrey’s not very original but quite natural question.

"In prison,” was the brief reply. “Don’t be afraid, though; your time will soon be over. You will leave it before daylight–even before eight o’clock strikes.”

Through his tangled thoughts crept a vivid impression of something unpleasantly significant in the words. Then he remembered. It was at eight o’clock in the morning that Cecil Brandt was to die.

"Don’t be foolish,” he scoffed, suddenly realising that his hands were tied with thick cord behind his back. “I suppose there is some purpose behind this mummery. Let me know what it is at once.”

"Yes, there is a purpose,” the man at the other end of the table replied, and Sir Humphrey knew that his first idea was a correct one and that the voice, although not exactly familiar, was the voice of a well-educated person. “I can see that you are impatient. We are in the same position; therefore I will not waste words. We are here to prevent, through you, what we consider an act of injustice. If we cannot prevent it we shall at least avenge it. The situation does not rest with us, although it might appear so. It rests with you.”

"What is this madness?” the imprisoned man demanded, tugging at the cords which bound his hands.

"It may seem like madness, but I can assure you that it is not,” the other rejoined. “This is a last and desperate effort to save the life of a man who, according to the laws of justice such as we conceive them, should not die, or, if he does, to see that the person who is responsible for his death dies also.”

Sir Humphrey was recovering his self-possession. Really, anyone in the world ought to have known better than to have attempted such a stunt with himself as the victim.

"You have been reading too much fiction,” he said contemptuously. “How on earth do you suppose that you are going to save the life of a man condemned by the law of his country to die by this assault on me?”

"Because you are still in a position to intervene on his behalf,” was the prompt rejoinder, “and because if you do not you will surely lose your own life.”

"I never heard such idiocy,” Rossiter scoffed. “I cannot save the man’s life and I do not intend to lose my own. Let us bring this thing to an issue. According to etiquette I must be in my home to-night in case the improbable should happen and it should become necessary for me to communicate with the Governor of Wandsworth Gaol. You will do no good by keeping me here. It is simply absurd for you to suppose that you can force a Minister of the Crown to betray his trust through fear of personal violence. I should be glad to be allowed to continue my journey.”

"That,” the other assured him–and there was a new and more solemn note in his voice–“it is doubtful whether you will ever be allowed to do.”

Above the howling of the wind Sir Humphrey became conscious of the sound of hammering outside. Together with his companion he listened to it for a few seconds in silence.

"What is that?”

"Just the finishing touch to your scaffold. A rough affair, I’m afraid, but the best we could do.”

"My scaffold?” the Home Secretary repeated. His vis-a-vis nodded.

"I am anxious to impress upon you the fact,” he said, “that if Cecil Brandt dies at eight o’clock tomorrow morning you will beat him to eternity by several hours. We have our private executioner here. He was once in the business, but retired with a pension. He is preparing for you at the present moment.”

"I have come to the conclusion that you are mad,” Sir Humphrey pronounced.

"I have come to several conclusions about you,” was the calm retort. “First of all, I have decided that you have more courage than I imagined. You seem to show very few signs of alarm and yet you are extraordinarily near death. Perhaps it is because you do not realise the situation. In that case, you are not quite so quick-witted and, shall I say, instinctive as I thought. You must have failed to grasp the fact that every word I have spoken to you, and shall speak, is and shall be sober, absolute truth.”

The mock drama of the thing seemed to fade away. Even the white mask no longer appeared ridiculous. Sir Humphrey stared steadily across the table. “My God!” he muttered.

"That’s better,” the other approved. “The sooner you appreciate the reality of the situation, however disconcerting it may be, the better. I am not going to reopen the Brandt case. You have done your duty without a doubt and studied it at first hand. Arguments between us under the present conditions would be ridiculous.”

"Presumptuous is the word I should select,” the Home Secretary remarked drily.

His vis-a-vis bowed.

"Touche, Mr. Home Secretary,” he acknowledged. “I shall only state three bald facts. A man of notoriously bad temper goes home unexpectedly and finds a person of whom he is jealous alone with his wife in his flat. There is a fight and the latter is killed. The law has decided that the husband should be hanged for murder. I–you will pardon my becoming for a moment personal–have decided that he shall not.”

"And what have you to do with it?”

"Nothing officially. There are a few of us who think that the hanging of Cecil Brandt would be murder, and that penal servitude would be a far more suitable punishment. You are the only man who could carry our opinion into effect. That is why we have decided to hang you unless you intervene.”

Sir Humphrey’s wits were by this time fully alert. He realised that the situation was far more serious than he had at first imagined. In the gloom of that terrible apartment he could make out little of his companion save that he was a powerful man and that his voice indicated him to be a person of culture. Once or twice he had heard other voices outside. There was someone, he was sure, guarding the door. Physical resistance, especially with his hands bound, was an impossibility.

"Cecil Brandt was sentenced under a misapprehension, and I am beginning to believe that you know it,” the man at the end of the table continued. “For some reason or other he never revealed the fact of where or how he discovered his wife and the man he killed. The jury and the general public have been led to believe that the quarrel and fight took place ill a room on the ground floor whilst Benham was waiting for Mrs. Brandt. I do not for a moment believe that that was so. I have reason to believe that the fight took place in Brandt’s own bedroom, where Benham was discovered. Under those circumstances the fight was inevitable, and to kill a man in a fight with such provocation is not murder, but manslaughter.”

"I have no doubt,” Sir Humphrey said, with a note of cynicism in his tone, “that you have studied the law and that you know what you are talking about. The fact remains that neither your opinion nor mine makes the slightest difference. It seems incredible to me, I tell you frankly, that Cecil Brandt should not have told his lawyer the truth. I honestly do not believe that there is a word of truth in what you are saying about the fight having taken place upstairs. No one who knows Katherine Brandt would credit it.”

"I believe it,” was the calm rejoinder, “and your only chance of leaving this place alive is to become converted to my point of view.”

"It seems to me that you are becoming ridiculous,” Rossiter declared. “Cecil Brandt has been sentenced to death and he will be hanged at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. If you attempt any deed of violence upon me, as is apparently your intention, well–I will admit that the odds are too great for me to make any effectual resistance, but you will, without a particle of doubt, pay for your crime upon the scaffold.”

"You think we shall be traced, then?”

"I shall begin to think that you are really as mad as you appear to be,” Sir Humphrey observed contemptuously. “So far your arrangements seem to have been quite intelligent, but the undetected abduction and assassination of a Cabinet Minister, even in the middle of a thinly populated county like Norfolk, is not a possible happening.”

The man at the end of the table chuckled. It was not a pleasant gesture, but it sounded perfectly natural.

"Like all lawyers,” he pointed out, “you rely too much on things as they seem to you. I agree that most enterprises of this sort would fail because their authors would be short-sighted or foolish people. We, on the other hand, have made our plans with the utmost care. Nothing is more certain in the world than this fact. If you do not carry out our instructions you will be a dead man and buried before daylight, and long before the alarm can be given every trace of what has happened will have disappeared.”

"If you believe that,” the Home Secretary replied, “I feel that I am indeed in a serious position, because I must have fallen into the hands of lunatics.”

"Lunatics or not, those are our intentions,” was the grim pronouncement. “There are five of us in this house, which is otherwise deserted. We are going to take our risks and we are going to deal with you as I have said. Our telephone is at your service–subject to supervision. Will you telephone to Scotland Yard, to Windsor, or direct to Wandsworth Gaol? I think in any case we should like you at first to telephone to the governor of Wandsworth Gaol to authorise him, in case of further messages being held up, to hold over the execution.”

"You seem to have thought this matter out quite carefully.”

"Every detail has been considered.”

Rossiter looked coldly down the table.

"Very well, then,” he announced; “I have no wish to delay the proceedings. You can carry out your plans or remake them as you wish. I have no intention of using the telephone. I shall not speak to Windsor. I shall not speak to Scotland Yard–unless you allow me to do so privately. I shall not speak to Wandsworth. That may clear the way for you.”

"It certainly does. I was getting a trifle bored with this conversation.”

The speaker leaned forward and tapped twice upon the table with his finger. Almost immediately Sir Humphrey found his arms seized from behind and he was practically lifted to his feet. He was between two men, both taller than he was.

"I regret,” his vis-a-vis declared, also rising, “that we are deficient in one or two small, adjuncts to the ceremony we are about to perform. For instance, we have no chaplain. I shall walk in front, however, and conduct you to the place at which you will meet your death. I cannot say that I shall pray for you, because that is not in my line, but I shall at any rate lend an appearance of regularity to the affair. This way, please. First of all–Dick,” he added, turning round, “these fellows at the last moment have a habit of calling out and making unsettling appeals. Take his handkerchief out of his pocket and put it in Sir Humphrey’s mouth. Good! Now follow me.”

Rossiter, partially gagged, his hands closely bound, and with the arms of two strong men through his, passed up the side of the room. His guide threw open a thick oaken door and they crossed a courtyard–a large but strangely-built courtyard it was, square, with stables of old-fashioned design, coach-houses, and a large garage. At the further extremity was a perfectly new building, a shed of fresh pine-board, with a flight of steps leading to a rude door. There was a smell of sawdust everywhere. The knocking inside the building continued.

"Thirty yards to the place of execution, there to hang by the neck until you are dead,” the man in front observed, turning round and raising his voice a little that it might not be drowned by the wind. “I hope you realise now that we are in earnest...”

They crossed the yard. The man in front mounted the rudely-fashioned steps and pushed open the door. Sir Humphrey’s face was splashed with the rain and the wind blew pleasantly upon his forehead. He paused for a moment, but they forced him on. He, too, mounted the steps, and then no possible effort of repression could keep the shiver from his limbs. They were in a perfectly bald apartment, smelling strongly of newly-sawn wood, and running across the roof of which was a stout pole. From the latter dangled a great length of rope with a formidable-looking noose. Underneath it was a trapdoor propped open. Another man, also wearing a mask, came up the rungs of a ladder from the cellar underneath and looked through the opening. He said nothing and disappeared again.

"You will have a wonderful drop,” Sir Humphrey’s guide explained. “You know the modus operandi, I suppose? You stand upon the trapdoor–I shall tell the man when to put you there–and you see we have made a rough lever which only needs a blow and the door gives way beneath. I should not wonder,” he added, “if your neck were not broken just as quickly as Cecil Brandt’s.”

The Home Secretary peered down into the chasm. A sensation of horror was beginning to creep icily into his veins. These men were in earnest. It could not be, he told himself. Such a thing in the middle of an English county, amongst civilised folk, was impossible. And yet–they were in earnest. Below was what seemed to be a cellar. His guide untwined the rope from the pole and dropped it down. It hung at least twenty feet from the bottom, the noose empty, its slight sway hideously suggestive. The man who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings looked appraisingly at Sir Humphrey.

"What are you?” he speculated. “Just about five foot ten and a half, I should say. You see, you will have at least twelve feet margin. You need not fear a breakage, or anything amateurish of that sort. We have tested the drop with twenty stone taking the place of your body. Everything worked beautifully...Dick, I see no reason for delay. The collar and tie off, if you please.”

Sir Humphrey’s negligé costume might have been donned for the purpose. The man called Dick, who had not yet spoken, stepped forward once more and with lithe, strong fingers, which had recently been washed with scented soap, divested their prospective victim of his flannel collar and tie. They unfastened the front of his shirt. Another man, who seemed to appear from nowhere, also dumb, also wearing a white Mask, pulled down the noose with a roller and strengthened the slip-knot...Then fear came to Sir Humphrey Rossiter. As a pantomime the thing seemed lo fade away. It was stern reality with which he was faced, and death which was hovering near. His incredulity had vanished. These men were in deadly earnest. They meant taking his life. A hideous death, too–an ignominious one. The executioner, a man of coarser mould, came nearer, spanned his neck with his lingers, which smelt of disagreeable things, and widened the noose a trifle.

"You’re a fool, Sir Humphrey,” his torturer-in-chief declared. “Neither you nor Cecil Brandt absolutely deserves to die, yet you are both leaving the world through the fatal quality of obstinacy. Brandt will die because, somewhere amongst his more vicious qualities, he was too great a gentleman to have the world suppose evil of his wife, and you because you are too pig-headed to perform a humane action. Have you anything to say?”

"Nothing,” Sir Humphrey replied, and was astonished at the robustness of his voice.

"This is your last chance. The noose is going over your head. If you want to say a prayer you had better say it. If you want to live you had better consent to be led to the telephone.”

It seemed to Sir Humphrey later on in life that the A smell of that fresh hemp would linger in his nostrils till the day of his death. The man who was to play the part of executioner was standing only a foot away from him, the loop balanced in his hand ready to slip over his neck. He wore a workman’s suit of grey tweed with marks of white paint upon it; his breath smelt like a drunkard’s. He was a horrible person. The rest seemed all alike–four of them–grim, shadowy figures. At first he had scarcely thought of them as real; they had seemed to him like the puppets in some fantastic nightmare. Now that he knew them to be men in deadly earnest, that they meant to keep their word, there was something blood-curdling in the sight of their glass-like eyes, their white masks, the quietness of their movements, their absolute silence. The lust for life was in his blood, was flowing up to his brain. If only he could believe that man’s story, believe that it was true that Cecil Brandt had been shielding his wife! The weak moment passed, however, for the choice was not his. The words were strangled in his throat. The rope fell over his head whilst he remained incapable of speech...Then a sound from close at hand broke into the breathless drama of the intense silence. There were flying steps upon the ladder, and the man who was waiting with folded arms on the other side of the trapdoor to give the signal suddenly leaned forward and held up his hand.

"Wait,” he ordered.

Another of these foul figures, white-masked, clad in a long overall disguising his shape and form, came, swift-footed, up the steps into the shed. He hurried to the man who seemed to be the leader, drew him on one side, and talked eagerly. Presently the latter turned round. The rope was still around Rossiter’s neck; the seconds seemed to be dripping blood.

"Sir Humphrey Rossiter.”

The Home Secretary’s eyes flickered. Was that really his name? Was it really he who stood within a few feet of a loathsome death, surrounded by this silent, unrecognisable crowd of would-be assassins? Was it he–a Cabinet Minister serving a great Power, with all Scotland Yard behind him–who was passing through this terrible ordeal with death yawning at his feet? He opened his lips, but speech was still impossible.

"Practically the only thing in life which could have saved you has happened,” his arch-tormentor continued. “Cecil Brandt’s wife is now at your house in Chestow Square waiting for you. She is prepared to tell the truth. A tardy fit of remorse, perhaps: but, still, there it is. Are you listening to me, Sir Humphrey?”

"Yes, I am listening,” was the half-choked response.

"If we let you go upon your journey unharmed you will arrive at your house before eleven o’clock. Katherine Brandt is a friend of yours. You will believe what she tells you. If you discover it to be the truth–what we others have known all the time–that that fight to the death took place in Katherine Brandt’s bedroom, will you see to it that Brandt is reprieved?”

The numbness refused to pass. Sir Humphrey was willing enough to speak, but his tongue was incapable of performing its office. He seemed suffocated with the smell of the rope. It was all so hideously unreal. His eyes were gazing down into the chasm and he found it impossible to look away. That was where he was to drop. He fancied that he could see a body dangling there. His fancy leaped backwards and forwards. He was dead. He was alive. He was dead. No, those were real words.

"You heard what I said, Sir Humphrey? If we let you go and pack you off to London, will you see that Cecil Brandt gets his reprieve, provided that his wife is waiting for you and that she tells you the truth–truth which will afford you ample justification?”

"Of course I will,” Sir Humphrey croaked. “Take me away from this place,” he suddenly shouted. “Take me away quickly. If Katherine Brandt is there in my house when I arrive in London, and tells me the story you have told me, Cecil Brandt shall not hang. I can say no more.”

They removed the rope from his neck. The man by his side closed the trapdoor and they took him down the wooden steps. They half-carried him across the courtyard and stood silently around him in the gaunt apartment from which he had been brought. He asked faltering questions, but received no reply. It was quite ten minutes before he was joined by the man who had been the ringleader in his ghastly trial. The latter still wore his mask, but he used the words of a human being, and speech was something.

"The car is being brought round for you, Sir Humphrey,” he announced. “You will be accompanied for some distance by one of my friends, and for a portion of the way you will be blindfolded.”

"Are you seeking any pledge from me?” Sir Humphrey asked.

"Certainly not,” was the indifferent reply. “When you return to London you can take precisely what steps you please concerning what has happened tonight–you can send your Scotland Yard men down to discover this house, you can endeavour to trace us by every means in your power, you can set the law in action against us. I ask for no pledge save one, and to that pledge you are already committed. Provided Katherine Brandt tells you the story I have already related, her husband is not to hang to-morrow.”

"He shall not,” Sir Humphrey promised. “But, my God, if ever you come into my hands it will be a different matter!”

"I shouldn’t threaten too much,” the other replied coolly. “You might find it difficult to get very far with any indictable offence. Besides, there is the ridicule, you know. You would almost have to resign. We are law-breakers, of course, to-night–I and my friends; but chance has spared us the grim necessity of taking your life, and we had already counted the cost.”

Another of those preposterous figures appeared, carrying a tray. He poured whisky plenteously into a beautifully-cut old tumbler.

"Say when,” he enjoined, in the friendly, conversational tones of a fellow-clubman.

Sir Humphrey gripped the tumbler. His murmured “When!” was long delayed. The drink was like life in his veins. His feet were on the earth again, his brain was clearing. He had been in a hell, the flames of which would scorch his sensibilities for a lifetime to come; but the physical terror of it all was passing.

"Good-night, Mr. Home Secretary,” the man at the other end of the table exclaimed as the bandage was placed over his eyes. “A pleasant journey to you. Don’t forget that the lady is waiting.”

Sir Humphrey maintained the dignity of silence.

CHAPTER III

“I NEVER realised that it would have made so much difference,” the woman moaned.

Humphrey Rossiter made no immediate reply. He was seated before his library desk, his chair turned slightly towards the woman who was the only other occupant of the room. Before him was a sheaf of papers marked “Rex versus Brandt” which he appeared to have been studying. He was still wearing the shooting clothes in which he had left Keynsham, but his appearance generally was dishevelled, and in the green, shaded lamplight his expression was almost ghastly.

"I ought to have told the truth at first,” the woman went on in a gentler and more collected tone. “Cecil, with all his roughness at times, was terribly sensitive. He loathed the idea of what he called a bedroom drama. I know I shouldn’t have listened to him, but I was half crazy at the time. Does it really make things so very different?”

This time Sir Humphrey answered her. With his forefinger he tapped the papers in front of him. He looked at her almost incuriously. He had scarcely noticed the fact that she was beautiful. He was conscious only of an immense fatigue.

"The story you have told,” he explained, “would have made all the difference if told at the time of your husband’s trial. The charge would probably have been reduced to manslaughter. According to the evidence you gave in court, your husband returned on a Sunday afternoon when you were not expecting him, found Benham there as an ordinary caller waiting to see you in his study. Your husband never minced words and he told Benham that he was not a welcome visitor at any time. The two men quarrelled, and your husband killed Benham under circumstances of considerable brutality. The jury quite properly returned a verdict of murder. Now you tell me at the very last moment that Benham was in your bedroom when your husband returned, that the fight took place there, and it was only after Benham had been killed that your husband carried his body down to the study.”

"You don’t think–“ she faltered.

"Of course I don’t,” he interrupted. “I don’t even ask you for any explanation. I dare say it will never be necessary to offer any–”

"But I must tell you just what did happen,” she insisted eagerly. “I was compelled to see Gervase Benham that afternoon. We were to start rehearsing the next day, and there were still two places in the cast to fill. He called, and the servant opened the door to him and showed him into the study in the usual way. Then she came up to announce him and I said, ‘All right.’ I was lying down with a headache, and I really believe that I dozed off for a little time. I woke up with a start, remembered that he was waiting, and tapped on the floor with my foot. That is why he came up.”

"And you told the other story,” Rossiter meditated, “at your husband’s insistence, to prevent scandal. He did not wish it known that he had killed this man Benham in your bedroom.”

"That is what he said,” she assented wearily. “It did not seem to make much difference where it was done–the man was dead, and I was crazy with the horror of it all.”

"Your husband’s point of view, though of course blameworthy, does credit to his sensibility,” Sir Humphrey pronounced. “I always maintained that he was fond of you in his way, and here is the proof of it. If the Press had known that the struggle took place in your bedroom the whole matter would have been looked at from another angle.”

"I should have risked it,” she said sadly. “I don’t believe anyone in the world would have believed that there was anything between me and Gervase Benham. Did you, Humphrey?”

"Of course not,” he answered. “You will forgive me, though, Katherine, if I remind you that we must keep the personal side out of it altogether during this short conversation. Your visit to me is entirely official. People might have strange things to say under the circumstances if ever any other idea got about.”

"I quite understand,” she murmured. “Anyhow, I have brought you the true story, whether I have to go to prison for it or not. It is not too late, is it?”

"It is not too late,” Sir Humphrey replied; “but why did you wait until now?”

His nervous fingers drummed upon the edge of the desk. He looked into what were supposed to be the most beautiful eyes in London. At that moment they were set and almost glassy. Notwithstanding the warmth of the room she shivered. “You must not ask me that,” she begged. “You must not, indeed. It came to me suddenly–it might even have been from overhearing a chance conversation–that it might make this great difference. I thought the truth might have leaked out some other way. When the time got so short I knew then that I had to act. You won’t ask me any more, Humphrey?”

He considered for a moment. It was such a strange position for a man with a scrupulous sense of honour.

"No,” he decided; “I do not think that I need ask you any more.”

"And it is not too late?” she repeated, with a terrible note of wistfulness in her tone.

"It is not too late,” was the firm reply. “I shall feel justified now in arranging for the reprieve. If you had told the truth in the witness-box, notwithstanding your husband’s request, it would have been better. Even now it is not too late, though. You can set your mind at rest on that point.”

She rose to her feet. Sir Humphrey was too weary himself to take note of ordinary things, although for a moment he thought it strange that there were no tears in her eyes. She carried her handkerchief crumpled up in her hand like a ball, but it remained dry.

"I am going to send you away now,” he said, touching a button upon his desk. “It may sound very brutal, but I think you must realise that it is best for nothing but official words to pass between us to-night. I am glad that you have come. I am glad that you have given me the opportunity of sparing you the greatest shock of all.”

The butler made his silent approach. Sir Humphrey touched his visitor’s icy cold fingers and patted them with his other hand.

"You can show Mrs. Brandt out, Parkins,” he directed, “and if she hasn’t her car send for a taxi. Believe me,” he added to her, “I am grateful for your visit.”

She left the room, a silent wraith of a woman, attempting no word of thanks or even of farewell.

Sir Humphrey resumed his seat in his favourite chair before his favourite table in the room which was his greatest solace in life. The window in front of him, across which the dark red curtains were now drawn, looked out on to a pleasant square where there was very little traffic, and at certain times of the year a fragrant barricade of flowering limes. But it was, after all, a winter room. There were very few law books or Parliamentary records amongst the volumes with which the walls were lined. There were books of sport, of poetry, of classical fiction or biography, historical works–the mental playground of a man with cultivated tastes. The furniture was massive but comfortable, and Parkins saw to it that there were always plenty of flowers. It was here that Humphrey Rossiter considered the problems of his own day-by-day existence. In other places, in Whitehall and Westminster, he did his life’s work. As a rule, to sit in that chair, to feel himself steeped in the atmosphere he loved, was sufficient to rest his over-tired brain, to bring him relief from any crisis. To-night the charm failed. Continually his hand was creeping up to his neck. He fancied that the smell of hemp was always in his nostrils. He heard the hammering, felt again the horror of that gruesome pageant. Impossible though it might seem, he knew that he had been on the point of death–not death alone, but the terrible and sordid extinction of what was really a great career. The horror of it was unrealisable. It was there now at the back of his brain. It was there in those shivering fits which he was always trying to control, the tired twitching of his limbs, the fluttering pain which kept en coining and going. He thought even with satisfaction of the sleeping-draught recently prescribed which he would find in his bedroom...Where was he? He sat up with a start. Was it sleep, or what was it, which had nearly stolen his senses away? He tried to remember why he was seated there, and his eyes fell upon the pile of documents. Rex versus Brandt. Why, of course–there was work to be done before he went to bed. He reached out for the telephone.

"Give me the night exchange of Wandsworth Prison,” he directed. “Official.”

He suddenly began to tremble. He had been holding the receiver in his hand a moment ago; now it was there lying upon the floor. Someone else had been speaking. It could not have been his voice–those strange, quavering tones, the half-finished sentence. And the room–the room was full of mist. It was spinning round. His neck! He grasped at it frantically. The rope was there again. After all, he had not escaped; they were going to hang him in that awful place. He was slipping–already slipping from his chair. Below him was that awful cellar...

They found him later lying upon the carpet.  

When he opened his eyes a nurse flitted to the bedside. She smiled at him cheerfully and called out to an elderly man who was seated at the table writing. He came over at once, and Sir Humphrey recognised his doctor.

"What’s the matter?” he asked. “Have I been ill?”

"Something like it,” the other admitted. “You are going to be all right, though. I warned you you were run down, you know, before you went on that shooting visit. You will have to rest now.”

Sir Humphrey’s fingers were playing nervously with his forehead. They lingered around his throat. Hemp! Why was that horrible odour in his nostrils? Why was the doctor wearing something white over his face? He? was standing on the edge of something. What was it? There were other people in the room, fading away and coming again–a man with a cruel voice. There was something he had to do, something on his mind...Suddenly his cry rang through the room. He raised himself fiercely in bed and gripped at the arm of the doctor, who was leaning over him.

"What time is it?” he demanded harshly. “How long have I been here?”

The doctor pushed him back, for with a sudden access of strength he was already halfway out of the bed.

"What time is it?” he groaned. “Tell me.”

"It is four o’clock in the afternoon,” the physician said soothingly. “It was midnight when they sent for me, and we brought you up here at once. Do be a good fellow and lie down.”

"Oh, my God!” Rossiter moaned. “Brandt–that man Brandt. He was to have been hanged at eight o’clock.”

The doctor nodded gravely.

"I saw it in the early editions,” he confided. “Brandt was hung, all right, at Wandsworth Prison.”

Then once more everything faded away. They had him this time, all right. A black sea of horror seemed to close over his head. He felt himself sinking through space. Unconsciousness was a blessed relief.