VII
He slowly climbed an infinity of stairs, up and up and up. The stairs were hard to climb, but he knew that at their summit there would be a glorious view, and, for that view, he would undergo any hardship. But oh! he was tired, desperately tired. He could hardly raise one foot above another.
He had been walking with his eyes closed because it was cooler that way. Then a bee stung him. Then another. On the chest. Now on the arm. Now a whole flight. He cried out. He opened his eyes.
He was lying on a bed. People were about him. He had been climbing those stairs naked. It would never do that those strangers should see him. He must speak of it. His hand touched cloth. He was wearing trousers. His chest was bare, and some one was bending over him touching places here and there on his body with something that stung. Not bees after all. He looked up with mildly wondering eyes and saw a face bending over him—a kindly bearded face, a face that he could trust. Not like—not like—that strange mask face of the Japanese. . . . That other. . . .
He struggled on to his elbow crying: "No, no. I can't any more. I've had enough. He's mad, I tell you——"
A kind rough voice said to him: "That's all right, my friend. That's all over. No harm done——"
My friend! That sounded good. He looked round him and in the distance saw Dunbar. He broke into smiles holding out his hand.
"Dunbar, old man! That's fine. So you're all right?"
Dunbar came over, sat on his bed, putting his arm around him.
"All right? I should think so. So are we all. Even Jabez isn't much the worse. That devil missed his eyes, thank heaven. He'll have two scars to the end of his time to remind him, though."
Harkness sat up. He knew now where he was, on a sofa in the hall—in the hall with the tattered banners and the clock that coughed like a dog. He looked at the clock—just a quarter to seven! Only three-quarters of an hour since that awful knock on the door.
Then he saw Hesther.
"Oh, thank God!" he whispered to himself. "Nunc dimittis. . . ."
She came to him. The three sat together on the sofa, the bearded man (the doctor from the village under the cliff, Harkness afterwards found) standing back, looking at them, smiling.
"Now tell me," Harkness said, looking at Dunbar, "the rest that I don't know."
"There isn't much to tell. We were only there another ten minutes. When you fainted off I felt a bit queer myself, but I just kept together, and then heard some one running up the stairs.
"I thought it was one of the Japs returning, but there was a great banging on the door and then shouting in a good old Cornish accent. I called back that I was tied up in there and that they must break in the door. That they did and burst in—two fishermen and old Possiter the policeman from Duntrent. He's somewhere about the house now with two of the Treliss policemen. Well, it seems that a fellow, Jack Curtis, was going up the hill to his morning work in the Creppit fields above the wood here when he heard a strange cry, and, turning the corner of the road, finds on the path above the rocks, Crispin—pretty smashed up you know. He ran—only a yard or two—to the Possiters' cottage. Possiter was having his breakfast and was up here in no time. They got into the house through a window and saw the two Japanese clearing off up the back garden. Curtis chased them but they beat him and vanished into the wood. They stopped two other men who were passing and then came on Hesther tied up in the library. She sent them to the Tower."
"Well—and then?" said Harkness.
"There isn't much more. Except this. They got up the doctor, had poor old Jabez's face looked to and cleared him off down to his cottage, were examining your cuts—all this down here. Suddenly a car comes up to the door and in there bursts—young Crispin! The two Treliss policemen had turned up three minutes earlier in their car and were here alone except for Possiter examining Crispin Senior—who was pretty well smashed to pieces I can tell you.
"Crispin Junior breaks through, gives one look at his father, shouts out some words that no one can understand, puts a revolver to his temple and blows the top of his head off before any one can stop him. Topples right over his father's body. The end of the house of Crispin!
"I saw all this from the staircase. I was just coming down after looking at you. I heard the shot, saw old Possiter jump back and got down in time to help them clear it all up.
"No one knows where he'd been. To Truro, I imagine, looking for all of us. He must have cared for that madman, cared for him or been hypnotised by him—I don't know. At least he didn't hesitate——"
"And now, sir, would you mind telling me . . .?" said the stout red-faced Treliss policeman, advancing towards them.