“It’s a curious thing,” the butler observed, filling his pipe, “that more than once the Squire has been for having them broken up, but Mr. Gregory wouldn’t listen to it. They had almost words about it one night.”
“Broken up,” Mr. Johnson repeated. “For what purpose?”
“I couldn’t quite follow the argument, sir,” Rawson admitted. “The Squire seemed serious enough at the time, but Mr. Gregory had his own way.”
The tenant of the Great House rose to his feet a few minutes later, and, amidst a little chorus of “good evenings”, strolled out and, starting his car, drove slowly up the lane homewards. Afterwards he left the paved courtyard by a side entrance and paused for a minute or two to look around lovingly at the old kitchen garden, the peaches ripening upon the wall, the apple and pear trees full of fruit, the box-bordered paths, and the little patches of cottage flowers in unexpected places. He walked contentedly around his property, his hands behind his back, his pipe still in his mouth, looked into his tomato house and approved of its appearance, exchanged a few words with the gardener about the trimming of a hedge, and passed out on to the lawn. Here he drew a chair into the shade of a cedar tree and, still in a reflective frame of mind, leaned back with half-closed eyes.
His peaceful surroundings seemed to fade away from him. He was back in the steep tangled streets of a Chinese city, on a hand-borne ’rickshaw out in the country, travelling up to the top of a hill, beyond which, through the wood, gleamed the green dome of the Temple of Yun-Tse. He was back on the turgid river where the cruel sun was blistering the deck of his strange craft, and the sound of his little engine, suddenly breaking the hot silence, brought consternation to the tall, evil figure who had been leaning over the side of his boat to watch the oars thrust through the opened places. He watched the coming to life of the young Englishman, heard his talk, fancied that he smelled again the peculiar odours of that strange warehouse. He saw Endacott once more in his quaint costume, immersed in his beloved labours—dead now, for the sake of the treasure which was still withheld.
The tenant of the Great House sat there until a very slight breeze stirred the leaves of the tall elm trees and the church clock from across the way struck seven. Then he rose to his feet, knocked out the ashes from his pipe, and entered the house.
That rustle of west breeze which, heralding eventide, broke the calm of the summer day, did not, as usual, die away with the setting of the sun. A little bank of clouds crept up from the horizon, and the wind which seemed to come suddenly from nowhere bent the tops of the trees and drove them before it in black and broken pieces. The afterglow from the sunset passed into a stormy obscurity. No rain fell but the wind ever increased in volume and the darkness grew thicker. Mr. Johnson drank his accustomed whisky and soda at ten o’clock and retired to his room a few minutes later. He lay down, however, with a small alarm watch by his side, and at three o’clock he left the silent house, passed through the postern gate and into the street. The morning darkness at first baffled him. He had to feel the wall to know where he was. He stood there with the palm of his hand flat against it, looking in the direction of the Hall. Suddenly, from the middle of the gulf of darkness, three little flashes of light followed one another quickly. There was a brief pause—then two more—then one. Mr. Johnson turned hurriedly back to the house, changed from his sleeping attire and dressing gown back into his discarded dinner clothes, slipped some cartridges into a revolver which he took from his bedside, and, descending the stairs carefully, passed into the library. Silence still reigned throughout the house, and complete darkness. Mr. Johnson, with the composed mien and even pulse of a man who is used to dangers, settled down to wait.
CHAPTER VIII
Towards half-past five in the morning Mr. Johnson was awakened from a heavy slumber by the clamorous and increasing twitter of birds in the shrubberies and gardens outside. He woke with the sensation of being exceedingly uncomfortable and of being in an entirely unaccustomed spot. He sat up, looking around him. He was on the floor of the library, his revolver, with one barrel discharged, by his side, a dried but painful cut upon his cheek bone, and with the haunting remains of a most unpleasant odour still hanging about the room. He staggered to his feet with poignant apprehensions of disaster. A panel in the door communicating with the smaller apartment which it had been his purpose to guard had been neatly cut out, and the spring lock apparently picked from the other side. The door itself stood open. Inside, the steel-clamped coffer in which Endacott had kept his manuscripts lay upside down and empty upon the carpet. Mr. Johnson nodded slowly to himself. It was a moment of great humiliation. After fifteen years of adventurous life, of scraps with Chinese cutthroats, Malay thieves, scamps of every sort, armed with every kind of weapon, he had, notwithstanding ample warning, been tricked by an amateur. He made a closer examination and realised how it must have happened. He had waited in the darkness for the opening of the garden door, and the intruder, whoever it might have been, had surprised him by coming in the other way—there were, after all, a dozen windows on the ground floor by which he might have entered—and stealing upon him from behind. He could recall, even then with his dazed senses, as he leaned out to get a little fresh air, the absolute noiselessness of that encounter. It was less a sound than the consciousness of somebody’s presence which had made him suddenly alert, and then, before he could even turn, arms like iron bands were around his throat and the handkerchief was pressed to his nostrils. Night after night he had waited for what had happened, and when his opportunity had come—well, this was the end of it!