Michael heard the voices, but could not distinguish what was being said. The silken wrapper about his head was suffocating him, and he was losing his senses when the old man came back alone, unfastened the gown, and put it on himself.
“If you make a noise I will sew your lips together,” he said, so naturally and good-naturedly that it seemed impossible he would carry his threat into execution. But Michael knew that he was giving chapter and verse; he was threatening that which his ancestor had often performed. That beautiful old man, nicknamed by the gallants of Louis’ court “Monsieur de Paris,” had broken and hanged and beheaded, but he had also tortured men. There were smoke-blackened rooms in the old Bastille where that venerable old hangman had performed nameless duties without blenching.
“I am sorry in many ways that you must go on,” said the old man, with genuine regret in his voice. “You are a young man for whom I have a great deal of respect. The law to me is sacred, and its officers have an especially privileged place in my affections.”
He pulled open a drawer of the buffet and took out a large serviette, folded it with great care and fixed it tightly about Michael’s mouth. Then he raised him up and sat him on a chair.
“If I were a young and agile man, I would have a jest which would have pleased my uncle Charles Henry. I would fix your head on the top of the gates of Scotland Yard! I’ve often examined the gates with that idea in my mind. Not that I thought of you, but that some day providence might send me a very high official, a Minister, even a Prime Minister. My uncle, as you know, was privileged to destroy kings and leaders of parties—Danton, Robespierre, every great leader save Murat. Danton was the greatest of them all.”
There was an excellent reason why Michael should not answer. But he was his own cool self again, and though his head was aching from the violent knock it had received, his mind was clear. He was waiting now for the next move, and suspected he would not be kept waiting long. What scenes had this long dining-room witnessed! What moments of agony, mental and physical! It was the very antechamber to death.
Here, then, Bhag must have been rendered momentarily unconscious. Michael guessed the lure of drugged wine, that butyl chloride which was part of the murderer’s equipment. But for once Longvale had misjudged the strength of his prey. Bhag must have followed the brown folk to Dower House—the man and woman whom the old man in his cunning had spared.
Michael was soon to discover what was going to happen. The old man opened the door of the buffet and took out a great steel hook, at the end of which was a pulley. Reaching up, he slipped the end of the hook into a steel bolt, fastened in one of the overhead beams. Michael had noticed it before and wondered what purpose it served. He was now to learn.
From the cupboard came a long coil of rope, one end of which was threaded through the pulley and fastened dexterously under the detective’s armpits. Stooping, Longvale lifted the carpet and rolled it up, and then Michael saw that there was a small trap-door, which he raised and laid back. Below he could see nothing, but there came to him the sound of a man’s groaning.
“Now I think we can dispense with that, sir,” said Mr. Longvale, and untied the serviette that covered the detective’s mouth.