"But how ...?" I was beginning, when he pointed to a telephone instrument upon a screen of tongue-and-groove boarding. "This communicates with the house," he whispered. "Mr. Vargus nearly got through recently, you will remember, just before the good Thumbwood caught him."
He raised the instrument to his mouth and ear.
In a second or two a bell rang and Danjuro began to speak. I nearly jumped out of my boots. The words were simple enough, but the voice with its oily refinement was the voice of Mr. Vargus!
"Is that you, Gascoigne? Yes, Vargus speaking. The Chief says you are to come down at once and bring the control link with you. What? No, the others are to wait till they're sent for. What? Oh, yes, quite dead. I wish you could have seen it!"
It was a triumph of mimicry that I shall never forget, the more so as it was the only occasion on which I heard this marvellous man attempt anything of the sort. Heaven knows what other talents he must have possessed!
"The young gentleman was asking about you, Sir John. He seemed quite curious about your end!"
I smiled grimly. "What are you going to do?" I asked.
In answer he hurried back to the open door and crouched down in the shadow by its side. I motioned to Thumbwood to lie down behind the barrier which was exactly facing the passage, and drawing my automatic pistol, which I had regained from Helzephron's room, I retired to the opposite side of the door and outside the line of direct vision.
There was silence for a minute or so, and then, far away in the rock, I heard a hollow rumble and the clank of a gate. The lift had descended and Gascoigne was on his way. A few seconds afterwards I heard a merry whistle, fresh and sweet, as if the performer had not a care in the world. He was whistling the lilting tune of a popular song which all the street boys were singing at that time:
"Merry Maudie met her fate at Margate!"