Margery, who had watched the operation with great glee gave back the revolver and retired to the inner room. Picot sat down a little way from his prisoner, but for the present took no further notice of him. He had heard a footstep on the stairs a minute or two previously, and rightly judged that Gerald was already gone.
From the first day of taking up their abode at No. 5 Pymm's Buildings, Clara and her husband had prepared themselves for an emergency like the present one. They were always ready for immediate flight, and had arranged the means for communication in case of an enforced separation.
At the end of a few minutes Margery returned, carrying a folded paper, which she gave to Picot, at the same time whispering a few hurried words in his ear. The mountebank nodded and smiled and kissed the tips of his fingers. Then the girl went back, and the two men were left alone. But presently both of them heard the footsteps of more persons than one descending the stairs. Picot listened intently till the sound had died away, and then proceeded to light a cigarette. Of Crofton, sitting there, bound and gagged, he took not the slightest apparent notice.
A quarter of an hour passed thus, and with the exception of a footfall now and then in the court below no sound broke the silence. At the end of that time, Picot's cigarette being finished, he rose, pushed back his chair, clapped his hat on his head, and after a last examination of his prisoner's bonds, he marched out of the room without a word, and so downstairs and out of the house, first shutting behind him the door which divided the upper rooms from the ground floor.
Left alone, George Crofton began at once to struggle desperately to free himself, but all to no purpose. After a little time, however, he discovered that the chair in which he was bound moved on casters, and this discovery put an idea into his head such as would not have entered it under other circumstances. The room was lighted by a lamp on a low table, and to this table he managed by degrees to slide his chair along the floor. Then setting his teeth hard, and stretching his arms to the fullest extent his bonds would allow of his doing, he held his wrists over the flame of the lamp, and kept them there unflinchingly till the outermost coil of the ligature which bound them was burnt through. When once his hands were at liberty, very few minutes sufficed to make him a free man.
"My revenge is yet to come, Gerald Brooke," he said aloud as he paused at the door and took a last glance round. "It is but delayed for a little while, and every day's delay will serve but to make it sweeter at the last."
[CHAPTER XII.]
We are back once more at Linden Villa. It is a March evening, and the clock has just struck nine. George Crofton is smoking a cigar, and gazing fixedly into the fire, seeing pictures in the glowing embers which are anything but pleasant ones, if one may judge by the lowering expression of his face. He looks haggard and careworn, and is no longer so fastidious with regard to his personal appearance as he used to be. Dissipation has set its unmistakable seal upon him; he has the air of a man who is going slowly but surely downhill.
His wife is amusing herself somewhat listlessly at the piano. There is a slightly worn look about her eyes, and the line of her lips looks thinner and more hard set than it was wont to do. Married life had not brought Stephanie the happiness, or even the content, she had looked forward to. The awakening had come soon, and had not been a pleasant one. Not long had it taken her to discover that she had mated herself with an inveterate gambler, if not with something worse. So long as plump young pigeons were to be had for the plucking, matters had gone on swimmingly at Linden Villa. There had been no lack of money, and Stephanie had never cared to inquire too curiously how it had been come by. But after a time Crofton's wonderful luck at cards began to be commented upon; people began to be shy of playing at the same table with him; pigeons were warned to avoid him; and when, one unfortunate evening, he was detected cheating at the club, and unmasked by a member cleverer in that particular line than himself, his career in that sphere of life came to an end for ever. But his ambition had not been satisfied with the comparatively small gains of the card-table; he had bet heavily on the St. Leger and other races, and had been unfortunate in all. So far he had been able to meet his racing liabilities, but the doing so had exhausted the whole of his available resources, and matters at Linden Villa had now come to a pass that might almost be termed desperate.
Stephanie brought her roulades to an end with a grand crash; then turning half round she said in her clear metallic tones: "Have you anything to talk about, mon ange? Have you nothing to say to me?" Her husband's back was towards her as he sat brooding sullenly in front of the fire. "It is not often that you stay at home of an evening, and when you do--chut! I might as well be alone."