Strangwise had halted and was now looking back over the wall into Mrs. Viljohn-Smythe’s back garden. Was it possible, Desmond wondered, that he could believe that Desmond had scrambled back over the wall? Strangwise remained motionless, his back now fully turned to Desmond, peering into the other garden.
The garden in which the summer-house stood was oblong in shape and more than twice as broad as it was long. The pavilion was not more than forty yards from the back entrance of the house. Desmond weighed in his mind the possibility of being able to dash across those forty yards, the turf deadening the sound of his feet, before Strangwise turned round again. The entrance to the back of the house was through a door in the side of the house, to which two or three wrought-iron steps gave access. Once he had gained the steps Desmond calculated that the side of the house would shelter him from Strangwise’s view. He turned these things over in his mind in the twinkling of an eye; for all his life he had been used to quick decision and quick action. To cover those forty yards across the open in one bound was, he decided, too much to risk; for he must at all costs gain access to the house and discover, if possible, whether Barbara Mackwayte were confined within, before he was caught.
Then his eye fell on the plaster nymph in the middle of the grass. She was a stoutly-built female, life-size, standing upon a solid-looking pedestal fully four feet broad. Desmond measured the distance separating him from the nymph. It was not more than twenty yards at the outside and the pedestal would conceal him from the eyes of Strangwise if the latter should turn round before he had made his second bound and reached the steps at the side of the house.
He peeped through the window again. Strangwise stood in his old attitude gazing over the garden wall. Then Desmond acted. Taking long strides on the points of his toes, he gained the statue and crouched down behind it. Even as he started, he heard a loud grunt from the inside of the summerhouse and from his cover behind the nymph saw Strangwise turn quickly and enter the summerhouse. On that Desmond sprang to his feet again, heedless of whether he was seen from the house, ran lightly across the grass and reached the steps at the side of the house.
The door stood ajar.
He stood still on the top step and listened for a moment. The house was wrapped in silence. Not a sign of life came from within.
But now he heard voices from the garden and they were the voices of two angry men, raised in altercation. As he listened, they drew nearer.
Desmond tarried no longer. He preferred the unknown perils which that silent house portended to the real danger advancing from the garden. He softly pushed the door open and slipped into the house.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE RED LACQUER ROOM
The side-door led into a little white passage with a green baize door at the end. A staircase, which from its white-washed treads, Desmond judged to be the back stairs, gave on the passage. Calculating that the men in the garden would be certain to use the main staircase, Desmond took the back stairs which, on the first landing, brought him face to face with a green baize door, similar in every respect to that on the floor below.