Black Box — The Unseen Terror Part 2
2. The Professor swung round in his chair and greeted Quest with some surprise but also a little disappointment.
"No news of Craig?"
he asked.
Quest sank into a chair.
He was fresh from the Turkish baths and was enjoying the luxury of clean linen and the flavour of an excellent cigar.
"I got Craig all right," he replied.
"He came to the Servants' Club where I was waiting for him.
My luck's out, though.
The place was burnt to the ground last night.
I saved his life and then the brute gave me away to the police.
I had to make my escape as best I could."
The Professor tapped the table peevishly.
"This is insufferable," he declared.
"I have had no shaving water; my coffee was undrinkable; I can find nothing.
I have a most important lecture to prepare and I cannot find any of the notes I made upon the subject."
Quest stared at the Professor for a moment and then laughed softly.
"Well," he remarked, "you are rather an egoist, Professor, aren't you?"
"Perhaps I am," the latter confessed.
"Still, you must remember that the scientific world on those few occasions when I do appear in public, expects much of me.
My sense of proportion may perhaps be disarranged by this knowledge.
All that I can realise at the present moment, is this.
You seem to have frightened away the one man in the world who is indispensable to me."
Quest smoked in silence for a moment.
"Any mail for me, Professor?"
he asked, abruptly.
The Professor opened a drawer and handed him a telegram.
"Only this!"
Quest opened it and read it through.
It was from the Sheriff of a small town in Connecticut:-- "The men you enquired for are both here.
They have sold an automobile and seem to be spending the proceeds.
Shall I arrest?"
Quest studied the message for a moment.
"Say, this is rather interesting, Professor," he remarked.
"Really?"
the latter replied tartly.
"You must forgive me if I cannot follow the complications of your--pardon me for saying Munchausen-like affairs.
How does the arrest of these two men help you?"
"Don't you see?"
Quest explained.
"These are the two thugs who set upon me up at the section house.
They killed the signalman, who could have been my alibi, and swiped my car, in which, as it cannot be found, French supposes that I returned to New York.
With their arrest the case against me collapses.
I tell you frankly, Professor," Quest continued, frowning, "I hate to leave the city without having found that girl; but I am not sure that the quickest way to set things right would not be to go down, arrest these men and bring them back here, clear myself, and then go tooth and nail for Craig."
"I agree with you most heartily," the Professor declared.
"I recommend any course which will ensure the return of my man Craig."
"I cannot promise you that you will ever have Craig here again," Quest observed grimly.
"I rather fancy Sing-Sing will be his next home."
"Don't be foolish, Mr. Quest," the Professor advised.
"Don't let me lose confidence in you.
Craig would not hurt a fly, and as to abducting your assistant--if my sense of humour were developed upon normal lines--well, I should laugh!
What you have really done, you, and that young lady assistant of yours, is to terrify the poor fellow into such a state of nerves that he scarcely knows what he is doing.
As a matter of fact, how do you know that that young woman has been abducted at all?
Such things are most unlikely, especially in this part of the city."
"What reason do you suggest, then, for her disappearance?"
Quest enquired.
"At my age," the Professor replied, drily, "I naturally know nothing of these things.
But she is a young woman of considerable personal attractions--I should think it not unlikely that she is engaged in some amorous adventure."
Quest laughed derisively.
"You do not know Lenora, Mr. Ashleigh," he remarked.
"However, if it interests you, I will tell you why I know she has been abducted.
Only a few hours ago, I was talking to her."
The Professor turned his head swiftly towards Quest.
There was a queer sort of surprise in his face.
"Talking to her?"
Quest nodded.
"Our pocket wireless!"
he explained.
"Lenora has even described to me the room in which she is hidden."
"And the neighbourhood also?"
the Professor demanded.
"Of that she knows nothing," Quest replied.
"She is in a room apparently at the top of a house and the only window is in the roof.
She can see nothing, hear nothing.
When I get hold of the man who put her there," Quest continued slowly, "it will be my ambition to supplement personally any punishment the law may be able to inflict."
The Professor's manner had lost all its petulance.
He looked at Quest almost with admiration.
"The idea of yours is wonderful," he confessed.
"I am beginning to believe in your infallibility, Mr. Quest.
I am beginning to believe that on this occasion, at any rate, you will triumph over your enemies."
Quest rose to his feet.
"Well," he said, "if I can keep out of my friend French's way for a few hours longer, I think I can promise you that I shall be a free man when I return from Bethel.
I'm off now, Professor.
Wish me good luck!"
"My friend," the Professor replied, "I wish you the best of luck, but more than anything else in the world," he added, a little peevishly, "I hope you may bring me back my servant Craig, and leave us both in peace."
Quest stepped off the cars at Bethel a little before noon that morning.
The Sheriff met him at the depot and greeted him cordially but with obvious surprise.
"Say, Mr. Quest," he exclaimed, as they turned away, "I know these men are wanted on your charge, but I thought--you'll excuse my saying so--that you were in some trouble yourself."
Quest nodded.
"I'm out of that--came out yesterday."
"Very glad to hear it," the Sheriff assured him heartily.
"I never thought that they'd be able to hold you."
"They hadn't a chance," Quest admitted.
"Things turned out a little awkwardly at first, but this affair is going to put me on my feet again.
The moment my car is identified and Red Gallagher and his mate arrested, every scrap of evidence against me goes."
"Well, here's the garage and the man who bought the car," the Sheriff remarked, "and there's the car itself in the road.
It's for you to say whether it can be identified."
Quest drew a sigh of relief.
"That's mine, right enough," he declared.
"Now for the men."
"Say, I want to tell you something," the Sheriff began dubiously.
"These two are real thugs.
They ain't going to take it lying down."
"Where are they?"
Quest demanded.
"In the worst saloon here," the Sheriff replied.
"They've been there pretty well all night, drinking, and they're there again this morning, hard at it.
They've both got firearms, and though I ain't exactly a nervous man, Mr. Quest--" "You leave it to me," Quest interrupted.
"This is my job and I want to take the men myself."
"You'll never do it," the Sheriff declared.
"Look here," Quest explained, "if I let you and your men go in, there will be a free fight, and as likely as not you will kill one, if not both of the men.
I want them alive."
"Well, it's your show," the Sheriff admitted, stopping before a disreputable-looking building.
"This is the saloon.
They've turned the place upside down since they've been here.
You can hear the row they're making now.
Free drinks to all the toughs in the town!
They're pouring the stuff down all the time."
"Well," Quest decided, "I'm going in and I'm going in unarmed.
You can bring your men in later, if I call for help or if you hear any shooting."
"You're asking for trouble," the Sheriff warned him.
"I've got to do this my own way," Quest insisted.
"Stand by now."
He pushed open the door of the saloon.
There were a dozen men drinking around the bar and in the centre of them Red Gallagher and his mate.
They seemed to be all shouting together, and the air was thick with tobacco smoke.
Quest walked right up to the two men.
"Gallagher," he said, "you're my prisoner.
Are you coming quietly?"
Gallagher's mate, who was half drunk, swung round and fired a wild shot in Quest's direction.
The result was a general stampede.
Red Gallagher alone remained motionless.
Grim and dangerously silent, he held a pistol within a few inches of Quest's forehead.
"If my number's up," he exclaimed ferociously, "it won't be you who'll take me."
"I think it will," Quest answered.
"Put that gun away."
Gallagher hesitated.
Quest's influence over him was indomitable.
"Put it away," Quest repeated firmly.
"You know you daren't use it.
Your account's pretty full up, as it is."
Gallagher's hand wavered.
From outside came the shouts of the Sheriff and his men, struggling to fight their way in through the little crowd who were rushing for safety.
Suddenly Quest backed, jerked the pistol up with his right elbow, and with almost the same movement struck Red Gallagher under the jaw.
The man went over with a crash.
His mate, who had been staggering about, cursing viciously, fired another wild shot at Quest, who swayed and fell forward.
"I've done him!"
the man shouted.
"Get up, Red!
I've done him all right!
Finish yer drink.
We'll get out of this!"
He bent unsteadily over Quest.
Suddenly the latter sprang up, seized him by the leg and sent him sprawling.
The gun fell from his hand.
Quest picked it up and held it firmly out, covering both men.
Gallagher was on his knees, groping for his own weapon.
"Get the handcuffs on them," Quest directed the Sheriff, who with his men had at last succeeded in forcing his way into the saloon.
The Sheriff wasted no words till the two thugs, now nerveless and cowed, were handcuffed.
Then he turned to Quest.
There was a note of genuine admiration in his tone.
"Mr. Quest," he declared, "you've got the biggest nerve of any man I have ever known."
The criminologist smiled.
"This sort of bully is always a coward when it comes to the pinch," he remarked.
* * * * * Crouching in her chair, her pale, terror-stricken face supported between her hands, Lenora, her eyes filled with hopeless misery, gazed at the dumb instrument upon the table.
Her last gleam of hope seemed to be passing.
Her little friend was silent.
Once more her weary fingers spelt out a final, despairing message.
"What has happened to you?
I am waiting to hear all the time.
Has Craig told you where I am?
I am afraid!"
There was still no reply.
Her head sank a little lower on to her folded arms.
Even the luxury of tears seemed denied her.
Fear, the fear which dwelt with her day and night, had her in its grip.
Suddenly she leaped, screaming, from her place.
Splinters of glass fell all around her.
Her first wild thought was of release; she gazed upwards at the broken pane.
Then very faintly from the street below she heard the shout of a boy's angry voice.
"You've done it now, Jimmy!
You're a fine pitcher, ain't you?
Lost it, that's what you've gone and done!"
The thoughts formed themselves mechanically in her mind.
Her eyes sought the ball which had come crashing into the room.
There was life once more in her pulses.
She found a scrap of paper and a pencil in her pocket.
With trembling fingers she wrote a few words: "Police head-quarters.
I am Sanford Quest's assistant, abducted and imprisoned here in the room where the ball has fallen.
Help!
I am going mad!"
She twisted the paper, looked around the room vainly for string, and finally tore a thin piece of ribbon from her dress.
She tied the message around the ball, set her teeth, and threw it at the empty skylight.
The first time she was not successful and the ball came back.
The second time it passed through the centre of the opening.
She heard it strike the sound portion of the glass outside, heard it rumble down the roof.
A few seconds of breathless silence!
Her heart almost stopped beating.
Had it rested in some ledge, or fallen into the street below?
Then she heard the boy's voice.
"Gee!
Here's the ball come back again!"
A new light shone into the room.
She seemed to be breathing a different atmosphere--the atmosphere of hope.
She listened no longer with horror for a creaking upon the stairs.
She walked back and forth until she was exhausted....
Curiously enough, when the end came she was asleep, crouched upon the bed and dreaming wildly.
She sprang up to find Inspector French, with a policeman behind him, standing upon the threshold.
"Inspector!"
she cried, rushing towards him.
"Mr. French!
Oh, thank God!"
Her feelings carried her away.
She threw herself at his feet.
She was laughing and crying and talking incoherently, all at the same time.
The Inspector assisted her to a chair.
"Say, what's all this mean?"
he demanded.
She told him her story, incoherently, in broken phrases.
French listened with puzzled frown.
"Say, what about Quest?"
he asked.
"He ain't been here at all, then?"
She looked at him wonderingly.
"Of course not!
Mr. Quest--" She hesitated.
The Inspector laid his hand upon her wrist.
Then he realised that she was on the point of a nervous breakdown, and in no condition for interrogations.
"That'll do," he said.
"I'll take care of you for a time, young lady, and I'll ask you a few questions later on.
My men are searching the house.
You and I will be getting on, if you can tear yourself away."
She laughed hysterically and hurried him towards the door.
As they passed down the gloomy stairs she clung to his arm.
The first breath of air seemed wonderful to her as they passed out into the street.
It was freedom!
* * * * * The plain-clothes man, who was lounging in Quest's most comfortable easy-chair and smoking one of his best cigars, suddenly laid down his paper.
He moved to the window.
A large, empty automobile stood in the street outside, from which the occupants had presumably just descended.
He hastened towards the door, which was opened, however, before he was half-way across the room.
The cigar slipped from his fingers.
It was Sanford Quest who stood there, followed by the Sheriff of Bethel, two country policemen, and Red Gallagher and his mate, heavily handcuffed.
Quest glanced at the cigar.
"Say, do you mind picking that up?"
he exclaimed.
"That carpet cost me money."
The plain-clothes man obeyed at once.
Then he edged a little towards the telephone.
Quest had opened his cigar cabinet.
"Glad you've left me one or two," he remarked drily.
"Say, aren't you wanted down yonder, Mr. Quest?"
the man enquired.
"That's all right now," Quest told him.
"I'm ringing up Inspector French myself.
You'd better stand by the other fellows there and keep your eye on Red Gallagher and his mate."
"I guess Mr. Quest is all right," the Sheriff intervened.
"We're ringing up headquarters ourselves, anyway."
The plain-clothes man did as he was told.
Quest took up the receiver from his telephone instrument and arranged the phototelesme.
"Police-station Number One, central," he said,--"through to Mr. French's office, if you please.
Mr. Quest wants to speak to him.
Yes, Sanford Quest.
No need to get excited!...
All right.
I'm through, am I?...
Hullo, Inspector?"
A rare expression of joy suddenly transfigured Quest's face.
He was gazing downward into the little mirror.
"You've found Lenora, then, Inspector?"
he exclaimed.
"Bully for you!...
What do I mean?
What I say!
You forget that I am a scientific man, French.
No end of appliances here you haven't had time to look at.
I can see you sitting there, and Lenora and Laura looking as though you had them on the rack.
You can drop that, French.
I've got Red Gallagher and his mate, got them here with the Sheriff of Bethel.
They went off with my auto and sold it.
We've got that.
Also, in less than five minutes my chauffeur will be here.
He's been lying in a farmhouse, unconscious, since that scrap.
He can tell you what time he saw me last.
Bring the girls along, French--and hurry!"
Quest hung up the receiver.
"I've given Inspector French something to think about," he remarked, as he turned away.
"Now, Mr. Sheriff, if you can make yourself at home for a quarter of an hour or so, French will be here and take these fellows off your hands.
I've still a little more telephoning to do."
"You go right ahead," the Sheriff acquiesced.
Quest rang up the Professor.
His response to the call was a little languid, and his reception of the news of Quest's successful enterprise was almost querulous.
"My friend," the Professor said, "your news gratifies me, of course.
Your rehabilitation, however, was a matter of certainty.
With me life has become a chaos.
You can have no idea, with your independent nature, what it means to entirely rely upon the ministrations of one person and to be suddenly deprived of their help."
"No news of Craig, then?"
Quest demanded.
"None at all," was the weary reply.
"What about your young lady assistant?"
"She'll be here in five minutes," Quest told him.
"You had better come along and hear her story.
