Hugo Part 37

The three men ran upstairs, leaving the hall to darkness and the landlady.

Whether Hugo dropped the candle in his excitement, or whether it was knocked out of his hand by means of a stick through the rails of the landing-banister as he ascended, will never be accurately known. He himself is not sure. The important fact is that the candle fell, and the trio stumbled up the last few stairs with nothing to guide them but a c.h.i.n.k of light through a half-closed door. This door led to the rooms of Dr. Woolrich, and the rooms of Dr. Woolrich were well lighted with gas.

But they were empty. There was a sitting-room and a bedroom, and on the round table in the centre of the sitting-room was a copy of the most modern edition of Quain's 'Dictionary of Medicine,' edited by Murray, Harold, and Bosanquet, bound in half-morocco; the volume was open at the article 'Anaesthetics,' and Hugo will always remember that the page was sixty-two. No sooner were the rooms found to be empty than Hugo rushed back to the landing, followed by Simon. The landing, however, even with the sitting-room door thrown wide and the light streaming across the landing and down the stairs, showed no sign of life.

Then Albert, who had remained within the suite, called out:

'There must be a dressing-room off this bedroom, and it's locked.'

'Simon,' said Hugo, 'go to the front window and keep watch.'

And Hugo ran into the bedroom to Albert.

Decidedly there was a door in the bedroom which had the appearance of leading into a further room, but the door would not budge. The pair glanced about. No evidence of recent human habitation was visible either in the sitting-room or in the bedroom, save only the dictionary, and Albert commented on this.

'We must force that door,' Hugo decided, 'and be ready to look after yourself when it gives way.'

As he spoke he could see, in the tail of his eye, Simon opening the front window and then looking out into the street.

'One--two--charge!' cried Hugo; and he and Albert flung themselves valiantly against the door.

They made no impression upon it at all.

Breathless and shaken, they looked at each other.

'Suppose I fire into the lock?' said Hugo.

'We might try a key first,' Albert answered.

He took the key from the door between the bedroom and the sitting-room, and applied it to the lock of the obstinate portal. The obstinate portal opened at once.

'Empty!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Albert, putting his nose into a small dressing-room.

With a gesture of disgust Hugo turned away. In the same instant Simon withdrew his head into the sitting-room.

'I've seen him,' Simon whispered in hoa.r.s.e excitement. 'He just popped out of the kitchen and came half-way up the area steps. Then he ran back. He saw me looking at him.'

'Ravengar?'

Simon nodded. This was the hour of Simon's triumph, the proof that he had not been mistaken in the theory which he had raised on the foundation of the photograph.

'Come along,' said Hugo grimly, preparing to rush downstairs.

But a singular thing had occurred. While Simon had been staring out of the front window, and Hugo and Albert engaged in forcing a door which led to emptiness, the door of the sitting-room, the sole means of egress from the first-floor suite, had been shut and locked on the outside.

In vain Hugo a.s.sailed it with boot and shoulder; in vain Albert a.s.sisted him.

'Keep your eye on the street, you fool!' said Albert to Simon, when the latter offered to join the siege of the door.

Hugo and Albert multiplied their efforts.

'There's a cab driven up,' Simon informed them from the window. 'A man's got out. Now he's gone down the area steps. They're carrying something up, something big. Oh! look here, I must help you.'

And Simon ran to the door. Before the triple a.s.sault it fell at last, and the three tumbled pell-mell downstairs into the hall. The front-door was open.

A cab was just driving away. It drove rapidly, very rapidly.

'After it!' Hugo commanded.

The hunt was up.

Two minutes afterwards another cab drove up to the door.

Ravengar and another man emerged from the area holding between them the form of a woman. They got leisurely into the cab with the woman and departed.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CEMETERY

Both Simon and Albert easily outran Hugo, and, fast as the first cab was travelling, they had gained on it by the time it turned into Victoria Street. And at the turning an incident happened. The driver, though hurried, was apparently to a certain extent careful and cautious, but he did not altogether avoid contact with a policeman at the corner. The policeman was obliged to step sharply out of the way of the cab, and even then the sleeve of his immaculate tunic was soiled by contact with the hind-wheel of the vehicle. Now, the driver might have sc.r.a.ped an ordinary person with impunity, and pa.s.sed on unchallenged; he might even have soiled the sleeve of a veteran policeman and got nothing worse than a sharp word of censure and a fragment of good advice. But this particular policeman was quite a new policeman, whose dignity was as delicate and easily smirched as his beautiful s.h.i.+ning tunic. And the result was that the cabby had to stop, give his number, and listen to a lecture.

Simon and Albert formed part of the audience for the lecture. It did not, however, interest them, for they had instantly perceived that the cab was empty.

Then, as the lecturer was growing eloquent, Hugo arrived, and was informed of the emptiness of the vehicle.

'It was just a trick,' Simon exclaimed; 'a trick to get us out of the house.'

'We must go back,' said Hugo, breathless.

At this moment the second cab appeared, was delayed a moment by the mult.i.tude listening to the lecture, and pa.s.sed westwards into Victoria Street.

'They're in that!' cried Simon.

'Are you sure?' Hugo questioned.

'Of course I'm sure,' said Simon, who in the excitement of the trail had ceased to be a valet.

To jump into a hansom and order the driver to keep the four-wheeler in sight ought to have been the work of a few seconds, but it occurred, as invariably occurs when a hansom is urgently needed, that no hansom was available. The four-wheeler was receding at a moderate rate in the direction of the Grosvenor Hotel.

'Run after it!' said Hugo. 'I'll get a cab in the station-yard and follow.'

The quarry vanished round a corner just as they tumbled into the hansom on the top of Hugo, but it was never out of observation for more than a quarter of a minute. Through divers strange streets it came at length into Fulham Road at Elm Place, and thenceforward, at a higher rate of speed, it kept to the main thoroughfare. The procession pa.s.sed the workhouse and the Redcliffe Arms. Between Edith Grove and Stamford Bridge the roadway was up for fundamental repairs, and omnibuses were being diverted down Edith Grove to King's Road. A policeman at the corner spoke to the driver of the four-wheeler, gave a sign of a.s.sent, and the four-wheeler went straight onwards into a medley of wood-blocks, which was all that was left of Fulham Road. The hansom followed intrepidly, and then its three occupants were conscious of a sudden halt.

'Bobby wants to know where you're going to,' said the driver, opening the trap.

There was a slight hesitation, and the policeman's voice could be heard: