“Listen!” cried Sir Lionel Barton.
He stood upon the black rug before the massive, carven mantelpiece, a huge man in an appropriately huge setting.
I checked the words on my lips, and listened intently. Within Graywater Park all was still, for the hour was late. Outside, the rain was descending in a deluge, its continuous roar drowning any other sound that might have been discernible. Then, above it, I detected a noise that at first I found difficult to define.
“The howling of the leopards!” I suggested.
Sir Lionel shook his tawny head with impatience. Then, the sound growing louder, suddenly I knew it for what it was.
“Someone shouting!” I exclaimed—“someone who rides a galloping horse!”
“Coming here!” added Sir Lionel. “Hark! he is at the door!”
A bell rang furiously, again and again sending its brazen clangor echoing through the great apartments and passages of Graywater.
“There goes Kennedy.”
Above the sibilant roaring of the rain I could hear someone releasing heavy bolts and bars. The servants had long since retired, as also had Kâramaneh; but Sir Lionel’s man remained wakeful and alert.
Sir Lionel made for the door, and I, standing up, was about to follow him, when Kennedy appeared, in his wake a bedraggled groom, hatless, and pale to the lips. His frightened eyes looked from face to face.
“Dr. Petrie?” he gasped interrogatively.
“Yes!” I said, a sudden dread assailing me. “What is it?”
“Gad! it’s Hamilton’s man!” cried Barton.
“Mr. Nayland Smith, sir,” continued the groom brokenly—and all my fears were realized. “He’s been attacked, sir, on the road from the station, and Dr. Hamilton, to whose house he was carried—”
“Kennedy!” shouted Sir Lionel, “get the Rolls-Royce out! Put your horse up here, my man, and come with us!”
He turned abruptly ... as the groom, grasping at the wall, fell heavily to the floor.
“Good God!” I cried—“What’s the matter with him?”
I bent over the prostrate man, making a rapid examination.
“His head! A nasty blow. Give me a hand, Sir Lionel; we must get him on to a couch.”
The unconscious man was laid upon a Chesterfield, and, ably assisted by the explorer, who was used to coping with such hurts as this, I attended to him as best I could. One of the men-servants had been aroused, and, just as he appeared in the doorway, I had the satisfaction of seeing Dr. Hamilton’s groom open his eyes, and look about him, dazedly.
“Quick,” I said. “Tell me—what hurt you?”
The man raised his hand to his head and groaned feebly.
“Something came whizzing, sir,” he answered. “There was no report, and I saw nothing. I don’t know what it can have been—”
“Where did this attack take place?”
“Between here and the village, sir; just by the coppice at the crossroads on top of Raddon Hill.”
“You had better remain here for the present,” I said, and gave a few words of instruction to the man whom we had aroused.
“This way,” cried Barton, who had rushed out of the room, his huge frame reappearing in the doorway; “the car is ready.”
My mind filled with dreadful apprehensions, I passed out on to the carriage sweep. Sir Lionel was already at the wheel.
“Jump in, Kennedy,” he said, when I had taken a seat beside him; and the man sprang into the car.
Away we shot, up the narrow lane, lurched hard on the bend—and were off at ever growing speed toward the hills, where a long climb awaited the car.
The headlight picked out the straight road before us, and Barton increased the pace, regardless of regulations, until the growing slope made itself felt and the speed grew gradually less; above the throbbing of the motor, I could hear, now, the rain in the overhanging trees.
I peered through the darkness, up the road, wondering if we were near to the spot where the mysterious attack had been made upon Dr. Hamilton’s groom. I decided that we were just passing the place, and to confirm my opinion, at that moment Sir Lionel swung the car around suddenly, and plunged headlong into the black mouth of a narrow lane.
Hitherto, the roads had been fair, but now the jolting and swaying became very pronounced.
“Beastly road!” shouted Barton—“and stiff gradient!”
I nodded.
That part of the way which was visible in front had the appearance of a muddy cataract, through which we must force a path.
Then, as abruptly as it had commenced, the rain ceased; and at almost the same moment came an angry cry from behind.
The canvas hood made it impossible to see clearly in the car, but, turning quickly, I perceived Kennedy, with his cap off, rubbing his close-cropped skull. He was cursing volubly.
“What is it, Kennedy?
“Somebody sniping!” cried the man. “Lucky for me I had my cap on!”
“Eh, sniping?” said Barton, glancing over his shoulder. “What d’you mean? A stone, was it?”
“No, sir,” answered Kennedy. “I don’t know what it was—but it wasn’t a stone.”
“Hurt much?” I asked.
“No, sir! nothing at all.” But there was a note of fear in the man’s voice—fear of the unknown.
Something struck the hood with a dull drum-like thud.
“There’s another, sir!” cried Kennedy. “There’s someone following us!”
“Can you see anyone?” came the reply. “I thought I saw something then, about twenty yards behind. It’s so dark.”
“Try a shot!” I said, passing my Browning to Kennedy.
The next moment, the crack of the little weapon sounded sharply, and I thought I detected a vague, answering cry.
“See anything?” came from Barton.
Neither Kennedy nor I made reply; for we were both looking back down the hill. Momentarily, the moon had peeped from the cloud-banks, and where, three hundreds yards behind, the bordering trees were few, a patch of dim light spread across the muddy road—and melted away as a new blackness gathered.
But, in the brief space, three figures had shown, only for an instant—but long enough for us both to see that they were those of three gaunt men, seemingly clad in scanty garments. What weapons they employed I could not conjecture; but we were pursued by three of Dr. Fu-Manchu’s dacoits!
Barton growled something savagely, and ran the car to the left of the road, as the gates of Dr. Hamilton’s house came in sight.
A servant was there, ready to throw them open; and Sir Lionel swung around on to the drive, and drove ahead, up the elm avenue to where the light streamed through the open door on to the wet gravel. The house was a blaze of lights, every window visible being illuminated; and Mrs. Hamilton stood in the porch to greet us.
“Doctor Petrie?” she asked, nervously, as we descended.
“I am he,” I said. “How is Mr. Smith?”
“Still insensible,” was the reply.
Passing a knot of servants who stood at the foot of the stairs like a little flock of frightened sheep—we made our way into the room where my poor friend lay.
Dr. Hamilton, a gray-haired man of military bearing, greeted Sir Lionel, and the latter made me known to my fellow practitioner, who grasped my hand, and then went straight to the bedside, tilting the lampshade to throw the light directly upon the patient.
Nayland Smith lay with his arms outside the coverlet and his fists tightly clenched. His thin, tanned face wore a grayish hue, and a white bandage was about his head. He breathed stentoriously.
“We can only wait,” said Dr. Hamilton, “and trust that there will be no complications.”
I clenched my fists involuntarily, but, speaking no word, turned and passed from the room.
Downstairs in Dr. Hamilton’s study was the man who had found Nayland Smith.
“We don’t know when it was done, sir,” he said, answering my first question. “Staples and me stumbled on him in the dusk, just by the big beech—a good quarter-mile from the village. I don’t know how long he’d laid there, but it must have been for some time, as the last rain arrived an hour earlier. No, sir, he hadn’t been robbed; his money and watch were on him but his pocketbook lay open beside him;—though, funny as it seems, there were three five-pound notes in it!”
“Do you understand, Petrie?” cried Sir Lionel. “Smith evidently obtained a copy of the old plan of the secret passages of Graywater and Monkswell, sooner than he expected, and determined to return tonight. They left him for dead, having robbed him of the plans!”
“But the attack on Dr. Hamilton’s man?”
“Fu-Manchu clearly tried to prevent communication with us tonight! He is playing for time. Depend on it, Petrie, the hour of his departure draws near and he is afraid of being trapped at the last moment.”
He began taking huge strides up and down the room, forcibly reminding me of a caged lion.
“To think,” I said bitterly, “that all our efforts have failed to discover the secret—”
“The secret of my own property!” roared Barton—“and one known to that damned, cunning Chinese devil!”
“And in all probability now known also to Smith—”
“And he cannot speak! ...”
“Who cannot speak?” demanded a hoarse voice.
I turned in a flash, unable to credit my senses—and there, holding weakly to the doorpost, stood Nayland Smith!
“Smith!” I cried reproachfully—“you should not have left your room!”
He sank into an armchair, assisted by Dr. Hamilton.
“My skull is fortunately thick!” he replied, a ghostly smile playing around the corners of his mouth—“and it was a physical impossibility for me to remain inert considering that Dr. Fu-Manchu proposes to leave England tonight!”