THE SECRET HOUSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16032, 25 September 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE SECRET HOUSE.

BY EDGAR WALLACE, Author of "Pour Just- Men," "Print* Sblby,"* etc. COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XIX.-{Continued.) "We will go up slowly," whispered Fall in the other's ear, "it will not do to make a row or to rouse any suspicion, we must not forget that we have T. B. Smith to deal with." Farrington nodded. Presently the lift stopped of its own accord. They made no attempt to open whatever door was before them. They heard voices; one was T.B.'s and the other was unmistakably Poltavo's, and Poltavo was speaking. Poltavo was offering in his eager way to betray the men who sat in the darkness listening to his treachery. They heard the motor-car's arrival outside, and presently T.B.'s voice announcing hiß temporary retirement. They heard the slam of the door, and the key click in the lock, and then Dr. Fall stepped forward, pressed a spring in the rough woodwork before him, and one of the panels of the room slid back.

Poltavo did not see the visitors until they stood over him, and he read in those hateful faces which were turned towards him an unmistakable forecast of his doom. " What do you want?" ho almost whispered. " Do not raise your voice," said Farrington in the same tone, " or you are a dead man." He held the point of a knife at the other's throat. "To where are you taking me asked Poltavo, ghastly white of face, and shaking from head to foot. "We are taking you to a place where your opportunity or betraying us will be a .s_* nnyt y 6maU one *» id Fall. There was a horrible smile on his thin lips and Poltavo, with a premonition of what awaited him beyond the tunnel fo» got the menacing knife at his throat and screamed.

Hands gripped him and strangled the cry in his throat, something heavy hit him behind the ear, and he lost consciousness.

He awoke to find himself travelling smoothly along the rock gallery. He was half lying, half reclining on Fall's knees. He did not attempt to move; he knew now that he was in mortal peril of his life. No word was spoken when he was dragged roughly from the car, placed in another elevator, and whirled upwards, emerging into the little chamber at the end of the underground corridor which ran beneath the Secret House. A door was opened and he was thrust in without a word. He heard the clang of the steel door behind him, and the lights came on to show him that once again he was in that underground room where he had been confined before.

There was the table, there was the heavy chair, there, in the far corner of the room was the barred entrance to the other elevator. Anyway, he was free from the police, that was something.

He was safe just so long as it suited the book of Farrington and his friend to keep him safe. What would they do ? What excuse could he offer ? They had overheard the conversation between himself and T. 8., he knew that, and cursed his folly. He ought to have kept away from Moor Cottage. He knew there was something sinister about the place, but T.B. should have known it too, even better than he. Why had T.B. left him?

These and a thousand other thoughts shot through his mind, as he paced the vaulted apartment. He had almost forgotten what time it was, whether it was day or night hi that underground vault into which no ray of sunlight ever penetrated. They had left him with the handcuffs on hi* wrist*. Presently perhaps they would come and relieve him of these encumbrances. What were their plans with him ? He felt his pockets carefully. T.B. had taken away the only weapon he had had, and for the first time for many years Count Poltavo was unarmed. He was terror stricken. ' His heart was beating with painful rapidity, and his breath came painfully. Was there no way out ? He turned to find the door through which he had come, and to his surprise he could not sec it. Ho far as ho could detect the stone wall ran without a break from one end of the apartment to the ( other. Escap« could pot lis that way, ojt

that he was satisfied, there was nothing to do but to wait with whatever patience he could summon to discover their plans. He did not doubt that he was to suffer. He had forfeited all right to their confidence, but if this was to be the only consequence of his ill-doing he was not greatly worried. Count "Poltavo, as he had boasted before in this identical compartment, had been in some tight corners and had faced death in many strange ■ and terrible guises; but the inevitability of his doom was never so impressed upon his mind as it was at this moment, when he- lay guarded by a hundred secret forces in the tomb of the Secret House. He had one hope, a faint one,'that T.B. would discover the method of his exit from the room in Moor Cottage and would track him here. Evidently the occupants of the Secret House had the same fear, for even here in the quietness of his underground prison Poltavo could hear strange whirring noises, rumbling and groaning and grinding, as though the whole of the house were changing its construction. He had* not long to wait for news. A corner lift came swiftly down, and Fall stepped quickly towards his prisoner. "T. B. Smith is in the bouse," he said, "and is making an inspection} he will •be down here in a moment. In these circumstances I shall have to betray one of the secrets of this house." He caught the other roughly by the arm, and half dragged him to a corner of the room. Handcuffed as he was, Poltavo could offer no resistance. Dr. Fall apparently only touched one portion of the wall, but he must have moved either with his foot or with his hand some particularly powerful spring, for a section of the stone wall swung backwards, revealing a black gap. "Get in there," said Fall, and pushed him faito the darkness.

A few minutes later, T. 8.. Smith, accompanied by three detectives, inspected the room which Poitavo had left. There was no sign of the man, no evidence of his having so recently been an occupant of this prison house. For an interminable time Poltavo stood in the darkness. He found he was in a small, cell-like apartment, with apparently no outlet save that by which he had come. He was able to breathe without difficulty, for the perfect system of ventilation through the dungeons of the Secret House had been its architect's greatest triumph. It seemed hours that he waited there,

though in reality it wag less than twenty minutes after his entrance that the door swung open again, and he' was called out. Farrington. was in the room now, Farrington with his trusty lieutenant, and behind them the one-eyed Italian desperado whom Poltavo remembered seeing in the power-house one day when he had been allowed the privilege of inspection. Some slight change had been made in the room since he was there last. Poltavo's nerves were in such a condition that he was sensitive to the slightest change. He saw now what the change was.

The table had been drawn back, leaving the big chair where it was fixed. Yes, it was fixed, he remembered it, and wondered why it had been screwed to the wooden block floor. Dr. Fall and the engineer grasped him roughly, and hurried him across the room, thrusting him into the chair.

"What are you going to do?" asked Poltavo, white as death. " That you shall see." Deftly they strapped him to the chair, his wrists and elbows were securely fastened to the arms, his ankles to the legs of the massive piece of furniture. From where he-sat Poltavo confronted Farrington, but the big man's mask-like face did not move, nor his eyes waver as he surveyed his treacherous prisoner. Then Fall knelt down and did something, and Poltavo heard the ripping of cloth. They were slitting, up each trousers leg, and he could not understand why. Is this a joke?" he asked, with a desperate attempt at airiness. No reply was made. Poltavo watched his captor curiously. What was the object of it all? The two men busy at the chair lifted a number of curious-looking objects from the floor; they clamped one on each wrist, and he felt the cold surface of some instrument pressing against each calf. Still he did not realise his danger, and the grim determination of these men whose secret he would have betrayed. "Mr. Farrington," he appealed to the big man. "let its have an understanding. I have played my game and lost." " You have indeed." said Farrington. They were the first word* he had epokaa.

* "Give me enough y to get out of the country," Poltavo appealed, "just the money I have in my pocket, and I promise you I will never trouble you again." "Sly friend," said Farrington, "I have trusted you too long. You forced yourself upon me when I did not desire you, you thwarted me at every turn, you "betrayed me whenever it was possible fa betray me, or whenever it was to your advantage to do so, and I am determined that you shall have no other chance of doing me an injury." .

"What is this . foolery?" asked Poltavo, in a mixture of blind fear and rage. He wrenched at his arms, but the straps held him tight. They had unlocked the handcuffs and taken them off him, and now for the first time Poltavo noticed that the curious bronze clamps on his. wrists were attached by thick green cords to a plug in the wall.

He shrieked aloud as he saw this, and the full horror of the situation flashed upon him.

"My God," he screamed, "you are not going to kill me?" Farrington nodded slowly. "We are going to kill you painlessly, Poltavo," he said; "it is your life or ours. We do not desire to cause you unnecessary pain, but here is the end of the adventure for you, my friend." " You are not going to electrocute me," croaked the man in the chair in a hoarse, cracked voice. " Don't say you are going to electrocute me. Farrington! It is diabolical. It is terrible, give me a chance of life ! Give me a pistol, give me a knife, but fight me fair. Treat me as you will, hand me to the police, but anything but this. For God's sake, Farrington, don't do this." The doctor reached down, and lifted a , leathern helmet from' the floor, and placed ; it gently over the doomed man's head. 'vDon't do it, Farrington," Poltavo's muttered voice came painfully from behind the leather screen. "Don't! I swear I will not betray von." Farrington made a little signal, and the doctor walked to the wall, and placed his hand upon a black switch. "I will not betray you," said the man in the chair in hollow tones. "Give me a chance. I did not tell them anythincr that you—" J b He did not speak again, for the black switch had teen pressed down, and death came with merciful swiftness. They stood watching the figure. A slight

quivering of the hands, and then Harrington nodded, and the doctor turned the switch over again. Rapidly they unfastened the straps, and the limp thing which was once human, had a brain to think, and a capacity for life and love, slipped out of the chair in an inanimate heap upon the ground. So passed Ernesto Poltavo, an adventurer and a villain, in the prime of life. Farrington looked down upon the "body with sombre eyes and shrugged his shoulders. He had opened his mouth to speak. Dr. Fall had walked to the switchboard and was about to put the deadly apparatus out of gear when a sharp voice made them both turn. The stone door through which Poltavo had passed to his doom from the corridor was wide open, and in the doorway stood T. 8.. and a little behind him Elk, and in T.B.'s hand was a pistol. CHAPTER XX. THREE MINUTES. T.B.'s inspection of the Secret House had yielded nothing satisfactory ; he had not expected it would ; he was perfectly satisfied that the keen, shrewd brains who ' dominated the menage would remove any trace there was of foul play. "Where now?" asked Elk, as they turned out of the house. '"Back to Moor Cottage," said T.B. climbing into the car. " I am perfectly certain that we are on the verge of our big discovery. There is a way out of the cottage by some underground chamber, a way by which first Lady Constance and then Poltavo were smuggled, and if it is necessary T am going to smash every panel in those two ground floor rooms, but I will find tins way into Mr. Farrington's Secret House." For half an hour the two men were engaged in the room from which Poltavo had been taken, in probing with centre hits and gimlets into every portion of the room. 'Hie firs* discovery that they made was that the oaken panels of the chamber were backed with sheet- iron or steel.

"It is a hopeless job, we shall have to get another kind of smith hero to tear down all the panelling," said T.B'., lighting the gloom of his despair with a little flash of humour. He fingered the tiny locket absently and opened it again. "It is absurd," he laughed helplessly; " here is the solution in these simple •words— yet. we brainy folk from the yard cannot understand them!" "God save the King!" said Elk ruefully. "I wonder how on earth that is going to help us." A gasp from T.B. made him turn his face to his chief. T. B. Smith wag pointing at the piano. In two strides he was across the room, and sitting on the stool he lifted the cover and'struck a chord. The instrument sounded a little flat, and apparently had not received the attention of the tuner for some time. " I am going to play " God Save the King,' " said T.B. with a light in his eyes, " and I think something is going to happen."

Slowly he pounded forth the familiar tune ; from beginning to end he played it, and when he had finished he looked at Elk.

" Try it in another stave," suggested Elk, and again T.B. played the anthem. He was nearing the last. few bars when there was a click and he leapt up. One long panel had disappeared from the side of the wall. For a moment the two men looked at one another. 'They were alone in the house, although a policeman was within call. Most of their men were gathered in the vicinity of the Secret House. T.B. flashed the light of his indispensable and inseparable lamp into the interior. "I will go first, and see what happened, * he said.

"I think' we will both go together," said Elk grimly. " There is a switch here," said T.B. "And here I presume are the necessary controlling buttons," said T. 8., pointing to a number of white discs, "we will try this one." He pressed the button, and instantly the cage began to fall. It came to a standstill after a while and the men stepped out. " Part of the old working," 'said T.B. A very ingenious -idea." He flashed his lamp over the walls to find the electrical connection. They were here as they were at the other end, perfectly accessible. An instant later the long corridor was lighted up.

"By heavens!" eaid T.B. admiringly., "they have even got an underground tramway look here At this tiny terminus there were two branches of rails, and a car was in waiting. A few minutes later T. B. Smith had reached the other end of the mine gallery, and was seeking the second elevator. "Here we are," he said, "everything runs by electricity. I thought that power house of Farrington's had a pretty stiff job, and now, I eee how heavy is the load which it has to carry-"

"Step gently into this," he said, "and make a careful note of the way we are going. I think we must be about 100 ft below the level of the earth, just guage it roughly as we go up. Here we go."

He pressed a button and up went the lift.

They passed out of the little inner chamber, carefully propping back the eliding door, and made their way along the corridor.

"This looks like an apartment." said T.B. as he stopped before a red-painted steel door in one of the walls. He pressed it gently, 'but it did not yield. He made a further examination, but there was no keyhole visible. " This is either worked by a hidden spring, or it does not work at all," he said in a low voice.

"If it is a spring," said Elk, "I will find it."

His sensitive hands went upv and down the surface of the door, and presently they stopped. ' There is something which is little longer than a pinhole," he said. He took from his pocket a general utility kiife, and clipped out a thin steel needle. "' Pipe cleaners may be very useful," he said, and pressed the long slender bodkin into the aperture. Instantly, and without sound the door opened. T.B. was the first to go in, revolver in hand. He found himself in a room, which even if it were a prison was a weil-dis-guieed prison. The walls were hung with costly tapestries, the carpet under foot was thick and noiseless, aud the furniture which garnished the room was of a most costly fend luxurious description. (To b« concluded on W«dn«id*y next.)