The Room Under the Stairs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 859, 31 December 1929, Page 5

The Room Under the Stairs

! lte Baffling Story of a Man Who Read of His Own Murder.

By

Herman Landon

Copyright by G. Howard 'Walt. Serialised by Ledger Syndicate.

CHAPTER XXX.—Continued. For a little longer she remained in „ rigid attitude of concentration, then shook her head despairingly. “It all seemed to clear a while ago, but now I seem to have lost it. When Littleby was here I saw everything in a flash, but now —’’ She lifted her big, clouded eves to his face. “Strange, wasn’t it, what you told us about finding father listening at the telephone? That’s what started me thinking, though I wasn’t really thinking at all —not in the ordinary sense. I just felt thoughts rushing over me. Now everything is a blank again.” A frown crossed her face, wondrously appealing in its tragic pallor. For a few minutes not a sound was heard in the room. They were in a world of their own. bounded by walls that shut off all manifestations of outside life, and that would prove impenetrable barriers against any shouts they might raise for help. Dean scanned them with a vindictive rye, vexed with himself for his helplessness. The girl was bearing up bravely, perhaps for the reason that her capacity for dread and suffering had been exhausted, but how would it be when the inevitable crisis came? Somehow he felt that, it was not far off —that Littleby would soon show his hand.

He tried to shake off his misgivings, doubly distressing because the girl shared his plight. There was a fresh, quiet charm about her that stamped her as belonging in an atmosphere of sunshine and tranquillity, with the friendly breezes of the prairies ruffing her hair and touching her cheeks with mag'cal caresses. She had been snatched away from all lhat, precipitated into a miasinic slough of dark and sinister intrigue. For that matter, so had he. Only a few days ago he had been leading a humdrum life at Top O’ The Hill, his days filled with the placid concerns of an ambitious and moderately successful young man. All that seemed ages remote now, separated from the present by a chasm seething with inscrutable mysteries. Events had cone with a breath-taking rush, beginning with the preposterous article in “The Era.” After that the vivid little Miss Gray had flashed into his retreat on Top O’ The Hill, bringing with her a premonitory tang of tragedy. The rest had been a madly dissonant medley of incongruities—his visit to the house on Hudson Street, the gruesome relics in the room under the stairs, the accumulating evidence that seemed to substantiate Martin Lamont’s astounding confession, his discovery of the fragments of glass crystal—an incident whose signfieanee still eluded him-—-his visit with Lieutenant Shane to Lamont’s bedside, terminating jn a wildly grotesque scene. Freddie Mills’s attempt on his life and the violent effect his subsequent appearance produced upon Miss Gray and Dr. Ballinger, the haunting cr.es he had heard on the wire, the murder of Lamont, and, finally, the bewildering circumstances of his meeting with the dead man’s daughter.

“What next?” he wondered, drawing a deep breath as the various episodes in the mystery flashed in shapeless fragments through his mind, provoking a speculation as to whether there was a connecting thread running

through the entire web of complexities, uniting the beginning and the end. THE VOICE ON THE WIRE As if in answer to his question, a low buzzing was heard in the rear of the room. Instantly both turned in the direction whence the sound came. 1’ °r a moment their eyes were fixed on the metal trimmings of the telephone. A gasp fell from the girl’s lips, as if the buzzing had brought a slumbering horror to life. She sprang forward. but Dean held her back. “I’ll answer," he declared decisively. The buzzing, still continuing, had a subtly disquieting sound, like a prelude to fresh horrors. “You remain here.” Paying no heed, she followed him as he crossed the room with brisk strides. In a moment he had picked up the telephone and removed the receiver. “Hello.” His voice was edged with ill-suppressed excitement. Oh, you, Dean?” The answering voice, provokingly calm, was Littleby s. “t rather thought you wouldn't permit Miss Lamont to answer. It is just as well. What I have to say is meant for you rather than her, though both of you are concerned. I am speaking from my bedroom.” Well? said Dean, with an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the girl who stood tense and palpitant behind him. “I suppose,” the lawyer went on. “you have discovered by this time that doors sometimes turn only one way. In that case it isn’t necessary to point out to you that you will remain where you are until I deem it expedient to release you.” Dean did not answer. Littleby’s voice sounded so clear over the wire that he feared the girl could hear every word. “It is just as -well,” the lawyer continued, “that you understand the situation clearly. No matter how clever you may be, you will never find a way out. You can shout all vou like; no one will hear you. The walls are proof against assault. Any attempt to extricate yourself will bo quite useless. You will have to amuse yourselves as best you can. For instance, by searching the cracks in the floor for pieces of glass.” “Capital idea,” said Dean.

“Or you might discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of scars.”

‘Another excellent suggestion.” “Or you might try to solve the mystery of who murdered Lamont.” “You are improving, Littleby.” “Or figure out how I vanished so suddenly a while ago.” “This is getting better and better.” “Just one more suggestion. You and Miss Lamont might improve the time by exchanging views on the uncertainties of life.”

“You are full of brilliant ideas to night.”

“And I give them to you gratis, Dean. That’s more generous treatment than I accord my clients. I believe you will find the last topic I suggested, the one pertaining to the uncertainties of life, the most profitable one. Have you the time?” “A quarter after three,” said Dean after a glance at his watch.

"H’m. Two hours should be ample time for an exhaustive discussion of

the subject. Y'ou may have until a quarter past five. I hope you and Miss Lamont will give the subject all the serious consideration it deserves. At a-quarter past five you will receive an object lesson that will teach you in a most convincing way how very uncertain life is. Understand, Dean?” A moment passed before Dean could answer. The speaker’s tone, with its silken insinuation, left no room for doubt as to Littleby’s intentions. A gasp sounding behind his back told him that Miss Lamont had not only heard the words, but grasped their significance as well.

“I understand,” he said evenly enough. “You have been so generous with suggestions that 1 feel like reciprocating. Here is a problem that may interest you. What became of the watch that was broken in the house on Hudson Street? If you think fast, you may solve it before Lieutenant Shane does.”

With that he hung up and turned toward the girl. . Her eyes were full of tragic comprehension, but a smile hovered unsteadily about her trembling lips. “Why did you follow me?” he demanded in mock severity. “I told you to remain where you were.” “Littleby is going to kill us, isn’t he? We have only two hours to live?”

“Since you heard everything, there is no use denying that that’s his plan.” “Then don’t scold me, Tommie. Let’s not spend our last two hours quarrelling. And I’m not going to call you Mi-. Dean any longer. People who are going to die needn’t be dbremonious. Anyhow, I’ve thought of you as Tommie for the whole last hour.”

Dean wondered why a full-grown, practical-minded man should experience a thrill at such a little thing as being addressed by his first name. “I didn’t realise till just now how nice a common, garden variety of name could sound,” h,e told her. “By the way, Shirley ” “Lee for short,” she interrupted. “Well, then, Lee, why do you suppose Littleby took the trouble to call me up and tell me what he intends to do?”

She did not answer, but her eyes flashed the question back at him. “This is how I look at it,” said Dean. “Something \ has gone wrong, and Littleby feels vindictive. His voice was full of snarls, though he tried to suppress them. Now, when a man like Littleby gives way like that to one of the baser passions, it’s a sign that he's mighty near his wit’s end.” “But that doesn’t make him any the less dangerous.” “Maybe not, hut there is some satisfaction in knowing that your enemy is worried. A man who feels sure of himself doesn’t snarl and bite.”

“I believe you are right, but ” She paused as if hesitating to voice her misgivings. “What was that you said to him about a broken watch?” Dean smiled vaguely. “To tell the truth, I hardly know myself what it meant. Just wanted to give Littleby something more to worry about. Y'ou heard me mention Lieutenant Shane? Shane’s a friend of mine -or was until the other day. If my hint sinks in, Littleby will do some hard thinking.” “Yes, and then?”

“He may come to the conclusion that, with Shane exercising his wits over a couple of pieces of watch crystal, his difficulties will not be removed by the simple expedient of committing a double murder.” The girl thought for a few moments. “That’s pretty deep, but I think I understand. Tommie, you are a genius!” Dean shook his head depreciatingly. There was only a very meagre chance that Littleby would be impressed by the sly hint he had thrown out. As astute a man as the lawyer would

soon perceive that his victim was but clutching at impossible straws. “Oh, no,” he said glumly. "A genius would do something. He wouldn’t" be content with exercising his conversational talents while the most wonderful woman in creation was in danger.

She hastened to his defence. “But you have done all that is possible. Since nothing more can be done, we i might as well fiddle while Rome | burns.” Dean eyed her in wonder. Her apparent vivacity in the face of dangers ahead and with her father lying dead in one of the rooms downstairs was almost as mystifying a thing as anj of the riddles that had thronged the last few days. Shirley Lamont, with her amazing vagaries and her infinity of moods, was adding the crowning, human touch to it all. Then he saw the shadows that lurked behind the smiles on her lips and in her eyes, flickering blurs -which told him that she was only dipping her tribulations in the soothing lotion of makebelieve. He -was framing a reply, but an interruption came just then. The light went out with a suddenness that gave him a sharp premonitory thrill. And through the blackness, innundating them like a swiftly tossing billow, came the girl’s terrified cry. BEHIND THE DOOR. It was a few minutes after 11 when the door of the old Forrester house on Hudson Street turned on its squeaking hinges, admitting Lieutenant Shane and a gust of wind and rain into the pitch-black interior. It threatened to be a profitless as well as a most disagreeable night for Lieutenant Shane. He had just returned from Kew Gardens, where he had gathered the outstanding facts of Lamont’s death from the local police authorities. What he had learned was not very illuminating, but it had provided much food for thought, and Shane had pondered the information given him so diligently that after arriving at the station he had walked through the downpour all the way to Hudson Street, receiving a thorough drenching. YVhen in deep thought, he usually forgot such conveniences as street cars and taxicabs, not to mention umbrellas. Furthermore, he seldom cared whither his steps led him. That in this particular instance they should have led him to the Forrester house might have been either an accident or else some subconscious urge stampeding his mental processes. Closing the door behind him, he shrugged a cascade of raindrops from his grey sack suit, drew an electric flashlight from liis pocket and hung his limp and dripping hat on the newel post in the hall. What he hoped to accomplish was not clear in his mind, but it was his habit, when in doubt, to take things in their chronological order. The death of Lamont, although it constituted a sensational development, was antedated by five and a-half years by the tragedy in tile Hudson Street house, and there were several circumstances pertaining to the latter event that Shane was anxious to clean up. He had told Dean that Lamont’s confession left nothing unexplained, but since his interview with the novelist a number of vague doubts had arisen in his mind, centring largely round the two fragments of glass Dean had shown him.

Shane was half annoyed with the novelist for upsetting, by random hints and vague innuendo, what would otherwise have been an altogether simple case. In fact, in the last few days Dean had been beyond comprehension. Only that morning Shane had listened patiently, keeping his doubts largely to himself, while the novelist told an astounding tale of having been attacked by a hired assassin whom he had subsequently locked up in his garage. (To be continued tomorrow)