‘There’s a pistol in my pocket if you’d like it. It may make you feel happier and it’s certainly no good to me in my present position.’ Ignoring the other’s mocking tone, Bobby bent down and extracted the weapon.
‘Kind of you to mention it,’ he said. ‘If you want to know it does me me feel happier.’ ‘Good,’ said Roger. ‘It’s loaded.’ Bobby took the candle and they filed out of the attic, leaving Roger lying on the floor. Bobby locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He held the pistol in his hand.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to be quite sure and not make a mess of things now.” ‘He’s a qu-qu-queer chap, isn’t he?’ said Badger with a jerk of his head backwards in the direction of the room they had left.
‘He’s a damned good loser,’ said Frankie.
Even now she was not quite free from the charm of that very remarkable young man, Roger Bassingtonffrench.
A rather rickety flight of steps led down to the main landing.
Everything was quiet. Bobby looked over the banisters. The telephone was in the hall below.
‘We’d better look into these rooms first,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to be taken in the rear.’ Badger flung open each door in turn. Of the four bedrooms, three were empty. In the fourth a slender figure was lying on the bed.
‘It’s Moira,’ cried Frankie.
The others crowded in. Moira was lying like one dead, except that her breast moved up and down ever so slightly.
‘Is she asleep?’ asked Bobby.
‘She’s drugged I think,’ said Frankie.
She looked round. A hypodermic syringe lay on a little enamel tray on a table near the window. There was also a little spirit lamp and a type of morphia hypodermic needle.
‘She’ll be all right, I think,’ she said. ‘But we ought to get a doctor.’ ‘Let’s go down and telephone,’ said Bobby.
They adjourned to the hall below. Frankie had a half fear that the telephone wires might be cut, but her fears proved quite unfounded. They got through to the police station quite easily, but found a good deal of difficulty in explaining matters.
The local police station was highly disposed to regard the summons as a practical joke.
However, they were convinced at last, and Bobby replaced the receiver with a sigh. He had explained that they also wanted a doctor and the police constable promised to bring one along.
Ten minutes later a car arrived with an inspector and a constable and an elderly man who had his profession stamped all over him.
Bobby and Frankie received them and, after explaining matters once more in a somewhat perfunctory fashion, led the way to the attic. Bobby unlocked the door – then stood dumbfounded in the doorway. In the middle of the floor was a heap of severed ropes. Underneath the broken skylight a chair had been placed on the bed, which had been dragged out till it was under the skylight.
Of Roger Bassington-ffrench there was no sign.
Bobby, Badger and Frankie were dumbfounded.
‘Talk of Houdini,’ said Bobby. ‘He must have outHoudinied Houdini. How the devil did he cut these cords?’ ‘He must have had a knife in his pocket,’ said Frankie.
‘Even then, how could he get at it? Both hands were bound together behind his back.’ The inspector coughed. All his former doubts had returned.
He was more strongly disposed than ever to regard the whole thing as a hoax.
Frankie and Bobby found themselves telling a long story which sounded more impossible every minute.
The doctor was their salvation.
On being taken to the room where Moira was lying, he declared at once that she had been drugged with morphia or some preparation of opium. He did not consider her condition serious and thought she would awake naturally in four or five hours’ time.
He suggested taking her off then and there to a good nursing home in the neighbourhood.
To this Bobby and Frankie agreed, not seeing what else could be done. Having given their own names and addresses to the inspector, who appeared to disbelieve utterly in Frankie’s, they themselves were allowed to leave Tudor Cottage and with the assistance of the inspector succeeded in gaining admission to the Seven Stars in the village.