Badger was in a predicament. He did not know what to do next. Explanations and apologies were difficult, and in any case it is not easy to explain to someone who is driving a car at sixty miles an hour. Badger decided to lie low and sneak out of the car when it stopped.
The car finally reached its destination – Tudor Cottage. The chauffeur drove it into the garage and left it there, but, on going out, he shut the garage doors. Badger was a prisoner. There was a small window at one side of the garage and through this about half an hour later Badger had observed Frankie’s approach, her whistle and her admission into the house.
The whole business puzzled Badger greatly. He began to suspect that something was wrong. At any rate, he determined to have a look round for himself and see what it was all about.
With the help of some tools lying about in the garage he succeeded in picking the lock of the garage door and set out on a tour of inspection. The windows on the ground floor were all shuttered, but he thought that by getting on to the roof he might manage to have a look into some of the upper windows.
The roof presented no difficulties. There was a convenient pipe running up the garage and from the garage roof to the roof of the cottage was an easy climb. In the course of his prowling, Badger had come upon the skylight. Nature and Badger’s weight had done the rest.
Bobby drew a long breath as the narrative came to an end.
‘All the same,’ he said reverently, ‘you are a miracle – a singularly beautiful miracle! But for you. Badger, my lad, Frankie and I would have been little corpses in about an hour’s time.’ He gave Badger a condensed account of the activities of himself and Frankie. Towards the end he broke off.
‘Someone’s coming. Get to your post, Frankie. Now, then, this is where our play-acting Bassington-ffrench gets the surprise of his life.’ Frankie arranged herself in a depressed attitude on the broken chair. Badger and Bobby stood ready behind the door.
The steps came up the stairs, a line of candle-light showed underneath the door. The key was put in the lock and turned, the door swung open. The light of the candle disclosed Frankie drooping dejectedly on her chair. Their gaoler stepped through the doorway.
Then, joyously. Badger and Bobby sprang.
The proceedings were short and decisive. Taken utterly by surprise, the man was knocked down, the candle flew wide and was retrieved by Frankie, and a few seconds later the three friends stood looking down with malicious pleasure at a figure securely bound with the same ropes as had previously secured two of them.
‘Good evening, Mr Bassington-ffrench,’ said Bobby – and if the exultation in his voice was a little crude, who shall blame him? ‘It’s a nice night for the funeral.’
CHAPTER 30 Escape
The man on the floor stared up at them. His pince-nez had flown off and so had his hat. There could be no further attempt at disguise. Slight traces of make-up were visible about the eyebrows, but otherwise the face was the pleasant, slightly vacuous face of Roger Bassingtonffrench.
He spoke in his own agreeable tenor voice, its note that of pleasant soliloquy.
‘Very interesting,’ he said. ‘I really knew quite well that no man tied up as you were could have thrown a boot through that skylight. But because the boot was there among the broken glass I took it for cause and effect and assumed that, though it was impossible, the impossible had been achieved. An interesting light on the limitations of the brain.’ As nobody spoke, he went on still in the same reflective voice: ‘So, after all, you’ve won the round. Most unexpected and extremely regrettable. I thought I’d got you all fooled nicely.’ ‘So you had,’ said Frankie. ‘You forged that letter from Bobby, I suppose?’ ‘I have a talent that way,’ said Roger modestly.
‘And Bobby?’ Lying on his back, smiling agreeably, Roger seemed to take a positive pleasure in enlightening them.