Chapter 34

JANE Clifton had seen Mrs. Untersohn enter the house. Possibly she had a key of her own, thought Jane, and waited. Five minutes passed, ten minutes, but the woman did not emerge. And then she saw a number of men walking rapidly down the street and recognised, in the fading light of day, the thick-set Bourke. Her heart nearly stood still. They were going to raid the office, and Peter was there somewhere.

There was a little consultation between the three. She thought one of them was Rouper. They were talking head to head, and then----

The sound of two shots came in rapid succession. She could locate the sounds by instinct rather than knowledge. Somebody inside that office was firing---and Peter was there!

She saw Bourke go to the door and apparently stoop to insert a key. At that moment the door must have opened, for suddenly there was projected into the knot of men a dark figure that was screaming in a way which was terrible to hear.

It was Mrs. Untersohn. Jane ran to the other side of the street past the group and crossed again to a place near the cab she had left. The taxi-men had been attracted by curiosity to the raided house, and she waited impatiently for their return. Bourke must not see her here.

By the side of the office was a narrow, cobbled lane which apparently led to a mews, and she was standing in this roadway when she heard the honk of a motor horn and, turning, saw a taxi driving from the mews. She had just time to spring to the narrow pathway when it passed her. The driver she saw distinctly---a clean-shaven man who was smoking a clay pipe. And then her wondering gaze fell upon the passenger.

It was Peter! For seconds the petrified girl stared into the eyes of her husband.

"Peter!" she called, almost screamed.

He turned his head away quickly. Before she realised what had happened the car had turned into Marylebone Lane and out of sight. She was still gazing after it when her cab-driver returned.

"There's been trouble in this house, miss," he said. "They think somebody's been shot."

She nodded dumbly.

"Take me home," she said at last.

Would Peter be there first? She answered her own question with a shake of her head.

---

Bourke was the first to mount the narrow stairs. He stopped for a minute to investigate the general office of Blonberg on the third floor, and then he continued his way to the secret room above, the existence of which he had long suspected. Only one glance he gave at the outer office, and then he turned to face the glare of a blinding light that was shining through the wire screen.

He tried to reach forward, but the netting held him back, until he found a clasp-knife in his pocket and, cutting a hole in the fine gauze, put his weight upon it. With a crash it parted from the ceiling batten to which it was fixed. Bourke pushed aside the table, and found another table placed edge to edge. Upon this the light rested---a powerful hand-lamp fixed to a flex in the ceiling. This he grasped and directed its rays in the opposite direction.

A man was sitting against what looked like a cupboard that projected from the wall. His head was bent lower than his knees, his two hands outstretched as though to prevent himself from falling. Bourke lifted the man by the shoulder, and as he did so the head fell back and he looked down into the lifeless face of Cheyne Wells.

"Humph! I thought it might be," said Bourke.

With the help of a man he lifted the body from the cupboard, looked for and found a small bump in the woodwork. This he pressed and with a click the door opened. By the light of the lamp he saw a tiny elevator large enough to hold two people.

"Send for the divisional surgeon. By the way, did you put men on duty at the end of the mews, Rouper?"

Rouper started.

"Yes, sir," he said untruthfully, and at the earliest opportunity slipped away to rectify his error. This opportunity came when Bourke stepped into the lift and pushed one of the two buttons that were fixed to a control inside. The lift dropped swiftly and did not stop till it was in what Bourke imagined was the basement. He opened the door and stepped out.

He was in a garage. There were no cars there, but a number of tins of spirit were piled against one wall, and in a corner of the room was a mechanic's bench that had recently been used.

Opening the gate, he stepped out into the mews, which was below the level of the upper street. A chauffeur was cleaning a car near at hand and was inclined to be uninformative until Bourke revealed himself as an officer from Scotland Yard.

"Oh, yes, sir, that garage is used by an old taxi driver. We call him Old Joe. I've never seen him till to-night."

"How long ago?" asked Bourke quickly.

"About ten minutes ago. He drove out and he had a passenger."

The passenger he could describe more graphically than he could the driver, and Superintendent Bourke had no difficulty in identifying Peter. On the whole, he thought, it was perhaps as well that the entrance to the mews had not been guarded or Peter challenged.

Nobody knew Old Joe. He was a "musher"—that is to say, he owned his own cab and mostly did night work. He gave no trouble to anybody, and came and went as a rule in the dark hours of the night.

Bourke went back into the garage, locked the door and ascended again to the room of death.

"Those men are all right at the end of the mews," said Rouper, who was a little out of breath, for he had just come up the stairs.

"I saw you post them," said Bourke unpleasantly.

He looked at his watch.

"Wait here until the divisional surgeon arrives. Put a man to make a complete search of that upper office and take charge of every paper in the building," he ordered. "You won't have long to wait; I'm sending somebody competent to assume charge."

"I'm here," said the indignant Rouper.

"That's what I mean," said Bourke insultingly. "I'm going in search of Peter Clifton."