CHAPTER XXXI

THERE was some coal in the coal-box and a bundle of wood in the grate. The weather was chilly and a fire would have been very acceptable, but the flicker of it when dusk was drawing on might have been observed from outside. So he determined to do without a fire.

He would also be condemned to fast, for the remains of food upon the table he could not touch. One does not eat where a leper has fed, or an unclean beast.

He had his pipe with him, however, and plenty of tobacco.

Time wore on and dusk fell, gradually the room grew darker and the silence of the house more oppressive.

Nothing could be more nerve-straining than a vigil like this in the cold, in the darkness, in the silence; sitting with every sense alert, waiting for the coming of a being far more terrible than a ghost.

Passing Freyberger in the street, you would not have looked at him twice. You would never have fancied him a man of more than ordinary strength. But, were you to have seen him stripped of his clothes, you would have recognized the proportions of a trained athlete.

He had the physical basis of courage, that is to say, a great chest measurement.

He had also the mental basis of courage, that is to say, an almost total disregard for danger.

Danger blindness.

This same mental basis of courage is not always a desirable asset, for it is often the basis, also, of a low intelligence. It nearly always bespeaks want of imagination and ideality.

In Freyberger’s case, however, it was by no means the basis of a low intelligence, and as for imagination and ideality, he had quite sufficient for a man engaged in his profession.

The darkness deepened until it became absolute.

Time ceased as far as the watcher was concerned.

This sepulchral house seemed even deserted by mice, the movement of one behind the wainscoting would have come as a relief.

Now and then, for a moment, the watcher in the chair, to obtain relief from the absolute negation of sound, pressed his hands over his ears; it was as though he were attempting to shut out the silence.

How long he had been waiting like this it would have been hard to say, probably an hour, possibly less, when he heard the front gate gently opened and as gently shut. Freyberger wore shoes; he had loosened the laces of them, and now he kicked them off.

With incredible swiftness, considering the fact that he was moving in black darkness, he was out of the room and in the passage.

At the end of the passage a pale, dim oblong of light indicated the position of the door leading on to the verandah. Freyberger came down the passage towards the door, and then, himself plunged in utter darkness, he stood, like fate, waiting. He could see the squares of glass forming the verandah wall and, dimly, the garden beyond.

Presently, moving with sinister gentleness and silence, the vague silhouette of a man came gliding along the verandah side till it reached the outside door.

The man was, as far as Freyberger could see, muffled up in a great coat; he wore a slouch hat and he was about the middle height.

When he reached the door, he paused and drew from his pocket something, the form of which the detective could not distinguish.

Freyberger had left the door, it will be remembered, simply closed. He could easily have locked it from the inside by the same method as he had opened it, but he had determined to leave it as it was.

The man turned the handle of the door, found that it opened easily, made a slight exclamation of surprise and slipped into the verandah with the rapidity of a lizard.

He closed the door behind him.

Freyberger, standing in the passage as motionless as a corpse, scarcely breathed. The man stood for a moment, glancing around him, then, leaving the verandah, he came down the passage.

The next moment Freyberger was upon him.

A man attacked in this fashion does not cry out; if he emits any sound it is the gasp of a person who has received a douche of cold water.

The attack of Freyberger was ferocious, overpowering, unexpected, yet it was received as if by a rock. After the first shock, which nearly bore him to the ground, the intruder stiffened; to the grip of iron he responded by a grip of steel, and then, in the dark, between the narrow walls of the passage, a terrible struggle began.

A listener in the verandah would have heard very little. Just the hard breathing of the two antagonists and the sound of their bodies hurled from side to side against the passage walls. The detective was a heavier man than his antagonist, but they were equally matched in science.

Now and then Freyberger succeeded in lifting him from his feet and, with desperate efforts, attempted to bear him backwards and throw him; but the feet always came to ground again, and the body turned from the helpless bundle that a man is who has lost possession of his feet, into an inflexible statue of steel.

Freyberger, failing in this, relaxed, or seemed to relax, his efforts for a moment; the other automatically responded, a second later. With a crash they were on the floor, the detective with his knees on the arms of his fallen antagonist. He had cross-buttocked him.

There is no position on earth where a man is more utterly helpless than when lying upon the ground, with another man kneeling upon his arms. He may kick and struggle as much as he pleases, the only result is to wear out his strength.

The fallen one recognized this fact, apparently, for he lay still.

Freyberger, breathing hard from his exertions, took a matchbox from his waistcoat pocket, lit a match and cast its light upon the face of the man beneath him.

The man was Hellier.