But there was no answer.
At that moment there came a cry from Freda. ‘The water–the water!’
Wilbraham twisted himself painfully and followed the direction of her eyes. From a hole up near the ceiling a steady trickle of water was pouring in.
Freda gave a hysterical cry. ‘They’re going to drown us!’
The perspiration broke out on Wilbraham’s brow. ‘We’re not done yet,’ he said. ‘We’ll shout for help. Surely somebody will hear us. Now, both together.’
They yelled and shouted at the tops of their voices. Not until they were hoarse did they stop.
‘No use, I’m afraid,’ said Wilbraham sadly. We’re too far underground and I expect the doors are muffled. After all, if we could be heard, I’ve no doubt that brute would have gagged us.’
‘Oh,’ cried Freda. ‘And it’s all my fault. I got you into this.’
‘Don’t worry about that, little girl. It’s you I’m thinking about. I’ve been in tight corners before now and got out of them. Don’t you lose heart. I’ll get you out of this. We’ve plenty of time. At the rate that water’s flowing in, it will be hours before the worst happens.’
‘How wonderful you are!’ said Freda. ‘I’ve never met anybody like you–except in books.’
‘Nonsense–just common sense. Now, I’ve got to loosen those infernal ropes.’
At the end of a quarter of an hour, by dint of straining and twisting, Wilbraham had the satisfaction of feeling that his bonds were appreciably loosened. He managed to bend his head down and his wrists up till he was able to attack the knots with his teeth.
Once his hands were free, the rest was only a matter of time. Cramped, stiff, but free, he bent over the girl. A minute later she was also free.
So far the water was only up to their ankles.
‘And now,’ said the soldier, ‘to get out of here.’
The door of the cellar was up a few stairs. Major Wilbraham examined it.
‘No difficulty here,’ he said. ‘Flimsy stuff. It will soon give at the hinges.’ He set his shoulders to it and heaved.
There was a cracking of wood–a crash, and the door burst from its hinges.
Outside was a flight of stairs. At the top was another door–a very different affair–of solid wood, barred with iron.
‘A bit more difficult, this,’ said Wilbraham. ‘Hallo, here’s a piece of luck. It’s unlocked.’
He pushed it open, peered round it, then beckoned the girl to come on. They emerged into a passage behind the kitchen. In another moment they were standing under the stars in Friars Lane.
‘Oh!’ Freda gave a little sob. ‘Oh, how dreadful it’s been!’
‘My poor darling.’ He caught her in his arms. ‘You’ve been so wonderfully brave. Freda–darling angel–could you ever–I mean, would you–I love you, Freda. Will you marry me?’
After a suitable interval, highly satisfactory to both parties, Major Wilbraham said, with a chuckle:
‘And what’s more, we’ve still got the secret of the ivory cache.’
‘But they took it from you!’
The major chuckled again. ‘That’s just what they didn’t do! You see, I wrote out a spoof copy, and before joining you here tonight, I put the real thing in a letter I was sending to my tailor and posted it. They’ve got the spoof copy–and I wish them joy of it! Do you know what we’ll do, sweetheart! We’ll go to East Africa for our honeymoon and hunt out the cache.’
III
Mr Parker Pyne left his office and climbed two flights of stairs. Here in a room at the top of the house sat Mrs Oliver, the sensational novelist, now a member of Mr Pyne’s staff.
Mr Parker Pyne tapped at the door and entered. Mrs Oliver sat at a table on which were a typewriter, several notebooks, a general confusion of loose manuscripts and a large bag of apples.
‘A very good story, Mrs Oliver,’ said Mr Parker Pyne genially.
‘It went off well?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I’m glad.’
‘That water-in-the-cellar business,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘You don’t think, on a future occasion, that something more original–perhaps?’ He made the suggestion with proper diffidence.
Mrs Oliver shook her head and took an apple from her bag. ‘I think not, Mr Pyne. You see, people are used to reading about such things. Water rising in a cellar, poison gas, et cetera. Knowing about it beforehand gives it an extra thrill when it happens to oneself. The public is conservative, Mr Pyne; it likes the old well-worn gadgets.’
‘Well, you should know,’ admitted Mr Parker Pyne, mindful of the authoress’s forty-six successful works of fiction, all best sellers in England and America, and freely translated into French, German, Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese and Abyssinian. ‘How about expenses?’
Mrs Oliver drew a paper towards her. ‘Very moderate, on the whole. The two darkies, Percy and Jerry, wanted very little. Young Lorrimer, the actor, was willing to enact the part of Mr Reid for five guineas. The cellar speech was a phonograph record, of course.’
‘Whitefriars has been extremely useful to me,’ said Mr Pyne. ‘I bought it for a song and it has already been the scene of eleven exciting dramas.’
‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Johnny’s wages. Five shillings.’
‘Johnny?’
‘Yes. The boy who poured the water from the watering cans through the hole in the wall.’
‘Ah yes. By the way, Mrs Oliver, how did you happen to know Swahili?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I see. The British Museum perhaps?’
‘No. Delfridge’s Information Bureau.’
‘How marvellous are the resources of modern commerce!’ he murmured.
‘The only thing that worries me,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘is that those two young people won’t find any cache when they get there.’
‘One cannot have everything in this world,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘They will have had a honeymoon.’
Mrs Wilbraham was sitting in a deck-chair. Her husband was writing a letter. ‘What’s the date, Freda?’
‘The sixteenth.’
‘The sixteenth. By jove!’
‘What is it, dear?’
‘Nothing. I just remembered a chap named Jones.’
However happily married, there are some things one never tells.
‘Dash it all,’ thought Major Wilbraham. ‘I ought to have called at that place and got my money back.’ And then, being a fair-minded man, he looked at the other side of the question. ‘After all, it was I who broke the bargain. I suppose if I’d gone to see Jones something would have happened. And, anyway, as it turns out, if I hadn’t been going to see Jones, I should never have heard Freda cry for help, and we might never have met. So, indirectly, perhaps they have a right to the fifty pounds!’
Mrs Wilbraham was also following out a train of thought. ‘What a silly little fool I was to believe in that advertisement and pay those people three guineas. Of course, they never did anything for it and nothing ever happened. If I’d only known what was coming–first Mr Reid, and then the queer, romantic way that Charlie came into my life. And to think that but for pure chance I might never have met him!’
She