CHAPTER

BIG BUSINESS IN CRIME as big business in ordinary commercial pursuits takes account of contingencies. Eston, when he became proprietor of a gambling hell, took account of the risks as well as the profits. It was to minimize these risks that he had had a tunnel constructed at an outlay which many people might have looked upon as prohibitive, but which he regarded as an insurance.

      Although the possibility that he might find use for it personally may have been in his mind, it is doubtful if that was a prime reason. There are many people who frequent gambling houses who would hate the publicity of a police court. It was their convenience rather than his own that Eston had in mind when he provided this other unobtrusive exit.

      The emergency which had now arisen, however, had thrown the question of preserving the "good-will" of his clients into the shade. In fact, Eston had flung them, as well as the permanent staff of the place, into the street, as part of the policy to occupy the police till he was ready. His chief concern was to get away whole to carry out his own greater plans.

      When Hilary rushed back into the burning house he had pursued her to the trapdoor and then paused, baffled. He had nerve on occasions but he calculated swiftly and two things flashed across his mind. The likely probability was that the girl would be driven back by the flames and smoke, in which event he would be waiting to deal with her. Alternatively if she would be mad enough to fight her way to the top of the house, her chances of return were negligible. To follow her was to court certain death. Eston preferred to wait.

      A couple of minutes had perhaps elapsed when Nora Dring, picking her way by the aid of an electric torch, returned. She laid a hand lightly on his arm.

      "She has got away?" she asked.

      He swore fiercely. "She slipped me. She's gone sheer crazy over the pen-pusher. I guess they're both burned to cinders—or will be. It's no good waiting. Where's Velvet and Jim?"

      "They didn't stop."

      "No, they wouldn't," he sneered. "You've got more nerve than either of them, my girl. Why did you come back?"

      She slipped her hand through his arm and he could feel her trembling. "We were friends— Hilary and I," she said.

      He laughed scornfully and quickened his pace.

      "She was your friend, you mean," he corrected. "I hadn't noticed that you had been playing the Jonathan to her David stunt—not to any extent since I've known you. Why, girl—" he halted as though seized by a sudden inspiration, disengaged her arm and held her with his torch blazing full on her face—"if I'm not away out in my guess, you'll not be sorry that she's gone. You little devil—you're glad!"

      Eston was not squeamish. He had done cruel things in his fight against society and he was brutally reckless of everything, even human life, when he had an end to achieve. He had left Jimmie Silverdale to a painful death without a pang of remorse, but there was a light in the girl's green eyes which stirred even in him a feeling of revulsion. She was shivering beneath the grip of his hand but there was a cold smile on her face.

      "Perhaps—I'm not so sorry as I might have been," sheconfessed. "I liked Hilary—she was useful to me in the old days. But she became a prig—and I can't stand prigs."

      He jerked his thumb backwards and regarded her cynically. "So you don't mind much that we've left her behind—there. By God! I hate to think of it—and you smile!"

      "You see, you were in love with her—or thought you were," she countered. "No, I didn't come back because of Hilary. I came because of you."

      "Of me?" Eston took no trouble to conceal his sneering surprise. "I didn't know you were interested in me to that extent."

      She sprang forward suddenly and threw her arms around his neck. She was kissing him hotly, passionately, clinging convulsively to him in an ecstasy of passion. Eston pushed her brutally away.

      "Ugh!" he gasped contemptuously, "you're mad! "

      "It was you," she insisted, speaking with a fierce intensity as she faced him. "Why have I been helping you all this while, blindly, unhesitatingly? if you hadn't been taken up so with Hilary, you would have seen. I'm the woman for you. I'm glad she's gone—glad, glad, glad!" She stamped her foot. "I have helped you but I tell you this—you would never have married her. I'd have killed you both first"

      "You would, eh?" he said quietly. "I'm almost inclined to believe you, my dear. Now, if you don't mind, we'll discuss the question at some more suitable time. Just now, the main idea seems to me to get away from here. You'll feel better when we reach the fresh air."

      "Don't address me as if you were speaking to a child," she snapped. "I'm a woman and l'm not to be played with." Her tone changed and she sank on her knees in front of him, gripping his hand tightly. "Oh, my dear, my dear! Say that we shall—"

      Eston cut her short. Even if he had had the inclination, he felt it was no time for such a scene. Hilary had attracted him; but Nora Dring, though she had proved useful in the game he was playing, had never caused his pulse to move a single beat quicker. If Hilary Sloane had gone, his use for her companion had vanished. He cared nothing for her sex or her feelings. He pulled his hand away and pushed her roughly aside. She fell with a little moan and he pressed on, unheeding.

      "Get out of my way, you Jezebel!"

      She picked herself up and followed him without a word and the darkness concealed her face. Nora Dring, it is probable, would have been ready to take many things from Eston. The physical violence with which he had repulsed her counted nothing; it was the contemptuous nonchalance with which he brushed her from his path that grated on her.

      He was half a dozen steps or so in front of her when she called after him. "You had better listen to me."

      "We can't hang about," he retorted and pushed on. The exit from the tunnel was almost the exact replica of the entrance, a lowpitched cellar from which one left by way of a ladder and trapdoor. It was as he approached the ladder that Eston's pace became slower. Some uncanny intuition warned him that all was not well and yet there was no obvious reason for the supposition. He paused with one foot on the ladder, extinguished his torch and listened. fie could hear nothing.

      Indeed, it may have been the extraordinary quietness of the house above that confirmed his latent suspicion. It was impossible that this means of retreat could have been guessed and yet—and yet!

      He thrust a hand out behind him and wbispered a warning to the girl. "H'st!"

      Still the silence hung about them, oppressive, impenetrable as the darkness itself. Then someone sneezed. In an instant, Eston was back at the mouth of the tunnel, an automatic in his hand, the beam from his torch concentrated steadily on the trapdoor ladder. He raised his voice. "Is that you, Jim?" and the trapdoor swung back.

      "Come right on, guv'nor," said a husky voice. "It's all quiet."

      The hand that held the electric torch shook a little. Eston's senses wore too keyed-up for him to make a mistake. At another moment he might have taken that voice for Jim's—but not now. He knew that, somehow, in spite of all his foresight, he had been outwitted. He was trapped.

      The realization of all it might mean swept across him in a flood. Not only had he lost the game—the big game for millions that he had been playing—but he had overreached himself. Whatever their suspicions in the Saxon business, they could prove little—certainly not, he told himself, that he had had any finger in the event that led to the murder of that eminent munitioneer.

      This, however, was different. There was Jimmie Silverdale, for instance. He was known to be in the gambling house when it had been fired and there would be remains. No legal adroitness, no slice of luck could possibly save him from conviction on that charge of murder, once he fell into the hands of the police. He had blundered, execrably, horribly. He had played and lost.

      Nora Dring crept close to him. "What is it?" she whispered.

      He kept his eyes steadily on the shaft of light that flickered on the ladder and would outline the firstfigure to descend. "It's the gentlemen from Scotland Yard, if I don't miss my guess," he said. "We're in for it, my dear."

      She glanced apprehensively towards the trapdoor. Then before he could guess her purpose, she had raised her voice. "Is Mr. Garfield there? It's Nora Dring speaking."

      "Keep quiet, you!" ordered Eston sharply. Then he shrugged his shoulders. The situation, from his point of view, was as bad as it could be. There was nothing the girl could do that would worsen it. He raised his voice. "Don't trouble to answer, Garfield. You're a darned poor and I've had you taped this last minute. You'll get cramp if you stick outside that trapdoor waiting for me to come up. You've got to come and fetch me."

      Something white appeared in the opening of the trapdoor. The pressure of Eston's finger tightened and the explosion of the automatic in the confined space was deafening. Nora Dring gave a half-suppressed scream and the white face in the opening disappeared.

      "Not so bad," came the cool voice of the chief detective inspector. "You've chipped a bit out of my ear, Eston. I'll forgive you that if you'll be the reasonable man I know you to be and come up without making a fool of yourself."

      Eston hesitated. His arm curved slowly till the muzzle of the pistol was resting against his temple. His finger curled slowly round the trigger. That would be the quickest way. It was all just the same in the end. Why should he endure the long-drawn-out formalities of the law when—? The pressure of his finger relaxed and the weapon dropped to his side. After all, he was not taken yet. He would not take that way out until the last minute. There was no telling what might happen, desperate though the affair seemed.

      "I hate to disappoint you, Garfield," he said sardonically. "You haven't got your hooks on me yet, but if you want to take tea with me, come along. We will be a merry party. You can sit on that trapdoor till it's red-hot and you can't find me walking into your arms."

      He heard the striking of a match as Garfield lit his pipe. The inspector had learned more than he needed to know when he had placed his head inside the trapdoor. He was disposed to take things comfortably. "That's all right, then," he said amiably. "We've got all the time there is and we're ready to wait. You'd find yourself much more comfortable in our hands—but suit yourself. If Miss Dring likes to come up, we'll make her welcome. Is Miss Sloane there?"

      "She is not, " answered Eston, and composed himself to his vigil.

      "Well, what does Miss Dring say?"

      Nora Dring, her face white, her knees trembling, collapsed in a heap at Eston's feet. "I'll stay with Mr. Eston," she declared shakily.