The Great Temptation (Thriller Novel) - Richard Marsh

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looser than I had supposed; they had been tight enough when that fat man tied them the cord had cut into my skin and galled me terribly; but I take it that unconsciously I had been continuously fidgeting, with the result that my bonds had gradually slackened.

      I was startled to find how slack they actually were. By opening my left hand so as to make it as thin as possible I managed, after one or two tugs and twists, to withdraw it from the slackened noose and both hands were free. The relief it was I

      The first use I made of my freedom was to relieve myself of the horrid rag which they had stuffed into my mouth. What a comfort it was to be able to open one's mouth wide, and to breathe as one chose. I was all at once a much better man than I had been. In my sudden exhilaration I jumped to the conclusion that now I could use my hands I could be through that door in less than no time. But I was wrong. I picked up all sorts of things from the floor bricks, bottles, and all sorts of odds and ends and brought them to bear against the door which shut me in.

      It resisted them all. So far as I could judge I made no impression on it of any kind. It was a pretty solid piece of work I had learnt that already. Nothing I could get hold of availed to force it open.

      The disappointment was acute; I had been so sure. When I recognised that I was beaten I just sank down on the ground and stopped there. I was no longer afraid of being unable to raise myself, but I was worn and weary, hungry and thirsty, uncomfortable in my ill-fitting attire, conscious of grime and dirt I would have given a good deal for a wash sick at heart. I had never pretended to be a hero; I felt singularly unheroic then. If I could only have been at home in my room, just about to sit down to supper, with the prospect of a comfortable bed to follow, what a happy man I should have been. How many men who work in the city clerking for forty or fifty shillings a week are prepared to face what I had gone through then? How many of them, after my experiences, would have been fit and cheerful? I admit that I was not; I was in a state of abject misery.

      All at once what seemed to me to be the dreadful silence was broken by the barking of a dog. I sat up straighter and listened. Was the animal in the house? Had it just come in? With whom? It barked once, a short, sharp bark, and then no more. Silence again. Then after what appeared to me to be a prolonged interval, another bark; a single note, as it were, of exclamation. All through the night the dog kept barking. I arrived at the conclusion by degrees that the noise it made was proof that the house was empty. The inmates were gone; the dog, shut in one of the upstairs rooms, had been forgotten; possibly it had been asleep. Waking at last, it had possibly waited to be released, When no one came it expostulated, and continued, as I have said, to expostulate all through the night. Sometimes it would give a series of yaps spreading over a long period; then, as if tiring, it would cease and possibly snatch another snooze; after an interval it would begin again, now and then bursting into a series of explosive cries as if to show its anger at the way it was being neglected. Probably, too, it was hungry, and that was its way of calling attention to the fact.

      I doubt if it was as hungry as I was; I feel sure it had more sleep.

      I altered my position, sitting close to the wall, so that I had it to rest my back against. I will not say I did not close my eyes because I did, again and again, to shut out the darkness. But I did not sleep a wink. And when my eyes were closed the darkness became more visible; I fancied I could see things which I knew perfectly well were not there; yet I had to open them again to make sure. Then that dog would bark; I was conscious of what seemed to be the ridiculous desire to get within reach of him and to comfort him.

      I know now that I was in that cellar for close on four-and-twenty hours. They thrust me in about noon on the one day; I was out of it about noon on the next. They were interminable hours. I should have suffered more than I did had it not been for a queer little thing. It is curious what a trifle can divert a man when, for want of occupation and all the comforts of life, he feels that he is going mad.

      What happened to me was this. There were two big pockets in that drosky driver's coat, one on either side. I thrust my hands deep down in them for the sake of whatever solace they could afford. Fidgeting about with my fingers I gradually became aware that in the lining of the one on the right-hand side there seemed to be something of the nature of a pea, or a small round bullet. It might either have lost its way through a hole which I could not find, or been sewn in. It was, as I have said, a trifle, but it occupied me at intervals through that dreary night to try to work it loose to ascertain what the thing might be.

      It was on one side of the pocket, in the seam. I actually searched for a piece of broken glass, or something of the kind, and had to grope about all over the floor to find it. There was a box of matches in the pocket of the coat of which they had deprived me If I had only had it then! The story of that night would have been altogether different and the story, I think I may say, of all that followed.

      I found a piece of glass at last; with its sharpest edge I dug at the seam of the pocket. It was sharp enough to cut me I was conscious that the blood was flowing from a gash which it made on my finger; it was not sharp enough to cut that tough material. With my finger nails and the glass together I did loosen some of the stitches, enough of them to thrust a finger through the opening. But even then I could not reach the thing I was after. It seems absurd when one looks back, but I daresay I spent two or three of those dragging hours in trying to get at it without success. I could feel it on both sides of the material. The pocket was lined; the thing was sewn, or fastened somehow, between the lining and the stuff of which the pocket was made. I decided that after all it was nothing but a pea or a large round shot; yet I had an idea that when I pressed it hard it yielded which neither a pea nor a shot would do. It was preposterous how annoyed I became at not being able to work it loose. Of such folly can an ordinary, level-headed man be capable.

      I was still trying to work the thing loose when the events happened which resulted in my release if release it could be called. The first unusual incident of which I became aware was the barking of the dog. It had been silent for some time when, all at once, it broke out into what sounded very like a paroxysm of barking not the yaps in which it had been occasionally indulging, but a sustained volley of full-lunged, open-mouthed, frenzied barking.

      Something, I told myself, had happened to excite that dog.

      I listened to learn if I could discover any reason. Presently, while the dog still barked, there was a knocking, as I judged, at the front door; not one modest knock, but a peal of loud, insistent assaults with the knocker. I got up from where I was sitting and groped my way to the cellar door.

      "Who's that?" I asked myself, as I stood with my face close to the woodwork. "That sounds as if someone were in a hurry to get in who does not mean to be denied."

      Crash! crash! crash! came the knocker. Then a tearing noise which at first I could not understand; then footsteps were heard.

      "They've forced the door open, that's what it is they've not waited for an invitation. Who are they? what do they want? Had I better call their attention to my presence?"

      I hesitated a moment, then yelled with the full force of my lungs; almost regretting having done so the second after. I could not tell if anyone had heard. The point was, Were those above the sort of persons I would like to have hear me? After all, I might pass from the frying-pan into the fire. Clearly, whoever had come into the house were men of violence; if they were more violent than those whose acquaintance I had already made it might fare ill with me.

      CHAPTER IV

      UNDERSTANDING

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      While I stood against the door, still in two minds, a hubbub arose, a pistol shot was fired, then another; there were shouts, angry voices somewhere a struggle was taking place. Above the din there was the barking of the dog. It was an agreeable uproar at least to have to listen to, after having been locked up for more than four-and-twenty hours, without light, or food, or drink, or sleep, or even a stool to sit upon. Eager though I was to be out of my prison, I did not feel moved to call the attention of people who seemed to be fighting for their lives to the fact that I was there. Almost better stay where I

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