NCE in the street, Lenley ran like a deer. Behind him the shrill drone of police whistles; ahead of him he saw a man in uniform appear out of the shadow and into the light of the street lamps, and, checking himself in his run, flung up a narrow alley. At the end further progress was barred by a high wooden paling, but he was over this before the policeman had flashed his light down the dark entry. He was in a poor back yard; he felt the felt-covered roof of a chicken run sag beneath his weight before he reached the earth. There was a light in one of the upstairs rooms and he heard a door open.
There was no way out, except through the house or over it. He decided upon the latter course. He was on the roof of the scullery and clambering over the slates in a miraculously short space of time. Below him now, as he came down the inverted V of the roof, was a little street, where, with the exception of two children playing noisily at the far end, nobody was in sight. He dropped on to the pavement with the ease of a trained athlete, and, darting across the road to where a lesser street joined the thoroughfare, he had vanished when the first policeman came on the scene.
Alan Wembury had no expectation that the man would be overtaken. Lenley was a runner, and the neighbourhood was full of these little streets and alleys. And he knew that Johnny could climb like a cat. He had only to place a couple of walls between himself and his pursuers to beat them.
He returned to the station house to issue an all-station message and circulate the description of the escaped man, and then, as was his duty, he made a bee line for Malpas Mansions. She must know sooner or later, and she might as well learn the tragedy which had come upon the Lenleys from his own lips.
He climbed up the broad stone staircase, stopped outside her flat and knocked. He knocked three times when the door opposite opened (there were four flats on each landing), and a woman peered out at him, for the landing was illuminated by one dimly-burning gas lamp.
"Do you want Miss Lenley? She's not in; she went out a quarter of an hour ago."
"Do you know where?"
"No." The woman shook her head. "But she won't be in till late. I know, because I met her coming down the stairs, and she asked me to slip a note under the door for her brother. To tell you the truth," confessed the garrulous lady, "I didn't even know she had a brother."
"She has a brother all right," said Alan.
There had been no sound or stir within when he had knocked. It was unlikely that Johnny would have come straight home. Where had she gone? He turned cold at the memory of her words. To Meister's? His first business was to continue the search for Johnny Lenley, but for the moment he had a duty which was nearer to him than the call of the State. He posted a plain-clothes officer to watch the mansions and hurried to Flanders Lane. Atkins was outside, with his back to the black door, a pipe between his teeth, as comfortable as a man can be whom duty compelled to remain exposed to the chill of the night. Nobody had been, he said, and Wembury went round to the back of the house and tried the stable door. It was locked.
Crossing the road, he could just see the top of the window in Meister's room. There was a light there and the curtains were drawn. Was it a trick of his imagination, or did he see a shadowy shape silhouetted for a moment against the window? Even as he considered this, he saw a bunch of leaves sweep jerkily into his line of vision and disappear again. It must have been the trees he had seen; the leaves were rustling noisily, every branch was astir, for the norther was reaching gale force. And yet—a shoulder and a head, he could have sworn.
He waited another five minutes, but saw only the recurring toss of leaves and boughs, and he joined Atkins before the house.
"Have you seen Meister lately?"
"Yes," said Atkins. "He wanted me to stay inside. He was his old, jovial self—I helped him to carry a case up from his cellar. Champagne and everything."
Alan bit his lip.
"Where is the housekeeper?"
"Haven't seen her since we came back." Atkins shook his head. "I've got an idea she locks herself in. She sleeps behind the kitchen."
"Now listen, Atkins." Alan Wembury was very earnest. "It may be that Meister will have visitors to-night, or people who want to see him for some reason—for some good reason," he corrected himself. "There is one person I do not want to come into this house, and you have instructions that she is not to be admitted."
"Who is that?" asked Atkins, with interest.
"Miss Mary Lenley."