CHAPTER XXV.

WHAT HAPPENED TO DIANA

Diana Ward had strolled to the farther end of the dormitory and was feeling the texture of the rough sheets. The housewife instinct in her was a strong one and her nurse’s training had given her an additional interest in the means which were adopted to give comfort to these poor blind beggars--for beggars most of them were. She had heard the superintendent ask Larry to open the window, and she was watching idly, when the door of the cupboard behind her opened without a sound and a barefooted man crept out.

The first thing that Diana knew was that something like a piece of wet chamois leather was over her face, and she was being lifted bodily. For a second she was paralyzed, and in that second she had passed through the cupboard and the wall behind. Both doors fastened--for the back of the press, as Larry had suspected at first, was a door that moved, pegs and all, outwards. What he could not know was that it was literally a brick door.

She heard its thud as it closed, and, wriggling her face clear of the wet leather, she screamed. Again a hand that was big enough to cover the whole of her face came over her mouth, and she was dragged along in the darkness; another door opened, and she was thrown in. There was a click, and an electric light blazed from above, and she saw her captor and shrank back in terror.

He was tall, bigger than any man she had seen. She guessed he was seven feet in height, and his breadth was in proportion. He was dressed in a shirt and a pair of trousers. His feet and his arms were bare, and she had no need to study that hairy forearm to appreciate its strength. It was as massive as an average man’s thigh, and the muscles stood out in swathes. His face was red and large and curiously flat.

His eyes, which did not move when he spoke, were of the palest blue, and a mane of gray hair swept back from his forehead and hung untidily behind. The mouth, heavy and gross, was covered by a short unkempt beard which was neither gray nor yellow, but had something of each in its hue. His enormous ears stuck out from his head almost at right angles, and she thought she had never seen so terrible a creature in her life.

“I’ll let ye have a look at me so that ye’ll know me again,” he giggled. (There was no other word that Diana could think of that so described that shrill laugh of his.) “Where’s your gun?” he bantered. “Why don’t you fire it at poor old Jake--he told you all about me, I’ll bet!”

She knew that he referred to Larry Holt, but made no reply. Her eyes were searching the room for some weapon, but the rough plastered walls were bare and there was not a stick of furniture in the place. The only window was a long narrow slip of toughened glass near the ceiling, flanked on each side by two wall ventilators. She searched her bag, but there was nothing there. She was even without hatpins, though they would be practically useless against this brute.

“Looking for something to kill me with, are you?” he giggled again. “I hear you! Now you sit down and be patient, young woman,” he said. “There’s a good time coming, and nobody wants to hurt you.”

He did not attempt to approach her, and she had that relief, but his next words told her that the real danger was but postponed.

“Ye’re pretty by all accounts,” he chuckled. “And them as likes pretty ones might give the world for you. It’s a wonder to me that They ain’t took ye, my dear, but They haven’t any use for women or marriage and the like, so They’ve given ye to Old Jake.”

He giggled again and the girl went cold at the sound. He had a trick of pausing before and emphasizing “They” as though the word stood in capitals in his dark mind.

“I can’t see ye, so prettiness don’t mean much to me, my little darling. And if your face was like hers”--he jerked his thumb to the ceiling--“it wouldn’t make no difference to me.”

“You’ll never get out of this building,” she said, realizing that it was best to show a bold attitude. “Mr. Holt is in the house next door, and by this time the place will be surrounded.”

This time his chuckle had a deeper note.

“There are ten ways out of the house,” he said contemptuously. “That’s why They bought it. There’s a hole underneath the cellar where you can walk for miles, and nobody there to stop you but the rats. Rats are afraid of blind men.”

There was the hint of a curious, childlike simplicity that ill fitted his monstrous shape.

“Sooner or later he will get you,” she said quietly, and then, with a sudden inspiration: “He has already got Lew.”

He was on the point of leaving the room, and he spun round, his face working.

“Lew!” he roared. “He’s got Lew!”

Then he was silent, and the silence ended in a shout of laughter that seemed to shake the room.

“Lew will tell him a lot!” he said. “How’s he going to ask Lew for information when Lew doesn’t know where he is, or who he’s talking to? He can’t read or write. He’d have been dead, too,” he nodded sagely, “dead as a door nail, Lew would have been, for the dirty trick he played upon Them. He was the man who put the paper into the pocket of the feller They croaked!”

“We know that,” she said boldly, and he seemed to be impressed.

“You found that out, did you?” he said. “But Lew didn’t tell ye. He’d have been dead, as dead as a door nail, Lew would, only They didn’t want no dead men knocking about. Me and Lew carried him down the steps,” he said, nodding his great head. “I can tell you that, because I know the lor. I know the lor properly, I do. You can’t tell Old Jake anything.”

She was wondering what he meant by this boast of his knowledge of the law.

“A wife can’t give evidence against her husband,” he said with a little leer. “That’s why I tell you all this, little darling.”

“A wife!” she gasped, sick at the ghastliness of the suggestion.

“Mrs. Jake Bradford,” he chortled. “Bradford is my name, my darling, and you’ll be married by his reverence, too, proper and in order.”

“You fool!” she burst forth in her anger and fear. “Do you think anybody could marry me to a horror like you? Do you think I should stand without protesting and telling all I know, by your side? You’re mad.”

He bent his head forward and his voice came lower as he spoke, until it was little more than a whisper.

“There’s worse than me in this house,” he said slowly, “and maybe you won’t mind me if you don’t see me, young lady. And you may be blind as I am, and deaf, too, like Lew.” He paused, and she shrank back, holding on to the walls for support. “And dumb, if you’re going to talk!” he roared in a sudden fury. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to you if They told me to.”

The door opened and closed. A key turned and a bolt was shot, and looking up, she saw he was gone, and slid to the floor half conscious, half fainting. Then with an effort she drooped her head low and felt the blood coming back, and presently she was able to stand.

No power of will could stop her hands from shaking, and it was not until she had paced the room for ten minutes that she came back to anything like normal. She knew that it was no idle threat this man had uttered. He would be merciless if his unknown superiors gave the order. He would crush out the youth and the beauty of youth, the sweet senses of life, without compunction at the word of Them. He would mutilate and torture, and pity would not come to him. She had to think clearly and think quickly.

She went to the door, but she knew that escape that way was impossible. There was no chair by which she could reach the window, and she could not make her escape without even attracting attention through that slit of wall. There was nothing in the room but the electric light.

She remembered Larry’s story of how this man had come toward him with his hands up, and how he had crushed the bulb in his powerful fist. He must be animal strong, she thought. Wasn’t there a danger of his being shocked by the electric current?

At that she looked up quickly. The light had been fixed without any regard to appearance. The long wire came from the ceiling at one end of the room and was loosely tacked to the ceiling as far as the centre, where it passed over a hook and hung downwards, with a little tin reflector over the pear-shaped lamp. She reached for the lamp and turned it round.

“Two hundred volts,” she read, ground upon the crystal glass.

She tried to unhook the wire by throwing up the loose end, but it was some time before she succeeded, and at last the loose part fell and the lamp jerked to the floor and almost touched it. She caught the loose flex in her hand and pulled gently, and the thin wire brackets which held the flex to the ceiling came away without any difficulty. The switch was near the door, and she walked across and turned it off. Putting one foot upon the flex, near to where it entered the aperture of the shade, she pulled with all her might and after several attempts it snapped.

She was in darkness, but her nimble fingers plucked at the loose end of the wire, and with her finger-nails she cleared away the rubber casing which enclosed the tiny thread-like strands of copper. Soon she had something that felt like a loose-haired broom in her hands, and she was satisfied. She thought she heard a noise in the passage, and, running to the switch, turned the current on again. She groped in the half-darkness for her bag and found it, took out her gloves and put them on, then felt gingerly for the hanging strands. She took them in her hands and held the “brush” before her, being careful not to touch one exposed strand. Pushing away the shade and the globe with her foot, she waited in the centre of the room. And then the door opened.

“Here I am again, dearie,” and her breath came quickly as she heard the door locked from the inside. “You think I’m a funny-looking fellow, don’t you?” He did not know that the light was out, for he lived in everlasting darkness.

For a time he made no attempt to come near her. She could just see the shape of him by the evening light which filtered through the narrow window.

“Tony missed him,” he said, by way of conveying information. “Missed him!” he said contemptuously. “If I’d had my eyes, I’d have got the devil! I’d get him now with this little gun of mine, blind as I am, if I could hear him move. But we’ll have Holty yet, my darling. We’ll have him and cut his heart out. He’ll wish he was never born.”

He lowered his voice, and said something which was not intelligible to the girl. Then he seemed to recall the object of his visit.

“Come to Old Jake, my dear,” he giggled, as he walked stealthily toward her, both of his huge arms outstretched. “Come to your old husband, my pretty!”

He was as quick as a cat, and one hand had gripped the shoulder of her blouse before she realized he was upon her--gripped it and tore it from shoulder to hem. She threw herself back, and his other hand came up--and touched the outspread wire. With a yell that was half shriek, half roar, he fell back.

“What did you do?” he asked savagely. “What did you do, you little devil? Did you knife me like that swine?”

He was evidently feeling himself to discover an injury, and then he leapt at her, and this time the wire struck his face, and he fell to the ground like a log.

She heard him stir.

“What is it, what is it?” he whispered. “I can’t see it! You oughtn’t to treat an old blind man like that, you little----”

His hand shot out and caught her ankle, flinging her to the ground. But again his face touched the electric wire, charged with 200 volts, and he screamed and rolled over. He was mad now, a whimpering lunatic. Again and again he approached her; again and again his hand, his face, his neck, came into contact with the current. And then suddenly he fell again, and the girl thrust the cruel ends of the wire at his throat. She felt like a murderess as he shivered convulsively. But she had to kill him; she knew that nothing short of killing him would save her life.

Presently she took the wire away. He lay very still, and her shaking hands searched his pockets. She found the key, felt the revolver in his pocket and extracted it, and fumbled for the lock. Presently the door was open and she was in the passage which turned to the right, and along here she went. She was in a lighter room with two windows, but she was still in mortal terror; for now she had lost her best weapon of defence.

The door was easy to find. Cleverly concealed it might be in the dormitory of Todd’s Home, but here it was well marked. She pulled a handle, and the mass of brickwork swung back and she walked through the door. A man standing in the dormitory spun round, a revolver in his hand.

“Good Lord!” he cried. “Miss Ward, where did you come from?”