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I asked. "He's the Jewish gentleman who bought the Gate House recently. Lots of money he's got and a big motor car. He's up and down to London almost every day in the week, but he won't let anybody take photographs of the house. I know several who've asked." "But I thought," said Carneta, innocently, "you said the old gentleman who was here on Wednesday went to take some?"
I followed him with the light and fired twice at the retreating figure. I heard him stumble and a second time cry out. But, though I doubt not he was hit, he recovered himself, for I heard his tread in the corridor above. Propping wide the door with my foot, I turned to Carneta. Her face was drawn and haggard; but her mouth set in a sort of grim determination.
When the sound of the humming motor had died to something no louder than the buzz of a sleepy wasp, I held out my hand to Carneta and she rose, pale, but with blazing eyes, and picked up her camera case. "If he had detected us, everything would have been lost!" she whispered. "Not everything!"
A girl appeared with a tea tray, and for a moment I almost feared that the landlord was about to retire; but he lingered, whilst the girl distributed the things about the table, and Carneta asked casually, "Would there be time for me to photograph the Gate House before dark?" "There might be time," was the reply, "but that's not the difficulty. Mr. Isaacs is the difficulty." "Who is Mr. Isaacs?"
Alone, majestic, entered Hassan of Aleppo. He was dressed in European clothes but wore the green turban of a Sherif. With his snowy beard and coal-black eyes he seemed like a vision of the Prophet, of the Prophet in whose name he had committed such ghastly atrocities. Deigning no glance to Soar nor to Hilton, he paced into the room, passing me and ignoring Carneta, where Earl Dexter awaited him.
She spoke of Earl Dexter's felonious plans as another woman might have spoken of her husband's unwise investments! It was fantastic hearing that confession of The Stetson Man's beautiful partner, and I counted the interview one of the strangest I had ever known. A sudden idea came to me. "When did Dexter first conceive the plan to steal the slipper?" I asked. "In Egypt!" answered Carneta. "Yes!
I had no doubt that his ghastly wound had occasioned a tremendous loss of blood. His gaunt face was positively emaciated, but the steely gray eyes had lost nothing of their brightness. There was a good deal about Mr. Earl Dexter, the cracksman, that any man must have admired. "Shut the door, Carneta," he said quietly.
Soar departed without a word, and no one spoke until he returned, bringing the sponge and the water, when the girl set to work in a businesslike way to cleanse a wound which showed upon the man's head. "She's a good nurse is Carneta," said Dexter coolly. "She was the only doctor I had through this" indicating his maimed wrist. "If you will fetch my bag down, there's some lint in it." I hesitated.
"Put on your rubber shoes," she directed. "Leave the others here." There in the darkness I did as she directed, for I was provided with a pair of tennis shoes. Carneta already was suitably shod. "I will go first," I said. "What is the ground like beyond?" "Just unkempt bushes and weeds."
We'll go that way and around by the other wing on to the verandah." Any action was preferable to this nerve-sapping delay, and with a determination to shoot, and shoot to kill, any one who opposed our entrance, I passed through the bushes and, with Carneta, rounded the southern border of that silent house and slipped quietly on to the verandah. Kneeling, Carneta opened the knapsack.
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