Look to the Lady Read Free Page B

pavement, and turned for an instant to survey the scene.
    His captor lay hidden beneath the mass of wreckage and made no sound. But the street was no longer deserted. Windows were opening and from both ends of the road came the sound of voices and hurrying footsteps.
    Gyrth was in no mood to stop to answer questions. He wiped the blood from his face with his coat-sleeve and was relieved to find that the damage was less messy than he had feared. He slipped on the shoe, which he still gripped, and vanished like a shadow up a side street.
    He finished the rest of his journey on foot.
    He went to the address in Bottle Street largely out of curiosity, but principally, perhaps, because he had nowhere else to go. He chose the narrow dark ways, cutting through the older part of Holborn and the redolent alleys of Soho.
    Now, for the first time for days, he realized that he was free from that curious feeling of oppression which had vaguely puzzled him. There was no one in the street behind him as he turned from dark corner to lighted thoroughfare and came at last to the cul-de-sac off Piccadilly which is Bottle Street.
    The single blue lamp of the Police Station was hardly inviting, but the door of Number Seventeen, immediately upon the left, stood ajar. He pushed it open gingerly.
    He was well-nigh exhausted, however, and his shreds of caution had vanished. Consoling himself with the thought that nothing could be worse than his present predicament, he climbed painfully up the wooden steps. After the first landing there was a light and the stairs were carpeted, and he came at last to a full stop before a handsome linenfold oak door. A small brass plate bore the simple legend, ‘
Mr Albert Campion. The Goods Dept.
’
    There was also a very fine Florentine knocker, which, however, he did not have occasion to use, for the door opened and an entirely unexpected figure appeared in the opening.
    A tall thin young man with a pale inoffensive face, and vague eyes behind enormous horn-rimmed spectacles smiled out at him with engaging friendliness. He was carefully, not to say fastidiously, dressed in evening clothes, but the correctness of his appearance was somewhat marred by the fact that in his hand he held a string to which was attached a child’s balloon of a particularly vituperant pink.
    He seemed to become aware of this incongruous attachment as soon as he saw his visitor, for he made several unsuccessful attempts to hide it behind his back. He held out his hand.
    â€˜Doctor Livingstone, I presume?’ he said in a well-bred, slightly high-pitched voice.
    Considerably startled, Gyrth put out his hand. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ he began, ‘but I’m Val Gyrth and I’m looking for a man who calls himself Albert Campion.’
    â€˜That’s all right,’ said the stranger releasing the balloon, which floated up to the ceiling, with the air of one giving up a tiresome problem. ‘None genuine without my face on the wrapper. This is me – my door – my balloon. Please come in and have a drink. You’re rather late – I was afraid you weren’t coming,’ he went on, escorting his visitor across a narrow hall into a small but exceedingly comfortable sitting-room, furnished and decorated in a curious and original fashion. There were several odd trophies on the walls, and above the mantelpiece, between a Rosenberg drypoint and what looked like a page from an original ‘Dance of Death’, was a particularly curious group composed of a knuckle-duster surmounted by a Scotland Yard Rogues’ Gallery portrait of a well-known character, neatly framed and affectionately autographed. A large key of a singular pattern completed the tableau.
    Val Gyrth sank down into the easy chair his host set for him. This peculiar end to his night’s adventure, which in itself had been astonishing enough, had left him momentarily stupefied. He accepted the brandy-and-soda which