The Green Eyes of Bast Part 32

CHAPTER XXII

THE GRAY MIST

I was about half-way on my return journey when I heard a car racing along the road behind me, and as it came nearer I detected the fact that it was slowing down. Ere I could turn:

"Hi! Mr. Addison!" hailed a voice.

I stopped, turned round, and there was Gatton leaning out of the car and staring towards me through the deepening dusk.

"Why, Gatton!" I said, walking up to him--"I waited more than ten minutes for you, and then gave it up."

"Waited for me?"

"Yes, by the police-box."

He stared in evident wonder at me and then at the police chauffeur who drove the car.

"Whatever prompted you to do that?" he said. "Coates must have given you the wrong message. I said I would come to the house for you, not meet you in the street."

Still I remained dense to the truth, and:

"I know you did," I replied. "I refer to the second message."

"I sent no second message."

"What!"

"Get in," cried Gatton shortly; "this wants explaining."

I stepped into the car, and as it moved onward again I explained to the Inspector what had taken place. As I talked I saw his expression grow darker and darker, until finally:

"There's something wrong!" he muttered.

"Then you did not inspire the message?"

"I know nothing whatever about it. At the time you received it I was on my way from Crossleys. I have been traveling for the last hour and a half."

I stared at him very blankly. The object of such a communication was difficult to imagine, and I knew of nothing incriminating in my possession, which might have tempted the a.s.sa.s.sin to lure me from the house whilst he obtained possession of it.

In ever-growing excitement I watched the houses slipping behind us as we swept along. Then we came to the tree-lined expanse of road immediately leading to the cottage. As the car stopped, I leaped out quickly, Gatton close upon my heels, and ran up the path to the door.

From certain indications with which I was familiar, I observed that Coates was out, whereby I concluded that he had set off to meet the mythical "man with a box." Not without apprehension I inserted the key in the lock and opened the door.

As I did so, I beheld a most singular spectacle.

The careful Coates had closed all the windows as usual before quitting the house, so that there was comparatively little draught along the corridor. But as the door swung open I perceived a sort of gray fog-like vapor floating over the carpet about a foot in depth and moving in slightly sinuous spirals upward towards the opened door!

At this phenomenon I stared in speechless astonishment; for whilst it resembled steam or the early morning mist which one sometimes sees upon the gra.s.s in hot weather, I was wholly at a loss to account for its presence inside my cottage!

"Good heavens!" cried Gatton, and grasped me by the arm with so strong a grip that I almost cried out. "_Look! Look!_"

"What the devil is it?" I muttered; and turning, I stared into his face. "What _can_ it be?"

"Stand back," he said strangely, and pulled me out into the porch. "Do you notice a peculiar smell?"

"I do--a most foul and abominable smell."

Gatton nodded grimly.

"G.o.d knows what has happened here since you left," he said; "but of one thing I am sure--you must certainly bear a charmed life, Mr.

Addison. There has been a third attempt at your removal!"

This choking smell which now rose to my nostrils had in it something vaguely familiar, yet something which at that place and that time I found myself unable to identify; but:

"We shall have to open the windows!" rapped Gatton.

Suiting the action to the word, he took out his handkerchief, and holding it to his nostrils went running along the corridor, his feet oddly enveloped in that mysterious mist. A moment later I heard the bang of a swiftly raised window, then another, and:

"Stand clear of the door!" called a m.u.f.fled voice.

A moment later Gatton came racing back again, coughing and choking because of the fumes which arose from that supernatural fog carpeting the pa.s.sages.

The chauffeur now appeared upon the path leading from the gate to the porch, but:

"Stay by the car!" ordered Gatton. "Don't move without instructions."

I scarcely noted his words. For I was watching the gray fog. In the dusk I could see it streaming out, that deathly mist, and creeping away across gra.s.s and flower-beds, right and left of the door.

"Give it a chance to clear," said Gatton; "I fancy one good whiff would finish any man!"

Even as he spoke the words the nature of this vapor suddenly occurred to me, and:

"The Abbey Inn!" I whispered. "The Abbey Inn!"

"Ah!" said he--"you've solved the mystery, have you? But can you explain how this stuff comes to be floating about the floor of your house?"

"I cannot," I confessed. "But at all costs we must go in. We must learn the worst!"

"Yes, we'll risk it now," said the Inspector.

Close together we entered and made our way towards the study. As we pa.s.sed the door-way of the ante-room in which the telephone was placed. I glanced, aside, and thereupon:

"My G.o.d, Gatton!" I groaned. "Look!"