Chapter 28 Chapter Twenty-Eight

When Frankie woke up, her first reaction was to feel depressed.Waking up after the effects of chloroform is not, well, romantic.She was lying on a particularly hard wooden floor with her hands and feet bound.She managed to roll herself over and almost slammed her head into an old coal box.All sorts of depressing incidents followed. After a few minutes, Frankie could at least pay attention to her surroundings, though she could not stand up. She heard a faint groan beside her, and she looked around.She seemed to be in an attic as best she could tell.The only light came from the sky on the roof, and at the moment the light was extremely weak.In a few minutes it would be pitch black again.

A few dilapidated pictures stood against the walls, a broken iron bed, some rotten chairs, and the aforementioned coal box. The groan seemed to come from the corner of the house. The rope on Frankie was not very tight, which allowed her to crawl like a crab.She was crawling on the dirty floor. "Bobby!" she cried suddenly. It was indeed Bobby, who was also bound hand and foot.In addition, there was a piece of Bullet covering his mouth. At this moment, he almost loosened the rope.Frankie went over to help him.Her hands still had some use despite being bound together, and a final tug with her teeth finally did the job.

Although his voice was muffled, Bobby managed to yell out, "Frankie!" "Glad we're together again," said Frankie, "but it seems like we're all fools." "I suppose," said Bobby gloomily, "that's what they call a 'no small victory.'" "How did they catch you?" Frankie demanded. "After you wrote me that letter?" "What letter? I never wrote any letter." "Oh! I see," said Frankie, with wide eyes. "What a fool I was! And said don't tell anyone, it's full of nonsense."

"Listen, Frankie, I'll tell you what happened to me, and then you go on and tell me what happened to you." He recounts his adventures at the Grange Mansion and its aftermath. "I was brought into this damned little place," he said, "and there was something to eat and drink on my plate. I ate it when I was so hungry, and I thought it must have a narcotic effect, because I fell asleep right away. .What day is it today?" "Friday." "So I got knocked out on Wednesday night. Damn it, I've been out of my wits. Well, tell me what happened to you?"

Frankie recounted her adventures from what she had heard from Mr. Sprague to the point where she thought she recognized Bobby at the door. "Then they chloroformed me," she said at last. "Oh, Bobby, I just vomited in the coal box!" "I see you're very capable, Frankie," said Bobby approvingly. "The question is: what do we do now? We've each suffered for a long time, but it's turned around." "If only I had told Roger the contents of your letter," said Frankie ruefully. "I did think about it, couldn't make up my mind, and then decided to follow your advice and never tell anyone else."

"The result is that nobody knows what happened to us," said Bobby with a heavy heart. "Frankie, my dear, I'm afraid I've got you in trouble." "We're all a little too confident," said Frankie gloomily. "The only thing I can't figure out is why they didn't just hit us both on the head." Bobby mused. "I don't think Nicholson would be stumped by such little things." "He has his plans." Frankie trembled slightly. "Well, we'd better have a plan, too. We've got to get out of here, Frankie. What are we going to do?"

"We can shout," said Frankie. "Is...?" said Bobby. "Perhaps passers-by could hear you. But since Nicholson didn't gag you, I should say the chances are slim. Your hands are looser than mine." .Let me see if I can break it open for you with my teeth." The next five minutes were a tooth-to-rope struggle, a struggle that did Bobby's dentist a great deal of glory. "These things are written very lightly in the book." He said out of breath, "I don't think I'm useful at all." "You can do it," said Frankie, "the rope is coming loose. Watch out! Someone's coming."

She rolled away from him.Someone could be heard coming upstairs, with heavy steps.There was a glimmer of light beneath the door.Then there was the sound of a key unlocking, and the door was slowly pushed open. "How are my two little birds?" was Dr. Nicholson's voice. He held a candle in his hand, and although his hat covered his eyes and he wore a thick overcoat with a high collar, his voice was clearly his, and his eyes gleamed white behind thick glasses. "You are so unworthy, my dear young lady," he said teasingly, shaking his head, "to fall into the trap so easily."

Neither Bobby nor Frankie answered.The advantage of the situation was clearly on Nicholson's side, and it was difficult to know what to say. Nicholson put the candle on a chair. "Anyway," he said, "let me see if you're comfortable." He checked the rope on Bobby's body, nodded triumphantly, and checked Frankie's.At this point he shook his head. "When I was young, people used to tell me," he said, "fingers are for holding forks, and teeth are for fixing fingers. Your young friend's teeth, I see, are acting. " In a corner stood a heavy oak chair with a broken back.

Dr. Nicholson lifted Frankie, put her in a chair, and tied her up. "It won't be very uncomfortable, I believe?" he said. "Well, it won't be very long." Frankie was able to speak."What are you going to do with us?" she asked. Nicholson went to the door and took the candle. "You teased me, Miss Frances, that I liked accidents too much. Maybe I did. At least, I'm going to take the risk again." "What do you mean?" Bobby asked. "Do I have to tell you? Well, I think I will. Miss Frances de Winter was driving, with her driver beside her, making a wrong turn onto a deserted road leading to a mine shaft, and the car hit Wellhead. Miss Frances and the driver died at the same time."

There was a moment of silence in the room.Bobby went on: "But we might not die. Plans go wrong sometimes. What you did in Wales failed." "Your resistance to morphine must have been remarkable, from our point of view - regrettable," said Nicholson, "but you needn't worry about it this time. You and Miss Frances must have been Exhausted and dead." Bobby shivered involuntarily.Nicholson's tone was odd, the tone of an artist scrutinizing a masterpiece. "He likes it," thought Bobby, "he really likes it." He didn't intend to let Nicholson be so complacent, so he said in a casual tone: "You made a mistake, especially in relation to Miss Frances." "Yes," said Frankie, "in that very clever letter you made up, you told me not to tell anyone else. But I made an exception. I told Roger Bassington a French is gone. He knows all about you. If something happens to us, he'll know who's responsible. You'd better let us go, and get out of the country as quickly as you can." Nicholson was silent for a moment, then said: "Brilliant con. That's all I can think of." He turned and walked towards the door. "You bastard, what happened to your wife?" cried Bobby. "Did you kill her too?" "Moira's alive," Nicholson said. "How long she's going to live, I really don't know. It depends." He made a mocking bow to them. "," he said, "I'm going to spend a few hours working out my arrangements. You can talk about it as much as you like. I won't gag you unless it's absolutely necessary. Understand? If you call for help, I'll Will come back and gag your mouths." He went out, shut the door and locked it. "It's not true," said Bobby. "It can't be true. The things he said wouldn't happen." But Bobby couldn't help feeling that those things were going to happen to him and Frankie, and "there's always an emergency rescue in the book," Frankie tried to say hopefully, but she didn't feel it was going to happen. .In fact, her confidence was clearly lacking. "It's impossible," said Bobby, pleadingly. "Such a grotesque man, Nicholson must not be real. I hope there will be an emergency rescue, but I don't see who will come." us." "If only Roger had been told," Frankie lamented. "Perhaps Nicholson believed what you said anyway," said Bobby. "No," said Frankie, "he's not going to believe it at all, the man's astute as hell." "He's a lot shrewder than we are," said Bobby darkly. "Frankie, do you know what upsets me the most in this case?" "I don't know. What is it?" "That is, even when we were dying, we still didn't know who Evans was." "Let's ask him," said Frankie. "You understand, this is the last request. There's no way he can refuse to tell us. I agree with you that I can't simply die without my curiosity being satisfied." .” There was a silence between them, and Bobby said again: "Do you think we should cry for help? This is the last chance, and probably the only one we have." "Not yet," said Frankie, "in the first place, I don't trust anyone to hear, or Nicholson would never have risked it; and in the second place, I simply cannot stand Sit and wait. Save the shouting for the last possible chance. Having you to talk to is... quite a comfort." Her voice trembled as she finished. "I've got you into a terrible predicament, Frankie." "Oh! Nothing. You can't keep me out of it. It's what I want to be involved in. Do you think he's really going to get it, Bobby? I mean, to us." "I'm afraid he'll get his way, he's got that damn ability." "Bobby, who do you now believe killed Henry Bassington-French?" "If possible……" "It is possible... to assume one thing: that Sylvia was among them." "Frankie!" "I understand. I'm disgusted at the idea, too, but it's true. Why is Sylvia so insensitive to morphine? Why is it that when we want her to send her husband somewhere else for treatment instead of the Grange Mansion?" How stubborn was she? Also, she was in the house when the shots went off." "She probably fired it herself." "Oh! Certainly not." "Yes, perhaps it was her. Then she gave Nicholson the key to the study, and put it in Henry's pocket." "It's all crazy talk," said Frankie in a disappointed voice. "It's like looking through a distorting mirror. All people who look perfectly normal are really not normal at all, including all well-educated ordinary people. There should be some way to Identify criminals, eyebrows, ears or other features." "My God!" exclaimed Bobby. "what happened?" "Frankie, it wasn't Nicholson who came here just now." "Are you totally crazy? So who is it?" "I don't know, but it's not Nicholson. I've always felt something was wrong, but couldn't see through it. You said the ears gave me a clue. When I watched Nicholson through the window that night, I especially noticed his ears. , the earlobes are connected to the face. But tonight this man, his ears don't look like that." "But what does that mean?" asked Frankie, disappointed. "It's a pretty good actor pretending to be Nicholson." "But why... who could it be?" "Bassington-French," said Bobby, breathlessly, "Roger Bassington-French! At first we treated him like a gentleman, then we followed him like fools in some irrelevant The things that belonged to him went astray.” "Bassington-French," whispered Frankie, "Bobby, you're right. It must have been him. He was the only one there when I taunted Nicholson about the accident." "Then it's really over," said Bobby, "and I'd secretly hoped that Roger would find us by some miracle, but now that last hope was gone too. Moira was Prisoners, you and I are bound hand and foot. Nobody has the slightest idea where we are. Game over, Frankie." Just as he finished speaking, there was a sound above his head.After a while, with a terrible crash, a heavy body fell through the skylight. It was too dark to see anything. "What the hell is...?" Bobby began to curse. From among the shattered glass came a voice: "Bo...bo...bobby." "Damn me!" said Bobby. "It's Badger!"

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