The Dark Eyes of London by Edgar Wallace

Author:Edgar Wallace [Wallace, Edgar]
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Crime
Published: 2010-06-19T13:38:37.906000+00:00

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 paralysed, 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 grey 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 grey 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 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.

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