HELD TO RANSOM

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 361, 17 May 1911, Page 7

HELD TO RANSOM

Bj S. H. Agnew, Author of "The Castle Mystery," etc.

Or, The Pandits of Birmingham. Being a Strands OhronicSo fro the Note-book of John Lyon, ElucicSator, Known as the Lion o? the Law."

PAKT l-\ CHAPTER 111. MISSING ! " I have sent for you, Mr. I.von, to ask your aid in the most remarkable mystery that has ever come under my jurisdiction." The speaker was the chief of the Birmingham police. It was nearly a week after Lyon's strange adventure in Sutton Park. He had been summoned away on the following morning by an urgent message from Chris Lesage, and had almost relegated his midnight assailant to the limbo of forgotteu things when a telegram from the chief of thrt Birmingham police recalled the matter to his mind. It merely asked his immediate attendance in the Midland city, but the coincidence was too striking to leave the elucidator room for doubt. He knew that the chief would only have summoned outside help in the most extreme circumstances, and felt a foreboding that the two conspirators had turned up again. " I am at your service," the detective responded, in answer to the chief's opening remark. " Fortunately I concluded the case which has been engrossing me last night, and if you have anything of interest to offer I will be onlj too liappy to undertake it." "Anything of interest!" The chief lifted his brows. "Do you mean to say." he added with an accent of astonishment, " that yon have not heard of the Bandits of Birmingham ?" The Lion of the Law shook his head. " I must plead guilty. I have not even opened p newspaper for the past wee l ". I have been engaged on a ch-'se which absorbed every moment of mv time."

" Did you rint notice the posters as you rnmr. through the city ? Birmingham is ringing with it." " I came along: by motor, and broke every speed limit that was ever male. I had no time for examining posters." The chief laughed, but his rugged features speedily assumed their former grave aspect. " Then I must herein at the beginning," he said. "T-,venty-three people are missing from Birmingham—men, women and children. The affair began a week ago—on Tuesday afternoon." Lyon started. He suddenly remembered that it was on Monday night when the veiled man had threatened him. " On that afternoon the two men vanished from Sutton Park," the chief of the Police continued, referring to his note-book which lay onen on his desk. " On the following dav a girl, three more men, and a small boy vanished from the same neighbourhood —either from the park itself or just outside it. As you can imagine, the excitement speedily grew to fever heat, and the park was closed to the public, whilst a special police party made a vigorous search. "It was utterly without result. Every inch of the park was covered, but not even a shred of the missing persons' clothing rewarded the searchers, and they had perforce to admit themselves beaten. " Next day the mystery spread further afield. A woman disappeared from Dudley, four little girls vanished from Perry Barr and the neighbourhood. and a boy of ten years from Castle Bromwich. In each case they had been out alone for some reason or other, and never returned. The most exhaustive searches gave no clue to their whereabouts, and something very like a panic began to snreal. Parrnts accompanied their children to school, lonely roads were shunned even in broad daylight and alarmists of every type promalgated the most absurd theories in all the papers. " On the following day, in spite of all precautions, the affair assumed an even more alarming aspect. The disappearances were wholesale and ten people vanished utterly during the course of the day, the operations being confined almost entirely to the vicinity of Sutton Coalfield. In three rases the victims were children, the remainder including four girls in their 'teens and three youths. Once again hundreds of search parties were •Instituted without the least result. The panic threatened to assume the proportions of a riot unless something could he done. " One significant fact had been notcd by our detectives. The victims wre all of rich families, and sc we waited with something like confidence for blackmailing operations to hecin. Nor were we mistaken. On the day following the Inst disappearances —Friday—the parents of the ntlicr relatives of the kidnapped people received a copy of this letter, vvritten on a typewriter and duplicated on a gelatine copying apparatus." He handed the eluculator a sheet .if common typewriting paper. It nore in faint purple print the following message : " Tour son is safe —for the present. Refrain from any communication with the police. The ransom will he five thousand pounds. I.' j ou hold any traffic with the law or attempt to play us false, you will never see your son again alive.—The Bandits of Birmingham." ]jyon shrugged his shoulders as ho returned the document. " They are flying high," he observed. " Five thousand pounds ! And their daring has seldom been equal-

! led, at all events, 'W.ho was this addressed to ?" " An iron magnate at Dudley. He brought it straight to us, although Ke is worth something like a hundred thousand pounds. Sixteen of the twenty-three families have handed on the messages to us and we have good reason to believe that the others have received them, but arc :denying it in dread lest they provoke any vengeance upon their kidnapped children." " I see. And you wish to take ip the case ?" " If you will. I confess that your .inconventional methods are more suited to a mystery of this description than the red-tape ones instilled ! by official training." | "My methods are useful at times," the detective said with a smile. "For ! instance I have already discovered i the leaders of this affair." j "Bosh !" j " Not at all. You will discover i the prime movers to be a sallow man j with a tawny moustache and a. j Spanish woman bearing the Christian name of Dolores. See if the svent does not prove my words correct." *

The chief started in bewilderment as Lyon made for the door. " You are either mad or more uncannily clever than I thought !" he cried. " Where are you going now?" " First to the office of the " Birmingham Post,' where I can get a file of newspapers and read all the details of the various cases ; then to Sutton Park, where I will start work in earnest." " There is nothing to be found there." " Perhaps not," Lyon said with an enigmatic smile. "We shall see what we shall see." And so he started off upon what was to prove one of the most perilous quests of his career. CHAPTER IV. LYON REACHES THE HIDDEN HAUNT. " And so here I stand in the very centre of this net of mysterj." The speaker was the Lion of the Law. His big automobile had carried him swiftly to Sutton Park, and the presentation of his card to the official at the gate had procured his admission. He then made direct for the spot where the Spanish woman and her companion had disappeared, and, standing in the centre of a thick clump of trees, gave utterance to the remark which opens the chapter. The park bore a most unwonted appearance. The turf had been trampled almost bare in places by the feet of search parties, and trees and bushes bore an unkempt and ragged appearance, in proof of the rough investigation to which they had been subjected. Not a single person was to be seen in all the park, though it was a warm and cloudless day. Even the boatmen on the lakes had locked up their premises and departed, despairing of customers until the great kidnapping mystery had been cleared up. John Lyon, however, felt rather pleased than otherwise by the intense loneliness. He could work without fear of spying or interruption, and as the task he had in hand was rather a peculiar one, he did not feel anxious for an army of spectators, official or otherwise. Having adjusted a pair of climbing irons to his boots, he scaled tree after tree, drawing himself up as far as the termination of the main trunk and then descending immediately, sometimes in silence, now and again with a dissatisfied grunt. For close on two hours he pursued these tactics, without success, but he did not allow this ill-fortune to disturb him. With methodical precision he continued to mount the trees in regular order, and at length his suspicions were justified in the most startling manner. As he had suspected, a stout oak supplied the solution to the mystery with which he was grappling. The trunk had been hollowed to within four inches of its girth, forming a tunnel through which any ordinary man could have passed with ease. Below, strain his eyes as he might, Lyon could perceive nothing but a blackness as dense as that reputed to lie within the well of truth.

For a moment he sat amongst the branches, hesitating. He was not in the habit of faltering before unknown perils, but he realised that the conspirators were not likely to show him any mercy if he were captured in their retreat. And the magnitude of the operations proved that there must be at least a dozen men in the gang ; he would be hopelessly outnumbered in the event of a fight. On the other hand he felt reluctant to summons the police to his aid. If, as he suspected, the hollow tree led to a retreat underground, there would probably be more than one outlet, and the kidnappers would escape almost to a certainty. If he made his way in alone, there was a remote chance that he might be able to obtain some details of the retreat ere a raid was made. It did not take him long to make up his mind to the more desperate course.

He loosened his revolvers, removed the irons from his feet and lowered himself nonchalantly into the uninviting hole. I' 1 or an instant he hun;: suspended at the full length of his arms ; then loosed his hold and dropped into the unknown. Down he went through the darkness involuntarily closing his eyes as he neared the bottom. The sudden stoppage which he had expected never came. Instead, he struck something soft and yielding, which seemed to swing and descend beneath the sudden force of his weight. A blaze of light blinded him a second later, and he leapt to his feet to find himself

standing upon a thick mattress o. the kind employed in gymnasiums Overhead a trap closed with a sofl thud, shutting out the dim flicker o :laylight which penetrated through the hollow tree. K< !.;om had he seen a more mypteriiu!« place, outside the scenery of r. pantomime. It recalled irristibly the i-3vera into which the fabled At Babi made his way—a long vista of srottos, dim and shadowy even though a dozen lanterns were place.-: at intervals along the walls. These, and the mattresses were the only signs of human habitation. Not n •.vhisper of sound reached his ears, save the spluttering of the burning wicks. The walls, however, displayed unequivocal signs of human handiwork, probably carried on in some bygone :jge. Apparently the ground had been mined, and the tunnels and caverns obliterated and forgotten in the ,'ourse of time. There were many footprints upon the sandy soil, and Lyon, his detective instinct gaining the upper hand, paused to measure them in spite of .lis strange position. He was still ;ngaged upon the task when the beat Df running feet caused him to straighten up and whip out a revolver. The newcomer was none other than the man who had threatened him in the house at Erdington. He came Parting down the tunnel at a sprinting pace, and so fast, was his gait that, he was full upon Lyon ere he .•ould bring himself to a standstill. Fie pulled himself up with a long stagger, his face whitening as he blinked into the barrel of the elucilator's revolver. " You !" he cried, and added a dosen curses, each one . sufficient to have condemned the visitor to everlasting perdition had they taken effect. " Yes, I !" Lyon said, his finger steady upon the trigger of his weapon. " You made a serious mistake when you tried the murder me, Mr. Bandit. Your game is up, I fancy." " Dolores Navarro can answer for this," the man muttered between his eet teeth. "I was a fool to let a woman into the affair. I suppose you won't come in ?" " It strikes me that I am in—very much so, already." " You misunderstand. I offer you a share of the spoil—it will amount to a fortune —if you —" " Save your breath. Not all the wealth of the world would tempt me to join you," interrupted the detective, his voice cold and inflexible. "Throw up your hands !" " For what reason ? I am unarmed." " I wish to handcuff you. I am not going to stand here parleying whilst you think of some plan of escape." To be Cont imird.