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Title: Lying lips
Author: William Le Queux
Release date: October 31, 2026 [eBook #79888]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Stanley Paul & Co., 1910
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79888
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYING LIPS ***
[Illustration]
FATAL THIRTEEN
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX.
In crown 8vo, attractive paper covers, 1s. net; or in cloth gilt, 2s.
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reader throughout.”--_Birmingham Post._
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STANLEY PAUL & Co.,
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STANLEY PAUL’S ‘CLEAR TYPE’ SIXPENNY NOVELS
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NEW ISSUES FOR 1911.
18 The House of Sunshine. EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS
19 A Charity Girl. ” ”
20 The Love of His Life. ” ”
25 White Abbey. ” ”
26 The Wooing of Rose. ” ”
27 Love’s Mask. ” ”
21 The Evolution of Katherine. E. TEMPLE THURSTON
22 Co-Heiresses. E. EVERETT-GREEN
23 The Wonder of Love. E. MARIA ALBANESI
24 Heart of his Heart. ” ”
28 At the Eleventh Hour. CHARLOTTE BRAME
29 Claribel’s Love Story. ”
30 A Woman’s Error. ”
31 The Mystery of Colde Fell. ”
32 A Shadowed Life. ”
33 A Struggle for a Ring. ”
34 Fatal Thirteen. WILLIAM LE QUEUX
35 Pretty Barbara. ANTHONY DYLLINGTON
36 Edward and I and Mrs. Honeybun. KATE HORN
37 A Will in a Well. E. EVERETT-GREEN
38 That is to Say-- “RITA”
1 Stolen Honey. ADA & DUDLEY JAMES
2 The Human Boy Again. EDEN PHILLPOTTS
3 Troubled Waters. HEADON HILL
4 Adventures of a Pretty Woman. FLORENCE WARDEN
5 Shoes of Gold. HAMILTON DRUMMOND
6 The City of the Golden Gate. E. EVERETT-GREEN
7 The Trickster. G. B. BURGIN
8 Indiscretions. COSMO HAMILTON
9 St. Elmo. AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON
10 Traffic. E. TEMPLE THURSTON
11 Cornelius. MRS. HENRY DE LA PASTURE
12 A Splendid Destiny. EFFIE ADELAIDE ROWLANDS
13 Little Lady Charles. ” ”
14 The Mistress of the Farm. ” ”
15 The Man She Married. ” ”
16 Beneath a Spell. ” ”
17 Dare and Do. ” ”
LYING LIPS
STANLEY PAUL’S FAMOUS NEW =2/-= NOVELS
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Crown 8vo, bound in cloth, with pictorial wrapper, 2s. net each
Lying Lips. WILLIAM LE QUEUX
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chapter headings onwards.”--_Outlook._
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Lips.’”--_Daily Chronicle._
“Mr. Le Queux is a master of mystery. A capital plot handled in the
author’s best style.”--_Literary World._
Young Nick and Old Nick. S. R. CROCKETT
“Written with Mr. Crockett’s characteristic force of
style.”--_Academy._
“Typical of Mr. Crockett’s characteristic strength of invention
and picturesqueness of diction ... the book will find many pleased
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Love, the Thief. HELEN MATHERS
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The Trickster. G. B. BURGIN
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[Illustration]
LYING LIPS
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF
“WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE,” “THE TICKENCOTE TREASURE,”
“WHO GIVETH THIS WOMAN?” “WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH,”
“OF ROYAL BLOOD,” “FATAL THIRTEEN,” ETC., ETC.
_SECOND EDITION_
LONDON
STANLEY PAUL & CO.
31, ESSEX STREET
_Copyright in the United States, by
William Le Queux._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE THREE SIGNS 9
II. CONCERNS THE UNEXPECTED 20
III. RECOUNTS A STRANGE AFFAIR 32
IV. MORE THAT IS MYSTERIOUS 41
V. WHO IS MR. PONTIFEX? 52
VI. TO THE UNKNOWN BOURNE 62
VII. SOME INVESTIGATIONS 71
VIII. REVEALS THE TRUTH 79
IX. MR. PONTIFEX AGAIN 90
X. LILLAH SPEAKS FRANKLY 100
XI. THE DESOLATION OF THE SOUL 110
XII. INTRODUCES A LEAN STRANGER 119
XIII. THE LEAN ENGLISHMAN 129
XIV. SOMETHING ABOUT RALPH RUSHTON 140
XV. ABOUT JIM ALMOND’S DAUGHTER 149
XVI. THE MAN WITH A RECORD 159
XVII. THE HAND OF A THIEF 170
XVIII. CONCERNING JIM ALMOND 180
XIX. THE CLOAK OF RESPECTABILITY 191
XX. THE DEAD MAN’S NAME 201
XXI. THE SIN AND THE STRANGER 212
XXII. RELATES AN AMAZING STORY 222
XXIII. TOWARDS THE DOOM 232
XXIV. CONCERNING ELSIE MAXWELL 242
XXV. FOR A WOMAN’S LIFE 252
XXVI. THE CIPHER AND ITS KEY 264
XXVII. THE TENANT OF THE THIRD FLOOR 272
XXVIII. JIM ALMOND AT HOME 283
XXIX. CONTAINS THE HIDEOUS TRUTH 294
XXX. WHO KILLED PAUL? 302
CONCLUSION 317
LYING LIPS
CHAPTER I
THE THREE SIGNS
“AFTER all, not one of the Ten Commandments, by itself, says, ‘Thou
shalt not tell a lie!’”
“I admit that,” I said, with a smile. “But we are told that lying lips
are an abomination.”
“Yes, I know--and that the sword is upon the liars.”
“And somewhere--I forget where--it says that law is made for liars.”
My travelling-companion laughed merrily, shaking her pretty head in
disapproval.
At ten o’clock that wintry morning I had joined the London express at
the Waverley Station in Edinburgh, having come down from the Highlands,
and entering the dining-car found the other place at the _table à
deux_ occupied by a well-dressed, sweet-faced, and decidedly dainty
young woman of about twenty-two, who at that moment was removing
her hat, and with all the assurance of the hardened traveller was
preparing to make herself comfortable on the nine-hour journey to
King’s Cross.
She raised her clear blue eyes to mine for a second with a quick,
inquisitive glance, as I took my seat, and then, apparently satisfied,
disregarded my presence altogether, thus affording me opportunity for a
covert examination.
She was _chic_ to her finger-tips. Her single ornament was a
brooch, but it was worth a couple of hundred pounds, if a penny. Neat,
in a black tailor-made gown, showing a pale blue silk blouse beneath
a perfectly cut coat, she busied herself with her dressing-bag as a
woman will when travelling, diving for her smelling-salts and taking a
sniff at them, afterwards producing a tiny lace handkerchief and some
magazines.
Already she had wrapped her big black hat in a newspaper to protect it
from the dust, and placed it upon the rack, a fact which showed her to
be at least no novice in the art of travelling.
Once or twice after we had moved out of Waverley, and were slowly
gathering speed towards the south, she had raised her eyes to mine
with a modest, half-shy glance, and I saw how eminently beautiful she
was. Her complexion was perfect, bearing only just the slightest trace
of powder, which was surely permissible, while her features were, I
think, the most regular and most handsome I had ever seen in a woman.
The more I glanced at her, the greater became my admiration. Her fair
hair, so well-dressed, gave to her beauty a sweet softness that was
inexpressibly charming, while her slightly pointed chin and dimpled
cheeks gave a bright piquancy to her face that one seldom found in a
woman.
That she was a lady was undoubted. Her very refinement spoke mutely
of birth and education, and yet in her eyes was a strange half-timid,
half-appealing expression, which greatly puzzled me.
Old and constant traveller that I am, I make a point of always keeping
myself to myself--especially where the fair sex are concerned. But on
this occasion, whether I had become attracted by her beauty or by those
strangely appealing glances which she now and then gave me, I somehow
felt impelled to give her an opportunity for a chat.
There were not more than half a dozen other passengers in the
long restaurant-car. Yet parallel with us a thin, narrow-faced,
black-bearded man, with sharp, penetrating eyes, and wearing a light
overcoat, had taken a seat, and now, I noticed, watched my divinity in
black with just as much curiosity as I was doing.
The man, black-bearded, and by no means well-dressed, presented the
type of a Northcountry commercial traveller, thin-faced, keen-eyed,
alert, and brisk. But whatever his business, he had, no doubt, fallen
a victim to the young lady’s unusual beauty. Women are always quick to
detect admiration, and I saw that she had already become conscious of
it, and moreover that she resented it, for she so moved as to place
her face out of the range of the stranger’s line of vision, and then
pretended to occupy herself with a magazine.
As the train approached Berwick I raised my eyes, and caught her
gazing curiously at me from behind her book, gazing with a curious
wistful look in those wonderful blue eyes, the depths of which seemed
unfathomable.
In my own cosmopolitan life--a life spent for the most part at gay
foreign resorts, at Aix or Monte, Vichy or Carlsbad, Biarritz or Cairo,
Davos or Rome, just as the season and my own humour suited--I had met
many pretty women, some whose beauty was world-renowned, some whose
history perhaps would not bear putting into cold print. I had flirted,
and gambled, and lived recklessly until now, at forty, I had become
prematurely weary and blasé, a tired man-of-the-world, who had tasted
of life’s sweets until they had become nauseous. A woman to arouse
curiosity within me had, I fear, to be more than ordinarily beautiful.
Hence I found myself that well-remembered morning of the eleventh of
January, 1907, wondering who the remarkable girl could possibly be.
At first I had been inclined to put her down as some star of musical
comedy, but critical observation showed that she possessed nothing to
warrant that assumption.
Again I caught her looking at me with that strange expression, and at
last, unable to restrain myself longer, I hazarded a remark.
Instantly her face was illuminated by a bright smile of satisfaction,
and soon she became animated as we began to chat upon trivialities.
But the moment she opened her mouth she gave me a surprise. Though she
spoke English perfectly, yet there was just the very faintest trace of
a foreign accent, more especially in her “r’s.”
I tried to decide what nationality she was, but failed. She was
from Eastern Europe, without a doubt, Hungarian perhaps, or perhaps
Roumanian, Magyar, or even Slav.
Her voice was sweet and musical, and she seemed altogether winning
and charming. While we were speaking, I noticed that the man in the
opposite corner looked annoyed. He was envious of my good fortune in
having such a delightful little travelling-companion.
“I arrived in Edinburgh yesterday, and it was so dreadfully dull all
alone,” she said presently. “It’s the first time I’ve been in Scotland.
The scenery is magnificent--like my own----”
And she hesitated, flushed slightly, and without concluding her
sentence inquired whether I lived in Scotland.
“No,” I replied. “I live mostly on the Continent. I’m a sad
wanderer--so my friends all tell me.”
I was in hope that she would explain whence she came, for I now
realised that, though she spoke English so perfectly, yet she was a
foreigner. Nevertheless, she preferred to ignore the fact, for she
chattered on, discussing all sorts of topics. Suddenly, while we were
speaking, out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of the commercial
traveller. He had raised his left hand to his forehead and I could have
sworn that he gave my companion some secret sign!
Were they acquainted? If not, why had he given that sign? She had seen
it, for I detected the shadow of annoyance upon her face, and the
slight confused flush that followed.
The incident aroused my suspicion in an instant. I am rather quick
to observe, due, I expect, to my long cosmopolitan training, and I
recognised that between the pair existed some tacit agreement.
With what object?
I allowed the girl to chatter on, and we were soon laughing lightly,
as we sped towards Newcastle.
When the uniformed attendant came to lay the cloths for lunch, the
stranger who had given the sign rose, seized his small handbag, and
left the car, presumably to seek his own compartment.
When he had gone, my little companion, with a swift glance behind her
to make sure she would not be overheard, bent across to me and said:
“Did you notice that horrid man?”
I replied that I had.
“Well, last night I had a most unpleasant experience,” she said. “Being
dull in the hotel, and knowing nobody in Edinburgh, I resolved to go
alone to the theatre--a rather bold venture! Well, on arrival at the
box-office, I met this man, who smiled at me and who followed me up to
the pay-desk. There were only two stalls left, and these the clerk gave
me, believing the man to be my companion. I had to give him one back,
and this being transferred to the horrid creature, I had him next me
all the evening, endeavouring to press his unwelcome attentions upon
me. I escaped back to the hotel in a cab after the performance was
over, but judge my surprise and annoyance when on taking my seat here
this morning the fellow entered. He is now following me to London!”
“The blackguard!” I cried. “You resent his infernal impudence, of
course?”
“Yes, I do,” she exclaimed. “I somehow don’t like the look of him. He
has peculiar eyes, hasn’t he?”
That very feature had also struck me. They were cruel, crafty, criminal
eyes.
“Well,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll dare to speak to you here, in
the train. Otherwise I might reply for you, Miss----I--I haven’t the
pleasure of your name,” I added apologetically.
“Ashcroft,” she said. “Lillah Ashcroft,” she added.
“My name’s Laird,” I informed her; “Edgar Laird,” and I took a card
from my cigarette-case and handed it to her.
Yet I was puzzled, sorely puzzled. If that man was a stranger and she
was so resentful of his attentions, why should he have given her that
secret sign before leaving the restaurant-car?
Quick to suspect, I felt vaguely that she was endeavouring to mislead
me. And yet what could be her motive?
While the attendant laid the little table between us for luncheon we
chatted on, but I noticed that she seemed strangely nervous lest the
dark-eyed stranger should return, for ever and anon she started, and
glanced over her shoulder each time the door was opened.
“You are often abroad, I suppose?” I remarked presently. “At any rate,
by the way you settled yourself down for the journey, I noted that you
were no novice in travelling,” I laughed.
“Yes,” she answered, with just the slightest hesitation. “I travel a
good deal--not much, however, in England.”
“You are not English--eh?” I asked. “Though your name is very English.”
“My father is English, hence I am English also, though I was born
abroad,” she said quickly.
“Your mother was not English--eh?”
“No. She was not,” the girl replied, and then broke off into another
topic, as though unwilling to tell me, a perfect stranger, anything
more concerning herself or her affairs.
We at last stopped at Newcastle, where two of our fellow-travellers
left, being replaced by two others, commercial men without a doubt.
Suddenly we heard a man’s voice at the end of the car exclaiming:
“Anyone of the name of Ashcroft?”
My dainty little companion started quickly, and, turning back to the
man, beckoned him over.
“A telegram for you, miss,” he said, “if that’s the name?”
The girl broke open the envelope with trembling fingers, and eagerly
read the message. Whatever was written there caused her the deepest
despair, for she sighed heavily, her lips grew hard, and all the light
in an instant faded from her countenance.
For a few seconds she sat staring straight before her. In her blue eyes
was a strange look of fascination as though she were held spellbound by
some horrible vision that had risen before her.
Then, as though suddenly recollecting my presence, she collected
herself with strenuous effort, and slowly tore the telegram into tiny
fragments, which she held in her hand until the train had moved out of
the station.
Then she scattered them to the winds.
I hazarded the hope that she had not received very bad news.
She paused for a moment; then, looking straight into my eyes, said
vaguely: “To some the news would be the most welcome they could
receive. But to me,” she added hoarsely, “to me it is the--the worst.
To me--it means----”
But she bit her lip, and I saw that her splendid eyes were now filled
with tears.
“Really, Miss Ashcroft,” I said, “you must look always at the brightest
side of the picture. And if I, though I’m stranger to you, can do
anything whatever to render you a service, believe me I would be only
too willing.”
Again she sighed, and shook her head sadly.
“Ah, you are extremely kind, I’m sure,” she answered. “But nothing that
you can do could alter the position.”
“Nothing whatever?”
“Nothing!”
At that moment the unwelcome stranger re-entered the car, and seating
himself in the corner he had before occupied, commenced his luncheon,
while we also commenced ours.
Then, when about half-way through, I distinctly saw my charming little
companion exchange signs with the fellow.
It seemed that in order to show him that she understood, she would lean
her elbow upon the table, and slowly rub her soft white palms together.
This she did three times in succession.
She was certainly carrying on a secret conversation with the stranger
by means of these signs, and of others.
For what reason?
I sat eating my lunch and chatting with her, my curiosity excited to
its highest pitch, and full of wonderment.
CHAPTER II
CONCERNS THE UNEXPECTED
HAVING concluded his meal, the thin-faced stranger rose, and with
another quick inquisitive glance at me, again left the restaurant-car.
“That fellow certainly seems unduly interested in us,” I remarked to
my companion when he had gone. “I felt once or twice much inclined to
speak to him. He had his eyes fixed upon you the whole time.”
She gave vent to a little sigh of relief, saying:
“Yes. But--well, I’m glad you refrained from creating a scene, Mr.
Laird. Probably he won’t return.”
I had ventured on the remark in the hope that she might admit the
truth. The story about the incident at the theatre I did not believe,
and I think she realised that I doubted it. Yet, after all, such a
slight perversion of the truth was certainly permissible in a pretty
woman, and, indeed, there could be no two opinions regarding her
extraordinary beauty.
Yet there was an air of mystery about herself and about her movements
that was distinctly curious. Even her nationality she was carefully
concealing.
The afternoon wore slowly by as we halted in York, and then sped on
swiftly towards Grantham.
Her depression, apparently caused by the stranger’s proximity, had now
given place to high spirits and merriment, and in the course of our
chat she told me that she was on her way to join her father, who was
living in Hounslow, about twelve miles out of London, westward.
“Your best way will be to go by train from King’s Cross to Hammersmith,
and then by the electric tram. That is,” I added, “if you have no
luggage.”
“I’ve only my dressing-bag,” she said. “I went that way once before. It
is much easier than going by train from Waterloo.”
Then we lapsed into silence and she began again to read her magazine,
while I took up my paper.
We had discussed many things, and even the apprehension consequent upon
the receipt of the telegram had now disappeared.
She sat with her great blue eyes fixed now upon the fleeting landscape,
apparently thinking deeply. Then, after a time, she opened her
dressing-bag, and taking from her small blotting-book a half-sheet of
notepaper, pencilled something upon it.
From her manner I knew that she did not wish me to see. This excited
my curiosity all the more, and I therefore managed to turn my paper so
that I could get a covert glimpse of what she was writing.
It was unintelligible to me, but in wonder what it could mean, I
glanced at it from time to time unnoticed by her, and made a mental
note of it.
What she wrote slowly and with great care, was this:
8. 0. 3. 12. 3.
EUGENE.
9. 24. 18. 15. 2. 9. 16.
6. 1. 2. 3. 22. 22. 12. 18.
RUE BLANCHE, 196A. 3ME.
THE BLACK THREE.
More than once, while tracing that puzzling array of figures, she
raised her eyes to see if I were looking, and having satisfied herself
that I was not, continued. Then, having finished, she carefully folded
the paper and slipped it into her glove.
Was it possible that she intended to give it in secret to the
thin-faced stranger?
In order that I should not forget that curious arrangement of figures,
I rose, and making an excuse that I wanted a telegraph form, passed
through into the next car, when upon the back of an envelope I wrote
down what I had just committed to memory. That it was some cipher was
quite plain, and it was without a doubt intended for the man who had
exchanged those curious secret signs with her as we had eaten our meal
together.
The Rue Blanche! There were many streets of that name in France. Nearly
every provincial town boasted one, and as for the Rue Blanche in Paris,
I knew it well. It ran steeply from the Church of the Trinité up to the
Montmartre. But who were “The Black Three” I wondered?
The mystery surrounding this girl Lillah Ashcroft increased as each
hour went by.
I returned again to my seat, but as darkness drew in and we approached
Peterborough, there was every evidence of a gathering fog. The train
slowed down, and we were stopped once or twice by adverse signals.
Instead of swinging through Peterborough on the non-stop run from
Grantham to London, as is usual, we pulled up for fully ten minutes
outside the station.
“There’s a bad fog in London, they say,” the attendant remarked to me
as he passed.
Whereupon I turned to my charming little companion, and remarked:
“That will be a bit awkward for you, I fear, Miss Ashcroft. To cross
London in a fog is not at all pleasant.”
“Oh! I don’t mind!” she declared, “I shall get home all right. I’m used
to travelling, you know.”
She still held the scrap of paper with the cipher message upon it
beneath her brown kid glove. For whom could it be intended?
Tea was served, and as we neared London our pace became slower on
account of the increasing density of the fog. I somehow began to regret
that in an hour we should part, never perhaps to meet again.
I mentioned that fact, whereat she laughed, just a trifle nervously, I
thought, and answered:
“Oh! the world is really a very small place, Mr. Laird. You--well, you
may perhaps one day hear of me again--who knows?”
Hear of her! Why had she not said that I might perhaps see her?
“Well,” I said, “I should be most delighted to renew this very pleasant
acquaintanceship, either here or abroad. You have my address on my
card, but--but I have not the pleasure of knowing yours.”
“Ah!” she replied. “My father and I have no fixed abode nowadays. We
are nearly always travelling.”
“But you said you lived at Hounslow!”
“Only temporarily. To-morrow we may go abroad again.”
Yes. She was a complete mystery. She had attracted me more, perhaps,
than any other woman in the whole course of my life. I felt a keen
anxiety to see her safely to her destination, yet when I told her so,
declaring that the evening was unfit for a lady to be out alone, she
laughed at my fears, declaring that she was quite well able to take
care of herself.
At last, more than an hour late, we crept slowly into King’s Cross,
where the fog was so thick that the station was half obscured.
On alighting I looked around for the thin-faced stranger, but he was
nowhere to be seen.
With a light mischievous laugh she gave me permission to accompany
her as far as the subway which leads from the Great Northern to the
Underground Railway, and through the suffocating blackness we hurried
together.
Then, just as we were about to part, and when she had taken my hand,
she looked at me again with those wistful, appealing eyes, and said
with her pretty accent:
“It is awfully kind of you to have looked after me like this, Mr.
Laird. I--I wonder if we should ever meet again, whether you would
still be my friend?”
“Your friend, Miss Ashcroft?” I echoed. “Why, of course. I’m only too
anxious. You have only to send me word, and I shall be ever ready to
assist you at any time.”
“Ah!” she sighed, deeply. “I--I wonder if you would really be my
friend--if--well--if you knew the truth.”
“About what?”
“About me.”
“The truth matters nothing, whatever it may be,” was my reply. “Please
rely upon me to remain your friend.”
For a second she hesitated.
“It is really very good of you,” she declared, sighing again. “I now
regard you as my true friend. And if we have never again to meet,
perhaps you may sometimes recollect the day you spent with Lillah
Ashcroft--a woman who is outside the pale of----”
Her lips were pressed together, and I saw that tears stood in her
splendid eyes.
“Why--what are you saying?” I asked, her trembling hand still in mine.
“The truth,” was her response. “Good-bye.”
And a second later she had turned and was lost in that hurrying crowd
of City workers rushing homewards.
As later on I drove to my rooms in Savoy Court, I fell to wondering
what had become of that bearded stranger with whom the pretty Lillah
had exchanged those curious signs. The fog was denser as I drove
towards the Strand. Indeed, the man had to descend from his box, and
lead the horse across Oxford Street and down Long Acre and Bow Street
into the yard of the “Savoy.” Surely it was not a night for any woman
to be out alone.
I regretted that the girl had refused to give me her address at
Hounslow, yet I could quite see that she was concealing from me certain
facts of which she seemed ashamed. And as later on that evening I sat
before my fire in the cosy little flat I occupied adjoining the Savoy
Hotel, I took out the old envelope on which I had scribbled from memory
the strange cipher which she had traced.
But I could make neither head nor tail of it. Therefore I placed
it aside, and afterwards had supper with some friends in the gay
red-carpeted restaurant below.
Next morning, about twelve o’clock, I was writing letters in my
green-and-white sitting-room, the embellishment of which was, according
to the proprietors of that great block of residential flats, a triumph
of modern decorative art, when my man entered, saying that a gentleman
desired to see me, and handing me a card upon which was inscribed the
name “Mr. Philip Pontifex.”
A moment later a well-dressed man was ushered in, and we bowed to each
other. His stout, well-nourished, well-clad figure, and broad, round
face, with its very thick sensual lips, flat nose, and carefully
cropped hair, were of that international type of professional financier
you can meet upon every Stock Exchange in Europe. His eyes, however,
were entirely expressionless. Protruding, dark, filmy, they reflected
as little of his mind as those of a fish. And yet his narrow, low
forehead and heavy jaws showed great strength of will and resolution,
as well as insatiable instincts.
He was profuse in his apologies for disturbing me, and when I had
invited him to a chair he said:
“I am here as messenger from--from a lady whose acquaintance I believe
you have made--Miss Lillah Ashcroft.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I met the lady in question yesterday.”
“Well,” he said, “something--something of a _contretemps_ has
happened, and she has sent me to inquire whether you would go to her;
she desires to see you.”
“Where?” I inquired, in some surprise.
“At Feltham Station--at half-past nine this evening.”
“That’s beyond Hounslow,” I said quickly.
“Yes,” my visitor said. “A train leaves Waterloo for Feltham at 9.7.”
“But why hasn’t she written to me?” I queried.
“She has,” was his reply, and he produced a note from her asking me to
meet her at Feltham, and requesting a verbal reply by the bearer.
What could she desire, I wondered!
The note was in a neat educated feminine hand which, however, betrayed
in certain of its letters the foreign model.
“You have no idea of the nature of the lady’s business with me,
Mr.--Mr. Pontifex?” I asked, looking straight into his dull eyes.
“Not the slightest. Miss Ashcroft merely asked me to call upon you and
deliver the message to you in secret,” was his reply. “There appears
to be some reason why she does not desire others to be aware of your
clandestine meeting with her.”
“A lover possibly?”
He only smiled, without replying.
My quick eyes had noted that my visitor was a prosperous
man-of-the-world. Therefore I informed him that if Miss Ashcroft so
urgently desired to speak with me I would keep the appointment.
When he had left I sat staring into the fire and wondering. Why had
not my neat little travelling-companion telegraphed to me to redeem
my promise of assistance? Why had she sent that man Pontifex? What
relation could he be to her?
These, and a thousand other thoughts surged through my mind as I sat
alone at luncheon.
Afterwards I had several callers, men I knew, and about six o’clock,
Seddon, my man, brought me the evening paper, which I lazily opened as
I lit a fresh cigarette.
It contained a sensation--a sensation which was to me, intensely
interesting. As I read I held my breath in utter amazement. The story,
ornamented by great bold head-lines, was utterly astounding.
I read every line with keen avidity.
Printed in the newspaper, half-way down the column, and embellished by
cross head-lines, was that same puzzling array of numerals with the
name Eugene, and the address in the Rue Blanche which Lillah Ashcroft
had written in my presence, and an exact copy of which reposed in my
pocket at that very moment.
The story was unexpected, astounding, startling!
Those printed lines danced before my excited gaze.
Yes, the blue-eyed girl was a mystery--a mystery most remarkable and
complete. What I read there fascinated and appalled me.
I never dreamt that my chance acquaintanceship with that pretty
fair-haired girl, so _chic_ and so ultra-cosmopolitan, would
result in my being drawn into a vortex of doubt and mystery. A
veritable maelstrom of tangled perplexity which from that moment held
me fettered, spellbound and enthralled, just as I venture to believe
its narrative--which I have here set down in black and white--will hold
you, my reader, astounded to the end.
The story I read in the columns of that newspaper was startling,
amazing, undreamed of. And the more so, indeed, because my visitor,
Philip Pontifex, had promised me that I should resume my acquaintance
with her that same evening at half-past nine.
I glanced at the final line of that curious cipher printed half-way
down the column:
“THE BLACK THREE.”
Yes. Those words were significant--most significant.
And yet what I had read formed a problem that was utterly inscrutable.
CHAPTER III
RECOUNTS A STRANGE AFFAIR
IN order to place upon record the exact facts, I cannot perhaps do
better than reproduce the extract from the newspaper in its entirety.
What I read was as follows:
“At an early hour this morning a labourer, named Wootton, while on his
way to work between Gerrard’s Cross, about six miles from Uxbridge,
and Fulmer village, was skirting the Duke’s Wood, when, lying upon his
face, close to the hedge, he discovered the body of a well-dressed man.
“No second glance was necessary to show that the unfortunate young man
was dead, but in what manner he had met his death was not apparent.
Wootton hurried back at once to Gerrard’s Cross for assistance, and
soon two officers of the Bucks. Constabulary, together with Doctor
Moore, of Beaconsfield, and several other persons, were quickly upon
the scene.
“The medical examination showed that the actual cause of death was a
mystery.
“Upon the grass by the roadside several marks of blood were discovered
by the police, but there were no evidences that any struggle had taken
place. In the frozen mud of the road were many footprints of people
who had passed and re-passed during the previous day, therefore it was
impossible to distinguish those of the young man’s assailant.
“The strange affair presents a number of very remarkable features,
telegraphs our Uxbridge correspondent, not the least curious of which
is the absence of any wound which would have a fatal result.
“Doctor Moore called into consultation Doctor Greenwell, of Uxbridge,
but both have declared the cause of death to be a mystery, a fact which
has already been communicated to the Coroner for Bucks.
“The body having been photographed in the position in which it was
found, was removed to Gerrard’s Cross, where the _post-mortem_
will be probably made this evening. We give below a photograph of the
spot where the dead man was found, taken by our correspondent this
morning.
“In the removal of the corpse it was searched, and several articles of
value were discovered in the pockets, articles which may assist the
police materially in establishing the dead man’s identity.
“Among other things which the assassin had left untouched were a gold
watch bearing the name of a well-known jeweller in the Rue de la Paix
in Paris, a tiny ancient bronze Egyptian statue of the god Osiris,
about eleven pounds in money, an Italian bank-note for fifty lire, but
no letters or cards of any kind. His card-case was upon him, but empty,
while from the inner pocket of his coat, from the band of his waistcoat
and from the band of his trousers the tailor’s tabs with his name had
evidently been roughly torn.
“It seems as though the assassin, whoever he was, must have been aware
that his victim’s underclothing bore no laundry mark, for it was
undisturbed.
“Of course, the theory may be held that the young man himself had
removed his name from his own clothing; but the rough, hurried manner
in which the small buckram labels have been torn out lends colour to
this idea that it is the work of the assassin.
“Up to the present no knife or other weapon has been found.
“One fact which is causing great interest locally and has inspired
the hope of the police in being successful in tracing the dead
man’s identity, is the discovery in his breast pocket of a crumpled
half-sheet of notepaper--of a pale grey tint, such as a lady would
use--with a curious cipher inscribed in a feminine hand. The police
had it photographed this morning, and we are fortunately enabled to
here reproduce it:
8. 0. 3. 12. 3.
EUGENE.
9. 24. 18. 15. 2. 9. 16.
6. 1. 2. 3. 22. 22. 12. 18.
RUE BLANCHE, 196A. 3ME.
THE BLACK THREE.
“Other articles found in the dead man’s pockets include a small
pen-knife, the key of a ‘Yale’ lock numbered 859412, a thin square key
of another American lock called the ‘Columbia,’ numbered 1094, and
a plain silver cigarette case engraved with an escutcheon which in
heraldic language may be described as _ermine naissant from a fess
azure, a demi-lion rampant argent_--a common charge regarding which
the police have already telegraphed to Heralds’ College. Within the
case, however, is engraved an inscription which the detectives engaged
in the case are hopeful may lead them to some elucidation of the
mystery. The words are: ‘From Lillah, 1906.’
“From information which the police have already gathered it appears
that a porter at Gerrard’s Cross Station recollects that a young man
answering deceased’s description alighted from the train which left
Paddington last night at 9 and arrived there at 9.41. The young man,
who appeared to be a stranger in the neighbourhood, inquired the way
to Hedgerley village, about two miles distant. It was a misty night,
and the porter gave him minute directions, receiving sixpence for
his trouble. Then the young man went forth into the darkness, and,
apparently was not again seen alive.
“Another statement made at noon to-day by the assistant schoolmaster at
Hedgerley, named Franklin, is of considerable importance. He says that
he had been on a visit to Fulmer last night, and started to walk back
to Hedgerley just before eleven, taking the road where the body was
subsequently found. The mist was very thick, yet when he approached the
Duke’s Wood, he heard voices in front of him, though the fog obscured
everything. He distinctly overheard two voices--those of a man and a
woman. They were speaking excitedly in some foreign language, which
was neither French nor German. And as they appeared to be quarrelling,
he put them down to be foreign tramps, and gave them a wide berth. He
reached his home at a quarter to twelve, and thought no more of the
incident until he heard of the startling discovery of the young man’s
body.
“The local police, who are already in communication with Scotland Yard,
are very hopeful that the discovery of the scrap of paper bearing the
cipher message and the inscription, ‘From Lillah,’ will enable them
very shortly to establish the dead man’s identity.
“At present, however, the whole affair is shrouded in mystery, and has
created the greatest sensation in Uxbridge and the neighbourhood.”
The photograph of the half-sheet of notepaper reproduced in the
journal was undoubtedly that of the cipher penned by Lillah Ashcroft.
I recollected the peculiarity of the capital “E” in “Eugene.” Then I
compared it with the note handed to me by the mysterious Mr. Pontifex,
but to my surprise few of the characteristics shown in the reproduced
photograph were apparent in the letter.
Again and again I tried to decipher the meaning of that puzzling array
of numerals. That it contained a secret message was certain. Perhaps it
was a reply to the telegram she had received at Newcastle.
At any rate, the fact remained that although I took my leave of my
little travelling-companion shortly after seven o’clock at King’s
Cross, the scrap of paper she held in her glove was in possession of
the unknown man at nine o’clock, when he must have left Paddington for
Gerrard’s Cross.
His cigarette case was her gift. Was the cipher she had traced some
serious warning? Perhaps she knew that evil was intended.
To me it was quite patent that when she made the appointment to meet me
at Feltham Station she never expected that I should see the account of
the fate that had befallen the young man who bore her written message.
Indeed, was it not quite within the bounds of possibility that she had
been ignorant of the occurrence of that tragedy?
After leaving me she had, no doubt, met the young man secretly and
had given him the cipher she had prepared. Or, what was perhaps more
feasible, she had given the cipher to someone to give to him. If she
had any message to convey to him and had met him personally, she would
have informed him verbally. In such a case, the cipher would have been
useless.
Again, she was a foreigner, and according to the assistant schoolmaster
Franklin, there was a woman in the road speaking in some foreign tongue
that was neither French nor German. Could it have been she? Carefully I
re-read the newspaper account, weighing every word. My theory was that
the unknown victim was the pretty Lillah’s lover, and that jealousy
had prompted that terrible assassination which the journalist so
graphically described.
Within the next three hours I should meet her face to face, and surely
I might, with the exercise of care, allude to what I had just read.
I recollected those strange words of hers--that declaration that she
was a woman outside the pale of society. What did she mean?
The reason was now quite plain why she had not permitted me to see her
through the foggy night as far as the electric tram at Hammersmith for
Hounslow.
In all probability she never went there at all. Indeed, for aught I
knew, the story of her residence with her father at Hounslow might be
a mere fabrication. And yet, when I reflected I could not disguise
from myself that Lillah Ashcroft had been sorely troubled. That
strange intense look in her splendid eyes spoke mutely of some hidden
apprehension, some bitter story which she would, I believe, have
confided to me if she had only dared.
It occurred to me that if the Bucks. police had invoked the aid of New
Scotland Yard, then in all probability my friend Inspector Miller would
be entrusted with the inquiries, the reason being because the assistant
schoolmaster had declared that the people he heard near the spot were
speaking in a foreign tongue. Miller, whose real name was Müller, was
by birth a Pole, and, being a splendid linguist, was generally in
charge of extradition cases. He was a terror to the foreign criminal in
London, and many an alien who had sought refuge in this free England
of ours after a criminal career on the Continent had bitter cause to
recollect his big burly figure, his deep voice, and his iron grip.
Indeed, he made regular trips between Harwich and Hamburg to hand over
German criminals wanted back by the German police. His record as a
hunter of the foreign criminal was perhaps a unique one, for, being
a foreigner of a most pronounced type himself, he needed but little
disguise to penetrate into the most distant recesses of alien London,
into dens indeed where the ordinary English detective dare not show his
face without nullifying all his inquiries.
Then, later on, I ate my dinner alone, impatient to meet again my
charming little friend of the previous day--that fair-faced woman who
was so mysteriously linked with the unknown victim of that tragedy of
the night.
CHAPTER IV
MORE THAT IS MYSTERIOUS
FELTHAM lies between the two riverside towns of Twickenham and Staines,
an overgrown and unimportant village in the midst of market gardens.
Though Twickenham has been in the past ten years or so extended by the
“jerry-builder” so that one hardly recognises it, yet Feltham grows
slowly. It is unattractive as a suburban residence and is still out of
reach of the colonising influence of those whizzing electric trams. A
flat dreary waste of land stretches about it across to Bedfont or to
Sunbury, and further, it lies off the main roads running westward out
of London.
When I descended at the dark little station by the train which Mr.
Pontifex had indicated, rain was falling slightly, and the night was
distinctly unpleasant. Fortunately I had put on a Burberry which I used
for shooting, and a pair of thick boots, for I knew that the country
roads would be bad after the melting snows of the past week or so.
Only three or four other persons got out of the train, City men no
doubt, and these I allowed to hurry out of the station, walking
leisurely on behind them. Outside, I glanced around, peering into the
darkness, but was disappointed. No one was awaiting me.
Had I been fooled, I wondered?
The station approach was not well lit, but I walked in the direction of
the highway, where the lights of an inn shone across the wet road. In
those unfamiliar surroundings I stumbled and floundered into pools of
water and mud.
At last, however, just as I gained the roadway a figure emerged from
the deep shadow beneath a fence, and, approaching me, uttered my name.
In an instant I recognised the low musical voice, and my heart gave a
bound. It was Lillah.
“I almost began to think that you were not here!” I remarked, when I
found tongue.
The mystery of that tragedy in Buckinghamshire had at that moment
flashed across my confused mind, arousing within me a quick suspicion.
“I don’t wish to be seen by anyone leaving the station,” she explained.
“I’ve been watching you ever since you got out of the train. It is so
very kind of you to come and see me.”
“A great pleasure, I assure you, Miss Ashcroft,” I declared, as I
strolled at her side away into the darkness. Surely, having in view
the tragedy of which I had just read, our meeting was a most romantic
one.
“You will remember,” I went on, “that when we parted at King’s Cross
last night I promised to stand your friend, and--well, I’m here to
endeavour to render you whatever assistance you may require.”
I spoke those words in order to allow her free opportunity of
explanation. I hoped that she might refer to that strange affair, news
of which had startled all London.
But my disappointment was great.
She merely thanked me, in a low, nervous voice.
“You’re awfully kind,” she declared, with just a trace of her pretty
accent. “I expect you thought it strange when Mr. Pontifex called upon
you with my rather bold request.”
“Not at all,” I said, “though I confess I was surprised that you should
send Mr. Pontifex.”
“Well, I couldn’t very well come to your rooms myself, could I?”
“So you sent your friend,” I laughed. “Who is he?”
She hesitated for a few seconds.
“Well,” she said, with some hesitation, “he is one of the very few
persons whom I can trust.”
“An intimate friend, then?”
“Well--yes. Perhaps you would call him that,” was her rather vague
answer.
We had turned our backs upon the lights of Feltham, and had set out
upon a dark country road, dim and uncertain in the obscurity of night.
I judged that it was the road I had noticed on the map earlier in the
evening, which ran across to Bedfont and there joined the broad main
highway from London to Staines and Windsor.
I tried to obtain some details regarding the prosperous man with the
thick lips who had treated me with such studied politeness when he
had called, but she would only tell me that he was a great friend of
her father’s, and that being desirous of seeing me that night she had
ventured to ask him to call with her message.
“I knew,” she added, “that he, of all men, would preserve my secret.”
“What secret?” I asked.
“The secret of this meeting,” she replied quickly. “I have come
here at great risk to myself. Like everyone else, Mr. Laird, I have
enemies, and if they knew that I had met you to-night, both you and I
might--well, we might fare badly.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” I said, rather surprised at her words.
“I mean that some of my friends are--to put it quite plainly--rather
unscrupulous. They would never approve of me meeting you, a stranger,
clandestinely, like this.”
“Why not?”
“Because they would suspect.”
“Suspect what?”
“Suspect me of telling something which is a secret--something you ought
not to know,” she replied.
“But you haven’t done so,” I laughed. “I presume you have invited me to
meet you in order to tell me this--this something?”
She did not reply. She was walking slowly at my side, and as she did so
I distinctly heard her draw a long, deep breath.
I longed to broach the subject of the strange death of that young
man at present unidentified. But in the circumstances it was surely
difficult.
As we strolled together regardless of the drizzling rain, I gave her
every opportunity to tell me the reason she wished to consult me, but
she seemed nervous and afraid. In the obscurity of night I could not
now distinguish her face, yet I knew from her trembling voice that she
was much agitated and full of fear.
To allow her opportunity for self-composure, I asked how she had fared
in the fog after leaving me.
“Oh! I got home all right,” she replied brightly. “I was hours late,
of course, but the fog made but little difference on the underground
railway, and the electric car from Hammersmith Broadway deposited me
within a hundred yards or so of my own door. My father had become
dreadfully concerned about me.”
“Then you were very late?” I remarked, recollecting the story told by
the assistant schoolmaster at Gerrard’s Cross.
“Very.”
“And now tell me, Miss Ashcroft,” I said after a brief pause, “in what
way can I assist you? As I explained to your friend Mr. Pontifex, I am
ready to be of any service possible.”
She held her breath. I tried to distinguish the expression upon her
face, but was unable. But after all, was her agitation surprising when
the man who was, no doubt, her lover had been secretly done to death?
“All this afternoon I’ve been thinking it over,” she said very slowly,
“and I’ve come to the conclusion that what I require is far too much to
ask of you, Mr. Laird, perfect stranger that you are.”
“I admit that we are strangers,” I said. “Yet did we not agree to
become friends? I make but few friends nowadays, Miss Ashcroft,” I
went on. “I’ve become far too much of a cosmopolitan. I have many
acquaintances in every capital of Europe, but very, very few real
friends.”
“Ah!” she sighed, sadly. “It is just the same with my father and
myself. True friends are indeed very few and far between. When one
has money, one can command friends, but when prosperity wanes friends
quickly drop away. We have found it so.”
She spoke as though they had fallen upon adverse times, yet the
brooch she had worn on the previous day, her dress, and her handsome
travelling-bag had betrayed no evidence of a struggle with poverty.
“And you decline to accept my proffered assistance, eh?” I asked.
“No,” was her reply. “I--I only fear to ask you.”
“Ask. I assure you I shall not be annoyed,” I declared, and as I
strolled at her side I wondered what her request would be.
“Ah!” she laughed nervously. “But it would seem to you--man of
the world that you are--too utterly absurd! You’d think that my
extraordinary request was that of a woman who’d taken leave of her
senses.”
I felt that she was fooling me, and I resented it. She seemed to have
brought me down there on a fool’s errand. Yet had she not been, in a
certain sense, frank and open on the previous day? Had she not declared
herself to be an undesirable person, a woman beyond the pale? The more
I saw of her, the more completely shrouded in mystery she seemed to
become.
“I confess, Miss Ashcroft, that I take a deep interest in you and in
your welfare,” I said. “We all of us go through our lives careless and
unobservant, until one day we chance to meet one who is, to us, more
attractive than the rest, one with whom we find we have an affinity of
soul.”
“Do you really think that our souls have an affinity?” she asked in
a far-away, dreamy voice. “Isn’t it strange? That very same thought
occurred to me only this morning.”
“I think they have,” I replied. “At any rate I am at least yours to
command, Miss Ashcroft. You have admitted that you require a friend. I
hope you will at least allow myself to be that friend,” I added in a
voice full of earnestness.
“I--I will!” was her low, hoarse reply, as involuntarily, without
knowing what she did, she clutched at my coat sleeve, and I felt her
slim gloved hand trembling.
We were trudging on through the winter slush, our faces set towards the
far distance, where glimmered the lights of Bedfont village and the
blue lamp of that police-station which so many motorists on the Staines
road have bitter cause to recollect.
“Well?” I asked. “What do you desire me to do?”
Scarce had I uttered that inquiry when I became vaguely conscious that
behind us someone was stealthily following. I halted suddenly, on the
pretext of tying the lace of my boot, and she pulled up also.
My ears were strained back into the darkness. Yes, I could distinctly
hear someone softly following, probably treading the sodden grass by
the roadside.
I made no remark, fearing lest she might become unnerved. She was
already unstrung and anxious--because of the secret assassination of
her lover, without a doubt. Yet I had somehow scented danger. Whenever
I have had a precursory feeling of evil I have always afterwards
realised some just cause for it.
At that moment I felt a shadow of evil spread about me. I blamed myself
for so foolishly keeping that secret tryst with a woman who, though so
very beautiful, was after all a mere stranger, upon whom lay a dread
suspicion.
The footsteps, soft and stealthy, were still approaching. We were being
followed, probably with evil intent.
Yet I laughed within myself at my fears, for had I not in my hip-pocket
my handy little plated revolver without which I as a cosmopolitan never
moved. I felt my pocket. It was still there, and it gave me courage,
just as it had so often done in many an out-of-the-world corner abroad.
“What do you want me to do?” I repeated, in a low eager voice, as I
bent to her.
“Ah!” she cried quickly. “Forgive me if I--I annoy you! But the fact
is that I am in a great peril--my life is in imminent danger! I am in
sore need of a friend--a real true friend who would protect me as--as a
husband would protect a wife!”
“Why are you in peril?” I asked in a deep voice. “What danger threatens
you?”
“Ah! I--I dare not reveal all the tragic truth to you, Mr. Laird. You’d
never believe me--you would misjudge me and no doubt turn aside from
me!” she cried hoarsely. “No, you would no longer offer yourself as my
friend!”
“I don’t understand! You are speaking in enigmas,” I declared.
“Is it any wonder?” she cried hoarsely. “Is it any wonder that I should
have become desperate when--when I am face to face with death, as I am
to-night?”
“With death?” I gasped, the recollection of what that night’s paper
contained flashing through my mind. “And you desire me to endeavour to
save you?”
She sighed an unspoken affirmative.
“How?”
For a few seconds the mysterious girl was silent.
Then she spoke. I listened to her quick panting words. She made a
suggestion--a strange, startling, and altogether remarkable suggestion.
I halted there in the darkness too amazed, too bewildered to utter
response.
CHAPTER V
WHO IS MR. PONTIFEX?
THE suggestion my neat little companion made to me was certainly
characterised by a boldness which I had never expected from her.
And yet I knew, from her manner and her voice, that she was desperate.
“If you wish to help me out of what is a situation of direst peril,
Mr. Laird,” she said, “it will be necessary for you to grant me a very
curious unheard-of request--namely, that you go abroad with me, and
allow me to pass as your sister!”
“My sister!” I gasped, when at last I found tongue. “But I have no
sister.”
“I know,” she exclaimed.
“How did you know that?” I demanded quickly.
“I have ascertained that you have only one brother. Had you a sister I
would not have dared to make this suggestion,” she said.
This struck me as distinctly curious. The inquiry had probably been
made by the man Pontifex.
“But I don’t quite see the motive,” I said. “Why should you desire to
pose as my sister?”
“For a certain reason, only known to myself,” she laughed nervously.
“But, of course, I knew that if I suggested it you would only regard me
as half demented. That is why I have hesitated. You would never permit
it, I feel sure.”
“Well,” I said, “your request, Miss Ashcroft, is, to say the least, a
trifle unusual. For a lady to pass as a bachelor’s sister is--well,
hardly a respect of the _convenances_, is it?”
“What care I for the _convenances_?” she cried quickly. “Ah! Mr.
Laird, you don’t know--you don’t dream the truth. In my desperation
to-night I--I’m hardly myself, I admit. But pray forgive me. Have pity
upon me,” she implored.
“There is nothing to forgive,” I assured her, at the same time full
of wonder at her audacious proposal that I should take her on the
Continent as my sister.
I realised that her intention was to escape from the country in the
guise of my sister--a suspicious fact in itself. Hers was, after all, a
most unusual, even astounding, request, and the more so because she, or
rather Pontifex, had already made inquiry regarding me, and evidently
discovered that I was an irresponsible and constant traveller, and that
so long as I was moving up and down Europe it mattered nothing to me
whether I were in Stockholm or Siena, Berlin or Barcelona, or anywhere
else, for that matter.
The man Pontifex, so strikingly polite and so typically the prosperous
financier, was in the secret, without a doubt. I held him from that
moment in instinctive suspicion and dislike.
“I know that my request is one that you can never grant,” the girl
declared. “How could you possibly be bothered with me--a woman?
Besides, you could not move among people you knew. You’d have to live
in towns where you are unknown, and if what I hear is correct, the
popular resorts are few where you would not be recognised.”
Did she intend that for flattery, or was she in dead earnest? I think
the latter, for she was desperate.
What was the dread peril in which she found herself? It had some
connection with her lover’s death--of that I felt confident.
Was it possible that it had been her voice which the man Franklin had
heard? Was it not possible to put the theory to the test? The very
suggestion renewed hope within me. If necessary I would put the idea to
Inspector Miller--or better, carry out the experiment myself.
In any case, she was carefully concealing from me all knowledge of that
dark affair near Gerrard’s Cross. That she was aware of it seemed
proved by her desire to assume the identity of my sister.
“To carry out your suggestion successfully would entail considerable
difficulty,” I exclaimed, “and your position, if the truth became
revealed, would be a somewhat unenviable one.”
“It could not be worse than it is to-night,” she declared in a hard
strained voice. “I live in dread of what the next hour may bring. My
future is entirely and utterly hopeless. Ah! Mr. Laird, if I only dare
confide in you--if only I dared to tell you the hideous, awful truth!”
“Why not?” I suggested in sympathy. “Have I not declared myself to be
your friend?”
“Yes--but----” and she broke off short, fearing, it seemed, to reveal
the true state of affairs.
It struck me as curious that if her lover had been a victim of a plot
she did not mention the fact of his decease. As she was silent, it
seemed very much as though she were in some way implicated in the
tragic affair.
“Well,” I said at last, “suppose I agreed that you should in future be
known as Miss Laird, my sister--suppose----”
“Ah! but you would never do that,” she declared in deep despair. “You
are generous, I know, but there is a limit to a man’s generosity when
it touches his own honour.”
“I said--suppose,” I remarked rather firmly. “Well, suppose I
consented, what would you require me to do?”
“I’d want you to act quickly--to get me away out of England--abroad,
anywhere, so long as I could live in safety, and escape my enemies.”
“Your enemies! Who are they?”
“Certain persons who are as unscrupulous as they are daring. Men who
defy the law.”
“You mean you wish to escape from the country in secret and live in
secret abroad--where?”
“In Spain, in Russia, or Hungary--or perhaps Italy,” she replied. “It
matters little, so long as I pass as your sister. I--I could keep house
for you, and you could be absent mostly,” and she laughed a nervous
little laugh. “I should really not be too exacting.”
“You would need a companion.”
“She could easily be found. She would believe me to be actually your
sister.”
Her suggestion was certainly one full of romance. Here was a pretty
girl, the most dainty, _piquante_ creature I had ever met, calmly
proposing that she should pose as my sister!
“I think, in these circumstances, Miss Ashcroft, that you should deal
with me a little more frankly,” I said in a tone of complaint. “Tell me
why you are so anxious to get abroad. What does your father say?”
“He has already left. I am alone,” was her low response. Then, after
a slight pause, she added, “But there--Mr. Laird, if you feel that you
cannot trust me, it is best to say so openly, and--and abandon me now
to my fate.”
“And that would be--what?”
“Death!” she cried hoarsely. “Only death--and to-night!”
“Come, come,” I said, endeavouring to comfort her. “Don’t say that! You
are unnerved--quite unlike yourself of yesterday.”
“I know I am,” the girl cried. “Have I not told you that I am
desperate. I must get away to escape my enemies.”
“And cannot your friend, Mr. Pontifex, assist you?” I hazarded, turning
to her in the darkness.
“No. He is unable. If I were seen in his company it would mean
disaster.”
“Why has your father left so suddenly?”
“He waited to see me last night, but he left Charing Cross at nine this
morning for the Continent.”
“What was his destination?”
“Galatz--on the Danube.”
“Why did he not take you with him?”
“Because he explained that he was moving quickly, and that he could
not be hampered by me. He was compelled, much against his will, to
leave me. Then I recollected your kind words last night, and sent Mr.
Pontifex to you.”
The fact that the girl’s father had left London suddenly by the
first service to the Continent was, to me, a distinctly suspicious
circumstance. He had departed from England before news of that curious
tragedy in Buckinghamshire had reached London. But why had he left
Lillah behind? The girl had told me that her father was English, and
that her mother had been foreign. Ashcroft was a thoroughly English
name, and I had more than once wondered what manner of man he could be,
and what was his occupation.
The fact of temporarily living in such a place as Hounslow seemed to
imply that he was “lying low” for some purpose or another. Hounslow
is a suburb more or less poor and obscure. It possesses no attraction
of the Thames bank like Richmond, Twickenham, or Isleworth. Its long
High Street is meagre and inartistic, and mainly notable for the
number of public-houses it contains. In the old coaching days it was
the first stage out of London on the Bath Road, while beyond, out upon
the Heath, many a coach had been held up by the dare-devil Turpin,
or the exquisite Duval. But alas! in these days the place has sadly
degenerated into almost a working-class suburb.
It was just the kind of spot in which a man might easily conceal his
identity, and it struck me that this Mr. Ashcroft had resided there for
some very good reason.
We were now approaching Bedfont, while away on our right lay the
historic Hounslow Heath. The road was dark and deserted, yet still
behind us sounded those soft footsteps of some person following.
Curiously enough, my little companion, so entirely occupied with her
own thoughts, failed to detect them. Perhaps her sense of hearing was
not so sharp as my own!
She was silent--awaiting my decision. The problem she had put before
me, however, was a very serious one, rendered the more complex by the
strange death of that unknown man who had her cipher message in his
possession, and in whose cigarette-case was engraved her name.
All eagerness to escape from the country, she now apparently
disregarded everything. Haunted by a dread terror, she was driven to
sheer desperation, driven to make a request to me which was, in itself,
most astounding and unusual.
I heard her draw a deep breath as she walked at my side, and I wondered
whither she was taking me. More than once I had motored through Bedfont
village on my way to Windsor, or to play golf at the Sunningdale Club,
and I knew what a rural old-world place it was.
I was calmly turning over the situation as we walked. The mystery of it
all had gripped my senses. I felt the keenest desire to elucidate the
truth of what had really occurred at Gerrard’s Cross, and to ascertain
what connection the victim had with the pretty girl at my side. It was
a fascinating enigma.
I had already promised myself that I would go down to Buckinghamshire,
attend the inquest and listen to the evidence. But if I consented to
assist my little friend I should assuredly be debarred from so doing.
And yet was I not an idler, a man whose father had left him comfortably
off, and who had no reason to heed the cares and worries of life? Would
not this little romance prove at least exciting? I loved excitement.
For that sole reason I had become a constant traveller, and in any
part of Europe where trouble occurred, there I usually endeavoured
to be present. I had witnessed the chief pageants, riots, and other
popular excitements in Europe for the past ten years or so. I had
been in Petersburg and seen the unfortunate people shot down on that
memorable “Bloody Sunday.” I had seen Warsaw under martial law. At the
great strikes in Westphalia and in Lille I had been present, as well as
at royal weddings and royal funerals, at the Peace Conference at The
Hague, and in Sofia when Prince Ferdinand had asserted his independence.
The special correspondents of the London daily newspapers were, most of
them, well known to me, for I usually arrived on the scene with them,
and often had gathered information which I conveyed to them, and saw it
later on printed in the columns of one or other of our great journals.
Lillah’s request that I should go abroad was therefore not actually
unwelcome. It was certainly a suspicious circumstance that she should
wish to leave England in secret; and further, I recollected those
curious signs she had exchanged with the black-bearded stranger in the
train. Nevertheless, she had, I confess, fascinated me entirely and
completely, while her declaration that if I abandoned her she must face
death, prompted me, even against my better judgment, to accede at last
to her remarkable request.
And when I uttered the words she halted, and, seizing my hand in
that sudden impetuous foreign way of hers, raised it to her lips in
heartfelt thanks.
“I--I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Laird!” she cried, her voice broken
by emotion. “You will save me--you will--you’ll let me escape, and let
me live!”
“Hush!” I urged, for she spoke loudly, and I feared that the person who
was so persistently following us, might overhear.
CHAPTER VI
TO THE UNKNOWN BOURNE
WHEN Seddon brought me my tea and newspaper next morning I had already
been awake an hour, and had decided upon a course of action.
Eagerly I glanced through the account in the newspaper of the Gerrard’s
Cross affair, but found no additional fact save that the coroner had
fixed his inquiry to be held at the Bull Hotel, at Gerrard’s Cross, on
the day after next.
This meant that if I intended to be present I must lose no time in
getting my neat little companion away.
I had promised Lillah before we had parted in that dark by-road--she
to pass through Bedfont to Hounslow, and I to return to Feltham--to
take her abroad in secret. She had pointed out that to travel by any of
the ordinary routes would be impossible, for she might be recognised.
Therefore I had found myself in considerable difficulty.
Several roundabout routes to the Continent which are never watched
were known to me. For instance, one may travel from Hull to Malmö
by a Wilson steamer, and then cross to Copenhagen and come south to
Paris; or again, travel from Leith to Bergen and then south by train to
Christiania and Hamburg. Again, there is the General Steam Navigation
boat to Bordeaux, several unimportant services from Newcastle across
the North Sea, or from Liverpool to Portugal and the Mediterranean. In
addition, there is one Channel route which is but little known, namely
from Waterloo to Weymouth, and thence by way of the Channel Islands to
Cherbourg and Paris.
It was this which I contemplated, but I saw that I could not possibly
be in Cherbourg and back again in time for the inquest. Therefore
another, and perhaps bolder, suggestion had occurred to me. A friend
of mine, Dick Duncan, an idler like myself, who had chambers at the
top of St. James’s Street, and was an enthusiastic motorist--was also
a leading member of the Motor-boat Club, and possessed a fine craft of
120 horse-power in which I had made many a trip down the Crouch from
Burnham.
At ten o’clock I was in Duncan’s room, where he was still lying in bed.
I made pretence that I was about to make a fool of myself and elope
with a lady.
“The fact is, old chap, I want you to take me across to the other
side. You can do so easily--if the weather is all right,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied lazily, “but this time of year it’s a bit risky, you
know. We might run into a squall.”
“I’ll risk all that--if you will.”
The big, burly, fair-headed fellow looked straight into my face from
above the sheet and asked:
“My dear Edgar, why risk your life for a woman? Is she really worth it?”
“Yes,” I replied promptly, “she is. You’re an old pal, Dick. That’s why
I’ve come to you. Where’s the boat?”
“Down at Deal.”
“Then you could run us over to Calais?” I suggested.
He shook his head, saying:
“No--down to Boulogne perhaps. But I tell you, in winter it’s no very
great pleasure to run across. I did it several times last summer.”
“Well, will you attempt it?”
“Why not go by the mail-boat--much more pleasant, my dear boy. You’ll
sit hours in wet clothes, and if your lady friend isn’t a very good
sailor--well, there won’t be much romance about it, I can tell you.”
I persisted, until, somewhat reluctantly, he agreed to meet me at three
o’clock that afternoon at the South Eastern Hotel down at Deal.
“Warn the lady to put on thick clothes and a mackintosh,” he said. “I
can fit you both out with oilskins. Only if we meet with disaster, my
dear Laird, don’t blame me--will you?”
“Trust me, old chap!” I cried enthusiastically, and gripping his hand
while he still lay in bed. I descended to the taxi-cab awaiting me.
My next call was at a motor-garage in Wardour Street, where I hired a
powerful car to take me to Deal, and from whence I rang up the South
Eastern Hotel inquiring the state of the weather in the Channel.
“Overcast--but a smooth sea,” was the manager’s reply.
Then when the car was ready, I first drove back to Savoy Court for my
motor-coat, cap, and money, and then set out for Feltham Station, where
I had arranged to meet Lillah at half-past eleven.
She was standing some distance along the road, anxiously awaiting me.
When she was seated by my side, and I had told the driver to go as
quickly as possible by way of Kingston, Croydon, Westerham, and
Maidstone, down to Deal, she asked me, pale and breathless, what was
our destination.
I told her, explaining matters, whereupon she gripped my hands in
thanks.
“I have, I regret, to return at once when we’ve landed you in France,”
I said. “I must be in London again the day after to-morrow.”
Her face fell at my announcement.
“I need only be here for a day. Then I will rejoin you, and we will go
into hiding as you desire,” I hastened to assure her.
“And you are confident that your friend Mr. Duncan will say nothing of
our journey?” she asked anxiously.
“He is my friend. He will remain silent,” I declared.
I noted that she was well and warmly clad. She wore a dark green
travelling ulster, but was without a mackintosh. This fact I mentioned,
but she laughed lightly, assuring me that she was not afraid of the
wetting.
“Do you know,” she added, “I’ve been at sea quite a lot, and I’ve never
suffered any inconvenience, not once in all my life.”
“Ah, that’s good,” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “because to most
people a cross-Channel voyage in a motor-boat would be a terrible
ordeal.”
“Nothing is an ordeal when one is desperate, as I am,” she declared,
with considerable truth.
I felt within myself that I had embarked upon an enterprise full of
romance, mystery, and excitement. What would be the result of this
endeavour to save the girl under whose influence I had now fallen as
one spellbound?
The story I had told Dick Duncan was the only one which, in the
circumstances, I could tell, and I knew that by my pretence of
elopement I should at once enlist his sympathy.
The day was dull and grey, and the roads through Kent were heavy, but
just before four o’clock we pulled up before the hotel at Deal, where
Dick in a yachting suit was standing at the door, smoking a cigar
awaiting us.
“Well,” he said, when I had introduced my companion, “you’re most
fortunate in the weather. The glass is high and steady, and there’ll
be nearly a full moon to-night. We can only hope that the wind won’t
shift.”
Then, after having tea together, my big-faced, easy-going friend
laughing merrily, and expressing a hope that our future would be full
of brightness, we walked down to where the long, grey, sharp-bowed boat
lay moored.
From her lockers, Dick produced several sets of yellow oilskins, with
sou’-westers, and one of these, specially made with a skirt for a
lady, Lillah assumed. Then, when all was ready, Green, his mechanic,
let go a rope, and we were soon moving swiftly through the green-grey
water, which rose high against our bows as we gathered speed and turned
seaward.
The jar of the powerful engines was tremendous, while soon the long
ground-swell caused us to rise and fall with a slow regularity which
would have affected most people. Dusk was now creeping on, for already
on our right the disappearing sun had left a pale yellow afterglow over
Shakespeare’s Cliff standing dark and grey.
In the distance there were a couple of steamers bound up Channel, with
several brown-sailed Ramsgate smacks, together with the tiny ketches of
the “Dealmen,” on the look out for vessels requiring pilotage; men who
are perhaps the hardiest seafarers in all the world.
Dick Duncan in his well-worn oilskins had his attention fixed upon his
steering-wheel, and Lillah, seated at my side in the stern, faced the
spray without a word.
Once her hand had sought mine involuntarily, as we heeled over, but
she had quickly withdrawn it, as though fearing lest her action might
be misunderstood. About her only remark was to admire the boat, and
express surprise at the rate we were travelling through the water.
It was her first experience of a motor-boat, and she seemed filled with
the novelty of the journey.
The weather was clear, but the greyness of evening was now fast
falling, and as we got further out we found more wind and white teeth
upon the long, swirling waves. Already the lights of Dover Harbour were
lit, while straight across our bows we ever and anon saw a slight flash
on the grey horizon, which Dick remarked was the big light at the
entrance to Calais Harbour.
“We can’t make that,” he explained. “The current will take us past
Cape Grisnez into Boulogne--with luck”--and he buttoned his old yellow
oilskin more tightly at the chin, setting his face to the wind and
spray.
Tearing at such a pace the darkening waters rose on each side of our
bows as we skimmed over the surface, the swish of the sea ever in our
ears. Now and then a wave would strike us, causing the boat to halt
for a second and quiver, drenching us with salt spray, then, like
some animal infuriated, the boat would again dart forward, her head
set towards the ever-flashing light, now growing more distinct in the
Channel’s darkening gloom.
Green, who had been crouching beside his master out of the spray,
presently took a turn at driving, and weird he looked, his head
enveloped in a kind of tight-fitting waterproof helmet. At bow and helm
we had big acetylene lights burning, throwing long shafts of light far
into the grey.
Presently, Dick settled himself at the other side of my pretty little
companion, and I saw from his courteousness of manner that he greatly
admired her. Indeed, before we started, he had whispered to me that she
was uncommonly beautiful.
He had been commenting again upon the state of the weather and
consulting his barometer, when, lounging back beneath the big tarpaulin
that covered us, he suddenly exclaimed:
“I say, Edgar, did you read that queer case in the papers this
morning--the young fellow found near Gerrard’s Cross with a cipher
message in his pocket?”
I felt my companion give a quick start, and in the gloom I saw that her
countenance was gone pale as death.
“I read something of it,” I replied vaguely.
“Murdered, wasn’t he, don’t you think? Poor devil! Fell into the hands
of some unscrupulous gang, perhaps. I was speaking to your friend
Glendening, of Scotland Yard, whom I met on the platform at Victoria.
He says he’s certain there’s a woman in the affair.”
And Lillah, hearing his words, sat rigid, staring straight at the faint
recurring light towards which we were so rapidly travelling.
The grey sea around us was, indeed, a sea of despair.
CHAPTER VII
SOME INVESTIGATIONS
IN the long room at the Bull Hotel, at Gerrard’s Cross, the coroner had
opened his court.
Outside, the afternoon was grey, with every sign of a fall of snow.
Within, the room was crowded by jurymen, public, and representatives of
the Press.
Since I had left Deal in Dick Duncan’s motor-boat I had never rested a
single moment. Our escape from disaster had indeed been a narrow one,
for about two o’clock that morning we had run into a bank of dense fog
in mid-Channel, right in the track of the shipping. Steamers’ sirens
were sounding about us, and once we saw the great black hull of a
vessel rise right above us, and a few moments later we were tossing
about in the wake of a huge homeward-bound liner.
We shouted, for we had been within an ace of being run down. But on
board they apparently could not see it, and so went on. For hours we
went slowly, our ears ever strained to catch the throb of the engines
of any vessel in the vicinity. Fortunately the sea was calm, and grew
even calmer as, steering by the compass, we slowly approached the
French coast.
Then, at daybreak, the fog lifted, and we saw we were close under
low white cliffs, which we skirted for fifteen miles or so, until
soon after eight o’clock we shot into Boulogne Harbour, arousing some
curiosity, I think, among the officers of _douane_. All four of
us were half perished with the cold and exposure of the past sixteen
hours, but after hot coffee at an obscure and not over-clean little
hotel on the Quai Gambetta we had thanked Dick and bidden him farewell.
His intention was to store the boat for a few weeks until warmer
weather, and return home by the mail-boat via Folkestone.
As for Lillah and myself, we had no fixed plans. We walked together
to the town station, where we entered the buffet, and over some more
coffee held consultation.
My suggestion--one which we eventually adopted, was that both of us
should purchase some necessaries together with a small valise each, and
then travel by train to Etaples. We arrived there about noon, taking
up our quarters at a small hotel opposite the station, and writing our
names as Mr. Edgar and Miss Rose Laird, of London.
When we had settled, she seemed to quickly recover her good spirits,
though full of regret that I had to leave her almost immediately and
return to London. This I did at four o’clock that afternoon, promising
to go back to her at the earliest moment, and expressing a hope that
she would not find the place too dull, for Etaples is very dead in
winter when half the houses are closed.
And so, travelling to Calais by a slow train, I crossed by the night
service to London, drove to Savoy Court, where I had a shave and a
bath, and went on to the inquest upon the unknown.
On alighting at Gerrard’s Cross Station I had, quite unexpectedly, run
across my friend Miller, of Scotland Yard.
“Hulloa, Meester Laird!” cried the big, burly, grey-moustached man in
felt hat and dark grey overcoat, who had travelled by the same train
as myself. He spoke with a strong foreign accent, and certainly no one
who met him would ever suspect him of being the great international
detective that he was.
He gripped my hand in his great paw, and in a cheery voice asked me
what I was doing down in that place.
“Well,” I said in a low tone of confidence, “I expect my object in
coming here is just the same as yours. You know I’m always attracted by
mysteries of crime.”
“You’re like a good many more people, Meester Laird,” he laughed; “you
have a morbid curiosity--now confess it!”
“I plead guilty,” I replied at once. Then, as we walked out of the
station together towards the “Bull,” I said:
“Tell me frankly, Miller. What do you think of this affair? I daresay
you know more about it than I do. I only know what I’ve read in the
papers.”
The big man shook his head, his broad face assuming a sphinx-like smile.
“It’s a queer case--a very queer case, mind you,” he declared, with his
accent which most people took to be German. “There are several features
in it which betray the foreign hand. That’s why the Commissioner has
sent me down here--to take charge of the inquiry.”
“And have you discovered anything?” I asked, adding, “You know me well
enough to be aware that I can keep a secret.”
“At present I’ve discovered nothing. I want to hear the evidence at the
inquest before I decide what course to pursue.”
“What about that cipher?”
“A woman wrote that--a foreign woman. She was educated in Germany, a
fact plain from her handwriting. But here comes the local inspector.”
And he broke off suddenly.
Half an hour later Miller and I sat side by side, among the public,
he unnoticed and unsuspected, listening to the evidence which was
being so carefully written down by the coroner, a grave-faced, rather
funereal-looking man, who seemed filled with the dignity of office.
He snapped at the witnesses, showed impatience towards the police, and
treated the jury as though they were an unnecessary evil. A juryman had
appeared late, and this had apparently upset him.
The body had been viewed, and upon the table in front of the coroner
were spread the various articles found in the dead man’s pockets,
including the piece of grey notepaper with the mysterious cipher traced
upon it.
The labourer Wootton, a dull-eyed, sheep-faced man, who had put on his
Sunday clothes for the occasion, deposed to finding the body at the
edge of the Duke’s Wood, whereupon the coroner closely questioned him
as to whether he had felt in the dead man’s pockets.
“No, sir,” was the labourer’s reply.
“You’re sure you didn’t take anything out of the pockets, eh?” he
asked. “If you did you’d better say so now, and avoid any further
trouble.”
“I’m poor, sir,” replied the man, his face crimsoning in resentment at
such a suggestion. “I’m poor, but I wouldn’t rob the dead!”
At this the jury, who knew Wootton to be a respectable, hard-working
man, objected to such a question being put.
“I am holding this inquiry, gentlemen,” replied the coroner testily.
“It is within my discretion to ask what questions I like.”
The next witness was a man named George Blyth, whose evidence it may be
as well to give just as he himself gave it. He deposed as follows:
“George Blyth, general dealer, Mill End, Rickmansworth. On the evening
in question, a little before ten, I had walked across Bulstrode Park
to Gerrard’s Cross Station, when, about five hundred yards distant
from the latter, I passed in the mist a young gentleman accompanied by
a lady in a large dark hat and long coat. I nearly ran into them, and
halted to beg their pardon. The gentleman laughed, and said something
in a foreign language. Then I passed on, while they went into the
darkness down the Hedgerley road.”
“And you think that the young gentleman was the deceased?” asked the
coroner.
“I’m almost positive of it, sir. The light of the lamp at the corner
shone upon the faces of both of them. The lady was young, very pretty,
with fair hair. She wore a fine brooch which sparkled in the light. I
noticed that particularly.”
I held my breath. The description this man had given was that of Lillah!
“And you saw nothing more of them--eh?” snapped the coroner.
“No sir. I took the next train on to High Wycombe.”
Herbert Franklin, assistant schoolmaster at Hedgerley Schools, a thin,
consumptive-looking young man, gave evidence which was practically the
same as I had already read in the newspapers, save that he corrected
the exact time when in the mist he heard the voices of a man and a
woman raised in discussion.
“They were not speaking in English, I believe?” the coroner remarked.
“No, sir. The language was not French nor German, both of which I know.”
“Italian--perhaps?”
“I think not, sir. It was more guttural,” the witness replied. “The
lady’s voice seemed musical and refined. I had only just time for my
train, and their affairs were not my business, so I hurried on.”
“Was the fog very dense at that point?” inquired the foreman of the
jury.
“Not exactly dense. It was a thick white mist, such as you often have
in this neighbourhood on winters’ evenings.”
“And the spot where they were was outside the Duke’s Wood? Describe
exactly at what point you heard them.”
“Almost half-way between Fulmer village and the main road, just where
the lane skirts the wood, and within fifty yards of where Wootton found
the body next morning.”
“Apparently,” remarked the coroner, “the deceased had walked there from
the station with this mysterious lady.”
Then, turning to the witness, he asked:
“You were not able to distinguish a single word uttered by either of
the pair, Mr. Franklin?”
“No, sir.”
The railway porter to whom the deceased had spoken on alighting from
the London train, and the police constable alarmed by Wootton, having
both made statements, the name--
“Thomas Smith” was shouted loudly by the coroner’s officer, and an
evil-faced, unkempt, ill-clad man was, a moment later, ushered into the
room, causing a dead silence. Everyone was on tiptoe with excitement
and curiosity.
CHAPTER VIII
REVEALS THE TRUTH
THE stranger advanced near the coroner’s table, cap in hand, looking
furtively around. Then, when the oath had been administered, the
coroner, with a strange smile upon his face, said:
“You’re Thomas Smith, no fixed abode?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the man in a low voice, as though half frightened.
“Now, Smith,” he said, “we want you to tell us exactly what you heard
and saw. A man lost his life, and you can give us some very important
evidence. I may as well explain to the jury at once that on the night
in question you were in the Duke’s Wood--well--netting a few rabbits
that were not your own property--eh?”
Whereat the whole court laughed.
“Well,” the coroner went on, “we’ll overlook that little matter for
once. You were present at the edge of the wood somewhere about eleven
o’clock at night--eh?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the scrubby-bearded man with a grin.
From his dark hair and black eyes I took him to be one of the great
Romany tribe of Smith.
He fidgeted with his cap, eyeing the police-sergeant with considerable
suspicion.
“Now, tell us what you saw!” urged the coroner, poising his pen in his
hand, and looking straight into the poacher’s face.
“I--I didn’t see much, sir,” was his halting reply. “I seed the young
man a-standing with the young ‘ooman a-talkin’. An’ ’e kissed ’er.
Sometimes they spoke in English, and sometimes some forrin’ language
wot I couldn’t understand.”
“You were close to them?”
“About ten yards away. I’d been a-puttin’ down my nets at the edge o’
the wood, so naturally I lied low like,” and he grinned. “The fog ’ad
been pretty bad, but it ’ad cleared off a bit. I watched ’em for about
ten minutes. It seemed as though she wor tryin’ to persuade ’im to do
summit wot ’e didn’t want to do. She were a-begging an’ a-prayin’ to
’im, but he only laughed in ’er face. When, while they were a-talkin’
in German or somethin’, ’e suddenly got excited at summat she said,
an’ threw ’is ’ands about wildly. She tried to pacify ’im, but he
turned round fiercely, an’ seemed to blackguard ’er. I ’eard ’er say
in English, ‘This is cruel of you, Paul--cruel that you should utter
such lies against me!’ ‘Is reply was all double Dutch to me. But
presently I saw ’er suddenly put ’er arm round ’is neck lovin’-like, as
though she wanted to kiss ’im. Then in a moment he seemed to faint an’
collapse, an’ he staggered an’ fell forra’d on ’is face. That’s all I
know, sir.”
“You didn’t approach the pair?” inquired the coroner.
“No, sir. The girl hurried away, an’ I heard ’er footsteps quite a long
way off. I thought the young gent ’ad fainted, an’ crept forra’d to
have a look through ’is pockets, but sommat seemed to tell me that I’d
better get out o’ the way. So I took up my nets and went away to yon
side o’ the wood.”
“You didn’t see this lady strike any blow, I suppose?” asked the
coroner.
“No, sir. She simply put ’er arms around ’im in a lovin’ kind o’ way,
an’ in a few seconds ’e reeled and fell down just like a log.”
“And the lady made her escape at once?”
“Yes, sir. She didn’t even bend down to look at ’im,” replied the
witness. “It was just as though she’d killed ’im, an’ wor eager to get
away.”
“But you saw no blow struck?”
“No, sir. I tell you she only put ’er arm round his neck.”
“Well, that wouldn’t have killed him, I suppose?” remarked the coroner
with a smile.
“I dunno, sir. You asked me what I saw, an’ I’ve told you.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, sir, everything,” was the man’s reply. “If I’d ha’ ’ad any idea
that the poor young man wor dead, I’d ha’ gone over an’ ’ad a look at
’im.”
“You mean,” remarked the coroner, “that you’d have probably had a look
at what was in his pockets.”
At this the witness grinned, and a titter of laughter ran through the
room.
“Just describe the embrace a little more fully,” said the foreman of
the jury, who was a butcher in Gerrard’s Cross.
“Well, sir,” exclaimed the witness. “It was just a hug round the neck
like wot most girls give the fellers they loves--a sudden, impetuous
hug.”
“Then he might have fainted--I mean, death might have been due to
natural causes,” remarked the foreman.
“The medical evidence will show that,” interposed the coroner. “Any
further questions of this witness?”
As there were none, the man Smith, who had been an actual eye-witness
of the curious affair, was told that his examination was at an end, and
with relief he shuffled over to a vacant seat against the wall.
The two local doctors were then called, one after the other, but their
evidence was not very convincing. They both admitted that the symptoms
were puzzling, and were evidently reluctant to express any opinion, in
view of the evidence of a much greater authority which was about to be
given, and which those in court were anxiously expecting.
Presently the name “Sir Edward Mason” was called, and there entered a
spruce, clever, sharp-eyed man, who took the oath with a business-like
air, and briefly described his high medical qualifications.
“You have been called in to make an independent _post-mortem_ on
the deceased, I believe, Sir Edward?” asked the coroner. “Will you
kindly tell us your conclusions.”
“Well--to put it plainly, this is undoubtedly a case of deliberate
murder--murder by a most ingenious, I may say most up-to-date, method.
After the two medical witnesses had concluded their examination I
was called from London by the police, and made a very careful and
exhaustive investigation.”
“And what did you find?”
“The deceased was aged about twenty-eight to thirty, rather muscular,
and, as far as I could ascertain, perfectly healthy. In the left
forearm was the old scar of a bullet, while on the right shoulder was
tattooed a rough design like a dog’s head--a collie, it seemed to be.
I could find no trace of organic disease, and nothing to account for
death from natural causes. My opinion is that death was due to some
virulent irritant poison not self-administered. The symptoms I found
were very peculiar, and such as I have never before observed. The gums
had turned black, and the palms of the hands were also darkened, while
the fingers were tightly clenched, showing that the unfortunate man had
expired in great agony.”
“Then the deceased was, in your opinion, poisoned?” remarked the
coroner, looking up from his notes.
“Yes--but poisoned in some manner which is, to me, a complete mystery.”
“Have you any idea of the nature of the poison?”
“I have made several analyses, but they are not yet all complete,”
replied the great doctor. “I have no doubt I shall decide what poison
was administered, but how it was administered is quite another
question. It was some compound which must have taken deadly effect
almost immediately. Several of these were known to the ancients, and
especially to the Council of Ten of Venice, who used them to remove
undesirable persons. It may have been one of these, for aught we know.”
“Then the mode of death is an enigma?”
“Absolutely. The poison was not swallowed, for I found no traces of
it in the stomach. Therefore, it was certainly not a case of suicide.
No, the young man was done to death by a master assassin who probably
took advantage of the latest scientific or chemical discovery. There
have been vague stories, I hear, about a woman being seen in the
deceased’s company, and consequently suspicion has been thrown upon
her. Personally, however, I’m inclined to think that the assassination
could not have been committed by a woman.”
“We have already had evidence of a woman being seen with the deceased,
up to the very moment that he fell dying, Sir Edward,” the coroner
said. “Before you were called a poacher deposed to seeing the pair
together.”
“The evidence of other witnesses does not concern me,” the great doctor
replied calmly. “I only tell you my discoveries, and the theory I have
formed--that the deceased met his death by poison administered by some
cruel and secret method.”
“How?”
Sir Edward Mason shrugged his shoulders, and after a pause replied:
“There is not the slightest evidence to show how the poison was
introduced into the system. One thing seems quite clear--that he
did not commit suicide. It was very plainly a case of murder. When
we ascertain the actual poison used, it will then perhaps be easier
to form some theory as to the manner in which it might have been
administered. But one thing is proved, namely, that the criminal was a
master-hand.”
“What causes you to think that, Sir Edward?”
“Because of the absence of any trace of the manner in which the
deleterious drug was administered,” replied the elderly well-set-up
man, who was one of the greatest authorities on poisons, and whose
works upon the subject were recognised as standard ones.
“Then beyond the fact which you have ascertained that this unknown
man called Paul actually died of poison, you cannot tell us anything
further?” asked the coroner.
“I regret I cannot. At present, I cannot yet decide what was the poison
used. It was a very virulent one, and being by some means introduced
into the blood instantly affected the heart. The man probably expired
without uttering a word.”
“The deceased could not have been killed by the woman simply placing
her arm round his neck, I suppose?”
“Impossible. Fatal dislocation could not be effected in such a manner.”
“Not if the woman used some trick of _jujitsu_?” asked the foreman
of the jury.
“I should say not,” replied Sir Edward blandly.
The great doctor left the table, and took a seat near the coroner,
while a low buzz of conversation went round the room. It was patent to
everyone, after the poacher’s evidence, that the mysterious woman had
met her companion, and by means unexplained had killed him. There was
no wound, no puncture of any sort, Sir Edward had declared. The way in
which the victim had been killed was a complete enigma.
Miller, seated at my side, unknown to any in the room except the police
and myself, listened to the evidence very intently.
Suddenly there was further excitement among the public and the Press,
for the station-master at Gerrard’s Cross was called, and deposed
that by the 8.40 p.m. train on the night in question a young lady
alighted from the Great Central train from Marylebone, gave up the half
of a first-class return ticket and hurried out of the station. His
description of her exactly coincided with that of the poacher, Smith,
except in a slight and unimportant detail regarding her hat.
Then the coroner made a somewhat pompous speech to the jury, suggesting
that the inquiry should be adjourned for a fortnight to enable the
police to prosecute their inquiries. It was, he pointed out, quite
within their power, of course, to arrive at a verdict that day, but in
face of Sir Edward Mason’s evidence, he felt personally that there
should be an adjournment.
The jury were not, however, unanimously of that opinion. To some of the
jurymen the loss of another day’s work was a serious matter; therefore
they retired, and, disregarding the coroner’s suggestion, they returned
into court, when the foreman said:
“We’ve arrived at a unanimous verdict, Mr. Coroner--that of ‘wilful
murder.’”
“Of course,” he replied. “That was the only conclusion you could
have arrived at, gentlemen. We can only hope that the police will
be successful in both identifying the unfortunate young man and in
arresting the assassin.”
Then, as I walked with the detective Miller back to the station, he
replied in answer to my question:
“We must find that woman, Meester Laird. She killed him--without a
doubt.”
“You accept the evidence of that poacher, Smith?” I asked.
“In a case such as this we get whatever evidence we can,” was his
reply. “I see no reason to doubt his story. Since I’ve been here, I
have discovered the victim’s nationality.”
“How?” I asked quickly.
“Never mind how. He was Italian.”
“And the woman?”
“Ah!” he replied. “When I find her, then we shall ascertain a good
deal. Fortunately we have a very fair description, and, curiously
enough, it tallies with that of a very pretty girl, a foreigner, who
is living just outside London with her father--members of a very
clever and dangerous gang of international criminals. If my surmise be
correct, that murder was committed in order to close the young man’s
mouth.”
“And the woman you suspect from the description. What is she like?” I
inquired hoarsely.
“A face like an angel, but the heart of a devil,” he said. “She plays
the decoy for the gang, and many a great _coup_ has she made by
a pretence of loving the unsuspecting victim. Their daring exploits
have been carried out in nearly every capital in Europe, and when I
find this interesting young lady you will probably be surprised at the
revelations I shall make in court. The career of the gang of which she
is a member is absolutely amazing.”
“And do you expect to discover her?” I asked breathlessly.
“Yes, Meester Laird,” answered my friend. “I shall find her sooner or
later--never fear.”
CHAPTER IX
MR. PONTIFEX AGAIN
MÜLLER, or Miller as he was now known, was a born detective. His
earlier days had been spent in Hamburg as a police-agent, but twenty
years ago he had taken service at Scotland Yard and had been sent to
Dover to watch the Continental traffic. For a couple of years or so
he had been a frequent passenger in the Channel boats, and picked up
a great deal of information which afterwards proved of considerable
assistance to the authorities. He was afterwards stationed at Havre,
Cherbourg, and Bremerhaven. When recalled to Scotland Yard his
knowledge of French and German made him very useful in extradition
cases. He was raised to the rank of inspector, and in addition to
effecting many arrests in England he had been engaged many times in
important inquiries on the Continent.
He was now looking for a woman whom he already knew, and I was too well
aware that as he had prophesied, he would find her sooner or later.
As I sat opposite the big, burly, grey-moustached man I could not help
recalling his words. He had declared to me that Lillah, the mysterious
girl whom I was secretly assisting to escape, had a face like an angel,
but the heart of a devil. How had he discovered that the victim’s
nationality was Italian? How did he know that Lillah was a member of a
criminal gang?
We were alone in the compartment. After a long silence I broached the
subject nearest my heart.
“Tell me, Miller,” I said, “by what means have you fixed the identity
of the assassin?”
“I have formed certain conclusions,” was his vague reply, “conclusions
of my own, Meester Laird. The description is exact of a girl whom we
have known for a considerable time. Her father is one of the shrewdest
and most dangerous criminals in Europe. It was he and his interesting
friends who committed that great fraud on the Marseilles branch of the
Credit Lyonnais, by which they netted nearly a quarter of a million
francs. The French police tried to bring it home to them, but there was
not sufficient evidence. Almond was too clever for them.”
“Then the man’s name is Almond--eh?” I said quickly.
“Yes--Jim Almond. He’s been in London lately with his girl. I saw them
both about three weeks ago, driving in a taxi up Bond Street. Next day
I had an inquiry regarding them from the French police.”
“You don’t know the victim, I suppose?” I asked, recollecting the
similarity of the names Almond and Ashcroft.
“No. He’s somebody who stood in their way and threatened to inform,
perhaps. Jim Almond and his crowd are a queer lot, I can tell you. If
half what is said about them be true, they all ought to be hanged.”
“The Credit Lyonnais affair was a wonderfully planned _coup_. I
recollect reading about it at the time.”
“Yes. They left no trace behind. Almond’s girl is believed to have been
at the bottom of it all. She got in with one of the cashiers, who was
afterwards found dead on the rocks near Toulon. Suicide--it was said.”
“Then she’s a somewhat unscrupulous young person--eh?”
“Yes,” he laughed. “Iris Almond’s appearance is rather deceptive, as
some people have found to their cost.”
“But the cipher?” I said. “Have you any idea to what it refers?”
“No, except that it undoubtedly contains an appointment--the
appointment which the unfortunate young Italian kept, and which proved
fatal to him. He was led into a trap, and if the evidence be reliable
the trap was set by the girl I’ve just been speaking about.”
“You’ve tried to read the cipher?”
“Of course. Half a dozen men at the Yard have puzzled for hours over
it, but haven’t yet made it out. It’s one of those preconcerted codes
impossible to read without knowledge of the key. That’s my belief.”
“What does ‘The Black Three’ mean?”
“Some of Jim Almond’s devilment, no doubt,” replied the Pole, with his
pronounced accent.
My own position was, I was compelled to admit within myself, a very
curious one. Yet while I seemed friendly with Miller I should certainly
be able to defeat his inquiry. He had evidently no idea that Iris
Almond was already on the Continent.
“I suppose,” I said at last, in order to test his knowledge, “that by
this time Almond and his daughter are out of England?”
“No,” was his reply. “I’ve had the Channel ports watched for nearly a
fortnight past at the request of the French police, and they have not
gone abroad.”
A great weight was lifted from my mind by those words, yet was not my
neat-waisted little friend in France, the country wherein danger lay
for her!
She was anxiously awaiting me in that deserted hotel at Etaples,
passing as Rose Laird, my sister. I recollected her face when
Dick Duncan had unsuspectingly referred to the mystery. And I also
recollected all that she had told me.
“It seems curious,” I remarked presently, “that Sir Edward Mason is
unable to say how that young man Paul died.”
“He died of poison.”
“I accept that. But nowadays toxicologists can ascertain how the poison
is introduced into the system. There is no puncture of any sort.”
“Nothing visible,” the great detective said. “Sir Edward is one of the
greatest authorities, and I accept what he says without question.”
We analysed the evidence of the poacher, of the schoolmaster, and of
the railway porter, until at last we ran into the dull London haze of
the London terminus, where, parting from my friend, I took a taxi with
all haste back to Savoy Court.
Even as I passed the newsvendors’ shops I saw that contents bills of
the evening papers bore the words: “Gerrard’s Cross Mystery: Inquest
and Verdict.” The evening press, living as it does upon the latest
sensation, loses no time in serving up the latest dish to its eager
patrons.
For the first time, as I drove along, I recalled those silent footsteps
which had followed us in the darkness between Feltham and Bedfont.
Were they the steps of an enemy or of a friend? Was it possible that
one of Miller’s assistants had traced my fair-haired little companion,
and was, even at that moment, keeping observation upon her?
When I re-entered my rooms Seddon stepped forward, saying:
“Mr. Pontifex is waiting to see you, sir.”
“Mr. Pontifex!” I echoed, and placing down my hat I entered my
sitting-room, where the stout, thick-lipped stranger rose to greet
me. His appearance was the same as when he had called upon me on that
well-remembered morning after my first meeting with Lillah Ashcroft.
Again he was profuse in his apologies for disturbing me.
“I wished, Mr. Laird, to speak to you rather than write,” he said.
“That is why I have taken the liberty of waiting until your return.”
“I hope you haven’t waited long,” I said.
“My time is not very precious,” he laughed lightly. “I am, perhaps
unfortunately for myself, an idler.”
If he was an idler he was at the same time a mystery. Was he one of Jim
Almond’s friends, those clever unscrupulous international thieves who
were constantly outwitting the police of Europe? Did the photograph of
the flat-nosed, round-faced man repose in one of those big albums I
had seen in Miller’s room at New Scotland Yard?
“I’m sorry I was out,” I said, motioning him again to his chair, and
closing the door.
When he saw that we were alone he bent forward, and looking straight
into my face, said:
“You have been to the inquest on the young Italian, Mr. Laird. What
theory have you formed?”
“I--well, I have none,” I replied with hesitancy.
He drew a copy of an evening paper from his pocket, and began to
criticise the evidence.
“Do you object, then, to the verdict given by the jury?” I asked at
last, for his manner irritated me. Besides, it was not clear why he had
called upon me.
“Not at all. It was the only verdict that could be given in the
circumstances. The affair is a mystery--and mysteries of crime are my
hobby. I frequently set myself to solve them.”
“Then I hope, Mr. Pontifex, you will be able to solve this,” I remarked
meaningly.
“I do not think that in this case the victim was murdered. There was no
motive.”
“How can you possibly tell?” I asked quickly, looking straight into his
dark protruding eyes.
“I mean that as far as can be seen there was no motive,” he faltered,
correcting himself. “According to the evidence, a young girl was seen
to throw her arms around his neck, whereupon he suddenly fell and
expired. A most absurd story, I think. How the jury could have accepted
it I can’t imagine. You were in court, I suppose?”
I nodded in the affirmative.
“And how did it strike you?”
“Well--as rather unconvincing.”
“Especially as the doctors could say nothing definite.”
“Then what is your theory?”
“Sudden death--from natural causes,” answered Mr. Pontifex. “That’s my
firm opinion.”
“And the cipher?”
“A lover’s message, most probably.”
I remained silent. Why had this man, the trusted friend of Lillah
Ashcroft’s, said to be Iris Almond, come to me to expound that theory?
He had some hidden motive, but what it was not at all plain. I held
the fellow in distinct dislike. Yet was it not through him that I had
again met the charming sweet-faced girl whom Miller suspected of being
a murderess?
“Well,” I said slowly, when I had offered him a cigarette and taken one
myself, “it was not to speak of the affair at Gerrard’s Cross that you
came here, Mr. Pontifex. What is your real business with me?”
For a second, a dark shadow crossed his brow. I felt confident
that he was one of the clever associates of the man Almond, and was
consequently on my guard against him.
“The truth is, Mr. Laird,” answered the stout, prosperous-looking
man, “I have called with a message from Miss Ashcroft. She sent me a
telegram to-day asking me to call upon you.”
“Why did she not telegraph to me direct?” I queried with some suspicion.
“Well--I suppose she thought it wisest not to allow the telegraph
people to have any knowledge of her message. She ‘wired’ to me in
code, saying that she was leaving Etaples at once, and that I was to
call and tell you that as ‘Miss Rose Laird’ she has gone to the Hotel
Angst at Bordighera, where she is taking a suite of rooms for her
‘brother’--yourself.”
“Then you know that I have consented to allow her to pass as my
‘sister’?” I said sharply, still with some surprise.
“Yes. And I assure you that her father greatly appreciates your kind
efforts to protect her from her enemies.”
“Her enemies? Who are they?”
“I am her friend, Mr. Laird, but I am myself unaware of the identity
of her enemies, save that they are secret yet powerful ones. You can
save her from suicide--or worse--if you will, and I, who have known
her since she was a little child in arms, beg of you to continue your
efforts,” he said, in a deep, earnest voice. He was pleading for her
as though for himself.
“I have already given Miss Ashcroft my promise,” I replied. “There is
scarcely need to repeat it.”
“And you will regard my visit here as confidential, will you not?” he
urged.
“For what reason?”
“For a number of reasons, Mr. Laird--reasons that at present I need not
state. You have shown friendship to Miss Ashcroft and to myself. And
depend upon it you will not find us ungrateful. One day,” he added, in
a deep voice, “you may require a friend, and on that day you will, I
assure you, not find Philip Pontifex fail you.”
The man spoke strangely. I sat staring at him in silence, wondering
what hidden meaning those words of his contained.
CHAPTER X
LILLAH SPEAKS FRANKLY
“AH! my dear Edgar! I hope you’ve had a good journey from London! I
expected you all day yesterday.”
Lillah met me in the big red-carpeted hall of the Angst Hotel, at
Bordighera, that great white many-windowed place which lies back from
the blue Mediterranean amid its gardens of oranges, roses and fine
spreading palms, its position the most secluded and sheltered of any
along the Italian Riviera.
She was wearing a cream serge skirt and cream silk blouse with a slight
touch of turquoise blue, indeed a sweet and dainty and altogether
charming figure.
Three o’clock in the afternoon. I had just alighted from the hotel
omnibus which had brought me, with several other visitors and much
baggage from the station. Those who go on the Riviera to escape the
wet and fogs of our dear, old, much-maligned England, take with them
quantities of baggage, hence our bus was overladen.
I had left Charing Cross on a dark wet day, when London looked its
gloomiest and saddest, yet here was a cloudless sky, bright sunshine,
and the odour of carnations and violets everywhere, a change indeed
from the mud and hustle of the Strand.
Lillah was playing her part well.
Before the gold-braided hall-porter, the waiters, and the urbane
Italian who was _chef de reception_ of the hotel, she greeted me
with all the affection of a sister, saying:
“I’ve got a suite on the first floor, Edgar. I hope you’ll like it. If
not, there’s another on the second. Come and see.”
I ascended with her in the lift, and could not help laughing within
myself at the extreme humour of the situation. All I feared was that
there might be someone in the hotel whom I knew, some fellow from the
club perhaps, who would be aware that I did not possess a sister. Hence
I was anxious to scan the list of visitors.
The suite we entered was a large and pleasant one, a pretty yellow and
gilt sitting-room, with my own room, a room for my “sister,” and one
for the young, dark-eyed, Italian woman whom she had apparently engaged
as maid, and whom she addressed as Annetta.
She spoke to her in Italian, a language with which I was fortunately
fairly well acquainted.
I filled up the slip the waiter placed before me--the police
requirements of age, domicile, and profession--and then, when the man
had gone, my little companion, laughing mischievously, said:
“This new maid of mine doesn’t understand a word of English, so we can
talk. I was obliged to leave Etaples, for I fancied I was suspected. I
telegraphed to Mr. Pontifex, and he called upon you, I suppose.”
She was standing near the window, where beyond lay a delightful view
of feathery palms, orange trees in blossom, red-roofed villas, and the
unruffled sapphire sea beyond. “Yes,” I said, “I was surprised that you
did not communicate direct with me.”
“It was dangerous. So I ‘wired’ to Mr. Pontifex.”
“Yes,” she answered abruptly, lowering her eyes for a second. “Had
I ‘wired’ to you the post office in Etaples would have known all my
business. But have you ever been here in Bordighera before?”
“Once only, about three years ago. I much prefer it to San Remo, it’s
quieter and more select. Here, the people are mostly respectable, but
in San Remo one meets a mixed and altogether undesirable class--a
class who are debarred even from Monte Carlo. The wonder to me is that
respectable English men and women dare to take their daughters to such
a place as San Remo.”
“So I hear,” she replied. “I drove over there the day before yesterday
with Annetta, and found it a rather uninteresting place.”
“Yes, and about as unhealthy and insanitary as Nice was a dozen years
ago. They’re always having epidemics of typhoid and other diseases in
San Remo, but the authorities carefully hush them up, afraid of losing
the patronage of visitors.”
“That’s surely wicked!”
“Only what’s done by the municipalities of a hundred other health
resorts. They juggle with the registrar’s figures until some of them
pretend to have no death-rate at all!”
She laughed merrily. Then I glanced around the room.
I saw in the centre of the table a big bowl of fresh roses, placed
there by her own hand. Was that the same hand, that slim white
right-hand that rested upon the back of the chair with the fine diamond
ring glittering upon it, that had so cruelly struck down the man whose
identity was, as yet, unestablished, and who was known as “Paul”?
Could it be possible that my sweet-faced little companion was the
actually unscrupulous Iris Almond, whose career had been so darkly
hinted at by Miller?
I could not believe it. Nay, I refused to credit it. I,
man-of-the-world that I was, surely knew a criminal when I saw one! Or
at least I believed I did.
How deceiving are appearances! There are women with the faces of
angels, yet with hearts of hell, men with open honest countenances
full of trust and uprightness, yet at heart unprincipled, shifty, and
unscrupulous. Yes, among us every day walk men like Ezzelin, whose
melancholy could only be cured by the spectacle of death, and who had a
passion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the
Fiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when
gambling with him for his own soul.
I descended to the hall, and there eagerly scanned the list of
visitors, finding to my great relief that there was nobody who knew me
intimately.
A City man named Kay-McIntyre, who had bought a baronetcy as a birthday
present for his wife, was the only visitor I knew personally, and he
had no knowledge of my relatives.
Therefore, at present I was safe.
Returning to our sitting-room, we sat at tea together, and I became
fascinated by the extreme culture and grace of my little friend.
She was discussing Italian art and Italian poetry, comparing the art
of Raphael with that of the modern Venetian school, and the poetry of
Dante with that of Carducci and d’Annunzio.
And as I listened, teacup in hand, I fell to wondering whether from
Pontifex she had learned the real reason of my return to England,
mainly to be present at the inquiry at Gerrard’s Cross.
Her motive in crossing the frontier into Italy was quite plain. She
feared to remain in France after the affair at Marseilles. Her father
was also on the Continent, she had told me.
Where was he?
I found myself laughing secretly at Miller’s ignorance. What would he
think had he known that the woman--the terrible woman of whom he was in
search--was concealing her identity by living as my sister, the sister
of a respectable Englishman. But was she the same person?
If I took Miller’s story to be the correct one, Jim Almond, bank-robber
and jewel thief, had parted company with his pretty daughter,
temporarily, no doubt. They were sheltering until the storm blew over.
But the girl before me had seemed somehow to exert over me a fatal
fascination ever since the first moment we met in the restaurant-car of
the Scotch express. She possessed a _chic_, an innate smartness,
combined with modesty, that I had never noticed in other girls, though
in the course of my life I had known, and--well--I had loved, as every
man loves.
As the sunlight mellowed, and the delicate purple of evening tinted the
calm southern sea, she sat with the pink afterglow falling upon her
fair hair, and lighting up a face that no argument would ever cause me
to believe to be the face of a murderess. She spoke in her soft, sweet
musical voice words of deep and heartfelt thanks.
She drew a long breath. Her breast slowly rose and fell. I saw that her
gaze was fixed blankly upon the distant horizon.
“I really don’t know, Mr. Laird, what you must think of me! To you
I must seem a complete mystery. I--I can only thank you--thank you
as only a desperate woman can--for your kindness towards me in thus
shielding me from my enemies,” she said. “I am a stranger. I have no
claim whatever upon you--I--I’m a woman whose code of honour is not
what it should be, and whose past perhaps will--well, will not bear
investigation. Yet you have taken compassion upon me, and have stood
by me as a friend. You, Mr. Laird, are my only friend,” she added in a
hoarse voice, broken by emotion. “My one and only real friend.”
I had watched her countenance, and saw that the words she uttered came
direct from her troubled heart. She was truly and genuinely thankful
that I had acted as she requested, and that for the present at least
she was safe.
“I promised to be your friend, Miss Ashcroft,” I said briefly. “And I
hope always to remain such.”
“Ah!” she cried, “you do not know what great service you have rendered
me. You can never know, unless----”
“Unless what?”
“Unless disaster befalls me after all,” she added in a hard, changed
voice. “Sometimes, do you know, I sit here and think. And then I feel
somehow as though my past will rise against me, and that to the world I
shall be held up as an example of a woman who is thoroughly heartless
and bad. I know I’m not like other women, Mr. Laird. To you I make no
pretence of sanctity,” she went on, speaking with quick agitation.
“You, my good friend, I do not seek to mislead! I am what my father and
his friends have made me--an adventuress.”
“Your father?” I echoed, in pretence of ignorance. She had condemned
herself. She was Iris Almond. “Has your father compelled you then to do
something against your will?”
She nodded, but her overburdened heart seemed too full to articulate
words. Her self-denunciation was strange, to say the least. It really
seemed as though her intention was to confess the truth to me, yet she
feared the consequences, she feared lest I might turn from her in
disgust and loathing.
For fully ten minutes there was silence between us.
She had risen from the little tea-table, and stood gazing out upon the
brilliant sunset. I, on my part, had turned, and was standing upon the
hearthrug before the blazing logs.
Suddenly, as though resolved, she walked across to me, and halting, her
pointed chin bent upon her breast, as though in shame, she said:
“Mr. Laird, I--I want to say something. I hardly know how to say
it--more especially to you. But first, tell me will you forgive me if I
speak?”
“Why, most certainly, Miss Ashcroft,” I said, rather surprised at her
sudden change of manner, “Are we not firm friends? You may surely
repose any confidence in me. I can assure you it will not be abused.”
“Then what I want to say is--is this--oh! you won’t think ill of me for
saying it--will you?”
“I promise you I will not,” was my quiet response.
“Then I want to ask you one favour--a strange favour surely for a woman
to ask a man!” she said. “I want you to promise me faithfully that you
will never allow yourself to become attracted by what some men have
declared to be my manner. A woman always knows when she is admired,
recollect, and I know that you admire me. Perhaps my face may have
induced you to declare yourself my friend. It may be so. But whatever
it is, regard me, I earnestly beg of you, only as you would a man
friend, one who in return for your generosity will be devoted to you
and to your interests.”
I did not answer for a moment. Hers was indeed a curious request.
“You mean that you forbid me to flirt with you--eh, Miss Prim?” I
laughed.
“I mean, Mr. Laird, that you must abandon any admiration that you may
entertain for me,” she declared very gravely. “If we are to be real
friends, we must be only friends. Will you agree?”
The dainty girl, who held me in such fascination, had read my heart
like a book.
“Why do you ask that, Miss Ashcroft?” I exclaimed. “Can you never
love?” I blurted forth, for I was always a blunderer.
“I--I loved once!” she answered hoarsely, and next second, covering her
face with her white hands, as though to shut up a tragic memory, she
burst into a torrent of tears.
That question of mine had opened flood-gates of her pent-up
emotions. The bitter reflection showed a heart broken by grief and
remorse--perhaps by guilt.
And I stood by in silence, pained and wondering.
CHAPTER XI
THE DESOLATION OF THE SOUL
THE bright sunny winter days were indeed pleasant and exhilarating
along that broken palm-lined coast. The sky was cloudless, the sea deep
sapphire, the air perfumed with orange blossom and with violets. Away
from the racket, the recklessness, and garish glamour of Monte Carlo,
Bordighera is quiet, peaceful, and eminently respectable. In those
great white villas reside many members of the British aristocracy,
while the hotels are patronised by those who go south for health and
comfort.
Women do not strut in Paris gowns as they do on the Promenade des
Anglais at Nice, and men have no temptation to hazard five-franc pieces
or golden louis on the green tables. The little place, clean and
prosperous, is unobtrusive, and, by the average visitor who goes on the
Riviera in search of pleasure, is voted “a dull hole.”
Certainly entertainments are few. Tea-drinking and gossip at the
villas, or in the halls of the hotels, with now and then a tennis
tournament or a dance, is the limit of dissipation, yet the quiet
folk who are its patrons are an early-to-bed lot, and the little town
remains quite unique in its sun-blanched tranquillity.
As day followed day I idled in the hotel garden or walked or drove with
Lillah, compelled to sustain the often amusing fiction of her being my
sister. One brilliant morning we hired a motor-car, and spent the day
in a delightful excursion, travelling up the lovely Roya valley from
Ventimiglia to the French frontier, and joining the great military
road, afterwards ascended through the high snow-clad Alps to the Col
di Tenda, passing through the long tunnel which pierces the mountain,
and travelling out again northward into Italy, as far as Cuneo. The
run is one of the most picturesque in Europe, and we both thoroughly
enjoyed the magnificent mountain scenery; and being much interested in
the strong fortifications, and the great numbers of frontier guards,
both French and Italian, that we met everywhere: for that boundary is
perhaps one of the most zealously guarded in the world.
A week of idleness and subterfuge had already passed, yet I had not
referred to that strange request my companion had made. She had
compelled me to make a promise, and I had done so in order to afford
her satisfaction.
Her identity seemed absolutely proved, however. From the remarks that
from time to time fell from her lips, I had now no doubt whatever that
she was really Iris Almond, the woman of whom Miller, as well as the
French police, was in active search.
More than once I reflected upon my own unpleasant position if she were
arrested. In all probability I, too, would be arrested on suspicion
of complicity in her various offences. The police of France and Italy
are less careful than our own. Once within an Italian prison cell
on suspicion one has to exercise considerable patience and suffer
considerable indignity.
I had vivid recollection of a friend of mine when passing that frontier
at Ventimiglia with me late one night going to buy a ticket for Rome.
In the money he presented was found a spurious five-franc piece,
one of those coins so often palmed off upon the Britisher by French
café-waiters. My friend, a well-known barrister in the Temple, was
arrested, and being searched by the Italian commissary of police at
Ventimiglia station a second false five-franc piece was found in his
pocket. They would hear no explanation, and he was detained in custody
a whole week on suspicion of being a counterfeit coiner. Indeed not
until urgent representations were made by the British Consul and by
our Ambassador at Rome was my unfortunate friend released. Truly his
holiday experience was a decidedly unpleasant one!
I dreaded hourly lest I should meet anyone I knew.
What would my friends say, I wondered, if I fell into the hands of the
police in company with the notorious Mademoiselle Iris!
Often as I sat before her in our little _salon_, or lounged at her
side in the smart victoria in which we drove daily into the country,
I glanced furtively at those wonderfully perfect features of hers.
Surely, that could not be the face of the heartless woman at whose dark
deeds my friend Miller had hinted!
Sight of a couple of carabineers or of an agent of police always
caused a sharp twinge to run through my heart. At moments when in our
conversation I would fain forget the cloud which hung upon her, the
very sight of those men in uniform caused me to reflect.
One warm afternoon we had driven along the white, winding sea-road
through Ospedaletti, with its closed Casino, through gaudy San Remo,
and on until we suddenly turned inland at Taggia, with its violet and
carnation fields, through the grey-green olives, the dusty aloes,
bright orange trees, and feathery palms, until, after a painful ascent,
we found ourselves in one of the most quaint and curious places in
Europe--the little rock village of old Bussana.
Not a soul was in the whole place. We walked its deserted old-world
streets, and entered its deserted houses, but there was not a sound,
and for a good reason. The place years ago had been wrecked by a
terrible earthquake. Hundreds still lie beneath those fallen walls,
but the survivors, who fled in panic in the night, have built for
themselves an ugly village called “new” Bussana, far below towards the
sea.
We had left the carriage on the road outside the village, for the steep
winding streets were blocked by debris. The sun shone brightly upon
those grey, grim ruined walls, and the birds, the only denizens of the
place, flew about chattering as we disturbed them.
Presently we came to the church. The campanile, badly cracked and
tottering, still stood, but the roof had fallen in. Upon the altar
open to the sky a vase still stood with faded and dirty paper flowers
fluttering in the soft wind, and as we clambered over the debris we saw
how terrible had been the disaster. From that sacred building nothing
had been taken. A weatherbeaten picture of the Madonna still hung over
the altar, its gilt frame now black with exposure, and the canvas, grey
and rotten, had fallen away at one corner, and flapped mournfully in
the wind. The scene was one of complete and striking desolation.
Fatigued by the ascent, she sat upon a column of stone that had
fallen across the interior, silent as she had been all day. More than
once that morning I had fancied that in her I had detected an unusual
nervousness. She seemed to have lost her usual lightness of heart.
And as we sat there I laughingly referred to her apparent
thoughtfulness.
“Yes,” she sighed. “But I really didn’t know that my manner had
changed. It ought not--to you, Mr. Laird,” she declared, with a faint
smile. “But the fact is I--well, I fear that I am becoming too great a
burden upon you. You are fettered here; you cannot move, because of me.”
“Why, don’t be so foolish, Miss Lillah!” I cried. “I have nothing
particular to do, and it is much more pleasant here on the Riviera than
in London.”
“Yes, but you are unable to go over to Monte Carlo; unable to call upon
any of your friends. You have to lead the life of a hermit, all because
of me!” she replied.
I could see how troubled she was on my account. She had asked me more
than once to go to Nice, to Cannes, and to Monte Carlo, where I had
many friends wintering. But I steadily refused, because I knew quite
well that those friends, many of whom had their own cars there, would
“look me up” in return. If they did, what explanation could I give of
my “sister”?
True, I spent as little time in her company at the hotel as I could. We
ate our meals in the big _table d’hôte_ room--except our tea--in
preference to having them served in our _salon_, and fortunately
Lillah had come across several women staying there, with whom she spent
a considerable portion of her time. It was, of course, perfectly true
what she had said. The fulfilment of my promise was rapidly becoming
a serious task, which might end only in discovery, and consequent
unpleasant exposure.
This woman, denounced as an adventuress, was, strangely enough, so
sweet, modest, and high-minded that nowadays it never seemed to dawn
upon her that we were transgressing the law of the _convenances_.
I had never even kissed her hand.
Each morning she took my hand in greeting; each evening she took my
hand on parting. Twice a day I bowed over it, and twice a day she
laughed merrily as I did so. Yes, the situation was indeed a curious
one.
“You really need not trouble yourself on the score of preventing me
from continuing my social duties, Miss Ashcroft,” I said as I took
a cigarette from my case. “Truth to tell, I find these days we are
spending in the perpetration of this social fraud extremely delightful.
No one suspects anything at the hotel, I’m sure.”
“I don’t think they do,” she said. “Otherwise the Joyce-Brownes
wouldn’t speak to me, and certainly that woman, Mrs. Northover, would
be the first to ‘cut’ me. She’s a fearful scandal-monger, as you know.”
“Yes,” I said, laughing. “I was speaking to her last night after
dinner, and she remarked to me what a delightful talker my ‘sister’
was! Therefore why trouble yourself?”
She hesitated, her fine eyes fixed straight before her.
“I have reasons,” was her vague reply, in a hard unusual tone.
“You are surely safe from your enemies. They are searching for you in
England, I suppose.”
“Yes,” she replied. “By this time, however, they have no doubt come to
the conclusion that I have re-crossed the Channel, and they may find me
at any moment. Ah!” she cried, regarding me with a strange expression,
“you don’t know, Mr. Laird! You cannot tell in what constant
haunting dread I live each day. Each day, alas! brings me nearer to
exposure--nearer to death!”
“Come, come,” I said quickly, in an endeavour to place aside her
misgiving. “Why anticipate disaster? Sufficient when it arrives. But,”
I added, “I don’t see anything to fear so long as we remain here in our
present odour of high respectability.”
“Can’t you see that I might any day be recognised?”
“By whom?” I asked quietly.
“By--well, by my enemies,” she replied. But I knew that the word police
had been upon the tip of her tongue.
“And if they recognised you--what then?”
“What then?” she echoed hoarsely, rising from where she had been
sitting. “Why, for me recognition would mean the end--the end of my
career--the exposure of the truth--a truth which I have been hoping to
conceal from you--my kind and generous friend.”
“Why conceal it from me?” I queried in a low, sympathetic voice, rising
and standing at her side.
“Because--because if you were aware of it, Mr. Laird--if you----But
there--don’t let’s discuss it! Soon the end must come. You will know
who and what I am--and--and then you will curse even my memory!”
CHAPTER XII
INTRODUCES A LEAN STRANGER
“YOU are my friend,” I said very quietly. “Why should I curse your
memory?”
“Because I have not told you the truth,” was her answer.
“You can tell it to me now.”
“No. I cannot,” she faltered. “You will find it out for yourself soon
enough. Why do you think I exist in this daily, hourly dread? Why have
I enlisted your sympathy and assistance to get away from England?
Cannot you guess?”
I was silent. What indeed could I say?
“Come,” she urged at last, in a tone of impatience. “Let us get back.
The awful desolation of the place is like the desolation of my own
heart. I can’t bear it,” and she glanced round the ruined church with a
shudder.
Something had upset her. I knew that she had that morning received a
letter. The address upon the envelope was in a man’s bold hand, and it
bore a German stamp with the postmark of Wurzburg. Probably it had
contained disconcerting news.
I wondered whether it was from her father, the man Jim Almond, for whom
Miller was so actively in search.
Together we drove back to Bordighera. With the sundown it had suddenly
grown very chilly, as it always does on the Riviera. She sat huddled
up in her astrachan coat--one she had bought in Paris on her way
through--her boa of Arctic fox twisted across her face as protection
from the cold wind that now blew from the sea into our faces.
From the moment we left the ruined village she hardly uttered a single
word. Her white brow was wrinkled in deep thought, and her eyes fixed
straight before her upon the streak of crimson light that showed on the
far-off western horizon.
I tried to rouse her from her melancholy, but with little success. A
strange presage of coming evil seemed to have fallen upon her.
Often I reflected upon that man Pontifex, wondering what connection he
could have with her father and herself. If he were one of Jim Almond’s
ingenious accomplices, then he remained entirely unsuspected, for he
went about openly, and without any fear of recognition. More than once
I had referred to him, but Lillah had merely told me that he was an old
and trusted friend. Yet this very fact that they could communicate by
code showed that some close association existed.
Was that code the same in which she had written that curious cipher
message while travelling in the Scotch express? I was inclined to think
that it was.
I still held my copy of the message. Ah! how many times had I tried in
vain to decipher it.
More than once, and perhaps never more so than on that evening as we
drove through San Remo, and around the headland to Bordighera, was I
tempted to refer to the cipher message and the mysterious death of the
young and unknown foreigner at Gerrard’s Cross. But on each occasion
I hesitated, fearing that, to expose what knowledge I had gained,
might defeat the end I now had in view, namely, the elucidation of the
mystery surrounding her, and the actual identity of the assassin.
Was she the murderess?
I recalled every word of that evidence given at the Bull Hotel. And
when I did so I held my breath, and bit my lip.
I longed to pay a flying visit to London, and ascertain from Miller
what he had discovered. Well I knew his careful, painstaking methods,
and how in pursuing such an inquiry he would spread the drag-net of the
police in every direction. I recollected, too, his confidence that
sooner or later he would find Iris Almond.
Dusk was falling as, on coming down the main street of Bordighera,
which runs parallel with the sea, we turned up to the right, where the
great white hotel stood facing us.
As we did so, my companion gave a perceptible start, and quickly turned
her face towards me. I glanced at her. Her countenance was pale and
rigid, her cheeks drawn, her eyes haggard. The whole character of her
features had, in that instant, altered.
“You’ve recognised someone,” I whispered to her without daring to look
round.
“Yes,” she gasped. “How was my fur? Look.”
“It concealed the whole of the lower portion of your features. There
is really no cause for alarm, I assure you,” I said. “Nobody would
recognise you in this half-light. Your hat hides your forehead.
Besides, your veil is a protection.”
“I wear it always for that very reason. But--but are you quite certain
there would be difficulty in recognising me?” she asked anxiously as we
turned into the hotel garden.
“Yes, nobody could recognise you at that distance, and in this
uncertain light.”
“But if I have been seen?” she whispered hoarsely. “If they have found
me? I--I----”
“Be careful,” I urged. “Betray no fear, now that we are entering the
hotel. Your apprehensions are entirely groundless. You are not quite
yourself to-day, Miss Ashcroft. Did you have bad news this morning?”
“I had news which sight of that man we passed has proved to be correct.
I’ve been warned, alas! too late.”
And the carriage having drawn up at the portico of the hotel, she held
her breath, and, descending, entered the hall, where she greeted with
marvellous calmness a well-dressed elderly woman who chanced to be
seated there--her acquaintance Mrs. Northover.
No one who saw her would ever dream that only a minute previously a
ghost of the past had arisen before her. And that for aught she knew,
denunciation and exposure might occur within the next half-hour.
She excused herself quickly and ascended to the lift. That evening I
did not see her again.
After dinner I played billiards with a young French viscount, with whom
I had struck up acquaintanceship, but my heart was not in the game. I
was wondering who could be the person whom Lillah had seen in the dusky
twilight.
As we had turned the corner, there had been several persons, evidently
visitors, in the vicinity. Among them, I recollected, were two girls
with tennis rackets, and a young man in flannels, as well as other
persons of whom I had not taken any notice.
It must have been one of those whom she had feared had recognised
her--perhaps a police-agent whom she knew by sight. The international
thieves, male and female, always possess keen scent for the police,
and their movements and escapes are marvels of clever subterfuge.
In my own cosmopolitan experience I had come across several of the
fraternity, those men and women who live upon their wits, constantly
moving hither and thither about the Continent, mostly in the track of
the unsuspecting tourist, who so eagerly chums with any compatriot he
may meet in a foreign watering-place.
Now I had always heard that the police along the Italian Riviera were a
particularly shrewd body. And, indeed, in places such as San Remo they
are compelled to be. So the more I reflected through that night, the
more convinced I became that Lillah had recognised one of the men we
passed as a police agent, and thus knew that her whereabouts had been
discovered.
Next morning when she entered the _salon_ and seated herself--for
they serve breakfast in the English style at the Angst--she laughed
merrily, while upon her face remained no trace of the gloom and
apprehension that had obsessed her on the previous night.
The day was lovely, the bright sun shining in at the open windows,
while from the garden below rose the sweet perfume of the flowers. How
different, indeed, from the great winter in dear old London!
I mentioned the incident of the previous evening, but with a light
laugh she replied:
“Perhaps, after all, I was mistaken. And even if I were not, you say
that I could not be recognised.”
“I don’t think anyone could have seen sufficient of your face,” I
declared.
“Well, my hat and dress were certainly different,” she said, as though
speaking to herself. “I don’t think he could possibly have noticed me.”
“Well, let’s hope not, and trust to luck,” I exclaimed cheerily. And
then I suggested a run in a car to lunch at Alassio. I dearly wished to
go in the other direction, to the “Bristol” over at Beaulieu, beyond
Monte Carlo. But alas, I was too well known there, and too many of my
friends would be idling about.
“Yes,” she replied. “I can wear my motor-veil with the talc front. It
effectually disguises me. Yes. Let us go to Alassio,” she cried eagerly.
And so an hour later we were speeding along the sea-road to San Remo
again, a white, hilly road that winds around the broken coast with
the tideless sea lapping lazily upon the one side and the fields of
violets and carnations, grown for the markets of Paris and London,
rising on the other.
After luncheon, taken _alfresco_ outside a small _trattoria_,
we drove on ten miles or so to a quaint little old fishing town
called Finale Marina, a place of dark alleys and ponderous archways,
supporting high, prison-like houses, a typical little Italian town,
which modern progress had left unchanged. For some hours we wandered
about, for my dainty little friend was now in the best of spirits, and
before we got back to Bordighera it was already dusk.
We dined together at the big table in the _table d’hôte_ room,
and after coffee in the lounge she ascended to her room to obtain an
illustrated paper for a girl with whom she had been chatting.
Five minutes later I followed her to get some cigars, but I had hardly
entered the room when the floor-waiter tapped at the door, and,
entering, said in Italian:
“There is a gentleman below who desires to see the signorina. He will
give no name, the hall-porter says, but desires to speak with the
Signorina Laird upon a very urgent matter.”
Lillah’s face went pale as death as, turning from the table where she
had been sorting out some illustrated papers, she glanced across at me,
and gasped in English:
“Mr. Laird--I--I told you so! He saw me last night and--and he
recognised me! I’m lost. I’ve been a fool. I should have left to-day,
as I at first intended.”
For a moment I did not reply. I realised considerable peril in the
situation at that moment.
Then, turning to the waiter, I said in Italian: “Now, Giovanni, do me a
favour.”
“Si, Signore.”
“Go downstairs into the hall, see this gentleman, and tell him that the
signorina has gone to the dance at the ‘Savoy’ at San Remo.”
But scarcely had I uttered those words when the door, which had been
standing ajar, was flung open by a tall, thin, rather well-dressed,
grey-haired, and grey-bearded man.
“No, Mr. Laird,” he said firmly. “That excuse will scarcely do for me!
I have watched mademoiselle while she ate her dinner this evening, and
I wish to speak with her upon--well, upon a rather confidential matter.”
Lillah stood staring at him. Her face was blanched to the lips, her jaw
had fallen as though an apparition had risen before her transfixed gaze.
“I think, perhaps, it would be best if you left us alone together, Mr.
Laird,” said the stranger with confidence, and yet in a manner somewhat
polished. “I believe I voice mademoiselle’s wish in this matter--eh?”
and he looked at her inquiringly.
She nodded in the affirmative, and then, as though fearing to look
again into my face, she hung her head.
The blow she feared had fallen.
Thus dismissed, I turned unwillingly upon my heel, and followed
Giovanni out into the corridor, the lean stranger slowly closing the
door after me.
For a moment I halted. I heard the man’s deep voice speaking within.
Then a shrill shriek of despair reached me where I stood--a startled
cry that told its own bitter truth.
CHAPTER XIII
THE LEAN ENGLISHMAN
I WAITED outside. She had not called me within the room.
Had the lean Englishman arrested her? In any case he had made some
announcement which had caused her the utmost consternation and dismay.
I was all impatience to hear the fatal truth.
I could hear them in conversation, but at first could distinguish no
word uttered. The man was, however, speaking calmly, seriously, and as
though with great determination.
Recollection of those words of hers when she anticipated detection,
came to me. “If they have found me?” she had gasped. Who were “they”?
The police, or those enemies to whom she referred so mysteriously?
I confess I felt some annoyance that I had not been invited by her to
be present at that interview. Yet Miller’s strange allegations crowded
upon me at that instant, the startling truth that she was the daughter
of Jim Almond, chief of a gang of international thieves. I had tried
my hardest to disbelieve his story; but alas! in vain. All the facts
went to prove that his allegation was correct. Lillah Ashcroft and Iris
Almond were one and the same person.
Once I heard her voice raised in protest.
“I will not,” she said fiercely. “I will be no party to it. I’ll not
betray him!”
“Very well,” answered the man. “You know what you must expect--what is
the penalty of disobedience.”
“But give me time,” she implored. “Give me time to think. I beg of you.”
“You have already had ten days. I am here for your decision,” he
replied firmly.
“I have already given it.”
“And it is a refusal--eh?” he asked.
“Yes.”
That portion of their conversation which I overheard made it plain
that the lean stranger was not a police agent. More than likely he was
one of her father’s confederates, and that he was there to urge her to
render assistance in some further ingenious and dastardly _coup_.
That he threatened her was plain by the next words he uttered.
“Very well,” he said, “I shall return at once, and inform Pontifex of
your decision. He will either bring you to your senses, girl, or you
will find yourself under arrest. You know that the English and French
police are in active search for you for the little affair near London,
at Gerrard’s Cross.”
“Yes, thanks to you,” she cried, in fierce anger. “Go--return to
London, and tell Philip Pontifex what you will!”
“I warn you, miss, that this refusal will cost you your liberty!” he
said meaningly. “It was certainly a clever ruse of yours to pass as
‘sister’ of this unsuspecting Englishman. It has, however, availed you
but little.”
“I have at least a friend in him!” she cried.
“Ah! if he knew the truth he’d scarcely remain your friend,” sneered
the stranger.
“I desire no insult from you,” the girl cried. “You have made a
request, a dastardly request, which I have refused to grant. That is
sufficient.”
“For to-day, yes,” he replied in a hard voice. “But for to-morrow, no.”
“Please go. Or I shall ring for the waiter.”
“You dare not do that, my dear girl,” he laughed defiantly. “For if
I told the hotel people who Miss Laird really is, you would quickly
find yourself in the hands of the local _carabinieri_. Here, in
Italy, they treat prisoners with scant courtesy, as you know from
experience--eh?”
“I ask you to go, Mr. Rushton,” she said firmly. “I have given you my
decision.”
“And you’re really prepared to stand the result of your refusal?”
“I am prepared for anything, after the events of the past month,” was
her reply. “My father is not here, or you would not dare to speak to me
like this.”
“It is at his request that I’ve come to you. I was with him in Budapest
four days ago. I came direct here, to see you.”
“Well, tell him I have decided to disobey him for once.”
“You defy him--and me--eh?”
“If you put it so bluntly, Mr. Rushton, I do. So there’s no more to be
said.”
“Well,” he remarked, “if you are so foolish in your own interests, you
must bear the consequences--and they’ll be serious.”
“Your threats don’t alarm me in the least,” she declared. “I’m used to
them. Good night.”
The lean stranger with the well-trimmed grey beard came forth, meeting
me face to face in the corridor, but he passed me and down the stairs
without a word. Yet I had opportunity to take further note of his
features, which I saw were somewhat refined. His exterior was that of
a prosperous English gentleman, differing in no particular from the
thousands of middle-aged Englishmen of the upper class who spend the
few months in winter idleness on the Riviera, save that his countenance
was perhaps unusually aquiline, and in his dark eyes was an expression
of craft and cunning.
His appearance was the reverse of that of an adventurer, so gentlemanly
and so eminently respectable was he.
When he had passed down the big staircase I returned along the corridor
to the _salon_ where Lillah stood.
As I entered, I saw that she was straining every effort to remain calm,
yet by the redness of her eyes it was plain she had shed tears, while
her quick breath betrayed the agitation from which she was suffering.
“I’m afraid that your visitor was an unwelcome one, Miss Ashcroft,” I
said, approaching her as she stood near the piano.
“Well--yes,” she said, her face relaxing into a hard, forced smile. “He
was--rather. I knew that he had recognised me, and what I feared has
happened.”
“What’s that?” I asked, in pretended ignorance.
“My enemies have found me,” she replied blankly, looking straight
before her. “What I have dreaded has happened.”
“Well--and cannot you escape them?” I asked.
She shook her head dubiously. In her blue eyes was a look of utter
despair, as though she were peering into the future, and saw the grim
ill-fortune it held for her.
“I fear it will be impossible,” she said. “I may put on a bold front
and offer defiance, but in the end, alas! I shall be compelled to
submit.”
“To what?”
“To--well, to their demands,” was her vague reply.
“Why?”
She sighed, her face downcast, her lips pressed tightly together, and I
saw that tears were welling in her splendid eyes.
“Because,” she faltered, “because I dare not disobey.”
“Dare not?” I exclaimed.
“No.”
“But surely you can still escape them!” I exclaimed.
“I might,” she said wistfully, “with your aid, perhaps I might.”
“My efforts are still at your disposal, Miss Ashcroft,” I said.
“Ah!” she cried, “I know how very good and generous you are to me! But
I feel that I cannot further encroach upon your good nature, Mr. Laird.
You have done enough in all conscience.”
What I had that evening overheard was sufficient to stir me to further
effort. The charge laid against her by that wandering gipsy at
Gerrard’s Cross might be true, nevertheless it was plain that she was
striving to resist the further temptation placed before her.
You, my reader, may ask what motive I had in falling in with her
strange request that she should be allowed to pass as my sister.
Well, my motive was twofold. I had become fascinated by her beauty
as many another man has been fascinated by a woman whose influence,
in turn, has either raised him above his fellows, or has sent him to
the furthermost depths of the Inferno. How many men, our own personal
friends, owe their ruin or their fortune to a woman!
My second motive in assisting her had arisen out of the mystery
surrounding her--the mystery commenced by that strange cipher which I
had seen her trace with her soft, white hand--and had resulted in that
visit of the lean Englishman at Bordighera.
“I take it,” I said quite gently, as I slowly lit a cigarette, “that it
is necessary for you to escape from here?”
“Highly necessary. But how can I accomplish it when I’m watched as I
undoubtedly am?”
“There are several ways. The easiest, I think, is to exchange dresses
with your maid, and slip out just as the hotel is closing at one
o’clock in the morning. The train for Genoa passes at 1.58, and you’d
be there early next morning. Go to the ‘Londres,’ outside the station,
and await me there.”
“No, they’d follow you,” she said. “If I go, I’ll get further
afield--where, I have at present no idea.”
“How shall I know where you are?” I asked, for I saw that she had
become eager, and anxious again at hope of escape, which she had, until
that moment, deemed impossible.
“Cannot you remain here a few days after my departure, send Annetta
back to her home in Parma, and then yourself travel towards Paris as
far as Dijon, afterwards returning by Modane to Turin--the ‘Europe’ is
the best hotel--and await news of me there?”
“I see. You think I must avoid being watched. It is as though one had
committed a crime, and were evading the police, isn’t it?”
Her countenance changed, and next second I deeply regretted having
uttered that remark.
“Well,” I added, “I’m perfectly willing to carry out the suggestion.
You will leave to-night, of course. Don’t say anything to Annetta.
Simply annex some of her clothes after she’s gone to bed, and slip out
by the back entrance of the hotel. If anyone is on the watch he’ll be
expecting you to follow her, taking you to be the maid.”
“The station at Bordighera is dangerous,” she said. “I shall walk
into Ventimiglia. I shall have time if I leave here just before one
o’clock. It isn’t far, and I’m not timid. That road is much frequented
at all hours.”
“And money?” I asked.
“I have quite sufficient,” was her modest reply, as indeed she had, for
I had seen in her purse half a dozen five hundred lira notes.
More than once I wondered how she had obtained them.
At half-past ten my “sister,” having shown herself in the lounge for
half an hour, went to her room and dismissed the maid as usual. I saw
nothing of her, however, till a little after twelve, when she suddenly
entered the _salon_, looking the exact replica of Annetta, in
plain black jacket, black skirt, black straw sailor-hat and black
gloves.
“Do I make a good maid?” she asked, with a light laugh.
“Excellent!” I cried. “The clothes fit quite passably.”
“I’ve made them fit, with just a little management. I’ve left in
Annetta’s trunk two hundred lira for her to buy herself some other
things. Make some plausible excuse to her and to the hotel people for
my sudden departure, won’t you, Mr. Laird?”
“I will, and a week to-day I shall be at the ‘Europe’ in Turin.”
“It’s really most generous of you,” she declared. “If I can manage to
again evade them and again pass as your ‘sister,’ I may be successful,
after all.”
“Successful in what?”
“In defying them,” was her quick reply. She evidently did not intend
that I should know the reason of the visit of that man Rushton--a
reason I was very anxious to learn.
Without luggage, save the little bag-purse she carried, she was going
forth again, hunted once more by those mysterious persons who, she
declared, sought her destruction.
Within myself I reflected that if Rushton carried out his threat of
placing the police upon her trail, her resumption of the character of
my ‘sister’ would be the means of quickly revealing her whereabouts,
whereas if she changed her name and went to some remote spot in Central
Italy, she might remain a long time before being identified.
A single woman always experiences difficulty in avoiding notice when
travelling alone. With a man it is different. He can change his
clothes, his name, his appearance, his profession--everything save the
skin of his finger-tips. But about a woman the same personality always
clings, and if a fugitive, she has upon her the eyes of every other
woman with whom she comes into contact.
But Lillah Ashcroft realised all this, and I strongly suspected that
this was not the first sudden secret flight she had made in the
course of her eventful career. She had gone about her preparations in
a business-like and methodical manner; and presently, at a quarter to
one o’clock, as she stood before me wishing me _au revoir_, I felt
myself still held in wonder by her marvellous nerve and tact.
In such circumstances of defiance and the knowledge of impending
betrayal, another woman would have been agitated, nervous, and
unstrung. But, on the contrary, she was calm, soft-voiced, and
perfectly unconcerned.
“You haven’t any idea, then, as to what your destination may be?” I
said, as I grasped her black-gloved hand.
“Not in the least. I shall decide after I arrive in Genoa. If I find
I have escaped their vigilance I shall continue further on. If not, I
shall probably take train direct to London.”
“To London!” I echoed.
“Yes--and face them!” was her answer. “_Au revoir_, my dear
friend,” she added. “Be careful that you are not followed from here.
Till we meet again, good-bye!”
And opening the door, the girl against whom Miller had alleged such
strange things, disappeared along the corridor and down the service
stairs, leaving me to my own puzzled reflections.
CHAPTER XIV
SOMETHING ABOUT RALPH RUSHTON
A FORTNIGHT had passed. Fourteen days of breathless anxiety and
constant suspense had gone by before I had received, while seated at
dinner in the great _sala di pranzo_ at the “Europe,” in Turin,
that open city of long colonnades, a letter of reassurance.
It was dated from the Preussische Krone Hotel, at Salzbrunn, a
charming note telling me that her plans had been altered, that she had
been a week in Germany, and was about to go on to Meissen. She had
reconsidered the future, she told me, and had foreseen that any further
endeavour to pass as my “sister” would in all probability lead to her
detection by her enemies.
The latter part of the letter read:
“In the circumstances, Mr. Laird, I think it will be far the best if
we remained apart for the present. I am, as you know, most devoutly
thankful for all the kind assistance you have given me, and I am
only acting in what I conceive to be the best interests of us both.
Therefore please return home to London. As soon as I consider all
danger past I will again write to you to Savoy Court. Meanwhile I
shall move about quickly, under various names most probably. Yet if
you wish to communicate with me please address: ‘Miss Nellie Bond,
c/o Mr. Charlesworth, newsagent, 86, Gower Place, Gower Street.’ Do
not be anxious regarding me. At present I am quite safe, and I hope
I shall remain so. I shall write to you at the earliest moment. Till
then, I remain, with deepest and most heartfelt thanks, yours very
sincerely, Lillah Ashcroft.”
To say that I was merely disappointed would not express the utter
chagrin and complete loneliness that fell upon me on reading that
letter.
Remember that I had--perhaps very foolishly--fallen beneath the spell
of her great charm and beauty, and though such serious suspicion
remained upon her, yet I nevertheless felt a strong and increasing
impulse to shield her from arrest and exposure. Yet somehow this letter
seemed as though she suspected me of having gained knowledge which
connected her with the affair at Gerrard’s Cross, and for that reason
had fled.
Her promise to write to me seemed far too vague. She gave no date on
which she would communicate with me--only a mere promise that she
would do so as early as she could.
Again, did not the fact that she had letters addressed to a London
newsvendor’s under the name of “Nellie Bond” show both duplicity and
evasion?
I sat staring at the letter in indecision.
I was only half-way through the meal, but I rose from the table,
unable to eat further. That fair-faced woman whom I first had met in
the up-train from Edinburgh had now possessed me body and soul. I was
compelled to admit the truth to myself, as I now admit it to you.
I knew that whatever the reason of her duplicity she was not
endeavouring to obtain money from me. From the moment we had left
England she had refused to allow me to pay a single _sou_ on her
account. She was perfectly independent, and any attempt on my part to
pay for anything for her plainly annoyed her.
As I was not an over-rich man I knew that her undesirable “friends”
would have no reason to trouble about me. Adventurers, and especially
those of the type of Jim Almond, always make certain of their prey
before spreading their net to catch him. Only a bungler attempts to
rob or levy blackmail upon a poor man. Experts in the gentle art of
swindling like Almond and his friends, always make careful inquiry
beforehand, for to attack a poor man frequently means exposure and
arrest.
I walked across the broad Piazza, bright in the frosty moonlight, and
sent her a telegram. I addressed it to Miss Ashcroft, Preussische Krone
Hotel, at Salzbrunn, urging her to meet me at once, no matter when or
where, as I was ready to keep any appointment.
But at nine next morning I received a formal notification from the
telegraph office, stating that the message had not been delivered, “the
addressee being unknown.”
Then I reflected that she was undoubtedly passing under still another
_alias_.
So that day I left Turin for Paris, and on the night following was
again before the blazing fire in my rooms high up in Savoy Court, with
Seddon attending to my wants, and telling me of callers and inquirers
on the telephone during my absence.
“About a week ago a gentleman called, and made a good many rather
inquisitive inquiries regarding you, sir. He even went so far as to
offer me a sovereign if I would give him your address,” my faithful
servant was telling me, as I sat in my own arm-chair, smoking.
“Oh!” I exclaimed in curiosity. “Who was he, pray?”
“He didn’t give me any name, sir, but he was well-dressed, and
seemingly a gentleman. His inquiries were so persistent that when he
left I slipped down the service stairs and gained the courtyard of the
hotel down in the Strand. I saw him pass into the hotel entrance, so I
asked one of the under-porters if he was known. From him I learned that
his name was Rushton, and that he frequents the American bar. He’s very
friendly with a man named Levy, who’s believed to be a card-sharper, it
seems--and altogether an undesirable person.”
“Rushton!” I echoed, recollecting the name of the lean Englishman. “And
he was making anxious inquiries concerning me, Seddon?”
“Yes, sir. He wanted to know where you were, and apparently knew you’d
been to the Italian Riviera. He asked after your sister, sir--and then
he laughed. I told him you had no sister--not so far as I was aware,
sir.”
“Quite right, Seddon,” I said. “In fact you told him nothing--even
though he offered you a sovereign as a bribe--eh?”
“No, sir.”
Seddon was a splendidly trained servant, my confidant in many respects,
yet he never presumed upon my familiarity with him.
“He was a man with a grey beard, and rather thin, and gentlemanly.”
“Yes, sir. Do you know him?”
“I’ve met him once, Seddon,” I replied. “And I would like very much to
know if he lives in London.”
“Fritz, the waiter in the American bar, could probably tell us,” he
said. “Shall I inquire? If he don’t know, some of the gentlemen who go
there constantly would know.”
“Gentlemen, you call them, Seddon!” I laughed. “Some of them are paid
by gentlemen.”
“Every man is a gentleman to a servant, sir,” Seddon remarked,
correcting me.
“Very well,” I said, “go down into the hotel, see Fritz, and ask if he
can tell you where this Mr. Rushton lives.”
He was gone for nearly a quarter of an hour. When he returned he said:
“Fritz gives Mr. Rushton a rather bad character, sir. He says he
suspects him of being one of a gang of sharpers who, until two years
ago, used to cross and re-cross on the American liners between
Liverpool and New York. I’ve asked him to come up and see you, sir.
He’s here,” and next moment the rather stout German waiter was ushered
in.
“You want to know about Mr. Ralph Rushton, sir,” he said in very
good English. “Well, he comes into the bar nearly every day, and he
keeps very bad company. One afternoon six months ago a young American
named Wilson, staying at the hotel, recognised him in the bar, and,
declaring that he’d robbed him of three thousand dollars at poker on
board the _Mauretania_, struck him in the face. There was a scene,
in which Rushton was compelled to quit, and two men present told me
that he was a ‘crook’ in league with several others. For some months
I didn’t see him. Now, however, he’s appeared again, apparently with
plenty of money. He comes and goes like all his kind--lives on his
wits, without a doubt.”
“You don’t happen to know a man frequenting your bar named Almond?” I
asked. “He isn’t in England just now, but he often comes to London.”
“Not under that name,” replied the waiter. “He probably uses another
when he visits us. Such men find it convenient to do so. I often
overhear some strange conversation, Mr. Laird, I can assure you.”
Further, Fritz told me that one of Rushton’s most intimate associates
was a man named Freshfield, who had been implicated in the Deutsche
Bank fraud in Cologne three years before, and who had escaped with only
twelve months’ imprisonment.
“Do you know a man named Pontifex--one of Rushton’s friends?” I
inquired.
“No, sir,” was the German’s reply. “But, of course, they all have
_aliases_. All American bars are the same. They seem always to
exercise a peculiar fascination for ‘crooks.’ We are no exception, you
know.”
“Where does Rushton live?”
“Well, sir,” he replied, “I happened to pick this off one of the tables
only the other day. He had given it to an American, who had left it
behind.” And he handed me a visiting-card, whereon was the name: “Ralph
Rushton, 17, Arodene Mansions, Shaftesbury Avenue.”
“May I keep this?” I asked.
“Certainly, sir. And any information I can obtain I’ll let you know,”
replied the man, and a moment later bowed himself out.
Two hours later I had dined at the club, and returned again to my
chambers, where I was sitting at ease in my slippers before the fire,
contemplating giving the man Rushton an unexpected call in the morning,
when Seddon again tapped at the door, and entering, said:
“There’s Inspector Miller to see you, sir. Wants to see you urgently,
he says, sir.”
“Oh, show him in!” I cried, jumping to my feet, for most of all I
desired to have a chat with my detective friend, and learn how far he
had proceeded with the inquiry into the Gerrard’s Cross mystery.
A second later Miller, dressed in a suit of grey tweeds, which gave him
the appearance of a country squire, entered, and shaking my hand, said:
“I must apologise, Meester Laird, for coming to you at this late hour,
but I rang up the club, and heard you had just returned from abroad.
The fact is, I want you to do me a favour--to translate for me some
letters in Italian. I know several languages, but unfortunately not
Italian.”
“In connection with some case, I suppose?”
“In connection with that affair at Gerrard’s Cross,” he said. “I’ve
been busy upon it ever since you’ve been away, and have found out some
very curious facts. Translate these, and I believe they will reveal to
us something of the greatest interest regarding the dead man, and those
responsible for his tragic end.”
I glanced at the three letters, written upon thin foreign notepaper,
and I think I must have started at sight of them.
They were, I saw in an instant, penned in that thin, angular writing I
knew so well--the hand of the girl who passed as Lillah Ashcroft!
I held one unsteadily in my hand, and to myself read the first sentence.
To me, that was sufficient. I stood there staring at the letter aghast,
bewildered, benumbed.
And knowing that the great international detective was regarding me in
wonder, and in suspicion, I became covered with confusion.
CHAPTER XV
ABOUT JIM ALMOND’S DAUGHTER
“WELL!” asked the big bearded man, who was such a terror to the foreign
criminal in London. “What do you make of it, Meester Laird?”
I tried to remain calm, glancing swiftly over the letters which,
evidently written by Lillah, were from an address in the Altstadischer
Graven, in Danzig, to her father. The first words translated into
English were:
“The Brussels police are hot on my track, but by a clever ruse of
Ralph Rushton’s I have managed to get safely here.”
But as I read on I saw that they contained little that was of real
interest to Miller. One letter indeed was an earnest appeal to her
father to cut himself adrift from his friends.
“Why do you continue this life, dear father? You surely now have
enough to allow us to live comfortably, as we once did. This life
of being continually hunted is killing me. I remember your words to
me a month ago, your regrets that you have brought me up to be an
associate in your schemes. Well, why not cut yourself adrift from it
all? I forgive you for all the past, because you are my father, but I
implore you, for your own sake and for mine, to run no further risks.
Retire, and leave matters to Rushton, Pontifex, and the rest. I have
assisted you ever since I became old enough, and now let us live
quietly and happily, and in security.”
How long ago that letter was written I could not tell. There was no
envelope to show the date, but it was certainly prior to her love for
the man who had been so cruelly assassinated near Gerrard’s Cross.
I read that letter to Miller, but he only laughed it to scorn.
“Jim Almond is too hardened a sinner ever to reform,” he declared. “I
suppose his girl had become frightened of the Brussels police when she
wrote that. I recollect the affair, nearly a year ago now. A messenger
from the Bank of Belgium was knocked down and robbed in a side street
off the Montagne de la Cour in broad daylight, and several thousands
of pounds’ worth of negotiable securities were stolen. They suspected
Jim Almond and his gang--as one of the bonds was offered for sale in
Paris next day by a fellow called Rushton, known to be an associate of
Almond. Hence the Belgian police telegraphed to me, believing that the
precious crowd had returned to England. They evidently got on the track
of Rushton and the girl, the latter escaping to Danzig.”
“You still believe then that she killed that young foreigner at
Gerrard’s Cross?” I asked quickly.
“Of course,” was his unhesitating reply. “I’ve learned one or two
things of late which confirm my suspicions. There was a very strong
motive why she should rid herself of him.”
“What motive?” I demanded anxiously.
“My inquiries are not yet complete, Meester Laird,” he answered with
tantalising vagueness. “When they are, I’ll tell you one or two things
about that girl which will no doubt surprise you.”
“You promised to do that before.”
“I shall redeem my promise before long, never fear. But,” he added,
“what does the other letter say?”
I read the third and remaining letter, written on different paper
from the other two. It bore the address of the Hotel d’Angleterre,
Hildesheim, but no date, and read:
“Philip (meaning, no doubt, Pontifex) is here, staying at the
‘Kaiserhof,’ while Ralph is at the ‘Krone.’ The best things in the
treasury of the Cathedral appear to be a silver Byzantine cross of
the ninth century, a silver casket of the thirteenth century, a gold
crown of the eleventh century, Bernward’s chalice, a fine silver one
of the fifteenth century, and some illuminated manuscripts of the
tenth century. Ralph has obtained an impression of the sacristan’s
key, and in two or three days they intend to try their fortune.
Philip saw old Jacobsen in Utrecht, and arranged for their disposal.
They will be sent to America the same day that he receives them.
Philip has asked me to write this, and says Ralph will ‘wire’ you on
arrival in Utrecht with the things.”
“By Jove!” cried Miller. “Then it was Almond’s gang who robbed the
treasury at Hildesheim! The German Government have offered ten thousand
marks reward for information which may lead to their recovery. And here
we have the name of the receiver--Jacobsen, of Utrecht--one of the most
crafty and cunning old birds in Europe! I shall cross to-morrow and see
him. He’ll either tell me where the things are in America, or he’ll
find himself under arrest.”
“But where did you obtain these letters?” I inquired.
“From some of Jim Almond’s belongings. He left a bag at the Midland
Hotel, St. Pancras, and it was placed in the storeroom. We sometimes
go through stuff left or seized for rent at hotels. A sergeant going
through this bag to-day saw several letters addressed to Mr. James
Almond, and recognising the name, brought me this correspondence in
Italian. I made inquiry, and found that the owner of the bag arrived
in London from the North one evening about two months ago, changed his
clothes, and went forth again. He left his bag, and has not been seen
since. Either he had forgotten that the letters were in it, or, what
was more probable, he suspected we were waiting for him, and feared to
return and secure his property.”
“I suppose they carry on their correspondence in Italian, as it is
not so universally known as French, and therefore not so likely to be
read,” I remarked.
“Yes,” replied my friend, the detective. “But it is an important find.
We shall probably recover the Hildesheim treasures, which, as I daresay
you know, include some of the most valuable works of art in Germany.”
“And you intend crossing to Utrecht to-morrow?”
“Certainly. I had no idea that the robbery was the work of the Almond
combination--a combination which embraces men who are expert in various
branches of crime, from common theft to forgery.”
“And the girl, what part does she play?”
“I’ve already told you, Meester Laird. She’s a delightful little
person, I believe, but she’s their ‘catspaw.’ She obtains information
for them, and often acts as their decoy. It’s said she’s been well
trained by old Jim. But she’s not alone in the criminal world. When I
retire and write my reminiscences of the ‘Yard,’ perhaps I shall be
able to relate some strange stories of young girls and women acting as
assistants to the cleverest of our rogues, among whom, however, there
is nobody so daring, or possessed of such marvellous cunning, as Jim
Almond himself.”
These details regarding the theft of works of art in Germany, penned
by Lillah’s own hand--the characteristics of which were so marked as
to be indisputable--caused me to ponder. That letter was evidently
written before her appeal to her father to abandon his evil life. But
surely Almond had made a slip in abandoning his bag containing that
incriminating correspondence.
“I thought these letters had reference to the crime at Gerrard’s
Cross,” I remarked with some disappointment.
“So did I,” he said. “But we have at least cleared up one point by
them, and we shall recover that stuff for the Germans, or my name isn’t
Müller.”
The German police were his particular friends. To oblige them he would
go to any amount of trouble, while towards the French and Italian
police he was somewhat prejudiced, even antagonistic. Being the chief
officer dealing with the foreign criminals in London his knowledge of
them was unequalled. Not long ago he had told me that, though there
were treaties of extradition in force with every European country
except Greece, yet Germany was practically the only country which asked
for their escaped criminals to be sent back to them. Other nations
seemed glad to get rid of them, and did not request their arrest
and extradition unless actually obliged. The Italian criminal, for
instance, when once over the frontier, is free. They are glad to see
the back of their undesirables, and it is believed that their escape
abroad is often connived at by the police on the frontier. In this way
it is computed that on an average no fewer than five hundred assassins
escape from the kingdom of Italy annually!
Miller bit the cigar I handed him, and drank the whisky and soda Seddon
poured out.
“By the way,” I exclaimed presently, “do you happen to know the two
men, Rushton and Pontifex, mentioned in one of these letters?”
“Rushton has ‘done time’ once, if I remember aright. But Pontifex,
though an intimate associate of ‘Slim Jim,’ as they call him, has
never been caught, though, no doubt, to his cleverness with his pen
some of their many _coups_ have been due.”
“He’s a forger, then?”
“Yes, and an expert thief as well, if my information is correct.
A jealous woman once gave him away, but I couldn’t get sufficient
evidence for arrest. Rushton is a card-sharper, among other things.
It was he, and a friend of his, who, about three years ago, started a
little private gaming-house over in Maida Vale. They then went about
London, and especially the big hotels, for ‘pigeons’ to pluck--rich
young men up from the country or Americans over to see Europe. At
that house, Meester Laird, young Trench, son of old Abel Trench, of
San Francisco, who had only just come into his money, lost eighteen
thousand pounds in a single evening. And he paid it next day, but our
precious friend Rushton was missing an hour after receiving the money.
The boy, after paying this debt, came to the ‘Yard,’ told me he felt
certain he’d been swindled, therefore I at once went down to the place
in a cab. In the room the cards were scattered all over the carpet, but
the house was empty. The pair of birds, as well as ‘Slim Jim’ and his
daughter, had flown!”
“Was Almond’s daughter there?” I asked quickly.
“Young Trench said so. He says that once he caught Almond holding
a little mirror in his palm as he stood behind his chair. He said
nothing, resolved to trap them on the next occasion he played. But he
came to us too late.”
“What did he allege against Almond’s daughter?” I demanded.
“Oh, nothing much, except that once or twice she had, under pretence
of sympathising with him in his bad fortune, induced him to double his
stakes, with the inevitable result. They seemed to have nursed him
carefully,” Miller added, “for Rushton had purposely crossed with him
on the _Kronprinzessin Cecilie_ from New York to Plymouth, and on
the voyage had allowed him to win a couple of hundred pounds. Then, on
arrival at the ‘Carlton,’ he fell innocently into the trap, just as
others had done. They’re a dangerous gang, Meester Laird,” he declared,
“a very dangerous gang indeed.”
“But this girl, Iris, I think you call her! She interests me. She can’t
be so very dangerous, surely? Look at that letter to her father!”
Miller smiled.
“It was probably written with some ulterior object,” he said. “I should
judge from all the facts within my knowledge that the girl has a very
good time of it, so I don’t see why she should desire to lead a quiet
life--unless, of course, she finds us getting a little too warm on
her track. But we shall have her for the Gerrard’s Cross affair before
long--never fear.”
“You haven’t any idea where she is at present, I suppose?”
“Abroad. She’s somewhere in Germany, and the German police at my
request are in active search for her. She was known to be at Erfurt
seven days ago, but it seems she’s slipped away again.”
“And Jim Almond?”
“He was last heard of in Budapest, but will most probably return very
shortly to his old quarters in Paris--where the vultures seem to have
their nest. We shall hear something further of them very soon without a
doubt.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE MAN WITH A RECORD
ON the following morning, at eleven, I left the Strand, and, walking
through Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road, came to Gower
Place, a turning which led from Gower Street into Endsleigh Gardens.
I found Mr. Charlesworth’s shop, a small newsagent’s, where cheap
stationery and children’s toys were sold. Inside was a stout, rather
slatternly woman behind the counter, one of those women who move slowly
and breathe heavily.
Approaching her judiciously, I made inquiry as to whether she knew Miss
Nellie Bond.
“Oh, I dunno’, sir. She ’as letters ’ere sometimes. They’re generally
’ere a long time before she calls for ’em. She’s a nice young lady--a
governess in a gentleman’s family, she once told me. That’s why she
travels such a lot.”
“Have you any letters waiting for her now?” I ventured to inquire.
“Yes, sir, two,” and she showed me two letters, the superscription
of which was in a man’s heavy handwriting, and which bore Austrian
postage stamps--evidently from her father.
So it was plain that even he did not know her present hiding-place.
“Miss Bond has had her letters addressed here for a long time, I
suppose?”
“About a couple of years, I should say,” was the woman’s reply. “I
expect she uses this address for her love-letters, like lots o’ girls
do--and ladies, too, for the matter of that. Why, sir, I’ve had more
than one titled lady having letters addressed as plain Miss So-and-So,
an’ payin’ a penny a time for ’em.”
“Yes,” I remarked. “I suppose it’s mostly girls who use your address.”
“Oh, and men also. I’ve several racin’ gentlemen who use this address.”
“I suppose you know nothing of Miss Bond--I mean as to who she may be,”
I said, knowing that the woman probably took me for a lover, while at
the same time I placed half a sovereign upon the counter.
Mrs. Charlesworth eyed the bribe greedily, and then, with some
hesitation, said:
“Well, sir, to tell the truth I think she’s a young lady whose father’s
come down in the world. I remember once I sent ’er letters on--to some
address in ’Ampshire--somewhere near Andover--but I didn’t keep it. I
never do keep addresses.”
“How long ago?”
“Oh, perhaps eighteen months,” was her vague reply. “But, of course, I
don’t know whether that was ’er father’s ’ouse, or only ’er employer’s.”
“Then she has actually been a governess?”
“I feel sure o’ that, for about six weeks before I sent ’er letters
care of a Mrs. Thomasson, somewhere near Newcastle-on-Tyne, and she
told me ’erself that she was a-teachin’ that lady’s little girl, and
what soul-killing work teaching was.”
I reflected for a moment. Surely Lillah must have taken the post of
governess with some other object--the object, perhaps, of finding out
where the lady’s jewels, or the master’s securities were kept!
“When was she last here?”
“In the first few days of January. She had quite a lot of
correspondence just then--letters bearing Italian stamps.”
I was silent. Were they from Paul, the man now dead?
“She called for them herself?” I asked at last.
“Always. She came every day about five o’clock. Then one day she said
she was goin’ to Scotland, and I have not seen ’er since. No letters
have come for ’er--except these two.”
“Well, Mrs. Charlesworth,” I said, after a pause, “the fact is I want
very much to find this young lady.”
“Ah, sir, I thought as much,” replied the Cockney woman. “You’re not
the first gentleman as ’as been ’ere to make inquiry about ’er. It
seems there’s some mystery about ’er.”
“There is, and, frankly, I want to solve it.”
“Well, sir, I’m sorry I can’t ’elp yer any more than I’ve done. I’ve
told yer all ’as I know. She’s never been really very free with me, an’
if there’s a mystery about ’er she ain’t likely to be, is she?”
So, much disappointed, I left the dark little shop, and hailing a
hansom in Gower Street drove westward to the club to lunch.
That afternoon I made a bold resolve--to call upon Ralph Rushton. I was
curious to see what manner of man was this expert thief and sharper and
to form my own conclusions.
Arodene Mansions were, I found, over some shops nearly opposite the
Lyric Theatre, and when I rang at the door of number seventeen, on the
second floor, it was opened by a white-faced, consumptive-looking young
man, who eyed me suspiciously, and inquired my name.
When I had given it, Rushton himself--the lean Englishman of
Bordighera--came to the door, expressing surprise at seeing me.
“I’ve called to ask whether you know Miss Ashcroft’s address,” I said.
“We met, you recollect, at the ‘Angst,’ at Bordighera.”
“I recollect perfectly, Mr. Laird,” said the thin, grey-bearded
gentleman, inviting me in to a chair by the fireside. The room was
typical of the London flat, small and cosy, furnished in the art style
which is generally synonymous with “the three years’ system.” Then,
after glancing at me for a moment, he went on, “The lady was passing as
your ‘sister’--a rather clever ruse to escape detection, wasn’t it?”
“Detection for what?” I asked.
The fellow only shrugged his shoulders.
“Come,” I said, “your words imply some allegation against Miss
Ashcroft. What is it?”
“My dear sir,” he exclaimed. “It is not my habit to make any charge
against a lady.”
“But you have made a charge against her,” I protested. “The lady is my
friend.”
“For how long?” he laughed. “Why, my dear Mr. Laird, you don’t know
what you are saying. The differences between Miss Ashcroft and myself
must be left to ourselves to adjust.”
“I was not aware there were any differences,” I said.
“Well, there are,” was his reply. “It was because of them that I called
upon her at Bordighera. Our interview was somewhat unpleasant. But
perhaps she has already told you,” he added.
“Miss Ashcroft has not made me her confidant,” I said. “I merely called
because I thought you might possibly know where she is at the present
moment.”
“Unfortunately I have no idea of her address,” was his rather cool
response. Then he added: “I suppose Miss Ashcroft is a friend of
yours, eh! or you would not have consented to her ruse of assuming the
identity of your ‘sister’?”
“She is a friend,” I said; but I vouchsafed no further fact.
“Well,” he said, “of course you are in ignorance of the real facts,
otherwise you would not have become her ‘catspaw,’ as you apparently
have.”
“I have yet to discover that,” I said. “I am not, perhaps, so well
acquainted with Miss Ashcroft as yourself, yet I have no knowledge of
the manner in which I have been made a ‘catspaw,’ as you put it.”
“You will discover that before long,” he said, with a laugh. “I merely
warn you, Mr. Laird, that’s all.”
Ralph Rushton, as he lolled in his big, dark green arm-chair beside the
fire presented nothing of the appearance of the expert card-sharper or
international thief. He was in a brown lounge-suit, and wore a fine
diamond and sapphire scarf-pin that danced in the light of the flames.
Upon his thin white fingers, those tapering fingers that manipulated
the cards so expertly, were a couple of fine rings, one with a diamond
set in it, while the other was an ancient engraved signet ring. A fine
coat of arms was upon it, and he told strangers that it was an heirloom
of his family, whereas, if he told the truth, he would relate how he
purchased it one day at an antique dealer’s on the Ponte Vecchio, in
Florence.
His demeanour was quite calm and unperturbed. My inquiry regarding
Lillah apparently did not cause him the least surprise. He never asked
me, even, how I got to learn his address. I saw by his sphinx-like face
what a past master he was in the art of keeping his countenance.
“I think,” he said at last, “if you will permit me to say so, it is for
the best that you should not seek for Miss Ashcroft’s company.”
“Why?”
“Well--something might occur to cause you considerable unpleasantness,”
replied the man whom I knew to be a criminal--the man who had among
other things stolen the gems of the treasury at Hildesheim.
“I know,” I said. “You anticipate that Miss Ashcroft may be arrested.”
“Well, if you put it so, I admit it,” he laughed.
For a few moments I did not speak, wondering what would be the result
of the stroke of diplomacy which, as I lay awake on the previous night,
I had calmly contemplated. Dare I carry it out?
I hesitated, for if I failed, then I might only place Lillah in further
jeopardy. Yet if I was successful I might succeed in crushing this
grey-faced, calm-mannered adventurer, who was her bitterest enemy. I
knew I was playing with edged tools, that I had entered the ring of a
dangerous gang of criminals, of whom this man Rushton was one of the
most clever and daring, and unscrupulous.
“Now, listen for a moment, Mr. Rushton,” I said, boldly, at last
looking straight into his eyes. “I am here, not as your enemy, but
as your friend--providing you are ready to agree to a compact I will
propose.”
“I am listening,” he said, unmoved, thrusting his hands deeply into his
trousers pockets.
“Well, first, I may as well explain that I know who and what you
are--Ralph Rushton, wanted on half a dozen different charges.”
He sprang to his feet, and his hand went to his hip-pocket, where he
carried a revolver.
“No,” I exclaimed. “Just sit down. I am not a detective officer, but
I happen to know certain things concerning you which--well, which are
hardly creditable, shall we say?” and I smiled grimly.
“The girl has told you!” he cried fiercely. “She’s given us away.”
“Miss Ashcroft has, I assure you, not uttered a single word against
you, nor has she made any revelations. What I know is from my own
friends of Scotland Yard.”
The man was silent, regarding me with distinct suspicion.
“Now,” I went on, “you went to Bordighera in order to compel Miss
Ashcroft to assist you in a fresh _coup_, to act against her
better nature, and because she refused, you threaten her with arrest.
Suppose she were arrested, don’t you think she would, in retaliation,
give information against you?”
“I don’t care. There’s nothing against me,” he exclaimed defiantly.
“You seem to lose sight of the fact that I am Miss Ashcroft’s friend,
and that I intend to protect her.”
“Act just as you think fit, my dear sir. It is entirely the same to
me,” he answered carelessly.
“Very well,” I said. “I shall keep the information I possess to myself,
with the result that before twenty-four hours have passed, you’ll find
yourself under arrest.”
“Me!” he cried, staring wildly.
“Yes. You! I propose to come to an arrangement whereby you secure your
liberty and Lillah is freed from the bondage you and your friends have
placed upon her. That is the reason of my visit here.”
“And what arrangement do you propose?” he asked. “Really I don’t see
what I have to fear.”
“You’ve been completely given away to the police, Mr. Rushton,” I said.
“Promise me to withdraw your demands from Miss Ashcroft, and allow her
freedom--a freedom guaranteed to me, remember--and I’ll tell you all.
The affair is quite a simple arrangement.”
At first he laughed me to scorn. It was evident that the fellow was no
coward. But when I told him of my knowledge of Jim Almond, and of his
other associates, he realised that I was really a power to be reckoned
with.
“Well,” he exclaimed gruffly at last, “if you are so anxious regarding
the welfare of Lillah Ashcroft, as she now calls herself, I’ll
withdraw all I said. She shall in future go her own way providing your
information is of such a character that I deem it wise to act upon it.”
“Good,” I exclaimed in satisfaction. “Then what I tell you must be in
strictest confidence. I give you this warning, Mr. Rushton, only for
the girl’s sake, understand. The truth is that Inspector Miller, of
Scotland Yard, yesterday seized a bag which Jim Almond left behind him
at the Midland Hotel at St. Pancras, and in it found a letter giving
details of how you and Pontifex robbed the treasury of the cathedral
at Hildesheim, and sold the antique gold and silver works to old
Jacobsen, the receiver in Utrecht.”
Rushton jumped to his feet again, astounded at my words.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “And--and what else?”
“Miller is now on his way over to Utrecht to first secure the arrest of
Jacobsen in the hope of recovering some of the things, while he intends
to have you arrested immediately afterwards.”
The culprit was silent. I saw that my words had created an instant
change in his demeanour. What I told him had been entirely unexpected.
Next moment, however, he resumed that cold, calm, nonchalant air of
his, and a silence fell between us.
Had I, in thus attempting to free Lillah, blundered beyond reparation?
The man with the black record had his eyes fixed upon mine. I tried to
read his face, but only defiance was written upon it.
And then I felt certain, alas, that I had failed!
CHAPTER XVII
THE HAND OF A THIEF
THE adventurer stood for a moment with his eyes fixed upon the fire.
His cigarette had died out between his thin white fingers. He was
reflecting, for deep lines showed across his brow.
“You say,” he said at last, “that Miller is on his way to Utrecht to
see Jacobsen--eh?”
“Yes--he left London this morning.”
“And you have warned me of this, Mr. Laird, in order that in return I
should not seek further to demand the girl’s assistance--eh?”
“Exactly.”
He was again thoughtful.
“And in these letters my name is mentioned as having been connected
with the affair at Hildesheim--eh?”
“Yes.”
“Who wrote the letters?”
“I was not told the writer,” I answered, with truth.
“By God!” he cried, fiercely, “whoever has given me away shall suffer.
Jim was a fool to leave any papers behind him. It isn’t at all like
him.”
“Well,” I said, “you quite realise the danger, Mr. Rushton. Of course,
I don’t know on what terms you are with this Jacobsen, but when Miller
calls upon him he’ll no doubt tell the truth.”
“He mustn’t be there when Miller calls,” replied the adventurer with
a smile. “I must ‘wire’ at once to him and warn him to escape. If the
police raid his place they’ll find a lot of stuff there. He’s known
to us, Mr. Laird, as one of the most successful receivers of stolen
goods in Europe. In most of the really big things brought off on the
Continent he participates.”
“You mean he finances big undertakings,” I suggested, grimly.
“Well, yes,” he laughed. “He does. Therefore, I must let him know at
once.”
“And you will also go into hiding, of course.”
“Certainly. I can’t risk a visit from your friend Miller. He knows me a
little too well. I shall probably go abroad.”
“And Miss Ashcroft?”
“I have made a promise to you, Mr. Laird. As I am what I am, you
probably don’t believe that I shall respect it. But you have done me a
great service in letting me know all this--how great you can scarcely
imagine. Therefore, I am much indebted to you, and you will see that,
even though I am a thief, and an associate of thieves, I yet know how
to appreciate and to acknowledge a kindness.”
Then he shouted for the servant, whom he addressed as Harris, and gave
him orders to pack his bags, saying that he would be going on the
Continent for a month or six weeks.
Afterwards, turning to me, he said:
“Ah, Mr. Laird, you can’t tell how much excitement is crammed into the
lives of men of my profession. Some men are successful in business,
some in the City, some at the Bar. But is not successful business
nowadays a polite name for swindling? Be a big enough thief, and you
are acclaimed a successful man, and you may, if you are successful
a sufficiently long time, gain a knighthood. For the big pickpocket
baronetcy, for the little pickpocket the picking of oakum. Oh, yes,
life is a great game, isn’t it, and so full of grim humour?”
“Then you’ll leave London?” I asked.
“Yes--to-night, after I have warned Jacobsen,” he replied. “But tell
me, Mr. Laird, is Jim Almond suspected?”
“Yes, I believe so. Why not ‘wire’ to him also?”
“Ah! I don’t know his address. The dear old boy is ‘lying low’
somewhere out in Hungary, but I don’t know where.”
“After that affair at Gerrard’s Cross,” I said very slowly, my eyes
fixed upon his.
“He had nothing to do with it,” was the adventurer’s reply. “Your
friend, Miss Ashcroft, could tell you the truth about that--if she
cared--or rather if she dared.”
He was standing near the fire, the fine ring flashing upon his delicate
white hand. I could see he was all anxiety to become active, yet before
me he refused to betray any sign of nervousness.
“Harris,” he called suddenly, “I want you to take a telegram across
to the post office off Piccadilly.” Then obtaining a yellow foreign
form he scribbled an urgent message to Jacobsen, warning him at once
to go into hiding, in view of a visit from the police. This he gave to
the haggard young man who acted as his servant, and sent him off to
despatch it.
Miller’s journey to Holland would be of no avail. The old receiver
would be forewarned and escape some hours before the great detective
could arrive and consult with the local police.
But Rushton beneath his breath was uttering fierce threats of vengeance
upon the writer of that incriminating letter which had fallen into the
hands of the police--the letter which made plain to Scotland Yard the
identity of those who had so cleverly abstracted the various objects
from the treasury of the cathedral at Hildesheim.
“Of course,” I said, “you will carry out your portion of our compact!”
“Mr. Laird,” exclaimed the man who gained his living by deceit and
fraud, “if the promise of a person like myself is of any avail to you,
here is my hand.”
I took the proffered hand, and he grasped mine, saying:
“It is probable that the man who lives by his wits, as I do, is more
faithful to a friend than the so-called honest man. We know how to
appreciate a kindness, as perhaps one day you may see. Had it not been
for this timely visit of yours, I should probably have been arrested
this evening.”
“I trust you, Mr. Rushton,” I said. “Remember I have told you this--for
her sake.”
For a moment he said nothing. Then, looking me in the face, he
exclaimed:
“I suppose you know who Miss Ashcroft really is--Jim Almond’s daughter?”
“I am aware of that,” I answered briefly.
“Then, as you have warned me, I warn you, Mr. Laird. Be careful. You
don’t know her as I do.”
“I am her friend. Have you not just said that you and your associates
know how to appreciate any service rendered them?” I remarked in a
voice of reproach.
He shrugged his shoulders, saying:
“I’ve warned you--that’s all.”
“Where do you intend going? How will you escape from England?” I asked
presently.
“By the rather roundabout route I’ve taken once or twice before--one
where the police never dream of looking for us,” he laughed. “I take
the steamer from London up to Newcastle, tranship there, and cross to
either Rotterdam or Antwerp.”
“And that is the route usually taken by your friends?” I remarked, for
what he told me was instructive.
“Yes. We run fewer risks that way,” he replied. “We used to take the
Weymouth and Channel Islands route across to Cherbourg, but the police
have watched it ever since that Frensham Gaillard was detected while
crossing, after killing the lonely old lady down in Bedfordshire. You
recollect the affair--about two years ago.”
“I recollect perfectly--a most cold-blooded crime,” I declared. But I
longed to learn more of Lillah and her father, and again turned the
conversation upon Jim Almond, the director of all his exploits.
“You’ve never met Jim--eh?” he said. “He’s a ‘fly’ old bird, I can
tell you. You are friendly with Iris, therefore if you want to meet
him you’ll require no introduction from me. He’s one of the most
marvellous of men at our game, and his cleverness in avoiding arrest is
remarkable. That’s why we call him ‘Slim Jim.’ Ah! if he wrote a book,
what a book it would be. But,” he added, “here’s Harris back, and I’ll
have to be going. It’s Wednesday to-day, and the boat for Newcastle
sails from just below London Bridge at five-thirty.”
And he commenced to bustle about, giving orders to Harris.
“When I’m gone you clear out at once,” he told the youth who acted as
his servant. “Go down to your mother in Shropshire, and lie low till I
write to you--understand?”
“I want very much to re-discover Miss Ashcroft,” I said. I preferred to
call her by the name by which I had first known her.
“If I knew where she was I’d tell you. But I don’t know in the least.
She’s no doubt in hiding on account of that unfortunate little affair
at Gerrard’s Cross in January,” he added.
“But she surely had no hand in that dastardly crime!” I cried. “I’m
certain of her innocence.”
His calm sphinx-like face only relaxed into a slight smile. I tried to
get him to speak, but he would say nothing. I recollected what I had
overheard in Bordighera, and my anger arose against this man whom I had
just befriended.
As I spoke he was busy clearing out some papers from a drawer, and
recklessly burning them. From the same drawer he took a long, dark
green morocco case, and opening it, displayed to me a fine necklet of
diamonds.
“Rather good, aren’t they?” he remarked with a laugh, as he took the
ornament from its case, held it to the light for a second, and then
thrust it carelessly into his jacket pocket and tossed the case upon
the fire.
“Jim got it in Paris six months ago, but we haven’t dared to get rid
of it yet. The Russian Princess, to whom it belonged, is searching
everywhere for it,” he laughed.
I saw that from the same drawer he took several rings and other
jewellery, all of which he crammed into his pockets, together with a
small bundle of five-pound notes, making it evident that he was about
to abandon his cosy retreat.
“When the police come to-night they won’t find very much,” he declared
with a smile. “I won’t be like old Jim, and leave a lot of letters
behind me incriminating my pals.”
At his invitation I went into his bedroom, where Harris was packing his
clothes in an old and battered suit-case.
“Get away at once when I’ve gone, Harris,” he said. “You know the
guv’nor’s post address. Write and tell him where you are, and if he
should want you, go. I’m going across the way for a bit, and shall
probably drift to Paris before long--the old nook.”
“Yes, sir,” responded the servant, who was evidently a thief like his
master.
“You’ve got that money I gave you yesterday. It will carry you along
for three months. Miller, of Scotland Yard, is prying about for us, so
just keep your eyes about you. You know him--he chased us after we got
that haul out of the young Americans over at Maida Vale. If he does get
us we shall do a ‘long stretch’--both of us, remember.”
“I’ll be very wary, Mr. Rushton,” answered the crafty-faced young man,
who was at that moment folding a coat with all the neatness and care of
the experienced valet, and who, I supposed, often travelled with his
master.
I saw Rushton take out more papers--share certificates and other
securities they looked like, and burn them.
“There’s thousands of pounds going up the chimney now,” he laughed.
“I only wish we could have negotiated that lot! Phil Pontifex made a
mistake when he took them in Bordeaux, and left behind him the ones
that were any good.”
Then I saw by his anxious manner that he wanted to get rid of me,
so I bade him adieu. He grasped my hand, and repeated his promise
regarding Lillah. Afterwards I went downstairs and out into the bustle
of Shaftesbury Avenue, after what was perhaps one of the most unusual
experiences that fall to the lot of the average man like myself.
I had entered upon the dark byways of life. I had defeated the ends of
justice, it was true, but I had no qualms, for had I not at the same
time acted as protector of the frail, fair-faced girl who was being
hunted down by both the police and those unscrupulous persons who
pretended to be her friends?
CHAPTER XVIII
CONCERNING JIM ALMOND
IN London I remained, lonely and disconsolate. How curious it is that
a man, though he may possess many friends, and though he may move amid
the millions of the metropolis, may be utterly lonely and alone.
For a whole week I went about aimlessly to the club for lunch or
dinner, turning into the Empire or the Alhambra afterwards, or else
gossiping by the fireside in the big club smoking-room. I existed
from day to day in eager expectation. I had written to Lillah at the
newsagent’s address, and I was hoping against hope for a reply.
Anxious to know the result of Miller’s journey to Holland, I called one
evening about six o’clock at the private bar of a certain public-house
in Parliament Street patronised by the inspectors and sergeants at the
“Yard,” who usually look in there for a refresher before going home or
going out on duty.
The small private bar was at the end of a short passage, with a bowl
of goldfish placed upon the mantelshelf, and presided over by an astute
young lady, one of two sisters who kept the place. Here many a man has
been “given away” by his friend, and many a woman’s crime been exposed
through the jealousy of her rival, for here in this cosy, secluded
nook, unsuspected by the public, the men and women paid by the Criminal
Investigation Department come to give their information over a glass.
More information of importance is obtained in that little bar than in
the great bare offices of the huge building which overshadows it, for
here the “nark,” or police spy, comes, passing through from either the
Embankment or Parliament Street, and here his friend, the sergeant or
inspector, is waiting to hear his report. I had been in there with
Miller and his colleagues many times, and as I stood at the bar I met
several men from the “Yard” and chatted with them.
In one corner a detective inspector, whose reputation was European, was
chatting confidently with a low, blackguardly-looking fellow, no doubt
learning some secret of a crime contemplated, or a crime committed.
Miller entered at last, bluff and merry, with a joke to the lady behind
the counter, and a hearty welcome for me.
When we had drawn aside near the fireplace and the goldfish I asked
him how he had fared in Utrecht.
“Not very well, Meester Laird,” was his reply. “I had a chat with the
chief of police, but those infernal Dutchmen are so slow, and before
we’d gone through all the formalities for a warrant and arrived at
old Jacobsen’s place, a biggish house in the Kalverstraat, he’d made
himself scarce.”
“Then you didn’t get him?” I said.
“No. And the curious part was that he’d only left about four hours
before we got there. He’d packed up all the proceeds of the various
robberies which he undoubtedly had in his possession and carted them
away--where, we don’t know. But, of course, he’s a sly old fox, and has
a good many spies in his pay. It is said that he often finances big
jobs, more especially the thefts of works of art in Italy. The stealing
of Raphael’s Madonna from San Marco in Venice was engineered by him,
they say. He sold the picture to an American for a big sum.”
“Then your journey was in vain.”
“Practically so,” was the detective’s reply. “We found some letters
showing that several persons in America were in treaty for pictures
and important pieces of old silver, for New York seems to be the old
fellow’s market.”
“Anything concerning the Hildesheim treasures?”
“Not a word. The old boy tricked us very cleverly, no doubt. We learned
that four big cases of stuff were sent away on the day we arrived, and
we can find no trace of them: sent to the house of a neighbour or a
relative, no doubt.”
“I suppose you’ll try and get those men mentioned in the
letter--Rushton and Pontifex?” I said.
“Rushton has also left hurriedly, as though he was warned,” Miller
replied. “Yet how could he have known? The fact is, I’m very
disappointed and puzzled, Meester Laird. I had that journey over to
Holland for nothing.”
“And Pontifex?”
“He’s not in London. He left at the end of January, and has not been
seen here since. In all probability he’s with his friend ‘Slim Jim,’ on
the Continent.”
“You’ll probably find old Jacobsen again, I suppose,” I remarked, for
want of something to say.
“Oh, I expect he’ll break out in a fresh place before long. But a
rich man like that is generally very hard to trap. Besides, he’s
hand-in-glove with the most expert thieves--the masters, I mean--and he
always knows what’s in progress.”
I found that my friend was going along the Strand, for he had, he told
me, an inquiry to make in Ludgate Hill. So we walked together to Savoy
Court, where I induced him to come up for a quarter of an hour for a
cigar.
Presently, as we sat together, I said:
“Do you know, Miller, ever since you told me of ‘Slim Jim’ and his
daughter I’ve been intensely interested, especially in the girl’s
father. What do you know of his career?”
“His career!” echoed the detective, speaking with his slight foreign
accent. “Well, his career has been, perhaps, one of the most
adventurous of any man alive. His life would, indeed, make a splendid
romance. He’s been an adventurer for the past forty years--a man who
had a brilliant record, but who has lost it all nowadays by adopting
the life of a thief. He’s a born leader of men, and in consequence his
confederates swear by him. They are entirely in his hands--the hands of
the most crafty and cunning scoundrel in Europe.”
“Then he hasn’t always been a thief?” I exclaimed.
“No, his career, as far as we know at the ‘Yard,’ commenced in the
early seventies, when, after shooting a man in a duel at Ems, in
Germany, he went to New Zealand, and became engaged in the native wars.
He was the son of a country squire near Lincoln, and after trying his
hand at farming in New Zealand, went to Australia, where he had a turn
of hunting bushrangers. Next we know that he took a schooner in search
of a copper island in Polynesia, but not finding it he returned to
Europe, and fought in Italy as a Papal Zouave in the ill-fated campaign
which ended in the collapse of the temporal power of the Pope. All
this,” he said, “was given in evidence at the Old Bailey seven years
ago, when he was convicted.”
“Then he has been in prison?” I said.
“Several times,” Miller said; and then went on: “In America he fought
the Sioux, serving under the well-known Colonel Dodge, and was
afterwards a commandant of irregular troops in the Gaika War in Cape
Colony. He was at the Rorke’s Drift disaster, and accompanied Lord
Chelmsford’s relief column, being in command of a thousand natives.
He fought in the Basuto War in 1880, and commanded a squadron in the
Bechuanaland Expedition of Sir Charles Warren in 1884, and afterwards
was a captain in the Diamond Field Horse at Kimberley. He had served
in many fierce fights, had been wounded several times, and after the
Zulu Rebellion returned to England, where he unfortunately fell in with
an old thief named Merridew, who had been with him at Rorke’s Drift.
The pair did one or two very clever jobs, but both were soon arrested.
Merridew, who was wanted for shooting a policeman at Hornsey, got
fifteen years, and died while serving his sentence, but Jim Almond got
three, and was soon out again. From that time forth his life has been
a continuous career of crime, as shown by the record we have at the
‘Yard.’ Possessed of remarkable courage, well educated, and with a tact
and cunning that are little short of superhuman, he became the director
of a gang, the _personnel_ of which has altered from time to time,
as the members were sent to penal servitude, but whose operations have
always been of an international character and on a big scale.”
“And his wife--where is she?”
“I don’t know. She may be dead. All we can tell is that on his return
to England, in 1888, he married the daughter of the rector of a small
country village, and I can only suppose that she was the mother of
Iris.”
“You haven’t any idea of the lady’s maiden name?” I said, amazed at the
adventurous career of the man Jim Almond.
“Not the slightest. It isn’t in our record, which, curiously enough,
I was glancing at only yesterday. No man known to us has such a
career as Jim Almond,” added the detective. “If he’d gone straight
when he got back to England he might have got a decent appointment
under the Colonial Office. Old Merridew was, however, the cause of it
all--without a doubt.”
“And there’s a warrant out for Almond, I suppose?”
“Well, I ought not to tell you, you know, Meester Laird,” he replied
with a smile, with that pronounced accent. “But as a matter of fact,
there is--on more than half a dozen serious charges. When we get him
it’ll mean twenty years’ penal servitude for him, at least, whilst
if he’s arrested in France it will mean a ‘lifer’ for him at Devil’s
Island.”
“He’ll probably take good care to keep out of the way,” I laughed.
“Yes, but if we can only find the daughter we shall very soon discover
the father. ‘Slim Jim’ is devoted to the girl--they say.”
“And yet he has brought her up to a career of crime!”
“Crime is his profession, my dear Meester Laird. Men such as Almond,
experts at the game, take more pride in the neatness and cleverness of
their _coups_, than in the amount of their gains. But I must be
getting along,” he added, and rising a moment later he made his way
down in the lift.
What would the great detective have thought of me, I wondered, if he
knew that through the warning I had given Rushton, both he and the
receiver Jacobsen had gone into hiding!
But I had learnt that a warrant was out against Lillah’s father on
several serious charges, and my sole ambition now was to save her from
arrest, and send him secret word of his own peril.
I knew all this was wrong, according to the law. Yet that fair,
sweet-faced girl possessed my soul, and when a man is in love he often
commits even graver follies than that I was now committing.
Weary weeks of longing lengthened into months. April was passing.
London was filling up with homeward-bound idlers from the Riviera,
Egypt, or India; in St. James’s Street one met men after their winter
absence, while the palm-court at the “Carlton” showed more animation at
five o’clock than it had done all the long dark months. Yet, not a word
had I received from Lillah, though I had written three times.
I had called on several occasions upon Mrs. Charlesworth, but only once
it appeared that she had orders to send on “Miss Bond’s” letters, and
then the address given was the Poste Restante, Louvain, Belgium. The
newsagent’s wife showed me Lillah’s letter, three formal lines without
any address, but bearing the postmark of Berlin, and enclosing an
English postal order for one shilling.
I had advertised in the “agony” columns of several of the London
morning papers, addressing my appeal “To Lillah.” But there had been
no response, the mystery of Gerrard’s Cross was as great a mystery as
ever, while that secret message in figures which she had penned in
the Scotch express, and which had afterwards been found upon the dead
man, was as complete an enigma as ever. A thousand times had I tried to
decipher it, and a thousand times had I failed.
I tried to interest myself in the life of London, in my friends at the
club, in theatre-going and supper, but all with no avail. Before me
arose constantly that one sweet ever-present countenance, the face of
that delicate graceful woman I had so strangely grown to love.
She had lost her lover in that dark roadside tragedy of the night.
Would she ever grow to love me as dearly as I loved her? I wandered
through London drawing-rooms aimlessly, listlessly; I dined at friends’
houses, and became bored to death with their chatter and their
scandals, yet, wherever I went, I saw no woman whose face could compare
with hers. She was the personification of all that was sweet, graceful,
and lovable, even though she had, according to her traducers, so black
a heart.
I had been for a week’s golf up at Cromer, and one evening, on
alighting from the train at King’s Cross, I was bustling about with
my clubs in search of a cab, when I heard my name uttered by someone
behind me.
Turning quickly, I was confronted by the rather burly form of the
well-dressed, thick-lipped man, Philip Pontifex, the man who, among
other exploits, had been associated with Rushton in the great theft at
Hildesheim. He was smartly attired, wearing a silk hat and an overcoat
with astrachan collar, for it was a chilly evening.
“Mr. Laird!” he exclaimed in a low voice. “I--I thought I was not
mistaken! I’ve come here to the station because I want to consult you,
and I did not wish to call at Savoy Court. A man told me you were at
Cromer golfing, so I ‘wired’ to the hotel, and they replied, saying
that you had left for London, so I met this train. I trust you will
forgive me--as I think you will, when you’ve heard the reason I have
met you. I am here to give you a message--a message from your friend,
Miss Ashcroft.”
At last! My heart leapt within me for joy. A message from her!
“Tell me,” I cried quickly. “Where is she? It is imperative that I
should see her without delay--in her father’s interests--as well as
hers.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE CLOAK OF RESPECTABILITY
“SHE wishes to see you,” Pontifex said, as we walked together towards
the crossplatform, where the railway metals terminate. “It is for
that reason I am here. She says she did not deem it wise, in the
circumstances, to write to you.”
“Where is she?” I inquired quickly.
“She’s governess in a gentleman’s family down in Hampshire.”
“A governess! With whom?”
“With your friend, Captain Northey, of Charlwood Manor, near King’s
Somborne.”
“With the Northeys!” I gasped, amazed, for Fred Northey and his wife
were among my best friends. We had first met at the “Russie” in Rome,
seven years ago, and the acquaintanceship had ripened into warm
friendship. I had been to shoot at Charlwood on several occasions, and
had often met Fred and his wife in town.
And Lillah was governess in their service--governess to little Marion,
the sweet child of ten whose fair hair was tied back with white
ribbons, and who called me her “Uncle Edgar.”
“How did you know the Northeys were my friends?” I inquired in
curiosity.
“They have apparently spoken of you before her,” he said. “That is why
she knew you were friends.”
“And she wishes to see me?”
“Yes. She asks you to go and visit the Northeys. They were only
expressing wonder the other day that they had heard nothing of you of
late.”
I reflected that Fred had asked me down there for Christmas, but having
previously accepted an invitation to a house party up in the Highlands,
I had therefore to defer my visit.
“And any other message?” I inquired of the man whom Miller had declared
to be an expert at the art of imitating the handwriting of others.
“Nothing--except to thank you for the warning you gave to our friend
Ralph. I, too, thank you most sincerely, Mr. Laird.”
“Both he and Jacobsen escaped safely, I suppose?”
“Yes. Both are in New York just now, disposing of the old Dutchman’s
stuff.”
“And Almond--where is he?”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I forgot. You know everything, of course!”
“Not everything,” I replied. “I know, however, that Jim Almond, Miss
Ashcroft’s father, heads your very interesting combination,” I said,
with a smile.
“And as a member of the public you might earn a substantial reward by
giving us away to the police.”
“I have no wish to do that.”
“Because of Iris,” he said in a low tone. “Well, go and see her. She
seems most anxious to have a chat with you.”
“I will, of course,” I replied. “When did you see her?”
“Yesterday. I went down to Horsebridge Station, which, as you know, is
about three miles from the Manor, and she met me in a by-road near. I
was with her only ten minutes, and then returned to Waterloo.”
“And where’s Almond?”
“Still abroad, of course. It wouldn’t be safe for him to return just
now. Things are far too warm, with Miller making inquiries.”
“Regarding the Gerrard’s Cross affair?” I suggested, as, having gained
the departure platform, I invited him into the refreshment-bar.
He only grinned and shrugged his shoulders, saying:
“That is a matter, Mr. Laird, that we need not now discuss.”
Ten minutes later we parted, and taking a taxi to Savoy Court, I sent
a “wire” to Fred Northey saying that I was back in town, and would
like to run down and spend the week-end with him--for that day was a
Thursday.
At nine o’clock that same night Seddon handed me a reply which
expressed delight at my message, and urged me to run down on the morrow.
So my man packed my bags, and at a quarter-past eleven o’clock on the
following day I left Waterloo for Andover Junction, where I changed
upon the branch line, which took me through sleepy old Stockbridge on
to Horsebridge Station. There Fred met me in his big red “Mercédès”
and drove me over the hills, through the village of King’s Somborne,
with its squat little church, a place once the residence of John o’
Gaunt, and out upon the broad open highway, where, a mile further on,
we turned sharp to the right up a steep hill. Into a lovely wooded
country, picturesque in all the fresh green of spring, we went, and
through a tiny hamlet of homely thatched cottages called Ashley, beyond
which we suddenly swung past a lodge and up the long drive that led
to Charlwood Manor, a big, long, spacious, seventeenth-century house
partly covered with ivy, with pretty, well-kept gardens, and splendid
woods beyond.
Mrs. Northey, or Marjorie, as her intimate friends always called her,
was standing at the door, and greeted me merrily as I descended.
“Well, Edgar!” she cried, “at last! Fred and I were only talking of you
the other day. The last we heard was that you were in Bordighera. The
Jacksons, our neighbours over at Sparsholt, met you there, and told us.”
“I’m delighted you’ve come, my dear old fellow,” cried Fred, a tall,
clean-limbed man of forty-five, with a pair of merry dark eyes and
slight moustache well trained upwards. He was the owner of one of the
most extensive and picturesque estates in the county, and before his
father’s death had been in the Guards.
In the big oak-panelled dining-room with its high old dresser decorated
with some choice old blue English china, luncheon was laid, and we sat
down straight away, as it was getting late.
My eyes were searching for Lillah, but in vain.
“Where’s little Marion?” I inquired as the man handed me the _hors
d’œuvre_.
“Having her lunch with her new governess,” replied her mother, a
handsome dark-haired woman who looked marvellously young for her age.
“Oh! then Miss Roddis has left you?” I exclaimed in feigned surprise.
“Yes. We’ve got a new young lady, a Miss Nellie Bond. Marion likes her
so much, she is so kind and thoughtful, and so very helpful to me.”
“She’s quite a success,” declared her husband.
“We got her by advertisement, and her references were excellent. She’s
been abroad a great deal with the family of Baron Haller, the Dutch
banker, of The Hague.”
“So she speaks decent French, I expect?”
“Perfect,” declared Mr. Northey, “and German and Italian also--a most
accomplished girl.”
“Who are her parents?” I inquired.
“She has no father. Her mother is alive, and lives somewhere up in the
Midlands. Her father was a solicitor in Birmingham, it appears, but
before his death lost all his money in South African mines. So she had
to turn out and earn her own living, poor girl. I always feel sorry for
girls placed in such a position.”
I smiled within myself. What would my friends say if they knew the
truth of who and what their model governess really was!
Luncheon over, we went forth into the big long hall for coffee, and
presently the door at the end opened and I saw silhouetted against it
Lillah, neat and modest, in a blue serge skirt, with cream blouse, and
dark blue cravat.
Before her was little fair-haired Marion, in a sailor dress edged with
white, who, on seeing me, danced towards me, crying:
“Hulloa, Uncle Edgar!” taking my hand in welcome.
“Hulloa, dear,” I said, “I’ve been asking after you. Why, what a big
girl you grow! I declare if I met you in the street I’d never recognise
you! I hope you grow as good as you grow tall.”
Whereat the child looked shyly over to her mother, who, beckoning the
new governess forward, said:
“Let me introduce you--Mr. Laird--Miss Bond.”
Lillah’s face never altered a muscle, save, perhaps, that her cheeks
went just a trifle pale. She bowed slightly at my greeting, cold and
impassive, which showed what perfect control she could exercise over
her emotions. A moment later she turned to Mrs. Northey, saying:
“Shall I take Miss Marion through Ashley Wood this afternoon, as you
suggested?”
“Yes, I think so,” replied the child’s mother. “Be back by five, for I
daresay she’ll like to take tea with her Uncle Edgar.”
“Yes, mother,” exclaimed the child, delighted. “We’ll be back in time.
Miss Bond is going to take me to pick blue-bells. There are thousands
and thousands in the woods,” and then, turning to me, she added,
putting up her finger warningly, “If you’re very good, Uncle Edgar,
I’ll bring you home a nice buttonhole to put in your coat--see?”
I smiled, and Lillah’s eyes met mine. But only for a second. She
dropped them again, and, placing her hand tenderly upon the child’s
shoulder, went out.
Truly she acted the part of governess to perfection. But I remembered
that it was not the first occasion she had taken children under her
charge--if what Mrs. Charlesworth had told me were true.
And yet this was the girl who was suspected by Inspector Miller of
killing her lover near Gerrard’s Cross--the woman described by the
poacher who saw the dastardly crime committed!
I passed the afternoon smoking with my friend the captain, afterwards
wandering around the grounds inspecting some improvements he had made,
including the erection of a high iron windmill for the pumping of water
from a Roman well in the vicinity--for Ashley was an important Roman
camp on the straight old road from Winchester to Salisbury, parts of
which are in use to this day.
Traces of the camp lay at the side of the house--a large mound below
which were still deep ditches and high embankments; an impregnable
fortress, in those long ago days, coeval with the bronze coins of
Constantine so often turned up by the plough in the neighbourhood.
The woods, full of game, ran up quite close to the house, while the
lanes around were lined with trees, now bright in their spring green,
but in summer meeting overhead and forming long leafy tunnels. Truly
there was no more picturesque spot in the whole of the south of England
than that undulating country around Charlwood.
At last we re-entered the hall, where we found Mrs. Northey presiding
over the tea-table, chatting with Miss Bond, while little Marion held
an unconscionably large posy of primroses and blue-bells, ready for my
buttonhole.
Approaching me, and tossing her fair hair from her shoulders, she said:
“You’ve been a very good boy, Uncle Edgar, so I’ve brought these for
you to wear,” and she handed me the posy, which I was compelled to
place in the lapel of my coat.
The governess, well trained and knowing her place as a menial in the
household, said but little during tea. She did not address me once, her
conversation being always directed to her sweet little charge or to
Mrs. Northey.
“We went through the Forest Walk, down to the Forest of Bere Farm,” she
explained to her mistress, “and home by the Beacon Hill. The primroses
in the forest are simply lovely just now. The whole wood on the other
side is simply yellow with them.”
“You’ve never seen that wonderful Roman well down at the Forest of Bere
Farm, have you, Edgar?” asked my friend.
“Never.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “you, who are so fond of antiquities, should see
it. You must go. It’s over three hundred feet deep, and was in use, it
is believed, in the days of Constantine, just as it is to-day.”
“I’d be most interested to see it,” I said, and then the conversation
drifted into another channel.
Not until just as I went up to dress for dinner was I able to get a
word with Lillah.
She met me at the top of the staircase, where she had, no doubt, been
awaiting me after the dressing-bell, and as I halted for a moment
fearful of discovery, she whispered:
“To-morrow at eleven make an excuse to slip away. I will be in the
Forest Walk alone. I must see you,” and then she slipped along the
corridor, and from my sight.
CHAPTER XX
THE DEAD MAN’S NAME
I SAW Lillah no more that night. After dinner I played billiards with
my host, and then turned in.
Fortunately for me, on the following morning at breakfast, Fred Northey
said:
“I’ll have to be the greater part of the morning with Walker. We’ve
got to drive over to a farm out beyond Compton, and I daresay I shan’t
be back till twelve. But you’ll be able to amuse yourself, Edgar, old
chap, won’t you?”
“Of course,” I said. “I know my way about quite well.”
Walker was his steward, and I knew he often went over the estate with
him.
“I have to drive into King’s Somborne, Mr. Laird,” said my hostess.
“I’m taking Marion for the air. It’s such a beautiful morning. Would
you like to come with us?”
I replied that I preferred a walk, for I wanted exercise, so at ten
o’clock I found myself left entirely to my own devices, and after
writing a letter in my host’s cosy library, I took my hat and stick,
and strolled out into Ashley Wood.
The morning was glorious, with the warm sun glinting through the thin
bright green foliage, and falling on a carpet of primroses, violets,
and blue-bells. Through the great wood, stretching as it did for
several miles, were a number of paths, and as I turned into it, three
ways branched out before me. I took the left hand one, which was that
indicated by Lillah, and walked on with the birds, awakened after the
long silence of winter, singing brightly above, while ever and anon a
pheasant would rise at my feet, and the sweet odour everywhere was the
odour of the English forest, the forest which somehow is unlike any
other forest in the whole wide world.
I suppose I had gone nearly half a mile when I saw before me through
the grey lichen-covered tree trunks a female figure, which in an
instant I knew to be hers.
I uttered a cry of welcome, whereupon she waved her hand gladly. Then
I hurried forward, and a few moments later we were standing with hands
clasped.
“Lillah!” I cried, addressing her for the first time by her Christian
name. “Why have you been so long silent?”
“Under compulsion,” was her response. “I was unable to communicate with
you.”
“But you wrote to Mrs. Charlesworth to forward your letters,” I said,
as I strolled at her side along that soft path carpeted with moss.
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But, well, after I left you I was compelled
to move hither and thither. I had a very trying time.”
“Because of Ralph Rushton?” I suggested.
“Yes. Beware of him,” she answered, her gaze wavering. “I feared lest
he might carry out his threat. And I feared to write to you after
Turin, for I knew not into whose hands the letter might fall.”
By the slight sigh that escaped her and the trembling of the eyelids, I
saw that the recollections of those dark days were painful to her.
“Lillah,” I said very calmly, still looking straight into her face.
“Forgive me for what I am about to say. But I know who and what your
father is--Jim Almond, the man wanted by Scotland Yard on half a dozen
serious charges--the man who is leader of one of the most daring and
dangerous gangs of thieves in Europe.”
“Ah!” she cried, covering her face with her hands, “I feared it--I
feared that you would soon discover the truth. How you must hate me! I
know you must--for I have deceived you!”
“I do not hate you,” I declared, placing my hand tenderly upon her arm.
“On the contrary, I have known the truth from the very first; yet I
resolved to be your friend.”
“And assuredly you have been, Mr. Laird,” she declared, looking at me
with a strange, half-frightened glance. “My father has told me how you
found Rushton and warned him of the intentions of the police.”
“You have seen your father, then?”
“Yes--I spent a quiet fortnight with him, hiding in the house of a
friend of ours in a suburb of Vienna--a man in the same profession as
my father. I begged him to return to England, but he declares that it
is far too dangerous.”
“And then you saw Mrs. Northey’s advertisement and answered it?”
“Yes. I deemed that to take a situation as governess would be a good
means of effacing my identity, for while the police were searching for
me all over the Continent, as they no doubt are, I would be living
right under their very noses.”
“But why are the police in search of you?” I inquired, suddenly.
In an instant she saw that she had made an injudicious declaration,
therefore she stammered:
“Well, that’s only my suspicion. If they want to find my father they’ll
probably first seek to discover me and then watch my movements. That is
their usual mode.” She carefully avoided any reference to that strange
affair at Gerrard’s Cross, though I recollected at that moment her
pale nervousness when Dick Duncan had so unconsciously referred to it
while we were crossing the Channel.
I did not press her for further explanation, but made inquiry into the
manner in which she had obtained a reference to satisfy my hostess.
“Oh--that’s quite easy,” she laughed. “We have a friend who passes
under the name of Baron Haller. He’s really a receiver of stolen
property, like Jacobsen in Utrecht. He always gives me a reference when
I require one.”
“Then you’ve been a governess before?”
“Yes--always against my will,” was her low, half-whispered reply, as
she walked with her gaze set straight before her.
“With a definite object, I suppose?”
Her face relaxed into a mysterious smile.
“I have entered more than one family at my father’s request--in
order--well, in order to ascertain its secrets,” she said. “And some
that I have discovered have been strange ones indeed. Both Rushton and
Pontifex have brought blackmail to a fine art.”
“I hardly follow your last sentence,” I remarked.
“Well, suppose I enter a family, it is the easiest thing in the
world to become the _confidante_ of my mistress, learn her
secrets--those she has from her husband, for instance--and then pass
them on to Rushton.”
“And you have done this!” I exclaimed, in a voice half of reproach.
“Under compulsion,” she cried. “I have not, I swear to you, Mr. Laird,
ever done it of my own free will. To me it is hateful work. Ah!” she
sighed. “The women who have revealed their secrets to me have, alas!
had good cause to curse me afterwards.”
“Then Rushton and Pontifex--with your father as director of it
all--have squeezed these unfortunate ladies of money--eh?”
“Of all they possessed sometimes--even their jewels. Most of my sex
cling to their good name as their most cherished possession.”
“Yes,” I said, “it is astonishing how weak a woman becomes when she
desires to avoid a scandal.”
“True,” she declared. “And it is equally astonishing that never once
have I been suspected of conveying the truth to those men--those two
‘spiders’ of society,” she added with set teeth.
“Your father countenanced it,” I remarked in a low voice, looking into
her pale thoughtful countenance.
“Alas! I know,” she said, sighing. “I have tried my utmost to induce
him to give up this life of deceit and double-dealing, but all in vain.
He has enough money for his wants, yet he refuses to listen to me. He
says he has had excitement and adventure all his life and must have it
still.”
“Well,” I remarked, “I hope your present object is not to lead Mrs.
Northey into any trap set by those blackmailers.”
“Hardly that,” she answered. “I am here only as a harbour of
refuge--because I know that as a governess, earning my living
respectably, I am more likely to evade detection. But, ah! if my father
would only return!--if only we could live happily and quietly as we did
for three whole months last year.”
“You’re devoted to your father, Iris--for I may as well call you by
your right name,” I said.
“Yes,” was her unhesitating reply. “Though he has brought me up to be
his assistant in his various nefarious schemes, yet he has ever been a
good father to me, and he feels my loss, I know, just as keenly as I
feel the loss of him.”
“But he’ll return,” I said. “Surely he’ll return?”
“No. The police are now too hot upon his trail. A fortnight ago, in
Trieste, he was recognised, and only managed to escape by getting on
board a steamer for Zara, in Dalmatia. His photograph is circulated
everywhere. He’s now in Montenegro, I think, up at Cettigne.”
“Rushton is in New York.”
“I know,” she said. “I heard from Mr. Pontifex how, in return for my
liberty, you had saved him from arrest. How can I sufficiently thank
you for that? Though my father does not know you personally, he asked
me to tell you that he trusts you will allow him to meet you one day
and thank you personally for the manner in which you got me secretly
across the Channel after----” and she hesitated, without concluding her
sentence.
“After the Gerrard’s Cross affair, you mean,” I added very slowly, my
gaze fixed upon hers the while.
She started quickly. In an instant her countenance had blanched to the
lips.
“I--I don’t quite follow you,” she gasped. “I--I----But what do you
know of that----?”
“Only one thing, Iris,” I answered boldly. “I know that on the morning
of the tragedy you wrote a cryptic message. Do you not recollect that
you wrote it in the train while I watched you? That message,” I added,
meaningly, “was found upon the dead man Paul.”
“Yes,” she cried, a strange light in her eyes. “I know, Mr. Laird.
I read in the newspapers the evidence given at the inquest. I was
described. They declared that I--that I--I killed Paolo Pauletti!”
“No,” I said in quick sympathy, “don’t let us discuss it. I see you are
upset, Iris. Remember, I am always your friend. If you deem it wise to
make me your confidant, then rest assured that I shall never betray
you. I am, I hope, a man of honour, and my word is ever my bond.”
“How can I possibly doubt you, Mr. Laird?” she exclaimed. “Had you
wished, you could have given me up to the police long ago. Sometimes
when I’ve sat alone and pondered I have wondered why you have not--why
you have been so very good to me--a girl who met you as a perfect
stranger!”
“I repeat, I am your friend,” I said. “Friendship grows imperceptibly,
and out of nothing. It is often as unaccountable as love, or as
prejudice.”
“But surely, knowing what you do concerning me, you would be only
prejudiced against me! Indeed, what I have just told you regarding
my own unforgivable deeds would be sufficient to prejudice me as an
adventuress in the eyes of any honourable man!”
“Nothing prejudices friend against friend,” I declared. “I made a
promise to you, Iris--a promise of friendship, which I hope I shall
always respect. My sole desire is to see you cleared of this black
suspicion upon you--to see you and your father--whom I have not the
pleasure of knowing--leading an upright and honourable life.”
“Ah!” she cried, breaking suddenly into hot tears, “I, too, have the
same goal before me. I hate it all. I only want peace and security
with dear old dad--a born adventurer, it is true, but one of the best
fathers in the world. I know, Mr. Laird, when you meet him he’ll
interest you. He has so many quaint stories of his wild adventurous
life in New Zealand and in South Africa.”
“I’m sure we shall be friends,” I said. “I only regret that he clings
to his old and dishonourable profession.”
Then, for some distance we walked on through that beautiful wood, where
the new foliage was budding everywhere, where trees were white with
blossom, and where the silence was broken only by the sweet songs of
the birds and the spring-song of the cuckoo.
Both our hearts were, I think, too full for mere words.
At last, after a glance into her pale, hard-set face, I urged her to
confide in me.
“Ah! Mr. Laird. Heaven knows, I--I’ve done my best to make dad give it
all up. I only hope that he will. Hunted as I am by those I believed
to be my friends, as well as by the police, mine is a life unbearable.
I long for the peace and respectability such as is the lot of other
girls--to be free to earn my own living, as I am earning it now.”
“But surely that fellow Rushton has given you your freedom?” I cried.
“He promised me! What have you further to fear?”
“I--I fear what I anticipated when we met at Feltham,” she answered
slowly, in accents of anguish, after a long and painful pause.
“But you have given me to understand that you are innocent of having
any hand in the young Italian’s death!” I exclaimed quickly.
“Yes--but--I--I told you----”
Those halting words froze upon her lips. Her soft, dimpled cheeks
were pale as death, and her thin white hand clenched in a nervous
emotion that she strove in vain to repress. Within her heaving breast
had arisen a veritable tumult of agony. At that moment of her bitter
remorse she was about to confess to me the actual truth.
I had paused, holding her soft, trembling hand in mine. I pressed it in
my own.
“Speak, Iris,” I said, softly. “Speak--I--I am ever your friend.”
But scarcely had those words left my lips when something happened--an
incident startling and unexpected.
I realised that we were not alone!
CHAPTER XXI
THE SIN AND THE STRANGER
FOR a moment we were so surprised that neither of us could utter a word.
We had imagined ourselves quite alone in that delightful glade, yet we
had, it seemed, been watched by a tall, sparely-built, well-dressed
young man who, stepping suddenly forward from some bushes, faced us.
My neat-waisted little companion uttered an involuntary cry as she
apparently recognised him--distinctly a cry of terror. Her hand sought
mine convulsively, while at the same time all light died from her
beautiful face.
The man was, I judged, about twenty-eight or so, fair-haired,
clean-shaven, and wearing a well-cut homespun suit, and golf-cap, and
carrying in his hand a short stick. He looked strong, athletic, and
from the dust upon his boots it was apparent that he had walked a
considerable distance.
“Ah!” he laughed, sarcastically, “so I see that you recognise me, Miss
Lillah! I’m like a ghost risen from the past--eh?”
I looked at my companion for some explanation, but she afforded me
none. She only held her breath, while in her staring eyes was a look of
dismay and terror.
The meeting was, for her, an unpleasant one, undoubtedly. But in a
moment I resolved to “face the music,” whatever it might be.
“I don’t know, sir, by what right you address this lady!” I cried in
resentment.
“I haven’t the pleasure of knowing who or what you are,” he replied;
“but I have every right to address Miss Lillah Ashcroft. I presume you
are one of her precious father’s gang--and if you are I address you
also,” he added defiantly.
“Do you wish to insult me?” I cried, advancing fiercely towards the
fellow.
“Not in the least. The day before yesterday while Miss Ashcroft was
driving in Northey’s governess-cart in Winchester I recognised her. So
this morning I’ve come over to have a few serious words with her.”
Again Iris uttered a cry, more like a groan. She was trembling, her
face ashen pale, her lips parted.
“Perhaps,” he added, “she will deny all knowledge of me. But”--and he
raised his finger to her--“but I think you will be compelled to admit
that her attitude is that of a guilty woman.”
“Miss Ashcroft,” I said, turning to her, “I think you had better
return to the house, and leave me to interview this gentleman;” I
accentuated the final words of the sentence.
“No,” cried the stranger, “let her hear me. It was she who killed my
dear friend, Count Paolo Pauletti!”
The woman beside me covered her white face with her hands, and burst
into a flood of tears. Then we all three stood silent.
In face of her terror and emotion, I knew not what to say.
“She does not deny it!” the man exclaimed in a hard, vengeful voice.
“Because she cannot. The truth is too plain. There was an eye-witness!”
“Come,” I said in a voice of sympathy, “don’t remain here, Miss
Ashcroft. Go back to the house for the present.”
Truth to tell, the situation was so embarrassing and so unexpected
that I had been taken completely aback. Surely her position was one of
extreme peril.
“Let me remain,” she urged in a low, hoarse voice. “Let me hear his
accusation.”
“I repeat that you, Lillah Ashcroft, killed poor Paul because of
jealousy! You loved him!”
“It is true,” was her faltering answer, “I did love him.”
“I’ll not allow you to remain here,” I cried, fearing lest she might
commit herself by some further admission. “Please leave us, Miss
Ashcroft. I beg of you to do so.”
“She may return to the Northeys,” exclaimed the stranger, “but she will
not retain her liberty for long,” and he turned his back upon her in
undisguised disgust and loathing.
“But, Mr. Whatton,” she protested faintly, “you surely might have
spoken to me alone!”
“No, I wished to speak before a third person--to expose your perfidy!”
Again I begged her to leave us. Nay, my appeal now took the form of a
demand, and at last very reluctantly her head sank upon her breast, she
turned and with unsteady gait retraced her steps by the way we had come.
“Now, sir!” I exclaimed, as soon as she had turned the bend among the
grey tree-trunks, “whatever you have to say, you will, perhaps, say it
before me.”
But the stranger merely smiled.
“I cannot see that you have anything to do with differences existing
between Miss Ashcroft and myself,” was his resentful reply.
“Then this is merely a difference between you two?”
“Call it what you like,” he said impatiently. “I have spoken the truth.
That girl murdered my best friend.”
“You have proof of it--eh?” I asked as quietly as I could.
“Ample proof. You don’t know her as I do, evidently.”
At once I saw that if I assumed relationship with Iris I might obtain
some information from this angry stranger, so I replied:
“I think I ought to know her well, considering that I’m her cousin.”
“Oh! I wasn’t aware of that,” he said in a changed tone. “I imagined
you to be one of the associates of Pontifex, Rushton, and the man
Ashcroft, whose other name is Almond, and whose ‘aliases,’ I suppose,
are a hundred.”
“Tell me the whole circumstances,” I said. “Possibly I can assist you.”
“You will, of course, shield your pretty cousin.”
“Not if she is found guilty of this terrible crime which you allege.”
I saw that he was greatly incensed against her, and that his spirit was
that of fierce revenge. But as we strolled slowly together I gradually
got him into a calmer mood, and after I had told him my name he replied
that he was George Whatton, that he was a clerk in the London City and
Provincial Bank, and was now stationed at the Winchester branch. While
on his stool at the bank he had seen Lillah Ashcroft drive down the
High Street with little Marion, and on inquiry learned that she was the
governess of the Northeys of Charlwood.
“And how did you become acquainted with her?” I asked, adding: “Tell me
all you can, as perhaps I may be able to furnish some other details.”
“But you are her cousin,” he remarked.
“And just the reason why I should know more of the affair than you,”
was my quick response.
“Well,” he said, “my youth was spent in Florence, where I had a boy
friend, Count Paolo Pauletti, the son of the great Tuscan landowner
and Senator. We were afterwards at Haileybury together, and while he
inherited his father’s splendid estates, with palaces in the Via Bardi,
in Florence, and the Palazzo Pauletti in the Corso in Rome, I, owing
to a change in the fortunes of my family, was compelled to adopt a
commercial career and become a bank clerk, first at the head office and
afterwards at the Shepherd’s Bush branch. Paolo, my dear friend, who
was almost a brother, preferred England to Italy, and was frequently
in London, spending much of his time with me. He was wealthy and
good-looking, had served his time in one of the crack cavalry regiments
in Italy, and was much sought after by mothers with marriageable
daughters--those wizen-faced old marchesas and contessas who hawk
about their daughters in summer at Rimini, Livorno, Viareggio, and
Salzomaggiore. I don’t know whether you know Italy? If you do, you’ll
know the painted, powdered, grotesque old women I mean.”
“Yes,” I said, with a smile, “I know Italy very well, and I recognise
the type you describe.”
“Well,” he went on, after a brief pause, “I must now make a confession.
Paul and I went about London a good deal together, and I did not like
to allow him to pay always. Hence gradually, by slow degrees, I got
into debt. At first I did not feel the burden very great, but, as
you may imagine, my salary at the bank was not large, and one day I
awoke to find myself very much in ‘queer street.’ Two men of whom
I had borrowed money were pressing for repayment, and threatened
proceedings which, I knew, must result in my discharge from the bank.
I became greatly worried, yet I could not bring myself to tell Paul
the truth. Just at this time, about eighteen months ago, Paul and
I were one evening in the American bar at the ‘Savoy,’ when we got
into conversation with a stranger, with whom we eventually exchanged
cards--a gentleman named Mr. Philip Pontifex.”
“I know him,” I remarked briefly.
“Well, we became friends, and it was afterwards evident that, before
making my acquaintance, he had ascertained my calling. One day, about
a month later, after Paul and I had been introduced to his friend
Ashcroft and his pretty daughter Lillah and Ralph Rushton, who had a
cosy flat in Shaftesbury Avenue, I dined with him in a private room
at the ‘Globe’ in Coventry Street. And there he placed a proposal
before me. Over the dessert he told me that he knew I was hard up,
and sympathised with me. Then he gradually unfolded to me a plan--an
ingenious plan--and said that if I supplied certain things, exact
information, some printed forms used by the bank, some of the bank’s
notepaper, and a specimen of the business signature of the manager of
the Shepherd’s Bush branch, he would give me five hundred pounds.”
“And you did so?”
“What else could I do? I was in desperate straits!”
“You couldn’t resist the temptation--eh?”
“No. To cut a long story short, I obtained all that he wanted, and a
week later, when I handed them over in his furnished rooms down at
Chelsea, I received the five hundred pounds he promised.”
“Well?”
“Probably you read in the papers what happened--how one branch of the
bank, a fortnight later, was made the victim of a huge fraud; the
swindlers--that is, Pontifex, Rushton, and Ashcroft, or Almond, as is
his real name--got clear away to the Continent with twelve thousand
odd pounds. Nobody suspected me. Indeed, since that time I’ve been
promoted and sent down to Winchester, where I still am.”
“That’s a confession,” I remarked, “an open confession.”
“I know,” he said, “but I have still more to tell you. Pontifex, crafty
scoundrel that he was, made it a condition that I should not cash any
of the notes he gave me for one month. Then, three days before the
month expired, he wrote warning me not to attempt to put them into
circulation, as they were the proceeds of a previous robbery in Glasgow
and had been stopped.”
“Then the swindlers actually swindled you!” I cried, realising now the
reason of his intense anger.
“Yes--the blackguards!”
“That was distinctly dishonourable,” I said grimly. “But what of your
friend Pauletti?”
“Ah! that is the point. When I found I had been swindled I went to
him and made full confession. He was then staying at ‘Claridge’s,’
and I recollect the evening when, in his sitting-room, I told him the
truth. He made no remark. He only ground his teeth and clenched his
hands. His attitude was so curious that I asked him the reason. Then
he told me. He had fallen deeply in love with Ashcroft’s daughter, and
had been in the habit of going down to see her at the small house her
father occupied out at Hanworth, near Feltham outside London. There,
one night, he had played cards with Rushton and Pontifex, and Lillah’s
father, and had lost nine hundred pounds. Until I made my confession he
had no idea that our friends were expert thieves. My confession greatly
upset him, and--and I fear, alas!” he added in a hard, strained voice,
“I fear it was the cause of his losing his life, poor fellow!”
“How?” I asked quickly.
“Listen, and I will tell you.”
CHAPTER XXII
RELATES AN AMAZING STORY
WE had halted together, and my new acquaintance stood leaning upon his
stick as he faced me.
“Poor Pauletti fell into the net they cleverly spread for him,” he
said. “It was I who, alas! introduced him to Rushton, who, in time,
introduced him to Ashcroft and Lillah. At that time he believed them
all to be persons well off, and highly respectable--until I was the
first to fall into the trap. Then I realised when too late how cleverly
I had been misled, and with what consummate art and cunning the bank
had been robbed. You recollect the case?”
“Of course,” I said. “It was in all the papers, and declared to be one
of the cleverest bank frauds of modern times. The police possessed not
the slightest clue.”
“Except that they knew the thieves must have been supplied with
information by someone in the bank itself,” he laughed. “But with a big
bank like ours, with so many branches and such a large staff, they
found it impossible to pick upon the right person--myself.”
“But your friend, the young count?” I said. “How did they enmesh him?”
“First, Lillah cast her web about him. He fell over head and ears in
love with her, while she--curse her--pretended to love him.”
“She did love him,” I protested, speaking very quietly.
“Love him!” he echoed impatiently: “Love him, when it was her hand that
killed him!”
“This is surely not proved,” I exclaimed. “I know that the poacher
told an extraordinary story at the inquest, but I consider it very
unreliable.”
“It is the truth--without a doubt,” he declared quickly. “Since
Paul’s death I have ascertained that this gang of vampires--these
suckers of blood--obtained from him nearly half he possessed, by
Rushton representing that he held a controlling interest in a new
and marvellous invention--one which, if it really had existed, would
revolutionise the whole civilised world.”
“And what’s that?” I inquired. “We hear of very strange discoveries
nowadays.”
“The invention of a weapon that would abolish war!” he replied. “So
marvellous was it alleged to be that Paul, to secure control of the
discovery from the hands of Rushton, and intending to present it to
the Italian nation, sold half he possessed and paid for it in hard
cash, but exactly how much I cannot yet quite discover.”
“But tell me,” I urged, much interested. “A man does not part with
money until he sees an invention put to the test. How does it propose
to abolish war?”
He placed his hand in his breast pocket, and from his wallet took a
typewritten prospectus, saying, “This was found only recently among
Paul’s papers at his home in Florence. Listen to what it says:
“Nations may build ‘Dreadnoughts’ and airships against each other,
but another far more powerful weapon has been discovered for the
warfare of the future. The cannon, the torpedo, the rifle, and
the sword are powerless against this weapon that science has
just discovered. Briefly, there has been found a mode by which
Hertzian ‘waves’ may be controlled and directed, a fact which, to
those acquainted with their force and power, will be sufficiently
appalling. Hertzian ‘waves’ are called after Heinrich Hertz, who,
about the year 1888, found that it was possible to control in a
greater or lesser degree the magnetic current about us. These ‘waves’
move along in corkscrew fashion, but no scientist up to this present
discovery has ever been able to control and direct them.
“Past experiments demonstrated that this invisible force could
penetrate a stone wall four feet thick, yet they were uncontrollable.
For practical purposes the waves are spirals of moving invisible
flame, which I can now guide over the distance of ten miles. Armies
and navies can now be annihilated by the unseen forces of nature
without the chance of raising a finger in self-defence. Two or three
men sitting at these newly-devised instruments can direct a group
of waves through the air towards an advancing fleet. The waves will
strike the ships, run along the metal portions of them as flame will
run along a train of petrol, while all the while the ship will be
giving off electric sparks as from a huge battery. In a few seconds,
indeed, sparks would be emitted from everywhere, all the shells
on board would burst, the powder magazines would explode, and the
biggest battleship ever built would be sent into the air in atoms.
And not only at sea, but on land also these destructive waves may be
sent into any fortress or powder-magazine at the will of the operator
touching a single keyboard. The invisible power now under control can
pierce the walls of the strongest fortress, or will strike down an
army like the invincible finger of death itself, twisting guns and
swords into a shapeless mass. Thus this most powerful yet invisible
force known to science may be directed at will, and the future peace
of the world now lies in the hands of a single man.”
“And I suppose the whole story of this invention is an utter
fabrication?” I remarked.
“No,” he said. “That’s what shows how clever and cunning were these
scoundrels. While this statement has, I found, been copied, with some
alteration, from an article which appeared in a magazine, yet it is a
fact that a French _savant_ has actually been able to partially
control Hertzian waves with most astounding results. All that is stated
regarding the potentialities of the invention is correct. But the
invention is not yet perfect. Paul was, I have since discovered, shown
some of this Frenchman’s experiments, the inventor believing that the
Count was in treaty to finance him, whereas Rushton and his friends
were declaring that they were the holders of the whole discovery, and
that whoever purchased it would be instrumental in putting an end to
war, for no navy would put to sea, nor would an airship dare to rise,
knowing that at any moment the dread invisible waves would annihilate
it in a single second.”
“And Pauletti swallowed the bait?”
“Yes--and lost his life into the bargain, poor fellow!” ejaculated
Whatton.
“But did he tell you nothing of his secret dealings with these men?”
“Not a word. I was in entire ignorance of it until his friends in Italy
discovered how depleted was the dead man’s purse, how he had sold his
land in secret, and how he had made mysterious payments of big sums to
an Englishman named Clarke, who had an account at the Credit Lyonnais,
in Paris, and who, I have established, was no other than Ralph Rushton.”
“Do the police know all this?” I asked.
“No. But they soon will know,” he said. “Only three days ago Paolo’s
younger brother, Giacomo, who has arrived in England, came down to see
me at Winchester and showed me several letters from Rushton which had
been found in the dead man’s writing-table in the Palazzo Pauletti in
Florence, together with that remarkable and astounding document I have
just read to you.”
“But if this is the truth, where has all the money gone?” I asked.
“Not into Almond’s pockets, I think,” was Whatton’s reply. “He is
leader of the gang, no doubt, but I believe he is not at all well off,
for Rushton and Pontifex have taken the greater share of the spoils.”
“They must be wealthy men,” I remarked, recollecting how I had given
the first-named warning to escape.
“Yes,” the young man said, “they managed to squeeze a good many
thousands out of poor patriotic Paul.”
“Thousands which they must have concealed somewhere.”
“They have fat banking accounts abroad, I expect,” said the dead
man’s friend. “Men of their stamp, if at all successful, amass great
fortunes. Then, as soon as they are wealthy, the police experience the
greatest difficulty in bringing them to justice. The long pocket tells,
as it does in everything else in this world.”
“Yes,” I admitted; “but you haven’t made it at all plain why your
friend should have been enticed to that lonely spot near Gerrard’s
Cross, and killed in a manner so secret that even the doctors cannot
say with any degree of certainty how the fatal issue was caused. Had he
come to the end of his money?”
“Not by any means,” was Whatton’s reply. “There are letters in
existence to show that at the very time of his death he was arranging
to pay this mysterious Mr. Francis Clarke, of the Rue St. Honoré, a
further sum of five thousand pounds.”
“Then, if he was still interested in the bogus invention and was still
financing it, why should he have been assassinated? Men such as Almond
and his friends don’t usually kill the ‘goose that lays the golden
egg.’ They’re far too clever for that.”
“That’s just my argument. I allege that the girl Lillah killed him
because she was jealous of his attentions to another woman,” he
declared.
“Have you any basis for such a theory?” I asked him very seriously.
“Yes,” was his quick reply. “In due course I shall present my facts.”
“In order to convict her--eh?”
“Certainly.”
I was silent for some moments. I realised that the situation was now
full of grave peril. Indeed, I did not know whether Iris, so suddenly
confronted by one of her father’s victims, had not already made her way
out of the neighbourhood.
“But,” I exclaimed at last, “has it not occurred to you that, having
realised that Pontifex had induced you to become a traitor to the bank,
they expected that you would confess to your most intimate friend, the
Count. Then he, realising that the whole invention was a fraud, would
in turn inform the police. Would not fear of that be a sufficient
incentive for those unscrupulous persons to endeavour to get him out
of the way by the most mysterious means possible?”
“I have already fully considered such a contingency, but it is not one
that can be accepted,” was his prompt response.
“If Paolo had given information to the police, Pontifex would have, in
turn, at once given me away as the person who supplied the specimen
signature and other things to him. Indeed, when my friend told me how
he had been cheated at cards I pointed out to him that any information
he gave could only reflect on myself, his friend. Hence he promised to
say nothing. But, of course, I had no idea at that time of the purchase
of the invention.”
“So you believe that the gang knew that the Count dared not give
information against them, lest you should be arrested with them--eh?”
“That is my firm belief,” was his reply. “No,” he went on. “Paolo was
killed by that girl with the sweet, innocent face--the girl who kissed
him upon the lips at the moment when she struck him the fatal blow.”
“But, according to the doctors, no blow was struck.”
“I know the truth,” declared the man before me. “And I will prove it.
Almond and his confederates had no intention that Paul should meet
with that sudden and tragic end. On the contrary, it was to their
interest that he should live, for to them he was a constant source of
revenue. No. It was that jealous girl who resolved that, because he had
abandoned her--he should die.”
“Then there was really another woman in the case?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes,” he answered. “And the story of the affair was even stranger than
that which I’ve just related to you. Ah, when you know the truth,” he
cried, “you will hate Lillah Ashcroft with as great and fierce a hatred
as I possess towards her--a hatred that can only be appeased by her
trial and just punishment for her foul and dastardly crime. She killed
my friend--killed him with her own hand!”
CHAPTER XXIII
TOWARDS THE DOOM
“MORE likely Paul Pauletti fell the victim of the private vengeance of
one of those men,” I said. “I was present at the inquest.”
“Then you heard the evidence given by the poacher--the man who actually
saw the crime committed? Is not that quite conclusive?”
“No,” I replied. Yet Miller’s statements flashed across my mind at that
moment, and I realised how this man Whatton’s theory coincided exactly
with that of the renowned investigator of crime.
I could see no way of checkmating him.
“Well,” I added, “speak plainly, Mr. Whatton; what are your intentions?”
“I intend, now that I have ascertained that Lillah Ashcroft is
masquerading as governess here, to go to the police and tell all that I
know.”
“And also about your dealings with Pontifex?”
“No,” he replied grimly.
“But Pontifex will, no doubt.”
“I think not. Neither he nor Rushton has any love for the girl. They’d
only be glad to be rid of her.”
“And her father?”
“I don’t know anything about him.”
“But do you anticipate for one moment that Jim Almond would allow
his daughter to be arrested, and perhaps arrested himself, without
attempting some reprisals against the man who gave them away? No,” I
declared, “he’s not the sort of man to take an ill turn lying down.”
“I don’t care,” he cried fiercely. “The girl killed my poor friend
Paul, and I shall go to the police this very day and tell them
everything.”
“Then if you do so, Mr. Whatton,” I said, speaking very seriously, “I
shall also tell my friend, Inspector Miller, at New Scotland Yard, the
truth of the London City and Provincial Bank robbery, and you will be
placed in the dock at the Old Bailey beside Pontifex, Rushton, and
perhaps Jim Almond--when they catch him.”
He stared at me in blank amazement.
“I--I never saw it in that light,” he cried. “I forgot, when I told you
the truth, that you might give information against me! I----”
And he appeared utterly taken aback by the realisation of his own
foolish indiscretion.
“I have no desire whatever to do this,” I hastened to assure him. “My
only object is the protection of Lillah, and to allow her a fair and
just opportunity to clear herself of this terrible charge which you
make against her.”
“It was made plain at the inquest,” he cried. “Besides, if necessary,
the woman who held Paul’s affections--the woman of whom Lillah had
become so insanely jealous--will come forward and make a statement,
when the time is ripe.”
“What statement?”
“She will tell how Paul discarded Lillah, with whom, at first, he was
so frantically in love, on realising that her father was an adventurer,
and how he became attracted by her.”
“Who is she?”
“A young lady living in London.”
“Cannot you be more definite? That’s rather vague.”
“Her name is Elsie Maxwell.”
“And Lillah knew her--eh?”
“She robbed Lillah of her lover.”
“But,” I said, “do you recollect that there was found a certain cryptic
message--one that has, I believe, defied all efforts to decipher it?”
“Yes. That message was from Lillah. The pair used a secret code for
communicating with each other. To me it is quite plain, and is even
further corroborative of the poacher’s evidence. She made that secret
appointment with him for one sole object--revenge.”
“If we could but read that cipher message a great deal would, no doubt,
be explained,” I remarked.
“She alone could furnish the key,” he said. “But that she will never
do, depend upon it.”
“I don’t see why she should not.”
“Not if she is innocent. But I contend that everything, even to the
finding of that secret message, points to her guilt.”
“Well,” I said at length, “I sincerely trust, Mr. Whatton, that you
will, for the present, at any rate, retain your theories regarding
the mysterious affair to yourself. If you do not, then I shall most
certainly act as I have said.”
“I intend to speak,” he cried, suddenly angry again, “and you shall not
stop me!”
“Then I shall speak also,” I replied very calmly. “Miller will be
pleased--very pleased, indeed, to be able to clear up the great bank
fraud.”
“And--and you’d ruin me!” he gasped, pale at the thought of betrayal.
“As you would ruin a defenceless girl, whose only fault lies in the
possession of a disreputable father.”
“She’s a thief, like her father,” he declared quickly.
“But she loved your friend, the Count. You admitted that,” I said. “You
told me that it was he who turned from her on discovering that she was
the daughter of a thief. If she loved him as you say, she surely had no
hand in betraying him to her father’s confederates!”
“Perhaps it was pretence of love.”
“Then pretence of love would not lead her to such a crime of jealousy
as you allege,” I declared.
We had turned back, by the way, and had come along what was known as
the Forest Drive, and were nearly at the edge of the beautiful wood
with its carpet of spring flowers.
“Come,” I said, after some further argument, “let us unite, Mr.
Whatton, in endeavouring to solve the mystery of your poor friend’s
tragic end. Act carefully and without rashness, and we may yet succeed
where the police have failed.”
“But the truth is so plain. It----”
“Pardon me, the truth is anything but plain,” I interrupted. “True,
Pontifex and Rushton behaved like blackguards to you in paying you
for your services with stolen notes, yet, after all, have you not
some little satisfaction in knowing that you have not profited by the
betrayal of your trust?”
“I deeply regret it all. I was a fool!” he cried, “and I have long
ago repented. Ah! had I but summoned courage to tell Paul of my
embarrassed finances, I should never have been led into that trap
those blackguards so cunningly baited for me.”
“Well,” I said, “we have either to be enemies, Mr. Whatton--or friends.
If the latter, we will work together, and endeavour to clear up the
mystery as I have for months been constantly trying to do--but, alas!
without success.”
He hesitated, but by this hesitation I knew that he was inclined to
take my advice. Indeed, if he did not, he saw that his own arrest was
imminent. In his fierce hatred of Lillah he had, all unconsciously,
admitted his own crime.
“Well,” he answered at last, “if you will guarantee to behave with
perfect impartiality in the matter, I will agree.”
“I shall be perfectly impartial. At present, I do not see what motive
Lillah had for the committal of the crime.”
“I have already explained--it was jealousy.”
“May I see this Miss Elsie Maxwell? Will you introduce me to her?”
“She is abroad just now. You shall see her when she returns. Meanwhile,
I’m always to be found at the bank at Winchester.”
“Very well,” I said, “I shall go along, and see what has happened to
Miss Lillah. She is evidently desperate now that she believes you
intend to denounce her.”
And then we shook hands and parted at the cross-ways, he taking the
right-hand path which led out across the fields and through Upper
Somborne Wood to the high road to Winchester, while I turned in the
opposite direction towards the house.
My host had returned, and not finding me, had gone out again, but
though I searched I could not find the governess.
“Miss Bond came in about half an hour ago, sir,” old Blacker, the
butler, replied, “but I fancy she went out again. I noticed that she
had changed her dress as she went past the window.”
Could she have fled?
I went round the garden frantically, and got one of the maids to search
the house--rooms that were _terra incognita_ to me. But all was to
no purpose.
She had returned, changed her dress--and left!
The only means of getting away, I reflected, was by train from
Horsebridge Station to either Andover or Southampton. Therefore I set
out by the footpath across the fields, hoping to overtake her.
For nearly two miles I hurried on breathlessly across that pretty
undulating country, mostly meadow-land, towards the valley of the Test;
when, at last, my eager eyes caught sight of a figure standing at a
stile in the field beyond me.
I shouted, and waved my hand.
Then I ran forward until I was at her side.
“Iris,” I cried breathlessly, “what are you doing? Why are you leaving
here?”
“How can I stay?” she asked hoarsely, her face changed. “How can I
stay--after this morning?”
“Why, certainly!” I cried cheerily. “That fellow, Whatton, is angry
with you, but I’ve effectively closed his mouth. Never fear!”
“Closed his mouth,” she echoed, suddenly interested. “How could you do
that?”
“It was simple. I threatened that if he said a single word against you
I would, in reprisal, betray him to the police.”
“Why?”
“Do you remember the big fraud your father and his friends practised on
the London City and Provincial Bank not so very long ago?”
“Yes--you mean the affair which Mr. Pontifex engineered over at
Shepherd’s Bush? My father told me of it afterwards.”
“Well,” I said, “Whatton was the man who procured the necessary papers
and signature from the bank in return for five hundred pounds paid to
him by Pontifex!”
She stared at me in blank surprise.
“I never knew that!” she cried. “They never told me. But they always
kept me in the dark as to their dealings with Mr. Whatton and his
wealthy friend, young Count Paul Pauletti.”
“Your lover, Iris!” I added quietly.
“Yes,” she faltered, “my lover. But--but is there no danger?” she asked
eagerly. “Will he, now that he has found me, still remain silent? Are
you sure of that?”
“Quite positive,” I assured her. “Come, return and calm yourself.
At present there is no danger. That man who has levelled the grave
charge against you is in deadly fear of arrest. For the present I have
effectually sealed his lips.”
I took her hand in reassurance, urging her to return to the Northeys
and remain there in security.
“But that man, Whatton, may tell the police,” she said in terror. “A
word from him, and I should be under arrest. Is it not better for me to
fly, and get back to the Continent? My father is, I have received word,
living just now on the island of Corfu, where there is no extradition,
and where he is quite safe from arrest. Oh, if I could only rejoin him!”
“You are safer here,” I assured her, “safer until the storm has blown
over. Take my advice, Iris, and do not attempt to leave the country.
Remember the police at the ports have your photograph, and that to
attempt to evade them would be well-nigh impossible.”
“But if I went across again by the route you so kindly took me?”
“No; remain here with your good friends the Northeys,” I urged. “Only
Whatton alone knows that Miss Bond is not your right name, and he
dare not speak. He will not trouble you again. I will guarantee that.
So come, Iris, let us go back, and let us both forget the unpleasant
incident of this morning.”
“You are too good to me, Mr. Laird!” she cried, suddenly bursting into
tears and turning from me to hide the emotion which she could no longer
repress. “You--you have saved me to-day. Shall I confess to you? I
will, for besides my dear father, you are my only real friend. I was
not on my way to escape when you shouted to me. I--I was on my way to
the river--over yonder.”
And she pointed to the broad stream that lay on the opposite side of
the great meadow.
“To commit suicide!” I said, with a deep sigh.
Whereat she held her head in shame and nodded in the affirmative.
“Why?”
“Because--because,” she cried hoarsely. “Oh! can’t you see? I cannot
face the charge that man has made against me!”
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCERNING ELSIE MAXWELL
TUESDAY came. My week-end visit to Charlwood had concluded, but Fred
Northey and his wife pressed me to remain, and, nothing loth, I did so.
I saw but little of the governess. Indeed, she seemed to purposely
evade me, fearing, perhaps, that her employers might suspect an undue
friendship between us.
Often, as I sat alone or lay awake in the long night hours, I wondered
if I was acting correctly in thus trying to shield her and her
undesirable associates. I realised that if discovered speaking too much
to her I should compromise her in the eyes of my host and hostess,
therefore it was perhaps better that she should remain apart from
me and treat me with studied coolness each day when we met over the
tea-table.
The world to-day has decreed that it is “fast” for a girl to
individualise a man as her friend. Yet is not that position thoroughly
natural and thoroughly healthy, and the wider recognition given to it
the less harm is likely to “befall by the way?” If the average girl
wants to do something which is perfectly harmless in itself, and you
tell her she is doing wrong, you make her defiant, and then probably
she will “go the pace,” and do something that really may be unwise.
Half our young people’s troubles arise from the fact that we pretend
that a man and a girl do not want to do things together, to go to
dances, theatres, and entertainments alone. It is our cloaked system of
subterfuge which leads to complications.
However, it is not recognised in any country house that the guest
should be friendly with the governess. Hence I had to remain content
with a daily glimpse of Iris as she handed me my tea in the big hall or
in the tent out upon the lawn, for the month of May had opened unduly
warm, and afternoon tea was pleasant taken _alfresco_.
Little Marion was often with me, but her governess seldom, if ever,
came for her. She seemed to avoid me by every means possible.
After a week I pleaded an excuse to drive into Winchester, and after a
look round the splendid old cathedral, I lunched at the “George,” the
oldest inn in England, and called to see Whatton at the bank in the
High Street.
I could only manage to speak a few words in an undertone to him, for
other clerks were in the vicinity. My only object was to reassure him
that I was doing my best to unravel the mystery, and thus prevent him
acting injudiciously in his impatience.
One afternoon, a week later, Fred and his wife were out calling,
therefore I had the governess to pour out my tea, and little Marion to
do the honours of the house, which she did with great dignity.
After we had gossiped over the teacups, I sent the child into the
garden to pick some flowers for me, and stood with Iris against the old
lattice-paned window, which afforded a wide view across to the blue
distant hills before Winchester.
“Why have you so avoided me of late?” I asked her, after I had briefly
explained my visit to Winchester.
“Because I fear that Mrs. Northey may suspect,” was her reply.
“Besides--it is better for us both to meet as strangers.”
“I have noticed by your face that you are much worried. Why? I assure
you there is no danger.”
“I’m worried regarding my father,” she replied. “He has disappeared
from Corfu. I ‘wired’ to him three days ago to the Hotel St. George,
but the hotel people have sent a brief reply, saying that he took a
sailing boat over to the Albanian coast a week ago, and did not return
to the boat. The boatman came back on the following day without him.”
“Well, one thing is certain,” I said. “He wouldn’t be arrested in
Albania.”
“They are fighting there. He may have returned to his old profession of
soldiering, which he so loved in South Africa,” she suggested.
“But if he had done that he would surely write to you!” I said. “Of
course he might find Corfu dull, and prefer the excitement now going on
in Albania between the Turks and the revolting tribes.”
“He would not likely be arrested there, as you say,” she remarked.
“But oh, how I wish he’d give it all up, and live in secret at home in
England. It would surely be quite easy for him to conceal his identity,
as he used to do. Nobody suspects one in a country hamlet, as long as
one pays one’s way, and goes to church twice on Sundays.”
“Yes,” I said, “I would like to see you both back together again. Be
patient, and you will some day.”
She sighed wistfully, gazing far out into the blue distance, away over
the broad stretch of pastures and forest eastward. She presented a
tragic little figure in her white blouse and short blue serge skirt.
For some time neither of us spoke. At last, placing my hand upon her
shoulder, I said:
“Iris, I think I ought to tell you what that man, Whatton, alleges.”
She started perceptibly at my words.
“Well?” she asked very slowly, in a blank voice. “What does he allege?”
I paused, fearing to unduly pain her. At last I said:
“He declared that you were jealous--that another woman had secured the
affections of Paul Pauletti.”
“Another woman!” she cried quickly. “Did he tell you the woman’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
“Elsie Maxwell.”
“That stage girl! It’s a lie. He never loved her. Whatton has told you
a wilful lie!”
“Then you know this girl Maxwell?”
“Yes. I met her once--at supper at the ‘Savoy’--a tall, thin,
fair-haired girl, who had a small part in the revival of the Gaiety
pieces.”
“Then it is untrue that Paul ever loved her?” I asked, looking into her
drawn, pained face.
“Absolutely. I know he did not love her,” was her reply. “She did her
best to capture him, because of his title and money, and he quite
realised that. Indeed, he had spoken to me of her, and said that she
and her mother were continually asking him to luncheon and dinner, but
that he constantly refused.”
“You are absolutely certain that Whatton is mistaken in this surmise of
his?”
“Absolutely.”
“And Paul loved you--and only you--eh?”
“Of that I am entirely confident.”
I was silent. If what she told me was correct, then Whatton’s theory of
jealousy at once fell to the ground.
“Have you any idea how Paul first became acquainted with this actress,
Miss Maxwell?”
“Yes. She was a friend of Pontifex, and he introduced them.”
“Ah--as part of the complicated game they were playing--eh?”
“Yes. He and Rushton knew that we had fallen in love with each other,
and they feared that if I should learn the _coup_ they were
contemplating--but of which I was then in ignorance--I might betray
them, because of my love for him. Hence they introduced him to the girl
Maxwell, hoping that she would supplant me in his affections.”
“And she did not,” I said. “Why are you so certain she did not?”
“Because, only a week before his death, he wrote to me in Scotland a
long letter, in which he expressed the strongest disapproval of her,
and of the ‘fast’ company she kept.”
“That letter was not written for the purpose of misleading you, do you
think? Remember, Italians are very impressionable where the fair sex
are concerned.”
“I know. But if I am certain of one thing in this life, I believe in
Paul’s fidelity towards me,” was her firm answer.
“And you were not jealous of him, as has been alleged?”
“There is no real love without jealousy, Mr. Laird,” she said. “I was
not unduly jealous--but I confess I loved him.”
“Until his death?”
She burst into hot, bitter tears.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “Until--until his death!”
“You know what was alleged by that poacher at the inquest?” I went on
in a low voice.
“Yes; I--I know.”
“The mere act of kissing him could not have caused his death,” I
remarked, hoping she would make some explanation.
“No,” she cried,” but do not let us talk of it, I beg of you!” she
added. “I can’t bear it, Mr. Laird--indeed, I can’t!”
“Forgive me,” I said. “I only wished to clear up the point as to
whether Paul was really in love with the stage-girl, as Whatton
alleges.”
“There is absolutely no truth in it,” she declared, and I saw by her
earnestness of manner that she spoke the truth.
“You said that the girl was a friend of Pontifex. Had she ever
assisted him in any of his schemes?”
“I believe so. I know that she had become engaged to a young American
whom Rushton afterwards robbed at cards. It was she who introduced him
to Rushton.”
“Ah! Then the two men used her as a decoy without a doubt.”
“Yes,” she replied, “it would appear so.”
“And you never had anything to do with her?”
“The only occasion I’ve seen her off the stage was one night, while I
was at supper with Paul at the ‘Savoy.’ We met her with Pontifex in
the lounge afterwards, and we sat together over coffee. She struck me
as a loud-speaking and rather vulgar, showy girl, who dressed well,
and exhibited her frocks to advantage. She had, I noticed, a smiling
acquaintance with many of the men there--those men about town who are
habitués of the place.”
“But what I am still uncertain of, Iris, is whether Paul did not meet
her clandestinely--unknown to you? He may have done that, you know.”
“I will believe nothing against the man who, being dead, cannot defend
himself!” she cried nobly. “I loved the poor fellow, and I will always
respect his memory.”
“I admire you for those words,” I said. “Many a woman is far too
prone to allow her suspicions to run away with her, and to invent
circumstances that never existed. You loved and trusted Paul Pauletti;
therefore why should you doubt his honour and uprightness when he is,
alas! no more? To me it seems quite feasible, as you have suggested,
that he was introduced to Elsie Maxwell for the purpose of putting you
asunder. They feared you then--as they fear you now.”
“Ah! They do not fear me. Rushton is silenced only for the time being,
while Pontifex is ready, at any moment, to deprive me of my liberty.”
“And by so doing would lose his own,” I added. “These men do not appear
to realise that, now I have entered their remarkable combination and
ascertained its secrets, I--an outsider--hold them in the hollow of my
hand!”
“Ah, no!” she cried, in quick apprehension. “Do not lift a finger
against them, Mr. Laird. Recollect that my father would suffer if you
did. They would give him away at once, and the police would have the
satisfaction of laying hands upon Jim Almond--so long wanted--at last.”
“Trust me, Iris,” I said, taking her hand, “I promise you I will do
nothing without your knowledge and consent. I only intended to point
out that, in me, these blackguards who are your enemies, have a
fierce, indomitable opponent.”
At that moment the door at the end of the hall opened, and we had just
time to spring apart, ere Blacker, the grey-haired old servant, entered
with a card upon his salver.
“A gentleman to see you, sir,” he said.
I read the name, and held my breath.
I handed the card to the governess, and she, glancing at it, turned
white as death, gripping the back of a chair for support, else she
would have staggered and fallen.
She looked as though she had been dealt a blow.
“I will see the gentleman in a moment, Blacker,” I managed to stammer.
“Very well, sir. He’s in the drawing-room,” replied the old man,
bowing, and no doubt wondering at Miss Bond’s sudden and unaccountable
agitation, he went out.
Then I stood utterly confounded. The net was fast closing round.
Tragedy had, indeed, knocked at the door of Charlwood.
CHAPTER XXV
FOR A WOMAN’S LIFE
AS I opened the door of the big old-fashioned drawing-room, with its
four long windows, and furniture covered with bright chintzes--a
typical country-house drawing-room--a tall, burly figure in dark grey
tweeds rose to meet me--Inspector Miller.
“Good morning, Meester Laird!” he exclaimed in his brusque manner, and
with that marked Polish accent. “I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you, but
I heard you were here, and I’ve come to ask you two or three rather
pointed questions. I know you’ll excuse me. It’s my duty, as you know.”
“Well, Miller, what is it you want to know?” I inquired, a trifle
impatiently, I fear. I realised the deadly peril of Iris now that
Miller was actually under the same roof.
“I’m still on that case which interested you so much--the affair at
Gerrard’s Cross,” he replied.
“Well?”
“Well, you recollect what I told you about the girl who, no doubt, is
guilty of the crime--Iris Almond.”
“Yes,” I said, feebly. “Have you found her?”
“I have,” was his reply, as he stood looking me straight in the face.
“And I have come to tell you that you haven’t treated me at all fairly
in this matter, Mr. Laird. My information shows that it was by your aid
she escaped from England after the crime, and that by your help she was
able to conceal herself so well on the Continent. The French police
have been making diligent inquiry, and that is what they report to me.”
I confess that I was utterly taken aback by the great detective’s
allegation. But next second I resumed my calmness, and asked:
“I presume you intend to arrest her, Miller?”
“That certainly is my intention,” he replied. “As you are well aware,
she is living in this house as governess, under the name of Miss Bond.
The lodge-keeper told me that she went out a couple of hours ago.
Perhaps that’s fortunate, as we can talk before she returns.”
My heart gave a leap. Miller had been told that Iris had not returned.
The lodge-keeper had seen her go forth and she had evidently re-entered
the grounds by the unfrequented by-road that came up the hill from
Ashley Wood. If Iris was only smart she might make her escape--that
was, if I could delay my unwelcome visitor. I could not, however, call
her. I could not, in any way, communicate with her. Therefore it only
remained to be seen whether, knowing of Miller’s presence, she would
make a dash for liberty. I held my breath in keen anxiety.
I endeavoured to affect unconcern, but with sinking heart I saw that
Miller had become amused.
“I confess, Meester Laird, that you entirely misled me,” he exclaimed.
“I had no idea whatever that you were friendly with Iris Almond, or
perhaps I would not have told you what I did. Yet I only spoke the
truth, and I tell you, much as I respect you, that it’s a matter for
deep regret that you’ve got yourself mixed up with Jim Almond and his
dangerous gang. They’re undesirable acquaintances, the whole lot of
them, I can tell you. It’s a pity, Meester Laird, a very great pity,”
he declared.
“I think it also a pity, Miller--a shame, indeed--to prejudge a woman
who, after all, may be innocent!” I remarked in a voice of reproach.
“Innocent or guilty, you’ve placed yourself in a very unenviable
position,” he remarked. “You’ve wilfully harboured and assisted a
person wanted upon a capital charge.”
“Because I do not believe in her guilt,” I declared, boldly.
“No, Meester Laird. Come, speak the truth,” he said very seriously;
“because you love this girl--eh?--and love is always blind.”
I smiled, but made no reply. Though I tried not to show it, I resented
this police officer occupying himself with what were my purely private
affairs.
“And beyond that,” Miller went on, “I’ve also discovered, to my great
annoyance, that we have to thank you for giving warning to that thief,
Rushton, and to old Jacobsen in Utrecht, with the result that they both
have escaped.”
“What I have done is my own affair!” I cried. “Until to-day, Miller,
we’ve always been friends. To-day I take it that you have become my
enemy?”
“In so far as Jim Almond’s daughter is concerned.”
My only object in this discussion was to gain time for Iris to get
clear away. She knew that Miller was with me, and without a doubt would
exercise all care in making good her escape from the place. This was
not the first time by many that she had left her employment suddenly,
and shown no trace of the direction of her flight.
“You did not discover her whereabouts yourself!” I exclaimed. “Someone
gave her away. Tell me the truth.”
“Yes,” he laughed. “It is the truth. We had a letter at the ‘Yard’
this morning--an anonymous letter.”
“From where?”
“Posted in Brighton,” he replied, rather reluctantly.
“And the writer was Philip Pontifex?”
“Probably. It was, however, in a disguised hand.”
I bit my lip. The blackguard who had given me his word of honour not to
harm Iris, had played her a scurvy trick, and had told the police of
her hiding-place!
“You seem to know something of it,” he went on. “Why should he have
given her so completely away? With what object?”
“That remains to be seen,” was my quick response.
“You know Pontifex?”
“I know him as a blackguard--one of Jim Almond’s gang--a dangerous man,
capable of doing anything, and a bitter enemy of poor Iris.”
“For what reason have they quarrelled?”
“How can I tell?”
“Well, it was a pretty cute thing for the girl to come here as
governess. I wonder how she got the engagement. I’ll ask these
people--the Northeys--when they return.”
“No,” I urged. “Don’t do anything of the kind. I can tell you
everything. These people are friends of mine, and----”
“And you don’t wish them to know that you are friendly with their
governess, who is wanted by us! Quite natural.”
I had no defence. Pontifex, as Iris feared, had revealed where she had
hidden herself. Truly that morning had been an eventful one.
“My dear Miller,” I cried, with rising anger, “it is immaterial to me
what my host and hostess know. You may allege whatever you like!”
“No, Meester Laird,” exclaimed the police officer, his hands thrust
into the pockets of his jacket. “You forget that you yourself are in a
very unenviable position, as aider and abettor of this gang. Your duty
was to tell me the truth from the very first.”
“I should have done, had you not condemned her upon mere suspicion.”
“My grounds for the condemnation are more than mere suspicion,” he
replied, hastily. “When you know the truth it will surprise you.”
“Probably,” I said; “but I am in possession of knowledge which will
amaze you, I think, when the time is ripe for me to reveal it.”
“It’s your duty, Meester Laird, to assist the police,” he said, gravely.
“It may be my duty, but I refuse to lift a hand against a friend.”
“You have already rendered yourself liable to prosecution and
imprisonment.”
“I’m well aware of that,” I laughed. “But when the truth of the affair
at Gerrard’s Cross is known my actions will not appear so treacherous
as they appear to-day. Now you have found Iris Almond--for I admit that
she is governess in this household--then perhaps you will find and
arrest the writer of your anonymous letter.”
“I may--who knows?”
“Look here, Miller,” I cried, after a pause. “This isn’t like
you, hounding down an unfortunate girl who is the victim of a
gang of blackguards. You are always so chivalrous, always so very
tender-hearted when dealing with a woman,” I added, reproachfully.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“I’m angry with you!” he declared. “You’ve fooled me.”
“For two reasons--first, because she is my friend; and secondly,
because she is innocent.”
“Innocent!” he echoed. “She’ll have a good deal of difficulty in
proving an _alibi_, I fear.”
“That’s just it!” I cried, despairingly. “She can’t prove her
innocence. Those men hold her beneath their thumbs.”
“That’s her story,” he laughed. “I’ve heard that from an accused woman
more than once.”
“But have you no pity, man?” I cried. “Do you actually intend to arrest
Iris Almond?”
“Most certainly. This is no matter for sentiment, my dear sir,” he
replied. “I have my duty to execute. I regret,” he added, “that I must
appear harsh and inexorable before a man who is my friend. But are you
not foolish? Think! You have allowed yourself to become fascinated by
this woman after all I told you.”
“But she is not guilty of the crime!” I declared. “I’m sure she’s not.”
“It isn’t likely that she would confess to you, above all men,” was the
detective’s sarcastic response.
“I don’t think it just to prejudge her, as you have done,” I insisted,
emphatically, and annoyed.
“If there was the slightest shadow of doubt, I should allow it to her,
Meester Laird,” announced the Pole who spoke such fluent English; “but,
unfortunately, there is not. In addition to the somewhat unreliable
evidence of that poacher, Smith, another witness has come forward--an
eye-witness--one who also saw Iris Almond kill this poor young fellow.”
“It’s a lie!” I gasped.
“Do not make that assertion until you know who it is who saw the pair,
and you have heard the true story,” my friend urged.
“I won’t believe it!” I cried. “It’s some infernal plot of those
blackguards who wish, for their own sinister purpose, to either send
poor Iris to the scaffold or to penal servitude for life!”
“No, Meester Laird. In that you are quite mistaken,” he declared. “It
is no plot of the gang whatsoever.”
“But have you not told me that Pontifex is the author of the anonymous
letter your department has received?”
“I only agreed with you that he might possibly be the writer. He’s
rather handy with his pen, you know. Personally, however, I believe
the writer to be a person quite unconnected with the Almond crowd.
Remember, it is in a disguised hand.”
“Why do you doubt that Pontifex is the sender?” I asked quickly.
“Because--well, as far as I can see it would be against his own
interests, and those of Rushton and Almond, to reveal the girl’s
whereabouts. When arrested she certainly will make a statement as to
where they are all in hiding.”
“She would not implicate her own father.”
“But those she denounces will do so in retaliation, and thus the whole
gang will be broken up. Now Pontifex is far too clever to risk that,
hence my theory is that the person who revealed the identity of Miss
Bond is not our friend the penman.”
For a considerable time I kept Inspector Miller in conversation, though
he glanced at his watch, and seeing that it was past the luncheon
hour, remarked that the governess would no doubt very soon return.
As for myself I was all eagerness to know whether Iris had remained
or whether she had fled, and was once more beyond the reach of the
ubiquitous officer who stood before me.
Northey might return to luncheon at any moment, but I knew that Mrs.
Northey was, after her shopping in the village, driving over to
lunch with some friends named Hooker at Stockbridge. My sole desire,
therefore, was to prevent Miller from speaking again with the old
butler Blacker, for he would, no doubt, inquire for Miss Bond, and this
old servant, in his ignorance, would speak the truth.
Those were breathlessly exciting moments, for the liberty of Iris was
now at stake.
I had all along persuaded myself that she was innocent, yet what Miller
had told me, of another actual eye-witness who had come forward, now
caused me to ponder, and to wonder whether, after all, the officer’s
outspoken words concerning myself were not justified.
Exerting all the tact of which I was capable--not much, perhaps--I
contrived to engage Miller in conversation for yet another half-hour,
until he could bear the prolonged absence of the governess no longer.
“I shall ring the bell, and ask the butler to call the girl,” he
said. “It will be better for us to meet here, alone, rather than face
the family. It’s nearly two o’clock, therefore it’s certain she’s now
returned.”
“You didn’t ask the butler about the governess when you arrived?”
“Hardly; I knew from the lodge-keeper’s wife that the girl was out, so
I inquired for you. I don’t want her to slip through my fingers again,
as you may well imagine. If I had asked the butler he might, perhaps,
have spoken to her, and she’d grow alarmed and decamp. That’s happened
to me more than once.”
He had touched the bell while he had been speaking, and Blacker opened
the door.
“Is the governess, Miss Bond, back yet?” Miller asked of the old
servant.
“No, sir,” replied the man. “She went out directly after your arrival,
sir, and has not returned.”
“After my arrival,” Miller echoed, in dismay, while my heart gave a
great bound of joy.
“Yes, sir. I saw her leaving the house by the back road, mounted on
Miss Evans’ cycle.”
“Who’s Miss Evans?”
“The young woman who comes from Winchester to teach Miss Marion music,
sir. She left her cycle here the last time she came.”
“Miller,” I said quietly. “She’s gone out, over to Stockbridge perhaps,
where Marion and her mother are lunching. She’ll be back at tea-time.”
“No,” he cried, with an imprecation beneath his breath, after Blacker
had turned to go out. “She’ll never come back! She’s got away from
beneath my very nose, and by the neatest means possible--on a cycle,
and with a start of nearly an hour and a half! But, by heaven, Meester
Laird, though I half suspect that you knew of her flight all along, I
repeat my vow! I’ll find her yet.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CIPHER AND ITS KEY
I WAS back again in London.
At Charlwood the strange departure of the exemplary Miss Bond was
regarded as a complete and profound mystery.
On Mrs. Northey’s return at five o’clock in the afternoon Blacker told
her how the governess had suddenly mounted Miss Evans’ bicycle and
ridden away, while my hostess in turn communicated the strange story to
my host.
“The fact is, Laird,” declared Fred Northey, as we sat together over
the port that evening, “Miss Bond was a devilish good-looking girl, and
I always had my suspicion that there was something curious about her.
She had the air of a girl used to smart society, and yet she was quite
simple-minded and humble, a most excellent companion for little Marion.”
I smiled within myself. Little did the dear old fellow dream of the
truth, for Miller had departed in chagrin, without explaining his
business to anybody save myself.
“Her disappearance is quite unaccountable,” I said. “I saw her here,
in the house, and was talking to her about twelve. Then a man called to
see me, and I didn’t see her again.”
“Well, do you think we ought to inform the county police at Winchester?”
I reflected for a second, and, fearing that Miller might have already
invoked the aid of the rural constables in making inquiries for the
missing lady cyclist, said:
“Well, really, I hardly think it worth going to the police about, at
least not just yet. She may have had a secret lover somewhere, and
eloped with him. I don’t think there’s any question of foul play, or
anything to cause the police to exert themselves. We know that she went
away of her own accord.”
“I know,” he said, contemplating his cigarette. “But the mystery of it
all puzzles me. I’d like to get at the bottom of it.”
“So would I,” was my reply. “No doubt we shall. You’ll get an
apologetic letter to-morrow.”
I proved a prophet, for on the day after the morrow came a brief
letter bearing the postmark of Woolwich, addressed to Mrs. Northey,
in which the governess expressed her great regret at having been
called so suddenly from her very comfortable home, and from little
Marion; enclosing the cloak-room ticket of the cycle which was at the
cloak-room of the loop line at Waterloo, and expressing a hope that
she would one day have an opportunity of again meeting her very kind
friends.
“Well, I’m hanged!” cried Fred Northey, when his wife handed it to him
across the breakfast-table. “That’s about the coolest letter a girl
could write to her mistress! She doesn’t say what called her away so
suddenly.”
“Love, my dear fellow!” I laughed. “It’s the only thing that calls away
a girl suddenly like that. It was love, depend upon it.”
“Do you know, Mr. Laird,” exclaimed my hostess, “I’ve been thinking,
and it seems to me very much as though Miss Bond was afraid of that man
who called to see you. Blacker says you showed her his card.”
I held my breath.
“Ah! So I did,” was my lame reply. “I showed it to her because it
was rather a curiosity--a new thing in cards. My friend Miller--a
professional man--is a bit eccentric. But she did not know him. How
could she possibly be in fear of him?”
“Then she didn’t see him?”
“Certainly not. They did not meet,” I said. “From what Blacker says,
she must have gone out and got Miss Evans’ cycle very soon after I
entered the drawing-room to meet my friend.”
“Well,” said Fred Northey, as he broke an egg, “the mystery is cleared
up, and we must get another governess; an infernal nuisance, but one we
can’t avoid, I suppose.”
And then the subject dropped, and Miss Bond was quickly forgotten.
By that same post I received a rather angry letter from Miller,
upbraiding me for allowing Iris to escape as I had done. To this I
replied briefly that she was my friend, and that I had treated her as
such.
Then, for about ten days, I remained in Hampshire with the Northeys,
hoping that as Iris had written to my hostess she would also write to
me. But my hopes were, alas, in vain. No letter came. She either feared
to write, or else she deemed it wisest that I should remain without
knowledge of her whereabouts.
So I returned again to Savoy Court, full of gravest misgivings.
I saw nothing of Miller, and as day followed day in silence I knew that
Iris had successfully evaded him. But where was she? Why did she not
write?
Gloomy and despairing, I strolled in Pall Mall, St. James’s Street, and
Piccadilly, heedless of the brilliant weather, or of the well-dressed
crowds who passed me by. The London season had commenced, the usual
flock of American tourists were overflowing the big hotels, and the
droves of foreign tourists were being driven about in brakes to see
the sights of our dear old dirty metropolis.
The Park was bright with flowers and all the beauty of its fresh
greenery; window-boxes everywhere blossomed with marguerites or
geraniums, and the West End had awakened now that “the season,” as
decreed by that little section of the world called Society, had
commenced.
The Academy had opened, and following it there came to me, as there
always did, a shoal of invitations to dinners, luncheons, receptions,
and dances, far too many, indeed, as every man who is an idler in town
knows. I accepted few of them, for that grave charge against Iris
Almond ever obsessed me. Until Miller had called at Charlwood I had
believed in her innocence, but, somehow, his allegations had aroused
within me serious suspicion. There was yet another eye-witness--a
person who saw her kill her lover!
At one moment I refused to give credence to that terrible accusation,
but at the next I realised to the full that Miller was not a man given
to wild and unfounded statements, and that he must have some serious
ground for his allegation.
I do not know what Seddon thought, but I saw that he was very anxious
about me. He declared that I was unwell, and that I ought to consult my
friend, Doctor Lewis.
One warm afternoon, after I had returned from the club, where I had
lunched with my friend, Dick Duncan, the motor-boat enthusiast, I
chanced to be looking through some papers in my despatch-box when I
came across that puzzling message which Iris had written in the Scotch
express on the first occasion we had met:
8. 0. 3. 12. 3.
EUGENE.
9. 24. 18. 15. 2. 9. 16.
6. 1. 2. 3. 22. 22. 12. 18.
RUE BLANCHE, 196A. 3ME.
THE BLACK THREE.
A hundred times had I endeavoured to read it, but in vain. Indeed at
New Scotland Yard they had tried and failed. How could I therefore hope
for success?
Yet, with that tantalising message before me, I sat trying again and
again to decipher its meaning. No doubt it was a secret message sent by
Iris to her lover, for was not that crumpled half-sheet of notepaper
found in the dead man’s breast pocket--that same piece of paper whereon
I had seen her, with her own hand, trace that array of figures?
“The Black Three!” Did that refer to Jim Almond and his two audacious
confederates, Pontifex and Rushton? I had suspicions that it did.
I recollected that in passing through Paris I had omitted to ascertain
who lived at Rue Blanche, 196a, 3me. Yet this was not very difficult to
ascertain, for I immediately descended by the lift into the reception
bureau of the hotel, and there found from “Bottin,” the directory of
Paris, that the apartment in question was occupied by Jules Bérand. But
there was, of course, a question whether the Rue Blanche referred to in
the message was in Paris or in some other French town.
Again I returned to my rooms above, and sat puzzling my brain to read
that curious array of figures--the cipher used by a gang of thieves.
Who was Eugene? Ah, if I could only read the line above and those below
I should know. The truth would no doubt be revealed.
I had believed from the first--just as the experts at Scotland Yard
had no doubt believed--that the key to the cipher was some prearranged
one, hence it presented the greatest difficulty to any who attempted
to learn what was there written. Someone has said that nobody has ever
been able to invent a numerical cipher that will defy all attempts to
unravel its meaning--except, of course, a prearranged code. Some of
the ciphers used in diplomatic correspondence in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were marvels of ingenuity, yet in these latter
days the secret documents lying in our archives have been read quite
easily by experts.
I had seated myself at my writing-table, with pen and paper before me,
as I had done so many times previously, and I had covered sheet after
sheet with numbers, letters and calculations, when of a sudden I made
an amazing discovery.
Was it possible that its very simplicity had been the means of
misleading all those who had tried to decipher it?
I bent quickly to my work, making more rapid calculations.
Yes, I had discovered the key! That secret message of Iris which had so
baffled both police and public lay open before me.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE TENANT OF THE THIRD FLOOR
THE thing was quite simple, after all.
The words, “The Black Three,” which ended the message, corresponded
with the last numeral of the first line, which was, strangely enough, a
“black” figure three--no doubt three men. That was the key--three to be
added to each number, and then applied to the letters of the alphabet!
Thus the first line I read--8, 0, 3, 12, 3, became 11, 3, 6, 15, which,
applied to the alphabet, read K.C.F.O.
Now K.C. I read as King’s Cross, while instead of F.O. I read 6-15, the
time of our arrival at the London terminus!
The next line, 9, 24, 18, 15, 2, 9, 16, became 12, 1, 21, 18, 5, 12,
19, or “Laurels,” which I recognised as the name of the house where
Iris and her father had been in hiding near Hounslow.
Then came the third line of figures, 6, 1, 2, 3, 22, 22, 12, 18, which
with three added to each became 9, 4, 5, 6, 25, 25, 15, 21, and applied
to the alphabet became a bold challenge: “I defy you!”
The message was plain enough. It gave the person to whom it was
addressed the hour of her arrival in London, and conveyed that she
intended to return to “The Laurels,” at the same time declaring herself
in no fear of any reprisal. Yet who was Eugene?
Was the message addressed to her lover, Paul Pauletti, upon whom it
was afterwards found, or was it intended for the mysterious man who
was apparently a Frenchman, no doubt, and perhaps one of her father’s
cosmopolitan confederates? For I had heard from Miller that the gang
numbered nearly a dozen men of various nationalities.
The address in the Rue Blanche might be their head-quarters in Paris!
It occurred to me to cross the Channel that night, and investigate. Yet
Miller had in all probability been there long ago. Still, to satisfy my
own curiosity, I left Charing Cross by the night mail, and about nine
o’clock on the following morning, in an auto-cab, I ascended the steep
hill which runs from the Trinité up to the Boulevard de Clichy.
Passing the Casino de Paris, the street of high grey-painted houses
narrowed as it reached the exterior boulevard, and the cab drew up
before a house on the right-hand side of the way, a few doors from
the Rue Chaptal. The entrance was dark and uncleanly, a house which
differed but little from any in that rather _bizarre_ quarter. I
ascended the oak steps, worn thin by the tramp of many feet, until I
arrived at the third floor, where I pulled a bell-cord to inquire for
Mademoiselle Almond.
There was, however, no response. Three times I rang, and as I got no
answer I bent and looked through the keyhole. Then I saw that the
apartment was devoid of furniture. The occupant, Monsieur Jules Bérand,
as he was given in “Bottin,” had moved.
Descending, I found the _concierge_, a stout, slovenly woman in a
blue apron, who, after I had slipped a five-franc piece into her hand,
became communicative.
“I suppose m’sieur is a police agent--eh?” she asked in French, eyeing
me critically.
“Why?” I inquired in the same language.
“Well, because the police have kept watch upon the apartment _au
troisième_ for months past. They seem to expect that M’sieur Bérand
will return. But myself I don’t think he ever will.”
“Why not?”
“Because I understand they have a very serious charge against him, the
nature of which, however, I cannot learn,” replied the woman.
“But what was this M’sieur Bérand--what was he like?”
“He was of medium height, and rather dark, but he was not a Frenchman,
that’s my belief. He spoke with a foreign accent, yet he was always
most generous to me. He’s lived here these three years past, and often
had friends to visit him. I used to keep his place tidy for him.”
“The apartment is now empty,” I remarked.
“No. There is nothing in the hall,” she said. “But he took out all the
things and piled them inside the rooms before he fled. I suppose he
wished to give people the impression that he had moved.”
“You saw his friends sometimes, I suppose?”
“On several occasions. They were generally Englishmen, or
Italians--scarcely ever Frenchmen. But he was in the feather trade, and
was agent for a London firm, I believe. He had offices somewhere off
the Rue des Petits-Champs, so he told me.”
I tried to obtain from her a more accurate description of the absent
tenant of the third floor, but it was so vague and contradictory that
I could not identify him with either Pontifex or Rushton. Was he, I
wondered, the mysterious Eugene, or Jim Almond himself?
The fact that the Paris police were keeping the place under observation
showed me that Miller had been immediately active, and that the absent
tenant was suspected of being implicated in the operations of “Slim
Jim” and his friends.
The old woman, after the administration of a further piece of five
francs, admitted that she held the key of Monsieur Bérand’s apartment.
Would I care to inspect it?
She still believed me to be a police-agent, and, of course, I did not
undeceive her.
So I reascended after her, and, puffing considerably, she let me into
a close, stuffy, shabbily furnished little flat of four rooms and
kitchen. It was dirty and neglected, after the tenant’s long absence.
Dust lay thickly everywhere, and the morning sunlight was partly
obscured by the winter’s grime upon the windows.
It was a dull depressing place, and certainly contained no luxury.
“M’sieur Caillard, of the Prefecture of Police--perhaps you know
him--searched the place months ago, back in January, and took away some
papers he found in that drawer,” indicating the drawer in a table in
one of the bedrooms.
“Did he tell you anything?”
“No, m’sieur. The police do not speak much, though we as
_concierges_ help them considerably. They owe much of their
information to us, I can assure you. As you know, we are compelled to
furnish reports of our tenants, and record any suspicions we may have.”
“Then the tenant can pay well and so have a favourable report, I
suppose?” I remarked, smiling.
Whereat the fat old woman grinned from ear to ear.
“The police, no doubt, believe that the gentleman will return,” I said.
“Have they been here lately?”
“They come now and then--perhaps once a week,” was her answer. “I have
orders to telephone to the Prefecture directly he arrives. But,” she
added with a laugh, “I think he’s far too shrewd to be caught.”
“Oh, then he has his wits about him--eh?”
“I should rather say so. He is as sharp-witted and sharp-eyed as the
police themselves,” was her answer.
Who could the absent tenant possibly be, I wondered.
We were descending the stairs when, of a sudden, the old woman
exclaimed in French:
“There! I quite forgot until this very moment! Dear me, my memory must
be failing me. Fancy, not to have thought of it.”
“Of what?” I asked.
“Of his photograph. I have one somewhere.”
“You have,” I cried, anxiously. “I’ll give you a louis if you will find
it and show it to me. How came you by it?”
“I was cleaning out his rooms one day when I found in the grate, where
he had evidently thrown it to burn it, a small snapshot which someone
had taken of him. I picked it out, and have kept it,” she said. “Step
into my room while I go and see if I can find it.”
And while I waited in her dark little den, in which she seemed to
employ her time in ironing, she returned into the adjoining chamber to
search.
Fully a quarter of an hour was she absent, but at last, with a
triumphant smile, still puffing and blowing with exertion, she returned
and handed me a small half-faded and badly-taken amateur snapshot of
a rather thin-faced, narrow-eyed, clean-shaven man, of pronounced
aquiline features, dressed in a straw hat and striped lounge suit.
Behind him was a garden-chair and striped tent, while close to him
lay an English fox-terrier. The picture had evidently been taken upon
somebody’s lawn, but where, it was impossible to tell.
I looked long and steadily at the man’s face, but I was convinced that
I had never before seen it.
He was an entire stranger to me.
Therefore, I paid the louis I had promised, and re-entering the
auto-cab, drove down to the “Grand” for my breakfast. Then, at midday,
I left the Gare du Nord again on my return to London.
Paris possessed no attraction for me, and to London I went back,
hoping to hear from the woman upon whom that terrible stigma had fallen.
Was not her silence proof in itself of her guilt? This thought had
occurred to me more than once. And the more I reflected the more
uncertain I became.
The weeks slipped by. The London season, prolonged as it is nowadays,
had passed, and the busy Strand had become hot, dusty and unbearable.
The stuffy streets smelt of tar, and the reeking motor-buses, with
their jar and noise, added to the nerve-racking turmoil that is
unceasing. The club had closed for its annual cleaning, the houses in
Mayfair and Belgravia were deserted, with drawn blinds, and everyone
who could escape to the seaside or the country had done so.
Yet I remained, one of the very few remaining tenants in Savoy Court.
The Northeys had invited me down again, but I had excused myself, while
I had also half a dozen other pressing invitations to country-houses in
England and in Scotland. Yet, somehow, I preferred to remain at home,
because I felt that one day, ere long, the unexpected must happen.
One afternoon, Whatton, the bank clerk from Winchester, had called upon
me, and we had had a long chat.
He knew, of course, of Iris’s sudden departure from Charlwood, but was
in ignorance of its cause. He believed that she had left, and had gone
into hiding on account of the threats he had uttered. Therefore, I did
not undeceive him.
“I suppose,” I said, as we sat talking, “I suppose that during your
acquaintance with Pontifex and the others, you knew no one with the
Christian name of Eugene?”
“Eugene!” he repeated. “Why, that surely was the name mentioned on that
cryptic message found upon poor Paul?”
“Yes,” I said.
He was silent. From his manner I saw that he was hesitating whether or
not he should tell me something in confidence.
“I expect the police thoroughly investigated that cipher message--at
least, as far as they could. It has never yet been wholly deciphered, I
believe,” he mentioned at last.
“They have not deciphered it,” I replied, “but I have. In this matter,
Mr. Whatton, we are working together, please recollect. Therefore, I
will show you how the message really reads.” And taking it from my
writing-table, I explained it to him.
For some time he did not speak. Then he said:
“I wonder why she sent Paul such a message? Why did she boldly utter
that challenge of defiance? What threat had he made? Yet--yet does it
not condemn her? She defied him, and then, being in fear of him, she
closed his lips effectually--by death.”
“Ah!” I cried, “you still believe her guilty, Mr. Whatton?”
“I do. I shall always believe that she killed my friend until she has
been proved to be innocent.”
“That is what I hope one day, ere long, to be in a position to do.”
“The police, you say, are not aware that you have been successful in
deciphering this message,” he said. “I think they should certainly
know.”
“I differ. Let them discover what they can. They surely require no help
from us.”
“A moment ago you said that you and I were acting conjointly in
trying to solve this mystery, Mr. Laird,” he exclaimed. “Please tell
me one thing--the real reason ‘Miss Bond,’ as she called herself,
left Charlwood so suddenly. There were some curious rumours about the
country, remember--rumours which connected you with her sudden flight.
The villagers had seen you two together and had naturally gossiped.”
“It was not at my suggestion, or with my knowledge that the lady left
her employment,” was my quick response. “I had nothing whatever to do
with it. She was evidently in deadly fear of you and disappeared. I
have neither seen nor heard of her since that afternoon.”
“Yes,” he laughed in triumph. “My sudden reappearance upset her. She
fears me, Mr. Laird; and assuredly she has good reason to fear my
accusation.”
“That remains to be seen, Mr. Whatton,” I said, coldly. “Do not let
us prejudge her until we have solved the problem that is still before
us--the problem of who killed Paul Pauletti, and by what secret means
he was assassinated.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
JIM ALMOND AT HOME
I ALIGHTED from the train at a small roadside station between Newbury
and Devizes, in what is known as the Vale of Pewsey, and a moment
later had lifted my hat and taken the white-gloved hand of a neat
little figure in a white cotton gown, a straw hat and cream silk
motor-veil--Iris herself.
That hot summer’s morning I had received from her a letter asking me to
go into the country to see her, and telling me that she would meet me
by the train which arrived at Chirton Station at 3.33. She gave me no
address, therefore I could not reply. I merely kept the appointment,
and at last we again stood together.
I was the only alighting passenger, and as we emerged from the station
after a brief greeting I found a small brown governess-cart and grey
pony being held by a boy.
“Come, Mr. Laird,” she said, laughing, “you get in first.”
I did so without remark, yet wondering where I was to be taken, and
she followed me, when a moment later the smart little pony was trotting
away along the white dusty road, and we were alone.
The station seemed some distance from the village, and instead of going
in that direction we had turned to the left and were setting our faces
to the open country northward.
As she drove I reproached her with neglecting for so long to inform me
of her whereabouts, whereupon she assured me that as soon as she had
been at liberty she had sent me word. Then, noting the smart little
turn-out, I said with a smile:
“I suppose you are a governess again, eh? Is it not a little risky for
you to drive me--a stranger?”
“I have run many risks before,” she said, with a sweet smile. “Surely I
risked a great deal before I managed to get away from Charlwood.”
“Yes,” I said, “where did you go?”
“To London first,” she replied. “Afterwards I went to Windermere, and
then to Glasgow, Dundee, and by steamer to London. A week later I was
in Gothenburg, and now I am here at last.”
“Ah!” I sighed, amazed, “what a traveller you are! I thought myself a
cosmopolitan until I met you!”
“A cosmopolitan of necessity,” she said, rather sadly.
Her conversation was mostly of the narrow escape she had had at
Charlwood, while almost in the same breath she made inquiry as to why
Miller had called upon me, and what he had told me.
Then, as we drove together along those leafy country lanes, I recounted
to her our conversation, much as I have already recounted it in these
pages.
She heard me in silence, until at last she said:
“It must have been that man, Whatton, who wrote the anonymous letter to
Scotland Yard!”
“No. I think not,” was my reply. “My own idea is that it was one of
your father’s friends.”
“Would not Inspector Miller allow you to see it?”
“It was in London,” I reflected. “He told me it was in a disguised
handwriting. But in any case your escape was a narrow one.”
“I know,” she said hastily, handing me the reins while she tightened
her veil. “I had to exercise the greatest caution. I cycled all day
long till dark, before I dared to alight at a railway station, and
later that night I found myself at Paddington.”
Thus we had driven for nearly three miles, I judged, passing through
a long, straggling, old-world village, with a squat-steepled church,
ivygrown and picturesque, and then out again upon a broad, white
highway beside which ran many lines of telegraphs.
Presently we turned to the left into a narrow lane, where the greenery
met overhead, and where the sun’s hot rays did not penetrate. The hill
was steep, but Tommy, the pony, climbed it, and having passed a couple
of labourers’ cottages, we came suddenly upon a long old-fashioned
thatched cottage, with great oak beams showing in its whitewashed
walls, and small windows peeping forth from beneath the thatch. Before
the place was a neat, well-kept flower garden; behind was another
flower garden, an orchard, and a big meadow fringed by high, shady
trees.
She turned the pony suddenly into the rustic gateway, and round to the
back of the picturesque cottage, where she sprang out.
As she did so, a tall, rather thin, elderly, grey-moustached man, in
a grey tweed suit and straw hat, emerged from the door. Whereupon she
exclaimed:
“Mr. Laird--I want to introduce my father to you. Dad!” she cried.
“Here’s Mr. Laird--at last!”
The tall, military-looking man advanced towards me, and, greeting me,
said:
“I am much honoured, sir, by making your acquaintance, and I wish at
once to thank you for the very many kindnesses you have shown to my
dear daughter.”
I was taken entirely aback by this sudden and unexpected meeting. I had
no idea when I left London that I was going to meet the notorious Jim
Almond, the man whose very name was synonymous with clever trickery and
impudent fraud.
“This is our little home,” explained Iris, enthusiastically. “We used
to manage to live here at Wilsford quite a lot a few years ago, but of
late we have not been able to be here, as you know,” and I followed
her through a small hall into a big, old-fashioned dining-room with
oaken floor and great oak beams across the low-pitched ceiling. It was
a charming old-world interior, the wide, high fireplace decorated with
blue china, and the old-fashioned oak furniture thoroughly in keeping
with the place, while upon the great sideboard were several fine pieces
of antique silver.
The cushions were in covers of muslin, and at the casement windows were
artistic blinds and hangings, all of which told of taste displayed by
the daughter of the house.
“What a really delightful old place!” I cried involuntarily.
“Yes,” said the tall man. “It was three old cottages when I bought it
ten years ago, but I had them knocked into one, and it’s made quite
a comfortable little snuggery--very remote and rural, of course. But
sometimes that’s an advantage,” he added, with a grin.
I sank into the easy chair he indicated, and he took one opposite me,
while Iris went forth to give orders to the stable-lad who had taken
over the pony.
Jim Almond was entirely unlike the mental picture I had formed of him.
I believed him to be a fat, prosperous-looking man, of the same type
as Pontifex; yet here was a tall, thin, active man, a typical old
Colonial, with a bronzed, wrinkled face: and yet possessed of an air of
refinement which gave him the manner of a gentleman.
This man, who had handed me the cigars with such polish and courtesy,
was, even according to Miller, a man who was a hero. He had fought in
some of our fiercest wars, and had won for himself many honours, yet
he had fallen in his declining years, and had become one of the most
expert of international thieves.
“It is a great pleasure to be here at home to receive you, Mr. Laird,”
he declared, as I sat back, regarding him with fixed curiosity. The
man before me was actually “Slim Jim,” the head of the gang who had to
their credit a dozen of the most daring thefts ever perpetrated on the
Continent.
“And it affords me equal pleasure, Mr. Almond, to be with you,” I
assured him.
“I feared, perhaps, that--well--that you would not, in the
circumstances, care to know me,” he said, with hesitation. “My record
is not--well, not exactly the sort that one cares for one’s personal
friends to possess.”
“I know,” I said, hastily. “But we need not refer to that, need we?
Your daughter Iris and myself are very good friends, and I at once came
to meet her when she invited me.”
“My dear sir,” exclaimed the thief, speaking in a deep, earnest voice
as he bent towards me, “both Iris and I owe you a very deep debt of
gratitude. Were it not for you she would have been arrested long ago,
and in all probability my identity would have been disclosed, and I,
too, would have been arrested in consequence. You know who and what I
am, and yet you have ever been active on my dear daughter’s behalf.”
“Because we are friends,” I said, rather confused. “There is no need in
the least to thank me, Mr. Almond. I am only too pleased that you have
not been discovered, and that you are still able to live in this cosy
little place while the police of Europe are actively searching for you.”
“I know they are,” he laughed, twisting his cigar in his fingers. “They
are searching for Ralph Rushton, too. You did him a good turn by giving
him the ‘tip’ to clear out. By Jove! you were only just in time.
Miller’s getting rather ‘hot stuff’ just now!” he laughed.
“Somebody in your camp has, I fear, Mr. Almond, given information
against you. It is certain that the police received an anonymous letter
which told of Iris’s whereabouts.”
“That mad-headed young fool, Whatton,” he said. “He, no doubt, wrote a
letter to Scotland Yard, after he recognised Iris in Winchester.”
“Then you don’t suspect any of your friends of playing a double game?”
I said.
“No, Mr. Laird. Though their character may leave something to be
desired, they are not the kind of men to betray myself--their leader.”
“You have every confidence in them,” I remarked, “and yet Iris has not.”
“Iris is a woman--and women sometimes entertain strange prejudices,”
was his reply, as he watched the tobacco smoke curl towards the
low-pitched ceiling. On the table was a great bowl of yellow roses, and
the sweetness of their odour filled the sombre old room. Surely that
peaceful rural cottage home was the last wherein the police would seek
for the notorious Jim Almond, the cosmopolitan who frequented the best
hotels on the Continent, and who, from the rough and tumble of a camp
life, had developed into a _gourmet_.
“Well,” I said, after a brief pause, “I’ve often heard it said that a
woman is much quicker of perception than a man, and that she possesses
unusual power of scenting evil, when evil is intended yet well
concealed.”
“Sometimes they err in being too suspicious,” he said. “Iris does on
some occasions. She then becomes nervous without necessity.”
I was hoping that he would refer to the tragedy at Gerrard’s Cross,
or at least afford me opportunity to refer to it. But he did not.
He seemed to purposely avoid any reference to that very unpalatable
subject.
We chatted on for a long time, Iris apparently being purposely absent.
He told me how he had been chased for months up and down the Continent
and of the several very narrow escapes he had had. Then, by the manner
in which he referred to Iris, I saw how entirely devoted he was to her.
“She is all I have, now that her poor mother is dead, Mr. Laird,” he
said. “No one regrets more than myself that she has been compelled to
share the lot of an adventurer like myself. But I hope, with her, that
the day may not be far distant when I shall find myself able to give it
all up and live here in peace, happiness, and----”
“And security,” I added.
“No,” said the old man quickly, in a low hoarse voice. “Security I
shall never have, alas! Jim Almond, or ‘Slim Jim,’ as some of them
call me, will still be ‘wanted,’ even though another twenty years may
pass. No, my only desire is to lead an honest life in the future for
the sake of my dear girl, and, at the same time, try to make reparation
for what has gone past.”
“Iris has already spoken to me of that,” I said simply. “She wishes
you to live a life of peace, which surely you can do here, amid these
beautiful surroundings.”
But he sighed as he shook his head in sorrow, saying:
“Who knows but this very hour may not be my last hour of liberty! What
hope could I have of any clemency from jury or judge? No, Mr. Laird.
I’m far too well known. One day I shall be arrested. That must come--I
know it must. But for myself, I shall not fret. I only fear for Iris’s
sake--for the sake of my brave, dear, devoted girl, who, though she may
be the associate of thieves, is nevertheless in my eyes as honest and
pure as she is beautiful. Ah! yes,” he cried a second later. “I know
you must sneer at me for these words. But I tell you it’s the truth,
Mr. Laird. She’s----”
But he did not conclude his sentence, for at that moment the girl
re-entered the room, saying:
“Wouldn’t you like to walk round the garden, Mr. Laird? Dad will come
also. It’s a shame to sit in here, when it is lovely out of doors.”
So we rose, and all three of us went forth into the sunny old-world
garden, bright with its tangle of sweet-smelling flowers. All was so
fresh and so delightful after the noise and stuffiness of the busy
Strand.
We had passed through the garden, and out into the meadow which sloped
upward to the brow of the hill, when suddenly I halted, staring
straight before me.
Father and daughter also halted in wonder at my pause.
But they had not seen what I had seen.
I halted between them with my eyes fixed before me, standing erect and
motionless. I was rooted to the spot.
CHAPTER XXIX
CONTAINS THE HIDEOUS TRUTH
WHAT had met my gaze was certainly most unexpected.
Beneath the belt of firs at the edge of the sloping lawn, straight
before me, was a red-and-white striped tent, with a small projecting
canopy before the door. Within were a couple of deck chairs, and a
small, green-covered bridge-table, while bounding towards us came Jim
Almond’s pet fox-terrier.
The scene was exactly that upon the snapshot shown to me by the fat
_concierge_ of the Rue Blanche. It was here that the mysterious
Jules Bérand had had his photograph taken! I recognised the tent, the
chairs, the fox-terrier, and the trees in the background. And for that
reason I stood dumbfounded in wonder.
The old countrywoman who acted as servant presently brought us our tea
to the tent, and surely mine was a quaint and unusual position, sitting
there in a deck chair, chatting with the father and daughter for whom
the police of Europe were searching.
Mr. James Jellicoe was the name by which he had been known for several
years at Wilsford, as owner of that cosy little thatched cottage lying
in the hollow, with its tall, old red-brick chimneys--the home for
which Iris was ever longing, while so often compelled to live in the
sun-glare of the south. Ah! I could well imagine how delightful was
that purely English scene of peace and quiet, in comparison with the
turmoil and unrest, the noise and the dust of Continental cities.
I myself had suffered from nostalgia more than once--that dreaded
homesickness which is only experienced by the traveller who is lonely
and alone. Though half foreign by birth, the sweet-faced, fair-haired
girl, who handed me my teacup with such grace and light laughter, was
thoroughly English at heart. I pitied them both. I pitied the fine,
handsome old soldier, who had fallen from the high honours he had won
in the service of the British Colonies, and I pitied the poor frail
girl who had become the tool of those unscrupulous blackguards, who, in
fear of her, would now cast her into prison in degradation.
I had hated Jim Almond before I became acquainted with him, but now, I
confess, as he chatted with me in confidence, telling me of his deep
regrets, and his hope for his daughter’s future, I saw that, though a
daring and audacious keen-eyed adventurer, yet still within his heart
he was nevertheless a chivalrous gentleman. He would reform, and make
amends. He was ready and anxious to do so, he declared, as we three sat
together beneath the whispering pines--yet it was his “friends” who
prevented him.
We had spoken of Inspector Miller, and of the strenuous efforts he had
made, when I presently ventured to mention my visit to the Rue Blanche,
and the photograph I had had in my hand of that very scene before us.
Father and daughter exchanged quick meaning glances.
Then, after a pause, the old man said:
“Bérand was a friend of ours. He has, however, disappeared. It is a
mystery!”
“A--a business friend--eh?” I asked, meaningly.
“Well, yes, if you choose to call him such. He worked usually with
Pontifex. His last success was a year ago, with the National Bank of
Sweden, at Stockholm. He was English, though he took a French name.”
“And you used to visit him in Paris, I believe?”
“Yes--on rare occasions.”
Then, after a long silence, I put down my teacup, and turning to Iris,
said:
“I remember, Miss Almond, that, while in the Scotch express with you,
you wrote something upon a half-sheet of notepaper--a message in
cipher. You included in it the name of Eugene and the address in the
Rue Blanche.”
“Yes,” she answered. “I did--unfortunately, for it was afterwards found
upon poor Paul.”
“Who was Eugene?”
“The name by which we called Bérand. His Christian name was Jules
Eugene.”
“And in that cryptic message you defied someone--whom?” I asked, with
my eyes fixed upon hers.
“An enemy,” was her vague answer. I saw that her face had grown deathly
pale at mention of the tragedy, while the grey countenance of her
father had also perceptibly altered. Therefore I quickly changed the
subject, and both father and daughter became bright and cheerful again.
Presently we returned to the cottage, where I sat in the tiny
drawing-room, with its green upholstery and latticed window, chatting
with Iris alone. On a side-table was another big old blue punch-bowl
filled with roses, and through the open casement came the sweet scent
of the tangle of old-world flowers outside.
“Ah!” she sighed presently, lolling in her easy chair, her splendid
eyes fixed upon the carpet, “it is very pleasant here, at home with
dear dad. But how long will it last? The uncertainty of it all is
terrible, for we know not from one moment to another lest we may be
discovered. Bérand is missing. For all we know he may be in prison
somewhere, and he may avenge himself upon us by telling the police of
this hiding-place, which he knows so well, and where, in days gone by,
he has often been our guest.”
“Why should he avenge himself?” I asked.
“There are reasons,” was her reply, “rather strong reasons.”
And that was all she would vouchsafe.
“Then your chief fear at this moment is of Bérand?” I said.
She nodded in the affirmative, while a moment later her father entered
and disturbed our _tête-à-tête_.
By Jim Almond’s manner I saw that he was greatly touched by the
small service I had been able to render to Iris. He was, I found,
a delightful companion, an excellent _raconteur_, and a
thoroughgoing man of the world. Without doubt, the profits upon his
various exploits against both banks and private persons had been very
considerable; but now I knew him I could well understand that such men
as Rushton and Pontifex might well secure the major portion of the
gains for themselves. Their actions were directed by the master-mind of
the man they called “Slim Jim,” yet they took for themselves the bulk
of their ill-gotten wealth.
As we sat again together in the little low-pitched but cosy room,
I expressed interest in the stories I had heard from the police
concerning him, whereupon he went and fetched some of the ingenious
paraphernalia of the professional gambler, and showed me how impossible
it was for an unsuspecting man to win at cards, or at dice. With the
latter, not only could he always throw five aces, but he nominated his
throw beforehand, thus showing me the futility of gambling with the
stranger.
As he manipulated dice and cards in a manner which showed that he had
brought “sharping” to a fine art, I fell to wondering how many men had
afterwards deeply regretted having played with him as their opponent.
He pressed me to stay to dinner, and then, when it grew too late for me
to return to London, I was compelled to remain his guest for the night.
The room I was given was a tiny one with sloping roof, and a small
window under the thatch looking out upon the roadway, and the meadows
beyond.
That night, as we sat smoking together over our curaçoa after dinner,
Jim Almond took me fully into his confidence, expressing much regret at
his many offences against the law.
“I’ve had a taste of prison before, Mr. Laird, and I can ‘do a stretch’
again,” he said. “My only regret is for poor little Iris. I’ve wronged
her shamefully by allowing her to associate with my confederates.”
“Cannot you assist her to clear herself of this terrible accusation
against her?” I asked, bending towards him, for his grey face was out
of the zone of the lamplight.
“No,” he said with a deep sigh. “I--I unfortunately can’t. She alone
knows the truth. I do not.”
His manner and his voice both struck me as distinctly peculiar.
“But--but surely you, her father, do not believe that she is guilty of
that crime,” I cried, in dismay. “I know that she loved Paul Pauletti.
Surely she did not kill him, as they allege.”
For some time the keen-featured old man made no response. A long
deep-drawn sigh filled the room. Then, at last, in a harsh strained
voice, almost a whisper, he said:
“To me, she has never denied it.”
I made no response. I sat with my eyes fixed upon that man before
me--the man whose daring exploits had, from time to time, startled
Europe--while through my bewildered brain flashed all that she had told
me, her anxiety, her nervous apprehension, her terror.
No. Now that her own father believed her guilty, I saw that her actions
were not those of a woman who was innocent of the terrible accusation.
I had, all along, been shielding a murderess!
I held my breath. My fingers clenched themselves in my palms.
And even as I sat there, I heard, from the tiny drawing-room beyond,
the sound of the piano and her sweet contralto voice singing one of
those old love-songs of the far-off blue Apennines:
“Se morta tu mi vuoi dammi veleno;
Dammelo, Bello, di tua propria mano
La sepoltura mia sara il tuo seno!”
I loved this woman! Yes, tragedy had indeed fallen upon my life and
wrecked it, even now, more completely than it had been.
I loved this woman who had killed her lover.
She had enmeshed me so that I could not extricate myself. I longed
to rise and to leave that house, but alas! such action was, I found,
impossible.
I had become hers. She possessed my very soul, and I had become
fettered by bonds which, though invisible, were yet stronger than steel.
I listened to those words of hers in her soft musical Italian. Were
they addressed to me? Was that fierce declaration of love from her own
heart--the love of a woman whose very touch had, to one man, proved
fatal?
I tried to close my ears, but I could not. I sat in that old-fashioned
lamp-lit room, helpless, fascinated, staring--like a man in a dream,
for now for the first time had the plain and hideous truth been
revealed to me.
CHAPTER XXX
WHO KILLED PAUL?
I WAS walking with Iris across the fields in the glorious sunset on the
following evening.
Jim Almond had pressed me to remain the whole day, and I had done so,
even against my inclination.
In cool cotton skirt and blouse, and straw mushroom-shaped hat trimmed
with pale blue ribbon, Iris looked very sweet, as she strolled at my
side across the wide sloping pastures from the wood in the direction of
the house.
In an hour I should be leaving her--leaving her forever.
We had been speaking of the past, and I saw that my words had impressed
her. She had become silent and thoughtful, for she, too, knew that we
were about to part, and I saw in her eyes the light of unshed tears.
“Iris,” I said, halting in the path beside the high thorn hedge, “will
you not be frank with me, and tell me what happened on that fatal day
of our first meeting?”
She bit her lip, and I noticed that the colour left her cheeks.
“Yes,” was her slow response. “There is no reason now why you should
not be told all that I know. I have lost your esteem and regard, Mr.
Laird. I know that, full well. How can you ever trust a woman like
myself?”
“There is no question of trust involved,” I declared. “We have been
friends, and as such we surely should be frank and open with one
another.”
“Well, what can I tell you more than you already know?” she asked
in despair. “Save, perhaps, that when you met me I was full of
grave apprehension, for I felt that on that very day the truth must
be exposed. I received a telegram at Newcastle Station, you will
recollect. It was from Count Pauletti, and I feared that the summons
was for a final interview. That man in the train, our mysterious
fellow-passenger, was, I learned by a sign that he gave me, a friend
of ours. He had recognised me in Edinburgh, and in the corridor of the
train spoke to me in secret, and gave me certain information which,
at the moment, I did not believe, that one of my father’s friends had
betrayed us.”
“After receiving the telegram you wrote that curious message, half of
which was in cipher--the message afterwards found in poor Pauletti’s
pocket,” I said.
“I wrote it in order that he might copy it and use it against an enemy
of his, who, on receipt of it, would believe him to be in possession
of the secrets of our association.”
“Then you gave it to him?”
“Yes. On leaving you I drove through the fog to Paddington, and took
train out to Gerrard’s Cross, where I met Paul close to the station and
walked with him out into the country to what is known as the Duke’s
Wood. Upon our way we spoke of many things, and I gave him the cipher
message, urging him to copy it and send it. Then his manner suddenly
changed, and he accused my father of being at the head of the gang who
had practised a great fraud upon him concerning the new invention for
the control of Hertzian waves. I admitted it, and begged of him to
forgive, declaring that I would induce my father and his friends to
make restitution. But he grew angry, declaring that they had ruined
him, and that he intended on the morrow to inform the police. I became
plunged in grief, knowing that, with the knowledge of my father as an
adventurer, he, honest and upright as he was, could have no further
affection for me. I clung to him for a moment, but he cast me off
roughly--and--and then I went forward--forward into the fog.”
“Then that story told by the poacher Smith was correct?” I gasped,
amazed.
She bent her head in the affirmative, standing bowed in silence before
me.
“Well?” I asked quietly, after a brief pause. “And that cryptic
message? What was intended?”
“I hoped that by it Paul would show defiance, for I knew he had been
threatened. The message made an appointment at 6.15 at King’s Cross for
the following day, to go to ‘The Laurels,’ our house near Hounslow, and
see my father. Eugene was the name of the man to whom Paul was to send
the message, and the address in Paris, and the mention of ‘The Black
Three,’ would show the man Eugene that he was aware of the exploits of
the gang.”
“Who were ‘The Black Three’?”
“Rushton, Pontifex, and Eugene himself. My father had named them so.”
The western sky was slowly turning from gold to crimson, while, in the
trees above, the birds were chattering before roosting, as again we
walked slowly up the hill in silence, until suddenly we saw below us
the thatched roof of Jim Almond’s cottage, from the tall red chimney of
which the smoke curled upward in the still evening air.
As we looked, Almond himself came forth into the small flower garden,
and shouted to us.
“Why!” cried Iris. “Look! There are strangers there! What can have
happened?”
I looked in surprise, and saw standing at Almond’s side the tall burly
figure of a man in a dark blue suit and wearing a bowler hat.
“Iris!” I cried. “Why--why that’s Miller!”
She uttered a loud cry of despair, as she realised the truth. Miller,
the man whose sudden appearance they had feared for months, nay years,
had at last discovered them!
The end had come!
For a moment she halted. Her father watching, noted her hesitation, and
beckoned her forward. Whereupon she walked towards the house, her face
white and rigid, for she knew, alas, too well, that this man had come
to convey both her and her father to the cells of a police-station.
“It is too cruel!” she cried, bursting into tears as she walked. “I
know, now, that nothing can save me. Our enemies, those men who have
owed everything in the past to dad, have triumphed. They have betrayed
us.”
As we entered the garden Miller greeted me cheerily, saying with his
Polish accent:
“I’ve just come to make a rather unexpected call upon our friend here.
I’m glad you are present, though I had no idea that you, Meester Laird,
were a guest here!”
I glanced across at Almond, and saw that his face was ashen pale. He,
too, knew that escape was now entirely out of the question.
Their downfall was complete.
We all four entered the dining-room, wherein stood a rather
well-dressed young lady, who was a perfect stranger to me.
The instant, however, that Iris recognised her she gave vent to a loud
scream, and held back as though in horror and repugnance.
“Mees Maxwell,” exclaimed Miller, “I think it will, perhaps, be best if
you tell our friends at once the object of your visit here.”
Maxwell! Then this must be the Elsie Maxwell, the actress friend of
Pontifex, who was said to have supplanted Iris in the affections of the
unfortunate young Count Pauletti--the woman of whom Whatton had alleged
Iris to be so deadly jealous.
“Listen, Iris, for one moment,” exclaimed her visitor. “First let me
assure you that I am here bearing you no malice, even though I am
accompanied by Mr. Miller, whom I have during the past two days been
assisting in clearing up the mystery of Gerrard’s Cross.”
“You!” cried Iris, her eyes flashing with indignation. “You of all
women! Poor Paul owed his death to you!”
“No,” replied the girl Maxwell, in a perfectly calm voice, “that, my
dear, is scarcely the truth.”
“Tell us the whole truth, Elsie,” urged “Slim Jim,” who had already
recovered his habitual easy-going air, even though he might be under
arrest.
“I will tell you the truth,” exclaimed the girl, for she seemed not
more than twenty-one. “Listen, and I’ll tell you the same plain facts
that I’ve already told Inspector Miller. At his suggestion I have
come down, Mr. Almond, to make explanation. On that foggy evening of
the tragedy Phil Pontifex came to me and asked me to do him a favour,
namely, to go down to Fulmer, not far from Gerrard’s Cross, with a
little packet to convey to Jules. Phil had an important engagement
which meant business, therefore I took the little packet--which,
I think, contained some jewellery--and left Paddington after an
early dinner. The fog was very bad, but as I had been to Jules’
little cottage at the entrance to Fulmer village on several previous
occasions, and as I did not wish to attract undue attention by hiring
a conveyance, I set out and walked from Gerrard’s Cross Station. On
arrival, however, at half-past nine o’clock I found that, though there
was a light within the cottage, our friend was absent. I waited in the
vicinity for a long time, and it being so foggy the curiosity of the
villagers was not aroused. As you know, Jules was always careful. He
did not keep a woman servant at that obscure little retreat of his. A
young man attended to his wants during the day, and went home at four
o’clock. Therefore in the evening he was always alone.”
“You speak of Jules Bérand, I take it?” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” she replied. “Sometimes we call him Eugene, but what his real
name was Mr. Almond will know.”
“Charles Denham,” exclaimed Jim. “He was born in France, and easily
passed as a Frenchman.”
“Well,” continued the girl, as we all stood with open ears, “I waited
and waited in vain, until it grew past eleven, and fearing that I
should not catch my last train back to London, I started to walk back
to Gerrard’s Cross. When I had gone about a quarter of a mile from
the village I encountered in the fog a woman who, from her dress, I
believed to be Iris Almond, and, halting, addressed her as such. At
first she made no reply, but as I was persistent, and grasped her by
the arm, she was compelled to speak. Then, to my utter amazement, I
recognised the voice and the face of Eugene!”
“Attired as a woman?” exclaimed Jim Almond.
“Yes. In a big hat and long black coat, as described at the inquest by
that poacher.”
“Then it was Eugene who killed poor Paul!” cried Iris, as her hands
clasped themselves convulsively. “I--I--never thought of that!”
“You were accused, dear Iris,” replied the girl in sympathy--“accused
because of the story told by that eye-witness, Smith----”
“And also by a second witness--Mr. Eastlake, a retired barrister, of
Old Hagley Manor, who was walking home, and who, on hearing voices,
paused and saw the fatal embrace, just as Smith saw it,” interrupted
Miller.
“But I was not there,” declared Iris quickly. “I left Paul after he had
denounced dad as an adventurer, and returned towards the station. But
in the fog I missed my way, and eventually caught the last train from
Beaconsfield.”
“I expressed surprise at finding Eugene in such a garb,” Elsie went on,
“and he appeared greatly flurried and upset. I told him of the packet
I bore from Philip, therefore he invited me back again to the house to
which he sometimes retired when Paris grew too hot for him. We walked
together, and my curiosity became greatly aroused. Presently, however,
he explained that the reason he had disguised himself was in order
to watch two men whom he suspected to be detectives, who were making
inquiries in the neighbourhood. He had lately disappeared from Paris,
as you will remember.”
“Well?” I asked, as she had paused.
“Well, as soon as he got inside he slipped off his jacket and skirt
which he wore above his ordinary clothes and flung them upon the sofa.
Then he opened the packet, and I saw it contained a valuable diamond
brooch which Philip had, no doubt, secured by illegitimate means, and
wished to send to old Jacobsen in Utrecht. But while he was doing so I
took up the jacket to examine it, when to the floor there fell from the
pocket a tiny syringe, similar to those used for injections of morphia.
He cried to me not to touch it, and picking it up very carefully
himself, placed it at once upon the fire.”
“And then?” asked Jim Almond.
“A quarter of an hour later, in his masculine clothes, he set out with
me to catch the last train from Gerrard’s Cross. On the way we passed
the Duke’s Wood, whereupon he asked me to promise to say nothing of how
I had discovered him masquerading. This I promised to do, and returned
to London. It was only when in the papers I read a report of the
inquest, and I heard that Iris was accused, that I realised the truth.
And then--well, I then turned my knowledge to my own advantage.”
“How?” asked Almond.
“I accused him to his face, and I fixed my own price upon my secrecy,”
she said in a rather hard voice. “He confessed to me--he had to
confess--that it was he who had ‘wired’ to Paul at ‘Claridge’s,’ in
Iris’s name, making the appointment near Gerrard’s Cross Station, and
that he had also ‘wired’ to Iris at Newcastle Station in Paul’s name
appointing the meeting.”
“Why?” I asked.
“With a double object,” she replied. “Paul had discovered that Jules,
who had been posing as the inventor of the new system of controlling
the Hertzian waves, was a swindler, and he had denounced him. Further,
Paul had found out that Jules had been paying undue attention to you,
Iris, and in consequence, he had given him a sound thrashing. This had
happened a week before in Paris. Jules, smarting under the indignity,
had returned to England and taken up his old quarters with one
object--revenge.”
“But why did he desire to avenge himself upon Miss Almond?” I queried.
“Jules Bérand wished to have revenge upon us both,” her father said. “I
had only a few weeks before refused to be a party to a desperate plot
formed by Pontifex and himself, to attack a bank at Lyons, where the
life of the night-watchman must be sacrificed, if success was to be
obtained. This had incensed him, and furthermore, he suspected Iris of
being the cause of my refusal to allow the dastardly plot to be carried
into effect. He believed that my daughter, tired of this mode of life,
might confess to the police. I see through it all now!” he added, with
a fierce imprecation. “The infernal blackguard foresaw that, by his
ingenious plot, which he carried out single-handed, he could have his
revenge upon the young Count for his pluck in thrashing him, and at
the same time throw the guilt upon my daughter in such a manner that
she could not prove an _alibi_.”
“But, Iris,” I cried, “why were you silent if you were innocent?”
“What could I do? I had no idea of the identity of the assassin,” she
explained. “I knew that, with such deadly circumstantial evidence
against me, any protest of mine must of necessity be futile. Ah!--my
position--was horrible!”
“But why were Rushton and Pontifex so bitterly antagonistic towards
you?” I inquired.
“They, together with my father, no doubt believed that I had killed
poor Paul!” she said. “They never suspected Eugene. Cannot you see that
they both anticipated that I, a woman, in my desperation of jealousy
and revenge, might make confession, and reveal the truth regarding
them. Hence they were anxious to see me safely lodged in gaol--for
their own security. The instant I heard that Paul was dead,” she added,
“I knew that every effort would be made by the police to find me. That
was why I took to flight.”
“Ah!” sighed Almond, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder.
“Heaven knows how I have suffered, dear--for I, your father, believed
you guilty!”
“Listen,” exclaimed Elsie Maxwell, moving uneasily, and speaking in a
low, strained voice, “I have still something further to tell you. When
I fixed the price of my silence, Eugene paid me half the sum down. In
order to shield him, I gave certain information to Inspector Miller
regarding Iris, whom he suspected, and it was I who sent the anonymous
letter from Brighton which gave information that ‘Miss Bond,’ governess
at Charlwood, was identical with Iris Almond. I admit it was cruel and
unjustifiable, and for it I humbly ask your pardon, Iris.”
“That blackguard Eugene--I’ll show him no mercy!” cried Almond, in
fierce fury.
“Yes,” remarked the girl. “He did not act straight even towards his
friends. He held Iris, the girl whom he was seeking to convict of
murder, in constant dread, declaring that if she ever got wind of the
truth she would denounce the whole gang and their exploits, and more
especially the ugly circumstances under which that old Hebrew diamond
dealer, Goldstein, of Amsterdam, met his death a year ago in a house in
the Marnix Street.”
“He killed old Goldstein with a little hypodermic syringe filled with
some deadly arrow poison, which he had obtained from a Belgian officer
who had returned from the Congo,” declared Almond. “He pressed in the
needle in the back of the head, under the hair, where the wound was
not visible. I know that to be a fact.”
“And in that selfsame manner the man Denham, alias Bérand, undoubtedly
killed Paul Pauletti,” declared Miller. “We have it in evidence that
the woman, supposed to be your daughter, held him with her arms
affectionately around his neck, and that almost immediately afterwards
the unfortunate man collapsed. Besides, did not the little instrument
fall from the jacket pocket when Miss Maxwell examined it?”
“That he was guilty is placed beyond doubt,” Elsie said. “Yesterday
morning I received by post this letter,” and she held out a note to us
on grey notepaper. “Haunted by his two foul crimes, he lived constantly
under the impression that witnesses were rising up against him, and in
a fit of mad despair he has thrown himself down the deep well in the
garden of his cottage.”
“Dead!” I cried. “And you, Iris, from you this terrible charge has now
happily been lifted by the very woman whom they declared to be your
deadliest rival!”
She burst into a flood of tears, and grasping hands, the pair wept
together, while we men stood facing each other exchanging glances.
At last Miller broke the painful silence.
“Almond,” he said, in a quiet, serious voice, “you know what my duty
is as a police officer. Well, I--I’m going to neglect it--for once. I
can’t bear to see a woman’s tears. It is now eight o’clock,” he added,
with a glance at his watch. “I’m going out, and I shall not return
until ten. Probably you will neither of you be here when I call again.
If so, let me wish you adieu, and at the same time beg of Miss Iris to
forgive me for suspecting her of killing Paul Pauletti.”
We well understood the detective’s meaning.
“Ah!” cried Iris. “You are indeed good and generous to my father,
Mr. Miller. Of course I forgive you, and we both thank you for this
leniency from the bottom of our hearts.”
“Mr. Miller!” cried the handsome, grey-moustached old man. “From
to-night you will not find Jim Almond participate in any further
crooked bit of business. Here is my hand in promise.”
Thief and detective clasped hands. Then the latter took his hat and
went forth into the evening twilight.
And when he returned two hours later he found the cottage deserted.
Mr. James Jellicoe and his daughter--as they were known at
Wilsford--had departed, never to return.
CONCLUSION
NEARLY a year has now passed.
I saw Whatton at the bank at Winchester a week after the truth was
revealed, and told him the real story of the death of his friend.
But the final lines of this curious record of the under-world of
Society, I am writing beneath an ancient twisted olive, in a sloping
garden, where, through the grey greenery, shows the placid bright blue
Ionian sea. Away upon the horizon before me rises a long range of
mountains growing purple in the fiery Eastern sunset, the mystic land
of wild Albania, that country where life is still medieval.
In the small white villa with the green sun-shutters, on beautiful
Corfu--the paradise of the Ionian Islands, and one of the few places on
the face of the globe where there is no extradition treaty, and where
consequently the foreign evildoer is immune from arrest--I am again the
guest of Jim Almond and his pretty daughter, who, though Miller has
given up the chase, are compelled to live there for the future, owing
to the warrants still out for them.
Ralph Rushton, betrayed by his false friend Pontifex, who quarrelled
with him over the division of the proceeds of the Hildesheim robbery,
is at this moment undergoing a long term of imprisonment in Germany,
while Pontifex himself is believed to have been arrested and sentenced
under another name in France, for nothing has been heard of him for
many months--not, indeed, since a fortnight after that memorable
evening at Wilsford, when the truth of Paul’s death was revealed,
and when Miller so generously allowed my perhaps rather undesirable
friends, as he had termed them, two hours’ respite.
The gang has been effectively broken up. The body of Charles Denham,
alias Jules Bérand, was found in the well at Fulmer, and Iris’s
deadliest rival has now become her warmest friend. Jim Almond, lithe
and active, has returned to Corfu to become a respectable member of
the small English colony under his old name, James Jellicoe, while his
sweet-faced daughter is declared to be a great acquisition to the small
circle of those who speak English and drink tea in the afternoons, in
that sun-blanched little town where the Kaiser has his winter quarters.
I have already been their guest on three occasions at the Villa
Lillah--as they have named their comfortable flower-embowered little
home,--and have many times crossed to Albania, and shot woodcock with
my host.
It is said in Corfu, I believe, that Iris is to become my wife.
Well, to tell the truth, there are more unlikely things, for after my
own restless cosmopolitan life, permanent residence amidst the peace
and brilliance of this sunny Greek island--the nearest approach perhaps
to terrestrial paradise--would be in no way unwelcome.
Often we walk beside the sea hand in hand and recall those troublous
times now past. Yes--we love each other.
And sometimes we try to peer into the future and see what it may have
in store. But, alas! it is a sealed book to us--as to you.
“Shall you marry her?” you inquire.
To this I may perhaps confess that I have asked Iris to become my wife.
Yesterday--only yesterday--ah! never-to-be-forgotten day--she
consented! Therefore am I filled with a great and boundless joy, for I
have to-day spoken to her father; and thus have I brought my strangely
romantic wooing to
THE END.
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