The Stretton Street Affair
by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #27147 · 498,956 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Stretton Street Affair
Author: William Le Queux
Release date: November 4, 2008 [eBook #27147]
Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRETTON STREET AFFAIR ***
Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
THE STRETTON STREET
AFFAIR
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF "THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO," "THE INTRIGUERS,"
"MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO"
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922
BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO
THE INTRIGUERS
MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO
[Illustration: "Gabrielle, my poor niece," he cried. "She's
dead--dead!"]
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE 11
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCES OSWALD DE GEX 20
II THE SISTER'S STORY 37
III WHO WAS GABRIELLE ENGLEDUE? 48
IV FACING THE MUSIC 59
V THE CITY OF THE LILY 69
VI ANOTHER PUZZLE 80
VII THE MILLIONAIRE'S APPREHENSIONS 91
VIII LITTLE MRS. CULLERTON 102
IX SOME PLAIN SPEAKING 113
X MONSIEUR SUZOR AGAIN 122
XI THE ABSOLUTE FACTS 132
XII "RED, GREEN AND GOLD!" 143
XIII SOME INTERESTING REVELATIONS 153
XIV THE GATE OF THE SUN 163
XV THE INTRUDER 172
XVI ANOTHER STRANGE DISCLOSURE 182
XVII WHAT THE PROFESSOR FOUND 192
XVIII MORE ABOUT THE MYSTERY-MAN 202
XIX THE TRACK OF DESPUJOL 212
XX MADEMOISELLE JACQUELOT 222
XXI AT THE HÔTEL LUXEMBOURG 232
XXII GABRIELLE AT HOME 243
XXIII THE DEATH-DRUG 253
XXIV YET ANOTHER MYSTERY 263
XXV WHAT THE VALET KNEW 272
XXVI MORE ABOUT MATEO SANZ 284
XXVII A CURIOUS STORY 293
XXVIII LOVE THE CONQUEROR 299
XXIX ANOTHER PLOT 311
CONCLUSION 316
THE STRETTON STREET AFFAIR
PROLOGUE
IS ABOUT MYSELF
The whole circumstances of the Stretton Street Affair were so
complicated and so amazing from start to finish that, had the facts
been related to me, I confess I should never have for a moment given
them credence.
That they were hard, undeniable facts, presenting a problem both
startling and sensational, the reader will quickly learn from this
straightforward narrative--an open confession of what actually
occurred.
In all innocence, and certainly without any desire to achieve that
ephemeral notoriety which accrues from having one's portrait in the
pictorial press and being besieged by interviewers in search of a
"story," I found myself, without seeking adventure, one of the chief
actors in a drama which was perhaps one of the strangest and most
astounding of this our twentieth century.
I almost hesitate to set down the true facts, so utterly amazing are
they. Indeed, as I sit in the silence of this old brown room in a
low-built and timbered Surrey farmhouse, with pen and paper before me,
I feel that it is only by a miracle that I have been spared to narrate
one of the most complex and ingenious plots which the human mind,
with malice aforethought, ever conceived.
I ought, I suppose, in opening to tell you something concerning
myself. Hugh Garfield is my name; my age twenty-nine, and I am the son
of the late Reverend Francis Garfield, rector of Aldingbourne and
minor canon of Chichester. In the war I served with the Royal Air
Force and obtained my pilot's certificate. I went to France and
afterwards to Italy, and on being demobilized returned to my work as
an electrical engineer in the employ of Messrs. Francis and Goldsmith,
the well-known firm whose palatial offices are in Great George Street,
Westminster, quite close to the Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Though I had obtained my Degree in Science I was at the time employed
a good deal upon clerical work. Five years of war had, of course, been
something of a set-back to my career, but in our reputable firm our
places had been kept open for us--for those who returned, and we were,
alas! only three out of twenty-eight.
Perhaps it was that having done my duty and obtained my captaincy and
a Military Cross, the loyal, old-fashioned firm regarded me with
considerable favour. At any rate, it set its face against anything
German, even in the post-war days when the enemy sent its Ambassador
to the Court of St. James, and we weakheartedly reopened trade with
the diabolical Huns and allowed them to dump in their cheap and nasty
goods just as though no war had happened.
Messrs. Francis and Goldsmith was a private firm, and the principals
were both fine, patriotic Britons. Though electrical appliances were
coming from Germany wholesale, and being put in to the market at
prices with which British firms could never hope to compete, yet they
stuck to their old resolution when in 1918 they had joined the
Anti-German Union of "No German Goods."
Would that all other firms, electrical and otherwise, had done
likewise!
Before I describe the amazing adventures which befell me I suppose I
ought to tell you the exact circumstances. I had an excellent business
appointment, with a salary which was quite adequate for my modest
needs as a bachelor. Further, my Aunt Emily had died and left me quite
a comfortable little fortune in addition. I shared a small flat in
Rivermead Mansions, just over Hammersmith Bridge, with another
bachelor, a young solicitor--a dark-haired, clean-shaven, alert fellow
named Henry Hambledon, who had created quite a good practice, with
only small fees of course, at the Hammersmith Police Court and its
vicinity.
I first met Hambledon at the front--years ago it seems in these days
when events march on so rapidly. For nearly a year we were
brother-officers, until I was sent to Italy. We met again after the
Armistice and set up housekeeping together, our female "Kaiserin"
being a sharp-featured, grey-haired young lady of about fifty-five,
who "looked after us" very well, and though she possessed many
idiosyncrasies, did not rob us quite so openly as do most housekeepers
of the London bachelor's home.
Harry was one of the best of good fellows. He had seen a lot of
service ever since he had responded to his country's call and joined
up as a private. We always got on excellently together, so we had
furnished our pleasant little six-roomed, second-floor flat quite
comfortably, and as Harry had looked after the artistic side of its
furnishings--aided by a pal of his, an impecunious artist who lived
in Chelsea--it certainly was a very passable bachelor's snuggery.
The small front room commanded a view over the river with works,
wharves, and high factory chimneys on the Middlesex shore. To the
left, across the long suspension bridge, was Chiswick and Kew, while
to the right lay Putney and Chelsea. Before the house flowed the great
broad muddy river where once each year the University eights flashed
past, while ever and anon, year in, year out, noisy tugs towed strings
of black barges up and down the stream.
Away across the high-road to the left were the great reservoirs of
London's water works, a huge open space always fresh and breezy even
within a stone's throw of stifled Hammersmith, with its "tubes" and
its dancing-halls. Used as we both had been to years of roughing it,
the spot had taken our fancy, and we got on famously together. On most
evenings we were out, but sometimes, before we turned in, we would sit
and smoke and laugh over our stirring adventures and humorous
incidents in the war, and the "scraps" we had been safely through.
Since his demobilization Harry had fallen deeply in love with an
extremely pretty girl named Norah Peyton, who lived in a house
overlooking the Terrace Gardens at Richmond, and whose father was
partner in a firm of well-known importers in Mincing Lane. As for
myself, I was "unattached." Like every other young man of my age I
had, of course, had several little affairs of the heart, all of which
had, however, died within a few short weeks.
Now it happened that on the evening of the day prior to the opening of
this strange series of adventures which befell me, I was in the city
of York, whither I had gone on business for the firm, and as my
old-fashioned employers allowed first-class travelling expenses, I
entered an empty first-class compartment of the London express which
left York at six-twenty-three, and was due at King's Cross at
ten-thirty.
A few moments later a fellow-passenger appeared, a well-dressed,
middle-aged man, who asked me in French if the train went to London,
and on my replying in the affirmative, he thanked me profusely and
joined me.
"I regret, m'sieur, that I, alas! know so very leetle of your
Engleesh," he remarked pleasantly, and continued in French: "Sometimes
my ignorance places me in great difficulty when _en voyage_ here."
Knowing French fairly well we soon commenced to chat in that language.
He struck me as a man of considerable refinement and education.
Therefore it was no surprise to me when he told me that, as an
official at the head office of the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris, it was
his duty sometimes to visit their correspondents in the chief
commercial centres of Great Britain.
"I am on my way from Glasgow back to Paris," he said. "But I had to
break my journey in York this morning. I shall leave London for Paris
to-morrow. I shall travel by the air-route," he added; "it is so much
quicker, and far less fatiguing. I have been backwards and forwards to
the Croydon Aerodrome quite half a dozen times of late."
"Yes," I remarked. "Travel by aeroplane must be of very considerable
advantage to really busy men."
And thus we chatted until dinner was announced, and we went together
along the corridor to the restaurant-car, where we sat opposite each
other.
As the train sped along over the flat fertile country through
Doncaster and Grantham on that moonlit winter's night we sat
gossiping pleasantly, for I had looked forward to a lonely journey
back to London.
I have "knocked about" ever since the commencement of the war, but I
abhor a lonely four-hour railway journey. I had had enough of slow
railway journeys in France and elsewhere. But on that evening I
confess I was greatly taken with my fellow-traveller.
He had all the alertness and exquisite politeness of the Parisian, and
he compelled me to have a Benedictine at his expense. Then, as a _quid
pro quo_, he took one of my cigarettes.
Later, when we had concluded the usual and never-altering meal
provided by the Great Northern Railway Company--I often wonder who are
the culinary artists who devise those menus which face us on all
English trains--we returned to our compartment to stretch ourselves in
our corners and to smoke. Grantham we had passed and we were
approaching Peterborough, the old fen town with the ancient cathedral.
In French my friend the banker kept up a continuous chatter, even
though I was tired and drowsy. He had told me much concerning himself,
and I, in turn, told him of my profession and where I lived. I did not
tell him very much, for I am one of those persons who prefer to keep
themselves to themselves. I seldom give strangers any information.
After a time, indeed, I tired of him.
At last we entered King's Cross--a little late, as is usual on a long
run.
"I have to get to the Carlton," my companion said. "Of course there
will be no taxis. But are not you in London very badly served in that
respect? We, in Paris, have taxis at any hour. When your stations
close I find always a great difficulty in getting a conveyance. By
the way! Could you not dine with me to-morrow night?"
"I am sorry," I replied. "But I have arranged to visit my uncle in
Orchard Street."
Two minutes later the train drew up slowly, and wishing my
fellow-traveller _bon soir_, I expressed a hope that one day, ere
long, we might meet again. I had not given him my card, as our
acquaintance was only upon chance, and--well, after all, he was only a
passing foreigner.
Half an hour after I had stepped from the train, I was back again in
my cosy little flat in Rivermead Mansions, after a very strenuous day.
On the hall table lay a letter from my solicitors. I tore it open
eagerly and read that they regretted to inform me that certain
investments I had made a year before, with the money which my aunt had
left me, had not realized my expectations. In other words, I had lost
the whole of my money!
All I possessed was the salary paid me by Messrs. Francis and
Goldsmith.
My heart stood still. The blow staggered me. Yet, after all, I had
been a fool--a fact which my solicitors had hinted at the time.
I crushed the letter in my hand and passed on into the little
sitting-room.
Harry had gone out to a dance, and had left a scribbled note on the
table saying that he had his latchkey and would not be back until two
or so. He wished me "cheerio." So having smoked a final cigarette I
retired.
Next day I went to the office in Great George Street and reported upon
the business I had done in York--and good business it was, too, with
the Municipal Electric Supply--and in the evening I returned across
Hammersmith Bridge at about six o'clock.
At seven our buxom "Kaiserin" put our meal upon the table--a roast, a
sweet, and a wedge of Cheshire cheese. The mind of the dear old soul,
who had so many relations, never rose above the butcher's joint and
apple tart. Alas! that cooking is an art still unknown in our dear old
England. We sit at table only by Nature's necessity--not to enjoy the
kindly fruits of the earth as do other nations.
Yet what could we expect of the 'Ammersmith charlady who looked after
us?--and who, by the way, probably looked after her own pocket as
well.
The bachelor's housekeeper is always a fifteen puzzle--twelve for
herself and the remaining three for her employer. As sure as rain
comes in winter, so does the smug and sedate female who keeps house
for the unfortunate unattached male place the onus of housekeeping
bills upon him and reap the desserts of life for herself.
On that particular evening I felt very tired, for in the five days of
my absence many business matters had accumulated, and I had had much
to attend to.
Harry, who ate hurriedly--even gobbling his food--told me that he was
taking Norah to the theatre, hence, after dinner, I was left alone. I
read the evening paper when he had left, and then, at eight o'clock,
stretched myself, for it was time that I went out to my uncle's.
The evening was cold and bright, with twinkling stars which on
air-raid nights in London would have caused much perturbation among
average householders and their families.
Our "Kaiserin" had gone home, so I rose, put on my overcoat, switched
off the lights and descended the stairs to Hammersmith Bridge.
Thus, as you, my reader, will realize, I went out in the manner of a
million other men in London on that particular night of Wednesday, the
seventh of November.
And yet all unconsciously I plunged into a vortex of mystery and
uncertainty such as, perhaps, no other living man has ever
experienced.
Again I hesitate to pen these lines.
Yet, be patient, and I will endeavour, as far as I am able in these
cold printed pages, to reveal exactly what occurred, without any
exaggeration or hysterical meanderings. My only object being to
present to you a plain, straightforward, and unvarnished narrative of
those amazing occurrences, and in what astounding circumstances I
found myself.
Surely it was not any of my own seeking--as you will readily
understand. Because I performed what I believed to be a good
action--as most readers of these pages would have done in similar
circumstances--I was rewarded by unspeakable trouble, tribulation and
tragedy.
CHAPTER THE FIRST
INTRODUCES OSWALD DE GEX
I had promised to call upon Charles Latimer, my bachelor uncle, a
retired naval captain, a somewhat crusty old fellow who lived in
Orchard Street, which runs between Oxford Street and Portman Square. I
usually went there twice a week. With that intent I took a motor 'bus
from Hammersmith Broadway as far as Hyde Park Corner.
As I stepped off the 'bus rain began to fall, so turning up the collar
of my coat I hurried up Park Lane, at that hour half deserted.
When half-way up to Oxford Street I turned into one of the small,
highly aristocratic streets leading into Park Street as a short cut to
Orchard Street. The houses were all of them fine town mansions of the
aristocracy, most of them with deep porticos and deeper areas.
Stretton Street was essentially one inhabited by the highest in London
society. I had passed through it many times--as a Londoner does in
making short cuts--without even noticing the name. The Londoner's
geography is usually only by the landmarks of street corners and
"tube" stations.
As I hurried along through the rain, I suddenly heard a man's voice
behind me say:
"Excuse me, sir! But may I speak to you for just one second?"
I turned, and as I halted, a bare-headed young man-servant in livery,
with waistcoat of striped black-and-yellow, faced me.
"I'm sorry, sir," he exclaimed breathlessly, "but will you wait just a
moment?"
"What do you want?" I asked, surprised at being thus accosted.
"Would you oblige my master, sir?" inquired the young man eagerly. "He
is in some very great trouble. Only a moment, sir. Just come in and
see him. Do. Poor fellow! he's in great trouble. Do come in and see
him, sir," he begged.
Amazed at this appeal, and my curiosity aroused, I consented, and
followed the man back to a great stone-built mansion about fifty yards
away. The front door in its deep portico stood open, just as the
servant had left it when, apparently, he had dashed out into the
street to accost the first passer-by.
"I'm sure my master will be most grateful to you, sir," the young
footman said as I crossed the threshold.
We passed through a large square hall and up a great flight of
softly-carpeted stairs to the library on the first floor--a big,
sombre room, lined with books from floor to ceiling--evidently the den
of a studious man.
In the grate there burned a bright log fire, and on either side stood
two deep leather arm-chairs. It was a room possessing the acme of
cosiness and comfort. Over the fireplace was set a large circular
painting of the Madonna and Child--evidently the work of some Italian
master of the seventeenth century--while here and there stood several
exquisite bronzes.
In the window on the left was set a great carved Renaissance
writing-table, and upon it burned an electric lamp with an artistic
shade of emerald glass.
A few moments later a man in evening-dress entered hurriedly--almost
breathlessly. I judged him to be about forty-five, dark-haired and
decidedly handsome, but his complexion was a trifle sallow, and his
features had a decidedly Oriental cast.
He greeted me profusely in a quiet, highly refined voice. Though his
appearance was foreign, yet he was certainly English.
"I'm really awfully sorry to trouble you, sir," he said in a tone of
profuse apology, "but the fact is that I find myself in a state of
considerable perplexity. It is extremely good of you to consent to
accompany Horton back here. I only hope that I have not interfered
with any appointment you have to keep."
"Not at all," I replied, wondering who my host might be, for the whole
affair was so sudden and unexpected that I was bewildered.
"Do sit down, and have a cigar," said my unknown host cheerily, and he
took up a large silver box from a side table whereon was set a
decanter of whisky, a syphon of soda water and four glasses upon a
beautiful old tray of Georgian silver.
I selected a Corona, and sinking into the inviting chair, lit it,
while he also took a cigar, and having clipped off the end, lit up as
well.
We chatted affably, for my host was certainly geniality itself.
"This is quite an unexpected visit!" I remarked laughing, wondering
still why I had been called in.
"Yes," he said. "I should not have had the pleasure of your
acquaintance had it not been for the great trouble I have to-night,"
and he drew a deep sigh, while across his dark face passed an
expression of pain and regret. "Some men are happy, others are--are,
well, unfortunately unhappy in their domestic life. I, alas! am one
of the latter," he added.
"That is very regrettable," I said sympathetically.
"My wife," he said hoarsely after a pause, "my wife took out my little
boy this evening and deliberately left him in Westbourne Grove--just
in order to spite me! Then she rang me up from some call-office and
told me what she had done. Put yourself in my place," he said. "Would
you not be indignant? Would you not be filled with hatred--and----"
"I certainly should," was my reply. "I'm a bachelor, and sometimes
when I see so many unhappy marriages I fear to take the matrimonial
plunge myself."
"Ah! Take my advice and remain single as long as ever you can, my dear
sir. I--I haven't the pleasure of your name."
"Garfield--Hugh Garfield," I said.
"Mine is De Gex--Oswald De Gex," he said. "You may perhaps have heard
of me."
Heard of Oswald De Gex! Of course I had! He was reputed to be one of
the wealthiest of men, but he lived mostly in Paris or at his
magnificent villa outside Florence. It was common knowledge that he
had, during the war, invested a level million sterling in the War
Loan, while he was constantly giving great donations to various
charities. Somewhat eccentric, he preferred living abroad to spending
his time in England, because, it was said, of some personal quarrel
with another Member of the House of Commons which had arisen over a
debate soon after he had been elected.
I recollected, too, that his wife--whose handsome pictured face so
often appeared in the newspapers--was the daughter of a sporting
baronet, yet I had never heard any whisper of such matrimonial
troubles as he had just revealed to me.
He seemed a most easy-going man, whose clean-shaven face under the
softly shaded electric light did not now appear so sallow and foreign
as at first. His eyes were dark and rather deeply set, while his mouth
was narrow and refined, with a dimple in the centre of his chin. His
cast of features was certainly foreign, and handsome withal--a face
full of strength and character. When he spoke he slightly aspirated
his c's, and now and then he gesticulated when enthusiastic, due, of
course, to his long residence abroad.
Often I had read in the newspapers of the splendid mediæval castle
which he had bought from the Earl of Weymount, a castle perched high
upon the granite rocks facing the Channel, between the Lizard and St.
Ruan. He had spent a fortune in restoring it, yet he very seldom
visited it. The historic place, with its wind-swept surroundings, was
given over to his agent at Truro and to a caretaker.
As a matter of fact, I had once seen it while on a summer tour in
Cornwall five years before, a great square keep with four towers,
storm-worn and forbidding--one of the most perfect specimens of the
mediæval castles in England. I had been told by the man who drove the
hired car about its history, how in the early fourteenth century it
had been the home of William Auberville, a favourite of Edward II.
From the Aubervilles the old fortress had passed a century later into
the Weymount family, and had been their ancestral home for centuries.
I chanced to mention that I had seen the castle, whereupon the
millionaire smiled, and remarked:
"I fear that I've not been there lately. I am so very seldom in
England nowadays. Besides, the old place is so cold and gloomy. It is
draughty even on a summer's day. My wife liked it when we were
married--liked it until somebody told her of a family legend, how Hugh
de Weymount, in the fifteenth century, walled up his wife in the north
tower and left her to starve to death. Ever since she heard that story
she has hated the old place. But," he added with a hard laugh, "it is
most probably not true, and if the gallant knight actually did such a
thing, perhaps, after all, the lady deserved it!"
My friend certainly seemed soured against the opposite sex. And surely
he had just cause to be if his wife, in order to spite him, had
deliberately lost the heir, little Oswald De Gex, in Westbourne Grove.
It was a strange thing that the heir of one of the wealthiest men in
Britain should have been abandoned in Bayswater. As a bachelor, I
wondered as to the state of mind of the mother--a mother who could
take out her child on a winter's night, without hat or coat, and
deliberately cast him adrift just to annoy her husband.
But the gentler sex in these days of drugs and dancing are, it must be
admitted, strangely abnormal. Women with crazes abound everywhere.
That women are emancipated from the almost Oriental thraldom in which
they lived in the days of Victoria the Good is a bright sign of our
times--the times of discovery, refinement, and mutual happiness of all
classes. But certain circles--those circles wherein women take drugs
to enable them to dance the better, circles where opium is smoked, and
where morals do not count, where religion is scoffed at and relegated
to the limbo of an out-of-date fiction, and where only the possessor
of money counts, there is a strange and mysterious phase of Society
indescribable by the pen. Only those who know of them by personal
experience--the experience of "fast living"--can understand it. And
even the man-about-town stands aghast at the ultra-modern crazes.
As we sat chatting in that quiet comfortable room, I confess that I
became rather fascinated by my host. Perhaps he was a trifle too
cynical at times, but his matrimonial trouble no doubt accounted for
it.
Suddenly he rose and stretched himself rather wearily, I thought. The
thin, delicate hand which held his cigar was long and tapering, and
upon his finger was an antique Florentine ring in the form of a small
emerald moth. I particularly noticed it as of very unusual pattern. I
recollected seeing one of the same design in the Louvre Museum in
Paris several years before.
"Ah!" he sighed. "I shall very soon leave London again--thank
goodness! Next week I return to Fiesole for the winter. I am no great
lover of London--are you, Mr.--Mr. Garfield?"
"My business as an electrical engineer keeps me in London," was my
reply. "Besides, I have recently sustained a very heavy financial
loss. If, however, I were independent I should certainly live in the
country. London has, to me, become unbearable since the war."
"Ah! I quite agree," replied my host. "All our fine British traditions
seem to have gone by the board. That, at least, is my own view. But
there--perhaps I am getting an old fogey."
"I don't think so," I replied. "Everyone who knows you, Mr. De Gex, is
well aware of your up-to-dateness, and your great generosity."
"Are they?" he asked, smiling wearily. "Personally I care very little.
Popularity and prosperity can be manufactured by any shrewd
press-agent employed at so much a year. Without publicity, the
professional man or woman would never obtain a hearing. These are the
days when incompetency properly boomed raises the incompetent to
greatness--and even to Cabinet rank. Neither would the society woman
ever obtain a friend without her boom," he went on. "Bah! I'm sick of
it all!" he added with a sweep of his thin white hand. "But it is
refreshing to talk with you, a stranger."
He was certainly frank in his criticisms, and I was not at all
surprised when he commenced to question me as to my profession, where
I lived, and what were my future plans.
I told him quite openly of my position, and that I lived in Rivermead
Mansions with my friend Hambledon; and I also mentioned again the
financial blow I had just received.
"Well," he said lazily, "I'm greatly indebted to you, Mr. Garfield,
for deigning to come in and see a much-worried man. Ah! you do not
know how I suffer from my wife's hatred of me. My poor little Oswald.
Fancy abandoning him in order that the police might find him. But
happily he is back. Think of the publicity--for the papers would have
been full of my son being lost." Then, after a pause, he added: "I
hope we shall see each other again before I go back to Italy."
At that moment, the butler, Horton, entered with a card upon a silver
salver, whereupon I rose to leave.
"Oh! don't go yet!" my host urged quickly, as he glanced at the card.
"Is he waiting?" asked Mr. De Gex, turning to his servant.
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, well. Yes, I'll see him," he said. And then, excusing himself, he
rose and left, followed by the man.
Why, I wondered, had I been invited there? It seemed curious that
this exceedingly rich man was bursting to confide his domestic
troubles to a perfect stranger.
I glanced around the handsome, well-furnished room.
Upon the writing-table lay a number of letters, and upon the red
blotting-pad was a big wad of Treasury notes, under an elastic band,
cast aside heedlessly, as rich men often do.
As I sat there awaiting my host's return, I recollected how, in the
previous year, I had seen in the pictorial press photographs of the
handsome Mrs. De Gex attired in jersey and breeches, with knitted cap
and big woollen scarf, lying upon her stomach on a sleigh on the
Cresta run. In another photograph which I recollected she was watching
some ski-ing, and still another, when she was walking in the park with
a well-known Cabinet Minister and his wife. But her husband never
appeared in print. One of his well-known idiosyncrasies was that he
would never allow himself to be photographed.
At the end of the room I noticed, for the first time, a pair of heavy
oaken folding-doors communicating with the adjoining apartment, and as
I sat there I fancied I heard a woman's shrill but refined voice--the
voice of a well-bred young woman, followed by a peal of light, almost
hysterical, laughter, in which a man joined.
My adventure was certainly a strange one. I had started out to visit
my prosaic old uncle--as I so often did--and I had anticipated a very
boring time. But here I was, by a most curious circumstance, upon
friendly terms with one of the richest men in England.
Further, he seemed to have taken an unusual fancy to me. Probably
because I had been sympathetic regarding the rescue of little Oswald
De Gex. But why he should have confided all this to me I failed to
realize.
As I sat there by the cheerful fire I heard the voices again raised
in the adjoining room--the voices of a man and a woman.
Suddenly a sweet perfume greeted my nostrils. At first it seemed like
that of an old-fashioned _pot-pourri_ of lavender, verbena and basalt,
such as our grandmothers decocted in their punch-bowls from dried
rose-leaves to give their rooms a sweet odour. The scent reminded me
of my mother's drawing-room of long ago.
Gradually it became more and more pungent. It seemed as though some
pastille were burning somewhere, for soon it became almost sickening,
an odour utterly overbearing.
At the same time I felt a curious sensation creeping over me. Why I
could not tell.
I was both agitated and annoyed. I had only half finished my drink,
and it was certainly not alcohol that was affecting me. Rather it
seemed to be that curious old-world perfume which each moment grew
more pungent.
I struggled against it. What would my newly-found friend think if he
returned to find me overcome?
I gained my feet with difficulty and managed to walk across the
carpet, holding my breath.
Certainly my night's adventure was, to say the least, a curious one.
Yet in our post-war days in London the man who ventures about town
after dark can easily meet with as strange occurrences and narrow
escapes as ever were described by the pioneers of Central Africa. The
explorer Stanley himself declared that the African jungle was safer
than the crossing of the Strand.
I suppose I must have remained in the chair into which I again sank
for a further ten minutes. My head swam. My mental balance seemed to
have become strangely upset by that highly pungent odour of lavender
and verbena. I could even taste it upon my tongue, and somehow it
seemed to paralyse all my senses save two, those of sight and reason.
I had difficulty in moving my mouth, my fingers, and my shoulders, but
my sense of smell seemed to have become extremely acute. Yet my
muscles seemed rigid, although my brain remained perfectly clear and
unimpaired.
It was that scent of verbena--now terrible and detestable--a million
times more potent than any bath soap--which filled my nostrils so that
it seemed to choke me. I longed for fresh air.
By dint of persistent effort I rose, dragged myself across the room,
drew aside the heavy silken curtain, and opening the window leaned out
into the cold air, gasping for breath.
Where was Mr. De Gex?
For about five minutes I remained there, yet even the night air gave
me little relief. My throat had become contracted until I seemed to be
choking.
By the exercise of greater effort I staggered back, aghast at the
sudden and unaccountable attack, and pressed the electric bell beside
the fireplace to summon my host or the estimable Horton. Then I sank
back into the arm-chair, my limbs paralysed.
How long I remained there I cannot tell for that pungent odour had, at
last, dulled my brain. I had heard of cocaine, of opium, and of other
drugs, and it occurred to me that I might be under the influence of
one or the other of them. Yet the idea was absurd. I was Mr. De Gex's
guest, and I could only suppose that my sudden seizure was due to
natural causes--to some complication of a mental nature which I had
never suspected. The human brain is a very complex composition, and
its strange vagaries are only known to alienists.
I seemed stifled, and I sat clutching the arms of the big leather
chair when my host at last entered, smiling serenely and full of
apologies.
"I'm awfully sorry to have left you, Mr. Garfield, but my agent called
to do some very urgent business. Pray excuse me, won't you?"
"I--I'm awfully sorry!" I exclaimed. "But I--I don't feel very well. I
must apologize, Mr. De Gex, but would you ask your man to order me a
taxi? I--well, I've come over strangely queer since you've been out."
"Bah! my dear fellow," he laughed cheerily. "You'll surely be all
right in a few minutes. Stay here and rest. I'm sorry you don't feel
well. You'll be better soon. I'll order my car to take you home in
half an hour."
Then he crossed to the telephone, rang up a number, and ordered his
car to be at the house in half an hour.
Then he rang for Horton, who brought me a liqueur glass of old brandy,
which at my host's suggestion I swallowed.
Mr. De Gex, standing upon the thick Turkey hearthrug with his cigar
between his lips, watched me closely. Apparently he was considerably
perturbed at my sudden illness, for he expressed regret, hoping that
the brandy would revive me.
It, however, had the opposite effect. The strong perfume like
_pot-pourri_ had confused my senses, but the brandy dulled them still
further. I felt inert and unable to move a muscle, or even to exercise
my will power. Yet my sense of sight was quite unimpaired.
I recollect distinctly how the dark keen-faced aristocrat-looking man
stood before me alert and eager, as he gazed intently into my face as
though watching the progress of my seizure which had so completely
paralysed me.
Of a sudden a loud shriek sounded from the adjoining room--a woman's
wild shriek of terror.
My host's thin lips tightened.
The scream was repeated, and continued.
"Excuse me," he exclaimed as he left the room hastily.
I sat with ears alert. It was surely most strange that the well-known
millionaire, whose name was on everyone's lips, had confided in me as
he had done. Why had he done so?
The screams of terror continued for about half a minute. Then they
seemed stifled down to heavy sobbing. They seemed to be hysterical
sobs, as of someone who had suffered from some great shock.
I was full of wonderment. It was unusual, I thought, that such noises
should be heard in a sedate West End mansion.
There was a long-drawn-out sob, and then silence. A dead silence!
A few moments later Mr. De Gex came in looking very flushed and
excited.
"My troubles are ever on the increase," he exclaimed breathlessly.
"Come, Mr. Garfield. Come with me."
He assisted me to my feet and led me out into the corridor and into
the adjoining room.
To my surprise it was a great handsomely furnished bedroom with heavy
hangings of yellow silk before the windows, and a great dressing-table
with a huge mirror with side wings. Along one side were wardrobes
built into the wall, the doors being of satinwood beautifully inlaid.
In the centre stood a handsome bed, and upon it lay a young and
beautiful girl wearing a dark blue serge walking dress of the latest
mode. Her hat was off, and across her dark hair was a band of black
velvet. The light, shining upon her white face--a countenance which
has ever since been photographed upon my memory--left the remainder of
the room in semi-darkness.
"My poor niece!" Mr. De Gex said breathlessly. "She--she has been
subject to fits of hysteria. The doctor has warned her of her heart.
You heard her cries. I--I believe she's dead!"
We both moved to the bed, my host still supporting me. I bent
cautiously and listened, but I could hear no sound of breathing. Her
heart has ceased to beat!
He took a hand mirror from the dressing-table and held it over her
mouth. When he withdrew it it remained unclouded.
"She's dead--_dead_!" he exclaimed. "And--well, I am in despair.
First, my wife defies me--and now poor Gabrielle is dead! How would
you feel?"
"I really don't know," I whispered.
"Come back with me into the library," he urged. "We can't speak here.
I--well--I want to be perfectly frank with you."
And he conducted me back to the room where we had been seated
together.
I had resumed my seat much puzzled and excited by the tragedy that had
occurred--the sudden death of my host's niece.
"Now, look here," exclaimed Mr. De Gex, standing upon the hearthrug,
his sallow face pale and drawn. "Your presence here is most opportune.
You must render me assistance in this unfortunate affair, Mr.
Garfield. I feel that I can trust you, and I--well, I hope you can
trust me in return. Will you consent to help me?"
"In what way?" I asked.
"I'm in a hole--a desperate hole," he said very anxiously. "Poor
Gabrielle has died, but if it gets out that her death is sudden, then
there must be a coroner's inquiry with all its publicity--photographs
in the picture-papers, and, perhaps, all sorts of mud cast at me. I
want to avoid all this--and you alone can help me!"
"How?" I inquired, much perturbed by the tragic occurrence.
"By giving a death certificate."
"But I'm not a doctor!"
"You can pass as one," he said, looking very straight at me. "Besides,
it is so easy for you to write out a certificate and sign it, with a
change of your Christian name. There is a Gordon Garfield in the
'Medical List.' Won't you do it for me, and help me out of a very
great difficulty? Do! I implore you," he urged.
"But--I--I----"
"Please do not hesitate. You have only to give the certificate. Here
is pen and paper. And here is a blank form. My niece died of heart
disease, for which you have attended her several times during the past
six months."
"I certainly have not!"
"No," he replied, grinning. "I am aware of that. But surely five
thousand pounds is easily earned by writing out a certificate. I'll
write it--you only just copy it," and he bent and scribbled some words
upon a slip of paper.
Five thousand pounds! It was a tempting offer in face of the fact that
I had just lost practically a similar sum.
"But how do I know that Miss----"
"Miss Engledue," he said.
"Well, how do I know that Miss Engledue has not--well, has not met
with foul play?" I asked.
"You don't, my dear sir. That I admit. Yet you surely do not suspect
me of murdering my niece--the girl I have brought up as my own
daughter," and he laughed grimly. "Five thousand pounds is a decent
sum," he added. "And in this case you can very easily earn it."
"By posing as a medical man," I remarked. "A very serious offence!"
Again my host smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said, after a pause. "Here is the certificate for you to
copy. Reject my offer if you like; but I think you must agree that it
is a most generous one. To me, money is but little object. My only
concern is the annoying publicity which a coroner's inquiry must
bring."
I confess that I was wavering. The shrewd, clever man at once realized
the position, and again he conducted me to the chamber where the young
girl was lying cold and still.
I shall ever recollect that beautiful face, white and cold like
chiselled marble it seemed, for _rigor mortis_ was apparently already
setting in.
Back again in the library Oswald De Gex took from his safe a bundle of
hundred-pound Bank of England notes, and counted them out--fifty of
them.
He held them in his hand with a sheet of blank notepaper bearing an
address in Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, and a blank form. Thus
he tempted me--and--and at last I fell!
When I had written and signed the certificate, he handed me the bundle
of notes.
I now remember that, at that moment, he took some pastilles from his
pocket and placed one in his mouth. I thought perhaps they were throat
lozenges. Of a sudden, however, the atmosphere seemed to be
overpoweringly oppressive with the odour of heliotrope. It seemed a
house of subtle perfumes!
The effect upon me was that of delirious intoxication. I could hear
nothing and I could think of nothing.
My senses were entirely confused, and I became utterly dazed.
What did it all mean?
I only know that I placed the wad of bank notes in the inner pocket of
my waistcoat, and that I was talking to the millionaire when, of a
sudden, my brain felt as though it had suddenly become frozen.
The scent of verbena became nauseating--even intoxicating. But upon
Oswald De Gex, who was still munching his pastille, the odour
apparently had no effect.
All I recollect further is that I sank suddenly into a big arm-chair,
while my host's face grinned demoniacally in complete satisfaction. I
slowly lapsed into blank unconsciousness.
Little did I at the time dream with what amazing cleverness the trap
into which I had fallen had been baited.
But what happened to me further I will endeavour to describe to you.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
THE SISTER'S STORY
A strange sensation crept over me, for I suddenly felt that my
brain, dazed by that subtle odour of _pot-pourri_, was slowly
unclouding--ever so slowly--until, to my amazement, I found myself
seated upon a garden chair on a long veranda which overlooked a
sloping garden, with the blue-green sunlit sea beyond.
Of the lapse of time I have no idea to this day; nor have I any
knowledge of what happened to me.
All I am able to relate is the fact that I found myself in overcoat
and hat seated upon a long terrace in the noon sunlight of winter.
I gazed around, utterly astonished. The clothes I wore seemed coarse
and unfamiliar. My hand went to my chin, when I found that I had grown
a beard! My surroundings were strange and mysterious. The houses on
either side were white and inartistic, with sloping roofs and square
windows. They were foreign--evidently French!
The shrill siren of a factory sounded somewhere, releasing the
workers. Far away before me a steamer away on the horizon left a long
trail of smoke behind, while here and there showed the brown sails of
fishing boats.
I rose from my seat, filled with curiosity, and glanced at the house
before which I stood. It was a big square building of red brick with
many square windows. It seemed like a hospital or institution.
That it was the former was quickly revealed, for a few moments after I
had risen, a nursing-sister in a tri-winged linen head-dress appeared
and spoke kindly to me, asking in French how I felt on that glorious
morning.
"I am quite all right," was my reply in French. "But where am I?" I
inquired, utterly dazed.
"Never mind, m'sieur, where you are," replied the stout, middle-aged
woman in blue uniform and broad collar. "You have only to get better."
"But I am better," I protested. "I lost consciousness in London--and
now I awake here to find myself--where?"
"You are in good hands, so why trouble?" asked the Sister very kindly.
"You are upset, I know. Do not worry. Take things quite easily. Do not
try to recall the past."
"The past!" I cried. "What has passed--eh? What has happened since I
went through Stretton Street the other night?"
The Sister smiled at me. She seemed inclined to humour me--as she
would a child.
"Do not perturb yourself, I beg of you," she said in a sympathetic
voice. "There is really no need for it. Only just remain calm--and all
will be right."
"But you do not explain, Sister," I said. "Why am I here? And where am
I?" I asked, gazing vacantly around me.
"You are with friends--friends who have looked after you," was her
reply. "We are all very sorry for your motor accident."
"Motor accident!" I echoed. "I have had no motor accident."
Again the dark-eyed woman smiled in disbelief, and it annoyed me.
Indeed, it goaded me to anger.
"But you told us all about it. How you started out from the Quay at
Boulogne late at night to drive to Abbeville, and how your hired
chauffeur held you up, and left you at the roadside," she said. "Yet
the curious fact about your strange story is the money."
"Money! What money?" I gasped, utterly astounded by the Sister's
remark.
"The money they found upon you, a packet of bank notes. The police
have the five thousand pounds in English money, I believe."
"The police! Why?" I asked.
"No," she said, smiling, and still humouring me as though I were a
child. "Don't bother about it now. You are a little better to-day.
To-morrow we will talk of it all."
"But where am I?" I demanded, still bewildered.
"You are in St. Malo," was her slow reply.
"St. Malo!" I echoed. "How did I get here? I have no remembrance of
it."
"Of course you have not," replied the kindly woman in the cool-looking
head-dress. "You are only just recovering."
"From what?"
"From loss of memory, and--well, the doctors say you have suffered
from a complete nervous breakdown."
I was aghast, scarce believing myself to be in my senses, and at the
same time wondering if it were not all a dream. But no! Gradually all
the events of that night in Stretton Street arose before me. I saw
them again in every detail--Oswald De Gex, his servant, Horton, and
the dead girl, pale but very beautiful, as she lay with closed eyes
upon her death-bed.
I recollected, too, the certificate I had given for payment--those
notes which the police held in safe custody.
The whole adventure seemed a hideous nightmare. And yet it was all so
real.
But how did I come to be in St. Malo? How did I travel from London?
"Sister," I said presently. "What is the date of to-day?"
"The eleventh of December," she replied.
The affair at Stretton Street had occurred on the night of November
7th, over a month before!
"And how long have I been here?"
"Nearly three weeks," was her answer.
Was it really possible that I had been lost for the previous ten days
or so?
I tried to obtain some further facts from my nurse, but she refused to
satisfy my curiosity.
"I have been ordered by the doctors to keep you very quiet," she said.
"Please do not ask me to break my promise. You will be much better
to-morrow--and they will tell you everything."
"But mine is a strange case, is it not?" I asked.
"Very strange," she admitted. "We have all been much puzzled
concerning you."
"Then why not tell me all the circumstances now? Why keep me in
suspense?" I urged.
"Because you have not yet quite recovered. You are not entirely
yourself. Come," she added kindly, "let us take a little walk. It will
do you good for the weather is so lovely to-day."
At her suggestion I strolled by her side through the pleasant grounds
of the hospital, down into St. Malo, the busy streets of which were,
however, entirely unfamiliar to me. Yet, according to the Sister, I
had walked in them a number of times before. Still, I had no
recollection of doing so.
"I am taking you for your favourite stroll," she said, as we went down
one of the steep, tortuous streets to the little Place Châteaubriand
in front of the ancient castle, which, she told me, was now a
barracks.
Presently she mounted to the ramparts, and as we strolled round them,
I admired the beautiful view of the sea, the many islets, and the
curious appearance of the town. The tide was up, and the view on that
sunny December morning was glorious.
At one point where we halted my nurse pointed out the little summer
town of Dinard and St. Enogat, and told me the names of the various
islets rising from the sea, Les Herbiers, the Grand Jardin, La
Conchée, and all the rest.
But I walked those ramparts like a man in a dream. A new life had, in
that past hour, opened up to me. What had occurred since I had
accepted that bundle of bank notes from the millionaire's hand I did
not know. I had emerged from the darkness of unconsciousness into the
knowledge of things about me, and found myself amid surroundings which
I had never before known--in a French hospital where they evidently
viewed me as an interesting "case."
I stood against the wall and gazed about. My habit was to carry my
cigarette-case in my upper waistcoat pocket. Instinctively I felt for
it, and it was there. It was not my own silver case, but a big nickel
one, yet in it there were some of my own brand.
I looked inquiringly at my nurse.
She smiled, saying:
"You haven't many left. Why can't you smoke some other brand? You
always insist upon that one. I had so much difficulty in getting them
for you yesterday!"
"They are my own particular fancy," I said, tapping one of them upon
the case before lighting it.
"I know. But here, in France, they are most difficult to get. The
other day you said you had smoked them all through the war, and even
when you were in Italy you had had them sent out to you from London."
That was quite correct.
"Well, Sister," I laughed. "I have no recollection of saying that, but
it is perfectly true. It seems that only this morning I regained
consciousness."
"Professor Thillot said you would. Others gave you up, but he declared
that after careful nursing your memory would regain its normal
balance."
"Who is Professor Thillot?"
"The great nerve specialist of Paris. The police engaged him to come
to see you. He was here ten days ago, and he put you under my charge."
I laughed.
"Then I am still an interesting case, Sister--eh?"
"Yes. You certainly are."
"But do tell me more of what I am in ignorance," I implored. "I want
to know how I came here--in France--when I lost all consciousness in a
house just off Park Lane, in London."
"To-morrow," she said, firmly, but kindly. She was a charming woman,
whose name she gave me as Soeur Marie.
We strolled back to the hospital, but on the way along the Quai
Duguay-Trouin--I noticed it written up--I became again confused. My
vision was not as it should have been, and my memory seemed blurred,
even of the happenings of the past hour.
My nurse chatted as we walked together through the streets, but I
know that my answers were unintelligible. I felt I was not myself. All
my senses were keen as far as I could gauge--all save that of my
memory of the past.
As I ascended through the pretty grounds of the hospital, the Sister
beside me, I felt a curious failing of my heart. I experienced a
sensation which I cannot here describe, as of one who had lost all
interest in life, and who longed for death.
There may be some among my readers who have experienced it, perhaps. I
cannot describe it; I merely explain that I felt inert, inefficient,
and bored with life.
No such feeling had ever fallen upon me before. Hitherto I had been
quick, alert, and full of the enjoyment of living. At Rivermead
Mansions Harry Hambledon and I had prided ourselves on our post-war
alertness.
Where was Harry? What was he doing? Would he be wondering why I was
absent from our riparian bachelor home?
I was reflecting upon all this when suddenly, without any apparent
cause, I once more lost consciousness. We were at that moment entering
the door of the hospital and the Sister had just exclaimed:
"Now, do remain quite quiet and not worry over the past. It will all
be right to-morrow," she urged.
I know not what words I uttered in reply. A curious sense of
oppression had fallen upon me, a hot, burning feeling as though my
skull was filled with molten metal, while at the back of my neck was a
sharp excruciating pain which caused me to hold my breath.
The Sister apparently noticed my sudden relapse, for she expressed a
hope that I was not feeling worse. I tried to reassure her that I was
all right, but I know I failed to do so, for once again I lost all
knowledge of things about me.
After that I recollect nothing more. Probably I walked on mechanically
back to my bed.
When my lapse had passed, and I again regained consciousness, I found
myself in bed gazing up at the ceiling. On either side of me were men,
also in bed. They were talking in French.
I listened, and in a few seconds I recollected the events of the
previous day. Then a sharp-featured nurse, whom I had not seen before,
told us it was time to dress. I obeyed, but my clothes were entirely
unfamiliar. They were coarse and did not fit me.
While I washed I burst out laughing. The humour of the situation
struck me as distinctly amusing. At one hour I was myself; at the next
I was another being!
Was my case that of Jekyll and Hyde?
I knew, and I felt keenly about it, that I had accepted a bribe to
perform an illicit service. I had posed as a medical man and given a
certificate of death. But my one and only object in life was to see
Mr. De Gex and demand of him a full explanation of the amazing and
suspicious circumstances.
My lapses were intermittent. At times I was fully conscious of the
past. At others my brain was awhirl and aflame. I could think of
nothing, see nothing--only distorted visions of things about me.
Apparently twenty-four hours had passed since I walked in the
sunshine.
The men in the hospital ward were all Frenchmen, apparently of the
lower class. At one end of the room a heated argument was in progress
in which four or five men were gesticulating and wrangling, while one
man was seated on his bed laughing idiotically, it seemed, at his own
thoughts.
Presently a tall thin man in spectacles entered, and addressing me,
asked me to follow him.
I obeyed, and he conducted me to a small kind of office in which two
men were standing. Both were middle-aged, and of official aspect.
Having given me a chair they all seated themselves when the
thin man--who I rightly judged to be the director of the
hospital--commenced to interrogate me.
"How do you feel to-day?" was his first question, which he put in
French in a quiet, kindly manner.
"I feel much better," was my reply. "But yesterday my nurse revealed
to me some very extraordinary facts concerning myself."
"Yes. You have been seriously ill," he said. "But now you are better
these gentlemen wish to put a few questions to you."
"They are police officers, I presume."
The director nodded in the affirmative.
"We wish to ascertain exactly what happened to you, monsieur,"
exclaimed the elder of the pair.
"I really don't know," I replied. "I must have lost all consciousness
in London, and----"
"In London!" exclaimed Monsieur Leullier, the Prefect of Police, in
great surprise. "Then how came you here in St. Malo?"
"I have not the slightest idea," was my reply. "I only presume that I
was found here."
"You were. A fish-porter passing along the Quay St. Vincent at about
two o'clock in the morning found you seated on the ground with your
back to the wall, moaning as though in pain. He called the police and
you were removed on the ambulance to the hospital here. The doctors
found that you were in no pain, but that you could give no
intelligible account of yourself."
"What did I tell them?"
"Oh! a number of silly stories. At one moment you said you had come
from Italy. Then you said that you had hired a motor-car and the
driver had attacked you in the night. Afterwards you believed yourself
to be in some office, and talked about electrical engineering."
"That is my profession," I said. And I told them my name and my
address in London, facts which the police carefully set down.
"You told us that your name was Henry Aitken, and that you lived
mostly in Italy--at some place near Rome. We have made inquiries by
telegraph of a number of people whom you have mentioned, but all their
replies have been in the negative," said the police official.
"Well, I am now entirely in possession of my full senses," I declared.
"But how I got to France I have not the slightest knowledge. I lost
consciousness in a house in Stretton Street, in London. Since then I
have known nothing--until yesterday."
"In what circumstances did you lapse into unconsciousness?" asked the
doctor, looking intently at me through his glasses, for mine was no
doubt an extremely interesting case. "What do you remember? Did you
receive any sudden shock?"
I explained that being on a visit to a friend--as I designated Oswald
De Gex--his niece died very suddenly. And after that I became
unconscious.
The Prefect of Police naturally became very inquisitive, but I
preferred not to satisfy his curiosity. My intention was to return to
London and demand from De Gex a full explanation of what had actually
occurred on that fatal night. I was full of suspicion regarding the
sudden death of his niece, Gabrielle Engledue.
The police official told me that from my clothes all the tabs bearing
the tailor's name had been removed, and also the laundry marks from my
underclothes. There was nothing upon me that could possibly establish
my identity, though in my pocket was found five thousand pounds in
bank notes--which he handed to me. They were intact--the same notes
which De Gex has given me in return for the false death certificate I
had signed.
I sat utterly aghast at the story of my discovery, of the many
attempts made to establish my identity, of the visit of the British
Vice-Consul to the hospital, and of his kindness towards me. It seemed
that he had questioned me closely, but I had told an utterly fantastic
story.
Indeed, as I sat there, I felt that neither of my three interrogators
believed a single word of the truth I related. Yet, after all, I was
not revealing the whole truth.
Certain recollections which I would have forgotten came to me. I had,
I knew, committed a very serious criminal offence in posing as a
medical man and giving that death certificate. Possibly I had been an
accessory to some great crime--the crime of murder!
That thought held me anxious and filled me with fear.
The Prefect of Police seemed entirely dissatisfied with my
explanation, nevertheless he was compelled to accept it, and an hour
later I was released from the hospital. Before leaving, however, I was
shown the register in which I had signed my name as "Henry Aitken."
This I erased and substituted my own name.
Then I thanked the tall, thin director and walked out into the streets
of St. Malo a changed man.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
WHO WAS GABRIELLE ENGLEDUE?
What, I wondered, had happened during my month of unconsciousness? I
wandered into a café and sat pondering. Afterwards I walked about the
town aimlessly and rather hungry. My own clothes had been returned to
me, but before I assumed them I saw that every mark of identity had
been purposely removed. Even the trousers buttons--which had borne the
name of my tailor, a reputable firm in New Bond Street--had been
substituted.
But by whom?
On the following afternoon I arrived in London and drove straight to
Rivermead Mansions. I entered with my latchkey, and on glancing around
saw signs that my friend Hambledon was still living there. The fire in
the sitting-room had been lit by the "Kaiserin" ready for his
home-coming, and everything seemed bright and cosy.
It was then about four o'clock, and Hambledon would certainly not
return till six. Therefore after a good wash, a shave, and a clean
collar, I set forth for Stretton Street to interview Oswald De Gex.
The house in the dusk was just as I recollected it on that eventful
night when I was so unexpectedly called inside.
I rang the bell three times, until at last the door opened and a tall,
stalwart man appeared.
I inquired for Mr. De Gex, whereupon he replied:
"Mr. De Gex is in Italy, sir."
"Oh! When did he leave town?"
"About a month ago, sir," the man answered.
"You are, I suppose, the caretaker?" I asked. "Now, I wonder if you
will do me a very great favour. You may think me a thief or a
burglar," I laughed, "but the fact is I have a great desire to see Mr.
De Gex's house. I've heard so much about its beauties. I wonder if you
would show me the drawing-room and the library?"
The man hesitated, saying:
"Well, sir, I've no orders to show anyone over. Have you a card?"
I at once produced one from my cigarette-case, and added that I was a
personal friend of the millionaire's. He read my name and looked again
at me. I assured him that I was not prospecting with a view to
burglary.
"I'm only asking you to do me a favour," I went on, and I put a couple
of Treasury notes into his hand. "You can inquire about me at my
office to-morrow, if you like. They will tell you, I expect, that I
have been away on a month's leave."
The little palm-oil no doubt propitiated him, for he invited me in.
Then he switched on the light in the hall, and as he did so, said:
"I don't know what trouble I'd get into with the master. He's a very
eccentric man--as you, of course, know."
I laughed as we ascended the soft carpeted stairs. I recollected the
pattern.
A few moments later we were in the library. Yes. It was just as I
remembered it. Nothing had been altered. There was the writing-table
whereon I had copied out the death certificate; the big fireplace, now
empty, and the deep chair in which I had sat.
There was the window, too--the window which I had opened in order to
gasp for air after that suffocating odour of _pot-pourri_.
As I stood there--the watchful caretaker with his eye upon me,
wondering no doubt--I again took in every detail. My return held me
more than ever puzzled.
"What is the room beyond?" I asked.
"Oh! That's the mistress's bedroom," he replied. "A curious fancy to
have her room next to the library. But it's one of the best rooms in
the house. The master hates London. He lives all the time in Italy,
and is only over here just for a week or two in spring, and a week or
so before Christmas."
"I'd like to see that room," I said, affecting ignorance.
He took me in.
In a second I saw that nothing had been changed since I had stood
there at the death-bed of Gabrielle Engledue a little over a month
ago.
There was the handsome bed-chamber with its inlaid cupboards, its
great dressing-table, and its fine bed--the bed upon which the
beautiful young woman had been lying dead. But now the bed had been
re-made and its quilted coverlet of pale pink silk was undisturbed.
The corpse had been removed and buried upon my certificate!
I sniffed to see whether I could detect that curious odour of
_pot-pourri_, but in vain. The air seemed fresh and not stifling as it
had been on that well-remembered night.
Upon a side table stood a large photograph in a silver frame. I bent
to look at it, whereupon the caretaker said:
"That's a good photograph of Mr. De Gex, isn't it, sir?"
"Excellent," I said, for it was a really fine portrait. "Does your
mistress come over from Italy often?"
"Oh, yes, and she brings the little boy over with her. She is
frequently here, while her husband stays at Fiesole. I send on his
correspondence every day to Mr. Henderson, his secretary."
I stood gazing around the room. Upon that bed the beautiful girl lay
dead, and I had certified the cause of her death! Yet I had, later on,
been the victim of some devil's trick of which I knew nothing.
I was there to investigate. Yet though I questioned the caretaker very
closely, I confess that I met with little success. He was an old and
trusted servant of the family. Hence to many of my inquiries he
remained dumb.
"When do you expect your master back?" I asked at last.
"Oh, not for another six months or so."
"Where is Mrs. De Gex?"
"Ah! That I can't quite make out," he replied. "It's a bit of a
mystery. One night she went away quite unexpectedly and, as a matter
of fact, nobody knows where she is. Her husband doesn't know--or
pretends he doesn't," he said with a knowing grin.
"Then she has disappeared!" I exclaimed.
"That's just it. And they were always such a devoted pair. Little
Oswald was the only thing she lived for."
"Lived!" I echoed. "Then do you think she's dead?" I asked quickly.
"Dead! Why should we think so? If she were, we should surely have seen
it in the papers?"
"But your master has very funny fits sometimes," I said. "I've heard
about his eccentric ways."
"Of course he has. He's overburdened with money--that's what it is.
Mr. Henderson looks after all his affairs. Mr. De Gex has no regard
for money. Mr. Henderson attends to everything. Phew! I wish I were a
millionaire! I find it hard enough nowadays to pay the butcher and
baker and make both ends meet."
"And so do I," I said, laughing. "But, tell me, where is the young
lady who used to live here--Mr. De Gex's niece?"
"His niece! I don't think he has a niece."
"Miss Gabrielle Engledue."
"Who's she? I've never heard of her," was the man's reply.
I described her, but he shook his head.
"To my knowledge Mr. De Gex hasn't got a niece," he said.
"Were you here five weeks ago?" I inquired.
"Five weeks ago? No. I and my wife went away down to Swanage to see
her sister. The master gave us a fortnight's holiday. Why?"
"Oh--nothing," I replied. "I merely inquired as I want to clear up a
mystery--that's all."
"What mystery?"
"The mystery of Miss Engledue--your master's niece," I answered.
"But I've never heard of any niece," he said.
"A young lady of about twenty-one with dark hair and eyes, and a
beautiful complexion," I said.
But the old servant's mind was a blank.
"Of course, sir, many people come to visit Mr. De Gex. Horton would
know them, but I don't. When the master is in town the servants are
here, and I'm down in Cornwall at the castle."
"Then you are only here as caretaker when the family is away?"
"That's it, sir," he said. "But what is the mystery about this young
lady? You said you knew Mr. De Gex, and yet you wanted to look over
the house."
"Yes," I responded with a laugh. "I have my own object--to clear up
the mystery of Mr. De Gex's niece."
"Well, as far as I know, he has no niece! But you could easily find
out, I suppose!"
The man was evidently no fool.
"Of course I don't know who comes here, or who stays here when the
family is in town," he went on. "I simply come up and look after the
place with my wife."
"Then you were away in Swanage during the first week of November?" I
asked very seriously.
"Yes, we went down on the last day of October, and we were back here
in the middle of November. My wife's sister was very ill, and her
husband didn't expect her to live. So I remember the dates only too
well."
"Then the family were in town on the date I mention."
He considered a moment.
"Oh! Of course they were. They must have been."
I glanced again around the room, full of amazement and wonder.
The man's failure to give me any details regarding the extremely
attractive girl who had died upon his mistress's bed held me gripped
in uncertainty. The mystery was even more puzzling now that I had
started to investigate.
As I stood in that room a thousand strange reflections flashed across
my mind.
Why had I, a mere passer-by, been called in so suddenly to be taken
into the intimacy of the millionaire's household? Was it by mere
accident that I had been invited in, or was it by careful design? I
had lost five thousand pounds by foolish speculation, and yet I had
regained it by being party to a criminal offence.
Again, who was the pretty, dark-haired girl who had first uttered
those hysterical screams, and then, while fully dressed, had died upon
Mrs. De Gex's bed? Further, if the mysterious dead girl had been niece
of the millionaire surely my friend the caretaker would have known
her?
I confess that I now became more bewildered than ever.
That a girl named Gabrielle Engledue--whoever she might have been--had
died, and that I had forged a certificate showing the cause of death
were hard, solid facts. But the mystery of it all was complete.
That I had been the victim of some very carefully prepared and subtle
plot was apparent, and it had become my own affair to investigate it
and bring to justice those who were responsible for the poor girl's
death.
Time after time I questioned the caretaker regarding the existence of
the millionaire's niece, Miss Engledue, but it was plain to me that he
had no knowledge of any such person.
"Was there not a death in this house--about five weeks ago?" I asked.
"Death?" he echoed. "Why, no, sir. You must be dreaming. If there had
been a death while I was away, either my wife or I would certainly
have heard about it." And he looked suspiciously at me as though he
believed I had taken leave of my senses.
An hour later I was back at Rivermead Mansions, where Harry, for whom
I had left a note, was awaiting me.
As we sat together before a cheerful fire I told him of my lapse into
unconsciousness, of my loss of memory, but I did not explain all that
had happened, for, as a matter of fact, I had no desire that anyone
should know of my guilt in posing as a medical man and thus becoming
implicated in the mysterious death of Gabrielle Engledue.
My friend sat and heard me, smoking his pipe in silence.
"Extraordinary!" he said. "You ought to go to the police, Garfield.
You were doped--without a doubt. But what was the motive? I've been
very worried about you. When you had been missing a week they sent
over from your office, and I then went to the police at Hammersmith.
They made every inquiry and circulated your description. But they
could discover no trace of you. I'll have to report that you've been
found."
"Yes, do so to-morrow morning," I urged. "I don't want the police
following me about--thank you," and I laughed, rather grimly perhaps.
During the hours that I lay awake that night a thought suddenly
crossed my mind--an idea which next day I promptly put into execution.
I went to Somerset House, and there searched the register of deaths.
At first my efforts were in vain, but at last I discovered what I
sought, namely an entry that a young woman named Gabrielle Engledue,
single, aged twenty-one, of unknown parentage, had died of heart
trouble at No. 9 Stretton Street, Park Lane, on the night of November
the Seventh, the body having been cremated five days later!
I pursued my inquiries in various quarters that day, and further
discovered that the funeral expenses had been defrayed by some person
named Moroni. There had been only two mourners, of whom Moroni had
been one.
Still feeling very ill, I was compelled--after reporting to the
office--to remain at home for the three days which followed.
To the two heads of the firm I fear the story that I told must have
appeared somewhat lame, yet they exhibited no disbelief, but on the
contrary sympathized with me in my strange and unaccountable
affliction.
In a drawer in my bedroom lay the five thousand pounds in bank notes
just as Oswald De Gex had given to me. I, of course, said nothing of
them to Harry. But once or twice I drew them from the old envelope in
which I had placed them, and turned them over in wonder.
I decided that they would be safer in the bank, but I hesitated to
place them to my credit, so I at last put them away in the bottom of
an old writing-case which had belonged to my father, resolving to try
to forget their existence.
Though perhaps I did at last manage to forget the bribe, yet I could
not put from myself the memory of that beautiful girl, the cause of
whose death I had certified. The perfect countenance haunted me
constantly. In my dreams I often saw her alive and well. The
marvellous face was turned towards me, with merry, dancing dark eyes
and a tantalizing smile--an enticing smile of mystery.
At last I resolved to go and face Oswald De Gex, so with that object I
one morning left Charing Cross for Florence. Travelling by the Rome
express from the Gare de Lyon, in Paris, I changed at Pisa, and at
last, as the "snail train," as it is known in Italy on account of its
slowness, wound slowly up the beautiful valley of the Arno, the old
red roofs and domes of Firenze La Bella came into view.
The winter morning was sunny and brilliant with a clear blue sky, and
as I drove through the streets, past the marble-built Duomo with its
wonderful campanile, the city was agog, for it happened to be the
_Festa_ of the Befana.
I had left my bag at the station, and the taxi took me to Fiesole, the
high-up little town outside which lived the "rich Inglese"--Oswald De
Gex.
Long before we arrived the driver pointed out the huge, mediæval
country house situated among the olives and vines, and commanding
extensive views over Florence and the Arno, with the blue mountains
beyond. It was a great white house with red tiles and overhanging
eaves, palatial indeed in its dimensions, and for centuries the summer
residence of the head of the great family of Clementini, from whom the
English millionaire had bought it fifteen years before, together with
all its pictures, tapestries, and antiques, with the farms adjoining.
On entering the great gates of seventeenth century wrought iron, we
found ourselves in a glorious old-world Italian garden, with a
wonderful marble fountain, and a good deal of antique statuary, and
then driving through the extensive grounds--past a lake--I at last
rang the bell.
Quickly the great iron-studded door was opened by an elderly
Englishman in livery, to whom I gave my card, and asked to see his
master.
The man, without hesitation, ushered me through a huge marble-built
hall, with a wonderfully frescoed ceiling, into a large room hung with
priceless tapestry, and furnished with old gilt chairs covered with
faded green silk damask.
I, however, took very little note of my surroundings, so anxious was I
to again meet my host of Stretton Street face to face.
Not long did I have to wait before the door opened, and he stood
before me.
"Well, Mr. Garfield?" he asked quietly, as he advanced. "To what do I
owe the honour of this visit?"
"Ah!" I cried. "Then you recollect me, I see! You know my name?"
"Yes. It was upon your card," was his quiet reply. "But, forgive me, I
do not recollect ever having met you before!"
I held my breath. I tried to speak, but for the moment words failed
me, so angry was I at his cleverly pretended ignorance and flat
denial.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
FACING THE MUSIC
"Do you seriously mean to say that you have no knowledge of me?" I
demanded angrily, looking the millionaire straight in the face.
"Yes, sir," he replied. "I seriously mean what I say. But, tell me,"
he demanded resentfully, "why are you here to claim acquaintance with
me?"
"Do you really deny you have ever seen me before?" I asked, astounded
at his barefaced pretence of ignorance.
"Never to my knowledge," replied the sallow-faced man whose
countenance I so well recollected.
"Then you forget a certain night not so long ago when I was called
into your house in Stretton Street, and you chatted confidentially
with me--about your wife and your little son?"
"My dear sir!" he cried. "Whatever do you mean? I have never seen you
at Stretton Street; and I have certainly never discussed my wife with
you!"
I stood aghast at his continued denial.
"But you _did_," I asserted. "And there was another matter--a matter
about which I must question you--the----"
"Ah! I see!" he interrupted. "You're here to blackmail me--eh?
Well--let me hear the worst," and across his rather Oriental face
there spread a mocking, half amused smile.
"I am not a blackmailer!" I protested angrily. "I want no money--only
to know the truth."
"Of what?"
"Well, the truth concerning the death of Miss Gabrielle Engledue."
"The death of Miss Gabrielle Engledue!" he cried. "I really don't
understand you, Mr.--Mr. Garfield!"
At mention of the name I saw that he started, but almost
imperceptibly. The man was certainly a most perfect actor, and his
protestations of ignorance were, indeed, well-feigned.
"Then you actually deny all knowledge of the young lady!" I said.
"I know no lady of that name."
"But she is your niece."
"I have only one niece--Lady Shalford."
"And how old is she?"
He hesitated for a few moments. Then he answered.
"Oh! She must be about thirty-five. She married Shalford about ten
years ago, and she lives at Wickenham Grange, near Malton, in
Yorkshire."
"And you have no other niece?"
"None--I assure you. But why do you ask such a question? You puzzle
me."
"Not more than you puzzle me, Mr. De Gex," I replied with pique. "It
would be so much easier if you would be frank and open with me."
"My dear sir, you seem to me to have a bee in your bonnet about
something or other. Tell me, now, what is it?"
"Simply that you know me very well, but you deny it. You never thought
that I should make this unwelcome reappearance."
"Your appearance here as a mad-brained person is certainly
unwelcome," he retorted. "You first tell me that you visited me at
Stretton Street. Well, you may have been in the servants' quarters for
all I know, and----"
"Please do not be insulting!" I cried angrily.
"I have no intention of offering you an insult, sir, but your attitude
is so very extraordinary! You speak of a girl named Engledue--that was
the name, I think--and allege that she is my niece. Why?"
"Because the young lady is dead--she died under most suspicious
circumstances. And you know all about it!" I said bluntly.
"Oh! perhaps you will allege that I am a murderer next!" he laughed,
as though enjoying the joke.
"It is no laughing matter!" I cried in fury.
"Why not? I find all your allegations most amusing," and across his
dark handsome face there spread a good-humoured smile.
His was a face that I could never forget. At one moment its expression
was kindly and full of _bonhomie_, the next it was hard and
unrelenting--the face of an eccentric criminal.
"To me they are the reverse of amusing," I said. "I allege that on the
night of Wednesday, November the seventh last, I was passing your
house in Stretton Street, Park Lane, when your man, Horton, invited me
inside, and--well, well--I need not describe what occurred there, for
you recollect only too vividly--without a doubt. But what I demand to
know is why you asked me in, and what happened to me after you gave me
that money?"
"Money! I gave you money?" he cried. "Why, man alive, you're dreaming!
_You must be!_"
"I'm not dreaming at all! It is a hard fact. Indeed, I still have the
money--five thousand pounds in bank notes."
Oswald De Gex looked at me strangely. His sallow face coloured
slightly, and his lips compressed. I had cornered him. A little
further firmness, and he would no doubt admit that we had met at
Stretton Street.
"Look here, Mr. Garfield," he said in a changed voice. "This is beyond
a joke. You now tell me that I presented you with five thousand
pounds."
"I do--and I repeat it."
"But why should I give you this sum?"
"Because I assisted you in the commission of a crime."
"That's a lie!" he declared vehemently. "Forgive me for saying so, but
I can only think that you are not quite in your right mind."
"I have not been in my right mind for a month or more--thanks to your
deep plotting," I retorted sharply. "Further, I am telling the
truth--as I shall later on tell it before a court of law. I intend to
solve the mystery of the death of Gabrielle Engledue."
"Well--I will not hinder you," he laughed grimly.
"You mean that you will not assist me?"
"I mean that I have no knowledge of any such person; nor have I any
knowledge of you," he said. "A perfect stranger, you come here,
present your card, and at once start a series of most serious
allegations against me, the chief of them being that I gave you five
thousand pounds for some assistance which you refuse to describe."
"If I tell you, you will only deny it, Mr. De Gex," I exclaimed
bitterly. "So what is the use?"
"None. In fact I don't see that any object is to be gained in
prolonging this interview," was his quick retort. "If, as you say, I
gave you five thousand--which I certainly never did--then what more
can you want? I however, suspect that the five thousand exists only in
your own imagination."
"But I have the sum intact--in a drawer at my home in London."
"It would be of interest to see it. Are they the same notes which you
say I gave you?"
"The same," I answered, and then I went on to tell him how I had
awakened to find myself in St. Malo, and how the French police had
taken possession of the money found upon me.
"Ah!" he exclaimed at last. "It all seems quite clear now. You've had
a bad illness, my dear fellow! Your brain has become unbalanced, and
you are now subject to hallucinations. I regret my hard words, Mr.
Garfield," he added in a kindly tone. "I also regret that your mental
state is what it is."
"I desire no sympathy!" I protested, raising my voice angrily. "All I
want to know is the truth."
"I have already told you that, as far as I am personally concerned."
"No. You have denied everything, and now you try to treat me as one
demented!" I declared in a fury. "The existence of the bank notes you
gave me are sufficient evidence against you."
"I think not. First, I doubt if they exist anywhere save in your
imagination; secondly, if they do, then someone else may have given
them to you."
"You did. I would recognize you among ten thousand men. On the night
in question you wore a dinner jacket, and now you are in grey. That is
all the difference."
"Well, have it your own way," he replied smiling, though I could see
that he had become palpably perturbed by my allegations. Whatever had
been administered to me--some dope or other, no doubt--it had been
intended that I should be cast adrift on the Continent as a
semi-imbecile.
It was that fact which maddened me. The poor girl might not have been
his niece, of course, but whoever she had been, this man had had some
very strange and distinct motive in getting rid of her.
What it was I had vowed to discover.
It was apparent that De Gex was anxious to get rid of me. Indeed, as
we stood together in that fine old room, across the marble floor of
which strayed long beams of sunlight, the door opened and a pretty
woman came in. She was dressed to go out, and asked:
"Will you be long, dear?"
It was the beautiful Mrs. De Gex! In an instant I recognized her by
the many photographs I had seen in the picture papers.
"No. I'll be with you in a minute, dear. Is the car there?" he asked.
"It's been there a quarter of an hour, and if we don't go now we shall
be late in meeting Hylda at the station," she said, glancing at me
with undisguised annoyance.
Then she left, closing the door after her.
Across my brain ran strange thoughts. I recollected his words in
Stretton Street regarding his spiteful wife when I had been called in
to listen to his matrimonial troubles. But husband and wife now
appeared to be on quite amicable and even affectionate terms.
I confess that I was still bewildered, as you, my reader, in whom I am
here reposing confidence, would, I believe, have been, had you found
yourself in similar circumstances.
"I see that your wife is eager to go out," I said. "But I fear I
must, before I go, press for a direct answer to my questions, Mr. De
Gex."
"My dear sir, I have answered them. What more can I say?" he exclaimed
with affected dismay.
"A very great deal. You can tell me the truth."
"I have," he snapped. "Who this girl Engledue is I have not a ghost of
an idea. Are you certain she is dead?"
"Positive. I saw her lying dead in the room which adjoins your
library."
"What! My wife's room!" he cried. "Oh, come--let us finish all this
silly talk."
"When you are, at least, frank with me!"
"I am."
"But do you deny that the young lady, Gabrielle Engledue, died there?
Do you not recollect that we both stood at her death-bed?"
"Don't talk such piffle!" De Gex snapped, no doubt believing in the
end that he would convince me of his ignorance of the whole tragedy.
Whatever had happened on that November night was, no doubt, to the
distinct advantage of the wealthy man who stood before me. Yet I was
faced with a difficulty. He had uttered that most ugly word
"blackmail." Suppose he called the police and accused me of it! His
word--the word of a wealthy financier--would, no doubt, be taken by a
jury before my own!
On the other hand, I had up my sleeve a trump-card--the death and
cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle Engledue. Probably the poor
victim was poisoned--hence the object of her cremation to remove all
traces of it! Yet, opposed to that, there still remained my own most
serious offence of posing as a medical man and giving a forged
certificate concerning the cause of death.
Yes. I was only too keenly alive to my own very precarious position.
Yet I was emboldened by De Gex's agitation, and the pallor in his
sallow cheeks.
He was, no doubt, feeling very uneasy. And even a millionaire can feel
uneasy when faced with a witness of his own offence.
"Mr. De Gex, I am not talking rubbish," I said in all seriousness.
"You appear to forget that night when your wife deserted your son in
Westbourne Grove, and then laughed at you over the telephone from a
public call-office."
He looked at me very straight with those deep-set eyes of his.
"Really," he exclaimed. "That is quite a new feature in the affair.
Let me see, what did I tell you?"
"Your man, Horton, invited me, a mere passer-by, into your house in
Stretton Street. He said you were very much worried and asked if I
would meet you. Why? I cannot imagine. When we met you were very vague
in your statements, and at first I could not for the life of me
discover why I had been asked to meet you. But soon you confided to me
the fact that your wife, being spiteful towards you, had abandoned
your heir, little Oswald, in Westbourne Grove, and had then rung up
from a call-office telling you to find him."
"Bosh! My dear fellow! Bosh!" was his reply. "First, you were never
there; and secondly, I've never complained of my wife's behaviour to
anyone; certainly not to a stranger."
"You did to me. I certainly am not dreaming."
"But you have already admitted that you've been in hospital in St.
Malo suffering from loss of memory."
"My memory has now fortunately been restored," I replied.
"Distorted--without a doubt. You would never travel all the way from
London to relate these absolutely silly stories to me if you were in
your right senses, my dear Mr. Garfield," he said.
"They're not silly stories, but hard, indisputable facts!" I declared
resentfully.
The millionaire had assumed an air of nonchalance, for leaning against
a big old buhl table he took out a cigarette from his gold case and
slowly lit it, after which he said:
"You must, I think, really excuse me. We have to go down into Florence
to meet my sister-in-law, who is coming from London. I'm afraid, Mr.
Garfield, that I cannot help you any further."
"You mean you won't!"
"Not at all. If I knew anything of this young lady who, you said, died
in my wife's bedroom in Stretton Street, and at whose bedside you and
I stood together, I would tell you. But I really don't."
He tossed his cigarette hastily out of the open window.
"No," he added. "I won't hear any more. I haven't the time or the
inclination to listen to the wanderings of any insane person. I've had
enough!"
"And so have I!" I retorted. "You are trying to mislead me by
affecting ignorance of my very existence, but I don't intend that you
shall escape!" I added, again raising my voice.
"Hush, please," he said in a calmer tone. "My wife may overhear."
"I don't care!" I cried in desperation. "You never dreamed that I
should arise against you, as I have. You are not fair towards me! If
you revealed to me in confidence the reason you gave me that bribe of
five thousand pounds, then I, on my part, would have played the
straight game."
"My dear sir, play whatever game you like. It is immaterial to me
whether straight or crooked. I don't know anything about what you have
been talking, and you have only wasted your breath and got out of
temper for nothing."
Again I looked him straight in the face. There was no doubt that the
strain of his clever denials was telling upon him. His dark complexion
had paled; in his eyes there was a fierce, haunted look as that of a
man who was straining every effort to remain calm under the gravest
circumstances.
"I have no game to play," I declared. "I only demand the truth. Why
was I invited into your house in Stretton Street to be present as
witness at the poor girl's death?"
"I don't know. Find out for yourself, my dear Mr. Garfield," laughed
the rich man. "I have no time to discuss this silly affair further.
I'm sorry you have troubled to come out from London to see me. But
really yours has been a fool's errand," and he turned towards the
door.
"A fool's errand!" I echoed. "I am no fool and my errand is in deep
earnestness. You may try to befool me, but I tell you that I will
leave no stone unturned to solve the problem which you alone can
explain."
"Well, get along with your work," he laughed in open defiance. "I have
no further time to waste," and glancing at his watch he opened the
door and abruptly left me.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
THE CITY OF THE LILY
Full of indignation I remained for a few further moments in that
wonderful old room, the room of faded tapestries with the marvellous
painted ceiling.
From the window was afforded a glorious view over the gardens where,
even in winter, tangled masses of flowers ran riot, while beyond lay
the picturesque old red-roofed Tuscan city. Fiesole is distinctly a
village of the wealthy, for the several colossal villas, built in the
days of the Medici and even before, are now owned by rich foreigners,
many of them English.
Oswald De Gex was one of them.
He had certainly foiled me. I gritted my teeth and vowed that, come
what might, I would compel him to accept the inevitable and reveal to
me the truth. I left the room and found my way alone across the great
marble entrance hall, and out to where my taxi awaited me.
I drove back to Florence, where, at the station, I obtained my bag,
and then went to the Savoy Hotel in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele,
where I engaged a room.
For a long time I sat at my window gazing down upon the busy square
below, one of the centres of Florentine life. The bell of the Duomo
was ringing, the shops were mostly closed, and all Florence was out in
the streets, it being the Festa of the Befana, one of the greatest of
all the ever-recurring festas of Florence. Street urchins were
parading the thoroughfares with horns and wildly shouting, and there
was an exchange of presents on every hand. At the Befana everyone in
Firenze goes mad with good intentions.
The artistic side of the ancient Lily City did not interest me. I knew
it of old. I had strolled on the Lung Arno, I had long ago with my
father on a winter tour looked into the little shops of the coral and
pearl merchants on the Ponte Vecchio, and I had taken my _apératif_ at
Doney's or at Giacosa's. I was no stranger in Florence. My mind was
fully occupied by the deep mystery of Gabrielle Engledue's death, and
of the millionaire's flat denial that we had ever met before.
As I sat gazing across the square my anger and indignation increased.
That De Gex should have dared to affect such entire ignorance
surpassed belief.
I tried to form a scheme for further action, but could think of no way
by which to force him to acknowledge our previous meeting. That the
beautiful girl had died, and that her body had been cremated upon the
false certificate I had given, was beyond all doubt. But what had been
the rich man's motive?
How very perturbed and anxious he was I had noticed, though he put
such a very brave face upon it and appeared so imperturbable. That he
could treat such a serious matter as a joke utterly amazed me.
Nevertheless, I recollected that he had long earned the reputation of
being highly eccentric.
That afternoon I spent in wandering about the sunny streets of
Florence. In the evening I dined at Bonciani's, in the Via Panzani, an
unpretentious place at which I well remembered having eaten famously
when on my last visit to Florence. Afterwards, having nothing to do, I
went to a variety show at the Alhambra.
Florence was full of French and English visitors, as it always is in
winter, so next day I formed a plan, and in pretence of desiring to
rent a furnished flat, I called at the office of a well-known English
house-agent in the Via Tornabuoni. My real object was to ascertain
some facts concerning Oswald De Gex.
The English clerk became quite enthusiastic when I mentioned him.
"Mr. De Gex is greatly respected here," he hastened to tell me. "Since
he bought the Villa Clementini outside Fiesole he has lived here for
about eight months out of the twelve. Italians love rich people, and
because of his wealth he is most popular. I see a good deal of him,
for we act as agents for his property in Italy. He has quite a large
estate--mostly wine-growing."
I mentioned that I had met him in London, and then asked in curiosity:
"Do you happen to know anything of his niece, a tall, very handsome,
dark-haired girl, Miss Engledue?"
For a moment he reflected. Then he said:
"I recollect when up at the villa just before he went to London--that
was about three months ago--seeing a tall, dark-haired young lady. She
came into the library while I was chatting with him. But I don't know
her name."
"Was she about twenty-one?" I asked eagerly.
"Yes--about that age," was his reply. "But, of course, I have no idea
whether it is the young lady you mean."
"Had you seen her before?"
"I think so--once before. She was in the car in the Cascine with Mrs.
De Gex."
"I wonder how I could discover more about her?" I asked. "Who would
know?"
"Robertson, the butler, or Mr. Henderson, the secretary."
"The butler would be best," I said. "How could I approach him, do you
think? I don't want to go up to the villa."
"It would be easy. He's often down at the Gambrinus in the afternoon.
I frequently meet him there, and we have a drink and a chat."
"Would he be there this afternoon? I do wish you would introduce me,"
I urged. "The matter is an important personal one concerning myself."
"He might be down this afternoon--about four o'clock," replied the
alert young Englishman who spoke Italian so well. "I'll look in there
at four, if you will be about."
"I certainly will be there," I said, and then we went along to
Giacosa's, where we each had that cocktail-like speciality known as a
"piccolo."
At five minutes to four that afternoon I entered the big Gambrinus
Café, which was nearly opposite my hotel on the other side of the
piazza, and I took a seat just inside the door. The orchestra was
playing, and the place was well filled with a gay cosmopolitan crowd,
many of them winter idlers.
I looked around, wondering if the butler, Robertson, had arrived, and
waited in patience for the coming of my friend.
Punctually at four he appeared, and greeting me, cast his eyes over
the many small tables, until suddenly he exclaimed:
"Ah! There he is!"
We walked to a table some distance away, where a stoutish,
grey-haired, clean-shaven Englishman was smoking a cigarette and
reading a newspaper, with a glass of vermouth and seltzer before him.
"Hallo, Arthur!" he exclaimed as he raised his eyes to my friend.
"This is a friend of mine, Mr. Garfield," my companion said,
introducing me, and then we sat down and began to chat. At last I
could possess myself in patience no longer, and addressing the
millionaire's butler, told him frankly that I was in search of
information concerning the dark-haired young lady who had been guest
up at the villa about three months ago.
"Oh! I suppose you mean Miss Thurston--the young American lady, don't
you? But she's fair-haired!"
"The lady I mean is named Engledue," I replied.
"Oh! I don't know anyone of that name," was his reply. "Miss Thurston
has stayed with us in London and down in Cornwall, and has been here
several times. I fancy she's some relation of the mistress's. She
first came to stay about three years ago, when she left school in
Paris. Then she went home to America, and after six months came back
again to us."
"You haven't any idea who her parents are--or where she lived in
America?"
"She lived somewhere near Detroit, I believe. That's all I know about
her. I believe her people are motor-car makers and extremely wealthy.
At least, somebody said so--and she's very free with tips to the
under-servants."
"When did she leave here?"
"When the master went to London. I was to go too, but I had influenza
and had to remain here."
"And where was Mrs. De Gex?" I inquired.
"She was already at Stretton Street. She and the little boy went to
London early in October, but came back at the end of the month."
Then I questioned the estimable Robertson concerning the domestic
happiness of his master. I said I had heard rumours in London of
matrimonial differences.
"Well, that's a lie," he replied quickly. "There isn't a pair in the
whole of London Society who are more devoted to each other."
This greatly surprised me after the words that had fallen from the
millionaire's lips.
Again I referred to the mysterious Gabrielle whom I described as
minutely as I was able, and apparently my description fitted that of
Rose Thurston, save for the colour of her hair.
"You have no idea where she is, I suppose?"
"Not the slightest. Back in America, perhaps. She seems to come over
every year."
"I wonder if you could find out her address?" I asked. "If you could,
it would be of very great service to me," and I handed him my card,
expressing a hope that he would refrain from mentioning the matter to
his master.
"I'll try," he said. "But I fear I shan't succeed. Mr. Henderson, the
master's secretary, would know, of course."
The point at issue now was whether the young American girl, who had
been the millionaire's guest at the villa, and Gabrielle Engledue were
actually one and the same person. If they were, then I had made one
step towards the solution of the enigma.
I confess to utter bewilderment. My brain was still confused.
Sometimes my skull seemed wrapped in cotton wool. From a mere
unimportant person in the world of electrical engineering I had
suddenly become a man upon whom rested a great and criminal
responsibility!
In that huge, garish café, with its great arc lamps glowing though
night had not yet fallen, and with a noisy orchestra playing
selections from the latest crazes of music from the revues in London,
I sat with a perfectly open mind. I had been the victim of some
extremely clever plot. But of its motive, of its ramifications, or of
its conception, I had no knowledge. Even my wildest imagination was at
fault.
All I knew was that the sallow-faced De Gex--the millionaire who lived
up at the huge Villa Clementini--had plotted against the handsome
girl, and she had died in his wife's bedroom in Stretton Street.
"Well, Mr. Robertson, how can I find out anything more about Miss
Thurston? Give me your advice."
"I'll try and see what I can do," he said. "Perhaps I may be able to
get a glance at the mistress's address book. I have seen it. I'll
try."
"Yes--do!" I said very anxiously. "It means so very much to me."
"Why?"
I hesitated. My intention was to mislead both of my companions.
"Well," I said with a laugh, "the fact is, I--I'm very fond of her!"
Both men exchanged glances. Then they smiled, almost imperceptibly, I
know, but it struck them as humorous that I had fallen in love with
the daughter of a wealthy American.
"Of course I'm not yet certain whether she is the same lady," I went
on. "She may not be. But on calm consideration I believe she is. The
description you give of her is exact."
"Well," exclaimed the butler, "I'll see if I can get at the address
book. She keeps it in a drawer in her boudoir, which is usually
locked. But sometimes she leaves it open. At any rate, I'll see what I
can do and let you know."
I thanked him and told him that I was staying at the Savoy. Then I was
compelled to discuss with the estate-agent's clerk the pretended
renting of an apartment out by the Porta Romana, which, he said, was
vacant.
On the following day, in order to still sustain the deception, I went
and viewed the place, and found it really quite comfortable and very
reasonable. But, of course, I was compelled to express dislike of it.
Whereupon my friend promised to find me another.
Day after day I waited in Florence, hoping against hope that Robertson
would be able to furnish me with Miss Thurston's address. But though I
saw him several times he reported that the drawer containing the
address book was still locked.
Mr. De Gex had gone to Rome, and was away for three days. The British
Ambassador was giving some official function and the millionaire had
been invited. Indeed, I read all about it in the _Nazione_.
On the fourth day he returned, for I saw him in his big yellow car
driving along the Via Calzajoli. An elegant Italian, the young
Marchese Cerretani, was seated at his side, and both were laughing
together.
Twice I had been up to the Villa Clementini, and wandered around its
high white walls which hid the beautiful gardens from the public gaze.
Surely there was no fairer spot in all sunny Italy than that chosen by
the rich man as his abode. To the hundreds of visitors of all nations,
who came up by train to Fiesole from Florence to lunch or dine at the
various pleasant little restaurants, the great imposing place was
pointed out as the residence of the rich "Inglese"--the man who
possessed more money than any of the most wealthy in the kingdom of
Italy.
When I thought of that fateful night in Stretton Street, I waxed
furious. Was it possible, that, by the possession of great riches, a
man could commit crime with impunity? Perhaps what goaded me to
desperation more than anything was the foul trick that had been played
upon me--the administration of that drug which had caused me to lose
all sense of my own being.
That subtle odour of _pot-pourri_ had gripped me until I felt faint
and inert beneath its perfume, and it often returned to me--but in
fancy, of course.
In the winter sunshine I wandered about the busy, old-world streets of
Florence, idling in the cafés, gazing into the many shop-windows of
the dealers in faked pictures and faked antiques, while often my
wandering footsteps led me into one or other of the "sights" of the
city, all of which I had visited before--the National Museum at the
Bargello, the Laurenziana Library, with its rows of priceless chained
manuscripts, the Chiostro dello Scalzo, where Andrea del Sarto's
wonderful frescoes adorn the walls, or into the Palazzo Vecchio, or
the galleries of the Pitti, or the Uffizi. I was merely killing time
in the faint hope that the good-natured Robertson might get for me the
information which, in the circumstances, I was naturally most eager to
obtain.
In the course of my erratic wanderings through the grand old city,
with its host of monuments of a glorious past, I was one morning
passing the great marble-built cathedral and noticed a number of
people entering. There seemed to be an unusual number of visitors, so
having nothing to do I passed through the narrow door into the sombre
gloom of the magnificent old place--one of the most noteworthy and
most beautiful sacred buildings in the world.
At first, entering from the bright sunshine of the piazza, I could
scarcely see, so dim was the huge interior, but slowly my vision,
rather bad since my strange adventure, grew accustomed to the
half-darkness, and I saw that upon the high altar there were many long
candles burning in their brass sconces and before the high altar three
priests in gorgeous vestments were kneeling.
In the great cavernous place, with its choir beneath the dome, I heard
low prayers in Latin. Men and women who passed me bowed and crossed
themselves while many knelt.
The glorious cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, so called from the
Lily which figures in the Arms of Florence--hence "the Lily City"--had
always an attraction for me, as it has for every visitor to the
ancient Tuscan capital. The stained glass of Ghiberti, the wonderful
mosaics of Gaddo Gaddi, the frescoes of angels by Santi di Tito, and
the beautiful pictures by the great mediæval masters, all are
marvellous, and worth crossing the world to see.
From before the altar a long spiral mist of incense was rising, and
about me as I stood in the centre of the enormous interior, many
visitors were passing out from the dim religious gloom into the light
of the open doorway.
Suddenly my eyes caught sight of a countenance.
I held my breath, standing rooted to the spot. What I saw staggered
belief. Was it only a chimera of my unbalanced imagination--or was it
actual fact?
For a few seconds I remained undecided. Then, aghast and amazed, I
became convinced that it was a stern reality.
The mystery of the affair at Stretton Street became in that single
moment a problem even more than ever bewildering.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
ANOTHER PUZZLE
Kneeling before Donatello's magnificent picture of the Virgin over one
of the side altars, her outline dimly illuminated by the light of many
candles, was a slim, dark-haired young woman in deep mourning. Her
head was bowed in an attitude of great devotion, but a few moments
later, when she raised her face, I stood rooted to the spot.
The countenance was that of the dead girl Gabrielle Engledue!
An involuntary exclamation left my lips, and a woman standing near me
heard me, and wondered.
Kneeling beside the girl in black was a thin-faced, black-haired
Italian of about forty-five. He was somewhat handsome, though a
sinister expression played about his lips.
I watched the pair for several minutes, wondering whether in my brain,
unbalanced as it had been, the scene was a mere chimera on my part and
that, after all, the girl only slightly resembled the victim at
Stretton Street.
The latter I had not seen in life, and death always alters the
features. Nevertheless, the sudden encounter was most startling, and
from where I stood behind a great marble column I watched them.
At last both rose and crossing themselves piously, walked slowly to
the door. I followed them. It surely could not be that the girl whose
death certificate I had forged, and whose body had been reduced to
ashes, was actually alive and well! I recollected that sum of five
thousand pounds, and the strange adventures which had befallen me
after I had accepted the bribe to pose as a doctor, and certify that
death had been due to natural causes.
Outside in the bright sunlight of the Piazza, I obtained a full view
of her. Her rather shabby black was evidently of good material, but
her face struck me as distinctly strange. The expression in her dark
luminous eyes was fixed, as though she were fascinated and utterly
unconscious of all about her. She walked mechanically, without
interest, and utterly heedless of where she went. Her companion's hand
was upon her arm as she crossed to the Via Calzajoli, and I wondered
if she were blind.
I had never before seen such a blank, hopeless expression in a woman's
eyes.
The man, on the contrary, was shrewd and alert. His close-set eyes
shot shrewd glances from beneath black bushy eyebrows with a keen,
penetrating gaze, as though nothing escaped him. He seemed to be
trying to hurry her, in fear of being recognized. He had not noticed
me, hence in the bustle of the busy street I managed to get up close
behind them, when of a sudden, I heard her exclaim:
"Not so fast! Really I can't walk so fast!"
She spoke in English!
Her companion, uncouth and heedless, still had his hand upon her arm,
hurrying her along without slackening his pace. She seemed like a girl
in a dream. Truly, she was very handsome, a strange tragic figure amid
all the hubbub of Florence, the old-world city of noise and of narrow
streets, where Counts and _contadini_ rub shoulders, and the
tradesmen are ever on the look out to profit--if only a few
soldi--upon the innocent foreigner.
Firenze la Bella--or Florence as the average Englishman knows it--is
surely a city of strange people and of strange moods. By the
discordant clanging of its church bells the laughter-loving
Florentines are moved to gaiety, or to piety, and by the daily
articles in the local journals, the _Nazione_ or the _Fieramosca_,
they can be incited to riot or violence. The Tuscans, fine
aristocratic nobles with ten centuries of lineage behind them, and
splendid peasants with all their glorious traditions of feudal
servitude under the "nobile," are, after all, like children, with a
simplicity that is astounding, combined with a cunning that is
amazing.
Along the Via Calzajoli I followed the pair in breathless eagerness.
At that hour of the morning the central thoroughfare is always
crowded by business men, cooks out shopping, and open-mouthed
_forestieri_--the foreigners who come, guide-book in hand, to
gaze at and admire the thousand wonderful monuments of the ancient
city of Medici. The girl's face certainly resembled very closely that
of the dead girl Gabrielle Engledue. The countenance I had seen at
Stretton Street was white and lifeless, while that of the girl was
fresh and rosy. Nevertheless, that blank expression upon her face,
and the fact that her companion had linked his arm in hers, both
pointed to the fact that either her vision was dim, or her great dark
eyes were actually sightless. The man was fairly well dressed, but
the girl was very shabby. Her rusty black, her cheap stockings, her
down-at-heel shoes, and her faded hat combined to present a picture
of poverty. Indeed, the very fact of the neglect of her dress was
increasing evidence that her vision was dim, for surely she would not
go forth with the rent in the elbow of her blouse. Did she know that
it was torn?
Just as we were passing the ancient church of Or San Michele, with its
wonderful armorial bearings by Luca della Robbia, an old man with long
white hair and beard, whom I took to be one of the mangy painters who
copy the masterpieces in the Uffizi or the Pitti, passed by, and
raising his hat, wished the pair: _"Buon giorno!"_
The girl's companion returned the salute with a slight expression of
annoyance, perhaps at being recognized, but the girl took no notice,
and did not acknowledge him.
The man uttered some words in the girl's ear, and then hurried her on
more quickly, at the same time glancing furtively around. It was quite
plain that he had no wish to be seen there, hence my curiosity became
increased.
Every moment I, however, feared that he might realize I was following
them; but I did not mean that they should escape me.
In the Piazza della Signorina they halted opposite that great old
prison-like building, the Palazzo Vecchio, where several people were
awaiting an omnibus, and as they stood there the girl, who bore such a
striking resemblance to the dead niece of the millionaire, stared
straight before her, taking no notice of anything about her, a
strange, statuesque, pathetic figure, inert and entirely guided by the
ferret-eyed man at her side.
I was compelled to draw back and watch them from a distance, hoping
that I might be successful in following them to their destination. It
certainly was strange that the girl who was so much like Gabrielle
Engledue should be there in Florence, within a mile or two of De Gex's
villa!
As I watched, yet another person--a well-dressed woman of about
forty--recognizing the girl's companion, smiled as she passed, while
he, on his part, raised his hat. The woman who had passed struck me as
being either English or American, for there are many English-speaking
residents in Florence. For a second I debated within myself, and then
a moment later I followed her until she turned a corner in the Via di
Porta Rossa. Then I hurried, and overtaking her politely raised my
hat.
"I trust you will pardon me, Madame," I exclaimed in English, as she
started and looked at me askance. "I presume you are either English or
American?"
"I am American," she replied with a pronounced drawl.
"Please forgive my inquisitiveness, but I seek your aid in a little
matter which is of greatest consequence to me," I went on. "A moment
ago, as you crossed the Piazza, you encountered an Italian gentleman
and a girl. Could you tell me the gentleman's name?"
"What, the person I bowed to a moment ago?" she exclaimed. "Oh! that's
Doctor Moroni."
Moroni! I recollected the name. He was one of the mourners!
"And the girl?" I asked.
"Ah! I do not know. I saw her out with an old woman the other day. But
I have no idea who she is."
"Is Doctor Moroni a doctor of medicine?" I inquired.
"Yes. The people at the _pension_ of the Lung Arno where I live,
always call him in. I was ill six months ago, and he attended me. He
lives in the Via Cavezzo, near the Porta Romona--number six, I
believe."
"I am sure I am extremely obliged to you," I replied very gratefully.
"I have a very strong reason for asking these questions--reasons which
concern the young lady," I added.
The American woman smiled, and then, reiterating my thanks, I raised
my hat and left her.
At least I had discovered the identity of the girl's companion. He was
a doctor, hence it was most probable that she was under his charge.
Nevertheless, it was strange that he should take her to the Duomo and
pray at her side. Doctors do not usually act in that manner with their
patients.
When I returned to the Piazza the pair were nowhere to be seen,
therefore I strolled to the nearest café, and sat down with a
cigarette to think out the remarkable affair.
One or two features of the problem now became more than ever puzzling.
First, in view of the fact that I had seen Gabrielle Engledue lying
dead and had, for a bribe of five thousand pounds, signed a death
certificate purporting to be from Doctor Gordon Garfield, of Queen
Anne Street, Cavendish Square, it seemed beyond credence that the girl
who had died and been cremated should be led about the streets of
Florence by this Italian, Doctor Moroni. Oswald De Gex's denials were,
in themselves, only thin, and yet they were all very clever and
carefully prepared. The story of how his wife had left his little son
in Westbourne Grove to be discovered by the police was no doubt well
thought out. De Gex and his wife were actually on most affectionate
terms, hence the tale he had told had been purposely concocted, in
order to mislead me. Besides, his pretence that the dead girl had been
his niece was, of course, a similarly concocted story to mislead me,
and also to discredit me if perchance I made any unwelcome inquiries.
That I had been half asphyxiated and then drugged until my mental
balance had been upset, was quite plain. And it was equally plain that
De Gex did not intend that I should be capable of making inquiries
concerning the events of that memorable November night. When I had
been thrown out of the motor-car on that French highway, near St.
Malo, the bank-notes had been purposely left in my pocket. I had
already copied the numbers, and had called upon the millionaire's
bankers in Pall Mall, but there was no record that any of them had
been issued to him. That payment had evidently been very well
concealed.
On every hand it appeared quite plain that I had been the victim of
some strange and remarkable conspiracy, the motive of which was
entirely obscure. Surely I must have been watched, and my habits
noted. De Gex had known that I frequently passed his door on my way to
visit my uncle, and further, he must have known that I should pass on
that fateful night in November when Horton was sent out to entice me
within.
But the chief point of that complex puzzle was the fact that there, in
Florence, within a mile or two of the millionaire's almost regal
residence, I had encountered a living girl who, in every feature, was
the exact counterpart of the poor girl whose death and cremation stood
recorded in the official registry at Somerset House!
When in London I had been half inclined to call upon Doctor Gordon
Garfield and explain the situation. But such confession must, I knew,
lead to my prosecution and inevitable imprisonment. I had taken a
false step while under the baneful influence of some drug which had
stultified my own volition and held me powerless to resist the
temptation. I was now endeavouring to seek the truth.
That the amazing adventure in Stretton Street was not the outcome of
imagination was proved by the entry in the register at Somerset House,
and also by the evidence of the cremation of the body. But that the
beautiful girl I had seen lying dead could now be walking about the
streets of Florence was, of course, utterly absurd.
Was my memory, in my rather weak state of health, playing tricks with
me? I began to fear that such was the case.
As I sat over my "bock" watching the tide of Florentine life pass and
repass across the great piazza, I began to laugh at myself, and felt
half inclined to abandon the inquiry. Still it was all most mysterious
and mystifying. Why had I been marked down as a tool to further the
millionaire's ends? And who, after all, was the victim?
I tried to dismiss the apparently sightless girl from my mind, but
somehow the affair obsessed me. I seemed impelled to go farther and
try to elucidate the mystery. I endeavoured to make up my mind to
forget it all and return to England and to my work at Francis and
Goldsmith's--but all to no avail. My duty, I felt, was to leave no
stone unturned until I had discovered whether Gabrielle Engledue had
died from natural causes, or as a result of foul play.
The pale, tragic face of the girl I had encountered in the Duomo
haunted me. Towards the narrow-eyed Doctor Moroni I felt an
instinctive dislike, even though I had no cause to distrust him.
I think it was the strange intuition I experienced at that moment
which caused me to decide to act with discretion and caution, and to
discover all that I could concerning the doctor and his tragic-faced
companion.
With a fixed plan I returned to my hotel, ate my luncheon in the big
_salle à manger_, which was crowded with foreigners wintering in
Florence. Then, after lunch, I complained to the manager of feeling
unwell, and asked him to telephone to Doctor Moroni, in the Via
Cavezzo.
"Ah! a most excellent doctor!" remarked the hotel manager. "He has a
very large practice among the English and Americans. And he is quite
popular. I suppose you know him?"
"No. I have only heard of him, and of his cleverness," I said with
affected carelessness.
Ten minutes later the manager sent me a message by a page that the
doctor would call at three o'clock. So, in my pretended illness, I
went to my room and feigned the symptoms of acute indigestion.
Punctually the doctor arrived, and greeted me in his most professional
manner. I at once explained that an American lady of my acquaintance
had recommended him, whereupon he bowed, smiled, and seating himself
before me inquired my symptoms.
His looks were certainly not an index to his character, for though he
appeared so stern and taciturn yet at heart he was, I saw, a very
humorous, easy-going man, a true Tuscan who showed his white teeth
when he laughed, gesticulated violently, and spoke English with a
refined accent that was particularly charming.
"It is probably the change of diet," he declared at last, after
diagnosing my symptoms. "I see many such cases among foreigners who
are unused to some of our rather indigestible dishes. The latter are
very toothsome, and they eat heartily--with dire results," and he
smiled.
So well indeed did I describe my supposed ailment that before he left
he wrote me out a prescription. Afterwards I made pretence of being a
perfect stranger in Florence. I longed to speak of Oswald De Gex, but
feared to do so because his suspicions might by that become aroused.
If so, then all hope of discovering the true facts would instantly
vanish.
"I hope you will soon be all right and that you will enjoy your visit
to our Tuscany," he said very pleasantly. "Florence is very full of
visitors just now. Are you remaining long?"
"I really can't tell," was my reply. "My business in London may recall
me at any time."
Then I thanked him for his visit, and remarked that if the mixture
gave me no relief I would probably call upon him.
Indeed, it was for this latter reason that I had called him in. By
making his acquaintance in that manner I would, I saw, excite no
suspicion, and I hoped to be able to meet the girl who was apparently
under his charge.
While I had been consulting him I noticed that he seemed a man of
curious moods. At one moment his dark countenance was sullen and
sinister, while at the next his face broadened into an expression of
easy-going _bonhomie_. He spoke English extremely well, and was
apparently a man of considerable taste and refinement. Truly, the
situation was so puzzling that I was bewildered.
After he had gone, I re-dressed myself and went across to the
Gambrinus, where I had an appointment with Robertson.
I found him seated alone at a table in the corner awaiting me.
"Well?" he said, "I've got that address for you, Mr. Garfield--the
address of Miss Thurston," and he handed me a slip of paper upon which
was written: Miss Rose Thurston, Cedar Cottage, Overstrand, Norfolk.
"But I thought you said she lived near Detroit?" I remarked.
"She and her mother did live in America, but I have discovered that
they now have a house near Cromer," was the butler's reply. So in
acknowledgment of his services I passed him a couple of Italian
notes, and we then had a drink together.
While doing so a strange thought crossed my mind.
Could it be possible that the girl I had seen with Doctor Moroni and
Rose Thurston were one and the same!
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
THE MILLIONAIRE'S APPREHENSIONS
That same evening I made a number of inquiries concerning Doctor
Moroni. On every hand I heard high praise of his skill. He was one of
the principal physicians at the great hospital at Gelsomino, and among
other of his illustrious patients there had been a Russian Grand Duke
and an Austrian princess who lived in a magnificent villa upon the
Viale dei Colli.
I went about the wonderful city of art collecting information
concerning the doctor, where and when I could, because a startling
fact had been revealed to me by Robertson, namely, that Moroni was De
Gex's medical attendant.
In the night-time when the narrow ancient side-streets of Florence,
with their ponderous prison-like palaces with iron-barred windows are
so ill-lit and cavernous, the place seems a city of evil deeds, as
indeed it was in the days of the Medici and of the Borgias.
As I trod those streets between the Porta Romana and Santa Maria
Novella, I confess that I became apprehensive of a nervous breakdown.
That a girl had been wilfully done to death in that West End mansion,
and that I had accepted a bribe to aid and abet the assassin, were
undeniable facts. The wealthy man evidently believed that, for my own
sake and in order to escape prosecution, I would not seek to solve the
enigma. Now, as I reflected upon my interview at the Villa Clementini,
I realized how artful he was in denying everything, and yet allowing
me a loophole for escape. He had mentioned blackmail--an ugly word
with ugly consequences--well-knowing that I dare not go to the
Metropolitan Police and make any statement of what I had witnessed or
of how I had acted.
I still held that five thousand pounds bribe intact. The accursed
notes were at the flat at Rivermead Mansions. My position was now
untenable. When that night I retired to my room I realized that the
situation was hopeless. How could I support any charge against a man
who, being a millionaire, could purchase manufactured evidence--as is
done every day--just as easily as he could purchase a cigar?
The evidence given in judicial courts in every European capital in
cases where the party, either plaintiff or defendant, is well
possessed of this world's goods, is usually tainted. In no place on
earth can money work more marvels than in a court of law. Witnesses
who make testimony a profession for big fees appear in every Assize
court in the world. And some of them are, alas! experts. True it is
that every man has his price, and the more so in these hard, post-war
days of riot and ruin. Justice and brotherly love departed with the
Victorian era. The old game of "Beat-your-neighbour-out-of-doors,"
played by our grandfathers, seems to be the only one practised in our
modern times.
With such thoughts I fell asleep.
Next day I spent in again wandering the old-world streets of Florence,
hoping to obtain another glimpse of Moroni and his fair charge. I went
to the Duomo and waited near that side-chapel where I had first seen
them. Then, as they did not come, I idled before a café in the Via
Calzajoli, and again in the Piazza della Signorina. But I saw nothing
of them. That afternoon I spent the winter sunshine in the Cascine,
the beautiful wood beside the Arno where the Florentines go each day
for the _passeggiata_, either in their old-fashioned landaus with
armorial bearings upon the panels, in modern motor-cars, or on foot.
The afternoon, though it was winter, was glorious, even though the
cold wind from the snow-tipped Apennines swept sharply down the
valley. Yet everyone was wrapped up warmly, and the fresh air was
invigorating.
Though I kept my eyes open everywhere, I failed to detect that slim
figure in rusty black.
I allowed the following day to pass. Then, at four o'clock in the
afternoon, I called at the house of Doctor Moroni in pretence of again
consulting him.
Upon the door of the great old house, now converted into spacious
flats, was a small, rather tarnished brass plate with the words: "Dr.
Moroni, Primo Piano."
So I climbed the wide stone stairs to the first floor, and rang the
bell. My summons was answered by a tall, swarthy, dark-eyed Italian
maid, who wore a dainty muslin apron, but no cap--as is the custom in
Italy. She was a Piedmontese, for in her hair she wore several of
those large pins with round heads of silver filigree placed in a
semicircle at the back of her head, until they formed a kind of halo.
"The Signore Dottore is at home," was her reply in Italian. "Be
pleased to enter."
And she showed me along a narrow hall to what was evidently Moroni's
waiting-room. The atmosphere of the place was close on account of the
charcoal stove, and the barely-furnished room smelt of some
disinfectant.
I had sat there for some moments when I heard a door open, and men's
voices sounded speaking in English:
"Very well, signore," I heard the doctor say. "I will be up at the
villa at eleven o'clock."
"Good," replied the other. "You will not be troubled by Robertson this
time. He will be away. I am sending him on a message to Pisa, as I do
not want him about; he is too inquisitive. Besides, you will not come
to the house. You quite understand where we shall meet?"
"Quite, signore," replied Moroni.
By the mode in which the doctor addressed his visitor, and the mention
of Robertson, it was plain that he was speaking with Oswald De Gex.
Why was the butler to be sent to Pisa? I wondered.
I sat breathless, listening to the footsteps along the hall, and to
Moroni wishing his visitor good afternoon.
A few moments later he opened the door brusquely and with a pleasant
smile apologized for keeping me waiting. Then he conducted me to his
consulting-room, a gloomy, frowsy little apartment much over-heated,
as is usual in Florentine houses in winter.
"Well?" he asked. "And how do you feel now, Mr. Garfield?"
My reply was the reverse of satisfactory. The mixture had done me
good, I said, but I still felt excruciating pains after eating. In
consequence, he felt my pulse and took my temperature, while I, on my
part, strained my ears listening for any feminine voice. Was the girl
whose secret I sought still there?
Once I heard a woman's voice, but she cried in Italian to a
fellow-servant named Enrichetta, hence she was probably the maid who
had admitted me.
Moroni, after he had concluded his examination, seemed a little
puzzled. No doubt I had, in my ignorance, described some imaginary
symptom which was not in accordance with what he expected to find. He,
however, gave me another prescription, and as he wrote it I wondered
how he would act if he knew that my object in becoming his patient
was to probe the mystery of the affair in Stretton Street.
I had at least gained knowledge of his intended visit to the Villa
Clementini unknown to the butler, Robertson. He was to be there either
at eleven o'clock that night or at eleven next morning. It occurred to
me that I might possibly learn something of interest if I watched the
doctor's movements at the hours indicated.
"Your symptoms rather puzzle me," said the doctor at last, eyeing me
from beneath his bushy black brows. "To tell the truth, I fancy you
must have eaten something poisonous at one of the restaurants. They
sometimes use tinned food which is not quite good, and it sets up
irritant poisoning. I had a case very similar to yours last week. The
climate here did not suit him, and he has returned to England."
"Oh! I hope to be better in a few days, doctor," I said cheerfully,
for I was anxious for another opportunity to visit him. I wanted to
see, and if possible speak in secret with the girl who bore such a
striking resemblance to the dead Gabrielle Engledue.
On returning to the hotel I rang up the Villa Clementini and inquired
for Robertson. In a few moments I spoke to him, asking if he were
coming down to the Gambrinus.
"I'm sorry," he replied. "I have to go to Pisa by the eight o'clock
train. But I shall be back to-morrow morning."
By that I established the fact that Oswald De Gex had an appointment
with Moroni at eleven o'clock that night, and not on the following
morning.
I ate my dinner at Bonciani's, near the station, a place little
patronized by foreigners, but where one obtains the best Tuscan
cooking--and after an hour or so over coffee at the Bottegone, I took
a taxi up to Fiesole. The night was cold but dry and moonlit. As we
ascended the steep hill a glorious panorama spread before us, for
below lay the valley of the Arno with the twinkling lights of the
ancient city, and the great pale moon upon the shimmering river
rendering it like a scene from fairyland. And as we went up beyond San
Domenico, through those lands which in spring and summer are so
fruitful with their vines and olives, two peasant swains passed,
chanting one of the old _stornelli_, those quaint love-songs of the
Tuscan _contadini_--the same which have been sung for centuries in and
about old Firenze:
Acqua di rio.
Teco sarò di luglio e di gennaio
Dove tu muori te, morirò anch'io.
Tuscany is essentially a land of love, where the fierce flame of
affection burns in the hearts of all the people, and where a hot word
is quickly followed by a knife-thrust, and jealousy is ever cruel and
unrelenting.
Arriving at last in the little piazza, at Fiesole, where a number of
people were awaiting the last tram to take them back into Florence, I
alighted, paid the man, and continued my journey on foot, still
climbing the high road which led through the chestnut woods of
Ricorbico, until at last I found myself at the corner of the grounds
of the Villa Clementini, close to a pair of gates of mediæval
wrought-iron which closed the south entrance to the magnificent
domain.
On either side of the road were high walls with tall cypresses behind
which cast their deep shadows over the highway, rendering it dark
around the entrance. I glanced at my luminous wristwatch--a relic of
my war service--and found that it still wanted ten minutes to eleven.
Therefore I drew back beneath the wall, and in the black shadow
awaited the millionaire's visitor to pass on to the main entrance.
I suppose I had been there ten minutes or so when I detected
approaching footsteps in the darkness, and presently the doctor's
familiar figure appeared in the patch of moonlight, only to be
swallowed up in the black shadows a moment later. Approaching the
great iron gates which were a side entrance to the grounds, he drew a
key from his pocket, unlocked them easily, and passed in without,
however, re-locking them after him. His visit there was undoubtedly a
secret one, or De Gex would not have given him the key of the entrance
he used himself, nor would he have sent away his butler, Robertson.
The visitor's footsteps suddenly ceased, for he was undoubtedly
crossing the grass. In consequence, I stole on tiptoe up to the gates,
and entering, saw in the moonlight that Moroni was stealing along in
the opposite direction to the great country mansion, many of the
windows of which were illuminated. As I halted my ears caught the
strains of orchestral music. A waltz was being played, for, as I
afterwards knew, a gay ball was in progress, the cars entering and
leaving by the main carriage road.
A few seconds later I crept on in the direction the doctor had taken.
At first I feared that, as is so often the case in Italy, savage dogs
might be kept there at night to attack any thief or intruder. But as
Moroni had entered so boldly, it was evident that if any were kept
there they were that evening locked up. Hence, I went forward in
confidence until I came to the edge of a beautiful lake lying
unruffled in the moonlight, and surrounded by many pieces of ancient
statuary, most of them moss-grown and lichen-covered.
As I turned a corner there came into view a large white summer-house
with a domed roof, supported by columns--a kind of temple such as one
often finds in the gardens of ancient Italian villas. The marble-built
summer-house, with carved escutcheons, was a fashion of the
seventeenth century. As I peered forward I saw Moroni walking in the
full light, approaching the place, from which a dark figure emerged
and came forth to meet him.
Instantly I again halted, and straining my eyes recognized that the
man who was in evening dress was the owner of that palatial home.
They retired into the summer-house together. What, I wondered, was the
object of that secret meeting?
It struck me that perhaps if I succeeded in approaching the spot I
might overhear some of their confidential conversation, therefore I
stole forward, always keeping in the shadow, and treading upon the
grass, my eyes ever upon my goal.
The stillness of the night was unbroken, save by the harsh clanging of
the convent bell down at San Domenico, and the howl of a distant dog,
while ever and anon bursts of dance music from the villa reached my
ears.
At last, by skirting a shrubbery in almost pitch darkness, and
scratching my hands and face badly, I succeeded in gaining the rear of
the little marble temple, and on hearing De Gex's voice I drew back
and waited, scarce daring to breathe. I could hear my own heart beat
as I listened intently to certain words distinctly audible.
"Then you think he has suspicions--eh, Moroni? What you tell me is
interesting, but also alarming."
"I feel certain he has. He would not have consulted me for an
imaginary ailment were it not so."
"Then he must have seen her somewhere in Florence and recognized her!
I was a fool to suggest that she should be brought here--so near to
me! I was a fool to allow him to slip through my fingers!"
"I pointed that out to you at the time," remarked the Italian doctor
with a sigh. "But what you have just shown to me is amazing. I never
dreamed of that!"
He had evidently shown him something in the moonlight.
"Well, I don't intend that this fellow shall pry into my affairs,"
snapped the millionaire. I recognized that hard metallic voice of his,
and it recalled to me all those strange happenings on that November
night.
"I do not really see, if we act boldly, what we have to fear," said
the doctor in his very fair English.
We! Then they were both implicated in the plot, whatever its nature.
"Fear!" echoed De Gex. "Suppose he made some very compromising
statement to the London police."
"And in doing so he would compromise himself! He posed as a medical
man, and gave the death certificate in return for payment--five
thousand pounds. Beyond, he committed forgery by signing the name of
Gordon Garfield. No, Mr. De Gex, I feel sure he will never court
prosecution. He may busy himself in trying to solve what no doubt
appears to him a complete enigma--as indeed it is to us. But he will
never expose us--_never_!"
The millionaire grunted dubiously.
"Well, what are we to do now? What do you suggest, Moroni? Your brain
is always so fertile where crooked business is concerned."
"I have no suggestion. I came here to learn yours."
"Yes. I called you here to show you what I have shown you, and also
because I have a certain person here as guest at my wife's dance
to-night--you know whom I mean."
"Certainly. She is equally dangerous. You asked me to bring the little
tube. Here it is. But I urge you to use it with extreme caution. When
you break the glass be certain that none of the jelly inside touches
your fingers. If it does, wash them instantly in carbolic. It is
highly contagious."
De Gex gave vent to a queer laugh of satisfaction, as, no doubt, he
took the mysterious glass tube in his hand.
"I am not yet certain whether to try the experiment--or not," he
remarked with hesitation.
"It is, to say the least, a highly dangerous one."
"You mean dangerous from the point of view of discovery--eh?"
"No, not at all. Your act cannot be discovered, but it may be
dangerous for yourself and those about you--highly dangerous. I have
obeyed your orders, signore, as I always do, and I have brought it.
But my suggestion is that you should not break that tube and disperse
its contents."
"You seem to be growing unusually apprehensive, my dear Moroni. The
appearance in Florence of this young electrical engineer seems to have
quite upset you!" he laughed harshly. I could hear every word.
"I confess his presence here has not inspired me with confidence. We
do not know the extent of his knowledge, or what he has discovered,"
replied the doctor. "If he establishes one fact--you know to what I
refer--then he will become a very grave menace to us both."
"But surely he won't dare to reveal anything for his own sake. That is
why I made the bribe a substantial one."
"If he established that one fact to which I have referred, then it
would be quite within the bounds of possibility that he might face the
music, and lay bare the whole facts of the mystery of Stretton
Street," Moroni remarked in a rather lower tone. "At present I think
he will keep a still tongue."
"Then one thing is quite plain," said the millionaire. "He must not be
allowed to prosecute his inquiries any further. And it is for you,
Moroni, to rid us of this ever-growing menace. If he is allowed to go
on, then we shall one day awake to find our secret revealed."
"I quite agree. But how shall we act?"
"Ah! I leave that to you," replied De Gex. "You have many ways and
means within your power. He is a patient of yours," he added grimly.
"Yes. But I happen to know that he is sufficiently wide awake not to
take any of my mixtures."
"Ah! Then he suspects you! You must act with greatest caution, Moroni.
Act as you will, but we must, at all costs, get rid of this fellow."
"I suggested that after the affair at Stretton Street. It would then
have been so very easy."
"I know! I was a fool! I did not foresee the consequences if he met
and recognized the girl. Even now we do not know where and how he met
her. But the menace to us is the same. We must get rid of him--and
quickly, too! The trap must be baited--and what better bait than the
girl herself?"
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
LITTLE MRS. CULLERTON
For nearly half an hour Oswald De Gex and the Italian doctor, Moroni,
sat chatting in the darkness.
De Gex apologized to his visitor for not offering him a cigarette,
remarking that the striking of a match might reveal their presence to
anyone strolling in the grounds, for guests at dances frequently have
that habit.
"Indeed, after you have gone, Moroni, I am meeting the lady whom I
mentioned, and shall walk with her outside here. I want to speak with
her in private."
"But surely that is dangerous!" exclaimed the doctor instantly.
"Why?"
"If you intend to act as you say you should not hold any clandestine
meeting with her," Moroni suggested.
"I shall take your advice and preserve this little tube intact," and
he paused, "intact at least for the present," he added. "Hence there
can be no harm in leaving the ballroom and coming out into the fresh
air--eh?"
"In that case I see no risk."
"The only risk we run is in allowing young Garfield to make inquiries
here, in Florence. When he saw me, I, of course, denied everything.
But I know that he must have noticed how upset I was at his
reappearance."
"Well, we have decided to suppress him, have we not?" said Moroni
briefly. "And now it is getting late and my taxi is awaiting me down
in Fiesole. So I had better be going."
"Have a care that the fellow does not meet her--not until you are
quite prepared," the millionaire urged. "And lose no time in making
ready. Each day's delay is increasingly dangerous."
"I do not disregard the fact, signore," replied the Italian, and next
moment they emerged from the little Greek temple, and having walked a
short distance, they parted, De Gex returning to the house, while
Moroni made his way back past the lake to the gate.
When the mysterious millionaire had disappeared, I approached the
broad terrace which ran along the side of the house from which such a
wonderful panorama of the Apennines was to be obtained. If he brought
his lady guest out, as was his intention, then he no doubt would
descend from the terrace, for I saw two couples walking there as I
approached.
Beneath a tree I took cover and waited--waited to establish the
identity of the person whom he had marked down as his next victim.
That night I had gained much knowledge of intense interest, yet it all
served to puzzle me the more.
That Tito Moroni was his accomplice I had established beyond doubt,
and equally that there had been a grave and deep-laid conspiracy
against me. And further, it seemed to be intended that I should again
meet the mysterious pale-faced girl in black, and that the meeting was
meant to be fatal to me.
Fortune had certainly been upon my side that night, otherwise I might
have acted in good faith and fallen into some cleverly-baited trap.
That the doctor of the Via Cavezzo was a dangerous malefactor was
proved by the airy manner in which he had brought to his rich client
that little glass tube which I, of course, had not seen, but which he
had no doubt put into the hands of his wealthy and unscrupulous host.
The more I reflected as I stood beneath the great oleander, the more
puzzled did I become. What was it that De Gex had shown the doctor
beneath the pale light of the moon? It was evidently something which
greatly surprised Moroni, and yet he had made but little comment
concerning it.
But the chief mystery of all was the whereabouts of that poor inert
girl Gabrielle Engledue. I waited, eager for the return of the tall,
well-set-up man in evening clothes, the man who so much in the public
eye was engaged in such a strange career of wickedness and crime.
It seemed incredible that the immensely rich man whose name was so
constantly in the papers as a generous patron of the arts, and a pious
philanthropist, should be implicated in such devil's doings as those
of which I had already proved him to be the author.
The discordant clanging of that convent-bell again aroused me to a
sense of my surroundings. I saw upon the terrace before me several men
strolling, smoking cigarettes, and with them their fair partners
wrapped in rich cloaks and furs. They had come out after supper to
admire the wonderful moonlit scene, for before them rose the
snow-tipped mountains in a long serrated range, the high Apennines
which divide the Adriatic from the Mediterranean.
Suddenly, almost before I was aware of it, a man and a woman passed
close to me. The figure revealed by the cold bright moon was that of
De Gex, who had now put on a light coat, while at his side walked a
slim, tall young woman wrapped warmly in a rich fur coat. The diamonds
in her fair hair gleamed in the moonlight, but unfortunately she had
passed into the shadow before I could gain a glimpse of her features.
So that was the intended victim--the woman to whom the dangerous
contents of that tiny glass tube was one day, sooner or later, to be
administered.
They went forward towards the edge of the placid lake, hence I sprang
upon the grass and followed them as noiseless as a cat. Little did the
owner of the great Villa Clementini dream that I was lurking in such
close vicinity.
They halted beside one of the ancient statues of yellow marble, a
heavy-limbed representation of Bacchus crowned with vine leaves, where
they admired the fairy-like scene. It was indeed glorious. Beneath the
pale moonlight lay the placid lake like a mirror, for no breath
stirred from the mountains, and beyond in the mystic light rose the
snow-capped peaks far away beyond the chestnut forests of Vallombrosa.
There is a charm in all seasons and at all hours about those ancient
villas of Tuscany; those country mansions of the nobles which have
seen the tramp of men in armour and in plush, and bear upon them the
crumbling escutcheons of races which have been rulers for five
centuries, and whose present descendants are perhaps waiters in Paris,
London, or New York.
The English visitors to Florence see outside the Florence Club
effeminate elegants in English-made suits of blue serge, and brown
boots, and they sigh to think that such specimens of humanity are the
representatives of a noble race. Disguise it as you may, poor Italy is
sadly decadent. Her glory has passed, her _nobile_ are ruined and her
labour enemies are, alas! bent upon putting her into the melting-pot.
The gallant Italian army fought valiantly against the Tedesci. It
saved Venice from the heel of the invader and it protected Dalmatia,
where the population are Italians. But Italy to-day is not Italy of
pre-war days, thanks to its paid agitators and its political scandals.
With the bright moon shining across the huge oleander beneath which I
had again taken cover, I listened intently. But De Gex speaking with
his guest was too far off for me to distinguish anything he said.
That he treated her with the greatest courtesy was apparent. And that
he spoke to her with the most entire confidence I realized by my own
observation.
At once I stole noiselessly forward from one bush to another until I
was close to where the pair stood. I trod softly upon the grass, my
ears strained to catch any word.
The words I at last caught were few and uncertain, for De Gex was
speaking in a low and highly confidential tone.
At last, however, on approaching a little nearer, I heard him exclaim:
"Jack, your husband, is a young fool! He has no discretion. He gambles
on the Stock Exchange without any expert knowledge. He came up here to
me yesterday afternoon and told me that he must have ten thousand
pounds to tide him over, and prevent him being hammered. I sent him
away, but I shall see that he has the money."
"How really good of you, Mr. De Gex!" exclaimed the girl--for as far
as I could see she was hardly a woman. "I don't know how to thank you
sufficiently. I know Jack is a born gambler. His father was on the
Stock Exchange before him, and I suppose games of chance are in the
breed of the Cullertons."
"Not in you, I hope, Dorothy," replied the millionaire. "You have had
the misfortune to marry a gambler, and--well, my dear girl--I pity
you. Gambling is worse than drink. The drunkard can be sickened and
put off, but the gambler never. Now I want you to promise me one
thing."
"What is that?" she asked.
"I shall see that he has the money. But it will come through a second
party, not through me. I do not wish to appear to lend him money,
otherwise he will still continue his speculations, feeling that he has
me behind him. Now you know the truth, Dorothy. But you must promise
me to say nothing. Nobody must know--not even my wife."
"Oh! how very good of you to help Jack out of a hole!" she exclaimed.
"Of course I'll remain silent. But it really is awfully kind of you. I
don't know how to thank you."
"I will do it for your sake, Dorothy," said De Gex, bending to her in
confidence. "I am indebted to _you_--remember!"
"Ah! no!" cried the young woman, whose name apparently was Cullerton.
"No! Please don't refer to that terrible affair!"
Her voice betrayed emotion and apprehension, while at that moment, as
she turned her face to the light of the moon, I was able to get a full
view of it. It was that of a very beautiful young woman of about
twenty-three, rather _petite_, with fair bobbed hair, regular
features, and sweet lips. But the expression upon her countenance was
one of fear and apprehension.
"I have no desire to remember it," said her host. "We agreed at the
time that it should be silence for silence. It was a bargain which we
have kept ever since. You have married Jack Cullerton, and you are
happy except that your husband is a born gambler. And of that he must
be cured."
"I know. I know!" she said hastily. "But earlier this evening you
promised to tell me about Gabrielle. I must see her. She seems to have
disappeared. Where is she?"
"In London, I believe."
"In London! Yet the last time you spoke of her you said she was in
Turin, on her way here, to Florence."
Oswald De Gex laughed lightly.
"Yes. She came to Florence for a few days, but she has returned to
London. Why are you so anxious to see her?"
"I want to see her about a matter which concerns Jack and
myself--that's all," replied young Mrs. Cullerton.
"May I not know?" asked her host.
"It is a purely private matter," was her reply.
Then from the conversation that followed, it seemed as though the
millionaire was apprehensive lest she should meet the mysterious
Gabrielle, and I wondered whether it was in order to prevent them
meeting that he entertained designs upon her life.
I recollected that little glass tube which he was carrying in secret
in his pocket, and which the scoundrelly Italian had urged him to
refrain from using because he might place his own life in jeopardy.
I listened to every word. De Gex was evidently most anxious to know
why she sought Gabrielle so eagerly. And Gabrielle, I could only
surmise, was the girl I had seen stark and dead in that handsome room
in Stretton Street.
That night of watchfulness had borne fruit. I had learnt from De Gex's
own lips that another deep and subtle trap was to be laid for me--a
trap baited with the tragic-faced girl herself. Further, I had
established that he intended that, sooner or later, an accident should
befall the dainty little woman in that rich ermine cloak, the woman
with whom he was chatting so affably. Also I had learned her identity,
and it now remained for me to forewarn her of what was intended.
The rich Englishman had talked for about a quarter of an hour with
Dorothy Cullerton, when at last they returned to the house, while I
made my way in the darkness back to the gate. When I arrived, however,
I found that Moroni had locked it after him. I was therefore compelled
to climb the wrought ironwork, and after several unsuccessful attempts
succeeded in regaining the road.
It was long past midnight ere I found myself back in Fiesole, but I
discovered a belated cab, and in it I drove back to Florence, full of
grave reflections.
On the following day I bought in the Via Tornabuoni an English
newspaper which publishes weekly a list of visitors to Florence, and
from it discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Cullerton were living at the
Villa Tassi, out at Montaguto, about three miles from the Porta
Romana, on the opposite side of Florence. That same morning I took the
steam tram from the Piazza della Signorina, and after three miles of
dusty road, alighted at a spot beyond the little village of Galluzzo
in the Val d'Ema. Crossing the brook I soon began to ascend the hill
of Montaguto--a pretty eminence clothed with cypresses and olives--and
was not long in discovering the neat, newly-built little villa, one of
a number which are let furnished each season to wealthy foreigners. I
noted as I passed that it was well-kept, that the garden was bright
with flowers, even though it was winter, and that in the garage was a
small light car which at the moment was being washed by an English
chauffeur.
I longed to have some excuse to call upon Mrs. Cullerton, but could
think of none. Therefore I returned to Florence and pursued fresh
tactics. The afternoon I spent making inquiries regarding the
Cullertons, and soon discovered that they were intimate friends of
Monsieur Rameil, the French Consul, and his wife.
With this knowledge I lost no time in obtaining an introduction to the
French Consul, and three days later received a card for one of
Madame's Friday afternoons. Naturally I went, and to my delight Mrs.
Cullerton was there also. She was a strikingly pretty young woman, and
apparently extremely popular, judging by the manner in which two or
three young Italian elegants danced attendance upon her. Shortly
before I left my hostess introduced me to her, and naturally I
endeavoured to make myself extremely agreeable. But was not the
situation a strange one? And this pretty woman had been marked down
for destruction by the mysterious millionaire, just as I had been!
Yet had I told anyone of the knowledge I had gained I would not have
been believed, any more than would credence have been given to the
story of my strange adventure in Stretton Street.
We chatted for perhaps ten minutes. She asked me where I was staying
and how long I should be in Florence, and then, expressing a hope that
we should meet again, I bowed and left her.
I had accomplished one step towards ascertaining the identity of the
girl I had seen dead in London.
Several days passed, during which I kept a good look out in the
streets for sight of Doctor Moroni's fair companion. But I was not
successful. Perhaps she had gone to London, as my host of Stretton
Street had asserted!
One afternoon, while haunting the streets, I suddenly encountered Mrs.
Cullerton walking in the Via Tornabuoni, and, raising my hat, stopped
to speak.
After a few seconds she recognized me, and I walked at her side
chatting. Her car was waiting in the Piazza Santa Trinita, but before
she entered it she had promised to send me a card for a little "at
home" she was giving on the following Thursday.
Now, not until we had parted did it occur to me that De Gex might be
also going there. In that case he certainly should not meet me. So I
sought Robertson's aid concerning his master's engagements, and
discovered that on Thursday morning the millionaire was going to
Leghorn to join his yacht for a week's cruise across to Algiers.
Therefore I accepted Mrs. Cullerton's invitation, and found at the
villa a number of pleasant, cosmopolitan people, whom I had already
met at the French Consul's. I was introduced by my hostess to her
husband, Jack, a smartly-dressed man, and a typical young member of
the Stock Exchange. Afterwards I succeeded in having quite a long
conversation with his wife.
Quite casually I mentioned the Villa Clementini, and its owner.
"Do you know him?" she asked with interest. "He is such a dear,
generous old thing."
"I have met him once," I replied with affected unconcern. "They say
he's a little eccentric--don't they?"
"His enemies say that," she replied, "but his friends are full of
praise of him. He's the most charming and generous of men, and his
great wealth allows him to perform all sorts of kind actions. They
say that he can't refuse anybody who asks for his influence or help."
I reflected that his influence was certainly a baneful one.
"Ah! I see you are one of his friends, Mrs. Cullerton!" I said,
laughing.
"Yes--I confess I am."
"Then would you be surprised if I told you in strictest confidence
that he is not your friend, but one of your bitterest enemies!" I
said, lowering my voice, and looking straight into her wide-open blue
eyes.
"I don't understand you, Mr. Garfield!" she said, also lowering her
voice.
"I will explain one day, Mrs. Cullerton--one day when we are alone."
"When?" she whispered, for Madame Rameil was approaching at the
moment.
"Whenever you like to make an appointment," I replied. "Only I must
first hold you to absolute secrecy."
"That's agreed," whispered the pretty young woman. "To-morrow. I will
be here alone at three o'clock," and then she held out her hand, and
aloud said:
"Good-bye, Mr. Garfield. So sorry you have to run away so early.
Good-bye!"
CHAPTER THE NINTH
SOME PLAIN SPEAKING
Punctually at three o'clock next afternoon the buxom Italian maid in
dainty apron, ushered me into Mrs. Cullerton's charming _salone_. From
the long windows a magnificent view spread away across the green
valley of the Ema to the great monastery of the Certosa, a huge
mediæval pile which resembled a mediæval fortress standing boldly
against the background of the rolling Apennines.
Scarcely had I stood there a moment when my blue-eyed young hostess,
in a becoming black-and-cherry frock, entered, and greeting me, closed
the door.
"Well, Mr. Garfield? It's really awfully good of you to trouble to
come out to see me. I'm all excitement to know what you have to tell
me about Mr. De Gex. He's gone yachting--as you perhaps know. Do sit
down."
As I did so she passed me the cigarettes, and took one herself. Then,
when I had held the match for her and had lit my own, I said:
"Well, Mrs. Cullerton, I really don't know how to commence. Somehow, I
felt it my duty to come here to see you. I must admit that I have been
manoeuvring for several days in order to get an introduction to you,
and to obtain an opportunity of seeing you alone. And yet----"
"Yes. I quite see that. I thought by your attitude in the Via
Tornabuoni that you seemed very anxious to know me," and her lips
relaxed into a pretty smile.
"That is so. In order to--well, to warn you," I said very seriously.
"Warn me!--of what, pray?"
I hesitated. To be perfectly frank with her was, I saw, quite
impossible. She might hear all I said and then inform De Gex. She was
his friend. Or perhaps she would dismiss me and my story as pure
invention. Hence I resolved to preserve my own secret concerning the
Stretton Street Affair.
Looking straight into her face, I said:
"I'm here to warn you of a very grave personal danger."
"You are really most alarming, Mr. Garfield," she said in suspicion.
"In what danger am I?"
"You are either in possession of some ugly fact concerning Mr. De Gex
which he desires suppressed, or else you bar his way to some ambitious
achievement."
Her face changed, and she held her breath. Though it was only for a
second I saw that what I had suggested was the truth. Her slim white
hand twitched nervously upon her lap.
"Some fact concerning Mr. De Gex!" she gasped in feigned surprise.
"Who told you that!" she asked, her face blanching.
"I have not been told. But I know it, Mrs. Cullerton," was my reply.
"I know that, though De Gex is assisting your husband out of a
financial difficulty and pretends to be your good friend, he views you
as his bitter enemy--as a person whose lips must, at all hazards, be
closed."
"Really, Mr. Garfield, what you say is too extraordinary--too amazing!
I don't understand you!"
"I know it sounds most extraordinary," I said. "But first tell me if
you know a certain Doctor Moroni, who lives in the Via Cavezzo?"
"Certainly. The doctor attends Mr. De Gex and his family. I first met
him in London, about a year ago. Mr. De Gex holds him in very high
esteem."
"Ah! Then you know the doctor."
"Of course. When he was in London he several times came to our house
in Fitzjohn's Avenue."
"And your husband knows him?" I asked, looking her straight in the
face. "Please tell me the truth," I urged.
"No. Jack has never met him--not to my knowledge."
I was silent for a few seconds. I had established a fact which I had
all along suspected.
"Then he called in the daytime, when your husband was in the
City--eh?"
"Yes."
"Now tell me, did you ever have any strange illness after Doctor
Moroni had called?" I inquired very seriously.
"Illness? Why, no! Why do you ask such a curious question?"
"I have reasons for asking it, Mrs. Cullerton," was my reply. "I have
called here as your friend, remember."
"But all this is most bewildering," she exclaimed with a nervous
little laugh. "Why should I be in any personal peril?"
"Because you know something to the detriment of that wealthy and
somewhat eccentric man," I replied. "Pardon me if I put another
question to you. Are you acquainted with a girl named Gabrielle
Engledue?"
"Gabrielle Engledue?" she repeated. "No, I have never heard the name.
I know a Gabrielle--Gabrielle Tennison--an old schoolfellow of mine."
"A tall, dark-haired girl?"
"Yes, she is rather tall, and dark-haired."
"Isn't her real name Engledue?" I asked quickly.
"Not to my knowledge."
"Is she not Mr. De Gex's niece?"
"He has no niece, has he?--except, of course, Lady Shalford, whom I
know quite well."
"Where is Gabrielle Tennison?"
"In London--I believe."
"Are you certain she is not here, in Florence?"
"Mr. De Gex told me that she came to Florence for a few days----"
"To visit him--eh?"
"I suppose so. But she has returned to London."
"Do you know her address in London," I asked very anxiously. "I ask
you this in our mutual interests, Mrs. Cullerton," I added
confidentially.
"Yes. She lives with her mother in a maisonette in Longridge Road,
Earl's Court, I forget the number, but you could easily find out."
"And she is there now, I presume?"
"I expect so--if what Mr. De Gex has told me is the truth."
"But will he ever tell you the truth?" I queried. "Recollect that
although he poses as your husband's friend, he is nevertheless your
enemy--because he fears you! Why is that?"
The pretty wife of the young London stockbroker hesitated. I saw that
she was much perturbed by my question.
"I suppose he suspects that I know certain things," was her low, hard
reply. "But he has been very good to Jack on several occasions. He
has prevented him from being hammered on the Stock Exchange, therefore
I can only be grateful to him."
I looked the pretty woman straight in the face, and said:
"Grateful! Grateful to a man whose dastardly intention is, when the
whim takes him, to send you to your grave, Mrs. Cullerton?"
"I--I really don't know what you mean. Are you mad? Do be more
explicit," she cried. "Why do you make these terrible allegations
against Mr. De Gex?"
"Please recollect, Mrs. Cullerton, that I am here first in your
interests, and secondly in my own. You and I are now both marked down
as victims, because both of us are in possession of certain knowledge
which would, if exposed, bring obloquy and prosecution upon an
exceedingly wealthy man. Your husband, yourself, and myself, are
merely pawns in the clever game which this man is playing--a
mysterious game, I admit, and one in which he is actively assisted by
Doctor Moroni--but also one in which, if we are not both very wary, we
shall find ourselves the victims of fatal circumstances."
My words seemed to impress the stockbroker's wife, for she asked:
"Well--what shall I do?"
"Be perfectly frank with me," I replied promptly. "Both of us have all
to lose if we close our eyes to the conspiracy against us on the part
of your friend De Gex and his shrewd and unscrupulous accomplice, Tito
Moroni."
"Moroni is one of the most popular doctors in Florence," she remarked.
"I'm perfectly aware of that," was my reply. "But there is no more
dangerous criminal than the medical man who is beneath the thumb of a
millionaire. There have been several before the assizes in various
cities of Europe. Many, thanks alas! to the power of gold, have never
been unmasked. There have been cases in Hungary, in France, in Italy,
and in Russia--even one case in England which is recorded in a big
file at Scotland Yard. But in that case there was no prosecution
because money means influence, and influence means the breaking of
those in office who dare to oppose it."
"Then how do you suggest that I should act, Mr. Garfield?" asked young
Mrs. Cullerton. "It is distressing news to me that Mr. De Gex is my
enemy--and I confess that at present I can scarcely credit it."
I longed to unbosom myself to her--to tell her of all that had
occurred to me since that fateful November night when I had passed
through Stretton Street, but I was not yet fully confident concerning
her attitude towards me. It might be hostile. She might seek De Gex
when he returned from Algiers and tell him of our interview! If she
did, then all hope of elucidating the mystery of Gabrielle Engledue's
death would be at once swept away.
Yet I held before me the fact that the millionaire, hand-in-glove with
that scoundrelly Italian, intended to cast me into my grave. The
Italians have all through the centuries been experts in secret
assassination. The Doges of Venice, the Borgias, and the Medici have
all had secret poisoners in their pay. The gay, careless race which
laughs when the sun shines, are just the same to-day, after the war,
as they were in the days of His Holiness Rodrigo Borgia. To-day your
superstitious Italian criminal enters the church and prays to the
Madonna that his _coup_--whatever it may be, from profiteering,
picking pockets, or the secret assassination of an enemy--may be
successful.
"I allege that Mr. De Gex is your enemy, Mrs. Cullerton," I said. "I
have first-hand knowledge of it. Indeed, on the night of the ball at
the Villa Clementini, he had in his pocket the wherewithal to bring
upon you an illness which must inevitably prove fatal. He had a little
glass tube which he had ordered Moroni to prepare, but which the
doctor himself urged him not to break for fear of infecting himself
and his family."
She sat staring at me open-mouthed.
"I--I really can't believe it!" she gasped. "Mr. De Gex would never
act in such a dastardly manner towards me. We are friends--old
friends."
"You may be, but I happen to know the truth," I declared. "He pretends
friendship towards you, but his intentions are that your lips shall be
closed. For some reason he fears you."
"Are you really quite serious?" she asked, looking me full in the
face.
"I certainly am," I replied. "The reason I am here is to warn you to
have a care of yourself. That some evil is intended, I know. Only I
rely upon you to keep the information I have given you to yourself.
Watch De Gex, but say nothing--_not a word_."
"I have already promised that I will remain silent," she remarked.
"You must also say no word to your husband. He is indebted to De Gex,
hence he might tell him what I have said. And further, my name must
never be mentioned to De Gex."
"Why not?"
"He would instantly guess the source of your information."
"But what is your motive for all this, Mr. Garfield?"
"My motive is a simple one. I am trying to find Gabrielle Engledue,
and I am now wondering whether the girl I am seeking is not the same
as the young lady you know as Gabrielle Tennison."
"Where did you meet this girl Engledue?" asked Mrs. Cullerton, with a
queer inquisitive look.
I paused for a second.
"In London--at the house of a mutual friend."
Her expression caused me to ponder, for I discerned that she was
inclined to doubt me.
"And why are you seeking her now?"
"I have a distinct object in view."
"You've--well, perhaps you've fallen in love with her--eh?" she
laughed lightly.
"Not at all," I assured her. "I have a private, but very strong,
motive in discovering her. I want to put to her certain questions."
"About what, Mr. Garfield? Come, it is now my turn to be a little
inquisitive," and she laughed again.
"About a certain little matter in which we are mutually interested,"
was my evasive answer. Then, after a pause, I looked straight into her
eyes, and added very earnestly: "I wonder whether if I should require
your help, Mrs. Cullerton, you would assist me?"
"In what way?"
"At present I cannot tell. To be frank, I am striving to solve a great
and inscrutable mystery. Just now I am amazed and bewildered. But I
feel that you are the only person who could help me--because you and I
are equally in peril."
"But, Mr. Garfield, I see no reason why I should be upon the brink of
this mysterious abyss!" she cried. "You don't explain the situation
sufficiently fully."
"Because at present I cannot do so. No one regrets it more than
myself. There is a grim mystery--a very great mystery--and I intend,
with your assistance, to escape my enemy and clear it up."
"Who is your enemy?"
"Oswald De Gex! He is my enemy as well as yours," I said very
seriously. "If you were in the possession of such facts as those I
have gathered during the past week or so, you would be startled
and--well, perhaps terrified. But I only again beg of you to have a
care of yourself. You have promised silence, and I, on my part, will
carry on my search for the truth."
"The truth of what?"
"The truth concerning Gabrielle Engledue."
The pretty little woman again looked at me very straight in the face
for some moments without speaking. Then, with a strange hardness about
her mouth, she said:
"Mr. Garfield, take it from me, you will never discover what you are
in search of. The truth is too well hidden."
"What? Then you know something--eh?" I cried quickly.
"Yes. It is true!" she answered in a low, hard voice. "I do know
something--something of a certain secret that can never pass my lips!"
CHAPTER THE TENTH
MONSIEUR SUZOR AGAIN
Mrs. Cullerton's words held me breathless.
At first I believed that I might wring the truth from her lips, but I
quickly saw that she intended to preserve her secret at all costs.
Whether she actually believed what I had told her concerning her own
peril was doubtful. In any case, she seemed in some strange manner
held powerless and fascinated by the rich man who had saved her
speculating husband from ruin.
I remained there for still another quarter of an hour until her maid
announced a visitor, when I was compelled to rise and take my leave.
For a few days longer I remained in Florence; then I left for London.
On entering the Calais express at the Gare du Nord in Paris on my way
home, I was agreeably surprised to find among my fellow travellers to
England the affable French banker whom I had met on that memorable
journey from York to London. He recognized me at once, and I inquired
why he was not, as usual, crossing by air to Croydon.
"Ah!" he laughed. "The last time I crossed three weeks ago we went
into a thick fog over the Channel, and it was not very comfortable. So
I prefer the rail just now."
On this occasion we exchanged cards. His name was Gaston Suzor, and
between Paris and Calais we discussed many things, for he was a
well-informed man and a true hater of the Boches. On the steamer we
strolled upon the deck together, and we passed quite a pleasant
journey in company. He was surprised that I had been in Italy, but I
explained that I had been granted long leave of absence by my firm,
and that I had gone to Florence upon private affairs.
We parted at Charing Cross, Monsieur Suzor to go to the Carlton, and I
home to our little flat in Rivermead Mansions.
A note lay upon the dining-room table. Hambledon was away in Cardiff,
and he had left word in case I should return unexpectedly. The place
was cold and fireless, and I was glad to go over to the Claredon to
have my dinner.
My one thought was of Gabrielle Tennison, who lived with her mother in
a maisonette at Earl's Court. So I took a taxi to Longridge Road, and
after numerous inquiries at neighbouring shops in Earl's Court Road, I
discovered in which house lived Mrs. Tennison and her daughter. The
hour was late, therefore I felt that it was useless to keep
observation upon the place in the hope of the girl coming forth.
I had no excuse to make a call. Besides, I might, if I acted
indiscreetly, destroy all my chances of solving the strange enigma.
Therefore not until ten o'clock on the following morning did I take up
my vigilant watch at the end of the road, at a spot from which I had
full view of the house in question. My watch proved a long and weary
one, for not until three o'clock in the afternoon was my patience
rewarded.
The front door suddenly opened, and down the steps came the slim
figure of a girl, followed by a woman. As they approached me I saw
that it was the girl I had seen with Moroni in Florence, while the
woman was, from her dress, evidently an old servant.
The girl of mystery was attired quite smartly in black, her appearance
being very different from the shabby figure she presented in Florence.
But her beautiful countenance was just as pathetic, with that strange
set expression of ineffable sadness. She passed me by without glancing
at me, while the stout, homely woman at her side held her arm linked
in hers.
They turned into Earl's Court Road and walked towards Kensington High
Street, while I followed at a respectable distance. I could not fail
to notice the grace of carriage of the girl whose listless attitude
was so mysterious, and whose exact whereabouts Oswald De Gex was
concealing from his friend, Mrs. Cullerton. But the one point which
puzzled me sorely was whether the girl walking in front of me all
unconscious of my presence was the same that I had seen dead at
Stretton Street, and for whom I had given a false certificate to cover
up what had evidently been a crime with malice aforethought.
The pair now and then became lost in the crowd of foot-passengers in
busy Kensington, but I followed them. Occasionally they paused to look
into Barker's shop windows, but the interest was evidently on the part
of the serving-woman, for Gabrielle Tennison--or whatever her actual
name--seemed to evince no heed of things about her. She walked like
one in a dream, with her thoughts afar off, yet her face was the
sweetest, most beautiful, and yet the saddest I had ever witnessed.
Tragedy was written upon her pale countenance, and I noticed that one
or two men and women in passing the pair turned to look back at them.
In that face of flawless beauty a strange story was written--a mystery
which I was strenuously seeking to solve.
Presently they entered Kensington Gardens, strolling along the
gravelled walks beneath the bare, leafless trees that were so black
with London's grime. The day was cold, but bright, hence quite a
number of persons were walking there, together with the usual crowd of
nursemaids with the children of the well-to-do from the Hyde Park and
Kensington districts.
The pair passed leisurely half-way up the Broad Walk, when they
presently rested upon a seat nearly opposite the great façade of
Kensington Palace.
I saw that I had not been noticed either by the old servant or by her
mysterious young mistress, therefore I sank quickly upon a seat some
distance away, but in such a position that I could still see them as
they talked together.
Was Gabrielle Engledue living--or was she dead? Or was Gabrielle
Tennison and Gabrielle Engledue one and the same person? A living face
is different from that of the same person when dead, hence the great
problem presenting itself.
It seemed as though in conversation the girl became animated, for she
gesticulated slightly as though in angry protest at some remark of her
companion, and then suddenly I had a great surprise.
Coming down the Broad Walk I saw a figure in a grey overcoat and soft
brown hat which I instantly recognized. He walked straight to where
the pair were seated, lifted his hat, and then seated himself beside
the girl.
The man was my French friend, Suzor!
That they had gone there on purpose to meet him was now quite clear,
for after a few moments the old woman laughed, rose and walked on, in
order to leave the girl alone with the Frenchman. What could be the
meaning of that clandestine meeting?--for clandestine it was, or
Monsieur Suzor would have called at Longridge Road. Possibly they
expected that they might be watched, hence they had met as though by
accident at that spot where they believed they would not be observed.
Gaston Suzor was a shrewd, clever man. But what did this friendship
with Gabrielle Tennison denote? As I watched I saw him speaking very
earnestly. For some time she sat with her gloved hands idly in her lap
listening to his words without comment. Then she shook her head, and
put up her hands in protest. Afterwards by her attitude she seemed to
be appealing to him, while he remained obdurate and unperturbed.
I longed to overhear their conversation, but in the fading light of
that brief wintry afternoon it was impossible to approach closer. I
could only sit and watch. My eyes were strained to see every gesture
of the pair, now that the stout figure of the girl's companion had
disappeared towards the Bayswater Road. In that oasis in the desert of
aristocratic London one can obtain quite sylvan surroundings. True,
the trees and vegetation are covered with a film of grime from the
millions of smoking chimneys of the giant metropolis, still Kensington
Gardens ever possesses a charm all its own as a clandestine
meeting-place for well-born lovers and ill-born loafers, for
nursemaids and soldiers, and for persons of both sexes who wish for a
little quiet talk in the open air in order so often to clear a hectic
atmosphere.
Such I judged to be the case between Gaston Suzor and Gabrielle
Tennison.
At first the girl sat inert with downcast eyes listening to the man.
But suddenly she raised her hands in quick protest again, and
apparently became resentful--even angry. Then when he spoke some
reassuring words she became calmer.
As I sat there shrewdly watching, I could not help reflecting upon a
still further problem which now presented itself. The very last person
in the world whom I should have suspected of being connected with the
strange affair at Stretton Street was my affable friend the French
banker. I now began to wonder if my first meeting with him in the
express train between York and King's Cross just before my amazing
adventure had been simply by chance, or had it any connection between
that meeting and the trap which had, without a doubt, been so
cunningly prepared for me as I passed through Stretton Street to my
uncle's house on the following evening.
The fact that I had again met the mysterious Suzor at the Gare du
Nord, in Paris, just as I was on my way back to London to pursue
further inquiries was, in itself, suspicious. I confess that I sat
utterly bewildered. One thing was plain, namely, that he had no
suspicion that I was keeping such close observation upon Gabrielle. I
knew where she lived, and to me he had given his hotel address.
At last, after quite twenty minutes of serious conversation, the
stout, flat-footed servant returned, and after a few pleasant words
with her, Suzor rose, and raising his hat, left them.
Instantly it occurred to me that, as I knew the girl's abode, it would
be more useful perhaps to watch the movements of my friend the French
banker.
He took the path which skirted the lake, and then cut down the
straight way which leads to Alexandra Gate into Rotten Row, while I
followed him far behind though I kept him well in sight. He went
swiftly at a swinging pace, for he had apparently grown cold while
seated there in the north wind. The ground was hard and frosty, and
the sky grey and lowering, with every evidence that a snowstorm might
be expected.
He walked the whole length of Rotten Row, that leafy way which is so
animated when social London disports itself in the season, and which
on a black wintry afternoon, when the smart set are on the Riviera or
in Egypt, is so dull and deserted. At Hyde Park Corner he turned along
Piccadilly, until he hailed a passing taxi, to the driver of which he
gave deliberate instructions.
I glanced around, and very fortunately saw another disengaged taxi,
which I entered, giving the man instructions to keep the other in
view, with a promise of double fare. Instantly the man entered into
the spirit of the enterprise, and away we went towards the Circus, and
thence by way of Oxford Street to the Euston Road, where before a
small private hotel quite close to the station Suzor descended, and,
paying the man, entered.
For three hours I waited outside, but he did not emerge. Then I went
to the Carlton, and from the reception-clerk ascertained that Monsieur
Suzor was staying there, but he did not always sleep there. Sometimes
he would be absent for two or three nights. He went away into the
country, the smart young clerk believed.
Hence I established the curious fact that Gaston Suzor when in London
had two places of abode, one in that best-known hotel, and the other
in the obscurity of a frowsy house patronized by lower-class visitors
to London.
What could be the motive, I wondered?
I returned to the Carlton at midnight and inquired for Monsieur Suzor.
The night-clerk told me that he had not yet returned.
So I went back to the cold cheerlessness of Rivermead Mansions, and
slept until the following morning.
At each turn I seemed to be confronted by mystery which piled upon
mystery. Ever before my eyes I saw that handsome girl lying cold and
lifeless, and I had forged a certificate in the name of a well-known
medical man, upon which her body had been reduced to ashes! That I had
acted as accomplice to some cunning and deliberate crime I could not
disguise from myself. It was now up to me to make amends before God
and man, to strive to solve the enigma and to bring the guilty persons
to justice.
This was what I was endeavouring, with all my soul, to accomplish.
Yet the point was whether Gabrielle Engledue was really dead, or
whether she still existed in the person of Gabrielle Tennison. That
was the first fact for me to establish.
Next morning I rose early and gazed across the cold misty Thames to
the great factories and wharves upon the opposite bank. The outlook
was indeed dull and dispiriting, I stood recalling how Moroni had
walked with the beautiful girl in the streets of Florence, unwillingly
it seemed, for he certainly feared lest his companion be recognized. I
also recollected the strange conversation I had heard with my own
ears, and the curious attitude which little Mrs. Cullerton had adopted
towards me, even though she had revealed to me the whereabouts of
Gabrielle Tennison.
My breakfast was ready soon after eight o'clock, and afterwards I went
to Earl's Court to watch the house in Longridge Road. By dint of
careful inquiries in the neighbourhood I was told that Mrs. Tennison
had gone away a few days before--to Paris, they believed.
"The young lady, Miss Tennison, appears to be rather peculiar," I
remarked casually to a woman at a baker's shop near by, after she had
told me that she served them with bread.
"Yes, poor young lady!" replied the woman. "She's never been the same
since she was taken ill last November. They say she sustained some
great shock which so upset her that her mind is now a little affected.
Old Mrs. Alford, the servant there, tells me that the poor girl will
go a whole day and never open her mouth. She's like one dumb!"
"How very curious!" I remarked. "I wonder what kind of shock it was
that caused such a change in her? Was she quite all right before
November?"
"Perfectly. She was a bright clever girl, and used often to come in
here to me for chocolate and cakes. She was full of life and
merriment. It is really pathetic to see her as she is nowadays. She
seems to be brooding over something, but what it is nobody can make
out."
"Very remarkable," I said. "I've noticed her about, and have wondered
at her attitude--like many others, I suppose."
"Yes. Her mother has taken her to a number of mental specialists, I
hear, but nobody seems to be able to do her any good. They say she's
suffered from some shock, but they can't tell exactly what it is,
because the young lady seems to have entirely lost her memory over a
certain period."
"Is Mrs. Tennison well off?" I asked.
"No--the reverse, I should think," the baker's wife replied. "I've
heard that Mr. Tennison was a very rich man, but when he died it was
found that he was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the widow was left
very poorly off."
It is curious what intimate knowledge the little tradespeople glean
about their neighbours, even in London. From the woman I gathered one
or two facts of interest.
I inquired if Mrs. Tennison had many visitors, whereupon she replied
in the negative, and added:
"There used to be an Italian gentleman who called very often a few
weeks ago. He often walked out with the young lady. Somebody said he
was a doctor, but I don't know if he was."
I asked the woman to tell me what he was like, when she gave me an
accurate description of the mysterious doctor of the Via Cavezzo!
So Moroni had visited her there--in Longridge Road!
I tried to ascertain if Gaston Suzor had been there also, but my
informant had no knowledge of him. She had never seen him walking with
Gabrielle Tennison, as she had so often seen the Italian.
I remained for nearly half an hour chatting, retiring, of course, when
she was compelled to serve customers, and then I left her and walked
round to the house in Longridge Road, where I watched a little while,
and then returned to the Carlton.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
THE ABSOLUTE FACTS
"Monsieur Suzor has not yet returned," was the reply of the smart
reception-clerk when I inquired for the French banker. "But he is
often away for two or three days."
I left the hotel, and taking a taxi to the Euston Road made a thorough
examination of the high shabby house with its smoke-grimed lace
curtains, a place which bore over the fan-light the words "Private
Hotel." In the broad light of day it looked a most dull, uninviting
place; more so even than its neighbours. There are many such hotels in
the vicinity of Euston Station, and this seemed the most wretched of
them all, for the windows had not been cleaned for many months, while
the steps badly wanted scrubbing.
After I had thoroughly examined the place in front, I went round to
the back, where I discovered, to my surprise, that the house had an
exit at the rear through a mews into a drab, dull street which ran
parallel. Then, for the first time, the thought occurred to me that on
the previous day the Frenchman might have entered by the front door
and passed out by the back into the next street!
I waited an hour idling about, and then I went boldly to the door, and
knocked.
A black-haired, slatternly woman in a torn and soiled apron opened the
door slightly.
"We're full up," she snapped before I could speak. "We haven't any
room to let."
"I don't require a room," I replied politely. "I've called to see the
French gentleman you have staying here--Monsieur Suzor."
I thought she started at mention of the name, for she still held the
door ajar as though to prevent me from peering inside.
"We've got no French gent a-staying 'ere," she replied. "You've made a
mistake."
"But I saw him enter here last night."
"You must 'ave been mistaken," the woman said. "'E might 'ave gone
next door. They 'ave a lot of visitors."
"But you are full up--eh?"
"Yes--with our reg'lar residents," she answered promptly. But from her
nervousness of manner I knew she was not telling the truth. I was
positive that Suzor had entered there, but she denied all knowledge of
him. Why?
Without a doubt, while I had waited for him to emerge, he had passed
out by the back way. If so, was it possible that he had seen and
recognized me, and wished to escape unseen?
The house was certainly one of mystery. The woman was palpably
perturbed by my inquiry, and she seemed relieved when I turned away
with feigned disappointment.
"Try next door," she suggested, and disappeared.
As I walked along Euston Road in the direction of Tottenham Court
Road, I fell to wondering whether that frowsy house was one of those
which exist in various quarters of London where thieves and persons
hiding from the police can find sanctuary, and whether Suzor, knowing
that I had seen him, had escaped me by passing through to the back and
thus getting away!
I longed to know the character of the serious conversation he had had
with Gabrielle Tennison. That indeed was my object to discover, hence
that afternoon I still pursued my bold tactics and at about three
o'clock I rang the bell in Longridge Road.
That act, the true consequences of which I never dreamed, eventually
brought upon me a strange and sensational series of complications and
adventures so remarkable that I sometimes think that it is only by a
miracle I am alive to set down the facts in black and white.
The old woman-servant, Mrs. Alford, opened the door, whereupon I said:
"I trust you will excuse me, but as a matter of fact I am desirous of
a few minutes' private conversation with you."
She looked askance at me, and naturally. I was a perfect stranger, and
servants do not care to admit strangers to the house when their
mistress is absent.
"I know that this is Mrs. Tennison's house," I went on, "and also that
you are left in charge of Miss Gabrielle. It is about her that I wish
to consult you. I think I may be able to tell you something of
interest," and I handed her my card.
Mrs. Alford read the name, but at first she seemed rather disinclined
to admit me. Indeed, not until I had further whetted her curiosity by
again telling her that I could give her some interesting information,
did she show me upstairs to the cosy maisonnette on the first floor.
It was a large house which had been divided into two residences, one
the basement and ground floor, and the other the first and second
floors. It was in the latter that Mrs. Tennison lived.
She ushered me into a pretty drawing-room, small, but very tastefully
furnished. In the adjoining room someone was playing a piano; no doubt
it was Gabrielle.
"Well, Mrs. Alford," I began. "I have ventured to call here because I
have learned of Miss Gabrielle's unfortunate mental condition, and
perhaps I may have a key to it."
"What--do you know something, sir?" asked the stout buxom woman, for
the first time impressed by my seriousness. "Do you know anything of
what happened?"
"Perhaps," was my non-committal reply. "But first, I wish you to
respect my confidence. I know you'll do that in the interests of the
poor young lady."
"I'll do anything in her interests, sir," she replied, and invited me
to take a seat, she herself remained standing, as a servant should.
"Well, then, say nothing to your mistress, or to anyone else regarding
my visit. First, I want you to answer one or two questions so as to
either confirm or negative certain suspicions which I hold."
"Suspicions of what?" she asked.
"I will reveal those in due course," I replied. "Now, tell me what
happened to Miss Gabrielle that she should be in her present mental
state?"
"Nobody can tell, sir. She went out one evening in November to go to
her dancing lesson, and was not seen again until six days later, when
she was found on the Portsmouth Road half-way between Liphook and
Petersfield. She had evidently walked a considerable distance and was
on her way towards London, when she collapsed at the roadside. A
carter discovered her, gave warning to the police at Petersfield, and
she was taken to the hospital, where it was found that her memory had
entirely gone. She could not recognize her mother or anyone else."
"On what date did she disappear?" I asked breathlessly.
"On November the seventh."
I held my breath. It was on the day of my startling adventure.
"Would you describe to me the exact circumstances?" I asked eagerly.
"I may be able to throw a very interesting light upon the affair."
The woman hesitated. Perhaps it was but natural.
"Well," she said at last. "My mistress is away. I think you ought to
see her, sir."
"Why, Mrs. Alford? You are the trusted servant of the family, and
surely you know the whole facts?"
"I do," she answered in a low, tense voice. "They are most
remarkable."
"Then tell me all you know, and in return I will try to explain some
matters which are no doubt to you and to Mrs. Tennison a mystery."
"Well, after tea on the day in question, the seventh of November, Miss
Gabrielle went out to go to Addison Road to Mrs. Gill's dancing class.
She was in the best of health and in high spirits because she had that
morning received an invitation to go and stay with her cousin Leonora
at Newmarket on the following Wednesday. As far as we know she had not
a single trouble in the world."
"She had no admirers--eh?"
"Yes, several. But she had no serious flirtations, as far as we can
make out," replied Mrs. Alford. "Her mother had gone to pay a visit,
and when Miss Gabrielle went out she told me that she would be home at
nine o'clock. Though we waited till midnight she did not return. We
remained up all night, and next morning when I went to Mrs. Gill, in
Addison Road, I found that she had left there at half-past six to
return home. We then went to Kensington Police Station, and gave her
description to the police."
"What was their theory?" I asked.
"They thought she had left home of her own accord--that she had a
lover in secret. At least, the inspector hinted at that suggestion."
"Of course her mother was frantic," I remarked. "But had you no
suspicion of any person posing as her friend?"
"None. It was not till six days later--about one o'clock in the day,
when a constable called and told Mrs. Tennison that a young lady
answering the description of her daughter had been found at the
roadside, and had been taken to the cottage hospital at Petersfield.
We both took the next train from Waterloo, and on arrival at the
hospital found the poor girl lying in bed. But so strange was her
manner that she was unable to recognize either of us. All she could
say were the words 'Red, green and gold!' and she shuddered in horror
as though the colours terrified her. These words she constantly
repeated--'red, green and gold!'--'red, green and gold!'"
"What was the doctor's opinion?"
"He was as much puzzled as we were, sir. Apparently my poor young
mistress was found early in the morning lying in the hedge on the main
Portsmouth Road. Her clothes were wet, for it had rained during the
night. Her boots were very muddy, and her clothes in an awful state.
She seemed as if she had wandered about for hours. But all she could
say to us were the words: 'Red, green and gold.'"
"Did not she recognize her mother?" I inquired.
"No, sir. She hasn't recognized her--even now!"
"Doctors have seen her, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, half a dozen of them--including Doctor Moroni, the great
Italian doctor. He took her to Florence for treatment, but it did her
no good--none in the least."
"How did you know Moroni?" I asked quickly.
"I think he became interested in her through one of the doctors to
whom Mrs. Tennison took her."
"Mrs. Tennison did not know Moroni before this affair?" I inquired.
"No, sir. Not to my knowledge. He's a very nice gentleman, and has
been awfully kind to Miss Gabrielle," replied Mrs. Alford. "Like all
the other doctors he thinks that she has sustained some very severe
shock--but of what nature nobody can tell."
"What other doctor has seen her?" I asked.
"Oh!--well, Sir Charles Wendover, in Cavendish Square, has taken a
great interest in her. He has seen her several times, but seems unable
to restore her to her normal state of mind."
Sir Charles was one of our greatest mental specialists, I knew, and if
he had been unable to do anything, then her case must be hopeless.
"But Doctor Moroni took her away to Italy," I said. "For what reason?"
"He took her to Professor Casuto, of Florence--I think that's the
name--but he could do nothing, so she was brought back again."
"Now tell me frankly, Mrs. Alford," I said, looking the stout,
well-preserved woman full in the face. "Have you ever heard the name
of De Gex--a rich gentleman who lives in Stretton Street, just off
Park Lane?"
"De Gex!" she repeated, her countenance assuming a blank expression.
"Yes, I've heard of him. I've read of him in the papers. He's a
millionaire, they say."
"You have never heard of him in connexion with Miss Tennison? Is she
acquainted with him?"
"Not to my knowledge. Why do you ask?"
"I have a distinct reason for asking," was my reply. "Remember that I
am seeking to solve the enigma of your young mistress's present
extraordinary state of mind. Any information you can give me will
assist me towards that end."
As I spoke I heard a sweet contralto voice in the adjoining room break
out into a song from one of the popular revues. It was Gabrielle's
voice, I knew.
"All the information I possess, sir, is at you
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