The Place of Dragons: A Mystery
by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #40434 · 465,828 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Place of Dragons: A Mystery
Author: William Le Queux
Release date: August 8, 2012 [eBook #40434]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLACE OF DRAGONS: A MYSTERY ***
THE PLACE OF DRAGONS
A MYSTERY
By
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
Author of "In White Raiment," "If Sinners Entice Thee,"
"The Room of Secrets," etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
MADE IN ENGLAND
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I PRESENTS A PROBLEM 5
II IS MAINLY ASTONISHING 12
III SHOWS LIGHT FROM THE MIST 22
IV OPENS SEVERAL QUESTIONS 30
V IN WHICH THE SHADOW FALLS 38
VI MYSTERY INEXPLICABLE 44
VII TELLS OF TWO MEN 52
VIII REMAINS AN ENIGMA 60
IX DESCRIBES A NIGHT VIGIL 67
X CONTAINS A CLUE 73
XI THE AFFAIR OF THE SEVENTEENTH 81
XII LOLA 87
XIII RELATES A STRANGE STORY 95
XIV WHEREIN CONFESSION IS MADE 103
XV CONFIRMS CERTAIN SUSPICIONS 110
XVI WHERE TWO C'S MEET 118
XVII REVEALS ANOTHER PLOT 125
XVIII DONE IN THE NIGHT 131
XIX RECORDS FURTHER FACTS 139
XX ANOTHER DISCOVERY IS MADE 145
XXI EXPLAINS LOLA'S FEARS 152
XXII THE ROAD OF RICHES 160
XXIII FOLLOWS THE ELUSIVE JULES 166
XXIV MAKES A STARTLING DISCLOSURE 173
XXV IS MORE MYSTERIOUS 181
XXVI HOT-FOOT ACROSS EUROPE 188
XXVII OPENS A DEATH-TRAP 196
XXVIII DESCRIBES A CHASE 204
XXIX THE HOUSE IN HAMPSTEAD 212
XXX NARRATES A STARTLING AFFAIR 219
XXXI "SHEEP OF THY PASTURE" 227
XXXII THE TENTS OF UNGODLINESS 235
XXXIII DISCLOSES A STRANGE TRUTH 241
XXXIV CONCERNS TO-DAY 250
THE PLACE OF DRAGONS
CHAPTER I
PRESENTS A PROBLEM
"Curious affair, isn't it?"
"Very."
"Now, you're a bit of a mystery-monger, Vidal. What's your theory--eh?"
"I haven't one," I replied with a smile.
"I knew the old boy quite well by sight. Didn't you?" asked my friend,
Major Keppell, as we stood gossiping together in the doorway of the
_Hôtel de Paris_, high up on the cliff opposite the pier at Cromer.
"Perfectly. His habit was to go down the slope yonder, to the pier each
morning at ten, and to remain there till eleven," I said. "I used to
watch him every morning. He went as regularly as the clock, wet or
fine."
"A bit eccentric, I thought," remarked the Major, standing astride in
his rough golfing clothes, and puffing at his briar pipe. "Quite a
character for a novel--eh?" and he laughed. "You'll do a book about this
strange affair--what?"
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled, as I replied: "Not very likely, I
think. Yet the circumstances are, to say the least, extremely curious."
"They are, from all I hear," said my friend. Then, glancing at his
wristlet watch, he exclaimed: "By Jove!--nearly seven! I must get in and
dress for dinner. See you later."
With this he passed through the swing-doors of the hotel, leaving me
standing upon the short sweep of gravel gazing out upon the summer sea,
golden in the glorious June sunset.
The Major had spoken the truth. A discovery had been made in Cromer that
morning which possessed many remarkable features, and to me, an
investigator of crime, it presented an extremely interesting
problem--one such as I, Herbert Vidal, had never before heard of.
Briefly related, the facts were as follows. Early in February--four
months before--there had arrived in Cromer a queer, wizened, little old
man named Vernon Gregory. He was accompanied by his nephew, a rather
dandified, overdressed young fellow of twenty-three, named Edward Craig.
Strangers are very few in Cromer in winter, and therefore Mrs. Dean,
landlady of Beacon House, on the West Cliff, a few doors west of the
_Hôtel de Paris_, where the asphalted footpath runs along the top of the
cliff, was very glad to let the new-comers the first-floor front
sitting-room with two bedrooms above.
In winter and spring, Cromer, high and bleak, and swept by the wild,
howling winds from the grey North Sea, its beach white with the spume of
storm, is practically deserted. The hotels, with the exception of the
_Paris_, are closed, the boarding-houses are mostly shut, and the
landladies who let apartments wait weeks and weeks in vain for the
arrival of a chance visitor. In August, however, the place overflows
with visitors, all of the best class, and for six weeks each year Cromer
becomes one of the gayest little towns on the breezy East Coast.
So, all through the spring, with its grey, wet days, when the spindrift
swept in a haze across the promenade, old Mr. Gregory was a familiar
figure taking his daily walk, no matter how inclement the weather.
In appearance he was unusual, and seedy. His bony face was long, thin,
and grey; a countenance that was broad at the brow and narrowed to a
pointed chin. He had a longish white beard, yet his deep-set eyes with
their big bushy brows were so dark and piercing that the fire of youth
seemed still to burn within them. He was of medium height, rather
round-shouldered, and walked with a decided limp, aided by a stout ash
stick. Invariably he wore an old, dark grey, mackintosh cape, very
greasy at the collar; black trousers, old and baggy; boots very down at
heel; and on his mass of long white hair a broad-brimmed felt hat, which
gave him the appearance of a musician, or an artist.
Sometimes, on rare occasions, his well-dressed nephew walked with
him--but very seldom were they together.
Craig was a tall, well-set-up young fellow, who generally wore a drab
golf-suit, smoked cigarettes eternally, and frequently played billiards
at the _Red Lion_. He was also a golfer and well known on the links for
the excellence of his play.
Between uncle and nephew there was nothing in common. Craig had dropped
a hint that he was down there with his relative "just to look after the
old boy." He undoubtedly preferred London life, and it was stated that a
few years before he had succeeded to a large estate somewhere on the
Welsh border.
The residents of Cromer are as inquisitive as those of most small towns.
Therefore, it was not very long after the arrival of this curious
couple, that everybody knew that old Mr. Gregory was concealing the fact
that he was head of the famous Sheffield armour-plate making firm,
Messrs. Gregory and Thorpe, though he now took but little part in the
active work of the world-famed house that rolled plates for Britain's
mighty "Dreadnoughts."
Cromer, on learning his identity, at once regarded old Gregory's queer
figure with due reverence. His parsimonious ways, the clockwork
regularity with which he took his morning walk, bought his daily paper
at Munday's Library, and took his afternoon stroll up past the
coast-guard station, or towards the links, or along the Overstrand or
Sheringham roads, were looked upon as the eccentricities of an immensely
wealthy man.
In rich men the public tolerate idiosyncrasies, that in poorer persons
are declared to betoken either lunacy, or that vague excuse for the
contravention of the conventionalities known as "the artistic
temperament." Many men have actually earned reputations, and even
popularity, by the sheer force of cultivated eccentricities. With
professional men eccentricity is one of the pegs on which their astute
press-agents can always hang a paragraph.
In the case of Mr. Vernon Gregory, as he limped by, the good
shop-keeping public of Cromer looked after him with benevolent glances.
He was the great steel magnate who ate frugally, who grumbled loudly at
Mrs. Dean if his weekly bill exceeded that of the City clerk and his
wife who had occupied the same rooms for a fortnight in the previous
July. He was pointed at with admiration as the man of millions who eked
out every scuttleful of coal as though it were gold.
Undoubtedly Mr. Gregory was a person of many eccentricities. From his
secretary in Sheffield he daily received a bulky package of
correspondence, and this, each morning, was attended to by his nephew.
Yet the old man always made a point of posting all the letters with his
own hand, putting them into the box at the post-office opposite the
church.
Sometimes, but only at rare intervals--because, as he declared, "it was
so very costly"--Mr. Gregory hired an open motor-car from Miller's
garage. On such occasions, Craig, who was a practised motorist, would
drive, and the pair would go on long day excursions towards Yarmouth, or
Hunstanton, or inland to Holt or Norwich. At such times the old man
would don many wraps, and a big blue muffler, and wear an unsightly pair
of goggles.
Again, the old fellow preferred to do much of his shopping himself, and
it was no uncommon sight to see him in the street carrying home
two-pennyworth of cream in a little jug. Hence the good people of Cromer
grew to regard their out-of-season visitor as a harmless, but
philanthropic old buffer, for his hand was in his pocket for every local
charity. His amusements were as frugal as his housekeeping. During the
spring his only recreation was a visit to the cinema at the Town Hall
twice a week. When, however, the orchestral concerts commenced on the
pier, he became a constant attendant at them.
So small is Cromer, with its narrow streets near the sea, that in the
off-season strangers are constantly running into each other. Hence, I
frequently met old Gregory, and on such occasions we chatted about the
weather, or upon local topics. His voice was strangely high-pitched,
thin, but not unmusical. Indeed, he was a great lover of music, as was
afterwards shown by his constant attendance at the pier concerts.
His nephew, Craig, was what the people of Cromer, in vulgar parlance,
dubbed a "nut." He was always immaculately dressed, wore loud socks,
seemed to possess a dozen styles of hats, and was never seen without
perfectly clean wash-leather gloves. He laughed loudly, talked loudly,
displayed money freely and put on patronizing airs which filled those
who met him with an instinctive dislike.
I first made his acquaintance in April in the cosy bar of the _Albion_,
where, after a long walk one morning, I went to quench my thirst. Craig
was laughing with the barmaid and gingerly lighting a cigarette. Having
passed me by many times, he now addressed a casual remark to me, to
which I politely responded, and we got into conversation. But, somehow,
his speech jarred upon me, and, like his personal appearance, struck an
unpleasant note, for his white shoes and pale blue socks, his light
green Tyrolese hat, and his suit of check tweeds distinctly marked him
as being more of a cad than a gentleman.
I remarked that I had walked to Overstrand, whereupon he asked--
"Did you chance to meet my uncle? He's gone out that way, somewhere."
I replied in the negative.
"Wonderful old boy, you know," he went on. "Walks me clean right out!
But oh! such a dreadful old bore! Always talking about what he did in
the seventies, and how much better life was then than now. I don't
believe it. Do you?"
"I hardly know," was my reply. "I wasn't old enough then to appreciate
life."
"Neither was I," he responded. "But really, these eccentric old people
ought all to be put in an asylum. You don't know what I have to put up
with. I tell you, it's a terrible self-sacrifice to be down in this
confounded hole, instead of being on the Riviera in decent sunny
weather, and in decent society."
"Your uncle is always extremely pleasant to me when I meet him," I said.
"Ah, yes, but you don't know him, my dear sir," said his nephew. "He's
the very Old Nick himself sometimes, and his eccentricities border upon
insanity. Why, only last night, before he went to bed, he put on his
bed-gown, cut two wings out of brown paper, pinned them on his back, and
fancied himself the Archangel Gabriel. Last week he didn't speak to me
for two days because I bought a box of sardines. He declares they are
luxuries and he can't afford them--he, with an income of forty thousand
a year!"
"Rich men are often rather niggardly," I remarked.
"Oh, yes. But with Uncle Vernon it's become a craze. He shivers with
cold at night but won't have a fire in his bedroom because, he says,
coals are so dear."
I confess I did not like this young fellow. Why should he reveal all his
private grievances to me, a perfect stranger?
"Why did your uncle come to Cromer?" I asked. "This place is hardly a
winter resort, except for a few golfers."
"Oh, because when he was in Egypt last winter, some fool of a woman he
met at the _Savoy_ in Cairo, told him that Cromer was so horribly
healthy in the winter, and that if he spent six months each year in this
God-forgotten place, he'd live to be a hundred. Bad luck to her and her
words! I've had to come here with the old boy, and am their victim."
Then he added warmly: "My dear sir, just put yourself in my place. I've
nobody to talk to except the provincial Norfolk tradespeople, who think
they can play a good game at billiards. I've got the absolute hump, I
tell you frankly!"
Well, afterwards I met the loud-socked young man more frequently, but
somehow I had taken a violent and unaccountable dislike to him. Why, I
cannot tell, except perhaps that he had disgusted me by the way he
unbosomed himself to a stranger and aired his grievances against his
eccentric uncle.
To descend that asphalted slope which led, on the face of the cliff,
from the roadway in front of the _Hôtel de Paris_, away to the
Promenade, old Gregory had to pass beneath my window. Hence I saw him
several times daily, and noted how the brown-bloused fishermen who
lounged there hour after hour, gazing idly seaward, leaning upon the
railings and gossiping, respectfully touched their caps to the limping,
eccentric old gentleman who in his slouch hat and cape looked more like
a poet than a steel magnate, and who so regularly took the fresh,
bracing air on that breezy promenade.
On that morning--the morning of the twelfth of June--a startling rumour
had spread through the town. It at once reached me through Charles, the
head-waiter of the hotel, who told me the whole place was agog. The
strange story was that old Mr. Gregory had at three o'clock that morning
been found by a coast-guard lying near a seat on the top of the east
cliff at a point near the links, from which a delightful view could be
obtained westward over the town towards Rimton and Sheringham.
The coast-guard had at once summoned a doctor by telephone, and on
arrival the medical man had pronounced the mysterious old gentleman
dead, and, moreover, that he had been dead several hours.
More than that, nobody knew, except that the dead man's nephew could not
be found.
That fact in itself was certainly extraordinary, but it was not half so
curious, or startling, as certain other features of the amazing affair,
which were now being carefully withheld from the public by the
police--facts, which when viewed as a whole, formed one of the most
inexplicable criminal problems ever presented for solution.
CHAPTER II
IS MAINLY ASTONISHING
In virtue of the facts that I was well known in Cromer, on friendly
terms with the local superintendent of police, and what was more to the
purpose, known to be a close friend of the Chief Constable at
Norwich--also that I was a recognized writer of some authority upon
problems of crime--Inspector Treeton, of the Norfolk Constabulary,
greeted me affably when, after a very hasty breakfast, I called at the
police station.
Treeton was a thin, grey-haired man, usually very quiet and thoughtful
in manner, but this staggering affair had quite upset his normal
coolness.
"I expect the detectives over from Norwich in half an hour," he said,
with a distinct trace of excitement in his tones, as we stood in his
bare little office discussing the morning's discovery. "You being such a
close friend of the Chief Constable, I don't suppose there'll be any
objection whatever to your being present during our investigations."
All the same, his tone was somewhat dubious as he added cautiously, "You
won't, of course, give anything to the Press?"
"Certainly not," I replied. "You can rely upon my discretion. This isn't
the first mystery I have assisted the police to investigate. This sort
of thing is, so to speak, part of my profession."
"Yes," said Treeton, still with some hesitation, "so I understand, Mr.
Vidal. But our people are terribly particular, as you know, about
admitting unofficial persons into police work. No offence. But we are
bound to be very careful."
"If you like, I'll 'phone to the Chief Constable," I suggested.
"No, sir. No need for that," he said hastily. "When the plain-clothes
men arrive, I don't think any difficulty will be made as to your
accompanying them." Then he added, as if to give the conversation a
turn, "It's a very queer business, very. But I mustn't talk about it at
present. No doubt you'll soon see for yourself what a strange affair it
is."
"What is the curious feature, then?" I inquired anxiously.
"No," said Treeton, with a deprecatory gesture. "No. Mr. Vidal. Don't
ask me. You must wait till the officers come from Norwich. They'll have
a surprise, I can assure you they will. That's all I can say. I've taken
care to have everything kept as it was found so as not to interfere with
any clues, finger-prints, or things of that sort."
"Ah," I said. "Then you suspect foul play, eh?"
Treeton flushed slightly, as if annoyed with himself at having let slip
the words that prompted my query.
Then he said slowly: "Well, at present we can't tell. But there's
certainly something very mysterious about the whole business."
"Where is the body?"
"They've put it in the life-boat house."
"And that young fellow, Craig? I hear he's missing."
The Inspector looked at me with a strange expression on his face.
"Ah," he said briefly, "that isn't the only remarkable feature of this
affair by any manner of means." Then impatiently: "I wish they'd come. I
'phoned to Norwich at six o'clock this morning, and now it's nearly ten.
They might have come over in a car, instead of waiting for the train."
"Yes," I responded. "That is how so many inquiries are bungled. Red tape
and delay. In the meantime a criminal often gets away hours ahead of the
sleuths of the law and eventually may escape altogether. I've known a
dozen cases where, because of the delay in making expert investigation,
the culprit has never been caught."
As I spoke the telephone bell tinkled and Treeton answered the call. The
Superintendent at Holt was asking for information, but my companion
could give him but very little.
"I am watching the railway-station, sir," said Treeton over the 'phone,
"and I've sent word to all the fishermen in my district not to take out
any strangers. I've also warned all the garages to let me know if any
stranger hires a car. The party we fancy may be wanted won't be able to
get away if he's still in the district."
"Which is not very likely," I murmured in a low voice so that my words
should not be heard over the wire.
When the conversation over the phone was ended, I sat chatting with
Treeton, until, some twenty minutes later, three men, bearing
unmistakably the cut of police-officers in plain clothes, entered the
station.
Two of them were tall, dark-haired young fellows, dressed in neat
navy-blue serge and wearing bowler hats. The third man, Inspector
Frayne, as I learnt afterwards, was in dark grey, with a soft grey felt
hat with the brim turned down in front.
"Well Treeton," said the Inspector briskly, "what's all the fuss about
down here?"
"A case--a very funny case. That's all," replied the local inspector. "I
told you over the 'phone all I know about it."
Then followed a brief, low-pitched conversation between the two
officers. I saw Frayne look over at me inquisitively, and caught a few
snatches of Treeton's words to him. "Great personal friend of the Chief
Constable.... Yes, quite all right.... Writes about crime.... No, no,
nothing to do with newspapers ... amateur, of course ... decent sort."
I gathered from this that there was going to be no difficulty about my
joining the party of police investigators. I was right. In a few moments
Treeton brought Inspector Frayne over to me and we were introduced.
Then, after a few friendly words, we started for the scene of the
startling discovery of the morning.
We slipped out of the station in pairs, so as to avoid attracting
attention, which might have led to our being followed and hampered in
our movements by a crowd of idle and curious inhabitants.
Proceeding by way of the path which wound round the back of the high-up
coast-guard station and so up over the cliff, we soon came to the seat
where the body of old Mr. Gregory had been found.
The seat, a green-painted one with a curved back, that had more than
once afforded me a comfortable resting-place, was the first out of the
town towards the links. It was situate a little way from the footpath
amid the rough grass of the cliff-top. Around it the herbage never grew
on account of the constant tread from the feet of many daily visitors,
so that clear about it was a small patch of bare sand.
On the right, upon the next point of the cliff, was another similar
seat, while on the left the path leading back to the town was railed
off because it was dangerous to approach too near the crumbling edge.
At the seat stood a very tall, thin, fair-haired young constable who
had, since the discovery of old Gregory's body, remained on duty at the
spot to prevent any one approaching it. This was done by Treeton's
orders, who hoped, and very logically, that if the sand about the seat
was not disturbed some tell-tale mark or footprint might be found by the
detectives that would give a clue to the person or persons who had
visited the seat with old Gregory in the early hours of that fatal
morning.
Near the constable were two men with cameras, and at a little distance a
small knot of curious idlers, all that remained of the many inquisitive
folks who were at first attracted to the spot, but who, finding nothing
to satisfy their curiosity, had soon returned to the town.
The morning was bright and calm, the sunlight reflected from a glassy
sea, upon the surface of which were a dozen or so fishing-boats lifting
their crab-pots, for the crabs of Cromer are far-famed amongst epicures
for their excellencies. It was a peaceful, happy scene, that none could
have suspected was the setting of a ghastly tragedy.
On arrival, Inspector Frayne, tall, grey-haired, with aquiline,
clean-shaven face, assumed an attitude of ubiquitous importance that
amused me.
"The body was found lying face downwards six feet beyond the south end
of the seat," Treeton explained. "You see this mark in the grass?"
Looking, we all saw distinctly the impression that marked the spot where
the unfortunate man had lain.
"No doubt," said the detective inspector, "the old gentleman was sitting
on the seat when he was attacked from behind by somebody who sneaked
quietly across the footpath, and he fell sideways from the seat. Have
you looked for footprints?"
"There are a number of them, as you see," was Treeton's reply. "Nothing
has been disturbed. I left all to you."
Gazing around, I saw that there were many prints of soles and heels in
the soft sand about the seat. Many people had evidently sat there on the
previous day. In the sand, too, some one had traced with a stick, in
sprawly capitals, the word "Alice."
Frayne and his two provincial assistants bent and closely examined the
prints in question.
"Women's mostly, I should say," remarked the detective inspector after a
pause. "That's plain from the French heels, flat golf-shoe soles, and
narrow rubber-pads, that have left their marks behind them. Better take
some casts of these, Phelps," he said, addressing the elder of his
subordinates.
"Forgive me for making a remark," I ventured. "I'm not a detective, but
it strikes me that if anybody did creep across the grass from the path,
as the Inspector rightly suggested, to attack the old man, he, or she,
may have left some prints in the rear there. In the front here the
footprints we have been examining are obviously those of people who had
been sitting upon the seat long prior to the arrival of the victim."
"I quite agree, Mr. Vidal," exclaimed Treeton, and at this I thought the
expert from Norwich seemed somewhat annoyed. "Yes," continued the local
inspector, "it's quite possible, as Mr. Frayne said, that somebody did
creep across the grass behind the old man. But unfortunately, there have
been dozens of people over that very same spot this morning."
"Hopeless then!" grunted Frayne. "Why on earth, Treeton, did you let
them swarm over there?" he queried testily. "Their doing so has rendered
our inquiry a hundred per cent. more difficult. In all such cases the
public ought to be rigorously kept from the immediate neighbourhood of
the crime."
"At least we can make a search," I suggested.
"My dear Mr. Vidal, what is the use if half Cromer has been up here
prying about?" asked the detective impatiently. "No, those feminine
footprints in front of the seat are much more likely to help us. There's
bound to be a woman in such a case as this. My motto in regard to crime
mysteries is, first find the woman, and the rest is easy. In every great
problem the 'eternal feminine,' as you writers put it, is ever present.
She is in this one somewhere, you may depend upon it."
I did not answer him, judging that he merely emitted these sentiments in
order to impress his listening subordinates with a due sense of his
superior knowledge. But the search went on.
From the footpath across the grass to the seat was about thirty feet,
and over the whole area all of us made diligent investigation. In one of
the patches where the sand was bare of herbage I found the print of a
woman's shoe--a smart little shoe--size 3, I judged it to be. The sole
was well shaped and pointed, the heel was of the latest fashionable
model--rather American than French.
I at once pointed it out to Frayne, but though he had so strongly
expressed the opinion that there was a woman in the case, he dismissed
it with a glance.
"Some woman came here yesterday evening with her sweetheart, I suppose,"
he said with a laugh.
But to me that footprint was distinctly instructive, for among the many
impressed on the sand before the seat, I had not detected one that bore
any resemblance to it. The owner of that American shoe had walked from
the path to the back of the seat, but had certainly not sat down there.
I carefully marked the spot, and telling an old fisherman of my
acquaintance, who stood by, to allow no one to obliterate it, continued
my investigations.
Three feet behind the seat, in the midst of the trodden grass, I came
upon two hairpins lying close together. Picking them up, I found they
were rather thick, crinkled in the middle, and both of the same pale
bronze shade.
Was it possible there had been a struggle there--a struggle with the
woman who wore those American shoes--who was, moreover, a fair woman, if
those pins had fallen from her hair in the encounter?
I showed the hairpins to Frayne who was busy taking a measurement of the
distance from the seat to where the body had been found.
To my surprise, he seemed impatient and annoyed.
"My dear Mr. Vidal," he exclaimed, "you novelists are, I fear, far too
imaginative. I dare say there are hundreds of hairpins about here in the
grass if we choose to search for them. This seat is a popular resort for
visitors by day and a trysting place for lovers after sundown. In the
vicinity of any such seat you will always find hairpins, cigarette ends,
wrappings from chocolates, and tinfoil. Look around you and see."
"But these pins have not been here more than a day," I expostulated.
"They are bright and were lying lightly on the grass. Besides, are we
not looking for a woman?"
"I'll admit that they may perhaps have belonged to somebody who was here
last evening," he said. "But I can assure you they are no good to us."
With this he turned away with rather a contemptuous smile.
I began to suspect that I had in some way antagonized Frayne, who at
that moment seemed more intent upon working up formal evidence to give
before the coroner, rather than in pushing forward the investigation of
the crime, and so finding a clue to the culprit.
I could see that he regarded the minute investigations I was making with
undisguised and contemptuous amusement. Of course, he was polite to me,
for was I not the friend of the Chief Constable? But, all the same, I
was an amateur investigator, therefore, in his eyes, a blunderer. He, of
course, did not know at how many investigations of crime I had assisted
in Paris, in Brussels, and in Rome--investigations conducted by the
greatest detectives in Europe.
It was not to be expected that an officer of the Norfolk Constabulary,
more used to petty larceny than to murder, would be so alert or so
thorough in his methods as an officer from Scotland Yard, or of the
_Sûreté_ in Paris.
Arguing thus, I felt that I could cheerfully disregard the covert sneers
and glances of my companions; and plunged with renewed interest into the
work I had undertaken.
In the sand before the seat, I saw two long, wide marks which told me
that old Mr. Gregory must have slipped from his position in a totally
helpless condition. That being so, how was it that his body was found
several feet away?
Had it been dragged to that spot in the grass? Or, had he crawled there
in his death agony?
In the little knot of people who had gathered I noticed a young
fisherman in his brown blouse--a tall youth, with fair curly hair, whom
I knew well and could trust. Calling him over, I despatched him to the
town for a couple of pounds of plaster of Paris, a bucket, some water,
and a trowel.
Then I went on methodically with my investigations.
Presently the coast-guard, George Simmonds, a middle-aged, dark-haired
man, who was a well-known figure in Cromer, came up and was introduced
to Frayne as the man who, returning from duty as night patrol along the
cliffs, early that morning, had discovered the body.
I stood by listening as he described the incident to the detective
inspector.
"You see, sir," he said saluting, "I'd been along the cuffs to
Trimingham, and was on my way back about a quarter past three, when I
noticed a man lying yonder on the grass. It was a fine morning, quite
light, and at first I thought it was a tramp, for they often sleep on
the cliffs in the warm weather. But on going nearer I saw, to my
surprise, that the man was old Mr. Gregory. I thought he was asleep, and
bent down and shook him, his face being downwards on the grass and his
arms stretched out. He didn't wake up, so I turned him over, and the
colour of his face fair startled me. I opened his coat, put my hand on
his heart, and found he was quite dead. I then ran along to our station
and told Mr. Day, the Chief Officer, and he sent me off sharp to the
police."
"You saw nobody about?" Frayne asked sharply. "Nobody passed you?"
"I didn't see a soul all the way from Trimingham."
"Constable Baxter was along there somewhere keeping a point," remarked
Treeton. "Didn't you meet him?"
"Going out I met him, just beyond Overstrand, at about one o'clock, and
wished him good morning," was the coast-guard's reply.
"But where is Craig, the young nephew of the dead man?" I asked Treeton.
"Surely he may know something! He must have missed his uncle, who,
apparently, was out all night."
"Ah! That's just the mystery, Mr. Vidal," replied the Inspector. "Let us
go down to the life-boat house," he added, addressing the detective.
As they were moving away, and I was about to follow, the tall
fisher-youth arrived with the plaster of Paris and a pail of water.
Promising to be with them quickly, I remained behind, mixed the plaster
into a paste and within a few minutes had secured casts of the imprint
of the woman's American shoe, and those of several other footmarks,
which, with his superior knowledge, the expert from Norwich had
considered beneath his notice.
Then, placing my casts carefully in the empty pail, I sent them along to
the _Hôtel de Paris_ by the same fisher-youth. Afterwards, I walked
along the path, passed behind the lawn of the coast-guard station, where
the White Ensign was flying on the flagstaff, and then descending, at
last entered the life-boat house, where the officers and three doctors
had assembled.
One of the doctors, named Sladen, a grey-headed practitioner who had
been many years in Cromer, recognized me as I entered.
"Hulloa, Mr. Vidal! This is a very curious case, isn't it? Interests
you, of course. All mysteries do, no doubt. But this case is astounding.
In making our examination, do you know we've discovered a most amazing
fact?" and he pointed to the plank whereon lay the body, covered with
one of the brown sails from the life-boat.
"No. What?" I asked eagerly.
"Well--though we all at first, naturally, took the body to be that of
old Vernon Gregory, it isn't his at all!"
"Not Gregory's?" I gasped.
"No. He has white hair and a beard, and he is wearing old Gregory's cape
and hat, but it certainly is not Gregory's body."
"Who, then, is the dead man?" I gasped.
"His nephew, Edward Craig!"
CHAPTER III
SHOWS LIGHTS FROM THE MIST
"But Edward Craig is a young man--while Gregory must be nearly seventy!"
I exclaimed, staring at Dr. Sladen in blank amazement.
"Exactly. I attended Mr. Gregory a month ago for influenza. But I tell
you the body lying yonder is that of young Craig!" declared my friend.
Then he added: "There is something very extraordinary about the whole
affair, for Craig was made up to exactly resemble his uncle."
"And because of it was apparently done to death, eh?"
"That is certainly my theory."
"Amazing," I exclaimed. "This increases the mystery very considerably."
Then, gazing around, I saw that the two doctors, who had assisted Sladen
in his examination, were talking aside eagerly with the detective, while
Mr. Day, a short thick-set man, with his white-covered cap removed in
the presence of the dead, had joined the party.
Cromer is a "war-station," and Mr. Day was a well-known figure in the
place, a fine active type of the British sailor, who had seen many years
afloat, and now, with his "sea-time" put in, was an expert signal-man
ashore. He noticed me and saluted.
"Look," exclaimed Dr. Sladen, taking me across to a bench against the
side of the life-boat shed. "What do you think of these?" and he took up
a white wig and a long white beard.
I examined them. Then slowly replied, "There is much, very much more, in
this affair than any of us can at present see."
"Certainly. Why should the young man go forth at night, under cover of
darkness, made up to exactly resemble the old one?"
"To meet somebody in secret, no doubt; and that somebody killed him," I
said.
"Did they--ah, that's just the point," said the doctor. "As far as we
can find there's no apparent cause of death, no wound whatever. The
superficial examination we have made only reveals a slight abrasion on
the left wrist, which might have been caused when he fell from the seat
to the ground. The wrist is much swollen--from a recent sprain, I think.
But beyond that we can find nothing."
"Won't you prosecute your examination further?" I asked.
"Certainly. This afternoon we shall make a post-mortem--after I get the
order from the coroner."
"Ah. Then we shall know something definite?"
"I hope so."
"Gentlemen," exclaimed Inspector Frayne, addressing us all, "this latest
discovery, of the identity of the victim, is a very extraordinary and
startling one. I trust that you will all regard the matter as one of the
greatest secrecy--at least till after the inquest. Publicity now may
defeat the ends of justice. Do you all promise?"
With one accord we promised. Then, crossing to where the body lay, I
lifted the heavy brown sail that covered it, and in the dim light gazed
upon the white, dead countenance.
Yes. It was the face of Edward Craig.
Frayne at that moment came up, and after two men had taken the covering
from the body, commenced to search the dead man's pockets. In the old
mackintosh cape was a pouch, from which the detective drew a small
wallet of crocodile leather, much worn, together with two letters. The
latter were carried to the light and at once examined.
One proved to be a bill from a well-known hatter in Piccadilly. The
superscription on the other envelope, of pale blue-grey paper, was
undoubtedly in the hand of an educated woman.
Frayne drew from this envelope a sheet of notepaper, which bore neither
address nor date, merely the words--
"At Ealing, at 10 p.m., on the twenty-ninth of August, where the two C's
meet."
"Ah, an appointment," remarked Frayne. Then, looking at the post-mark,
he added: "It was posted the day before yesterday at Bridlington. I
wonder what it means?"
"I see it is addressed to Mr. Gregory!" I pointed out, "not to the dead
man."
"Then the old man had an appointment on the twenty-ninth of August
somewhere in Ealing--where the two C's meet. I wonder where that can be?
Some agreed-on spot, I suppose, where two persons, whose initials are C,
are in the habit of meeting."
"Probably," was my reply. But I was reflecting deeply.
In the wallet were four five-pound notes; a few of Gregory's cards; a
letter from a local charity, thanking him for a contribution of two
guineas; and a piece of paper bearing a number of very elaborate
calculations, apparently of measured paces.
It seemed as though the writer had been working out some very difficult
problem of distances, for the half-sheet of quarto paper was absolutely
covered with minute pencilled figures; lengths in metres apparently.
I looked at them, and at a glance saw that old Gregory had either
received his education abroad, or had lived for a long time upon the
continent when a young man. Why? Because, when he made a figure seven,
he drew a short cross-stroke half-way up the downward stroke, in order,
as foreigners do, to distinguish it from the figure one.
"I wonder what all these sums can mean?" remarked the detective, as
Treeton and I looked over his shoulder.
"Mr. Gregory was a business man," the local police officer said. "These
are, no doubt, his things, not his nephew's."
"They seem to be measurements," I said, "not sums of money."
"Perhaps the old man himself will tell us what they are," Frayne
remarked. Then again examining the wallet, he drew forth several slips
of thin foreign notepaper, which were carefully folded, and had the
appearance of having been carried there for a long time. Upon each was
written a separate word, together with a number, in carefully-formed
handwriting, thus--
"Lavelle 429; Kunzle 191; Geering 289; Souweine 17; Hodrickx 110."
The last one we opened contained the word, "Cromer 900," and I wondered
whether they were code words.
"These are rather funny, Mr. Vidal," Frayne remarked, as he slowly
replaced them in the wallet. "A little mysterious, eh?"
"No doubt, old Mr. Gregory will explain," I said. "The great puzzle to
me is why the nephew should carry the uncle's belongings in his
pockets. There was some deep motive in it, without a doubt."
Frayne returned to the body and made further search. There was nothing
more in the other pockets save a handkerchief, some loose silver and a
pocket-knife.
But, around the dead man's neck, suspended by a fine gold chain, and
worn beneath his shirt, was a lady's tiny, round locket, not more than
an inch in diameter, and engine-turned like a watch, a thin,
neatly-made, old-fashioned little thing.
Frayne carefully unclasped it, and taking it across to the light, opened
it, expecting to find a photograph, or, perhaps, a miniature. But there
was nothing. It had evidently not been opened for years, for behind the
little glass, where once had been a photograph, was only a little grey
powder. Something had been preserved there--some relic or other--that
had, with age, crumbled into dust.
"This doesn't tell us much," he said. "Yet, men seldom wear such things.
Some relic of his sweetheart, eh?" Then he searched once more, and drew
from the dead man's hip-pocket a serviceable Browning revolver, the
magazine of which was fully loaded.
"He evidently expected trouble, and was prepared for it," Treeton said,
as the Norwich detective produced the weapon.
"Well, he certainly had no time to use it," responded Frayne. "Death
must have been instantaneous."
"I think not," I ventured. "If so, why was he found several feet away
from the seat?"
Again Frayne showed impatience. He disliked any expression of outside
opinion.
"Well, Mr. Vidal, we've not yet established that it is a case of murder,
have we?" he said. "The young man may have died suddenly--of natural
causes."
I smiled.
"Curious," I exclaimed, a moment later, "that he should be made up to so
exactly resemble his uncle! No, Inspector Frayne, if I'm not greatly
mistaken, you'll find this a case of assassination--a murder by a very
subtle and ingenious assassin. It is a case of one master-criminal
against another. That is my opinion."
The man from Norwich smiled sarcastically. My opinion was only the
opinion of a mere amateur, and, to the professional thief-catcher, the
amateur detective is a person upon whom to play practical jokes. The
amateur who dares to investigate a crime from a purely independent
standpoint is a man to jeer and laugh at--a target for ridicule.
I could follow Frayne's thoughts. I had met many provincial police
officers of his type all over Europe, from Paris up to Petersburg. The
great detectives of Europe, are, on the contrary, always open to listen
to theories or suggestions.
The three doctors were standing aside, discussing the affair--the
absence of all outward signs of anything that might have caused death.
Until the coroner issued his order they could not, however, put their
doubts at rest by making the post-mortem examination. The case puzzled
them, and they were all three eager to have the opportunity of deciding
how the young man had died.
"The few symptoms offered superficially have some strange points about
them," I heard Dr. Sladen say. "Do you notice the clenched hands? and
yet the mouth is open. The eyes are open too--and the lips are curiously
discoloured. Yes, there is decidedly something very mysterious attaching
to the cause of death."
And he being the leading practitioner in Cromer, his two colleagues
entirely agreed with him.
After a long conversation, in which many theories--most of them
sensational, ridiculous, and baseless--had been advanced, Mr. Day, the
Chief Officer of Coast-guard, who had been outside the life-boat house,
chatting with some friends, entered and told us the results of some of
his own observations regarding the movements of the eccentric Mr.
Gregory. Day was a genial, pleasant man and very popular in Cromer. Of
course he was in ignorance that the body discovered was not that of the
old gentleman.
"I've had a good many opportunities of watching the old man, Mr. Vidal,"
said the short, keen-eyed naval man, turning to me with his hands in the
pockets of his pea-jacket, "and he was a funny 'un. He often went out
from Beacon House at one and two in the morning, and took long strolls
towards Rimton and Overstrand. But Mrs. Dean never knew as he wasn't
indoors, for I gather he used to let himself out very quietly. We often
used to meet him a-creepin' about of a night. I can't think what he went
out for, but I suppose he was a little bit eccentric, eh? Why," went on
the coast-guard officer, "he'd often come into the station early of a
mornin', and have a chat with me, and look through the big telescope. He
used, sometimes, to stand a-gazin' out at the sea, a-gazin' at nothing,
for half an hour on end--lost in thought like. I wonder what he fancied
he saw there?"
"Yes," I said. "He was eccentric, like many rich men."
"Well, one night, not long ago," Day went on, "there were some
destroyers a-passin' about midnight, and we'd been taking in their
signals by flash-light, when, in the middle of it, who should come into
the enclosure but old Mr. Gregory. He stood a-watchin' us for ten
minutes or so. Then, all at once he says, 'I see they're signalling to
the _Hermes_ at Harwich.' This remark gave me quite a start, for he'd
evidently been a-readin' all we had taken in--and it was a confidential
message, too."
"Then he could read the Morse code," I exclaimed.
"Read it? I should rather think he could!" was the coast-guard officer's
reply. "And mark you, the _Wolverene_ was a-flashin' very quick. It was
as much as I could do to pick it up through the haze. After that, I
confess I didn't like him hanging about here so much as he did. But
after all, I'm sorry--very sorry--that the poor old gent is dead."
"Did you ever see him meet anybody on his nightly rambles?" I asked.
"Yes, once. I saw him about six weeks ago, about three o'clock one dark,
and terrible wet, mornin', out on the cliff near Rimton Gap. As I passed
by he was a-talkin' to a tall young man in a drab mackintosh. Talkin'
excited, he was, and a-wavin' his arms wild-like towards the sea. The
young man spotted me first, and said something, whereupon the old gent
dropped his argument, and the two of 'em walked on quietly together. I
passed them, believing that his companion was only one of them
simple-like fools we get about here sometimes in the summer. But I'd
never seen him in Cromer. He was a perfect stranger to me."
"That's the only time you've seen him with any companion on these secret
night outings?" I asked.
"Yes. I don't remember ever having seen him in the night with anybody
else."
"Not even with his nephew?"
"No, not even with Mr. Craig."
"When he dropped in to chat with you at the coastguard station, did he
show any inquisitiveness?" I asked.
"Well, he wanted to know all about things, as most of 'em do," laughed
Day. "Ours is a war-station, you know, and folk like to look at the
inside, and the flash-lamp I invented."
"The old fellow struck you as a bit of a mystery, didn't he?" Frayne
asked, in his pleasant Norfolk brogue.
"Well, yes, he did," replied the coast-guard officer. "I remember one
night last March--the eleventh, I think it was--when our people at
Weybourne detected some mysterious search-lights far out at sea and
raised an alarm on the 'phone all along the coast. It was a very dirty
night, but the whole lot of us, from Wells right away to Yarmouth, were
at once on the look-out. We could see search-lights but could make
nothing of the signals. That's what puzzled us so. I went out along the
cliff, and up Rimton way, but could see nothing. Yet, on my way back, as
I got near the town, I suddenly saw a stream of light--about like a
search-light--coming from the sea-front here. It was a-flashin' some
signal. I was a couple of miles from the town, and naturally concluded
it was one of my men with the flash-lamp. As I passed Beacon House,
however, I saw old Mr. Gregory a-leanin' over the railings, looking out
to sea. It was then about two o'clock. I supposed he had seen the
distant lights, and, passing a word with him, I went along to the
station. To my surprise, I found that we'd not been signalling at all.
Then I recollected old Mr. Gregory's curious interest in the lights, and
I wondered. In fact, I've wondered ever since, whether that answering
signal I saw did not come from one of the front windows of Beacon House?
Perhaps he was practisin' Morse!"
"Strange, very strange!" Frayne remarked. "Didn't you discover what
craft it was making the signals?"
"No, sir. They are a mystery to this day. We reported by wire to the
Admiralty, of course, but we've never found out who it was a-signalling.
It's a complete mystery--and it gave us a bit of an alarm at the time, I
can tell you," he laughed. "There was a big Italian yacht, called the
_Carlo Alberta_, reported next day from Hunstanton, and it may, of
course, have been her. But I am not inclined to think so."
CHAPTER IV
OPENS SEVERAL QUESTIONS
Our next step in the inquiry was a domiciliary visit to Beacon House.
While the public, including Mr. Day, were expecting to see his nephew,
we, of course, were hoping to find old Gregory.
In this we were disappointed. Already Treeton knew that both men were
missing from their lodgings. Yet while the police were watching
everywhere for the dandified young man from London, the queer,
white-haired old Sheffield steel manufacturer had slipped through their
fingers and vanished as though the earth had swallowed him up.
Mrs. Dean's house was a typical seaside lodging-house, plainly and
comfortably furnished--a double-fronted house painted pale blue, with
large airy rooms and bay windows, which, situated high up and on the
very edge of the cliff, commanded extensive views up and down the coast.
The sitting-room occupied by uncle and nephew, proved to be a big
apartment on the first-floor, to the left of the entrance. The houses in
that row had a front door from the asphalt path along the edge of the
cliff and also a back entrance abutting upon the narrow street which ran
into the centre of the town. Therefore, the hall went from back to
front, the staircase ascending in the centre.
The room in which I stood with the detectives, was large, with a
cheerful lattice-work wall-paper, and substantial leather-covered
furniture. In the window was placed a writing-table, and upon it a
telescope mounted on a stand. A comfortable couch was placed against the
wall, while before the fire-place were a couple of deep-seated easy
chairs, and a large oval table in the centre.
Indeed, the room possessed an air of homely comfort, with an absence of
the inartistic seldom found in seaside apartments. The windows were open
and the light breeze from the sun-lit sea slowly fanned the lace
curtains. On the writing-table lay a quantity of papers, mostly
tradesmen's receipts--all of which the old gentleman carefully
preserved--some newspapers, a tin of tobacco, and several pipes.
Beside the fire-place lay a pair of Egyptian slippers in crimson
morocco, evidently the property of young Craig, while his straw hat and
cane lay upon the couch, together with the fawn Burberry coat which had
been one of the common objects in Cromer. Everywhere were signs of
occupation. Indeed, the cushions in the easy chairs were crumpled just
as if the two men had only a little while before arisen from them, while
in the grate were a number of ends of those gold-tipped cigarettes
without which Craig was never seen.
Upon a peg behind the door hung another old grey mackintosh belonging to
old Gregory--an exact replica of which had been worn by the man who had
so mysteriously met his death.
But where was old Gregory? Aye, that was the question.
With Mrs. Dean, a homely person with hair brushed tightly back, and her
husband looking on, we began a thorough search of the room, as well as
of the two bedrooms on the next floor. The sitting-room was investigated
first of all, but in the writing-table we found nothing of interest. One
of the drawers had been emptied and a mass of tinder in the grate told a
significant tale.
Old Mr. Gregory had burned a lot of documents before disappearing.
Why? Were they incriminating?
Why, too, had he so suddenly disappeared? Surely he would not have done
so without knowledge of his nephew's tragic death!
For a full half-hour we rummaged that room and all that was in it, but,
alas, found nothing.
In the old man's bedroom stood a battered leathern cabin-trunk bearing
many labels of Continental hotels. It was unlocked, and we found it
filled with clothes, but strangely enough, not the clothes of an old
man, but rather the smart attire of a middle-aged person of fashion.
At first Frayne refused to believe that the trunk belonged to old
Gregory. But Mrs. Dean was precise upon the point. That was Mr.
Gregory's room.
In the bottom of the cabin-trunk we found a number of folded sheets of
foolscap, upon which were written many cryptic calculations in feet and
metres; "wave-metres," it was written upon one slip. They seemed to be
electrical. Upon other sheets were lists of names together with certain
figures, all of which conveyed to us no meaning. Frayne, of course, took
possession of them for submission to examination later on.
"May I look at them later?" I asked him.
"Certainly, Mr. Vidal. They seem to be a bit of a puzzle, don't they?
They have something to do with electricity, I fancy."
In the corner of the room, opposite the window, stood a large wooden
sea-chest, similar to those used by naval officers. It was painted
black, and bore, in white, the initials "V. G." It had an old and
battered appearance, and the many labels upon it told of years of
transit by rail and steamer.
I bent to examine it, but found it securely locked and bound round with
iron bands.
"That's very heavy, sir," Mrs. Dean remarked. "He always kept it locked,
so I don't know what's inside. When the old gentleman came in, he always
went straight over to it as though to ascertain whether the lock had
been tampered with."
"Ah, then there's something in there he wished to keep away from prying
eyes!" said Frayne. "We must see what it is."
I remarked that the lock was a patent one, but he at once ordered a
locksmith to be fetched, while we turned our attention to the adjoining
room, the one that had been occupied by young Craig.
It was slightly smaller than the other one, and overlooked the narrow
street which ran along the back of the houses towards the church.
We searched the drawers carefully, one after another, but found nothing
except clothes--a rather extensive wardrobe. Of cravats, Craig had
possessed fully a hundred, and of collars, dozens upon dozens.
Upon his dressing-table stood the heavy silver fittings of a
travelling-bag, a very handsome set, and, in a little silver box, we
found a set of diamond studs, with several valuable scarf-pins. The
device of one of these was some intertwined initials, surmounted by a
royal crown in diamonds; apparently a present from some exalted
personage.
Presently, however, Treeton, who had remained in Gregory's room
assisting in the perquisition, entered with an ejaculation of surprise,
and we found that on pulling out the small drawer of the washstand, he
had discovered beneath it some papers that had been concealed there.
We at once eagerly examined them, and found that there were slips
exactly duplicating those discovered in old Gregory's wallet--slips with
names and numbers upon them--apparently code numbers.
Together with these were several papers bearing more remarkable
calculations, very similar to those we had found at the bottom of the
cabin-trunk. The last document we examined was, however, something very
different. It was a letter written upon a large sheet of that foreign
business paper which is ruled in small squares.
"Hulloa!" Frayne exclaimed, "this is in some foreign language--French or
German, I suppose."
"No," I said, glancing over his shoulder. "It's in Italian. I'll read
it, shall I?"
"Yes, please, Mr. Vidal," cried the detective, and handed it to me.
It bore no address--only a date--March 17th, and translating it into
English, I read as follows:--
"Illustrious Master,--The business we have been so long arranging was
most successfully concluded last night. It is in the _Matin_ to-day, a
copy of which I send you with our greeting. H. left as arranged. J.
arrives back in Algiers to-morrow, and the Nightingale still sings on
blithely. I leave by Brindisi for Egypt to-night and will wire my safe
arrival. Read the _Matin_. Does H. know anything, do you think?
Greetings from your most devoted servant, EGISTO."
"A very funny letter," remarked Treeton. "I wonder to what it alludes?"
"Mention of the _Matin_ newspaper would make it appear that it has been
written from Paris," I said. Then, with Frayne's assent, I rapidly
scribbled a copy of the letter upon the back of an envelope which I took
from my pocket.
A few moments later, the locksmith having arrived, we returned to old
Gregory's room, and watched the workman as he used his bunch of
skeleton-keys upon the lock of the big sea-chest. For ten minutes or so
he worked on unsuccessfully, but presently there was a click, and he
lifted the heavy wooden lid, displaying an old brown army blanket,
carefully folded, lying within.
This we removed, and then, as our astounded gaze fell upon the contents
of the chest, all involuntarily gave vent to loud ejaculations of
surprise.
Concealed beneath the rug we saw a quantity of antique ornaments of
silver and gold--rare objects of great value--ancient chalices,
reliquaries, golden cups studded with precious stones, gold coronets, a
great number of fine old watches, and a vast quantity of splendid
diamond and ruby jewellery.
The chest was literally crammed with jewels, and gold, and silver--was
the storehouse of a magnificent treasure, that must have been worth a
fabulous sum.
I assisted Frayne to take out the contents of the chest, until the floor
was covered with jewels. In one old brown morocco case that I opened, I
found a glorious ruby necklet, with one enormous centre stone of perfect
colour--the largest I had ever seen. In another was a wonderful collar
of perfectly matched pearls; in a third, a splendid diamond tiara worth
several thousand pounds.
"Enough to stock a jeweller's shop," said Frayne in an awed voice.
"Why, what's this at the bottom?"
He began to tug at a heavy square wooden box, which, when he had
succeeded in dragging it out and we opened it, we found to contain a
hand flash-lamp for signalling purposes--one of the most recent and
powerful inventions in night-signalling apparatus.
"Ha!" Treeton cried. "That's the lamp which Day suspected had been
flashed from these windows on the night of the coast alarm."
"Yes," I remarked reflectively, "I wonder for what purpose that lamp was
used?"
"At any rate, the old man has a fine collection of curiosities," said
Frayne. "I suppose it was one of his eccentricities to carry them with
him? No wonder he was so careful that the lock should not be tampered
with!"
I stood looking at that strange collection of valuables. There were
pieces of gold and silver plate absolutely unique. I am no connoisseur
of antique jewellery, but instinctively I knew that every piece was of
enormous value. And it had all been thrown pell-mell into the box,
together with some old rags--seemingly once parts of an old damask
curtain--in order to prevent the metal rattling. Much of the silver-ware
was, of course, blackened, as none of it had been cleaned for years. But
the gems sparkled and shone, like liquid drops of parti-coloured fire,
as they lay upon the shabby carpet. What could it all mean?
Mrs. Dean, who was standing utterly aghast at this amazing discovery,
jumped with nervousness as Frayne suddenly addressed her.
"Did Mr. Gregory have many visitors?"
"Not many, sir," was her reply. "His secretary used to come over from
Sheffield sometimes--Mr. Fielder, I think his name was--a tall, thin
gentleman, who spoke with an accent as though he were a foreigner. I
believe he was a Frenchman, though he had an English name."
"Anybody else?"
"Mr. Clayton, the old schoolmaster from Sheringham, and--oh, yes--a lady
came from London one day, a short time ago, to see him--a young French
lady," replied Mrs. Dean.
"What was her name?"
"I don't know. It's about a fortnight ago since she came, one morning
about eleven, so she must have left London by the newspaper train. She
rang, and I answered the bell. She wouldn't let me take her name up to
Mr. Gregory, saying: 'She would go up, as she wanted to give him a
surprise.' I pointed out his door and she went in. But I don't think the
old gentleman exactly welcomed her."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I heard him raising his voice in anger," replied the landlady.
"Was Mr. Craig there?"
"No. He was out somewhere I think. My own belief is that the young lady
was Mr. Gregory's daughter. She stayed about an hour, and once, when I
opened the door, I heard her speaking with him very earnestly in French,
asking him to do something, it seemed like. But he flatly refused and
spoke to her very roughly; and at this she seemed very upset--quite
brokenhearted. I watched her leave. Her face was pale, and she looked
wretchedly miserable, as though in utter despair. But I forgot," added
Mrs. Dean. "Three days later I found her photograph, which the old man,
who was very angry, had flung into the waste-paper basket. I kept it,
because it was such a pretty face. I'll run down and get it--if you'd
like to see it."
"Excellent," exclaimed Frayne, and the good woman descended the stairs.
A few moments later she came back with a cabinet photograph, which she
handed to the detective.
I glanced at it over his shoulder.
Then I held my breath, staggered and dumbfounded.
The colour must have left my cheeks, I think, for I was entirely
unprepared for such a shock.
But I pulled myself together, bit my lip, and by dint of a great effort
managed to remain calm.
Nevertheless, my heart beat quickly as I gazed upon the picture of that
pretty face, that most open, innocent countenance, that I knew so well.
Those wide-open, trusting eyes, that sweet smile, those full red
lips--ah!
And what was the secret? Aye, what, indeed?
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE SHADOW FALLS
"A very charming portrait," Frayne remarked. "I see it was taken in
London. We ought to have no great difficulty in discovering the
original--eh, Treeton--if we find it necessary?"
I smiled to myself, for well I knew that the police would experience
considerable difficulty in ascertaining the identity of the original of
that picture.
"Are you quite sure, Mrs. Dean, that it was the same lady who came to
visit Mr. Gregory?" I asked the landlady.
"Quite positive, sir. That funny little pendant she is wearing in the
photograph, she was wearing when she came to see the old gentleman--a
funny little green stone thing--shaped like one of them heathen idols."
I knew to what she referred--the small green figure of Maat, the Goddess
of Truth--an ancient amulet I had found, while prying about in the ruins
of a temple on the left bank of the Nile, a few miles beyond
Wady-Halfa--the gate of the Sudan. I knew that amulet well, knew the
hieroglyphic inscription upon its back, for I had given it to her as a
souvenir.
Then Lola--the mysterious Lola, whose memory had occupied my thoughts,
both night and day, for many and many a month--had reappeared from
nowhere, and had visited the eccentric Gregory.
In that room I stood, unconscious of what was going on about me;
unconscious of that glittering litter of plate and jewels; of fifteenth
century chalices and gem-encrusted cups; of sixteenth century silver,
much of it ecclesiastical--probably from churches in France, Italy, and
Spain--of those heavy nineteenth century ornaments, that wonderful array
of diamonds and other precious stones, in ponderous early-Victorian
settings, which lay upon the faded, threadbare carpet at my feet.
I was thinking only of the past--of that strange adventure of mine,
which was now almost like some half-forgotten dream--and of Lola, the
beautiful and the mysterious--whose photograph I now held in my
nerveless fingers, just as the detective had given it to me.
At that moment a constable entered with a note for his inspector, who
took it and opened it.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, turning to Frayne. "Here's another surprise for us!
I made inquiries this morning of the Sheffield police concerning old Mr.
Gregory. Here's their reply. They've been up to Messrs. Gregory and
Thorpe's works, but there is no Mr. Gregory. Mr. Vernon Gregory, senior
partner in the firm, died, while on a voyage to India, nearly a year
ago!"
"What?" shrieked Mrs. Dean in scandalized tones. "Do you mean to say
that that there old man, my lodger, wasn't Mr. Gregory?"
"He may have been _a_ Mr. Gregory, but he certainly was not Mr. Vernon
Gregory, the steel manufacturer," responded Treeton, calmly.
"Well, that beats everything!" she gasped. "Then that old man was a
humbugging impostor--eh?"
"So it seems," Frayne replied.
"But it can't be true? I can't believe it! He was a real gentleman. See,
here, what he had got put away in that old box of his. Them there
Sheffield police is mistook, I'm sure they be. There'll be some good
explanation of all this, I'll be bound, if 'tis looked for."
"I sincerely hope so," I remarked. "But at present I certainly don't see
any."
Truth to tell, I was utterly staggered and confounded, the more so, by
that report from Sheffield. I confess I had all along believed old
Gregory to be what he had represented himself as being to the people of
Cromer.
Now I realized that I was face to face with a profound and amazing
problem--one which those provincial police-officers, patient and
well-meaning as they were, could never hope to solve.
Yes, old Vernon Gregory was an impostor. The reply from the Sheffield
police proved that beyond a doubt. Therefore, it also followed that the
man lying dead was certainly not what he had represented himself to
be--nephew of the great steel magnate.
But who was he? That was the present great question that baffled us.
The photograph I held in my hand bore the name: "Callard, Photographer,
Shepherd's Bush Road." But I knew that whatever inquiries were made at
that address, the result would be negative. The mysterious Lola was an
elusive little person, not at all likely to betray her identity to any
photographer.
There were reasons for her secrecy--very strong reasons, I knew.
So I smiled, when Frayne announced that he should send the picture up to
London, and put through an inquiry.
I picked up some pieces of the jewellery that was lying at my feet. In
my hand I held a splendid golden coronet in which were set great
emeralds and rubies of enormous value. Even my inexpert eye could see
that the workmanship was very ancient, and the stones but roughly cut
and polished. I judged it to be a crown which had adorned the head of
some famous Madonna in an Italian or Spanish church; a truly regal
ornament.
Again stooping, I picked up a small heavy box of blackened repoussé
silver of genuine Italian Renaissance work, and opening it, found it
filled with rings of all kinds, both ancient and modern. There were
signet rings bearing coats of arms; ladies' gem rings; men's plain gold
rings; and rings of various fancy devices.
One I picked out was distinctly curious. A man's flat gold ring set with
eight finely-coloured turquoises at equal intervals. It looked brighter
and newer than the others, and as I fingered it, a small portion of the
outer edge opened, revealing a neatly enamelled inscription in French,
"Thou art Mine." On further examination I found that each of the spaces
in which a turquoise was set, opened, and in each was also a tender love
passage, "I love you," "Faithful and True," and so on, executed probably
a century ago.
Yes, each piece in that wonderful collection was unique--the treasure of
one who was undoubtedly a connoisseur of gems and antiques. Indeed, in
no national collection had I ever seen a display more remarkable than
that flung out so unceremoniously upon the carpet, around that
mysterious flash-lamp.
While one of the detectives, at Frayne's order, began repacking the
treasure, I went with the two inspectors to a sitting-room on the
ground-floor, where, with the door closed, we discussed the situation.
Outside, upon the path in front of the house, were a knot of curious
persons, among them Mr. Day, and his subordinate officer who had made
the tragic discovery.
"Well," exclaimed Frayne, slowly rubbing his chin, "it's a very curious
case. What will you do now, Treeton?"
"Do?" asked the local officer. "Why, I've done all I can do. I've
reported it to the Coroner, and I suppose they'll make the post-mortem
to-day, and hold the inquest to-morrow."
"Yes, I know," said the other. "But we must find this old man, Gregory.
He seems to have been pretty slick at getting away."
"Frightened, I suppose," said Treeton.
"What. Do you think he killed his nephew?" queried the man from Norwich.
"Looks suspiciously like it," Treeton replied.
"Yes, but why did Craig go out disguised as the old man--that's the
question?"
"Yes," I repeated. "That is indeed the question."
"And all that jewellery? The old man is not likely to leave that lot
behind--unless he's guilty," said Frayne. "Again, that visit of the
young lady. If we could only get track of her, she'd have something to
tell us without a doubt."
"Of course," said Treeton. "Send the photograph to London, and find out
who she is. What a bit of luck, wasn't it, that Mrs. Dean kept the
picture she found in the waste-paper basket?"
I remained silent. Yes, if we could only discover the original of that
photograph we should, no doubt, learn much that would be startling. But
I felt assured that we should never find trace of her. The police could
follow in her direction if they chose. I intended to proceed upon an
entirely different path.
What I had learned in that brief hour, had staggered me. I could
scarcely realize that once again I was face to face with the mystery of
Lola--the sweetest, strangest, most shadowy little person I had ever met
in all my life. And yet she was so real, so enchanting, so
delightful--such a merry, light-hearted little friend.
Lola!
I drew a long breath when I recalled that perfect oval face, with the
wonderful blue eyes, the soft little hand--those lips that were made for
kisses.
Even as I stood there in the plainly-furnished sitting-room of that
seaside lodging-house, I remembered a strangely different scene. A fine,
luxurious chamber, rich with heavy gilt furniture, and crimson damask,
aglow under shaded electric lights.
I saw her upon her knees before me, her white hands grasping mine, her
hair dishevelled upon her shoulders, pleading with me--pleading, ah! I
remembered her wild, passionate words, her bitter tears--her terrible
confession.
And this provincial detective, whose chief feats had been confined to
cases of petty larceny, speed limit, and trivial offences, dealt with by
the local Justices of the Peace, actually hoped to unravel a mystery
which I instinctively felt to be fraught with a thousand difficulties.
Any swindler, providing he has made sufficient money by his tricks, has
bought a place in the country, and has been agreeable to the
Deputy-Lieutenant of the County, can become one of His Majesty's
Justices of the Peace. Some such are now and then unmasked, and off to
penal servitude have gone, men who have been the foremost to inflict
fines and imprisonment on the poor for the most trivial offences--men
who made the poaching of a rabbit a heinous crime.
I venture to assert that the past of many a J. P. does not bear
investigation. But even when glaring injustices are exposed to the Home
Secretary, he is often afraid to order an inquiry, for political
reasons. It is always "Party" that must be first considered in this poor
old England of ours to-day.
What does "Party" mean? Be it Liberal, Unionist, Conservative, Labour,
anything, there should at least be honesty, fair dealing, plain speaking
and uprightness. But alas, this is an age of sham in England.
Journalists, novelists, preachers, playwrights, are afraid to speak the
truth frankly, though they know it, and feel it. It is "Party" always.
Many a criminal has escaped conviction before our County Benches because
of "Party," and for the same reason many innocents have been condemned
and suffered.
This case of Mr. Vernon Gregory was a provincial case. The amusing farce
of local investigation, and local justice, would no doubt be duly
played. The coroner always agrees with the evidence of his own family
doctor, or the prominent local medico, and the twelve honest tradesmen
forming the jury are almost invariably led by the coroner in the
direction of the verdict.
Oh, the farce of it all! I hold no brief for France, Belgium, Germany,
or any other continental nation, for England is my native land. But I do
feel that methods of inquiry on the continent are just, though minutely
searching, that there Justice is merciful though inexorable, that her
scales weigh all evidence to the uttermost gramme.
These reflections passed through my mind as I stood in that
lodging-house room, while the two police officers discussed as to their
further procedure in the amazing case with which they had been called
upon to deal. I could not help such thoughts arising, for I was dubious,
very dubious, as to the thoroughness of investigation that would be
given to the affair by the local authorities. Slackness, undue delay,
party or personal interests, any one of these things might imperil the
inquiry and frustrate the ends of justice.
I knew we were confronted by one of the greatest criminal problems that
had ever been offered for solution, calling for the most prompt,
delicate and minute methods of investigation, if it was to be handled
successfully. And as I contrasted the heavy, cumbrous, restricted
conditions of English criminal procedure with the swift, far-reaching
methods in use across the Channel, I felt that something of the latter
was needed here if the mystery of Craig's death was ever to be solved.
CHAPTER VI
MYSTERY INEXPLICABLE
The town of Cromer was agog, when, next day, the coroner held his
inquiry.
The afternoon was warm, and the little room usually used as the police
court was packed to suffocation.
The jury--the foreman of which was a stout local butcher--having viewed
the body, the inquest was formally opened, and Mrs. Dean, the first
witness, identified the remains as those of her visitor, Mr. Edward
Craig.
This, the first intimation to the public that Mr. Gregory was not dead
after all, caused the greatest sensation.
In answer to the coroner, Mrs. Dean explained how, with his uncle, old
Mr. Gregory, Craig had taken apartments with her. She had always found
him a quiet, well-conducted young gentleman.
"Was he quite idle?" asked the grave-faced coroner.
"No. Not exactly, sir," replied the witness, looking round the closely
packed room. "He used to do a good deal of writing for his uncle, more
especially after the young man, Mr. Gregory's private secretary, had
been over from Sheffield."
"How often did he come?"
"At intervals of a week or more. He always carried a small despatch-box,
and on those occasions the three would sit together for half the day,
doing their business, with the door closed--and," added the landlady
vigorously, "Mr. Craig had no end of business sometimes, for he received
lots of telegrams. From what I heard him say one day to his Uncle, I
believe he was a betting man, and the telegrams were results of races."
"Ah, probably so," remarked the coroner. "I believe you have not seen
the elder gentleman since the tragic evening of his nephew's death?"
"No, sir. The last I saw of Mr. Gregory was when he wished me
'good-night,' and went to bed, as was his habit, about half-past ten, on
the night previous."
"And, where was the deceased then?"
"My servant Anne had taken up his hot water, and he had already gone to
bed."
"And, did you find next day that the beds had been slept in?"
"Mr. Craig's had, but Mr. Gregory's hadn't," was the reply. Whereat the
eager, listening crowd buzzed and moved uneasily.
The grave-faced county official holding the inquiry, having finished
writing down the replies to his questions upon blue foolscap, looked
across to the row of twelve tradesmen, and exclaimed in his sharp,
brusque manner----
"Have the jury any questions to put to this witness?"
"I'd like to ask, sir," said the fat butcher, "whether this Mr. Gregory
was not a very eccentric and extraordinary man?"
"He was," replied the good woman with a smile. "He always suspected that
people was a-robbin' him. He'd strike out threepence from my weekly
bill, and on the very same day, pay six or seven shillings for a pound
of fresh strawberries."
"During the night you heard nobody leave your house?"
"No, neither me, nor my husband, heard any sound. Of course, our dog
knew both of 'em, and was very friendly, so he'd make no noise."
"I would like to ask you, Mrs. Dean," said another juryman, the
thin-faced manager of a boot-shop, "whether Mr. Craig was in the habit
of receiving any strangers?"
"No," interrupted the coroner, "we are not here to inquire into that. We
are here solely to establish the identity of the deceased and the cause
of his death. The other matters must be left to the police."
"Oh! I beg pardon sir," ejaculated the offending juryman, and sat back
in his chair with a jerk.
George Simmonds, a picturesque figure in his coast-guard uniform, was
called next, and minutely described how he had found deceased, and had,
from his dress, believed him to be old Mr. Gregory. Afterwards he was
cross-examined by the foreman of the jury as to whom he had met during
his patrol that night, and what he knew personally about the dead man.
"I only know that he was a very nice young gentleman," replied the
coast-guard. "Both he and his uncle often used to pass the time o' day
with us out against the flagstaff, and sometimes they'd have a look
through the glass at the passing ships."
The police evidence then followed, and, after that Dr. Sladen, the chief
medical man in Cromer, took the oath and made the following statement,
in clear, business-like tones, the coroner writing it down rapidly.
"Henry Harden Sladen, Doctor of Medicine, 36, Cliff Avenue, Cromer. I
was called to see deceased by the police, at about half-past four on the
morning of the twelfth of June. He was lying upon a public seat on the
East Cliff, and on examination I found that he had been dead about two
hours or more."
"Any signs of violence?" inquired the coroner, looking up sharply at the
witness, and readjusting his gold-rimmed glasses.
"None whatever."
"Yes, Dr. Sladen?"
"Yesterday afternoon," continued the witness, "I made a post-mortem
examination in conjunction with Dr. Copping, of Cromer, and found the
body to be that of a young man about twenty-five years old, of somewhat
athletic build. All the organs were quite normal. There was an old wound
under the left shoulder, apparently a bullet wound, and two rather
curious scars on the right forearm, which, we agreed, had been received
while fencing. We, however, could find no trace of disease or injury."
"Then to what do you attribute death?" inquired the coroner.
"Well, I came to the conclusion that the young man had been suddenly
asphyxiated, but how, is a perfect mystery," responded the doctor. "It
would be difficult to asphyxiate any one in the open air without leaving
any mark of strangulation."
"I take it that you discovered no mark?"
"Not the slightest."
"Then you do not think death was due to natural causes?"
"It was due to asphyxiation--a rapid, almost instantaneous death it must
have been--but it was not due to natural causes."
"Briefly put, then, you consider that the deceased was the victim of
foul play?"
"Yes. The young man was murdered, without a doubt," replied the doctor,
slowly. "But so ingeniously was the crime committed, that no trace of
the methods by which death was accomplished has been left. The assassin,
whoever he was, must have been a perfect artist in crime."
"Why do you think so?" asked the coroner.
"For several reasons," was the reply. "The victim must have been sitting
upon the seat when suddenly attacked. He rose to defend himself and, as
he did so, he was struck down by a deadly blow which caused him to
stagger, reel, and fall lifeless some distance away from the seat. Yet
there is no bruise upon him--no sign of any blow having been struck. His
respiratory organs suddenly became paralysed, and he expired--a most
mysterious and yet instant death."
"But is there no way, that you--as a medical man--can account for such a
death, Dr. Sladen?" asked the coroner dryly.
"There are several ways, but none in which death could ensue in such
circumstances and with such an utter absence of symptoms. If death had
occurred naturally we should have been quickly able to detect the fact."
After one or two pointless questions had been put to the witness by
members of the jury, his place was taken by his colleague, Dr. Copping,
a pushing young medico who, though he had only been in Cromer a year,
had a rapidly-growing practice.
In every particular he corroborated Dr. Sladen's evidence, and gave it
as his professional opinion that the young man had met with foul play,
but how, was a complete mystery.
"You do not suspect poison, I take it?" asked the coroner, looking up
from his writing.
"Poison is entirely out of the question," was Dr. Copping's reply. "The
deceased was asphyxiated, and died almost instantly. How it was done, I
fail to understand and can formulate no theory."
The public, seated at the back of the court, were so silent that one
could have heard the dropping of the proverbial pin. They had expected
some remarkable revelations from the medical men, but were somewhat
disappointed.
After the evidence of Inspector Treeton had been taken, the coroner, in
a few brief words, put the matter before the jury.
It was, he said, a case which presented several very remarkable
features, not the least being the fact that the nephew had gone out in
the night, dressed in his uncle's clothes and made up to resemble the
elder man. That fact made it evident that there was some unusual motive
for going out that night on the part of the deceased man--either a
humorous one, or one not altogether honest. The latter seemed the most
reasonable theory. The young man evidently went out to keep a tryst in
the early morning, and while waiting on the seat, was suddenly attacked
and murdered.
"Well, gentlemen," he went on, removing his glasses, and polishing them
with his handkerchief, "it is for you to return your verdict--to say how
this young man met with his death, to-day, or, if you consider it
advisable, you can, of course, adjourn this inquiry in order to obtain
additional evidence. Personally, I do not see whence any additional
evidence can come. We have heard the depositions of all concerned, and
if you decide that it is a case of wilful murder, as both Dr. Sladen and
Dr. Copping have unhesitatingly stated it to be, the rest must be left
to the police, who will no doubt use their utmost endeavours to discover
the identity of this 'artist in crime,' as Dr. Sladen put it, who is
responsible for this young man's death. So far as I am concerned, and I
have acted as coroner for this district for twenty-three years, I have
never before held an inquiry into a case which has presented so many
puzzling features. Even the method by which the victim was done to death
is inexplicable. The whole thing, gentlemen, is inexplicable, and, as
far as we can discern, there is no motive for the crime. It is, of
course, for you to arrive at a verdict now, or to adjourn for a week.
Perhaps you will consult together."
The twelve Norfolk tradesmen, under the leadership of the obese butcher,
whispered together for a few moments and were quickly agreed.
The coroner's officer, a tall constable, standing near the door, saw
that the foreman wished to speak, and shouted: "Silence!"
"We will return our verdict at once, Mr. Coroner," said the butcher. "We
find that deceased was murdered."
"That is your verdict, eh? Then it will read, 'that deceased was
wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown.' Is that what you
all agree?" he asked in his quick, business-like manner.
"Yes, sir. That is our verdict," was the response.
"Any dissentients?" asked the official. But there was none.
"Then the rest must be left to the police," said the coroner, resuming
his writing.
At those words, the public, disappointed at the lack of gory details,
began to file out into the street, while the jury were discharged.
Who was the murderer? That was the question upon every one's tongue.
And where was Vernon Gregory, the quaint, eccentric old fellow who had
become such a notable figure in Cromer streets and along the asphalted
parade. What had become of him?
The police had, of course, made no mention in their evidence of the
search in the rooms occupied by the two men--of the discovery of the
splendid treasure of gold and jewels--or of the fact that the real Mr.
Vernon Gregory had died while on a voyage to India.
With Frayne, I walked back to the police-station, where we found that no
trace had yet been discovered of the old man. He had disappeared swiftly
and completely, probably in clothes which in no way resembled those he
habitually wore, for, as his pocket-book and other things were found in
the cape worn by his nephew, we assumed that they were actually the
uncle's. Therefore, it would be but natural that old Gregory would have
left the house wearing clothes suitable to a younger man.
The fact that Lola had visited him told me much.
Gregory, whoever he was, was certainly no amateur in the art of
disguise. In all probability he now presented the appearance of a man of
thirty or so, and in no way resembled the eccentric old gentleman who
looked like a poet and whose habits were so regular.
That there was a mystery, a strange, amazing mystery, I knew
instinctively. Edward Craig had, I felt confident, fallen the victim of
a bitter and terrible vengeance--had been ingeniously done to death by
one whose hand was that of a relentless slayer.
So, as I walked past the grey old church of Cromer, back to the _Hôtel
de Paris_, I pondered deeply.
My own particular knowledge I kept a fast secret to myself. Among that
heterogeneous collection of treasures had been one object which I
recognized--an object I had seen and handled once before, in very
different circumstances.
How came it in that old sea-chest, and in the possession of the man who
was now exposed as an impostor?
Mr. Day, the chief officer of the coast-guard, passed me by and saluted.
But I was so preoccupied that I scarcely noticed him.
I had crossed by the path leading through the churchyard, and arrived
at the corner of Jetty Street--a narrow, old-fashioned lane which leads
along to the cliff-top in front of the _Hôtel de Paris_, and where an
inclined slope goes down to the pier.
Suddenly, on raising my eyes at a passer-by, my gaze met that of a tall,
thin, pale-faced, rather gentlemanly man in a dark grey suit, and
wearing a grey felt hat.
The stranger, without noticing me, went on with unconcern.
But in that second I had recognized him. We had met before, and in that
instant I had fixed him as the one man who knew the truth regarding that
remarkable secret I had now set out to investigate.
I halted aghast, and half-turned upon my heel to greet him.
CHAPTER VII
TELLS OF TWO MEN
The stranger, whose age was about forty-five, went on in the direction
of the post-office in the Church Square.
Should I dash back, overtake him and claim acquaintance? Or should I
keep my knowledge to myself, and watch in patience?
A single second had I in which to decide. And I decided.
I turned back upon my heel again as though I had not recognized him.
But what could that man's presence mean in that little East Coast town?
Aye, what indeed?
I tried to think, to conjecture, to form some theory--but I was too
confused. Lola had been there--and now that man who had just passed!
Along the narrow, old-fashioned Jetty Street I strode for some yards,
and then turned and retraced my steps till I saw him across the old
churchyard entering the post-office.
Treeton was coming up in my direction, little dreaming how near he was
to the one man who knew the truth. I smiled to myself at the ignorance
of the local police. And yet my own knowledge was that of a man who had
led a strange cosmopolitan life, who had mixed with all classes on the
Continent, who had trodden the streets of more than one capital in
disguise, and who had assisted the _Sûreté_ in half a dozen countries.
I smiled at Treeton as he went by, and he smiled back. That man in the
post-office yonder was a remarkable personage. That I well knew. What
would any agent in the _brigade mobile_ of Paris have given to be in my
place at that moment--to be able to enter the Cromer post-office and lay
hands upon Jules Jeanjean--the notorious Jules Jeanjean, of all men!
My thoughts were of Lola. Phew! Had ever man such a strange reverie as I
had in those moments when I halted, pretending to look into the
shop-window of the jeweller at the corner--yet all the time watching in
the direction of the door of the post-office!
To go back would betray recognition, so I was compelled to go
forward--to the hotel.
I did not, however, allow the grass to grow beneath my feet. That night,
instead of dining at the hotel, I ate a sandwich in the bar of the
_Albion_, and soon discovered that the man I had seen passing Cromer
Church was living in apartments in the Overstrand Road, the aristocratic
quarter of Cromer, close to the Doctor's steps.
I had kept careful watch all the evening. First, quite unconcernedly, he
had strolled along the East Cliff, past the seat where the man, now
dead, had sat early on that fatal morning. I had followed, and had
watched.
He paused close by, ostensibly to light a cigarette with a patent
lighter, then, after covertly making observations, he went on away to
the edge of the links, and up the path near the _Links Hotel_, where he
gained the Overstrand Road.
The evening was clear and bright, the sundown across the North Sea a
blaze of crimson and gold. There were many promenaders along that
well-trodden path, yet it required the exercise of all my cunning to
escape the observation of the shrewd and clever man I was following.
At eight o'clock he entered his lodging. Half an hour later, as I
lounged past, I saw him seated at dinner between two elderly women,
laughing with that easy-going cosmopolitan air--that foreign charm of
his, which had carried him through so many strange adventures.
Then I waited--waited until dusk deepened into night. Silent, and
without wind, the summer air was fresh and invigorating after the
oppressiveness of the day. The street-lamps were lit, yet I still
remained watching, and ever on the alert.
The Norfolk constabulary were observing the old, slow, stereotyped,
routine methods of police investigation, as I had expected them to do.
I alone had scented the clue to the mystery.
Not a sign had been seen of the cunning old fugitive. Telegrams had been
dispatched by the dozen. Scotland Yard had been, of course, "informed,"
but information from the country is there but lightly considered.
Therefore, in all probability, the shrewd old man, who had so cleverly
imposed upon the good people of Cromer, was by that time across the
Channel.
But, would he leave that splendid treasure of his behind?
All through that evening I waited in patience in the Overstrand
Road--waited to see if Jules Jeanjean would come forth again.
At half-past ten, when the moon was shining brightly over the calm sea,
I saw him come out, wearing a soft grey felt hat and light drab
overcoat. He laughed at the neat maid who opened the door for him, and
instinctively put his hand to his hat to raise it, as foreigners so
often do.
Instead of walking towards the town, as I had expected, he turned in the
direction of Suffield Park, the pretty suburb of Cromer, and actually
passed within a few yards of where I was crouching behind the laurel
hedge of somebody's front garden.
I allowed him to get some distance ahead, then, treading lightly upon my
rubber heels, swiftly followed.
He made in the direction of the great Eastern Railway Station, until he
came to the arch where the line crosses the road, when from the shadow
there crept silently another figure of a man.
At that hour, and at that point, all was deserted. From where I stood I
could see the lights of the great _Links Hotel_ high up, dominating the
landscape, and nearer were the long, slowly-moving shafts of extreme
brilliance, shining from the lighthouse as a warning to mariners on the
North Sea.
Jules Jeanjean, the man of a hundred adventures, met the stranger. It
was a tryst, most certainly. Under the shadow of a wall I drew back, and
watched the pair with eager interest. They whispered, and it was
apparent that they were discussing some very serious and weighty matter.
Of necessity I was so far away that I could not distinguish the features
of the stranger. All I could see was that he was very well dressed, and
wore dark clothes, a straw hat, and carried a cane.
Together they walked slowly in the shadow. Jeanjean had linked his arm
in that of the stranger, who seemed young and athletic, and was talking
very earnestly--perhaps relating what had occurred at the inquest that
afternoon, for, though I had not seen him there, I suspected that he
might have been present.
I saw Jeanjean give something to his companion, but I could not detect
what it was. Something he took very slowly and carefully from his pocket
and handed it to the young man, who at first hesitated to accept it,
and only did so after Jeanjean's repeated and firm insistence.
It was as though the man I had recognized that afternoon in Cromer was
bending the other by his dominant personality--compelling him to act
against his will.
And as I stood there I wondered whether after all Jeanjean had actually
recognized me when we met in Church Square--or whether he had been
struck merely by what he deemed a chance resemblance, and had passed me
by without further thought.
Had he recognized me I do not think he would have dared to remain in
Cromer a single hour. Hence, I hoped he had not. The fact would render
my work of investigation a thousandfold easier.
Presently, after a full quarter of an hour's conversation, the pair
strolled together along the moonlit road back towards the town, which at
that hour was wrapped in slumber.
By a circuitous route they reached the narrow street at the back of the
house where old Mr. Gregory and his nephew had lived, and, after passing
and repassing it several times, returned by the way they had come.
Near the railway bridge, where Jeanjean had first met the stranger, both
paused and had another earnest conversation. More than once in the
lamplight I had caught sight of the man's face, a keen face, with dark
moustache, and sharp, dark eyes. He had a quick, agile gait, and I
judged him to be about eight-and-twenty.
Presently the two walked out beyond the arch, and I saw the younger man
go behind a hedge, from which he wheeled forth a motor-cycle that had
been concealed there. They bade each other adieu, and then, starting his
engine, the stranger mounted the machine, and next moment was speeding
towards Norwich without having lit his lamp, possibly having forgotten
to do so in his hurry to get away.
The Frenchman watched his friend depart, then, leisurely lighting a
cigarette, turned and went back to the house in Overstrand Road where he
had taken up his temporary abode.
It was half-past two when the night-porter at the _Hôtel de Paris_
admitted me, and until the sun had risen over the sea, I sat at my open
window, smoking, and thinking.
The discovery that Jules Jeanjean was in that little East Coast town was
to me utterly amazing. What was his business in Cromer?
A wire to the _Sûreté_ in Paris, stating his whereabouts, would, I knew,
create no end of commotion, and Inspector Treeton would no doubt receive
urgent orders by telegram from London for the arrest of the seemingly
inoffensive man with the jaunty, foreign air.
The little town of Cromer, seething with excitement over the mysterious
murder of Edward Craig, little dreamed that it now harboured one of the
most dangerous criminals of modern times.
Next day, in the hotel, I was asked on every hand my opinion in regard
to the East Cliff murder mystery. The evidence at the inquest was given
verbatim in the Norwich papers, and every one was reading it. By reason
of my writings, I suppose, I had earned a reputation as a seeker-out of
mystery. But to all inquirers I now expressed my inability to theorize
on the affair, and carefully preserved an attitude of amazed ignorance.
I scarce dared to go forth that day lest I should again meet Jeanjean,
and he should become aware of my presence in Cromer. Had he recognized
me when we met? I was continually asking myself that question, and
always I came to the conclusion that he had not, or he would not have
dared to keep his tryst with the mysterious motor-cyclist.
Were either of the pair responsible for Edward Craig's death? That was
the great problem that was before me.
And where was Gregory? If he were not implicated in the crime, why had
he absconded?
I examined the copy of that curious letter signed by Egisto, but it
conveyed nothing very tangible to me.
Frayne and his men were still passing to and fro in Cromer, making all
kinds of abortive inquiries, and were, I knew, entirely on the wrong
scent. Like myself, they were seeking the motive which caused the sudden
disappearance of old Gregory. They were actually looking for him in the
county of Norfolk! I knew, too well, that he must be already safely far
away, abroad.
Frayne called in to see me after luncheon, and sat up in my room for an
hour, smoking cigarettes.
"I'm leaving the rooms that were occupied by Craig and his uncle just as
they are," he said to me. "I'm not touching a thing for the present, so
that when we find Gregory we can make him give explanations of what we
have secured there. I thought first of taking that sea-chest and its
contents over to Norwich with me, but I have now decided to seal up the
room and leave everything as it is."
"I understand," I replied, smiling to myself at his forlorn hope of ever
finding Mr. Vernon Gregory. For, the further my inquiries had gone, the
more apparent was it that the old man was a very wily customer.
"We've made one discovery," said the detective as he lit a fresh
cigarette.
"Oh, what's that?" I inquired.
"A young fisherman, named Britton, has come forward and told me that on
the night of the murder he was going along the road to Gunton, at about
midnight, when he met a man on a motor-cycle, with an empty side-car,
coming from the direction of Norwich. The man dismounted and asked
Britton how far it was to Cromer. The fisherman told him, and the fellow
rode off. Britton, who had been to see his brother, returned just before
two, and met the same motor-cyclist coming back from Cromer, and
travelling at a very high speed. He then had somebody in the side-car
with him. In the darkness Britton could not get a very good view of the
passenger, but he believes that it was a woman."
"A woman!" I echoed, somewhat surprised.
"Yes, he was sure it was a woman," Frayne said. "One good point is, that
Britton is able to give a fairly good description of the motor-cyclist,
whose face he saw when the fellow got off his machine to speak to him.
He pictures him as a sharp-faced man, with a small black moustache, who
spoke broken English."
"A foreigner, then?"
"Evidently." Then Frayne went on to remark, "It was foolish of this
fellow Britton not to have come forward before, Mr. Vidal. But you know
how slow these Norfolk fishermen are. It was only after he was pressed
by his friends, to whom he related the incident, that he consented to
come to the police-station and have a chat with me."
"Well--then you suspect the motor-cyclist and the woman?"
"Not without some further proof," replied the detective, with a look of
wisdom on his face. "We don't know yet if the passenger in the side-car
was a woman. Britton only believes so. The foreigner evidently only came
into Cromer to fetch a friend."
"But could not any foreigner come into Cromer to fetch a lady friend?" I
queried.
"Yes. That's just why I do not attach much importance to the young
fellow's story."
"Does he say he could recognize the cyclist again?"
"He believes so. But, unfortunately, he's not a lad of very high
intelligence," laughed Frayne.
To my companions the statement of that young fisherman evidently meant
but little.
To me, however, it revealed a very great deal.
CHAPTER VIII
REMAINS AN ENIGMA
Six days had gone by.
The funeral of the unfortunate Edward Craig had taken place, and locally
the sensation caused by the tragic discovery had died down.
The weather was beautifully warm, the sea calm, and gradually a few
holiday-makers were appearing in the streets; women in summer blouses,
knitted golf coats and cotton skirts, with flannel-trousered men. They
were of the class who are compelled to take their holidays early, before
their employers; with them came delighted children carrying spades and
buckets.
Fearing recognition by the notorious Frenchman, I was greatly
handicapped, for I was compelled to remain in the hotel all day, and go
forth only at night.
Frayne and his men had locked and sealed the rooms which had been
occupied by old Gregory and Craig, and had returned to Norwich. In their
place had come a plain-clothes man who, as far as I could gather,
lounged about the corners of the streets, and chatted idly with the
constables in uniform.
The plain-clothes man in our county constabulary system is not an
overwhelming success. His only real use seems to be mostly that of a
catcher of small boys who go out stealing fruit.
By dint of judicious inquiry, made by my manservant, Rayner, whom I had
summoned from London, I had discovered something regarding the foreign
gentleman, who had taken apartments in the Overstrand Road.
Rayner could always keep a secret. He was a fair-haired, bullet-headed
chap of thirty-two whom I had found, eight years before the date of this
story, wandering penniless in the streets of Constantinople. I had taken
him into my service, and never once had occasion to regret having done
so. He was a model of discretion, and to a man constantly travelling,
like myself, a veritable treasure.
Sometimes upon my erratic journeys on the Continent I took him with me,
at others he remained at home in my little flat off Berkeley Square. If
I ever called upon him to make inquiries for me, to watch, or to follow
a suspected person, he obeyed with an intelligence that would, I
believe, have done credit to any member of that remarkable combination
of brains--the Council of Seven, of New Scotland Yard.
Living an adventurous life, as he had done, his wits had been sharpened,
and his perception had become as keen as that of any detective.
Therefore, I had called upon him, under seal of secrecy, to assist me in
the investigation of many a mystery.
Knowing his value, I had wired to him to come to Cromer. He arrived when
I was out. First, he looked through my traps, folded my trousers and
coats, arranged my shirts and ties in order with professional precision,
and when I returned, entered my room, saying briefly--
"I'm here, sir."
I threw myself into a chair and told him all that had occurred--of
course, under strictest secrecy.
Then I gave him minute instructions as to making inquiries of the
servants at the house in the Overstrand Road. A servant can always get
useful information from other servants, for there is a freemasonry among
all who are employed in domestic capacities.
Therefore, it was with interest that I sat in my room, overlooking the
sea, on the following day, and listened to Rayner's report.
In his straw hat, and well-cut grey tweed suit, my man made a very
presentable appearance. It was the same suit in which he went out to
Richmond with his "young lady" on Sundays.
"Well, sir," he said, standing by the window, "I've managed to get to
know something. The gentleman is a Belgian doctor named Paul Arendt. He
has the two best rooms in the house and is the only visitor staying
there at present. They say he's a bit eccentric; goes out at all hours,
but gives lots of money in tips. Seemingly, he's pretty rich."
"Has he had any visitors?" I asked quickly.
"One. Another foreigner. An Italian named Bertini, who rides a
motor-cycle."
"Has he been there often?"
"He came last Monday afternoon--three days ago," my man replied.
"Anything else?"
"Well, sir, I managed to make friends with the maidservant, and then, on
pretence of wanting apartments myself, got her to show me several rooms
in the house in the absence of her mistress. Doctor Arendt was out, too,
therefore I took the opportunity of looking around his bedroom. I'd
given the girl a sovereign, so she didn't make any objection to my
prying about a bit. Arendt is a rather suspicious character, isn't he,
sir?" asked Rayner, looking at me curiously.
"That's for you to find out," I replied.
"Well, sir, I have found out," was his quick answer. "In the small top
left-hand drawer of the chest of drawers in his room I found a small
false moustache and some grease-paint; while in the right-hand drawer
was a Browning revolver in a brown leather case, a bottle of strong
ammonia, and a small steel tube, about an inch across, with an
india-rubber bulb attached to one end."
"Ah!" I said. "I thought as much. You know what the ammonia and rubber
ball are for, eh?"
The man grinned.
"Well, sir, I can guess," was his reply. "It's for blinding dogs--eh?"
"Exactly. We must keep a sharp eye upon that Belgian, Rayner."
"Yes, sir. I took the opportunity to have a chat with the maid about the
recent affair on the East Cliff, and she told me she believed that the
dead man and Doctor Arendt were friends."
"Friends!" I echoed, starting forward at his words.
"Yes, sir. The girl was not quite certain, but believes she saw the
Belgian doctor and young Mr. Craig walking together over the golf-links
one evening. It was her Sunday out and she was strolling that way just
at dusk with her sweetheart."
"She is not quite positive, eh?" I asked.
"No, sir, not quite positive. She only thinks it was young Mr. Craig."
"Did Craig or Gregory ever go to that house while our friend has been
there?"
"No, sir. She was quite positive on that point."
"What does the doctor do with himself all day?" I asked.
"Sits reading novels, or the French papers, greater part of the day.
Sometimes he writes letters, but very seldom. According to the books I
noticed in his room, he delights in stories of mystery and crime."
I smiled. Too well I knew the literary tastes of Jules Jeanjean, the man
who was fearless, and being so, was eminently dangerous, and who was
passing as a Belgian doctor. He, who had once distinguished himself by
holding the whole of the forces of the Paris police at arms' length, and
defying them--committing crimes under their very noses out of sheer
anarchical bravado--was actually living there as a quiet, studious,
steady-going man of literary tastes and refinement--Doctor Paul Arendt,
of Liège, Belgium.
Ah! Some further evil was intended without a doubt. Yet so clever were
Jeanjean's methods, and so entirely unsuspicious his actions, that I
confess I failed to see what piece of chicanery was now in progress.
My next inquiry was in the direction of establishing the identity of the
motor-cyclist.
That night Rayner kept watchful vigil instead of myself, for I had been
up five nights in succession and required sleep. But though he waited
near the house in the Overstrand Road from ten o'clock until four in
the morning, nothing occurred. Jeanjean had evidently retired to rest
and to sleep.
After that we took it in turns to watch, I having made it right with the
night-porter of the hotel, for a pecuniary consideration, to take no
notice of our going or coming.
For a whole week the notorious Frenchman did not emerge after he entered
the house at dinner-time. I was sorely puzzled regarding the identity of
that motor-cyclist. Would he return, or had he left the neighbourhood?
Early one morning Rayner, having taken his turn of watching, returned to
say that Bertini, with his motor-cycle, had again met the "foreign
gentleman" at the railway bridge--the same spot at which I had seen them
meet.
They had remained about half an hour in conversation, after which the
stranger had mounted and rode away again on the Norwich road, while
Jeanjean had returned to his lodgings.
My mind was then made up. That same morning I took train to Norwich,
where I hired a motor-car for a fortnight, and paying down a substantial
deposit, drove the car--an open "forty," though a trifle
old-fashioned--as far as Aylsham, a distance of ten miles, or half-way
between Norwich and Cromer. There I put up at a small hotel, where I
spent the rest of the day in idleness, and afterwards dined.
Aylsham is a sleepy little place, with nothing much to attract the
visitor save its church and ancient houses. Therefore, I devoted myself
to the newspapers until just before the hotel closed for the night.
Then I rang up Rayner on the telephone as I had made arrangement to do.
"That's me, sir," was his answer to my inquiry.
"Well," I asked, "anything fresh?"
"Yes, sir. A lady called to see you at seven o'clock--a young French
lady. I saw her and explained that you were away until to-morrow,
and----"
"Yes, yes!" I cried eagerly. "A French lady. Did she give her name?"
"No, sir. She only told me to tell you that if I mentioned the word
'nightingale,' you would know."
"The Nightingale!" I gasped, astounded. It was Lola! And she had called
upon me!
"When is she coming back?" I demanded eagerly.
"She didn't say, sir--only told me to tell you how sorry she was that
you were out. She had travelled a long way to see you."
"But didn't she say she'd call back?" I demanded, full of chagrin that I
should have so unfortunately been absent.
"No, sir. She said she might be able to call sometime to-morrow
afternoon, but was not at all certain."
I held the receiver in my trembling fingers in reflection. Nothing could
be done. I had missed her--missed seeing Lola!
Surely my absence had been a great, and, perhaps, unredeemable
misfortune.
"Very well," I said at last. "You know what to do to-night, Rayner?"
"Yes, sir."
"And I will be back in the morning."
"Very good, sir," responded my man, and I shut off. I paid my bill, went
outside and lit up the big headlamps of the car. Then I drove slowly out
of the yard, and out of the town, in the direction of Cromer.
It had been a close day, and the night, dark and oppressive, was
overcast with a threatening storm. The dust swept up before me with
every gust of wind as I went slowly along that high road which led
towards the sea. I proceeded very leisurely, my thoughts full of my fair
visitor.
Lola had called upon me! Why? Surely, after what had occurred, I could
never have hoped for another visit from her.
Yes. It must be something of the greatest importance upon which she
wished to consult me. Evidently she knew of my presence in
Cromer--knew, possibly, of the efforts I was making to unravel the
mystery of old Vernon Gregory.
Yet, I could only wait in impatience for the morrow. But would she
return? That was the question.
The car was running well, but I had plenty of time. Therefore, after
travelling five miles or so, I pulled up, took out my pipe and smoked.
I stopped my engine, and, in the silence of the night, strained my ears
to catch the sound of an approaching motor-cycle. But I could hear
nothing--only the distant rumble of thunder far northward across the
sea.
By my watch I saw that it was nearly midnight. So I restarted my engine
and went slowly along until I was within a couple of miles of Cromer,
and could see the flashing of the lighthouse, and the lights of the town
twinkling below. Then again I stopped and attended to my headlights,
which were growing dim.
A mile and a half further on I knew that Rayner, down the dip of the
hill, was lurking in the shadow. But my object in stationing myself
there was to follow the mysterious cyclist, not when he went to keep his
appointment, but when he left.
In order to avert suspicion, I presently turned the car round with its
lights towards Norwich, but scarcely had I done so, and stopped the
engine again, when I heard, in the darkness afar off, the throb of a
motor-cycle approaching at a furious pace.
My lamps lit up the road, while, standing in the shadow bending as
though attending to a tyre, my own form could not, I knew, be seen in
the darkness.
On came the cyclist. Was it the man for whom I was watching?
He gave a blast on his horn as he rounded the corner, for he could no
doubt see the reflection of my lamps from afar.
Then he passed me like a flash, but, in that instant as he came through
the zone of light, I recognized his features.
It was Bertini, the mysterious friend of Jules Jeanjean.
I had but to await his return, and by waiting I should learn the truth.
I confess that my heart beat quickly as I watched his small red light
disappear along the road.
CHAPTER IX
DESCRIBES A NIGHT-VIGIL
The gusty wind had died down.
In the silence of the night I listened to the receding noise of the
motor-cycle as it swept down the hill into Cromer town, where I knew
Rayner would be on the alert.
The sound died away, therefore I relit my pipe, and mounting again into
the driver's seat, sat back thinking--thinking mostly of Lola, and my
ill-luck at having missed her.
Before me, in the white glare of the lamps upon the road, where insects
of the night, attracted by the radiance, were dancing to their deaths,
there arose before me that sweet, perfect face, the face that had so
attracted me. I saw her smile--smile at me, as she did when first we had
met. Ah! How strange had been our friendship, stranger than novelist had
ever imagined. I had loved her--loved as I had never loved before, and
she had loved me, with that bright, intense look in her wonderful eyes,
the woman's look that can never lie.
There is but one love-look. A man knows it by his instinct, just as does
a woman. A woman knows by intuition that the fool who takes her out to
the theatre and supper, and is so profuse in his protestations of
undying admiration, is only uttering outpourings of vapid nonsense. Just
so, a man meets insincerity with insincerity. The woman gets to know in
time how much her vain, shallow admirer is good for, for she knows he
will soon pass out of her life, while the man's instinct is exactly the
same. In a word, it is life--the life of this, our Twentieth Century.
The man laughed at and derided to-day, is a hero ten years hence.
A few years ago Mr. John Burns carried a banner perspiringly along the
Thames Embankment, in a May Day procession, and I assisted him. To-day
he is a Cabinet Minister. A few years ago my dear friend, George
Griffith, wrote about air-ships in his romance, _The Angel of the
Revolution_, and everybody made merry at his expense. To-day airships
are declared to be the chief arm of Continental nations.
Ah, yes! The world proceeds apace, and the unknown to-morrow ever brings
its amazing surprises and the adoption of the "crank's" ideas of
yesterday.
Lola had called to see me. That fact conjured up in my imagination a
thousand startling theories.
Why?
Why had she called, after all that had passed between us?
I waited, waited for the coming of that mysterious cyclist, who arose
from nowhere, and whose business with Jules Jeanjean was of such vast
and secret importance.
The very fact of Jeanjean being in Cromer had staggered me. As I sat
there smoking, and listening, I recollected when last I had heard
mention of his name. Hamard--the great Hamard--Chief of the _Sûreté_ of
Paris, had been seated in his private bureau in the offices of the
detective police.
He had leaned back in his chair, and blowing a cloud of tobacco-smoke
from his lips, had said in French--
"Ah! Mon cher Vidal, we are face to face in this affair with Jules
Jeanjean, the most ingenious and most elusive criminal that we have met
this century in France. In other walks of life Jeanjean would have been
a great man--a millionaire financier, a Minister of the Cabinet, a
great general--a leader of men. But in the circumstances this
arch-adventurer, who slips through our fingers, no matter what trap we
set for him, is a criminal of a type such as Europe has never known
within the memory of living man. Personally I admire his pluck, his
energy, his inventiveness, his audacity, his iron nerve, and his amazing
cunning. Truly, now, cher ami, he is a marvel. There is but one
master-criminal, Jules Jeanjean."
That was the character given him by Monsieur Hamard, the greatest French
detective since Lecoq.
And now this master-criminal was beneath the railway arch at Cromer
meeting in secret a mysterious cyclist!
What evil was now intended?
I waited, my ears strained to catch every sound. But I only heard the
distant rumble of the thunder, away across the North Sea, and,
somewhere, the dismal howling of a dog.
I waited, and still waited. The sky grew brighter, and I grew
perceptibly colder, so that I turned up my coat-collar, and shivered,
even though the previous day had been so unusually warm. The car smelt
of petrol and oil--a smell that nauseated me--and yet my face was turned
to the open country ready to follow and track down the man who had swept
past me to keep that mysterious tryst in the darkness.
Looking back, I saw, away to the right, the white shafts of light from
the high-up lighthouse, slowly sweeping the horizon, flashing warning to
mariners upon that dangerous coast, while, far away in the distance over
the sea, I could just discern a flash from the lightship on the
Haisboro' Sands.
In the valley, deep below, lay Cromer, the street-lamps reflecting upon
the low storm-clouds. At that moment the thunder-storm threatened to
burst.
Yet I waited, and waited, watching the rose of dawn slowly spreading in
the Eastern sky.
Silence--a complete and impressive silence had fallen--even the dog had
now ceased to howl.
And yet I possessed myself in patience, my ears strained for the
"pop-pop" of the returning motor-cycle.
A farmer's cart, with fresh vegetables and fruit for the Cromer shops on
the morrow, creaked slowly past, and the driver in his broad Norfolk
dialect asked me--
"Any trouble, sir?"
I replied in the negative, whereupon he whipped up his horse, bade me a
cheery "good morning," and descended the hill. For a long time, as I
refilled and relit my pipe, I could hear the receding wheels, but no
sound of a motor-cycle could I hear.
Time passed, the flush of dawn crept over the sea, brightened swiftly,
and then overcast night gave place to a calm and clear morning. The
larks, in the fields on either side, rose to greet the rising sun, and
the day broke gloriously. Many a dawn had I witnessed in various parts
of the world, from the snows of Spitzbergen to the baking sands of the
Sahara, but never a more glorious one than that June morning in
Poppyland, for Cromer is one of the few places in England where you can
witness the sun both rise from, and set in the sea.
My headlights had burned themselves out long ago. It was now four
o'clock. Strange that the nocturnal cyclist did not return!
All my preparations had, it seemed, been in vain.
I knew, however, that I was dealing with Jules Jeanjean, a past-master
in crime, a man who, no doubt, was fully aware of the inquiries being
made by the plain-clothes officers from Norwich, and who inwardly
laughed them to scorn.
The man who had defied the Paris _Sûreté_ would hardly entertain any
fear of the Norfolk Constabulary.
Many country carts, most of them going towards Cromer, now passed me,
and their drivers wished me "Good morning," but I remained at my lonely
vigil until five o'clock. Then I decided that Jeanjean's friend must
have taken another road out of Cromer, either the Sheringham, the Holt,
or the Overstrand, the three other main roads out of the town.
What had Rayner done, I wondered? Where was he?
I sat down upon the grassy bank at the roadside, still pondering. Of all
the mysteries of crime I had assisted in investigating, in order to
write down the details in my book, this was assuredly the most
remarkable.
I knew that I was face to face with some great and startling affair,
some adventure which, when the truth became known, would amaze and
astound the world. Jules Jeanjean was not the man to attempt small
things. He left those to smaller men. In his profession he was the
master, and a thousand _escrocs_, all over the Continent, forgers,
international thieves, burglars, coiners, _rats d'hotel_--most ingenious
of malefactors--regarded the name of Jeanjean with awe.
One of his exploits was well known up and down the Continent--for the
_Matin_ had published the full story a year ago. Under another name, and
in the guise of a wealthy _rentier_ of Paris, he made the acquaintance
of one of the Inspectors of the Paris detective service. Inviting him to
his private sitting-room in the _Hôtel Royale_, on the Promenade des
Anglais, he gave him an _aperitif_ which in less than three minutes
caused the police official to lose consciousness. Thereupon Jeanjean
took from the Inspector's pocket his card of authority as a detective--a
card signed by the Prefect of Police--and at once left the hotel.
Next night, at the _Café Américain_ in Paris, he went up to a wealthy
German who was spending a harmless but gay evening at that well-known
supper-resort and arrested him for theft, exhibiting his warrant of
authority.
In a taxi he conducted him to the Prefecture of Police, but on their way
the German asked him if they could come to terms. The pseudo-Inspector
hesitated, then told the taxi-driver to go to a small hotel opposite
the Gare du Nord. There he and his prisoner discussed terms, it being
eventually agreed that the German--a well-known shipowner of
Hamburg--should in the morning telegraph to his bank for eighty thousand
marks, for which sum he would be allowed to go at liberty.
It was well known, of course, to Jeanjean that his "prisoner" had been
guilty of the offence for which he had "arrested" him, and the _coup_
was quite easy.
He kept the German in the hotel till ten o'clock next morning, and then
the pair went to the Crédit Lyonnais together. At four o'clock--the
bogus Inspector still with his "prisoner,"--the money was brought to the
obscure hotel, and after Jeanjean had carefully counted through the
notes he allowed his prey to go at liberty, advising him to take the
next train back to Germany.
At six o'clock, the sun shining out warm and brightly, my patience was
exhausted. I had spent the night hours there in vain. Yet I dare not
drive the car into Cromer, for I intended to repeat my effort on the
following night. Therefore I started the engine, and was soon back in
the yard of the small hotel in Aylsham.
There I put up the car, breakfasted, and then taking the first train to
North Walsham, arrived in Cromer about half-past nine o'clock.
When I entered my room at the _Hôtel de Paris_ the maid came quickly
along, saying--
"Will you please go up to see your servant, sir! He's very unwell!"
"Unwell?" I said. "Why, what's the matter?"
"I don't know, sir. The police brought him in about half an hour ago.
He's been out all night, they say. And they found him very ill."
I darted upstairs and entered Rayner's room without knocking.
He was lying upon the bed, still dressed, his face pale as death.
"Ah, sir!" he gasped, "I--I'm so glad you've come back! I--I wondered
whether anything had happened to you. I--I----"
He stretched out his hand to me, but no other word escaped his lips.
I saw that he had fainted.
CHAPTER X
CONTAINS A CLUE
At once I knew that some startling incident had happened.
Dr. Sladen, called by the police, entered the room a few moments
afterwards, whereupon I turned to him, and in order to allay any undue
curiosity, said--
"My man has been taken ill, doctor. Exhaustion, I suppose. He's a great
walker, and, unknown to me, has apparently been out for a night ramble."
"Ah, yes," answered the quiet, old-fashioned medical man, peering at the
invalid through his glasses.
Slowly he took Rayner's pulse, and then said--
"Heart a little weak, I suppose. There's nothing really wrong--eh?"
"I think not. He was talking to me only a few moments ago, and then
suddenly fainted. Been on a long ramble, I should think."
"At night, eh?" asked the doctor in some surprise.
"It is a habit of his to walk at night. He does the same thing in
London--walks miles and miles."
We dashed cold water into Rayner's face, gave him a smelling-bottle
belonging to one of the maids, and very soon he came round again,
opening his eyes in wonder at his surroundings.
"Here's Doctor Sladen," I said. "You feel better now, don't you,
Rayner?"
"Yes, sir," was his feeble reply.
"Ah, you've been on one of your night rambles again," I said
reprovingly. "You over-do it, you know."
Then Sladen asked him a few questions, and finding that he had
recovered, shook my hand and left.
The instant the door was closed upon the doctor Rayner sat up, and with
a serious expression upon his face said--
"Something has happened, sir. I don't know what. I'll tell you all I
know. I went up to the railway arch as you directed, and lay down in the
hedge to wait. After a long time the foreigner from the Overstrand Road
came along, lit a cigar, and waited. He was wearing an overcoat, and I
suppose he must have waited a full half-hour, until, at last, the
cyclist came. They had a brief talk. Then the cyclist left his cycle
about fifty yards from where I was in hiding, and both men set off
towards the town. I, of course, followed at a decent distance, and they
didn't hear me because of the rubber soles on my boots."
"Well, what then?" I inquired impatiently.
"They separated just against the _Albion_, and then followed one another
past the church, and to the left, behind this hotel, and along to the
house where the dead man lived--the house you pointed out to me. Close
by they met another man who, in the darkness, I took to be a chauffeur.
But I had, then, to draw back into a doorway to watch their movements.
The chap I took to be a chauffeur, after a few words with the two
foreigners, came along in my direction, and passed within a yard of me,
when of a sudden he turned and faced me. 'What are you doing here?' he
asked quickly. 'Nothing,' was my reply. 'Then take that for your
inquisitiveness,' he said, and in a second I felt something over both my
nose and mouth. It was only for a second, but I recollect I smelt a
strong smell of almonds; and then I knew no more, nothing until I found
myself here."
"That's most extraordinary!" I exclaimed. "Then you don't know what
became of the three men?"
"Not in the least, sir," Rayner replied. "I was so thoroughly taken
aback, that I must have gone down like a log."
"Then, that's all you know?"
"Yes, sir."
Scarcely had he finished relating his strange adventure than Inspector
Treeton entered, and greeting me, explained how Rayner had been found by
a constable, lying senseless, about three miles out of the town on the
road to Holt.
By that I knew he must have been conveyed there, probably by a
motor-car, driven by the chauffeur who had so mysteriously attacked him,
apparently at the foreigners' orders. It was Jeanjean's work, no doubt.
The Frenchman had seemingly eyes at the back of his head, and had
evidently detected that his actions were being spied upon.
To the police inspector I made no mystery of the affair, merely
replying, as I had to the doctor, that my manservant was in the habit of
taking long walks, long nocturnal rambles, and that he evidently had
overdone it.
"Doctor Sladen has already been here and seen him," I added. "He says
he's quite right again."
This satisfied the highly-esteemed local inspector, and presently he
left us, expressing the hope that Rayner would very soon be himself once
more.
"Well," I said to my man when the inspector had gone, "it's evident that
while you were unconscious they picked you up, put you in the car, and
tipped you out upon the road outside the town. Perhaps they believed you
to be dead."
"Like enough, sir," he said, smiling grimly.
"They evidently trapped you, Rayner," I said, laughing. "You were not
sharp enough."
"But, who'd have thought that the fellow could have come straight for
me, and rendered me insensible in a tick--as he did?" asked my man as he
lay, still extended on the bed, a dirty, dishevelled figure. "I know I
was caught, sir; those men were cleverer than I was, I admit."
"Yes, Rayner," was my reply. "I don't blame you in the least. I'm only
glad that your plight isn't worse. The men had a motor-car, it seems, at
their disposal somewhere, and they went in the direction of Holt."
"That appears so, sir."
"Why, I wonder? Bertini probably obtained his machine and followed the
car. They must have gone either through Wells and Fakenham, or East
Dereham."
"Back to Norwich, perhaps, sir. All roads from here seem to lead to
Norwich."
"But you say the incident happened close to Beacon House, where old
Gregory lived--eh?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then they objected to you being present. Evidently something was
intended and you prevented it."
"No. Perhaps I didn't prevent it. They prevented me instead."
Rayner was a bit of a humorist.
"Quite likely," I answered, smiling. But I was full of chagrin that I
had been out all night, waiting on that lonely road, while that
mysterious affair had been in progress.
"Well, at any rate, Rayner, you've had a very funny experience," I said,
with a laugh.
"And not the first, sir, eh?" he replied, stretching lazily on the bed.
"Do you recollect that funny case at Pegli, just outside Genoa? My word,
those two assassins nearly did me in that night, sir."
"And three nights later we gave them over to agents of the Department of
Public Security," I said. "Yes, Rayner, you had a tough half-hour, I
know. But you're an adventurer, like myself. As long as we solve a
mystery we don't regret the peril, or the adventure, do we?"
"No, sir. I don't--as long as you give a guiding eye over it. But I
tell you straight, sir, I don't like detectives. They're chumps, most of
'em."
"No. Don't condemn them," I said. "Rather condemn the blind and silly
police system of England. The man who snares a rabbit gets a conviction
recorded against him, while the shark in the city pays toll to the Party
and becomes a Baronet. I'm no socialist," I added, "but I believe in
honesty in our daily life. Honesty in man, and modesty in woman, are the
two ideals we should always retain, even in this age of degeneracy and
irreligion."
"I think the local police are blundering the whole of this affair,"
Rayner went on. "Yet I can't make out by what means I was so suddenly
put out of action. That curious, strong smell of almonds puzzles me.
It's in my nostrils now."
"Your fancy, I expect," I said.
At that moment came a knock at the door, and the tall young constable
entered, the same man who had been on duty when I had gone up to inspect
the seat where Craig's body had been found.
"The Inspector has sent me, sir," he exclaimed, saluting, "to say he'd
like to see you at once. He's just along the West Cliff--at Beacon
House, where Mr. Craig lived in."
"Certainly," I replied. "Tell him I will come at once."
The constable disappeared, and turning to Rayner, I said: "I wonder why
Treeton wishes to see me in such a hurry? What has happened now?" Then,
promising to return quickly, I went out.
At Beacon House, I found Treeton standing in the front sitting-room, on
the ground-floor, talking seriously with the landlady.
"Hulloa! Mr. Vidal," he exclaimed as I entered. "Something more has
occurred in this house during the night. The place has been broken into
by burglars, who've got clean away with all old Mr. Gregory's collection
of jewellery."
"Burglary," I repeated slowly; and then all that Rayner had told me
flashed across my mind. I saw the reason for Jeanjean and his mysterious
cyclist companion being near the house, and also why Rayner, on being
detected, had been rendered senseless.
"Have you found any trace of the thieves?" I asked, having already
decided to keep my own information to myself.
"Lots of traces," laughed Treeton. "Come and see for yourself."
We ascended the stairs, followed by the excited landlady and her
husband.
"This is really terrible," moaned the woman. "I wish we'd never set eyes
upon the poor young man and his uncle. We heard nothing in the night,
nothing. In fact, I didn't discover that the room had been opened until
an hour ago, when I was sweeping down the stairs. Then I noticed that
the seals placed upon it had been broken, and the lock sawn right out.
Why we didn't hear them, I can't think!"
"Ah, you don't hear much when the modern burglar is at work," declared
Treeton. "They're far too scientific for that."
He showed me the door, from which the lock had been cut away, saying--
"They evidently got in by the window of the room downstairs, where we've
just been, for it was found closed but not latched. They came up these
stairs, cut out the lock, as you see--and look at that!" he added as we
entered the old man's room.
The strong old sea-chest stood in the centre of the room. The lid, which
had been nailed down, and sealed by the police, had been wrenched off
and the box stood empty!
"Look!" cried Treeton again. "Every scrap gone--and it must have been a
pretty bulky lot--a couple, or even three, sacksful at the least."
I went to the two windows which overlooked the narrow street behind, and
examining the sills, saw marks where the paint had recently been rubbed
away.
"Yes, I see," I remarked, "and they lowered the plunder to confederates
outside."
"But who could have known of the existence of the jewellery, here?"
asked Treeton. "Only ourselves were aware of it. At the inquest all
mention of it was carefully suppressed."
"Somebody, of course, must have talked, perhaps unthinkingly, about it,
and the news got round to the thieves," remarked the landlord.
I remained silent. Had I not, from the first, marvelled that old Mr.
Gregory should disappear and leave behind him that collection of
valuables?
"I've wired to Norwich, to Frayne, to come over at once, and see if he
can find any finger-prints," said the local inspector. "We've discovered
something here which the burglars left behind. Look at this."
And from a corner of the room he picked up something and handed it to
me.
It was a woman's little, patent leather walking-shoe, with two white
pearl buttons as fastening. The size I judged to be threes, but, as it
was still fastened, it must have been too large for the wearer, who
apparently having dropped it, was unable for some reason to regain it,
and so left it behind.
"That's very strange!" I said, turning the little shoe over in my hand.
It was not much worn, and of very good quality. "A woman has evidently
been here!"
"Evidently, Mr. Vidal," replied the officer. "But surely a woman would
never have the pluck to do a job of this sort. Nine people slept in this
house last night and never heard a sound."
Truth to tell, I did not expect they would have done, now that I knew
the robbery had been engineered by Jules Jeanjean.
"Very remarkable--very," I declared. "Probably Frayne, when he takes the
finger-prints, will find some clue," I added, laughing inwardly, for I
knew that those who had committed that robbery were far too clever to
leave behind any traces of their identity. Besides, to actually lower
the booty down into a public street showed a daring spirit which one
only finds in the most expert criminals.
I could not, however, account for the discovery of that little shoe. Had
it really been lost--or had it been placed there in order to mystify and
mislead the police?
The latter suggestion had, of course, never entered Treeton's head.
"I wonder," I said to him, "if you would allow me to take this shoe
along to the hotel? I want to take the exact measurements."
"Certainly, Mr. Vidal," was his reply. "You'll send it round to me, at
the station, afterwards?"
"In an hour you shall have it," I promised him. Then I placed the shoe
in my pocket, and made a tour of the room, touching nothing because of
Frayne's coming hunt for finger-prints.
Jeanjean always wore gloves, skin-thin, rubber-gloves, which left no
trace of his light touch. The curved lines of his thumb and forefinger
were far too well known in Paris, in London, in Berlin and Rome, where
the bureaux of detective police all possessed enlarged photographs of
them.
Back in my room at the _Hôtel de Paris_, I took from a drawer the
plaster cast of the woman's footprints I had found near the spot where
Craig had been found.
Then, carrying it down to the shore near the pier, I made a print with
the cast in the wet sand left hard by the receding tide.
Afterwards, I took the tiny, patent leather shoe from my pocket, and
placed it carefully in the print.
It fitted exactly.
CHAPTER XI
THE AFFAIR ON THE SEVENTEENTH
The ingenious theft of old Gregory's treasure created the greatest
consternation amongst the police, though the truth was carefully
concealed from the public.
Treeton pledged Mr. and Mrs. Dean and their servant to secrecy,
therefore all that was known in Cromer was that there had been an
attempted burglary at Beacon House.
Cromer is a quiet, law-abiding town, and burglars had not been known
there for years. Therefore the inhabitants were naturally alarmed, and
now carefully locked and bolted their doors at night.
I returned the shoe to the police-station, but made no mention of the
result of my test.
From the first I had guessed that old Gregory would not leave his
treasure behind. Yet, if he were not guilty of Craig's murder, why had
he fled?
Lola had visited him, and Jeanjean had been in Cromer. Those two facts
were, in themselves, sufficient to tell me that Gregory was an impostor
and that Craig, whoever he might really have been, had fallen the victim
of some deadly vengeance.
Would Lola return to see me?
In the days that followed--bright June days, with the North Sea lying
calm and blue below the cliffs--I waited in patience, scarce leaving the
hotel all day, in fear lest she might again seek me, and, paying me a
visit, find me absent.
Rayner considered me inactive and grumbled in consequence.
He spent his time lolling upon one of the seats on the cliff-top outside
the hotel, idly smoking Virginian cigarettes. He had openly expressed
his dissatisfaction that I had not made any attempt to follow the
mysterious Doctor Arendt and his Italian friend.
Truth to tell, I was utterly confounded.
To follow Jules Jeanjean, now that he had got clean away with Gregory's
treasure, would, I felt, be an utterly futile task. He was too clever to
leave any trace behind--a past-master in the art of evasion, and a man
of a hundred clever disguises.
What would they say at the Prefecture of Police in Paris, when I related
to them the strange story of Jeanjean's exploits in England? Was it
possible, I wondered, that the master-criminal, finding the Continent of
Europe growing a trifle too hot for him, had come to England to follow
his nefarious profession. If so, then he would certainly cause a great
deal of trouble to the famous Council of Seven at the Criminal
Investigation Department in London.
Thus days went on--warm, idle, summer days with holiday visitors daily
arriving, houses being repainted, and Cromer putting on her best
appearance for the coming "season." Seaside towns always blossom forth
into fresh paint in the month of June, window-sashes in white and doors
in green. But Cromer, with its golf and high-class music, is essentially
a resort of the wealthy, a place where the tripper is unwanted and where
there are no importunate long-shoremen suggesting that it is a "Nice day
for a bowot, sir!"
Where was Lola? Would she ever return?
I idled about the hotel, impatient and angry with myself. Yes, Rayner
was right after all! I ought to have made some effort to follow the
three men. But now, it was quite impossible. They were, no doubt, far
away, and probably old Gregory's treasure was by that time safe in his
own hands.
The evidence of the shoe puzzled me. The wearer of that little shoe with
the two pearl buttons had, without doubt, been near that seat on the
East Cliff where Craig had been killed--present, in all probability,
when he had been so mysteriously stricken down.
Was it possible that a woman--the same woman--had assisted in the
burglary, and had inadvertently lost her shoe? Perhaps she had taken
her shoes off in order to move noiselessly, and in trying to recover
them could only regain one!
Lola, I remembered, possessed a very small foot. She was always
extremely neat and dainty about the ankles and wore silk stockings and
pretty shoes. Was it the print of her foot that I had found near that
fatal seat? Was it her shoe that had been found at Beacon House?
Ah! If I could but see her? If she would only call upon me once again!
Day after day I waited, but, alas, she did not come.
That she was most anxious to see me was proved by the fact that she had
dared to call at all after what had occurred. She had some strong motive
in meeting me again, therefore I lived on in hope that she would return.
The Nightingale! Heavens! What strange memories that one word brought
back to me as I sat in the window of my high-up room, gazing over the
summer sea.
It was now July, and Cromer was rapidly filling with better-class folk.
Now and then I went to London, but only for the day, fearing lest Lola
should send me a telegram to meet her. In my absence Rayner always
remained on duty.
I had written to her address in the Avenue Pereire, in Paris, but had
received no reply. Then I had sent a line to the concierge of the house
wherein the flat was situated. To this I had received an ill-scribbled
few lines in French, expressing a regret that Mademoiselle had vacated
the place some weeks previously and that her present address was
unknown.
Unknown! Well, that, after all, scarcely surprised me. Lola's address
generally was unknown. Only her most intimate friends ever knew it; and
for obvious reasons. She existed always in a deadly fear.
Perhaps it was that very fear which even now kept her from me!
Several times I had advertised in the personal column of the _Matin_ in
the hope that she might see it and communicate with me, but all to no
avail.
In Cromer the sensation caused by the mysterious crime had quite died
down.
Frayne, in Norwich, had ceased to make further inquiry, and Treeton now
regarded the problem as one that would never be solved. So, with the
daily arrival of visitors, Cromer and its tradespeople and landladies
forgot the curious affair which had afforded them such a "nine days'
wonder."
The month of July passed, and, with the London season over, every one
rushed to the seaside. Cromer was filled to overflowing. The narrow
streets were crowded with well-dressed folk, and large cars passed one
at every turn. Stifled town-dwellers were there to enjoy the strong,
healthy breezes from the North Sea, and to indulge in the bathing and
the golf.
Yet, though August came, I still kept on my room at the _Paris_, hoping
against hope that Lola might yet return.
Quite suddenly, one day, I recollected that curious letter in Italian,
signed "Egisto," and addressed to his "Illustrious Master," found at
Beacon House.
It had referred to something which had appeared in the Paris _Matin_ of
March 17. Consequently I sent to Paris for a copy of the paper, and, one
morning, the pale yellow sheet arrived.
"The business we have been so long arranging, was successfully concluded
last night," the writer of the letter had said, adding that a report of
it appeared in the _Matin_ on the day of this letter.
Eagerly I searched the paper, which was, as usual, full of sensational
reports, for the French newspaper reader dearly loves a tragedy.
The "feature" of the paper is always placed in the right-hand corner
near the bottom, and, as I searched, my eyes fell upon the words, in
bold capitals: "Motor Bandits: Dastardly Outrage near Fontainebleau."
What followed, roughly translated into English, read--
"By telephone from Fontainebleau. Early this morning we have received
information of a dastardly outrage in which two lives have been
sacrificed. It appears that, just after midnight, Monsieur Charles
Benoy, the well-known jeweller of the Rue de la Paix, was travelling
from Paris to his château near Maret-sur-Loire, on the other side of the
Forest of Fontainebleau. He was accompanied by his son Pierre, aged
twenty-four, and driven by the chauffeur, named Petit. With him, in the
car, M. Benoy had in their leather cases four diamond collars of great
value, and two pearl necklaces, which he intended to show next day to a
certain American gentleman who has recently purchased the ancient
Château de Provins, and who was one of the jeweller's customers.
"M. Benoy's intention was to take the jewels over to Provins in his car
on the following morning. Apparently all went well on the journey. They
passed through Melun, entered the Forest, and at a high speed passed
through the little hamlet of Chantoïseau, where they were seen by two
gendarmes.
"According to the story of the chauffeur, when about four kilometres
beyond Chantoïseau, at a lonely point of the forest, he saw two red
lights being waved in the roadway, and reduced his speed on this sign of
danger.
"As he did so, however, three men sprang out from the undergrowth. They
called upon him to stop, and a revolver was fired point-blank at him.
Next moment the bandits fired, without further ado, upon the occupants
of the car, but the chauffeur, severely wounded, then fainted, and knew
no more until he recovered consciousness in the barracks of the
Gendarmerie in Moret.
"What happened, apparently, was that the three assassins, after shooting
all three of the occupants of the car, threw the bodies into the
roadway, seized the automobile, and drove off with the jewels. M. Benoy
and his son were dead when found, the father having two bullet-wounds in
his head, while the son had been struck in the region of the heart. The
chauffeur, Petit, lies in a critical condition, and only with great
difficulty has been able to give an account of the murderous attack.
"Inquiries at M. Benoy's shop, in the Rue de la Paix, have revealed the
fact that the jewellery is worth about four hundred thousand francs.
"The car was seen returning through Melun, being driven at a furious
pace by the bandits, but, unfortunately, all traces of it, and of the
three men, have been lost.
"According to the chauffeur's description of one of the men, who wore
motor-goggles as a disguise, the police believe the outrage to be the
work of the notorious Jules Jeanjean, the ingenious criminal of whom the
police have been so long in search.
"The occupants of the car were treated with inhuman brutality. The
bodies of both father and son, together with the number-plates of the
car, were thrown unceremoniously into the undergrowth; that of Petit was
allowed to lie across the footpath, but for what reason cannot be
guessed at.
"From the fact that the number-plates of the car have been found, it
would appear that before the bandits moved off they replaced the correct
numbers by false ones. No doubt, also, a rapid attempt was made to alter
the appearance of the body of the car, because, close by, there were
found two pails containing grey paint, and large brushes with the paint
still wet in them.
"From this it is seen that the intention of the bandits was to make a
long run, perhaps all through the following day, to reach some distant
point of safety.
"It will be remembered that Jules Jeanjean was the prime mover in the
terrible outrage near Lyons, where three motorists were shot dead and
two wounded. Two men named Dubois, and Leblon, were arrested, and before
their condemnation confessed that Jeanjean, a dangerous anarchist, had
instigated the plot.
"Readers of the _Matin_ will not need to be reminded of the many
desperate crimes of which this atrocious scoundrel has been the author;
of his amazing daring and marvellous cunning; and of the almost uncanny
ease with which he, time after time, defies every effort of the police
to trace and capture him.
"M. Hamard, Chef de la Sûreté, and several inspectors have left Paris,
and are upon the scene of the outrage, while descriptions of the missing
jewellery have already been circulated."
CHAPTER XII
LOLA
Several times I re-read the account of the dastardly outrage.
Too well I knew how dangerous and desperate a man was Jules Jeanjean,
the studious, and apparently harmless, Belgian doctor, who had lodged in
the Overstrand Road, and had strolled about the pier and promenade of
Cromer. His name, during the last three years or so, had become well
known from end to end of Europe as an Anarchist who defied all the
powers of law and order; a man who moved from place to place with
marvellous swiftness, and who passed from frontier to frontier under the
very noses of the commissaries of police stationed there.
His narrowest escape of capture had been one day in Charleroi, where,
while sitting before the _Café des XXV_, he had been recognized by an
inspector of the French _Sûreté_, who was in Belgium upon another
matter. The inspector called a local agent of police, who suddenly
pounced upon him, but in an instant Jeanjean had drawn a revolver, with
which he shot the unfortunate policeman dead, and, in the confusion,
escaped.
He then wrote an impudent letter to the Prefecture of Police in Paris,
telling them that his intention was to serve any other police agent the
same who might attempt to arrest him.
I took from my dispatch-box the copy I had made of the letter in
Italian, found at Beacon House. In the light of that newspaper report it
proved curious and interesting reading.
Who was the writer, Egisto? Evidently one of the conspirators. It was a
report to his "Illustrious Master," of what had been done. Who was his
Master? Surely not Jules Jeanjean, because one sentence read, "J.
arrives back in Algiers to-morrow."
Was it possible that the "Illustrious Master"--the man who actually
plotted and directed those dramatic coups--was none other than old
Gregory himself!
The letter was certainly a report to the head of an association of
dangerous malefactors. Who "H." was, who had "left as arranged," I knew
not, but "J." evidently indicated Jules Jeanjean, and the fact that he
would arrive back in Algiers on the morrow, showed first, that his
hiding-place was on the other side of the Mediterranean; and, secondly,
that after the crime a dash had been made to the south to join the
mail-boat at Marseilles. The writer, Egisto, had left the other,
travelling via Brindisi, to Port Said, so leaving the Paris police to
again search for them in vain.
"Does H. know anything, do you think?" was the question Egisto had asked
in his letter.
Did "H." indicate Monsieur Hamard, the Chef de la Sûreté?
My own theory was that "H." did indicate that well-known official, whom
the gang had so often defied.
The writer, too, declared that "The Nightingale" still sang on blithely.
I knew the singer, the pretty, refined, fair-haired girl, so neat and
dainty, with the sweet, clear contralto voice. It was Lola--Lola Sorel!
On the morning of August 24, I was standing with Mr. Day on the
well-kept lawn outside the coast-guard station, watching the life-boat
being launched for the benefit of the visitors, and in order to collect
funds for the Life-boat Institution. The morning was perfect, with
bright sunshine, a clear sky and glassy sea. Below us, the promenade and
beach were thronged with summer visitors in light clothes, and the scene
was one of brightness and merriment.
Amid the cheers of the waiting crowd the life-boat, guided by its
gallant crew of North Sea fishermen, wearing their cork belts, went
slowly down to the water's edge. The instant it was launched, Mr. Day,
who held a huge pistol in his hand, fired a green rocket high into the
air--the signal to the Haisboro' Lightship that aid was on its way.
Just as he had done so, a telegraph-boy handed me a message.
I tore it open and read the words--
"Can you meet me at the _Maid's Head Hotel_, Norwich, this afternoon at
four? Urgent. Reply, _King's Head Hotel_, Beccles--LOLA."
My heart gave a great bound.
From the messenger I obtained a telegraph-form, and at once replied in
the affirmative.
Just before four o'clock I entered the covered courtyard of the old
_Maid's Head Hotel_, in Norwich, one of the most famous and popular
hostelries in Norfolk. John Peston mentioned it in 1472, when its sign
was _The Murtel_ or _Molde Fish_, and to-day, remodelled with taste, and
its ancient features jealously preserved, it is well known to every
motorist who visits the capital of Norfolk, the metropolis of Eastern
England.
I engaged a small private sitting-room on the first-floor, a pretty,
old-fashioned apartment with bright chintzes, and a bowl of fresh roses
upon the polished table in the centre. Telling the waiter I expected a
lady, I stood at the window to await my visitor.
As I stood there, all-impatient, the Cathedral chimes close by told the
hour of four, and shortly afterwards I heard the noise of a car turning
from the street into the courtyard.
Was it Lola?
From the room in which I was I could not see either roadway or
courtyard, therefore I waited, my ears strained to catch the sound of
footsteps upon the stairs.
Suddenly I heard some one ascending. The handle of the door was turned,
and next second I found myself face to face with the slim, fair-haired
girl whose coming I had so long awaited.
She came forward smiling, her white-gloved hand outstretched, her pretty
countenance slightly flushed, exclaiming in French--
"Ah! M'sieu' Vidal! After all this time!"
"It is not my fault, Mademoiselle, that we are such strangers," I
replied with a smile, bowing over her hand as the waiter closed the
door.
She was a charming little person, sweet and dainty from head to foot.
Dressed in a black coat and skirt, the former relieved with a collar of
turquoise silk, and the latter cut short, so that her silk-encased
ankles and small shoes were revealed. She wore a tiny close-fitting felt
hat, and a boa of grey ostrich feathers around her neck.
Her countenance was pale with well-moulded features of soft sympathetic
beauty, a finely-poised head with pretty dimpled chin, and a straight
nose, well-defined eyebrows, and a pair of eyes of that clear blue that
always seemed to me unfathomable.
I drew forward a chair, and she sank into it, stretching forth her small
feet and displaying her neat black silk stockings from beneath the hem
of her short skirt, which, adorned with big ball buttons, was discreetly
opened at the side to allow freedom in walking.
"Well, and why did you not call again upon me in Cromer?" I asked in
English, for I knew that she spoke our language always perfectly.
"Because--well, because I was unable," was her reply.
"Why did you not write?" I asked. "I've been waiting weeks for you."
"I know. I heard so," she said with a smile. "I am ve-ry sorry, but I
was prevented," she went on with a pretty, musical accent. "That same
evening I called upon you, I had to leave Cromer ve-ry hurriedly."
A strange thought flashed across my mind. Had her sudden departure been
due to the theft at Beacon House? Had she been present then and lost her
shoe?
I glanced at the shoes she wore. They were very smart, of black patent
leather, with a strip of white leather along the upper edge. Yes, the
size looked to me just the same as that of the little shoe which so
exactly fitted the imprint I had made in the sand.
"Why did you leave so quickly?" I asked, standing before her, and
leaning against the table, as I looked into the wonderful eyes of the
chic little Parisienne.
"I was compelled," was her brief response.
"You might have written to me."
"What was the use, M'sieu' Vidal? I went straight back to France. Then
to Austria, Hungary, and Russia," she answered. "Only the day before
yesterday I returned to London."
"From where?"
"From Algiers."
Algiers! The mention of that town recalled the fact that it was the
hiding-place of the notorious Jules Jeanjean.
"Why have you been in Algiers--and in August, too?"
"Not for pleasure," she replied with a grim smile. "The place is a
perfect oven just now--as you may well imagine. But I was forced to go."
"Forced against your will, Lola, eh?" I asked, bending towards her, and
looking her full in the face very seriously.
"Yes," she admitted, her eyes cast down, "against my will. I had a
message to deliver."
"To whom?"
"To my uncle."
"Not a message," I said, correcting her. "Something more valuable than
mere words. Is not that so?"
The Nightingale nodded in the affirmative, her blue eyes still downcast
in shame.
"Where was your starting-point?" I asked.
"In St. Petersburg, a fortnight ago. I was given the little box in the
_Hôtel de l'Europe_, and that night I concealed its contents in the
clothes I wore. Some of them I sewed into the hem of my travelling-coat,
and, and----"
"Stones they were, I suppose?" I said, interrupting.
"Yes, from Lobenski's, the jeweller's in the Nevski," she replied.
"Well, that night I left Petersburg and travelled to Vienna, thence to
Trieste, where I found my uncle's yacht awaiting me, and we went down
the Adriatic and along the Mediterranean to Algiers. My uncle was
already at home. The _coup_ was a large one, I believe. Have you seen
reports of it in the English papers?" she asked.
"Certainly," I replied. For a fortnight before I had read in several of
the newspapers of the daring robbery committed at the shop of Lobenski,
the Russian Court Jeweller, and of the theft of a large quantity of
diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The safe, believed to be impregnable,
had been fused by an oxygen acetylene jet, and the whole of its contents
stolen. From what Lola had revealed, it seemed that Jeanjean had had no
actual hand in the theft, for he had been in Algiers awaiting the booty.
But he always travelled swiftly after a _coup_.
"Did the papers say much about it?" asked Lola, with interest.
"Oh, just a sensational story," I replied. "But I never dreamt that you
were in Russia, Lola--that you had carried the stones across Europe sewn
in your dress!"
"Ah! It is not the first time, as you know, M'sieu' Vidal," she sighed.
"There is always danger of some customs officer or agent of police
recognizing me. But uncle says I am unsuspected, and hence the work is
assigned always to me."
"And you have come to England to see me--eh? Why?" I asked, looking
again into her clear blue eyes.
"I have come, M'sieu' Vidal, in order to ask a further favour of you--a
request I almost fear to make after your great generosity towards me."
"Oh! Don't let us speak of that," I said. "It is all past and over. I
only acted as any other man would have done in the circumstances, Lola!"
"You acted as a gentleman would act," she said. "But, alas! How few real
gentlemen are met by a wretched girl like myself," she added bitterly.
"Suppose you had acted as thousands would have done. Where should I be
now? Spending my days in one of your female prisons here."
"Instead of which you are still the little Nightingale, who sings so
blithely, and who is so inexpressibly dainty and charming," I said with
a smile. "At the best hotels up and down Europe, Lola Sorel is a
well-known figure, always ready to flirt with the idle youngsters, and
to make herself pleasant to those of her own sex. Only they must be
wealthy--eh?"
She made a quick movement as though to arrest the flow of my words.
"You are, alas! right, M'sieu' Vidal," she replied. "Ah, if you only
knew how I hate it all--how day by day, hour by hour--I fear that I may
blunder and consequently find myself in the hands of the police--if----"
"Never, if you follow your uncle, Jules Jeanjean," I interrupted. "And,
I suppose, you are still doing so?"
She sighed heavily, and a hard expression crossed her pretty face.
"Alas! I am forced to. You know the bitter truth, M'sieu' Vidal--the
tragedy of my life."
For a few moments I remained silent, my eyes upon her.
I knew full well the strange, romantic story of that pretty French girl
seated before me--the sweet, refined little person--scarcely more than a
child--whose present, and whose future, were so entirely in the hands of
that notorious criminal.
Why had I not telegraphed to the Paris police on discovering Jeanjean's
presence in Cromer? For one reason alone. Because his arrest would also
mean hers. He had too vowed in my presence that if he were ever taken
alive, he would betray his niece, because she had once, in a moment of
despair and horror, at one of his cold-blooded crimes, threatened to
give him away.
As she sat there, her face sweet and soft as a child's, her blue eyes so
clear and innocent, one would never dream that she was the cat's-paw of
the most ingenious and dangerous association of jewel thieves in the
whole of Europe.
Truly her story was a strange one--one of the strangest of any girl in
the world.
She noticed my thoughtfulness, and suddenly put out her little hand
until it touched mine; then, looking into my eyes, she asked, in a low,
intense voice--
"What are you thinking about?"
"I am thinking of you, Lola," I replied. "I am wondering what really
happened in Cromer, back in the month of June. You are here to
explain--eh? Will you tell me?"
Her brows contracted slightly, and she drew her hand back from mine.
"You know what happened," she said.
"I don't. Explain it all to me in confidence," I urged. "You surely know
me well enough to rely upon my keeping the secret."
"Ah, no!" she cried, starting up suddenly, a strange light of fear in
her eyes. "Never, M'sieu' Vidal! I--I can tell you nothing of
that--nothing more than what you already know. Please don't ask
me--never ask me again, for I--I can't tell you! It was all too
dastardly, too terrible!"
And the girl, with a wild gesture, covered her pale face with her little
hands as though to shut out from memory the grim recollection of a scene
that was full of bitterness and horror.
"But you will tell me the truth, Lola. Do. I beg of you?" I urged,
placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder.
"No," she cried in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "No. Don't ask me.
Please don't ask me."
CHAPTER XIII
RELATES A STRANGE STORY
I stood before Lola, grieved at her distress.
Too well I knew, alas! how deeply she had suffered, of all the
bitterness and remorse with which her young life was filled, blighted by
an ever-present terror, her youth sapped and her ideas warped by living
in an atmosphere of criminality.
Rapidly, as I took her little hands in unspoken sympathy, recollections
of our strangely-made acquaintanceship ran through my memory, and before
me arose a truly dramatic and impressive scene.
I had first seen Lola, two years before, seated alone at luncheon in the
pretty salle-à-manger of the _Hôtel d'Angleterre_ in Copenhagen. Many
eyes were upon her because of her youth and beauty, and many men sitting
at the various tables cast admiring glances at her.
I was with my friend, Jack Bellairs, and we were breaking our journey
for a few days in the Danish capital, before going up to Norway
salmon-fishing.
Jack first noted her, and drew my attention to the fact that she was
alone. At the time, I knew nothing of the two men who were lunching
together at another table at the further end of the room, and that the
name of one of them was Jules Jeanjean.
The girl, we discovered from the concierge, had been living alone in the
hotel for a month, and had become on very friendly terms with a certain
very wealthy Hungarian lady, the Baroness Függer, of Budapest. She
accompanied the Baroness everywhere, but the reason she was lunching
alone that morning was because the Baroness was absent for the day at
Elsinore.
During the next day or two we saw the stately old lady, whose chief
delight seemed to be the ostentatious display of jewellery, constantly
in Lola's company. The girl, though admired everywhere, treated all the
men about her with utter unconcern, being most modest and reserved.
On the fourth morning of our stay, at about ten o'clock, the hotel was
thrown into the greatest commotion by an amazing report that the
Baroness's bedroom had been entered during the night and the whole
contents of her jewel-case stolen. The police were at once called, and
were mystified by the fact that the Baroness had locked her door before
retiring, and that it was still locked when she awoke in the morning.
Therefore, it seemed that the jewels had been abstracted immediately
before she had entered the room on the previous night--stolen by some
one well acquainted with their hiding-place--for the jewel-case was kept
for safety at the bottom of a trunk full of soiled linen.
Naturally the police inquired if any of the visitors had left the hotel
since the previous night, but no person had left. All the visitors who
had been in the hotel the previous day at noon were still there. The
night-porter had not noticed anything suspicious, and nobody had heard
any unusual sound during the night.
All of us in the hotel were closely interrogated, including Lola, who
preserved an air of deepest regret that her dear friend, the Baroness,
should have been so ingeniously robbed. Indeed, it was during that
interrogation that I had first exchanged words with her.
"I can't understand it," she had declared to me in French. "I was in the
Baroness's room until she returned at a quarter to twelve, and I am
quite sure the jewels were there because, when she took off her diamond
necklet, I got out the case, and placed it with the other jewels."
"The case might then have been already empty," said the Commissary of
Police, who was making the investigation.
"It might have been, of course," replied the girl. "But the diamond
necklet is no longer there!"
Well, to go into the whole details of the inquiry is unnecessary.
Suffice it to say that, though the police searched everywhere, and the
Baroness indignantly invoked the aid of her Legation, nothing was ever
recovered, and at last I departed for Norway, leaving the Baroness still
enjoying the bright companionship of the young and pretty Lola.
The two sedate visitors, one of whom I knew later on as Jules Jeanjean,
also remained idling their days in the pleasant city, awaiting the
conclusion of a business deal, but, of course, holding no communication
with the fair-haired young girl.
After that, quite a year passed, and I found myself, in the course of my
erratic wanderings, guest of Lord Bracondale at a shooting-party at
Balmaclellan Castle, up in Kirkcudbrightshire--in that wild, lonely,
heather-clad land which lies between New Galloway and the Solway Firth.
As is well known, the Earl and Countess of Bracondale surround
themselves with a very smart set, and the party in question was a big
one. Indeed, most of the rooms in the historic Scottish Castle were
occupied, and while there was good sport by day, there was at night much
dancing in the fine old ball-room, and much bridge-playing.
In the midst of all the gaiety came the County Ball at Dumfries, to
which the whole party went over, the ladies eclipsing each other with
their jewels, as the function is always one of the smartest in Scotland.
My room at the castle, a big oak-panelled one, was in the east wing, at
the top of a steep flight of spiral stairs set in a corner tower, and on
the night following that of the ball, at about half-past two in the
morning, I awoke, and lay thinking, when I fancied I heard somebody
moving about, outside my door.
I strained my ears to listen.
The room next mine, further along the corridor, was occupied by a Mrs.
Forbes Wilson, the widow of the well-known American millionaire, while
further beyond slept Lady Oxborough, and beyond these were several other
visitors' rooms.
I suppose I must have listened for nearly a quarter of an hour, drowsily
wondering who could be on the move, when suddenly I was thoroughly
roused by hearing a sharp click. The door of the room adjoining mine had
been closed!
This struck me as distinctly curious, because, only at six o'clock the
previous evening, Mrs. Forbes Wilson had been called away suddenly to
the bedside of her little daughter, who had been taken ill at Wigton,
where she was stopping with friends. The widow had taken her maid with
her, and left very hurriedly, leaving her luggage behind, and promising
to return next day if there was nothing seriously wrong with her child.
Some one was moving about in her room!
I lay there wondering. But as the minutes passed, and I heard no further
sound, I began to believe that my imagination had deceived me. I had
almost dozed off to sleep again when suddenly a brilliant ray of
electricity shot across my room--the light of a small electric
torch--and I was immediately aware that my own door had been opened
noiselessly, and an intruder had entered.
Quick as thought I sprang out of bed in my pyjamas, but, as I did so, I
heard a woman's light scream, while the torch was instantly
extinguished.
I was at the door, behind the intruder, and when, next moment, I
switched on the light, to my astonishment I found myself confronted with
Lola Sorel!
"You!" I gasped, as the girl shrank from me against the wall, her face
white as death. "You--Mademoiselle! What is the meaning of this
visit--eh?"
"Will you--will you close the door, M'sieur?" she begged in a low
whisper, in broken English. "Some one may overhear."
I did as she bade, and slipped on my dressing-gown, which was hanging
over the foot-rail of the bed.
"Well?" I asked, with a good deal of severity, for I saw by her manner
that she was there for some nefarious purpose. She was dressed in plain
black, with a neat little velvet cap, and wore slippers with rubber
soles. Her hands were covered with india-rubber gloves, such as surgeons
often wear when operating or making post-mortem examinations. Her
electric torch was attached to her wrist, while, beneath her dark
golf-coat, which fell open, I saw that she wore around her waist a
capacious bag of black silk.
"I--I never dreamed that this was your room, M'sieur," the girl
declared, terrified. "I--I----"
But she did not conclude her sentence, for she realized how completely
she had been trapped. Her pretty countenance betrayed terror in every
line, her eyes were staring and haggard, and her hands were trembling.
"I--I--know there is no escape," she said with her pleasing French
accent. "You are aware of the truth, M'sieur--of what occurred in
Copenhagen. Ah, yes. It is Fate that you and I should again meet--and in
these circumstances."
"Please be seated, Mademoiselle," I said. "You have no cause for alarm.
Naturally, this encounter has upset you."
I feared that she might faint, therefore I went to the table where, on
the previous night, the valet had placed some brandy and a siphon of
soda. Mixing a little, I gave it to her to drink.
"This will do you good," I said.
Then, when she had swallowed it, I asked her to explain the reason of
her nocturnal visit to the castle.
She looked a pale, pathetic little figure, seated there before me, her
fair head bowed with shame and confusion, her terrified eyes staring
into space.
"I--I--am entirely in your hands, M'sieur," she stammered at last. "I
came here to thieve, because--because I am forced to do so. It was work
of peril for all three of us--for me most of all. This room was the last
I intended to visit--and in it I found the very last person I wished to
meet--you!"
"Tell me more about yourself," I urged. "I'm greatly interested."
"What is there to tell you?" she cried, her eyes filling with bitter
tears. "I am a thief--that's all. You are a guest here--and it is your
duty to your host to keep me here, and call the police. Jules was
watching on the stairs below. By this time he knows you have trapped me,
and they have both escaped--without a doubt--escaped with the stuff I
handed to them ten minutes ago."
"Jules? Who is he?" I asked quickly.
"Jules Jeanjean--my uncle," she replied.
"Jules Jeanjean!" I ejaculated, "that man!" for the name was synonymous
for all that was audacious and criminal.
"Yes, M'sieur."
"And he is your uncle?"
"Yes. At his instigation I am forced to do these things against my
will," she declared in a hard, bitter voice. "Ah, if only you knew--if
you knew everything, M'sieur, I believe you would have pity and
compassion for me--you would allow me one more chance--a chance to
escape--a chance to try once more to break away from these hateful men
who hold me in the hollow of their hands!"
She spoke so fervently, so earnestly, that her appeal sank deeply into
my heart. By her despairing manner I saw that she hoped for no clemency,
for no sympathy, especially from me, who had actually been suspected of
the robbery in Copenhagen which she and her confederates had committed.
"What have you in that bag?" I asked, indicating the black silk bag
beneath her coat.
She placed her small hand into it and slowly and shamefacedly drew forth
a splendid collar of large pearls.
"I took it from the next room," she said briefly. "I will replace it
if--if only you would allow me to get away," she added wistfully.
"And the other stuff you have stolen?"
"Ah! My uncle has it. He has already gone--carrying it with him!"
"Deserted you--and left you to your fate--as soon as he realized the
danger," I remarked. "The coward!"
"Yes. But it was fortunate that you did not come out of this room--upon
the stairs," she said.
"Why?"
"Because he would have killed you with as little compunction as he would
kill a fly," she replied slowly.
"I quite believe that. His reputation is known all over Europe," I said.
"Mine was, no doubt, a fortunate escape."
"Will you let me put these pearls back?" she asked eagerly.
"No. Leave them on the table. I will replace them," I said.
"Then, what do you intend doing with me?" she asked very seriously.
"Only allow me to go, and I shall always be grateful to you,
M'sieur--grateful to you all my life."
And with a sudden movement she took my hand in hers, and looked so
earnestly into my eyes, that I stood before her fascinated by her
wonderful beauty.
The scene was indeed a strange one. She pleaded to me for her liberty,
pleaded to me, throwing herself wildly upon her knees, covering her face
with her hands, and bursting into a torrent of hot, bitter tears.
My duty, both towards my host and towards the guests whose jewellery had
been stolen by that silent-footed, expert little thief, was to raise the
alarm, and hand her over to the police.
Yet so pitiful was her appeal, so tragic the story she had briefly
related to me, so earnest her promise never to offend again, that I
confess I could not bring myself to commit her to prison.
I saw that she was but the unwilling cat's-paw of the most dangerous
criminal in Europe. Therefore, I gently assisted her to rise to her feet
and began to further question her.
In confidence she told me her address in Paris--a flat in the Boulevard
Pereire--and then, after nearly half an hour's further conversation, I
said--
"Very well, Lola. You shall leave here, and I hope to see you in Paris
very shortly. I hope, too, that you will succeed in breaking away from
your uncle and his associates and so have a chance to live a life of
honesty."
"Ah!" she sighed, gripping my hand with heartfelt thanks, as she turned
to creep from the room, and down the stairs. "Ah! If I could! If I only
could. _Au revoir_, M'sieur. You are indeed generous. I--I owe my life
to you--_au revoir_!"
And, then? Well, she had slipped noiselessly down the winding stair,
while I had taken the pearl necklace and replaced it in the room of Mrs.
Forbes Wilson.
Imagine the consternation next morning, when it was discovered that
burglars had entered the place, and had got clean away with jewellery
worth in all about thirty thousand pounds.
I watched the investigations made by the police, who were summoned from
Dumfries by telephone.
But I remained silent, and kept the secret of little Lola Sorel to
myself.
And here she was, once again--standing before me!
CHAPTER XIV
WHEREIN CONFESSION IS MADE
"Well, Lola," I said at last, still holding her little hand in mine,
"and why cannot you reveal to me the truth regarding the mystery of the
death of Edward Craig?"
"For a very good reason--because I do not myself know the exact
circumstances," was her prompt response, dropping into French. "I know
that you have made an investigation. What have you discovered?"
"If you will be frank with me," I said, also in French, "I will be
equally frank with you."
"But, have I not always been frank?" she protested. "Have I not always
told you the truth, ever since that night in Scotland when you trapped
me in your room. Don't you remember?"
"Yes," I replied in a low voice. "I remember, alas! too well. You
promised in return for your liberty that you would break away from your
uncle."
"Ah, I did--but I have been utterly unable, M'sieur Vidal," she cried
quickly in her broken English. "You don't know how much I have suffered
this past year--how terrible is my present position," she added in a
tone of poignant bitterness.
"Yes, I quite understand and sympathize with you," I said, taking out a
cigarette and lighting it, while she sat back in the big old-fashioned
horse-hair arm-chair. "For weeks I have been endeavouring to find
you--after you came to Cromer to call upon me. You have left the
Boulevard Pereire."
"Yes. I have been travelling constantly of late."
"After the affair of the jeweller, Benoy--eh? Where were you at that
time?"
"In Marseilles, awaiting my uncle. We crossed to Algiers together.
Thence we went along to Alexandria, and on to Cairo, where we met our
friends."
"It was a dastardly business. I read of it in the _Matin_," I said.
"Brutal--horrible!" declared the girl. "But is not my uncle an inhuman
brute--a fearless, desperate man, who carries out, with utter disregard
of human life, the amazing plots which are formed by one who is the
master of all the criminal arts."
"Then he is not the prime mover of all these ingenious thefts?" I
exclaimed in some surprise, for I had always believed Jules Jeanjean to
be the head of that international band.
"No. He acts under the direction of another, a man of amazing ingenuity
and colossal intellect. It is he who cleverly investigates, and gains
knowledge of those who possess rare jewels; he who watches craftily for
opportunities, who so carefully plans the _coups_, and who afterwards
arranges for the stones to be re-cut in Antwerp or Amsterdam."
"Who is he?" I asked eagerly. "You may tell me in confidence. I will not
betray your secret."
"He poses as a dealer in precious stones in London."
"In London?"
"Yes. He has an office in Hatton Garden, and is believed by other
dealers in precious stones to be a most respectable member of that
select little coterie that deals in gems."
"What is his name?"
The girl was silent for a few seconds. Then she said--
"In Cromer he has been known under the name of Vernon Gregory."
"Gregory!" I gasped in astonishment. "What, to that quiet old man is due
the conception of all these great and daring robberies committed by
Jules Jeanjean?"
"Yes. My uncle acts upon plans and information which the old man
supplies," Lola replied. "Being in the trade, the crafty old fellow
knows in whose hands lie the most valuable stones, and then lays his
cunningly-prepared plans accordingly--plans that my uncle desperately
carries out to the very letter."
This statement much surprised me, for I had always regarded Jeanjean as
the instigator of the plots. But now, it appeared, old Gregory was the
head of Europe's most dangerous association of criminals.
"Then the jewels found in Gregory's rooms at Cromer were all stolen
property?"
"Yes. We were surprised that the police did not discover the real
owners," Lola replied. "The greater part of the jewels were taken from
the castle of the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, just outside Kiev,
about nine months ago."
"By you?" I asked with a grim smile.
"Not all. Some," admitted the girl with a light laugh. Then she
continued: "We expected that when the old gentleman made such a hurried
flight from Cromer, the police would recognize the property from the
circulated description. But, as they did not, Uncle determined to regain
possession of it--which he did."
"Who aided him?"
"Egisto--a man who is generally known as Egisto Bertini."
"The man who rode the motor-cycle?"
She nodded.
"And you assisted," I said. "Why did you leave your shoe behind?"
"By accident. I thought I heard some of the occupants of the house
stirring, so fled without having an opportunity of recovering it. I
suppose it has puzzled the local police--eh?" she laughed merrily.
"It did. You were all very clever, and my man, Rayner, was rendered
insensible."
"Because he was a trifle too inquisitive. He was watching, and did not
know that my uncle, in such expeditions, has eyes in the back of his
head," she answered. "It was fortunate for him that he was not killed
outright, for, as you know, my uncle always, alas! believes in the old
maxim that dead men tell no tales."
"The assassin!" I cried in fierce anger. "He will have many crimes to
answer for when at last the police lay hands upon him."
"He will never be taken alive," she said. "He will denounce me, and then
kill himself. That is what he constantly threatens."
"And because of that you fear to hold aloof and defy him?" I asked. "You
live in constant terror, Lola."
"Yes. How can I act--how can I escape them? Advise me," she urged, her
face pale and intensely in earnest.
I hesitated. It was certainly a difficult matter upon which to give
advice. The pretty girl before me had for several years been the
unwilling tool of that scoundrelly gang of bandits, whose organization
was so perfect that they were never arrested, nor was any of their booty
ever traced.
The four or five men acting under the direction of the master-mind of
old Gregory were, in private life, all of them affluent and respected
citizens, either in England or in France, while Jules Jeanjean, I
afterwards learned, occupied a big white villa overlooking the blue sea
three miles out of Algiers. It was a place with wonderful gardens filled
with high date-palms and brilliant tropical flowers. There, in his hours
of retirement, Jules Jeanjean lived amid the most artistic and luxurious
surroundings, with many servants, and a couple of motor-cars, devoting
himself to experiments in wireless telegraphy, having fitted up a
powerful station for both receiving and transmitting.
The science of wireless telegraphy was indeed his chief hobby, and he
spent many hours in listening to the messages from Pold, Poldhu,
Clifden, Soller, Paris, Port Said, or Norddeich on the North Sea, in
communicating with ships in the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Levant,
or on the Atlantic.
I was wondering how to advise my little friend. Ever since our first
meeting my heart had been full of sympathy and compassion for her, so
frail seemed her frame, so tragic her life, and so fettered did she seem
to that disreputable gang. Yet, had she not pointed out to me, on the
several occasions on which we had met in Paris, the impossibility of
breaking the bonds which bound her to that detestable life? Indeed she
had, more than once, declared our meetings to be filled with peril for
myself.
Her uncle knew me by repute as an investigator of crime, and if he ever
suspected me of prying into any affair in which he might be concerned,
then my life would most certainly be in jeopardy. Jules Jeanjean never
did things by halves. It was, I found, for that reason she had now
sought me--to beseech me to relinquish my efforts to fathom the mystery
of the death of Edward Craig.
"Do heed what I say, M'sieur Vidal," she exclaimed with deep
earnestness. "My uncle knows that you are still in Cromer, and that you
have been investigating. In Algiers, a fortnight ago, he mentioned it to
me, and declared that very shortly you would cease to trouble him."
"He intends foul play--eh?" I remarked with a grim smile, lighting
another cigarette.
"He means mischief," she assured me. "He knows, too well, of your
success in other cases in which you have interested yourself," she
remarked quickly. "And he fears--fears lest you may discover the secret
of the young man's death."
"And if I do?" I asked, looking straight into her face.
"He does not intend that you shall," she replied very earnestly, adding:
"Ah! M'sieur Vidal, do heed my words--I beg you. Be warned by me!"
"But, why?" I queried. "I am not afraid of Jules Jeanjean. I have never
done him an evil turn. Therefore, why should he conspire to take my
life? Besides, I already know of his connexion with the Cromer mystery,
the Benoy affair, and others. Could I not easily have sent a telegram to
the Prefecture of Police in Paris, when I recognized him in Cromer? But
I did not."
"Why?"
"For two reasons. First, I wished to stand aside and watch, and,
secondly, I feared to betray him for your sake, Lola."
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "But you are always so generous. You know quite
well that he already believes that I have told you the truth. Therefore,
he suspects us both and is determined to put an end to your
inquisitiveness."
"Unless I act swiftly--eh?" I suggested.
"But think--what would then become of me?" she exclaimed, her eyes open
in quick alarm.
"I can't see what you really have to fear," I said. "It is true, Lola,
that you live, like your friends, by dishonest methods, but have you not
been forced into it by your uncle? Even if you were arrested, the law
would treat you with the greatest leniency. Indeed, if necessary, I
would come forward and tell the Court all I have known and discovered
concerning the baneful influence which has been exercised upon you by
the man Jeanjean."
She shook her head mournfully.
"Alas! That would be of no avail," she declared in a low, strained
voice.
"Why?"
"Because--because, ah!--you do not know the truth," she faltered, her
face pale to the lips.
"Cannot you explain it to me?" I asked, bending down to her, and placing
my hand tenderly upon her shoulder.
I felt her shudder beneath my touch, while her big blue eyes were
downcast--downcast in shame.
"No. I cannot explain," she replied. "If you knew, M'sieur Vidal, how
horrible, how terrible all this is for me, you would not press your
question."
"But I do--in your interests," I said with deep earnestness. "I want to
help you to escape from these scoundrels--I want to stand as your
friend."
"My friend!" she exclaimed blankly. "My friend--ah! that you can never
be."
"Why not?"
"You would not wish to cultivate my acquaintance further, M'sieur Vidal,
if--if you were aware of the actual truth. Besides, this friendship
which you have shown to me may, in itself, prove fatal to you. If you do
not exercise the greatest precaution, your reward for saving me, as you
did that night at Balmaclellan, will be death!"
"You are apprehensive on my account?" I asked, wondering whether she
were really in earnest--or whether beneath her strange warning there lay
some subtle motive.
"Yes," was her frank response. "Take great care, or death will come to
you at a moment when you least expect it."
For an instant I was silent. Her warning was truly a curious and
disconcerting one, for I knew the dangerous character of Jules Jeanjean.
That if he threatened, he meant action.
"I do not care for myself, Lola," I said at last. "I am thinking how I
can protect you, and rescue you from the hands of these unscrupulous
men."
"You cannot," she declared, with a hard, fixed look of desperation. "No,
only be careful of yourself, and, at the same time, dismiss me from your
thoughts. I--I am unworthy of your regard," she murmured, her voice
choked by a sob. "Alas, entirely unworthy!"
"No, no," I urged. "I will not allow you to speak like that, Lola. Ever
since you entered my room, on that well-remembered night in Scotland, I
have wondered how best I could assist you to lead an honest life; how I
could----"
"I can accept no further assistance from you, M'sieur Vidal," she
interposed, in a quivering voice. "I repeat that I am utterly
unworthy," she cried, and shivered with despair, as she stood erect
before me. "And--and--if you only knew the truth--the terrible truth of
the past--you would at once, I know, turn and discard me--nay, you would
probably ring for the waiter and hand me over to the police without
either compunction or regret."
And the girl, known as "The Nightingale," stood before me, her face
white and hard, her eyes with a strange light in them, staring straight
before her, her breast heaving and falling with emotion which she was
trying in vain to suppress.
CHAPTER XV
CONFIRMS CERTAIN SUSPICIONS
For yet another hour we sat together, but Lola would reveal nothing
further.
She only repeated that serious warning, urging me to abandon this
investigation of the strange affair at Cromer.
She refused to tell me the name under which old Gregory was known in
Hatton Garden, and she likewise firmly declined to give me any
information concerning the curious code which had been found in
Gregory's room. Indeed, she affected ignorance of it, as well as of the
mysterious spot in Ealing "where the two C's meet."
"My uncle is in Antwerp," she told me in reply to a question. "I join
him to-morrow, and then we go travelling--where, I have no idea. But you
know how erratic and sudden our movements necessarily are. The master
usually meets my uncle in Antwerp, going there regularly in the guise of
a diamond merchant."
"And you will not tell me the master's real name?" I asked
persuasively.
"I am not allowed. If you discover it for yourself, then I shall not be
to blame," she said, with a meaning smile. "But do, I beg of you, give
up the search, M'sieu' Vidal. It can only end fatally if you still
persist."
"You have warned me, Lola, and I thank you sincerely for doing so, but I
shall continue to act as I have begun."
"At your own peril--a deadly peril!" she ejaculated, with an
apprehensive look.
"I must accept the risk," I said quietly. "And I intend to still stand
your friend, Lola."
"But you must not, you cannot!" she protested. "Of course I most deeply
appreciate all that you have done for me--and how generous you have
been, knowing that I am, alas! what I am. But I will not allow you to
risk your life further on my account."
"That is really my own affair."
"No. It is mine. I am here to-day, in secret, solely to warn you--to ask
you--to give up this inquiry, and allow the matter to rest a mystery,"
she protested. "Will you not do this for my sake?" she pleaded.
For a few seconds I paused, smiling at her. Then I replied--
"No. I cannot promise that. Young Craig was foully murdered, of that I
am confident, and I intend to unravel the mystery."
"Even though it costs you your life?" she asked slowly.
Why, I wondered, was she so frantically anxious for me to abandon the
inquiry? Was it really because she feared that her uncle might attempt
to rid himself of me, or had she some other hidden motive?
The expression upon her sweet face had altered. It was eager and
apprehensive--a curious look, such as I had never witnessed there
before.
Deeply in earnest, she was persuading me, with all the arts of which
she, as a woman, was capable to give up the investigation--why?
My refusal evidently caused her the greatest anxiety--even deadly fear.
She would, however, reveal nothing more to me. Therefore, I told her
point-blank that I would make her no promise.
"But you will think over my words," she said earnestly. "You will be
forewarned of the evil that is intended!"
"If there is evil, then I will combat it," I replied briefly. "My first
concern is yourself, Lola. Do you remember our confidential talks when
we strolled together in the Bois--when you told me all your troubles,
and your fears?"
"Yes," she replied in a strange, dreary voice. "But--but, I did not tell
you all. You do not know," she added in a whisper.
"Tell me all," I urged. "I know you are--well, let us say it quite
plainly--a thief."
"Ah! If I were only _that_, I might dare to look you in the face--to
crave your sympathy--your interest--your generosity once again. But I
cannot. No! I cannot," and she burst into tears.
"Are we not friends?" I queried. "And between friends surely there may
be confidences."
"To a certain degree, yes. But there is a limit even to confidences
between friends," was her slow, thoughtful reply, as she dried her eyes
with a little wisp of lace.
I was disappointed. I had fully expected to obtain from her some clue
which might lead to a solution of the mystery of Craig's death. But she
was obdurate.
"Lola," I said, taking her trembling hand again, "I wish to tell you
something."
"Well, what is it?" she asked.
"Simply this. I think I ought to tell you that, near that seat on the
cliff at Cromer, where Craig was found, there was discovered a clear
print of a lady's shoe," and I watched her countenance narrowly.
Her face went paler in an instant, and in her eyes showed a quick look
of terror. But in a second she had recovered herself, and said--
"That is interesting. Do you think that its presence there gives any
clue to the assassin?"
"I don't know," was my reply. I stood before her in wonder. Her perfect
sang-froid was truly amazing. "But," I went on, "curiously enough, the
same lady's shoe was found in Beacon House, after Gregory's property had
been carried off. It fitted exactly the imprint in the sand near the
seat."
The only sign that her mind was perturbed by my knowledge was a slight
twitching at the corners of her pretty mouth. Yes, she preserved an
astounding calm.
"That is curious," she remarked with unconcern.
"Very," I declared, still gazing fixedly into her white face. "And can
you tell me nothing further regarding this affair?" I asked, bending to
her, and speaking in a whisper.
She shook her head.
I did not suspect--nay, I could not bring myself to believe--that Edward
Craig had fallen by her hand. Yet the facts were strange--amazingly
strange--and her demeanour was stranger still.
We had tea together. She poured it out, and handed it to me daintily,
with a sweet smile upon her lips. Then after a further chat, she drew on
her long gloves, settled her skirts and prepared to leave.
"A letter addressed to the Poste Restante at Versailles will always find
me," she said, in reply to my request for an address. "I use the name
Elise Leblanc."
I made a rapid note of it upon my shirt-cuff, and having paid the bill,
we descended, and walked together, through the busy streets of Norwich,
to the Thorpe Station, where I saw her into the evening express for
London.
"_Au revoir_, M'sieu' Vidal," she said, as she held my hand, before
entering the first-class compartment. "Do heed my warning, I beg of you.
Do not further imperil yourself. Will you?"
"I cannot promise," I replied with a smile.
"But you must not persist--or something will most surely happen," she
declared. "_Au revoir!_ If we meet again it must be in the strictest
secrecy. My uncle must never know."
"_Au revoir!_" I said as the porter closed the door, and next moment the
train moved off.
I saw her face smiling, and a white-gloved hand waving at the window,
and then "The Nightingale" had gone.
A fortnight went by. I had packed my traps, and leaving Cromer, returned
to my rooms in London, and then crossed to Paris, where I spent a week
in close, anxious inquiry.
Paris in August is given over to the Cookites and provincials, and most
of my friends were absent.
The Prefecture of Police was, however, the chief centre of my sphere of
operations, for in that sombre room, with its large, littered
writing-table, its telephones, its green-painted walls, and green-baize
covered door, the private cabinet of my friend Henri Jonet--the famous
Chief Inspector of the _Sûreté_--I sat on several occasions discussing
the activity of Jeanjean and his clever gang.
Jonet was a sharp-featured, clean-shaven man of about forty-five, short
and slightly stout, with a pair of merry dark eyes, his hair carefully
brushed and trousers always well creased. He was something of a dandy in
private life, even though he so often assumed various disguises, passing
very frequently as a camelot, or a respectable workman. Of his successes
in detection of crime all the world knew.
Next to the Chef de la Sûreté, Chief Inspector Jonet was the most famous
police official in Paris, or even in France. In the course of the past
few years he had many times dealt unsuccessfully with crimes in which
the amazing Jules Jeanjean had been implicated.
I had on many occasions assisted him in his investigations into other
matters, and, therefore, on the sultry afternoon, when I called and
presented my card, I was shown up immediately into his private
bureau--that dismal and rather depressing room, which I so well
remembered.
We sat smoking together for a long time before I approached the subject
upon which I had called to consult him.
He sat back in his chair enjoying the excellent Bogdanoff cigarette, a
fellow to which he had handed to me, and recalling a strange affair
that, a year ago, had occupied us both--a theft of bonds from a private
bank in the Boulevard Haussmann.
Outside, the afternoon was blazing hot, therefore the green sun-shutters
were closed, and the room was in semi-darkness. Jonet's big
writing-table was piled with reports and correspondence, as well as one
or two recently-arrived photographs of persons wanted by the police
authorities of other European countries.
Now and then the telephone buzzed, and he would reply, and give
instructions in a quick, sharp voice. Then he turned to me again and
continued our conversation.
"The Benoy affair in March last was a sensational one--the murder of the
jeweller while in his motor-car in the Forest of Fontainebleau--you
remember," I remarked presently in Frenc
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