“Why not?”
“He would instantly guess the source of your information.”
“But what is your motive for all this, Mr. Garfield?”
“My motive is a simple one. I am trying to find Gabrielle Engledue, and I am now wondering whether the girl I am seeking is not the same as the young lady you know as Gabrielle Tennison.”
“Where did you meet this girl Engledue?” asked Mrs. Cullerton, with a queer inquisitive look.
I paused for a second.
“In London—at the house of a mutual friend.”
Her expression caused me to ponder, for I discerned that she was inclined to doubt me.
“And why are you seeking her now?”
“I have a distinct object in view.”
“You’ve—well, perhaps you’ve fallen in love with her—eh?” she laughed lightly.
“Not at all,” I assured her. “I have a private, but very strong, motive in discovering her. I want to put to her certain questions.”
“About what, Mr. Garfield? Come, it is now my turn to be a little inquisitive,” and she laughed again.
“About a certain little matter in which we are mutually interested,” was my evasive answer. Then, after a pause, I looked straight into her eyes, and added very earnestly: “I wonder whether if I should require your help, Mrs. Cullerton, you would assist me?”
“In what way?”
“At present I cannot tell. To be frank, I am striving to solve a great and inscrutable mystery. Just now I am amazed and bewildered. But I feel that you are the only person who could help me—because you and I are equally in peril.”
“But, Mr. Garfield, I see no reason why I should be upon the brink of this mysterious abyss!” she cried. “You don’t explain the situation sufficiently fully.”
“Because at present I cannot do so. No one regrets it more than myself. There is a grim mystery—a very great mystery—and I intend, with your assistance, to escape my enemy and clear it up.”
“Who is your enemy?”
“Oswald De Gex! He is my enemy as well as yours,” I said very seriously. “If you were in the possession of such facts as those I have gathered during the past week or so, you would be startled and—well, perhaps terrified. But I only again beg of you to have a care of yourself. You have promised silence, and I, on my part, will carry on my search for the truth.”
“The truth of what?”
“The truth concerning Gabrielle Engledue.”
The pretty little woman again looked at me very straight in the face for some moments without speaking. Then, with a strange hardness about her mouth, she said:
“Mr. Garfield, take it from me, you will never discover what you are in search of. The truth is too well hidden.”
“What? Then you know something—eh?” I cried quickly.
“Yes. It is true!” she answered in a low, hard voice. “I do know something—something of a certain secret that can never pass my lips!”
Mrs. Cullerton’s words held me breathless.
At first I believed that I might wring the truth from her lips, but I quickly saw that she intended to preserve her secret at all costs. Whether she actually believed what I had told her concerning her own peril was doubtful. In any case, she seemed in some strange manner held powerless and fascinated by the rich man who had saved her speculating husband from ruin.
I remained there for still another quarter of an hour until her maid announced a visitor, when I was compelled to rise and take my leave.
For a few days longer I remained in Florence; then I left for London. On entering the Calais express at the Gare du Nord in Paris on my way home, I was agreeably surprised to find among my fellow travellers to England the affable French banker whom I had met on that memorable journey from York to London. He recognized me at once, and I inquired why he was not, as usual, crossing by air to Croydon.
“Ah!” he laughed. “The last time I crossed three weeks ago we went into a thick fog over the Channel, and it was not very comfortable. So I prefer the rail just now.”
On this occasion we exchanged cards. His name was Gaston Suzor, and between Paris and Calais we discussed many things, for he was a well-informed man and a true hater of the Boches. On the steamer we strolled uponthe deck together, and we passed quite a pleasant journey in company. He was surprised that I had been in Italy, but I explained that I had been granted long leave of absence by my firm, and that I had gone to Florence upon private affairs.
We parted at Charing Cross, Monsieur Suzor to go to the Carlton, and I home to our little flat in Rivermead Mansions.
A note lay upon the dining-room table. Hambledon was away in Cardiff, and he had left word in case I should return unexpectedly. The place was cold and fireless, and I was glad to go over to the Claredon to have my dinner.
My one thought was of Gabrielle Tennison, who lived with her mother in a maisonette at Earl’s Court. So I took a taxi to Longridge Road, and after numerous inquiries at neighbouring shops in Earl’s Court Road, I discovered in which house lived Mrs. Tennison and her daughter. The hour was late, therefore I felt that it was useless to keep observation upon the place in the hope of the girl coming forth.
I had no excuse to make a call. Besides, I might, if I acted indiscreetly, destroy all my chances of solving the strange enigma.
Therefore not until ten o’clock on the following morning did I take up my vigilant watch at the end of the road, at a spot from which I had full view of the house in question. My watch proved a long and weary one, for not until three o’clock in the afternoon was my patience rewarded.
The front door suddenly opened, and down the steps came the slim figure of a girl, followed by a woman. As they approached me I saw that it was the girl I had seen with Moroni in Florence, while the woman was, from her dress, evidently an old servant.
The girl of mystery was attired quite smartly in black, her appearance being very different from the shabby figure she presented in Florence. But her beautiful countenance was just as pathetic, with that strange set expression of ineffable sadness. She passed me by without glancing at me, while the stout, homely woman at her side held her arm linked in hers.
They turned into Earl’s Court Road and walked towards Kensington High Street, while I followed at a respectable distance. I could not fail to notice the grace of carriage of the girl whose listless attitude was so mysterious, and whose exact whereabouts Oswald De Gex was concealing from his friend, Mrs. Cullerton. But the one point which puzzled me sorely was whether the girl walking in front of me all unconscious of my presence was the same that I had seen dead at Stretton Street, and for whom I had given a false certificate to cover up what had evidently been a crime with malice aforethought.
The pair now and then became lost in the crowd of foot-passengers in busy Kensington, but I followed them. Occasionally they paused to look into Barker’s shop windows, but the interest was evidently on the part of the serving-woman, for Gabrielle Tennison—or whatever her actual name—seemed to evince no heed of things about her. She walked like one in a dream, with her thoughts afar off, yet her face was the sweetest, most beautiful, and yet the saddest I had ever witnessed. Tragedy was written upon her pale countenance, and I noticed that one or two men and women in passing the pair turned to look back at them. In that face of flawless beauty a strange story was written—a mystery which I was strenuously seeking to solve.
Presently they entered Kensington Gardens, strollingalong the gravelled walks beneath the bare, leafless trees that were so black with London’s grime. The day was cold, but bright, hence quite a number of persons were walking there, together with the usual crowd of nursemaids with the children of the well-to-do from the Hyde Park and Kensington districts.
The pair passed leisurely half-way up the Broad Walk, when they presently rested upon a seat nearly opposite the great façade of Kensington Palace.
I saw that I had not been noticed either by the old servant or by her mysterious young mistress, therefore I sank quickly upon a seat some distance away, but in such a position that I could still see them as they talked together.
Was Gabrielle Engledue living—or was she dead? Or was Gabrielle Tennison and Gabrielle Engledue one and the same person? A living face is different from that of the same person when dead, hence the great problem presenting itself.
It seemed as though in conversation the girl became animated, for she gesticulated slightly as though in angry protest at some remark of her companion, and then suddenly I had a great surprise.
Coming down the Broad Walk I saw a figure in a grey overcoat and soft brown hat which I instantly recognized. He walked straight to where the pair were seated, lifted his hat, and then seated himself beside the girl.
The man was my French friend, Suzor!
That they had gone there on purpose to meet him was now quite clear, for after a few moments the old woman laughed, rose and walked on, in order to leave the girl alone with the Frenchman. What could be the meaning of that clandestine meeting?—for clandestine it was, or Monsieur Suzor would have called at Longridge Road.Possibly they expected that they might be watched, hence they had met as though by accident at that spot where they believed they would not be observed.
Gaston Suzor was a shrewd, clever man. But what did this friendship with Gabrielle Tennison denote? As I watched I saw him speaking very earnestly. For some time she sat with her gloved hands idly in her lap listening to his words without comment. Then she shook her head, and put up her hands in protest. Afterwards by her attitude she seemed to be appealing to him, while he remained obdurate and unperturbed.
I longed to overhear their conversation, but in the fading light of that brief wintry afternoon it was impossible to approach closer. I could only sit and watch. My eyes were strained to see every gesture of the pair, now that the stout figure of the girl’s companion had disappeared towards the Bayswater Road. In that oasis in the desert of aristocratic London one can obtain quite sylvan surroundings. True, the trees and vegetation are covered with a film of grime from the millions of smoking chimneys of the giant metropolis, still Kensington Gardens ever possesses a charm all its own as a clandestine meeting-place for well-born lovers and ill-born loafers, for nursemaids and soldiers, and for persons of both sexes who wish for a little quiet talk in the open air in order so often to clear a hectic atmosphere.
Such I judged to be the case between Gaston Suzor and Gabrielle Tennison.
At first the girl sat inert with downcast eyes listening to the man. But suddenly she raised her hands in quick protest again, and apparently became resentful—even angry. Then when he spoke some reassuring words she became calmer.
As I sat there shrewdly watching, I could not help reflectingupon a still further problem which now presented itself. The very last person in the world whom I should have suspected of being connected with the strange affair at Stretton Street was my affable friend the French banker. I now began to wonder if my first meeting with him in the express train between York and King’s Cross just before my amazing adventure had been simply by chance, or had it any connection between that meeting and the trap which had, without a doubt, been so cunningly prepared for me as I passed through Stretton Street to my uncle’s house on the following evening.
The fact that I had again met the mysterious Suzor at the Gare du Nord, in Paris, just as I was on my way back to London to pursue further inquiries was, in itself, suspicious. I confess that I sat utterly bewildered. One thing was plain, namely, that he had no suspicion that I was keeping such close observation upon Gabrielle. I knew where she lived, and to me he had given his hotel address.
At last, after quite twenty minutes of serious conversation, the stout, flat-footed servant returned, and after a few pleasant words with her, Suzor rose, and raising his hat, left them.
Instantly it occurred to me that, as I knew the girl’s abode, it would be more useful perhaps to watch the movements of my friend the French banker.
He took the path which skirted the lake, and then cut down the straight way which leads to Alexandra Gate into Rotten Row, while I followed him far behind though I kept him well in sight. He went swiftly at a swinging pace, for he had apparently grown cold while seated there in the north wind. The ground was hard and frosty, and the sky grey and lowering, with every evidence that a snowstorm might be expected.
He walked the whole length of Rotten Row, that leafy way which is so animated when social London disports itself in the season, and which on a black wintry afternoon, when the smart set are on the Riviera or in Egypt, is so dull and deserted. At Hyde Park Corner he turned along Piccadilly, until he hailed a passing taxi, to the driver of which he gave deliberate instructions.
I glanced around, and very fortunately saw another disengaged taxi, which I entered, giving the man instructions to keep the other in view, with a promise of double fare. Instantly the man entered into the spirit of the enterprise, and away we went towards the Circus, and thence by way of Oxford Street to the Euston Road, where before a small private hotel quite close to the station Suzor descended, and, paying the man, entered.
For three hours I waited outside, but he did not emerge. Then I went to the Carlton, and from the reception-clerk ascertained that Monsieur Suzor was staying there, but he did not always sleep there. Sometimes he would be absent for two or three nights. He went away into the country, the smart young clerk believed.
Hence I established the curious fact that Gaston Suzor when in London had two places of abode, one in that best-known hotel, and the other in the obscurity of a frowsy house patronized by lower-class visitors to London.
What could be the motive, I wondered?
I returned to the Carlton at midnight and inquired for Monsieur Suzor. The night-clerk told me that he had not yet returned.
So I went back to the cold cheerlessness of Rivermead Mansions, and slept until the following morning.
At each turn I seemed to be confronted by mystery which piled upon mystery. Ever before my eyes I saw that handsome girl lying cold and lifeless, and I hadforged a certificate in the name of a well-known medical man, upon which her body had been reduced to ashes! That I had acted as accomplice to some cunning and deliberate crime I could not disguise from myself. It was now up to me to make amends before God and man, to strive to solve the enigma and to bring the guilty persons to justice.
This was what I was endeavouring, with all my soul, to accomplish.
Yet the point was whether Gabrielle Engledue was really dead, or whether she still existed in the person of Gabrielle Tennison. That was the first fact for me to establish.
Next morning I rose early and gazed across the cold misty Thames to the great factories and wharves upon the opposite bank. The outlook was indeed dull and dispiriting, I stood recalling how Moroni had walked with the beautiful girl in the streets of Florence, unwillingly it seemed, for he certainly feared lest his companion be recognized. I also recollected the strange conversation I had heard with my own ears, and the curious attitude which little Mrs. Cullerton had adopted towards me, even though she had revealed to me the whereabouts of Gabrielle Tennison.
My breakfast was ready soon after eight o’clock, and afterwards I went to Earl’s Court to watch the house in Longridge Road. By dint of careful inquiries in the neighbourhood I was told that Mrs. Tennison had gone away a few days before—to Paris, they believed.
“The young lady, Miss Tennison, appears to be rather peculiar,” I remarked casually to a woman at a baker’s shop near by, after she had told me that she served them with bread.
“Yes, poor young lady!” replied the woman.“She’s never been the same since she was taken ill last November. They say she sustained some great shock which so upset her that her mind is now a little affected. Old Mrs. Alford, the servant there, tells me that the poor girl will go a whole day and never open her mouth. She’s like one dumb!”
“How very curious!” I remarked. “I wonder what kind of shock it was that caused such a change in her? Was she quite all right before November?”
“Perfectly. She was a bright clever girl, and used often to come in here to me for chocolate and cakes. She was full of life and merriment. It is really pathetic to see her as she is nowadays. She seems to be brooding over something, but what it is nobody can make out.”
“Very remarkable,” I said. “I’ve noticed her about, and have wondered at her attitude—like many others, I suppose.”
“Yes. Her mother has taken her to a number of mental specialists, I hear, but nobody seems to be able to do her any good. They say she’s suffered from some shock, but they can’t tell exactly what it is, because the young lady seems to have entirely lost her memory over a certain period.”
“Is Mrs. Tennison well off?” I asked.
“No—the reverse, I should think,” the baker’s wife replied. “I’ve heard that Mr. Tennison was a very rich man, but when he died it was found that he was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the widow was left very poorly off.”
It is curious what intimate knowledge the little tradespeople glean about their neighbours, even in London. From the woman I gathered one or two facts of interest.
I inquired if Mrs. Tennison had many visitors, whereupon she replied in the negative, and added:
“There used to be an Italian gentleman who called very often a few weeks ago. He often walked out with the young lady. Somebody said he was a doctor, but I don’t know if he was.”
I asked the woman to tell me what he was like, when she gave me an accurate description of the mysterious doctor of the Via Cavezzo!
So Moroni had visited her there—in Longridge Road!
I tried to ascertain if Gaston Suzor had been there also, but my informant had no knowledge of him. She had never seen him walking with Gabrielle Tennison, as she had so often seen the Italian.
I remained for nearly half an hour chatting, retiring, of course, when she was compelled to serve customers, and then I left her and walked round to the house in Longridge Road, where I watched a little while, and then returned to the Carlton.
“Monsieur Suzor has not yet returned,” was the reply of the smart reception-clerk when I inquired for the French banker. “But he is often away for two or three days.”
I left the hotel, and taking a taxi to the Euston Road made a thorough examination of the high shabby house with its smoke-grimed lace curtains, a place which bore over the fan-light the words “Private Hotel.” In the broad light of day it looked a most dull, uninviting place; more so even than its neighbours. There are many such hotels in the vicinity of Euston Station, and this seemed the most wretched of them all, for the windows had not been cleaned for many months, while the steps badly wanted scrubbing.
After I had thoroughly examined the place in front, I went round to the back, where I discovered, to my surprise, that the house had an exit at the rear through a mews into a drab, dull street which ran parallel. Then, for the first time, the thought occurred to me that on the previous day the Frenchman might have entered by the front door and passed out by the back into the next street!
I waited an hour idling about, and then I went boldly to the door, and knocked.
A black-haired, slatternly woman in a torn and soiled apron opened the door slightly.
“We’re full up,” she snapped before I could speak. “We haven’t any room to let.”
“I don’t require a room,” I replied politely. “I’ve called to see the French gentleman you have staying here—Monsieur Suzor.”
I thought she started at mention of the name, for she still held the door ajar as though to prevent me from peering inside.
“We’ve got no French gent a-staying ’ere,” she replied. “You’ve made a mistake.”
“But I saw him enter here last night.”
“You must ’ave been mistaken,” the woman said. “’E might ’ave gone next door. They ’ave a lot of visitors.”
“But you are full up—eh?”
“Yes—with our reg’lar residents,” she answered promptly. But from her nervousness of manner I knew she was not telling the truth. I was positive that Suzor had entered there, but she denied all knowledge of him. Why?
Without a doubt, while I had waited for him to emerge, he had passed out by the back way. If so, was it possible that he had seen and recognized me, and wished to escape unseen?
The house was certainly one of mystery. The woman was palpably perturbed by my inquiry, and she seemed relieved when I turned away with feigned disappointment.
“Try next door,” she suggested, and disappeared.
As I walked along Euston Road in the direction of Tottenham Court Road, I fell to wondering whether that frowsy house was one of those which exist in various quarters of London where thieves and persons hiding from the police can find sanctuary, and whether Suzor,knowing that I had seen him, had escaped me by passing through to the back and thus getting away!
I longed to know the character of the serious conversation he had had with Gabrielle Tennison. That indeed was my object to discover, hence that afternoon I still pursued my bold tactics and at about three o’clock I rang the bell in Longridge Road.
That act, the true consequences of which I never dreamed, eventually brought upon me a strange and sensational series of complications and adventures so remarkable that I sometimes think that it is only by a miracle I am alive to set down the facts in black and white.
The old woman-servant, Mrs. Alford, opened the door, whereupon I said:
“I trust you will excuse me, but as a matter of fact I am desirous of a few minutes’ private conversation with you.”
She looked askance at me, and naturally. I was a perfect stranger, and servants do not care to admit strangers to the house when their mistress is absent.
“I know that this is Mrs. Tennison’s house,” I went on, “and also that you are left in charge of Miss Gabrielle. It is about her that I wish to consult you. I think I may be able to tell you something of interest,” and I handed her my card.
Mrs. Alford read the name, but at first she seemed rather disinclined to admit me. Indeed, not until I had further whetted her curiosity by again telling her that I could give her some interesting information, did she show me upstairs to the cosy maisonnette on the first floor. It was a large house which had been divided into two residences, one the basement and ground floor, and the other the first and second floors. It was in the latter that Mrs. Tennison lived.
She ushered me into a pretty drawing-room, small, but very tastefully furnished. In the adjoining room someone was playing a piano; no doubt it was Gabrielle.
“Well, Mrs. Alford,” I began. “I have ventured to call here because I have learned of Miss Gabrielle’s unfortunate mental condition, and perhaps I may have a key to it.”
“What—do you know something, sir?” asked the stout buxom woman, for the first time impressed by my seriousness. “Do you know anything of what happened?”
“Perhaps,” was my non-committal reply. “But first, I wish you to respect my confidence. I know you’ll do that in the interests of the poor young lady.”
“I’ll do anything in her interests, sir,” she replied, and invited me to take a seat, she herself remained standing, as a servant should.
“Well, then, say nothing to your mistress, or to anyone else regarding my visit. First, I want you to answer one or two questions so as to either confirm or negative certain suspicions which I hold.”
“Suspicions of what?” she asked.
“I will reveal those in due course,” I replied. “Now, tell me what happened to Miss Gabrielle that she should be in her present mental state?”
“Nobody can tell, sir. She went out one evening in November to go to her dancing lesson, and was not seen again until six days later, when she was found on the Portsmouth Road half-way between Liphook and Petersfield. She had evidently walked a considerable distance and was on her way towards London, when she collapsed at the roadside. A carter discovered her, gave warning to the police at Petersfield, and she was taken to the hospital, where it was found that her memory had entirely gone. She could not recognize her mother or anyone else.”
“On what date did she disappear?” I asked breathlessly.
“On November the seventh.”
I held my breath. It was on the day of my startling adventure.
“Would you describe to me the exact circumstances?” I asked eagerly. “I may be able to throw a very interesting light upon the affair.”
The woman hesitated. Perhaps it was but natural.
“Well,” she said at last. “My mistress is away. I think you ought to see her, sir.”
“Why, Mrs. Alford? You are the trusted servant of the family, and surely you know the whole facts?”
“I do,” she answered in a low, tense voice. “They are most remarkable.”
“Then tell me all you know, and in return I will try to explain some matters which are no doubt to you and to Mrs. Tennison a mystery.”
“Well, after tea on the day in question, the seventh of November, Miss Gabrielle went out to go to Addison Road to Mrs. Gill’s dancing class. She was in the best of health and in high spirits because she had that morning received an invitation to go and stay with her cousin Leonora at Newmarket on the following Wednesday. As far as we know she had not a single trouble in the world.”
“She had no admirers—eh?”
“Yes, several. But she had no serious flirtations, as far as we can make out,” replied Mrs. Alford.“Her mother had gone to pay a visit, and when Miss Gabrielle went out she told me that she would be home at nine o’clock. Though we waited till midnight she did not return. We remained up all night, and next morning when I went to Mrs. Gill, in Addison Road, I found that she had left there at half-past six to return home. We then went to Kensington Police Station, and gave her description to the police.”
“What was their theory?” I asked.
“They thought she had left home of her own accord—that she had a lover in secret. At least, the inspector hinted at that suggestion.”
“Of course her mother was frantic,” I remarked. “But had you no suspicion of any person posing as her friend?”
“None. It was not till six days later—about one o’clock in the day, when a constable called and told Mrs. Tennison that a young lady answering the description of her daughter had been found at the roadside, and had been taken to the cottage hospital at Petersfield. We both took the next train from Waterloo, and on arrival at the hospital found the poor girl lying in bed. But so strange was her manner that she was unable to recognize either of us. All she could say were the words ‘Red, green and gold!’ and she shuddered in horror as though the colours terrified her. These words she constantly repeated—‘red, green and gold!’—‘red, green and gold!’”
“What was the doctor’s opinion?”
“He was as much puzzled as we were, sir. Apparently my poor young mistress was found early in the morning lying in the hedge on the main Portsmouth Road. Her clothes were wet, for it had rained during the night. Her boots were very muddy, and her clothes in an awful state. She seemed as if she had wandered about for hours. But all she could say to us were the words: ‘Red, green and gold.’”
“Did not she recognize her mother?” I inquired.
“No, sir. She hasn’t recognized her—even now!”
“Doctors have seen her, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, half a dozen of them—including Doctor Moroni, the great Italian doctor. He took her to Florence for treatment, but it did her no good—none in the least.”
“How did you know Moroni?” I asked quickly.
“I think he became interested in her through one of the doctors to whom Mrs. Tennison took her.”
“Mrs. Tennison did not know Moroni before this affair?” I inquired.
“No, sir. Not to my knowledge. He’s a very nice gentleman, and has been awfully kind to Miss Gabrielle,” replied Mrs. Alford. “Like all the other doctors he thinks that she has sustained some very severe shock—but of what nature nobody can tell.”
“What other doctor has seen her?” I asked.
“Oh!—well, Sir Charles Wendover, in Cavendish Square, has taken a great interest in her. He has seen her several times, but seems unable to restore her to her normal state of mind.”
Sir Charles was one of our greatest mental specialists, I knew, and if he had been unable to do anything, then her case must be hopeless.
“But Doctor Moroni took her away to Italy,” I said. “For what reason?”
“He took her to Professor Casuto, of Florence—I think that’s the name—but he could do nothing, so she was brought back again.”
“Now tell me frankly, Mrs. Alford,” I said, looking the stout, well-preserved woman full in the face. “Have you ever heard the name of De Gex—a rich gentleman who lives in Stretton Street, just off Park Lane?”
“De Gex!” she repeated, her countenance assuming ablank expression. “Yes, I’ve heard of him. I’ve read of him in the papers. He’s a millionaire, they say.”
“You have never heard of him in connexion with Miss Tennison? Is she acquainted with him?”
“Not to my knowledge. Why do you ask?”
“I have a distinct reason for asking,” was my reply. “Remember that I am seeking to solve the enigma of your young mistress’s present extraordinary state of mind. Any information you can give me will assist me towards that end.”
As I spoke I heard a sweet contralto voice in the adjoining room break out into a song from one of the popular revues. It was Gabrielle’s voice, I knew.
“All the information I possess, sir, is at your disposal,” the woman assured me. “I only wish Mrs. Tennison was here to answer your questions.”
“But you know as much as she does,” I said. “Now tell me—what is your theory? What happened to your young mistress during the time she disappeared?”
Mrs. Alford lifted her hands in dismay.
“What can we think? She went away quite bright and happy. When she was found wandering on the road between London and Portsmouth her memory was a blank. She was haggard, worn, and much aged—aged in those few days of her absence. She could remember nothing, and all she could repeat were those strange words ‘Red, green and gold.’”
“I wonder why those colours were so impressed upon her memory?” I remarked.
“Ah! That is what puzzles the doctors so. Each evening, just as it grows dark, she sits down and is silent for half an hour, with eyes downcast as though thinking deeply. Then she will suddenly start up and cry, ‘Ah! I see—I see—yes—that terrible red, green and gold! Oh! it’s horrible—bewildering—fascinating—red, green and gold!’ The three colours seem to obsess her always at nightfall. That is what Doctor Moroni told me.”
I paused for a few moments.
“You’ve never heard her speak of Mr. De Gex? You’re quite sure?”
“Quite,” was Mrs. Alford’s reply. “My young mistress was studying singing at the Royal Academy of Music. Hark! You hear her now! Has she not a beautiful voice? Ah, sir—it is all a great tragedy! It has broken her mother’s heart. Only to think that to-day the poor girl is without memory, and her brain is entirely unbalanced. ‘Red, green and gold’ is all that seems to matter to her. And whenever she recollects it and the words escape her drawn lips she seems petrified by horror.”
What the woman told me was, I realized, the actual truth. And yet when I recollected that I had seen the dark-eyed victim lying dead in that spacious room in the house of Mr. De Gex in Stretton Street, I became utterly bewildered. I had seen her dead there. I had held a mirror to her half-open lips and it had not become clouded. Yet in my ears there now sounded the sweet tuneful strains of that bird-song from “Joy Bells.”
Truly, the unfortunate girl possessed a glorious voice, which would make a fortune upon the concert platform or the stage.
I did my level best to obtain more information concerning the Italian doctor and the man De Gex, but the woman could tell me absolutely nothing. She was concealing nothing from me—that I knew.
It was only when I mentioned the French banker, Monsieur Suzor, that she started and became visibly perturbed.
“I have no knowledge of the gentleman,” she declared. Yet had I not seen them together in Kensington Gardens?
“I don’t know whether he is known to you as Suzor,” I said. Then I described him as accurately as I could.
But the woman shook her head. For the first time she now lied to me. With my own eyes I had seen the man approach her and the girl, and after they had greeted each other, she had risen and left the girl alone with him.
Curiously enough when the pair were alone together they seemed to understand each other. I recollected it all most vividly.
To say the least it was strange why, being so frank upon other details, she so strenuously denied all knowledge of the affable Frenchman who had been my fellow-traveller from York almost immediately preceding my strange adventures in the heart of London.
My conversation with her had been, to say the least, highly illuminating, and I had learnt several facts of which I had been in ignorance. But this fixed assertion that she knew nothing of the elusive Frenchman aroused my suspicions.
What was she hiding from me?
I felt that she was concealing some very essential point—one that might well prove the clue to the whole puzzling enigma.
And while we spoke the girl’s clear contralto rang out, while she herself played the accompaniment.
At length I saw that I could obtain no further information from the servant, therefore I begged to be introduced to her young mistress, assuring her of my keen interest in the most puzzling problem.
Apparently relieved that I pressed her no further regarding the handsome but insidious Frenchman, thewoman at once ushered me into the adjoining room—a small but well-furnished one—where at the grand piano sat the girl whose eyes were fixed, though not sightless as I had believed when in Florence.
She turned them suddenly upon my companion, and stopped playing.
“Ah! dear Alford!” she exclaimed, “I wondered if you were at home.” Then she paused. She apparently had no knowledge of my presence, for she had not turned to me, though I stood straight in her line of gaze. “I thought you had gone out to see Monsieur—to tell him my message.” She again paused, and drew her breath.
I stood gazing upon her beautiful face, dark, tragic and full of mystery. She sat at the piano, her white fingers inert upon the keys.
She wore a simple navy blue frock, cut low in the neck with a touch of cream upon it, and edged with scarlet piping—a dress which at that moment was the mode.
Yet her pale, blank countenance was indeed pathetic, a face upon which tragedy was written. I stood for a moment gazing upon her, perplexed, bewildered and breathless in mystery.
I spoke. She rose from her seat, and turned to me.
Her reply, low and tense, staggered me!
“I know you!” she cried, staring at me as though transformed by terror. “They told me you would come! You are my enemy—you are here to kill me!”
“To kill you, Miss Tennison!” I gasped. “No, I am certainly not your enemy. I am your friend!”
She looked very hard at me, and I noticed that her lips twitched slightly.
“You—you are Mr. Garfield—Hugh Garfield?” she asked, her hands quivering nervously.
“Yes. That is my name,” I replied. “How do you know it?”
“They—they told me. They told me in Florence. The doctor pointed you out. He told me that you were my worst enemy—that you intend to kill me!”
“Doctor Moroni told you that?” I inquired kindly.
“Yes. One day you were in the Via Tornabuoni and he made me take note of you. It was then that he told me you were a man of evil intentions, and warned me to be wary of you.”
I paused. Here was yet another sinister action on the part of Moroni! Besides, I was unaware that he had realized I had watched him!
“Ah! yes, I see,” I replied, in an attempt to humour her, for she was very sweet and full of grace and beauty. “The doctor tried to set you against me. And yet, strangely enough, I am your friend. Why should he seek to do this?”
“How can I tell?” replied the girl in a strange blankvoice. “But he evidently hates you. He told me that you were also his enemy, as well as mine. He said that it was his intention to take steps to prevent you from seeking mischief against both of us.”
This struck me as distinctly curious. Though the poor girl’s mind was unbalanced it was evident that she could recollect some things, while her memory did not serve her in others. Of course it was quite feasible that Moroni, on discovering that I was on the alert, would warn her against me.
Suddenly, hoping to further stir the chords of her memory, I asked:
“Have you seen Mr. De Gex lately?”
“Who?” she inquired blankly.
“Mr. Oswald De Gex—who lives in Stretton Street.”
She shook her head blankly.
“I’m afraid I—I don’t know him,” she replied. “Who is he?”
“Surely you know Stretton Street?” I asked.
“No—where is it?” she inquired in that strange inert manner which characterized her mentality.
I did not pursue the question further, for it was evident that she now had no knowledge of the man in whose house I had seen her lying—apparently dead. And if she were not dead whose body was it that had been cremated? That was one of the main points of the problem which, try how I would, I failed to grasp.
Would the enigma ever be solved?
As she stood in her mother’s cosy little drawing-room Gabrielle Tennison presented a strangely tragic figure. In the grey London light she was very beautiful it was true, but upon her pale countenance was that terribly vacant look which was the index of her overwrought brain. Her memory had been swept away by some unknownhorror—so the doctors had declared. And yet she seemed to remember distinctly what Doctor Moroni had alleged against me in Florence!
Therefore I questioned her further concerning the Italian, and found that she recollected quite a lot about him.
“He has been very kind to you—has he not?” I asked.
“Yes. He is an exceedingly kind friend. He took me to see several doctors in Florence and Rome. All of them said I had lost my memory,” and she smiled sweetly.
“And haven’t you lost your memory?”
“A little—perhaps—but not much.”
Here Mrs. Alford interrupted.
“But you don’t recollect what happened to you when you were away, until you were found wandering near Petersfield. Tell us, dear.”
“No—no, not exactly,” the girl answered. “All I recollect is that it was all red, green and gold—oh! such bright dazzling colours—red, green and gold! At first they were glorious—until—until sight of them blinded me—they seemed to burn into my brain—eh!” And she drew back and placed her right arm across her eyes as though to shut out from her gaze something that appalled her. “There they are!” she shrieked. “I see them again—always the same, day and night—red, green and gold!—red, green and gold!”
I exchanged glances with the woman Alford. It was apparent that the shock the girl had sustained had been somehow connected with the colours red, green and gold.
I tried to obtain from her some faint idea of the nature of what she had witnessed, but she was quite unable to explain. That she had fallen victim to some deep-laid plot was evident.
She remembered much of her visit to Florence, I found, for when I recalled the great Duomo, where I had first seen her with Moroni, she became quite talkative and told me how much she admired the magnificent monuments—the Battistero, the Bigallo, Giotto’s campanile and the magnificent pictures in the Pitti and Uffizi.
Moroni had apparently also taken her to Rome, presumably to consult another Italian professor, for she spoke vaguely of the Corso and St. Peter’s and described the Forum in such a manner that she must have visited it.
While I sat chatting with her it struck me that in the blank state of her mind certain things stood out very prominently—a mental state well known to alienists—while others were entirely blotted out.
I referred to the millionaire who lived in Stretton Street, but again she declared, and with truth, that she had no recollection of him.
“Perhaps, Miss Tennison, you knew him under some other name,” I said, and then proceeded to describe minutely the handsome, rather foreign-looking man who had bribed me to give that certificate of death.
“Have you an uncle?” I asked presently, recollecting that the man at Stretton Street had declared the victim to be his niece.
“I have an uncle—my mother’s brother—he lives in Liverpool.”
Again I fell to wondering whether the beautiful girl before me was actually the same person whose death I had certified to be due to heart disease, and who, according to the official records, had been cremated. She was very like—and yet? Well, the whole affair was a problem which each hour became more inscrutable.
Still the fact remained that Gabrielle Tennison haddisappeared suddenly on November the seventh, the night I had met with my amazing adventure.
In reply to my further questions, as she sat staring blankly into my face with those great dark eyes of hers, I at last gathered that Doctor Moroni, hearing of her case from a specialist in Harley Street, to whom she had been taken by the police-surgeon, had called upon her mother, and had had a long interview with her. Afterwards he had called daily, and later Mrs. Tennison had allowed him to take her daughter to Florence to consult another specialist at the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
“I think you know a Mrs. Cullerton,” I remarked at last.
The effect of my words upon her was almost electrical.
“Dolly Cullerton!” she shrieked. “Ah! Don’t mention that woman’s name! Please do not mention her!”
“I believed that she was a friend of yours,” I said, much surprised.
“Friend? No, enemy—a bitter enemy!”
“Then you have quarrelled? She was once your friend—eh? Over what have you quarrelled?”
“That is my own affair!” she snapped in apparent annoyance. “If you know her, don’t trust her. I warn you!” Then she added: “She is a wicked woman.”
“And her husband, Jack?”
“Ah! he’s an excellent fellow—far too good for her!”
“Why do you entertain such antipathy toward her?” I asked. “Do tell me, because it will make my inquiries so very much easier.”
“Inquiries? What inquiries are you making?”
I was silent for a moment, then looking straight into her eyes, I replied very seriously:
“I am making inquiries, Miss Tennison, into what happened to you during those days when you disappeared. I am seeking to bring punishment upon those who are responsible for your present condition.”
She shook her head mournfully, and a faint smile played about her lips. But she did not reply.
“Tell me more about Mrs. Cullerton,” I went on. “She was in Florence when you were there.”
“In Florence!” exclaimed the girl, as though amazed. “What could she be doing there?”
“She was living in a furnished villa with her husband. And she went on several visits to Mr. De Gex who lives up at Fiesole. Are you quite sure you do not know him?” I asked. “He lives at the Villa Clementini. Have you ever been there? Does the Villa Clementini recall anything to you?”
She was thoughtful for a few moments, and then said:
“I seem to have heard of the villa, but in what connexion I do not recollect.”
“You are certain you do not know the owner of the villa?” I asked again, and described him once more very minutely.
But alas! her mind seemed a perfect blank.
For what reason had Moroni come to London and taken her with him to Florence? But for the matter of that, what could be the motive of the whole puzzling affair—and further, whose was the body that had been cremated?
The points I had established all combined to form an enigma which now seemed utterly beyond solution.
The pale tragic figure before me held me incensed against those whose victim she had been, for it seemed that for some distinct reason her mental balance had been wantonly destroyed.
Again and again, as she sat with her hands lying idlyin her lap, she stared at the carpet and repeated to herself in a horrified voice those strange words: “Red, green and gold!—red, green and gold!”
“Cannot you recollect about those colours?” I asked her kindly. “Try and think about them. Where did you see them?”
She drew a long breath, and turning her tired eyes upon mine, she replied wearily:
“I—I can’t remember. I really can’t remember anything!”
Sometimes her eyes were fixed straight before her just as I had seen her in the Via Calzajoli in Florence—when I had believed her to be blind. At such times her gaze was vacant, and she seemed to be entirely oblivious to all about her. At others she seemed quite normal, save that she could not recall what had occurred in those days when she was lost to her friends—days when I, too, had been missing and had returned to my senses with my own memory either distorted or blotted out.
Could it be that the same drug, or other diabolical method, had been used upon us both, and that I, the stronger of the two, had recovered, while she still remained in that half demented state?
It certainly seemed so. Hence the more I reflected the more intense became my resolve to fathom the mystery and bring those responsible to justice.
Further, she had been terrified by being told that I intended to come there to kill her! Moroni had purposely told her that, evidently in anticipation that we might meet! He had pointed me out in Florence and warned her that I was her bitterest enemy. Was it therefore any wonder that she would not tell me more than absolutely obliged?
“Do you recollect ever meeting a French gentleman named Monsieur Suzor?” I asked her presently.
Instantly she exchanged glances with the woman Alford.
“No,” was her slow reply, her eyes again downcast. “I have no knowledge of any such man.”
It was upon the tip of my tongue to point out that they had met that mysterious Frenchman in Kensington Gardens, but I hesitated. They certainly were unaware that I had watched them.
Again, my French friend was a mystery. I did not lose sight of the fact that our first meeting had taken place on the day before my startling adventure in Stretton Street, and I began to wonder whether the man from Paris had not followed me up to York and purposely joined the train in which I had travelled back to London.
Why did both the woman Alford and Gabrielle Tennison deny all knowledge of the man whom they had met with such precautions of secrecy, and who, when afterwards he discovered that I was following him, had so cleverly evaded me? The man Suzor was evidently implicated in the plot, though I had never previously suspected it! Twice he had travelled with me, meeting me as though by accident, yet I now saw that he had been my companion with some set purpose in view.
What could it be?
It became quite plain that I could not hope to obtain anything further from either Gabrielle or the servant, therefore I assumed a polite and sympathetic attitude and told them that I hoped to call again on Mrs. Tennison’s return. Afterwards I left, feeling that at least I had gained some knowledge, even though it served to bewilder me the more.
Later I called upon Sir Charles Wendover in CavendishSquare, whom I found to be a quiet elderly man of severe professional aspect and demeanour, a man whose photograph I had often seen in the newspapers, for he was one of the best-known of mental specialists.
When I explained that the object of my visit was to learn something of the case of my friend Miss Tennison, he asked me to sit down and then switched on a green-shaded reading-lamp and referred to a big book upon his writing table. His consulting room was dull and dark, with heavy Victorian furniture and a great bookcase filled with medical works. In the chair in which I sat persons of all classes had sat while he had examined and observed them, and afterwards given his opinion to their friends.
“Ah! yes,” he exclaimed, when at last he found the notes he had made upon the case. “I saw the young lady on the twenty-eighth of November. A most peculiar case—most peculiar! Leicester and Franklyn both saw her, but they were just as much puzzled as myself.”
And through his big round horn spectacles he continued reading to himself the several pages of notes.
“Yes,” he remarked at last. “I now recall all the facts. A very curious case. The young lady disappeared from her friends, and was found some days later wandering near Petersfield, in Hampshire, in an exhausted condition. She could not account for her disappearance, or the state in which she was. Her memory had completely gone, and she has not, I believe, yet recovered it.”
“No, she has not,” I said. “But the reason I have ventured to call, Sir Charles, is to hear your opinion on the case.”
“My opinion!” he echoed. “What opinion can I hold when the effect is so plain—loss of memory?”
“Ah! But how could such a state of mind be produced?” I asked.
“You ask me for the cause. That, my dear sir, I cannot say,” was his answer. “There are several causes which would produce a similar effect. Probably it was some great shock. But of what nature we cannot possibly discover unless she herself recovers her normal memory so far as to be able to assist us. I see that I have noted how she constantly repeats the words ‘red, green and gold.’ That combination of colours has apparently impressed itself upon her mind to such an extent that it has become an obsession. Often she will utter no other words than those. She was seen by a number of eminent men, but nobody could suggest any cause other than shock.”
“Is it possible that some drug could have been administered to her?”
“Everything is possible,” Sir Charles answered. “But I know of no drug which would produce such effect. In brief, I confess that I have no idea what can have caused the sudden mental breakdown.”
I felt impelled to relate to him the whole story of my own adventures, but I hesitated. As a matter of fact I feared that he might regard it, as he most probably would have done, as a mere chimera of my own imagination.
A girl I had seen dead—or believed I had seen dead—was now living! And she was Gabrielle Tennison.
Of that I had no doubt, for the dates of our adventures corresponded.
And yet a girl also named Gabrielle had died and her body had been cremated!
The whole affair seemed to be beyond human credence. And yet you, my reader, have in this record the exact, hard and undeniable facts.
Next day I went to the office of Francis and Goldsmith, and after a consultation with both principals, during which I briefly outlined the curious circumstances such as I have here related, I was granted further leave of absence.
Yet I entertained a distinct feeling that old Mr. Francis somewhat doubted the truth of my statements. But was it surprising, so extraordinary had been my adventures?
“Perhaps you do not credit my statements, gentlemen,” I said before leaving their room. “But one day I hope to solve the enigma, and you will then learn one of the most extraordinary stories that any man has lived to tell.”
Afterwards I went round to the Carlton and inquired for Monsieur Suzor. To my surprise he was in.
Therefore I was ushered up to his private sitting-room, where he greeted me very warmly—so frankly welcome did he make me, indeed, that I wondered whether, after all, he had detected me following him, or whether he had entered and escaped from that house in the Euston Road with some entirely different motive.
“Ah, my dear friend!” he cried in his excellent English. “I wondered what had become of you. I called at Rivermead Mansions three days ago, but I could get no reply when I rang at your flat. The porter said that both you and your friend were out, and he had no idea when you would return. I go back to Paris to-morrow.”
“Shall you fly across this time?” I asked.
“No. I go by train. I have a lot of luggage—some purchases I have made for my friend the Baroness de Henonville.”
It was then about five o’clock, so he ordered some tea, and over cigarettes we chatted for nearly an hour.
The longer I conversed with him the more mysterious he appeared. Why had he crossed from Paris to London with me in order to meet clandestinely the poor girl who was the rich man’s victim? That was one point which arose in my mind.
But the main question was the reason of his supposed chance meeting with me in the express between York and London.
During our chat I feared to refer to Gabrielle lest he should suspect that I knew of his subtle intrigue. I could see that he was congratulating himself upon his cleverness in misleading me, therefore I chuckled inwardly.
What I desired most at that moment was to establish the connexion between the elegant cosmopolitan Frenchman and Oswald De Gex with his wily accomplice Moroni. That the latter was a man of criminal instinct I had long ago established. He was a toady to a man of immense wealth—a clever medical man who, by reason of his callous unscrupulousness, was a dealer in Death in its most insidious and least-looked-for form. The hand of death is ever at the command of every medical man, hence mankind has to thank the medical profession—one of the hardest-worked and least recognized in the world—for its honesty, frankness and strict uprightness. In every profession we have black sheep—even, alas! in the Church. But happily unscrupulousness in thosewho practise medicine in Great Britain is practically an unknown quantity.
But in Europe it is different, for in the dossiers held by the police of Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin criminals who practise medicine are written largely, as witnessed by the evidence in more than one famous trial where the accused has been sentenced to death.
I longed to go to Scotland Yard and tell my story. Yet how could I do so when, in a drawer in my room, there reposed that bundle of Bank of England notes, the price paid to me for being the accomplice of a mysterious crime? I could only seek a solution of the enigma alone and unaided by the authorities. I seemed to be making a little headway, yet each fact I established added complications to the amazing affair.
Further, I must here confess to you that during the past day or two I had found myself actually in love with the beautiful girl whose mentality had been wilfully destroyed by some means which medical science failed to establish. From the first I had been filled with great admiration for her. She was indeed very beautiful, with wonderful eyes and a perfect complexion. There was grace in every movement, save when at times she held herself rigid, with fixed blank eyes as though fascinated, or gripped by some invisible power. More than once I had wondered whether she were under hypnotic influence, but that theory had been completely negatived by Sir Charles Wendover.
Be that as it may, I had now fallen desperately in love with the girl whom I was seeking to rescue from her enemies.
Why had the body of Gabrielle Engledue been cremated if not to destroy all evidence of a crime? Gabrielle Tennison still lived; therefore another woman must havelost her life by foul means—most probably by poison—in face of the pains that were taken by Moroni to efface all trace of the cause of death.
Over our tea the affable French banker told me of a rapid journey to Liverpool which he had taken a few days before, he having some pressing business with a man who was on the point of sailing for New York. The person in question had absconded from Paris owing the bank a large sum of money, and he had that day cabled to the New York police asking for his arrest on landing.
“I shall probably be compelled to go across to America and apply for him to be sent back to Paris,” my friend said, “so I am going back for instructions.”
As he spoke I pondered. Was it possible that he was unaware of the surveillance I had kept upon him during and after his secret interview with Gabrielle? If so, why had he entered that dingy house in the Euston Road and made his exit by the back way? I had established the fact that the house was well-known to thieves of a certain class who used it in order to escape being followed. Several such houses exist in London. One is near the Elephant and Castle, another in the Clapham Road, while there is one in Hammersmith Road, and still another just off Clarence Terrace at Regent’s Park. Such houses serve as sanctuaries for those escaping from justice. The latter know them, and as they slip through they pay a toll, well-knowing that the keeper of the house will deny that they have ever been there.
The “in-and-out” houses of London and their keepers, always sly crooks, form a particular study in themselves. One pretends to be a garage, another a private hotel, a third a small greengrocer’s, and a fourth a boot repairer’s. All those trades are carried on as “blinds.” Thepublic believe them to be honest businesses, but there is far more business done in concealing those wanted by the police than in anything else.
From Suzor’s demeanour I felt that he did not suspect me of having been witness of his entry into that frowsy house near Euston Station. But why had he gone there? He must have feared that he might be watched. And why? The only answer to that question was that he had met Gabrielle clandestinely and feared lest afterwards he might be followed.
But why should he fear if not implicated in the plot?
To me it now seemed plain that I had been marked down as a pawn in the game prior to that day when we travelled together from York to London. I had not altogether recovered from the effect of what had been administered to me. Often I felt a curious sensation of dizziness and of overwhelming depression, which I knew was the after effects of that loss of all sense of my surroundings when I had been taken to the hospital in St. Malo. I had been found at the roadside in France, just as Gabrielle had been found on the highway near Petersfield.
When I reflected my blood boiled.
The affable and highly cultured Frenchman presented a further enigma. He was crossing back to Paris next day. What if I, too, went back to Paris and watched his further movements? As I sat chatting and laughing with him, I decided upon this course.
When, shortly afterwards, I left, I went straight across Hammersmith Bridge and found that Harry Hambledon had just returned from his office.
We sat together at table, whereupon I told him one or two facts I had discovered, and urged him to cross to Paris with me next day.
“You see, you can watch—for you will be a perfect stranger to Suzor. I will bear the expense. I’ve still got a little money in the bank. We can see Suzor off from Charing Cross, then take a taxi to Croydon, fly over, and be in Paris hours before he arrives at the Gare du Nord. There you will wait for his arrival, follow him and see his destination.”
Hambledon, who was already much interested in my strange adventures, quickly saw the point.
“I’ve got one or two rather urgent things on to-morrow,” he replied. “But if you really wish me to go with you I can telephone to my friend Hardy and ask him to look after them for me. We shan’t be away very long, I suppose?”
“A week at the most,” I said. “I want to establish the true identity of this banker friend of mine. I have a distinct suspicion of him.”
“And so have I,” Hambledon said. “Depend upon it, some big conspiracy has been afoot, and they are now endeavouring to cover up all traces of their villainy. I was discussing it with Norah when we were walking in Richmond Park last night.”
“I quite agree,” I replied. “Then we’ll fly across to Paris at lunch-time to-morrow, and keep watch upon this man who meets Miss Tennison in secret and then uses a thieves’ sanctuary in order to escape.”
“That story of the absconding customer of the bank is a fiction, I believe,” Harry exclaimed.
“I’m certain it is,” I said.