“Yes. They ought, and they will be when I am able to bring forward sufficient evidence to convict them,” I replied warmly. “Why, I ask you, should Oswald De Gex be in secret association with that dangerous bandit?”
The Spaniard merely shrugged his shoulders, while at the Commissary’s request a dossier was brought in, and then they both went through a long catalogue of crimes alleged to have been instigated or actually committed by the man whom I had found in my bedroom, and who had so cleverly deceived me.
The list was a formidable one, and showed how elusive was the man whom the police of Europe had been hunting for so long.
Among the big batch of papers was a report in English from the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard stating that the individual in question had arrived in London on a certain date, and stayed with a respectable family at Ham, near Richmond, representing himself to be a lawyer from Barcelona. Thence he had gone to Glasgow, where he stayed at a certain hotel, and then moved to Oban. Afterwards he had come south again to Luton, in Bedfordshire, where all trace of him had been lost.
“Well,” laughed Rivero triumphantly, “we shall take good care not to lose him now!”
“No,” said the Commissary of Police. “My men will be armed, and will take him, alive or dead!”
“And De Gex and Moroni will then instantly flee!” I said, full of regret that I had taken that step which might so easily result in destroying all my chances of solving that puzzling enigma of Gabrielle Tennison.
Nevertheless, it was a source of satisfaction that at last Despujol had, by my watchfulness, been run to earth.
Suddenly the telephone at Monsieur Coulagne’s elbow rang, and after listening, he exclaimed:
“The men are already posted round the hotel. So all we have to do is to await his return.”
Hence I went forth with Rivero and the Commissary. Led by the latter, we approached the Place de l’Esplanade through a labyrinth of narrow back streets until, on gaining the hotel, we saw idling in the vicinity a number of men who were apparently quite disinterested.
We entered the hotel boldly, and drawing back to the end of the lounge, after a whispered word with the concierge, we waited.
For a full hour we remained there in eager impatience, until suddenly a figure whom I recognized as Doctor Moroni showed in the doorway.
He was alone!
He ascended to his room, where he remained for about ten minutes. Then, descending, he went to the bureau and inquired for the bill of his friend and himself, announcing his intention of departing for Paris by the train which left in half an hour!
Rivero, who had been standing near him unrecognized, crossed quickly to where with the Commissary I sat well back from observation, and gasped:
“They’ve gone! He is also leaving! Evidently they suspected they were under observation!”
“Ah! Despujol is a very wary bird,” replied MonsieurCoulagne, rising and walking out into the Place, where he whispered some hurried words to a stout, well-dressed man who was sauntering by, and who was his chief inspector.
In a few moments more than half the lurking police agents had disappeared to make inquiries at the railway station and in various quarters, and when he rejoined us—Moroni having returned upstairs—he said:
“Despujol cannot yet have gone very far. I have given orders for all railway stations within two hundred kilomètres to be warned. Let us return to my bureau and await reports.”
“And what about Moroni?” I asked.
“He will be followed. I have already seen to that,” was the reply.
Back at the Prefecture Monsieur Coulagne was soon speaking rapidly over the telephone. Then we waited for news of the fugitive. None came until about two hours afterwards the result of inquiries was told to us by an inspector.
It seemed that on the previous day a large open car, driven by a chauffeur, put into Carli’s Garage, a big establishment in the Boulevard des Arènes. The chauffeur asked for a receipt for the car, saying that he had to go by train to Marseilles, and that his master would probably call for the car on the following day, and produce the receipt. He asked that it should be filled up with petrol in readiness for his master. About two hours before the police made inquiry three gentlemen entered the garage, the descriptions of whom tallied with those of De Gex, Despujol and Moroni. De Gex produced the receipt for the car. He paid for the petrol, and he and Despujol drove away bidding farewell to Moroni! Despujol drove the car.
“Ah!” exclaimed Rivero. “Despujol would not risk the train. He always arranges a secret means of escape. In this case he prepared it on the day before. Without a doubt he knew that watch was being kept.”
“Or was it that De Gex knew that I was here?” I suggested.
“Well, in any case,” remarked the Commissary of Police, “the pair have got clear away, and though we will do our best, it will no doubt be extremely difficult to rediscover them. They will change the number-plates on the car, and perhaps repaint it! Who knows? Despujol is one of the most desperate characters in all Europe!”
“And Oswald De Gex is equally dangerous!” I declared, for I was still no nearer the truth.
I had been back in London a little over a week when I read in the paper one morning a paragraph which possessed for me a peculiar interest. It ran as follows:
“The notorious Spanish bandit Rodriquez Despujol, who has for several years terrorized Murcia and Andalusia and has committed several murders, is dead. The police have been searching for him everywhere, but so elusive was he that he always evaded them. The celebrated Spanish detective Señor Rivero learnt a short time ago that the wanted man had been seen at Nîmes, where he cleverly contrived to escape by car.“Certain clues came into the hands of the police, and by these Señor Rivero was able to trace the fugitive to Denia, not far from Valencia. He was hiding in a small cottage in an orange-grove just outside the town. The place was surrounded by police, but Despujol, discovering this, opened fire upon them from one of the windows and also threw a hand grenade among them, with result that two carabineers were killed and four others injured, among the latter being Señor Rivero himself. A desperate fight ensued, but in the end the bandit received a bullet in the head which proved fatal.“A large quantity of stolen property of all sorts has been discovered in rooms which the criminal occupied in Montauban, in France. Despujol’s latest exploit was an attempt to administer in secret a very deadly poison to an Englishman who was visiting Madrid. It was that attempted crime which aroused Señor Rivero’s activities which have had the effect of ridding Spain of one of its most notorious assassins.”
“The notorious Spanish bandit Rodriquez Despujol, who has for several years terrorized Murcia and Andalusia and has committed several murders, is dead. The police have been searching for him everywhere, but so elusive was he that he always evaded them. The celebrated Spanish detective Señor Rivero learnt a short time ago that the wanted man had been seen at Nîmes, where he cleverly contrived to escape by car.
“Certain clues came into the hands of the police, and by these Señor Rivero was able to trace the fugitive to Denia, not far from Valencia. He was hiding in a small cottage in an orange-grove just outside the town. The place was surrounded by police, but Despujol, discovering this, opened fire upon them from one of the windows and also threw a hand grenade among them, with result that two carabineers were killed and four others injured, among the latter being Señor Rivero himself. A desperate fight ensued, but in the end the bandit received a bullet in the head which proved fatal.
“A large quantity of stolen property of all sorts has been discovered in rooms which the criminal occupied in Montauban, in France. Despujol’s latest exploit was an attempt to administer in secret a very deadly poison to an Englishman who was visiting Madrid. It was that attempted crime which aroused Señor Rivero’s activities which have had the effect of ridding Spain of one of its most notorious assassins.”
I read the report twice. So the defiant Despujol was dead, and poor Rivero had sustained injuries! Nothing was said of the powerful financier’s friendship with the bandit.
When I showed it to Hambledon, he remarked:
“At least you’ve been the means not only of putting an end to Despujol’s ignoble career, but also of restoring a quantity of very valuable property to its owners.”
“True, but it brings us no nearer a solution of the affair at Stretton Street,” was my reply.
Gabrielle’s mother had returned to London, and that evening I called upon her by appointment. I found her a grey-haired refined woman with a pale anxious face and deep-set eyes.
When I mentioned Gabrielle, who was in the adjoining room, she sighed and exclaimed:
“Ah! Mr. Garfield. It is a great trial to me. Poor child! I cannot think what happened to her. Nobody can tell, she least of all. Doctor Moroni has been very good, for he is greatly interested in her case. They have told me that you called some time ago and evinced an interest in her.”
“Yes, Mrs. Tennison,” I said.“I feel a very deep interest in your daughter because—well, to tell you the truth, I, too, after a strange adventure here in London one night completely lost my sense of identity, and when I came to a knowledge of things about me I was in a hospital in France, having been found unconscious at the roadside many days after my adventure in London.”
“How very curious!” Mrs. Tennison remarked, instantly interested. “Gabrielle was found at the roadside. Do you think, then, that there is any connexion between your case and hers?”
“Yes, Mrs. Tennison,” I replied promptly. “It is for that reason I am in active search of the truth—in the interests of your daughter, as well as of those of my own.”
“What do you suspect, Mr. Garfield?” asked Gabrielle’s mother, as we sat in that cosily-furnished little room where on the table in the centre stood an old punch-bowl filled with sweet-smelling La France roses.
“I suspect many things. In some, my suspicions have proved correct. In others, I am still entirely in the dark. One important point, however, I have established, namely, the means by which this curious, mysterious effect has been produced upon the minds of both your daughter and myself. When one knows the disease then it is not difficult to search for the cure. I know how the effect was produced, and further, I know the name of the medical man who has effected cures in similar cases.”
“You do?” she exclaimed eagerly. “Well, Gabrielle has seen a dozen specialists, all of whom have been puzzled.”
“Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons, has been able to gain complete cures in two cases. Orosin, a newly discovered poison, is the drug that was used, and the Professor has a wider knowledge of the effect of that highly dangerous substance than any person living. You should arrange to take your daughter to him.”
The pale-faced widow shook her head, and in a mournful tone, replied:
“Ah! I am afraid it would be useless. Doctor Moroni took her to several specialists, but they all failed to restore her brain to its normal activity.”
“Professor Gourbeil is the only man who has ever been able to completely cure a person to whom orosin has been administered—and that has been in two cases only.”
“So the chance is very remote, even if she saw him,” exclaimed the widow despairingly.
“I think, Mrs. Tennison, that Gabrielle should see him in any case,” I said.
“I agree. The poor girl’s condition is most pitiable. At times she seems absolutely normal, and talks of things about her in quite a reasonable manner. But she never seems able to concentrate her thoughts. They always wander swiftly from one subject to another. I have noticed, too, that her vision is affected. Sometimes she will declare that a vivid red is blue. When we look into shop windows together she will refer to a yellow dress as mauve, a pink as white. At times she cannot distinguish colours. Yet now and then her vision becomes quite normal.”
“I have had some difficulty, Mrs. Tennison, in that way myself,” I said. “When I first left St. Malo, after recovering consciousness of the present, I one day saw a grass field and it appeared to be bright blue. Again, an omnibus in London which I knew to be blue was a peculiar dull red. So my symptoms were the same as your daughter’s.”
“It seems proved that both of you are fellow-victims of some desperate plot, Mr. Garfield,” said the widow. “But what could have been its motive?”
“That I am striving with all my might to establish,” I answered. “If I can only obtain from your daughter the true facts concerning her adventures on that fatal night last November, then it will materially assist me towards fixing the guilt upon the person I suspect. In this I beg your aid, Mrs. Tennison,” I said. “I have only just returned from several weeks abroad, during which I have gained considerable knowledge which in the end will, I hope, lead me to the solution of the problem.”
I then told her of my journey to Spain and afterwards to Nîmes. But I mentioned nothing concerning either Oswald De Gex or Despujol.
At that moment Gabrielle, unaware of my presence, entered. She was dressed in a simple grey frock with short sleeves and cut discreetly low, and looked very sweet. On seeing me she drew back, but next second she put out her slim white hand in greeting, and with a delightful smile, exclaimed:
“Why—why, Mr. Garfield! I—I remember you! You called upon me some weeks ago—did you not?”
“Yes, Miss Tennison, I did,” I replied as I sprang from my chair and bent over her hand. “So you recollect me—eh?”
“I do. They said that you would call upon me,” she replied, her beautiful face suddenly clouding.
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“Doctor Moroni. He warned me that you were my enemy.”
I drew a long breath, for I discerned the depth of the plot.
“Not your enemy, Miss Tennison,” I assured her. “But your friend—your friend who is trying his best to solve the problem of your—your illness.”
“Yes, Gabrielle, dear, Mr. Garfield is certainly your friend. I know that,” declared her mother kindly. “Doctor Moroni must have been mistaken. Why should he have warned you against meeting Mr. Garfield?”
I was silent for a moment, then I said:
“Of course, Mrs. Tennison, you have no previous knowledge of me. You are taking me entirely at my own estimation.”
“When I meet a young man who is open and frank as you are, I trust him,” she said quietly. “You know that woman’s intuition seldom errs.”
I laughed.
“Well,” I answered. “I am striving to solve the mystery of what occurred on the night of November the seventh—of what occurred to your daughter, as well as to myself.”
Mrs. Tennison endeavoured to obtain from me a description of my adventure, but I managed to evade her questions.
“I wonder why Doctor Moroni warned Gabrielle against you?” she remarked presently. “It is a mystery.”
“Yes, Mrs. Tennison, it is all a mystery—a complete mystery to me why Doctor Moroni, of all men, should take an interest in your daughter. He is certainly not a man to be trusted, and I, in turn, warn you against him.”
“Why? He has been so good to Gabrielle.”
“The reason of my warning is that he is her enemy as well as mine,” I said, glancing at the beautiful girl, whose countenance had, alas! now grown inanimate again.
“But I do not understand,” Mrs. Tennison exclaimed. “Why should the doctor be Gabrielle’s enemy?”
“Ah! That I cannot tell—except that he fears lest she should recover and reveal the truth—a serious truth which would implicate him.”
“Do you think he had any hand in the mysterious affair?”
“I certainly do,” was my reply, and then I told her of my journey to Italy, and of my discovery of her daughter with Moroni in Florence.
“But how did you know my daughter?” she asked.
“Because on that fatal night I saw her in a house in London.”
“You saw her! Where?”
“In the house of a mutual enemy.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Tennison,” I exclaimed quietly. “At present I cannot reveal to you more than I have done. Please excuse me. When I have fully verified my suspicions I will explain all that occurred to me—all that is within my knowledge. Until then, please remain in patience.”
“I never dreamed that Gabrielle had a single enemy in the world. I cannot understand it,” she exclaimed.
“Neither can I, but the fact remains. The greatest care should be exercised regarding your daughter. Why did she meet that Frenchman in Kensington Gardens?”
“I have only just heard about it,” was her mother’s reply. “It appears that Doctor Moroni introduced them. She had only seen him once before.”
Then, turning to the girl, her mother asked:
“What did he say to you?”
“He brought me an urgent and secret message from Doctor Moroni, telling me that there was a plot against my life,” she replied in a slow, mechanical voice. “The doctor sent word to me that Mr. Garfield would probably call and endeavour to be friendly with me, but that he was my enemy, and I should have no dealings with him.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed. “So that was the second warning given you, Miss Tennison! It is more than ever plain that they fear lest, by meeting, we shall discover the plot and its instigators. What else did he say?”
“He told me that Doctor Moroni was still in Florence, but that he would be coming to London again very soon, and that he would call. He urged me at the same time to tell nobody that he had seen me, or that he had warned me against you—not even my mother.”
“All that is in no way surprising,” I remarked, “for I happen to know that Monsieur Suzor and the doctor are on terms of closest friendship—a partnership for evil.”
“How?”
“As I have already explained, Miss Tennison, I have not yet fully solved the enigma, though I have learned a number of facts which, though they increase the mystery, yet they give some clue to the solution of the enigma.”
“But their evil design?” asked her mother.
“Their evil design is against us both, hence your daughter’s interests have become my own,” I replied. “My sole object is to bring to justice those who have, for their own ends—no doubt for financial gain—been guilty of the astounding plot against your daughter. You may believe Doctor Moroni and his friend Suzor as you will, Mrs. Tennison, but I shall not withdraw from my present attitude. That they fear me is conclusively proved.”
“I quite see your point,” said the quiet-voiced, refined lady.
“Then I do urge you to have a care of Miss Gabrielle,” I exclaimed.“If it is known, as it may be, that I have been here, an effort will surely be made to close the mouth of one or other of us. These men are desperate. I have already proved them so. Therefore we must take every precaution against surprise.”
“Why not go to the police?” suggested Mrs. Tennison.
“Because the whole circumstances are so strange that, if I related them at Scotland Yard, I should not be believed,” was my reply. “No. I, with my friend Mr. Hambledon, must carry on our inquiries alone. If we are sufficiently wary and active we may, I hope, gather sufficient evidence to elucidate the mystery of your daughter’s present mental condition, and also the reason why a similar attempt was made upon myself.”
“Well, Mr. Garfield,” exclaimed the charming, elderly lady with a sigh, “I only hope you will be successful in your quest after the truth. This blow upon me is, I confess, a most terrible one. It is so distressing to see my poor child in such an uncertain state of mentality. Sometimes, as I have told you, she is quite normal, though she has no knowledge of what occurred to her. And at other times she is painfully vague and often erratic in her actions.”
“She must consult Professor Gourbeil, the great alienist, at Lyons. He has a wide knowledge of the symptoms and effects of orosin.”
The poor lady sighed, and with tired, sad eyes looked upon her daughter, who had sunk into a chair with her pointed chin resting upon her palms.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Garfield, I am not rich,” she said in a low earnest tone.“I will give most willingly all I possess in order that my poor child be restored to her normal senses. But I have very little in these post-war days, when everything is so dear, and taxation strangles one, in face of what they told us during the war that they were making England a place fit for heroes to live in! It seems to me that they are now making it fit for Germans and aliens to live in.”
“My dear Mrs. Tennison, our discussion does not concern politics,” I said, anxious for the future of the graceful girl whom I had grown to love so dearly, even though her brain was unbalanced. At first I regarded it as strange that being fellow-victims of Oswald De Gex and his desperate, unscrupulous accomplices—who included the assassin Despujol—I had been drawn towards her by some unknown and invisible attraction. But when I analysed my feelings and surveyed the situation calmly I saw that it was not more extraordinary than in any other circumstances when a man, seeing a woman who fulfills all his high ideals, falls desperately in love with her and worships at her shrine.
It was July.
The London season, later in these modern days, was already on the wane. The Derby and Ascot had been won, in glorious weather. There had been splendid cricket at Lord’s, fine polo at Hurlingham, and Henley Week had just passed. London Society was preparing for the country, the Continental Spas, and the sea, leaving the metropolis to the American cousins who were each week invading London’s big hotels.
I was back at Francis and Goldsmith’s hard at work as I had been before my strange adventure, while Harry was busy at his legal work in the police courts.
From our windows looking across the Thames between the trees on the towing path we had a wide view of the river with the chimneys of the factories on the opposite bank. On the right was Putney, the starting place of the University Boat Race, and on the left the great reservoirs and the bend of the river behind which lay Mortlake, the finish of the boat-race course. Each morning, when I rose and dressed, I looked out upon the wide and somewhat uninteresting vista, racking my brains how to further proceed with my campaign against the great intriguer who could, by his immense wealth, juggle with dynasties.
With Mrs. Tennison I had become on very friendly terms. Fearing to reveal myself as having taken that bundle of Bank of England notes as a bribe, I held backfrom her what had actually happened to me on that fateful night. But I had become a frequent guest at Longridge Road, and often spent many delightful hours with Gabrielle, who at times seemed quite in her normal senses.
Yet, at others, she became vague and spoke in awed tones about what she had seen—“all red, green and gold.” And often I sat at home smoking and wondering what she had seen that had so impressed her. Often, too, I discussed it with Mrs. Tennison and with Harry Hambledon, but neither of us could suggest any solution of the mystery.
Mrs. Tennison, on account of the slump in securities owing to the war, was, I knew, in rather straitened circumstances. When I again suggested a visit to the great specialist in Lyons she shook her head, and told me frankly that she could not afford it. De Gex had, it seemed, sought his victims among those who had been ruined by the war.
She had, however, told me that her brother, a shipping agent living in Liverpool, who was Gabrielle’s godfather, was deeply interested in her.
I suggested that she should write to him and urge that, as a last resort, Gabrielle should consult Professor Gourbeil. The latter had been successful in restoring to their normal mental condition patients who had been infected with orosin, that most dangerous and puzzling of the discoveries of modern toxicologists.
Mrs. Tennison had acted upon my advice. Had I been in a financial position to pay Gabrielle’s expenses to Lyons I would have done so most willingly. But my journey to Spain had depleted my resources, and though I had those Bank of England notes still reposing in a drawer at home, I dared not change one of them lest bysuch action I should have accepted and profited upon the bribe which De Gex had so cleverly pressed upon me.
In the first week of July Mrs. Tennison wrote to me, and that evening I went over to see her after leaving the office in Westminster.
It was a hot dry night when London lay beneath its haze of sun-reddened dust after a heat spell, parched and choked.
Gabrielle was out at the house of one of her school friends, hence, we sat alone together in the cool drawing-room—a room which was essentially that of a woman of taste and refinement.
A few seconds after I had entered, a tall, grey-haired man came in, whereupon Mrs. Tennison introduced him as her brother Charles from Liverpool.
The man glanced at me sharply, and then, smiling pleasantly, took my hand.
“I have come up to see my sister regarding poor Gabrielle,” he said, when we were seated. “I understand that you have experienced similar symptoms to hers, and have recovered.”
“I have not completely recovered,” I replied. “Often I have little recurrences of lapse of memory for periods from a few moments to a quarter of an hour.”
“My sister has told me that you believe that poor Gabrielle and yourself are fellow-victims of some plot.”
“I am certain of it, Mr. Maxwell,” I replied. “And I have already devoted considerable time and more money than I could really afford in an attempt to solve the mystery of it all.”
“Can you explain the whole circumstances?” he asked. “I am deeply interested in my unfortunate niece.”
“I can relate to you a few of the facts if you wish to hear them,” was my reply. I certainly had no intentionof telling him all that I knew, or of the death and cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle Engledue—whoever she might have been.
So I explained practically what I had told his sister. I also described how Professor Vega at Madrid had told me of the two cures effected by Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons.
“My sister tells me that you suggest Gabrielle should consult him,” Mr. Maxwell said. “But she has consulted so many specialists. Doctor Moroni has been most kind to her. He took her to doctors in Paris and in Italy, but they could do nothing.”
“Well, I think that as Professor Gourbeil has cured two persons of the deadly effects of the drug Miss Tennison should see him,” I remarked.
“I quite agree. It is for that reason I have come to London,” he said. “I understand that you, Mr. Garfield, take a personal interest in my niece, therefore I want to ask you a favour—namely, that if I pay the expenses would you accompany my sister and her daughter to Lyons?”
“Willingly. But I will pay my own expenses, please,” was my prompt reply.
At first he would not hear of it, until I declined to go unless I went independently, and then we arranged for our departure.
Four days later we descended at the big busy Perrache station at Lyons from the lumberingrapidewhich had brought us from Paris, and entered the Terminus Hôtel which adjoins the platform. Later, from the concierge, we found that Professor Gourbeil of the Facultés des Sciences et de Médecine, lived in the Avenue Felix Faure, and I succeeded over the telephone in making an appointment with him for the following day at noon.
This I kept, going to him alone in order to explain matters.
I found him to be a short, florid-faced man with a shock of white hair and a short white beard. His house was a rather large one standing back in a well-kept garden full of flowers, and the room in which he received me was shaded and cool.
I told him of Professor Vega’s recommendation, whereupon he exclaimed in French:
“Ah! I know Professor Vega. We met last year at our conference in Paris—a very brilliant man!”
Then, as briefly as I could, I explained how the deadly drug orosin had been surreptitiously administered to Gabrielle and myself, and its effects upon us both.
“Orosin!” exclaimed the old savant, raising his thin hands. “Ah! There is not much hope of the lady’s recovery. I have known of only two cases within my experience. The effect of orosin upon the human brain is mysterious and lasting. It produces a state of the brain-cells with which we cannot cope. A larger dose produces strong homicidal tendencies and inevitable death, and a still larger dose almost instantaneous death.”
I told him how we both had lost all sense of our surroundings for weeks, and how we were both found at the roadside, she in Hampshire and I in France.
“You were both victims of some plot; that is evident. Of course you have invoked the aid of the police?”
I did not reply. I certainly feared to seek the assistance of Scotland Yard.
He explained to me practically what Professor Vega had done regarding orosin and its terrible effect.
“There have been other cases of its administration,” said the great alienist.“Somebody must be preparing the drug and selling it for sinister purposes. Though it is so little known as yet that its manufacturer must be an expert toxicologist with special knowledge.”
“Have you seen many cases of its administration?” I asked eagerly.
“Yes. Quite a number,” was the old Professor’s reply. “I am in communication with Doctor Duroc, of the Salpêtrière in Paris, and together we are keeping a record of the cases where orosin is administered by some mysterious hand. Whose, we have no idea. We leave that to the Sûreté. But you say that your adventure and that of mademoiselle occurred in London?”
I repeated my story. Then I ventured to ask:
“Do you, Professor, know anything of a Doctor Moroni, of Florence?”
The white-bearded, shock-haired man reflected for a moment, and then moving in his chair, replied:
“I fancy I have heard his name. Moroni—Moroni? Yes, I am sure someone has mentioned him.”
“As a toxicologist?”
“Probably. I do not really remember. I believe I met him at one of the conferences in Paris or Geneva. He was with one of your English professors—one of your medico-legists whose name at the moment escapes my memory. He gave evidence in that curious case of alleged poison at the Old Bailey, in London, a year ago.”
“But is Doctor Moroni known as an expert in poison?”
“Not to my personal knowledge. Possibly he is, and I have heard his name in that connexion. Why do you ask?”
“Because he has had my friend Miss Tennison under his care. He has taken her to see several specialists in Italy.” Then in a sudden burst of confidence I told him of my great love for the girl who, like myself, had been attacked in secret. Further, I told him that the reason ofmy steady inquiry was in her interests, as well as in my own.
“My dear Monsieur Garfield, now that you are so frank with me I will do my utmost in the interests of both of you,” declared the dear old Professor, as he rose and crossed to the window. “What you have told me interests me intensely. I see by your travels to Spain and the South that you are leaving no stone unturned to arrive at a true solution of the problem—and I will help you. Orosin is the least known and most dangerous drug that has ever been discovered in our modern civilization. Used with evil intent it is unsuspected and wellnigh undiscoverable, for the symptoms often resemble those of certain diseases of the brain. The person to whom the drug is administered either exhibits an exhilaration akin to undue excess of alcohol, or else the functions of the brain are entirely distorted, with a complete loss of memory or a chronic aberration of the brain.”
“That is the case of my friend Miss Tennison,” I said.
“Very well. I will see her and endeavour to do what I can to restore her,” said the elegant old French savant. “But, remember, I hold out no hope. In all cases orosin destroys the brain. It seems to create a slow degeneracy of the cells which nobody yet can understand. We know the effect, but we cannot, up to the present, combat it. There are yet many things in human life of which the medical men are in as complete ignorance as those who study electricity and radio-frequencies. We try to do our best to the extent of our knowledge, my dear monsieur. And if you will bring Mademoiselle to me to-morrow at three o’clock I will try to make my diagnosis.”
I thanked him for his perfectly open declaration, and then I left. That he was the greatest living authorityon the symptoms and effect of the mysterious drug orosin I felt confident. I only longed that he would take Gabrielle beneath his charge and endeavour to restore her brain to its normal function.
Punctually at three o’clock next day I called with my beloved and her mother at the house embowered in roses and geraniums up on the hill above the broad Rhône river.
We were ushered in by an old man-servant, silent and stately.
The Professor quickly appeared, his sharp eyes upon the patient.
“I wonder if you will allow me, Madame, to take your daughter into my consulting-room alone?” he asked in good English. “It will be best for me to question her without any other person being present.”
“Most certainly,” Mrs. Tennison replied. Then, turning to Gabrielle, she said: “The Professor wants to put a few questions to you, dear. Will you go with him into the next room?”
Gabrielle, pale-faced and tragic, looked at me strangely, and then meekly followed the old Professor into his consulting-room.
The door was closed, and Mrs. Tennison waited with me in silence. The window of the room was open and through it came the sweet scent of the roses and climbing jasmine, with the buzz of the summer insects and the chatter of the birds, for the house was high up on that hill above the great silk-weaving capital of the Rhône.
I rose and looked out upon the garden, so well ordered, for the Professor was, it seemed, a lover of roses, the blossoms running riot everywhere.
Suddenly, as we remained in silence, we heard Gabrielle’s voice raised until she shouted fierce defiant words in English:
“No!” she shrieked. “It was not that—not that! You try and fix upon me a deed that I did not do! Why should you do this—why should you do this!”
“Pardon, Mademoiselle,” we heard the Professor say in a quiet, calm tone. “Pardon. Please! I do not allege it. I have only asked a simple question.”
“Your question is insulting, doctor!” declared my beloved loudly. “Why should you insinuate such a thing?”
“Mademoiselle, I insinuate nothing,” replied the Professor. “I am endeavouring to ascertain the exact state of your mental balance. Your anger is, in itself, a most gratifying feature. A thousand pardons if you feel that I have insulted you,” he added with the extreme politeness of his race.
Then, through the folding doors which divided the apartments, we heard him say:
“Will you please give me both your hands, and look directly into my eyes?”
There was a silence.
We could hear the Professor sigh, but he made no comment.
His examination occupied nearly an hour. He put to her many searching questions in an endeavour to restore her memory as to what happened, but without avail. Those questions seemed to perturb her, for of a sudden she cried loudly, indeed she almost shrieked in terror:
“Ah! no! no! Save me!” she implored. “I—I can’t stand it! I can’t—I really can’t! See! Look! Look! There it is again—all red, green and gold!—all red, green and gold!”
And we could hear her expressions of fear as she gazed upon some imaginary object which held her terrified.
We heard the kindly old Professor putting many questions to her in an endeavour to discover what gave rise to that nameless horror which she so often experienced, but her replies were most vague. She seemed unable to describe the chimera of her imagination. Yet it was only too plain that on that fatal night she had seen something bearing those colours which had so impressed itself upon her mind as distinctly horrible that it constantly recurred to her.
Yet she was unable to describe it, owing to her mental aberration.
Time after time, she implored the Professor’s protection from some imaginary peril, and time after time, after she had begged him to remain near her, she repeated those mysterious and meaningless words:
“Red, green and gold!—red, green and gold!”
In breathless anxiety we listened, but all we could hear were the Professor’s sighs of despair, which meant far more to Mrs. Tennison and myself than any of his words could convey.
We knew that upon poor Gabrielle, the girl I loved with all my heart and soul, the deadly drug had done its work—and that she was, alas! incurable!
Her case was hopeless, even in the hands of the one man in all Europe who knew the effects of orosin and had only in two cases effected cures.
I looked at her mother in silence. She knew my thoughts, for tears were now coursing down her pale cheeks.
Both of us knew the worst. Our journey had been in vain.
That thought caused me to grit my teeth against De Gex and his unholy hirelings. I would follow and unmask them. I would avenge the innocent girl whom I loved so dearly, even though it should cost me my life!
The first week in August was unusually hot and dry in London.
Gabrielle and Mrs. Tennison had remained in Lyons, for Professor Gourbeil had suggested that his patient should, as a desperate resource, remain under his treatment for a few weeks. He gave practically no hope of her recovery. The dose of orosin that had been administered was, he declared, a larger one than that which De Gex had introduced into my drink on that night of horrors.
The effect upon me had been to muddle my brain so that I had accepted those Bank of England notes as bribe to assist the mystery-man of Europe in his foul and mysterious plot.
My companion Harry Hambledon was still earning his guineas at Hammersmith Police Court, gradually establishing a reputation. He had bought a small two-seater car, and each Sunday he took Norah out for runs to the Hut at Wisley, to the Burford Bridge Hotel, where the genial Mr. Hunt—one of the last remaining Bohemians of the days of the Junior Garrick Club—welcomed them; to the Wooton Hatch, or up to those more pretentious and less comfortable hostelries on Hindhead.
Motoring had roused a new interest in my friend. I loved the open road, but with the heavy expenses I had recently sustained I could not afford it. Besides, my firm had just secured a big electric lighting contract with thecorporation of Chichester, and I was constantly travelling between that city and London, sometimes by rail and sometimes in Mr. Francis’s car.
I suppose I must have carried on my work satisfactorily after the generous leave the firm—one of those stately old-fashioned ones which have still survived the war—had accorded me. But my thoughts were ever of my beloved Gabrielle, the beautiful girl whom, though her mind was so strongly unbalanced, I yet loved with all the strength of my being.
Every few days we exchanged letters. Sometimes Mrs. Tennison wrote to me from the quiet little pension in the Rue Paul Bert, in Lyons, but her letters were always despairing. Poor Gabrielle was just the same. She still had no other vista in life than her immediate one, and she still in her reflective moments gave vent to that strange ejaculation of those mysterious words: “Red, green and gold! Red, green and gold!”
I confess that I went about my business in a low-spirited, despairing mood. More than once I passed by that dark forbidding house in Stretton Street, the blinds of which were drawn, for ever since the winter it had been closed with the caretaker in charge. Pass along Park Lane and the Mayfair neighbourhood in August and you will see the Holland blinds drawn everywhere. The window-boxes filled with geraniums and marguerites are drooping, for they have served their turn and “the families” are out of town, enjoying themselves in Scotland, in Norway, or at the French Spas. Honest Londoners may sweat and toil with their begrudged fourteen days at the sea or in the country, but Society, caring nothing for unhealthy trades or ill-paid labour, unless a strike perchance affects their pockets or their comforts, drifts to where it can flirt, dance or gamble amid gaysurroundings denied in London by our sanctimonious kill-joys.
Whenever I passed along Stretton Street there spread over my mind the strange and inexplicable events of that night when De Gex’s man-servant Horton had dashed out after me, and suddenly implored me to see his master. Ah! I saw the amazing cleverness of the whole plot—a plot such as could only be conceived by a master brain.
De Gex’s dark, sinister, half-Oriental countenance haunted me in my dreams. True, he was a man who swayed the finances of Europe, suave, smiling, and with an extremely polished and refined exterior. But why Suzor had purposely become acquainted with me, and why I had afterwards been enticed into that house of tragedy were, in themselves, two points, the motive of which I failed to grasp.
Late one evening I passed the house, going out of my way purposely to do so, when, to my amazement, I saw standing upon the doorstep, and about to enter his car, no other person than Oswald De Gex himself. Behind him stood a strange man-servant, who at the moment seemed to be taking some instructions.
In the darkness De Gex could not distinguish me. Therefore I drew back and watched the world-famous financier enter the car and drive away.
So Oswald De Gex was back in London—and in August! I had passed the house on the previous afternoon and seen that as usual the faded Holland blinds were drawn, just as they had been for months, an indication to callers that the owner was away. I looked again. The blinds were still down!
Next day being Sunday I watched, and though at four o’clock in the afternoon De Gex came forth and strolled round to his club in St. James’s Street, the blinds werestill drawn, it being evident that the unscrupulous man who juggled with European dynasties was living there in obscurity—and in pretence of absence.
Why?
My watchfulness was increased; my thoughts being ever upon the avenging of the injury done to the sweet girl I so dearly loved—that poor unfortunate creature whose brain had been destroyed by the dastardly administration of that poison only known to students of toxicology. In my waking hours I conjured up scenes of how mother and daughter, living in that obscure pension in busy Lyons, went each day to the Professor’s house, and how the kindly old savant did his best to restore her brain to its normal activity.
One hot day I had been to Reading on business for the firm, and on arrival at Paddington I bought an evening paper and took it home to Rivermead Mansions. As usual Harry and I had dinner together, and after he had gone out to Richmond, I sat by the open window which looked upon the towing-path beside the Thames, and with my pipe in my mouth, scanned the day’s news.
Of a sudden I came across a heading which attracted me, and read as follows: