Chapter Fourteen.The Key to a Fortune.“Here’s five pounds now—and fifteen more when you give it back to me, my dear little girl. Only be sure it’s the right one you take!”“But I—I really can’t—I—”“Don’t be a silly fool, Lily. I only want to play a practical joke on your master. I knew him a long time ago, and it will greatly surprise him. No harm will be done, I assure you. Surely you can trust me?”The girl Lily, well and neatly dressed, was a parlour-maid, while the man, also quite decently dressed, was somewhat older. The pair were at the moment standing at the corner of the street near Richmond Station, and it was already nearly ten o’clock at night, at which hour the girl had to be indoors.Three weeks before she had first met Mr Henry Elton. He had sat next to her in the cinema and had spoken to her. The result had been that he had taken her to tea on several evenings, and on her “day out,” which had been the previous Friday, he had taken her on a char-à-banc to Bognor. He was not at all bad-looking, a solicitor’s managing clerk, he told her, and she rather liked him for his quiet, subtle manner.But what he had asked her to do had greatly surprised her. He had promised her twenty pounds if she would press her master’s little safe key into the tin matchbox filled with soft wax, and thus take an impression of it. Naturally she asked why. In reply he had explained that he and her master had, for years, been intimate friends, and that once in the club they had had a sharp discussion about safes and keys. Her master had declared that safe-makers made no two keys alike. And now he wanted to play a joke upon him and prove to him that they did.They had been chatting it over all that evening. The plea was certainly a thin one, but to Lily Lawson in her frame of mind, and with a gentleman as her sweetheart, it sounded quite plausible.“Of course, I rely upon you, Lily, never to give me away,” he laughed. “I want to win the bet, and I’ll give you half?”“Of course I won’t,” she answered, as they still stood there, the clock striking ten. “But I really ought not to do it?”“It isn’t difficult. You say that he often leaves his keys on his dressing-table, and you know the little one which unlocks the safe in the basement.”“Yes. It’s quite a tiny key with the maker’s name along the barrel of it.”“Then all you have to do is to press it well into the wax, and there’s fifteen pounds for you if you give the little box back to me to-morrow night. It’s so easy—and twenty pounds will certainly be of use to you, now that your poor mother is so ill.”The girl wavered. The man saw it and cleverly put further pressure upon her, by suggesting that with the money she could send her mother away for a change.“But is it really right?” she queried, raising her dark eyes to his.“Of course it is. It’s only a joke, dear,” he laughed.Again she was silent.“Well,” she said at last. “I really must fly now.”“And you’ll do it, won’t you?” he urged.“Well, if it’s only a joke, yes. I’ll—I’ll try to do it.”“At the usual place at nine to-morrow night—eh?”“All right,” she replied, and hurried away, while the man lit a cigarette, well satisfied, and then turned into a bar to get a drink.The man was the blackmailer Richard Allen.During Andrew Barclay’s journey home Allen and his woman accomplice had made a daring attempt to possess themselves of the valuable plan which had been given him by His Excellency. Barclay had broken his journey for a day in Paris, and had gone to the Grand Hôtel. During his absence Allen had applied at the bureau for the key of the room—explaining that he was Mr Barclay’s secretary—and had been given it.Instantly he went up and ransacked the Englishman’s bags. But to his chagrin and annoyance the plan was not there.As a matter of fact Barclay had placed it in his pocket-book and carried it with him. Again, next day, as he disembarked from the Channel steamer at Folkestone, Freda stumbled against him and apologised, and while his attention was thus attracted Allen made an attempt to possess himself of his wallet. But in that he was unsuccessful.Therefore the pair, annoyed at their failure, had watched him enter the train for Victoria and for the moment gave up any further attempt. Thus it was that the man had contrived to get on friendly terms with Barclay’s parlour-maid, who had told him that in the house her master had a safe built in the wall in the basement near the kitchen. In it the silver and other valuables were kept, together with a quantity of papers.No doubt the precious map was held there in safety, and for that reason they were endeavouring to obtain a cast of the key.It was after all a dangerous job, for the girl might very easily tell her master of the kind gentleman who had offered twenty pounds for the wherewithal to play a practical joke. And if so, then the police would no doubt be informed and watch would be kept.With that in view, Freda was next night idling near the spot arranged, close to where one buys “Maids of Honour,” and though Allen was in the vicinity, he did not appear.At last the girl came and waited leisurely at the corner, whereupon after a few moments Freda approached her and said pleasantly:“You are waiting for Mr Elton, I believe?”“Yes, I am,” replied the girl, much surprised. “He is sorry he can’t be here. He had to go to the north this afternoon. He’ll be back in a day or two. He gave me fifteen pounds to give to you for something. Have you got it?”“Yes,” replied the girl. “Come along, madam, where it’s dark and I’ll give it to you.”So they moved along together around a corner where they would not be observed, and in exchange for the three five-pound notes the girl handed the woman the little tin matchbox with the impression of a key in the wax.“You’ll say nothing, of course,” said Freda. “You’ve promised Mr Elton to say nothing.”“Of course I won’t say anything,” laughed the girl. “The fact is, I’ve had a row with the housekeeper and have given in my notice. I leave this day week.”This news was to the woman very reassuring. “You’re quite certain you took the right key?” she asked.“Quite. I looked at the maker’s name before I pressed it into the wax,” she answered. “But I’d like to see Mr Elton again before I leave Richmond.”“He’ll be back in a couple of days, and then he will write to you. I’ll tell him. Good-night, and thanks.”And the woman with the little box in her muff moved away well satisfied.A quarter of an hour later she met Allen outside Richmond Station, and placing the little box in his hands, explained that the girl was leaving her place the following week.“Excellent! We’ll delay our action until she’s gone. I suppose I’d better see her before she goes, so as to allay any suspicion.” Then, opening the box, his keen eye saw that the impression was undoubtedly one of a safe key.Indeed, next morning, he took it to a man in Clerkenwell who for years had made a speciality of cutting keys and asking no questions, and by the following night the means of opening the safe at Underhill Road was in Allen’s hands.The man who lived by the blackmailing of those whom he entrapped—mostly women, by the way—was nothing if not wary, as was shown by the fact that he had sent Freda to act as his messenger. If the girl had told the police the woman could have at once declared that she had never seen the girl before, though if the little box had been found upon her, explanation would have been somewhat difficult. But the gang of which the exquisite adventurer Gordon Gray was the alert head always acted with forethought and circumspection; the real criminal keeping out of the way and lying “doggo” proof was always rendered as difficult as possible.Gray had gone over to Brussels, which accounted for Willowden being closed. He had a little piece of rather irritating business on hand there. Awkward inquiries by the police had led to the arrest of a man who had sent word in secret that if his wife were not paid two thousand pounds as hush-money, he would tell what he knew. And the wife being a low-class Belgian woman from Namur, Gray had gone over to see her and to appease her husband by paying the sum demanded.Crooks are not always straight towards each other. Sometimes thieves fall out, and when in difficulties or peril they blackmail each other—often to the advantage of the police.Roddy and Barclay had met, the latter having told his young friend of the arrangements he had made with His Excellency and the Kaid, and also shown him the map which had been given to him.At sight of this the young fellow grew very excited.“Why, it gives us the exact location of the workings,” he cried. “With this, a compass and measuring instruments I can discover the point straight away. The old man is no fool, evidently!”“No, the Moors are a clever and cultivated race, my dear Roddy,” the elder man replied. “As soon as the Kaid brings over the necessary permits and the concession you can go ahead. I will keep the map in my safe till then, when I will hand all the documents over to you.”This good news Roddy had told Elma one evening when they had met clandestinely—as they now so often met—at a spot not far from the lodge gates at Farncombe Towers.“How jolly lucky!” the girl cried. “Now you’re only waiting for the proper permits to come. It’s really most good of Mr Barclay to help you. He must be an awfully nice man.”“Yes, he’s a topper—one of the best,” Roddy declared. “Out in South America he did me a good turn, and I tried to repay it. So we became friends. He’s one of the few Englishmen who know the Moors and has their confidence. He’s a bachelor, and a great traveller, but just now he’s rented a furnished house in Richmond. He’s one of those rolling stones one meets all over the world.”The young man waxed enthusiastic. He loved Elma with all his heart, yet he wondered if his affection were reciprocated. She had mentioned to him the close friendship which had sprung up between her father and Mr Rex Rutherford, and how he had dined at Park Lane. But at the moment he never dreamed that her grace and beauty had attracted her father’s newly-made friend.As for Roddy’s father, he remained calm and reflective, as was his wont, visiting his parishioners, delivering his sermons on Sundays, and going the weary round of the village each day with a cheery face and kindly word for everybody. Nothing had been done concerning his property in Totnes as the woman Crisp had threatened. It was curious, he thought, and it was evident that the ultimatum he had given Gray had caused him to stay his hand.Yet as he sat alone he often wondered why Gray and that serpent woman should have so suddenly descended upon him, and upon Roddy, to wreak a vengeance that, after all, seemed mysterious and quite without motive.The hot blazing summer days were passing, when late one balmy breathless night—indeed it was two o’clock in the morning—a man dressed as a railway signalman, who had been on night duty, passed along Underhill Road, in Richmond, and halted near the pillar-box. Underhill Road was one of the quieter and more select thoroughfares of that picturesque suburb, for from the windows of the houses glorious views could be obtained across the sloping Terrace Gardens and the wide valley of the Thames towards Teddington and Kingston.A constable had, with slow tread, passed along a few moments before, but the signalman, who wore rubber-soled black tennis shoes, had followed without noise.The watcher, who was Dick Allen, saw the man in uniform turn the corner under the lamplight and disappear. Then slipping swiftly along to a good-sized detached house which stood back from the road in its small garden, he entered the gate and dived quickly down to the basement—which, by the way, he had already well surveyed in the daytime.Before a window he halted, and turning upon it a small flash-lamp, inserted a knife into the sash and pressed back the latch in a manner that was certainly professional. Having lifted the sash he sprang inside and, guided by the particulars he had learnt from the maid Lily, he soon discovered the door of the safe, which was let into the wall in a stone passage leading from the kitchen to the coal-cellar.He halted to listen. There was no sound. The little round zone of bright light fell upon the brass flap over the keyhole of the dark-green painted door of the safe, wherein reposed the secret of the rich emerald mine in the great Sahara Desert.He took the bright little false key, which was already well oiled, and lifting the flap inserted it. It turned easily.Then he turned the brass handle, which also yielded. He drew the heavy door towards him and the safe stood open! The little light revealed three steel drawers. The first which he opened in eager haste contained a number of little canvas bags, each sealed up. They contained specimens of ore from various mines in Peru and Ecuador. Each bore a tab with its contents described.In the next were several pieces of valuable old silver, while the third contained papers—a quantity of documents secured by elastic bands.These he turned over hurriedly, and yet with care so as not to allow the owner to suspect that they had been disturbed. For some time he searched, until suddenly he came upon an envelope bearing upon its flap the address of the Hôtel du Parc at Marseilles. It was not stuck down. He opened it—and there he found the precious map which showed the exact position of the ancient Wad Sus mine!For a few seconds he held it in his hands in supreme delight. Then, taking from his pocket a blank piece of folded paper he put it into the envelope, and replacing it among the other documents which he arranged just as he had found them, he closed the safe and relocked it.A second later he stole noiselessly out by the way he had come, the only evidence of his presence being the fact that the window was left unfastened, a fact which his friend Lily’s successor would, he felt sure, never notice.But as, having slowly drawn down the window, he turned to ascend the steps a very strange and disconcerting incident occurred.
“Here’s five pounds now—and fifteen more when you give it back to me, my dear little girl. Only be sure it’s the right one you take!”
“But I—I really can’t—I—”
“Don’t be a silly fool, Lily. I only want to play a practical joke on your master. I knew him a long time ago, and it will greatly surprise him. No harm will be done, I assure you. Surely you can trust me?”
The girl Lily, well and neatly dressed, was a parlour-maid, while the man, also quite decently dressed, was somewhat older. The pair were at the moment standing at the corner of the street near Richmond Station, and it was already nearly ten o’clock at night, at which hour the girl had to be indoors.
Three weeks before she had first met Mr Henry Elton. He had sat next to her in the cinema and had spoken to her. The result had been that he had taken her to tea on several evenings, and on her “day out,” which had been the previous Friday, he had taken her on a char-à-banc to Bognor. He was not at all bad-looking, a solicitor’s managing clerk, he told her, and she rather liked him for his quiet, subtle manner.
But what he had asked her to do had greatly surprised her. He had promised her twenty pounds if she would press her master’s little safe key into the tin matchbox filled with soft wax, and thus take an impression of it. Naturally she asked why. In reply he had explained that he and her master had, for years, been intimate friends, and that once in the club they had had a sharp discussion about safes and keys. Her master had declared that safe-makers made no two keys alike. And now he wanted to play a joke upon him and prove to him that they did.
They had been chatting it over all that evening. The plea was certainly a thin one, but to Lily Lawson in her frame of mind, and with a gentleman as her sweetheart, it sounded quite plausible.
“Of course, I rely upon you, Lily, never to give me away,” he laughed. “I want to win the bet, and I’ll give you half?”
“Of course I won’t,” she answered, as they still stood there, the clock striking ten. “But I really ought not to do it?”
“It isn’t difficult. You say that he often leaves his keys on his dressing-table, and you know the little one which unlocks the safe in the basement.”
“Yes. It’s quite a tiny key with the maker’s name along the barrel of it.”
“Then all you have to do is to press it well into the wax, and there’s fifteen pounds for you if you give the little box back to me to-morrow night. It’s so easy—and twenty pounds will certainly be of use to you, now that your poor mother is so ill.”
The girl wavered. The man saw it and cleverly put further pressure upon her, by suggesting that with the money she could send her mother away for a change.
“But is it really right?” she queried, raising her dark eyes to his.
“Of course it is. It’s only a joke, dear,” he laughed.
Again she was silent.
“Well,” she said at last. “I really must fly now.”
“And you’ll do it, won’t you?” he urged.
“Well, if it’s only a joke, yes. I’ll—I’ll try to do it.”
“At the usual place at nine to-morrow night—eh?”
“All right,” she replied, and hurried away, while the man lit a cigarette, well satisfied, and then turned into a bar to get a drink.
The man was the blackmailer Richard Allen.
During Andrew Barclay’s journey home Allen and his woman accomplice had made a daring attempt to possess themselves of the valuable plan which had been given him by His Excellency. Barclay had broken his journey for a day in Paris, and had gone to the Grand Hôtel. During his absence Allen had applied at the bureau for the key of the room—explaining that he was Mr Barclay’s secretary—and had been given it.
Instantly he went up and ransacked the Englishman’s bags. But to his chagrin and annoyance the plan was not there.
As a matter of fact Barclay had placed it in his pocket-book and carried it with him. Again, next day, as he disembarked from the Channel steamer at Folkestone, Freda stumbled against him and apologised, and while his attention was thus attracted Allen made an attempt to possess himself of his wallet. But in that he was unsuccessful.
Therefore the pair, annoyed at their failure, had watched him enter the train for Victoria and for the moment gave up any further attempt. Thus it was that the man had contrived to get on friendly terms with Barclay’s parlour-maid, who had told him that in the house her master had a safe built in the wall in the basement near the kitchen. In it the silver and other valuables were kept, together with a quantity of papers.
No doubt the precious map was held there in safety, and for that reason they were endeavouring to obtain a cast of the key.
It was after all a dangerous job, for the girl might very easily tell her master of the kind gentleman who had offered twenty pounds for the wherewithal to play a practical joke. And if so, then the police would no doubt be informed and watch would be kept.
With that in view, Freda was next night idling near the spot arranged, close to where one buys “Maids of Honour,” and though Allen was in the vicinity, he did not appear.
At last the girl came and waited leisurely at the corner, whereupon after a few moments Freda approached her and said pleasantly:
“You are waiting for Mr Elton, I believe?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the girl, much surprised. “He is sorry he can’t be here. He had to go to the north this afternoon. He’ll be back in a day or two. He gave me fifteen pounds to give to you for something. Have you got it?”
“Yes,” replied the girl. “Come along, madam, where it’s dark and I’ll give it to you.”
So they moved along together around a corner where they would not be observed, and in exchange for the three five-pound notes the girl handed the woman the little tin matchbox with the impression of a key in the wax.
“You’ll say nothing, of course,” said Freda. “You’ve promised Mr Elton to say nothing.”
“Of course I won’t say anything,” laughed the girl. “The fact is, I’ve had a row with the housekeeper and have given in my notice. I leave this day week.”
This news was to the woman very reassuring. “You’re quite certain you took the right key?” she asked.
“Quite. I looked at the maker’s name before I pressed it into the wax,” she answered. “But I’d like to see Mr Elton again before I leave Richmond.”
“He’ll be back in a couple of days, and then he will write to you. I’ll tell him. Good-night, and thanks.”
And the woman with the little box in her muff moved away well satisfied.
A quarter of an hour later she met Allen outside Richmond Station, and placing the little box in his hands, explained that the girl was leaving her place the following week.
“Excellent! We’ll delay our action until she’s gone. I suppose I’d better see her before she goes, so as to allay any suspicion.” Then, opening the box, his keen eye saw that the impression was undoubtedly one of a safe key.
Indeed, next morning, he took it to a man in Clerkenwell who for years had made a speciality of cutting keys and asking no questions, and by the following night the means of opening the safe at Underhill Road was in Allen’s hands.
The man who lived by the blackmailing of those whom he entrapped—mostly women, by the way—was nothing if not wary, as was shown by the fact that he had sent Freda to act as his messenger. If the girl had told the police the woman could have at once declared that she had never seen the girl before, though if the little box had been found upon her, explanation would have been somewhat difficult. But the gang of which the exquisite adventurer Gordon Gray was the alert head always acted with forethought and circumspection; the real criminal keeping out of the way and lying “doggo” proof was always rendered as difficult as possible.
Gray had gone over to Brussels, which accounted for Willowden being closed. He had a little piece of rather irritating business on hand there. Awkward inquiries by the police had led to the arrest of a man who had sent word in secret that if his wife were not paid two thousand pounds as hush-money, he would tell what he knew. And the wife being a low-class Belgian woman from Namur, Gray had gone over to see her and to appease her husband by paying the sum demanded.
Crooks are not always straight towards each other. Sometimes thieves fall out, and when in difficulties or peril they blackmail each other—often to the advantage of the police.
Roddy and Barclay had met, the latter having told his young friend of the arrangements he had made with His Excellency and the Kaid, and also shown him the map which had been given to him.
At sight of this the young fellow grew very excited.
“Why, it gives us the exact location of the workings,” he cried. “With this, a compass and measuring instruments I can discover the point straight away. The old man is no fool, evidently!”
“No, the Moors are a clever and cultivated race, my dear Roddy,” the elder man replied. “As soon as the Kaid brings over the necessary permits and the concession you can go ahead. I will keep the map in my safe till then, when I will hand all the documents over to you.”
This good news Roddy had told Elma one evening when they had met clandestinely—as they now so often met—at a spot not far from the lodge gates at Farncombe Towers.
“How jolly lucky!” the girl cried. “Now you’re only waiting for the proper permits to come. It’s really most good of Mr Barclay to help you. He must be an awfully nice man.”
“Yes, he’s a topper—one of the best,” Roddy declared. “Out in South America he did me a good turn, and I tried to repay it. So we became friends. He’s one of the few Englishmen who know the Moors and has their confidence. He’s a bachelor, and a great traveller, but just now he’s rented a furnished house in Richmond. He’s one of those rolling stones one meets all over the world.”
The young man waxed enthusiastic. He loved Elma with all his heart, yet he wondered if his affection were reciprocated. She had mentioned to him the close friendship which had sprung up between her father and Mr Rex Rutherford, and how he had dined at Park Lane. But at the moment he never dreamed that her grace and beauty had attracted her father’s newly-made friend.
As for Roddy’s father, he remained calm and reflective, as was his wont, visiting his parishioners, delivering his sermons on Sundays, and going the weary round of the village each day with a cheery face and kindly word for everybody. Nothing had been done concerning his property in Totnes as the woman Crisp had threatened. It was curious, he thought, and it was evident that the ultimatum he had given Gray had caused him to stay his hand.
Yet as he sat alone he often wondered why Gray and that serpent woman should have so suddenly descended upon him, and upon Roddy, to wreak a vengeance that, after all, seemed mysterious and quite without motive.
The hot blazing summer days were passing, when late one balmy breathless night—indeed it was two o’clock in the morning—a man dressed as a railway signalman, who had been on night duty, passed along Underhill Road, in Richmond, and halted near the pillar-box. Underhill Road was one of the quieter and more select thoroughfares of that picturesque suburb, for from the windows of the houses glorious views could be obtained across the sloping Terrace Gardens and the wide valley of the Thames towards Teddington and Kingston.
A constable had, with slow tread, passed along a few moments before, but the signalman, who wore rubber-soled black tennis shoes, had followed without noise.
The watcher, who was Dick Allen, saw the man in uniform turn the corner under the lamplight and disappear. Then slipping swiftly along to a good-sized detached house which stood back from the road in its small garden, he entered the gate and dived quickly down to the basement—which, by the way, he had already well surveyed in the daytime.
Before a window he halted, and turning upon it a small flash-lamp, inserted a knife into the sash and pressed back the latch in a manner that was certainly professional. Having lifted the sash he sprang inside and, guided by the particulars he had learnt from the maid Lily, he soon discovered the door of the safe, which was let into the wall in a stone passage leading from the kitchen to the coal-cellar.
He halted to listen. There was no sound. The little round zone of bright light fell upon the brass flap over the keyhole of the dark-green painted door of the safe, wherein reposed the secret of the rich emerald mine in the great Sahara Desert.
He took the bright little false key, which was already well oiled, and lifting the flap inserted it. It turned easily.
Then he turned the brass handle, which also yielded. He drew the heavy door towards him and the safe stood open! The little light revealed three steel drawers. The first which he opened in eager haste contained a number of little canvas bags, each sealed up. They contained specimens of ore from various mines in Peru and Ecuador. Each bore a tab with its contents described.
In the next were several pieces of valuable old silver, while the third contained papers—a quantity of documents secured by elastic bands.
These he turned over hurriedly, and yet with care so as not to allow the owner to suspect that they had been disturbed. For some time he searched, until suddenly he came upon an envelope bearing upon its flap the address of the Hôtel du Parc at Marseilles. It was not stuck down. He opened it—and there he found the precious map which showed the exact position of the ancient Wad Sus mine!
For a few seconds he held it in his hands in supreme delight. Then, taking from his pocket a blank piece of folded paper he put it into the envelope, and replacing it among the other documents which he arranged just as he had found them, he closed the safe and relocked it.
A second later he stole noiselessly out by the way he had come, the only evidence of his presence being the fact that the window was left unfastened, a fact which his friend Lily’s successor would, he felt sure, never notice.
But as, having slowly drawn down the window, he turned to ascend the steps a very strange and disconcerting incident occurred.
Chapter Fifteen.The Master-Stroke.Mr Richard Allen found himself, ere he was aware of it, in the strong grip of a burly police constable.“And what ’ave you been up to ’ere—eh?” demanded the officer, who had gripped him tightly by the coat collar and arm.“Nothing,” replied Allen. “I fancy you’ve made a mistake!”“I fancy I ’aven’t,” was the constable’s reply. “You’ll ’ave to come to the station with me.”“Well, do as you please,” said Allen with an air of nonchalance. “I’ve done nothing.”“I’m not so sure about it. We’ll see what you’ve done when you’re safely in the cells.”Cells! Mr Richard Allen had already had a taste of those—on more than one occasion—both in England and abroad. It was, after all, very humiliating to one of his high caste in crookdom to be arrested like a mere area sneak.“I don’t see why I should be put to the inconvenience of going to the station,” the cosmopolitan remarked.“Well, I do, mister, so there’s all the difference!” replied the other grimly, his eyes and ears on the alert to hail one of his comrades, a fact which the astute Mr Allen did not fail to realise. The situation was distinctly awkward, not to say alarming, for in his pocket he had the precious map.Suddenly they were about to turn the corner into the main road when the prisoner, who had gone along quite quietly, even inertly, quickly swung round and snatched at the policeman’s whistle, breaking it from its chain and throwing it away.It was done in a moment, and next second with a deft movement he tripped up his captor, and both fell heavily to the pavement. He had taken the constable unawares, before he could realise that he had a slippery customer to deal with. The constable, however, would not release his hold, with the result that they rolled struggling into the gutter, the policeman shouting for assistance.A man’s voice answered in the distance, whereupon Allen’s right hand went to his jacket pocket, and then swiftly to the face of his captor, who almost instantly relaxed his hold as he fell into unconsciousness. The prisoner had held a small capsule in his captor’s face and smashed it in his fingers, thus releasing an asphyxiating gas of sufficient potency to render the constable insensible.Quick as lightning Allen disengaged himself, and dragging the senseless man across the pavement into the front garden of a small house exactly opposite, closed the gate, picked up his hat, and then walked quietly on as though nothing had occurred.As he turned the corner he came face to face with another constable who was hurrying up.“Did you hear my mate shouting a moment ago, sir?” asked the man breathlessly.“No,” replied Allen halting. “I heard no shouting. When?”“A few moments ago. The shouts came from this direction. He was crying for help.”“Well, I heard nothing,” declared Allen, still standing as the constable, proceeding, passed the gate behind which his colleague lay hidden.Then Allen laughed softly to himself and set out on the high road which led to Kingston.“A narrow shave!” he remarked to himself aloud. “I wonder what Barclay will say when they go to Underhill Road!”Not until eight o’clock in the morning did a milkman going his round find the constable lying as though asleep in the little front garden. He tried to rouse him, but not being able to do so, called the nearest policeman who summoned the ambulance. At first the inspector thought the man intoxicated, but the divisional surgeon pronounced that he had been gassed, and it was several hours later, when in the hospital, that he managed to give an intelligible account of what had occurred.About noon an inspector called upon Mr Barclay at Underhill Road, but he had gone out.“Did you find any of your basement windows open when you got up this morning?” he asked the housekeeper, who replied in the negative. Then the new parlour-maid being called declared that she had fastened all the windows securely before retiring, and that they were all shut when she came down at seven o’clock.The inspector went away, but in the evening he called, saw Mr Barclay, and told him how a man lurking against the kitchen window had been captured, and explained that he must be a well-known and desperate thief because of the subtle means he had in his possession to overcome his captors.“My servants have told me about it. But as they say the windows were fastened the man could not have committed a burglary,” replied Mr Barclay. “The house was quite in order this morning.”“But it is evident that the fellow, whoever he was, meant mischief, sir.”“Probably. But he didn’t succeed, which is fortunate for me!” the other laughed.“Well, sir, have you anything particularly valuable on the premises here? If so, we’ll have special watch kept,” the inspector said.“Nothing beyond the ordinary. I’ve got a safe down below—a very good one because the man who had this house before me was a diamond dealer, with offices in the City, and he often kept some of his stock here. Come and look at it.”Both men went below, and Mr Barclay showed the inspector the heavy steel door.The inspector examined the keyhole, but there were no traces of the lock having been tampered with. On the contrary, all was in such complete order that Mr Barclay did not even open the safe.“It’s rather a pity the fellow got away,” Mr Barclay remarked.“It is, sir—a thousand pities. But according to the description given of him by Barnes—who is one of the sharpest men in our division—we believe it to be a man named Hamilton Layton, a well-known burglar who works alone, and who has been many times convicted. A constable in Sunderland was attacked by him last winter in an almost identical manner.”The inspector made a thorough search of the basement premises, and again questioned the fair-haired parlour-maid who was Lily’s successor. She vowed that she had latched all the windows, though within herself she feared that she had overlooked the fact that one of the windows was unlatched in the morning. Yet what was the use of confessing it, she thought.So there being no trace of any intruder, the inspector walked back to the station, while Mr Barclay smiled at the great hubbub, little dreaming that in place of that precious map there reposed in the envelope only a plain piece of paper.That afternoon Dick Allen arrived at Willowden. Gray was away motoring in Scotland, where he had some little “business” of the usual shady character to attend to. Freda had gone to Hatfield, and it was an hour before she returned. During that hour Allen smoked and read in the pretty summerhouse at the end of the old-world garden, so full of climbing roses and gay borders.Suddenly he heard her voice, and looking up from his paper saw her in a big hat and filmy lemon-coloured gown.He waved to her, rose, and met her at the French window of the old-fashioned dining-room.“Well?” she asked. “What luck, Dick? I worried a lot about you last night. I felt somehow that you’d had an accident and to-day—I don’t know how it was—I became filled with apprehension and had to go out. I’m much relieved to see you. What’s happened?”“Nothing, my dear Freda,” laughed the good-looking scoundrel. “There was just a littlecontretemps—that’s all.”“Have you got the map?”“Sure,” he laughed.“Ah! When you go out to get a thing you never fail to bring it home,” she said, with a smile. “You’re just like Gordon. You’ve both got the impudence of the very devil himself.”“And so have you, Freda,” laughed her companion, as he stretched himself upon the sofa. “But the little reverse I had in the early hours of this morning was—well, I admit it—rather disturbing. The fact is that on leaving the house in Richmond a constable collared me. He became nasty, so I was nastier still, and gave him a Number Two right up his nose. And you know what that means!”“Yes,” said the woman. “He won’t speak much for eight hours or so. I expect he saw the red light, eh?”“No doubt. But I’ve got the little map here, and Barclay retains a sheet of blank paper.”“Splendid!”Then he drew it from his pocket and showed it to her.“Oh! won’t Gordon be delighted to get this!” she cried. “It will gladden his heart. The dear boy is a bit down, and wants bucking up.”“Where’s Jimmie?” asked Allen. “Tell him to get me a drink. I suppose he’s back by this time?”The handsome woman in the lemon-coloured gown rose and rang the bell, and old Claribut, servile and dignified, entered.“Hulloa! Dick!” he exclaimed. “Why, where have you sprung from? I thought you were in Nice!”“So I was. But I’m in Welwyn now, and I want one of your very best cocktails—and one for Freda also.”The old man retired and presently brought two drinks upon a silver salver.“I shan’t be in to dinner to-night, Jimmie. I’m motoring Dick to London presently. I’ll be home about midnight. But I’ll take the key. Any news?”“Nothing, madam,” replied the perfectly-mannered butler. “Only the gas-man came this morning, and the parson called and left some handbills about the Sunday school treat you are going to give next Thursday.”“Oh! yes, I forgot about that infernal treat! See about it, Jimmie, and order the stuff and the marquee to be put up out in the field. See Jackson, the schoolmaster; he’ll help you. Say I’m busy.”“Very well, madam.”“Well!” laughed Allen, “so you are acting the great lady of the village now, Freda!”“Of course. It impresses these people, and it only costs a few cups of tea and a few subscriptions. Gordon thinks it policy, but, by Jove! how I hate it all. Oh! you should see Gordon on a Sunday morning in his new hat and gloves. He’s really a spectacle!”“Ah! I suppose a reputation is judicious out here,” her companion laughed.“Yes. But I’ll drive you back to town,” she said. “We’ll dine at the Ritz. I want to meet a woman there. Wait a minute or two while I change my frock. I think you’ve done wonders to get hold of that map. Gordon will be most excited. He’ll be in Inverness to-morrow, and I’ll wire to him.”“Guardedly,” he urged.“Why, of course,” she laughed. “But that poor old bobby with a dose of Number Two! I bet he’s feeling pretty rotten!”“It was the only way,” declared the cosmopolitan adventurer. “I wasn’t going to be hauled to the station and lose the map.”“Of course not. Well, have another drink and wait a few minutes,” the woman said, whereupon he began to chat with old Claribut.“I suppose the Riviera looks a bit hot and dusty just now,” remarked Jimmie, the butler.“Yes. But Freda’s a wonder, isn’t she?” remarked Allen. “I’ve been asking her about that girl Edna. What has become of her?”“I don’t know, Dick. So don’t ask me,” Claribut answered, as he smoked one of Gordon’s cigars. Truly that was a strange menage.“But surely you know something,” Allen said. “No, I don’t,” snapped old Jimmie.“Ah! you know something—something very private, eh?” remarked the wily Dick. “I suppose you are aware that old Sandys has a firm of inquiry agents out looking for her?”“Has he really?” laughed Claribut. “Well, then let them find her. Who has he called in?”“Fuller—who used to be at the Yard. You recollect him. He had you once, so you’d better be careful.”“Yes, he had me for passing bad notes in Brussels,” remarked the old man grimly. “So old Sandys is employing him?”“Yes, and the old man is determined to know the whereabouts of Edna Manners.”“I don’t think he’ll ever know. But how came you to know about it?”“I have a pal who is a friend of Fuller’s—Jack Shawford. He told me. Sandys suspects that something serious has happened to the girl.”At this Claribut became very grave.“What makes him suspect it? He surely doesn’t know that the girl was acquainted with that old parson Homfray!”“No. I don’t think so,” was the reply.“Ah! That’s good. If he had any suspicion of that, then Fuller might get on the right track, you know, because of this mining concession in Morocco.”“What connexion has that with the disappearance of the pretty Edna?” asked his fellow crook, in ignorance.“Oh! it’s a complicated affair, and it would take a long time to explain—but ithas!”“Then you know all about Edna and what has happened! I see it in your face, Jimmie! Just tell me in confidence.”But the wary old man who had spent many years in prison cells only smiled and shook his head.“I don’t interfere with other people’s affairs, Dick. You know that. I’ve enough to do to look after my own.”“But where is Edna? Is she—dead?”The old man merely shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of uncertainty and ignorance.
Mr Richard Allen found himself, ere he was aware of it, in the strong grip of a burly police constable.
“And what ’ave you been up to ’ere—eh?” demanded the officer, who had gripped him tightly by the coat collar and arm.
“Nothing,” replied Allen. “I fancy you’ve made a mistake!”
“I fancy I ’aven’t,” was the constable’s reply. “You’ll ’ave to come to the station with me.”
“Well, do as you please,” said Allen with an air of nonchalance. “I’ve done nothing.”
“I’m not so sure about it. We’ll see what you’ve done when you’re safely in the cells.”
Cells! Mr Richard Allen had already had a taste of those—on more than one occasion—both in England and abroad. It was, after all, very humiliating to one of his high caste in crookdom to be arrested like a mere area sneak.
“I don’t see why I should be put to the inconvenience of going to the station,” the cosmopolitan remarked.
“Well, I do, mister, so there’s all the difference!” replied the other grimly, his eyes and ears on the alert to hail one of his comrades, a fact which the astute Mr Allen did not fail to realise. The situation was distinctly awkward, not to say alarming, for in his pocket he had the precious map.
Suddenly they were about to turn the corner into the main road when the prisoner, who had gone along quite quietly, even inertly, quickly swung round and snatched at the policeman’s whistle, breaking it from its chain and throwing it away.
It was done in a moment, and next second with a deft movement he tripped up his captor, and both fell heavily to the pavement. He had taken the constable unawares, before he could realise that he had a slippery customer to deal with. The constable, however, would not release his hold, with the result that they rolled struggling into the gutter, the policeman shouting for assistance.
A man’s voice answered in the distance, whereupon Allen’s right hand went to his jacket pocket, and then swiftly to the face of his captor, who almost instantly relaxed his hold as he fell into unconsciousness. The prisoner had held a small capsule in his captor’s face and smashed it in his fingers, thus releasing an asphyxiating gas of sufficient potency to render the constable insensible.
Quick as lightning Allen disengaged himself, and dragging the senseless man across the pavement into the front garden of a small house exactly opposite, closed the gate, picked up his hat, and then walked quietly on as though nothing had occurred.
As he turned the corner he came face to face with another constable who was hurrying up.
“Did you hear my mate shouting a moment ago, sir?” asked the man breathlessly.
“No,” replied Allen halting. “I heard no shouting. When?”
“A few moments ago. The shouts came from this direction. He was crying for help.”
“Well, I heard nothing,” declared Allen, still standing as the constable, proceeding, passed the gate behind which his colleague lay hidden.
Then Allen laughed softly to himself and set out on the high road which led to Kingston.
“A narrow shave!” he remarked to himself aloud. “I wonder what Barclay will say when they go to Underhill Road!”
Not until eight o’clock in the morning did a milkman going his round find the constable lying as though asleep in the little front garden. He tried to rouse him, but not being able to do so, called the nearest policeman who summoned the ambulance. At first the inspector thought the man intoxicated, but the divisional surgeon pronounced that he had been gassed, and it was several hours later, when in the hospital, that he managed to give an intelligible account of what had occurred.
About noon an inspector called upon Mr Barclay at Underhill Road, but he had gone out.
“Did you find any of your basement windows open when you got up this morning?” he asked the housekeeper, who replied in the negative. Then the new parlour-maid being called declared that she had fastened all the windows securely before retiring, and that they were all shut when she came down at seven o’clock.
The inspector went away, but in the evening he called, saw Mr Barclay, and told him how a man lurking against the kitchen window had been captured, and explained that he must be a well-known and desperate thief because of the subtle means he had in his possession to overcome his captors.
“My servants have told me about it. But as they say the windows were fastened the man could not have committed a burglary,” replied Mr Barclay. “The house was quite in order this morning.”
“But it is evident that the fellow, whoever he was, meant mischief, sir.”
“Probably. But he didn’t succeed, which is fortunate for me!” the other laughed.
“Well, sir, have you anything particularly valuable on the premises here? If so, we’ll have special watch kept,” the inspector said.
“Nothing beyond the ordinary. I’ve got a safe down below—a very good one because the man who had this house before me was a diamond dealer, with offices in the City, and he often kept some of his stock here. Come and look at it.”
Both men went below, and Mr Barclay showed the inspector the heavy steel door.
The inspector examined the keyhole, but there were no traces of the lock having been tampered with. On the contrary, all was in such complete order that Mr Barclay did not even open the safe.
“It’s rather a pity the fellow got away,” Mr Barclay remarked.
“It is, sir—a thousand pities. But according to the description given of him by Barnes—who is one of the sharpest men in our division—we believe it to be a man named Hamilton Layton, a well-known burglar who works alone, and who has been many times convicted. A constable in Sunderland was attacked by him last winter in an almost identical manner.”
The inspector made a thorough search of the basement premises, and again questioned the fair-haired parlour-maid who was Lily’s successor. She vowed that she had latched all the windows, though within herself she feared that she had overlooked the fact that one of the windows was unlatched in the morning. Yet what was the use of confessing it, she thought.
So there being no trace of any intruder, the inspector walked back to the station, while Mr Barclay smiled at the great hubbub, little dreaming that in place of that precious map there reposed in the envelope only a plain piece of paper.
That afternoon Dick Allen arrived at Willowden. Gray was away motoring in Scotland, where he had some little “business” of the usual shady character to attend to. Freda had gone to Hatfield, and it was an hour before she returned. During that hour Allen smoked and read in the pretty summerhouse at the end of the old-world garden, so full of climbing roses and gay borders.
Suddenly he heard her voice, and looking up from his paper saw her in a big hat and filmy lemon-coloured gown.
He waved to her, rose, and met her at the French window of the old-fashioned dining-room.
“Well?” she asked. “What luck, Dick? I worried a lot about you last night. I felt somehow that you’d had an accident and to-day—I don’t know how it was—I became filled with apprehension and had to go out. I’m much relieved to see you. What’s happened?”
“Nothing, my dear Freda,” laughed the good-looking scoundrel. “There was just a littlecontretemps—that’s all.”
“Have you got the map?”
“Sure,” he laughed.
“Ah! When you go out to get a thing you never fail to bring it home,” she said, with a smile. “You’re just like Gordon. You’ve both got the impudence of the very devil himself.”
“And so have you, Freda,” laughed her companion, as he stretched himself upon the sofa. “But the little reverse I had in the early hours of this morning was—well, I admit it—rather disturbing. The fact is that on leaving the house in Richmond a constable collared me. He became nasty, so I was nastier still, and gave him a Number Two right up his nose. And you know what that means!”
“Yes,” said the woman. “He won’t speak much for eight hours or so. I expect he saw the red light, eh?”
“No doubt. But I’ve got the little map here, and Barclay retains a sheet of blank paper.”
“Splendid!”
Then he drew it from his pocket and showed it to her.
“Oh! won’t Gordon be delighted to get this!” she cried. “It will gladden his heart. The dear boy is a bit down, and wants bucking up.”
“Where’s Jimmie?” asked Allen. “Tell him to get me a drink. I suppose he’s back by this time?”
The handsome woman in the lemon-coloured gown rose and rang the bell, and old Claribut, servile and dignified, entered.
“Hulloa! Dick!” he exclaimed. “Why, where have you sprung from? I thought you were in Nice!”
“So I was. But I’m in Welwyn now, and I want one of your very best cocktails—and one for Freda also.”
The old man retired and presently brought two drinks upon a silver salver.
“I shan’t be in to dinner to-night, Jimmie. I’m motoring Dick to London presently. I’ll be home about midnight. But I’ll take the key. Any news?”
“Nothing, madam,” replied the perfectly-mannered butler. “Only the gas-man came this morning, and the parson called and left some handbills about the Sunday school treat you are going to give next Thursday.”
“Oh! yes, I forgot about that infernal treat! See about it, Jimmie, and order the stuff and the marquee to be put up out in the field. See Jackson, the schoolmaster; he’ll help you. Say I’m busy.”
“Very well, madam.”
“Well!” laughed Allen, “so you are acting the great lady of the village now, Freda!”
“Of course. It impresses these people, and it only costs a few cups of tea and a few subscriptions. Gordon thinks it policy, but, by Jove! how I hate it all. Oh! you should see Gordon on a Sunday morning in his new hat and gloves. He’s really a spectacle!”
“Ah! I suppose a reputation is judicious out here,” her companion laughed.
“Yes. But I’ll drive you back to town,” she said. “We’ll dine at the Ritz. I want to meet a woman there. Wait a minute or two while I change my frock. I think you’ve done wonders to get hold of that map. Gordon will be most excited. He’ll be in Inverness to-morrow, and I’ll wire to him.”
“Guardedly,” he urged.
“Why, of course,” she laughed. “But that poor old bobby with a dose of Number Two! I bet he’s feeling pretty rotten!”
“It was the only way,” declared the cosmopolitan adventurer. “I wasn’t going to be hauled to the station and lose the map.”
“Of course not. Well, have another drink and wait a few minutes,” the woman said, whereupon he began to chat with old Claribut.
“I suppose the Riviera looks a bit hot and dusty just now,” remarked Jimmie, the butler.
“Yes. But Freda’s a wonder, isn’t she?” remarked Allen. “I’ve been asking her about that girl Edna. What has become of her?”
“I don’t know, Dick. So don’t ask me,” Claribut answered, as he smoked one of Gordon’s cigars. Truly that was a strange menage.
“But surely you know something,” Allen said. “No, I don’t,” snapped old Jimmie.
“Ah! you know something—something very private, eh?” remarked the wily Dick. “I suppose you are aware that old Sandys has a firm of inquiry agents out looking for her?”
“Has he really?” laughed Claribut. “Well, then let them find her. Who has he called in?”
“Fuller—who used to be at the Yard. You recollect him. He had you once, so you’d better be careful.”
“Yes, he had me for passing bad notes in Brussels,” remarked the old man grimly. “So old Sandys is employing him?”
“Yes, and the old man is determined to know the whereabouts of Edna Manners.”
“I don’t think he’ll ever know. But how came you to know about it?”
“I have a pal who is a friend of Fuller’s—Jack Shawford. He told me. Sandys suspects that something serious has happened to the girl.”
At this Claribut became very grave.
“What makes him suspect it? He surely doesn’t know that the girl was acquainted with that old parson Homfray!”
“No. I don’t think so,” was the reply.
“Ah! That’s good. If he had any suspicion of that, then Fuller might get on the right track, you know, because of this mining concession in Morocco.”
“What connexion has that with the disappearance of the pretty Edna?” asked his fellow crook, in ignorance.
“Oh! it’s a complicated affair, and it would take a long time to explain—but ithas!”
“Then you know all about Edna and what has happened! I see it in your face, Jimmie! Just tell me in confidence.”
But the wary old man who had spent many years in prison cells only smiled and shook his head.
“I don’t interfere with other people’s affairs, Dick. You know that. I’ve enough to do to look after my own.”
“But where is Edna? Is she—dead?”
The old man merely shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of uncertainty and ignorance.
Chapter Sixteen.The Light of Love.It had been all summer—endless, cloudless summer in England, from the time of the violets to the now ripening corn. And there was no foreboding of storm or winter in the air that glorious day.It was yet quite early in the morning, and high on the Hog’s Back, that ridge of the Surrey Hills that runs from Farnham towards Guildford, the gentle coolness of daybreak had not left the air.Roddy and Elma had met for an early morning walk, she being again alone at the Towers. They had been walking across the fields and woods for an hour, and were now high up upon the hill which on one side gave views far away to the misty valley of the Thames, and on the other to Hindhead and the South Downs. The hill rose steep and sombre, its sides dark with chestnut woods, and all about them the fields were golden with the harvest.They were tired with their walk, so they threw themselves down upon the grassy hillside and gazed away across the wide vista of hills and woodlands.“How glorious it is!” declared the girl, looking fresh and sweet in a white frock and wide-brimmed summer hat trimmed with a saxe-blue scarf.“Delightful! This walk is worth getting up early to take!” he remarked with soft love laughter, looking into her wonderful eyes that at the moment were fixed in fascination upon the scene.Since that day months ago when he had declared his affection, he had never spoken directly of love, but only uttered it in those divers ways and words, those charms of touch and elegance of grace which are love’s subtlest, truest, and most perilous language.Slowly, as she turned her beautiful eyes to his, he took her soft little hand, raising it gallantly to his lips.“Elma,” he said after a long silence, “I have brought you here to tell you something—something that perhaps I ought to leave unsaid.”“What?” she asked with sudden interest, her eyes opening widely.“I want to say that I dislike your friend Mr Rutherford,” he blurted forth.“Mr Rutherford!” she echoed. “He is father’s friend—not mine!”“When I was at Park Lane the other night I noticed the marked attention he paid you—how he—”“Oh! you are awfully foolish, Mr Homfray—Roddy! He surely pays me no attention.”“You did not notice it, but I did!” cried the young man, whose heart was torn by fierce jealousy.“Well, if he did, then I am certainly quite unaware of it.”His hand closed fast and warm upon hers. “Ah!” he cried, his eyes seeking hers with eager wistfulness, “I do not wonder. Once I should have wondered, but now—I understand. He is rich,” he said softly and very sadly. “And, after all, I am only an adventurer.”“What are you saying?” cried the girl.“I know the truth,” he replied bitterly. “If you ever loved me you would one day repent, for I have nothing to offer you, Elma. I ought to be content with my life—it is good enough in its way, though nameless and fruitless also, perhaps. Yes, it is foolish of me to object to the attentions which Mr Rutherford pays you. He returned from Paris specially last Wednesday to be at your party.”“I cannot understand!” she declared. “I do not want to understand! You are foolish, Roddy. I have no liking for Mr Rutherford. None whatever!”“Are you quite certain of that?” he cried, again looking eagerly into her face with a fierce expression such as she had never seen before upon his handsome countenance.“I am, Roddy,” she whispered.“And you really love me?”“I do,” she whispered again. “I shall be content anyhow, anywhere, any time—always—with you!”He let go her hands—for him, almost roughly—and rose quickly to his feet, and silently paced to and fro under the high hedgerow. His straw hat was down over his eyes. He brushed and trampled the wild flowers ruthlessly as he went. She could not tell what moved him—anger or pain.She loved him well—loved him with all the simple ardour and fierce affection of one of her young years. After all, she was not much more than a child, and had never before conceived a real affection for any living thing. She had not yet experienced that affinity which comes of maturer years, that subtle sympathy, that perfect passion and patience which alone enable one heart to feel each pang or each joy that makes another beat.Roddy’s moods were often as changeful as the wind, while at times he was restless, impatient and depressed—perhaps when his wireless experiments gave no result. But it was often beyond her understanding.Seeing him so perturbed, Elma wondered whether, in her confession of affection, she had said anything wrong. Was he, after all, growing tired of her? Had that sudden fit of jealousy been assumed on purpose to effect a breach?She did not go to him. She still sat idly among the grasses.A military aeroplane from Farnborough was circling overhead, and she watched it blankly.After a little while her lover mastered whatever emotion had been aroused within him, and came back to her.He spoke in his old caressing manner, even if a little colder than before.“Forgive me, dearest,” he said softly. “I—I was jealous of that man Rutherford. That you really love me has brought to me a great and unbounded joy. No shadow has power to rest upon me to-day. But I—I somehow fear the future—I fear that yours would be but a sorry mode of existence with me. As I have said, my profession is merely that of a traveller and adventurer. Fortune may come in my way—but probably not. We cannot all be like the Italian beggar who bought the great Zuroff diamond—one of the finest stones in existence—for two soldi from a rag-dealer in the Mercato Vecchio in Ravenna.”“You have your fortune to make, Roddy,” she said trustfully, taking his hand. “And you will make it. Keep a stout heart, and act with that great courage which you always possess.”“I am disheartened,” he said.“Disheartened! Why?”“Because of the mystery—because of these strange mental attacks, this loss of memory to which I am so often subject. I feel that before I can go farther I must clear up the mystery of those lost days—clear myself.”“Of what?” she asked, his hand still in hers.“Of what that woman made me—compelled me to do,” he said in a harsh, broken voice. He had not told her he had discovered where he had been taken. He felt that he was always disbelieved.“Now, Roddy, listen!” she cried, jumping up. “I believe that it is all hallucination on your part. You were kept prisoner at that house—as you have explained—but beyond that I believe that, your brain being affected by the injection the devils gave to you, you have imagined certain things.”“But I did not imagine the finding of Edna Manners!” he cried. “Surely you believe me!”“Of course I do, dear,” she said softly.“Then why do you not tell who she was? At least let me clear up one point of the mystery.”“Unfortunately I am not allowed to say anything. My father has forbidden it.”“But what has your father to do with it? I know he has put the matter into the hands of ex-inspector Fuller. But why?”“Father knows. I do not.”“But he told me that much depended upon discovering her,” said her lover. “Why does he search when I know that she died in my arms?”“You have never told him so. He wishes to obtain proof of whether she is dead, I think,” said the girl.“Why?”“That I cannot tell. He has his own motives, I suppose. I never dare ask him. It is a subject I cannot mention.”“Why?”“He forbade me ever to utter Edna’s name,” she replied slowly.“That is very curious, when he told me that he must find her. And he employed the famous Fuller to search for trace of her. But,” he added, “trace they will never find, for she is dead. If I told him so he would certainly not believe me. They all think that I am half demented, and imagine weird things!” And he drew a long breath full of bitterness.“Never mind,” she said. “It would be infamous to be melancholy, or athirst for great diamonds on such a glorious day.”“True, my darling, true!” he said. “Let us sit down again. There! Lean back so as to be in the shade, and give me your hand. Now I want to kiss you.”And taking her in his warm embrace, he rained kisses upon her full red lips in wild ecstasy, with low murmurs of love that were sweet in the young girl’s ears, while she, on her part, reclined in his arms without raising protest or trying to disengage herself from his strong clasp.“I love you, Elma!” he cried. “That you have no thought for that man Rutherford who danced with you so many times on Wednesday night, who took you into supper and laughed so gaily with you, has greatly relieved me. I know I am poor, but I will do my very utmost to make good and to be worthy of your love.”Again his lips met hers in a long, passionate caress. For both of them the world was nonexistent at that moment, and then, for the first time, her pretty lips pressed hard against his and he felt one long, fierce and affectionate kiss.He knew that she was his at last!Half an hour later, as they went down the steep hill and across the beautiful wooded country towards Haslemere, Roddy Homfray trod on air. For him the face of the world had suddenly changed. Theirs was a perfect peace and gladness in that morning of late summer. Elma, on her part, needed nothing more than the joy of the moment, and whatever darkness her lover may have seen in the future was all sunlight to her. Roddy’s glad smile was for her all-sufficient.That day surely no shadow could fall between them and the sun!As they walked along, Roddy suddenly exclaimed:“What fools are clever folk!”Surely his hours of melancholy had not returned, she thought.“Why?” she asked.“Because my enemies—my unknown mysterious enemies—your enemies—are fools, Elma, my darling.” And then perhaps for a moment they caught sight of each other’s souls.“Perhaps they are. But we must both be guarded against them,” the girl said as he walked beside her.“Guarded! Yes, Poor Edna has fallen their victim. Next, my darling, it might be you yourself! But of the motive I can discern nothing.”“I! What have I done?” cried the girl, looking straight at him. “No, surely I can have no enemies.”“We all have enemies, darling. Ah! you do not yet realise that in our life to-day falsehoods are daily food and that a lie is small coinage in which the interchange of the world, francs, marks, dollars, or diplomacy, is carried on to the equal convenience of us all. Lying lips are no longer an abomination. They are part of our daily existence.”“You are horribly philosophic, Roddy!” she said with a laugh. “But I quite understand that it is so. The scandals in politics and in society prove it every day.”“Yes. And let us—both of us—now that we love each other, be forewarned of the mysterious evil that threatens.”“How?”“I can’t tell. Yet I have a vague premonition that though the sun shines to-day, that all is bright and glorious, and that the clear horizon of our lives is speckless, yet very soon a darkness will arise to obscure further the mystery of that night in Welling Wood.”“I sincerely hope not. Let us leave the affair to Inspector Fuller,” said Elma. “He was down to see my father the night before last. I do not know what was said. I left them together in the library when I went to bed.”“You heard nothing?”“Only as I came in I heard Fuller mention the name of your friend Andrew Barclay, who has gone to Marseilles to see the Moorish Minister.”“Yes, Barclay is certainly my friend. But how could the detective have possibly known that?”“Detectives are strangely inquisitive people,” remarked the girl, as hand in hand they went down the hill.“That is so. And I only hope Mr Fuller will discover the truth concerning poor Edna Manners. Ah! I recollect it all so well. And yet the recollection goes giddily round and round and round in a sickening whirl of colour before my blinded eyes. It is all horrible! And it is all hideous and incredible. She died! I dashed to raise the alarm—and then I know no more! All I recollect is that I grovelled, frightened, sobbing! I saw the shimmering of sun-rays through the darkness of leaves. I was in a strange garden and it was day! And always since, whenever I have closed my eyes, I can see it still!”“No, Roddy,” she urged. “Try to put it all aside. Try not to think of it!”“But I can’t forget it!” he cried, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t—I can’t—it is all so terrible—horrible.”In sympathy the girl took his arm. Her touch aroused him. Of a sudden all the strength of his being came to his aid.“Forgive me, darling! Forgive me!” he craved.And together they crossed the low old stile into the road which led down through a quaint little village, and out on the way to Haslemere.On that same morning at noon Richard Allen again stood in the dining-room at Willowden, when Gordon Gray, alias Rex Rutherford, entered. He was in a light motor-coat, having just returned from his tour to Scotland.“Well, Dick!” he cried cheerily in that easy, good-humoured way of his, that cheerful mannerism by which he made so many friends. “So you’ve had luck—eh?”“Yes, after a narrow escape. Got caught, and had to fight a way out,” laughed the other.“Not the first time. Do you recollect that night in Cannes two years ago? By Jove! I thought we were done.”“Don’t let’s talk of nasty things,” his friend said. “Here’s the precious little map—the secret of the Wad Sus mines.”“Splendid!” cried Gray, taking the small piece of folded paper to the window. “By Jove! it gives exact measurements in metres, and minute directions.”“Yes. And the old Minister has in his possession a great emerald taken from the ancient workings.”“We ought to get that. It will showbona fideswhen we deal with the concession. It would be better to buy it than to get it by other means. If it were stolen there would be a hue-and-cry raised. But if we could get it honestly—honestly, mark you, Dick!—we could get the official certificate saying where and when it was found.”“True!” remarked Allen, who chanced to be standing near the window and whose attention had suddenly been attracted by a movement in the bushes on the opposite side of the lawn. “But don’t move, Gordon!” he cried quickly. “Keep quiet! Don’t show yourself! Get back behind the curtains. There’s somebody over in the bushes yonder, watching the window! Just by the yew-tree there. Watch!”In an instant Gordon Gray was on the alert. For some moments both men stood with bated breath, watching eagerly.Suddenly the figure moved and a ray of sunlight revealed a woman’s face.“By Gad! Dick! Yes, I’ve seen that woman somewhere before! What can be her game? She’s evidently taking observations! Call Freda and Jimmie, quick! We must all get out of this at once! There’s not a second to lose!Quick!”
It had been all summer—endless, cloudless summer in England, from the time of the violets to the now ripening corn. And there was no foreboding of storm or winter in the air that glorious day.
It was yet quite early in the morning, and high on the Hog’s Back, that ridge of the Surrey Hills that runs from Farnham towards Guildford, the gentle coolness of daybreak had not left the air.
Roddy and Elma had met for an early morning walk, she being again alone at the Towers. They had been walking across the fields and woods for an hour, and were now high up upon the hill which on one side gave views far away to the misty valley of the Thames, and on the other to Hindhead and the South Downs. The hill rose steep and sombre, its sides dark with chestnut woods, and all about them the fields were golden with the harvest.
They were tired with their walk, so they threw themselves down upon the grassy hillside and gazed away across the wide vista of hills and woodlands.
“How glorious it is!” declared the girl, looking fresh and sweet in a white frock and wide-brimmed summer hat trimmed with a saxe-blue scarf.
“Delightful! This walk is worth getting up early to take!” he remarked with soft love laughter, looking into her wonderful eyes that at the moment were fixed in fascination upon the scene.
Since that day months ago when he had declared his affection, he had never spoken directly of love, but only uttered it in those divers ways and words, those charms of touch and elegance of grace which are love’s subtlest, truest, and most perilous language.
Slowly, as she turned her beautiful eyes to his, he took her soft little hand, raising it gallantly to his lips.
“Elma,” he said after a long silence, “I have brought you here to tell you something—something that perhaps I ought to leave unsaid.”
“What?” she asked with sudden interest, her eyes opening widely.
“I want to say that I dislike your friend Mr Rutherford,” he blurted forth.
“Mr Rutherford!” she echoed. “He is father’s friend—not mine!”
“When I was at Park Lane the other night I noticed the marked attention he paid you—how he—”
“Oh! you are awfully foolish, Mr Homfray—Roddy! He surely pays me no attention.”
“You did not notice it, but I did!” cried the young man, whose heart was torn by fierce jealousy.
“Well, if he did, then I am certainly quite unaware of it.”
His hand closed fast and warm upon hers. “Ah!” he cried, his eyes seeking hers with eager wistfulness, “I do not wonder. Once I should have wondered, but now—I understand. He is rich,” he said softly and very sadly. “And, after all, I am only an adventurer.”
“What are you saying?” cried the girl.
“I know the truth,” he replied bitterly. “If you ever loved me you would one day repent, for I have nothing to offer you, Elma. I ought to be content with my life—it is good enough in its way, though nameless and fruitless also, perhaps. Yes, it is foolish of me to object to the attentions which Mr Rutherford pays you. He returned from Paris specially last Wednesday to be at your party.”
“I cannot understand!” she declared. “I do not want to understand! You are foolish, Roddy. I have no liking for Mr Rutherford. None whatever!”
“Are you quite certain of that?” he cried, again looking eagerly into her face with a fierce expression such as she had never seen before upon his handsome countenance.
“I am, Roddy,” she whispered.
“And you really love me?”
“I do,” she whispered again. “I shall be content anyhow, anywhere, any time—always—with you!”
He let go her hands—for him, almost roughly—and rose quickly to his feet, and silently paced to and fro under the high hedgerow. His straw hat was down over his eyes. He brushed and trampled the wild flowers ruthlessly as he went. She could not tell what moved him—anger or pain.
She loved him well—loved him with all the simple ardour and fierce affection of one of her young years. After all, she was not much more than a child, and had never before conceived a real affection for any living thing. She had not yet experienced that affinity which comes of maturer years, that subtle sympathy, that perfect passion and patience which alone enable one heart to feel each pang or each joy that makes another beat.
Roddy’s moods were often as changeful as the wind, while at times he was restless, impatient and depressed—perhaps when his wireless experiments gave no result. But it was often beyond her understanding.
Seeing him so perturbed, Elma wondered whether, in her confession of affection, she had said anything wrong. Was he, after all, growing tired of her? Had that sudden fit of jealousy been assumed on purpose to effect a breach?
She did not go to him. She still sat idly among the grasses.
A military aeroplane from Farnborough was circling overhead, and she watched it blankly.
After a little while her lover mastered whatever emotion had been aroused within him, and came back to her.
He spoke in his old caressing manner, even if a little colder than before.
“Forgive me, dearest,” he said softly. “I—I was jealous of that man Rutherford. That you really love me has brought to me a great and unbounded joy. No shadow has power to rest upon me to-day. But I—I somehow fear the future—I fear that yours would be but a sorry mode of existence with me. As I have said, my profession is merely that of a traveller and adventurer. Fortune may come in my way—but probably not. We cannot all be like the Italian beggar who bought the great Zuroff diamond—one of the finest stones in existence—for two soldi from a rag-dealer in the Mercato Vecchio in Ravenna.”
“You have your fortune to make, Roddy,” she said trustfully, taking his hand. “And you will make it. Keep a stout heart, and act with that great courage which you always possess.”
“I am disheartened,” he said.
“Disheartened! Why?”
“Because of the mystery—because of these strange mental attacks, this loss of memory to which I am so often subject. I feel that before I can go farther I must clear up the mystery of those lost days—clear myself.”
“Of what?” she asked, his hand still in hers.
“Of what that woman made me—compelled me to do,” he said in a harsh, broken voice. He had not told her he had discovered where he had been taken. He felt that he was always disbelieved.
“Now, Roddy, listen!” she cried, jumping up. “I believe that it is all hallucination on your part. You were kept prisoner at that house—as you have explained—but beyond that I believe that, your brain being affected by the injection the devils gave to you, you have imagined certain things.”
“But I did not imagine the finding of Edna Manners!” he cried. “Surely you believe me!”
“Of course I do, dear,” she said softly.
“Then why do you not tell who she was? At least let me clear up one point of the mystery.”
“Unfortunately I am not allowed to say anything. My father has forbidden it.”
“But what has your father to do with it? I know he has put the matter into the hands of ex-inspector Fuller. But why?”
“Father knows. I do not.”
“But he told me that much depended upon discovering her,” said her lover. “Why does he search when I know that she died in my arms?”
“You have never told him so. He wishes to obtain proof of whether she is dead, I think,” said the girl.
“Why?”
“That I cannot tell. He has his own motives, I suppose. I never dare ask him. It is a subject I cannot mention.”
“Why?”
“He forbade me ever to utter Edna’s name,” she replied slowly.
“That is very curious, when he told me that he must find her. And he employed the famous Fuller to search for trace of her. But,” he added, “trace they will never find, for she is dead. If I told him so he would certainly not believe me. They all think that I am half demented, and imagine weird things!” And he drew a long breath full of bitterness.
“Never mind,” she said. “It would be infamous to be melancholy, or athirst for great diamonds on such a glorious day.”
“True, my darling, true!” he said. “Let us sit down again. There! Lean back so as to be in the shade, and give me your hand. Now I want to kiss you.”
And taking her in his warm embrace, he rained kisses upon her full red lips in wild ecstasy, with low murmurs of love that were sweet in the young girl’s ears, while she, on her part, reclined in his arms without raising protest or trying to disengage herself from his strong clasp.
“I love you, Elma!” he cried. “That you have no thought for that man Rutherford who danced with you so many times on Wednesday night, who took you into supper and laughed so gaily with you, has greatly relieved me. I know I am poor, but I will do my very utmost to make good and to be worthy of your love.”
Again his lips met hers in a long, passionate caress. For both of them the world was nonexistent at that moment, and then, for the first time, her pretty lips pressed hard against his and he felt one long, fierce and affectionate kiss.
He knew that she was his at last!
Half an hour later, as they went down the steep hill and across the beautiful wooded country towards Haslemere, Roddy Homfray trod on air. For him the face of the world had suddenly changed. Theirs was a perfect peace and gladness in that morning of late summer. Elma, on her part, needed nothing more than the joy of the moment, and whatever darkness her lover may have seen in the future was all sunlight to her. Roddy’s glad smile was for her all-sufficient.
That day surely no shadow could fall between them and the sun!
As they walked along, Roddy suddenly exclaimed:
“What fools are clever folk!”
Surely his hours of melancholy had not returned, she thought.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because my enemies—my unknown mysterious enemies—your enemies—are fools, Elma, my darling.” And then perhaps for a moment they caught sight of each other’s souls.
“Perhaps they are. But we must both be guarded against them,” the girl said as he walked beside her.
“Guarded! Yes, Poor Edna has fallen their victim. Next, my darling, it might be you yourself! But of the motive I can discern nothing.”
“I! What have I done?” cried the girl, looking straight at him. “No, surely I can have no enemies.”
“We all have enemies, darling. Ah! you do not yet realise that in our life to-day falsehoods are daily food and that a lie is small coinage in which the interchange of the world, francs, marks, dollars, or diplomacy, is carried on to the equal convenience of us all. Lying lips are no longer an abomination. They are part of our daily existence.”
“You are horribly philosophic, Roddy!” she said with a laugh. “But I quite understand that it is so. The scandals in politics and in society prove it every day.”
“Yes. And let us—both of us—now that we love each other, be forewarned of the mysterious evil that threatens.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell. Yet I have a vague premonition that though the sun shines to-day, that all is bright and glorious, and that the clear horizon of our lives is speckless, yet very soon a darkness will arise to obscure further the mystery of that night in Welling Wood.”
“I sincerely hope not. Let us leave the affair to Inspector Fuller,” said Elma. “He was down to see my father the night before last. I do not know what was said. I left them together in the library when I went to bed.”
“You heard nothing?”
“Only as I came in I heard Fuller mention the name of your friend Andrew Barclay, who has gone to Marseilles to see the Moorish Minister.”
“Yes, Barclay is certainly my friend. But how could the detective have possibly known that?”
“Detectives are strangely inquisitive people,” remarked the girl, as hand in hand they went down the hill.
“That is so. And I only hope Mr Fuller will discover the truth concerning poor Edna Manners. Ah! I recollect it all so well. And yet the recollection goes giddily round and round and round in a sickening whirl of colour before my blinded eyes. It is all horrible! And it is all hideous and incredible. She died! I dashed to raise the alarm—and then I know no more! All I recollect is that I grovelled, frightened, sobbing! I saw the shimmering of sun-rays through the darkness of leaves. I was in a strange garden and it was day! And always since, whenever I have closed my eyes, I can see it still!”
“No, Roddy,” she urged. “Try to put it all aside. Try not to think of it!”
“But I can’t forget it!” he cried, covering his face with his hands. “I can’t—I can’t—it is all so terrible—horrible.”
In sympathy the girl took his arm. Her touch aroused him. Of a sudden all the strength of his being came to his aid.
“Forgive me, darling! Forgive me!” he craved.
And together they crossed the low old stile into the road which led down through a quaint little village, and out on the way to Haslemere.
On that same morning at noon Richard Allen again stood in the dining-room at Willowden, when Gordon Gray, alias Rex Rutherford, entered. He was in a light motor-coat, having just returned from his tour to Scotland.
“Well, Dick!” he cried cheerily in that easy, good-humoured way of his, that cheerful mannerism by which he made so many friends. “So you’ve had luck—eh?”
“Yes, after a narrow escape. Got caught, and had to fight a way out,” laughed the other.
“Not the first time. Do you recollect that night in Cannes two years ago? By Jove! I thought we were done.”
“Don’t let’s talk of nasty things,” his friend said. “Here’s the precious little map—the secret of the Wad Sus mines.”
“Splendid!” cried Gray, taking the small piece of folded paper to the window. “By Jove! it gives exact measurements in metres, and minute directions.”
“Yes. And the old Minister has in his possession a great emerald taken from the ancient workings.”
“We ought to get that. It will showbona fideswhen we deal with the concession. It would be better to buy it than to get it by other means. If it were stolen there would be a hue-and-cry raised. But if we could get it honestly—honestly, mark you, Dick!—we could get the official certificate saying where and when it was found.”
“True!” remarked Allen, who chanced to be standing near the window and whose attention had suddenly been attracted by a movement in the bushes on the opposite side of the lawn. “But don’t move, Gordon!” he cried quickly. “Keep quiet! Don’t show yourself! Get back behind the curtains. There’s somebody over in the bushes yonder, watching the window! Just by the yew-tree there. Watch!”
In an instant Gordon Gray was on the alert. For some moments both men stood with bated breath, watching eagerly.
Suddenly the figure moved and a ray of sunlight revealed a woman’s face.
“By Gad! Dick! Yes, I’ve seen that woman somewhere before! What can be her game? She’s evidently taking observations! Call Freda and Jimmie, quick! We must all get out of this at once! There’s not a second to lose!Quick!”
Chapter Seventeen.The Ears of the Blind.The discovery of the watcher at Willowden was most disconcerting to Gray and his accomplices.They recognised the stranger as a person who had once kept observation upon them in London two years before, and now saw to their dismay that their headquarters had been discovered.So that night Gray and Claribut worked hard in frantic haste and dismantled the wireless installation, which they packed in boxes, while Freda eagerly collected her own belongings. Then making sure that they were not still being watched they stowed the boxes in the car, and creeping forth sped rapidly away along the Great North Road.“I don’t like the look of things?” Gray muttered to Freda, who sat beside him. “We’ve only got away in the nick of time. The police might have been upon us before morning. We’ll have to be extremely careful.”And then a silence fell between them as they drove through the pelting rain. Once again they had wriggled out of an awkward situation.At a first-floor window of an ancient half-timbered house in a narrow, dingy street behind the cathedral in quaint old Bayeux, in Normandy, a pretty, fair-haired young girl was silting in the sunshine, her hands lying idly in her lap.It was noon. The ill-paved street below—a street of sixteenth-century houses with heavy carved woodwork and quaint gables—was deserted, as the great bell of the magnificent old cathedral, built by Odo, the bishop, after the Norman Conquest of Britain, boomed forth the hour of twelve.The girl did not move or speak. She seldom did, because first, her blue eyes were fixed and sightless, and, secondly, she was always strange of manner.Jean Nicole, the boot-repairer, and his wife, with whom the girl lived, were honest country folk of Normandy. Both came from Vaubadon, a remote little village on the road to St. Lô. After the war they had moved to Bayeux, when one day they chanced to see an advertisement in theOuest Éclair, an advertisement inviting a trustworthy married couple to take charge of a young lady who was slightly mentally deficient, and offering a good recompense.They answered the advertisement, with the result that they were invited to the Hôtel de l’Univers at St. Malo, where the worthy pair were shown up to a private sitting-room wherein sat a well-dressed Englishman and a smartly-attired woman, his wife.They explained that they had been left in charge of the young lady in question, who was unfortunately blind. Her father’s sudden death, by accident, had so preyed upon her mind that it had become deranged.The man, who gave the name of Mr Hugh Ford, explained that he and his wife were sailing from Havre to New York on business on the following Saturday, and they required someone to look after the unfortunate young lady during their absence. Would Monsieur and Madame Nicole do so?The boot-repairer and his stout spouse, eager to increase their income, expressed their readiness, and within an hour arrangements were made, an agreement drawn up by which the pair were to receive from a bank in Paris a certain monthly sum for mademoiselle’s maintenance, and the young lady was introduced to them.Her affliction of blindness was pitiable. Her eyes seemed fixed as she groped her way across the room, and it was with difficulty that her guardian made her understand that she was going to live with new friends.At last she uttered two words only in English.“I understand.”The middle-aged Frenchman and his wife knew no English, while it seemed that the young lady knew no French.“Her name is Betty Grayson,” explained Mr Ford, speaking in French. “She seldom speaks. Yet at times she will, perhaps, become talkative, and will probably tell you in English some absurd story or other, always highly dramatic, about some terrible crime. But, as I tell you, Monsieur Nicole, her mind is unhinged, poor girl! So take no notice of her fantastic imagination.”“Très bien, monsieur,” replied the dark-faced boot-repairer. “I quite follow. Poor mademoiselle!”“Yes. Her affliction is terribly unfortunate. You see her condition—quite hopeless, alas! She must have complete mental rest. To be in the presence of people unduly excites her, therefore it is best to keep her indoors as much as possible. And when she goes out, let it be at night when nobody is about.”“I understand, monsieur.”“The best London specialists on mental diseases have already examined her. Poor Betty! They have told me her condition, therefore, if she gets worse it will be useless to call in a doctor. And she may get worse,” he added meaningly, after a pause.“And when will monsieur and madame be back?” inquired Madame Nicole.“It is quite impossible to tell how long my business will take,” was Mr Ford’s reply. “We shall leave Havre by theHomericon Saturday, and I hope we shall be back by November. But your monthly payments will be remitted to you by the Crédit Lyonnais until our return.”So the pair had gone back by train from St. Malo to quiet old Bayeux, to that dingy, ramshackle old house a few doors from that ancient mansion, now the museum in which is preserved in long glass cases the wonderful strip of linen cloth worked in outline by Queen Matilda and her ladies, representing the Conquest of England by her husband, William of Normandy, and the overthrow of Harold—one of the treasures of our modern world. On the way there they found that Miss Grayson could speak French.The rooms to which they brought the poor sightless English mademoiselle were small and frowsy. The atmosphere was close, and pervaded by the odour of a stack of old boots which Monsieur Nicole kept in the small back room, in which he cut leather and hammered tacks from early morn till nightfall.From the front window at which the girl sat daily, inert and uninterested, a statuesque figure, silent and sightless, a good view could be obtained of the wonderful west façade of the magnificent Gothic Cathedral, the bells of which rang forth their sweet musical carillon four times each hour.Summer sightseers who, with guide-book in hand, passed up the old Rue des Chanoines to the door of the Cathedral, she heard, but she could not see. Americans, of whom there were many, and a sprinkling of English, chattered and laughed upon their pilgrimage to the magnificent masterpiece of the Conqueror’s half-brother, and some of them glanced up and wondered at the motionless figure seated staring out straight before her.It is curious how very few English travellers ever go to Bayeux, the cradle of their race, and yet how many Americans are interested in the famous tapestries and the marvellous monument in stone.On that warm noon as Betty Grayson sat back in the window, silent and motionless, her brain suddenly became stirred, as it was on occasions, by recollections, weird, horrible and fantastic.Madame Nicole, in her full black dress and the curious muslin cap of the shape that has been worn for centuries by the villagers of Vaubadon—for each village in Normandy has its own fashion in women’s caps so that the denizens of one village can, in the markets, be distinguished from those of another—crossed the room from the heavy, old oak sideboard, laying the midday meal. In the room beyond Jean, her husband, was earning his daily bread tapping, and ever tapping upon the boots.“Madame,” exclaimed the girl, rising with a suddenness which caused the boot-repairer’s wife to start. “There is a strange man below. He keeps passing and re-passing and looking up at me.”The stout, stolid Frenchwoman in her neat and spotless cap started, and smiled good-humouredly.“Then you can see at last—eh?” she cried. “Perhaps he is only some sightseer from the Agence Cook.” The woman was astounded at the sudden recovery of the girl’s sight.“No. I do not think so. He looks like an English business man. Come and see,” said the girl.Madame crossed to the window, but only two women were in sight, neighbours who lived across the way, and with them was old Abbé Laugée who had just left his confessional and was on his way home todéjeuner.“Ah! He’s gone!” the girl said in French. “I saw him passing along last evening, and he seemed to be greatly interested in this house.”“He may perhaps have a friend living above us,” suggested Madame Nicole.Scarcely had she replied, however, when a knock was heard at the outside door, which, on being opened, revealed the figure of a rather tall, spruce-looking Englishman, well-dressed in a dark grey suit.“I beg pardon, madame,” he said in good French, “but I believe you have a Mademoiselle Grayson living with you?”Ere the woman could speak the girl rushed forward, and staring straight into the face of the man, cried:“Why! It’s—it’s actually Mr Porter!”The man laughed rather uneasily, though he well concealed his chagrin. He had believed that she was blind.“I fear you have mistaken me for somebody else,” he said. Then, turning to the woman, he remarked: “This is Miss Grayson, I suppose?”“Yes, monsieur.”“Ah! Then she imagines me to be somebody named Porter—eh?” he remarked in a tone of pity.“I imagine nothing,” declared the girl vehemently. “I used to, but I am now growing much better, and I begin to recollect. I recognise you as Mr Arthur Porter, whom I last saw at Willowden, near Welwyn. And you know it is the truth.”The man shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Madame Nicole said in French:“I have heard that mademoiselle is suffering from—well, from hallucinations.”“Yes, monsieur, she does. For days she will scarcely speak. Her memory comes and goes quite suddenly. And she has to-day recovered her sight.”“That is true,” replied the pretty blue-eyed girl. “I recognise this gentleman as Mr Arthur Porter,” she cried again. “I recollect many things—that night at Farncombe when—when I learnt the truth, and then lost my reason.”“Take no notice, monsieur,” the woman urged. “Poor mademoiselle! She tells us some very odd stories sometimes—about a young man whom she calls Monsieur Willard. She says he was murdered.”“And so he was!” declared the girl in English. “Mr Homfray can bear me out! He can prove it!” she said determinedly.Their visitor was silent for a moment. Then he asked:“What is this strange story?”“You know it as well as I do, Mr Porter,” she replied bitterly. But the stranger only smiled again as though in pity.“My name is not Porter,” he assured her. “I am a doctor, and my name is George Crowe, a friend of your guardian, Mr Ford. He called upon me in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and as I was travelling to Paris he asked me to come here and see you.”“What?” shrieked the girl. “Dare you stand there and deny that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of that woman, Freda Crisp!”“I certainly do deny it! And further, I have not the pleasure of knowing your friend.”Betty Grayson drew a long breath as her blue eyes narrowed and her brow knit in anger.“I know that because of my lapses of memory and my muddled brain I am not believed,” she said. “But I tell you that poor Mr Willard was killed—murdered, and that the identity of the culprits is known to me as well as to old Mr Homfray, the rector of Little Farncombe.”“Ah! That is most interesting,” remarked the doctor, humouring her as he would a child. “And who, pray, was this Mr Willard?”“Mr Willard was engaged to be married to me!” she said in a hard voice. “He lived in a house in Hyde Park Square, in London, a house which his father had left him, and he also had a pretty seaside house near Cromer. But he was blackmailed by that adventuress, your friend, Mrs Crisp, and when at last he decided to unmask and prosecute the woman and her friends he was one morning found dead in very mysterious circumstances. At first it was believed that he had committed suicide, but on investigation it was found that such was not the case. He had been killed by some secret and subtle means which puzzled and baffled the police. The murder is still an unsolved mystery.”“And you know the identity of the person whom you allege killed your lover—eh?” asked the doctor with interest.“Yes, I do. And so does Mr Homfray.”“Then why have neither of you given information to the police?” asked the visitor seriously.“Because of certain reasons—reasons known to old Mr Homfray.”“This Mr Homfray is your friend, I take it?”“He is a clergyman, and he is my friend,” was her reply. Then suddenly she added: “But why should I tell you this when you yourself are a friend of the woman Crisp, and of Gordon Gray?”“My dear young lady,” he exclaimed, laughing, “you are really making a very great error. To my knowledge I have never seen you before I passed this house last evening, and as for this Mrs Crisp, I have never even heard of her! Yet what you tell me concerning Hugh Willard is certainly of great interest.”“Hugh Willard!” she cried. “You betray yourself, Mr Porter! How do you know his Christian name? Tell me that!”“Because you have just mentioned it,” replied the man, not in the least perturbed.“I certainly have not!” she declared, while Madame Nicole, not understanding English, stood aside trying to gather the drift of the conversation.The man’s assertion that his name was Crowe, and that he was a doctor when she had recognised him as an intimate friend of the woman who had blackmailed her lover, aroused the girl’s anger and indignation. Why was he there in Bayeux?“I tell you that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of Gordon Gray and his unscrupulous circle of friends!” cried the girl, who, turning to the stout Frenchwoman, went on in French: “This man is an impostor! He calls himself a doctor, yet I recognise him as a man named Porter, the friend of the woman who victimised the man I loved! Do not believe him?”“Madame!” exclaimed the visitor with a benign smile, as he bowed slightly. “I think we can dismiss all these dramatic allegations made by poor mademoiselle—can we not? Your own observations have,” he said, speaking in French, “shown you the abnormal state of the young lady’s mind. She is, I understand, prone to imagining tragic events, and making statements that are quite unfounded. For that reason Mr Ford asked me to call and see her, because—to be frank—I am a specialist on mental diseases.”“Ah! Doctor! I fear that mademoiselle’s mind is much unbalanced by her poor father’s death,” said the woman. “Monsieur Ford explained it all to me, and urged me to take no notice of her wild statements. When is Mr Ford returning to France?”“In about three months, I believe. Then he will no doubt relieve you of your charge—which, I fear, must be a heavy one.”“Sometimes, yes. But mademoiselle has never been so talkative and vehement as she is to-day.”“Because I, perhaps, bear some slight resemblance to some man she once knew—the man named Porter, I suppose.”“You are Arthur Porter!” declared the girl in French. “When I first saw you hazily last night I thought that you resembled him, but now I see you closer and plainly Iknowthat you are! I would recognise you by your eyes among a thousand men!”But the visitor only shrugged his shoulders again and declared to madame that mademoiselle’s hallucinations were, alas! pitiable.Then he questioned the woman about her charge, and when he left he handed her a five-hundred-franc note which he said Mr Ford had sent to her.But a few moments later when on his way down the narrow, old-world street with its overhanging houses, he muttered ominously to himself in English:“I must get back to Gordon as soon as possible. That girl is more dangerous than we ever contemplated. As we believed, she knows too much—far too much! And if Sandys finds her then all will be lost. It was a false step of Gordon’s to leave her over here. She is recovering. The situation is distinctly dangerous. Therefore we must act—without delay!”
The discovery of the watcher at Willowden was most disconcerting to Gray and his accomplices.
They recognised the stranger as a person who had once kept observation upon them in London two years before, and now saw to their dismay that their headquarters had been discovered.
So that night Gray and Claribut worked hard in frantic haste and dismantled the wireless installation, which they packed in boxes, while Freda eagerly collected her own belongings. Then making sure that they were not still being watched they stowed the boxes in the car, and creeping forth sped rapidly away along the Great North Road.
“I don’t like the look of things?” Gray muttered to Freda, who sat beside him. “We’ve only got away in the nick of time. The police might have been upon us before morning. We’ll have to be extremely careful.”
And then a silence fell between them as they drove through the pelting rain. Once again they had wriggled out of an awkward situation.
At a first-floor window of an ancient half-timbered house in a narrow, dingy street behind the cathedral in quaint old Bayeux, in Normandy, a pretty, fair-haired young girl was silting in the sunshine, her hands lying idly in her lap.
It was noon. The ill-paved street below—a street of sixteenth-century houses with heavy carved woodwork and quaint gables—was deserted, as the great bell of the magnificent old cathedral, built by Odo, the bishop, after the Norman Conquest of Britain, boomed forth the hour of twelve.
The girl did not move or speak. She seldom did, because first, her blue eyes were fixed and sightless, and, secondly, she was always strange of manner.
Jean Nicole, the boot-repairer, and his wife, with whom the girl lived, were honest country folk of Normandy. Both came from Vaubadon, a remote little village on the road to St. Lô. After the war they had moved to Bayeux, when one day they chanced to see an advertisement in theOuest Éclair, an advertisement inviting a trustworthy married couple to take charge of a young lady who was slightly mentally deficient, and offering a good recompense.
They answered the advertisement, with the result that they were invited to the Hôtel de l’Univers at St. Malo, where the worthy pair were shown up to a private sitting-room wherein sat a well-dressed Englishman and a smartly-attired woman, his wife.
They explained that they had been left in charge of the young lady in question, who was unfortunately blind. Her father’s sudden death, by accident, had so preyed upon her mind that it had become deranged.
The man, who gave the name of Mr Hugh Ford, explained that he and his wife were sailing from Havre to New York on business on the following Saturday, and they required someone to look after the unfortunate young lady during their absence. Would Monsieur and Madame Nicole do so?
The boot-repairer and his stout spouse, eager to increase their income, expressed their readiness, and within an hour arrangements were made, an agreement drawn up by which the pair were to receive from a bank in Paris a certain monthly sum for mademoiselle’s maintenance, and the young lady was introduced to them.
Her affliction of blindness was pitiable. Her eyes seemed fixed as she groped her way across the room, and it was with difficulty that her guardian made her understand that she was going to live with new friends.
At last she uttered two words only in English.
“I understand.”
The middle-aged Frenchman and his wife knew no English, while it seemed that the young lady knew no French.
“Her name is Betty Grayson,” explained Mr Ford, speaking in French. “She seldom speaks. Yet at times she will, perhaps, become talkative, and will probably tell you in English some absurd story or other, always highly dramatic, about some terrible crime. But, as I tell you, Monsieur Nicole, her mind is unhinged, poor girl! So take no notice of her fantastic imagination.”
“Très bien, monsieur,” replied the dark-faced boot-repairer. “I quite follow. Poor mademoiselle!”
“Yes. Her affliction is terribly unfortunate. You see her condition—quite hopeless, alas! She must have complete mental rest. To be in the presence of people unduly excites her, therefore it is best to keep her indoors as much as possible. And when she goes out, let it be at night when nobody is about.”
“I understand, monsieur.”
“The best London specialists on mental diseases have already examined her. Poor Betty! They have told me her condition, therefore, if she gets worse it will be useless to call in a doctor. And she may get worse,” he added meaningly, after a pause.
“And when will monsieur and madame be back?” inquired Madame Nicole.
“It is quite impossible to tell how long my business will take,” was Mr Ford’s reply. “We shall leave Havre by theHomericon Saturday, and I hope we shall be back by November. But your monthly payments will be remitted to you by the Crédit Lyonnais until our return.”
So the pair had gone back by train from St. Malo to quiet old Bayeux, to that dingy, ramshackle old house a few doors from that ancient mansion, now the museum in which is preserved in long glass cases the wonderful strip of linen cloth worked in outline by Queen Matilda and her ladies, representing the Conquest of England by her husband, William of Normandy, and the overthrow of Harold—one of the treasures of our modern world. On the way there they found that Miss Grayson could speak French.
The rooms to which they brought the poor sightless English mademoiselle were small and frowsy. The atmosphere was close, and pervaded by the odour of a stack of old boots which Monsieur Nicole kept in the small back room, in which he cut leather and hammered tacks from early morn till nightfall.
From the front window at which the girl sat daily, inert and uninterested, a statuesque figure, silent and sightless, a good view could be obtained of the wonderful west façade of the magnificent Gothic Cathedral, the bells of which rang forth their sweet musical carillon four times each hour.
Summer sightseers who, with guide-book in hand, passed up the old Rue des Chanoines to the door of the Cathedral, she heard, but she could not see. Americans, of whom there were many, and a sprinkling of English, chattered and laughed upon their pilgrimage to the magnificent masterpiece of the Conqueror’s half-brother, and some of them glanced up and wondered at the motionless figure seated staring out straight before her.
It is curious how very few English travellers ever go to Bayeux, the cradle of their race, and yet how many Americans are interested in the famous tapestries and the marvellous monument in stone.
On that warm noon as Betty Grayson sat back in the window, silent and motionless, her brain suddenly became stirred, as it was on occasions, by recollections, weird, horrible and fantastic.
Madame Nicole, in her full black dress and the curious muslin cap of the shape that has been worn for centuries by the villagers of Vaubadon—for each village in Normandy has its own fashion in women’s caps so that the denizens of one village can, in the markets, be distinguished from those of another—crossed the room from the heavy, old oak sideboard, laying the midday meal. In the room beyond Jean, her husband, was earning his daily bread tapping, and ever tapping upon the boots.
“Madame,” exclaimed the girl, rising with a suddenness which caused the boot-repairer’s wife to start. “There is a strange man below. He keeps passing and re-passing and looking up at me.”
The stout, stolid Frenchwoman in her neat and spotless cap started, and smiled good-humouredly.
“Then you can see at last—eh?” she cried. “Perhaps he is only some sightseer from the Agence Cook.” The woman was astounded at the sudden recovery of the girl’s sight.
“No. I do not think so. He looks like an English business man. Come and see,” said the girl.
Madame crossed to the window, but only two women were in sight, neighbours who lived across the way, and with them was old Abbé Laugée who had just left his confessional and was on his way home todéjeuner.
“Ah! He’s gone!” the girl said in French. “I saw him passing along last evening, and he seemed to be greatly interested in this house.”
“He may perhaps have a friend living above us,” suggested Madame Nicole.
Scarcely had she replied, however, when a knock was heard at the outside door, which, on being opened, revealed the figure of a rather tall, spruce-looking Englishman, well-dressed in a dark grey suit.
“I beg pardon, madame,” he said in good French, “but I believe you have a Mademoiselle Grayson living with you?”
Ere the woman could speak the girl rushed forward, and staring straight into the face of the man, cried:
“Why! It’s—it’s actually Mr Porter!”
The man laughed rather uneasily, though he well concealed his chagrin. He had believed that she was blind.
“I fear you have mistaken me for somebody else,” he said. Then, turning to the woman, he remarked: “This is Miss Grayson, I suppose?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Ah! Then she imagines me to be somebody named Porter—eh?” he remarked in a tone of pity.
“I imagine nothing,” declared the girl vehemently. “I used to, but I am now growing much better, and I begin to recollect. I recognise you as Mr Arthur Porter, whom I last saw at Willowden, near Welwyn. And you know it is the truth.”
The man shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Madame Nicole said in French:
“I have heard that mademoiselle is suffering from—well, from hallucinations.”
“Yes, monsieur, she does. For days she will scarcely speak. Her memory comes and goes quite suddenly. And she has to-day recovered her sight.”
“That is true,” replied the pretty blue-eyed girl. “I recognise this gentleman as Mr Arthur Porter,” she cried again. “I recollect many things—that night at Farncombe when—when I learnt the truth, and then lost my reason.”
“Take no notice, monsieur,” the woman urged. “Poor mademoiselle! She tells us some very odd stories sometimes—about a young man whom she calls Monsieur Willard. She says he was murdered.”
“And so he was!” declared the girl in English. “Mr Homfray can bear me out! He can prove it!” she said determinedly.
Their visitor was silent for a moment. Then he asked:
“What is this strange story?”
“You know it as well as I do, Mr Porter,” she replied bitterly. But the stranger only smiled again as though in pity.
“My name is not Porter,” he assured her. “I am a doctor, and my name is George Crowe, a friend of your guardian, Mr Ford. He called upon me in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and as I was travelling to Paris he asked me to come here and see you.”
“What?” shrieked the girl. “Dare you stand there and deny that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of that woman, Freda Crisp!”
“I certainly do deny it! And further, I have not the pleasure of knowing your friend.”
Betty Grayson drew a long breath as her blue eyes narrowed and her brow knit in anger.
“I know that because of my lapses of memory and my muddled brain I am not believed,” she said. “But I tell you that poor Mr Willard was killed—murdered, and that the identity of the culprits is known to me as well as to old Mr Homfray, the rector of Little Farncombe.”
“Ah! That is most interesting,” remarked the doctor, humouring her as he would a child. “And who, pray, was this Mr Willard?”
“Mr Willard was engaged to be married to me!” she said in a hard voice. “He lived in a house in Hyde Park Square, in London, a house which his father had left him, and he also had a pretty seaside house near Cromer. But he was blackmailed by that adventuress, your friend, Mrs Crisp, and when at last he decided to unmask and prosecute the woman and her friends he was one morning found dead in very mysterious circumstances. At first it was believed that he had committed suicide, but on investigation it was found that such was not the case. He had been killed by some secret and subtle means which puzzled and baffled the police. The murder is still an unsolved mystery.”
“And you know the identity of the person whom you allege killed your lover—eh?” asked the doctor with interest.
“Yes, I do. And so does Mr Homfray.”
“Then why have neither of you given information to the police?” asked the visitor seriously.
“Because of certain reasons—reasons known to old Mr Homfray.”
“This Mr Homfray is your friend, I take it?”
“He is a clergyman, and he is my friend,” was her reply. Then suddenly she added: “But why should I tell you this when you yourself are a friend of the woman Crisp, and of Gordon Gray?”
“My dear young lady,” he exclaimed, laughing, “you are really making a very great error. To my knowledge I have never seen you before I passed this house last evening, and as for this Mrs Crisp, I have never even heard of her! Yet what you tell me concerning Hugh Willard is certainly of great interest.”
“Hugh Willard!” she cried. “You betray yourself, Mr Porter! How do you know his Christian name? Tell me that!”
“Because you have just mentioned it,” replied the man, not in the least perturbed.
“I certainly have not!” she declared, while Madame Nicole, not understanding English, stood aside trying to gather the drift of the conversation.
The man’s assertion that his name was Crowe, and that he was a doctor when she had recognised him as an intimate friend of the woman who had blackmailed her lover, aroused the girl’s anger and indignation. Why was he there in Bayeux?
“I tell you that you are Arthur Porter, the friend of Gordon Gray and his unscrupulous circle of friends!” cried the girl, who, turning to the stout Frenchwoman, went on in French: “This man is an impostor! He calls himself a doctor, yet I recognise him as a man named Porter, the friend of the woman who victimised the man I loved! Do not believe him?”
“Madame!” exclaimed the visitor with a benign smile, as he bowed slightly. “I think we can dismiss all these dramatic allegations made by poor mademoiselle—can we not? Your own observations have,” he said, speaking in French, “shown you the abnormal state of the young lady’s mind. She is, I understand, prone to imagining tragic events, and making statements that are quite unfounded. For that reason Mr Ford asked me to call and see her, because—to be frank—I am a specialist on mental diseases.”
“Ah! Doctor! I fear that mademoiselle’s mind is much unbalanced by her poor father’s death,” said the woman. “Monsieur Ford explained it all to me, and urged me to take no notice of her wild statements. When is Mr Ford returning to France?”
“In about three months, I believe. Then he will no doubt relieve you of your charge—which, I fear, must be a heavy one.”
“Sometimes, yes. But mademoiselle has never been so talkative and vehement as she is to-day.”
“Because I, perhaps, bear some slight resemblance to some man she once knew—the man named Porter, I suppose.”
“You are Arthur Porter!” declared the girl in French. “When I first saw you hazily last night I thought that you resembled him, but now I see you closer and plainly Iknowthat you are! I would recognise you by your eyes among a thousand men!”
But the visitor only shrugged his shoulders again and declared to madame that mademoiselle’s hallucinations were, alas! pitiable.
Then he questioned the woman about her charge, and when he left he handed her a five-hundred-franc note which he said Mr Ford had sent to her.
But a few moments later when on his way down the narrow, old-world street with its overhanging houses, he muttered ominously to himself in English:
“I must get back to Gordon as soon as possible. That girl is more dangerous than we ever contemplated. As we believed, she knows too much—far too much! And if Sandys finds her then all will be lost. It was a false step of Gordon’s to leave her over here. She is recovering. The situation is distinctly dangerous. Therefore we must act—without delay!”