“The Norfolk Mystery,” as it was termed by the sensational journalists and Press-photographers, was but a nine days’ wonder, as, indeed, is every modern murder mystery.
It provided material for the sensational section of the Press for a full week; a hundred theories were advanced, and the police started out upon a dozen or more false scents, but all to no purpose. Therefore the public curiosity quickly died down, and within ten days or so the affair was forgotten amid the hundred and one other “sensations” of crime and politics, of war rumours, and financial booms, which hourly follow upon each other’s heels and which combine to make up the strenuous unrest of our daily life.
And so was the fatal accident to the naval aviator quickly forgotten by the public.
Many readers of these present lines no doubt sawreports of both affairs in the papers, but few, I expect, will recollect the actual facts, or if they do, they little dream of the remarkable romance of life of which those two unexplained tragedies formed the prologue.
On the night when the coroner’s jury returned in the case of Richard Harborne a verdict of “Wilful murder by some person unknown,” a girl sat in her small, plainly-furnished bedroom on the top floor of a house in New Oxford Street, in London, holding the evening paper in her thin, nerveless fingers.
It was Jean Libert.
She had been reading an account of the evidence given at the inquest, devouring it eagerly, with pale face and bated breath. And as she read her chest rose and fell quickly, her dark eyes were filled with horror, and her lips were ashen grey. The light had faded from her pretty face, her cheeks were sunken, her face haggard and drawn, and about her mouth were hard lines, an expression of bitter grief, remorse, despair.
A quarter of an hour ago, while in the small, cheap French restaurant below, kept by her father—a long, narrow place with red-plush seats along the white walls and small tables set before them—an urchin had passed, selling the “extra special.” On the contents bill he carried in front of him were the words, in bold type: “Norfolk Mystery—Verdict.”
She had rushed out into the street, bought a paper, and hastily concealing it, had ascended to her room, and there locked herself in.
Then she sank upon her bed and read it. Three times had she carefully read every word, for the report was a rather full one. Afterwards she sat, the paper still in her white hand, staring straight at the old mahogany chest of drawers before her.
“Poor Dick!” she murmured. “Ah! Heaven! Who could have done it? Why—why was he killed on that evening? If he had not gone to Mundesley to meet me he would not have lost his life. And yet——”
She paused, startled at the sound of her own voice, so nervous had she now become.
She glanced at the mirror, and started at sight of her own white, drawn countenance.
She placed both hands upon her eyes, as though striving to recall something, and in that position she remained, bent and pensive, for some moments.
Her lips moved at last.
“I wonder,” she exclaimed, very faintly, speaking to herself, “I wonder whether Ralph will ever know that I met Dick? Ah! yes,” she sighed; “I was foolish—mad—to dare to go to Mundesley that afternoon. If only I could have foreseen the consequence of our secret meeting—ah! if only I had known what I know now!”
Again she was silent, her face pale, with a fixed, intense look, when at last she rose, unlocked one of the small top drawers of the chest, and, taking the drawer entirely out, extracted something that had been concealed beneath it.
She held it in her hand. There were two halves of one of Dick Harborne’s visiting-cards—signedand torn across in a similar manner to those pieces which had been handed for the coroner’s inspection. Each half bore a number on its back, while on the front, as she placed them together, was Harborne’s name, both printed and written.
For a long time she had her eyes fixed upon it. Her brows narrowed, and in her eyes showed a distinct expression of terror.
“Yes,” she whispered; “I was a fool—a great fool to have dared so much—to have listened, and to have consented to go across to Bremen. But no one knows, except Dick—and he, alas!—he’s dead! Therefore who can possibly know?—no one.”
She held the halves of the torn card between her fingers for some moments, looking at them. Then, sighing deeply, she rose with sudden impulse and, crossing the room, took up a box of matches. Striking one, she applied it to the corners of the half cards and held the latter until the blue flame crept upwards and consumed them.
Then she cast them from her into the grate.
It was the end of her romance with that man who had been struck that cowardly blow in secret—Richard Harborne.
She stood gazing upon the tiny piece of tinder in the fender, immovable as a statue. Her dark brows slowly narrowed, her white, even teeth were set, her small hands clenched, as, beneath her breath, she uttered a fierce vow—a hard, bitter vow of vengeance.
Before her arose the vision of her good-looking lover, the man with the dark, intense eyes—RalphAnsell. And then the memory of the dead Dick Harborne instantly faded from her mind.
Her romance with Dick had been but a passing fancy. She had never really loved him. Indeed, he had never spoken to her of love. Yet he had fascinated her, and in his presence she had found herself impelled by his charm and his easy-going cosmopolitanism, so that she had listened to him and obeyed, even against her own will.
She recollected vividly that adventurous journey to Bremen—recalled it all as some half-forgotten, misty dream. She could feel now the crisp crackling of those Bank of England notes which she had carried secreted in her cheap little dressing-case with its electro-plated fittings. She remembered, too, the face of the stranger, the fat, sandy-haired German, whom she had met by appointment upon a flat country road a mile distant from the city towards Ottersberg—how he had given her, as credential, one of those pieces of visiting-card, together with a bulky letter, and how, in return, she had handed him the English bank-notes.
Then there was the mysterious packet she had subsequently given to Dick, when she had met him one evening and dined with him at the Trocadero. Then he had thanked her, and declared his great indebtedness.
From that night, until the day of the tragedy, she had not seen him. Indeed, she had made up her mind never to do so. Yet he had persuaded her to meet him at Mundesley, and she had consented,even though she knew what risk of detection by Ralph she must run.
Was it possible that Ralph knew?
The thought held her breathless.
Ralph Ansell loved her. He had sworn many times that no other man should love her. What if Dick’s death had been due to Ralph’s fierce jealousy!
The very suspicion staggered her.
Again she sank upon her little white bed, gripping the coverlet in her nervous fingers and burying her face in the pillow.
She examined her own heart, analysing her feelings as only a woman can analyse them.
Yes. She loved Ralph Ansell—loved him sincerely and well. Eighteen months ago he had casually entered the little restaurant one evening and ordered some supper from Pierre, the shabby, bald-headed waiter, who had been for so many years in her father’s service. At that moment Jean—who was employed in the daytime at the Maison Collette, the well-known milliners in Conduit Street—happened to be in the cash-desk of her father’s little establishment where one-and-sixpenny four-course luncheons and two-shilling six-course dinners were served.
From behind the brass grille she had gazed out upon the lonely, good-looking, well-dressed young fellow whom she saw was very nervous and agitated. Their eyes met, when he had instantly become calm, and had smiled at her.
He came the next night and the next, with eyes only for her, until he summed up courage to speakto her, with the result that they had become acquainted.
A young man of French birth, though his father had been an American domiciled in Paris, he was possessed of independent means, and lived in a cosy little bachelor flat half-way up Shaftesbury Avenue on the right-hand side. Far more French than English, in spite of his English name, he quickly introduced himself into the good graces of Jean’s father—the short, dapper oldrestaurateur, Louis Libert, a Provençal from the remote little town of Aix, a Frenchman whom many years’ residence in London had failed to anglicise.
For nearly twenty years old Louis Libert had kept the Restaurant Provence, in Oxford Street, yet Mme. Libert, on account of the English climate, had preferred to live with her mother in Paris, and for fully half the period had had her daughter Jean with her. In consequence, Jean, though she spoke English well, was, nevertheless, a true Parisienne.
Since her mother’s death, four years previously, she had lived in London, and was at present engaged as modiste at the Maison Collette, where many of the “creations” of that world-famous house were due to her own artistic taste and originality.
At first, her father had looked askance at the well-dressed young stranger who so constantly had dinner or supper at the restaurant, but ere long, in consequence of secret inquiries he had made of the hall porter of the flats in Shaftesbury Avenue, he had accepted the young man, and had even beengratified by the proposal of marriage which Ralph had placed before him.
Thus the pair had become engaged, the wedding being fixed to take place in the middle of November. Even as Jean stood there, a faint tap was heard at the door, and the maid-of-all-work announced:
“Mr. Ansell is downstairs, miss.”
Jean responded, and after washing her hands and patting her hair before the glass, put on her hat and descended to the rather dingy, old-fashioned drawing-room over the shop, where stood her lover alone at the open window, looking down upon the traffic in the broad, brilliantly-lit London thoroughfare.
Very neat and dainty she looked in her well-cut, dark skirt, and blouse of white crêpe de Chine, which she wore with a distinctly foreignchic, and as she entered, her pretty face was bright and happy: different, indeed, to the heavy, troubled expression upon it ten minutes before.
“Ah, Ralph!” she cried, in warm welcome, as she sprang into his ready arms, and he bent till his lips touched hers. “You are earlier than you expected,” she added in French. “I hardly thought you would be able to get back from the country in time to-night.”
“Well, you see, dearest, I made an effort, and here I am,” replied the young man with the strong, clean-shaven features and the large, round, penetrating eyes. “I’ve been travelling ever since three o’clock, and it’s now nearly ten.”
Though he, too, spoke in French, his appearance was very English. No one would have taken himfor anything else but an honest, upright, thorough-going young Englishman. He was of that strong, manly, well-set-up type, the kind of level-headed, steady young man, with whom no father would hesitate to entrust his daughter’s future. As he stood in his smart, blue serge suit with well-ironed trousers, and a fine diamond in his cravat, holding her in his arms and kissing her fondly, he looked the true lover, and assuredly their hearts beat in unison.
Jean Libert loved him with a great, all-consuming affection, a blind passion which obliterated any defects which she might have observed, and which endowed him in her eyes with all the qualities of a hero of romance.
They were, indeed, a handsome pair. Her dark head was resting upon his shoulder, while his strong right arm was about her slim waist.
Since her return, three days ago, from her summer holiday by the sea at Cromer they had not met. That morning, being Monday, she had resumed her daily labours in the big, long workroom of the Jewish firm who traded under the name of the Maison Collette, and she had, as is usual with girls, related to her friends many of the incidents of what she declared to be “a ripping holiday.”
As she stood with her white hand tenderly upon his shoulder, looking lovingly into his eyes, she was describing her return to business, and how she regretted that the long summer seaside days were no more, whereupon he said, cheerfully, in English:
“Never mind, darling; November will soon come, and you will then have no further need to go tobusiness. You will be mine. Shall we go out for a walk?” he suggested, noticing that she already had her hat on.
To his suggestion she willingly assented, and, raising her full, red lips to his, she kissed him, and then they descended to the restaurant below, empty at that hour save for the seedy old waiter, Pierre, and her father, an elderly, grey, sad-looking man, whose business in later years had, alas! sadly declined on account of the many restaurants which had sprung up along Oxford Street during the past ten years. He had seen better times, but nowadays it was always a hard struggle to make both ends meet, to pay the landlord and to live.
Ralph and old Libert exchanged greetings in French, and then, with Jean upon his arm, young Ansell stepped out into Oxford Street.
The August night was dry, warm, and starlit. Few people were about as they strolled along, chatting and laughing merrily. Before the theatres discharge their chattering crowds, the main thoroughfares of central London are usually quiet and half-deserted, and as the pair walked in the direction of Regent Street, Jean’s heart beat gladly with supreme satisfaction that at last Ralph had returned to London.
November! Far off seemed that day of all days in her life when she would be Ralph’s bride.
Upon her finger was the engagement ring he had given her, one set with diamonds of such fine quality that old Libert had wondered. Indeed, a jeweller, whose habit it was to take his luncheon there eachday, had noticed it upon Jean’s finger, and had valued it roughly at a hundred pounds. Therefore Ralph could certainly not be badly off!
They had turned the corner into Regent Street, but were too engrossed in each other’s conversation to notice that, in passing, a tall, grey-faced man, who wore a crush-hat, with a black coat over his evening clothes, had suddenly recognised Ansell.
For a few steps he strode on with apparent unconcern, then he paused and, having gazed for several moments after them still walking with linked arms, unconscious of being remarked, he turned on his heel, crossed the road, and strolled in the direction they were walking.
The watcher was the same grey-faced, keen-looking stranger who, earlier that day, had sat in the country schoolroom at North Walsham listening to the evidence given before the coroner concerning the mystery of the Norwich Road.
His thin lips curled in a smile—a smile of bitter triumph—as he went on with crafty footsteps behind the pair, watching them from across the road.
The right honourable the Earl of Bracondale, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, crossed his big, business-like library at Bracondale Hall, near Torquay, and stood upon the Turkey hearthrug ready to receive his visitor.
Beneath the red-shaded lamplight he presented a handsome picture, a tall, well-built man of refined elegance, upon whom the cares of State weighed rather heavily. His age was about forty-three, though, in his well-cut evening clothes, he looked much younger; yet his face undoubtedly denoted strength and cleverness, a sharpened intellect ever on the alert to outwit foreign diplomacy, while the lines across his brow betokened deep thought and frequent nights of sleeplessness.
To Great Britain’s Foreign Minister is entrusted the care of her good relations with both friends and enemies abroad, and surely no member of the Cabinet occupies such a position of grave responsibilities,for a false step upon his part, the revelation of a secret policy, of an unfriendly attitude maintained injudiciously, may at any moment cause the spark in the powder magazine of Europe.
To preserve peace, and yet be in a position to dictate to the Powers is what a British Foreign Minister must do, a task the magnitude and difficulty of which in these days can very easily be understood.
With his hands behind his back, his dark brow slightly contracted, his eyes were fixed blankly upon the big, littered writing-table before him; he was thinking deeply.
In profile his features were clean-cut, his forehead high and above the average intelligence; his hair, though a trifle scanty on top, was as yet untinged by grey, while he wore the ends of his carefully-trimmed moustache upturned, which gave him a slightly French appearance.
In his youthful days, long before he had succeeded to the title, he had been honorary attaché at the Embassy in Rome, and afterwards in Paris, to which was attributable the rather Continental style in which he wore both hair and moustache.
He drew his hand wearily across his brow, for ever since dinner he had never left his writing-table, so busy had he been with the great pile of documents which had been brought that afternoon by special messenger from the Foreign Office.
Suddenly Jenner, the grave old butler who had been fifty years in the service of his family, opened the door and announced:
“Mr. Darnborough, m’lord.”
“Halloa, Darnborough!” cried the earl cheerily, as his visitor entered. “Where have you sprung from at this time of night?”
“From London,” replied the other. “I wanted to see you urgently, so I ran down.”
And the two men shook hands.
That the visitor was no stranger to the house was apparent, for, without invitation, he sank into an arm-chair, stretched out his legs, and looked very gravely up into the face of the Cabinet Minister before him.
He was dressed in a dark brown suit, and was none other than the grey-faced stranger who, four days before, had sat in the schoolroom at North Walsham and had aroused the curiosity of the coroner.
“Well, Darnborough, what’s the matter?” asked the Earl, passing his visitor the cigar-box. “I can see there’s trouble by your face. What’s the latest problem—eh?”
The visitor selected a cigar, turned it over in his fingers critically, and then, rising suddenly, bit off the end viciously and crossed to the electric lighter near the fireplace.
“Well,” he answered, “there are several things. First, we know why poor Harborne was killed.”
“Good,” replied his lordship. “You Secret Service men always get to know all there is to know. You’re marvellous! Have you told them at Scotland Yard?”
“No, and I don’t mean to,” replied Hugh Darnborough,the chief of the British Secret Service, the clever, ingenious man whose fingers were upon the pulse of each of the Great Powers, and whose trusty agents were in every European capital. Long ago he had held a commission in the Tenth Hussars, but had resigned it to join the Secret Service, just as Dick Harborne had resigned from the Navy to become a cosmopolitan, and to be dubbed an adventurer by those in ignorance. That had been years ago, and now he held the position of being the most trusted man in any Government department, the confidant of each member of the Cabinet, and even of the Sovereign himself, who frequently received him in private audience.
“You have reasons for not telling them at Scotland Yard—eh?” asked the Foreign Minister.
“Strong ones,” replied the other, pulling hard at his cigar. “A woman who, I have ascertained, was on one occasion very useful to us, would be dragged into it—perhaps incriminated. And you know we are never anxious to court publicity.”
“Ah! A woman—eh?”
“Yes; a young, and rather pretty, woman.”
“And you’ve come all the way from London, and got here at eleven o’clock at night, to tell me this?”
“I have something else—of greater gravity.”
“Well, let’s hear the worst,” said the Earl with a sigh. “Every day brings its troubles. Look yonder!” and he pointed to the table. “Those are despatches from all the Embassies. The eternal Balkan trouble seems threatening to break out,unless we take strong action. Bulgaria is mobilising again, and Turkey is protesting.”
“There has been a leakage from the Admiralty. How, I cannot explain. A copy of the secret report upon our last naval manœuvres is in the hands of our friends in the Wilhelmstrasse.”
“What?” cried the Earl, starting, his face pale with alarm.
“I repeat that the report is known in Germany—every word of it!”
“And our weakness is thereby revealed?”
“The exact position is known.”
“But the confidential report has not yet come through to me!”
“And yet it has somehow leaked out from Whitehall,” Darnborough replied, drily.
“A full and drastic inquiry must be ordered. I will telephone at once to the First Lord.”
“He already knows. I saw him this afternoon,” was the quiet reply of the head of the Secret Service, a man whose coolness in great crises was always remarkable. When danger threatened he was always far more cool and collected than when all was plain sailing.
“But what are the main features of the report? Tell me, Darnborough. You always know everything.”
“The chief points of the secret report reached me from one of my agents in Berlin this morning. It was brought over by messenger,” replied the Earl’s visitor, seating himself and puffing thoughtfully at his cigar. “You will recollect that two fleets wereengaged in the North Sea, Blue being the British Fleet, and Red representing the German.”
“How foolish of the Admiralty not to have issued a report for public consumption. They ought to have done so long ago, and issued the confidential report afterwards—as was done two years ago,” interrupted His Majesty’s Minister.
“Yes, that is what should have been done,” the other assented. “It is useless to tell the world the truth when national defence is in question. But to resume. Blue’s commander was given two hundred and thirty ships to Red’s one hundred and seventeen, or nearly two to one. Blue had twenty-eight battleships and battle-cruisers to Red’s eighteen, or fifty-five per cent. more.”
“An advantage far greater than we should possess in actual war, unless every British fighting ship was brought home from the Mediterranean.”
“Exactly. War was declared on June 18th—earlier than is usual—and six days later a truce was suddenly ordered from Whitehall. War was resumed three days afterwards, but was stopped suddenly four days later.”
“Well, and what did really happen? I mean, what facts have our friends in Berlin got hold of?” asked the Earl, with the greatest interest.
“Proofs undeniable that, under our present arrangements for home defence, a serious raid must entail a vital blow at the heart of the Empire,” he replied slowly.
“How?” asked Lord Bracondale sharply.
“Because the enemy, notwithstanding all ourefforts at defence, our destroyers, our scouting hydroplanes, and our look-outs along the coast, raided the Humber, landing thirty-six thousand men, and, on the following day, made raids on the Wear, Blyth, and Sunderland, putting twenty-four thousand men ashore. Thus, four of the most important ports and bases on the East Coast were captured within two days, together with the wireless stations at Cleethorpes, Hunstanton, and Caister, and sixty thousand men were ashore. Moreover, the supposed enemy inflicted very heavy losses upon us without sustaining any disasters, and, further, they sent a strong force of cruisers into the Atlantic to prey upon British trade.”
“Bad,” sighed the Earl, the corners of his mouth hardening. “Very bad, Darnborough. It is to be hoped that the Press won’t get wind of this!”
The ubiquitous Chief of the Secret Service shrugged his shoulders.
“It may leak out to the Opposition journals, just as it has already leaked out to the Wilhelmstrasse. If the Admiralty had not ordered a sudden cessation of hostilities the enemy’s admiral would next have been heard of in such a position that a panic would have been caused throughout the country. As it was, the enemy’s submarines of the D and E classes, which were sent away to hunt on their own, established a reign of terror, getting to the entrance of Cromarty Harbour, which was our base, and torpedoing the ships which were guarding the Fleet inside. They also torpedoed the DreadnoughtsSt. VincentandCollingwood, while another section ofthe enemy’s submarines inflicted very heavy loss on the British Fleet in the North Sea and seized the wireless at Cleethorpes.”
The Earl was silent for a long time, thoughtfully stroking his moustache.
“But all this betrays our weakness to Germany!” he exclaimed at last. “It is astounding—incredible!”
“But it is, nevertheless, true,” remarked Darnborough. “The security of the country is in gravest danger. Why, only a few days ago the Post Office allowed Germany to lay another cable across the North Sea from Mundesley, in Norfolk, to the Island of Nordeney.”
“Mundesley?” repeated the Earl. “Why, that was where poor Harborne went on the day he lost his life.”
“Yes. He had been in that neighbourhood for some time—upon a secret mission, poor fellow!—a mission which he had not lived to fulfil.”
A silence fell between the two men.
“The situation is, I see, one of the utmost gravity. Steps must be taken at once to reassure the public in case rumours should be published regarding the truth. The Opposition will certainly not spare the Government the facts, and must, if disclosed, give an impetus to the campaign for universal service, which would be very inconvenient to us at the present time. And more than that—Germany now actually knows the rottenness of our defences!”
“That, unfortunately, is the case.”
The Earl of Bracondale bit his under lip. A Cabinet Council had been summoned for the nextafternoon, and he must place the true situation before it. All the clever diplomacy he had exercised with the Powers during the past five years had now been nullified, and England stood exposed in all her vulnerability. The inflated bubble of the strong, invincible British Navy had been pricked and burst.
Black days had, alas! fallen upon our nation, and a grave peril hourly threatened. Germany had hitherto hesitated to attack England because of the uncertainty regarding our true strength. Our land defences were known to Germany, even to the most minute detail, all reported accurately and methodically by the enemy’s spies living amongst us. But our naval secrets had all been well preserved, so that the British Fleet had always been regarded as able to repel invasion and make reprisals.
Now, however, its failure to prevent an armed raid was known to our friends across the North Sea, and most certainly they would seek to take advantage of the valuable knowledge they had gained.
Suddenly the Earl, turning to where Darnborough stood, exclaimed:
“You spoke of poor Harborne. He was a smart agent, I believe?”
“The best I ever had. He was clever, ingenious, utterly fearless, and devoted to the service. You will recollect how he obtained the accurate clauses of the secret Japanese treaty, and how he brought to us news of the secret French agreement over the Morocco question.”
“I recollect,” replied the Foreign Minister.“When he told me I would not believe it. Yet his information proved correct.”
“Harborne’s death is to be deeply regretted,” Darnborough said. “I attended the inquest. Of course, to the public, the motive is a mystery.”
“Not to you—eh, Darnborough?”
“No. If Richard Harborne had lived, Germany would never have learnt the truth regarding the recent naval manœuvres,” was the reply of the Chief of the Secret Service.
“You said something about a woman. Is she known?”
“No. I have suspicions that an indiscretion was committed—a grave indiscretion, which cost poor Harborne his life. Yet what is one man’s life to his enemies when such a secret is at stake?”
“But who was the woman?”
“A friend of Harborne’s. She had been, I believe, useful to him in certain negotiations regarding the purchase of copies of plans of the new Krupp aerial gun, and in several other matters.”
“Any suspicion regarding her?” asked the Earl quickly.
“None. She is, of course, in ignorance of the truth, and probably unaware who killed the man with whom she was so friendly. I am endeavouring to trace her.”
“Is she a lady?”
“No. A French milliner, I understand.”
“A little romance of Harborne’s which has ended fatally?”
“Yes—poor Harborne!” sighed the grey-facedman, in whose keeping were the secrets of the Empire, and who knew more of the political undercurrents of Europe than any other living person. “His loss is very great to us, for he was a fine specimen of the true-hearted, patriotic Englishman,” he added, pulling hard at his cigar. “His place will be hard to fill—very hard.”
“I know, Darnborough,” remarked Lord Bracondale gravely. “To such a man the country ought to erect a monument, for he has laid down his life for his country. But, alas! our country recognises no heroes of the Secret Service!”
And as the Cabinet Minister spoke the telephone-bell rang. He crossed to his writing-table, took up the instrument, and responded to an urgent call from the House of Commons in London, where an important and heated debate regarding our foreign relations was in progress.
The day had been hot and stifling in London—one of those blazing days when the tar on the roadway perfumes the air, the dry pavements reflect back the heat into one’s face, and the straw-hatted Metropolis—or the portion of it that is still in town—gasps and longs for the country or the sea.
The warm weather was nearly at an end, and most holiday-makers were back again. London’s workers had had their annual fortnight long ago, and had nearly forgotten it, and now only principals were away golfing, taking waters at Harrogate, Woodhall Spa, or in the Scotch hydros, or perhaps travelling on the Continent.
From the high-up windows in Shaftesbury Avenue, close to Piccadilly Circus, Ralph Ansell looked down upon the busy traffic of motor-buses, taxis, and cars, the dark-red after-glow shining full upon his keen, clean-shaven face.
He was already dressed to go out to dinner, and as he stood in his cosy bachelor rooms—a pleasant, artistic little place with soft crimson carpet, big, comfortable, leather arm-chairs, and a profusion of photographs, mostly of the fair sex, decorating mantelshelf and walls—his brows were narrowed and he blew big clouds of cigarette smoke from his lips.
Suddenly the door opened and a man, shorter and rather thick-set, also in evening clothes, entered. He was evidently French, and possessed neither the good looks nor the elegance of Ansell.
“Ah! my dear Adolphe!” Ralph cried in French, springing forward to welcome him. “I hardly expected you yet. Your train from Paris was not late—eh? Well, how goes it?”
“Infernally hard up—as usual,” was his visitor’s reply, as he tossed his black overcoat on to the couch, flung his soft felt hat after it, and then sank into a chair. “Why all this emergency—eh?”
The man who spoke was of low type, with black, rather curly hair, sharp, shrewd eyes like his friend’s, ears that lay slightly away from his head, and a large, rather loose, clean-shaven mouth. Between his eyes were three straight lines, for his brow wore a constant look of care and anxiety. He did not possess that careless, easy, gentlemanly air of Ansell, but was of a coarser and commoner French type, the type one meets every day in the Montmartre, which was, indeed, the home of Adolphe Carlier.
Ansell walked to the door, opened it as if toascertain there was no eavesdropper, and, closing and locking it, returned to his friend’s side.
“I sent for you, my dear friend, because I want you,” he said, in a low voice, gazing straight at him.
“Anything good?” asked the other, stretching out his legs and placing his clasped hands behind his head wearily.
“Yes, an easy job. The usual game.”
“A jeweller’s?”
Ansell nodded in the affirmative.
“Where?”
“Not far from here.”
“Much stuff?”
“A lot of good stones.”
“And the safe?”
“Easy enough with the jet,” Ansell answered. “You’ve brought over all the things, I suppose?”
“Yes. But it was infernally risky. I was afraid the Customs might open them at Charing Cross,” Carlier replied.
“You never need fear. They never open anything here. This is not like Calais or Boulogne.”
“I shan’t take them back.”
“You won’t require to, my dear Adolphe,” laughed Ansell, who, though in London he posed as a young man of means, was well known in a certain criminal set in Paris as “The American,” because of his daring exploits in burglary and robbery with violence.
A year before, this exemplary young man, together with Adolphe Carlier, known as “Fil-en-Quatre,”or “The Eel,” had been members of the famous Bonnemain gang, to whose credit stood some of the greatest and most daring jewel robberies in France. For several years the police had tried to bring their crimes home to them, but without avail, until the great robbery at Louis Verrier’s, in the Rue des Petit-Champs, when a clerk in the employ of the well-known diamond dealer was shot dead by Paul Bonnemain. The latter was arrested, tried for murder, and executed, the gang being afterwards broken up.
The malefactors had numbered eight, six of whom, including Bonnemain himself, had been arrested, the only ones escaping being Carlier, who had fled to Bordeaux, where he had worked at the docks till the affair had blown over, while Ansell, whosedossiershowed a very bad record, had sought refuge in England.
The pair had not met since the memorable evening nine months before, when Ansell had been sitting in the Grand Café, and Carlier had slipped in to warn him that the police had arrested Bonnemain and the rest, and had already been to his lodgings. Two hours later, without baggage or any encumbrance, he had reached Melun in a hired motor-car, and had thence left it at midnight for Lyons, after which he doubled his tracks and travelled by way of Cherbourg across to Southampton, while Carlier had, on that same night, fled to Orleans.
Part of the proceeds of the robbery at the diamond merchants had been divided up by the gang prior to Bonnemain’s arrest—or rather the fifty thousandfrancs advanced by the Jew broker from Amsterdam to whom they always sold their booty. Therefore both men had been possessed of funds. Like others of their profession, they made large gains, but spent freely, and were continually short of money. Old Bonnemain, however, had brought burglary to a fine art, and from the proceeds of eachcouphe used to keep back a certain amount out of which to assist the needy among his accomplices.
Ansell, in addition, had a second source of revenue, inasmuch as he was on friendly terms with a certain Belgian Baron, who, though living in affluence in Paris, was nevertheless a high official of the German Secret Service. It was, indeed, his habit to undertake for the Baron certain disagreeable little duties which he did not care to perform himself, and for such services he was usually highly paid. Hence, when he fled to London, it was not long before a German secret agent called upon him and put before him a certain proposal, the acceptance of which had resulted in the death of Dick Harborne.
The young adventurer threw himself into the arm-chair opposite to where Adolphe Carlier was seated, and in the twilight unfolded his scheme for acoupat a well-known jeweller’s in Bond Street, at which he was already a customer and had thoroughly surveyed the premises.
“I expected that you had some new scheme in hand,” Carlier said at last, in French, after listening attentively to the details of the proposition, every one of which had been most carefully thought out by the pupil of the notorious Bonnemain. “Onarrival this afternoon I put up at the Charing Cross Hotel—so as to be handy if we have to get out quickly.”
“Good. Probably we shall be compelled to move pretty slick,” Ansell said, in English. Then, after a few moments’ pause, he added: “Do you know, my dear Adolphe, I have some news for you.”
“News?”
“Yes. I’m going to be married in November.”
“Married!” echoed Carlier, staring at his friend. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“She’s French; lives here in London; smart, sweet—a perfect peach,” was his answer. “She’ll be a lot of use to us in future.”
Carlier was silent for a few moments.
“Does she know anything?” he asked in a low, serious voice.
“Nothing.”
“What will she say when she knows?”
“What can she say?” asked Ansell, with a grin.
“She’s not one of us, I suppose?”
“One of us? Why, no, my dear fellow. I’ll introduce you to-morrow. You must dine with us—dine before we go out and do the job. But she must not suspect anything—you understand?”
“Of course,” replied the young Frenchman. “I’ll be delighted to meet her, Ralph, but—but I’m thinking it is rather dangerous for you to marry an honourable girl.”
“What?” cried the other, angry in an instant. “Do you insinuate that I’m not worthy to have a decent, well-brought-up girl for a wife?”
“Ah! you misunderstand me,mon vieux. I insinuate nothing,” replied Carlier. “I scent danger, that is all. She may turn from you when—well—when she knows what we really are.”
Ansell’s mouth hardened.
“When she knows she’ll have to grin and bear it,” was the answer.
“She might give us away.”
“No, she won’t do that, I can assure you. The little fool loves me too well.”
“Is that the way you speak of her?”
“Every girl who loves a man blindly is, in my estimation, a fool.”
“Then your estimation of woman is far poorer than I believed, Ralph,” responded Carlier. “If a girl loves a man truly and well, as apparently this young lady loves you, then surely she ought not to be sneered at. We have, all of us, loved at one time or other in our lives.”
“You’re always a sentimental fool where women are concerned, Adolphe,” laughed his companion.
“I may be,” answered the other. “And I can assure you that I would never dare to marry while leading the life I do.”
“And what better life can you ever hope to lead, pray? Do we not get excitement, adventure, money, pleasure—everything that makes life worth living? Neither you nor I could ever settle down to the humdrum existence of so-called respectability. But are these people who pose as being so highly respectable really any more honest than we are? No, my dear friend. The sharks on the Bourse andthe sharp men of business are just as dishonest. They are thieves like ourselves under a more euphonious name.”
Carlier smiled at his friend’s philosophy. Yet he was thinking of the future of the girl with whom he was, as yet, unacquainted—the girl who had chosen to link her life with that of the merry, careless, but unscrupulous young fellow before him. They were bosom friends, it was true, yet he knew, alas! how utterly callous Ralph Ansell was where women were concerned, and he recollected certain ugly rumours he had heard, even in their own undesirable circle.
They spoke of Jean again, and Ralph told him her name.
“We will dine there to-morrow night,” he added. “Then we will come on here, and go forth to Bond Street at half-past eleven. I’ve watched the police for the past week, and know their exact beat. Better bring round the things you’ve brought from Paris in a taxi to-morrow morning.”
The “things” referred to were an oxy-acetylene gas-jet, and a number of the latest inventions of burglarious tools—indeed, all the equipment of the expert safe-breaker.
That night the pair went forth and dined at the Café Royal in Regent Street, and afterwards went to the Palace Theatre, finishing up at a night club in Wardour Street. Then, on the following morning, Carlier returned, bringing with him the heavy but unsuspicious-looking travelling trunk he had conveyed from Paris.
In the evening Ralph and he went to the ProvenceRestaurant, but, to their disappointment, Jean was not there. She had been home, but had left half an hour later to go to Balham to visit one of her fellow-assistants at the Maison Collette who was dangerously ill. She had taken with her some fruit and flowers.
Annoyed at her absence, Ralph had suggested the Trocadero for dinner.
“It’s better than in this wretched little hole,” he added to Carlier, in an undertone. “And we’ll want a good dinner before we get to business,” he added, with a sinister grin.
So they had wished old Libert a merrybon soir, and were driven in a taxi along to the Trocadero grill-room, where, amid the clatter of plates, the chatter, and the accompanying orchestra, they found themselves in their own element.
At half-past ten they ascended to Ansell’s flat, and each had a stiff brandy-and-soda and a cigar.
Both men were expert thieves, therefore it was not surprising that, by half-past two o’clock next morning, wearing cotton gloves and dark spectacles to hide the glare from the jet, they stood together before the great safe at the back of Matheson and Wilson’s, the well-known jewellers, and while Ansell put up his hand and cleared shelf after shelf of magnificent ornaments, Adolphe expertly packed them away into the small black canvas bag he held open.
Those were breathless, exciting moments. The jet had done its work. It had gone through thehardened steel plates like a knife through butter, and the door, believed to be burglar-proof, stood open, displaying wonderful diamond tiaras in cases, ropes of pearls and paper packets containing uncut gems worth a huge amount.
The haul was a magnificent one, and though they had not yet succeeded in getting clear, both men were gloating over their booty—a triumphant satisfaction that no burglar can repress.
The scene was a weird one. The glaring light thrown by the jet had been extinguished, but the steel still glowed with heat, and Ansell blistered his fingers when they had accidentally touched the edge. The only light now was a small electric torch which threw direct rays in a small zone. But of a sudden, both men heard a noise—the distinct footsteps of a man crossing the shop!
They straightened their backs, and, for a second, looked at each other in alarm.
Next instant a big, burly night-watchman dashed in upon them, crying:
“What do you fellows want ’ere—eh?”
“Nothing. Take that!” replied Ansell, as he raised his hand and dashed something into the man’s face.
But too late. The man raised his revolver and fired.
Though the bullet went wide, the report was deafening in that small inner room, and both intruders knew that the alarm was raised. Not a second was to be lost. The police-constable on duty outside would hear it!
Without hesitation, Ralph Ansell raised his arm and instantly fired, point blank, at the man defending the property of his master.
A second report rang out, and the unfortunate night-watchman fell back into the darkness. There was a sound of muffled footsteps.
Then all was silence.
A year had gone by.
Since that memorable night when Ansell and Carlier had so narrowly escaped capture in Bond Street, and had been compelled to fly and leave their booty behind, things had gone badly with both of them.
With Bonnemain executed, and their other companions in penal servitude at Cayenne, a cloud of misfortune seemed to have settled upon them.
Of the tragedy on the Norwich road no more had been heard. The police had relinquished their inquiries, the affair had been placed upon the long list of unsolved mysteries, and it had passed out of the public mind. Only to the British Cabinet had the matter caused great suspense and serious consideration, while it had cost the Earl of Bracondale, as Foreign Minister, the greatest efforts of the most delicate diplomacy to hold his own in defiance to the German intentions. For two whole monthsthe Foreign Office had lived in daily expectation of sudden hostilities. In the Wilhelmstrasse the advisability of a raid upon our shores had been seriously discussed, and the War Council were nearly unanimous in favour of crossing swords with England.
Only by the clever and ingenious efforts of British secret agents in Berlin, who kept Darnborough informed of all in progress, was Lord Bracondale able to stem the tide and guide the ship of state into the smooth waters of peace.
And of all this the British public had remained in blissful ignorance. The reader of the morning paper was assured that never in this decade had the European outlook been so peaceful, and that our relations with our friends in Berlin were of the most cordial nature. Indeed, there was some talk of anentente.
The reader was, however, in ignorance that for weeks on end the British fleet had been kept in the vicinity of the North Sea, and that the destroyer flotillas were lying in the East Coast harbours with steam up, ready to proceed to sea at a moment’s notice.
Nevertheless, the peril had passed once again, thanks to the firm, fearless attitude adopted by Lord Bracondale, and though the secret of England’s weakness was known and freely commented upon in Government circles in Berlin, yet the clamorous demands of the war party were not acceded to. The British lion had shown his teeth, and Germany had again hesitated.
Ralph Ansell and Adolphe Carlier, after the failure of their plot to rob Matheson and Wilson’s, in Bond Street, had fled next day to Belgium, and thence had returned to France.
Ralph had seen Jean for a few moments before his flight, explaining that his sudden departure was due to the death of his uncle, a landowner near Valence, in whose estate he was interested, and she, of course, believed him.
So cleverly, indeed, did he deceive her that it was not surprising that old Libert and his daughter should meet the young adventurer at the Hotel Terminus at Lyons one day in November, and that three days later Ralph and Jean were married at the Mairie. Then while the oldrestaurateurreturned to London, the happy pair went South to Nice for their honeymoon.
While there Adolphe Carlier called one day at their hotel—a modest one near the station—and was introduced to Jean.
From the first moment they met, Adolphe’s heart went forth to her in pity and sympathy. Though a thief bred and born, and the son of a man who had spent the greater part of his life in prison, Carlier was ever chivalrous, even considerate, towards a woman. He was coarser, and outwardly more brutal than Ralph Ansell, whose veneer of polish she, in her ignorance of life, found so attractive, yet at heart, though an expert burglar, and utterly unscrupulous towards his fellows, he was, nevertheless, always honourable towards a woman.
When their hands clasped and their eyes metupon their introduction, she instantly lowered hers, for, with a woman’s intuition, she knew that in this companion of her husband’s she had a true friend. And he, on his part, became filled with admiration of her great beauty, her wonderful eyes, and her soft, musical voice.
And he turned away, affecting unconcern, although in secret he sighed for her and for her future. She was far too good to be the wife of such a man as Ralph Ansell.
Months went on, and to Jean the mystery surrounding Ralph became more and more obscure.
At first they had lived quietly near Bordeaux, now and then receiving visits from Adolphe. On such occasions the two men would be closeted together for hours, talking confidentially in undertones. Then, two months after their marriage, came a telegram one day, stating that her father had died suddenly. Both went at once to London, only to find that poor old Libert had died deeply in debt. Indeed, there remained insufficient money to pay for the funeral.
Therefore, having seen her father buried at Highgate, Jean returned with Ralph to Paris, where they first took a small, cosy apartment of five rooms in the Austerlitz quarter; but as funds decreased, they were forced to economise and sink lower in the social scale—to the Montmartre.
To Jean, who had believed Ralph to be possessed of ample means, all this came as a gradual disillusionment.Her husband began quickly to neglect her, to spend his days in thecafés, often in Adolphe’s company, while the men he brought to their rooms were, though well-dressed, of a very different class to those with whom she had been in the habit of associating in London.
But the girl never complained. She loved Ralph with a fond, silent passion, and even the poor circumstances in which already, after ten months of married life, she now found herself, did not trouble her so long as her husband treated her with consideration.
As regards Adolphe, she rather avoided than encouraged him. Her woman’s keenness of observation showed her that he sympathised with her and admired her—in fact, that he was deeply in love with her, though he strenuously endeavoured not to betray his affection.
Thus, within a year of the tragic end of Dick Harborne, Jean found herself living in a second-floor flat in a secluded house in the Boulogne quarter, not far from the Seine, a poor, working-class neighbourhood. The rooms, four in number, were furnished in the usual cheap and gaudy French style, the floor of bare, varnished boards, save where strips of Japanese matting were placed.
On that warm August evening, Jean, in a plain, neatly-made black dress, with a little white collar of Swiss embroidery, and wearing a little apron of spotted print—for their circumstances did not permit the keeping of a “bonne”—was seated inher small living-room, sewing, and awaiting the return of her husband.
She had, alas! met with sad disillusionment. Instead of the happy, affluent circumstances which she had fondly imagined would be hers, she had found herself sinking lower and lower. Her parents were now both dead, and she had no one in whom to confide her suspicions or fears. Besides, day after day, Ralph went out in the morning after hiscafé-au-lait, and only returned at eight o’clock to eat the dinner which she prepared—alas! often to grumble at it. Slowly—ah! so very slowly—the hideousness and mockery of her marriage was being forced upon her.
Gradually, as she sat at the open window waiting his coming, and annoyed because the evening meal which she had so carefully cooked was spoilt by his tardiness, the dusk faded and darkness crept on.
She felt stifled, and longed again for the fresh air of the country. Before her, as she sat with her hands idle in her lap, there arose memories of that warm afternoon when, in that charming little fishing village in England, she had met her good friend Richard Harborne, the man who that very same evening fell beneath an assassin’s knife.
Her thoughts were stirred from the fact that, while out that morning, Mme. Garnier, from whom she purchased her vegetables daily, had given her a marguerite. This she wore in the breast of her gown, and its sight caused her to reflect that onthat never-to-be-forgotten afternoon at Mundesley, when she had walked with Harborne, he, too, had given her a similar flower. Perfumes and flowers always stir our memories of the past!
She sat gazing out into the little moss-grown courtyard below, watching for Ralph’s coming. That quarter of Paris was a poor one, inhabited mainly by artisans, yet the house was somewhat secluded, situated as it was in a big square courtyard away from the main thoroughfare. Because it was quiet, Ralph had taken it, and further, because Mme. Brouet, theconcierge, a sharp-faced, middle-aged woman, wife of a cobbler, who habitually wore a small black knitted shawl, happened to be an acquaintance of his.
But, alas! the place was dismal enough. The outlook was upon a high, blank, dirty wall, while below, among the stones, grass and rank weeds grew everywhere.
The living room in which the girl sat was poor and comfortless, though she industriously kept the place clean. It was papered gaudily with broad stripes, while the furniture consisted of a cheap little walnut sideboard, upon which stood a photograph in a frame, a decanter, a china sugar-bowl, and some plates, while near it was a painted, movable cupboard on which stood a paraffin lamp with green cardboard shade, and a small fancy timepiece, which was out of order and had stopped.
In the centre of the room was a round table, upon which was a white cloth with blue border and places laid for two, and four rush-bottomed chairs placedupon the square of Japanese matting covering the centre of the room completed the picture.
Jean laid aside her needlework—mending one of Ralph’s shirts—and sighed over the might-have-been.
“I wonder what it all means?” she asked herself aloud. “I wonder what mysterious business Ralph has so constantly with Adolphe? And why does Mme. Brouet inquire so anxiously after Ralph every day?”
For the past fortnight her husband, whose clothes had now become very shabby, had given her only a few francs each day, just sufficient with which to buy food. Hitherto he had taken her out for walks after dusk, and sometimes they had gone to a cinema or to one of the cheaper music-halls. But, alas! nowadays he never invited her to go with him. Usually he rose at noon, after smoking many cigarettes in bed, ate his luncheon, and went out, returning at any time between six and eight, ate his dinner, often sulkily, and then at nine Carlier would call for him, and the pair would be out till midnight.
She little guessed in what a queer, disreputable set the pair moved, and that her husband was known in the Montmartre as “The American.” She was in ignorance, too, how Ralph, finding himself without funds, had gone to the Belgian Baron—the secret agent of Germany—and offered him further services, which had, however, been declined.
At first Ansell had been defiant and threatening, declaring that he would expose the Baron to the police as a foreign spy. But the stout, fair-moustachedman who lived in the fine house standing in its own spacious grounds out at Neuilly, on the other side of the Bois de Boulogne, had merely smiled and invited him to carry out his threat.
“Do so, my friend,” he laughed, “and you will quickly find yourself arrested and extradited to England charged with murder. So if you value your neck, it will, I think, be best for you to keep a still tongue. There is the door.Bon soir.”
And he had shown his visitor out.
At first Ansell, who took a walk alone in the Bois, vowed vengeance, but a few hours later, after reflecting upon the whole of the grim circumstances, had come to the conclusion that silence would be best.
Though he had endeavoured not to show it, he was already regretting deeply that he had married. Had he been in better circumstances, Jean might, he thought, have been induced to assist him in some of his swindling operations, just as the wives of other men he knew had done. A woman can so often succeed where a man fails. But as he was almost without a sou, what could he do?
Truth to tell, both he and Carlier were in desperate straits.
Jean had been quick to notice the change in both men, but she had remained in patience, making no remark, though the whole circumstances puzzled her, and often she recollected how happy she had been at the Maison Collette when she had lived at home, and Ralph, so smart and gentlemanly, had called to see her each evening.
These and similar thoughts were passing through her mind, when suddenly she was recalled to her present surroundings by Ralph’s sudden entrance.
“Halloa!” he cried roughly. “Dinner ready?”
“It has been ready more than an hour, dear,” she replied, in French, jumping to her feet and passing at once into the tiny kitchen beyond.