Kitabı oku: «The Great God Gold», sayfa 17
Chapter Thirty Four
“Silence for Silence!”
“You!”
It was the only word which the girl uttered, but its tone showed her horror and indignation.
The green-shaded light was, she saw, switched on at the writing-table, and as she entered, there before her, seated in her father’s chair, was the man who had posed as Frank’s friend, “Captain Wetherton!”
As she had slowly opened the door he had raised his head, pale and startled. But only for a second. When he recognised who it was, he rose and, bowing, smiled with perfect sangfroid.
He had entered the house with the false latch-key which he had had made from the wax impression he had taken of the key which Gwen had carried on that night of the false assignation. His only fear had been, however, a meeting with the girl Laura.
Now that he saw that it was not she, he only smiled triumphantly.
“Yes,” he said simply. “It’s me! Are you very surprised?”
Instantly she recognised that, upon the blotting-pad, was lying open the precious document which she herself had typed. He had opened the drawer, abstracted it, and read it.
He, her enemy, knew their secret!
“By what right, pray, are you here, sir?” she demanded, advancing into the room boldly, and facing him.
“I have no right. I’m here just by my own will,” was his quick, defiant response.
“This is my father’s house, and I shall alarm him,” she said determinedly. “You have no right thus to pry into his private affairs!”
“I have to decide that, Miss Griffin,” he said, as over his dark face spread that evil smile she remembered so well.
Having risen from the chair, he had now advanced closely to her. She noticed that he wore thick woollen socks over his boots, so as to muffle his footsteps, while upon his hands were a pair of grey suède gloves which appeared too large for him. Jim Jannaway had been a man of many precautions, ever since his finger-prints had been taken on a certain memorable day at Ipswich police-station, prior to his conviction.
“But,” he laughed, examining her from head to toe, “you really look charming, my dear little girl – even better than when in your walking kit. Why!” he exclaimed, pointing across the room. “Why – what’s that – over there?”
She turned suddenly, taking her eyes off him for an instant, but saw nothing. His ruse succeeded, for that instant was sufficient for him to slip behind her and close the door, turning the key in the lock.
“I must apologise for doing this in your own house, Miss Griffin, but I fear that we may be overheard,” he said. “Now I want to have a very serious chat with you.”
“I wish to say nothing to you, sir,” she replied drawing herself up haughtily, the train of her pretty gown sweeping the floor. “I only demand to know what you are doing here, reading my father’s papers.”
“And suppose I refuse to tell you – eh?” he asked, raising his brows.
“Then I shall scream, and alarm the household. They will hand you over to the police.”
“And if you were so ill-advised as to do that, Miss Griffin,” answered the fellow impudently, advancing a step nearer to her, and looking straight into her face. “Well – you would suffer very severely for it. That’s all.”
“I’m prepared to take all the consequences,” was her calm reply.
“Take care!” he said threateningly, in a low hoarse voice. “I’m a desperate man when driven into a corner.”
“You mean rather that you’re a coward when cornered,” she said coldly. “I am glad to have this opportunity of meeting, in order to repay you for the gross injustice which you have done me.”
“You’re a little fool!” he said in a hard tone. “Keep quiet, or somebody will hear you.”
“You entrapped me in that place. I have now entrapped you – in my own house,” she exclaimed, with a look of triumph.
“Not for long,” he said determinedly. “Do you know that I could strangle you where you stand, and still get clear. Even though you screamed. I already have a rope on the balcony yonder, down into the street. But don’t be alarmed. I have no wish to injure you, my dear little girl – not in the least. We will just make an arrangement, and cry quits.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, listen. You’ve discovered me here, and you could give me away. But I want to buy your silence.”
“Buy my silence!” she exclaimed, staring at him. “Yes. Why not? You must buy mine. Shall we not then be quits?”
She regarded him with a puzzled air. He was her bitterest foe, and she was wondering what was the true meaning of the suggestion. She was undecided, too, whether not to alarm the house, instead of parleying further. She had caught the fellow in her father’s room wearing the apparel of the modern burglar, therefore the police would, without doubt, arrest him as such.
Suddenly her mind was made up, and with a quick movement she rushed across to the electric bell beside the fireplace.
He gave vent to a short dry laugh of triumph, the reason of which was next second plain. The little porcelain push had been broken, and the contact disarranged.
Jim Jannaway always took precautions. He was a cool and calculating scoundrel.
She turned upon him in quick anger, and he saw that she intended to scream for help.
“One moment, if you please, Miss Griffin,” he cried in a low voice. “Just hear my suggestion before you raise the alarm and compel me to depart hurriedly through the window. A word now will save both of us a great deal of unnecessary bother afterwards. You’re a very brave little girl, and I admire you for it. Most other girls, on seeing me here, would have gone into hysterics, or fainted. But you’re a little ‘brick.’”
“Thank you, this is really no time for compliments,” was her cold, resentful reply. “Please say what you have to say, and quickly.”
She had managed to cross the room half-way, and from where she now stood she could see that the precious document she had typed lay open at its last page. The fellow had evidently read it all!
“Well,” he said, in that easy-going manner of his that she found so extremely irritating. “As far as I can at present discern, Miss Griffin, the game is a drawn one. I can quite – ”
“I consider it blackguardly impertinence on your part to enter my father’s house at night, and read his private papers,” she protested, her face pale and determined.
“My dear girl, to me your opinion of my actions really doesn’t matter,” he laughed. “I wanted to discover something, and have adopted the easiest means of doing so.”
“Even at risk of being arrested?”
“Oh, I shan’t be arrested,” he laughed. “Don’t think I’m afraid of that. Why, my dear girl, perhaps you wouldn’t believe it, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been in this very room. I know what’s in all those drawers yonder, and even the balance in your father’s banker’s pass-book.”
“You’ve been here before!” gasped the girl astounded. “How did you get in?”
“Why, with your own key. It was easy enough. Your servants never bolt the front door. They really ought to be more careful, you know,” he laughed.
She hesitated for a moment, and in that slight hesitation he, crafty malefactor that he was, recognised that he had triumphed.
“I may presume, I suppose, that you’ve read that document upon the writing-table?” she asked a moment later.
“I have – every word of it,” he replied, with a polite bow.
“That is why you came here?”
“It was. I really expected to experience greater trouble in finding it. I opened only three drawers before coming across it.”
“Probably you’d like a copy of it,” she said, with bitter sarcasm.
“Thank you, no. I have a very excellent memory, and can recollect all I require. Besides, I’ve taken a few notes,” was the bold and defiant answer, “All I would request of you, my dear girl, is to keep a still tongue in your head, go up to bed, and forget all about this unexpected meeting. Such a course will be much the best for you, I assure you.”
“You – my enemy, are trying to advise me as a friend – eh? This is really amusing! I tell you quite frankly that I intend to give you over to the police. You cleverly entrapped me, and now from me you may expect no clemency.”
“I want none,” he laughed. “But if I’m arrested, your friend, ‘Red Mullet,’ shall also see the inside of a prison again. I promise you that.”
“He is innocent of this burglary,” she said.
“But he isn’t innocent of certain other little matters about which Scotland Yard will be only too delighted to know,” replied the fellow, with an evil grin. “So if you don’t want him to go to ‘quod’ – and he’s been pretty good to you, I think – you’d better remain silent about to-night. And there’s the other matter – the – ”
And he paused, and looked straight into her face, without concluding.
“Well?” she asked in a hard voice, holding the train of her robe with one hand, and still facing him boldly. “And what is the other matter, pray?”
“I wish to tell you quite plainly that if you choose to be a little fool, you’ll take the consequences. They’ll fall on you, and pretty heavily too. Trust me to escape them.”
“And I tell you that I intend to be a little fool, as you so politely put it,” was her fearless response. “It is my duly to my father to go at once and tell him of my discovery. And I will!”
“Very well,” he answered quite calmly, his evil eyes still fixed upon hers. “Go. You are perfectly at liberty. To me, it is of no great consequence, but to you it will mean both the ruin of your reputation and the loss of your lover!”
“How?” she gasped quickly, her face in an instant as pale as death.
“How?” he echoed in a fierce low whisper, advancing until he was close to the girl. “Cannot you see that I shall tell Frank Farquhar the truth of your absence from your home – that you met me, and stayed with me in those rooms!”
“You scoundrel!” she cried, drawing away from him, her cheeks flushed with sudden anger. “You threatened this before – you despicable coward, to thus try and take advantage of a woman’s good name! You destroyed that false telegram, so that I should not have it to show as proof!”
“You could get a copy from the post-office, I daresay,” he laughed airily. “But I merely make plain what is my intention, and that’s why I’ve come to the conclusion that the game between us is a drawn one.”
“Your threats have no terror for me!” she exclaimed, turning fiercely upon him. He saw that in her big eyes was determination and defiance, and was surprised.
“Then shout away, my dear girl – scream the house down, if you like,” he laughed coolly, as though with utter unconcern. “But just let me put things straight again first.” Then walking to the writing-table he took the translation of the decipher, replaced it in its drawer, and relocked it with a key he drew from his pocket.
His coolness was amazing, his cunning, extraordinary. The long window leading to the balcony over the portico was ajar. He had fixed a thin silken rope to the railings ready for escape to the street in case of necessity.
“Your conduct is abominable!” she ejaculated. “What harm have I done you that I should deserve this?”
“My dear girl, my conduct is only abominable of necessity, I assure you,” he argued with an impudent smile. “Our compact is simple enough. You do not wish to lose the man you love. Indeed, why should you?”
“Ah! why indeed?” she cried. “I have you alone to thank for all the evil suspicions cast upon me.”
“You have told them nothing – of course. You’re far too clever for that – eh?” he remarked, standing easily before her with his hands in his pockets. “Besides, what could you say?”
“I could say nothing,” she replied bitterly. “I only know that you lied to me, by posing as Frank’s friend.”
“My dear little girl,” he answered with an arrogant laugh. “I was compelled to tell you a fairy-story, because – well, shall I tell you the truth? – because I was so very anxious for the loan of your latch-key.”
“Then why was I kept there a prisoner? Why did that red-faced blackguard come to me, and threaten me?”
“I had nothing whatever to do with that. I was not there,” he protested.
“You enticed me into the hateful place by saying that Frank was in hiding there,” she replied firmly.
“For the reason I have already explained. I apologise. Can I do more, Miss Griffin?”
“Apologise!” she echoed in a hoarse whisper. “You apologise! I wish for no apology!”
“But you desire your own happiness, and can secure it, providing I am silent,” he said in a low, clear deliberate voice. “Think what it would mean to you if you gave the alarm – the wrecking of your own life, and the arrest of your friend Mullet! But I give you perfect liberty to choose your future course of action. I have no wish to coerce you.”
“You could not, even if you wished!” she declared, yet through her brain surged thoughts of what the loss of Frank would mean to her.
The man before her was a blackguard. He had shown himself as such. With perfect coolness he could besmirch her fair name in such a manner that it could never again be cleared.
At that moment the girl was fighting for her own honour as well as her father’s secret which this man had gained. It was a secret no longer – it could never be. Their enemies had triumphed!
She set her teeth hard, and tried to think.
Jim Jannaway was quick to notice her change of manner.
“Remember,” he remarked, “one word to your father regarding this visit of mine, and your lover and your father shall know the truth!”
“They will know whatever lies you invent regarding me!” she said in a voice of intense bitterness.
He only shrugged his shoulders and smiled. She, a mere innocent girl, had no chance against his quick intellect, sharpened as it had been by years of crafty cunning and double dealing. To the “crooks” and silk-hatted adventurers of London the very name of Jim Jannaway was synonymous of all that was perfection in kid-gloved blackguardism.
“Well,” he said a moment later, “I haven’t time for further argument, Miss Griffin. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer. Perhaps the front door would be a less conspicuous exit for me.”
And so saying he stepped out upon the balcony, untied the silken rope from the railing, rolled it up swiftly, and placed it in his pocket.
A moment later he was again standing before her.
She stood glaring at him with a look of bitter hatred, while he recognised that her lips were already effectually sealed.
She dare not risk the suspicions which he could with a word place upon her. Hence he, alas! held her in his power!
“Remember!” he said, “I shall say nothing until you dare to give me away. It is a compact between us. Silence for silence!”
Then, without further word, he moved across to the door, unlocked it, and next second had disappeared noiselessly down the stairs.
And with him had gone the great secret of the hiding-place of the treasure of Israel which her father believed to be his – and his alone!
The girl cast herself into a chair, and gave way to a paroxysm of tears.
Jim Jannaway and his friends had again triumphed.
Chapter Thirty Five
Shows Further Complications
At nine o’clock next morning the hunch-backed Doctor, pale and eager, was closeted with the Professor, to whom he related what he had witnessed while watching outside the house in Berkeley Square on the previous night.
In consequence of this, the good-looking Laura was summoned to the study, closely questioned, and returning impudent answers, was summarily dismissed and left the house.
“So it is Sir Felix Challas who is desirous of ascertaining our secret,” remarked Aminger Griffin, greatly surprised, “He is such a great churchman, and such a high-minded philanthropist, that I can hardly believe that he should employ such methods. Why, only this very week I saw in the papers that he has made a fourth donation to Guy’s Hospital of two thousand pounds.”
“He is a swindler, hiding himself beneath the cloak of religion,” declared Diamond emphatically. “I have seen Mullet this morning, and he has promised to call and have a chat with you. He will come to-day, I expect.”
“Well,” exclaimed the Professor with some hesitation, and with a smile of triumph upon his lips, “we need have no further fear of our enemies, Doctor, for we have forestalled them. Yesterday I succeeded in deciphering the whole record in Ezekiel, and convincing myself of the existence of a similar cipher in Deuteronomy. I have here the complete translation in English.” And he placed the document in the Doctor’s trembling hands.
The ugly little man read it through eagerly, and then sat staring straight into the Professor’s face.
“Then the secret of the treasure of Israel is revealed!” he gasped in a low voice, as though fearing to be overheard. “But is it not probable that your servant listened, and heard you tell Miss Gwen the manner in which the cipher could be read?”
“No doubt. But fearing that, in a matter of this magnitude I might be the victim of treachery, I deviated slightly from the correct key, in such a manner as to throw out the whole reading!” laughed the Professor. “I told my daughter so afterwards.”
“Mullet has told me a good deal. I stayed with him in his rooms last night,” the Doctor said. “It appears that Sir Felix Challas’s methods are, on occasions, so unscrupulous as to be criminal. In his employ he has a dangerous scoundrel named Jim Jannaway – a thief and gaol-bird, though his exterior is that of a gentleman. He has served several terms of imprisonment for burglary. To this man the philanthropist of Berkeley Square, who received a Baronetcy for his good deeds, leaves his dirty work. From what Mullet told me I should not be surprised that it was he who arranged that your servant should spy upon you.”
“Mullet is also an outsider, is he not?” remarked the Professor with some suspicion.
“Of course, but of necessity. Though he may rob the rich, he prides himself on never having done a mean action to a poor person, or a woman.”
“Ah! Doctor,” laughed Griffin. “I see you believe in degrees of crime – eh?”
“In this case, yes. ‘Red Mullet’ has greatly assisted us. It was he who telegraphed to me from his retreat in Kent to watch the house in Berkeley Square. And now he has explained to me many points which were hitherto mysteries.”
“We need have no fear of our enemies now,” remarked the Professor, as at that moment Gwen, looking fresh in her white blouse and navy serge skirt, entered the room brightly and greeted the ugly little hunchback. “It only remains for us to call Farquhar into conference, and decide how we shall act. Somebody should proceed at once to Jerusalem, decide the exact spot, and purchase the land. We can have time for further operations when once the land on both sides of the hill is ours. Farquhar has promised that Sir George will find the necessary funds for that, if we so desire.”
Gwen, holding her breath, walked to the window and looked out upon the gloomy London street.
Her position was hideous. Her father believed that the great secret was his – and his alone. Frank would believe it – and by remaining silent she would be misleading her lover into a false sense of security.
She knew, alas! that their enemies would hesitate at nothing – that the Treasure of Israel was already lost to them – lost to the Jews for ever!
With her back turned to her father and his visitor she stood listening, her clenched hands trembling. What could she do? How could she act?
Suppose she told the truth, and bore the inevitable blow?
“It’s certainly fortunate that you did not explain to Miss Gwen the actual mode of deciphering the record,” the Doctor was remarking, “for Sir Felix and Haupt, at any rate, cannot gain the knowledge we have gained.”
“Sir Felix – who – dad?” inquired the girl, turning quickly.
“Sir Felix Challas, my dear,” was the Professor’s reply. “The Doctor has discovered that it is he who is our enemy. He poses as a great philanthropist as you well know. His portrait is in this week’s Tatler– over yonder.”
The girl crossed quickly, took up the paper, and searched the pages eagerly. Then when her gaze fell upon the picture, the journal nearly fell from her nerveless fingers.
She recognised the brutal, red-faced man who had been her inquisitor, and who would have struck her had not Mullet interfered, and stood her champion.
Beneath the portrait was a laudatory notice of the hypocrite’s noble contribution to the funds of charities of London.
“You see, Doctor,” her father went on, not noticing the girl’s blanched face and horror-struck eyes, “Erich Haupt will only be entirely misled by the statement I made to Gwen. By using the cipher in that manner, he will obtain a jumble of Hebrew letters which represent nothing. No. We need not fear Sir Felix and his anti-Semitic views in the least. We alone know the place of concealment of the sacred treasure of Israel.”
“I have already telegraphed to Farquhar at Horsford. He should be here before twelve.”
“And when he comes, we shall decide what to do,” remarked the Professor. “I think he should go out at once to Palestine. Only one of us must go to purchase the land, otherwise suspicion might be excited. And if so, then good-bye to all our chances.”
“Sir Felix, if he cannot obtain the secret, may endeavour to upset our plans out there,” remarked Gwen. “He is a man of wealth and power, dad.”
“But he does not possess the information which we possess. Professor Holmboe’s secret is now ours – and ours alone!” he declared triumphantly.
“Could we not get Mr Mullet to assist us, dad?” suggested the girl puzzled to distraction as to how she should act. She was divided between her love and her duty.
“No. He will only help us in his own way,” responded Doctor Diamond.
The girl walked back to the long window which led out upon the balcony – the window which Jim Jannaway had been prepared to use as an emergency exit – and stood with her hands clasped behind her back, while the two men further discussed what they believed to be a most satisfactory situation.
The land on both sides of the mount must be purchased in secret, they agreed, and not a word must leak out regarding the discovery until actual operations had commenced. Then the Professor was to launch his startling statement upon the world in the form of an article in the Contemporary. After the purchase of the land, the Professor, the Doctor, and an engineer were to go out to Jerusalem and make secret investigation. The surveyor, whom Griffin proposed to send out with Farquhar to make secret survey upon the measurements contained in the cipher, was a young man in business at Richmond, a friend of his, to whom he proposed to give a small interest in the syndicate.
“We are agreed, I suppose, Doctor, that at all hazards the most sacred relics and the archives of the Kingdom of Israel which are no doubt preserved there, shall be restored to the Jews?” Griffin said.
“Most certainly,” was Diamond’s reply. “This man Challas intends, it seems, to revenge himself upon the Jews by desecrating the treasure.”
“But, dad!” cried the girl, “surely he would never be allowed to desecrate sacred relics!”
“If he discovered them upon land he had purchased he might very easily destroy them before he could be prevented,” her father pointed out. “There lies the great danger. Fortunately, however, he will be unable to do that. Farquhar must go out to Jerusalem at the earliest possible moment. And I’ll get young Pettit, the surveyor, up from Richmond this afternoon.”
Gwen’s face was blanched, she stood rooted there, still staring down into the street, inexpressibly gloomy that winter’s morning. Lights were in the rooms of some of the houses opposite, while outside Notting Hill Gate Station, at the end of the road, the big electric globes were shedding their brilliance, as they did each night.
How should she act? She was calmly contemplating what might occur. Her head reeled, for she had not closed her eyes since she had last stood in that room face to face with her enemy – the man who had filched the secret from them and departed.
His threats rang in her ears. If she revealed the truth, then Mullet would be arrested, and in addition a foul lie, which alas! she could not refute, would be told both her lover and her father! She shuddered and held her breath. Had she not already promised secrecy to Mullet! Could she, after his self-sacrifice, deliberately bring ruin upon him?
No. She was hemmed in on every side by the impossible. And even if she told the truth, it was now too late, alas! Sir Felix Challas, great financier that he was, had agents in all the capitals, and possessed secret channels of information against which their little combination would be utterly powerless. Alas! they were now only tilting at the wind.
That red-faced blatant parvenu, that Jew-hating hypocrite who did his evil doings behind his moneybags, had triumphed!
Whatever she said, whatever allegation she made against the Baronet or Jim Jannaway – for she now for the first time had learnt his name – would make no difference. The bitterness of it all must fall upon her, and her alone.
Her young heart was crushed, stifled, broken.
If she spoke, or if she were silent, it was the same – she must play her lover false.
