Kitabı oku: «The Great God Gold», sayfa 9
Chapter Eighteen
Shows the Enemy’s Tactics
The tall, thin man into whose chambers Gwen Griffin had been enticed treated the trembling girl with a certain amount of politeness. Her head reeled. She hardly knew where she was, or what had occurred.
The stipulation he had made, at the instructions left by Jim Jannaway, was that she must remain there in order to meet some person who was desirous of making her acquaintance. He did not say who this person was, but she, on her part, had a dozen times begged him to release her, or at least to telegraph to her father assuring him of her safety.
“My dear girl,” the tall man had answered, “don’t distress yourself. Come, do calm yourself.” And he assisted to raise her to her feet again. “No harm will befall you, I assure you.”
“I – I don’t know you, sir,” she faltered through her tears, “therefore how can I possibly trust you?”
“I can only assure you that I am acting upon instructions. As far as I’m concerned, you might walk out free – only I dare not disobey my orders.”
“You dare not – and you a man!” she cried.
“There are some things that a man such as myself dare not do, miss – pardon me, but I haven’t the pleasure of knowing your name.”
“Griffin – Gwen Griffin is my name,” and she also told him where she lived. Then she asked: “Why have I been brought here?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” was the stranger’s reply. “These are my chambers, and a friend of mine has had the key during my three years’ absence abroad. I returned only this morning to find you locked up in here and a note left for me, giving me instructions to keep you here until a gentleman calls to see you.”
“Ah! that horrid blackguard!” she screamed. “That man who met me, and called himself ‘Captain Wetherton.’ He told me I should find Frank in hiding here.”
“And who’s Frank?” asked the stranger.
“The man to whom I’m engaged.”
“H’m,” grunted the other; “and he wouldn’t be very pleased to find you here, with me, would he?”
“No. That is why I’ve been entrapped herein order to compromise me in the eyes of the man who loves me.”
“Why?” asked the owner of those bachelor chambers, leaning upon the bed-rail and looking at her.
“How can I tell?” said the frightened girl. “As far as I know, I’ve done nothing whatever to warrant this.”
“Ah! in this world it is the innocent who mostly suffer,” he remarked.
“But will you not allow me to go?” she implored eagerly. “Remember that all my future happiness depends upon your generosity in this matter.”
“My dear child,” he replied, placing his hand upon her shoulder, “if I dare, I would. But to tell you the truth, I, like yourself, am in the hands of certain persons who are utterly unscrupulous. I tell you, quite frankly, that I couldn’t afford to excite their animosity by disobeying these orders I have received.”
“But who is this gentleman who desires to see me?” she demanded quickly.
“I don’t know. No name is given.”
“Why – for what reason does he wish to see me? Could he not have called at Pembridge Gardens, or even written making a secret appointment in Kensington Gardens or in the Park?”
“To that I am quite unable to give any reply, for I’m in ignorance like yourself.”
“But is it that brutal fellow who threw me down and tore my clothes last night?” she asked. “Look!” and she showed her torn blouse.
“I think not,” was his response. “But those rents look a bit ugly, don’t they,” he added. “Come through into the sitting-room, and see if we can’t find a needle and cotton. I used to keep a travelling housewife, full of all sorts of buttons and needles and things.”
So the pair passed along the short, narrow passage of the flat into the sitting-room which she so vividly recollected the night before. Before her was the couch upon which the man who had called himself “Wetherton” had flung her fainting and insensible.
After a brief search in the drawers of an old oak bureau, over in the corner, the stranger produced a small roll of khaki, in the pockets of which were all sorts of cottons, buttons, needles and odds and ends, the requisites of a travelling bachelor.
She laughed as she selected a needle and a reel of cotton, and then retired into the bedroom where, for a full quarter of an hour, she sat alone mending her torn garments.
The man remained in the sitting-room, staring out of the window into the street below, damp and gloomy on that winter’s morning.
“A fine home-coming indeed!” he muttered to himself. “They’ve put a nice thing upon me – abduct a girl, and then leave her in my charge! Jim’s afraid of being connected with the affair, that’s evident. I wonder who she is, and why they want her? Devilish pretty, and no mistake. It really seems a blackguardly shame to treat her badly, and wreck her young life, as they no doubt intend. By Gad! Jim and his friends are cruel as the grave. Poor little thing!” And he sighed and, crossing the room, applied a match to the fire that had already been laid.
“Yes,” he remarked under his breath. “A fine home-coming. The devils hold me in the hollow of their hands, alas! But if they dare to give me away, by Jove! I wouldn’t spare one of them. These last two years I’ve tried to live honestly, and nearly starved in doing so. And now they bring me back by force – back to the old life, because they want my assistance. And if I refuse? Then – well, I suppose they’ll compel me to act according to their instructions. Here is a specimen of the dirty work in progress. I’m holding a poor innocent girl a prisoner on their behalf! I’d let her go now – this very moment, but if I did – if I did – what then? I’d be given away to the police in half an hour. No. I can’t afford that – by God, I can’t. She must stay here.”
Presently Gwen emerged from the bedroom with her blouse repaired, and he induced her to seat herself reluctantly in the armchair before the fire.
He lit a cigarette and, taking another chair, endeavoured to reassure her that she need have no fear of him.
Then they commenced to chat, he endeavouring to learn something from her which might give him an idea of the reason why she had been enticed there. But with a woman’s clever evasion, she would tell him nothing.
He inquired about her lover, but she was silent regarding him. She only said:
“He is abroad just now. And they are evidently aware of his absence. The telegram I received was worded most cleverly. I unfortunately fell a victim to their vile conspiracy.”
“Is it a plot to prevent you marrying him, do you think?”
“It must be. It can be nothing else,” declared the girl quickly. “Oh, when will he return – when will I be able to see him again?”
The tall man shrugged his shoulders. He saw that she was desperate and might make a rush to escape, therefore, though he begged her pardon he kept the doors locked and the keys in his pocket.
Before his arrival, it seemed, Jim Jannaway had placed provisions in the small larder in the kitchen, for there they found bread, tinned tongues, bottled beer, tea, condensed milk and other things. Hence he had no necessity to go forth to obtain food.
This struck him that an imprisonment of several days must be intended. He felt sorry for the unfortunate girl, yet he dare not connive at her escape. He knew, alas! that he was now upon very dangerous ground.
The whole day they sat together gossiping. For luncheon they had cold tongue and bread, and for dinner the same.
The situation was indeed a curious one, yet as the hours went by and he attempted to amuse her by relating humorous incidents in his own adventurous life, she gradually grew to believe that he was devoid of any sinister intention.
Times without number she tried to persuade him to release her, but he explained his inability. Then, at evening, they sat at the fireside and while he smoked she chattered, though she told him practically nothing concerning herself.
He could not help admiring her neat daintiness and her self-possession. She was a frank, sweet-faced girl, scarce more than a child, whose wonderful eyes held even him, an adventurer, in strange fascination. And that night, when she retired to her room, he handed her the key of her door that she might lock herself in, and said:
“Sleep in peace, Miss Griffin. I give you my promise that you shall not be disturbed.”
And he bowed to her with all the courtesy of a true-born gentleman.
He sat smoking, thinking deeply and wondering why the girl had been confined there. He was annoyed, for by her presence there he also was held a prisoner.
Just before midnight the bell of the front door rang, and a commissionaire handed him a telegram. The message was in an unintelligible code, which however, he read without hesitation. Then he tossed the message into the fire with an imprecation, switched off the light, and went to bed.
Next day passed just as the first, but he saw, by the girl’s pale face and darkening eyes, that the constant anxiety was telling upon her. Yes, he pitied her. And she, on her part, began to regard him more as her protector than as her janitor.
He treated her with the greatest consideration and courtesy. And as they sat together at their meals, she presiding, they often burst out laughing at the incongruity of the situation. More than once she inquired his name, but he always laughingly evaded her.
“My name really doesn’t matter,” he said. “You will only remember me with hatred, Miss Griffin.”
“Though you are holding me here against my will,” she replied, “yet of your conduct towards me I have nothing to complain.”
He only bowed in graceful acknowledgment. No word passed his lips.
On the third morning, about noon, a ring came, and Gwen, startled, flew into her bedroom and locked the door.
The visitor was none other than Sir Felix Challas, who, grasping the tall man’s hand, said:
“Welcome back, my dear Charlie. I’m sorry I couldn’t come before, but I was called over to Paris on very important business.” Then lowering his voice he said: “Got the girl here still – eh?”
The other nodded.
“I want to put a few questions to her,” Sir Felix said in an undertone, when they were together in the sitting-room, “and if she don’t answer me truly, then by Heaven it will be the worse for her. You remember the girl of that German inventor, three years ago – eh?” he asked with a meaning smile.
The tall man nodded. He recollected that poor girl’s fate because she had refused to betray her father’s secret to the great financier.
And this man whom the world so firmly believed to be a God-fearing philanthropist intended that pretty Gwen Griffin, sweet, innocent and inoffensive, little more than a child, should meet with the same awful fate. He held his breath. He could have struck the man before him – if he dared.
He must blindly do the bidding of this cruel, heartless man who held him so entirely in his power, this gigantic schemer whose “cat’s-paw” he had been for years.
And he must stand helplessly by, unable to raise a hand to save that poor defenceless victim of a powerful man’s passion and avarice.
Alas! that the great god gold must ever be all-powerful in man’s world, and women must ever pay the price.
Chapter Nineteen
Is about the Doctor
Doctor Diamond, in his long Wellington boots and overcoat, was descending the steep hill into Horsford village one gloomy afternoon with Aggie at his side.
It had been raining, and the pair had been across the meadows to Overton, a small hamlet where, from a farmhouse, they obtained their weekly supply of butter. This, the fair-haired child, her clean white pinafore appearing below her navy-blue coat, carried in a small basket upon her arm. She had been dancing along merrily at the little man’s side, delighted to be out with him for a walk, when, as they came over the brow of the hill, they saw a man in a long drab mackintosh ascending in their direction.
The man raised his hand to them, but at first Diamond did not recognise him. Then, as they drew nearer, he said:
“Why – who’d ever have thought it! Here’s your father, Aggie!”
“Father!” echoed the girl, staring at the man approaching. “No, dad, surely that isn’t my father! You’re my own father.” And the child, with her fair hair falling upon her shoulders, clung affectionately to his arm.
In a few moments the two men met.
“Hulloa, Doc!” cheerily cried the man known to his intimates as “Red Mullet”. “Thought I’d give you a bit of a surprise. And little Aggie, too! My hat! what a big girl she grows! Why, my darling,” he exclaimed, bending and kissing her, “I’d never have recognised you – never in all my life!”
Her father’s bristly red moustache brushed the child’s face, and she withdrew bashfully.
“Ah! my pet,” cried the tall, gaunt man, “I suppose you hardly knew me – eh? You were quite a little dot when I was here last. But though your dad travels a lot, and is always on the move, yet he’s ever thinking of you.” He sighed. “See here!” And diving his hand into his breast-pocket, he took out a well-worn leather wallet which contained a photograph. “That is what your other dad sent to me last year! Your picture, little one.”
The child exchanged glances with the Doctor, still clinging to his arm. To her, Doctor Diamond was her father. She loved him, for he was always kind to her and always interested in her childish pleasure. True the payments made by “Red Mullet” were irregular and far between, but the ugly little man had formed a great attachment for the child, and when not at the village school she was usually in his company.
“Your wife told me the direction from which you would come, so I thought I’d just take a stroll and meet you,” the tall fellow said. “Horsford does not seem to change a little bit.”
“It hasn’t changed, they say, for the past two centuries,” laughed the Doctor. “We are quiet, steady-going folk here.” And as he spoke the sweet-toned chimes rang forth from the square grey Norman tower on their left, the tower to see which archaeologists so often came from far and near.
“Well, well,” exclaimed Mullet. “I had no idea my little Aggie had grown to be such a fine big girl. Very soon she’ll be leaving school; she knows more about geography and grammar now than her dad does, that I’ll be bound.”
“Mr Holmes, the schoolmaster, is loud in her praises,” remarked the Doctor, whereat the girl blushed and smiled.
“And how would you like to go back with me, and live in Paris – eh?” inquired the father.
In a moment, however, the child clung closer to Diamond, and, burying her face upon his arm, burst into tears.
“No, no, dear,” declared the red-haired man. “I didn’t mean it. Why, I was only joking! Of course you shall stay here, and finish your education with the Doctor, who is so good and kind to you. See – I’ve brought you something.”
And taking from his pocket a child’s plain hoop bangle in gold, he placed it upon her slim wrist. Aggie, with a child’s pardonable vanity, stretched forth her arm and showed the Doctor the effect. Then at the letter’s suggestion, she raised her face and kissed her father for the present of the first piece of jewellery she had ever possessed in her life.
They walked back together to the cottage, and after a homely cup of tea, “Red Mullet” sat with the Doctor in the cosy panelled dining-room, the fire burning brightly, and the red-shaded lamp upon the table.
“I’m glad you’re pleased at the appearance of little Aggie,” remarked the Doctor between deep puffs of his pipe. “She’s quite a sweet child. Every one in the village loves her.”
“I wonder, Doctor, what they’d think if they knew she was my daughter – the daughter of ‘Red Mullet’ – eh?” asked the red-haired man grimly.
The Doctor pulled a wry face but did not reply. Alas, he was well aware that Mr Mullet did not bear the best of reputations, and as a matter of fact he was wondering the reason why he now risked a sojourn on British soil.
“But – I – er – is that door closed?” he asked of the ugly little man as he glanced suspiciously behind him.
The Doctor rose and latched it. Then he resumed his seat.
“The fact is, I came down here to-day for two reasons – to see little Aggie and also to make some inquiries.”
“Inquiries!” echoed Diamond. “What about?”
“About something that concerns you,” was “Red Mullet’s” reply. “About certain papers which belonged to a man named Blanc, who died in a little hotel opposite the Gare du Nord.”
“I – I don’t understand you. What do you mean?” asked Diamond, with a perceptible start.
“Come, my dear Doc, you may just as well be frank and open with me. You know the kind of man I am. You’ve got hold of papers which don’t belong to you – and well, all praise to you, I say, if they’re worth anything. I don’t see why you shouldn’t deal with a dead man’s property if he deliberately wished to destroy it.”
“How do you know all this, Mr Mullet?” asked the Doctor, his face pale and much surprised.
“Well, my source of information don’t matter very much, does it?” remarked the other, stretching out his long legs to the warmth of the fire. “But I can tell you it’s lucky for you and your friends that I’ve found out about it – or – well, I can only tell you something would have happened – something very unfortunate.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I don’t expect you do,” was “Red Mullet’s” reply, as he laughed lightly. “Just be open with me, Doc, and I’ll tell you something – something that’ll interest you, no doubt. What is the purport of this precious document about which there’s all this fuss?”
“It’s a secret – a great and remarkable problem which, up to the present, I’m unable to solve.”
“My dear old chap, there are a good many problems in this world which want solving. The first of them is Woman,” laughed the other.
“Admitted. But woman doesn’t concern this particular matter.”
“That’s just where you are mistaken, Doc,” Mullet interrupted. “You live down in this rural solitude, and you don’t know what goes on up in London. There is a woman in the case – a woman who is very deeply involved in it.”
“Who?”
“We can leave her out of it for the present,” replied Mullet. “I want to know something about the document.”
Doctor Diamond hesitated. Had this man, whose reputation was so bad, and against whom he had so often been warned, come there for the purpose of levying blackmail? It seemed as though he had! “Well,” he answered, “I really see no reason why we should discuss what is, after all, my own private business, Mr Mullet.”
“I should not ask you if I had not a distinct object,” said the other. “I may as well tell you that I’ve already acted in your interests, and at considerable risk to myself, too,” he added.
“For which I thank you most sincerely,” responded the ugly little man, now very much on the alert.
He was extremely puzzled to know by what means Mullet had learnt his secret. Surely he could not have been a friend of that man who, on his deathbed, had refused his name?
“I merely came down here to give you warning,” Mullet said. “You are not the only person interested in the discovery.”
“I know. I have been compelled to take certain persons into my confidence, and they will share in the profits which, we hope, will eventually accrue.”
“I’m not speaking of your friends, Doc. I’m speaking of enemies – people who are working actively against you.”
“Against me!” cried Diamond, starting. “Who else knows about it besides ourselves?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mullet, smiling. “That’s just the point. While you possess only a few scraps of the dead man’s manuscript, those working in opposition to you have in their possession a complete copy!”
“What!” cried the ugly little Doctor, starting up. “Then the context is known! The whole document has been read!”
“Without a doubt. And I should have been in ignorance of your connection with it had it not been for a pure accident,” answered Mullet.
“Who are my enemies?” demanded the Doctor. “They are powerful – but I’m not at liberty to mention their names. I can only say, Doctor, that if I can help you in secret in this affair I will. There’s money in it – lots of money – that’s my firm opinion.”
“Then you know all about it?”
“Well – I know that the discovery is one of the most remarkable of the age, and that it seems more than likely you’ll be able to locate the hidden treasure of Solomon’s temple. I’m not much of a classical or Biblical scholar, but I understand that the theory has utterly staggered certain great authorities. And as a mining engineer by profession, I’m interested. I’ve been on more than one treasure-hunt, once in Guatemala, and again I went out with a party prospecting three years ago for those sunken Spanish galleons in Vigo Bay. We located nine of the vessels by means of that new Italian invention, the hydroscope, and got up an old cannon, several gold doubloons and silver ‘pieces of eight.’ According to authentic records in the Archives at Madrid, there are seventeen vessels full of gold and silver lying at the bottom of the bay, and the treasure is believed to be worth at least twenty-eight millions sterling.”
Diamond smiled. Even that huge sum did not cause him dismay. The treasure of Solomon’s temple would surely be worth a dozen times as much. Besides, would not he, Raymond Diamond, become one of the most noted men in the world if, by his instrumentality, the historic treasure of Israel was recovered.
“A company has been formed to work the Vigo treasure. They asked me to join them,” “Red Mullet” went on. “It’s a tempting business, but I have other matters to attend to just now. I wonder you don’t form a syndicate to work this scheme of yours, Doctor.”
“No syndicate is necessary,” replied the Doctor confidently. “We can do it ourselves.”
“You might – if it were not for the strong opposition against you,” Mullet remarked. “No, Doc. Don’t be too sure of your position. You’ve got others who intend to cut in before you, when the time is ripe. But,” he added, “what proof have you that this treasure actually exists. I’m ignorant in these matters, you know.”
“In a dozen places in the Old Testament it is referred to. Nebuchadnezzar, when he took Jerusalem, carried away over five thousand vessels of gold and silver from the temple. Yet this was only the portion which the Jews allowed to remain there. The greater part of the treasure, including the Ark of the Covenant and the tablets of the law, were hidden and have never been recovered. We learn from the Book of Ezra that when Cyrus, Nebuchadnezzar’s successor, gave the Jews their liberty, that he restored to Jerusalem five thousand four hundred basons and vessels of gold and silver which the King of Babylon had taken away. Those were, no doubt, placed in the new temple which Zerubbabel erected, but of which we unfortunately possess so very few particulars. What we are in search of is not this treasure, but the vessels of Solomon’s temple that were hidden by the priests before the capture of Jerusalem by the King of Babylon.”
“So I understand, Doctor. But what actual statement have you that they are still concealed?”
“The plain, straightforward statement in Holy Writ,” was the other’s reply, as he sat huddled in the big armchair, a queer, ugly little figure. Then, reaching across to a small table whereon lay the Bible, which he now daily studied, and opening it, he said: “Now, listen to this. Jeremiah, xxvi, 19-21, reads as follows:
”‘For thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the pillars, and concerning the sea, and concerning the bases, and concerning the residue of the vessels that remain in this city, Which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took not, when he carried away captive Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem:
”‘Yea, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the Lord, and in the house of the King of Judah and of Jerusalem.’”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Mullet, starting up. “I didn’t know of those words of the prophet. But I’m ashamed to say, Doctor, that I never was very much of a Biblical scholar. But it really looks as though there is something in the theory after all, doesn’t it?”
For a long time the two men sat together, but though the Doctor was eager to learn how Aggie’s father had obtained his knowledge, the latter was equally determined to tell him nothing.
“If you carry on this inquiry, Doctor,” he said, “it will be a very risky proceeding – I can tell you that much.”
“What! Your object then is to frighten me into inactivity, Mr Mullet – eh?” asked the little man, jumping up.
“Not at all – not at all, my dear fellow. You don’t understand. You and I are friends, and – well, we’ll continue to be, if you will allow me.”
Raymond Diamond confessed that he did not understand the object of his visitor’s presence there.
But “Red Mullet” only laughed, and taking another cigar from his case, said drily:
“Then let us drop the subject, Doctor, and talk of something else.”
