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CHAPTER XXV
IS MORE MYSTERIOUS
I stood there aghast, staggered, open-mouthed. The man was walking slowly towards the house whence issued the gay chanson, the house where, in the great bay window, shone a bright light across the tiny strip of lawn which separated it from the roadway.
I watched him like a man in a dream. As he approached the house he trod lightly on tip-toe, unaware of my presence behind the bushes. In a flash the recollections of that strange affair by the North Sea, in Cromer, recurred to me. I remembered that green-painted seat upon the cliff, where the coast-guard, in the early dawn, had found him lying dead, of his strange disguise, and of the coroner's inquiry which followed. I remembered too, all too well, the puzzling incidents which followed; the presence of the notorious Jeanjean in that quiet little cliff-resort; the disappearance of the man of master-mind; the discovery of his hoard of gold and gems, and how, subsequently, it had been spirited away in a manner which had absolutely flabbergasted the astute members of the Norfolk Constabulary, unused as they were to cases of ingenious crime.
Truly it was all amazing – utterly astounding.
I watched Craig's receding figure in startled wonder, holding my breath, and trying to convince myself that I had been mistaken in some resemblance.
But I was not. The man who had passed me was Edward Craig in the flesh – the man upon whose death twelve honest tradesmen of Cromer had delivered their verdict – the man who had been placed in his coffin and buried.
Was ever there incident such as this, I wondered? Had ever man met with a similar experience?
By the light of the street-lamp I saw him glance anxiously up and down that quiet, dark road. Then satisfying himself that he was unobserved, he crept in at the gate, crossed the lawn noiselessly, and peered in at the window through the chink between the windowframe and the blind.
For fully five minutes he remained with his eyes glued to the window. In the light which fell upon him I saw that his face had assumed an angry, vengeful look, and that his gloved hands were clenched.
Yes. He certainly meant mischief. He was watching her as she sat, all unconsciously, at the piano, singing the gay chansons of the boulevards, "Mimi d'Amour," "Le tic-tac du Moulin," "Petit Pierre," and others, so popular in Paris at the moment.
The family of the retired excise-officer knew but little French, but they evidently enjoyed the spontaneous gaiety of the songs.
That Edward Craig, after his mysterious death, should reappear as a shadow in the night was certainly most astounding. At first I tried to convince myself that only a strong resemblance existed, but his gait, his figure, his face, the manner in which he held his cane, and the slight angle at which he wore his hat – the angle affected by those elegant young men who in these days are termed "nuts" – were all the same.
Yes. It was Edward Craig and none other!
And yet, who was the man who so suddenly lost his life while masquerading in the clothes of old Gregory Vernon?
Aye, that was the question.
With strained eyes I watched and saw him change his position in order to obtain a better view of the interior of the room. There was no sign of Rayner, who, I supposed, had not risked following him, knowing that I was lurking close to the house.
That his intentions were evil ones I could not doubt, and yet the light shining upon his countenance revealed a strange, almost fascinated expression, as his eyes were fixed into the room, and upon her without a doubt.
The music had not ceased. Her quick fingers were still running over the keys, and in her sweet contralto she was singing the catching refrain —
"Mimi d'amour,
Petite fleur jolie,
Oui pour toujours
Je t'ai donné ma vie.
Les jours sont courts
Grisons-nous, ma chérie,
Petit' Mimi jolie,
Mimi d'amour!"
Her voice ceased, and, as it did so, the silent watcher crept away, gaining the pavement and walking lightly in my direction.
As he passed, within a couple of feet of where I was concealed, I was able to confirm my belief. There was no doubt as to his identity. By this discovery the cliff-mystery at Cromer had become a more formidable and astounding problem. Who could have been the actual victim? What facts did Lola actually know?
So well organized and so far extended the ramifications of the criminal association of which Gregory Vernon was the head and brains, that I became bewildered.
I stood gazing over the hedge watching Craig disappear back towards the main road, where at the corner a small red light now showed.
When he had got a safe distance from me, I emerged and, crossing the road quickly, hastened after him. Rayner was in waiting and would, no doubt, take up the chase.
Yet when he approached the corner I saw that he suddenly crossed to where the red light showed, and entering the car, which was evidently waiting for him, was driven swiftly off to the right in the direction of Christchurch.
Rayner met me in breathless haste a few moments after the car had turned the corner, saying —
"I didn't know that car was waiting for him, sir. It only pulled up a moment ago."
"Was anybody in it?"
"Only the driver."
"Did you take the number?"
"Yes, sir. It's local, we'll soon find out its owner."
"You must do so," I said. "The police will help you. But do you know who that man was?"
"No, sir. He's a stranger to me," Rayner replied.
"Well," I said, "he's Edward Craig."
"Edward Craig!" echoed Rayner, staring at me as we stood at the street corner together. "Why, that's the man who was murdered at Cromer!"
"The same."
"But he died. An inquest was held."
"I tell you, Rayner, that Edward Craig – the man who is supposed to be nephew of old Gregory Vernon – is still alive. I could identify him among ten thousand."
Rayner was silent. Then at last he said —
"Well, sir, that's utterly astounding. Who, then, was the man who was killed?"
"That's just what we have to discover," I replied. "We must find out, too, why he wore old Vernon's clothes on that fatal night."
Thoughts of the footprint, and the tiny shoe which had so exactly fitted it, arose within me, but I kept my own counsel and said nothing.
Having told Rayner to inquire of the police regarding the mysterious car, and to return to the hotel and await me, I retraced my steps along that quiet, eminently respectable road, inhabited mostly by retired tradespeople from London or the North of England, who live in their "model" villas or "ideal homes" so pleasantly situated, after the smoke and bustle of business life.
When I entered the pretty little drawing-room where Lola was, she sprang to her feet to receive me, holding out her small white hand in glad welcome.
In her smiling, sweet face was a far healthier look than when I had taken leave of her, and returned to London, and in reply to my question, she declared that she felt much stronger. The sea air had done her an immense amount of good. Yes, she was a delightful little person who had been ever in my thoughts.
She anxiously inquired after my health, but I laughingly declared that I was now quite right again.
Her hostess, Mrs. Featherstone, with her daughter, Winifred, and a young fellow to whom the latter was engaged, were present, so I sat down for a chat, all four being apparently delighted by my unexpected visit. Mr. Featherstone had, I found, gone to London that morning and would not return for three days.
Presently mother and daughter, and the young man, probably knowing that I wished to speak with Mademoiselle alone, made excuses and left the room.
Then when the door had closed I rose and walked over to where Lola, in a simple semi-evening gown of soft cream silk, was reclining in an arm-chair, her neat little shoes placed upon a velvet footstool.
"To-night," I said in a low voice in French, as I stood near her chair, my hand resting upon it. "To-night, Lola, I have made a very startling discovery."
"A discovery!" she exclaimed, instantly interested. "What?"
"Edward Craig is still alive!" I answered. "He did not die in Cromer, as we have all believed."
"Edward Craig!" she echoed, amazed. "How do you know? I – I mean —mon Dieu! – it's impossible!"
"It seems impossible, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, Lola," I declared in a low, earnest tone as I bent towards her. I had watched her face and, by its expression, knew the truth. "And you," I added, slowly, "have been aware of this all along."
"I – I – " she faltered in French, opening her big blue eyes widely, as the colour mounted to her cheeks in her confusion.
"No," I interrupted, raising my hand in protest. "Please do not deny it. You have known that Craig did not die, Lola. You may as well, at once, admit your knowledge."
"Certainement, I have not denied it," was her low reply.
"How did you know he was alive?" I asked.
"Well," and then she hesitated. But, after a few seconds' reflection, she went on: "After that affair at Lobenski's in Petersburg, I was leaving at night for Berlin, by the Ostend rapide, with some of the stolen stones sewn in my dress, as I told you, when, just as the train moved off from the platform, I fancied I caught sight of him. But only for a second. Then, when I came to consider all the facts, I felt convinced that my eyes must have deceived me. Edward Craig was dead and buried, and the man on the railway platform must have only borne some slight resemblance to him."
Was she deceiving me? I wondered.
"Have you since seen the same man anywhere else?" I asked her, seriously.
"Well, yes," she replied slowly. "Curiously enough, I saw the same person once in Paris, and again in London. I was in a taxi going along Knightsbridge on the afternoon of the day when I afterwards walked so innocently into the trap at Spring Grove. He was just coming out of the post-office in Knightsbridge, but did not notice me as I passed. I turned to look at him a second time, but he had gone in the opposite direction and his back was towards me. Yet I felt certain that he was actually the same man whom I had seen as the Ostend Express had left Petersburg. And now," she added, looking straight into my eyes, "you tell me that Edward Craig still lives!"
"He does. And he has been here – at this house – to-night!"
"At this house!" gasped the Nightingale, starting instantly to her feet, her face as pale as death.
"Yes. He has been standing on the lawn outside, peering in at this window, watching you seated at the piano," I explained.
"Watching me!"
"Yes," I replied. "And, if my surmise is correct, he is certainly no friend of yours. He has watched you during the coup in Petersburg, again in Paris, and in London, and now he has discovered your hiding-place," I answered. "What does it all mean?"
Deathly pale, with thin, quivering lips, and hands clasped helplessly before her, she stood there in an attitude of deadly fear, of blank despair.
"Yes," she whispered in a low, strained voice, full of apprehension. "I believed that he was dead, that – "
But she halted, as if suddenly recollecting that her words might betray her. Her bosom, beneath the laces of her corsage, rose and fell convulsively.
"That – what?" I asked in a soft, sympathetic voice, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, and looking into her wonderful eyes.
"Oh! I – I – " she exclaimed in a half-choked voice. "I thought him dead. But now, alas! I find that my suspicions are well grounded. He is alive – and he has actually been here!"
"Then you are in fear of him – in deadly fear, Lola," I said. "Why?" And I looked straight at my dainty little friend.
She tried to make response, but though her white lips moved no sound escaped them. I saw how upset and overwrought she was by the amazing information I had conveyed to her.
"Tell me the truth, Lola – the truth of what happened in Cromer," I urged, my hand still upon her shoulder. "Do not withhold it from me. Remember, I am your friend, your most devoted friend."
She trembled at my question.
"If the dead man was not Edward Craig, then, who was he?" I asked, as she had made no reply.
"How can I tell?" she asked in French. "I thought it was Craig. Was he not identified as Craig and buried as him?"
"Certainly. And I, too, most certainly believed the body to be that of Craig," I answered.
For a few moments there was a dead silence. Then I repeated my question. I could see that she feared that young man's visit even more than she did either her uncle or the old scoundrel Vernon.
For some mysterious reason the fact that Craig still lived held her in breathless suspense and apprehension.
"Lola," I said at last, speaking very earnestly and sympathetically, "am I correct in my surmise that this man, whom both you and I have believed to be in his grave, is in possession of some secret of yours – some weighty secret? Tell me frankly."
For answer she slowly nodded, and next moment burst into a torrent of hot, bitter tears, saying, in a faltering voice, scarce above a whisper —
"Yes, alas! M'sieur Vidal. He – he is in possession of my secret – and – and the past has risen against me!"
CHAPTER XXVI
HOT-FOOT ACROSS EUROPE
By Lola's attitude I became more than ever mystified. I tried to induce her to tell me the exact position of affairs, but she seemed far too nervous and unstrung. The fact that Craig had found out her hiding-place seemed to cause her the most breathless anxiety.
That he knew some guilty secret of hers seemed plain.
It was eleven o'clock before I rose to go, after begging her many times in vain to tell me the truth. I felt confident that she could reveal the strange mystery of Cromer, yet she steadfastly refused.
"You surely see, Lola, that we are both in serious peril," I said, standing before the chair upon which she had sunk in deep dejection. "These daring, unscrupulous people must, sooner or later, make a fatal attack upon us, if we do not deliver our blow against them. To invoke the aid or protection of the police is useless. They set all authority at defiance, for they are wealthy, and the ramifications of their society extend all over Europe."
"I know," she admitted. "Vernon has agents in every country. I have met many of them – quite unsuspicious persons. My uncle has introduced me to people at whose apparent honesty and respectability I have been amazed."
"Then you must surely realize how insecure is the present position of both of us," I said.
"I do. But disaster cannot be averted," was her sorrowful response.
"Unless you unite with me in avenging the attack made upon us at Spring Grove."
"What is the use?" she queried. "They have all left London."
"What?" I exclaimed quickly. "You know that?"
"Yes," she replied. "I know they have."
"How?"
"By an advertisement I saw in the paper three days ago," she answered. "They use a certain column of a certain paper on a certain day to distribute general information to all those interested."
"In a code?"
"In a secret cipher – known only to the friends of M'sieur Vernon," she said. "They always look for his orders or his warnings on the eighteenth of each month. My uncle is back at Algiers."
"Where is Vernon?"
"Ah! I do not know. Perhaps he is with my uncle."
"But the young man, Craig. Why is he watching you? It can only be with evil intent."
She drew a long breath, but said nothing. And to all my further questions she remained dumb, so that when I bent over her outstretched hand and left, I felt annoyed at her resolute secrecy – a secrecy which must, I felt, result fatally.
And yet by her manner I was confident that she was still prevented by fear from revealing everything to me. Yes, after all, I pitied her deeply.
At the Grand I found Rayner awaiting me. He had already learnt from the police that the car in which Craig had driven away belonged to a garage in Bournemouth.
On going there he had found the car had just returned. It had been hired for the evening by Craig himself, who had first driven out to Boscombe and was afterwards driven to Christchurch, where he had caught the express for London.
He had, therefore, gone.
This news I scribbled in a note to Lola, and before midnight Rayner had delivered it at Mr. Featherstone's house.
Then I retired to rest full of strange thoughts and serious apprehensions. The revelations of that night had indeed been astounding. Craig was alive, and his intentions were, undoubtedly, sinister ones.
But who was the man who had met with such a mysterious death and had been buried as "Mr. Gregory's nephew?"
At eleven o'clock next morning I took the tram along to Boscombe and rang at the door of the house where my delightful little friend was living.
The neat maid who answered amazed me by saying —
"Mademoiselle left for London by the eight o'clock train this morning, sir. She packed all her things after you left last night, and ordered a cab by telephone."
"Didn't she leave me any message?" I asked Mrs. Featherstone, when I saw her a few moments later.
"No, none, Mr. Vidal," replied the old lady. "After you had gone, and she received your note, she became suddenly very terrified, why, I don't know. Then she packed, and though we tried to persuade her to stay till you called, she declined. All she said, besides thanking us, was that she would write to you."
"Most extraordinary!" I exclaimed. "I wonder what caused her such sudden fear?"
Could it have been that she had discovered any one else watching the house? Strange, I thought, that she had not sent me word of her intended departure. She could so easily have spoken to me on the telephone.
Well, two hours later, I followed her to London, and began an inquiry of hotels where I knew she had stayed on previous occasions – the Cecil, the Savoy, the Carlton, the Metropole, the Grand, and so forth. But though I spent a couple of hours on the telephone, speaking with various reception clerks, I could get no news of Mademoiselle Sorel.
Yet, was it surprising? She would hardly, in the circumstances, stay in London in her own name.
Ten days went by. By each post I expected news of Lola, but none came, and I felt confident that she had gone abroad.
I wired and wrote to Mademoiselle Elise Leblanc, at the Poste Restante at Versailles. But I obtained no reply. At last I went down to Cromer and remained at the Hôtel de Paris for nearly a week, carefully going over all the details of the mystery with Mr. Day and Inspector Treeton, who were, of course, both as much puzzled as I was myself.
The autumn weather was perfect. The holiday crowd had left, and Cromer looked her brightest and best in the glorious sunshine and golden tints of the declining year. On the links I played one or two most enjoyable rounds, and once or twice I sat outside the Golf Club and smoked and chatted with men I knew in London.
Daily I wondered what had become of Lola.
Time after time I visited that green-painted seat near which the dead man had been found and where I had discovered the imprint of Lola's shoe. But, beyond what I have already recorded in the foregoing pages, I could discover absolutely nothing. The identity of the man who had masqueraded in the clothes of the master-criminal was entirely enshrouded in mystery.
The law had buried Edward Craig, and in the cemetery, on the road to Holt was a plain head-stone bearing his name and the date of his death.
How could I have been mistaken in his identity? That was the chief fact which held me puzzled and confused. I had looked upon his face, as others had done, and all had agreed that the man who died was actually Craig.
I told Treeton nothing of my discovery, but one day, as I stood at the window of the hotel gazing across the sea, I made a sudden resolve, and that evening I found myself back again in my rooms in London, with Rayner packing my traps for a trip across the Channel.
My one most deadly fear was that Lola might, already, have fallen into one or other of the pitfalls which were, no doubt, spread open for her. The crafty, unscrupulous gang, with Vernon at their head, were determined that we both should die.
On the morning of my arrival from Cromer I left Charing Cross by the boat-train, and that same evening entered the long, dusty wagon-lit of the night rapide for Marseilles.
Marseilles! How many times in my life had I trod the broad Cannebière, drank cocktails at the Louvre et Paix, ate my boullibuisse at the little underground café, where the best in the world is served, or sauntered along the double row of booths placed under the trees of the boulevard – shops where one can buy anything from a toothpick to a kitchen-stove. Yes, even to the blasé cosmopolitan, Marseilles is always interesting, and as I drove along from the station up the Cannebière, I found the place full of life and movement, with the masts of shipping and glimpses of huge docks showing at the end of the broad, handsome thoroughfare.
From the station I drove direct to the big black mail-boat of the French Transatlantic Company, and by noon we had swung out of the harbour past the historic Château d'If, our bows set due south, for Algiers. Lola had told me that Jeanjean had fled to his hiding-place. And I intended to seek him and face him.
There were few passengers on board – one or two French officers on their way to join their regiments, a few commercial men; while in the third class I saw more than one squatting, brown-faced Arab, picturesque in his white burnouse and turban, placidly smoking, with his belongings tied in bundles arranged around him on the deck. The sea in the Gulf of Lyons was rough, as it usually is, yet the bright autumn weather on land had seemed perfect. As soon, however, as we were away from the gulf and in the open sea, following for hours in the wake of an Orient liner on her way to Australia, the weather abated and the voyage became most enjoyable.
As a student of men, I found the passengers in the steerage far more interesting than those in the saloon. Among the former was a knot of young, active-looking men of various nationalities, who leaned over the side watching the crimson sunset, and smoking and chattering, sometimes trying to make each other understand. I saw they were in charge of a military officer, and one of them being a smart, rather gentlemanly young Englishman – the only other Englishman on board, as far as I could gather – I spoke to him.
"Yes," he laughed, "my comrades here are rather a queer lot. We've all of us come to grief in one way or another. Bad luck, that's it. I speak for myself. I had a commission in the Hussars, but the gambling fever bit me hard, and I went a little too often to Dick Seddon's snug little place in Knightsbridge. Then I came a cropper, the governor cut up rough, and there was only one thing left to do – to hand in my papers, go to Paris, and join the French Foreign Legion. So, here I am, drafted to Algeria as a private with my friends, who are all in the same glorious predicament. See that fair-bearded chap over there?" he added, pointing to a well-set-up man of thirty-five who was just lighting a cigarette. "He's a German Baron, captain of one of the crack regiments in Saxony – quite a decent chap – a woman, I think, is at the bottom of his trouble."
And so, while the Arabs knelt towards Mecca, and touched the decks with their foreheads, we chatted on, he telling me what he knew concerning each of his hard-up companions who, under names not their own, were now on their way to serve France, as privates, in the "Legion of the Lost Ones," and start their careers afresh.
At last, after a couple of days, the blue coast of Africa could be discerned straight ahead, and gradually, as I stood leaning upon the rail and watching, the long white front of Algiers, with its breakwater, its white domes of mosques, and high minarets, and its heights crowned by white villas, came into view.
The city, dazzling white against the intense blue of the Mediterranean, presented a picture like the illustration to a fairy tale, and I stood watching, the sunny strip of African shore until at last we dropped anchor in the shelter of the bay, and presently went ashore in a boat.
I followed my traps across the sun-baked promenade to the nearest hotel – the old-fashioned Régence, in The Place – and after a wash, and a marzagran at the café outside, I inquired my way to the Prefecture of Police, where, on presenting an open letter, which Henri Jonet, of the Sûreté, had given me a couple of years before, and which had often served as an introduction, I was received very cordially.
To the French detective-inspector I said —
"I am making an inquiry, and I want, M'sieur, to ask you to allow me to have one of your men. I am meeting an individual who may prove desperate."
"There is danger – eh? Why, of course, M'sieur, a man shall accompany you." And he shouted through the open window to one of his underlings who was seated on a bench in the inner courtyard.
I made no mention of the name of Jules Jeanjean. Had I done so the effect would, I know, have been electrical.
But when I got outside with the dark-eyed, sunburnt little man in a shabby straw hat and rather frayed suit, I exclaimed in French —
"There is a villa somewhere outside the town where some experiments in wireless telegraphy are being conducted. Do you happen to know the place?"
"Ah! M'sieur means the Villa Beni Hassan, out near the Jardin d'Essai. There are two high masts in the grounds with four long wires suspended between them."
"Who lives there?"
"The Comte Paul d'Esneux."
"Is he French?" I asked, at the same time inquiring his description.
From the latter, as the detective gave it to me, I at once knew that the Comte d'Esneux and Jules Jeanjean were one and the same.
"Non, Monsieur," replied the man. "He is a great Belgian financier. He comes here at frequent intervals, and carries on his experiments with wireless telegraphy. It is said that he has made several discoveries in wireless telephony, hence the Government have given him permission to establish a station with as great a power as that at Oran."
"And he is often experimenting?"
"Constantly. It is said that he can actually transmit messages to Paris and England. Last year, when the station at Oran was injured by fire, the Government operators came here, took his instruments over and worked them. The installation is, I believe, most up-to-date."
"Bien!" I said. "Then let us go up there, and see this Comte d'Esneux."
And together we entered a ramshackle fiacre in The Place, and drove away out by the city gate to the white, dusty high-road, along which many white-robed Arabs and a few Europeans were trudging in the burning glare of the African sun.
When I had mentioned the Count as the person whom I wished to see, I noticed that the detective hesitated, and, with a strange look, regarded me with some apprehension.
Did he suspect? Was he suspicious of the truth concerning the actual identity of the wealthy Belgian financier who dabbled in wireless?
Were rumours already afloat, I wondered?
Had the ever-active Jonet at last succeeded in establishing the secret hiding-place of the notorious Jules Jeanjean – the prince of European jewel-thieves?
