Two boys had watched me, so I waited a moment, then turning upon my heel, I retraced my steps back to the Hôtel Ombrone, having been absent about twenty minutes.
As I entered Room 88, three Frenchmen, who had ascended in the lift, followed me in.
Madame was writing a letter, while Duperré was in the act of lighting a cigarette. We started in surprise, for next instant we all three found ourselves under arrest; the well-dressed strangers being officers of the Sûreté. One of them was the man in the white spats who had been attracted by Madame in the Bois.
Arrest! gasped Duperré.
As he did so, an undersized, rather shabbily-dressed man of sixty or so put his head into the door inquisitively, and realizing that something unpleasant was occurring, quickly withdrew and disappeared. I saw that he exchanged with Duperré a glance of recognition combined with apprehension, and concluded that it was the man Heydenryck, the dealer in stolen gems.
Meanwhile the elder of the three detectives told us that they had reason to believe that jewelry stolen from a London hotel was in our possession, and that the place would be searched.
Messieurs, you are quite at liberty to search, laughed Duperré, treating the affair as a joke. Here are my keys!
At once they began to rummage every hole and corner in the room as well as the luggage of both Duperré and his wife. The brown suit-case which was in the wardrobe in the bedroom attracted their attention, but when unlocked was found to contain only a few modern novels.
At this they drew back in chagrin and disappointment. I knew that the broken gold was safely at the bottom of the Seine, but where were the gems?
It was all very well for Duperré to bluff, but they would, I felt convinced, eventually be found. The police, not content with searching the personal belongings of my friend, took up the floor-boards, and even stripped some paper from the wall and carefully examined every article of furniture. Afterwards they went to my room at the end of the corridor and thoroughly searched it.
At last the inspector, still mystified, ordered two taxis to be called, as it was his intention to take us at once before the examining magistrate.
Madame had better put on her hat at once, he added, bristling with authority.
Thus ordered, she reluctantly obeyed and put on her big feathered hat before the glass. Then a few moments later we were conducted downstairs and away to the Prefecture of Police.
After all being thoroughly searched, Madame being examined by a prison wardress, we were ushered into the dull official room of Monsieur Rodin, the well-known examining magistrate, who for a full hour plied us with questions. Duperré and his wife preserved an outward dignity that amazed me. They complained bitterly of being accused without foundation, while on my part I answered the police official that I had quite accidentally come across my old superior officer.
Time after time Monsieur Rodin referred to the papers before him, evidently much puzzled. It seemed that Madame had been recognized in the Bois by the impressionable Frenchman who I had believed, had been attracted by her handsome face.
That information had been sent by Scotland Yard to Paris regarding the stolen jewels was apparent. Yet the fact that the locked suit-case only contained books and that nothing had been found in our possession thanks to the forethought of Duperré the police now found themselves in a quandary. The man in the white spats whom we had seen in the Bois identified Madame as Marie Richaud, a Frenchwoman who had lived in Philadelphia for several years, and who had been implicated two years before in the great frauds on the Bordeaux branch of the Société Générale.
Madame airily denied any knowledge of it. She had only arrived in Paris with her husband from Rome a few days before, she declared. And surely enough the visas upon their passports showed that was so, even though I had seen her at Overstow!
How I withstood that hour I know not. In the end, however, Monsieur Rodin ceased his questions and we were put into the cells till the next morning.
Imagine the sleepless night I spent! I hated myself for falling into the trap which Rayne, the crafty organizer of the gang, had so cleverly laid for me. Yet was I not in the hands of the police?
But the main question in my mind was the whereabouts of that little pile of gems.
Next day we were taken publicly before another magistrate and defended by a clever lawyer whom Duperré had engaged. It was found that not a tittle of evidence could be brought against us, and, even though the magistrate expressed his strong suspicions, we were at last released.
As we walked out into the sunlight of the boulevard, Duperré glanced at his watch, and exclaimed:
I wonder if we shall be in time to catch the train? I must telephone to Heydenryck at once.
Five minutes later he was in a public telephone-box speaking to the receiver of stolen goods.
Then, without returning to the Hôtel Ombrone, we took a taxi direct to the Gare de Lyon.
As Duperré took three first-class tickets to Fontainebleau, the undersized, grave-faced old man whom I had seen at the moment of our arrest followed him, and also took a ticket to the same destination. We entered an empty compartment where, just before the train moved off, the old man joined us.
He posed as a perfect stranger, but as soon as the train had left the platform my companion introduced him to me.
I called last night and saw what had happened. Surely you have all three had a narrow escape! he exclaimed.
Yes, said Duperré. It was fortunate that Hylda recognized the sous-inspecteur Bossant in the Bois. She put me on my guard. I knew we should be arrested, so I took precautions to get rid of the gold and conceal the stones.
But where are they? I asked eagerly, as the train ran through the first station out of Paris. They are still hidden in the hotel, I suppose. Weve all been searched!
Madame laughed merrily, and removing her hat, unceremoniously tore out the three great feathers, the large quills of which she held up to the light before my eyes.
I then saw to my amazement that, though hardly distinguishable, all three of the hollow quills were filled with gems, the smaller being put in first.
At the detectives own suggestion she had put on her hat when arrested, and she had worn it during the time she had been searched, during the examination by the magistrate, and during her trial!
Duperré was certainly nothing if not ingenious and his sang-froid had saved us all from terms of imprisonment.
Madame replaced the valuable feathers in her hat, and when we arrived at Fontainebleau we drove at once to the Hôtel de France, opposite the palace, where we took an excellent déjeuner in a private room.
And before we left, Duperré had disposed of Lady Norahs jewels at a very respectable figure, which the sly old receiver paid over in thousand-franc notes.
I marveled at my companions ingenuity, whereupon he laughed airily, replying:
When The Golden Face arranges a coup it never fails to come off I assure you. The police have to be up very early to get the better of him. His one injunction to all of us is that we shall be ready at all times to show clean hands as we have to-day! But lets get away, Hargreave back to London, I think, dont you?
The whole adventure mystified and bewildered me. It was a mystery which, however, before long, was to be increased a hundredfold. Alas! that I should sit here and put down my guilt upon paper!
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
THE MAN WITH THE HUMP
One morning I called at Raynes luxurious chambers in Half Moon Street, when he expressed himself most delighted at the result of our visit to Paris.
I want you to-morrow morning to drive Lola and Madame up to Overstow, he said. Better start early. Call for them at the hotel at nine oclock. The roads are good, so youll have a pleasant journey. Ill get home by train at the end of the week.
At this I was very pleased, for Lola with her great dark eyes always sat beside me. She could drive quite well, and was full of good humor and a charming little gossip. Hence I looked forward to a very pleasant run. The more I saw of the master-crooks daughter the more attracted I became by her. Indeed, though she seemed to regard me with some suspicion why, I dont know we had already become excellent friends.
The month of September passed.
We had all spent a delightful time at Overstow. Rayne had given two big shoots at which several well-known Yorkshire landowners had been present, while I had taken a gun, and Lola, Madame and several other ladies had walked with us. Lola and I were frequently together, and I often accompanied her on long walks through the autumn-tinted woods.
Madames husband had only spent a week with us, for he had, I understood, been called to Switzerland on business the nature of which I could easily guess.
At the end of the month we were back in London again.
One evening I had dined at the Carlton with Lola, her father and Madame, and the two ladies having gone off to the theater, he took me round to the set of luxurious chambers he occupied in Half Moon Street.
When we were alone together with our cigars, he suddenly said:
I want you to go out for a run to-night to Bristol.
To Bristol! To-night? I echoed.
Yes. I want you to take the new A. C. and get to the Clifton Suspension Bridge by two oclock to-morrow morning. There, in the center of the bridge, you will await a stranger an elderly hunchback whose name is Morley Tarrant. Hell give you, as bonâ fides, the word Mask. When you meet him act upon his instructions. He is to be trusted.
The tryst seemed full of suspicion, and I certainly did not like it. The evening was bright and clear, and the run in the fast two-seater would be enjoyable. But to meet a man who would give a password savored too much of crookdom.
He quickly saw my hesitation, and added:
Now, Hargreave, I ought not to conceal from you the fact that there may be a trap. If so, you must evade it and escape at all costs. I have enemies, you know pretty fierce ones.
Again, for the hundredth time, I debated within myself whether I dare cast myself adrift from the round-faced, prosperous-looking cosmopolitan who sat before me so full of good humor and so fearless.
I had been cleverly inveigled into accepting the situation he had offered me, but I had never dreamed that by accepting, I was throwing in my lot with the most marvelously organized gang of evil-doers that that world had ever known.
Other similar gangs blundered at one time or another and left loopholes through which the police were able to attack them and break them up. But Rudolph Rayne had flung his octopus-like tentacles so far afield that he had actually attached to him by fear of blackmail an eminent Counsel who appeared for the defense of any member of the circle who happened to make a slip. That well-known member of the Bar I will call Mr. Henry Moyser, a lawyer whose fame was of world-wide repute, and who was employed for the defense in most of the really great criminal trials.
I sat astounded when, by a side-wind, I was told that Mr. Moyser would defend me if I were unlucky enough to be arrested. Certainly his very name was sufficient to secure an acquittal.
The journey from Pall Mall to Clifton had been a long and rather tiring one, and as I sat in the swift two-seater half-way across the high suspension bridge, I smoked reflectively as I gazed away along the river where deep below shone a few twinkling lights. Across at Clifton I could see the row of street lamps, while above the stars were shining in the sharp frosty air, and in the distance I could hear the roar of an express train.
The bell of Clifton parish church struck the half-hour, but nobody was in sight, and there were no sounds of footsteps in the frosty air. Though so near the busy city of Bristol, yet high up on that long bridge, that triumph of engineering of our yesterday, all was quiet with scarce a sound save the shrill cry of a night-bird.
If it were not that I loved Lola I would gladly have resigned the position which had already become hateful to me. Somehow I felt vaguely that perhaps I might one day render her a service. I might even extricate her from the dangerous circumstances in which she was living in all innocence of the actual conspiracies in which her father was engaged. Who could know?
As far as I could gather, Lola was much puzzled at certain secret meetings held at Overstow. Her fathers friends of both sexes were shrouded in mystery, and she was, I knew, seeking to penetrate it and learn the truth.
I had already satisfied myself that the gang was a most dangerous and unscrupulous one, and that Rayne and his friends would hesitate at nothing so long as they carried out the plans which they laid with such innate cunning in order to effect great and astounding coups the clever thefts and swindles that from time to time had held the world aghast.
I suppose I must have waited nearly half an hour when suddenly there fell upon my ear uneven footsteps hurrying along towards the car, and in the light of the street lamp I distinguished, hurrying towards me, a short, elderly man, somewhat deformed, with a distinct hump on his back.
Youre Mr. Hargreave, arent you? he inquired breathlessly, with a distinct Scottish accent. Im Tarrant! Im so sorry Im late, but Rudolph will understand. Ill explain it to him.
And he was about to mount into the seat beside me.
I put out my arm, and peering into the mans face, asked:
Is there nothing else, eh?
Nothing, he replied. Why? You are here to meet me. Rudolph sent you down from London.
I was awaiting the prearranged word that would show the hunchbacks bonâ fides.
I gave him another opportunity of giving the password, but he seemed ignorant of it.
Next second, my suspicions being aroused, I sprang down, and crying:
Look here, old fellow! I fancy youve made a mistake! I struck him familiarly upon the back.
His hump was soft! In that instant I detected him as an impostor a Scotland Yard detective without a doubt!
Fortunately for me my brain acts quickly. But it was not so quick as his. He gave a shrill whistle, and in a flash from nowhere three of his colleagues appeared. They ran around the car to hold it up.
For a few seconds I found myself in serious jeopardy.
I sprang into the drivers seat, switched on the self-starter, and just as one of the detectives tried to mount beside me, I threw down among my assailants a little dark brown bomb the shape of an egg, with which Rayne had provided me in case of emergency.
It exploded with a low fizz and its fumes took them aback, allowing me to shoot away over the bridge and down into Bristol, much wiser than when I had arrived.
The arrangement of that password in itself showed how cleverly Rudolph Rayne was foresighted in all his plans. He always left a loophole for escape. Surely he was a past-master in the art of criminality, for his fertile brain evolved schemes and exit channels which nobody ever dreamed of.