Half fearful lest another attempt should be made upon me, I searched the
rooms on the ground floor and shouted. No one stirred. The house was
tenantless!
Walking with difficulty down the hill towards the Ezcurra, I suddenly
remembered my dispatch, and placing my hand in the inner pocket of my
coat, I found it gone! It had evidently been stolen; but for what
object was an enigma.
As I passed onward under the trees of the Calle del Pozzo, boys were
crying _La Voz_, and from their strident shouts, and the eagerness of
purchasers, I knew that the new Ministry had been officially announced.
My intellect seemed too disordered to think, so I merely returned to the
hotel, and, casting myself on the bed, slept till next morning.
I refrained from lodging a complaint with the police, believing that my
extraordinary story would be discredited; nevertheless, I remained three
days longer, endeavouring to discover some facts regarding the Countess
d'Avendano and her daughter. All I could glean was, that, a month
before, they had taken the Villa Guipuzcoa for the season, and that a
number of tradespeople, including two jewellers, were now exceedingly
anxious to ascertain their whereabouts. Therefore, after much futile
effort to ascertain the truth about Doroteita, I at length returned to
London, being compelled to invent an absurdly lame excuse for not
telegraphing the information of the new Cabinet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last July I again found myself in Spain. Another serious crisis had
occurred. The Carlists were known to be carrying on an active
propaganda, and I had been despatched to Madrid, so as to be on the spot
if serious trouble arose. Only one London newspaper keeps a resident
correspondent in the Spanish capital, the remainder of the news from
that city being supplied through a well-known agency. A few days after
my arrival at the Hotel de Rome, in the Caballero de Gracia, I called
upon Senor Navarro Reverter, Minister of Finance, and was granted an
interview. I desired to ascertain his views on the situation, and as he
had been very communicative during those stormy times at San Sebastian a
year before, I had no doubt that he would give me a few opinions worth
telegraphing.
As I entered his cosy private room in the Calle de Alcala, and he rose
to greet me, my gaze became fixed upon the mantelshelf behind him, for
upon it stood two cabinet photographs of a man and a woman.
The one was a counterfeit presentment of Luis d'Avendano; the other a
portrait of Doroteita!
When I had formally "interviewed" him upon the financial reforms and
other matters regarding which I desired his opinion, I asked to be
allowed to see the photographs, and he handed them to me with a smile.
"Doroteita d'Avendano!" I ejaculated. The features were unmistakable,
though the dress was different.
"Are they--er--friends of yours?" the Minister asked, regarding me
keenly from beneath his shaggy brows.
"They were--once," I answered. "Ever since we were at San Sebastian
last year I have been endeavouring to trace them."
"What? Did she add you to her list of victims?" he asked, laughing.
"Well, the plot was scarcely successful, otherwise I should not be here
now," I replied. Then I told him briefly how, after luring me to their
villa, the interesting pair had attempted to murder me.
"Extraordinary!" he ejaculated, when I had finished. "Curiously enough,
however, your story supplies just the link in the chain of evidence that
was missing at their trial."
"Their trial?" I exclaimed. "Tell me about them."
"Well, in the first place, the enchantress you knew as Doroteita
d'Avendano was none other than the notorious Liseta Gonzalez, known to
the police as `The Golden Hand.'"
"`The Golden Hand'?" I echoed in amazement. I had heard much of the
extraordinary career of an adventuress bearing that _sobriquet_; how she
had moved in the best society in Paris and Vienna, and how in the latter
city, in a single year, in her character as queen of the _demi-monde_,
she had spent 50,000 pounds, the money of her dupes. Indeed, her
adventures had been the talk of Europe.
"Yes," he continued, smiling at my astonishment. "No doubt you have
read in your English newspapers all about the many ingenious frauds she
has perpetrated. For the past five years she has been well-known in
various characters in Pau, Rome, Paris, and Vienna; her schemes have
invariably been successful, and her escape from the police has been
accomplished just at the right moment, in a manner almost incredible.
But the audacious boldness of a _coup_ she effected a year ago caused
her downfall."
"A year ago?" I said. "Was it during the time I knew her?"
"Yes. While spending the summer at San Sebastian with Mateo Sanchez,--a
Bourse adventurer of Madrid, who, under the name of Luis d'Avendano,
passed as her brother,--she conceived, during the Cabinet crisis, a very
ingenious scheme for gigantic operations on the Bourse with certain
success. The circumstances were remarkable, and your story supplies the
facts which have remained until now a mystery. Unaware of the true
character of Sanchez, I had employed him as agent in various
transactions shortly before the crisis, and he had thus become aware of
my intentions to institute certain financial reforms that would affect
the Bourse to a considerable extent. `The Golden Hand,' it appears,
with her usual shrewdness, pointed out how the knowledge thus acquired
would enable him to operate with success, if only he could be certain of
my reappointment as Finance Minister, and the pair forthwith carried
into effect an ingeniously arranged plan. Apparently you were watched,
and, it having been ascertained that, as correspondent of an influential
journal, you were a likely person to obtain the very earliest intimation
of the formation of the Cabinet, they laid their plans to entrap you."
"I confess I little dreamed of foul play when I entered the Villa
Guipuzcoa," I observed.
"At the trial it was a mystery how they obtained knowledge of the State
secret," he continued. "But it is now quite plain that on the evening
when the portfolios were arranged, they, being aware of the devices to
which you would probably resort in order to obtain accurate information,
enticed you to their house, and then, having ascertained from your own
lips that the Ministry had been formed, resolved to carry out their
cunningly-devised scheme. They saw that you were the only member of the
public who knew the secret, and if they prevented you from despatching
it to London,--whence it was certain to be re-telegraphed here,--it
would give them time to get to Madrid on the following morning and
operate on the Bourse some hours before the announcement of the new
Ministry."
"She seemed so ingenuous and charming, that I suspected nothing--
until--"
"Until she attempted to murder you--eh?" he said, taking up her
portrait, and gazing upon it with a smile. "To say the least, the plot
was a most extraordinary one. By your admission that the crisis was at
an end, they knew you held a list of the new Ministers, and as you
persisted in your endeavour to catch the train to the frontier, it
became necessary for them to possess themselves of the list, and silence
you, in order to escape to Madrid, and on the opening of the Bourse next
day purchase the stock which they knew would rise immediately the
official announcement was published. `The Golden Hand' gave you as a
souvenir the flower she wore, in the expectation that you would inhale
its fatal perfume, as other victims had done."
"It was very similar to a camellia," I said. "Has anything been
ascertained regarding it?"
"Oh yes. The flower she sometimes wore in her hair, and which appeared
rather like a camellia, was at the trial proved to be the Kali Mujah, or
death-rose of Sumatra, which is so deadly that its perfume is sufficient
to cause unconsciousness, and sometimes even death. It was found that
she actually cultivated these flowers, and that on more than one
occasion she had used them upon her victims with fatal result. She gave
one to you, but you merely placed it in your buttonhole; therefore, just
as you were about to depart, her lover gripped you, while she pressed
the fatal blossom into your nostrils. Then you lapsed into
unconsciousness, and half an hour afterwards the enterprising pair were
on their way to Madrid, where, on the following morning, they purchased
a quantity of stock, with money secured by your idol Doroteita from one
of her dupes, the Comte de Segonnaux, whose death had been caused by the
poisonous blossom in a similar manner to the attempt upon yourself."
"Were their operations on the Bourse successful?" I asked.
"Entirely so. Unaware of these events, I put forward my financial
scheme in the Chamber a month afterwards, with the result that the stock
they had secured rose to unparalleled prices, and then they effected a
gigantic _coup_, gaining nearly a million pesetas. But the boldness of
the scheme caused their downfall, for the colossal extent of their
transactions attracted the attention of the police, the result being
that eventually the murder of the Comte de Segonnaux at Toledo was
conclusively proved, and your divinity's identity with `The Golden Hand'
fully established."
"Were they both tried?" I asked, amazed at his extraordinary story.
"Yes. Mateo Sanchez was found guilty of being an accessory in the
assassination of the Comte, and sentenced at the last sitting of the
Assize Court to fifteen years' imprisonment; while the bewitching
Liseta, condemned for the murder, is at present serving a life sentence
at the convict prison at Barcelona."
A quarter of an hour later I had wished my genial friend the Minister
adieu, and, full of grave reflections, crossed the sunlit Puerta del
Sol, carrying in my pocket, as a souvenir of a foolish infatuation, the
portrait of "The Golden Hand."