solved the enigma, though I have learned a number of facts which,
though they increase the mystery, yet they give some clue to the
solution of the enigma."
"But their evil design?" asked her mother.
"Their evil design is against us both, hence your daughter's interests
have become my own," I replied. "My sole object is to bring to justice
those who have, for their own ends--no doubt for financial gain--been
guilty of the astounding plot against your daughter. You may believe
Doctor Moroni and his friend Suzor as you will, Mrs. Tennison, but I
shall not withdraw from my present attitude. That they fear me is
conclusively proved."
"I quite see your point," said the quiet-voiced, refined lady.
"Then I do urge you to have a care of Miss Gabrielle," I exclaimed.
"If it is known, as it may be, that I have been here, an effort will
surely be made to close the mouth of one or other of us. These men are
desperate. I have already proved them so. Therefore we must take
every precaution against surprise."
"Why not go to the police?" suggested Mrs. Tennison.
"Because the whole circumstances are so strange that, if I related
them at Scotland Yard, I should not be believed," was my reply. "No.
I, with my friend Mr. Hambledon, must carry on our inquiries alone. If
we are sufficiently wary and active we may, I hope, gather sufficient
evidence to elucidate the mystery of your daughter's present mental
condition, and also the reason why a similar attempt was made upon
myself."
"Well, Mr. Garfield," exclaimed the charming, elderly lady with a
sigh, "I only hope you will be successful in your quest after the
truth. This blow upon me is, I confess, a most terrible one. It is so
distressing to see my poor child in such an uncertain state of
mentality. Sometimes, as I have told you, she is quite normal, though
she has no knowledge of what occurred to her. And at other times she
is painfully vague and often erratic in her actions."
"She must consult Professor Gourbeil, the great alienist, at Lyons. He
has a wide knowledge of the symptoms and effects of orosin."
The poor lady sighed, and with tired, sad eyes looked upon her
daughter, who had sunk into a chair with her pointed chin resting upon
her palms.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Garfield, I am not rich," she said in a low
earnest tone. "I will give most willingly all I possess in order that
my poor child be restored to her normal senses. But I have very little
in these post-war days, when everything is so dear, and taxation
strangles one, in face of what they told us during the war that they
were making England a place fit for heroes to live in! It seems to me
that they are now making it fit for Germans and aliens to live in."
"My dear Mrs. Tennison, our discussion does not concern politics," I
said, anxious for the future of the graceful girl whom I had grown to
love so dearly, even though her brain was unbalanced. At first I
regarded it as strange that being fellow-victims of Oswald De Gex and
his desperate, unscrupulous accomplices--who included the assassin
Despujol--I had been drawn towards her by some unknown and invisible
attraction. But when I analysed my feelings and surveyed the situation
calmly I saw that it was not more extraordinary than in any other
circumstances when a man, seeing a woman who fulfills all his high
ideals, falls desperately in love with her and worships at her shrine.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
THE DEATH-DRUG
It was July.
The London season, later in these modern days, was already on the
wane. The Derby and Ascot had been won, in glorious weather. There had
been splendid cricket at Lord's, fine polo at Hurlingham, and Henley
Week had just passed. London Society was preparing for the country,
the Continental Spas, and the sea, leaving the metropolis to the
American cousins who were each week invading London's big hotels.
I was back at Francis and Goldsmith's hard at work as I had been
before my strange adventure, while Harry was busy at his legal work in
the police courts.
From our windows looking across the Thames between the trees on the
towing path we had a wide view of the river with the chimneys of the
factories on the opposite bank. On the right was Putney, the starting
place of the University Boat Race, and on the left the great
reservoirs and the bend of the river behind which lay Mortlake, the
finish of the boat-race course. Each morning, when I rose and dressed,
I looked out upon the wide and somewhat uninteresting vista, racking
my brains how to further proceed with my campaign against the great
intriguer who could, by his immense wealth, juggle with dynasties.
With Mrs. Tennison I had become on very friendly terms. Fearing to
reveal myself as having taken that bundle of Bank of England notes as
a bribe, I held back from her what had actually happened to me on
that fateful night. But I had become a frequent guest at Longridge
Road, and often spent many delightful hours with Gabrielle, who at
times seemed quite in her normal senses.
Yet, at others, she became vague and spoke in awed tones about what
she had seen--"all red, green and gold." And often I sat at home
smoking and wondering what she had seen that had so impressed her.
Often, too, I discussed it with Mrs. Tennison and with Harry
Hambledon, but neither of us could suggest any solution of the
mystery.
Mrs. Tennison, on account of the slump in securities owing to the war,
was, I knew, in rather straitened circumstances. When I again
suggested a visit to the great specialist in Lyons she shook her head,
and told me frankly that she could not afford it. De Gex had, it
seemed, sought his victims among those who had been ruined by the war.
She had, however, told me that her brother, a shipping agent living in
Liverpool, who was Gabrielle's godfather, was deeply interested in
her.
I suggested that she should write to him and urge that, as a last
resort, Gabrielle should consult Professor Gourbeil. The latter had
been successful in restoring to their normal mental condition patients
who had been infected with orosin, that most dangerous and puzzling of
the discoveries of modern toxicologists.
Mrs. Tennison had acted upon my advice. Had I been in a financial
position to pay Gabrielle's expenses to Lyons I would have done so
most willingly. But my journey to Spain had depleted my resources, and
though I had those Bank of England notes still reposing in a drawer at
home, I dared not change one of them lest by such action I should
have accepted and profited upon the bribe which De Gex had so cleverly
pressed upon me.
In the first week of July Mrs. Tennison wrote to me, and that evening
I went over to see her after leaving the office in Westminster.
It was a hot dry night when London lay beneath its haze of
sun-reddened dust after a heat spell, parched and choked.
Gabrielle was out at the house of one of her school friends, hence, we
sat alone together in the cool drawing-room--a room which was
essentially that of a woman of taste and refinement.
A few seconds after I had entered, a tall, grey-haired man came in,
whereupon Mrs. Tennison introduced him as her brother Charles from
Liverpool.
The man glanced at me sharply, and then, smiling pleasantly, took my
hand.
"I have come up to see my sister regarding poor Gabrielle," he said,
when we were seated. "I understand that you have experienced similar
symptoms to hers, and have recovered."
"I have not completely recovered," I replied. "Often I have little
recurrences of lapse of memory for periods from a few moments to a
quarter of an hour."
"My sister has told me that you believe that poor Gabrielle and
yourself are fellow-victims of some plot."
"I am certain of it, Mr. Maxwell," I replied. "And I have already
devoted considerable time and more money than I could really afford in
an attempt to solve the mystery of it all."
"Can you explain the whole circumstances?" he asked. "I am deeply
interested in my unfortunate niece."
"I can relate to you a few of the facts if you wish to hear them," was
my reply. I certainly had no intention of telling him all that I
knew, or of the death and cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle
Engledue--whoever she might have been.
So I explained practically what I had told his sister. I also
described how Professor Vega at Madrid had told me of the two cures
effected by Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons.
"My sister tells me that you suggest Gabrielle should consult him,"
Mr. Maxwell said. "But she has consulted so many specialists. Doctor
Moroni has been most kind to her. He took her to doctors in Paris and
in Italy, but they could do nothing."
"Well, I think that as Professor Gourbeil has cured two persons of the
deadly effects of the drug Miss Tennison should see him," I remarked.
"I quite agree. It is for that reason I have come to London," he said.
"I understand that you, Mr. Garfield, take a personal interest in my
niece, therefore I want to ask you a favour--namely, that if I pay the
expenses would you accompany my sister and her daughter to Lyons?"
"Willingly. But I will pay my own expenses, please," was my prompt
reply.
At first he would not hear of it, until I declined to go unless I went
independently, and then we arranged for our departure.
Four days later we descended at the big busy Perrache station at Lyons
from the lumbering _rapide_ which had brought us from Paris, and
entered the Terminus Hôtel which adjoins the platform. Later, from the
concierge, we found that Professor Gourbeil of the Facultés des
Sciences et de Médecine, lived in the Avenue Felix Faure, and I
succeeded over the telephone in making an appointment with him for the
following day at noon.
This I kept, going to him alone in order to explain matters.
I found him to be a short, florid-faced man with a shock of white hair
and a short white beard. His house was a rather large one standing
back in a well-kept garden full of flowers, and the room in which he
received me was shaded and cool.
I told him of Professor Vega's recommendation, whereupon he exclaimed
in French:
"Ah! I know Professor Vega. We met last year at our conference in
Paris--a very brilliant man!"
Then, as briefly as I could, I explained how the deadly drug orosin
had been surreptitiously administered to Gabrielle and myself, and its
effects upon us both.
"Orosin!" exclaimed the old savant, raising his thin hands. "Ah! There
is not much hope of the lady's recovery. I have known of only two
cases within my experience. The effect of orosin upon the human brain
is mysterious and lasting. It produces a state of the brain-cells with
which we cannot cope. A larger dose produces strong homicidal
tendencies and inevitable death, and a still larger dose almost
instantaneous death."
I told him how we both had lost all sense of our surroundings for
weeks, and how we were both found at the roadside, she in Hampshire
and I in France.
"You were both victims of some plot; that is evident. Of course you
have invoked the aid of the police?"
I did not reply. I certainly feared to seek the assistance of Scotland
Yard.
He explained to me practically what Professor Vega had done regarding
orosin and its terrible effect.
"There have been other cases of its administration," said the great
alienist. "Somebody must be preparing the drug and selling it for
sinister purposes. Though it is so little known as yet that its
manufacturer must be an expert toxicologist with special knowledge."
"Have you seen many cases of its administration?" I asked eagerly.
"Yes. Quite a number," was the old Professor's reply. "I am in
communication with Doctor Duroc, of the Salpêtrière in Paris, and
together we are keeping a record of the cases where orosin is
administered by some mysterious hand. Whose, we have no idea. We leave
that to the Sûreté. But you say that your adventure and that of
mademoiselle occurred in London?"
I repeated my story. Then I ventured to ask:
"Do you, Professor, know anything of a Doctor Moroni, of Florence?"
The white-bearded, shock-haired man reflected for a moment, and then
moving in his chair, replied:
"I fancy I have heard his name. Moroni--Moroni? Yes, I am sure someone
has mentioned him."
"As a toxicologist?"
"Probably. I do not really remember. I believe I met him at one of the
conferences in Paris or Geneva. He was with one of your English
professors--one of your medico-legists whose name at the moment
escapes my memory. He gave evidence in that curious case of alleged
poison at the Old Bailey, in London, a year ago."
"But is Doctor Moroni known as an expert in poison?"
"Not to my personal knowledge. Possibly he is, and I have heard his
name in that connexion. Why do you ask?"
"Because he has had my friend Miss Tennison under his care. He has
taken her to see several specialists in Italy." Then in a sudden burst
of confidence I told him of my great love for the girl who, like
myself, had been attacked in secret. Further, I told him that the
reason of my steady inquiry was in her interests, as well as in my
own.
"My dear Monsieur Garfield, now that you are so frank with me I will
do my utmost in the interests of both of you," declared the dear old
Professor, as he rose and crossed to the window. "What you have told
me interests me intensely. I see by your travels to Spain and the
South that you are leaving no stone unturned to arrive at a true
solution of the problem--and I will help you. Orosin is the least
known and most dangerous drug that has ever been discovered in our
modern civilization. Used with evil intent it is unsuspected and
wellnigh undiscoverable, for the symptoms often resemble those of
certain diseases of the brain. The person to whom the drug is
administered either exhibits an exhilaration akin to undue excess of
alcohol, or else the functions of the brain are entirely distorted,
with a complete loss of memory or a chronic aberration of the brain."
"That is the case of my friend Miss Tennison," I said.
"Very well. I will see her and endeavour to do what I can to restore
her," said the elegant old French savant. "But, remember, I hold out
no hope. In all cases orosin destroys the brain. It seems to create a
slow degeneracy of the cells which nobody yet can understand. We know
the effect, but we cannot, up to the present, combat it. There are yet
many things in human life of which the medical men are in as complete
ignorance as those who study electricity and radio-frequencies. We try
to do our best to the extent of our knowledge, my dear monsieur. And
if you will bring Mademoiselle to me to-morrow at three o'clock I will
try to make my diagnosis."
I thanked him for his perfectly open declaration, and then I left.
That he was the greatest living authority on the symptoms and effect
of the mysterious drug orosin I felt confident. I only longed that he
would take Gabrielle beneath his charge and endeavour to restore her
brain to its normal function.
Punctually at three o'clock next day I called with my beloved and her
mother at the house embowered in roses and geraniums up on the hill
above the broad Rhône river.
We were ushered in by an old man-servant, silent and stately.
The Professor quickly appeared, his sharp eyes upon the patient.
"I wonder if you will allow me, Madame, to take your daughter into my
consulting-room alone?" he asked in good English. "It will be best for
me to question her without any other person being present."
"Most certainly," Mrs. Tennison replied. Then, turning to Gabrielle,
she said: "The Professor wants to put a few questions to you, dear.
Will you go with him into the next room?"
Gabrielle, pale-faced and tragic, looked at me strangely, and then
meekly followed the old Professor into his consulting-room.
The door was closed, and Mrs. Tennison waited with me in silence. The
window of the room was open and through it came the sweet scent of the
roses and climbing jasmine, with the buzz of the summer insects and
the chatter of the birds, for the house was high up on that hill above
the great silk-weaving capital of the Rhône.
I rose and looked out upon the garden, so well ordered, for the
Professor was, it seemed, a lover of roses, the blossoms running riot
everywhere.
Suddenly, as we remained in silence, we heard Gabrielle's voice raised
until she shouted fierce defiant words in English:
"No!" she shrieked. "It was not that--not that! You try and fix upon
me a deed that I did not do! Why should you do this--why should you do
this!"
"Pardon, Mademoiselle," we heard the Professor say in a quiet, calm
tone. "Pardon. Please! I do not allege it. I have only asked a simple
question."
"Your question is insulting, doctor!" declared my beloved loudly. "Why
should you insinuate such a thing?"
"Mademoiselle, I insinuate nothing," replied the Professor. "I am
endeavouring to ascertain the exact state of your mental balance. Your
anger is, in itself, a most gratifying feature. A thousand pardons if
you feel that I have insulted you," he added with the extreme
politeness of his race.
Then, through the folding doors which divided the apartments, we heard
him say:
"Will you please give me both your hands, and look directly into my
eyes?"
There was a silence.
We could hear the Professor sigh, but he made no comment.
His examination occupied nearly an hour. He put to her many searching
questions in an endeavour to restore her memory as to what happened,
but without avail. Those questions seemed to perturb her, for of a
sudden she cried loudly, indeed she almost shrieked in terror:
"Ah! no! no! Save me!" she implored. "I--I can't stand it! I can't--I
really can't! See! Look! Look! There it is again--all red, green and
gold!--all red, green and gold!"
And we could hear her expressions of fear as she gazed upon some
imaginary object which held her terrified.
We heard the kindly old Professor putting many questions to her in an
endeavour to discover what gave rise to that nameless horror which she
so often experienced, but her replies were most vague. She seemed
unable to describe the chimera of her imagination. Yet it was only too
plain that on that fatal night she had seen something bearing those
colours which had so impressed itself upon her mind as distinctly
horrible that it constantly recurred to her.
Yet she was unable to describe it, owing to her mental aberration.
Time after time, she implored the Professor's protection from some
imaginary peril, and time after time, after she had begged him to
remain near her, she repeated those mysterious and meaningless words:
"Red, green and gold!--red, green and gold!"
In breathless anxiety we listened, but all we could hear were the
Professor's sighs of despair, which meant far more to Mrs. Tennison
and myself than any of his words could convey.
We knew that upon poor Gabrielle, the girl I loved with all my heart
and soul, the deadly drug had done its work--and that she was, alas!
incurable!
Her case was hopeless, even in the hands of the one man in all Europe
who knew the effects of orosin and had only in two cases effected
cures.
I looked at her mother in silence. She knew my thoughts, for tears
were now coursing down her pale cheeks.
Both of us knew the worst. Our journey had been in vain.
That thought caused me to grit my teeth against De Gex and his unholy
hirelings. I would follow and unmask them. I would avenge the innocent
girl whom I loved so dearly, even though it should cost me my life!
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
YET ANOTHER MYSTERY
The first week in August was unusually hot and dry in London.
Gabrielle and Mrs. Tennison had remained in Lyons, for Professor
Gourbeil had suggested that his patient should, as a desperate
resource, remain under his treatment for a few weeks. He gave
practically no hope of her recovery. The dose of orosin that had been
administered was, he declared, a larger one than that which De Gex had
introduced into my drink on that night of horrors.
The effect upon me had been to muddle my brain so that I had accepted
those Bank of England notes as bribe to assist the mystery-man of
Europe in his foul and mysterious plot.
My companion Harry Hambledon was still earning his guineas at
Hammersmith Police Court, gradually establishing a reputation. He had
bought a small two-seater car, and each Sunday he took Norah out for
runs to the Hut at Wisley, to the Burford Bridge Hotel, where the
genial Mr. Hunt--one of the last remaining Bohemians of the days of
the Junior Garrick Club--welcomed them; to the Wooton Hatch, or up to
those more pretentious and less comfortable hostelries on Hindhead.
Motoring had roused a new interest in my friend. I loved the open
road, but with the heavy expenses I had recently sustained I could not
afford it. Besides, my firm had just secured a big electric lighting
contract with the corporation of Chichester, and I was constantly
travelling between that city and London, sometimes by rail and
sometimes in Mr. Francis's car.
I suppose I must have carried on my work satisfactorily after the
generous leave the firm--one of those stately old-fashioned ones which
have still survived the war--had accorded me. But my thoughts were
ever of my beloved Gabrielle, the beautiful girl whom, though her mind
was so strongly unbalanced, I yet loved with all the strength of my
being.
Every few days we exchanged letters. Sometimes Mrs. Tennison wrote to
me from the quiet little pension in the Rue Paul Bert, in Lyons, but
her letters were always despairing. Poor Gabrielle was just the same.
She still had no other vista in life than her immediate one, and she
still in her reflective moments gave vent to that strange ejaculation
of those mysterious words: "Red, green and gold! Red, green and gold!"
I confess that I went about my business in a low-spirited, despairing
mood. More than once I passed by that dark forbidding house in
Stretton Street, the blinds of which were drawn, for ever since the
winter it had been closed with the caretaker in charge. Pass along
Park Lane and the Mayfair neighbourhood in August and you will see the
Holland blinds drawn everywhere. The window-boxes filled with
geraniums and marguerites are drooping, for they have served their
turn and "the families" are out of town, enjoying themselves in
Scotland, in Norway, or at the French Spas. Honest Londoners may sweat
and toil with their begrudged fourteen days at the sea or in the
country, but Society, caring nothing for unhealthy trades or ill-paid
labour, unless a strike perchance affects their pockets or their
comforts, drifts to where it can flirt, dance or gamble amid gay
surroundings denied in London by our sanctimonious kill-joys.
Whenever I passed along Stretton Street there spread over my mind the
strange and inexplicable events of that night when De Gex's
man-servant Horton had dashed out after me, and suddenly implored me
to see his master. Ah! I saw the amazing cleverness of the whole
plot--a plot such as could only be conceived by a master brain.
De Gex's dark, sinister, half-Oriental countenance haunted me in my
dreams. True, he was a man who swayed the finances of Europe, suave,
smiling, and with an extremely polished and refined exterior. But why
Suzor had purposely become acquainted with me, and why I had
afterwards been enticed into that house of tragedy were, in
themselves, two points, the motive of which I failed to grasp.
Late one evening I passed the house, going out of my way purposely to
do so, when, to my amazement, I saw standing upon the doorstep, and
about to enter his car, no other person than Oswald De Gex himself.
Behind him stood a strange man-servant, who at the moment seemed to be
taking some instructions.
In the darkness De Gex could not distinguish me. Therefore I drew back
and watched the world-famous financier enter the car and drive away.
So Oswald De Gex was back in London--and in August! I had passed the
house on the previous afternoon and seen that as usual the faded
Holland blinds were drawn, just as they had been for months, an
indication to callers that the owner was away. I looked again. The
blinds were still down!