examination made to ascertain if there is a small cut in the first
finger of the left hand. If there is--then the Baron has been secretly
murdered!"
"The valet has alleged this all along, but there being no evidence we
disbelieved him," said the official at once.
"There is now evidence--direct evidence," said the Dutch doctor. "This
Englishman here is interested in some way in the Baron's death, and
after discovering the scrap of razor-blade he brought it to me."
The Dutch police official knit his brows, and turning to me, asked:
"Did you yourself discover this piece of steel?"
"I did. From certain facts within my knowledge I suspected that the
Baron had been deliberately killed. The allegations of the valet,
Folcker, strengthened my suspicions, hence I travelled from London and
pursued my own independent inquiries, which have resulted in the
discovery of the little piece of blade inside the glove which the
Baron wore when he went to interview his mysterious visitor at The
Hague."
"But what evidence have we that the mysterious visitor--the
individual who has been referred to in the report as the man with the
round horn glasses--had anything to do with the affair?"
"According to the Baron's servant the visitor was left alone for a few
moments in the room where van Veltrup had put down his gloves in order
to go out and speak to his valet, who on that day was acting as his
chauffeur. It was in those moments of his absence that the unknown
visitor put the infected scrap of steel into the Baron's glove."
"Did he not wear the gloves on his way back to Amsterdam?" asked the
police official, as he laid down his thin cigar.
"No," I replied. "The valet is certain that instead of putting on his
gloves he thrust them into the pocket of his linen dust-coat. Folcker
says that when his master returned he took the gloves from the pocket
of the linen coat and placed them on the table in the hall--as was his
habit. It was only when the Baron was going out again that he put on
the left-hand one, and then suddenly drew it off and rubbed his
fingers. The first finger of his left hand had undoubtedly been cut,
and hence infected with that substance which causes almost instant
death and the exact symptoms of heart disease."
"Orosin--did you say?" asked the head of the Amsterdam police.
"Yes," I replied. "Orosin--the most dangerous, subtle and easily
administered poison known to our modern toxicologists. And your great
financier Baron van Veltrup has died by the hand of one who has
wilfully administered it!"
"Well," said the stolid man with the scraggy beard, rather
reluctantly, "I confess that this has come to me as a perfect
revelation."
"You have only to order the exhumation of the Baron's body, and an
examination of the left hand, to be convinced that what this
Englishman, Mr. Garfield, has discovered is the actual truth!"
declared Doctor Obelt, whose reputation as a pathologist was the
highest in the Netherlands, and against whose opinion even the Chief
of Police of Amsterdam could raise no word.
"It shall be done, gentlemen," the stolid official assured us. "It
shall be done in secret--and at once."
He was true to his word, for at noon next day I received an invitation
to call again at the Police Bureau, and was there informed that a
small superficial cut upon the first finger of the left hand had been
discovered.
Therefore there was no doubt that death had resulted from foul play.
If such were the case, it seemed more than probable that to Count de
Chamartin, the intimate associate of Oswald De Gex, a similar dose of
orosin had been administered!
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH
MORE ABOUT MATEO SANZ
The means by which the unfortunate Baron van Veltrup had met with his
death was as ingenious as that practised upon me by the expert thief,
Despujol. As I reflected upon all the details as related to me by the
valet, Folcker, I suddenly recollected that the Baron's strange
visitor, the man who must have placed that sharp scrap of razor-blade
within his glove at the moment when the unsuspicious victim had gone
outside to speak with his servant, was described as a man with a red
face and a dark moustache.
A man who answered such description was the elusive friend of
Mademoiselle Jacquelot, of Montauban, the motor bandit Mateo Sanz--the
man who had so cleverly evaded the police, and who had no doubt been
an intimate friend of Despujol! In order to confirm my suspicions, I
at once telegraphed to Señor Rivero in Madrid, urging him to send me a
copy of the police photograph of Sanz for identification purposes.
That same day I received a reply which informed me that the photograph
was in the post, hence I remained in Amsterdam awaiting its arrival.
Four days later it was handed to me, a photograph taken in several
positions of the rather round-faced, florid man whom I had seen
talking to Mademoiselle at the station at Montauban--the man whom
Rivero had followed, but who, on the French police going to arrest
him, was found to have fled.
I carried the photograph to Folcker's lodgings and there showed it to
him.
"That is the man who met my master, sir!" he cried unhesitatingly.
"Only he wore round horn spectacles. His face and moustache are the
same. He was not Dutch."
"No. This man is a Spaniard named Sanz, who is well known to the
police," I replied.
"Then they should arrest him, for he is no doubt responsible for my
poor master's death."
We went together to the Bureau of Police where the valet formally
identified the photograph, and made certain declarations concerning
the malefactor in question. These he signed.
"I happen to have seen this individual," I explained to the police
commissary. "I was with Señor Rivero, head of the Spanish detective
department, and we saw him at Montauban. But though Señor Rivero
followed him, he escaped."
"Then he is wanted--eh?"
"Yes--for murder."
The Dutch police official gave vent to a low grunt.
"Very well," he said. "I will have inquiry made. I thank you very much
for the information."
It seemed to me that he was annoyed because I had dared to dispute his
theory that the late Baron had died from natural causes. He was a
stolid man, who, having once made up his mind, would not hear any
evidence to the contrary.
With failing heart I saw that to move him was hopeless, so next day I
returned to London, piqued and angry, yet satisfied that I had
discovered the true cause of the Baron's lamentable death.
Weeks passed. To pursue the inquiry further seemed quite hopeless.
The summer went by, but Mrs. Tennison and her daughter still remained
in Lyons. The reports were never hopeful. My poor darling was just the
same. There recurred to her ever and anon a remembrance of those three
colours which haunted her--red, green and gold.
The Professor was most kind, Gabrielle's mother wrote me. He did
everything in his power, and still persevered after failure upon
failure.
"I fear poor Gabrielle will never recover," she wrote in one of her
letters. "The Professor is always optimistic, but I can read that in
his heart he has no hope. The next step will, I dread to think, be
hopeless imbecility!"
With that letter in my pocket I went to the office in Westminster each
day with leaden heart. The joys of life had become blotted out. I
cared for nothing, for no one, and my interest in living further had
been suddenly swept away.
Harry Hambledon, as we sat together at breakfast each day, tried in
vain to interest me in various ways. He urged me one evening to go
with him and Norah to the Palais de Danse, across Hammersmith Bridge,
and I was forced to accept. But instead of dancing I sat at a side
table and sipped ice drinks. Dancing had no attraction for me.
Very fortunately we were extremely busy at the office. Four big
contracts had been entered into by the firm for the lighting and
telephones for four new hotels-de-luxe, one at Bude, in Cornwall, one
in Knightsbridge, another at Llandudno, in North Wales, and the fourth
at Cromer. Hence I was compelled to be ever on the move between Wales,
Norfolk, and Cornwall, and perhaps this sudden activity prevented me
from brooding too closely over the hopeless condition of the girl
with whom I was so deeply in love. In these days electrical engineers
have to be pretty active in order to pay their way, and though Francis
and Goldsmith was an old-established firm, they were nothing if not
up-to-date in their methods.
One morning as I sat in a corner of the London-Exeter express on my
way down to Bude, I read in my paper the following:
"Mr. Oswald De Gex, the well-known international financier,
is to be entertained on Thursday next to luncheon by the
Lord Mayor and Corporation at the Mansion House. The Prime
Ministers of Spain and the Netherlands, who are in London on
official business, will be included among the guests. Mr. De
Gex, though he has a house in London, is seldom here. He has
recently been engaged in a great financial scheme to secure
for England the whole of the output of the rich oil field
recently discovered in Ecuador."
So Oswald De Gex was still in London! I held my breath. With his wall
of wealth before him he seemed invulnerable. I recollected those crisp
Bank of England notes which still reposed in a drawer at Rivermead
Mansions--the bribe I had so foolishly accepted to become his
accomplice in that mysterious crime.
Gabrielle Engledue! Who was the girl whose body, because of my false
certificate, had been reduced to ashes in order to destroy all
evidence of foul play? Who was she--and what was the motive?
If I could only ascertain the latter, then I might be able to
reconstruct the crime slowly, piece by piece. But as far as I could
see there was an utter absence of motive.
Long ago I had arrived at the conclusion that by the death of the
unknown girl named Engledue, the unscrupulous financier had added some
considerable sum to his bank balance. But how? His crafty
unscrupulousness was shown by the manner in which his partner, to whom
he owed a big sum, had been cleverly secretly killed by a hireling--a
friend of the dead Despujol. Oswald De Gex posed to the world as an
honest and upright man of business whose financial aid was welcomed
cordially by all the hard-up States in Europe. He posed as a
philanthropist, and as such earned a big reputation in those countries
in which the operations of the all-powerful group he controlled were
carried on.
But I knew his methods, and I sat staggered at the fact that the
Corporation of the City of London were about to entertain him. Yet
money counts always. Did not the Lord Mayor and Corporation once
entertain the man who gave a service of gold communion-plate to St.
Paul's Cathedral, and who afterwards spent many years in one of His
Majesty's gaols?
My blood boiled within me when I read that announcement. Yet on calmer
consideration, I resolved to still wait and watch.
I returned to London on the following Friday, and in the train I read
of the splendid luncheon given on the previous day to the
arch-criminal and the eulogistic speeches made by two English
politicians and the two foreign Premiers.
Oswald De Gex was declared to be one of the greatest financiers of the
age, and there was a hint that a certain Allied Government was about
to enlist his efforts with a view to extricate it from national
bankruptcy.
De Gex was a man who thought and spoke in millions. Accompanying the
article was a photograph of him standing smiling beside the Lord
Mayor as guest of the City of London. Oswald De Gex seldom allowed
himself to be photographed, but some enterprising Press photographer
had no doubt snapped him unawares.
His hesitation to be photographed--public man that he was--was but
natural. Wherever you hear of people in the public eye, male or
female, who will not allow their pictures to appear in the papers, you
may always suspect in that hesitation a dread of the raking up of some
hidden scandal. Many a face which has looked out upon us from a
pictorial newspaper or a "back-page" of one's daily journal, has
caused its owner much terror, and in more than one instance a rush
into obscurity to avoid the police.
Scotland Yard and the Paris Sûreté have many albums of photographs,
and it is not generally known that each day their counterparts are
searched for in the daily journals.
Oswald De Gex had on that memorable day become, against his will no
doubt, a lion of London. One heard nothing of Mrs. De Gex. She was
still at the Villa Clementini no doubt. Her name was never mentioned
in the very eulogistic articles which innocent men of Fleet Street
penned concerning the man of colossal finance. One can never blame
Fleet Street for "booming" any man or woman. A couple of thousand
pounds to a Press agent will secure for a burglar an invitation to
dine at a peer's table. Plainly speaking, in Europe since the war,
real merit has become almost a back number. Money buys anything and
anybody.
I fear that, young man as I still am, I am a fierce critic of the
manners of our times. I learned my, perhaps, old-fashioned ideas from
my father, an honest, upright, country parson, who loved to ride with
the hounds, who called a spade a spade, and openly denounced a liar
as such. He never minced matters, and stuck to his opinion, yet he was
a pious, generous, open-hearted Englishman, who had no use for the
"international financier," who has lately become the pseudonym for a
foreign adventurer.
The autumn days shortened and winter was approaching, for the east
winds blew chill across the Thames into my room as I shaved before my
window each morning. Mrs. Tennison was still in Lyons, and Harry
Hambledon went each morning to his sordid work at the Hammersmith
Police Court, either prosecuting or defending in small cases. His
eloquence and shrewdness as an advocate had more than once been
commented upon by the stipendiary, hence he was gradually working up
quite a lucrative practice.
Things drifted along till the end of October. De Gex was living at
Stretton Street, very occupied, I ascertained, in arranging a great
development scheme for Liberia, that independent State in West Africa.
In the City he was constantly expressing his regret at the unfortunate
deaths of his partners, Count de Chamartin, of Madrid, and the Baron
van Veltrup, of Amsterdam, but he had expressed himself ready to carry
the great deal through himself, though it involved the speculation of
nearly two millions sterling.
I could hardly take up any newspaper--neither could you, my reader,
for that matter--unless I saw De Gex referred to, under another name,
of course. He went here and there, the guest of a Cabinet Minister,
playing golf with a Leader of the House, or spending a week-end with a
Duke, until it seemed that the world of Society had at last prevailed
upon the mystery-man of millions to emerge from his shell and take up
his position in Mayfair.
When I saw that he was the guest of certain hard-up members of the
aristocracy, or of war profiteers, who, dropping their aitches, had
bought ancestral homes, I merely smiled at the ignorance of those who
were entertaining one of the greatest criminals in Europe.
In the watch I kept each evening upon the house in Stretton Street my
friend Harry Hambledon assisted me. As we lurked in doorways in the
vicinity, we saw the great ones of London Society, of both sexes,
going and coming, for Oswald De Gex had now commenced to entertain
upon a lavish scale. He gave smart dinner-parties and musical
evenings, which the most exclusive set enjoyed.
One night, after it had grown dark, I sauntered along Park Lane, as
was my habit, and having turned into Stretton Street noticed a rather
shabbily dressed man, evidently a foreigner, descending the steps from
De Gex's door. He turned in my direction, and we came face to face.
In an instant I recognized him as the Spaniard, Mateo Sanz! He had
never seen me before, therefore, when at a respectable distance, I
turned and followed him along to a street off the Edgware Road, where
he entered a third-class private hotel.
What, I wondered, was his object in visiting De Gex unless some other
plot was in progress? I, however, did not intend, now that I knew the
truth concerning the death of the Baron in Amsterdam, that the
assassin should escape. Hence I took a taxi to Scotland Yard where I
was interviewed by a detective-inspector to whom I revealed the
hiding-place of the much-wanted criminal.
He thanked me, and then began to inquire what I knew concerning him.
In return, I told him of my friendship with the great Spanish
detective Rivero, and how, with the latter, I had seen Sanz at the
station at Montauban.
Presently he rose, and telling me he would search for any request from
the Spanish Government for the man's arrest, he left me.
He returned a quarter of an hour later with some papers in his hands,
and said:
"I find that the Madrid police have applied to us for this
individual's arrest, and here is his photograph," and he showed me one
similar to that which Rivero had sent me to Amsterdam.
I, of course, made no mention of Oswald De Gex, but it suddenly
occurred to me that if Sanz were arrested De Gex might take fright, so
I suggested that the Spaniard be kept under surveillance until the
Spanish police were communicated with.
"I believe Señor Rivero suspects that Sanz is one of a very dangerous
gang," I said. "If so, it would be well to arrest them all."
"Are the others in London, do you think?" asked the tall, dark-haired
official of the Criminal Investigation Department.
"Ah! That I do not know," was my reply. "I only know that Mateo Sanz
is a very dangerous person, who has been wanted for several years."
"Well, we thank you very much for your information, sir, and we shall
act upon it at once," he replied. And then I went along the stone
corridor and out again into Parliament Street, well satisfied that I
had, at last, placed one of the criminals in the hands of the police,
who would, in due course, learn the true facts concerning Baron van
Veltrup's mysterious end.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
A CURIOUS STORY
At Scotland Yard they acted upon my suggestion, and at once sent a
wireless message to Señor Rivero in Madrid, telling him of the
discovery of the notorious Mateo Sanz.
In the meantime my curiosity was further aroused by a note sent to me
by Mrs. Tennison's servant, Mrs. Alford, next day, saying that Doctor
Moroni had called at Longridge Road and that, finding Miss Gabrielle
absent, he had put to her a number of questions concerning myself.
"As I promised you, sir," the woman wrote, "I pleaded ignorance of
everything. He was apparently astonished to find my mistress and Miss
Gabrielle away. He asked me for their address, but I replied that they
were moving from place to place on the Continent. He seemed most
annoyed, and went away."
I wondered what was his object in going to Longridge Road, if not for
the purpose of some further evil work. Though he pretended
friendliness towards Gabrielle, yet I knew that he was her enemy, just
as he was mine.
Moroni was in London, hence he would no doubt visit De Gex. Hambledon
was unknown to Moroni, therefore he watched in Stretton Street on the
following night, and in his work of observation he was assisted by
Norah, who had been told something of the strange circumstances,
though of course not the whole amazing story.
Just before eleven o'clock Harry and his fiancée arrived at Rivermead
Mansions in a taxi and told me that they had seen Moroni arrive at
Stretton Street about half-past nine. He was admitted by a new and
rather supercilious man-servant--for Horton did not now seem to be in
the great man's employ.
"Ten minutes afterwards Suzor arrived," Harry said. "Then about half
an hour later Moroni came out."
"I was passing the house slowly when he came down the steps muttering
fiercely to himself in Italian," Norah said. "He took no notice of me,
for he seemed extremely angry and excited. Indeed, as he left, he
glanced back at the house, his hands clenched, and he seemed to invoke
a curse upon it."
"By Jove!" I gasped. "That's interesting! The precious trio have
perhaps quarrelled!"
"Perhaps," said Hambledon. "And as a lawyer I venture to predict that
if they really have we shall, ere long, obtain some very interesting
disclosures."
Norah stayed and had some supper, for we were all desperately hungry,
and later on Harry saw her back to Richmond.
Three days later, in consequence of a message sent to me from the
Hotel Cecil, I went home early from the office to Rivermead Mansions,
and had only been in five minutes when the door-bell rang.
On opening it I found my expected visitor, Señor Rivero.
"Ah! my dear friend!" cried the good-humoured police official, as he
wrung my hand warmly. "So I have found you at last! The taxi-man made
a mistake in the address and took me further down the road. Well, so
you have been doing good business for us--eh? You have found Mateo
Sanz!"
"Yes. I recognized him," I said.
"I have just been with Superintendent Risden, of Scotland Yard, and we
have seen our friend whom we have wanted for so long. He is quite
unsuspicious. But I am told that two days ago he visited the house of
Mr. De Gex."
"Yes, he is his friend, just as Despujol was," I remarked.
"But I cannot understand that!" Rivero declared. "It seems incredible
that a person of such high standing as Mr. De Gex should number
bandits among his friends!"
"I revealed to you the truth concerning De Gex when we were in Nîmes,"
I said. "Even then you were half inclined to disbelieve it. Now you
know the truth. The two business partners of Oswald De Gex, the Conde
de Chamartin, of Madrid, and the Baron van Veltrup, of Amsterdam, have
both died suddenly--and at the instigation of their unsuspected
friend! It has been proved that Sanz introduced the tiny scrap of
infected razor-blade into the Baron's glove."
"At De Gex's instigation?--impossible!"
"De Gex was the only person to profit by the Baron's death," I pointed
out. "He owed a large sum to the Baron over a financial deal, and by
the latter's death, and the destruction of certain papers, he now
escapes payment."
"But you surely do not allege that Mr. De Gex resorts to the use of
this little known and unsuspected poison in order to secure his own
ends!" cried the famous detective, as he sat opposite me in an
easy-chair.
"When we know the truth--as I hope we may very soon--then you will be
staggered," I assured him. "At present you do not know the whole of
the amazing story. For certain private reasons I have been unable to
reveal it to you. But slowly, piece by piece, I have been steadily
working upon the mystery of certain amazing occurrences at De Gex's
house in Stretton Street. By slow degrees, and after travelling up
and down Europe, I have at last succeeded in finding just a streak of
daylight through the impenetrable barrier so cleverly contrived in
order to mystify and mislead me. If you desire to ascertain the great
ramifications of the desperate plots conceived by De Gex and his
friends, and take steps to combat them, it will be best to allow his
accomplice Sanz further liberty. Keep vigilant watch, but do not allow
him to suspect," I urged. "He will no doubt go to Stretton Street
again. Sanz, though a hired assassin as was his friend Despujol,
should not be arrested yet, for the longer he remains at liberty the
more extensive will be our information against the arch-schemer of
Europe, Oswald De Gex."
Rivero spent the evening with me. We dined at the Clarendon, across
Hammersmith Bridge, and afterwards we idled in one of the foreign
cafés near Piccadilly Circus.
He was in London with a warrant for the arrest of Mateo Sanz in his
pocket. But at my suggestion he stayed his hand. Meanwhile Sanz, all
unsuspecting, was being carefully watched, not only by two
detective-sergeants from Scotland Yard, but also by two Spanish
detectives whom Rivero had brought to London with him.
Two days later, in response to a message from Rivero, I called at the
Hotel Cecil on leaving the office. He met me in the marble-paved
entrance hall, and I noticed at once a grave expression upon his face.
"Come up to my room," he said in French. "We can talk quietly there."