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THE GOLDEN FACE
_A GREAT "CROOK" ROMANCE_
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF "MADEMOISELLE OF MONTE CARLO,"
"THE STRETTON STREET AFFAIR"
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
_Printed in the United States of America_
[Illustration: I slipped the pendant into Lady Lydbrook's soft hand
as she stood in _deshabille_ at the half-opened door of her bedroom.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I PRIVATE AND PERSONAL 1
II ROOM NUMBER 88 16
III THE MAN WITH THE HUMP 30
IV THE FOUR FALSE FINGERS 43
V CONCERNS MR. BLUMENFELD 59
VI AT THREE-EIGHTEEN A.M. 73
VII LITTLE LADY LYDBROOK 87
VIII THE CAT'S TOOTH 99
IX LOLA IS AGAIN SUSPICIOUS 113
X THE PAINTED ENVELOPE 127
XI THE GENTLEMAN FROM ROME 140
XII THE SILVER SPIDER 151
XIII ABDUL HAMID'S JEWELS 170
XIV THE VENGEANCE OF TAI-K'AN 186
XV OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY 201
XVI THE MAN WHO WAS SHY 215
XVII THE SIGN OF NINETY-NINE 232
THE GOLDEN FACE
CHAPTER I
PRIVATE AND PERSONAL
In order to ease my conscience and, further, to disclose certain
facts which for the past year or two have, I know, greatly puzzled
readers of our daily newspapers, I have decided to here reveal some
very curious and, perhaps, sensational circumstances.
In fact, after much perplexity and long consideration, I have
resolved, without seeking grace or favor, to make a clean breast of
all that happened to me, and to leave the reader to judge of my
actions, and either to condemn or to condone my offenses.
I will begin at the beginning.
It has been said that service in the Army has upset the average man's
chances of prosperity in civil life. That, I regret, is quite true.
When I, George Hargreave, came out of the Army after the Armistice, I
found myself, like many hundreds of other ex-officers, completely at a
loose end, without a shilling in the world over and above the gratuity
of between two and three hundred pounds to which my period of
commissioned service entitled me.
Grown accustomed during the war, however, to fending for myself and
overcoming difficulties and problems of one sort and another, I at
once set to work to look about for any kind of employment for which I
fancied I might be fitted. After answering many advertisements to no
purpose, I one day happened upon one in _The Times_ which rather
stirred my curiosity.
It stated that a gentleman of good position, who had occasion to
travel in many parts of the world, would like to hear from a young man
with considerable experience in motor driving. The applicant should
not be over thirty, and it was essential that he should be a gentleman
and well educated, with a knowledge of foreign languages if possible;
also that he should be thoroughly trustworthy and possessed of
initiative. The salary would be a very liberal one.
Application was to be made by letter only to a certain box at the
office of _The Times_.
I wrote at once, and received some days later a reply signed "_per
pro_ Rudolph Rayne," asking me to call to see the advertiser, who said
he would be awaiting me at a certain small hotel-de-luxe in the West
End at three o'clock on the following afternoon.
I arrived at the highly aristocratic hotel at five minutes to three,
and was conducted to a private sitting-room by a page who, on ushering
me in, indicated a good-looking, middle-aged man seated near the
window, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigar.
The gentleman looked up as I approached, then put down his paper,
rose, and extended his hand.
"Mr. George Hargreave?" he inquired in a pleasant voice.
"Yes. Mr. Rudolph Rayne, I presume?"
He bowed, and pointed to a chair close to his own. Then he sat down
again, and I followed his example.
"I have received hundreds of replies to my advertisement," was his
first remark, "and the reason why your application is one of the few I
have answered is that I liked the frank way in which you expressed
yourself. Can you sing?"
"Sing?" I exclaimed, startled at the unexpected question.
"Sing," he repeated.
"Well, yes, I do sing occasionally," I said. "That is to say, I used
to at the sing-songs in France at sergeants' messes, and so on. But
perhaps you mightn't consider it singing if you heard me," I ended
lightly.
"Very good, very good," he observed absent-mindedly. "And you can
drive a Rolls?"
"I can drive a Rolls and several other cars as well," I answered. "I
was a driver in the R. A. S. C. early in the war."
Suddenly he focused his gaze upon me, and his keen, penetrating gray
eyes seemed to pierce into my soul and read my inmost thoughts. For
perhaps half a minute he remained looking at me like that, then
suddenly he said shortly:
"You are engaged, Mr. Hargreave. Your salary will be six hundred
pounds a year, paid monthly in advance, in addition to your living and
incidental expenses. I leave for Yorkshire by the midday train from
King's Cross to-morrow, and you will come with me. Good afternoon, Mr.
Hargreave. By the way, you might take this suit-case with you, and
bring it to the station to-morrow," and he pointed to a small
suit-case of brown leather on the floor beside his chair.
The whole interview had not lasted three minutes and I went
away obsessed by a feeling of astonishment. Mr. Rayne had not
cross-questioned me, as I naturally had expected him to do, nor had
he asked for my credentials. In addition he had fixed my salary at
six hundred pounds, without even inquiring what wages I wanted.
Obviously a character, an oddity, I said to myself as I passed out of
the hotel.
Had I suspected then that Mr. Rudolph Rayne was the sort of "oddity" I
later found him to be, I should have refused to accept the situation
even had he offered me two thousand a year.
Though, during the interview, my attention had been more or less
concentrated on Mr. Rayne, I had not been so deeply engrossed as to
fail to notice an exceptionally beautiful, dark-eyed girl, who had
entered while we had been speaking and who was seated on a settee a
little way off. She, too, had stared very hard at me.
Mr. Rayne was accompanied on that journey to Yorkshire by the pretty
dark-eyed girl who was his daughter Lola, and by his valet, a very
silent, stiff-necked, morose individual, whose personality did not
attract me. He seemed, however, to be an exceptionally efficient
person, so far as his duties were concerned, and on our arrival at the
little wayside station about twelve miles beyond Thirsk, where we had
changed trains, he proceeded to take charge of the luggage, all but
the suit-case which I still carried.
Outside the little station a magnificent Rolls limousine, colored a
dull gray, awaited us, and when the luggage had all been put on it,
Mr. Rayne surprised me by asking me to take the wheel then and there.
"My chauffeur left last week, but Paul will show you the road," he
said, as the valet seated himself beside me. "Overstow is about ten
miles off."
I don't know why it was, but that girl's dark eyes seemed to haunt me.
She was just behind me with her father, and twice when I had occasion
to look round to ask Mr. Rayne some question or other, I found her
gaze fixed on mine, which, foolishly I will admit, disconcerted me.
Mr. Rayne himself addressed me only once of his own accord during the
drive, and that was to ask me again if I sang.
"Why the dickens does he want to know if I sing?" was my mental
comment when I had replied that I sang a little, without reminding him
that he had put the same question to me on the previous day. For an
instant the thought flashed across me that perhaps my new employer had
some kink in his brain to do with singing; and yet, I reflected, that
seemed hardly likely to be the case with a man who in all other
respects appeared to be so exceptionally sane.
I was still cogitating this, when the car sped round a wide curve in
the road and beyond big lodge gates a large imposing mansion of modern
architecture came suddenly into view about half a mile away, partly
concealed by beautiful woods sloping down to it from both sides of the
valley. Slackening speed as we came near the lodge, I was about to
stop to let Paul alight to open the gates, beyond which stretched the
long winding avenue of tall trees, when a man came running out of the
lodge and made haste to throw the gates open.
My first surprise on our arrival at Overstow Hall--and I was to have
many more surprises before I had been long in Mr. Rayne's service--was
at finding that though my employer had quite a large staff of
servants, there was not a woman amongst them! Several guests were
staying in the house, including a middle-aged lady, called Madame,
whose position I could not exactly place, though she appeared to be in
charge of the establishment, in charge also of Lola.
Towards ten o'clock next morning the footman came to tell me that Mr.
Rayne wanted to see me at once in the library.
"He's in one of his queer moods this morning," the young man said, "so
you had better be careful. His letters have upset him, I think."
I thanked the lad for his hint, but on my way to the library, a room I
had not yet been in, I missed my bearings, entered a room under the
impression that it might be the library, and had hardly done so when
the sound of men's voices in a room adjoining came to me--the door
between the rooms stood partly open.
"Are you certain, Rudolph," one of the men was saying, "that this new
chauffeur of yours is the man for the job?"
"Have I ever made a mistake in summing up a man?" I heard Rayne
answer. "I always trust my judgment when choosing a new hand."
Where, before, had I heard the first speaker's voice? I knew that
voice quite well, yet, try as I would, I could not for the life of me
place it.
"Yes," the first speaker replied; "but, remember, in this case we are
running an enormous risk. If the least hitch should occur----"
They lowered their voices until their talk became inaudible, and
presently I heard one of them go out of the room. After waiting a
minute longer I left the room and went along the short passage, which
I now knew must lead to the room where I had heard them talking.
Rayne was alone, standing on the hearthrug with his back to the big,
open firegrate.
"Did you send for me, sir?" I inquired.
"I did, Hargreave," he replied in a friendly tone. "I sent for you
because I want you to go to Paris to-night. You will take with you the
suit-case you still have in your possession, and as you will go by a
trading steamer from Newcastle, the voyage will take you some days.
The suit-case contains valuable documents, so you must on no account
let it out of your sight, even for a minute, from the time you leave
here until you hand it over personally to the gentleman I am sending
you to--Monsieur Duperre. He is staying at the Hotel Ombrone, that
very smart and exclusive place in the Rue de Rivoli. He will give you
a receipt, which you will bring back to me here at once, coming then
by the ordinary route. You won't go by train to-day to Newcastle; you
will drive yourself there in the Fiat. Paul will go with you and drive
the car back."
He went on to give me one or two minor instructions, and then ended:
"That's all, Hargreave."
I was walking back along the passage when Rayne's pretty daughter Lola
came out of the room I had first entered. She must have come out
expressly to meet me, because when close to me she stopped abruptly,
glanced to right and left, and then asked me quickly in an undertone:
"Is my father sending you on any journey, Mr. Hargreave?"
Again her wonderful dark eyes became fixed upon mine, as they had done
on the previous day during the drive from the railway station.
"Don't try to deceive me," she said earnestly. "You will find it far
better to confide in me."
The words so astonished me that for the moment I could not reply.
Then, all at once, a strange feeling of curiosity came over me. Why
all this secrecy about the suit-case? I mentally asked myself. And
what an odd idea to send me to Paris by that long roundabout sea
route! What could be the reason?
"I am not deceiving you, Miss Rayne," I said.
She only smiled and turned abruptly away.
Then, for the first time, I found myself wondering what could be these
precious documents Rayne had told me the suit-case contained? That the
suit-case was locked, I knew! He had not unlocked it since he had
placed it in my charge in London two days before.
My employer gave me some money, and I started two hours later in the
Fiat. As I sped along the broad road from Thirsk south towards York,
with Paul beside me silent as ever, I could not get thoughts of Lola
out of my mind.
Once more I saw her gazing up at me with that peculiar, anxious
expression I had noticed when we had met in the passage, and I
regretted that I had not prolonged our conversation then, and tried to
find out what distressed her.
Several times I spoke to Paul, but he answered only in monosyllables.
We reached Newcastle in plenty of time, for the boat was not due to
sail before early next morning, and I felt relieved at being at last
rid of my uncongenial companion.
I had an evening paper in my pocket, and, to while away the time, I
lay in my narrow berth and began to read. Presently my glance rested
upon a paragraph which stated that two days before a dressing-case
belonging to Lady Norah Kendrew disappeared in the most extraordinary
manner from the hotel in London where she was staying. Exactly what
happened had been related to the enterprising reporter by Lady Norah
herself.
"My dressing-case containing all my jewelry was locked and on a table
near my bed," she said. "I went out of the room soon after half-past
ten this morning, my maid, who has been with me eight years, remaining
in the room adjoining to put some of my things away--the door between
the rooms remained ajar, she says. Whether or not the jewel-case was
still there when she herself went out to lunch at about one o'clock
she cannot say, as she did not go into my bedroom again. She shut the
door behind her when she went out of the sitting-room into the
corridor, and locked it. I first missed the jewel-case when I returned
to my room at about a quarter past three in the afternoon. The
contents are worth twenty thousand pounds. It seems hardly possible
that anybody could have entered the bedroom unheard while my maid was
in the sitting-room with the door between the two rooms ajar, so my
belief is that it must have been stolen between the time she went to
lunch and the time I returned. I am offering a big reward for the
return of the jewel-case with its contents intact."
The paragraph interested me because of the hotel where the robbery--if
robbery it was--had taken place, and the fact that I had happened to
be in that hotel on the very day of the robbery!
"Ah, well," I remember saying to myself, "if women will be so careless
as to leave valuable property like that unguarded they must expect to
take the consequences."
Then my thoughts wandered from the newspaper, and I found myself
wondering what Lady Norah Kendrew might be like--if she were young or
old, plain or pretty, married or unmarried. And I suppose naturally
that train of thought brought Lola once more into my imagination. I
had, remember, to all intents, hardly seen her, and she had spoken to
me only twice. Yet her personality literally obsessed me. That I was
foolish to let it I fully realized. But how many of us can completely
master our moods, our impulses and our emotions on all occasions?
The weather at sea remained fine, yet I found that long, slow voyage
most tedious. I had nothing to do but read, for I could not disregard
Mr. Rayne's strict instructions that I must on no account let the
suit-case out of my sight, and in consequence I could not leave my
cabin.
I remember looking down at the suit-case protruding from under the
berth and thinking it curious that documents should weigh so heavy.
There must be a great many of them, I reflected, but even so....
I bent down and pulled the suit-case right out and lifted it.
Indeed it was heavy--very heavy!
Then I began to think of something else.
I had the cabin to myself, which was pleasant, and I spent most of the
day stretched out in my bunk. Oh, how I longed every hour for the
terribly boring voyage to come to an end!
It was a lovely morning when at last we steamed into the estuary of
the Seine, and I shall never forget how beautiful the river and its
banks looked as I peered out through my port-hole and we crept up
towards Rouen. My meals had all been served in my cabin during the
voyage, as I could not well have taken the suit-case with me into the
saloon.
Now I felt like a prisoner about to be released.
Mr. Rayne had told me to stop at the post-office in Rouen on my way
from the boat to Paris, as I might, he said, find a letter or a
telegram awaiting me. I had managed to pass the suit-case through the
Customs, and now my heart beat faster as a letter was handed to me,
for I recognized Lola's handwriting; I had seen it only once
before--that was on a letter she had asked me to post for her.
I hurriedly tore open the envelope, and this was what I read:
"Private. I have suspicion that the suit-case you have you should get
rid of at once. Destroy this!"
Undated and unsigned, the letter bore no address. At once thoughts and
conjectures of all sorts came crowding into my mind. Could it be that
the suit-case contained stolen jewelry and not documents?
Instantly I guessed why Rayne had sent me to Paris with it by that
roundabout route. He must either himself be the thief, I concluded, or
an accomplice in the theft, and by placing the stolen property in my
charge and smuggling it out of England by a circuitous route....
One reflection led quickly to another. Paul, the valet, no doubt knew
about his master's private life--possibly was in his confidence. And
if Rayne had committed the robbery he must be a professional crook. In
which case, should the whereabouts of the stolen property be
discovered, I should be arrested as an accessory to the crime! Clearly
I had no time to lose if I wanted to safeguard myself. Even now the
police, with their wonderful acumen, might be on my track!
I reached Paris at last, and as my taxi swung round from the Place
Jeanne d'Arc into the Rue de Rivoli I began to feel extremely nervous.
In reply to my inquiry at the bureau of the smart Hotel Ombrone I was
told that I could be given a bed. Monsieur Duperre? Ah, monsieur had
just gone out, but would be back soon, most likely.
I had been given the key of my room, and was about to enter the lift,
when I noticed seated on a settee in the vestibule a well-dressed
woman whose face seemed familiar. And then in a flash I recognized the
lady who had been at Overstow Hall on the day I had arrived there!
She did not recognize me, or I concluded she did not, and naturally it
was no business of mine to make any sign of recognition.
I had been in my room, I suppose, about two hours when the telephone
bell rang.
"That Mr. Hargreave? The bureau speaking. Monsieur Duperre has come in
and is coming up to you now."
A minute later somebody knocked, and I called "Come in!" Then, to my
amazement, who should enter but my old company commander in France in
the early days of the war--Captain Vincent Deinhard, who later in the
war had been court-martialed for misappropriating canteen funds and
been subsequently cashiered! Altogether his Army record had been an
exceedingly bad one.
Instantly I remembered the voice. It was Deinhard I had heard in
conversation with Rayne at Overstow Hall!
He stood stock-still, staring at me.
"Why, Hargreave!" he exclaimed at last. "What in the world are you
doing here?"
"I am Mr. Rayne's chauffeur and general servant now, captain," I
replied. "Mr. Rayne told me to inquire on my arrival here for Monsieur
Duperre and hand him that suit-case," and I pointed to it.
He glanced quickly at the door, to make sure that it was shut, then,
looking at me oddly, he said in a low voice:
"I am Duperre, Hargreave. You must forget that my name was ever
anything else--I got myself into trouble in the Army, you
remember--and you must forget that too--and that we have ever met
before. So you are his new chauffeur, eh?" he went on, now talking
naturally. "It never occurred to me that 'Hargreave,' the new
chauffeur, would turn out to be the Hargreave who served under me
for two years!" and he laughed dryly.
Then, without a word, he went over to the suit-case and picked it up.
"Come along to my room," he said.