FACE TO FACE.
We had, all four of us, ranged ourselves up under the wall of a big white
house in the Chausee de Nieuport, which formed the south side of the
racecourse, and where, between us and the sea, rose the colossal Royal
Palace Hotel, when Frémy advanced to the big varnished oak door, built
wide for the entrance of automobiles, and rang the electric bell.
In response there came out a sedate, white-whiskered man-servant in black
coat and striped yellow waistcoat, the novel Belgium livery, but in an
instant he was pinioned by the two detectives from Brussels, and the way
opened for us.
"No harm, old one!" cried the detectives in French, after the man had
admitted his master was at home. "We are police-agents, and doing our
duty. We don't want you, only we don't intend you to cry out, that's all.
Keep a still tongue, old one, and you're all right!" they laughed as they
kept grip of him. The Continental detective is always humorous in the
exercise of his duty. I once witnessed in Italy a man arrested for
murder. He had on a thin light suit, and having been to bed in it, the
back was terribly pleated and creased. "Hulloa!" cried the detective, "so
it is you. Come along, old dried fig!" I was compelled to laugh, for the
culprit's thin, brown coat had all the creases of a Christmas fig.
The house we rushed in was a big, luxurious one, with a wide passage
running through to the Garage, and on the left a big, wide marble
staircase with windows of stained glass and statues of dancing girls of
the art nouveau.
Frémy, leaving his assistants below with the man-servant, and crying to
Edwards to look out for anybody trying to escape, sprang up the marble
steps three at a time, followed by the narrow-eyed Peruvian, while
Phrida, clinging to my arm, held her breath in quick apprehension. She
was full of fear and amazement.
I had had much difficulty in persuading her to accompany us, for she
seemed in terror of denunciation. Indeed, not until I told her that
Edwards had demanded her presence, had she consented.
On the first landing, a big, thick-carpeted place with a number of long,
white doors leading into various apartments, Frémy halted and raised his
finger in silence to us.
He stood glancing from door to door, wondering which to enter.
Then suddenly he stood and gave a yell as though of fearful pain.
In an instant there was a quick movement in a room on the right, the door
opened and the woman Petre came forth in alarm.
Next second, however, finding herself face to face with me, she halted
upon the threshold and fell back against the lintel of the door while we
rushed in to encounter the man I had known as Digby, standing defiant,
with arms folded and brows knit.
"Well," he demanded of me angrily. "What do you want here?"
"I've brought a friend of yours to see you, Mr. Cane," I said quietly,
and Edwards stepped aside from the door to admit the Peruvian Senos.
The effect was instant and indeed dramatic. His face fell, his eyes
glared, his teeth set, and his nails dug themselves into his palms.
"Mee-ster Cane," laughed the dark-faced native, in triumph. "You no like
see Senos--eh? No, no. He know too much--eh? He watch you always after he
see you with laidee in Marseilles--he see you in London--ha! ha! Senos
know every-ting. You kill my master, and you----"
"It's a lie!" cried the man accused. "This fellow made the same statement
at Huacho, and it was disproved."
"Then you admit you are not Sir Digby Kemsley?" exclaimed Edwards
quickly. "You are Herbert Cane, and I have a warrant for your arrest for
murder."
"Ah!" he laughed with an air of forced gaiety. "That is amusing!"
"I'm very glad you think so, my dear sir," remarked the detective,
glancing round to where the woman Petre had been placed in an armchair
quite unconscious.
Phrida was clinging to my arm, but uttered no word. I felt her fingers
trembling as she gripped me.
"I suppose you believe this native--eh?" asked the accused with sarcasm.
"He tried to blackmail me in Peru, and because I refused to be bled he
made a statement that I had killed my friend."
"Ah!" exclaimed the native. "Senos knows--he see with his own eyes. He
see Luis and you with snake in a box. Luis could charm snakes by music.
Senos watch you both that night!"
"Oh! tell what infernal lies you like," cried Cane in angry disgust.
"You, the 'Red' Englishman, are well known in Peru, and so is your
friend--the woman there, who help you in all your bad schemes," said
Senos, indicating the inanimate form of Mrs. Petre. "You introduced her
to my master, but he no like her--he snub her--so you send her to Lima to
wait for you--till you kill him, and get the paper--eh? I saw you steal
paper--big blue paper with big seals--from master's despatch-box after
snake bite him."
"Paper!" echoed Edwards. "What paper?"
"Perhaps I can explain something," Frémy interrupted in French. "I learnt
some strange facts only three days ago which throw a great deal of light
on this case."
"I don't want to listen to all these romances," laughed Cane defiantly.
He was an astute and polished adventurer, one of the cleverest and most
elusive in Europe, and he had all the adventurer's nonchalance and
impudence. At this moment he was living in that fine house he had taken
furnished for the summer and passing as Mr. Charles K. Munday, banker, of
Chicago. Certainly he had so altered his personal appearance that at
first I scarcely recognised him as the elegant, refined man whom I had so
foolishly trusted as a friend.
"But now you are under arrest, mon cher ami, you will be compelled to
listen to a good many unpleasant reminders," Frémy remarked with a broad
grin of triumph upon his round, clean-shaven face.
"If you arrest me, then you must arrest that woman there, Phrida Shand,
for the murder of Marie Bracq in my flat in London. She was jealous of
her--and killed her with a knife she brought with her for the purpose,"
Cane said with a laugh. "If I must suffer--then so must she! She killed
the girl. She can't deny it!"
"Phrida!" I gasped, turning to my love, who still clung to me
convulsively. "You hear what this man says--this vile charge he brings
against you--a charge of murder! Say that it is not the truth," I
implored. "Tell me that he lies!"
Her big eyes were fixed upon mine, her countenance blanched to the lips,
and her breath came and went in short, quick gasps.
At last her lips moved, as we all gazed at her. Her voice was only a
hoarse, broken whisper.
"I--I can't!" she replied, and fell back into my arms in a swoon.
"You see!" laughed the accused man. "You, Royle, are so clever that you
only bring grief and disaster upon yourself. I prevented Mrs. Petre from
telling the truth because I thought you had decided to drop the affair."
"What?" I cried. "When your accomplice--that woman Petre--made a
dastardly attempt upon my life at your instigation, and left me for dead.
Drop the affair--never! You are an assassin, and you shall suffer the
penalty."
"And so will Phrida Shand. She deceived you finely--eh? I admire her
cleverness," he laughed "She was a thorough Sport, she----"
"Enough!" commanded Edwards roughly. "I give you into the custody of
Inspector Frémy, of the Belgian Sureté, on a charge of murder committed
within the Republic of Peru."
"And I also arrest the prisoner," added Frémy, "for offences committed in
London and within the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg."
The man, pale and haggard-eyed notwithstanding his bravado, started
visibly at the famous detective's words, while at that moment the two men
from Brussels appeared in the room, having released the white-whiskered
man-servant, who stood aghast and astounded on the threshold. I supported
my love, now quite unconscious, in my strong arms, and was trying to
restore her, in which I was immediately aided by one of the detectives.
The scene was an intensely dramatic one--truly an unusual scene to take
place in the house of the sedate old Baron Terwindt, ancient Ministre de
la Justice of Belgium.
I was bending over my love and dashing water into her face when we were
all suddenly startled by a loud explosion, and then we saw in Cane's hand
a smoking revolver.
He had fired at me--and, fortunately, missed me.
In a second, however, the officers fell upon him, and after a brief but
desperate struggle, in which a table and chairs were overturned, the
weapon was wrenched from his grasp.
"Eh! bien," exclaimed Frémy, when the weapon had been secured from the
accused. "As you will have some unpleasant things to hear, you may as
well listen to some of them now. You have denied your guilt. Well, I will
tell Inspector Edwards what I have discovered concerning you and your
cunning and dastardly treatment of the girl known as Marie Bracq."
"I don't want to hear, I tell you!" he shouted in English. "If I'm
arrested, take me away, put me into prison and send me over to England,
where I shall get a fair trial."
"But you shall hear," replied the big-faced official. "There is plenty of
time to take you to Brussels, you know. Listen. The man Senos has alleged
that you stole from the man you murdered a blue paper--bearing a number
of seals. He is perfectly right. You sold that paper on the eighth of
January last for a quarter of a million francs. Ah! my dear friend, you
cannot deny that. The purchaser will give evidence--and what then?"
Cane stood silent. His teeth were set, his gaze fixed, his grey brows
contracted.
The game was up, and he knew it. Yet his marvellously active mind was
already seeking a way out. He was amazingly resourceful, as later on was
shown, when the details of his astounding career came to be revealed.
"Now the true facts are these--and perhaps mademoiselle and the man Senos
will be able to supplement them--his Highness the Grand Duke of
Luxemburg, about two years ago, granted to an American named Cassell a
valuable concession for a strategic railway to run across his country
from Echternach, on the eastern, or German, frontier of the Grand Duchy,
to Arlon on the Belgian frontier, the Government of the latter State
agreeing at the same time to continue the line direct to Sedan, and thus
create a main route from Coblenz, on the Rhine, to Paris--a line which
Germany had long wanted for military purposes, as it would be of
incalculable value in the event of further hostilities with France. This
concession, for which the American paid to the Grand Duke a considerable
sum, was afterwards purchased by Sir Digby Kemsley--with his Highness's
full sanction, he knowing him to be a great English railroad engineer.
Meanwhile, as time went on, the Grand Duke was approached by the French
Government with a view to rescinding the concession, as it was realised
what superiority such a line would give Germany in the event of the
massing of her troops in Eastern France. At first the Grand Duke refused
to listen, but both Russia and Austria presented their protests, and his
Highness found himself in a dilemma. All this was known to you, m'sieur
Cane, through one Ludwig Mayer, a German secret agent, who inadvertently
spoke about it while you were on a brief visit to Paris. You then
resolved to return at once to Peru, make the acquaintance of Sir Digby
Kemsley, and obtain the concession. You went, you were fortunate,
inasmuch as he was injured and helpless, and you deliberately killed him,
and securing the document, sailed for Europe, assuming the identity of
the actual purchaser of the concession. Oh, yes!" he laughed, "you were
exceedingly cunning and clever, for you did not at once deal with it. No,
you went to Luxemburg. You made certain observations and inquiries. You
stayed at the Hotel Brasseur for a week, and then, you were afraid to
approach the Grand Duke with an offer to sell back the stolen concession,
but--well, by that time you had resolved upon a very pretty and romantic
plan of action," and he paused for a moment and gazed around at us.
"Then robbery was the motive of the crime in Peru!" I exclaimed.
"Certainly," Frémy replied. "But I will now relate how I came into the
inquiry. In the last days of January, I was called in secret to Luxemburg
by the Grand Duke, who, when we sat alone together, informed me that his
only daughter Stephanie, aged twenty-one, who was a rather erratic young
lady, and fond of travelling incognito, had disappeared. The last heard
of her was three weeks before--in Paris--where she had, on her return
from Egypt, been staying a couple of days at the Hotel Maurice with her
aunt, the Grand Duchess of Baden, but she had packed her things and left,
and nothing more had been heard of her. Search in her room, however, had
revealed two letters, signed 'Phrida,' and addressed to a certain Marie
Bracq."
"Why, I never wrote to her in my life!" my love declared, for she had now
regained her senses.
"His Highness further revealed to me the fact that his daughter had,
while in Egypt, made the acquaintance at the Hotel Savoy on the Island of
Elephantine, of the great English railroad engineer, Sir Digby Kemsley,
who had purchased a railway concession he had given, and which he was
exceedingly anxious to re-purchase and thus continue on friendly terms
with France. His daughter, on her return to Luxemburg, and before going
to Paris, had mentioned her acquaintance with Sir Digby, and that he held
the concession. Therefore, through her intermediary, Sir Digby--who was,
of course, none other than this assassin, Cane--went again to Luxemburg
and parted with the important document for a quarter of a million francs.
That was on the eighth of January."
"After the affair at Harrington Gardens," Edwards remarked.
"Yes; after the murder of Marie Bracq, he lost no time in disposing of
the concession."
"It's a lie!" cried the accused. "That girl there killed her. I
didn't--she was jealous of her!"
My love shrank at the man's words, yet still clinging to me, her
beautiful countenance pale as death, her lips half parted, her eyes
staring straight in front of her.
"Phrida," I said in a low voice, full of sympathy, "you hear what this
man has alleged? Now that the truth is being told, will you, too, not
speak? Speak!" I cried in my despair, "speak, dearest, I beg of you!"
"No," she sighed. "You--you would turn from me--you would hate me!"
And at her words Cane burst into a peal of harsh, triumphant laughter.