“First, I will read you the opening sentences of the letter,” said
Leonard. And this is what he read:
“To you, my very dear friend, whose friendship has been one of the
most pleasurable things in my life, to the memories of which I look
back with a feeling of great tenderness as I pen these lines, the last
I shall ever write upon earth, I reveal the secret of the tragedy
which will shortly take place. In Nice the affair will, naturally, be
a nine days’ wonder. Nice, this fair and lovely city of aristocratic
crookdom, where vice and virtue rub shoulders at every hour of the
twenty-four, and where the cleverest criminals of the world congregate
in the pursuit of their nefarious calling! Nice, where I first met the
only woman who ever stirred my pulses, who made me realize the meaning
of ardent, overmastering love! When you read these words, perhaps you
will smile at the idea of the cautious diplomatist, the rather cynical
young man of the world, confessing to being violently in love. But it
is the truth. I had passed unscathed up to a few years ago,
indifferent to the charms of the many beautiful women I had met in my
own country and elsewhere, until I made the acquaintance of Elise
Makris. Then suddenly I realized, poor fool as I was, that I had found
my ideal. To me she stood for the perfection of womanhood.
“To-night I am going to kill her, because she has betrayed my faith in
her, because I have proved she is base and unworthy. And when I have
accomplished this justifiable vengeance, there is nothing left for me
but to end my own life. By the time you receive this letter the nine
days’ wonder will have died out, and the memory of Hugh Craig will
only linger in the hearts of one or two faithful friends like
yourself. The details I am about to relate will not interest the
world, but you are at perfect liberty to communicate them to anybody
you think it may concern.”
“As you are such an old and confidential friend of the Clandon family,
Mr. Shelford,” said the young man when he had finished reading this
preliminary portion of the letter, “I feel quite justified in reading
to you what my poor, unfortunate friend has disclosed to me.”
From the astounding narrative to which Mr. Shelford listened, he
learned the following remarkable facts: Mrs. Makris, the mother of
Elise, a very beautiful young woman, had posed, ever since Craig knew
her, as the widow of a Greek merchant who had left her comfortably
off. Her late husband’s fortune was settled upon her for life, she
told him, and her daughter would inherit it at her death.
It was on Craig’s last visit to Nice, and then only towards the end of
it, that his suspicions concerning the truth of her story were
aroused. Elise had addressed to him by mistake a letter intended for
somebody else, a letter of a most suspicious character, betraying her
acquaintance with a very questionable set of people. When he asked her
for an explanation, her replies were evasive and unsatisfactory, so
much so that he at once came to the conclusion that both the girl and
her mother were quite different from what they seemed.
He did not at once break off with her, wishing to test the truth of
his suspicions. For this purpose he secured the services of a private
inquiry agent, without doubt the shabby furtive-looking man to whom
Leonard had seen him talking in that quiet side street.
This man soon discovered the horrible fact that both the woman and her
daughter were connected with a well-known gang of international
crooks. Elise, with her beauty and charm, was one of their most useful
decoys, and under another name had served a term of imprisonment a
short time before Craig had made her acquaintance. The woman Makris
had never been married, so he alleged; the girl was her illegitimate
daughter, the father having been a member of the same gang. To the
young man, whose affections she had captured, Elise had represented
herself as a model of simplicity and purity. As they did not see each
other very frequently, it was the more easy for her to maintain the
double rôle of sweetheart to him and the clever decoy of these
unscrupulous scoundrels. But for her own carelessness in putting the
wrong letter into the envelope directed to him, Craig had made up his
mind to marry her privately and tell his family afterwards.
“A most astounding story,” was the remark of the shrewd and
experienced lawyer when the narrative was finished. “Poor fellow, one
cannot but pity him in spite of the fact that he took the law into his
own hands. The discovery of her baseness must have overthrown his
reason. How deceptive are appearances. One would have judged him the
last man in the world to be swayed by violent passions. Clearly the
mind must have given way under the shock.”
“There are some rather obscure hints that he had been subjected to
blackmail, and that through this man he employed, he was able to trace
it to her agency. That of course would have a maddening effect upon
any man in a similar position.”
Mr. Sheldon knitted his brows. “I wish he had been a little more
explicit on that point. We do not know whether this girl is alive or
dead. When Hugh’s brother left Nice, she was hovering between life and
death in the hospital to which they had taken her. If she has
recovered, I should very much like to find the young woman, although
it doesn’t appear that it would serve any very useful purpose if I
did.”
Lydon also expressed his wish that, if she had escaped her lover’s
vengeance, Elise Makris, the decoy of blackmailers, should be found.
Mr. Shelford promised to instruct his agent in Nice to make inquiries
at once.
The tragedy had cast a deep shadow over Lydon. Even the prospect of
meeting again with Gloria Stormont could not restore him to his old
cheerfulness, nor blot out the memory of those sinister happenings at
the peaceful-looking Villa des Cyclamens.
Gloria looked very charming and radiant when she arrived at Waterloo
Station, where Leonard was awaiting her.
“It was a little indiscreet of us to arrange meeting here,” she said
with a blush as they shook hands. “Somebody who knew me might have
travelled in the same train; that would have been awkward. It was
silly of me to overlook that.”
“And equally silly on my part,” replied the young man. “Well, on a
future occasion, we must avoid a similar mistake. Well, now about
lunch. I was going to suggest the _Berkeley_ or the _Savoy_. But
perhaps we had better get off the beaten track?”
Miss Stormont agreed. Several people she knew frequented both these
popular places. They finally went to a excellent restaurant in the
Strand.
They had a very enjoyable time together. There was not a trace of
coquetry about her, but she seemed to envisage the situation with
perfect frankness. If Lydon had not been attracted by her, he would
not have asked her to lunch. If she had not been equally attracted by
him, she would not have accepted his invitation. They might therefore
take for granted the fact of their mutual attraction, and not pretend
an embarrassment they did not feel.
When they parted, and he pressed for another meeting, she consented
quite readily, adding, “I hope, however, we shall not have to keep up
this _sub-rosa_ business very long. Uncle was speaking last night of
you and saying how much he liked you. You can guess how difficult it
was to keep myself from blushing. I suggested that as he liked you so
much, why did he not ask you to pay a visit? He did not exactly adopt
the suggestion at once, but I’m sure the idea is germinating in his
mind and will presently blossom forth.”
Lydon looked the delight he felt. “So you think I may receive a formal
invitation to go down to Effington. That would be very pleasant. In
the meantime our engagement for next week holds good.”
“Most certainly,” was the girl’s unaffected answer. He put her in a
taxi and directed the driver to take her to Waterloo Station. It was
not safe for him to go with her, much as he would have liked to do so.
At this hour of the day some of the early birds might be returning
home, and at this stage of the proceedings it was not politic for Miss
Stormont to be seen by any of her neighbours in the company of a
good-looking young man.
The next week when he met her, almost the first words she said were,
“Have you heard from Uncle Howard?”
He answered that he had not, and she proceeded to explain: “Well, the
idea has blossomed. Two days ago at breakfast, he announced solemnly
to auntie and myself that he was going to write to you at the address
in Ryder Street you gave him, and ask you down for a week-end. To-day
is Wednesday; you ought to have had the letter by now. But perhaps he
didn’t intend to ask you for this week-end but the next. Uncle is very
impetuous in some things but slow-moving in others. And if it is for
the following week, naturally he wouldn’t be in a hurry.”
It was, however, this week-end that the genial Stormont had fixed in
his mind. When Lydon went home that night the precious letter was
awaiting him, having arrived by a midday post. If Mr. Lydon had no
previous engagement, would he spend next Saturday to Monday, or, if
possible, Tuesday, at Effington? If so, Stormont would meet him at
Waterloo by a certain train and they would go down together.
Of course, he sent an immediate reply. So, at last, he was made free
of Effington; he would see his beloved Gloria in her own home, and be
able to feast his eyes upon her for several hours. If Howard Stormont
was as unconventional as his appearance and manners proclaimed, there
would be an end of the _sub-rosa_ meetings. In these advanced days,
when the chaperone is nearly as extinct as the dodo, he would be able
to ask her openly to lunch with him when she came up to London to do
her shopping. It was a great step gained.
On the Friday before his visit, he had a summons from Shelford, the
solicitor, who had heard from his agent in Nice.
Elise Makris was alive, wonderful to relate. For some days the doctors
had entertained little or no hope. Then suddenly the tide had turned,
and she had made a remarkable rally. Three days before Shelford’s
letter of instructions reached Nice, she had been discharged from the
hospital, still somewhat weak, but in no danger of a relapse. She had
returned to the Villa des Cyclamens, which on the next day was
evacuated. Madame Makris had paid up all she owed, and she and her
daughter had gone away, nobody knew whither.
The agent had made some inquiries of the police, and had also found
out the man employed by Craig in his researches into the past of the
girl whom he had so passionately loved and found so unworthy. He
gathered that she and her mother were members of a big organization
belonging to the exclusive circles of what might be called
aristocratic crookdom. Many of the subordinates were known to the
guardians of the law under different aliases, Madame Makris, a very
old offender, and her daughter being amongst them. But the chiefs of
the gang, the daring spirits who engineered the great coups, remained
in seclusion, men not only of great ability, but possibly of
considerable wealth. They never came out into the open, and nobody
could lay hands on them.
So Elise Makris, after that lucky escape from her enraged lover’s
bullet, had disappeared where, in all human probability, no friend of
Hugh would ever be able to find her. She and her mother had no doubt
gone to another country, and would conceal their identity under other
names. That of Makris had been made too public by recent events.
The only description Lydon had of her was a somewhat indefinite one,
taken from the _Phare du Littoral_, the Nice daily newspaper. There
were, however, two clues still remaining, if ever he should chance to
be thrown into contact with her. She would carry to her grave the mark
of her dead lover’s bullet; no surgery could obliterate that. And she
would wear that remarkable carved sapphire pendant which her mother
declared she always carried about with her as a mascot. By those signs
he would recognize Elise Makris under whatever alias she chose to
masquerade.
“That seems to close the chapter,” remarked Mr. Shelford, when he had
imparted all that he had learned from his agent. “A terrible blow to
the Clandon family. I saw his brother yesterday; he tells me the old
people are prostrated with grief. That a man of the promise of Hugh
Craig, with a brilliant future stretching in front of him, should have
sought to imbrue his hands in the blood of such a shameless creature!
It passes comprehension.”
On the Saturday morning Lydon met Stormont at Waterloo Station, and
they travelled down to Guildford together by an early train. At
Guildford they were met by a splendid Rolls-Royce car driven by one of
the smartest of chauffeurs. Profiteer or not, as the case might be,
Howard Stormont knew how to do things properly.
They went through a few miles of the beautiful Surrey country, till
they came to some big open lodge gates. Passing through these, they
drove up a broad avenue, shadowed by some splendid trees which would
look magnificent later on in their summer raiment, and drew up before
the low picturesque house.
The coming of the car had been heard evidently, for the hall door
stood wide open to receive the owner and his guest. Behind the
decorous form of the stately white-haired butler, Duncan, appeared the
gaily-apparelled Mrs. Barnard, and the slim exquisite figure of the
smiling Gloria.
Stormont sprang out of the car and grasped Leonard’s hand in a hearty
grip. “Welcome, my dear boy, to Effington,” he said in his loud,
ringing voice.