Thus began my powerful fight for Don Jose Casteno's rights!
Looking back to-day I, of course, can see quite clearly how very foolish
and headstrong I then was, how I refused to be warned, even by the best
friend man ever has--the woman who loves him. But there! we can all be
wise after the event, can't we?
Oddly enough though, I did not meet Casteno in my offices that day at
midnight as we had both so carefully arranged. True, I immediately made
my way to Stanton Street, and by then eight o'clock had actually boomed
forth from Big Ben, but no sooner did I reach my desk than I found
thereon a telegram which had been despatched at 4:30 PM from the Charing
Cross Telegraph Office by the mysterious Spaniard, cancelling the
appointment, and calling upon me to:
"Come immediately to St Bruno's, Chantry Road, Hampstead. I know
all.--Casteno."
As a consequence of this I was soon speeding half across London in that
swift ten-horse Panhard of mine, which had been given to me a month
previously in a burst of generosity by a foolish client, an old man,
whom I had succeeded in delivering from a gang of needy blackmailers
without scandal. Indeed, in less than an hour from receipt of his
message, I had reached the long, winding, and secluded thoroughfare
which he had specified.
As a matter of fact, too, if anybody sought a spot where he could hide
effectually from police and public in London, he could never choose a
better or a more suitable district than the aristocratic portions of
Hampstead. Much of the wild character of the heath still lingers in
those avenues, and the dwellers in those parts are curiously few,
select, and quite indifferent to what goes on outside their own ken.
St Bruno's, I discovered, was one of the finest of the many fine but
solitary-looking mansions that still exist in Chantry Road. It stood at
the far end of the thoroughfare in a _cul de sac_, in which but one gas
lamp burned feebly, throwing into more striking relief the dense, dark
character of the surrounding trees and moss-grown pavement. The only
entrance to the place I could find was a small oaken door in a lofty
wall of stone, like those we see built so often for the vestries of our
parish churches, and when I pulled an old and rusty iron bell-ring there
was a disquietening pause of some minutes before I heard the movement of
any servant. Even then the door itself did not open, but a small panel
about nine inches square was thrust apart at a point about the height of
the average man and commanding a good view of the stranger's face and
form.
"What seek you, my son?" asked a clear, refined voice like a priest's,
but when I answered; "Don Jose Casteno--he has sent for me," all was
changed. The space beyond seemed flooded with light--the door itself
was thrown open wide--and I found myself being escorted by a man in the
habit of a Benedictine monk, across a flagged courtyard to a fine
building, the entrance to which was commanded by two huge wooden doors.
"This is the home of the Order of St Bruno," said my guide, who was old
and decrepit, apparently about sixty years of age. His tones were those
of courteous conversation as used by a man of culture, and he swung to
and fro an old lantern he was carrying to light my path as we both
waited patiently for somebody inside the building to unbar this
formidable-looking entrance. "We St Bruno-ites," he added, "have
houses in many quarters--in Delhi for instance, in Sydney, in America--
but this is our principal place."
"Roman Catholic, of course," I remarked, buttoning up my overcoat, for I
felt chilled after my brisk ride. "Or High Church?" I ventured as I
saw his bright eyes frown.
"Not at all," the man returned with some asperity. "We are of neither
of those sects." But he never explained what their religion was. Just
then the doors of the main house opened and we were ushered into a
magnificent hall, decorated with dark oak panels, and relieved half-way
by a finely-wrought gallery which ran on three sides of this spacious
apartment. On the fourth wall was a wrought-iron bracket on which stood
an immense statue of a woman carved out of white marble, decorated with
rare exotic flowers, and cunningly lit by a series of candles, with
reflectors which depressed all the light on features beautiful only with
the passionless splendour of a Venus de Milo.
Down the centre of the hall was placed a long table, flanked on either
side by forms, and headed by a chair or a small throne fashioned like an
abbot's.
As a matter of fact, I had barely time to take these details in before
the brother who had first admitted me turned with a low bow and left me.
My new guide who had now ushered me in was much younger--about thirty I
guessed--but he also was dressed in the same sombre habit of black as
the one who had first received me, save that his hood and girdle were
white.
No words passed between us, but, in a silence that was almost oppressive
in so brilliantly illuminated and furnished a place, he escorted me down
a long, richly-carpeted passage, hung with valuable classical pictures
of a modern school, to a room at the far end, the door of which stood
invitingly open. Here I was left, but as I turned to examine my new
surroundings, which suggested the rich, well-furnished library of some
bibliophile of a generation ago, I was conscious of somebody stealing up
behind me.