some person or persons unknown to the police. It may be necessary to
move it about from place to place. A corpse can’t be hidden for long; a
corpse betrays itself. One couldn’t throw it in the Thames, for it would
have been found inside twelve hours. One couldn’t bury it--it wasn’t
safe. The only thing was to keep it handy and movable, ready for
emergencies. I needn’t inform you that, without embalming, you can’t
keep a corpse handy and movable for more than four or five days. It’s
the kind of thing that won’t keep. And so it was suggested that I should
embalm it, and I did. Mind you, I still objected to the murder, but I
couldn’t go back on a colleague, you understand. You do understand that,
don’t you? Well, here you are, and here it is, and that’s all.’
Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that
ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was
concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.
‘I hope,’ said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, ‘I hope you’ll call in
the police without any delay. It’s getting late, and I don’t like going
without my night’s rest.’
‘Where do you suppose you’ll get a night’s rest?’ Racksole asked.
‘In the cells, of course. Haven’t I told you I know when I’m beaten. I’m
not so blind as not to be able to see that there’s at any rate a prima
facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two’s
imprisonment as accessory after the fact--I think that’s what they call
it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated
in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.’ He pointed, with a
strange, scornful gesture of his elbow, to the bed. ‘And now, shall we
go? Everyone is asleep, but there will be a policeman within call of the
watchman in the portico. I am at your service. Let us go down together,
Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go quietly.’
‘Stay a moment,’ said Theodore Racksole curtly; ‘there is no hurry. It
won’t do you any harm to forego another hour’s sleep, especially as you
will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to
put to you.’
‘Well?’ Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say,
‘What must be must be.’
‘Where has Dimmock’s corpse been during the last three or four days,
since he--died?’
‘Oh!’ answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the
question. ‘It’s been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once
it went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a
case of Demerara sugar. I forget where else it has been, but it’s been
kept perfectly safe and treated with every consideration.’
‘And who contrived all these manoeuvres?’ asked Racksole as calmly as he
could.
‘I did. That is to say, I invented them and I saw that they were carried
out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be
particularly spry.’
‘And who carried them out?’
‘Ah! that would be telling tales. But I don’t mind assuring you that my
accomplices were innocent accomplices. It is absurdly easy for a man
like me to impose on underlings--absurdly easy.’
‘What did you intend to do with the corpse ultimately?’ Racksole pursued
his inquiry with immovable countenance.
‘Who knows?’ said Rocco, twisting his beautiful moustache. ‘That would
have depended on several things--on your police, for instance. But
probably in the end we should have restored this mortal clay’--again he
jerked his elbow--‘to the man’s sorrowing relatives.’
‘Do you know who the relatives are?’
‘Certainly. Don’t you? If you don’t I need only hint that Dimmock had a
Prince for his father.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Racksole, with cold sarcasm, ‘that you behaved
rather clumsily in choosing this bedroom as the scene of your
operations.’
‘Not at all,’ said Rocco. ‘There was no other apartment so suitable in
the whole hotel. Who would have guessed that anything was going on here?
It was the very place for me.’
‘I guessed,’ said Racksole succinctly.
‘Yes, you guessed, Mr Racksole. But I had not counted on you. You are
the only smart man in the business. You are an American citizen, and I
hadn’t reckoned to have to deal with that class of person.’
‘Apparently I frightened you this afternoon?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘You were not afraid of a search?’
‘I knew that no search was intended. I knew that you were trying to
frighten me. You must really credit me with a little sagacity and
insight, Mr Racksole. Immediately you began to talk to me in the kitchen
this afternoon I felt you were on the track. But I was not frightened. I
merely decided that there was no time to be lost--that I must act
quickly. I did act quickly, but, it seems, not quickly enough. I grant
that your rapidity exceeded mine. Let us go downstairs, I beg.’
Rocco rose and moved towards the door. With an instinctive action
Racksole rushed forward and seized him by the shoulder.
‘No tricks!’ said Racksole. ‘You’re in my custody and don’t forget it.’
Rocco turned on his employer a look of gentle, dignified scorn. ‘Have I
not informed you,’ he said, ‘that I have the intention of going
quietly?’
Racksole felt almost ashamed for the moment. It flashed across him that
a man can be great, even in crime.
‘What an ineffable fool you were,’ said Racksole, stopping him at the
threshold, ‘with your talents, your unique talents, to get yourself
mixed up in an affair of this kind. You are ruined. And, by Jove! you
were a great man in your own line.’
‘Mr Racksole,’ said Rocco very quickly, ‘that is the truest word you
have spoken this night. I was a great man in my own line. And I am an
ineffable fool. Alas!’ He brought his long arms to his sides with a
thud.
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I was fascinated--fascinated by Jules. He, too, is a great man. We had
great opportunities, here in the Grand Babylon. It was a great game. It
was worth the candle. The prizes were enormous. You would admit these
things if you knew the facts. Perhaps some day you will know them, for
you are a fairly clever person at getting to the root of a matter. Yes,
I was blinded, hypnotized.’
‘And now you are ruined.’
‘Not ruined, not ruined. Afterwards, in a few years, I shall come up
again.
A man of genius like me is never ruined till he is dead. Genius is
always forgiven. I shall be forgiven. Suppose I am sent to prison. When
I emerge I shall be no gaol-bird. I shall be Rocco--the great Rocco. And
half the hotels in Europe will invite me to join them.’
‘Let me tell you, as man to man, that you have achieved your own
degradation. There is no excuse.’
‘I know it,’ said Rocco. ‘Let us go.’
Racksole was distinctly and notably impressed by this man--by this
master spirit to whom he was to have paid a salary at the rate of three
thousand pounds a year. He even felt sorry for him. And so, side by
side, the captor and the captured, they passed into the vast deserted
corridor of the hotel.
Rocco stopped at the grating of the first lift.
‘It will be locked,’ said Racksole. ‘We must use the stairs to-night.’
‘But I have a key. I always carry one,’ said Rocco, and he pulled one
out of his pocket, and, unfastening the iron screen, pushed it open.
Racksole smiled at his readiness and aplomb.
‘After you,’ said Rocco, bowing in his finest manner, and Racksole
stepped into the lift.
With the swiftness of lighting Rocco pushed forward the iron screen,
which locked itself automatically. Theodore Racksole was hopelessly a
prisoner within the lift, while Rocco stood free in the corridor.
‘Good-bye, Mr Racksole,’ he remarked suavely, bowing again, lower than
before. ‘Good-bye: I hate to take a mean advantage of you in this
fashion, but really you must allow that you have been very simple. You
are a clever man, as I have already said, up to a certain point. It is
past that point that my own cleverness comes in. Again, good-bye. After
all, I shall have no rest to-night, but perhaps even that will be better
that sleeping in a police cell. If you make a great noise you may wake
someone and ultimately get released from this lift. But I advise you to
compose yourself, and wait till morning. It will be more dignified. For
the third time, good-bye.’
And with that Rocco, without hastening, walked down the corridor and so
out of sight.
Racksole said never a word. He was too disgusted with himself to speak.
He clenched his fists, and put his teeth together, and held his breath.
In the silence he could hear the dwindling sound of Rocco’s footsteps on
the thick carpet.
It was the greatest blow of Racksole’s life.
The next morning the high-born guests of the Grand Babylon were aroused
by a rumour that by some accident the millionaire proprietor of the
hotel had remained all night locked up in the lift. It was also stated
that Rocco had quarrelled with his new master and incontinently left the
place. A duchess said that Rocco’s departure would mean the ruin of the
hotel, whereupon her husband advised her not to talk nonsense.
As for Racksole, he sent a message for the detective in charge of the
Dimmock affair, and bravely told him the happenings of the previous
night.
The narration was a decided ordeal to a man of Racksole’s temperament.
‘A strange story!’ commented Detective Marshall, and he could not avoid
a smile. ‘The climax was unfortunate, but you have certainly got some
valuable facts.’
Racksole said nothing.
‘I myself have a clue,’ added the detective. ‘When your message arrived
I was just coming up to see you. I want you to accompany me to a certain
spot not far from here. Will you come, now, at once?’
‘With pleasure,’ said Racksole.
At that moment a page entered with a telegram. Racksole opened it read:
‘Please come instantly. Nella. Hôtel Wellington, Ostend.’
He looked at his watch.
‘I can’t come,’ he said to the detective. I’m going to Ostend.’
‘To Ostend?’
‘Yes, now.’
‘But really, Mr Racksole,’ protested the detective. ‘My business is
urgent.’
‘So’s mine,’ said Racksole.
In ten minutes he was on his way to Victoria Station.
Chapter Fifteen END OF THE YACHT ADVENTURE
WE must now return to Nella Racksole and Prince Aribert of Posen on
board the yacht without a name. The Prince’s first business was to make
Jules, otherwise Mr Tom Jackson, perfectly secure by means of several
pieces of rope. Although Mr Jackson had been stunned into a complete
unconsciousness, and there was a contused wound under his ear, no one
could say how soon he might not come to himself and get very violent. So
the Prince, having tied his arms and legs, made him fast to a stanchion.
‘I hope he won’t die,’ said Nella. ‘He looks very white.’
‘The Mr Jacksons of this world,’ said Prince Aribert sententiously,
‘never die till they are hung. By the way, I wonder how it is that no
one has interfered with us. Perhaps they are discreetly afraid of my
revolver--of your revolver, I mean.’
Both he and Nella glanced up at the imperturbable steersman, who kept
the yacht’s head straight out to sea. By this time they were about a
couple of miles from the Belgian shore.
Addressing him in French, the Prince ordered the sailor to put the yacht
about, and make again for Ostend Harbour, but the fellow took no notice
whatever of the summons. The Prince raised the revolver, with the idea
of frightening the steersman, and then the man began to talk rapidly in
a mixture of French and Flemish. He said that he had received Jules’
strict orders not to interfere in any way, no matter what might happen
on the deck of the yacht. He was the captain of the yacht, and he had to
make for a certain English port, the name of which he could not divulge:
he was to keep the vessel at full steam ahead under any and all
circumstances. He seemed to be a very big, a very strong, and a very
determined man, and the Prince was at a loss what course of action to
pursue. He asked several more questions, but the only effect of them was
to render the man taciturn and ill-humoured.
In vain Prince Aribert explained that Miss Nella Racksole, daughter of
millionaire Racksole, had been abducted by Mr Tom Jackson; in vain he
flourished the revolver threateningly; the surly but courageous captain
said merely that that had nothing to do with him; he had instructions,
and he should carry them out. He sarcastically begged to remind his
interlocutor that he was the captain of the yacht.
‘It won’t do to shoot him, I suppose,’ said the Prince to Nella. ‘I
might bore a hole into his leg, or something of that kind.’
‘It’s rather risky, and rather hard on the poor captain, with his
extraordinary sense of duty,’ said Nella. ‘And, besides, the whole crew
might turn on us. No, we must think of something else.’
‘I wonder where the crew is,’ said the Prince.
Just then Mr Jackson, prone and bound on the deck, showed signs of
recovering from his swoon. His eyes opened, and he gazed vacantly
around. At length he caught sight of the Prince, who approached him with
the revolver well in view.
‘It’s you, is it?’ he murmured faintly. ‘What are you doing on board?
Who’s tied me up like this?’
‘See here!’ replied the Prince, ‘I don’t want to have any arguments, but
this yacht must return to Ostend at once, where you will be given up to
the authorities.’
‘Really!’ snarled Mr Tom Jackson. ‘Shall I!’ Then he called out in
French to the man at the wheel, ‘Hi André! let these two be put off in
the dinghy.’
It was a peculiar situation. Certain of nothing but the possession of
Nella’s revolver, the Prince scarcely knew whether to carry the argument
further, and with stronger measures, or to accept the situation with as
much dignity as the circumstances would permit.
‘Let us take the dinghy,’ said Nella; ‘we can row ashore in an hour.’
He felt that she was right. To leave the yacht in such a manner seemed
somewhat ignominious, and it certainly involved the escape of that
profound villain, Mr Thomas Jackson. But what else could be done? The
Prince and Nella constituted one party on the vessel; they knew their
own strength, but they did not know the strength of their opponents.
They held the hostile ringleader bound and captive, but this man had
proved himself capable of giving orders, and even to gag him would not
help them if the captain of the yacht persisted in his obstinate course.
Moreover, there was a distinct objection to promiscuous shooting. The
Prince felt that there was no knowing how promiscuous shooting might
end.
‘We will take the dinghy,’ said the Prince quickly, to the captain.
A bell rang below, and a sailor and the Negro boy appeared on deck. The
pulsations of the screw grew less rapid. The yacht stopped. The dinghy
was lowered. As the Prince and Nella prepared to descend into the little
cock-boat Mr Tom Jackson addressed Nella, all bound as he lay.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘I shall see you again, never fear.’.
In another moment they were in the dinghy, and the dinghy was adrift.
The yacht’s screw churned the water, and the beautiful vessel slipped
away from them. As it receded a figure appeared at the stem. It was Mr
Thomas Jackson.
He had been released by his minions. He held a white handkerchief to his
ear, and offered a calm, enigmatic smile to the two forlorn but
victorious occupants of the dinghy. Jules had been defeated for once in
his life; or perhaps it would be more just to say that he had been out-
manoeuvred. Men like Jules are incapable of being defeated. It was
characteristic of his luck that now, in the very hour when he had been
caught red-handed in a serious crime against society, he should be
effecting a leisurely escape--an escape which left no clue behind.
The sea was utterly calm and blue in the morning sun. The dinghy rocked
itself lazily in the swell of the yacht’s departure. As the mist cleared
away the outline of the shore became more distinct, and it appeared as
if Ostend was distant scarcely a cable’s length. The white dome of the
great Kursaal glittered in the pale turquoise sky, and the smoke of
steamers in the harbour could be plainly distinguished. On the offing
was a crowd of brown-sailed fishing luggers returning with the night’s
catch. The many-hued bathing-vans could be counted on the distant beach.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. It was difficult for either Nella or
her companion to realize that anything extraordinary had happened within
the last hour. Yet there was the yacht, not a mile off, to prove to them
that something very extraordinary had, in fact, happened. The yacht was
no vision, nor was that sinister watching figure at its stern a vision,
either.
‘I suppose Jules was too surprised and too feeble to inquire how I came
to be on board his yacht,’ said the Prince, taking the oars.
‘Oh! How did you?’ asked Nella, her face lighting up. ‘Really, I had
almost forgotten that part of the affair.’
‘I must begin at the beginning and it will take some time,’ answered the
Prince. ‘Had we not better postpone the recital till we get ashore?’
‘I will row and you shall talk,’ said Nella. ‘I want to know now.’
He smiled happily at her, but gently declined to yield up the oars.
‘Is it not sufficient that I am here?’ he said.
‘It is sufficient, yes,’ she replied, ‘but I want to know.’
With a long, easy stroke he was pulling the dinghy shorewards. She sat
in the stern-sheets.
‘There is no rudder,’ he remarked, ‘so you must direct me. Keep the
boat’s head on the lighthouse. The tide seems to be running in strongly;
that will help us. The people on shore will think that we have only been
for a little early morning excursion.’
‘Will you kindly tell me how it came about that you were able to save my
life, Prince?’ she said.
‘Save your life, Miss Racksole? I didn’t save your life; I merely
knocked a man down.’
‘You saved my life,’ she repeated. ‘That villain would have stopped at
nothing. I saw it in his eye.’
‘Then you were a brave woman, for you showed no fear of death.’ His
admiring gaze rested full on her. For a moment the oars ceased to move.
She gave a gesture of impatience.
‘It happened that I saw you last night in your carriage,’ he said. ‘The
fact is, I had not had the audacity to go to Berlin with my story. I
stopped in Ostend to see whether I could do a little detective work on
my own account.
It was a piece of good luck that I saw you. I followed the carriage as
quickly as I could, and I just caught a glimpse of you as you entered
that awful house. I knew that Jules had something to do with that house.
I guessed what you were doing. I was afraid for you. Fortunately I had
surveyed the house pretty thoroughly. There is an entrance to it at the
back, from a narrow lane. I made my way there. I got into the yard at
the back, and I stood under the window of the room where you had the
interview with Miss Spencer. I heard everything that was said. It was a
courageous enterprise on your part to follow Miss Spencer from the Grand
Babylon to Ostend. Well, I dared not force an entrance, lest I might
precipitate matters too suddenly, and involve both of us in a
difficulty. I merely kept watch. Ah, Miss Racksole! you were magnificent
with Miss Spencer; as I say, I could hear every word, for the window was
slightly open. I felt that you needed no assistance from me. And then
she cheated you with a trick, and the revolver came flying through the
window. I picked it up, I thought it would probably be useful. There was
a silence. I did not guess at first that you had fainted. I thought that
you had escaped. When I found out the truth it was too late for me to
intervene. There were two men, both desperate, besides Miss Spencer--’
‘Who was the other man?’ asked Nella.
‘I do not know. It was dark. They drove away with you to the harbour.
Again I followed. I saw them carry you on board. Before the yacht
weighed anchor I managed to climb unobserved into the dinghy. I lay down
full length in it, and no one suspected that I was there. I think you
know the rest.’
‘Was the yacht all ready for sea?’
‘The yacht was all ready for sea. The captain fellow was on the bridge,
and steam was up.’
‘Then they expected me! How could that be?’
‘They expected some one. I do not think they expected you.’
‘Did the second man go on board?’
‘He helped to carry you along the gangway, but he came back again to the
carriage. He was the driver.’
‘And no one else saw the business?’
‘The quay was deserted. You see, the last steamer had arrived for the
night.’
There was a brief silence, and then Nella ejaculated, under her breath.
‘Truly, it is a wonderful world!’
And it was a wonderful world for them, though scarcely perhaps, in the
sense which Nella Racksole had intended. They had just emerged from a
highly disconcerting experience. Among other minor inconveniences, they
had had no breakfast. They were out in the sea in a tiny boat. Neither
of them knew what the day might bring forth. The man, at least, had the
most serious anxieties for the safety of his Royal nephew. And yet--and
yet--neither of them wished that that voyage of the little boat on the
summer tide should come to an end. Each, perhaps unconsciously, had a
vague desire that it might last for ever, he lazily pulling, she
directing his course at intervals by a movement of her distractingly
pretty head. How was this condition of affairs to be explained? Well,
they were both young; they both had superb health, and all the ardour of
youth; and--they were together.
The boat was very small indeed; her face was scarcely a yard from his.
She, in his eyes, surrounded by the glamour of beauty and vast wealth;
he, in her eyes, surrounded by the glamour of masculine intrepidity and
the brilliance of a throne.
But all voyages come to an end, either at the shore or at the bottom of
the sea, and at length the dinghy passed between the stone jetties of
the harbour. The Prince rowed to the nearest steps, tied up the boat,
and they landed. It was six o’clock in the morning, and a day of
gorgeous sunlight had opened. Few people were about at that early hour.
‘And now, what next?’ said the Prince. ‘I must take you to an hotel.’
‘I am in your hands,’ she acquiesced, with a smile which sent the blood
racing through his veins. He perceived now that she was tired and
overcome, suffering from a sudden and natural reaction.
At the Hôtel Wellington the Prince told the sleepy door-keeper that they
had come by the early train from Bruges, and wanted breakfast at once.
It was absurdly early, but a common English sovereign will work wonders
in any Belgian hotel, and in a very brief time Nella and the Prince were
breakfasting on the verandah of the hotel upon chocolate that had been
specially and hastily brewed for them.
‘I never tasted such excellent chocolate,’ claimed the Prince.
The statement was wildly untrue, for the Hôtel Wellington is not
celebrated for its chocolate. Nevertheless Nella replied
enthusiastically, ‘Nor I.’
Then there was a silence, and Nella, feeling possibly that she had been
too ecstatic, remarked in a very matter-of-fact tone: ‘I must telegraph
to Papa instantly.’
Thus it was that Theodore Racksole received the telegram which drew him
away from Detective Marshall.
Chapter Sixteen THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAT
‘THERE is one thing, Prince, that we have just got to settle straight
off,’ said Theodore Racksole.
They were all three seated--Racksole, his daughter, and Prince Aribert--
round a dinner table in a private room at the Hôtel Wellington. Racksole
had duly arrived by the afternoon boat, and had been met on the quay by
the other two. They had dined early, and Racksole had heard the full
story of the adventures by sea and land of Nella and the Prince. As to
his own adventure of the previous night he said very little, merely
explaining, with as little detail as possible, that Dimmock’s body had
come to light.
‘What is that?’ asked the Prince, in answer to Racksole’s remark.
‘We have got to settle whether we shall tell the police at once all that
has occurred, or whether we shall proceed on our own responsibility.
There can be no doubt as to which course we ought to pursue. Every
consideration of prudence points to the advisability of taking the
police into our confidence, and leaving the matter entirely in their
hands.’
‘Oh, Papa!’ Nella burst out in her pouting, impulsive way. ‘You surely
can’t think of such a thing. Why, the fun has only just begun.’
‘Do you call last night fun?’ questioned Racksole, gazing at her
solemnly.
‘Yes, I do,’ she said promptly. ‘Now.’