THE CALICO GLOVE
Mrs. Beverley, who, on account of her reckless expenditure, had been
nicknamed “The Wild Widow” by a certain set in Society, had gone up to
Perthshire to join a gay house-party at a shooting lodge near Crieff,
leaving Sylvia at home at Upper Brook Street.
After the girl there was dangling a Peer of the Realm, twice her age,
in the person of Viscount Hendlewycke, a penniless man, whose family
tree ran back to the days of Richard Coeur de Lion, and who, in his
youth, had been distinguished by his two appearances in the Divorce
Court as co-respondent.
Hendlewycke, with his bald head and his pretence to golf, was the
best fish that Mrs. Beverley had captured as the prospective husband
of Sylvia. Hendlewycke Castle, near Alnwick, in Northumberland, was a
magnificent old place, now let by the Viscount’s trustee in Bankruptcy
to a Lancashire cotton-waste dealer who aspired to a baronetcy, and
Mrs. Beverley, with her acuteness and her wealth, saw that she could
easily reinstate “Roddy,” as he was known in society, providing he made
Sylvia Lady Hendlewycke.
Such an event would be the crowning of her great social ambitions in
London.
Sylvia, however, was not blind. Neither was Geoffrey Falconer. Geoffrey
had met “Roddy” several times. In him the young man found a degenerate
_roué_, who, having run through his fortune, had also so lost his
self-respect that he would borrow a “fiver” from all and sundry, and
in most cases forget to pay it back. Of club and hotel servants he had
been driven to borrow money, and to a dozen butlers in country houses
he was indebted for “just a couple of quid for my railway fare. I’ll
send it back to you when I get up to town.”
To men at White’s, the Wellington, Wells’, the Devonshire, and Boodles,
“Roddy” Hendlewycke was known as “a bad egg.” Why “The Wild Widow” from
Argentina had taken him under her wing, nobody could imagine--except,
of course, she wanted an old title for her daughter.
Sylvia was compelled to tolerate him in order not openly to offend
her mother, but she was heartily sick of him, and was seen as little
as possible in his company. With Geoffrey she was perfectly frank,
and they entirely understood each other. Therefore, it was not at all
surprising that one day, her mother being absent, she suggested to the
young man that he should drive her out for the day in her mother’s big
cream-coloured Rolls-Royce.
The suggestion was at once adopted, and on the Saturday morning the
pair left London for a day’s outing.
The car had scarcely left the garage at the rear of South Audley
Street, where, with others belonging to people in the neighbourhood, it
was kept, when a well-dressed man of about forty entered the yard and
approaching the man in charge, exclaimed:
“I see Mrs. Beverley’s Royce has just gone out. Did you get to know
what I want?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the man. “Young Mr. Falconer is driving Miss
Beverley down to Hastings. They’re lunching at the Queen’s.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite sure, sir,” was the reply, whereupon the stranger placed a
Treasury note into the hand of his informant.
Then, re-entering a taxi in which he had been seated, apparently
watching Falconer drive out Mrs. Beverley’s car, he sped along to a
garage in Knightsbridge, where another large open car awaited him,
and even before Sylvia and her lover had left Upper Brook Street the
mysterious watcher was well on his way out of London.
The day was a lovely one in early autumn, and the drive through Kent
was delightful. Geoffrey and Sylvia came along the sea-front at St.
Leonard’s just before noon, and, continuing, pulled up at the back
entrance of the Queen’s Hotel, where they ordered lunch. Then, after a
wash, they strolled out into the autumn sunshine beside the sea.
As they left by that door with its wide glass porch which leads out
upon the terrace before the sea, they passed a man seated in one of the
wicker lounge chairs, smoking a good cigar.
He was the mysterious individual who had been so keen to ascertain the
destination of the pair. But as they passed he was gazing thoughtfully
out upon the sea, taking no notice of them.
After they had gone along towards the Pier, he returned to the lounge,
where he scribbled a telegram. Having done so, he apparently desired to
alter it, so he tore it into tiny fragments, half of which he tossed
into the waste-paper basket, and the other half he placed in the pocket
of his grey tweed jacket. That action showed him first to be a man of
method, and secondly that the message was one which he did not wish to
be read by anyone who might perhaps be watching.
He wrote a second telegram, and that he took across to the post-office
and dispatched.
Later, when Geoffrey and Sylvia, having eaten their luncheon in the big
upstairs room, had descended to the little lounge on the terrace to
take their coffee, they found the same man there, smoking a cigar in
the same abstracted manner.
Coffee was brought to the pair who were chattering merrily, when the
stranger, suddenly rising to pass back into the lounge, struck the
little table accidentally and the coffee was spilled.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, with exquisite politeness, in a well-modulated and
refined voice. “Do please forgive me! It was most clumsy of me, and I
apologise to you both.”
Then seeing the waiter in the vicinity, he ordered two more coffees in
the same breath.
“Nothing!” laughed Falconer. “It was only an accident! These tables are
all gingerbread things. They are always very shaky.”
“Well,” said the stranger, “my sole consolation is that none of it went
on the lady’s dress. Coffee stains badly, you know.”
“No. It’s quite all right!” declared Sylvia pleasantly.
And then they began to chat. The stranger told them that he had motored
down from London just for a breath of air.
“I’m going abroad--to China--in about a month’s time. I expect to be
away several years. So I want to see all I can of our dear old England
before I go.”
For half an hour they gossiped of motors, of good and indifferent
roads, and of hotels as known by motorists within a couple of hundred
miles of London.
At half-past three Sylvia suggested they should start back home;
therefore, they parted from their pleasant chance acquaintance, leaving
him still smoking in the porch-like lounge.
“I somehow don’t like that man, Geoffrey,” the girl said as soon as she
was seated beside him and the car turned out into the busy Hastings
street. “He seemed so inquisitive.”
“I thought so, too. But probably he wanted to know who we were,”
laughed Falconer. “Though he got no change out of me.”
“Did you notice that he wore, even at lunch, a glove upon his left
hand? I think it is to cover some deformity. It seemed to be of
unbleached calico, and covered with some kind of flesh-coloured paint.”
“Yes. I noticed it. But by his manner and speech he seems a
gentleman--and a thorough cosmopolitan, without a doubt. He has
apparently been half over the world,” he replied, and then the
conversation dropped as he quickened speed to overtake a tram-car.
That same night the stranger, who wore the flesh-coloured calico glove,
attired in a dinner-jacket, lounged about the entrance-hall of the
Piccadilly Grill for about a quarter of an hour, until at last he was
joined by the person for whom he had been waiting, a smartly-dressed
French girl, who possessed all the _chic_ and mannerisms of the true
Parisienne. Having left her cloak, the pair went in and dined at a
_table à deux_, which had been reserved for them in a corner.
The waiter, apparently knowing them both as regular patrons of the
place, served them well. Over the table the man in a low tone related
the coffee incident at Hastings, and the girl seemed to regard the
adventure as huge fun.
“Oh! Teddy, I do wish I had been with you!” the girl said in rather
broken English. “_Mon Dieu!_ I’ve had a dull, miserable day! I went up
to Hampstead to see George, but he has gone away, and his landlady says
she has no idea when he will be back.”
“That’s sudden,” exclaimed the man, knitting his brows. “I wonder if
anything has happened? George was not due to leave London till next
Saturday morning--and then he was going over to Stockholm on a very
important little bit of business. I arranged it all only yesterday. And
now he’s gone!”
“Yes. And the old woman did not seem to know anything. Mr. Jordon had,
she said, left very hurriedly with only a suit-case. And he left no
message either for you or for myself.”
“Looks a bit fishy, Gabrielle,” the man remarked, staring at the
tablecloth.
“No. There’s no fear, my dear Teddy,” laughed the girl. “If anything
were wrong we should know. Bad news travels fast.”
“I don’t like George Jordon leaving suddenly like that--without a word.
The other business in Stockholm is a pretty big one.”
“Why did you fix Saturday?”
“I fixed any Saturday--the Saturday when we may find it most convenient
to all parties concerned,” he said with a mysterious grin.
“I hope neither Falconer nor the girl suspects,” the girl said
apprehensively.
“What can they suspect?” asked the man. “You have only to carry out
your part of the contract, and the whole thing is easy--big money
awaits both of us,” he whispered across the table.
“Yes,” the girl replied, her voice lost in the strains of the
orchestra. She looked across the spacious restaurant dreamily. “Yes,”
she repeated, “but somehow I don’t like this business at all. George
may have smelt a rat and bolted.”
“He may have done, but, recollect, he would not have disappeared
without first sending me warning. Remember all that it means to
him--and to us both,” exclaimed the man who was known in the haunts
about Piccadilly Circus as Teddy Tressider, or Everard, as was his real
name.
“On any Saturday,” repeated the pretty young French girl, as she sipped
her wine and then leaned her bare elbows upon the table, looking
straight at the man before her. “George has arranged to be ready to get
across to Sweden, on any Saturday--eh?”
“Exactly. And look here, Gabrielle!” exclaimed the keen-eyed man, whose
attitude suddenly altered to one of menace, “I don’t want you at the
last moment to become chicken-hearted or--or, by Heaven! if there’s a
failure, you’ll pay dearly for it.”
The girl remained silent. The expression upon her face showed that she
resented the man’s threat. Her delicate lips compressed, and her dark
eyes flashed back at him viciously. But she was a clever girl, for at
that moment of her anger rising she controlled her tongue, and, instead
of expressing any resentment, she only gave vent to a half-idiotic
laugh, and after a pause lifted her glass again, and answered:
“Really, my dear Teddy, you are very funny to-night. Come back to
earth, my dear friend!”
The man with the calico glove snapped a word in reply and ordered
liqueurs, after which he took her in a taxi to a big dancing-hall out
at Hammersmith, where, after a number of dances, they parted upon the
kerb outside.
“Remember, Gabrielle, if you fail me in this, I’ll tell what I know.
And you surely fully realise where you will be,” he said distinctly in
her ear as they awaited a taxi. “I have no wish for us to be enemies.
But, gad! if you hold back, then I shall treat you as an enemy, and I
shall tell all I know.”
The girl drew a long breath.
“You--you--!”
But the words died upon her lips. With her woman’s innate cleverness
she made resolution at that moment that she would combat the plans of
the man who held her future in his hands.
She recollected all the past, and she shuddered.
Next second, however, she laughed saucily, and as the taxi drew up, she
replied in French:
“Oh! my dear old friend, why make all this trouble? You are very
amusing to-night! This little affair will come out all right, never
fear. Now that you know Monsieur Falconer, surely the trouble is half
over? The rest is so very easy. Discretion and caution are all that is
necessary. And then, when the deed is done, George will slip over to
Stockholm and every one will be happy--except Monsieur Falconer!”
And she stepped into the taxi and drove away.
About this time Geoffrey Falconer was busy each evening in devising
improvements in his new seven-valve amplifier, with the object of
applying for a patent. In the world of wireless there were many rumours
that Falconer’s improvement of the “saturation device” and other things
would revolutionise the present method of the reception of wireless
signals. What it exactly was only the clever young inventor himself
knew. He had shown it to his father, and also to Sylvia, but they
were not sufficiently acquainted with the mysteries of wireless to
understand its true import.
So busy was Geoffrey, both at the Works at Chelmsford, and at his own
home each evening, that during the fortnight that followed he only went
to London once, to do business at Marconi House and afterwards to see
Sylvia.
That evening, Mrs. Beverley being out of town, he took her daughter
out to dinner at the Carlton, and afterwards to the theatre.
During the _entr’acte_ he left her in the stalls while he went out
to smoke a cigarette. He chanced to be standing in the crowded
lounge when suddenly he saw a young man named Hugh Carew, who had
been a brother-officer with him in France. With him was a pretty,
smartly-dressed girl with dark hair and wonderful eyes, and wearing a
dress of emerald green.
Carew greeted his friend warmly, and then, turning to his companion,
said:
“Let me introduce you to Mr. Falconer--Mademoiselle Juvanon.”
The girl started, held her breath, glanced furtively into Falconer’s
face, and then expressed in French her great pleasure at meeting her
companion’s brother-officer.
As for Geoffrey he said but little. After a few moments’ conversation,
however, Carew excused himself, saying that he wanted to get a drink,
and begged Falconer to look after the girl for a moment.
The instant he had gone to the bar, Falconer bent to the girl, and in a
low, hard voice, said in French:
“When last I had the pleasure of meeting mademoiselle, both her
nationality and her name were--well--slightly different--eh?”
From her pretty lips rang out a ripple of merry laughter, while over
her face spread a saucy look.
“I freely admit it, M’sieur Falconer,” she responded. “But I had no
idea we should meet here. Or I should not have come--I confess to you.”
“Ah! Mademoiselle, beauty such as yours cannot be concealed,” said the
young man laughing.
“Why do you flatter me?--You?”
“Surely I may be permitted to admire you--even though I am aware of the
truth--of who and what you really are!”
“But--but you will not give me away to Hugh--will you, M’sieur
Geoffrey?” she asked quickly, her face instantly pale in alarm. “_I--I
love him. I swear I do!_”
“If you play the straight game with him, Gabrielle, I will remain
silent,” Falconer promised. “After we had met in Paris three years ago,
I learnt the truth about you, mademoiselle,” he added; “and I confess
that the revelation was an extremely unpleasant one. I believed in you,
but I found that you were playing a very crooked game.”
As the words left his lips, Hugh Carew returned. The curtain had rung
up, therefore Geoffrey bowed to mademoiselle, and at once rejoined
Sylvia.
The remainder of the play did not interest him. As he sat by Sylvia’s
side a flood of bitter memories overtook him--how he had first been
introduced to Gabrielle while taking a morning _apératif_ at the Pré
Catalan, in Paris; of his friendship with her, and of the subsequent
discovery that, instead of being what she had represented herself to
be, she was actually the decoy of thieves! In Paris he had known her as
Gabrielle Valeri, a native of Palermo, in Sicily. Now that she was in
London, the friend of Hugh Carew, her name had become Juvanon, and she
was French.
What deep game was being played?
He made a point of finding Carew at his club three days later, when
he turned the conversation to her. Hugh at once became enthusiastic.
It was quite apparent that he was over head and ears in love with the
pretty young French girl. He had, it seemed, first met her in Rouen
during the war, and had again encountered her six months ago by pure
accident while walking along Kensington High Street. To a man in love
it is useless to give warning, and Falconer, realising this, hesitated
to say anything to the girl’s detriment.
He had warned her in all seriousness that if she played a crooked game
he would expose her. And he now recollected that the expression in her
eyes when she had confessed her love for Hugh was one of true honesty
and frankness.
Carew was, of course, in entire ignorance that his friend was
acquainted with the girl whose beauty had cast a spell over him, and
Geoffrey, on his part, remained silent.
His interview over a whisky-and-soda at the Wellington Club that
afternoon proved that the pair were genuinely in love with each other.
But Falconer, recollecting Gabrielle’s position, was wondering what
could be behind it all. Hugh Carew was heir to a baronetcy, the elder
son of a very wealthy man, and he wondered whether those mysterious
international thieves behind Gabrielle were not scheming blackmail.
Indeed, the future extortion of money seemed to be at the root of it
all.
That night, after calling at Upper Brook Street for half an hour,
Geoffrey went back to Warley full of grave apprehensions concerning his
brother-officer, and, before turning in, he sat down to further test
his improved amplifier by which signals from both low and high-power
stations came in with almost double strength.
“Hitherto there have been three grades of amplifiers,” he muttered to
himself, as he sat with the low-resistance telephones over his ears.
“They have never yet invented an amplifying detector to cover all
wave-lengths from three hundred to seventeen thousand. We constructed
one which was equally effective on all commercial wave-lengths, but
complications had to be introduced which rendered the instrument
entirely unsuitable for ordinary practical use. Yet here I have, I
hope, a device which increases the amplitude of the oscillations over
all wave-lengths, both for ‘spark’ or ‘continuous waves.’”
He listened on the telephones to the usual traffic of the night. Many
of the messages passing and re-passing across the Atlantic were in
code--messages of mystery all of them. The rapidity of the exchange
of communications by wireless--both private and commercial--has long
out-distanced the old-fashioned cables, with their long delay and
deliberate methods. Truly, the world is now beginning to realise that
it can send messages across the seven seas and receive replies by
wireless in half the time occupied by the submarine cables.
Geoffrey remained with the telephones over his ears for quite an hour,
making delicate adjustments here and there, his new instrument being so
sensitive that he could hear many amateurs in London working on their
ten watts and one hundred and eighty mètres to which the General Post
Office restricts them. Then he switched off and retired to bed.
Four days went by--strenuous days--for at Chelmsford important tests
were being made upon the great high-power wireless telephone set
with its huge panel with globular glass valves, each the size of a
football--the set which the collective brains of the Marconi Company
had devised in order to exchange actual speech with stations across the
Atlantic. Geoffrey was one of the engineers engaged in these tests,
hence he had little time for anything else. He snatched his lunch
hastily each day in the comfortable upstairs dining-room of the heads
of departments, and under the chief telephone engineer, whose clear,
deliberate voice is known to all wireless men, devoted every moment to
his particular sphere in the perfection of the new apparatus which was
to supersede the dot-and-dash of Morse’s invention.
One evening, after leaving Chelmsford, he went on to London, and having
dressed at the club, dined at Upper Brook Street. Mrs. Beverley was
giving a small dance in honour of a French Minister of State and his
wife, and Sylvia had pressed him to come. Hence he spent an enjoyable
evening, in which the only jarring note was the presence of the
ineffable Lord Hendlewycke, to whom, of course, Sylvia was forced to be
polite.
Falconer left Liverpool Street station by the last train, arriving home
at about one o’clock in the morning. Contrary to his habit, he did
not go into his wireless room, but went straight up to bed, for the
Professor had already retired, and the old house was in darkness.
At seven o’clock the next morning the maid, a country girl, rapped
loudly upon his door, crying:
“Mr. Geoffrey! The house has been broken into! Your wireless room is
all in disorder!”
Falconer sprang up, slipped on his dressing-gown, and dashed down.
The room was turned upside down. The window had been forced and was
open, so that whoever entered had had easy access to the place. No
second glance was needed to show that whoever had entered had been
there for one purpose only--in order to possess himself of the secret
of the improved amplifier!
A number of wires had been disconnected, while on the table lay a piece
of that paper ruled in small squares and used by engineers to draw
diagrams.
A diagram of the circuit had apparently been made, but as the
instruments were still intact, Falconer was relieved to think that
whoever had been prying about had been disturbed before he had had time
to discover his secret.
Upon the floor lay the telephone, discarded; the aerial switch had been
left down just as the intruder had listened, and several connections
had been pulled away from the terminal screws.
The person who had done it was, no doubt, some one skilled in wireless.
That was apparent by the changing over of one or two connections which
only the eye of an expert would detect. That the intruder had been
there through the hours of the night, and had gone deliberately into
everything aided by his own expert knowledge was apparent.
But Geoffrey smiled within himself. He knew that any intruder could not
gain full knowledge of his device unless he had taken that small box
which was attached to the amplifier. Whoever had been there had been
prying about--but had been foiled!
He closed the window that had been forced open, and then set about
replacing the wires which had been disconnected, making up the circuit
to its original design.
The Professor, who had been told that burglars had been in, entered the
room excitedly, but Geoffrey reassured him.
“Somebody has been pottering about here. Lots of people know of my
device, and I suppose somebody is out to try to discover it. But they
haven’t done so. They’ve made a horrible mess of things, but they
don’t know the whole truth, because they haven’t examined the new
saturation device. If they had taken that away they would have found
out everything.”
“Very fortunate, Geoff!” exclaimed the old Professor. “Most fortunate!
Evidently some person wants to filch your invention from you!”
“Of course. But they don’t seem to have done it--unless----?” And the
young man crossed eagerly to a big cupboard in the room, the door of
which stood unlocked.
From it he withdrew a small, green-enamelled, steel dispatch-box.
“By Heavens!” he gasped. “They’ve got it!” And his father saw that the
box had been ripped open.
“I kept the diagram and specification of the windings in there!”
Geoffrey cried in dismay. “And they have taken it. They know
everything--and it is not patented!”
“But who are the thieves?” queried the old man. “Who could come here
into this house, and deliberately steal your invention?”
“Ah! There are hundreds of unscrupulous persons who have heard of it.
They know how much it would be worth to the world in the near future,
and I can only suppose that some plot has been formed to secure it. And
they’ve been successful! They have abstracted the diagram from that box
which I believed to be practically thief-proof. It had a complicated
lock, but they have opened it with steel cutters.”
“So the thieves know your secret, Geoff--the secret which you have been
so long perfecting?”
“Yes, they do,” replied the young engineer, setting his jaws firmly.
“They have outwitted me! And instead of being a rich man, as I had
anticipated, I am just where I was! I did my best to secure to the
world a better mode of amplification of wireless signals, but they have
stolen my invention. _Stolen it!_”
And he stared wildly at his father as a man desperate.
An hour later Geoffrey was in the office of the Chief Constable of
Essex, and there related to him the whole circumstances. Two detectives
went over to Warley in a car, and examined the premises. That entry
had been made in a very ingenious manner was quite clear, and it was
equally clear that the object was solely to get sight of the improved
amplifier, and to secure the diagrams and specifications for which
Geoffrey was about to apply for patent rights.
There was no clue to the thief, but whoever it was certainly knew
something of wireless. No ordinary burglar had committed the theft.
The examination of the room by the police took place at about eleven
o’clock, but at five that evening a sensational discovery was made by a
farm labourer near Ardleigh Green, about two miles away on the Romford
Road. The man was on his way home from work when, crossing a field
near the high road, he came across the body of a well-dressed man.
He was startled to find that he was dead--having been shot in the chest.
At once he informed the Romford police by telephone, and they, on
examining the body, declared it to be a case of murder.
Late that night, after Falconer had returned from Chelmsford, he
received a visit from a police inspector from Romford, who produced
some documents.
“These,” he said, “we found on the body of the stranger who was
apparently murdered last night. They appear to us to be wireless
diagrams, and we wonder if they may, by any chance, be yours?”
Geoffrey seized them eagerly.
“By Jove!” he gasped. “Why they’re mine--the stolen plans of my
invention!”
“Then it seems as though the thief, after committing the robbery, was
murdered,” the inspector said.
“So it appears. But who can he be--and who killed him?”
“That’s what we’ve got to find out, sir. Perhaps you’ll come into
Romford with me and view the body? You may know the man. He seems
well-dressed, and we found on him about forty pounds in Treasury notes
and several letters. But none of the latter give any clue as to who he
may be. The envelopes have all been destroyed.”
An hour later Geoffrey Falconer was shown the body as it lay, pale and
still, awaiting the coroner’s inquiry.
“Why, I recognise him!” gasped the young engineer the moment his eyes
fell upon the dead man’s face. “That’s a man with whom I chatted at the
Queen’s Hotel, at Hastings, some weeks ago. I remember his face quite
well. And his hand. He is still wearing that flesh-coloured calico
glove!”
“Was he alone?” asked the police inspector.
“Yes, as far as I know,” Geoffrey replied, and then in a flash it
occurred to him how the stranger, now dead, had managed to strike up
a conversation by the overturning of the coffee. He recollected, too,
Sylvia’s instinctive dislike of the fellow.
But if the mysterious man had evil intentions, why should he have taken
all those pains to meet him?
In any case he had the satisfaction of having regained possession of
his precious diagram which in the night had been filched from his
dispatch-box.
He was shown the Treasury notes found in the dead man’s wallet, and
also the letters--four of them--all in a woman’s hand. They were in
French, dated simply from Marlotte, a little village on the edge of
the Forest of Fontainebleau, cold, purely formal letters, but signed
“Gabrielle.”
Geoffrey Falconer knew that signature! He possessed letters in the same
handwriting. The writer was the pretty decoy of thieves, the girl who
was now in love with his brother-officer, Hugh Carew.
The whole situation became intensely puzzling. The man, whoever he was,
had evidently stolen the diagrams, but on making his way to Romford
station had been waylaid and shot by an unknown hand. That was the
theory held by Geoffrey, and also by the police. The motive of the
theft was, no doubt, in order to sell the invention abroad to some
rival radio company in Germany, or in America, for new wireless devices
have always a ready market to the rich corporations who--after the
Marconi Company--attempt to control the world’s communications through
space.
Very naturally Geoffrey did his level best to keep out of the papers
what really had been stolen from his father’s house. There were several
interests at stake. Hence, in the newspapers, the world read that the
thief had abstracted certain “papers” from the Professor’s house, and
these were found upon the dead man by the police, and returned to their
owner.
Those who read these lines will, no doubt, recollect having read a
bald and very unconvincing report of the affair. They certainly never
dreamed of the drama and romance which lay behind it all.
At the inquest Geoffrey Falconer, who was called to identify his
“property,” and tell the court of his meeting with the deceased at
Hastings, was very guarded in his evidence. He, of course, said nothing
of the pretty young girl whom he had met in Paris as an Italian,
and who was now in London under another name and posing as French.
The letters signed “Gabrielle” were shown to the jury, but to them
they conveyed nothing. The twelve worthy tradesmen of Romford had no
suspicion whatever that “Gabrielle” was a decoy of a clever thief, the
man into the circumstances of whose death they were called upon to
inquire.
Who had killed the thief there was no evidence whatever to show. As far
as Geoffrey was concerned he had little interest in the matter. The man
had taken a great risk, but had failed to dispose of the diagrams, and
thus filch from him a very considerable sum. That the stranger’s death
was due to vengeance seemed quite feasible, and the jury could only
arrive at one conclusion in face of the fact that no weapon had been
found near the spot--namely, that wilful murder had been “committed by
some person or persons unknown.”
Next day the diagrams of the improved amplifier were placed in the
bank, and the body of the deceased was buried at the expense of the
county of Essex.
The affair, however, filled Geoffrey’s mind mainly because of the
pretty Gabrielle’s association with his friend Carew.
Though he remained silent, the suggestion occurred to him about ten
days afterwards to go to London and meet Carew.
On calling at the club he found Hugh in the smoking-room, and at once
it became apparent that his appearance was the reverse of welcome.
Carew seemed highly nervous and perturbed. They sat over their
cigarettes for half an hour chatting over trivialities, when Geoffrey
suddenly remarked:
“I suppose you read in the papers what a lot of trouble I’ve had--a
robbery at our house?”
“Yes,” his friend replied. “I--I’ve got an appointment out in South
Africa, Geoffrey, but--but before I go I want to tell you something.”
“What?” asked his friend.
“Come upstairs to the private room,” said Carew, and both ascended the
great old staircase, and passing along a corridor, entered a small
rather ill-lit room where private conversation between members could be
indulged in.
When Hugh Carew had closed the door, he faced his friend, and said in a
low, tremulous voice:
“An explanation is due to you, Geoffrey. I know that you must have been
much mystified over the occurrence at Warley, and the narrow escape you
had of your invention passing into the hands of foreigners. I confess
that I prevented it.”
“You! How?”
“Well, I discovered that Gabrielle was held beneath the thrall of that
blackguard, Edward Everard, a thief of the most unscrupulous type where
women were concerned. The girl confessed to me. She told me how she had
been compelled to aid him in his plans in Paris and elsewhere, and how
Everard was plotting to obtain the secret of your wireless invention
in order to dispose of it to some people in Brussels. I induced her to
tell me the whole plot--a most ingenious one--and then----”
And he paused.
“Yes, go on,” said Geoffrey, looking into the other’s pale, hard-drawn
face.
“Well--I followed him on that night,” he said in a low, intense voice.
“I watched him break into your room and cut open the dispatch-box.
I saw him leave and go along the road, and--and in order to save
Gabrielle from him and save your invention from falling into the hands
of others, I--_I shot him_!”
“You did?” gasped Falconer, astounded.
“Yes. And now you can give me up to the police. I don’t care. I love
Gabrielle, and I have saved her from that fiend who wore a glove to
conceal a deformity by which he could have been easily identified.”
“Where is Gabrielle now?”
“She sailed for Cape Town last Tuesday, and will await me there. We
arranged to be married on my arrival.”
Falconer paused. A long silence fell between the two men.
At last Geoffrey spoke, his voice trembling with emotion:
“Go and meet her in Cape Town, Hugh. I shall regard your confession
as sacred. You saved the girl from further dishonour, and you saved
to me the fruits of my labours. It was murder, I admit. But now that
I know the dead man’s name, I am aware that he was guilty of the same
crime--the robbery and murder of a wealthy old lady near Marseilles two
years ago--a woman to whom he had forced Gabrielle to act as maid.”
“And you will say nothing--not a word will pass your lips?” asked Hugh
Carew eagerly.
“Not a word--I swear! The man has met with his just deserts.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey,” was the other’s reply, and both left the dull,
half-dark room without further word.