DESCRIBES A NIGHT-VIGIL
The gusty wind had died down.
In the silence of the night I listened to the receding noise of the
motor-cycle as it swept down the hill into Cromer town, where I knew
Rayner would be on the alert.
The sound died away, therefore I relit my pipe, and mounting again into
the driver's seat, sat back thinking--thinking mostly of Lola, and my
ill-luck at having missed her.
Before me, in the white glare of the lamps upon the road, where insects
of the night, attracted by the radiance, were dancing to their deaths,
there arose before me that sweet, perfect face, the face that had so
attracted me. I saw her smile--smile at me, as she did when first we had
met. Ah! How strange had been our friendship, stranger than novelist had
ever imagined. I had loved her--loved as I had never loved before, and
she had loved me, with that bright, intense look in her wonderful eyes,
the woman's look that can never lie.
There is but one love-look. A man knows it by his instinct, just as does
a woman. A woman knows by intuition that the fool who takes her out to
the theatre and supper, and is so profuse in his protestations of
undying admiration, is only uttering outpourings of vapid nonsense. Just
so, a man meets insincerity with insincerity. The woman gets to know in
time how much her vain, shallow admirer is good for, for she knows he
will soon pass out of her life, while the man's instinct is exactly the
same. In a word, it is life--the life of this, our Twentieth Century.
The man laughed at and derided to-day, is a hero ten years hence.
A few years ago Mr. John Burns carried a banner perspiringly along the
Thames Embankment, in a May Day procession, and I assisted him. To-day
he is a Cabinet Minister. A few years ago my dear friend, George
Griffith, wrote about air-ships in his romance, _The Angel of the
Revolution_, and everybody made merry at his expense. To-day airships
are declared to be the chief arm of Continental nations.
Ah, yes! The world proceeds apace, and the unknown to-morrow ever brings
its amazing surprises and the adoption of the "crank's" ideas of
yesterday.
Lola had called to see me. That fact conjured up in my imagination a
thousand startling theories.
Why?
Why had she called, after all that had passed between us?
I waited, waited for the coming of that mysterious cyclist, who arose
from nowhere, and whose business with Jules Jeanjean was of such vast
and secret importance.
The very fact of Jeanjean being in Cromer had staggered me. As I sat
there smoking, and listening, I recollected when last I had heard
mention of his name. Hamard--the great Hamard--Chief of the _Sûreté_ of
Paris, had been seated in his private bureau in the offices of the
detective police.
He had leaned back in his chair, and blowing a cloud of tobacco-smoke
from his lips, had said in French--
"Ah! Mon cher Vidal, we are face to face in this affair with Jules
Jeanjean, the most ingenious and most elusive criminal that we have met
this century in France. In other walks of life Jeanjean would have been
a great man--a millionaire financier, a Minister of the Cabinet, a
great general--a leader of men. But in the circumstances this
arch-adventurer, who slips through our fingers, no matter what trap we
set for him, is a criminal of a type such as Europe has never known
within the memory of living man. Personally I admire his pluck, his
energy, his inventiveness, his audacity, his iron nerve, and his amazing
cunning. Truly, now, cher ami, he is a marvel. There is but one
master-criminal, Jules Jeanjean."
That was the character given him by Monsieur Hamard, the greatest French
detective since Lecoq.
And now this master-criminal was beneath the railway arch at Cromer
meeting in secret a mysterious cyclist!
What evil was now intended?
I waited, my ears strained to catch every sound. But I only heard the
distant rumble of the thunder, away across the North Sea, and,
somewhere, the dismal howling of a dog.
I waited, and still waited. The sky grew brighter, and I grew
perceptibly colder, so that I turned up my coat-collar, and shivered,
even though the previous day had been so unusually warm. The car smelt
of petrol and oil--a smell that nauseated me--and yet my face was turned
to the open country ready to follow and track down the man who had swept
past me to keep that mysterious tryst in the darkness.
Looking back, I saw, away to the right, the white shafts of light from
the high-up lighthouse, slowly sweeping the horizon, flashing warning to
mariners upon that dangerous coast, while, far away in the distance over
the sea, I could just discern a flash from the lightship on the
Haisboro' Sands.
In the valley, deep below, lay Cromer, the street-lamps reflecting upon
the low storm-clouds. At that moment the thunder-storm threatened to
burst.
Yet I waited, and waited, watching the rose of dawn slowly spreading in
the Eastern sky.
Silence--a complete and impressive silence had fallen--even the dog had
now ceased to howl.
And yet I possessed myself in patience, my ears strained for the
"pop-pop" of the returning motor-cycle.
A farmer's cart, with fresh vegetables and fruit for the Cromer shops on
the morrow, creaked slowly past, and the driver in his broad Norfolk
dialect asked me--
"Any trouble, sir?"
I replied in the negative, whereupon he whipped up his horse, bade me a
cheery "good morning," and descended the hill. For a long time, as I
refilled and relit my pipe, I could hear the receding wheels, but no
sound of a motor-cycle could I hear.
Time passed, the flush of dawn crept over the sea, brightened swiftly,
and then overcast night gave place to a calm and clear morning. The
larks, in the fields on either side, rose to greet the rising sun, and
the day broke gloriously. Many a dawn had I witnessed in various parts
of the world, from the snows of Spitzbergen to the baking sands of the
Sahara, but never a more glorious one than that June morning in
Poppyland, for Cromer is one of the few places in England where you can
witness the sun both rise from, and set in the sea.
My headlights had burned themselves out long ago. It was now four
o'clock. Strange that the nocturnal cyclist did not return!
All my preparations had, it seemed, been in vain.
I knew, however, that I was dealing with Jules Jeanjean, a past-master
in crime, a man who, no doubt, was fully aware of the inquiries being
made by the plain-clothes officers from Norwich, and who inwardly
laughed them to scorn.
The man who had defied the Paris _Sûreté_ would hardly entertain any
fear of the Norfolk Constabulary.
Many country carts, most of them going towards Cromer, now passed me,
and their drivers wished me "Good morning," but I remained at my lonely
vigil until five o'clock. Then I decided that Jeanjean's friend must
have taken another road out of Cromer, either the Sheringham, the Holt,
or the Overstrand, the three other main roads out of the town.
What had Rayner done, I wondered? Where was he?
I sat down upon the grassy bank at the roadside, still pondering. Of all
the mysteries of crime I had assisted in investigating, in order to
write down the details in my book, this was assuredly the most
remarkable.
I knew that I was face to face with some great and startling affair,
some adventure which, when the truth became known, would amaze and
astound the world. Jules Jeanjean was not the man to attempt small
things. He left those to smaller men. In his profession he was the
master, and a thousand _escrocs_, all over the Continent, forgers,
international thieves, burglars, coiners, _rats d'hotel_--most ingenious
of malefactors--regarded the name of Jeanjean with awe.
One of his exploits was well known up and down the Continent--for the
_Matin_ had published the full story a year ago. Under another name, and
in the guise of a wealthy _rentier_ of Paris, he made the acquaintance
of one of the Inspectors of the Paris detective service. Inviting him to
his private sitting-room in the _Hôtel Royale_, on the Promenade des
Anglais, he gave him an _aperitif_ which in less than three minutes
caused the police official to lose consciousness. Thereupon Jeanjean
took from the Inspector's pocket his card of authority as a detective--a
card signed by the Prefect of Police--and at once left the hotel.
Next night, at the _Café Américain_ in Paris, he went up to a wealthy
German who was spending a harmless but gay evening at that well-known
supper-resort and arrested him for theft, exhibiting his warrant of
authority.
In a taxi he conducted him to the Prefecture of Police, but on their way
the German asked him if they could come to terms. The pseudo-Inspector
hesitated, then told the taxi-driver to go to a small hotel opposite
the Gare du Nord. There he and his prisoner discussed terms, it being
eventually agreed that the German--a well-known shipowner of
Hamburg--should in the morning telegraph to his bank for eighty thousand
marks, for which sum he would be allowed to go at liberty.
It was well known, of course, to Jeanjean that his "prisoner" had been
guilty of the offence for which he had "arrested" him, and the _coup_
was quite easy.
He kept the German in the hotel till ten o'clock next morning, and then
the pair went to the Crédit Lyonnais together. At four o'clock--the
bogus Inspector still with his "prisoner,"--the money was brought to the
obscure hotel, and after Jeanjean had carefully counted through the
notes he allowed his prey to go at liberty, advising him to take the
next train back to Germany.
At six o'clock, the sun shining out warm and brightly, my patience was
exhausted. I had spent the night hours there in vain. Yet I dare not
drive the car into Cromer, for I intended to repeat my effort on the
following night. Therefore I started the engine, and was soon back in
the yard of the small hotel in Aylsham.
There I put up the car, breakfasted, and then taking the first train to
North Walsham, arrived in Cromer about half-past nine o'clock.
When I entered my room at the _Hôtel de Paris_ the maid came quickly
along, saying--
"Will you please go up to see your servant, sir! He's very unwell!"
"Unwell?" I said. "Why, what's the matter?"
"I don't know, sir. The police brought him in about half an hour ago.
He's been out all night, they say. And they found him very ill."
I darted upstairs and entered Rayner's room without knocking.
He was lying upon the bed, still dressed, his face pale as death.
"Ah, sir!" he gasped, "I--I'm so glad you've come back! I--I wondered
whether anything had happened to you. I--I----"
He stretched out his hand to me, but no other word escaped his lips.
I saw that he had fainted.