WHEREIN CONFESSION IS MADE
"Well, Lola," I said at last, still holding her little hand in mine,
"and why cannot you reveal to me the truth regarding the mystery of the
death of Edward Craig?"
"For a very good reason--because I do not myself know the exact
circumstances," was her prompt response, dropping into French. "I know
that you have made an investigation. What have you discovered?"
"If you will be frank with me," I said, also in French, "I will be
equally frank with you."
"But, have I not always been frank?" she protested. "Have I not always
told you the truth, ever since that night in Scotland when you trapped
me in your room. Don't you remember?"
"Yes," I replied in a low voice. "I remember, alas! too well. You
promised in return for your liberty that you would break away from your
uncle."
"Ah, I did--but I have been utterly unable, M'sieur Vidal," she cried
quickly in her broken English. "You don't know how much I have suffered
this past year--how terrible is my present position," she added in a
tone of poignant bitterness.
"Yes, I quite understand and sympathize with you," I said, taking out a
cigarette and lighting it, while she sat back in the big old-fashioned
horse-hair arm-chair. "For weeks I have been endeavouring to find
you--after you came to Cromer to call upon me. You have left the
Boulevard Pereire."
"Yes. I have been travelling constantly of late."
"After the affair of the jeweller, Benoy--eh? Where were you at that
time?"
"In Marseilles, awaiting my uncle. We crossed to Algiers together.
Thence we went along to Alexandria, and on to Cairo, where we met our
friends."
"It was a dastardly business. I read of it in the _Matin_," I said.
"Brutal--horrible!" declared the girl. "But is not my uncle an inhuman
brute--a fearless, desperate man, who carries out, with utter disregard
of human life, the amazing plots which are formed by one who is the
master of all the criminal arts."
"Then he is not the prime mover of all these ingenious thefts?" I
exclaimed in some surprise, for I had always believed Jules Jeanjean to
be the head of that international band.
"No. He acts under the direction of another, a man of amazing ingenuity
and colossal intellect. It is he who cleverly investigates, and gains
knowledge of those who possess rare jewels; he who watches craftily for
opportunities, who so carefully plans the _coups_, and who afterwards
arranges for the stones to be re-cut in Antwerp or Amsterdam."
"Who is he?" I asked eagerly. "You may tell me in confidence. I will not
betray your secret."
"He poses as a dealer in precious stones in London."
"In London?"
"Yes. He has an office in Hatton Garden, and is believed by other
dealers in precious stones to be a most respectable member of that
select little coterie that deals in gems."
"What is his name?"
The girl was silent for a few seconds. Then she said--
"In Cromer he has been known under the name of Vernon Gregory."
"Gregory!" I gasped in astonishment. "What, to that quiet old man is due
the conception of all these great and daring robberies committed by
Jules Jeanjean?"
"Yes. My uncle acts upon plans and information which the old man
supplies," Lola replied. "Being in the trade, the crafty old fellow
knows in whose hands lie the most valuable stones, and then lays his
cunningly-prepared plans accordingly--plans that my uncle desperately
carries out to the very letter."
This statement much surprised me, for I had always regarded Jeanjean as
the instigator of the plots. But now, it appeared, old Gregory was the
head of Europe's most dangerous association of criminals.
"Then the jewels found in Gregory's rooms at Cromer were all stolen
property?"
"Yes. We were surprised that the police did not discover the real
owners," Lola replied. "The greater part of the jewels were taken from
the castle of the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, just outside Kiev,
about nine months ago."
"By you?" I asked with a grim smile.
"Not all. Some," admitted the girl with a light laugh. Then she
continued: "We expected that when the old gentleman made such a hurried
flight from Cromer, the police would recognize the property from the
circulated description. But, as they did not, Uncle determined to regain
possession of it--which he did."
"Who aided him?"
"Egisto--a man who is generally known as Egisto Bertini."
"The man who rode the motor-cycle?"
She nodded.
"And you assisted," I said. "Why did you leave your shoe behind?"
"By accident. I thought I heard some of the occupants of the house
stirring, so fled without having an opportunity of recovering it. I
suppose it has puzzled the local police--eh?" she laughed merrily.
"It did. You were all very clever, and my man, Rayner, was rendered
insensible."
"Because he was a trifle too inquisitive. He was watching, and did not
know that my uncle, in such expeditions, has eyes in the back of his
head," she answered. "It was fortunate for him that he was not killed
outright, for, as you know, my uncle always, alas! believes in the old
maxim that dead men tell no tales."
"The assassin!" I cried in fierce anger. "He will have many crimes to
answer for when at last the police lay hands upon him."
"He will never be taken alive," she said. "He will denounce me, and then
kill himself. That is what he constantly threatens."
"And because of that you fear to hold aloof and defy him?" I asked. "You
live in constant terror, Lola."
"Yes. How can I act--how can I escape them? Advise me," she urged, her
face pale and intensely in earnest.
I hesitated. It was certainly a difficult matter upon which to give
advice. The pretty girl before me had for several years been the
unwilling tool of that scoundrelly gang of bandits, whose organization
was so perfect that they were never arrested, nor was any of their booty
ever traced.
The four or five men acting under the direction of the master-mind of
old Gregory were, in private life, all of them affluent and respected
citizens, either in England or in France, while Jules Jeanjean, I
afterwards learned, occupied a big white villa overlooking the blue sea
three miles out of Algiers. It was a place with wonderful gardens filled
with high date-palms and brilliant tropical flowers. There, in his hours
of retirement, Jules Jeanjean lived amid the most artistic and luxurious
surroundings, with many servants, and a couple of motor-cars, devoting
himself to experiments in wireless telegraphy, having fitted up a
powerful station for both receiving and transmitting.
The science of wireless telegraphy was indeed his chief hobby, and he
spent many hours in listening to the messages from Pold, Poldhu,
Clifden, Soller, Paris, Port Said, or Norddeich on the North Sea, in
communicating with ships in the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, the Levant,
or on the Atlantic.
I was wondering how to advise my little friend. Ever since our first
meeting my heart had been full of sympathy and compassion for her, so
frail seemed her frame, so tragic her life, and so fettered did she seem
to that disreputable gang. Yet, had she not pointed out to me, on the
several occasions on which we had met in Paris, the impossibility of
breaking the bonds which bound her to that detestable life? Indeed she
had, more than once, declared our meetings to be filled with peril for
myself.
Her uncle knew me by repute as an investigator of crime, and if he ever
suspected me of prying into any affair in which he might be concerned,
then my life would most certainly be in jeopardy. Jules Jeanjean never
did things by halves. It was, I found, for that reason she had now
sought me--to beseech me to relinquish my efforts to fathom the mystery
of the death of Edward Craig.
"Do heed what I say, M'sieur Vidal," she exclaimed with deep
earnestness. "My uncle knows that you are still in Cromer, and that you
have been investigating. In Algiers, a fortnight ago, he mentioned it to
me, and declared that very shortly you would cease to trouble him."
"He intends foul play--eh?" I remarked with a grim smile, lighting
another cigarette.
"He means mischief," she assured me. "He knows, too well, of your
success in other cases in which you have interested yourself," she
remarked quickly. "And he fears--fears lest you may discover the secret
of the young man's death."
"And if I do?" I asked, looking straight into her face.
"He does not intend that you shall," she replied very earnestly, adding:
"Ah! M'sieur Vidal, do heed my words--I beg you. Be warned by me!"
"But, why?" I queried. "I am not afraid of Jules Jeanjean. I have never
done him an evil turn. Therefore, why should he conspire to take my
life? Besides, I already know of his connexion with the Cromer mystery,
the Benoy affair, and others. Could I not easily have sent a telegram to
the Prefecture of Police in Paris, when I recognized him in Cromer? But
I did not."
"Why?"
"For two reasons. First, I wished to stand aside and watch, and,
secondly, I feared to betray him for your sake, Lola."
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "But you are always so generous. You know quite
well that he already believes that I have told you the truth. Therefore,
he suspects us both and is determined to put an end to your
inquisitiveness."
"Unless I act swiftly--eh?" I suggested.
"But think--what would then become of me?" she exclaimed, her eyes open
in quick alarm.
"I can't see what you really have to fear," I said. "It is true, Lola,
that you live, like your friends, by dishonest methods, but have you not
been forced into it by your uncle? Even if you were arrested, the law
would treat you with the greatest leniency. Indeed, if necessary, I
would come forward and tell the Court all I have known and discovered
concerning the baneful influence which has been exercised upon you by
the man Jeanjean."
She shook her head mournfully.
"Alas! That would be of no avail," she declared in a low, strained
voice.
"Why?"
"Because--because, ah!--you do not know the truth," she faltered, her
face pale to the lips.
"Cannot you explain it to me?" I asked, bending down to her, and placing
my hand tenderly upon her shoulder.
I felt her shudder beneath my touch, while her big blue eyes were
downcast--downcast in shame.
"No. I cannot explain," she replied. "If you knew, M'sieur Vidal, how
horrible, how terrible all this is for me, you would not press your
question."
"But I do--in your interests," I said with deep earnestness. "I want to
help you to escape from these scoundrels--I want to stand as your
friend."
"My friend!" she exclaimed blankly. "My friend--ah! that you can never
be."
"Why not?"
"You would not wish to cultivate my acquaintance further, M'sieur Vidal,
if--if you were aware of the actual truth. Besides, this friendship
which you have shown to me may, in itself, prove fatal to you. If you do
not exercise the greatest precaution, your reward for saving me, as you
did that night at Balmaclellan, will be death!"
"You are apprehensive on my account?" I asked, wondering whether she
were really in earnest--or whether beneath her strange warning there lay
some subtle motive.
"Yes," was her frank response. "Take great care, or death will come to
you at a moment when you least expect it."
For an instant I was silent. Her warning was truly a curious and
disconcerting one, for I knew the dangerous character of Jules Jeanjean.
That if he threatened, he meant action.
"I do not care for myself, Lola," I said at last. "I am thinking how I
can protect you, and rescue you from the hands of these unscrupulous
men."
"You cannot," she declared, with a hard, fixed look of desperation. "No,
only be careful of yourself, and, at the same time, dismiss me from your
thoughts. I--I am unworthy of your regard," she murmured, her voice
choked by a sob. "Alas, entirely unworthy!"
"No, no," I urged. "I will not allow you to speak like that, Lola. Ever
since you entered my room, on that well-remembered night in Scotland, I
have wondered how best I could assist you to lead an honest life; how I
could----"
"I can accept no further assistance from you, M'sieur Vidal," she
interposed, in a quivering voice. "I repeat that I am utterly
unworthy," she cried, and shivered with despair, as she stood erect
before me. "And--and--if you only knew the truth--the terrible truth of
the past--you would at once, I know, turn and discard me--nay, you would
probably ring for the waiter and hand me over to the police without
either compunction or regret."
And the girl, known as "The Nightingale," stood before me, her face
white and hard, her eyes with a strange light in them, staring straight
before her, her breast heaving and falling with emotion which she was
trying in vain to suppress.