CONFIRMS CERTAIN SUSPICIONS
For yet another hour we sat together, but Lola would reveal nothing
further.
She only repeated that serious warning, urging me to abandon this
investigation of the strange affair at Cromer.
She refused to tell me the name under which old Gregory was known in
Hatton Garden, and she likewise firmly declined to give me any
information concerning the curious code which had been found in
Gregory's room. Indeed, she affected ignorance of it, as well as of the
mysterious spot in Ealing "where the two C's meet."
"My uncle is in Antwerp," she told me in reply to a question. "I join
him to-morrow, and then we go travelling--where, I have no idea. But you
know how erratic and sudden our movements necessarily are. The master
usually meets my uncle in Antwerp, going there regularly in the guise of
a diamond merchant."
"And you will not tell me the master's real name?" I asked
persuasively.
"I am not allowed. If you discover it for yourself, then I shall not be
to blame," she said, with a meaning smile. "But do, I beg of you, give
up the search, M'sieu' Vidal. It can only end fatally if you still
persist."
"You have warned me, Lola, and I thank you sincerely for doing so, but I
shall continue to act as I have begun."
"At your own peril--a deadly peril!" she ejaculated, with an
apprehensive look.
"I must accept the risk," I said quietly. "And I intend to still stand
your friend, Lola."
"But you must not, you cannot!" she protested. "Of course I most deeply
appreciate all that you have done for me--and how generous you have
been, knowing that I am, alas! what I am. But I will not allow you to
risk your life further on my account."
"That is really my own affair."
"No. It is mine. I am here to-day, in secret, solely to warn you--to ask
you--to give up this inquiry, and allow the matter to rest a mystery,"
she protested. "Will you not do this for my sake?" she pleaded.
For a few seconds I paused, smiling at her. Then I replied--
"No. I cannot promise that. Young Craig was foully murdered, of that I
am confident, and I intend to unravel the mystery."
"Even though it costs you your life?" she asked slowly.
Why, I wondered, was she so frantically anxious for me to abandon the
inquiry? Was it really because she feared that her uncle might attempt
to rid himself of me, or had she some other hidden motive?
The expression upon her sweet face had altered. It was eager and
apprehensive--a curious look, such as I had never witnessed there
before.
Deeply in earnest, she was persuading me, with all the arts of which
she, as a woman, was capable to give up the investigation--why?
My refusal evidently caused her the greatest anxiety--even deadly fear.
She would, however, reveal nothing more to me. Therefore, I told her
point-blank that I would make her no promise.
"But you will think over my words," she said earnestly. "You will be
forewarned of the evil that is intended!"
"If there is evil, then I will combat it," I replied briefly. "My first
concern is yourself, Lola. Do you remember our confidential talks when
we strolled together in the Bois--when you told me all your troubles,
and your fears?"
"Yes," she replied in a strange, dreary voice. "But--but, I did not tell
you all. You do not know," she added in a whisper.
"Tell me all," I urged. "I know you are--well, let us say it quite
plainly--a thief."
"Ah! If I were only _that_, I might dare to look you in the face--to
crave your sympathy--your interest--your generosity once again. But I
cannot. No! I cannot," and she burst into tears.
"Are we not friends?" I queried. "And between friends surely there may
be confidences."
"To a certain degree, yes. But there is a limit even to confidences
between friends," was her slow, thoughtful reply, as she dried her eyes
with a little wisp of lace.
I was disappointed. I had fully expected to obtain from her some clue
which might lead to a solution of the mystery of Craig's death. But she
was obdurate.
"Lola," I said, taking her trembling hand again, "I wish to tell you
something."
"Well, what is it?" she asked.
"Simply this. I think I ought to tell you that, near that seat on the
cliff at Cromer, where Craig was found, there was discovered a clear
print of a lady's shoe," and I watched her countenance narrowly.
Her face went paler in an instant, and in her eyes showed a quick look
of terror. But in a second she had recovered herself, and said--
"That is interesting. Do you think that its presence there gives any
clue to the assassin?"
"I don't know," was my reply. I stood before her in wonder. Her perfect
sang-froid was truly amazing. "But," I went on, "curiously enough, the
same lady's shoe was found in Beacon House, after Gregory's property had
been carried off. It fitted exactly the imprint in the sand near the
seat."
The only sign that her mind was perturbed by my knowledge was a slight
twitching at the corners of her pretty mouth. Yes, she preserved an
astounding calm.
"That is curious," she remarked with unconcern.
"Very," I declared, still gazing fixedly into her white face. "And can
you tell me nothing further regarding this affair?" I asked, bending to
her, and speaking in a whisper.
She shook her head.
I did not suspect--nay, I could not bring myself to believe--that Edward
Craig had fallen by her hand. Yet the facts were strange--amazingly
strange--and her demeanour was stranger still.
We had tea together. She poured it out, and handed it to me daintily,
with a sweet smile upon her lips. Then after a further chat, she drew on
her long gloves, settled her skirts and prepared to leave.
"A letter addressed to the Poste Restante at Versailles will always find
me," she said, in reply to my request for an address. "I use the name
Elise Leblanc."
I made a rapid note of it upon my shirt-cuff, and having paid the bill,
we descended, and walked together, through the busy streets of Norwich,
to the Thorpe Station, where I saw her into the evening express for
London.
"_Au revoir_, M'sieu' Vidal," she said, as she held my hand, before
entering the first-class compartment. "Do heed my warning, I beg of you.
Do not further imperil yourself. Will you?"
"I cannot promise," I replied with a smile.
"But you must not persist--or something will most surely happen," she
declared. "_Au revoir!_ If we meet again it must be in the strictest
secrecy. My uncle must never know."
"_Au revoir!_" I said as the porter closed the door, and next moment the
train moved off.
I saw her face smiling, and a white-gloved hand waving at the window,
and then "The Nightingale" had gone.
A fortnight went by. I had packed my traps, and leaving Cromer, returned
to my rooms in London, and then crossed to Paris, where I spent a week
in close, anxious inquiry.
Paris in August is given over to the Cookites and provincials, and most
of my friends were absent.
The Prefecture of Police was, however, the chief centre of my sphere of
operations, for in that sombre room, with its large, littered
writing-table, its telephones, its green-painted walls, and green-baize
covered door, the private cabinet of my friend Henri Jonet--the famous
Chief Inspector of the _Sûreté_--I sat on several occasions discussing
the activity of Jeanjean and his clever gang.
Jonet was a sharp-featured, clean-shaven man of about forty-five, short
and slightly stout, with a pair of merry dark eyes, his hair carefully
brushed and trousers always well creased. He was something of a dandy in
private life, even though he so often assumed various disguises, passing
very frequently as a camelot, or a respectable workman. Of his successes
in detection of crime all the world knew.
Next to the Chef de la Sûreté, Chief Inspector Jonet was the most famous
police official in Paris, or even in France. In the course of the past
few years he had many times dealt unsuccessfully with crimes in which
the amazing Jules Jeanjean had been implicated.
I had on many occasions assisted him in his investigations into other
matters, and, therefore, on the sultry afternoon, when I called and
presented my card, I was shown up immediately into his private
bureau--that dismal and rather depressing room, which I so well
remembered.
We sat smoking together for a long time before I approached the subject
upon which I had called to consult him.
He sat back in his chair enjoying the excellent Bogdanoff cigarette, a
fellow to which he had handed to me, and recalling a strange affair
that, a year ago, had occupied us both--a theft of bonds from a private
bank in the Boulevard Haussmann.
Outside, the afternoon was blazing hot, therefore the green sun-shutters
were closed, and the room was in semi-darkness. Jonet's big
writing-table was piled with reports and correspondence, as well as one
or two recently-arrived photographs of persons wanted by the police
authorities of other European countries.
Now and then the telephone buzzed, and he would reply, and give
instructions in a quick, sharp voice. Then he turned to me again and
continued our conversation.
"The Benoy affair in March last was a sensational one--the murder of the
jeweller while in his motor-car in the Forest of Fontainebleau--you
remember," I remarked presently in French, leaning back in my chair and
puffing at my cigarette. "You made no arrest, did you?"
"Yes, several. But we didn't get the culprits," he replied with a dry
smile. "It was our friend Jules Jeanjean again, without a doubt. But he
and his accomplices got clean away in the stolen car. It was found two
days later a mile out of Maçon, painted grey, and bearing another
number. The bandits evidently took train."
"Where to?"
"Who knows? Back to Paris, perhaps," was his reply, flicking the ash
from his cigarette. "Yet, though we made a close search, we found no
trace whatever of the interesting Jules. _Sapristí!_ I only wish I could
lay hands upon him. He is undoubtedly the most daring and dangerous
criminal in the whole of Europe," Jonet went on. "Of late we have had
reports of his doings from Germany and Russia, but he always escapes. A
big jewel robbery in Petersburg is his latest clever exploit. Yet how he
disposes of his booty always puzzles me. He must get rid of it
somewhere, and yet we never find any trace of it."
I said nothing. From his words I saw how utterly ignorant even Jonet was
of the truth, and how little he suspected the actual fact that Jeanjean
was not the originator of those ingenious crimes but merely the
instrument of another and a master-brain.
The great police official drew a long sigh, and expressed wonder as to
whether the elusive jewel-thief and assassin would ever fall into the
hands of justice.
"At present he seems to bear quite a charmed life," he declared with a
smile. "He openly defies us each time--sometimes even going the length
of writing us an insulting letter, denouncing us as incompetent and
heaping ridicule upon the whole department of the _Sûreté_. It is that
which makes my officers so intensely keen to capture him."
"I fear you will never do so," I remarked.
"Why?"
"Because Jeanjean is too clever to be caught. He is wary, rich, and
takes every precaution against surprise."
"You know him--eh?"
"Yes," I admitted. "But what is the latest information you have
regarding him?"
Jonet took up the telephone and gave instructions for the dossier of the
great criminal to be brought to him.
In a few moments a clerk entered bearing three formidable portfolios
full of reports, photographs, lists of stolen jewellery, and other
matters concerning the career of the man who had constantly baffled all
attempts to capture him.
Jonet opened one of the portfolios and scanned several sheets of
closely-written reports. Then he said--
"It seems that he, with a young girl, said to be a niece of his, were in
Russia just prior to the great robbery from a jeweller in Petersburg. No
doubt they were implicated in it. The girl, travelling alone, passed the
frontier at Wirballen on the following day, but the telegram from the
Petersburg police arrived at the frontier too late, and in Germany she
disappeared."
"And what about Jeanjean?" I asked.
The famous Chief Inspector read on for a few moments. Then he replied--
"He was seen on the day of the theft, together with an Italian, believed
to be one of his accomplices, but after that nothing further was heard
of him until four days later. Then an inspector at Lille recognized him
from his circulated photograph, but not being quite certain, and also
knowing that, if the suspect were actually the man wanted, he would be
armed, and recollecting the affair at Charleroi, he did not care to make
a pounce single-handed. He went back to the police-station, but while he
was looking for the photograph, his man, evidently seeing he was
suspected, made his escape."
"And have you a photograph of the girl?" I asked anxiously.
"She has never been arrested, therefore we have no official portrait,"
was his reply. "But last summer, one of my assistants, a young man named
Rothera, was in Dinard at the _Hôtel Royal_, keeping observation in
another matter, when one evening he saw a young girl, who was staying in
the hotel with an elderly aunt, meet in the Casino a man who greatly
resembled Jeanjean. The pair went out and had a long stroll, speaking
confidentially together. Meanwhile Rothera, like the inspector at Lille,
went to the local bureau de police to turn up the description of the
wanted man. Having done so, and having satisfied himself that it was
actually the master-criminal so long wanted, he took three men and
waited in patience in the country road along which the pair had
strolled. Two hours elapsed, when, to their dismay, the young girl
returned alone. Jeanjean, it was afterwards discovered, had a motor-car
awaiting him about four kilometres away along the Dinan road. Rothera
said nothing to the girl, but next day got into conversation with her in
the hotel. He was exceedingly attentive through several succeeding days,
and being an amateur photographer, asked to be allowed to take a
snapshot of her. He had satisfied himself that, from her description,
she was that female accomplice of the notorious jewel-thief, of whom we
possessed no portrait. She, quite unsuspecting, believed Rothera to be
an idle young man of means. He took the picture--and here it is," added
the Inspector, and passed over to me a photograph of post-card size.
It was Lola. Lola, in a pretty white summer gown, lolling lazily in a
long cane chair upon the beach at Dinard, and laughing merrily, her hat
flung upon the ground, and her book in her lap. A pretty scene of summer
idleness.