ANOTHER DISCOVERY IS MADE
On several occasions during the weary week that followed Inspector
Warton called and saw me, but I always managed, by one subterfuge or
another, to evade the more pointed of his questions.
The three men who had attacked Lola and myself that night knew from the
papers that we both still lived as witnesses against them.
The nurses would not allow me to see the papers, but from Rayner I
learnt that the more sensational section of the London Press had
published reports headed, "Novelist Found Shot." Indeed, a great many
reporters had called at the hospital, but had been promptly sent empty
away.
At last, one morning, I was declared convalescent and sufficiently well
to be removed to my chambers. Therefore Rayner ordered Stevens to bring
his taxi for me, and we left the hospital.
Though still feeling far from well, I was all curiosity to see the house
in Spring Grove by daylight, so we called at the police-station and a
stout sergeant of the T. Division accompanied us with the key, the place
being still in the hands of the police.
As we pulled up in that unfrequented side-road I saw how mysterious and
desolate the place was in the warm sunshine--an old red-brick Georgian
house, with square, inartistic windows, standing solitary and alone,
half covered by its ivy mantle, and surrounded by a spacious garden
dotted with high trees, and neglected and overgrown with weeds.
As we walked over the moss-grown flags leading to the steps, I noticed
the window I had smashed in making my entry that night.
The constable unlocked the door and we found ourselves in a wide,
spacious hall, its stone flags worn hollow and containing some
old-fashioned furniture. The atmosphere of the house was musty and
close, and long cobwebs hung in festoons in the corners.
The room on the right, the one in which I had been found, I remembered
well. It was just the same as when I had stood there in the presence of
the Master and the notorious Jules Jeanjean. Upon its brown threadbare
carpet were two ugly stains in close proximity to each other--the spots
where both Lola and I had lain!
I saw the wall against which I had stood in defiance. An evening
overcoat still lay upon a chair--the coat which old Gregory had
abandoned in his hurried flight, when Stevens, the taxi-driver, had so
opportunely appeared upon the scene.
"Nothing's been touched, sir," remarked the fat sergeant. "We've been
waiting for you to see the place, and to tell us what you know."
I exchanged glances with Rayner.
"I know very little," I replied. "I simply fell in with a very dangerous
set. They were evidently plotting something, and believing that I had
overheard, attempted to put me out of the way."
"And the lady?"
"I imagine the same sort of thing happened to her. They considered she
knew too much of their movements and might betray them."
"But what were they plotting?"
"They spoke in French, so I couldn't catch."
"Oh! They were foreigners--eh?" exclaimed the sergeant in surprise.
"Coiners or anarchists, perhaps."
"Perhaps," I said. "Who knows?"
"Ah. I've heard that two strangers have been seen up and down here in
the night time," continued the sergeant. "We've got their description
from a constable who's been doing night-duty. He says he'd know 'em
again. Once he saw a woman with 'em, and he believes it was the young
lady now in the hospital."
"He saw them together--eh?"
"He says so."
Then I changed the conversation, and I followed him from room to room
through the dirty, neglected house, which nevertheless, with slight
signs here and there, showed marks of recent occupation.
Two of the beds in the upstairs rooms had been slept in, and there was
other evidence in both kitchen and dining-room that, as I had surmised,
it had been the secret hiding-place of the man who posed in Hatton
Garden as a substantial and respectable dealer in precious stones.
No doubt he came there late at night, and if he remained during the day
he never went out.
Surely the place was one where he might effectively conceal himself from
the police; yet to live in such a house, and in that manner, certainly
showed a daring and audacity unequalled. He, of course, never knew when
a prospective tenant might come to visit it, or the agents in Hounslow
might send to inspect its condition.
"You had a very narrow escape here, sir," said the sergeant as we
descended the stairs. "Will you step outside? I want to show you
something."
We all went out by the kitchen door into the weedy garden where, behind
a low wall, lay a mound of newly-dug earth. By its side I saw a rough,
yawning hole about five feet long by three broad.
"That's the grave they'd prepared for you, sir, without a doubt! By gum!
It was lucky that taxi-driver got up here just in time, or they'd have
flung you in and covered you up, dead or alive!"
I stood aghast, staring at the hole prepared for the concealment--not of
my body--but that of Lola. They had had no inkling of my expected
presence, hence that prepared grave had been for her--and her alone!
She had been invited there by old Gregory, who had intended that she
should die, and ere morning broke all trace of the crime would have been
removed.
Yes. The fat sergeant spoke the truth. Had not Stevens fortunately come
to that house at the moment he did, we should both have been flung into
that gaping hole and there buried. In a week the weeds of the garden
would have spread and all traces of the soil having been moved would
have been obliterated.
How many secret crimes are yearly committed in the suburbs of London!
How many poor innocent victims of both sexes, and of all ages, lie
concealed beneath the floors of kitchens and cellars, or in the back
gardens of the snug, old-fashioned houses around London? Once, Seven
Dials or Drury Lane were dangerous. But to-day they are not half so
dangerous to the unwary as our semi-rural suburbs. The clever criminal
never seeks to dissect, burn, or otherwise get rid of his victim save to
bury the body. Burial conceals everything, and the corpse rapidly
moulders into dust.
If the walls of the middle-class houses of suburban London could speak,
what grim stories some of them could tell! And how many quiet,
respectable families are now living in houses where, beneath the
basement floor, or in the little back garden, lie the rotting remains of
the victim of some brutal crime.
It is the same in Paris, in Brussels, in Vienna, aye, in every capital.
The innocent pay the toll always. Men make laws and cleverer men break
them. But God reigns supreme, and sooner or later places His hand
heavily upon the guilty.
Ask any of the heads of the police of the European Powers, and they will
tell you that Providence assists them to bring the guilty to justice. It
may be mere chance, mere coincidence, vengeance of those who have been
tricked, jealousy of a woman--a dozen motives--yet the result is ever
the same, the criminal at last stands before his judges.
The great detective--and there are a dozen in Europe--takes no kudos
unto himself. He will tell you that his success in such and such a case
is due to some lucky circumstance. Ask him who controlled it, and he
will go further and tell you that the punishment meted out to the
assassin by man is the punishment decreed by his Creator. He has taken a
life which is God-given--hence his own life must pay the penalty.
Rayner, as he looked into the hole which had been so roughly dug, was
inclined to hilarity.
"Well, sir," he exclaimed. "It's hardly long enough for you, is it?"
"Enough!" I said. "Had it not been for Stevens, I should have been
lying down there with the earth over me."
"I was afraid I shouldn't get my fare," said the taxi-driver, simply. "I
didn't know you, sir, and I had four-and-sixpence on the clock--a lot to
me."
"And a good job, too," declared Rayner. "If it had only been a bob fare
you might have gone back to Acton and left Mr. Vidal to his fate."
"Ah! I quite agree," Stevens said. "It was only by mere chance, as I had
promised my wife to be home early that night, it being our wedding-day,
and we had two or three friends coming in."
"Then your wedding anniversary saved my life, Stevens!" I exclaimed.
"Well, if you put it that way, sir, I suppose it really did," he replied
with a laugh. "But this preparation of a grave is a surprise to me. They
evidently got it ready for the young lady--eh?"
I paused. My blood rose against the crafty old Gregory and his
associates. They knew of Lola's friendship with me, and they had
deliberately plotted the poor girl's death. They had actually dug a
grave ready to receive her!
Within myself I made a solemn vow that I would be even with the man whom
the mysterious Egisto had addressed as "Master."
Surely I should have a strange and interesting story to relate to my
friend Jonet in Paris.
I glanced at the surroundings. About the oblong excavation was a tangled
mass of herbage, peas and beans with fading leaves, for it was in the
corner of a kitchen-garden, which in the fall of the previous year had
been allowed to run wild. And in such a position had the grave been dug
that it was entirely concealed.
That it had been purposely prepared for Lola was apparent. She had been
invited there to her death!
Had it not been for my fortunate presence, combined with the fact that
Stevens had called just at the opportune moment, then the dainty little
girl who, against her will, was the cat's paw of the most daring and
dangerous gang of criminals in Europe, would be lying there concealed
beneath that long tangle of vegetables and weeds.
"The house has been to let for nearly three years," the sergeant
informed me. "But this hole has only been recently dug, a little over a
week, we think. It was probably on the evening previous to your
adventure, sir."
"Probably," I said, for the earth looked still fresh, though the rain
had caked it somewhat. Two spades were lying near, therefore, I
conjectured, the work had been accomplished by two men. The two I had
seen with Gregory, I presumed.
"We're making inquiries regarding the intruders," the sergeant went on.
"I only wish Mr. Warton were here, but he had to go up to the Yard this
morning. Can't you give any description of the people you saw here?"
"I thought you had described them, Stevens," I said, addressing the
taxi-driver.
"So I have, sir. But in the dark I wasn't able to see very much."
"Well," I exclaimed, in reply to the sergeant, "I, too, did not have
much opportunity of seeing them. The electric light was switched off the
moment I entered and I was shot by the aid of an electric torch. I had
no means of defending myself. I fired at the light at the time, it's
true, but the scoundrel evidently held it away from him, knowing that I
might shoot."
I did not intend to assist the police. The Criminal Investigation
Department never showed very great eagerness to assist me in any of my
investigations.
"But you saw the men?"
"Yes. As I have already told Inspector Warton."
"What brought you here?"
"I followed two of the men from Ealing."
"I know. But for what reason did you follow them?"
"Because I believed that I recognized them."
"But you were mistaken, eh?" asked the fat sergeant as we still stood at
the edge of the grave.
"I hardly know," I answered vaguely, "except that a dastardly attempt
was made upon my life because I had pried into the men's business."
The sergeant was silent for a few moments, and I had distinct suspicion
that, from the expression upon his face, he did not believe me.
Then he remarked in a slow, reflective tone--
"I suppose, Mr. Vidal, you know that the young French lady who was found
here has made a statement to Inspector Warton?"
"What!" I gasped. "What has she told him?"
"I don't know, except that he's gone up to Scotland Yard to-day
regarding it."
I held my breath.
What indiscretions, I wondered, had Lola committed!