EXPLAINS LOLA'S FEARS
After leaving the house in which I had so narrowly escaped death, I
dropped the sergeant at Spring Place station and, with Rayner, drove
over to Brentford, where, at the hospital, I stood beside Lola's bed.
She looked a pale, frail, pathetic little figure, clad in a light blue
dressing-jacket, and propped up among the pillows. When she recognized
me she put forth a slim white hand and smiled a glad welcome.
"I have been so very anxious about you, Lola," I said after the nurse
had gone. "You know, of course, what happened?"
"Yes," she answered weakly in French. "I am so very sorry that you
should have fallen into the trap as well as myself, M'sieur Vidal. They
induced me to call there for one purpose--to kill me," she added in
English, with her pretty French accent.
"I fear that is so," was my reply. "But did you not receive my warnings?
The Paris _Sûreté_ are searching for you everywhere, and Jonet is most
anxious to find you."
"Ah, I know!" she exclaimed with a slight laugh. "Yes, I got your kind
letters, but I could not reply to them. There were reasons which, at the
time, prevented me."
She looked very sweet, her fair, soft hair in two long plaits hanging
over her shoulders, the ends being secured by big bows of turquoise
ribbon.
Yes, she was decidedly pretty; her big, blue, wide-open eyes turned upon
me.
"I wrote to Elise Leblanc at Versailles," I said, for want of something
else to say.
"I got the letters. I was in Dresden at the time."
"With your uncle?"
"No. He has been in Vienna," was her brief response.
"But he was at that house in Spring Grove."
"Yes. It was a trap for me--a dastardly trap laid for me by old
Gregory," she cried in anger. "He intended that I should die, but he
never expected you to come so suddenly upon the scene."
"How was it that Jeanjean arrived there also?" I asked.
"He came there to consult the Master," she replied. "A huge affair was
being planned to take place at the offices of one of the best known
diamond dealers in Hatton Garden. Gregory, being in the diamond trade,
knows most of the secrets of the other dealers, and in this case had
learned of the arrival of three very fine stones, among the most notable
diamonds known to the world. For three months he had carefully laid his
plans of attack, and on the night in question had called his
confederates together, as was his habit, in order to put his plans
finally before them, and to allocate each his work. Through my uncle,
however, I knew of the proposed robbery, and the old man, fearing me,
had decided that it would be in their interests if I died. Hence the
attack upon me."
"A most base and brutal one!" I cried. "But thank Heaven! Lola, you are
recovering. I overheard all that you said regarding myself."
She flushed slightly, but did not reply.
"To-day I have heard that you have made a statement to the police," I
went on in a low voice so that I should not be overheard by the nurse
who stood outside the door of the small two-bedded ward, the second bed
being unoccupied.
"Yes. An agent of police came and questioned me," was her reply, "but I
did not tell him much--at least, nothing which might give them any
clue--or which would jeopardize either of us. I had heard that you were
recovering, and therefore I thought you would prefer to unmask Gregory
and his associates yourself, rather than leave it to the London police.
Besides, they have escaped and I have no idea where they may now be."
"Quite right," I replied, much relieved at her words. "You acted wisely,
for had you told them the truth they would in all probability have
arrested you."
She smiled faintly.
"Yes. That was one of the reasons which caused me to exercise
discretion. I felt that we should soon meet again, M'sieur Vidal," she
added. "They say that I shall be discharged from here in about a week."
"I hope so," I declared earnestly. "You had a very narrow escape from
those fiends."
"I was quite unsuspicious when I went there," she said. "That house has
been our meeting-place for the past eighteen months or so. Sometimes we
met at Gregory's flat in Amsterdam, and sometimes at the tenantless
house in Spring Grove, or at one which has been to let at Cricklewood,
and also at a house in West Hampstead."
"The spot 'where the three C's meet' at Ealing is the usual rendezvous,
I suppose?"
"Yes, the place is easy of access, quiet, and entirely unsuspicious. I
have met my uncle there sometimes when in London, and sometimes Gregory
or the others. The conference usually took place there, and then we went
together in a taxi to one or other of the meeting-places which Gregory
had established."
"As soon as you have quite recovered we will lay a trap and secure the
whole gang," I whispered confidently.
"Ah! I fear that will not be easy," she exclaimed, slowly shaking her
head. "We shall be too well watched."
"And we can watch also," I remarked. "I know that from to-day I shall be
kept under close supervision because they will fear me more than ever.
But I shall manage to evade them, never fear. As soon as you leave
hospital we must join forces and exterminate this gang of assassins."
She drew a long breath, bent her fair brows and looked straight across
at the pale-green wall. I could see that she was not at all confident of
escape. She knew how clever, designing and unscrupulous was the old man
Gregory; how cheaply her uncle, Jules Jeanjean, held human life.
"Where is Gregory now, I wonder?" I exclaimed.
"Who knows? They are all in France or Belgium, I expect. They may be in
Amsterdam, but I do not think so, as they might suspect me of making a
statement to the police."
"What did you tell the police?"
For a moment she hesitated.
"Simply that I was enticed there by a young man whom I knew in Paris,
and found myself in the company of several men who were undoubtedly
thieves. These men I described. I stated that I was pressed to act as
their decoy, and on refusal was struck down."
"Then they will be already searching for the men!" I exclaimed,
remembering that Warton had that morning gone up to consult his chief at
Scotland Yard.
"They will be searching for men whose descriptions do not tally with
those of my uncle and his friends," she whispered frankly, with a
mischievous smile.
"Tell me, Lola," I asked, after complimenting her upon her astuteness,
"do you recognize the names of Lavelle, Kunzle, Geering, or Hodrickx?"
She started, staring at me.
"Why? What do you know of them?" she inquired quickly, an apprehensive
look upon her pretty face.
"They are associates of your uncle, are they not--in fact, members of
the gang?"
"Yes. But how did you discover their true names?"
Then I explained how, after poor Craig's death, I had found the paper
with the elaborate calculations, and the list of names with
corresponding numbers.
"They are code-numbers, so that mention of them can be made in telegrams
or letters, and their identity still concealed."
"And what were the columns of figures?" I asked, describing them.
"Probably either the calculations of weights and values of precious
stones, or calculations of wave-lengths of wireless telegraphy in which
Gregory experiments," she replied. "After a _coup_ Gregory always valued
the stolen gems very carefully before they were sent to Antwerp or
Amsterdam to be re-cut and altered out of recognition. At one _coup_, a
year ago, when at Klein's, the principal jeweller in Vienna, the
night-watchman was killed and the safe opened with the acetylene jet. We
got clear away with jewels valued at three-quarters of a million francs.
Afterwards, I motored from Vienna to Antwerp, carrying most of the unset
stones and pearls in the radiator of my car. The prying _douaniers_ at
the frontiers never suspect anything there, nor in the inner tube of a
spare wheel. Besides, I was the daughter of the Baronne de Lericourt,
travelling with her maid, therefore nobody suspected, and Kunzle, a
young Dane, acted as my chauffeur."
"In which direction did your uncle travel?"
"To Algiers, by way of Trieste, and home to his hobby, wireless
telegraphy. He has high aerial wires across the grounds of his villa,
and can receive on his delicate apparatus messages from Clifden in
Ireland, Trieste, Paris, Madrid, London, Port Said, and stations all
over Europe."
"Can he transmit messages?" I asked.
She sighed slightly, her wound was giving her pain.
"Oh, yes. His transmitter is very powerful, and sometimes, at night, he
can reach Poldhu in Cornwall."
"Then your uncle is, apparently, a skilled scientist, as well as a
daring criminal!" I said, surprised.
"_Oui_, M'sieur. He is just now experimenting with a wireless telephone,
and has already heard from Algiers, across the Mediterranean, to Genoa,
where his friend, the man Hodrickx, has established a similar station.
It was Hodrickx you saw at Spring Grove."
"And the wireless is sometimes used for their nefarious purposes, I
suppose?"
"Probably. But that is, of course, their own secret. I am told nothing,"
was her reply, dropping into French. "Sometimes, when at home, my uncle
sits for hours with the telephones over his ears, listening--listening
attentively--and now and then, scribbling down the mysterious
call-letters he hears, and referring to his registers to see whose
attention is being attracted. Every night, at twelve o'clock, he
receives the day's news sent out from Clifden in Ireland to ships in the
Atlantic."
"It must be an exceedingly interesting hobby," I remarked.
"It is. If I were a man I should certainly go in for experimenting.
There is something weirdly mysterious about it," she said with a sweet
expression.
"If he can speak by telephone across the Mediterranean to Genoa, then,
no doubt, such an instrument is of greatest use to him in the pursuit
of his shameful profession," I said.
"I expect it is," she answered rather grimly, regarding me with
half-closed eyes. "But, oh! M'sieu', how can I bear the future? What
will happen now? I cannot tell. For me it must be either a violent
death, at a moment when I least expect it, or--or----"
"Leave it all to me, Lola," I interrupted. "I'll leave no stone unturned
to effect the arrest of the whole gang."
"Do be careful of yourself," she urged, with apprehension. "Remember,
they intend at all hazards to kill you! Gregory and my uncle fear you
more than they do the police. Ever since you unearthed that mystery in
Brussels, they have held you in terror. The evidence you gave in the
Assize Court against the man Lefranc showed them that you entertained
suspicion of who killed the jeweller, Josse Vanderelst, in the Avenue
Louise. And for that reason you have since been a marked man," she
added, looking very earnestly into my face.
"I assure you I have now no fear of them, Lola. I will extricate you
from the guilty bonds in which they hold you, if you will only render me
assistance."
For a moment she remained thoughtful, a very serious expression upon her
fair face.
"_Bien!_ But if the men are arrested they will at once turn upon me,"
she argued. "Then I too will stand in the criminal dock beside them!"
"Not if you act as I direct," I assured her, placing my hand upon hers,
which lay outside the coverlet.
Then, after a brief pause, during which I again looked straight into her
great blue eyes, I suddenly asked--
"Where can I find trace of old Gregory? As soon as I am a little better
I shall resume my investigations, and run the whole gang to earth."
"I do not know where he lives. My uncle once remarked that he was so
evasive that he changed his abode as often as he did his collars. His
office, however, is in Hatton Garden over a watchmaker's named
Etherington, on the second floor. You will find on a door, 'Loicq
Freres, Diamond Dealers, Antwerp.' Mr. Gregory Vernon, not Vernon
Gregory, poses as the London manager of the firm of 'Loicq Freres,' who,
by reason of their wealth and the magnitude of their purchases and
sales, are well known in the diamond trade. So, by carrying on a genuine
business, he very successfully conceals his illegitimate one of
re-cutting stones and re-placing them upon the market."
"Good!" I said, enthusiastically, in English. "I shall endeavour to
trace his hiding-place, for most certainly he is no longer in London,
now that he knows that his attempt upon you was unsuccessful."
"And the police are now looking for mythical persons!" she laughed
merrily, displaying her white, even teeth.
Yes, the more I saw of my dainty little divinity, the greater I became
attracted by her, even though force of circumstances had, alas!
compelled her, against her will, to become an expert jewel-thief, who by
reason of her charm, her beauty, and her astuteness, had passed without
suspicion.
What a strange and tragic career had been that of the frail little
creature now smiling so sweetly at me! My heart went out in sympathy
towards her, just as it had done ever since that memorable night when I
had gripped her slim waist and captured her in my room.
The nurse entered, so I rose from my chair, and clasping Lola's little
hand, bade her _au revoir_, promising to return again in two days' time,
and also suggesting that when she became convalescent I should take her
down to some friends of mine at Boscombe to recuperate.
My suggestion she adopted at once, and then I turned, and thanking the
nurse for all her kindness, left the hospital.