THE HOUSE IN HAMPSTEAD
I dashed down to the platform, three steps at a time, followed by my
three companions, but ere I gained it the train had begun to move out of
the station.
One of the Italian police officers shouted to the scarlet-capped
station-master to have the train stopped, but that stately official, his
hands behind his back, only walked calmly in our direction to hear the
voluble words which fell from the French officer's lips.
By that time the train had rounded the curve and was dropping from
sight.
My heart sank within me. Once again Jeanjean had escaped!
We were making frantic inquiry regarding the two fugitives when a
porter, who chanced to overhear my words, expressed a belief that they
had not left by the Rome express, but for Turin by the train that had
and started a quarter of an hour before.
I rushed to the booking office, and, after some inquiry of the lazy,
cigar-smoking clerk, learned that two foreigners, answering the
descriptions of the men I wanted, had taken tickets for London by way of
the Mont Cenis Paris-Calais route. He gave me the ticket numbers.
Yes. The porter was correct. They had left by the express for Turin, and
the frontier at Modane!
With Fournier and the two policemen, I went to the Questura, or Central
Police Office, situated in a big, gloomy, old medieval palace--for Genoa
is eminently a city of ancient palaces--and before the Chief of the
Brigade Mobile, a dapper little man with bristling white hair and yellow
boots, I laid information, requesting that the pair be detained at the
frontier.
When I revealed the real name of the soi-disant Comte d'Esneux, the
police official started, staring at me open-mouthed. Then, even as we
sat in his bare, gloomy office with its heavily-barred windows--the
original windows of the palace, in the days when it had also been a
fortress--he spoke over the telephone with the Commissary of Police at
Bardonnechia in the Alps, the last Italian station before the great Mont
Cenis tunnel is entered.
After me he repeated over the wire a minute description of both men
wanted, while the official at the other end wrote them down.
"They will probably travel by the train which arrives from Turin at
6.16," the Chief of the Brigade Mobile went on. "The numbers of their
tickets are 4,176 B. and 4,177 B., issued to London. Search them, as
they may have stolen jewels upon them. Understand?"
An affirmative reply was given, and the white-haired little man
replaced the telephone receiver.
Thanking him I went outside into the Via Garibaldi, with a sigh of
relief. At last the two men were running straight into the arms of the
police. My chief thought now was of Lola. Where could she be, that she
had not answered my urgent letters sent to the Poste Restante at
Versailles?
The next train--the through sleeping-car express from Rome to
Calais--left at a few minutes to six, and for this we were compelled to
wait.
I recollected that Lola had told me how Jeanjean was in the habit of
communicating with his confederate Hodrickx, who had also established a
wireless station in Genoa. Thereupon I made inquiry, and found that
aerial wires were placed high over the roof of a house close to the
Acqua Sola Gardens at the end of the broad, handsome Via Roma.
The house, however, was tenantless, Hodrickx, apparently a Belgian,
having sold his furniture and disappeared, no one knew where, a
fortnight previously.
At six o'clock we entered the Calais express, and travelling by way of
Alessandria and Turin, ascended, through the moon-lit Alps, that night a
perfect fairyland, up the long steep incline, mounting ever higher and
higher, until the two engines hauling the _train-de-luxe_ at last, at
midnight, pulled up at the little ill-lit station of Bardonnechia.
There, we hastily alighted and sought the Commissary of Police.
To him Fournier presented his card of identity which every French
detective carries, and at once the brown-bearded official told us that,
although strict watch had been kept upon every train, the fugitives had
not arrived!
"They may have left the train at Turin, and gone across to Milan, and
thence by the Gotthard route to Basle and Paris," he suggested to me.
"If they believe they were followed that is what they most certainly
would do."
Then he swiftly turned over the leaves of a timetable upon the desk of
his little office, and, after a minute examination, added in Italian--
"If they have gone by that route they will join the same Channel-boat at
Calais as this train catches, whether they go from Basle, by way of
Paris, or direct on to Calais."
The train we had travelled by was still waiting in the station, for one
of the engines was being detached.
"Then you suggest that we had better go by this?" I said.
"I certainly should, Signore, if I were you," was his polite answer.
"Besides they are wanted in England, you say, therefore it would be
better to arrest them on the English steamer, or on their arrival in
Dover, and thus avoid the long formalities of extradition. Our
Government, as you know, never gives up criminals to England."
Instantly I realized the soundness of his argument, and, thanking him,
we both climbed back into the _wagon-lit_ we had occupied, and were soon
slowly entering the black, stifling tunnel.
Need I further describe that eager, anxious journey, save to say that
when next day we traversed the Ceinture in Paris, and arrived from the
Gare de Lyon, at the Gare du Nord, we kept a vigilant and expectant
watch, for it was there that the two men might join our train. Our
watch, however, proved futile. They might have joined the ordinary
express from Paris to Calais which had left half an hour before us--ours
being a _train-de-luxe_. So we possessed ourselves in patience till at
length, after a halt at Calais-Ville, we slowly drew up on the quay near
where the big white Dover boat was lying.
The soft felt hat I had bought in Genoa, I pulled over my eyes, and then
rushed along the gangway, and on board, with Fournier at my side, making
a complete tour of the vessel, peeping into every cabin, and in every
hole and corner, to discover the fugitives.
Already the gangway was up, and the three blasts sounded upon the siren
announcing the departure of the boat. Therefore the pair, if on board,
could not now escape.
Throughout the hour occupied in the crossing I was ever active, and when
we were moored beside the pier in Dover Harbour, I stood at the gangway
to watch every one leave.
Yet all my efforts were, alas! in vain.
They had evidently changed their route to London a second time, and had
travelled from Bâle to Brussels and Ostend!
The thought occurred to me as I stood watching the last passengers
leaving the steamer. If they had travelled direct by way of Ostend, then
they would be seated in the train for Charing Cross, for the Ostend boat
had been in half an hour, we were told.
The train, one of those gloomy, grimy, South-Eastern "expresses," was
waiting close by. Therefore I ran frantically from end to end, peering
into each carriage, but, to my dismay, the men I sought were not there!
So Fournier and I entered a first-class compartment and, full of bitter
disappointment, travelled up to Charing Cross, where we arrived about
seven o'clock.
I was alighting from the train into the usual crowd of arriving
passengers, and their friends who were present to meet them, for there
is always a quick bustle when the boat-train comes alongside the customs
barrier, when of a sudden my quick eyes caught sight of two men in
Homburg hats and overcoats.
My heart gave a bound.
Vernon and Jeanjean had alighted from the same train in which I and
Fournier had travelled, and were hurrying out of the station.
Jeanjean carried a small brown leather handbag, while Vernon had only a
walking-stick. Both men looked fagged, weary and travel-worn.
"Look!" I whispered to Fournier. "There they are!"
Then, holding back in the crowd, and keeping our eyes upon the hats of
the fugitives, we followed them out into the station yard, where they
hurriedly entered a taxi and drove away, all unconscious of our
presence.
In another moment we were in a second taxi, following them up Regent
Street, through Regent's Park, and along Finchley Road, until suddenly
they turned into Arkwright Road.
Then I stopped our vehicle and descended, just in time to see them enter
the house called Merton Lodge--the house which Rayner had described to
me on the night of my long vigil at the corner of Hatton Garden.
For a few moments I stood, undecided how to act. Should I drive at once
to Scotland Yard and lay the whole affair before them, or should I still
keep my counsel until I rediscovered Lola?
I knew where they were hiding, and if I watched, I might learn something
further. Both Rayner and Fournier were known to the two culprits.
Therefore I decided to invoke the aid of an ex-detective-sergeant who,
since his retirement from Scotland Yard, had more than once assisted me.
Truth to tell, I had a far higher opinion of the astuteness of the Paris
police than that of Scotland Yard. The latter disregarded my theories,
whereas Jonet was always ready to listen to me. For that reason I
hesitated to go down to the "Yard," preferring to send word to Jonet,
and allow him to act as he thought fit.
William Benham lived in the Camberwell New Road; so I went to the
nearest telephone call-box and, ringing him up, asked him to meet me at
Swiss Cottage Station and bring a trustworthy friend.
I knew that Merton Lodge had a convenient exit at the rear, hence, to be
watched effectively, two men must be employed.
Towards half-past nine, leaving Fournier to watch at the end of the
road, I met Benham, who came attired as one of the County Council
employés engaged in watering the roads at night, accompanied by a
burly-looking labourer who was introduced to me as an ex-detective from
Vine Street. Without revealing the whole story, or who the two men were,
I explained that I had followed them post-haste from Algiers, and that
both were wanted for serious crimes. All I desired was that a strict
surveillance should be placed upon them, and that they should be
followed and all their movements watched.
"Very well, Mr. Vidal," Benham replied.
He was a pleasant-faced, grey-haired man, with a broad countenance, and
a little grey moustache.
"I quite understand," he said. "We'll keep on them, and if I find it
necessary, I'll get a third person. They won't get very far ahead of us,
you bet," he laughed.
"They're extremely wary birds," I cautioned. "So you'll both of you be
compelled to keep your eyes skinned."
"You merely want to know what's doing-eh?"
"Yes. I'm fagged out, and want a rest to-night. I'll come up and see you
in the morning," I said.
Then we entered a bar, and having had a drink together, we went to
Arkwright Road, where I rejoined Fournier, and with him returned to my
rooms.
Next day nothing happened. The two men wanted, wearing different
clothes, and Vernon in blue glasses, went out about eleven for a walk as
far as Hampstead Heath, and returned to luncheon. That was all my
watchers reported.
On the following evening, however, I met Benham by appointment in a bar
in the Finchley Road, when he said--
"There's something in the wind, Mr. Vidal. But I can't make out what it
is. This afternoon a well-dressed man, apparently an Italian, called,
and about half an hour later a smart young French girl, with fair hair,
and wearing a short dark blue dress and brown silk stockings and shoes,
also paid the pair a visit. She's there now."
From the further description he gave of her, I found that it tallied
exactly with the identity of Lola.
And she was there! with Vernon and his two confederates.
"There's also something else strange about that house, Mr. Vidal," added
Benham. "I dare say you didn't notice it in the dark, but away,
half-hidden by the trees in the garden, there's a long stretch of four
wires, suspended from two high poles. A wireless telegraph, I take it to
be."
"Wireless at Merton Lodge!" I cried.
"Yes. To-day I asked a man who was repairing an underground wire in the
Finchley Road, and he says it's a very powerful station, and he wonders
that the Post Office ever licensed it."
"It was probably licensed as a small station, and then its power was
secretly increased," I suggested.
"But you say that the young French lady is still there?"
"Yes," replied Benham, "she was when I left ten minutes ago."