CONCERNS TO-DAY
The next day the London papers were full of the raid upon Merton Lodge,
the tragic death of the well-known diamond-broker, Gregory Vernon, and
the arrest of Jules Jeanjean and Egisto Bertini.
The police had given but the most meagre details to the Press, therefore
the report was only vague, and no hint was forthcoming as to the actual
charges against the three men, or that they had any connection with the
cliff-mystery at Cromer.
The most sensational passage of the report, which was regarded as "the
story," or principal feature by most of the papers, was the fact that
Jules Jeanjean, having been charged at Bow Street with robbery and
murder, was placed in the cells to be brought up next morning before the
magistrate.
A warder, however, on going to the cell about half-past eight in the
evening, found the prisoner standing before him in defiance.
"I refuse to be tried, after all!" he cried in English, in a loud voice,
"I'll escape you yet!"
And before the man was aware of the prisoner's intention, he had placed
his right hand to his mouth, and with his left held his nostrils
tightly.
The warder sprung upon him, but beneath his teeth the prisoner crushed a
small capsule of glass, while the fact that his nose was held caused him
to inhale the gas compressed within the capsule, and next second he
fell, inert, dead.
I read the report in breathless eagerness, and then I realized that
Jules Jeanjean, alias Arendt, alias dozens of other names, had destroyed
himself with that combination of nitrate of amyl and hydrocyanic gas, a
single whiff of which was sufficient to cause instant death--the same
lethal gas which the criminal had discharged in the face of young
Perceval, and alas! into the faces of others of his victims who had been
found mysteriously dead on the scenes of the bandit's daring and
desperate exploits.
Truly he had been a veritable artist in crime, but as he sowed, so also
had he reaped. The wages of sin are, indeed, death.
From Sommerville, a few weeks later, I gathered a few further
interesting details.
The man Hodrickx, together with two other men named Kunzle and Lavelle,
had been arrested while committing a clever burglary at a jeweller's in
the Corso in Rome; while tests at the private wireless station in
Arkwright Road and at the Villa Beni Hassan, near Algiers, had proved
conclusively that messages could be exchanged, as no doubt they often
were, but, being in a prearranged code, could not be read by the dozens
of other receiving stations, commercial and amateur, which picked them
up.
In due course Bertini, the ex-customs officer of Calais, was extradited
to Paris, where he took his trial before the Assize Court of the Seine,
and was sentenced to a long term of penal servitude, which he is at
present serving at the penal island of New Caledonia, in the far
Pacific.
As for myself, I still live in blessed singleness, and am a confirmed
bachelor, and a constant investigator of problems of crime. With the
ever-faithful Rayner, I still occupy my cosy rooms off Berkeley Square,
and, I may add, am still an intimate friend of Lola.
But she is now Mrs. Edward Craig, mistress of Huttoft Hall, and wife of
an immensely wealthy man. She is a prominent figure in the country, but
none, save her husband, myself and Rayner, know that she was, not so
long ago, the confederate of the cleverest gang of international thieves
that has ever puzzled the police, or that she was then known to them as
"The Nightingale."
Yes. The pair are both extremely happy, living solely for each other.
Perhaps if I were not such a confirmed bachelor, an iron-grey-headed
"uncle" to many a flapper niece, and jeered at by the schoolgirl reader
of novels as an "old man," I might be just a little jealous.
But as things are, I am delighted to see my charming, delightful little
friend so happy.
Often I am their guest at the fine, historic, sixteenth-century mansion
standing in its broad park, a few miles out of Monmouth. Indeed, it is
beneath their roof that, on this bright summer evening, while the
crimson after-glow is shining over the tops of the distant belt of dark
firs across the park, that I am setting down the concluding lines of
this strange story of daring and ingenious crime, this drama which so
nearly cost all three of us our lives at the hands of that unscrupulous
gang of dastardly malefactors.
Edward Craig, and his wife, Lola, who returned from their honeymoon,
spent first in Khartoum, and afterwards in India, six months ago, and
have now quite settled, have just come in from tennis. As they stand
together, upon the threshold of the big oak-panelled library, a handsome
pair in white, hand-in-hand, hot and flushed from playing, Lola says,
with a merry smile upon her bright, open countenance and a pretty accent
in her voice--
"In your narrative of what has recently happened, M'sieur Vidal, please
tell the reader, man and woman, that the long, grim night has at last
passed, the dawn has broken, yet 'The Nightingale' still sings on more
blithely than ever, for she is at last supremely happy. At last,
Edouard!" she adds, throwing her white arms about her husband's neck.
"At last!"
And the tall, handsome fellow in flannels bent until his lips met hers.
"Ah, yes, Lola, darling!" he whispered earnestly. "You are
mine--mine--mine, for always. We have, as the Psalmist of old has put
it, passed through the Place of Dragons, and been covered with the
Shadow of Death. But God in His justice has smitten the transgressors,
and we have been delivered from the hand of the ungodly, into a world of
peace, of happiness, and of love."
THE END
ADVERTISEMENTS
NOVELS BY
_E. Charles Vivian_
"Mr. Vivian is proving one of our most virile and entertaining writers
of the present day. Each succeeding work from his pen appears to grow in
strength and in characterization."--_The Bournemouth Graphic._
"This author has a fine sense of character, and can create atmosphere
quickly and effectively."--_Sunday Referee._
Delicate Fiend
Double or Quit
Woman Dominant
Man Alone
The Forbidden Door
The Tale of Fleur
Nine Days
One Tropic Night
Unwashed Gods
Innocent Guilt
The Keys of the Flat
Ladies in the Case
Jewels Go Back
Seventeen Cards
Accessory After
The Capsule Mystery
Girl in the Dark
The Guardian of the Cup
Infamous Fame
Shadow on the House
Cigar for Inspector Head
_WARD, LOCK & CO., LTD., LONDON_
NOVELS BY
_Ben Bolt_
"We know of few authors to-day whose works we enjoy so much as we do Mr.
Bolt's. He has the art of getting hold of a good story, unblemished by
any form of 'psycho' complication, and telling it really well, in a
style, too, that is free from split infinitives and the other solecisms
so common to the usual breathless novelist of the twentieth
century."--_Guardian._
The Mystery of Belvoir Mansions
The Sword of Fortune
Captain Lucifer
The Badge
The Jewels of Sin
The Shadow of the Yamen
The Buccaneer's Bride
The Other Three
The Subway Mystery
The Coil of Mystery
The Diamond-Buckled Shoe
Diana of the Islands
The Forest Ranger
The Impossible Lover
The Pride of the Ring
The Sealed Envelope
The Bushmaster
The Mystery Hand
The Burnt Caravan
The Crooked Sign
The Green Arrow
The Lavenham Mystery
A Shot in the Night
The Snapshot Mystery
The Unseen Witness
Wayland of the Guides
The Green Lantern
_WARD, LOCK & CO., LTD., LONDON_
End of Project Gutenberg's The Place of Dragons, by William Le Queux