THE
THREE GLASS EYES
A Story of To-day
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF “THE GAMBLERS,” “THE UNDER-SECRETARY,”
“HER MAJESTY’S MINISTER,” ETC.
London
ANTHONY TREHERNE & CO., Ltd.
3 Agar Street, Strand, W.C.
FROM THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
_Many readers of newspapers who have been accustomed to follow the
reports of those magnificent proceedings of Ventris Blake, the noted
American financier, in London, may be surprised to find so vivid a
searchlight as the following thrown on the private life of a
millionaire who, in his time, has made several British industries
tremble._
_Most public men, however, have two, if not more, selves--the self
they shew to the world at large, which is generally fair and clean to
look upon, and the self which in secret they hide from their best
friends, and, if possible, keep out of their tell-tale features._
_It is, therefore, good sometimes for the public to get away from the
phantasmagoria of a princely residence in Park Lane and the brilliant
evolution of the descriptive reporter, and, in the privacy of their
own rooms, to take as it were, one of these creatures of Fortune to
pieces--to see the stuff he is made of, to follow the effect of wealth
upon his humanity, and to learn whether the beautiful principles he
espouses with so much unwelcome vocal violence in the open are really
in use in his every-day existence, or, are like the carpet he rolls
across the pavement when giving some stately dinner party--often on
show, but seldom trodden on!_
_This, of course, in another sense, is only a simple love story--the
story of Winifred Pontifex and of her mysterious vicissitudes,
temptations and dangers, but in as much as it unmasks men of the stamp
of Ventris Blake it must always stand for something more than fiction,
and may well serve to explore but little-known regions of crooked
London life. Some cynics assert that every man has a skeleton in his
cupboard. Certainly Ventris Blake had--and hence this narrative of_
“_The Three Glass Eyes_.”
_WILLIAM LE QUEUX._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. WHICH RECORDS AN ODD TRANSACTION
CHAPTER II. CONCERNS A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE
CHAPTER III. REVEALS A SECRET
CHAPTER IV. EXPLAINS WHAT VERA LEARNED
CHAPTER V. RECORDS THE APPEARANCE OF THREE GLASS EYES
CHAPTER VI. CONCERNS THE HOLE IN THE WALL
CHAPTER VII. RECOUNTS A STRANGE SCENE IN CHURCH
CHAPTER VIII. WHICH TELLS OF AN EVENTFUL NIGHT
CHAPTER IX. WHY THEY WORE A DISGUISE
CHAPTER X. WHEREIN VENTRIS BLAKE FAILS
CHAPTER XI. AGAIN--IN PARK LANE
CHAPTER XII. WHAT THE SERGEANT KNEW
CHAPTER XIII. CERTAIN LOVE LETTERS
CHAPTER XIV. TURNS ON THE LETTER “K”
CHAPTER XV. RECOUNTS PAUL’S DEFEAT
CHAPTER XVI. “OH! GREAT IS THE POWER OF WEALTH!”
CHAPTER XVII. THE STRANGE HOUSE AT SCALBY
CHAPTER XVIII. ALL ABOUT THOSE GLASS EYES
CHAPTER XIX. THE PARTING OF THE CLOUDS
CONCLUSION
THE THREE GLASS EYES
CHAPTER I.
WHICH RECORDS AN ODD TRANSACTION
“That strange-looking gentleman has called again, sir. He will not
be put off with any excuse. What had I better say to him?”
Arthur Hudson, who had been busily writing at his desk in his
solidly-furnished office in Cheapside, looked up, a slight expression
of annoyance on his handsome clear-cut features. The clerk who had
thus addressed him, a slight, middle-aged man of fifty, with a bald
head, and grey moustache, and a nervous, furtive manner, coughed, and
began to move his feet uneasily, for he knew he had exceeded his
instructions.
“This isn’t business, Perkins,” his employer answered impatiently,
laying down his pen and rising from his chair. “Don’t you see it only
wants a few minutes to post-time, and I’ve not finished my letter?”
“Yes, sir,” said Perkins submissively, “but he would not take any
refusal. He is so persistent; he kind of compelled me to come to you,
and to ask you whether you would not see him.”
Hudson looked at the weak vapid chin and watery blue eyes of his
inquiry clerk, and unconsciously sighed. He could well understand any
man of strong resolute pulse making Perkins, even against his feeble
flabby nature, do something which he had been distinctly ordered by
his superior to refuse.
None the less, he, too, had a curious instinctive aversion from
meeting and talking to this mysterious millionaire who for the past
three weeks had been the torment of all the principal house and office
agents in the City and the West End of London. He could not, however,
just then analyse the reason of his reluctance; hence his own
illogical position made him the more readily annoyed.
“But didn’t you tell him,” he proceeded as he picked up the poker and,
in the last sad refuge of the average man, began to poke vigorously at
the fire, “that we have searched our books, and have sent round one of
our inspectors, and that we have nothing whatever to suit him?”
“Certainly. I even assured him that we had lost, at least, five pounds
in trouble over our enquiries, but the only thing he did was to hand
me a £5 note and say he knew how to repay trouble. Then it was he
declared he must see you.”
“Well, all right,” said Hudson desperately, realising that it might
save more time to see this man than to nerve Perkins to dismiss him.
“If he must see me, he must, I suppose. Shew him in!” And he threw
down the poker and drew forward a chair for this unwelcome client who,
truth to tell, he had hitherto always done his best to avoid.
A moment later a brisk step was heard in the passage, and there
entered a man about thirty-eight years of age, clad in the ordinary
frock coat and light trousers of City life, and carrying a black silk
hat and umbrella. At first sight one would have regarded him as a
sharp, shrewd, successful, but not unkind broker. Then, as his
features came to be examined in detail it would have been seen that
there was some good reason why he wore those long black but obviously
dyed whiskers of his--they concealed a cruel-looking jaw and mouth.
His habit of frowning, too, was not unstudied. It served to take away
that certain resolute look in his eyes that somehow made men and women
against whom it was directed feel that they would rather brave any
unseen terror than fail him in what he had commanded them to do. In
the way also he took the chair which Hudson had placed for him he
shewed that, in spite of all his apparent courtesy, there was deadly
deliberation behind him--a deliberation that any day would have worn
down better opposition than Perkins, and now made even Hudson shrink,
for it seemed to suggest to him that this was a man who would not
stick at any crime to extricate himself from a difficult or a
dangerous position.
“Let me see,” began the house agent slowly, pretending to search his
papers for a certain description of premises which he had long since
learned by heart, “you are Mr. Ventris Blake, the American financier,
of Park Lane, I believe.”
The stranger nodded, and waited. At times his supreme gift was
silence.
“You are anxious, I understand to get a small room, twenty feet wide
by twenty-five, with a sloping roof, a single casement window, with a
north aspect, and certain traverse beams which you have set out in
your specifications. Well, we have gone over all the property in our
care, and although of course you offer an absolutely ridiculously high
rent, we are sorry to say we can find nothing suitable for you. We
have many vacant offices, it is true, but none that fulfils exactly
your demands.”
“That is a pity,” the newcomer observed vaguely. “Luckily, the search
has not been so fruitless as you think!”
For an instant there was an awkward pause--and then, as the stranger
intended, Hudson himself was compelled to go on. “Ah then,” said he
with an uneasy little laugh. “I must congratulate you. Of course, I
heard you had been to all the principal house agents in London; for,
with the help of the telephone, there is considerable freemasonry
amongst us. Your requirements are so odd--so fantastic it is thought.
Still, what is the good of being a millionaire if you can’t get even a
room to suit you?” And he smiled again and rose, but Ventris Blake did
not stir.
“Quite so,” observed the financier, now looking steadily at Hudson.
“Happily I have found exactly the kind of place that I want--in Queen
Victoria Street, No. 375, right at the top of the premises. I have
spoken to the care-taker who now occupies the room, and he has agreed
to give up its possession to me, if you will permit him, at the rent I
have offered everywhere else--£250 a year.”
Again there was a pause.
Curiously enough, although the amount was preposterous, Arthur
Hudson’s first impulse was to refuse the offer, although he could not
exactly define the reason. Somehow the idea had slowly formed itself
in his mind that trouble would come to him from this transaction. Yet
all the while Ventris Blake’s eyes were fixed on his with that strong
compelling look which so few could resist; and Hudson found himself,
almost magnetised, muttering formal words of promise to send on the
agreement, of hope that the place would answer all his client’s
purposes, although he had really intended only to temporize, to gain
time.
Ventris Blake now rose in his slow powerful way, and buttoned his
gloves. “Thanks,” he replied. “I am certain that the room will suit
me, Mr. Palamountain, and I have made a note that the matter is
settled. Good-day;” and he held out his hand.
“Good-day,” repeated Hudson, somehow pleased that the interview was at
length over. “Only I am not Mr. Palamountain, who died last year as a
matter of fact. My name is Hudson--Arthur Hudson--”
The millionaire gave a slight start. “Hudson?” he returned
reflectively as though he were seeking some forgotten mental note.
“Arthur Hudson! Surely not the Arthur Hudson who goes to the flat of
my old friend Russell Langford at Emperor’s Gate, and is betrothed to
Miss Winifred Pontifex?”
“The same,” answered Arthur, with a boyish blush now looking down,
with the result that he did not see the sudden but cruel set of the
millionaire’s mouth.
“Ah! then we are destined to see a lot of each other, and I am glad to
make your acquaintance!” And Ventris Blake gripped his fingers in a
grasp like iron, but there was no friendliness in his touch, no
cordiality in his tone, no sympathy in his glance, and the young lover
saw him stride out of the office with a feeling of relief, which, try
as he would, he could not account for.
“Bah! he assumes a good deal if he thinks I am going out of my way to
meet him,” muttered Hudson, with an impatient shrug of the shoulders,
as he now resumed his place at his desk, and once again took up his
letters. “I don’t like the fellow, and I am sure Winifred won’t like
him, for there is something almost satanic about those cold eyes of
his--they seem to go to the bottom of all your nature, to read all
your thoughts, all hopes, all secrets, all emotions, and yet to betray
no kind of soul in return.
“Odd though,” he mused, “I never heard Russell Langford mention him! I
thought I knew all the friends of the family at 99a Emperor’s Gate,
yet, here is one who speaks as though he has the entrée of the place
every day of his life. Oh! confound it, I am making another mystery
about this wretched business already. It will turn me quite stupid if
I go on and--and I must work.”
And setting his lips firmly, he bent over his desk and for the next
quarter of an hour contrived to be so busy with his correspondence
that he did not bestow another thought on this strange and irritating
client.
As a matter of fact, Palamountain, Limited, was the finest estate
agency in the city of London, and as the man on whom the entire burden
of the business had fallen through the unexpected death of his uncle,
Allen Palamountain, Hudson’s work was difficult and arduous.
Eventually, however, the last letter for the night mail was finished,
and then, following his usual custom, he hastened to a private
dressing-room upstairs where he put on evening clothes and took the
next hansom to Emperor’s Gate, to dine with Russell Langford and his
daughter Vera and niece, Winifred, who lived in the same flat with
them, and to whom, as Blake had remarked, he was engaged.
Half way through Fleet Street, however, Arthur suddenly recollected
that he had promised to bring a friend of his to dine with them, and
he turned the cab in a new direction. As a matter of fact, the man in
question, Paul Renishaw, was his most intimate companion. They had
gone from the same public school--Oundle--to Oxford; and they had both
started life together in London, almost the same week--the one in the
old and respected business of Palamountain, Limited, the other in the
stormy waters of cheap chambers in the Temple and a precarious
livelihood extracted from unattached journalism.
After a longer period of storm and stress than falls to the lot of
most poor but ambitious ’Varsity men, Hudson had secured a firm
footing in his career by a partnership in his uncle’s firm, while
Renishaw had finally climbed into one of the sub-editorial chairs in a
new London evening paper known as _The Moon_, famous for the excellent
salaries it paid to its staff. None the less, different though their
careers were, they still retained their old and deep comradeship which
even Hudson’s engagement to Winifred Pontifex had been powerless to
determine; and the result was that Renishaw now was almost as popular
a guest with Russell Langford and his daughter as their future
relative, hence the invitation.
Hudson, too, was well known to the sturdy old soldier who guarded the
editorial precincts of _The Moon_, and no sooner had he sprung out of
the hansom, than, with a bright nod, he slipped up past the inquiry
box at the foot of the stairs, and bounded to the top, heedless of the
printers in aprons and shirt sleeves and troops of messenger and
telegraph boys who were clattering noisily up and down.
Outside a door marked “Sub-Editors,” however, he paused and knocked. A
cheery call to “come in” followed, and, pushing open this entrance, he
found himself in a large, bare, white-washed apartment. In the middle
stood a table laden with letters, manuscripts, newspapers, and
telegrams, which two men were sitting busily revising under green
shaded lights from a gas pendant in the centre. One of them was Paul
Renishaw--and he looked up and smiled.
“Just let me put the finishing touch to this murder yarn,” he said.
“It’s got to appear in full in our last edition, and has only just
come through by wire from Scarborough. Everywhere they could possibly
spell the name of the victim differently they have done, as is their
custom. Thus I’ve got Black--Block--Bleak--Blink--everything they
could think of except the proper name with which they started.”
“And what’s that?” queried Hudson with a pleasant nod to Paul’s table
companion, who was also trying to make sense out of some “liner’s”
verbose nonsense, and, irritated by the task, cordially wished Hudson
at Jericho, or further.
“Oh! Blake, of course,” retorted Renishaw, without looking up.
“Blake,” repeated Hudson, vaguely thinking of his recent visitor. “No
relative--I mean--nobody of consequence.”
“Oh, isn’t it though,” said Renishaw, dashing off to a corner where
stood a little box attached to a wire, into which receptacle he thrust
his telegrams. Then he touched an electric-bell, and in an instant the
box shot upward to the compositors. “Why, it’s no less a personage
than the wife of Ventris Blake, the great American financier--”
“Never!” cried Hudson, falling back in amazement.
“Indeed it is, I can tell you. _The Moon_, never had such a ‘scoop’ as
this. I’ll tell you how it occurred. One of our reporters happened to
be on sick leave near the spot where the poor soul was found, three
miles out of Scarborough; and, like a sensible man, he got up the
facts, and rode off promptly to the post-office, and wired the
exclusive information through to us. Then he went to the nearest local
daily paper office, and, on consideration that they didn’t let the
news go out of the office for two hours at least, he gave them the
same yarn as he sent to us. As a consequence, we have now the start of
all the other London evening journals and of the rival press agencies,
and must sell this edition like wildfire, for next to the King and
Pierpoint Morgan I doubt if any man is more in the public eye just now
than Ventris Blake!”
“And yet,” said Hudson slowly, mechanically, almost unconsciously
repeating his own secret thoughts; “only half-an-hour ago that man
came to me--came to my office--and did business with me in the most
ordinary fashion.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Renishaw and the other sub-editor in
unison.
“Why this is most important,” proceeded the former. “You must let me
interview you. Do you mean to say that the police haven’t communicated
with the husband yet? By George, another police scandal too.” And with
the zeal and promptitude of the born journalist, he drew a chair
towards the table and, seating himself therein, began to write
rapidly:--
A TRAGEDY INDEED!
WEALTH POWERLESS AGAINST DEATH!
THE POOR HUSBAND KNOWS NOTHING AT PRESENT
BUT WANDERS ABOUT THE CITY INTENT ONLY ON
BUSINESS--AND GOLD.
By this time, however, Hudson had recovered his composure, and,
advancing towards Renishaw, he said quickly: “No, no, you must not
write that. In the first place, I may get dragged into it and accused
of wanting to advertise myself and my business by methods which
neither I nor indeed any public-spirited citizen could approve of. In
the second--” he paused and reflected, and the importance of the
mysterious information he possessed rose up like a phantom in front of
him. Then he added lamely, “in the second you must not.”
“Well! What is the second?” demanded Paul, keenly. “I see your point
and will just say Mr. Ventris Blake was in the City this afternoon,
and we have private information to the effect that at 4.45 this
evening he knew nothing about the shocking occurrence.”
“In the second,” said Hudson slowly after a moment’s consideration,
“if you like to do a bit of private detective business with me I think
I can put you on the track of something really astounding that will
make _The Moon_ boom again like mad.”
“About Ventris Blake,” cried both sub-editors, most excited.
“About Blake of course,” affirmed Hudson, although why he said this so
positively he could not for the life of him imagine.
“Good,” answered Renishaw, adding the few lines he had mentioned and
again hurrying his message up the lift. “You see,” he went on
excitedly, “this tragedy will be the talk of London for the next week
at least. I’m good for any crime business you like. You and I, old
chap, have worked up murder specials before, haven’t we?” And in a few
rapid but graphic sentences he recalled how they had spent whole
nights and troublous days ferreting out theories and facts about some
of London’s most sensational crimes in those hard times when the extra
guineas meant something more than comfort--they meant rent and food.
Luckily, by the time Renishaw had finished, a boy had arrived with his
suit-case, and he had to leave to change while the other sub-editor
went down to the machine-room and brought back one of the first papers
printed so that Hudson could read for himself how Aimée Blake had
been done to death on a lonely road between Filey and Scarborough.
The murderer, it seemed, from the report to hand, must have sprung at
her as she passed and felled her with a great hedge stake that had
been purchased close to the scene of the crime. How she got to the
spot it was impossible to explain. All the porter of the chief hotel
in Scarborough, where she had had a magnificent suite of rooms, could
inform the reporter was that she received a telegram late the previous
night, told him she must go out even at that hour to see a relative,
and never came back, although her maid sat up all the night.
As usual, too, the police had “a clue” but as it led them in the
direction of the railway, and a junction with easy access to Leeds and
York and Hull and King’s Cross, _The Moon_ man evidently didn’t
believe much in it, for he hinted at blackmail, secret tragedies in
the lives of all considered fortune’s favourites, and other endless
possibilities of intrigue and romance calculated to set the public
imagination feverishly ablaze.
Unfortunately, Arthur had barely time to digest the facts in the story
of the crime, which was written with a good deal of literary power and
effect, before Renishaw returned ready to accompany him. Anxious not
to be late, both men hurried to the hansom that was waiting for them,
and were soon quickly bowling westward, in happy ignorance of the
terrible surprise in store for them.
Indeed their one topic of conversation was Ventris Blake’s strange
renting of the peculiarly-shaped room, but as their plan of attack on
this mystery will be fully explained in subsequent chapters, we had
perhaps better go on in advance of them to the flat at Emperor’s Gate
where they were momentarily expected.