Together we drove down to Queen’s Gate, and, seated in Mr. Gell’s cozy
library, Teddy told him of his night’s adventure and showed him the
report in the _Evening News_.
“This fellow Owen imposed on you, Lionel,” the stout old K.C. said,
turning to me. “You know him. We must go down to the Yard at once and
see Cunningham Lee.”
He took up the telephone on his table, and a few moments later was
speaking with the Assistant Commissioner at his house.
“Right! We’ll come along now. I must see you to-night, Lee. We can
tell you something.”
Twenty minutes later we were all three ushered into a back
sitting-room, luxuriously furnished, in Onslow Square, and instantly
Mr. Cunningham Lee entered, greeting us warmly.
“Of course, Mr. Gell, I’m only too delighted to see you at any hour.
You’ve heard nothing regarding your daughter, or you would have told
me. Well now, what is it you know about this murder of a cat-burglar
at Fulham? Very interesting case. We’ve been months trying to get at
the truth. Some masterhand is at work controlling the whole
organization. Duprez, the chief inspector of the Sûreté in Paris,
was over here last week, and we had a long conference on it. The
organizer, whoever he is, no doubt must be a genius!”
“Well,” said Joan’s father, “we know something which will be
undoubtedly of interest to you. Hipwell’s friend here--Mr. Edward
Day--had a most interesting experience last night. He will tell you
about it.”
As the Assistant Commissioner listened, Teddy told him of the secret
observation which he had kept of the wealthy young bachelor of
Harrington Court, his movements, and his association with the young
fellow whose finger-prints had revealed him to be London’s most alert
and expert cat-burglar.
“Let us go down together to the Yard,” Mr. Lee suggested at last. “We
can look up the record, and probably we may be able to see further
into the matter than we can at the moment.”
Half an hour later we were in the police official’s private room, with
one of the famous inspectors of the finger-print department exhibiting
to us the prints taken at Gloucester, in comparison with those taken
from the dead man’s hand.
To the folio with the finger-prints upon it was attached the
criminal’s name, his past record as far as was known, his date of
conviction, with the date of discharge. I noticed that following the
latter record were the words “Conduct good.”
If he were the star criminal of an expert organization, who was it
that had killed him in cold blood as he had ascended to the unoccupied
house?
I pointed out the fact that, even if the house were empty, there must
have been some motive for both men to visit it. Why? And, if so, then
the assassin must have concealed himself behind the front door ready
to greet the visitor with a fatal bullet.
That the young man Owen and Tuggy Wilson were accomplices appeared
proved up to the hilt. But in what manner? That remained to be seen.
In our presence the Assistant Commissioner ordered full inquiry to be
made into Owen’s antecedents, how he derived his income, and that
surveillance be kept on him. He was not to be approached, and no
question asked of him concerning his friendship with the dead
ex-convict.
“The affair is probably a matter of revenge,” said Mr. Cunningham Lee.
“Possibly they believed him to have turned informer, a circumstance
which, in criminal circles, accounts for many mysterious deaths.”
The revelation regarding the bona fides of the rich young bachelor of
Harrington Court was gratifying to me, but it carried us no nearer the
solution of the mystery of Joan’s whereabouts. Nevertheless, I somehow
experienced a vague belief that, in view of Owen’s alliance with my
secret enemy, it was really he who had last been seen with Joan.
I hoped against hope that we should eventually discover her, and I
remained on the alert, with the assistance of my good friend Teddy.
The result of the police investigations concerning the unoccupied
house in Fulham, in front of which young Wilson had been shot dead by
an unknown hand, was forthcoming two days later, and was full of
interest.
It appeared that a man named Dufour and his wife had rented it about
ten months before, that they sometimes took in lodgers. Dufour was
understood to be a waiter at a restaurant in the West End. He came
home very late always, and sometimes parties of men of his own class
were held there until early morning. The two lodgers were waiters like
himself; but, according to the neighbors, they sometimes had
mysterious callers, men and women, well dressed and obviously not of
their own class.
The many parties, at which a gramophone was played and the guests
drank and danced throughout the night, caused the neighbors to watch
the place with unusual keenness. And, according to a statement by a
Mrs. Richmond, wife of a draper’s assistant, who lived next door, she
heard, on several occasions, a woman’s shrill scream for help. She put
it down to the fact that Dufour was knocking his English wife about,
until one day she saw the woman go out, and almost immediately
afterwards she heard the same frantic screams for help.
This puzzled her. But, it being no affair of hers, she merely told her
husband, and they resolved to take no notice.
Three nights before the tragedy in the street, Mr. and Mrs. Richmond
were awakened at about one o’clock by noises outside, and Richmond, on
looking between the blinds, saw that the furniture was being hurriedly
removed. He saw Dufour in conversation with a police constable on
duty, and then returned to bed.
When they awoke again the house next door was empty and closed.
It is the duty of the police to note removals of furniture, especially
at night, and, the records having been looked up, it was found that
Police Constable Shayler, on duty near the spot, saw the removal van
and went to inquire. A foreigner, who gave the name of Dufour,
informed him that that afternoon his wife had eloped with one of his
lodgers, and that he had resolved to clear out the furniture, which
was his property, and sell it at an auction room in Goldhawk Road,
Shepherd’s Bush. The statement was confirmed by the auctioneer next
day, but the whereabouts of the foreign waiter could not be traced.
The mention of the presence of a mysterious, unseen woman in the house
aroused my interest. If Owen had been with Joan at the Florida, then
it might have been my beloved who was held in hateful bondage in that
house!
Had I not been warned of the intended machinations of my enemies, by
my mysterious wife, Illona?
Fortunately, I had received no orders to go abroad on my official
duties. But orders sometimes came unexpectedly, notwithstanding the
rota, according to which I was not due to go on another journey for
nearly a month. More than once I had been rung up in the night with
orders to leave Victoria with some important dispatch at nine o’clock
next morning. I waited in vain for some sign from Illona, who I knew,
would explain much that was an entire enigma. But I was always in
suspense, fearing that at any moment I might be called away.
As the days went by, the vigilance of the police, as far as Owen was
concerned, was unrewarded. The young fellow who was reported to be
living the idle life of a man-about-town, was a member of a good club,
and had a very substantial bank balance at the Midland. His money
appeared to come through the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris, probably from
investments in France. I learnt that one evening both he and his man
were seen to go out, when the police entered his rooms in secret and
thoroughly searched them, but found nothing. Yet it remained quite
certain that he was an associate of expert thieves.
Had it not been that the girl I loved so fondly and devotedly was
missing, I should have left London and gone in search of that woman
who had shown herself my bitterest enemy on that night in
Camberwell--the girl criminal who was posing as the daughter of an
Italian count.
At all costs her activity must be stopped. With what motive was she
moving in diplomatic circles in Italy? I felt that--knowing what I
did, and having awakened to the truth, while she still believed my
memory to be destroyed, as a result of the drug she had given me--it
was my duty to warn those whom she was so cleverly deceiving.
It occurred to me that the reason she was moving in that smart circle
of Italian society, where so many women wore their magnificent jewels,
was some ingenious plot afoot on the part of her confederates to make
a big coup. A panic might be created at one or other of the diplomatic
receptions, the ballroom placed in darkness, and the well-dressed
bandits, tearing off the jewels from the women, might escape.
This feeling obsessed me. Lisely Hatten was, like her associates, as
desperate a criminal as her friend Hilda Bennett, who had on that
night in Bloomsbury Square so glibly accused me of murdering her
lover, but had later declared I was not the man. Was Tuggy Wilson,
too, a member of the wide-spread criminal association?
One morning I received an urgent telephone message from Mr. Gell which
took me down to his dingy chambers in Fig Tree Court, in the Temple.
He was at his brief-piled table in an ancient brown room, paneled and
filled with musty law books, anxiously awaiting me.
“They have at last found that fellow Dufour!” he exclaimed. “He has
been taken to Bow Street, and I’ve been there. It seems that, after
leaving Fulham, he went to Southampton and took a passage for Cape
Town. The boat sailed yesterday, but when he presented himself on
board, a detective, who had traced him down there, detained him and
brought him up to London this morning. He will be charged this
afternoon with being concerned in the murder of John Wilson, alias
Dale.”
“Ah, then we shall now get at some facts,” I said. “He must be made to
explain who was the woman who lived in the house in Finlay Street. We
must ascertain whether it was really Joan!”
“My boy, I hardly suspect it is she,” was the famous lawyer’s reply.
“We’ve not yet actually established whether that fellow Owen was with
Joan at the Florida. If she went out to meet you, it is hardly
understandable why she went to the dance-club without you.”
“Except that she might have gone there expecting to meet me!” I
argued. “The false message might have said that I was awaiting her
there.”
“True, but I don’t think so,” exclaimed Mr. Gell, shaking his head
dubiously. “This foreign waiter, no doubt, will make some statement in
order to save himself. The prosecution may allege that it was he who
fired the shot from his front door, and then left the empty house by
the back premises; for the landlord says that he still retains the
key.”
We ate a frugal lunch together at The Cock in Fleet Street, and at two
o’clock were at Bow Street Police Court, Mr. Gell sitting without his
robe and wig at the table set aside for the bar, while I sat in a
public seat.
Sir Humbert Perry, the white-haired chief magistrate, was on the bench
when a short, ferret-eyed, little, black-haired foreigner, shabbily
dressed, was put into the dock and the formal charge read over to him.
After a first glance round, he appeared quite unconcerned.
Speaking with a strong accent, he declared that he was not guilty.
“_Dieu!_ I know nothing! I was not there!” he cried, as though
suddenly realizing his serious position.
Formal evidence of arrest was given, when the magistrate, scarcely
looking up, scribbled something, and said:
“Remanded in custody for a week.” And the prisoner was hurried away.
I walked back to the Temple with Joan’s father, who expressed
satisfaction at the man’s arrest.
“He knows something,” he said, for his keen eyes had scanned the
accused’s face from the first moment he had entered the dock. “If he
did not fire the shot, he knows who did. We shall learn more before
long.”
We did, within half an hour; for, suddenly Mr. Gell’s clerk entered
the room saying that his master was wanted urgently on the telephone.
“Scotland Yard wishes to speak to you, sir,” he added.
The ponderous man rose and rushed into the adjoining room.
A few minutes later he rejoined me in a state of great excitement.
“That fellow Owen has slipped through the fingers of the police! He
apparently knew that he was being watched, and was also aware of
Dufour’s arrest. He’s in fear, and managed to get away early this
morning. His man says he gave his bag to a man who called for it last
night, and when he went to his master’s room he found that he had
left.”
“But the police!” I cried in dismay.
“They knew he was in bed, and did not resume their surveillance until
seven o’clock this morning. At noon, as he did not emerge and walk to
the Ritz for a cocktail, as was his habit, they made discreet inquiry,
only to find that he had eluded them and gone!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
A SCRAP OF MUSIC
The mystery increased hourly. Though Scotland Yard had to its credit
the arrest of the fugitive foreign waiter, there was practically no
evidence to show that he was even acquainted with the dead young
criminal, Tuggy Wilson.
That the latter had dealings with Owen was known by Teddy, who had
watched them go in company to Fulham. Further, the fact that Owen had
fled was sufficient proof of his guilty connection with the affair.
The enigma was rendered the more insoluble by a circumstance which
happened on the following day. I had been out to lunch and spent the
afternoon at my club, when on my return Bruce said:
“The blind man called on you an hour ago! He says he must see you.”
“You were friendly towards him this time, I hope,” I said, annoyed
that I should have been absent.
“Yes, sir. I watched him go out, slipped on another coat, put on my
glasses, and went down after him,” replied my man. “He tapped his way
into Piccadilly and right along to the Circus, where he was met by
another man, an elderly, rather well-dressed, person with a grey
beard. They spoke together for about five minutes, and then the old
man hailed a taxi, and they drove away. I dared not follow them, sir,
as I didn’t know if you had your latch-key.”
“I wish you had watched them,” I said. “Next time don’t worry about
me, as long as you run the blind man to his home. You are sure he was
blind? I mean, he used his stick all the time?”
“Yes, sir. And he kept on his glasses. I noticed how his friend led
him to the taxi.”
I was wondering whether it was not Owen who had appeared in the guise
of the blind man against whom I had been warned.
It was a day of irritating surprises, for not the least occurred just
after ten o’clock that night. I was sitting reading, Bruce being out
for the evening, when my telephone rang, and, on answering it, I heard
a man’s voice, with which I was not familiar, asking if I were
speaking.
I replied in the affirmative, when the stranger said in rather refined
tones:
“I have to apologize to you, Mr. Hipwell. I am unknown to you, but I
have just arrived at Victoria from the Continent, and have an urgent
message to you from a lady--your wife. I am sorry that I cannot
deliver it personally, as I am only passing through London to
Liverpool to catch a steamer.”
“From my wife!” I gasped. “Yes.”
“There were reasons, she says, that she has neither written nor
telegraphed to you; but she did not know whether you were in London.
She asks you to meet her next Friday afternoon at four o’clock in
Kensington Gardens, at the third seat on the right up the Broad Walk
from Palace Gate.”
“Thank you very much,” I replied, my heart giving a great bound. Then
I repeated the appointment: “At the third seat on the right up the
Broad Walk in Kensington Gardens, on Friday at four o’clock.”
“Yes. That is the message. I am glad I have been able to deliver it
safely, Mr. Hipwell. You are, please, to remember that your meeting is
a secret one. _Au revoir._”
“But would you do me one great favor?” I asked. “Will you tell me my
wife’s address?”
I listened for a reply. But there was none! He had rung off hurriedly,
in all probability to catch his train.
In frantic appeal I spoke to the clerk at the exchange, who instantly
set to work to discover the source of the call. At last I heard her
say:
“I’m afraid I can’t get them for you. The call was from the public
booth on Victoria Station.”
Thus again were my efforts, to discover the whereabouts of Illona,
thwarted.
The day was Wednesday. Hence I must wait till Friday. If Illona was
still in Lausanne, she was evidently following closely on the
footsteps of the mysterious bearer of that message to me.
I told no one. I could not confide in either Mr. Gell or Teddy; for I
had revealed nothing about my mysterious wife. I could only wait until
Friday.
Ah, how those interminable hours dragged by! I thought much of Joan,
wondering where she was and into what pitfall she had fallen, for I
loved her with my whole soul, and I was distracted with anxiety and
grief. Yet, when I met Illona, no doubt, she would explain to me the
deep conspiracy against me, and put me on my guard against my enemies.
That she feared lest her meeting with me should result in some fatal
reprisal seemed palpable, because of the precautions she was taking to
meet me in secret. She evidently dared not call at Sackville Street,
but preferred to meet me as though casually, by an appointment made
verbally, so that none should know.
All was romantic, all so strange, that I sometimes felt myself
doubting whether I was not still in that state of mental unreality in
which I had existed for two whole years.
All the amazing circumstances were, alas! solid facts. Joan, my Joan,
whom I loved with every fibre of my soul, had been decoyed away, and
was in the hands of my enemies.
Yet why had unknown persons formed a plot against me? To my knowledge
I had neither harmed nor wronged anyone, neither man nor woman. That
misadventure in Camberwell, surely, was not of my own seeking, if,
indeed, that criminal gang were still bent on reprisals because I had
inadvertently entered into their midst.
How can I adequately describe the long, weary, never-ending night
before Friday dawned? Sleep would not come to my eyes. I tossed upon
my bed, hot and weary, my brain muddled by the thousand and one
inexplicable facts that had arisen since my sudden awakening in Rome.
At last I arose and dressed but found it to be a grey, sunless day,
with threatening rain. Indeed, the atmosphere was heavy and there was
every indication of a coming storm.
I lunched at the club with Teddy, spent an hour in the smoking-room
chatting with several friends, whiling away the intervening time
until, soon after half-past three, I hailed a taxi in St. James’s
Street--after getting rid of Teddy by the way--and drove to Palace
Gate. A slight shower had just fallen sufficiently to freshen up the
pretty gardens, and had sent in the usual crowds of nursemaids with
children. Hardly a soul was astir in the Broad Walk, but I found the
seat, dried it well with my raincoat, and, sitting down, lit a
cigarette, waiting on tenterhooks for the arrival of my unknown wife.
Those moments, I think, were the most tense in my whole life. Imagine
yourself waiting for the woman you had unconsciously married and had
never seen!
I pictured her in all sorts of guises, from a young and beautiful
foreign woman, with all the _chic_, charm, and daintiness of the true
Parisienne, to the flat-footed, thick-ankled, and ponderous _frau_ of
Teutonic breed, a type I particularly detested. Of her age I knew
nothing, of her voice or features I knew as little, and as I waited
there in patience, the grim humor of the situation struck me as
ridiculous.
The hour of four chimed solemnly from the tower of St. Mary Abbot,
followed almost instantly by the low booming of Big Ben. But, glancing
each way up the broad, graveled promenade, I saw only two elderly men
approaching.
Five more minutes passed, and I grew restless. Was I being fooled?
I was always suspicious of telephone messages. And that had been a
swift and anonymous one. Was there still another trap set for me?
Surrounded as I seemed to be with enemies, I viewed every circumstance
with suspicion, and perhaps scented danger where none existed.
Here I venture to beg pardon of the reader. This narrative is only a
plain and straightforward one of what actually occurred to
me--adventures which might easily happen to any man of my age and
temperament in London, New York, Paris, or in any other great city,
for that matter. I seek to repress no ill deed of my own. I am no
better than other men. Yet, unlike others, I discovered myself, in
astounding circumstances, married--or alleged to be married--to
somebody whose name was Illona, and on whom my eyes had never
consciously gazed. If you can realize this, you can well imagine my
feelings as I sat there upon a public seat, in a public park,
expecting my wife to claim me.
But what if her allegations were untrue? Suppose she were only my
self-styled wife? If I had been legally married to her under British
law, wherever the ceremony had been performed, a record of it would be
found at Somerset House.
I had once or twice intended to go there in order to make search. But
it was quite possible that my marriage might be in a false name; so I
decided to wait. The whole affair was utterly amazing.
For some reason I was full of suspicion; and, whatever Illona might be
like, I had formed the firm intention of challenging her right to call
me husband. Surely such an attitude would be only natural.
On the other hand, why was she so solicitous of my welfare if I were
nothing more to her than a friend?
Several persons passed and repassed, now that the shower was over;
but, though I could scan the wide pathway for some distance, I could
discern no one who might possibly be the mysterious Illona.
Suddenly a rather pretty, fair-haired girl of about sixteen, wearing a
small, black felt hat and a serviceable dark blue raincoat, came and
seated herself near me, a fact which greatly annoyed me, as I wanted
to be there alone for my romantic meeting with my wife.
She glanced once or twice into my face, and then exclaimed:
“I beg your pardon, but are you Mr. Lionel Hipwell?”
“I am,” I replied in surprise.
“I have been sent by madame to tell you that she is unfortunately
prevented from meeting you to-day. She----”
“Not coming!” I gasped in despair.
“No. There are reasons, she says, why she is obliged to remain away,”
she added in a low voice.
“You know her!” I cried. “Where is she? Where can I find her?”
“I really don’t know,” was her tantalizing response.
“But you must tell me. Much depends on my finding her--perhaps the
life of one I hold dearest. Do tell me something, miss. Every hour’s
delay is dangerous now.”
“I am aware that there is danger--danger to yourself, Mr. Hipwell,”
the girl said in a strange voice. “But perhaps this will explain.” And
she took a large, thin envelope from her handbag and handed it to me.
In eagerness I tore it open, and found within nothing but a sheet of
manuscript music, boldly written and folded in four; but without a
single message, without a single word.
“What does this mean?” I asked, staring at the girl.
“I really don’t know,” she said, looking at the music. “I am just as
much in ignorance as you are.”
I looked at the notes; but, knowing nothing of music, and unable to
read a bar, I felt that some ill-considered trick was being played on
me.
“Where did you see madame?” I demanded of the girl.
“At the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool last night,” she replied. “I am a
manicurist there and she sent me with this message and envelope.”
“Is she staying in the hotel?” I demanded.
“I think so.”
Liverpool! The mysterious man who had rung me up from Victoria had
been on his way to Liverpool. I would go there by the next train, and
by making my name known in the hotel, if still there, she might
venture to approach me.
“Can you tell me nothing else, miss?” I asked persuasively.
“Unfortunately I cannot. The lady simply asked me to come to London
and deliver the message to you. My parents live at Wandsworth.
Therefore, I was glad of an opportunity to see them.”
“What kind of lady gave you the message? Describe her to me.”
She reflected a moment.
“She was under thirty, rather pretty, with auburn hair, and extremely
well dressed. She spoke with an accent, and no doubt, was a foreigner.
She said that I was to mention the word Illona to you. I remember she
wore on her finger one of the finest diamond rings I have ever seen.”
“Had she anyone with her?”
“Not when she spoke to me. Previously I had seen her sitting in the
lounge talking to a rather tall, fair young man, whom I had seen about
the hotel for several days. But,” the girl added, “the lady asked me
particularly to give you no information whence I had come. I ought not
to have told you, only you--well, you seem so distressed.”
“I have only to thank you, miss,” I said. “And if I decide to follow
you back to Liverpool it is no affair of yours, and you cannot help
it, can you?”
The girl smiled, and, noticing her friendliness towards me, I ventured
to slip three one-pound Treasury notes into her gloved hand.
“I am in great trouble,” I told her, “and I want you, if you can, to
assist me.”
“I don’t see how I can, sir,” was her reply. “I have only acted as
messenger for a woman who is a perfect stranger.”
“When are you returning to Liverpool?”
“To-morrow morning.”
“Then I shall go up to-night and remain at the Adelphi. You see, I do
not know this lady Illona, and I want you to point her out to me.”
“Certainly I will, if she is still there.”
“Under what name has she registered?” I asked eagerly.
“Ah, that I do not know!” she replied. “She simply came into our
manicure room, and while I attended her she asked me to go to London,
and, after having obtained leave from my boss, I consented. That is as
much as I know about her,” she concluded.
“I haven’t the pleasure of your name.”
“Moss--Ruby Moss,” she replied.
“Very well, Miss Moss,” I said, rising, “I shall see you at the
Adelphi to-morrow evening, eh?”
“Yes,” she agreed as we walked together to Palace Gate. “About
half-past six I’ll be back. As you say, if you like to follow me to
Liverpool, I can’t prevent it.” And she laughed as she boarded a
passing bus, leaving me to continue my walk alone.
How tantalizing it all was. Instead of meeting the elusive Illona, I
had only received from her a verbal message of regret and a sheet of
music.
As I, unfortunately, knew nothing of music, I hailed a passing taxi,
and took the manuscript to Teddy Day, whom I found at home.
He was a fairly good pianist, so I showed it to him without telling
him how it came into my possession.