"Just heard terrible news. Also where you are. Returning at once.
Engage rooms for me your hotel.--Mother."
The telegram had been handed in at Mentone.
Vera seemed a good deal relieved at the thought of seeing her mother
again. At this I was not surprised, for, in a sense, she had felt
herself responsible for Lady Thorold's evident ignorance of her
husband's mishap and illness. She had felt all along, she told me, that
she should have kept in touch with her mother.
"If my father dies, without my mother having heard of his illness, I
shall never forgive myself," she had said to me once.
Lady Thorold arrived at the _Grand Hotel_ next evening. She had
travelled by the Mediterranean express without stopping, and had hardly
slept at all. Nevertheless, she insisted upon going at once to the
hospital, to see her husband.
He was a little better, the doctor told her. He had recovered
consciousness for a short time that evening, and his brain seemed
calmer. Several times, while conscious, he had asked why Lady Thorold
did not come to him, and where she was. Her absence evidently disturbed
him a good deal.
On leaving the hospital, I looked in at Faulkner's club. He was in the
hall, talking to the porter, and just about to come out.
"Ah, my dear Dick," he exclaimed, "you're the very man I want to see.
How is Sir Charles?"
"A very little better," I answered. "I have just come from the
hospital. Lady Thorold is with him now."
"Good. By the way, have you seen the tape news just in?"
"What news?"
He led me across to the machine at the further end of the hall, picked
up the tape, and held it out at arm's length. The startling words I
read were as follows--
"The men whom the police are trying to arrest at Houghton Park to-day,
shot three policemen dead, and seriously injured a fourth. A
reinforcement of police has been summoned. Thousands of people have
assembled in the Park, which surrounds the house, and hundreds are
arriving hourly on foot, on bicycles, in carriages, and in cars."
While we stood there, the machine again ticked. This was the message
that came up--
"Houghton Park. Later: A number of bags of gold coin, mostly French
louis, have just been found at Houghton Park. They were discovered by
the police, concealed between the rafters and the roof. There are said
to be several thousand pounds worth of these coins."
So the mystery was slowly leaking out. I felt that everything must soon
be known. How did those sacks of gold come to be hidden in the roof at
Houghton? Who had concealed them there? Could it be the same gold I
had seen in the house in Belgrave Street? And if so, had Whichelo...
I felt bewildered. What chiefly occupied my thoughts was the news of
those policemen. Poor fellows! How monstrous they should not have been
allowed to fire upon the murderers.
Too furious to speak, I left the club with Faulkner, and together we
walked along Piccadilly, towards Bond Street. As we sauntered past the
Burlington, a pair of laughing, dark eyes met mine, and at once I
recognised--Judith!
"_Ah, mon cher ami_!" she cried, revealing her white teeth as she
extended her well-gloved hand. She was gorgeously and expensively
dressed, in the height of Paris fashion, and I noticed that all who
passed us by--men and women alike--stared hard at her.
"Did you come back with Lady Thorold?" I asked--why, I hardly knew--
when we had talked for some moments.
"_Mais, oui_," she exclaimed. "We were together in Mentone, when I read
in a newspaper about this dreadful affair. I had just heard from a
friend here that Mademoiselle Vera was staying at the _Grand Hotel_, so
I told Lady Thorold. She was _desolee_ at the news about Sir
Charles--_pauvre homme_--and said she must return at once to see him,
and asked me if I would come with her. So I said, `Oh, yes.' And here
I am. Do you remember our evening together at the ball in Monte Carlo?"
she ended, with a rippling, silvery laugh.
"Where are you staying?" Faulkner asked.
"I? At the _Piccadilly Hotel_. You must come to supper with me there.
What night will you come?"
We made some excuse for not arranging definitely what night we would
have supper with her, and I laughed as I thought of the two louis I had
given the girl as a bribe to remove her mask, and of the sum I had
afterwards paid her to take me to Vera. And now she was staying at the
_Piccadilly Hotel_, and giving supper parties--the girl whom I had once
believed to be Lady Thorold's maid!
How strangely wags the world to-day!
As we all three emerged into Burlington Gardens, boys came rushing past
with the latest edition of an evening paper.
"_Ah, gran' Dieu_!" she cried, as she caught sight of the contents
bills. For this was what we read on them--