"Ah! I regret, m'sieur, that I do not know," replied the Frenchman.
"And yet," he added, after a second's hesitation, "I do not exactly
regret. Perhaps it is best, after all, that I should remain in
ignorance. But, Monsieur Biddulph, I would make one request on your
wife's behalf."
"On her behalf!" I gasped. "What is it?"
"That you do not prejudge her. She has left you because--well, because
she had good reason. But one day, when you know the truth, you will
certainly not judge her too harshly."
"I do not judge her harshly," I protested. "How can I, when I love her
as devotedly as I do! I feel confident that the misfortunes she has
brought upon me were not of her own seeking."
"She very narrowly escaped the vengeance of those two assassins,"
Guertin said; "how narrowly, neither you nor she will ever know. For
months I have watched them closely, both here and in France and
Germany, in order to catch them red-handed; but they have been too
clever for me, and we must rely upon the evidence which that
back-garden in Porchester Terrace will now yield up. The gang is part
of a great criminal association, that society of international
thieves of which one member was the man you knew as Harriman, and
whose real name was Bell--now at Devil's Island for the murder of the
rising young English parliamentary Under-Secretary Ronald Burke. The
murder was believed to have been committed with a political motive,
and through certain false evidence furnished by the man Pennington, a
person named Louis Lessar, chief of the band, was first arrested, and
condemned by the Assize Court of the Seine. Both were sent to Devil's
Island for life, but recently Lessar escaped, and was daring enough to
come to England as Mr. Lewis."
"Lewis!" I gasped. "That was the fellow with whom my wife escaped--the
man who presided over the secret deliberations of the gang at their
assembly at Stamford!"
"Yes. Once a British officer, he had been leader of the great criminal
organization before his arrest. They were the most formidable in
Europe, for they always acted on scientific principles, and always
well provided with funds. Some of their coups were utterly amazing.
But on his arrest and imprisonment the society dwindled under the
leadership of Pennington, a low-bred blackguard, who could not even be
loyal to his associates."
"Excuse me, sir," remarked the sergeant, again shown into the room by
Browning. "Our C.I.D. men have been at work all day in the garden
behind that house in Porchester Terrace. A big hole was found dug
there, and already they've turned up the remains of two persons--a
man and a woman. I ought to have told you that we had it over the
telegraph at the station about an hour ago. Superintendent Mayhew and
Professor Salt have been there to examine the remains recovered."
"Two victims!" I exclaimed. "The open grave found there was prepared
for me!"
"No doubt," exclaimed Guertin. "When I first communicated with your
Scotland Yard, they refused to believe my allegations against Reckitt
and Forbes. But I had had my suspicions aroused by their actions in
Paris, and I was positive. But oh! your police methods are so very
painfully slow!"
Then the sergeant again withdrew.
"But of Pennington. Tell me more of him," I urged.
"He was your worst enemy, and Sylvia's enemy also, even though he
posed as her father. He wished her to marry Forbes, and thus, on
account of her great beauty, remain the decoy of the gang. But she met
you, and loved you. Her love for you was the cause of their hatred.
Because of her affection, she risked her life by revealing to me
certain things concerning her associates, whom she knew were plotting
to kill you. The very man who was posing as her father--and who
afterwards affected friendship for you--told that pair of unscrupulous
assassins, Reckitt and Forbes, a fictitious story of how Sonia--for
that is her real name--had denounced them. This aroused their hatred,
and they decided to kill you both. From what I heard afterwards, they
entrapped you, and placed you in that fatal chair beside the venomous
reptile, while they also tortured the poor girl with all the horrors
of the serpent, until her brain became deranged. Suddenly, however,
they became alarmed by discovering a half-witted lad wandering in the
garden where the bodies of previous victims lay concealed, and, making
a quick escape, left you and her without ascertaining that you were
dead. Eventually she escaped and rescued you, hence their fear that
you would inform the police, and their frantic efforts to secure the
death of both of you. Indeed, you would probably have been dead ere
this, had I not taken upon myself the self-imposed duty of being your
protector, and had not Louis Lessar most fortunately escaped from
Devil's Island to protect his daughter from their relentless hands."
"His daughter!" I gasped, staring at him.
"Yes. Sonia is the daughter of Phil Poland, alias Louis Lessar, the
man who was falsely denounced by Pennington as an accomplice in the
assassination of the young Under-Secretary, Mr. Burke, on the Riviera.
After I had arrested her father one night at the house where he lived
down near Andover, Pennington compelled the girl to pass as his
daughter for a twofold reason. First, because he believed that her
great beauty would render her a useful decoy for the purpose of
attracting young men into their fatal net, and secondly, in order that
Forbes should secure her as his wife, for it was realized how, by her
marriage to him, her lips would be sealed."
"But they all along intended to kill me."
"Of course. Your life was, you recollect, heavily insured at
Pennington's suggestion, and you had made over a large sum of money to
Sonia in case of your demise. Therefore it was to the interests of the
whole gang that you should meet with some accident which should prove
fatal. The theft of the jewels of the Archduchess delayed the
conspiracy from being put into execution, and by that means your life
was undoubtedly spared. Ah! monsieur, the gang recently led by Arnold
Du Cane was once one of the most daring, the most unscrupulous, and
the most formidable in the whole of Europe."
"And my dear wife is actually the daughter of the previous leader of
that criminal band!" I exclaimed apprehensively.
"Yes. She escaped with him because she was in fear of her
life--because she knew that if she were again beneath her own father's
protection, you--the man she loved--would also be safe from injury.
For Phil Poland is a strong man, a perfect past-master of the criminal
arts, and a leader whose word was the command of every member of that
great international organization, the wide ramifications of which I
have so long tried in vain to ascertain."
"Then Poland is a noteworthy man in the world of crime?"
"He is a very prince of thieves. Yet, at the same time, one must
regard him with some admiration for his daring and audacity, his
wonderful resourcefulness and his strict adhesion to fair play. For
years he lived in France, Italy and Spain, constantly changing his
place of abode, his identity, his very face, and always evading us;
yet nobody has ever said that he did a mean action towards a poor man.
He certainly suffered an unjust punishment by that false accusation
made against him by the man who was apparently jealous of his
leadership, and who desired to become his successor."
"Then you are of opinion that my wife left me in order to secure my
protection from harm?"
"I am quite certain of it. You recollect my meeting with her at the
Hôtel Meurice in Paris. She told me several things on that occasion."
"And Pennington very nearly fell into your hands."
"Yes, but with his usual cleverness he escaped me."
"Where is he now? Have you any idea?" I asked.
"I have no exact knowledge, but, with the arrest of four of his
accomplices, it will not be difficult to find out where he is in
hiding," he laughed.
"And the same may be said of Poland--eh?"
"No; on the contrary, while the man Pennington, alias Du Cane, is
hated--and it will be believed by those arrested that he has betrayed
them in order to save himself--yet Poland is beloved. They know it was
Du Cane who made the false charge connecting Poland with Harriman, and
they will never forgive him. The hatred of the international thief is
the worst and most unrelenting hatred existing in the whole world.
Before Poland came to live in retirement here in England at
Middleton, near Andover, his association consisted only of the most
expert criminals of both sexes, and he controlled their actions with
an iron hand. Once every six months the members from all over Europe
held a secret conference in one capital or another, when various tasks
were allotted to various persons. The precautions taken to prevent
blunders were amazing, and we were baffled always because of the
widespread field of their operations, and the large number of experts
engaged. The band, broken up into small and independent gangs, worked
in unison with receivers always ready, and as soon as our suspicions
were aroused by one party they disappeared, and another, complete
strangers, came in their place. Premises likely to yield good results
from burglary were watched for months by a constant succession of
clever watchers, and people in possession of valuables sometimes
engaged servants of irreproachable character who were actually members
of the gang. Were their exploits chronicled, they would fill many
volumes of remarkable fact, only some of which have appeared in recent
years in the columns of the newspapers. Every European nationality and
every phase of life were represented in that extraordinary assembly,
which, while under Poland's control, never, as far as is known,
committed a single murder. It was only when the great leader was
condemned and exiled, and the band fell away, that Pennington, Reckitt
and Forbes conceived the idea of extorting money by means of the
serpent, allowing the reptile to strike fatally, and so prevent
exposure. By that horrible torture of the innocent and helpless they
must have netted many thousands of pounds."
"It was you, you say, who arrested Poland down in Hampshire."
"Yes, nearly three years ago. Prior to Harriman's arrest, I went there
with my friend Watts, of Scotland Yard, and on that evening a strange
affair happened--an affair which is still a mystery. I'll tell you all
about it later," he added. "At present I must go to Porchester Terrace
and see what is in progress. I only arrived in London from Paris two
hours ago."
I begged him to take me along with him, and with some reluctance he
consented. On the way, Guertin told me a strange story of a dead man
exactly resembling himself at Middleton village on the night of
Poland's arrest. Arrived at the house of grim shadows, we found a
constable idling outside the gate, but apparently nobody yet knew of
what was transpiring in the garden behind the closed house. At first
the man declined to allow us to enter, but, on Guertin declaring who
he was, we passed through into the tangled, weedy place where the
lights of lanterns were shining weirdly, and we could see men in their
shirt-sleeves working with shovel and pick, while others were clearing
away the dead rank herbage of autumn.
In the uncertain light I saw that a long trench some four feet in
depth had been dug, and into this the men were flinging the soil they
carefully removed in their progress in a line backwards.
Beneath a tree, close to where was an open trench--the one prepared
for the reception of my body--lay something covered with a black
cloth. From beneath there stuck out a hideous object--a man's muddy
patent-leather shoe!
Even while I stood amid that weird, never-to-be-forgotten scene, one
of the excavators gave an ejaculation of surprise, and a lantern,
quickly brought, revealed a human arm in a dark coat-sleeve embedded
in the soil.
With a will, half-a-dozen eager hands were at work, and soon a third
body--that of a tall, grey-haired man, whose face, alas! was awful to
gaze upon--was quickly exhumed.
I could not bear to witness more, and left, gratified to know that the
two fiends were already safely confined in a French prison.
Justice would, no doubt, be done, and they would meet with their
well-merited punishment.