THE TIGHTENING GRIP.
Doctor Johnson’s optimism and words of encouragement set Cora’s mind
at rest to some extent, but she still felt anxious. She did not expect
to be back in England for several weeks, and Johnson had told her that
he intended to remain in Jersey about the same length of time. What,
she asked herself, would happen meanwhile if she ignored the anonymous
letter, as he advised? True, he had pointed out that the writer of
the letter could have no desire to ruin her good name, and that she
threatened only in order to terrorize her into paying the money. If
she did not reply in the _Morning Post_, her persecutor would, he had
assured her, write her another letter before taking any action. Indeed,
he had declared that she would probably receive several letters before
the writer attempted to carry out her threat.
“And remember,” he had ended, “the more letters you get, and the more
they threaten, the more evidence you possess to help to convict the
villainess when she is arrested. Give her as much rope as possible,
then strike hard and suddenly.”
They had wandered a considerable way along the sea wall, which runs
beside the coast, one evening some days later, when Johnson happened to
remark:
“Whom do you think I ran across in the gardens at the Pomme d’Or, Mrs.
Hartsilver? Why, the young journalist, Harry Hopford. He was in high
spirits, as he generally is, and told me he had been here several days,
spending his holiday. When I mentioned that you were here too, he
became quite excited, and said he ‘did hope’ he would have the pleasure
of seeing you again. He is meeting me at the Pomme d’Or to-night. Won’t
you join us? It is a Bohemian little place, but I can call for you, and
I think you will be amused.”
But Cora explained it would be impossible, as the friends with whom she
was staying were giving a dinner party, she said, from which she could
not well absent herself.
“I only wish I could come,” she added with sincerity. “It would
amuse me more than meeting a lot of people I don’t know, and have no
particular wish to know. And I should like to see Mr. Hopford again,
too. He has always been so kind.”
Hopford was full of news when he met the doctor at the Pomme d’Or that
evening.
“Can you tell me, Johnson,” was one of his first questions, “why
Captain Preston now always carries about a loaded automatic?”
“I had no idea he did,” the doctor replied in surprise. “Who told you?”
“Well,” Hopford answered, “I happened to find it out, and in rather a
curious way. In The Mitre, off Fleet Street, the other day, I got into
conversation with quite a good fellow who had served during the war.
We had one or two drinks together, and then he mentioned incidentally
that a Captain Preston had been his company commander. When I told him
that I, too, had served under Preston, he became quite communicative.
Preston seems to be a sort of hero in his eyes. He told me all that
Preston did during the war--he has a fine record, Johnson--and then
added:
“‘They ought to put him in Ireland--he always has a loaded automatic in
his pocket.’
“I inquired the reason, and he went on:
“‘I can’t say, but during Henley regatta he told me to keep his pistol
loaded, and a week later he took to carrying it about with him.’
“The fellow had told me he was Preston’s servant.
“‘Does he expect to be attacked?’ I then asked jokingly. And he
answered quite seriously, ‘Yes, I think he does.’
“‘And by whom?’ I said, becoming interested.
“He looked about him, then replied under his breath: ‘I don’t know, but
he told me once he had met some queer folk in China, in Shanghai, and
I’ve a notion some of those folk may now be in London and have some
sort of a down on him.’”
“Did he say anything more?” Johnson inquired.
“Yes. He said he was worried about ‘the Captain,’ thought he ought
not to marry, and hinted there was a mystery of some sort about the
lady he meant to marry, meaning Miss Hagerston, of course. By the way,
Johnson, I suppose you read in the papers that Miss Hagerston and Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson, La Planta, and Stapleton, between them broke the
bank at the Casino at Dieppe the other night?”
“I didn’t read about it, but I heard about it.”
“And that reminds me,” Hopford went on, “that I have heard queer rumors
about Preston lately. A bank clerk I know, who often gives me scraps of
exclusive news, and has never yet let me down, assures me that Preston
is being blackmailed. It’s a long story and rather complicated.”
“What, more blackmail?”
“How do you mean ‘more’ blackmail?” Hopford asked quickly, ever on the
alert for news.
“I was thinking of a case I heard of the other day,” Johnson replied,
anxious to cover his slip of the tongue.
Hopford looked at him hard.
“What the clerk told me,” he said a moment later, “was that Preston
would be driven, if not careful, to pay hush money--he mentioned a big
sum--to some woman who threatens to reveal something queer about that
beautiful Mrs. Hartsilver. I saw Preston not long ago, and thought he
looked ill and worried. Have you heard anything by any chance?”
“If I had I shouldn’t tell a journalist,” Johnson answered with a
smile. “No, not even you, Hopford.”
The lad laughed.
“And I can’t blame you,” he said, “though personally when I promise not
to print news told me in confidence I never do print it. But there are
a lot of little mysteries we both know about which have not yet been
cleared up, and somehow several seem to me to be directly or indirectly
connected with one another.
“First, there was the epidemic of unaccountable suicides between a year
and eighteen months ago, when Lord Hope-Cooper, Sir Stephen Lethbridge,
Viscount Molesley, Lord Froissart and his daughter, that queer woman,
Leonora Vandervelt, Henry Hartsilver, and half-a-dozen more put an end
to themselves apparently for no reason, and then there was the second
epidemic of the same sort only a month or two ago.
“In addition there are the queer stories concerning Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson and her two inseparables; Levi Schomberg’s strange
death; the rumors to do with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s husband--some
say he is alive and some say he isn’t; that affair regarding La
Planta’s being obviously drugged, though to this day nobody knows who
drugged him, why he was drugged, or even where he was drugged; Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson’s fainting fit at her own house on the same night,
followed by the theft of her jewels; the robbery and recovery at the
Albert Hall ball of Mrs. Stringborg’s necklace; Stapleton’s anxiety
that the theft of Mrs. Robertson’s jewels should be attributed to Mrs.
Hartsilver; oh, and several other things.
“The clerk I mentioned just now also told me that at one time Archie
La Planta represented an insurance firm in Amsterdam of which Lord
Froissart was the principal director, and that before his death
Froissart had been a good deal upset at what seems to have been a trick
played upon his Company by some of the policy holders--apparently they
insured valuable jewels and uncut precious stones which subsequently
were stolen by the very men who had insured them, or rather by some
of their accomplices; but as nothing could be proved the Company had
to pay the full claim, though it did so under protest. Altogether,
Johnson, there is a good deal I want to find out, but it will be a fine
scoop for my paper if I succeed, and I feel confident I shall do so
when I get to Paris.”
“You did not tell me you were going to Paris,” Johnson said, smiling
at the lad’s enthusiasm. “Or for that matter that you meant to try to
solve the bunch of problems you have just enumerated.”
“Didn’t I?” Hopford exclaimed. “Well, that is the idea. I am here for a
short holiday, then I go to Paris where I have a friend on the staff of
_Le Matin_, an extraordinarily clever fellow with a genius for putting
together puzzles of this sort. He was in London last month, and when
in course of conversation I chanced to speak about the two epidemics
of suicide there had been among our society people, and mentioned the
names of some of the victims, he became greatly interested, and started
asking me all sorts of questions.
“He referred to the subject several times again while in town, and
finally told me that if I could go to Paris he thought he would be
able to put me on to at least one useful clue, and suggested we might
work the thing together--the subject would interest _Le Matin_ too, he
said. Thereupon I consulted my chief who, though skeptical as to the
likelihood of my succeeding, gave me leave to go to Paris for a week or
two. Tell me, Johnson, have you any friends there who might be of use
to me?”
The doctor pondered for some moments.
“Where are you going to stay in Paris?” he asked suddenly.
“I stayed at the Brighton in the Rue de Rivoli the last time I was
there,” Hopford answered, “but I thought this time of finding some
little place in Clichy--my friend lives in Montmartre. Why do you ask?”
“A friend of mine, a mental specialist--incidentally he is interested
in your sort of work, and is wonderfully shrewd in putting two and two
together--has a quaint little _appartement_ in the rather slummy Rue
des Petits Champs, near the Place Jeanne d’Arc. If you would like to
stay with him I know he would like to have you, and I feel confident
you would hit it off together. He and I shared a house in Hong Kong,
when I practiced there, and after a while I appointed him my _locum
tenens_ in Shanghai.”
“Shanghai!”
Hopford seemed suddenly interested. For several seconds he did not
speak.
“Curious coincidence that,” he said at last. “I just wanted to meet
someone who knew Shanghai, and I had forgotten you had lived in Hong
Kong.”
“The friend I speak of knows Shanghai inside out, which I am afraid I
don’t,” Johnson answered. “Shall I give you an introduction to him?”
“I wish you would, Johnson,” Hopford answered eagerly. “And under the
circumstances I should like to stay with him, if he will have me. Do
you happen ever to have known a man in Shanghai named Fobart Robertson?”
“I should say so!” his companion exclaimed. “One of the worst--a mere
adventurer. He married----”
He checked himself.
“Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson!” Hopford said excitedly.
“I didn’t say so,” Johnson replied, slightly put out by the young man’s
rapidity of thought.
“You didn’t say so, but you mean it--and you know it was so!” Hopford
observed triumphantly. “This is splendid! The parts of the puzzle are
fitting themselves in just as I expected they would. Now I wonder if
you knew another man out East, in Shanghai or Hong Kong, or some place
of that sort, whose name was Timothy Macmahon? When Lord Froissart
committed suicide he left the whole of his fortune to a Mrs. Macmahon,
who is Timothy Macmahon’s widow.”
“Yes. Macmahon, too, lived in Shanghai at one time; also Julius
Stringborg, who now lives in Upper Bruton Street, and was a spirit
merchant in Shanghai and Hong Kong when I practiced out there--husband
of the woman whose necklace was stolen at the Albert Hall ball and who
charged Miss Hagerston with the theft, if you remember. But, as I say,
my former _locum tenens_ who now lives in Paris is the man you want to
meet if you are seeking information about former British residents in
Shanghai. Before you leave Jersey I will give you a letter addressed to
him.”
“That’s awfully good of you, Johnson,” Hopford said in a tone of deep
gratitude. “You have no idea how keen I am to solve the problem of all
these mysteries, as much out of personal curiosity as from a natural
desire to score a newspaper scoop.”
For a long time they continued to converse, and the more they talked
the more deeply impressed Johnson became by the young man’s exceptional
acumen.
“If at any time you should hear any gossip concerning Mrs. Hartsilver,
Hopford,” he presently said carelessly, “you might let me know in
confidence.”
Hopford turned quickly.
“Why,” he exclaimed. “I have heard gossip about her already, and I
don’t believe a word of it. Shall I tell you what it is? Of course you
won’t repeat it.”
“Of course. What have you heard?”
The anxiety his tone betrayed was not lost upon the young journalist,
though Johnson had tried to conceal it. Instantly he concluded the
doctor must be interested in the young widow. “Yes,” he commented
mentally, “obviously deeply interested.”
“Well, what I have heard,” he said, “came from two sources, and was to
the effect that Preston and Mrs. Hartsilver were together trying to
conceal some secret of a rather scandalous nature. But, as I say, I
don’t believe a word of it.”
“From whom did you hear it?”
“From two fellows in the office--two of our reporters. As you know,
or perhaps you don’t know, reporters never give away their source of
information, and I told them both to their faces that I knew Mrs.
Hartsilver personally, and was convinced the story was a lie.”
“What did they say to that?”
“Oh, they laughed. One of them said that naturally in the circumstances
my opinion must be biased, and that subsequent events would show if the
report were true or not.”
“They won’t publish anything in the newspaper, will they?” Johnson
asked; and Hopford was again struck by the anxiety in his voice and
face.
“Set your mind at rest on that point,” he replied. “They dare not. Even
if the tale were true, to publish it might be libelous. Certainly I
will tell you at once, Johnson, if I hear anything more.”
It was nearly closing time at the Pomme d’Or, and they rose to go.