BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND
WALTER FETHERSTON strolled back that night to the dingy chambers he
rented in Holles Street, off Oxford Street, as a _pied-à-terre_ when in
London. He was full of apprehension, full of curiosity, as to who this
Doctor Weirmarsh could be.
He entered his darkling, shabby old third-floor room and threw himself
into the arm-chair before the fire to think. It was a room without
beauty, merely walls, repapered once every twenty years, and furniture of
the mid-Victorian era. The mantelshelf in the bedroom still bore stains
from the medicine bottles which consoled the final hours of the last
tenant, a man about whom a curious story was told.
It seems that he found a West End anchorage there, not when he had
retired, but when he was in the very prime of life. He never told anyone
that he was single; at the same time he never told anyone he was married.
He just came and rented those three rooms, and there his man brought him
his tea at ten o'clock every morning for thirty years. Then he dressed
himself and went round to the Devonshire, in St. James's Street, and
there remained till closing time, at two o'clock, every morning for
thirty years. When his club closed in the dog-days for repairs he went to
the club which received him. He never went out of town. He never slept a
night away. He never had a visitor. He never received a letter, and, so
far as his man was aware, never wrote one.
One morning he did not go through his usual programme. The doctor was
called, but during the next fortnight he died.
Within twelve hours, however, his widow and a family of grown-up children
arrived, pleasant, cheerful, inquisitive people, who took away with them
everything portable, greatly to the chagrin of the devoted old manservant
who had been the tenant's single home-tie for thirty years.
It was these selfsame, dull, monotonous chambers which Walter occupied.
The old manservant was the selfsame man who had so devotedly served the
previous tenant. They suited Walter's purpose, for he was seldom in
London, so old Hayden had the place to himself for many months every
year. Of all the inhabitants of London chambers those are the most lonely
who never wander away from London. But Walter was ever wandering,
therefore he never noticed the shabbiness of the carpet, the dinginess of
the furniture, or the dispiriting gloom of everything.
Like the previous tenant, Walter had no visitors and was mostly out all
day. At evening he would write at the dusty old bureau in which the late
tenant had kept locked his family treasures, or sit in the deep, old
horsehair-covered chair with his feet upon the fender, as he did that
night after returning from Hill Street.
The only innovation in those grimy rooms was a good-sized fireproof safe
which stood in the corner hidden by a side-table, and from this Walter
had taken a bundle of papers and carried them with him to his chair.
One by one he carefully went through them, until at last he found the
document of which he was in search.
"Yes," he exclaimed to himself after he had scanned it, "so I was not
mistaken after all! The mystery is deeper than I thought. By Jove! that
fellow, Joseph Blot, alias Weirmarsh, alias Detmold, Ponting and half a
dozen other names, no doubt, is playing a deep game--a dangerous customer
evidently!"
Then, again returning to the safe, he took out a large packet of
miscellaneous photographs of various persons secured by an elastic band.
These he went rapidly through until he held one in his hand, an unmounted
_carte-de-visite_, which he examined closely beneath the green-shaded
reading-lamp.
It was a portrait of Doctor Weirmarsh, evidently taken a few years
before, as he then wore a short pointed beard, whereas he was now shaven
except for a moustache.
"No mistake about those features," he remarked to himself with evident
satisfaction as, turning the photographic print, he took note of certain
cabalistic numbers written in the corner, scribbling them in pencil upon
his blotting-pad.
"I thought I recollected those curious eyes and that unusual breadth of
forehead," he went on, speaking to himself, and again examining the
pictured face through his gold pince-nez. "It's a long time since I
looked at this photograph--fully five years. What would the amiable
doctor think if he knew that I held the key which will unlock his past?"
He laughed lightly to himself, and, selecting a cigarette from the silver
box, lit it.
Then he sat back in his big arm-chair, his eyes fixed upon the fire,
contemplating what he realised to be a most exciting and complicated
problem.
"This means that I must soon be upon the move again," he murmured to
himself. "Enid has sought my assistance--she has asked me to save her,
and I will exert my utmost endeavour to do so. But I see it will be
difficult, very difficult. She is, no doubt, utterly unaware of the real
identity of this brisk, hard-working doctor. And perhaps, after all," he
added slowly, "it is best so--best that she remain in ignorance of this
hideous, ghastly truth!"
At that same moment, while Walter Fetherston was preoccupied by these
curious apprehensions, the original of that old _carte-de-visite_ was
seated in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, smoking a cigar with a tall,
broad-shouldered, red-bearded man who was evidently a foreigner.
He had left Hill Street five minutes after Fetherston, and driven down to
the Savoy, where he had a rendezvous for supper with his friend. That he
was an habitué there was patent from the fact that upon entering the
restaurant, Alphonse, the _maître d'hôtel_, with his plan of the tables
pinned upon the board, greeted him with, "Ah! good evening, Docteur.
Table vingt-six, Docteur Weirmarsh."
The scene was the same as it is every evening at the Savoy; the music,
the smart dresses of the women, the flowers, the shaded lights, the
chatter and the irresponsible laughter of the London world amusing
itself after the stress of war.
You know it--why, therefore, should I describe it? Providing you possess
an evening suit or a low-necked dress, you can always rub shoulders with
the _monde_ and the _demi-monde_ of London at a cost of a few shillings a
head.
The two men had supped and were chatting in French over their coffee and
"triplesec." Gustav, Weirmarsh called his friend, and from his remarks it
was apparent that he was a stranger to London. He was dressed with
elegance. Upon the corner of his white lawn handkerchief a count's
coronet was embroidered, and upon his cigar-case also was a coronet and a
cipher. In his dress-shirt he wore a fine diamond, while upon the little
finger of his left hand glittered a similar stone of great lustre.
The lights were half extinguished, and a porter's voice cried, "Time's
up, ladies and gentlemen!" Those who were not habitués rose and commenced
to file out, but the men and women who came to the restaurant each night
sat undisturbed till the lights went up again and another ten minutes
elapsed before the final request to leave was made.
The pair, seated away in a corner, had been chatting in an undertone when
they were compelled to rise. Thereupon the doctor insisted that his
friend, whose name was Gustav Heureux, should accompany him home. So
twenty minutes later they alighted from a taxi-cab in the Vauxhall Bridge
Road, and entered the shabby little room wherein Weirmarsh schemed and
plotted.
The doctor produced from a cupboard some cognac and soda and a couple of
glasses, and when they had lit cigars they sat down to resume their chat.
Alone there, the doctor spoke in English.
"You see," he explained, "it is a matter of the greatest importance--if
we make this coup we can easily make a hundred thousand pounds within a
fortnight. The general at first refused and became a trifle--well, just a
trifle resentful, even vindictive; but by showing a bold front I've
brought him round. To-morrow I shall clinch the matter. That is my
intention."
"It will be a brilliant snap, if you can actually accomplish it," was the
red-bearded man's enthusiastic reply. He now spoke in English, but with a
strong American accent. "I made an attempt two years ago, but failed, and
narrowly escaped imprisonment."
"A dozen attempts have already been made, but all in vain," replied the
doctor, drawing hard at his cigar. "Therefore, I'm all the more keen to
secure success."
"You certainly have been very successful over here, Doctor," observed the
foreigner, whose English had been acquired in America. "We have heard of
you in New York, where you are upheld to us as a model. Jensen once told
me that your methods were so ingenious as to be unassailable."
"Merely because I am well supplied with funds," answered the other with
modesty. "Here, in England, as elsewhere, any man or woman can be
bought--if you pay their price. There is only one section of the
wonderful British public who cannot be purchased--the men and women who
are in love with each other. Whenever I come up against Cupid, experience
has taught me to retire deferentially, and wait until the love-fever has
abated. It often turns to jealousy or hatred, and then the victims fall
as easily as off a log. A jealous woman will betray any secret, even
though it may hurry her lover to his grave. To me, my dear Gustav, this
fevered world of London is all very amusing."
"And your profession as doctor must serve as a most excellent mask. Who
would suspect you--a lonely bachelor in such quarters as these?"
exclaimed his visitor.
"No one does suspect me," laughed the doctor with assurance. "Safety lies
in pursuing my increasing practice, and devoting all my spare time
to--well, to my real profession." He flicked the ash off his cigar as he
spoke.
"Your friend, Elcombe, will have to be very careful. The peril is
considerable in that quarter."
"I know that full well. But if he failed it would be he who would
suffer--not I. As usual, I do not appear in the affair at all."
"That is just where you are so intensely clever and ingenious," declared
Heureux. "In New York they speak of you as a perfect marvel of foresight
and clever evasion."
"It is simply a matter of exercising one's wits," Weirmarsh laughed
lightly. "I always complete my plans with great care before embarking
upon them, and I make provision for every contretemps possible. It is the
only way, if one desires success."
"And you have had success," remarked his companion. "Marked success in
everything you have attempted. In New York we have not been nearly so
fortunate. Those three articles in the _New York Sun_ put the public on
their guard, so that we dare not attempt any really bold move for fear of
detection."
"You have worked a little too openly, I think," was Weirmarsh's reply.
"But now that you have been sent to assist me, you will probably see that
my methods differ somewhat from those of John Willoughby. Remember, he
has just the same amount of money placed at his disposal as I have."
"And he is not nearly so successful," Heureux replied. "Perhaps it is
because Americans are not so easily befooled as the English."
"And yet America is, _par excellence_, the country of bluff, of quackery
in patent medicines, and of the booming of unworthy persons," the doctor
laughed.
"It is fortunate, Doctor, that the public are in ignorance of the real
nature of our work, isn't it, eh? Otherwise, you and I might experience
rather rough handling if this house were mobbed."
Weirmarsh smiled grimly. "My dear Gustav," he laughed, "the British
public, though of late they've browsed upon the hysterics of the popular
Press, are already asleep again. It is not for us to arouse them. We
profit by their heavy slumber, and this will be a rude awakening--a
shock, depend upon it."
"We were speaking of Sir Hugh Elcombe," remarked the other. "He has been
of use to us, eh?"
"Of considerable use, but his usefulness is all but ended," replied the
doctor. "He will go to France before long, if he does not act as I
direct."
"Into a veritable hornet's nest!" exclaimed the red-bearded man. He
recognised a strange expression upon the doctor's face, and added, "Ah, I
see. This move is intentional, eh? He has served our purpose, and you now
deem it wise that--er--disaster should befall him across the Channel,
eh?"
The doctor smiled in the affirmative.
"And the girl you spoke of, Enid Orlebar?"
"The girl will share the same fate as her stepfather," was Weirmarsh's
hard response. "We cannot risk betrayal."
"Then she knows something?"
"She may or she may not. In any case, however, she constitutes a danger,
a grave danger, that must, at all costs, be removed." And looking into
the other's face, he added, "You understand me?"
"Perfectly."
Just before two o'clock Gustav Heureux left the frowsy house in Vauxhall
Bridge Road and walked through the silent street into Victoria Street.
He was unaware, however, that on the opposite side of the road an
ill-dressed man had for a full hour been lurking in a doorway, or that
when he came down the doctor's steps, the mysterious midnight watcher
strolled noiselessly after him.