RELATES A QUEER ADVENTURE
Up the great stairway, slowly, very carefully, came four men carrying a
stretcher. The form extended upon it was completely covered by a white
sheet, all but the feet—a man's feet. Behind and on each side were men,
apparently gentlemen, all strangers to me. So deeply occupied were their
thoughts, seemingly, that they appeared not to notice Albeury, Dulcie
and myself as we stepped aside to let them pass. For the moment my
attention was distracted. What had happened? Had there been an accident?
If so, who was the victim, and who were these men with him?
"Can you show me the way to room eight eight?" one of the leading
bearers asked as he came up to me. He stopped, waiting for me to answer,
and as he did so the men beside the stretcher gathered about me, so that
for the instant I lost sight of Dulcie, who had instinctively stepped
back a pace or two.
I indicated the whereabouts of the room.
"And can you tell me which is Mr. Berrington's room?" he then asked.
"Yes. But I am Mr. Berrington. What is it you want?"
"You are? Are you Mr. Michael Berrington?"
"Yes."
"Oh, then you had better come with us now."
"Whom are you carrying? What has happened?"
Without answering he moved onward down the corridor, with the stretcher.
I walked a little way ahead, and at the room numbered eighty-eight, Mrs.
Stapleton's room, I knocked.
Again I was face to face with the woman. Seated in an arm-chair, a
cigarette between her lips, she appeared to be reading a newspaper. Upon
seeing me she rose abruptly; then, as the covered stretcher was borne
slowly in, I saw the cigarette fall from her lips on to the floor, and
with surprised, frightened eyes, she gazed inquiringly at the bearers,
then down at the outline of the figure beneath the sheet.
"Who is it?" she gasped. "Tell me who it is, and why he has been brought
here!"
Nobody answered, though now the bearers, also the men who accompanied
them, had all crowded into the room.
Suddenly I noticed that the door of the room had been shut, and
instantly the thought came to me—
Where was Dulcie? What had become of her? Also where had Albeury gone?
Hardly had the thought flashed into my mind when I was pounced upon from
behind, a hand covered my mouth, my wrists were tied tightly behind me,
and my feet bound with a cord. Now I saw the figure that had lain
beneath the sheet upon the stretcher rise up of its own accord. The
covering fell away, and Gastrell stood before me. I saw him make a sign.
At once a gag was crammed into my mouth with great force, so that I
could neither cry out nor speak. In a few moments I had been lifted by
two men, extended on my back upon the stretcher, and the white cloth had
been thrown over me, covering me completely.
Now, the stretcher being raised, I knew that I was being conveyed along
the corridor. I was being carried down the stairs, slowly, carefully. In
the hall I heard a confused murmur of voices; somebody was telling
someone that "the poor fellow" was more seriously hurt than had at first
been supposed, and that they were taking him to the hospital. Suddenly I
recognized a voice. It was Albeury's, and he spoke in French. Presently
I knew that I was being carried out of the hotel, and down the hotel
steps. I was being lifted into a car. The ends of the stretcher rested
upon the seats. There were expressions of sympathy; questions were being
asked and answered in French; the door of the car was shut quietly, and
the car swept away.
For twenty minutes or more we passed through the streets of Paris,
slowing down at frequent intervals, turning often to right or left.
Gradually the sound of the traffic passing grew less, our speed
increased, and I judged that we must be out in the environs. Now we were
going slowly up a steep hill. We reached the top of it, and our speed
increased considerably.
On and on we sped. We must, I gathered, have travelled well over an
hour, and now be far out in the country. There was no light inside the
car, and though still covered by the sheet, I somehow seemed to feel
that the night was very dark. In what direction had we come?
Whereabouts, outside Paris, was that long hill up which we had travelled
so slowly?
Suddenly someone inside the car moved. An instant later the sheet over
my face was pulled back. In the darkness I could still see nothing, but
I felt that someone was staring down at me. How many occupants the car
contained, of course I could not tell. Still no one spoke, and for five
minutes or more the car tore faster and faster along the straight
country road.
Then, all at once, a light flashed in my eyes—the light of an electric
torch.
"You have but a few minutes to live," a man's voice exclaimed in a low
tone. "If you want to say your prayers, you had better do so now."
The voice was clearly Gastrell's. Now I realized that two men besides
myself were in the closed car. The light from the electric torch still
shone down upon my face. My eyes grew gradually accustomed to the bright
light, which had at first dazzled them.
"This is to be your fate," Gastrell continued a minute later. "At a spot
that we shall presently come to, far out in the country, fifty miles
from Paris, you will be taken out, bound as you are, and shot through
the head. The revolver has your initials on it—look."
He held something before my eyes, in such a way that I could see it
clearly in the disc of light. It was a pistol's grip. On it shone a
little metal plate on which I could distinctly see the engraved
initials—"M.B."
"When you are dead, your wrists and legs will be released, and you will
be left by the roadside in the forest we are now in, the revolver, with
its one discharged chamber, on the ground beside you. Look, whose
handwriting is this?"
A letter was passed into the ring of light. I started, for the writing
was apparently my own, though certainly I had not written the letter. It
was written on notepaper with the Continental Hotel heading, and my
handwriting and signature had been forged—a wonderful facsimile of
both. On the envelope, which was stamped, were written, also apparently
by me, the name and address:
"Miss DULCIE CHALLONER,
Holt Manor,
Holt Stacey,
Berkshire, England."
"My dear Dulcie," the letter ran, "I hope you will forgive the dreadful
act I am about to commit, and forget me as quickly as possible. I am not
insane, though at the inquest the coroner will probably return a verdict
of 'Suicide during temporary insanity.' But my life for years past has
been one continuous lie, and from the first I have deceived you most
shamefully. I asked you to become my wife, yet I am already married, and
have been for some years. Though I am very fond of you, I do not love
you, nor have I ever loved you. The things I have said and hinted about
your friend Mrs. Stapleton were all utterly false; they emanated
entirely from my imagination and were wholly without foundation. This is
all I have to say, except again—forgive me.
"Your sincere and miserable friend,
MICHAEL BERRINGTON."
The letter was undated.
What my feelings were when I had read that letter, I find it impossible
to describe. The fury of indignation that surged up within me as the car
continued to glide smoothly along with unabated speed seemed to drive
from my thoughts the sensation of terror which had at first possessed
me. Death would be awful enough, especially such a death, but that
Dulcie should think I had intentionally and consistently deceived her;
that she should be made to believe I had never loved her and that I had
wantonly taken my life like a common coward, were too fearful to think
about. In an access of mad passion I wildly jerked my wrists again and
again in vain attempts to get free. My mouth was still gagged, or I
should have called loudly in the desperate hope that even in the
deserted spot we were in the cry might be heard and bring assistance.
Oh, those moments of frantic mental torture! To this day I can hardly
bear to think of them.
Gradually I grew calmer. The electric torch had been extinguished and we
still swept on through the darkness. If only the engine would give out,
I kept thinking; if only the car would for some reason break down; if
only an accident of any sort would happen, I might yet escape the
terrible fate awaiting me. To think that a crime such as this could be
committed with impunity; worse still, that my name should be handed down
to posterity dishonoured and disgraced. To be shot like a dog, with arms
and legs bound like a felon's! The more I strove to distract my thoughts
the more my mind dwelt upon the immediate future. What would Sir Roland
think, and Jack Osborne, and all my friends—even old Aunt Hannah? While
pretending to feel pity, how they would inwardly despise me for my
apparent cowardice—that cruel letter, too, it would be printed in the
newspapers. Yet even that I could have borne with fortitude, I thought,
if by some means Dulcie could be made to know that the letter which in a
day or two would be found upon my dead body had not been written by me,
and that I had not taken my life.
The car was slowing down. Presently it stopped. Once more the disc of
light shone down upon my face. Quickly my disguise as Sir Aubrey
Belston, which I still wore—wig, moustache and eyebrows, whiskers and
beard—was removed. Hurriedly my face and neck were rubbed all over with
a sponge soaked in some greasy liquid smelling strongly of turpentine,
then rapidly dried with a cloth. Next, two men raised me off the
stretcher, lifted me out of the car and set me on my feet, propping me
against the car to prevent my falling over, for my legs were still
tightly bound.
Instinctively I glanced about me. We seemed to be in the depths of some
forest. The road we were on was rather narrow. On both sides of it dark
pine trees towered into the sky, which itself was inky, neither moon nor
stars being visible.
A light breeze moaned mournfully up the forest. As I stood there,
unconsciously listening, the sound seemed to chill me. In vain I
strained my ears again in the mad hope that even at this last moment
help of some sort might arrive. To right and left I looked along the
road, but the blackness was as dense as the blackness of the sky above.
The lamps of the car had been extinguished. Now the only light visible
was the glow of the electric torch. For a moment it flashed upon a face,
and on the instant I recognized Gastrell, also a man I knew by sight
though not by name.
So these were my persecutors, two men moving in the best society, and
wholly unsuspected of anything approaching crime. They were to be my
murderers! Even in that moment of crisis I found myself unconsciously
wondering who the driver of the car could be, for obviously he too must
be implicated in this plot, and a member of the gang. Another thought
flashed through my mind. Which of all these criminals had done poor
Churchill to death? Which had assassinated Preston on board the boat,
leaving the impression that he had intentionally hanged himself? Was
Gastrell the assassin? Was—
"Here is a place—beside this tree."
The remark, uttered by the stranger, cut my train of thought. Now
Gastrell stood beside me. In one hand he held the torch. The fingers of
his other hand were unfastening my coat. Soon I felt him push his hand,
with a letter in it, into my inside pocket.
The letter intended for Dulcie! The letter which would besmirch my name,
dishonour and disgrace it for ever!
In a fit of mad frenzy I tugged wildly at my bonds again in frantic
attempts to free myself. As well might I have tried to free myself from
handcuffs. Calmly Gastrell rebuttoned my coat, heedless of my struggles.
"And when you are dead," he said quietly, "Holt Manor and estates, and
the Challoner fortune, will come eventually to my companions and myself,
for Connie, in spite of what she said, is going to marry Roland
Challoner, and I intend to marry Dulcie—if she likes it or if she
doesn't. So now you realize, I hope, when it is too late, how
ill-advised you and your folk were to attempt to overthrow our plans.
Several before you have tried, and all have failed; the majority are
dead. Very likely more will try, and they too will fail. You know the
fate of Churchill and of Preston. You know your own fate. Osborne has
saved himself by becoming one of us, for when he marries Jasmine he will
join us or else—"
He stopped abruptly. A moment later he added:
"Two of your friends we still have to reckon with, though neither counts
for much: Challoner's sister, and his son."
A cold sweat broke out upon me as the ruffian mentioned Dick. God! Was
it possible these fiends would wreak their vengeance on a mere boy? And
yet if they meant to, how could he escape them? How simple for such men
to get him in their power. Ah, if only I could have spoken I should, I
truly believe, have humiliated myself by beseeching the monsters to
spare poor little Dick.
"Come, hurry along," the stranger, who was standing by, exclaimed
impatiently.
"Bob," Gastrell called, without heeding the interruption.
At once the driver of the car approached. He spoke no word. The disc of
light shone upon his face and—"Pull your cap off," Gastrell
said sharply.
The fellow did so. As I stared hard at him, something in his face seemed
familiar to me. Fat and bloated though the face was, and though the eyes
sagged, in the man's expression there was something—
Gastrell turned to me.
"Don't you see the likeness?" he asked quickly.
Gagged as I was, of course I couldn't speak.
"Bob is Sir Roland's brother—Robert Challoner," he said. "At Holt his
name is never spoken, but you have heard of him. Bob Challoner was
kicked out of his home, first by his father, Sir Nelson Challoner, and
afterwards by his own brother, Sir Roland. I will now tell you it was
Bob who suggested the robbery at Holt, and who, with Connie, helped us
through with it. He is going now to see to it that Dulcie becomes
my wife."
"Stop your talk, for God's sake!" the stranger interrupted again, his
patience at an end. "Time is slipping by. Bring him here and
finish him."
They carried me a little way into the forest, then set me on my feet
again, propped against a tree. That I did not feel utterly terrified at
the thought of my approaching death astonished me. After the mental
torture I had endured, however, I felt comparatively calm.
Gastrell approached to within about a yard. Again the wind moaned up
through the forest. No other sound whatever broke the night's stillness.
Once more a disc of light shone straight into my eyes, though now from a
distance of a few inches only. I saw the muzzle of a pistol glitter
above the light—I knew now that the electric torch was connected with
the weapon.
There came a sharp, metallic "click," as Gastrell cocked the hammer.