When the Professor seated himself at the breakfast-table and the news of
Miss Gwen’s absence was broken to him by Laura, the parlour-maid, he
started up in surprise.
“Miss Gwen went out late last night instead of going to bed, sir, and
took the latch-key,” the girl was compelled to admit.
The old man pursed his thin lips. His daughter was not in the habit of
going out on midnight escapades.
“Late last night Miss Gwen received a telegram, sir,” the girl added.
“It seemed to excite her very much; she dressed at once, and went out.”
The Professor rose from the table without eating, and went to the study
to think.
Upon the blotting-pad lay a sheet of ruled manuscript paper. He stared
at it in horror as though he saw an apparition, for there upon the
paper, scrawled boldly in blue chalk, were the mystic figures:
255.19.7
They danced before his eyes, as he stood staring at them. How came they
there, in his own study? What could they mean?
He looked around bewildered. Nothing was out of place--nothing
disturbed. Those puzzling figures had been written there by some unseen
hand.
During his wakeful hours that long night he had applied Hebrew letters
of those numerical values to the array of figures. But the result was
chaotic. It was some mystic sign. But what, he could not determine.
He had found them on that scrap of paper cast aside at the Bodleian
Library, and now again they appeared in the privacy of his own study, to
puzzle and confound him.
Through the next hour he waited, from moment to moment, in the
expectation of a telegram from Gwen explaining her absence and assuring
him of her safety. But, alas! none came. Therefore, he put on his
boots and overcoat and went round to the police-station, where the
inspector on duty received him most courteously, and took a minute
description of the missing young lady, a statement which, half an hour
later, had been received over the telegraph at every police-station
throughout the Metropolitan area.
He had taken the precaution to place one of Gwen’s photographs in his
pocket, and this he handed to the inspector.
“Well do our very best, Professor, of course,” the officer assured him.
“But young ladies are often very erratic, you know. We have hundreds of
girls reported missing, but they usually turn up again the next day, or
a couple of days later. Their absence is nearly always voluntary, and
usually attributable to the one cause, love!”
“But my daughter’s lover is in Denmark,” the Professor protested.
“That is what you have been led to believe,” remarked the inspector with
an incredulous smile. “Girls are very cunning, I have two myself, sir.”
“But you will help me, will you not?” urged the old gentleman earnestly.
“No effort shall be spared to discover your daughter, sir,” answered the
rosy, clean-shaven man seated at his desk. “I’ll report the matter to
our superintendent at once. Do you,” he added, “happen to know what
dress she was wearing? I will want a close description of it, also the
laundry mark on her underlinen. Your servants will, no doubt, be able
to supply the latter. Perhaps I’d better step round with you and see
them.”
So the inspector at once accompanied the Professor back to Pembridge
Gardens, and there was shown some of the girl’s clothes with the laundry
mark upon them. Afterwards he left, leaving the old man in the highest
state of apprehension.
He put aside all thought of the inquiry upon which he had been engaged.
His sole thought was for the safety of his child.
Meanwhile Jim Jannaway and Sir Felix Challas were still in deep
consultation in the privacy of that quiet, sombre study in Berkeley
Square.
“Erich left for Paris by the nine o’clock service this morning,” Jim was
saying. “He wants to consult some early manuscript in the National
Library, he says.”
“He’s a decidedly clever old fossil,” declared the Baronet, knocking the
ash off his cigar, “and I’m convinced he’s on the right track. If we
can only keep these other people off, mislead them, or put them on a
false scent, we shall win.”
“Erich has done that already,” laughed the other. “He’s been down to
Oxford and pretended to study certain manuscripts, knowing well that
Griffin’s researches must lead him there. By putting Griffin on a false
scent he’s simply tangling him up. Oh! yes, I agree, Erich Haupt is a
wary old bird.”
“Then he is now making investigations in various quarters with the sole
object of misleading Griffin, eh?” laughed Sir Felix. “Really, it’s
quite comical.”
“Yes, and he lets drop just sufficient information to excite the
curiosity of the officiate of the various libraries and place them on
the _qui vive_. He does that, so that they shall inform Griffin.”
“Excellent!” declared the Baronet. “As soon as he returns from Paris I
must see him. I wonder if the secret record really does exist? If it
does, then, by Jove! I’ll hold the key to the whole Jewish religion.
But one thing is quite evident, my dear Jim, we must crush out all this
opposition with a firm, relentless hand. You understand?”
“I quite follow,” remarked the great financier’s unscrupulous
“cat’s-paw.”
And they continued the discussion of the present rather insecure
situation.
Sir Felix Challas wore his mask with marvellous cleverness. The world--
the people who read of him in the newspapers--never suspected that the
man whose name so often headed subscription lists for charitable
objects, and whose handsome donation was the signal for a hundred
others, was an unscrupulous schemer. His had been the hand that, by
clever financial juggling in which some other person was always the
principal, had brought ruin to thousands of happy homes. He had,
indeed, if the truth were told, climbed to the pedestal of notoriety and
esteem, over the bodies of the men, both capitalists and workmen, he
had, with such innate cunning, contrived to ruin.
The strange story told by that shabby Dane as he sat in the gorgeous
room of the Grand Hotel in Paris, had attracted him from the very first.
Here was a chance of getting the better of his natural enemies, the
Jews. Ah! how he hated them! Yes. He would search, and if he found
any of those sacred relics, his intention was to laugh in the face of
the whole Hebrew community and hold the discovery up to the derision of
the Christians.
What mattered it to him that the Dane had died in penury in that obscure
hotel near the Gare du Nord? His secret agent, who had watched the poor
fellow from the moment he left the Grand Hotel, had informed Sir Felix
of the man’s tragic end, but he had only smiled with evident
satisfaction. The agent had ascertained that the present document had
not been found among the dead man’s possessions, hence the Baronet
believed that the man, before his death, had destroyed it. It was a
blow to him when he discovered that certain fragments of it had been
carefully preserved by Doctor Diamond. It meant that opposition had
arisen--a very serious opposition which he must forcibly crush down.
“Charlie returns from Brussels to-day, doesn’t he?” the Baronet was
asking.
“Yes. He ought to be back in his rooms by now. And he’ll find the girl
there. I’ve left him definite instructions how to act.”
“The girl must be sworn to silence,” Sir Felix said with heavy brow.
“She must assist us. We must compel her.”
Jim Jannaway nodded. From instructions given by the man before him his
eyes had already been opened, and ten minutes later he left the house,
the Baronet’s last words being:
“Remember, Jim, there’s millions in this business. We mustn’t lose it
for the sake of that chit of a girl, however innocent and pretty she may
be. Understand that!”
An hour previously Gwen Griffin, struggling slowly back to
consciousness, found that, straight before her, was a square window over
which was drawn a smoke-blackened, brown holland blind. The gas was
still burning, although the grey wintry day had dawned some hours ago.
She was lying upon the bed in a fairly big room, still dressed, but with
her clothes torn, as they had been in the desperate struggle of the
previous night. Slowly and painfully she rose, and as she slipped off
the bed she felt her limbs so weak and trembling that she could scarcely
stand.
She caught sight of her dishevelled self in the long mirror of the
wardrobe, and her own reflection startled her. All the horrors of that
struggle crowded upon her. She put up her hands and pushed her thick
dark hair from her white fevered brow.
“Where am I?” she cried aloud. “What will dad think?”
She staggered to the door, but found it locked and bolted from the
outside. Then she went to the window and pulling aside the blind judged
by the light that it must be about eleven o’clock in the morning. She
tried to open the window but the sashes had been screwed together. The
outlook was upon a blank wall.
Before the glass she rearranged her disordered dress, and sinking upon
the side of the bed tried to recollect all that had occurred. But her
head throbbed, her throat burned, and all the past seemed uncertain and
indistinct.
The only fact which stood out clear in her mind as she sat there, inert
and helpless, was the bitter truth which the man had spoken. The
scoundrel who had represented himself to be “Captain Wetherton,” the
friend of her lover, had showed himself in his true colours. He had
brought her there for one dastardly purpose alone--to ruin her in
Frank’s esteem.
She wondered what had really occurred--and while wondering, and
dreading, she burst into a flood of bitter tears.
At one moment she made up her mind to batter down the door, or smash the
window. But if she did that, she would, she feared, bring forth that
man now so hateful to her.
She detested him. No. Rather would she starve and die there than ever
look upon his blackguardly face again. The fellow was a coward, a vile
scoundrel who had taken advantage of her eagerness to meet her lover,
and had matched his brute strength against hers.
What should she do? How could she ever face Frank again?
She must have been carried there and placed upon that bed. She must,
too, have lain for fully twelve hours in blank unconsciousness.
What had she done, she wondered, that this shameful trick should be
played upon her? Alas! she had read accounts in the newspapers of how
young girls had been decoyed and betrayed in our great world of London.
Ah! it was no new thing she knew. Yet how long, she asked herself, was
her imprisonment to continue? How long before she would be able at
least to reassure her father of her safety?
For a full hour she sat in bitter tears, alone, disconsolate, and full
of grave apprehension, until of a sudden she heard a footstep outside
the door.
She held her breath. Horror! It was that man again.
The bolts were withdrawn, the door opened, and on the threshold stood a
man, much taller, thinner and slightly older than the false “Captain
Wetherton,” a pale-faced man she had never seen before.
“Hullo!” he asked, looking her straight in the face. “How are you this
morning, my dear? You haven’t had any breakfast, I suppose?”
“I want none, sir,” was her haughty reply. “I only wish to leave this
place. I was entrapped here last night.”
“Unfortunately, my dear girl, I know nothing about last night,” replied
the man. “I returned from the Continent only this morning. These
happen to be my chambers, and I find they now contain a very charming
tenant!”
She looked at him with her big eyes.
“I hope, sir, you do not intend to add further in suit to that which I
have already received here,” she said in a voice of bitter reproach,
holding her torn silk blouse together with her hand.
He noticed the state of her dress, and saw what a fierce struggle must
have taken place between her and Jim Jannaway.
“My dear girl,” he said in a reassuring tone, “providing you are
reasonable, and don’t create a scene, my intention is to treat you with
the deference due to every lady.”
“Is that your promise?” asked the girl in breathless eagerness.
“It is my promise--but upon one condition,” said the man in a slow
voice. And then she detected in his closely set eyes a strange look
that she had not hitherto noticed.
She asked him his condition, to which he replied in a few hard concise
words, a smile playing upon his lips.
But the instant she heard him she fell wildly at his feet, and taking
his hand in her trembling grasp, begged of him to show her mercy.
But the man only laughed--a laugh that was ominous in itself.