found the girl lying on the bed, reading, and Mirabelle greeted her with
a smile.
“Well, is your term of imprisonment ended?”
Joan hesitated.
“Not exactly. Do you mind if I’m not here to-night?”
Mirabelle shook her head. If the truth be told, she was glad to be
alone. All that day she had been forced to listen to the plaints and
weepings of this transfigured girl, and she felt that she could not well
stand another twenty-four hours.
“You’re sure you won’t mind being alone?
“No, of course not. I shall miss you,” added Mirabelle, more in truth
than in compliment. “When will you return?”
The girl made a little grimace.
“To-morrow.”
“You don’t want to come back, naturally? Have you succeeded in
persuading your—your friend to let me out too?”
Joan shook her head.
“He’ll never do that, my dear, not till . . .” She looked at the girl.
“You’re not engaged, are you?”
“I? No. Is that another story they’ve heard?” Mirabelle got up from the
bed, laughing. “An heiress, and engaged?”
“No, they don’t say you were engaged.” Joan hastened to correct the
wrong impression. There was genuine admiration in her voice, when she
said: “You’re wonderful, kid! If I were in your shoes I’d be quaking.
You’re just as cheerful as though you were going to the funeral of a
rich aunt!”
She did not know how near to a breakdown her companion had been that
day, and Mirabelle, who felt stronger and saner now, had no desire to
tell her.
“You’re rather splendid.” Joan nodded. “I wish I had your pluck.”
And then, impulsively, she came forward and kissed the girl.
“Don’t feel too sore at me,” she said, and was gone before Mirabelle
could make a reply.
The doctor was waiting for her in the factory.
“The spy has walked up to the canal bridge. We can go forward,” he said.
“Besides,”—he had satisfaction out of this—“he cannot see over high
walls.”
“What is this story about marrying Mirabelle Leicester?”
“So he has told you? Also did he tell you that—that _he_ is going to
marry her?”
“Yes, and I’ll tell you something, doctor. I’d rather he married her
than you.”
“So!” said the doctor.
“I’d rather anybody else married her, except that snake of yours.”
Oberzohn looked round sharply. She had used the word quite innocently,
without any thought of its application, and uttered an “Oh!” of dismay
when she realized her mistake.
“I meant Gurther,” she said.
“Well, I know you meant Gurther, young miss,” he said stiffly.
To get back to the house they had to make a half-circle of the factory
and pass between the canal wall and the building itself. The direct
route would have taken them into a deep hollow into which the debris of
years had been thrown, and which now Nature, in her kindness, had hidden
under a green mantle of wild convolvulus. It was typical of the place
that the only beautiful picture in the grounds was out of sight.
They were just turning the corner of the factory when the doctor stopped
and looked up at the high wall, which was protected by a _cheval de
frise_ of broken glass. All except in one spot, about two feet wide,
where not only the glass but the mortar which held it in place had been
chipped off. There were fragments of the glass, and, on the inside of
the wall, marks of some implement on the hard surface of the mortar.
“So!” said the doctor.
He was examining the scratches on the wall.
“Wait,” he ordered, and hurried back into the factory, to return,
carrying in each hand two large rusty contraptions which he put on the
ground.
One by one he forced open the jagged rusty teeth until they were wide
apart and held by a spring catch. She had seen things like that in a
museum. They were man-traps—relics of the barbarous days when trespass
was not only a sin but a crime.
He fixed the second of the traps on the path between the factory and the
wall.
“Now we shall see,” he said. “Forward!”
Monty was waiting for her impatiently. The Rolls had been turned out in
her honour, and the sulky-looking driver was already in his place at the
wheel.
“What is the matter with that chauffeur?” she asked, as they bumped up
the lane towards easier going. “He looks so happy that I shouldn’t be
surprised to hear that his mother was hanged this morning.”
“He’s sore with the old man,” explained Monty. “Oberzohn has two
drivers. They do a little looking round in the morning. The other fellow
was supposed to come back to take over duty at three o’clock, and he
hasn’t turned up. He was the better driver of the two.”
The chauffeur was apparently seeking every pothole in the ground, and in
the next five minutes she was alternately clutching the support of the
arm-strap and Monty. They were relieved when at last the car found a
metal road and began its noiseless way towards The Lights. And then her
hand sought his, and for the moment this beautiful flower which had
grown in such foul soil, bloomed in the radiance of a love common to
every woman, high and low, good and bad.
_Chapter XXVIII_ _At Frater’s_
MANFRED suggested an early dinner at the Lasky, where the soup was to
his fastidious taste. Leon, who had eaten many crumpets for tea—he had
a weakness for this indigestible article of diet—was prepared to
dispense with the dinner, and Poiccart had views, being a man of steady
habits. They dined at the Lasky, and Leon ordered a baked onion, and
expatiated upon the two wasted years of Poiccart’s life, employing a
wealth of imagery and a beauty of diction worthy of a better subject.
Manfred looked at his watch.
“Where are they dining?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” said Leon. “Our friend will be here in a few
minutes; when we go out he will tell us. You don’t want to see her?”
Manfred shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“I’m going to be bored,” complained Poiccart.
“Then you should have let me bring Alma,” said Leon promptly.
“Exactly.” Raymond nodded his sober head. “I have the feeling that I am
saving a lady from an unutterably dreary evening.”
There was a man waiting for them when they came out of the restaurant—a
very uninteresting-looking man who had three sentences to say _sotto
voce_ as they stood near him, but apparently in ignorance of his
presence.
“I did not wish to go to Mero’s,” said Manfred, “but as we have the
time, I think it would be advisable to stroll in that direction. I am
curious to discover whether this is really Oberzohn’s little treat, or
whether the idea emanated from the unadmirable Mr. Newton.”
“And how will you know, George?” asked Gonsalez.
“By the car. If Oberzohn is master of the ceremonies, we shall find his
machine parked somewhere in the neighbourhood. If it is Newton’s idea,
then Oberzohn’s limousine, which brought them from South London, will
have returned, and Newton’s car will be in its place.”
Mero’s was one of the most fashionable of dining clubs, patronized not
only by the elite of society, but having on its books the cream of the
theatrical world. It was situated in one of those quiet, old-world
squares which are to be found in the very heart of London, enjoying, for
some mysterious reason, immunity from the hands of the speculative
property owner. The square retained the appearance it had in the days of
the Georges; and though some of the fine mansions had been given over to
commerce and the professions, and the lawyer and the manufacturer’s
agent occupied the drawing-rooms and bedrooms sacred to the bucks and
beauties of other days, quite a large number of the houses remained in
private occupation.
There was nothing in the fascia of Mero’s to advertise its character.
The club premises consisted of three of these fine old dwellings. The
uninitiated might not even suspect that there was communication between
the three houses, for the old doorways and doorsteps remained untouched,
though only one was used.
They strolled along two sides of the square before, amidst the phalanx
of cars that stood wheel to wheel, their backs to the railings of the
centre gardens, they saw Oberzohn’s car.
The driver sat with his arms folded on the wheel, in earnest
conversation with a pale-faced man, slightly and neatly bearded, and
dressed in faultless evening dress. He was evidently a cripple: one
shoulder was higher than the other; and when he moved, he walked
painfully with the aid of a stick.
Manfred saw the driver point up the line of cars, and the lame gentleman
limped in the direction the chauffeur had indicated and stopped to speak
to another man in livery. As they came abreast of him, they saw that one
of his boots had a thick sole, and the limp was explained.
“The gentleman has lost his car,” said Manfred, for now he was peering
short-sightedly at the number-plates.
The theft of cars was a daily occurrence. Leon had something to say on
the potentialities of that branch of crime. He owned to an encyclopædic
knowledge of the current fashions in wrongdoing, and in a few brief
sentences indicated the extent of these thefts.
“Fifty a week are shipped to India and the Colonies, after their numbers
are erased and another substituted. In some cases the ‘knockers off,’ as
they call the thieves, drive them straight away into the packing-cases
which are prepared for every make of car; the ends are nailed up, and
they are waiting shipment at the docks before the owner is certain of
his loss. There are almost as many stolen cars in India, South Africa
and Australia as there are honest ones!”
They walked slowly past the decorous portals of Mero’s, and caught a
glimpse, through the curtained windows, of soft table lamps burning, of
bare-armed women and white-shirted men, and heard faintly the strains of
an orchestra playing a Viennese waltz.
“I should like to see our Jane,” said Gonsalez. “She never came to you,
did she?”
“She came, but I didn’t see her,” said Manfred. “From the moment she
leaves the theatre she must not be left.”
Leon nodded.
“I have already made that arrangement,” he said. “Digby——”
“Digby takes up his duty at midnight,” said Manfred. “He has been down
to Oberzohn’s place to get the lie of the land: he thought it advisable
that he should study the topography in daylight, and I agreed. He might
get himself into an awkward tangle if he started exploring the canal
bank in the dark hours. Summer or winter, there is usually a mist on the
water.”
They reached Frater’s theatre so early that the queues at the pit door
were still unadmitted, and Leon suggested that they make a circuit of
this rambling house of entertainment. It stood in Shaftesbury Avenue and
occupied an island site. On either side two narrow streets flanked the
building, whilst the rear formed the third side of a small square, one
of which was taken up by a County Council dwelling, mainly occupied by
artisans. From the square a long passage-way led to Cranbourn Street;
whilst, in addition to the alley which opened just at the back of the
theatre, a street ran parallel to Shaftesbury Avenue from Charing Cross
Road to Rupert Street.
The theatre itself was one of the best in London, and although it had
had a succession of failures, its luck had turned, and the new mystery
play was drawing all London.
“That is the stage door,” said Leon—they had reached the square—“and
those are emergency exits”—he pointed back the way they had
come—“which are utilized at the end of a performance to empty the
theatre.”
“Why are you taking such an interest in the theatre itself?” asked
Poiccart.
“Because,” said Gonsalez slowly, “I am in agreement with George. We
should have found Newton’s car parked in Fitzreeve Gardens—not
Oberzohn’s. And the circumstances are a little suspicious.”
The doors of the pit and gallery were open now; the queues were moving
slowly to the entrances; and they watched the great building swallow up
the devotees of the drama, before they returned to the front of the
house.
Cars were beginning to arrive, at first at intervals, but, as the hour
of the play’s beginning approached, in a ceaseless line that made a
congestion and rendered the traffic police articulate and occasionally
unkind. It was short of the half-hour after eight when Manfred saw
Oberzohn’s glistening car in the block, and presently it pulled up
before the entrance of the theatre. First Joan and then Monty Newton
alighted and passed out of view.
Gonsalez thought he had never seen the girl looking quite as radiantly
pretty. She had the colouring and the shape of youth, and though the
more fastidious might object to her daring toilette, the most
cantankerous could not cavil at the pleasing effect.
“It is a great pity,”—Leon spoke in Spanish—“a thousand pities! I have
the same feeling when I see a perfect block of marble placed in the
hands of a tombstone-maker to be mangled into ugliness!”
Manfred put out his hand and drew him back into the shadow. A cab was
dropping the lame man. He got out with the aid of a linkman, paid the
driver, and limped into the vestibule. It was not a remarkable
coincidence: the gentleman had evidently come from Mero’s, and as all
London was flocking to the drama, there was little that was odd in
finding him here. They saw that he went up into the dress-circle, and
later, when they took their places in the stalls, Leon, glancing up, saw
the pale, bearded face and noted that he occupied the end seat of the
front row.
“I’ve met that man somewhere,” he said, irritated. “Nothing annoys me
worse than to forget, not a face, but where I have seen it!”
Did Gurther but know, he had achieved the height of his ambition: he had
twice passed under the keen scrutiny of the cleverest detectives in the
world, and had remained unrecognized.
_Chapter XXIX_ _Work for Gurther_
GURTHER was sleeping when he was called for duty, but presented
himself before his director as bright and alert as though he had not
spent a sleepless night, nor yet had endured the strain of a midnight
train jump.
“Once more, my Gurther, I send you forth.” Dr. Oberzohn was almost gay.
“This time to save us all from the Judas treachery of one we thought was
our friend. To-night the snake must bite, and bite hard, Gurther. And
out into the dark goes the so-called Trusted! And after that, my brave
boy, there shall be nothing to fear.”
He paused for approval, and got it in a snapped agreement.
“To-night we desire from you a _chef d’œuvre_, the supreme employment of
your great art, Gurther; the highest expression of genius! The
gentleman-club manner will not do. They may look for you and find you.
Better it should be, this time, that you——”
“Herr Doktor, will you graciously permit me to offer a humble
suggestion?” said Gurther eagerly.
The doctor nodded his head slowly.
“You may speak, Gurther,” he said. “You are a man of intelligence; I
would not presume to dictate to an artist.”
“Let me go for an hour, perhaps two hours, and I will return to you with
a manner that is unique. Is it graciously permitted, Herr Doktor?”
“March!” said the doctor graciously, waving his hand to the door.
Nearly an hour and a half passed before the door opened and a gentleman
came in who for even a moment even the doctor thought was a stranger.
The face had an unearthly ivory pallor; the black brows, the faint
shadows beneath the eyes that suggested a recent illness, the
close-cropped black beard in which grey showed—these might not have
deceived him. But the man was obviously the victim of some appalling
accident of the past. One shoulder was hunched, the hand that held the
stick was distorted out of shape, and as he moved, the clump of his club
foot advertised his lameness.
“Sir, you desire to see me——?” began the doctor, and then stared
open-mouthed. “It is not . . . !”
Gurther smiled.
“Herr Doktor, are you condescendingly pleased?”
“Colossal!” murmured Oberzohn, gazing in amazement. “Of all
accomplishments this is supreme! Gurther, you are an artist. Some day we
shall buy a theatre for you in Unter den Linden, and you shall thrill
large audiences.”
“Herr Doktor, this is my own idea; this I have planned for many months.
The boots I made myself; even the coat I altered”—he patted his
deformed shoulder proudly.
“An eyeglass?”
“I have it,” said Gurther promptly.
“The cravat—is it not too proper?”
Gurther fingered his tie.
“For the grand habit I respectfully claim that the proper tie is
desirable, if you will graciously permit.”
The Herr Doktor nodded.
“You shall go with God, Gurther,” he said piously, took a golden
cigarette-case from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Sit down, my
dear friend.”
He rose and pointed to the chair he had vacated.
“In my own chair, Gurther. Nothing is too good for you. Now here is the
arrangement . . .”
Step by step he unfolded the time-table, for chronology was almost as
great a passion with this strange and wicked man as it was with Aunt
Alma.
So confident was Gurther of his disguise that he had gone in the open to
speak to Oberzohn’s chauffeur, and out of the tail of his eye he had
seen Manfred and Gonsalez approaching. It was the supreme test and was
passed with credit to himself.
He did not dine at Mero’s; Gurther never ate or drank when he was
wearing a disguise, knowing just how fatal that occupation could be.
Instead, he had called a taxi, and had killed time by being driven
slowly round and round the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park.
Gurther was doing a great deal of thinking in these days, and at the
cost of much physical discomfort had curtailed his pernicious practices,
that his head might be clear all the time. For if he were to live, that
clear head of his was necessary. The prisoner in the cellar occupied his
thoughts. She had an importance for two reasons: she was a friend of the
men whom he hated with a cold and deadly malignity beyond description;
she represented wealth untold, and the Herr Doktor had even gone to the
length of planning a marriage with her. She was not to be killed, not to
be hurt; she was so important that the old man would take the risks
attendant upon a marriage. There must be an excellent reason for that,
because Dr. Oberzohn had not a very delicate mind.
He seemed to remember that, by the English law, a wife could not give
evidence against her husband. He was not sure, but he had a dim notion
that Pfeiffer had told him this: Pfeiffer was an educated man and had
taken high honours at the gymnasium.
Gurther was not well read. His education had been of a scrappy
character, and once upon a time he had been refused a leading part
because of his provincial accent. That fault he had corrected in prison,
under the tuition of a professor who was serving a life sentence for
killing two women; but by the time Gurther had been released, he was a
marked man, and the stage was a career lost to him for ever.
Oberzohn possessed advantages which were not his. He was the master;
Gurther was the servant. Oberzohn could determine events by reason of
his vast authority, and the strings which he pulled in every part of the
world. Even Gurther had accepted this position of blind, obedient
servant, but now his angle had shifted, even as Oberzohn’s had moved in
relation to Montague Newton. Perhaps because of this. The doctor, in
curtailing one confidence, was enlarging another, and in the enlargement
his prestige suffered.
Gurther was now the confidant, therefore the equal; and logically, the
equal can always become the superior. He had dreamed dreams of a life of
ease, a gratification of his sense of luxury without the sobering
thought that somewhere round the corner was waiting a man ready to tap
him on the shoulder . . . a white palace in a flowery land, with blue
swimming pools, and supple girls who called him Master. Gurther began to
see the light.
Until he had taken his seat in the theatre, he had not so much as
glimpsed the man and the woman in the end box.
Joan was happy—happier than she remembered having been. Perhaps it was
the reaction from her voluntary imprisonment. Certainly it was Monty’s
reluctant agreement to a change of plans which so exalted her. Monty had
dropped the thin pretence of an accommodation marriage; and once he was
persuaded to this, the last hindrance to enjoyment was dissipated. Let
Oberzohn take the girl if he wanted her; take, too, such heavy
responsibility as followed. Monty Newton would get all that he wanted
without the risk. Having arrived at this decision, he had ordered
another bottle of champagne to seal the bargain, and they left Mero’s
club a much happier couple than they had been when they entered.
“As soon as we’ve carved up this money, we’ll get away out of England,”
he told her as they were driving to the theatre. “What about Buenos
Ayres for the winter, old girl?”
She did not know where Buenos Ayres was, but she gurgled her delight at
the suggestion, and Monty expatiated upon the joys of the South American
summer, the beauties of B.A., its gaieties and amusements.
“I don’t suppose there’ll be any kick coming,” he said, “but it wouldn’t
be a bad scheme if we took a trip round the world, and came back in
about eighteen months’ time to settle down in London. My hectic past
would have been forgotten by then—why, I might even get into
Parliament.”
“How wonderful!” she breathed, and then: “What is this play about,
Monty?”
“It’s a bit of a thrill, the very play for you—a detective story that
will make your hair stand on end.”
She had all the gamin’s morbid interest in murder and crime, and she
settled down in the box with a pleasant feeling of anticipation, and
watched the development of the first act.
The scene was laid in a club, a low-down resort where the least
desirable members of society met, and she drank in every word, because
she knew the life, had seen that type of expensively dressed woman who
swaggered on to the stage and was addressed familiarly by the club
proprietor. She knew that steady-eyed detective when he made his
embarrassing appearance. The woman was herself. She even knew the
cadaverous wanderer who approached stealthily at the door: a human wolf
that fled at the sight of the police officer.
The three who sat in the front row of the stalls—how Leon Gonsalez
secured these tickets was one of the minor mysteries of the day—saw
her, and one at least felt his heart ache.
Monty beamed his geniality. He had taken sufficient wine to give him a
rosy view of the world, and he was even mildly interested in the play,
though his chief pleasure was in the girl’s enchantment. He ordered ices
for her after the first interval.
“You’re getting quite a theatre fan, kiddie,” he said. “I must take you
to some other shows. I had no idea you liked this sort of thing.”
She drew a long breath and smiled at him.
“I like anything when I’m with you,” she said, and they held hands
foolishly, till the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose upon a
lawyer’s office.
The lawyer was of the underworld: a man everlastingly on the verge of
being struck off the rolls. He had betrayed a client with whom he had
had dealings, and the man had gone to prison for a long term, but had
escaped. Now the news had come that he had left Australia and was in
London, waiting his opportunity to destroy the man whose treachery was
responsible for his capture.
Here was a note to which the heart of the girl responded. Even Monty
found himself leaning forward, as the old familiar cant terms of his
trade came across the footlights.
“It is quite all right,” he said at the second interval, “only”—he
hesitated—“isn’t it a bit too near the real thing? After all, one
doesn’t come to the theatre to see . . .”
He stopped, realizing that conditions and situations familiar to him
were novel enough to a fashionable audience which was learning for the
first time that a “busy” was a detective, and that a police informer
went by the title of “nose.”
The lights up, he glanced round the house, and suddenly he started and
caught her arm.
“Don’t look for a moment,” he said, averting his eyes, “then take a
glance at the front row. Do you see anybody you know?”
Presently she looked.
“Yes, that is the fellow you hate so much, isn’t it—Gonsalez?”
“They’re all there—the three of them,” said Monty. “I wonder,”—he was
troubled at the thought—“I wonder if they’re looking for you?”
“For me? They’ve nothing on me, Monty.”
He was silent.
“I’m glad you’re not going back to that place to-night. They’ll trail
you sure—sure!”