plate he found a letter--addressed to him openly. He had not received
one addressed in his real name for many months. Sight of it caused his
heart to bound in anxiety, but when he read it he stood rooted to the
spot.
Those lines which he read staggered him; the room seemed to revolve, and
he re-read them, scarce believing his own eyes.
He realized in that instant that a great blow had fallen upon him, and
that all was now hopeless. The sunshine of his life, had in that single
instant, been blotted out!
TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER
THE MAN WITH MANY NAMES
At the moment he had read the letter Mrs. Bond entered the room.
“Hallo! You’re down early,” she remarked. “And already had your letters,
I see! They don’t generally come so early. The postman has to walk over
from Puttenham.”
Then she took up her own and carelessly placed them aside. They
consisted mostly of circulars and the accounts of Guildford tradesmen.
“Yes,” he said, “I was down early. Lately I’ve acquired the habit of
early rising.”
“An excellent habit in a young man,” she laughed. “All men who achieve
success are early risers--so a Cabinet Minister said the other day. And
really, I believe it.”
“An hour in the early morning is worth three after dinner. That is why
Cabinet Ministers entertain people at breakfast nowadays instead of at
dinner. In the morning the brain is fresh and active--a fact recently
discovered in our post-war days,” Hugh said.
Then, as his hostess turned to the hot-plate upon the sideboard, lifting
the covers to see what her cook had provided, he re-scanned the letter
which had been openly addressed to him. It was from Dorise:
“I refuse to be deceived any longer, I have discovered that you are now
a fellow-guest with the girl Louise, to whom you introduced me. And yet
you arranged to meet me at Farnham, believing that I was not aware
of your close friendship with her! I have believed in you up to the
present, but the scales have now fallen from my eyes. I thought you
loved me too well to deceive me--as you are doing. Hard things are being
said about you--but you can rest content that I shall reveal nothing
that I happen to know. What I do know, however, has changed my thoughts
concerning you. I believed you to be the victim of circumstance. Now
I know you have deceived me, and that I, myself, am the victim. I need
only add that someone else--whom I know not--knows of your hiding-place,
for, by a roundabout way, I heard of it, and hence, I address this
letter to you.--DORISE.”
Hugh Henfrey stood staggered. There was no mistaking the meaning of that
letter now that he had read it a second time.
Dorise doubted him! And what answer could he give her? Any explanation
must, to her, be but a lame excuse.
Hugh ate his breakfast sullenly. To Louise, who put in a late
appearance, and helped herself off the hot-plate, he said cheerfully:
“How lazy you are!”
“It’s not laziness, Hugh,” replied the girl. “The maid was so late with
my tea--and--well, to tell the truth, I upset a whole new box of powder
on my dressing-table and had to clean up the mess.”
“More haste--less speed,” laughed Hugh. “It is always the same in the
morning--eh?”
When the girl sat down at the table Hugh had brightened up. Still the
load upon his shoulders was a heavy one. He was ever obsessed by the
mystery of his father’s death, combined with that extraordinary will
by which it was decreed that if he married Louise he would acquire his
father’s fortune.
Louise was certainly very good-looking, and quite charming. He admitted
that as he gazed across at her fresh figure on the opposite side of the
table. He, of course, was in ignorance of the fact that Benton, who had
adopted her, was a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, whose accomplice
was the handsome woman who was his hostess.
Naturally, he never dreamed that that quiet and respectable house, high
on the beautiful Surrey hills, was the abode of a woman for whom the
police of Europe were everywhere searching.
His thoughts all through breakfast were of The Sparrow--the great
criminal, who was his friend. Hence, after they rose, he strolled into
the morning-room with his hostess, and said:
“I’ll have to go to town again this morning. I have an urgent letter.
Can Mead take me?”
“Certainly,” was the woman’s reply. “I have to make a call at Worplesdon
this afternoon, and Louise is going with me. But Mead can be back before
then to take us.”
So half an hour later Hugh was driving up the steep High Street of
Guildford on his way to London.
He alighted in Piccadilly, at the end of Half Moon Street, soon after
eleven, and, dismissing Mead, made his way to Ellerston Street to the
house of Mr. George Peters.
He rang the bell at the old-fashioned mansion, and a few moments later
the door was opened by the manservant he had previously seen.
In an instant the servant recognized the visitor.
“Mr. Peters will not be in for a quarter of an hour,” he said. “Would
you care to wait, sir?”
“Yes,” Hugh replied. “I want to see him very urgently.”
“Will you come in? Mr. Peters has left instructions that you might
probably call; Mr. Henfrey, is it not?”
“Yes,” replied Hugh. The man seemed to possess a memory like that of a
club hall-porter.
Young Henfrey was ushered into a small but cosy little room, which, in
the light of day, he saw was well-furnished and upholstered. The door
closed, and he waited.
A few moments after he distinctly heard a man’s voice, which he at once
recognized as that of The Sparrow.
The servant had told him that Mr. Peters was absent, yet he recognized
his voice--a rather high-pitched, musical one.
“Mr. Henfrey is waiting,” he heard the servant say.
“Right! I hope you told him I was out,” The Sparrow replied.
Then there was silence.
Hugh stood there very much puzzled. The room was cosy and
well-furnished, but the light was somewhat dim, while the atmosphere
was decidedly murky, as it is in any house in Mayfair. One cannot obtain
brightness and light in a West End house, where one’s vista is bounded
by bricks and mortar. The dukes in their great town mansions are
no better off for light and air than the hard-working and worthy
wage-earners of Walworth, Deptford, or Peckham. The air in the
working-class districts of London is not one whit worse than it is in
Mayfair or in Belgravia.
Hugh stood before an old coloured print representing the hobby-horse
school--the days of the “bone-shakers”--and studied it. He awaited Il
Passero and the advice which he had promised to give.
His ears were strained. That house was curiously quiet and forbidding.
The White Cavalier, whom he had believed to be the notorious Sparrow,
had been proved to be one of his assistants. He had now met the real,
elusive adventurer, who controlled half the criminal adventurers in
Europe, and had found in him a most genial friend. He was there to seek
his advice and to act upon it.
As he reflected, he realized that without the aid of The Sparrow he
would have long ago been in the hands of the police. So widespread was
the organization which The Sparrow controlled that it mattered not in
what capital he might be, the paternal hand of protection was placed
upon him--in Genoa, in Brussels, in London--anywhere.
It seemed that when The Sparrow protected any criminal the fugitive was
safe. He had been sent to Mrs. Mason in Kensington, and he had left her
room against The Sparrow’s will.
Hence his peril of arrest. It was that point which he wished to discuss
with the great arch-criminal of Europe.
That house was one of mystery. The servant had told him that he was
expected. Why? What did The Sparrow suspect?
The whole atmosphere of that old-fashioned place was mysterious and
apprehensive. And yet its owner had succeeded in extricating him from
that very perilous position at Monte Carlo!
Suddenly, as he stood there, he heard voices again. They were raised in
discussion.
One voice he recognized as that of The Sparrow.
“Well, I tell you my view is still the same,” he exclaimed. “What you
have told me does not alter it, however much you may ridicule me!”
“Then you know the truth--eh?”
“I really didn’t say so, my dear Howell. But I have my
suspicions--strong suspicions.”
“Which you will, in due course, impart to young Henfrey, I suppose?”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” was The Sparrow’s reply. “The lad is
in serious peril. I happen to know that.”
“Then why don’t you warn him at once?”
“That’s my affair!” snapped the gentleman known in Mayfair as Mr.
Peters.
“IF Henfrey is here, then I’d like to meet him,” Howell said.
It seemed as though the pair were in a room on the opposite side of the
passage, and yet, though Hugh stood at some distance away, he could hear
the words quite distinctly. At this he was much surprised. He did not,
however, know that in that house in Ellerston Street there had been
constructed a curious system of ventilation of the rooms by which a
conversation taking place in a distant apartment could be heard in
certain other rooms.
The fact was that The Sparrow received a good many queer visitors, and
some of their whispered conversations while they awaited him were often
full of interest.
The house was, in more than one way, a curiosity. It had a secret exit
through a mews at the rear--now converted into a garage--and several
other mysterious contrivances which were unsuspected by visitors.
“It would hardly do for him to know what we know, Mr. Peters--eh?”
Hugh heard Howell say a moment later. It was the habit of The Sparrow’s
accomplices to address their great director--the brain of criminal
Europe--by the name under which they inquired for him. The Sparrow had
twenty names--one for every city in which he had a cosy _pied-a-terre_.
In Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, Marseilles, Vienna, Hamburg, Budapest,
Stockholm and on the Riviera, he was, in all the cities, known by a
different name. Yet each was so distinct, and each individuality so well
kept up, that he snapped his fingers at the police and pitied them their
red tape, ignorance, and lack of initiative.
Truly, Il Passero, the cosmopolitan of many names and half a dozen
nationalities, had brought criminality to a fine art.
Hugh, standing there breathless, listened to every word. Who was this
man Howell?
“Hush!” cried The Sparrow suddenly. “What a fool I am! I quite forgot
to close the ventilator in the room to which the young fellow has been
shown! I hope he hasn’t overheard! I had Evans and Janson in there an
hour ago, and they were discussing me, as I expected they would! It was
a good job that I took the precaution of opening the ventilator, because
I learned a good deal that I had never suspected. It has placed me on
my guard. I’ll go and get young Henfrey. But,” he added, “be extremely
careful. Disclose nothing you know concerning the affair.”
“I shall be discreet, never fear,” replied his visitor.
A moment later The Sparrow entered the room where Henfrey was, and
greeted him warmly. Then he ushered him down the passage to the room
wherein stood his mysterious visitor.
The room was such a distance away that Hugh was surprised that he could
have heard so distinctly. But, after all, it was an uncanny experience
to be associated with that man of mystery, whose very name was uttered
by his accomplices with bated breath.
“My friend, Mr. George Howell,” said The Sparrow, introducing the slim,
wiry-looking, middle-aged man, who was alert and clean-shaven, and
plainly but well dressed--a man whom the casual acquaintance would take
to be a solicitor of a fair practice. He bore the stamp of suburbia all
over him, and his accent was peculiarly that of London.
His bearing was that of high respectability. The diamond scarf-pin was
his only ornament--a fine one, which sparkled even in that dull London
light. He was a square-shouldered man, with peculiarly shrewd, rather
narrow eyes, and dark, bushy eyebrows.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Henfrey,” he replied, with a gay, rather
nonchalant air. “My friend Mr. Peters has been speaking about you. Had a
rather anxious time, I hear.”
Henfrey looked at the stranger inquisitively, and then glanced at The
Sparrow.
“Mr. Howell is quite safe,” declared the man with the gloved hand. “He
is one of Us. So you may speak without fear.”
“Well,” replied the young man, “the fact is, I’ve had a very
apprehensive time. I’m here to seek Mr. Peters’ kind advice, for without
him I’m sure I’d have been arrested and perhaps convicted long ago.”
“Oh! A bit of bad luck--eh? Nearly found out, have you been? Ah! All of
us have our narrow escapes. I’ve had many in my time,” and he grinned.
“So have all of us,” laughed the bristly-haired man. “But tell me,
Henfrey, why have you come to see me so quickly?”
“Because they know where I’m in hiding!”
“They know? Who knows?”
“Miss Ranscomb knows my whereabouts and has written to me in my real
name and addressed the letter to Shapley.”
“Well, what of that?” he asked. “I told her.”
“She tells me that my present hiding-place is known!”
“Not known to the police? _Impossible_!” gasped the black-gloved man.
“I take it that such is a fact.”
“Why, Molly is there!” cried the man Howell. “If the police suspect that
Henfrey is at Shapley, then they’ll visit the place and have a decided
haul.”
“Why?” asked Hugh in ignorance.
“Nothing. I never discuss other people’s private affairs, Mr. Henfrey,”
Howell answered very quietly.
Hugh was surprised at the familiar mention of “Molly,” and the
declaration that if the Manor were searched the police would have “a
decided haul.”
“This is very interesting,” declared The Sparrow. “What did Miss
Ranscomb say in her letter?”
For a second Hugh hesitated; then, drawing it from his pocket, he gave
it to the gloved man to read.
Hugh knew that The Sparrow was withholding certain truths from him, yet
had he not already proved himself his best and only friend? Brock was a
good friend, but unable to assist him.
The Sparrow’s strongly marked face changed as he read Dorise’s angry
letter.
“H’m!” he grunted. “I will see her. We must discover why she has sent
you this warning. Come back again this evening. But be very careful
where you go in the meantime.”
Thus dismissed, Hugh walked along Ellerston Street into Curzon Street
towards Piccadilly, not knowing where to go to spend the intervening
hours.
The instant he had gone, however, The Sparrow turned to his companion,
who said:
“I wonder if Lisette has revealed anything?”
“By Jove!” remarked The Sparrow, for once suddenly perturbed. _“I never
thought of that!”_
TWENTY-SECOND CHAPTER
CLOSING THE NET
“Well--recollect how much the girl knows!” Howell remarked as he stood
before The Sparrow in the latter’s room.
“I have not forgotten,” said the other. “The whole circumstances of old
Henfrey’s death are not known to me. That it was an unfortunate affair
has long ago been proved.”
“Yvonne was the culprit, of course,” said Howell. “That was apparent
from the first.”
“I suppose she was,” remarked The Sparrow reflectively. “But that
attempt upon her life puzzles me.”
“Who could have greater motive in killing her out of revenge than the
dead man’s son?”
“Agreed. But I am convinced that the lad is innocent. Therefore I gave
him our protection.”
“I was travelling abroad at the time, you recollect. When I learnt of
the affair through Franklyn about a week afterwards I was amazed. The
loss of Yvonne to us is a serious one.”
“Very--I agree. She had done some excellent work--the affair in the Rue
Royale, for instance.”
“And the clever ruse by which she got those emeralds of the Roumanian
princess. The Vienna police are still searching for her--after three
years,” laughed the companion of the chief of the international
organization, whose word was law in the criminal underworld of Europe.
“Knowing what you did regarding the knowledge of old Mr. Henfrey’s death
possessed by Lisette, I have been surprised that you placed her beneath
your protection.”
“If she had been arrested she might have told some very unpleasant
truths, in order to save herself,” The Sparrow remarked, “so I chose the
latter evil.”
“Young Henfrey met her. I wonder whether she told him anything?”
“No. I questioned her. She was discreet, it seems. Or at least, she
declares that she was.”
“That’s a good feature. But, speaking frankly, have you any idea of the
identity of the person--man or woman--who attempted to kill Yvonne?”
asked Howell.
“I have a suspicion--a pretty shrewd suspicion,” replied the little
bristly-haired man.
His companion was silent.
“And you don’t offer to confide in me your suspicions--eh?”
“It is wiser to obtain proof before making any allegations,” answered
The Sparrow, smiling.
“You will still protect Lisette?” Howell asked. “I agree that, like
Yvonne, she has been of great use to us in many ways. Beauty and wit
are always assets in our rather ticklish branch of commerce. Where is
Lisette now?”
“At the moment, she’s in Madrid,” The Sparrow replied. “There is a
little affair there--the jewels of a Belgian’s wife--a fellow who,
successfully posing as a German during the occupation of Brussels, made
a big fortune by profiteering in leather. They are in Madrid for six
months, in order to escape unwelcome inquiries by the Government in
Brussels. They have a villa just outside the city, and I have sent
Lisette there with certain instructions.”
“Who is with her?”
“Nobody yet. Franklyn will go in due course.”
Howell’s thin lips relaxed into a curious smile.
“Franklyn is in love with Lisette,” he remarked.
“That is why I am sending them together to execute the little mission,”
The Sparrow said. “Lisette was here a fortnight ago, and I mapped out
for her a plan. I went myself to Madrid not long ago, in order to survey
the situation.”
“The game is worth the candle, I suppose--eh?”
“Yes. If we get the lot Van Groot, in Amsterdam, will give at least
fifteen thousand for them. Moulaert bought most of them from old Leplae
in the Rue de la Paix. There are some beautiful rubies among them. I saw
Madame wearing some of the jewels at the Palace Hotel, in Madrid, while
they were staying there before their villa was ready. Moulaert, with his
wife and two friends from the Belgian Legation, dined at a table next to
mine, little dreaming with what purpose I ate my meal alone.”
Truly, the intuition and cleverness of The Sparrow were wonderful. He
never moved without fully considering every phase of the consequences.
Unlike most adventurers, he drank hardly anything. Half a glass of dry
sherry at eleven in the morning, the same at luncheon, and one glass of
claret for his dinner.
Yet often at restaurants he would order champagne, choice vintage
clarets, and liqueurs--when occasion demanded. He would offer them to
his friends, but just sip them himself, having previously arranged with
the waiter to miss filling his glass.
Of the peril of drink “Mr. Peters” was constantly lecturing the great
circle of his friends.
Each year--on the 26th of February to be exact--there was held a dinner
at a well-known restaurant in the West End--the annual dinner of a
club known as “The Wonder Wizards.” It was supposed to be a circle of
professional conjurers.
This dinner was usually attended by fifty guests of both sexes, all
well-dressed and prosperous, and of several nationalities. It was
presided over by a Mr. Charles Williams.
Now, to tell the truth, the guests believed him to be The Sparrow;
but in reality Mr. Williams was the tall White Cavalier whom Hugh had
believed to be the great leader, until he had gone to Mayfair and met
the impelling personality whom the police had for so long failed to
arrest.
The situation was indeed humorous. It was The Sparrow’s fancy to hold
the reunion at a public restaurant instead of at a private house. Under
the very nose of Scotland Yard the deputy of the notorious Sparrow
entertained the chiefs of the great criminal octopus. There were
speeches, but from them the waiters learned nothing. It was simply
a club of conjurers. None suspected that the guests were those who
conjured fortunes out of the pockets of the unsuspecting. And while the
chairman--believed by those who attended to be The Sparrow himself--sat
there, the bristly-haired, rather insignificant-looking little man
occupied a seat in a far-off corner, from where he scrutinized his
guests very closely, and smiled at the excellent manner in which his
deputy performed the duties of chairman.
Because it was a club of conjurers, and because the conjurers displayed
their new tricks and illusions, after an excellent dinner the waiters
were excluded and the doors locked after the coffee.
It was then that the bogus Sparrow addressed those present, and gave
certain instructions which were later on carried into every corner of
Europe. Each member had his speciality, and each group its district
and its sanctuary, in case of a hue-and-cry. Every crime that could be
committed was committed by them--everything save murder.
The tall, thin man whom everyone believed to be The Sparrow never failed
to impress upon his hearers, after the doors were carefully locked, that
however they might attack and rob the rich, human life was sacred.
It was the real Sparrow’s order. He abominated the thought of taking
human life, hence when old Mr. Henfrey had been foully done to death in
the West End he had at once set to work to discover the actual criminal.
This he had failed to do. And afterwards there had followed the
attempted assassination of Yvonne Ferad, known as Mademoiselle of Monte
Carlo.
The two men stood discussing the young French girl, Lisette, whom Hugh
had met when in hiding in the Via della Maddalena in Genoa.
“I only hope; that she has not told young Henfrey anything,” Howell
said, with distinct apprehension.
“No,” laughed The Sparrow. “She came to me and told me how she had met
him in Genoa and discovered to her amazement that he was old Henfrey’s
son.”
“How curious that the pair should meet by accident,” remarked Howell.
“I tell you that Benton is not playing a straight game. That iniquitous
will which the old man left he surely must have signed under some
misapprehension. Perhaps he thought he was applying for a life
policy--or something of that short. Signatures to wills have been
procured under many pretexts by scoundrelly relatives and unscrupulous
lawyers.”
“I know. And the witnesses have placed their signatures afterward,”
remarked The Sparrow thoughtfully. “But in this case all seems above
board--at least so far as the will is concerned. Benton was old
Henfrey’s bosom friend. Henfrey was very taken with Louise, and I know
that he was desirous Hugh should marry her.”
“And if he did, Hugh would acquire the old man’s fortune, and Benton
would step in and seize it--as is his intention.”
“Undoubtedly. All we can do is to keep Hugh and Louise apart. The latter
is in entire ignorance of the true profession of her adopted father,
and she’d be horrified if she knew that Molly was simply a clever
adventuress, who is very much wanted in Paris and in Brussels,” said the
gloved man.
“A good job that she knows nothing,” said Howell. “But it would be a
revelation to her if the police descended upon Shapley Manor--wouldn’t
it?”
“Yes. That is why I must see Dorise Ranscomb and ascertain from her
exactly what she has heard. I know the police tracked Hugh to London,
and for that reason he went with Benton down into Surrey--out of the
frying-pan into the fire.”
“Well, before we can go farther, it seems that we should ascertain who
shot Yvonne,” Howell suggested. “It was a most dastardly thing, and
whoever did it ought to be punished.”
“He ought. But I’m as much in the dark as you are, Howell; but, as I
have already said, I entertain strong suspicions.”
“I’ll suggest one name--Benton?”
The Sparrow shook his head.
“The manservant, Giulio Cataldi?” Howell ventured. “I never liked that
sly old Italian.”
“What motive could the old fellow have had?”
“Robbery, probably. We have no idea what were Yvonne’s winnings that
night--or of the money she had in her bag.”