The Four Faces: A Mystery

CHAPTER XVI SECRETS OF DUSKY FOWL

To this day that drive to Paddington recalls to mind a nightmare. The entire confidence I had placed in Dulcie was shattered. Had anybody told me it was possible she could deceive me as she had done I should, I know, have insulted him—so infuriated should I have felt at the bare thought. And yet she clearly had deceived me, deceived me most horribly, inasmuch as she had done it in such cold blood and obviously with premeditation. Her eyes, which had always looked at me, as I thought, so truthfully, had gazed into mine that morning with the utmost coolness and self-possession while she deliberately lied to me. Dulcie a liar! The words kept stamping themselves into my brain until my head throbbed and seemed on the point of bursting. As the car sped along through the busy streets I saw nothing, heard nothing. The remarks she made to me seemed to reach my brain against my will. I answered them mechanically, in, for the most part, monosyllables.

What did it all mean? How could she continue to address me as though nothing in the least unusual had occurred? Did she notice nothing in my manner that appeared to be unusual? True, she addressed to me no term of endearment, which was singular; but so engrossed was I in my introspection and in my own misery that I scarcely noticed this. Indeed, had she spoken to me fondly, her doing so just then would but have increased the feeling of bitterness which obsessed me.

Several times during that drive I had been on the point of telling her all I knew, all I had seen and heard: the suspicions I entertained regarding her friend Connie—her abominable friend as she now seemed to me to be; the grave suspicions I entertained also regarding Gastrell, with whom she seemed to be on good terms, to say the least—these, indeed, were more than suspicions. But at the crucial moment my courage had failed me. How could I say all this, or even hint at it, in the face of all I now knew concerning Dulcie herself, Dulcie who had been so much to me, who was so much to me still though I tried hard to persuade myself that everything between us must now be considered at an end?

I saw her off at Paddington. Mechanically I kissed her; why I did I cannot say, for I felt no desire to. It was, I suppose, that instinctively I realized that if I failed to greet her then in the way she would expect me to she would suspect that I knew something. She had asked me during our drive through the streets of London who had told me where to find her; but what I answered I cannot recollect. I made, I believe, some random reply which apparently satisfied her.

For two hours I lay upon my bed in my flat in South Molton Street, tossing restlessly, my mind distraught, my brain on fire. Never before had I been in love, and perhaps for that reason I felt this cruel blowmy disillusionment—the more severely. Once or twice my man, Simon, knocked, then tried the door and found it locked, then called out to ask if anything were amiss with me. I scarcely heard him, and did not answer. I wanted to be left alone, left in complete solitude to suffer my deep misery unseen and unheard.

I suppose I must have slept at last—in bed at three and up at eight, my night had been a short one—for when presently I opened my eyes I saw that the time was half-past two. Then the thought flashed in upon me that in my telegram I had promised to go to Eton to see Dick by the train leaving Paddington at three. I had barely time to catch it. A thorough wash restored me to some extent to my normal senses, and at Paddington I bought a sandwich which served that day instead of lunch.

Once or twice before I had been down to Eton to see Dick, though on those occasions I had been accompanied by Sir Roland. I had little difficulty now in obtaining leave to take him out to tea. He wanted to speak to me "quite privately," he said as we walked arm in arm up the main street, so I decided to take him to the "White Hart," and there I ordered tea in a private room.

"Now, Mike," he said in a confidential tone, when at last we were alone, "this is what I want to draw your attention to," and, as he spoke, he produced a rather dirty envelope from his trousers pocket, opened it and carefully shook out on to the table several newspaper cuttings, each three or four lines in length.

"What on earth are those about, old boy?" I asked, surprised. "Newspaper advertisements, aren't they?"

"Yes, out of the Morning Post, all on the front page. If you will wait a minute I will put them all in order—the date of each is written on the back—and then you will see if things strike you in the way they have struck me."

These were the cuttings:

"I can't make head or tail of them," I said when I had looked carefully at each, and endeavoured to unravel its secret, for obviously it must possess some secret meaning. "What do you make of them, Dick—anything?"

"Yes. Look, and I will show you," he answered, going to the writing-table and bringing over pen, ink and paper. "I have always been fond of discovering, or trying to discover, the meanings of these queer cypher messages you see sometimes in some newspapers, and I have become rather good at it—I have a book that explains the way cyphers are usually constructed. I have found out a good many at one time and another, but this one took me rather a long time to disentangle. I can tell you, Mike, that when I found it concerned you I felt frightfully excited."

"Concerned me!" I exclaimed. "Oh, nonsense. What is it all about?"

"Follow me carefully, and I'll show you. I guessed from the first that it must be one of those cyphers that start their alphabet with some letter other than A, but this one has turned out to be what my book calls a 'complex alphabet' cypher. I tried and tried, all sorts of ways—I began the alphabet by calling 'b' 'a'; then by calling 'c' 'a'; then by calling 'd' 'a,' and so on all the way through, but that was no good. Then I tried the alphabet backwards, calling 'z' 'a'; then 'y' 'a'; right back to 'a,' but that wasn't it either. Then I tried one or two other ways, and at last I started skipping the letters first backwards, and then forwards. Doing it forwards, when I got to 'l' I found I had got something. I called 'l' 'a'; 'n' 'b'; 'p' 'c'; and so on, and made out bjptnbblx, the first word in the first cypher, to be the word 'improving,' and the two letters before it in capitals 'R.P.' to be really 'D.C.' The next cypher word, wamii, stumped me, as the code didn't make it sense; then it occurred to me to start the alphabet with 'm' instead of 'l,' skipping every alternate letter as before, and I made out wamii to mean 'shall.' The next cypher word, xvzzjv, I couldn't get sense out of by starting the alphabet with either 'l' or 'm,' so I tried the next letter, 'n,' skipping alternate letters once more, and that gave me the word 'settle.' I knew then that I had got the key, and I soon had the whole sentence. It ran as follows:

"D.C. improving shall settle all soon.—Dusky Fowl."

"Still, I wasn't much the wiser, and it never for a moment occurred to me that D.C. stood for Dulcie Challoner—"

"Good heavens, Dick!" I cried, "you don't mean to tell me that Dulcie—"

"Do be patient, brother-in-law, and let me go through the whole thing before you interrupt with your ejaculations," Dick said calmly. "Well, four days went by, and then in the Morning Post of February 7th the second advertisement appeared:

"The code was the same as the first, and I deciphered it quite easily. Here it is," and he read from a bit of paper he held in his hand:

"Date is February 28. Shall stay at Mount Royal Hotel, Bedlington.—Dusky Fowl."

There was nothing more after that until February 12th, when the third advertisement appeared, same code,—here it is deciphered:

"Car will be at Clun Cross two day February 28.—Dusky Fowl."

"That 'Dusky Fowl' bothered me a lot. I couldn't think what it meant. Several times I had gone through the names of all the 'dusky birds' I could think of—blackbird, rook, crow, raven, and so on, but nothing struck me, nothing seemed to make sense. Then the next day—yesterday—an advertisement in the same code appeared which startled me a lot because your name and Mr. Osborne's were in it, and it didn't take me long then to get at the meaning of 'Dusky Fowl.' Here is the advertisement from yesterday's Morning Post, and directly I had read it I wrote that letter asking you to come to see me at once, or to let me come to you."

He read out:

"Osborne and Berrington suspect. Take precautions. D.C. with me Hampstead.—Dusky Fowl"

"'Dusky Fowl' evidently stands for 'rook,' and 'rook' for 'Rook Hotel,' and 'Rook Hotel' for 'Mrs. Stapleton.' And that being the case, who else can 'D.C.' stand for but 'Dulcie Challoner'? It's as plain as a pike-staff."

"By Jove, Dick," I said after a few moments' pause, "I believe you are right!"

"I am sure I am," he answered with complete self-assurance.

This clearly was a most important discovery. I decided to take the cuttings and their solutions to Osborne the moment I got back to town, and I intended to go back directly after delivering Dick safely back at his school.

"Really," I exclaimed, feeling now almost as excited as the boy, "you are pretty clever, old chap, to have found out all that. I wonder, though, why Mrs. Stapleton doesn't telegraph or write to the man or people these messages are intended for. It would be much simpler."

"It wouldn't be safe, Mike. I read in a book once that people of that sort, the kind of people Mr. Osborne always speaks of as 'scoundrels,' nearly always communicate in some sort of cypher, and generally by advertising, because letters are so dangerous—they may miscarry, or be stopped, or traced, and then they might get used as evidence against the people who wrote them. By communicating in cypher and through a newspaper of course no risk of any sort is run."

"Except when the cyphers get deciphered," I said, "as you have deciphered these."

"Oh, but then people seldom waste time the way I do, trying to find these things out; when they do it's generally a fluke if they come across the key. It took me hours to disentangle the first of those advertisements—the rest came easy enough."

All this conversation had distracted my mind a good deal, and I began to feel better. For several minutes I was silent, wrapped in thought, and Dick had tact enough not to interrupt me. I was mentally debating if Dick might not, in more ways than one, prove a useful associate with Osborne, Preston and myself in our task of unveiling the gang of clever rogues and getting them convicted. One thing, which had struck me at once, but that I had not told Dick, for fear of exciting him too much, was that Bedlington was the large town nearest to Eldon Hall, the Earl of Cranmere's seat, the place the mysterious, unseen man in the house in Grafton Street had asked Jack Osborne about while he lay bound upon the bed; also that February 28th was the date when Cranmere's eldest son would come of age, on which day a week's festivities at Eldon would begin—and festivities at Eldon were events to be remembered, I had been told. What most occupied my thoughts, however, was the question I had asked myself—should I make a confidant of little Dick and tell him how things now stood between Dulcie and myself?

"Dick, old boy," I said, at last, "I wonder if I can treat you as I would a grown man—as I would treat some grown men, I should say."

"I dare say you could, brother-in-law," he answered. "Why don't you try?"

"Supposing that you were not to become my brother-in-law, as you seem so fond of calling me, would you be sorry?"

"I jolly well think I should!" he replied, looking up sharply. "But what makes you say a thing like that? It's all rot, isn't it?"

He seemed, as he looked at me with his big brown eyes which were so like Dulcie's, to be trying to discover if I spoke in jest or partly in earnest.

"You are going to marry Dulcie, aren't you? You're not going to break it off? You haven't had a row or anything of that kind"

"No, not exactly a row," I said, staring into his nice frank face.

"Then why do you talk about not becoming my brother-in-law? If you don't marry Dulcie you'll jolly nearly kill her. You don't know how fearfully fond of you she is. You can't know, or you wouldn't talk about not marrying her."

"I haven't talked about not marrying her," I answered hurriedly. "Tell me, Dick, is that true—what you say about her being so awfully fond of me?"

"I shouldn't say it if it wasn't true," he said with a touch of pride. "But what did you mean when you said you wondered if you could treat me as if I were a man?"

I put my arm round the lad, as he stood at the table, and drew him close to me.

"Dick, old boy," I said with a catch in my voice, "I am very unhappy, and I believe Dulcie is too, and I believe it is possible you may be able to put things right if you set about it in the right way. But first, tell me—you have talked to Mrs. Stapleton; do you like her?"

"I have never liked her from the first time she talked to me," he answered without an instant's hesitation. "And I don't like her any the better since I have heard you and Mr. Osborne talking about her, and since I spotted her in that advertisement yesterday."

"Well, Dick," I went on, "Mrs. Stapleton and Dulcie are now tremendous friends, and I believe that Mrs. Stapleton is trying to make Dulcie dislike me; I believe she says things about me to Dulcie that are untrue, and I think that Dulcie believes some of the things she is told."

"What a beastly shame! But, oh no, Mike, Dulcie wouldn't believe anything about you that was nasty—my word, I'd like to see anyone say nasty things to her about you!"

"I am glad you think that, but still—anyway, certain things have happened which I can't explain to you, and I am pretty sure Dulcie likes me less than she did. I want you to try to find that out, and to tell me. Will you try to if I can manage to get you a week-end at Holt?"

"Will I? You try me, Mike. And I won't only try to find out—I shall find out."

It was six o'clock when I arrived back at Eton with Dick. Word was sent to me that the headmaster would like to speak to me before I left. He came into the room a few minutes afterwards, told Dick to go away and return in ten minutes, then shut the door and came over to me. He looked extremely grave.

"Half an hour ago I received this telegram," he said, pulling one out of his pocket and handing it to me. "As I know you to be an intimate friend of Sir Roland's, you may like to read it before I say anything to Dick."

I unfolded the telegram. It had been handed in at Newbury at five o'clock, and ran:

"My daughter suddenly taken seriously ill. Dick must return at once. My butler will await him under the clock on Paddington departure platform at 7:15, and bring him down here. Please see that Dick is under clock at 7:15 this evening without fail.—CHALLONER."

I read the telegram twice, and even then I seemed unable to grasp its full significance. Dulcie seriously ill! Good God, what had happened to her—when we had parted on Paddington platform only a few hours before she had appeared to be in perfect health. Had this sudden attack, whatever it might be, any connection with Mrs. Stapleton, or with that hateful affair that I had witnessed the night before—my darling Dulcie gambling recklessly and losing, and then borrowing—from a woman I now fully believed to be an adventuress—money to go on gambling with? Was it even possible that, beside herself with dismay at the large amount of money she now owed Mrs. Stapleton, she had in a sudden moment of madness attempted to take—

I almost cried out as I banished from my brain the hideous thought. Oh, God, anything rather than that! I must get further news, and without a moment's loss of time. I must telegraph or telephone to Holt.

The headmaster's calm voice recalled me to my senses.

"It is indeed terrible news," he said sympathetically, struck, no doubt, at the grief which the news had stamped upon my face. "But it may, after all, be less serious than Sir Roland thinks. I was about to suggest, Mr. Berrington," he went on, pulling out his watch, "that as you are, I take it, returning to London by the 6:25, you might take Dick up with you and place him in charge of Sir Roland's butler who will be awaiting him at a quarter past seven under the clock on Paddington platform. If you can be so very kind as to do this it will obviate the necessity of my sending someone to London with him. I have given an order for such things as he way require to be packed, and they should be ready by now. We must break the news very gently to the boy, for I know that he is devoted to his sister, so for the boy's sake, Mr. Berrington, try to bear up. I know, of course, the reason of your deep grief, for Dick has told me that you are engaged to be married to his sister."

Hardly knowing what I said, I agreed to do as he suggested, and see Dick safely to Paddington. How we broke the news to him, and how he received it when we did break it, I hardly recollect. All I remember distinctly is standing in a telephone call office in Eton town, and endeavouring to get through to Holt Manor. Not until it was nearly time for the London train from Windsor to start, did the telephone exchange inform me they had just ascertained that the line to Holt Manor was out of order, and that they could not get through.

Anathematizing the telephone and all that had to do with it, I hurried out to the taxi in which Dick sat awaiting me.

All the way from Windsor to London we exchanged hardly a word. Dick, I knew, was terribly upset at the news, for his devotion to his sister was as well known to me as it was to his father and to Aunt Hannah. But he was a plucky little chap, and tried hard not to show how deeply the news had affected him. For my part my brain was in a tumult. To think that I should have parted from her that morning with feelings of resentment in my heart, and that now she lay possibly at death's door. Again and again I cursed myself for my irritability, my suspicions. Were they, after all, unjust suspicions? Might Dulcie not have excellent reasons to give for all that had occurred the night before? Might she not have been duped, and taken to that house under wholly false pretences? An uncle of hers believed to be dead, a brother of Sir Roland's, had, I knew, been a confirmed gambler. There was much in heredity, I reflected, in spite of modern theories to the contrary. Was it not within the bounds of possibility that Dulcie, taken to that gambling den by her infamous companion, and encouraged by her to play, might suddenly have felt within her the irresistible craving that no man or woman born a gambler has yet been able to overcome? And in any case, what right had I had metaphorically to sit in judgment upon her and jump to conclusions which might be wholly erroneous?

The train travelled at express speed through Slough, Didcot, and other small stations. It was within a mile of London, when my thoughts suddenly drifted. Why had Sir Roland not sent James direct to Windsor to meet Dick, instead of wasting time by sending him all the way to London? But perhaps James had been in town that day—he came up sometimes—and Sir Roland had wired to him there. Again, why had he not sent the car to Eton to fetch Dick away? That would have been the quicker plan; ah, of course he would have done that had it been possible, but probably the car had been sent into Newbury to fetch the doctor. That, indeed, was probably what had happened, for the telegram had been handed it at Newbury instead of at Holt Stacey. I knew that Sir Roland's chauffeur had a poor memory—it was well known to be his chief fault; probably he had shot through Holt Stacey, forgetting all about the telegram he had been told to send off there, and, upon his arrival in Newbury, remembered it and at once despatched it. Sir Roland had, I knew, a rooted dislike to telephoning telegraphic messages direct to the post office, and I had never yet known him dictate a telegram through his telephone. Oh, how provoking, I said again, mentally, as I thought of the telephone, that the instrument should have got out of order on this day of all days—the one day when I had wanted so urgently to use it!

Now the train was slowing down. It was rattling over the points as it passed into the station. Looking out of the window I could see the clock on the departure platform. A few people were strolling near it, but nobody was under it—at least no man. I could see a woman standing under it, apparently a young woman.

Dick's luggage consisted of a suit-case which we had taken into the carriage with us, and this I now carried for him as we descended into the sub-way. The clock on the departure platform is only a few yards from the exit of the sub-way, and, as we came out, the woman under the clock was not looking in our direction. Somehow her profile seemed familiar, and—

I stopped abruptly, and, catching Dick by the arm, pulled him quickly behind a pile of luggage on a truck. An amazing thought had flashed into my brain. As quickly as I could I gathered my scattered wits:

"Dick," I said after a few moments' reflection, trying to keep my brain cool, "I believe—I have an idea all isn't right. There is no sign of James, though our train was some minutes late and it is now twenty past seven—James was to be here at a quarter past, according to that telegram. But that woman waiting there—I know her by sight though I have never spoken to her. She might remember me by sight, so I don't want her to see me. Now look here, I want you to do this. Take hold of your suit-case, and, as soon as that woman's back is turned, walk up and stand under the clock, near her, as though you were awaiting someone. Don't look at her or speak to her. I believe this is some trick. I don't believe that telegram was sent by your father at all. I don't believe Dulcie is ill. I think that woman is waiting for you, and that when you have been there a few moments she will speak to you—probably ask you if you are Master Challoner, and then tell you that she has been sent instead of James to meet you, and ask you to go with her. If she does that, don't look in the least surprised, answer her quite naturally—you can inquire, if you like, how Dulcie is, though I shall not be a bit surprised if we find her at home perfectly well—and if she asks you to go with her, go. Don't be at all frightened, old chap; I shall follow, and be near you all the time, whatever happens. And look here, if I have guessed aright, and she does say that she has been asked to meet you and tells you to come along with her, just put your hand behind you for an instant, as you are walking away, and then I shall know."

"Oh, Mike, if Dulcie isn't ill, if after all nothing has happened to her—"

His feelings overcame him, and he could not say more.

I moved a little to one side of the pile of trunks, and peered out.

"Now, Dick—now!" I exclaimed, as I saw the woman turn her back to us.

Dick marched up to her, carrying his suit-case, and waited under the clock, just as I had told him to. He had not been there ten seconds when I saw the woman step up to him and speak to him.

They exchanged one or two remarks, then, turning, walked away together. And, as they walked, Dick's hand went up his back and he scratched an imaginary flea.

Instantly I began to walk slowly after them. Dick was being taken away by the dark, demure, quietly-dressed little woman I had seen at Connie Stapleton's dinner party, and, only the night before, standing among the onlookers in Gastrell's house in Cumberland Place.

CHAPTER XVII IS SUSPICIOUS

They walked leisurely along the platform, Dick still carrying his suit-case, and at the end of it passed down the sloping sub-way which leads to the Metropolitan Railway. For a moment they were out of sight, but directly I turned the corner I saw them again; they walked slower now, Dick evidently finding his burden rather heavy. At the pigeon-hole of the booking-office a queue of a dozen or so were waiting to buy tickets. The woman and Dick did not stop, however. I saw them pass by the queue, and then I saw the woman hold out tickets to the collector to be clipped, and as I took my place at the back end of the queue she and Dick passed on to the Praed Street platform.

To what station should I book? I had no idea where they were going, so decided to go to High Street, Kensington, and pay the difference if I had to follow them further. There were still six people in front of me, when I heard the train coming in.

"Hurry up in front!" I called out in a fever of excitement, dreading that I might not get a ticket in time.

"All right, my man—don't shove!" the man immediately before me exclaimed angrily, pushing back against me. "This ain't the only train, you know; if you miss this you can catch the next!"

I believe he deliberately took a long time getting out his money. Anyway, before I had bought my ticket the train had started. A moment later I stood upon the platform, watching, in a frenzy of despair, the red tail-light of the train containing Dick and the strange woman disappearing into the tunnel.

I felt literally beside myself. What in the world had I done! I had deliberately let the strange woman take Dick away with her, without having the remotest idea where she was going or why she had, to all intents, abducted the boy. It was awful to think of—and I alone was entirely to blame! Then the thought came back to me that I had told Dick to have no fear, assuring him that I would be near him all the time. What would the headmaster say who had confided him to my care? Worse, what would Sir Roland say when I confessed to him what I had done?

These and other maddening thoughts were crowding into my brain as I stood upon the platform, dazed, and completely at a loss what to do, when somebody nudged me. Turning, I recognized at once the man in the snuff-coloured suit who had told me so rudely "not to shove," and had then dawdled so while buying his railway ticket. I was about to say something not very complimentary to him, when he spoke.

"I trust you will forgive my apparent rudeness a moment ago at the booking-office," he said in a voice I knew quite well, "but there's a method in my madness. I am Preston—George Preston."

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, the sudden revulsion of feeling almost overpowering me. "But do you know what has happened—do you know that Sir Roland Challoner's son I had charge of has—"

"Don't distress yourself, Mr. Berrington," he interrupted reassuringly, "I know everything, and more than you know, but I rather feared that you might see through this disguise. I have been loafing about Paddington station for nearly an hour. The lady I expected to see arrived just after seven, and took up her position under the clock. Then I saw you and the lad arrive; I saw you recognize the woman; I saw you put yourself out of sight behind the pile of trunks, and talk earnestly to the lad for a few moments, and I guessed what you were saying to him. I walked right past you in the sub-way, and intentionally made you miss this train, because it is inexpedient that you should follow those two. I know where they are going, and Mr. Osborne knows too; I needn't trouble to explain to you here how I come to know all this. The thing you have to do now is to come with me to my house off Regent Street, where Mr. Osborne awaits us."

Never in my life, I suppose, have I felt so relieved as I did then, for the mental pain I had endured during these few minutes had been torture. Indeed, I felt almost indignant with Preston for his having made me suffer so; but he explained that he had revealed himself to me the moment he felt justified in doing so. Suddenly a thought occurred to me.

"Do you know," I asked him quickly, "anything of a telegram sent to Eton this morning, apparently by Sir Roland, saying that Miss Challoner had been taken suddenly ill, and requesting that his son might be sent home to Holt at once?"

"Yes, I know, because—I sent it."

"You sent it!"

"Yes—though I didn't write it. Mrs. Stapleton wrote it. She gave it to her chauffeur, who was in the hall at the Rook Hotel, and when she was gone he asked me if I would mind handing it in, as I had intentionally told him I was going to the post office. I was a chauffeur, too, at the time, chauffeur to 'Baron Poppenheimer,' whom I drove down this morning in his car ostensibly to see the beautiful widow. 'Baron Poppenheimer' was, of course, Mr. Osborne. The widow was not at 'The Book' when we arrived—we knew she wouldn't be, and, of course, you know where she was, she was at the house in Hampstead where you found Miss Challoner when you called there this morning; she arrived home about two o'clock, however, and while 'Baron Poppenheimer' was making himself agreeable to her—your friend Mr. Osborne is a most splendid actor, and ought to have been in the detective force—I was making headway with her chauffeur out in the garage. Yes, Mr. Berrington, you can set your mind at rest—Miss Challoner is perfectly well. I wonder if by chance you telephoned to Holt this afternoon."

"I tried to."

"And you couldn't get through? The line was out of order?"

"Yes."

"Good!" Preston exclaimed, his small, intelligent eyes twinkling oddly. "That is as I thought. One of Gastrell's accomplices set the line out of order between three and five this afternoon. When the line comes to be examined the electrician will, unless I am greatly mistaken, find the flaw at some point between Holt Stacey and Holt Manor—if you should happen to hear, you might tell me the exact point where they find that the trouble exists. My theories and my chain of circumstances are working out splendidly—I haven't as yet made a single false conjecture. And now come along to my house, and I'll tell you more on the way."

Osborne sat in Preston's sitting-room, smoking a long cigar. He no longer wore the disguise of "Baron Poppenheimer," or any disguise, and upon our entry he uttered an exclamation.

"By Jove, Mike," he said, "you are the very man we've been wanting all day. Where did you disappear to last night?" And turning to Preston he added, "Were you right? Did he follow the widow and Miss Challoner home last night?"

"Yes," I answered for him, "I did. Did you see Dulcie at Gastrell's last night?"

"I should say so—and we saw you gazing at her. You nearly gave yourself away, Mike; you did, indeed. You ought to be more careful. When we saw you follow them out of the room, we knew, just as though you had told us, that you meant to follow them home. And what about the boy?" he said, addressing Preston. "Did he turn up? And was he met?"

"Yes, just as I expected; but he wasn't met by Sir Roland's butler, of course. He was met by Doris Lorrimer—you have probably noticed her, that dark, demure, quietly dressed girl who was at Connie Stapleton's dinner party at 'The Rook,' and at Gastrell's last night."

"You don't mean to say that she, too, is one of Gastrell's accomplices!" Jack exclaimed. "It seems impossible—looking like that!"

"I have suspected it for some time. Now I am sure. She has taken Dick Challoner to Connie Stapleton's house in Hampstead. It's one of the headquarters of the set, though, of course, the principal headquarters are at 300 Cumberland Place. How furious Lord Easterton would be if he knew! He suspects nothing as yet, I think."

"But how do you know that Doris Lorrimer has taken the boy to that Hampstead house?" Osborne asked quickly; "and why has she taken him?"

"The gang have kidnapped him—It was Connie Stapleton's idea—in order to get the reward they feel sure Sir Roland will offer for his recovery. How I know where Doris Lorrimer has taken him is that Connie Stapleton's chauffeur, with whom I fraternized this afternoon in Newbury, happened to mention that his mistress had told Miss Lorrimer to be under the clock at Paddington at seven-fifteen this evening to meet the man with the parcel,' as she said, and then to take the 'parcel' to her house in Hampstead! I won't tell you until later how I come to know the kidnapping was Mrs. Stapleton's idea; I have a reason for not telling you—yet."

"You certainly are a marvel, George," Jack said, as he blew a cloud towards the ceiling. "We seem to be well on the way now to running these scoundrels to ground. I shall be glad to see them convicted—right glad."

"We are 'on the way'—yes," Preston answered, "but you'll find it a longer 'way' than you expect, if you are already thinking of convictions. You don't know—you can't have any idea of—the slimness of these rogues if you suppose we are as yet anywhere near running them to ground. Just look how clever they have already been: first there is the fire in Maresfield Gardens and the discovery of the stabbed and charred body, for you may depend upon it that fire was meant to conceal some crime, probably murder, by destroying all traces, including that body which ought by rights to have been entirely consumed; then there is the robbery at Holt Manor; then the affair in Grafton Street, with yourself as the victim; then the murder of Sir Roland's gardener, Churchill—all these constitute mysteries, undiscovered crimes, and now comes this business of kidnapping Sir Roland's young son."

We talked at considerable length, discussing past and present happenings, and arranging our future line of action. Preston was immensely interested in the cypher messages unravelled by Dick—I had brought the cuttings with me to show to him and Jack. The reference to the date of the coming of age of Cranmere's son, considered in connection with the questions about Cranmere's seat, Eldon Hall, put to Osborne during his mysterious confinement in Grafton Street, made the detective almost excited. The unravelling of those cyphers was, he said, perhaps the most important discovery as yet made. Indeed, he believed that our knowledge of these messages might simplify matters Sufficiently to lead directly to the arrest of at any rate some members of the gang at a much earlier date than he had previously anticipated.

"It is clear," he said, as he put the cuttings into the envelope again and handed them back to me, "that Gastrell and company contemplate a coup of some sort either on the day Lord Cranmere's son comes of age, or on one day during the week of festivities that will follow. 'Clun Cross.' We must find out where Clun Cross is; probably it's somewhere in Northumberland, and most likely it's near Eldon Hall. I suppose, Osborne, that you are invited to the coming of age, as you know Cranmere so well?"

"Yes, and I mean to go. But Berrington isn't invited; he doesn't know Cranmere."

"He probably knows what he looks like, though," Preston answered, laughing—he was thinking of his impersonation of the Earl, and his wonderful make-up. "I am not invited either, professionally or otherwise, so that Mr. Berrington and I had better go to Bedlington and put our heads together there, for something is going to happen at Eldon Hall, Osborne, you may take my word for that. We mustn't, however, forget that last cypher message: 'Osborne and Berrington suspect; take precautions.' 'Precautions' with such people may mean anything. I am firmly of opinion that poor Churchill's assassination was a 'precautionary' measure. It was on the afternoon before that murder, remember, that Churchill found the paste buckle at the spot where a grey car had been seen, left deserted, on the morning of the robbery at Holt. It was on the afternoon before that murder that he brought the buckle to Miss Challoner, told her about the grey car he had seen, which, he said, led him to suspect something, and asked to have the afternoon off. It was on that same afternoon that Mrs. Stapleton happened to motor over to Holt, and while there was told by Miss Challoner all about the finding of the buckle, also all about Churchill's secret suspicion about the car, and his asking to have the afternoon off, presumably to pursue his inquiries. And what happened after that? Don't you remember? Mrs. Stapleton telephoned from Holt to the Book Hotel in Newbury and talked to someone there—her maid, so she said—for five minutes or more, talked to her in Polish. Now, does anything suggest itself to either of you? Don't you think it quite likely that Mrs. Stapleton, hearing from Miss Challoner all about what had happened, telephoned in Polish certain instructions to somebody in Newbury, most likely one of her accomplices, and that those instructions led, directly or indirectly, to Churchill's being murdered the same night, lest he should discover anything and give information? One thing I am sure of, though—Mrs. Stapleton's chauffeur is an honest man who does not in the least suspect what is going on; who, on the contrary, believes his mistress to be a most estimable woman, kind, considerate, open-handed. I found that out while associating with him to-day as a fellow-chauffeur."

It was nearly nine o'clock before we went out into Soho to dine. Preston told us that he had arranged to call at Willow Road for Dick between ten and half-past. The three of us were to go to Hampstead and represent ourselves as being instructed by Sir Roland to take the boy away. Preston himself would, he said, represent himself as being an Eton master, and Doris Lorrimer was to be closely cross-questioned as to who had authorized her to meet the boy and take him to Hampstead and—

Well, Preston had thoroughly thought out his plan of action down to the smallest detail, and during dinner in the little restaurant in Gerrard Street, to which he had taken us, he explained it to us fully. Briefly, his intention was to frighten Doris Lorrimer half out of her senses by threatening instant prosecution if she did not, then and there, make certain disclosures which would help on our endeavour to bring to justice the whole gang with which she was evidently associated.

"But supposing," I hazarded, "we don't see Doris Lorrimer. Supposing we see only a servant, who assures us that we are mistaken, and that Dick isn't there. Supposing that Mrs. Stapleton, or even Gastrell, should confront us. What then?"

"I have carefully considered all those possibilities," Preston answered lightly as he refilled my glass, then Jack's, and then his own. "If anything of that kind should happen I shall simply—but there, leave it to me and I think you will be satisfied with the outcome. You must remember, Mr. Berrington, that I have been at this sort of thing over twenty years. Well, here's luck to our enterprise," and, raising his glass, he clinked it against our glasses in turn, then emptied it at a draught.

"And now," he said, preparing to rise, "we must be moving. We have rather a ticklish task before us, though I have no fear whatever as to its sequel, provided you leave most of the talking to me. In any case there must be no violence, remember. The only thing I regret is that the lad will most likely be asleep, so that we shall have to awaken him."

Punctually at half-past ten our taxi drew up outside the house numbered 460 Willow Road, Hampstead.

CHAPTER XVIII CONTAINS ANOTHER SURPRISE

Lights were in most of the windows, as though a party were in progress.

Preston rang the bell. It was answered at once by a maid who had answered it in the morning, and before Preston had time to speak the maid asked us if we would come in. This time she showed us into a room a good deal larger than the one in which I had been interviewed by Gastrell in the morning. Very beautifully furnished, on all sides what is termed the "feminine touch" was noticeable, and among a number of framed photographs on one of the tables I recognized portraits of well-known Society people, several with autograph signatures, and one or two with affectionate inscriptions. I wondered to whom they had been presented, and to whom the affectionate inscriptions were addressed.

We waited a few minutes, wondering what would happen next, and who would come in to see us, for the maid had not even asked our names, though I saw that she had recognized me. For a moment it occurred to me that we ought to have changed into evening clothes, and I was about to tell Preston so when the door opened and Jasmine Gastrell entered, accompanied, to my amazement, by Dulcie Challoner.

I think even Preston was taken aback—and it took a great deal to astonish Preston. Osborne, I could see, was dumbfounded. Jasmine Gastrell was the first to speak, and she addressed me without looking either at Osborne or Preston.

"Good evening, Mr. Berrington," she said, with one of those wonderful smiles of hers which seemed entirely to transform her expression; "this is an unexpected pleasure."

How strangely different she now looked from the way she had looked at me in Cumberland Place when, disguised as Sir Aubrey Belston, I had pretended to read her past life! She turned to Jack, and, raising her eye-brows as though she had only that instant recognized him, "Why," she exclaimed, "it's Mr. Osborne! I had no idea we were to have the pleasure of seeing you here to-night—had you, Dulcie?"

Dulcie, who was standing by quite unconcernedly, turned at once to me without answering Mrs. Gastrell's question.

"Dear old Mike," she said, "how delightful of you to have come. I do hope you have entirely recovered. You looked so ill when you saw me off at Paddington this morning that I felt anxious about you all the way home. What was the matter with you? Have you any idea?"

I was so staggered, first at finding her at this house again, and then at her addressing me in the calm way she did, that for some moments I could not answer. Jack and Preston, now in conversation with Jasmine Gastrell, did not notice my hesitation. At last, collecting my scattered thoughts, I answered:

"I am quite well, Dulcie. There was nothing really much amiss with me this morning—I thought you knew that."

I stopped abruptly. What else could I say?

Under the circumstances I could not well speak about the telegram, and say why we had arrived in this way at such an unusual hour.

"I suppose you have come about Dick," she went on suddenly. "He is asleep now—he was so tired, poor little chap."

"Dulcie," I burst out impetuously under my breath, casting a hurried glance at the other three, who, still in conversation, did not appear to notice us. "Dulcie, what is the meaning of all this? Why are you here? Why is Dick here? I want to see you—I must see you alone as soon as possible—there is so much I want to say to you, want to ask you; such a lot has happened during the past day or two that I can't understand, and that I want to have explained. Tell me, my darling," I went on hurriedly, "when and where can we can meet—alone?"

She gave a delightful little laugh, and tapped me playfully with her fan—she and Jasmine were in evening dress. Then, looking roguishly up into my eyes, she went on:

"So far as Dick is concerned, everything is easily explained. When I got home this morning I felt very unwell. I found father terribly anxious at my absence, and Aunt Hannah in what I call one of her fits of tantrums. I went to lie down, and, while I was asleep, father came and looked at me. For some reason he got it into his head that I looked very ill, and just then Connie arrived in her car——she went to Holt direct from London, as she wanted to explain to father the reason she didn't take me home last night, and at the same time make her apologies for the anxiety she knew she must unintentionally have caused him; father, you know, likes Connie very much. After seeing me in bed he had jumped to the conclusion that I was really very ill and ought to see a doctor at once. Connie said that as she was going straight to Newbury she would, if he liked, send Doctor Claughton out to Holt. Then father said something about letting Dick know I was ill, and Connie volunteered to send a telegram to Eton, signed with father's name, and father said he wished she would. And that is the explanation of the whole affair."

"Explanation!" I exclaimed. "I don't call that half an explanation. What about James being told to meet Dick at Paddington and then not turning up?"

"Oh, that was a mistake of Connie's. James was in town to-day, and Connie understood father to say that he would telegraph to James and tell him to meet Dick at Paddington. After telegraphing to Eton in father's name, from Newbury, she found she had made a mistake, so then she telegraphed to Doris Lorrimer to meet Dick. After the doctor had seen me, he told father there was nothing to be in the least alarmed about; in fact gave father to understand that his imagination had played pranks with him; so then father telephoned to Connie at the Book Hotel, and they decided there was no need for Dick to come home, and Connie suggested Dick's spending the night here and returning to Eton to-morrow."

I did not speak for some moments. At last I said:

"Dulcie, who told you all this?"

"Why, Connie, of course. Father had to attend an important magistrates' meeting in Newbury this afternoon, and, as I seemed quite well again, she got father's leave to bring me up to town again to meet some friends of hers who are here to-night. Now are you satisfied, Mike?"

"No, I am not," I answered bluntly. "Dulcie, have you seen Dick since he arrived here?"

"No, he had gone to bed before I arrived, and Connie said I had better not disturb him."

"My darling," I said a moment later, "I must see you alone. When can I?"

"Would to-morrow morning suit you, dear?" she asked, looking at me with her frank brown eyes. As I returned the gaze I found it impossible to believe that she had wittingly deceived me that morning, or indeed at any time, and yet—

"Yes. Shall we say at twelve o'clock?" I suggested. "And shall I call here for you?"

"That will do beautifully. Oh, Mike, my darling," she said quickly, under her breath, "I hope you still love me just as much as you did; I don't know why, but somehow I sometimes feel that you mistrust me—even that you suspect me of something or other, I don't know what."

"Dulcie!" I exclaimed impulsively, and I made as though to seize her hand, then remembered we were not alone, and refrained. "Dulcie, there are things I want you to explain to me, mysteries that only you can clear up. I don't really mistrust you, my own darling; indeed, indeed I don't; but I mistrust some of the people you mix with and have made friends of, more than that, I happen to know that some of them are no better than adventurers, and I want to get you away from them. What house is this we are in? I mean whose is it and who lives here?"

But at that instant our conversation was interrupted by Jasmine Gastrell.

"Oh, you lovers!" she exclaimed, laughing as she looked across at us. "What heaps and heaps lovers seem to have to tell each other after being parted for a few hours. It reminds me of my own young days," she added archly, for she looked barely seven-and-twenty. "Mr. Osborne has just told me, Dulcie, that he is asked to stay at Eldon Hall for Lord Cranmere's son's coming of age, on the twenty-eighth. I have been invited too; I do wish you were going to be there. Connie has accepted."

Ten minutes later, as the three of us sauntered slowly along Willow Road, we realized—at least I can answer for myself—that in spite of our careful scheming, and our complete confidence in the success of our plan, we had been cleverly outwitted. Not for a moment had Preston, or Jack Osborne, believed the long story that Jasmine Gastrell had related to them while Dulcie and I had been engrossed in conversation, a story it is unnecessary to repeat, though it had been told apparently with a view to leading them to think that Mrs. Gastrell was shortly to make a tour round the world. In the same way I had not been deceived by the ingenious tissue of implications and falsehoods that Connie Stapleton had poured into Dulcie's ear, and that Dulcie had innocently repeated to me. What most astonished me, however, was the rapidity with which Connie Stapleton and Jasmine Gastrell seemed able to concoct these ingenious and plausible narratives to account for anything and everything that happened on any occasion. A single discrepancy, for instance, in the story that Dulcie had just repeated to me would have brought the whole fabric of what appeared to be true statements—though I believed them to be false—crumbling to the ground. But there had been no such discrepancy. Everything that had occurred during the afternoon in relation to Dick, the telegram sent to Eton, Doris Lorrimer's meeting him in place of Sir Roland's butler, had been accounted for simply and quite rationally. And yet I felt firmly convinced the statements must in the main be a series of monstrous untruths, a belief in which Preston, with all his experience, concurred. Only two points puzzled me. Neither Jasmine Gastrell nor Connie Stapleton, nor, indeed, anybody else, could by any possibility have known that Preston, Jack, and I contemplated calling at the house in Willow Road that evening. How came it, then, that everything had been so skilfully arranged with a view to disarming our suspicions when we did call? That, I confess, was a problem so complicated that it formed the one and only argument in favour of the story that Dulcie had repeated to me being in part true. The other puzzling point was Dulcie's being at that house that night, and her knowing that Dick was there. Surely if Connie Stapleton and her accomplices had intended to kidnap Dick for the purpose of extorting money from Sir Roland, they would not intentionally have let Dulcie know what was happening. And, arguing thus with myself, I began at last to wonder if, after all, I had been mistaken; if, after all, Mrs. Stapleton had not invented that story, but had told Dulcie the truth. I confess that the more I thought it all over and the harder I tried to sift possible facts from probable fiction the more hopelessly entangled I became. Perhaps the strongest argument in favour of my theory that we were being cleverly and systematically hoaxed lay in Dick's discovery of the cypher messages in the Morning Post. There could, at any rate, be no getting away from the cypher message which had appeared on the previous day and that ran: "Osborne and Berrington suspect. Take precautions"

Then I thought again of Dulcie. It was appalling, almost incredible, that she should be allowed to associate with men and women whom we practically knew to be adventurers, and who might be not merely adventurers, but criminals masquerading as respectable members of Society. Yet I was impotent to prevent her; it was, of course, Sir Roland's duty to forbid her to mix with these people, but then Sir Roland, from being powerfully attracted by the young widow Connie Stapleton, was, as I had long ago guessed, becoming deeply enamoured of her; so that, far from preventing Dulcie from associating with her—Dulcie, with her strange infatuation for the woman—he deliberately encouraged the intimacy. Well, next morning, at any rate, I should see Dulcie alone, I reflected, with a feeling of satisfaction, and then I would have it out with her and go into the whole affair thoroughly, speaking to her with brutal frankness—even at the risk of hurting her feelings and incurring her displeasure I would tell her everything I knew and all that I suspected. Something must be done, and at once, to put an end to her absurd attachment to the widow—I had thought it all over quite long enough; it was now time to act. And Dick too; I must get hold of him and question him narrowly to find out if his story of what happened from the time he left me on Paddington platform and went and stood beside Doris Lorrimer under the clock, and his arrival at Willow Road, Hampstead, tallied with the story that Connie Stapleton had told Dulcie, and that Dulcie had related to me—for I somehow fancied that the two narratives might differ to some extent, if only in their minor details.

We were approaching Hampstead Tube station when Preston, turning to me from Jack Osborne, with whom he had been in close conversation, inquired:

"Has Sir Roland lately said anything to you, Mr. Berrington, that interested you particularly? Has he thrown out any hint of any sort?"

I reflected.

"Nothing that I can recollect," I said. "Have you reason to suppose that he has something of special interest that he wants to say to me?"

"I have, but until he speaks it is not for me to make any comment."

We had reached the Tube station. Jack booked to Russell Square; Preston to Piccadilly Circus; and I took a ticket to Bond Street, those being the stations nearest to our respective destinations.

"Are you aware," Preston said soon after the train had started, "that since we left my house and went to dine in Soho, we have been followed? I wanted to be perfectly certain before telling you, but I see now that I was right in my suspicion. Look to your left presently, one at a time, and at the end of the compartment you'll see quite an ordinary-looking man, apparently a foreigner, smoking a cheroot—the man seated alone, with a lot of hair on his face."

"You wouldn't notice him if he passed you in the street, would you?" he said after we had looked, "but I have noticed him all the evening. He was in Warwick Street when we all came out of my house; he followed us to Soho; he was in Gerrard Street, awaiting us, when we came out of the restaurant after dining; he came after us to Hampstead; he has followed us from Willow Road to the Tube station, and he is in this compartment now for the purpose of observing us. I want you each not to forget what he is like, and in a few minutes, when we all separate, I shall be curious to see which of us he follows—to know which of us he is really shadowing."

Jack was the first to alight. He bade us each a cheery good night, after reminding us that we were all three to meet on the following afternoon, and hurried out. The hairy man with the cheroot remained motionless, reading his newspaper.

My turn came next—at Oxford Circus station. As I rose, I noticed the man carelessly fold up his newspaper, cram it into his coat pocket, and get up. Rather to my surprise I did not, after that, see him again. He was not with me in the carriage of the train I changed into, nor was he, apparently, on the platform at Bond Street station when I got out. As I pushed my latch-key into the outer door of South Molton Street Mansions, I glanced quickly up and down the street, but, so far as I could see, there was no sign of the man.

However, a surprise awaited me. Upon entering my flat I noticed a light in the sitting-room at the end of the little passage—the door stood ajar. Entering quickly, I uttered an exclamation of amazement. For in the big arm-chair in front of the fire—the fire burned as though it had lately been made up—Dick lay back fast asleep, his lips slightly parted, his chest rising and falling in a way that showed how heavily he slept.

Recovering from my amazement, I stood for a minute or two watching him. How delightful he looked when asleep like that, and what a strong resemblance he bore to Dulcie. But how came he to be here? And how came Dulcie to have told me, less than an hour before, that he was in the house at Hampstead, and asleep there? Gazing down upon him still, I wondered what really had happened since I had last seen him that evening, and what story he would have to tell me when he awoke.

My man had gone to bed, for it was now past midnight. Considering where I had better put Dick to sleep, my glance rested upon some letters lying on the table. Mechanically I picked them up and looked at the handwritings on the envelopes. Nothing of interest, I decided, and I was about to put them down again, unopened, when I noticed there was one from Holt that I had overlooked. The handwriting was Sir Roland's. Hastily tearing open the envelope, I pulled out the letter. It was quite short, but its contents sent my heart jumping into my mouth, and had Dick not been asleep close by in the chair I believe I should have used some almost unprintable language.

"Oh, the fool—the silly, doddering, abject old fool!" I exclaimed aloud as I flung the open letter down on to the table and began to pace the room in a fury of indignation. "'No fool like an old fool'—oh, those words of wisdom—the man who first uttered them should have a monument erected to his memory," I continued aloud; then suddenly, as Dick stirred in his sleep, I checked myself abruptly.

The letter Sir Roland Challoner had written to me ran as follows:

"My dear Mike,—As you and Dulcie are engaged, I dare say you will be interested, and you may be surprised, to hear of another engagement. I have asked Dulcie's beautiful friend, Mrs. Stapleton, to become my wife, and she has done me the honour of accepting my proposal. Write to congratulate me, my dear Mike, and come down again soon to stay with us.

"Yours affectionately,

"ROLAND CHALLONER."