CHAPTER TWELVE
At the end of the week, the Jasper Stormonts moved to the fine old Tudor house at Effington. And, shortly before they did so, there came for Lydon an invitation from his future uncle-in-law which the young man fancied had been instigated by the banker. If it did not interfere with his business arrangements, would Leonard make the Hall his headquarters for the next week, going up to London in the morning and returning when the duties of the day were done? Jasper Stormont’s holiday was to be only a brief one, and shortly he would return to China for another long period of exile. Perhaps in this brief time he wished to see as much as possible of the man who was to marry his daughter, in order to prove if further acquaintance would increase or diminish his first favourable impressions of him.
For Gloria had told him that her father had formed an exceedingly good opinion of him, and expressed his satisfaction that she had made such a wise choice.
“And dear dad’s opinion is worth having,” said the girl proudly. She was fond of her uncle, very grateful to him for all he had done for her, for the happiness he had brought into her life. But it was easy to see that for her father she had a great respect almost amounting to reverence, in addition to her filial love. No doubt, so far as character was concerned, she put the two men on totally different planes. And Lydon knew that her instinct was right. Even if he had never opened that letter to Zillah Mayhew, and still believed Howard Stormont to be what he had originally thought him—a shrewd, blunt, genial fellow—he would have soon discovered that Jasper was made of the sounder metal.
The young man laughingly told his sweetheart that he thought her father had been at the bottom of this unusual invitation, and she admitted it.
“He’s a very keen judge of character,” she said. “In his responsible position he is bound to be. And he says you never thoroughly know a man till you have stayed in the same house with him. No doubt that is why he wanted you here daily for a time.”
“Till he had completed his investigations, eh?” observed Lydon, with an amused smile, although at the same time he had every sympathy with regard to Jasper’s anxiety on behalf of his child. “Well, dear, I shall have to mind my P’s and Q’s, shan’t I? I must take care not to come down grumpy in the morning, or show any of the latent villainy that is hidden somewhere in my disposition.”
The girl laughed happily. She had inherited her father’s capacity for reading character, and she had not much fear of this open, honest, even-tempered young fellow, whose moods hardly ever seemed to vary.
It occurred to Lydon that, on this visit, Stormont was devoting himself much more closely to his business, whatever it might be, than was usual with him. He went up pretty early to London every day, and on two occasions he missed dinner, and did not return till late in the evening. Evidently something of importance was going on.
There were, strange to relate, no dinner parties during that week. Lydon could hardly believe there was so much affection between the two men that Howard wanted to enjoy his brother’s company without interruption. He thought it was rather a matter of policy.
Howard knew that, if questioned, Gloria would not be able to conceal the fact of his extravagance. She might even let out that there were periods when he was obviously short of money, and in view of these possible confidences he did not wish to give Jasper the elder brother’s privilege of lecturing him. In the eyes of such a financial purist as the banker, his happy-go-lucky methods would savour of nothing short of criminal folly.
Lydon listened to his sentiments one night when the two men were together in the smoking-room, on the second occasion on which Howard had not returned to dinner. The banker’s face was very grim as he delivered his criticism on what he knew and had observed.
“I have known next to nothing of my brother’s affairs since he left England. I knew he went to Australia for a while and that things did not prosper greatly with him there. When his letter arrived, offering to adopt Gloria, and stating that he was firmly on his feet, I accepted what he said in good faith. Her letters showed they were all leading a very luxurious life, and that money seemed to be spent like water. Of course, I was terribly disillusioned when, such a short time ago, I learned the actual truth. Without mincing words, I can tell you I was not only surprised but intensely disgusted, especially when I heard of that thousand pounds borrowed from you. It hit Gloria very hard, that transaction. She is a girl of extremely delicate feeling, and under the peculiar circumstances it was in the very worst taste. Drowning men, we know, catch at straws; it showed how very near to drowning he must have been. He is no fool; he must know how ugly it would look to a third party.”
Lydon made no comment. Had things not been as they were, he might have put up some defence for Howard Stormont, out of his natural kindness of heart. But he could not do so now. The man was unscrupulous to the core.
“When my brother was a young man, he was always very headstrong, also fearfully extravagant, if only in a small way,” went on Jasper in the same severe tone. “He never seemed able to curb his desires, to restrain any momentary impulse. If he wanted a thing and hadn’t the money to pay for it, he would go into debt to get it, trusting that luck would enable him to avoid the disagreeable consequences. I know this fatal weakness was a great anxiety to our parents, honest and God-fearing people, and made them tremble for his future.
“This big house, with its staff of indoor and outdoor servants eating him up, is a piece of the most colossal folly I have ever come across, and in my business we meet with very many specimens of the spendthrift. Everybody in the banking world does. I have no hesitation in discussing it with you; as Gloria’s future husband you have a right to know how matters stand. And further, in the distress which he brought on himself, he showed his hand plainly to you.”
As Jasper Stormont elected to be so confidential with him, he thought he might continue the conversation on the same lines.
“It seems to me that his business is evidently a very precarious one. It is rather a strange thing that I have never known what that business really is; it is not a thing on which you can put a quite straight question to a man, but it usually leaks out pretty soon. You know that I am a consulting engineer; I know that you hold a high post in the banking world. I have never even heard from your brother where his offices are. Gloria does not seem to know much about it. She thought he was what you call a financier. Well, we must admit that is rather a vague term.”
“And I can assure you, Leonard, I know almost as little as you do; my sister appears equally ignorant. When I have talked about the subject, about which there should be no mystery, there is an obvious attempt to sheer off it. So far as I can gather from random statements, he might be described as a financier. He gets concessions from foreign countries; he negotiates big loans for all sorts of things, does a bit of company promoting, etc. But he avoids details and gives no names. Of course, some men are very reticent about their private affairs, but reticence so pronounced savours greatly of mystery.”
There was a long pause and then the banker waved his hand round the room, decorated and furnished in such a costly fashion, with a gesture that was contemptuous.
“But one thing I am certain of, I have often been told that I possess second sight in matters like these. This cannot go on for long, in the light that has been thrown upon it by his borrowing from you what was, after all, a trifling sum for a man in a good way of business to find. A year or two of bad trade will bring him to the ground. Perhaps another year’s reprieve in which he will be struggling to tide over. You and I will then, I expect, be invited to put money into the sinking ship. If so, take my advice and sternly refuse. With a man of my brother’s headstrong nature and extravagant proclivities, you might as well throw it in the sea.”
Lydon thanked his future father-in-law for his advice, thinking, as he did so, that Howard Stormont would never get another loan out of him. Did this honourable, straightforward man of business only know what he knew, he would be overwhelmed with grief and shame at possessing such a brother.
“You can see it is a subject on which I have necessarily to hold my tongue,” exclaimed Jasper Stormont. “For all I ought to know to the contrary, he may be conducting his affairs with the greatest prudence, is making enough to enable him to run this place and accumulate a fair fortune besides. What I know about the true state of affairs comes from Gloria, from whom I have drawn it with the greatest reluctance. My lips are sealed; she would hate him to find that she has been telling tales out of school; for whatever faults he may have, he has taken the place of a second father to her, and she cannot but appreciate him for that.”
Yes, scoundrel as he might be, Howard Stormont no doubt had his good points, and his kindness to his niece was not the least amongst them.
“I forgot to tell you one thing, not that I am very greatly impressed by it,” said the banker as they parted for the evening. “The other day, in a fit of confidence, he imparted to me that he was on a very big thing which he expected to mature shortly, something out of which he would make enough to secure a handsome competence for life. If this came off, he said he would retire from business, and lead this life of a country gentleman which appears to have such great fascinations for him.”
Leonard pricked up his ears at this information. If Howard Stormont was on some big enterprise, it would be of a nefarious kind.
“He didn’t disclose the nature of this great coup, of course?” he asked.
The banker shook his head. “He didn’t give me the slightest hint. But, as I said, I attach very little importance to it. All these speculators are sanguine creatures, and follow wills-o’-the-wisp with a blind devotion worthy of a better cause. They have always got some grand scheme on which is to make them rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”
Lydon was much impressed by that conversation with Jasper Stormont. Like himself, at an earlier stage, he had sensed a certain mystery surrounding his brother. He wondered whether bankruptcy and poverty would be the only doom that might fall upon the owner of Effington Hall? He thought he might escape that, in spite of the banker’s gloomy predictions. After all, he had kept up opulent state for a great many years. According to Gloria’s statement, he had been wealthy ever since she had taken up her residence with them. He was a cunning and resourceful man; although he lacked the solid qualities of his brother, probably he would never come quite down to the ground. But the young man was not sure a darker doom might not descend upon him in spite of his cleverness.
He wondered if his sweetheart had told her father of the visit of that shabby Colonial, and the scene in the billiard-room when the drunken creature had been on the point of blurting out something, and had been stopped by his host, who was in a perfect agony of apprehension. He asked her the next day, and she assured him she had kept silence.
“I have really let out more about Uncle Howard than I ought,” she explained, in a contrite voice. “But dad has a very persuasive way with him; he would have made a splendid cross-examiner. I expect his business has developed his faculties in that direction; he says that people wanting favours come to him with all sorts of ingenious lies. He leads you on in a quiet, suave sort of way to all kinds of admissions. And you know I haven’t the gift of reticence, I am far too outspoken. I could see that uncle was terribly upset by that visit. I have noticed a great change in him since. He gives me the impression of a man who has received a great shock, and can’t recover from it.”
Lydon had himself noticed a certain change in the man. He was less bluff and genial than he used to be, and at times he caught a brooding expression, an air of abstraction, as if he were thinking deeply over something. At first he imagined Howard was nerving himself to make a confession to his brother, similar to the one he had made to himself, that he was living up to his income and that Gloria could expect very little from him when he died. But on thinking more over it he came to the conclusion that his sweetheart was right, that the change in his demeanour was due to the visit of Tom Newcombe, his “old pal.”
In the meantime Lydon had received reports from Grewgus, the first arriving a few days after he had left Paris. From these he learned that the detective and his colleague were keeping a close watch upon the man Edwards and Miss Glenthorne, to call her by her latest alias. They watched them from about eleven o’clock in the morning—the woman did not stir out till then—till late at night.
The programme was much the same every day. In the morning Zillah met the man Edwards, and they walked about together in the outskirts of Paris. They steered clear of the well-known portions, as no doubt Calliard was pursuing his business there, and they might run across him at any moment. In the afternoon they usually took a car and drove out to Versailles or some other suburb.
In the evening Zillah invariably met the opulent jeweller, Calliard, and they dined together at one of the numerous expensive restaurants that abound in the gay city. Monsieur Calliard was evidently a rich man and begrudged nothing in the pursuit of his pleasures.
Then one day came a brief telegram from Grewgus: “The birds have flown, slipped away. All news when we meet. Leaving to-day. Be at my office to-morrow morning as early as you like.”
On the face of it, it looked as if the detective had failed in his mission, that the two schemers had outwitted him, and stolen a march on him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lydon thought that Grewgus looked somewhat crestfallen when they met the following morning in the offices in Craven Street.
He opened the conversation in a rather apologetic tone. “Well, Mr. Lydon, the primary object for which we went to Paris was the establishment of the fact that Zillah Mayhew was the same person as Elise Makris. But that fact we established on the first day we arrived there. I stayed on in order to find something more than that. I am sorry to tell you I have found nothing, except one little thing that makes the affair more mysterious.”
“You say they contrived to give you the slip. How was that done when you were keeping such a close watch on them?” asked the young man in a tone that plainly showed his disappointment.
Grewgus hastened to explain. “I am afraid I must plead guilty to a little want of foresight. After watching very carefully for three days, we became pretty sure that neither the woman nor her friend Edwards were what you would call early birds. They did not stir out before a fairly late hour in the morning.”
Having, as they thought, established this fact, the two men did not begin their watch till a certain hour themselves. Had they not been so confident, it would have been easy to take it in turns to watch one of them, since, if one of them went out, it was for the purpose of ultimately meeting the other. As a fact, to carry out the thing thoroughly, a third, perhaps a fourth, man was wanted.
“That of course would have entailed a great deal more expense than I felt myself justified in putting you to,” said Grewgus in exculpating himself. “The last time I saw Zillah Mayhew, she was dining as usual with her elderly cavalier. Edwards, according to custom, was spending his evenings at one of the music-halls. My colleague Simmons never observed him with anybody, and he never met Miss Mayhew at night. And it is pretty certain that he never came into contact with Calliard. Whatever business was to be carried on with the Frenchman seemed to be left entirely in her hands. No doubt she talked things over with Edwards in their daily meetings.”
“You have not even proved conclusively that her object was what we all thought it to be, blackmail?” interjected Lydon.
“If you don’t mind, I will just leave that question unanswered for a moment or two while I relate how they gave us the slip. On that particular morning, no Zillah Mayhew issued forth from the hotel. I waited about for a very long time till Simmons joined me. His news was startling. Edwards, who, as I told you, had put up in another part of the town, did not turn out either. After a decent interval, Simmons, who knows somebody in pretty nearly every hotel in Paris, went in and made inquiries.
“He learned that Edwards had left some two hours before, carrying his luggage, a very light portmanteau, with him. He had told them he was returning to England. Of course I smelt a rat at once, and instructed Simmons to go into the Terminus and inquire if Mrs. and Miss Glenthorne were still there. The answer was in the negative. They had also made an early departure, and had driven to the Gare du Nord; presumably they were returning to England too.”
“It seems pretty clear they found out they were being watched, and judged it prudent to leave,” was Lydon’s natural comment.
“It looks very like it,” admitted Grewgus. “Now comes the surprising part of the story. I should have come away at once, but that I had a fancy to interview Calliard to ascertain if our suspicions were correct—our suspicions, I mean, as to the object of her acquaintance with a man so much her senior.”
Grewgus then proceeded to narrate how, on the following evening, he had run the jeweller to earth, while dining at one of his favourite restaurants. He was alone at a rather big table, and the detective seated himself at it, after a polite apology to the Frenchman for disturbing him, which was accepted with the habitual courtesy of his country. Presently they got into general conversation, and when he judged the time was ripe, Grewgus produced his card and handed it to him.
When Monsieur Calliard, who, by the way, spoke English very passably, ascertained from the card the occupation of the man who had seated himself at the table, he turned pale and showed considerable signs of embarrassment. Grewgus easily guessed the reasons for his disturbance. This opulent jeweller was no doubt a good bit of a philanderer, and easily attracted by women. His first thought was that his wife suspected him and had put a private inquiry agent on his track.
Of course, this notion had to be quickly dispelled. Grewgus explained that he was not at all concerned with the way in which Monsieur Calliard chose to spend his leisure hours, but he was greatly interested in the lady with whom he had dined so frequently.
At this reassuring statement, Monsieur Calliard recovered his composure and insisted upon helping his companion to a glass of the very excellent champagne he was drinking with his dinner. It was easy to diagnose him as a free liver, a man of considerable bonhomie, and by no means inclined to take a puritan view of life. He answered the questions put to him in the frankest manner. How had he made the acquaintance of the lady, and had he always known her by the name of Glenthorne, as she went sometimes by others?
The genial jeweller raised his eyebrows at the second of the two questions. He was evidently going to learn something.
“Listen, and I will tell you all about it. I suppose it goes without saying you know who I am?” began Monsieur Calliard.
“Certainly,” replied Grewgus, with an amiable smile, “you are a partner in the well-known firm of Dubost Frères of Marseilles.”
“Of course it would be easy for you to find out. I suppose I am known to a large circle of waiters in the hotels and restaurants of Paris. I met this young lady first at Trouville last year, where we formed a slight acquaintance. I met her later on in Rome, the acquaintance progressed a little further, and I have only known her under the name of Glenthorne. At both these places she was in the company of her mother, a rather good-looking Jewess.”
“She was not formally introduced to you by anybody, I suppose?”
Monsieur Calliard shrugged his shoulders with the wealth of gesture typical of his countrymen. “Ah, no. At Trouville I stayed in the same hotel, at Rome I met her casually in the street, and she and her mother dined two or three times with me. She struck me as a very chic and charming young person who had every wish to make herself friendly. But I could not quite place her, and her mother was perhaps just a little in the way at Rome, so that I could not get to know very much about her. She was exceedingly quiet and ladylike, well educated, and the mother seemed a most respectable person.”
“At Rome, I take it, you began to get a bit more fascinated, Monsieur Calliard?” suggested the detective.
Again that shrug of the shoulders. “At Marseilles, where one is so well known and, to a certain extent, looked up to, Monsieur Grewgus, one has to lead a very staid life. I will confess frankly I am not quite as good a boy as I should be. I travel about a great deal in the course of my business, and when I find myself in a place where I have no intimate friends, I admit to a little flutter now and then. I am too old to be a gay Lothario, but I am naturally fond of women’s society,” he added with a roguish smile, “especially the society of pretty and attractive women.”
He paused to pour out a second glass of champagne for the interested Grewgus. Certainly there was no sullen reserve about the genial and opulent-looking jeweller. He alluded in the frankest fashion to his little weaknesses, even his peccadilloes.
“This happened last year,” he resumed. “Charming and chic as she is, she had almost faded from my mind. Behold, walking down the Boulevard des Italiens, I come upon her alone. I was very pleased to see her, for I was getting a bit bored with my own society, and she appeared pleased to see me. She told me she and her mother were staying at the Hôtel Terminus. Ah, that excellent mother, she had spoiled the Rome visit. I did not require any more of the good mother. I plucked up my courage, and asked her point-blank if she could see her way to dine with me without a chaperone. I should not have been surprised if she had declined, but she accepted, explaining that things were very much altered in her own English country since the war, and that for herself she had always paid little heed to convention.”
With another expressive gesture, Monsieur Calliard lifted his hands. “Since then she has dined with me every evening up till last night.”
“Do you know she has left Paris this morning?” queried Grewgus.
“She informed me of her intention as we sat at dinner. I was a little amazed because, having a slack time to-day, we had half made an appointment to go to Versailles. She excused herself on the plea that her mother had to return to London on urgent business. I suggested she should follow Madame Glenthorne later on, but she smiled when I did so. ‘I am pretty unconventional, Monsieur Calliard,’ she said, ‘but not quite bold enough for that.’ I think, my friend, that is all I have to tell you, and now, perhaps, as you seem to know a good deal about this young lady, you will tell me something that interests me.”
“With the greatest pleasure, Monsieur Calliard. I will presently tell you all I do know. But first I should like to put another question. What sort of an account did the young lady give of herself to you?”
The jeweller considered: “I cannot remember that she was very communicative. I gathered that her mother had private means, that they travelled about a good deal, and were very familiar with the Continent. She also told me her father was dead, and that they had hardly any relatives.”
“Did she tell you where she lived when in England?”
“They did not stay very much in England, according to her account. When they did they stopped with an uncle—ah—what is the name of the place, where your King has a fine Castle?”
“Windsor,” suggested Grewgus.
“That is it, Windsor. I did notice one thing about her, that she was very reserved about her own affairs.”
“She had every reason to be,” said the detective grimly. “Well, Monsieur Calliard, you have been very obliging. It is now my turn to give you some information. I have every reason to believe that this agreeable-mannered young woman is one of the decoys of a firm of blackmailers; that she gets hold of men with the ultimate object of fleecing them.”
The Frenchman looked intensely astonished. “The decoy of a blackmailing gang,” he remarked. “A handsome, brilliant young woman like that! She ought to have made a good marriage. I cannot help feeling for her more pity than disgust. And that respectable-looking old Jewess, the mother. Is she a criminal also?”
Grewgus looked at him sharply. “You had no suspicion, then, of this, I take it? Now, Monsieur Calliard, whatever you say to me on this subject will pass out of my mind; I promise you I will not make use of it. Can you assure me that she has not attempted to blackmail you?”
It occurred to Grewgus that she had made the attempt, and that her sudden flight was due to the fact that she had been foiled, that the Frenchman had taken a bold attitude and defied her. The next words undeceived him.
“Upon my word of honour, Monsieur Grewgus, no.”
Grewgus was fairly convinced that the jeweller was speaking the truth, that he was not actuated by a feeling of shame which led him to deny he had been the victim of an artful adventuress.
“Upon my word of honour, no,” he repeated emphatically. “The opinion I formed of her was that she was an unconventional girl, leading a roving sort of existence with a careless and not very interesting mother, that she was pleased to come across anybody who would take her about and give her a good time. In spite of her gaiety and enjoyment of life, I judged her to be of a rather cold temperament. She never seemed to crave for admiration, although, like all women, she liked a compliment when you paid it to her.”
“But surely you made her handsome presents from time to time,” persisted Grewgus. Monsieur Calliard was a genial old fellow enough, but not likely to attract a handsome young woman by his personal gifts.
But the Frenchman shook his head very decidedly. “Monsieur Grewgus, I come of thrifty forbears. I like my little flutter now and again, as I have admitted to you, but I never care to pay too dear for my weaknesses. What did I give Miss Glenthorne during this visit? Bah! it is not worth thinking of. A few flowers sent to the hotel, some boxes of chocolates, once I think half a dozen pairs of gloves. It was not that which made her dine with me whenever I asked her. It is a bit of a riddle, I confess. Do you think there is any possibility of your being mistaken, of your having received wrong information about her? I am a man of the world, and I could detect no sign of the greedy adventuress.”
Grewgus replied that his evidence was too strong to admit of such a supposition. But still what Calliard had told him imparted a fresh air of mystery to the affair.
“If blackmail was not her game, she must have had some other object in view,” said the detective to Lydon when he had finished the story. “I cannot think those meetings in Rome and Paris were the result of accident. I should say that by some means she or her friends had obtained information of Calliard’s movements, and she had followed him for the purpose of insinuating herself into his good graces. She, no doubt, read him at a glance, a weak, susceptible man, a bit thrifty perhaps, and garrulous to a fault.”
“You did not, of course, mention anything of Stormont or Whitehouse to the Frenchman?” asked Lydon, who had been thinking very deeply as he listened to the story.
“I gave him no indication that there was anybody else concerned in my investigations,” was Grewgus’ reply.
“Is it possible that we have suspected Stormont wrongly, after all?” said the young man presently, who was profoundly astonished that there had been no blackmail. “Is it possible that he sent her and the man Edwards on some peculiar and special business errand, and that he, and perhaps Whitehouse, knew nothing of the double life she is leading, this combination of business woman and adventuress?”
But the experienced detective shook his head. “They have both been closely watched, Mr. Lydon, except in those few particular hours when they made off. If they were engaged on legitimate business in Paris, with whom were they doing it? They would have called on people; people would have called on them. She was never with anybody but Calliard and Edwards. Edwards had not got even a second string to his bow; he was never seen with anybody but her.”
“What is your reading of it, then?”
“I incline to the idea they found out they were watched, and gave up the game in the middle, before the woman could formulate her plans for fleecing Calliard.”
“Have you any other theory?”
“Only that a further mystery is developing, which we may or may not discover. By the way, there is something I forgot to tell you. They left, as you have learned, a day before me. I wired at once to one of my men in London in code to find out if Zillah Mayhew had returned to Ashstead Mansions.”
“And the reply?”
“She had, and also the mother. They left Paris as Mrs. and Miss Glenthorne. They have returned to London as Mrs. and Miss Mayhew.”
It was all very puzzling, very baffling. Lydon owned frankly he could not see his way through the maze.
After a pause, the detective spoke. “Now the question is, Mr. Lydon, do you feel disposed to spend any more money?”
“What is your advice?” asked the young man.
“To go on,” answered the detective in a decided voice. “I am convinced that we are only at the beginning of the mystery.”
“So be it, then. What are the next steps?”
“Simmons only awaits a message from me to take them. In the course of conversation, Calliard told me he was only staying three days longer in Paris. He is going on to Brussels, where he does a big business. Now you have decided, I shall instruct him to follow Calliard. If there is a further mystery, as I strongly suspect, it is round him that it will centre. Here in London I shall keep observation upon Miss Mayhew, and if I can possibly come across him, upon Edwards.”
With that the interview ended. At the end of another week, Jasper Stormont and his wife came back to the Cecil, bringing Gloria with them. Lydon had a shrewd suspicion that the banker, who, according to his daughter’s account, was a man of simple tastes and habits, was not a little oppressed by the opulence and splendour of Effington.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was not long before Grewgus’ prophecy that they were only at the beginning of the mystery came true. What is now about to be narrated is gleaned from the letters sent to his chief from Brussels by Simmons. Later on he came to England, and amplified the various details of the whole affair.
Monsieur Calliard went to Brussels in due course from Paris and took up his quarters at one of the well-known hotels in that delightful city. Simmons, obeying his chief’s telegraphed instructions, followed him, and was always at his heels.
On this visit the gay old Frenchman was apparently devoting himself whole-heartedly to his business, and not indulging in any little flutters. His habits were exceedingly regular. He devoted his mornings, and frequently his afternoons, to visits to his various customers. The rest of his time he spent at the hotel. No ladies, young or middle-aged, relieved the monotony of his leisure moments.
Needless to say that Simmons kept open a wary eye for the reappearance of Zillah Mayhew and the man Edwards. To his surprise neither turned up. In the meantime Grewgus was keeping a watch on the women at Ashstead Mansions, and convinced himself, with the aid of the friendly hall-porter, that she was in London during the whole of the time that Léon Calliard was in Brussels. Therefore, a certain theory of his was shattered, when he found she was staying on from day to day.
His idea was that, having discovered she was being shadowed in Paris, her plans had been suddenly nipped in the bud by that fact, and she had headed for the shelter of the flat. This did not mean that she had given up her original designs against the wealthy jeweller, only postponed them. After a brief interval, during which she judged the scent would have become cold, she would follow him to Brussels, and there add him to her no doubt very numerous list of victims. It followed from this, then, that blackmail had not been her ultimate object.
But it was obvious that she had some object in sticking so closely to the Frenchman. And so far as it was possible to reason, the instructions given by Stormont to Edwards were concerned with the wealthy jeweller, as neither the man nor the woman had associated with anybody else during their stay in Paris. Edwards had been seen about with nobody except the girl who called herself Miss Glenthorne.
For three days Simmons kept a pretty close watch on Calliard. On the fourth he relaxed his vigilance a little, having made up his mind by now that nothing more was to be feared from the pair of confederates. And on this day something unusual happened. Calliard did not return to the hotel for lunch, and he did not return for dinner. Simmons did not attach very great importance to this; he might have gone somewhere else for the day on business. To-morrow he would see him pursuing his ordinary routine, without a doubt. But when the morrow came, and no Calliard appeared in his usual haunts, Simmons became alarmed.
That evening he went to the director of the Palace Hotel, with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and who knew the nature of his occupation, and inquired for news. He explained that, unknown to Calliard himself, he was watching his movements in connection with a certain couple who might have evil designs upon him.
The director, a most voluble person, was quite ready to talk to a man whom he knew he could trust.
“I have known Monsieur Calliard for years, ever since I have been connected with the Palace Hotel; his connection with us is a long one and dates before the time I came here. I suppose you know that he is a man of considerable wealth, a partner in a very flourishing firm in Marseilles. He came here about every few months to do business with the leading jewellers in Brussels, and he carried in that brown bag his samples, worth some hundreds of thousands of francs. When he had finished his rounds for the day, it was his invariable custom to deposit that very valuable bag in our safe.”
Simmons noticed that the director had been speaking all along in the past tense. He had a very sure premonition of what was coming.
“He went out as usual after breakfast to make his customary morning calls, taking his bag with him. As I take it, you have been watching him, probably you know that as well as I do?”
Simmons had to admit that on this particular morning his vigilance had been relaxed. Having made up his mind that neither of the pair he suspected was in the vicinity, he was prepared to take it easy till Monsieur Calliard left Brussels, when he would follow him to his next stopping place.
The director shrugged his shoulders: “That is most unfortunate, for then we might know more than we do. He said especially that he would return to luncheon—as a matter of fact he has lunched and dined here every day during his visit—but he happened to make particular mention of it. Luncheon time arrived, and he did not turn up. We didn’t attach very great importance to the fact. He might have been detained, or been invited by one of his customers. When dinner-time came and he was again absent, I began to feel a bit uneasy. Remember he was carrying in that bag a small fortune.”
“Monsieur Calliard is just a little bit—what shall we say—frisky for a man of his age, is he not?” queried Simmons.
The director smiled: “A wee bit, perhaps. I fancy he is rather susceptible where the other sex is concerned. On previous occasions he has sometimes brought here to lunch and dinner some fascinating members of it. But this time nothing of the sort happened. Not a soul has been to see him since he first set foot in the hotel.”
Simmons thought there might be a good reason for this. No doubt the volatile Frenchman had received a rude shock when Grewgus told him the real character of the young woman to whom he was so hospitable in Paris. He had resolved to walk more warily for a little time.
“When I came down this morning and found he was still absent, I came to the conclusion it was time to act. I notified the police at once. I despatched a long wire to his firm in Marseilles, acquainting them with the suspicious circumstances. I have had one in reply.”
“And they are, of course, very alarmed?” said Simmons.
“Not so much as you would imagine. It is a very long wire, and in it they suggest he may have gone to Ostend to see a certain client, and will return in due course. But I am very doubtful of this. Monsieur Calliard was a very methodical man, not likely to do anything on the spur of the moment. If he had intended to pay this visit to Ostend, he would have had it in his mind for some little time, and notified us of his intention. Well, the affair is now in the hands of the police.”
It was not till five days later that the dénouement came. It was evening, and Simmons sat on the terrace of the Café Metropole, sipping his apéritif. While doing so, he opened the Petit Bleu and read a long account of the recovery of the body of an elderly, well-dressed man from the river Meuse, at a bend about a mile behind the little village of Godime. The doctors declared that it had been in the river since about the date corresponding with the disappearance of the wealthy jeweller.
Upon him was found a sum of about three thousand francs, and papers which conclusively proved that he was a Monsieur Léon Calliard, member of a well-known firm, and residing in the Rue Lenon at Marseilles. In his pocket was found a half-obliterated letter written in indelible pencil, stating his intention of committing suicide in consequence of an unfortunate love affair.
Simmons hastened round to his friend the director of the hotel, whom he found acquainted with the news. This gentleman threw scorn upon the suggestion of suicide.
“Bah, my friend,” he cried excitedly, “Calliard was not that sort of man; he was a most devout Catholic. A love affair that would drive him off his head at his age. The idea is preposterous. He was fond of the society of attractive women, granted, but his was not the sort of nature capable of a great passion. I should like to see that letter, Monsieur Simmons. I will wager it is a forgery, put there by the assassin who killed him in order to get hold of that bag with its valuable contents.”
And so, later on, it was proved to be the case. When the letter was shown to some of his intimate friends they unanimously declared it was a clumsy imitation of Calliard’s handwriting.
“So all along it was robbery and murder, not simply blackmail that was intended,” said Grewgus, as he and his client sat discussing the whole facts of the case. “Simmons, of course, committed a blunder in not following Calliard that particular morning. He might have averted a tragedy. On the other hand, he might not. This is the work of a very cunning gang, and so long as Calliard had that bag in his possession, they were determined to have it. They would not have been satisfied with a first rebuff or a second. They would have followed him till they got it. Depend upon it, they had their plans laid with devilish precision. I don’t suppose we shall ever know how they got him into their clutches.”
“It is strange that Edwards and the woman should have so suddenly effaced themselves,” commented Lydon. “If they had a hand in it, you would think they would have been in at the closing act. Is it possible, do you think, that this tragedy is simply a coincidence? That he was done to death by people who had no connection with them?”
Grewgus shook his head. “There is no evidence against them, certainly. Miss Mayhew has been at Ashstead Mansions every day since she came back from Paris, that I have ascertained. In her case she has a perfect alibi. Of Edwards I can speak with no positiveness. Simmons took a snapshot of him in Paris, and I have had two men scouring London for him with no success, as we are unacquainted with his haunts. Of course, for all we know to the contrary, he might have been lurking in the neighbourhood of that little village of Godime. But, all the same, I believe Miss Mayhew played a big part in this affair.”
Lydon looked at the detective inquiringly. “I should like to know in what way you connect her with the case,” he said. “Of course, in a thing of this sort, I feel myself utterly helpless, so far as my reasoning faculties are concerned.”
Grewgus smiled. “One would hardly expect otherwise, Mr. Lydon. Up to the present, you can have had no experience of criminal methods, which I can assure you are very subtle. Robbery was intended from the beginning, supplemented by murder, if that was absolutely necessary. In this case I assume the existence of a cleverly organized gang of international crooks, with spies everywhere. They find out that the unfortunate Calliard, member of a wealthy firm, is accustomed to make periodical visits to the various important capitals, carrying with him in that small bag an immense amount of valuable property.
“They already know a good deal, but they want to know more, be better versed in details. They set Miss Mayhew on him, one of their cleverest decoys. No doubt, the beginnings of the plot were hatched at Trouville, where he first made her acquaintance and, unfortunately for himself, was attracted by her. Their meeting was not accidental. They knew he would be there and dispatched her to the same hotel, to find out all she could, to make herself acquainted with his movements, to insinuate herself into his confidence.
“She found him very easy to deal with. Calliard no doubt was a good business man in many ways, or he would not have been entrusted with such important missions, but for one of his age he struck me as singularly simple. And he was garrulous and communicative in the extreme. He blurted out a lot of things to me which he would have shown wisdom in keeping to himself. He took me on trust, as it were, on my production of a card stating my name and profession. That card might easily have been prepared for the purpose. I give this as an illustration of his simplicity, of his tendency to take things at their face value. A clever woman would twist him round her little finger, easily get out of him what she wanted to know. Neither in Rome nor Trouville did they find things fall out quite in accordance with their plans. It was not till they got him to Paris that they were able to set to work in grim earnest, with the result we know.”
“None of the jewellery has been traced, I suppose?”
“Not that I have heard of,” was the detective’s answer. “They had their plans cut and dried, you may depend. A few hours after they had got hold of the stuff you can be sure the valuable stones were out of their settings and on the way to a safe market.”
After a little while, Lydon spoke. “You have reconstructed the whole thing very cleverly, and in my own mind I feel you are right. But we have really no tangible evidence against Stormont, have we?”
Grewgus shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing that would convince a jury, I fear. It is all intensely circumstantial. Still, that letter of his to Zillah which you intercepted is a very important link. Would you like me to go to Scotland Yard and put them in possession of all we know, so that they could join forces with the Paris police?”
But Leonard could not bring himself to consent to this step. The thought of his beloved Gloria, of her father, a man of the highest probity and honour, forbade it. Much as he would have rejoiced, for his dead friend’s sake, that Elise Makris should be punished, he shrank from bringing disgrace upon Howard Stormont’s innocent relatives.
It was finally arranged between the two men that Grewgus should still keep a watch upon the flat in Ashstead Mansions, and note the further movements of Whitehouse and his supposed niece. It was evident that this taciturn individual had taken no active part in the Calliard affair, was not even so much implicated in it as Stormont appeared to be by that letter to his “clever Zillah.” But Grewgus had a very strong suspicion that the couple worked very closely together.
They did find something out about Whitehouse a little later on which added to the general mystery. Hornby Court did not absorb the whole of his activities. He had a small set of offices near Bedford Row, where he attended three days a week. His staff consisted of a senior and junior clerk, and he practised as a solicitor under the name of Glenthorne. So far they had not been able to discover what sort of a business it was, or what class of clients patronized him. It certainly had not the air of a particularly flourishing concern.
From the Cecil Hotel, the Jasper Stormonts, accompanied by Gloria, soon moved further afield. It had been cordially acquiesced in by Howard Stormont that during their stay in England they should have their daughter to themselves. For his own part, Jasper would have liked to make a tour in Scotland, but he was a very unselfish man, and he could not bear the idea of parting the two young people. He felt that he had come too little into the girl’s life to permit him to think only of himself. He therefore chose Brighton; it was so easy for Lydon to run down and return by a fast train.
Although a man rather inclined to frugality than extravagance, Leonard was surprised to find that he had elected to stay at one of the most expensive hotels in the place. And not content with the public apartments, he had taken a private sitting-room. He explained matters to his future son-in-law with his usual kindly smile.
“You must not think, my dear boy, I am trying to rival my spendthrift brother. The simple truth is this. At home I conduct my affairs in a very steady and prudent manner. But when I take a holiday, I like to do things well and have every comfort. A thoroughly economical holiday is worse than none.”
They intended to stay at Brighton till it was time to return to China, and Lydon was very pleased with the arrangement. All that he had learned recently had made Effington exceedingly distasteful to him. As for Howard Stormont, he could hardly bear to shake hands with him, in view of his grave suspicions.
It was about three weeks after the interview between himself and Grewgus that he received an important message from the detective to come round to his office at the earliest moment, as he had the most surprising news to communicate. He did not want to blurt them out over the telephone.
Lydon was round as soon as possible, and found the detective looking quite excited for a man of his usually calm temperament.
“You will be as surprised as I was, I expect,” he said as soon as his client was seated. “Our friend Miss Makris, alias Mayhew, alias Glenthorne, has left Ashstead Mansions. She has taken one of the smaller houses in Curzon Street, has furnished it splendidly in a few days, and is living there under the name of Mrs. Edwards with her husband, the good-looking fellow who was over in Paris when she was playing her game with poor old Calliard. The mother is not with them. I should say they are after something very big this time.”
And as Grewgus spoke, there flashed across the young man’s mind what Jasper Stormont had told him a little while ago. His brother was looking forward to a great coup which might enable him to give up business altogether. Was the owner of Effington at the back of this sudden metamorphosis of the “clever Zillah” into Mrs. Edwards, the tenant of the house in Curzon Street?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
About a fortnight later, Lydon had the news confirmed from another quarter. Gloria received a letter from her uncle, in which was the following paragraph: “I have got some news for you. Zillah Mayhew is married to a very charming young man, named Edwards. She has been a very sly little puss about it all. It appears from a somewhat belated confession to her uncle, my dear old friend John Whitehouse, they have known each other for some four or five years. They met again during her recent visit to Paris and were married there. Edwards is a man possessed of considerable means and moves in good society. They kept the marriage secret for a little time on account of family reasons connected with the husband. I am very glad that Zillah has done so well.”
The letter then proceeded to state other things, some of which Lydon, to whom his sweetheart read the epistle, had already heard from Grewgus. The married couple had taken and furnished a house in Curzon Street, where Zillah proposed to entertain. Zillah had led a retired life when in England, did not know many people. But her husband had heaps of friends and acquaintances, and would soon fill the house. They proposed to give a big reception shortly. Stormont and his sister would attend it. And Zillah insisted that Gloria, her father and mother, and her fiancé should be her guests on such a special occasion.
Innocent Gloria read out all this to her fiancé, and the young man made certain inward comments as she went along. It was very unlikely the couple had been married on Zillah’s last visit to Paris. Grewgus had been watching the woman, Simmons the man till the eve of their disappearance. If there had been any marriage ceremony, they would have known of it. If they were husband and wife, they had been married long ere now, and had lived apart, the better to pursue their nefarious ends.
Gloria, woman-like, was interested in what appeared to be a real romance. “I am so glad,” she said enthusiastically. “Zillah is such a delightful, charming girl, she deserves a good husband. I am surprised that she has not been married long before this. Uncle Howard speaks well of him, doesn’t he? And I think he is a very shrewd judge of character. We must certainly go to that party to see for ourselves. You agree, I am sure.”
Yes, Lydon certainly agreed. Of course, he could not as yet give a hint to the unsuspecting girl of his reasons. He would dearly like to observe the adventuress and Edwards at close quarters.
In London the next day, he found time to run round to Grewgus and inform him of what Howard Stormont had written.
“Well, you will keep your eyes open when you are there,” said the detective. “I wish you could take me with you, but that, I suppose, is impossible. I’m a master of disguise, you know; I could go as something quite different from Grewgus. I might spot something that would escape you. I am very curious as to the game they have got on; it must be something big, or else they wouldn’t go to this considerable expense. Of course, that account of the recent marriage in Paris is all bunkum.”
Lydon would dearly have liked to take the detective with him as an old friend, to obtain a card for him through Stormont. But he saw it was too risky. Stormont was a man of diabolical ingenuity and cunning. He would smell a rat at once. Later on, he might be able to work him into the Curzon Street ménage.
“By the way, I have never shown you the snapshot of Edwards that Simmons took in Paris, have I?” asked the detective presently.
He opened a drawer in his writing-table, extracted a photograph and handed it to his client. Lydon gave a cry of astonishment as he looked at it. “Well, of all the strange things that have ever happened! This man is a member of my own club, the Excelsior.”
“What do you know about him?” asked Grewgus in an excited voice.
“Well, almost next to nothing. The Excelsior is a big club, as you know, and there are dozens of different sets. He mixes rather amongst the fast lot. I have heard that he is a man of good family, a public school and Cambridge man, and has considerable private means.”
“Do you know him to speak to?” asked Grewgus eagerly.
“I may have exchanged a dozen words with him since I have belonged to the club. We both joined it about the same time, three years ago. I should rather say I knew him to nod to.”
“I think we might classify him as a typical specimen of the aristocratic crook,” remarked Grewgus. “Well-born, well-educated, gifted with brains of the wrong sort, who has taken to evil courses either from natural inclination, or because he dislikes honest work. Well, Mr. Lydon, this is very interesting and I may say very fortunate. To think we have been scouring London for him, and not hit upon the Excelsior Club. You must certainly go to that party, take diligent notes, and report to me what you have observed.”
In due course, formal cards arrived for the big reception, an afternoon one from four to seven, to the Jasper Stormonts, Gloria and Lydon. The banker and his wife sent their excuses. They were a stay-at-home couple and had no desire to rub shoulders with a lot of strangers who knew nothing about them and about whom they knew nothing.
“Except Gloria and yourself, and my brother and sister, there would not be a soul we knew,” said Gloria’s father. “The hostess is a most delightful young woman, my daughter tells me; but she will be much too busy to pay any attention to a couple of old fogies like ourselves. Of course, Howard will be in his element amongst a crowd; in a lesser degree, it is possible my sister will also be happy. I and my wife will remain here while you young people are disporting yourselves in society.”
Howard Stormont had written to say that Gloria had better spend the rest of the day with them, driving down to Effington after the reception was over. If Lydon wished, he could drive down with them, have dinner and stay the night. But the young man got out of this. He would meet Gloria in London and take her back to Brighton the day after instead. He wished to be in Howard Stormont’s company as little as possible.
The day after he had received the card, he strolled into the club of which both he and Edwards were members. It was a big establishment, situated in Piccadilly, and had a large clientèle—stockbrokers, barristers, a few actors, artists and authors, and several wealthy business men. Almost the first person he saw was an elderly barrister named Joyce, a member of the committee, who had recently retired from practice. This gentleman was a very gregarious person, a great gossip, and supposed to know more about the private history of his fellow-members than anybody else in the club. To Mr. Joyce he at once addressed himself:
“I’ve had a card for a big reception from Mrs. Edwards, the wife of our member. Although a common name, he is the only Edwards in the club. I don’t think I owe it to him, for we are hardly on more than nodding terms, but his wife is a great friend of a man I know, Stormont, to whose niece I am engaged. Of course, they were bound to ask my fiancée, and they have very kindly included me.”
The elderly barrister rose to the bait at once. He was quite ready to talk about Edwards; he was always ready to talk about anybody with whom he was acquainted. “I have had a card too; going to be a rather big thing, I am told. About half a dozen of us here have been asked. Edwards doesn’t mix very freely with the members, rather keeps himself to himself. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t come here very often, travels abroad a lot.”
“No, I haven’t often met him,” said Lydon in a careless tone. “Who is he, and what is he? I suppose you know?”
Mr. Joyce smiled; he was very proud of his general knowledge, which he acquired by his assiduous attendance at the club.
“I know as much as anybody else, I think, but there doesn’t seem very much to know about him. He talks very little about himself. He is a Cambridge man, comes, I believe, of a good old Sussex family, follows no profession or occupation, has private means.”
The information was decidedly meagre; but it was certain that if this was all Mr. Joyce knew, nobody knew any more.
“Rather a surprise this marriage, isn’t it?” asked Lydon after a pause. “I learn from Stormont that they were married a very short time ago abroad, I think he said in Paris.”
“Quite right,” confirmed the barrister. “We knew nothing about it here till quite lately. But you see that is not to be wondered at. Nobody of the half-dozen who have received invitations is more than just a club acquaintance. I suppose they really want to fill the rooms. He rushed in here about a week ago, told me what you know, that he was recently married, had taken a house in Curzon Street, and they were going to hold a reception, sort of house warming. He was going to send cards to a few of the members. Would I pass on to them what he had told me, as he might not be in the club again before the party came off?”
After lunch, Lydon took a taxi down to Craven Street, and imparted to Grewgus the result of his interview with Joyce, both men agreeing that what he had learned from that gentleman was practically no more than what they knew already.
The party was a week hence. Grewgus was still very bent upon going, but he recognized the impossibility of getting there.
“If I could get a chance, I would go as a waiter,” he said. “Well, it’s no use thinking about it. You say that you will be leaving about seven. I’ll be hanging about outside from half-past six—there’s sure to be the usual staring crowds outside. If you’ve nothing better to do, look out for me and follow me. When we are well out of view, we can go into some place and you can tell me anything that you think may be useful to us.”
On the day appointed, Leonard went to Curzon Street. His afternoon had been a pretty busy one, and he did not arrive there till close upon six. The rooms were quite full and it was a little time before he met his hostess, who had abandoned her position at the door some time ago. She greeted him cordially, and after a few words with her he passed on.
Presently he found the Stormont party. The portly Howard was looking very happy and radiant. “A thorough success,” he whispered to the young man. “Zillah’s a born hostess and seems immensely admired. Most of the people here are the husband’s friends; she has been so seldom in London that she doesn’t know many people yet. But it won’t be long before she does. I’m delighted it is going off so well. I’m very fond of Zillah; she’s such a sweet girl.”
Lydon thought grimly that the unfortunate Calliard had said the same thing. He inquired if Mr. Whitehouse was there.
“No,” was the answer. “He was awfully disappointed he could not be here to witness her triumph. But he was prevented by important business. I believe he is dining with them after the show.”
The mother was not there. Well, her parents were supposed to be dead and the uncle was absent. No doubt, Mrs. Edwards had her own good reasons for not having her own family round her. Casually he said to Stormont: “I’ve just caught a glimpse of Edwards; he hasn’t seen me yet. Do you know he’s a member of my club, the Excelsior?”
Was it fancy, or did he detect a rather shifty look in Stormont’s eyes as he replied to him? “Yes, he told me when I first mentioned your name. What a small place the world is, eh?”
“It came as a surprise to you all, Gloria told me. Did you or her uncle know anything of Edwards before she married him?”
“Never set eyes on him,” came the prompt answer. “Zillah has been a very sly little puss over it; they seem to have met abroad first. But he’s a delightful fellow with lots of money. There’s no doubt she has done wonderfully well for herself. And he knows heaps of good people. As you know, I don’t go about in London, but this seems to me decidedly a smart party.”
Lydon was intensely disgusted with the hypocrisy of the man, his effrontery in denying any previous knowledge of the man whom he had sent to Paris with his instructions to his “clever Zillah.” But he quite agreed with his last remarks, it certainly was a smart gathering, with so many beautifully gowned women and immaculately dressed men. The Excelsior Club, he noticed, had sent up its contingent to a man. Mr. Joyce was ubiquitous, and seemed to know a great many of the guests. Leonard was sure that the host had a footing in one world. He seemed to have an equally sure position in a more reputable one.
“He knows people in every walk of life—artists, authors, fashionables,” went on the garrulous Stormont, who seemed in the very highest of spirits. “He belongs to half a dozen clubs, from the quite exclusive to the frankly Bohemian.”
Gloria had been annexed by a very dandified young man. Mrs. Barnard was engaged with an elderly person of the well-preserved type. There came a sudden hush, a well-known professional was going to sing. Lydon left his companion and made a tour of the rooms.
When he stopped, he found himself standing next to Edwards, who gave him a cordial nod and a whispered: “Will speak to you presently.”
The song was finished and his host turned to Lydon. “Very pleased to see you here. I little thought when we used to meet occasionally at the club that we should become so closely connected, as it were. Stormont has known Zillah from a child; he is a sort of adopted uncle. Delightful fellow, Stormont, so genial, so unaffected.”
“Quite,” said Lydon, in a tone the reverse of enthusiastic. Not greatly relishing the prospect of a prolonged conversation with Edwards, he was about to move when his host stopped him.
“Do you see that young man talking to my wife, over there by the door? You know who he is, don’t you?”
Lydon looked in the direction indicated. Zillah Edwards was conversing with a handsome, elegant young fellow of about twenty-five. There was something distinguished and aristocratic about his appearance, and Leonard fancied that the face was familiar to him, but he could not recall where or under what circumstances he had seen it.
“That is Lord Wraysbury, the eldest son of the Earl of Feltham, one of the oldest families in England,” whispered Edwards in an impressive voice; and guided by this information, the young man knew why the face was familiar to him. He had seen the portrait of the young fellow in some of the society papers.
“He often comes here,” went on the host. “You know all about his history, I suppose?”
“Very little,” was the cold answer. “My acquaintance with the great world is negligible, I am sorry to say.”
“It is quite a romance,” continued the other, who did not seem to have noticed the coldness of his companion’s manner. “His father, as I said, can boast of representing one of the oldest families in England, but he is not rich. The estates are in Suffolk, and I am told don’t produce much more than twenty thousand a year; that is not much for a nobleman in his position, you know, and he has a large family.”
“I suppose not,” assented Lydon, who was not particularly interested in this good-looking young aristocrat.
“Well, thanks to an extraordinary bit of luck, Wraysbury is very rich, one of the richest young men in London. He owes it to his aunt, a very beautiful woman. She married twice. The first match was a fairly good one, but nothing out of the common. She was left a widow when she was just nearing thirty. Her second husband was an enormously rich American who had settled in England, a multi-millionaire. He died soon too, five years after their marriage. The bulk of his fortune was left to his children by a first wife; but his widow, Wraysbury’s aunt, got a comfortable two million left to her to dispose of as she liked.
“She was devoted to Wraysbury. Never having had a child by either of her husbands, she looked upon him as a son. She died two years ago and left him every penny, with the exception of a few insignificant legacies.”
“A very fortunate young man,” commented Lydon, interested in spite of himself by the romantic story. “And what sort of a chap is he? Is he taking care of his money, or making ducks and drakes of it?”
“He is a most delightful fellow in himself. With regard to your question, he spends a lot, of course. He has the handling of a very big income, but I should say he has a fairly good head upon his shoulders and knows how to manage his affairs.”
“Is he your friend, or your wife’s?” asked Lydon bluntly, hastening to add, “I mean of course in the first instance.”
“Oh, Zillah’s,” was the answer. “They knew each other abroad before he came into his aunt’s money. The acquaintance dropped till quite lately. We were dining one night at the Ritz and met him in the lounge as we were going in. She introduced me and of course gave him an invitation to Curzon Street. He has dined with us twice and called several times. I like him immensely; he is a dear chap.”
Lydon stayed for another half-hour and noticed that Lord Wraysbury was never for long away from the side of his hostess. He did not appear to know more than a couple of people in the room and Leonard had a suspicion that they had been introduced by Zillah. It was a smart party certainly; but although he knew little of fashionable or semi-fashionable society, he did not think it was quite up to the standard of a young man of such aristocratic lineage.
He managed to obtain a few words with Gloria. “Are you enjoying yourself, my sweetheart?” he whispered.
“Oh, in a way, it is rather novel,” she replied. “But I don’t think I should care for too much of this sort of thing. Zillah has been quite kind, introduced me and aunt to a lot of people. Uncle Howard is enjoying himself immensely. I have not seen him look more beaming at one of his own dinner-parties. But I’m afraid I haven’t his temperament. I’m not fond of strange crowds.”
Soon the party began to break up; only a few determined stayers were left behind. Stormont collected his women-folk and they bade adieu to their host and hostess. Lydon took his departure with them. As he shook hands with Zillah, he observed that the good-looking Wraysbury was still in close attendance.
Stormont’s car was waiting. As they went out, Lydon saw Grewgus standing amidst the small crowd that had gathered to watch the departing guests, and made a hasty signal to which the detective answered with a slight movement of his head.
What was the young man’s astonishment to see amongst the waiting crowd the weather-beaten face of Tom Newcombe, and a hasty glance at him revealed the fact that, if not actually drunk, he was certainly not strictly sober. As soon as he caught sight of his “old pal” he rushed forward and shouted out what he intended to be a welcome, in a husky voice.
Howard Stormont’s face went white when he saw him. “Get out of the way, you drunken dog,” he said in a low voice, full of fury. “Never dare to accost me again when you are in this state.”
The Colonial, no longer shabby-looking, but dressed in very loud attire which he doubtless considered to be the height of fashion, slunk away, his face working, and muttering, “Drunken dog! Drunken dog!”
Stormont pushed the women into the car and it drove off, the occupants waving a farewell to Leonard as he stood on the kerb.
When he turned round to look for Grewgus, that gentleman had gone. He saw him a few yards off, stealthily tracking the Colonial.
He knew by this action that the ever-vigilant man had overheard what had passed and was on a fresh scent. It was no use waiting for him.