The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Place Of Dragons, by William Le Queux.

"Clever of him—very clever," I remarked. "But there might have been a trap! Jeanjean would set one without the slightest hesitation."

"Just what I suspected, sir," replied Rayner. "At first I hesitated, but I had my revolver with me, so I resolved to search the place. Just as I crossed the road a constable turned the corner idly, and in a moment I was beside him. In a few words I asked him to accompany me, at the same time slipping a couple of half-crowns into his hand, much to the chagrin of the occupier of the house. To the constable I explained that I had reason to believe that a friend of mine was hidden in the house and I had been invited to search. So together we went in, and while the constable remained in the hall, I went from room to room with the dark-faced Hebrew. The place was well furnished, evidently the abode of a man of wealth and taste. He was something of a student, too, for in a corner of the small library at the rear, on the ground-floor, was a table, and on it several queer-looking electrical instruments and a telephone receiver. From room to room I went, and found nobody. Indeed, there was nobody else in the house except a sallow-looking youth, the son of the man who had invited me in. The back premises, however, told their own tale. At the end of the dark garden was a door in the wall, leading to a narrow lane beyond the tradesmen's entrance. By that way Jules Jeanjean had escaped nearly two hours before!"

"Yes. But the owner of Merton Lodge no doubt knows him and gives him shelter when he's in London," Rayner said.

"He may, but, if I judge correctly, Jeanjean knew he was followed from the first, and simply led you there to mystify you. He entered by the front door and went out at once by the back one," I said. "In all probability he only knows the owner of Merton Lodge quite slightly. If not, why did the Hebrew come out so boldly and ask you to search?"

"No, not exactly," I remarked. "If Jeanjean knew he was followed he would never have gone to a house where he could be again found, depend upon it. No. He perhaps told the person who opened the door to him some cock-and-bull story, and only remained in the house a minute or two. To me, all seems quite clear. He led you on a wild-goose chase, Rayner," I laughed, as we stood together in Holborn.

Yet scarcely had these words left my mouth when there passed close by us a thin, old gentleman in black, and wearing a silk hat. His grey hair and beard were close-cropped, but his broad forehead and narrow chin could not be disguised.

I held my breath as I recognized him at a glance. He had not noticed me, for my back had been towards him. Yet my heart beat quickly, for might he not have identified me by my clerical hat!

It was the man I had suspected of lying closely concealed in his office—old Gregory Vernon, the dealer in stolen gems.

CHAPTER XXIV MAKES A STARTLING DISCLOSURE

He crossed Holborn, walking leisurely, and smoking a cigar, and continued down St. Andrew Street and along towards Shoe Lane, I strolling after him at some distance behind.

At that hour the thoroughfare was practically deserted, therefore concealment was extremely difficult. Yet by his leisurely walk I felt convinced that in passing he had, fortunately, not recognized me.

The old man in the full enjoyment of his cigar, and apparently quite happy that if his offices were watched his two confederates would have taken off the watchers, strolled along St. Bride Street as far as the corner of Ludgate Hill, when he hailed a taxi and drove westward. His example I quickly followed, leaving Rayner standing on the kerb, unable to follow, as no third cab was in sight.

Up Fleet Street we drove quickly and along the Strand as far as Charing Cross, when the taxi I was pursuing turned into Northumberland Avenue and pulled up before the Hôtel Metropole.

I drew up further along, at the corner of the Embankment, at the same time watching the old man pay the driver and enter, being saluted by the uniformed porter, who evidently knew him.

For about five minutes I waited. Then I entered the hotel, where I also was well known, having very often stayed there.

Of the porter at the door, who touched his hat as I went in, I asked the name of the old gentleman who had just entered.

"I don't know his name, sir. He often stays here. They'll tell you at the key-office."

So I ascended the stairs into the hall, and made inquiry of the sharp-eyed, dark-faced man at the key-counter.

"Oh, Mr. Vernon, you mean, sir? Been in about five minutes. He's just gone up in the lift—Room 139a, first-floor—shall I send your name up, Mr. Vidal?"

"Every month," was the reply. "He usually spends about a week with us, and always has the same room."

"Oh, a very pretty young French girl who comes sometimes to see him," replied the clerk. Then, after reflection, he added: "I think the name is Sorel—Mademoiselle Sorel."

"Does she come alone?" I asked. "Excuse me making these inquiries," I added apologetically, "but I have strong reasons for doing so."

"Once she came alone, I think about six weeks ago. But she generally comes with a tall, rather ugly, but well-dressed Frenchman of about forty-five, a man who seems to be Mr. Vernon's most intimate friend."

I asked for a further description of her companion, and decided that it was Jules Jeanjean.

"Yes. He's somewhere down on the smoking-room floor. Do you want him?" he asked, surprised.

I replied in the affirmative. Whereupon a page was at once dispatched, and returned with an insignificant-looking man, an ex-sergeant of Scotland Yard, engaged by the hotel as its private inquiry agent.

"Will you come up with me to 139a. I want to see a Mr. Vernon, and there may be a little trouble. I may have to call in the police."

"What's the trouble, sir?" he asked in surprise, though he knew me to be an investigator of crime.

"Only a little difference between us," I said. "He may have a revolver. Have you got one?"

The detective smiled, and produced a serviceable-looking Colt from his hip-pocket, while I drew a long, plated, hammerless Smith & Wesson, which has been my constant companion throughout my adventurous life.

Then together we ascended in the lift, and passed along the corridor till we found the room which the clerk had indicated.

I tapped loudly at the door, at the same moment summoning all my self-possession. I was about to secure one of the most cunning and clever criminals on earth.

Then I heard footsteps advancing to the door, which was thrown open, and a chambermaid stood there.

"He did come in a few minutes ago, and took a small leather case, but he went out again at once."

With a glance round the room, which only contained a suit-case, I dashed down the stairs and into the hall.

"No, sir," he replied. "Mr. Vernon hasn't gone out this way. He may have gone out by the door in Whitehall Place."

I rushed through the hotel and, at the door indicated, the man in uniform told me that Mr. Vernon had left on foot five minutes before, going towards Whitehall.

So I returned to my rooms utterly fagged by the long vigil, and feeling thoroughly ill. Indeed, in my weak state, it had been a somewhat injudicious proceeding, yet I felt anxious and impatient, eager to strike a crushing blow against the daring band who held poor Lola so completely in their power.

The result of my imprudence, however, was another whole week in bed, and a further confinement to my room for a second week. Meanwhile Rayner was active and watchful.

Observation upon the offices of Loicq Frères showed that only an English clerk was left in charge, and that neither Vernon, Jeanjean nor Bertini had since been there. Vigilance upon Merton Lodge, in Hampstead, also resulted in nothing. It was clear, therefore, that the trio had become alarmed at my visit to Hatton Garden, even though I had exercised every precaution to avoid recognition.

As I sat in my big arm-chair, day after day, unable to go out, I carefully reviewed all the events of the past, just as I have set them down in these pages. Somehow—how it came to pass, I cannot tell—I found myself thinking more than ever of Lola Sorel, the sweet-faced, innocent-looking girl whose career had been fraught with so much tragedy, apprehension and bitterness.

Every day, nay, every hour, her pretty, fair face arose before my vision—that pale, delicately-moulded countenance, with the big, blue, wondering eyes, larger and more perfect than the eyes of any woman I had ever before met in the course of my adventurous career.

Time after time I asked myself why my thoughts should so constantly revert to her. Sleeping or waking, I dreamed ever of that dainty little figure with its sweet, rather sad face, the pathetic countenance of the pretty Parisienne who had so gradually fascinated and entranced me.

Within myself, I laughed at my own feelings of sympathy towards her. Why should I entertain any regard for a girl who, after all, was only a thief—a girl whose innocence had decoyed men, and caused women to betray the whereabouts of their jewels, so that her associates could rob them with impunity?

From the moment when I had seized her in my bedroom at Balmaclellan I had pitied her, and that pity had now deepened into keen sympathy for her, held, as she was, in those bonds of guilt, yet struggling always to free herself, like a poor frightened bird beating its wings against the bars.

Had I fallen in love with her? Time after time I asked myself that question. But time after time did I scout the very idea and laughed myself to ridicule.

The thought that I loved Lola Sorel, beautiful as she was, seemed utterly absurd.

Yes. During that fortnight of forced inactivity I had plenty of time to carefully analyse the whole situation, to examine every detail of the mystery surrounding the death of Edward Craig and, also, to formulate fresh plans.

One fact was evident—that Vernon and his friends intended that Lola should die. In addition, so subtle were they, I knew not when some secret and desperate attack might not be made upon myself.

The autumn days were passing. Business London had returned from the country and the sea, and even the blinds of houses in Berkeley Square were, one after another, being raised, indicative of the fact that many people in Society were already again in town.

I exchanged letters with Lola almost daily. She was very happy and had greatly improved, she said, and also expressed a hope that we should soon meet, a hope which I devoutly reciprocated.

My one great fear, however, was that some dastardly attack might be made upon her if any of the bandits succeeded in discovering her hiding-place. For that reason I sent Rayner to Bournemouth in secret to watch the house, and to ascertain whether any signs of intended evil were apparent.

He remained there a week, until one morning in October I received an urgent telegram from him asking me, if I were well enough, to lose no time in coming to Bournemouth. He gave no reason for the urgency of his message, but gravely apprehensive, I took the next train from Waterloo, arriving in Bournemouth about four o'clock. Rayner refused to meet me openly, so I drove to the Grand Hotel, where he was staying, and found him in his room awaiting me.

"There's something up, sir," he said very seriously, when I had closed the door. "But I can't exactly make out what is intended. Mademoiselle does not, of course, know I'm here. She went to the Winter Gardens with two young ladies last night, and they were followed by a man—a stranger. He went behind them to the concert, and sat in the back seats watching them, and when they walked home, he followed."

"No, an Englishman, sir," was my man's reply. "I dare say if we go along to Boscombe to-night, and watch the house, we might see him. He's up to no good, I believe."

As soon as darkness fell, we took the tram eastward, and at length alighted at the end of a quiet road of comfortable red-brick villas, in one of which Lola was residing, a road which ran from the highway towards the sea.

Separating, I passed up the road, while my man waited at the corner. The house of my friends stood in its own small garden, a neat, artistic little red-and-white place with a long verandah in front and a pleasant garden full of dahlias. As I passed it I saw that many of the rooms were lit, and I was eager to go and ring at the door and meet Lola, after our long separation.

But I remembered I was there to watch and to ward off any danger that might threaten. Therefore I turned upon my heel, and finding a hedge, behind which lay some vacant land, I hid myself behind it and waited, wondering what had become of Rayner.

All was quiet, save for the rumble of electric trams passing along the main road to Bournemouth. From where I lurked, smoking a cigarette, I could hear a woman's sweet contralto voice singing gaily one of the latest songs of the Paris Café concerts, which ran—

"C'est la femme aux bijoux,

Celle qui rend fou,

C'est une enjôleuse,

Tous ceux qui l'ont aimée,

Ont souffert, ont pleuré.

Ell' n'aime que l'argent,

Se rit des serments,

Prends garde à la gueuse!

Le cœur n'est qu'un joujou,

Pour la femme aux bijoux!"

La femme aux bijoux! The words fell upon my ears, causing me to ponder. Was she not herself "La femme aux bijoux"! How strangely appropriate was that merry chanson which I had so often heard in Paris, Brussels, and elsewhere.

Suddenly the train of my reflections was interrupted by the sound of a light footstep coming in my direction, and, peering eagerly forth, I discerned the figure of a rather smart-looking man advancing towards me.

I watched him come forward, tall and erect, into the light of the street-lamp a little to my left. He was well dressed in a smart suit of dark brown with well-creased trousers, and wore a soft Hungarian hat of dark-brown plush. On his hands were wash-leather gloves and he carried a gold-mounted stick.

As he came nearer I saw his face, and my heart gave a great leap. I stared again, not being able to believe my own eyes!

Was it, indeed, any wonder? How would you, my reader, have felt in similar circumstances? I ask, for the man who came past me, within a couple of feet from where I stood concealed, all unconscious of my presence, was no stranger.

CHAPTER XXV IS MORE MYSTERIOUS

I stood there aghast, staggered, open-mouthed. The man was walking slowly towards the house whence issued the gay chanson, the house where, in the great bay window, shone a bright light across the tiny strip of lawn which separated it from the roadway.

I watched him like a man in a dream. As he approached the house he trod lightly on tip-toe, unaware of my presence behind the bushes. In a flash the recollections of that strange affair by the North Sea, in Cromer, recurred to me. I remembered that green-painted seat upon the cliff, where the coast-guard, in the early dawn, had found him lying dead, of his strange disguise, and of the coroner's inquiry which followed. I remembered too, all too well, the puzzling incidents which followed; the presence of the notorious Jeanjean in that quiet little cliff-resort; the disappearance of the man of master-mind; the discovery of his hoard of gold and gems, and how, subsequently, it had been spirited away in a manner which had absolutely flabbergasted the astute members of the Norfolk Constabulary, unused as they were to cases of ingenious crime.

I watched Craig's receding figure in startled wonder, holding my breath, and trying to convince myself that I had been mistaken in some resemblance.

But I was not. The man who had passed me was Edward Craig in the flesh—the man upon whose death twelve honest tradesmen of Cromer had delivered their verdict—the man who had been placed in his coffin and buried.

Was ever there incident such as this, I wondered? Had ever man met with a similar experience?

By the light of the street-lamp I saw him glance anxiously up and down that quiet, dark road. Then satisfying himself that he was unobserved, he crept in at the gate, crossed the lawn noiselessly, and peered in at the window through the chink between the windowframe and the blind.

For fully five minutes he remained with his eyes glued to the window. In the light which fell upon him I saw that his face had assumed an angry, vengeful look, and that his gloved hands were clenched.

Yes. He certainly meant mischief. He was watching her as she sat, all unconsciously, at the piano, singing the gay chansons of the boulevards, "Mimi d'Amour," "Le tic-tac du Moulin," "Petit Pierre," and others, so popular in Paris at the moment.

The family of the retired excise-officer knew but little French, but they evidently enjoyed the spontaneous gaiety of the songs.

That Edward Craig, after his mysterious death, should reappear as a shadow in the night was certainly most astounding. At first I tried to convince myself that only a strong resemblance existed, but his gait, his figure, his face, the manner in which he held his cane, and the slight angle at which he wore his hat—the angle affected by those elegant young men who in these days are termed "nuts"—were all the same.

And yet, who was the man who so suddenly lost his life while masquerading in the clothes of old Gregory Vernon?

With strained eyes I watched and saw him change his position in order to obtain a better view of the interior of the room. There was no sign of Rayner, who, I supposed, had not risked following him, knowing that I was lurking close to the house.

That his intentions were evil ones I could not doubt, and yet the light shining upon his countenance revealed a strange, almost fascinated expression, as his eyes were fixed into the room, and upon her without a doubt.

The music had not ceased. Her quick fingers were still running over the keys, and in her sweet contralto she was singing the catching refrain—

"Mimi d'amour,

Petite fleur jolie,

Oui pour toujours

Je t'ai donné ma vie.

Les jours sont courts

Grisons-nous, ma chérie,

Petit' Mimi jolie,

Mimi d'amour!"

Her voice ceased, and, as it did so, the silent watcher crept away, gaining the pavement and walking lightly in my direction.

As he passed, within a couple of feet of where I was concealed, I was able to confirm my belief. There was no doubt as to his identity. By this discovery the cliff-mystery at Cromer had become a more formidable and astounding problem. Who could have been the actual victim? What facts did Lola actually know?

So well organized and so far extended the ramifications of the criminal association of which Gregory Vernon was the head and brains, that I became bewildered.

I stood gazing over the hedge watching Craig disappear back towards the main road, where at the corner a small red light now showed.

When he had got a safe distance from me, I emerged and, crossing the road quickly, hastened after him. Rayner was in waiting and would, no doubt, take up the chase.

Yet when he approached the corner I saw that he suddenly crossed to where the red light showed, and entering the car, which was evidently waiting for him, was driven swiftly off to the right in the direction of Christchurch.

Rayner met me in breathless haste a few moments after the car had turned the corner, saying—

"I didn't know that car was waiting for him, sir. It only pulled up a moment ago."

"You must do so," I said. "The police will help you. But do you know who that man was?"

"Edward Craig!" echoed Rayner, staring at me as we stood at the street corner together. "Why, that's the man who was murdered at Cromer!"

"I tell you, Rayner, that Edward Craig—the man who is supposed to be nephew of old Gregory Vernon—is still alive. I could identify him among ten thousand."

"That's just what we have to discover," I replied. "We must find out, too, why he wore old Vernon's clothes on that fatal night."

Thoughts of the footprint, and the tiny shoe which had so exactly fitted it, arose within me, but I kept my own counsel and said nothing.

Having told Rayner to inquire of the police regarding the mysterious car, and to return to the hotel and await me, I retraced my steps along that quiet, eminently respectable road, inhabited mostly by retired tradespeople from London or the North of England, who live in their "model" villas or "ideal homes" so pleasantly situated, after the smoke and bustle of business life.

When I entered the pretty little drawing-room where Lola was, she sprang to her feet to receive me, holding out her small white hand in glad welcome.

In her smiling, sweet face was a far healthier look than when I had taken leave of her, and returned to London, and in reply to my question, she declared that she felt much stronger. The sea air had done her an immense amount of good. Yes, she was a delightful little person who had been ever in my thoughts.

She anxiously inquired after my health, but I laughingly declared that I was now quite right again.

Her hostess, Mrs. Featherstone, with her daughter, Winifred, and a young fellow to whom the latter was engaged, were present, so I sat down for a chat, all four being apparently delighted by my unexpected visit. Mr. Featherstone had, I found, gone to London that morning and would not return for three days.

Presently mother and daughter, and the young man, probably knowing that I wished to speak with Mademoiselle alone, made excuses and left the room.

Then when the door had closed I rose and walked over to where Lola, in a simple semi-evening gown of soft cream silk, was reclining in an arm-chair, her neat little shoes placed upon a velvet footstool.

"To-night," I said in a low voice in French, as I stood near her chair, my hand resting upon it. "To-night, Lola, I have made a very startling discovery."

"Edward Craig is still alive!" I answered. "He did not die in Cromer, as we have all believed."

"Edward Craig!" she echoed, amazed. "How do you know? I—I mean—mon Dieu!—it's impossible!"

"It seems impossible, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, Lola," I declared in a low, earnest tone as I bent towards her. I had watched her face and, by its expression, knew the truth. "And you," I added, slowly, "have been aware of this all along."

"I—I——" she faltered in French, opening her big blue eyes widely, as the colour mounted to her cheeks in her confusion.

"No," I interrupted, raising my hand in protest. "Please do not deny it. You have known that Craig did not die, Lola. You may as well, at once, admit your knowledge."

"Well," and then she hesitated. But, after a few seconds' reflection, she went on: "After that affair at Lobenski's in Petersburg, I was leaving at night for Berlin, by the Ostend rapide, with some of the stolen stones sewn in my dress, as I told you, when, just as the train moved off from the platform, I fancied I caught sight of him. But only for a second. Then, when I came to consider all the facts, I felt convinced that my eyes must have deceived me. Edward Craig was dead and buried, and the man on the railway platform must have only borne some slight resemblance to him."

"Well, yes," she replied slowly. "Curiously enough, I saw the same person once in Paris, and again in London. I was in a taxi going along Knightsbridge on the afternoon of the day when I afterwards walked so innocently into the trap at Spring Grove. He was just coming out of the post-office in Knightsbridge, but did not notice me as I passed. I turned to look at him a second time, but he had gone in the opposite direction and his back was towards me. Yet I felt certain that he was actually the same man whom I had seen as the Ostend Express had left Petersburg. And now," she added, looking straight into my eyes, "you tell me that Edward Craig still lives!"

"At this house!" gasped the Nightingale, starting instantly to her feet, her face as pale as death.

"Yes. He has been standing on the lawn outside, peering in at this window, watching you seated at the piano," I explained.

"Yes," I replied. "And, if my surmise is correct, he is certainly no friend of yours. He has watched you during the coup in Petersburg, again in Paris, and in London, and now he has discovered your hiding-place," I answered. "What does it all mean?"

Deathly pale, with thin, quivering lips, and hands clasped helplessly before her, she stood there in an attitude of deadly fear, of blank despair.

"Yes," she whispered in a low, strained voice, full of apprehension. "I believed that he was dead, that——"

But she halted, as if suddenly recollecting that her words might betray her. Her bosom, beneath the laces of her corsage, rose and fell convulsively.

"That—what?" I asked in a soft, sympathetic voice, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, and looking into her wonderful eyes.

"Oh! I—I——" she exclaimed in a half-choked voice. "I thought him dead. But now, alas! I find that my suspicions are well grounded. He is alive—and he has actually been here!"

"Then you are in fear of him—in deadly fear, Lola," I said. "Why?" And I looked straight at my dainty little friend.

She tried to make response, but though her white lips moved no sound escaped them. I saw how upset and overwrought she was by the amazing information I had conveyed to her.

"Tell me the truth, Lola—the truth of what happened in Cromer," I urged, my hand still upon her shoulder. "Do not withhold it from me. Remember, I am your friend, your most devoted friend."

"If the dead man was not Edward Craig, then, who was he?" I asked, as she had made no reply.

"How can I tell?" she asked in French. "I thought it was Craig. Was he not identified as Craig and buried as him?"

"Certainly. And I, too, most certainly believed the body to be that of Craig," I answered.

For a few moments there was a dead silence. Then I repeated my question. I could see that she feared that young man's visit even more than she did either her uncle or the old scoundrel Vernon.

For some mysterious reason the fact that Craig still lived held her in breathless suspense and apprehension.

"Lola," I said at last, speaking very earnestly and sympathetically, "am I correct in my surmise that this man, whom both you and I have believed to be in his grave, is in possession of some secret of yours—some weighty secret? Tell me frankly."

For answer she slowly nodded, and next moment burst into a torrent of hot, bitter tears, saying, in a faltering voice, scarce above a whisper—

"Yes, alas! M'sieur Vidal. He—he is in possession of my secret—and—and the past has risen against me!"

CHAPTER XXVI HOT-FOOT ACROSS EUROPE

By Lola's attitude I became more than ever mystified. I tried to induce her to tell me the exact position of affairs, but she seemed far too nervous and unstrung. The fact that Craig had found out her hiding-place seemed to cause her the most breathless anxiety.

It was eleven o'clock before I rose to go, after begging her many times in vain to tell me the truth. I felt confident that she could reveal the strange mystery of Cromer, yet she steadfastly refused.

"You surely see, Lola, that we are both in serious peril," I said, standing before the chair upon which she had sunk in deep dejection. "These daring, unscrupulous people must, sooner or later, make a fatal attack upon us, if we do not deliver our blow against them. To invoke the aid or protection of the police is useless. They set all authority at defiance, for they are wealthy, and the ramifications of their society extend all over Europe."

"I know," she admitted. "Vernon has agents in every country. I have met many of them—quite unsuspicious persons. My uncle has introduced me to people at whose apparent honesty and respectability I have been amazed."

"Then you must surely realize how insecure is the present position of both of us," I said.

"By an advertisement I saw in the paper three days ago," she answered. "They use a certain column of a certain paper on a certain day to distribute general information to all those interested."

"In a secret cipher—known only to the friends of M'sieur Vernon," she said. "They always look for his orders or his warnings on the eighteenth of each month. My uncle is back at Algiers."

"But the young man, Craig. Why is he watching you? It can only be with evil intent."

She drew a long breath, but said nothing. And to all my further questions she remained dumb, so that when I bent over her outstretched hand and left, I felt annoyed at her resolute secrecy—a secrecy which must, I felt, result fatally.

And yet by her manner I was confident that she was still prevented by fear from revealing everything to me. Yes, after all, I pitied her deeply.

At the Grand I found Rayner awaiting me. He had already learnt from the police that the car in which Craig had driven away belonged to a garage in Bournemouth.

On going there he had found the car had just returned. It had been hired for the evening by Craig himself, who had first driven out to Boscombe and was afterwards driven to Christchurch, where he had caught the express for London.

This news I scribbled in a note to Lola, and before midnight Rayner had delivered it at Mr. Featherstone's house.

Then I retired to rest full of strange thoughts and serious apprehensions. The revelations of that night had indeed been astounding. Craig was alive, and his intentions were, undoubtedly, sinister ones.

But who was the man who had met with such a mysterious death and had been buried as "Mr. Gregory's nephew?"

At eleven o'clock next morning I took the tram along to Boscombe and rang at the door of the house where my delightful little friend was living.

"Mademoiselle left for London by the eight o'clock train this morning, sir. She packed all her things after you left last night, and ordered a cab by telephone."

"Didn't she leave me any message?" I asked Mrs. Featherstone, when I saw her a few moments later.

"No, none, Mr. Vidal," replied the old lady. "After you had gone, and she received your note, she became suddenly very terrified, why, I don't know. Then she packed, and though we tried to persuade her to stay till you called, she declined. All she said, besides thanking us, was that she would write to you."

Could it have been that she had discovered any one else watching the house? Strange, I thought, that she had not sent me word of her intended departure. She could so easily have spoken to me on the telephone.

Well, two hours later, I followed her to London, and began an inquiry of hotels where I knew she had stayed on previous occasions—the Cecil, the Savoy, the Carlton, the Metropole, the Grand, and so forth. But though I spent a couple of hours on the telephone, speaking with various reception clerks, I could get no news of Mademoiselle Sorel.

Yet, was it surprising? She would hardly, in the circumstances, stay in London in her own name.

Ten days went by. By each post I expected news of Lola, but none came, and I felt confident that she had gone abroad.

I wired and wrote to Mademoiselle Elise Leblanc, at the Poste Restante at Versailles. But I obtained no reply. At last I went down to Cromer and remained at the Hôtel de Paris for nearly a week, carefully going over all the details of the mystery with Mr. Day and Inspector Treeton, who were, of course, both as much puzzled as I was myself.

The autumn weather was perfect. The holiday crowd had left, and Cromer looked her brightest and best in the glorious sunshine and golden tints of the declining year. On the links I played one or two most enjoyable rounds, and once or twice I sat outside the Golf Club and smoked and chatted with men I knew in London.

Time after time I visited that green-painted seat near which the dead man had been found and where I had discovered the imprint of Lola's shoe. But, beyond what I have already recorded in the foregoing pages, I could discover absolutely nothing. The identity of the man who had masqueraded in the clothes of the master-criminal was entirely enshrouded in mystery.

The law had buried Edward Craig, and in the cemetery, on the road to Holt was a plain head-stone bearing his name and the date of his death.

How could I have been mistaken in his identity? That was the chief fact which held me puzzled and confused. I had looked upon his face, as others had done, and all had agreed that the man who died was actually Craig.

I told Treeton nothing of my discovery, but one day, as I stood at the window of the hotel gazing across the sea, I made a sudden resolve, and that evening I found myself back again in my rooms in London, with Rayner packing my traps for a trip across the Channel.

My one most deadly fear was that Lola might, already, have fallen into one or other of the pitfalls which were, no doubt, spread open for her. The crafty, unscrupulous gang, with Vernon at their head, were determined that we both should die.

On the morning of my arrival from Cromer I left Charing Cross by the boat-train, and that same evening entered the long, dusty wagon-lit of the night rapide for Marseilles.

Marseilles! How many times in my life had I trod the broad Cannebière, drank cocktails at the Louvre et Paix, ate my boullibuisse at the little underground café, where the best in the world is served, or sauntered along the double row of booths placed under the trees of the boulevard—shops where one can buy anything from a toothpick to a kitchen-stove. Yes, even to the blasé cosmopolitan, Marseilles is always interesting, and as I drove along from the station up the Cannebière, I found the place full of life and movement, with the masts of shipping and glimpses of huge docks showing at the end of the broad, handsome thoroughfare.

From the station I drove direct to the big black mail-boat of the French Transatlantic Company, and by noon we had swung out of the harbour past the historic Château d'If, our bows set due south, for Algiers. Lola had told me that Jeanjean had fled to his hiding-place. And I intended to seek him and face him.

There were few passengers on board—one or two French officers on their way to join their regiments, a few commercial men; while in the third class I saw more than one squatting, brown-faced Arab, picturesque in his white burnouse and turban, placidly smoking, with his belongings tied in bundles arranged around him on the deck. The sea in the Gulf of Lyons was rough, as it usually is, yet the bright autumn weather on land had seemed perfect. As soon, however, as we were away from the gulf and in the open sea, following for hours in the wake of an Orient liner on her way to Australia, the weather abated and the voyage became most enjoyable.

As a student of men, I found the passengers in the steerage far more interesting than those in the saloon. Among the former was a knot of young, active-looking men of various nationalities, who leaned over the side watching the crimson sunset, and smoking and chattering, sometimes trying to make each other understand. I saw they were in charge of a military officer, and one of them being a smart, rather gentlemanly young Englishman—the only other Englishman on board, as far as I could gather—I spoke to him.

"Yes," he laughed, "my comrades here are rather a queer lot. We've all of us come to grief in one way or another. Bad luck, that's it. I speak for myself. I had a commission in the Hussars, but the gambling fever bit me hard, and I went a little too often to Dick Seddon's snug little place in Knightsbridge. Then I came a cropper, the governor cut up rough, and there was only one thing left to do—to hand in my papers, go to Paris, and join the French Foreign Legion. So, here I am, drafted to Algeria as a private with my friends, who are all in the same glorious predicament. See that fair-bearded chap over there?" he added, pointing to a well-set-up man of thirty-five who was just lighting a cigarette. "He's a German Baron, captain of one of the crack regiments in Saxony—quite a decent chap—a woman, I think, is at the bottom of his trouble."

And so, while the Arabs knelt towards Mecca, and touched the decks with their foreheads, we chatted on, he telling me what he knew concerning each of his hard-up companions who, under names not their own, were now on their way to serve France, as privates, in the "Legion of the Lost Ones," and start their careers afresh.

At last, after a couple of days, the blue coast of Africa could be discerned straight ahead, and gradually, as I stood leaning upon the rail and watching, the long white front of Algiers, with its breakwater, its white domes of mosques, and high minarets, and its heights crowned by white villas, came into view.

The city, dazzling white against the intense blue of the Mediterranean, presented a picture like the illustration to a fairy tale, and I stood watching, the sunny strip of African shore until at last we dropped anchor in the shelter of the bay, and presently went ashore in a boat.

I followed my traps across the sun-baked promenade to the nearest hotel—the old-fashioned Régence, in The Place—and after a wash, and a marzagran at the café outside, I inquired my way to the Prefecture of Police, where, on presenting an open letter, which Henri Jonet, of the Sûreté, had given me a couple of years before, and which had often served as an introduction, I was received very cordially.

"I am making an inquiry, and I want, M'sieur, to ask you to allow me to have one of your men. I am meeting an individual who may prove desperate."

"There is danger—eh? Why, of course, M'sieur, a man shall accompany you." And he shouted through the open window to one of his underlings who was seated on a bench in the inner courtyard.

I made no mention of the name of Jules Jeanjean. Had I done so the effect would, I know, have been electrical.

But when I got outside with the dark-eyed, sunburnt little man in a shabby straw hat and rather frayed suit, I exclaimed in French—

"There is a villa somewhere outside the town where some experiments in wireless telegraphy are being conducted. Do you happen to know the place?"

"Ah! M'sieur means the Villa Beni Hassan, out near the Jardin d'Essai. There are two high masts in the grounds with four long wires suspended between them."

From the latter, as the detective gave it to me, I at once knew that the Comte d'Esneux and Jules Jeanjean were one and the same.

"Non, Monsieur," replied the man. "He is a great Belgian financier. He comes here at frequent intervals, and carries on his experiments with wireless telegraphy. It is said that he has made several discoveries in wireless telephony, hence the Government have given him permission to establish a station with as great a power as that at Oran."

"Constantly. It is said that he can actually transmit messages to Paris and England. Last year, when the station at Oran was injured by fire, the Government operators came here, took his instruments over and worked them. The installation is, I believe, most up-to-date."

And together we entered a ramshackle fiacre in The Place, and drove away out by the city gate to the white, dusty high-road, along which many white-robed Arabs and a few Europeans were trudging in the burning glare of the African sun.

When I had mentioned the Count as the person whom I wished to see, I noticed that the detective hesitated, and, with a strange look, regarded me with some apprehension.

Did he suspect? Was he suspicious of the truth concerning the actual identity of the wealthy Belgian financier who dabbled in wireless?

Had the ever-active Jonet at last succeeded in establishing the secret hiding-place of the notorious Jules Jeanjean—the prince of European jewel-thieves?

CHAPTER XXVII OPENS A DEATH-TRAP

The Villa Beni Hassan, a great red-and-white house of Moorish architecture, with three large domes, and many minarets, and long-arched windows of stained glass, I found standing high up, facing the azure sea, amid a wonderful tropical garden full of tall, feathery palms, dark oleanders, fiery pointsettias, and a perfect tangle of aloes, roses, giant geraniums and other brilliant flowers.

A high white wall hid it from the dusty highway, its position being between the road and the sea with spacious, well-kept grounds sloping away down to the golden beach. Truly it was a princely residence, one of the finest in the picturesque suburbs of Algiers. That afternoon beneath the blazing African sun, shining like burnished copper, all was still in the fiery heat, which, after the coolness of autumn in England, seemed overpowering.

At length the ricketty fiacre pulled up before great gates of ornamental iron-work, the tops of which were gilded, and on ringing, a gigantic Arab janitor in blue and gold livery appeared from the concierge's lodge, and salaamed.

In Arabic my companion explained that we wished to see the Comte, whereupon he opened the gates, and on foot we proceeded up the winding, well-kept drive, bordered by flowers, and shaded by palms of various species. On our left, across a sun-baked lawn, in the centre of which a big handsome fountain was playing, I caught sight of an aerial mast of iron lattice nearly a hundred feet high, and across from it to another similar mast were suspended four thin wires, kept apart by wooden crosses.

I held my breath. I was actually upon the domain of the most daring criminal known to the European police.

"There are the wires of the wireless station," the detective exclaimed. "But why, M'sieur, do you wish to see the Comte?" he asked with sudden curiosity.

"To ask him a plain question," was my brief and, I fear, rather snappish reply. "But tell me," I added, "have you ever seen his niece here visiting him?"

"Mademoiselle Sorel, M'sieur means. Yes, certainly. She has often been here—young, about nineteen—très petite, and very pretty. She lives in Paris."

"Ah! I have not seen her here for several months," replied the man in the shabby straw hat. "I saw the Comte only yesterday. I was in Mustapha Pasha when he went past in his grey automobile. He had with him the tall elderly Englishman who sometimes visits here, a M'sieur Vernon, I think, is his name."

As he uttered the words we turned the corner, and the great white Moorish house, with the broad dark-red bands upon the walls, and dark-red decorations over the arched corridors, came into view.

Boldly we approached the front door, before which was a great arched portico lined with dark-blue tiles, delightfully cool after the sun without. Yet scarcely had we placed our feet upon the threshold when a tall servant, with face jet-black and three scars upon his cheeks, his tribal marks, stood before us with a look of inquiry, silently barring our further passage.

Beyond we saw a cool courtyard, where vine were trailing overhead, and water plashed pleasantly into a marble basin.

Again the detective explained that we wished to see the Comte d'Esneux, whereupon the silent servant, bowing, motioned us to enter a small elegantly furnished room on the left of the courtyard, and then disappeared, closing the door after him.

The room, panelled in cedar-wood, was Moorish in character, the light filtering in through long windows of stained glass. Around the vaulted ceiling was a symmetrical device in Arabesque in gold, red and blue, while about the place were soft Moorish divans and silken cushions, with rich rugs on the floor, and a heavy brass arabesque lamp suspended from the centre of the ornamented ceiling. The place was full of the subtlest perfume of burning pastilles, and, in a cabinet, I noted a collection of rare Arab gold and silver jewellery.

And this was the home of the motor-bandit of the Forest of Fontainebleau—the man who had shot dead the Paris jeweller, Benoy, with as little compunction as he killed a fly.

I strode around the room, bewildered by its Arabian Nights aspect. Truly Jules Jeanjean lived in a style befitting an Eastern Prince.

"Hush!" I exclaimed, and we both listened to a loud crackling. "That," I said, "is the sound of wireless telegraphy. A message is being sent out across the sea."

Suddenly the noise ceased. The door-keeper, who had not asked our names, had evidently sent in the message that two strangers desired to see his master.

But it was only a pause, for in a few seconds the message was resumed. I could easily distinguish the long and short cracks of the spark across the gap, as the electric waves were sent into the ether over the Mediterranean to Europe.

I happen to know the Continental Morse code, for I had dabbled in wireless telegraphy two years before. So I stood with strained ears trying to decipher the tapped-out message. I heard that it was directed to some station the call-letters of which were "B. X." But the message was a mere jumble of letters and numerals of some pre-arranged code.

I listened attentively till I heard the rapid short sound followed by four long sounds, and another short one, which indicated the conclusion of the message.

I felt myself upon the verge of a great and effective triumph. I would give Jeanjean into custody upon a charge of murder, and if Vernon were still there, he should also be captured at the point of the revolver.

In a whisper I urged my companion to hold himself in readiness for a great surprise, and to have his revolver handy—which he had.

The heavy atmosphere of the room where, from a big old bowl of brass with a pierced cover, ascended the blue smoke of perfume being burnt upon charcoal ashes, became almost unbearable. The pastilles as burnt by the Orientals is pleasing to the nostrils unless some foreign matter be mixed with them, or the smoke is not allowed to escape. In this case the round-headed stained glass windows were fully twelve feet from the ground, had wire-work in front of them, and apparently did not open. The designs of dark-blue, purple, red and yellow were very elegant, and they were probably very ancient windows brought from some fairy-like palace of the days before the occupation of Algeria by the French.

Again I gazed around the delightfully luxurious apartment, so essentially Moorish and artistic. Amid such surroundings had lived Lola—the girl who had fled from me and disappeared.

What would the world say when it became known that that magnificent house, almost indeed a palace, was the home of the man of a hundred crimes, the daring and unscrupulous criminal, Jules Jeanjean?

I was listening for a repetition of the wireless signals to B.X., but could distinguish nothing. Probably he was receiving their reply, in which case there would be no sounds except in the head-telephones.

"Mon Dieu!" gasped my companion, whose name he had told me was Fournier. "This atmosphere is becoming suffocating!"

I agreed, and tried to extinguish the fire within the brazier. Unfortunately I failed to open the lid, which was held down by some spring the catch of which I could not detect.

Indeed, the thin column of blue smoke grew darker and denser, as we watched. The room became full of a perfume which gradually changed to a curious odour which suffocated us.

We both coughed violently, and upon me grew the feeling that I was being asphyxiated. My throat became contracted, my eyes smarted, and I could only take short, quick gasps.

In an instant we both realized that we were imprisoned, and began to bang violently upon the heavy doors of iron-bound and unpolished oak, shouting to be let out. The fool of an Arab had secured us there while he went to announce our visit to his master.

I took up a small ebony and pearl coffee-table inlaid with a verse from the Koran, and raising it frantically above my head, attacked the locked door. But when it struck the oak it flew into a dozen pieces. Fournier took up a small chair with equally futile result, and then in silence we exchanged glances.

Could it be, that on our approach to the house, we had been recognized by the owner and invited into that room which, with its rising fumes, was nothing less than an ingenious death-trap.

I remembered the sinister grin upon the villainous black face of the silent servant.

Again and again we attacked the door, for we knew that our lives depended upon our escape. We shouted, yelled and banged, but attracted no attention. We threw things at the windows, but they were protected by the wire-work.

Swiftly I bent down and examined the large keyhole. The key had been taken and, it seemed to me, the heavy bolt of the lock had been shot into a deep socket in the framework of the door.

Without a word I motioned Fournier to stand back, and finding that the barrel of my revolver was, fortunately, small enough to insert into the keyhole, I pushed it in and pulled the trigger.

A loud explosion followed, and splinters of wood and iron flew in all directions. The bolt of the lock was blown away and the door forced open.

Next second, with revolvers in our hands, we stood facing two black faced servants, who drew back in alarm as we rushed from that lethal chamber.

Fournier, excited as a Frenchman naturally would be in such circumstances, raised his weapon and shouted in Arabic that he was a police-officer, and that all persons in that house were to consider themselves under arrest. Whereupon both men, Moors they were most probably, fell upon their knees begging for mercy.

My companion exchanged some quick words with them, and they entered into a conversation, while at the same moment, casting my eyes across the beautiful, blue-tiled, vaulted hall, I looked through an open door into the room which the Count d'Esneux used for his experiments in wireless.

At a glance I recognized, by the variety of the apparatus, the size of the great spiral transmitting helix, by the pattern of the loose-coupled tuning inductance, the big variable condensers, those strange-looking circular instruments of zinc vanes enclosed in a round glass, used for receiving, the electrolytic detector, and the big crystal detector, a gold point working over silicon, carborundum, galena, and copper pyrites—that the station must have a very wide range. The spark-gap was bigger than any I had ever before seen, while there was a long loading coil enabling any distant station using long wave-lengths to be picked up, as well as the latest type of potentiometer, used to regulate the voltage and current supplied to the detectors.

At a glance I took in the whole arrangement, placed as it was, upon a long table beneath a window of stained glass at the further end of that luxurious little Moorish chamber. Apparently no cost had been spared in its installation, and I fully believed that with it the notorious criminal could communicate with any station within a radius of, perhaps, two thousand miles.

Fournier had questioned the native servants rapidly, and received their replies, which were at first unsatisfactory. I saw by the fear in their faces that he had threatened them, when suddenly one of them excitedly made a statement.

"Diable!" cried the detective in French, turning to me. "The Count recognized us, and had us locked in that death-chamber while he and the Englishman, M'sieur Vernon, got away!"

A quick word in Arabic, and the two servants, without further reluctance, dashed away along the big hall, through several luxuriously-furnished rooms full of soft divans, where the air was heavy with Eastern perfumes and the decorations were mostly in dark red and blue. Then across a small cool courtyard paved with polished marble, where another fountain plashed, and out to the sun-baked palm-grove which sloped from the front of the house away to the calm sapphire sea.

Excitedly the men pointed, as we stood upon the marble terrace, to a white speck far away along the broken coast of pale brown rocks, a speck fast receding around the next point, behind which was hidden the harbour of Algiers.

"By Gad!" I cried, gazing eagerly after it, "that's a motor-boat, and they are making for the town! We mustn't lose an instant or they will get away to some place of safety."

So together we dashed back to the road as fast as our legs could carry us, and drove with all possible speed back to the town, in order to reach the harbour before the fugitives could land.