Introductory material

THE CRIME CODE

CHAPTER ONE. TO BEG PARDON OF THE READER

At the outset I wish to impress on those who read this straightforward and unembellished narrative of my amazing and often exciting adventures, that I seek not to hide my own shortcomings, for they are alas! many; nor do I in the least desire to pose as a vainglorious hero. At least, I am not one who slops about in the oozy slime of the sex problem.

From leading the normal life of an ordinary young man about London, I was, by a strange freak of ill-fortune, and in the space of a single minute, plunged into a veritable vortex of doubt and misery, compelled to lead the life of a hunted criminal, and to resort to all sorts of ruses in order to retain my liberty. And yet, the events which led up to the sudden change in my life are such as might occur to any man, on any night, in any big city in the world.

I suppose, in order that I shall be understood right from the outset, I may as well explain that I am Lionel Hipwell. My old governor is the Honorable George Hipwell, of Hipwell Hall, near Bulwick, Northamptonshire, Deputy-Lieutenant for the County, and Member of Parliament for South-East Rutland. After Eton, I graduated at Oxford, and then read for the Bar, to which I was called; but I have never practised. For twenty-one years my father had sat for the same constituency in the Conservative interest, and it was my ambition also to sit in the House. With that object, I studied politics keenly, especially in reference to our relations with foreign countries; and I often addressed political meetings. I had the satisfaction of being hailed as sound in argument, with a clear and lucid delivery. Therefore, the decision of the Conservative party to adopt me as a candidate at the next election had recently placed me in the seventh heaven of delight. And, when I told Joan, to whom I was engaged, she regarded me as a prospective occupant of a seat on the Front Bench.

I have mentioned that I was engaged to Joan Gell, but it was only informally and secretly.

Joan was the only daughter of the famous King’s Counsel, Mr. John Gell, the stoutest man who had taken silk. But, unfortunately, he and my father were bitter enemies, arising out of a political quarrel of a couple of years before. Hence, both Joan and I thought it discreet to wait before announcing our engagement, until such time as the quarrel was patched up.

Nevertheless, we met often—more often than her parents ever guessed. Indeed, she not infrequently overstepped the bounds of strict propriety, sometimes coming to my rooms in Sackville Street and taking a cozy tea, with her feet upon my fender. I adored her, and she, on her part, reciprocated my affection. We understood each other perfectly, and though she was highly popular in a smart set, and much sought after as a dancing-partner, yet I had never any cause for undue jealousy. The society in which I moved in London—a fairly good one as judged in these hectic days of night-club dancing—had rather sickened me. I loved Hipwell, with its hunting with the Cottesmore, its one-day-a-week beagling, the fishing over our own stream, the walks in the park in spring, and the interviewing of our tenant-farmers. I had no use for the night life of London, with the marks that glow red on the pasty foreheads of callow youths and erotic widows, who rave about affinities and make the south of Sicily their winter home.

Though having quarreled with my father, the stout old King’s Counsel was always friendly towards me. Hence, I was frequently invited to his house at Queen’s Gate, a place noteworthy for the collection of antique furniture and an unrivaled assortment of ancient snuff-boxes. Mr. Gell was a connoisseur, and, making a very large income at the Bar, expended money lavishly on his hobby. His wife, a handsome, well-preserved, and much-traveled woman, who doted on Joan, gave frequent parties, and for each I always received a card. In the Temple it was an open secret that elevation to the Bench had been offered to “Jelly” Gell—a sobriquet bestowed on him by one of his adversaries on account of the shaking of his protruding stomach when he grew unduly excited while addressing a jury. But the famous K.C. had preferred to remain at the Bar, rather than forego his income and accept the high responsibility and the rather meagre stipend with which the Government rewards its judges.

As for myself, I held quite an important position in the Treaty Department of the Foreign Office, a post which, I confess, carried with it short hours and little work; for the Government does not make treaties with foreign powers every day—hence my office was almost a sinecure. I suppose family influence, that of my uncle, the old Earl of Whitchurch and ex-Minister of the Crown, whose favorite I was, had been responsible for my appointment, because from a clerk I had risen rapidly, being “pushed on” by some unknown hand, a fact, I know, which had aroused considerable jealousy in the Department.

I said I had no use for the circle in which I was compelled to move. My penchant for gambling, alas, led to my being hurled into the maelstrom of mystery. I loved a little “flutter,” and had been at Deauville, Cannes, Monte Carlo, and other places; and I had played for modest stakes with the usual varying success.

The night of November the twelfth was one of gloom and rain in London. It had rained incessantly the whole day, and still poured all the evening. Joan was down at Cannes with her mother; and, having nothing better to do, I took a taxi from the club, where I had dined at a house in Woburn Square, where they played “chemmy” nightly. As a frequent visitor there, I often had good luck. There were about fifty players present, most of them known to me by sight, and for a long time I risked nothing. But the temptation to play soon overcame me and I won over a hundred pounds.

Afterwards I had a drink, and foolishly returned to the table; for, not only did I lose all my winnings, but two hundred pounds into the bargain. Sick at my ill-fortune, I gave a check for my losses, and left the house in deep despondency, vowing never to return there again. I felt that gambling was getting the better of me, that I must give it up. This resolve I made as, heedless of the rain and darkness, I walked around Bloomsbury Square.

Suddenly I heard shouts. A moment later I came across a man and a woman having a violent altercation. The man was a burly fellow, and he was ill-treating a flashily-dressed young woman of the night-hawk class.

“Look here!” I cried, rushing up to him. “Stop that—quick! You low-down cur, to strike a woman!”

“And who the ’ell are you, mister?” the fellow asked defiantly. “You just keep your bloomin’ beak out of what don’t concern you! And take that for yer pains!” he added, aiming a heavy blow at my face, which I managed to avoid.

Next moment, however, he struck me full in the chest. In return, having done a good deal of boxing at Oxford, I landed him one full on the nose, in self-defence.

I saw his hand go swiftly to his hip-pocket, and next second there was a glint of steel. In an instant I closed with him, gripped his wrist, twisted it, and knocked his hand upwards just as he was about to fire.

We both fell. There was an explosion and the bullet went upwards through his jaw.

In a moment I shook myself free and sprang to my feet; but the man lay there motionless; the automatic pistol had fallen from his nerveless fingers and lay in the gutter.

“God! What have you done? You’ve killed my poor Dick!” the dark-eyed young woman shrieked resentfully, glaring at me.

In a moment I bent and breathlessly made a swift examination. He was certainly dead! I stood staggered, my senses for the moment being numbed.

“You’ve killed him!” yelled the woman, frantic in her anger and distress. “Police! Police!”

Only for a second I hesitated. In that instant I realized all that I had at stake—the ruin of my love for Joan, the extinction of my political ambitions, and a charge of manslaughter under such conditions which might easily lead to my social obliteration.

I fled. What would you have done in such circumstances?

I had acted only to protect a defenceless woman, and had closed with her adversary in self-defence. I hurried away, turned the corner, and walked quickly to the Russell Square Tube Station, where I took a ticket to Piccadilly Circus, composing myself as I descended in the elevator.

Meanwhile, I knew that the unknown woman, who had been so resentful of my defence, was calling the police and, as the event occurred beneath a street-lamp, she, no doubt, was giving a minute description of me! I was in a dinner-jacket and wore a black overcoat. In my soft shirt-front were two studs of bright green chrysoprases, and these might have attracted her attention, and so serve to identify me!

In the train were a number of people, therefore I buttoned my coat tightly to conceal those studs. My brain was in a whirl. Half an hour before, I was carefree and as full of the joy of living as a man under thirty should be. The money left me by my Aunt Mary gave me a comfortable income, and I was not a single penny in debt. Yet, at that moment, I was fleeing from justice, my description, no doubt, being circulated by telephone to every police-station in the metropolitan area.

While in the Tube, I realized that, in order to escape, I must leave London at once. No time was to be lost if I was to get away that night. But how? I dare not return to my rooms in Sackville Street, though I was sorely tempted to. If I dared, I could easily go home, change my clothes, and reappear differently dressed. But I hesitated, remembering that Bolland, my man, would greet me, and afterwards might be questioned. No. It would be best to completely disappear.

When I emerged at Piccadilly Circus, I came face to face with a police constable. It gave me a great shock, for I fancied he eyed me with distinct suspicion. Yet, surely, news of the tragedy could not have traveled so swiftly. Nevertheless, there are always thousands of keen eyes on the look-out for a wanted man in London.

I recollect that in those moments of terror I dubbed myself a snob. I like people who know how to behave. To me, the dull, public-school man or the ruined gentleman is preferable to the declaiming Communist or the demented lover. To those, life is a dreary business. But, as for me, I thank my Maker, each day, that I am alive to accept what He, in His munificence, has given me; though I would beg of you not to think that I am more pious than any other man. Yet I am strong in my belief.

Haunted by dread and the knowledge that the young woman would most certainly allege that I deliberately had shot the man because he had insulted me, I remained on the pavement at the corner of Coventry Street for some minutes, heedless of the home-going crowd of theatre-goers, heedless of being frequently jostled by them.

The risk of going to any railway terminus in order to leave London was too great; for, I knew that the police always keep watch on the railway-stations on receipt of such warning as had been given. A man had been shot dead in Bloomsbury Square, and the supposed murderer—I—was being actively sought for!

Suddenly an idea crashed through my brain, and, turning back, I joined the throng, entered the Tube station again, and requested a ticket to Golder’s Green.

In due course, I arrived there, walked out, turned to the left, and continued along the high-road leading northward.

It was still raining heavily and my coat was soon very wet. I had upon me, very fortunately, a blank check—for it is my habit always to keep one with my cigarettes, in case of emergency—as well as about twenty pounds in Treasury notes, which I had received at the gaming-house as balance of the check I had given there.

I suppose I had gone about half a mile when I came across a small public-house, before which stood a heavy lorry marked “Osborne, Nottingham.” The driver, no doubt, was inside, having a final drink before starting out on his night drive.

I loitered about until, at last, he emerged, a thin-faced young man, clad heavily in an old leather motor-coat, evidently a relic of war days, smoking a cigarette.

“Good evening,” I exclaimed, “May I speak to you a moment?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied politely.

“Well, I want you to do me a favor,” I hastened to say, “You’re going north, aren’t you?”

“Yes. To Wolverhampton,” he returned.

“Will you let me come with you? I’ll make it worth your while to take me,” I suggested.

He regarded me suspiciously beneath the light of the street-lamp. I was in a soaked condition. No doubt he was surprised at being accosted by a man in rain-sodden evening-clothes, who begged a lift on his night drive to the Midlands.

I noticed his hesitation and added:

“I’ll tell you the reason on the way. I’ve made a fool of myself and I want to get away from London. The fact is that I’ve run foul of the racing crowd—and they’re after me.”

“Ah! I’ve read in the papers how a set of race-course roughs are going about, trying to ‘do in’ people who object to their ways,” he said. “Yes, sir, I’ll give you a lift. But you’re a bit wet, ain’t you?”

“A little bit,” I laughed. Whereupon he climbed into the covered lorry and produced an old overcoat, which he bade me exchange for my wet one, and a spare cap which I put on in place of my crush hat. In that moment I was already disguised as a lorry-driver, and a few minutes later we moved away, along the broad, wet high-road, in the direction of Barnet.

In the first hour that I sat at his side gossiping, I was ignorant that we were not alone, until he casually mentioned:

“My mate, Dick, is having a good snooze inside. He drove to London to-day, and I’m driving back. We do this trip three days a week.”

Then I realized that inside the lorry, which was half-filled with wooden cases, apparently from the docks, there was lying, upon a heap of tarpaulin, the figure of a young man, deep in sleep. This was somewhat disconcerting. I had to reckon with two men keeping their mouths shut next day when the papers would give an account of the tragedy in Bloomsbury. On the other hand, I had further design than that of travel—that of disguise.

As we went along to St. Albans, I related to the driver a fantastic story of how I had denounced a small bookmaker, and thereby, quite unconsciously had brought upon myself what I feared was a vendetta. I had had secret warning that something serious was to happen to me, and I had thought flight the most discreet course to adopt.

My story was, of course, a very lame one, but the young man, being fond of racing, listened to me intently, because, fortunately for me, three members of a racing gang, only a few days before had been given heavy sentences at the Old Bailey.

We had traveled perhaps forty odd miles when the sleeping Dick awakened and seemed greatly surprised to find that they had a passenger. After he had slipped in between us, his friend explained the reason of my presence, hinting that I had promised a reward for their assistance.

“Yes,” I said. “For certain reasons I don’t want my friends to know anything. You may think I’m a crook, but I assure you I’m not. In these evening-clothes I might be even a cat-burglar.”

Both men laughed.

“Well, I’m not!” I said. “But if you fellows will keep a still tongue, I’ll give you five pounds each at the end of the run, and if one of you will sell your clothes to me, I’ll give you money to buy a new suit—what shall we say—seven pounds?”

A brief silence fell.

“Make it a tenner, guv’nor, and you can have mine,” Dick said. “You’re about my build.”

“Very well,” I replied. “Let’s both get into the back and change.”

My companion, the driver, laughed heartily as we both crept into the back among the cases, and there, while we were traveling, we exchanged clothes.

“What’ll your wife say when you arrive home in the morning dressed as a gentleman—eh, Dick?” shouted the driver, turning his head back a moment.

“She’ll think I’ve come into a fortune when I give her a couple o’ quid,” laughed his pal, as he drew off his trousers and handed them to me in return for mine.

“You fellows won’t utter a word. Promise me!” I shouted.

“Of course we won’t, sir,” both assured me, setting me considerably at my ease.

Up to that moment I had been full of fear lest the driver, suspecting me, and desirous of being in the good graces of the police, might pull up before a constable and express his suspicions. In that case, my only chance of escape would have gone, with only ruin before me.

While traveling over that interminable wet road in that lumbering lorry, I had realized the scandal which must ensue if I were hauled before a magistrate, and the scene with the flashy daughter of the night described by her! Her enmity, turning upon me as she had done, would result in a charge of wilful murder!

I thought of dear Joan. What would she think? How would she judge me?

At last I had changed my evening-clothes for the garb of a lorry-driver, a decent, gray tweed suit of cheap material, fairly good boots, a thick, well-worn overcoat, and a rather greasy, brown golf-cap, while, in the uncertain light of the candle-end he had lit, he presented a grotesque figure in my crumpled shirt, with its two attractive studs, his black tie awry, and his collar limp with the rain.

“Pull up and look at me, Teddy!” he shouted to my acquaintance, the driver.

Teddy slowed down, put on the brakes, and came to a standstill on the brow of a hill. Then, turning to look in, exclaimed:

“By gum! You look a real treat! Going to the theatre—aw!”

Meanwhile, Dick produced from beneath the tarpaulin upon which he had been sleeping, two bottles of beer, one of which he handed to me. Then, after taking a swift draught from the other bottle, he handed it to his mate.

“I wonder if old boss-eye has left one out for us as usual,” remarked Teddy, wiping the mouth of the bottle and handing it back to his fellow-driver. Then, turning to me, he said:

“Old boss-eye keeps the Hen and Chickens, five miles before we gets to Coventry, and on the nights he knows we’re passing he leaves out a bottle for us underneath a bush. We’ll take a look and see if it’s there as we pass.”

Dick and I crawled over the cases and resumed our seats, while Teddy put in the clutch, and we moved off again.

At the Hen and Chickens the men found the beer and drank it between them. Day was breaking when at last we rumbled through Coventry, and I confess I had then had sufficient jolting; for, being accustomed to a well-sprung car, my limbs ached and I felt very tired.

My companions, however, were a humorous pair. During the night Dick had assumed my crush hat which he wore jauntily as he took the wheel for a spell. The effect was humorous. But no policeman on the road noticed it. For several hours I had been planning the best way to avoid detection. At length I decided to leave the lorry at Birmingham, have breakfast, and then make further plans.

Therefore, when we arrived just outside the city, I redeemed my promise of payment. At the end of New Street they drew up for me to dismount. Swearing secrecy, they bade me farewell, and drove on to their destination.

And now relating what actually occurred to me, without concealing anything, I here lay bare the solemn truth—facts which, I venture to believe, the readers of this strange chronicle will find astounding—even amazing.

In any case, they shed light on the calamities that can befall any man who roams the London streets after nightfall, alone.

CHAPTER TWO. THREADS OF IRON

Bewildered, nerve-wrecked, full of apprehension, I looked around me that dull, gray morning. The recent events stood out like a horrible nightmare. At first I wondered if I had not been dreaming. But, alas! it was only too real.

The truth is, that there was nothing to boast about in the way I had behaved. I had been an abject, despicable fool, who deserved all the disastrous consequences of a craven act. And now I was a lorry-driver! If it were not so tragic it might even be amusing. I was impelled to laugh at the ludicrousness of the situation. But instead, as I approached the first policeman, I held my breath. Was he on the lookout for me?

My first visit was to New Street Station. The London newspapers were already in, so I bought two and quickly scanned them. There was no mention of the affair in Bloomsbury. Evidently information regarding the tragedy had not reached the newspaper offices before they had gone to press.

At a small coffee-shop behind the station, much used by taxi-drivers, I ate my humble breakfast, and re-examined the newspapers. Absence of any hue-and-cry heartened me. Yet was I acting right? Would it not have been safer to have returned to Sackville Street, changed my clothes, and obtained a couple of suit-cases? I wondered. I had changed my identity to that of a working-man, so in future I would be compelled to keep to that disguise.

When the shops opened I went to several cheap ones and made purchases, including a ready-made gray suit for Sundays and a new felt hat. These I had packed together, and, leaving the parcel in the cloak-room at the station, again sallied forth and bought the cheapest suit-case I could find. Into it I eventually placed my purchases, together with my lapis lazuli ring and my gold watch. Such adornments were unsuitable for a man of the class I had now assumed.

Afterwards I went to the telegraph-office and, in order to allay any undue suspicion, I wired to Bolland that I had been called to Birmingham suddenly, that I should be away several days. Another message I sent to Joan at Cannes, explaining that I was away in the Midlands. I was often absent on political business, speaking at meetings on questions arising out of the decisions of the League of Nations. I thought it a perfectly good explanation of the reason that I might not be able to write to her.

Just after eleven o’clock I left Birmingham for Euston, where I arrived at half-past two. My first action was to buy the early edition of the Evening News. And, setting down my suit-case outside the station, I eagerly looked over its columns.

Yes! It was there!

“Man Murdered in Bloomsbury Square. Escape of the Alleged Assassin,” greeted my eyes in bold type.

Breathlessly, I read the brief report, which was as follows:

“Just before midnight, a young woman, Hilda Bennett, living in Castle Street, Pimlico, was found, by a constable on duty, half collapsed, in Bloomsbury Square, beside the body of a man. She said he was a friend of hers named Warwick May, a corn merchant, carrying on business at Highbury. Examination showed that the dead man had been shot in the jaw, and that the bullet had penetrated the brain.

“The woman’s story is that she was walking alone, when she was accosted by a youngish, dark-haired man in evening-dress, who claimed having met her on the previous evening at a night-club. She had no knowledge of him and told him so, whereupon he became abusive, and her friend—who had been making a call, and was following to catch her up—came on the scene. She complained to her man friend and asked his protection, when, without a word, the unknown young fellow drew a revolver, and, after knocking him down, knelt upon him, banged his head several times upon the curb and then deliberately shot him.

“The woman’s story is apparently corroborated by the fact that a constable on duty in the vicinity noticed a young man, in black overcoat and opera-hat, running as for the train; but, not having heard the shot, and being in ignorance of what had occurred, he did not stop him. The police have the fugitive’s description, which has been widely circulated.”

Then followed a somewhat minute description of me, even to the chrysoprase studs, which were, happily, now in the possession of the cheery Dick at Wolverhampton.

Would my friends of the previous night see that description and read of the two distinctive studs? If so, what could be more likely than, in the circumstance of what they would regard as deliberate murder, that they should impart their experience to the police? The thought of it was most disconcerting.

As I put the paper into the pocket of my driving-coat, and took up my cheap suit-case, I encountered the policeman on patrol in the yard of the Euston Hotel. At once I felt convinced that he regarded me with suspicious glances.

I had become timid, scenting danger at every turn. Would you not have done so? My sudden flight after the tragic occurrence, without doubt had been a fatal mistake. Had I remained and told the truth, that the man’s death had been in consequence of his own desperate action, I would most surely have had British justice meted out to me. Even then, if the woman had told the same tale that she had already done, it was a most unsavory story, and one that I, surely, had no means of contradicting.

I felt that I must hide. And I deemed the safest place of concealment to be in one of the crowded working-class suburbs. Hence, I turned back into Euston Station and took train over to Waterloo. I had always understood that Camberwell was a good working-class neighborhood. Therefore, at Waterloo, I walked along to the London Road where I bought, at a cheap outfitter’s, a dark-gray overcoat; then I boarded a motor-bus going to Camberwell Green.

As we were passing along the Camberwell Road, I noticed, on the right, a drab, depressing street of uniform, unkempt houses, each with its area and flight of steps to the front door. It was the kind of spot I was in search of; therefore, I alighted and turned up the thoroughfare, examining the houses as I went. They were all Victorian, built after the same plan, none differing from its neighbor save in its degree of dirt or dinginess. The steps of some were neglected, others well hearth-stoned by hard-working hands, while on many of the windows rested the London grime of weeks, with curtains limp and yellow with fog and damp. It was, I noticed, called Avenue Road, and it was certainly a very complete specimen of the early jerry-builder’s art.

In the downstairs front room, on the street level of one of the houses on the left-hand side of the gloomy, uninviting thoroughfare, a dingy card announced that “apartments” were to be had. I rang the bell and waited, even though it went against the grain.

Presently a slatternly slip of a girl about fifteen appeared and, on inquiry, a stout, full-faced, rather swarthy woman, presumably her mother, came up behind her.

“Yes, I’ve got a room to let,” she said in a deep bass voice, scanning me closely, perhaps not without suspicion. “Like to come in and see it?”

My reply was in the affirmative. And so, depositing my suit-case in the hall, I followed her up the linoleum-covered stairs to a small, back room on the first-floor, meagrely-furnished, yet quite clean.

“I’m a journalist,” I said,” and I’ve just come up from Colchester. Can I also have a room in which to write? I’m usually glued to my table all day.”

“Of course, you can have the front sitting-room if you like to take it. We never use it.”

In consequence, I inspected the apartment indicated and after some conversation, rented the quarters. Depositing my bag in the bedroom, and, much to the satisfaction of my landlady, Mrs. Bowyer, I paid a fortnight’s rent in advance, by which I at once earned the distinction of being “a gentleman.” The name I gave was Edward Paige.

Those dingy, shabby rooms in Camberwell were, indeed, a contrast to my own cozy chambers in Sackville Street, off Piccadilly, and I remember how dull and dispirited I felt in the first hours I spent there.

I was asked if I would have a pair of kippers with my tea, and, in order to keep up the role I had assumed, I accepted, and, indeed, ate them with a relish. Afterwards, at seven o’clock, I went out in the darkness into the busy Camberwell Road, where I bought the late edition of a newspaper, and, taking it back, eagerly read what was further reported concerning my flight.

Before the fire, I stood beneath the hissing gas-jet reading. And while I read I held my breath. What I saw was intensely alarming. The police net was closing about me. It said:

“A motor-driver named Horbin, living in Wolverhampton, this afternoon made a statement to the police to the effect that while he and a fellow-driver were on their way with a lorry from London late last night, they were accosted by a man in evening-dress, closely resembling the man wanted. He begged them to give him a lift, and they did so. On the way the stranger bought the clothes and overcoat of his companion, so that when he left at Birmingham, he was disguised as a motor-driver. Most diligent inquiries are being made. The police are of the opinion that the fugitive took train back to London during the morning.”

I stood dumb. Surely it was fortunate that I had discarded the old motor-coat for that ordinary overcoat I had bought in the London Road. Nevertheless, I realized that I should never be able to go forth in the daylight, lest I might be recognized.

Therefore, I prepared myself to settle down to a dull, uneventful life, hourly fearing that my somewhat inquisitive landlady might read in her newspaper the description of me which had been circulated, and thus identify me with the man of whom the police were in such active search. What then?

Next morning I received a surprise; for, on being ushered into the back room for breakfast, I found that I had as fellow-lodger a slim, good-looking girl, with soft brown eyes and wavy auburn hair. She was already at table reading the newspaper when Mrs. Bowyer introduced her as Miss Lisely Hatten.

I look back upon it all now. Was she to be an instrument of Fate?

When I sat down with her and we began to chat, I learned that she was a typist, employed in a great insurance office in Cornhill. She was quietly but smartly dressed, with neat stockings and shoes, and I confess I rather liked her from the first.

I explained that I was a journalist and worked at home most part of the day, when suddenly she caused me to start by glancing at the paper and remarking:

“That’s a very mysterious affair, the murder in the street in Bloomsbury Square! Have you seen it? What do you think of it?”

I inhaled a deep breath.

“Oh! I suppose it was a crime of jealousy. Don’t you think so? One sees such scenes in the pictures.”

“I don’t know,” she replied very seriously. “I’d like to see the murderer arrested. Poor girl! If I were in her place, I’d hunt the devil down to the bitter end. Why should he shoot her lover in cold blood—go up and kill him without warning? The poor man had no chance of self-defence. It was done by some young bounder about town—some lounge-lizard or good-looking dancing-partner, perhaps.”

“Possibly,” I agreed, thankful that the suspicions of the good-looking young business girl had not been aroused by the description of myself which was being everywhere circulated.

“See you this evening,” she said gaily when she rose. “I’ll be in at about a quarter-past six, and we’ll feed together—if you’re agreeable. It’ll break the monotony of eating alone.”

“I’ll be delighted,” I replied, rising and bowing.

A moment later she had gone.

She struck me as a frank, outspoken girl of the usual City type, who carried her luncheon sandwiches in her little leather dispatch-case, together with her purse, lip-stick, and puff, and who, no doubt, could hop on or off a bus with that quick agility in which the London girl excels. I was glad to have her as companion, and yet, as the hours dragged on, I constantly feared that my description might yet cause her suspicion. In her speech there was just a slight trace of a foreign accent, and I wondered if she were English, for Lisely was certainly not an English name. Not daring to venture forth by daylight I got Mrs. Bowyer to bring me in a Times when she went out to “do her errands,” and, after my lonely chop, I made pretence of writing all the afternoon. As a matter of fact, I copied out one of the leading articles in the paper, and left it about to convince her, when I went out, that I really was a journalist.

I had been in hiding for twenty-four hours, and already it seemed an eternity.

Would my continued absence arouse the anxiety of friends? If so, they must certainly identify me with the fugitive. What would Joan think in such a case? What would my own family think? I now realized that, because of my sudden fear of scandal, I had acted most foolishly in escaping. Was not my action practically tantamount to an admission of guilt?

I scented danger—great danger!

Soon after six o’clock Lisely Hatten returned, greeting me merrily before going upstairs to take off her hat and coat. Later we sat over the fire in the little back room awaiting our evening meal.

“I’ve had a horribly busy day to-day, and everything went wrong. My boss has been out of temper because he couldn’t get his golf, and I made two mistakes in letters for which I got cursed!” she told me. “One girl has got the sack because she cheeked the old bean. Oh, it’s been a perfectly wonderful day!” she said.

“So it appears,” I laughed, yet knowing that in my rather ill-fitting, cheap gray suit I presented a sorry figure. Like most men-about-town, I rather prided myself on the cut of my clothes, and the neatness of my tie, socks, and shoes. But, when I looked at my present reflection in the mirror, I stood horrified.

She took the cigarette I offered her and consumed it, her mind seeming lazy, with all the gusto of an ardent smoker, and then suddenly she remarked:

“I see by to-night’s paper that they haven’t found the Bloomsbury murderer yet. Scotland Yard is sparing no effort to find him. They were discussing it in the office to-day. The police seem to think that he’s the man to whom a lorry-driver sold his clothes the night before last.”

“Well, I hope they’ll find him,” I remarked, bending to take a fresh cigarette, and thereby to hide my countenance.

Just at that moment I became aware that she had fixed her big, dark eyes on me with a very curious stare—a bewildered, puzzled, tell-tale glance. Then, a moment later, she exclaimed in an unusual tone:

“You may think it strange, Mr. Paige, but—but somehow you yourself are very much like the description of the man they want.”

Surely Fate spins threads of iron.

CHAPTER THREE. WHAT THE PAPERS SAID

Silent, tense, our minds grappled. I succeeded in laughing.

“Do I really resemble the assassin?” I asked, with, I fear, humor, ill-assumed.

“You are very like the description given in the papers,” she declared.

“Possibly, but, as far as I read, the woman only saw the fellow by the light of the street-lamp, and the description she gave was, after all, a vague one.” Then I added, “I hope they won’t arrest me, for I wasn’t in London. I only came up from Colchester yesterday.”

“So Mrs. Bowyer has told me,” she said. Her words instantly aroused my suspicion that the pair had already been discussing me in secret.

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, I haven’t any motive to kill anybody. I’m engaged to one of the best girls in the world. She lives here, in London, and that is why I’m up here—to be near her.”

“And yet it is so funny, Mr. Paige,” she remarked, after a brief pause, looking me in full in the face. “When I read the description of the man the police want, and look at you, it seems that it really must be you!”

“It would be most interesting and sensational if you discovered a murderer—wouldn’t it?” I remarked. “But I’m afraid I can’t give the poor, distressed girl the satisfaction of identifying me as her lover’s murderer.”

“I love mysteries,” declared Miss Hatten. “I read all the detective stories I can get hold of. I hate those sloppy love romances written for domestic servants. Women writers are the worst offenders.”

“All of your sex love to become amateur detectives,” I remarked good-humoredly. “But it requires a good deal of training.”

How I wished, in the light of after-events, I had left that final sentence unuttered.

She paused for a moment, evidently puzzled.

“Yes. Perhaps it is for that reason my suspicions have been aroused that you are here in hiding.”

“Really, I hope you don’t think so, Miss Hatten,” I said very seriously. “If so, let us go around to Carter Street Police Station together, and, if you wish, I’ll give myself up for the crime. I can’t say more, can I?” And I laughed heartily.

“Don’t be so silly, Mr. Paige. You really wouldn’t like to go to Carter Street, would you?” the girl said, disarmed at the open frankness which had caused me so much trepidation. “Of course, it’s only my fancy. I could not think that you would actually kill a man.”

“There must always be a motive if one kills one’s fellow-creature—jealousy, gain, hatred, or personal advancement,” I declared, smiling as I stood before her. “But, if that is lacking, then it is seldom that a life is taken. According to the newspapers, the man was shot in cold blood. Hence, there must have been some very distinct motive. It is that which the police must discover before they find the assassin.”

We chatted on, and I was intensely relieved to discover that I had allayed her suspicions. No doubt, my worthy landlady had been discussing the point with her; and, surely, no person is more dangerous to a fugitive from justice than a suspicious landlady.

Ah! What an idiot I had been not to remain beside the man’s body, and brave the consequences! My actions, in themselves, had convicted me.

As I sat opposite her, as we ate our modest meal together, the whole situation was appalling. Over that thin ice which I was treading, I knew not to what destination it would lead me. At any moment might come discovery, exposure, arrest. Women when suspicious, as when they love, are the most dangerous enemies of mankind. But the smart, good-looking girl, seated laughing before me in that unpretentious room in one of London’s crowded suburbs, was a complex problem that I could not solve.

Was she my friend—or my enemy? I could not decide which. On her silence my whole future depended.

Hence, was it any wonder that I sat there apprehensive, watchful, helpless?

Those dark winter days of dread dragged by with terrible monotony in that stuffy little house. That long street of stucco, uniform residences, with their flights of steps to the front door, the deep areas, and the bow-windows, each dingier than its neighbor, was the most depressing place of residence. And, as day followed day, my only recreation was to go out after dark, and tread the worst lit by-streets in the hope of not being recognized.

There was daily a great degree of uncertainty as to whether I really had allayed the girl Lisely’s suspicions, or whether she was watching my movements. I strongly suspected the latter. In some confused, indescribable way, all truth, I felt, was being distorted, probably because of my own miserable obsession.

Each day the papers reported how active search still was being made, and how all the ports were being watched. At Dover, a man was arrested and brought to Bow Street. But, when put up for identification the girl, Hilda Bennett, failed to recognize him as her lover’s assailant.

The worst feature of the situation was that the papers had taken up the case strongly, and were daily criticizing the apparent incompetency of the police, urging them to greater activity.

One journal, after referring to the audacious murder of Mr. Warwick May and the peril of the streets, made the following comments:

“During the past few days, a special squad of detectives has been searching a number of small hotels and boarding-houses in London, where it is believed the man may be in hiding.

“Scotland Yard believe that the alleged assassin may be receiving assistance from a clever woman associate.

“He is described as about thirty years of age, 5 ft. 9 in. in height, fresh complexion, dark-brown hair, hazel eyes with a peculiarity in them which suggests a squint. He may be growing a moustache. He is well built. He talks in a quiet tone.

“There are, including the wanted man, seven men at large somewhere in the British Isles, for whom Scotland Yard, and the police throughout the country, are keeping a day and night vigil.

“These men are all known to the police—their descriptions, haunts, and habits are all recorded in the official records at Scotland Yard.

“Still, for the time, the mysterious seven are eluding their pursuers.

“The man most wanted by the authorities is John Hayes, the well-spoken, handsome young fellow who is believed to be the brains behind the theft of the mail-bags between Southampton and London, last July.

“Hayes, who is in his twenties, was engaged as driver of a royal mail van, and was known among his associates as ‘The Gent.’ He always dressed well and his speech indicated gentle birth and a good education.

“He is known to have served a term of imprisonment in the United States. His photograph has been circulated to every police-station in the kingdom. Yet he still evades arrest.

“ ‘Good-looking, well-spoken, and young,’ are the main characteristics of another suspect. He is the clever, evening-dress burglar who calmly let himself into the Curzon Street house of Mr. William Bingham, and got away with jewelry valued at £40,000.

“The police have a very shrewd idea of the man they want. At the moment, however, a detailed description of him is not considered advisable.

“The fourth of the elusive seven is the scoundrel who, a fortnight ago, shot and wounded a girl named Carlland, outside her house in Maresfield Gardens, Hampstead.

“Detectives engaged on the case are anxious to interview a certain man in connection with this outrage. But he remains in hiding, and is successfully dodging all efforts to run him to earth.

“There is a distinct clue here, for the man, who is 6 ft. tall, stoops and is splay-footed. He is about 40 years of age, of sallow complexion. Like the other missing suspects, he is well-dressed, usually wearing a well-cut suit, hard felt hat, and brown gloves.

“ ‘There is no place like London for hiding,’ said a Scotland Yard detective yesterday, ‘and I would wager that all these “wanteds” are within a five-mile radius of Charing Cross.’ And yet the police are baffled!”

Naturally all this increased my alarm, for the police were being goaded into activity by adverse public opinion.

Each time I went out at night I did so in fear and trepidation. I used to purchase my evening paper regularly of a man who stood at the corner of Beresford Street, and more than once I fancied he eyed me with suspicion.

One evening I rang up Bolland, my man, pretending to speak from Reading, saying that I was still detained in the country, and asking him to send my letters to the Grand Hotel at Eastbourne. Next day I wrote to the hotel, engaging a room. Two days later, I sent a polite letter of apology, saying that I was detained, and asking that if any letters should come for me they might be sent, re-addressed, to the poste restante at Charing Cross, to which, one dark, wet evening at half-past five, I ventured to take a taxi, and obtained them.

There were about half a dozen, including two from Joan. In reply to them I sent her a long wire to Cannes. The others were of no account. Concerning one matter, I grew greatly troubled—that of finance. Though I had a fair balance at my bankers, yet I had no check-book, nor had I anybody whom I could trust to go to the bank and cash a check. The one check I carried with me on my flight I would be compelled to send to Bolland for his wages and outgoings. On my long, lonely walks at night, I tried to devise some plan. I knew that my father, not hearing from me, would ring up Bolland, who would tell him that I was away. Yet, looming ahead were a number of political engagements I had made, and, if I were missing, people might wonder, and set up inquiries.

This fact caused me to resolve to brave the dangers and see my father in secret. As the House was sitting, he was, I knew, living at his flat in Albany. Therefore, I sent him word by registered letter that I was in hiding in Camberwell, and gave him my address and name as Paige. I told him that a great misfortune had befallen me, and that it was imperative that I should see him in secret. I asked him to say no word to anyone, but to meet me at midnight at the quietest and most unfrequented spot I had explored, namely, outside Denmark Hill Station. I asked him to name the night.

To my joy, next evening the post brought me a letter from him, expressing greatest anxiety concerning me, and appointing the following night for our rendezvous. He assured me that he was impatient to see me.

Though I could hardly contain myself at the thought of being able to confide in the dear old governor, I knew how furious he would be at the mere thought of besmirching the family honor. In the eyes of both police and public I was an alleged assassin, and if caught would be tried as such. A clever counsel in all probability would obtain my release. But the scandal, in any case, must fall on my honorable family.

Soon after receipt of that letter, the girl Hatten returned from her office, and, as we sat together at dinner, she remarked:

“Do you often go to the pictures?”

“Not very often,” I replied, for in her query I surmised that she wanted me to take her out one evening, to the pictures or a dance-hall. More than once, indeed, she had insinuated such a course. But how dare I show my face in a public place when the whole world had eyes searching for me?

“Whatever do you do when you go out at night?” she asked.

“Usually I take what I have written in the day over to Fleet Street,” I replied glibly.

“I thought journalists worked all night and slept all day. A friend of mine who is on a daily paper never gets home before five in the morning. Yet you are always back by twelve or so. You must have a soft job. I wish I had one like yours,” she said, adding: “To be cooped up in an office all day is getting on my nerves. The fogs in the City are terrible just now. We had the lights on all day to-day.”

“It has been pretty dark here,” I remarked. “We had to light up about two o’clock.”

Then the subject dropped, and she began to relate how her boss had fallen in love with one of her fellow-typists, and that he was taking her to the theatre that evening.

“She’s a silly flapper, and I told her so,” my sprightly companion said. “He’s got a fearful old hag for a wife. She comes to the office sometimes, and eyes me up and down, as though I were some new species of animal. I don’t blame him for wanting to escape from her for an evening.”

“I suppose he flirts with you—eh?” I laughed tantalizingly.

“Flirt? I’d like to see him try it,” she replied promptly. “He wouldn’t do it a second time, you bet. He knows I’m not one of that sort—especially when I have a nice boy of my own.”

“I congratulate you,” I laughed. “Many boys are not exactly nice!”

I always tried to ingratiate myself with her.

Even though she was always so bright and agreeable towards me, I felt, by intuition, that she had penetrated my disguise, and that, sooner or later, she would constitute my gravest danger. Therefore, I resolved to see my father in secret, and, after obtaining funds, change my quarters.

Yet would not such an action confirm her suspicions and those of the police? In my frantic fear I was undecided how to act.

Next day it was still rather foggy, but towards evening it grew thicker, a condition which I welcomed when I went forth to my rendezvous. I left the house at ten o’clock, and walked slowly in the murky gloom along the Camberwell Road, where the street-lamps, usually brilliant, were half hidden in the mantle of one of those “pea soupers” which the Londoner knows so well. Traffic was nearly at a standstill, and a strange silence had fallen on the usually busy thoroughfare. Ascending Denmark Hill, I discovered, not without difficulty, Champion Park, a turning on the left which led to the station. It was a quiet thoroughfare of large houses. The fog was not quite so intense on the hill as in Camberwell below, and, in a few minutes, I saw my gray-bearded father standing in the booking-office awaiting me.

He recognized me at the door and came out to meet me.

I saw surprise on his countenance when he realized my disguise.

“My boy!” he whispered, as he gripped my hand affectionately. “This is terrible! To think that you—that you should be wanted for murder!”

“It is terrible,” I replied, leading the way along the dark, deserted road towards Grove Lane. I had dreaded lest he should express anger at my misfortune. He had always been forgiving, and seldom angry with me at the various peccadilloes and follies of youth. And now most of all, how welcome was his attitude.

My present position was, that I must sooner or later bring dishonor on my family, whose good name and esteem my father so carefully guarded. The Hipwells held a long and honorable record in Northamptonshire ever since Sir Thomas Hipwell, the treasurer to Henry VIII, built Hipwell, where the family, several members of which were from time to time employed in the service of their sovereign, always had lived.

The old governor was a man of few words. He always spoke bluntly and to the point, in Parliament and out of it.

“You swear that it was an accident?” he asked in a hard, unusual voice, which betrayed emotion. It was so dark that, beyond the zone of light from the station entrance, I was unable to see his face.

“I swear it was,” I replied, and then I related exactly what had occurred on the night of the tragedy, just as I have already chronicled it in these pages.

He heard me without comment.

“And what do you intend doing now?” he asked, when I had concluded my story.

“I don’t know,” was my reply.

“Neither do I,” he said in that same strained voice. “You are in a very precarious position, my boy. And how to help you out of it I am at my wits’ ends to suggest.”

“I fear arrest because of our honor,” I answered. “Because of that, I fled.”

“An injudicious course—very injudicious. You have, unfortunately, prejudiced yourself,” he declared.

“The public are, of course, certain that murder was committed, especially in face of the lies that woman has told,” I admitted.

“I have read all about it in the papers, but I never dreamed that it was for you, my boy, the police were so actively searching,” my father said brokenly.

“I must still remain hidden,” I remarked.

“For how long? You must, sooner or later, be identified and arrested. In to-night’s paper I see it stated that the police have a clue. But—of course—they seem to find a fresh clue every day.”

I told him of the suggestions of my handsome fellow lodger, at which he expressed increased apprehension.

“You never know what such a girl may do,” he said. “Perhaps she’ll tell the police her suspicions, just in order to come into the limelight. Most girls of her type love a little publicity. Have you seen to-night’s paper?”

I replied in the negative.

“Well, the police have made some interesting discoveries. The automatic pistol, with which the murder was committed, has been found to have been stolen with a quantity of goods and jewelry from a house in Cromwell Road, about a month ago, and, further, the man whose name was given as Warwick May has been identified by his finger-prints to be a well-known burglar, named Rodwell, who is wanted for a number of thefts, his speciality being safe-breaking.”

“That’s very interesting,” I remarked.

“Yes, it is now supposed to be a crime of revenge,” my father went on, “possibly on the part of one of his friends of the same fraternity, whom he has betrayed to the police. At least, that is the latest theory.”

“It does not help me very much—does it?”

“Only that they will be looking for a burglar, and not for my son,” he said quietly.

“I fear they will be looking for the burglar in just the kind of place of concealment that I have chosen. You see, I dare not move my quarters now, or that girl’s suspicions, and those of my landlady, would certainly be confirmed,” I remarked despondently.

When I spoke of the necessity of having money, he at once produced ten bank of England notes, each for ten pounds, saying:

“I have brought you this to go on with. But I do wish you would return to Sackville Street, and allow Bolland to think you have got back from the country.”

“I would, father, only I dare not leave Avenue Road, for reasons I have just given. Nor dare I risk the channel crossing, for all the ports are watched.”

“True. That girl is, unfortunately, your chief danger. Your disguise is excellent, but your life must be terribly monotonous.”

“Not without its interesting side, though. I am now studying life amid the working-classes.”

“My dear boy! You were always optimistic and cheerful. I, however, confess I do not share your optimism at the present moment. These are dark days for both of us. To-morrow, I’ll see Jesmond, the Home Secretary, and get out of him what the police are doing in the case.”

“Then I have your forgiveness, father?” I asked him, as we were retracing our steps toward the station.

“Of course, my boy. Such a tragic adventure as yours might happen to anybody,” said the dear old fellow. “But your initial mistake was that you did not remain and face the consequences.”

“I thought of you, dad—of the family,” I replied.

“Well, we must hope for the best,” he said. “We had better hold no communication with each other. I will go to Sackville Street, see Bolland, explain your absence, and pay him regularly. You had better not bother about letters or money. I’ll send you cash from time to time. When I came to meet you, I intended to urge you to go back to Sackville Street as though nothing had happened. But I now fully realize the danger of that girl Hatten. You must do all you can to dispel her doubts; and continue to live there at least for a time, until your strange adventures are at an end.”

Then he gripped my hand warmly, and with a final:

“Good-bye, my dear boy! I shall be thinking hourly of you,” the dear old governor entered the station, leaving me alone.

“Until my strange adventures are at an end!” I repeated aloud, as I walked back to the main road.

I never dreamed that I was only at the very beginning of a series of the most remarkable happenings, such as, perhaps, no other man in all the world, except my own unimportant self, Lionel Hipwell, has lived to relate!

CHAPTER FOUR. DEADLY PERIL

Down Denmark Hill I went, consoled and gratified that, at least, I still had one big-hearted and affectionate friend in the world, my dear old father, who believed my story. But did the world—or would the jury at the Old Bailey—believe it?

Surely it was, in face of the allegation of that poor woman of the night, a very thin defence.

I argued within myself as a man who had been called to the Bar and understood the pros and cons of a criminal case. I saw that, with the bitter enmity of the woman Bennett who, out of revenge, would swear that I had attacked her burglar-lover, I should have a great difficulty to assure any jury of my innocence.

The career of the dead man, his profession as a burglar, the automatic pistol, and his criminal record would all go in my favor. But, I knew only too well that counsel instructed by the Public Prosecutor could make out a deadly case against me, not only of manslaughter, but of murder.

One detail which I examined, placing myself in the case as counsel for the prosecution, was that of the pistol. A burglar, having taken such a weapon from a house in Cromwell Road, would hardly keep it on his person to provide a hall-mark that he was a thief. On the contrary, the prosecution, of a certainty, would argue that the particular weapon—licenses for which go to and fro in every police-station in Britain, after the abortive General Strike, the most careful record being taken—could be traced, and suddenly the clue would be at an end. I might have bought it from somebody—someone unknown—who wanted to rid himself of the responsibility and the tax for carrying firearms.

I walked through the fog, now and then narrowly escaping bumping against half-suffocated people who, on their way home to bed, were treading through the impenetrable veil. My eyes were watering, my breath became affected, and I longed to be back again in my shabby little sitting-room; for, the night was the worst that had been experienced in London for many years.

My father had heartened me. Jesmond, who was Home Secretary and his intimate friend, might reveal to him what Scotland Yard was doing, and that knowledge might allow me a loophole for escape.

In the Camberwell Road the fog, at the lower height, had settled down to a dense blackness, such as South London experiences now and then in the course of every few years. Trains, buses, and taxis had ceased running several hours ago, and the usual busy thoroughfares of the arterial roads to London, Blackfriars, Waterloo, and Westminister Bridges were silent, save for the voices of the unseen, or of those whose passing shadows were weirdly distorted. Only those who have battled with a thick night fog in London can conceive such atmospheric traffic, and ocular conditions.

I had trodden the pavement of the Camberwell Road on so many nights, at all hours, that I was able, after a number of efforts, to find the turning which took me into Avenue Road. All was dark and mysterious in that drab, monotonous thoroughfare; the light of the street-lamps had been blotted out by the fog. There was nothing for me to do but to creep along, feeling the rows of iron railings beside the deep areas.

Each house was uniform in construction, and, in normal conditions, easily distinguishable by daylight, or even by the light of the street-lamps. But that night I became utterly lost. At last, however, I found the house, as I imagined. But, ascending the steps, I felt a brass-plate on the lintel of the door; hence the house was not the one in which I lived.

I tried a second one, but my key did not fit the key-hole. I knew, then that that, too, was not Mrs. Bowyer’s. So thick was the fog that only by feeling the railings could I guide myself. Here and there a red blur in the darkness was visible, but to recognize where I lived seemed impossible. I tried a dozen different doors, but my key refused to open any of them.

Then I wondered whether Mrs. Bowyer, believing I had gone to bed, had let down the catch in the latch, and, therefore, the key refused to turn! The prospect of spending such a night out of doors was certainly not a pleasant one, and, though I had a hundred pounds in my pocket, I dare not seek lodgings in any hotel, even provided I found one.

The night was black and suffocating; many street accidents occurred in consequence. Except the tubes, all traffic was suspended, save perhaps, the mail trains, which crawled slowly out of London where, beyond the greater metropolis, the fog was not quite so thick.

For fully half an hour I endeavored to discover Mrs. Bowyer’s, but without success, when suddenly it occurred to me that I might have mistaken the turning, and that I was in the wrong street! I groped my way back to the main road, and then, to my amazement, established the fact that I was not in Avenue Road at all. So I went on to the next turning and, at last, found the familiar grocer’s shop at the corner. Creeping along by the railings again I counted the flights of steps until I discovered those leading to Mrs. Bowyer’s.

With a sigh of relief, I turned the key and entered. The light in the hall had been extinguished as sign to me that Mrs. Bowyer, her daughter, and her lady lodger had retired. So, having secured the door, as I always did, I crept noiselessly up to my rooms.

As I did so, a rather unusual perfume greeted my nostrils. Every house has its own peculiar smell, but one of the women must have been using some subtle Eastern perfume, sweet and much resembling sandalwood.

Having gained the landing on the first floor, I suddenly heard the gruff voice of a man, followed by a low, exultant laugh; and then I saw that from beneath the door came a streak of light. There came a woman’s high-pitched and rather musical voice, too, followed by that of a second man. Evidently, Mrs. Bowyer had visitors. Why, however, had the hall light been extinguished? I stood listening. Several people were conversing in such low tones that I could not distinguish what they were saying. Suddenly I heard one word quite distinctly. It was “police.”

My heart stood still.

The detectives were there waiting for my return to arrest me!

Again I listened, but they were only discussing something in low whispers. I had walked into the trap set for me.

Having turned, I was about to descend the stairs and creep forth into the fog again when, of a sudden, I became aware of a strong, heavy hand clutching my throat. And somebody whom I could not see, blocked my passage on the stairs.

They had at last discovered me.

What happened during the next exciting moments I can hardly tell.

The man shouted, whereupon the door was flung open, and seven or eight persons emerged excitedly from the room, while I, in the grasp of two rough-looking individuals, was hauled unceremoniously into the light.

In a second I realized that the room was furnished quite differently from that of Mrs. Bowyer. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I had inadvertently entered the wrong house! Yet I saw standing there, statuesque and amazed, the handsome figure of my fellow-lodger, Lisely Hatten. With her was an over-dressed foreign woman, a tall, fair-haired young Englishman, of the type of a naval officer, and four beetle-browed, swarthy foreigners, all in a great state of anger and alarm.

“I found this fellow listening!” cried the very tall, muscular man of Negroid type, with thick lips and bloodshot eyes, who had seized me on the stairs. He spoke with a strange accent. “The spy has overheard!” Whereat the strange nocturnal party stood aghast.

“I heard nothing! I am no spy,” I protested instantly.

“Perhaps not,” exclaimed one of the other men, who was apparently in authority. “But you have seen!”

Then, next second I became aware that upon the table was a quantity of old-fashioned jewelry lying in a heap, gems which flashed and glittered beneath the light, but all in antique settings.

“I have seen nothing,” I assured my captors.

Were they jewel-thieves in the act of dividing their spoils?

“You are a police-spy!” shouted the dark-bearded, undersized foreigner who had just spoken.

“Yes,” cried the girl who was my fellow-lodger. “I suspected him from the first. He told me he was a journalist, but nobody knows him in Fleet Street. He goes out on night duty from Scotland Yard.”

“That is certainly untrue,” I said resentfully. “I am no police-spy, and your affairs, whatever they may be, are surely no business of mine.”

The big, dark-faced man, who had made me his prisoner, laughed mockingly and said:

“Unfortunately for you, we happen to know you. You are Lionel Hipwell. Why do you come to live here in disguise as Mr. Paige if you are not acting for the police?”

I was silent. What could I say?

It was plain that the pretty, half-foreign typist had suspected me, but to my amazement, not as the assassin of Bloomsbury. It was as an agent of the Criminal Investigation Department I had been suspected. In that second my whole outlook on life changed.

I saw myself faced with a greater peril than I ever could have dreamed. By mere mischance, bad fortune following on bad fortune, I had fallen upon the secret of what was evidently a most desperate gang of jewel thieves.

In that narrow, shuttered room, with its cheap table piled with gems of untold value, precious stones that my eyes had never before beheld, I stood bewildered, and at the mercy of my accusers.

Surely I was innocent of everything concerning them. They knew my name! They knew, perhaps, that, being interested in criminology, I had once been able to place the police on the track of one of the greatest forgers of the present century. They evidently knew me, and, what was worse—they feared me.

They did not know that I feared them equally. And yet, dared I reveal why I was in hiding?

I drew a long breath. In a few seconds I passed in review all my hopes, my life, my fears. At last, however, I blurted out:

“The reason I am here is because the police are hunting me for the Bloomsbury murder, of which, I swear to you all, I am innocent.”

An ominous silence of a few seconds fell. Then the under-sized little foreigner, with the black gimlet eyes, laughed derisively and said in a bad English:

“My friends, we have to deal with a very clever fellow in this Mr. Hipwell. Certainly he is not the man for whom his police department is in search. A devilish clever excuse, but when one is faced with extinction, as he is—for the only way to deal with spies is to close their blurting lips by death—then any of us would naturally take upon ourselves any accusation such as he does.”

“I’m innocent! I swear I am!” I shouted, facing the assembly boldly. “I fled from the police, and only by misadventure have I entered here. I have heard nothing, neither have I seen anything. I am innocent!” I cried vehemently.

I could see that they were a desperate gang who, fearing lest I should betray them, intended to put an end to my existence. Their manner and their murderous, evil looks showed only too plainly that the threat of death would be put in execution. Indeed, they were all conversing excitedly in some language entirely foreign to me.

I implored the girl Hatten, who spoke the tongue as fluently as the others, to explain to them that I had not been spying, and to assure them that I would preserve their secret whatever it might be.

But she only turned on me with anger flashing in her eyes, and replied:

“You are an agent of the police! I suspected it from the first. What you say about the murder in Bloomsbury is a lie. I only suggested that you answered to the description which Scotland Yard had circulated in order to watch your face. The way you answered confirmed my suspicions that you are a detective! And as you are a spy, we have decided that you shall pay the penalty.”

I saw that, like her friends, she was fiercely antagonistic and inexorable. Her face, her manner, her kindly attitude towards me,—all had entirely changed. From being my friend, she had suddenly become my worst enemy; and I knew that nothing could save me from the fury of that desperate gang of foreigners, whose nationality I could not determine.

I stood there in deadly peril, scarce daring to breathe, watching my enemies in excited consultation while they decided my fate.

Suddenly the door before me opened and a woman entered.

Our eyes met for an instant. An exclamation froze on my lips.

The newcomer was the woman of the night, Hilda Bennett!

CHAPTER FIVE. HELD BY THE ENEMY

In an instant I saw that the woman Hilda Bennett had not recognized me. For that I was thankful.

The pale-faced young Englishman, however, was beside her in a moment, exclaiming:

“This man has spied upon us! We are deciding what shall be done with him!”

It was plain that the woman was a member of the criminal gang, and, in all probability, the man who had lost his life while grappling with me was also one of its members. In any case, the police had identified him by his finger-prints, taken after death.

“How has he spied? How did he get in here?” inquired the woman in surprise.

“He evidently has a false key. He is a detective!” said the girl Hatten. “He lives in the same house with me, and calls himself Paige. He pretended to come up from the country, but I’ve been watching him. He only goes out at night—never in the day.”

“And he tells us a ridiculous story that the reason he is in hiding is because it was he who shot Monkey Dick!” explained the pale-faced young man.

“Yes!” cried Lisely, turning to Hilda Bennett. “You know who did that! Is this the man?” she demanded fiercely, pointing at me.

The woman who in her fury had lied to the police against me, regarded me steadily, and I feared that my faltering gaze might betray me. She looked straight into my face for some moments, and then she spoke.

Again I held my breath.

“No,” she said decisively. “He’s a liar! This is not the man who killed Monkey Dick!”

My heart leapt within me at that declaration, which cleared me of suspicion, but next second the undersized foreigner, who seemed to be the chief, remarked in his broken English:

“Ah! Then he must be a police-spy from Scotland Yard! So we are right!”

“I swear I have no connection with Scotland Yard!” I cried in dismay.

All laughed me to derision, hurling at me epithets in their inexplicable language, which not till long afterwards did I know to be Roumanian.

“What shall we do with him?” asked the woman Bennett, whose face was rouged and powdered, and whose lips were almost vermilion. The shabby, long, old tweed coat she wore had fallen back, revealing her to be dressed in a gorgeous evening-gown of shell-pink net, covered with pearly sequins, a Parisian creation that would have attracted attention in any West End ballroom.

I had escaped the real charge against me, only to face a greater and more perilous one.

“Let’s put out the spy’s eyes, so that he’ll never be able to identify us!” suggested the girl who was my fellow-lodger.

“A good idea!” cried the woman Bennett. “He’s a spy in any case. Monkey Dick always said that it was far safer to prick a spy’s eyes than to take on his body for disposal. In the latter, a trace is always left. Let’s serve him as we did that spy Turner. He never spied again. I saw him last year, tapping with his stick on the curb in Waterloo Road.”

I stood helpless and horrified.

“Yes, I remember!” declared the stunted little foreigner in his bad English. “We did well not to kill him—very well! It was far better so. No police magistrate would accept the evidence of the blind!”

“Then let us prick out his eyes!” cried Lisely, exultant at the success of her suggestion. “He will then be sufficiently punished for spying upon us.”

I confess that, defenceless in the hands of that desperate gang, I became petrified by terror. What use was it to exhibit the boldness inbred by a brave and ancient family?

I contemplated making a dash for the door. But such action was forestalled by the two men who had first seized me clapping a pair of handcuffs upon me ere I could divine their intention. Thus was I rendered utterly powerless.

The thought that they meant to blind me held me speechless in horror. I stood there with fettered hands, helpless to raise a finger in self-defence, utterly paralyzed.

“Let me have the extreme satisfaction of pricking the spy’s eyes!” cried the girl Lisely who, for some mysterious reason, had turned entirely against me, and was now my bitterest enemy.

“For God’s sake, don’t!” I shouted in appeal.

“Has anybody got a long pin, or needle?” the girl asked, turning to her companions, whereat the flashily-dressed woman produced a large, thick safety-pin which she straightened out and handed to her. The girl who posed so cleverly as a typist in the City, and yet who was one of a desperate association of criminals, as proved by the pile of stolen gems upon the table, seemed to have been suddenly transformed into a diabolical virago.

“Come, Bertram. You’re at Guy’s. Help me. We’ll perform the operation together in the other room!”

“No, here!” demanded the woman Bennett. “Let us all witness the punishment.”

“Let Lisely do as she wishes. It is her affair,” decided the little man, whose word as leader was law. “She it is who has tracked him down as a spy!”

I held my shackled hands in front of my face to ward off her attack. In my ears resounded excited voices speaking that unintelligible tongue, punctuated by ribald laughter, while the young Englishman addressed as Bertram, with my fellow-lodger at Mrs. Bowyer’s, and aided by one of the men, bundled me into the adjoining room, a small, cheaply-furnished bedroom, lit by a flaring gas-jet, stuffy and full of the faint, not unpleasant, odor that seemed to fill the house and mingle with the fog.

“Go back!” ordered the girl. “We will do this alone!” And the man who had helped to force me into the room against my will, despite my strenuous struggles—for I assure you I did not give in as a craven coward—retired, closing the door after him. I stared at Lisely Hatten in bewildered helplessness.

The instant the door was closed the girl’s attitude changed. She seemed to half relent, for she said:

“I will spare you as much pain as I can, Mr. Paige—or Mr. Hipwell—eh?” And she produced from a little case a hypodermic syringe. “The shock would be too severe without this, but—a few moments’ sleep, and then all will be darkness.”

“God!” I cried. “Spare me. Are you mad? I’ve done nothing—the story I’ve told you is true—every word of it. I swear it is!”

“My dear fellow,” said the good-looking young criminal, who was evidently a medical student. “Don’t let’s argue. You’ve, unfortunately for yourself, seen us; you know us, and you would be a constant danger to us. When we discover danger we always remove it as far as possible. You can congratulate yourself that your body is not in a furnace to-night. You will live, to think over to-night, and to repent your intrusion here.”

Meanwhile, the girl had filled the little syringe with some pale-blue liquid which she held to the light. Then, in a caressing voice, she said:

“Don’t worry. This will save you much pain in the present, and, Mr. Paige,” she added in a strange voice full of meaning, “much disability in the future.”

“Damn you!” I shouted in fury. “What do you hell-fiends intend to do?”

“Hush!” the woman whispered. “Trust us both and don’t worry.”

“Worry? When you are going to blind me?” I yelled, heedless of her warning.

“You fool!” she cried. And as I raised my fettered hands against my eyes I felt the sharp prick of the hypodermic needle in my left wrist. A moment later I felt her finger pressed hard upon the puncture.

What happened immediately afterwards I have no idea. Probably I shall never know.

I somehow felt myself carried as though in air, lightly, buoyantly, through space, over a wide, unruffled sapphire sea. I recollect a feeling that I had discovered the secret of flight; for, I was alone, skimming the water like a swallow, without fatigue, ever forward in boundless space. Before me I saw in the far blue distance a range of snow-capped mountains, raising their glacier-clad peaks into the clouds, peaks higher than the giant Jungfrau which I had seen in Switzerland—higher indeed than I had even seen. They rose as a dark, insurmountable barrier before me, and I was approaching them at what seemed hundreds of miles an hour.

Suddenly, I came to a great, gray, granite, treeless precipice, and knew that I must be dashed against it to my death. But, instead, I again rose in short, rapid spirals, higher and higher and yet still higher, over a region of eternal snows and ice. And, once more I was out into the illimitable sunshine, soaring in space, as a bird with tireless wings, flying in the limitless space, heedless and intoxicated with the pleasure of a newly-awakened interest in life.

A panorama of busy cities and of great stretches of picturesque country passed before my vision. Dark forests, placid lakes, green swards, mighty rivers, babbling brooks, wildly excited crowds of men on ’Change in cities, the homely comfort of the great country houses of the rich, all of these passed in rapid review before my distorted vision.

I beheld scenes which I had never before gazed on. I smelt the perfume of flowers hitherto unknown to me, strange, wonderful tropical flowers. Then all those other scenes faded to give place to a great arid desert, brown, inhospitable, without any sign of vegetable life as far as my eyes could see.

It was astounding, bewildering. I tried to collect my thoughts; but they were addled. My brain was not normal. It seemed wrapped in cotton-wool. Sometimes, over everything was the clear azure light of evening; at others, the sun shone fiercely, revealing far-distant objects with great distinctness. Yet, at others, they were half obscured by an uncertain, blood-red mist.

On I sailed; on through space, reviewing the whole world as I went. Strange tongues sounded in my ears and stranger scenes greeted me at every moment. Now upon land, now upon the boundless ocean, and sometimes in express trains, I sped through a new and unknown world, bright and brilliant, that knew not darkness or night; for day was unending.

Distinctly, to-day I remember wondering if I were dead. Had I passed into the Beyond, into which the modern world is striving so strenuously to penetrate? Those devils into whose privacy I had so accidentally stumbled had murdered me, without doubt. They had closed my lips to prevent my betraying their super-criminal methods.

The face of that innocent, good-looking girl, Lisely Hatten, rose before me, together with that of the pallid young Englishman whom I had at first taken for a naval officer, but who was a medical student. And—why, I know not—I actually welcomed the recollection! No hatred did I experience of that fiery-tempered girl with the soft brown eyes and wavy hair, who had begged her companions to allow her to put out my eyes with that large safety-pin.

My last remembrance was of the prick of the hypodermic needle. At any rate, the girl had treated me humanely! Perhaps that was the reason I felt no malice against her.

When, however, I recalled the face of the woman Bennett, I experienced a fierce revulsion of feeling against her. She was my bitterest enemy, even in the fact that she had failed to identify me and to substantiate the story of my meeting with Monkey Dick when he was in Bloomsbury. That very denial had corroborated the girl Lisely’s declaration that I was a police-spy. Hence the vengeance which the gang had taken on my unfortunate self!

Still I sped on in mid air, light as down, now rising, now falling, tireless as ever, whirling through space, traveling without count of time, witnessing fresh scenes, meeting fresh people, seeing fresh faces, yet unable to find tongue to communicate with them.

The whole experience coincided with something I had read about dealing with life after death.

Was I dead, I wondered?

CHAPTER SIX. ILLONA!

A loud, ringing peal of laughter sounded in my ears, and at that moment my aerial journey ended. In a flash all became transformed. It concluded with a sudden shock.

I was conscious of lying upon a polished floor. Around me, apparently, was a brilliant dinner-party. At the table about thirty persons were seated and I seemed to have created great consternation; for, two flunkeys in plush breeches and stockings were helping me to my feet.

I held my breath, aghast.

An elderly man, in evening-dress and wearing decorations, dashed up to me saying:

“My dear Hipwell! I hope you haven’t hurt yourself! You tilted your chair and it slipped from under you! By Jove! you gave your head a nasty bump on the floor! Are you quite all right?” he asked, placing his hand upon my shoulder with great anxiety.

“Quite all right!” I laughed faintly. “Please forgive me.” And a few moments later, one of the servants having replaced my chair, I resumed my seat amid the laughter and congratulations of the others.

“You might have hurt your head very badly!” remarked an elderly, well-preserved woman who sat on my left. She was very handsomely dressed and extremely refined.

“It was entirely my own fault,” I said apologetically. “I, of course, did not know that the floor was so highly polished.”

“I know. I had the same accident last summer in the Danieli Hotel, in Venice and hurt myself rather badly. Highly-polished floors are always extremely dangerous. But, if one lives in an Embassy one has to have such a floor in the State dining-room, as well as in the ballroom.”

“Is this an Embassy?” I inquired, gazing blankly around the handsome apartment, with its high, gilded ceiling and fine old portraits upon the paneled walls.

My companion regarded me strangely and said:

“I really hope, Mr. Hipwell, that you haven’t hurt your head!”

Instantly I saw that by betraying ignorance of my surroundings I would bring on myself suspicion of being slightly deranged.

“No,” I laughed. “I was only joking, really.”

“You quite alarmed me!” exclaimed my companion, and, bending over me, she addressed the pretty, auburn-haired young girl on my other hand, saying:

“Contessina! Did you hear that? Mr. Hipwell has just asked me whether this is an Embassy—as though he had never been in the British Embassy in Rome before! It’s too funny. He gave me quite a fright. I thought that his fall had injured his brain!”

“Signor Hipwell is always joking,” laughed the Little Countess, speaking in Italian, a language which I happened to know. “One can never take him seriously. He said all sorts of stupid things to my father a couple of months ago—pretending that he did not know him—and all that!”

“Forgive me, Contessina,” I said, bowing, not knowing her name or who she might be. To my knowledge I had never seen her before that moment. “But I was joking with your father.”

“As you did with His Excellency the Ambassador when you arrived from London this morning,” laughed the older woman. “His wife, Lady Kingscliffe, told me about it.” Then, turning to me, she asked, “Are you really suffering from loss of memory, as His Excellency has been fearing?”

“His Excellency need have no cause for apprehension,” I reassured the elderly lady on my left. Then I turned to my other companion, who was evidently the unmarried daughter of an Italian Count, and we laughed together.

Meanwhile my bewildered eyes were taking in every detail of that unfamiliar and unexpected scene.

The last actual recollection I had had was of being helpless and terrified in the hands of that desperate gang of criminals at Camberwell. Yet at that moment the whole scene had been suddenly transformed, and I was guest at an official dinner given by the British Ambassador in Rome.

At the head of the table sat His Excellency, a rather spare, grey-haired man in his diplomatic uniform, with a jeweled cross at his throat and a ribbon across his shirt-front. Nearly all the other men were also in the uniform of the various countries they represented, and wearing stars, ribbons, and neat rows of decorations. To my surprise, I found myself also wearing diplomatic uniform, with a foreign order.

The women were all smartly dressed, and many wore wonderful jewels, which glittered and flashed beneath the electric rays. At the opposite end of the flower-decked table sat Lady Kingscliffe, a distant relative of ours, whom I had known nearly all my life.

I was guest at the Embassy in Rome. But why?

All was bewildering. Why had I been invited to that stately dinner, at which I had made such a confounded fool of myself by unbalancing my chair, and afterwards asking where I was?

To keep my mouth shut and to observe closely was the best course. All was so strange, so unreal. True, I held a post at the Foreign Office, but my duties did not take me abroad. Why, therefore, was I a guest at the same table where, sitting on His Excellency’s right hand, was the Duce, the Dictator of Italy, the greatest post-war figure in Europe, Mussolini?

Bull-headed, with his strong, commanding countenance, and wearing plain evening-dress, he was chatting with a young girl in pale-yellow, and laughing the while. I recognized him from the many photographs in the Press, and I remember wondering whether beneath his dress-shirt he wore his famous coat of mail.

The many attempts to assassinate him had left him so cold that he had openly defied Fate, declaring that he led such a charmed life, that no plot could ever cause his undoing or his death. There sat the demigod of the Fascists at his ease, in the intimacy of the dinner-table!

Was it any wonder that such a scene held me entranced? Was I really dreaming?

My table companions spoke to me—on one side in English and, on the other, in Italian. I had not the slightest knowledge of who either of them was, and what I replied I know not until this day.

At last the State dinner ended, and we passed into a great ballroom with gilded ceiling and magnificent crystal electroliers. Already a number of people had assembled, and the entrance of His Brittanic Majesty’s representative, accompanied by the Duce, was the signal for much bowing and hand shaking. It was a brilliant, cosmopolitan crowd, such as, in these post-war days, could only assemble in the Eternal City.

The long windows of the great salon stood open to a glorious, shady garden and let in the balmy, flower-scented air, delightfully refreshing after the rather close atmosphere of the dining-room.

Alone I stood, agape. How came I there? Had I been wafted to Rome upon the fairy carpet of the Arabian story? Or was it actual reality?

The orchestra struck up a lively fox-trot quite unfamiliar to me. I am rather fond of dancing, and with Joan as partner, knew most of the popular tunes. Yet, the one in question was entirely unfamiliar. I went back to the wall, and, standing near the door, watched the brilliant spectacle of uniformed and decorated men and bejeweled women. Diplomatic representatives of nearly every country in the world were there; and, as always, the reception of the British representative to the Quirinale was a spectacle perhaps unequaled in Europe.

I stood astounded amid the brilliant throng, the dance-inspiring rhythm in my ears, my senses bewildered, watching the cosmopolitan dancers, yet not knowing a soul except old Dickie Kingscliffe and his wife.

As members of many of the best dance-clubs in London, Joan and I had made our peregrinations and knew the qualities of the various floors from the Florida to the Cosmo. But where was she? The dance orchestra brought her back vividly to my mind, causing me to reflect on our meeting the last time I had seen her. As I stood there watching, her sweet face slowly rose, distinct and lovable, in a pale-grey mist, her adored countenance with that sweet smile on it. Yet a few seconds later, before I could realize it, the faint vision faded and the mist grew darkened into night.

My brain was in a whirl, in an abnormal condition.

A sense of absolute boredom at once overcame me.

The pretty little Contessina, with the brown eyes and shingled hair—just a trifle too light for an Italian, I thought—was dancing with the tall French military attaché; while my other table companion, the elderly Englishwoman, had as partner a somewhat obese Italian, perhaps a deputy, because of his cross of Cavaliere of the Order of the Crown of Italy.

My attention was centred on the Little Countess. She presented a smart figure of perfect line and graceful movement, charming in pale-fuchsia, with a necklet of pearls and a magnificent bracelet of rubies and diamonds. Once, as she passed, she caught my eye and smiled over the shoulder of her elegant and lavishly decorated partner.

While standing there, Her Excellency Lady Kingscliffe approached me and we stood to gossip. After her husband’s return from the Legation at Brussels, before my strange adventure in Camberwell, I had known her ladyship well in London. Dickie Kingscliffe had had a long and distinguished career at the Foreign Office. He was the kind of man who had secured rapid promotion by being dumped into any vacancy abroad that occurred. Before the Sovereign had conferred on him the Knight Commandership of St. Michael and George, Kingscliffe had spent many weary years in the Do-nothing Department at Downing Street. Later, he had been sent out—because he dressed well, entertained well, and was able to see without seeing, and speak without saying anything, according to true Foreign Office traditions—first to Constantinople as second secretary, then to Paris as first secretary, and after the war he had drifted along as Minister at Lisbon. Later on, again, he had been sent to Copenhagen and to Brussels, until apparently now he had fallen into one of the best-paid posts as full-fledged Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the gay Court of the Quirinale.

“Well, my dear Lionel,” exclaimed Her Excellency, “I hope you don’t feel too fatigued after your journey from London? It was awfully kind of you to bring me those things from Bronley’s in the bag. My maid gave them to me just as I was dressing.”

I bowed, expressing delight at being able to do any little service for her, yet entirely in ignorance of having brought anything from London, or of ever traveling to Rome.

“By the way,” she went on, “how is your father? I haven’t seen him for ages. I see that he often speaks in the House.”

I replied that, as I traveled a great deal, I saw very little of him, but, as far as I knew, he was quite well. At that instant there flashed through my brain the memory of that last dramatic midnight interview in the fog at Denmark Hill station.

What had occurred since then? All was a perfect blank.

Twice the Contessina re-passed me as I stood with Her Excellency, and each time she gave me a sunny smile of recognition. The pretty girl intrigued me. There was some curious feature about her; one that I could no more fathom than the depths of mystery into which I had been plunged.

Somehow I felt confident that we had met before; but where, I could not recall. The smile that played about her lips seemed familiar. In a hazy sort of way I felt that she was my intimate friend and that she was enjoying my failure to recognize her.

Presently I asked Her Excellency: