William Le Queux (continued 2)

“I can’t,” he returned, and his face, now he realised how I had duped him, was a study in rage and mortification. “I—I am out on business just as much as you are. You play your hand, I’ll play mine. Only take care what you are up to—that’s all. When we at Scotland Yard take up a case we usually make some inquiries into the good faith and past history of our clients. It’s a pity you don’t do the same. Good-night.” And with a nod full of meaning he strolled off towards the embankment, leaving me to digest his enigmatic remark in silence and alone.

With a good-humoured laugh I took my way homeward and tried to shake off the effects of his ominous words, which, I own, caused me a certain amount of disquietude, for, after all, I hadn’t a ghost of an idea then as to the real identity or object of Don José Casteno. For a time, I own, I felt rather fearful. But first one thing and then another engaged my attention. For instance, I had to find out whether I was still being followed. I decided I was not. I had also to dodge the human night-bird of London intent on rows or alms. Finally, by the time I had reached Trafalgar Square the ill effects of the detective’s warning had quite disappeared. All I thought of was a good night’s rest, to be followed by another ride on my motor car to Hampstead, and another entrance to that mysterious home of the Order of St. Bruno.

When, however, I reached the street in which my offices were situate I was surprised to see the thoroughfare presented anything but its usual drab and sombre appearance. Something extraordinary was certainly in progress therein. Instead of the place being deserted and silent like the neighbouring streets, no fewer than three carriages with flashing lamps and horses in glittering harness were drawn up by one side of the curb, and near a door stood quite a group of footmen, and loafers and policemen drawn thither by the unusual assemblage.

As I got nearer I was even more surprised to find that this strange gathering was centred round the door of my own offices, which I was stupefied to see were brilliantly lit up. “What on earth can have happened?” I gasped, and, quickening my steps, I half ran towards the tiny crowd gathered round the door, which seemed somehow to be expecting me, and gave way instinctively at my approach.

Another moment and I had thrust open my office door. The place was half filled by tobacco smoke, but through the mist I was astounded to see three persons had calmly seated themselves in my room to await my return—Lord Fotheringay, Colonel Napier, and a stranger who, as he turned his determined but forbidding looking features upon me, I recognised instantly as Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

“You must excuse us, Glynn,” Fotheringay began almost at once. “I own I had no right to come here at all at this hour and open your office. Most of all, I oughtn’t to have put on your hearth two friends without your consent. Only, as perhaps you guessed from the scene at the auction, we live in rather stirring times just now, and we had no margin left in which we could observe the ordinary courtesies. With Colonel Napier you are, of course, well acquainted. Let me introduce to you another distinguished man.” And he made a movement in the direction of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, who rose and bowed.

“Pray be seated,” I hastened to exclaim as I took the chair at my desk and faced the trio. “I mustn’t say, of course, I expected this honour, because, after the way Fotheringay sprang at me in the auction market, I certainly got the impression he had no particular friendliness for me left—but—”

“But that is precisely what we have come about,” interposed the earl eagerly. “Those three old manuscripts which we made so terrific a fight over—”

My lips closed, and a new look of resolution came into my face.

“I see,” I replied. “Then, as it is a matter of business, I beg you tell me what you desire in a plain, business-like fashion.”

There was an awkward pause; and then Lord Cyril began: “I understand, Mr Glynn,” he said in his most seductive tones, “from no less an authority than the earl here, that you have been retained to get possession of three historical documents that were found among the effects of a certain dead refugee priest who called himself Alphonse Calasanctius. Now, are you aware to what those deeds relate?”

I nodded, and the two men exchanged a quick look of intelligence. “That being so,” proceeded Lord Cuthbertson, “you will doubtless realise how important it is that His Majesty’s Government, and not an enemy of this country, should obtain possession of them.”

“Quite,” I returned, determining to meet the statesman’s strategy with diplomacy as far-reaching as his own.

“And may I take it that you are prepared, as far as lies in your power, to assist His Majesty’s Government in this direction?”

“That is hardly necessary,” I said, with a smile. “I have not got the documents at all. They are in the hands of a man with whom I am but little acquainted—Mr Zouche. Wouldn’t it be better if pressure were placed on him?”

“I can hardly agree in that,” said the Foreign Secretary softly, and I saw I had countered but not defeated him. “In the first place, Mr Zouche is not an English subject, like yourself. He is Spanish, with all the absurd notions of the average Spaniard as to the future glories and magnificence of Spain. In the second place, he and Lord Fotheringay have had this very point over between them, and the hunchback has absolutely refused to assist us or the earl, who really put him on the track of the documents, and who is now trying, in vain, unfortunately, to frighten him out of them.”

“In other words,” I remarked sternly, “Lord Fotheringay first of all threw in his lot with the hunchback, who went off with the plunder, and won’t divide it. Thereupon he bethought himself of his patriotism, and has said to you: ‘Here is a matter of the honour and fair fame and fortune of England. Come, let us sink all our personal greed and differences and recover those deeds in the name and for the sake of our common brotherhood of kin and blood.’ My lord, it won’t answer with me. When I wanted help Fotheringay would not raise a finger for me, but rather studied how he could throw me back. Now he’s in trouble, let him get out of it; but let him be a man over it, and don’t let him bleat about the needs of England when he really means his own greed.”

“There’s a good deal in what you say,” remarked Lord Cuthbertson, “but not everything. Bear with me a minute, and I will explain. I have no doubt you are under the impression that when Fotheringay went to Mexico he went simply because he’d got a lot of spare cash, and wanted a change, and to bag some big game. As a matter of fact, he had no thought of the sort. He went as a special and a private spy of the Foreign Office; and his business was, under the harmless guise of an enthusiastic sportsman, to investigate certain rumours we had heard as to the discovery of these Jesuit plans of the sacred Lake of Treasure which really belongs to England. Well, he did so, and so cleverly did he manage that he penetrated the very monastery in which they were hidden, and he got at the very prior of the Order—a member of which had held them in his possession. A certain bargain was struck between the prior and himself, but before the Foreign Office could send the big sum of money required to ratify it this Father Alphonse Calasanctius ran away with the documents to England, but was, we have reason to believe, poisoned on his arrival by some compatriot or relative who knew nothing of the value of the manuscripts, and thought only of the forced sale of the goods which you and the earl attended. Therefore I beg you don’t judge your old companion unfairly and harshly. We all of us do many things for England in our public capacity that we should not dare, or even wish, to do for ourselves in our own private business. His sole blunder was to get Zouche to help him, because Zouche is really a villain who would dare any crime or fraud to help his country, Spain. So it, of course, has happened as might have been expected. Zouche has repudiated the earl, and unless you can give us a hand England is going to lose this sacred lake and its millions and Zouche.”

“He may not necessarily triumph,” I answered.

“There are probably other people hot on the track of those manuscripts. To-day there have been one or two attempts to make Zouche disgorge from a source which is truly bold and daring and resourceful; I’ll assume, after what you say, it is the earl. Well, let the earl continue his pressure. He may frighten him out of them, but I doubt it—I doubt it very much. Then there is my employer.”

“You must give that man up, Hugh,” cut in Colonel Napier, who had not hitherto spoken. “He’s a scoundrel of the first water. I know all about him. He escaped from that Mexican monastery at the same time as Father Alphonse Calasanctius, but not before he killed Earl Fotheringay’s companion, young Sutton.”

“That is false,” suddenly interrupted a strange voice, “and the police of London and Mexico know it, for the deed was done by Calasanctius himself, and not by the novice at all.” And to everybody’s astonishment the doors of my big cupboard were flung open, and there stepped therefrom no less a personage than Don José Casteno himself.

Chapter Eight.

Some Grave Suspicions.

For a moment all was confusion. Colonel Napier sprang to his feet with an angry gesture, and even Lord Cyril Cuthbertson rose and crossed over to the place where Fotheringay was sitting near the fire, and consulted him in low and anxious tones.

Curiously enough, Casteno appeared to be the least perturbed of any of us, although he had made such a dramatic entry. Somehow he seemed to take his position in that conference as a matter of right, and when he saw that none of the others were prepared to talk to him on any terms, but were determined to treat him as a bold, impertinent interloper, he swung round from them and stepped up to my desk, where I sat idly playing with a pen.

“It is not true that I am the wretch whom Colonel Napier has spoken of,” he said to me very simply, looking me straight in the eyes. “It is not true that I am an enemy of England, such as Lord Cuthbertson has suggested. It is not true that I am engaged in any dishonourable or unpatriotic enterprise; nor was it begun, as they pretend, by my flight from a monastery in Mexico coincident with the disappearance of Father Calasanctius; nor did it include in its train the killing of that exceedingly foolish and indiscreet personage, Sutton. On the contrary, I assert here that all and each of those allegations are false; and what is perhaps the more intolerable is the fact that Lord Cyril knows it, has on his file at the Foreign Office a full report of the affair, coupled with a diplomatic request that the man should be found and returned to his friends.”

And he turned and faced the Secretary for Foreign Affairs with a striking look of defiance; but that nobleman would not take up his challenge. He merely drew a little closer to the earl, who was now standing listening to him with an expression of the most grave concern, and the shot went wide.

In no sense disconcerted, however, Don José confronted me again.

“You see,” he said significantly, “Lord Cuthbertson’s striking change of manner when I am here to face him out. I repeat to you that he dare not deny what I have just told you, although it suited his purpose well enough to blacken my name when I was not here to speak up for myself. The point for you now to consider,” he went on in a lower tone, “is, as a man of honour, not whether you can take up the cause of Lord Cuthbertson but if you can throw me over on such flimsy, unsubstantial talk as this has been.”

“If he doesn’t, Doris shall never speak to him again,” cut in Colonel Napier, who was an old Anglo-Indian, and nothing if not a most persistent fire-eater.

Don José turned as swiftly as though he had been stung by a snake. “Colonel, that is not worthy of you,” he cried. “I beg you withdraw it for your own sake, for I warn you most solemnly that before a day has gone you will regret it.”

“And I, as an Englishman, jealous of my country’s success, refuse,” thundered the old soldier. “Let it be enough that I have spoken. Mr Glynn can make his own choice.” And throwing back his shoulders he stalked impressively out of the room.

Almost unobserved, too, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Earl Fotheringay had also manoeuvred their steps towards the doorway; and now, when Casteno tried to speak with them, they took advantage of a pause created by the sudden rattle of the colonel’s carriage as he drove towards the Strand to slip out of the room. A minute later there arose the sound of a loud commotion, as of doors banged and of horses urged to a gallop, and both of their broughams followed hard in the old soldier’s wake.

“You see,” said Don José to me, with a little bitterness, “they are not men big enough to face me out over this matter. They prefer to fling their poisoned darts at me and to leave them to work their own mischief, whilst they scuttle off like naughty children who have thrown some stones through a window and are quite content with the sight of the damage they have done, without a thought of the anguish of the householder. Well, well! all this is the trouble which you will no doubt remember that I, at least, expected and warned you against when I asked you to join forces with me. I must not now rail against my own fate, but I do appeal to you—give me a fair chance, do not desert me.”

For an instant I wavered. This quest now had assumed truly gigantic dimensions. Even Cooper-Nassington seemed only a dim, far-off figure against the overwhelming personality of Cuthbertson. More than that, I knew if I clung to Casteno I should have one of the most stern fights with Colonel Napier, who would stop at nothing to keep Doris apart from me.

None the less, I had my own notions of honour likewise, and it did not concern me much that they differed from Earl Fotheringay’s or Lord Cyril Cuthbertson’s. After all, had I not taken my fee from Don José? Had he not paid me all that I asked? Had I not passed him the sacred pledge of my word? And so, at last, I gave my decision.

“I have seen nothing in your life, your behaviour, or your conduct,” I cried, “to warrant me in throwing you over in the way those men have suggested. Until I find some good reason to believe that your intentions are dishonourable, that your career has been criminal, that your desires are hostile to England, I cannot desert you.”

“Well spoken,” replied Don José earnestly. “Your determination does you credit. Believe me, you shall find no cause to make you ashamed that you ever allied yourself with me. On the contrary, as you go deeper into this business you will realise that you have done well to stick to me, however baffling and perplexing may seem some of the adventures I may have to ask you to undertake. And that reminds me of the real business we have in hand to-night! How did you get on at the House of Commons with Cooper-Nassington?”

“Very much better than I could have dared to expect,” I replied with frankness, and returning him his sealed packet addressed to Cuthbertson. In a few graphic sentences I described to him how I had gone to the house of the hunchback with the Member of Parliament, and the extraordinary adventures we had undergone there. Instead, however, of being pleased with the result of the quest, I could see that the Spaniard was greatly disturbed at something that had happened on that occasion. At first he would not tell why we ought not to congratulate ourselves that Zouche had promised to decipher those manuscripts and communicate their contents within a fortnight to Mr Cooper-Nassington. He tried to put me off with commonplace expressions like “Time will prove,” “Never count your chickens,” and “Trust no man further than you can throw him;” but when he realised that I was not going to be denied he admitted that my news about the attempts on the hunchback’s life was much more serious than anybody had any idea of, because they might terrify Zouche and make him do things he would not otherwise dream of.

“But we two are men with brains, hands, resolution,” I interjected. “Why need we stand by and let other people like Fotheringay come in and benefit by our labours? Let us mount guard over Zouche until he has got through his task of deciphering the documents.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” returned Casteno, “but it is not so easy to do as it seems. For one thing, Zouche would not let us act in the capacity of his guardians if he knew we had any aspirations at all for that office. Another thing—where can we hide ourselves? And then,” he added after a significant pause, “I wanted you to be busy on another mission. I had a particular reason for wishing that you should go down to Southampton to-morrow afternoon, when the royal mail steamer Atrato is expected. A lady whom I want you to meet is coming by that boat. As a matter of fact, she is bringing certain valuable documents for me and for the Order of St. Bruno, and she will need all the protection you can give her between the Solent and the Thames if she isn’t kidnapped by some friends of Fotheringay, who, when he was in Mexico, learnt all about her treasures.”

“In that case you must watch the hunchback,” I said decisively, “whilst I run down from Waterloo to Southampton. The whole business won’t take me more than ten hours from London to dock and dock to London.”

“But how on earth shall I watch Zouche? How shall I gain admission to his shop without his knowledge? And where can I hide myself without any undue risk of being found out?”

“A house like his, full of the most extraordinary curiosities, is the best hiding-place one could have,” I replied. “The only trouble is to get inside it, but I am sure if I go with you and help you, and we watch our chance, say whilst his man is taking down the shutters, we can both slip in and run up to the first-floor showroom, which is over the parlour. Once there I will help you to conceal yourself, and also open up for you a peep-hole in the ceiling of the room where the hunchback does his research work, without the slightest fear you will be pounced on. Why, old curiosity shops in London are never disturbed or dusted! Dust is part of the stock-in-trade. Most dealers seem perfectly satisfied if they sell one thing out of each room per week—and often that one thing may be merely a miniature or a coin!”

“All right, I’ll leave the arrangements with you,” answered the Spaniard, with a laugh. “For the present, however, the most important thing for you at least seems to be sleep. I propose, therefore, that before we make another move of any kind you turn in and get a few hours’ sleep whilst I mount guard.”

“Yes, I’m tired,” I admitted, with a half-smothered yawn; “and, after all, we can do nothing at the hunchback’s until about nine o’clock, so I think I will do as you suggest.” And placing some more coal on the fire I wished him good-night and made my way to my adjacent bedroom, where, throwing myself on the sofa, I closed my eyes and endeavoured to push myself off into a soft, dreamless slumber.

Now it is a curious thing that, whereas in the ordinary way I am about one of the heaviest and solidest sleepers you could meet in a day’s journey, when danger threatens me or my interests I seem to have some special intuition which keeps me awake and sensitive to the slightest omen or sound. I can’t explain it. There it is. Ever since I was a boy I have possessed it, and not once has it failed to warn me when I ought to be up and about.

And the odd part of it was that it made itself most painfully evident this night on which Don José Casteno proffered to look after me. In vain I heard his own soft and regular breathing as I crept to the half-open door noiselessly and listened to his movements. In vain I drew the clothes right over my head and conjured up sheep jumping over a stile; pigs elbowing each other through a half-open gate; dogs passing in endless procession, each with a most plaintive look of entreaty that I should wear my brain out counting them for some unseen but remorseless master-calculator—I could not go to sleep. Even the Brahmin magic word “O—om,” which I repeated slowly twice a minute, expelling the air each time most completely from my lungs, failed to hypnotise me. And then all at once I heard something—a slow grating sound that seemed to suggest treachery and mischief.

With all my senses painfully alert I wriggled off my bed and went on hands and knees, dressed only in my trousers and shirt, to the door of my outer office. To my surprise I found Casteno, crouching on his knees also, in front of the fire, which threw a powerful rosy glare on his clean-shaven features. He had pulled a long evil-looking dagger out of a belt hidden near his waist and was sharpening its edge on the hearthstone!

He meant mischief. To whom?

Suddenly, before I had time to think, he rose, and taking up his clerical-looking hat he stepped noiselessly across the office and hastened off down the street, a look of terrible resolution on his face.

Whither was he bound?

Had he heard something that had put him on his guard as he sat crouched over the fire in my arm-chair? Had he seen something or somebody that meant mischief to me? Or had he suddenly resolved to take advantage of those early morning hours to avenge himself on some enemy who lived near at hand? That was where I felt myself as up against a solid wall; it was so hard to divine what was at the back of a foreign stranger with a past that might have been crowded with duel and vendetta and adventure that had given birth to a dozen most deadly hatreds and lusts for revenge.

Half mechanically I went to the doorway and peered through the early morning haze up and down Stanton Street. I could see no one—nothing suspicious—nothing suggestive at all. I was just about to return to my bedroom when I was startled by something playing about my feet. In a flash I looked down, and to my astonishment found Colonel Napier’s clumber spaniel gazing at me with the most appealing eyes.

“Hulloa, Fate!” I said, giving him his customary but oddly suggestive name. “Where have you sprung from? What are you doing here? Did you run after your master’s carriage when the colonel came with Lord Cuthbertson and get locked in some cupboard in the office here, or did you fall asleep on a pile of papers?”

The dog looked up, wagging his tail. Then all at once he gave a sharp bark, and swinging round he tore through the open door down the street as hard as he could pelt. For an instant I was quite astonished. As a rule the dog would stop and fuss with me and play several tricks. Now his manner was so curious that I decided at last he must have expected I should follow him.

“But that must be a long time yet,” I told myself, with a sigh. “I can never see Doris now until I have cleared up this mystery of the manuscripts for Don José.” And, shrugging my shoulders, I made my way back to the bedroom where, feeling sleep was out of the question, and that I must try in real earnest to solve the mystery of the expedition of the Spaniard, I had a tub, and made a hurried toilet, and then set to work to get myself some breakfast.

In about half-an-hour’s time, however, Don José returned, and when he caught sight of me up and dressed he gave such a start of terror I thought that he would drop on the floor in a fit.

“Well,” I said lightly. “You didn’t expect to see me about, did you? Fact was, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to make myself a cup of tea. Where have you been to at this ungodly hour?”

“To a friend’s,” he stammered. “A friend’s in Whitehall Court. Just a call—a friendly call. A man I know in Whitehall Court.”

“In Whitehall Court,” I repeated, bending over some toast I was buttering. “Why, that’s where Colonel Napier lives! Did you happen to see a clumber spaniel heading in that direction? He was here a few minutes ago, but suddenly he bolted for his home in great distress, and I thought that—”

But I never completed the sentence.

All at once I was startled by the sound of a loud fall.

I looked round.

To my surprise I found that Don José Casteno had dropped to the floor in a dead faint.

Chapter Nine.

The Hunchback Tries a New Ruse.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as the sequel must determine, Don José Casteno’s attack of faintness was not of long duration. Almost, indeed, as I snatched up a flask of brandy from my travelling case and darted across the office to his assistance, he gave a long deep sigh, his eyelids fluttered, and the next moment he sat up, gazing in a bewildered fashion round the room. He took, however, a deep draught of the spirit when I pressed it upon him, but when I ventured to inquire what it was that had caused him to collapse after his walk through the streets from the Embankment to the Strand his eyes grew large and troubled, although he made a tremendous effort to hide his agitation.

“Really, nothing happened to me,” he said in a quick, disjointed fashion. “I visited the man at Whitehall I wished to see, and then, fearing I had done wrong in leaving you unprotected as you slept trusting to my presence, I ran as hard as I could back to your office. The fact is, I must have got rather out of condition of late, and the exertion took more out of me than I intended. You must forgive me this time, and I’ll be more careful in future.”

“Then you didn’t see anything of Colonel Napier’s clumber spaniel?” I queried, and in spite of myself there arose a certain accent of suspicion in my tones.

“No, I didn’t,” he replied, but he kept his gaze steadily averted from mine. “No doubt I ran too fast to notice anything. Besides, I always keep my head down.” And, pretending to yawn, he rose unsteadily to his feet and took a seat near the table, whereon I had laid breakfast for us both.

Of course, I should like to have asked him about the knife which I had watched him sharpen with so much diabolical care, but I realised that for some secret reason this innocent-looking Spaniard was not really telling me the truth about his early morning mission; and, not wanting to be filled up with any more fables, I decided to hold my tongue about the matter, for a time at all events. The incident, however, had put me thoroughly on my guard, and, without letting him become conscious of what was, after all, a rather subtle change of front, I kept a much closer watch than usual on him right through the meal, when we chatted a lot of commonplaces.

All the same, he seemed to feel that we had little time to waste when breakfast was finished and we had started our cigarettes. As the seconds slipped on, and I showed no unusual haste to be off, his manner grew jerky and nervous, and finally he gave the signal to rise with a quick apology to me.

“Really, we must be off,” he said. “I feel quite anxious about what is happening at the hunchback’s. Do let us get into some secure place of concealment before Lord Fotheringay or his envoy appears again on the scene.”

With a great affectation of laziness I rose and followed him down Stanton Street; and this time I put a double safety-lock on my office, to save me from any more surprise visits from men like Lord Cyril Cuthbertson. Now, as it happens, the quickest route from Stanton Street to the Strand is by way of a long, dark, narrow passage, and although Casteno hurried past I made him retrace his steps for a few yards and walk with me through this. At first I imagined I had done this from purely British obstinacy and habit, but all at once I became conscious that some deeper influence and habit must have been at work, for on rounding a bend I was startled to come across a group of early printers’ boys and charwomen gathered excitedly around some object that lay on the ground. This tiny crowd instinctively parted at our approach, and as we passed into their midst I was horrified to see Colonel Napier’s clumber spaniel Fate stretched on the path, with a great gaping cut over its heart!

“Some brute has stabbed it,” said one of the boys, who had been kneeling beside it endeavouring to stop the flow of blood with his dirty handkerchief. “I did my best for him, but he was too far gone. He’s almost dead.” But suddenly the dog seemed to rouse himself—to lift his head—then, catching sight of Casteno, he gave a low growl and made a movement as if he would snap at his legs.

The Spaniard jumped back nimbly, and one of the women exclaimed: “Why, mister, he seems to know you.”

“He doesn’t. I have never seen him before,” cried Casteno. And just then death convulsions seized the poor brute, and as the crowd watched the dog die the incident passed rapidly out of mind. I did not, however, forget it totally, nor the fact that Fate was one in a thousand for sagacity and faithfulness. But what, perhaps, impressed me the most was the shape and size of the wound in the dog’s side. I could have sworn that it had been made by the dagger I had seen Don José sharpen in the glare of my office fire!

Unfortunately, up to that point I had nothing definite to go upon except the most wild and improbable suspicion. After all, why should the Spaniard kill Colonel Napier’s dog? Nothing was to be gained by a piece of petty revenge such as that. As a consequence, I did not worry myself about the incident further, but contented myself by giving the boy who had spoken to me first a shilling to wheel the dead dog to Whitehall Court, and then Casteno and I hastened along Parliament Street and soon appeared outside the closed curio shop.

To all appearances, then, nothing unusual had happened to Peter Zouche or to his premises. The street in which the old curiosity store stood was just as silent and deserted as it had been the previous night when Mr Cooper-Nassington and I drove up and had that memorable interview with the hunchback about the contents of the manuscripts. Nobody seemed astir, no detective appeared on the watch.

Like shadows we crossed the road, inspected the shutters, and gently but noiselessly tried the handle of the door. We soon saw that there was no chance of gaining admission by these methods, but a moment later I caught sight of a long iron pipe that ran from the roof to the ground by the side of the door.

“Can you climb?” I whispered to the Spaniard, recalling, all at once, the favourite method of the portico thief.

He nodded. “I served as a sailor once,” he returned.

“Then follow me,” I said, and seizing this pipe I travelled up by hands and knees until I reached the level of the first-floor window-sill. Then out I whipped my knife, and, forcing back the catch, I raised the sash, with the result that in less than twenty seconds after I had hit on this ruse the window had been closed again, and both of us stood inside the hunchback’s stronghold in perfect freedom and safety.

“This is better than waiting until the assistant comes to open the shop,” I said. “After all, he might have given us some trouble, whereas here we are landed all right before he appears at all. Now to explore and to get into position where you can see, without being seen, all that Master Zouche is up to.”

And we turned and picked our way carefully through the maze of curios with which the place was littered—the antique chests, the old carved cabinets, dainty pieces of Chippendale and Sheraton, with here and there a heathen idol or an Egyptian mummy case flanked by vessels and candelabra torn from holy places in Christian churches. All were flung pell-mell together, as though the man who owned them despised them, and had deposited them there as so much lumber, instead of being, as they really were, worth thousands and thousands of pounds.

Right at the back part of the room we were delighted to find a trap-door let into the floor, and raising this we dropped into a clean, if small, recess, which in times past had doubtless been used for storing valuable old pictures, for in different places we found several canvases that had been taken out of their frames and carefully deposited and packed with their faces to the wall. From the position of a tiny window that had been let into the far end I gathered that at length we had reached a position over the parlour in which I felt sure we should come upon the hunchback. So, closing the trap-door upon us, we went down on our hands and knees and set to bore experimental holes between the rafters, to see whether we could distinguish our exact whereabouts.

After two or three disappointments we succeeded in locating the room I was in search of, and, to our delight, found Peter Zouche there, curled up in the great chair-bedstead which he ordinarily used as an arm-chair near the fire. He had evidently just awoke and lit his fire, for he sat huddled over the burning sticks near a tiny kettle which was steaming merrily, his eyes fixed blankly in space, as though his mind were lost in the maze of some profound speculation.

For some minutes he did not move at all. Then suddenly he seemed to come to some rapid decision, for he sprang out of the chair and went hurriedly to an old Dutch cupboard in a recess, from which he took a big square steel box, like a Foreign Office despatch box, painted mahogany colour, with heavy brass clamps at the corners.

“The manuscripts!” whispered Casteno excitedly as he saw the old man thrust a long skinny hand into his trouser pocket and produce therefrom a bunch of jangling keys. But I shook my head. I remembered the hunchback’s boast to Mr Cooper-Nassington that he had hidden those precious documents in a place where they could be found only by himself. That ordinary-looking safe would attract the attention of the most careless and superficial of burglars.

As it chanced, there were three or four padlocks attached to the case, and each one had to be opened by a separate key, so that over a minute elapsed before the Hunchback succeeded in raising the lid and in disclosing to view what the box really contained—a neat-fitting wig of black and a beard. These he fitted on his head and face, giving him the appearance of some Polish Jew who had but newly arrived on these hospitable shores.

“What on earth can he be up to?” interjected Casteno, who was really now worked up to a painful degree of nervous tension.

“Nothing good, I’m certain,” I returned rather grimly. “My experience has always been that, when men are ashamed of their own features in the ordinary business of life, they are also ashamed of the deeds which they propose to do with a false countenance.”

All this time, however, old Peter was busy in putting the finishing touches to his disguise—in changing his coat and vest, in donning some greasy rags, which he rounded off by a muffler, a coat green with age, and a slouch hat so dirty and worn that few would venture to pick it up from the street, much less place it on their own heads. Finally, after a long and narrow inspection in a beautiful old Venetian mirror that hung on the wall, he seemed satisfied with the change he had effected in his appearance, for he stepped briskly to the mantelpiece and touched a small electric bell, which sounded somewhere high above our heads.

For a moment it looked as though the summons would not be answered. But only for a moment. Later we caught the sounds of tired feet clamping heavily down the wooden stairs until they reached the shop level, then the door of the parlour (I can call it nothing else, it was so typical of its middle-class namesake), was thrust open, and a youth entered bearing a most extraordinary resemblance to my companion Don José Casteno!

Unfortunately, I hadn’t time to remark on this further before the hunchback himself began to speak, and I had to bend all my energies and senses to catching the drift of the conversation, which was carried on in a low foreign-sounding tone.

“Well, Paul,” began the hunchback briskly, “I have taken your advice, like a good father, and have disguised myself in the costume you suggested. What do you think of the transformation? Is it a success?”

“It will do all right,” said the tired-looking youth sullenly. “Only take care how you hold your shoulders. Most people give themselves away by the fashion in which they carry themselves, and you, as a hunchback, worst of all.”

Zouche, like most deformed persons, was painfully sensitive, but to my surprise he did not seem to resent the youth’s bluntness. “Any other advice?” he proceeded, “mind, I want all your tips. I may be gone for a long time.”

“No,” said the youth he called Paul, slowly and critically. “There’s not much to find fault with just at present. Don’t get excited, though, whatever happens. Train your hands not to reveal your true feelings, and, above all, distort that tell-tale voice of yours. Pal in with some foreigner for a day or two, and pick up his trick of speech and intonation.”

“I will, I will,” replied the hunchback. “And now for those manuscripts. Have you prepared those dummies?”

“Yes,” answered Paul. “Here they are—the three of them—and I’ve taken so much pains with the writing which I have faked on them that I would defy anybody to tell, under a day’s examination with microscope and acid, that they are not the real, genuine article you bought for one thousand eight hundred pounds at the sale of Father Calasanctius’ effects at the auction mart.”

“Good,” cried Zouche, rubbing his hands together in the most approved method of the Jewish pedlar. “Pass them over to me.” And the youth produced from a leather case which he had been carrying unperceived by his side three documents so exactly like the real thing I had fought for that I could have sworn myself that they were in real truth the three coveted manuscripts of the sacred lake!

The hunchback, however, did not pass them lightly. He took each one over to the window and examined it with great care, and only when he had assured himself that certain marks were present on each one of them, that all alike presented the same appearance of age and use and treatment, did he place them carefully in the steel box from which he had taken his wig and beard. Then he turned the keys in the locks, and, mounting a chair, he thrust open a secret panel in the rafters, pushed inside this hiding-place the box with the forged documents—as it happened, within two feet of the exact spot where we were stretched, full length, listening to his conversation.

Then he got down and turned again to Paul. “That is all right,” he said gaily. “That is a good thing done, and I shouldn’t be surprised if in a critical moment it doesn’t save both my life and my fortune. Now you have got your lesson by heart, haven’t you? You know what to do when any of those men like Hugh Glynn or the Earl of Fotheringay, or any of those Jesuit spies, come pottering about here! You play the avaricious fool, do you see? Pretend that you know a lot, and that you could tell them a lot if it were only made worth your while, and bleed each one of them for all the cash you can, in return for the information that I have vanished, and also for permission to turn this shop upside down to find the manuscripts, which you can hint you are certain are concealed somewhere about here.”

“All right, I’m game,” said the youth, and his eyes gleamed with malice and wickedness.

“When you’ve made all you can out of the dolts sell those forgeries to the highest bidder. My own idea is that the Jesuits will pay you better than anybody else, but perhaps Lord Cyril Cuthbertson may play you up too closely with the aid of some Scotland Yard detectives. In that case, let him have the honour of buying the spurious deeds, do you see? It’s a pity these foolish Britishers don’t roll over in the mud of their own cleverness sometimes.”

The conversation ended, and I turned rapidly to the Spaniard.

“It’s no good for you to stay here, as we have arranged,” I whispered to Casteno, who now gazed at me appealingly with eyes large with nervousness and apprehension. “The hunchback won’t be seen at Westminster for some time to come. He intends to disappear—as you’ve heard, the same as myself—but he must disappear in company with one of us. Now, who is it to be? You or I?”

“I must go,” quickly returned the Spaniard. “Don’t you remember you have to rush off this afternoon to Southampton to meet the royal mail steamer Atrato and to escort in safety to London a girl named Camille Velasquon, who is bringing some valuable papers from Mexico for me and for the Order of St. Bruno? I have already telegraphed to her to Plymouth to expect you. It is impossible for you to back out.”

“But are you any good at shadowing a man as artful and slippery and suspicious as Zouche?” I questioned sternly. “Think for a moment what it means to your own future if you fail.”

“I shall not fail,” said Casteno decisively, starting to make a bee line for the trap-door, through which he had entered the recess. “I have tracked scores of men in my time in the old, wild days in Mexico, when to be discovered as a spy meant that you were caught up by a lasso and strung to the nearest tree, whilst sympathising neighbours took pot-shots at you out of their revolvers. Just trust to me, and go and conduct Camille Velasquon from the vessel I mentioned to St. Bruno’s in Hampstead—that will require all your nerve, your daring, and your resolution!”

“But how shall I know how you get on? When shall I hear from you? Through what channel can we arrange a course of combined action?” I queried.

“I will communicate with you on your return from Southampton at your office in Stanton Street. If I can write to you I will. Otherwise I will have recourse to the telegraph office. But have no fear. I know the hunchback too well of old to let this slippery card pass through my fingers a moment sooner than I intend he should.” And with these strangely suggestive words he waved me an adieu, and next second had disappeared.

Time, too, was much too precious to waste. Already, as the Spaniard had engaged me in this conversation, I had caught the sounds of movement and consultation in the room beneath, and, although I would have dearly liked to learn how he could ever have met Zouche in such intimate circumstances as he indicated, and also what was the secret of his startling likeness to Paul, that wicked-looking youth beneath, I realised that I needed every second to watch the chief actor in our drama, the hunchback. So again I bent over the hole in the ceiling, and again I peered into the misty depths of the parlour and watched what this pair of scoundrels were up to.

By this time it seemed that Zouche had nearly completed all his preparations for departure, and was merely filling in the last few seconds by cramming a few sandwiches into the capacious pockets of his overcoat, whilst the tired-looking youth emptied some whiskey from the bottle on the sideboard into a flask.

The next moment the hunchback pulled his felt hat down tightly over his forehead, practically concealing the whole of his features, and snatching the flask, which was now full, he nodded a quick farewell to his companion and then hurried off. Almost immediately afterwards I heard the side door bang, and I realised that the dwarf had really gone, and I was free to set off on that curious trip to Southampton.

Chapter Ten.

The Lady from Mexico.

As I rose, however, from my crouching position quite a startling climax to that morning’s adventure occurred. All at once I caught sight of the recess in which was concealed the steel box containing the manuscript forgeries, and I saw in a flash what an excellent move it would be for me to remove the thing to a place where I could conveniently lay hands upon it whenever I wanted it. In imagination I pictured the surprise of the Jesuit spies, for instance, when they had disgorged large sums to Master Paul downstairs, only to find, when the youth reached out for the deeds, they had vanished! Indeed, I am afraid I chuckled quite loudly when I whipped out my jack-knife and attacked the thin boarding that shut me off from this imitation treasure, so excellent did I conceive this act as a piece of pure inoffensive humour. Fate, too, aided me in the business, for in less than five minutes I had not only got at the precious casket but had forced the steel lid, taken out the forgeries and wrapped them up in a piece of canvas, which I placed in my pocket, and pushed the box back, but I had actually slipped out of my hiding-place and crept down the stairs to the shop, the front door of which luckily stood open.

In fact, it was not until I had got into a cab and was whirling away in the direction of Lambeth Bridge that I really appreciated what a daring thing I had done. Then I lay back in my seat and chuckled loudly.

Waterloo Station, as usual, was crowded with people hastening to one or other race meeting, a river excursion, or a boat special, but I managed to get a cosy corner in a first-class carriage of the express for Southampton, and was soon clattering through Vauxhall and Clapham Junction, hard on my journey to the Solent.

At first I admit I was too excited by the stirring scenes I had passed through to think of anything else—even Casteno’s mysterious sharpening of his dagger, his disappearance from my office, and the brutal slaughter of Colonel Napier’s spaniel. But the steady roar of the train, the ceaseless throb of the engine, soon calmed my mind and steadied my nerve, and I caught himself wondering what kind of girl could be this Camille Velasquon whom I had undertaken to meet. She could scarcely be an ordinary type of girl, I was certain, to be associated in any measure with José Casteno.

In point of fact, I eventually decided that she must be a very extraordinary girl altogether to cross from Mexico to England merely with certain valuable papers for that weird organisation of monks, the Order of St. Bruno. Further than that I don’t think I was able to make up my mind. All that suggested danger to her, an attempt at abduction, and so forth—which, remember, Casteno had warned me against—I own I could not appreciate. It is always hard to believe that perils like those lurk in this calm, peaceful England of ours. Yet they do, as I was destined to find very soon to my cost.

After this I supposed I must have napped for a time, for when next I looked out of the carriage window I found that the train was slowing its speed preparatory to entering Southampton. Luckily, the carriage I was in contained no other passengers, and I was able to pull myself together and munch a few biscuits before I had to hasten across the road outside the station and to march through the big dock gates, guarded by a burly constable, to that corner where incoming royal mail steamers are always berthed.

As it happened, the Atrato had not yet put in an appearance, and there were the usual crowds of anxious relatives, husbands, sweethearts, and loafers on the dock side, some brimming over with enjoyment at the prospect of near meetings with their loved ones, others looking nervous and fretful, as though they were the bearers of bad tidings to the returned exiles, or at all events feared the news which the incoming friends were carrying.

One woman in particular attracted my attention—a tall, commanding figure in black, in widow’s weeds, but with two of the most evil-looking eyes I had ever seen. Somehow this creature fascinated me. Her walk; her hands, which, luckily, were destitute of gloves; her expression on her thin, tightly-pressed lips; the cut of her chin when she raised her veil to get a better view of the approaching vessel, all told their striking yet deeply suggestive tale of character revealed by externals. And the tale was in every respect the same: the woman was bad, through and through.

“Who on earth can she have come to meet?” I asked myself, with the curiosity that besets most observant folk in crowds when an awkward pause has come and there is nothing to do but to wait with what patience one can find, eager to pick up any casual amusement. “Not a husband, certainly, nor a lover, for in that case she would never parade those sable garments with so much unction. It must be a friend of some sort, but then who would, or could, be a friend to so diabolical a creature as that is, even to look at?”

Just then the excitement of the boat’s arrival caught up the crowd, and I had all my attention engaged in my own work, in piloting myself well to the front, in rushing across the gangway on to the vessel, and by a judicious bribe of half-a-sovereign getting one of the stewards to conduct me straight away to the girl I was in search of—Miss Camille Velasquon—who greeted me with one of the prettiest and most honest of Spanish faces I had ever seen, and who shook my hand as warmly as though we had been friends in the long ago, for years and years. In age she could not, certainly, have been more than twenty, but there was a certain air of good style about her and her clothes that suggested wealth and a consciousness of considerable social importance.

“José telegraphed me and told me to rely on you,” she whispered in a low voice, “and I will. As a matter of fact, I have carefully studied all the other first-class passengers and there is no one amongst them whom we need fear, so we must look for enemies amongst the people on the dock side.”

“I think I can protect you all right,” I replied, with a smile as bright and infectious as her own. “But take my arm, look as though you belonged to me, as if we were brother and sister, in point of fact. What about your luggage?”

“That will be sent on,” she returned quickly, stepping out bravely beside me. “I arranged all that with the stewardess, who for the time will treat it as her own. I knew time pressed, and so I did all I could to facilitate my departure.”

“Then let us make the most of your foresight,” I said, and elbowing our way through the crowd the pair of us passed quickly out of the dock and soon hid ourselves in the refreshment room of the station, from which we passed rapidly to a slow train, which a porter explained would eventually land us in London, but would take four hours over the process.

“It is safety before speed we must study at this point,” I whispered to my companion; and we were just congratulating ourselves that we had got the carriage to ourselves as the guard’s whistle sounded, and had slipped out of Southampton with great discretion, when a most unexpected thing happened.

The carriage door opened suddenly, and in there stepped that evil-looking woman in black I had noted on the dock side.

The next instant the train rumbled off.

“Confound it,” I said to Miss Velasquon, “I never bargained for this. I think we had better change at the next station.”

Evidently the stranger heard my whisper, for she looked up.

“You may change, sir,” she said icily, “and I advise you to do so, but your companion won’t.” And her hands came together with a vicious snap.

“How—what the dickens do you mean?” I blurted out, and my eyes flashed fire.

“This,” the woman answered: “Miss Camille Velasquon, as it happens, is in my, not your, charge. Unfortunately, she is an escaped criminal lunatic, and it is my business, with the aid of some friends in the adjacent compartment, to convey her at once to Broadmoor Asylum.”

Chapter Eleven.

What Happened to us.

For a moment I own that I was dismayed by this evil-looking woman’s line of attack. If there be one act of grave injustice in England easier to manage than another it is this: to trump up some false charge of lunacy against a sane but unconscious person. If, in addition, you can assert that the alleged maniac is one fleeing from justice, or, worse still, consigned to some living tomb of convicted criminals like Broadmoor, you are pretty sure to get public sympathy and support on your side, for the vast majority of persons fear the insane with a wild, unreasoning kind of panic, and are only too glad to interpose the burly forms of keepers and doctors between themselves and the objects they dread.

Doubtless this wretched creature knew this, for her tones were those of an absolute mistress of herself and of that most perplexing situation. Her attitude, too, suggested a consciousness of triumph, for she just looked at Camille Velasquon with a look of gravity and warning that she must be careful if she wished to have any peace or kindness hereafter, whereas for me she had nothing but hot scorn or an icy contempt.

“Did you say you had other keepers with you?” I queried at length, more anxious to gain time before I showed my real hand than to elicit information.

“Yes; I did. There are two assistant warders. I am the principal.”

“Women, I suppose?”

“Both women!”

“Both women! Where do they come from?”

“From Broadmoor, like myself.” And she turned her head in the direction of the carriage window, as though she were tired of the conversation and desired me for the rest of the time to mind my own business.

Camille Velasquon now plucked me nervously by the arm. “This woman’s story is a tissue of lies,” she whispered. “I am no criminal and no lunatic. Why, I never set foot in England till I got off the ship on to Southampton Dock with you a few minutes ago!”

“Of course you didn’t,” I replied in a low tone, which, luckily, the rattle of the wheels prevented that grim-looking figure in the corner making the true sense. “Don’t you see that this is the plot Don José Casteno warned you against? Indeed, this is why I came down to meet you, to protect you. The trouble is, I don’t know who has put her up to this crowning piece of impudence. If it is just some obscure enemy of Casteno or of the Order of St. Bruno it’s all right, I’ll rescue you; but if it has some diplomatic importance, and behind this creature stands some great personage who is playing some game of European importance, it won’t be so easy as it might seem. Money may have been spent like water, and, at a pinch, they may prove to be really warders sent from Broadmoor with false instructions about you, and a false scent.”

“But you will save me, won’t you?” pleaded the girl, her eyes lustrous with tears. “Don’t leave me near that dreadful creature. We women can read women much more rapidly than men can, even the cleverest; and I am sure she has never occupied any official position at an asylum—she looks more like a murderess herself!”

“Well, I will certainly do my best,” I replied soothingly, turning again and facing Miss Velasquon. England is a queer place, and it is very easy to get a crowd together and to weep to them and to stuff them with a lot of lies. Many wicked people get the better of the innocent by cheap and foolish tricks like those.

I stood up and piloted myself to a position opposite to the stranger. “As you can see,” I began quietly but firmly, moving my head in the direction of my companion, “Miss Velasquon and I are together. Your information has distressed me very much. I was under the impression that my friend was quite a different personage to the one you make out. All the same, I don’t want to do anything that might seem to you unnecessarily hostile. You say you have two other warders with you. Do you mind, now that the train is stopping, inviting them to come into this carriage?”

For the first time the woman’s eyes fell. She could not divine what I was up to. Somehow she felt herself being pushed into a position, but she could not foresee where it would terminate.

“I don’t see the need,” she blurted out at length.

“But the authorities at Broadmoor did. That is why they sent them with you, you know. Believe me, you will incur a very grave responsibility if you don’t let them do their duty now that I have pointed out how extremely important it is that they should. Suppose Miss Velasquon grew dangerous, for instance, and sprang out of the carriage window on to the metals before you could lift a hand to stop her, what would the railway people say, the asylum authorities, the police, the coroner? Why, I should hurry forward to give evidence against you, madam, and you would be convicted of nothing less than manslaughter by neglect.” And to add irritation to my words I broke into a low mocking laugh, while poor Camille Velasquon, who knew I was up to some trick, but couldn’t see what it was, gave way to a fit of tears.

“Yours is a pretty picture,” the woman snapped, and now she looked more evil than ever, “but it’s too melodramatic for my taste. Just get out of this carriage yourself, then I can manage the patient all right. If anything happens it will be your fault, not mine.”

“I am not so sure about that,” I retorted blithely. “But am I to understand you decline my suggestion? If so, I can only say you have told me an untruth for some purpose of your own, which it will be my duty to ferret out. I can tell you openly that you have no warders with you.”

“I have.”

“Produce them.”

“I can.”

“Produce them,” I replied, and I made a movement as though I would signal to some porters who were standing near and would call upon them to judge between me and herself.

The ruse succeeded. With a muttered curse the woman placed a small silver whistle to her lips and blew thereon a curious signal, rather low, but very penetrating and distinctive. The next moment she was answered. Two women in the uniform of hospital nurses appeared suddenly at the window, and, obeying a sign from their superior, they sprang into the carriage and took seats, one on one side of, and the other opposite to, Camille Velasquon, who, now fearing that I had muddled everything, began to cry in sober earnest.

Undaunted, I held on to the course I had marked out for myself when I started. Turning to the woman, as the train once again steamed off, I said with ironical politeness: “I must really apologise for the scepticism with which I treated you. I see, now, that you have two assistants from Broadmoor, but why don’t they wear Broadmoor uniforms?”

“They do,” she cried, and then she stopped and bit her lip. All at once she realised she had fallen into the pit I had dug so carelessly in front of her.

“Oh no, indeed, they do not,” I answered sweetly. “The uniforms which these women have on are only worn by nurses at Guy’s Hospital. The fact is, I have been often to Broadmoor myself, and I know the nurses there wear a totally different garb.” And I shot a glance out of the corner of my eyes at the pseudo-nurses themselves. One had flushed crimson, the other had gone deathly white, and was playing nervously with her pocket-handkerchief. They were impostors, I am certain.

The woman in black, however, rose with magnificent impudence to the occasion. “You, sir,” she said, “have been good enough to brand me with falsehood, and I have borne it without a murmur, striving only to prove to you, in the discharge of my duty, that I spoke fairly and truthfully. Now, however, you go too far when you attack my assistants. I repeat they are dressed properly, and I say that your statement that you have been often in our asylum, is so much fudge. Only doctors and police and inspectors from the Home Office go there as a regular rule.”

I waited for a moment before I answered, like a clever actor pauses before he puts in his most effective point.

“You are impetuous, madam,” I said, taking out my snuff-box with studied deliberation and pretending to take a pinch; “very impetuous. You ought to have asked who I was before you branded me, too, as an impostor. As a matter of fact, I do belong to the police. Here is my card.” And I quietly produced a card of Detective-Inspector Naylor’s which I happened to have in my waistcoat pocket.

The effect of my act was almost magical. The woman in front of me started violently and shivered. Then with a great effort she recovered herself and gave me another look of defiance. “I see,” she said, taking the piece of cardboard I handed to her with apparent carelessness. “I suppose you have been sent to look after Miss Velasquon by some friend of hers who does not know her real identity or crimes. It’s a pity, a great pity, for you will have your journey wasted. The patient, of course, is now in our care, and must go with us.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” I returned, although I admit I was startled with the daring and resource which this woman was showing, and which proved that she was up to every trick and turn and corner of those wretched lunacy laws of ours. “Do you mind showing me the authority under which you are acting?”

“Not at all,” she said in her most patronising and offensive tones, and feeling in a reticule that depended from her waist she produced this strange communication:

By Royal Authority.

Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Broadmoor.

To all whom it may concern.

This is to Certify that the Bearer of this warrant, Joan Virtue Hand, is a principal warder in the above Institution, and is now absent on a mission to recover possession of a particularly daring and dangerous inmate, named Camille Velasquon, who has escaped therefrom, although she is a fully certified lunatic and has been incarcerated here in the above Institution on a lawful warrant from His Majesty’s judge sitting at the Central Criminal Court, whereat she was charged with the killing and slaying of two of her sisters, aged five and seven respectively.

All good and law-abiding citizens, and particularly members of the police force, station-masters, porters, sailors, shipmasters, cab proprietors, lodging-house keepers, and hotel managers, are requested to give her every assistance in conveying her patient to the above Institution. And all persons are warned against impeding the said Joan Virtue Hand in the execution of her mission, for by so doing they render themselves liable to the Lunacy Act 1875, c vii s 5, 6, ss 3, and on conviction may be punished by a term of imprisonment not exceeding six calendar months.

(Signed) Douglas Llewelyn, Chief Registrar.

Very carefully I read this document through three or four times before I made any comment, any remark, about it at all. I could feel, of course, that the woman was watching me and every second was growing more and more uneasy under the stress of my unexpected recourse to silence. But still I said nothing to her; and at last she could bear it no longer.

“Now, Mr Naylor,” she said, speaking to me in my assumed name, but her voice was shrill with apprehension, “perhaps you will have the goodness to admit that you have been playing a very dangerous game with me and that if I liked I could make it very awkward for you at Scotland Yard for interfering between a warder and an escaped lunatic without proper inquiry or warrant.”

“Humph,” I returned coldly, “I don’t know so much about that.” And before she could have the slightest notion what I was up to I coolly lowered the carriage window, and tearing her authority quickly into three or four pieces I flung the fragments out on to the railway as the train was whirling along at a rate of about twenty miles an hour.

“Man,” she stormed, as soon as she saw what I had done, springing to her feet and grabbing me by the arm, “are you mad?”

“I hope not,” I said courteously. “I try to keep sane, although I admit it is hard sometimes when one meets such odd people.”

“But do you realise what you have done? You have torn up my warrant.”

“I know,” I returned sadly. “But then it was no good, you see. It was a fraud. It had no more to do with Broadmoor than yonder telegraph post. It was designed to mislead people, and so, to save misconception, I destroyed it.” And with a sardonic smile I threw myself back in my seat and folded my arms.

“Oh! you shall pay for this,” she hissed, her features working convulsively. “Dearly, dearly shall you pay for this! This girl shall never escape me—never!” And she shot out a threatening finger in the direction of poor Camille.

“Unfortunately, my dear Mrs Hand,” I said in my most lofty tone, “you have come upon the scene a trifle late for heroics like these. As a matter of fact, you are in the awkward position, not I at all. On the whole you have been precipitate, very precipitate, I regret to observe. Thus you never got to know by what right I met Miss Velasquon. You never inquired, indeed. Even when I handed you my card you did not pause and ask yourself whether you were not going just a trifle too far in your rudeness to me and your interference with my good wishes.”

“Good wishes? Rubbish,” she snapped!

“My good wishes, I repeat,” I said with a good deal of firmness, for was I not about to play my last and most triumphant trump card? “As a matter of fact, those good wishes of mine are very important to you and to these two disguised females whom you drag about with you,” and I casually nodded in the direction of the pseudo-nurses, “for long before any of you appeared on the scene I had arrested Camille Velasquon! She was a prisoner, and you have all rendered yourselves liable to punishment for attempting to get her out of my hands!”

“Oh, that’s impossible,” Joan Hand cried; but there was no conviction in her tones, and her two confederates sprang up and made as though they would slip out of the carriage forthwith.

In an instant I planted myself between them and the door—the only door that remained unlocked. “Excuse me, ladies,” I said; “I cannot permit you to leave me in this unceremonious fashion.”

“Why, we’ve done nothing,” one of them gasped. “We are free.”

“Not at all,” I blithely observed, “you are all three my prisoners. I charge all of you with falsely representing yourselves to be nurses engaged at the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, and, whilst doing so, endeavouring to rescue a prisoner lawfully in my custody on the charge of a series of frauds in the Mexican Republic,—a girl whom I am taking to the Extradition Court at Bow Street to await the arrival of the necessary papers; and I warn you all to be careful what you say to me. Any remark you happen to make now I shall use in evidence against you, and if the lot of you don’t get put away for a long term of penal servitude it will be mighty odd to me. You are certainly the wickedest gang of females I have ever struck.”

“And I’ll strike you, you wretch,” screamed the woman Hand, and before I could turn the woman in black caught me a blow on the side of the head that sent me crashing to my seat.

That was the only chance they had, but they took it almost in a flash. Just then the train was drawing into Vauxhall, and like lightning they tore open the door of the carriage and sprang on to the platform, to disappear instantly in a bewildering network of waiting-rooms.

For my own part, I was rather relieved than otherwise at their flight, and I turned to congratulate Camille Velasquon on the skill with which we had managed to outwit them.

But she, too, had disappeared!

Chapter Twelve.

What the Papers Said.

With a startled exclamation I began to search up and down.

At first, I own, I did not know what to do.

True, the mystery of how that carriage door had been unlocked was quickly elucidated, for directly I looked out I saw that the engine had drawn us along a single set of metals to a point in the station where platforms stood quite close to the solitary track. There were plenty of porters on either side of the compartment, and it was no doubt the easiest thing in the world for the girl to beckon one to her assistance and to slip off as I was seeking to discover what became of that sham warderess from Broadmoor and her confederates.

But why should she go at all? At that point she was perfectly safe. I had beaten off the attempt to abduct her. So far as either of us could foresee she would be able to go to her refuge at the headquarters of the Order of St. Bruno with perfect safety and ease. And yet, just as I had secured this, she had vanished! What excuse could I make to José Casteno? And could it have been a sudden freak or, after all, had somebody got the better of me when my back was turned, and, in spite of the woman Hand, had kidnapped the girl in the flash of a moment?

For my own part, I confess I could not believe that in a busy and crowded station like Vauxhall she could have been whipped off so suddenly through a locked carriage door without a sound if only she had had any desire to remain. Perhaps, too, her secret instructions from Casteno were to travel to South London only and then to part company with me. Now I came to think of it I remembered how very vague the Spaniard had been about the entire business, particularly as to what was to happen when the journey was over.

In the end I seemed compelled to decide that the girl had gone off through her own free will, but in order to make quite certain that no mischief was afoot I leaped out of the train just as the whistle sounded for its departure and searched the station through and through. Not a sign of my charge could I discover.

Then I did what, perhaps, I ought to have done in the first place. I bribed one of the porters to interrogate his comrades on the subject, and finally got word from one of the station hands what appeared to be the real truth. A portly but distinguished looking stranger, who carried himself with a military air and was exceedingly well dressed, was observed to step forward to the carriage in which Miss Velasquon was seated as soon as the train drew to a standstill and to pass her a small card on which he had written something in very great haste. The girl nodded instantly she read his message. Thereon, the man whipped out a a train key, and in a flash threw open the doorway, through which the girl slipped like a shadow, linking her arm in the stranger’s as though he were some old, intimate, and highly-trusted friend. Next instant they were lost in the maze of people on the platform; but a news lad, who sold papers outside the main exit close to the trams, came forward, and he declared that he recollected seeing the couple quite well, and that they entered a carriage that was waiting near at hand and drove off in the direction of Victoria.

With that I had to be content. Whether it was good or bad I had no means then to determine. I could only hope that things had turned out as well as they ought to have done. Inwardly, however, I registered a vow that I would get more at the mind of my employer the next time he sent me tearing half across England to the rescue of a girl, no matter how fascinating she might be, or in what peril. Then I bought a copy of one of the evening papers, and hailing a hansom directed the driver to take me back to my offices in Stanton Street, where Don José had promised to telegraph to me.

For a time I sat well back in the soft, well-upholstered cab and let my thoughts run riot on the extraordinary series of adventures that had befallen since I had made that fierce fight in the auction room. Have you ever noticed that there is something mysterious in the mere fact that one has purchased a copy of the last edition of a paper that makes one a prey to retrospect? Nine times out of the ten on which I purchase an evening journal I never glance at the columns. But once let me omit to provide myself with a damp, evilly-folded sheet, and I am wretched. All my nerves are on the alert. I can think of nothing to interest me. The shortest journey seems of intolerable length. I finish up fagged, irritable, and stupid.

As a matter of fact, I am certain I should never have looked at that particular copy that particular night had not two leather-lunged paper “runners,” who live on Metropolitan sensations, suddenly loomed up on either side of the cab as we rattled past the site of the old Millbank Prison and waved their papers in front of me. “Horrible tragedy in Whitehall Court!” they roared.

The driver whipped up his horse, and the hansom shot past them into the gathering blackness, but the echo of their words rang through my brain. “Horrible tragedy in Whitehall Court.” Why, I recollected suddenly that was where Doris lived! Could something—oh, no, it was ridiculous; this flight of Camille Velasquon had made me nervous. None the less, I made a frantic grab at my paper—it was a Globe, I remember—somehow one always notes such trifles in a supreme crisis—and with trembling fingers I turned to the fifth page, where, I knew from old experience, I should find the latest and most important intelligence given.

Ah! I was not mistaken. Here it was:

MURDER IN WHITEHALL COURT

ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS CRIME

But what was that? Familiar names? People, scenes, circumstances I recalled as though they were my own! With a great gasp I held the pink sheet close to the cab lamp, and as we were whirling madly along Parliament Street, close to the actual scene of the crime itself, I read this account of what had happened whilst I that morning had tried to snatch but a few hours of broken slumber.

“About half-past six this morning a murder of a peculiarly atrocious character was discovered in that block of flats known as Embankment Mansions in Whitehall Court. It seems that Colonel Napier’s valet, a man named Richardson, who was early awake in consequence of an attack of toothache, was startled by hearing what he believed was a shout for help proceeding from his master’s room. He went at once to the door and knocked, and, on getting no reply, he turned the handle and entered, when he was horrified to see Colonel Napier stretched on the bed, with a great dagger-thrust in the region of his heart, and quite dead. An open window showed at once the means chosen by the murderer to effect an entrance, which was rendered all the more easy by the fact that an iron pipe ran past it on its way from the roof to the earth. The valet sprang at once to the window, but he could see no sign of any person, and darting to an inner room he turned on a district messenger-call for the police. Then he ran back to the bedroom. The colonel could not then have been dead many seconds. Everything pointed to that. Nor was it clear why the crime had been committed. Nothing had been removed from the bedroom—nothing at all. Detective-Inspector Naylor and other officers were quickly on the scene, but although they searched they could not find any trace of the murderer or of the weapon with which the terrible deed was accomplished. At the time of writing, indeed, the crime is enveloped in mystery, for Colonel Napier, who was formerly Member of Parliament for Hereford, and had won high recognition for services on the Indian frontier, was considered by all a most popular man. He was a widower, and leaves only one child, a daughter, who, luckily, at the time of the tragedy was away on a visit.”

For a few moments after reading this I confess I felt at a loss to speak, to move, even to think—the thing was so hideous, so appalling, so complete. The horror of it all seemed so acute that it crushed me beneath its weight.

I could only sit with eyes that, look where they would, perceived nothing but the dread scene in the death chamber—that man I had a keen affection for stricken to the heart.

Maybe some of us who suffer such awful shocks get curiously clairvoyant in the moments of our greatest trial. I cannot tell. I only know I descended from that cab, paid the man his fare, and entered my office in Stanton Street, like one in a trance. All the time my brain was beating through a cloud of horror, doubt, and suspicion; but, finally, as I flung myself into a chair in front of the fire, every point appeared to clear for me as though by magic. Then one terrible question stared up at me with awe-inspiring distinctness:

Was this crime the work of José Casteno?

Somehow the problem, when I had once stated it to myself and had taken it for ever out of that dim region of intangible speculation, did not surprise me very greatly. Instinctively I recalled how significant had been the Spaniard’s appeal to the colonel when he threatened to compel Doris to hold no further communication with me. “I beg you withdraw that, withdraw it this day, or you will regret your determination.” Then I saw again Don José as he had looked when he knelt, just where I was sitting at that moment, with the sullen glare of the flames on his upturned face and his dagger poised to catch the light on the edge that he had just finished sharpening with so much intensity and precision.

After all, it was quite possible that the lust of murder had seized him in those seconds, the desire to make good his own words both to the colonel and to myself. It would appear so easy to commit a crime when all London slept; and, alas! it had been easy, painfully, pitilessly easy, to put an end to that gallant old soldier as he lay slumbering in his bed. Certainly one great damning fact stood out against Casteno—the killing of the colonel’s dog Fate. Who else could have any interest in the stabbing of that poor, faithful brute than the murderer of his master? And who else could have made that ugly gash in his side save José Casteno?

Nor, indeed, was that the only solid link in the chain of guilt I was forging against the Spaniard. All at once I recalled how carefully he had avoided the passage where the spaniel had been stricken down. Was that accident—or conscience? Also the agility he had shown in scrambling up that iron pipe outside the hunchback’s shop when we went to spy on Zouche from that upstairs room. He had told me, of course, he had learned the trick at sea. He may have done that; but might he not also have acquired some recent practice outside Embankment Mansions which it seemed pretty clear the murderer entered by the same method?

Stung to desperation at my own foul success in linking my employer up with this awful crime I resolved that I would lose no time in tracking the man down, and his guilt. What did the Lake of Sacred Treasure in far-off Mexico matter to me in an hour red with blood as that was—the blood of one of my best and truest friends? Let the Earl of Fotheringay and Lord Cyril Cuthbertson plot and plan. Let Mr Cooper-Nassington ferret out Peter Zouche and drag from him the secret of the cipher manuscripts. Ay, let the Jesuits send their most trusty spies, I at least would take no hand in the struggle again until I had torn the mask from this villain.

Rising impatiently, I began striding rapidly up and down the room. Hitherto the minutes had gone by on the wings of the wind. I had not been conscious of the flight of time, although the hands on the travelling clock in front of me had travelled round the dial two, if not three, times. Now the seconds seemed made of lead. They would not pass. They hung about me, and fretted me. Again and again I asked myself: “Why does not José Casteno telegraph me as he had promised and tell me where he is and how he has fared since he slipped off on the track of the hunchback?” It was no good. No answer came, and bit by bit there formed in my mind a new suspicion, a new dread. What if the Spaniard had taken fright at the publicity the crime had obtained and had left his chase of Zouche to secure his own safety in some far-off land, where he would never be suspected and where he could never be found? I might wait, then, until the crack of doom: Colonel Napier would remain unavenged.

Feverishly I tore out into the streets and bought up all the late editions of the evening papers which I could lay my hands on. This mysterious crime had impressed the stolid imagination of Londoners so well accustomed to horrors that end in nothingness to a degree that was quite unusual; and all the journals had launched out into lurid descriptions of the dead man and the manner of his passing so that a horrid sense of nausea seized on me, and I cursed journalism and all its loathsome enterprise; albeit it I was most eager myself at the same moment to take advantage of its discoveries.

One paper, however, had got a paragraph that threw a new light on the occurrence—the Star—and I read it with throbbing eagerness:

A STARTLING THEORY

“Latest inquiries to-night tend to show that there is a good deal behind the death of Colonel Napier. The police are certain that the murderer has some other object than theft, at which task it was said that he must have been disturbed by the sudden tapping on the door by the valet, Richardson. It is rumoured that the appearance of Detective Naylor on the scene was of set design. Naylor, as was stated in the papers a few days ago, has the warrant in hand for the arrest of the murderer of young George Sutton, a man who, it will be remembered, fled to this country from a monastery in Mexico after he had committed the deed. Now the two crimes are connected in the minds of the police for some reason they will not divulge; and it is whispered freely at Scotland Yard that a man who puts his hands on the murderer of Sutton will at the same time arrest the assassin of brave Colonel Napier. Unfortunately, the quest is highly complicated, and at the clubs there are some wild, romantic stories afloat, which connect the deaths with stories of vast, hidden treasures and diplomatic intrigues, party jealousies, and mystery-loving Mexicans. For our own part, we advise the public to take little heed of these wild romances until they contain something which looks a trifle more substantial. A milkman, for instance, has been found who declares he was passing Whitehall Court about the time the murder must have been committed, and he swears positively that he saw a young, dark-looking foreigner, aged about twenty-five, run from the direction of Embankment Mansions and disappear up Northumberland Avenue. He says, also, that he saw the man’s features quite distinctly, and that he will be able to recognise them again in any circumstances and after any lapse of time. Now clues like these are worth a thousand of the utterly preposterous yarns they are whispering in Clubland to-night about Jesuits and parliamentary personages who are much too busy to be mixed up with all the numberless scandals and tarradiddles that affect the House of Commons under its present party régime.”

Surely, if this theory pointed to anyone it did most certainly to José Casteno!

Further speculation, however, was cut short by the arrival of a telegraph messenger. With trembling fingers I tore open the envelope, and found that, after all, the Spaniard had kept his word and had wired me, most fully, news of his whereabouts and wishes:

To Hugh Glynn, 99 Stanton Street, London, WC.

“Have accompanied our good friend to Green Dragon Hotel, Shrewsbury. At Birmingham he met a clever but needy aeronaut named Captain Sparhawk. This man has invented a flying machine which he has arranged to show at Great Shropshire Floral Fête here on Monday. Z. has promised to finance him and to ascend with him to test the machine’s capacities. Two other seats were on sale in the town at twenty pounds each. I have bought them, and propose you and I ascend with them disguised as military men in undress uniform of engineers; otherwise fear, if the machine travels far, Z. may do a bolt to some other district. If you don’t wire me, c/o Post Office, shall assume you will come.—C.”

“Certainly I will come,” I said to myself grimly as I folded up the message and placed it in my pocket-book. “It would be a pity for you, Master José, to undertake any fresh adventures without my personal assistance. You might come to some harm before we had cleared up the mystery of the death of Colonel Napier, and that would be a pity, a great pity, indeed.”

And snatching up the travelling-bag which I always kept ready packed for such emergencies I dashed off to a costumier I knew who lived near, in Wellington Street. Then I made for Euston, and catching the night mail to the Midlands, contrived such a good use of my time, that, before church time, I found myself in Shrewsbury, scrambling up the hill that led from the main railway station to the far-famed Green Dragon Hotel, where I understood both Zouche and Casteno were.

On the way down, however, I had effected certain changes in my appearance. A dark wig was on my head. A black moustache hid my mouth. My plain civilian clothes had given place at the costumier’s to the uniform of a sergeant of royal engineers. I had done this to deceive the hunchback, and to satisfy Casteno I had brought no disguise for the Spaniard.

I did not think he would need one after I had finished my first conversation with him!

And as I turned into the courtyard of the hotel he came out and met me with outstretched hand.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Two Brothers.

There was nothing in the way Casteno received me to suggest a man with a guilty secret. On the contrary, as I advanced through the doorway that led to the Green Dragon he stepped out boldly towards me the instant he recognised me beneath the disguise which he himself had suggested. “Welcome, my good friend,” he said in a bluff and hearty fashion, stretching out his hand; “Welcome!”

I took the greeting he proffered, although I turned my head away and would not let him detect my real feelings. At first I was sorely tempted to take him by surprise and to denounce him there and then as the man who had stolen into Whitehall Court in those early morning hours, climbed through that open bedroom window, and had killed poor Colonel Napier, one of the truest and most loyal soldiers that ever lived. But I crushed all those temptations down. There was much for me to discover before I could show my suspicions so plainly as that. I had to go very slowly and carefully to work.

“I am glad to see you,” I answered at length, and that sentiment, indeed, was true. I was glad—more glad than he could guess. “Let the porter carry my luggage in, and let you and I have a walk.”

“Excellent,” said he, “that was just what I was going to propose if you were not too tired.” And giving the necessary directions to the hotel servants he calmly linked his arm in mine, and led me down the street towards the river, whither all the passers-by seemed to be hastening on their way homeward after service at church.

“Well, and how did you get on with Miss Velasquon?” he asked later.

“Very badly,” I returned. “I lost her at Vauxhall Bridge Station.”

“Oh, never mind about that,” he replied lightly. “Your duty ended as soon as you arrived with her in London. As a matter of fact, I sent a friend to intercept her at that point. He didn’t quite understand whether he could trust you or not, so he hit on that ruse by which she slipped out of the carriage whilst you were looking out at an opposite platform. She wired me, however, that you had had some extraordinary adventure on the way up. What was that?”

“Oh, merely some women tried to lure her off to Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum,” I snapped. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me I was safe when we reached town? Do you know, I searched the station from top to bottom before I decided your friend had come to no harm.”

“No, I don’t. In fact, I am very sorry about what the man whom I sent did. I was, however, under the impression that I had told you not to worry after she had reached town. The real danger existed on the way up. I had most specific warning that it was on the actual journey from Southampton Lord Fotheringay would make the semi-criminal effort he did to get her out of my hands.”

“Why should he?” I demanded, stopping suddenly and gazing fixedly at the speaker.

“Why should two men ever strive after the same sweetheart?” Casteno answered, his features flushing crimson. “Call it Life—Fate—Providence—Luck—Destiny—what you like. There it is. It often happens. The whole truth is, the earl and I are both in love with Camille Velasquon. She prefers me, hence his quest for the documents is mixed up in a thirst for personal revenge.”