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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Doctor of Pimlico, by William Le Queux
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Doctor of Pimlico
+       Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
+
+Author: William Le Queux
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2007 [EBook #22654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the booksmiths at
+http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Enid Drew Back In Terror"
+
+(_The Doctor of Pimlico_)]
+
+
+THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO
+
+Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
+
+BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers        New York
+
+Published by arrangement with The Macaulay Company
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1920,
+BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
+
+_Printed in the U. S. A._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                           PAGE
+     I. IN WHICH CERTAIN SUSPICIONS ARE EXCITED      9
+    II. THE COMING OF A STRANGER                    21
+   III. INTRODUCES DOCTOR WEIRMARSH                 32
+    IV. REVEALS TEMPTATION                          47
+     V. IN WHICH ENID ORLEBAR IS PUZZLED            56
+    VI. BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND                    66
+   VII. CONCERNING THE VELVET HAND                  78
+  VIII. PAUL LE PONTOIS                             88
+    IX. THE LITTLE OLD FRENCHWOMAN                  97
+     X. IF ANYONE KNEW                             107
+    XI. CONCERNS THE PAST                          114
+   XII. REVEALS A CURIOUS PROBLEM                  125
+  XIII. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MALTWOOD                134
+   XIV. WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN                 145
+    XV. THREE GENTLEMEN FROM PARIS                 157
+   XVI. THE ORDERS OF HIS EXCELLENCY               168
+  XVII. WALTER GIVES WARNING                       177
+ XVIII. THE ACCUSERS                               187
+   XIX. IN WHICH A TRUTH IS HIDDEN                 199
+    XX. IN WHICH A TRUTH IS TOLD                   207
+   XXI. THE WIDENED BREACH                         217
+  XXII. CONCERNING THE BELLAIRS AFFAIR             227
+ XXIII. THE SILENCE OF THE MAN BARKER              234
+  XXIV. WHAT THE DEAD MAN LEFT                     245
+   XXV. AT THE CAFÉ DE PARIS                       255
+  XXVI. WHICH IS "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL"        265
+ XXVII. THE RESULT OF INVESTIGATION                274
+XXVIII. THE SECRET OF THE LONELY HOUSE             285
+  XXIX. CONTAINS SOME STARTLING STATEMENTS         292
+   XXX. REVEALS A WOMAN'S LOVE                     303
+  XXXI. IN WHICH SIR HUGH TELLS HIS STORY          310
+ XXXII. CONCLUSION                                 321
+
+
+
+
+THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO
+
+_Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN WHICH CERTAIN SUSPICIONS ARE EXCITED
+
+
+A GREY, sunless morning on the Firth of Tay.
+
+Across a wide, sandy waste stretching away to the misty sea at Budden,
+four men were walking. Two wore uniform--one an alert, grey-haired
+general, sharp and brusque in manner, with many war ribbons across his
+tunic; the other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore the tartan of
+the Gordon Highlanders. With them were two civilians, both in rough
+shooting-jackets and breeches, one about forty-five, the other a few
+years his junior.
+
+"Can you see them, Fellowes?" asked the general of the long-legged
+captain, scanning the distant horizon with those sharp grey eyes which
+had carried him safely through many campaigns.
+
+"No, sir," replied the captain, who was carrying the other's mackintosh.
+"I fancy they must be farther over to the left, behind those low mounds
+yonder."
+
+"Haven't brought their battery into position yet, I suppose," snapped the
+old officer, as he swung along with the two civilians beside him.
+
+Fred Tredennick, the taller of the two civilians, walked with a gait
+decidedly military, for, indeed, he was a retired major, and as the
+general had made a tour of inspection of the camp prior to walking
+towards where the mountain battery was manoeuvring, he had been chatting
+with him upon technical matters.
+
+"I thought you'd like to see this mountain battery, Fetherston,"
+exclaimed the general, addressing the other civilian. "We have lots of
+them on the Indian frontier, of course, and there were many of ours in
+Italy and Serbia."
+
+"I'm delighted to come with you on this tour of inspection, General. As
+you know, I'm keenly interested in military affairs--and especially in
+the reorganisation of the Army after the war," replied Walter Fetherston,
+a dark, well-set-up man of forty, with a round, merry face and a pair of
+eyes which, behind their gold pince-nez, showed a good-humoured twinkle.
+
+Of the four men, General Sir Hugh Elcombe and Walter Fetherston were,
+perhaps, equally distinguished. The former, as all the world knows, had
+had a brilliant career in Afghanistan, in Egypt, Burmah, Tirah, the
+Transvaal, and in France, and now held an appointment as inspector of
+artillery.
+
+The latter was a man of entirely different stamp. As he spoke he
+gesticulated slightly, and no second glance was needed to realise that he
+was a thorough-going cosmopolitan.
+
+By many years of life on the Continent he had acquired a half-foreign
+appearance. Indeed, a keen observer would probably have noticed that his
+clothes had been cut by a foreign tailor, and that his boots, long,
+narrow and rather square-toed, bore the stamp of the Italian boot-maker.
+When he made any humorous remark he had the habit of slightly closing the
+left eye in order to emphasise it, while he usually walked with his left
+hand behind his back, and was hardly ever seen without a cigarette. Those
+cigarettes were one of his idiosyncrasies. They were delicious, of a
+brand unobtainable by the public, and made from tobacco grown in one of
+the Balkan States. With them he had, both before the war and after, been
+constantly supplied by a certain European sovereign whose personal friend
+he was. They bore the royal crown and cipher, but even to his most
+intimate acquaintance Walter Fetherston had never betrayed the reason
+why he was the recipient of so many favours from the monarch in question.
+
+Easy-going to a degree, full of open-hearted _bonhomie_, possessing an
+unruffled temper, and apparently without a single care in all the world,
+he seldom, if ever, spoke of himself. He never mentioned either his own
+doings or his friends'. He was essentially a mysterious man--a man of
+moods and of strong prejudices.
+
+More than one person who had met him casually had hinted that his
+substantial income was derived from sources that would not bear
+investigation--that he was mixed up with certain financial adventurers.
+Others declared that he was possessed of a considerable fortune that had
+been left him by an uncle who had been a dealer in precious stones in
+Hatton Garden. The truth was, however, that Walter Fetherston was a
+writer of popular novels, and from their sale alone he derived a handsome
+income.
+
+The mystery stories of Walter Fetherston were world-famous. Wherever the
+English language was spoken this shrewd-eyed, smiling man's books were
+read, while translations of them appeared as _feuilletons_ in various
+languages in the principal Continental journals. One could scarcely take
+up an English newspaper without seeing mention of his name, for he was
+one of the most popular authors of the day.
+
+It is a generally accepted axiom that a public man cannot afford to be
+modest in these go-ahead days of "boom." Yet Fetherston was one of the
+most retiring of men. English society had tried in vain to allure him--he
+courted no personal popularity. Beyond his quiet-spoken literary agent,
+who arranged his affairs and took financial responsibility from his
+shoulders, his publishers, and perhaps half a dozen intimate friends, he
+was scarcely recognised in his true character. Indeed, his whereabouts
+were seldom known save to his agent and his only brother, so elusive was
+he and so careful to establish a second self.
+
+He had never married. It was whispered that he had once had a serious
+affair of the heart abroad. But that was a matter of long ago.
+
+Shoals of invitations arrived at his London clubs each season, but they
+usually reached him in some out-of-the-world corner of Europe, and he
+would read them with a smile and cast them to the winds.
+
+He took the keenest delight in evading the world that pressed him. His
+curious hatred of his own popularity was to everyone a mystery. His
+intimate friends, of whom Fred Tredennick was one, had whispered that,
+in order to efface his identity, he was known in certain circles abroad
+by the name of Maltwood. This was quite true. In London he was a member
+of White's and the Devonshire as Fetherston. There was a reason why on
+the Continent and elsewhere he should pass as Mr. Maltwood, but his
+friends could never discover it, so carefully did he conceal it.
+
+Walter Fetherston was a writer of breathless mystery--but he was the
+essence of mystery himself. Once the reader took up a book of his he
+never laid it down until he had read the final chapter. You, my reader,
+have more than once found yourself beneath his strange spell. And what
+was the secret of his success? He had been asked by numberless
+interviewers, and to them all he had made the same stereotyped reply: "I
+live the mysteries I write."
+
+He seemed annoyed by his own success. Other writers suffered from that
+complaint known as "swelled head," but Walter Fetherston never. He lived
+mostly abroad in order to avoid the penalty which all the famous must
+pay, travelling constantly and known mostly by his assumed name of
+Maltwood.
+
+And behind all this some mystery lay. He was essentially a man of
+secrets.
+
+Some people declared that he had married ten years ago, and gave a
+circumstantial account of how he had wedded the daughter of a noble
+Spanish house, but that a month later she had been accidentally drowned
+in the Bay of Fontarabia, and that the tragedy had ever preyed upon his
+mind. But upon his feminine entanglements he was ever silent. He was a
+merry fellow, full of bright humour, and excellent company. But to the
+world he wore a mask that was impenetrable.
+
+At that moment he was shooting with his old friend Tredennick, who lived
+close to St. Fillans, on the picturesque Loch Earn, when the general,
+hearing of his presence in the neighbourhood, had sent him an invitation
+to accompany him on his inspection.
+
+Walter had accepted for one reason only. In the invitation the general
+had remarked that he and his stepdaughter Enid were staying at the
+Panmure Hotel at Monifieth--so well known to golfers--and that after the
+inspection he hoped they would lunch together.
+
+Now, Walter had met Enid Orlebar six months before at Biarritz, where she
+had been nursing at the Croix Rouge Hospital in the Hôtel du Palais, and
+the memory of that meeting had lingered with him. He had long desired to
+see her again, for her pale beauty had somehow attracted him--attracted
+him in a manner that no woman's face had ever attracted him before.
+
+Hitherto he had held cynical notions concerning love and matrimony, but
+ever since he had met Enid Orlebar in that winter hotel beside the sea,
+and had afterwards discovered her to be stepdaughter of Sir Hugh Elcombe,
+he had found himself reflecting upon his own loneliness.
+
+At luncheon he was to come face to face with her again. It was of this he
+was thinking more than of the merits of mountain batteries or the
+difficulties of limbering or unlimbering.
+
+"See! there they are!" exclaimed the general, suddenly pointing with his
+gloved hand.
+
+Fetherston strained his eyes towards the horizon, but declared that he
+could detect nothing.
+
+"They're lying behind that rising ground to the left of the magazine
+yonder," declared the general, whose keen vision had so often served him
+in good stead. Then, turning on his heel and scanning the grey horizon
+seaward, he added: "They're going to fire out on to the Gaa between those
+two lighthouses on Buddon Ness. By Jove!" he laughed, "the men in them
+will get a bit of a shock."
+
+"I shouldn't care much to be there, sir," remarked Tredennick.
+
+"No," laughed the general. "But really there's no danger--except that
+we're just in the line of their fire."
+
+So they struck off to the left and approached the position by a
+circuitous route, being greeted by the colonel and other officers, to
+whom the visit of Sir Hugh Elcombe had been a considerable surprise.
+
+The serviceable-looking guns were already mounted and in position, the
+range had been found; the reserves, the ponies and the pipers were lying
+concealed in a depression close at hand when they arrived.
+
+The general, after a swift glance around, stood with legs apart and arms
+folded to watch, while Fetherston and Tredennick, with field-glasses, had
+halted a little distance away.
+
+A sharp word of command was given, when next instant the first gun boomed
+forth, and a shell went screaming through the air towards the low range
+of sand-hills in the distance.
+
+The general grunted. He was a man of few words, but a typical British
+officer of the type which has made the Empire and won the war against the
+Huns. He glanced at the watch upon his wrist, adjusted his monocle, and
+said something in an undertone to the captain.
+
+The firing proceeded, while Fetherston, his ears dulled by the constant
+roar, watched the bursting shells with interest.
+
+"I wonder what the lighthouse men think of it now?" he laughed, turning
+to his friend. "A misdirected shot would send them quickly to kingdom
+come!"
+
+Time after time the range was increased, until, at last, the shells were
+dropped just at the spot intended. As each left the gun it shrieked
+overhead, while the flash could be seen long before the report reached
+the ear.
+
+"We'll see in a few moments how quickly they can get away," the general
+said, as he approached Fetherston.
+
+Then the order was given to cease fire. Words of command sounded, and
+were repeated in the rear, where ponies and men lay hidden. The guns were
+run back under cover, and with lightning rapidity dismounted, taken to
+pieces, and loaded upon the backs of the ponies, together with the
+leather ammunition cases--which looked like men's suit cases--and other
+impedimenta.
+
+The order was given to march, and, headed by the pipers, who commenced
+their inspiring skirl to the beat of the drums, they moved away over the
+rough, broken ground, the general standing astraddle and watching it all
+through his monocle with critical eye, and keeping up a fire of sarcastic
+comment directed at the colonel.
+
+"Why!" he cried sharply in his low, strident voice, "what's that bay
+there? Too weak for the work--no good. You want better stuff than that.
+An axle yonder not packed properly! . . . And look at that black
+pony--came out of a governess-cart, I should think! . . . Hey, you man
+there, you don't want to hang on that pack! Men get lazy and want the
+pony to help them along. And you----" he cried, as a pony, heavily laden
+with part of a gun, came down an almost perpendicular incline. "Let that
+animal find his way down alone. Do you hear?"
+
+Then, after much manoeuvring, he caused them to take up another position,
+unlimber their guns, and fire.
+
+When this had been accomplished he called the officers together and, his
+monocle in his eye, severely criticised their performance, declaring that
+they had exposed themselves so fully to the enemy that ere they had had
+time to fire they would have been shelled out of their position.
+
+The spare ammunition was exposed all over the place, some of the reserves
+were not under cover, and the battery commander so exposed himself that
+he'd have been a dead man before the first shot. "You must do better than
+this--much better. That's all."
+
+Then the four walked across to the Panmure Hotel at Monifieth.
+
+Walter Fetherston held his breath. His lips were pressed tightly
+together, his brows contracted. He was again to meet Enid Orlebar.
+
+He shot a covert glance at the general walking at his side. In his eyes
+showed an unusual expression, half of suspicion, half of curiosity.
+
+Next instant, however, it had vanished, and he laughed loudly at a story
+Tredennick was telling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE COMING OF A STRANGER
+
+
+ENID was standing on the steps of the hotel when the men arrived.
+
+For a second Walter glanced into her splendid eyes, and then bowed over
+her hand in his foreign way, a murmured expression of pleasure escaping
+his lips.
+
+About twenty-two, tall and slim, she presented a complete and typical
+picture of the outdoor girl, dressed as she was in a grey jumper trimmed
+with purple, a short golfing skirt, her tweed hat to match trimmed with
+the feathers of a cock pheasant.
+
+Essentially a sportswoman, she could handle gun or rod, ride to hounds,
+or drive a motor-car with equal skill, and as stepdaughter of Sir Hugh
+she had had experience on the Indian frontier and in Egypt.
+
+Her father had been British Minister at the Hague, and afterwards at
+Stockholm, but after his death her mother had married Sir Hugh, and had
+become Lady Elcombe. Nowadays, however, the latter was somewhat of an
+invalid, and seldom left their London house in Hill Street. Therefore,
+Enid was usually chaperoned by Mrs. Caldwell, wife of the well-known
+K.C., and with her she generally spent her winters on the Continent.
+
+Blanche, Sir Hugh's daughter by his first wife, had married Paul Le
+Pontois, who had been a captain in the 114th Regiment of Artillery of the
+French Army during the war, and lived with her husband in France. She
+seldom came to England, though at frequent intervals her father went over
+to visit her.
+
+When Walter Fetherston took his seat beside Enid Orlebar at the luncheon
+table a flood of strange recollections crowded upon his mind--those walks
+along the Miramar, that excursion to Pampeluna, and those curious facts
+which she had unwittingly revealed to him in the course of their
+confidential chats. He remembered their leave-taking, and how, as he had
+sat in the _rapide_ for Paris, he had made a solemn vow never again to
+set eyes upon her.
+
+There was a reason why he should not--a strong but mysterious reason.
+
+Yet he had come there of his own will to meet her again--drawn there
+irresistibly by some unseen influence which she possessed.
+
+Was it her beauty that had attracted him? Yes--he was compelled to admit
+that it was. As a rule he avoided the society of women. To his intimates
+he had laid down the maxim: "Don't marry; keep a dog if you want a
+faithful companion." And yet he was once again at the side of this
+fair-faced woman.
+
+None around the table were aware of their previous meeting, and all were
+too busy chattering to notice the covert glances which he shot at her. He
+was noting her great beauty, sitting there entranced by it--he, the man
+of double personality, who, under an assumed name, lived that gay life of
+the Continent, known in society in twenty different cities, and yet in
+England practically unknown in his real self.
+
+Yes, Enid Orlebar was beautiful. Surely there could be few fairer women
+than she in this our land of fair women!
+
+Turning upon him, she smiled gaily as she asked whether he had been
+interested in seeing a mountain battery at work.
+
+Her fresh face, betraying, as it did, her love of a free, open-air life,
+was one of those strangely mysterious countenances met only once in a
+lifetime. It seemed to be the quintessence of pain and passion, conflict
+and agony, desire and despair. She was not one of those befrilled,
+fashion-plate dolls that one meets at the after-war crushes and dances,
+but was austerely simple in dress, with a face which betrayed a spiritual
+nobility, the very incarnation of modern womanhood, alive with modern
+self-knowledge, modern weariness and modern sadness.
+
+Her beautiful hair, worn plain and smooth, was black as night--wonderful
+hair. But still more wonderful were those great, dark, velvety eyes, deep
+and unfathomable. In them the tragedy of life was tumultuously visible,
+yet they were serene, self-possessed, even steady in their quiet
+simplicity. To describe her features is not an easy task. They were
+clear-cut, with a purity of the lines of the nose and brow seldom seen in
+a woman's face, dark, well-arched eyebrows, a pretty mouth which had just
+escaped extreme sensuousness. Cheeks soft and delicately moulded, a chin
+pointed, a skin remarkable for its fineness and its clear pallor, the
+whole aspect of her face being that of sweetness combined with nobility
+and majesty. In it there was no dominant expression, for it seemed to be
+a mask waiting to be stirred into life.
+
+Fetherston had known Sir Hugh slightly for several years, but as Enid had
+been so much abroad with Mrs. Caldwell, he had never met her until that
+accidental encounter in Biarritz.
+
+"We've been up here six weeks," she was telling Fetherston. "Father
+always gets a lot of golf up here, you know, and I'm rather fond of it."
+
+"I fear I'm too much of a foreigner nowadays to appreciate the game,"
+Walter laughed. "Last season some Italians in Rome formed a club--the
+usual set of ultra-smart young counts and marquises--but when they found
+that it entailed the indignity of walking several miles they declared it
+to be a game only fit for the populace, and at once disbanded the
+association."
+
+The men were discussing the work of the battery, for four of the officers
+had been invited, and the point raised was the range of mountain guns.
+
+Walter Fetherston glanced at the general through his pince-nez with a
+curious expression, but he did not join in the conversation.
+
+Enid's eyes met his, and the pair exchanged curiously significant
+glances.
+
+He bent to pick up his serviette, and in doing so he whispered to her: "I
+must see you outside for a moment before I go. Go out, and I'll join
+you."
+
+Therefore, when the meal had concluded, the girl went forth into the
+secluded garden at the rear of the hotel, where in a few moments the man
+joined her at a spot where they could not be overlooked.
+
+She turned towards him, separate, remote, incongruous, her dark eyes
+showing an angry flash in them.
+
+"Why have you come here?" she demanded with indignation. The whole aspect
+of her face was tragic.
+
+"To see you again," was his brief reply. "Before we parted at Biarritz
+you lied to me," he added in a hard tone.
+
+She held her breath, staring straight into his eyes.
+
+"I--I don't understand you!" she stammered. "You are here to torment--to
+persecute me!"
+
+"I asked you a question, Enid, but in response you told me a deliberate
+lie. Think--recall that circumstance, and tell me the truth," he said
+very quietly.
+
+She was silent for a moment. Then, with her mouth drawn to hardness, she
+replied: "Yes, it is true--I lied to you, just as you have lied to me.
+Remember what you told me that moonlit night when we walked by the sea
+towards the Grotto of Love. I was a fool to have believed in you--to have
+trusted you as I did! You left me, and, though I wrote time after time
+to your club, you refused to send me a single line."
+
+"Because--because, Enid, I dared not," replied her companion.
+
+"Why not?" she demanded quickly. "You told me that you loved me, yet--yet
+your own actions have shown that you lied to me!"
+
+"No," he protested in a low, earnest, hoarse voice; "I told you the
+truth, Enid, but----"
+
+"But what?" she interrupted in quickly earnestness.
+
+"Well," he replied after a brief pause, "the fact is that I am compelled
+to wear a mask, even to you, the woman I love. I cannot tell you the
+truth--I cannot, dearest, for your own sake."
+
+"And you expect me to believe this lame story--eh?" she laughed. She was
+pale and fragile, yet she seemed to expand and to dilate with force and
+energy.
+
+"Enid," he answered in a low voice, with honesty in his eyes, "I would
+rather sacrifice my great love for you than betray the trust I hold most
+sacred. So great is my love for you, rather would I never look upon your
+dear face again than reveal to you the tragic truth and bring upon you
+unhappiness and despair."
+
+"Walter," she replied in a trembling voice, looking straight into his
+countenance with those wonderful dark eyes wherein her soul brimmed over
+with weary emotion and fatigued passion, "I repeat all that I told you on
+that calm night beside the sea. I love you; I think of you day by day,
+hour by hour. But you have lied to me, and therefore I hate myself for
+having so foolishly placed my trust in you."
+
+He had resolved to preserve his great secret--a secret that none should
+know.
+
+"Very well," he sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "These recriminations
+are really all useless. Ah, if you only knew the truth, Enid! If I only
+dared to reveal to you the hideous facts. But I refuse--they are too
+tragic, too terrible. Better that we should part now, and that you should
+remain in ignorance--better by far, for you. You believe that I am
+deceiving you. Well, I'm frank and admit that I am; but it is with a
+distinct purpose--for your own sake."
+
+He held forth his hand, and slowly she took it. In silence he bowed over
+it, his lips compressed; then, turning upon his heel, he went down the
+gravelled walk back to the hotel, which, some ten minutes later, he left
+with Fred Tredennick, catching the train back to Dundee and on to Perth.
+
+He was in no way a man to wear his heart upon his sleeve, therefore he
+chatted gaily with his friend and listened to Fred's extravagant
+admiration of Enid's beauty. He congratulated himself that his old friend
+was in ignorance of the truth.
+
+A curious incident occurred at the hotel that same evening, however,
+which, had Walter been aware of it, would probably have caused him
+considerable uneasiness and alarm. Just before seven o'clock a tall,
+rather thin, middle-aged, narrow-eyed man, dressed in dark grey tweeds,
+entered the hall of the hotel and inquired for Henry, the head waiter. He
+was well dressed and bore an almost professional air.
+
+The white-headed old man quickly appeared, when the stranger, whose
+moustache was carefully trimmed and who wore a ruby ring upon his white
+hand, made an anxious inquiry whether Fetherston, whom he minutely
+described, had been there that day. At first the head waiter hesitated
+and was uncommunicative, but, the stranger having uttered a few low
+words, Henry's manner instantly changed. He started, looked in wonder
+into the stranger's face, and, taking him into the smoking-room--at that
+moment unoccupied--he allowed himself to be closely questioned regarding
+the general and his stepdaughter, as well as the man who had that day
+been their guest. The stranger was a man of quick actions, and his
+inquiries were sharp and to the point.
+
+"You say that Mr. Fetherston met the young lady outside after luncheon,
+and they had an argument in secret, eh?" asked the stranger.
+
+Henry replied in the affirmative, declaring that he unfortunately could
+not overhear the subject under discussion. But he believed the pair had
+quarrelled.
+
+"And where has Mr. Fetherston gone?" asked his keen-eyed questioner.
+
+"He is, I believe, the guest of Major Tredennick, who lives on the other
+side of Perthshire at Invermay on Loch Earn."
+
+"And the young lady goes back to Hill Street with her stepfather, eh?"
+
+"On Wednesday."
+
+"Good!" was the stranger's reply. Then, thanking the head waiter for the
+information in a sharp, businesslike voice, and handing him five
+shillings, he took train back from Monifieth to Dundee, and went direct
+to the chief post-office.
+
+From there he dispatched a carefully constructed cipher telegram to an
+address in the Boulevard Anspach, in Brussels, afterwards lighting an
+excellent cigar and strolling along the busy street with an air of
+supreme self-satisfaction.
+
+"If this man, Fetherston, has discovered the truth, as I fear he has
+done," the hard-faced man muttered to himself, "then by his action to-day
+he has sealed his own doom!--and Enid Orlebar herself will silence him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+INTRODUCES DOCTOR WEIRMARSH
+
+
+THREE days had elapsed.
+
+In the dingy back room of a dull, drab house in the Vauxhall Bridge Road,
+close to Victoria Station in London, the narrow-eyed man who had so
+closely questioned old Henry at the Panmure Hotel, sat at an old mahogany
+writing-table reading a long letter written upon thin foreign notepaper.
+
+The incandescent gas-lamp shed a cold glare across the room. On one side
+of the smoke-grimed apartment was a shabby leather couch, on the other
+side a long nest of drawers, while beside the fireplace was an expanding
+gas-bracket placed in such a position that it could be used to examine
+anyone seated in the big arm-chair. Pervading the dingy apartment was a
+faint smell of carbolic, for it was a consulting-room, and the man so
+intent upon the letter was Dr. Weirmarsh, the hard-working practitioner
+so well known among the lower classes in Pimlico.
+
+Those who pass along the Vauxhall Bridge Road know well that house with
+its curtains yellow with smoke--the one which stands back behind a small
+strip of smoke-begrimed garden. Over the gate is a red lamp, and upon the
+railings a brass plate with the name: "Mr. Weirmarsh, Surgeon."
+
+About three years previously he had bought the practice from old Dr.
+Bland, but he lived alone, a silent and unsociable man, with a deaf old
+housekeeper, although he had achieved a considerable reputation among his
+patients in the neighbouring by-streets. But his practice was not wholly
+confined to the poorer classes, for he was often consulted by
+well-dressed members of the foreign colony--on account, probably, of his
+linguistic attainments. A foreigner with an imperfect knowledge of
+English naturally prefers a doctor to whom he can speak in his own
+tongue. Therefore, as Weirmarsh spoke French, Italian and Spanish with
+equal fluency, it was not surprising that he had formed quite a large
+practice among foreign residents.
+
+His appearance, however, was the reverse of prepossessing, and his
+movements were often most erratic. About his aquiline face was a shrewd
+and distrustful expression, while his keen, dark eyes, too narrowly set,
+were curiously shifty and searching. When absent, as he often was, a
+young fellow named Shipley acted as locum tenens, but so eccentric was
+he that even Shipley knew nothing of the engagements which took him from
+home so frequently.
+
+George Weirmarsh was a man of few friends and fewer words. He lived for
+himself alone, devoting himself assiduously to his practice, and doing
+much painstaking writing at the table whereat he now sat, or else, when
+absent, travelling swiftly with aims that were ever mysterious.
+
+He had had a dozen or so patients that evening, but the last had gone,
+and he had settled himself to read the letter which had arrived when his
+little waiting-room had been full of people.
+
+As he read he made scribbled notes on a piece of paper upon his
+blotting-pad, his thin, white hand, delicate as a woman's, bearing that
+splendid ruby ring, his one possession in which he took a pride.
+
+"Ah!" he remarked to himself in a hard tone of sarcasm, "what fools the
+shrewdest of men are sometimes over a woman! So at last he's fallen--like
+the others--and the secret will be mine. Most excellent! After all, every
+man has one weak point in his armour, and I was not mistaken."
+
+Then he paused, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, looked straight
+before him, deep in reflection.
+
+"I have few fears--very few," he remarked to himself, "but the greatest
+is of Walter Fetherston. What does he know?--that's the chief question.
+If he has discovered the truth--if he knows my real name and who I
+am--then the game's up, and my best course is to leave England. And yet
+there is another way," he went on, speaking slowly to himself--"to close
+his lips. Dead men tell no tales."
+
+He sat for a long time, his narrow-set eyes staring into space,
+contemplating a crime. As a medical man, he knew a dozen ingenious ways
+by which Walter Fetherston might be sent to his grave in circumstances
+that would appear perfectly natural. His gaze at last wandered to the
+book-case opposite, and became centred upon a thick, brown-covered, dirty
+volume by a writer named Taylor. That book contained much that might be
+of interest to him in the near future.
+
+Of a sudden the handle of the door turned, and Mrs. Kelsey, the old
+housekeeper, in rusty black, admitted Enid Orlebar without the ceremony
+of asking permission to enter.
+
+The girl was dressed in a pearl grey and pink sports coat, with a large
+black hat, and carried a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was a
+white feather boa, while her features were half concealed by the veil she
+wore.
+
+"Ah, my dear young lady," cried Weirmarsh, rising quickly and greeting
+her, while next moment he turned to his table and hastily concealed the
+foreign letter and notes, "I had quite forgotten that you were to consult
+me. Pray forgive me."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," the beautiful girl replied in a low,
+colourless voice, when the housekeeper had disappeared, and she had
+seated herself in the big leather arm-chair in which so many patients
+daily sat. "You ordered me to come here to you, and I have come."
+
+"Against your will, eh?" he asked slowly, with a strange look in his keen
+eyes.
+
+"I am perfectly well now. I do not see why my stepfather should betray
+such anxiety on my account."
+
+"The general is greatly concerned about you," Weirmarsh said, seated
+cross-legged at his writing-chair, toying with his pen and looking into
+the girl's handsome face.
+
+"He wished me to see you. That is why I wrote to you."
+
+"Well," she said, wavering beneath his sharp glance, "I am here. What do
+you wish?"
+
+"I wish to have a little private talk with you, Miss Enid," he replied
+thoughtfully, stroking his small greyish moustache, "a talk concerning
+your own welfare."
+
+"But I am not ill," she cried. "I don't see why you should desire me to
+come to you to-night."
+
+"I have my own reasons, my dear young lady," was the man's firm response,
+his eyes fixed immovably upon hers. "And I think you know me well enough
+to be aware that when Dr. Weirmarsh sets his mind upon a thing he is not
+easily turned aside."
+
+A slight, almost imperceptible, shudder ran through her. But Weirmarsh
+detected it, and knew that this girl of extraordinary and mysterious
+charm was as wax in his hands. In the presence of the man who had cast
+such a strange spell about her she was utterly helpless. There was no
+suggestion of hypnotism--she herself scouted the idea--yet ever since Sir
+Hugh had taken her to consult this man of medicine at a small suburban
+villa, five years ago, he had entered her life never again to leave it.
+
+She realised herself irresistibly in his power whenever she felt his
+presence near her. At his bidding she came and went, and against her
+better nature she acted as he commanded.
+
+He had cured her of an attack of nerves five years ago, but she had ever
+since been beneath his hated thraldom. His very eyes fascinated her with
+their sinister expression, yet to her he could do no wrong.
+
+A thousand times she had endeavoured to break free from that strong but
+unseen influence, but she always became weak and easily led as soon as
+she fell beneath the extraordinary power which the obscure doctor
+possessed. Time after time he called her to his side, as on this
+occasion, on pretence of prescribing for her, and yet with an ulterior
+motive. Enid Orlebar was a useful tool in the hands of this man who was
+so unscrupulous.
+
+She sighed, passing her gloved hand wearily across her hot brow. Strange
+how curiously his presence always affected her!
+
+She had read in books of the mysteries of hypnotic suggestion, but she
+was far too practical to believe in that. This was not hypnotism, she
+often declared within herself, but some remarkable and unknown power
+possessed by this man who, beneath the guise of the hard-working surgeon,
+was engaged in schemes of remarkable ingenuity and wondrous magnitude.
+
+He held her in the palm of his hand. He held her for life--or for death.
+
+To her stepfather she had, times without number, expressed fear and
+horror of the sharp-eyed doctor, but Sir Hugh had only laughed at her
+fears and dismissed them as ridiculous. Dr. Weirmarsh was the general's
+friend.
+
+Enid knew that there was some close association between the pair, but of
+its nature she was in complete ignorance. Often the doctor came to Hill
+Street and sat for long periods with the general in that small, cosy room
+which was his den. That they were business interviews there was no doubt,
+but the nature of the business was ever a mystery.
+
+"I see by your face that, though there is a great improvement in you, you
+are, nevertheless, far from well," the man said, his eyes still fixed
+upon her pale countenance.
+
+"Dr. Weirmarsh," she protested, "this constant declaration that I am ill
+is awful. I tell you I am quite as well as you are yourself."
+
+"Ah! there, I'm afraid, you are mistaken, my dear young lady," he
+replied. "You may feel well, but you are not in quite such good health as
+you imagine. The general is greatly concerned about you, and for that
+reason I wished to see you to-night," he added with a smile as, bending
+towards her, he asked her to remove her glove.
+
+He took her wrist, holding his stop-watch in his other hand. "Hum!" he
+grunted, "just as I expected. You're a trifle low--a little run down. You
+want a change."
+
+"But we only returned from Scotland yesterday!" she cried.
+
+"The North does not suit such an exotic plant as yourself," he said. "Go
+South--the Riviera, Spain, Italy, or Egypt."
+
+"I go with Mrs. Caldwell at the end of November."
+
+"No," he said decisively, "you must go now."
+
+"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes in astonishment at his dictatorial
+manner.
+
+"Because----" and he hesitated, still gazing upon her with those
+strangely sinister eyes of his. "Well, Miss Enid, because a complete
+change will be beneficial to you in more ways than one," he replied with
+an air of mystery.
+
+"I don't understand you," she declared.
+
+"Probably not," he laughed, with that cynical air which so irritated her.
+She hated herself for coming to that detestable house of grim silence;
+yet his word to her was a command which she felt impelled by some strange
+force to fulfil with child-like obedience. "But I assure you I am
+advising you for your own benefit, my dear young lady."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Shall I speak plainly?" asked the man in whose power she was. "Will you
+forgive me if I so far intrude myself upon your private affairs as to
+give you a few words of advice?"
+
+"Thank you, Dr. Weirmarsh, but I cannot see that my private affairs are
+any concern of yours," she replied with some hauteur. How often had she
+endeavoured in vain to break those invisible shackles?
+
+"I am a very sincere friend of your stepfather, and I hope a sincere
+friend of yours also," he said with perfect coolness. "It is because of
+this I presume to advise you--but, of course----" And he hesitated,
+without concluding his sentence. His eyes were again fixed upon her as
+though gauging accurately the extent of his influence upon her.
+
+"And what do you advise, pray?" she asked, "It seems that you have called
+me to you to-night in order to intrude upon my private affairs," she
+added, with her eyes flashing resentment.
+
+"Well--yes, Miss Enid," he answered, his manner changing slightly. "The
+fact is, I wish to warn you against what must inevitably bring disaster
+both upon yourself and your family."
+
+"Disaster?" she echoed. "I don't follow you."
+
+"Then let me speak a little more plainly," he replied, his strange,
+close-set eyes staring into hers until she quivered beneath his cold,
+hard gaze. "You have recently become acquainted with Walter Fetherston.
+You met him at Biarritz six months ago, and on Monday last he lunched
+with you up at Monifieth. After luncheon you met him in the garden of the
+hotel, and----"
+
+"How do you know all this?" she gasped, startled, yet fascinated by his
+gaze.
+
+"My dear young lady," he laughed, "it is my business to know certain
+things--that is one of them."
+
+She held her breath for a moment.
+
+"And pray how does that concern you? What interest have you in my
+acquaintances?"
+
+"A very keen one," was the prompt reply. "That man is dangerous to
+you--and to your family. The reason why I have asked you here to-night is
+to tell you that you must never meet him again. If you value your life,
+and that of your mother and her husband, avoid him as you would some
+venomous reptile. He is your most deadly enemy."
+
+The girl was silent for a moment. Her great, dark eyes were fixed upon
+the threadbare carpet. What he told her was disconcerting, yet, knowing
+instinctively, as she did, how passionately Walter loved her, she could
+not bring herself to believe that he was really her enemy.
+
+"No, Dr. Weirmarsh," she replied, raising her eyes again to his, "you are
+quite mistaken. I know Walter Fetherston better than you. Your allegation
+is false. You have told me this because--because you have some motive in
+parting us."
+
+"Yes," he said frankly, "I have--_a strong motive_."
+
+"You do not conceal it?"
+
+"No," he answered. "Were I a younger man you might, perhaps, accuse me of
+scheming to wriggle myself into your good graces, Miss Enid. But I am
+getting old, and, moreover, I'm a confirmed bachelor, therefore you
+cannot, I think, accuse me of such ulterior motives. No, I only point out
+this peril for your family's sake--and your own."
+
+"Is Mr. Fetherston such an evil genius, then?" she asked. "The world
+knows him as a writer of strictly moral, if exciting, books."
+
+"The books are one thing--the man himself another. Some men reflect their
+own souls in their works, others write but canting hypocrisy. It is so
+with Walter Fetherston--the man who has a dual personality and whose
+private life will not bear the light of publicity."
+
+"You wish to prejudice me against him, eh?" she said in a hard tone.
+
+"I merely wish to advise you for your good, my dear young lady," he said.
+"It is not for me, your medical man, to presume to dictate to you, I
+know. But the general is my dear friend, therefore I feel it my duty to
+reveal to you the bitter truth."
+
+Thoughts of Walter Fetherston, the man in whose eyes had shone the light
+of true honesty when he spoke, arose within her. She was well aware of
+all the curious gossip concerning the popular writer, whose
+eccentricities were so frequently hinted at in the gossipy newspapers,
+but she was convinced that she knew the real Fetherston behind the mask
+he so constantly wore.
+
+This man before her was deceiving her. He had some sinister motive in
+thus endeavouring to plant seeds of suspicion within her mind. It was
+plain that he was endeavouring in some way to secure his own ends. Those
+ends, however, were a complete and inexplicable mystery.
+
+"I cannot see that my friendship for Mr. Fetherston can have any interest
+for you," she replied. "Let us talk of something else."
+
+"But it has," he persisted. "You must never meet that man again--you
+hear! never--otherwise you will discover to your cost that my serious
+warning has a foundation only too solid; that he is your bitterest enemy
+posing as your most affectionate friend."
+
+"I don't believe you, Dr. Weirmarsh!" she cried resentfully, springing to
+her feet. "I'll never believe you!"
+
+"My dear young lady," the man exclaimed, "you are really quite unnerved
+to-night. The general was quite right. I will mix you a draught like the
+one you had before--perfectly innocuous--something to soothe those
+unstrung nerves of yours." And beneath his breath, as his cruel eyes
+twinkled, he added: "Something to bring reason to those warped and
+excited senses--something to sow within you suspicion and hatred of
+Walter Fetherston."
+
+Then aloud he added, as he sprang to his feet: "Excuse me for a moment
+while I go and dispense it. I'll be back in a few seconds."
+
+He left the room when, quick as lightning, Enid stretched forth her hand
+to the drawer of the writing-table into which she had seen the doctor
+toss the foreign letter he had been reading when she entered.
+
+She drew it out, and scanned eagerly a dozen or so of the closely-written
+lines in Spanish.
+
+Then she replaced it with trembling fingers, and, closing the drawer, sat
+staring straight before her--dumbfounded, rigid.
+
+What was the mystery?
+
+By the knowledge she had obtained she became forearmed--even defiant. In
+the light of that astounding discovery, she now read the mysterious Dr.
+Weirmarsh as she would an open book. She held her breath, and an
+expression of hatred escaped her lips.
+
+When, a moment later, he brought her a pale-yellow draught in a graduated
+glass, she took it from his hand, and, drawing herself up in defiance,
+flung its contents behind her into the fireplace. She believed that at
+last she had conquered that strangely evil influence which, emanating
+from this obscure practitioner, had fallen upon her.
+
+But the man only shrugged his shoulders and, turning from her, laughed
+unconcernedly. He knew that he held her in bonds stronger than steel,
+that his will was hers--for good or for evil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+REVEALS TEMPTATION
+
+
+"I TELL you it can't be done--the risk is far too great!" declared Sir
+Hugh Elcombe, standing with his back to the fireplace in his cosy little
+den in Hill Street at noon next day.
+
+"It must be done," answered Dr. Weirmarsh, who sat in the deep green
+leather arm-chair, with the tips of his fingers placed together.
+
+The general glanced suspiciously at the door to reassure himself that it
+was closed.
+
+"You ask too much," he said. Then, in a decisive voice, while his fingers
+toyed nervously with his monocle, he added, "I have resolved to end it
+once and for all."
+
+The doctor looked at him with a strange expression in those cold, keen
+eyes of his and smiled, "I fear, Sir Hugh, that if you attempt to carry
+out such a decision you will find insuperable difficulties," he said
+quietly.
+
+"I desire no good advice from you, Weirmarsh," the old general snapped.
+"I fully realise my position. You have cornered me--cut off my
+retreat--so I have placed my back against the wall."
+
+"Good! And how will such an attitude benefit you, pray?"
+
+"Understand, I am in no mood to be taunted by you!" the old man cried,
+with an angry flash in his eyes. "You very cleverly enticed me into the
+net, and now you are closing it about me."
+
+"My dear Sir Hugh," replied the doctor, "ours was a mere business
+transaction, surely. Carry your thoughts back to six years ago. After
+your brilliant military career you returned from India and found
+yourself, as so many of your profession find themselves, in very
+straitened circumstances. You were bound to keep up appearances, and, in
+order to do so, got into the hands of Eli Moser, the moneylender. You
+married Lady Orlebar, and had entered London society when, of a sudden,
+the scoundrelly usurer began to put the screw upon you. At that moment
+you--luckily, I think, for yourself--met me, and--well, I was your
+salvation, for I pointed out to you an easy way by which to pay your
+creditors and rearrange your affairs upon a sound financial basis.
+Indeed, I did it for you. I saved you from the moneylender. Did I not?"
+
+He spoke in a calm, even tone, without once removing his eyes from the
+man who stood upon the hearthrug with bent head and folded arms.
+
+"I know, Weirmarsh. It's true that you saved me from bankruptcy--but
+think what penalty I have paid by accepting your terms," he answered in a
+low, broken voice. "The devil tempted me, and I fell into your damnable
+net."
+
+"I hardly think it necessary for you to put it that way," replied the
+doctor without the least sign of annoyance. "I showed you how you could
+secure quite a comfortable income, and you readily enough adopted my
+suggestion."
+
+"Readily!" echoed the fine-looking old soldier. "Ah! you don't know what
+my decision cost me--it has cost me my very life."
+
+"Nonsense, man," laughed the doctor scornfully. "You got out of the hands
+of the Jews, and ever since that day you haven't had five minutes' worry
+over your finances. I promised you I would provide you with an ample
+income, and----"
+
+"And you've done so, Weirmarsh," cried the old general; "an income far
+greater than I expected. Yet what do I deserve?"
+
+"My dear General," said the doctor quite calmly, "you're not yourself
+to-day; suffering from a slight attack of remorse, eh? It's a bad
+complaint; I've had it, and I know. But it's like the measles--you're
+very nearly certain to contract it once in a lifetime."
+
+"Have you no pity for me?" snarled Sir Hugh, glaring at the narrow-eyed
+man seated before him. "Don't you realise that by this last demand of
+yours you've driven me into a corner?"
+
+Weirmarsh's brows contracted slightly, and he shot an evil glance at the
+man before him--the man who was his victim. "But you must do it. You
+still want money--and lots of it, don't you?" he said in a low, decisive
+voice.
+
+"I refuse, I tell you!" cried Sir Hugh angrily.
+
+"Hush! Someone may overhear," the doctor said. "Is Enid at home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I saw her last night, as you wished. She is not well. Her nerves are
+still in an extremely weak state," Weirmarsh said, in order to change the
+topic of conversation. "I think you should send her abroad out of the
+way--to the South somewhere."
+
+"So she told me. I shall try and get Mrs. Caldwell to take her to
+Sicily--if you consider the air would be beneficial."
+
+"Excellent--Palermo or Taormina--send the girl there as soon as ever you
+can. She seems unstrung, and may get worse; a change will certainly do
+her good," replied the man whose craft and cunning were unequalled. "I
+know," he added reflectively, "that Enid dislikes me--why, I can never
+make out."
+
+"Instinct, I suppose, Weirmarsh," was the old man's reply. "She suspects
+that you hold me in your power, as you undoubtedly do."
+
+"Now that is really a most silly idea of yours, Sir Hugh. Do get rid of
+it. Such a thought pains me to a great degree," declared the crafty-eyed
+man. "For these past years I have provided you with a good income,
+enabling you to keep up your position in the world, instead of--well,
+perhaps shivering on the Embankment at night and partaking of the
+hospitality of the charitably disposed. Yet you upbraid me as though I
+had treated you shabbily!" He spoke with an irritating air of
+superiority, for he knew that this man who occupied such a high position,
+who was an intimate friend and confidant of the Minister of War, and
+universally respected throughout the country, was but a tool in his
+unscrupulous hands.
+
+"You ask me too much," exclaimed the grey-moustached officer in a hard,
+low voice.
+
+"The request does not emanate from me," was the doctor's reply; "I am
+but the mouthpiece."
+
+"Yes, the mouthpiece--but the eyes and ears also, Weirmarsh," replied Sir
+Hugh. "You bought me, body and soul, for a wage of five thousand pounds a
+year----"
+
+"The salary of one of His Majesty's Ministers," interrupted the doctor.
+"It has been paid you with regularity, together with certain extras. When
+you have wished for a loan of five hundred or so, I have never refused
+it."
+
+"I quite admit that; but you've always received a _quid pro quo_," the
+general snapped. "Look at the thousands upon thousands I put through for
+you!"
+
+"The whole transaction has from the beginning been a matter of business;
+and, as far as I am concerned, I have fulfilled my part of the contract."
+
+The man standing upon the hearthrug sighed. "I suppose," he said, "that I
+really have no right to complain. I clutched at the straw you held out to
+me, and saved myself at a cost greater than the world can ever know. I
+hate myself for it. If I had then known what I know now concerning you
+and your friends, I would rather have blown out my brains than have
+listened to your accursed words of temptation. The whole plot is
+damnable!"
+
+"My dear fellow, I am not Mephistopheles," laughed the narrow-eyed
+doctor.
+
+"You are worse," declared the general boldly. "You bought me body and
+soul, but by Heaven!" he cried, "you have not bought my family, sir!"
+
+Weirmarsh moved uneasily in his chair.
+
+"And so you refuse to do this service which I requested of you,
+yesterday, eh?" he asked very slowly.
+
+"I do."
+
+A silence fell between the two men, broken only by the low ticking of the
+little Sheraton clock upon the mantelshelf.
+
+"Have you fully reflected upon what this refusal of yours may cost you,
+General?" asked the doctor in a slow, hard voice, his eyes fixed upon the
+other's countenance.
+
+"It will cost me just as much as you decide it shall," was the response
+of the unhappy man, who found himself enmeshed by the crafty
+practitioner.
+
+"You speak as though I were the principal, whereas I am but the agent,"
+Weirmarsh protested.
+
+"Principal or agent, my decision, Doctor, is irrevocable--I refuse to
+serve your accursed ends further."
+
+"Really," laughed the other, still entirely unruffled, "your attitude
+to-day is quite amusing. You've got an attack of liver, and you should
+allow me to prescribe for you."
+
+The general made a quick gesture of impatience, but did not reply.
+
+It was upon the tip of Weirmarsh's tongue to refer to Walter Fetherston,
+but next instant he had reflected. If Sir Hugh really intended to abandon
+himself to remorse and make a fool of himself, why should he stretch
+forth a hand to save him?
+
+That ugly revelations--very ugly ones--might result was quite within the
+range of possibility, therefore Weirmarsh, whose craft and cunning were
+amazing, intended to cover his own retreat behind the back of the very
+man whom he had denounced to Enid Orlebar.
+
+He sat in silence, his finger-tips again joined, gazing upon the man who
+had swallowed that very alluring bait he had once placed before him.
+
+He realised by Sir Hugh's manner that he regretted his recent action and
+was now overcome by remorse. Remorse meant exposure, and exposure meant
+prosecution--a great public prosecution, which, at all hazards, must not
+be allowed.
+
+As he sat there he was actually calmly wondering whether this fine old
+officer with such a brilliant record would die in silence by his own hand
+and carry his secret to the grave, or whether he would leave behind some
+awkward written statement which would incriminate himself and those for
+whom he acted.
+
+Suddenly Sir Hugh turned and, looking the doctor squarely in the face as
+though divining his inmost thoughts, said in a hoarse voice tremulous
+with emotion: "Ah, you need not trouble yourself further, Weirmarsh. I
+have a big dinner-party to-night, but by midnight I shall have paid the
+penalty which you have imposed upon me--I shall have ceased to live. I
+will die rather then serve you further!"
+
+"Very well, my dear sir," replied the doctor, rising from his chair
+abruptly. "Of course, every man's life is his own property--you can take
+it if you think fit--but I assure you that such an event would not
+concern me in the least. I have already taken the precaution to appear
+with clean hands--should occasion require."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN WHICH ENID ORLEBAR IS PUZZLED
+
+
+THAT night, around the general's dinner-table in Hill Street, a dozen or
+so well-known men and women were assembled.
+
+Sir Hugh Elcombe's dinners were always smart gatherings. The table was
+set with Georgian silver and decorated daintily with flowers, while
+several of the women wore splendid jewels. At the head sat Lady Elcombe,
+a quiet, rather fragile, calm-faced woman in black, whose countenance
+bore traces of long suffering, but whose smile was very sweet.
+
+Among the guests was Walter Fetherston, whom the general had at last
+induced to visit him, and he had taken in Enid, who looked superb in a
+cream décolleté gown, and who wore round her throat a necklet of
+turquoise matrices, admirably suited to her half-barbaric beauty.
+
+Fetherston had only accepted the general's invitation at her urgent
+desire, for she had written to White's telling him that it was imperative
+they should meet--she wished to consult him; she begged of him to forget
+the interview at Monifieth and return to her.
+
+So, against his will, he had gone there, though the house and all it
+contained was hateful to him. With that terrible secret locked within his
+heart--that secret which gripped his very vitals and froze his blood--he
+looked upon the scene about him with horror and disgust. Indeed, it was
+only by dint of self-control that he could be civil to his host.
+
+His fellow-guests were of divers types: a couple of peers and their
+womenkind, a popular actor-manager, two diplomats, and several military
+men of more or less note--two of them, like the host, occupying high
+positions at the War Office.
+
+Such gatherings were of frequent occurrence at Hill Street. It was
+popularly supposed that Sir Hugh, by marrying His Majesty's Minister's
+widow, had married money, and was thus able to sustain the position he
+did. Other military men in his position found it difficult to make both
+ends meet, and many envied old Hugh Elcombe and his wealthy wife. They
+were unaware that Lady Orlebar, after the settlement of her husband's
+estate, had found herself with practically nothing, and that her marriage
+to Sir Hugh had been more to secure a home than anything else. Both had,
+alas! been equally deceived. The general, believing her to be rich, had
+been sadly disillusioned; while she, on her part, was equally filled with
+alarm when he revealed to her his penurious position.
+
+The world, of course, knew nothing of this. Sir Hugh, ever since his
+re-marriage, had given good dinners and had been entertained in return,
+therefore everybody believed that he derived his unusually large income
+from his wife.
+
+As he sat at table he laughed and chatted merrily with his guests, for on
+such occasions he was always good company. Different, indeed, was his
+attitude from when, at noon, he had stood with Weirmarsh in his own den
+and pronounced his own fate.
+
+The man who held him in that strange thraldom was seated at the table. He
+had been invited three days ago, and had come there, perhaps, to taunt
+him with his presence in those the last few hours of his life.
+
+Only once the two men exchanged glances, for Weirmarsh was devoting all
+his attention to young Lady Stockbridge. But when Sir Hugh encountered
+the doctor's gaze he saw in his eyes open defiance and triumph.
+
+In ignorance of the keen interest which the doctor across the table felt
+in him, Walter Fetherston sat chatting and laughing with Enid. Once the
+doctor, to whom he had been introduced only half an hour before,
+addressed a remark to him to which he replied, at the same time
+reflecting within himself that Weirmarsh was quite a pleasant
+acquaintance.
+
+He was unaware of that mysterious visit of inquiry to Monifieth, of that
+remarkable cipher telegram afterwards dispatched to Brussels, or even of
+the extraordinary influence that man in the well-worn evening suit
+possessed over both his host and the handsome girl beside him.
+
+When the ladies had left the table the doctor set himself out over the
+cigarettes to become more friendly with the writer of fiction. Then
+afterwards he rose, and encountering his host, who had also risen and
+crossed the room, whispered in a voice of command: "You have reconsidered
+your decision! You will commit no foolish and cowardly act? I see it in
+your face. I shall call to-morrow at noon, and we will discuss the matter
+further."
+
+The general did not reply for a few seconds. But Weirmarsh had already
+realised that reflection had brought his victim to a calmer state of
+mind.
+
+"I will not listen to you," the old man growled.
+
+"But I shall speak whether you listen or not. Remember, I am not a man to
+be fooled by talk. I shall be here at noon and lay before you a scheme
+perhaps a little more practicable than the last one." And with that he
+reached for some matches, turned upon his heel, and rejoined the man
+against whom he had warned Enid--the only man in the world whom he
+feared.
+
+Before they rose Weirmarsh had ingratiated himself with his enemy. So
+clever was he that Fetherston, in ignorance as to whom his fellow-guest
+really was, save that he was a member of the medical profession, was
+actually congratulating himself that he had now met a man after his own
+heart.
+
+At last they repaired to the pretty old-rose-and-gold drawing-room
+upstairs, an apartment in which great taste was displayed in decoration,
+and there several of the ladies sang or recited. One of them, a vivacious
+young Frenchwoman, was induced to give Barrois's romance, "J'ai vu
+fleurir notre dernier lilas!"
+
+When she had concluded Enid, with whom Walter was seated, rose and passed
+into the small conservatory, which was prettily illuminated with fairy
+lights. As soon as they were alone she turned to him in eager distress,
+saying: "Walter, do, I beg of you, beware of that man!"
+
+"Of what man?" he asked in quick surprise.
+
+"Of Doctor Weirmarsh."
+
+"Why? I don't know him. I never met him until to-night. Who is he?"
+
+"My stepfather's friend, but my enemy--and yours," she cried quickly,
+placing her hand upon her heart as though to quell its throbbing.
+
+"Is he well known?" inquired the novelist.
+
+"No--only in Pimlico. He lives in Vauxhall Bridge Road, and his practice
+lies within a radius of half a mile of Victoria Station."
+
+"And why is he my enemy?"
+
+"Oh, that I cannot tell."
+
+"Why is he your stepfather's friend?" asked Fetherston. "They certainly
+seem to be on very good terms."
+
+"Doctor Weirmarsh's cunning and ingenuity are unequalled," she declared.
+"Over me, as over Sir Hugh, he has cast a kind of spell--a----"
+
+Her companion laughed. "My dear Enid," he said, "spells are fictions of
+the past; nobody believes in them nowadays. He may possess some influence
+over you, but surely you are sufficiently strong-minded to resist his
+power, whatever it may be?"
+
+"No," she replied, "I am not. For that reason I fear for myself--and for
+Sir Hugh. That man compelled Sir Hugh to take me to him for a
+consultation, and as soon as I was in his presence I knew that his will
+was mine--that I was powerless."
+
+"I don't understand you," said Fetherston, much interested in this latest
+psychic problem.
+
+"Neither do I understand myself," she answered in bewilderment. "To me
+this man's power, fascination--whatever you may term it--is a complete
+mystery."
+
+"I will investigate it," said Fetherston promptly. "What is his address?"
+
+She told him, and he scribbled it upon his shirt-cuff. Then, looking into
+her beautiful countenance, he asked: "Have you no idea of the nature of
+this man's influence over Sir Hugh?"
+
+"None whatever. It is plain, however, that he is master over my
+stepfather's actions. My mother has often remarked to me upon it," was
+her response. "He comes here constantly, and remains for hours closeted
+with Sir Hugh in his study. So great is his influence that he orders our
+servants to do his bidding."
+
+"And he compelled Sir Hugh to take you to his consulting room, eh? Under
+what pretext?"
+
+"I was suffering from extreme nervousness, and he prescribed for me with
+beneficial effect," she said. "But ever since I have felt myself beneath
+his influence in a manner which I am utterly unable to describe. I do not
+believe in hypnotic suggestion, or it might be put down to that."
+
+"But what is your theory?"
+
+"I have none, except--well, except that this man, essentially a man of
+evil, possesses some occult influence which other men do not possess."
+
+"Yours is not a weak nature, Enid," he declared. "You are not the sort of
+girl to fall beneath the influence of another."
+
+"I think not," she laughed in reply. "And yet the truth is a hard and
+bitter one."
+
+"Remain firm and determined to be mistress of your own actions," he
+urged, "and in the meantime I will cultivate the doctor's acquaintance
+and endeavour to investigate the cause of this remarkable influence of
+his."
+
+Why did Doctor Weirmarsh possess such power over Sir Hugh? he wondered.
+Could it be that this man was actually in possession of the truth? Was he
+aware of that same terrible and hideous secret of which he himself was
+aware--a secret which, if exposed, would convulse the whole country, so
+shameful and scandalous was it!
+
+He saw how pale and agitated Enid was. She had in her frantic anxiety
+sought his aid. Only a few days ago they had parted; yet now, in the
+moment of her fear and apprehension, she had recalled him to her side to
+seek his advice and protection.
+
+She had not told him of that mysterious warning Weirmarsh had given her
+concerning him, or of his accurate knowledge of their acquaintanceship.
+She had purposely refrained from telling him this lest her words should
+unduly prejudice him. She had warned Walter that the doctor was his
+enemy--this, surely, was sufficient!
+
+"Try and discover, if you can, the reason of the doctor's power over my
+father, and why he is for ever directing his actions," urged the girl.
+"For myself I care little; it is for Sir Hugh's sake that I am trying to
+break the bonds, if possible."
+
+"You have no suspicion of the reason?" he repeated, looking seriously
+into her face. "You do not think that he holds some secret of your
+stepfather's? Undue influence can frequently be traced to such a source."
+
+She shook her head in the negative, a blank look in her great, dark eyes.
+
+"No," she replied, "it is all a mystery--one which I beg of you, Walter,
+to solve, and"--she faltered in a strange voice--"and to save me!"
+
+He pressed her hand and gave her his promise. Then for a second she
+raised her full red lips to his, and together they passed back into the
+drawing-room, where their re-entry in company did not escape the sharp
+eyes of the lonely doctor of Pimlico.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND
+
+
+WALTER FETHERSTON strolled back that night to the dingy chambers he
+rented in Holles Street, off Oxford Street, as a _pied-à-terre_ when in
+London. He was full of apprehension, full of curiosity, as to who this
+Doctor Weirmarsh could be.
+
+He entered his darkling, shabby old third-floor room and threw himself
+into the arm-chair before the fire to think. It was a room without
+beauty, merely walls, repapered once every twenty years, and furniture of
+the mid-Victorian era. The mantelshelf in the bedroom still bore stains
+from the medicine bottles which consoled the final hours of the last
+tenant, a man about whom a curious story was told.
+
+It seems that he found a West End anchorage there, not when he had
+retired, but when he was in the very prime of life. He never told anyone
+that he was single; at the same time he never told anyone he was married.
+He just came and rented those three rooms, and there his man brought him
+his tea at ten o'clock every morning for thirty years. Then he dressed
+himself and went round to the Devonshire, in St. James's Street, and
+there remained till closing time, at two o'clock, every morning for
+thirty years. When his club closed in the dog-days for repairs he went to
+the club which received him. He never went out of town. He never slept a
+night away. He never had a visitor. He never received a letter, and, so
+far as his man was aware, never wrote one.
+
+One morning he did not go through his usual programme. The doctor was
+called, but during the next fortnight he died.
+
+Within twelve hours, however, his widow and a family of grown-up children
+arrived, pleasant, cheerful, inquisitive people, who took away with them
+everything portable, greatly to the chagrin of the devoted old manservant
+who had been the tenant's single home-tie for thirty years.
+
+It was these selfsame, dull, monotonous chambers which Walter occupied.
+The old manservant was the selfsame man who had so devotedly served the
+previous tenant. They suited Walter's purpose, for he was seldom in
+London, so old Hayden had the place to himself for many months every
+year. Of all the inhabitants of London chambers those are the most lonely
+who never wander away from London. But Walter was ever wandering,
+therefore he never noticed the shabbiness of the carpet, the dinginess of
+the furniture, or the dispiriting gloom of everything.
+
+Like the previous tenant, Walter had no visitors and was mostly out all
+day. At evening he would write at the dusty old bureau in which the late
+tenant had kept locked his family treasures, or sit in the deep, old
+horsehair-covered chair with his feet upon the fender, as he did that
+night after returning from Hill Street.
+
+The only innovation in those grimy rooms was a good-sized fireproof safe
+which stood in the corner hidden by a side-table, and from this Walter
+had taken a bundle of papers and carried them with him to his chair.
+
+One by one he carefully went through them, until at last he found the
+document of which he was in search.
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed to himself after he had scanned it, "so I was not
+mistaken after all! The mystery is deeper than I thought. By Jove! that
+fellow, Joseph Blot, alias Weirmarsh, alias Detmold, Ponting and half a
+dozen other names, no doubt, is playing a deep game--a dangerous customer
+evidently!"
+
+Then, again returning to the safe, he took out a large packet of
+miscellaneous photographs of various persons secured by an elastic band.
+These he went rapidly through until he held one in his hand, an unmounted
+_carte-de-visite_, which he examined closely beneath the green-shaded
+reading-lamp.
+
+It was a portrait of Doctor Weirmarsh, evidently taken a few years
+before, as he then wore a short pointed beard, whereas he was now shaven
+except for a moustache.
+
+"No mistake about those features," he remarked to himself with evident
+satisfaction as, turning the photographic print, he took note of certain
+cabalistic numbers written in the corner, scribbling them in pencil upon
+his blotting-pad.
+
+"I thought I recollected those curious eyes and that unusual breadth of
+forehead," he went on, speaking to himself, and again examining the
+pictured face through his gold pince-nez. "It's a long time since I
+looked at this photograph--fully five years. What would the amiable
+doctor think if he knew that I held the key which will unlock his past?"
+
+He laughed lightly to himself, and, selecting a cigarette from the silver
+box, lit it.
+
+Then he sat back in his big arm-chair, his eyes fixed upon the fire,
+contemplating what he realised to be a most exciting and complicated
+problem.
+
+"This means that I must soon be upon the move again," he murmured to
+himself. "Enid has sought my assistance--she has asked me to save her,
+and I will exert my utmost endeavour to do so. But I see it will be
+difficult, very difficult. She is, no doubt, utterly unaware of the real
+identity of this brisk, hard-working doctor. And perhaps, after all," he
+added slowly, "it is best so--best that she remain in ignorance of this
+hideous, ghastly truth!"
+
+At that same moment, while Walter Fetherston was preoccupied by these
+curious apprehensions, the original of that old _carte-de-visite_ was
+seated in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, smoking a cigar with a tall,
+broad-shouldered, red-bearded man who was evidently a foreigner.
+
+He had left Hill Street five minutes after Fetherston, and driven down to
+the Savoy, where he had a rendezvous for supper with his friend. That he
+was an habitué there was patent from the fact that upon entering the
+restaurant, Alphonse, the _maître d'hôtel_, with his plan of the tables
+pinned upon the board, greeted him with, "Ah! good evening, Docteur.
+Table vingt-six, Docteur Weirmarsh."
+
+The scene was the same as it is every evening at the Savoy; the music,
+the smart dresses of the women, the flowers, the shaded lights, the
+chatter and the irresponsible laughter of the London world amusing
+itself after the stress of war.
+
+You know it--why, therefore, should I describe it? Providing you possess
+an evening suit or a low-necked dress, you can always rub shoulders with
+the _monde_ and the _demi-monde_ of London at a cost of a few shillings a
+head.
+
+The two men had supped and were chatting in French over their coffee and
+"triplesec." Gustav, Weirmarsh called his friend, and from his remarks it
+was apparent that he was a stranger to London. He was dressed with
+elegance. Upon the corner of his white lawn handkerchief a count's
+coronet was embroidered, and upon his cigar-case also was a coronet and a
+cipher. In his dress-shirt he wore a fine diamond, while upon the little
+finger of his left hand glittered a similar stone of great lustre.
+
+The lights were half extinguished, and a porter's voice cried, "Time's
+up, ladies and gentlemen!" Those who were not habitués rose and commenced
+to file out, but the men and women who came to the restaurant each night
+sat undisturbed till the lights went up again and another ten minutes
+elapsed before the final request to leave was made.
+
+The pair, seated away in a corner, had been chatting in an undertone when
+they were compelled to rise. Thereupon the doctor insisted that his
+friend, whose name was Gustav Heureux, should accompany him home. So
+twenty minutes later they alighted from a taxi-cab in the Vauxhall Bridge
+Road, and entered the shabby little room wherein Weirmarsh schemed and
+plotted.
+
+The doctor produced from a cupboard some cognac and soda and a couple of
+glasses, and when they had lit cigars they sat down to resume their chat.
+
+Alone there, the doctor spoke in English.
+
+"You see," he explained, "it is a matter of the greatest importance--if
+we make this coup we can easily make a hundred thousand pounds within a
+fortnight. The general at first refused and became a trifle--well, just a
+trifle resentful, even vindictive; but by showing a bold front I've
+brought him round. To-morrow I shall clinch the matter. That is my
+intention."
+
+"It will be a brilliant snap, if you can actually accomplish it," was the
+red-bearded man's enthusiastic reply. He now spoke in English, but with a
+strong American accent. "I made an attempt two years ago, but failed, and
+narrowly escaped imprisonment."
+
+"A dozen attempts have already been made, but all in vain," replied the
+doctor, drawing hard at his cigar. "Therefore, I'm all the more keen to
+secure success."
+
+"You certainly have been very successful over here, Doctor," observed the
+foreigner, whose English had been acquired in America. "We have heard of
+you in New York, where you are upheld to us as a model. Jensen once told
+me that your methods were so ingenious as to be unassailable."
+
+"Merely because I am well supplied with funds," answered the other with
+modesty. "Here, in England, as elsewhere, any man or woman can be
+bought--if you pay their price. There is only one section of the
+wonderful British public who cannot be purchased--the men and women who
+are in love with each other. Whenever I come up against Cupid, experience
+has taught me to retire deferentially, and wait until the love-fever has
+abated. It often turns to jealousy or hatred, and then the victims fall
+as easily as off a log. A jealous woman will betray any secret, even
+though it may hurry her lover to his grave. To me, my dear Gustav, this
+fevered world of London is all very amusing."
+
+"And your profession as doctor must serve as a most excellent mask. Who
+would suspect you--a lonely bachelor in such quarters as these?"
+exclaimed his visitor.
+
+"No one does suspect me," laughed the doctor with assurance. "Safety lies
+in pursuing my increasing practice, and devoting all my spare time
+to--well, to my real profession." He flicked the ash off his cigar as he
+spoke.
+
+"Your friend, Elcombe, will have to be very careful. The peril is
+considerable in that quarter."
+
+"I know that full well. But if he failed it would be he who would
+suffer--not I. As usual, I do not appear in the affair at all."
+
+"That is just where you are so intensely clever and ingenious," declared
+Heureux. "In New York they speak of you as a perfect marvel of foresight
+and clever evasion."
+
+"It is simply a matter of exercising one's wits," Weirmarsh laughed
+lightly. "I always complete my plans with great care before embarking
+upon them, and I make provision for every contretemps possible. It is the
+only way, if one desires success."
+
+"And you have had success," remarked his companion. "Marked success in
+everything you have attempted. In New York we have not been nearly so
+fortunate. Those three articles in the _New York Sun_ put the public on
+their guard, so that we dare not attempt any really bold move for fear of
+detection."
+
+"You have worked a little too openly, I think," was Weirmarsh's reply.
+"But now that you have been sent to assist me, you will probably see that
+my methods differ somewhat from those of John Willoughby. Remember, he
+has just the same amount of money placed at his disposal as I have."
+
+"And he is not nearly so successful," Heureux replied. "Perhaps it is
+because Americans are not so easily befooled as the English."
+
+"And yet America is, _par excellence_, the country of bluff, of quackery
+in patent medicines, and of the booming of unworthy persons," the doctor
+laughed.
+
+"It is fortunate, Doctor, that the public are in ignorance of the real
+nature of our work, isn't it, eh? Otherwise, you and I might experience
+rather rough handling if this house were mobbed."
+
+Weirmarsh smiled grimly. "My dear Gustav," he laughed, "the British
+public, though of late they've browsed upon the hysterics of the popular
+Press, are already asleep again. It is not for us to arouse them. We
+profit by their heavy slumber, and this will be a rude awakening--a
+shock, depend upon it."
+
+"We were speaking of Sir Hugh Elcombe," remarked the other. "He has been
+of use to us, eh?"
+
+"Of considerable use, but his usefulness is all but ended," replied the
+doctor. "He will go to France before long, if he does not act as I
+direct."
+
+"Into a veritable hornet's nest!" exclaimed the red-bearded man. He
+recognised a strange expression upon the doctor's face, and added, "Ah, I
+see. This move is intentional, eh? He has served our purpose, and you now
+deem it wise that--er--disaster should befall him across the Channel,
+eh?"
+
+The doctor smiled in the affirmative.
+
+"And the girl you spoke of, Enid Orlebar?"
+
+"The girl will share the same fate as her stepfather," was Weirmarsh's
+hard response. "We cannot risk betrayal."
+
+"Then she knows something?"
+
+"She may or she may not. In any case, however, she constitutes a danger,
+a grave danger, that must, at all costs, be removed." And looking into
+the other's face, he added, "You understand me?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+Just before two o'clock Gustav Heureux left the frowsy house in Vauxhall
+Bridge Road and walked through the silent street into Victoria Street.
+
+He was unaware, however, that on the opposite side of the road an
+ill-dressed man had for a full hour been lurking in a doorway, or that
+when he came down the doctor's steps, the mysterious midnight watcher
+strolled noiselessly after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CONCERNING THE VELVET HAND
+
+
+ON the rising ground half-way between Wimborne and Poole, in Dorsetshire,
+up a narrow by-road which leads to the beautiful woods, lies the tiny
+hamlet of Idsworth, a secluded little place of about forty inhabitants,
+extremely rural and extremely picturesque.
+
+Standing alone half-way up the hill, and surrounded by trees, was an
+old-world thatched cottage, half-timbered, with high, red-brick chimneys,
+quaint gables and tiny dormer windows--a delightful old Elizabethan house
+with a comfortable, homely look. Behind it a well-kept flower garden,
+with a tree-fringed meadow beyond, while the well-rolled gravelled walks,
+the rustic fencing, and the pretty curtains at the casements betrayed the
+fact that the rustic homestead was not the residence of a villager.
+
+As a matter of fact it belonged to a Mr. John Maltwood, a bachelor, whom
+Idsworth believed to be in business in London, and who came there at
+intervals for fresh air and rest. His visits were not very frequent.
+Sometimes he would be absent for many months, and at others he would
+remain there for weeks at a time, with a cheery word always for the
+labourers on their way home from work, and always with his hand in his
+pocket in the cause of charity.
+
+John Maltwood, the quiet, youngish-looking man in the gold pince-nez, was
+popular everywhere over the country-side. He did not court the society of
+the local parsons and their wives, nor did he return any of the calls
+made upon him. His excuse was that he was at Idsworth for rest, and not
+for social duties. This very independence of his endeared him to the
+villagers, who always spoke of him as "one of the right sort."
+
+At noon on the day following the dinner at Hill Street, Walter
+Fetherston--known at Idsworth as Mr. Maltwood--alighted from the station
+fly, and was met at the cottage gate by the smiling, pleasant-faced woman
+in a clean apron who acted as caretaker.
+
+He divested himself of his overcoat in the tiny entrance-hall, passed
+into a small room, with the great open hearth, where in days long ago the
+bacon was smoked, and along a passage into the long, old-world
+dining-room, with its low ceiling with great dark beams, its
+solemn-ticking, brass-faced grandfather clock, and its profusion of old
+blue china.
+
+There he gave some orders to Mrs. Deacon, obtained a cigarette, and
+passed back along the passage to a small, cosy, panelled room at the end
+of the house--the room wherein he wrote those mystery stories which held
+the world enthralled.
+
+It was a pretty, restful place, with a moss-green carpet, green-covered
+chairs, several cases filled to overflowing with books, and a great
+writing-table set in the window. On the mantelshelf were many autographed
+portraits of Continental celebrities, while on the walls were one or two
+little gems of antique art which he had picked up on his erratic
+wanderings. Over the writing-table was a barometer and a storm-glass,
+while to the left a cosy corner extended round to the fireplace.
+
+He lit his cigarette, then walking across to a small square oaken door
+let into the wall beside the fireplace, he opened it with a key. This had
+been an oven before the transformation of three cottages into a week-end
+residence, and on opening it there was displayed the dark-green door of a
+safe. This he quickly opened with another key, and after slight search
+took out a small ledger covered with dark-red leather.
+
+Then glancing at some numerals upon a piece of paper he took from his
+vest pocket, he turned them up in the index, and with another volume open
+upon his blotting-pad, he settled himself to read the record written
+there in a small, round hand. The numbers were those upon the back of the
+old _carte-de-visite_ which had interested him so keenly, and the
+statement he was reading was, from the expression upon his countenance,
+an amazing one.
+
+From time to time he scribbled memoranda upon the scrap of paper, now and
+then pausing as though to recall the past. Then, when he had finished, he
+laughed softly to himself, and, closing the book, replaced it in the safe
+and shut the oaken door. By the inspection of that secret entry he had
+learnt much regarding that man who posed as a doctor in Pimlico.
+
+He sat back in his writing-chair and puffed thoughtfully at his
+cigarette. Then he turned his attention to a pile of letters addressed to
+him as "Mr. Maltwood," and made some scribbled replies until Mrs. Deacon
+entered to announce that his luncheon was ready.
+
+When he went back to the quaint, old-fashioned dining-room and seated
+himself, he said: "I'm going back by the five-eighteen, and I dare say I
+shan't return for quite a month or perhaps six weeks. Here's a cheque
+for ten pounds to pay these little bills." And he commenced his solitary
+meal.
+
+"You haven't been here much this summer, sir," remarked the good woman.
+"In Idsworth they think you've quite deserted us--Mr. Barnes was only
+saying so last week. They're all so glad to see you down here, sir."
+
+"That's very good of them, Mrs. Deacon," he laughed. "I, too, only wish I
+could spend more time here. I love the country, and I'm never so happy as
+when wandering in Idsworth woods."
+
+And then he asked her to tell him the village gossip while she waited at
+his table.
+
+After luncheon he put on a rough suit and, taking his stout holly stick,
+went for a ramble through the great woods he loved so well, where the
+trees were tinted by autumn and the pheasants were strong upon the wing.
+
+He found Findlay, one of the keepers, and walked with him for an hour as
+far as the Roman camp, where alone he sat down upon a felled tree and,
+with his gaze fixed across the distant hills towards the sea, pondered
+deeply. He loved his modest country cottage, and he loved those quiet,
+homely Dorsetshire folk around him. Yet such a wanderer was he that only
+a few months each year--the months he wrote those wonderful romances of
+his--could he spend in that old-fashioned cottage which he had rendered
+the very acme of cosiness and comfort.
+
+At half-past four the rickety station fly called for him, and later he
+left by the express which took him to Waterloo and his club in time for
+dinner.
+
+And so once again he changed his identity from John Maltwood, busy man of
+business, to Walter Fetherston, novelist and traveller.
+
+The seriousness of what was in progress was now plain to him. He had long
+been filled with strong suspicions, and these suspicions had been
+confirmed both by Enid's statements and his own observations; therefore
+he was already alert and watchful.
+
+At ten o'clock he went to his gloomy chambers for an hour, and then
+strolled forth to the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and remained vigilant outside
+the doctor's house until nearly two.
+
+He noted those who came and went--two men who called before midnight, and
+were evidently foreigners. They came separately, remained about half an
+hour, and then Weirmarsh himself let them out, shaking hands with them
+effusively.
+
+Suddenly a taxicab drove up, and from it Sir Hugh, in black overcoat and
+opera hat, stepped out and was at once admitted, the taxi driving off.
+Walter, as he paced up and down the pavement outside, would have given
+much to know what was transpiring within.
+
+Had he been able to glance inside that shabby little back room he would
+have witnessed a strange scene--Sir Hugh, the gallant old soldier,
+crushed and humiliated by the man who practised medicine, and who called
+himself Weirmarsh.
+
+"I had only just come in from the theatre when you telephoned me," Sir
+Hugh said sharply on entering. "I am sorry I could make no appointment
+to-day, but I was at the War Office all the morning, lunched at the
+Carlton, and was afterwards quite full up."
+
+"There was no immediate hurry, Sir Hugh," responded the doctor with a
+pleasant smile. "I quite understand that your many social engagements
+prevented you from seeing me. I should have been round at noon, only I
+was called out to an urgent case. Therefore no apology is needed--by
+either of us." Then, after a pause, he looked sharply at the man seated
+before him and asked: "I presume you have reconsidered your decision,
+General, and will carry out my request?"
+
+"No, I have not decided to do that," was the old fellow's firm answer.
+"It's too dangerous an exploit--far too dangerous. Besides, it means
+ruin."
+
+"My dear sir," remarked the doctor, "you are viewing the matter in quite
+a wrong light. There will be no suspicion providing you exercise due
+caution."
+
+"And what would be the use of that, pray, when my secret will not be mine
+alone? It is already known to half a dozen other persons--your
+friends--any of whom might give me away."
+
+"It will not be known until afterwards--when you are safe. Therefore,
+there will be absolutely no risk," the doctor assured him.
+
+The other, however, was no fool, and was still unconvinced. He knew well
+that to carry out the request made by Weirmarsh involved considerable
+risk.
+
+The doctor spoke quietly, but very firmly. In his demands he was always
+inexorable. He had already hinted at the disaster which might fall upon
+Sir Hugh if he refused to obey. Weirmarsh was, the general knew from
+bitter experience, not a man to be trifled with.
+
+Completely and irrevocably he was in this man's hands. During the past
+twenty-four hours the grave old fellow, who had faced death a hundred
+times, had passed through a crisis of agony and despair. He hated
+himself, and would even have welcomed death, would have courted it at
+his own hands, had not these jeers of the doctor's rung in his ears. And,
+after all, he had decided that suicide was only a coward's death. The man
+who takes his own life to avoid exposure is always despised by his
+friends.
+
+So he had lived, and had come down there in response to the doctor's
+request over the telephone, resolved to face the music, if for the last
+time.
+
+He sat in the shabby old arm-chair and firmly refused to carry out the
+doctor's suggestion. But Weirmarsh, with his innate cunning, presented to
+him a picture of exposure and degradation which held him horrified.
+
+"I should have thought, Sir Hugh, that in face of what must inevitably
+result you would not risk exposure," he said. "Of course, it lies with
+you entirely," he added with an unconcerned air.
+
+"I'm thinking of my family," the old officer said slowly.
+
+"Of the disgrace if the truth were known, eh?"
+
+"No; of the suspicion, nay, ruin and imprisonment, that would fall upon
+another person," replied Sir Hugh.
+
+"No suspicion can be aroused if you are careful, I repeat," exclaimed
+Weirmarsh impatiently. "Not a breath of suspicion has ever fallen upon
+you up to the present, has it? No, because you have exercised foresight
+and have followed to the letter the plans I made. I ask you, when you
+have followed my advice have you ever gone wrong--have you ever taken one
+false step?"
+
+"Never--since the first," replied the old soldier in a hard, bitter tone.
+
+"Then I urge you to continue to follow the advice I give you, namely, to
+agree to the terms."
+
+"And who will be aware of the matter?"
+
+"Only myself," was Weirmarsh's reply. "And I think that you may trust a
+secret with me?"
+
+The old man made no reply, and the crafty doctor wondered whether by
+silence he very reluctantly gave his consent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PAUL LE PONTOIS
+
+
+THERE is in the far north-west of France a broad, white highway which
+runs from Châlons, crosses the green Meuse valley, mounts the steep,
+high, tree-fringed lands of the Côtes Lorraines, and goes almost straight
+as an arrow across what was, before the war, the German frontier at
+Mars-la-Tour into quaint old Metz, that town with ancient streets,
+musical chimes, and sad monument to Frenchmen who fell in the disastrous
+never-to-be-forgotten war of '70.
+
+This road has ever been one of the most strongly guarded highways in the
+world, for, between the Moselle, at Metz, and the Meuse, the country is a
+flat plain smiling under cultivation, with vines and cornfields
+everywhere, and comfortable little homesteads of the peasantry. This was
+once the great battlefield whereon Gravelotte was fought long ago, and
+where the Prussians swept back the French like chaff before the wind, and
+where France, later on, defeated the Crown Prince's army. The peasants,
+in ploughing, daily turn up a rusty bayonet, a rotting gun-stock, a
+skull, a thigh-bone, or some other hideous relic of those black days;
+while the old men in their blouses sit of nights smoking and telling
+thrilling stories of the ferocity of that helmeted enemy from yonder
+across the winding Moselle. In recent days it has been again devastated
+by the great world war, as its gaunt ruins mutely tell.
+
+That road, with its long line of poplars, after crossing the ante-war
+French border, runs straight for twenty kilomètres towards the abrupt
+range of high hills which form the natural frontier of France, and then,
+at Haudiomont, enters a narrow pass, over twelve kilomètres long, before
+it reaches the broad valley of the Meuse. This pass was, before 1914, one
+of the four principal gateways into France from Germany. The others are
+all within a short distance, fifteen kilomètres or so--at Commercy, which
+is an important sous-prefecture, at Apremont, and at Eix. All have ever
+been strongly guarded, but that at Haudiomont was most impregnable of
+them all.
+
+Before 1914 great forts in which were mounted the most modern and the
+most destructive artillery ever devised by man, commanded the whole
+country far beyond the Moselle into Germany. Every hill-top bristled with
+them, smaller batteries were in every coign of vantage, while those
+narrow mountain passes could also be closed at any moment by being blown
+up when the signal was given against the Hun invaders.
+
+On the German side were many fortresses, but none was so strong as these,
+for the efforts of the French Ministry of War had, ever since the fall of
+Napoleon III., been directed towards rendering the Côtes Lorraines
+impassable.
+
+As one stands upon the road outside the tiny hamlet of Harville--a quaint
+but half-destroyed little place consisting of one long street of ruined
+whitewashed houses--and looks towards the hills eastward, low concrete
+walls can be seen, half hidden, but speaking mutely of the withering
+storm of shell that had, in 1914, burst from them and swept the land.
+
+Much can be seen of that chain of damaged fortresses, and the details of
+most of them are now known. Of those great ugly fortifications at
+Moulainville--the Belrupt Fort, which overlooks the Meuse; the
+Daumaumont, commanding the road from Conflans to Azannes; the Paroches,
+which stands directly over the highway from the Moselle at Moussin--we
+have heard valiant stories, how the brave French defended them against
+the armies of the Crown Prince.
+
+It was not upon these, however, that the French Army relied when, in
+August, 1914, the clash of war resounded along that pleasant fertile
+valley, where the sun seems ever to shine and the crops never fail.
+Hidden away from the sight of passers-by upon the roads, protected from
+sight by lines of sentries night and day, and unapproachable, save by
+those immediately connected with them, were the secret defences, huge
+forts with long-range ordnance, which rose, fired, and disappeared again,
+offering no mark for the enemy. Constructed in strictest secrecy, there
+were a dozen of such fortresses, the true details of which the Huns
+vainly endeavoured to learn while they were war-plotting. Many a spy of
+the Kaiser had tried to pry there and had been arrested and sentenced to
+a long term of imprisonment.
+
+Those defences, placed at intervals along the chain of hills right from
+Apremont away to Bezonvaux, had been the greatest secret which France
+possessed.
+
+Within three kilomètres of the mouth of the pass at Haudiomont, at a
+short distance from the road and at the edge of a wood, stood the ancient
+Château de Lérouville, a small picturesque place of the days of Louis
+XIV., with pretty lawns and old-world gardens--a château only in the
+sense of being a country house and the residence of Paul Le Pontois,
+once a captain in the French Army, but now retired.
+
+Shut off from the road by a high old wall, with great iron gates, it was
+approached by a wide carriage-drive through a well-kept flower-garden to
+a long _terrasse_ which ran the whole length of the house, and whereon,
+in summer, it was the habit of the family to take their meals.
+
+Upon this veranda, one morning about ten days after the dinner party at
+Hill Street, Sir Hugh, in a suit of light grey tweed, was standing
+chatting with his son-in-law, a tall, brown-bearded, soldierly-looking
+man.
+
+The autumn sun shone brightly over the rich vinelands, beyond which
+stretched what was once the German Empire.
+
+Madame Le Pontois, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking woman of thirty, was
+still at table in the _salle-à-manger_, finishing her breakfast in the
+English style with little Ninette, a pretty blue-eyed child of nine,
+whose hair was tied on the top with wide white ribbon, and who spoke
+English quite well.
+
+Her husband and her father had gone out upon the _terrasse_ to have their
+cigarettes prior to their walk up the steep hillside to the fortress.
+
+Life in that rural district possessed few amusements outside the military
+circle, though Paul Le Pontois was a civilian and lived upon the product
+of the wine-lands of his estate. There were tennis parties, "fif'
+o'clocks," croquet and bridge-playing in the various military houses
+around, but beyond that--nothing. They were too far from a big town ever
+to go there for recreation. Metz they seldom went to, and with Paris far
+off, Madame Le Pontois was quite content, just as she had been when Paul
+had been stationed in stifling Constantine, away in the interior of
+Algeria.
+
+But she never complained. Devoted to her husband and to her laughing,
+bright-eyed child, she loved the open-air life of the country, and with
+such a commodious and picturesque house, one of the best in the district,
+she thoroughly enjoyed every hour of her life. Paul possessed a private
+income of fifty thousand francs, or nearly two thousand pounds a year,
+therefore he was better off than the average run of post-war men.
+
+He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man. As he lolled against the
+railing of the _terrasse_, gay with ivy-leaf geraniums, lazily smoking
+his cigarette and laughing lightly with his father-in-law, he presented a
+typical picture of the debonair Frenchman of the boulevards--elegance
+combined with soldierly smartness.
+
+He had seen service in Tonquin, in Algeria, on the French Congo and in
+the Argonne, and now his old company garrisoned Haudiomont, one of those
+forts of enormous strength, which commanded the gate of France, and had
+never been taken by the Crown Prince's army.
+
+"No," he was laughing, speaking in good English, "you in England, my dear
+beaupère, do not yet realise the dangers of the future. Happily for you,
+perhaps, because you have the barrier of the sea. Your writers used to
+speak of your 'tight little island.' But I do not see much of that in
+London journals now. Airships and aeroplanes have altered all that."
+
+"But you in France are always on the alert?"
+
+"Certainly. We have our new guns--terrible weapons they are--at St.
+Mihiel and at Mouilly, and also in other forts in what was once German
+territory," was Paul's reply. "The Huns--who, after peace, are preparing
+for another war, have a Krupp gun for the same purpose, but at its trial
+a few weeks ago at Pferzheim it was an utter failure. A certain
+lieutenant was present at the trial, disguised as a German peasant. He
+saw it all, returned here, and made an exhaustive report to Paris."
+
+"You do not believe in this peace, and in the sincerity of the enemy,
+eh?" asked Sir Hugh, with his hands thrust deep into his trousers
+pockets.
+
+"Certainly not," was Paul's prompt reply. "I am no longer in the army,
+but it seems to me that to repair the damage done by the Kaiser's freak
+performances in the international arena, quite a number of national
+committees must be constituted under the auspices of the German
+Government. There are the Anglo-German, the Austro-German, the
+American-German and the Canadian-German committees, all to be formed in
+their respective countries for the promotion of friendship and better
+relations. But I tell you, Sir Hugh, that we in France know well that the
+imposing names at the head of these committees are but too often on the
+secret pay-rolls of the Wilhelmstrasse, and the honesty and sincerity of
+the finely-worded manifestations of Hun friendship and goodwill appearing
+above their signatures are generally nothing but mere blinds intended to
+hoodwink statesmen and public opinion. Germany has, just as she had
+before the war, her paid friends everywhere," he added, looking the
+general full in the face. "In all classes of society are to be found the
+secret agents of the Fatherland--men who are base traitors to their own
+monarch and to their own land."
+
+"Let us go in. They are waiting for us. We are not interested in
+espionage, either of us, are we?"
+
+"No," laughed Paul. "When I was in the army we heard a lot of this, but
+all that is of the past--thanks to Heaven. There are other crimes in the
+world just as bad, alas! as that of treachery to one's country."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LITTLE OLD FRENCHWOMAN
+
+
+ALTHOUGH Sir Hugh had on frequent occasions been the guest of his
+son-in-law at the pretty Château de Lérouville, he had never expressed a
+wish, until the previous evening, to enter the Fortress of Haudiomont.
+
+As a military man he knew well how zealously the secrets of all
+fortresses are guarded.
+
+When, on the previous evening, Le Pontois had declared that it would be
+an easy matter for him to be granted a view of that great stronghold
+hidden away among the hill-tops, he had remarked: "Of course, my dear
+Paul, I would not for a moment dream of putting you into any awkward
+position. Remember, I am an alien here, and a soldier also! I haven't any
+desire to see the place."
+
+"Oh, there is no question of that so far as you are concerned, Sir Hugh,"
+Paul had declared with a light laugh. "The Commandant, who, of course,
+knows you, asked me a month ago to bring you up next time you visited us.
+He wished to make your acquaintance. In view of the recent war our
+people are nowadays no longer afraid of England, you know!"
+
+So the visit had been arranged, and Sir Hugh was to take his _déjeuner_
+up at the fort.
+
+That day Blanche, with Enid, who had accompanied her stepfather, drove
+the runabout car up the valley to the little station at Dieue-sur-Meuse,
+and took train thence to Commercy, where Blanche wished to do some
+shopping.
+
+So, when the two men had left to ascend the steep hillside, where the
+great fortress lay concealed, Blanche, who had by long residence in
+France become almost a Frenchwoman, kissed little Ninette _au revoir_,
+mounted into the car, and, taking the wheel, drove Enid and Jean, the
+servant, who, as a soldier, had served Paul during the war, away along
+the winding valley.
+
+As they went along they passed a battalion of the 113th Regiment of the
+Line, heavy with their knapsacks, their red trousers dusty, returning
+from the long morning march, and singing as they went that very old
+regimental ditty which every soldier of France knows so well:
+
+    "_La Noire est fille du cannon
+     Qui se fout du qu'en dira-t-on.
+     Nous nous foutons de ses vertus,
+     Puisqu'elle a les tétons pointus.
+          Voilà pourquoi nous la chantons:
+          Vive la Noire et ses tétons!_"
+
+And as they passed the ladies the officer saluted. They were, Blanche
+explained, on their way back to the great camp at Jarny.
+
+Bugles were sounding among the hills, while ever and anon came the low
+boom of distant artillery at practice away in the direction of
+Vigneulles-les-Hattonchatel, the headquarters of the sub-division of that
+military region.
+
+It was Enid's first visit, and the activity about her surprised her.
+Besides, the officers were extremely good-looking.
+
+Presently they approached a battery of artillery on the march, with their
+rumbling guns and grey ammunition wagons, raising a cloud of dust as they
+advanced.
+
+Blanche pulled the car up at the side of the road to allow them to pass,
+and as she did so a tall, smartly-groomed major rode up to her, and,
+saluting, exclaimed in French, "Bon jour, Madame! I intended to call upon
+you this morning. My wife has heard that you have the general, your
+father, visiting you, and we wanted to know if you would all come and
+take dinner with us to-morrow night?"
+
+"I'm sure we'd be most delighted," replied Paul's wife, at the same time
+introducing Enid to Major Delagrange.
+
+"My father has gone up to the fort with my husband," Blanche added,
+bending over from the car.
+
+"Ah, then I shall meet them at noon," replied the smart officer, backing
+his bay horse. "And you ladies are going out for a run, eh? Beautiful
+morning! We've been out manoeuvring since six!"
+
+Blanche explained that they were on a shopping expedition to Commercy,
+and then, saluting, Delagrange set spurs into his horse and galloped away
+after the retreating battery.
+
+"That man's wife is one of my best friends. She speaks English very well,
+and is quite a good sort. Delagrange and Paul were in Tonquin together
+and are great friends."
+
+"I suppose you are never very dull here, with so much always going on?"
+Enid remarked. "Why anyone would believe that a war was actually in
+progress!"
+
+"This post of Eastern France never sleeps, my dear," was Madame's reply.
+"While you in England remain secure in your island, we here never know
+when trouble may again arise. Therefore, we are always preparing--and at
+the same time always prepared."
+
+"It must be most exciting," declared the girl, "to live in such
+uncertainty. Is the danger so very real, then?" she asked. "Father
+generally pooh-poohs the notion of there being any further trouble with
+Germany."
+
+"I know," was Blanche's answer. "He has been sceptical hitherto. He is
+always suspicious of the Boche!"
+
+They had driven up to the little wayside station, and, giving the car
+over to Jean with instructions to meet the five-forty train, they entered
+a first-class compartment.
+
+Between Dieue and Commercy the railway follows the course of the Meuse
+the whole way, winding up a narrow, fertile valley, the hills of which on
+the right, which once were swept by the enemy's shells and completely
+devastated, were all strongly fortified with great guns commanding the
+plain that lies between the Meuse and the Moselle.
+
+They were passing through one of the most interesting districts in all
+France--that quiet, fertile valley where stood peaceful, prosperous
+homesteads, and where the sheep were once more calmly grazing--the valley
+which for four years was so strongly contested, and where every village
+had been more or less destroyed.
+
+At the headquarters of the Sixth Army Corps of France much was known,
+much that was still alarming. It was that knowledge which urged on those
+ever active military preparations, for placing that district of France
+that had been ravaged by the Hun in the Great War in a state of complete
+fortification as a second line of defence should trouble again arise.
+
+Thoughts such as these arose in Enid's mind as she sat in silence looking
+forth upon the panorama of green hills and winding stream as they slowly
+approached the quaint town of Commercy.
+
+Arrived there, the pair lunched at the old-fashioned Hôtel de Paris,
+under the shadow of the great château, once the residence of the Dukes de
+Lorraine, and much damaged in the war, but nowadays a hive of activity as
+an infantry barracks. And afterwards they went forth to do their shopping
+in the busy little Rue de la République, not forgetting to buy a box of
+"madeleines." As shortbread is the specialty of Edinburgh, as
+butterscotch is that of Doncaster, "maids-of-honour" that of Richmond,
+and strawberry jam that of Bar-le-Duc, so are "madeleines" the special
+cakes of Commercy.
+
+The town was full of officers and soldiers. In every café officers were
+smoking cigarettes and gossiping after their _déjeuner_; while ever and
+anon bugles sounded, and there was the clang and clatter of military
+movement.
+
+As the two ladies approached the big bronze statue of Dom Calmet, the
+historian, they passed a small café. Suddenly a man idling within over a
+newspaper sprang to his feet in surprise, and next second drew back as if
+in fear of observation.
+
+It was Walter Fetherston. He had come up from Nancy that morning, and had
+since occupied the time in strolling about seeing the sights of the
+little place.
+
+His surprise at seeing Enid was very great. He knew that she was staying
+in the vicinity, but had never expected to see her so quickly.
+
+The lady who accompanied her he guessed to be her stepsister; indeed, he
+had seen a photograph of her at Hill Street. Had Enid been alone, he
+would have rushed forth to greet her; but he had no desire at the moment
+that his presence should be known to Madame Le Pontois. He was there to
+watch, and to meet Enid--but alone.
+
+So after a few moments he cautiously went forth from the café, and
+followed the two ladies at a respectful distance, until he saw them
+complete their purchases and afterwards enter the station to return home.
+
+On his return to the hotel he made many inquiries of monsieur the
+proprietor concerning the distance to Haudiomont, and learned a good deal
+about the military works there which was of the greatest interest. The
+hotel-keeper, a stout Alsatian, was a talkative person, and told Walter
+nearly all he wished to know.
+
+Since leaving Charing Cross five days before he had been ever active. On
+his arrival in Paris he had gone to the apartment of Colonel Maynard, the
+British military attaché, and spent the evening with him. Then, at one
+o'clock next morning, he had hurriedly taken his bag and left for Dijon,
+where at noon he had been met in the Café de la Rotonde by a little
+wizen-faced old Frenchwoman in seedy black, who had travelled for two
+days and nights in order to meet him.
+
+Together they had walked out on that unfrequented road beyond the Place
+Darcy, chatting confidentially as they went, the old lady speaking
+emphatically and with many gesticulations as they walked.
+
+Truth to tell, this insignificant-looking person was a woman of many
+secrets. She was a "friend" of the Sûreté Générale in Paris. She lived,
+and lived well, in a pretty apartment in Paris upon the handsome salary
+which she received regularly each quarter. But she was seldom at home.
+Like Walter, her days were spent travelling hither and thither across
+Europe.
+
+It would surprise the public if it were aware of the truth--the truth of
+how, in every country in Europe, there are secret female agents of
+police who (for a monetary consideration, of course) keep watch in great
+centres where the presence of a man would be suspected.
+
+This secret police service is distinctly apart from the detective
+service. The female police agent in all countries works independently, at
+the orders of the Director of Criminal Investigation, and is known to him
+and his immediate staff.
+
+Whatever information that wrinkled-faced old Frenchwoman in shabby black
+had imparted to Fetherston it was of an entirely confidential character.
+It, however, caused him to leave her about three o'clock, hurry to the
+Gare Porte-Neuve, and, after hastily swallowing a liqueur of brandy in
+the buffet, depart for Langres.
+
+Thence he had travelled to Nancy, where he had taken up quarters at the
+Grand Hotel in the Place Stanislas, and had there remained for two days
+in order to rest.
+
+He would not have idled those autumn days away so lazily, even though he
+so urgently required rest after that rapid travelling, had he but known
+that the person who occupied the next room to his--that middle-aged
+commercial traveller--an entirely inoffensive person who possessed a red
+beard, and who had given the name of Jules Dequanter, and his nationality
+as Belgian, native of Liège--was none other than Gustav Heureux, the man
+who had been recalled from New York by the evasive doctor of Pimlico.
+
+And further, Fetherston, notwithstanding his acuteness in observation,
+was in blissful ignorance, as he strolled back from the station at
+Commercy, up the old-world street, that a short distance behind him,
+carefully watching all his movements, was the man Joseph Blot
+himself--the man known in dingy Pimlico as Dr. Weirmarsh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IF ANYONE KNEW
+
+
+SIR HUGH ELCOMBE spent a most interesting and instructive day within the
+Fortress of Haudiomont. He really did not want to go. The visit bored
+him. The world was at peace, and there was no incentive to espionage as
+there had been in pre-war days.
+
+General Henri Molon, the commandant, greeted him cordially and himself
+showed him over a portion of the post-war defences which were kept such a
+strict secret from everyone. The general did not, however, show his
+distinguished guest everything. Such things as the new anti-aircraft gun,
+the exact disposition of the huge mines placed in the valley between
+there and Rozellier, so that at a given signal both road and railway
+tracks could be destroyed, he did not point out. There were other matters
+to which the smart, grey-haired, old French general deemed it unwise to
+refer, even though his visitor might be a high official of a friendly
+Power.
+
+Sir Hugh noticed all this and smiled inwardly. He wandered about the
+bomb-proof case-mates hewn out of the solid rock, caring nothing for the
+number and calibre of the guns, their armoured protection, or the
+chart-like diagrams upon the walls, ranges and the like.
+
+"What a glorious evening!" Paul was saying as, at sunset, they set their
+faces towards the valley beyond which lay shattered Germany. That
+peaceful land, the theatre of the recent war, lay bathed in the soft rose
+of the autumn afterglow, while the bright clearness of the sky,
+pale-green and gold, foretold a frost.
+
+"Yes, splendid!" responded his father-in-law mechanically; but he was
+thinking of something far more serious than the beauties of the western
+sky. He was thinking of the grip in which he was held by the doctor of
+Pimlico. At any moment, if he cared to collapse, he could make ten
+thousand pounds in a single day. The career of many a man has been
+blasted for ever by the utterance of cruel untruths or the repetition of
+vague suspicions. Was his son-in-law, Le Pontois, in jeopardy? He could
+not think that he was. How could the truth come out? Sir Hugh asked
+himself. It never had before--though his friend had made a million
+sterling, and there was no reason whatever why it should come out now. He
+had tested Weirmarsh thoroughly, and knew him to be a man to be trusted.
+
+As he strolled on at his son-in-law's side, chatting to him, he was full
+of anxiety as to the future. He had left England, it was true. He had
+defied the doctor. But the latter had been inexorable. If he continued in
+his defiance, then ruin must inevitably come to him.
+
+Blanche and Enid had already returned, and at dusk all four sat down to
+dinner together with little Ninette, for whom "Aunt Enid" had brought a
+new doll which had given the child the greatest delight.
+
+The meal ended, the bridge-table was set in the pretty salon adjoining,
+and several games were played until Sir Hugh, pleading fatigue, at last
+ascended to his room.
+
+Within, he locked the door and cast himself into a chair before the big
+log fire to think.
+
+That day had indeed been a strenuous one--strenuous for any man. So
+occupied had been his brain that he scarcely recollected any
+conversations with those smart debonair officers to whom Paul had
+introduced him.
+
+As he sat there he closed his eyes, and before him arose visions of
+interviews in dingy offices in London, one of them behind Soho Square.
+
+For a full hour he sat there immovable as a statue, reflecting, ever
+recalling the details of those events.
+
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet with clenched hands.
+
+"My God!" he cried, his teeth set and countenance pale. "My God! If
+anybody ever knew the truth!"
+
+He crossed to the window, drew aside the blind, and looked out upon the
+moonlit plains.
+
+Below, his daughter was still playing the piano and singing an old
+English ballad.
+
+"She's happy, ah! my dear Blanche!" the old man murmured between his
+teeth. "But if suspicion falls upon me? Ah! if it does; then it means
+ruin to them both--ruin because of a dastardly action of mine!"
+
+He returned unsteadily to his chair, and sat staring straight into the
+embers, his hands to his hot, fevered brow. More than once he
+sighed--sighed heavily, as a man when fettered and compelled to act
+against his better nature.
+
+Again he heard his daughter's voice below, now singing a gay little
+French chanson, a song of the café chantant and of the Paris boulevards.
+
+In a flash there recurred to him every incident of those dramatic
+interviews with the Mephistophelean doctor. He would at that moment have
+given his very soul to be free of that calm, clever, insinuating man who,
+while providing him with a handsome, even unlimited income, yet at the
+same time held him irrevocably in the hollow of his hand.
+
+He, a brilliant British soldier with a magnificent record, honoured by
+his sovereign, was, after all, but a tool of that obscure doctor, the man
+who had come into his life to rescue him from bankruptcy and disgrace.
+
+When he reflected he bit his lip in despair. Yet there was no way
+out--_none_! Weirmarsh had really been most generous. The cosy house in
+Hill Street, the smart little entertainments which his wife gave, the bit
+of shooting he rented up in the Highlands, were all paid for with the
+money which the doctor handed him in Treasury notes with such regularity.
+
+Yes, Weirmarsh was generous, but he was nevertheless exacting, terribly
+exacting. His will was the will of others.
+
+The blazing logs had died down to a red mass, the voice of Blanche had
+ceased. He had heard footsteps an hour ago in the corridor outside, and
+knew that the family had retired. There was not a sound. All were asleep,
+save the sentries high upon that hidden fortress. Again the old general
+sighed wearily. His grey face now wore an expression of resignation. He
+had thought it all out, and saw that to resist and refuse would only
+spell ruin for both himself and his family. He had but himself to blame
+after all. He had taken one false step, and he had been held inexorably
+to his contract.
+
+So he yawned wearily, rose, stretched himself, and then, pacing the room
+twice, at last turned up the lamp and placed it upon the small
+writing-table at the foot of the bed. Afterwards he took from his
+suit-case a quire of ruled foolscap paper and a fountain pen, and,
+seating himself, sat for some time with his head in his hands deep in
+thought. Suddenly the clock in the big hall below chimed two upon its
+peal of silvery bells. This aroused him, and, taking up his pen, he began
+to write.
+
+Ever and anon as he wrote he sat back and reflected.
+
+Hour after hour he sat there, bent to the table, his pen rapidly
+travelling over the paper. He wrote down many figures and was making
+calculations.
+
+At half-past four he put down his pen. The sum was not complete, but it
+was one which he knew would end his career and bring him into the dock of
+a criminal court, and Weirmarsh and others would stand beside him.
+
+All this he had done in entire ignorance of one startling fact--namely,
+that outside his window for the past hour a dark figure had been
+standing in an insecure position upon the lead guttering of the wing of
+the château which ran out at right angles, leaning forward and peering in
+between the blind and the window-frame, watching with interest all that
+had been in progress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CONCERNS THE PAST
+
+
+ONE evening, a few days after Sir Hugh had paid another visit to
+Haudiomont, he was smoking with Paul prior to retiring to bed when the
+conversation drifted upon money matters--some investment he had made in
+England in his wife's name.
+
+Paul had allowed his father-in-law to handle some of his money in
+England, for Sir Hugh was very friendly with a man named Hewett in the
+City, who had on several occasions put him on good things.
+
+Indeed, just before Sir Hugh had left London he had had a wire from Paul
+to sell some shares at a big profit, and he had brought over the proceeds
+in Treasury notes, quite a respectable sum. There had been a matter of
+concealing certain payments, Sir Hugh explained, and that was why he had
+brought over the money instead of a cheque.
+
+As they were chatting Sir Hugh, referring to the transaction, said:
+
+"Hewett suggested that I should have it in notes--four five-hundred Bank
+of England ones and the rest in Treasury notes."
+
+"I sent them to the Crédit Lyonnais a few days ago," replied his
+son-in-law. "Really, Sir Hugh, you did a most excellent bit of business
+with Hewett. I hope you profited yourself."
+
+"Yes, a little bit," laughed the old general. "Can't complain, you know.
+I'm glad you've sent the notes to the bank. It was a big sum to keep in
+the house here."
+
+"Yes, I see only to-day they've credited me with them," was his reply. "I
+hope you can induce Hewett to do a bit more for us. Those aeroplane
+shares are still going up, I see by the London papers."
+
+"And they'll continue to do so, my dear Paul," was the reply. "But those
+Bolivian four per cents. of yours I'd sell if I were you. They'll never
+be higher."
+
+"You don't think so?"
+
+"Hewett warned me. He told me to tell you. Of course, you're richer than
+I am, and can afford to keep them. Only I warn you."
+
+"Very well," replied the younger man, "when you get back, sell them, will
+you?"
+
+And Sir Hugh promised that he would give instructions to that effect.
+
+"Really, my dear beau-père," Paul said, "you've been an awfully good
+friend to me. Since I left the army I've made quite a big sum out of my
+speculations in London."
+
+"And mostly paid with English notes, eh?" laughed the elder man.
+
+"Yes. Just let me see." And, taking a piece of paper, he sat down at the
+writing-table and made some quick calculations of various sums. Upon one
+side he placed the money he had invested, and on the other the profits,
+at last striking a balance at the end. Then he told the general the
+figure.
+
+"Quite good," declared Sir Hugh. "I'm only too glad, my dear Paul, to be
+of any assistance to you. I fear you are vegetating here. But as long as
+your wife doesn't mind it, what matters?"
+
+"Blanche loves this country--which is fortunate, seeing that I have this
+big place to attend to." And as he said this he rose, screwed up the
+sheet of thin note-paper, and tossed it into the waste-paper basket.
+
+The pair separated presently, and Sir Hugh went to his room. He was eager
+and anxious to get away and return to London, but there was a difficulty.
+Enid, who had lately taken up amateur theatricals, had accepted an
+invitation to play in a comedy to be given at General Molon's house in a
+week's time in aid of the Croix Rouge. Therefore he was compelled to
+remain on her account.
+
+On the following afternoon Blanche drove him in her car through the
+beautiful Bois de Hermeville, glorious in its autumn gold, down to the
+quaint old village of Warcq, to take "fif o'clock" at the château with
+the Countess de Pierrepont, Paul's widowed aunt.
+
+Enid had pleaded a headache, but as soon as the car had driven away she
+roused herself, and, ascending to her room, put on strong country boots
+and a leather-hemmed golf skirt, and, taking a stick, set forth down the
+high road lined with poplars in the direction of Mars-la-Tour.
+
+About a mile from Lérouville she came to the cross-roads, the one to the
+south leading over the hills to Vigneulles, while the one to the north
+joined the highway to Longuyon. For a moment she paused, then turning
+into the latter road, which at that point was little more than a byway,
+hurried on until she came to the fringe of a wood, where, upon her
+approach, a man in dark grey tweeds came forth to meet her with swinging
+gait.
+
+It was Walter Fetherston.
+
+He strode quickly in her direction, and when they met he held her small
+hand in his and for a moment gazed into her dark eyes without uttering a
+word.
+
+"At last!" he cried. "I was afraid that you had not received my
+message--that it might have been intercepted."
+
+"I got it early this morning," was her reply, her cheeks flushing with
+pleasure; "but I was unable to get away before my father and Blanche went
+out. They pressed me to go with them, so I had to plead a headache."
+
+"I am so glad we've met," Fetherston said. "I have been here in the
+vicinity for days, yet I feared to come near you lest your father should
+recognise me."
+
+"But why are you here?" she inquired, strolling slowly at his side. "I
+thought you were in London."
+
+"I'm seldom in London," he responded. "Nowadays I am constantly on the
+move."
+
+"Travelling in search of fresh material for your books, I suppose? I read
+in a paper the other day that you never describe a place in your stories
+without first visiting it. If so, you must travel a great deal," the girl
+remarked.
+
+"I do," he answered briefly. "And very often I travel quickly."
+
+"But why are you here?"
+
+"For several reasons--the chief being to see you, Enid."
+
+For a moment the girl did not reply. This man's movements so often
+mystified her. He seemed ubiquitous. In one single fortnight he had sent
+her letters from Paris, Stockholm, Hamburg, Vienna and Constanza. His
+huge circle of friends was unequalled. In almost every city on the
+Continent he knew somebody, and he was a perfect encyclopædia of travel.
+His strange reticence, however, always increased the mystery surrounding
+him. Those vague whispers concerning him had reached her ears, and she
+often wondered whether half she heard concerning him was true.
+
+If a man prefers not to speak of himself or of his doings, his enemies
+will soon invent some tale of their own. And thus it was in Walter's
+case. Men had uttered foul calumnies concerning him merely because they
+believed him to be eccentric and unsociable.
+
+But Enid Orlebar, though she somehow held him in suspicion, nevertheless
+liked him. In certain moods he possessed that dash and devil-may-care air
+which pleases most women, providing the man is a cosmopolitan.
+
+He was ever courteous, ever solicitous for her welfare.
+
+She had known he loved her ever since they had first met. Indeed, has he
+not told her so?
+
+As they walked together down that grass-grown byway through the wood,
+where the brown leaves were floating down with every gust, she glanced
+into his pale, dark, serious face and wondered. In her nostrils was the
+autumn perfume of the woods, and as they strode forward in silence a
+rabbit scuttled from their path.
+
+"You are, no doubt, surprised that I am here," he commenced at last. "But
+it is in your interests, Enid."
+
+"In my interests?" she echoed. "Why?"
+
+"Regarding the secret relations between your stepfather and Doctor
+Weirmarsh," he answered.
+
+"That same question we've discussed before," she said. "The doctor is
+attending to his practice in Pimlico; he does not concern us here."
+
+"I fear that he does," was Fetherston's quiet response. "That man holds
+your stepfather's future in his hand."
+
+"How--how can he?"
+
+"By the same force by which he holds that indescribable influence over
+you."
+
+"You believe, then, that he possesses some occult power?"
+
+"Not at all. His power is the power which every evil man possesses. And
+as far as my observation goes, I can detect that Sir Hugh has fallen
+into some trap which has been cunningly prepared for him."
+
+Enid gasped and her countenance blanched.
+
+"You believe, then, that those consultations I have had with the doctor
+are at his own instigation?"
+
+"Most certainly. Sir Hugh hates Weirmarsh, but, fearing exposure, he must
+obey the fellow's will."
+
+"But cannot you discover the truth?" asked the girl eagerly. "Cannot we
+free my stepfather? He's such a dear old fellow, and is always so good
+and kind to my mother and myself."
+
+"That is exactly my object in asking you to meet me here, Enid," said the
+novelist, his countenance still thoughtful and serious.
+
+"How can I assist?" she asked quickly. "Only explain, and I will act upon
+any suggestion you may make."
+
+"You can assist by giving me answers to certain questions," was his slow
+reply. The inquiry was delicate and difficult to pursue without arousing
+the girl's suspicions as to the exact situation and the hideous scandal
+in progress.
+
+"What do you wish to know?" she asked in some surprise, for she saw by
+his countenance that he was deeply in earnest.
+
+"Well," he said, with some little hesitation, glancing at her pale,
+handsome face as he walked by her side, "I fear you may think me too
+inquisitive--that the questions I'm going to ask are out of sheer
+curiosity."
+
+"I shall not if by replying I can assist my stepfather to escape from
+that man's thraldom."
+
+He was silent for a moment; then he said slowly: "I think Sir Hugh was in
+command of a big training camp in Norfolk early in the war, was he not?"
+
+"Yes. I went with him, and we stayed for about three months at the King's
+Head at Beccles."
+
+"And during the time you were at the King's Head, did the doctor ever
+visit Sir Hugh?"
+
+"Yes; the doctor stayed several times at the Royal at Lowestoft. We both
+motored over on several occasions and dined with him. Doctor Weirmarsh
+was not well, so he had gone to the east coast for a change."
+
+"And he also came over to Beccles to see your stepfather?"
+
+"Yes; twice, or perhaps three times. One evening after dinner, I
+remember, they left the hotel and went for a long walk together. I
+recollect it well, for I had been out all day and had a bad headache.
+Therefore, the doctor went along to the chemist's on his way out and
+ordered me a draught."
+
+"You took it?"
+
+"Yes; and I went to sleep almost immediately, and did not wake up till
+very late next morning," she replied.
+
+"You recollect, too, a certain man named Bellairs?"
+
+"Ah, yes!" she sighed. "How very sad it was! Poor Captain Bellairs was a
+great favourite of the general, and served on his staff."
+
+"He was with him in the Boer War, was he not?"
+
+"Yes. But how do you know all this?" asked the girl, looking curiously at
+her questioner and turning slightly paler.
+
+"Well," he replied evasively, "I--I've been told so, and wished to know
+whether it was a fact. You and he were friends, eh?" he asked after a
+pause.
+
+For a moment the girl did not reply. A flood of sad memories swept
+through her mind at the mention of Harry Bellairs.
+
+"Yes," she replied, "we were great friends. He took me to concerts and
+matinées in town sometimes. Sir Hugh always said he was a man bound to
+make his mark. He had earned his D.S.O. with French at Mons and was twice
+mentioned in dispatches."
+
+"And you, Enid," he said, still speaking very slowly, his dark eyes fixed
+upon hers, "you would probably have consented to become Mrs. Bellairs had
+he lived to ask you? Tell me the truth."
+
+Her eyes were cast down; he saw in them the light of unshed tears.
+
+"Pardon me for referring to such a painful subject," he hastened to say,
+"but it is imperative."
+
+"I thought that you were--were unaware of the sad affair," she faltered.
+
+"So I was until quite recently," he replied. "I know how deeply it must
+pain you to speak of it, but will you please explain to me the actual
+facts? I know that you are better acquainted with them than anyone else."
+
+"The facts of poor Harry's death," she repeated hoarsely, as though
+speaking to herself. "Why recall them? Oh! why recall them?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+REVEALS A CURIOUS PROBLEM
+
+
+THE countenance of Enid Orlebar had changed; her cheeks were deathly
+white, and her face was sufficient index to a mind overwhelmed with grief
+and regret.
+
+"I asked you to explain, because I fear that my information may be
+faulty. Captain Bellairs died--_died suddenly_, did he not?"
+
+"Yes. It was a great blow to my stepfather," the girl said; "and--and by
+his unfortunate death I lost one of my best friends."
+
+"Tell me exactly how it occurred. I believe the tragic event happened on
+September the second, did it not?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "Mother and I had been staying at the White Hart at
+Salisbury while Sir Hugh had been inspecting some troops. Captain
+Bellairs had been with us, as usual, but had been sent up to London by my
+stepfather. That same day I returned to London alone on my way to a visit
+up in Yorkshire, and arrived at Hill Street about seven o'clock. At a
+quarter to ten at night I received an urgent note from Captain Bellairs,
+brought by a messenger, and written in a shaky hand, asking me to call at
+once at his chambers in Half Moon Street. He explained that he had been
+taken suddenly ill, and that he wished to see me upon a most important
+and private matter. He asked me to go to him, as it was most urgent.
+Mother and I had been to his chambers to tea several times before;
+therefore, realising the urgency of his message, I found a taxi and went
+at once to him."
+
+She broke off short, and with difficulty swallowed the lump which arose
+in her throat.
+
+"Well?" asked Fetherston in a low, sympathetic voice.
+
+"When I arrived," she said, "I--I found him lying dead! He had expired
+just as I ascended the stairs."
+
+"Then you learned nothing, eh?"
+
+"Nothing," she said in a low voice. "I have ever since wondered what
+could have been the private matter upon which he so particularly desired
+to see me. He felt death creeping upon him, or--or else he knew himself
+to be a doomed man--or he would never have penned me that note."
+
+"The letter in question was not mentioned at the inquest?"
+
+"No. My stepfather urged me to regard the affair as a strict secret. He
+feared a scandal because I had gone to Harry's rooms."
+
+"You have no idea, then, what was the nature of the communication which
+the captain wished to make to you?" asked the novelist.
+
+"Not the slightest," replied the girl, yet with some hesitation. "It is
+all a mystery--a mystery which has ever haunted me--a mystery which
+haunts me now!"
+
+They had halted, and were standing together beneath a great oak, already
+partially bare of leaves. He looked into her beautiful face, sweet and
+full of purity as a child's. Then, in a low, intense voice, he said:
+"Cannot you be quite frank with me, Enid--cannot you give me more minute
+details of the sad affair? Captain Bellairs was in his usual health that
+day when he left you at Salisbury, was he not?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I drove him to the station in our car."
+
+"Have you any idea why your stepfather sent him up to London?"
+
+"Not exactly, except that at breakfast he said to my mother that he must
+send Bellairs up to London. That was all."
+
+"And at his rooms, whom did you find?"
+
+"Barker, his man," she replied. "The story he told me was a curious one,
+namely, that his master had arrived from Salisbury at two o'clock, and
+at half-past two had sent him out upon a message down to Richmond. On his
+return, a little after five, he found his master absent, but the place
+smelt strongly of perfume, which seemed to point to the fact that the
+captain had had a lady visitor."
+
+"He had no actual proof of that?" exclaimed Fetherston, interrupting.
+
+"I think not. He surmised it from the fact that his master disliked
+scent, even in his toilet soap. Again, upon the table in the hall
+Barker's quick eye noticed a small white feather; this he showed me, and
+it was evidently from a feather boa. In the fire-grate a letter had been
+burnt. These two facts had aroused the man-servant's curiosity."
+
+"What time did the captain return?"
+
+"Almost immediately. He changed into his dinner jacket, and went forth
+again, saying that he intended to dine at the Naval and Military Club,
+and return to his rooms in time to change and catch the eleven-fifteen
+train from Waterloo for Salisbury that same night. He even told Barker
+which suit of clothes to prepare. It seems, however, that he came in
+about a quarter-past nine, and sent Barker on a message to Waterloo
+Station. On the man's return he found his master fainting in his
+arm-chair. He called Barker to get him a glass of water--his throat
+seemed on fire, he said. Then, obtaining pen and paper, he wrote that
+hurried message to me. Barker stated that three minutes after addressing
+the envelope he fell into a state of coma, the only word he uttered being
+my name." And she pressed her lips together.
+
+"It is evident, then, that he earnestly desired to speak to you--to tell
+you something," her companion remarked.
+
+"Yes," she went on quickly. "I found him lying back in his big arm-chair,
+quite dead. Barker had feared to leave his side, and summoned the doctor
+and messenger-boy by telephone. When I entered, however, the doctor had
+not arrived."
+
+"It was a thousand pities that you were too late. He wished to make some
+important statement to you, without a doubt."
+
+"I rushed to him at once, but, alas! was just too late."
+
+"He carried that secret, whatever it was, with him to the grave,"
+Fetherston said reflectively. "I wonder what it could have been?"
+
+"Ah!" sighed the girl, her face yet paler. "I wonder--I constantly
+wonder."
+
+"The doctors who made the post-mortem could not account for the death, I
+believe. I have read the account of the inquest."
+
+"Ah! then you know what transpired there," the girl said quickly. "I was
+in court, but was not called as a witness. There was no reason why I
+should be asked to make any statement, for Barker, in his evidence, made
+no mention of the letter which the dead man had sent me. I sat and heard
+the doctors--both of whom expressed themselves puzzled. The coroner put
+it to them whether they suspected foul play, but the reply they gave was
+a distinctly negative one."
+
+"The poor fellow's death was a mystery," her companion said. "I noticed
+that an open verdict was returned."
+
+"Yes. The most searching inquiry was made, although the true facts
+regarding it were never made public. Sir Hugh explained one day at the
+breakfast-table that in addition to the two doctors who made the
+examination of the body, Professors Dale and Boyd, the analysts of the
+Home Office, also made extensive experiments, but could detect no symptom
+of poisoning."
+
+"Where he had dined that night has never been discovered, eh?"
+
+"Never. He certainly did not dine at the club."
+
+"He may have dined with his lady visitor," Fetherston remarked, his eyes
+fixed upon her.
+
+She hesitated for a moment, as though unwilling to admit that Bellairs
+should have entertained the unknown lady in secret.
+
+"He may have done so, of course," she said with some reluctance.
+
+"Was there any other fact beside the feather which would lead one to
+suppose that a lady had visited him?"
+
+"Only the perfume. Barker declared that it was a sweet scent, such as he
+had never smelt before. The whole place 'reeked with it,' as he put it."
+
+"No one saw the lady call at his chambers?"
+
+"Nobody came forward with any statement," replied the girl. "I myself
+made every inquiry possible, but, as you know, a woman is much
+handicapped in such a matter. Barker, who was devoted to his master,
+spared no effort, but he has discovered nothing."
+
+"For aught we know to the contrary, Captain Bellairs' death may have been
+due to perfectly natural causes," Fetherston remarked.
+
+"It may have been, but the fact of his mysterious lady visitor, and that
+he dined at some unknown place on that evening, aroused my suspicions.
+Yet there was no evidence whatever either of poison or of foul play."
+
+Fetherston raised his eyes and shot a covert glance at her--a glance of
+distinct suspicion. His keen, calm gaze was upon her, noting the unusual
+expression upon her countenance, and how her gloved fingers had clenched
+themselves slightly as she had spoken. Was she telling him all that she
+knew concerning the extraordinary affair? That was the question which had
+arisen at that moment within his mind.
+
+He had perused carefully the cold, formal reports which had appeared in
+the newspapers concerning the "sudden death" of Captain Henry Bellairs,
+and had read suspicion between the lines, as only one versed in mysteries
+of crime could read. Were not such mysteries the basis of his profession?
+He had been first attracted by it as a possible plot for a novel, but, on
+investigation, had discovered, to his surprise, that Bellairs had been
+Sir Hugh's trusted secretary and the friend of Enid Orlebar.
+
+The poor fellow had died in a manner both sudden and mysterious, as a
+good many persons die annually. To the outside world there was no
+suspicion whatever of foul play.
+
+Yet, being in possession of certain secret knowledge, Fetherston had
+formed a theory--one that was amazing and startling--a theory which he
+had, after long deliberation, made up his mind to investigate and prove.
+
+This girl had loved Harry Bellairs before he had met her, and because of
+it the poor fellow had fallen beneath the hand of a secret assassin.
+
+She stood there in ignorance that he had already seen and closely
+questioned Barker in London, and that the man had made an admission, an
+amazing statement--namely, that the subtle Eastern perfume upon Enid
+Orlebar, when she arrived so hurriedly and excitedly at Half Moon Street,
+was the same which had greeted his nostrils when he entered his master's
+chambers on his return from that errand upon which he had been sent.
+
+Enid Orlebar had been in the captain's rooms during his absence!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MALTWOOD
+
+
+NOW Enid Orlebar's story contained several discrepancies.
+
+She had declared that she arrived at Hill Street about seven o'clock on
+that fateful second of September. That might be true, but might she not
+have arrived after her secret visit to Half Moon Street?
+
+In suppressing the fact that she had been there at all she had acted with
+considerable foresight. Naturally, her parents were not desirous of the
+fact being stated publicly that she had gone alone to a bachelor's rooms,
+and they had, therefore, assisted her to preserve the secret--known only
+to Barker and to the doctor. Yet her evidence had been regarded as
+immaterial, hence she had not been called as witness.
+
+Only Barker had suspected. That unusual perfume about her had puzzled
+him. Yet how could he make any direct charge against the general's
+stepdaughter, who had always been most generous to him in the matter of
+tips? Besides, did not the captain write a note to her with his last
+dying effort?
+
+What proof was there that the pair had not dined together? Fetherston had
+already made diligent inquiries at Hill Street, and had discovered from
+the butler that Miss Enid, on her arrival home from Salisbury, had
+changed her gown and gone out in a taxi at a quarter to eight. She had
+dined out--but where was unknown.
+
+It was quite true that she had come in before ten o'clock, and soon
+afterwards had received a note by boy-messenger.
+
+In view of these facts it appeared quite certain to Fetherston that Enid
+and Harry Bellairs had taken dinner _tête-à-tête_ at some quiet
+restaurant. She was a merry, high-spirited girl to whom such an adventure
+would certainly appeal.
+
+After dinner they had parted, and he had driven to his rooms. Then,
+feeling his strength failing, he had hastily summoned her to his side.
+
+Why?
+
+If he had suspected her of being the author of any foul play he most
+certainly would not have begged her to come to him in his last moments.
+No. The enigma grew more and more inscrutable.
+
+And yet there was a motive for poor Bellairs' tragic end--one which, in
+the light of his own knowledge, seemed only too apparent.
+
+He strolled on beside the fair-faced girl, deep in wonder. Recollections
+of that devil-may-care cavalry officer who had been such a good friend
+clouded her brow, and as she walked her eyes were cast upon the ground in
+silent reflection.
+
+She was wondering whether Walter Fetherston had guessed the truth, that
+she had loved that man who had met with such an untimely end.
+
+Her companion, on his part, was equally puzzled. That story of Barker's
+finding a white feather was a curious one. It was true that the man had
+found a white feather--but he had also learnt that when Enid Orlebar had
+arrived at Hill Street she had been wearing a white feather boa!
+
+"It is not curious, after all," he said reflectively, "that the police
+should have dismissed the affair as a death from natural causes. At the
+inquest no suspicion whatever was aroused. I wonder why Barker, in his
+evidence, made no mention of that perfume--or of the discovery of the
+feather?"
+
+And as he uttered those words he fixed his grave eyes upon her, watching
+her countenance intently.
+
+"Well," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "if he had it would
+have proved nothing, would it? If the captain had received a lady visitor
+in secret that afternoon it might have had no connection with the
+circumstances of his death six hours later."
+
+"And yet it might," Fetherston remarked. "What more natural than that the
+lady who visited him clandestinely--for Barker had, no doubt, been sent
+out of the way on purpose that he should not see her--should have dined
+with him later?"
+
+The girl moved uneasily, tapping the ground with her stick.
+
+"Then you suspect some woman of having had a hand in his death?" she
+exclaimed in a changed voice, her eyes again cast upon the ground.
+
+"I do not know sufficient of the details to entertain any distinct
+suspicion," he replied. "I regard the affair as a mystery, and in
+mysteries I am always interested."
+
+"You intend to bring the facts into a book," she remarked. "Ah! I see."
+
+"Perhaps--if I obtain a solution of the enigma--for enigma it certainly
+is."
+
+"You agree with me, then, that poor Harry was the victim of foul play?"
+she asked in a low, intense voice, eagerly watching his face the while.
+
+"Yes," he answered very slowly, "and, further, that the woman who visited
+him that afternoon was an accessory. Harry Bellairs was _murdered_!"
+
+Her cheeks blanched and she went pale to the lips. He saw the sudden
+change in her, and realised what a supreme effort she was making to
+betray no undue alarm. But the effect of his cold, calm words had been
+almost electrical. He watched her countenance slowly flushing, but
+pretended not to notice her confusion. And so he walked on at her side,
+full of wonderment.
+
+How much did she know? Why, indeed, had Harry Bellairs fallen the victim
+of a secret assassin?
+
+No trained officer of the Criminal Investigation Department was more
+ingenious in making secret inquiries, more clever in his subterfuges or
+in disguising his real objects, than Walter Fetherston. Possessed of
+ample means, and member of that secret club called "Our Society," which
+meets at intervals and is the club of criminologists, and pursuing the
+detection of crime as a pastime, he had on many occasions placed Scotland
+Yard and the Sûreté in Paris in possession of information which had
+amazed them and which had earned for him the high esteem of those in
+office as Ministers of the Interior in Paris, Rome and in London.
+
+The case of Captain Henry Bellairs he had taken up merely because he
+recognised in it some unusual circumstances, and without sparing effort
+he had investigated it rapidly and secretly from every standpoint. He had
+satisfied himself. Certain knowledge that he had was not possessed by any
+officer at Scotland Yard, and only by reason of that secret knowledge had
+he been able to arrive at the definite conclusion that there had been a
+strong motive for the captain's death, and that if he had been secretly
+poisoned--which seemed to be the case, in spite of the analysts'
+evidence--then he had been poisoned by the velvet hand of a woman.
+
+Walter Fetherston was ever regretting his inability to put any of the
+confidential information he acquired into his books.
+
+"If I could only write half the truth of what I know, people would
+declare it to be fiction," he had often assured intimate friends. And
+those friends had pondered and wondered to what he referred.
+
+He wrote of crime, weaving those wonderful romances which held breathless
+his readers in every corner of the globe, and describing criminals and
+life's undercurrents with such fidelity that even criminals themselves
+had expressed wonder as to how and whence he obtained his accurate
+information.
+
+But the public were in ignorance that, in his character of Mr. Maltwood,
+he pursued a strange profession, one which was fraught with more romance
+and excitement than any other calling a man could adopt. In comparison
+with his life that of a detective was really a tame one; while such
+success had he obtained that in a certain important official circle in
+London he was held in highest esteem and frequently called into
+consultation.
+
+Walter Fetherston, the quiet, reticent novelist, was entirely different
+from the gay, devil-may-care Maltwood, the accomplished linguist,
+thorough-going cosmopolitan and constant traveller, the easy-going man of
+means known in society in every European capital.
+
+Because of this his few friends who were aware of his dual personality
+were puzzled.
+
+At the girl's side he strode on along the road which still led through
+the wood, the road over which every evening rumbled the old
+post-diligence on its way through the quaint old town of Etain to the
+railway at Spincourt. On that very road a battalion of Uhlans had been
+annihilated almost to a man at the outbreak of the Great War.
+
+Every mètre they trod was historic ground--ground which had been
+contested against the legions of the Crown Prince's army.
+
+For some time neither spoke. At last Walter asked: "Your stepfather has
+been up to the fortress with Monsieur Le Pontois, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, once or twice," was her reply, eager to change the subject. "Of
+course, to a soldier, fortifications and suchlike things are always of
+interest."
+
+"I saw them walking up to the fortress together the other day," he
+remarked with a casual air.
+
+"What?" she asked quickly. "Have you been here before?"
+
+"Once," he laughed. "I came over from Commercy and spent the day in your
+vicinity in the hope that I might perhaps meet you alone accidentally."
+
+He did not tell her that he had watched her shopping with Madame Le
+Pontois, or that he had spent several days at a small _auberge_ at the
+tiny village of Marcheville-en-Woevre, only two miles distant.
+
+"I had no idea of that," she replied, her face flushing slightly.
+
+"When do you return to London?" he asked.
+
+"I hardly know. Certainly not before next Thursday, as we have amateur
+theatricals at General Molon's. I am playing the part of Miss Smith, the
+English governess, in Darbour's comedy, _Le Pyrée_."
+
+"And then you return to London, eh?"
+
+"I hardly know. Yesterday I had a letter from Mrs. Caldwell saying that
+she contemplated going to Italy this winter; therefore, perhaps mother
+will let me go. I wrote to her this morning. The proposal is to spend
+part of the time in Italy, and then cross from Naples to Egypt. I love
+Egypt. We were there some winters ago, at the Winter Palace at Luxor."
+
+"Your father and mother will remain at home, I suppose?"
+
+"Mother hates travelling nowadays. She says she had quite sufficient of
+living abroad in my father's lifetime. We were practically exiled for
+years, you know. I was born in Lima, and I never saw England till I was
+eleven. The Diplomatic Service takes one so out of touch with home."
+
+"But Sir Hugh will go abroad this winter, eh?"
+
+"I have not heard him speak of it. I believe he's too busy at the War
+Office just now. They have some more 'reforms' in progress, I hear," and
+she smiled.
+
+He was looking straight into the girl's handsome face, his heart torn
+between love and suspicion.
+
+Those days at Biarritz recurred to him; how he would watch for her and go
+and meet her down towards Grande Plage, till, by degrees, it had become
+to both the most natural thing in the world. On those rare evenings when
+they did not meet the girl was conscious of a little feeling of
+disappointment which she was too shy to own, even to her own heart.
+
+Walter Fetherston owned it freely enough. In that bright springtime the
+day was incomplete unless he saw her; and he knew that, even now, every
+hour was making her grow dearer to him. From that chance meeting at the
+hotel their friendship had grown, and had ripened into something warmer,
+dearer--a secret held closely in each heart, but none the less sweet for
+that.
+
+After leaving Biarritz the man had torn himself from her--why, he hardly
+knew. Only he felt upon him some fatal fascination, strong and
+irresistible. It was the first time in his life that he had been what is
+vulgarly known as "over head and ears in love."
+
+He returned to England, and then, a month later, his investigation of
+Henry Bellairs' death, for the purpose of obtaining a plot for a new
+novel he contemplated, revealed to him a staggering and astounding truth.
+
+Even then, in face of that secret knowledge he had gained, he had been
+powerless, and he had gone up to Monifieth deliberately again to meet
+her--to be drawn again beneath the spell of those wonderful eyes.
+
+There was love in the man's heart. But sometimes it embittered him. It
+did at that moment, as they strolled still onward over that carpet of
+moss and fallen leaves. He had loved her, as he believed her to be a
+woman with heart and soul too pure to harbour an evil thought. But her
+story of the death of poor Bellairs, the man who had loved her, had
+convinced him that his suspicions were, alas! only too well grounded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN
+
+
+A SILENCE had fallen between the pair. Again Walter Fetherston glanced at
+her.
+
+She was an outdoor girl to the tips of her fingers. At shooting parties
+she went out with the guns, not merely contenting herself, as did the
+other girls, to motor down with the luncheon for the men. She never got
+dishevelled or untidy, and her trim tweed skirt and serviceable boots
+never made her look unwomanly. She was her dainty self out in the country
+with the men, just as in the pretty drawing-room at Hill Street, while
+her merry laugh evoked more smiles and witticisms than the more studied
+attempts at wit of the others.
+
+At that moment she had noticed the change in the man she had so gradually
+grown to love, and her heart was beating in wild tumult.
+
+He, on his part, was hating himself for so foolishly allowing her to
+steal into his heart. She had lied to him there, just as she had lied to
+him at Biarritz. And yet he had been a fool, and had allowed himself to
+be drawn back to her side.
+
+Why? he asked himself. Why? There was a reason, a strong reason. He loved
+her, and the reason he was at that moment at her side was to save her, to
+rescue her from a fate which he knew must sooner or later befall her.
+
+She made some remark, but he only replied mechanically. His countenance
+had, she saw, changed and become paler. His lips were pressed together,
+and, taking a cigar from his case, he asked her permission to smoke, and
+viciously bit off its end. Something had annoyed him. Was it possible
+that he held any suspicion of the ghastly truth?
+
+The real fact, however, was that he was calmly and deliberately
+contemplating tearing her from his heart for ever as an object of
+suspicion and worthless. He, who had never yet fallen beneath a woman's
+thraldom, resolved not to enter blindly the net she had spread for him.
+His thoughts were hard and bitter--the thoughts of a man who had loved
+passionately, but whose idol had suddenly been shattered.
+
+Again she spoke, remarking that it was time she turned back, for already
+they were at the opposite end of the wood, with a beautiful panorama of
+valley and winding river spread before them. But he only answered a
+trifle abruptly, and, acting upon her suggestion, turned and retraced
+his steps in silence.
+
+At last, as though suddenly rousing himself, he turned to her, and said
+in an apologetic tone: "I fear, Enid, I've treated you rather--well,
+rather uncouthly. I apologise. I was thinking of something else--a
+somewhat serious matter."
+
+"I knew you were," she laughed, affecting to treat the matter lightly.
+"You scarcely replied to me."
+
+"Forgive me, won't you?" he asked, smiling again in his old way.
+
+"Of course," she said. "But--but is the matter very serious? Does it
+concern yourself?"
+
+"Yes, Enid, it does," he answered.
+
+And still she walked on, her eyes cast down, much puzzled.
+
+Two woodmen passed on their way home from work, and raised their caps
+politely, while Walter acknowledged their salutation in French.
+
+"I shall probably leave here to-morrow," her companion said as they
+walked back to the high road. "I am not yet certain until I receive my
+letters to-night."
+
+"You are now going back to your village inn, I suppose," she laughed
+cheerfully.
+
+"Yes," he said. "My host is an interesting old countryman, and has told
+me quite a lot about the war. He was wounded when the Germans shelled
+Verdun. He has told me that he knows Paul Le Pontois, for his son Jean is
+his servant."
+
+"Why, Mr. Fetherston, you are really ubiquitous," cried the girl in
+confusion. "Why have you been watching us like this?"
+
+"Merely because I wished to see you, as I've already explained," was his
+reply. "I wanted to ask you those questions which I have put to you this
+afternoon."
+
+"About poor Harry?" she remarked in a hoarse, low voice. "But you begged
+me to reply to you in my own interests--why?"
+
+"Because I wished to know the real truth."
+
+"Well, I've told you the truth," she said with just the slightest tinge
+of defiance in her voice.
+
+For a moment he did not speak. He had halted; his grave eyes were fixed
+upon her.
+
+"Have you told me the whole truth--all that you know, Enid?" he asked
+very quietly a moment later.
+
+"What more should I know?" she protested after a second's hesitation.
+
+"How can I tell?" he asked quickly. "I only ask you to place me in
+possession of all the facts within your knowledge."
+
+"Why do you ask me this?" she cried. "Is it out of mere idle curiosity?
+Or is it because--because, knowing that Harry loved me, you wish to cause
+me pain by recalling those tragic circumstances?"
+
+"Neither," was his quiet answer in a low, sympathetic voice. "I am your
+friend, Enid. And if you will allow me, I will assist you."
+
+She held her breath. He spoke as though he were aware of the truth--that
+she had not told him everything--that she was still concealing certain
+important and material facts.
+
+"I--I know you are my friend," she faltered. "I have felt that all along,
+ever since our first meeting. But--but forgive me, I beg of you. The very
+remembrance of that night of the second of September is, to me,
+horrible--horrible."
+
+To him those very words of hers increased his suspicion. Was it any
+wonder that she was horrified when she recalled that gruesome episode of
+the death of a brave and honest man? Her personal fascination had
+overwhelmed Harry Bellairs, just as it had overwhelmed himself. The devil
+sends some women into the hearts of upright men to rend and destroy them.
+
+Upon her cheeks had spread a deadly pallor, while in the centre of each
+showed a scarlet spot. Her heart was torn by a thousand emotions, for the
+image of that man whom she had seen lying cold and dead in his room had
+arisen before her vision, blotting out everything. The hideous
+remembrance of that fateful night took possession of her soul.
+
+In silence they walked on for a considerable time. Now and then a rabbit
+scuttled from their path into the undergrowth or the alarm-cry of a bird
+broke the evening stillness, until at last they came forth into the wide
+highway, their faces set towards the autumn sunset.
+
+Suddenly the man spoke.
+
+"Have you heard of the doctor since you left London?" he asked.
+
+She held her breath--only for a single second. But her hesitation was
+sufficient to show him that she intended to conceal the truth.
+
+"No," was her reply. "He has not written to me."
+
+Again he was silent. There was a reason--a strong reason--why Weirmarsh
+should not write to her, he knew. But he had, by his question, afforded
+her an opportunity of telling him the truth--the truth that the
+mysterious George Weirmarsh was there, in that vicinity. That Enid was
+aware of that fact was certain to him.
+
+"I wish," she said at last, "I wish you would call at the château and
+allow me to introduce you to Paul and his wife. They would be charmed to
+make your acquaintance."
+
+"Thank you," he replied a trifle coldly; "I'd rather not know them--in
+the present circumstances."
+
+"Why, how strange you are!" the girl exclaimed, looking up into his face,
+so dark and serious. "I don't see why you should entertain such an
+aversion to being introduced to Paul. He's quite a dear fellow."
+
+"Perhaps it is a foolish reluctance on my part," he laughed uneasily.
+"But, somehow, I feel that to remain away from the château is best.
+Remember, your stepfather and your mother are in ignorance of--well, of
+the fact that we regard each other as--as more than close friends. For
+the present it is surely best that I should not visit your relations.
+Relations are often very prompt to divine the real position of affairs.
+Parents may be blind," he laughed, "but brothers-in-law never."
+
+"You are always so dreadfully philosophical!" the girl cried, glad that
+at last that painful topic of conversation had been changed. "Paul Le
+Pontois wouldn't eat you!"
+
+"I don't suppose any Frenchman is given to cannibalistic diet," he
+answered, smiling. "But the fact is, I have my reasons for not being
+introduced to the Le Pontois family just now."
+
+The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at the tone of his response.
+She tried to divine its meaning. But his countenance still bore that
+sphinx-like expression which so often caused his friends to entertain
+vague suspicions.
+
+Few men could read character better than Walter Fetherston. To him the
+minds of most men and women he met were as an open book. To a marvellous
+degree had he cultivated his power of reading the inner working of the
+mind by the expression in the eyes and on the faces of even those
+hard-headed diplomats and men of business whom, in his second character
+of Mr. Maltwood, he so frequently met. Few men or women could tell him a
+deliberate lie without its instant detection. Most shrewd men possess
+that power to a greater or less degree--a power that can be developed by
+painstaking application and practice.
+
+Enid asked her companion when they were to meet again.
+
+"At least let me see you before you go from here," she said. "I know what
+a rapid traveller you always are."
+
+"Yes," he sighed. "I'm often compelled to make quick journeys from one
+part of the Continent to the other. I am a constant traveller--too
+constant, perhaps, for I've nowadays grown very world-weary and
+restless."
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, "if you will not come to the château, where shall
+we meet?"
+
+"I will write to you," he replied. "At this moment my movements are most
+uncertain--they depend almost entirely upon the movements of others. At
+any moment I may be called away. But a letter to Holles Street will
+always find me, you know."
+
+He seemed unusually serious and strangely preoccupied, she thought. She
+noticed, too, that he had flung away his half-consumed cigar in
+impatience, and that he had rubbed his chin with his left hand, a habit
+of his when puzzled.
+
+At the crossroads where the leafless poplars ran in straight lines
+towards the village of Fresnes, a big red motor-car passed them at a
+tearing pace, and in it Enid recognised General Molon.
+
+Fetherston, although an ardent motorist himself, cursed the driver under
+his breath for bespattering them with mud. Then, with a word of apology
+to his charming companion, he held her gloved hand for a moment in his.
+
+Their parting was not prolonged. The man's lips were thin and hard, for
+his resolve was firm.
+
+This girl whom he had grown to love--who was the very sunshine of his
+strange, adventurous life--was, he had at last realised, unworthy. If he
+was to live, if the future was to have hope and joy for him, he must tear
+her out of his life.
+
+Therefore he bade her adieu, refusing to give her any tryst for the
+morrow.
+
+"It is all so uncertain," he repeated. "You will write to me in London if
+you do not hear from me, won't you?"
+
+She nodded, but scarce a word, save a murmured farewell, escaped her dry
+lips.
+
+He was changed, sadly changed, she knew. She turned from him with
+overflowing heart, stifling her tears, but with a veritable volcano of
+emotion within her young breast.
+
+He had changed--changed entirely and utterly in that brief hour and a
+half they had walked together. What had she said? What had she done? she
+asked herself.
+
+Forward she went blindly with the blood-red light of the glorious sunset
+full in her hard-set face, the great fortress-crowned hills looming up
+before her, a barrier between herself and the beyond! They looked grey,
+dark, mysterious as her own future.
+
+She glanced back, but he had turned upon his heel, and she now saw his
+retreating figure swinging along the straight, broad highway.
+
+Why had he treated her thus? Was it possible, she reflected, that he had
+actually become aware of the ghastly truth? Had he divined it?
+
+"If he has," she cried aloud in an agony of soul, "then no wonder--no
+wonder, indeed, that he has cast me from his life as a criminal--as a
+woman to be avoided as the plague--that he has said good-bye to me for
+ever!"
+
+Her lips trembled, and the corners of her pretty mouth hardened.
+
+She turned again to watch the man's disappearing figure.
+
+"I would go back," she cried in despair, "back to him, and beg his
+forgiveness upon my knees. I love him--love him better than my life! Yet
+to crave forgiveness would be to confess--to tell all I know--the whole
+awful truth! And I can't do that--no, never! God help me! I--I--I--can't
+do that!"
+
+And bursting into a flood of hot tears, she stood rigid, her small hands
+clenched, still watching him until he disappeared from her sight around
+the bend of the road.
+
+"No," she murmured in a low, hoarse voice, still speaking to herself,
+"confession would mean death. Rather than admit the truth I would take
+my own life. I would kill myself, yes, face death freely and willingly,
+rather than he--the man I love so well--should learn Sir Hugh's
+disgraceful secret."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THREE GENTLEMEN FROM PARIS
+
+
+GASTON DARBOUR'S comedy, _Le Pyrée_, had been played to a large audience
+assembled in one of the bigger rooms of the long whitewashed artillery
+barracks outside Ronvaux, where General Molon had his official residence.
+
+The humorous piece had been applauded to the echo--the audience
+consisting for the most part of military officers in uniform and their
+wives and daughters, with a sprinkling of the better-class civilians from
+the various châteaux in the neighbourhood, together with two or three
+aristocratic parties from Longuyon, Spincourt, and other places.
+
+The honours of the evening had fallen to the young English girl who had
+played the amusing part of the demure governess, Miss Smith--pronounced
+by the others "Mees Smeeth." Enid was passionately fond of dramatic art,
+and belonged to an amateur club in London. Among those present were the
+author of the piece himself, a dark young man with smooth hair parted in
+the centre and wearing an exaggerated black cravat.
+
+When the curtain fell the audience rose to chatter and comment, and were
+a long time before they dispersed. Paul Le Pontois waited for Enid, Sir
+Hugh accompanying Blanche and little Ninette home in the hired brougham.
+As the party had a long distance to go, some twelve kilomètres, General
+Molon had lent Le Pontois his motor-car, which now stood awaiting him
+with glaring headlights in the barrack-square.
+
+As the hall emptied Paul glanced around him while awaiting Enid. On the
+walls the French tricolour was everywhere displayed, the revered
+_drapeau_ under which he had so gallantly and nobly served against the
+Huns.
+
+He presented a spruce appearance in his smart, well-cut evening coat,
+with the red button of the Legion d'Honneur in his lapel, and to the
+ladies who wished him "bon soir" as they filed out he drew his heels
+together and bowed gallantly.
+
+Outside, the night was cloudy and overcast. In the long rows of the
+barrack windows lights shone, and somewhere sounded a bugle, while in the
+shadows could be heard the measured tramp of sentries, the clank of
+spurs, or the click of rifles as they saluted their officers passing
+out.
+
+The whole atmosphere was a military one, for, indeed, the little town of
+Ronvaux is, even in these peace days, scarcely more than a huge camp.
+
+For a few minutes Le Pontois stood chatting to a group of men at the
+door. They had invited him to come across to their quarters, but he had
+explained that he was awaiting mademoiselle. So they raised their
+eyebrows, smiled mischievously, and bade him "bon soir."
+
+Soldiers were already stacking up the chairs ready for the clearance of
+the gymnasium for the morrow. Others were coming to water and sweep out
+the place. Therefore Le Pontois remained outside in the square, waiting
+in patience.
+
+He was reflecting. That evening, as he had sat with his wife watching the
+play, he had been seized by a curious feeling for which he entirely
+failed to account. Behind him there had sat a man and a woman, French
+without a doubt, but entire strangers. They must, of course, have known
+one or other of the officers in order to obtain an admission ticket.
+Nevertheless, they had spoken to no one, and on the fall of the curtain
+had entered a brougham in waiting and driven off.
+
+Paul had made no comment. By a sudden chance he had, during the
+entr'acte, risen and gazed around, when the face of the stranger had
+caught his eyes--a face which he felt was curiously familiar, yet he
+could not place it. The middle-aged man was dressed with quiet elegance,
+clean-shaven and keen-faced, apparently a prosperous civilian, while the
+lady with him was of about the same age and apparently his wife. She was
+dressed in a high-necked dress of black lace, and wore in her corsage a
+large circular ornament of diamonds and emeralds.
+
+Twice had Le Pontois taken furtive glances at the stranger whose lined
+brow was so extraordinarily familiar. It was the face of a deep thinker,
+a man who had, perhaps, passed through much trouble. Was it possible, he
+wondered, that he had seen that striking face in some photograph, or
+perhaps in some illustrated paper? He had racked his brain through the
+whole performance, but could not decide in what circumstances they had
+previously met.
+
+From time to time the stranger had joined with the audience in their
+hearty laughter, or applauded as vociferously as the others, his
+companion being equally amused at the quaint sayings of the demure "Mees
+Smeeth."
+
+And even as he stood in the shadows near the general's car awaiting Enid
+he was still wondering who the pair might be.
+
+At the fall of the curtain he had made several inquiries of the
+officers, but nobody could give him any information. They were complete
+strangers--that was all. Even a search among the cards of invitation had
+revealed nothing.
+
+So Paul Le Pontois remained mystified.
+
+Enid came at last, flushed with success and apologetic because she had
+kept him waiting. But he only congratulated her, and assisted her into
+the car. It was a big open one, therefore she wore a thick motor coat and
+veil as protection against the chill autumn night.
+
+A moment later the soldier-chauffeur mounted to his seat, and slowly they
+moved across the great square and out by the gates, where the sentries
+saluted. Then, turning to the right, they were quickly tearing along the
+highway in the darkness.
+
+Soon they overtook several closed carriages of the home-going visitors,
+and, ascending the hill, turned from the main road down into a by-road
+leading through a wooded valley, which was a short cut to the château.
+
+Part of their way led through the great Forêt d'Amblonville, and though
+Enid's gay chatter was mostly of the play, the defects in the acting and
+the several amusing _contretemps_ which had occurred behind the scenes,
+her companion's thoughts were constantly of that stranger whose brow was
+so deeply lined with care.
+
+They expected to overtake Sir Hugh in the brougham, but so long had Enid
+been changing her gown that they saw nothing of the others.
+
+Just, however, as they were within a hundred yards or so of the gates
+which gave entrance to the château, and were slowing down in order to
+swing into the drive, a man emerged from the darkness, calling upon the
+driver to stop, and, placing himself before the car, held up his hands.
+
+Next instant the figure of a second individual appeared. Enid uttered a
+cry of alarm, but the second man, who wore a hard felt hat and dark
+overcoat, reassured her by saying in French:
+
+"Pray do not distress yourself, mademoiselle. There is no cause for
+alarm. My friend and I merely wish to speak for a moment with Monsieur Le
+Pontois before he enters his house. For that reason we have presumed to
+stop your car."
+
+"But who are you?" demanded Le Pontois angrily. "Who are you that you
+should hold us up like this?"
+
+"Perhaps, m'sieur, it would be better if you descended and escorted
+mademoiselle as far as your gates. We wish to speak to you for a moment
+upon a little matter which is both urgent and private."
+
+"Well, cannot you speak here, now, and let us proceed?"
+
+"Not before mademoiselle," replied the man. "It is a confidential
+matter."
+
+Paul, much puzzled at the curious demeanour of the strangers, reluctantly
+handed Enid out, and walked with her as far as his own gate, telling her
+to assure Blanche that he would return in a few moments, when he had
+heard what the men wanted.
+
+"Very well," she laughed. "I'll say nothing. You can tell her all when
+you come in."
+
+The girl passed through the gates and up the gravelled drive to the
+house, when Le Pontois, turning upon his heel to return to the car, was
+met by the two men, who, he found, had walked closely behind him.
+
+"You are Paul Le Pontois?" inquired the elder of the pair brusquely.
+
+"Of course! Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because it is necessary," was his businesslike reply. Then he added: "I
+regret, m'sieur, that you must consider yourself under arrest by order of
+his Excellency the Minister of Justice."
+
+"Arrest!" gasped the unhappy man. "Are you mad, messieurs?"
+
+"No," replied the man who had spoken.
+
+"We have merely our duty to perform, and have travelled from Paris to
+execute it."
+
+"With what offence am I charged?" Le Pontois demanded.
+
+"Of that we have no knowledge. As agents of secret police, we are sent
+here to convey you for interrogation."
+
+The man under arrest stood dumbfounded.
+
+"But at least you will allow me to say farewell to my wife and child--to
+make excuse to them for my absence?" he urged.
+
+"I regret that is quite impossible, m'sieur. Our orders are to make the
+arrest and to afford you no opportunity to communicate with anyone."
+
+"But this is cruel, inhuman! His Excellency never meant that, I am quite
+sure--especially when I am innocent of any crime, as far as I am aware."
+
+"We can only obey our orders, m'sieur," replied the man in the dark
+overcoat.
+
+"Then may I not write a line to my wife, just one word of excuse?" he
+pleaded.
+
+The two police agents consulted.
+
+"Well," replied the elder of the pair, who was the one in authority, "if
+you wish to scribble a note, here are paper and pencil." And he tore a
+leaf from his notebook and handed it to the prisoner.
+
+By the light of the head-lamps of the car Paul scribbled a few hurried
+words to Blanche: "I am detained on important business," he wrote. "I
+will return to-morrow. My love to you both.--PAUL."
+
+The detective read it, folded it carefully, and handed it to his
+assistant, telling him to go up to the château and deliver it at the
+servants' entrance.
+
+When he had gone the detective, turning to the chauffeur, said: "I shall
+require you to take us to Verdun."
+
+"This is not my car, m'sieur," replied Paul. "It belongs to General
+Molon."
+
+"That does not matter. I will telephone to him an explanation as soon as
+we arrive in Verdun. We may as well enter the car as stand here."
+
+Paul Le Pontois was about to protest, but what could he say? The Minister
+in Paris had apparently committed some grave error in thus ordering his
+arrest. No doubt there would be confusion, apologies and laughter. So,
+with a light heart at the knowledge that he had committed no offence, he
+got into the car, and allowed the polite police agent to seat himself
+beside him.
+
+The only chagrin he felt was that the chauffeur had overheard all the
+conversation. And to him he said: "Remember, Gallet, of this affair you
+know nothing."
+
+"I understand perfectly, m'sieur," was the wondering soldier's reply.
+
+Then they sat in silence in the darkness until the hurrying police agent
+returned, after which the car sped straight past the château on the high
+road which led through the deep valley on to the fortress town of Verdun.
+
+As they passed the château Paul Le Pontois caught a glimpse of its
+lighted windows and sat wondering what Blanche would imagine. He pictured
+the pleasant supper party and the surprise that would be expressed at his
+absence.
+
+How amusing! What incongruity! He was under arrest!
+
+The car rushed on beneath the precipitous hill crowned by the great
+fortress of Haudiomont, through the narrow gorge--the road to Paris.
+
+All three men, seated abreast, were silent until, at last, the elder of
+the two police agents bent and glanced at the clock on the dashboard,
+visible by the tiny glow-lamp.
+
+"Half past twelve," he remarked. "The express leaves Verdun at two
+twenty-eight."
+
+"For where?" asked Paul.
+
+"For Paris."
+
+"Paris!" he cried. "Are you taking me to Paris?"
+
+"Those are our orders," was the detective's quiet response.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE ORDERS OF HIS EXCELLENCY
+
+
+AGAIN Paul sat back without a word. Well, he would hear the extraordinary
+charge against him, whatever it might be. And, without speaking, they
+travelled on and on, until they at last entered the Porte St. Paul at
+Verdun, passed up the Avenue de la Gare, skirting the Palais de Justice
+into the station yard.
+
+As Paul descended they were met by a third stranger who strolled
+forward--a man in a heavy travelling coat and a soft Homburg hat.
+
+It was the man who had sat behind him earlier in the evening--the man
+with the deep lines upon his care-worn brow, who had laughed so
+heartily--and who a moment later introduced himself as Jules Pierrepont,
+special commissaire of the Paris Sûreté.
+
+"We have met before?" remarked Paul abruptly.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied the man with a grim smile. "On
+several occasions lately. It has been my duty to keep observation upon
+your movements--acting upon orders from Monsieur the Prefect of Police."
+
+And together they entered the dark, deserted station to await the night
+express for Paris.
+
+Suddenly Paul turned back, saying to the chauffeur in a low, hard voice:
+"Gallet, to-morrow go and tell madame my wife that I am unexpectedly
+called to the capital. Tell her--tell her that I will write to her. But,
+at all hazards, do not let her know the truth that I am under arrest," he
+added hoarsely.
+
+"That is understood, monsieur," replied the man, saluting. "Neither
+madame nor anyone else shall know why you have left for Paris."
+
+"I rely upon you," were Paul's parting words, and, turning upon his heel,
+he accompanied the three men who were in waiting.
+
+Half an hour later he sat in a second-class compartment of the Paris
+_rapide_ with the three keen-eyed men who had so swiftly effected his
+arrest.
+
+It was apparent to him now that the reason he had recognised Pierrepont
+was because that man had maintained vigilant, yet unobtrusive,
+observation upon him during several of the preceding days, keeping near
+him in all sorts of ingenious guises and making inquiries concerning
+him--inquiries instituted for some unexplained cause by the Paris police.
+
+Bitterly he smiled to himself as he gazed upon the faces of his three
+companions, hard and deep-shadowed beneath the uncertain light. Presently
+he made some inquiry of Jules Pierrepont, who had now assumed
+commandership of the party, as to the reason of his arrest.
+
+"I regret, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied the quiet, affable man, "his
+Excellency does not give us reasons. We obey orders--that is all."
+
+"But surely there is still, even after the war, justice in France!" cried
+Paul in dismay. "There must be some good reason. One cannot be thus
+arrested as a criminal without some charge against him--in my case a
+false one!"
+
+All three men had heard prisoners declare their innocence many times
+before, therefore they merely nodded assent--it was their usual habit.
+
+"There is, of course, some charge," remarked Pierrepont. "But no doubt
+monsieur has a perfect answer to it."
+
+"When I know what it is," replied Paul between his teeth, "then I shall
+meet it bravely, and demand compensation for this outrageous arrest!"
+
+He held his breath, for, with a sinking heart, he realised for the first
+time the very fact of a serious allegation being made against him by some
+enemy. If mud is thrown some of it always sticks. What had all his
+enthusiasm in life profited him? Nothing. He bit his lip when he
+reflected.
+
+"You have some idea of what is alleged against me, messieurs," the
+unhappy man exclaimed presently, as the roaring train emerged from a long
+tunnel. "I see it in your faces. Indeed, you would not have taken the
+precaution, which you did at the moment of my arrest, of searching me to
+find firearms. You suspected that I might make an attempt to take my
+life."
+
+"Merely our habit," replied Pierrepont with a slight smile.
+
+"The charge is a grave one--will you not admit that?"
+
+"Probably it is--or we should not all three have been sent to bring you
+to Paris," remarked one of the trio.
+
+"You have had access to my _dossier_--I feel sure you have, monsieur,"
+Paul said, addressing Pierrepont.
+
+"Ah! you are in error. Monsieur le Ministre does not afford me that
+privilege. I am but the servant of the Sûreté, and no one regrets more
+than myself the painful duty I have been compelled to perform to-night. I
+assure you, Monsieur Le Pontois, that I entertain much regret that I have
+been compelled to drag you away from your home and family thus, to
+Paris."
+
+"No apology is needed, mon ami," Paul exclaimed quickly, well aware that
+the detective was merely obeying instructions. "I understand your
+position perfectly." Then, glancing round at his companions, he added:
+"You may sleep in peace, messieurs. I give you my word of honour that I
+will not attempt to escape. Why, indeed, should I? I have committed no
+wrong!"
+
+One of the men had pulled out a well-worn notebook and was with
+difficulty writing down the prisoner's words--to be put in evidence
+against him. Le Pontois realised that; therefore his mouth closed with a
+snap, and, leaning back in the centre of the carriage, he closed his
+eyes, not to sleep, but to think.
+
+Before leaving Verdun he had seen Pierrepont enter the telegraph
+bureau--to dispatch a message to the Sûreté, without a doubt. They
+already knew in Paris that he was under arrest, but at his home they
+were, happily, still in ignorance. Poor Blanche was asleep, no doubt, by
+that time, he thought, calm in the belief that he had been delayed and
+would be home in the early hours.
+
+The fact that he was actually under arrest he regarded with more humour
+than seriousness, feeling that in the morning explanations would be made
+and the blunder rectified.
+
+No more honourable or upright man was there in France than Paul Le
+Pontois, and this order from the Sûreté had held him utterly speechless
+and astounded. So he sat there hour after hour as the _rapide_ roared
+westward, until it halted at the great echoing station of Châlons, where
+all four entered the buffet and hastily swallowed their café-au-lait.
+
+Afterwards they resumed their seats, and the train, with its two long,
+dusty _wagons-lit_, moved onward again, with Paris for its goal.
+
+The prisoner said little. He sat calmly reflecting, wondering and
+wondering what possible charge could be made against him. He had enemies,
+as every man had, he knew, but he was not aware of anyone who could make
+an allegation of a character sufficiently grave to warrant his arrest.
+
+Why had it been forbidden that he should wish Blanche farewell? There was
+some reason for that! He inquired of Pierrepont, who had treated him with
+such consideration and even respect, but the agent of secret police only
+replied that in making an arrest of that character they made it a rule
+never to allow a prisoner to communicate with his family.
+
+"There are several reasons for it," he explained. "One is that very often
+the prisoner will make a statement to his wife which he will afterwards
+greatly regret. Again, prisoners have been known to whisper to their
+wives secret instructions, to order the destruction of papers before we
+can make a domiciliary visit, or----"
+
+"But you surely will not make a domiciliary visit to my house?" cried
+Paul, interrupting.
+
+The men exchanged glances.
+
+"At present we cannot tell," Pierrepont replied. "It depends upon what
+instructions we receive."
+
+"Do you usually make searches?" asked the prisoner, with visions of his
+own home being desecrated and ransacked.
+
+"Yes, we generally do," the commissaire of police admitted. "As I have
+explained, it is for that reason we do not allow a prisoner's wife to
+know that he is under arrest."
+
+"But such an action is abominable!" cried Le Pontois angrily. "That my
+house should be turned upside down and searched as though I were a common
+thief, a forger, or a coiner is beyond toleration. I shall demand full
+inquiry. My friend Carlier shall put an interpellation in the Chamber!"
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre acts upon his own discretion," the detective
+replied coldly.
+
+"And by so doing sometimes ruins the prospects and the lives of some of
+our best men," blurted forth the angry prisoner. It was upon the tip of
+his tongue to say much more in condemnation, but the sight of the man
+with the notebook caused him to hesitate.
+
+Every word he uttered now would, he knew, be turned against him. He was
+under arrest--for some crime that he had not committed.
+
+The other passengers by that night express, who included a party of
+English tourists, little dreamed as they passed up and down the corridor
+that the smart, good-looking man who wore the button of the Legion
+d'Honneur, and who sat there with the three quiet, respectable-looking
+men, was being conveyed to the capital under escort--a man who, by the
+law of France, was already condemned, was guilty until he could prove his
+own innocence!
+
+In the cold grey of dawn they descended at last at the great bare Gare de
+l'Est in Paris. Paul felt tired, cramped and unshaven, but of necessity
+entered a taxi called by one of his companions, and, accompanied by
+Pierrepont and the elder of his assistants, was driven along through the
+cheerless, deserted streets to the Sûreté.
+
+As he entered the side door of the ponderous building the police officer
+on duty saluted his escort.
+
+His progress across France had been swift and secret.
+
+What, he wondered, did the future hold in store for him?
+
+His lip curled into a smile when they ushered him into a bare room on the
+first floor. Two police officers were placed outside the door, while two
+stood within.
+
+Then, turning to the window, which looked out upon the bare trees of the
+Place below, he laughed aloud and made some humorous remark which caused
+the men to smile.
+
+But, alas! he knew not the truth. Little did he dream of the amazing
+allegation that was to be made against him!--little did he dream how
+completely the enemies of his father-in-law, the general, had triumphed!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WALTER GIVES WARNING
+
+
+THE morning dawned bright and sunny--a perfect autumn morning--at the
+pretty Château of Lérouville.
+
+The message which Blanche had received after returning had not caused her
+much consternation. She supposed that Paul had been suddenly called away
+on business. So she had eaten her supper with her father and Enid and
+retired to rest.
+
+When, however, they sat at breakfast--served in the English style--Sir
+Hugh opened a letter which lay upon his plate, and at once announced his
+intention of returning to London.
+
+"I have to see Hughes, my solicitor, over Aunt Mary's affairs," he
+explained suddenly to Blanche. "That executorship is always an infernal
+nuisance."
+
+"But surely you can remain a day or two longer, Dad?" exclaimed Madame Le
+Pontois. "The weather is delightful just now, and I hear it is too
+dreadful for words in England."
+
+"I, too, have to be back to prepare for going away with Mrs. Caldwell,"
+Enid remarked.
+
+"But surely these solicitors will wait? There is no great urgency--there
+can't be! The old lady died ten years ago," Blanche exclaimed as she
+poured out coffee.
+
+"My dear, I'm extremely sorry," said her father quietly, "but I must
+go--it is imperative."
+
+"Not to-day?"
+
+"I ought to go to-day," he sighed. "Indeed, I really must--by the
+_rapide_ I usually take. Perhaps I shall alter my route this time, and go
+from Conflans to Metz, and home by Liège and Brussels. It is
+about as quick, and one gets a _wagon-lit_ from Metz. I looked up the
+train the other day, and find it leaves Conflans at a little after six."
+
+"Surely you will remain and say au revoir to Paul? He'll be so
+disappointed!" she cried in dismay.
+
+"My dear, you will make excuses for us. I must really go, and so must
+Enid. She had a letter from Mrs. Caldwell urging her to get back, as she
+wants to start abroad for the winter. The bad weather in England is
+affecting her, it seems."
+
+And so, with much regret expressed by little Ninette and her mother, Sir
+Hugh Elcombe and his stepdaughter went to their rooms to see about their
+packing.
+
+Both were puzzled. The sudden appearance of those strange men out of the
+darkness had frightened Enid, but she had said nothing. Perhaps it was
+upon some private matter that Paul had been summoned. Therefore she had
+preserved silence, believing with Blanche that at any moment he might
+return.
+
+Back in his room, Sir Hugh closed the door, and, standing in the sunshine
+by the window, gazed across the wide valley towards the blue mists
+beyond, deep in reflection.
+
+"This curious absence of Paul's forebodes evil," he murmured to himself.
+
+He had slept little that night, being filled with strange apprehensions.
+Though he had closely questioned Enid, she would not say what had
+actually happened. Her explanation was merely that Paul had been called
+away by a man who had met him outside.
+
+The old man sighed, biting his lip. He cursed himself for his dastardly
+work, even though he had been compelled by Weirmarsh to execute it on
+pain of exposure and consequent ruin.
+
+Against his will, against his better nature, he had been forced to meet
+the mysterious doctor of Pimlico in secret on that quiet, wooded by-road
+between Marcheville and Saint-Hilaire, four kilomètres from the château,
+and there discuss with him the suggested affair of which they had spoken
+in London.
+
+The two men had met at sundown.
+
+"You seem to fear exposure!" laughed the man who provided Sir Hugh with
+his comfortable income. "Don't be foolish--there is no danger. Return to
+England with Enid as soon as you possibly can without arousing suspicion,
+and I will call and see you at Hill Street. I want to have a very serious
+chat with you."
+
+Elcombe's grey, weather-worn face grew hard and determined.
+
+"Why are you here, Weirmarsh?" he demanded. "I have helped you and your
+infernal friends in the past, but please do not count upon my assistance
+in the future. Remember that from to-day our friendship is entirely at an
+end."
+
+"As you wish, of course, my dear Sir Hugh," replied the other, with a
+nonchalant air. "But if I were you I would not be in too great a hurry to
+make such a declaration. You may require a friend in the near future--a
+friend like myself."
+
+"Never, I hope--never!" snapped the old general.
+
+"Very well," replied the doctor, who, with a shrug of his shoulders,
+wished his friend a cold adieu and, turning, strode away.
+
+As Sir Hugh stood alone by the window that morning he recalled every
+incident of that hateful interview, every word that had fallen from the
+lips of the man who seemed to be as ingenious and resourceful as Satan
+himself.
+
+His anxiety regarding Paul's sudden absence had caused him to invent an
+excuse for his own hurried departure. He was not prepared to remain there
+and witness his dear daughter's grief and humiliation, so he deemed it
+wiser to get away in safety to England, for he no longer trusted
+Weirmarsh. Suppose the doctor revealed the actual truth by means of some
+anonymous communication?
+
+As he stood staring blankly across the valley he heard the hum of an
+approaching motor-car, and saw that it was General Molon's, being driven
+by Gallet, the soldier chauffeur.
+
+There was no passenger, but the car entered the iron gates and pulled up
+before the door.
+
+A few minutes later Blanche ran up the stairs and, bursting into her
+father's room, cried: "Paul has been called suddenly to Paris, Dad! He
+told Gallet to come this morning and tell me. How strange that he did not
+come in to get even a valise!"
+
+"Yes, dear," said her father. "Gallet is downstairs, isn't he? I'll speak
+to him. The mystery of Paul's absence increases!"
+
+"It does. I--I can't get rid of a curious feeling of apprehension that
+something has happened. What was there to prevent him from coming in to
+wish me good-bye when he was actually at the gate?"
+
+Sir Hugh went below and questioned the chauffeur.
+
+The story told by the man Gallet was that Le Pontois had been met by two
+gentlemen and given a message that he was required urgently in Paris, and
+they had driven at once over to Verdun, where they had just caught the
+train.
+
+"Did Monsieur Le Pontois leave any other message for madame?" asked Sir
+Hugh in French.
+
+"No, m'sieur."
+
+The general endeavoured by dint of persuasion to learn something more,
+but the man was true to his promise, and would make no further statement.
+Indeed, earlier that morning he had been closely questioned by the
+commandant, but had been equally reticent. Le Pontois was a favourite in
+the neighbourhood, and no man would dare to lift his voice against him.
+
+Sir Hugh returned to his room and commenced packing his suit-cases, more
+than ever convinced that suspicion had been aroused. Jean came to offer
+to assist, but he declared that he liked to pack himself, and this
+occupied him the greater part of the morning.
+
+Enid was also busy with her dresses, assisted by Blanche's Provençal
+maid, Louise. About eleven o'clock, however, Jean tapped at her door and
+said: "A peasant from Allamont, across the valley, has brought a letter,
+mademoiselle. He says an English gentleman gave it to him to deliver to
+you personally. He is downstairs."
+
+In surprise the girl hurriedly descended to the servants' entrance, where
+she found a sturdy, old, grey-bearded peasant, bearing a long, stout
+stick. He raised his frayed cap politely and asked whether she were
+Mademoiselle Orlebar.
+
+Then, when she had replied in the affirmative, he drew from the breast of
+his blouse a crumpled letter, saying: "The Englishman who has been
+staying at the Lion d'Or at Allamont gave this to me at dawn to-day. I
+was to give it only into mademoiselle's hands. There is no reply."
+
+Enid tore open the letter eagerly and found the following words, written
+hurriedly in pencil in Walter Fetherston's well-known scrawling hand--for
+a novelist's handwriting is never of the best:
+
+     "Make excuse and induce your father to leave Conflans-Jarny at
+     once for Metz, travelling by Belgium for London. Accompany him. A
+     serious _contretemps_ has occurred which will affect you both if
+     you do not leave immediately on receipt of this. Heed this, I beg
+     of you. And remember, I am still your friend.
+                                                             "WALTER."
+
+For a moment she stood puzzled. "Did the Englishman say there was no
+reply?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle. He left the Lion d'Or just before eight, and drove
+into Conflans with his luggage. The innkeeper told me that he is
+returning suddenly to England. He received several telegrams in the
+night, it appears."
+
+"You know him, then?"
+
+"Oh yes, mademoiselle. He came there to fish in the Longeau, and I have
+been with him on several occasions."
+
+Enid took a piece of "cent sous" from her purse and gave it to the old
+man, then she returned to her room and, sending Louise below for
+something, burned Walter's letter in the grate.
+
+Afterwards she went to her stepfather and suggested that perhaps they
+might leave Conflans earlier than he had resolved.
+
+"I hear there is a train at three-five. If we went by that," she said,
+"we could cross from Ostend instead of by Antwerp, and thus be in London
+a day earlier."
+
+"Are you so anxious to get away from here, Enid?" he asked, looking
+straight into her face.
+
+"Well, yes. Mother, in her letter yesterday, urged me to come home, as
+she does not wish me to travel out alone to join Mrs. Caldwell. She's
+afraid she will leave London without me if I don't get home at once.
+Besides, I've got a lot of shopping to do before I can start. Do let us
+get away by the earlier train. It will be so much better," she urged.
+
+As Sir Hugh never denied Enid anything, he acquiesced. Packing was
+speedily concluded, and, much to the regret of Blanche, the pair left in
+a fly for which they had telephoned to Conflans-Jarny.
+
+The train by which they travelled ran through the beautiful valley of
+Manvaux, past the great forts of Plappeville and St. Quentin, and across
+the Moselle to Metz, and so into German territory.
+
+Whatever might happen, Sir Hugh reflected, at least he was now safe from
+arrest. While Enid, on her part, sat back in the corner of the
+first-class compartment gazing out of the window, still mystified by that
+strange warning from the man who only a few days previously had so
+curiously turned and abandoned her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE ACCUSERS
+
+
+AT the same hour when Enid and Sir Hugh were passing Amanvilliers, once
+the scene of terrible atrocities by the Huns, Paul Le Pontois, between
+two agents of police, was ushered into the private cabinet where, at the
+great writing-table near the window, sat a short man with bristling hair
+and snow-white moustache, Monsieur Henri Bézard, chief of the Sûreté
+Générale.
+
+A keen-faced, black-eyed man of dapper appearance, wearing the coveted
+button of the Légion d'Honneur in his black frock-coat, he looked up
+sharply at the man brought into his presence, wished him a curt "bon
+jour," and motioned him to a seat at the opposite side of the big table,
+in such a position that the grey light from the long window fell directly
+upon his countenance.
+
+With him, standing about the big, handsome room with its green-baize
+doors and huge oil paintings on the walls, were four elderly men,
+strangers to Paul.
+
+The severe atmosphere of that sombre apartment, wherein sat the chief of
+the police of the Republic, was depressing. Those present moved
+noiselessly over the thick Turkey carpet, while the double windows
+excluded every sound from the busy boulevard below.
+
+"Your name," exclaimed the great Bézard sharply, at last raising his eyes
+from a file of papers before him--"your name is Paul Robert Le Pontois,
+son of Paul Le Pontois, rentier of Severac, Department of Aveyron. During
+the war you were captain in the 114th Regiment of Artillery, and you now
+reside with your wife and daughter at the Château of Lérouville. Are
+those details correct?"
+
+"Perfectly, m'sieur," replied the man seated with the two police agents
+standing behind him. He wore his black evening trousers and a brown tweed
+jacket which one of the detectives had lent him.
+
+"You have been placed under arrest by order of the Ministry," replied
+Bézard, speaking in his quick, impetuous way.
+
+"I am aware of that, m'sieur," was Paul's reply, "but I am in ignorance
+of the charge against me."
+
+"Well," exclaimed Bézard very gravely, again referring to the formidable
+_dossier_ before him, "the charge brought against you is most serious.
+It is astounding and disgraceful. Listen, and I will read it. Afterwards
+we will hear what explanation you have to offer. We are assembled for
+that purpose."
+
+The four other men had taken chairs near by, while Pierrepont was
+standing at some distance away, with his back to the wood fire.
+
+For a second Bézard paused, then, rubbing his gold pince-nez and
+adjusting them, he read in a cold, hard voice the following:
+
+"The charge alleged against you, Paul Robert Le Pontois, is that upon
+four separate occasions you have placed in circulation forged Bank of
+England and Treasury notes of England to the extent of nearly a million
+francs."
+
+"It's a lie!" cried Paul, jumping to his feet, his face aflame. "Before
+God, I swear it is a lie!"
+
+"Calm yourself and listen," commanded the great chief of the Sûreté
+Générale sharply. "Be seated."
+
+The prisoner sank back into his chair again. His head was reeling. Who
+could possibly have made such unfounded charges against him? He could
+scarcely believe his ears.
+
+Then the hard-faced, white-headed old director, who held supreme command
+of the police of the Republic, glanced at him shrewdly, and, continuing,
+said: "It is alleged that you, Paul Le Pontois, on the fourteenth day of
+January, and again on the sixteenth of May, met in Commercy a certain
+Englishman, and handed to him a bundle of English notes since proved to
+be forgeries."
+
+"I am not acquainted with any English forger," protested Paul.
+
+"Do not interrupt, m'sieur!" snapped the director. "You will, later on,
+be afforded full opportunity to make any statement or explanation you may
+wish. First listen to these grave charges against you." After a further
+pause, he added: "The third occasion, it is alleged, was on April the
+eighth last, when it seems you drove at early morning over to
+Thillot-sous-les-Côtes and there met a stranger who was afterwards
+identified as an American who is wanted for banknote forgeries."
+
+"And the fourth?" asked Paul hoarsely. This string of allegations utterly
+staggered him.
+
+"The fourth occasion was quite recently," Bézard said, still speaking in
+that same cold tone. "On that occasion you made certain calculations to
+ascertain how much were your profits by dealing with these forgers whom
+Scotland Yard are so anxious to arrest. You wrote all the sums down,
+knowing your expenditure and profits. The latter were very considerable."
+
+"And by whom is it alleged that I am a dealer in base money, pray?"
+
+"It is not necessary for us to disclose the name of our informant," was
+the stiff rejoinder.
+
+"But surely I am not to be thus denounced by an anonymous enemy?" he
+cried. "This is not the justice which every Frenchman claims as his
+birthright!"
+
+"You have demanded to know the charges laid against you, and I have
+detailed them," replied the chief of the Sûreté, regarding the prisoner
+closely through his gold pince-nez.
+
+"They are false--every word of them," promptly returned Le Pontois. "I
+have no acquaintance with any banknote forger. If I had, he would quickly
+find himself under arrest."
+
+The four men seated in his vicinity smiled grimly. They had expected the
+prisoner to declare his innocence.
+
+"I may tell you that the information here"--and Bézard tapped the
+_dossier_ before him--"is from a source in which we have the most
+complete and implicit confidence. For the past few months there have been
+suspicions that forged English notes have been put into circulation in
+France. Therefore I ordered a vigilant watch to be maintained. Monsieur
+Pierrepont, here, has been in command of a squadron of confidential
+agents."
+
+"And they have watched me, and, I suppose, have manufactured evidence
+against me! It is only what may be expected of men paid to spy upon us.
+If I am a forger or a friend of forgers, as you allege me to be, then I
+am unworthy to have served in the uniform of France. But I tell you that
+the allegations you have just read are lies--lies, every word of them."
+And Le Pontois' pale cheeks flushed crimson with anger.
+
+"Le Pontois," remarked a tall, thin, elderly commissaire who was present,
+"it is for you to prove your innocence. The information laid before us is
+derived from those who have daily watched your movements and reported
+them. If you can prove to us that it is false, then your innocence may be
+established."
+
+"But I _am_ innocent!" he protested, "therefore I have no fear what
+charges may be laid against me. They cannot be substantiated. The whole
+string of allegations is utterly ridiculous!"
+
+"Eh bien! Then let us commence with the first," exclaimed Bézard, again
+referring to the file of secret reports before him. "On Wednesday, the
+fourteenth day of January, you went to Commercy, where, at the Café de la
+Cloche, you met a certain Belgian who passed under the name of Laloux."
+
+"I recollect!" cried Le Pontois quickly. "I sold him a horse. He was a
+dealer."
+
+"A dealer in forged notes," remarked one of the officials, with a faint
+smile.
+
+"Was he a forger, then?" asked Le Pontois in entire surprise.
+
+"Yes. He has entered France several times in the guise of a horsedealer,"
+Pierrepont interrupted.
+
+"But I only bought a horse of him," declared the prisoner vehemently.
+
+"And you paid for it in English notes, apologising that you had no other
+money. He took them, for he passed them in Belgium into an English bank
+in Brussels. They were forged!"
+
+"Again, on the sixteenth of May, you met the man Laloux at the same
+place," said Bézard.
+
+"He had a mare to sell--I tried to buy it for my wife to drive, but he
+wanted too much."
+
+"You remained the night at the Hôtel de Paris, and saw him again at nine
+o'clock next morning."
+
+"True. I hoped to strike a bargain with him in the morning, but we could
+not come to terms."
+
+"Regarding the forged English notes you were prepared to sell, eh?"
+snapped Bézard, with a look of disbelief.
+
+"I had nothing to sell!" protested Le Pontois, drawing himself up. "Those
+who have spied upon me have told untruths."
+
+"But the individual, Laloux, was watched. One of our agents followed him
+to Brussels, where he went next day to the English bank in the Montagne
+de la Cour."
+
+"Not with forged notes from me. My dealings with him were in every way
+honest business transactions."
+
+"You mean that you received money from him, eh?"
+
+"I do not deny that. I sold him a horse on the first occasion. He paid me
+seven hundred francs for it, and I afterwards purchased one from him."
+
+"So you do not deny that you received money from that man?"
+
+"Why should I? I sold him a horse, and he paid me for it."
+
+"Very well," said Bézard, with some hesitation. "Let us pass to the
+eighth of April. At six o'clock that morning you drove to
+Thillot-sous-les-Côtes, where you met a stranger at the entrance to the
+village, and walked with him, and held a long and earnest conversation."
+
+Paul was silent for a moment. The incident recalled was one that he would
+fain have forgotten, one the truth of which he intended at all hazards to
+conceal.
+
+"I admit that I went to Thillot in secret," he answered in a changed
+voice.
+
+"Ah! Then you do not deny that you were attracted by the promises of
+substantial payment for certain forged English notes which you could
+furnish, eh?" grunted Bézard in satisfaction.
+
+"I admit going to Thillot, but I deny your allegation," cried Paul in
+quick protest.
+
+"Then perhaps you will tell us the reason you took that early drive?"
+asked a commissaire, with a short, hard laugh of disbelief.
+
+The prisoner hesitated. It was a purely personal matter, one which
+concerned himself alone.
+
+"I regret, messieurs," was his slow reply, "I regret that I am
+unable--indeed, I am not permitted to answer that question."
+
+"Pray why?" inquired Bézard.
+
+"Well--because it concerns a woman's honour," was the low, hoarse reply,
+"the honour of the wife of a certain officer."
+
+At those words of his the men interrogating him laughed in derision,
+declaring it to be a very elegant excuse.
+
+"It is no excuse!" he cried fiercely, again rising from his chair. "When
+I have obtained permission to speak, messieurs, I will tell you the
+truth. Until then I shall remain silent."
+
+"Eh, bien!" snapped Bézard. "And so we will pass to the next and final
+charge--that you prepared a statement in order to satisfy yourself
+regarding the profits of your dealings in these spurious notes."
+
+"I have no knowledge of such a thing!" Paul replied instantly.
+
+"And yet for several weeks past a mysterious friend of yours has been
+seen in the neighbourhood of your château. He has been staying in
+Commercy and in Longuyon. I gave orders for his arrest, but, with his
+usual cleverness, he escaped from Commercy."
+
+"I prepared no statement."
+
+"H'm!" grunted Bézard, looking straight into his flushed face. "You are
+quite certain of that?"
+
+"I swear I did not."
+
+"Then perhaps you will deny that this is in your hand?" the director
+asked slowly, with a grin, as he fixed his eyes upon Paul and handed him
+a sheet of his own note-paper bearing the address of the château embossed
+in green.
+
+Paul took it in his trembling fingers, and as he did so his countenance
+fell.
+
+It was the rough account of his investments and profits he remembered
+making for his father-in-law. He had cast it unheeded into the
+waste-paper basket, whence it had, no doubt, been recovered by those who
+had spied upon him and placed with the reports as evidence against him.
+
+"You admit making that calculation?" asked Bézard severely. "Those
+figures are, I believe, in your handwriting?"
+
+"Yes; but I have had nothing to do with any forgers of banknotes,"
+declared the unhappy man, reseating himself.
+
+"Ah! Then you admit making the calculation? That in itself is sufficient
+for the present. However, cannot you give us some explanation of that
+secret visit of yours to Thillot? Remember, you have to prove your
+innocence!"
+
+"I--I cannot--not, at least, at present," faltered the prisoner.
+
+"You refuse?"
+
+"Yes, m'sieur, I flatly refuse," was the hoarse reply. "As I have told
+you, that visit concerned the honour of a woman."
+
+The men again exchanged glances of disbelief, while the victim of those
+dastardly allegations sat breathless, amazed at the astounding manner in
+which his most innocent actions had been misconstrued into incriminating
+evidence.
+
+He was under arrest as one who had placed forged English banknotes in
+circulation in France!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN WHICH A TRUTH IS HIDDEN
+
+
+WHEN Walter Fetherston entered the tasteful drawing-room at Hill Street
+four days later he found Enid alone, seated by the fire.
+
+The dull London light of the autumn afternoon was scarcely sufficient for
+him to distinguish every object in the apartment, but as he advanced she
+rose and stood silhouetted against the firelight, a slight, graceful
+figure, with hand outstretched.
+
+"Both mother and Sir Hugh are out--gone to a matinée at the Garrick," she
+exclaimed. "I'm so glad you've come in," and she placed a chair for him.
+
+"I have heard that you are leaving for Egypt to-morrow," he said, "and I
+wished to have a chat with you."
+
+"We go to Italy first, and to Egypt after Christmas," she replied.
+"Mother has promised to join us in Luxor at the end of January."
+
+"If I were you, Enid," he replied gravely, bending towards her, "I would
+make some excuse and remain in England."
+
+"Why?" she asked, her eyes opening widely. "I don't understand!"
+
+"I regret that I am unable to speak more plainly," he said. "I warned you
+to leave France, and I was glad that you and Sir Hugh heeded my warning.
+Otherwise--well, perhaps an unpleasant incident would have resulted."
+
+"You always speak in enigmas nowadays," said the girl, again standing
+near the fireplace, dainty in her dark skirt and cream silk jumper. "Why
+did you send me that extraordinary note?"
+
+"In your own interests," was his vague reply. "I became aware
+that your further presence in the house of Monsieur Le Pontois
+was--well--undesirable--that's all."
+
+"I really think you entertain some antagonism against Paul," she
+declared, "yet he's such a good fellow."
+
+The novelist's eyes sparkled through his pince-nez as he replied: "He's
+very good-looking, I admit, and, no doubt, a perfect cavalier."
+
+"You suspect me of flirtations with him, of course," she pouted. "Well,
+you're not the first man who has chaffed me about that."
+
+"No, no," he laughed. "I'm in no way jealous, I assure you. I merely
+told you that your departure from the château would be for the best."
+
+He did not tell her that within an hour of their leaving French territory
+an official telegram had been received from Paris by the local
+commissaire of police with orders to detain them both, nor that just
+before dark an insignificant-looking man in black had called at the
+château and been informed by Jean that the English general and his
+stepdaughter had already departed.
+
+The whole of that night the wires between the sous-prefecture at Briey
+and Paris had been at work, and many curious official messages had been
+exchanged. Truly, the pair had had a providential escape.
+
+Sir Hugh was, of course, in entire ignorance of the dastardly action
+taken by the Pimlico doctor.
+
+Without duly counting the cost, he had declared at his last interview
+with Weirmarsh that their criminal partnership was now at an end. And the
+doctor had taken him at his word.
+
+Had not the doctor in London told his assistant, Heureux, that Sir Hugh's
+sphere of usefulness was at an end, and that, in all probability, a
+_contretemps_ would occur--one which would in future save to "the
+syndicate" the sum of five thousand pounds per annum?
+
+Truth to tell, Bézard, director of the Sûreté, had telegraphed orders for
+the arrest of Sir Hugh and his daughter. But, thanks to the shrewdness of
+Fetherston, who had lingered in the vicinity to afford them protection if
+necessary, they had succeeded in escaping only a single hour before the
+message reached its destination.
+
+Neither of them knew of this, and the novelist intended that they should
+remain in ignorance--just as they were still in ignorance of the reason
+of Paul's visit to Paris and of his detention there.
+
+If they were aware of the reason of his warning, then they would most
+certainly question him as to the manner in which he was able to gain
+knowledge of the betrayal by Weirmarsh. He had no desire to be questioned
+upon such matters. The motives of his action--always swift, full of
+shrewd foresight, and often in disregard of his own personal safety--were
+known alone to himself and to Scotland Yard.
+
+If the truth were told, he had not been alone in Eastern France. At the
+little old-world Croix-Blanche at Briey a stout, middle-aged, ruddy-faced
+English tourist had had his headquarters; while, again, at the
+unpretending Cloche d'Or in the Place St. Paul at Verdun another
+Englishman, a young, active, clean-shaven man, had been moving about the
+country in constant communication with "Mr. Maltwood." Wherever the
+doctor from Pimlico and his assistant, Heureux, had gone, there also went
+one or other of those two sharp-eyed but unobtrusive Englishmen. Every
+action of the doctor had been noted, and information of it conveyed to
+the quiet-mannered man in pince-nez.
+
+"Really, Walter, you are quite as mysterious as your books," Enid was
+declaring, with a laugh. "I do wish you would satisfy my curiosity and
+tell me why you urged me to leave France so suddenly."
+
+"I had reasons--strong reasons which you may, perhaps, some day know,"
+was his response. "I am only glad that you thought fit to take the advice
+I offered. This afternoon I have called to give you further
+advice--namely, to remain in England, at least for the present."
+
+"But I can't. My friend Jane Caldwell has been waiting a whole fortnight
+for me, suffering from asthma in these abominable fogs."
+
+"You can make some excuse. I assure you that to remain in London will be
+for the best," he said, while she switched on the shaded electric lights,
+which shed a soft glow over the handsome room--that apartment, the
+costly furniture of which had been purchased out of the money secretly
+supplied by Weirmarsh.
+
+"But I can't see why I should remain," she protested, facing him again.
+He noted how strikingly handsome she was, her dimpled cheeks delicately
+moulded and her pretty chin slightly protruding, which gave a delightful
+piquancy to her features.
+
+"I wish I could explain further. I can't at present!"
+
+"You are, as I have already said, so amazingly mysterious--so full of
+secrets always!"
+
+The man sighed, his brows knit slightly.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am full of secrets--strange, astounding secrets they
+are--secrets which some time, if divulged, would mean terrible
+complications, ruin to those who are believed to be honest and upright."
+
+The girl stood for a few seconds in silence.
+
+She had heard strange rumours regarding the man seated there before her.
+Some had hinted that he, on more than one occasion, acting in an
+unofficial capacity, had arranged important treaties between Great
+Britain and a foreign Power, leaving to ambassadors the arrangements of
+detail and the final ratification. There were whispers abroad that he was
+a trusted and tried agent of the British Government, but in exactly what
+capacity was unknown. His name frequently appeared among the invited
+guests of Cabinet Ministers, and he received cards for many official
+functions, but the actual manner in which he rendered assistance to the
+Government was always kept a most profound secret.
+
+More than once Sir Hugh had mentioned the matter over the dining-table,
+expressing wonder as to Fetherston's real position.
+
+"You know him well, Enid," he had exclaimed once, laughing over to her.
+"What is your opinion?"
+
+"I really haven't any," she declared. "His movements are certainly rapid,
+and often most mysterious."
+
+"He's a most excellent fellow," declared the old general. "Cartwright
+told me so the other day in the club. Cartwright was ambassador in
+Petrograd before the war."
+
+Enid remembered this as she stood there, her hands behind her back.
+
+"Before I left I heard that Paul had been called unexpectedly to Paris,"
+he said a few moments later. "Has he returned?"
+
+"Not yet, I believe. I had a letter from Blanche this morning. When it
+was written, two days ago, he was still absent." Then she added: "There
+is some mystery regarding his visit to the capital. Blanche left for
+Paris yesterday, I believe, for she had telegraphed to him, but received
+no reply."
+
+"She has gone to Paris!" he echoed. "Why did she go? It was silly!"
+
+"Well--because she is puzzled, I think. It was very strange that Paul,
+even though at the very gate, did not leave those two men and wish her
+adieu."
+
+"Two men--what two men?" he asked in affected ignorance.
+
+"The two men who stopped the car and demanded to speak with him," she
+said; and, continuing, described to him that remarkable midnight incident
+close to the château.
+
+"No doubt he went to Paris upon some important business," Fetherston
+said, reassuring her. "It was, I think, foolish of his wife to follow. At
+least, that's my opinion."
+
+He knew that when madame arrived in Paris the ghastly truth must, sooner
+or later, be revealed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+IN WHICH A TRUTH IS TOLD
+
+
+AS Fetherston sat there, still chatting with his well-beloved, he felt a
+hatred of himself for being thus compelled to deceive her--to withhold
+from her the hideous truth of Paul's arrest.
+
+After all, silence was best. If Walter spoke to the girl before him, then
+he must of necessity reveal his own connection with the affair. He knew
+she had been puzzled by his presence in France, but his explanation, he
+hoped, had been sufficient. He had assured her that the _only_ motive of
+his journey had been to be near her, which was, indeed, no untruth.
+
+He saw that Enid was not altogether at her ease in his presence. Perhaps
+it was because of those questions and his plain outspokenness when last
+they met, on that forest road, where they had discussed the strange death
+of Harry Bellairs.
+
+On that evening, full of suspicion and apprehension, he had decided to
+tear himself away from her. But, alas! he had found himself powerless to
+do so. Pity and sympathy filled his heart; therefore, how could he turn
+from her and abandon her at this moment of her peril? It was on the next
+day that he had discerned Weirmarsh's sinister intentions. Therefore, he
+had risen to watch and to combat them.
+
+Some of his suspicions had been confirmed, nevertheless his chief object
+had not yet been attained--the elucidation of the mystery surrounding the
+remarkable death of Bellairs.
+
+He was about to refer again to that tragic incident when Enid said
+suddenly: "Doctor Weirmarsh called and saw Sir Hugh this morning. You
+told me to tell you when next he called."
+
+"Weirmarsh!" exclaimed the novelist in surprise. "I was not aware that he
+was in London!"
+
+"He's been abroad--in Copenhagen, I think. He has a brother living
+there."
+
+"He had a private talk with your stepfather, of course?"
+
+"Yes, as usual, they were in the study for quite a long time--nearly two
+hours. And," added the girl, "I believe that at last they quarrelled. If
+they have, I'm awfully glad, for I hate that man!"
+
+"Did you overhear them?" asked Fetherston anxiously, apprehensive lest an
+open quarrel had actually taken place. He knew well that Josef Blot,
+alias Weirmarsh, was not a man to be trifled with. If Sir Hugh had served
+his purpose, as he no doubt had, then he would be betrayed to the police
+without compunction, just as others had been.
+
+Walter Fetherston grew much perturbed at the knowledge of this quarrel
+between the pair. His sole aim was to protect Sir Hugh, yet how to act he
+knew not.
+
+"You did not actually hear any of the words spoken, I suppose?" he
+inquired of Enid.
+
+"Not exactly, except that I heard my stepfather denounce the doctor as an
+infernal cur and blackguard."
+
+"Well, and what did Weirmarsh reply?"
+
+"He threatened Sir Hugh, saying, 'You shall suffer for those words--you,
+who owe everything to me!' I wonder," added the girl, "what he meant by
+that?"
+
+"Who knows!" exclaimed Walter. "Some secret exists between them. You told
+me that you suspected it long ago."
+
+"And I do," she said, lowering her voice. "That man holds Sir Hugh in the
+hollow of his hand--of that I'm sure. I have noticed after each of the
+doctor's visits how pale and thoughtful he always is."
+
+"Have you tried to learn the reason of it all?" inquired the novelist
+quietly, his gaze fixed upon her.
+
+"I have," she replied, with slight hesitation.
+
+Walter Fetherston contemplated in silence the fine cat's-eye and diamond
+ring upon his finger--a ring sent him long ago by an anonymous admirer of
+his books, which he had ever since worn as a mascot.
+
+At one moment he held this girl in distinct suspicion; at the next,
+however, he realised her peril, and resolved to stand by her as her
+champion.
+
+Did he really and honestly love her? He put that question to himself a
+thousand times. And for the thousandth time was he compelled to answer in
+the affirmative.
+
+"By which route do you intend travelling to Italy to-morrow?" he asked.
+
+"By Paris and Modane. We go first for a week to Nervi, on the coast
+beyond Genoa," was her reply.
+
+Fetherston paused. If she put foot in France she would, he knew, be at
+once placed under arrest as an accomplice of Paul Le Pontois. When
+Weirmarsh took revenge he always did his work well. No doubt the French
+police were already at Calais awaiting her arrival.
+
+"I would change the route," he suggested. "Go by Ostend, Strasburg and
+Milan."
+
+"Mrs. Caldwell has already taken our tickets," she said. "Besides, it is
+a terribly long way round by that route."
+
+"I know," he murmured. "But it will be best. I have a reason--a strong
+reason, Enid, for urging you to go by Ostend."
+
+"It is not in my power to do so. Jane always makes our travelling
+arrangements. Besides, we have sleeping berths secured on the night
+_rapide_ from the Gare de Lyon to Turin."
+
+"I will see Mrs. Caldwell, and get her tickets changed," he said. "Do you
+understand, Enid? There are reasons--very strong reasons--why you should
+not travel across France!"
+
+"No, I don't," declared the girl. "You are mysterious again. Why don't
+you be open with me and give me your reasons for this suggestion?"
+
+"I would most willingly--if I could," he answered. "Unfortunately, I
+cannot."
+
+"I don't think Mrs. Caldwell will travel by the roundabout route which
+you suggest merely because you have a whim that we should not cross
+France," she remarked, looking straight at him.
+
+"If you enter France a disaster will happen--depend upon it," he said,
+speaking very slowly, his eyes fixed upon her.
+
+"Are you a prophet?" the girl asked. "Can you prophesy dreadful things to
+happen to us?"
+
+"I do in this case," he said firmly. "Therefore, take my advice and do
+not court disaster."
+
+"Can't you be more explicit?" she asked, much puzzled by his strange
+words.
+
+"No," he answered, shaking his head, "I cannot. I only forewarn you of
+what must happen. Therefore, I beg of you to take my advice and travel by
+the alternative route--if you really must go to Italy."
+
+She turned towards the fire and, fixing her gaze upon the flames,
+remained for a few moments in thought, one neat foot upon the marble
+kerb.
+
+"You really alarm me with all these serious utterances," she said at
+last, with a faint, nervous laugh.
+
+He rose and stood by her side.
+
+"Look here, Enid," he said, "can't you see that I am in dead earnest?
+Have I not already declared that I am your friend, to assist you against
+that man Weirmarsh?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "you have."
+
+"Then will you not heed my warning? There is distinct danger in your
+visit to France--a danger of which you have no suspicion, but real and
+serious nevertheless. Don't think about spying; it is not that, I assure
+you."
+
+"How can I avoid it?"
+
+"By pretending to be unwell," he suggested quickly. "You cannot leave
+with Mrs. Caldwell. Let her go, and you can join her a few days later,
+travelling by Ostend. The thing is quite simple."
+
+"But----"
+
+"No, you must not hesitate," he declared. "There are no buts. It is the
+only way."
+
+"Yes; but tell me what terrible thing is to happen to me if I enter
+France?" she asked, with an uneasy laugh.
+
+The man hesitated. To speak the truth would be to explain all. Therefore
+he only shook his head and said, "Please do not ask me to explain a
+matter of which I am not permitted to speak. If you believe me, Enid," he
+said in a low, pleading voice, "do heed my warning, I beg of you!"
+
+As he uttered these words the handle of the door turned, and Lady
+Elcombe, warmly clad in furs, came forward to greet the novelist.
+
+"I'm so glad that I returned before you left, Mr. Fetherston," she
+exclaimed. "We've been to a most dreary play; and I'm simply dying for
+some tea. Enid, ring the bell, dear, will you?" Then continuing, she
+added in warm enthusiasm: "Really, Mr. Fetherston, you are quite a
+stranger! We hoped to see more of you, but my husband and daughter have
+been away in France--as perhaps you know."
+
+"So Enid has been telling me," replied Walter. "They've been in a most
+interesting district."
+
+"Enid is leaving us again to-morrow morning," remarked her mother. "They
+are going to Nervi. You know it, of course, for I've heard you called the
+living Baedeker, Mr. Fetherston," she laughed.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I know it--a rather dull little place, with one or
+two villas. I prefer Santa Margherita, a little farther along the
+coast--or Rapallo. But," he added, "your daughter tells me she's not
+well. I hope she will not be compelled to postpone her departure."
+
+"Of course not," said Lady Elcombe decisively. "She must go to-morrow if
+she goes at all. I will not allow her to travel by herself."
+
+The girl and the man exchanged meaning glances, and just then Sir Hugh
+himself entered, greeting his visitor cheerily.
+
+The butler brought in the tea-tray, and as they sat together the two men
+chatted.
+
+In pretence that he had not been abroad, Walter was making inquiry
+regarding the district around Haudiomont, which he declared must be full
+of interest, and asking the general's opinion of the French new
+fortresses in anticipation of the new war against Germany.
+
+"Since I have been away," said the general, "I have been forced to arrive
+at the conclusion that another danger may arrive in the very near future.
+Germany will try and attack France again--without a doubt. The French are
+labouring under a dangerous delusion if they suppose that Germany would
+be satisfied with her obscurity."
+
+"Is that really your opinion, Sir Hugh?" asked Fetherston, somewhat
+surprised.
+
+"Certainly," was the general's reply. "There will be another war in the
+near future. My opinions have changed of late, my dear Fetherston," Sir
+Hugh assured him, as he sipped his tea, "and more especially since I went
+to visit my daughter. I have recently had opportunities of seeing and
+learning a good deal."
+
+Fetherston reflected. Those words, coming from Sir Hugh, were certainly
+strange ones.
+
+Walter was handing Enid the cake when the butler entered, bearing a
+telegram upon a silver salver, which he handed to Sir Hugh.
+
+Tearing it open, he glanced at the message eagerly, and a second later,
+with blanched face, stood rigid, statuesque, as though turned into stone.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" asked his wife. "Whom is it from?"
+
+"Only from Blanche," he answered in a low, strained voice. "She is in
+Paris--and is leaving to-night for London."
+
+"Is Paul coming?" inquired Enid eagerly.
+
+"No," he answered, with a strenuous effort to remain calm. "He--he cannot
+leave Paris."
+
+The butler, being told there was no answer, bowed and withdrew, but a few
+seconds later the door reopened, and he announced:
+
+"Dr. Weirmarsh, Sir Hugh!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE WIDENED BREACH
+
+
+WHEN Sir Hugh entered his cosy study he found the doctor seated at his
+ease in the big chair by the fire.
+
+"I thought that, being in the vicinity, I would call and see if you've
+recovered from your--well, your silly fit of irritability," he said, with
+a grim smile on his grey face as he looked towards the general.
+
+"I have just received bad news--news which I have all along dreaded,"
+replied the unhappy man, the telegram still in his hand. "Paul Le Pontois
+has been arrested on some mysterious charge--false, without a doubt!"
+
+"Yes," replied Weirmarsh; "it is most unfortunate. I heard it an hour
+ago, and the real reason of my visit was to tell you of the
+_contretemps_."
+
+"Someone must have made a false charge against him," cried the general
+excitedly. "The poor fellow is innocent--entirely innocent! I only have a
+brief telegram from his wife. She is in despair, and leaves for London
+to-night."
+
+"My dear Sir Hugh, France is in a very hysterical mood just now. Of
+course, there must be some mistake. Some private enemy of his has made
+the charge without a doubt--someone jealous of his position, perhaps.
+Allegations are easily made, though not so easily substantiated."
+
+"Except by manufactured evidence and forged documents," snapped Sir Hugh.
+"If Paul is the victim of some political party and is to be made a
+scapegoat, then Heaven help him, poor fellow. They will never allow him
+to prove his innocence, unless----"
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless I come forward," he said very slowly, staring straight before
+him. "Unless I come forward and tell the truth of my dealings with you.
+The charges against Paul are false. I know it now. What have you to say?"
+he added in a low, hard voice.
+
+"A great deal of good that would do!" laughed Weirmarsh, selecting a
+cigarette from his gold case and lighting it, regarding his host with
+those narrow-set, sinister eyes of his. "It would only implicate Le
+Pontois further. They would say, and with truth, that you knew of the
+whole conspiracy and had profited by it."
+
+"I should tell them what I know concerning you. Indeed, I wrote out a
+full statement while I was staying with Paul. And I have it ready to hand
+for the authorities."
+
+"You can do so, of course, if you choose," was the careless reply. "It
+really doesn't matter to me what statement you make. You have always
+preserved silence up to the present, therefore I should believe that in
+this case silence was still golden."
+
+"And you suggest that I stand calmly by and see Le Pontois sentenced to a
+long term of imprisonment for a crime which he has not committed, eh?"
+
+"I don't suggest anything, my dear Sir Hugh," was the man's reply; "I
+leave it all to your good judgment."
+
+Since they had met in secret Weirmarsh had made a flying visit to
+Brussels, where he had conferred with two friends of his. Upon their
+suggestion he was now acting.
+
+If Paul Le Pontois were secretly denounced and afterwards found innocent,
+then it would only mystify the French police; the policy pursued towards
+the Sûreté, as well as towards Sir Hugh, was a clever move on Weirmarsh's
+part.
+
+"What am I to say to my poor girl when she arrives here in tears
+to-morrow?" demanded the fine old British officer hoarsely.
+
+"You know that best yourself," was Weirmarsh's brusque reply.
+
+"To you I owe all my recent troubles," the elder man declared.
+"Because--because," he added bitterly, "you bought me up body and soul."
+
+"A mere business arrangement, wasn't it, Sir Hugh?" remarked his visitor.
+"Of course, I'm very sorry if any great trouble has fallen upon you on my
+account. I hope, for instance, you do not suspect me of conspiring to
+denounce your son-in-law," he added.
+
+"Well, I don't know," was the other's reply; "yet I feel that, in view of
+this _contretemps_, I must in future break off all connection with you."
+
+"And lose the annual grant which you find so extremely useful?"
+
+"I shall be compelled to do without it. And, at least, I shall have peace
+of mind."
+
+"Perhaps," remarked the other meaningly.
+
+Sir Hugh realised that this man intended still to hold him in the hollow
+of his hand. From that one false step he had taken years ago he had never
+been able to draw back.
+
+Hour by hour, and day by day, had his conscience pricked him. Those chats
+with the doctor in that grimy little consulting-room in Pimlico remained
+ever in his memory.
+
+The doctor was the representative of those who held him in their
+power--persons who were being continually hunted by the police, yet who
+always evaded them--criminals all! To insult him would be to insult those
+who had paid him so well for his confidential services.
+
+Yet, filled with contempt for himself, he asked whether he did not
+deserve to be degraded publicly, and drummed out of the army.
+
+Were it not for Lady Elcombe and Enid he would long ago have gone to East
+Africa and effaced himself. But he could not bring himself to desert
+them.
+
+He had satisfied himself that not a soul in England suspected the truth,
+for, by the Press, he had long ago been declared to be a patriotic
+Briton, because in his stirring public speeches, when he had put up for
+Parliament after the armistice, there was always a genuine "John Bull"
+ring.
+
+The truth was that he remained unsuspected by all--save by one man who
+had scented the truth. That man was Walter Fetherston!
+
+Walter alone knew the ghastly circumstances, and it was he who had been
+working to save the old soldier from himself. He did so for two
+reasons--first, because he was fond of the bluff, fearless old fellow,
+and, secondly, because he had been attracted by Enid, and intended to
+rescue her from the evil thraldom of Weirmarsh.
+
+"Why have you returned here to taunt and irritate me again?" snapped Sir
+Hugh after a pause.
+
+"I came to tell you news which, apparently, you have already received."
+
+"You could well have kept it. You knew that I should be informed in due
+course."
+
+"Yes--but I--well, I thought you might grow apprehensive perhaps."
+
+"In what direction?"
+
+"That your connection with the little affair might be discovered by the
+French police. Bézard, the new chief of the Sûreté, is a pretty shrewd
+person, remember!"
+
+"But, surely, that is not possible, is it?" gasped the elder man in quick
+alarm.
+
+"No; you can reassure yourself on that point. Le Pontois knows nothing,
+therefore he can make no statement--unless, of course, your own actions
+were suspicious."
+
+"They were not--I am convinced of that."
+
+"Then you have no need to fear. Your son-in-law will certainly not
+endeavour to implicate you. And if he did, he would not be believed,"
+declared the doctor, although he well knew that Bézard was in possession
+of full knowledge of the whole truth, and that, only by the timely
+warning he had so mysteriously received, had this man before him and his
+stepdaughter escaped arrest.
+
+His dastardly plot to secure their ruin and imprisonment had failed. How
+the girl had obtained wind of it utterly mystified him. It was really in
+order to discover the reason of their sudden flight that he had made
+those two visits.
+
+"Look here, Weirmarsh," exclaimed Sir Hugh with sudden resolution, "I
+wish you to understand that from to-day, once and for all, I desire to
+have no further dealings with you. It was, as you have said, a purely
+business transaction. Well, I have done the dirty, disgraceful work for
+which you have paid me, and now my task is at an end."
+
+"I hardly think it is, my dear Sir Hugh," replied the doctor calmly. "As
+I have said before, I am only the mouthpiece--I am not the employer. But
+I believe that certain further assistance is required--information which
+you promised long ago, but failed to procure."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"You recollect that you promised to obtain something--a little
+tittle-tattle--concerning a lady."
+
+"Yes," snapped the old officer, "oh, Lady Wansford. Let us talk of
+something else!"
+
+Weirmarsh, who had been narrowly watching the countenance of his victim,
+saw that he had mentioned a disagreeable subject. He noted how pale were
+the general's cheeks, and how his thin hands twitched with suppressed
+excitement.
+
+"I am quite ready to talk of other matters," he answered, "though I deem
+it but right to refer to my instructions."
+
+"And what are they?"
+
+"To request you to supply the promised information."
+
+"But I can't--_I really can't_!"
+
+"You made a promise, remember. And upon that promise I made you a loan of
+five hundred pounds."
+
+"I know!" cried the unhappy man, who had sunk so deeply into the mire
+that extrication seemed impossible. "I know! But it is a promise that I
+can't fulfil. I won't be your tool any longer. Gad! I won't. Don't you
+hear me?"
+
+"You must!" declared Weirmarsh, bending forward and looking straight into
+his eyes.
+
+"I will not!" shouted Sir Hugh, his eyes flashing with quick anger.
+"Anything but that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"My efforts in that direction had tragic results on the last occasion."
+
+"Ah!" laughed Weirmarsh. "I see you are superstitious--or something. I
+did not expect that of you."
+
+"I am not superstitious, Weirmarsh. I only refuse to do what you want. If
+I gave it to you, it would mean--no I won't--I tell you I won't!"
+
+"Bah! You are growing sentimental!"
+
+"No--I am growing wise. My eyes are at last opened to the dastardly
+methods of you and your infernal friends. Hear me, once and for all; I
+refuse to assist you further; and, moreover, I defy you!"
+
+The doctor was silent for a moment, contemplating the ruby on his finger.
+Then, rising slowly from his chair, he said: "Ah! you do not fully
+realise what your refusal may cost you."
+
+"Cost what it may, Weirmarsh, I ask you to leave my house at once," said
+the general, scarlet with anger and beside himself with remorse. "And I
+shall give orders that you are not again to be admitted here."
+
+"Very good!" laughed the other, with a sinister grin. "You will very soon
+be seeking me in my surgery."
+
+"We shall see," replied Sir Hugh, with a shrug of his shoulders, as the
+other strode out of his room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CONCERNING THE BELLAIRS AFFAIR
+
+
+WHAT Walter Fetherston had feared had happened. The two men had
+quarrelled! Throughout the whole of that evening he watched the doctor's
+movements.
+
+In any other country but our dear old hood-winked England, Fetherston, in
+the ordinary course, would have been the recipient of high honours from
+the Sovereign. But he was a writer, and not a financier. He could not
+afford to subscribe to the party funds, a course suggested by the
+flat-footed old Lady G----, who was the tout of Government Whips.
+
+Walter preferred to preserve his independence. He had seen and known much
+during the war, and, disgusted, he preferred to adopt the Canadian
+Government's decree and remain without "honours."
+
+His pet phrase was: "The extent of a Party's dishonours is known by the
+honours it bestows. Scraps of ribbon, 'X.Y.Z.' or O.B.E. behind one's
+name can neither make the gentleman nor create the lady."
+
+His secret connection with Scotland Yard, which was purely patriotic and
+conducted as a student of underground crime, had taught him many strange
+things, and he had learnt many remarkable secrets. Some of them were,
+indeed, his secrets before they became secrets of the Cabinet.
+
+Many of those secrets he kept to himself, one being the remarkable truth
+that General Sir Hugh Elcombe was implicated in a very strange jumble of
+affairs--a matter that was indeed incredible.
+
+To the tall, well-groomed, military-looking man with whom he stood at
+eleven o'clock on the following morning--in a private room at New
+Scotland Yard--he had never confided that discovery of his. To have done
+so would have been to betray a man who had a brilliant record as a
+soldier, and who still held high position at the War Office.
+
+By such denunciation he knew he might earn from "the eyes of the
+Government" very high commendation, in addition to what he had already
+earned, yet he had resolved, if possible, to save the old officer, who
+was really more sinned against than sinning.
+
+"You seem to keep pretty close at the heels of your friend, the doctor of
+Vauxhall Bridge Road!" laughed Trendall, the director of the department,
+as they stood together in the big, airy, official-looking room, the two
+long windows of which looked out over Westminster Bridge.
+
+"You've been in France, Montgomery says. What was your friend doing
+there?"
+
+"He's been there against his will--very much against his will!"
+
+"And you've found out something--eh?"
+
+"Yes," replied Fetherston. "One or two things."
+
+"Something interesting, of course," remarked the shrewd, active,
+dark-haired man of fifty, under whose control was one of the most
+important departments of Scotland Yard. "But tell me, in what direction
+is this versatile doctor of yours working just at the present?"
+
+"I hardly know," was the novelist's reply, as in a navy serge suit he
+leaned near the window which overlooked the Thames. "I believe some deep
+scheme is afoot, but at present I cannot see very far. For that reason I
+am remaining watchful."
+
+"He does not suspect you, of course? If he does, I'd give you Harris, or
+Charlesworth, or another of the men--in fact, whoever you like--to assist
+you."
+
+"Perhaps I may require someone before long. If so, I will write or wire
+to the usual private box at the General Post Office, and shall then be
+glad if you will send a man to meet me."
+
+"Certainly. It was you, Fetherston, who first discovered the existence of
+this interesting doctor, who had already lived in Vauxhall Bridge Road
+for eighteen months without arousing suspicion. You have, indeed, a fine
+nose for mysteries."
+
+At that moment the telephone, standing upon the big writing-table, rang
+loudly, and the man of secrets crossed to it and listened.
+
+"It's Heywood--at Victoria Station. He's asking for you," he exclaimed.
+
+Walter went to the instrument, and through it heard the words: "The boat
+train has just gone, sir. Mrs. Caldwell waited for the young lady until
+the train went off, but she did not arrive. She seemed annoyed and
+disappointed. Dr. Weirmarsh has been on the platform, evidently watching
+also."
+
+"Thanks, Heywood," replied Fetherston sharply; "that was all I wanted to
+know. Good day."
+
+He replaced the receiver, and, walking back to his friend against the
+window, explained: "A simple little inquiry I was making regarding a
+departure by the boat train for Paris--that was all."
+
+But he reflected that if Weirmarsh had been watching it must have been to
+warn the French police over at Calais of the coming of Enid. No action
+was too dastardly for that unscrupulous scoundrel.
+
+Yet, for the present at least, the girl remained safe. The chief peril
+was that in which Sir Hugh was placed, now that he had openly defied the
+doctor.
+
+On the previous evening he had been in the drawing-room at Hill Street
+when Sir Hugh had returned from interviewing the caller. By his
+countenance and manner he at once realised that the breach had been
+widened.
+
+The one thought by which he was obsessed was how he should save Sir Hugh
+from disgrace. His connection with the Criminal Investigation Department
+placed at his disposal a marvellous network of sources of information,
+amazing as they were unsuspected. He was secretly glad that at last the
+old fellow had resolved to face bankruptcy rather than go farther in that
+strange career of crime, yet, at the same time, there was serious
+danger--for Weirmarsh was a man so unscrupulous and so vindictive that
+the penalty of his defiance must assuredly be a severe one.
+
+The very presence of the doctor on the platform of the South Eastern
+station at Victoria that morning showed that he did not intend to allow
+the grass to grow beneath his feet.
+
+The novelist was still standing near the long window, looking aimlessly
+down upon the Embankment, with its hurrying foot-passengers and whirling
+taxis.
+
+"You seem unusually thoughtful, Fetherston," remarked Trendall with some
+curiosity, as he seated himself at the table and resumed the opening of
+his letters which his friend's visit had interrupted. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+"The fact is, I'm very much puzzled."
+
+"About what? You're generally very successful in obtaining solutions
+where other men have failed."
+
+"To the problem which is greatly exercising my mind just now I can obtain
+no solution," he said in a low, intense voice.
+
+"What is it? Can I help you?"
+
+"Well," he exclaimed, with some hesitation, "I am still trying to
+discover why Harry Bellairs died and who killed him."
+
+"That mystery has long ago been placed by us among those which admit of
+no solution, my dear fellow," declared his friend. "We did our best to
+throw some light upon it, but all to no purpose. I set the whole of our
+machinery at work at the time--days before you suspected anything
+wrong--but not a trace of the truth could we find."
+
+"But what could have been the motive, do you imagine? From all accounts
+he was a most popular young officer, without a single enemy in the
+world."
+
+"Jealousy," was the dark man's slow reply. "My own idea is that a woman
+killed him."
+
+"Why?" cried Walter quickly. "What causes you to make such a suggestion?"
+
+"Well--listen, and when I've finished you can draw your own
+conclusions."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE SILENCE OF THE MAN BARKER
+
+
+"HARRY BELLAIRS was an old friend of mine," Trendall went on, leaning
+back in his padded writing-chair and turning towards where the novelist
+was standing. "His curious end was a problem which, of course, attracted
+you as a writer of fiction. The world believed his death to be due to
+natural causes, in view of the failure of Professors Dale and Boyd, the
+Home Office analysts, to find a trace of poison or of foul play."
+
+"You believe, then, that he was poisoned?" asked Fetherston quickly.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders, saying: "How can that point be cleared
+up? There was no evidence of it."
+
+"It is curious that, though we are both so intensely interested in the
+problem, we have never before discussed it," remarked Walter. "I am so
+anxious to hear your views upon one or two points. What, for instance, do
+you think of Barker, the dead man's valet?"
+
+Herbert Trendall hesitated, and for a moment twisted his moustache. He
+was a marvellously alert man, an unusually good linguist, and a
+cosmopolitan to his finger-tips. He had been a detective-sergeant in the
+T Division of Metropolitan Police for years before his appointment as
+director of that section. He knew more of the criminal undercurrents on
+the Continent than any living Englishman, and it was he who furnished
+accurate information to the Sûreté in Paris concerning the great Humbert
+swindle.
+
+"Well," he said, "if I recollect aright, the inquiries regarding him were
+not altogether satisfactory. Previous to his engagement by Harry he had,
+it seems, been valet to a man named Mitchell, a horse-trainer of rather
+shady repute."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"I really don't know, but I can easily find out--I gave orders that he
+was not to be lost sight of." And, scribbling a hasty memorandum, he
+pressed the electric button upon the arm of his chair.
+
+His secretary, a tall, thin, deep-eyed man, entered, and to him he gave
+the note.
+
+"Well, let us proceed while they are looking up the information," the
+chief went on. "Harry Bellairs, as you know, was on the staff of Sir
+Hugh Elcombe, that dear, harmless old friend of yours who inspects troops
+and seems to do odd jobs for Whitehall. I knew Harry before he went to
+Sandhurst; his people, who lived up near Durham, were very civil to me
+once or twice and gave me some excellent pheasant-shooting. It seems that
+on that day in September he came up to town from Salisbury--but you know
+all the facts, of course?"
+
+"I know all the facts as far as they were related in the papers," Walter
+said. He did not reveal the results of the close independent inquiries he
+had already made--results which had utterly astounded, and at the same
+time mystified, him.
+
+"Well," said Trendall, "what the Press published was mostly fiction. Even
+the evidence given before the coroner was utterly unreliable. It was
+mainly given in order to mislead the jury and prevent public suspicion
+that there had been a sensational tragedy--I arranged it so."
+
+"And there had been a tragedy, no doubt?"
+
+"Of course," declared the other, leaning both elbows upon the table
+before him and looking straight into the novelist's pale face. "Harry
+came up from Salisbury, the bearer of some papers from Sir Hugh. He duly
+arrived at Waterloo, discharged his duty, and went to his rooms in Half
+Moon Street. Now, according to Barker's story, his master arrived home
+early in the afternoon, and sent him out on a message to Richmond. He
+returned a little after five, when he found his master absent."
+
+"That was the account he gave at the inquest," remarked Fetherston.
+
+"Yes; but it was not the truth. On testing the man's story I discovered
+that at three-eighteen he was in the Leicester Lounge, in Leicester
+Square, with an ill-dressed old man, who was described as being short and
+wearing a rusty, old silk hat. They sat at a table near the window
+drinking ginger-ale, so that the barmaid could not overhear, and held a
+long and confidential chat."
+
+"He may afterwards have gone down to Richmond," his friend suggested.
+
+"No; he remained there until past four, and then went round to the Café
+Royal, where he met another man, a foreigner, of about his own age,
+believed to have been a Swiss, with whom he took a cup of coffee. The man
+was a stranger at the café, probably a stranger in London. Barker was in
+the habit of doing a little betting, and I believe the men he met were
+some of his betting friends."
+
+"Then you disbelieve the Richmond story?"
+
+"Entirely. What seems more than probable is that Harry gave his man the
+afternoon off because he wished to entertain somebody clandestinely at
+his rooms--a woman, perhaps. Yet, as far as I've been able to discover,
+no one in Half Moon Street saw any stranger of either sex go to his
+chambers that afternoon."
+
+"You said that you believed the motive of the crime--if crime it really
+was--was jealousy," remarked Fetherston, thoughtfully rubbing his shaven
+chin.
+
+"And I certainly do. Harry was essentially a lady's man. He was tall, and
+an extremely handsome fellow, a thorough-going sportsman, an excellent
+polo player, a perfect dancer, and a splendid rider to hounds. Little
+wonder was it that he was about to make a very fine match, for only a
+month before his death he confided to me in secret the fact--a fact known
+to me alone--that he was engaged to pretty little Lady Blanche Herbert,
+eldest daughter of the Earl of Warsborough."
+
+"Engaged to Lady Blanche!" echoed the novelist in surprise, for the girl
+in question was the prettiest of that year's débutantes as well as a
+great heiress in her own right.
+
+"Yes. Harry was a lucky dog, poor fellow. The engagement, known only to
+the Warsboroughs and myself, was to have been kept secret for a year.
+Now, it is my firm opinion, Fetherston, that some other woman, one of
+Harry's many female friends, had got wind of it, and very cleverly had
+her revenge."
+
+"Upon what grounds do you suspect that?" asked the other eagerly--for
+surely the problem was becoming more inscrutable than any of those in the
+remarkable romances which he penned.
+
+"Well, my conclusions are drawn from several very startling facts--facts
+which, of course, have never leaked out to the public. But before I
+reveal them to you I'd like to hear what opinion you've formed yourself."
+
+"I'm convinced that Harry Bellairs met with foul play, and I'm equally
+certain that the man Barker lied in his depositions before the coroner.
+He knows the whole story, and has been paid to keep a still tongue."
+
+"There I entirely agree with you," Trendall declared quickly; while at
+that moment the secretary returned with a slip of paper attached to the
+query which his chief had written. "Ah!" he exclaimed, glancing at the
+paper, "I see that the fellow Barker, who was a chauffeur before he
+entered Harry's service, has set up a motor-car business in
+Southampton."
+
+"You believe him to have been an accessory, eh?"
+
+"Yes, a dupe in the hands of a clever woman."
+
+"Of what woman?" asked Walter, holding his breath.
+
+"As you know, Harry was secretary to your friend Elcombe. Well, I happen
+to know that his pretty stepdaughter, Enid Orlebar, was over head and
+ears in love with him. My daughter Ethel and she are friends, and she
+confided this fact to Ethel only a month before the tragedy."
+
+"Then you actually suggest that a--a certain woman murdered him?" gasped
+Fetherston.
+
+"Well--there is no actual proof--only strong suspicion!"
+
+Walter Fetherston held his breath. Did the suspicions of this man, from
+whom no secret was safe, run in the same direction as his own?
+
+"There was in the evidence given before the coroner a suggestion that the
+captain had dined somewhere in secret," he said.
+
+"I know. But we have since cleared up that point. He was not given poison
+while he sat at dinner, for we know that he dined at the Bachelors' with
+a man named Friend. They had a hurried meal, because Friend had to catch
+a train to the west of England."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"He left the club in a taxi at eight. But what his movements exactly were
+we cannot ascertain. He returned to his chambers at a quarter past nine
+in order to change his clothes and go back to Salisbury, but he was
+almost immediately taken ill. Barker declares that his master sent him
+out on an errand instantly on his return, and that when he came in he
+found him dying."
+
+"Did he not explain what the errand was?"
+
+"No; he refused to say."
+
+In that refusal Fetherston saw that the valet, whatever might be his
+fault, was loyal to his dead master and to Enid Orlebar. He had not told
+how Bellairs had sent to Hill Street that scribbled note, and how the
+distressed girl had torn along to Half Moon Street to arrive too late to
+speak for the last time with the man she loved. Was Barker an enemy, or
+was he a friend?
+
+"That refusal arouses distinct suspicion, eh?"
+
+"Barker has very cleverly concealed some important fact," replied the
+keen-faced man who controlled that section of Scotland Yard. "Bellairs,
+feeling deadly ill, and knowing that he had fallen a victim to some
+enemy, sent Barker out for somebody in whom to confide. The man claimed
+that the errand that his master sent him upon was one of confidence."
+
+"And to whom do you think he was sent?"
+
+"To a woman," was Trendall's slow and serious reply. "To the woman who
+murdered him!"
+
+"But if she had poisoned him, surely he would not send for her?"
+exclaimed Fetherston.
+
+"At the moment he was not aware of the woman's jealousy, or of the subtle
+means used to cause his untimely end. He was unsuspicious of that cruel,
+deadly hatred lying so deep in the woman's breast. Lady Blanche, on
+hearing of the death of her lover, was terribly grieved, and is still
+abroad. She, of course, made all sorts of wild allegations, but in none
+of them did we find any basis of fact. Yet, curiously enough, her views
+were exactly the same as my own--that one of poor Harry's lady friends
+had been responsible for his fatal seizure."
+
+"Then, after all the inquiries you instituted, you were really unable to
+point to the actual assassin?" asked Fetherston rather more calmly.
+
+"Not exactly unable--unwilling, rather."
+
+"How do you mean unwilling? You were Bellairs' friend!"
+
+"Yes, I was. He was one of the best and most noble fellows who ever wore
+the King's uniform, and he died by the treacherous hand of a jealous
+woman--a clever woman who had paid Barker to maintain silence."
+
+"But, if the dying man wished to make a statement, he surely would not
+have sent for the very person by whose hand he had fallen," Fetherston
+protested. "Surely that is not a logical conclusion!"
+
+"Bellairs was not certain that his sudden seizure was not due to
+something he had eaten at the club--remember he was not certain that her
+hand had administered the fatal drug," replied Trendall. A hard, serious
+expression rested upon his face. "He had, no doubt, seen her between the
+moment when he left the Bachelors' and his arrival, a little over an hour
+afterwards, at Half Moon Street--where, or how, we know not. Perhaps he
+drove to her house, and there, at her invitation, drank something. Yet,
+however it happened, the result was the same; she killed him, even though
+she was the first friend to whom he sent in his distress--killed him
+because she had somehow learnt of his secret engagement to Lady Blanche
+Herbert."
+
+"Yours is certainly a remarkable theory," admitted Walter Fetherston.
+"May I ask the name of the woman to whom you refer?"
+
+"Yes; she was the woman who loved him so passionately," replied
+Trendall--"Enid Orlebar."
+
+"Then you really suspect _her_?" asked Fetherston breathlessly.
+
+"Only as far as certain facts are concerned; and that since Harry's death
+she has been unceasingly interested in the career of the man Barker."
+
+"Are you quite certain of this?" gasped Fetherston.
+
+"Quite; it is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt."
+
+"Then Enid Orlebar killed him?"
+
+"That if she actually did not kill him with her own hand, she at least
+knew well who did," was the other's cold, hard reply. "She killed him for
+two reasons; first, because by poor Harry's death she prevented the
+exposure of some great secret!"
+
+Walter Fetherston made no reply.
+
+Those inquiries, instituted by Scotland Yard, had resulted in exactly the
+same theory as his own independent efforts--that Harry Bellairs had been
+secretly done to death by the woman, who, upon her own admission to him,
+had been summoned to the young officer's side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WHAT THE DEAD MAN LEFT
+
+
+IT was news to Fetherston that Bellairs had dined at his club on that
+fateful night.
+
+He had believed that Enid had dined with him. He had proved beyond all
+doubt that she had been to his rooms that afternoon during Barker's
+absence. That feather from the boa, and the perfume, were sufficient
+evidence of her visit.
+
+Yet why had Barker remained in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly Circus if
+sent by his master with a message to Richmond? He could not doubt a
+single word that Trendall had told him, for the latter's information was
+beyond question. Well he knew with what care and cunning such an inquiry
+would have been made, and how every point would have been proved before
+being reported to that ever active man who was head of that Department of
+the Home Office that never sleeps.
+
+"What secret do you suggest might have been divulged?" he asked at last
+after a long pause.
+
+The big room--the Room of Secrets--was silent, for the double windows
+prevented the noise of the traffic and the "honk" of the taxi horns from
+penetrating there. Only the low ticking of the clock broke the quiet.
+
+"I scarcely have any suggestion to offer in that direction," was
+Trendall's slow reply. "That feature of the affair still remains a
+mystery."
+
+"But cannot this man Barker be induced to make some statement?" he
+queried.
+
+"He will scarcely betray the woman to whom he owes his present
+prosperity, for he is prosperous and has a snug little balance at his
+bank. Besides, even though we took the matter in hand, what could we do?
+There is no evidence against him or against the woman. The farcical
+proceedings in the coroner's court had tied their hands."
+
+"An open verdict was returned?"
+
+"Yes, at our suggestion. But Professors Dale and Boyd failed to find any
+traces of poison or of foul play."
+
+"And yet there _was_ foul play--that is absolutely certain!" declared the
+novelist.
+
+"Unfortunately, yes. Poor Bellairs was a brilliant and promising officer,
+a man destined to make a distinct mark in the world. It was a pity,
+perhaps, that he was such a lady-killer."
+
+"A pity that he fell victim to what was evidently a clever plot, and
+yet--yet--I cannot bring myself to believe that your surmise can be
+actually correct. He surely would never have sent for the very person who
+was his enemy and who had plotted to kill him--it doesn't seem feasible,
+does it?"
+
+"Quite as feasible as any of the strange and crooked circumstances which
+one finds every day in life's undercurrents," was the quiet rejoinder.
+"Remember, he was very fond of her--fascinated by her remarkable beauty."
+
+"But he was engaged to Lady Blanche?"
+
+"He intended to marry her, probably for wealth and position. The woman a
+man of Harry's stamp marries is seldom, if ever, the woman he loves,"
+added the chief with a somewhat cynical smile, for he was essentially a
+man of the world.
+
+"But what secret could Enid Orlebar desire to hide?" exclaimed Fetherston
+wonderingly. "If he loved her, he certainly would never have threatened
+exposure."
+
+"My dear fellow, I've told you briefly my own theory--a theory formed
+upon all the evidence I could collect," replied the tall, dark-eyed man,
+as he thrust his hands deeply into his trousers pockets and looked
+straight into the eyes of his friend.
+
+"If you are so certain that Enid Orlebar is implicated in the affair, if
+not the actual assassin, why don't you interrogate her?" asked Walter
+boldly.
+
+"Well--well, to tell the truth, our inquiries are not yet complete. When
+they are, we may be in a better position--we probably shall be--to put to
+her certain pointed questions. But," he added quickly, "perhaps I ought
+not to say this, for I know she is a friend of yours."
+
+"What you tell me is in confidence, as always, Trendall," he replied
+quickly. "I knew long ago that Enid was deeply attached to Bellairs. But
+much that you have just told me is entirely fresh to me. I must find
+Barker and question him."
+
+"I don't think I'd do that. Wait until we have completed our inquiries,"
+urged the other. "If Bellairs was killed in so secret and scientific a
+manner that no trace was left, he was killed with a cunning and
+craftiness which betrays a jealous woman rather than a man. Besides,
+there are other facts we have gathered which go further to prove that
+Enid Orlebar is the actual culprit."
+
+"What are they? Tell me, Trendall."
+
+"No, my dear chap; you are the lady's friend--it is really unfair to ask
+me," he protested. "Where the usual mysteries are concerned, I'm always
+open and above-board with you. But in private investigations like this
+you must allow me to retain certain knowledge to myself."
+
+"But I beg of you to tell me everything," demanded the other. "I have
+taken an intense interest in the matter, as you have, even though my
+motive has been of an entirely different character."
+
+"You have no suspicion that Bellairs was in possession of any great
+secret--a secret which it was to Miss Orlebar's advantage should be
+kept?"
+
+"No," was the novelist's prompt response. "But I can't see the drift of
+your question," he added.
+
+"Well," replied the keen, alert man, who, again seated in his
+writing-chair, bent slightly towards his visitor, "well, as you've asked
+me to reveal all I know, Fetherston, I will do so, even though I feel
+some reluctance, in face of the fact that Miss Orlebar is your friend."
+
+"That makes no difference," declared the other firmly. "I am anxious to
+clear up the mystery of Bellairs' death."
+
+"Then I think that you need seek no farther for the correct solution,"
+replied Trendall quietly, looking into the other's pale countenance.
+"Your lady friend killed him--_in order to preserve her own secret_."
+
+"But what was her secret?"
+
+"We have that yet to establish. It must have been a serious one for her
+to close his lips in such a manner."
+
+"But they were good friends," declared Fetherston. "He surely had not
+threatened to expose her?"
+
+"I do not think he had. My own belief is that she became madly jealous of
+Lady Blanche, and at the same time, fearing the exposure of her secret to
+the woman to whom her lover had become engaged, she took the subtle means
+of silencing him. Besides----" And he paused without concluding his
+sentence.
+
+"Besides what?"
+
+"From the first you suspected Sir Hugh's stepdaughter, eh?"
+
+Fetherston hesitated. Then afterwards he nodded slowly in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Yes," went on Trendall, "I knew all along that you were suspicious. You
+made a certain remarkable discovery, eh, Fetherston?"
+
+The novelist started. At what did his friend hint? Was it possible that
+the inquiries had led to a suspicion of Sir Hugh's criminal conduct? The
+very thought appalled him.
+
+"I--well, in the course of the inquiries I made I found that the lady in
+question was greatly attached to the dead man," replied Fetherston rather
+lamely.
+
+Trendall smiled. "It was to Enid Orlebar that Harry sent when he felt his
+fatal seizure. Instead of sending for a doctor, he sent Barker to her,
+and she at once flew to his side, but, alas! too late to remedy the harm
+she had already caused. When she arrived he was dead!"
+
+Fetherston was silent. He saw that the inquiries made by the Criminal
+Investigation Department had led to exactly the same conclusion that he
+himself had formed.
+
+"This is a most distressing thought--that Enid Orlebar is a murderess!"
+he declared after a moment's pause.
+
+"It is--I admit. Yet we cannot close our eyes to such outstanding facts,
+my dear chap. Depend upon it that there is something behind the poor
+fellow's death of which we have no knowledge. In his death your friend
+Miss Orlebar sought safety. The letter he wrote to her a week before his
+assassination is sufficient evidence of that."
+
+"A letter!" gasped Fetherston. "Is there one in existence?"
+
+"Yes; it is in our possession; it reveals the existence of the secret."
+
+"But what was its nature?" cried Fetherston in dismay. "What terrible
+secret could there possibly be that could only be preserved by Bellairs'
+silence?"
+
+"That's just the puzzle we have to solve--just the very point which has
+mystified us all along."
+
+And then he turned to his correspondence again, opening his letters one
+after the other--letters which, addressed to a box at the General Post
+Office in the City, contained secret information from various unsuspected
+quarters at home and abroad.
+
+Suddenly, in order to change the topic of conversation, which he knew was
+painful to Walter Fetherston, he mentioned the excellence of the opera at
+Covent Garden on the previous night. And afterwards he referred to an
+article in that day's paper which dealt with the idea of obtaining
+exclusive political intelligence through spirit-bureaux. Then, speaking
+of the labour unrest, Trendall pronounced his opinion as follows:
+
+"The whole situation would be ludicrous were it not urged so
+persistently as to be a menace not so much in this country, where we know
+too well the temperaments of its sponsors, but abroad, where public
+opinion, imperfectly instructed, may imagine it represents a serious
+national feeling. The continuance of it is an intolerable negation of
+civilisation; it is supported by no public men of credit; it has been
+disproved again and again. Ridicule may be left to give the menace the
+_coup de grâce_! And this," he laughed, "in face of what you and I know,
+eh? Ah! how long will the British public be lulled to sleep by anonymous
+scribblers?"
+
+"One day they'll have a rude awakening," declared Fetherston, still
+thinking, however, of that letter of the dead man to Enid. "I wonder," he
+added, "I wonder who inspires these denials? We know, of course, that
+each time anything against enemy interests appears in a certain section
+of the Press there arises a ready army of letter-writers who rush into
+print and append their names to assurances that the enemy is nowadays our
+best friend. Those 'patriotic Englishmen' are, many of them, in high
+positions.
+
+"When responsible papers wilfully mislead the public, what can be
+expected?" Walter went on. "But," he added after a pause, "we did not
+arrive at any definite conclusion regarding the tragic death of Bellairs.
+What about that letter of his?"
+
+Trendall was thoughtful for a few minutes.
+
+"My conclusion--the only one that can be formed," he answered at last,
+disregarding his friend's question--"is that Enid Orlebar is the guilty
+person; and before long I hope to be in possession of that secret which
+she strove by her crime to suppress--a secret which I feel convinced we
+shall discover to be one of an amazing character."
+
+Walter stood motionless as a statue.
+
+Surely Bellairs had not died by Enid's hand!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+AT THE CAFÉ DE PARIS
+
+
+IT was in the early days of January--damp and foggy in England.
+
+Walter Fetherston sat idling on the _terrasse_ of the Café de Paris in
+Monte Carlo sipping a "mazagran," basking in the afternoon sunshine, and
+listening to the music of the Rumanian Orchestra.
+
+Around him everywhere was the gay cosmopolitan world of the tables--that
+giddy little after-the-war financier and profiteer world which amuses
+itself on the Côte d'Azur, and in which he was such a well-known figure.
+
+So many successive seasons had he passed there before 1914 that across at
+the rooms the attendants and croupiers knew him as an habitué, and he was
+always granted the _carte blanche_--the white card of the professional
+gambler. With nearly half the people he met he had a nodding
+acquaintance, for friendships are easily formed over the _tapis
+vert_--and as easily dropped.
+
+Preferring the fresher air of Nice, he made his headquarters at the
+Hôtel Royal on the world-famed promenade, and came over to "Monte" daily
+by the _rapide_.
+
+Much had occurred since that autumn morning when he had stood with
+Herbert Trendall in the big room at New Scotland Yard, much that had
+puzzled him, much that had held him in fear lest the ghastly truth
+concerning Sir Hugh should be revealed.
+
+His own activity had been, perhaps, unparalleled. The strain of such
+constant travel and continual excitement would have broken most men; but
+he possessed an iron constitution, and though he spent weeks on end in
+trains and steamboats, it never affected him in the least. He could
+snatch sleep at any time, and he could write anywhere.
+
+Whether or not Enid had guessed the reason of his urgent appeal to her
+not to pass through France, she had nevertheless managed to excuse
+herself; but a week after Mrs. Caldwell's departure she had travelled
+alone by the Harwich-Antwerp route, evidently much to the annoyance of
+the alert doctor of Pimlico.
+
+Walter had impressed upon her the desirability of not entering
+France--without, however, giving any plain reason. He left her to guess.
+
+Through secret sources in Paris he had learnt how poor Paul Le Pontois
+was still awaiting trial. In order not to excite public opinion, the
+matter was being kept secret by the French authorities, and it had been
+decided that the inquiry should be held with closed doors.
+
+A week after his arrest the French police received additional evidence
+against him in the form of a cryptic telegram addressed to the Château,
+an infamous and easily deciphered message which, no doubt, had been sent
+with the distinct purpose of strengthening the amazing charge against
+him. He protested entire ignorance of the sender and of the meaning of
+the message, but his accusers would not accept any disclaimer. So
+cleverly, indeed, had the message been worded that at the Sûreté it was
+believed to refer to the price he had received for certain bundles of
+spurious notes.
+
+Without a doubt the scandalous telegram had been sent at Weirmarsh's
+instigation by one of his friends in order to influence the authorities
+in Paris.
+
+So far as the doctor was concerned he was ever active in receiving
+reports from his cosmopolitan friends abroad. But since his quarrel with
+Sir Hugh he had ceased to visit Hill Street, and had, apparently,
+dropped the old general's acquaintance.
+
+Sir Hugh was congratulating himself at the easy solution of the
+difficulty, but Walter, seated at that little marble-topped table in the
+winter sunshine, knowing Weirmarsh's character, remained in daily
+apprehension.
+
+The exciting life he led in assisting to watch those whom Scotland Yard
+suspected was as nothing compared with the constant fear of the unmasking
+of Sir Hugh Elcombe. Doctor Weirmarsh was an enemy, and a formidable one.
+
+The mystery concerning the death of Bellairs had increased rather than
+diminished. Each step he had taken in the inquiry only plunged him deeper
+and deeper into an inscrutable problem. He had devoted weeks to
+endeavouring to solve the mystery, but it remained, alas! inscrutable.
+
+Enid and Mrs. Caldwell had altered their plans, and had gone to Sicily
+instead of to Egypt, first visiting Palermo and Syracuse, and were at the
+moment staying at the popular "San Domenico" at Taormina, amid that gem
+of Mediterranean scenery. Sir Hugh and his wife, much upset by Blanche's
+sudden arrival in London, had not gone abroad that winter, but had
+remained at Hill Street to comfort Paul's wife and child.
+
+As for Walter, he had of late been wandering far afield, in Petrograd,
+Geneva, Rome, Florence, Málaga, and for the past week had been at Monte
+Carlo. He was not there wholly for pleasure, for, if the truth be told,
+there were seated at the farther end of the _terrasse_ a smartly dressed
+man and a woman in whom he had for the past month been taking a very keen
+interest.
+
+This pair, of Swiss nationality, he had watched in half a dozen
+Continental cities, gradually establishing his suspicions as to their
+real occupation.
+
+They had come to Monte Carlo for neither health nor pleasure, but in
+order to meet a grey-haired man in spectacles, whom they received twice
+in private at the Métropole, where they were staying.
+
+The Englishman had first seen them sitting together one evening at one of
+the marble-topped tables at the Café Royal in Regent Street, while he had
+been idly playing a game of dominoes at the next table with an American
+friend. The face of the man was to him somehow familiar. He felt that he
+had seen it somewhere, but whether in a photograph in his big album down
+at Idsworth or in the flesh he could not decide.
+
+Yet from that moment he had hardly lost sight of them. With that
+astuteness which was Fetherston's chief characteristic, he had watched
+vigilantly and patiently, establishing the fact that the pair were in
+England for some sinister purpose. His powers were little short of
+marvellous. He really seemed, as Trendall once put it, to scent the
+presence of criminals as pigs scent truffles.
+
+They suddenly left the Midland Hotel at St. Pancras, where they were
+staying, and crossed the Channel. But the same boat carried Walter
+Fetherston, who took infinite care not to obtrude himself upon their
+attention.
+
+Monte Carlo, being in the principality of Monaco, and being peopled by
+the most cosmopolitan crowd in the whole world, is in winter the
+recognised meeting-place of _chevaliers d'industrie_ and those who
+finance and control great crimes.
+
+In the big atrium of those stifling rooms many an assassin has met his
+hirer, and in many of those fine hotels have bribes been handed over to
+those who will do "dirty work." It is the European exchange of
+criminality, for both sexes know it to be a safe place where they may
+"accidentally" meet the person controlling them.
+
+It is safe to say that in every code used by the criminal plotters of
+every country in Europe there is a cryptic word which signifies a meeting
+at Monte Carlo. For that reason was Walter Fetherston much given to
+idling on the sunny _terrasse_ of the café at a point where he could see
+every person who ascended or descended that flight of red-carpeted stairs
+which gives entrance to the rooms.
+
+The pair whom he was engaged in watching had been playing at roulette
+with five-franc pieces, and the woman was now counting her gains and
+laughing gaily with her husband as she slowly sipped her tea flavoured
+with orange-flower water. They were in ignorance of the presence of that
+lynx-eyed man in grey flannels and straw hat who smoked his cigarette
+leisurely and appeared to be so intensely bored.
+
+No second glance at Fetherston was needed to ascertain that he was a most
+thorough-going cosmopolitan. He usually wore his pale-grey felt hat at a
+slight angle, and had the air of the easy-going adventurer, debonair and
+unscrupulous. But in his case his appearance was not a true index to his
+character, for in reality he was a steady, hard-headed, intelligent man,
+the very soul of honour, and, above all, a man of intense patriotism--an
+Englishman to the backbone. Still, he cultivated his easy-going
+cosmopolitanism to pose as a careless adventurer.
+
+Presently the pair rose, and, crossing the palm-lined place, entered the
+casino; while Walter, finishing his "mazagran," lit a fresh cigarette,
+and took a turn along the front of the casino in order to watch the
+pigeon-shooting.
+
+The winter sun was sinking into the tideless sea in all its
+gold-and-orange glory as he stood leaning over the stone balustrade
+watching the splendid marksmanship of one of the crack shots of Europe.
+He waited until the contest had ended, then he descended and took the
+_rapide_ back to Nice for dinner.
+
+At nine o'clock he returned to Monte Carlo, and again ascended the
+station lift, as was his habit, for a stroll through the rooms and a chat
+and drink with one or other of his many friends. He looked everywhere for
+the Swiss pair in whom he was so interested, but in vain. Probably they
+had gone over to Nice to spend the evening, he thought. But as the night
+wore on and they did not return by the midnight train--the arrival of
+which he watched--he strolled back to the Métropole and inquired for them
+at the bureau of the hotel.
+
+"M'sieur and Madame Granier left by the Mediterranean express for Paris
+at seven-fifteen this evening," replied the clerk, who knew Walter very
+well.
+
+"What address did they leave?" he inquired, annoyed at the neat manner in
+which they had escaped his vigilance.
+
+"They left no address, m'sieur. They received a telegram just after six
+o'clock recalling them to Paris immediately. Fortunately, there was one
+two-berth compartment vacant on the train."
+
+Walter turned away full of chagrin. He had been foolish to lose sight of
+them. His only course was to return to Nice, pack his traps, and follow
+to Paris in the ordinary _rapide_ at eight o'clock next morning. And this
+was the course he pursued.
+
+But Paris is a big place, and though he searched for two whole weeks,
+going hither and thither to all places where the foreign visitors mostly
+congregate, he saw nothing of the interesting pair. Therefore, full of
+disappointment, he crossed one afternoon to Folkestone, and that night
+again found himself in his dingy chambers in Holles Street.
+
+Next day he called upon Sir Hugh, and found him in much better spirits.
+Lady Elcombe told him that Enid had written expressing herself delighted
+with her season in Sicily, and saying that both she and Mrs. Caldwell
+were very pleased that they had adopted his suggestion of going there
+instead of to overcrowded Cairo.
+
+As he sat with Sir Hugh and his wife in that pretty drawing-room he knew
+so well the old general suddenly said: "I suppose, Fetherston, you are
+still taking as keen an interest in the latest mysteries of crime--eh?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Hugh. As you know, I've written a good deal upon the subject."
+
+"I've read a good many of your books and articles, of course," exclaimed
+the old officer. "Upon many points I entirely agree with you," he said.
+"There is a curious case in the papers to-day. Have you seen it? A young
+girl found mysteriously shot dead near Hitchin."
+
+"No, I haven't," was Walter's reply. He was not at all interested. He was
+thinking of something of far greater interest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+WHICH IS "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL"
+
+
+AT eleven o'clock next morning Fetherston stood in Trendall's room at
+Scotland Yard reporting to him the suspicious movements of Monsieur and
+Madame Granier.
+
+His friend leaned back in his padded chair listening while the keen-faced
+man in pince-nez related all the facts, and in doing so showed how shrewd
+and astute he had been.
+
+"Then they are just what we thought," remarked the chief.
+
+"Without a doubt. In Monte Carlo they received further instructions from
+somebody. They went to Paris, and there I lost them."
+
+Trendall smiled, for he saw how annoyed his friend was at their escape.
+
+"Well, you certainly clung on to them," he said. "When you first told me
+your suspicions I confess I was inclined to disagree with you. You merely
+met them casually in Regent Street. What made you suspicious?"
+
+"One very important incident--Weirmarsh came in with another man, and,
+in passing, nodded to Granier. That set me thinking."
+
+"But you do not know of any actual dealings with the doctor?"
+
+"I know of none," replied Walter. "Still, I'm very sick that, after all
+my pains, they should have escaped to Paris so suddenly."
+
+"Never mind," said Trendall. "If they are what we suspect we shall pick
+them up again before long, no doubt. Now look here," he added. "Read
+that! It's just come in. As you know, any foreigner who takes a house in
+certain districts nowadays is reported to us by the local police."
+
+Fetherston took the big sheet of blue official paper which the police
+official handed to him, and found that it was the copy of a confidential
+report made by the Superintendent of Police at Maldon, in Essex, and read
+as follows:
+
+"I, William Warden, Superintendent of Police for the Borough of Maldon,
+desire to report to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police the following
+statement from Sergeant S. Deacon, Essex Constabulary, stationed at
+Southminster, which is as below:
+
+"'On Friday, the thirteenth of September last, a gentleman, evidently a
+foreigner, was sent by Messrs. Hare and James, estate agents, of Malden,
+to view the house known as The Yews, at Asheldham, in the vicinity of
+Southminster, and agreed to take it for three years in order to start a
+poultry farm. The tenant entered into possession a week later, when one
+vanload of furniture arrived from London. Two days later three other
+vanloads arrived late in the evening, and were unpacked in the
+stable-yard at dawn. The tenant, whose name is Bailey--but whose letters
+come addressed "Baily," and are mostly from Belgium--lived there alone
+for a fortnight, and was afterwards joined by a foreign man-servant named
+Pietro, who is believed to be an Italian. Though more than three months
+have elapsed, and I have kept observation upon the house--a large one,
+standing in its own grounds--I have seen no sign of poultry farming, and
+therefore deem it a matter for a report.--SAMUEL DEACON, Sergeant, Essex
+Constabulary.'"
+
+"Curious!" remarked Walter, when he had finished reading it.
+
+"Yes," said Trendall. "There may be nothing in it."
+
+"It should be inquired into!" declared Walter. "I'll take Summers and go
+down there to have a look round, if you like."
+
+"I wish you would," said the chief. "I'll 'phone Summers to meet you at
+Liverpool Street Station," he added, turning to the railway guide.
+"There's a train at one forty-five. Will that suit you?"
+
+"Yes. Tell him to meet me at Liverpool Street--and we'll see who this
+'Mr. Baily' really is."
+
+When, shortly after half-past one, the novelist walked on to the platform
+at Liverpool Street he was approached by a narrow-faced, middle-aged man
+in a blue serge suit who presented the appearance of a ship's engineer on
+leave.
+
+As they sat together in a first-class compartment Fetherston explained to
+his friend the report made by the police officer at Southminster--the
+next station to Burnham-on-Crouch--whereupon Summers remarked: "The
+doctor has been down this way once or twice of late. I wonder if he goes
+to pay this Mr. Baily, or Bailey, a visit?"
+
+"Perhaps," laughed Walter. "We shall see."
+
+The railway ended at Southminster, but on alighting they had little
+difficulty in finding the small police station, where the local sergeant
+of police awaited them, having been warned by telephone.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said the red-faced man, spreading his big hands on his
+knees as they sat together in a back room, "Mr. Bailey ain't at home just
+now. He's away a lot. The house is a big one--not too big for the four
+vanloads of furniture wot came down from London."
+
+"Has he made any friends in the district, do you know?"
+
+"No, not exactly. 'E often goes and 'as a drink at the Bridgewick Arms at
+Burnham, close by the coastguard station."
+
+Walter exchanged a meaning glance with his assistant.
+
+"Does he receive any visitors?"
+
+"Very few--he's away such a lot. A woman comes down to see him
+sometimes--his sister, they say she is."
+
+"What kind of a woman?"
+
+"Oh, she's a lady about thirty-five--beautifully dressed always. She
+generally comes in a dark-green motor-car, which she drives herself. She
+was a lady driver during the war."
+
+"Do you know her name?"
+
+"Miss Bailey. She's a foreigner, of course."
+
+"Any other visitors?" asked Fetherston, in his quick, impetuous way, as
+he polished his pince-nez.
+
+"One day, very soon after Mr. Bailey took the house, I was on duty at
+Southminster Station in the forenoon, and a gentleman and lady arrived
+and asked how far it was to The Yews, at Asheldham. I directed them the
+way to walk over by Newmoor and across the brook. Then I slipped 'ome,
+got into plain clothes, and went along after them by the footpath."
+
+"Why did you do that?" asked Summers.
+
+"Because I wanted to find out something about this foreigner's visitors.
+I read at headquarters at Maldon the new instructions about reporting all
+foreigners who took houses, and I wanted to----"
+
+"To show that you were on the alert, eh, Deacon?" laughed the novelist
+good-humouredly, and he lit a cigarette.
+
+"That's so, sir," replied the big, red-faced man. "Well, I took a short
+cut over to The Yews, and got there ten minutes before they did. I hid in
+the hedge on the north side of the house, and saw that as soon as they
+walked up the drive Mr. Bailey rushed out to welcome them. The lady
+seemed very nervous, I thought. I know she was an English lady, because
+she spoke to me at the station."
+
+"What were they like?" inquired Summers. "Describe both of them."
+
+"Well, the man, as far as I can recollect, was about fifty or so,
+grey-faced, dark-eyed, wearin' a heavy overcoat with astrachan collar and
+cuffs. He had light grey suède gloves, and carried a gold-mounted malacca
+cane with a curved handle. The woman was quite young--not more'n twenty,
+I should think--and very good-lookin'. She wore a neat tailor-made dress
+of brown cloth, and a small black velvet hat with a big gold buckle. She
+had a greyish fur around her neck, with a muff to match, and carried a
+small, dark green leather bag."
+
+Walter stood staring at the speaker. The description was exactly that of
+Weirmarsh and Enid Orlebar. The doctor often wore an astrachan-trimmed
+overcoat, while both dress and hat were the same which Enid had worn
+three months ago!
+
+He made a few quick inquiries of the red-faced sergeant, but the man's
+replies only served to convince him that Enid had actually been a visitor
+at the mysterious house.
+
+"You did not discover their names?"
+
+"The young lady addressed her companion as 'Doctor.' That's all I know,"
+was the officer's reply. "For that reason I was rather inclined to think
+that I was on the wrong scent. The man was perhaps, after all, only a
+doctor who had come down to see his patient."
+
+"Perhaps so," remarked Walter mechanically. "You say Mr. Bailey is not at
+home to-day, so we'll just run over and have a look round. You'd better
+come with us, sergeant."
+
+"Very well, sir. But I 'ear as how Mr. Bailey is comin' home this
+evenin'. I met Pietro in the Railway Inn at Southminster the night before
+last, and casually asked when his master was comin' home, as I wanted to
+see 'im for a subscription for our police concert, and 'e told me that
+the signore--that's what 'e called him--was comin' home to-night."
+
+"Good! Then, after a look round the place, we hope to have the pleasure
+of seeing this mysterious foreigner who comes here to the Dengie Marshes
+to make a living out of fowl-keeping." And Walter smiled meaningly at his
+companion.
+
+Ten minutes later, after the sergeant had changed into plain clothes, the
+trio set out along the flat, muddy road for Asheldham.
+
+But as they were walking together, after passing Northend, a curious
+thing happened.
+
+Summers started back suddenly and nudged the novelist's arm without a
+word.
+
+Fetherston, looking in the direction indicated, halted, utterly staggered
+by what met his gaze.
+
+It was inexplicable--incredible! He looked again, scarcely believing his
+own eyes, for what he saw made plain a ghastly truth.
+
+He stood rigid, staring straight before him.
+
+Was it possible that at last he was actually within measurable distance
+of the solution of the mystery?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE RESULT OF INVESTIGATION
+
+
+AS the expectant trio had come round the bend in the road they saw in
+front of them, walking alone, a young lady in a short tweed suit with hat
+to match.
+
+The gown was of a peculiar shade of grey, and by her easy, swinging gait
+and the graceful carriage of her head Walter Fetherston instantly
+recognised that there before him, all unconscious of his presence, was
+the girl he believed to be still in Sicily--Enid Orlebar!
+
+He looked again, to satisfy himself that he was not mistaken. Then,
+drawing back, lest her attention should be attracted by their footsteps,
+he motioned to his companions to retreat around the bend and thus out of
+her sight.
+
+"Now," he said, addressing them, "there is some deep mystery here. That
+lady must not know we are here."
+
+"You've recognised her, sir?" asked Summers, who had on several previous
+occasions assisted him.
+
+"Yes," was the novelist's hard reply. "She is here with some mysterious
+object. You mustn't approach The Yews till dark."
+
+"Mr. Bailey will then be at home, sir," remarked the sergeant. "I thought
+you wished to explore the place before he arrived?"
+
+Walter paused. He saw that Enid could not be on her way to visit Bailey,
+if he were not at home. So he suggested that Summers, whom she did not
+know, should go forward and watch her movements, while he and the
+sergeant should proceed to the house of suspicion.
+
+Arranging to meet later, the officer from Scotland Yard lit his pipe and
+strolled quickly forward around the bend to follow the girl in grey,
+while the other two halted to allow them to get on ahead.
+
+"Have you ever seen that lady down here before, sergeant?" asked Walter
+presently.
+
+"Yes, sir. If I don't make a mistake, it is the same lady who asked me
+the way to The Yews soon after Mr. Bailey took the house--the lady who
+came with the man whom she addressed as 'Doctor'!"
+
+"Are you quite certain of this?"
+
+"Not quite certain. She was dressed differently, in brown--with a
+different hat and a veil."
+
+"They came only on that one occasion, eh?"
+
+"Only that once, sir."
+
+"But why, I wonder, is she going to The Yews? Pietro, you say, went up to
+London this morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, by the nine-five. And the house is locked up--she's evidently
+unaware of that."
+
+"No doubt. She'll go there, and, finding nobody at home, turn away
+disappointed. She must not see us."
+
+"We'll take good care of that, sir," laughed the local sergeant breezily,
+as he left his companion's side and crossed the road so that he could see
+the bend. "Why!" he exclaimed, "she ain't goin' to Asheldham after all!
+She's taken the footpath to the left that leads into Steeple! Evidently
+she knows the road!"
+
+"Then we are free to go straight along to The Yews, eh? She's making a
+call in the vicinity. I wonder where she's going?"
+
+"Your friend will ascertain that," said the sergeant. "Let's get along to
+The Yews and 'ave a peep round."
+
+Therefore the pair, now that Enid was sufficiently far ahead along a
+footpath which led under a high, bare hedge, went forth again down the
+high road until, after crossing the brook, they turned to the right into
+Asheldham village, where, half-way between that place and New Hall, they
+turned up a short by-road, a cul-de-sac, at the end of which a big,
+old-fashioned, red-brick house of the days of Queen Anne, half hidden by
+a belt of high Scotch firs, came into view.
+
+Shut off from the by-road by a high, time-mellowed brick wall, it stood
+back lonely and secluded in about a couple of acres of well wooded
+ground. From a big, rusty iron gate the ill-kept, gravelled drive took a
+broad sweep up to the front of the house, a large, roomy one with square,
+inartistic windows and plain front, the ugliness of which the ivy strove
+to hide.
+
+In the grey light of that wintry afternoon the place looked inexpressibly
+dismal and neglected. Years ago it had, no doubt, been the residence of
+some well-to-do county family; but in these twentieth-century post-war
+days, having been empty for nearly ten years, it had gone sadly to rack
+and ruin.
+
+The lawns had become weedy, the carriage-drive was, in places, green with
+moss, like the sills of the windows and the high-pitched, tiled roof
+itself. In the centre of the lawn, before the house, stood four great
+ancient yews, while all round were high box hedges, now, alas! neglected,
+untrimmed and full of holes.
+
+The curtains were of the commonest kind, while the very steps leading to
+the front door were grey with lichen and strewn with wisps of straw. The
+whole aspect was one of neglect, of decay, of mystery.
+
+The two men, opening the creaking iron gate, advanced boldly to the door,
+an excuse ready in case Pietro opened it.
+
+They knocked loudly, but there was no response. Their summons echoed
+through the big hall, causing Walter to remark:
+
+"There can't be much furniture inside, judging from the sound."
+
+"Four motor vanloads came here," responded the sergeant. "The first was
+in a plain van."
+
+"You did not discover whence it came?"
+
+"I asked the driver down at the inn at Southminster, and he told me that
+they came from the Trinity Furnishing Company, Peckham. But, on making
+inquiries, I found that he lied; there is no such company in Peckham."
+
+"You saw the furniture unloaded?"
+
+"I was about here when the first lot came. When the other three vans
+arrived I was away on my annual leave," was the sergeant's reply.
+
+Again they knocked, but no one came to the door. A terrier approached,
+but he proved friendly, therefore they proceeded to make an inspection
+of the empty stabling and disused outbuildings.
+
+Three old hen-coops were the only signs of poultry-farming they could
+discover, and these, placed in a conspicuous position in the big, paved
+yard, were without feathered occupants.
+
+There were three doors by which the house could be entered, and all of
+them Walter tried and found locked. Therefore, noticing in the
+rubbish-heap some stray pieces of paper, he at once turned his attention
+to what he discovered were fragments of a torn letter. It was written in
+French, and, apparently, had reference to certain securities held by the
+tenant of The Yews.
+
+But as only a small portion of the destroyed communication could be
+found, its purport was not very clear, and the name and address of the
+writer could not be ascertained.
+
+Yet it had already been proved without doubt that the mysterious tenant
+of the dismal old place--the man who posed as a poultry-farmer--had had
+as visitors Dr. Weirmarsh and Enid Orlebar!
+
+For a full half-hour, while the red-faced sergeant kept watch at the
+gate, Walter Fetherston continued to investigate that rubbish-heap, which
+showed signs of having been burning quite recently, for most of the
+scraps of paper were charred at their edges.
+
+The sodden remains of many letters he withdrew and tried to read, but the
+scraps gave no tangible result, and he was just about to relinquish his
+search when his eye caught a scrap of bright blue notepaper of a familiar
+hue. It was half burned, and blurred by the rain, but at the corner he
+recognised some embossing in dark blue--familiar embossing it was--of
+part of the address in Hill Street!
+
+The paper was that used habitually by Enid Orlebar, and upon it was a
+date, two months before, and the single word "over" in her familiar
+handwriting.
+
+He took his stout walking-stick, in reality a sword-case, and frantically
+searched for other scraps, but could find none. One tiny portion only had
+been preserved from the flames--paraffin having been poured over the heap
+to render it the more inflammable. But that scrap in itself was
+sufficient proof that Enid had written to the mysterious tenant of The
+Yews.
+
+"Well," he said at last, approaching the sergeant, "do you think the
+coast is clear enough?"
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To get a glimpse inside. There's a good deal more mystery here than we
+imagine, depend upon it!" Walter exclaimed.
+
+"Master and man will return by the same train, I expect, unless they come
+back in a motor-car. If they come by train they won't be here till well
+past eight, so we'll have at least three hours by ourselves."
+
+Walter Fetherston glanced around. Twilight was fast falling.
+
+"It'll be dark inside, but I've brought my electric torch," he said.
+"There's a kitchen window with an ordinary latch."
+
+"That's no use. There are iron bars," declared the sergeant. "I examined
+it the other day. The small staircase window at the side is the best
+means of entry." And he took the novelist round and showed him a long
+narrow window about five feet from the ground.
+
+Walter's one thought was of Enid. Why had she written to that mysterious
+foreigner? Why had she visited there? Why, indeed, was she back in
+England surreptitiously, and in that neighbourhood?
+
+The short winter's afternoon was nearly at an end as they stood
+contemplating the window prior to breaking in--for Walter Fetherston felt
+justified in breaking the law in order to examine the interior of that
+place.
+
+In the dark branches of the trees the wind whistled mournfully, and the
+scudding clouds were precursory of rain.
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed Walter. "This isn't a particularly cheerful
+abode, is it, sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir, if I lived 'ere I'd have the blues in a week," laughed the man.
+"I can't think 'ow Mr. Bailey employs 'is time."
+
+"Poultry-farming," laughed Fetherston, as, standing on tiptoe, he
+examined the window-latch by flashing on the electric torch.
+
+"No good!" he declared. "There's a shutter covered with new sheet-iron
+behind."
+
+"It doesn't show through the curtain," exclaimed Deacon.
+
+"But it's there. Our friend is evidently afraid of burglars."
+
+From window to window they passed, but the mystery was considerably
+increased by the discovery that at each of those on the ground floor were
+iron-faced shutters, though so placed as not to be noticeable behind the
+windows, which were entirely covered with cheap curtain muslin.
+
+"That's funny!" exclaimed the sergeant. "I've never examined them with a
+light before."
+
+"They have all been newly strengthened," declared Fetherston. "On the
+other side I expect there are strips of steel placed lattice-wise, a
+favourite device of foreigners. Mr. Bailey," he added, "evidently has no
+desire that any intruder should gain access to his residence."
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Deacon, for it was now rapidly growing dark.
+
+A thought had suddenly occurred to Walter that perhaps Enid's intention
+was to make a call there, after all.
+
+"Our only way to obtain entrance is, I think, by one of the upper
+windows," replied the man whose very life was occupied by the
+investigation of mysteries. "In the laundry I noticed a ladder. Let us go
+and get it."
+
+So the ladder, a rather rotten and insecure one, was obtained, and after
+some difficulty placed against the wall. It would not, however, reach to
+the windows, as first intended, therefore Walter mounted upon the
+slippery, moss-grown tiles of a wing of the house, and after a few
+moments' exploration discovered a skylight which proved to be over the
+head of the servants' staircase.
+
+This he lifted, and, fixing around a chimney-stack a strong silk rope he
+had brought in his pocket ready for any emergency, he threw it down the
+opening, and quickly lowered himself through.
+
+Scarcely had he done so, and was standing on the uncarpeted stairs, when
+his quick ear caught the sound of Deacon's footsteps receding over the
+gravel around to the front of the house.
+
+Then, a second later, he heard a loud challenge from the gloom in a man's
+voice that was unfamiliar:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+There was no reply. Walter listened with bated breath.
+
+"What are you doing there?" cried the new-comer in a voice in which was a
+marked foreign accent. "Speak! _speak!_ or I'll shoot!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE SECRET OF THE LONELY HOUSE
+
+
+WALTER did not move. He realised that a _contretemps_ had occurred. The
+ladder still leaning against the wall outside would reveal his intrusion.
+Yet, at last inside, he intended, at all hazards, to explore the place
+and learn the reason why the mysterious stranger had started that
+"poultry farm."
+
+He was practically in the dark, fearing to flash on his torch lest he
+should be discovered.
+
+Was it possible that Bailey or his Italian manservant had unexpectedly
+returned!
+
+Those breathless moments seemed hours.
+
+Suddenly he heard a second challenge. The challenger used a fierce
+Italian oath, and by it he knew that it was Pietro.
+
+In reply, a shot rang out--evidently from the sergeant's pistol, followed
+by another sharp report, and still another. This action showed the man
+Deacon to be a shrewd person, for the effect was exactly as he had
+intended. The Italian servant turned on his heel and flew for his life
+down the drive, shouting in his native tongue for help and for the
+police.
+
+"Madonna santa!" he yelled. "Who are you here?" he demanded in Italian.
+"I'll go to the police!"
+
+And in terror he rushed off down the road.
+
+"All right, sir," cried the sergeant, after the servant had disappeared.
+"I've given the fellow a good fright. Be quick and have a look round,
+sir. You can be out again before he raises the alarm!"
+
+In an instant Walter flashed on his torch and, dashing down the stairs,
+crossed the kitchen and found himself in the hall. From room to room he
+rushed, but found only two rooms on the ground floor furnished--a
+sitting-room, which had been the original dining-room, while in the study
+was a chair-bed, most probably where Pietro slept.
+
+On the table lay a heavy revolver, fully loaded, and this Fetherston
+quickly transferred to his jacket pocket.
+
+Next moment he dashed up the old well staircase two steps at a time and
+entered room after room. Only one was furnished--the tenant's bedroom. In
+it he found a number of suits of clothes, while on the dressing-table lay
+a false moustache, evidently for disguise. A small writing-table was set
+in the window, and upon it was strewn a quantity of papers.
+
+As he flashed his torch round he was amazed to see, arranged upon a neat
+deal table in a corner, some curious-looking machinery which looked
+something like printing-presses. But they were a mystery to him.
+
+The discovery was a strange one. What it meant he did not then realise.
+There seemed to be quite a quantity of apparatus and machinery. It was
+this which had been conveyed there in those furniture vans of the Trinity
+Furnishing Company.
+
+He heard Deacon's voice calling again. Therefore, having satisfied
+himself as to the nature of the contents of that neglected old house, he
+ascended the stone steps into the passage which led through a faded
+green-baize door into the main hall.
+
+As he entered he heard voices in loud discussion. Sergeant Deacon and the
+servant Pietro had met face to face.
+
+The Italian had evidently aroused the villagers in Asheldham, for there
+were sounds of many voices of men out on the gravelled drive.
+
+"I came up here a quarter of an hour ago," the Italian cried excitedly in
+his broken English, "and somebody fired at me. They tried to kill me!"
+
+"But who?" asked Deacon in pretended ignorance. He was uncertain what to
+do, Mr. Fetherston being still within the house and the ladder, his only
+means of escape, still standing against a side wall.
+
+"Thieves!" cried the man, his foreign accent more pronounced in his
+excitement. "I challenged them, and they fired at me. I am glad that you,
+a police sergeant, are here."
+
+"So am I," cried Walter Fetherston, suddenly throwing open the front door
+and standing before the knot of alarmed villagers, though it was so dark
+that they could not recognise who he was. "Deacon," he added
+authoritatively, "arrest that foreigner."
+
+"Diavolo! Who are you?" demanded the Italian angrily.
+
+"You will know in due course," replied Fetherston. Then, turning to the
+crowd, he added: "Gentlemen, I came here with Sergeant Deacon to search
+this house. He will tell you whether that statement is true or not."
+
+"Quite," declared the breezy sergeant, who already had the Italian by the
+collar and coat-sleeve. "It was I who fired--to frighten him off!"
+
+At this the crowd laughed. They had no liking for foreigners of any sort
+after the war, and were really secretly pleased to see that the sergeant
+had "taken him up."
+
+But what for? they asked themselves. Why had the police searched The
+Yews? Mr. Bailey was a quiet, inoffensive man, very free with his money
+to everybody around.
+
+"Jack Beard," cried Deacon to a man in the crowd, "just go down to
+Asheldham and telephone to Superintendent Warden at Maldon. Ask him to
+send me over three men at once, will you?"
+
+"All right, Sam," was the prompt reply, and the man went off, while the
+sergeant took the resentful Italian into the house to await an escort.
+
+Deacon called the assistance of two men and invited them in. Then, while
+they mounted guard over the prisoner, Fetherston addressed the little
+knot of amazed men who had been alarmed by the Italian's statement.
+
+"Listen, gentlemen," he said. "We shall in a couple of hours' time expect
+the return of Mr. Bailey, the tenant of this house. There is a very
+serious charge against him. I therefore put everyone of you upon your
+honour to say no word of what has occurred here to-night--not until Mr.
+Bailey arrives. I should prefer you all to remain here and wait;
+otherwise, if a word be dropped at Southminster, he may turn back and fly
+from justice."
+
+"What's the charge, sir?" asked one man, a bearded old labourer.
+
+"A very serious one," was Walter's evasive reply.
+
+Then, after a pause, they all agreed to wait and witness the dramatic
+arrest of the man who was charged with some mysterious offence.
+Speculation was rife as to what it would be, and almost every crime in
+the calendar was cited as likely.
+
+Meanwhile Fetherston, returning to the barely-furnished sitting-room,
+interrogated Pietro in Italian, but only obtained sullen answers. A
+loaded revolver had been found upon him by Deacon, and promptly
+confiscated.
+
+"I have already searched the place," Walter said to the prisoner, "and I
+know what it contains."
+
+But in response the man who had posed as servant, but who, with his
+"master," was the custodian of the place, only grinned and gave vent to
+muttered imprecations in Italian.
+
+Fetherston afterwards left the small assembly and made examination of
+some bedrooms he had not yet inspected. In three of these, the locks of
+which he broke open, he discovered quantities of interesting papers,
+together with another mysterious-looking press.
+
+While trying to decide what it all meant he suddenly heard a great
+shouting and commotion outside, and ran down to the door to ascertain its
+cause.
+
+As he opened it he saw that in the darkness the crowd outside had grown
+excited.
+
+"'Ere you are, sir," cried one man, ascending the steps. "'Ere are two
+visitors. We found 'em comin' up the road, and, seein' us, they tried to
+get away!"
+
+Walter held up a hurricane lantern which he had found and lit, when its
+dim, uncertain light fell upon the two prisoners in the crowd.
+
+Behind stood Summers, while before him, to Fetherston's utter amazement,
+showed Enid Orlebar, pale and terrified, and the grey, sinister face of
+Doctor Weirmarsh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CONTAINS SOME STARTLING STATEMENTS
+
+
+ENID, recognising Walter, shrank back instantly in fear and shame, while
+Weirmarsh started at that unexpected meeting with the man whom he knew to
+be his bitterest and most formidable opponent.
+
+The small crowd of excited onlookers, ignorant of the true facts, but
+their curiosity aroused by the unusual circumstances, had prevented the
+pair from turning back and making a hurried escape.
+
+"Enid!" exclaimed Fetherston, as the girl reluctantly crossed the
+threshold with downcast head, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you
+paying a visit to this house at such an hour?"
+
+"Ah, Walter," she cried, her small, gloved hands clenched with a sudden
+outburst of emotion, "be patient and hear me! I will tell you
+everything--_everything_!"
+
+"You won't," growled the doctor sharply. "If you do, by Gad! it will be
+the worse for you! So you'd best keep a silent tongue--otherwise you
+know the consequences. I shall now tell the truth--and you won't like
+that!"
+
+She drew back in terror of the man who held such an extraordinary
+influence over her. She had grasped Fetherston's hand convulsively, but
+at Weirmarsh's threat she had released her hold and was standing in the
+hall, pale, rigid and staring.
+
+"Summers," exclaimed Fetherston, turning to his companion, "you know this
+person, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I should rather think I do," replied the man, with a grin.
+
+"Well, detain him for the present, and take your instructions from
+London."
+
+"You have no power or right to detain me," declared the grey-faced doctor
+in quick defiance. "You are not a police officer!"
+
+"No, but this is a police officer," Fetherston replied, indicating
+Summers, and adding: "Sergeant, I give that man into custody."
+
+The sergeant advanced and laid his big hand upon the doctor's shoulder,
+telling him to consider himself under arrest.
+
+"But this is abominable--outrageous!" Weirmarsh cried, shaking him off.
+"I've committed no offence."
+
+"That is a matter for later consideration," calmly replied the man who
+had devoted so much of his time and money to the investigation of
+mysteries of crime.
+
+In one of the bare bedrooms upstairs Fetherston had, in examining one of
+the well made hand-presses set up there, found beside it a number of
+one-pound Treasury notes. In curiosity he took one up, and found it to be
+in an unfinished state. It was printed in green, without the brown
+colouring. Yet it was perfect as regards the paper and printing--even to
+its black serial number.
+
+Next second the truth flashed upon him. The whole apparatus, presses and
+everything, had been set up there to print the war paper currency of
+Great Britain!
+
+In the room adjoining he had seen bundles of slips of similar paper, all
+neatly packed in elastic bands, and waiting the final process of
+colouring and toning. One bundle had only the Houses of Parliament
+printed; the other side was blank. He saw in a flash that the placing in
+circulation of such a huge quantity of Treasury notes, amounting to
+hundreds of thousands of pounds, must seriously damage the credit of the
+nation.
+
+For a few seconds he held an unfinished note in his hand examining it,
+and deciding that the imitation was most perfect. It deceived him and
+would undoubtedly deceive any bank-teller.
+
+In those rooms it was plain that various processes had been conducted,
+from the manipulation of the watermark, by a remarkably ingenious
+process, right down to the finished one-pound note, so well done that not
+even an expert could detect the forgery. There were many French
+one-hundred-franc notes as well.
+
+The whole situation was truly astounding. Again the thought hammered
+home: such a quantity of paper in circulation must affect the national
+finances of Britain. And at the head of the band who were printing and
+circulating those spurious notes was the mysterious medical man who
+carried on his practice in Pimlico!
+
+The scene within the sparsely furnished house containing those telltale
+presses was indeed a weird one.
+
+Somebody had found a cheap paraffin lamp and lit it in the sitting-room,
+where they were all assembled, the front door having been closed.
+
+It was apparent that Pietro was no stranger to the doctor and his fair
+companion, but both men were highly resentful that they had been so
+entrapped.
+
+"Doctor Weirmarsh," exclaimed Fetherston seriously, as he stood before
+him, "I have just examined this house and have ascertained what it
+contains."
+
+"You've told him!" cried the man, turning fiercely upon Enid. "You have
+betrayed me! Ah! It will be the worse for you--and for your family," he
+added harshly. "You will see! I shall now reveal the truth concerning
+your stepfather, and you and your family will be held up to opprobrium
+throughout the whole length and breadth of your land."
+
+Enid did not reply. She was pale as death, her face downcast, her lips
+white as marble. She knew, alas! that Weirmarsh, now that he was
+cornered, would not spare her.
+
+There was a pause--a very painful pause.
+
+Everyone next instant listened to a noise which sounded outside. As it
+grew nearer it grew more distinct--the whir of an approaching motor-car.
+
+It pulled up suddenly before the door, and a moment later the old bell
+clanged loudly through the half-empty house.
+
+Fetherston left the room, and going to the door, threw it open, when yet
+another surprise awaited him.
+
+Upon the steps stood four men in thick overcoats, all of whom Walter
+instantly recognised.
+
+With Trendall stood Sir Hugh Elcombe, while their companions were two
+detective-inspectors from Scotland Yard.
+
+"Hallo!--Fetherston!" gasped Trendall. "I--I expected to find Weirmarsh
+here! What has happened?"
+
+"The doctor is already here," was the other's quick reply. "I have found
+some curious things in this place! Secret printing-presses for forged
+notes."
+
+"We already know that," he said. "Sir Hugh Elcombe here has, unknown to
+us, obtained certain knowledge, and to-day he came to me and gave me a
+full statement of what has been in progress. What he has told me this
+afternoon is among the most valuable and reliable information that we
+ever received."
+
+"I know something of the scoundrels," remarked the old general,
+"because--well, because, as I have confessed to Mr. Trendall, I yielded
+to temptation long ago and assisted them."
+
+"Whatever you have done, Sir Hugh, you have at least revealed to us the
+whole plot. Only by pretending to render assistance to these scoundrels
+could you have gained the intensely valuable knowledge which you've
+imparted to me to-day," replied the keen-faced director from Scotland
+Yard.
+
+Fetherston realised instantly that the fine old fellow, whom he had
+always held in such esteem, was making every effort to atone for his
+conduct in the past; but surely that was not the moment to refer to
+it--so he ushered the four men into the ill-lit dining-room wherein the
+others were standing, none knowing how next to act.
+
+When the doctor and Sir Hugh faced each other there was a painful silence
+for a few seconds.
+
+To Weirmarsh Trendall was known by sight, therefore the criminal saw that
+the game was up, and that Sir Hugh had risked his own reputation in
+betraying him.
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!" cried the doctor angrily. "You--to whom I have
+paid so many thousands of pounds--have given me away! But I'll be even
+with you!"
+
+"Say what you like," laughed the old general in defiance. "To me it is
+the same whatever you allege. I have already admitted my slip from the
+straight path. I do not deny receiving money from your hands, nor do I
+deny that, in a certain measure, I have committed serious
+offences--because, having taken one step, you forced me on to others,
+always holding over me the threat of exposure and ruin. But,
+fortunately, one day, in desperation, I took Enid yonder into my
+confidence. It was she who suggested that I might serve the ends of
+justice, and perhaps atone for what I had already done, by learning your
+secrets, and, when the time was ripe, revealing all the interesting
+details to our authorities. Enid became your friend and the friend of
+your friends. She risked everything--her honour, her happiness, her
+future--by associating with you for the one and sole purpose of assisting
+me to learn all the dastardly plot in progress."
+
+"It was you who supplied Paul Le Pontois with the false notes he passed
+in France!" declared Weirmarsh. "The French police know that; and if ever
+you or your step-daughter put foot in France you will be arrested."
+
+"Evidently you are unaware, Doctor, that my son-in-law, Paul Le Pontois,
+was released yesterday," laughed Sir Hugh in triumph. "Your treachery,
+which is now known by the Sûreté, defeated its own ends."
+
+"Further," remarked Walter Fetherston, turning to Enid, "it was this man
+here"--and he indicated the grey-faced doctor of Pimlico--"this man who
+denounced you and Sir Hugh to the French authorities, and had you not
+heeded my warning you both would then have been arrested. He had
+evidently suspected the object of your friendliness with me--that you
+both intended to reveal the truth--and he adopted that course in order to
+secure your incarceration in a foreign prison, and so close your lips."
+
+"I knew you suspected me all along, Walter," replied the girl, standing a
+little aside and suddenly clutching his hand. "But you will forgive me
+now--forgive me, won't you?" she implored, looking up into his dark,
+determined face.
+
+"Of course," he replied, "I have already forgiven you. I had no idea of
+the true reason of your association with this man."
+
+And he raised her gloved hand and carried it gallantly to his eager lips.
+
+"Though more than mere suspicion has rested upon you," he went on, "you
+and your stepfather deserve the heartiest thanks of the nation for
+risking everything in order to be in a position to reveal this dastardly
+financial plot. That man there"--and he indicated the doctor--"deserves
+all he'll get!"
+
+The doctor advanced threateningly, and, drawing a big automatic revolver
+from his pocket, would have fired at the man who had spoken his mind so
+freely had not Deacon, quick as lightning, sprung forward and wrenched
+the weapon so that the bullet went upward.
+
+White with anger and chagrin, the doctor stood roundly abusing the man
+who had investigated that lonely house.
+
+But Fetherston laughed, which only irritated him the more. He raved like
+a caged lion, until the veins in his brow stood out in great knots; but,
+finding all protests and allegations useless, he at last became quiet
+again, and apparently began to review the situation from a purely
+philosophical standpoint, until, some ten minutes later, another
+motor-car dashed up and in it were an inspector and four plain-clothes
+constables, who had been sent over from Maldon in response to Deacon's
+message for assistance.
+
+When they entered Pietro became voluble, but the narrow-eyed doctor of
+Pimlico remained sullen and silent, biting his lips. He saw that he had
+been entrapped by the very man whom he had believed to be as clay in his
+hands.
+
+The scene was surely exciting as well as impressive. The half-furnished,
+ill-lit dining-room was full of excited men, all talking at once.
+
+Unnoticed, Walter drew Enid into the shadow, and in a few brief,
+passionate words reassured her of his great affection.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, bursting into hot tears, "your words, Walter, have
+lifted a great load of sorrow and apprehension from my mind, for I feared
+that when you knew the truth you would never, never forgive."
+
+"But I have forgiven," he whispered, pressing her hand.
+
+"Then wait until we are alone, and I will tell you everything. Ah! you do
+not know, Walter, what I have suffered--what a terrible strain I have
+sustained in these days of terror!"
+
+But scarcely had she uttered those words when the door reopened and a man
+was ushered in by Deacon, who had gone out in response to the violent
+ringing of the bell.
+
+"This is Mr. Bailey, tenant of the house, gentlemen," said the sergeant,
+introducing him with mock politeness.
+
+Fetherston glanced up, and to his surprise saw standing in the doorway a
+man he had known, and whose movements he had so closely followed--the man
+who had gone to Monte Carlo for instructions, and perhaps payment--the
+man who had passed as Monsieur Granier!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+REVEALS A WOMAN'S LOVE
+
+
+GREAT was the consternation caused in the neighbourhood of the sleepy
+old-world village of Asheldham when it became known that the quiet,
+mild-mannered tenant of The Yews had been arrested by the Maldon police.
+
+Of what transpired within those grim walls only the two men called to his
+assistance by Sergeant Deacon knew, and to them both the inspector from
+Maldon, as well as Trendall, expressed a fervent hope that they would
+regard the matter as strictly confidential.
+
+"You see, gentlemen," added Trendall, "we are not desirous that the
+public should know of our discovery. We wish to avoid creating undue
+alarm, and at the same time to conceal the very existence of our system
+of surveillance upon those suspected. Therefore, I trust that all of you
+present will assist my department by preserving silence as to what has
+occurred here this evening."
+
+His hearers agreed willingly, and through the next hour the place was
+thoroughly searched, the bundles of spurious notes--the finished ones
+representing nearly one hundred thousand pounds ready to put into
+circulation--being seized.
+
+One of the machines they found was for printing in the serial numbers in
+black, a process which, with genuine notes, is done by hand. Truly, the
+gang had brought the art of forgery to perfection.
+
+"Well," said Trendall when they had finished, "this work of yours, Sir
+Hugh, certainly deserves the highest commendation. You have accomplished
+what we, with all our great organisation, utterly failed to do."
+
+"I have to-day tried to atone for my past offences," was the stern old
+man's hoarse reply.
+
+"And you have succeeded, Sir Hugh," declared Trendall. "Indeed you have!"
+
+Shortly afterwards the excitement among the crowd waiting outside in the
+light of the head-lamps of the motor-cars was increased by the appearance
+of the doctor, escorted by two Maldon police officers in plain clothes.
+They mounted a police car, and were driven away down the road, while into
+a second car the tenant of The Yews and his Italian manservant were
+placed under escort, and also driven away.
+
+The station-fly, in which Bailey had driven from Southminster, conveyed
+away Fetherston, Trendall, Sir Hugh, and Enid, while Deacon, with two
+men, was left in charge of the house of secrets.
+
+It was past one o'clock in the morning when Walter Fetherston stood alone
+with Enid in the pretty drawing-room in Hill Street.
+
+They stood together upon the _vieux rose_ hearthrug, his hand was upon
+her shoulder, his deep, earnest gaze fixed upon hers. In her splendid
+eyes the love light showed. They had both admired each other intensely
+from their first meeting, and had become very good and staunch friends.
+Walter Fetherston had only once spoken of the passion that had constantly
+consumed his heart--when they were by the blue sea at Biarritz. He loved
+her--loved her with the whole strength of his being--and yet, ah! try how
+he would, he could never put aside the dark cloud of suspicion which, as
+the days went by, became more and more impenetrable.
+
+Sweet-faced, frank, and open, she stood, the ideal of the English outdoor
+girl, merry, quick-witted, and athletic. And yet, after the stress of
+war, she had sacrificed all that she held most dear in order to become
+the friend of Weirmarsh. Why?
+
+"Enid," he said at last, his tender hand still upon her shoulder, "why
+did you not tell me your true position? You were working in the same
+direction, with the same strong motive of patriotism, as myself!"
+
+She was silent, very pale, and very serious.
+
+"I feared to tell you, Walter," she faltered. "How could I possibly
+reveal to you the truth when I knew you were aware how my stepfather had
+unconsciously betrayed his friends? You judged us both as undesirables,
+therefore any attempt at explanation would, I know, only aggravate our
+offence in your eyes. Ah! you do not know how intensely I have suffered!
+How bitter it all was! I knew the reason you followed us to France--to
+watch and confirm your suspicions."
+
+"I admit, Enid, that I suspected you of being in the hands of a set of
+scoundrels," her lover said in a low, hoarse voice. "At first I hesitated
+whether to warn you of your peril after Weirmarsh had, with such
+dastardly cunning, betrayed you to the French police, but--well," he
+added as he looked again into her dear eyes long and earnestly, "I loved
+you, Enid," he blurted forth. "I told you so! Remember, dear, what you
+said at Biarritz? And I love you--and because of that I resolved to save
+you!"
+
+"Which you did," she said in a strained, mechanical tone. "We both have
+you to thank for our escape. Weirmarsh, having first implicated Paul,
+then made allegations against us, in order to send us to prison, because
+he feared lest my stepfather might, in a fit of remorse, act indiscreetly
+and make a confession."
+
+"The past will all be forgiven now that Sir Hugh has been able to expose
+and unmask Weirmarsh and his band," Walter assured her. "A great
+sensation may possibly result, but it will, in any case, show that even
+though an Englishman may be bought, he can still remain honest. And," he
+added, "it will also show them that there is at least one brave woman in
+England who sacrificed her love--for I know well, Enid, that you fully
+reciprocate the great affection I feel towards you--in order to bear her
+noble part in combating a wily and unscrupulous gang."
+
+"It was surely my duty," replied the girl simply, her eyes downcast in
+modesty. "Yet association with that dastardly blackguard, Dr. Weirmarsh,
+was horrible! How I refrained from turning upon him through all those
+months I cannot really tell. I detested him from the first moment Sir
+Hugh invited him to our table; and though I went to assist him under
+guise of consultations, I acted with one object all along," she
+declared, her eyes raised to his and flashing, "to expose him in his true
+guise--that of Josef Blot, the head of the most dangerous association of
+forgers, of international thieves and blackmailers known to the police
+for the past half a century."
+
+"Which you have surely done! You have revealed the whole plot, and
+confounded those who were so cleverly conspiring to effect a sudden and
+most gigantic coup. But----" and he paused, still looking into her eyes
+through his pince-nez, and sighed.
+
+"But what?" she asked, in some surprise at his sudden change of manner.
+
+"There is one matter, Enid, which"--and he paused--"well, which is still
+a mystery to me, and I--I want you to explain it," he said in slow
+deliberation.
+
+"What is that?" she asked, looking at him quickly.
+
+"The mystery which you have always refused to assist me in
+unravelling--the mystery of the death of Harry Bellairs," was his quiet
+reply. "You held him in high esteem; you loved him," he added in a voice
+scarce above a whisper.
+
+She drew back, her countenance suddenly blanched as she put her hand
+quickly to her brow and reeled slightly as though she had been dealt a
+blow.
+
+Walter watched her in blank wonderment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+IN WHICH SIR HUGH TELLS HIS STORY
+
+
+"YOU know the truth, don't you, dearest?" Walter asked at last in that
+quiet, sympathetic tone which he always adopted towards her whom he loved
+so well.
+
+Enid nodded in the affirmative, her face hard and drawn.
+
+"He was killed, was he not--deliberately murdered?"
+
+For a few seconds the silence was unbroken save for a whir of a taxicab
+passing outside.
+
+"Yes," was her somewhat reluctant response.
+
+"You went to his rooms that afternoon," Walter asserted point blank.
+
+"I do not deny that. I followed him home--to--to save him."
+
+There was a break in her voice as she stammered out the last words, and
+tears rushed into her dark eyes.
+
+"From what? From death?"
+
+"No, from falling a prey to a great temptation set before him."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By the doctor, to whom my stepfather had introduced him," was the girl's
+reply. "I discovered by mere chance that the doctor, who had somewhat got
+him into his clutches, had approached him in order to induce him to allow
+him to take a wax impression of a certain safe key belonging to a friend
+of his named Thurston, a diamond broker in Hatton Garden. He had offered
+him a very substantial sum to do this--a sum which would have enabled him
+to clear off all his debts and start afresh. Harry's younger brother Bob
+had got into a mess, and in helping him out Harry had sadly entangled
+himself and was practically face to face with bankruptcy. I knew this,
+and I knew what a great temptation had been placed before him. Fearing
+lest, in a moment of despair, he might accept, I went, by appointment, to
+his chambers as soon as I arrived in London. Barker, his man, had been
+sent out, and we were alone. I found him in desperation, yet to my great
+delight he had defied Weirmarsh, saying he refused to betray his friend."
+
+"And what did Bellairs tell you further?"
+
+"He expressed suspicion that my stepfather was in the doctor's pay," she
+replied. "I tried to convince him to the contrary, but Weirmarsh's
+suggestion had evidently furnished the key to some suspicious document
+which he had one day found on Sir Hugh's writing-table."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well," she went on slowly, "we quarrelled. I was indignant that he
+should suspect my stepfather, and he was full of vengeance against Sir
+Hugh's friend the doctor. Presently I left, and--and I never saw him
+again alive!"
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"What happened is explained by this letter," she replied, crossing to a
+little buhl bureau which she unlocked, taking out a sealed envelope. On
+breaking it open and handing it to him she said: "This is the letter he
+wrote to me with his dying hand. I have kept it a secret--a secret even
+from Sir Hugh."
+
+Walter read the uneven lines eagerly. They grew more shaky and more
+illegible towards the end, but they were sufficient to make the truth
+absolutely clear.
+
+"To-night, half an hour ago," (wrote the dying man) "I had a visit from
+your friend, Weirmarsh. We were alone, with none to overhear, so I told
+him plainly that I intended to expose him. At first he became defiant,
+but presently he grew apprehensive, and on taking his leave he made a
+foul accusation against you. Then, laughing at my refusal to accept his
+bribe, the scoundrel took my hand in farewell. He must have had a pin
+stuck in his glove, for I felt a slight scratch across the palm. At the
+moment I was too furious to pay any attention to it, but ten minutes
+after he had gone I began to experience a strange faintness. I feel now
+fainter . . . and fainter . . . A strange feeling has crept over me . . .
+I am dying . . . poisoned . . . by that king of thieves!
+
+"Come to me quickly . . . at once . . . Enid . . . and tell me that what
+he has said against you . . . is not true. It . . . it cannot be true. .
+. . Don't delay. Come quickly. . . . Can't write more.--Harry."
+
+Walter paused for a second after reading through that dramatic letter,
+the last effort of a dying man.
+
+"And that scoundrel Weirmarsh killed him because he feared exposure," he
+remarked in a low, hard voice. "Why did you not bring this forward at the
+inquest?"
+
+"For several reasons," replied the girl. "I feared the doctor's
+reprisals. Besides, he might easily have denied the allegation, or he
+might have used the same means to close my lips if he had suspected that
+I had learnt the truth."
+
+"The dead man's story is no doubt true," declared Fetherston. "He used
+some deadly poison--one of the newly discovered ones which leaves no
+trace--to kill his victim who, in all probability, was not his first.
+Your stepfather does not know, of course, that this letter exists?"
+
+"No. I have kept it from everyone. I said that the summons I received
+from him I had destroyed."
+
+"In the circumstances I will ask you, Enid, to allow me to retain it," he
+said. "I want to show it to Trendall."
+
+"You may show it to Mr. Trendall, but I ask you, for the present, to make
+no further use of it," replied the girl.
+
+He moved a step closer to her and caught her disengaged hand in his, the
+glad light in her eyes telling him that his action was one which she
+reciprocated, yet some sense of her unworthiness of this great love
+causing her to hesitate.
+
+"I will promise," said the strong, manly fellow in a low tone. "I ought
+to have made allowances, but, in the horror of my suspicion, I did not,
+and I'm sorry. I love you, Enid--I had never really loved until I met
+you, until I held your hand in mine!"
+
+Enid's true, overburdened heart was only too ready to respond to his
+fervent appeal. She suffered her lover to draw her to himself, and their
+lips met in a long, passionate caress that blotted out all the past. He
+spoke quick, rapid words of ardent affection. To Enid, after all the
+hideous events she had passed through, it seemed too happy to be true
+that so much bliss was in store for her, and she remained there, with
+Walter's arm around her, silently content, that fervid kiss being the
+first he had ever imprinted upon her full red lips.
+
+Thus they remained in each other's arms, their two true hearts beating in
+unison, their kisses mingling, their twin souls united in the first
+moments of their newly-found ecstasy of perfect love.
+
+The fight had been a fierce one, but their true hearts had won, and, as
+they whispered each other's fond affection, Enid promised to be the wife
+of the honest, fearless man of whose magnificent work in the detection of
+crime the country had never dreamed. They read his books and were
+enthralled by them, but little did they think that he was one of the
+never-sleeping watch-dogs upon great criminals, or that the sweet-faced
+girl, who was now his affianced wife, had risked her life, her love, her
+honour, in order to assist him.
+
+Next afternoon Sir Hugh called upon Walter at his dingy chambers in
+Holles Street, and as they sat together the old general, after a long
+and somewhat painful silence, exclaimed:
+
+"I know, Fetherston, that you must be mystified how, in my position, I
+should have become implicated in the doings of that criminal gang."
+
+"Yes, I am," Walter declared.
+
+"Well, briefly, it occurred in this way," said the old officer. "While I
+was a colonel in India just before the war I was very hard pressed for
+money and had committed a fault--an indiscretion for which I might easily
+have been dismissed from the army. On being recalled to London, after war
+had been declared, I was approached by the fellow Weirmarsh who, to my
+horror, had, by some unaccountable means, obtained knowledge of my
+indiscretion! At first he adopted a high moral tone, upbraiding me for my
+fault and threatening to inform against me. This I begged him not to do.
+For a fortnight he kept me in an agony of despair, when one day he called
+me to him and unfolded to me a scheme by which I could make a
+considerable amount of money; indeed, he promised to pay me a yearly sum
+for my assistance."
+
+"You thought him to be a doctor--and nothing else?" Walter said.
+
+"Exactly. I never dreamed until quite recently that he was head of such a
+formidable gang, whose operations were upon so extensive a scale as to
+endanger our national credit," replied Sir Hugh. "At the time he
+approached me I was in the Pay Department, and many thousands of pounds
+in Treasury notes were passing through my safe weekly. His suggestion was
+that I should exchange the notes as they came to me from the Treasury for
+those with which he would supply me, and which, on showing me a specimen,
+I failed to distinguish from the real. I hesitated; I was hard up. To
+sustain my position after my knighthood money was absolutely necessary to
+me, and for a long time I had been unable to make both ends meet. The
+bait he dangled before me was sufficiently tempting, and--and--well, I
+fell!" he groaned, and then after a pause he went on:
+
+"Whence Weirmarsh obtained the packets of notes which I substituted for
+genuine ones was, of course, a mystery, but once having taken the false
+step it was not my business to inquire. Not until quite recently did I
+discover his real position as chief of a gang of international crooks,
+who combined forgery with blackmail and theft upon a colossal scale. That
+he intended Bellairs should furnish him with an impression of the safe
+key of a diamond dealer in Hatton Garden is now plain. Bellairs defied
+him and threatened to denounce him to the police. Therefore, the poor
+fellow's lips were quickly closed by the scoundrel, who would hesitate at
+nothing in order to preserve his guilty secrets."
+
+"But what caused you to break from him at last?" inquired Walter eagerly.
+
+"Just before the armistice he and his friends had conceived a gigantic
+scheme by which Europe and the United States were to be flooded with
+great quantities of spurious paper currency, and though it would, when
+discovered--as it must have been sooner or later--have injured the
+national credit, would bring huge fortunes to him and his friends. He was
+pressing me to send in my papers and go to America, there to act as their
+agent at a huge remuneration. They wanted a man of standing who should be
+above suspicion, and he had decided to use me as his tool to engineer the
+gigantic frauds."
+
+"And you, happily, refused?"
+
+"Yes. I resolved, rather than act further, to relinquish the handsome
+payments he made to me from time to time. For that reason I got
+transferred from the Pay Department, so that I could no longer be of much
+use to him, a fact which annoyed him greatly."
+
+"And he threatened you?"
+
+"Yes. He was constantly doing so. He wanted me to go to New York. Enid
+helped me and gave me courage to defy him--which I did. Then he conceived
+a dastardly revenge by anonymously denouncing Le Pontois as a forger, and
+implicating both Enid and myself. He contrived that some money I brought
+from England should be exchanged for spurious notes, and these Paul
+unsuspiciously gave into the Crédit Lyonnais. Had it not been for your
+timely warning, Fetherston, we should both have also been arrested in
+France without a doubt."
+
+"Yes," replied the other. "I was watching, and realised your peril,
+though I confess that my position was one of extreme difficulty. I, of
+course, did not know the actual truth, and, to be frank, I suspected both
+Enid and yourself of being implicated in some very serious crime."
+
+"So we were," he said in a low, hard voice.
+
+"True. But you have both been the means of revealing to the Treasury a
+state of things of which they never dreamed, and by turning King's
+evidence and giving the names and addresses of members of the gang in
+Brussels and Paris, all of whom are now under arrest, you have saved the
+country from considerable peril. Had the plot succeeded, a very serious
+state of things must have resulted, for the whole of our paper currency
+would have been suspected. For that reason the authorities have, I
+understand, now that they have arrested the gang and seized their
+presses, decided to hush up the whole matter."
+
+"You know this?" asked Sir Hugh, suddenly brightening.
+
+"Yes, Trendall told me so this morning."
+
+"Ah! Thank Heaven!" he gasped, much relieved. "Then I can again face the
+world a free man. God knows how terribly I suffered through all those
+years of the war. I paid for my fault very dearly--I assure you,
+Fetherston."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+WHAT remains to be related is quickly told, though the public have, until
+now, been in ignorance of the truth.
+
+Out of evil a great good had come. At noon on the following day Trendall
+had an interview with Josef Blot, alias Weirmarsh, in his cell at
+Chelmsford, whither he had been conveyed by the police. What happened at
+that interview will never be known. It is safe to surmise, however, that
+the tragic letter of Harry Bellairs was shown to him--Enid having
+withdrawn her request that no use should be made of it. An hour after the
+chief of the Criminal Investigation Department had left, the prisoner was
+found lying stark dead, suffering from a scratch on the wrist, inflicted
+with a short, hollow needle which he had carried concealed behind the
+lapel of his coat.
+
+Greatly to the discomfiture of the gang, the man Granier and his servant
+Pietro were extradited to France for trial, while a quantity of
+jewellery, works of art, money and negotiable securities of all sorts
+were unearthed from a villa near Fontainebleau and restored to their
+owners.
+
+A fortnight after Weirmarsh's death, at St. George's, Hanover Square,
+Enid Orlebar became the wife of Walter Fetherston, and among the guests
+at the wedding were a number of strange men in whose position or
+profession nobody pretended to be interested. Truth to tell, they were
+officials of various grades from Scotland Yard, surely the most welcome
+among the wedding guests.
+
+Though Walter and Enid live in idyllic happiness in a charming old
+ivy-grown manor house in Sussex, with level lawns and shady rose arbours,
+they still retain that old cottage at Idsworth, where a plausible excuse
+has been given to the country folk for "Mr. Maltwood" having been
+compelled to change his name. No pair in the whole of England are happier
+to-day.
+
+No man holds his wife more dear, or has a more loving and hopeful
+companion. Their life is one of perfect and abiding peace and of sweet
+content.
+
+Walter Fetherston is not by any means idle, for in his quiet country home
+he still writes those marvellous mystery stories which hold the world
+breathlessly enthralled, but he continues to devote half his time to
+combating the ingenuity of the greater criminals with all its attendant
+excitement and adventure, which are reflected in his popular romances.
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Page 117, "Mars-le-Tour" changed to "Mars-la-Tour"
+
+Page 164, "Le Pontais" changed to "Le Pontois"
+
+Page 178, "Liége" changed to "Liège"
+
+Page 279, "Olebar" changed to "Orlebar"
+
+Page 316, "been dismissed the" changed to "been dismissed from the"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Doctor of Pimlico, by William Le Queux
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Doctor of Pimlico, by William Le Queux
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Doctor of Pimlico
+       Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
+
+Author: William Le Queux
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2007 [EBook #22654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the booksmiths at
+http://www.eBookForge.net
+
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+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a>[<a href="./images/i.png">i</a>]</span></p>
+<h1>THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO</h1>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii"></a>[<a href="./images/ii.png">ii</a>]</span></p>
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-01.jpg"><img src="./images/ill-01_th.jpg" alt="&quot;Enid Drew Back In Terror&quot;" title="&quot;Enid Drew Back In Terror&quot;" /></a></p>
+<p class="figcenter">"Enid Drew Back In Terror"</p>
+<p class="figcenter">(<i>The Doctor of Pimlico</i>)</p>
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a>[<a href="./images/iii.png">iii</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2><span class="smcap">By</span> WILLIAM LE QUEUX</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/ill-02.jpg"><img src="./images/ill-02_th.jpg" alt="$2" title="$2" /></a></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>A. L. BURT COMPANY</h2>
+<h3>Publishers&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;New York</h3>
+
+<h4>Published by arrangement with The Macaulay Company</h4>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a>[<a href="./images/iv.png">iv</a>]</span></p>
+
+<h5><span class="smcap">copyright</span>, 1920,<br />
+<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACAULAY COMPANY</h5>
+
+<h5><i>Printed in the U. S. A.</i></h5>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v"></a>[<a href="./images/v.png">v</a>]</span></p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><td align='right'><span class="smcap">chapter</span></td><td align='right'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In which Certain Suspicions are Excited</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Coming of a Stranger</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Introduces Doctor Weirmarsh</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reveals Temptation</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In which Enid Orlebar is Puzzled</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Beneath the Elastic Band</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Concerning the Velvet Hand</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Paul Le Pontois</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Little Old Frenchwoman</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">If Anyone Knew</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_107">107</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Concerns the Past</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reveals a Curious Problem</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Mysterious Mr. Maltwood</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">What Confession would Mean</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Three Gentlemen from Paris</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Orders of His Excellency</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Walter Gives Warning</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_177">177</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Accusers</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_187">187</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In which a Truth is Hidden</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In which a Truth is Told</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Widened Breach</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Concerning the Bellairs Affair</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_227">227</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Silence of the Man Barker</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">What the Dead Man Left</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">At the Caf&eacute; de Paris</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Which is "Private and Confidential"</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Result of Investigation</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Secret of the Lonely House</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Contains Some Startling Statements</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_292">292</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Reveals a Woman's Love</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">In which Sir Hugh Tells his Story</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Conclusion</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>[<a href="./images/9.png">9</a>]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime</i></h3>
+
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h4>IN WHICH CERTAIN SUSPICIONS ARE EXCITED</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A grey</span>, sunless morning on the Firth of Tay.</p>
+
+<p>Across a wide, sandy waste stretching away
+to the misty sea at Budden, four men were walking.
+Two wore uniform&mdash;one an alert, grey-haired
+general, sharp and brusque in manner,
+with many war ribbons across his tunic; the
+other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore
+the tartan of the Gordon Highlanders. With
+them were two civilians, both in rough shooting-jackets
+and breeches, one about forty-five, the
+other a few years his junior.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you see them, Fellowes?" asked the
+general of the long-legged captain, scanning the
+distant horizon with those sharp grey eyes which
+had carried him safely through many campaigns.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," replied the captain, who was
+carrying the other's mackintosh. "I fancy they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>[<a href="./images/10.png">10</a>]</span>
+must be farther over to the left, behind those
+low mounds yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't brought their battery into position
+yet, I suppose," snapped the old officer, as he
+swung along with the two civilians beside him.</p>
+
+<p>Fred Tredennick, the taller of the two civilians,
+walked with a gait decidedly military, for,
+indeed, he was a retired major, and as the general
+had made a tour of inspection of the camp
+prior to walking towards where the mountain
+battery was man&#339;uvring, he had been chatting
+with him upon technical matters.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you'd like to see this mountain
+battery, Fetherston," exclaimed the general,
+addressing the other civilian. "We have lots of
+them on the Indian frontier, of course, and there
+were many of ours in Italy and Serbia."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm delighted to come with you on this
+tour of inspection, General. As you know, I'm
+keenly interested in military affairs&mdash;and especially
+in the reorganisation of the Army after
+the war," replied Walter Fetherston, a dark,
+well-set-up man of forty, with a round, merry
+face and a pair of eyes which, behind their gold
+pince-nez, showed a good-humoured twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>Of the four men, General Sir Hugh Elcombe
+and Walter Fetherston were, perhaps, equally
+distinguished. The former, as all the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>[<a href="./images/11.png">11</a>]</span>
+knows, had had a brilliant career in Afghanistan,
+in Egypt, Burmah, Tirah, the Transvaal,
+and in France, and now held an appointment as
+inspector of artillery.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was a man of entirely different
+stamp. As he spoke he gesticulated slightly, and
+no second glance was needed to realise that he
+was a thorough-going cosmopolitan.</p>
+
+<p>By many years of life on the Continent he
+had acquired a half-foreign appearance. Indeed,
+a keen observer would probably have noticed
+that his clothes had been cut by a foreign tailor,
+and that his boots, long, narrow and rather
+square-toed, bore the stamp of the Italian boot-maker.
+When he made any humorous remark
+he had the habit of slightly closing the left eye
+in order to emphasise it, while he usually walked
+with his left hand behind his back, and was
+hardly ever seen without a cigarette. Those
+cigarettes were one of his idiosyncrasies. They
+were delicious, of a brand unobtainable by the
+public, and made from tobacco grown in one of
+the Balkan States. With them he had, both before
+the war and after, been constantly supplied
+by a certain European sovereign whose personal
+friend he was. They bore the royal crown and
+cipher, but even to his most intimate acquaintance
+Walter Fetherston had never betrayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>[<a href="./images/12.png">12</a>]</span>
+the reason why he was the recipient of so many
+favours from the monarch in question.</p>
+
+<p>Easy-going to a degree, full of open-hearted
+<i>bonhomie</i>, possessing an unruffled temper, and
+apparently without a single care in all the world,
+he seldom, if ever, spoke of himself. He never
+mentioned either his own doings or his friends'.
+He was essentially a mysterious man&mdash;a man of
+moods and of strong prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>More than one person who had met him casually
+had hinted that his substantial income was
+derived from sources that would not bear investigation&mdash;that
+he was mixed up with certain
+financial adventurers. Others declared that he
+was possessed of a considerable fortune that had
+been left him by an uncle who had been a dealer
+in precious stones in Hatton Garden. The
+truth was, however, that Walter Fetherston was
+a writer of popular novels, and from their sale
+alone he derived a handsome income.</p>
+
+<p>The mystery stories of Walter Fetherston
+were world-famous. Wherever the English
+language was spoken this shrewd-eyed, smiling
+man's books were read, while translations of
+them appeared as <i>feuilletons</i> in various languages
+in the principal Continental journals.
+One could scarcely take up an English newspaper
+without seeing mention of his name, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>[<a href="./images/13.png">13</a>]</span>
+he was one of the most popular authors of the
+day.</p>
+
+<p>It is a generally accepted axiom that a public
+man cannot afford to be modest in these go-ahead
+days of "boom." Yet Fetherston was one of
+the most retiring of men. English society had
+tried in vain to allure him&mdash;he courted no personal
+popularity. Beyond his quiet-spoken
+literary agent, who arranged his affairs and took
+financial responsibility from his shoulders, his
+publishers, and perhaps half a dozen intimate
+friends, he was scarcely recognised in his true
+character. Indeed, his whereabouts were seldom
+known save to his agent and his only brother,
+so elusive was he and so careful to establish a
+second self.</p>
+
+<p>He had never married. It was whispered
+that he had once had a serious affair of the heart
+abroad. But that was a matter of long ago.</p>
+
+<p>Shoals of invitations arrived at his London
+clubs each season, but they usually reached him
+in some out-of-the-world corner of Europe, and
+he would read them with a smile and cast them
+to the winds.</p>
+
+<p>He took the keenest delight in evading the
+world that pressed him. His curious hatred of
+his own popularity was to everyone a mystery.
+His intimate friends, of whom Fred Tredennick<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>[<a href="./images/14.png">14</a>]</span>
+was one, had whispered that, in order to efface
+his identity, he was known in certain circles
+abroad by the name of Maltwood. This was
+quite true. In London he was a member of
+White's and the Devonshire as Fetherston.
+There was a reason why on the Continent and
+elsewhere he should pass as Mr. Maltwood, but
+his friends could never discover it, so carefully
+did he conceal it.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston was a writer of breathless
+mystery&mdash;but he was the essence of mystery himself.
+Once the reader took up a book of his
+he never laid it down until he had read the final
+chapter. You, my reader, have more than once
+found yourself beneath his strange spell. And
+what was the secret of his success? He had been
+asked by numberless interviewers, and to them
+all he had made the same stereotyped reply:
+"I live the mysteries I write."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed annoyed by his own success.
+Other writers suffered from that complaint
+known as "swelled head," but Walter Fetherston
+never. He lived mostly abroad in order to
+avoid the penalty which all the famous must pay,
+travelling constantly and known mostly by his
+assumed name of Maltwood.</p>
+
+<p>And behind all this some mystery lay. He
+was essentially a man of secrets.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>[<a href="./images/15.png">15</a>]</span>
+Some people declared that he had married
+ten years ago, and gave a circumstantial account
+of how he had wedded the daughter of a noble
+Spanish house, but that a month later she had
+been accidentally drowned in the Bay of Fontarabia,
+and that the tragedy had ever preyed
+upon his mind. But upon his feminine entanglements
+he was ever silent. He was a merry fellow,
+full of bright humour, and excellent company.
+But to the world he wore a mask that
+was impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment he was shooting with his
+old friend Tredennick, who lived close to St.
+Fillans, on the picturesque Loch Earn, when the
+general, hearing of his presence in the neighbourhood,
+had sent him an invitation to accompany
+him on his inspection.</p>
+
+<p>Walter had accepted for one reason only.
+In the invitation the general had remarked that
+he and his stepdaughter Enid were staying at
+the Panmure Hotel at Monifieth&mdash;so well known
+to golfers&mdash;and that after the inspection he
+hoped they would lunch together.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Walter had met Enid Orlebar six
+months before at Biarritz, where she had been
+nursing at the Croix Rouge Hospital in the
+H&ocirc;tel du Palais, and the memory of that meeting
+had lingered with him. He had long desired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>[<a href="./images/16.png">16</a>]</span>
+to see her again, for her pale beauty had somehow
+attracted him&mdash;attracted him in a manner
+that no woman's face had ever attracted him
+before.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto he had held cynical notions concerning
+love and matrimony, but ever since he had
+met Enid Orlebar in that winter hotel beside
+the sea, and had afterwards discovered her to
+be stepdaughter of Sir Hugh Elcombe, he had
+found himself reflecting upon his own loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>At luncheon he was to come face to face
+with her again. It was of this he was thinking
+more than of the merits of mountain batteries or
+the difficulties of limbering or unlimbering.</p>
+
+<p>"See! there they are!" exclaimed the general,
+suddenly pointing with his gloved hand.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston strained his eyes towards the
+horizon, but declared that he could detect
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"They're lying behind that rising ground to
+the left of the magazine yonder," declared the
+general, whose keen vision had so often served
+him in good stead. Then, turning on his heel
+and scanning the grey horizon seaward, he
+added: "They're going to fire out on to the Gaa
+between those two lighthouses on Buddon Ness.
+By Jove!" he laughed, "the men in them will
+get a bit of a shock."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>[<a href="./images/17.png">17</a>]</span>
+"I shouldn't care much to be there, sir," remarked
+Tredennick.</p>
+
+<p>"No," laughed the general. "But really
+there's no danger&mdash;except that we're just in the
+line of their fire."</p>
+
+<p>So they struck off to the left and approached
+the position by a circuitous route, being greeted
+by the colonel and other officers, to whom the
+visit of Sir Hugh Elcombe had been a considerable
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>The serviceable-looking guns were already
+mounted and in position, the range had been
+found; the reserves, the ponies and the pipers
+were lying concealed in a depression close at
+hand when they arrived.</p>
+
+<p>The general, after a swift glance around,
+stood with legs apart and arms folded to watch,
+while Fetherston and Tredennick, with field-glasses,
+had halted a little distance away.</p>
+
+<p>A sharp word of command was given, when
+next instant the first gun boomed forth, and
+a shell went screaming through the air towards
+the low range of sand-hills in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>The general grunted. He was a man of few
+words, but a typical British officer of the type
+which has made the Empire and won the war
+against the Huns. He glanced at the watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>[<a href="./images/18.png">18</a>]</span>
+upon his wrist, adjusted his monocle, and said
+something in an undertone to the captain.</p>
+
+<p>The firing proceeded, while Fetherston, his
+ears dulled by the constant roar, watched the
+bursting shells with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what the lighthouse men think of
+it now?" he laughed, turning to his friend. "A
+misdirected shot would send them quickly to
+kingdom come!"</p>
+
+<p>Time after time the range was increased, until,
+at last, the shells were dropped just at the
+spot intended. As each left the gun it shrieked
+overhead, while the flash could be seen long before
+the report reached the ear.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see in a few moments how quickly
+they can get away," the general said, as he approached
+Fetherston.</p>
+
+<p>Then the order was given to cease fire.
+Words of command sounded, and were repeated
+in the rear, where ponies and men lay hidden.
+The guns were run back under cover, and with
+lightning rapidity dismounted, taken to pieces,
+and loaded upon the backs of the ponies, together
+with the leather ammunition cases&mdash;which looked
+like men's suit cases&mdash;and other impedimenta.</p>
+
+<p>The order was given to march, and, headed
+by the pipers, who commenced their inspiring
+skirl to the beat of the drums, they moved away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>[<a href="./images/19.png">19</a>]</span>
+over the rough, broken ground, the general
+standing astraddle and watching it all through
+his monocle with critical eye, and keeping up a
+fire of sarcastic comment directed at the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" he cried sharply in his low, strident
+voice, "what's that bay there? Too weak for
+the work&mdash;no good. You want better stuff than
+that. An axle yonder not packed properly! . . .
+And look at that black pony&mdash;came out of
+a governess-cart, I should think! . . . Hey, you
+man there, you don't want to hang on that
+pack! Men get lazy and want the pony to help
+them along. And you&mdash;&mdash;" he cried, as a pony,
+heavily laden with part of a gun, came down
+an almost perpendicular incline. "Let that animal
+find his way down alone. Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>Then, after much man&#339;uvring, he caused
+them to take up another position, unlimber their
+guns, and fire.</p>
+
+<p>When this had been accomplished he called
+the officers together and, his monocle in his eye,
+severely criticised their performance, declaring
+that they had exposed themselves so fully to the
+enemy that ere they had had time to fire they
+would have been shelled out of their position.</p>
+
+<p>The spare ammunition was exposed all over
+the place, some of the reserves were not under
+cover, and the battery commander so exposed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>[<a href="./images/20.png">20</a>]</span>
+himself that he'd have been a dead man before
+the first shot. "You must do better than this&mdash;much
+better. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>Then the four walked across to the Panmure
+Hotel at Monifieth.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston held his breath. His lips
+were pressed tightly together, his brows contracted.
+He was again to meet Enid Orlebar.</p>
+
+<p>He shot a covert glance at the general walking
+at his side. In his eyes showed an unusual
+expression, half of suspicion, half of curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Next instant, however, it had vanished, and
+he laughed loudly at a story Tredennick was
+telling.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>[<a href="./images/21.png">21</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h4>THE COMING OF A STRANGER</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Enid</span> was standing on the steps of the hotel when
+the men arrived.</p>
+
+<p>For a second Walter glanced into her splendid
+eyes, and then bowed over her hand in his
+foreign way, a murmured expression of pleasure
+escaping his lips.</p>
+
+<p>About twenty-two, tall and slim, she presented
+a complete and typical picture of the outdoor
+girl, dressed as she was in a grey jumper
+trimmed with purple, a short golfing skirt, her
+tweed hat to match trimmed with the feathers
+of a cock pheasant.</p>
+
+<p>Essentially a sportswoman, she could handle
+gun or rod, ride to hounds, or drive a motor-car
+with equal skill, and as stepdaughter of Sir
+Hugh she had had experience on the Indian
+frontier and in Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>Her father had been British Minister at the
+Hague, and afterwards at Stockholm, but after
+his death her mother had married Sir Hugh, and
+had become Lady Elcombe. Nowadays, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>[<a href="./images/22.png">22</a>]</span>ever,
+the latter was somewhat of an invalid, and
+seldom left their London house in Hill Street.
+Therefore, Enid was usually chaperoned by Mrs.
+Caldwell, wife of the well-known K.C., and with
+her she generally spent her winters on the
+Continent.</p>
+
+<p>Blanche, Sir Hugh's daughter by his first
+wife, had married Paul Le Pontois, who had
+been a captain in the 114th Regiment of Artillery
+of the French Army during the war, and
+lived with her husband in France. She seldom
+came to England, though at frequent intervals
+her father went over to visit her.</p>
+
+<p>When Walter Fetherston took his seat beside
+Enid Orlebar at the luncheon table a flood
+of strange recollections crowded upon his mind&mdash;those
+walks along the Miramar, that excursion
+to Pampeluna, and those curious facts which she
+had unwittingly revealed to him in the course of
+their confidential chats. He remembered their
+leave-taking, and how, as he had sat in the
+<i>rapide</i> for Paris, he had made a solemn vow
+never again to set eyes upon her.</p>
+
+<p>There was a reason why he should not&mdash;a
+strong but mysterious reason.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he had come there of his own will to
+meet her again&mdash;drawn there irresistibly by some
+unseen influence which she possessed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>[<a href="./images/23.png">23</a>]</span>
+Was it her beauty that had attracted him?
+Yes&mdash;he was compelled to admit that it was.
+As a rule he avoided the society of women. To
+his intimates he had laid down the maxim:
+"Don't marry; keep a dog if you want a faithful
+companion." And yet he was once again
+at the side of this fair-faced woman.</p>
+
+<p>None around the table were aware of their
+previous meeting, and all were too busy chattering
+to notice the covert glances which he shot at
+her. He was noting her great beauty, sitting
+there entranced by it&mdash;he, the man of double
+personality, who, under an assumed name, lived
+that gay life of the Continent, known in society
+in twenty different cities, and yet in England
+practically unknown in his real self.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Enid Orlebar was beautiful. Surely
+there could be few fairer women than she in
+this our land of fair women!</p>
+
+<p>Turning upon him, she smiled gaily as she
+asked whether he had been interested in seeing
+a mountain battery at work.</p>
+
+<p>Her fresh face, betraying, as it did, her love
+of a free, open-air life, was one of those strangely
+mysterious countenances met only once in a lifetime.
+It seemed to be the quintessence of pain
+and passion, conflict and agony, desire and despair.
+She was not one of those befrilled,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>[<a href="./images/24.png">24</a>]</span>
+fashion-plate dolls that one meets at the after-war
+crushes and dances, but was austerely simple
+in dress, with a face which betrayed a spiritual
+nobility, the very incarnation of modern womanhood,
+alive with modern self-knowledge, modern
+weariness and modern sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Her beautiful hair, worn plain and smooth,
+was black as night&mdash;wonderful hair. But still
+more wonderful were those great, dark, velvety
+eyes, deep and unfathomable. In them the
+tragedy of life was tumultuously visible, yet they
+were serene, self-possessed, even steady in their
+quiet simplicity. To describe her features is
+not an easy task. They were clear-cut, with a
+purity of the lines of the nose and brow seldom
+seen in a woman's face, dark, well-arched eyebrows,
+a pretty mouth which had just escaped
+extreme sensuousness. Cheeks soft and delicately
+moulded, a chin pointed, a skin remarkable
+for its fineness and its clear pallor, the
+whole aspect of her face being that of sweetness
+combined with nobility and majesty. In it there
+was no dominant expression, for it seemed to be
+a mask waiting to be stirred into life.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston had known Sir Hugh slightly for
+several years, but as Enid had been so much
+abroad with Mrs. Caldwell, he had never met
+her until that accidental encounter in Biarritz.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>[<a href="./images/25.png">25</a>]</span>
+"We've been up here six weeks," she was telling
+Fetherston. "Father always gets a lot of
+golf up here, you know, and I'm rather fond
+of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear I'm too much of a foreigner nowadays
+to appreciate the game," Walter laughed.
+"Last season some Italians in Rome formed a
+club&mdash;the usual set of ultra-smart young counts
+and marquises&mdash;but when they found that it entailed
+the indignity of walking several miles
+they declared it to be a game only fit for the
+populace, and at once disbanded the association."</p>
+
+<p>The men were discussing the work of the
+battery, for four of the officers had been invited,
+and the point raised was the range of mountain
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston glanced at the general
+through his pince-nez with a curious expression,
+but he did not join in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Enid's eyes met his, and the pair exchanged
+curiously significant glances.</p>
+
+<p>He bent to pick up his serviette, and in doing
+so he whispered to her: "I must see you
+outside for a moment before I go. Go out, and
+I'll join you."</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, when the meal had concluded, the
+girl went forth into the secluded garden at the
+rear of the hotel, where in a few moments the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>[<a href="./images/26.png">26</a>]</span>
+man joined her at a spot where they could not
+be overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards him, separate, remote,
+incongruous, her dark eyes showing an angry
+flash in them.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you come here?" she demanded
+with indignation. The whole aspect of her face
+was tragic.</p>
+
+<p>"To see you again," was his brief reply.
+"Before we parted at Biarritz you lied to me,"
+he added in a hard tone.</p>
+
+<p>She held her breath, staring straight into
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't understand you!" she stammered.
+"You are here to torment&mdash;to persecute
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you a question, Enid, but in response
+you told me a deliberate lie. Think&mdash;recall
+that circumstance, and tell me the truth,"
+he said very quietly.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent for a moment. Then, with
+her mouth drawn to hardness, she replied: "Yes,
+it is true&mdash;I lied to you, just as you have lied
+to me. Remember what you told me that moonlit
+night when we walked by the sea towards the
+Grotto of Love. I was a fool to have believed
+in you&mdash;to have trusted you as I did! You left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>[<a href="./images/27.png">27</a>]</span>
+me, and, though I wrote time after time to your
+club, you refused to send me a single line."</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;because, Enid, I dared not," replied
+her companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" she demanded quickly. "You
+told me that you loved me, yet&mdash;yet your own
+actions have shown that you lied to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he protested in a low, earnest, hoarse
+voice; "I told you the truth, Enid, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" she interrupted in quickly
+earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied after a brief pause, "the
+fact is that I am compelled to wear a mask, even
+to you, the woman I love. I cannot tell you the
+truth&mdash;I cannot, dearest, for your own sake."</p>
+
+<p>"And you expect me to believe this lame
+story&mdash;eh?" she laughed. She was pale and
+fragile, yet she seemed to expand and to dilate
+with force and energy.</p>
+
+<p>"Enid," he answered in a low voice, with
+honesty in his eyes, "I would rather sacrifice my
+great love for you than betray the trust I hold
+most sacred. So great is my love for you, rather
+would I never look upon your dear face again
+than reveal to you the tragic truth and bring
+upon you unhappiness and despair."</p>
+
+<p>"Walter," she replied in a trembling voice,
+looking straight into his countenance with those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>[<a href="./images/28.png">28</a>]</span>
+wonderful dark eyes wherein her soul brimmed
+over with weary emotion and fatigued passion,
+"I repeat all that I told you on that calm night
+beside the sea. I love you; I think of you day
+by day, hour by hour. But you have lied to me,
+and therefore I hate myself for having so foolishly
+placed my trust in you."</p>
+
+<p>He had resolved to preserve his great secret&mdash;a
+secret that none should know.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he sighed, shrugging his
+shoulders. "These recriminations are really all
+useless. Ah, if you only knew the truth, Enid!
+If I only dared to reveal to you the hideous facts.
+But I refuse&mdash;they are too tragic, too terrible.
+Better that we should part now, and that you
+should remain in ignorance&mdash;better by far, for
+you. You believe that I am deceiving you. Well,
+I'm frank and admit that I am; but it is with a
+distinct purpose&mdash;for your own sake."</p>
+
+<p>He held forth his hand, and slowly she took
+it. In silence he bowed over it, his lips compressed;
+then, turning upon his heel, he went
+down the gravelled walk back to the hotel, which,
+some ten minutes later, he left with Fred Tredennick,
+catching the train back to Dundee and
+on to Perth.</p>
+
+<p>He was in no way a man to wear his heart
+upon his sleeve, therefore he chatted gaily with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>[<a href="./images/29.png">29</a>]</span>
+his friend and listened to Fred's extravagant admiration
+of Enid's beauty. He congratulated
+himself that his old friend was in ignorance of
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>A curious incident occurred at the hotel that
+same evening, however, which, had Walter been
+aware of it, would probably have caused him
+considerable uneasiness and alarm. Just before
+seven o'clock a tall, rather thin, middle-aged,
+narrow-eyed man, dressed in dark grey tweeds,
+entered the hall of the hotel and inquired for
+Henry, the head waiter. He was well dressed
+and bore an almost professional air.</p>
+
+<p>The white-headed old man quickly appeared,
+when the stranger, whose moustache was carefully
+trimmed and who wore a ruby ring upon
+his white hand, made an anxious inquiry whether
+Fetherston, whom he minutely described, had
+been there that day. At first the head waiter
+hesitated and was uncommunicative, but, the
+stranger having uttered a few low words,
+Henry's manner instantly changed. He started,
+looked in wonder into the stranger's face, and,
+taking him into the smoking-room&mdash;at that moment
+unoccupied&mdash;he allowed himself to be
+closely questioned regarding the general and his
+stepdaughter, as well as the man who had that
+day been their guest. The stranger was a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>[<a href="./images/30.png">30</a>]</span>
+of quick actions, and his inquiries were sharp
+and to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"You say that Mr. Fetherston met the young
+lady outside after luncheon, and they had an
+argument in secret, eh?" asked the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>Henry replied in the affirmative, declaring
+that he unfortunately could not overhear the
+subject under discussion. But he believed the
+pair had quarrelled.</p>
+
+<p>"And where has Mr. Fetherston gone?"
+asked his keen-eyed questioner.</p>
+
+<p>"He is, I believe, the guest of Major Tredennick,
+who lives on the other side of Perthshire
+at Invermay on Loch Earn."</p>
+
+<p>"And the young lady goes back to Hill
+Street with her stepfather, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"On Wednesday."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" was the stranger's reply. Then,
+thanking the head waiter for the information in
+a sharp, businesslike voice, and handing him five
+shillings, he took train back from Monifieth to
+Dundee, and went direct to the chief post-office.</p>
+
+<p>From there he dispatched a carefully constructed
+cipher telegram to an address in the
+Boulevard Anspach, in Brussels, afterwards
+lighting an excellent cigar and strolling along
+the busy street with an air of supreme self-satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>[<a href="./images/31.png">31</a>]</span>
+"If this man, Fetherston, has discovered the
+truth, as I fear he has done," the hard-faced man
+muttered to himself, "then by his action to-day
+he has sealed his own doom!&mdash;and Enid Orlebar
+herself will silence him!"</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>[<a href="./images/32.png">32</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h4>INTRODUCES DOCTOR WEIRMARSH</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Three</span> days had elapsed.</p>
+
+<p>In the dingy back room of a dull, drab house
+in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, close to Victoria
+Station in London, the narrow-eyed man who
+had so closely questioned old Henry at the Panmure
+Hotel, sat at an old mahogany writing-table
+reading a long letter written upon thin
+foreign notepaper.</p>
+
+<p>The incandescent gas-lamp shed a cold glare
+across the room. On one side of the smoke-grimed
+apartment was a shabby leather couch, on
+the other side a long nest of drawers, while beside
+the fireplace was an expanding gas-bracket
+placed in such a position that it could be used
+to examine anyone seated in the big arm-chair.
+Pervading the dingy apartment was a faint smell
+of carbolic, for it was a consulting-room, and
+the man so intent upon the letter was Dr. Weirmarsh,
+the hard-working practitioner so well
+known among the lower classes in Pimlico.</p>
+
+<p>Those who pass along the Vauxhall Bridge
+Road know well that house with its curtains yel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>[<a href="./images/33.png">33</a>]</span>low
+with smoke&mdash;the one which stands back behind
+a small strip of smoke-begrimed garden.
+Over the gate is a red lamp, and upon the railings
+a brass plate with the name: "Mr. Weirmarsh,
+Surgeon."</p>
+
+<p>About three years previously he had bought
+the practice from old Dr. Bland, but he lived
+alone, a silent and unsociable man, with a deaf
+old housekeeper, although he had achieved a considerable
+reputation among his patients in the
+neighbouring by-streets. But his practice was
+not wholly confined to the poorer classes, for he
+was often consulted by well-dressed members of
+the foreign colony&mdash;on account, probably, of his
+linguistic attainments. A foreigner with an imperfect
+knowledge of English naturally prefers
+a doctor to whom he can speak in his own tongue.
+Therefore, as Weirmarsh spoke French, Italian
+and Spanish with equal fluency, it was not surprising
+that he had formed quite a large practice
+among foreign residents.</p>
+
+<p>His appearance, however, was the reverse
+of prepossessing, and his movements were often
+most erratic. About his aquiline face was a
+shrewd and distrustful expression, while his
+keen, dark eyes, too narrowly set, were curiously
+shifty and searching. When absent, as he often
+was, a young fellow named Shipley acted as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>[<a href="./images/34.png">34</a>]</span>
+locum tenens, but so eccentric was he that even
+Shipley knew nothing of the engagements which
+took him from home so frequently.</p>
+
+<p>George Weirmarsh was a man of few friends
+and fewer words. He lived for himself alone,
+devoting himself assiduously to his practice, and
+doing much painstaking writing at the table
+whereat he now sat, or else, when absent, travelling
+swiftly with aims that were ever mysterious.</p>
+
+<p>He had had a dozen or so patients that evening,
+but the last had gone, and he had settled
+himself to read the letter which had arrived when
+his little waiting-room had been full of people.</p>
+
+<p>As he read he made scribbled notes on a piece
+of paper upon his blotting-pad, his thin, white
+hand, delicate as a woman's, bearing that splendid
+ruby ring, his one possession in which he
+took a pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" he remarked to himself in a hard
+tone of sarcasm, "what fools the shrewdest of
+men are sometimes over a woman! So at last
+he's fallen&mdash;like the others&mdash;and the secret will
+be mine. Most excellent! After all, every man
+has one weak point in his armour, and I was not
+mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>Then he paused, and, leaning his chin upon
+his hand, looked straight before him, deep in
+reflection.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>[<a href="./images/35.png">35</a>]</span>
+"I have few fears&mdash;very few," he remarked
+to himself, "but the greatest is of Walter
+Fetherston. What does he know?&mdash;that's the
+chief question. If he has discovered the truth&mdash;if
+he knows my real name and who I am&mdash;then
+the game's up, and my best course is to leave
+England. And yet there is another way," he
+went on, speaking slowly to himself&mdash;"to close
+his lips. Dead men tell no tales."</p>
+
+<p>He sat for a long time, his narrow-set eyes
+staring into space, contemplating a crime. As
+a medical man, he knew a dozen ingenious ways
+by which Walter Fetherston might be sent to
+his grave in circumstances that would appear
+perfectly natural. His gaze at last wandered
+to the book-case opposite, and became centred
+upon a thick, brown-covered, dirty volume by
+a writer named Taylor. That book contained
+much that might be of interest to him in the
+near future.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden the handle of the door turned,
+and Mrs. Kelsey, the old housekeeper, in rusty
+black, admitted Enid Orlebar without the ceremony
+of asking permission to enter.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was dressed in a pearl grey and pink
+sports coat, with a large black hat, and carried
+a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>[<a href="./images/36.png">36</a>]</span>
+a white feather boa, while her features were half
+concealed by the veil she wore.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my dear young lady," cried Weirmarsh,
+rising quickly and greeting her, while next moment
+he turned to his table and hastily concealed
+the foreign letter and notes, "I had quite forgotten
+that you were to consult me. Pray forgive
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to forgive," the beautiful
+girl replied in a low, colourless voice, when the
+housekeeper had disappeared, and she had seated
+herself in the big leather arm-chair in which so
+many patients daily sat. "You ordered me to
+come here to you, and I have come."</p>
+
+<p>"Against your will, eh?" he asked slowly,
+with a strange look in his keen eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I am perfectly well now. I do not see why
+my stepfather should betray such anxiety on my
+account."</p>
+
+<p>"The general is greatly concerned about
+you," Weirmarsh said, seated cross-legged at his
+writing-chair, toying with his pen and looking
+into the girl's handsome face.</p>
+
+<p>"He wished me to see you. That is why I
+wrote to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, wavering beneath his sharp
+glance, "I am here. What do you wish?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to have a little private talk with you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>[<a href="./images/37.png">37</a>]</span>
+Miss Enid," he replied thoughtfully, stroking
+his small greyish moustache, "a talk concerning
+your own welfare."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am not ill," she cried. "I don't see
+why you should desire me to come to you to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I have my own reasons, my dear young
+lady," was the man's firm response, his eyes
+fixed immovably upon hers. "And I think you
+know me well enough to be aware that when Dr.
+Weirmarsh sets his mind upon a thing he is not
+easily turned aside."</p>
+
+<p>A slight, almost imperceptible, shudder ran
+through her. But Weirmarsh detected it, and
+knew that this girl of extraordinary and mysterious
+charm was as wax in his hands. In the
+presence of the man who had cast such a strange
+spell about her she was utterly helpless. There
+was no suggestion of hypnotism&mdash;she herself
+scouted the idea&mdash;yet ever since Sir Hugh had
+taken her to consult this man of medicine at a
+small suburban villa, five years ago, he had entered
+her life never again to leave it.</p>
+
+<p>She realised herself irresistibly in his power
+whenever she felt his presence near her. At his
+bidding she came and went, and against her better
+nature she acted as he commanded.</p>
+
+<p>He had cured her of an attack of nerves five<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>[<a href="./images/38.png">38</a>]</span>
+years ago, but she had ever since been beneath
+his hated thraldom. His very eyes fascinated
+her with their sinister expression, yet to her
+he could do no wrong.</p>
+
+<p>A thousand times she had endeavoured to
+break free from that strong but unseen influence,
+but she always became weak and easily led as
+soon as she fell beneath the extraordinary power
+which the obscure doctor possessed. Time after
+time he called her to his side, as on this occasion,
+on pretence of prescribing for her, and yet with
+an ulterior motive. Enid Orlebar was a useful
+tool in the hands of this man who was so unscrupulous.</p>
+
+<p>She sighed, passing her gloved hand wearily
+across her hot brow. Strange how curiously his
+presence always affected her!</p>
+
+<p>She had read in books of the mysteries of
+hypnotic suggestion, but she was far too practical
+to believe in that. This was not hypnotism, she
+often declared within herself, but some remarkable
+and unknown power possessed by this man
+who, beneath the guise of the hard-working surgeon,
+was engaged in schemes of remarkable
+ingenuity and wondrous magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>He held her in the palm of his hand. He
+held her for life&mdash;or for death.</p>
+
+<p>To her stepfather she had, times without<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>[<a href="./images/39.png">39</a>]</span>
+number, expressed fear and horror of the sharp-eyed
+doctor, but Sir Hugh had only laughed at
+her fears and dismissed them as ridiculous. Dr.
+Weirmarsh was the general's friend.</p>
+
+<p>Enid knew that there was some close association
+between the pair, but of its nature she was
+in complete ignorance. Often the doctor came
+to Hill Street and sat for long periods with the
+general in that small, cosy room which was his
+den. That they were business interviews there
+was no doubt, but the nature of the business
+was ever a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"I see by your face that, though there is a
+great improvement in you, you are, nevertheless,
+far from well," the man said, his eyes still
+fixed upon her pale countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Weirmarsh," she protested, "this constant
+declaration that I am ill is awful. I tell
+you I am quite as well as you are yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there, I'm afraid, you are mistaken,
+my dear young lady," he replied. "You may
+feel well, but you are not in quite such good
+health as you imagine. The general is greatly
+concerned about you, and for that reason I
+wished to see you to-night," he added with a smile
+as, bending towards her, he asked her to remove
+her glove.</p>
+
+<p>He took her wrist, holding his stop-watch in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>[<a href="./images/40.png">40</a>]</span>
+his other hand. "Hum!" he grunted, "just as
+I expected. You're a trifle low&mdash;a little run
+down. You want a change."</p>
+
+<p>"But we only returned from Scotland yesterday!"
+she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"The North does not suit such an exotic
+plant as yourself," he said. "Go South&mdash;the
+Riviera, Spain, Italy, or Egypt."</p>
+
+<p>"I go with Mrs. Caldwell at the end of
+November."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said decisively, "you must go now."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes in
+astonishment at his dictatorial manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;&mdash;" and he hesitated, still gazing
+upon her with those strangely sinister eyes of his.
+"Well, Miss Enid, because a complete change
+will be beneficial to you in more ways than one,"
+he replied with an air of mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," she declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably not," he laughed, with that cynical
+air which so irritated her. She hated herself
+for coming to that detestable house of grim
+silence; yet his word to her was a command which
+she felt impelled by some strange force to fulfil
+with child-like obedience. "But I assure you I
+am advising you for your own benefit, my dear
+young lady."</p>
+
+<p>"In what way?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>[<a href="./images/41.png">41</a>]</span>
+"Shall I speak plainly?" asked the man in
+whose power she was. "Will you forgive me if
+I so far intrude myself upon your private affairs
+as to give you a few words of advice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Dr. Weirmarsh, but I cannot
+see that my private affairs are any concern of
+yours," she replied with some hauteur. How
+often had she endeavoured in vain to break those
+invisible shackles?</p>
+
+<p>"I am a very sincere friend of your stepfather,
+and I hope a sincere friend of yours also,"
+he said with perfect coolness. "It is because
+of this I presume to advise you&mdash;but, of
+course&mdash;&mdash;" And he hesitated, without concluding
+his sentence. His eyes were again fixed upon
+her as though gauging accurately the extent of
+his influence upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you advise, pray?" she asked,
+"It seems that you have called me to you to-night
+in order to intrude upon my private affairs,"
+she added, with her eyes flashing resentment.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;yes, Miss Enid," he answered, his
+manner changing slightly. "The fact is, I wish
+to warn you against what must inevitably bring
+disaster both upon yourself and your family."</p>
+
+<p>"Disaster?" she echoed. "I don't follow
+you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>[<a href="./images/42.png">42</a>]</span>
+"Then let me speak a little more plainly,"
+he replied, his strange, close-set eyes staring into
+hers until she quivered beneath his cold, hard
+gaze. "You have recently become acquainted
+with Walter Fetherston. You met him at Biarritz
+six months ago, and on Monday last he
+lunched with you up at Monifieth. After
+luncheon you met him in the garden of the hotel,
+and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know all this?" she gasped,
+startled, yet fascinated by his gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young lady," he laughed, "it is
+my business to know certain things&mdash;that is one
+of them."</p>
+
+<p>She held her breath for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"And pray how does that concern you?
+What interest have you in my acquaintances?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very keen one," was the prompt reply.
+"That man is dangerous to you&mdash;and to your
+family. The reason why I have asked you here
+to-night is to tell you that you must never meet
+him again. If you value your life, and that of
+your mother and her husband, avoid him as you
+would some venomous reptile. He is your most
+deadly enemy."</p>
+
+<p>The girl was silent for a moment. Her great,
+dark eyes were fixed upon the threadbare car<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>[<a href="./images/43.png">43</a>]</span>pet.
+What he told her was disconcerting, yet,
+knowing instinctively, as she did, how passionately
+Walter loved her, she could not bring herself
+to believe that he was really her enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Dr. Weirmarsh," she replied, raising
+her eyes again to his, "you are quite mistaken.
+I know Walter Fetherston better than you.
+Your allegation is false. You have told me this
+because&mdash;because you have some motive in parting
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said frankly, "I have&mdash;<i>a strong
+motive</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not conceal it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered. "Were I a younger
+man you might, perhaps, accuse me of scheming
+to wriggle myself into your good graces, Miss
+Enid. But I am getting old, and, moreover, I'm
+a confirmed bachelor, therefore you cannot, I
+think, accuse me of such ulterior motives. No,
+I only point out this peril for your family's
+sake&mdash;and your own."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mr. Fetherston such an evil genius,
+then?" she asked. "The world knows him as a
+writer of strictly moral, if exciting, books."</p>
+
+<p>"The books are one thing&mdash;the man himself
+another. Some men reflect their own souls in
+their works, others write but canting hypocrisy.
+It is so with Walter Fetherston&mdash;the man who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>[<a href="./images/44.png">44</a>]</span>
+has a dual personality and whose private life will
+not bear the light of publicity."</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to prejudice me against him,
+eh?" she said in a hard tone.</p>
+
+<p>"I merely wish to advise you for your good,
+my dear young lady," he said. "It is not for
+me, your medical man, to presume to dictate to
+you, I know. But the general is my dear friend,
+therefore I feel it my duty to reveal to you the
+bitter truth."</p>
+
+<p>Thoughts of Walter Fetherston, the man
+in whose eyes had shone the light of true honesty
+when he spoke, arose within her. She was well
+aware of all the curious gossip concerning the
+popular writer, whose eccentricities were so frequently
+hinted at in the gossipy newspapers,
+but she was convinced that she knew the real
+Fetherston behind the mask he so constantly
+wore.</p>
+
+<p>This man before her was deceiving her. He
+had some sinister motive in thus endeavouring to
+plant seeds of suspicion within her mind. It was
+plain that he was endeavouring in some way to
+secure his own ends. Those ends, however, were
+a complete and inexplicable mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see that my friendship for Mr.
+Fetherston can have any interest for you," she
+replied. "Let us talk of something else."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>[<a href="./images/45.png">45</a>]</span>
+"But it has," he persisted. "You must never
+meet that man again&mdash;you hear! never&mdash;otherwise
+you will discover to your cost that my serious
+warning has a foundation only too solid;
+that he is your bitterest enemy posing as your
+most affectionate friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe you, Dr. Weirmarsh!" she
+cried resentfully, springing to her feet. "I'll
+never believe you!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young lady," the man exclaimed,
+"you are really quite unnerved to-night. The
+general was quite right. I will mix you a draught
+like the one you had before&mdash;perfectly innocuous&mdash;something
+to soothe those unstrung nerves of
+yours." And beneath his breath, as his cruel
+eyes twinkled, he added: "Something to bring
+reason to those warped and excited senses&mdash;something
+to sow within you suspicion and hatred
+of Walter Fetherston."</p>
+
+<p>Then aloud he added, as he sprang to his
+feet: "Excuse me for a moment while I go and
+dispense it. I'll be back in a few seconds."</p>
+
+<p>He left the room when, quick as lightning,
+Enid stretched forth her hand to the drawer of
+the writing-table into which she had seen the
+doctor toss the foreign letter he had been reading
+when she entered.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>[<a href="./images/46.png">46</a>]</span>
+She drew it out, and scanned eagerly a dozen
+or so of the closely-written lines in Spanish.</p>
+
+<p>Then she replaced it with trembling fingers,
+and, closing the drawer, sat staring straight before
+her&mdash;dumbfounded, rigid.</p>
+
+<p>What was the mystery?</p>
+
+<p>By the knowledge she had obtained she became
+forearmed&mdash;even defiant. In the light of
+that astounding discovery, she now read the mysterious
+Dr. Weirmarsh as she would an open
+book. She held her breath, and an expression
+of hatred escaped her lips.</p>
+
+<p>When, a moment later, he brought her a
+pale-yellow draught in a graduated glass, she
+took it from his hand, and, drawing herself up in
+defiance, flung its contents behind her into the
+fireplace. She believed that at last she had conquered
+that strangely evil influence which, emanating
+from this obscure practitioner, had fallen
+upon her.</p>
+
+<p>But the man only shrugged his shoulders and,
+turning from her, laughed unconcernedly. He
+knew that he held her in bonds stronger than
+steel, that his will was hers&mdash;for good or for
+evil.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>[<a href="./images/47.png">47</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h4>REVEALS TEMPTATION</h4>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">I tell</span> you it can't be done&mdash;the risk is far too
+great!" declared Sir Hugh Elcombe, standing
+with his back to the fireplace in his cosy little
+den in Hill Street at noon next day.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be done," answered Dr. Weirmarsh,
+who sat in the deep green leather arm-chair, with
+the tips of his fingers placed together.</p>
+
+<p>The general glanced suspiciously at the door
+to reassure himself that it was closed.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask too much," he said. Then, in a
+decisive voice, while his fingers toyed nervously
+with his monocle, he added, "I have resolved
+to end it once and for all."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked at him with a strange expression
+in those cold, keen eyes of his and smiled,
+"I fear, Sir Hugh, that if you attempt to carry
+out such a decision you will find insuperable
+difficulties," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"I desire no good advice from you, Weirmarsh,"
+the old general snapped. "I fully realise
+my position. You have cornered me&mdash;cut off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>[<a href="./images/48.png">48</a>]</span>
+my retreat&mdash;so I have placed my back against
+the wall."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! And how will such an attitude
+benefit you, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Understand, I am in no mood to be taunted
+by you!" the old man cried, with an angry
+flash in his eyes. "You very cleverly enticed
+me into the net, and now you are closing it
+about me."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Sir Hugh," replied the doctor,
+"ours was a mere business transaction, surely.
+Carry your thoughts back to six years ago.
+After your brilliant military career you returned
+from India and found yourself, as so many of
+your profession find themselves, in very straitened
+circumstances. You were bound to keep up
+appearances, and, in order to do so, got into
+the hands of Eli Moser, the moneylender. You
+married Lady Orlebar, and had entered London
+society when, of a sudden, the scoundrelly usurer
+began to put the screw upon you. At that moment
+you&mdash;luckily, I think, for yourself&mdash;met
+me, and&mdash;well, I was your salvation, for I
+pointed out to you an easy way by which to pay
+your creditors and rearrange your affairs upon
+a sound financial basis. Indeed, I did it for you.
+I saved you from the moneylender. Did I
+not?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>[<a href="./images/49.png">49</a>]</span>
+He spoke in a calm, even tone, without once
+removing his eyes from the man who stood upon
+the hearthrug with bent head and folded arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Weirmarsh. It's true that you
+saved me from bankruptcy&mdash;but think what
+penalty I have paid by accepting your terms,"
+he answered in a low, broken voice. "The devil
+tempted me, and I fell into your damnable net."</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly think it necessary for you to put
+it that way," replied the doctor without the least
+sign of annoyance. "I showed you how you
+could secure quite a comfortable income, and you
+readily enough adopted my suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>"Readily!" echoed the fine-looking old soldier.
+"Ah! you don't know what my decision
+cost me&mdash;it has cost me my very life."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, man," laughed the doctor scornfully.
+"You got out of the hands of the Jews,
+and ever since that day you haven't had five
+minutes' worry over your finances. I promised
+you I would provide you with an ample income,
+and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And you've done so, Weirmarsh," cried
+the old general; "an income far greater than I
+expected. Yet what do I deserve?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear General," said the doctor quite
+calmly, "you're not yourself to-day; suffering
+from a slight attack of remorse, eh? It's a bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>[<a href="./images/50.png">50</a>]</span>
+complaint; I've had it, and I know. But it's
+like the measles&mdash;you're very nearly certain to
+contract it once in a lifetime."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no pity for me?" snarled Sir
+Hugh, glaring at the narrow-eyed man seated
+before him. "Don't you realise that by this
+last demand of yours you've driven me into a
+corner?"</p>
+
+<p>Weirmarsh's brows contracted slightly, and
+he shot an evil glance at the man before him&mdash;the
+man who was his victim. "But you must do
+it. You still want money&mdash;and lots of it, don't
+you?" he said in a low, decisive voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I refuse, I tell you!" cried Sir Hugh
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Someone may overhear," the doctor
+said. "Is Enid at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her last night, as you wished. She
+is not well. Her nerves are still in an extremely
+weak state," Weirmarsh said, in order to change
+the topic of conversation. "I think you should
+send her abroad out of the way&mdash;to the South
+somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"So she told me. I shall try and get Mrs.
+Caldwell to take her to Sicily&mdash;if you consider
+the air would be beneficial."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent&mdash;Palermo or Taormina&mdash;send<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>[<a href="./images/51.png">51</a>]</span>
+the girl there as soon as ever you can. She seems
+unstrung, and may get worse; a change will
+certainly do her good," replied the man whose
+craft and cunning were unequalled. "I know,"
+he added reflectively, "that Enid dislikes me&mdash;why,
+I can never make out."</p>
+
+<p>"Instinct, I suppose, Weirmarsh," was the
+old man's reply. "She suspects that you hold
+me in your power, as you undoubtedly do."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that is really a most silly idea of
+yours, Sir Hugh. Do get rid of it. Such a
+thought pains me to a great degree," declared
+the crafty-eyed man. "For these past years I
+have provided you with a good income, enabling
+you to keep up your position in the world, instead
+of&mdash;well, perhaps shivering on the Embankment
+at night and partaking of the hospitality
+of the charitably disposed. Yet you upbraid
+me as though I had treated you shabbily!"
+He spoke with an irritating air of superiority,
+for he knew that this man who occupied such a
+high position, who was an intimate friend and
+confidant of the Minister of War, and universally
+respected throughout the country, was but a
+tool in his unscrupulous hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask me too much," exclaimed the grey-moustached
+officer in a hard, low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The request does not emanate from me,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>[<a href="./images/52.png">52</a>]</span>
+was the doctor's reply; "I am but the mouthpiece."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the mouthpiece&mdash;but the eyes and ears
+also, Weirmarsh," replied Sir Hugh. "You
+bought me, body and soul, for a wage of five
+thousand pounds a year&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The salary of one of His Majesty's Ministers,"
+interrupted the doctor. "It has been paid
+you with regularity, together with certain extras.
+When you have wished for a loan of five hundred
+or so, I have never refused it."</p>
+
+<p>"I quite admit that; but you've always received
+a <i>quid pro quo</i>," the general snapped.
+"Look at the thousands upon thousands I put
+through for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"The whole transaction has from the beginning
+been a matter of business; and, as far as I
+am concerned, I have fulfilled my part of the
+contract."</p>
+
+<p>The man standing upon the hearthrug sighed.
+"I suppose," he said, "that I really have no right
+to complain. I clutched at the straw you held
+out to me, and saved myself at a cost greater
+than the world can ever know. I hate myself
+for it. If I had then known what I know now
+concerning you and your friends, I would rather
+have blown out my brains than have listened to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>[<a href="./images/53.png">53</a>]</span>
+your accursed words of temptation. The whole
+plot is damnable!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I am not Mephistopheles,"
+laughed the narrow-eyed doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"You are worse," declared the general boldly.
+"You bought me body and soul, but by
+Heaven!" he cried, "you have not bought my
+family, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Weirmarsh moved uneasily in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you refuse to do this service which
+I requested of you, yesterday, eh?" he asked
+very slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>A silence fell between the two men, broken
+only by the low ticking of the little Sheraton
+clock upon the mantelshelf.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you fully reflected upon what this
+refusal of yours may cost you, General?" asked
+the doctor in a slow, hard voice, his eyes fixed
+upon the other's countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"It will cost me just as much as you decide
+it shall," was the response of the unhappy man,
+who found himself enmeshed by the crafty
+practitioner.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak as though I were the principal,
+whereas I am but the agent," Weirmarsh
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Principal or agent, my decision, Doctor, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>[<a href="./images/54.png">54</a>]</span>
+irrevocable&mdash;I refuse to serve your accursed ends
+further."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," laughed the other, still entirely
+unruffled, "your attitude to-day is quite amusing.
+You've got an attack of liver, and you should
+allow me to prescribe for you."</p>
+
+<p>The general made a quick gesture of impatience,
+but did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon the tip of Weirmarsh's tongue
+to refer to Walter Fetherston, but next instant
+he had reflected. If Sir Hugh really intended
+to abandon himself to remorse and make a fool
+of himself, why should he stretch forth a hand
+to save him?</p>
+
+<p>That ugly revelations&mdash;very ugly ones&mdash;might
+result was quite within the range of possibility,
+therefore Weirmarsh, whose craft and cunning
+were amazing, intended to cover his own retreat
+behind the back of the very man whom he
+had denounced to Enid Orlebar.</p>
+
+<p>He sat in silence, his finger-tips again joined,
+gazing upon the man who had swallowed that
+very alluring bait he had once placed before him.</p>
+
+<p>He realised by Sir Hugh's manner that he
+regretted his recent action and was now overcome
+by remorse. Remorse meant exposure, and
+exposure meant prosecution&mdash;a great public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>[<a href="./images/55.png">55</a>]</span>
+prosecution, which, at all hazards, must not be
+allowed.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat there he was actually calmly wondering
+whether this fine old officer with such a
+brilliant record would die in silence by his own
+hand and carry his secret to the grave, or whether
+he would leave behind some awkward written
+statement which would incriminate himself and
+those for whom he acted.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Sir Hugh turned and, looking the
+doctor squarely in the face as though divining
+his inmost thoughts, said in a hoarse voice tremulous
+with emotion: "Ah, you need not trouble
+yourself further, Weirmarsh. I have a big dinner-party
+to-night, but by midnight I shall have
+paid the penalty which you have imposed upon
+me&mdash;I shall have ceased to live. I will die rather
+then serve you further!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, my dear sir," replied the doctor,
+rising from his chair abruptly. "Of course,
+every man's life is his own property&mdash;you can
+take it if you think fit&mdash;but I assure you that such
+an event would not concern me in the least. I
+have already taken the precaution to appear with
+clean hands&mdash;should occasion require."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>[<a href="./images/56.png">56</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h4>IN WHICH ENID ORLEBAR IS PUZZLED</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> night, around the general's dinner-table in
+Hill Street, a dozen or so well-known men and
+women were assembled.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh Elcombe's dinners were always
+smart gatherings. The table was set with
+Georgian silver and decorated daintily with
+flowers, while several of the women wore splendid
+jewels. At the head sat Lady Elcombe, a quiet,
+rather fragile, calm-faced woman in black, whose
+countenance bore traces of long suffering, but
+whose smile was very sweet.</p>
+
+<p>Among the guests was Walter Fetherston,
+whom the general had at last induced to visit
+him, and he had taken in Enid, who looked superb
+in a cream d&eacute;collet&eacute; gown, and who wore
+round her throat a necklet of turquoise matrices,
+admirably suited to her half-barbaric beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston had only accepted the general's
+invitation at her urgent desire, for she had written
+to White's telling him that it was imperative
+they should meet&mdash;she wished to consult<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>[<a href="./images/57.png">57</a>]</span>
+him; she begged of him to forget the interview
+at Monifieth and return to her.</p>
+
+<p>So, against his will, he had gone there, though
+the house and all it contained was hateful to
+him. With that terrible secret locked within his
+heart&mdash;that secret which gripped his very vitals
+and froze his blood&mdash;he looked upon the scene
+about him with horror and disgust. Indeed, it
+was only by dint of self-control that he could be
+civil to his host.</p>
+
+<p>His fellow-guests were of divers types: a
+couple of peers and their womenkind, a popular
+actor-manager, two diplomats, and several military
+men of more or less note&mdash;two of them,
+like the host, occupying high positions at the
+War Office.</p>
+
+<p>Such gatherings were of frequent occurrence
+at Hill Street. It was popularly supposed that
+Sir Hugh, by marrying His Majesty's Minister's
+widow, had married money, and was thus able
+to sustain the position he did. Other military
+men in his position found it difficult to make
+both ends meet, and many envied old Hugh Elcombe
+and his wealthy wife. They were unaware
+that Lady Orlebar, after the settlement of her
+husband's estate, had found herself with practically
+nothing, and that her marriage to Sir
+Hugh had been more to secure a home than any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>[<a href="./images/58.png">58</a>]</span>thing
+else. Both had, alas! been equally deceived.
+The general, believing her to be rich, had
+been sadly disillusioned; while she, on her part,
+was equally filled with alarm when he revealed to
+her his penurious position.</p>
+
+<p>The world, of course, knew nothing of this.
+Sir Hugh, ever since his re-marriage, had given
+good dinners and had been entertained in return,
+therefore everybody believed that he derived his
+unusually large income from his wife.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat at table he laughed and chatted
+merrily with his guests, for on such occasions he
+was always good company. Different, indeed,
+was his attitude from when, at noon, he had stood
+with Weirmarsh in his own den and pronounced
+his own fate.</p>
+
+<p>The man who held him in that strange thraldom
+was seated at the table. He had been invited
+three days ago, and had come there, perhaps,
+to taunt him with his presence in those the
+last few hours of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Only once the two men exchanged glances,
+for Weirmarsh was devoting all his attention to
+young Lady Stockbridge. But when Sir Hugh
+encountered the doctor's gaze he saw in his eyes
+open defiance and triumph.</p>
+
+<p>In ignorance of the keen interest which the
+doctor across the table felt in him, Walter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>[<a href="./images/59.png">59</a>]</span>
+Fetherston sat chatting and laughing with Enid.
+Once the doctor, to whom he had been introduced
+only half an hour before, addressed a remark
+to him to which he replied, at the same time reflecting
+within himself that Weirmarsh was quite
+a pleasant acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>He was unaware of that mysterious visit of
+inquiry to Monifieth, of that remarkable cipher
+telegram afterwards dispatched to Brussels, or
+even of the extraordinary influence that man in
+the well-worn evening suit possessed over both his
+host and the handsome girl beside him.</p>
+
+<p>When the ladies had left the table the doctor
+set himself out over the cigarettes to become
+more friendly with the writer of fiction. Then
+afterwards he rose, and encountering his host,
+who had also risen and crossed the room,
+whispered in a voice of command: "You have
+reconsidered your decision! You will commit
+no foolish and cowardly act? I see it in your
+face. I shall call to-morrow at noon, and we will
+discuss the matter further."</p>
+
+<p>The general did not reply for a few seconds.
+But Weirmarsh had already realised that reflection
+had brought his victim to a calmer state of
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not listen to you," the old man
+growled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>[<a href="./images/60.png">60</a>]</span>
+"But I shall speak whether you listen or not.
+Remember, I am not a man to be fooled by talk.
+I shall be here at noon and lay before you a
+scheme perhaps a little more practicable than the
+last one." And with that he reached for some
+matches, turned upon his heel, and rejoined the
+man against whom he had warned Enid&mdash;the
+only man in the world whom he feared.</p>
+
+<p>Before they rose Weirmarsh had ingratiated
+himself with his enemy. So clever was he that
+Fetherston, in ignorance as to whom his fellow-guest
+really was, save that he was a member of
+the medical profession, was actually congratulating
+himself that he had now met a man after his
+own heart.</p>
+
+<p>At last they repaired to the pretty old-rose-and-gold
+drawing-room upstairs, an apartment
+in which great taste was displayed in decoration,
+and there several of the ladies sang or recited.
+One of them, a vivacious young Frenchwoman,
+was induced to give Barrois's romance, "J'ai vu
+fleurir notre dernier lilas!"</p>
+
+<p>When she had concluded Enid, with whom
+Walter was seated, rose and passed into the small
+conservatory, which was prettily illuminated with
+fairy lights. As soon as they were alone she
+turned to him in eager distress, saying: "Walter,
+do, I beg of you, beware of that man!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>[<a href="./images/61.png">61</a>]</span>
+"Of what man?" he asked in quick surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Of Doctor Weirmarsh."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? I don't know him. I never met him
+until to-night. Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"My stepfather's friend, but my enemy&mdash;and
+yours," she cried quickly, placing her hand
+upon her heart as though to quell its throbbing.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he well known?" inquired the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;only in Pimlico. He lives in Vauxhall
+Bridge Road, and his practice lies within
+a radius of half a mile of Victoria Station."</p>
+
+<p>"And why is he my enemy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that I cannot tell."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is he your stepfather's friend?" asked
+Fetherston. "They certainly seem to be on very
+good terms."</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor Weirmarsh's cunning and ingenuity
+are unequalled," she declared. "Over me, as
+over Sir Hugh, he has cast a kind of spell&mdash;a&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her companion laughed. "My dear Enid,"
+he said, "spells are fictions of the past; nobody
+believes in them nowadays. He may possess
+some influence over you, but surely you are sufficiently
+strong-minded to resist his power, whatever
+it may be?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she replied, "I am not. For that
+reason I fear for myself&mdash;and for Sir Hugh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>[<a href="./images/62.png">62</a>]</span>
+That man compelled Sir Hugh to take me to
+him for a consultation, and as soon as I was in
+his presence I knew that his will was mine&mdash;that
+I was powerless."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," said Fetherston,
+much interested in this latest psychic problem.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither do I understand myself," she answered
+in bewilderment. "To me this man's
+power, fascination&mdash;whatever you may term it&mdash;is
+a complete mystery."</p>
+
+<p>"I will investigate it," said Fetherston
+promptly. "What is his address?"</p>
+
+<p>She told him, and he scribbled it upon his
+shirt-cuff. Then, looking into her beautiful countenance,
+he asked: "Have you no idea of the
+nature of this man's influence over Sir Hugh?"</p>
+
+<p>"None whatever. It is plain, however, that
+he is master over my stepfather's actions. My
+mother has often remarked to me upon it," was
+her response. "He comes here constantly, and
+remains for hours closeted with Sir Hugh in his
+study. So great is his influence that he orders
+our servants to do his bidding."</p>
+
+<p>"And he compelled Sir Hugh to take you
+to his consulting room, eh? Under what pretext?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was suffering from extreme nervousness,
+and he prescribed for me with beneficial effect,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>[<a href="./images/63.png">63</a>]</span>
+she said. "But ever since I have felt myself
+beneath his influence in a manner which I am
+utterly unable to describe. I do not believe in
+hypnotic suggestion, or it might be put down to
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is your theory?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have none, except&mdash;well, except that this
+man, essentially a man of evil, possesses some
+occult influence which other men do not possess."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours is not a weak nature, Enid," he declared.
+"You are not the sort of girl to fall beneath
+the influence of another."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," she laughed in reply. "And
+yet the truth is a hard and bitter one."</p>
+
+<p>"Remain firm and determined to be mistress
+of your own actions," he urged, "and in the
+meantime I will cultivate the doctor's acquaintance
+and endeavour to investigate the cause of
+this remarkable influence of his."</p>
+
+<p>Why did Doctor Weirmarsh possess such
+power over Sir Hugh? he wondered. Could it
+be that this man was actually in possession of
+the truth? Was he aware of that same terrible
+and hideous secret of which he himself was aware&mdash;a
+secret which, if exposed, would convulse the
+whole country, so shameful and scandalous
+was it!</p>
+
+<p>He saw how pale and agitated Enid was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>[<a href="./images/64.png">64</a>]</span>
+She had in her frantic anxiety sought his aid.
+Only a few days ago they had parted; yet now,
+in the moment of her fear and apprehension, she
+had recalled him to her side to seek his advice
+and protection.</p>
+
+<p>She had not told him of that mysterious
+warning Weirmarsh had given her concerning
+him, or of his accurate knowledge of their acquaintanceship.
+She had purposely refrained
+from telling him this lest her words should unduly
+prejudice him. She had warned Walter that
+the doctor was his enemy&mdash;this, surely, was
+sufficient!</p>
+
+<p>"Try and discover, if you can, the reason of
+the doctor's power over my father, and why he
+is for ever directing his actions," urged the girl.
+"For myself I care little; it is for Sir Hugh's
+sake that I am trying to break the bonds, if
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no suspicion of the reason?" he
+repeated, looking seriously into her face. "You
+do not think that he holds some secret of your
+stepfather's? Undue influence can frequently
+be traced to such a source."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head in the negative, a blank
+look in her great, dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she replied, "it is all a mystery&mdash;one
+which I beg of you, Walter, to solve, and"&mdash;she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>[<a href="./images/65.png">65</a>]</span>
+faltered in a strange voice&mdash;"and to save me!"</p>
+
+<p>He pressed her hand and gave her his
+promise. Then for a second she raised her full
+red lips to his, and together they passed back into
+the drawing-room, where their re-entry in company
+did not escape the sharp eyes of the lonely
+doctor of Pimlico.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>[<a href="./images/66.png">66</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h4>BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Walter Fetherston</span> strolled back that night to
+the dingy chambers he rented in Holles Street,
+off Oxford Street, as a <i>pied-&agrave;-terre</i> when in London.
+He was full of apprehension, full of curiosity,
+as to who this Doctor Weirmarsh could be.</p>
+
+<p>He entered his darkling, shabby old third-floor
+room and threw himself into the arm-chair
+before the fire to think. It was a room without
+beauty, merely walls, repapered once every
+twenty years, and furniture of the mid-Victorian
+era. The mantelshelf in the bedroom still bore
+stains from the medicine bottles which consoled
+the final hours of the last tenant, a man about
+whom a curious story was told.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that he found a West End anchorage
+there, not when he had retired, but when he
+was in the very prime of life. He never told
+anyone that he was single; at the same time he
+never told anyone he was married. He just came
+and rented those three rooms, and there his man
+brought him his tea at ten o'clock every morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>[<a href="./images/67.png">67</a>]</span>
+for thirty years. Then he dressed himself and
+went round to the Devonshire, in St. James's
+Street, and there remained till closing time, at
+two o'clock, every morning for thirty years.
+When his club closed in the dog-days for repairs
+he went to the club which received him.
+He never went out of town. He never slept a
+night away. He never had a visitor. He never
+received a letter, and, so far as his man was
+aware, never wrote one.</p>
+
+<p>One morning he did not go through his usual
+programme. The doctor was called, but during
+the next fortnight he died.</p>
+
+<p>Within twelve hours, however, his widow and
+a family of grown-up children arrived, pleasant,
+cheerful, inquisitive people, who took away with
+them everything portable, greatly to the chagrin
+of the devoted old manservant who had been the
+tenant's single home-tie for thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>It was these selfsame, dull, monotonous chambers
+which Walter occupied. The old manservant
+was the selfsame man who had so devotedly
+served the previous tenant. They suited
+Walter's purpose, for he was seldom in London,
+so old Hayden had the place to himself for many
+months every year. Of all the inhabitants of
+London chambers those are the most lonely who
+never wander away from London. But Walter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>[<a href="./images/68.png">68</a>]</span>
+was ever wandering, therefore he never noticed
+the shabbiness of the carpet, the dinginess of
+the furniture, or the dispiriting gloom of everything.</p>
+
+<p>Like the previous tenant, Walter had no
+visitors and was mostly out all day. At evening
+he would write at the dusty old bureau in which
+the late tenant had kept locked his family treasures,
+or sit in the deep, old horsehair-covered
+chair with his feet upon the fender, as he did that
+night after returning from Hill Street.</p>
+
+<p>The only innovation in those grimy rooms
+was a good-sized fireproof safe which stood in the
+corner hidden by a side-table, and from this Walter
+had taken a bundle of papers and carried
+them with him to his chair.</p>
+
+<p>One by one he carefully went through them,
+until at last he found the document of which he
+was in search.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he exclaimed to himself after he had
+scanned it, "so I was not mistaken after all!
+The mystery is deeper than I thought. By Jove!
+that fellow, Joseph Blot, alias Weirmarsh, alias
+Detmold, Ponting and half a dozen other names,
+no doubt, is playing a deep game&mdash;a dangerous
+customer evidently!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, again returning to the safe, he took
+out a large packet of miscellaneous photographs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>[<a href="./images/69.png">69</a>]</span>
+of various persons secured by an elastic band.
+These he went rapidly through until he held one
+in his hand, an unmounted <i>carte-de-visite</i>, which
+he examined closely beneath the green-shaded
+reading-lamp.</p>
+
+<p>It was a portrait of Doctor Weirmarsh, evidently
+taken a few years before, as he then wore
+a short pointed beard, whereas he was now shaven
+except for a moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"No mistake about those features," he remarked
+to himself with evident satisfaction as,
+turning the photographic print, he took note of
+certain cabalistic numbers written in the corner,
+scribbling them in pencil upon his blotting-pad.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I recollected those curious eyes
+and that unusual breadth of forehead," he went
+on, speaking to himself, and again examining the
+pictured face through his gold pince-nez. "It's
+a long time since I looked at this photograph&mdash;fully
+five years. What would the amiable doctor
+think if he knew that I held the key which
+will unlock his past?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed lightly to himself, and, selecting
+a cigarette from the silver box, lit it.</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat back in his big arm-chair, his
+eyes fixed upon the fire, contemplating what he
+realised to be a most exciting and complicated
+problem.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>[<a href="./images/70.png">70</a>]</span>
+"This means that I must soon be upon the
+move again," he murmured to himself. "Enid
+has sought my assistance&mdash;she has asked me to
+save her, and I will exert my utmost endeavour
+to do so. But I see it will be difficult, very difficult.
+She is, no doubt, utterly unaware of the
+real identity of this brisk, hard-working doctor.
+And perhaps, after all," he added slowly, "it is
+best so&mdash;best that she remain in ignorance of this
+hideous, ghastly truth!"</p>
+
+<p>At that same moment, while Walter Fetherston
+was preoccupied by these curious apprehensions,
+the original of that old <i>carte-de-visite</i> was
+seated in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, smoking
+a cigar with a tall, broad-shouldered, red-bearded
+man who was evidently a foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>He had left Hill Street five minutes after
+Fetherston, and driven down to the Savoy, where
+he had a rendezvous for supper with his friend.
+That he was an habitu&eacute; there was patent from
+the fact that upon entering the restaurant, Alphonse,
+the <i>ma&icirc;tre d'h&ocirc;tel</i>, with his plan of the
+tables pinned upon the board, greeted him with,
+"Ah! good evening, Docteur. Table vingt-six,
+Docteur Weirmarsh."</p>
+
+<p>The scene was the same as it is every evening
+at the Savoy; the music, the smart dresses of the
+women, the flowers, the shaded lights, the chatter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>[<a href="./images/71.png">71</a>]</span>
+and the irresponsible laughter of the London
+world amusing itself after the stress of war.</p>
+
+<p>You know it&mdash;why, therefore, should I describe
+it? Providing you possess an evening suit
+or a low-necked dress, you can always rub
+shoulders with the <i>monde</i> and the <i>demi-monde</i> of
+London at a cost of a few shillings a head.</p>
+
+<p>The two men had supped and were chatting
+in French over their coffee and "triplesec."
+Gustav, Weirmarsh called his friend, and from
+his remarks it was apparent that he was a stranger
+to London. He was dressed with elegance.
+Upon the corner of his white lawn handkerchief
+a count's coronet was embroidered, and upon his
+cigar-case also was a coronet and a cipher. In
+his dress-shirt he wore a fine diamond, while upon
+the little finger of his left hand glittered a similar
+stone of great lustre.</p>
+
+<p>The lights were half extinguished, and a
+porter's voice cried, "Time's up, ladies and gentlemen!"
+Those who were not habitu&eacute;s rose
+and commenced to file out, but the men and
+women who came to the restaurant each night
+sat undisturbed till the lights went up again
+and another ten minutes elapsed before the final
+request to leave was made.</p>
+
+<p>The pair, seated away in a corner, had been
+chatting in an undertone when they were com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>[<a href="./images/72.png">72</a>]</span>pelled
+to rise. Thereupon the doctor insisted
+that his friend, whose name was Gustav Heureux,
+should accompany him home. So twenty minutes
+later they alighted from a taxi-cab in the Vauxhall
+Bridge Road, and entered the shabby little
+room wherein Weirmarsh schemed and
+plotted.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor produced from a cupboard some
+cognac and soda and a couple of glasses, and
+when they had lit cigars they sat down to resume
+their chat.</p>
+
+<p>Alone there, the doctor spoke in English.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," he explained, "it is a matter of
+the greatest importance&mdash;if we make this coup
+we can easily make a hundred thousand pounds
+within a fortnight. The general at first refused
+and became a trifle&mdash;well, just a trifle resentful,
+even vindictive; but by showing a bold front I've
+brought him round. To-morrow I shall clinch
+the matter. That is my intention."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be a brilliant snap, if you can actually
+accomplish it," was the red-bearded man's enthusiastic
+reply. He now spoke in English, but
+with a strong American accent. "I made an
+attempt two years ago, but failed, and narrowly
+escaped imprisonment."</p>
+
+<p>"A dozen attempts have already been made,
+but all in vain," replied the doctor, drawing hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>[<a href="./images/73.png">73</a>]</span>
+at his cigar. "Therefore, I'm all the more keen
+to secure success."</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly have been very successful
+over here, Doctor," observed the foreigner, whose
+English had been acquired in America. "We
+have heard of you in New York, where you are
+upheld to us as a model. Jensen once told me
+that your methods were so ingenious as to be
+unassailable."</p>
+
+<p>"Merely because I am well supplied with
+funds," answered the other with modesty.
+"Here, in England, as elsewhere, any man or
+woman can be bought&mdash;if you pay their price.
+There is only one section of the wonderful British
+public who cannot be purchased&mdash;the men and
+women who are in love with each other. Whenever
+I come up against Cupid, experience has
+taught me to retire deferentially, and wait until
+the love-fever has abated. It often turns to jealousy
+or hatred, and then the victims fall as
+easily as off a log. A jealous woman will betray
+any secret, even though it may hurry her lover
+to his grave. To me, my dear Gustav, this
+fevered world of London is all very amusing."</p>
+
+<p>"And your profession as doctor must serve
+as a most excellent mask. Who would suspect
+you&mdash;a lonely bachelor in such quarters as
+these?" exclaimed his visitor.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>[<a href="./images/74.png">74</a>]</span>
+"No one does suspect me," laughed the doctor
+with assurance. "Safety lies in pursuing my increasing
+practice, and devoting all my spare time
+to&mdash;well, to my real profession." He flicked the
+ash off his cigar as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend, Elcombe, will have to be very
+careful. The peril is considerable in that
+quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that full well. But if he failed it
+would be he who would suffer&mdash;not I. As usual,
+I do not appear in the affair at all."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just where you are so intensely
+clever and ingenious," declared Heureux. "In
+New York they speak of you as a perfect marvel
+of foresight and clever evasion."</p>
+
+<p>"It is simply a matter of exercising one's
+wits," Weirmarsh laughed lightly. "I always
+complete my plans with great care before embarking
+upon them, and I make provision for
+every contretemps possible. It is the only way,
+if one desires success."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have had success," remarked his
+companion. "Marked success in everything you
+have attempted. In New York we have not been
+nearly so fortunate. Those three articles in the
+<i>New York Sun</i> put the public on their guard, so
+that we dare not attempt any really bold move
+for fear of detection."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>[<a href="./images/75.png">75</a>]</span>
+"You have worked a little too openly, I
+think," was Weirmarsh's reply. "But now that
+you have been sent to assist me, you will probably
+see that my methods differ somewhat from
+those of John Willoughby. Remember, he has
+just the same amount of money placed at his disposal
+as I have."</p>
+
+<p>"And he is not nearly so successful," Heureux
+replied. "Perhaps it is because Americans
+are not so easily befooled as the English."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet America is, <i>par excellence</i>, the
+country of bluff, of quackery in patent medicines,
+and of the booming of unworthy persons," the
+doctor laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is fortunate, Doctor, that the public are
+in ignorance of the real nature of our work, isn't
+it, eh? Otherwise, you and I might experience
+rather rough handling if this house were
+mobbed."</p>
+
+<p>Weirmarsh smiled grimly. "My dear Gustav,"
+he laughed, "the British public, though of
+late they've browsed upon the hysterics of the
+popular Press, are already asleep again. It is
+not for us to arouse them. We profit by their
+heavy slumber, and this will be a rude awakening&mdash;a
+shock, depend upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"We were speaking of Sir Hugh Elcombe,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>[<a href="./images/76.png">76</a>]</span>
+remarked the other. "He has been of use to
+us, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of considerable use, but his usefulness is
+all but ended," replied the doctor. "He will go
+to France before long, if he does not act as I
+direct."</p>
+
+<p>"Into a veritable hornet's nest!" exclaimed
+the red-bearded man. He recognised a strange
+expression upon the doctor's face, and added,
+"Ah, I see. This move is intentional, eh? He
+has served our purpose, and you now deem it
+wise that&mdash;er&mdash;disaster should befall him across
+the Channel, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor smiled in the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"And the girl you spoke of, Enid Orlebar?"</p>
+
+<p>"The girl will share the same fate as her stepfather,"
+was Weirmarsh's hard response. "We
+cannot risk betrayal."</p>
+
+<p>"Then she knows something?"</p>
+
+<p>"She may or she may not. In any case, however,
+she constitutes a danger, a grave danger,
+that must, at all costs, be removed." And looking
+into the other's face, he added, "You understand
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>Just before two o'clock Gustav Heureux left
+the frowsy house in Vauxhall Bridge Road and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>[<a href="./images/77.png">77</a>]</span>
+walked through the silent street into Victoria
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>He was unaware, however, that on the opposite
+side of the road an ill-dressed man had for a
+full hour been lurking in a doorway, or that when
+he came down the doctor's steps, the mysterious
+midnight watcher strolled noiselessly after him.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>[<a href="./images/78.png">78</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h4>CONCERNING THE VELVET HAND</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the rising ground half-way between Wimborne
+and Poole, in Dorsetshire, up a narrow by-road
+which leads to the beautiful woods, lies the
+tiny hamlet of Idsworth, a secluded little place
+of about forty inhabitants, extremely rural and
+extremely picturesque.</p>
+
+<p>Standing alone half-way up the hill, and surrounded
+by trees, was an old-world thatched cottage,
+half-timbered, with high, red-brick chimneys,
+quaint gables and tiny dormer windows&mdash;a
+delightful old Elizabethan house with a comfortable,
+homely look. Behind it a well-kept
+flower garden, with a tree-fringed meadow beyond,
+while the well-rolled gravelled walks, the
+rustic fencing, and the pretty curtains at the casements
+betrayed the fact that the rustic homestead
+was not the residence of a villager.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact it belonged to a Mr. John
+Maltwood, a bachelor, whom Idsworth believed
+to be in business in London, and who came there
+at intervals for fresh air and rest. His visits<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>[<a href="./images/79.png">79</a>]</span>
+were not very frequent. Sometimes he would be
+absent for many months, and at others he would
+remain there for weeks at a time, with a cheery
+word always for the labourers on their way home
+from work, and always with his hand in his pocket
+in the cause of charity.</p>
+
+<p>John Maltwood, the quiet, youngish-looking
+man in the gold pince-nez, was popular everywhere
+over the country-side. He did not court
+the society of the local parsons and their wives,
+nor did he return any of the calls made upon
+him. His excuse was that he was at Idsworth
+for rest, and not for social duties. This very independence
+of his endeared him to the villagers,
+who always spoke of him as "one of the right
+sort."</p>
+
+<p>At noon on the day following the dinner at
+Hill Street, Walter Fetherston&mdash;known at Idsworth
+as Mr. Maltwood&mdash;alighted from the station
+fly, and was met at the cottage gate by the
+smiling, pleasant-faced woman in a clean apron
+who acted as caretaker.</p>
+
+<p>He divested himself of his overcoat in the
+tiny entrance-hall, passed into a small room, with
+the great open hearth, where in days long ago the
+bacon was smoked, and along a passage into the
+long, old-world dining-room, with its low ceiling
+with great dark beams, its solemn-ticking, brass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>[<a href="./images/80.png">80</a>]</span>-faced
+grandfather clock, and its profusion of old
+blue china.</p>
+
+<p>There he gave some orders to Mrs. Deacon,
+obtained a cigarette, and passed back along the
+passage to a small, cosy, panelled room at the
+end of the house&mdash;the room wherein he wrote
+those mystery stories which held the world enthralled.</p>
+
+<p>It was a pretty, restful place, with a moss-green
+carpet, green-covered chairs, several cases
+filled to overflowing with books, and a great
+writing-table set in the window. On the mantelshelf
+were many autographed portraits of Continental
+celebrities, while on the walls were one
+or two little gems of antique art which he had
+picked up on his erratic wanderings. Over the
+writing-table was a barometer and a storm-glass,
+while to the left a cosy corner extended round
+to the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>He lit his cigarette, then walking across to a
+small square oaken door let into the wall beside
+the fireplace, he opened it with a key. This had
+been an oven before the transformation of three
+cottages into a week-end residence, and on opening
+it there was displayed the dark-green door of
+a safe. This he quickly opened with another key,
+and after slight search took out a small ledger
+covered with dark-red leather.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>[<a href="./images/81.png">81</a>]</span>
+Then glancing at some numerals upon a piece
+of paper he took from his vest pocket, he turned
+them up in the index, and with another volume
+open upon his blotting-pad, he settled himself to
+read the record written there in a small, round
+hand. The numbers were those upon the back of
+the old <i>carte-de-visite</i> which had interested him so
+keenly, and the statement he was reading was,
+from the expression upon his countenance, an
+amazing one.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time he scribbled memoranda
+upon the scrap of paper, now and then pausing
+as though to recall the past. Then, when he had
+finished, he laughed softly to himself, and, closing
+the book, replaced it in the safe and shut the
+oaken door. By the inspection of that secret
+entry he had learnt much regarding that man who
+posed as a doctor in Pimlico.</p>
+
+<p>He sat back in his writing-chair and puffed
+thoughtfully at his cigarette. Then he turned his
+attention to a pile of letters addressed to him as
+"Mr. Maltwood," and made some scribbled replies
+until Mrs. Deacon entered to announce that
+his luncheon was ready.</p>
+
+<p>When he went back to the quaint, old-fashioned
+dining-room and seated himself, he said:
+"I'm going back by the five-eighteen, and I dare
+say I shan't return for quite a month or perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>[<a href="./images/82.png">82</a>]</span>
+six weeks. Here's a cheque for ten pounds to
+pay these little bills." And he commenced his
+solitary meal.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't been here much this summer,
+sir," remarked the good woman. "In Idsworth
+they think you've quite deserted us&mdash;Mr. Barnes
+was only saying so last week. They're all so glad
+to see you down here, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very good of them, Mrs. Deacon,"
+he laughed. "I, too, only wish I could spend
+more time here. I love the country, and I'm
+never so happy as when wandering in Idsworth
+woods."</p>
+
+<p>And then he asked her to tell him the village
+gossip while she waited at his table.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon he put on a rough suit and,
+taking his stout holly stick, went for a ramble
+through the great woods he loved so well, where
+the trees were tinted by autumn and the pheasants
+were strong upon the wing.</p>
+
+<p>He found Findlay, one of the keepers, and
+walked with him for an hour as far as the Roman
+camp, where alone he sat down upon a felled
+tree and, with his gaze fixed across the distant
+hills towards the sea, pondered deeply. He loved
+his modest country cottage, and he loved those
+quiet, homely Dorsetshire folk around him. Yet
+such a wanderer was he that only a few months<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>[<a href="./images/83.png">83</a>]</span>
+each year&mdash;the months he wrote those wonderful
+romances of his&mdash;could he spend in that old-fashioned
+cottage which he had rendered the very
+acme of cosiness and comfort.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past four the rickety station fly called
+for him, and later he left by the express which
+took him to Waterloo and his club in time for
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>And so once again he changed his identity
+from John Maltwood, busy man of business, to
+Walter Fetherston, novelist and traveller.</p>
+
+<p>The seriousness of what was in progress was
+now plain to him. He had long been filled with
+strong suspicions, and these suspicions had been
+confirmed both by Enid's statements and his own
+observations; therefore he was already alert and
+watchful.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock he went to his gloomy chambers
+for an hour, and then strolled forth to the
+Vauxhall Bridge Road, and remained vigilant
+outside the doctor's house until nearly two.</p>
+
+<p>He noted those who came and went&mdash;two men
+who called before midnight, and were evidently
+foreigners. They came separately, remained
+about half an hour, and then Weirmarsh himself
+let them out, shaking hands with them effusively.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a taxicab drove up, and from it
+Sir Hugh, in black overcoat and opera hat,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>[<a href="./images/84.png">84</a>]</span>
+stepped out and was at once admitted, the taxi
+driving off. Walter, as he paced up and down
+the pavement outside, would have given much
+to know what was transpiring within.</p>
+
+<p>Had he been able to glance inside that shabby
+little back room he would have witnessed a
+strange scene&mdash;Sir Hugh, the gallant old soldier,
+crushed and humiliated by the man who practised
+medicine, and who called himself Weirmarsh.</p>
+
+<p>"I had only just come in from the theatre
+when you telephoned me," Sir Hugh said sharply
+on entering. "I am sorry I could make no appointment
+to-day, but I was at the War Office
+all the morning, lunched at the Carlton, and was
+afterwards quite full up."</p>
+
+<p>"There was no immediate hurry, Sir Hugh,"
+responded the doctor with a pleasant smile. "I
+quite understand that your many social engagements
+prevented you from seeing me. I should
+have been round at noon, only I was called out
+to an urgent case. Therefore no apology is
+needed&mdash;by either of us." Then, after a pause,
+he looked sharply at the man seated before him
+and asked: "I presume you have reconsidered
+your decision, General, and will carry out my
+request?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have not decided to do that," was the
+old fellow's firm answer. "It's too dangerous an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>[<a href="./images/85.png">85</a>]</span>
+exploit&mdash;far too dangerous. Besides, it means
+ruin."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir," remarked the doctor, "you
+are viewing the matter in quite a wrong light.
+There will be no suspicion providing you exercise
+due caution."</p>
+
+<p>"And what would be the use of that, pray,
+when my secret will not be mine alone? It is
+already known to half a dozen other persons&mdash;your
+friends&mdash;any of whom might give me away."</p>
+
+<p>"It will not be known until afterwards&mdash;when
+you are safe. Therefore, there will be absolutely
+no risk," the doctor assured him.</p>
+
+<p>The other, however, was no fool, and was still
+unconvinced. He knew well that to carry out
+the request made by Weirmarsh involved considerable
+risk.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor spoke quietly, but very firmly.
+In his demands he was always inexorable. He
+had already hinted at the disaster which might
+fall upon Sir Hugh if he refused to obey. Weirmarsh
+was, the general knew from bitter experience,
+not a man to be trifled with.</p>
+
+<p>Completely and irrevocably he was in this
+man's hands. During the past twenty-four hours
+the grave old fellow, who had faced death a hundred
+times, had passed through a crisis of agony
+and despair. He hated himself, and would even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>[<a href="./images/86.png">86</a>]</span>
+have welcomed death, would have courted it at
+his own hands, had not these jeers of the doctor's
+rung in his ears. And, after all, he had decided
+that suicide was only a coward's death. The man
+who takes his own life to avoid exposure is always
+despised by his friends.</p>
+
+<p>So he had lived, and had come down there in
+response to the doctor's request over the telephone,
+resolved to face the music, if for the last
+time.</p>
+
+<p>He sat in the shabby old arm-chair and firmly
+refused to carry out the doctor's suggestion. But
+Weirmarsh, with his innate cunning, presented to
+him a picture of exposure and degradation which
+held him horrified.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought, Sir Hugh, that in
+face of what must inevitably result you would
+not risk exposure," he said. "Of course, it lies
+with you entirely," he added with an unconcerned
+air.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm thinking of my family," the old officer
+said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of the disgrace if the truth were known,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; of the suspicion, nay, ruin and imprisonment,
+that would fall upon another person,"
+replied Sir Hugh.</p>
+
+<p>"No suspicion can be aroused if you are care<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>[<a href="./images/87.png">87</a>]</span>ful,
+I repeat," exclaimed Weirmarsh impatiently.
+"Not a breath of suspicion has ever fallen upon
+you up to the present, has it? No, because you
+have exercised foresight and have followed to
+the letter the plans I made. I ask you, when you
+have followed my advice have you ever gone
+wrong&mdash;have you ever taken one false step?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never&mdash;since the first," replied the old
+soldier in a hard, bitter tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I urge you to continue to follow the
+advice I give you, namely, to agree to the terms."</p>
+
+<p>"And who will be aware of the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only myself," was Weirmarsh's reply.
+"And I think that you may trust a secret with
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man made no reply, and the crafty
+doctor wondered whether by silence he very reluctantly
+gave his consent.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>[<a href="./images/88.png">88</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h4>PAUL LE PONTOIS</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is in the far north-west of France a broad,
+white highway which runs from Ch&acirc;lons, crosses
+the green Meuse valley, mounts the steep, high,
+tree-fringed lands of the C&ocirc;tes Lorraines, and
+goes almost straight as an arrow across what
+was, before the war, the German frontier at
+Mars-la-Tour into quaint old Metz, that town
+with ancient streets, musical chimes, and sad
+monument to Frenchmen who fell in the disastrous
+never-to-be-forgotten war of '70.</p>
+
+<p>This road has ever been one of the most
+strongly guarded highways in the world, for,
+between the Moselle, at Metz, and the Meuse, the
+country is a flat plain smiling under cultivation,
+with vines and cornfields everywhere, and comfortable
+little homesteads of the peasantry. This
+was once the great battlefield whereon Gravelotte
+was fought long ago, and where the Prussians
+swept back the French like chaff before the wind,
+and where France, later on, defeated the Crown
+Prince's army. The peasants, in ploughing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>[<a href="./images/89.png">89</a>]</span>
+daily turn up a rusty bayonet, a rotting gun-stock,
+a skull, a thigh-bone, or some other hideous
+relic of those black days; while the old men in
+their blouses sit of nights smoking and telling
+thrilling stories of the ferocity of that helmeted
+enemy from yonder across the winding Moselle.
+In recent days it has been again devastated by
+the great world war, as its gaunt ruins mutely
+tell.</p>
+
+<p>That road, with its long line of poplars, after
+crossing the ante-war French border, runs
+straight for twenty kilom&egrave;tres towards the abrupt
+range of high hills which form the natural
+frontier of France, and then, at Haudiomont, enters
+a narrow pass, over twelve kilom&egrave;tres long,
+before it reaches the broad valley of the Meuse.
+This pass was, before 1914, one of the four principal
+gateways into France from Germany. The
+others are all within a short distance, fifteen kilom&egrave;tres
+or so&mdash;at Commercy, which is an important
+sous-prefecture, at Apremont, and at Eix.
+All have ever been strongly guarded, but that at
+Haudiomont was most impregnable of them all.</p>
+
+<p>Before 1914 great forts in which were
+mounted the most modern and the most destructive
+artillery ever devised by man, commanded
+the whole country far beyond the Moselle into
+Germany. Every hill-top bristled with them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>[<a href="./images/90.png">90</a>]</span>
+smaller batteries were in every coign of vantage,
+while those narrow mountain passes could also be
+closed at any moment by being blown up when
+the signal was given against the Hun invaders.</p>
+
+<p>On the German side were many fortresses, but
+none was so strong as these, for the efforts of the
+French Ministry of War had, ever since the fall
+of Napoleon III., been directed towards rendering
+the C&ocirc;tes Lorraines impassable.</p>
+
+<p>As one stands upon the road outside the tiny
+hamlet of Harville&mdash;a quaint but half-destroyed
+little place consisting of one long street of ruined
+whitewashed houses&mdash;and looks towards the hills
+eastward, low concrete walls can be seen, half
+hidden, but speaking mutely of the withering
+storm of shell that had, in 1914, burst from them
+and swept the land.</p>
+
+<p>Much can be seen of that chain of damaged
+fortresses, and the details of most of them are now
+known. Of those great ugly fortifications at
+Moulainville&mdash;the Belrupt Fort, which overlooks
+the Meuse; the Daumaumont, commanding the
+road from Conflans to Azannes; the Paroches,
+which stands directly over the highway from the
+Moselle at Moussin&mdash;we have heard valiant
+stories, how the brave French defended them
+against the armies of the Crown Prince.</p>
+
+<p>It was not upon these, however, that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>[<a href="./images/91.png">91</a>]</span>
+French Army relied when, in August, 1914, the
+clash of war resounded along that pleasant fertile
+valley, where the sun seems ever to shine and
+the crops never fail. Hidden away from the
+sight of passers-by upon the roads, protected
+from sight by lines of sentries night and day, and
+unapproachable, save by those immediately connected
+with them, were the secret defences, huge
+forts with long-range ordnance, which rose, fired,
+and disappeared again, offering no mark for the
+enemy. Constructed in strictest secrecy, there
+were a dozen of such fortresses, the true details
+of which the Huns vainly endeavoured to learn
+while they were war-plotting. Many a spy of the
+Kaiser had tried to pry there and had been arrested
+and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.</p>
+
+<p>Those defences, placed at intervals along the
+chain of hills right from Apremont away to
+Bezonvaux, had been the greatest secret which
+France possessed.</p>
+
+<p>Within three kilom&egrave;tres of the mouth of the
+pass at Haudiomont, at a short distance from the
+road and at the edge of a wood, stood the ancient
+Ch&acirc;teau de L&eacute;rouville, a small picturesque place
+of the days of Louis XIV., with pretty lawns
+and old-world gardens&mdash;a ch&acirc;teau only in the
+sense of being a country house and the residence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>[<a href="./images/92.png">92</a>]</span>
+of Paul Le Pontois, once a captain in the French
+Army, but now retired.</p>
+
+<p>Shut off from the road by a high old wall,
+with great iron gates, it was approached by a
+wide carriage-drive through a well-kept flower-garden
+to a long <i>terrasse</i> which ran the whole
+length of the house, and whereon, in summer, it
+was the habit of the family to take their meals.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this veranda, one morning about ten
+days after the dinner party at Hill Street, Sir
+Hugh, in a suit of light grey tweed, was standing
+chatting with his son-in-law, a tall, brown-bearded,
+soldierly-looking man.</p>
+
+<p>The autumn sun shone brightly over the rich
+vinelands, beyond which stretched what was once
+the German Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Le Pontois, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking
+woman of thirty, was still at table in the
+<i>salle-&agrave;-manger</i>, finishing her breakfast in the
+English style with little Ninette, a pretty blue-eyed
+child of nine, whose hair was tied on the
+top with wide white ribbon, and who spoke English
+quite well.</p>
+
+<p>Her husband and her father had gone out
+upon the <i>terrasse</i> to have their cigarettes prior to
+their walk up the steep hillside to the fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Life in that rural district possessed few
+amusements outside the military circle, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>[<a href="./images/93.png">93</a>]</span>
+Paul Le Pontois was a civilian and lived upon
+the product of the wine-lands of his estate.
+There were tennis parties, "fif' o'clocks," croquet
+and bridge-playing in the various military houses
+around, but beyond that&mdash;nothing. They were
+too far from a big town ever to go there for recreation.
+Metz they seldom went to, and with Paris
+far off, Madame Le Pontois was quite content,
+just as she had been when Paul had been stationed
+in stifling Constantine, away in the interior
+of Algeria.</p>
+
+<p>But she never complained. Devoted to her
+husband and to her laughing, bright-eyed child,
+she loved the open-air life of the country, and
+with such a commodious and picturesque house,
+one of the best in the district, she thoroughly
+enjoyed every hour of her life. Paul possessed
+a private income of fifty thousand francs, or
+nearly two thousand pounds a year, therefore
+he was better off than the average run of post-war
+men.</p>
+
+<p>He was a handsome, distinguished-looking
+man. As he lolled against the railing of the
+<i>terrasse</i>, gay with ivy-leaf geraniums, lazily
+smoking his cigarette and laughing lightly with
+his father-in-law, he presented a typical picture
+of the debonair Frenchman of the boulevards&mdash;elegance
+combined with soldierly smartness.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>[<a href="./images/94.png">94</a>]</span>
+He had seen service in Tonquin, in Algeria,
+on the French Congo and in the Argonne, and
+now his old company garrisoned Haudiomont,
+one of those forts of enormous strength, which
+commanded the gate of France, and had never
+been taken by the Crown Prince's army.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he was laughing, speaking in good
+English, "you in England, my dear beaup&egrave;re,
+do not yet realise the dangers of the future.
+Happily for you, perhaps, because you have the
+barrier of the sea. Your writers used to speak
+of your 'tight little island.' But I do not see
+much of that in London journals now. Airships
+and aeroplanes have altered all that."</p>
+
+<p>"But you in France are always on the
+alert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. We have our new guns&mdash;terrible
+weapons they are&mdash;at St. Mihiel and at Mouilly,
+and also in other forts in what was once German
+territory," was Paul's reply. "The Huns&mdash;who,
+after peace, are preparing for another war, have
+a Krupp gun for the same purpose, but at its
+trial a few weeks ago at Pferzheim it was an utter
+failure. A certain lieutenant was present at
+the trial, disguised as a German peasant. He
+saw it all, returned here, and made an exhaustive
+report to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not believe in this peace, and in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>[<a href="./images/95.png">95</a>]</span>
+sincerity of the enemy, eh?" asked Sir Hugh,
+with his hands thrust deep into his trousers
+pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not," was Paul's prompt reply.
+"I am no longer in the army, but it seems to me
+that to repair the damage done by the Kaiser's
+freak performances in the international arena,
+quite a number of national committees must be
+constituted under the auspices of the German
+Government. There are the Anglo-German, the
+Austro-German, the American-German and the
+Canadian-German committees, all to be formed
+in their respective countries for the promotion of
+friendship and better relations. But I tell you,
+Sir Hugh, that we in France know well that the
+imposing names at the head of these committees
+are but too often on the secret pay-rolls of the
+Wilhelmstrasse, and the honesty and sincerity of
+the finely-worded manifestations of Hun friendship
+and goodwill appearing above their signatures
+are generally nothing but mere blinds intended
+to hoodwink statesmen and public opinion.
+Germany has, just as she had before the war,
+her paid friends everywhere," he added, looking
+the general full in the face. "In all classes of
+society are to be found the secret agents of the
+Fatherland&mdash;men who are base traitors to their
+own monarch and to their own land."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>[<a href="./images/96.png">96</a>]</span>
+"Let us go in. They are waiting for us. We
+are not interested in espionage, either of us, are
+we?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," laughed Paul. "When I was in the
+army we heard a lot of this, but all that is of the
+past&mdash;thanks to Heaven. There are other crimes
+in the world just as bad, alas! as that of treachery
+to one's country."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>[<a href="./images/97.png">97</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h4>THE LITTLE OLD FRENCHWOMAN</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Although</span> Sir Hugh had on frequent occasions
+been the guest of his son-in-law at the pretty
+Ch&acirc;teau de L&eacute;rouville, he had never expressed a
+wish, until the previous evening, to enter the
+Fortress of Haudiomont.</p>
+
+<p>As a military man he knew well how zealously
+the secrets of all fortresses are guarded.</p>
+
+<p>When, on the previous evening, Le Pontois
+had declared that it would be an easy matter for
+him to be granted a view of that great stronghold
+hidden away among the hill-tops, he had remarked:
+"Of course, my dear Paul, I would not
+for a moment dream of putting you into any awkward
+position. Remember, I am an alien here,
+and a soldier also! I haven't any desire to see
+the place."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is no question of that so far as you
+are concerned, Sir Hugh," Paul had declared
+with a light laugh. "The Commandant, who,
+of course, knows you, asked me a month ago to
+bring you up next time you visited us. He
+wished to make your acquaintance. In view of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>[<a href="./images/98.png">98</a>]</span>
+the recent war our people are nowadays no longer
+afraid of England, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>So the visit had been arranged, and Sir Hugh
+was to take his <i>d&eacute;jeuner</i> up at the fort.</p>
+
+<p>That day Blanche, with Enid, who had accompanied
+her stepfather, drove the runabout
+car up the valley to the little station at Dieue-sur-Meuse,
+and took train thence to Commercy,
+where Blanche wished to do some shopping.</p>
+
+<p>So, when the two men had left to ascend the
+steep hillside, where the great fortress lay concealed,
+Blanche, who had by long residence in
+France become almost a Frenchwoman, kissed
+little Ninette <i>au revoir</i>, mounted into the car, and,
+taking the wheel, drove Enid and Jean, the servant,
+who, as a soldier, had served Paul during
+the war, away along the winding valley.</p>
+
+<p>As they went along they passed a battalion
+of the 113th Regiment of the Line, heavy with
+their knapsacks, their red trousers dusty, returning
+from the long morning march, and singing
+as they went that very old regimental ditty which
+every soldier of France knows so well:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>La Noire est fille du cannon</i><br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf"><i>Qui se fout du qu'en dira-t-on.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf"><i>Nous nous foutons de ses vertus,</i><br /></span>
+<span class="ihalf"><i>Puisqu'elle a les t&eacute;tons pointus.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Voil&agrave; pourquoi nous la chantons:</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i2"><i>Vive la Noire et ses t&eacute;tons!</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>[<a href="./images/99.png">99</a>]</span>
+And as they passed the ladies the officer saluted.
+They were, Blanche explained, on their
+way back to the great camp at Jarny.</p>
+
+<p>Bugles were sounding among the hills, while
+ever and anon came the low boom of distant artillery
+at practice away in the direction of Vigneulles-les-Hattonchatel,
+the headquarters of the
+sub-division of that military region.</p>
+
+<p>It was Enid's first visit, and the activity about
+her surprised her. Besides, the officers were extremely
+good-looking.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they approached a battery of artillery
+on the march, with their rumbling guns and
+grey ammunition wagons, raising a cloud of dust
+as they advanced.</p>
+
+<p>Blanche pulled the car up at the side of the
+road to allow them to pass, and as she did so a
+tall, smartly-groomed major rode up to her, and,
+saluting, exclaimed in French, "Bon jour,
+Madame! I intended to call upon you this morning.
+My wife has heard that you have the general,
+your father, visiting you, and we wanted
+to know if you would all come and take dinner
+with us to-morrow night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure we'd be most delighted," replied
+Paul's wife, at the same time introducing Enid
+to Major Delagrange.</p>
+
+<p>"My father has gone up to the fort with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>[<a href="./images/100.png">100</a>]</span>
+my husband," Blanche added, bending over from
+the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, then I shall meet them at noon," replied
+the smart officer, backing his bay horse.
+"And you ladies are going out for a run, eh?
+Beautiful morning! We've been out man&#339;uvring
+since six!"</p>
+
+<p>Blanche explained that they were on a shopping
+expedition to Commercy, and then, saluting,
+Delagrange set spurs into his horse and galloped
+away after the retreating battery.</p>
+
+<p>"That man's wife is one of my best friends.
+She speaks English very well, and is quite a good
+sort. Delagrange and Paul were in Tonquin together
+and are great friends."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you are never very dull here, with
+so much always going on?" Enid remarked.
+"Why anyone would believe that a war was actually
+in progress!"</p>
+
+<p>"This post of Eastern France never sleeps,
+my dear," was Madame's reply. "While you in
+England remain secure in your island, we here
+never know when trouble may again arise.
+Therefore, we are always preparing&mdash;and at the
+same time always prepared."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be most exciting," declared the girl,
+"to live in such uncertainty. Is the danger so
+very real, then?" she asked. "Father generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>[<a href="./images/101.png">101</a>]</span>
+pooh-poohs the notion of there being any further
+trouble with Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," was Blanche's answer. "He has
+been sceptical hitherto. He is always suspicious
+of the Boche!"</p>
+
+<p>They had driven up to the little wayside station,
+and, giving the car over to Jean with instructions
+to meet the five-forty train, they entered
+a first-class compartment.</p>
+
+<p>Between Dieue and Commercy the railway
+follows the course of the Meuse the whole way,
+winding up a narrow, fertile valley, the hills of
+which on the right, which once were swept by the
+enemy's shells and completely devastated, were
+all strongly fortified with great guns commanding
+the plain that lies between the Meuse and the
+Moselle.</p>
+
+<p>They were passing through one of the most
+interesting districts in all France&mdash;that quiet, fertile
+valley where stood peaceful, prosperous
+homesteads, and where the sheep were once more
+calmly grazing&mdash;the valley which for four years
+was so strongly contested, and where every village
+had been more or less destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>At the headquarters of the Sixth Army Corps
+of France much was known, much that was still
+alarming. It was that knowledge which urged
+on those ever active military preparations, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[<a href="./images/102.png">102</a>]</span>
+placing that district of France that had been ravaged
+by the Hun in the Great War in a state of
+complete fortification as a second line of defence
+should trouble again arise.</p>
+
+<p>Thoughts such as these arose in Enid's mind
+as she sat in silence looking forth upon the panorama
+of green hills and winding stream as they
+slowly approached the quaint town of Commercy.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived there, the pair lunched at the old-fashioned
+H&ocirc;tel de Paris, under the shadow of
+the great ch&acirc;teau, once the residence of the Dukes
+de Lorraine, and much damaged in the war, but
+nowadays a hive of activity as an infantry barracks.
+And afterwards they went forth to do
+their shopping in the busy little Rue de la R&eacute;publique,
+not forgetting to buy a box of "madeleines."
+As shortbread is the specialty of Edinburgh,
+as butterscotch is that of Doncaster,
+"maids-of-honour" that of Richmond, and
+strawberry jam that of Bar-le-Duc, so are
+"madeleines" the special cakes of Commercy.</p>
+
+<p>The town was full of officers and soldiers. In
+every caf&eacute; officers were smoking cigarettes and
+gossiping after their <i>d&eacute;jeuner</i>; while ever and
+anon bugles sounded, and there was the clang and
+clatter of military movement.</p>
+
+<p>As the two ladies approached the big bronze
+statue of Dom Calmet, the historian, they passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>[<a href="./images/103.png">103</a>]</span>
+a small caf&eacute;. Suddenly a man idling within over
+a newspaper sprang to his feet in surprise, and
+next second drew back as if in fear of observation.</p>
+
+<p>It was Walter Fetherston. He had come up
+from Nancy that morning, and had since occupied
+the time in strolling about seeing the sights
+of the little place.</p>
+
+<p>His surprise at seeing Enid was very great.
+He knew that she was staying in the vicinity, but
+had never expected to see her so quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The lady who accompanied her he guessed to
+be her stepsister; indeed, he had seen a photograph
+of her at Hill Street. Had Enid been
+alone, he would have rushed forth to greet her;
+but he had no desire at the moment that his presence
+should be known to Madame Le Pontois.
+He was there to watch, and to meet Enid&mdash;but
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>So after a few moments he cautiously went
+forth from the caf&eacute;, and followed the two ladies
+at a respectful distance, until he saw them complete
+their purchases and afterwards enter the
+station to return home.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to the hotel he made many inquiries
+of monsieur the proprietor concerning the
+distance to Haudiomont, and learned a good
+deal about the military works there which was of
+the greatest interest. The hotel-keeper, a stout<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>[<a href="./images/104.png">104</a>]</span>
+Alsatian, was a talkative person, and told Walter
+nearly all he wished to know.</p>
+
+<p>Since leaving Charing Cross five days before
+he had been ever active. On his arrival in Paris
+he had gone to the apartment of Colonel Maynard,
+the British military attach&eacute;, and spent the
+evening with him. Then, at one o'clock next
+morning, he had hurriedly taken his bag and left
+for Dijon, where at noon he had been met in the
+Caf&eacute; de la Rotonde by a little wizen-faced old
+Frenchwoman in seedy black, who had travelled
+for two days and nights in order to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>Together they had walked out on that unfrequented
+road beyond the Place Darcy, chatting
+confidentially as they went, the old lady
+speaking emphatically and with many gesticulations
+as they walked.</p>
+
+<p>Truth to tell, this insignificant-looking person
+was a woman of many secrets. She was a
+"friend" of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; G&eacute;n&eacute;rale in Paris. She
+lived, and lived well, in a pretty apartment in
+Paris upon the handsome salary which she received
+regularly each quarter. But she was seldom
+at home. Like Walter, her days were spent
+travelling hither and thither across Europe.</p>
+
+<p>It would surprise the public if it were aware
+of the truth&mdash;the truth of how, in every country
+in Europe, there are secret female agents of po<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>[<a href="./images/105.png">105</a>]</span>lice
+who (for a monetary consideration, of
+course) keep watch in great centres where the
+presence of a man would be suspected.</p>
+
+<p>This secret police service is distinctly apart
+from the detective service. The female police
+agent in all countries works independently, at the
+orders of the Director of Criminal Investigation,
+and is known to him and his immediate staff.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever information that wrinkled-faced
+old Frenchwoman in shabby black had imparted
+to Fetherston it was of an entirely confidential
+character. It, however, caused him to leave her
+about three o'clock, hurry to the Gare Porte-Neuve,
+and, after hastily swallowing a liqueur of
+brandy in the buffet, depart for Langres.</p>
+
+<p>Thence he had travelled to Nancy, where he
+had taken up quarters at the Grand Hotel in the
+Place Stanislas, and had there remained for two
+days in order to rest.</p>
+
+<p>He would not have idled those autumn days
+away so lazily, even though he so urgently required
+rest after that rapid travelling, had he but
+known that the person who occupied the next
+room to his&mdash;that middle-aged commercial traveller&mdash;an
+entirely inoffensive person who possessed
+a red beard, and who had given the name of Jules
+Dequanter, and his nationality as Belgian, native
+of Li&egrave;ge&mdash;was none other than Gustav Heureux,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>[<a href="./images/106.png">106</a>]</span>
+the man who had been recalled from New York
+by the evasive doctor of Pimlico.</p>
+
+<p>And further, Fetherston, notwithstanding his
+acuteness in observation, was in blissful ignorance,
+as he strolled back from the station at Commercy,
+up the old-world street, that a short distance
+behind him, carefully watching all his movements,
+was the man Joseph Blot himself&mdash;the
+man known in dingy Pimlico as Dr. Weirmarsh.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>[<a href="./images/107.png">107</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h4>IF ANYONE KNEW</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sir Hugh Elcombe</span> spent a most interesting
+and instructive day within the Fortress of Haudiomont.
+He really did not want to go. The
+visit bored him. The world was at peace, and
+there was no incentive to espionage as there had
+been in pre-war days.</p>
+
+<p>General Henri Molon, the commandant,
+greeted him cordially and himself showed him
+over a portion of the post-war defences which
+were kept such a strict secret from everyone. The
+general did not, however, show his distinguished
+guest everything. Such things as the new anti-aircraft
+gun, the exact disposition of the huge
+mines placed in the valley between there and
+Rozellier, so that at a given signal both road
+and railway tracks could be destroyed, he did not
+point out. There were other matters to which the
+smart, grey-haired, old French general deemed it
+unwise to refer, even though his visitor might be
+a high official of a friendly Power.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh noticed all this and smiled inwardly.
+He wandered about the bomb-proof case<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[<a href="./images/108.png">108</a>]</span>-mates
+hewn out of the solid rock, caring nothing
+for the number and calibre of the guns, their
+armoured protection, or the chart-like diagrams
+upon the walls, ranges and the like.</p>
+
+<p>"What a glorious evening!" Paul was saying
+as, at sunset, they set their faces towards the
+valley beyond which lay shattered Germany.
+That peaceful land, the theatre of the recent war,
+lay bathed in the soft rose of the autumn afterglow,
+while the bright clearness of the sky, pale-green
+and gold, foretold a frost.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, splendid!" responded his father-in-law
+mechanically; but he was thinking of something
+far more serious than the beauties of the western
+sky. He was thinking of the grip in which he
+was held by the doctor of Pimlico. At any moment,
+if he cared to collapse, he could make ten
+thousand pounds in a single day. The career of
+many a man has been blasted for ever by the utterance
+of cruel untruths or the repetition of
+vague suspicions. Was his son-in-law, Le Pontois,
+in jeopardy? He could not think that he
+was. How could the truth come out? Sir Hugh
+asked himself. It never had before&mdash;though his
+friend had made a million sterling, and there was
+no reason whatever why it should come out now.
+He had tested Weirmarsh thoroughly, and knew
+him to be a man to be trusted.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>[<a href="./images/109.png">109</a>]</span>
+As he strolled on at his son-in-law's side, chatting
+to him, he was full of anxiety as to the future.
+He had left England, it was true. He had
+defied the doctor. But the latter had been inexorable.
+If he continued in his defiance, then
+ruin must inevitably come to him.</p>
+
+<p>Blanche and Enid had already returned, and
+at dusk all four sat down to dinner together with
+little Ninette, for whom "Aunt Enid" had
+brought a new doll which had given the child the
+greatest delight.</p>
+
+<p>The meal ended, the bridge-table was set in
+the pretty salon adjoining, and several games
+were played until Sir Hugh, pleading fatigue,
+at last ascended to his room.</p>
+
+<p>Within, he locked the door and cast himself
+into a chair before the big log fire to think.</p>
+
+<p>That day had indeed been a strenuous one&mdash;strenuous
+for any man. So occupied had been
+his brain that he scarcely recollected any conversations
+with those smart debonair officers to
+whom Paul had introduced him.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat there he closed his eyes, and before
+him arose visions of interviews in dingy offices
+in London, one of them behind Soho Square.</p>
+
+<p>For a full hour he sat there immovable as a
+statue, reflecting, ever recalling the details of
+those events.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>[<a href="./images/110.png">110</a>]</span>
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet with clenched
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" he cried, his teeth set and countenance
+pale. "My God! If anybody ever
+knew the truth!"</p>
+
+<p>He crossed to the window, drew aside the
+blind, and looked out upon the moonlit plains.</p>
+
+<p>Below, his daughter was still playing the
+piano and singing an old English ballad.</p>
+
+<p>"She's happy, ah! my dear Blanche!" the
+old man murmured between his teeth. "But if
+suspicion falls upon me? Ah! if it does; then it
+means ruin to them both&mdash;ruin because of a dastardly
+action of mine!"</p>
+
+<p>He returned unsteadily to his chair, and sat
+staring straight into the embers, his hands to
+his hot, fevered brow. More than once he sighed&mdash;sighed
+heavily, as a man when fettered and
+compelled to act against his better nature.</p>
+
+<p>Again he heard his daughter's voice below,
+now singing a gay little French chanson, a song
+of the caf&eacute; chantant and of the Paris boulevards.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash there recurred to him every incident
+of those dramatic interviews with the Mephistophelean
+doctor. He would at that moment
+have given his very soul to be free of that calm,
+clever, insinuating man who, while providing him
+with a handsome, even unlimited income, yet at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[<a href="./images/111.png">111</a>]</span>
+the same time held him irrevocably in the hollow
+of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He, a brilliant British soldier with a magnificent
+record, honoured by his sovereign, was,
+after all, but a tool of that obscure doctor, the
+man who had come into his life to rescue him
+from bankruptcy and disgrace.</p>
+
+<p>When he reflected he bit his lip in despair.
+Yet there was no way out&mdash;<i>none</i>! Weirmarsh
+had really been most generous. The cosy house
+in Hill Street, the smart little entertainments
+which his wife gave, the bit of shooting he rented
+up in the Highlands, were all paid for with the
+money which the doctor handed him in Treasury
+notes with such regularity.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Weirmarsh was generous, but he was
+nevertheless exacting, terribly exacting. His will
+was the will of others.</p>
+
+<p>The blazing logs had died down to a red mass,
+the voice of Blanche had ceased. He had heard
+footsteps an hour ago in the corridor outside, and
+knew that the family had retired. There was
+not a sound. All were asleep, save the sentries
+high upon that hidden fortress. Again the old
+general sighed wearily. His grey face now wore
+an expression of resignation. He had thought
+it all out, and saw that to resist and refuse would
+only spell ruin for both himself and his family.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>[<a href="./images/112.png">112</a>]</span>
+He had but himself to blame after all. He had
+taken one false step, and he had been held inexorably
+to his contract.</p>
+
+<p>So he yawned wearily, rose, stretched himself,
+and then, pacing the room twice, at last
+turned up the lamp and placed it upon the small
+writing-table at the foot of the bed. Afterwards
+he took from his suit-case a quire of ruled foolscap
+paper and a fountain pen, and, seating himself,
+sat for some time with his head in his hands
+deep in thought. Suddenly the clock in the big
+hall below chimed two upon its peal of silvery
+bells. This aroused him, and, taking up his pen,
+he began to write.</p>
+
+<p>Ever and anon as he wrote he sat back and reflected.</p>
+
+<p>Hour after hour he sat there, bent to the table,
+his pen rapidly travelling over the paper.
+He wrote down many figures and was making
+calculations.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past four he put down his pen. The
+sum was not complete, but it was one which he
+knew would end his career and bring him into the
+dock of a criminal court, and Weirmarsh and
+others would stand beside him.</p>
+
+<p>All this he had done in entire ignorance of
+one startling fact&mdash;namely, that outside his window
+for the past hour a dark figure had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[<a href="./images/113.png">113</a>]</span>
+standing in an insecure position upon the lead
+guttering of the wing of the ch&acirc;teau which ran
+out at right angles, leaning forward and peering
+in between the blind and the window-frame,
+watching with interest all that had been in progress.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>[<a href="./images/114.png">114</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h4>CONCERNS THE PAST</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">One</span> evening, a few days after Sir Hugh had
+paid another visit to Haudiomont, he was smoking
+with Paul prior to retiring to bed when the
+conversation drifted upon money matters&mdash;some
+investment he had made in England in his wife's
+name.</p>
+
+<p>Paul had allowed his father-in-law to handle
+some of his money in England, for Sir Hugh
+was very friendly with a man named Hewett in
+the City, who had on several occasions put him
+on good things.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, just before Sir Hugh had left London
+he had had a wire from Paul to sell some
+shares at a big profit, and he had brought over
+the proceeds in Treasury notes, quite a respectable
+sum. There had been a matter of concealing
+certain payments, Sir Hugh explained, and that
+was why he had brought over the money instead
+of a cheque.</p>
+
+<p>As they were chatting Sir Hugh, referring to
+the transaction, said:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>[<a href="./images/115.png">115</a>]</span>
+"Hewett suggested that I should have it in
+notes&mdash;four five-hundred Bank of England ones
+and the rest in Treasury notes."</p>
+
+<p>"I sent them to the Cr&eacute;dit Lyonnais a few
+days ago," replied his son-in-law. "Really, Sir
+Hugh, you did a most excellent bit of business
+with Hewett. I hope you profited yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a little bit," laughed the old general.
+"Can't complain, you know. I'm glad you've
+sent the notes to the bank. It was a big sum to
+keep in the house here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I see only to-day they've credited me
+with them," was his reply. "I hope you can induce
+Hewett to do a bit more for us. Those aeroplane
+shares are still going up, I see by the London
+papers."</p>
+
+<p>"And they'll continue to do so, my dear
+Paul," was the reply. "But those Bolivian four
+per cents. of yours I'd sell if I were you. They'll
+never be higher."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hewett warned me. He told me to tell you.
+Of course, you're richer than I am, and can
+afford to keep them. Only I warn you."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," replied the younger man,
+"when you get back, sell them, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>And Sir Hugh promised that he would give
+instructions to that effect.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>[<a href="./images/116.png">116</a>]</span>
+"Really, my dear beau-p&egrave;re," Paul said,
+"you've been an awfully good friend to me.
+Since I left the army I've made quite a big sum
+out of my speculations in London."</p>
+
+<p>"And mostly paid with English notes, eh?"
+laughed the elder man.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Just let me see." And, taking a piece
+of paper, he sat down at the writing-table and
+made some quick calculations of various sums.
+Upon one side he placed the money he had invested,
+and on the other the profits, at last striking
+a balance at the end. Then he told the general
+the figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite good," declared Sir Hugh. "I'm only
+too glad, my dear Paul, to be of any assistance
+to you. I fear you are vegetating here. But as
+long as your wife doesn't mind it, what matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Blanche loves this country&mdash;which is fortunate,
+seeing that I have this big place to attend
+to." And as he said this he rose, screwed up the
+sheet of thin note-paper, and tossed it into the
+waste-paper basket.</p>
+
+<p>The pair separated presently, and Sir Hugh
+went to his room. He was eager and anxious to
+get away and return to London, but there was
+a difficulty. Enid, who had lately taken up amateur
+theatricals, had accepted an invitation to
+play in a comedy to be given at General Molon's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>[<a href="./images/117.png">117</a>]</span>
+house in a week's time in aid of the Croix Rouge.
+Therefore he was compelled to remain on her account.</p>
+
+<p>On the following afternoon Blanche drove
+him in her car through the beautiful Bois de Hermeville,
+glorious in its autumn gold, down to the
+quaint old village of Warcq, to take "fif o'clock"
+at the ch&acirc;teau with the Countess de Pierrepont,
+Paul's widowed aunt.</p>
+
+<p>Enid had pleaded a headache, but as soon as
+the car had driven away she roused herself, and,
+ascending to her room, put on strong country
+boots and a leather-hemmed golf skirt, and, taking
+a stick, set forth down the high road lined with
+poplars in the direction of Mars-<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'le'">la</ins>-Tour.</p>
+
+<p>About a mile from L&eacute;rouville she came to the
+cross-roads, the one to the south leading over the
+hills to Vigneulles, while the one to the north
+joined the highway to Longuyon. For a moment
+she paused, then turning into the latter road,
+which at that point was little more than a byway,
+hurried on until she came to the fringe of a wood,
+where, upon her approach, a man in dark grey
+tweeds came forth to meet her with swinging
+gait.</p>
+
+<p>It was Walter Fetherston.</p>
+
+<p>He strode quickly in her direction, and when
+they met he held her small hand in his and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>[<a href="./images/118.png">118</a>]</span>
+a moment gazed into her dark eyes without uttering
+a word.</p>
+
+<p>"At last!" he cried. "I was afraid that you
+had not received my message&mdash;that it might have
+been intercepted."</p>
+
+<p>"I got it early this morning," was her reply,
+her cheeks flushing with pleasure; "but I was
+unable to get away before my father and Blanche
+went out. They pressed me to go with them, so
+I had to plead a headache."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad we've met," Fetherston said.
+"I have been here in the vicinity for days, yet
+I feared to come near you lest your father should
+recognise me."</p>
+
+<p>"But why are you here?" she inquired, strolling
+slowly at his side. "I thought you were in
+London."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm seldom in London," he responded.
+"Nowadays I am constantly on the move."</p>
+
+<p>"Travelling in search of fresh material for
+your books, I suppose? I read in a paper the
+other day that you never describe a place in your
+stories without first visiting it. If so, you must
+travel a great deal," the girl remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," he answered briefly. "And very
+often I travel quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"But why are you here?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[<a href="./images/119.png">119</a>]</span>
+"For several reasons&mdash;the chief being to see
+you, Enid."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the girl did not reply. This
+man's movements so often mystified her. He
+seemed ubiquitous. In one single fortnight he
+had sent her letters from Paris, Stockholm, Hamburg,
+Vienna and Constanza. His huge circle of
+friends was unequalled. In almost every city
+on the Continent he knew somebody, and he was
+a perfect encyclop&aelig;dia of travel. His strange
+reticence, however, always increased the mystery
+surrounding him. Those vague whispers concerning
+him had reached her ears, and she often
+wondered whether half she heard concerning him
+was true.</p>
+
+<p>If a man prefers not to speak of himself or of
+his doings, his enemies will soon invent some tale
+of their own. And thus it was in Walter's case.
+Men had uttered foul calumnies concerning him
+merely because they believed him to be eccentric
+and unsociable.</p>
+
+<p>But Enid Orlebar, though she somehow
+held him in suspicion, nevertheless liked him. In
+certain moods he possessed that dash and devil-may-care
+air which pleases most women, providing
+the man is a cosmopolitan.</p>
+
+<p>He was ever courteous, ever solicitous for her
+welfare.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>[<a href="./images/120.png">120</a>]</span>
+She had known he loved her ever since they
+had first met. Indeed, has he not told her so?</p>
+
+<p>As they walked together down that grass-grown
+byway through the wood, where the brown
+leaves were floating down with every gust, she
+glanced into his pale, dark, serious face and wondered.
+In her nostrils was the autumn perfume
+of the woods, and as they strode forward in silence
+a rabbit scuttled from their path.</p>
+
+<p>"You are, no doubt, surprised that I am
+here," he commenced at last. "But it is in your
+interests, Enid."</p>
+
+<p>"In my interests?" she echoed. "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regarding the secret relations between your
+stepfather and Doctor Weirmarsh," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"That same question we've discussed before,"
+she said. "The doctor is attending to his practice
+in Pimlico; he does not concern us here."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear that he does," was Fetherston's quiet
+response. "That man holds your stepfather's
+future in his hand."</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;how can he?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the same force by which he holds that
+indescribable influence over you."</p>
+
+<p>"You believe, then, that he possesses some
+occult power?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. His power is the power which
+every evil man possesses. And as far as my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[<a href="./images/121.png">121</a>]</span>
+observation goes, I can detect that Sir Hugh has
+fallen into some trap which has been cunningly
+prepared for him."</p>
+
+<p>Enid gasped and her countenance blanched.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe, then, that those consultations
+I have had with the doctor are at his own instigation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most certainly. Sir Hugh hates Weirmarsh,
+but, fearing exposure, he must obey the
+fellow's will."</p>
+
+<p>"But cannot you discover the truth?" asked
+the girl eagerly. "Cannot we free my stepfather?
+He's such a dear old fellow, and is always
+so good and kind to my mother and myself."</p>
+
+<p>"That is exactly my object in asking you to
+meet me here, Enid," said the novelist, his countenance
+still thoughtful and serious.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I assist?" she asked quickly.
+"Only explain, and I will act upon any suggestion
+you may make."</p>
+
+<p>"You can assist by giving me answers to certain
+questions," was his slow reply. The inquiry
+was delicate and difficult to pursue without
+arousing the girl's suspicions as to the exact situation
+and the hideous scandal in progress.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you wish to know?" she asked in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>[<a href="./images/122.png">122</a>]</span>
+some surprise, for she saw by his countenance
+that he was deeply in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, with some little hesitation,
+glancing at her pale, handsome face as he walked
+by her side, "I fear you may think me too inquisitive&mdash;that
+the questions I'm going to ask
+are out of sheer curiosity."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not if by replying I can assist my
+stepfather to escape from that man's thraldom."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment; then he said
+slowly: "I think Sir Hugh was in command of
+a big training camp in Norfolk early in the war,
+was he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I went with him, and we stayed for
+about three months at the King's Head at
+Beccles."</p>
+
+<p>"And during the time you were at the King's
+Head, did the doctor ever visit Sir Hugh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; the doctor stayed several times at the
+Royal at Lowestoft. We both motored over on
+several occasions and dined with him. Doctor
+Weirmarsh was not well, so he had gone to the
+east coast for a change."</p>
+
+<p>"And he also came over to Beccles to see your
+stepfather?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; twice, or perhaps three times. One
+evening after dinner, I remember, they left the
+hotel and went for a long walk together. I rec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>[<a href="./images/123.png">123</a>]</span>ollect
+it well, for I had been out all day and had
+a bad headache. Therefore, the doctor went
+along to the chemist's on his way out and ordered
+me a draught."</p>
+
+<p>"You took it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I went to sleep almost immediately,
+and did not wake up till very late next
+morning," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>"You recollect, too, a certain man named
+Bellairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" she sighed. "How very sad it
+was! Poor Captain Bellairs was a great favourite
+of the general, and served on his staff."</p>
+
+<p>"He was with him in the Boer War, was he
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But how do you know all this?" asked
+the girl, looking curiously at her questioner and
+turning slightly paler.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he replied evasively, "I&mdash;I've been
+told so, and wished to know whether it was a fact.
+You and he were friends, eh?" he asked after a
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the girl did not reply. A flood
+of sad memories swept through her mind at the
+mention of Harry Bellairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she replied, "we were great friends.
+He took me to concerts and matin&eacute;es in town
+sometimes. Sir Hugh always said he was a man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>[<a href="./images/124.png">124</a>]</span>
+bound to make his mark. He had earned his
+D.S.O. with French at Mons and was twice mentioned
+in dispatches."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Enid," he said, still speaking very
+slowly, his dark eyes fixed upon hers, "you would
+probably have consented to become Mrs. Bellairs
+had he lived to ask you? Tell me the truth."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were cast down; he saw in them the
+light of unshed tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me for referring to such a painful
+subject," he hastened to say, "but it is imperative."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that you were&mdash;were unaware of
+the sad affair," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"So I was until quite recently," he replied.
+"I know how deeply it must pain you to speak
+of it, but will you please explain to me the actual
+facts? I know that you are better acquainted
+with them than anyone else."</p>
+
+<p>"The facts of poor Harry's death," she repeated
+hoarsely, as though speaking to herself.
+"Why recall them? Oh! why recall them?"</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[<a href="./images/125.png">125</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h4>REVEALS A CURIOUS PROBLEM</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> countenance of Enid Orlebar had changed;
+her cheeks were deathly white, and her face was
+sufficient index to a mind overwhelmed with grief
+and regret.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you to explain, because I fear that
+my information may be faulty. Captain Bellairs
+died&mdash;<i>died suddenly</i>, did he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It was a great blow to my stepfather,"
+the girl said; "and&mdash;and by his unfortunate
+death I lost one of my best friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me exactly how it occurred. I believe
+the tragic event happened on September the second,
+did it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she replied. "Mother and I had been
+staying at the White Hart at Salisbury while Sir
+Hugh had been inspecting some troops. Captain
+Bellairs had been with us, as usual, but had been
+sent up to London by my stepfather. That same
+day I returned to London alone on my way to a
+visit up in Yorkshire, and arrived at Hill Street
+about seven o'clock. At a quarter to ten at night
+I received an urgent note from Captain Bellairs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[<a href="./images/126.png">126</a>]</span>
+brought by a messenger, and written in a shaky
+hand, asking me to call at once at his chambers
+in Half Moon Street. He explained that he had
+been taken suddenly ill, and that he wished to
+see me upon a most important and private matter.
+He asked me to go to him, as it was most
+urgent. Mother and I had been to his chambers
+to tea several times before; therefore, realising
+the urgency of his message, I found a taxi and
+went at once to him."</p>
+
+<p>She broke off short, and with difficulty swallowed
+the lump which arose in her throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked Fetherston in a low, sympathetic
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"When I arrived," she said, "I&mdash;I found
+him lying dead! He had expired just as I ascended
+the stairs."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you learned nothing, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," she said in a low voice. "I have
+ever since wondered what could have been the
+private matter upon which he so particularly desired
+to see me. He felt death creeping upon
+him, or&mdash;or else he knew himself to be a doomed
+man&mdash;or he would never have penned me that
+note."</p>
+
+<p>"The letter in question was not mentioned at
+the inquest?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. My stepfather urged me to regard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>[<a href="./images/127.png">127</a>]</span>
+affair as a strict secret. He feared a scandal because
+I had gone to Harry's rooms."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no idea, then, what was the nature
+of the communication which the captain
+wished to make to you?" asked the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"Not the slightest," replied the girl, yet with
+some hesitation. "It is all a mystery&mdash;a mystery
+which has ever haunted me&mdash;a mystery which
+haunts me now!"</p>
+
+<p>They had halted, and were standing together
+beneath a great oak, already partially bare of
+leaves. He looked into her beautiful face, sweet
+and full of purity as a child's. Then, in a low,
+intense voice, he said: "Cannot you be quite
+frank with me, Enid&mdash;cannot you give me more
+minute details of the sad affair? Captain Bellairs
+was in his usual health that day when he left
+you at Salisbury, was he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I drove him to the station in our
+car."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any idea why your stepfather sent
+him up to London?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, except that at breakfast he
+said to my mother that he must send Bellairs up
+to London. That was all."</p>
+
+<p>"And at his rooms, whom did you find?"</p>
+
+<p>"Barker, his man," she replied. "The story
+he told me was a curious one, namely, that his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>[<a href="./images/128.png">128</a>]</span>
+master had arrived from Salisbury at two o'clock,
+and at half-past two had sent him out upon a
+message down to Richmond. On his return, a
+little after five, he found his master absent, but
+the place smelt strongly of perfume, which
+seemed to point to the fact that the captain had
+had a lady visitor."</p>
+
+<p>"He had no actual proof of that?" exclaimed
+Fetherston, interrupting.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. He surmised it from the fact
+that his master disliked scent, even in his toilet
+soap. Again, upon the table in the hall Barker's
+quick eye noticed a small white feather; this he
+showed me, and it was evidently from a feather
+boa. In the fire-grate a letter had been burnt.
+These two facts had aroused the man-servant's
+curiosity."</p>
+
+<p>"What time did the captain return?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost immediately. He changed into his
+dinner jacket, and went forth again, saying that
+he intended to dine at the Naval and Military
+Club, and return to his rooms in time to change
+and catch the eleven-fifteen train from Waterloo
+for Salisbury that same night. He even told
+Barker which suit of clothes to prepare. It seems,
+however, that he came in about a quarter-past
+nine, and sent Barker on a message to Waterloo
+Station. On the man's return he found his mas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>[<a href="./images/129.png">129</a>]</span>ter
+fainting in his arm-chair. He called Barker
+to get him a glass of water&mdash;his throat seemed
+on fire, he said. Then, obtaining pen and paper,
+he wrote that hurried message to me. Barker
+stated that three minutes after addressing the envelope
+he fell into a state of coma, the only word
+he uttered being my name." And she pressed
+her lips together.</p>
+
+<p>"It is evident, then, that he earnestly desired
+to speak to you&mdash;to tell you something," her companion
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she went on quickly. "I found him
+lying back in his big arm-chair, quite dead. Barker
+had feared to leave his side, and summoned
+the doctor and messenger-boy by telephone.
+When I entered, however, the doctor had not arrived."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a thousand pities that you were too
+late. He wished to make some important statement
+to you, without a doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"I rushed to him at once, but, alas! was just
+too late."</p>
+
+<p>"He carried that secret, whatever it was, with
+him to the grave," Fetherston said reflectively.
+"I wonder what it could have been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" sighed the girl, her face yet paler.
+"I wonder&mdash;I constantly wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"The doctors who made the post-mortem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>[<a href="./images/130.png">130</a>]</span>
+could not account for the death, I believe. I
+have read the account of the inquest."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! then you know what transpired there,"
+the girl said quickly. "I was in court, but was
+not called as a witness. There was no reason
+why I should be asked to make any statement, for
+Barker, in his evidence, made no mention of the
+letter which the dead man had sent me. I sat
+and heard the doctors&mdash;both of whom expressed
+themselves puzzled. The coroner put it to them
+whether they suspected foul play, but the reply
+they gave was a distinctly negative one."</p>
+
+<p>"The poor fellow's death was a mystery," her
+companion said. "I noticed that an open verdict
+was returned."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The most searching inquiry was made,
+although the true facts regarding it were never
+made public. Sir Hugh explained one day at
+the breakfast-table that in addition to the two
+doctors who made the examination of the body,
+Professors Dale and Boyd, the analysts of the
+Home Office, also made extensive experiments,
+but could detect no symptom of poisoning."</p>
+
+<p>"Where he had dined that night has never
+been discovered, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. He certainly did not dine at the
+club."</p>
+
+<p>"He may have dined with his lady visitor,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[<a href="./images/131.png">131</a>]</span>
+Fetherston remarked, his eyes fixed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated for a moment, as though unwilling
+to admit that Bellairs should have entertained
+the unknown lady in secret.</p>
+
+<p>"He may have done so, of course," she said
+with some reluctance.</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any other fact beside the feather
+which would lead one to suppose that a lady had
+visited him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only the perfume. Barker declared that it
+was a sweet scent, such as he had never smelt
+before. The whole place 'reeked with it,' as he
+put it."</p>
+
+<p>"No one saw the lady call at his chambers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody came forward with any statement,"
+replied the girl. "I myself made every inquiry
+possible, but, as you know, a woman is much
+handicapped in such a matter. Barker, who was
+devoted to his master, spared no effort, but he
+has discovered nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"For aught we know to the contrary, Captain
+Bellairs' death may have been due to perfectly
+natural causes," Fetherston remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"It may have been, but the fact of his mysterious
+lady visitor, and that he dined at some
+unknown place on that evening, aroused my suspicions.
+Yet there was no evidence whatever
+either of poison or of foul play."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[<a href="./images/132.png">132</a>]</span>
+Fetherston raised his eyes and shot a covert
+glance at her&mdash;a glance of distinct suspicion. His
+keen, calm gaze was upon her, noting the unusual
+expression upon her countenance, and how
+her gloved fingers had clenched themselves
+slightly as she had spoken. Was she telling him
+all that she knew concerning the extraordinary
+affair? That was the question which had arisen
+at that moment within his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He had perused carefully the cold, formal reports
+which had appeared in the newspapers concerning
+the "sudden death" of Captain Henry
+Bellairs, and had read suspicion between the lines,
+as only one versed in mysteries of crime could
+read. Were not such mysteries the basis of his
+profession? He had been first attracted by it as
+a possible plot for a novel, but, on investigation,
+had discovered, to his surprise, that Bellairs had
+been Sir Hugh's trusted secretary and the friend
+of Enid Orlebar.</p>
+
+<p>The poor fellow had died in a manner both
+sudden and mysterious, as a good many persons
+die annually. To the outside world there was no
+suspicion whatever of foul play.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, being in possession of certain secret
+knowledge, Fetherston had formed a theory&mdash;one
+that was amazing and startling&mdash;a theory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>[<a href="./images/133.png">133</a>]</span>
+which he had, after long deliberation, made up
+his mind to investigate and prove.</p>
+
+<p>This girl had loved Harry Bellairs before he
+had met her, and because of it the poor fellow
+had fallen beneath the hand of a secret assassin.</p>
+
+<p>She stood there in ignorance that he had already
+seen and closely questioned Barker in London,
+and that the man had made an admission,
+an amazing statement&mdash;namely, that the subtle
+Eastern perfume upon Enid Orlebar, when she
+arrived so hurriedly and excitedly at Half Moon
+Street, was the same which had greeted his nostrils
+when he entered his master's chambers on
+his return from that errand upon which he had
+been sent.</p>
+
+<p>Enid Orlebar had been in the captain's rooms
+during his absence!</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>[<a href="./images/134.png">134</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h4>THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MALTWOOD</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Now</span> Enid Orlebar's story contained several discrepancies.</p>
+
+<p>She had declared that she arrived at Hill
+Street about seven o'clock on that fateful second
+of September. That might be true, but might
+she not have arrived after her secret visit to Half
+Moon Street?</p>
+
+<p>In suppressing the fact that she had been
+there at all she had acted with considerable foresight.
+Naturally, her parents were not desirous
+of the fact being stated publicly that she had
+gone alone to a bachelor's rooms, and they had,
+therefore, assisted her to preserve the secret&mdash;known
+only to Barker and to the doctor. Yet her
+evidence had been regarded as immaterial, hence
+she had not been called as witness.</p>
+
+<p>Only Barker had suspected. That unusual
+perfume about her had puzzled him. Yet how
+could he make any direct charge against the general's
+stepdaughter, who had always been most
+generous to him in the matter of tips? Besides,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>[<a href="./images/135.png">135</a>]</span>
+did not the captain write a note to her with his
+last dying effort?</p>
+
+<p>What proof was there that the pair had not
+dined together? Fetherston had already made
+diligent inquiries at Hill Street, and had discovered
+from the butler that Miss Enid, on her arrival
+home from Salisbury, had changed her
+gown and gone out in a taxi at a quarter to eight.
+She had dined out&mdash;but where was unknown.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite true that she had come in before
+ten o'clock, and soon afterwards had received a
+note by boy-messenger.</p>
+
+<p>In view of these facts it appeared quite certain
+to Fetherston that Enid and Harry Bellairs
+had taken dinner <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> at some quiet restaurant.
+She was a merry, high-spirited girl to
+whom such an adventure would certainly appeal.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner they had parted, and he had
+driven to his rooms. Then, feeling his strength
+failing, he had hastily summoned her to his side.</p>
+
+<p>Why?</p>
+
+<p>If he had suspected her of being the author
+of any foul play he most certainly would not have
+begged her to come to him in his last moments.
+No. The enigma grew more and more inscrutable.</p>
+
+<p>And yet there was a motive for poor Bellairs'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>[<a href="./images/136.png">136</a>]</span>
+tragic end&mdash;one which, in the light of his own
+knowledge, seemed only too apparent.</p>
+
+<p>He strolled on beside the fair-faced girl,
+deep in wonder. Recollections of that devil-may-care
+cavalry officer who had been such a
+good friend clouded her brow, and as she walked
+her eyes were cast upon the ground in silent reflection.</p>
+
+<p>She was wondering whether Walter Fetherston
+had guessed the truth, that she had loved
+that man who had met with such an untimely end.</p>
+
+<p>Her companion, on his part, was equally puzzled.
+That story of Barker's finding a white
+feather was a curious one. It was true that the
+man had found a white feather&mdash;but he had also
+learnt that when Enid Orlebar had arrived at
+Hill Street she had been wearing a white feather
+boa!</p>
+
+<p>"It is not curious, after all," he said reflectively,
+"that the police should have dismissed the
+affair as a death from natural causes. At the inquest
+no suspicion whatever was aroused. I wonder
+why Barker, in his evidence, made no mention
+of that perfume&mdash;or of the discovery of the
+feather?"</p>
+
+<p>And as he uttered those words he fixed his
+grave eyes upon her, watching her countenance
+intently.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>[<a href="./images/137.png">137</a>]</span>
+"Well," she replied, after a moment's hesitation,
+"if he had it would have proved nothing,
+would it? If the captain had received a lady visitor
+in secret that afternoon it might have had
+no connection with the circumstances of his death
+six hours later."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet it might," Fetherston remarked.
+"What more natural than that the lady who visited
+him clandestinely&mdash;for Barker had, no doubt,
+been sent out of the way on purpose that he
+should not see her&mdash;should have dined with him
+later?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl moved uneasily, tapping the ground
+with her stick.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you suspect some woman of having
+had a hand in his death?" she exclaimed in a
+changed voice, her eyes again cast upon the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know sufficient of the details to
+entertain any distinct suspicion," he replied. "I
+regard the affair as a mystery, and in mysteries
+I am always interested."</p>
+
+<p>"You intend to bring the facts into a book,"
+she remarked. "Ah! I see."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps&mdash;if I obtain a solution of the enigma&mdash;for
+enigma it certainly is."</p>
+
+<p>"You agree with me, then, that poor Harry
+was the victim of foul play?" she asked in a low,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>[<a href="./images/138.png">138</a>]</span>
+intense voice, eagerly watching his face the while.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered very slowly, "and, further,
+that the woman who visited him that afternoon
+was an accessory. Harry Bellairs was <i>murdered</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks blanched and she went pale to the
+lips. He saw the sudden change in her, and realised
+what a supreme effort she was making to
+betray no undue alarm. But the effect of his
+cold, calm words had been almost electrical. He
+watched her countenance slowly flushing, but pretended
+not to notice her confusion. And so he
+walked on at her side, full of wonderment.</p>
+
+<p>How much did she know? Why, indeed, had
+Harry Bellairs fallen the victim of a secret assassin?</p>
+
+<p>No trained officer of the Criminal Investigation
+Department was more ingenious in making
+secret inquiries, more clever in his subterfuges
+or in disguising his real objects, than Walter
+Fetherston. Possessed of ample means, and
+member of that secret club called "Our Society,"
+which meets at intervals and is the club of criminologists,
+and pursuing the detection of crime
+as a pastime, he had on many occasions placed
+Scotland Yard and the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; in Paris in possession
+of information which had amazed them
+and which had earned for him the high esteem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>[<a href="./images/139.png">139</a>]</span>
+of those in office as Ministers of the Interior in
+Paris, Rome and in London.</p>
+
+<p>The case of Captain Henry Bellairs he had
+taken up merely because he recognised in it some
+unusual circumstances, and without sparing effort
+he had investigated it rapidly and secretly
+from every standpoint. He had satisfied himself.
+Certain knowledge that he had was not
+possessed by any officer at Scotland Yard, and
+only by reason of that secret knowledge had he
+been able to arrive at the definite conclusion that
+there had been a strong motive for the captain's
+death, and that if he had been secretly poisoned&mdash;which
+seemed to be the case, in spite of the
+analysts' evidence&mdash;then he had been poisoned by
+the velvet hand of a woman.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston was ever regretting his
+inability to put any of the confidential information
+he acquired into his books.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could only write half the truth of what
+I know, people would declare it to be fiction,"
+he had often assured intimate friends. And those
+friends had pondered and wondered to what he
+referred.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote of crime, weaving those wonderful
+romances which held breathless his readers in
+every corner of the globe, and describing criminals
+and life's undercurrents with such fidelity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>[<a href="./images/140.png">140</a>]</span>
+that even criminals themselves had expressed
+wonder as to how and whence he obtained his accurate
+information.</p>
+
+<p>But the public were in ignorance that, in his
+character of Mr. Maltwood, he pursued a strange
+profession, one which was fraught with more romance
+and excitement than any other calling a
+man could adopt. In comparison with his life
+that of a detective was really a tame one; while
+such success had he obtained that in a certain important
+official circle in London he was held in
+highest esteem and frequently called into consultation.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston, the quiet, reticent novelist,
+was entirely different from the gay, devil-may-care
+Maltwood, the accomplished linguist,
+thorough-going cosmopolitan and constant traveller,
+the easy-going man of means known in society
+in every European capital.</p>
+
+<p>Because of this his few friends who were
+aware of his dual personality were puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>At the girl's side he strode on along the road
+which still led through the wood, the road over
+which every evening rumbled the old post-diligence
+on its way through the quaint old town of
+Etain to the railway at Spincourt. On that very
+road a battalion of Uhlans had been annihilated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>[<a href="./images/141.png">141</a>]</span>
+almost to a man at the outbreak of the Great
+War.</p>
+
+<p>Every m&egrave;tre they trod was historic ground&mdash;ground
+which had been contested against the legions
+of the Crown Prince's army.</p>
+
+<p>For some time neither spoke. At last Walter
+asked: "Your stepfather has been up to the
+fortress with Monsieur Le Pontois, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once or twice," was her reply, eager
+to change the subject. "Of course, to a soldier,
+fortifications and suchlike things are always of
+interest."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw them walking up to the fortress together
+the other day," he remarked with a casual
+air.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" she asked quickly. "Have you
+been here before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once," he laughed. "I came over from
+Commercy and spent the day in your vicinity in
+the hope that I might perhaps meet you alone
+accidentally."</p>
+
+<p>He did not tell her that he had watched her
+shopping with Madame Le Pontois, or that he
+had spent several days at a small <i>auberge</i> at the
+tiny village of Marcheville-en-Woevre, only two
+miles distant.</p>
+
+<p>"I had no idea of that," she replied, her face
+flushing slightly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>[<a href="./images/142.png">142</a>]</span>
+"When do you return to London?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know. Certainly not before next
+Thursday, as we have amateur theatricals at General
+Molon's. I am playing the part of Miss
+Smith, the English governess, in Darbour's comedy,
+<i>Le Pyr&eacute;e</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And then you return to London, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know. Yesterday I had a letter
+from Mrs. Caldwell saying that she contemplated
+going to Italy this winter; therefore, perhaps
+mother will let me go. I wrote to her this morning.
+The proposal is to spend part of the time
+in Italy, and then cross from Naples to Egypt.
+I love Egypt. We were there some winters ago,
+at the Winter Palace at Luxor."</p>
+
+<p>"Your father and mother will remain at
+home, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother hates travelling nowadays. She
+says she had quite sufficient of living abroad in
+my father's lifetime. We were practically exiled
+for years, you know. I was born in Lima, and I
+never saw England till I was eleven. The Diplomatic
+Service takes one so out of touch with
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"But Sir Hugh will go abroad this winter,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not heard him speak of it. I believe
+he's too busy at the War Office just now. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>[<a href="./images/143.png">143</a>]</span>
+have some more 'reforms' in progress, I hear,"
+and she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking straight into the girl's handsome
+face, his heart torn between love and suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Those days at Biarritz recurred to him; how
+he would watch for her and go and meet her
+down towards Grande Plage, till, by degrees, it
+had become to both the most natural thing in the
+world. On those rare evenings when they did
+not meet the girl was conscious of a little feeling
+of disappointment which she was too shy to own,
+even to her own heart.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston owned it freely enough.
+In that bright springtime the day was incomplete
+unless he saw her; and he knew that, even
+now, every hour was making her grow dearer to
+him. From that chance meeting at the hotel their
+friendship had grown, and had ripened into something
+warmer, dearer&mdash;a secret held closely in
+each heart, but none the less sweet for that.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Biarritz the man had torn himself
+from her&mdash;why, he hardly knew. Only he
+felt upon him some fatal fascination, strong and
+irresistible. It was the first time in his life that
+he had been what is vulgarly known as "over
+head and ears in love."</p>
+
+<p>He returned to England, and then, a month<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>[<a href="./images/144.png">144</a>]</span>
+later, his investigation of Henry Bellairs' death,
+for the purpose of obtaining a plot for a new
+novel he contemplated, revealed to him a staggering
+and astounding truth.</p>
+
+<p>Even then, in face of that secret knowledge
+he had gained, he had been powerless, and he had
+gone up to Monifieth deliberately again to meet
+her&mdash;to be drawn again beneath the spell of
+those wonderful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There was love in the man's heart. But sometimes
+it embittered him. It did at that moment,
+as they strolled still onward over that carpet of
+moss and fallen leaves. He had loved her, as he
+believed her to be a woman with heart and soul
+too pure to harbour an evil thought. But her
+story of the death of poor Bellairs, the man who
+had loved her, had convinced him that his suspicions
+were, alas! only too well grounded.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>[<a href="./images/145.png">145</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h4>WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A silence</span> had fallen between the pair. Again
+Walter Fetherston glanced at her.</p>
+
+<p>She was an outdoor girl to the tips of her
+fingers. At shooting parties she went out with
+the guns, not merely contenting herself, as did
+the other girls, to motor down with the luncheon
+for the men. She never got dishevelled or untidy,
+and her trim tweed skirt and serviceable
+boots never made her look unwomanly. She was
+her dainty self out in the country with the men,
+just as in the pretty drawing-room at Hill Street,
+while her merry laugh evoked more smiles and
+witticisms than the more studied attempts at wit
+of the others.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment she had noticed the change
+in the man she had so gradually grown to love,
+and her heart was beating in wild tumult.</p>
+
+<p>He, on his part, was hating himself for so
+foolishly allowing her to steal into his heart.
+She had lied to him there, just as she had lied to
+him at Biarritz. And yet he had been a fool, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>[<a href="./images/146.png">146</a>]</span>
+had allowed himself to be drawn back to her side.</p>
+
+<p>Why? he asked himself. Why? There was
+a reason, a strong reason. He loved her, and
+the reason he was at that moment at her side was
+to save her, to rescue her from a fate which he
+knew must sooner or later befall her.</p>
+
+<p>She made some remark, but he only replied
+mechanically. His countenance had, she saw,
+changed and become paler. His lips were pressed
+together, and, taking a cigar from his case, he
+asked her permission to smoke, and viciously bit
+off its end. Something had annoyed him. Was
+it possible that he held any suspicion of the
+ghastly truth?</p>
+
+<p>The real fact, however, was that he was calmly
+and deliberately contemplating tearing her
+from his heart for ever as an object of suspicion
+and worthless. He, who had never yet fallen beneath
+a woman's thraldom, resolved not to enter
+blindly the net she had spread for him. His
+thoughts were hard and bitter&mdash;the thoughts of
+a man who had loved passionately, but whose idol
+had suddenly been shattered.</p>
+
+<p>Again she spoke, remarking that it was time
+she turned back, for already they were at the
+opposite end of the wood, with a beautiful panorama
+of valley and winding river spread before
+them. But he only answered a trifle abruptly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>[<a href="./images/147.png">147</a>]</span>
+and, acting upon her suggestion, turned and retraced
+his steps in silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last, as though suddenly rousing himself,
+he turned to her, and said in an apologetic tone:
+"I fear, Enid, I've treated you rather&mdash;well,
+rather uncouthly. I apologise. I was thinking
+of something else&mdash;a somewhat serious matter."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you were," she laughed, affecting
+to treat the matter lightly. "You scarcely replied
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, won't you?" he asked, smiling
+again in his old way.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," she said. "But&mdash;but is the
+matter very serious? Does it concern yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Enid, it does," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>And still she walked on, her eyes cast down,
+much puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>Two woodmen passed on their way home from
+work, and raised their caps politely, while Walter
+acknowledged their salutation in French.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall probably leave here to-morrow," her
+companion said as they walked back to the high
+road. "I am not yet certain until I receive my
+letters to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You are now going back to your village inn,
+I suppose," she laughed cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "My host is an interesting
+old countryman, and has told me quite a lot about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>[<a href="./images/148.png">148</a>]</span>
+the war. He was wounded when the Germans
+shelled Verdun. He has told me that he knows
+Paul Le Pontois, for his son Jean is his servant."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Fetherston, you are really ubiquitous,"
+cried the girl in confusion. "Why have
+you been watching us like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Merely because I wished to see you, as I've
+already explained," was his reply. "I wanted
+to ask you those questions which I have put to
+you this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"About poor Harry?" she remarked in a
+hoarse, low voice. "But you begged me to reply
+to you in my own interests&mdash;why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I wished to know the real truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've told you the truth," she said with
+just the slightest tinge of defiance in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he did not speak. He had
+halted; his grave eyes were fixed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you told me the whole truth&mdash;all that
+you know, Enid?" he asked very quietly a moment
+later.</p>
+
+<p>"What more should I know?" she protested
+after a second's hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I tell?" he asked quickly. "I
+only ask you to place me in possession of all the
+facts within your knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you ask me this?" she cried. "Is it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>[<a href="./images/149.png">149</a>]</span>
+out of mere idle curiosity? Or is it because&mdash;because,
+knowing that Harry loved me, you wish to
+cause me pain by recalling those tragic circumstances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither," was his quiet answer in a low,
+sympathetic voice. "I am your friend, Enid.
+And if you will allow me, I will assist you."</p>
+
+<p>She held her breath. He spoke as though
+he were aware of the truth&mdash;that she had not told
+him everything&mdash;that she was still concealing certain
+important and material facts.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I know you are my friend," she faltered.
+"I have felt that all along, ever since our first
+meeting. But&mdash;but forgive me, I beg of you.
+The very remembrance of that night of the second
+of September is, to me, horrible&mdash;horrible."</p>
+
+<p>To him those very words of hers increased his
+suspicion. Was it any wonder that she was horrified
+when she recalled that gruesome episode of
+the death of a brave and honest man? Her personal
+fascination had overwhelmed Harry Bellairs,
+just as it had overwhelmed himself. The
+devil sends some women into the hearts of upright
+men to rend and destroy them.</p>
+
+<p>Upon her cheeks had spread a deadly pallor,
+while in the centre of each showed a scarlet spot.
+Her heart was torn by a thousand emotions, for
+the image of that man whom she had seen lying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>[<a href="./images/150.png">150</a>]</span>
+cold and dead in his room had arisen before her
+vision, blotting out everything. The hideous remembrance
+of that fateful night took possession
+of her soul.</p>
+
+<p>In silence they walked on for a considerable
+time. Now and then a rabbit scuttled from their
+path into the undergrowth or the alarm-cry of
+a bird broke the evening stillness, until at last
+they came forth into the wide highway, their faces
+set towards the autumn sunset.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the man spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard of the doctor since you left
+London?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She held her breath&mdash;only for a single second.
+But her hesitation was sufficient to show him that
+she intended to conceal the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"No," was her reply. "He has not written
+to me."</p>
+
+<p>Again he was silent. There was a reason&mdash;a
+strong reason&mdash;why Weirmarsh should not write
+to her, he knew. But he had, by his question,
+afforded her an opportunity of telling him the
+truth&mdash;the truth that the mysterious George
+Weirmarsh was there, in that vicinity. That
+Enid was aware of that fact was certain to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," she said at last, "I wish you would
+call at the ch&acirc;teau and allow me to introduce you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>[<a href="./images/151.png">151</a>]</span>
+to Paul and his wife. They would be charmed
+to make your acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he replied a trifle coldly; "I'd
+rather not know them&mdash;in the present circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, how strange you are!" the girl exclaimed,
+looking up into his face, so dark and
+serious. "I don't see why you should entertain
+such an aversion to being introduced to Paul.
+He's quite a dear fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is a foolish reluctance on my
+part," he laughed uneasily. "But, somehow, I
+feel that to remain away from the ch&acirc;teau is best.
+Remember, your stepfather and your mother are
+in ignorance of&mdash;well, of the fact that we regard
+each other as&mdash;as more than close friends. For
+the present it is surely best that I should not visit
+your relations. Relations are often very prompt
+to divine the real position of affairs. Parents
+may be blind," he laughed, "but brothers-in-law
+never."</p>
+
+<p>"You are always so dreadfully philosophical!"
+the girl cried, glad that at last that painful
+topic of conversation had been changed. "Paul
+Le Pontois wouldn't eat you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose any Frenchman is given to
+cannibalistic diet," he answered, smiling. "But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>[<a href="./images/152.png">152</a>]</span>
+the fact is, I have my reasons for not being introduced
+to the Le Pontois family just now."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at
+the tone of his response. She tried to divine its
+meaning. But his countenance still bore that
+sphinx-like expression which so often caused his
+friends to entertain vague suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>Few men could read character better than
+Walter Fetherston. To him the minds of most
+men and women he met were as an open book.
+To a marvellous degree had he cultivated his
+power of reading the inner working of the mind
+by the expression in the eyes and on the faces of
+even those hard-headed diplomats and men of
+business whom, in his second character of Mr.
+Maltwood, he so frequently met. Few men or
+women could tell him a deliberate lie without its
+instant detection. Most shrewd men possess that
+power to a greater or less degree&mdash;a power that
+can be developed by painstaking application and
+practice.</p>
+
+<p>Enid asked her companion when they were to
+meet again.</p>
+
+<p>"At least let me see you before you go from
+here," she said. "I know what a rapid traveller
+you always are."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he sighed. "I'm often compelled to
+make quick journeys from one part of the Conti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>[<a href="./images/153.png">153</a>]</span>nent
+to the other. I am a constant traveller&mdash;too
+constant, perhaps, for I've nowadays grown
+very world-weary and restless."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she exclaimed, "if you will not
+come to the ch&acirc;teau, where shall we meet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will write to you," he replied. "At this
+moment my movements are most uncertain&mdash;they
+depend almost entirely upon the movements of
+others. At any moment I may be called away.
+But a letter to Holles Street will always find me,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed unusually serious and strangely
+preoccupied, she thought. She noticed, too, that
+he had flung away his half-consumed cigar in impatience,
+and that he had rubbed his chin with
+his left hand, a habit of his when puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>At the crossroads where the leafless poplars
+ran in straight lines towards the village of Fresnes,
+a big red motor-car passed them at a tearing
+pace, and in it Enid recognised General
+Molon.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston, although an ardent motorist himself,
+cursed the driver under his breath for bespattering
+them with mud. Then, with a word
+of apology to his charming companion, he held
+her gloved hand for a moment in his.</p>
+
+<p>Their parting was not prolonged. The man's
+lips were thin and hard, for his resolve was firm.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>[<a href="./images/154.png">154</a>]</span>
+This girl whom he had grown to love&mdash;who
+was the very sunshine of his strange, adventurous
+life&mdash;was, he had at last realised, unworthy.
+If he was to live, if the future was to have hope
+and joy for him, he must tear her out of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore he bade her adieu, refusing to give
+her any tryst for the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all so uncertain," he repeated. "You
+will write to me in London if you do not hear
+from me, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, but scarce a word, save a murmured
+farewell, escaped her dry lips.</p>
+
+<p>He was changed, sadly changed, she knew.
+She turned from him with overflowing heart, stifling
+her tears, but with a veritable volcano of
+emotion within her young breast.</p>
+
+<p>He had changed&mdash;changed entirely and utterly
+in that brief hour and a half they had
+walked together. What had she said? What
+had she done? she asked herself.</p>
+
+<p>Forward she went blindly with the blood-red
+light of the glorious sunset full in her hard-set
+face, the great fortress-crowned hills looming up
+before her, a barrier between herself and the beyond!
+They looked grey, dark, mysterious as
+her own future.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced back, but he had turned upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>[<a href="./images/155.png">155</a>]</span>
+his heel, and she now saw his retreating figure
+swinging along the straight, broad highway.</p>
+
+<p>Why had he treated her thus? Was it possible,
+she reflected, that he had actually become
+aware of the ghastly truth? Had he divined it?</p>
+
+<p>"If he has," she cried aloud in an agony of
+soul, "then no wonder&mdash;no wonder, indeed, that
+he has cast me from his life as a criminal&mdash;as
+a woman to be avoided as the plague&mdash;that he has
+said good-bye to me for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>Her lips trembled, and the corners of her
+pretty mouth hardened.</p>
+
+<p>She turned again to watch the man's disappearing
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>"I would go back," she cried in despair,
+"back to him, and beg his forgiveness upon my
+knees. I love him&mdash;love him better than my life!
+Yet to crave forgiveness would be to confess&mdash;to
+tell all I know&mdash;the whole awful truth! And I
+can't do that&mdash;no, never! God help me! I&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;can't
+do that!"</p>
+
+<p>And bursting into a flood of hot tears, she
+stood rigid, her small hands clenched, still watching
+him until he disappeared from her sight
+around the bend of the road.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she murmured in a low, hoarse voice,
+still speaking to herself, "confession would mean
+death. Rather than admit the truth I would take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>[<a href="./images/156.png">156</a>]</span>
+my own life. I would kill myself, yes, face death
+freely and willingly, rather than he&mdash;the man I
+love so well&mdash;should learn Sir Hugh's disgraceful
+secret."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>[<a href="./images/157.png">157</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h4>THREE GENTLEMEN FROM PARIS</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Gaston Darbour's</span> comedy, <i>Le Pyr&eacute;e</i>, had been
+played to a large audience assembled in one of
+the bigger rooms of the long whitewashed artillery
+barracks outside Ronvaux, where General
+Molon had his official residence.</p>
+
+<p>The humorous piece had been applauded to
+the echo&mdash;the audience consisting for the most
+part of military officers in uniform and their
+wives and daughters, with a sprinkling of the
+better-class civilians from the various ch&acirc;teaux
+in the neighbourhood, together with two or three
+aristocratic parties from Longuyon, Spincourt,
+and other places.</p>
+
+<p>The honours of the evening had fallen to the
+young English girl who had played the amusing
+part of the demure governess, Miss Smith&mdash;pronounced
+by the others "Mees Smeeth." Enid
+was passionately fond of dramatic art, and belonged
+to an amateur club in London. Among
+those present were the author of the piece himself,
+a dark young man with smooth hair parted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>[<a href="./images/158.png">158</a>]</span>
+in the centre and wearing an exaggerated black
+cravat.</p>
+
+<p>When the curtain fell the audience rose to
+chatter and comment, and were a long time before
+they dispersed. Paul Le Pontois waited for
+Enid, Sir Hugh accompanying Blanche and little
+Ninette home in the hired brougham. As the
+party had a long distance to go, some twelve kilom&egrave;tres,
+General Molon had lent Le Pontois his
+motor-car, which now stood awaiting him with
+glaring headlights in the barrack-square.</p>
+
+<p>As the hall emptied Paul glanced around him
+while awaiting Enid. On the walls the French
+tricolour was everywhere displayed, the revered
+<i>drapeau</i> under which he had so gallantly and
+nobly served against the Huns.</p>
+
+<p>He presented a spruce appearance in his
+smart, well-cut evening coat, with the red button
+of the Legion d'Honneur in his lapel, and to the
+ladies who wished him "bon soir" as they filed
+out he drew his heels together and bowed gallantly.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the night was cloudy and overcast.
+In the long rows of the barrack windows lights
+shone, and somewhere sounded a bugle, while in
+the shadows could be heard the measured tramp
+of sentries, the clank of spurs, or the click of
+rifles as they saluted their officers passing out.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>[<a href="./images/159.png">159</a>]</span>
+The whole atmosphere was a military one, for,
+indeed, the little town of Ronvaux is, even in
+these peace days, scarcely more than a huge camp.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes Le Pontois stood chatting
+to a group of men at the door. They had invited
+him to come across to their quarters, but he had
+explained that he was awaiting mademoiselle. So
+they raised their eyebrows, smiled mischievously,
+and bade him "bon soir."</p>
+
+<p>Soldiers were already stacking up the chairs
+ready for the clearance of the gymnasium for the
+morrow. Others were coming to water and sweep
+out the place. Therefore Le Pontois remained
+outside in the square, waiting in patience.</p>
+
+<p>He was reflecting. That evening, as he had
+sat with his wife watching the play, he had been
+seized by a curious feeling for which he entirely
+failed to account. Behind him there had sat a
+man and a woman, French without a doubt, but
+entire strangers. They must, of course, have
+known one or other of the officers in order to obtain
+an admission ticket. Nevertheless, they had
+spoken to no one, and on the fall of the curtain
+had entered a brougham in waiting and driven
+off.</p>
+
+<p>Paul had made no comment. By a sudden
+chance he had, during the entr'acte, risen and
+gazed around, when the face of the stranger had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>[<a href="./images/160.png">160</a>]</span>
+caught his eyes&mdash;a face which he felt was curiously
+familiar, yet he could not place it. The
+middle-aged man was dressed with quiet elegance,
+clean-shaven and keen-faced, apparently a prosperous
+civilian, while the lady with him was of
+about the same age and apparently his wife. She
+was dressed in a high-necked dress of black lace,
+and wore in her corsage a large circular ornament
+of diamonds and emeralds.</p>
+
+<p>Twice had Le Pontois taken furtive glances
+at the stranger whose lined brow was so extraordinarily
+familiar. It was the face of a deep
+thinker, a man who had, perhaps, passed through
+much trouble. Was it possible, he wondered, that
+he had seen that striking face in some photograph,
+or perhaps in some illustrated paper? He
+had racked his brain through the whole performance,
+but could not decide in what circumstances
+they had previously met.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time the stranger had joined
+with the audience in their hearty laughter, or applauded
+as vociferously as the others, his companion
+being equally amused at the quaint sayings
+of the demure "Mees Smeeth."</p>
+
+<p>And even as he stood in the shadows near the
+general's car awaiting Enid he was still wondering
+who the pair might be.</p>
+
+<p>At the fall of the curtain he had made several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>[<a href="./images/161.png">161</a>]</span>
+inquiries of the officers, but nobody could give
+him any information. They were complete strangers&mdash;that
+was all. Even a search among the
+cards of invitation had revealed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>So Paul Le Pontois remained mystified.</p>
+
+<p>Enid came at last, flushed with success and
+apologetic because she had kept him waiting.
+But he only congratulated her, and assisted her
+into the car. It was a big open one, therefore
+she wore a thick motor coat and veil as protection
+against the chill autumn night.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later the soldier-chauffeur mounted
+to his seat, and slowly they moved across the
+great square and out by the gates, where the sentries
+saluted. Then, turning to the right, they
+were quickly tearing along the highway in the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Soon they overtook several closed carriages
+of the home-going visitors, and, ascending the
+hill, turned from the main road down into a by-road
+leading through a wooded valley, which was
+a short cut to the ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<p>Part of their way led through the great For&ecirc;t
+d'Amblonville, and though Enid's gay chatter
+was mostly of the play, the defects in the acting
+and the several amusing <i>contretemps</i> which had
+occurred behind the scenes, her companion's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>[<a href="./images/162.png">162</a>]</span>
+thoughts were constantly of that stranger whose
+brow was so deeply lined with care.</p>
+
+<p>They expected to overtake Sir Hugh in the
+brougham, but so long had Enid been changing
+her gown that they saw nothing of the others.</p>
+
+<p>Just, however, as they were within a hundred
+yards or so of the gates which gave entrance to
+the ch&acirc;teau, and were slowing down in order to
+swing into the drive, a man emerged from the
+darkness, calling upon the driver to stop, and,
+placing himself before the car, held up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Next instant the figure of a second individual
+appeared. Enid uttered a cry of alarm, but the
+second man, who wore a hard felt hat and dark
+overcoat, reassured her by saying in French:</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do not distress yourself, mademoiselle.
+There is no cause for alarm. My friend and I
+merely wish to speak for a moment with Monsieur
+Le Pontois before he enters his house. For
+that reason we have presumed to stop your car."</p>
+
+<p>"But who are you?" demanded Le Pontois
+angrily. "Who are you that you should hold us
+up like this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, m'sieur, it would be better if you
+descended and escorted mademoiselle as far as
+your gates. We wish to speak to you for a moment
+upon a little matter which is both urgent
+and private."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>[<a href="./images/163.png">163</a>]</span>
+"Well, cannot you speak here, now, and let
+us proceed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not before mademoiselle," replied the man.
+"It is a confidential matter."</p>
+
+<p>Paul, much puzzled at the curious demeanour
+of the strangers, reluctantly handed Enid out,
+and walked with her as far as his own gate, telling
+her to assure Blanche that he would return
+in a few moments, when he had heard what the
+men wanted.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she laughed. "I'll say nothing.
+You can tell her all when you come in."</p>
+
+<p>The girl passed through the gates and up the
+gravelled drive to the house, when Le Pontois,
+turning upon his heel to return to the car, was
+met by the two men, who, he found, had walked
+closely behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Paul Le Pontois?" inquired the
+elder of the pair brusquely.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! Why do you ask that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is necessary," was his businesslike
+reply. Then he added: "I regret, m'sieur,
+that you must consider yourself under arrest by
+order of his Excellency the Minister of Justice."</p>
+
+<p>"Arrest!" gasped the unhappy man. "Are
+you mad, messieurs?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the man who had spoken.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>[<a href="./images/164.png">164</a>]</span>
+"We have merely our duty to perform, and have
+travelled from Paris to execute it."</p>
+
+<p>"With what offence am I charged?" Le <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Pontais'">Pontois</ins>
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Of that we have no knowledge. As agents
+of secret police, we are sent here to convey you
+for interrogation."</p>
+
+<p>The man under arrest stood dumbfounded.</p>
+
+<p>"But at least you will allow me to say farewell
+to my wife and child&mdash;to make excuse to
+them for my absence?" he urged.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret that is quite impossible, m'sieur.
+Our orders are to make the arrest and to afford
+you no opportunity to communicate with anyone."</p>
+
+<p>"But this is cruel, inhuman! His Excellency
+never meant that, I am quite sure&mdash;especially
+when I am innocent of any crime, as far as I am
+aware."</p>
+
+<p>"We can only obey our orders, m'sieur," replied
+the man in the dark overcoat.</p>
+
+<p>"Then may I not write a line to my wife, just
+one word of excuse?" he pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>The two police agents consulted.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied the elder of the pair, who
+was the one in authority, "if you wish to scribble
+a note, here are paper and pencil." And he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>[<a href="./images/165.png">165</a>]</span>
+tore a leaf from his notebook and handed it to
+the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>By the light of the head-lamps of the car Paul
+scribbled a few hurried words to Blanche: "I
+am detained on important business," he wrote.
+"I will return to-morrow. My love to you both.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Paul</span>."</p>
+
+<p>The detective read it, folded it carefully, and
+handed it to his assistant, telling him to go up
+to the ch&acirc;teau and deliver it at the servants' entrance.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone the detective, turning
+to the chauffeur, said: "I shall require you to
+take us to Verdun."</p>
+
+<p>"This is not my car, m'sieur," replied Paul.
+"It belongs to General Molon."</p>
+
+<p>"That does not matter. I will telephone to
+him an explanation as soon as we arrive in Verdun.
+We may as well enter the car as stand
+here."</p>
+
+<p>Paul Le Pontois was about to protest, but
+what could he say? The Minister in Paris had
+apparently committed some grave error in thus
+ordering his arrest. No doubt there would be
+confusion, apologies and laughter. So, with a
+light heart at the knowledge that he had committed
+no offence, he got into the car, and allowed
+the polite police agent to seat himself beside him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>[<a href="./images/166.png">166</a>]</span>
+The only chagrin he felt was that the chauffeur
+had overheard all the conversation. And to
+him he said: "Remember, Gallet, of this affair
+you know nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand perfectly, m'sieur," was the
+wondering soldier's reply.</p>
+
+<p>Then they sat in silence in the darkness until
+the hurrying police agent returned, after which
+the car sped straight past the ch&acirc;teau on the high
+road which led through the deep valley on to the
+fortress town of Verdun.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed the ch&acirc;teau Paul Le Pontois
+caught a glimpse of its lighted windows and sat
+wondering what Blanche would imagine. He
+pictured the pleasant supper party and the surprise
+that would be expressed at his absence.</p>
+
+<p>How amusing! What incongruity! He was
+under arrest!</p>
+
+<p>The car rushed on beneath the precipitous
+hill crowned by the great fortress of Haudiomont,
+through the narrow gorge&mdash;the road to
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>All three men, seated abreast, were silent
+until, at last, the elder of the two police agents
+bent and glanced at the clock on the dashboard,
+visible by the tiny glow-lamp.</p>
+
+<p>"Half past twelve," he remarked. "The
+express leaves Verdun at two twenty-eight."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>[<a href="./images/167.png">167</a>]</span>
+"For where?" asked Paul.</p>
+
+<p>"For Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"Paris!" he cried. "Are you taking me to
+Paris?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those are our orders," was the detective's
+quiet response.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>[<a href="./images/168.png">168</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h4>THE ORDERS OF HIS EXCELLENCY</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Again</span> Paul sat back without a word. Well, he
+would hear the extraordinary charge against
+him, whatever it might be. And, without speaking,
+they travelled on and on, until they at last
+entered the Porte St. Paul at Verdun, passed
+up the Avenue de la Gare, skirting the Palais
+de Justice into the station yard.</p>
+
+<p>As Paul descended they were met by a third
+stranger who strolled forward&mdash;a man in a
+heavy travelling coat and a soft Homburg hat.</p>
+
+<p>It was the man who had sat behind him
+earlier in the evening&mdash;the man with the deep
+lines upon his care-worn brow, who had laughed
+so heartily&mdash;and who a moment later introduced
+himself as Jules Pierrepont, special commissaire
+of the Paris S&ucirc;ret&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"We have met before?" remarked Paul
+abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied the
+man with a grim smile. "On several occasions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>[<a href="./images/169.png">169</a>]</span>
+lately. It has been my duty to keep observation
+upon your movements&mdash;acting upon orders
+from Monsieur the Prefect of Police."</p>
+
+<p>And together they entered the dark, deserted
+station to await the night express for Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Paul turned back, saying to the
+chauffeur in a low, hard voice: "Gallet, to-morrow
+go and tell madame my wife that I am
+unexpectedly called to the capital. Tell her&mdash;tell
+her that I will write to her. But, at all
+hazards, do not let her know the truth that I am
+under arrest," he added hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"That is understood, monsieur," replied the
+man, saluting. "Neither madame nor anyone
+else shall know why you have left for Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"I rely upon you," were Paul's parting
+words, and, turning upon his heel, he accompanied
+the three men who were in waiting.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he sat in a second-class
+compartment of the Paris <i>rapide</i> with the three
+keen-eyed men who had so swiftly effected his
+arrest.</p>
+
+<p>It was apparent to him now that the reason
+he had recognised Pierrepont was because that
+man had maintained vigilant, yet unobtrusive,
+observation upon him during several of the preceding
+days, keeping near him in all sorts of
+ingenious guises and making inquiries concern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>[<a href="./images/170.png">170</a>]</span>ing
+him&mdash;inquiries instituted for some unexplained
+cause by the Paris police.</p>
+
+<p>Bitterly he smiled to himself as he gazed
+upon the faces of his three companions, hard
+and deep-shadowed beneath the uncertain light.
+Presently he made some inquiry of Jules Pierrepont,
+who had now assumed commandership of
+the party, as to the reason of his arrest.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied
+the quiet, affable man, "his Excellency does
+not give us reasons. We obey orders&mdash;that is
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely there is still, even after the war,
+justice in France!" cried Paul in dismay.
+"There must be some good reason. One cannot
+be thus arrested as a criminal without some
+charge against him&mdash;in my case a false one!"</p>
+
+<p>All three men had heard prisoners declare
+their innocence many times before, therefore
+they merely nodded assent&mdash;it was their usual
+habit.</p>
+
+<p>"There is, of course, some charge," remarked
+Pierrepont. "But no doubt monsieur
+has a perfect answer to it."</p>
+
+<p>"When I know what it is," replied Paul between
+his teeth, "then I shall meet it bravely,
+and demand compensation for this outrageous
+arrest!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>[<a href="./images/171.png">171</a>]</span>
+He held his breath, for, with a sinking heart,
+he realised for the first time the very fact of a
+serious allegation being made against him by
+some enemy. If mud is thrown some of it always
+sticks. What had all his enthusiasm in
+life profited him? Nothing. He bit his lip when
+he reflected.</p>
+
+<p>"You have some idea of what is alleged
+against me, messieurs," the unhappy man exclaimed
+presently, as the roaring train emerged
+from a long tunnel. "I see it in your faces.
+Indeed, you would not have taken the precaution,
+which you did at the moment of my arrest,
+of searching me to find firearms. You suspected
+that I might make an attempt to take my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Merely our habit," replied Pierrepont with
+a slight smile.</p>
+
+<p>"The charge is a grave one&mdash;will you not
+admit that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably it is&mdash;or we should not all three
+have been sent to bring you to Paris," remarked
+one of the trio.</p>
+
+<p>"You have had access to my <i>dossier</i>&mdash;I feel
+sure you have, monsieur," Paul said, addressing
+Pierrepont.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you are in error. Monsieur le Ministre
+does not afford me that privilege. I am but the
+servant of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;, and no one regrets more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>[<a href="./images/172.png">172</a>]</span>
+than myself the painful duty I have been compelled
+to perform to-night. I assure you, Monsieur
+Le Pontois, that I entertain much regret
+that I have been compelled to drag you away
+from your home and family thus, to Paris."</p>
+
+<p>"No apology is needed, mon ami," Paul exclaimed
+quickly, well aware that the detective
+was merely obeying instructions. "I understand
+your position perfectly." Then, glancing
+round at his companions, he added: "You may
+sleep in peace, messieurs. I give you my word
+of honour that I will not attempt to escape.
+Why, indeed, should I? I have committed no
+wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>One of the men had pulled out a well-worn
+notebook and was with difficulty writing down
+the prisoner's words&mdash;to be put in evidence
+against him. Le Pontois realised that; therefore
+his mouth closed with a snap, and, leaning back
+in the centre of the carriage, he closed his eyes,
+not to sleep, but to think.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving Verdun he had seen Pierrepont
+enter the telegraph bureau&mdash;to dispatch a
+message to the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;, without a doubt. They
+already knew in Paris that he was under arrest,
+but at his home they were, happily, still in ignorance.
+Poor Blanche was asleep, no doubt, by
+that time, he thought, calm in the belief that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>[<a href="./images/173.png">173</a>]</span>
+had been delayed and would be home in the early
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that he was actually under arrest he
+regarded with more humour than seriousness,
+feeling that in the morning explanations would
+be made and the blunder rectified.</p>
+
+<p>No more honourable or upright man was
+there in France than Paul Le Pontois, and this
+order from the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; had held him utterly
+speechless and astounded. So he sat there hour
+after hour as the <i>rapide</i> roared westward, until
+it halted at the great echoing station of Ch&acirc;lons,
+where all four entered the buffet and hastily
+swallowed their caf&eacute;-au-lait.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards they resumed their seats, and
+the train, with its two long, dusty <i>wagons-lit</i>,
+moved onward again, with Paris for its goal.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner said little. He sat calmly reflecting,
+wondering and wondering what possible
+charge could be made against him. He had
+enemies, as every man had, he knew, but he was
+not aware of anyone who could make an allegation
+of a character sufficiently grave to warrant
+his arrest.</p>
+
+<p>Why had it been forbidden that he should
+wish Blanche farewell? There was some reason
+for that! He inquired of Pierrepont, who had
+treated him with such consideration and even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>[<a href="./images/174.png">174</a>]</span>
+respect, but the agent of secret police only replied
+that in making an arrest of that character
+they made it a rule never to allow a prisoner
+to communicate with his family.</p>
+
+<p>"There are several reasons for it," he explained.
+"One is that very often the prisoner
+will make a statement to his wife which he will
+afterwards greatly regret. Again, prisoners
+have been known to whisper to their wives secret
+instructions, to order the destruction of papers
+before we can make a domiciliary visit, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But you surely will not make a domiciliary
+visit to my house?" cried Paul, interrupting.</p>
+
+<p>The men exchanged glances.</p>
+
+<p>"At present we cannot tell," Pierrepont replied.
+"It depends upon what instructions we
+receive."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you usually make searches?" asked the
+prisoner, with visions of his own home being
+desecrated and ransacked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we generally do," the commissaire of
+police admitted. "As I have explained, it is for
+that reason we do not allow a prisoner's wife to
+know that he is under arrest."</p>
+
+<p>"But such an action is abominable!" cried
+Le Pontois angrily. "That my house should
+be turned upside down and searched as though
+I were a common thief, a forger, or a coiner is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>[<a href="./images/175.png">175</a>]</span>
+beyond toleration. I shall demand full inquiry.
+My friend Carlier shall put an interpellation in
+the Chamber!"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le Ministre acts upon his own
+discretion," the detective replied coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"And by so doing sometimes ruins the prospects
+and the lives of some of our best men,"
+blurted forth the angry prisoner. It was upon
+the tip of his tongue to say much more in condemnation,
+but the sight of the man with the
+notebook caused him to hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>Every word he uttered now would, he knew,
+be turned against him. He was under arrest&mdash;for
+some crime that he had not committed.</p>
+
+<p>The other passengers by that night express,
+who included a party of English tourists, little
+dreamed as they passed up and down the corridor
+that the smart, good-looking man who wore
+the button of the Legion d'Honneur, and who
+sat there with the three quiet, respectable-looking
+men, was being conveyed to the capital under
+escort&mdash;a man who, by the law of France,
+was already condemned, was guilty until he
+could prove his own innocence!</p>
+
+<p>In the cold grey of dawn they descended at
+last at the great bare Gare de l'Est in Paris.
+Paul felt tired, cramped and unshaven, but of
+necessity entered a taxi called by one of his com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>[<a href="./images/176.png">176</a>]</span>panions,
+and, accompanied by Pierrepont and
+the elder of his assistants, was driven along
+through the cheerless, deserted streets to the
+S&ucirc;ret&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>As he entered the side door of the ponderous
+building the police officer on duty saluted his
+escort.</p>
+
+<p>His progress across France had been swift
+and secret.</p>
+
+<p>What, he wondered, did the future hold in
+store for him?</p>
+
+<p>His lip curled into a smile when they ushered
+him into a bare room on the first floor. Two
+police officers were placed outside the door, while
+two stood within.</p>
+
+<p>Then, turning to the window, which looked
+out upon the bare trees of the Place below, he
+laughed aloud and made some humorous remark
+which caused the men to smile.</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! he knew not the truth. Little did
+he dream of the amazing allegation that was to
+be made against him!&mdash;little did he dream how
+completely the enemies of his father-in-law, the
+general, had triumphed!</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>[<a href="./images/177.png">177</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h4>WALTER GIVES WARNING</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> morning dawned bright and sunny&mdash;a perfect
+autumn morning&mdash;at the pretty Ch&acirc;teau of
+L&eacute;rouville.</p>
+
+<p>The message which Blanche had received
+after returning had not caused her much consternation.
+She supposed that Paul had been
+suddenly called away on business. So she had
+eaten her supper with her father and Enid and
+retired to rest.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, they sat at breakfast&mdash;served
+in the English style&mdash;Sir Hugh opened a
+letter which lay upon his plate, and at once announced
+his intention of returning to London.</p>
+
+<p>"I have to see Hughes, my solicitor, over
+Aunt Mary's affairs," he explained suddenly to
+Blanche. "That executorship is always an infernal
+nuisance."</p>
+
+<p>"But surely you can remain a day or two
+longer, Dad?" exclaimed Madame Le Pontois.
+"The weather is delightful just now, and I hear
+it is too dreadful for words in England."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>[<a href="./images/178.png">178</a>]</span>
+"I, too, have to be back to prepare for going
+away with Mrs. Caldwell," Enid remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"But surely these solicitors will wait?
+There is no great urgency&mdash;there can't be! The
+old lady died ten years ago," Blanche exclaimed
+as she poured out coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I'm extremely sorry," said her
+father quietly, "but I must go&mdash;it is imperative."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to go to-day," he sighed. "Indeed,
+I really must&mdash;by the <i>rapide</i> I usually
+take. Perhaps I shall alter my route this time,
+and go from Conflans to Metz, and home by
+<ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Li&eacute;ge'">Li&egrave;ge</ins> and Brussels. It is about as quick, and
+one gets a <i>wagon-lit</i> from Metz. I looked up
+the train the other day, and find it leaves Conflans
+at a little after six."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you will remain and say au revoir
+to Paul? He'll be so disappointed!" she cried
+in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you will make excuses for us. I
+must really go, and so must Enid. She had a
+letter from Mrs. Caldwell urging her to get
+back, as she wants to start abroad for the winter.
+The bad weather in England is affecting her, it
+seems."</p>
+
+<p>And so, with much regret expressed by little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>[<a href="./images/179.png">179</a>]</span>
+Ninette and her mother, Sir Hugh Elcombe and
+his stepdaughter went to their rooms to see
+about their packing.</p>
+
+<p>Both were puzzled. The sudden appearance
+of those strange men out of the darkness had
+frightened Enid, but she had said nothing. Perhaps
+it was upon some private matter that Paul
+had been summoned. Therefore she had preserved
+silence, believing with Blanche that at
+any moment he might return.</p>
+
+<p>Back in his room, Sir Hugh closed the door,
+and, standing in the sunshine by the window,
+gazed across the wide valley towards the blue
+mists beyond, deep in reflection.</p>
+
+<p>"This curious absence of Paul's forebodes
+evil," he murmured to himself.</p>
+
+<p>He had slept little that night, being filled
+with strange apprehensions. Though he had
+closely questioned Enid, she would not say what
+had actually happened. Her explanation was
+merely that Paul had been called away by a man
+who had met him outside.</p>
+
+<p>The old man sighed, biting his lip. He
+cursed himself for his dastardly work, even
+though he had been compelled by Weirmarsh
+to execute it on pain of exposure and consequent
+ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Against his will, against his better nature, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>[<a href="./images/180.png">180</a>]</span>
+had been forced to meet the mysterious doctor
+of Pimlico in secret on that quiet, wooded by-road
+between Marcheville and Saint-Hilaire,
+four kilom&egrave;tres from the ch&acirc;teau, and there discuss
+with him the suggested affair of which they
+had spoken in London.</p>
+
+<p>The two men had met at sundown.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to fear exposure!" laughed the
+man who provided Sir Hugh with his comfortable
+income. "Don't be foolish&mdash;there is no
+danger. Return to England with Enid as soon
+as you possibly can without arousing suspicion,
+and I will call and see you at Hill Street. I
+want to have a very serious chat with you."</p>
+
+<p>Elcombe's grey, weather-worn face grew
+hard and determined.</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you here, Weirmarsh?" he demanded.
+"I have helped you and your infernal
+friends in the past, but please do not count upon
+my assistance in the future. Remember that
+from to-day our friendship is entirely at an end."</p>
+
+<p>"As you wish, of course, my dear Sir
+Hugh," replied the other, with a nonchalant air.
+"But if I were you I would not be in too great
+a hurry to make such a declaration. You may
+require a friend in the near future&mdash;a friend
+like myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>[<a href="./images/181.png">181</a>]</span>
+"Never, I hope&mdash;never!" snapped the old
+general.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," replied the doctor, who, with
+a shrug of his shoulders, wished his friend a cold
+adieu and, turning, strode away.</p>
+
+<p>As Sir Hugh stood alone by the window that
+morning he recalled every incident of that hateful
+interview, every word that had fallen from
+the lips of the man who seemed to be as ingenious
+and resourceful as Satan himself.</p>
+
+<p>His anxiety regarding Paul's sudden absence
+had caused him to invent an excuse for his
+own hurried departure. He was not prepared
+to remain there and witness his dear daughter's
+grief and humiliation, so he deemed it wiser to
+get away in safety to England, for he no longer
+trusted Weirmarsh. Suppose the doctor revealed
+the actual truth by means of some anonymous
+communication?</p>
+
+<p>As he stood staring blankly across the valley
+he heard the hum of an approaching motor-car,
+and saw that it was General Molon's, being
+driven by Gallet, the soldier chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>There was no passenger, but the car entered
+the iron gates and pulled up before the door.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later Blanche ran up the
+stairs and, bursting into her father's room, cried:
+"Paul has been called suddenly to Paris, Dad!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>[<a href="./images/182.png">182</a>]</span>
+He told Gallet to come this morning and tell me.
+How strange that he did not come in to get even
+a valise!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear," said her father. "Gallet is
+downstairs, isn't he? I'll speak to him. The
+mystery of Paul's absence increases!"</p>
+
+<p>"It does. I&mdash;I can't get rid of a curious
+feeling of apprehension that something has happened.
+What was there to prevent him from
+coming in to wish me good-bye when he was
+actually at the gate?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh went below and questioned the
+chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>The story told by the man Gallet was that
+Le Pontois had been met by two gentlemen and
+given a message that he was required urgently
+in Paris, and they had driven at once over to
+Verdun, where they had just caught the train.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Monsieur Le Pontois leave any other
+message for madame?" asked Sir Hugh in
+French.</p>
+
+<p>"No, m'sieur."</p>
+
+<p>The general endeavoured by dint of persuasion
+to learn something more, but the man
+was true to his promise, and would make no
+further statement. Indeed, earlier that morning
+he had been closely questioned by the commandant,
+but had been equally reticent. Le<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>[<a href="./images/183.png">183</a>]</span>
+Pontois was a favourite in the neighbourhood,
+and no man would dare to lift his voice against
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh returned to his room and commenced
+packing his suit-cases, more than ever
+convinced that suspicion had been aroused.
+Jean came to offer to assist, but he declared that
+he liked to pack himself, and this occupied him
+the greater part of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Enid was also busy with her dresses, assisted
+by Blanche's Proven&ccedil;al maid, Louise. About
+eleven o'clock, however, Jean tapped at her door
+and said: "A peasant from Allamont, across
+the valley, has brought a letter, mademoiselle.
+He says an English gentleman gave it to him
+to deliver to you personally. He is downstairs."</p>
+
+<p>In surprise the girl hurriedly descended to
+the servants' entrance, where she found a sturdy,
+old, grey-bearded peasant, bearing a long, stout
+stick. He raised his frayed cap politely and
+asked whether she were Mademoiselle Orlebar.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when she had replied in the affirmative,
+he drew from the breast of his blouse a
+crumpled letter, saying: "The Englishman who
+has been staying at the Lion d'Or at Allamont
+gave this to me at dawn to-day. I was to give
+it only into mademoiselle's hands. There is no
+reply."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>[<a href="./images/184.png">184</a>]</span>
+Enid tore open the letter eagerly and found
+the following words, written hurriedly in pencil
+in Walter Fetherston's well-known scrawling
+hand&mdash;for a novelist's handwriting is never of
+the best:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Make excuse and induce your father to
+leave Conflans-Jarny at once for Metz, travelling
+by Belgium for London. Accompany him.
+A serious <i>contretemps</i> has occurred which will
+affect you both if you do not leave immediately
+on receipt of this. Heed this, I beg of you.
+And remember, I am still your friend.</p>
+
+<p class="figright">"<span class="smcap">Walter.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<p>For a moment she stood puzzled. "Did the
+Englishman say there was no reply?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mademoiselle. He left the Lion d'Or
+just before eight, and drove into Conflans with
+his luggage. The innkeeper told me that he is
+returning suddenly to England. He received
+several telegrams in the night, it appears."</p>
+
+<p>"You know him, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, mademoiselle. He came there to
+fish in the Longeau, and I have been with him
+on several occasions."</p>
+
+<p>Enid took a piece of "cent sous" from her
+purse and gave it to the old man, then she returned
+to her room and, sending Louise below<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>[<a href="./images/185.png">185</a>]</span>
+for something, burned Walter's letter in the
+grate.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards she went to her stepfather and
+suggested that perhaps they might leave Conflans
+earlier than he had resolved.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear there is a train at three-five. If we
+went by that," she said, "we could cross from
+Ostend instead of by Antwerp, and thus be in
+London a day earlier."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you so anxious to get away from here,
+Enid?" he asked, looking straight into her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes. Mother, in her letter yesterday,
+urged me to come home, as she does not wish
+me to travel out alone to join Mrs. Caldwell.
+She's afraid she will leave London without me if
+I don't get home at once. Besides, I've got a
+lot of shopping to do before I can start. Do let
+us get away by the earlier train. It will be so
+much better," she urged.</p>
+
+<p>As Sir Hugh never denied Enid anything,
+he acquiesced. Packing was speedily concluded,
+and, much to the regret of Blanche, the pair left
+in a fly for which they had telephoned to Conflans-Jarny.</p>
+
+<p>The train by which they travelled ran
+through the beautiful valley of Manvaux, past
+the great forts of Plappeville and St. Quentin,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>[<a href="./images/186.png">186</a>]</span>
+and across the Moselle to Metz, and so into German
+territory.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever might happen, Sir Hugh reflected,
+at least he was now safe from arrest.
+While Enid, on her part, sat back in the corner
+of the first-class compartment gazing out of the
+window, still mystified by that strange warning
+from the man who only a few days previously
+had so curiously turned and abandoned her.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>[<a href="./images/187.png">187</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h4>THE ACCUSERS</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the same hour when Enid and Sir Hugh
+were passing Amanvilliers, once the scene of
+terrible atrocities by the Huns, Paul Le Pontois,
+between two agents of police, was ushered
+into the private cabinet where, at the great writing-table
+near the window, sat a short man with
+bristling hair and snow-white moustache, Monsieur
+Henri B&eacute;zard, chief of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;
+G&eacute;n&eacute;rale.</p>
+
+<p>A keen-faced, black-eyed man of dapper
+appearance, wearing the coveted button of the
+L&eacute;gion d'Honneur in his black frock-coat, he
+looked up sharply at the man brought into his
+presence, wished him a curt "bon jour," and
+motioned him to a seat at the opposite side of the
+big table, in such a position that the grey light
+from the long window fell directly upon his
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>With him, standing about the big, handsome
+room with its green-baize doors and huge oil
+paintings on the walls, were four elderly men,
+strangers to Paul.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>[<a href="./images/188.png">188</a>]</span>
+The severe atmosphere of that sombre apartment,
+wherein sat the chief of the police of the
+Republic, was depressing. Those present
+moved noiselessly over the thick Turkey carpet,
+while the double windows excluded every sound
+from the busy boulevard below.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name," exclaimed the great B&eacute;zard
+sharply, at last raising his eyes from a file of
+papers before him&mdash;"your name is Paul Robert
+Le Pontois, son of Paul Le Pontois, rentier of
+Severac, Department of Aveyron. During the
+war you were captain in the 114th Regiment of
+Artillery, and you now reside with your wife
+and daughter at the Ch&acirc;teau of L&eacute;rouville. Are
+those details correct?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly, m'sieur," replied the man seated
+with the two police agents standing behind him.
+He wore his black evening trousers and a brown
+tweed jacket which one of the detectives had
+lent him.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been placed under arrest by order
+of the Ministry," replied B&eacute;zard, speaking
+in his quick, impetuous way.</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware of that, m'sieur," was Paul's
+reply, "but I am in ignorance of the charge
+against me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," exclaimed B&eacute;zard very gravely,
+again referring to the formidable <i>dossier</i> before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>[<a href="./images/189.png">189</a>]</span>
+him, "the charge brought against you is most
+serious. It is astounding and disgraceful. Listen,
+and I will read it. Afterwards we will hear
+what explanation you have to offer. We are
+assembled for that purpose."</p>
+
+<p>The four other men had taken chairs near
+by, while Pierrepont was standing at some distance
+away, with his back to the wood fire.</p>
+
+<p>For a second B&eacute;zard paused, then, rubbing
+his gold pince-nez and adjusting them, he read
+in a cold, hard voice the following:</p>
+
+<p>"The charge alleged against you, Paul Robert
+Le Pontois, is that upon four separate occasions
+you have placed in circulation forged Bank
+of England and Treasury notes of England to
+the extent of nearly a million francs."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie!" cried Paul, jumping to his feet,
+his face aflame. "Before God, I swear it is
+a lie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Calm yourself and listen," commanded the
+great chief of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; G&eacute;n&eacute;rale sharply.
+"Be seated."</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner sank back into his chair again.
+His head was reeling. Who could possibly have
+made such unfounded charges against him? He
+could scarcely believe his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Then the hard-faced, white-headed old director,
+who held supreme command of the police<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>[<a href="./images/190.png">190</a>]</span>
+of the Republic, glanced at him shrewdly, and,
+continuing, said: "It is alleged that you, Paul
+Le Pontois, on the fourteenth day of January,
+and again on the sixteenth of May, met in Commercy
+a certain Englishman, and handed to him
+a bundle of English notes since proved to be
+forgeries."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not acquainted with any English
+forger," protested Paul.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not interrupt, m'sieur!" snapped the
+director. "You will, later on, be afforded full
+opportunity to make any statement or explanation
+you may wish. First listen to these grave
+charges against you." After a further pause,
+he added: "The third occasion, it is alleged, was
+on April the eighth last, when it seems you drove
+at early morning over to Thillot-sous-les-C&ocirc;tes
+and there met a stranger who was afterwards
+identified as an American who is wanted for
+banknote forgeries."</p>
+
+<p>"And the fourth?" asked Paul hoarsely.
+This string of allegations utterly staggered him.</p>
+
+<p>"The fourth occasion was quite recently,"
+B&eacute;zard said, still speaking in that same cold
+tone. "On that occasion you made certain calculations
+to ascertain how much were your
+profits by dealing with these forgers whom Scotland
+Yard are so anxious to arrest. You wrote<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>[<a href="./images/191.png">191</a>]</span>
+all the sums down, knowing your expenditure
+and profits. The latter were very considerable."</p>
+
+<p>"And by whom is it alleged that I am a
+dealer in base money, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not necessary for us to disclose the
+name of our informant," was the stiff rejoinder.</p>
+
+<p>"But surely I am not to be thus denounced
+by an anonymous enemy?" he cried. "This is
+not the justice which every Frenchman claims
+as his birthright!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have demanded to know the charges
+laid against you, and I have detailed them,"
+replied the chief of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;, regarding the
+prisoner closely through his gold pince-nez.</p>
+
+<p>"They are false&mdash;every word of them,"
+promptly returned Le Pontois. "I have no acquaintance
+with any banknote forger. If I had,
+he would quickly find himself under arrest."</p>
+
+<p>The four men seated in his vicinity smiled
+grimly. They had expected the prisoner to declare
+his innocence.</p>
+
+<p>"I may tell you that the information here"&mdash;and
+B&eacute;zard tapped the <i>dossier</i> before him&mdash;"is
+from a source in which we have the most
+complete and implicit confidence. For the past
+few months there have been suspicions that
+forged English notes have been put into circulation
+in France. Therefore I ordered a vigilant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>[<a href="./images/192.png">192</a>]</span>
+watch to be maintained. Monsieur Pierrepont,
+here, has been in command of a squadron of confidential
+agents."</p>
+
+<p>"And they have watched me, and, I suppose,
+have manufactured evidence against me!
+It is only what may be expected of men paid
+to spy upon us. If I am a forger or a friend of
+forgers, as you allege me to be, then I am unworthy
+to have served in the uniform of France.
+But I tell you that the allegations you have just
+read are lies&mdash;lies, every word of them." And
+Le Pontois' pale cheeks flushed crimson with
+anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Le Pontois," remarked a tall, thin, elderly
+commissaire who was present, "it is for you to
+prove your innocence. The information laid before
+us is derived from those who have daily
+watched your movements and reported them.
+If you can prove to us that it is false, then your
+innocence may be established."</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>am</i> innocent!" he protested, "therefore
+I have no fear what charges may be laid
+against me. They cannot be substantiated.
+The whole string of allegations is utterly
+ridiculous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh bien! Then let us commence with the
+first," exclaimed B&eacute;zard, again referring to the
+file of secret reports before him. "On Wednes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>[<a href="./images/193.png">193</a>]</span>day,
+the fourteenth day of January, you went to
+Commercy, where, at the Caf&eacute; de la Cloche, you
+met a certain Belgian who passed under the
+name of Laloux."</p>
+
+<p>"I recollect!" cried Le Pontois quickly. "I
+sold him a horse. He was a dealer."</p>
+
+<p>"A dealer in forged notes," remarked one
+of the officials, with a faint smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he a forger, then?" asked Le Pontois
+in entire surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He has entered France several times
+in the guise of a horsedealer," Pierrepont interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"But I only bought a horse of him," declared
+the prisoner vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>"And you paid for it in English notes,
+apologising that you had no other money. He
+took them, for he passed them in Belgium into
+an English bank in Brussels. They were
+forged!"</p>
+
+<p>"Again, on the sixteenth of May, you met
+the man Laloux at the same place," said B&eacute;zard.</p>
+
+<p>"He had a mare to sell&mdash;I tried to buy it
+for my wife to drive, but he wanted too much."</p>
+
+<p>"You remained the night at the H&ocirc;tel de
+Paris, and saw him again at nine o'clock next
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"True. I hoped to strike a bargain with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>[<a href="./images/194.png">194</a>]</span>
+him in the morning, but we could not come to
+terms."</p>
+
+<p>"Regarding the forged English notes you
+were prepared to sell, eh?" snapped B&eacute;zard,
+with a look of disbelief.</p>
+
+<p>"I had nothing to sell!" protested Le Pontois,
+drawing himself up. "Those who have
+spied upon me have told untruths."</p>
+
+<p>"But the individual, Laloux, was watched.
+One of our agents followed him to Brussels,
+where he went next day to the English bank in
+the Montagne de la Cour."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with forged notes from me. My dealings
+with him were in every way honest business
+transactions."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you received money from
+him, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not deny that. I sold him a horse on
+the first occasion. He paid me seven hundred
+francs for it, and I afterwards purchased one
+from him."</p>
+
+<p>"So you do not deny that you received
+money from that man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I? I sold him a horse, and he
+paid me for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said B&eacute;zard, with some hesitation.
+"Let us pass to the eighth of April. At
+six o'clock that morning you drove to Thillot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>[<a href="./images/195.png">195</a>]</span>-sous-les-C&ocirc;tes,
+where you met a stranger at the
+entrance to the village, and walked with him,
+and held a long and earnest conversation."</p>
+
+<p>Paul was silent for a moment. The incident
+recalled was one that he would fain have forgotten,
+one the truth of which he intended at
+all hazards to conceal.</p>
+
+<p>"I admit that I went to Thillot in secret,"
+he answered in a changed voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Then you do not deny that you were
+attracted by the promises of substantial payment
+for certain forged English notes which you
+could furnish, eh?" grunted B&eacute;zard in satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"I admit going to Thillot, but I deny your
+allegation," cried Paul in quick protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Then perhaps you will tell us the reason
+you took that early drive?" asked a commissaire,
+with a short, hard laugh of disbelief.</p>
+
+<p>The prisoner hesitated. It was a purely
+personal matter, one which concerned himself
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret, messieurs," was his slow reply,
+"I regret that I am unable&mdash;indeed, I am not
+permitted to answer that question."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray why?" inquired B&eacute;zard.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;because it concerns a woman's hon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>[<a href="./images/196.png">196</a>]</span>our,"
+was the low, hoarse reply, "the honour
+of the wife of a certain officer."</p>
+
+<p>At those words of his the men interrogating
+him laughed in derision, declaring it to be a very
+elegant excuse.</p>
+
+<p>"It is no excuse!" he cried fiercely, again
+rising from his chair. "When I have obtained
+permission to speak, messieurs, I will tell you
+the truth. Until then I shall remain silent."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, bien!" snapped B&eacute;zard. "And so
+we will pass to the next and final charge&mdash;that
+you prepared a statement in order to satisfy
+yourself regarding the profits of your dealings
+in these spurious notes."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no knowledge of such a thing!"
+Paul replied instantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet for several weeks past a mysterious
+friend of yours has been seen in the neighbourhood
+of your ch&acirc;teau. He has been staying
+in Commercy and in Longuyon. I gave orders
+for his arrest, but, with his usual cleverness, he
+escaped from Commercy."</p>
+
+<p>"I prepared no statement."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" grunted B&eacute;zard, looking straight
+into his flushed face. "You are quite certain
+of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I swear I did not."</p>
+
+<p>"Then perhaps you will deny that this is in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>[<a href="./images/197.png">197</a>]</span>
+your hand?" the director asked slowly, with a
+grin, as he fixed his eyes upon Paul and handed
+him a sheet of his own note-paper bearing the
+address of the ch&acirc;teau embossed in green.</p>
+
+<p>Paul took it in his trembling fingers, and as
+he did so his countenance fell.</p>
+
+<p>It was the rough account of his investments
+and profits he remembered making for his
+father-in-law. He had cast it unheeded into the
+waste-paper basket, whence it had, no doubt,
+been recovered by those who had spied upon him
+and placed with the reports as evidence against
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"You admit making that calculation?"
+asked B&eacute;zard severely. "Those figures are, I believe,
+in your handwriting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but I have had nothing to do with
+any forgers of banknotes," declared the unhappy
+man, reseating himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Then you admit making the calculation?
+That in itself is sufficient for the present.
+However, cannot you give us some explanation
+of that secret visit of yours to Thillot? Remember,
+you have to prove your innocence!"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I cannot&mdash;not, at least, at present,"
+faltered the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"You refuse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, m'sieur, I flatly refuse," was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>[<a href="./images/198.png">198</a>]</span>
+hoarse reply. "As I have told you, that visit
+concerned the honour of a woman."</p>
+
+<p>The men again exchanged glances of disbelief,
+while the victim of those dastardly allegations
+sat breathless, amazed at the astounding
+manner in which his most innocent actions had
+been misconstrued into incriminating evidence.</p>
+
+<p>He was under arrest as one who had placed
+forged English banknotes in circulation in
+France!</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>[<a href="./images/199.png">199</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h4>IN WHICH A TRUTH IS HIDDEN</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Walter Fetherston entered the tasteful
+drawing-room at Hill Street four days later he
+found Enid alone, seated by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The dull London light of the autumn afternoon
+was scarcely sufficient for him to distinguish
+every object in the apartment, but as he
+advanced she rose and stood silhouetted against
+the firelight, a slight, graceful figure, with hand
+outstretched.</p>
+
+<p>"Both mother and Sir Hugh are out&mdash;gone
+to a matin&eacute;e at the Garrick," she exclaimed.
+"I'm so glad you've come in," and she placed
+a chair for him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard that you are leaving for
+Egypt to-morrow," he said, "and I wished to
+have a chat with you."</p>
+
+<p>"We go to Italy first, and to Egypt after
+Christmas," she replied. "Mother has promised
+to join us in Luxor at the end of January."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were you, Enid," he replied gravely,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>[<a href="./images/200.png">200</a>]</span>
+bending towards her, "I would make some excuse
+and remain in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked, her eyes opening widely.
+"I don't understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"I regret that I am unable to speak more
+plainly," he said. "I warned you to leave
+France, and I was glad that you and Sir Hugh
+heeded my warning. Otherwise&mdash;well, perhaps
+an unpleasant incident would have resulted."</p>
+
+<p>"You always speak in enigmas nowadays,"
+said the girl, again standing near the fireplace,
+dainty in her dark skirt and cream silk jumper.
+"Why did you send me that extraordinary
+note?"</p>
+
+<p>"In your own interests," was his vague reply.
+"I became aware that your further presence
+in the house of Monsieur Le Pontois was&mdash;well&mdash;undesirable&mdash;that's
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"I really think you entertain some antagonism
+against Paul," she declared, "yet he's such
+a good fellow."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist's eyes sparkled through his
+pince-nez as he replied: "He's very good-looking,
+I admit, and, no doubt, a perfect cavalier."</p>
+
+<p>"You suspect me of flirtations with him, of
+course," she pouted. "Well, you're not the first
+man who has chaffed me about that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," he laughed. "I'm in no way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>[<a href="./images/201.png">201</a>]</span>
+jealous, I assure you. I merely told you that
+your departure from the ch&acirc;teau would be for
+the best."</p>
+
+<p>He did not tell her that within an hour of
+their leaving French territory an official telegram
+had been received from Paris by the local
+commissaire of police with orders to detain them
+both, nor that just before dark an insignificant-looking
+man in black had called at the ch&acirc;teau
+and been informed by Jean that the English
+general and his stepdaughter had already departed.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of that night the wires between
+the sous-prefecture at Briey and Paris had been
+at work, and many curious official messages had
+been exchanged. Truly, the pair had had a
+providential escape.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh was, of course, in entire ignorance
+of the dastardly action taken by the Pimlico
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Without duly counting the cost, he had declared
+at his last interview with Weirmarsh that
+their criminal partnership was now at an end.
+And the doctor had taken him at his word.</p>
+
+<p>Had not the doctor in London told his assistant,
+Heureux, that Sir Hugh's sphere of
+usefulness was at an end, and that, in all probability,
+a <i>contretemps</i> would occur&mdash;one which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>[<a href="./images/202.png">202</a>]</span>
+would in future save to "the syndicate" the sum
+of five thousand pounds per annum?</p>
+
+<p>Truth to tell, B&eacute;zard, director of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;,
+had telegraphed orders for the arrest of Sir Hugh
+and his daughter. But, thanks to the shrewdness
+of Fetherston, who had lingered in the
+vicinity to afford them protection if necessary,
+they had succeeded in escaping only a single
+hour before the message reached its destination.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them knew of this, and the novelist
+intended that they should remain in ignorance&mdash;just
+as they were still in ignorance of
+the reason of Paul's visit to Paris and of his detention
+there.</p>
+
+<p>If they were aware of the reason of his warning,
+then they would most certainly question him
+as to the manner in which he was able to gain
+knowledge of the betrayal by Weirmarsh. He
+had no desire to be questioned upon such matters.
+The motives of his action&mdash;always swift,
+full of shrewd foresight, and often in disregard
+of his own personal safety&mdash;were known alone
+to himself and to Scotland Yard.</p>
+
+<p>If the truth were told, he had not been alone
+in Eastern France. At the little old-world
+Croix-Blanche at Briey a stout, middle-aged,
+ruddy-faced English tourist had had his headquarters;
+while, again, at the unpretending<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>[<a href="./images/203.png">203</a>]</span>
+Cloche d'Or in the Place St. Paul at Verdun
+another Englishman, a young, active, clean-shaven
+man, had been moving about the country
+in constant communication with "Mr. Maltwood."
+Wherever the doctor from Pimlico and
+his assistant, Heureux, had gone, there also went
+one or other of those two sharp-eyed but unobtrusive
+Englishmen. Every action of the doctor
+had been noted, and information of it conveyed
+to the quiet-mannered man in pince-nez.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Walter, you are quite as mysterious
+as your books," Enid was declaring, with a
+laugh. "I do wish you would satisfy my curiosity
+and tell me why you urged me to leave
+France so suddenly."</p>
+
+<p>"I had reasons&mdash;strong reasons which you
+may, perhaps, some day know," was his response.
+"I am only glad that you thought fit
+to take the advice I offered. This afternoon I
+have called to give you further advice&mdash;namely,
+to remain in England, at least for the present."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't. My friend Jane Caldwell has
+been waiting a whole fortnight for me, suffering
+from asthma in these abominable fogs."</p>
+
+<p>"You can make some excuse. I assure you
+that to remain in London will be for the best,"
+he said, while she switched on the shaded electric
+lights, which shed a soft glow over the handsome<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>[<a href="./images/204.png">204</a>]</span>
+room&mdash;that apartment, the costly furniture of
+which had been purchased out of the money secretly
+supplied by Weirmarsh.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't see why I should remain," she
+protested, facing him again. He noted how
+strikingly handsome she was, her dimpled cheeks
+delicately moulded and her pretty chin slightly
+protruding, which gave a delightful piquancy to
+her features.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could explain further. I can't at
+present!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are, as I have already said, so amazingly
+mysterious&mdash;so full of secrets always!"</p>
+
+<p>The man sighed, his brows knit slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I am full of secrets&mdash;strange,
+astounding secrets they are&mdash;secrets
+which some time, if divulged, would mean terrible
+complications, ruin to those who are believed
+to be honest and upright."</p>
+
+<p>The girl stood for a few seconds in silence.</p>
+
+<p>She had heard strange rumours regarding
+the man seated there before her. Some had
+hinted that he, on more than one occasion, acting
+in an unofficial capacity, had arranged important
+treaties between Great Britain and a
+foreign Power, leaving to ambassadors the arrangements
+of detail and the final ratification.
+There were whispers abroad that he was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>[<a href="./images/205.png">205</a>]</span>
+trusted and tried agent of the British Government,
+but in exactly what capacity was unknown.
+His name frequently appeared among the invited
+guests of Cabinet Ministers, and he received
+cards for many official functions, but the
+actual manner in which he rendered assistance
+to the Government was always kept a most profound
+secret.</p>
+
+<p>More than once Sir Hugh had mentioned
+the matter over the dining-table, expressing
+wonder as to Fetherston's real position.</p>
+
+<p>"You know him well, Enid," he had exclaimed
+once, laughing over to her. "What is
+your opinion?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really haven't any," she declared. "His
+movements are certainly rapid, and often most
+mysterious."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a most excellent fellow," declared the
+old general. "Cartwright told me so the other
+day in the club. Cartwright was ambassador
+in Petrograd before the war."</p>
+
+<p>Enid remembered this as she stood there, her
+hands behind her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Before I left I heard that Paul had been
+called unexpectedly to Paris," he said a few moments
+later. "Has he returned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, I believe. I had a letter from
+Blanche this morning. When it was written,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>[<a href="./images/206.png">206</a>]</span>
+two days ago, he was still absent." Then she
+added: "There is some mystery regarding his
+visit to the capital. Blanche left for Paris yesterday,
+I believe, for she had telegraphed to him,
+but received no reply."</p>
+
+<p>"She has gone to Paris!" he echoed. "Why
+did she go? It was silly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;because she is puzzled, I think. It
+was very strange that Paul, even though at the
+very gate, did not leave those two men and wish
+her adieu."</p>
+
+<p>"Two men&mdash;what two men?" he asked in
+affected ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>"The two men who stopped the car and demanded
+to speak with him," she said; and, continuing,
+described to him that remarkable midnight
+incident close to the ch&acirc;teau.</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt he went to Paris upon some important
+business," Fetherston said, reassuring
+her. "It was, I think, foolish of his wife to follow.
+At least, that's my opinion."</p>
+
+<p>He knew that when madame arrived in Paris
+the ghastly truth must, sooner or later, be revealed.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>[<a href="./images/207.png">207</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h4>IN WHICH A TRUTH IS TOLD</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> Fetherston sat there, still chatting with his
+well-beloved, he felt a hatred of himself for being
+thus compelled to deceive her&mdash;to withhold
+from her the hideous truth of Paul's arrest.</p>
+
+<p>After all, silence was best. If Walter spoke
+to the girl before him, then he must of necessity
+reveal his own connection with the affair. He
+knew she had been puzzled by his presence in
+France, but his explanation, he hoped, had been
+sufficient. He had assured her that the <i>only</i> motive
+of his journey had been to be near her,
+which was, indeed, no untruth.</p>
+
+<p>He saw that Enid was not altogether at her
+ease in his presence. Perhaps it was because of
+those questions and his plain outspokenness
+when last they met, on that forest road, where
+they had discussed the strange death of Harry
+Bellairs.</p>
+
+<p>On that evening, full of suspicion and apprehension,
+he had decided to tear himself away
+from her. But, alas! he had found himself
+powerless to do so. Pity and sympathy filled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>[<a href="./images/208.png">208</a>]</span>
+his heart; therefore, how could he turn from
+her and abandon her at this moment of her peril?
+It was on the next day that he had discerned
+Weirmarsh's sinister intentions. Therefore, he
+had risen to watch and to combat them.</p>
+
+<p>Some of his suspicions had been confirmed,
+nevertheless his chief object had not yet been
+attained&mdash;the elucidation of the mystery surrounding
+the remarkable death of Bellairs.</p>
+
+<p>He was about to refer again to that tragic
+incident when Enid said suddenly: "Doctor
+Weirmarsh called and saw Sir Hugh this morning.
+You told me to tell you when next he
+called."</p>
+
+<p>"Weirmarsh!" exclaimed the novelist in
+surprise. "I was not aware that he was in
+London!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's been abroad&mdash;in Copenhagen, I
+think. He has a brother living there."</p>
+
+<p>"He had a private talk with your stepfather,
+of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, as usual, they were in the study for
+quite a long time&mdash;nearly two hours. And,"
+added the girl, "I believe that at last they quarrelled.
+If they have, I'm awfully glad, for I
+hate that man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you overhear them?" asked Fetherston
+anxiously, apprehensive lest an open quar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>[<a href="./images/209.png">209</a>]</span>rel
+had actually taken place. He knew well that
+Josef Blot, alias Weirmarsh, was not a man to
+be trifled with. If Sir Hugh had served his purpose,
+as he no doubt had, then he would be betrayed
+to the police without compunction, just
+as others had been.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston grew much perturbed at
+the knowledge of this quarrel between the pair.
+His sole aim was to protect Sir Hugh, yet how
+to act he knew not.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not actually hear any of the words
+spoken, I suppose?" he inquired of Enid.</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, except that I heard my stepfather
+denounce the doctor as an infernal cur
+and blackguard."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and what did Weirmarsh reply?"</p>
+
+<p>"He threatened Sir Hugh, saying, 'You
+shall suffer for those words&mdash;you, who owe
+everything to me!' I wonder," added the girl,
+"what he meant by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows!" exclaimed Walter. "Some
+secret exists between them. You told me that
+you suspected it long ago."</p>
+
+<p>"And I do," she said, lowering her voice.
+"That man holds Sir Hugh in the hollow of his
+hand&mdash;of that I'm sure. I have noticed after
+each of the doctor's visits how pale and thoughtful
+he always is."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>[<a href="./images/210.png">210</a>]</span>
+"Have you tried to learn the reason of it
+all?" inquired the novelist quietly, his gaze fixed
+upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have," she replied, with slight hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston contemplated in silence
+the fine cat's-eye and diamond ring upon his
+finger&mdash;a ring sent him long ago by an anonymous
+admirer of his books, which he had ever
+since worn as a mascot.</p>
+
+<p>At one moment he held this girl in distinct
+suspicion; at the next, however, he realised her
+peril, and resolved to stand by her as her champion.</p>
+
+<p>Did he really and honestly love her? He
+put that question to himself a thousand times.
+And for the thousandth time was he compelled
+to answer in the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"By which route do you intend travelling to
+Italy to-morrow?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"By Paris and Modane. We go first for a
+week to Nervi, on the coast beyond Genoa," was
+her reply.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston paused. If she put foot in
+France she would, he knew, be at once placed
+under arrest as an accomplice of Paul Le Pontois.
+When Weirmarsh took revenge he always
+did his work well. No doubt the French police
+were already at Calais awaiting her arrival.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>[<a href="./images/211.png">211</a>]</span>
+"I would change the route," he suggested.
+"Go by Ostend, Strasburg and Milan."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Caldwell has already taken our
+tickets," she said. "Besides, it is a terribly long
+way round by that route."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he murmured. "But it will be
+best. I have a reason&mdash;a strong reason, Enid,
+for urging you to go by Ostend."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not in my power to do so. Jane always
+makes our travelling arrangements. Besides,
+we have sleeping berths secured on the
+night <i>rapide</i> from the Gare de Lyon to Turin."</p>
+
+<p>"I will see Mrs. Caldwell, and get her tickets
+changed," he said. "Do you understand, Enid?
+There are reasons&mdash;very strong reasons&mdash;why
+you should not travel across France!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't," declared the girl. "You are
+mysterious again. Why don't you be open with
+me and give me your reasons for this suggestion?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would most willingly&mdash;if I could," he answered.
+"Unfortunately, I cannot."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Mrs. Caldwell will travel by
+the roundabout route which you suggest merely
+because you have a whim that we should not
+cross France," she remarked, looking straight
+at him.</p>
+
+<p>"If you enter France a disaster will happen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>[<a href="./images/212.png">212</a>]</span>&mdash;depend
+upon it," he said, speaking very
+slowly, his eyes fixed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a prophet?" the girl asked.
+"Can you prophesy dreadful things to happen
+to us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do in this case," he said firmly. "Therefore,
+take my advice and do not court disaster."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you be more explicit?" she asked,
+much puzzled by his strange words.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered, shaking his head, "I
+cannot. I only forewarn you of what must happen.
+Therefore, I beg of you to take my advice
+and travel by the alternative route&mdash;if you really
+must go to Italy."</p>
+
+<p>She turned towards the fire and, fixing her
+gaze upon the flames, remained for a few moments
+in thought, one neat foot upon the marble
+kerb.</p>
+
+<p>"You really alarm me with all these serious
+utterances," she said at last, with a faint, nervous
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>He rose and stood by her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Enid," he said, "can't you see
+that I am in dead earnest? Have I not already
+declared that I am your friend, to assist you
+against that man Weirmarsh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she replied, "you have."</p>
+
+<p>"Then will you not heed my warning?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>[<a href="./images/213.png">213</a>]</span>
+There is distinct danger in your visit to France&mdash;a
+danger of which you have no suspicion, but
+real and serious nevertheless. Don't think about
+spying; it is not that, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I avoid it?"</p>
+
+<p>"By pretending to be unwell," he suggested
+quickly. "You cannot leave with Mrs. Caldwell.
+Let her go, and you can join her a few
+days later, travelling by Ostend. The thing is
+quite simple."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you must not hesitate," he declared.
+"There are no buts. It is the only way."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but tell me what terrible thing is to
+happen to me if I enter France?" she asked,
+with an uneasy laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The man hesitated. To speak the truth
+would be to explain all. Therefore he only
+shook his head and said, "Please do not ask me
+to explain a matter of which I am not permitted
+to speak. If you believe me, Enid," he said in
+a low, pleading voice, "do heed my warning, I
+beg of you!"</p>
+
+<p>As he uttered these words the handle of the
+door turned, and Lady Elcombe, warmly clad in
+furs, came forward to greet the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad that I returned before you left,
+Mr. Fetherston," she exclaimed. "We've been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>[<a href="./images/214.png">214</a>]</span>
+to a most dreary play; and I'm simply dying
+for some tea. Enid, ring the bell, dear, will
+you?" Then continuing, she added in warm
+enthusiasm: "Really, Mr. Fetherston, you are
+quite a stranger! We hoped to see more of you,
+but my husband and daughter have been away
+in France&mdash;as perhaps you know."</p>
+
+<p>"So Enid has been telling me," replied Walter.
+"They've been in a most interesting district."</p>
+
+<p>"Enid is leaving us again to-morrow morning,"
+remarked her mother. "They are going
+to Nervi. You know it, of course, for I've heard
+you called the living Baedeker, Mr. Fetherston,"
+she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he replied, "I know it&mdash;a rather dull
+little place, with one or two villas. I prefer
+Santa Margherita, a little farther along the coast&mdash;or
+Rapallo. But," he added, "your daughter
+tells me she's not well. I hope she will not be
+compelled to postpone her departure."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," said Lady Elcombe decisively.
+"She must go to-morrow if she goes
+at all. I will not allow her to travel by herself."</p>
+
+<p>The girl and the man exchanged meaning
+glances, and just then Sir Hugh himself entered,
+greeting his visitor cheerily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a>[<a href="./images/215.png">215</a>]</span>
+The butler brought in the tea-tray, and as
+they sat together the two men chatted.</p>
+
+<p>In pretence that he had not been abroad,
+Walter was making inquiry regarding the district
+around Haudiomont, which he declared
+must be full of interest, and asking the general's
+opinion of the French new fortresses in anticipation
+of the new war against Germany.</p>
+
+<p>"Since I have been away," said the general,
+"I have been forced to arrive at the conclusion
+that another danger may arrive in the very near
+future. Germany will try and attack France
+again&mdash;without a doubt. The French are
+labouring under a dangerous delusion if they
+suppose that Germany would be satisfied with
+her obscurity."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that really your opinion, Sir Hugh?"
+asked Fetherston, somewhat surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," was the general's reply.
+"There will be another war in the near future.
+My opinions have changed of late, my dear
+Fetherston," Sir Hugh assured him, as he sipped
+his tea, "and more especially since I went to
+visit my daughter. I have recently had opportunities
+of seeing and learning a good deal."</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston reflected. Those words, coming
+from Sir Hugh, were certainly strange ones.</p>
+
+<p>Walter was handing Enid the cake when the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>[<a href="./images/216.png">216</a>]</span>
+butler entered, bearing a telegram upon a silver
+salver, which he handed to Sir Hugh.</p>
+
+<p>Tearing it open, he glanced at the message
+eagerly, and a second later, with blanched face,
+stood rigid, statuesque, as though turned into
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what's the matter?" asked his wife.
+"Whom is it from?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only from Blanche," he answered in a low,
+strained voice. "She is in Paris&mdash;and is leaving
+to-night for London."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Paul coming?" inquired Enid eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered, with a strenuous effort
+to remain calm. "He&mdash;he cannot leave Paris."</p>
+
+<p>The butler, being told there was no answer,
+bowed and withdrew, but a few seconds later the
+door reopened, and he announced:</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Weirmarsh, Sir Hugh!"</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>[<a href="./images/217.png">217</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h4>THE WIDENED BREACH</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Sir Hugh entered his cosy study he
+found the doctor seated at his ease in the big
+chair by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that, being in the vicinity, I
+would call and see if you've recovered from your&mdash;well,
+your silly fit of irritability," he said, with
+a grim smile on his grey face as he looked
+towards the general.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just received bad news&mdash;news which
+I have all along dreaded," replied the unhappy
+man, the telegram still in his hand. "Paul Le
+Pontois has been arrested on some mysterious
+charge&mdash;false, without a doubt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Weirmarsh; "it is most unfortunate.
+I heard it an hour ago, and the real
+reason of my visit was to tell you of the <i>contretemps</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Someone must have made a false charge
+against him," cried the general excitedly. "The
+poor fellow is innocent&mdash;entirely innocent! I
+only have a brief telegram from his wife. She
+is in despair, and leaves for London to-night."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a>[<a href="./images/218.png">218</a>]</span>
+"My dear Sir Hugh, France is in a very
+hysterical mood just now. Of course, there
+must be some mistake. Some private enemy of
+his has made the charge without a doubt&mdash;someone
+jealous of his position, perhaps. Allegations
+are easily made, though not so easily substantiated."</p>
+
+<p>"Except by manufactured evidence and
+forged documents," snapped Sir Hugh. "If
+Paul is the victim of some political party and
+is to be made a scapegoat, then Heaven help
+him, poor fellow. They will never allow him to
+prove his innocence, unless&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I come forward," he said very
+slowly, staring straight before him. "Unless
+I come forward and tell the truth of my dealings
+with you. The charges against Paul are
+false. I know it now. What have you to say?"
+he added in a low, hard voice.</p>
+
+<p>"A great deal of good that would do!"
+laughed Weirmarsh, selecting a cigarette from
+his gold case and lighting it, regarding his host
+with those narrow-set, sinister eyes of his. "It
+would only implicate Le Pontois further. They
+would say, and with truth, that you knew of the
+whole conspiracy and had profited by it."</p>
+
+<p>"I should tell them what I know concerning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>[<a href="./images/219.png">219</a>]</span>
+you. Indeed, I wrote out a full statement while
+I was staying with Paul. And I have it ready
+to hand for the authorities."</p>
+
+<p>"You can do so, of course, if you choose,"
+was the careless reply. "It really doesn't matter
+to me what statement you make. You have
+always preserved silence up to the present, therefore
+I should believe that in this case silence was
+still golden."</p>
+
+<p>"And you suggest that I stand calmly by
+and see Le Pontois sentenced to a long term of
+imprisonment for a crime which he has not committed,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suggest anything, my dear Sir
+Hugh," was the man's reply; "I leave it all to
+your good judgment."</p>
+
+<p>Since they had met in secret Weirmarsh had
+made a flying visit to Brussels, where he had
+conferred with two friends of his. Upon their
+suggestion he was now acting.</p>
+
+<p>If Paul Le Pontois were secretly denounced
+and afterwards found innocent, then it would
+only mystify the French police; the policy pursued
+towards the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;, as well as towards Sir
+Hugh, was a clever move on Weirmarsh's part.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I to say to my poor girl when
+she arrives here in tears to-morrow?" demanded
+the fine old British officer hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a>[<a href="./images/220.png">220</a>]</span>
+"You know that best yourself," was Weirmarsh's
+brusque reply.</p>
+
+<p>"To you I owe all my recent troubles," the
+elder man declared. "Because&mdash;because," he
+added bitterly, "you bought me up body and
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"A mere business arrangement, wasn't it,
+Sir Hugh?" remarked his visitor. "Of course,
+I'm very sorry if any great trouble has fallen
+upon you on my account. I hope, for instance,
+you do not suspect me of conspiring to denounce
+your son-in-law," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know," was the other's reply;
+"yet I feel that, in view of this <i>contretemps</i>, I
+must in future break off all connection with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"And lose the annual grant which you find
+so extremely useful?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be compelled to do without it. And,
+at least, I shall have peace of mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," remarked the other meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh realised that this man intended
+still to hold him in the hollow of his hand. From
+that one false step he had taken years ago he had
+never been able to draw back.</p>
+
+<p>Hour by hour, and day by day, had his conscience
+pricked him. Those chats with the doc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a>[<a href="./images/221.png">221</a>]</span>tor
+in that grimy little consulting-room in Pimlico
+remained ever in his memory.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was the representative of those
+who held him in their power&mdash;persons who were
+being continually hunted by the police, yet who
+always evaded them&mdash;criminals all! To insult
+him would be to insult those who had paid him so
+well for his confidential services.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, filled with contempt for himself, he
+asked whether he did not deserve to be degraded
+publicly, and drummed out of the army.</p>
+
+<p>Were it not for Lady Elcombe and Enid he
+would long ago have gone to East Africa and
+effaced himself. But he could not bring himself
+to desert them.</p>
+
+<p>He had satisfied himself that not a soul in
+England suspected the truth, for, by the Press,
+he had long ago been declared to be a patriotic
+Briton, because in his stirring public speeches,
+when he had put up for Parliament after the
+armistice, there was always a genuine "John
+Bull" ring.</p>
+
+<p>The truth was that he remained unsuspected
+by all&mdash;save by one man who had scented the
+truth. That man was Walter Fetherston!</p>
+
+<p>Walter alone knew the ghastly circumstances,
+and it was he who had been working to
+save the old soldier from himself. He did so for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>[<a href="./images/222.png">222</a>]</span>
+two reasons&mdash;first, because he was fond of the
+bluff, fearless old fellow, and, secondly, because
+he had been attracted by Enid, and intended to
+rescue her from the evil thraldom of Weirmarsh.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you returned here to taunt and
+irritate me again?" snapped Sir Hugh after a
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to tell you news which, apparently,
+you have already received."</p>
+
+<p>"You could well have kept it. You knew
+that I should be informed in due course."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but I&mdash;well, I thought you might
+grow apprehensive perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"In what direction?"</p>
+
+<p>"That your connection with the little affair
+might be discovered by the French police.
+B&eacute;zard, the new chief of the S&ucirc;ret&eacute;, is a pretty
+shrewd person, remember!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, surely, that is not possible, is it?"
+gasped the elder man in quick alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"No; you can reassure yourself on that
+point. Le Pontois knows nothing, therefore he
+can make no statement&mdash;unless, of course, your
+own actions were suspicious."</p>
+
+<p>"They were not&mdash;I am convinced of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you have no need to fear. Your son-in-law
+will certainly not endeavour to implicate
+you. And if he did, he would not be believed,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>[<a href="./images/223.png">223</a>]</span>
+declared the doctor, although he well knew that
+B&eacute;zard was in possession of full knowledge of
+the whole truth, and that, only by the timely
+warning he had so mysteriously received, had
+this man before him and his stepdaughter escaped
+arrest.</p>
+
+<p>His dastardly plot to secure their ruin and
+imprisonment had failed. How the girl had obtained
+wind of it utterly mystified him. It was
+really in order to discover the reason of their
+sudden flight that he had made those two visits.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Weirmarsh," exclaimed Sir
+Hugh with sudden resolution, "I wish you to
+understand that from to-day, once and for all,
+I desire to have no further dealings with you.
+It was, as you have said, a purely business transaction.
+Well, I have done the dirty, disgraceful
+work for which you have paid me, and now my
+task is at an end."</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly think it is, my dear Sir Hugh,"
+replied the doctor calmly. "As I have said before,
+I am only the mouthpiece&mdash;I am not the
+employer. But I believe that certain further
+assistance is required&mdash;information which you
+promised long ago, but failed to procure."</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"You recollect that you promised to obtain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>[<a href="./images/224.png">224</a>]</span>
+something&mdash;a little tittle-tattle&mdash;concerning a
+lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," snapped the old officer, "oh, Lady
+Wansford. Let us talk of something else!"</p>
+
+<p>Weirmarsh, who had been narrowly watching
+the countenance of his victim, saw that he
+had mentioned a disagreeable subject. He
+noted how pale were the general's cheeks, and
+how his thin hands twitched with suppressed
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite ready to talk of other matters,"
+he answered, "though I deem it but right to refer
+to my instructions."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"To request you to supply the promised information."</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't&mdash;<i>I really can't</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"You made a promise, remember. And
+upon that promise I made you a loan of five hundred
+pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"I know!" cried the unhappy man, who had
+sunk so deeply into the mire that extrication
+seemed impossible. "I know! But it is a
+promise that I can't fulfil. I won't be your tool
+any longer. Gad! I won't. Don't you hear
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must!" declared Weirmarsh, bending
+forward and looking straight into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>[<a href="./images/225.png">225</a>]</span>
+"I will not!" shouted Sir Hugh, his eyes
+flashing with quick anger. "Anything but
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"My efforts in that direction had tragic results
+on the last occasion."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" laughed Weirmarsh. "I see you
+are superstitious&mdash;or something. I did not expect
+that of you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not superstitious, Weirmarsh. I only
+refuse to do what you want. If I gave it to you,
+it would mean&mdash;no I won't&mdash;I tell you I
+won't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! You are growing sentimental!"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I am growing wise. My eyes are at
+last opened to the dastardly methods of you and
+your infernal friends. Hear me, once and for
+all; I refuse to assist you further; and, moreover,
+I defy you!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was silent for a moment, contemplating
+the ruby on his finger. Then, rising
+slowly from his chair, he said: "Ah! you do not
+fully realise what your refusal may cost you."</p>
+
+<p>"Cost what it may, Weirmarsh, I ask you
+to leave my house at once," said the general,
+scarlet with anger and beside himself with remorse.
+"And I shall give orders that you are
+not again to be admitted here."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>[<a href="./images/226.png">226</a>]</span>
+"Very good!" laughed the other, with a sinister
+grin. "You will very soon be seeking me
+in my surgery."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see," replied Sir Hugh, with a
+shrug of his shoulders, as the other strode out
+of his room.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>[<a href="./images/227.png">227</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h4>CONCERNING THE BELLAIRS AFFAIR</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">What</span> Walter Fetherston had feared had happened.
+The two men had quarrelled! Throughout
+the whole of that evening he watched the
+doctor's movements.</p>
+
+<p>In any other country but our dear old hood-winked
+England, Fetherston, in the ordinary
+course, would have been the recipient of high
+honours from the Sovereign. But he was a
+writer, and not a financier. He could not afford
+to subscribe to the party funds, a course
+suggested by the flat-footed old Lady G&mdash;&mdash;,
+who was the tout of Government Whips.</p>
+
+<p>Walter preferred to preserve his independence.
+He had seen and known much during the
+war, and, disgusted, he preferred to adopt the
+Canadian Government's decree and remain
+without "honours."</p>
+
+<p>His pet phrase was: "The extent of a
+Party's dishonours is known by the honours it
+bestows. Scraps of ribbon, 'X.Y.Z.' or O.B.E.
+behind one's name can neither make the gentleman
+nor create the lady."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a>[<a href="./images/228.png">228</a>]</span>
+His secret connection with Scotland Yard,
+which was purely patriotic and conducted as a
+student of underground crime, had taught him
+many strange things, and he had learnt many
+remarkable secrets. Some of them were, indeed,
+his secrets before they became secrets of the
+Cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>Many of those secrets he kept to himself,
+one being the remarkable truth that General Sir
+Hugh Elcombe was implicated in a very strange
+jumble of affairs&mdash;a matter that was indeed
+incredible.</p>
+
+<p>To the tall, well-groomed, military-looking
+man with whom he stood at eleven o'clock on the
+following morning&mdash;in a private room at New
+Scotland Yard&mdash;he had never confided that discovery
+of his. To have done so would have been
+to betray a man who had a brilliant record as a
+soldier, and who still held high position at the
+War Office.</p>
+
+<p>By such denunciation he knew he might earn
+from "the eyes of the Government" very high
+commendation, in addition to what he had already
+earned, yet he had resolved, if possible,
+to save the old officer, who was really more
+sinned against than sinning.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to keep pretty close at the heels
+of your friend, the doctor of Vauxhall Bridge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>[<a href="./images/229.png">229</a>]</span>
+Road!" laughed Trendall, the director of the
+department, as they stood together in the big,
+airy, official-looking room, the two long windows
+of which looked out over Westminster Bridge.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been in France, Montgomery says.
+What was your friend doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's been there against his will&mdash;very
+much against his will!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you've found out something&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Fetherston. "One or two
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"Something interesting, of course," remarked
+the shrewd, active, dark-haired man of
+fifty, under whose control was one of the most
+important departments of Scotland Yard.
+"But tell me, in what direction is this versatile
+doctor of yours working just at the present?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know," was the novelist's reply, as
+in a navy serge suit he leaned near the window
+which overlooked the Thames. "I believe some
+deep scheme is afoot, but at present I cannot
+see very far. For that reason I am remaining
+watchful."</p>
+
+<p>"He does not suspect you, of course? If
+he does, I'd give you Harris, or Charlesworth,
+or another of the men&mdash;in fact, whoever you like&mdash;to
+assist you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I may require someone before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>[<a href="./images/230.png">230</a>]</span>
+long. If so, I will write or wire to the usual private
+box at the General Post Office, and shall
+then be glad if you will send a man to meet me."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. It was you, Fetherston, who
+first discovered the existence of this interesting
+doctor, who had already lived in Vauxhall
+Bridge Road for eighteen months without arousing
+suspicion. You have, indeed, a fine nose
+for mysteries."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the telephone, standing
+upon the big writing-table, rang loudly, and the
+man of secrets crossed to it and listened.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Heywood&mdash;at Victoria Station. He's
+asking for you," he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Walter went to the instrument, and through
+it heard the words: "The boat train has just
+gone, sir. Mrs. Caldwell waited for the young
+lady until the train went off, but she did not
+arrive. She seemed annoyed and disappointed.
+Dr. Weirmarsh has been on the platform, evidently
+watching also."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Heywood," replied Fetherston
+sharply; "that was all I wanted to know. Good
+day."</p>
+
+<p>He replaced the receiver, and, walking back
+to his friend against the window, explained: "A
+simple little inquiry I was making regarding a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>[<a href="./images/231.png">231</a>]</span>
+departure by the boat train for Paris&mdash;that was
+all."</p>
+
+<p>But he reflected that if Weirmarsh had been
+watching it must have been to warn the French
+police over at Calais of the coming of Enid. No
+action was too dastardly for that unscrupulous
+scoundrel.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, for the present at least, the girl remained
+safe. The chief peril was that in which
+Sir Hugh was placed, now that he had openly
+defied the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>On the previous evening he had been in the
+drawing-room at Hill Street when Sir Hugh
+had returned from interviewing the caller. By
+his countenance and manner he at once realised
+that the breach had been widened.</p>
+
+<p>The one thought by which he was obsessed
+was how he should save Sir Hugh from disgrace.
+His connection with the Criminal Investigation
+Department placed at his disposal a marvellous
+network of sources of information, amazing as
+they were unsuspected. He was secretly glad
+that at last the old fellow had resolved to face
+bankruptcy rather than go farther in that
+strange career of crime, yet, at the same time,
+there was serious danger&mdash;for Weirmarsh was a
+man so unscrupulous and so vindictive that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>[<a href="./images/232.png">232</a>]</span>
+penalty of his defiance must assuredly be a severe
+one.</p>
+
+<p>The very presence of the doctor on the platform
+of the South Eastern station at Victoria
+that morning showed that he did not intend to
+allow the grass to grow beneath his feet.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist was still standing near the long
+window, looking aimlessly down upon the Embankment,
+with its hurrying foot-passengers and
+whirling taxis.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem unusually thoughtful, Fetherston,"
+remarked Trendall with some curiosity,
+as he seated himself at the table and resumed
+the opening of his letters which his friend's visit
+had interrupted. "What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is, I'm very much puzzled."</p>
+
+<p>"About what? You're generally very successful
+in obtaining solutions where other men
+have failed."</p>
+
+<p>"To the problem which is greatly exercising
+my mind just now I can obtain no solution," he
+said in a low, intense voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Can I help you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he exclaimed, with some hesitation,
+"I am still trying to discover why Harry Bellairs
+died and who killed him."</p>
+
+<p>"That mystery has long ago been placed
+by us among those which admit of no solution,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>[<a href="./images/233.png">233</a>]</span>
+my dear fellow," declared his friend. "We did
+our best to throw some light upon it, but all to
+no purpose. I set the whole of our machinery
+at work at the time&mdash;days before you suspected
+anything wrong&mdash;but not a trace of the truth
+could we find."</p>
+
+<p>"But what could have been the motive, do
+you imagine? From all accounts he was a most
+popular young officer, without a single enemy
+in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Jealousy," was the dark man's slow reply.
+"My own idea is that a woman killed him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" cried Walter quickly. "What
+causes you to make such a suggestion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;listen, and when I've finished you
+can draw your own conclusions."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>[<a href="./images/234.png">234</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h4>THE SILENCE OF THE MAN BARKER</h4>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Harry Bellairs</span> was an old friend of mine,"
+Trendall went on, leaning back in his padded
+writing-chair and turning towards where the
+novelist was standing. "His curious end was
+a problem which, of course, attracted you as a
+writer of fiction. The world believed his death
+to be due to natural causes, in view of the failure
+of Professors Dale and Boyd, the Home Office
+analysts, to find a trace of poison or of foul
+play."</p>
+
+<p>"You believe, then, that he was poisoned?"
+asked Fetherston quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The other shrugged his shoulders, saying:
+"How can that point be cleared up? There
+was no evidence of it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is curious that, though we are both so
+intensely interested in the problem, we have
+never before discussed it," remarked Walter.
+"I am so anxious to hear your views upon one
+or two points. What, for instance, do you think
+of Barker, the dead man's valet?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>[<a href="./images/235.png">235</a>]</span>
+Herbert Trendall hesitated, and for a moment
+twisted his moustache. He was a marvellously
+alert man, an unusually good linguist, and
+a cosmopolitan to his finger-tips. He had been
+a detective-sergeant in the T Division of Metropolitan
+Police for years before his appointment
+as director of that section. He knew more of
+the criminal undercurrents on the Continent
+than any living Englishman, and it was he who
+furnished accurate information to the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; in
+Paris concerning the great Humbert swindle.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, "if I recollect aright, the
+inquiries regarding him were not altogether
+satisfactory. Previous to his engagement by
+Harry he had, it seems, been valet to a man
+named Mitchell, a horse-trainer of rather shady
+repute."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know, but I can easily find
+out&mdash;I gave orders that he was not to be lost
+sight of." And, scribbling a hasty memorandum,
+he pressed the electric button upon the arm
+of his chair.</p>
+
+<p>His secretary, a tall, thin, deep-eyed man,
+entered, and to him he gave the note.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us proceed while they are looking
+up the information," the chief went on.
+"Harry Bellairs, as you know, was on the staff<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>[<a href="./images/236.png">236</a>]</span>
+of Sir Hugh Elcombe, that dear, harmless old
+friend of yours who inspects troops and seems to
+do odd jobs for Whitehall. I knew Harry before
+he went to Sandhurst; his people, who lived up
+near Durham, were very civil to me once or
+twice and gave me some excellent pheasant-shooting.
+It seems that on that day in September
+he came up to town from Salisbury&mdash;but you
+know all the facts, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know all the facts as far as they were
+related in the papers," Walter said. He did not
+reveal the results of the close independent inquiries
+he had already made&mdash;results which had
+utterly astounded, and at the same time mystified,
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Trendall, "what the Press
+published was mostly fiction. Even the evidence
+given before the coroner was utterly unreliable.
+It was mainly given in order to mislead the jury
+and prevent public suspicion that there had been
+a sensational tragedy&mdash;I arranged it so."</p>
+
+<p>"And there had been a tragedy, no doubt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," declared the other, leaning both
+elbows upon the table before him and looking
+straight into the novelist's pale face. "Harry
+came up from Salisbury, the bearer of some
+papers from Sir Hugh. He duly arrived at
+Waterloo, discharged his duty, and went to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a>[<a href="./images/237.png">237</a>]</span>
+rooms in Half Moon Street. Now, according
+to Barker's story, his master arrived home early
+in the afternoon, and sent him out on a message
+to Richmond. He returned a little after five,
+when he found his master absent."</p>
+
+<p>"That was the account he gave at the inquest,"
+remarked Fetherston.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but it was not the truth. On testing
+the man's story I discovered that at three-eighteen
+he was in the Leicester Lounge, in
+Leicester Square, with an ill-dressed old man,
+who was described as being short and wearing a
+rusty, old silk hat. They sat at a table near the
+window drinking ginger-ale, so that the barmaid
+could not overhear, and held a long and confidential
+chat."</p>
+
+<p>"He may afterwards have gone down to
+Richmond," his friend suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"No; he remained there until past four, and
+then went round to the Caf&eacute; Royal, where he
+met another man, a foreigner, of about his own
+age, believed to have been a Swiss, with whom
+he took a cup of coffee. The man was a stranger
+at the caf&eacute;, probably a stranger in London.
+Barker was in the habit of doing a little betting,
+and I believe the men he met were some of his
+betting friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you disbelieve the Richmond story?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>[<a href="./images/238.png">238</a>]</span>
+"Entirely. What seems more than probable
+is that Harry gave his man the afternoon off because
+he wished to entertain somebody clandestinely
+at his rooms&mdash;a woman, perhaps. Yet,
+as far as I've been able to discover, no one in
+Half Moon Street saw any stranger of either
+sex go to his chambers that afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"You said that you believed the motive of
+the crime&mdash;if crime it really was&mdash;was jealousy,"
+remarked Fetherston, thoughtfully rubbing his
+shaven chin.</p>
+
+<p>"And I certainly do. Harry was essentially
+a lady's man. He was tall, and an extremely
+handsome fellow, a thorough-going sportsman,
+an excellent polo player, a perfect dancer, and a
+splendid rider to hounds. Little wonder was it
+that he was about to make a very fine match, for
+only a month before his death he confided to me
+in secret the fact&mdash;a fact known to me alone&mdash;that
+he was engaged to pretty little Lady
+Blanche Herbert, eldest daughter of the Earl
+of Warsborough."</p>
+
+<p>"Engaged to Lady Blanche!" echoed the
+novelist in surprise, for the girl in question was
+the prettiest of that year's d&eacute;butantes as well as
+a great heiress in her own right.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Harry was a lucky dog, poor fellow.
+The engagement, known only to the Warsbor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>[<a href="./images/239.png">239</a>]</span>oughs
+and myself, was to have been kept secret
+for a year. Now, it is my firm opinion, Fetherston,
+that some other woman, one of Harry's
+many female friends, had got wind of it, and
+very cleverly had her revenge."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon what grounds do you suspect that?"
+asked the other eagerly&mdash;for surely the problem
+was becoming more inscrutable than any of
+those in the remarkable romances which he
+penned.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my conclusions are drawn from several
+very startling facts&mdash;facts which, of course,
+have never leaked out to the public. But before
+I reveal them to you I'd like to hear what opinion
+you've formed yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm convinced that Harry Bellairs met with
+foul play, and I'm equally certain that the man
+Barker lied in his depositions before the coroner.
+He knows the whole story, and has been paid
+to keep a still tongue."</p>
+
+<p>"There I entirely agree with you," Trendall
+declared quickly; while at that moment the secretary
+returned with a slip of paper attached
+to the query which his chief had written.
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, glancing at the paper, "I
+see that the fellow Barker, who was a chauffeur
+before he entered Harry's service, has set up a
+motor-car business in Southampton."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>[<a href="./images/240.png">240</a>]</span>
+"You believe him to have been an accessory,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a dupe in the hands of a clever
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Of what woman?" asked Walter, holding
+his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"As you know, Harry was secretary to your
+friend Elcombe. Well, I happen to know that
+his pretty stepdaughter, Enid Orlebar, was over
+head and ears in love with him. My daughter
+Ethel and she are friends, and she confided this
+fact to Ethel only a month before the tragedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you actually suggest that a&mdash;a certain
+woman murdered him?" gasped Fetherston.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;there is no actual proof&mdash;only
+strong suspicion!"</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston held his breath. Did the
+suspicions of this man, from whom no secret
+was safe, run in the same direction as his own?</p>
+
+<p>"There was in the evidence given before
+the coroner a suggestion that the captain had
+dined somewhere in secret," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I know. But we have since cleared up that
+point. He was not given poison while he sat at
+dinner, for we know that he dined at the Bachelors'
+with a man named Friend. They had a
+hurried meal, because Friend had to catch a
+train to the west of England."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a>[<a href="./images/241.png">241</a>]</span>
+"And afterwards?"</p>
+
+<p>"He left the club in a taxi at eight. But
+what his movements exactly were we cannot ascertain.
+He returned to his chambers at a quarter
+past nine in order to change his clothes and
+go back to Salisbury, but he was almost immediately
+taken ill. Barker declares that his master
+sent him out on an errand instantly on his return,
+and that when he came in he found him dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he not explain what the errand was?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; he refused to say."</p>
+
+<p>In that refusal Fetherston saw that the valet,
+whatever might be his fault, was loyal to his
+dead master and to Enid Orlebar. He had not
+told how Bellairs had sent to Hill Street that
+scribbled note, and how the distressed girl had
+torn along to Half Moon Street to arrive too
+late to speak for the last time with the man she
+loved. Was Barker an enemy, or was he a
+friend?</p>
+
+<p>"That refusal arouses distinct suspicion,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Barker has very cleverly concealed some
+important fact," replied the keen-faced man who
+controlled that section of Scotland Yard.
+"Bellairs, feeling deadly ill, and knowing that
+he had fallen a victim to some enemy, sent
+Barker out for somebody in whom to confide.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a>[<a href="./images/242.png">242</a>]</span>
+The man claimed that the errand that his master
+sent him upon was one of confidence."</p>
+
+<p>"And to whom do you think he was sent?"</p>
+
+<p>"To a woman," was Trendall's slow and
+serious reply. "To the woman who murdered
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>"But if she had poisoned him, surely he
+would not send for her?" exclaimed Fetherston.</p>
+
+<p>"At the moment he was not aware of the
+woman's jealousy, or of the subtle means used
+to cause his untimely end. He was unsuspicious
+of that cruel, deadly hatred lying so deep in
+the woman's breast. Lady Blanche, on hearing
+of the death of her lover, was terribly
+grieved, and is still abroad. She, of course, made
+all sorts of wild allegations, but in none of them
+did we find any basis of fact. Yet, curiously
+enough, her views were exactly the same as my
+own&mdash;that one of poor Harry's lady friends had
+been responsible for his fatal seizure."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, after all the inquiries you instituted,
+you were really unable to point to the
+actual assassin?" asked Fetherston rather more
+calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly unable&mdash;unwilling, rather."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean unwilling? You were
+Bellairs' friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I was. He was one of the best and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"></a>[<a href="./images/243.png">243</a>]</span>
+most noble fellows who ever wore the King's
+uniform, and he died by the treacherous hand
+of a jealous woman&mdash;a clever woman who had
+paid Barker to maintain silence."</p>
+
+<p>"But, if the dying man wished to make a
+statement, he surely would not have sent for the
+very person by whose hand he had fallen,"
+Fetherston protested. "Surely that is not a
+logical conclusion!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bellairs was not certain that his sudden
+seizure was not due to something he had eaten
+at the club&mdash;remember he was not certain that
+her hand had administered the fatal drug," replied
+Trendall. A hard, serious expression
+rested upon his face. "He had, no doubt, seen
+her between the moment when he left the Bachelors'
+and his arrival, a little over an hour afterwards,
+at Half Moon Street&mdash;where, or how,
+we know not. Perhaps he drove to her house,
+and there, at her invitation, drank something.
+Yet, however it happened, the result was the
+same; she killed him, even though she was the
+first friend to whom he sent in his distress&mdash;killed
+him because she had somehow learnt of
+his secret engagement to Lady Blanche Herbert."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours is certainly a remarkable theory,"
+admitted Walter Fetherston. "May I ask the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"></a>[<a href="./images/244.png">244</a>]</span>
+name of the woman to whom you refer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; she was the woman who loved him so
+passionately," replied Trendall&mdash;"Enid Orlebar."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you really suspect <i>her</i>?" asked Fetherston
+breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Only as far as certain facts are concerned;
+and that since Harry's death she has been unceasingly
+interested in the career of the man
+Barker."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite certain of this?" gasped
+Fetherston.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite; it is proved beyond the shadow of
+a doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Then Enid Orlebar killed him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That if she actually did not kill him with
+her own hand, she at least knew well who did,"
+was the other's cold, hard reply. "She killed
+him for two reasons; first, because by poor
+Harry's death she prevented the exposure of
+some great secret!"</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>Those inquiries, instituted by Scotland
+Yard, had resulted in exactly the same theory
+as his own independent efforts&mdash;that Harry Bellairs
+had been secretly done to death by the
+woman, who, upon her own admission to him,
+had been summoned to the young officer's side.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"></a>[<a href="./images/245.png">245</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h4>WHAT THE DEAD MAN LEFT</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was news to Fetherston that Bellairs had
+dined at his club on that fateful night.</p>
+
+<p>He had believed that Enid had dined with
+him. He had proved beyond all doubt that she
+had been to his rooms that afternoon during
+Barker's absence. That feather from the boa,
+and the perfume, were sufficient evidence of her
+visit.</p>
+
+<p>Yet why had Barker remained in the neighbourhood
+of Piccadilly Circus if sent by his master
+with a message to Richmond? He could not
+doubt a single word that Trendall had told him,
+for the latter's information was beyond question.
+Well he knew with what care and cunning such
+an inquiry would have been made, and how every
+point would have been proved before being reported
+to that ever active man who was head
+of that Department of the Home Office that
+never sleeps.</p>
+
+<p>"What secret do you suggest might have
+been divulged?" he asked at last after a long
+pause.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"></a>[<a href="./images/246.png">246</a>]</span>
+The big room&mdash;the Room of Secrets&mdash;was
+silent, for the double windows prevented the
+noise of the traffic and the "honk" of the taxi
+horns from penetrating there. Only the low
+ticking of the clock broke the quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"I scarcely have any suggestion to offer in
+that direction," was Trendall's slow reply.
+"That feature of the affair still remains a
+mystery."</p>
+
+<p>"But cannot this man Barker be induced
+to make some statement?" he queried.</p>
+
+<p>"He will scarcely betray the woman to whom
+he owes his present prosperity, for he is prosperous
+and has a snug little balance at his bank.
+Besides, even though we took the matter in hand,
+what could we do? There is no evidence against
+him or against the woman. The farcical proceedings
+in the coroner's court had tied their
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>"An open verdict was returned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, at our suggestion. But Professors
+Dale and Boyd failed to find any traces of
+poison or of foul play."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet there <i>was</i> foul play&mdash;that is absolutely
+certain!" declared the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately, yes. Poor Bellairs was a
+brilliant and promising officer, a man destined
+to make a distinct mark in the world. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a>[<a href="./images/247.png">247</a>]</span>
+a pity, perhaps, that he was such a lady-killer."</p>
+
+<p>"A pity that he fell victim to what was evidently
+a clever plot, and yet&mdash;yet&mdash;I cannot
+bring myself to believe that your surmise can
+be actually correct. He surely would never have
+sent for the very person who was his enemy and
+who had plotted to kill him&mdash;it doesn't seem
+feasible, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite as feasible as any of the strange and
+crooked circumstances which one finds every day
+in life's undercurrents," was the quiet rejoinder.
+"Remember, he was very fond of her&mdash;fascinated
+by her remarkable beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"But he was engaged to Lady Blanche?"</p>
+
+<p>"He intended to marry her, probably for
+wealth and position. The woman a man of
+Harry's stamp marries is seldom, if ever, the
+woman he loves," added the chief with a somewhat
+cynical smile, for he was essentially a man
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"But what secret could Enid Orlebar desire
+to hide?" exclaimed Fetherston wonderingly.
+"If he loved her, he certainly would never have
+threatened exposure."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I've told you briefly my
+own theory&mdash;a theory formed upon all the evidence
+I could collect," replied the tall, dark-eyed
+man, as he thrust his hands deeply into his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"></a>[<a href="./images/248.png">248</a>]</span>
+trousers pockets and looked straight into the
+eyes of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are so certain that Enid Orlebar is
+implicated in the affair, if not the actual assassin,
+why don't you interrogate her?" asked Walter
+boldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;well, to tell the truth, our inquiries
+are not yet complete. When they are, we may
+be in a better position&mdash;we probably shall be&mdash;to
+put to her certain pointed questions. But,"
+he added quickly, "perhaps I ought not to say
+this, for I know she is a friend of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"What you tell me is in confidence, as always,
+Trendall," he replied quickly. "I knew
+long ago that Enid was deeply attached to Bellairs.
+But much that you have just told me is
+entirely fresh to me. I must find Barker and
+question him."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I'd do that. Wait until we
+have completed our inquiries," urged the other.
+"If Bellairs was killed in so secret and scientific
+a manner that no trace was left, he was killed
+with a cunning and craftiness which betrays a
+jealous woman rather than a man. Besides,
+there are other facts we have gathered which
+go further to prove that Enid Orlebar is the
+actual culprit."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they? Tell me, Trendall."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"></a>[<a href="./images/249.png">249</a>]</span>
+"No, my dear chap; you are the lady's friend&mdash;it
+is really unfair to ask me," he protested.
+"Where the usual mysteries are concerned, I'm
+always open and above-board with you. But in
+private investigations like this you must allow
+me to retain certain knowledge to myself."</p>
+
+<p>"But I beg of you to tell me everything,"
+demanded the other. "I have taken an intense
+interest in the matter, as you have, even though
+my motive has been of an entirely different
+character."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no suspicion that Bellairs was in
+possession of any great secret&mdash;a secret which it
+was to Miss Orlebar's advantage should be
+kept?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," was the novelist's prompt response.
+"But I can't see the drift of your question,"
+he added.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied the keen, alert man, who,
+again seated in his writing-chair, bent slightly
+towards his visitor, "well, as you've asked me
+to reveal all I know, Fetherston, I will do so,
+even though I feel some reluctance, in face of the
+fact that Miss Orlebar is your friend."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes no difference," declared the
+other firmly. "I am anxious to clear up the
+mystery of Bellairs' death."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I think that you need seek no farther<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"></a>[<a href="./images/250.png">250</a>]</span>
+for the correct solution," replied Trendall
+quietly, looking into the other's pale countenance.
+"Your lady friend killed him&mdash;<i>in order
+to preserve her own secret</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But what was her secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have that yet to establish. It must
+have been a serious one for her to close his lips
+in such a manner."</p>
+
+<p>"But they were good friends," declared
+Fetherston. "He surely had not threatened to
+expose her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think he had. My own belief is
+that she became madly jealous of Lady Blanche,
+and at the same time, fearing the exposure of
+her secret to the woman to whom her lover had
+become engaged, she took the subtle means of
+silencing him. Besides&mdash;&mdash;" And he paused
+without concluding his sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides what?"</p>
+
+<p>"From the first you suspected Sir Hugh's
+stepdaughter, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston hesitated. Then afterwards he
+nodded slowly in the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," went on Trendall, "I knew all along
+that you were suspicious. You made a certain
+remarkable discovery, eh, Fetherston?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist started. At what did his friend
+hint? Was it possible that the inquiries had led<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"></a>[<a href="./images/251.png">251</a>]</span>
+to a suspicion of Sir Hugh's criminal conduct?
+The very thought appalled him.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;well, in the course of the inquiries I
+made I found that the lady in question was
+greatly attached to the dead man," replied Fetherston
+rather lamely.</p>
+
+<p>Trendall smiled. "It was to Enid Orlebar
+that Harry sent when he felt his fatal seizure.
+Instead of sending for a doctor, he sent Barker
+to her, and she at once flew to his side, but, alas!
+too late to remedy the harm she had already
+caused. When she arrived he was dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston was silent. He saw that the inquiries
+made by the Criminal Investigation Department
+had led to exactly the same conclusion
+that he himself had formed.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a most distressing thought&mdash;that
+Enid Orlebar is a murderess!" he declared after
+a moment's pause.</p>
+
+<p>"It is&mdash;I admit. Yet we cannot close our
+eyes to such outstanding facts, my dear chap.
+Depend upon it that there is something behind
+the poor fellow's death of which we have no
+knowledge. In his death your friend Miss Orlebar
+sought safety. The letter he wrote to her
+a week before his assassination is sufficient evidence
+of that."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"></a>[<a href="./images/252.png">252</a>]</span>
+"A letter!" gasped Fetherston. "Is there
+one in existence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it is in our possession; it reveals the
+existence of the secret."</p>
+
+<p>"But what was its nature?" cried Fetherston
+in dismay. "What terrible secret could
+there possibly be that could only be preserved
+by Bellairs' silence?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the puzzle we have to solve&mdash;just
+the very point which has mystified us all
+along."</p>
+
+<p>And then he turned to his correspondence
+again, opening his letters one after the other&mdash;letters
+which, addressed to a box at the General
+Post Office in the City, contained secret information
+from various unsuspected quarters at
+home and abroad.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, in order to change the topic of
+conversation, which he knew was painful to Walter
+Fetherston, he mentioned the excellence of
+the opera at Covent Garden on the previous
+night. And afterwards he referred to an article
+in that day's paper which dealt with the idea of
+obtaining exclusive political intelligence through
+spirit-bureaux. Then, speaking of the labour
+unrest, Trendall pronounced his opinion as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"The whole situation would be ludicrous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"></a>[<a href="./images/253.png">253</a>]</span>
+were it not urged so persistently as to be a
+menace not so much in this country, where we
+know too well the temperaments of its sponsors,
+but abroad, where public opinion, imperfectly
+instructed, may imagine it represents a serious
+national feeling. The continuance of it is an
+intolerable negation of civilisation; it is supported
+by no public men of credit; it has been
+disproved again and again. Ridicule may be left
+to give the menace the <i>coup de gr&acirc;ce</i>! And
+this," he laughed, "in face of what you and I
+know, eh? Ah! how long will the British public
+be lulled to sleep by anonymous scribblers?"</p>
+
+<p>"One day they'll have a rude awakening,"
+declared Fetherston, still thinking, however, of
+that letter of the dead man to Enid. "I wonder,"
+he added, "I wonder who inspires these
+denials? We know, of course, that each time
+anything against enemy interests appears in a
+certain section of the Press there arises a ready
+army of letter-writers who rush into print and
+append their names to assurances that the enemy
+is nowadays our best friend. Those 'patriotic
+Englishmen' are, many of them, in high positions.</p>
+
+<p>"When responsible papers wilfully mislead
+the public, what can be expected?" Walter went
+on. "But," he added after a pause, "we did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a>[<a href="./images/254.png">254</a>]</span>
+arrive at any definite conclusion regarding the
+tragic death of Bellairs. What about that letter
+of his?"</p>
+
+<p>Trendall was thoughtful for a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"My conclusion&mdash;the only one that can be
+formed," he answered at last, disregarding his
+friend's question&mdash;"is that Enid Orlebar is the
+guilty person; and before long I hope to be in
+possession of that secret which she strove by her
+crime to suppress&mdash;a secret which I feel convinced
+we shall discover to be one of an amazing
+character."</p>
+
+<p>Walter stood motionless as a statue.</p>
+
+<p>Surely Bellairs had not died by Enid's hand!</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"></a>[<a href="./images/255.png">255</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h4>AT THE CAF&Eacute; DE PARIS</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was in the early days of January&mdash;damp and
+foggy in England.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston sat idling on the <i>terrasse</i>
+of the Caf&eacute; de Paris in Monte Carlo sipping a
+"mazagran," basking in the afternoon sunshine,
+and listening to the music of the Rumanian
+Orchestra.</p>
+
+<p>Around him everywhere was the gay cosmopolitan
+world of the tables&mdash;that giddy little
+after-the-war financier and profiteer world which
+amuses itself on the C&ocirc;te d'Azur, and in which
+he was such a well-known figure.</p>
+
+<p>So many successive seasons had he passed
+there before 1914 that across at the rooms the
+attendants and croupiers knew him as an habitu&eacute;,
+and he was always granted the <i>carte blanche</i>&mdash;the
+white card of the professional gambler.
+With nearly half the people he met he had a
+nodding acquaintance, for friendships are
+easily formed over the <i>tapis vert</i>&mdash;and as easily
+dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Preferring the fresher air of Nice, he made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"></a>[<a href="./images/256.png">256</a>]</span>
+his headquarters at the H&ocirc;tel Royal on the
+world-famed promenade, and came over to
+"Monte" daily by the <i>rapide</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Much had occurred since that autumn morning
+when he had stood with Herbert Trendall
+in the big room at New Scotland Yard, much
+that had puzzled him, much that had held him
+in fear lest the ghastly truth concerning Sir
+Hugh should be revealed.</p>
+
+<p>His own activity had been, perhaps, unparalleled.
+The strain of such constant travel
+and continual excitement would have broken
+most men; but he possessed an iron constitution,
+and though he spent weeks on end in trains and
+steamboats, it never affected him in the least.
+He could snatch sleep at any time, and he could
+write anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Whether or not Enid had guessed the reason
+of his urgent appeal to her not to pass
+through France, she had nevertheless managed
+to excuse herself; but a week after Mrs. Caldwell's
+departure she had travelled alone by the
+Harwich-Antwerp route, evidently much to the
+annoyance of the alert doctor of Pimlico.</p>
+
+<p>Walter had impressed upon her the desirability
+of not entering France&mdash;without, however,
+giving any plain reason. He left her to
+guess.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"></a>[<a href="./images/257.png">257</a>]</span>
+Through secret sources in Paris he had learnt
+how poor Paul Le Pontois was still awaiting
+trial. In order not to excite public opinion, the
+matter was being kept secret by the French
+authorities, and it had been decided that the inquiry
+should be held with closed doors.</p>
+
+<p>A week after his arrest the French police
+received additional evidence against him in the
+form of a cryptic telegram addressed to the Ch&acirc;teau,
+an infamous and easily deciphered message
+which, no doubt, had been sent with the
+distinct purpose of strengthening the amazing
+charge against him. He protested entire ignorance
+of the sender and of the meaning of the
+message, but his accusers would not accept any
+disclaimer. So cleverly, indeed, had the message
+been worded that at the S&ucirc;ret&eacute; it was believed
+to refer to the price he had received for
+certain bundles of spurious notes.</p>
+
+<p>Without a doubt the scandalous telegram
+had been sent at Weirmarsh's instigation by one
+of his friends in order to influence the authorities
+in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>So far as the doctor was concerned he was
+ever active in receiving reports from his cosmopolitan
+friends abroad. But since his quarrel
+with Sir Hugh he had ceased to visit Hill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"></a>[<a href="./images/258.png">258</a>]</span>
+Street, and had, apparently, dropped the old
+general's acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Hugh was congratulating himself at the
+easy solution of the difficulty, but Walter, seated
+at that little marble-topped table in the winter
+sunshine, knowing Weirmarsh's character,
+remained in daily apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>The exciting life he led in assisting to watch
+those whom Scotland Yard suspected was as
+nothing compared with the constant fear of the
+unmasking of Sir Hugh Elcombe. Doctor
+Weirmarsh was an enemy, and a formidable one.</p>
+
+<p>The mystery concerning the death of Bellairs
+had increased rather than diminished. Each
+step he had taken in the inquiry only plunged
+him deeper and deeper into an inscrutable problem.
+He had devoted weeks to endeavouring to
+solve the mystery, but it remained, alas! inscrutable.</p>
+
+<p>Enid and Mrs. Caldwell had altered their
+plans, and had gone to Sicily instead of to
+Egypt, first visiting Palermo and Syracuse, and
+were at the moment staying at the popular "San
+Domenico" at Taormina, amid that gem of
+Mediterranean scenery. Sir Hugh and his wife,
+much upset by Blanche's sudden arrival in London,
+had not gone abroad that winter, but had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"></a>[<a href="./images/259.png">259</a>]</span>
+remained at Hill Street to comfort Paul's wife
+and child.</p>
+
+<p>As for Walter, he had of late been wandering
+far afield, in Petrograd, Geneva, Rome,
+Florence, M&aacute;laga, and for the past week had
+been at Monte Carlo. He was not there wholly
+for pleasure, for, if the truth be told, there were
+seated at the farther end of the <i>terrasse</i> a smartly
+dressed man and a woman in whom he had
+for the past month been taking a very keen interest.</p>
+
+<p>This pair, of Swiss nationality, he had
+watched in half a dozen Continental cities, gradually
+establishing his suspicions as to their real
+occupation.</p>
+
+<p>They had come to Monte Carlo for neither
+health nor pleasure, but in order to meet a grey-haired
+man in spectacles, whom they received
+twice in private at the M&eacute;tropole, where they
+were staying.</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman had first seen them sitting
+together one evening at one of the marble-topped
+tables at the Caf&eacute; Royal in Regent
+Street, while he had been idly playing a game of
+dominoes at the next table with an American
+friend. The face of the man was to him somehow
+familiar. He felt that he had seen it somewhere,
+but whether in a photograph in his big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"></a>[<a href="./images/260.png">260</a>]</span>
+album down at Idsworth or in the flesh he could
+not decide.</p>
+
+<p>Yet from that moment he had hardly lost
+sight of them. With that astuteness which was
+Fetherston's chief characteristic, he had watched
+vigilantly and patiently, establishing the fact
+that the pair were in England for some sinister
+purpose. His powers were little short of marvellous.
+He really seemed, as Trendall once
+put it, to scent the presence of criminals as pigs
+scent truffles.</p>
+
+<p>They suddenly left the Midland Hotel at St.
+Pancras, where they were staying, and crossed
+the Channel. But the same boat carried Walter
+Fetherston, who took infinite care not to obtrude
+himself upon their attention.</p>
+
+<p>Monte Carlo, being in the principality of
+Monaco, and being peopled by the most cosmopolitan
+crowd in the whole world, is in winter
+the recognised meeting-place of <i>chevaliers d'industrie</i>
+and those who finance and control great
+crimes.</p>
+
+<p>In the big atrium of those stifling rooms
+many an assassin has met his hirer, and in many
+of those fine hotels have bribes been handed over
+to those who will do "dirty work." It is the
+European exchange of criminality, for both
+sexes know it to be a safe place where they may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a>[<a href="./images/261.png">261</a>]</span>
+"accidentally" meet the person controlling
+them.</p>
+
+<p>It is safe to say that in every code used by
+the criminal plotters of every country in Europe
+there is a cryptic word which signifies a meeting
+at Monte Carlo. For that reason was Walter
+Fetherston much given to idling on the sunny
+<i>terrasse</i> of the caf&eacute; at a point where he could
+see every person who ascended or descended
+that flight of red-carpeted stairs which gives entrance
+to the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The pair whom he was engaged in watching
+had been playing at roulette with five-franc
+pieces, and the woman was now counting her
+gains and laughing gaily with her husband as
+she slowly sipped her tea flavoured with orange-flower
+water. They were in ignorance of the
+presence of that lynx-eyed man in grey flannels
+and straw hat who smoked his cigarette leisurely
+and appeared to be so intensely bored.</p>
+
+<p>No second glance at Fetherston was needed
+to ascertain that he was a most thorough-going
+cosmopolitan. He usually wore his pale-grey
+felt hat at a slight angle, and had the air of the
+easy-going adventurer, debonair and unscrupulous.
+But in his case his appearance was not a
+true index to his character, for in reality he was
+a steady, hard-headed, intelligent man, the very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"></a>[<a href="./images/262.png">262</a>]</span>
+soul of honour, and, above all, a man of intense
+patriotism&mdash;an Englishman to the backbone.
+Still, he cultivated his easy-going cosmopolitanism
+to pose as a careless adventurer.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the pair rose, and, crossing the
+palm-lined place, entered the casino; while Walter,
+finishing his "mazagran," lit a fresh cigarette,
+and took a turn along the front of the casino
+in order to watch the pigeon-shooting.</p>
+
+<p>The winter sun was sinking into the tideless
+sea in all its gold-and-orange glory as he stood
+leaning over the stone balustrade watching the
+splendid marksmanship of one of the crack shots
+of Europe. He waited until the contest had
+ended, then he descended and took the <i>rapide</i>
+back to Nice for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>At nine o'clock he returned to Monte Carlo,
+and again ascended the station lift, as was his
+habit, for a stroll through the rooms and a chat
+and drink with one or other of his many friends.
+He looked everywhere for the Swiss pair in
+whom he was so interested, but in vain. Probably
+they had gone over to Nice to spend the
+evening, he thought. But as the night wore on
+and they did not return by the midnight train&mdash;the
+arrival of which he watched&mdash;he strolled
+back to the M&eacute;tropole and inquired for them at
+the bureau of the hotel.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"></a>[<a href="./images/263.png">263</a>]</span>
+"M'sieur and Madame Granier left by the
+Mediterranean express for Paris at seven-fifteen
+this evening," replied the clerk, who knew
+Walter very well.</p>
+
+<p>"What address did they leave?" he inquired,
+annoyed at the neat manner in which
+they had escaped his vigilance.</p>
+
+<p>"They left no address, m'sieur. They received
+a telegram just after six o'clock recalling
+them to Paris immediately. Fortunately, there
+was one two-berth compartment vacant on the
+train."</p>
+
+<p>Walter turned away full of chagrin. He
+had been foolish to lose sight of them. His only
+course was to return to Nice, pack his traps,
+and follow to Paris in the ordinary <i>rapide</i> at
+eight o'clock next morning. And this was the
+course he pursued.</p>
+
+<p>But Paris is a big place, and though he
+searched for two whole weeks, going hither and
+thither to all places where the foreign visitors
+mostly congregate, he saw nothing of the interesting
+pair. Therefore, full of disappointment,
+he crossed one afternoon to Folkestone,
+and that night again found himself in his dingy
+chambers in Holles Street.</p>
+
+<p>Next day he called upon Sir Hugh, and
+found him in much better spirits. Lady El<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"></a>[<a href="./images/264.png">264</a>]</span>combe
+told him that Enid had written expressing
+herself delighted with her season in Sicily,
+and saying that both she and Mrs. Caldwell were
+very pleased that they had adopted his suggestion
+of going there instead of to overcrowded
+Cairo.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat with Sir Hugh and his wife in that
+pretty drawing-room he knew so well the old
+general suddenly said: "I suppose, Fetherston,
+you are still taking as keen an interest in
+the latest mysteries of crime&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Hugh. As you know, I've written
+a good deal upon the subject."</p>
+
+<p>"I've read a good many of your books and
+articles, of course," exclaimed the old officer.
+"Upon many points I entirely agree with you,"
+he said. "There is a curious case in the papers
+to-day. Have you seen it? A young girl found
+mysteriously shot dead near Hitchin."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't," was Walter's reply. He
+was not at all interested. He was thinking of
+something of far greater interest.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"></a>[<a href="./images/265.png">265</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h4>WHICH IS "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL"</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> eleven o'clock next morning Fetherston
+stood in Trendall's room at Scotland Yard reporting
+to him the suspicious movements of
+Monsieur and Madame Granier.</p>
+
+<p>His friend leaned back in his padded chair
+listening while the keen-faced man in pince-nez
+related all the facts, and in doing so showed how
+shrewd and astute he had been.</p>
+
+<p>"Then they are just what we thought," remarked
+the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Without a doubt. In Monte Carlo they
+received further instructions from somebody.
+They went to Paris, and there I lost them."</p>
+
+<p>Trendall smiled, for he saw how annoyed his
+friend was at their escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you certainly clung on to them," he
+said. "When you first told me your suspicions
+I confess I was inclined to disagree with you.
+You merely met them casually in Regent Street.
+What made you suspicious?"</p>
+
+<p>"One very important incident&mdash;Weirmarsh<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"></a>[<a href="./images/266.png">266</a>]</span>
+came in with another man, and, in passing, nodded
+to Granier. That set me thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do not know of any actual dealings
+with the doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know of none," replied Walter. "Still,
+I'm very sick that, after all my pains, they
+should have escaped to Paris so suddenly."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said Trendall. "If they are
+what we suspect we shall pick them up again
+before long, no doubt. Now look here," he added.
+"Read that! It's just come in. As you
+know, any foreigner who takes a house in certain
+districts nowadays is reported to us by the
+local police."</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston took the big sheet of blue official
+paper which the police official handed to him,
+and found that it was the copy of a confidential
+report made by the Superintendent of Police at
+Maldon, in Essex, and read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"I, William Warden, Superintendent of
+Police for the Borough of Maldon, desire to report
+to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police
+the following statement from Sergeant S.
+Deacon, Essex Constabulary, stationed at
+Southminster, which is as below:</p>
+
+<p>"'On Friday, the thirteenth of September
+last, a gentleman, evidently a foreigner, was
+sent by Messrs. Hare and James, estate agents,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"></a>[<a href="./images/267.png">267</a>]</span>
+of Malden, to view the house known as The
+Yews, at Asheldham, in the vicinity of Southminster,
+and agreed to take it for three years
+in order to start a poultry farm. The tenant entered
+into possession a week later, when one vanload
+of furniture arrived from London. Two
+days later three other vanloads arrived late in
+the evening, and were unpacked in the stable-yard
+at dawn. The tenant, whose name is Bailey&mdash;but
+whose letters come addressed "Baily,"
+and are mostly from Belgium&mdash;lived there alone
+for a fortnight, and was afterwards joined by
+a foreign man-servant named Pietro, who is
+believed to be an Italian. Though more than
+three months have elapsed, and I have kept observation
+upon the house&mdash;a large one, standing
+in its own grounds&mdash;I have seen no sign of
+poultry farming, and therefore deem it a matter
+for a report.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Samuel Deacon</span>, Sergeant, Essex
+Constabulary.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Curious!" remarked Walter, when he had
+finished reading it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Trendall. "There may be
+nothing in it."</p>
+
+<p>"It should be inquired into!" declared Walter.
+"I'll take Summers and go down there to
+have a look round, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you would," said the chief. "I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"></a>[<a href="./images/268.png">268</a>]</span>
+'phone Summers to meet you at Liverpool
+Street Station," he added, turning to the railway
+guide. "There's a train at one forty-five.
+Will that suit you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Tell him to meet me at Liverpool
+Street&mdash;and we'll see who this 'Mr. Baily' really
+is."</p>
+
+<p>When, shortly after half-past one, the novelist
+walked on to the platform at Liverpool
+Street he was approached by a narrow-faced,
+middle-aged man in a blue serge suit who presented
+the appearance of a ship's engineer on
+leave.</p>
+
+<p>As they sat together in a first-class compartment
+Fetherston explained to his friend the report
+made by the police officer at Southminster&mdash;the
+next station to Burnham-on-Crouch&mdash;whereupon
+Summers remarked: "The doctor
+has been down this way once or twice of late. I
+wonder if he goes to pay this Mr. Baily, or Bailey,
+a visit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," laughed Walter. "We shall
+see."</p>
+
+<p>The railway ended at Southminster, but on
+alighting they had little difficulty in finding the
+small police station, where the local sergeant of
+police awaited them, having been warned by
+telephone.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"></a>[<a href="./images/269.png">269</a>]</span>
+"Well, gentlemen," said the red-faced man,
+spreading his big hands on his knees as they sat
+together in a back room, "Mr. Bailey ain't at
+home just now. He's away a lot. The house
+is a big one&mdash;not too big for the four vanloads
+of furniture wot came down from London."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he made any friends in the district,
+do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not exactly. 'E often goes and 'as a
+drink at the Bridgewick Arms at Burnham, close
+by the coastguard station."</p>
+
+<p>Walter exchanged a meaning glance with
+his assistant.</p>
+
+<p>"Does he receive any visitors?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very few&mdash;he's away such a lot. A woman
+comes down to see him sometimes&mdash;his sister,
+they say she is."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she's a lady about thirty-five&mdash;beautifully
+dressed always. She generally comes in a
+dark-green motor-car, which she drives herself.
+She was a lady driver during the war."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know her name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Bailey. She's a foreigner, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Any other visitors?" asked Fetherston, in
+his quick, impetuous way, as he polished his
+pince-nez.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, very soon after Mr. Bailey took<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a>[<a href="./images/270.png">270</a>]</span>
+the house, I was on duty at Southminster Station
+in the forenoon, and a gentleman and lady
+arrived and asked how far it was to The Yews,
+at Asheldham. I directed them the way to walk
+over by Newmoor and across the brook. Then
+I slipped 'ome, got into plain clothes, and went
+along after them by the footpath."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you do that?" asked Summers.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I wanted to find out something
+about this foreigner's visitors. I read at headquarters
+at Maldon the new instructions about
+reporting all foreigners who took houses, and I
+wanted to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To show that you were on the alert, eh,
+Deacon?" laughed the novelist good-humouredly,
+and he lit a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, sir," replied the big, red-faced
+man. "Well, I took a short cut over to The
+Yews, and got there ten minutes before they did.
+I hid in the hedge on the north side of the house,
+and saw that as soon as they walked up the drive
+Mr. Bailey rushed out to welcome them. The
+lady seemed very nervous, I thought. I know
+she was an English lady, because she spoke to
+me at the station."</p>
+
+<p>"What were they like?" inquired Summers.
+"Describe both of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the man, as far as I can recollect,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"></a>[<a href="./images/271.png">271</a>]</span>
+was about fifty or so, grey-faced, dark-eyed,
+wearin' a heavy overcoat with astrachan collar
+and cuffs. He had light grey su&egrave;de gloves, and
+carried a gold-mounted malacca cane with a
+curved handle. The woman was quite young&mdash;not
+more'n twenty, I should think&mdash;and very
+good-lookin'. She wore a neat tailor-made dress
+of brown cloth, and a small black velvet hat with
+a big gold buckle. She had a greyish fur around
+her neck, with a muff to match, and carried a
+small, dark green leather bag."</p>
+
+<p>Walter stood staring at the speaker. The
+description was exactly that of Weirmarsh and
+Enid Orlebar. The doctor often wore an astrachan-trimmed
+overcoat, while both dress and
+hat were the same which Enid had worn three
+months ago!</p>
+
+<p>He made a few quick inquiries of the red-faced
+sergeant, but the man's replies only served
+to convince him that Enid had actually been a
+visitor at the mysterious house.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not discover their names?"</p>
+
+<p>"The young lady addressed her companion
+as 'Doctor.' That's all I know," was the officer's
+reply. "For that reason I was rather inclined
+to think that I was on the wrong scent.
+The man was perhaps, after all, only a doctor
+who had come down to see his patient."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"></a>[<a href="./images/272.png">272</a>]</span>
+"Perhaps so," remarked Walter mechanically.
+"You say Mr. Bailey is not at home to-day,
+so we'll just run over and have a look
+round. You'd better come with us, sergeant."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir. But I 'ear as how Mr. Bailey
+is comin' home this evenin'. I met Pietro in
+the Railway Inn at Southminster the night before
+last, and casually asked when his master
+was comin' home, as I wanted to see 'im for a
+subscription for our police concert, and 'e told
+me that the signore&mdash;that's what 'e called him&mdash;was
+comin' home to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Then, after a look round the place,
+we hope to have the pleasure of seeing this mysterious
+foreigner who comes here to the Dengie
+Marshes to make a living out of fowl-keeping."
+And Walter smiled meaningly at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later, after the sergeant had
+changed into plain clothes, the trio set out along
+the flat, muddy road for Asheldham.</p>
+
+<p>But as they were walking together, after
+passing Northend, a curious thing happened.</p>
+
+<p>Summers started back suddenly and nudged
+the novelist's arm without a word.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston, looking in the direction indicated,
+halted, utterly staggered by what met his
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"></a>[<a href="./images/273.png">273</a>]</span>
+It was inexplicable&mdash;incredible! He looked
+again, scarcely believing his own eyes, for what
+he saw made plain a ghastly truth.</p>
+
+<p>He stood rigid, staring straight before him.</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible that at last he was actually
+within measurable distance of the solution of
+the mystery?</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"></a>[<a href="./images/274.png">274</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h4>THE RESULT OF INVESTIGATION</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">As</span> the expectant trio had come round the bend
+in the road they saw in front of them, walking
+alone, a young lady in a short tweed suit with
+hat to match.</p>
+
+<p>The gown was of a peculiar shade of grey,
+and by her easy, swinging gait and the graceful
+carriage of her head Walter Fetherston instantly
+recognised that there before him, all unconscious
+of his presence, was the girl he believed
+to be still in Sicily&mdash;Enid Orlebar!</p>
+
+<p>He looked again, to satisfy himself that he
+was not mistaken. Then, drawing back, lest her
+attention should be attracted by their footsteps,
+he motioned to his companions to retreat around
+the bend and thus out of her sight.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, addressing them, "there is
+some deep mystery here. That lady must not
+know we are here."</p>
+
+<p>"You've recognised her, sir?" asked Summers,
+who had on several previous occasions assisted
+him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a>[<a href="./images/275.png">275</a>]</span>
+"Yes," was the novelist's hard reply. "She
+is here with some mysterious object. You
+mustn't approach The Yews till dark."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Bailey will then be at home, sir," remarked
+the sergeant. "I thought you wished to
+explore the place before he arrived?"</p>
+
+<p>Walter paused. He saw that Enid could
+not be on her way to visit Bailey, if he were not
+at home. So he suggested that Summers, whom
+she did not know, should go forward and watch
+her movements, while he and the sergeant should
+proceed to the house of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Arranging to meet later, the officer from
+Scotland Yard lit his pipe and strolled quickly
+forward around the bend to follow the girl in
+grey, while the other two halted to allow them
+to get on ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen that lady down here
+before, sergeant?" asked Walter presently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. If I don't make a mistake, it is
+the same lady who asked me the way to The
+Yews soon after Mr. Bailey took the house&mdash;the
+lady who came with the man whom she addressed
+as 'Doctor'!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite certain of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite certain. She was dressed differently,
+in brown&mdash;with a different hat and a
+veil."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"></a>[<a href="./images/276.png">276</a>]</span>
+"They came only on that one occasion,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that once, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But why, I wonder, is she going to The
+Yews? Pietro, you say, went up to London
+this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, by the nine-five. And the house
+is locked up&mdash;she's evidently unaware of that."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt. She'll go there, and, finding
+nobody at home, turn away disappointed. She
+must not see us."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll take good care of that, sir," laughed
+the local sergeant breezily, as he left his companion's
+side and crossed the road so that he
+could see the bend. "Why!" he exclaimed,
+"she ain't goin' to Asheldham after all! She's
+taken the footpath to the left that leads into
+Steeple! Evidently she knows the road!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we are free to go straight along to
+The Yews, eh? She's making a call in the vicinity.
+I wonder where she's going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend will ascertain that," said the
+sergeant. "Let's get along to The Yews and
+'ave a peep round."</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the pair, now that Enid was sufficiently
+far ahead along a footpath which led
+under a high, bare hedge, went forth again down
+the high road until, after crossing the brook,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"></a>[<a href="./images/277.png">277</a>]</span>
+they turned to the right into Asheldham village,
+where, half-way between that place and New
+Hall, they turned up a short by-road, a cul-de-sac,
+at the end of which a big, old-fashioned, red-brick
+house of the days of Queen Anne, half hidden
+by a belt of high Scotch firs, came into view.</p>
+
+<p>Shut off from the by-road by a high, time-mellowed
+brick wall, it stood back lonely and
+secluded in about a couple of acres of well wooded
+ground. From a big, rusty iron gate the ill-kept,
+gravelled drive took a broad sweep up
+to the front of the house, a large, roomy one
+with square, inartistic windows and plain front,
+the ugliness of which the ivy strove to hide.</p>
+
+<p>In the grey light of that wintry afternoon
+the place looked inexpressibly dismal and neglected.
+Years ago it had, no doubt, been the
+residence of some well-to-do county family; but
+in these twentieth-century post-war days, having
+been empty for nearly ten years, it had gone
+sadly to rack and ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The lawns had become weedy, the carriage-drive
+was, in places, green with moss, like the
+sills of the windows and the high-pitched, tiled
+roof itself. In the centre of the lawn, before the
+house, stood four great ancient yews, while all
+round were high box hedges, now, alas! neglected,
+untrimmed and full of holes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"></a>[<a href="./images/278.png">278</a>]</span>
+The curtains were of the commonest kind,
+while the very steps leading to the front door
+were grey with lichen and strewn with wisps of
+straw. The whole aspect was one of neglect,
+of decay, of mystery.</p>
+
+<p>The two men, opening the creaking iron gate,
+advanced boldly to the door, an excuse ready
+in case Pietro opened it.</p>
+
+<p>They knocked loudly, but there was no response.
+Their summons echoed through the big
+hall, causing Walter to remark:</p>
+
+<p>"There can't be much furniture inside,
+judging from the sound."</p>
+
+<p>"Four motor vanloads came here," responded
+the sergeant. "The first was in a plain van."</p>
+
+<p>"You did not discover whence it came?"</p>
+
+<p>"I asked the driver down at the inn at
+Southminster, and he told me that they came
+from the Trinity Furnishing Company, Peckham.
+But, on making inquiries, I found that
+he lied; there is no such company in Peckham."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw the furniture unloaded?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was about here when the first lot came.
+When the other three vans arrived I was away
+on my annual leave," was the sergeant's reply.</p>
+
+<p>Again they knocked, but no one came to the
+door. A terrier approached, but he proved
+friendly, therefore they proceeded to make an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a>[<a href="./images/279.png">279</a>]</span>
+inspection of the empty stabling and disused
+outbuildings.</p>
+
+<p>Three old hen-coops were the only signs of
+poultry-farming they could discover, and these,
+placed in a conspicuous position in the big,
+paved yard, were without feathered occupants.</p>
+
+<p>There were three doors by which the house
+could be entered, and all of them Walter tried
+and found locked. Therefore, noticing in the
+rubbish-heap some stray pieces of paper, he at
+once turned his attention to what he discovered
+were fragments of a torn letter. It was written
+in French, and, apparently, had reference to
+certain securities held by the tenant of The
+Yews.</p>
+
+<p>But as only a small portion of the destroyed
+communication could be found, its purport was
+not very clear, and the name and address of the
+writer could not be ascertained.</p>
+
+<p>Yet it had already been proved without
+doubt that the mysterious tenant of the dismal
+old place&mdash;the man who posed as a poultry-farmer&mdash;had
+had as visitors Dr. Weirmarsh and
+Enid <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Olebar'">Orlebar</ins>!</p>
+
+<p>For a full half-hour, while the red-faced sergeant
+kept watch at the gate, Walter Fetherston
+continued to investigate that rubbish-heap,
+which showed signs of having been burning quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></a>[<a href="./images/280.png">280</a>]</span>
+recently, for most of the scraps of paper were
+charred at their edges.</p>
+
+<p>The sodden remains of many letters he withdrew
+and tried to read, but the scraps gave no
+tangible result, and he was just about to relinquish
+his search when his eye caught a scrap
+of bright blue notepaper of a familiar hue. It
+was half burned, and blurred by the rain, but at
+the corner he recognised some embossing in dark
+blue&mdash;familiar embossing it was&mdash;of part of the
+address in Hill Street!</p>
+
+<p>The paper was that used habitually by Enid
+Orlebar, and upon it was a date, two months
+before, and the single word "over" in her familiar
+handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>He took his stout walking-stick, in reality a
+sword-case, and frantically searched for other
+scraps, but could find none. One tiny portion
+only had been preserved from the flames&mdash;paraffin
+having been poured over the heap to
+render it the more inflammable. But that scrap
+in itself was sufficient proof that Enid had written
+to the mysterious tenant of The Yews.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said at last, approaching the sergeant,
+"do you think the coast is clear enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"For what?"</p>
+
+<p>"To get a glimpse inside. There's a good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></a>[<a href="./images/281.png">281</a>]</span>
+deal more mystery here than we imagine, depend
+upon it!" Walter exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Master and man will return by the same
+train, I expect, unless they come back in a motor-car.
+If they come by train they won't be
+here till well past eight, so we'll have at least
+three hours by ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston glanced around. Twilight
+was fast falling.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be dark inside, but I've brought my
+electric torch," he said. "There's a kitchen window
+with an ordinary latch."</p>
+
+<p>"That's no use. There are iron bars," declared
+the sergeant. "I examined it the other
+day. The small staircase window at the side is
+the best means of entry." And he took the novelist
+round and showed him a long narrow window
+about five feet from the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Walter's one thought was of Enid. Why
+had she written to that mysterious foreigner?
+Why had she visited there? Why, indeed, was
+she back in England surreptitiously, and in that
+neighbourhood?</p>
+
+<p>The short winter's afternoon was nearly at
+an end as they stood contemplating the window
+prior to breaking in&mdash;for Walter Fetherston felt
+justified in breaking the law in order to examine
+the interior of that place.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></a>[<a href="./images/282.png">282</a>]</span>
+In the dark branches of the trees the wind
+whistled mournfully, and the scudding clouds
+were precursory of rain.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott!" exclaimed Walter. "This
+isn't a particularly cheerful abode, is it, sergeant?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, if I lived 'ere I'd have the blues in
+a week," laughed the man. "I can't think 'ow
+Mr. Bailey employs 'is time."</p>
+
+<p>"Poultry-farming," laughed Fetherston, as,
+standing on tiptoe, he examined the window-latch
+by flashing on the electric torch.</p>
+
+<p>"No good!" he declared. "There's a shutter
+covered with new sheet-iron behind."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't show through the curtain," exclaimed
+Deacon.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's there. Our friend is evidently
+afraid of burglars."</p>
+
+<p>From window to window they passed, but
+the mystery was considerably increased by the
+discovery that at each of those on the ground
+floor were iron-faced shutters, though so placed
+as not to be noticeable behind the windows,
+which were entirely covered with cheap curtain
+muslin.</p>
+
+<p>"That's funny!" exclaimed the sergeant.
+"I've never examined them with a light before."</p>
+
+<p>"They have all been newly strengthened,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></a>[<a href="./images/283.png">283</a>]</span>
+declared Fetherston. "On the other side I expect
+there are strips of steel placed lattice-wise,
+a favourite device of foreigners. Mr. Bailey,"
+he added, "evidently has no desire that any intruder
+should gain access to his residence."</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we do?" asked Deacon, for it
+was now rapidly growing dark.</p>
+
+<p>A thought had suddenly occurred to Walter
+that perhaps Enid's intention was to make a call
+there, after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Our only way to obtain entrance is, I think,
+by one of the upper windows," replied the man
+whose very life was occupied by the investigation
+of mysteries. "In the laundry I noticed
+a ladder. Let us go and get it."</p>
+
+<p>So the ladder, a rather rotten and insecure
+one, was obtained, and after some difficulty
+placed against the wall. It would not, however,
+reach to the windows, as first intended, therefore
+Walter mounted upon the slippery, moss-grown
+tiles of a wing of the house, and after a
+few moments' exploration discovered a skylight
+which proved to be over the head of the servants'
+staircase.</p>
+
+<p>This he lifted, and, fixing around a chimney-stack
+a strong silk rope he had brought in his
+pocket ready for any emergency, he threw it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></a>[<a href="./images/284.png">284</a>]</span>
+down the opening, and quickly lowered himself
+through.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he done so, and was standing on
+the uncarpeted stairs, when his quick ear caught
+the sound of Deacon's footsteps receding over
+the gravel around to the front of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Then, a second later, he heard a loud challenge
+from the gloom in a man's voice that was
+unfamiliar:</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply. Walter listened with
+bated breath.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing there?" cried the new-comer
+in a voice in which was a marked foreign
+accent. "Speak! <i>speak!</i> or I'll shoot!"</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></a>[<a href="./images/285.png">285</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h4>THE SECRET OF THE LONELY HOUSE</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Walter</span> did not move. He realised that a <i>contretemps</i>
+had occurred. The ladder still leaning
+against the wall outside would reveal his intrusion.
+Yet, at last inside, he intended, at all
+hazards, to explore the place and learn the reason
+why the mysterious stranger had started
+that "poultry farm."</p>
+
+<p>He was practically in the dark, fearing to
+flash on his torch lest he should be discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible that Bailey or his Italian
+manservant had unexpectedly returned!</p>
+
+<p>Those breathless moments seemed hours.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he heard a second challenge. The
+challenger used a fierce Italian oath, and by it
+he knew that it was Pietro.</p>
+
+<p>In reply, a shot rang out&mdash;evidently from
+the sergeant's pistol, followed by another sharp
+report, and still another. This action showed
+the man Deacon to be a shrewd person, for the
+effect was exactly as he had intended. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></a>[<a href="./images/286.png">286</a>]</span>
+Italian servant turned on his heel and flew for
+his life down the drive, shouting in his native
+tongue for help and for the police.</p>
+
+<p>"Madonna santa!" he yelled. "Who are
+you here?" he demanded in Italian. "I'll go to
+the police!"</p>
+
+<p>And in terror he rushed off down the road.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir," cried the sergeant, after
+the servant had disappeared. "I've given the
+fellow a good fright. Be quick and have a look
+round, sir. You can be out again before he
+raises the alarm!"</p>
+
+<p>In an instant Walter flashed on his torch
+and, dashing down the stairs, crossed the kitchen
+and found himself in the hall. From room to
+room he rushed, but found only two rooms on
+the ground floor furnished&mdash;a sitting-room,
+which had been the original dining-room, while
+in the study was a chair-bed, most probably
+where Pietro slept.</p>
+
+<p>On the table lay a heavy revolver, fully loaded,
+and this Fetherston quickly transferred to
+his jacket pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment he dashed up the old well
+staircase two steps at a time and entered room
+after room. Only one was furnished&mdash;the tenant's
+bedroom. In it he found a number of
+suits of clothes, while on the dressing-table lay a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></a>[<a href="./images/287.png">287</a>]</span>
+false moustache, evidently for disguise. A small
+writing-table was set in the window, and upon
+it was strewn a quantity of papers.</p>
+
+<p>As he flashed his torch round he was amazed
+to see, arranged upon a neat deal table in a corner,
+some curious-looking machinery which
+looked something like printing-presses. But
+they were a mystery to him.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery was a strange one. What it
+meant he did not then realise. There seemed to
+be quite a quantity of apparatus and machinery.
+It was this which had been conveyed there in
+those furniture vans of the Trinity Furnishing
+Company.</p>
+
+<p>He heard Deacon's voice calling again.
+Therefore, having satisfied himself as to the nature
+of the contents of that neglected old house,
+he ascended the stone steps into the passage
+which led through a faded green-baize door into
+the main hall.</p>
+
+<p>As he entered he heard voices in loud discussion.
+Sergeant Deacon and the servant Pietro
+had met face to face.</p>
+
+<p>The Italian had evidently aroused the villagers
+in Asheldham, for there were sounds of
+many voices of men out on the gravelled drive.</p>
+
+<p>"I came up here a quarter of an hour ago,"
+the Italian cried excitedly in his broken Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a>[<a href="./images/288.png">288</a>]</span>lish,
+"and somebody fired at me. They tried to
+kill me!"</p>
+
+<p>"But who?" asked Deacon in pretended ignorance.
+He was uncertain what to do, Mr.
+Fetherston being still within the house and the
+ladder, his only means of escape, still standing
+against a side wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Thieves!" cried the man, his foreign accent
+more pronounced in his excitement. "I
+challenged them, and they fired at me. I am
+glad that you, a police sergeant, are here."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," cried Walter Fetherston, suddenly
+throwing open the front door and standing
+before the knot of alarmed villagers, though
+it was so dark that they could not recognise who
+he was. "Deacon," he added authoritatively,
+"arrest that foreigner."</p>
+
+<p>"Diavolo! Who are you?" demanded the
+Italian angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"You will know in due course," replied
+Fetherston. Then, turning to the crowd, he
+added: "Gentlemen, I came here with Sergeant
+Deacon to search this house. He will tell
+you whether that statement is true or not."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," declared the breezy sergeant, who
+already had the Italian by the collar and coat-sleeve.
+"It was I who fired&mdash;to frighten him
+off!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></a>[<a href="./images/289.png">289</a>]</span>
+At this the crowd laughed. They had no
+liking for foreigners of any sort after the war,
+and were really secretly pleased to see that the
+sergeant had "taken him up."</p>
+
+<p>But what for? they asked themselves. Why
+had the police searched The Yews? Mr. Bailey
+was a quiet, inoffensive man, very free with his
+money to everybody around.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack Beard," cried Deacon to a man in the
+crowd, "just go down to Asheldham and telephone
+to Superintendent Warden at Maldon.
+Ask him to send me over three men at once, will
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Sam," was the prompt reply,
+and the man went off, while the sergeant took
+the resentful Italian into the house to await an
+escort.</p>
+
+<p>Deacon called the assistance of two men and
+invited them in. Then, while they mounted
+guard over the prisoner, Fetherston addressed
+the little knot of amazed men who had been
+alarmed by the Italian's statement.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, gentlemen," he said. "We shall in
+a couple of hours' time expect the return of Mr.
+Bailey, the tenant of this house. There is a
+very serious charge against him. I therefore
+put everyone of you upon your honour to say
+no word of what has occurred here to-night&mdash;not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></a>[<a href="./images/290.png">290</a>]</span>
+until Mr. Bailey arrives. I should prefer you
+all to remain here and wait; otherwise, if a word
+be dropped at Southminster, he may turn back
+and fly from justice."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the charge, sir?" asked one man,
+a bearded old labourer.</p>
+
+<p>"A very serious one," was Walter's evasive
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a pause, they all agreed to wait
+and witness the dramatic arrest of the man who
+was charged with some mysterious offence.
+Speculation was rife as to what it would be, and
+almost every crime in the calendar was cited as
+likely.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Fetherston, returning to the
+barely-furnished sitting-room, interrogated Pietro
+in Italian, but only obtained sullen answers.
+A loaded revolver had been found upon him by
+Deacon, and promptly confiscated.</p>
+
+<p>"I have already searched the place," Walter
+said to the prisoner, "and I know what it contains."</p>
+
+<p>But in response the man who had posed as
+servant, but who, with his "master," was the
+custodian of the place, only grinned and gave
+vent to muttered imprecations in Italian.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston afterwards left the small assembly
+and made examination of some bedrooms he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></a>[<a href="./images/291.png">291</a>]</span>
+had not yet inspected. In three of these, the
+locks of which he broke open, he discovered
+quantities of interesting papers, together with
+another mysterious-looking press.</p>
+
+<p>While trying to decide what it all meant he
+suddenly heard a great shouting and commotion
+outside, and ran down to the door to ascertain
+its cause.</p>
+
+<p>As he opened it he saw that in the darkness
+the crowd outside had grown excited.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere you are, sir," cried one man, ascending
+the steps. "'Ere are two visitors. We
+found 'em comin' up the road, and, seein' us,
+they tried to get away!"</p>
+
+<p>Walter held up a hurricane lantern which
+he had found and lit, when its dim, uncertain
+light fell upon the two prisoners in the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Behind stood Summers, while before him, to
+Fetherston's utter amazement, showed Enid
+Orlebar, pale and terrified, and the grey, sinister
+face of Doctor Weirmarsh.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></a>[<a href="./images/292.png">292</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h4>CONTAINS SOME STARTLING STATEMENTS</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Enid</span>, recognising Walter, shrank back instantly
+in fear and shame, while Weirmarsh started at
+that unexpected meeting with the man whom he
+knew to be his bitterest and most formidable
+opponent.</p>
+
+<p>The small crowd of excited onlookers, ignorant
+of the true facts, but their curiosity
+aroused by the unusual circumstances, had prevented
+the pair from turning back and making
+a hurried escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Enid!" exclaimed Fetherston, as the girl
+reluctantly crossed the threshold with downcast
+head, "what is the meaning of this? Why are
+you paying a visit to this house at such an
+hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Walter," she cried, her small, gloved
+hands clenched with a sudden outburst of emotion,
+"be patient and hear me! I will tell you
+everything&mdash;<i>everything</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't," growled the doctor sharply.
+"If you do, by Gad! it will be the worse for you!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a>[<a href="./images/293.png">293</a>]</span>
+So you'd best keep a silent tongue&mdash;otherwise
+you know the consequences. I shall now tell the
+truth&mdash;and you won't like that!"</p>
+
+<p>She drew back in terror of the man who held
+such an extraordinary influence over her. She
+had grasped Fetherston's hand convulsively,
+but at Weirmarsh's threat she had released her
+hold and was standing in the hall, pale, rigid and
+staring.</p>
+
+<p>"Summers," exclaimed Fetherston, turning
+to his companion, "you know this person, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I should rather think I do," replied
+the man, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, detain him for the present, and take
+your instructions from London."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no power or right to detain me,"
+declared the grey-faced doctor in quick defiance.
+"You are not a police officer!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but this is a police officer," Fetherston
+replied, indicating Summers, and adding: "Sergeant,
+I give that man into custody."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant advanced and laid his big hand
+upon the doctor's shoulder, telling him to consider
+himself under arrest.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is abominable&mdash;outrageous!"
+Weirmarsh cried, shaking him off. "I've committed
+no offence."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a matter for later consideration,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"></a>[<a href="./images/294.png">294</a>]</span>
+calmly replied the man who had devoted so
+much of his time and money to the investigation
+of mysteries of crime.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the bare bedrooms upstairs Fetherston
+had, in examining one of the well made
+hand-presses set up there, found beside it a number
+of one-pound Treasury notes. In curiosity
+he took one up, and found it to be in an unfinished
+state. It was printed in green, without the
+brown colouring. Yet it was perfect as regards
+the paper and printing&mdash;even to its black serial
+number.</p>
+
+<p>Next second the truth flashed upon him.
+The whole apparatus, presses and everything,
+had been set up there to print the war paper
+currency of Great Britain!</p>
+
+<p>In the room adjoining he had seen bundles
+of slips of similar paper, all neatly packed in
+elastic bands, and waiting the final process of
+colouring and toning. One bundle had only the
+Houses of Parliament printed; the other side
+was blank. He saw in a flash that the placing
+in circulation of such a huge quantity of Treasury
+notes, amounting to hundreds of thousands
+of pounds, must seriously damage the credit of
+the nation.</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds he held an unfinished note
+in his hand examining it, and deciding that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"></a>[<a href="./images/295.png">295</a>]</span>
+imitation was most perfect. It deceived him
+and would undoubtedly deceive any bank-teller.</p>
+
+<p>In those rooms it was plain that various
+processes had been conducted, from the manipulation
+of the watermark, by a remarkably ingenious
+process, right down to the finished one-pound
+note, so well done that not even an expert
+could detect the forgery. There were many
+French one-hundred-franc notes as well.</p>
+
+<p>The whole situation was truly astounding.
+Again the thought hammered home: such a
+quantity of paper in circulation must affect the
+national finances of Britain. And at the head
+of the band who were printing and circulating
+those spurious notes was the mysterious medical
+man who carried on his practice in Pimlico!</p>
+
+<p>The scene within the sparsely furnished
+house containing those telltale presses was indeed
+a weird one.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody had found a cheap paraffin lamp
+and lit it in the sitting-room, where they were
+all assembled, the front door having been closed.</p>
+
+<p>It was apparent that Pietro was no stranger
+to the doctor and his fair companion, but both
+men were highly resentful that they had been
+so entrapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor Weirmarsh," exclaimed Fetherston
+seriously, as he stood before him, "I have just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"></a>[<a href="./images/296.png">296</a>]</span>
+examined this house and have ascertained what
+it contains."</p>
+
+<p>"You've told him!" cried the man, turning
+fiercely upon Enid. "You have betrayed me!
+Ah! It will be the worse for you&mdash;and for your
+family," he added harshly. "You will see! I
+shall now reveal the truth concerning your stepfather,
+and you and your family will be held up
+to opprobrium throughout the whole length and
+breadth of your land."</p>
+
+<p>Enid did not reply. She was pale as death,
+her face downcast, her lips white as marble. She
+knew, alas! that Weirmarsh, now that he was
+cornered, would not spare her.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause&mdash;a very painful pause.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone next instant listened to a noise
+which sounded outside. As it grew nearer it
+grew more distinct&mdash;the whir of an approaching
+motor-car.</p>
+
+<p>It pulled up suddenly before the door, and
+a moment later the old bell clanged loudly
+through the half-empty house.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston left the room, and going to the
+door, threw it open, when yet another surprise
+awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the steps stood four men in thick overcoats,
+all of whom Walter instantly recognised.</p>
+
+<p>With Trendall stood Sir Hugh Elcombe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"></a>[<a href="./images/297.png">297</a>]</span>
+while their companions were two detective-inspectors
+from Scotland Yard.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo!&mdash;Fetherston!" gasped Trendall.
+"I&mdash;I expected to find Weirmarsh here! What
+has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor is already here," was the other's
+quick reply. "I have found some curious
+things in this place! Secret printing-presses for
+forged notes."</p>
+
+<p>"We already know that," he said. "Sir
+Hugh Elcombe here has, unknown to us, obtained
+certain knowledge, and to-day he came
+to me and gave me a full statement of what has
+been in progress. What he has told me this
+afternoon is among the most valuable and reliable
+information that we ever received."</p>
+
+<p>"I know something of the scoundrels," remarked
+the old general, "because&mdash;well, because,
+as I have confessed to Mr. Trendall, I
+yielded to temptation long ago and assisted
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever you have done, Sir Hugh, you
+have at least revealed to us the whole plot. Only
+by pretending to render assistance to these
+scoundrels could you have gained the intensely
+valuable knowledge which you've imparted to
+me to-day," replied the keen-faced director from
+Scotland Yard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"></a>[<a href="./images/298.png">298</a>]</span>
+Fetherston realised instantly that the fine old
+fellow, whom he had always held in such esteem,
+was making every effort to atone for his conduct
+in the past; but surely that was not the
+moment to refer to it&mdash;so he ushered the four
+men into the ill-lit dining-room wherein the others
+were standing, none knowing how next to
+act.</p>
+
+<p>When the doctor and Sir Hugh faced each
+other there was a painful silence for a few seconds.</p>
+
+<p>To Weirmarsh Trendall was known by
+sight, therefore the criminal saw that the game
+was up, and that Sir Hugh had risked his own
+reputation in betraying him.</p>
+
+<p>"You infernal scoundrel!" cried the doctor
+angrily. "You&mdash;to whom I have paid so many
+thousands of pounds&mdash;have given me away! But
+I'll be even with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Say what you like," laughed the old general
+in defiance. "To me it is the same whatever
+you allege. I have already admitted my
+slip from the straight path. I do not deny receiving
+money from your hands, nor do I deny
+that, in a certain measure, I have committed serious
+offences&mdash;because, having taken one step,
+you forced me on to others, always holding over
+me the threat of exposure and ruin. But, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"></a>[<a href="./images/299.png">299</a>]</span>tunately,
+one day, in desperation, I took Enid
+yonder into my confidence. It was she who suggested
+that I might serve the ends of justice,
+and perhaps atone for what I had already done,
+by learning your secrets, and, when the time was
+ripe, revealing all the interesting details to our
+authorities. Enid became your friend and the
+friend of your friends. She risked everything&mdash;her
+honour, her happiness, her future&mdash;by associating
+with you for the one and sole purpose
+of assisting me to learn all the dastardly plot in
+progress."</p>
+
+<p>"It was you who supplied Paul Le Pontois
+with the false notes he passed in France!" declared
+Weirmarsh. "The French police know
+that; and if ever you or your step-daughter put
+foot in France you will be arrested."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently you are unaware, Doctor, that
+my son-in-law, Paul Le Pontois, was released
+yesterday," laughed Sir Hugh in triumph.
+"Your treachery, which is now known by the
+S&ucirc;ret&eacute;, defeated its own ends."</p>
+
+<p>"Further," remarked Walter Fetherston,
+turning to Enid, "it was this man here"&mdash;and
+he indicated the grey-faced doctor of Pimlico&mdash;"this
+man who denounced you and Sir Hugh to
+the French authorities, and had you not heeded
+my warning you both would then have been ar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a>[<a href="./images/300.png">300</a>]</span>rested.
+He had evidently suspected the object
+of your friendliness with me&mdash;that you both intended
+to reveal the truth&mdash;and he adopted that
+course in order to secure your incarceration in a
+foreign prison, and so close your lips."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you suspected me all along, Walter,"
+replied the girl, standing a little aside and
+suddenly clutching his hand. "But you will
+forgive me now&mdash;forgive me, won't you?" she
+implored, looking up into his dark, determined
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he replied, "I have already
+forgiven you. I had no idea of the true reason
+of your association with this man."</p>
+
+<p>And he raised her gloved hand and carried
+it gallantly to his eager lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Though more than mere suspicion has rested
+upon you," he went on, "you and your stepfather
+deserve the heartiest thanks of the nation
+for risking everything in order to be in a position
+to reveal this dastardly financial plot. That
+man there"&mdash;and he indicated the doctor&mdash;"deserves
+all he'll get!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor advanced threateningly, and,
+drawing a big automatic revolver from his pocket,
+would have fired at the man who had spoken
+his mind so freely had not Deacon, quick as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"></a>[<a href="./images/301.png">301</a>]</span>
+lightning, sprung forward and wrenched the
+weapon so that the bullet went upward.</p>
+
+<p>White with anger and chagrin, the doctor
+stood roundly abusing the man who had investigated
+that lonely house.</p>
+
+<p>But Fetherston laughed, which only irritated
+him the more. He raved like a caged lion, until
+the veins in his brow stood out in great knots;
+but, finding all protests and allegations useless,
+he at last became quiet again, and apparently began
+to review the situation from a purely philosophical
+standpoint, until, some ten minutes
+later, another motor-car dashed up and in it were
+an inspector and four plain-clothes constables,
+who had been sent over from Maldon in response
+to Deacon's message for assistance.</p>
+
+<p>When they entered Pietro became voluble,
+but the narrow-eyed doctor of Pimlico remained
+sullen and silent, biting his lips. He saw that he
+had been entrapped by the very man whom he
+had believed to be as clay in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The scene was surely exciting as well as impressive.
+The half-furnished, ill-lit dining-room
+was full of excited men, all talking at once.</p>
+
+<p>Unnoticed, Walter drew Enid into the shadow,
+and in a few brief, passionate words reassured
+her of his great affection.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" she cried, bursting into hot tears,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"></a>[<a href="./images/302.png">302</a>]</span>
+"your words, Walter, have lifted a great load of
+sorrow and apprehension from my mind, for I
+feared that when you knew the truth you would
+never, never forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have forgiven," he whispered, pressing
+her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Then wait until we are alone, and I will
+tell you everything. Ah! you do not know, Walter,
+what I have suffered&mdash;what a terrible strain
+I have sustained in these days of terror!"</p>
+
+<p>But scarcely had she uttered those words
+when the door reopened and a man was ushered
+in by Deacon, who had gone out in response to
+the violent ringing of the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. Bailey, tenant of the house,
+gentlemen," said the sergeant, introducing him
+with mock politeness.</p>
+
+<p>Fetherston glanced up, and to his surprise
+saw standing in the doorway a man he had
+known, and whose movements he had so closely
+followed&mdash;the man who had gone to Monte Carlo
+for instructions, and perhaps payment&mdash;the
+man who had passed as Monsieur Granier!</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"></a>[<a href="./images/303.png">303</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h4>REVEALS A WOMAN'S LOVE</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Great</span> was the consternation caused in the
+neighbourhood of the sleepy old-world village
+of Asheldham when it became known that the
+quiet, mild-mannered tenant of The Yews had
+been arrested by the Maldon police.</p>
+
+<p>Of what transpired within those grim walls
+only the two men called to his assistance by Sergeant
+Deacon knew, and to them both the inspector
+from Maldon, as well as Trendall, expressed
+a fervent hope that they would regard
+the matter as strictly confidential.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, gentlemen," added Trendall, "we
+are not desirous that the public should know of
+our discovery. We wish to avoid creating undue
+alarm, and at the same time to conceal the
+very existence of our system of surveillance
+upon those suspected. Therefore, I trust that
+all of you present will assist my department by
+preserving silence as to what has occurred here
+this evening."</p>
+
+<p>His hearers agreed willingly, and through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"></a>[<a href="./images/304.png">304</a>]</span>
+the next hour the place was thoroughly searched,
+the bundles of spurious notes&mdash;the finished ones
+representing nearly one hundred thousand
+pounds ready to put into circulation&mdash;being
+seized.</p>
+
+<p>One of the machines they found was for
+printing in the serial numbers in black, a process
+which, with genuine notes, is done by hand.
+Truly, the gang had brought the art of forgery
+to perfection.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Trendall when they had finished,
+"this work of yours, Sir Hugh, certainly
+deserves the highest commendation. You have
+accomplished what we, with all our great organisation,
+utterly failed to do."</p>
+
+<p>"I have to-day tried to atone for my past offences,"
+was the stern old man's hoarse reply.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have succeeded, Sir Hugh," declared
+Trendall. "Indeed you have!"</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterwards the excitement among
+the crowd waiting outside in the light of the
+head-lamps of the motor-cars was increased by
+the appearance of the doctor, escorted by
+two Maldon police officers in plain clothes.
+They mounted a police car, and were driven
+away down the road, while into a second car the
+tenant of The Yews and his Italian manservant
+were placed under escort, and also driven away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a>[<a href="./images/305.png">305</a>]</span>
+The station-fly, in which Bailey had driven
+from Southminster, conveyed away Fetherston,
+Trendall, Sir Hugh, and Enid, while Deacon,
+with two men, was left in charge of the house
+of secrets.</p>
+
+<p>It was past one o'clock in the morning when
+Walter Fetherston stood alone with Enid in the
+pretty drawing-room in Hill Street.</p>
+
+<p>They stood together upon the <i>vieux rose</i>
+hearthrug, his hand was upon her shoulder, his
+deep, earnest gaze fixed upon hers. In her
+splendid eyes the love light showed. They had
+both admired each other intensely from their
+first meeting, and had become very good and
+staunch friends. Walter Fetherston had only
+once spoken of the passion that had constantly
+consumed his heart&mdash;when they were by the blue
+sea at Biarritz. He loved her&mdash;loved her with
+the whole strength of his being&mdash;and yet, ah! try
+how he would, he could never put aside the dark
+cloud of suspicion which, as the days went by,
+became more and more impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet-faced, frank, and open, she stood, the
+ideal of the English outdoor girl, merry, quick-witted,
+and athletic. And yet, after the stress
+of war, she had sacrificed all that she held most
+dear in order to become the friend of Weirmarsh.
+Why?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"></a>[<a href="./images/306.png">306</a>]</span>
+"Enid," he said at last, his tender hand still
+upon her shoulder, "why did you not tell me
+your true position? You were working in the
+same direction, with the same strong motive of
+patriotism, as myself!"</p>
+
+<p>She was silent, very pale, and very serious.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared to tell you, Walter," she faltered.
+"How could I possibly reveal to you the truth
+when I knew you were aware how my stepfather
+had unconsciously betrayed his friends? You
+judged us both as undesirables, therefore any
+attempt at explanation would, I know, only aggravate
+our offence in your eyes. Ah! you do
+not know how intensely I have suffered! How
+bitter it all was! I knew the reason you followed
+us to France&mdash;to watch and confirm your suspicions."</p>
+
+<p>"I admit, Enid, that I suspected you of being
+in the hands of a set of scoundrels," her lover
+said in a low, hoarse voice. "At first I hesitated
+whether to warn you of your peril after Weirmarsh
+had, with such dastardly cunning, betrayed
+you to the French police, but&mdash;well," he
+added as he looked again into her dear eyes long
+and earnestly, "I loved you, Enid," he blurted
+forth. "I told you so! Remember, dear, what
+you said at Biarritz? And I love you&mdash;and because
+of that I resolved to save you!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"></a>[<a href="./images/307.png">307</a>]</span>
+"Which you did," she said in a strained, mechanical
+tone. "We both have you to thank for
+our escape. Weirmarsh, having first implicated
+Paul, then made allegations against us, in order
+to send us to prison, because he feared lest my
+stepfather might, in a fit of remorse, act indiscreetly
+and make a confession."</p>
+
+<p>"The past will all be forgiven now that Sir
+Hugh has been able to expose and unmask
+Weirmarsh and his band," Walter assured her.
+"A great sensation may possibly result, but it
+will, in any case, show that even though an Englishman
+may be bought, he can still remain honest.
+And," he added, "it will also show them
+that there is at least one brave woman in England
+who sacrificed her love&mdash;for I know well,
+Enid, that you fully reciprocate the great affection
+I feel towards you&mdash;in order to bear her
+noble part in combating a wily and unscrupulous
+gang."</p>
+
+<p>"It was surely my duty," replied the girl
+simply, her eyes downcast in modesty. "Yet
+association with that dastardly blackguard, Dr.
+Weirmarsh, was horrible! How I refrained
+from turning upon him through all those months
+I cannot really tell. I detested him from the
+first moment Sir Hugh invited him to our table;
+and though I went to assist him under guise of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"></a>[<a href="./images/308.png">308</a>]</span>
+consultations, I acted with one object all along,"
+she declared, her eyes raised to his and flashing,
+"to expose him in his true guise&mdash;that of Josef
+Blot, the head of the most dangerous association
+of forgers, of international thieves and blackmailers
+known to the police for the past half a
+century."</p>
+
+<p>"Which you have surely done! You have
+revealed the whole plot, and confounded those
+who were so cleverly conspiring to effect a sudden
+and most gigantic coup. But&mdash;&mdash;" and he
+paused, still looking into her eyes through his
+pince-nez, and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" she asked, in some surprise at
+his sudden change of manner.</p>
+
+<p>"There is one matter, Enid, which"&mdash;and
+he paused&mdash;"well, which is still a mystery to me,
+and I&mdash;I want you to explain it," he said in slow
+deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" she asked, looking at him
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"The mystery which you have always refused
+to assist me in unravelling&mdash;the mystery
+of the death of Harry Bellairs," was his quiet
+reply. "You held him in high esteem; you
+loved him," he added in a voice scarce above a
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>She drew back, her countenance suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"></a>[<a href="./images/309.png">309</a>]</span>
+blanched as she put her hand quickly to her brow
+and reeled slightly as though she had been dealt
+a blow.</p>
+
+<p>Walter watched her in blank wonderment.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"></a>[<a href="./images/310.png">310</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h4>IN WHICH SIR HUGH TELLS HIS STORY</h4>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">You</span> know the truth, don't you, dearest?"
+Walter asked at last in that quiet, sympathetic
+tone which he always adopted towards her whom
+he loved so well.</p>
+
+<p>Enid nodded in the affirmative, her face hard
+and drawn.</p>
+
+<p>"He was killed, was he not&mdash;deliberately
+murdered?"</p>
+
+<p>For a few seconds the silence was unbroken
+save for a whir of a taxicab passing outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was her somewhat reluctant response.</p>
+
+<p>"You went to his rooms that afternoon,"
+Walter asserted point blank.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not deny that. I followed him home&mdash;to&mdash;to
+save him."</p>
+
+<p>There was a break in her voice as she stammered
+out the last words, and tears rushed into
+her dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"From what? From death?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, from falling a prey to a great temptation
+set before him."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a>[<a href="./images/311.png">311</a>]</span>
+"By whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the doctor, to whom my stepfather had
+introduced him," was the girl's reply. "I discovered
+by mere chance that the doctor, who had
+somewhat got him into his clutches, had approached
+him in order to induce him to allow
+him to take a wax impression of a certain safe
+key belonging to a friend of his named Thurston,
+a diamond broker in Hatton Garden. He
+had offered him a very substantial sum to do
+this&mdash;a sum which would have enabled him to
+clear off all his debts and start afresh. Harry's
+younger brother Bob had got into a mess, and
+in helping him out Harry had sadly entangled
+himself and was practically face to face with
+bankruptcy. I knew this, and I knew what a
+great temptation had been placed before him.
+Fearing lest, in a moment of despair, he might
+accept, I went, by appointment, to his chambers
+as soon as I arrived in London. Barker, his
+man, had been sent out, and we were alone. I
+found him in desperation, yet to my great delight
+he had defied Weirmarsh, saying he refused
+to betray his friend."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did Bellairs tell you further?"</p>
+
+<p>"He expressed suspicion that my stepfather
+was in the doctor's pay," she replied. "I tried
+to convince him to the contrary, but Weir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"></a>[<a href="./images/312.png">312</a>]</span>marsh's
+suggestion had evidently furnished the
+key to some suspicious document which he had
+one day found on Sir Hugh's writing-table."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she went on slowly, "we quarrelled.
+I was indignant that he should suspect my stepfather,
+and he was full of vengeance against Sir
+Hugh's friend the doctor. Presently I left, and&mdash;and
+I never saw him again alive!"</p>
+
+<p>"What happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"What happened is explained by this letter,"
+she replied, crossing to a little buhl bureau
+which she unlocked, taking out a sealed envelope.
+On breaking it open and handing it to him
+she said: "This is the letter he wrote to me with
+his dying hand. I have kept it a secret&mdash;a secret
+even from Sir Hugh."</p>
+
+<p>Walter read the uneven lines eagerly. They
+grew more shaky and more illegible towards the
+end, but they were sufficient to make the truth
+absolutely clear.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night, half an hour ago," (wrote the
+dying man) "I had a visit from your friend,
+Weirmarsh. We were alone, with none to overhear,
+so I told him plainly that I intended to
+expose him. At first he became defiant, but
+presently he grew apprehensive, and on taking
+his leave he made a foul accusation against you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"></a>[<a href="./images/313.png">313</a>]</span>
+Then, laughing at my refusal to accept his
+bribe, the scoundrel took my hand in farewell.
+He must have had a pin stuck in his glove, for I
+felt a slight scratch across the palm. At the
+moment I was too furious to pay any attention
+to it, but ten minutes after he had gone I began
+to experience a strange faintness. I feel now
+fainter . . . and fainter . . . A strange feeling
+has crept over me . . . I am dying . . .
+poisoned . . . by that king of thieves!</p>
+
+<p>"Come to me quickly . . . at once . . .
+Enid . . . and tell me that what he has said
+against you . . . is not true. It . . . it cannot
+be true. . . . Don't delay. Come quickly. . . .
+Can't write more.&mdash;Harry."</p>
+
+<p>Walter paused for a second after reading
+through that dramatic letter, the last effort of a
+dying man.</p>
+
+<p>"And that scoundrel Weirmarsh killed him
+because he feared exposure," he remarked in a
+low, hard voice. "Why did you not bring this
+forward at the inquest?"</p>
+
+<p>"For several reasons," replied the girl. "I
+feared the doctor's reprisals. Besides, he might
+easily have denied the allegation, or he might
+have used the same means to close my lips if he
+had suspected that I had learnt the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"The dead man's story is no doubt true," de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"></a>[<a href="./images/314.png">314</a>]</span>clared
+Fetherston. "He used some deadly poison&mdash;one
+of the newly discovered ones which
+leaves no trace&mdash;to kill his victim who, in all
+probability, was not his first. Your stepfather
+does not know, of course, that this letter exists?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I have kept it from everyone. I said
+that the summons I received from him I had destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>"In the circumstances I will ask you, Enid,
+to allow me to retain it," he said. "I want to
+show it to Trendall."</p>
+
+<p>"You may show it to Mr. Trendall, but I
+ask you, for the present, to make no further use
+of it," replied the girl.</p>
+
+<p>He moved a step closer to her and caught her
+disengaged hand in his, the glad light in her eyes
+telling him that his action was one which she
+reciprocated, yet some sense of her unworthiness
+of this great love causing her to hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>"I will promise," said the strong, manly fellow
+in a low tone. "I ought to have made allowances,
+but, in the horror of my suspicion, I
+did not, and I'm sorry. I love you, Enid&mdash;I had
+never really loved until I met you, until I held
+your hand in mine!"</p>
+
+<p>Enid's true, overburdened heart was only too
+ready to respond to his fervent appeal. She
+suffered her lover to draw her to himself, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"></a>[<a href="./images/315.png">315</a>]</span>
+their lips met in a long, passionate caress that
+blotted out all the past. He spoke quick, rapid
+words of ardent affection. To Enid, after all
+the hideous events she had passed through, it
+seemed too happy to be true that so much bliss
+was in store for her, and she remained there,
+with Walter's arm around her, silently content,
+that fervid kiss being the first he had ever imprinted
+upon her full red lips.</p>
+
+<p>Thus they remained in each other's arms,
+their two true hearts beating in unison, their
+kisses mingling, their twin souls united in the
+first moments of their newly-found ecstasy of
+perfect love.</p>
+
+<p>The fight had been a fierce one, but their true
+hearts had won, and, as they whispered each other's
+fond affection, Enid promised to be the
+wife of the honest, fearless man of whose magnificent
+work in the detection of crime the country
+had never dreamed. They read his books
+and were enthralled by them, but little did they
+think that he was one of the never-sleeping
+watch-dogs upon great criminals, or that the
+sweet-faced girl, who was now his affianced wife,
+had risked her life, her love, her honour, in order
+to assist him.</p>
+
+<p>Next afternoon Sir Hugh called upon Walter
+at his dingy chambers in Holles Street, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"></a>[<a href="./images/316.png">316</a>]</span>
+as they sat together the old general, after a long
+and somewhat painful silence, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Fetherston, that you must be mystified
+how, in my position, I should have become
+implicated in the doings of that criminal gang."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am," Walter declared.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, briefly, it occurred in this way," said
+the old officer. "While I was a colonel in India
+just before the war I was very hard pressed for
+money and had committed a fault&mdash;an indiscretion
+for which I might easily have been dismissed <ins class="err" title="Transcriber's Note: added missing word 'from'">from</ins>
+the army. On being recalled to London, after
+war had been declared, I was approached by the
+fellow Weirmarsh who, to my horror, had, by
+some unaccountable means, obtained knowledge
+of my indiscretion! At first he adopted a high
+moral tone, upbraiding me for my fault and
+threatening to inform against me. This I
+begged him not to do. For a fortnight he kept
+me in an agony of despair, when one day he
+called me to him and unfolded to me a scheme
+by which I could make a considerable amount of
+money; indeed, he promised to pay me a yearly
+sum for my assistance."</p>
+
+<p>"You thought him to be a doctor&mdash;and nothing
+else?" Walter said.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. I never dreamed until quite recently
+that he was head of such a formidable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"></a>[<a href="./images/317.png">317</a>]</span>
+gang, whose operations were upon so extensive
+a scale as to endanger our national credit," replied
+Sir Hugh. "At the time he approached
+me I was in the Pay Department, and many
+thousands of pounds in Treasury notes were
+passing through my safe weekly. His suggestion
+was that I should exchange the notes as they
+came to me from the Treasury for those with
+which he would supply me, and which, on showing
+me a specimen, I failed to distinguish from
+the real. I hesitated; I was hard up. To sustain
+my position after my knighthood money
+was absolutely necessary to me, and for a long
+time I had been unable to make both ends meet.
+The bait he dangled before me was sufficiently
+tempting, and&mdash;and&mdash;well, I fell!" he groaned,
+and then after a pause he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Whence Weirmarsh obtained the packets
+of notes which I substituted for genuine ones
+was, of course, a mystery, but once having taken
+the false step it was not my business to inquire.
+Not until quite recently did I discover his real
+position as chief of a gang of international
+crooks, who combined forgery with blackmail
+and theft upon a colossal scale. That he intended
+Bellairs should furnish him with an impression
+of the safe key of a diamond dealer in Hatton
+Garden is now plain. Bellairs defied him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"></a>[<a href="./images/318.png">318</a>]</span>
+and threatened to denounce him to the police.
+Therefore, the poor fellow's lips were quickly
+closed by the scoundrel, who would hesitate at
+nothing in order to preserve his guilty secrets."</p>
+
+<p>"But what caused you to break from him at
+last?" inquired Walter eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Just before the armistice he and his friends
+had conceived a gigantic scheme by which
+Europe and the United States were to be flooded
+with great quantities of spurious paper currency,
+and though it would, when discovered&mdash;as
+it must have been sooner or later&mdash;have injured
+the national credit, would bring huge fortunes
+to him and his friends. He was pressing me to
+send in my papers and go to America, there to
+act as their agent at a huge remuneration. They
+wanted a man of standing who should be above
+suspicion, and he had decided to use me as his
+tool to engineer the gigantic frauds."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, happily, refused?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I resolved, rather than act further,
+to relinquish the handsome payments he made
+to me from time to time. For that reason I got
+transferred from the Pay Department, so that
+I could no longer be of much use to him, a fact
+which annoyed him greatly."</p>
+
+<p>"And he threatened you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. He was constantly doing so. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a>[<a href="./images/319.png">319</a>]</span>
+wanted me to go to New York. Enid helped
+me and gave me courage to defy him&mdash;which I
+did. Then he conceived a dastardly revenge by
+anonymously denouncing Le Pontois as a forger,
+and implicating both Enid and myself.
+He contrived that some money I brought from
+England should be exchanged for spurious
+notes, and these Paul unsuspiciously gave into
+the Cr&eacute;dit Lyonnais. Had it not been for your
+timely warning, Fetherston, we should both
+have also been arrested in France without a
+doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the other. "I was watching,
+and realised your peril, though I confess that
+my position was one of extreme difficulty. I, of
+course, did not know the actual truth, and, to
+be frank, I suspected both Enid and yourself of
+being implicated in some very serious crime."</p>
+
+<p>"So we were," he said in a low, hard voice.</p>
+
+<p>"True. But you have both been the means
+of revealing to the Treasury a state of things
+of which they never dreamed, and by turning
+King's evidence and giving the names and addresses
+of members of the gang in Brussels and
+Paris, all of whom are now under arrest, you
+have saved the country from considerable peril.
+Had the plot succeeded, a very serious state of
+things must have resulted, for the whole of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"></a>[<a href="./images/320.png">320</a>]</span>
+paper currency would have been suspected. For
+that reason the authorities have, I understand,
+now that they have arrested the gang and seized
+their presses, decided to hush up the whole matter."</p>
+
+<p>"You know this?" asked Sir Hugh, suddenly
+brightening.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Trendall told me so this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Thank Heaven!" he gasped, much
+relieved. "Then I can again face the world a
+free man. God knows how terribly I suffered
+through all those years of the war. I paid for
+my fault very dearly&mdash;I assure you, Fetherston."</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"></a>[<a href="./images/321.png">321</a>]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h4>CONCLUSION</h4>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">What</span> remains to be related is quickly told,
+though the public have, until now, been in ignorance
+of the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Out of evil a great good had come. At noon
+on the following day Trendall had an interview
+with Josef Blot, alias Weirmarsh, in his cell at
+Chelmsford, whither he had been conveyed by
+the police. What happened at that interview
+will never be known. It is safe to surmise, however,
+that the tragic letter of Harry Bellairs was
+shown to him&mdash;Enid having withdrawn her request
+that no use should be made of it. An hour
+after the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department
+had left, the prisoner was found lying
+stark dead, suffering from a scratch on the wrist,
+inflicted with a short, hollow needle which he had
+carried concealed behind the lapel of his coat.</p>
+
+<p>Greatly to the discomfiture of the gang, the
+man Granier and his servant Pietro were extradited
+to France for trial, while a quantity of
+jewellery, works of art, money and negotiable
+securities of all sorts were unearthed from a villa
+near Fontainebleau and restored to their owners.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"></a>[<a href="./images/322.png">322</a>]</span>
+A fortnight after Weirmarsh's death, at St.
+George's, Hanover Square, Enid Orlebar became
+the wife of Walter Fetherston, and among
+the guests at the wedding were a number of
+strange men in whose position or profession nobody
+pretended to be interested. Truth to tell,
+they were officials of various grades from Scotland
+Yard, surely the most welcome among the
+wedding guests.</p>
+
+<p>Though Walter and Enid live in idyllic happiness
+in a charming old ivy-grown manor house
+in Sussex, with level lawns and shady rose arbours,
+they still retain that old cottage at Idsworth,
+where a plausible excuse has been given
+to the country folk for "Mr. Maltwood" having
+been compelled to change his name. No pair in
+the whole of England are happier to-day.</p>
+
+<p>No man holds his wife more dear, or has a
+more loving and hopeful companion. Their life
+is one of perfect and abiding peace and of sweet
+content.</p>
+
+<p>Walter Fetherston is not by any means idle,
+for in his quiet country home he still writes those
+marvellous mystery stories which hold the world
+breathlessly enthralled, but he continues to devote
+half his time to combating the ingenuity
+of the greater criminals with all its attendant excitement
+and adventure, which are reflected in
+his popular romances.</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3>
+<p>Corrections which have been made are indicated by dotted lines under
+the corrections.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins class="err"
+title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Doctor of Pimlico, by William Le Queux
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Doctor of Pimlico, by William Le Queux
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Doctor of Pimlico
+       Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
+
+Author: William Le Queux
+
+Release Date: September 17, 2007 [EBook #22654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the booksmiths at
+http://www.eBookForge.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Enid Drew Back In Terror"
+
+(_The Doctor of Pimlico_)]
+
+
+THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO
+
+Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime
+
+BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers        New York
+
+Published by arrangement with The Macaulay Company
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1920,
+BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
+
+_Printed in the U. S. A._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                           PAGE
+     I. IN WHICH CERTAIN SUSPICIONS ARE EXCITED      9
+    II. THE COMING OF A STRANGER                    21
+   III. INTRODUCES DOCTOR WEIRMARSH                 32
+    IV. REVEALS TEMPTATION                          47
+     V. IN WHICH ENID ORLEBAR IS PUZZLED            56
+    VI. BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND                    66
+   VII. CONCERNING THE VELVET HAND                  78
+  VIII. PAUL LE PONTOIS                             88
+    IX. THE LITTLE OLD FRENCHWOMAN                  97
+     X. IF ANYONE KNEW                             107
+    XI. CONCERNS THE PAST                          114
+   XII. REVEALS A CURIOUS PROBLEM                  125
+  XIII. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MALTWOOD                134
+   XIV. WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN                 145
+    XV. THREE GENTLEMEN FROM PARIS                 157
+   XVI. THE ORDERS OF HIS EXCELLENCY               168
+  XVII. WALTER GIVES WARNING                       177
+ XVIII. THE ACCUSERS                               187
+   XIX. IN WHICH A TRUTH IS HIDDEN                 199
+    XX. IN WHICH A TRUTH IS TOLD                   207
+   XXI. THE WIDENED BREACH                         217
+  XXII. CONCERNING THE BELLAIRS AFFAIR             227
+ XXIII. THE SILENCE OF THE MAN BARKER              234
+  XXIV. WHAT THE DEAD MAN LEFT                     245
+   XXV. AT THE CAFE DE PARIS                       255
+  XXVI. WHICH IS "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL"        265
+ XXVII. THE RESULT OF INVESTIGATION                274
+XXVIII. THE SECRET OF THE LONELY HOUSE             285
+  XXIX. CONTAINS SOME STARTLING STATEMENTS         292
+   XXX. REVEALS A WOMAN'S LOVE                     303
+  XXXI. IN WHICH SIR HUGH TELLS HIS STORY          310
+ XXXII. CONCLUSION                                 321
+
+
+
+
+THE DOCTOR OF PIMLICO
+
+_Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+IN WHICH CERTAIN SUSPICIONS ARE EXCITED
+
+
+A GREY, sunless morning on the Firth of Tay.
+
+Across a wide, sandy waste stretching away to the misty sea at Budden,
+four men were walking. Two wore uniform--one an alert, grey-haired
+general, sharp and brusque in manner, with many war ribbons across his
+tunic; the other a tall, thin-faced staff captain, who wore the tartan of
+the Gordon Highlanders. With them were two civilians, both in rough
+shooting-jackets and breeches, one about forty-five, the other a few
+years his junior.
+
+"Can you see them, Fellowes?" asked the general of the long-legged
+captain, scanning the distant horizon with those sharp grey eyes which
+had carried him safely through many campaigns.
+
+"No, sir," replied the captain, who was carrying the other's mackintosh.
+"I fancy they must be farther over to the left, behind those low mounds
+yonder."
+
+"Haven't brought their battery into position yet, I suppose," snapped the
+old officer, as he swung along with the two civilians beside him.
+
+Fred Tredennick, the taller of the two civilians, walked with a gait
+decidedly military, for, indeed, he was a retired major, and as the
+general had made a tour of inspection of the camp prior to walking
+towards where the mountain battery was manoeuvring, he had been chatting
+with him upon technical matters.
+
+"I thought you'd like to see this mountain battery, Fetherston,"
+exclaimed the general, addressing the other civilian. "We have lots of
+them on the Indian frontier, of course, and there were many of ours in
+Italy and Serbia."
+
+"I'm delighted to come with you on this tour of inspection, General. As
+you know, I'm keenly interested in military affairs--and especially in
+the reorganisation of the Army after the war," replied Walter Fetherston,
+a dark, well-set-up man of forty, with a round, merry face and a pair of
+eyes which, behind their gold pince-nez, showed a good-humoured twinkle.
+
+Of the four men, General Sir Hugh Elcombe and Walter Fetherston were,
+perhaps, equally distinguished. The former, as all the world knows, had
+had a brilliant career in Afghanistan, in Egypt, Burmah, Tirah, the
+Transvaal, and in France, and now held an appointment as inspector of
+artillery.
+
+The latter was a man of entirely different stamp. As he spoke he
+gesticulated slightly, and no second glance was needed to realise that he
+was a thorough-going cosmopolitan.
+
+By many years of life on the Continent he had acquired a half-foreign
+appearance. Indeed, a keen observer would probably have noticed that his
+clothes had been cut by a foreign tailor, and that his boots, long,
+narrow and rather square-toed, bore the stamp of the Italian boot-maker.
+When he made any humorous remark he had the habit of slightly closing the
+left eye in order to emphasise it, while he usually walked with his left
+hand behind his back, and was hardly ever seen without a cigarette. Those
+cigarettes were one of his idiosyncrasies. They were delicious, of a
+brand unobtainable by the public, and made from tobacco grown in one of
+the Balkan States. With them he had, both before the war and after, been
+constantly supplied by a certain European sovereign whose personal friend
+he was. They bore the royal crown and cipher, but even to his most
+intimate acquaintance Walter Fetherston had never betrayed the reason
+why he was the recipient of so many favours from the monarch in question.
+
+Easy-going to a degree, full of open-hearted _bonhomie_, possessing an
+unruffled temper, and apparently without a single care in all the world,
+he seldom, if ever, spoke of himself. He never mentioned either his own
+doings or his friends'. He was essentially a mysterious man--a man of
+moods and of strong prejudices.
+
+More than one person who had met him casually had hinted that his
+substantial income was derived from sources that would not bear
+investigation--that he was mixed up with certain financial adventurers.
+Others declared that he was possessed of a considerable fortune that had
+been left him by an uncle who had been a dealer in precious stones in
+Hatton Garden. The truth was, however, that Walter Fetherston was a
+writer of popular novels, and from their sale alone he derived a handsome
+income.
+
+The mystery stories of Walter Fetherston were world-famous. Wherever the
+English language was spoken this shrewd-eyed, smiling man's books were
+read, while translations of them appeared as _feuilletons_ in various
+languages in the principal Continental journals. One could scarcely take
+up an English newspaper without seeing mention of his name, for he was
+one of the most popular authors of the day.
+
+It is a generally accepted axiom that a public man cannot afford to be
+modest in these go-ahead days of "boom." Yet Fetherston was one of the
+most retiring of men. English society had tried in vain to allure him--he
+courted no personal popularity. Beyond his quiet-spoken literary agent,
+who arranged his affairs and took financial responsibility from his
+shoulders, his publishers, and perhaps half a dozen intimate friends, he
+was scarcely recognised in his true character. Indeed, his whereabouts
+were seldom known save to his agent and his only brother, so elusive was
+he and so careful to establish a second self.
+
+He had never married. It was whispered that he had once had a serious
+affair of the heart abroad. But that was a matter of long ago.
+
+Shoals of invitations arrived at his London clubs each season, but they
+usually reached him in some out-of-the-world corner of Europe, and he
+would read them with a smile and cast them to the winds.
+
+He took the keenest delight in evading the world that pressed him. His
+curious hatred of his own popularity was to everyone a mystery. His
+intimate friends, of whom Fred Tredennick was one, had whispered that,
+in order to efface his identity, he was known in certain circles abroad
+by the name of Maltwood. This was quite true. In London he was a member
+of White's and the Devonshire as Fetherston. There was a reason why on
+the Continent and elsewhere he should pass as Mr. Maltwood, but his
+friends could never discover it, so carefully did he conceal it.
+
+Walter Fetherston was a writer of breathless mystery--but he was the
+essence of mystery himself. Once the reader took up a book of his he
+never laid it down until he had read the final chapter. You, my reader,
+have more than once found yourself beneath his strange spell. And what
+was the secret of his success? He had been asked by numberless
+interviewers, and to them all he had made the same stereotyped reply: "I
+live the mysteries I write."
+
+He seemed annoyed by his own success. Other writers suffered from that
+complaint known as "swelled head," but Walter Fetherston never. He lived
+mostly abroad in order to avoid the penalty which all the famous must
+pay, travelling constantly and known mostly by his assumed name of
+Maltwood.
+
+And behind all this some mystery lay. He was essentially a man of
+secrets.
+
+Some people declared that he had married ten years ago, and gave a
+circumstantial account of how he had wedded the daughter of a noble
+Spanish house, but that a month later she had been accidentally drowned
+in the Bay of Fontarabia, and that the tragedy had ever preyed upon his
+mind. But upon his feminine entanglements he was ever silent. He was a
+merry fellow, full of bright humour, and excellent company. But to the
+world he wore a mask that was impenetrable.
+
+At that moment he was shooting with his old friend Tredennick, who lived
+close to St. Fillans, on the picturesque Loch Earn, when the general,
+hearing of his presence in the neighbourhood, had sent him an invitation
+to accompany him on his inspection.
+
+Walter had accepted for one reason only. In the invitation the general
+had remarked that he and his stepdaughter Enid were staying at the
+Panmure Hotel at Monifieth--so well known to golfers--and that after the
+inspection he hoped they would lunch together.
+
+Now, Walter had met Enid Orlebar six months before at Biarritz, where she
+had been nursing at the Croix Rouge Hospital in the Hotel du Palais, and
+the memory of that meeting had lingered with him. He had long desired to
+see her again, for her pale beauty had somehow attracted him--attracted
+him in a manner that no woman's face had ever attracted him before.
+
+Hitherto he had held cynical notions concerning love and matrimony, but
+ever since he had met Enid Orlebar in that winter hotel beside the sea,
+and had afterwards discovered her to be stepdaughter of Sir Hugh Elcombe,
+he had found himself reflecting upon his own loneliness.
+
+At luncheon he was to come face to face with her again. It was of this he
+was thinking more than of the merits of mountain batteries or the
+difficulties of limbering or unlimbering.
+
+"See! there they are!" exclaimed the general, suddenly pointing with his
+gloved hand.
+
+Fetherston strained his eyes towards the horizon, but declared that he
+could detect nothing.
+
+"They're lying behind that rising ground to the left of the magazine
+yonder," declared the general, whose keen vision had so often served him
+in good stead. Then, turning on his heel and scanning the grey horizon
+seaward, he added: "They're going to fire out on to the Gaa between those
+two lighthouses on Buddon Ness. By Jove!" he laughed, "the men in them
+will get a bit of a shock."
+
+"I shouldn't care much to be there, sir," remarked Tredennick.
+
+"No," laughed the general. "But really there's no danger--except that
+we're just in the line of their fire."
+
+So they struck off to the left and approached the position by a
+circuitous route, being greeted by the colonel and other officers, to
+whom the visit of Sir Hugh Elcombe had been a considerable surprise.
+
+The serviceable-looking guns were already mounted and in position, the
+range had been found; the reserves, the ponies and the pipers were lying
+concealed in a depression close at hand when they arrived.
+
+The general, after a swift glance around, stood with legs apart and arms
+folded to watch, while Fetherston and Tredennick, with field-glasses, had
+halted a little distance away.
+
+A sharp word of command was given, when next instant the first gun boomed
+forth, and a shell went screaming through the air towards the low range
+of sand-hills in the distance.
+
+The general grunted. He was a man of few words, but a typical British
+officer of the type which has made the Empire and won the war against the
+Huns. He glanced at the watch upon his wrist, adjusted his monocle, and
+said something in an undertone to the captain.
+
+The firing proceeded, while Fetherston, his ears dulled by the constant
+roar, watched the bursting shells with interest.
+
+"I wonder what the lighthouse men think of it now?" he laughed, turning
+to his friend. "A misdirected shot would send them quickly to kingdom
+come!"
+
+Time after time the range was increased, until, at last, the shells were
+dropped just at the spot intended. As each left the gun it shrieked
+overhead, while the flash could be seen long before the report reached
+the ear.
+
+"We'll see in a few moments how quickly they can get away," the general
+said, as he approached Fetherston.
+
+Then the order was given to cease fire. Words of command sounded, and
+were repeated in the rear, where ponies and men lay hidden. The guns were
+run back under cover, and with lightning rapidity dismounted, taken to
+pieces, and loaded upon the backs of the ponies, together with the
+leather ammunition cases--which looked like men's suit cases--and other
+impedimenta.
+
+The order was given to march, and, headed by the pipers, who commenced
+their inspiring skirl to the beat of the drums, they moved away over the
+rough, broken ground, the general standing astraddle and watching it all
+through his monocle with critical eye, and keeping up a fire of sarcastic
+comment directed at the colonel.
+
+"Why!" he cried sharply in his low, strident voice, "what's that bay
+there? Too weak for the work--no good. You want better stuff than that.
+An axle yonder not packed properly! . . . And look at that black
+pony--came out of a governess-cart, I should think! . . . Hey, you man
+there, you don't want to hang on that pack! Men get lazy and want the
+pony to help them along. And you----" he cried, as a pony, heavily laden
+with part of a gun, came down an almost perpendicular incline. "Let that
+animal find his way down alone. Do you hear?"
+
+Then, after much manoeuvring, he caused them to take up another position,
+unlimber their guns, and fire.
+
+When this had been accomplished he called the officers together and, his
+monocle in his eye, severely criticised their performance, declaring that
+they had exposed themselves so fully to the enemy that ere they had had
+time to fire they would have been shelled out of their position.
+
+The spare ammunition was exposed all over the place, some of the reserves
+were not under cover, and the battery commander so exposed himself that
+he'd have been a dead man before the first shot. "You must do better than
+this--much better. That's all."
+
+Then the four walked across to the Panmure Hotel at Monifieth.
+
+Walter Fetherston held his breath. His lips were pressed tightly
+together, his brows contracted. He was again to meet Enid Orlebar.
+
+He shot a covert glance at the general walking at his side. In his eyes
+showed an unusual expression, half of suspicion, half of curiosity.
+
+Next instant, however, it had vanished, and he laughed loudly at a story
+Tredennick was telling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE COMING OF A STRANGER
+
+
+ENID was standing on the steps of the hotel when the men arrived.
+
+For a second Walter glanced into her splendid eyes, and then bowed over
+her hand in his foreign way, a murmured expression of pleasure escaping
+his lips.
+
+About twenty-two, tall and slim, she presented a complete and typical
+picture of the outdoor girl, dressed as she was in a grey jumper trimmed
+with purple, a short golfing skirt, her tweed hat to match trimmed with
+the feathers of a cock pheasant.
+
+Essentially a sportswoman, she could handle gun or rod, ride to hounds,
+or drive a motor-car with equal skill, and as stepdaughter of Sir Hugh
+she had had experience on the Indian frontier and in Egypt.
+
+Her father had been British Minister at the Hague, and afterwards at
+Stockholm, but after his death her mother had married Sir Hugh, and had
+become Lady Elcombe. Nowadays, however, the latter was somewhat of an
+invalid, and seldom left their London house in Hill Street. Therefore,
+Enid was usually chaperoned by Mrs. Caldwell, wife of the well-known
+K.C., and with her she generally spent her winters on the Continent.
+
+Blanche, Sir Hugh's daughter by his first wife, had married Paul Le
+Pontois, who had been a captain in the 114th Regiment of Artillery of the
+French Army during the war, and lived with her husband in France. She
+seldom came to England, though at frequent intervals her father went over
+to visit her.
+
+When Walter Fetherston took his seat beside Enid Orlebar at the luncheon
+table a flood of strange recollections crowded upon his mind--those walks
+along the Miramar, that excursion to Pampeluna, and those curious facts
+which she had unwittingly revealed to him in the course of their
+confidential chats. He remembered their leave-taking, and how, as he had
+sat in the _rapide_ for Paris, he had made a solemn vow never again to
+set eyes upon her.
+
+There was a reason why he should not--a strong but mysterious reason.
+
+Yet he had come there of his own will to meet her again--drawn there
+irresistibly by some unseen influence which she possessed.
+
+Was it her beauty that had attracted him? Yes--he was compelled to admit
+that it was. As a rule he avoided the society of women. To his intimates
+he had laid down the maxim: "Don't marry; keep a dog if you want a
+faithful companion." And yet he was once again at the side of this
+fair-faced woman.
+
+None around the table were aware of their previous meeting, and all were
+too busy chattering to notice the covert glances which he shot at her. He
+was noting her great beauty, sitting there entranced by it--he, the man
+of double personality, who, under an assumed name, lived that gay life of
+the Continent, known in society in twenty different cities, and yet in
+England practically unknown in his real self.
+
+Yes, Enid Orlebar was beautiful. Surely there could be few fairer women
+than she in this our land of fair women!
+
+Turning upon him, she smiled gaily as she asked whether he had been
+interested in seeing a mountain battery at work.
+
+Her fresh face, betraying, as it did, her love of a free, open-air life,
+was one of those strangely mysterious countenances met only once in a
+lifetime. It seemed to be the quintessence of pain and passion, conflict
+and agony, desire and despair. She was not one of those befrilled,
+fashion-plate dolls that one meets at the after-war crushes and dances,
+but was austerely simple in dress, with a face which betrayed a spiritual
+nobility, the very incarnation of modern womanhood, alive with modern
+self-knowledge, modern weariness and modern sadness.
+
+Her beautiful hair, worn plain and smooth, was black as night--wonderful
+hair. But still more wonderful were those great, dark, velvety eyes, deep
+and unfathomable. In them the tragedy of life was tumultuously visible,
+yet they were serene, self-possessed, even steady in their quiet
+simplicity. To describe her features is not an easy task. They were
+clear-cut, with a purity of the lines of the nose and brow seldom seen in
+a woman's face, dark, well-arched eyebrows, a pretty mouth which had just
+escaped extreme sensuousness. Cheeks soft and delicately moulded, a chin
+pointed, a skin remarkable for its fineness and its clear pallor, the
+whole aspect of her face being that of sweetness combined with nobility
+and majesty. In it there was no dominant expression, for it seemed to be
+a mask waiting to be stirred into life.
+
+Fetherston had known Sir Hugh slightly for several years, but as Enid had
+been so much abroad with Mrs. Caldwell, he had never met her until that
+accidental encounter in Biarritz.
+
+"We've been up here six weeks," she was telling Fetherston. "Father
+always gets a lot of golf up here, you know, and I'm rather fond of it."
+
+"I fear I'm too much of a foreigner nowadays to appreciate the game,"
+Walter laughed. "Last season some Italians in Rome formed a club--the
+usual set of ultra-smart young counts and marquises--but when they found
+that it entailed the indignity of walking several miles they declared it
+to be a game only fit for the populace, and at once disbanded the
+association."
+
+The men were discussing the work of the battery, for four of the officers
+had been invited, and the point raised was the range of mountain guns.
+
+Walter Fetherston glanced at the general through his pince-nez with a
+curious expression, but he did not join in the conversation.
+
+Enid's eyes met his, and the pair exchanged curiously significant
+glances.
+
+He bent to pick up his serviette, and in doing so he whispered to her: "I
+must see you outside for a moment before I go. Go out, and I'll join
+you."
+
+Therefore, when the meal had concluded, the girl went forth into the
+secluded garden at the rear of the hotel, where in a few moments the man
+joined her at a spot where they could not be overlooked.
+
+She turned towards him, separate, remote, incongruous, her dark eyes
+showing an angry flash in them.
+
+"Why have you come here?" she demanded with indignation. The whole aspect
+of her face was tragic.
+
+"To see you again," was his brief reply. "Before we parted at Biarritz
+you lied to me," he added in a hard tone.
+
+She held her breath, staring straight into his eyes.
+
+"I--I don't understand you!" she stammered. "You are here to torment--to
+persecute me!"
+
+"I asked you a question, Enid, but in response you told me a deliberate
+lie. Think--recall that circumstance, and tell me the truth," he said
+very quietly.
+
+She was silent for a moment. Then, with her mouth drawn to hardness, she
+replied: "Yes, it is true--I lied to you, just as you have lied to me.
+Remember what you told me that moonlit night when we walked by the sea
+towards the Grotto of Love. I was a fool to have believed in you--to have
+trusted you as I did! You left me, and, though I wrote time after time
+to your club, you refused to send me a single line."
+
+"Because--because, Enid, I dared not," replied her companion.
+
+"Why not?" she demanded quickly. "You told me that you loved me, yet--yet
+your own actions have shown that you lied to me!"
+
+"No," he protested in a low, earnest, hoarse voice; "I told you the
+truth, Enid, but----"
+
+"But what?" she interrupted in quickly earnestness.
+
+"Well," he replied after a brief pause, "the fact is that I am compelled
+to wear a mask, even to you, the woman I love. I cannot tell you the
+truth--I cannot, dearest, for your own sake."
+
+"And you expect me to believe this lame story--eh?" she laughed. She was
+pale and fragile, yet she seemed to expand and to dilate with force and
+energy.
+
+"Enid," he answered in a low voice, with honesty in his eyes, "I would
+rather sacrifice my great love for you than betray the trust I hold most
+sacred. So great is my love for you, rather would I never look upon your
+dear face again than reveal to you the tragic truth and bring upon you
+unhappiness and despair."
+
+"Walter," she replied in a trembling voice, looking straight into his
+countenance with those wonderful dark eyes wherein her soul brimmed over
+with weary emotion and fatigued passion, "I repeat all that I told you on
+that calm night beside the sea. I love you; I think of you day by day,
+hour by hour. But you have lied to me, and therefore I hate myself for
+having so foolishly placed my trust in you."
+
+He had resolved to preserve his great secret--a secret that none should
+know.
+
+"Very well," he sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "These recriminations
+are really all useless. Ah, if you only knew the truth, Enid! If I only
+dared to reveal to you the hideous facts. But I refuse--they are too
+tragic, too terrible. Better that we should part now, and that you should
+remain in ignorance--better by far, for you. You believe that I am
+deceiving you. Well, I'm frank and admit that I am; but it is with a
+distinct purpose--for your own sake."
+
+He held forth his hand, and slowly she took it. In silence he bowed over
+it, his lips compressed; then, turning upon his heel, he went down the
+gravelled walk back to the hotel, which, some ten minutes later, he left
+with Fred Tredennick, catching the train back to Dundee and on to Perth.
+
+He was in no way a man to wear his heart upon his sleeve, therefore he
+chatted gaily with his friend and listened to Fred's extravagant
+admiration of Enid's beauty. He congratulated himself that his old friend
+was in ignorance of the truth.
+
+A curious incident occurred at the hotel that same evening, however,
+which, had Walter been aware of it, would probably have caused him
+considerable uneasiness and alarm. Just before seven o'clock a tall,
+rather thin, middle-aged, narrow-eyed man, dressed in dark grey tweeds,
+entered the hall of the hotel and inquired for Henry, the head waiter. He
+was well dressed and bore an almost professional air.
+
+The white-headed old man quickly appeared, when the stranger, whose
+moustache was carefully trimmed and who wore a ruby ring upon his white
+hand, made an anxious inquiry whether Fetherston, whom he minutely
+described, had been there that day. At first the head waiter hesitated
+and was uncommunicative, but, the stranger having uttered a few low
+words, Henry's manner instantly changed. He started, looked in wonder
+into the stranger's face, and, taking him into the smoking-room--at that
+moment unoccupied--he allowed himself to be closely questioned regarding
+the general and his stepdaughter, as well as the man who had that day
+been their guest. The stranger was a man of quick actions, and his
+inquiries were sharp and to the point.
+
+"You say that Mr. Fetherston met the young lady outside after luncheon,
+and they had an argument in secret, eh?" asked the stranger.
+
+Henry replied in the affirmative, declaring that he unfortunately could
+not overhear the subject under discussion. But he believed the pair had
+quarrelled.
+
+"And where has Mr. Fetherston gone?" asked his keen-eyed questioner.
+
+"He is, I believe, the guest of Major Tredennick, who lives on the other
+side of Perthshire at Invermay on Loch Earn."
+
+"And the young lady goes back to Hill Street with her stepfather, eh?"
+
+"On Wednesday."
+
+"Good!" was the stranger's reply. Then, thanking the head waiter for the
+information in a sharp, businesslike voice, and handing him five
+shillings, he took train back from Monifieth to Dundee, and went direct
+to the chief post-office.
+
+From there he dispatched a carefully constructed cipher telegram to an
+address in the Boulevard Anspach, in Brussels, afterwards lighting an
+excellent cigar and strolling along the busy street with an air of
+supreme self-satisfaction.
+
+"If this man, Fetherston, has discovered the truth, as I fear he has
+done," the hard-faced man muttered to himself, "then by his action to-day
+he has sealed his own doom!--and Enid Orlebar herself will silence him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+INTRODUCES DOCTOR WEIRMARSH
+
+
+THREE days had elapsed.
+
+In the dingy back room of a dull, drab house in the Vauxhall Bridge Road,
+close to Victoria Station in London, the narrow-eyed man who had so
+closely questioned old Henry at the Panmure Hotel, sat at an old mahogany
+writing-table reading a long letter written upon thin foreign notepaper.
+
+The incandescent gas-lamp shed a cold glare across the room. On one side
+of the smoke-grimed apartment was a shabby leather couch, on the other
+side a long nest of drawers, while beside the fireplace was an expanding
+gas-bracket placed in such a position that it could be used to examine
+anyone seated in the big arm-chair. Pervading the dingy apartment was a
+faint smell of carbolic, for it was a consulting-room, and the man so
+intent upon the letter was Dr. Weirmarsh, the hard-working practitioner
+so well known among the lower classes in Pimlico.
+
+Those who pass along the Vauxhall Bridge Road know well that house with
+its curtains yellow with smoke--the one which stands back behind a small
+strip of smoke-begrimed garden. Over the gate is a red lamp, and upon the
+railings a brass plate with the name: "Mr. Weirmarsh, Surgeon."
+
+About three years previously he had bought the practice from old Dr.
+Bland, but he lived alone, a silent and unsociable man, with a deaf old
+housekeeper, although he had achieved a considerable reputation among his
+patients in the neighbouring by-streets. But his practice was not wholly
+confined to the poorer classes, for he was often consulted by
+well-dressed members of the foreign colony--on account, probably, of his
+linguistic attainments. A foreigner with an imperfect knowledge of
+English naturally prefers a doctor to whom he can speak in his own
+tongue. Therefore, as Weirmarsh spoke French, Italian and Spanish with
+equal fluency, it was not surprising that he had formed quite a large
+practice among foreign residents.
+
+His appearance, however, was the reverse of prepossessing, and his
+movements were often most erratic. About his aquiline face was a shrewd
+and distrustful expression, while his keen, dark eyes, too narrowly set,
+were curiously shifty and searching. When absent, as he often was, a
+young fellow named Shipley acted as locum tenens, but so eccentric was
+he that even Shipley knew nothing of the engagements which took him from
+home so frequently.
+
+George Weirmarsh was a man of few friends and fewer words. He lived for
+himself alone, devoting himself assiduously to his practice, and doing
+much painstaking writing at the table whereat he now sat, or else, when
+absent, travelling swiftly with aims that were ever mysterious.
+
+He had had a dozen or so patients that evening, but the last had gone,
+and he had settled himself to read the letter which had arrived when his
+little waiting-room had been full of people.
+
+As he read he made scribbled notes on a piece of paper upon his
+blotting-pad, his thin, white hand, delicate as a woman's, bearing that
+splendid ruby ring, his one possession in which he took a pride.
+
+"Ah!" he remarked to himself in a hard tone of sarcasm, "what fools the
+shrewdest of men are sometimes over a woman! So at last he's fallen--like
+the others--and the secret will be mine. Most excellent! After all, every
+man has one weak point in his armour, and I was not mistaken."
+
+Then he paused, and, leaning his chin upon his hand, looked straight
+before him, deep in reflection.
+
+"I have few fears--very few," he remarked to himself, "but the greatest
+is of Walter Fetherston. What does he know?--that's the chief question.
+If he has discovered the truth--if he knows my real name and who I
+am--then the game's up, and my best course is to leave England. And yet
+there is another way," he went on, speaking slowly to himself--"to close
+his lips. Dead men tell no tales."
+
+He sat for a long time, his narrow-set eyes staring into space,
+contemplating a crime. As a medical man, he knew a dozen ingenious ways
+by which Walter Fetherston might be sent to his grave in circumstances
+that would appear perfectly natural. His gaze at last wandered to the
+book-case opposite, and became centred upon a thick, brown-covered, dirty
+volume by a writer named Taylor. That book contained much that might be
+of interest to him in the near future.
+
+Of a sudden the handle of the door turned, and Mrs. Kelsey, the old
+housekeeper, in rusty black, admitted Enid Orlebar without the ceremony
+of asking permission to enter.
+
+The girl was dressed in a pearl grey and pink sports coat, with a large
+black hat, and carried a silver chain handbag. Around her throat was a
+white feather boa, while her features were half concealed by the veil she
+wore.
+
+"Ah, my dear young lady," cried Weirmarsh, rising quickly and greeting
+her, while next moment he turned to his table and hastily concealed the
+foreign letter and notes, "I had quite forgotten that you were to consult
+me. Pray forgive me."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," the beautiful girl replied in a low,
+colourless voice, when the housekeeper had disappeared, and she had
+seated herself in the big leather arm-chair in which so many patients
+daily sat. "You ordered me to come here to you, and I have come."
+
+"Against your will, eh?" he asked slowly, with a strange look in his keen
+eyes.
+
+"I am perfectly well now. I do not see why my stepfather should betray
+such anxiety on my account."
+
+"The general is greatly concerned about you," Weirmarsh said, seated
+cross-legged at his writing-chair, toying with his pen and looking into
+the girl's handsome face.
+
+"He wished me to see you. That is why I wrote to you."
+
+"Well," she said, wavering beneath his sharp glance, "I am here. What do
+you wish?"
+
+"I wish to have a little private talk with you, Miss Enid," he replied
+thoughtfully, stroking his small greyish moustache, "a talk concerning
+your own welfare."
+
+"But I am not ill," she cried. "I don't see why you should desire me to
+come to you to-night."
+
+"I have my own reasons, my dear young lady," was the man's firm response,
+his eyes fixed immovably upon hers. "And I think you know me well enough
+to be aware that when Dr. Weirmarsh sets his mind upon a thing he is not
+easily turned aside."
+
+A slight, almost imperceptible, shudder ran through her. But Weirmarsh
+detected it, and knew that this girl of extraordinary and mysterious
+charm was as wax in his hands. In the presence of the man who had cast
+such a strange spell about her she was utterly helpless. There was no
+suggestion of hypnotism--she herself scouted the idea--yet ever since Sir
+Hugh had taken her to consult this man of medicine at a small suburban
+villa, five years ago, he had entered her life never again to leave it.
+
+She realised herself irresistibly in his power whenever she felt his
+presence near her. At his bidding she came and went, and against her
+better nature she acted as he commanded.
+
+He had cured her of an attack of nerves five years ago, but she had ever
+since been beneath his hated thraldom. His very eyes fascinated her with
+their sinister expression, yet to her he could do no wrong.
+
+A thousand times she had endeavoured to break free from that strong but
+unseen influence, but she always became weak and easily led as soon as
+she fell beneath the extraordinary power which the obscure doctor
+possessed. Time after time he called her to his side, as on this
+occasion, on pretence of prescribing for her, and yet with an ulterior
+motive. Enid Orlebar was a useful tool in the hands of this man who was
+so unscrupulous.
+
+She sighed, passing her gloved hand wearily across her hot brow. Strange
+how curiously his presence always affected her!
+
+She had read in books of the mysteries of hypnotic suggestion, but she
+was far too practical to believe in that. This was not hypnotism, she
+often declared within herself, but some remarkable and unknown power
+possessed by this man who, beneath the guise of the hard-working surgeon,
+was engaged in schemes of remarkable ingenuity and wondrous magnitude.
+
+He held her in the palm of his hand. He held her for life--or for death.
+
+To her stepfather she had, times without number, expressed fear and
+horror of the sharp-eyed doctor, but Sir Hugh had only laughed at her
+fears and dismissed them as ridiculous. Dr. Weirmarsh was the general's
+friend.
+
+Enid knew that there was some close association between the pair, but of
+its nature she was in complete ignorance. Often the doctor came to Hill
+Street and sat for long periods with the general in that small, cosy room
+which was his den. That they were business interviews there was no doubt,
+but the nature of the business was ever a mystery.
+
+"I see by your face that, though there is a great improvement in you, you
+are, nevertheless, far from well," the man said, his eyes still fixed
+upon her pale countenance.
+
+"Dr. Weirmarsh," she protested, "this constant declaration that I am ill
+is awful. I tell you I am quite as well as you are yourself."
+
+"Ah! there, I'm afraid, you are mistaken, my dear young lady," he
+replied. "You may feel well, but you are not in quite such good health as
+you imagine. The general is greatly concerned about you, and for that
+reason I wished to see you to-night," he added with a smile as, bending
+towards her, he asked her to remove her glove.
+
+He took her wrist, holding his stop-watch in his other hand. "Hum!" he
+grunted, "just as I expected. You're a trifle low--a little run down. You
+want a change."
+
+"But we only returned from Scotland yesterday!" she cried.
+
+"The North does not suit such an exotic plant as yourself," he said. "Go
+South--the Riviera, Spain, Italy, or Egypt."
+
+"I go with Mrs. Caldwell at the end of November."
+
+"No," he said decisively, "you must go now."
+
+"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes in astonishment at his dictatorial
+manner.
+
+"Because----" and he hesitated, still gazing upon her with those
+strangely sinister eyes of his. "Well, Miss Enid, because a complete
+change will be beneficial to you in more ways than one," he replied with
+an air of mystery.
+
+"I don't understand you," she declared.
+
+"Probably not," he laughed, with that cynical air which so irritated her.
+She hated herself for coming to that detestable house of grim silence;
+yet his word to her was a command which she felt impelled by some strange
+force to fulfil with child-like obedience. "But I assure you I am
+advising you for your own benefit, my dear young lady."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Shall I speak plainly?" asked the man in whose power she was. "Will you
+forgive me if I so far intrude myself upon your private affairs as to
+give you a few words of advice?"
+
+"Thank you, Dr. Weirmarsh, but I cannot see that my private affairs are
+any concern of yours," she replied with some hauteur. How often had she
+endeavoured in vain to break those invisible shackles?
+
+"I am a very sincere friend of your stepfather, and I hope a sincere
+friend of yours also," he said with perfect coolness. "It is because of
+this I presume to advise you--but, of course----" And he hesitated,
+without concluding his sentence. His eyes were again fixed upon her as
+though gauging accurately the extent of his influence upon her.
+
+"And what do you advise, pray?" she asked, "It seems that you have called
+me to you to-night in order to intrude upon my private affairs," she
+added, with her eyes flashing resentment.
+
+"Well--yes, Miss Enid," he answered, his manner changing slightly. "The
+fact is, I wish to warn you against what must inevitably bring disaster
+both upon yourself and your family."
+
+"Disaster?" she echoed. "I don't follow you."
+
+"Then let me speak a little more plainly," he replied, his strange,
+close-set eyes staring into hers until she quivered beneath his cold,
+hard gaze. "You have recently become acquainted with Walter Fetherston.
+You met him at Biarritz six months ago, and on Monday last he lunched
+with you up at Monifieth. After luncheon you met him in the garden of the
+hotel, and----"
+
+"How do you know all this?" she gasped, startled, yet fascinated by his
+gaze.
+
+"My dear young lady," he laughed, "it is my business to know certain
+things--that is one of them."
+
+She held her breath for a moment.
+
+"And pray how does that concern you? What interest have you in my
+acquaintances?"
+
+"A very keen one," was the prompt reply. "That man is dangerous to
+you--and to your family. The reason why I have asked you here to-night is
+to tell you that you must never meet him again. If you value your life,
+and that of your mother and her husband, avoid him as you would some
+venomous reptile. He is your most deadly enemy."
+
+The girl was silent for a moment. Her great, dark eyes were fixed upon
+the threadbare carpet. What he told her was disconcerting, yet, knowing
+instinctively, as she did, how passionately Walter loved her, she could
+not bring herself to believe that he was really her enemy.
+
+"No, Dr. Weirmarsh," she replied, raising her eyes again to his, "you are
+quite mistaken. I know Walter Fetherston better than you. Your allegation
+is false. You have told me this because--because you have some motive in
+parting us."
+
+"Yes," he said frankly, "I have--_a strong motive_."
+
+"You do not conceal it?"
+
+"No," he answered. "Were I a younger man you might, perhaps, accuse me of
+scheming to wriggle myself into your good graces, Miss Enid. But I am
+getting old, and, moreover, I'm a confirmed bachelor, therefore you
+cannot, I think, accuse me of such ulterior motives. No, I only point out
+this peril for your family's sake--and your own."
+
+"Is Mr. Fetherston such an evil genius, then?" she asked. "The world
+knows him as a writer of strictly moral, if exciting, books."
+
+"The books are one thing--the man himself another. Some men reflect their
+own souls in their works, others write but canting hypocrisy. It is so
+with Walter Fetherston--the man who has a dual personality and whose
+private life will not bear the light of publicity."
+
+"You wish to prejudice me against him, eh?" she said in a hard tone.
+
+"I merely wish to advise you for your good, my dear young lady," he said.
+"It is not for me, your medical man, to presume to dictate to you, I
+know. But the general is my dear friend, therefore I feel it my duty to
+reveal to you the bitter truth."
+
+Thoughts of Walter Fetherston, the man in whose eyes had shone the light
+of true honesty when he spoke, arose within her. She was well aware of
+all the curious gossip concerning the popular writer, whose
+eccentricities were so frequently hinted at in the gossipy newspapers,
+but she was convinced that she knew the real Fetherston behind the mask
+he so constantly wore.
+
+This man before her was deceiving her. He had some sinister motive in
+thus endeavouring to plant seeds of suspicion within her mind. It was
+plain that he was endeavouring in some way to secure his own ends. Those
+ends, however, were a complete and inexplicable mystery.
+
+"I cannot see that my friendship for Mr. Fetherston can have any interest
+for you," she replied. "Let us talk of something else."
+
+"But it has," he persisted. "You must never meet that man again--you
+hear! never--otherwise you will discover to your cost that my serious
+warning has a foundation only too solid; that he is your bitterest enemy
+posing as your most affectionate friend."
+
+"I don't believe you, Dr. Weirmarsh!" she cried resentfully, springing to
+her feet. "I'll never believe you!"
+
+"My dear young lady," the man exclaimed, "you are really quite unnerved
+to-night. The general was quite right. I will mix you a draught like the
+one you had before--perfectly innocuous--something to soothe those
+unstrung nerves of yours." And beneath his breath, as his cruel eyes
+twinkled, he added: "Something to bring reason to those warped and
+excited senses--something to sow within you suspicion and hatred of
+Walter Fetherston."
+
+Then aloud he added, as he sprang to his feet: "Excuse me for a moment
+while I go and dispense it. I'll be back in a few seconds."
+
+He left the room when, quick as lightning, Enid stretched forth her hand
+to the drawer of the writing-table into which she had seen the doctor
+toss the foreign letter he had been reading when she entered.
+
+She drew it out, and scanned eagerly a dozen or so of the closely-written
+lines in Spanish.
+
+Then she replaced it with trembling fingers, and, closing the drawer, sat
+staring straight before her--dumbfounded, rigid.
+
+What was the mystery?
+
+By the knowledge she had obtained she became forearmed--even defiant. In
+the light of that astounding discovery, she now read the mysterious Dr.
+Weirmarsh as she would an open book. She held her breath, and an
+expression of hatred escaped her lips.
+
+When, a moment later, he brought her a pale-yellow draught in a graduated
+glass, she took it from his hand, and, drawing herself up in defiance,
+flung its contents behind her into the fireplace. She believed that at
+last she had conquered that strangely evil influence which, emanating
+from this obscure practitioner, had fallen upon her.
+
+But the man only shrugged his shoulders and, turning from her, laughed
+unconcernedly. He knew that he held her in bonds stronger than steel,
+that his will was hers--for good or for evil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+REVEALS TEMPTATION
+
+
+"I TELL you it can't be done--the risk is far too great!" declared Sir
+Hugh Elcombe, standing with his back to the fireplace in his cosy little
+den in Hill Street at noon next day.
+
+"It must be done," answered Dr. Weirmarsh, who sat in the deep green
+leather arm-chair, with the tips of his fingers placed together.
+
+The general glanced suspiciously at the door to reassure himself that it
+was closed.
+
+"You ask too much," he said. Then, in a decisive voice, while his fingers
+toyed nervously with his monocle, he added, "I have resolved to end it
+once and for all."
+
+The doctor looked at him with a strange expression in those cold, keen
+eyes of his and smiled, "I fear, Sir Hugh, that if you attempt to carry
+out such a decision you will find insuperable difficulties," he said
+quietly.
+
+"I desire no good advice from you, Weirmarsh," the old general snapped.
+"I fully realise my position. You have cornered me--cut off my
+retreat--so I have placed my back against the wall."
+
+"Good! And how will such an attitude benefit you, pray?"
+
+"Understand, I am in no mood to be taunted by you!" the old man cried,
+with an angry flash in his eyes. "You very cleverly enticed me into the
+net, and now you are closing it about me."
+
+"My dear Sir Hugh," replied the doctor, "ours was a mere business
+transaction, surely. Carry your thoughts back to six years ago. After
+your brilliant military career you returned from India and found
+yourself, as so many of your profession find themselves, in very
+straitened circumstances. You were bound to keep up appearances, and, in
+order to do so, got into the hands of Eli Moser, the moneylender. You
+married Lady Orlebar, and had entered London society when, of a sudden,
+the scoundrelly usurer began to put the screw upon you. At that moment
+you--luckily, I think, for yourself--met me, and--well, I was your
+salvation, for I pointed out to you an easy way by which to pay your
+creditors and rearrange your affairs upon a sound financial basis.
+Indeed, I did it for you. I saved you from the moneylender. Did I not?"
+
+He spoke in a calm, even tone, without once removing his eyes from the
+man who stood upon the hearthrug with bent head and folded arms.
+
+"I know, Weirmarsh. It's true that you saved me from bankruptcy--but
+think what penalty I have paid by accepting your terms," he answered in a
+low, broken voice. "The devil tempted me, and I fell into your damnable
+net."
+
+"I hardly think it necessary for you to put it that way," replied the
+doctor without the least sign of annoyance. "I showed you how you could
+secure quite a comfortable income, and you readily enough adopted my
+suggestion."
+
+"Readily!" echoed the fine-looking old soldier. "Ah! you don't know what
+my decision cost me--it has cost me my very life."
+
+"Nonsense, man," laughed the doctor scornfully. "You got out of the hands
+of the Jews, and ever since that day you haven't had five minutes' worry
+over your finances. I promised you I would provide you with an ample
+income, and----"
+
+"And you've done so, Weirmarsh," cried the old general; "an income far
+greater than I expected. Yet what do I deserve?"
+
+"My dear General," said the doctor quite calmly, "you're not yourself
+to-day; suffering from a slight attack of remorse, eh? It's a bad
+complaint; I've had it, and I know. But it's like the measles--you're
+very nearly certain to contract it once in a lifetime."
+
+"Have you no pity for me?" snarled Sir Hugh, glaring at the narrow-eyed
+man seated before him. "Don't you realise that by this last demand of
+yours you've driven me into a corner?"
+
+Weirmarsh's brows contracted slightly, and he shot an evil glance at the
+man before him--the man who was his victim. "But you must do it. You
+still want money--and lots of it, don't you?" he said in a low, decisive
+voice.
+
+"I refuse, I tell you!" cried Sir Hugh angrily.
+
+"Hush! Someone may overhear," the doctor said. "Is Enid at home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I saw her last night, as you wished. She is not well. Her nerves are
+still in an extremely weak state," Weirmarsh said, in order to change the
+topic of conversation. "I think you should send her abroad out of the
+way--to the South somewhere."
+
+"So she told me. I shall try and get Mrs. Caldwell to take her to
+Sicily--if you consider the air would be beneficial."
+
+"Excellent--Palermo or Taormina--send the girl there as soon as ever you
+can. She seems unstrung, and may get worse; a change will certainly do
+her good," replied the man whose craft and cunning were unequalled. "I
+know," he added reflectively, "that Enid dislikes me--why, I can never
+make out."
+
+"Instinct, I suppose, Weirmarsh," was the old man's reply. "She suspects
+that you hold me in your power, as you undoubtedly do."
+
+"Now that is really a most silly idea of yours, Sir Hugh. Do get rid of
+it. Such a thought pains me to a great degree," declared the crafty-eyed
+man. "For these past years I have provided you with a good income,
+enabling you to keep up your position in the world, instead of--well,
+perhaps shivering on the Embankment at night and partaking of the
+hospitality of the charitably disposed. Yet you upbraid me as though I
+had treated you shabbily!" He spoke with an irritating air of
+superiority, for he knew that this man who occupied such a high position,
+who was an intimate friend and confidant of the Minister of War, and
+universally respected throughout the country, was but a tool in his
+unscrupulous hands.
+
+"You ask me too much," exclaimed the grey-moustached officer in a hard,
+low voice.
+
+"The request does not emanate from me," was the doctor's reply; "I am
+but the mouthpiece."
+
+"Yes, the mouthpiece--but the eyes and ears also, Weirmarsh," replied Sir
+Hugh. "You bought me, body and soul, for a wage of five thousand pounds a
+year----"
+
+"The salary of one of His Majesty's Ministers," interrupted the doctor.
+"It has been paid you with regularity, together with certain extras. When
+you have wished for a loan of five hundred or so, I have never refused
+it."
+
+"I quite admit that; but you've always received a _quid pro quo_," the
+general snapped. "Look at the thousands upon thousands I put through for
+you!"
+
+"The whole transaction has from the beginning been a matter of business;
+and, as far as I am concerned, I have fulfilled my part of the contract."
+
+The man standing upon the hearthrug sighed. "I suppose," he said, "that I
+really have no right to complain. I clutched at the straw you held out to
+me, and saved myself at a cost greater than the world can ever know. I
+hate myself for it. If I had then known what I know now concerning you
+and your friends, I would rather have blown out my brains than have
+listened to your accursed words of temptation. The whole plot is
+damnable!"
+
+"My dear fellow, I am not Mephistopheles," laughed the narrow-eyed
+doctor.
+
+"You are worse," declared the general boldly. "You bought me body and
+soul, but by Heaven!" he cried, "you have not bought my family, sir!"
+
+Weirmarsh moved uneasily in his chair.
+
+"And so you refuse to do this service which I requested of you,
+yesterday, eh?" he asked very slowly.
+
+"I do."
+
+A silence fell between the two men, broken only by the low ticking of the
+little Sheraton clock upon the mantelshelf.
+
+"Have you fully reflected upon what this refusal of yours may cost you,
+General?" asked the doctor in a slow, hard voice, his eyes fixed upon the
+other's countenance.
+
+"It will cost me just as much as you decide it shall," was the response
+of the unhappy man, who found himself enmeshed by the crafty
+practitioner.
+
+"You speak as though I were the principal, whereas I am but the agent,"
+Weirmarsh protested.
+
+"Principal or agent, my decision, Doctor, is irrevocable--I refuse to
+serve your accursed ends further."
+
+"Really," laughed the other, still entirely unruffled, "your attitude
+to-day is quite amusing. You've got an attack of liver, and you should
+allow me to prescribe for you."
+
+The general made a quick gesture of impatience, but did not reply.
+
+It was upon the tip of Weirmarsh's tongue to refer to Walter Fetherston,
+but next instant he had reflected. If Sir Hugh really intended to abandon
+himself to remorse and make a fool of himself, why should he stretch
+forth a hand to save him?
+
+That ugly revelations--very ugly ones--might result was quite within the
+range of possibility, therefore Weirmarsh, whose craft and cunning were
+amazing, intended to cover his own retreat behind the back of the very
+man whom he had denounced to Enid Orlebar.
+
+He sat in silence, his finger-tips again joined, gazing upon the man who
+had swallowed that very alluring bait he had once placed before him.
+
+He realised by Sir Hugh's manner that he regretted his recent action and
+was now overcome by remorse. Remorse meant exposure, and exposure meant
+prosecution--a great public prosecution, which, at all hazards, must not
+be allowed.
+
+As he sat there he was actually calmly wondering whether this fine old
+officer with such a brilliant record would die in silence by his own hand
+and carry his secret to the grave, or whether he would leave behind some
+awkward written statement which would incriminate himself and those for
+whom he acted.
+
+Suddenly Sir Hugh turned and, looking the doctor squarely in the face as
+though divining his inmost thoughts, said in a hoarse voice tremulous
+with emotion: "Ah, you need not trouble yourself further, Weirmarsh. I
+have a big dinner-party to-night, but by midnight I shall have paid the
+penalty which you have imposed upon me--I shall have ceased to live. I
+will die rather then serve you further!"
+
+"Very well, my dear sir," replied the doctor, rising from his chair
+abruptly. "Of course, every man's life is his own property--you can take
+it if you think fit--but I assure you that such an event would not
+concern me in the least. I have already taken the precaution to appear
+with clean hands--should occasion require."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN WHICH ENID ORLEBAR IS PUZZLED
+
+
+THAT night, around the general's dinner-table in Hill Street, a dozen or
+so well-known men and women were assembled.
+
+Sir Hugh Elcombe's dinners were always smart gatherings. The table was
+set with Georgian silver and decorated daintily with flowers, while
+several of the women wore splendid jewels. At the head sat Lady Elcombe,
+a quiet, rather fragile, calm-faced woman in black, whose countenance
+bore traces of long suffering, but whose smile was very sweet.
+
+Among the guests was Walter Fetherston, whom the general had at last
+induced to visit him, and he had taken in Enid, who looked superb in a
+cream decollete gown, and who wore round her throat a necklet of
+turquoise matrices, admirably suited to her half-barbaric beauty.
+
+Fetherston had only accepted the general's invitation at her urgent
+desire, for she had written to White's telling him that it was imperative
+they should meet--she wished to consult him; she begged of him to forget
+the interview at Monifieth and return to her.
+
+So, against his will, he had gone there, though the house and all it
+contained was hateful to him. With that terrible secret locked within his
+heart--that secret which gripped his very vitals and froze his blood--he
+looked upon the scene about him with horror and disgust. Indeed, it was
+only by dint of self-control that he could be civil to his host.
+
+His fellow-guests were of divers types: a couple of peers and their
+womenkind, a popular actor-manager, two diplomats, and several military
+men of more or less note--two of them, like the host, occupying high
+positions at the War Office.
+
+Such gatherings were of frequent occurrence at Hill Street. It was
+popularly supposed that Sir Hugh, by marrying His Majesty's Minister's
+widow, had married money, and was thus able to sustain the position he
+did. Other military men in his position found it difficult to make both
+ends meet, and many envied old Hugh Elcombe and his wealthy wife. They
+were unaware that Lady Orlebar, after the settlement of her husband's
+estate, had found herself with practically nothing, and that her marriage
+to Sir Hugh had been more to secure a home than anything else. Both had,
+alas! been equally deceived. The general, believing her to be rich, had
+been sadly disillusioned; while she, on her part, was equally filled with
+alarm when he revealed to her his penurious position.
+
+The world, of course, knew nothing of this. Sir Hugh, ever since his
+re-marriage, had given good dinners and had been entertained in return,
+therefore everybody believed that he derived his unusually large income
+from his wife.
+
+As he sat at table he laughed and chatted merrily with his guests, for on
+such occasions he was always good company. Different, indeed, was his
+attitude from when, at noon, he had stood with Weirmarsh in his own den
+and pronounced his own fate.
+
+The man who held him in that strange thraldom was seated at the table. He
+had been invited three days ago, and had come there, perhaps, to taunt
+him with his presence in those the last few hours of his life.
+
+Only once the two men exchanged glances, for Weirmarsh was devoting all
+his attention to young Lady Stockbridge. But when Sir Hugh encountered
+the doctor's gaze he saw in his eyes open defiance and triumph.
+
+In ignorance of the keen interest which the doctor across the table felt
+in him, Walter Fetherston sat chatting and laughing with Enid. Once the
+doctor, to whom he had been introduced only half an hour before,
+addressed a remark to him to which he replied, at the same time
+reflecting within himself that Weirmarsh was quite a pleasant
+acquaintance.
+
+He was unaware of that mysterious visit of inquiry to Monifieth, of that
+remarkable cipher telegram afterwards dispatched to Brussels, or even of
+the extraordinary influence that man in the well-worn evening suit
+possessed over both his host and the handsome girl beside him.
+
+When the ladies had left the table the doctor set himself out over the
+cigarettes to become more friendly with the writer of fiction. Then
+afterwards he rose, and encountering his host, who had also risen and
+crossed the room, whispered in a voice of command: "You have reconsidered
+your decision! You will commit no foolish and cowardly act? I see it in
+your face. I shall call to-morrow at noon, and we will discuss the matter
+further."
+
+The general did not reply for a few seconds. But Weirmarsh had already
+realised that reflection had brought his victim to a calmer state of
+mind.
+
+"I will not listen to you," the old man growled.
+
+"But I shall speak whether you listen or not. Remember, I am not a man to
+be fooled by talk. I shall be here at noon and lay before you a scheme
+perhaps a little more practicable than the last one." And with that he
+reached for some matches, turned upon his heel, and rejoined the man
+against whom he had warned Enid--the only man in the world whom he
+feared.
+
+Before they rose Weirmarsh had ingratiated himself with his enemy. So
+clever was he that Fetherston, in ignorance as to whom his fellow-guest
+really was, save that he was a member of the medical profession, was
+actually congratulating himself that he had now met a man after his own
+heart.
+
+At last they repaired to the pretty old-rose-and-gold drawing-room
+upstairs, an apartment in which great taste was displayed in decoration,
+and there several of the ladies sang or recited. One of them, a vivacious
+young Frenchwoman, was induced to give Barrois's romance, "J'ai vu
+fleurir notre dernier lilas!"
+
+When she had concluded Enid, with whom Walter was seated, rose and passed
+into the small conservatory, which was prettily illuminated with fairy
+lights. As soon as they were alone she turned to him in eager distress,
+saying: "Walter, do, I beg of you, beware of that man!"
+
+"Of what man?" he asked in quick surprise.
+
+"Of Doctor Weirmarsh."
+
+"Why? I don't know him. I never met him until to-night. Who is he?"
+
+"My stepfather's friend, but my enemy--and yours," she cried quickly,
+placing her hand upon her heart as though to quell its throbbing.
+
+"Is he well known?" inquired the novelist.
+
+"No--only in Pimlico. He lives in Vauxhall Bridge Road, and his practice
+lies within a radius of half a mile of Victoria Station."
+
+"And why is he my enemy?"
+
+"Oh, that I cannot tell."
+
+"Why is he your stepfather's friend?" asked Fetherston. "They certainly
+seem to be on very good terms."
+
+"Doctor Weirmarsh's cunning and ingenuity are unequalled," she declared.
+"Over me, as over Sir Hugh, he has cast a kind of spell--a----"
+
+Her companion laughed. "My dear Enid," he said, "spells are fictions of
+the past; nobody believes in them nowadays. He may possess some influence
+over you, but surely you are sufficiently strong-minded to resist his
+power, whatever it may be?"
+
+"No," she replied, "I am not. For that reason I fear for myself--and for
+Sir Hugh. That man compelled Sir Hugh to take me to him for a
+consultation, and as soon as I was in his presence I knew that his will
+was mine--that I was powerless."
+
+"I don't understand you," said Fetherston, much interested in this latest
+psychic problem.
+
+"Neither do I understand myself," she answered in bewilderment. "To me
+this man's power, fascination--whatever you may term it--is a complete
+mystery."
+
+"I will investigate it," said Fetherston promptly. "What is his address?"
+
+She told him, and he scribbled it upon his shirt-cuff. Then, looking into
+her beautiful countenance, he asked: "Have you no idea of the nature of
+this man's influence over Sir Hugh?"
+
+"None whatever. It is plain, however, that he is master over my
+stepfather's actions. My mother has often remarked to me upon it," was
+her response. "He comes here constantly, and remains for hours closeted
+with Sir Hugh in his study. So great is his influence that he orders our
+servants to do his bidding."
+
+"And he compelled Sir Hugh to take you to his consulting room, eh? Under
+what pretext?"
+
+"I was suffering from extreme nervousness, and he prescribed for me with
+beneficial effect," she said. "But ever since I have felt myself beneath
+his influence in a manner which I am utterly unable to describe. I do not
+believe in hypnotic suggestion, or it might be put down to that."
+
+"But what is your theory?"
+
+"I have none, except--well, except that this man, essentially a man of
+evil, possesses some occult influence which other men do not possess."
+
+"Yours is not a weak nature, Enid," he declared. "You are not the sort of
+girl to fall beneath the influence of another."
+
+"I think not," she laughed in reply. "And yet the truth is a hard and
+bitter one."
+
+"Remain firm and determined to be mistress of your own actions," he
+urged, "and in the meantime I will cultivate the doctor's acquaintance
+and endeavour to investigate the cause of this remarkable influence of
+his."
+
+Why did Doctor Weirmarsh possess such power over Sir Hugh? he wondered.
+Could it be that this man was actually in possession of the truth? Was he
+aware of that same terrible and hideous secret of which he himself was
+aware--a secret which, if exposed, would convulse the whole country, so
+shameful and scandalous was it!
+
+He saw how pale and agitated Enid was. She had in her frantic anxiety
+sought his aid. Only a few days ago they had parted; yet now, in the
+moment of her fear and apprehension, she had recalled him to her side to
+seek his advice and protection.
+
+She had not told him of that mysterious warning Weirmarsh had given her
+concerning him, or of his accurate knowledge of their acquaintanceship.
+She had purposely refrained from telling him this lest her words should
+unduly prejudice him. She had warned Walter that the doctor was his
+enemy--this, surely, was sufficient!
+
+"Try and discover, if you can, the reason of the doctor's power over my
+father, and why he is for ever directing his actions," urged the girl.
+"For myself I care little; it is for Sir Hugh's sake that I am trying to
+break the bonds, if possible."
+
+"You have no suspicion of the reason?" he repeated, looking seriously
+into her face. "You do not think that he holds some secret of your
+stepfather's? Undue influence can frequently be traced to such a source."
+
+She shook her head in the negative, a blank look in her great, dark eyes.
+
+"No," she replied, "it is all a mystery--one which I beg of you, Walter,
+to solve, and"--she faltered in a strange voice--"and to save me!"
+
+He pressed her hand and gave her his promise. Then for a second she
+raised her full red lips to his, and together they passed back into the
+drawing-room, where their re-entry in company did not escape the sharp
+eyes of the lonely doctor of Pimlico.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BENEATH THE ELASTIC BAND
+
+
+WALTER FETHERSTON strolled back that night to the dingy chambers he
+rented in Holles Street, off Oxford Street, as a _pied-a-terre_ when in
+London. He was full of apprehension, full of curiosity, as to who this
+Doctor Weirmarsh could be.
+
+He entered his darkling, shabby old third-floor room and threw himself
+into the arm-chair before the fire to think. It was a room without
+beauty, merely walls, repapered once every twenty years, and furniture of
+the mid-Victorian era. The mantelshelf in the bedroom still bore stains
+from the medicine bottles which consoled the final hours of the last
+tenant, a man about whom a curious story was told.
+
+It seems that he found a West End anchorage there, not when he had
+retired, but when he was in the very prime of life. He never told anyone
+that he was single; at the same time he never told anyone he was married.
+He just came and rented those three rooms, and there his man brought him
+his tea at ten o'clock every morning for thirty years. Then he dressed
+himself and went round to the Devonshire, in St. James's Street, and
+there remained till closing time, at two o'clock, every morning for
+thirty years. When his club closed in the dog-days for repairs he went to
+the club which received him. He never went out of town. He never slept a
+night away. He never had a visitor. He never received a letter, and, so
+far as his man was aware, never wrote one.
+
+One morning he did not go through his usual programme. The doctor was
+called, but during the next fortnight he died.
+
+Within twelve hours, however, his widow and a family of grown-up children
+arrived, pleasant, cheerful, inquisitive people, who took away with them
+everything portable, greatly to the chagrin of the devoted old manservant
+who had been the tenant's single home-tie for thirty years.
+
+It was these selfsame, dull, monotonous chambers which Walter occupied.
+The old manservant was the selfsame man who had so devotedly served the
+previous tenant. They suited Walter's purpose, for he was seldom in
+London, so old Hayden had the place to himself for many months every
+year. Of all the inhabitants of London chambers those are the most lonely
+who never wander away from London. But Walter was ever wandering,
+therefore he never noticed the shabbiness of the carpet, the dinginess of
+the furniture, or the dispiriting gloom of everything.
+
+Like the previous tenant, Walter had no visitors and was mostly out all
+day. At evening he would write at the dusty old bureau in which the late
+tenant had kept locked his family treasures, or sit in the deep, old
+horsehair-covered chair with his feet upon the fender, as he did that
+night after returning from Hill Street.
+
+The only innovation in those grimy rooms was a good-sized fireproof safe
+which stood in the corner hidden by a side-table, and from this Walter
+had taken a bundle of papers and carried them with him to his chair.
+
+One by one he carefully went through them, until at last he found the
+document of which he was in search.
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed to himself after he had scanned it, "so I was not
+mistaken after all! The mystery is deeper than I thought. By Jove! that
+fellow, Joseph Blot, alias Weirmarsh, alias Detmold, Ponting and half a
+dozen other names, no doubt, is playing a deep game--a dangerous customer
+evidently!"
+
+Then, again returning to the safe, he took out a large packet of
+miscellaneous photographs of various persons secured by an elastic band.
+These he went rapidly through until he held one in his hand, an unmounted
+_carte-de-visite_, which he examined closely beneath the green-shaded
+reading-lamp.
+
+It was a portrait of Doctor Weirmarsh, evidently taken a few years
+before, as he then wore a short pointed beard, whereas he was now shaven
+except for a moustache.
+
+"No mistake about those features," he remarked to himself with evident
+satisfaction as, turning the photographic print, he took note of certain
+cabalistic numbers written in the corner, scribbling them in pencil upon
+his blotting-pad.
+
+"I thought I recollected those curious eyes and that unusual breadth of
+forehead," he went on, speaking to himself, and again examining the
+pictured face through his gold pince-nez. "It's a long time since I
+looked at this photograph--fully five years. What would the amiable
+doctor think if he knew that I held the key which will unlock his past?"
+
+He laughed lightly to himself, and, selecting a cigarette from the silver
+box, lit it.
+
+Then he sat back in his big arm-chair, his eyes fixed upon the fire,
+contemplating what he realised to be a most exciting and complicated
+problem.
+
+"This means that I must soon be upon the move again," he murmured to
+himself. "Enid has sought my assistance--she has asked me to save her,
+and I will exert my utmost endeavour to do so. But I see it will be
+difficult, very difficult. She is, no doubt, utterly unaware of the real
+identity of this brisk, hard-working doctor. And perhaps, after all," he
+added slowly, "it is best so--best that she remain in ignorance of this
+hideous, ghastly truth!"
+
+At that same moment, while Walter Fetherston was preoccupied by these
+curious apprehensions, the original of that old _carte-de-visite_ was
+seated in the lounge of the Savoy Hotel, smoking a cigar with a tall,
+broad-shouldered, red-bearded man who was evidently a foreigner.
+
+He had left Hill Street five minutes after Fetherston, and driven down to
+the Savoy, where he had a rendezvous for supper with his friend. That he
+was an habitue there was patent from the fact that upon entering the
+restaurant, Alphonse, the _maitre d'hotel_, with his plan of the tables
+pinned upon the board, greeted him with, "Ah! good evening, Docteur.
+Table vingt-six, Docteur Weirmarsh."
+
+The scene was the same as it is every evening at the Savoy; the music,
+the smart dresses of the women, the flowers, the shaded lights, the
+chatter and the irresponsible laughter of the London world amusing
+itself after the stress of war.
+
+You know it--why, therefore, should I describe it? Providing you possess
+an evening suit or a low-necked dress, you can always rub shoulders with
+the _monde_ and the _demi-monde_ of London at a cost of a few shillings a
+head.
+
+The two men had supped and were chatting in French over their coffee and
+"triplesec." Gustav, Weirmarsh called his friend, and from his remarks it
+was apparent that he was a stranger to London. He was dressed with
+elegance. Upon the corner of his white lawn handkerchief a count's
+coronet was embroidered, and upon his cigar-case also was a coronet and a
+cipher. In his dress-shirt he wore a fine diamond, while upon the little
+finger of his left hand glittered a similar stone of great lustre.
+
+The lights were half extinguished, and a porter's voice cried, "Time's
+up, ladies and gentlemen!" Those who were not habitues rose and commenced
+to file out, but the men and women who came to the restaurant each night
+sat undisturbed till the lights went up again and another ten minutes
+elapsed before the final request to leave was made.
+
+The pair, seated away in a corner, had been chatting in an undertone when
+they were compelled to rise. Thereupon the doctor insisted that his
+friend, whose name was Gustav Heureux, should accompany him home. So
+twenty minutes later they alighted from a taxi-cab in the Vauxhall Bridge
+Road, and entered the shabby little room wherein Weirmarsh schemed and
+plotted.
+
+The doctor produced from a cupboard some cognac and soda and a couple of
+glasses, and when they had lit cigars they sat down to resume their chat.
+
+Alone there, the doctor spoke in English.
+
+"You see," he explained, "it is a matter of the greatest importance--if
+we make this coup we can easily make a hundred thousand pounds within a
+fortnight. The general at first refused and became a trifle--well, just a
+trifle resentful, even vindictive; but by showing a bold front I've
+brought him round. To-morrow I shall clinch the matter. That is my
+intention."
+
+"It will be a brilliant snap, if you can actually accomplish it," was the
+red-bearded man's enthusiastic reply. He now spoke in English, but with a
+strong American accent. "I made an attempt two years ago, but failed, and
+narrowly escaped imprisonment."
+
+"A dozen attempts have already been made, but all in vain," replied the
+doctor, drawing hard at his cigar. "Therefore, I'm all the more keen to
+secure success."
+
+"You certainly have been very successful over here, Doctor," observed the
+foreigner, whose English had been acquired in America. "We have heard of
+you in New York, where you are upheld to us as a model. Jensen once told
+me that your methods were so ingenious as to be unassailable."
+
+"Merely because I am well supplied with funds," answered the other with
+modesty. "Here, in England, as elsewhere, any man or woman can be
+bought--if you pay their price. There is only one section of the
+wonderful British public who cannot be purchased--the men and women who
+are in love with each other. Whenever I come up against Cupid, experience
+has taught me to retire deferentially, and wait until the love-fever has
+abated. It often turns to jealousy or hatred, and then the victims fall
+as easily as off a log. A jealous woman will betray any secret, even
+though it may hurry her lover to his grave. To me, my dear Gustav, this
+fevered world of London is all very amusing."
+
+"And your profession as doctor must serve as a most excellent mask. Who
+would suspect you--a lonely bachelor in such quarters as these?"
+exclaimed his visitor.
+
+"No one does suspect me," laughed the doctor with assurance. "Safety lies
+in pursuing my increasing practice, and devoting all my spare time
+to--well, to my real profession." He flicked the ash off his cigar as he
+spoke.
+
+"Your friend, Elcombe, will have to be very careful. The peril is
+considerable in that quarter."
+
+"I know that full well. But if he failed it would be he who would
+suffer--not I. As usual, I do not appear in the affair at all."
+
+"That is just where you are so intensely clever and ingenious," declared
+Heureux. "In New York they speak of you as a perfect marvel of foresight
+and clever evasion."
+
+"It is simply a matter of exercising one's wits," Weirmarsh laughed
+lightly. "I always complete my plans with great care before embarking
+upon them, and I make provision for every contretemps possible. It is the
+only way, if one desires success."
+
+"And you have had success," remarked his companion. "Marked success in
+everything you have attempted. In New York we have not been nearly so
+fortunate. Those three articles in the _New York Sun_ put the public on
+their guard, so that we dare not attempt any really bold move for fear of
+detection."
+
+"You have worked a little too openly, I think," was Weirmarsh's reply.
+"But now that you have been sent to assist me, you will probably see that
+my methods differ somewhat from those of John Willoughby. Remember, he
+has just the same amount of money placed at his disposal as I have."
+
+"And he is not nearly so successful," Heureux replied. "Perhaps it is
+because Americans are not so easily befooled as the English."
+
+"And yet America is, _par excellence_, the country of bluff, of quackery
+in patent medicines, and of the booming of unworthy persons," the doctor
+laughed.
+
+"It is fortunate, Doctor, that the public are in ignorance of the real
+nature of our work, isn't it, eh? Otherwise, you and I might experience
+rather rough handling if this house were mobbed."
+
+Weirmarsh smiled grimly. "My dear Gustav," he laughed, "the British
+public, though of late they've browsed upon the hysterics of the popular
+Press, are already asleep again. It is not for us to arouse them. We
+profit by their heavy slumber, and this will be a rude awakening--a
+shock, depend upon it."
+
+"We were speaking of Sir Hugh Elcombe," remarked the other. "He has been
+of use to us, eh?"
+
+"Of considerable use, but his usefulness is all but ended," replied the
+doctor. "He will go to France before long, if he does not act as I
+direct."
+
+"Into a veritable hornet's nest!" exclaimed the red-bearded man. He
+recognised a strange expression upon the doctor's face, and added, "Ah, I
+see. This move is intentional, eh? He has served our purpose, and you now
+deem it wise that--er--disaster should befall him across the Channel,
+eh?"
+
+The doctor smiled in the affirmative.
+
+"And the girl you spoke of, Enid Orlebar?"
+
+"The girl will share the same fate as her stepfather," was Weirmarsh's
+hard response. "We cannot risk betrayal."
+
+"Then she knows something?"
+
+"She may or she may not. In any case, however, she constitutes a danger,
+a grave danger, that must, at all costs, be removed." And looking into
+the other's face, he added, "You understand me?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+Just before two o'clock Gustav Heureux left the frowsy house in Vauxhall
+Bridge Road and walked through the silent street into Victoria Street.
+
+He was unaware, however, that on the opposite side of the road an
+ill-dressed man had for a full hour been lurking in a doorway, or that
+when he came down the doctor's steps, the mysterious midnight watcher
+strolled noiselessly after him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+CONCERNING THE VELVET HAND
+
+
+ON the rising ground half-way between Wimborne and Poole, in Dorsetshire,
+up a narrow by-road which leads to the beautiful woods, lies the tiny
+hamlet of Idsworth, a secluded little place of about forty inhabitants,
+extremely rural and extremely picturesque.
+
+Standing alone half-way up the hill, and surrounded by trees, was an
+old-world thatched cottage, half-timbered, with high, red-brick chimneys,
+quaint gables and tiny dormer windows--a delightful old Elizabethan house
+with a comfortable, homely look. Behind it a well-kept flower garden,
+with a tree-fringed meadow beyond, while the well-rolled gravelled walks,
+the rustic fencing, and the pretty curtains at the casements betrayed the
+fact that the rustic homestead was not the residence of a villager.
+
+As a matter of fact it belonged to a Mr. John Maltwood, a bachelor, whom
+Idsworth believed to be in business in London, and who came there at
+intervals for fresh air and rest. His visits were not very frequent.
+Sometimes he would be absent for many months, and at others he would
+remain there for weeks at a time, with a cheery word always for the
+labourers on their way home from work, and always with his hand in his
+pocket in the cause of charity.
+
+John Maltwood, the quiet, youngish-looking man in the gold pince-nez, was
+popular everywhere over the country-side. He did not court the society of
+the local parsons and their wives, nor did he return any of the calls
+made upon him. His excuse was that he was at Idsworth for rest, and not
+for social duties. This very independence of his endeared him to the
+villagers, who always spoke of him as "one of the right sort."
+
+At noon on the day following the dinner at Hill Street, Walter
+Fetherston--known at Idsworth as Mr. Maltwood--alighted from the station
+fly, and was met at the cottage gate by the smiling, pleasant-faced woman
+in a clean apron who acted as caretaker.
+
+He divested himself of his overcoat in the tiny entrance-hall, passed
+into a small room, with the great open hearth, where in days long ago the
+bacon was smoked, and along a passage into the long, old-world
+dining-room, with its low ceiling with great dark beams, its
+solemn-ticking, brass-faced grandfather clock, and its profusion of old
+blue china.
+
+There he gave some orders to Mrs. Deacon, obtained a cigarette, and
+passed back along the passage to a small, cosy, panelled room at the end
+of the house--the room wherein he wrote those mystery stories which held
+the world enthralled.
+
+It was a pretty, restful place, with a moss-green carpet, green-covered
+chairs, several cases filled to overflowing with books, and a great
+writing-table set in the window. On the mantelshelf were many autographed
+portraits of Continental celebrities, while on the walls were one or two
+little gems of antique art which he had picked up on his erratic
+wanderings. Over the writing-table was a barometer and a storm-glass,
+while to the left a cosy corner extended round to the fireplace.
+
+He lit his cigarette, then walking across to a small square oaken door
+let into the wall beside the fireplace, he opened it with a key. This had
+been an oven before the transformation of three cottages into a week-end
+residence, and on opening it there was displayed the dark-green door of a
+safe. This he quickly opened with another key, and after slight search
+took out a small ledger covered with dark-red leather.
+
+Then glancing at some numerals upon a piece of paper he took from his
+vest pocket, he turned them up in the index, and with another volume open
+upon his blotting-pad, he settled himself to read the record written
+there in a small, round hand. The numbers were those upon the back of the
+old _carte-de-visite_ which had interested him so keenly, and the
+statement he was reading was, from the expression upon his countenance,
+an amazing one.
+
+From time to time he scribbled memoranda upon the scrap of paper, now and
+then pausing as though to recall the past. Then, when he had finished, he
+laughed softly to himself, and, closing the book, replaced it in the safe
+and shut the oaken door. By the inspection of that secret entry he had
+learnt much regarding that man who posed as a doctor in Pimlico.
+
+He sat back in his writing-chair and puffed thoughtfully at his
+cigarette. Then he turned his attention to a pile of letters addressed to
+him as "Mr. Maltwood," and made some scribbled replies until Mrs. Deacon
+entered to announce that his luncheon was ready.
+
+When he went back to the quaint, old-fashioned dining-room and seated
+himself, he said: "I'm going back by the five-eighteen, and I dare say I
+shan't return for quite a month or perhaps six weeks. Here's a cheque
+for ten pounds to pay these little bills." And he commenced his solitary
+meal.
+
+"You haven't been here much this summer, sir," remarked the good woman.
+"In Idsworth they think you've quite deserted us--Mr. Barnes was only
+saying so last week. They're all so glad to see you down here, sir."
+
+"That's very good of them, Mrs. Deacon," he laughed. "I, too, only wish I
+could spend more time here. I love the country, and I'm never so happy as
+when wandering in Idsworth woods."
+
+And then he asked her to tell him the village gossip while she waited at
+his table.
+
+After luncheon he put on a rough suit and, taking his stout holly stick,
+went for a ramble through the great woods he loved so well, where the
+trees were tinted by autumn and the pheasants were strong upon the wing.
+
+He found Findlay, one of the keepers, and walked with him for an hour as
+far as the Roman camp, where alone he sat down upon a felled tree and,
+with his gaze fixed across the distant hills towards the sea, pondered
+deeply. He loved his modest country cottage, and he loved those quiet,
+homely Dorsetshire folk around him. Yet such a wanderer was he that only
+a few months each year--the months he wrote those wonderful romances of
+his--could he spend in that old-fashioned cottage which he had rendered
+the very acme of cosiness and comfort.
+
+At half-past four the rickety station fly called for him, and later he
+left by the express which took him to Waterloo and his club in time for
+dinner.
+
+And so once again he changed his identity from John Maltwood, busy man of
+business, to Walter Fetherston, novelist and traveller.
+
+The seriousness of what was in progress was now plain to him. He had long
+been filled with strong suspicions, and these suspicions had been
+confirmed both by Enid's statements and his own observations; therefore
+he was already alert and watchful.
+
+At ten o'clock he went to his gloomy chambers for an hour, and then
+strolled forth to the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and remained vigilant outside
+the doctor's house until nearly two.
+
+He noted those who came and went--two men who called before midnight, and
+were evidently foreigners. They came separately, remained about half an
+hour, and then Weirmarsh himself let them out, shaking hands with them
+effusively.
+
+Suddenly a taxicab drove up, and from it Sir Hugh, in black overcoat and
+opera hat, stepped out and was at once admitted, the taxi driving off.
+Walter, as he paced up and down the pavement outside, would have given
+much to know what was transpiring within.
+
+Had he been able to glance inside that shabby little back room he would
+have witnessed a strange scene--Sir Hugh, the gallant old soldier,
+crushed and humiliated by the man who practised medicine, and who called
+himself Weirmarsh.
+
+"I had only just come in from the theatre when you telephoned me," Sir
+Hugh said sharply on entering. "I am sorry I could make no appointment
+to-day, but I was at the War Office all the morning, lunched at the
+Carlton, and was afterwards quite full up."
+
+"There was no immediate hurry, Sir Hugh," responded the doctor with a
+pleasant smile. "I quite understand that your many social engagements
+prevented you from seeing me. I should have been round at noon, only I
+was called out to an urgent case. Therefore no apology is needed--by
+either of us." Then, after a pause, he looked sharply at the man seated
+before him and asked: "I presume you have reconsidered your decision,
+General, and will carry out my request?"
+
+"No, I have not decided to do that," was the old fellow's firm answer.
+"It's too dangerous an exploit--far too dangerous. Besides, it means
+ruin."
+
+"My dear sir," remarked the doctor, "you are viewing the matter in quite
+a wrong light. There will be no suspicion providing you exercise due
+caution."
+
+"And what would be the use of that, pray, when my secret will not be mine
+alone? It is already known to half a dozen other persons--your
+friends--any of whom might give me away."
+
+"It will not be known until afterwards--when you are safe. Therefore,
+there will be absolutely no risk," the doctor assured him.
+
+The other, however, was no fool, and was still unconvinced. He knew well
+that to carry out the request made by Weirmarsh involved considerable
+risk.
+
+The doctor spoke quietly, but very firmly. In his demands he was always
+inexorable. He had already hinted at the disaster which might fall upon
+Sir Hugh if he refused to obey. Weirmarsh was, the general knew from
+bitter experience, not a man to be trifled with.
+
+Completely and irrevocably he was in this man's hands. During the past
+twenty-four hours the grave old fellow, who had faced death a hundred
+times, had passed through a crisis of agony and despair. He hated
+himself, and would even have welcomed death, would have courted it at
+his own hands, had not these jeers of the doctor's rung in his ears. And,
+after all, he had decided that suicide was only a coward's death. The man
+who takes his own life to avoid exposure is always despised by his
+friends.
+
+So he had lived, and had come down there in response to the doctor's
+request over the telephone, resolved to face the music, if for the last
+time.
+
+He sat in the shabby old arm-chair and firmly refused to carry out the
+doctor's suggestion. But Weirmarsh, with his innate cunning, presented to
+him a picture of exposure and degradation which held him horrified.
+
+"I should have thought, Sir Hugh, that in face of what must inevitably
+result you would not risk exposure," he said. "Of course, it lies with
+you entirely," he added with an unconcerned air.
+
+"I'm thinking of my family," the old officer said slowly.
+
+"Of the disgrace if the truth were known, eh?"
+
+"No; of the suspicion, nay, ruin and imprisonment, that would fall upon
+another person," replied Sir Hugh.
+
+"No suspicion can be aroused if you are careful, I repeat," exclaimed
+Weirmarsh impatiently. "Not a breath of suspicion has ever fallen upon
+you up to the present, has it? No, because you have exercised foresight
+and have followed to the letter the plans I made. I ask you, when you
+have followed my advice have you ever gone wrong--have you ever taken one
+false step?"
+
+"Never--since the first," replied the old soldier in a hard, bitter tone.
+
+"Then I urge you to continue to follow the advice I give you, namely, to
+agree to the terms."
+
+"And who will be aware of the matter?"
+
+"Only myself," was Weirmarsh's reply. "And I think that you may trust a
+secret with me?"
+
+The old man made no reply, and the crafty doctor wondered whether by
+silence he very reluctantly gave his consent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PAUL LE PONTOIS
+
+
+THERE is in the far north-west of France a broad, white highway which
+runs from Chalons, crosses the green Meuse valley, mounts the steep,
+high, tree-fringed lands of the Cotes Lorraines, and goes almost straight
+as an arrow across what was, before the war, the German frontier at
+Mars-la-Tour into quaint old Metz, that town with ancient streets,
+musical chimes, and sad monument to Frenchmen who fell in the disastrous
+never-to-be-forgotten war of '70.
+
+This road has ever been one of the most strongly guarded highways in the
+world, for, between the Moselle, at Metz, and the Meuse, the country is a
+flat plain smiling under cultivation, with vines and cornfields
+everywhere, and comfortable little homesteads of the peasantry. This was
+once the great battlefield whereon Gravelotte was fought long ago, and
+where the Prussians swept back the French like chaff before the wind, and
+where France, later on, defeated the Crown Prince's army. The peasants,
+in ploughing, daily turn up a rusty bayonet, a rotting gun-stock, a
+skull, a thigh-bone, or some other hideous relic of those black days;
+while the old men in their blouses sit of nights smoking and telling
+thrilling stories of the ferocity of that helmeted enemy from yonder
+across the winding Moselle. In recent days it has been again devastated
+by the great world war, as its gaunt ruins mutely tell.
+
+That road, with its long line of poplars, after crossing the ante-war
+French border, runs straight for twenty kilometres towards the abrupt
+range of high hills which form the natural frontier of France, and then,
+at Haudiomont, enters a narrow pass, over twelve kilometres long, before
+it reaches the broad valley of the Meuse. This pass was, before 1914, one
+of the four principal gateways into France from Germany. The others are
+all within a short distance, fifteen kilometres or so--at Commercy, which
+is an important sous-prefecture, at Apremont, and at Eix. All have ever
+been strongly guarded, but that at Haudiomont was most impregnable of
+them all.
+
+Before 1914 great forts in which were mounted the most modern and the
+most destructive artillery ever devised by man, commanded the whole
+country far beyond the Moselle into Germany. Every hill-top bristled with
+them, smaller batteries were in every coign of vantage, while those
+narrow mountain passes could also be closed at any moment by being blown
+up when the signal was given against the Hun invaders.
+
+On the German side were many fortresses, but none was so strong as these,
+for the efforts of the French Ministry of War had, ever since the fall of
+Napoleon III., been directed towards rendering the Cotes Lorraines
+impassable.
+
+As one stands upon the road outside the tiny hamlet of Harville--a quaint
+but half-destroyed little place consisting of one long street of ruined
+whitewashed houses--and looks towards the hills eastward, low concrete
+walls can be seen, half hidden, but speaking mutely of the withering
+storm of shell that had, in 1914, burst from them and swept the land.
+
+Much can be seen of that chain of damaged fortresses, and the details of
+most of them are now known. Of those great ugly fortifications at
+Moulainville--the Belrupt Fort, which overlooks the Meuse; the
+Daumaumont, commanding the road from Conflans to Azannes; the Paroches,
+which stands directly over the highway from the Moselle at Moussin--we
+have heard valiant stories, how the brave French defended them against
+the armies of the Crown Prince.
+
+It was not upon these, however, that the French Army relied when, in
+August, 1914, the clash of war resounded along that pleasant fertile
+valley, where the sun seems ever to shine and the crops never fail.
+Hidden away from the sight of passers-by upon the roads, protected from
+sight by lines of sentries night and day, and unapproachable, save by
+those immediately connected with them, were the secret defences, huge
+forts with long-range ordnance, which rose, fired, and disappeared again,
+offering no mark for the enemy. Constructed in strictest secrecy, there
+were a dozen of such fortresses, the true details of which the Huns
+vainly endeavoured to learn while they were war-plotting. Many a spy of
+the Kaiser had tried to pry there and had been arrested and sentenced to
+a long term of imprisonment.
+
+Those defences, placed at intervals along the chain of hills right from
+Apremont away to Bezonvaux, had been the greatest secret which France
+possessed.
+
+Within three kilometres of the mouth of the pass at Haudiomont, at a
+short distance from the road and at the edge of a wood, stood the ancient
+Chateau de Lerouville, a small picturesque place of the days of Louis
+XIV., with pretty lawns and old-world gardens--a chateau only in the
+sense of being a country house and the residence of Paul Le Pontois,
+once a captain in the French Army, but now retired.
+
+Shut off from the road by a high old wall, with great iron gates, it was
+approached by a wide carriage-drive through a well-kept flower-garden to
+a long _terrasse_ which ran the whole length of the house, and whereon,
+in summer, it was the habit of the family to take their meals.
+
+Upon this veranda, one morning about ten days after the dinner party at
+Hill Street, Sir Hugh, in a suit of light grey tweed, was standing
+chatting with his son-in-law, a tall, brown-bearded, soldierly-looking
+man.
+
+The autumn sun shone brightly over the rich vinelands, beyond which
+stretched what was once the German Empire.
+
+Madame Le Pontois, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking woman of thirty, was
+still at table in the _salle-a-manger_, finishing her breakfast in the
+English style with little Ninette, a pretty blue-eyed child of nine,
+whose hair was tied on the top with wide white ribbon, and who spoke
+English quite well.
+
+Her husband and her father had gone out upon the _terrasse_ to have their
+cigarettes prior to their walk up the steep hillside to the fortress.
+
+Life in that rural district possessed few amusements outside the military
+circle, though Paul Le Pontois was a civilian and lived upon the product
+of the wine-lands of his estate. There were tennis parties, "fif'
+o'clocks," croquet and bridge-playing in the various military houses
+around, but beyond that--nothing. They were too far from a big town ever
+to go there for recreation. Metz they seldom went to, and with Paris far
+off, Madame Le Pontois was quite content, just as she had been when Paul
+had been stationed in stifling Constantine, away in the interior of
+Algeria.
+
+But she never complained. Devoted to her husband and to her laughing,
+bright-eyed child, she loved the open-air life of the country, and with
+such a commodious and picturesque house, one of the best in the district,
+she thoroughly enjoyed every hour of her life. Paul possessed a private
+income of fifty thousand francs, or nearly two thousand pounds a year,
+therefore he was better off than the average run of post-war men.
+
+He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man. As he lolled against the
+railing of the _terrasse_, gay with ivy-leaf geraniums, lazily smoking
+his cigarette and laughing lightly with his father-in-law, he presented a
+typical picture of the debonair Frenchman of the boulevards--elegance
+combined with soldierly smartness.
+
+He had seen service in Tonquin, in Algeria, on the French Congo and in
+the Argonne, and now his old company garrisoned Haudiomont, one of those
+forts of enormous strength, which commanded the gate of France, and had
+never been taken by the Crown Prince's army.
+
+"No," he was laughing, speaking in good English, "you in England, my dear
+beaupere, do not yet realise the dangers of the future. Happily for you,
+perhaps, because you have the barrier of the sea. Your writers used to
+speak of your 'tight little island.' But I do not see much of that in
+London journals now. Airships and aeroplanes have altered all that."
+
+"But you in France are always on the alert?"
+
+"Certainly. We have our new guns--terrible weapons they are--at St.
+Mihiel and at Mouilly, and also in other forts in what was once German
+territory," was Paul's reply. "The Huns--who, after peace, are preparing
+for another war, have a Krupp gun for the same purpose, but at its trial
+a few weeks ago at Pferzheim it was an utter failure. A certain
+lieutenant was present at the trial, disguised as a German peasant. He
+saw it all, returned here, and made an exhaustive report to Paris."
+
+"You do not believe in this peace, and in the sincerity of the enemy,
+eh?" asked Sir Hugh, with his hands thrust deep into his trousers
+pockets.
+
+"Certainly not," was Paul's prompt reply. "I am no longer in the army,
+but it seems to me that to repair the damage done by the Kaiser's freak
+performances in the international arena, quite a number of national
+committees must be constituted under the auspices of the German
+Government. There are the Anglo-German, the Austro-German, the
+American-German and the Canadian-German committees, all to be formed in
+their respective countries for the promotion of friendship and better
+relations. But I tell you, Sir Hugh, that we in France know well that the
+imposing names at the head of these committees are but too often on the
+secret pay-rolls of the Wilhelmstrasse, and the honesty and sincerity of
+the finely-worded manifestations of Hun friendship and goodwill appearing
+above their signatures are generally nothing but mere blinds intended to
+hoodwink statesmen and public opinion. Germany has, just as she had
+before the war, her paid friends everywhere," he added, looking the
+general full in the face. "In all classes of society are to be found the
+secret agents of the Fatherland--men who are base traitors to their own
+monarch and to their own land."
+
+"Let us go in. They are waiting for us. We are not interested in
+espionage, either of us, are we?"
+
+"No," laughed Paul. "When I was in the army we heard a lot of this, but
+all that is of the past--thanks to Heaven. There are other crimes in the
+world just as bad, alas! as that of treachery to one's country."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LITTLE OLD FRENCHWOMAN
+
+
+ALTHOUGH Sir Hugh had on frequent occasions been the guest of his
+son-in-law at the pretty Chateau de Lerouville, he had never expressed a
+wish, until the previous evening, to enter the Fortress of Haudiomont.
+
+As a military man he knew well how zealously the secrets of all
+fortresses are guarded.
+
+When, on the previous evening, Le Pontois had declared that it would be
+an easy matter for him to be granted a view of that great stronghold
+hidden away among the hill-tops, he had remarked: "Of course, my dear
+Paul, I would not for a moment dream of putting you into any awkward
+position. Remember, I am an alien here, and a soldier also! I haven't any
+desire to see the place."
+
+"Oh, there is no question of that so far as you are concerned, Sir Hugh,"
+Paul had declared with a light laugh. "The Commandant, who, of course,
+knows you, asked me a month ago to bring you up next time you visited us.
+He wished to make your acquaintance. In view of the recent war our
+people are nowadays no longer afraid of England, you know!"
+
+So the visit had been arranged, and Sir Hugh was to take his _dejeuner_
+up at the fort.
+
+That day Blanche, with Enid, who had accompanied her stepfather, drove
+the runabout car up the valley to the little station at Dieue-sur-Meuse,
+and took train thence to Commercy, where Blanche wished to do some
+shopping.
+
+So, when the two men had left to ascend the steep hillside, where the
+great fortress lay concealed, Blanche, who had by long residence in
+France become almost a Frenchwoman, kissed little Ninette _au revoir_,
+mounted into the car, and, taking the wheel, drove Enid and Jean, the
+servant, who, as a soldier, had served Paul during the war, away along
+the winding valley.
+
+As they went along they passed a battalion of the 113th Regiment of the
+Line, heavy with their knapsacks, their red trousers dusty, returning
+from the long morning march, and singing as they went that very old
+regimental ditty which every soldier of France knows so well:
+
+    "_La Noire est fille du cannon
+     Qui se fout du qu'en dira-t-on.
+     Nous nous foutons de ses vertus,
+     Puisqu'elle a les tetons pointus.
+          Voila pourquoi nous la chantons:
+          Vive la Noire et ses tetons!_"
+
+And as they passed the ladies the officer saluted. They were, Blanche
+explained, on their way back to the great camp at Jarny.
+
+Bugles were sounding among the hills, while ever and anon came the low
+boom of distant artillery at practice away in the direction of
+Vigneulles-les-Hattonchatel, the headquarters of the sub-division of that
+military region.
+
+It was Enid's first visit, and the activity about her surprised her.
+Besides, the officers were extremely good-looking.
+
+Presently they approached a battery of artillery on the march, with their
+rumbling guns and grey ammunition wagons, raising a cloud of dust as they
+advanced.
+
+Blanche pulled the car up at the side of the road to allow them to pass,
+and as she did so a tall, smartly-groomed major rode up to her, and,
+saluting, exclaimed in French, "Bon jour, Madame! I intended to call upon
+you this morning. My wife has heard that you have the general, your
+father, visiting you, and we wanted to know if you would all come and
+take dinner with us to-morrow night?"
+
+"I'm sure we'd be most delighted," replied Paul's wife, at the same time
+introducing Enid to Major Delagrange.
+
+"My father has gone up to the fort with my husband," Blanche added,
+bending over from the car.
+
+"Ah, then I shall meet them at noon," replied the smart officer, backing
+his bay horse. "And you ladies are going out for a run, eh? Beautiful
+morning! We've been out manoeuvring since six!"
+
+Blanche explained that they were on a shopping expedition to Commercy,
+and then, saluting, Delagrange set spurs into his horse and galloped away
+after the retreating battery.
+
+"That man's wife is one of my best friends. She speaks English very well,
+and is quite a good sort. Delagrange and Paul were in Tonquin together
+and are great friends."
+
+"I suppose you are never very dull here, with so much always going on?"
+Enid remarked. "Why anyone would believe that a war was actually in
+progress!"
+
+"This post of Eastern France never sleeps, my dear," was Madame's reply.
+"While you in England remain secure in your island, we here never know
+when trouble may again arise. Therefore, we are always preparing--and at
+the same time always prepared."
+
+"It must be most exciting," declared the girl, "to live in such
+uncertainty. Is the danger so very real, then?" she asked. "Father
+generally pooh-poohs the notion of there being any further trouble with
+Germany."
+
+"I know," was Blanche's answer. "He has been sceptical hitherto. He is
+always suspicious of the Boche!"
+
+They had driven up to the little wayside station, and, giving the car
+over to Jean with instructions to meet the five-forty train, they entered
+a first-class compartment.
+
+Between Dieue and Commercy the railway follows the course of the Meuse
+the whole way, winding up a narrow, fertile valley, the hills of which on
+the right, which once were swept by the enemy's shells and completely
+devastated, were all strongly fortified with great guns commanding the
+plain that lies between the Meuse and the Moselle.
+
+They were passing through one of the most interesting districts in all
+France--that quiet, fertile valley where stood peaceful, prosperous
+homesteads, and where the sheep were once more calmly grazing--the valley
+which for four years was so strongly contested, and where every village
+had been more or less destroyed.
+
+At the headquarters of the Sixth Army Corps of France much was known,
+much that was still alarming. It was that knowledge which urged on those
+ever active military preparations, for placing that district of France
+that had been ravaged by the Hun in the Great War in a state of complete
+fortification as a second line of defence should trouble again arise.
+
+Thoughts such as these arose in Enid's mind as she sat in silence looking
+forth upon the panorama of green hills and winding stream as they slowly
+approached the quaint town of Commercy.
+
+Arrived there, the pair lunched at the old-fashioned Hotel de Paris,
+under the shadow of the great chateau, once the residence of the Dukes de
+Lorraine, and much damaged in the war, but nowadays a hive of activity as
+an infantry barracks. And afterwards they went forth to do their shopping
+in the busy little Rue de la Republique, not forgetting to buy a box of
+"madeleines." As shortbread is the specialty of Edinburgh, as
+butterscotch is that of Doncaster, "maids-of-honour" that of Richmond,
+and strawberry jam that of Bar-le-Duc, so are "madeleines" the special
+cakes of Commercy.
+
+The town was full of officers and soldiers. In every cafe officers were
+smoking cigarettes and gossiping after their _dejeuner_; while ever and
+anon bugles sounded, and there was the clang and clatter of military
+movement.
+
+As the two ladies approached the big bronze statue of Dom Calmet, the
+historian, they passed a small cafe. Suddenly a man idling within over a
+newspaper sprang to his feet in surprise, and next second drew back as if
+in fear of observation.
+
+It was Walter Fetherston. He had come up from Nancy that morning, and had
+since occupied the time in strolling about seeing the sights of the
+little place.
+
+His surprise at seeing Enid was very great. He knew that she was staying
+in the vicinity, but had never expected to see her so quickly.
+
+The lady who accompanied her he guessed to be her stepsister; indeed, he
+had seen a photograph of her at Hill Street. Had Enid been alone, he
+would have rushed forth to greet her; but he had no desire at the moment
+that his presence should be known to Madame Le Pontois. He was there to
+watch, and to meet Enid--but alone.
+
+So after a few moments he cautiously went forth from the cafe, and
+followed the two ladies at a respectful distance, until he saw them
+complete their purchases and afterwards enter the station to return home.
+
+On his return to the hotel he made many inquiries of monsieur the
+proprietor concerning the distance to Haudiomont, and learned a good deal
+about the military works there which was of the greatest interest. The
+hotel-keeper, a stout Alsatian, was a talkative person, and told Walter
+nearly all he wished to know.
+
+Since leaving Charing Cross five days before he had been ever active. On
+his arrival in Paris he had gone to the apartment of Colonel Maynard, the
+British military attache, and spent the evening with him. Then, at one
+o'clock next morning, he had hurriedly taken his bag and left for Dijon,
+where at noon he had been met in the Cafe de la Rotonde by a little
+wizen-faced old Frenchwoman in seedy black, who had travelled for two
+days and nights in order to meet him.
+
+Together they had walked out on that unfrequented road beyond the Place
+Darcy, chatting confidentially as they went, the old lady speaking
+emphatically and with many gesticulations as they walked.
+
+Truth to tell, this insignificant-looking person was a woman of many
+secrets. She was a "friend" of the Surete Generale in Paris. She lived,
+and lived well, in a pretty apartment in Paris upon the handsome salary
+which she received regularly each quarter. But she was seldom at home.
+Like Walter, her days were spent travelling hither and thither across
+Europe.
+
+It would surprise the public if it were aware of the truth--the truth of
+how, in every country in Europe, there are secret female agents of
+police who (for a monetary consideration, of course) keep watch in great
+centres where the presence of a man would be suspected.
+
+This secret police service is distinctly apart from the detective
+service. The female police agent in all countries works independently, at
+the orders of the Director of Criminal Investigation, and is known to him
+and his immediate staff.
+
+Whatever information that wrinkled-faced old Frenchwoman in shabby black
+had imparted to Fetherston it was of an entirely confidential character.
+It, however, caused him to leave her about three o'clock, hurry to the
+Gare Porte-Neuve, and, after hastily swallowing a liqueur of brandy in
+the buffet, depart for Langres.
+
+Thence he had travelled to Nancy, where he had taken up quarters at the
+Grand Hotel in the Place Stanislas, and had there remained for two days
+in order to rest.
+
+He would not have idled those autumn days away so lazily, even though he
+so urgently required rest after that rapid travelling, had he but known
+that the person who occupied the next room to his--that middle-aged
+commercial traveller--an entirely inoffensive person who possessed a red
+beard, and who had given the name of Jules Dequanter, and his nationality
+as Belgian, native of Liege--was none other than Gustav Heureux, the man
+who had been recalled from New York by the evasive doctor of Pimlico.
+
+And further, Fetherston, notwithstanding his acuteness in observation,
+was in blissful ignorance, as he strolled back from the station at
+Commercy, up the old-world street, that a short distance behind him,
+carefully watching all his movements, was the man Joseph Blot
+himself--the man known in dingy Pimlico as Dr. Weirmarsh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IF ANYONE KNEW
+
+
+SIR HUGH ELCOMBE spent a most interesting and instructive day within the
+Fortress of Haudiomont. He really did not want to go. The visit bored
+him. The world was at peace, and there was no incentive to espionage as
+there had been in pre-war days.
+
+General Henri Molon, the commandant, greeted him cordially and himself
+showed him over a portion of the post-war defences which were kept such a
+strict secret from everyone. The general did not, however, show his
+distinguished guest everything. Such things as the new anti-aircraft gun,
+the exact disposition of the huge mines placed in the valley between
+there and Rozellier, so that at a given signal both road and railway
+tracks could be destroyed, he did not point out. There were other matters
+to which the smart, grey-haired, old French general deemed it unwise to
+refer, even though his visitor might be a high official of a friendly
+Power.
+
+Sir Hugh noticed all this and smiled inwardly. He wandered about the
+bomb-proof case-mates hewn out of the solid rock, caring nothing for the
+number and calibre of the guns, their armoured protection, or the
+chart-like diagrams upon the walls, ranges and the like.
+
+"What a glorious evening!" Paul was saying as, at sunset, they set their
+faces towards the valley beyond which lay shattered Germany. That
+peaceful land, the theatre of the recent war, lay bathed in the soft rose
+of the autumn afterglow, while the bright clearness of the sky,
+pale-green and gold, foretold a frost.
+
+"Yes, splendid!" responded his father-in-law mechanically; but he was
+thinking of something far more serious than the beauties of the western
+sky. He was thinking of the grip in which he was held by the doctor of
+Pimlico. At any moment, if he cared to collapse, he could make ten
+thousand pounds in a single day. The career of many a man has been
+blasted for ever by the utterance of cruel untruths or the repetition of
+vague suspicions. Was his son-in-law, Le Pontois, in jeopardy? He could
+not think that he was. How could the truth come out? Sir Hugh asked
+himself. It never had before--though his friend had made a million
+sterling, and there was no reason whatever why it should come out now. He
+had tested Weirmarsh thoroughly, and knew him to be a man to be trusted.
+
+As he strolled on at his son-in-law's side, chatting to him, he was full
+of anxiety as to the future. He had left England, it was true. He had
+defied the doctor. But the latter had been inexorable. If he continued in
+his defiance, then ruin must inevitably come to him.
+
+Blanche and Enid had already returned, and at dusk all four sat down to
+dinner together with little Ninette, for whom "Aunt Enid" had brought a
+new doll which had given the child the greatest delight.
+
+The meal ended, the bridge-table was set in the pretty salon adjoining,
+and several games were played until Sir Hugh, pleading fatigue, at last
+ascended to his room.
+
+Within, he locked the door and cast himself into a chair before the big
+log fire to think.
+
+That day had indeed been a strenuous one--strenuous for any man. So
+occupied had been his brain that he scarcely recollected any
+conversations with those smart debonair officers to whom Paul had
+introduced him.
+
+As he sat there he closed his eyes, and before him arose visions of
+interviews in dingy offices in London, one of them behind Soho Square.
+
+For a full hour he sat there immovable as a statue, reflecting, ever
+recalling the details of those events.
+
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet with clenched hands.
+
+"My God!" he cried, his teeth set and countenance pale. "My God! If
+anybody ever knew the truth!"
+
+He crossed to the window, drew aside the blind, and looked out upon the
+moonlit plains.
+
+Below, his daughter was still playing the piano and singing an old
+English ballad.
+
+"She's happy, ah! my dear Blanche!" the old man murmured between his
+teeth. "But if suspicion falls upon me? Ah! if it does; then it means
+ruin to them both--ruin because of a dastardly action of mine!"
+
+He returned unsteadily to his chair, and sat staring straight into the
+embers, his hands to his hot, fevered brow. More than once he
+sighed--sighed heavily, as a man when fettered and compelled to act
+against his better nature.
+
+Again he heard his daughter's voice below, now singing a gay little
+French chanson, a song of the cafe chantant and of the Paris boulevards.
+
+In a flash there recurred to him every incident of those dramatic
+interviews with the Mephistophelean doctor. He would at that moment have
+given his very soul to be free of that calm, clever, insinuating man who,
+while providing him with a handsome, even unlimited income, yet at the
+same time held him irrevocably in the hollow of his hand.
+
+He, a brilliant British soldier with a magnificent record, honoured by
+his sovereign, was, after all, but a tool of that obscure doctor, the man
+who had come into his life to rescue him from bankruptcy and disgrace.
+
+When he reflected he bit his lip in despair. Yet there was no way
+out--_none_! Weirmarsh had really been most generous. The cosy house in
+Hill Street, the smart little entertainments which his wife gave, the bit
+of shooting he rented up in the Highlands, were all paid for with the
+money which the doctor handed him in Treasury notes with such regularity.
+
+Yes, Weirmarsh was generous, but he was nevertheless exacting, terribly
+exacting. His will was the will of others.
+
+The blazing logs had died down to a red mass, the voice of Blanche had
+ceased. He had heard footsteps an hour ago in the corridor outside, and
+knew that the family had retired. There was not a sound. All were asleep,
+save the sentries high upon that hidden fortress. Again the old general
+sighed wearily. His grey face now wore an expression of resignation. He
+had thought it all out, and saw that to resist and refuse would only
+spell ruin for both himself and his family. He had but himself to blame
+after all. He had taken one false step, and he had been held inexorably
+to his contract.
+
+So he yawned wearily, rose, stretched himself, and then, pacing the room
+twice, at last turned up the lamp and placed it upon the small
+writing-table at the foot of the bed. Afterwards he took from his
+suit-case a quire of ruled foolscap paper and a fountain pen, and,
+seating himself, sat for some time with his head in his hands deep in
+thought. Suddenly the clock in the big hall below chimed two upon its
+peal of silvery bells. This aroused him, and, taking up his pen, he began
+to write.
+
+Ever and anon as he wrote he sat back and reflected.
+
+Hour after hour he sat there, bent to the table, his pen rapidly
+travelling over the paper. He wrote down many figures and was making
+calculations.
+
+At half-past four he put down his pen. The sum was not complete, but it
+was one which he knew would end his career and bring him into the dock of
+a criminal court, and Weirmarsh and others would stand beside him.
+
+All this he had done in entire ignorance of one startling fact--namely,
+that outside his window for the past hour a dark figure had been
+standing in an insecure position upon the lead guttering of the wing of
+the chateau which ran out at right angles, leaning forward and peering in
+between the blind and the window-frame, watching with interest all that
+had been in progress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CONCERNS THE PAST
+
+
+ONE evening, a few days after Sir Hugh had paid another visit to
+Haudiomont, he was smoking with Paul prior to retiring to bed when the
+conversation drifted upon money matters--some investment he had made in
+England in his wife's name.
+
+Paul had allowed his father-in-law to handle some of his money in
+England, for Sir Hugh was very friendly with a man named Hewett in the
+City, who had on several occasions put him on good things.
+
+Indeed, just before Sir Hugh had left London he had had a wire from Paul
+to sell some shares at a big profit, and he had brought over the proceeds
+in Treasury notes, quite a respectable sum. There had been a matter of
+concealing certain payments, Sir Hugh explained, and that was why he had
+brought over the money instead of a cheque.
+
+As they were chatting Sir Hugh, referring to the transaction, said:
+
+"Hewett suggested that I should have it in notes--four five-hundred Bank
+of England ones and the rest in Treasury notes."
+
+"I sent them to the Credit Lyonnais a few days ago," replied his
+son-in-law. "Really, Sir Hugh, you did a most excellent bit of business
+with Hewett. I hope you profited yourself."
+
+"Yes, a little bit," laughed the old general. "Can't complain, you know.
+I'm glad you've sent the notes to the bank. It was a big sum to keep in
+the house here."
+
+"Yes, I see only to-day they've credited me with them," was his reply. "I
+hope you can induce Hewett to do a bit more for us. Those aeroplane
+shares are still going up, I see by the London papers."
+
+"And they'll continue to do so, my dear Paul," was the reply. "But those
+Bolivian four per cents. of yours I'd sell if I were you. They'll never
+be higher."
+
+"You don't think so?"
+
+"Hewett warned me. He told me to tell you. Of course, you're richer than
+I am, and can afford to keep them. Only I warn you."
+
+"Very well," replied the younger man, "when you get back, sell them, will
+you?"
+
+And Sir Hugh promised that he would give instructions to that effect.
+
+"Really, my dear beau-pere," Paul said, "you've been an awfully good
+friend to me. Since I left the army I've made quite a big sum out of my
+speculations in London."
+
+"And mostly paid with English notes, eh?" laughed the elder man.
+
+"Yes. Just let me see." And, taking a piece of paper, he sat down at the
+writing-table and made some quick calculations of various sums. Upon one
+side he placed the money he had invested, and on the other the profits,
+at last striking a balance at the end. Then he told the general the
+figure.
+
+"Quite good," declared Sir Hugh. "I'm only too glad, my dear Paul, to be
+of any assistance to you. I fear you are vegetating here. But as long as
+your wife doesn't mind it, what matters?"
+
+"Blanche loves this country--which is fortunate, seeing that I have this
+big place to attend to." And as he said this he rose, screwed up the
+sheet of thin note-paper, and tossed it into the waste-paper basket.
+
+The pair separated presently, and Sir Hugh went to his room. He was eager
+and anxious to get away and return to London, but there was a difficulty.
+Enid, who had lately taken up amateur theatricals, had accepted an
+invitation to play in a comedy to be given at General Molon's house in a
+week's time in aid of the Croix Rouge. Therefore he was compelled to
+remain on her account.
+
+On the following afternoon Blanche drove him in her car through the
+beautiful Bois de Hermeville, glorious in its autumn gold, down to the
+quaint old village of Warcq, to take "fif o'clock" at the chateau with
+the Countess de Pierrepont, Paul's widowed aunt.
+
+Enid had pleaded a headache, but as soon as the car had driven away she
+roused herself, and, ascending to her room, put on strong country boots
+and a leather-hemmed golf skirt, and, taking a stick, set forth down the
+high road lined with poplars in the direction of Mars-la-Tour.
+
+About a mile from Lerouville she came to the cross-roads, the one to the
+south leading over the hills to Vigneulles, while the one to the north
+joined the highway to Longuyon. For a moment she paused, then turning
+into the latter road, which at that point was little more than a byway,
+hurried on until she came to the fringe of a wood, where, upon her
+approach, a man in dark grey tweeds came forth to meet her with swinging
+gait.
+
+It was Walter Fetherston.
+
+He strode quickly in her direction, and when they met he held her small
+hand in his and for a moment gazed into her dark eyes without uttering a
+word.
+
+"At last!" he cried. "I was afraid that you had not received my
+message--that it might have been intercepted."
+
+"I got it early this morning," was her reply, her cheeks flushing with
+pleasure; "but I was unable to get away before my father and Blanche went
+out. They pressed me to go with them, so I had to plead a headache."
+
+"I am so glad we've met," Fetherston said. "I have been here in the
+vicinity for days, yet I feared to come near you lest your father should
+recognise me."
+
+"But why are you here?" she inquired, strolling slowly at his side. "I
+thought you were in London."
+
+"I'm seldom in London," he responded. "Nowadays I am constantly on the
+move."
+
+"Travelling in search of fresh material for your books, I suppose? I read
+in a paper the other day that you never describe a place in your stories
+without first visiting it. If so, you must travel a great deal," the girl
+remarked.
+
+"I do," he answered briefly. "And very often I travel quickly."
+
+"But why are you here?"
+
+"For several reasons--the chief being to see you, Enid."
+
+For a moment the girl did not reply. This man's movements so often
+mystified her. He seemed ubiquitous. In one single fortnight he had sent
+her letters from Paris, Stockholm, Hamburg, Vienna and Constanza. His
+huge circle of friends was unequalled. In almost every city on the
+Continent he knew somebody, and he was a perfect encyclopaedia of travel.
+His strange reticence, however, always increased the mystery surrounding
+him. Those vague whispers concerning him had reached her ears, and she
+often wondered whether half she heard concerning him was true.
+
+If a man prefers not to speak of himself or of his doings, his enemies
+will soon invent some tale of their own. And thus it was in Walter's
+case. Men had uttered foul calumnies concerning him merely because they
+believed him to be eccentric and unsociable.
+
+But Enid Orlebar, though she somehow held him in suspicion, nevertheless
+liked him. In certain moods he possessed that dash and devil-may-care air
+which pleases most women, providing the man is a cosmopolitan.
+
+He was ever courteous, ever solicitous for her welfare.
+
+She had known he loved her ever since they had first met. Indeed, has he
+not told her so?
+
+As they walked together down that grass-grown byway through the wood,
+where the brown leaves were floating down with every gust, she glanced
+into his pale, dark, serious face and wondered. In her nostrils was the
+autumn perfume of the woods, and as they strode forward in silence a
+rabbit scuttled from their path.
+
+"You are, no doubt, surprised that I am here," he commenced at last. "But
+it is in your interests, Enid."
+
+"In my interests?" she echoed. "Why?"
+
+"Regarding the secret relations between your stepfather and Doctor
+Weirmarsh," he answered.
+
+"That same question we've discussed before," she said. "The doctor is
+attending to his practice in Pimlico; he does not concern us here."
+
+"I fear that he does," was Fetherston's quiet response. "That man holds
+your stepfather's future in his hand."
+
+"How--how can he?"
+
+"By the same force by which he holds that indescribable influence over
+you."
+
+"You believe, then, that he possesses some occult power?"
+
+"Not at all. His power is the power which every evil man possesses. And
+as far as my observation goes, I can detect that Sir Hugh has fallen
+into some trap which has been cunningly prepared for him."
+
+Enid gasped and her countenance blanched.
+
+"You believe, then, that those consultations I have had with the doctor
+are at his own instigation?"
+
+"Most certainly. Sir Hugh hates Weirmarsh, but, fearing exposure, he must
+obey the fellow's will."
+
+"But cannot you discover the truth?" asked the girl eagerly. "Cannot we
+free my stepfather? He's such a dear old fellow, and is always so good
+and kind to my mother and myself."
+
+"That is exactly my object in asking you to meet me here, Enid," said the
+novelist, his countenance still thoughtful and serious.
+
+"How can I assist?" she asked quickly. "Only explain, and I will act upon
+any suggestion you may make."
+
+"You can assist by giving me answers to certain questions," was his slow
+reply. The inquiry was delicate and difficult to pursue without arousing
+the girl's suspicions as to the exact situation and the hideous scandal
+in progress.
+
+"What do you wish to know?" she asked in some surprise, for she saw by
+his countenance that he was deeply in earnest.
+
+"Well," he said, with some little hesitation, glancing at her pale,
+handsome face as he walked by her side, "I fear you may think me too
+inquisitive--that the questions I'm going to ask are out of sheer
+curiosity."
+
+"I shall not if by replying I can assist my stepfather to escape from
+that man's thraldom."
+
+He was silent for a moment; then he said slowly: "I think Sir Hugh was in
+command of a big training camp in Norfolk early in the war, was he not?"
+
+"Yes. I went with him, and we stayed for about three months at the King's
+Head at Beccles."
+
+"And during the time you were at the King's Head, did the doctor ever
+visit Sir Hugh?"
+
+"Yes; the doctor stayed several times at the Royal at Lowestoft. We both
+motored over on several occasions and dined with him. Doctor Weirmarsh
+was not well, so he had gone to the east coast for a change."
+
+"And he also came over to Beccles to see your stepfather?"
+
+"Yes; twice, or perhaps three times. One evening after dinner, I
+remember, they left the hotel and went for a long walk together. I
+recollect it well, for I had been out all day and had a bad headache.
+Therefore, the doctor went along to the chemist's on his way out and
+ordered me a draught."
+
+"You took it?"
+
+"Yes; and I went to sleep almost immediately, and did not wake up till
+very late next morning," she replied.
+
+"You recollect, too, a certain man named Bellairs?"
+
+"Ah, yes!" she sighed. "How very sad it was! Poor Captain Bellairs was a
+great favourite of the general, and served on his staff."
+
+"He was with him in the Boer War, was he not?"
+
+"Yes. But how do you know all this?" asked the girl, looking curiously at
+her questioner and turning slightly paler.
+
+"Well," he replied evasively, "I--I've been told so, and wished to know
+whether it was a fact. You and he were friends, eh?" he asked after a
+pause.
+
+For a moment the girl did not reply. A flood of sad memories swept
+through her mind at the mention of Harry Bellairs.
+
+"Yes," she replied, "we were great friends. He took me to concerts and
+matinees in town sometimes. Sir Hugh always said he was a man bound to
+make his mark. He had earned his D.S.O. with French at Mons and was twice
+mentioned in dispatches."
+
+"And you, Enid," he said, still speaking very slowly, his dark eyes fixed
+upon hers, "you would probably have consented to become Mrs. Bellairs had
+he lived to ask you? Tell me the truth."
+
+Her eyes were cast down; he saw in them the light of unshed tears.
+
+"Pardon me for referring to such a painful subject," he hastened to say,
+"but it is imperative."
+
+"I thought that you were--were unaware of the sad affair," she faltered.
+
+"So I was until quite recently," he replied. "I know how deeply it must
+pain you to speak of it, but will you please explain to me the actual
+facts? I know that you are better acquainted with them than anyone else."
+
+"The facts of poor Harry's death," she repeated hoarsely, as though
+speaking to herself. "Why recall them? Oh! why recall them?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+REVEALS A CURIOUS PROBLEM
+
+
+THE countenance of Enid Orlebar had changed; her cheeks were deathly
+white, and her face was sufficient index to a mind overwhelmed with grief
+and regret.
+
+"I asked you to explain, because I fear that my information may be
+faulty. Captain Bellairs died--_died suddenly_, did he not?"
+
+"Yes. It was a great blow to my stepfather," the girl said; "and--and by
+his unfortunate death I lost one of my best friends."
+
+"Tell me exactly how it occurred. I believe the tragic event happened on
+September the second, did it not?"
+
+"Yes," she replied. "Mother and I had been staying at the White Hart at
+Salisbury while Sir Hugh had been inspecting some troops. Captain
+Bellairs had been with us, as usual, but had been sent up to London by my
+stepfather. That same day I returned to London alone on my way to a visit
+up in Yorkshire, and arrived at Hill Street about seven o'clock. At a
+quarter to ten at night I received an urgent note from Captain Bellairs,
+brought by a messenger, and written in a shaky hand, asking me to call at
+once at his chambers in Half Moon Street. He explained that he had been
+taken suddenly ill, and that he wished to see me upon a most important
+and private matter. He asked me to go to him, as it was most urgent.
+Mother and I had been to his chambers to tea several times before;
+therefore, realising the urgency of his message, I found a taxi and went
+at once to him."
+
+She broke off short, and with difficulty swallowed the lump which arose
+in her throat.
+
+"Well?" asked Fetherston in a low, sympathetic voice.
+
+"When I arrived," she said, "I--I found him lying dead! He had expired
+just as I ascended the stairs."
+
+"Then you learned nothing, eh?"
+
+"Nothing," she said in a low voice. "I have ever since wondered what
+could have been the private matter upon which he so particularly desired
+to see me. He felt death creeping upon him, or--or else he knew himself
+to be a doomed man--or he would never have penned me that note."
+
+"The letter in question was not mentioned at the inquest?"
+
+"No. My stepfather urged me to regard the affair as a strict secret. He
+feared a scandal because I had gone to Harry's rooms."
+
+"You have no idea, then, what was the nature of the communication which
+the captain wished to make to you?" asked the novelist.
+
+"Not the slightest," replied the girl, yet with some hesitation. "It is
+all a mystery--a mystery which has ever haunted me--a mystery which
+haunts me now!"
+
+They had halted, and were standing together beneath a great oak, already
+partially bare of leaves. He looked into her beautiful face, sweet and
+full of purity as a child's. Then, in a low, intense voice, he said:
+"Cannot you be quite frank with me, Enid--cannot you give me more minute
+details of the sad affair? Captain Bellairs was in his usual health that
+day when he left you at Salisbury, was he not?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I drove him to the station in our car."
+
+"Have you any idea why your stepfather sent him up to London?"
+
+"Not exactly, except that at breakfast he said to my mother that he must
+send Bellairs up to London. That was all."
+
+"And at his rooms, whom did you find?"
+
+"Barker, his man," she replied. "The story he told me was a curious one,
+namely, that his master had arrived from Salisbury at two o'clock, and
+at half-past two had sent him out upon a message down to Richmond. On his
+return, a little after five, he found his master absent, but the place
+smelt strongly of perfume, which seemed to point to the fact that the
+captain had had a lady visitor."
+
+"He had no actual proof of that?" exclaimed Fetherston, interrupting.
+
+"I think not. He surmised it from the fact that his master disliked
+scent, even in his toilet soap. Again, upon the table in the hall
+Barker's quick eye noticed a small white feather; this he showed me, and
+it was evidently from a feather boa. In the fire-grate a letter had been
+burnt. These two facts had aroused the man-servant's curiosity."
+
+"What time did the captain return?"
+
+"Almost immediately. He changed into his dinner jacket, and went forth
+again, saying that he intended to dine at the Naval and Military Club,
+and return to his rooms in time to change and catch the eleven-fifteen
+train from Waterloo for Salisbury that same night. He even told Barker
+which suit of clothes to prepare. It seems, however, that he came in
+about a quarter-past nine, and sent Barker on a message to Waterloo
+Station. On the man's return he found his master fainting in his
+arm-chair. He called Barker to get him a glass of water--his throat
+seemed on fire, he said. Then, obtaining pen and paper, he wrote that
+hurried message to me. Barker stated that three minutes after addressing
+the envelope he fell into a state of coma, the only word he uttered being
+my name." And she pressed her lips together.
+
+"It is evident, then, that he earnestly desired to speak to you--to tell
+you something," her companion remarked.
+
+"Yes," she went on quickly. "I found him lying back in his big arm-chair,
+quite dead. Barker had feared to leave his side, and summoned the doctor
+and messenger-boy by telephone. When I entered, however, the doctor had
+not arrived."
+
+"It was a thousand pities that you were too late. He wished to make some
+important statement to you, without a doubt."
+
+"I rushed to him at once, but, alas! was just too late."
+
+"He carried that secret, whatever it was, with him to the grave,"
+Fetherston said reflectively. "I wonder what it could have been?"
+
+"Ah!" sighed the girl, her face yet paler. "I wonder--I constantly
+wonder."
+
+"The doctors who made the post-mortem could not account for the death, I
+believe. I have read the account of the inquest."
+
+"Ah! then you know what transpired there," the girl said quickly. "I was
+in court, but was not called as a witness. There was no reason why I
+should be asked to make any statement, for Barker, in his evidence, made
+no mention of the letter which the dead man had sent me. I sat and heard
+the doctors--both of whom expressed themselves puzzled. The coroner put
+it to them whether they suspected foul play, but the reply they gave was
+a distinctly negative one."
+
+"The poor fellow's death was a mystery," her companion said. "I noticed
+that an open verdict was returned."
+
+"Yes. The most searching inquiry was made, although the true facts
+regarding it were never made public. Sir Hugh explained one day at the
+breakfast-table that in addition to the two doctors who made the
+examination of the body, Professors Dale and Boyd, the analysts of the
+Home Office, also made extensive experiments, but could detect no symptom
+of poisoning."
+
+"Where he had dined that night has never been discovered, eh?"
+
+"Never. He certainly did not dine at the club."
+
+"He may have dined with his lady visitor," Fetherston remarked, his eyes
+fixed upon her.
+
+She hesitated for a moment, as though unwilling to admit that Bellairs
+should have entertained the unknown lady in secret.
+
+"He may have done so, of course," she said with some reluctance.
+
+"Was there any other fact beside the feather which would lead one to
+suppose that a lady had visited him?"
+
+"Only the perfume. Barker declared that it was a sweet scent, such as he
+had never smelt before. The whole place 'reeked with it,' as he put it."
+
+"No one saw the lady call at his chambers?"
+
+"Nobody came forward with any statement," replied the girl. "I myself
+made every inquiry possible, but, as you know, a woman is much
+handicapped in such a matter. Barker, who was devoted to his master,
+spared no effort, but he has discovered nothing."
+
+"For aught we know to the contrary, Captain Bellairs' death may have been
+due to perfectly natural causes," Fetherston remarked.
+
+"It may have been, but the fact of his mysterious lady visitor, and that
+he dined at some unknown place on that evening, aroused my suspicions.
+Yet there was no evidence whatever either of poison or of foul play."
+
+Fetherston raised his eyes and shot a covert glance at her--a glance of
+distinct suspicion. His keen, calm gaze was upon her, noting the unusual
+expression upon her countenance, and how her gloved fingers had clenched
+themselves slightly as she had spoken. Was she telling him all that she
+knew concerning the extraordinary affair? That was the question which had
+arisen at that moment within his mind.
+
+He had perused carefully the cold, formal reports which had appeared in
+the newspapers concerning the "sudden death" of Captain Henry Bellairs,
+and had read suspicion between the lines, as only one versed in mysteries
+of crime could read. Were not such mysteries the basis of his profession?
+He had been first attracted by it as a possible plot for a novel, but, on
+investigation, had discovered, to his surprise, that Bellairs had been
+Sir Hugh's trusted secretary and the friend of Enid Orlebar.
+
+The poor fellow had died in a manner both sudden and mysterious, as a
+good many persons die annually. To the outside world there was no
+suspicion whatever of foul play.
+
+Yet, being in possession of certain secret knowledge, Fetherston had
+formed a theory--one that was amazing and startling--a theory which he
+had, after long deliberation, made up his mind to investigate and prove.
+
+This girl had loved Harry Bellairs before he had met her, and because of
+it the poor fellow had fallen beneath the hand of a secret assassin.
+
+She stood there in ignorance that he had already seen and closely
+questioned Barker in London, and that the man had made an admission, an
+amazing statement--namely, that the subtle Eastern perfume upon Enid
+Orlebar, when she arrived so hurriedly and excitedly at Half Moon Street,
+was the same which had greeted his nostrils when he entered his master's
+chambers on his return from that errand upon which he had been sent.
+
+Enid Orlebar had been in the captain's rooms during his absence!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MALTWOOD
+
+
+NOW Enid Orlebar's story contained several discrepancies.
+
+She had declared that she arrived at Hill Street about seven o'clock on
+that fateful second of September. That might be true, but might she not
+have arrived after her secret visit to Half Moon Street?
+
+In suppressing the fact that she had been there at all she had acted with
+considerable foresight. Naturally, her parents were not desirous of the
+fact being stated publicly that she had gone alone to a bachelor's rooms,
+and they had, therefore, assisted her to preserve the secret--known only
+to Barker and to the doctor. Yet her evidence had been regarded as
+immaterial, hence she had not been called as witness.
+
+Only Barker had suspected. That unusual perfume about her had puzzled
+him. Yet how could he make any direct charge against the general's
+stepdaughter, who had always been most generous to him in the matter of
+tips? Besides, did not the captain write a note to her with his last
+dying effort?
+
+What proof was there that the pair had not dined together? Fetherston had
+already made diligent inquiries at Hill Street, and had discovered from
+the butler that Miss Enid, on her arrival home from Salisbury, had
+changed her gown and gone out in a taxi at a quarter to eight. She had
+dined out--but where was unknown.
+
+It was quite true that she had come in before ten o'clock, and soon
+afterwards had received a note by boy-messenger.
+
+In view of these facts it appeared quite certain to Fetherston that Enid
+and Harry Bellairs had taken dinner _tete-a-tete_ at some quiet
+restaurant. She was a merry, high-spirited girl to whom such an adventure
+would certainly appeal.
+
+After dinner they had parted, and he had driven to his rooms. Then,
+feeling his strength failing, he had hastily summoned her to his side.
+
+Why?
+
+If he had suspected her of being the author of any foul play he most
+certainly would not have begged her to come to him in his last moments.
+No. The enigma grew more and more inscrutable.
+
+And yet there was a motive for poor Bellairs' tragic end--one which, in
+the light of his own knowledge, seemed only too apparent.
+
+He strolled on beside the fair-faced girl, deep in wonder. Recollections
+of that devil-may-care cavalry officer who had been such a good friend
+clouded her brow, and as she walked her eyes were cast upon the ground in
+silent reflection.
+
+She was wondering whether Walter Fetherston had guessed the truth, that
+she had loved that man who had met with such an untimely end.
+
+Her companion, on his part, was equally puzzled. That story of Barker's
+finding a white feather was a curious one. It was true that the man had
+found a white feather--but he had also learnt that when Enid Orlebar had
+arrived at Hill Street she had been wearing a white feather boa!
+
+"It is not curious, after all," he said reflectively, "that the police
+should have dismissed the affair as a death from natural causes. At the
+inquest no suspicion whatever was aroused. I wonder why Barker, in his
+evidence, made no mention of that perfume--or of the discovery of the
+feather?"
+
+And as he uttered those words he fixed his grave eyes upon her, watching
+her countenance intently.
+
+"Well," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "if he had it would
+have proved nothing, would it? If the captain had received a lady visitor
+in secret that afternoon it might have had no connection with the
+circumstances of his death six hours later."
+
+"And yet it might," Fetherston remarked. "What more natural than that the
+lady who visited him clandestinely--for Barker had, no doubt, been sent
+out of the way on purpose that he should not see her--should have dined
+with him later?"
+
+The girl moved uneasily, tapping the ground with her stick.
+
+"Then you suspect some woman of having had a hand in his death?" she
+exclaimed in a changed voice, her eyes again cast upon the ground.
+
+"I do not know sufficient of the details to entertain any distinct
+suspicion," he replied. "I regard the affair as a mystery, and in
+mysteries I am always interested."
+
+"You intend to bring the facts into a book," she remarked. "Ah! I see."
+
+"Perhaps--if I obtain a solution of the enigma--for enigma it certainly
+is."
+
+"You agree with me, then, that poor Harry was the victim of foul play?"
+she asked in a low, intense voice, eagerly watching his face the while.
+
+"Yes," he answered very slowly, "and, further, that the woman who visited
+him that afternoon was an accessory. Harry Bellairs was _murdered_!"
+
+Her cheeks blanched and she went pale to the lips. He saw the sudden
+change in her, and realised what a supreme effort she was making to
+betray no undue alarm. But the effect of his cold, calm words had been
+almost electrical. He watched her countenance slowly flushing, but
+pretended not to notice her confusion. And so he walked on at her side,
+full of wonderment.
+
+How much did she know? Why, indeed, had Harry Bellairs fallen the victim
+of a secret assassin?
+
+No trained officer of the Criminal Investigation Department was more
+ingenious in making secret inquiries, more clever in his subterfuges or
+in disguising his real objects, than Walter Fetherston. Possessed of
+ample means, and member of that secret club called "Our Society," which
+meets at intervals and is the club of criminologists, and pursuing the
+detection of crime as a pastime, he had on many occasions placed Scotland
+Yard and the Surete in Paris in possession of information which had
+amazed them and which had earned for him the high esteem of those in
+office as Ministers of the Interior in Paris, Rome and in London.
+
+The case of Captain Henry Bellairs he had taken up merely because he
+recognised in it some unusual circumstances, and without sparing effort
+he had investigated it rapidly and secretly from every standpoint. He had
+satisfied himself. Certain knowledge that he had was not possessed by any
+officer at Scotland Yard, and only by reason of that secret knowledge had
+he been able to arrive at the definite conclusion that there had been a
+strong motive for the captain's death, and that if he had been secretly
+poisoned--which seemed to be the case, in spite of the analysts'
+evidence--then he had been poisoned by the velvet hand of a woman.
+
+Walter Fetherston was ever regretting his inability to put any of the
+confidential information he acquired into his books.
+
+"If I could only write half the truth of what I know, people would
+declare it to be fiction," he had often assured intimate friends. And
+those friends had pondered and wondered to what he referred.
+
+He wrote of crime, weaving those wonderful romances which held breathless
+his readers in every corner of the globe, and describing criminals and
+life's undercurrents with such fidelity that even criminals themselves
+had expressed wonder as to how and whence he obtained his accurate
+information.
+
+But the public were in ignorance that, in his character of Mr. Maltwood,
+he pursued a strange profession, one which was fraught with more romance
+and excitement than any other calling a man could adopt. In comparison
+with his life that of a detective was really a tame one; while such
+success had he obtained that in a certain important official circle in
+London he was held in highest esteem and frequently called into
+consultation.
+
+Walter Fetherston, the quiet, reticent novelist, was entirely different
+from the gay, devil-may-care Maltwood, the accomplished linguist,
+thorough-going cosmopolitan and constant traveller, the easy-going man of
+means known in society in every European capital.
+
+Because of this his few friends who were aware of his dual personality
+were puzzled.
+
+At the girl's side he strode on along the road which still led through
+the wood, the road over which every evening rumbled the old
+post-diligence on its way through the quaint old town of Etain to the
+railway at Spincourt. On that very road a battalion of Uhlans had been
+annihilated almost to a man at the outbreak of the Great War.
+
+Every metre they trod was historic ground--ground which had been
+contested against the legions of the Crown Prince's army.
+
+For some time neither spoke. At last Walter asked: "Your stepfather has
+been up to the fortress with Monsieur Le Pontois, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, once or twice," was her reply, eager to change the subject. "Of
+course, to a soldier, fortifications and suchlike things are always of
+interest."
+
+"I saw them walking up to the fortress together the other day," he
+remarked with a casual air.
+
+"What?" she asked quickly. "Have you been here before?"
+
+"Once," he laughed. "I came over from Commercy and spent the day in your
+vicinity in the hope that I might perhaps meet you alone accidentally."
+
+He did not tell her that he had watched her shopping with Madame Le
+Pontois, or that he had spent several days at a small _auberge_ at the
+tiny village of Marcheville-en-Woevre, only two miles distant.
+
+"I had no idea of that," she replied, her face flushing slightly.
+
+"When do you return to London?" he asked.
+
+"I hardly know. Certainly not before next Thursday, as we have amateur
+theatricals at General Molon's. I am playing the part of Miss Smith, the
+English governess, in Darbour's comedy, _Le Pyree_."
+
+"And then you return to London, eh?"
+
+"I hardly know. Yesterday I had a letter from Mrs. Caldwell saying that
+she contemplated going to Italy this winter; therefore, perhaps mother
+will let me go. I wrote to her this morning. The proposal is to spend
+part of the time in Italy, and then cross from Naples to Egypt. I love
+Egypt. We were there some winters ago, at the Winter Palace at Luxor."
+
+"Your father and mother will remain at home, I suppose?"
+
+"Mother hates travelling nowadays. She says she had quite sufficient of
+living abroad in my father's lifetime. We were practically exiled for
+years, you know. I was born in Lima, and I never saw England till I was
+eleven. The Diplomatic Service takes one so out of touch with home."
+
+"But Sir Hugh will go abroad this winter, eh?"
+
+"I have not heard him speak of it. I believe he's too busy at the War
+Office just now. They have some more 'reforms' in progress, I hear," and
+she smiled.
+
+He was looking straight into the girl's handsome face, his heart torn
+between love and suspicion.
+
+Those days at Biarritz recurred to him; how he would watch for her and go
+and meet her down towards Grande Plage, till, by degrees, it had become
+to both the most natural thing in the world. On those rare evenings when
+they did not meet the girl was conscious of a little feeling of
+disappointment which she was too shy to own, even to her own heart.
+
+Walter Fetherston owned it freely enough. In that bright springtime the
+day was incomplete unless he saw her; and he knew that, even now, every
+hour was making her grow dearer to him. From that chance meeting at the
+hotel their friendship had grown, and had ripened into something warmer,
+dearer--a secret held closely in each heart, but none the less sweet for
+that.
+
+After leaving Biarritz the man had torn himself from her--why, he hardly
+knew. Only he felt upon him some fatal fascination, strong and
+irresistible. It was the first time in his life that he had been what is
+vulgarly known as "over head and ears in love."
+
+He returned to England, and then, a month later, his investigation of
+Henry Bellairs' death, for the purpose of obtaining a plot for a new
+novel he contemplated, revealed to him a staggering and astounding truth.
+
+Even then, in face of that secret knowledge he had gained, he had been
+powerless, and he had gone up to Monifieth deliberately again to meet
+her--to be drawn again beneath the spell of those wonderful eyes.
+
+There was love in the man's heart. But sometimes it embittered him. It
+did at that moment, as they strolled still onward over that carpet of
+moss and fallen leaves. He had loved her, as he believed her to be a
+woman with heart and soul too pure to harbour an evil thought. But her
+story of the death of poor Bellairs, the man who had loved her, had
+convinced him that his suspicions were, alas! only too well grounded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WHAT CONFESSION WOULD MEAN
+
+
+A SILENCE had fallen between the pair. Again Walter Fetherston glanced at
+her.
+
+She was an outdoor girl to the tips of her fingers. At shooting parties
+she went out with the guns, not merely contenting herself, as did the
+other girls, to motor down with the luncheon for the men. She never got
+dishevelled or untidy, and her trim tweed skirt and serviceable boots
+never made her look unwomanly. She was her dainty self out in the country
+with the men, just as in the pretty drawing-room at Hill Street, while
+her merry laugh evoked more smiles and witticisms than the more studied
+attempts at wit of the others.
+
+At that moment she had noticed the change in the man she had so gradually
+grown to love, and her heart was beating in wild tumult.
+
+He, on his part, was hating himself for so foolishly allowing her to
+steal into his heart. She had lied to him there, just as she had lied to
+him at Biarritz. And yet he had been a fool, and had allowed himself to
+be drawn back to her side.
+
+Why? he asked himself. Why? There was a reason, a strong reason. He loved
+her, and the reason he was at that moment at her side was to save her, to
+rescue her from a fate which he knew must sooner or later befall her.
+
+She made some remark, but he only replied mechanically. His countenance
+had, she saw, changed and become paler. His lips were pressed together,
+and, taking a cigar from his case, he asked her permission to smoke, and
+viciously bit off its end. Something had annoyed him. Was it possible
+that he held any suspicion of the ghastly truth?
+
+The real fact, however, was that he was calmly and deliberately
+contemplating tearing her from his heart for ever as an object of
+suspicion and worthless. He, who had never yet fallen beneath a woman's
+thraldom, resolved not to enter blindly the net she had spread for him.
+His thoughts were hard and bitter--the thoughts of a man who had loved
+passionately, but whose idol had suddenly been shattered.
+
+Again she spoke, remarking that it was time she turned back, for already
+they were at the opposite end of the wood, with a beautiful panorama of
+valley and winding river spread before them. But he only answered a
+trifle abruptly, and, acting upon her suggestion, turned and retraced
+his steps in silence.
+
+At last, as though suddenly rousing himself, he turned to her, and said
+in an apologetic tone: "I fear, Enid, I've treated you rather--well,
+rather uncouthly. I apologise. I was thinking of something else--a
+somewhat serious matter."
+
+"I knew you were," she laughed, affecting to treat the matter lightly.
+"You scarcely replied to me."
+
+"Forgive me, won't you?" he asked, smiling again in his old way.
+
+"Of course," she said. "But--but is the matter very serious? Does it
+concern yourself?"
+
+"Yes, Enid, it does," he answered.
+
+And still she walked on, her eyes cast down, much puzzled.
+
+Two woodmen passed on their way home from work, and raised their caps
+politely, while Walter acknowledged their salutation in French.
+
+"I shall probably leave here to-morrow," her companion said as they
+walked back to the high road. "I am not yet certain until I receive my
+letters to-night."
+
+"You are now going back to your village inn, I suppose," she laughed
+cheerfully.
+
+"Yes," he said. "My host is an interesting old countryman, and has told
+me quite a lot about the war. He was wounded when the Germans shelled
+Verdun. He has told me that he knows Paul Le Pontois, for his son Jean is
+his servant."
+
+"Why, Mr. Fetherston, you are really ubiquitous," cried the girl in
+confusion. "Why have you been watching us like this?"
+
+"Merely because I wished to see you, as I've already explained," was his
+reply. "I wanted to ask you those questions which I have put to you this
+afternoon."
+
+"About poor Harry?" she remarked in a hoarse, low voice. "But you begged
+me to reply to you in my own interests--why?"
+
+"Because I wished to know the real truth."
+
+"Well, I've told you the truth," she said with just the slightest tinge
+of defiance in her voice.
+
+For a moment he did not speak. He had halted; his grave eyes were fixed
+upon her.
+
+"Have you told me the whole truth--all that you know, Enid?" he asked
+very quietly a moment later.
+
+"What more should I know?" she protested after a second's hesitation.
+
+"How can I tell?" he asked quickly. "I only ask you to place me in
+possession of all the facts within your knowledge."
+
+"Why do you ask me this?" she cried. "Is it out of mere idle curiosity?
+Or is it because--because, knowing that Harry loved me, you wish to cause
+me pain by recalling those tragic circumstances?"
+
+"Neither," was his quiet answer in a low, sympathetic voice. "I am your
+friend, Enid. And if you will allow me, I will assist you."
+
+She held her breath. He spoke as though he were aware of the truth--that
+she had not told him everything--that she was still concealing certain
+important and material facts.
+
+"I--I know you are my friend," she faltered. "I have felt that all along,
+ever since our first meeting. But--but forgive me, I beg of you. The very
+remembrance of that night of the second of September is, to me,
+horrible--horrible."
+
+To him those very words of hers increased his suspicion. Was it any
+wonder that she was horrified when she recalled that gruesome episode of
+the death of a brave and honest man? Her personal fascination had
+overwhelmed Harry Bellairs, just as it had overwhelmed himself. The devil
+sends some women into the hearts of upright men to rend and destroy them.
+
+Upon her cheeks had spread a deadly pallor, while in the centre of each
+showed a scarlet spot. Her heart was torn by a thousand emotions, for the
+image of that man whom she had seen lying cold and dead in his room had
+arisen before her vision, blotting out everything. The hideous
+remembrance of that fateful night took possession of her soul.
+
+In silence they walked on for a considerable time. Now and then a rabbit
+scuttled from their path into the undergrowth or the alarm-cry of a bird
+broke the evening stillness, until at last they came forth into the wide
+highway, their faces set towards the autumn sunset.
+
+Suddenly the man spoke.
+
+"Have you heard of the doctor since you left London?" he asked.
+
+She held her breath--only for a single second. But her hesitation was
+sufficient to show him that she intended to conceal the truth.
+
+"No," was her reply. "He has not written to me."
+
+Again he was silent. There was a reason--a strong reason--why Weirmarsh
+should not write to her, he knew. But he had, by his question, afforded
+her an opportunity of telling him the truth--the truth that the
+mysterious George Weirmarsh was there, in that vicinity. That Enid was
+aware of that fact was certain to him.
+
+"I wish," she said at last, "I wish you would call at the chateau and
+allow me to introduce you to Paul and his wife. They would be charmed to
+make your acquaintance."
+
+"Thank you," he replied a trifle coldly; "I'd rather not know them--in
+the present circumstances."
+
+"Why, how strange you are!" the girl exclaimed, looking up into his face,
+so dark and serious. "I don't see why you should entertain such an
+aversion to being introduced to Paul. He's quite a dear fellow."
+
+"Perhaps it is a foolish reluctance on my part," he laughed uneasily.
+"But, somehow, I feel that to remain away from the chateau is best.
+Remember, your stepfather and your mother are in ignorance of--well, of
+the fact that we regard each other as--as more than close friends. For
+the present it is surely best that I should not visit your relations.
+Relations are often very prompt to divine the real position of affairs.
+Parents may be blind," he laughed, "but brothers-in-law never."
+
+"You are always so dreadfully philosophical!" the girl cried, glad that
+at last that painful topic of conversation had been changed. "Paul Le
+Pontois wouldn't eat you!"
+
+"I don't suppose any Frenchman is given to cannibalistic diet," he
+answered, smiling. "But the fact is, I have my reasons for not being
+introduced to the Le Pontois family just now."
+
+The girl looked at him sharply, surprised at the tone of his response.
+She tried to divine its meaning. But his countenance still bore that
+sphinx-like expression which so often caused his friends to entertain
+vague suspicions.
+
+Few men could read character better than Walter Fetherston. To him the
+minds of most men and women he met were as an open book. To a marvellous
+degree had he cultivated his power of reading the inner working of the
+mind by the expression in the eyes and on the faces of even those
+hard-headed diplomats and men of business whom, in his second character
+of Mr. Maltwood, he so frequently met. Few men or women could tell him a
+deliberate lie without its instant detection. Most shrewd men possess
+that power to a greater or less degree--a power that can be developed by
+painstaking application and practice.
+
+Enid asked her companion when they were to meet again.
+
+"At least let me see you before you go from here," she said. "I know what
+a rapid traveller you always are."
+
+"Yes," he sighed. "I'm often compelled to make quick journeys from one
+part of the Continent to the other. I am a constant traveller--too
+constant, perhaps, for I've nowadays grown very world-weary and
+restless."
+
+"Well," she exclaimed, "if you will not come to the chateau, where shall
+we meet?"
+
+"I will write to you," he replied. "At this moment my movements are most
+uncertain--they depend almost entirely upon the movements of others. At
+any moment I may be called away. But a letter to Holles Street will
+always find me, you know."
+
+He seemed unusually serious and strangely preoccupied, she thought. She
+noticed, too, that he had flung away his half-consumed cigar in
+impatience, and that he had rubbed his chin with his left hand, a habit
+of his when puzzled.
+
+At the crossroads where the leafless poplars ran in straight lines
+towards the village of Fresnes, a big red motor-car passed them at a
+tearing pace, and in it Enid recognised General Molon.
+
+Fetherston, although an ardent motorist himself, cursed the driver under
+his breath for bespattering them with mud. Then, with a word of apology
+to his charming companion, he held her gloved hand for a moment in his.
+
+Their parting was not prolonged. The man's lips were thin and hard, for
+his resolve was firm.
+
+This girl whom he had grown to love--who was the very sunshine of his
+strange, adventurous life--was, he had at last realised, unworthy. If he
+was to live, if the future was to have hope and joy for him, he must tear
+her out of his life.
+
+Therefore he bade her adieu, refusing to give her any tryst for the
+morrow.
+
+"It is all so uncertain," he repeated. "You will write to me in London if
+you do not hear from me, won't you?"
+
+She nodded, but scarce a word, save a murmured farewell, escaped her dry
+lips.
+
+He was changed, sadly changed, she knew. She turned from him with
+overflowing heart, stifling her tears, but with a veritable volcano of
+emotion within her young breast.
+
+He had changed--changed entirely and utterly in that brief hour and a
+half they had walked together. What had she said? What had she done? she
+asked herself.
+
+Forward she went blindly with the blood-red light of the glorious sunset
+full in her hard-set face, the great fortress-crowned hills looming up
+before her, a barrier between herself and the beyond! They looked grey,
+dark, mysterious as her own future.
+
+She glanced back, but he had turned upon his heel, and she now saw his
+retreating figure swinging along the straight, broad highway.
+
+Why had he treated her thus? Was it possible, she reflected, that he had
+actually become aware of the ghastly truth? Had he divined it?
+
+"If he has," she cried aloud in an agony of soul, "then no wonder--no
+wonder, indeed, that he has cast me from his life as a criminal--as a
+woman to be avoided as the plague--that he has said good-bye to me for
+ever!"
+
+Her lips trembled, and the corners of her pretty mouth hardened.
+
+She turned again to watch the man's disappearing figure.
+
+"I would go back," she cried in despair, "back to him, and beg his
+forgiveness upon my knees. I love him--love him better than my life! Yet
+to crave forgiveness would be to confess--to tell all I know--the whole
+awful truth! And I can't do that--no, never! God help me! I--I--I--can't
+do that!"
+
+And bursting into a flood of hot tears, she stood rigid, her small hands
+clenched, still watching him until he disappeared from her sight around
+the bend of the road.
+
+"No," she murmured in a low, hoarse voice, still speaking to herself,
+"confession would mean death. Rather than admit the truth I would take
+my own life. I would kill myself, yes, face death freely and willingly,
+rather than he--the man I love so well--should learn Sir Hugh's
+disgraceful secret."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THREE GENTLEMEN FROM PARIS
+
+
+GASTON DARBOUR'S comedy, _Le Pyree_, had been played to a large audience
+assembled in one of the bigger rooms of the long whitewashed artillery
+barracks outside Ronvaux, where General Molon had his official residence.
+
+The humorous piece had been applauded to the echo--the audience
+consisting for the most part of military officers in uniform and their
+wives and daughters, with a sprinkling of the better-class civilians from
+the various chateaux in the neighbourhood, together with two or three
+aristocratic parties from Longuyon, Spincourt, and other places.
+
+The honours of the evening had fallen to the young English girl who had
+played the amusing part of the demure governess, Miss Smith--pronounced
+by the others "Mees Smeeth." Enid was passionately fond of dramatic art,
+and belonged to an amateur club in London. Among those present were the
+author of the piece himself, a dark young man with smooth hair parted in
+the centre and wearing an exaggerated black cravat.
+
+When the curtain fell the audience rose to chatter and comment, and were
+a long time before they dispersed. Paul Le Pontois waited for Enid, Sir
+Hugh accompanying Blanche and little Ninette home in the hired brougham.
+As the party had a long distance to go, some twelve kilometres, General
+Molon had lent Le Pontois his motor-car, which now stood awaiting him
+with glaring headlights in the barrack-square.
+
+As the hall emptied Paul glanced around him while awaiting Enid. On the
+walls the French tricolour was everywhere displayed, the revered
+_drapeau_ under which he had so gallantly and nobly served against the
+Huns.
+
+He presented a spruce appearance in his smart, well-cut evening coat,
+with the red button of the Legion d'Honneur in his lapel, and to the
+ladies who wished him "bon soir" as they filed out he drew his heels
+together and bowed gallantly.
+
+Outside, the night was cloudy and overcast. In the long rows of the
+barrack windows lights shone, and somewhere sounded a bugle, while in the
+shadows could be heard the measured tramp of sentries, the clank of
+spurs, or the click of rifles as they saluted their officers passing
+out.
+
+The whole atmosphere was a military one, for, indeed, the little town of
+Ronvaux is, even in these peace days, scarcely more than a huge camp.
+
+For a few minutes Le Pontois stood chatting to a group of men at the
+door. They had invited him to come across to their quarters, but he had
+explained that he was awaiting mademoiselle. So they raised their
+eyebrows, smiled mischievously, and bade him "bon soir."
+
+Soldiers were already stacking up the chairs ready for the clearance of
+the gymnasium for the morrow. Others were coming to water and sweep out
+the place. Therefore Le Pontois remained outside in the square, waiting
+in patience.
+
+He was reflecting. That evening, as he had sat with his wife watching the
+play, he had been seized by a curious feeling for which he entirely
+failed to account. Behind him there had sat a man and a woman, French
+without a doubt, but entire strangers. They must, of course, have known
+one or other of the officers in order to obtain an admission ticket.
+Nevertheless, they had spoken to no one, and on the fall of the curtain
+had entered a brougham in waiting and driven off.
+
+Paul had made no comment. By a sudden chance he had, during the
+entr'acte, risen and gazed around, when the face of the stranger had
+caught his eyes--a face which he felt was curiously familiar, yet he
+could not place it. The middle-aged man was dressed with quiet elegance,
+clean-shaven and keen-faced, apparently a prosperous civilian, while the
+lady with him was of about the same age and apparently his wife. She was
+dressed in a high-necked dress of black lace, and wore in her corsage a
+large circular ornament of diamonds and emeralds.
+
+Twice had Le Pontois taken furtive glances at the stranger whose lined
+brow was so extraordinarily familiar. It was the face of a deep thinker,
+a man who had, perhaps, passed through much trouble. Was it possible, he
+wondered, that he had seen that striking face in some photograph, or
+perhaps in some illustrated paper? He had racked his brain through the
+whole performance, but could not decide in what circumstances they had
+previously met.
+
+From time to time the stranger had joined with the audience in their
+hearty laughter, or applauded as vociferously as the others, his
+companion being equally amused at the quaint sayings of the demure "Mees
+Smeeth."
+
+And even as he stood in the shadows near the general's car awaiting Enid
+he was still wondering who the pair might be.
+
+At the fall of the curtain he had made several inquiries of the
+officers, but nobody could give him any information. They were complete
+strangers--that was all. Even a search among the cards of invitation had
+revealed nothing.
+
+So Paul Le Pontois remained mystified.
+
+Enid came at last, flushed with success and apologetic because she had
+kept him waiting. But he only congratulated her, and assisted her into
+the car. It was a big open one, therefore she wore a thick motor coat and
+veil as protection against the chill autumn night.
+
+A moment later the soldier-chauffeur mounted to his seat, and slowly they
+moved across the great square and out by the gates, where the sentries
+saluted. Then, turning to the right, they were quickly tearing along the
+highway in the darkness.
+
+Soon they overtook several closed carriages of the home-going visitors,
+and, ascending the hill, turned from the main road down into a by-road
+leading through a wooded valley, which was a short cut to the chateau.
+
+Part of their way led through the great Foret d'Amblonville, and though
+Enid's gay chatter was mostly of the play, the defects in the acting and
+the several amusing _contretemps_ which had occurred behind the scenes,
+her companion's thoughts were constantly of that stranger whose brow was
+so deeply lined with care.
+
+They expected to overtake Sir Hugh in the brougham, but so long had Enid
+been changing her gown that they saw nothing of the others.
+
+Just, however, as they were within a hundred yards or so of the gates
+which gave entrance to the chateau, and were slowing down in order to
+swing into the drive, a man emerged from the darkness, calling upon the
+driver to stop, and, placing himself before the car, held up his hands.
+
+Next instant the figure of a second individual appeared. Enid uttered a
+cry of alarm, but the second man, who wore a hard felt hat and dark
+overcoat, reassured her by saying in French:
+
+"Pray do not distress yourself, mademoiselle. There is no cause for
+alarm. My friend and I merely wish to speak for a moment with Monsieur Le
+Pontois before he enters his house. For that reason we have presumed to
+stop your car."
+
+"But who are you?" demanded Le Pontois angrily. "Who are you that you
+should hold us up like this?"
+
+"Perhaps, m'sieur, it would be better if you descended and escorted
+mademoiselle as far as your gates. We wish to speak to you for a moment
+upon a little matter which is both urgent and private."
+
+"Well, cannot you speak here, now, and let us proceed?"
+
+"Not before mademoiselle," replied the man. "It is a confidential
+matter."
+
+Paul, much puzzled at the curious demeanour of the strangers, reluctantly
+handed Enid out, and walked with her as far as his own gate, telling her
+to assure Blanche that he would return in a few moments, when he had
+heard what the men wanted.
+
+"Very well," she laughed. "I'll say nothing. You can tell her all when
+you come in."
+
+The girl passed through the gates and up the gravelled drive to the
+house, when Le Pontois, turning upon his heel to return to the car, was
+met by the two men, who, he found, had walked closely behind him.
+
+"You are Paul Le Pontois?" inquired the elder of the pair brusquely.
+
+"Of course! Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because it is necessary," was his businesslike reply. Then he added: "I
+regret, m'sieur, that you must consider yourself under arrest by order of
+his Excellency the Minister of Justice."
+
+"Arrest!" gasped the unhappy man. "Are you mad, messieurs?"
+
+"No," replied the man who had spoken.
+
+"We have merely our duty to perform, and have travelled from Paris to
+execute it."
+
+"With what offence am I charged?" Le Pontois demanded.
+
+"Of that we have no knowledge. As agents of secret police, we are sent
+here to convey you for interrogation."
+
+The man under arrest stood dumbfounded.
+
+"But at least you will allow me to say farewell to my wife and child--to
+make excuse to them for my absence?" he urged.
+
+"I regret that is quite impossible, m'sieur. Our orders are to make the
+arrest and to afford you no opportunity to communicate with anyone."
+
+"But this is cruel, inhuman! His Excellency never meant that, I am quite
+sure--especially when I am innocent of any crime, as far as I am aware."
+
+"We can only obey our orders, m'sieur," replied the man in the dark
+overcoat.
+
+"Then may I not write a line to my wife, just one word of excuse?" he
+pleaded.
+
+The two police agents consulted.
+
+"Well," replied the elder of the pair, who was the one in authority, "if
+you wish to scribble a note, here are paper and pencil." And he tore a
+leaf from his notebook and handed it to the prisoner.
+
+By the light of the head-lamps of the car Paul scribbled a few hurried
+words to Blanche: "I am detained on important business," he wrote. "I
+will return to-morrow. My love to you both.--PAUL."
+
+The detective read it, folded it carefully, and handed it to his
+assistant, telling him to go up to the chateau and deliver it at the
+servants' entrance.
+
+When he had gone the detective, turning to the chauffeur, said: "I shall
+require you to take us to Verdun."
+
+"This is not my car, m'sieur," replied Paul. "It belongs to General
+Molon."
+
+"That does not matter. I will telephone to him an explanation as soon as
+we arrive in Verdun. We may as well enter the car as stand here."
+
+Paul Le Pontois was about to protest, but what could he say? The Minister
+in Paris had apparently committed some grave error in thus ordering his
+arrest. No doubt there would be confusion, apologies and laughter. So,
+with a light heart at the knowledge that he had committed no offence, he
+got into the car, and allowed the polite police agent to seat himself
+beside him.
+
+The only chagrin he felt was that the chauffeur had overheard all the
+conversation. And to him he said: "Remember, Gallet, of this affair you
+know nothing."
+
+"I understand perfectly, m'sieur," was the wondering soldier's reply.
+
+Then they sat in silence in the darkness until the hurrying police agent
+returned, after which the car sped straight past the chateau on the high
+road which led through the deep valley on to the fortress town of Verdun.
+
+As they passed the chateau Paul Le Pontois caught a glimpse of its
+lighted windows and sat wondering what Blanche would imagine. He pictured
+the pleasant supper party and the surprise that would be expressed at his
+absence.
+
+How amusing! What incongruity! He was under arrest!
+
+The car rushed on beneath the precipitous hill crowned by the great
+fortress of Haudiomont, through the narrow gorge--the road to Paris.
+
+All three men, seated abreast, were silent until, at last, the elder of
+the two police agents bent and glanced at the clock on the dashboard,
+visible by the tiny glow-lamp.
+
+"Half past twelve," he remarked. "The express leaves Verdun at two
+twenty-eight."
+
+"For where?" asked Paul.
+
+"For Paris."
+
+"Paris!" he cried. "Are you taking me to Paris?"
+
+"Those are our orders," was the detective's quiet response.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE ORDERS OF HIS EXCELLENCY
+
+
+AGAIN Paul sat back without a word. Well, he would hear the extraordinary
+charge against him, whatever it might be. And, without speaking, they
+travelled on and on, until they at last entered the Porte St. Paul at
+Verdun, passed up the Avenue de la Gare, skirting the Palais de Justice
+into the station yard.
+
+As Paul descended they were met by a third stranger who strolled
+forward--a man in a heavy travelling coat and a soft Homburg hat.
+
+It was the man who had sat behind him earlier in the evening--the man
+with the deep lines upon his care-worn brow, who had laughed so
+heartily--and who a moment later introduced himself as Jules Pierrepont,
+special commissaire of the Paris Surete.
+
+"We have met before?" remarked Paul abruptly.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied the man with a grim smile. "On
+several occasions lately. It has been my duty to keep observation upon
+your movements--acting upon orders from Monsieur the Prefect of Police."
+
+And together they entered the dark, deserted station to await the night
+express for Paris.
+
+Suddenly Paul turned back, saying to the chauffeur in a low, hard voice:
+"Gallet, to-morrow go and tell madame my wife that I am unexpectedly
+called to the capital. Tell her--tell her that I will write to her. But,
+at all hazards, do not let her know the truth that I am under arrest," he
+added hoarsely.
+
+"That is understood, monsieur," replied the man, saluting. "Neither
+madame nor anyone else shall know why you have left for Paris."
+
+"I rely upon you," were Paul's parting words, and, turning upon his heel,
+he accompanied the three men who were in waiting.
+
+Half an hour later he sat in a second-class compartment of the Paris
+_rapide_ with the three keen-eyed men who had so swiftly effected his
+arrest.
+
+It was apparent to him now that the reason he had recognised Pierrepont
+was because that man had maintained vigilant, yet unobtrusive,
+observation upon him during several of the preceding days, keeping near
+him in all sorts of ingenious guises and making inquiries concerning
+him--inquiries instituted for some unexplained cause by the Paris police.
+
+Bitterly he smiled to himself as he gazed upon the faces of his three
+companions, hard and deep-shadowed beneath the uncertain light. Presently
+he made some inquiry of Jules Pierrepont, who had now assumed
+commandership of the party, as to the reason of his arrest.
+
+"I regret, Monsieur Le Pontois," replied the quiet, affable man, "his
+Excellency does not give us reasons. We obey orders--that is all."
+
+"But surely there is still, even after the war, justice in France!" cried
+Paul in dismay. "There must be some good reason. One cannot be thus
+arrested as a criminal without some charge against him--in my case a
+false one!"
+
+All three men had heard prisoners declare their innocence many times
+before, therefore they merely nodded assent--it was their usual habit.
+
+"There is, of course, some charge," remarked Pierrepont. "But no doubt
+monsieur has a perfect answer to it."
+
+"When I know what it is," replied Paul between his teeth, "then I shall
+meet it bravely, and demand compensation for this outrageous arrest!"
+
+He held his breath, for, with a sinking heart, he realised for the first
+time the very fact of a serious allegation being made against him by some
+enemy. If mud is thrown some of it always sticks. What had all his
+enthusiasm in life profited him? Nothing. He bit his lip when he
+reflected.
+
+"You have some idea of what is alleged against me, messieurs," the
+unhappy man exclaimed presently, as the roaring train emerged from a long
+tunnel. "I see it in your faces. Indeed, you would not have taken the
+precaution, which you did at the moment of my arrest, of searching me to
+find firearms. You suspected that I might make an attempt to take my
+life."
+
+"Merely our habit," replied Pierrepont with a slight smile.
+
+"The charge is a grave one--will you not admit that?"
+
+"Probably it is--or we should not all three have been sent to bring you
+to Paris," remarked one of the trio.
+
+"You have had access to my _dossier_--I feel sure you have, monsieur,"
+Paul said, addressing Pierrepont.
+
+"Ah! you are in error. Monsieur le Ministre does not afford me that
+privilege. I am but the servant of the Surete, and no one regrets more
+than myself the painful duty I have been compelled to perform to-night. I
+assure you, Monsieur Le Pontois, that I entertain much regret that I have
+been compelled to drag you away from your home and family thus, to
+Paris."
+
+"No apology is needed, mon ami," Paul exclaimed quickly, well aware that
+the detective was merely obeying instructions. "I understand your
+position perfectly." Then, glancing round at his companions, he added:
+"You may sleep in peace, messieurs. I give you my word of honour that I
+will not attempt to escape. Why, indeed, should I? I have committed no
+wrong!"
+
+One of the men had pulled out a well-worn notebook and was with
+difficulty writing down the prisoner's words--to be put in evidence
+against him. Le Pontois realised that; therefore his mouth closed with a
+snap, and, leaning back in the centre of the carriage, he closed his
+eyes, not to sleep, but to think.
+
+Before leaving Verdun he had seen Pierrepont enter the telegraph
+bureau--to dispatch a message to the Surete, without a doubt. They
+already knew in Paris that he was under arrest, but at his home they
+were, happily, still in ignorance. Poor Blanche was asleep, no doubt, by
+that time, he thought, calm in the belief that he had been delayed and
+would be home in the early hours.
+
+The fact that he was actually under arrest he regarded with more humour
+than seriousness, feeling that in the morning explanations would be made
+and the blunder rectified.
+
+No more honourable or upright man was there in France than Paul Le
+Pontois, and this order from the Surete had held him utterly speechless
+and astounded. So he sat there hour after hour as the _rapide_ roared
+westward, until it halted at the great echoing station of Chalons, where
+all four entered the buffet and hastily swallowed their cafe-au-lait.
+
+Afterwards they resumed their seats, and the train, with its two long,
+dusty _wagons-lit_, moved onward again, with Paris for its goal.
+
+The prisoner said little. He sat calmly reflecting, wondering and
+wondering what possible charge could be made against him. He had enemies,
+as every man had, he knew, but he was not aware of anyone who could make
+an allegation of a character sufficiently grave to warrant his arrest.
+
+Why had it been forbidden that he should wish Blanche farewell? There was
+some reason for that! He inquired of Pierrepont, who had treated him with
+such consideration and even respect, but the agent of secret police only
+replied that in making an arrest of that character they made it a rule
+never to allow a prisoner to communicate with his family.
+
+"There are several reasons for it," he explained. "One is that very often
+the prisoner will make a statement to his wife which he will afterwards
+greatly regret. Again, prisoners have been known to whisper to their
+wives secret instructions, to order the destruction of papers before we
+can make a domiciliary visit, or----"
+
+"But you surely will not make a domiciliary visit to my house?" cried
+Paul, interrupting.
+
+The men exchanged glances.
+
+"At present we cannot tell," Pierrepont replied. "It depends upon what
+instructions we receive."
+
+"Do you usually make searches?" asked the prisoner, with visions of his
+own home being desecrated and ransacked.
+
+"Yes, we generally do," the commissaire of police admitted. "As I have
+explained, it is for that reason we do not allow a prisoner's wife to
+know that he is under arrest."
+
+"But such an action is abominable!" cried Le Pontois angrily. "That my
+house should be turned upside down and searched as though I were a common
+thief, a forger, or a coiner is beyond toleration. I shall demand full
+inquiry. My friend Carlier shall put an interpellation in the Chamber!"
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre acts upon his own discretion," the detective
+replied coldly.
+
+"And by so doing sometimes ruins the prospects and the lives of some of
+our best men," blurted forth the angry prisoner. It was upon the tip of
+his tongue to say much more in condemnation, but the sight of the man
+with the notebook caused him to hesitate.
+
+Every word he uttered now would, he knew, be turned against him. He was
+under arrest--for some crime that he had not committed.
+
+The other passengers by that night express, who included a party of
+English tourists, little dreamed as they passed up and down the corridor
+that the smart, good-looking man who wore the button of the Legion
+d'Honneur, and who sat there with the three quiet, respectable-looking
+men, was being conveyed to the capital under escort--a man who, by the
+law of France, was already condemned, was guilty until he could prove his
+own innocence!
+
+In the cold grey of dawn they descended at last at the great bare Gare de
+l'Est in Paris. Paul felt tired, cramped and unshaven, but of necessity
+entered a taxi called by one of his companions, and, accompanied by
+Pierrepont and the elder of his assistants, was driven along through the
+cheerless, deserted streets to the Surete.
+
+As he entered the side door of the ponderous building the police officer
+on duty saluted his escort.
+
+His progress across France had been swift and secret.
+
+What, he wondered, did the future hold in store for him?
+
+His lip curled into a smile when they ushered him into a bare room on the
+first floor. Two police officers were placed outside the door, while two
+stood within.
+
+Then, turning to the window, which looked out upon the bare trees of the
+Place below, he laughed aloud and made some humorous remark which caused
+the men to smile.
+
+But, alas! he knew not the truth. Little did he dream of the amazing
+allegation that was to be made against him!--little did he dream how
+completely the enemies of his father-in-law, the general, had triumphed!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WALTER GIVES WARNING
+
+
+THE morning dawned bright and sunny--a perfect autumn morning--at the
+pretty Chateau of Lerouville.
+
+The message which Blanche had received after returning had not caused her
+much consternation. She supposed that Paul had been suddenly called away
+on business. So she had eaten her supper with her father and Enid and
+retired to rest.
+
+When, however, they sat at breakfast--served in the English style--Sir
+Hugh opened a letter which lay upon his plate, and at once announced his
+intention of returning to London.
+
+"I have to see Hughes, my solicitor, over Aunt Mary's affairs," he
+explained suddenly to Blanche. "That executorship is always an infernal
+nuisance."
+
+"But surely you can remain a day or two longer, Dad?" exclaimed Madame Le
+Pontois. "The weather is delightful just now, and I hear it is too
+dreadful for words in England."
+
+"I, too, have to be back to prepare for going away with Mrs. Caldwell,"
+Enid remarked.
+
+"But surely these solicitors will wait? There is no great urgency--there
+can't be! The old lady died ten years ago," Blanche exclaimed as she
+poured out coffee.
+
+"My dear, I'm extremely sorry," said her father quietly, "but I must
+go--it is imperative."
+
+"Not to-day?"
+
+"I ought to go to-day," he sighed. "Indeed, I really must--by the
+_rapide_ I usually take. Perhaps I shall alter my route this time, and go
+from Conflans to Metz, and home by Liege and Brussels. It is
+about as quick, and one gets a _wagon-lit_ from Metz. I looked up the
+train the other day, and find it leaves Conflans at a little after six."
+
+"Surely you will remain and say au revoir to Paul? He'll be so
+disappointed!" she cried in dismay.
+
+"My dear, you will make excuses for us. I must really go, and so must
+Enid. She had a letter from Mrs. Caldwell urging her to get back, as she
+wants to start abroad for the winter. The bad weather in England is
+affecting her, it seems."
+
+And so, with much regret expressed by little Ninette and her mother, Sir
+Hugh Elcombe and his stepdaughter went to their rooms to see about their
+packing.
+
+Both were puzzled. The sudden appearance of those strange men out of the
+darkness had frightened Enid, but she had said nothing. Perhaps it was
+upon some private matter that Paul had been summoned. Therefore she had
+preserved silence, believing with Blanche that at any moment he might
+return.
+
+Back in his room, Sir Hugh closed the door, and, standing in the sunshine
+by the window, gazed across the wide valley towards the blue mists
+beyond, deep in reflection.
+
+"This curious absence of Paul's forebodes evil," he murmured to himself.
+
+He had slept little that night, being filled with strange apprehensions.
+Though he had closely questioned Enid, she would not say what had
+actually happened. Her explanation was merely that Paul had been called
+away by a man who had met him outside.
+
+The old man sighed, biting his lip. He cursed himself for his dastardly
+work, even though he had been compelled by Weirmarsh to execute it on
+pain of exposure and consequent ruin.
+
+Against his will, against his better nature, he had been forced to meet
+the mysterious doctor of Pimlico in secret on that quiet, wooded by-road
+between Marcheville and Saint-Hilaire, four kilometres from the chateau,
+and there discuss with him the suggested affair of which they had spoken
+in London.
+
+The two men had met at sundown.
+
+"You seem to fear exposure!" laughed the man who provided Sir Hugh with
+his comfortable income. "Don't be foolish--there is no danger. Return to
+England with Enid as soon as you possibly can without arousing suspicion,
+and I will call and see you at Hill Street. I want to have a very serious
+chat with you."
+
+Elcombe's grey, weather-worn face grew hard and determined.
+
+"Why are you here, Weirmarsh?" he demanded. "I have helped you and your
+infernal friends in the past, but please do not count upon my assistance
+in the future. Remember that from to-day our friendship is entirely at an
+end."
+
+"As you wish, of course, my dear Sir Hugh," replied the other, with a
+nonchalant air. "But if I were you I would not be in too great a hurry to
+make such a declaration. You may require a friend in the near future--a
+friend like myself."
+
+"Never, I hope--never!" snapped the old general.
+
+"Very well," replied the doctor, who, with a shrug of his shoulders,
+wished his friend a cold adieu and, turning, strode away.
+
+As Sir Hugh stood alone by the window that morning he recalled every
+incident of that hateful interview, every word that had fallen from the
+lips of the man who seemed to be as ingenious and resourceful as Satan
+himself.
+
+His anxiety regarding Paul's sudden absence had caused him to invent an
+excuse for his own hurried departure. He was not prepared to remain there
+and witness his dear daughter's grief and humiliation, so he deemed it
+wiser to get away in safety to England, for he no longer trusted
+Weirmarsh. Suppose the doctor revealed the actual truth by means of some
+anonymous communication?
+
+As he stood staring blankly across the valley he heard the hum of an
+approaching motor-car, and saw that it was General Molon's, being driven
+by Gallet, the soldier chauffeur.
+
+There was no passenger, but the car entered the iron gates and pulled up
+before the door.
+
+A few minutes later Blanche ran up the stairs and, bursting into her
+father's room, cried: "Paul has been called suddenly to Paris, Dad! He
+told Gallet to come this morning and tell me. How strange that he did not
+come in to get even a valise!"
+
+"Yes, dear," said her father. "Gallet is downstairs, isn't he? I'll speak
+to him. The mystery of Paul's absence increases!"
+
+"It does. I--I can't get rid of a curious feeling of apprehension that
+something has happened. What was there to prevent him from coming in to
+wish me good-bye when he was actually at the gate?"
+
+Sir Hugh went below and questioned the chauffeur.
+
+The story told by the man Gallet was that Le Pontois had been met by two
+gentlemen and given a message that he was required urgently in Paris, and
+they had driven at once over to Verdun, where they had just caught the
+train.
+
+"Did Monsieur Le Pontois leave any other message for madame?" asked Sir
+Hugh in French.
+
+"No, m'sieur."
+
+The general endeavoured by dint of persuasion to learn something more,
+but the man was true to his promise, and would make no further statement.
+Indeed, earlier that morning he had been closely questioned by the
+commandant, but had been equally reticent. Le Pontois was a favourite in
+the neighbourhood, and no man would dare to lift his voice against him.
+
+Sir Hugh returned to his room and commenced packing his suit-cases, more
+than ever convinced that suspicion had been aroused. Jean came to offer
+to assist, but he declared that he liked to pack himself, and this
+occupied him the greater part of the morning.
+
+Enid was also busy with her dresses, assisted by Blanche's Provencal
+maid, Louise. About eleven o'clock, however, Jean tapped at her door and
+said: "A peasant from Allamont, across the valley, has brought a letter,
+mademoiselle. He says an English gentleman gave it to him to deliver to
+you personally. He is downstairs."
+
+In surprise the girl hurriedly descended to the servants' entrance, where
+she found a sturdy, old, grey-bearded peasant, bearing a long, stout
+stick. He raised his frayed cap politely and asked whether she were
+Mademoiselle Orlebar.
+
+Then, when she had replied in the affirmative, he drew from the breast of
+his blouse a crumpled letter, saying: "The Englishman who has been
+staying at the Lion d'Or at Allamont gave this to me at dawn to-day. I
+was to give it only into mademoiselle's hands. There is no reply."
+
+Enid tore open the letter eagerly and found the following words, written
+hurriedly in pencil in Walter Fetherston's well-known scrawling hand--for
+a novelist's handwriting is never of the best:
+
+     "Make excuse and induce your father to leave Conflans-Jarny at
+     once for Metz, travelling by Belgium for London. Accompany him. A
+     serious _contretemps_ has occurred which will affect you both if
+     you do not leave immediately on receipt of this. Heed this, I beg
+     of you. And remember, I am still your friend.
+                                                             "WALTER."
+
+For a moment she stood puzzled. "Did the Englishman say there was no
+reply?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle. He left the Lion d'Or just before eight, and drove
+into Conflans with his luggage. The innkeeper told me that he is
+returning suddenly to England. He received several telegrams in the
+night, it appears."
+
+"You know him, then?"
+
+"Oh yes, mademoiselle. He came there to fish in the Longeau, and I have
+been with him on several occasions."
+
+Enid took a piece of "cent sous" from her purse and gave it to the old
+man, then she returned to her room and, sending Louise below for
+something, burned Walter's letter in the grate.
+
+Afterwards she went to her stepfather and suggested that perhaps they
+might leave Conflans earlier than he had resolved.
+
+"I hear there is a train at three-five. If we went by that," she said,
+"we could cross from Ostend instead of by Antwerp, and thus be in London
+a day earlier."
+
+"Are you so anxious to get away from here, Enid?" he asked, looking
+straight into her face.
+
+"Well, yes. Mother, in her letter yesterday, urged me to come home, as
+she does not wish me to travel out alone to join Mrs. Caldwell. She's
+afraid she will leave London without me if I don't get home at once.
+Besides, I've got a lot of shopping to do before I can start. Do let us
+get away by the earlier train. It will be so much better," she urged.
+
+As Sir Hugh never denied Enid anything, he acquiesced. Packing was
+speedily concluded, and, much to the regret of Blanche, the pair left in
+a fly for which they had telephoned to Conflans-Jarny.
+
+The train by which they travelled ran through the beautiful valley of
+Manvaux, past the great forts of Plappeville and St. Quentin, and across
+the Moselle to Metz, and so into German territory.
+
+Whatever might happen, Sir Hugh reflected, at least he was now safe from
+arrest. While Enid, on her part, sat back in the corner of the
+first-class compartment gazing out of the window, still mystified by that
+strange warning from the man who only a few days previously had so
+curiously turned and abandoned her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE ACCUSERS
+
+
+AT the same hour when Enid and Sir Hugh were passing Amanvilliers, once
+the scene of terrible atrocities by the Huns, Paul Le Pontois, between
+two agents of police, was ushered into the private cabinet where, at the
+great writing-table near the window, sat a short man with bristling hair
+and snow-white moustache, Monsieur Henri Bezard, chief of the Surete
+Generale.
+
+A keen-faced, black-eyed man of dapper appearance, wearing the coveted
+button of the Legion d'Honneur in his black frock-coat, he looked up
+sharply at the man brought into his presence, wished him a curt "bon
+jour," and motioned him to a seat at the opposite side of the big table,
+in such a position that the grey light from the long window fell directly
+upon his countenance.
+
+With him, standing about the big, handsome room with its green-baize
+doors and huge oil paintings on the walls, were four elderly men,
+strangers to Paul.
+
+The severe atmosphere of that sombre apartment, wherein sat the chief of
+the police of the Republic, was depressing. Those present moved
+noiselessly over the thick Turkey carpet, while the double windows
+excluded every sound from the busy boulevard below.
+
+"Your name," exclaimed the great Bezard sharply, at last raising his eyes
+from a file of papers before him--"your name is Paul Robert Le Pontois,
+son of Paul Le Pontois, rentier of Severac, Department of Aveyron. During
+the war you were captain in the 114th Regiment of Artillery, and you now
+reside with your wife and daughter at the Chateau of Lerouville. Are
+those details correct?"
+
+"Perfectly, m'sieur," replied the man seated with the two police agents
+standing behind him. He wore his black evening trousers and a brown tweed
+jacket which one of the detectives had lent him.
+
+"You have been placed under arrest by order of the Ministry," replied
+Bezard, speaking in his quick, impetuous way.
+
+"I am aware of that, m'sieur," was Paul's reply, "but I am in ignorance
+of the charge against me."
+
+"Well," exclaimed Bezard very gravely, again referring to the formidable
+_dossier_ before him, "the charge brought against you is most serious.
+It is astounding and disgraceful. Listen, and I will read it. Afterwards
+we will hear what explanation you have to offer. We are assembled for
+that purpose."
+
+The four other men had taken chairs near by, while Pierrepont was
+standing at some distance away, with his back to the wood fire.
+
+For a second Bezard paused, then, rubbing his gold pince-nez and
+adjusting them, he read in a cold, hard voice the following:
+
+"The charge alleged against you, Paul Robert Le Pontois, is that upon
+four separate occasions you have placed in circulation forged Bank of
+England and Treasury notes of England to the extent of nearly a million
+francs."
+
+"It's a lie!" cried Paul, jumping to his feet, his face aflame. "Before
+God, I swear it is a lie!"
+
+"Calm yourself and listen," commanded the great chief of the Surete
+Generale sharply. "Be seated."
+
+The prisoner sank back into his chair again. His head was reeling. Who
+could possibly have made such unfounded charges against him? He could
+scarcely believe his ears.
+
+Then the hard-faced, white-headed old director, who held supreme command
+of the police of the Republic, glanced at him shrewdly, and, continuing,
+said: "It is alleged that you, Paul Le Pontois, on the fourteenth day of
+January, and again on the sixteenth of May, met in Commercy a certain
+Englishman, and handed to him a bundle of English notes since proved to
+be forgeries."
+
+"I am not acquainted with any English forger," protested Paul.
+
+"Do not interrupt, m'sieur!" snapped the director. "You will, later on,
+be afforded full opportunity to make any statement or explanation you may
+wish. First listen to these grave charges against you." After a further
+pause, he added: "The third occasion, it is alleged, was on April the
+eighth last, when it seems you drove at early morning over to
+Thillot-sous-les-Cotes and there met a stranger who was afterwards
+identified as an American who is wanted for banknote forgeries."
+
+"And the fourth?" asked Paul hoarsely. This string of allegations utterly
+staggered him.
+
+"The fourth occasion was quite recently," Bezard said, still speaking in
+that same cold tone. "On that occasion you made certain calculations to
+ascertain how much were your profits by dealing with these forgers whom
+Scotland Yard are so anxious to arrest. You wrote all the sums down,
+knowing your expenditure and profits. The latter were very considerable."
+
+"And by whom is it alleged that I am a dealer in base money, pray?"
+
+"It is not necessary for us to disclose the name of our informant," was
+the stiff rejoinder.
+
+"But surely I am not to be thus denounced by an anonymous enemy?" he
+cried. "This is not the justice which every Frenchman claims as his
+birthright!"
+
+"You have demanded to know the charges laid against you, and I have
+detailed them," replied the chief of the Surete, regarding the prisoner
+closely through his gold pince-nez.
+
+"They are false--every word of them," promptly returned Le Pontois. "I
+have no acquaintance with any banknote forger. If I had, he would quickly
+find himself under arrest."
+
+The four men seated in his vicinity smiled grimly. They had expected the
+prisoner to declare his innocence.
+
+"I may tell you that the information here"--and Bezard tapped the
+_dossier_ before him--"is from a source in which we have the most
+complete and implicit confidence. For the past few months there have been
+suspicions that forged English notes have been put into circulation in
+France. Therefore I ordered a vigilant watch to be maintained. Monsieur
+Pierrepont, here, has been in command of a squadron of confidential
+agents."
+
+"And they have watched me, and, I suppose, have manufactured evidence
+against me! It is only what may be expected of men paid to spy upon us.
+If I am a forger or a friend of forgers, as you allege me to be, then I
+am unworthy to have served in the uniform of France. But I tell you that
+the allegations you have just read are lies--lies, every word of them."
+And Le Pontois' pale cheeks flushed crimson with anger.
+
+"Le Pontois," remarked a tall, thin, elderly commissaire who was present,
+"it is for you to prove your innocence. The information laid before us is
+derived from those who have daily watched your movements and reported
+them. If you can prove to us that it is false, then your innocence may be
+established."
+
+"But I _am_ innocent!" he protested, "therefore I have no fear what
+charges may be laid against me. They cannot be substantiated. The whole
+string of allegations is utterly ridiculous!"
+
+"Eh bien! Then let us commence with the first," exclaimed Bezard, again
+referring to the file of secret reports before him. "On Wednesday, the
+fourteenth day of January, you went to Commercy, where, at the Cafe de la
+Cloche, you met a certain Belgian who passed under the name of Laloux."
+
+"I recollect!" cried Le Pontois quickly. "I sold him a horse. He was a
+dealer."
+
+"A dealer in forged notes," remarked one of the officials, with a faint
+smile.
+
+"Was he a forger, then?" asked Le Pontois in entire surprise.
+
+"Yes. He has entered France several times in the guise of a horsedealer,"
+Pierrepont interrupted.
+
+"But I only bought a horse of him," declared the prisoner vehemently.
+
+"And you paid for it in English notes, apologising that you had no other
+money. He took them, for he passed them in Belgium into an English bank
+in Brussels. They were forged!"
+
+"Again, on the sixteenth of May, you met the man Laloux at the same
+place," said Bezard.
+
+"He had a mare to sell--I tried to buy it for my wife to drive, but he
+wanted too much."
+
+"You remained the night at the Hotel de Paris, and saw him again at nine
+o'clock next morning."
+
+"True. I hoped to strike a bargain with him in the morning, but we could
+not come to terms."
+
+"Regarding the forged English notes you were prepared to sell, eh?"
+snapped Bezard, with a look of disbelief.
+
+"I had nothing to sell!" protested Le Pontois, drawing himself up. "Those
+who have spied upon me have told untruths."
+
+"But the individual, Laloux, was watched. One of our agents followed him
+to Brussels, where he went next day to the English bank in the Montagne
+de la Cour."
+
+"Not with forged notes from me. My dealings with him were in every way
+honest business transactions."
+
+"You mean that you received money from him, eh?"
+
+"I do not deny that. I sold him a horse on the first occasion. He paid me
+seven hundred francs for it, and I afterwards purchased one from him."
+
+"So you do not deny that you received money from that man?"
+
+"Why should I? I sold him a horse, and he paid me for it."
+
+"Very well," said Bezard, with some hesitation. "Let us pass to the
+eighth of April. At six o'clock that morning you drove to
+Thillot-sous-les-Cotes, where you met a stranger at the entrance to the
+village, and walked with him, and held a long and earnest conversation."
+
+Paul was silent for a moment. The incident recalled was one that he would
+fain have forgotten, one the truth of which he intended at all hazards to
+conceal.
+
+"I admit that I went to Thillot in secret," he answered in a changed
+voice.
+
+"Ah! Then you do not deny that you were attracted by the promises of
+substantial payment for certain forged English notes which you could
+furnish, eh?" grunted Bezard in satisfaction.
+
+"I admit going to Thillot, but I deny your allegation," cried Paul in
+quick protest.
+
+"Then perhaps you will tell us the reason you took that early drive?"
+asked a commissaire, with a short, hard laugh of disbelief.
+
+The prisoner hesitated. It was a purely personal matter, one which
+concerned himself alone.
+
+"I regret, messieurs," was his slow reply, "I regret that I am
+unable--indeed, I am not permitted to answer that question."
+
+"Pray why?" inquired Bezard.
+
+"Well--because it concerns a woman's honour," was the low, hoarse reply,
+"the honour of the wife of a certain officer."
+
+At those words of his the men interrogating him laughed in derision,
+declaring it to be a very elegant excuse.
+
+"It is no excuse!" he cried fiercely, again rising from his chair. "When
+I have obtained permission to speak, messieurs, I will tell you the
+truth. Until then I shall remain silent."
+
+"Eh, bien!" snapped Bezard. "And so we will pass to the next and final
+charge--that you prepared a statement in order to satisfy yourself
+regarding the profits of your dealings in these spurious notes."
+
+"I have no knowledge of such a thing!" Paul replied instantly.
+
+"And yet for several weeks past a mysterious friend of yours has been
+seen in the neighbourhood of your chateau. He has been staying in
+Commercy and in Longuyon. I gave orders for his arrest, but, with his
+usual cleverness, he escaped from Commercy."
+
+"I prepared no statement."
+
+"H'm!" grunted Bezard, looking straight into his flushed face. "You are
+quite certain of that?"
+
+"I swear I did not."
+
+"Then perhaps you will deny that this is in your hand?" the director
+asked slowly, with a grin, as he fixed his eyes upon Paul and handed him
+a sheet of his own note-paper bearing the address of the chateau embossed
+in green.
+
+Paul took it in his trembling fingers, and as he did so his countenance
+fell.
+
+It was the rough account of his investments and profits he remembered
+making for his father-in-law. He had cast it unheeded into the
+waste-paper basket, whence it had, no doubt, been recovered by those who
+had spied upon him and placed with the reports as evidence against him.
+
+"You admit making that calculation?" asked Bezard severely. "Those
+figures are, I believe, in your handwriting?"
+
+"Yes; but I have had nothing to do with any forgers of banknotes,"
+declared the unhappy man, reseating himself.
+
+"Ah! Then you admit making the calculation? That in itself is sufficient
+for the present. However, cannot you give us some explanation of that
+secret visit of yours to Thillot? Remember, you have to prove your
+innocence!"
+
+"I--I cannot--not, at least, at present," faltered the prisoner.
+
+"You refuse?"
+
+"Yes, m'sieur, I flatly refuse," was the hoarse reply. "As I have told
+you, that visit concerned the honour of a woman."
+
+The men again exchanged glances of disbelief, while the victim of those
+dastardly allegations sat breathless, amazed at the astounding manner in
+which his most innocent actions had been misconstrued into incriminating
+evidence.
+
+He was under arrest as one who had placed forged English banknotes in
+circulation in France!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN WHICH A TRUTH IS HIDDEN
+
+
+WHEN Walter Fetherston entered the tasteful drawing-room at Hill Street
+four days later he found Enid alone, seated by the fire.
+
+The dull London light of the autumn afternoon was scarcely sufficient for
+him to distinguish every object in the apartment, but as he advanced she
+rose and stood silhouetted against the firelight, a slight, graceful
+figure, with hand outstretched.
+
+"Both mother and Sir Hugh are out--gone to a matinee at the Garrick," she
+exclaimed. "I'm so glad you've come in," and she placed a chair for him.
+
+"I have heard that you are leaving for Egypt to-morrow," he said, "and I
+wished to have a chat with you."
+
+"We go to Italy first, and to Egypt after Christmas," she replied.
+"Mother has promised to join us in Luxor at the end of January."
+
+"If I were you, Enid," he replied gravely, bending towards her, "I would
+make some excuse and remain in England."
+
+"Why?" she asked, her eyes opening widely. "I don't understand!"
+
+"I regret that I am unable to speak more plainly," he said. "I warned you
+to leave France, and I was glad that you and Sir Hugh heeded my warning.
+Otherwise--well, perhaps an unpleasant incident would have resulted."
+
+"You always speak in enigmas nowadays," said the girl, again standing
+near the fireplace, dainty in her dark skirt and cream silk jumper. "Why
+did you send me that extraordinary note?"
+
+"In your own interests," was his vague reply. "I became aware
+that your further presence in the house of Monsieur Le Pontois
+was--well--undesirable--that's all."
+
+"I really think you entertain some antagonism against Paul," she
+declared, "yet he's such a good fellow."
+
+The novelist's eyes sparkled through his pince-nez as he replied: "He's
+very good-looking, I admit, and, no doubt, a perfect cavalier."
+
+"You suspect me of flirtations with him, of course," she pouted. "Well,
+you're not the first man who has chaffed me about that."
+
+"No, no," he laughed. "I'm in no way jealous, I assure you. I merely
+told you that your departure from the chateau would be for the best."
+
+He did not tell her that within an hour of their leaving French territory
+an official telegram had been received from Paris by the local
+commissaire of police with orders to detain them both, nor that just
+before dark an insignificant-looking man in black had called at the
+chateau and been informed by Jean that the English general and his
+stepdaughter had already departed.
+
+The whole of that night the wires between the sous-prefecture at Briey
+and Paris had been at work, and many curious official messages had been
+exchanged. Truly, the pair had had a providential escape.
+
+Sir Hugh was, of course, in entire ignorance of the dastardly action
+taken by the Pimlico doctor.
+
+Without duly counting the cost, he had declared at his last interview
+with Weirmarsh that their criminal partnership was now at an end. And the
+doctor had taken him at his word.
+
+Had not the doctor in London told his assistant, Heureux, that Sir Hugh's
+sphere of usefulness was at an end, and that, in all probability, a
+_contretemps_ would occur--one which would in future save to "the
+syndicate" the sum of five thousand pounds per annum?
+
+Truth to tell, Bezard, director of the Surete, had telegraphed orders for
+the arrest of Sir Hugh and his daughter. But, thanks to the shrewdness of
+Fetherston, who had lingered in the vicinity to afford them protection if
+necessary, they had succeeded in escaping only a single hour before the
+message reached its destination.
+
+Neither of them knew of this, and the novelist intended that they should
+remain in ignorance--just as they were still in ignorance of the reason
+of Paul's visit to Paris and of his detention there.
+
+If they were aware of the reason of his warning, then they would most
+certainly question him as to the manner in which he was able to gain
+knowledge of the betrayal by Weirmarsh. He had no desire to be questioned
+upon such matters. The motives of his action--always swift, full of
+shrewd foresight, and often in disregard of his own personal safety--were
+known alone to himself and to Scotland Yard.
+
+If the truth were told, he had not been alone in Eastern France. At the
+little old-world Croix-Blanche at Briey a stout, middle-aged, ruddy-faced
+English tourist had had his headquarters; while, again, at the
+unpretending Cloche d'Or in the Place St. Paul at Verdun another
+Englishman, a young, active, clean-shaven man, had been moving about the
+country in constant communication with "Mr. Maltwood." Wherever the
+doctor from Pimlico and his assistant, Heureux, had gone, there also went
+one or other of those two sharp-eyed but unobtrusive Englishmen. Every
+action of the doctor had been noted, and information of it conveyed to
+the quiet-mannered man in pince-nez.
+
+"Really, Walter, you are quite as mysterious as your books," Enid was
+declaring, with a laugh. "I do wish you would satisfy my curiosity and
+tell me why you urged me to leave France so suddenly."
+
+"I had reasons--strong reasons which you may, perhaps, some day know,"
+was his response. "I am only glad that you thought fit to take the advice
+I offered. This afternoon I have called to give you further
+advice--namely, to remain in England, at least for the present."
+
+"But I can't. My friend Jane Caldwell has been waiting a whole fortnight
+for me, suffering from asthma in these abominable fogs."
+
+"You can make some excuse. I assure you that to remain in London will be
+for the best," he said, while she switched on the shaded electric lights,
+which shed a soft glow over the handsome room--that apartment, the
+costly furniture of which had been purchased out of the money secretly
+supplied by Weirmarsh.
+
+"But I can't see why I should remain," she protested, facing him again.
+He noted how strikingly handsome she was, her dimpled cheeks delicately
+moulded and her pretty chin slightly protruding, which gave a delightful
+piquancy to her features.
+
+"I wish I could explain further. I can't at present!"
+
+"You are, as I have already said, so amazingly mysterious--so full of
+secrets always!"
+
+The man sighed, his brows knit slightly.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am full of secrets--strange, astounding secrets they
+are--secrets which some time, if divulged, would mean terrible
+complications, ruin to those who are believed to be honest and upright."
+
+The girl stood for a few seconds in silence.
+
+She had heard strange rumours regarding the man seated there before her.
+Some had hinted that he, on more than one occasion, acting in an
+unofficial capacity, had arranged important treaties between Great
+Britain and a foreign Power, leaving to ambassadors the arrangements of
+detail and the final ratification. There were whispers abroad that he was
+a trusted and tried agent of the British Government, but in exactly what
+capacity was unknown. His name frequently appeared among the invited
+guests of Cabinet Ministers, and he received cards for many official
+functions, but the actual manner in which he rendered assistance to the
+Government was always kept a most profound secret.
+
+More than once Sir Hugh had mentioned the matter over the dining-table,
+expressing wonder as to Fetherston's real position.
+
+"You know him well, Enid," he had exclaimed once, laughing over to her.
+"What is your opinion?"
+
+"I really haven't any," she declared. "His movements are certainly rapid,
+and often most mysterious."
+
+"He's a most excellent fellow," declared the old general. "Cartwright
+told me so the other day in the club. Cartwright was ambassador in
+Petrograd before the war."
+
+Enid remembered this as she stood there, her hands behind her back.
+
+"Before I left I heard that Paul had been called unexpectedly to Paris,"
+he said a few moments later. "Has he returned?"
+
+"Not yet, I believe. I had a letter from Blanche this morning. When it
+was written, two days ago, he was still absent." Then she added: "There
+is some mystery regarding his visit to the capital. Blanche left for
+Paris yesterday, I believe, for she had telegraphed to him, but received
+no reply."
+
+"She has gone to Paris!" he echoed. "Why did she go? It was silly!"
+
+"Well--because she is puzzled, I think. It was very strange that Paul,
+even though at the very gate, did not leave those two men and wish her
+adieu."
+
+"Two men--what two men?" he asked in affected ignorance.
+
+"The two men who stopped the car and demanded to speak with him," she
+said; and, continuing, described to him that remarkable midnight incident
+close to the chateau.
+
+"No doubt he went to Paris upon some important business," Fetherston
+said, reassuring her. "It was, I think, foolish of his wife to follow. At
+least, that's my opinion."
+
+He knew that when madame arrived in Paris the ghastly truth must, sooner
+or later, be revealed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+IN WHICH A TRUTH IS TOLD
+
+
+AS Fetherston sat there, still chatting with his well-beloved, he felt a
+hatred of himself for being thus compelled to deceive her--to withhold
+from her the hideous truth of Paul's arrest.
+
+After all, silence was best. If Walter spoke to the girl before him, then
+he must of necessity reveal his own connection with the affair. He knew
+she had been puzzled by his presence in France, but his explanation, he
+hoped, had been sufficient. He had assured her that the _only_ motive of
+his journey had been to be near her, which was, indeed, no untruth.
+
+He saw that Enid was not altogether at her ease in his presence. Perhaps
+it was because of those questions and his plain outspokenness when last
+they met, on that forest road, where they had discussed the strange death
+of Harry Bellairs.
+
+On that evening, full of suspicion and apprehension, he had decided to
+tear himself away from her. But, alas! he had found himself powerless to
+do so. Pity and sympathy filled his heart; therefore, how could he turn
+from her and abandon her at this moment of her peril? It was on the next
+day that he had discerned Weirmarsh's sinister intentions. Therefore, he
+had risen to watch and to combat them.
+
+Some of his suspicions had been confirmed, nevertheless his chief object
+had not yet been attained--the elucidation of the mystery surrounding the
+remarkable death of Bellairs.
+
+He was about to refer again to that tragic incident when Enid said
+suddenly: "Doctor Weirmarsh called and saw Sir Hugh this morning. You
+told me to tell you when next he called."
+
+"Weirmarsh!" exclaimed the novelist in surprise. "I was not aware that he
+was in London!"
+
+"He's been abroad--in Copenhagen, I think. He has a brother living
+there."
+
+"He had a private talk with your stepfather, of course?"
+
+"Yes, as usual, they were in the study for quite a long time--nearly two
+hours. And," added the girl, "I believe that at last they quarrelled. If
+they have, I'm awfully glad, for I hate that man!"
+
+"Did you overhear them?" asked Fetherston anxiously, apprehensive lest an
+open quarrel had actually taken place. He knew well that Josef Blot,
+alias Weirmarsh, was not a man to be trifled with. If Sir Hugh had served
+his purpose, as he no doubt had, then he would be betrayed to the police
+without compunction, just as others had been.
+
+Walter Fetherston grew much perturbed at the knowledge of this quarrel
+between the pair. His sole aim was to protect Sir Hugh, yet how to act he
+knew not.
+
+"You did not actually hear any of the words spoken, I suppose?" he
+inquired of Enid.
+
+"Not exactly, except that I heard my stepfather denounce the doctor as an
+infernal cur and blackguard."
+
+"Well, and what did Weirmarsh reply?"
+
+"He threatened Sir Hugh, saying, 'You shall suffer for those words--you,
+who owe everything to me!' I wonder," added the girl, "what he meant by
+that?"
+
+"Who knows!" exclaimed Walter. "Some secret exists between them. You told
+me that you suspected it long ago."
+
+"And I do," she said, lowering her voice. "That man holds Sir Hugh in the
+hollow of his hand--of that I'm sure. I have noticed after each of the
+doctor's visits how pale and thoughtful he always is."
+
+"Have you tried to learn the reason of it all?" inquired the novelist
+quietly, his gaze fixed upon her.
+
+"I have," she replied, with slight hesitation.
+
+Walter Fetherston contemplated in silence the fine cat's-eye and diamond
+ring upon his finger--a ring sent him long ago by an anonymous admirer of
+his books, which he had ever since worn as a mascot.
+
+At one moment he held this girl in distinct suspicion; at the next,
+however, he realised her peril, and resolved to stand by her as her
+champion.
+
+Did he really and honestly love her? He put that question to himself a
+thousand times. And for the thousandth time was he compelled to answer in
+the affirmative.
+
+"By which route do you intend travelling to Italy to-morrow?" he asked.
+
+"By Paris and Modane. We go first for a week to Nervi, on the coast
+beyond Genoa," was her reply.
+
+Fetherston paused. If she put foot in France she would, he knew, be at
+once placed under arrest as an accomplice of Paul Le Pontois. When
+Weirmarsh took revenge he always did his work well. No doubt the French
+police were already at Calais awaiting her arrival.
+
+"I would change the route," he suggested. "Go by Ostend, Strasburg and
+Milan."
+
+"Mrs. Caldwell has already taken our tickets," she said. "Besides, it is
+a terribly long way round by that route."
+
+"I know," he murmured. "But it will be best. I have a reason--a strong
+reason, Enid, for urging you to go by Ostend."
+
+"It is not in my power to do so. Jane always makes our travelling
+arrangements. Besides, we have sleeping berths secured on the night
+_rapide_ from the Gare de Lyon to Turin."
+
+"I will see Mrs. Caldwell, and get her tickets changed," he said. "Do you
+understand, Enid? There are reasons--very strong reasons--why you should
+not travel across France!"
+
+"No, I don't," declared the girl. "You are mysterious again. Why don't
+you be open with me and give me your reasons for this suggestion?"
+
+"I would most willingly--if I could," he answered. "Unfortunately, I
+cannot."
+
+"I don't think Mrs. Caldwell will travel by the roundabout route which
+you suggest merely because you have a whim that we should not cross
+France," she remarked, looking straight at him.
+
+"If you enter France a disaster will happen--depend upon it," he said,
+speaking very slowly, his eyes fixed upon her.
+
+"Are you a prophet?" the girl asked. "Can you prophesy dreadful things to
+happen to us?"
+
+"I do in this case," he said firmly. "Therefore, take my advice and do
+not court disaster."
+
+"Can't you be more explicit?" she asked, much puzzled by his strange
+words.
+
+"No," he answered, shaking his head, "I cannot. I only forewarn you of
+what must happen. Therefore, I beg of you to take my advice and travel by
+the alternative route--if you really must go to Italy."
+
+She turned towards the fire and, fixing her gaze upon the flames,
+remained for a few moments in thought, one neat foot upon the marble
+kerb.
+
+"You really alarm me with all these serious utterances," she said at
+last, with a faint, nervous laugh.
+
+He rose and stood by her side.
+
+"Look here, Enid," he said, "can't you see that I am in dead earnest?
+Have I not already declared that I am your friend, to assist you against
+that man Weirmarsh?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, "you have."
+
+"Then will you not heed my warning? There is distinct danger in your
+visit to France--a danger of which you have no suspicion, but real and
+serious nevertheless. Don't think about spying; it is not that, I assure
+you."
+
+"How can I avoid it?"
+
+"By pretending to be unwell," he suggested quickly. "You cannot leave
+with Mrs. Caldwell. Let her go, and you can join her a few days later,
+travelling by Ostend. The thing is quite simple."
+
+"But----"
+
+"No, you must not hesitate," he declared. "There are no buts. It is the
+only way."
+
+"Yes; but tell me what terrible thing is to happen to me if I enter
+France?" she asked, with an uneasy laugh.
+
+The man hesitated. To speak the truth would be to explain all. Therefore
+he only shook his head and said, "Please do not ask me to explain a
+matter of which I am not permitted to speak. If you believe me, Enid," he
+said in a low, pleading voice, "do heed my warning, I beg of you!"
+
+As he uttered these words the handle of the door turned, and Lady
+Elcombe, warmly clad in furs, came forward to greet the novelist.
+
+"I'm so glad that I returned before you left, Mr. Fetherston," she
+exclaimed. "We've been to a most dreary play; and I'm simply dying for
+some tea. Enid, ring the bell, dear, will you?" Then continuing, she
+added in warm enthusiasm: "Really, Mr. Fetherston, you are quite a
+stranger! We hoped to see more of you, but my husband and daughter have
+been away in France--as perhaps you know."
+
+"So Enid has been telling me," replied Walter. "They've been in a most
+interesting district."
+
+"Enid is leaving us again to-morrow morning," remarked her mother. "They
+are going to Nervi. You know it, of course, for I've heard you called the
+living Baedeker, Mr. Fetherston," she laughed.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I know it--a rather dull little place, with one or
+two villas. I prefer Santa Margherita, a little farther along the
+coast--or Rapallo. But," he added, "your daughter tells me she's not
+well. I hope she will not be compelled to postpone her departure."
+
+"Of course not," said Lady Elcombe decisively. "She must go to-morrow if
+she goes at all. I will not allow her to travel by herself."
+
+The girl and the man exchanged meaning glances, and just then Sir Hugh
+himself entered, greeting his visitor cheerily.
+
+The butler brought in the tea-tray, and as they sat together the two men
+chatted.
+
+In pretence that he had not been abroad, Walter was making inquiry
+regarding the district around Haudiomont, which he declared must be full
+of interest, and asking the general's opinion of the French new
+fortresses in anticipation of the new war against Germany.
+
+"Since I have been away," said the general, "I have been forced to arrive
+at the conclusion that another danger may arrive in the very near future.
+Germany will try and attack France again--without a doubt. The French are
+labouring under a dangerous delusion if they suppose that Germany would
+be satisfied with her obscurity."
+
+"Is that really your opinion, Sir Hugh?" asked Fetherston, somewhat
+surprised.
+
+"Certainly," was the general's reply. "There will be another war in the
+near future. My opinions have changed of late, my dear Fetherston," Sir
+Hugh assured him, as he sipped his tea, "and more especially since I went
+to visit my daughter. I have recently had opportunities of seeing and
+learning a good deal."
+
+Fetherston reflected. Those words, coming from Sir Hugh, were certainly
+strange ones.
+
+Walter was handing Enid the cake when the butler entered, bearing a
+telegram upon a silver salver, which he handed to Sir Hugh.
+
+Tearing it open, he glanced at the message eagerly, and a second later,
+with blanched face, stood rigid, statuesque, as though turned into stone.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" asked his wife. "Whom is it from?"
+
+"Only from Blanche," he answered in a low, strained voice. "She is in
+Paris--and is leaving to-night for London."
+
+"Is Paul coming?" inquired Enid eagerly.
+
+"No," he answered, with a strenuous effort to remain calm. "He--he cannot
+leave Paris."
+
+The butler, being told there was no answer, bowed and withdrew, but a few
+seconds later the door reopened, and he announced:
+
+"Dr. Weirmarsh, Sir Hugh!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE WIDENED BREACH
+
+
+WHEN Sir Hugh entered his cosy study he found the doctor seated at his
+ease in the big chair by the fire.
+
+"I thought that, being in the vicinity, I would call and see if you've
+recovered from your--well, your silly fit of irritability," he said, with
+a grim smile on his grey face as he looked towards the general.
+
+"I have just received bad news--news which I have all along dreaded,"
+replied the unhappy man, the telegram still in his hand. "Paul Le Pontois
+has been arrested on some mysterious charge--false, without a doubt!"
+
+"Yes," replied Weirmarsh; "it is most unfortunate. I heard it an hour
+ago, and the real reason of my visit was to tell you of the
+_contretemps_."
+
+"Someone must have made a false charge against him," cried the general
+excitedly. "The poor fellow is innocent--entirely innocent! I only have a
+brief telegram from his wife. She is in despair, and leaves for London
+to-night."
+
+"My dear Sir Hugh, France is in a very hysterical mood just now. Of
+course, there must be some mistake. Some private enemy of his has made
+the charge without a doubt--someone jealous of his position, perhaps.
+Allegations are easily made, though not so easily substantiated."
+
+"Except by manufactured evidence and forged documents," snapped Sir Hugh.
+"If Paul is the victim of some political party and is to be made a
+scapegoat, then Heaven help him, poor fellow. They will never allow him
+to prove his innocence, unless----"
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless I come forward," he said very slowly, staring straight before
+him. "Unless I come forward and tell the truth of my dealings with you.
+The charges against Paul are false. I know it now. What have you to say?"
+he added in a low, hard voice.
+
+"A great deal of good that would do!" laughed Weirmarsh, selecting a
+cigarette from his gold case and lighting it, regarding his host with
+those narrow-set, sinister eyes of his. "It would only implicate Le
+Pontois further. They would say, and with truth, that you knew of the
+whole conspiracy and had profited by it."
+
+"I should tell them what I know concerning you. Indeed, I wrote out a
+full statement while I was staying with Paul. And I have it ready to hand
+for the authorities."
+
+"You can do so, of course, if you choose," was the careless reply. "It
+really doesn't matter to me what statement you make. You have always
+preserved silence up to the present, therefore I should believe that in
+this case silence was still golden."
+
+"And you suggest that I stand calmly by and see Le Pontois sentenced to a
+long term of imprisonment for a crime which he has not committed, eh?"
+
+"I don't suggest anything, my dear Sir Hugh," was the man's reply; "I
+leave it all to your good judgment."
+
+Since they had met in secret Weirmarsh had made a flying visit to
+Brussels, where he had conferred with two friends of his. Upon their
+suggestion he was now acting.
+
+If Paul Le Pontois were secretly denounced and afterwards found innocent,
+then it would only mystify the French police; the policy pursued towards
+the Surete, as well as towards Sir Hugh, was a clever move on Weirmarsh's
+part.
+
+"What am I to say to my poor girl when she arrives here in tears
+to-morrow?" demanded the fine old British officer hoarsely.
+
+"You know that best yourself," was Weirmarsh's brusque reply.
+
+"To you I owe all my recent troubles," the elder man declared.
+"Because--because," he added bitterly, "you bought me up body and soul."
+
+"A mere business arrangement, wasn't it, Sir Hugh?" remarked his visitor.
+"Of course, I'm very sorry if any great trouble has fallen upon you on my
+account. I hope, for instance, you do not suspect me of conspiring to
+denounce your son-in-law," he added.
+
+"Well, I don't know," was the other's reply; "yet I feel that, in view of
+this _contretemps_, I must in future break off all connection with you."
+
+"And lose the annual grant which you find so extremely useful?"
+
+"I shall be compelled to do without it. And, at least, I shall have peace
+of mind."
+
+"Perhaps," remarked the other meaningly.
+
+Sir Hugh realised that this man intended still to hold him in the hollow
+of his hand. From that one false step he had taken years ago he had never
+been able to draw back.
+
+Hour by hour, and day by day, had his conscience pricked him. Those chats
+with the doctor in that grimy little consulting-room in Pimlico remained
+ever in his memory.
+
+The doctor was the representative of those who held him in their
+power--persons who were being continually hunted by the police, yet who
+always evaded them--criminals all! To insult him would be to insult those
+who had paid him so well for his confidential services.
+
+Yet, filled with contempt for himself, he asked whether he did not
+deserve to be degraded publicly, and drummed out of the army.
+
+Were it not for Lady Elcombe and Enid he would long ago have gone to East
+Africa and effaced himself. But he could not bring himself to desert
+them.
+
+He had satisfied himself that not a soul in England suspected the truth,
+for, by the Press, he had long ago been declared to be a patriotic
+Briton, because in his stirring public speeches, when he had put up for
+Parliament after the armistice, there was always a genuine "John Bull"
+ring.
+
+The truth was that he remained unsuspected by all--save by one man who
+had scented the truth. That man was Walter Fetherston!
+
+Walter alone knew the ghastly circumstances, and it was he who had been
+working to save the old soldier from himself. He did so for two
+reasons--first, because he was fond of the bluff, fearless old fellow,
+and, secondly, because he had been attracted by Enid, and intended to
+rescue her from the evil thraldom of Weirmarsh.
+
+"Why have you returned here to taunt and irritate me again?" snapped Sir
+Hugh after a pause.
+
+"I came to tell you news which, apparently, you have already received."
+
+"You could well have kept it. You knew that I should be informed in due
+course."
+
+"Yes--but I--well, I thought you might grow apprehensive perhaps."
+
+"In what direction?"
+
+"That your connection with the little affair might be discovered by the
+French police. Bezard, the new chief of the Surete, is a pretty shrewd
+person, remember!"
+
+"But, surely, that is not possible, is it?" gasped the elder man in quick
+alarm.
+
+"No; you can reassure yourself on that point. Le Pontois knows nothing,
+therefore he can make no statement--unless, of course, your own actions
+were suspicious."
+
+"They were not--I am convinced of that."
+
+"Then you have no need to fear. Your son-in-law will certainly not
+endeavour to implicate you. And if he did, he would not be believed,"
+declared the doctor, although he well knew that Bezard was in possession
+of full knowledge of the whole truth, and that, only by the timely
+warning he had so mysteriously received, had this man before him and his
+stepdaughter escaped arrest.
+
+His dastardly plot to secure their ruin and imprisonment had failed. How
+the girl had obtained wind of it utterly mystified him. It was really in
+order to discover the reason of their sudden flight that he had made
+those two visits.
+
+"Look here, Weirmarsh," exclaimed Sir Hugh with sudden resolution, "I
+wish you to understand that from to-day, once and for all, I desire to
+have no further dealings with you. It was, as you have said, a purely
+business transaction. Well, I have done the dirty, disgraceful work for
+which you have paid me, and now my task is at an end."
+
+"I hardly think it is, my dear Sir Hugh," replied the doctor calmly. "As
+I have said before, I am only the mouthpiece--I am not the employer. But
+I believe that certain further assistance is required--information which
+you promised long ago, but failed to procure."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"You recollect that you promised to obtain something--a little
+tittle-tattle--concerning a lady."
+
+"Yes," snapped the old officer, "oh, Lady Wansford. Let us talk of
+something else!"
+
+Weirmarsh, who had been narrowly watching the countenance of his victim,
+saw that he had mentioned a disagreeable subject. He noted how pale were
+the general's cheeks, and how his thin hands twitched with suppressed
+excitement.
+
+"I am quite ready to talk of other matters," he answered, "though I deem
+it but right to refer to my instructions."
+
+"And what are they?"
+
+"To request you to supply the promised information."
+
+"But I can't--_I really can't_!"
+
+"You made a promise, remember. And upon that promise I made you a loan of
+five hundred pounds."
+
+"I know!" cried the unhappy man, who had sunk so deeply into the mire
+that extrication seemed impossible. "I know! But it is a promise that I
+can't fulfil. I won't be your tool any longer. Gad! I won't. Don't you
+hear me?"
+
+"You must!" declared Weirmarsh, bending forward and looking straight into
+his eyes.
+
+"I will not!" shouted Sir Hugh, his eyes flashing with quick anger.
+"Anything but that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"My efforts in that direction had tragic results on the last occasion."
+
+"Ah!" laughed Weirmarsh. "I see you are superstitious--or something. I
+did not expect that of you."
+
+"I am not superstitious, Weirmarsh. I only refuse to do what you want. If
+I gave it to you, it would mean--no I won't--I tell you I won't!"
+
+"Bah! You are growing sentimental!"
+
+"No--I am growing wise. My eyes are at last opened to the dastardly
+methods of you and your infernal friends. Hear me, once and for all; I
+refuse to assist you further; and, moreover, I defy you!"
+
+The doctor was silent for a moment, contemplating the ruby on his finger.
+Then, rising slowly from his chair, he said: "Ah! you do not fully
+realise what your refusal may cost you."
+
+"Cost what it may, Weirmarsh, I ask you to leave my house at once," said
+the general, scarlet with anger and beside himself with remorse. "And I
+shall give orders that you are not again to be admitted here."
+
+"Very good!" laughed the other, with a sinister grin. "You will very soon
+be seeking me in my surgery."
+
+"We shall see," replied Sir Hugh, with a shrug of his shoulders, as the
+other strode out of his room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CONCERNING THE BELLAIRS AFFAIR
+
+
+WHAT Walter Fetherston had feared had happened. The two men had
+quarrelled! Throughout the whole of that evening he watched the doctor's
+movements.
+
+In any other country but our dear old hood-winked England, Fetherston, in
+the ordinary course, would have been the recipient of high honours from
+the Sovereign. But he was a writer, and not a financier. He could not
+afford to subscribe to the party funds, a course suggested by the
+flat-footed old Lady G----, who was the tout of Government Whips.
+
+Walter preferred to preserve his independence. He had seen and known much
+during the war, and, disgusted, he preferred to adopt the Canadian
+Government's decree and remain without "honours."
+
+His pet phrase was: "The extent of a Party's dishonours is known by the
+honours it bestows. Scraps of ribbon, 'X.Y.Z.' or O.B.E. behind one's
+name can neither make the gentleman nor create the lady."
+
+His secret connection with Scotland Yard, which was purely patriotic and
+conducted as a student of underground crime, had taught him many strange
+things, and he had learnt many remarkable secrets. Some of them were,
+indeed, his secrets before they became secrets of the Cabinet.
+
+Many of those secrets he kept to himself, one being the remarkable truth
+that General Sir Hugh Elcombe was implicated in a very strange jumble of
+affairs--a matter that was indeed incredible.
+
+To the tall, well-groomed, military-looking man with whom he stood at
+eleven o'clock on the following morning--in a private room at New
+Scotland Yard--he had never confided that discovery of his. To have done
+so would have been to betray a man who had a brilliant record as a
+soldier, and who still held high position at the War Office.
+
+By such denunciation he knew he might earn from "the eyes of the
+Government" very high commendation, in addition to what he had already
+earned, yet he had resolved, if possible, to save the old officer, who
+was really more sinned against than sinning.
+
+"You seem to keep pretty close at the heels of your friend, the doctor of
+Vauxhall Bridge Road!" laughed Trendall, the director of the department,
+as they stood together in the big, airy, official-looking room, the two
+long windows of which looked out over Westminster Bridge.
+
+"You've been in France, Montgomery says. What was your friend doing
+there?"
+
+"He's been there against his will--very much against his will!"
+
+"And you've found out something--eh?"
+
+"Yes," replied Fetherston. "One or two things."
+
+"Something interesting, of course," remarked the shrewd, active,
+dark-haired man of fifty, under whose control was one of the most
+important departments of Scotland Yard. "But tell me, in what direction
+is this versatile doctor of yours working just at the present?"
+
+"I hardly know," was the novelist's reply, as in a navy serge suit he
+leaned near the window which overlooked the Thames. "I believe some deep
+scheme is afoot, but at present I cannot see very far. For that reason I
+am remaining watchful."
+
+"He does not suspect you, of course? If he does, I'd give you Harris, or
+Charlesworth, or another of the men--in fact, whoever you like--to assist
+you."
+
+"Perhaps I may require someone before long. If so, I will write or wire
+to the usual private box at the General Post Office, and shall then be
+glad if you will send a man to meet me."
+
+"Certainly. It was you, Fetherston, who first discovered the existence of
+this interesting doctor, who had already lived in Vauxhall Bridge Road
+for eighteen months without arousing suspicion. You have, indeed, a fine
+nose for mysteries."
+
+At that moment the telephone, standing upon the big writing-table, rang
+loudly, and the man of secrets crossed to it and listened.
+
+"It's Heywood--at Victoria Station. He's asking for you," he exclaimed.
+
+Walter went to the instrument, and through it heard the words: "The boat
+train has just gone, sir. Mrs. Caldwell waited for the young lady until
+the train went off, but she did not arrive. She seemed annoyed and
+disappointed. Dr. Weirmarsh has been on the platform, evidently watching
+also."
+
+"Thanks, Heywood," replied Fetherston sharply; "that was all I wanted to
+know. Good day."
+
+He replaced the receiver, and, walking back to his friend against the
+window, explained: "A simple little inquiry I was making regarding a
+departure by the boat train for Paris--that was all."
+
+But he reflected that if Weirmarsh had been watching it must have been to
+warn the French police over at Calais of the coming of Enid. No action
+was too dastardly for that unscrupulous scoundrel.
+
+Yet, for the present at least, the girl remained safe. The chief peril
+was that in which Sir Hugh was placed, now that he had openly defied the
+doctor.
+
+On the previous evening he had been in the drawing-room at Hill Street
+when Sir Hugh had returned from interviewing the caller. By his
+countenance and manner he at once realised that the breach had been
+widened.
+
+The one thought by which he was obsessed was how he should save Sir Hugh
+from disgrace. His connection with the Criminal Investigation Department
+placed at his disposal a marvellous network of sources of information,
+amazing as they were unsuspected. He was secretly glad that at last the
+old fellow had resolved to face bankruptcy rather than go farther in that
+strange career of crime, yet, at the same time, there was serious
+danger--for Weirmarsh was a man so unscrupulous and so vindictive that
+the penalty of his defiance must assuredly be a severe one.
+
+The very presence of the doctor on the platform of the South Eastern
+station at Victoria that morning showed that he did not intend to allow
+the grass to grow beneath his feet.
+
+The novelist was still standing near the long window, looking aimlessly
+down upon the Embankment, with its hurrying foot-passengers and whirling
+taxis.
+
+"You seem unusually thoughtful, Fetherston," remarked Trendall with some
+curiosity, as he seated himself at the table and resumed the opening of
+his letters which his friend's visit had interrupted. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+"The fact is, I'm very much puzzled."
+
+"About what? You're generally very successful in obtaining solutions
+where other men have failed."
+
+"To the problem which is greatly exercising my mind just now I can obtain
+no solution," he said in a low, intense voice.
+
+"What is it? Can I help you?"
+
+"Well," he exclaimed, with some hesitation, "I am still trying to
+discover why Harry Bellairs died and who killed him."
+
+"That mystery has long ago been placed by us among those which admit of
+no solution, my dear fellow," declared his friend. "We did our best to
+throw some light upon it, but all to no purpose. I set the whole of our
+machinery at work at the time--days before you suspected anything
+wrong--but not a trace of the truth could we find."
+
+"But what could have been the motive, do you imagine? From all accounts
+he was a most popular young officer, without a single enemy in the
+world."
+
+"Jealousy," was the dark man's slow reply. "My own idea is that a woman
+killed him."
+
+"Why?" cried Walter quickly. "What causes you to make such a suggestion?"
+
+"Well--listen, and when I've finished you can draw your own
+conclusions."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE SILENCE OF THE MAN BARKER
+
+
+"HARRY BELLAIRS was an old friend of mine," Trendall went on, leaning
+back in his padded writing-chair and turning towards where the novelist
+was standing. "His curious end was a problem which, of course, attracted
+you as a writer of fiction. The world believed his death to be due to
+natural causes, in view of the failure of Professors Dale and Boyd, the
+Home Office analysts, to find a trace of poison or of foul play."
+
+"You believe, then, that he was poisoned?" asked Fetherston quickly.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders, saying: "How can that point be cleared
+up? There was no evidence of it."
+
+"It is curious that, though we are both so intensely interested in the
+problem, we have never before discussed it," remarked Walter. "I am so
+anxious to hear your views upon one or two points. What, for instance, do
+you think of Barker, the dead man's valet?"
+
+Herbert Trendall hesitated, and for a moment twisted his moustache. He
+was a marvellously alert man, an unusually good linguist, and a
+cosmopolitan to his finger-tips. He had been a detective-sergeant in the
+T Division of Metropolitan Police for years before his appointment as
+director of that section. He knew more of the criminal undercurrents on
+the Continent than any living Englishman, and it was he who furnished
+accurate information to the Surete in Paris concerning the great Humbert
+swindle.
+
+"Well," he said, "if I recollect aright, the inquiries regarding him were
+not altogether satisfactory. Previous to his engagement by Harry he had,
+it seems, been valet to a man named Mitchell, a horse-trainer of rather
+shady repute."
+
+"Where is he now?"
+
+"I really don't know, but I can easily find out--I gave orders that he
+was not to be lost sight of." And, scribbling a hasty memorandum, he
+pressed the electric button upon the arm of his chair.
+
+His secretary, a tall, thin, deep-eyed man, entered, and to him he gave
+the note.
+
+"Well, let us proceed while they are looking up the information," the
+chief went on. "Harry Bellairs, as you know, was on the staff of Sir
+Hugh Elcombe, that dear, harmless old friend of yours who inspects troops
+and seems to do odd jobs for Whitehall. I knew Harry before he went to
+Sandhurst; his people, who lived up near Durham, were very civil to me
+once or twice and gave me some excellent pheasant-shooting. It seems that
+on that day in September he came up to town from Salisbury--but you know
+all the facts, of course?"
+
+"I know all the facts as far as they were related in the papers," Walter
+said. He did not reveal the results of the close independent inquiries he
+had already made--results which had utterly astounded, and at the same
+time mystified, him.
+
+"Well," said Trendall, "what the Press published was mostly fiction. Even
+the evidence given before the coroner was utterly unreliable. It was
+mainly given in order to mislead the jury and prevent public suspicion
+that there had been a sensational tragedy--I arranged it so."
+
+"And there had been a tragedy, no doubt?"
+
+"Of course," declared the other, leaning both elbows upon the table
+before him and looking straight into the novelist's pale face. "Harry
+came up from Salisbury, the bearer of some papers from Sir Hugh. He duly
+arrived at Waterloo, discharged his duty, and went to his rooms in Half
+Moon Street. Now, according to Barker's story, his master arrived home
+early in the afternoon, and sent him out on a message to Richmond. He
+returned a little after five, when he found his master absent."
+
+"That was the account he gave at the inquest," remarked Fetherston.
+
+"Yes; but it was not the truth. On testing the man's story I discovered
+that at three-eighteen he was in the Leicester Lounge, in Leicester
+Square, with an ill-dressed old man, who was described as being short and
+wearing a rusty, old silk hat. They sat at a table near the window
+drinking ginger-ale, so that the barmaid could not overhear, and held a
+long and confidential chat."
+
+"He may afterwards have gone down to Richmond," his friend suggested.
+
+"No; he remained there until past four, and then went round to the Cafe
+Royal, where he met another man, a foreigner, of about his own age,
+believed to have been a Swiss, with whom he took a cup of coffee. The man
+was a stranger at the cafe, probably a stranger in London. Barker was in
+the habit of doing a little betting, and I believe the men he met were
+some of his betting friends."
+
+"Then you disbelieve the Richmond story?"
+
+"Entirely. What seems more than probable is that Harry gave his man the
+afternoon off because he wished to entertain somebody clandestinely at
+his rooms--a woman, perhaps. Yet, as far as I've been able to discover,
+no one in Half Moon Street saw any stranger of either sex go to his
+chambers that afternoon."
+
+"You said that you believed the motive of the crime--if crime it really
+was--was jealousy," remarked Fetherston, thoughtfully rubbing his shaven
+chin.
+
+"And I certainly do. Harry was essentially a lady's man. He was tall, and
+an extremely handsome fellow, a thorough-going sportsman, an excellent
+polo player, a perfect dancer, and a splendid rider to hounds. Little
+wonder was it that he was about to make a very fine match, for only a
+month before his death he confided to me in secret the fact--a fact known
+to me alone--that he was engaged to pretty little Lady Blanche Herbert,
+eldest daughter of the Earl of Warsborough."
+
+"Engaged to Lady Blanche!" echoed the novelist in surprise, for the girl
+in question was the prettiest of that year's debutantes as well as a
+great heiress in her own right.
+
+"Yes. Harry was a lucky dog, poor fellow. The engagement, known only to
+the Warsboroughs and myself, was to have been kept secret for a year.
+Now, it is my firm opinion, Fetherston, that some other woman, one of
+Harry's many female friends, had got wind of it, and very cleverly had
+her revenge."
+
+"Upon what grounds do you suspect that?" asked the other eagerly--for
+surely the problem was becoming more inscrutable than any of those in the
+remarkable romances which he penned.
+
+"Well, my conclusions are drawn from several very startling facts--facts
+which, of course, have never leaked out to the public. But before I
+reveal them to you I'd like to hear what opinion you've formed yourself."
+
+"I'm convinced that Harry Bellairs met with foul play, and I'm equally
+certain that the man Barker lied in his depositions before the coroner.
+He knows the whole story, and has been paid to keep a still tongue."
+
+"There I entirely agree with you," Trendall declared quickly; while at
+that moment the secretary returned with a slip of paper attached to the
+query which his chief had written. "Ah!" he exclaimed, glancing at the
+paper, "I see that the fellow Barker, who was a chauffeur before he
+entered Harry's service, has set up a motor-car business in
+Southampton."
+
+"You believe him to have been an accessory, eh?"
+
+"Yes, a dupe in the hands of a clever woman."
+
+"Of what woman?" asked Walter, holding his breath.
+
+"As you know, Harry was secretary to your friend Elcombe. Well, I happen
+to know that his pretty stepdaughter, Enid Orlebar, was over head and
+ears in love with him. My daughter Ethel and she are friends, and she
+confided this fact to Ethel only a month before the tragedy."
+
+"Then you actually suggest that a--a certain woman murdered him?" gasped
+Fetherston.
+
+"Well--there is no actual proof--only strong suspicion!"
+
+Walter Fetherston held his breath. Did the suspicions of this man, from
+whom no secret was safe, run in the same direction as his own?
+
+"There was in the evidence given before the coroner a suggestion that the
+captain had dined somewhere in secret," he said.
+
+"I know. But we have since cleared up that point. He was not given poison
+while he sat at dinner, for we know that he dined at the Bachelors' with
+a man named Friend. They had a hurried meal, because Friend had to catch
+a train to the west of England."
+
+"And afterwards?"
+
+"He left the club in a taxi at eight. But what his movements exactly were
+we cannot ascertain. He returned to his chambers at a quarter past nine
+in order to change his clothes and go back to Salisbury, but he was
+almost immediately taken ill. Barker declares that his master sent him
+out on an errand instantly on his return, and that when he came in he
+found him dying."
+
+"Did he not explain what the errand was?"
+
+"No; he refused to say."
+
+In that refusal Fetherston saw that the valet, whatever might be his
+fault, was loyal to his dead master and to Enid Orlebar. He had not told
+how Bellairs had sent to Hill Street that scribbled note, and how the
+distressed girl had torn along to Half Moon Street to arrive too late to
+speak for the last time with the man she loved. Was Barker an enemy, or
+was he a friend?
+
+"That refusal arouses distinct suspicion, eh?"
+
+"Barker has very cleverly concealed some important fact," replied the
+keen-faced man who controlled that section of Scotland Yard. "Bellairs,
+feeling deadly ill, and knowing that he had fallen a victim to some
+enemy, sent Barker out for somebody in whom to confide. The man claimed
+that the errand that his master sent him upon was one of confidence."
+
+"And to whom do you think he was sent?"
+
+"To a woman," was Trendall's slow and serious reply. "To the woman who
+murdered him!"
+
+"But if she had poisoned him, surely he would not send for her?"
+exclaimed Fetherston.
+
+"At the moment he was not aware of the woman's jealousy, or of the subtle
+means used to cause his untimely end. He was unsuspicious of that cruel,
+deadly hatred lying so deep in the woman's breast. Lady Blanche, on
+hearing of the death of her lover, was terribly grieved, and is still
+abroad. She, of course, made all sorts of wild allegations, but in none
+of them did we find any basis of fact. Yet, curiously enough, her views
+were exactly the same as my own--that one of poor Harry's lady friends
+had been responsible for his fatal seizure."
+
+"Then, after all the inquiries you instituted, you were really unable to
+point to the actual assassin?" asked Fetherston rather more calmly.
+
+"Not exactly unable--unwilling, rather."
+
+"How do you mean unwilling? You were Bellairs' friend!"
+
+"Yes, I was. He was one of the best and most noble fellows who ever wore
+the King's uniform, and he died by the treacherous hand of a jealous
+woman--a clever woman who had paid Barker to maintain silence."
+
+"But, if the dying man wished to make a statement, he surely would not
+have sent for the very person by whose hand he had fallen," Fetherston
+protested. "Surely that is not a logical conclusion!"
+
+"Bellairs was not certain that his sudden seizure was not due to
+something he had eaten at the club--remember he was not certain that her
+hand had administered the fatal drug," replied Trendall. A hard, serious
+expression rested upon his face. "He had, no doubt, seen her between the
+moment when he left the Bachelors' and his arrival, a little over an hour
+afterwards, at Half Moon Street--where, or how, we know not. Perhaps he
+drove to her house, and there, at her invitation, drank something. Yet,
+however it happened, the result was the same; she killed him, even though
+she was the first friend to whom he sent in his distress--killed him
+because she had somehow learnt of his secret engagement to Lady Blanche
+Herbert."
+
+"Yours is certainly a remarkable theory," admitted Walter Fetherston.
+"May I ask the name of the woman to whom you refer?"
+
+"Yes; she was the woman who loved him so passionately," replied
+Trendall--"Enid Orlebar."
+
+"Then you really suspect _her_?" asked Fetherston breathlessly.
+
+"Only as far as certain facts are concerned; and that since Harry's death
+she has been unceasingly interested in the career of the man Barker."
+
+"Are you quite certain of this?" gasped Fetherston.
+
+"Quite; it is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt."
+
+"Then Enid Orlebar killed him?"
+
+"That if she actually did not kill him with her own hand, she at least
+knew well who did," was the other's cold, hard reply. "She killed him for
+two reasons; first, because by poor Harry's death she prevented the
+exposure of some great secret!"
+
+Walter Fetherston made no reply.
+
+Those inquiries, instituted by Scotland Yard, had resulted in exactly the
+same theory as his own independent efforts--that Harry Bellairs had been
+secretly done to death by the woman, who, upon her own admission to him,
+had been summoned to the young officer's side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WHAT THE DEAD MAN LEFT
+
+
+IT was news to Fetherston that Bellairs had dined at his club on that
+fateful night.
+
+He had believed that Enid had dined with him. He had proved beyond all
+doubt that she had been to his rooms that afternoon during Barker's
+absence. That feather from the boa, and the perfume, were sufficient
+evidence of her visit.
+
+Yet why had Barker remained in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly Circus if
+sent by his master with a message to Richmond? He could not doubt a
+single word that Trendall had told him, for the latter's information was
+beyond question. Well he knew with what care and cunning such an inquiry
+would have been made, and how every point would have been proved before
+being reported to that ever active man who was head of that Department of
+the Home Office that never sleeps.
+
+"What secret do you suggest might have been divulged?" he asked at last
+after a long pause.
+
+The big room--the Room of Secrets--was silent, for the double windows
+prevented the noise of the traffic and the "honk" of the taxi horns from
+penetrating there. Only the low ticking of the clock broke the quiet.
+
+"I scarcely have any suggestion to offer in that direction," was
+Trendall's slow reply. "That feature of the affair still remains a
+mystery."
+
+"But cannot this man Barker be induced to make some statement?" he
+queried.
+
+"He will scarcely betray the woman to whom he owes his present
+prosperity, for he is prosperous and has a snug little balance at his
+bank. Besides, even though we took the matter in hand, what could we do?
+There is no evidence against him or against the woman. The farcical
+proceedings in the coroner's court had tied their hands."
+
+"An open verdict was returned?"
+
+"Yes, at our suggestion. But Professors Dale and Boyd failed to find any
+traces of poison or of foul play."
+
+"And yet there _was_ foul play--that is absolutely certain!" declared the
+novelist.
+
+"Unfortunately, yes. Poor Bellairs was a brilliant and promising officer,
+a man destined to make a distinct mark in the world. It was a pity,
+perhaps, that he was such a lady-killer."
+
+"A pity that he fell victim to what was evidently a clever plot, and
+yet--yet--I cannot bring myself to believe that your surmise can be
+actually correct. He surely would never have sent for the very person who
+was his enemy and who had plotted to kill him--it doesn't seem feasible,
+does it?"
+
+"Quite as feasible as any of the strange and crooked circumstances which
+one finds every day in life's undercurrents," was the quiet rejoinder.
+"Remember, he was very fond of her--fascinated by her remarkable beauty."
+
+"But he was engaged to Lady Blanche?"
+
+"He intended to marry her, probably for wealth and position. The woman a
+man of Harry's stamp marries is seldom, if ever, the woman he loves,"
+added the chief with a somewhat cynical smile, for he was essentially a
+man of the world.
+
+"But what secret could Enid Orlebar desire to hide?" exclaimed Fetherston
+wonderingly. "If he loved her, he certainly would never have threatened
+exposure."
+
+"My dear fellow, I've told you briefly my own theory--a theory formed
+upon all the evidence I could collect," replied the tall, dark-eyed man,
+as he thrust his hands deeply into his trousers pockets and looked
+straight into the eyes of his friend.
+
+"If you are so certain that Enid Orlebar is implicated in the affair, if
+not the actual assassin, why don't you interrogate her?" asked Walter
+boldly.
+
+"Well--well, to tell the truth, our inquiries are not yet complete. When
+they are, we may be in a better position--we probably shall be--to put to
+her certain pointed questions. But," he added quickly, "perhaps I ought
+not to say this, for I know she is a friend of yours."
+
+"What you tell me is in confidence, as always, Trendall," he replied
+quickly. "I knew long ago that Enid was deeply attached to Bellairs. But
+much that you have just told me is entirely fresh to me. I must find
+Barker and question him."
+
+"I don't think I'd do that. Wait until we have completed our inquiries,"
+urged the other. "If Bellairs was killed in so secret and scientific a
+manner that no trace was left, he was killed with a cunning and
+craftiness which betrays a jealous woman rather than a man. Besides,
+there are other facts we have gathered which go further to prove that
+Enid Orlebar is the actual culprit."
+
+"What are they? Tell me, Trendall."
+
+"No, my dear chap; you are the lady's friend--it is really unfair to ask
+me," he protested. "Where the usual mysteries are concerned, I'm always
+open and above-board with you. But in private investigations like this
+you must allow me to retain certain knowledge to myself."
+
+"But I beg of you to tell me everything," demanded the other. "I have
+taken an intense interest in the matter, as you have, even though my
+motive has been of an entirely different character."
+
+"You have no suspicion that Bellairs was in possession of any great
+secret--a secret which it was to Miss Orlebar's advantage should be
+kept?"
+
+"No," was the novelist's prompt response. "But I can't see the drift of
+your question," he added.
+
+"Well," replied the keen, alert man, who, again seated in his
+writing-chair, bent slightly towards his visitor, "well, as you've asked
+me to reveal all I know, Fetherston, I will do so, even though I feel
+some reluctance, in face of the fact that Miss Orlebar is your friend."
+
+"That makes no difference," declared the other firmly. "I am anxious to
+clear up the mystery of Bellairs' death."
+
+"Then I think that you need seek no farther for the correct solution,"
+replied Trendall quietly, looking into the other's pale countenance.
+"Your lady friend killed him--_in order to preserve her own secret_."
+
+"But what was her secret?"
+
+"We have that yet to establish. It must have been a serious one for her
+to close his lips in such a manner."
+
+"But they were good friends," declared Fetherston. "He surely had not
+threatened to expose her?"
+
+"I do not think he had. My own belief is that she became madly jealous of
+Lady Blanche, and at the same time, fearing the exposure of her secret to
+the woman to whom her lover had become engaged, she took the subtle means
+of silencing him. Besides----" And he paused without concluding his
+sentence.
+
+"Besides what?"
+
+"From the first you suspected Sir Hugh's stepdaughter, eh?"
+
+Fetherston hesitated. Then afterwards he nodded slowly in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Yes," went on Trendall, "I knew all along that you were suspicious. You
+made a certain remarkable discovery, eh, Fetherston?"
+
+The novelist started. At what did his friend hint? Was it possible that
+the inquiries had led to a suspicion of Sir Hugh's criminal conduct? The
+very thought appalled him.
+
+"I--well, in the course of the inquiries I made I found that the lady in
+question was greatly attached to the dead man," replied Fetherston rather
+lamely.
+
+Trendall smiled. "It was to Enid Orlebar that Harry sent when he felt his
+fatal seizure. Instead of sending for a doctor, he sent Barker to her,
+and she at once flew to his side, but, alas! too late to remedy the harm
+she had already caused. When she arrived he was dead!"
+
+Fetherston was silent. He saw that the inquiries made by the Criminal
+Investigation Department had led to exactly the same conclusion that he
+himself had formed.
+
+"This is a most distressing thought--that Enid Orlebar is a murderess!"
+he declared after a moment's pause.
+
+"It is--I admit. Yet we cannot close our eyes to such outstanding facts,
+my dear chap. Depend upon it that there is something behind the poor
+fellow's death of which we have no knowledge. In his death your friend
+Miss Orlebar sought safety. The letter he wrote to her a week before his
+assassination is sufficient evidence of that."
+
+"A letter!" gasped Fetherston. "Is there one in existence?"
+
+"Yes; it is in our possession; it reveals the existence of the secret."
+
+"But what was its nature?" cried Fetherston in dismay. "What terrible
+secret could there possibly be that could only be preserved by Bellairs'
+silence?"
+
+"That's just the puzzle we have to solve--just the very point which has
+mystified us all along."
+
+And then he turned to his correspondence again, opening his letters one
+after the other--letters which, addressed to a box at the General Post
+Office in the City, contained secret information from various unsuspected
+quarters at home and abroad.
+
+Suddenly, in order to change the topic of conversation, which he knew was
+painful to Walter Fetherston, he mentioned the excellence of the opera at
+Covent Garden on the previous night. And afterwards he referred to an
+article in that day's paper which dealt with the idea of obtaining
+exclusive political intelligence through spirit-bureaux. Then, speaking
+of the labour unrest, Trendall pronounced his opinion as follows:
+
+"The whole situation would be ludicrous were it not urged so
+persistently as to be a menace not so much in this country, where we know
+too well the temperaments of its sponsors, but abroad, where public
+opinion, imperfectly instructed, may imagine it represents a serious
+national feeling. The continuance of it is an intolerable negation of
+civilisation; it is supported by no public men of credit; it has been
+disproved again and again. Ridicule may be left to give the menace the
+_coup de grace_! And this," he laughed, "in face of what you and I know,
+eh? Ah! how long will the British public be lulled to sleep by anonymous
+scribblers?"
+
+"One day they'll have a rude awakening," declared Fetherston, still
+thinking, however, of that letter of the dead man to Enid. "I wonder," he
+added, "I wonder who inspires these denials? We know, of course, that
+each time anything against enemy interests appears in a certain section
+of the Press there arises a ready army of letter-writers who rush into
+print and append their names to assurances that the enemy is nowadays our
+best friend. Those 'patriotic Englishmen' are, many of them, in high
+positions.
+
+"When responsible papers wilfully mislead the public, what can be
+expected?" Walter went on. "But," he added after a pause, "we did not
+arrive at any definite conclusion regarding the tragic death of Bellairs.
+What about that letter of his?"
+
+Trendall was thoughtful for a few minutes.
+
+"My conclusion--the only one that can be formed," he answered at last,
+disregarding his friend's question--"is that Enid Orlebar is the guilty
+person; and before long I hope to be in possession of that secret which
+she strove by her crime to suppress--a secret which I feel convinced we
+shall discover to be one of an amazing character."
+
+Walter stood motionless as a statue.
+
+Surely Bellairs had not died by Enid's hand!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+AT THE CAFE DE PARIS
+
+
+IT was in the early days of January--damp and foggy in England.
+
+Walter Fetherston sat idling on the _terrasse_ of the Cafe de Paris in
+Monte Carlo sipping a "mazagran," basking in the afternoon sunshine, and
+listening to the music of the Rumanian Orchestra.
+
+Around him everywhere was the gay cosmopolitan world of the tables--that
+giddy little after-the-war financier and profiteer world which amuses
+itself on the Cote d'Azur, and in which he was such a well-known figure.
+
+So many successive seasons had he passed there before 1914 that across at
+the rooms the attendants and croupiers knew him as an habitue, and he was
+always granted the _carte blanche_--the white card of the professional
+gambler. With nearly half the people he met he had a nodding
+acquaintance, for friendships are easily formed over the _tapis
+vert_--and as easily dropped.
+
+Preferring the fresher air of Nice, he made his headquarters at the
+Hotel Royal on the world-famed promenade, and came over to "Monte" daily
+by the _rapide_.
+
+Much had occurred since that autumn morning when he had stood with
+Herbert Trendall in the big room at New Scotland Yard, much that had
+puzzled him, much that had held him in fear lest the ghastly truth
+concerning Sir Hugh should be revealed.
+
+His own activity had been, perhaps, unparalleled. The strain of such
+constant travel and continual excitement would have broken most men; but
+he possessed an iron constitution, and though he spent weeks on end in
+trains and steamboats, it never affected him in the least. He could
+snatch sleep at any time, and he could write anywhere.
+
+Whether or not Enid had guessed the reason of his urgent appeal to her
+not to pass through France, she had nevertheless managed to excuse
+herself; but a week after Mrs. Caldwell's departure she had travelled
+alone by the Harwich-Antwerp route, evidently much to the annoyance of
+the alert doctor of Pimlico.
+
+Walter had impressed upon her the desirability of not entering
+France--without, however, giving any plain reason. He left her to guess.
+
+Through secret sources in Paris he had learnt how poor Paul Le Pontois
+was still awaiting trial. In order not to excite public opinion, the
+matter was being kept secret by the French authorities, and it had been
+decided that the inquiry should be held with closed doors.
+
+A week after his arrest the French police received additional evidence
+against him in the form of a cryptic telegram addressed to the Chateau,
+an infamous and easily deciphered message which, no doubt, had been sent
+with the distinct purpose of strengthening the amazing charge against
+him. He protested entire ignorance of the sender and of the meaning of
+the message, but his accusers would not accept any disclaimer. So
+cleverly, indeed, had the message been worded that at the Surete it was
+believed to refer to the price he had received for certain bundles of
+spurious notes.
+
+Without a doubt the scandalous telegram had been sent at Weirmarsh's
+instigation by one of his friends in order to influence the authorities
+in Paris.
+
+So far as the doctor was concerned he was ever active in receiving
+reports from his cosmopolitan friends abroad. But since his quarrel with
+Sir Hugh he had ceased to visit Hill Street, and had, apparently,
+dropped the old general's acquaintance.
+
+Sir Hugh was congratulating himself at the easy solution of the
+difficulty, but Walter, seated at that little marble-topped table in the
+winter sunshine, knowing Weirmarsh's character, remained in daily
+apprehension.
+
+The exciting life he led in assisting to watch those whom Scotland Yard
+suspected was as nothing compared with the constant fear of the unmasking
+of Sir Hugh Elcombe. Doctor Weirmarsh was an enemy, and a formidable one.
+
+The mystery concerning the death of Bellairs had increased rather than
+diminished. Each step he had taken in the inquiry only plunged him deeper
+and deeper into an inscrutable problem. He had devoted weeks to
+endeavouring to solve the mystery, but it remained, alas! inscrutable.
+
+Enid and Mrs. Caldwell had altered their plans, and had gone to Sicily
+instead of to Egypt, first visiting Palermo and Syracuse, and were at the
+moment staying at the popular "San Domenico" at Taormina, amid that gem
+of Mediterranean scenery. Sir Hugh and his wife, much upset by Blanche's
+sudden arrival in London, had not gone abroad that winter, but had
+remained at Hill Street to comfort Paul's wife and child.
+
+As for Walter, he had of late been wandering far afield, in Petrograd,
+Geneva, Rome, Florence, Malaga, and for the past week had been at Monte
+Carlo. He was not there wholly for pleasure, for, if the truth be told,
+there were seated at the farther end of the _terrasse_ a smartly dressed
+man and a woman in whom he had for the past month been taking a very keen
+interest.
+
+This pair, of Swiss nationality, he had watched in half a dozen
+Continental cities, gradually establishing his suspicions as to their
+real occupation.
+
+They had come to Monte Carlo for neither health nor pleasure, but in
+order to meet a grey-haired man in spectacles, whom they received twice
+in private at the Metropole, where they were staying.
+
+The Englishman had first seen them sitting together one evening at one of
+the marble-topped tables at the Cafe Royal in Regent Street, while he had
+been idly playing a game of dominoes at the next table with an American
+friend. The face of the man was to him somehow familiar. He felt that he
+had seen it somewhere, but whether in a photograph in his big album down
+at Idsworth or in the flesh he could not decide.
+
+Yet from that moment he had hardly lost sight of them. With that
+astuteness which was Fetherston's chief characteristic, he had watched
+vigilantly and patiently, establishing the fact that the pair were in
+England for some sinister purpose. His powers were little short of
+marvellous. He really seemed, as Trendall once put it, to scent the
+presence of criminals as pigs scent truffles.
+
+They suddenly left the Midland Hotel at St. Pancras, where they were
+staying, and crossed the Channel. But the same boat carried Walter
+Fetherston, who took infinite care not to obtrude himself upon their
+attention.
+
+Monte Carlo, being in the principality of Monaco, and being peopled by
+the most cosmopolitan crowd in the whole world, is in winter the
+recognised meeting-place of _chevaliers d'industrie_ and those who
+finance and control great crimes.
+
+In the big atrium of those stifling rooms many an assassin has met his
+hirer, and in many of those fine hotels have bribes been handed over to
+those who will do "dirty work." It is the European exchange of
+criminality, for both sexes know it to be a safe place where they may
+"accidentally" meet the person controlling them.
+
+It is safe to say that in every code used by the criminal plotters of
+every country in Europe there is a cryptic word which signifies a meeting
+at Monte Carlo. For that reason was Walter Fetherston much given to
+idling on the sunny _terrasse_ of the cafe at a point where he could see
+every person who ascended or descended that flight of red-carpeted stairs
+which gives entrance to the rooms.
+
+The pair whom he was engaged in watching had been playing at roulette
+with five-franc pieces, and the woman was now counting her gains and
+laughing gaily with her husband as she slowly sipped her tea flavoured
+with orange-flower water. They were in ignorance of the presence of that
+lynx-eyed man in grey flannels and straw hat who smoked his cigarette
+leisurely and appeared to be so intensely bored.
+
+No second glance at Fetherston was needed to ascertain that he was a most
+thorough-going cosmopolitan. He usually wore his pale-grey felt hat at a
+slight angle, and had the air of the easy-going adventurer, debonair and
+unscrupulous. But in his case his appearance was not a true index to his
+character, for in reality he was a steady, hard-headed, intelligent man,
+the very soul of honour, and, above all, a man of intense patriotism--an
+Englishman to the backbone. Still, he cultivated his easy-going
+cosmopolitanism to pose as a careless adventurer.
+
+Presently the pair rose, and, crossing the palm-lined place, entered the
+casino; while Walter, finishing his "mazagran," lit a fresh cigarette,
+and took a turn along the front of the casino in order to watch the
+pigeon-shooting.
+
+The winter sun was sinking into the tideless sea in all its
+gold-and-orange glory as he stood leaning over the stone balustrade
+watching the splendid marksmanship of one of the crack shots of Europe.
+He waited until the contest had ended, then he descended and took the
+_rapide_ back to Nice for dinner.
+
+At nine o'clock he returned to Monte Carlo, and again ascended the
+station lift, as was his habit, for a stroll through the rooms and a chat
+and drink with one or other of his many friends. He looked everywhere for
+the Swiss pair in whom he was so interested, but in vain. Probably they
+had gone over to Nice to spend the evening, he thought. But as the night
+wore on and they did not return by the midnight train--the arrival of
+which he watched--he strolled back to the Metropole and inquired for them
+at the bureau of the hotel.
+
+"M'sieur and Madame Granier left by the Mediterranean express for Paris
+at seven-fifteen this evening," replied the clerk, who knew Walter very
+well.
+
+"What address did they leave?" he inquired, annoyed at the neat manner in
+which they had escaped his vigilance.
+
+"They left no address, m'sieur. They received a telegram just after six
+o'clock recalling them to Paris immediately. Fortunately, there was one
+two-berth compartment vacant on the train."
+
+Walter turned away full of chagrin. He had been foolish to lose sight of
+them. His only course was to return to Nice, pack his traps, and follow
+to Paris in the ordinary _rapide_ at eight o'clock next morning. And this
+was the course he pursued.
+
+But Paris is a big place, and though he searched for two whole weeks,
+going hither and thither to all places where the foreign visitors mostly
+congregate, he saw nothing of the interesting pair. Therefore, full of
+disappointment, he crossed one afternoon to Folkestone, and that night
+again found himself in his dingy chambers in Holles Street.
+
+Next day he called upon Sir Hugh, and found him in much better spirits.
+Lady Elcombe told him that Enid had written expressing herself delighted
+with her season in Sicily, and saying that both she and Mrs. Caldwell
+were very pleased that they had adopted his suggestion of going there
+instead of to overcrowded Cairo.
+
+As he sat with Sir Hugh and his wife in that pretty drawing-room he knew
+so well the old general suddenly said: "I suppose, Fetherston, you are
+still taking as keen an interest in the latest mysteries of crime--eh?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Hugh. As you know, I've written a good deal upon the subject."
+
+"I've read a good many of your books and articles, of course," exclaimed
+the old officer. "Upon many points I entirely agree with you," he said.
+"There is a curious case in the papers to-day. Have you seen it? A young
+girl found mysteriously shot dead near Hitchin."
+
+"No, I haven't," was Walter's reply. He was not at all interested. He was
+thinking of something of far greater interest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+WHICH IS "PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL"
+
+
+AT eleven o'clock next morning Fetherston stood in Trendall's room at
+Scotland Yard reporting to him the suspicious movements of Monsieur and
+Madame Granier.
+
+His friend leaned back in his padded chair listening while the keen-faced
+man in pince-nez related all the facts, and in doing so showed how shrewd
+and astute he had been.
+
+"Then they are just what we thought," remarked the chief.
+
+"Without a doubt. In Monte Carlo they received further instructions from
+somebody. They went to Paris, and there I lost them."
+
+Trendall smiled, for he saw how annoyed his friend was at their escape.
+
+"Well, you certainly clung on to them," he said. "When you first told me
+your suspicions I confess I was inclined to disagree with you. You merely
+met them casually in Regent Street. What made you suspicious?"
+
+"One very important incident--Weirmarsh came in with another man, and,
+in passing, nodded to Granier. That set me thinking."
+
+"But you do not know of any actual dealings with the doctor?"
+
+"I know of none," replied Walter. "Still, I'm very sick that, after all
+my pains, they should have escaped to Paris so suddenly."
+
+"Never mind," said Trendall. "If they are what we suspect we shall pick
+them up again before long, no doubt. Now look here," he added. "Read
+that! It's just come in. As you know, any foreigner who takes a house in
+certain districts nowadays is reported to us by the local police."
+
+Fetherston took the big sheet of blue official paper which the police
+official handed to him, and found that it was the copy of a confidential
+report made by the Superintendent of Police at Maldon, in Essex, and read
+as follows:
+
+"I, William Warden, Superintendent of Police for the Borough of Maldon,
+desire to report to the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police the following
+statement from Sergeant S. Deacon, Essex Constabulary, stationed at
+Southminster, which is as below:
+
+"'On Friday, the thirteenth of September last, a gentleman, evidently a
+foreigner, was sent by Messrs. Hare and James, estate agents, of Malden,
+to view the house known as The Yews, at Asheldham, in the vicinity of
+Southminster, and agreed to take it for three years in order to start a
+poultry farm. The tenant entered into possession a week later, when one
+vanload of furniture arrived from London. Two days later three other
+vanloads arrived late in the evening, and were unpacked in the
+stable-yard at dawn. The tenant, whose name is Bailey--but whose letters
+come addressed "Baily," and are mostly from Belgium--lived there alone
+for a fortnight, and was afterwards joined by a foreign man-servant named
+Pietro, who is believed to be an Italian. Though more than three months
+have elapsed, and I have kept observation upon the house--a large one,
+standing in its own grounds--I have seen no sign of poultry farming, and
+therefore deem it a matter for a report.--SAMUEL DEACON, Sergeant, Essex
+Constabulary.'"
+
+"Curious!" remarked Walter, when he had finished reading it.
+
+"Yes," said Trendall. "There may be nothing in it."
+
+"It should be inquired into!" declared Walter. "I'll take Summers and go
+down there to have a look round, if you like."
+
+"I wish you would," said the chief. "I'll 'phone Summers to meet you at
+Liverpool Street Station," he added, turning to the railway guide.
+"There's a train at one forty-five. Will that suit you?"
+
+"Yes. Tell him to meet me at Liverpool Street--and we'll see who this
+'Mr. Baily' really is."
+
+When, shortly after half-past one, the novelist walked on to the platform
+at Liverpool Street he was approached by a narrow-faced, middle-aged man
+in a blue serge suit who presented the appearance of a ship's engineer on
+leave.
+
+As they sat together in a first-class compartment Fetherston explained to
+his friend the report made by the police officer at Southminster--the
+next station to Burnham-on-Crouch--whereupon Summers remarked: "The
+doctor has been down this way once or twice of late. I wonder if he goes
+to pay this Mr. Baily, or Bailey, a visit?"
+
+"Perhaps," laughed Walter. "We shall see."
+
+The railway ended at Southminster, but on alighting they had little
+difficulty in finding the small police station, where the local sergeant
+of police awaited them, having been warned by telephone.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," said the red-faced man, spreading his big hands on his
+knees as they sat together in a back room, "Mr. Bailey ain't at home just
+now. He's away a lot. The house is a big one--not too big for the four
+vanloads of furniture wot came down from London."
+
+"Has he made any friends in the district, do you know?"
+
+"No, not exactly. 'E often goes and 'as a drink at the Bridgewick Arms at
+Burnham, close by the coastguard station."
+
+Walter exchanged a meaning glance with his assistant.
+
+"Does he receive any visitors?"
+
+"Very few--he's away such a lot. A woman comes down to see him
+sometimes--his sister, they say she is."
+
+"What kind of a woman?"
+
+"Oh, she's a lady about thirty-five--beautifully dressed always. She
+generally comes in a dark-green motor-car, which she drives herself. She
+was a lady driver during the war."
+
+"Do you know her name?"
+
+"Miss Bailey. She's a foreigner, of course."
+
+"Any other visitors?" asked Fetherston, in his quick, impetuous way, as
+he polished his pince-nez.
+
+"One day, very soon after Mr. Bailey took the house, I was on duty at
+Southminster Station in the forenoon, and a gentleman and lady arrived
+and asked how far it was to The Yews, at Asheldham. I directed them the
+way to walk over by Newmoor and across the brook. Then I slipped 'ome,
+got into plain clothes, and went along after them by the footpath."
+
+"Why did you do that?" asked Summers.
+
+"Because I wanted to find out something about this foreigner's visitors.
+I read at headquarters at Maldon the new instructions about reporting all
+foreigners who took houses, and I wanted to----"
+
+"To show that you were on the alert, eh, Deacon?" laughed the novelist
+good-humouredly, and he lit a cigarette.
+
+"That's so, sir," replied the big, red-faced man. "Well, I took a short
+cut over to The Yews, and got there ten minutes before they did. I hid in
+the hedge on the north side of the house, and saw that as soon as they
+walked up the drive Mr. Bailey rushed out to welcome them. The lady
+seemed very nervous, I thought. I know she was an English lady, because
+she spoke to me at the station."
+
+"What were they like?" inquired Summers. "Describe both of them."
+
+"Well, the man, as far as I can recollect, was about fifty or so,
+grey-faced, dark-eyed, wearin' a heavy overcoat with astrachan collar and
+cuffs. He had light grey suede gloves, and carried a gold-mounted malacca
+cane with a curved handle. The woman was quite young--not more'n twenty,
+I should think--and very good-lookin'. She wore a neat tailor-made dress
+of brown cloth, and a small black velvet hat with a big gold buckle. She
+had a greyish fur around her neck, with a muff to match, and carried a
+small, dark green leather bag."
+
+Walter stood staring at the speaker. The description was exactly that of
+Weirmarsh and Enid Orlebar. The doctor often wore an astrachan-trimmed
+overcoat, while both dress and hat were the same which Enid had worn
+three months ago!
+
+He made a few quick inquiries of the red-faced sergeant, but the man's
+replies only served to convince him that Enid had actually been a visitor
+at the mysterious house.
+
+"You did not discover their names?"
+
+"The young lady addressed her companion as 'Doctor.' That's all I know,"
+was the officer's reply. "For that reason I was rather inclined to think
+that I was on the wrong scent. The man was perhaps, after all, only a
+doctor who had come down to see his patient."
+
+"Perhaps so," remarked Walter mechanically. "You say Mr. Bailey is not at
+home to-day, so we'll just run over and have a look round. You'd better
+come with us, sergeant."
+
+"Very well, sir. But I 'ear as how Mr. Bailey is comin' home this
+evenin'. I met Pietro in the Railway Inn at Southminster the night before
+last, and casually asked when his master was comin' home, as I wanted to
+see 'im for a subscription for our police concert, and 'e told me that
+the signore--that's what 'e called him--was comin' home to-night."
+
+"Good! Then, after a look round the place, we hope to have the pleasure
+of seeing this mysterious foreigner who comes here to the Dengie Marshes
+to make a living out of fowl-keeping." And Walter smiled meaningly at his
+companion.
+
+Ten minutes later, after the sergeant had changed into plain clothes, the
+trio set out along the flat, muddy road for Asheldham.
+
+But as they were walking together, after passing Northend, a curious
+thing happened.
+
+Summers started back suddenly and nudged the novelist's arm without a
+word.
+
+Fetherston, looking in the direction indicated, halted, utterly staggered
+by what met his gaze.
+
+It was inexplicable--incredible! He looked again, scarcely believing his
+own eyes, for what he saw made plain a ghastly truth.
+
+He stood rigid, staring straight before him.
+
+Was it possible that at last he was actually within measurable distance
+of the solution of the mystery?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE RESULT OF INVESTIGATION
+
+
+AS the expectant trio had come round the bend in the road they saw in
+front of them, walking alone, a young lady in a short tweed suit with hat
+to match.
+
+The gown was of a peculiar shade of grey, and by her easy, swinging gait
+and the graceful carriage of her head Walter Fetherston instantly
+recognised that there before him, all unconscious of his presence, was
+the girl he believed to be still in Sicily--Enid Orlebar!
+
+He looked again, to satisfy himself that he was not mistaken. Then,
+drawing back, lest her attention should be attracted by their footsteps,
+he motioned to his companions to retreat around the bend and thus out of
+her sight.
+
+"Now," he said, addressing them, "there is some deep mystery here. That
+lady must not know we are here."
+
+"You've recognised her, sir?" asked Summers, who had on several previous
+occasions assisted him.
+
+"Yes," was the novelist's hard reply. "She is here with some mysterious
+object. You mustn't approach The Yews till dark."
+
+"Mr. Bailey will then be at home, sir," remarked the sergeant. "I thought
+you wished to explore the place before he arrived?"
+
+Walter paused. He saw that Enid could not be on her way to visit Bailey,
+if he were not at home. So he suggested that Summers, whom she did not
+know, should go forward and watch her movements, while he and the
+sergeant should proceed to the house of suspicion.
+
+Arranging to meet later, the officer from Scotland Yard lit his pipe and
+strolled quickly forward around the bend to follow the girl in grey,
+while the other two halted to allow them to get on ahead.
+
+"Have you ever seen that lady down here before, sergeant?" asked Walter
+presently.
+
+"Yes, sir. If I don't make a mistake, it is the same lady who asked me
+the way to The Yews soon after Mr. Bailey took the house--the lady who
+came with the man whom she addressed as 'Doctor'!"
+
+"Are you quite certain of this?"
+
+"Not quite certain. She was dressed differently, in brown--with a
+different hat and a veil."
+
+"They came only on that one occasion, eh?"
+
+"Only that once, sir."
+
+"But why, I wonder, is she going to The Yews? Pietro, you say, went up to
+London this morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, by the nine-five. And the house is locked up--she's evidently
+unaware of that."
+
+"No doubt. She'll go there, and, finding nobody at home, turn away
+disappointed. She must not see us."
+
+"We'll take good care of that, sir," laughed the local sergeant breezily,
+as he left his companion's side and crossed the road so that he could see
+the bend. "Why!" he exclaimed, "she ain't goin' to Asheldham after all!
+She's taken the footpath to the left that leads into Steeple! Evidently
+she knows the road!"
+
+"Then we are free to go straight along to The Yews, eh? She's making a
+call in the vicinity. I wonder where she's going?"
+
+"Your friend will ascertain that," said the sergeant. "Let's get along to
+The Yews and 'ave a peep round."
+
+Therefore the pair, now that Enid was sufficiently far ahead along a
+footpath which led under a high, bare hedge, went forth again down the
+high road until, after crossing the brook, they turned to the right into
+Asheldham village, where, half-way between that place and New Hall, they
+turned up a short by-road, a cul-de-sac, at the end of which a big,
+old-fashioned, red-brick house of the days of Queen Anne, half hidden by
+a belt of high Scotch firs, came into view.
+
+Shut off from the by-road by a high, time-mellowed brick wall, it stood
+back lonely and secluded in about a couple of acres of well wooded
+ground. From a big, rusty iron gate the ill-kept, gravelled drive took a
+broad sweep up to the front of the house, a large, roomy one with square,
+inartistic windows and plain front, the ugliness of which the ivy strove
+to hide.
+
+In the grey light of that wintry afternoon the place looked inexpressibly
+dismal and neglected. Years ago it had, no doubt, been the residence of
+some well-to-do county family; but in these twentieth-century post-war
+days, having been empty for nearly ten years, it had gone sadly to rack
+and ruin.
+
+The lawns had become weedy, the carriage-drive was, in places, green with
+moss, like the sills of the windows and the high-pitched, tiled roof
+itself. In the centre of the lawn, before the house, stood four great
+ancient yews, while all round were high box hedges, now, alas! neglected,
+untrimmed and full of holes.
+
+The curtains were of the commonest kind, while the very steps leading to
+the front door were grey with lichen and strewn with wisps of straw. The
+whole aspect was one of neglect, of decay, of mystery.
+
+The two men, opening the creaking iron gate, advanced boldly to the door,
+an excuse ready in case Pietro opened it.
+
+They knocked loudly, but there was no response. Their summons echoed
+through the big hall, causing Walter to remark:
+
+"There can't be much furniture inside, judging from the sound."
+
+"Four motor vanloads came here," responded the sergeant. "The first was
+in a plain van."
+
+"You did not discover whence it came?"
+
+"I asked the driver down at the inn at Southminster, and he told me that
+they came from the Trinity Furnishing Company, Peckham. But, on making
+inquiries, I found that he lied; there is no such company in Peckham."
+
+"You saw the furniture unloaded?"
+
+"I was about here when the first lot came. When the other three vans
+arrived I was away on my annual leave," was the sergeant's reply.
+
+Again they knocked, but no one came to the door. A terrier approached,
+but he proved friendly, therefore they proceeded to make an inspection
+of the empty stabling and disused outbuildings.
+
+Three old hen-coops were the only signs of poultry-farming they could
+discover, and these, placed in a conspicuous position in the big, paved
+yard, were without feathered occupants.
+
+There were three doors by which the house could be entered, and all of
+them Walter tried and found locked. Therefore, noticing in the
+rubbish-heap some stray pieces of paper, he at once turned his attention
+to what he discovered were fragments of a torn letter. It was written in
+French, and, apparently, had reference to certain securities held by the
+tenant of The Yews.
+
+But as only a small portion of the destroyed communication could be
+found, its purport was not very clear, and the name and address of the
+writer could not be ascertained.
+
+Yet it had already been proved without doubt that the mysterious tenant
+of the dismal old place--the man who posed as a poultry-farmer--had had
+as visitors Dr. Weirmarsh and Enid Orlebar!
+
+For a full half-hour, while the red-faced sergeant kept watch at the
+gate, Walter Fetherston continued to investigate that rubbish-heap, which
+showed signs of having been burning quite recently, for most of the
+scraps of paper were charred at their edges.
+
+The sodden remains of many letters he withdrew and tried to read, but the
+scraps gave no tangible result, and he was just about to relinquish his
+search when his eye caught a scrap of bright blue notepaper of a familiar
+hue. It was half burned, and blurred by the rain, but at the corner he
+recognised some embossing in dark blue--familiar embossing it was--of
+part of the address in Hill Street!
+
+The paper was that used habitually by Enid Orlebar, and upon it was a
+date, two months before, and the single word "over" in her familiar
+handwriting.
+
+He took his stout walking-stick, in reality a sword-case, and frantically
+searched for other scraps, but could find none. One tiny portion only had
+been preserved from the flames--paraffin having been poured over the heap
+to render it the more inflammable. But that scrap in itself was
+sufficient proof that Enid had written to the mysterious tenant of The
+Yews.
+
+"Well," he said at last, approaching the sergeant, "do you think the
+coast is clear enough?"
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To get a glimpse inside. There's a good deal more mystery here than we
+imagine, depend upon it!" Walter exclaimed.
+
+"Master and man will return by the same train, I expect, unless they come
+back in a motor-car. If they come by train they won't be here till well
+past eight, so we'll have at least three hours by ourselves."
+
+Walter Fetherston glanced around. Twilight was fast falling.
+
+"It'll be dark inside, but I've brought my electric torch," he said.
+"There's a kitchen window with an ordinary latch."
+
+"That's no use. There are iron bars," declared the sergeant. "I examined
+it the other day. The small staircase window at the side is the best
+means of entry." And he took the novelist round and showed him a long
+narrow window about five feet from the ground.
+
+Walter's one thought was of Enid. Why had she written to that mysterious
+foreigner? Why had she visited there? Why, indeed, was she back in
+England surreptitiously, and in that neighbourhood?
+
+The short winter's afternoon was nearly at an end as they stood
+contemplating the window prior to breaking in--for Walter Fetherston felt
+justified in breaking the law in order to examine the interior of that
+place.
+
+In the dark branches of the trees the wind whistled mournfully, and the
+scudding clouds were precursory of rain.
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed Walter. "This isn't a particularly cheerful
+abode, is it, sergeant?"
+
+"No, sir, if I lived 'ere I'd have the blues in a week," laughed the man.
+"I can't think 'ow Mr. Bailey employs 'is time."
+
+"Poultry-farming," laughed Fetherston, as, standing on tiptoe, he
+examined the window-latch by flashing on the electric torch.
+
+"No good!" he declared. "There's a shutter covered with new sheet-iron
+behind."
+
+"It doesn't show through the curtain," exclaimed Deacon.
+
+"But it's there. Our friend is evidently afraid of burglars."
+
+From window to window they passed, but the mystery was considerably
+increased by the discovery that at each of those on the ground floor were
+iron-faced shutters, though so placed as not to be noticeable behind the
+windows, which were entirely covered with cheap curtain muslin.
+
+"That's funny!" exclaimed the sergeant. "I've never examined them with a
+light before."
+
+"They have all been newly strengthened," declared Fetherston. "On the
+other side I expect there are strips of steel placed lattice-wise, a
+favourite device of foreigners. Mr. Bailey," he added, "evidently has no
+desire that any intruder should gain access to his residence."
+
+"What shall we do?" asked Deacon, for it was now rapidly growing dark.
+
+A thought had suddenly occurred to Walter that perhaps Enid's intention
+was to make a call there, after all.
+
+"Our only way to obtain entrance is, I think, by one of the upper
+windows," replied the man whose very life was occupied by the
+investigation of mysteries. "In the laundry I noticed a ladder. Let us go
+and get it."
+
+So the ladder, a rather rotten and insecure one, was obtained, and after
+some difficulty placed against the wall. It would not, however, reach to
+the windows, as first intended, therefore Walter mounted upon the
+slippery, moss-grown tiles of a wing of the house, and after a few
+moments' exploration discovered a skylight which proved to be over the
+head of the servants' staircase.
+
+This he lifted, and, fixing around a chimney-stack a strong silk rope he
+had brought in his pocket ready for any emergency, he threw it down the
+opening, and quickly lowered himself through.
+
+Scarcely had he done so, and was standing on the uncarpeted stairs, when
+his quick ear caught the sound of Deacon's footsteps receding over the
+gravel around to the front of the house.
+
+Then, a second later, he heard a loud challenge from the gloom in a man's
+voice that was unfamiliar:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+There was no reply. Walter listened with bated breath.
+
+"What are you doing there?" cried the new-comer in a voice in which was a
+marked foreign accent. "Speak! _speak!_ or I'll shoot!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE SECRET OF THE LONELY HOUSE
+
+
+WALTER did not move. He realised that a _contretemps_ had occurred. The
+ladder still leaning against the wall outside would reveal his intrusion.
+Yet, at last inside, he intended, at all hazards, to explore the place
+and learn the reason why the mysterious stranger had started that
+"poultry farm."
+
+He was practically in the dark, fearing to flash on his torch lest he
+should be discovered.
+
+Was it possible that Bailey or his Italian manservant had unexpectedly
+returned!
+
+Those breathless moments seemed hours.
+
+Suddenly he heard a second challenge. The challenger used a fierce
+Italian oath, and by it he knew that it was Pietro.
+
+In reply, a shot rang out--evidently from the sergeant's pistol, followed
+by another sharp report, and still another. This action showed the man
+Deacon to be a shrewd person, for the effect was exactly as he had
+intended. The Italian servant turned on his heel and flew for his life
+down the drive, shouting in his native tongue for help and for the
+police.
+
+"Madonna santa!" he yelled. "Who are you here?" he demanded in Italian.
+"I'll go to the police!"
+
+And in terror he rushed off down the road.
+
+"All right, sir," cried the sergeant, after the servant had disappeared.
+"I've given the fellow a good fright. Be quick and have a look round,
+sir. You can be out again before he raises the alarm!"
+
+In an instant Walter flashed on his torch and, dashing down the stairs,
+crossed the kitchen and found himself in the hall. From room to room he
+rushed, but found only two rooms on the ground floor furnished--a
+sitting-room, which had been the original dining-room, while in the study
+was a chair-bed, most probably where Pietro slept.
+
+On the table lay a heavy revolver, fully loaded, and this Fetherston
+quickly transferred to his jacket pocket.
+
+Next moment he dashed up the old well staircase two steps at a time and
+entered room after room. Only one was furnished--the tenant's bedroom. In
+it he found a number of suits of clothes, while on the dressing-table lay
+a false moustache, evidently for disguise. A small writing-table was set
+in the window, and upon it was strewn a quantity of papers.
+
+As he flashed his torch round he was amazed to see, arranged upon a neat
+deal table in a corner, some curious-looking machinery which looked
+something like printing-presses. But they were a mystery to him.
+
+The discovery was a strange one. What it meant he did not then realise.
+There seemed to be quite a quantity of apparatus and machinery. It was
+this which had been conveyed there in those furniture vans of the Trinity
+Furnishing Company.
+
+He heard Deacon's voice calling again. Therefore, having satisfied
+himself as to the nature of the contents of that neglected old house, he
+ascended the stone steps into the passage which led through a faded
+green-baize door into the main hall.
+
+As he entered he heard voices in loud discussion. Sergeant Deacon and the
+servant Pietro had met face to face.
+
+The Italian had evidently aroused the villagers in Asheldham, for there
+were sounds of many voices of men out on the gravelled drive.
+
+"I came up here a quarter of an hour ago," the Italian cried excitedly in
+his broken English, "and somebody fired at me. They tried to kill me!"
+
+"But who?" asked Deacon in pretended ignorance. He was uncertain what to
+do, Mr. Fetherston being still within the house and the ladder, his only
+means of escape, still standing against a side wall.
+
+"Thieves!" cried the man, his foreign accent more pronounced in his
+excitement. "I challenged them, and they fired at me. I am glad that you,
+a police sergeant, are here."
+
+"So am I," cried Walter Fetherston, suddenly throwing open the front door
+and standing before the knot of alarmed villagers, though it was so dark
+that they could not recognise who he was. "Deacon," he added
+authoritatively, "arrest that foreigner."
+
+"Diavolo! Who are you?" demanded the Italian angrily.
+
+"You will know in due course," replied Fetherston. Then, turning to the
+crowd, he added: "Gentlemen, I came here with Sergeant Deacon to search
+this house. He will tell you whether that statement is true or not."
+
+"Quite," declared the breezy sergeant, who already had the Italian by the
+collar and coat-sleeve. "It was I who fired--to frighten him off!"
+
+At this the crowd laughed. They had no liking for foreigners of any sort
+after the war, and were really secretly pleased to see that the sergeant
+had "taken him up."
+
+But what for? they asked themselves. Why had the police searched The
+Yews? Mr. Bailey was a quiet, inoffensive man, very free with his money
+to everybody around.
+
+"Jack Beard," cried Deacon to a man in the crowd, "just go down to
+Asheldham and telephone to Superintendent Warden at Maldon. Ask him to
+send me over three men at once, will you?"
+
+"All right, Sam," was the prompt reply, and the man went off, while the
+sergeant took the resentful Italian into the house to await an escort.
+
+Deacon called the assistance of two men and invited them in. Then, while
+they mounted guard over the prisoner, Fetherston addressed the little
+knot of amazed men who had been alarmed by the Italian's statement.
+
+"Listen, gentlemen," he said. "We shall in a couple of hours' time expect
+the return of Mr. Bailey, the tenant of this house. There is a very
+serious charge against him. I therefore put everyone of you upon your
+honour to say no word of what has occurred here to-night--not until Mr.
+Bailey arrives. I should prefer you all to remain here and wait;
+otherwise, if a word be dropped at Southminster, he may turn back and fly
+from justice."
+
+"What's the charge, sir?" asked one man, a bearded old labourer.
+
+"A very serious one," was Walter's evasive reply.
+
+Then, after a pause, they all agreed to wait and witness the dramatic
+arrest of the man who was charged with some mysterious offence.
+Speculation was rife as to what it would be, and almost every crime in
+the calendar was cited as likely.
+
+Meanwhile Fetherston, returning to the barely-furnished sitting-room,
+interrogated Pietro in Italian, but only obtained sullen answers. A
+loaded revolver had been found upon him by Deacon, and promptly
+confiscated.
+
+"I have already searched the place," Walter said to the prisoner, "and I
+know what it contains."
+
+But in response the man who had posed as servant, but who, with his
+"master," was the custodian of the place, only grinned and gave vent to
+muttered imprecations in Italian.
+
+Fetherston afterwards left the small assembly and made examination of
+some bedrooms he had not yet inspected. In three of these, the locks of
+which he broke open, he discovered quantities of interesting papers,
+together with another mysterious-looking press.
+
+While trying to decide what it all meant he suddenly heard a great
+shouting and commotion outside, and ran down to the door to ascertain its
+cause.
+
+As he opened it he saw that in the darkness the crowd outside had grown
+excited.
+
+"'Ere you are, sir," cried one man, ascending the steps. "'Ere are two
+visitors. We found 'em comin' up the road, and, seein' us, they tried to
+get away!"
+
+Walter held up a hurricane lantern which he had found and lit, when its
+dim, uncertain light fell upon the two prisoners in the crowd.
+
+Behind stood Summers, while before him, to Fetherston's utter amazement,
+showed Enid Orlebar, pale and terrified, and the grey, sinister face of
+Doctor Weirmarsh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CONTAINS SOME STARTLING STATEMENTS
+
+
+ENID, recognising Walter, shrank back instantly in fear and shame, while
+Weirmarsh started at that unexpected meeting with the man whom he knew to
+be his bitterest and most formidable opponent.
+
+The small crowd of excited onlookers, ignorant of the true facts, but
+their curiosity aroused by the unusual circumstances, had prevented the
+pair from turning back and making a hurried escape.
+
+"Enid!" exclaimed Fetherston, as the girl reluctantly crossed the
+threshold with downcast head, "what is the meaning of this? Why are you
+paying a visit to this house at such an hour?"
+
+"Ah, Walter," she cried, her small, gloved hands clenched with a sudden
+outburst of emotion, "be patient and hear me! I will tell you
+everything--_everything_!"
+
+"You won't," growled the doctor sharply. "If you do, by Gad! it will be
+the worse for you! So you'd best keep a silent tongue--otherwise you
+know the consequences. I shall now tell the truth--and you won't like
+that!"
+
+She drew back in terror of the man who held such an extraordinary
+influence over her. She had grasped Fetherston's hand convulsively, but
+at Weirmarsh's threat she had released her hold and was standing in the
+hall, pale, rigid and staring.
+
+"Summers," exclaimed Fetherston, turning to his companion, "you know this
+person, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I should rather think I do," replied the man, with a grin.
+
+"Well, detain him for the present, and take your instructions from
+London."
+
+"You have no power or right to detain me," declared the grey-faced doctor
+in quick defiance. "You are not a police officer!"
+
+"No, but this is a police officer," Fetherston replied, indicating
+Summers, and adding: "Sergeant, I give that man into custody."
+
+The sergeant advanced and laid his big hand upon the doctor's shoulder,
+telling him to consider himself under arrest.
+
+"But this is abominable--outrageous!" Weirmarsh cried, shaking him off.
+"I've committed no offence."
+
+"That is a matter for later consideration," calmly replied the man who
+had devoted so much of his time and money to the investigation of
+mysteries of crime.
+
+In one of the bare bedrooms upstairs Fetherston had, in examining one of
+the well made hand-presses set up there, found beside it a number of
+one-pound Treasury notes. In curiosity he took one up, and found it to be
+in an unfinished state. It was printed in green, without the brown
+colouring. Yet it was perfect as regards the paper and printing--even to
+its black serial number.
+
+Next second the truth flashed upon him. The whole apparatus, presses and
+everything, had been set up there to print the war paper currency of
+Great Britain!
+
+In the room adjoining he had seen bundles of slips of similar paper, all
+neatly packed in elastic bands, and waiting the final process of
+colouring and toning. One bundle had only the Houses of Parliament
+printed; the other side was blank. He saw in a flash that the placing in
+circulation of such a huge quantity of Treasury notes, amounting to
+hundreds of thousands of pounds, must seriously damage the credit of the
+nation.
+
+For a few seconds he held an unfinished note in his hand examining it,
+and deciding that the imitation was most perfect. It deceived him and
+would undoubtedly deceive any bank-teller.
+
+In those rooms it was plain that various processes had been conducted,
+from the manipulation of the watermark, by a remarkably ingenious
+process, right down to the finished one-pound note, so well done that not
+even an expert could detect the forgery. There were many French
+one-hundred-franc notes as well.
+
+The whole situation was truly astounding. Again the thought hammered
+home: such a quantity of paper in circulation must affect the national
+finances of Britain. And at the head of the band who were printing and
+circulating those spurious notes was the mysterious medical man who
+carried on his practice in Pimlico!
+
+The scene within the sparsely furnished house containing those telltale
+presses was indeed a weird one.
+
+Somebody had found a cheap paraffin lamp and lit it in the sitting-room,
+where they were all assembled, the front door having been closed.
+
+It was apparent that Pietro was no stranger to the doctor and his fair
+companion, but both men were highly resentful that they had been so
+entrapped.
+
+"Doctor Weirmarsh," exclaimed Fetherston seriously, as he stood before
+him, "I have just examined this house and have ascertained what it
+contains."
+
+"You've told him!" cried the man, turning fiercely upon Enid. "You have
+betrayed me! Ah! It will be the worse for you--and for your family," he
+added harshly. "You will see! I shall now reveal the truth concerning
+your stepfather, and you and your family will be held up to opprobrium
+throughout the whole length and breadth of your land."
+
+Enid did not reply. She was pale as death, her face downcast, her lips
+white as marble. She knew, alas! that Weirmarsh, now that he was
+cornered, would not spare her.
+
+There was a pause--a very painful pause.
+
+Everyone next instant listened to a noise which sounded outside. As it
+grew nearer it grew more distinct--the whir of an approaching motor-car.
+
+It pulled up suddenly before the door, and a moment later the old bell
+clanged loudly through the half-empty house.
+
+Fetherston left the room, and going to the door, threw it open, when yet
+another surprise awaited him.
+
+Upon the steps stood four men in thick overcoats, all of whom Walter
+instantly recognised.
+
+With Trendall stood Sir Hugh Elcombe, while their companions were two
+detective-inspectors from Scotland Yard.
+
+"Hallo!--Fetherston!" gasped Trendall. "I--I expected to find Weirmarsh
+here! What has happened?"
+
+"The doctor is already here," was the other's quick reply. "I have found
+some curious things in this place! Secret printing-presses for forged
+notes."
+
+"We already know that," he said. "Sir Hugh Elcombe here has, unknown to
+us, obtained certain knowledge, and to-day he came to me and gave me a
+full statement of what has been in progress. What he has told me this
+afternoon is among the most valuable and reliable information that we
+ever received."
+
+"I know something of the scoundrels," remarked the old general,
+"because--well, because, as I have confessed to Mr. Trendall, I yielded
+to temptation long ago and assisted them."
+
+"Whatever you have done, Sir Hugh, you have at least revealed to us the
+whole plot. Only by pretending to render assistance to these scoundrels
+could you have gained the intensely valuable knowledge which you've
+imparted to me to-day," replied the keen-faced director from Scotland
+Yard.
+
+Fetherston realised instantly that the fine old fellow, whom he had
+always held in such esteem, was making every effort to atone for his
+conduct in the past; but surely that was not the moment to refer to
+it--so he ushered the four men into the ill-lit dining-room wherein the
+others were standing, none knowing how next to act.
+
+When the doctor and Sir Hugh faced each other there was a painful silence
+for a few seconds.
+
+To Weirmarsh Trendall was known by sight, therefore the criminal saw that
+the game was up, and that Sir Hugh had risked his own reputation in
+betraying him.
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!" cried the doctor angrily. "You--to whom I have
+paid so many thousands of pounds--have given me away! But I'll be even
+with you!"
+
+"Say what you like," laughed the old general in defiance. "To me it is
+the same whatever you allege. I have already admitted my slip from the
+straight path. I do not deny receiving money from your hands, nor do I
+deny that, in a certain measure, I have committed serious
+offences--because, having taken one step, you forced me on to others,
+always holding over me the threat of exposure and ruin. But,
+fortunately, one day, in desperation, I took Enid yonder into my
+confidence. It was she who suggested that I might serve the ends of
+justice, and perhaps atone for what I had already done, by learning your
+secrets, and, when the time was ripe, revealing all the interesting
+details to our authorities. Enid became your friend and the friend of
+your friends. She risked everything--her honour, her happiness, her
+future--by associating with you for the one and sole purpose of assisting
+me to learn all the dastardly plot in progress."
+
+"It was you who supplied Paul Le Pontois with the false notes he passed
+in France!" declared Weirmarsh. "The French police know that; and if ever
+you or your step-daughter put foot in France you will be arrested."
+
+"Evidently you are unaware, Doctor, that my son-in-law, Paul Le Pontois,
+was released yesterday," laughed Sir Hugh in triumph. "Your treachery,
+which is now known by the Surete, defeated its own ends."
+
+"Further," remarked Walter Fetherston, turning to Enid, "it was this man
+here"--and he indicated the grey-faced doctor of Pimlico--"this man who
+denounced you and Sir Hugh to the French authorities, and had you not
+heeded my warning you both would then have been arrested. He had
+evidently suspected the object of your friendliness with me--that you
+both intended to reveal the truth--and he adopted that course in order to
+secure your incarceration in a foreign prison, and so close your lips."
+
+"I knew you suspected me all along, Walter," replied the girl, standing a
+little aside and suddenly clutching his hand. "But you will forgive me
+now--forgive me, won't you?" she implored, looking up into his dark,
+determined face.
+
+"Of course," he replied, "I have already forgiven you. I had no idea of
+the true reason of your association with this man."
+
+And he raised her gloved hand and carried it gallantly to his eager lips.
+
+"Though more than mere suspicion has rested upon you," he went on, "you
+and your stepfather deserve the heartiest thanks of the nation for
+risking everything in order to be in a position to reveal this dastardly
+financial plot. That man there"--and he indicated the doctor--"deserves
+all he'll get!"
+
+The doctor advanced threateningly, and, drawing a big automatic revolver
+from his pocket, would have fired at the man who had spoken his mind so
+freely had not Deacon, quick as lightning, sprung forward and wrenched
+the weapon so that the bullet went upward.
+
+White with anger and chagrin, the doctor stood roundly abusing the man
+who had investigated that lonely house.
+
+But Fetherston laughed, which only irritated him the more. He raved like
+a caged lion, until the veins in his brow stood out in great knots; but,
+finding all protests and allegations useless, he at last became quiet
+again, and apparently began to review the situation from a purely
+philosophical standpoint, until, some ten minutes later, another
+motor-car dashed up and in it were an inspector and four plain-clothes
+constables, who had been sent over from Maldon in response to Deacon's
+message for assistance.
+
+When they entered Pietro became voluble, but the narrow-eyed doctor of
+Pimlico remained sullen and silent, biting his lips. He saw that he had
+been entrapped by the very man whom he had believed to be as clay in his
+hands.
+
+The scene was surely exciting as well as impressive. The half-furnished,
+ill-lit dining-room was full of excited men, all talking at once.
+
+Unnoticed, Walter drew Enid into the shadow, and in a few brief,
+passionate words reassured her of his great affection.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, bursting into hot tears, "your words, Walter, have
+lifted a great load of sorrow and apprehension from my mind, for I feared
+that when you knew the truth you would never, never forgive."
+
+"But I have forgiven," he whispered, pressing her hand.
+
+"Then wait until we are alone, and I will tell you everything. Ah! you do
+not know, Walter, what I have suffered--what a terrible strain I have
+sustained in these days of terror!"
+
+But scarcely had she uttered those words when the door reopened and a man
+was ushered in by Deacon, who had gone out in response to the violent
+ringing of the bell.
+
+"This is Mr. Bailey, tenant of the house, gentlemen," said the sergeant,
+introducing him with mock politeness.
+
+Fetherston glanced up, and to his surprise saw standing in the doorway a
+man he had known, and whose movements he had so closely followed--the man
+who had gone to Monte Carlo for instructions, and perhaps payment--the
+man who had passed as Monsieur Granier!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+REVEALS A WOMAN'S LOVE
+
+
+GREAT was the consternation caused in the neighbourhood of the sleepy
+old-world village of Asheldham when it became known that the quiet,
+mild-mannered tenant of The Yews had been arrested by the Maldon police.
+
+Of what transpired within those grim walls only the two men called to his
+assistance by Sergeant Deacon knew, and to them both the inspector from
+Maldon, as well as Trendall, expressed a fervent hope that they would
+regard the matter as strictly confidential.
+
+"You see, gentlemen," added Trendall, "we are not desirous that the
+public should know of our discovery. We wish to avoid creating undue
+alarm, and at the same time to conceal the very existence of our system
+of surveillance upon those suspected. Therefore, I trust that all of you
+present will assist my department by preserving silence as to what has
+occurred here this evening."
+
+His hearers agreed willingly, and through the next hour the place was
+thoroughly searched, the bundles of spurious notes--the finished ones
+representing nearly one hundred thousand pounds ready to put into
+circulation--being seized.
+
+One of the machines they found was for printing in the serial numbers in
+black, a process which, with genuine notes, is done by hand. Truly, the
+gang had brought the art of forgery to perfection.
+
+"Well," said Trendall when they had finished, "this work of yours, Sir
+Hugh, certainly deserves the highest commendation. You have accomplished
+what we, with all our great organisation, utterly failed to do."
+
+"I have to-day tried to atone for my past offences," was the stern old
+man's hoarse reply.
+
+"And you have succeeded, Sir Hugh," declared Trendall. "Indeed you have!"
+
+Shortly afterwards the excitement among the crowd waiting outside in the
+light of the head-lamps of the motor-cars was increased by the appearance
+of the doctor, escorted by two Maldon police officers in plain clothes.
+They mounted a police car, and were driven away down the road, while into
+a second car the tenant of The Yews and his Italian manservant were
+placed under escort, and also driven away.
+
+The station-fly, in which Bailey had driven from Southminster, conveyed
+away Fetherston, Trendall, Sir Hugh, and Enid, while Deacon, with two
+men, was left in charge of the house of secrets.
+
+It was past one o'clock in the morning when Walter Fetherston stood alone
+with Enid in the pretty drawing-room in Hill Street.
+
+They stood together upon the _vieux rose_ hearthrug, his hand was upon
+her shoulder, his deep, earnest gaze fixed upon hers. In her splendid
+eyes the love light showed. They had both admired each other intensely
+from their first meeting, and had become very good and staunch friends.
+Walter Fetherston had only once spoken of the passion that had constantly
+consumed his heart--when they were by the blue sea at Biarritz. He loved
+her--loved her with the whole strength of his being--and yet, ah! try how
+he would, he could never put aside the dark cloud of suspicion which, as
+the days went by, became more and more impenetrable.
+
+Sweet-faced, frank, and open, she stood, the ideal of the English outdoor
+girl, merry, quick-witted, and athletic. And yet, after the stress of
+war, she had sacrificed all that she held most dear in order to become
+the friend of Weirmarsh. Why?
+
+"Enid," he said at last, his tender hand still upon her shoulder, "why
+did you not tell me your true position? You were working in the same
+direction, with the same strong motive of patriotism, as myself!"
+
+She was silent, very pale, and very serious.
+
+"I feared to tell you, Walter," she faltered. "How could I possibly
+reveal to you the truth when I knew you were aware how my stepfather had
+unconsciously betrayed his friends? You judged us both as undesirables,
+therefore any attempt at explanation would, I know, only aggravate our
+offence in your eyes. Ah! you do not know how intensely I have suffered!
+How bitter it all was! I knew the reason you followed us to France--to
+watch and confirm your suspicions."
+
+"I admit, Enid, that I suspected you of being in the hands of a set of
+scoundrels," her lover said in a low, hoarse voice. "At first I hesitated
+whether to warn you of your peril after Weirmarsh had, with such
+dastardly cunning, betrayed you to the French police, but--well," he
+added as he looked again into her dear eyes long and earnestly, "I loved
+you, Enid," he blurted forth. "I told you so! Remember, dear, what you
+said at Biarritz? And I love you--and because of that I resolved to save
+you!"
+
+"Which you did," she said in a strained, mechanical tone. "We both have
+you to thank for our escape. Weirmarsh, having first implicated Paul,
+then made allegations against us, in order to send us to prison, because
+he feared lest my stepfather might, in a fit of remorse, act indiscreetly
+and make a confession."
+
+"The past will all be forgiven now that Sir Hugh has been able to expose
+and unmask Weirmarsh and his band," Walter assured her. "A great
+sensation may possibly result, but it will, in any case, show that even
+though an Englishman may be bought, he can still remain honest. And," he
+added, "it will also show them that there is at least one brave woman in
+England who sacrificed her love--for I know well, Enid, that you fully
+reciprocate the great affection I feel towards you--in order to bear her
+noble part in combating a wily and unscrupulous gang."
+
+"It was surely my duty," replied the girl simply, her eyes downcast in
+modesty. "Yet association with that dastardly blackguard, Dr. Weirmarsh,
+was horrible! How I refrained from turning upon him through all those
+months I cannot really tell. I detested him from the first moment Sir
+Hugh invited him to our table; and though I went to assist him under
+guise of consultations, I acted with one object all along," she
+declared, her eyes raised to his and flashing, "to expose him in his true
+guise--that of Josef Blot, the head of the most dangerous association of
+forgers, of international thieves and blackmailers known to the police
+for the past half a century."
+
+"Which you have surely done! You have revealed the whole plot, and
+confounded those who were so cleverly conspiring to effect a sudden and
+most gigantic coup. But----" and he paused, still looking into her eyes
+through his pince-nez, and sighed.
+
+"But what?" she asked, in some surprise at his sudden change of manner.
+
+"There is one matter, Enid, which"--and he paused--"well, which is still
+a mystery to me, and I--I want you to explain it," he said in slow
+deliberation.
+
+"What is that?" she asked, looking at him quickly.
+
+"The mystery which you have always refused to assist me in
+unravelling--the mystery of the death of Harry Bellairs," was his quiet
+reply. "You held him in high esteem; you loved him," he added in a voice
+scarce above a whisper.
+
+She drew back, her countenance suddenly blanched as she put her hand
+quickly to her brow and reeled slightly as though she had been dealt a
+blow.
+
+Walter watched her in blank wonderment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+IN WHICH SIR HUGH TELLS HIS STORY
+
+
+"YOU know the truth, don't you, dearest?" Walter asked at last in that
+quiet, sympathetic tone which he always adopted towards her whom he loved
+so well.
+
+Enid nodded in the affirmative, her face hard and drawn.
+
+"He was killed, was he not--deliberately murdered?"
+
+For a few seconds the silence was unbroken save for a whir of a taxicab
+passing outside.
+
+"Yes," was her somewhat reluctant response.
+
+"You went to his rooms that afternoon," Walter asserted point blank.
+
+"I do not deny that. I followed him home--to--to save him."
+
+There was a break in her voice as she stammered out the last words, and
+tears rushed into her dark eyes.
+
+"From what? From death?"
+
+"No, from falling a prey to a great temptation set before him."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"By the doctor, to whom my stepfather had introduced him," was the girl's
+reply. "I discovered by mere chance that the doctor, who had somewhat got
+him into his clutches, had approached him in order to induce him to allow
+him to take a wax impression of a certain safe key belonging to a friend
+of his named Thurston, a diamond broker in Hatton Garden. He had offered
+him a very substantial sum to do this--a sum which would have enabled him
+to clear off all his debts and start afresh. Harry's younger brother Bob
+had got into a mess, and in helping him out Harry had sadly entangled
+himself and was practically face to face with bankruptcy. I knew this,
+and I knew what a great temptation had been placed before him. Fearing
+lest, in a moment of despair, he might accept, I went, by appointment, to
+his chambers as soon as I arrived in London. Barker, his man, had been
+sent out, and we were alone. I found him in desperation, yet to my great
+delight he had defied Weirmarsh, saying he refused to betray his friend."
+
+"And what did Bellairs tell you further?"
+
+"He expressed suspicion that my stepfather was in the doctor's pay," she
+replied. "I tried to convince him to the contrary, but Weirmarsh's
+suggestion had evidently furnished the key to some suspicious document
+which he had one day found on Sir Hugh's writing-table."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well," she went on slowly, "we quarrelled. I was indignant that he
+should suspect my stepfather, and he was full of vengeance against Sir
+Hugh's friend the doctor. Presently I left, and--and I never saw him
+again alive!"
+
+"What happened?"
+
+"What happened is explained by this letter," she replied, crossing to a
+little buhl bureau which she unlocked, taking out a sealed envelope. On
+breaking it open and handing it to him she said: "This is the letter he
+wrote to me with his dying hand. I have kept it a secret--a secret even
+from Sir Hugh."
+
+Walter read the uneven lines eagerly. They grew more shaky and more
+illegible towards the end, but they were sufficient to make the truth
+absolutely clear.
+
+"To-night, half an hour ago," (wrote the dying man) "I had a visit from
+your friend, Weirmarsh. We were alone, with none to overhear, so I told
+him plainly that I intended to expose him. At first he became defiant,
+but presently he grew apprehensive, and on taking his leave he made a
+foul accusation against you. Then, laughing at my refusal to accept his
+bribe, the scoundrel took my hand in farewell. He must have had a pin
+stuck in his glove, for I felt a slight scratch across the palm. At the
+moment I was too furious to pay any attention to it, but ten minutes
+after he had gone I began to experience a strange faintness. I feel now
+fainter . . . and fainter . . . A strange feeling has crept over me . . .
+I am dying . . . poisoned . . . by that king of thieves!
+
+"Come to me quickly . . . at once . . . Enid . . . and tell me that what
+he has said against you . . . is not true. It . . . it cannot be true. .
+. . Don't delay. Come quickly. . . . Can't write more.--Harry."
+
+Walter paused for a second after reading through that dramatic letter,
+the last effort of a dying man.
+
+"And that scoundrel Weirmarsh killed him because he feared exposure," he
+remarked in a low, hard voice. "Why did you not bring this forward at the
+inquest?"
+
+"For several reasons," replied the girl. "I feared the doctor's
+reprisals. Besides, he might easily have denied the allegation, or he
+might have used the same means to close my lips if he had suspected that
+I had learnt the truth."
+
+"The dead man's story is no doubt true," declared Fetherston. "He used
+some deadly poison--one of the newly discovered ones which leaves no
+trace--to kill his victim who, in all probability, was not his first.
+Your stepfather does not know, of course, that this letter exists?"
+
+"No. I have kept it from everyone. I said that the summons I received
+from him I had destroyed."
+
+"In the circumstances I will ask you, Enid, to allow me to retain it," he
+said. "I want to show it to Trendall."
+
+"You may show it to Mr. Trendall, but I ask you, for the present, to make
+no further use of it," replied the girl.
+
+He moved a step closer to her and caught her disengaged hand in his, the
+glad light in her eyes telling him that his action was one which she
+reciprocated, yet some sense of her unworthiness of this great love
+causing her to hesitate.
+
+"I will promise," said the strong, manly fellow in a low tone. "I ought
+to have made allowances, but, in the horror of my suspicion, I did not,
+and I'm sorry. I love you, Enid--I had never really loved until I met
+you, until I held your hand in mine!"
+
+Enid's true, overburdened heart was only too ready to respond to his
+fervent appeal. She suffered her lover to draw her to himself, and their
+lips met in a long, passionate caress that blotted out all the past. He
+spoke quick, rapid words of ardent affection. To Enid, after all the
+hideous events she had passed through, it seemed too happy to be true
+that so much bliss was in store for her, and she remained there, with
+Walter's arm around her, silently content, that fervid kiss being the
+first he had ever imprinted upon her full red lips.
+
+Thus they remained in each other's arms, their two true hearts beating in
+unison, their kisses mingling, their twin souls united in the first
+moments of their newly-found ecstasy of perfect love.
+
+The fight had been a fierce one, but their true hearts had won, and, as
+they whispered each other's fond affection, Enid promised to be the wife
+of the honest, fearless man of whose magnificent work in the detection of
+crime the country had never dreamed. They read his books and were
+enthralled by them, but little did they think that he was one of the
+never-sleeping watch-dogs upon great criminals, or that the sweet-faced
+girl, who was now his affianced wife, had risked her life, her love, her
+honour, in order to assist him.
+
+Next afternoon Sir Hugh called upon Walter at his dingy chambers in
+Holles Street, and as they sat together the old general, after a long
+and somewhat painful silence, exclaimed:
+
+"I know, Fetherston, that you must be mystified how, in my position, I
+should have become implicated in the doings of that criminal gang."
+
+"Yes, I am," Walter declared.
+
+"Well, briefly, it occurred in this way," said the old officer. "While I
+was a colonel in India just before the war I was very hard pressed for
+money and had committed a fault--an indiscretion for which I might easily
+have been dismissed from the army. On being recalled to London, after war
+had been declared, I was approached by the fellow Weirmarsh who, to my
+horror, had, by some unaccountable means, obtained knowledge of my
+indiscretion! At first he adopted a high moral tone, upbraiding me for my
+fault and threatening to inform against me. This I begged him not to do.
+For a fortnight he kept me in an agony of despair, when one day he called
+me to him and unfolded to me a scheme by which I could make a
+considerable amount of money; indeed, he promised to pay me a yearly sum
+for my assistance."
+
+"You thought him to be a doctor--and nothing else?" Walter said.
+
+"Exactly. I never dreamed until quite recently that he was head of such a
+formidable gang, whose operations were upon so extensive a scale as to
+endanger our national credit," replied Sir Hugh. "At the time he
+approached me I was in the Pay Department, and many thousands of pounds
+in Treasury notes were passing through my safe weekly. His suggestion was
+that I should exchange the notes as they came to me from the Treasury for
+those with which he would supply me, and which, on showing me a specimen,
+I failed to distinguish from the real. I hesitated; I was hard up. To
+sustain my position after my knighthood money was absolutely necessary to
+me, and for a long time I had been unable to make both ends meet. The
+bait he dangled before me was sufficiently tempting, and--and--well, I
+fell!" he groaned, and then after a pause he went on:
+
+"Whence Weirmarsh obtained the packets of notes which I substituted for
+genuine ones was, of course, a mystery, but once having taken the false
+step it was not my business to inquire. Not until quite recently did I
+discover his real position as chief of a gang of international crooks,
+who combined forgery with blackmail and theft upon a colossal scale. That
+he intended Bellairs should furnish him with an impression of the safe
+key of a diamond dealer in Hatton Garden is now plain. Bellairs defied
+him and threatened to denounce him to the police. Therefore, the poor
+fellow's lips were quickly closed by the scoundrel, who would hesitate at
+nothing in order to preserve his guilty secrets."
+
+"But what caused you to break from him at last?" inquired Walter eagerly.
+
+"Just before the armistice he and his friends had conceived a gigantic
+scheme by which Europe and the United States were to be flooded with
+great quantities of spurious paper currency, and though it would, when
+discovered--as it must have been sooner or later--have injured the
+national credit, would bring huge fortunes to him and his friends. He was
+pressing me to send in my papers and go to America, there to act as their
+agent at a huge remuneration. They wanted a man of standing who should be
+above suspicion, and he had decided to use me as his tool to engineer the
+gigantic frauds."
+
+"And you, happily, refused?"
+
+"Yes. I resolved, rather than act further, to relinquish the handsome
+payments he made to me from time to time. For that reason I got
+transferred from the Pay Department, so that I could no longer be of much
+use to him, a fact which annoyed him greatly."
+
+"And he threatened you?"
+
+"Yes. He was constantly doing so. He wanted me to go to New York. Enid
+helped me and gave me courage to defy him--which I did. Then he conceived
+a dastardly revenge by anonymously denouncing Le Pontois as a forger, and
+implicating both Enid and myself. He contrived that some money I brought
+from England should be exchanged for spurious notes, and these Paul
+unsuspiciously gave into the Credit Lyonnais. Had it not been for your
+timely warning, Fetherston, we should both have also been arrested in
+France without a doubt."
+
+"Yes," replied the other. "I was watching, and realised your peril,
+though I confess that my position was one of extreme difficulty. I, of
+course, did not know the actual truth, and, to be frank, I suspected both
+Enid and yourself of being implicated in some very serious crime."
+
+"So we were," he said in a low, hard voice.
+
+"True. But you have both been the means of revealing to the Treasury a
+state of things of which they never dreamed, and by turning King's
+evidence and giving the names and addresses of members of the gang in
+Brussels and Paris, all of whom are now under arrest, you have saved the
+country from considerable peril. Had the plot succeeded, a very serious
+state of things must have resulted, for the whole of our paper currency
+would have been suspected. For that reason the authorities have, I
+understand, now that they have arrested the gang and seized their
+presses, decided to hush up the whole matter."
+
+"You know this?" asked Sir Hugh, suddenly brightening.
+
+"Yes, Trendall told me so this morning."
+
+"Ah! Thank Heaven!" he gasped, much relieved. "Then I can again face the
+world a free man. God knows how terribly I suffered through all those
+years of the war. I paid for my fault very dearly--I assure you,
+Fetherston."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+WHAT remains to be related is quickly told, though the public have, until
+now, been in ignorance of the truth.
+
+Out of evil a great good had come. At noon on the following day Trendall
+had an interview with Josef Blot, alias Weirmarsh, in his cell at
+Chelmsford, whither he had been conveyed by the police. What happened at
+that interview will never be known. It is safe to surmise, however, that
+the tragic letter of Harry Bellairs was shown to him--Enid having
+withdrawn her request that no use should be made of it. An hour after the
+chief of the Criminal Investigation Department had left, the prisoner was
+found lying stark dead, suffering from a scratch on the wrist, inflicted
+with a short, hollow needle which he had carried concealed behind the
+lapel of his coat.
+
+Greatly to the discomfiture of the gang, the man Granier and his servant
+Pietro were extradited to France for trial, while a quantity of
+jewellery, works of art, money and negotiable securities of all sorts
+were unearthed from a villa near Fontainebleau and restored to their
+owners.
+
+A fortnight after Weirmarsh's death, at St. George's, Hanover Square,
+Enid Orlebar became the wife of Walter Fetherston, and among the guests
+at the wedding were a number of strange men in whose position or
+profession nobody pretended to be interested. Truth to tell, they were
+officials of various grades from Scotland Yard, surely the most welcome
+among the wedding guests.
+
+Though Walter and Enid live in idyllic happiness in a charming old
+ivy-grown manor house in Sussex, with level lawns and shady rose arbours,
+they still retain that old cottage at Idsworth, where a plausible excuse
+has been given to the country folk for "Mr. Maltwood" having been
+compelled to change his name. No pair in the whole of England are happier
+to-day.
+
+No man holds his wife more dear, or has a more loving and hopeful
+companion. Their life is one of perfect and abiding peace and of sweet
+content.
+
+Walter Fetherston is not by any means idle, for in his quiet country home
+he still writes those marvellous mystery stories which hold the world
+breathlessly enthralled, but he continues to devote half his time to
+combating the ingenuity of the greater criminals with all its attendant
+excitement and adventure, which are reflected in his popular romances.
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Page 117, "Mars-le-Tour" changed to "Mars-la-Tour"
+
+Page 164, "Le Pontais" changed to "Le Pontois"
+
+Page 178, "Liege" changed to "Liege"
+
+Page 279, "Olebar" changed to "Orlebar"
+
+Page 316, "been dismissed the" changed to "been dismissed from the"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Doctor of Pimlico, by William Le Queux
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