The Place of Dragons: A Mystery
"What did you do then?" I asked excitedly.
"Why, I yelled after 'em, but nobody heard me, until presently I came across a copper and told him what was up. We soon got another taxi and went back to the house, and there we found you both a-lying as I'd left you."
"Was the lady alive?" I queried huskily.
"Yes. She was a-breathing slightly, and as we thought she was injured worse than you, the copper took her off at once to the Brentford Hospital by herself, as there wasn't room for both of you in the cab. On the way he sent another taxi back for me and I brought you here."
"But is the young lady alive now?" I asked.
"I believe so, but I'm not quite sure. She was last night when I called at the hospital, but she was dreadful bad, and in great danger, they told me."
"Ah!" I sighed. "I only hope and pray that she may recover to face and condemn her brutal enemies."
"Was she a friend of yours, sir?" asked the man with some curiosity.
"Yes, a great friend," was my reply.
"But who tried to kill you, sir?" Stevens asked. "Those blokes as escaped seemed to be a pretty desperate lot. My cab ain't been found yet," he added.
"They were her enemies as well as mine," I replied vaguely, for I had no intention of telling him the whole story, though I thanked him sincerely for his prompt help. Had it not been for him I fear that Lola and myself would never have lived through the night. Jeanjean would have taken good care that the lips of both of us were closed for ever.
"Well, sir, you've had a pretty narrow shave of it," Stevens declared. "There's something very queer about that house, it seems. People say that though the place, as was to be let furnished, had nobody a-living in it, strange lights have been seen a-moving about it, and in the windows now and again and always very late at night."
"Will you do a favour for me, Stevens?" I asked.
"Certainly, sir."
Then I gave him instructions first to go to the hospital where Lola was lying, to inquire how she was. Then he was to go on to my flat in Carlos Place, tell Rayner all that had occurred, and order him to come to me at once.
Just then the nurse kindly, but very firmly intervened, and the taxi-driver rose from the chair at my bedside and left.
For some hours I dozed. Then woke to find the faithful Rayner standing by me, much concerned.
"I've had an awful fright, sir," he said. "When you didn't come home for forty-eight hours, I went to Vine Street Police Station and reported that you were missing. Inspector Palmer, of the C.I. Department, knows you well, sir, and he quickly stirred himself. But I heard nothing till that taxi-driver came and told me you were here. He explained how you'd been shot at a house in Spring Grove, Isleworth. I hope you're all right again, sir?"
"Yes, Rayner, so far," I answered rather feebly. "I've a bit of pain in my throat, but they've bandaged me up all right, and I'll soon be about again. That fellow you knew as Dr. Arendt, in Cromer, plugged me."
"What! The man Jeanjean!"
"The same," I said. "Gregory was there, too. I tracked them into their den, and this is what I got for my trouble," I added grimly.
"Well, sir, I'm no end glad you escaped. They're a desperate crowd and you might very easily have gone under. Can I do anything?"
"Yes. Take a message for me to the Brentford Hospital, to Mademoiselle Sorel."
"The lady the taxi-man told me about?" Rayner asked.
"Yes. An attempt was made upon her life," I replied. "Go there, take some nice flowers, and send up a message from me expressing a hope that she's better, and say that I will see her as soon as ever I'm able."
"Very well, sir. I'll be off at once," he replied.
But for some time longer he sat with me, while I gave him instructions regarding various matters. Then he left, promising me to quickly return and bring me news of Lola.
He was absent about a couple of hours, and on re-entering told me that he had seen the Sister in charge, who had given Lola my flowers and my message and had received one in return from her. This was that she felt much better, and that until we met and consulted it would be best to take no action against the assassins.
That same evening, with the doctor's sanction, a tall, clean-shaven man in grey tweeds approached my bed and, seating himself, announced that his name was Warton, and that he was an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department.
He brought out a business-like book and pencil and in a rather abrupt manner commenced to interrogate me regarding the events of that night when I so narrowly escaped being murdered.
From his methods I judged that he had risen from a constable. He was bluff and to the point. He told me he was attached to the Brentford Station, and I set him down as a man of similar mental calibre to Frayne.
No good could accrue at that moment from any full explanation, so, after listening to him for some little time, I pretended to be very unwell and only answered his questions with plain "yes" or "no."
It was not likely that I would tell all I knew to this local detective. Had Henri Jonet been present it would have been a different matter, but I saw at a glance that Warton was a very ordinary type of police-officer.
He asked me what took me to the house in Spring Grove on that fateful night. To this I merely replied with the one word —
"Curiosity."
Then he asked —
"Did you know the lady who was found stabbed a few feet from you?"
"Yes. I had met her," was my reply.
"Do you know the circumstances in which she was struck down?"
"I was not present then, therefore I could know nothing," was my evasive response.
"But the men in the house were friends of yours, were they not?" he asked.
"No. They were not," was my prompt reply.
"Then, who were they?" he asked, scribbling down my answers with his stumpy pencil.
"I – I don't feel well enough to be questioned like this," I complained to the Sister, who was standing by. "I've committed no crime, and I object to the police making a cross-examination as though I were a criminal. I appeal to you, Sister."
The middle-aged woman in her cool linen uniform, with a silver medal upon her breast, looked hard at me for a moment. Then, realizing the situation, she turned to the detective, and said —
"You must come to-morrow. The patient still suffers much from shock, and I cannot allow him to be questioned further. He is too weak."
"Very well, Sister," replied Warton, as he closed his pocket-book. "I'll come to-morrow. But a strange mystery envelopes that house in Spring Grove, Mr. Vidal," he added, turning back to me. "You'll be surprised when you go there and see for yourself."
"Perhaps Mr. Vidal may be well enough to do so in a few days," said the Sister. "We shall see."
And with that the police-officer was forced to depart.
CHAPTER XX
ANOTHER DISCOVERY IS MADE
On several occasions during the weary week that followed Inspector Warton called and saw me, but I always managed, by one subterfuge or another, to evade the more pointed of his questions.
The three men who had attacked Lola and myself that night knew from the papers that we both still lived as witnesses against them.
The nurses would not allow me to see the papers, but from Rayner I learnt that the more sensational section of the London Press had published reports headed, "Novelist Found Shot." Indeed, a great many reporters had called at the hospital, but had been promptly sent empty away.
At last, one morning, I was declared convalescent and sufficiently well to be removed to my chambers. Therefore Rayner ordered Stevens to bring his taxi for me, and we left the hospital.
Though still feeling far from well, I was all curiosity to see the house in Spring Grove by daylight, so we called at the police-station and a stout sergeant of the T. Division accompanied us with the key, the place being still in the hands of the police.
As we pulled up in that unfrequented side-road I saw how mysterious and desolate the place was in the warm sunshine – an old red-brick Georgian house, with square, inartistic windows, standing solitary and alone, half covered by its ivy mantle, and surrounded by a spacious garden dotted with high trees, and neglected and overgrown with weeds.
As we walked over the moss-grown flags leading to the steps, I noticed the window I had smashed in making my entry that night.
The constable unlocked the door and we found ourselves in a wide, spacious hall, its stone flags worn hollow and containing some old-fashioned furniture. The atmosphere of the house was musty and close, and long cobwebs hung in festoons in the corners.
The room on the right, the one in which I had been found, I remembered well. It was just the same as when I had stood there in the presence of the Master and the notorious Jules Jeanjean. Upon its brown threadbare carpet were two ugly stains in close proximity to each other – the spots where both Lola and I had lain!
I saw the wall against which I had stood in defiance. An evening overcoat still lay upon a chair – the coat which old Gregory had abandoned in his hurried flight, when Stevens, the taxi-driver, had so opportunely appeared upon the scene.
"Nothing's been touched, sir," remarked the fat sergeant. "We've been waiting for you to see the place, and to tell us what you know."
I exchanged glances with Rayner.
"I know very little," I replied. "I simply fell in with a very dangerous set. They were evidently plotting something, and believing that I had overheard, attempted to put me out of the way."
"And the lady?"
"I imagine the same sort of thing happened to her. They considered she knew too much of their movements and might betray them."
"But what were they plotting?"
"They spoke in French, so I couldn't catch."
"Oh! They were foreigners – eh?" exclaimed the sergeant in surprise. "Coiners or anarchists, perhaps."
"Perhaps," I said. "Who knows?"
"Ah. I've heard that two strangers have been seen up and down here in the night time," continued the sergeant. "We've got their description from a constable who's been doing night-duty. He says he'd know 'em again. Once he saw a woman with 'em, and he believes it was the young lady now in the hospital."
"He saw them together – eh?"
"He says so."
Then I changed the conversation, and I followed him from room to room through the dirty, neglected house, which nevertheless, with slight signs here and there, showed marks of recent occupation.
Two of the beds in the upstairs rooms had been slept in, and there was other evidence in both kitchen and dining-room that, as I had surmised, it had been the secret hiding-place of the man who posed in Hatton Garden as a substantial and respectable dealer in precious stones.
No doubt he came there late at night, and if he remained during the day he never went out.
Surely the place was one where he might effectively conceal himself from the police; yet to live in such a house, and in that manner, certainly showed a daring and audacity unequalled. He, of course, never knew when a prospective tenant might come to visit it, or the agents in Hounslow might send to inspect its condition.
"You had a very narrow escape here, sir," said the sergeant as we descended the stairs. "Will you step outside? I want to show you something."
We all went out by the kitchen door into the weedy garden where, behind a low wall, lay a mound of newly-dug earth. By its side I saw a rough, yawning hole about five feet long by three broad.
"That's the grave they'd prepared for you, sir, without a doubt! By gum! It was lucky that taxi-driver got up here just in time, or they'd have flung you in and covered you up, dead or alive!"
I stood aghast, staring at the hole prepared for the concealment – not of my body – but that of Lola. They had had no inkling of my expected presence, hence that prepared grave had been for her – and her alone!
She had been invited there by old Gregory, who had intended that she should die, and ere morning broke all trace of the crime would have been removed.
Yes. The fat sergeant spoke the truth. Had not Stevens fortunately come to that house at the moment he did, we should both have been flung into that gaping hole and there buried. In a week the weeds of the garden would have spread and all traces of the soil having been moved would have been obliterated.
How many secret crimes are yearly committed in the suburbs of London! How many poor innocent victims of both sexes, and of all ages, lie concealed beneath the floors of kitchens and cellars, or in the back gardens of the snug, old-fashioned houses around London? Once, Seven Dials or Drury Lane were dangerous. But to-day they are not half so dangerous to the unwary as our semi-rural suburbs. The clever criminal never seeks to dissect, burn, or otherwise get rid of his victim save to bury the body. Burial conceals everything, and the corpse rapidly moulders into dust.
If the walls of the middle-class houses of suburban London could speak, what grim stories some of them could tell! And how many quiet, respectable families are now living in houses where, beneath the basement floor, or in the little back garden, lie the rotting remains of the victim of some brutal crime.
It is the same in Paris, in Brussels, in Vienna, aye, in every capital. The innocent pay the toll always. Men make laws and cleverer men break them. But God reigns supreme, and sooner or later places His hand heavily upon the guilty.
Ask any of the heads of the police of the European Powers, and they will tell you that Providence assists them to bring the guilty to justice. It may be mere chance, mere coincidence, vengeance of those who have been tricked, jealousy of a woman – a dozen motives – yet the result is ever the same, the criminal at last stands before his judges.
The great detective – and there are a dozen in Europe – takes no kudos unto himself. He will tell you that his success in such and such a case is due to some lucky circumstance. Ask him who controlled it, and he will go further and tell you that the punishment meted out to the assassin by man is the punishment decreed by his Creator. He has taken a life which is God-given – hence his own life must pay the penalty.
Rayner, as he looked into the hole which had been so roughly dug, was inclined to hilarity.
"Well, sir," he exclaimed. "It's hardly long enough for you, is it?"
"Enough!" I said. "Had it not been for Stevens, I should have been lying down there with the earth over me."
"I was afraid I shouldn't get my fare," said the taxi-driver, simply. "I didn't know you, sir, and I had four-and-sixpence on the clock – a lot to me."
"And a good job, too," declared Rayner. "If it had only been a bob fare you might have gone back to Acton and left Mr. Vidal to his fate."
"Ah! I quite agree," Stevens said. "It was only by mere chance, as I had promised my wife to be home early that night, it being our wedding-day, and we had two or three friends coming in."
"Then your wedding anniversary saved my life, Stevens!" I exclaimed.
"Well, if you put it that way, sir, I suppose it really did," he replied with a laugh. "But this preparation of a grave is a surprise to me. They evidently got it ready for the young lady – eh?"
I paused. My blood rose against the crafty old Gregory and his associates. They knew of Lola's friendship with me, and they had deliberately plotted the poor girl's death. They had actually dug a grave ready to receive her!
Within myself I made a solemn vow that I would be even with the man whom the mysterious Egisto had addressed as "Master."
Surely I should have a strange and interesting story to relate to my friend Jonet in Paris.
I glanced at the surroundings. About the oblong excavation was a tangled mass of herbage, peas and beans with fading leaves, for it was in the corner of a kitchen-garden, which in the fall of the previous year had been allowed to run wild. And in such a position had the grave been dug that it was entirely concealed.
That it had been purposely prepared for Lola was apparent. She had been invited there to her death!
Had it not been for my fortunate presence, combined with the fact that Stevens had called just at the opportune moment, then the dainty little girl who, against her will, was the cat's paw of the most daring and dangerous gang of criminals in Europe, would be lying there concealed beneath that long tangle of vegetables and weeds.
"The house has been to let for nearly three years," the sergeant informed me. "But this hole has only been recently dug, a little over a week, we think. It was probably on the evening previous to your adventure, sir."
"Probably," I said, for the earth looked still fresh, though the rain had caked it somewhat. Two spades were lying near, therefore, I conjectured, the work had been accomplished by two men. The two I had seen with Gregory, I presumed.
"We're making inquiries regarding the intruders," the sergeant went on. "I only wish Mr. Warton were here, but he had to go up to the Yard this morning. Can't you give any description of the people you saw here?"
"I thought you had described them, Stevens," I said, addressing the taxi-driver.
"So I have, sir. But in the dark I wasn't able to see very much."
"Well," I exclaimed, in reply to the sergeant, "I, too, did not have much opportunity of seeing them. The electric light was switched off the moment I entered and I was shot by the aid of an electric torch. I had no means of defending myself. I fired at the light at the time, it's true, but the scoundrel evidently held it away from him, knowing that I might shoot."
I did not intend to assist the police. The Criminal Investigation Department never showed very great eagerness to assist me in any of my investigations.
"But you saw the men?"
"Yes. As I have already told Inspector Warton."
"What brought you here?"
"I followed two of the men from Ealing."
"I know. But for what reason did you follow them?"
"Because I believed that I recognized them."
"But you were mistaken, eh?" asked the fat sergeant as we still stood at the edge of the grave.
"I hardly know," I answered vaguely, "except that a dastardly attempt was made upon my life because I had pried into the men's business."
The sergeant was silent for a few moments, and I had distinct suspicion that, from the expression upon his face, he did not believe me.
Then he remarked in a slow, reflective tone —
"I suppose, Mr. Vidal, you know that the young French lady who was found here has made a statement to Inspector Warton?"
"What!" I gasped. "What has she told him?"
"I don't know, except that he's gone up to Scotland Yard to-day regarding it."
I held my breath.
What indiscretions, I wondered, had Lola committed!
CHAPTER XXI
EXPLAINS LOLA'S FEARS
After leaving the house in which I had so narrowly escaped death, I dropped the sergeant at Spring Place station and, with Rayner, drove over to Brentford, where, at the hospital, I stood beside Lola's bed.
She looked a pale, frail, pathetic little figure, clad in a light blue dressing-jacket, and propped up among the pillows. When she recognized me she put forth a slim white hand and smiled a glad welcome.
"I have been so very anxious about you, Lola," I said after the nurse had gone. "You know, of course, what happened?"
"Yes," she answered weakly in French. "I am so very sorry that you should have fallen into the trap as well as myself, M'sieur Vidal. They induced me to call there for one purpose – to kill me," she added in English, with her pretty French accent.
"I fear that is so," was my reply. "But did you not receive my warnings? The Paris Sûreté are searching for you everywhere, and Jonet is most anxious to find you."
"Ah, I know!" she exclaimed with a slight laugh. "Yes, I got your kind letters, but I could not reply to them. There were reasons which, at the time, prevented me."
She looked very sweet, her fair, soft hair in two long plaits hanging over her shoulders, the ends being secured by big bows of turquoise ribbon.
Yes, she was decidedly pretty; her big, blue, wide-open eyes turned upon me.
"I wrote to Elise Leblanc at Versailles," I said, for want of something else to say.
"I got the letters. I was in Dresden at the time."
"With your uncle?"
"No. He has been in Vienna," was her brief response.
"But he was at that house in Spring Grove."
"Yes. It was a trap for me – a dastardly trap laid for me by old Gregory," she cried in anger. "He intended that I should die, but he never expected you to come so suddenly upon the scene."
"How was it that Jeanjean arrived there also?" I asked.
"He came there to consult the Master," she replied. "A huge affair was being planned to take place at the offices of one of the best known diamond dealers in Hatton Garden. Gregory, being in the diamond trade, knows most of the secrets of the other dealers, and in this case had learned of the arrival of three very fine stones, among the most notable diamonds known to the world. For three months he had carefully laid his plans of attack, and on the night in question had called his confederates together, as was his habit, in order to put his plans finally before them, and to allocate each his work. Through my uncle, however, I knew of the proposed robbery, and the old man, fearing me, had decided that it would be in their interests if I died. Hence the attack upon me."
"A most base and brutal one!" I cried. "But thank Heaven! Lola, you are recovering. I overheard all that you said regarding myself."
She flushed slightly, but did not reply.
"To-day I have heard that you have made a statement to the police," I went on in a low voice so that I should not be overheard by the nurse who stood outside the door of the small two-bedded ward, the second bed being unoccupied.
"Yes. An agent of police came and questioned me," was her reply, "but I did not tell him much – at least, nothing which might give them any clue – or which would jeopardize either of us. I had heard that you were recovering, and therefore I thought you would prefer to unmask Gregory and his associates yourself, rather than leave it to the London police. Besides, they have escaped and I have no idea where they may now be."
"Quite right," I replied, much relieved at her words. "You acted wisely, for had you told them the truth they would in all probability have arrested you."
She smiled faintly.
"Yes. That was one of the reasons which caused me to exercise discretion. I felt that we should soon meet again, M'sieur Vidal," she added. "They say that I shall be discharged from here in about a week."
"I hope so," I declared earnestly. "You had a very narrow escape from those fiends."
"I was quite unsuspicious when I went there," she said. "That house has been our meeting-place for the past eighteen months or so. Sometimes we met at Gregory's flat in Amsterdam, and sometimes at the tenantless house in Spring Grove, or at one which has been to let at Cricklewood, and also at a house in West Hampstead."
"The spot 'where the three C's meet' at Ealing is the usual rendezvous, I suppose?"
"Yes, the place is easy of access, quiet, and entirely unsuspicious. I have met my uncle there sometimes when in London, and sometimes Gregory or the others. The conference usually took place there, and then we went together in a taxi to one or other of the meeting-places which Gregory had established."
"As soon as you have quite recovered we will lay a trap and secure the whole gang," I whispered confidently.
"Ah! I fear that will not be easy," she exclaimed, slowly shaking her head. "We shall be too well watched."
"And we can watch also," I remarked. "I know that from to-day I shall be kept under close supervision because they will fear me more than ever. But I shall manage to evade them, never fear. As soon as you leave hospital we must join forces and exterminate this gang of assassins."
She drew a long breath, bent her fair brows and looked straight across at the pale-green wall. I could see that she was not at all confident of escape. She knew how clever, designing and unscrupulous was the old man Gregory; how cheaply her uncle, Jules Jeanjean, held human life.
