The Secret House
"Poor Frank," she said, shaking her head, "and he is working so hard with his clues! I suppose if he does not produce that mysterious individual by to-morrow there will be no reward for him?"
The lawyer shook his head.
"I should hardly think it likely," he said, "because the reward is for the man who complies with the conditions of the will within a stipulated time. It was because I knew Mr. Doughton had some interest in it, and because also" – he hesitated – "I thought that your uncle might have taken you into his confidence."
"That he might have told me who this missing person was, and that he himself knew; and for some reason suppressed the fact?" she asked, quickly. "Is that what you suggest, Mr. Debenham?"
"Please do not be angry with me," said the lawyer, quickly; "I do not wish to say anything against Mr. Farrington; but I know he was a very shrewd and calculating man, and I thought possibly that he might have taken you that much into his confidence, and that you might be able to help your future husband a part of the way to a very large sum of money."
She shook her head again.
"I have absolutely no knowledge of the subject. My uncle never took me into his confidence," she said; "he was very uncommunicative where business was concerned – although I am sure he was fond of me." Her eyes filled with tears, not at the recollection of his kindness, but at the humiliation she experienced at playing a part in which she had no heart. It made her feel inexpressibly mean and small.
"That is all," said Mr. Debenham. "I shall see you at the registrar's office."
She nodded.
"May I express the hope," he said, in his heavy manner, "that your life will be a very happy one, and that your marriage will prove all you hope it will be?"
"I hardly know what I hope it will be," she said wearily, as she accompanied him to the door.
That good man shook his head sadly as he made his way back to his office.
Was there ever so unromantic and prosaic affair as this marriage, thought Doris, as she stepped into the taxicab which was to convey her to the registrar's office? She had had her dreams, as other girls had had, of that wonderful day when with pealing of the organ she would walk up the aisle perhaps upon the arm of Gregory Farrington, to a marriage which would bring nothing but delight and happiness. And here was the end of her dreams, a great heiress and a beautiful girl rocking across London in a hired cab to a furtive marriage.
Frank was waiting for her on the pavement outside the grimy little office. Mr. Debenham was there, and a clerk he had brought with him as witness. The ceremony was brief and uninteresting; she became Mrs. Doughton before she quite realized what was happening.
"There is only one thing to do now," said the lawyer as they stood outside again on the sunlit pavement.
He looked at his watch.
"We had best go straight away to the London Safe Deposit, and, if you will give me the authority, I will take formal possession of your fortune and place it in the hands of my bankers. I think these things had better be done regularly."
The girl acquiesced.
Frank was singularly silent during the drive; save to make some comment upon the amount of traffic in the streets, he did not speak to her and she was grateful for his forbearance. Her mind was in a turmoil; she was married – that was all she knew – married to somebody she liked but did not love. Married to a man who had been chosen for her partly against her will. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes; if she was joyless, no less was he. It was an inauspicious beginning to a married life which would end who knew how? Before the depressing granite façade of the London Safe Deposit the party descended, Mr. Debenham paid the cabman, and they went down the stone steps into the vaults of the repository.
There was a brief check whilst Mr. Debenham explained his authority for the visit, and it was when the officials were making reference to their books that the party was augmented by the arrival of Poltavo.
He bowed over the girl's hand, holding it a little longer than Frank could have liked, murmured colourless congratulations and nodded to Debenham.
"Count Poltavo is here, I may say," explained the lawyer, "by your late uncle's wishes. They were contained in a letter he wrote to me a few days before he disappeared."
Frank nodded grudgingly; still he was generous enough to realize something of this man's feelings if he loved Doris, and he made an especial effort to be gracious to the new-comer.
A uniformed attendant led them through innumerable corridors till they came to a private vault guarded by stout bars. The attendant opened these and they walked into a little stone chamber, illuminated by overhead lights.
The only article of furniture in the room was a small safe which stood in one corner. A very small safe indeed, thought Frank, to contain so large a fortune. The lawyer turned the key in the lock methodically, and the steel door swung back. The back of Mr. Debenham obscured their view of the safe's interior. Then he turned with an expression of wonder.
"There is nothing here," he said.
"Nothing!" gasped Doris.
"Save this," said the lawyer.
He took a small envelope and handed it to the girl. She opened it mechanically and read:
"I have, unfortunately, found it necessary to utilize your fortune for the furtherance of my plans. You must try and forgive me for this; but I have given you a greater one than you have lost, a husband."
She looked up.
"What does this mean?" she whispered.
Frank took the letter from her hand and concluded the reading.
"A husband in Frank Doughton…"
The words swam before his eyes.
"And Frank Doughton is the heir to the Tollington millions, as his father was before him. All the necessary proofs to establish his identity will be discovered in the sealed envelope which the lawyer holds, and which is inscribed 'C.'"
The letter was signed "Gregory Farrington."
The lawyer was the first to recover his self-possession; his practical mind went straight to the business at hand.
"There is such an envelope in my office," he said, "given to me by Mr. Farrington with strict instructions that it was not to be handed to his executors or to any person until definite instructions arrived – instructions which would be accompanied by unmistakable proof as to the necessity for its being handed over. I congratulate you, Mr. Doughton."
He turned and shook hands with the bewildered Frank, who had been listening like a man in a dream; the heir to the Tollington millions; he, the son of George Doughton, and all the time he had been looking for – what? For his own grandmother!
It came on him all of a rush. He knew now that all his efforts, all his search might have been saved, if he had only realized the Christian name of his father's mother.
He had only the dimmest recollection of the placid-faced lady who had died whilst he was at school; he had never associated in his mind this serene old lady, who had passed away only a few hours before her beloved husband, with the Annie for whom he had searched. It made him gasp – then he came to earth quickly as he realized that his success had come with the knowledge of his wife's financial ruin. He looked at her as she stood there – it was too vast a shock for her to realize at once.
He put his arm about her shoulder, and Poltavo, twirling his little moustache, looked at the two through his lowered lids with an ugly smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
"It is all right, dear," said Frank soothingly; "your money is secure – it was only a temporary use he made of it."
"It is not that," she said, with a catch in her throat; "it is the feeling that my uncle trapped you into this marriage. I did not mind his dissipating my own fortune; the money is nothing to me. But he has caught you by a trick, and he has used me as a bait." She covered her face with her hands.
In a few moments she had composed herself; she spoke no other word, but suffered herself to be led out of the building into the waiting cab. Poltavo watched them drive off with that fierce little smile of his, and turned to the lawyer.
"A clever man, Mr. Farrington," he said, in a bitter tone of reluctant admiration.
The lawyer looked at him steadily.
"His Majesty's prisons are filled with men who specialize in that kind of cleverness," he said, drily, and left Poltavo without another word.
CHAPTER XVII
T. B. Smith was playing a round of golf at Walton Heath, when the news was telephoned through to him.
He left immediately for town, and picked up Ela at luncheon at the Fritz Hotel, where the detective had his headquarters.
"The whole thing is perfectly clear, now," he said. "The inexplicable disappearance of Mr. Farrington is explained in poster type, 'that he who runs may read.'"
"I am a little hazy about the solution myself," said Ela dubiously.
"Then I will put it in plain language for you," said T. B. as he speared a sardine from the hors d'œuvre dish. "Farrington knew all along that the heir to the Tollington millions was George Doughton. He knew it years and years ago, and it was for that reason he settled at Great Bradley, where the Doughtons had their home. Evidently the two older Doughtons were dead at this time, and only George Doughton, the romantic and altogether unpractical explorer, represented the family.
"George was in love with the lady who is now known as Lady Constance Dex, and knowing this, Farrington evidently took every step that was possible to ingratiate himself into her good graces. He knew that the fortune would descend equally to Doughton and to his wife. Doughton was a widower and had a son, a youngster at the time, and it is very possible that, the boy being at school, and being very rarely in Great Bradley, Farrington had no idea of his existence.
"The knowledge that this boy was alive must have changed all his plans; at any rate, the engagement was allowed to drift on, whilst he matured some scheme whereby he could obtain a large portion of the Tollington millions for his own use. Again I think his plans must have been changed.
"It was whilst he was at Great Bradley that he was entrusted with the guardianship of Doris Gray, and as his affection for the young girl grew – an affection which I think was one of the few wholesome things in his life – he must have seen the extraordinary chance which fate had placed in his way.
"With diabolical ingenuity and with a remorselessness which is reminiscent of the Borgias he planned first George Doughton's death, and then the bringing together of Doughton's son and his own ward. There is every proof of this to be found in his subsequent actions. He was prepared to introduce the young people to one another, and by affording them opportunities for meeting, and such encouragement as he could give, to bring about the result he so desired.
"But things did not move fast enough for him, and then he must have learnt, as the other trustees seem to have learnt recently, that there was an undiscovered time limit. He threw out hints to his niece, hints which were received rather coldly. He had taken the bold step of employing Frank Doughton to discover – himself! That was a move which had a twofold purpose. It kept the young man in contact with him. It also satisfied the other trustees, who had entrusted to Farrington the task of employing the necessary measures to discover the missing heir.
"But neither hint nor suggestion served him. The girl's fortune was due for delivery to her care, and his guardianship expired almost at the same time as the time limit for discovery of the Tollington millionaire came to an end. He had to take a desperate step; there were other reasons, of course, contributing to his move.
"The knowledge that he was suspected by me, the certainty that Lady Constance Dex would betray him, once she discovered that he had sent her lover to his death, all these were contributing factors, but the main reason for his disappearance was the will that was read after his bogus death.
"In that will he conveyed unchallengeable instructions for the girl to marry Frank Doughton without delay. I suspect that the girl now knows he is alive. Probably, panic-stricken by her tardiness, he has disclosed his hand so far as the alleged death is concerned."
T. B. looked out of the window on to the stream of life which was flowing east and west along Piccadilly; his face was set in a little frown of doubt and anxiety.
"I can take Farrington to-morrow if I want to," he said after a moment, "but I wish to gather up every string of organization in my hands."
"What of Lady Constance Dex?" asked Ela. "Whilst we are waiting, she is in some little danger."
T. B. shook his head.
"If she is not dead now," he said simply, "she will be spared. If Farrington wished to kill her – for Farrington it was who spirited her away – he could have done so in the house; no one would have been any the wiser as to the murderer. Lady Constance must wait; we must trust to luck before I inspect that underground chamber of which I imagine she is at present an unwilling inmate. I want to crush this blackmailing force," he said, thumping the table with energy; "I want to sweep out of England the whole organization which is working right under the nose of the police and in defiance of all laws; and until I have done that, I shall not sleep soundly in my bed."
"And Poltavo?"
"Poltavo," smiled T. B., "can wait for just a little while."
He paid the bill and the two men passed out of the hotel and crossed Piccadilly. A man who had been lounging along apparently studying the shop windows saw them out of the corner of his eye and followed them carelessly. Another man, no less ostentatiously reading a newspaper, as he walked along the pavement on the opposite side of the thoroughfare, followed close behind.
T. B. and his companion turned into Burlington Arcade and reached Cork Street. Save for one or two pedestrians the street was utterly deserted, and the first of the shadowers quickened his pace. He put his hand in his tail pocket and took out something which glinted in the April sunlight, but before he could raise his hand the fourth man, now on his heels, dropped his newspaper, and flinging one arm around the shadower's neck, and placing his knee in the small of the other's back, wrenched the pistol away with his disengaged hand.
T. B. turned at the sound of the struggle and came back to assist the shadowing detective. The prisoner was a little man, sharp-featured, and obviously a member of one of the great Latin branches of the human race. A tiny black moustache, fierce scowling eyebrows, and liquid brown eyes now blazing with hate, spoke of a Southern origin.
Deftly the three police officers searched and disarmed him; a pair of adjustable handcuffs snapped upon the man's thin wrists, and before the inevitable crowd could gather the prisoner and his custodians were being whirled to Vine Street in a cab.
They placed the man in the steel dock and asked him the usual questions, but he maintained a dogged silence. That his object had been assassination no one could doubt, for in addition to the automatic pistol, which he had obviously intended using at short range, trusting to luck to make his escape, they found a long stiletto in his breast pocket.
More to the point, and of greater interest to T. B., there was a three-line scrawl on a piece of paper in Italian, which, translated, showed that minute instructions had been given to the would-be murderer as to T. B.'s whereabouts.
"Put him in a cell," said T. B. "I think we are going to find things out. If this is not one of Poltavo's hired thugs, I am greatly mistaken."
Whatever he was, the man offered no information which might assist the detective in his search for the truth, but maintained an unbroken silence, and T. B. gave up the task of questioning him in sheer despair.
The next morning at daybreak the prisoner was aroused and told to dress. He was taken out to where a motor car was awaiting him, and a few moments later he was speeding on the way to Dover. Two detective officers placed him on a steamer and accompanied him to Calais. At Calais they took a courteous leave of him, handing him a hundred francs and the information in his own tongue that he had been deported on an order from the Home Secretary, obtained at midnight the previous night.
The prisoner took his departure with some eagerness and spent the greater portion of his hundred francs in addressing a telegram to Poltavo.
T. B. Smith, who knew that telegram would come, was sitting in the Continental instrument room of the General Post Office when it arrived. He was handed a copy of the telegram and read it. Then he smiled.
"Thank you," he said, as he passed it back to the Superintendent of the department, "this may now be transmitted for delivery. I know all I want to know."
Poltavo received the message an hour later, and having read it, cursed his subordinate's indiscretion, for the message was in Italian, plain for everybody to read who understood that language, and its purport easy to understand for anybody who had a knowledge of the facts.
He waited all that day for a visit from the police, and when T. B. arrived in the evening Poltavo was ready with an excuse and an explanation. But neither excuse nor explanation was asked for. T. B.'s questions had to do with something quite different, namely the new Mrs. Doughton and her vanished fortune.
"I was in the confidence of Mr. Farrington," said Poltavo, relieved to find the visit had nothing to do with that which he most dreaded, "but I was amazed to discover that the safe was empty. It was a tremendous tragedy for the poor young lady. She is in Paris now with her husband," he added.
T. B. nodded.
"Perhaps you will give me their address?" he asked.
"With pleasure," said Count Poltavo, reaching for his address book.
"I may be going to Paris myself to-morrow," T. B. went on, "and I will look these young people up. I suppose it is not the correct thing for any one to call upon honeymoon couples, but a police officer has privileges."
There was an exchange of smiles. Poltavo was almost exhilarated that T. B.'s visit had nothing to do with him personally. A respect, which amounted almost to fear, characterized his attitude toward the great Scotland Yard detective. He credited T. B. with qualities which perhaps that admirable man did not possess, but, as a set-off against this, he failed to credit him with a wiliness which was peculiarly T. B.'s chief asset. For who could imagine that the detective's chief object in calling upon Poltavo that evening was to allay his suspicions and soothe down his fears. Yet T. B. came for no other reason and with no other purpose. It was absolutely necessary that Poltavo should be taken off his guard, for T. B. was planning the coup which was to end for all time the terror under which hundreds of innocent people in England were lying.
After an exchange of commonplace civilities the two men parted, – T. B., as he said, with his hand on the door, to prepare for his Paris trip, and Poltavo to take up what promised to be one of the most interesting cases that the Fallock blackmailers had ever handled.
He waited until he heard the door close after the detective; until he had watched him, from the window, step into his cab and be whirled away, then he unlocked the lower drawer of his desk, touched a spring in the false bottom, and took from a secret recess a small bundle of letters.
Many of the sheets of notepaper which he spread out on the table before him bore the strawberry crest of his grace the Duke of Ambury. The letters were all in the same sprawling handwriting; ill-spelt and blotted, but they were very much to the point. The Duke of Ambury, in his exuberant youth, had contracted a marriage with a lady in Gibraltar. His regiment had been stationed at that fortress when his succession to the dukedom had been a very remote possibility, and the Spanish lady to whom, as the letters showed, he had plighted his troth, and to whom he was eventually married in the name of Wilson (a copy of the marriage certificate was in the drawer), had been a typical Spaniard of singular beauty and fascination, though of no distinguished birth.
Apparently his grace had regretted his hasty alliance, for two years after his succession to the title, he had married the third daughter of the Earl of Westchester without – so far as the evidence in Poltavo's possession showed – having gone through the formality of releasing himself from his previous union.
Here was a magnificent coup, the most splendid that had ever come into the vision of the blackmailers, for the Duke of Ambury was one of the richest men in England, a landlord who owned half London and had estates in almost every county. If ever there was a victim who was in a position to be handsomely bled, here was one.
The Spanish wife was now dead, but an heir had been born to the Duke of Ambury before the death, and the whole question of succession was affected by the threatened disclosure. All the facts of the case were in Poltavo's possession; they were written in this curiously uneducated hand which filled the pages of the letters now spread upon the table in front of him. The marriage certificate had been supplied, and a copy of the death certificate had also been obligingly extracted by a peccant servant, and matters were now so far advanced that Poltavo had received, through the Agony column of the Times, a reply to the demand he had sent to his victim.
That reply had been very favourable; there had been no suggestion of lawyers; no hint of any intervention on the part of the police. Ambury was willing to be bled, willing indeed, so the agony advertisement indicated to Poltavo, to make any financial sacrifice in order to save the honour of his house.
It was only a question of terms now. Poltavo had decided upon fifty thousand pounds. That sum would be sufficient to enable him to clear out of England and to enjoy life as he best loved it, without the necessity for taking any further risks. With Doris Gray removed from his hands, with the approval of society already palling upon him, he thirsted for new fields and new adventures. The fifty thousand seemed now within his grasp. He should, by his agreement with Farrington, hand two-thirds of that sum to his employer, but even the possibility of his doing this never for one moment occurred to him.
Farrington, so he told himself, a man in hiding, powerless and in Poltavo's hands practically, could not strike back at him; the cards were all in favour of the Count. He had already received some ten thousand pounds as a result of his work in London, and he had frantic and ominous letters from Dr. Fall demanding that the "house" share should be forwarded without delay. These demands Poltavo had treated with contempt. He felt master of the situation, inasmuch that he had placed the major portion of the balance of money in hand, other than that which had been actually supplied by Farrington, to his own credit in a Paris bank. He was prepared for all eventualities, and here he was promised the choicest of all his pickings – for the bleeding of the Duke of Ambury would set a seal upon previous accomplishments.
He rang a bell, and a man came, letting himself into the room with a key. He was an Italian with a peculiarly repulsive face; one of the small fry whom Poltavo had employed from time to time to do such work as was beneath his own dignity, or which promised an unnecessary measure of danger in its performance.
"Carlos," said Poltavo, speaking in Italian, "Antonio has been arrested, and has been taken to Calais by the police."
"That I know, signor," nodded the man. "He is very fortunate. I was afraid when the news came that he would be put into prison."
Poltavo smiled.
"The ways of the English police are beyond understanding," he said lightly. "Here was our Antonio, anxious and willing to kill the head of the detective department, and they release him! Is it not madness? At any rate, Antonio will not be coming back, because though they are mad, the police are not so foolish as to allow him to land again. I have telegraphed to our friend to go on to Paris and await me, and here let me say, Carlos," – he tapped the table with the end of his penholder, – "that if you by ill-fortune should ever find yourself in the same position of our admirable and worthy Antonio, I beg that you will not send me telegrams."
