Chapter Twelve.
What the Papers Said
With a startled exclamation I began to search up and down.
At first, I own, I did not know what to do.
True, the mystery of how that carriage door had been unlocked was quickly elucidated, for directly I looked out I saw that the engine had drawn us along a single set of metals to a point in the station where platforms stood quite close to the solitary track. There were plenty of porters on either side of the compartment, and it was no doubt the easiest thing in the world for the girl to beckon one to her assistance and to slip off as I was seeking to discover what became of that sham warderess from Broadmoor and her confederates.
But why should she go at all? At that point she was perfectly safe. I had beaten off the attempt to abduct her. So far as either of us could foresee she would be able to go to her refuge at the headquarters of the Order of St. Bruno with perfect safety and ease. And yet, just as I had secured this, she had vanished! What excuse could I make to José Casteno? And could it have been a sudden freak or, after all, had somebody got the better of me when my back was turned, and, in spite of the woman Hand, had kidnapped the girl in the flash of a moment?
For my own part, I confess I could not believe that in a busy and crowded station like Vauxhall she could have been whipped off so suddenly through a locked carriage door without a sound if only she had had any desire to remain. Perhaps, too, her secret instructions from Casteno were to travel to South London only and then to part company with me. Now I came to think of it I remembered how very vague the Spaniard had been about the entire business, particularly as to what was to happen when the journey was over.
In the end I seemed compelled to decide that the girl had gone off through her own free will, but in order to make quite certain that no mischief was afoot I leaped out of the train just as the whistle sounded for its departure and searched the station through and through. Not a sign of my charge could I discover.
Then I did what, perhaps, I ought to have done in the first place. I bribed one of the porters to interrogate his comrades on the subject, and finally got word from one of the station hands what appeared to be the real truth. A portly but distinguished looking stranger, who carried himself with a military air and was exceedingly well dressed, was observed to step forward to the carriage in which Miss Velasquon was seated as soon as the train drew to a standstill and to pass her a small card on which he had written something in very great haste. The girl nodded instantly she read his message. Thereon, the man whipped out a a train key, and in a flash threw open the doorway, through which the girl slipped like a shadow, linking her arm in the stranger’s as though he were some old, intimate, and highly-trusted friend. Next instant they were lost in the maze of people on the platform; but a news lad, who sold papers outside the main exit close to the trams, came forward, and he declared that he recollected seeing the couple quite well, and that they entered a carriage that was waiting near at hand and drove off in the direction of Victoria.
With that I had to be content. Whether it was good or bad I had no means then to determine. I could only hope that things had turned out as well as they ought to have done. Inwardly, however, I registered a vow that I would get more at the mind of my employer the next time he sent me tearing half across England to the rescue of a girl, no matter how fascinating she might be, or in what peril. Then I bought a copy of one of the evening papers, and hailing a hansom directed the driver to take me back to my offices in Stanton Street, where Don José had promised to telegraph to me.
For a time I sat well back in the soft, well-upholstered cab and let my thoughts run riot on the extraordinary series of adventures that had befallen since I had made that fierce fight in the auction room. Have you ever noticed that there is something mysterious in the mere fact that one has purchased a copy of the last edition of a paper that makes one a prey to retrospect? Nine times out of the ten on which I purchase an evening journal I never glance at the columns. But once let me omit to provide myself with a damp, evilly-folded sheet, and I am wretched. All my nerves are on the alert. I can think of nothing to interest me. The shortest journey seems of intolerable length. I finish up fagged, irritable, and stupid.
As a matter of fact, I am certain I should never have looked at that particular copy that particular night had not two leather-lunged paper “runners,” who live on Metropolitan sensations, suddenly loomed up on either side of the cab as we rattled past the site of the old Millbank Prison and waved their papers in front of me. “Horrible tragedy in Whitehall Court!” they roared.
The driver whipped up his horse, and the hansom shot past them into the gathering blackness, but the echo of their words rang through my brain. “Horrible tragedy in Whitehall Court.” Why, I recollected suddenly that was where Doris lived! Could something – oh, no, it was ridiculous; this flight of Camille Velasquon had made me nervous. None the less, I made a frantic grab at my paper – it was a Globe, I remember – somehow one always notes such trifles in a supreme crisis – and with trembling fingers I turned to the fifth page, where, I knew from old experience, I should find the latest and most important intelligence given.
Ah! I was not mistaken. Here it was:
MURDER IN WHITEHALL COURT
ANOTHER MYSTERIOUS CRIME
But what was that? Familiar names? People, scenes, circumstances I recalled as though they were my own! With a great gasp I held the pink sheet close to the cab lamp, and as we were whirling madly along Parliament Street, close to the actual scene of the crime itself, I read this account of what had happened whilst I that morning had tried to snatch but a few hours of broken slumber.
“About half-past six this morning a murder of a peculiarly atrocious character was discovered in that block of flats known as Embankment Mansions in Whitehall Court. It seems that Colonel Napier’s valet, a man named Richardson, who was early awake in consequence of an attack of toothache, was startled by hearing what he believed was a shout for help proceeding from his master’s room. He went at once to the door and knocked, and, on getting no reply, he turned the handle and entered, when he was horrified to see Colonel Napier stretched on the bed, with a great dagger-thrust in the region of his heart, and quite dead. An open window showed at once the means chosen by the murderer to effect an entrance, which was rendered all the more easy by the fact that an iron pipe ran past it on its way from the roof to the earth. The valet sprang at once to the window, but he could see no sign of any person, and darting to an inner room he turned on a district messenger-call for the police. Then he ran back to the bedroom. The colonel could not then have been dead many seconds. Everything pointed to that. Nor was it clear why the crime had been committed. Nothing had been removed from the bedroom – nothing at all. Detective-Inspector Naylor and other officers were quickly on the scene, but although they searched they could not find any trace of the murderer or of the weapon with which the terrible deed was accomplished. At the time of writing, indeed, the crime is enveloped in mystery, for Colonel Napier, who was formerly Member of Parliament for Hereford, and had won high recognition for services on the Indian frontier, was considered by all a most popular man. He was a widower, and leaves only one child, a daughter, who, luckily, at the time of the tragedy was away on a visit.”
For a few moments after reading this I confess I felt at a loss to speak, to move, even to think – the thing was so hideous, so appalling, so complete. The horror of it all seemed so acute that it crushed me beneath its weight.
I could only sit with eyes that, look where they would, perceived nothing but the dread scene in the death chamber – that man I had a keen affection for stricken to the heart.
Maybe some of us who suffer such awful shocks get curiously clairvoyant in the moments of our greatest trial. I cannot tell. I only know I descended from that cab, paid the man his fare, and entered my office in Stanton Street, like one in a trance. All the time my brain was beating through a cloud of horror, doubt, and suspicion; but, finally, as I flung myself into a chair in front of the fire, every point appeared to clear for me as though by magic. Then one terrible question stared up at me with awe-inspiring distinctness:
Was this crime the work of José Casteno?
Somehow the problem, when I had once stated it to myself and had taken it for ever out of that dim region of intangible speculation, did not surprise me very greatly. Instinctively I recalled how significant had been the Spaniard’s appeal to the colonel when he threatened to compel Doris to hold no further communication with me. “I beg you withdraw that, withdraw it this day, or you will regret your determination.” Then I saw again Don José as he had looked when he knelt, just where I was sitting at that moment, with the sullen glare of the flames on his upturned face and his dagger poised to catch the light on the edge that he had just finished sharpening with so much intensity and precision.
After all, it was quite possible that the lust of murder had seized him in those seconds, the desire to make good his own words both to the colonel and to myself. It would appear so easy to commit a crime when all London slept; and, alas! it had been easy, painfully, pitilessly easy, to put an end to that gallant old soldier as he lay slumbering in his bed. Certainly one great damning fact stood out against Casteno – the killing of the colonel’s dog Fate. Who else could have any interest in the stabbing of that poor, faithful brute than the murderer of his master? And who else could have made that ugly gash in his side save José Casteno?
Nor, indeed, was that the only solid link in the chain of guilt I was forging against the Spaniard. All at once I recalled how carefully he had avoided the passage where the spaniel had been stricken down. Was that accident – or conscience? Also the agility he had shown in scrambling up that iron pipe outside the hunchback’s shop when we went to spy on Zouche from that upstairs room. He had told me, of course, he had learned the trick at sea. He may have done that; but might he not also have acquired some recent practice outside Embankment Mansions which it seemed pretty clear the murderer entered by the same method?
Stung to desperation at my own foul success in linking my employer up with this awful crime I resolved that I would lose no time in tracking the man down, and his guilt. What did the Lake of Sacred Treasure in far-off Mexico matter to me in an hour red with blood as that was – the blood of one of my best and truest friends? Let the Earl of Fotheringay and Lord Cyril Cuthbertson plot and plan. Let Mr Cooper-Nassington ferret out Peter Zouche and drag from him the secret of the cipher manuscripts. Ay, let the Jesuits send their most trusty spies, I at least would take no hand in the struggle again until I had torn the mask from this villain.
Rising impatiently, I began striding rapidly up and down the room. Hitherto the minutes had gone by on the wings of the wind. I had not been conscious of the flight of time, although the hands on the travelling clock in front of me had travelled round the dial two, if not three, times. Now the seconds seemed made of lead. They would not pass. They hung about me, and fretted me. Again and again I asked myself: “Why does not José Casteno telegraph me as he had promised and tell me where he is and how he has fared since he slipped off on the track of the hunchback?” It was no good. No answer came, and bit by bit there formed in my mind a new suspicion, a new dread. What if the Spaniard had taken fright at the publicity the crime had obtained and had left his chase of Zouche to secure his own safety in some far-off land, where he would never be suspected and where he could never be found? I might wait, then, until the crack of doom: Colonel Napier would remain unavenged.
Feverishly I tore out into the streets and bought up all the late editions of the evening papers which I could lay my hands on. This mysterious crime had impressed the stolid imagination of Londoners so well accustomed to horrors that end in nothingness to a degree that was quite unusual; and all the journals had launched out into lurid descriptions of the dead man and the manner of his passing so that a horrid sense of nausea seized on me, and I cursed journalism and all its loathsome enterprise; albeit it I was most eager myself at the same moment to take advantage of its discoveries.
One paper, however, had got a paragraph that threw a new light on the occurrence – the Star– and I read it with throbbing eagerness:
A STARTLING THEORY
“Latest inquiries to-night tend to show that there is a good deal behind the death of Colonel Napier. The police are certain that the murderer has some other object than theft, at which task it was said that he must have been disturbed by the sudden tapping on the door by the valet, Richardson. It is rumoured that the appearance of Detective Naylor on the scene was of set design. Naylor, as was stated in the papers a few days ago, has the warrant in hand for the arrest of the murderer of young George Sutton, a man who, it will be remembered, fled to this country from a monastery in Mexico after he had committed the deed. Now the two crimes are connected in the minds of the police for some reason they will not divulge; and it is whispered freely at Scotland Yard that a man who puts his hands on the murderer of Sutton will at the same time arrest the assassin of brave Colonel Napier. Unfortunately, the quest is highly complicated, and at the clubs there are some wild, romantic stories afloat, which connect the deaths with stories of vast, hidden treasures and diplomatic intrigues, party jealousies, and mystery-loving Mexicans. For our own part, we advise the public to take little heed of these wild romances until they contain something which looks a trifle more substantial. A milkman, for instance, has been found who declares he was passing Whitehall Court about the time the murder must have been committed, and he swears positively that he saw a young, dark-looking foreigner, aged about twenty-five, run from the direction of Embankment Mansions and disappear up Northumberland Avenue. He says, also, that he saw the man’s features quite distinctly, and that he will be able to recognise them again in any circumstances and after any lapse of time. Now clues like these are worth a thousand of the utterly preposterous yarns they are whispering in Clubland to-night about Jesuits and parliamentary personages who are much too busy to be mixed up with all the numberless scandals and tarradiddles that affect the House of Commons under its present party régime.”
Surely, if this theory pointed to anyone it did most certainly to José Casteno!
Further speculation, however, was cut short by the arrival of a telegraph messenger. With trembling fingers I tore open the envelope, and found that, after all, the Spaniard had kept his word and had wired me, most fully, news of his whereabouts and wishes:
To Hugh Glynn, 99 Stanton Street, London, WC.
“Have accompanied our good friend to Green Dragon Hotel, Shrewsbury. At Birmingham he met a clever but needy aeronaut named Captain Sparhawk. This man has invented a flying machine which he has arranged to show at Great Shropshire Floral Fête here on Monday. Z. has promised to finance him and to ascend with him to test the machine’s capacities. Two other seats were on sale in the town at twenty pounds each. I have bought them, and propose you and I ascend with them disguised as military men in undress uniform of engineers; otherwise fear, if the machine travels far, Z. may do a bolt to some other district. If you don’t wire me, c/o Post Office, shall assume you will come. – C.”
“Certainly I will come,” I said to myself grimly as I folded up the message and placed it in my pocket-book. “It would be a pity for you, Master José, to undertake any fresh adventures without my personal assistance. You might come to some harm before we had cleared up the mystery of the death of Colonel Napier, and that would be a pity, a great pity, indeed.”
And snatching up the travelling-bag which I always kept ready packed for such emergencies I dashed off to a costumier I knew who lived near, in Wellington Street. Then I made for Euston, and catching the night mail to the Midlands, contrived such a good use of my time, that, before church time, I found myself in Shrewsbury, scrambling up the hill that led from the main railway station to the far-famed Green Dragon Hotel, where I understood both Zouche and Casteno were.
On the way down, however, I had effected certain changes in my appearance. A dark wig was on my head. A black moustache hid my mouth. My plain civilian clothes had given place at the costumier’s to the uniform of a sergeant of royal engineers. I had done this to deceive the hunchback, and to satisfy Casteno I had brought no disguise for the Spaniard.
I did not think he would need one after I had finished my first conversation with him!
And as I turned into the courtyard of the hotel he came out and met me with outstretched hand.
Chapter Thirteen.
The Two Brothers
There was nothing in the way Casteno received me to suggest a man with a guilty secret. On the contrary, as I advanced through the doorway that led to the Green Dragon he stepped out boldly towards me the instant he recognised me beneath the disguise which he himself had suggested. “Welcome, my good friend,” he said in a bluff and hearty fashion, stretching out his hand; “Welcome!”
I took the greeting he proffered, although I turned my head away and would not let him detect my real feelings. At first I was sorely tempted to take him by surprise and to denounce him there and then as the man who had stolen into Whitehall Court in those early morning hours, climbed through that open bedroom window, and had killed poor Colonel Napier, one of the truest and most loyal soldiers that ever lived. But I crushed all those temptations down. There was much for me to discover before I could show my suspicions so plainly as that. I had to go very slowly and carefully to work.
“I am glad to see you,” I answered at length, and that sentiment, indeed, was true. I was glad – more glad than he could guess. “Let the porter carry my luggage in, and let you and I have a walk.”
“Excellent,” said he, “that was just what I was going to propose if you were not too tired.” And giving the necessary directions to the hotel servants he calmly linked his arm in mine, and led me down the street towards the river, whither all the passers-by seemed to be hastening on their way homeward after service at church.
“Well, and how did you get on with Miss Velasquon?” he asked later.
“Very badly,” I returned. “I lost her at Vauxhall Bridge Station.”
“Oh, never mind about that,” he replied lightly. “Your duty ended as soon as you arrived with her in London. As a matter of fact, I sent a friend to intercept her at that point. He didn’t quite understand whether he could trust you or not, so he hit on that ruse by which she slipped out of the carriage whilst you were looking out at an opposite platform. She wired me, however, that you had had some extraordinary adventure on the way up. What was that?”
“Oh, merely some women tried to lure her off to Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum,” I snapped. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me I was safe when we reached town? Do you know, I searched the station from top to bottom before I decided your friend had come to no harm.”
“No, I don’t. In fact, I am very sorry about what the man whom I sent did. I was, however, under the impression that I had told you not to worry after she had reached town. The real danger existed on the way up. I had most specific warning that it was on the actual journey from Southampton Lord Fotheringay would make the semi-criminal effort he did to get her out of my hands.”
“Why should he?” I demanded, stopping suddenly and gazing fixedly at the speaker.
“Why should two men ever strive after the same sweetheart?” Casteno answered, his features flushing crimson. “Call it Life – Fate – Providence – Luck – Destiny – what you like. There it is. It often happens. The whole truth is, the earl and I are both in love with Camille Velasquon. She prefers me, hence his quest for the documents is mixed up in a thirst for personal revenge.”
“And the documents you asked her to bring?” I cut in suddenly, “what of those? Are they love letters?” And a quiet smile of derision showed itself at the corners of my mouth. “Do you want them, or are they to go into the archives of the Order of St. Bruno as quaint but interesting curiosities?”
“Neither,” said Casteno simply. “They are more important, much more important, than lovers’ effusions. They give the keys to various ciphers used by the Jesuits in the early days of their Order in Mexico. Is there anything else you would like to ask?” Then seeing he had put me to some confusion he went on with great earnestness: “Look here, man, why don’t you trust me a little more? Don’t you see that there must, in a quest like this we are engaged upon, be a hundred details about which I cannot give you my confidence? Why not be content to labour in the dark until the time for the light comes? As it is just at present, I satisfy you for a day easily and perfectly enough, but it is only for a day. Something you don’t expect happens, and lo! I find about me a cloud of distrust, suspicion, and unpleasant suggestion that takes out of me every bit of heart and pluck.”
“Is not that your own fault?” I blurted out. “Are not your actions calculated to excite distrust? Carry your memory back to the last time you were in my office in Stanton Street. What happened then?”
“Nothing of great account.” But now he went very pale.
“Are you quite sure of that?” I queried in the gravest tones. “Think again. Examine your conscience again. What about that dagger of yours? Why did you get up and sharpen it on the hearthstone directly you thought I should not see you?”
The Spaniard started, and recovered himself with an effort. “Because I had had a fright,” he stammered. “In an idle moment I had looked through the window and there I saw a man who had vowed to take my life.”
“I cannot believe you,” I cried. “You must convince me. Tell me who was this foe?”
“My own brother,” he muttered, turning away from me with an impatient gesture and quickening his steps. “You have seen him yourself. The hunchback called him Paul – ”
“Then,” I gasped in amazement, “you – you are the hunchback’s son?”
“Of course I am,” he retorted. “I thought you guessed that directly you saw Paul when we were up in that recess watching my father put on his disguise. The relationship seemed so evident that I did not feel there was any necessity to explain it.”
“But you call yourself Casteno?”
“No; I changed my name after I had quarrelled with my father some years ago and got employment in the Royal Household of Spain. I purchased the right to do so – ”
“Then you talk English like a native.”
“So does the hunchback.”
“And when that morning you saw your brother,” I went on, breaking away on a new tack, “why did you go after him?”
“To make peace if I could. As it was doubtful I prepared myself also for war.”
“And did you find him?”
“No; he was too quick for me. I slipped as hard as I could to his chambers in Embankment Mansions in Whitehall Court, but he was not in them. They were closed and locked.”
“Embankment Mansions in Whitehall Court,” I repeated. “That is where Colonel Napier lives.” And as I uttered the name of the dead officer I scrutinised every line on Casteno’s face.
“Of course it is,” he responded, and not the smallest sign of excitement did he exhibit. “Paul, for some years, has had a set of chambers over the flat occupied by Colonel Napier. He has got one of those wild, hopeless passions that sometimes seize the lowly born for girls in the higher ranks of life, for Miss Napier.”
“Not Miss Doris Napier!” I interjected.
“Oh yes, Miss Doris. The thing is almost laughable – except for Paul, who is absolutely crazy on the subject, and who has often told me that on the day you are formally engaged to her he will shoot you like a dog.”
“Pleasant for me,” I observed, “extremely pleasant. Your father and I are old friends; how is it he didn’t warn me?”
“He always hoped that Paul would come to his senses. He was ashamed of the lad’s madness. He trusted that some other girl would appear on the scene to fascinate Paul. Besides, he did tell Colonel Napier about it. The colonel and he are related, as a matter of fact. Both of them married step-sisters; but my mother died many years ago.”
“I had no idea of this.”
“No doubt,” returned the Spaniard courteously. “Lovers don’t usually trouble to inquire as to the relations of the girls they love until after marriage. If they did, cynics say that they would spare themselves a good many highly unpleasant surprises. The colonel, of course, was equally annoyed about this infatuation, and I am told that only a few days ago he met Paul on the stairs of the flat and gave him a good beating with his cane for daring to send Miss Napier a bunch of flowers. Perhaps, however, this is only idle gossip. I heard it from a servant whom my father had recently dismissed. He said that Paul was so incensed at this outrage that he would have stabbed the colonel dead on the spot if he had had his dagger with him. Luckily, he had forgotten that morning to fasten it on – ”
“I am not so sure about that,” I answered slowly and with great distinctness, “although, now I came to think of it, I did recollect that in the old days Doris had told me a good deal about the persecutions she had suffered from the ridiculous attentions of a foreign boy who lived in the set of rooms above theirs – attentions, I am sorry to say, I had only laughed to scorn.”
“Not so sure!” echoed my companion in tones of genuine disgust and horror. “Why, would you, Mr Glynn, have liked my brother to make an attempt on his uncle’s life?”
“That would have been better than what happened,” I returned meaningly.
“Why, what was that?” cried the Spaniard in alarm.
“Somebody crept into his bedroom as the colonel slept and stabbed him to the heart – to be precise, the exact hour you left me to search for Paul.”
“Good heavens!” gasped Casteno, falling back. “Then the wretched boy has broken loose from his reason and carried out his insane idea of revenge! Ah! now I see it all. That was why I caught him lurking about your office! He had tracked Colonel Napier there earlier, and had no notion that he had returned to Whitehall Court until he saw a strange figure at your door.”
“Even that doesn’t explain who killed the clumber spaniel Fate.”
“I think it does,” urged Casteno stoutly. “The dog knew, somehow, he had done wrong to his master and would not leave him. In a fit of passion and terror Paul whipped out his knife and stabbed him.”
“But that would happen near Whitehall Court. How came the dog to die in a passage near Stanton Street?”
“He must have been making for your office: remember all dogs have odd gleams of foresight at times.”
For a few moments we walked on in silence. The duel had been a sharp one and a long one, but already I was possessed with an uncomfortable suspicion that the Spaniard had won. Even as I surveyed the ruins of my theories I was conscious that little was left to connect Casteno with the murder.
“But do you think your brother Paul will be discovered?” I asked.
“I cannot tell,” said Casteno, and I could see now he was sincerely grieved at the disastrous intelligence I had communicated to him. “There are sure to be plenty of people in Embankment Mansions who will remember the caning which the lad had from the colonel on the stairs. They will be certain, when they recover their wits, to give the police the details of that affray; also there is that discharged servant I spoke of – the man Butterworth. He hates Paul like poison. He will leave no stone unturned, I am certain, to connect the lad with the crime.
“Still, mere suspicion is one thing, and evidence strong enough to warrant arrest is another,” he added after a moment’s careful consideration. “Perhaps, after all, I am wrong. Somebody else may have done it. We shall see.”
“Whoever it is I shall do my best to bring them to justice,” I cried hotly. “I don’t care whether it is Paul Zouche – ”
“Of course not,” replied Casteno with much dignity. “I have no doubt you will communicate all I have repeated to you to Scotland Yard. Indeed, I never had any two opinions on that score. At the same time you must excuse me if I don’t evince any keen desire to debate the matter further.”
“I never asked you to do so,” I retorted, anxious not to be outdone in courtesy by the Spaniard. “All your statements to me were practically volunteered.”
“True,” said Casteno. “As a matter of fact, I felt they were honestly due to you. I saw that my absence from your rooms at the time when the colonel was murdered looked very ugly for me. Very ugly, indeed.”
“Particularly after you had warned the man only an hour previously that if he didn’t do a certain thing, which he subsequently declined to do for you, he would regret his action before four and twenty hours had passed.”
“Quite so. Quite so. All the same, that was but a figure of speech. Myself, I had no idea of violence or revenge. My sole impression was of his gross injustice to yourself, which I felt Time himself would most quickly avenge.