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Roy Glashan's Library
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BLUSTERY, boisterous March wind was sweeping along Baker Street, flinging up clouds of dust, and whirling scraps of paper into the air, and trying hard to relieve pedestrians of their hats; and the bright, glaring sun was shining into Sexton Blake's consulting-room, where the famous detective was wandering restlessly about with his hands in his pockets, and a harassed, fretful expression in his steel-grey eyes. Tinker, his assistant, lounging in a chair by the window, was by turns watching his master and glancing at the clock, which indicated twelve minutes to ten.
They had finished breakfast some time ago, but the landlady had not yet cleared the table, and its confusion was in harmony with the general appearance of the room, which bore evidence of neglect.
There were ashes under the grate, and some bits of coal on the rug by the fireplace. On desk and chairs, and on the floor as well, were a litter of papers mingled with shreds of tobacco and ends of cigarettes.
"What was the limit?" asked the lad, after an interval of silence "You said ten o'clock, didn't you?"
"Yes, and that is allowing a wide latitude," Sexton Blake replied. "The boat arrives at an early hour, and the train leaves shortly afterwards."
"He may have travelled to Havre, guv'nor, from the other station, come to think of it."
"Not unless he had concluded to try to escape by sea. And that is not at all likely, my boy. No; his object would have been to get to Paris first, and then to—"
Rat-tat-tat! A loud, sharp rap from below cut the detective short, and his face flushed slightly as he looked at Tinker. The street.door was heard to open and shut, the staircase creaked to a ponderous tread, and then the landlady entered the room and handed a buff envelope to her master, who tore it open, glanced at the message it contained, and threw the latter to the lad.
"No answer, Mrs. Bardell," he said.
The landlady withdrew, and the detective, with a smile of triumph lurking at the corners of his mouth, bent his gaze on Tinker, who was absorbed in the slip of paper.
"My word, guv'nor, you were right!" he exclaimed. "Inspector Widgeon has done it! 'George Lambert Reed, the Eastbourne express murderer,'" he went on, reading from the telegram, "'was arrested at Dieppe this morning, as he was boarding Paris train.'"
"I knew it," declared Sexton Blake. "I felt that there could be no flaw in my elaborate calculations, else I should not have sent Widgeon over there. I told you that we would hear of Reed's arrest before ten o'clock this morning, and there are still seven minutes to spare. Well, this is the end of an uncommonly difficult and laborious case, which called for as much brain work as action. It has been a severe strain, and I am glad that it is over."
As the detective spoke he dropped languidly upon the couch. and of a sudden he seemed to have aged. Every fibre of his frame was relaxed, and every trace of colour had ebbed from his cheeks.
"I am glad it is over," he repeated.
"I should think you would be," said the lad. "You look tired."
"I am, my boy. I have worked a bit too hard this time."
"Then you must take a rest, guv'nor."
"I am doubtful about that, for I have several matters on hand."
"But they are of no great importance."
"Perhaps not. They ought to be attended to, however." For a little time Sexton Blake reclined on the couch, with half-closed eyes, and a pensive expression; and then, rising, he sat down to his desk, and wrote for several minutes on a sheet of paper, which he handed to Tinker.
"Take that to the 'Daily Telegraph' office," he bade, "and ask them to be sure that it is inserted in tomorrow morning's issue. You can go at once, for I am nearly out of tobacco, and I want a tin of it from that shop in Piccadilly."
"Do you mind if I read this, guv'nor?"
"I have no objections," was the reply.
"It is an advertisement, isn't it?" murmured the lad. "Yes, I thought so. 'Wanted. A furnished cottage in the country, Cheshire preferred. Must be secluded, and in a healthy position. No stabling or servants required. Three bed-rooms sufficient.'"
Tinker paused, his eyes dancing with joy.
"I deduce from this," he continued, "that we are going to have a real, bang-up holiday in the country."
"That is just what it means," the detective told him, "if I can find a place to suit me."
"I say, won't it be ripping? But why have you picked on Cheshire?"
"Because I have a sneaking fondness for the ancient city of Chester, and I should like to be within easy walking distance of it."
"And why do we need three bed-rooms?"
"Stupid! Are there not three of us, with Pedro?"
"Oh, stop chaffing, and tell me—"
"I'll tell you something that you won't like to hear," broke in Sexton Blake, "if you don't stop asking questions. Be off with you at once. Leave that advertisement at the office, and fetch me a tin of tobacco, and be as quick as you can about it."
"Right you are, guv'nor," said the lad; and a moment later he had departed on his double errand.
It was on a Tuesday that the advertisement appeared in the "Telegraph," and on Thursday afternoon of the following week, a number of answers having meanwhile been received, and some correspondence carried on, a jingling summons by electric bell brought Mrs. Bardell from her kitchen to the consulting-room, where, on entering with perspiring face and floury arms, she beheld Tinker and her master. and the bloodhound.
"I've been took away from my work," she said aggressively, "and yet it ain't tea-time yet. And if I've been upstairs once to-day, I've been up a dozen times. What is it now, Sir?"
"Sit down," bade Sexton Blake. "I want to talk to you."
"Oh, sir, is it portentious?" asked the landlady, as she deposited her ample bulk in a chair, and looked frightened.
"It is important, if that is what you mean," the detective replied. "But you need not be alarmed. I have merely leased a furnished cottage in the country, and I propose to get down there for several weeks, shutting this house up, and taking you with me."
"Me, sir?"
"Yes; and I am sure you will be the better for a change of air, and a rest."
"Is it only that, sir? Are you sure you 'aven't designs to get me away from them noble Suffragettes, which you've always been suspicious, and with no reason, of what you've called their bad influence over me, and them the best—"
"Nonsense! I don't care a fig for your Suffragettes!"
"They're the salt of the earth," snorted Mrs. Bardell, "and 'ighly sooperior to man. I'll not 'ave them defamed by the breath of scandal. But about this cottage. 'Ow far away is it?"
"It is down in Cheshire, about twenty miles from Liverpool," the detective answered.
"Is that a long way from London?"
"Yes, it is a considerable distance. But what does that matter to you?"
"I'm thinking about my relatives, sir, and 'ow they'll miss me," said the landlady, heaving a mournful sigh. "It's 'ard—bitter 'ard, to be torn ruthlessly from the bosoms of your loved ones. I mean them what 'as been in the 'abit of popping in for a friendly call, once a week or so. There's Aunt Jemima, of Kilburn Vale. And 'er daughter, Jemima Anne, what comes all the way from New Cross. And my brother's wife Maria, and my cousin Joe, what drives one of the 'Ammersmith vestry carts; and Sergeant Prim from Wellington Barracks, and Robert the constable, which them last two is remotely related to me between the marriage of my great-aunt's third cousin to my stepfather's grandchild, or something of that sort. Yes, sir, that's 'ow it is."
Sexton Blake and the lad looked at each other in bewilderment, for they had never heard of half of the relatives that had been mentioned.
"What a blow it will be to them!" continued Mrs. Bardell, shaking her head. "'Ow their kind 'earts will be macerated! I can see them now a-creeping, down the area steps, and knocking on the door till they're hoarse, and wondering why I don't—"
"I have had enough of this nonsense!" the detective broke in severely. "You ought to be glad of the chance to spend a few weeks in the country. But if the idea doesn't please you, say so and be done with it, and then I'll know what to do when Tinker and I depart. I'll send you to the Home for Irresponsible Women down at Hanwell."
"The—the 'ome for what?"
For female servants whom it is advisable to put under restraint while their masters are out of town."
"You'd never 'ave the temerity to send me there, sir!" gasped the landlady.
"Wouldn't I?" Sexton Blake said grimly. "Don't be so sure."
Mrs. Bardell caught her breath, and turned six different colours, and writhed in her chair until it creaked.
"What's the good of relatives, anyhow?" she exclaimed. "I'll go to the country, sir, and I'll be 'appy to do it. I read a book about it once. Oh, 'ow derapturous to look forward to picking flowers, and gathering nuts in May, and watching the lambs skip and 'op, and feeding the sheep and the goats, and calling the cattle 'ome when the dark eventide falls on the peaceful land, and the lonely owl 'oot in the ruined tower, and the benighted gale—I mean the nightingale—sings to the young lovers as they—"
"We'll hear the rest of that some other time, my good woman," broke in the detective.
"Yes, sir," replied Mrs. Bardell. "It's in the book what I told you of."
And she withdrew with a clumsy skip that was supposed to be an imitation of a playful lamb.
"WELL, guv'nor, what do you think of it by now? How are you enjoying your holiday?"
"Even more than I expected I should, my boy. It is indeed delightful to get away from town to a place like this, and to feel that one does not have to go back at a fixed time."
"Ah, that's the best part of it! And no work to do. But I am afraid you won't be able to stand that very long."
"It will be for two or three weeks, at all events. I need a good rest, and I mean to have it."
It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and the speakers, who were, of course, Sexton Blake and Tinker, had a few moments before set out for a walk, clad in tweed knickerbocker suits, and accompanied by the bloodhound. They had come down from London only two days ago, and their surroundings were still fairly new to them. A short distance behind them, standing by itself near the edge of the village of Seaton, was Lilac Cottage, the pretty, ivy-clothed place they had taken for a short term. To right and left a charming landscape rolled away, and in front the winding road, overhung by trees, pursued its course towards Chester, which was six or seven miles to the north. Pedro was bounding ahead, sniffing at anything and everything, yelping like a puppy, and now and again glancing back at his master.
"Look at old Pedro!" exclaimed the lad. "Isn't he enjoying himself?"
"Yes, he is as happy as a cricket," Sexton Blake replied. "He can appreciate a holiday as well as we can. And our landlady, I am glad to note, appears to be quite contented down here."
"A bit too contented for my taste, guv'nor. She tries to frisk about like a giddy lamb, and as for her singing?well, I wish she would stop it. She is at it from morning till night, and it makes my flesh creep."
"Her voice is certainly not melodious, but if she feels like singing, let her do it. We won't begrudge her that harmless diversion."
"Only provided she keeps in an amiable temper," said Tinker, "and don't scrape an acquaintance with the village bobby, and forget about our meals. But where are we going?" he continued, changing the subject. "Have you any idea?"
"None at all," answered the detective, as he began to fill his pipe. "We will wander at our own sweet will until it is time to start back for luncheon."
"Will we get as far as Chester?"
"No, not to-day, my boy. We will go there on Saturday, when there will be more to be seen."
It was an ideal morning, and it was difficult to believe, in this charming and secluded part of Cheshire, that there could be such a place as London. Their minds free from all thoughts of work, forgetting crime and criminals, and the stress of town life, Sexton Blake and the lad strolled slowly, and aimlessly on in the bright sunshine, until their attention was drawn to an open gateway that led to an extensive plantation.
"It looks inviting, doesn't it?" said Tinker. "I should like to go in there."
"Then we will!" replied the detective; and as he spoke he led the way off the road.
"We are trespassing, guv'nor!"
"No doubt; but we are not likely to get into trouble if we do no harm. We must keep Pedro by us. however."
"I wonder who this estate belongs to?"
"I don't know, my boy. There are several large landowners in the neighbourhood of Seaton."
Keeping the hound by their side, they penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of the woods, in the purple opalescent gloom that was heavy under the canopied foliage. Above them towered fir and cedar trees, and tall fern and bracken reached almost to their shoulders, and rustled like a faint breeze as they pushed through it. For a quarter of a mile or so they went slowly along, enjoying the cool, fragrant air. At length, when they had stopped, and were about to turn back, a vague noise floated to their ears.
"What's that?" murmured the lad.
"Somebody is coming," answered Sexton Blake, "and at a rapid pace."
Pedro pricked up his ears, but remained quiet at a word from his master. The sound was growing more audible, swelling louder and louder. The undergrowth swayed and swished, twigs snapped, and footsteps pattered over the ground; and of a sudden there appeared in a little glade, half a dozen yards to the left of the detective and his companions, the figure of a girl who was running as hard as she could, with her hat in her hand, and her hair, which was of a wonderful tint of mixed red and gold, streaming behind her.
She was visible for only an instant, giving to the trespassers—she did not see them as she went by—a brief glimpse of a graceful form, big eyes that were the hue of purple violets, and a lovely face that was pale and agitated. She dashed across the glade, and plunged into the fern and bracken, which concealed her from view. Her light, fleet tread was heard for a few seconds, and then faded away. Silence fell again, tense and breathless. No bird chirped or fluttered; not a leaf stirred.
"What a beautiful girl that was!" said Tinker, in a low tone. "And how frightened she looked! She must have been running away from somebody."
"Obviously she was," replied the detective. "But where is her pursuer? Has he given up the chase?"
They glanced at each other, and listened intently; but they heard nothing. Not the least sound disturbed the strange spell of quietude that had settled on the plantation. The bloodhound, it seemed, was uneasy. He nestled close to his master, and looked up at him with an odd, wistful expression.
"Queer, isn't it?" murmured the lad. "I don't know, though. Perhaps the girl is trespassing, like ourselves, and was frightened by a gamekeeper."
"It was more than that," declared Sexton Blake. "There was acute terror on that girl's face—blind, mad terror. She was fleeing as one might flee from a deadly peril."
"1 believe you are right, guv'nor. Shall we go after her?"
"No. We will go the other way, and try to ascertain what frightened her."
"You seem to be curious about it."
"I am, my boy."
They moved first over to the glade, where they discovered a narrow footpath; and then, the detective leading the way, they followed this in the direction from which the girl had come. In silence, with Pedro at their heels, they went on for fifty or sixty yards; and as they were squeezing through a thicket that obstructed their course, the hound suddenly darted ahead of them, and almost immediately afterwards uttered a quavering, mournful bay that quickly brought his companions to the spot at which he had paused.
"By heavens!" Sexton Blake exclaimed hoarsely.
And he and the lad, dumb with horror, stood gazing at the tragic scene on which they had stumbled. Pedro, his head in the air, was squatting by a young man who lay motionless, with closed eyes, across the path. A handsome youth, in tweeds and gaiters, with thick, brown hair, and florid, clean-shaved features. He was lying on his side, and from his back, near the left shoulder, a thin, red stream had trickled, and was still trickling, drop by drop. The hound bayed again, and his voice rolled afar in echoes that faded into silence.
"IS it murder?" asked Tinker, in a husky tone.
"I hope not," said the detective, as he knelt by the prostrate form. "No, it is not so bad as that—not yet. He is only unconscious. He is breathing. But be has been stabbed in the back, and evidently with a stiletto, or a fine-bladed dagger."
"The weapon is not here."
"No, it must have been carried off, or thrown away."
"Is it a dangerous wound?"
"I can't tell to a certainty, my boy; but it does not appear to have gone very deep, from the way it has bled."
"I wonder who the poor fellow is?" muttered the lad.
"No doubt I can soon answer that question," said Sexton Blake, who had begun to search the young man's pockets; and as he spoke he pulled out a silver cigarette-case that was studded with rubies, and bore an engraved coat-of-arms. "The Vanquest arms!" he declared. "I know them. I remember, now, that the Earl of Vanquest's country-seat is near our village. We must be on his land, and this is his son!"
"And that girl, guv'nor?"
"What of her?"
"Do you suppose it was she who—who—— "
Tinker did not finish the sentence. Drawing a deep breath, he looked at the detective, and for a moment the two stood there in silence, exchanging significant glances.
"I can't believe it!" Sexton Blake said huskily. "I don't want to. The girl had a sweet, innocent face. It was stamped with terror, not guilt."
"The case is black against her, all the same."
"That is true, my boy, I admit. But she may be innocent. It is not certain that she committed this crime."
"I hope she didn't, guv'nor."
While Tinker and the hound remained by the victim of the tragedy, the detective made a hasty search in the vicinity, going in both directions along the path, and examining the walls of bracken to right and left of it. He soon abandoned the quest, and returned, his expression gloomy and perplexed.
"Did you discover anything?" inquired the lad.
"Nothing at all," Sexton Blake answered, shaking his head.
"The weapon has disappeared. There are no footprints, no sign of any person having pushed into the undergrowth. I will make another search later. And now to get this poor fellow to his home," he added. "We will have to take him there, for he must have surgical aid without delay."
"What are you going to do about the girl?"
"I have not decided, my boy. For the present we will keep our knowledge of her to ourselves."
Having had experience in such things, the detective and Tinker, with the help of their pocket-knives, took tribute of boughs from the neighbouring trees, and deftly and quickly fashioned a rude litter, on which they gently placed the unconscious youth. They bore him along the path for two or three hundred yards, when they emerged from the woods into a cultivated park, and saw not far beyond them a splendid mansion of age-worn red brick, with gables and towers, clothed in ivy. And now they were joined by a gamekeeper, who, when he had been told of the tragedy in a few words, glanced at the victim, and uttered a cry of distress.
"It's my young master!" he declared. "It is Lord Philip Camelot, the earl's only son!"
"So I supposed," said Sexton Blake. "And that is Queen's' Langley yonder, is it not?"
"Yes, sir," was the reply. "It is Queen's Langley, the seat of the Earl of Vanquest. Oh, sir, what a shock this will be for his lordship!"
The gamekeeper lent a hand with the litter, and thus the little group went slowly and carefully across the park, with Pedro by their side, to the noble mansion that had been the home of the Camelot family for nearly four centuries. Their approach had been seen, and as they mounted to the terrace the door was opened, and there appeared, followed by several startled servants, a stately, elderly gentleman with aristocratic features, and a hawk-like nose, and a grey moustache.
"My boy!" he exclaimed, in a tone of anguish. "My only boy! What has happened to him?"
"He has met with an accident," replied the detective, and he gave a brief explanation to the old nobleman, concealing only the fact that he had seen a frightened girl in the woods. "It is not a deep wound," he went on. "I do not think that your son is in any danger, though he had better have surgical aid as soon as possible. I am staying in the village," he concluded, "and I will be glad to do anything I can for you."
Stretton Manvers Camelot, ninth Earl of Vanquest, grew very white as his eyes rested on his boy—the only one he had, the heir to his title and estates. He glanced keenly at Sexton Blake and the lad, and it was evident that he was satisfied with his scrutiny. There could be no reason for suspecting that they knew more than he had been told.
"Jaikes, tell the groom to ride for Dr. Grant," he said to his butler, "and see that the police are informed without delay. I am obliged to you, sir, for your offer of assistance," he added, turning to the detective. I am already deeply in your debt."
"Not at all. I have only done what anybody else would have done under the circumstances."
"That doesn't lessen the value of your services. My son might have died there if you had not found him. But who could have stabbed him? You have stated that the wound was inflicted with a dagger, and no poacher would have been in possession of such a weapon."
"I agree with you, Lord Vanquest."
"It is obvious, then, that this is no ordinary crime," said the earl. "I am determined to get to the bottom of it. When you return to the village, sir, will you be good enough to telegraph in my name to Mr. Sexton Blake, the London detective, asking him to come down here at once?"
"It would be useless to telegraph," answered Sexton Blake, with a ghost of a smile, "for the detective is not at present in London. But I can promise you that he will soon be here. I happen to be acquainted with him, and I know where he can be found."
"Thank you," said the Earl of Vanquest.
As he spoke he vanished within the house, whither his son had been carried by the servants and Tinker and the detective, with the bloodhound, retraced their steps to the plantation, where, for a couple of hours, they searched in a widening radius around the spot where the tragedy had occurred, in the hope of discovering some clue which would tend to show that it had not been the mysterious young lady who had stabbed Lord Camelot. But they had their trouble for nothing, and they were in low spirits as they walked back to Lilac Cottage, expecting to be scolded by Mrs. Bardell for being late for luncheon.
"It is usually like this, when you are enjoying a holiday," said the lad. "You are in harness again."
"It looks like it," assented Sexton Blake.
"Oh, I know well enough. This case has got a grip of you, and you won't be satisfied until you have solved the mystery. But why didn't you set Pedro to work to hunt for a trail?"
"I did, while you were scouring the rhododendron thicket."
"And what did the dog do?"
"He picked up a scent, and followed it along the path in the direction in which that girl ran."
"I am sorry to hear that, guv'nor. Do you believe it was the girl who did the stabbing?"
"What else can I believe, my boy?" was the sad reply.
WHEN the Earl of Vanquest returned from a walk over his estate one afternoon—it was the third day after the affair in the plantation—a card was given to him, and he was told that a visitor was waiting to see him; and, on entering the library, with slow and reluctant steps, he stared in bewilderment at the man who was seated there. "There must be a mistake," he said, glancing at the slip of pasteboard in his hand. "I was informed that—"
"That Mr. Blake was here?" interrupted the visitor, as he rose. "That is quite right. There is no mistake, Lord Vanquest. I am the person whose card you have there."
"Indeed! You can imagine that this is a surprise to me."
"I hope you will pardon my little deception."
"Was there any necessity for it?" the earl said stiffly. "You might have revealed your identity when we first met. I wrote to you in London, and have been wondering why I did not get an answer."
"And, meanwhile," replied Sexton Blake. "I have been down here working on your behalf, without the knowledge of the local police, who are utterly at fault. I wanted to work quietly, and that is why I did not let you know at first who I was."
"I appreciate the motive that prompted your deception, which I can readily overlook. Have you met with any success, Mr. Blake?"
"I have found a slight clue, of which I will speak later. I have called today to inquire about your son. I hear that he is better."
"He is very much better. He is out of danger, the doctor tells me. His wound, though it was rather serious, is healing fast."
"Has be made any statement yet?" asked the detective.
"Yes; this morning," replied the Earl of Vanquest. "He was allowed to talk of the affair for a short time, and he told me what he knew of it. It seems that as he was walking through the plantation he heard a faint footstep behind him, and as he partly turned he had a vague, brief glimpse of a man who was in the act of striking at him. Then he felt a sharp pain, dropped, and remembered nothing more."
"Did he describe his assailant?"
"Not accurately. He is under the impression that the man was dark and clean-shaved, and that he wore a soft brown hat."
"It is news to me that there was a man ie the woods that morning," said Sexton Blake. "I happen to know that there was a girl there, for I saw her in flight, coming from the direction of the spot at which your son was stabbed."
"I am not surprised to hear this, sir," answered the earl, in a dry tone.
There was a short and awkward interval of silence. The detective, for his part, believed the strange man to be a fictitious character; he had no doubt that Lord Camelot had invented the tale in order to screen the mysterious young lady. And it was to be assumed, from the Earl of Vanquest's air of confusion, that he shared Sexton Blake's belief.
"I ought to tell you candidly," he went on, "that I took it into my head to make certain inquiries, and that I learned that two young ladies have been staying at the village inn."
"I am aware of that myself," said the detective. "In fact, that is the clue to which I referred. These young ladies, who were known as Sonia Ruthven and Pauline Whitley, spent their time in sketching in water-colours, and were presumably art students. They arrived at the White Lion three weeks ago, and left hurriedly on the afternoon of the day on which your son was stabbed. I have been trying to ascertain where they came from, and where they went to, but I have not been able to trace them beyond Chester. Do you know if Lord Camelot was acquainted with either of them?"
"I have questioned him on the subject, and he assures me " ? the earl hesitated for an instant—"he assures me that he had no knowledge of them."
Sexton Blake shrugged his shoulders, and an odd look crept into his eyes.
"Under the circumstances," he said, "I imagine that you do not care to have me proceed any farther with this case?"
"You are quite right, sir," replied Lord Vanquest "I want you to drop the affair, if you will be so good."
"I shall be happy to oblige you, of course."
"Thank you, Mr. Blake!"
"But what about your local police?" the detective inquired pointedly.
"It is not at all likely that they will accomplish anything, and I am equally sure that—that they will not suspect, that—" The earl paused, and avoided Sexton Blake's glance. "No; the local police will make nothing of the affair," he went on. "But I am forgetting that I am in your debt. You must let me give you a cheque for services already rendered."
"As I have done nothing for you," the detective told him, "I cannot accept any payment."
"You have done a great deal for me, Mr. Blake."
"I beg to differ with your lordship."
Lord Vanquest had produced his cheque-book, but it was in vain that he tried to force a cheque for a handsome amount upon Sexton Blake, who declined with tact, and presently departed from Queen's Langley, and walked back to Lilac Cottage in a thoughtful mood; and after supper that evening, when he was sitting by the fire with Pedro at his feet, and his pipe alight, he awoke from a reverie, and looked up at the lad.
"There may be a mysterious undercurrent in this affair," he said—"something that has not appeared on the surface, that is too deep to be plumbed. But I imagine that it is really a very simple case. Young Lord Camelot, while sowing his wild-oats in London, loved and rode away, like the cavalier of old. The distressed maiden, instead of making the best of her disappointment, sought for the gay Lothario whom she had expected to marry, traced him to his home, had an interview with him in the woods the other morning, and stabbed him in a fit of passion when he refused to have anything more to do with her. That is my theory, and I believe that the Earl of Vanquest is of the same mind, which would account for his desire to have the matter dropped."
"If I had been Lord Camelot," declared Tinker, "I shouldn't have wanted to throw that girl over! She was a stunner for beauty!"
"You impressionable young ass!"
"You can call me all the names you like, guv'nor," said the lad, "as long as I know that you are not going to get the girl into trouble. I wonder if I'll ever see her again? Now that you are done with this case," he added, with a sigh, "I suppose we'll go back to holiday-making."
"Yes; we'll spend a week or two down here, leading the quiet life," replied Sexton Blake. "As for the affair of the earl's son and the hot-tempered young lady, it is not likely that we shall hear anything more of it.
But the detective was wrong, as the future was to show.
THREE weeks had elapsed since the day when a frightened girl ran through the plantation at Queen's Langley, with terror stamped on her lovely face. It was a beautiful morning, and while Sexton Blake and Tinker were tramping along the high-road towards the ancient city of Chester, with the blood hound at their heels, Lord Camelot was strolling across his father's park, where a herd of dappled deer were feeding, and cock-pheasants were strutting to and fro.
The young lord, who had fully recovered from his wound; and was in good health again, had risen in a restless mood, and a long walk had not tended to improve his spirits. Having entered the house, to find that his watch had been wrong and that luncheon was not yet ready, he wandered from room to room of the stately mansion, and finally drifted into the picture-gallery, where a soft light filtering through stained-glass windows, shone on many a framed and painted Camelot—some in armour and some in leather and steel, some in hose and doublet and some in Victorian court-dress. The modern Lord Camelot, hands in pocket and a cigarette between his lips, contemplated these noble ancestors of his with an expression in which reverence blended with perplexity.
"They were a fine lot," he murmured, half-aloud. "I've been told that they all married their own class, and upheld the family traditions. But I wonder if any one of them ever loved a girl without wealth and blue blood—if he ever knew what it was to—"
"Ah, here you are, Phil!"
It was the voice of the Earl of Vanquest, who had quietly opened the door, and entered the gallery, looking slightly paler than was his wont.
"I have been trying to find you," he continued, as he approached his son. "Jaikes told me you had come in. I want to have a little talk with you before luncheon."
"What about, father?" asked the young man.
"About that affair in the woods. I am sure, my boy, that you have been concealing something. Won't you make a clean breast of it? I happen to know that there was a young lady in the plantation that morning, and I have been afraid that you might be entangled in some—"
"There was a young lady there," Lord Camelot impulsively broke in. "I'll tell you the whole truth. There is no reason why I should not, since I have done nothing that I am ashamed of."
"I am glad to hear that, my boy!"
"You can believe it, father. The young lady was Miss Sonia Ruthven, an art student from London, and for several weeks she had been staying at the White Lion with a friend. I made her acquaintance soon after her arrival—I drove away some cattle that had frightened her while she was sketching—and after that I saw her frequently, and the end of it was that I fell in love with her. You would have done the same if you had been in my place. You could not have helped it. She was the sweetest and loveliest of girls, and as good as she was beautiful."
The earl shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, but there was in his eyes—perhaps he did not know it—a wistful, reminiscent look. He, too, in his romantic youth, had loved a simple maiden of the people.
"Go on!" he bade. "What happened in the plantation that morning?"
"I met Sonia there by appointment," replied Lord Camelot, "and told her that I loved her. I had been certain that she cared as much for me, but my proposal seemed to frighten her. She shrank from me, declaring that she had done wrong, and that she must never see me again."
"She declined an offer of marriage?"
"Yes; she refused to be my wife."
"And then she thrust a dagger into you?"
"By heavens, no; it was not Sonia who did that! She suddenly ran away, leaving me standing there half dazed. I would have followed her, but I felt that it would be useless to appeal to her again. I turned in the other direction, and it was then, as I was walking homeward, that I was stabbed by a man, of whom I got only a fleeting glimpse."
"Don't you suppose that he had some connection with this girl?" inquired the Earl of Vanquest.
"I'll swear that he had not!" the youth vowed hotly. "That is a ridiculous idea! No; the man must have been a poacher. There are several of them you know, who have a grudge against me since that night last October, when I helped the keepers to round up that gang in the north woods."
"You are probably right, Philip, come to think of it. As for the girl, have you heard anything of her?"
"No; I haven't, and I don't want to talk about her! I love Sonia Ruthven, and I will always love her; but she has disappeared, and I don't suppose I shall ever see her again, since she has refused to have anything to do with me."
"You have taken a load from my mind," said the earl, in a tone of relief. "It would have been a pity if you had become entangled with this young lady, who, though she may be worthy of you in every other way, is, of course, far beneath you in social station. But I won't speak of her again, my boy. I don't want to hurt your feelings. I have something else to talk about—something that is even more unpleasant."
"What is it, father?" asked the young man.
"I find it rather hard to explain. The fact is that I have been tempted to try to add to my income, as other people have been doing with success in these days. I—I have been speculating on the Stock Exchange in oil and rubber, and foolishly relying on the reports of the financial newspapers, instead of obtaining expert advice. And the result is that I have come to grief. I have lost everything!"
"I hope not, father."
"Yes, I am ruined!"
"Ruined? Is it so bad as that?"
"It could not be worse, Phil, to be candid."
There was silence for a few seconds. The painted Camelots in their frames seemed to be looking down at father and son with sardonic expressions, as if they, who had been content to live within their incomes, whose highest ambition had been to serve their sovereigns on the field of battle and at court, despised this modern Camelot who had flung his patrimony into the greedy maw of speculation. The Earl of Vanquest glanced up at them, and averted his eyes.
"I have told you the truth, my boy," he went on. "I have lost heavily. My debts are enormous. It rests with you to stave off the threatened disaster."
"With me!" exclaimed the young lord. "How is that?"
"You must contract a rich marriage."
"That is easier said than done. Moreover, it is a proposition that I could not entertain."
"I trust you will entertain it, Phil," replied the earl. "I have already made a sort of an arrangement. You remember my acquaintance, Sir Midas Morgan, who made a fortune out in Borneo, and was knighted for his gifts to charity, and now lives in a palace in Park Lane?"
"You have often spoken of him," Lord Camelot said dully.
"You have met him, I believe. And you are also acquainted with his daughter Blanche."
"Yes, I have met them both."
"The girl is charming, and the father, though he is a self-made man, has his good qualities. And he is worth a couple of millions, at the least. To continue, my boy, I have had several interviews in town recently with Sir Midas Morgan, and—and he is favourably inclined to an alliance between his family and ours. He is more than favourable to it, as he has ambitions for his daughter."
"Am I to understand that you are trying to sell me to—"
"Don't put it in that crude way, Phil. It hurts me. No, I have made no bargain. I don't like the word. But—but Sir Midas Morgan has made it clear to me that on the day you are married to his daughter he will settle £20,000 a year on her, and will relieve me of these pressing difficulties that I have got into through my reckless dabbling in shares."
"This is infamous!" cried Lord Camelot. "What you propose is impossible!"
"Don't disappoint me," pleaded the earl. "It means so much, my boy."
"If it means poverty, father, let poverty come. I am not afraid of it. I am young and strong, and I have no false pride. I will get to work, and earn a living for you and for myself. You will see."
"But you don't fully realise the situation; I am sure you don't. If it should come to the worst, if I were compelled to pay off my debts with what resources are at my command at present, everything would have to go."
"Not Queen's Langley?"
"Yes, that first of all. Think of it, Phil! Think of these noble acres, this stately mansion that has been the home of our race for four centuries, the portraits of our ancestors, and the treasures they have amassed! Think of them passing out of our hands for ever, and into the hands of strangers. Can you bear that? Will you let that happen? Can you calmly contemplate such a wreck, and refuse to—"
"Stop—stop!" broke in the young man. "You are right! I did not fully understand. I could work and be happy if we could keep Queen's Langley, but if that were to be taken away from us I should be wretched. Every stick and stone of the old place is dear to me. And yet what am I to do?"
"I leave it to you, my boy," the Earl of Vanquest answered gloomily.
"You are putting me to a hard test."
"Why should it be so hard?"
"Because I love Sonia Ruthven," replied Lord Camelot. "I will always love her, and I care nothing for Blanche Morgan. How can I marry her?"
"Listen to me, Phil," said the old earl. "You are very dear to me. You are my only son, and you have had my undivided affection. Your welfare, your future, is my chief concern. I would prefer you to marry a woman of your own choice. I should not object to your taking a dairymaid for wife, if I believed that she would make you happy. But as things are at present, with this dark cloud threatening to—"
His voice faltered and broke, choked with emotion. A tear glistened in his eye.
"Make it as easy for me as you can," he went on. "Try to put yourself in my place. Forget this Ruthven girl, who has refused to have anything more to do with you, as you have admitted. Save us from disaster, my boy. For my sake, for the sake of this home that is the cradle of our race, do what I ask of you. Marry the daughter of Sir Midas Morgan, and save Queen's Langley for your descendants."
"What would those painted ancestors of ours have done, father, in such a case?"
"I don't know, Phil. They were very proud, very jealous of the family honour. But you must remember that they lived in ages which were vastly different from ours."
"Would any one of them have done what you are urging me to do?"
"I think so, rather than have let Queen's Langley pass out of the family."
As Lord Vanquest spoke he rested his hand on the shoulder of his son, who moved away from him, and for a brief time paced to and fro, his face showing the struggle that was going on within him. Then, glancing at his father's sad, wistful features, he said quietly:
"I cannot refuse to do what you wish, under the circumstances. I will marry Blanche Morgan, if she will have me."
"Thank you, my boy—thank you!" exclaimed the earl, his face brightening. "You have made the sun shine again. I shall spend my declining years under this roof, in the old home. There will be no difficulty. Sir Midas Morgan has assured me that his daughter will regard your suit with favour. Go in and win her, Phil. She will be yours for the asking. I haven't much ready money, but I can spare you £500,and that should enable you to take chambers in the Albany, and hold your own during the season."
"Very well," replied Lord Camelot. "It shall be as you wish. And now I'll be off to get ready for luncheon."
He would have departed at once—he had an intense longing to be alone—but his father stopped him, and clasped his hand, and looked fondly into his eyes.
"Heaven bless you, Phil!" he said, in a husky voice. "Heaven bless you, my boy, for your sacrifice!"
Two Months After—Lady Melfort's Garden—Rejected.
"DO you really want me to marry you?"
"Of course I do, Blanche. Why should you doubt it?"
"And—and do you care for me, in that way?"
"If I did not, would I have asked you to be my wife?"
"Then you do love me, Phil. Is it true? Be honest, and tell me."
There was no answer. A tense, strained silence fell. It was a warm night in June, in the height of the season, and the speakers were a handsome young man and a beautiful girl with dark eyes and hair. They were seated in an arbour in the garden at the back of the stately Grosvenor Square residence of old Lady Melfort, who had given one of her famous dinners, which had been followed by a reception and a dance. The strains of waltz music, ravishingly played by a Roumanian orchestra, floated out from the house, and came softly to the ears of the young couple who were seated in the arbour. Above them myriads of white stars swam in the violet heavens, and on all sides of them, none very near, were other guests who had wandered out into the spacious grounds; some were in a lighted marquee drinking champagne-cup, some were strolling about, and the presence of others, amid the trees and shrubbery, was betrayed by the fitful glow of cigars and cigarettes.
It was a very distinguished assemblage, for Lady Melfort was one of the old-fashioned hostesses, and she usually drew the line strictly at wealthy parvenus and mushroom nobility. Anyone who had done her a service, however, and was at all presentable, was put on her invitation list; and thus it happened that there was present tonight, rubbing elbows with the cream of society—most of them knew and respected him—a famous detective who had recently returned to London from a long holiday in the country.
The orchestra ceased playing, and the murmurs of conversation swelled louder. Still the two in the arbour sat there in silence, until at length, leaning forward, Blanche Morgan stole a glance at her companion's face, on which was dimly reflected the light from the marquee.
"You have not answered my question," she said. "Do you love me, Phil, or do you not?"
"I do not, to be honest," replied Philip Lord Camelot, in a low tone.
"I thought not. I was sure of it. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"I am, Blanche. I wish the earth would open and swallow me up. What a brute I must seem to you!"
"No, I think you are a very nice boy, and I feel that it is a great pity that you should have been put in this false position. It was good of you to tell the truth, instead of trying to deceive me. And now listen to me. I am going to speak to you frankly, and I may hurt your feelings."
"You need not be afraid of that, for my feelings are blunted. I have become a hardened sinner in the last few weeks, steeped in guile. But what do you want to speak about?"
"About this game we have been playing," replied Sir Midas Morgan's daughter; "and I am not going to mince matters. As you are aware, our respective parents are desirous of arranging between us a match—leaving our own wishes out of the question—that would confer an equal benefit on each, so to speak."
"The advantage would be on my side," murmured the youth. "What I have to offer would be a poor exchange for—"
"Don't interrupt, Phil. Let me finish. To continue, the arrangement was—or is—that your father should, through you, raise me to the ranks of the British peerage under the title of Lady Camelot, and that my father's millions should save your ancestral acres and home from passing into the hands of strangers."
"That is quite true. But how beastly brutally you have put it!"
"I warned you that I was going to. I wanted to make both of us squirm."
"I feel as if I had shrunk to the size of a pigmy."
"Don't be foolish. It has not been your fault. You have behaved nobly all through. You are willing to sacrifice yourself for your father."
"I won't have you call it a sacrifice, Blanche. If you will be my wife—"
"Didn't I tell you not to interrupt? I have more to say. I am now going to make a confession. I like you immensely, Phil, but—but I love somebody else."
"Do you really?" exclaimed Lord Camelot.
"Yes, really!" declared the millionaire's daughter.
"And so do I, Blanche, as it happens."
"Oh, you too!"
"Yes, the dearest girl!"
"And my somebody is a darling of a man."
"My affair is quite a romance. The girl refused me once, a couple of months ago, and I don't even know where she lives."
"My affair is also romantic, Phil. He is charming, and be is so fond of me. I know I shall be happy if my father will let me marry him."
Both laughed, and then they became grave and silent.
"What a terrible state of affairs!" the young man said soberly.
"It would be amusing if it were not so serious," replied Blanche Morgan. "What are we to do?"
"I don't know, I am sure."
"There is a way out of our difficulty."
"What is it?"
"I will show you. I am honoured by your Lordship's proposal, but my heart belongs to another, and I absolutely, flatly refuse to be your wife."
"Are you jesting?" Lord Camelot asked huskily.
"No, I mean it," the girl told him. "I was never more in earnest in my life."
"You won't consent to marry me?"
"I certainly will not, Phil. All is over between us, and you can tell the earl that it was my fault, which will be true. I hope I am doing right. For your sake, as well as for my own, I ought not to—" Blanche Morgan's voice faltered, and she could not finish the sentence. "Henceforth we meet as friends, not as lovers," she added, trying to smile. "And now I am going. There is somebody that I want to see. He will be wondering where I am."
As the girl spoke—both had risen from the bench—she moved away; but the next instant she came back, and touched the young man's arm.
"Oh, Phil!" she whispered, in a tone of distress. "What about your father? What will he do?"
"He will have to make the best of it," said Lord Camelot. "Don't let that worry you, Blanche. You are a noble girl, and you have got us out of a tangle that might have ruined our lives."
"At a heavy cost to you, perhaps. Shall I withdraw my refusal, and promise to marry you?"
"Do you wish to?"
"No, no, I can't and won't! I have chosen what I hope will be the better way for both of us in the end. Our parents will be angry, but let us be brave, and face the music. Good-bye, Phil. We must avoid each other after this."
For a second or two Blanche Morgan hesitated, as if inclined to alter her decision; and then, with a sigh, she glided away, and melted into the purple dusk of the night. Standing in the arbour, Lord Camelot watched her out of sight, feeling confused and bewildered by the unexpected turn events had taken. He did not know whether to be glad or sorry. He had kept faithfully to his promise, but he had failed, and the consequences of the girl's refusal loomed before him.
"Blanche is happy," he murmured, half-aloud, "and I suppose I ought to be happy, too. I am free to marry Sonia Ruthven, if I can find her, and she will let me plead with her. I could swear that she learned to love me during those happy days down in Cheshire. But what of my father? What of this burden of debt that threatens to rob us of Queen's Langley? It seems to me that things are in a worse tangle than before. I must try to straighten them out. By Jove, it is enough to make one's head swim!"
It was indeed a distressing position for the youth, and he was sorely perplexed as he sauntered away from the arbour, with his hands in his pockets; passing in the first couple of yards, without observing him, a man who was seated on a rustic chair in the deep shadow of a tree. That man was Sexton Blake, and he had overheard all of the conversation between the young couple.
Lord Camelot did not get far beyond the detective, for as he was strolling slowly along, in a dim shaft of light that streamed from the marquee, somebody came towards him, and he paused with a start, gazing at a girl who had also stopped at sight of him; a slim, beautiful creature, plainly dressed in black, with a head of golden-red hair, and liquid eyes that were the hue of purple violets.
"Sonia!" exclaimed the young nobleman.
"Oh, Lord Camelot!" gasped the girl, pressing her hand to her heart.
Met Again—The Quarrel—Blake Draws Blank.
THUS strangely they met again, in the heart of fashionable Mayfair, these two who had separated two months ago in the fir woods down at Queen's Langley. For several seconds they looked at each other in bewilderment, in silence.
"Is it really you?" said Lord Camelot, taking a step nearer. "I have been longing to find you, and now that I have succeeded I am not going to lose you again. But how does it come that you are here?"
"I—I am staying with Lady Melfort," faltered the girl. "That is all I can tell you. I must not stop here and talk to you."
"Please don't go, Sonia. And don't look so frightened. Why should you fear me?"
"Perhaps I have no reason to. But I have been frightened ever since I heard that you had been stabbed. I was in the woods that morning, and I have been afraid that somebody might have seen me, and would—"
"Surely you don't suppose that I, or anybody else, could have suspected you of assaulting me? It was a man, who did that. A poacher, no doubt. Listen to me, Sonia. I want to tell you that I love you, that I have been thinking of you all the time, day and night."
"You have no right to talk like that to me," the girl said coldly. "I know, as it happens, that you are engaged to the daughter of Sir Midas Morgan."
"You are wrong," replied Lord Camelot. "There has been a sort of an understanding between us, I admit. My father wished me to marry her, and her father desired the same, for—for family reasons. But that is at an end. We talked it over tonight, and each of us learned that the other cared—for somebody else. Blanche refused to marry me. You can believe me. It is the truth."
"I don't want to hear anything about it. It has no interest whatever for me."
"Then why did you speak of it?"
"I—I don't know!"
Sonia Ruthven spoke in an icy tone, but her bosom was heaving; and there was a strange gleam in her eyes, and a quiver on her lips, that betrayed her feelings to the young nobleman.
"I am sure that you do care!" he told her earnestly. "Your face shows it. Sonia, that somebody I have referred to is you. I have kept you in my heart since we first met. Though you refused to marry me that morning in the plantation, I believed that you loved me then, and I believe that you love me now. Do you, darling? Tell me. Don't be cruel. I have loved only you. I am free to ask you to be my wife, free to—"
"Don't say anything more," broke in the girl, in an agitated voice, as she recoiled. "You must not talk to me of love. I dare not listen to you. We must be strangers always. I can never see you again."
"Why, Sonia?"
"Because—I have said so."
"What barrier keeps us apart? Are you engaged to somebody else? Or are you married?"
"No—oh, no!"
"Do you love me or not? Give me a truthful answer."
"I? I won't tell you. It is unkind of you to try to force me to—"
At the faint sound of a footstep behind her Sonia Ruthven paused, and glanced over her shoulder. Then, with a frightened gasp, she seized her skirts and ran, vanishing in the darkness; and the next instant there strode forward, into the shaft of light, a tall, exquisitely-dressed gentleman of perhaps thirty, with dark, handsome features, and a black moustache with ends that were waxed and turned up. He carried an opera hat, and a cloak was thrown loosely over his shoulders. Having looked in the direction in which the girl had fled, he bowed to the young lord.
"A word with you, Lord Camelot," he said, in an imperious tone.
"Certainly," the youth assented. "What is it, Severine?"
"I will be brief. I happened to overhear a part of your conversation with Miss Ruthven. How is it that you have dared to make love to her?"
"Dared to? You are using curious language to me."
"It is the kind I prefer to use. I await an answer to my question."
"It calls for no answer," Lord Camelot exclaimed hotly. "What business is it of yours if I choose to declare my love for Miss Ruthven?"
"I shall not take the trouble to explain," replied the other, who spoke with a slight foreign accent. "But I will tell you this, for your own good. I forbid you to hold any further communication with the young lady."
"What the deuce do you mean? You are infernally impertinent."
"Be careful!"
"It is you who had better be careful, Count Severine! I refuse to give Miss Ruthven up."
"And I insist that you do so, Camelot."
"By what right?"
"By a right to which I am entitled, since I am the lady's chosen protector."
The words were uttered in a mocking tone. They maddened the young nobleman—they had obviously been uttered with that intent—and on the impulse of the moment, in his ungovernable rage, he lifted his hand, and struck his provoker smartly across the cheek.
"Liar!" he cried.
Count Severine did not budge an inch. He drew himself up stiffly, and turned very pale; but there was a flash of triumph in his dark eyes, and his lips curled in an evil smile that disclosed his white teeth.
"I will not return your blow," he said, in a calm, dispassionate voice.
"Because you are afraid to," Lord Camelot sneeringly told him.
"No, it is not that. For one thing, what we owe to our hostess forbids us to engage in a brawl. For another, the insult that you have offered me cannot be wiped out with the fists. You must fight me."
"With pleasure! When and where?"
On the field of honour, and as soon as it can be arranged."
"The field of honour? Do I understand that you are challenging me to a duel?"
"That is exactly my meaning," coldly replied Count Severine.
"But we can't do such things in England, as you are aware," said the young lord.
"There is nothing to prevent it except the law, and you will hardly plead that as an excuse. As a gentleman, I demand from you, who are my equal in social rank, full satisfaction for the blow you have struck me. If you refuse I will brand you as a coward."
"A coward! By heavens, I will show you whether I am that or not!"
"You can easily prove that you are not one."
There was a brief silence. Lord Camelot did not like the situation, for, though he had inherited the splendid courage of his race, he had a Britisher's contempt for duelling, which he regarded as childish. The thought of Sonia Ruthven; however, and of the insult that had been offered to her, quickly overcame his hesitation.
"You shall have your satisfaction," he said curtly. "But where shall we meet? Shall we cross the Channel?'"
"I prefer to fight on English soil," answered the count, "as I have engagements in town that I wish to keep."
"Then we will meet in London, if we can agree on a suitable place."
"I suggest Hyde Park."
"That will be all right. What weapons?"
"As I am the aggrieved person, that question rests with me. I choose pistols, Camelot."
"Very well, Severine. You are entitled to the choice, as you say."
"Pistols it is, then. As for seconds, it is advisable that we should have but one each, so that there will be less risk of the affair coming to the ears of the police. Mine will be Captain Sang, of the Ruritanian Embassy."
"And mine will be Lieutenant Maxwell, of the Guards. He can be found at the Albany Street barracks."
"I perceive that you are familiar with the rules of duelling," said Count Severine. "But will this gentleman act for you?"
"I will ascertain tonight, and drop you a line," the young nobleman, replied.
"That will be satisfactory. If your friend consents, my second will call upon him tomorrow, and will arrange for a meeting to take place between us at daybreak on the following morning, at some suitable spot in Hyde Park."
"We will consider it settled, then."
"Yes, as far as you and I are concerned. We will leave the rest to our seconds, Camelot."
There was another brief silence, and then bowing low, the count departed. A moment later Lord Camelot walked off, slowly and thoughtfully, and he had no more than melted into the gloom when Sexton Blake emerged from the shadow of the trees under which he had been standing, his presence unobserved. He had overheard all—Blanche Morgan's rejection of the young lord, the latter's short interview with Sonia Ruthven, and what had passed between Count Severine and Lord Camelot.
"Mystery on mystery," he said to himself. "I don't know what to make of it. It is fairly obvious, however, that the hatred which urged the count to provoke the quarrel had its origin on some occasion farther back than tonight. In fact, I strongly suspect, under the circumstances, that Count Severine is the mysterious man—I have hitherto declined to believe in his existence—who stabbed the earl's son in the woods down at Queen's Langley. There is work for me to do, at all events. Lord Camelot is a plucky fellow, and I shall not let him run the risk of being murdered in cold blood, as would probably be the case if he were to meet the count. I will take steps to prevent that and, meanwhile, I may be able to get some information that will throw light on this tangled web."
Thus pondering, the detective strolled across the garden, and entered the stately mansion; and a little later, while the dance was in full swing, he came face to face with his hostess as she was passing from one room to another. Old Lady Melfort—she was nearly seventy years of age—was blunt in her manner, and slightly eccentric. She had a very high regard for Sexton Blake, who had recovered her stolen jewels, and had averted a scandal that threatened her nephew.
"I can't spare you more than a minute," she said, when the detective had intimated that he wanted a few words with her. "I have too many claims on my hospitality. I hope you are enjoying yourself, Mr. Blake, and that you are forgetting your profession. You need not go poking about like a Scotland Yard man in plain clothes, for my valuables are quite safe. There are no dishonest people here tonight."
"But there are several persons in whom I am interested," Sexton Blake replied. "For instance, what can you tell me about Count Severine?"
The question appeared to have a disconcerting effect on Lady Melfort. She stared for an instant, her expression startled, something like fear in her eyes.
"Count Severine!" she echoed. Where have you seen him?"
"In your garden, a few moments ago," said the detective.
"It is impossible!"
"I assure you that I am right!"
"Then I don't know what to make of it. I can scarcely believe that the man could be so impudent. If he is here he came without an invitation. I know very little of Count Severine, and that little is not to his credit. He is a foreigner—I think he belongs to some small German principality—and he is usually in London during the season. He has been among my guests on previous occasions, but a few weeks ago I struck him off my invitation list."
"For what reason?"
"I must decline to answer that question, Mr. Blake."
"Then I won't press it. I trust, however, that you will consent to give me some information about Miss Sonia Ruthven."
"I have never heard of her."
"I am sure your ladyship is mistaken."
"I think not. Sonia Ruthven? The name is strange to me. I cannot recall—no, I am wrong. I know whom you mean. But I am utterly amazed that you should—"
Lady Melfort broke off abruptly, showing fresh signs of fear and uneasiness and bewilderment. Her face was flushed, and there was in her eyes a gleam that portended a rising temper.
"What do you know of Miss Ruthven?" she inquired.
"Practically nothing," the detective answered.
"Why have you asked about her?"
"Merely from curiosity."
"Then I am not going to enlighten you!" snapped Lady Melfort, tapping her foot on the floor. "Sonia Ruthven is a friend of mine, and at present she is paying me a visit. That is all I am going to tell you about her. Forget that such a person exists, if you wish to remain on good terms with me."
And with that her ladyship passed on, turning to throw an indignant glance at Sexton Blake, who was considerably more mystified than he had been before.
"It is a puzzling affair all through," he told himself, "and I should like very much to get to the bottom of it."
Blake Explains—A Visit to the Albany—The Stratagem.
AT a few minutes past ten o'clock on the night after Lady Melfort's reception and dance, Sexton Blake and Tinker got into a hansom in front of their house; and the cabby, having been given an address, whipped up his horse and drove at a smart pace down Baker Street. The detective, who looked tired, leaned back in his seat with half-closed eyes, and was silent for a short interval.
"You have told me nothing so far," said Tinker, "except what you are going to do about Lord Camelot. Where have you been all day? And what have you learned?"
"I am going to tell you now," Sexton Blake replied. "That is why I have brought you with me, so that we could talk on the way to Piccadilly."
"Need you have rushed off in such a hurry, as soon as you got home? I don't suppose you have had anything to eat."
"I had no time to wait for that. I was afraid that Lord Camelot might go to bed, since he expects to get up so early in the morning."
"Which he jolly well won't do—eh? But go on with your yarn, guv'nor!"
"There is not very much to tell you, my boy. I had great difficulty in locating Lieutenant Maxwell, but when I at last succeeded in finding him he readily fell in with my plans, and gave me all the information I wanted. He had already had an interview with Count Severine's second, and the details had been arranged. The combatants are to meet at daybreak tomorrow, near the Serpentine. They will be stationed twenty yards apart, and they will advance towards each other until they have taken six paces, when, at a signal from Captain Sang, they will raise their weapons and fire."
"Close range, isn't it?" said Tinker.
"Yes, murderously close," the detective answered grimly. "If the affair were to come off there would be no chance for Lord Camelot, for he is not accustomed to the use of the revolver, while the count is an expert shot. However, no harm will be done. I have obtained the revolver from young Maxwell, and I can count on his secrecy. I will play the part of his lordship, and you will act as my second. We will be made up, of course, to resemble the individuals we are going to impersonate."
"I don't like it. You may get a bullet in you."
"No, you need not be afraid of that. I shall take good care that my identity is revealed before the critical moment."
"And what then?"
"I cannot tell, my boy; but I hope that Count Severine, on learning who I am, will betray such signs of fear and consternation as will convince me that it was he who stabbed Lord Camelot down at Queen's Langley. That is the object I have in mind in playing this trick—that, and to save the young nobleman—and if it succeeds, if I am satisfied that the count has made a previous attempt to kill Lord Camelot, I will throw myself heart and soul into this strange affair which began when we were down in Cheshire two months ago. I shall be forced to the conclusion that it is a case which calls for my intervention."
"It is certainly a deep mystery," declared the lad.
"It appears to be, as far as I can judge," replied Sexton Blake. "Yes, I imagine that there is a current of intrigue afloat, involving Count Severine and the earl's son, Miss Sonia Ruthven and Lady Melfort. And, unless I probe it to the bottom, and that speedily, serious and tragic consequences may result. At present I am in the dark. I don't hold a single thread."
"Have you discovered anything about the count?"
"Nothing of importance. I made numerous inquiries, but all I have learned is that Count Severine is a frequent visitor to London, that his success at cards has begun to be attributed to cheating, and that he is a native of a small German principality, as Lady Melfort stated the other night."
"That doesn't amount to much, guv'nor."
"No; it throws no light on the mystery."
The hansom had now turned from Bond Street into Piccadilly, and a few seconds later it stopped. Tinker remained in the vehicle—he was to be driven back to Baker Street—while the detective got out, and passed into the courtyard of the Albany, and entered the large and famous building that provides residential chambers for fashionable young gentlemen who can afford to pay the price. He knew where to go, and, in response to his rap, the door of one of the suites of apartments was opened by Lord Camelot, who stared in surprise at the visitor for a moment, and then invited him into a luxurious sitting-room, where a shaded light shone on paintings and engravings, deep couches, and saddlebag chairs.
"I must apologise," said Sexton Blake, "for calling at so late an hour. I promised your father that I would drop in to see you some time, and this is the first opportunity I have had."
"I am very glad you have looked me up," the young man answered courteously. "I have not forgotten what you did for me."
"It was a trifling service."
"It was more than that. I might have bled to death if you had not found me. But sit down, Mr. Blake."
"I hope I am not keeping you out of bed," murmured the detective, as he dropped into a chair.
"No, I am not sleepy yet," replied Lord Camelot. "It is too early for that. It is only half-past ten o'clock. What can I offer you? A cigar?"
"Thank you!
"And a drink?"
"I don't mind, if it is no trouble."
"None at all!"
Sexton Blake did not particularly care for a drink, but he had been anxious that the offer should be made—he had counted on it—and he now felt assured of the success of his plot.
"It is rather a shame," he reflected; "but the end justifies the means. I can't let the boy go to his death."
From a cabinet the youthful nobleman took a box of Havanas, whisky, and tumblers, and a syphon. He arrayed them on the table, and when be had mixed a whisky-and-soda for himself and for his visitor, and had passed the cigars to the latter, he sat down and tried to be cheerful, in which he succeeded fairly well. Except for a slight pallor, and a wistful look in his eyes, he betrayed no sign of the mental strain he must have been enduring.
Plucky though he was, it was certain that in his mind was the shadow of the morrow, the thought that the break of day would in all likelihood find him lying dead with a bullet in his heart. And it was evident, from the fact that there were two stamped and addressed letters on the table, that he had written to his father, and to the girl he loved, in anticipation of his young life coming to a sudden end.
He was outwardly in such good spirits, indeed, that Sexton Blake marvelled at his courage. For some time the two sat there chatting on trivial subjects, and at length, when Lord Camelot rose to get his pipe, saying that he preferred it to a cigar, the detective found the opportunity he had been waiting for, and dropped into the other's glass a colourless powder that at once dissolved in a flash of foam.
It was swiftly done, and without being observed by the young man, who sat down again and set his pipe alight, and continued the conversation, the while sipping his whisky-and-soda. And presently, as the insidious drug began to take effect, he yawned and blinked, and made efforts to keep awake. But it was of no use. Again and again his head nodded, and at length, when the pipe fell from his lips, he roused with a start, and tried to get on his feet.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Blake!" he shuttered thickly. "So rude of me. I don't know why I'm so drowsy. I must have a breath of fresh air. That will—"
His voice faltered, and trailed into incoherency. He sank back into the chair, his eyes closed, and his head drooped on his chest. He breathed like a slumbering child. The subtle drug had done its work, and the young lord was in a sound sleep induced by a narcotic that would be prolonged in its effects. Leaning forward, with one hand supporting his chin, the detective sat there for five minutes, watching the motionless form as a physician might watch a patient who was passing through a crisis.
"It has worked like a charm," he said to himself. "I need not have the slightest uneasiness. The boy will not awake before eight or nine o'clock in the morning at the earliest. And now to finish with what I have to do here." Lifting Lord Camelot in his arms, he carried him into an adjoining apartment, placed him on his bed, and drew a coverlet over him. When he returned to the other room he wrote a short note, explaining what he proposed to do in terms that were calculated to appease the young nobleman's wrath and indignation, and placed it on the mantel. The two letters on the table caught his eye, and after brief hesitation he tore them up, and tossed the fragments into the grate.
"Somebody might have found them, and posted them," he murmured, as an excuse for his act.
With that he extinguished the light and withdrew, shutting the door behind him. A taxicab whisked him off to Baker Street, and after telling Tinker of the success of his trick, and setting his alarm clock for an early hour, he went to bed, and promptly fell asleep. But the lad, unable to banish the fear that his master's plan might result in disaster, did not close his eyes for a long time.
The Duel—An Attempt at Murder—At Bow Street.
IT was still dark when Tinker and the detective set off on foot for the rendezvous; but when they arrived there—they had no great distance to go—the dawn was breaking, and a pale, grey flush was driving away the shadows that hung over London, and was beginning to steep the buildings in pearly hues of colour.
The spot that had been agreed upon was suited to the purpose, being a glade, girt about by trees, that lay in a secluded quarter of Hyde Park, to the north of the Serpentine. The air was sweet and cool, and the cloudless sky gave promise of a beautiful day. Birds were twittering in the foliage, and wild-fowl, yonder in the water, were uttering their raucous cries. The rattle of milk-carts and other sounds of traffic, floating from a distance, told that the great city was waking up, stirring like a giant refreshed by slumber.
"We are the first to reach here," said Sexton Blake, as he glanced about him. "That was to have been expected, however, since we are some minutes ahead of time."
"I don't suppose we will have to wait long," replied the lad.
"I hope not. I am anxious that they should come before it gets much lighter, for I don't want the trick to be prematurely discovered."
"I shouldn't think there was much fear of that, if we are well made up. And I take it for granted that we were, guv'nor."
"You are, my boy. You could not look more like Lieutenant Maxwell if you were his twin brother. But my disguise is less perfect, as I meant it to be."
"So the count should learn for himself that you are not Lord Camelot?"
"Yes, exactly. That is the idea."
"There is no telling what he will do when he finds out how he has been deceived. Can you depend on Captain Sang to keep him in check?"
"I think so," replied the detective. "The captain is a decent fellow, if I can believe what I have been told about him. It is a fine morning for one to face the muzzle of a revolver," he added.
"Don't talk like that," said Tinker. "It is no jesting matter. I can't help feeling worried."
Sexton Blake smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. But deep down in his heart was a sense of uneasiness, a vague impression that he was doing a foolish thing. How could he be certain, he reflected, that Count Severine would not resort to treachery, and trust to his second to screen him? It was possible, he had to admit, that the two might have put their heads together, and hatched a cold-blooded, murderous plot.
"But I'll risk it, and be on my guard," he told himself. "I have gone too far to back out. And I must play the game as intended, if the count is to be betrayed into a sign of guilt."
Slowly and in silence Tinker and the detective strolled to and fro; and at length, when seven or eight minutes had elapsed, footsteps were heard, and into the glade came the count, followed by a young man with fair hair and a florid complexion.
"Now for it, my boy!" whispered Sexton Blake. "Keep up your spirits, and don't bother about me."
Without waste of time the formalities were observed. Having exchanged stiff bows, the detective and Count Severine stood apart, while the two seconds conferred together. The pistols, which were loaded with ball cartridges—it had been out of the question to tamper with them—were taken from their leather cases and critically examined.
"Are you satisfied?" inquired Captain Sang.
"Quite, sir," answered the lad, who was supposed to be the young Guardsman.
"I regret that my principal was opposed to a surgeon being on the scene."
"So do I; but it is too late to think of that now."
A weapon was given to each of the combatants, and when they had taken their places at a distance of twenty yards apart, Tinker, in a voice that was, rather tremulous, gave the word for them to advance, while the Ruritanian attache, standing on the opposite side of the glade, held ready the handkerchief that he was to drop, as a signal to fire, at the sixth step.
"One!" called the lad.
And the two principals, who were probably the best pistol shots in Europe, each took one step forward.
"Two!"
At the word Sexton Blake and the count advanced another pace towards each other, tightly clutching their weapons, as if prepared for grim and deadly work; as indeed they both were, for the detective could read treachery in his opponent's evil eyes. A bird in the boughs overhead broke into a merry carol. A motor-car tooted in the Bayswater Road, and from Kensington barracks, far across the park, came the faint peal of a bugle.
"Three!" the lad said firmly. "Four!"
Two more strides had been made, and now, as Tinker's heart was in his mouth, as he was trying to give the signal for the next pace, Count Severine started, and changed colour, and gazed intently, searchingly at his antagonist, whose features had become more distinct to him.
"What does this mean?" he cried. "By heavens, you are not Lord Camelot! I'll swear you are not!"
"No, I am not!" exclaimed the detective. "I am Sexton Blake, and I am here to frustrate your villainy."
"Sexton Blake?" echoed the count.
The words came from his lips in a gasp, as if he was strangling. He tried to raise his arm, but his nerve failed him. He recoiled, and for a few seconds, amid hushed and dramatic silence, he stood staring at the disguised detective, powerless to speak or move. His trembling limbs and the pallor of his cheeks, his dilated eyes and twitching features, all marked the terror that had gripped him, and was a sign of a guilty conscience. It was not that he feared the penalty which the law exacts of those who attempt to fight duels on English soil. It was more than that, evidently. He was in dread of Sexton Blake, with whose name and reputation he was well acquainted, foreigner though he was.
A murmur of relief from the lad broke the spell, and now, pulling himself together, Count Severine masked his agitation.
"This is an outrage!" he declared, his face blazing with passion. "I call you to witness, Sang, that a dastardly insult has been offered to me. It is unbearable! I came here to meet Lord Camelot, and I find in his place an impostor, a man with whom I have no quarrel."
"You are right," Captain Sang said hotly. "This is a contemptible thing, and there is no precedent for it. I am curious to know what excuse Mr. Blake has to offer. What has he done with Lord Camelot?"
"Lord Camelot is asleep at his chambers, under the influence of a drug which I administered to him last night without his knowledge," replied the detective, in a voice that bit like steel. There was a gleam of triumph in his eyes as he spoke, for he had learned what he wanted to know; he was sure that his suspicions had been correct. "To you, Captain Sang, as a man of honour, I offer my explanation," he went on. "I consider that I was fully justified in taking Lord Camelot's place, under the circumstances. I have reason to believe that Count Severine made a foul attempt on the young nobleman's life two months ago, and that this duel, which was forced upon the youth, was a deliberate pretext for murdering him."
Again, under the lash of this accusation, the count showed signs of acute terror. He trembled violently, and a wild gleam flashed to his eyes.
"It is a lie," he raved—"an infamous lie! I had no grievance against Lord Camelot until the night of Lady Melfort's reception."
"To which you had the impudence to go without an invitation," put in Sexton Blake, in a sarcastic tone, "and for a motive which I can fathom, though it did not concern Lord Camelot."
"You forget yourself, Mr. Blake," the Ruritanian attache said curtly. "This is a most extraordinary affair, and I don't know what to make of it. But I must strongly protest against the language you have used to my principal. He is a gentleman and a man of honour, and I ask you to retract your words."
"I decline to accept an apology!" exclaimed Severine. "He must fight with me. I insist upon it. If he refuses I will brand him as—"
"I am not a coward," interrupted the detective, "but I will certainly not fight with this scoundrel."
The count's face turned livid with rage, and with a fiery imprecation he raised his pistol and levelled it at Sexton Blake, who, being off his guard, would undoubtedly have been shot through the heart had not Captain Sang and the lad flung themselves promptly upon the would-be assassin.
"You dastard!" shouted Tinker.
"You are mad, Severine!" cried the young Ruritanian. "What would you have done?"
There was a brief and desperate struggle, in the course of which Count Severine's arm was thrown up, and his weapon was discharged harmlessly in the air. And now, as the three were still scuffling to and fro, and the detective was hurrying towards them, half a dozen men burst suddenly through the trees.
"The police!" exclaimed Captain Sang.
"The police!" echoed the count, as he wrenched himself from the lad.
Off they went in guilty fear, tearing out of the glade by the farther side at a speed that forbade pursuit; and the next instant Sexton Blake and Tinker, who had stood their ground, were surrounded and seized by the six plain-clothes men from Scotland Yard, one of whom was Inspector Widgeon. Thus swiftly the situation had turned from tragic to amusing, and the lad, catching a significant glance from his master, understood the part he was to play.
"Ah, gentlemen, you'll get it hot for this!" cried the inspector. "I learned of your little game; there is not much goes on that we don't know at the Yard. Across the Channel you can stick swords into each other as much as you like, and blaze away with pistols till you're tired, but you can't do that sort of thing here. It is a serious offence to fight a duel on English soil, as you will learn to your cost."
"You make a mistake!" exclaimed Sexton Blake, shrugging his shoulders, and speaking with a foreign accent, "I have not fight!"
"Nonsense! You have a revolver in your hand."
"Ah, monsieur, but I find it here."
"I know better than that."
"Will not monsieur believe me?" said the disguised detective, in a plaintive voice. "I arise early, and come here to pick the daisies while the dew is yet on them."
"And to hear the birds sing their morning songs," put in Tinker. "You can assure yourself, monsieur, that we are both innocent."
"That will do!" snapped Inspector Widgeon. "You will hurt yourselves talking if you are not careful. Come, we'll be off with these fellows!" he added, to his companions. "It will be useless to go after the other two. They ran like deer."
The whole party trudged over the sward to a cab-rank in the Bayswater Road, where, early though the hour was, they found a couple of taxicabs. These were commandeered to convey the two prisoners to Bow Street, and on arriving at that famous police-station, opposite Covent Garden, they were placed in the dock, and a formal charge was made against them, before the sergeant who was on duty. And then, before the matter could go any farther, two handkerchiefs were rubbed across two faces, whisking off sundry patches of grease-paint; and there was effected a marvellous transformation that staggered Widgeon, who, staring at the dock, now saw there his old friends Blake and Tinker.
"What the—what the—what the blazes have you been up to?" he gasped, turning half a dozen different colours.
"Nothing that need have concerned you," the detective amiably replied.
"You're wrong there. Nothing can alter the fact that you went to Hyde Park this morning to fight a duel. You won't be able to wriggle out of this scrape."
"I think I will, Widgeon. It is you who are wrong. I went to the park to stop the duel, disguised as one of the combatants. I had no intention of fighting myself. This is a simple statement of fact, and I can easily prove it."
Inspector Widgeon felt that he was floored. He looked questioningly at the sergeant, who answered with a meaning nod, and then pressed his handkerchief to his mouth to stifle a laugh. The Scotland Yard men grinned, and the inspector made an inaudible remark that could not have been put in print, and as they were all looking at one another, Sexton Blake and the lad coolly left the dock and walked out of the station. And a few seconds later a hansom was bearing them westward.
"We can be satisfied with what we've done this morning, all things considered," said Tinker. "And what is the next move, guv'nor?"
"It may come from Count Severine," replied Sexton Blake, in a thoughtful tone. "For my part, I shall try to unearth the count's history. I want to know why he is so anxious to win this girl that he first stabbed his rival—I am now certain that it was he who did that—and then provoked him to a duel. I feel that it is no ordinary case which revolves around Miss Sonia Ruthven, else I should not take so keen an interest in it."
And with that he relapsed into pensive silence.
A Mishap—Mysterious Visitors—Over the Telephone.
IT was on a Wednesday morning that the duel in Hyde Park was frustrated, and on the afternoon of the following day, before he had learned anything about Count Severine that was worth mentioning, Sexton Blake met with an accident in Knightsbridge. As he was crossing the street, a motor-car swerved suddenly towards him, and would have run him down had he not made an agile leap out of the way. As it was, he received a glancing blow that tossed him over to the pavement, where he was picked up unconscious, his head having come in contact with the kerb, and conveyed to St. George's Hospital.
Fortunately, he was not badly hurt, but there was some slight concussion of the brain, calling for complete rest; so he was detained at the hospital, much against his will, from Thursday afternoon until late on Saturday, when he was sent home in a cab, feeling but little the worse for his mishap, which, it may be said, he believed to have been a deliberate attempt at murder. He was glad to be free again, and was in good spirits when he arrived at his house in Baker Street, where he was presently joined by Tinker, who had been in the City since morning attending to some private business for his master.
And now, between eight and nine o'clock on this Saturday evening, Sexton Blake and the lad were sitting in the consulting-room, at opposite sides of the table, while Pedro was sprawled near by on a rug. The light was turned on. for the weather was damp and dull, and there was a mist in the air. Dinner had been over for an hour, and for some time there had been silence in the room, save for an occasional "yap" from the hound in his sleep. The detective was puffing clouds of smoke from a big meerschaum-pipe, and his brooding features, looming dimly through the blue reek that surrounded them, held Tinker's gaze.
Both were thoughtful, worried, disturbed. Neither of them had doubted, since the previous Wednesday, that Count Severine had been in some way responsible for the accident that had occurred at Knightsbridge, that he had tried to get rid of the man whom he had cause to fear. And now, during the day, there had been a series of incidents which, though trivial in themselves, seemed to indicate the deepening of the mystery that shrouded Sonia Ruthven, seemed to suggest that an undercurrent of events were moving to a crisis of some kind. There had been four callers, and each one of them, from the statements made by the landlady, appeared to have had particular and important business with the detective.
"I don't know what to deduce from it all," said Sexton Blake, breaking the silence, as he took his pipe from his mouth. "Two days of quiet, and then things wake up. Of course, we can't be sure that these people were linked by a common motive, but it rather looks as if such was the case."
"It does, guv'nor," assented the lad.
"Yes, there is reason to think so. Let us go over the ground again. First comes Inspector Widgeon, at nine o'clock this morning, under the impression that I had returned home. He has an air of excitement and secrecy, and, on learning that I am still at the hospital, he states that he has no time to go there, and hints that I am missing the chance of my life. Next arrives an elderly man, who speaks with a foreign accent, and has a moustache—as Mrs. Bardell describes it—that stands out from his lip like the bristles of a hair-brush. When told that there is no chance of seeing me, he shows signs of agitation, and goes off, muttering and gesticulating. Then, at three o'clock this afternoon, Lord Camelot calls, and is greatly disappointed at finding that I am not at home. And it is the same with Lady Melfort, who comes in her carriage two hours later, and departs without leaving any message for me. Now, what are we to make of all this, my boy?"
"I don't know, guv'nor. It is most extraordinary; isn't it?"
"I am not sure that it is, on second thoughts," replied the detective, his puzzled expression fading from his face as he spoke. "I imagine that I can account for it all. Widgeon has got hold of some baffling case, and he wanted me to help him with it. The foreign gentleman was a new client. Lord Camelot's object was to have it out with me for preventing him from fighting a duel, and Lady Melfort—her visit is the only one that interests me ? probably had some communication to make regarding Miss Ruthven."
"You may be right," said Tinker, "but for my part I don't altogether agree with you. However, there is no use in guessing, so we may as well talk of something else. What are you going to do now that you are fit for work again?"
"I will go to Scotland Yard tomorrow and see Widgeon," was the answer, "and then I will pay a visit to Lady Melfort. And after that I'll start fresh where I left off, which means that I will endeavour to learn what sort of a game Count Severine is playing."
"The surgeon at the hospital said you were not to work too hard."
"Yes, I know he did, and I have no intention of overworking myself. But I feel so thoroughly fit that I shall ? "
The brisk whirr of the telephone-bell interrupted Sexton Blake, and brought him to his feet. He stepped over to the instrument, and picked up the receiver.
"Hallo!" he called.
"Hello!" came the reply. "Is that Baker Street?"
"Yes. Who is it?"
"I am Lady Melfort. Has Mr. Blake returned yet?"
"He is here now, talking to you."
"Oh, is that you, Mr. Blake? I hope you have recovered from the effects of your accident."
"I have, thank you. I am sorry I was not at home when you honoured me with a visit. What can I do for you?"
"I want your help. I am in great trouble and distress."
"How is that?"
"The cause of it is Miss Sonia Ruthven, who has been staying with me for some time. She has now disappeared."
"Disappeared?" exclaimed the detective, in a startled tone.
"Yes, she went off this morning, after breakfast, without a word to me," replied Lady Melfort. "She was accompanied by a friend, a young lady, who has also been under my roof."
"Is that friend Miss Pauline Whitley?"
"It is. But how on earth did you know?"
"Never mind about that now. What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to find that foolish girl and bring her back. Oh, you must! It would be terrible if something should happen to her. Find her, Mr. Blake, and I will give you a thousand pounds."
"Have you any clue that could assist me?" inquired the detective.
"None whatever," Lady Melfort answered. "I only know that the girl's departure was prearranged. I have learned that she and Miss Whitley packed their bags yesterday. Oh. I am forgetting one thing, Mr. Blake. I have found in Miss Ruthven's room, under the mattress of her bed, several printed lists of houses to be let furnished."
"They may be of help to me. By the way, could Miss Ruthven afford to take a house in a good part of London?"
"Well, yes, if it was a modest one. I am sure that the two girls have got a furnished house somewhere in town, and I wish you to find them as soon as possible."
"I am at your service. But before I take any steps in the matter, it would be advisable for me to have a talk with you. Shall I come down to Grosvenor Square at once?"
"No, not tonight. I have a severe headache, and am going to bed."
"Then I will call about ten o'clock in the morning."
"Very well," said Lady Melfort. "That will suit me. And, meanwhile, I beg that you will observe the strictest secrecy. This is a very delicate matter, and very important. I am sorry that I cannot be more frank with you. I would like to tell you what I dare not tell. I hope you understand."
"No, I am afraid I don't understand," Sexton Blake curtly replied. I trust that you will enlighten me tomorrow. That is all for the present. Good-night."
With that he hung up the receiver, and there was an odd look on his face as he turned to the lad, to whom he briefly explained the import of the conversation that he had just finished.
"There is nothing particularly significant," he went on, "in the disappearance of these young ladies. I have no doubt that Miss Ruthven, with her friend, has fled to avoid unwelcome attentions from Count Severine and Lord Camelot, both of whom had learned where she was."
"Yes, that would account for it," said Tinker. "But there is more at the back of this."
"Very much more, my boy. What is the secret that Lady Melfort refuses to disclose to me? And in what capacity has Sonia Ruthven been living in that sumptuous Mayfair mansion? When I saw her there the other night in the garden, she was plainly dressed in black, like a lady's companion. And neither she nor Miss Whitley mingled with the guests. And what adds to the mystery is the fact that though Miss Ruthven loves Lord Camelot—I read her secret in the face—she refused to have anything to do with him."
The detective paused, shaking his head. He picked up his pipe, and as he began to fill it, there was heard, at the top of the staircase, the heavy, lumbering steps of the landlady. And the next instant there came a muffled explosion, followed in quick succession by a dull crash, and a piercing scream, and a lusty bay of alarm from Pedro, who had jumped up from the rug with bristling fur.
"By heavens, what is the meaning of that?" exclaimed Sexton Blake.
The Explosion—The Night Summons—Off to Kew.
TINKER was the first to reach the door, with the detective and the dog at his heels, and when he had jerked it open, a startling sight was seen. Out on the landing, flat on her back, lay Mrs. Bardell, kicking wildly, and waving her arms, while shriek after shriek burst from her lips. On her face, covering one cheek, was a black smudge; and she was holding in her hand the shattered, splintered remains of what had been a small box of wood and metal, and appeared to have been wrapped in brown paper, and tied and sealed.
"Murder, 'elp!" howled the landlady, kicking more violently. "Police, thieves, assassins! Why did I ever come to this unlucky 'ouse? Why did I enter the service of a man what 'as more enemies than I 'ave 'airs on my 'ead? I'm dead! I'm blown to bits! I'm drawing my last breath! Oh, send for the—"
"You can't be badly hurt from the noise you are making," interrupted Sexton Blake, who was just beginning to realise what had happened.
"I don't believe there is a scratch on her," put in the lad.
"Would you doubt a poor, dying woman?" shrieked Mrs. Bardell. "Can't you see that I've been foully murdered? I'm the victim of a supernal machine, cut off in the flower of my days. It's hard, cruel 'ard. Send for the doctor, and the Harchbishop, and Inspector Widgeon, so I an make my post mortal dispositions, and denounce and bring to the gallows the 'eartless, brutal villain what 'as—"
"Do be quiet," bade the detective, "and let me see what is the matter with you. I imagine that all you need is a little brandy to soothe your nerves."
The mention of brandy had a magical effect on the landlady. She stopped screaming and sat up, and, with Tinker's assistance, rose to her feet and waddled into the room. And when she had felt her limbs, and discovered that they were sound, the colour ebbed back to her white face.
"No, I ain't 'urt," she said, in a faltering voice; "but it's a mercy that there's anything left of me. And now, sir, I'll 'ave that brandy. It will do me a heap of good."
It was promptly given to her in a tumbler, mixed with water, and while she sipped it, Sexton Blake and the lad regarded each other gravely. The former had taken possession of the remains of the box, and examined it, and neither he nor Tinker were at a loss to account for what had happened up to a certain point.
"I 'aven't told you about the defernal machine yet," said Mrs. Bardell, as she placed the empty glass on the table, and looked wistfully at the decanter.
"We are waiting to hear your story," replied the detective. "Where did that box come from?"
"It was left here this afternoon, 'alf an 'our before you got 'ome," stated the landlady, "by a man what was well-dressed, and 'ad a beard and moustache, and wore spectacles. 'E said that there was some sample cigars in it, which 'is employer wanted you to try. The man 'ad no more than departed when the milk-boy shouted from the area, so down I went, and put the box on the dresser, and never give it another thought till a bit ago, when I accidentally knocked it into a pail of water. I fished it out, and dried it, and as I was bringing it upstairs, I 'eard a ticking sound that seemed to come from it, what I 'adn't noticed before. And at that moment, sir, the supernal thing went off with a bang, and I found myself kicking my 'eels on the floor. What a fright I've 'ad! I'll never forget it, sir! I could 'ave sworn that I'd been blown to as many bits as a picture-puzzle!"
"You might have been," Sexton Blake told her seriously. "You have had a very narrow escape."
"And thankful I am," declared the landlady, "that I've been spared to my relations, me being the 'ead of the family, so to speak."
Having told her story she withdrew from the room. The door swung shut behind her, and Tinker and the detective, left to themselves, glanced at each other. They were silent for few seconds.
"Count Severine?" asked the lad.
"Can we doubt it?" murmured Sexton Blake. "I think not. It was certainly the count, or an accomplice of his, who left the infernal machine here this afternoon. And had it not fallen into the water—that must have damped the content of it—the explosion would have been fifty times more forcible. It would probably have blown poor Mrs. Bardell to fragments, and injured us, and shattered the house."
"It was a fiendish thing to do. Count Severine must have a strong motive for wanting to get rid of you."
"Quite strong enough to prompt him to try to murder me at the risk of his neck. He is afraid that I will keep Miss Ruthven out of his clutches, and also afraid that I am seeking to prove that it was he who stabbed Lord Camelot in tho woods at Queen's Langley."
"He is getting dangerous, guv'nor."
"I am not afraid of him, my boy. He has flung down the gauntlet, and I shall take it up. Hereafter it will be war to the knife between us."
And as the detective spoke his teeth came together with a click, and a hard, cold gleam flashed to his eyes.
"The mystery has deepened since morning," he added. "I wonder what will happen next?"
Pedro had returned to his rug, and Blake and the lad sat down again, the one picking up a book, and the other a newspaper; but the explosion of the infernal machine had unsettled their minds, and their thoughts wandered from what they were trying to read. Tinker presently rose, and bade his master good-night, and went quietly off to bed.
"You had better turn in yourself, guv'nor," he said, as he withdrew. "You need plenty of rest."
It was ten o'clock, and 'buses and cabs rolled less frequently along Baker Street, For a long time there was silence in the room. The hound slumbered on the rug, and Sexton Blake, who had put aside his book, smoked several pipes, and brooded over the events of the past few days, until at length he became drowsy.
He drifted off to sleep, and knew nothing more until he found himself awake, and sitting up in his chair, with the vague echo of some noise ringing in his ears. Pedro also had been roused, and was growling in a low key.
Rat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!!
It was a knock on the street door—a thunderous, imperative knock that vibrated weirdly through the house. In a trice the detective was on his feet, and as he crossed the floor he glanced at the clock, and observed that the time was twenty minutes to twelve. He raised the window and looked out. It was not a late hour for London, but just now Baker Street was wrapped in a mantle of quietude, no sound of wheel or hoof could be heard. It was a dark night, but a change of wind had blown the mist away; and Sexton Blake, peering below, saw the light of a bicycle that was propped against the kerb, and saw on the doorstep a dim, dusky figure. A face, white in the gloom, gazed up at him.
"Is that Mr. Sexton Blake?" a voice inquired.
"Yes, that's right!" the detective answered. "Who is there, and what do you want?"
"You don't know me, sir—my name is Brett. I have a message for you."
"From whom?"
"It was given to me by a man I met at Kew."
"Is it a written message?"
"Yes, sir, it is. Will you come down for it?"
Sexton Blake did not at once reply to the question. He pondered for a moment, vaguely suspicious of this mysterious caller, wondering if he was threatened by some fresh treachery on Count Severine's part. But some subtle instinct seemed to tell him that there was nothing to be feared.
"Yes, I will come down," he said.
He lowered the window, and as be turned away Tinker came into the room. He had slipped on his boots, shirt, and trousers, and was in the act of wriggling into his jacket.
"The rapping wakened me," he said, "and I dressed as quickly as I could. What does it mean?"
"I have no idea," replied the detective. "Somebody has brought me a message from an unknown person."
"You had better be careful, guv'nor."
"I intend to be, my boy, though I imagine it is all right."
As Sexton Blake spoke he took a loaded revolver from a drawer of his desk, and then, followed by Pedro and the lad, he descended the stairs, and lit the gas in the hall, and unlocked and opened the door. His hand was in his pocket, grasping the weapon, but he had no occasion to use it, as he at once perceived. On the step, revealed by the light that shone from within, was a youth of seventeen or eighteen,. neatly dressed in a cycling suit, with an honest, attractive countenance.
"Here you are, sir," he said.
And a folded slip of paper, which appeared to have been torn from a blank envelope, was handed to the detective, who read aloud the few words that had been scribbled on it with a lead pencil, half of them misspelt.
They ran thus:
"Your help is urgently needed on behalf of a young lady who is in danger. If this reaches you, I beg that you will come at once to the Laburnums, Clanmore Gardens, Kew. You will be well paid for your service. I do not sign my name, as I am a stranger to you. I am watching the house, and dare not leave it. I appeal to you, instead of to the police, for a reason which I hope to have an opportunity of explaining to you."
It was a curious communication, and it would have suggested a trap to Sexton Blake had he not been favourably impressed by the messenger.
"How did you happen to get this?" he asked.
"I have been spending the day with a friend at Richmond," the youth replied, "and as I was riding back through Kew I found that one of my tyres was partly down. I got off to pump it up, and as I was doing that a man stepped out from the shadow of a tree at the edge of the pavement, and asked me if I would take a message to you. I told him that I would, and he then wrote on the paper, and gave it to me with a sovereign."
"How did you ascertain my address?"
"The man wrote it down for me, on the other side of the paper."
"Ah, yes, I see! How would you describe this man?"
"He was very tall, sir, and he talked like a foreigner, and he had a grey moustache that stood out from his lips like a brush."
A moustache like a brush! Remembering what their landlady had said to them, Tinker and the detective exchanged glances.
"Where do you live, my lad?" Sexton Blake continued.
"At Islington," the youth answered. "My name is Charlie Brett."
"Clanmore Gardens is off the main road. How did you get there on your homeward ride?"
"I can easily explain that, sir. I took the back road from Richmond—the one that lies towards Sheen—and cut through Clanmore Gardens to get to Kew Bridge."
The explanation was satisfactory, and the detective had no more questions to ask. He tipped a half-sovereign to Charlie Brett, who thanked him warmly, and mounted his bike, and pedalled off towards the Marylebone Road. Sexton Blake shut the door, and went briskly upstairs to the consulting-room.
"It Is a queer business," he declared, "but it is genuine. That young fellow told me the truth. He was not concealing anything."
"That's what I thought about it," said Tinker. "You mean to go to Kew, then?"
"Yes, you and I and Pedro. And without any loss of time. The man who sent me the message is the stranger who called here this morning in great agitation, and his appeal for my assistance is an honest one. As for the young lady, and the danger that threatens her—well, it will be useless to conjecture what the situation is. We shall know before long."
The detective paused, and took from a shelf a large-scale map of London and suburbs, and spread it out on the table.
"Ring up the garage, my boy," he said, "and tell them to send the car round without delay. Then put a collar on, and get our motoring-coats ready. Meanwhile, I'll fix the location of Clanmore Gardens in my mind. It will be prudent, I think, for us to stop a little short of the Laburnums, and approach noiselessly on foot.
"Has it occurred to you that we may be too late?" asked Tinker.
"It naturally has," was the reply, "since at least an hour must have elapsed since young Brett left Kew, and we have eight or nine miles to go."
The telephone message to the garage was obeyed in a marvellously short time, but, brief though the interval was, Sexton Blake and the lad, with the bloodhound, were waiting on the pavement in front of the house, attired for motoring, when the car came dashing down the street, and stopped.
The driver who had brought it jumped out and touched his cap, and walked back towards the Marylebone Road; and before he had gone a dozen yards the vehicle was speeding south, with the detective at the wheel, and Pedro at his feet, And Tinker on the back seat.
Away, they went on their mysterious errand to the southwestern suburbs of the great city, and, twenty minutes later a taxicab whizzed up Baker Street, and stopped in front of Sexton Blake's residence, and from it sprang a young man who was in evening-dress, and wore an opera-hat.
The cab waited, and when the young man had glanced at the first-floor windows of the house, and observed a light there—the detective had carelessly left it burning—he ascended the steps and rang the bell.
The summons remaining unanswered, he began to rap; and when he had been alternately, ringing and pounding for some little time, and was losing his patience and temper, the door down in the area was opened, and a frowsy head enveloped in a night-cap was poked out, and the voice of Mrs. Hardell was lifted querulously:
"Whoever you are at this inearthly 'our," she exclaimed, "you 'aven't no excuse for battering the 'ouse down. So stop it at once, and tell me what you want!"
A Dash to Kew—The Laburnums—The Discovery.
THOUGH the distance to Kew was considerable, it was very quickly covered by Sexton Blake's powerful motor-car. Unhindered by traffic—there was not enough at this hour to impede progress—it shot along the Bayswater Road, and down to Shepherd's Bush, and then on to waken some of the inhabitants of Bedford Park, where it swung off to the highway that is the old Bath Road.
The lights of Chiswick slid past it in a blur, and the lights of Gunnersbury loomed and vanished as it sped on to Kew Bridge, and across the placid Thames, and along the road to Richmond until it was two or three hundred yards beyond Kew Green, when it bore to the left, and presently slowed down, and slid on a little farther, as quietly as possible, and then came to a dead halt in a dark and deserted residential street, the occupants of the houses being evidently all in bed.
There was not a sound to be heard, not even the stealthy footfalls of a prowling constable. The hour and the neighbourhood were ripe for evil deeds, fertile in opportunities.
"Do you know where we are?" asked Tinker, as he stepped to the pavement.
"Yes, I know exactly," replied Sexton Blake, as he and the bloodhound got out of the car. "I have a fair knowledge of the district. Clanmore Gardens is just round the corner to the right, and it will not take us long to find the Laburnums."
"Shall we put the lamps out, guv'nor?"
"No; let them burn. They are not likely to attract any attention, and if they do nothing will be thought of it." The car was left to take care of itself—it was in the deep shadow of overhanging foliage—and the detective and his companions stole forward, and around the corner into Clanmore Gardens. Here was the house of peril, according to the message, but how was it to be found promptly? Sexton Blake solved the problem by producing his pocket electric-lamp, and by a wary use of this, flashing a thin ray of light as he went along, he discovered the place he was looking for on the left, before he had gone twenty yards.
"Here we are," he said, in a low tone. "This is the Laburnums."
"That's right," whispered the lad. "I see the name on the gate. But where is the man who sent the message? He ought to have been watching for us."
"He should have been, my boy, but he evidently is not."
"He may have got into trouble, guv'nor."
"That remains to be seen. At all events, there is somebody at home, if a light may be taken as evidence of that. And now to investigate."
The gate by which the little group had stopped was an ordinary barred one, long and low; and beyond it was a gravelled drive, bordered by trees and shrubbery, that led for fifty or sixty yards, in a gradual sweep, to a two-storied house of stone, partly covered with ivy. At one side could be seen a glimmer of light, shining from a curtained window. It was a place typical of this rural neighbourhood; a first-class, detached residence, with extensive grounds at back and front.
The detective was the first to pass through the gateway, and his attention was at once drawn to a notice-board that was a yard or so to the left of him, leaning against the wall of the garden. He played the glow of his electric-lamp upon it, and perceived a printed placard which advertised in large letters:
"THIS HOUSE TO BE LET FURNISHED."
Sexton Blake glanced at it for a moment, while there dawned in his mind a vague suspicion, born of the statements made to him over the telephone by Lady Melfort.
"What has struck you?" inquired Tinker.
"Nothing in particular," the detective answered. "It merely occurred to me that this board was probably taken down today, and that its removal was simultaneous with the arrival of the people who have taken the house furnished."
"Ah, that is interesting! And it suggests a sort of a theory to me. Do you think it possible that—"
"Don't talk now, my boy. Come along, and be very careful."
The necessity for caution was also impressed upon Pedro, and he made no more noise than a stalking cat as he followed his master and the lad up the drive. They crept furtively on until they were opposite to the front of the house, when they slipped into the shadow of some trees, and from that vantage took a survey. Nothing could be heard, and there was nothing of interest to be seen. There was only the one lighted window, at one side of the door, and no shadowy figures were visible behind the closely-drawn curtains. To the left of the residence was a passage that led round to the rear, and on the right was a small shed that would have accommodated a carriage or a motorcar.
"Well, what do you think of it?" asked Tinker.
"I don't know what to think," the detective replied. "It rather looks as if we were the victims of a practical joke. And yet that is impossible. No; we cannot have been tricked."
"Then where is the man who sent you the message?"
"That is the question, my boy."
As they had not encountered any treachery, and as there was nobody who could have had any object in getting them away from Baker Street for an hour or so, they felt that they could not have been deceived; but, on the other hand, it was difficult for them to believe that any evil was lurking in this pretty, suburban mansion, in the best residential part of Kew. Not a sound came to their ears. An atmosphere of peace and respectability brooded over house and garden, a soothing, restful influence. And yet it was from the street in front of the Laburnums that the urgent message for help had come. Where was the man who had sent it?
"We can't stop here all night," said the lad. "What shall we do?"
"I hardly know," replied Sexton Blake. "I am puzzled, mystified. But there is one thing that we must take into consideration. It is rather curious that somebody should be sitting up—the lighted window evidently means that—at so late an hour, in a neighbourhood where the people usually go to bed early."
"There is something in that, guv'nor. I wish we could get into the house."
"Perhaps we can, my boy."
As the detective spoke he stepped out from the shadow of the trees, and with Tinker and the dog at his heels he stole forward to the door, which, as he perceived to his surprise as he drew near, was not entirely shut. He boldly pushed it, and it swung inward to his touch, revealing an ominous discovery. There could be no doubt that the door had been forced open, and that recently, for the lock had been torn from its fastenings, and was hanging loosely by one screw.
"By Jove!" muttered the lad.
"Ah, this is significant!" whispered Sexton Blake.
For a feW seconds they paused on the step, looking into a luxuriously-furnished hall where a gas jet was burning dimly. They could hear nothing, not the faintest sound. There was something uncanny in the hushed silence, suggesting to them a house of mystery and crime. Prudence bade them withdraw, but curiosity urged them on. Pedro whimpered, and looked at his master.
"Come," said the detective, as he took his revolver from his pocket.
And in he went, followed by Tinker and the hound. Warily they crept along the hall, stopping for an instant to look into an apartment on the left, the one with the lighted window that they had seen from the outside. Finding nobody there—it was the drawing-room—they passed on to the end of the hall, and opened a door, and entered the room beyond; and here, at a sweeping glance, they made a startling discovery, and perceived signs of a struggle. The apartment was the dining-room, and over a table that appeared to have been laid for breakfast, a shaded lamp was burning, casting a ruddy glow on a broken vase on the floor, and on two chairs that had been upset, and on the prostrate, motionless form of a man who lay on his back by the fireplace. A poker was lying near him, and a dark stream had trickled from a wound on his head, and formed a pool on the carpet.
"By heavens, we have come too late!" gasped the lad. "This looks like murder!"
"I am afraid it is!" Sexton Blake declared hoarsely.
A Mystery—What Pedro Found—Who Comes?
PEDRO squatted on his haunches, and lifted his massive head, and uttered a long, low whine, which was cut short by an imperative word from his master. Gripped by a numbing horror, by a fear of they knew not what, Tinker and Sexton Blake stood for several seconds clutching their revolvers, listening intently, glancing at each other with pallid faces.
"Can there be anybody in the house?" murmured the lad.
"Probably not; but we can't be sure," Sexton Blake replied.
Relieved by the silence, they crossed to the fireplace, and bent over the person who lay there with closed eyes, with a lacerated wound on his skull. He was a powerful man of about sixty, with a florid complexion, a grey moustache that was like the bristles of a brush, and was wearing clothes that were obviously of foreign cut.
"He is not dead," said the detective, when he had made a hasty examination. "He has been badly hurt, but his heart is beating, and the chances are that he will recover. His pockets have been rifled," he went on, as he searched them. "They are quite empty. Everything has been taken from him. And where is his hat? Is that gone, too? Yes, it has disappeared. It is not in the room."
"Why would that have been carried off?" asked Tinker.
"No doubt for the same reason that the pockets were emptied. To hide the poor fellow's identity. ' He was not robbed for the sake of gain. This is no ordinary crime."
"I can see that. It is a maze of mystery. Of course, this is the man who called at Baker Street this morning, and afterwards sent the message by that boy."
"He must be. That is right."
"1 suppose he is a stranger to you, guv'nor?"
"Yes, he is," said Sexton Blake. "I have never laid eyes on him before. Wait here, Tinker, while I have a look about," he added. "I sha'n't be long. Come, Pedro."
A moment later the lad was alone with the unconscious victim of a murderous assault. Sexton Blake had left the room, accompanied by the dog, and when he returned—he was absent for only a brief time—he announced that the house was deserted.
"It is quite empty," he said. "There are no letters or papers, and no signs of a struggle, no disorder anywhere but here. There is a sitting-room upstairs, with music on the piano, and fresh flowers in vases and bowls."
"Is there nothing to show who lived here?" inquired Tinker.
"Yes, there is. One bedchamber has been in use—a double one—and the occupants of it have been two women, to judge from the toilet articles on the dressing-table.
"Two women? And they have disappeared?"
"Utterly!"
"Could they have committed this assault, guv'nor?"
"No, that is not at all likely," was the answer.
"Then how do you account for it?" asked the lad. "Who could have—"
"Try to guess," interrupted Sexton Blake, who, although he was concealing nothing, had already formed a shrewd theory. "We'll be off now," he added. "We will go to the police-station first, and bring a couple of constables back with us, and leave it to them to see that this poor fellow is conveyed to the Richmond Hospital. And then, late though it is, we'll hunt up the agent who had charge of this house. I want to know without delay what he can tell me about his tenants."
A cushion having been placed under the wounded man's head, and the lamp turned low, Tinker and the detective withdrew from the room, and passed out to the garden, shutting the door behind them; and as they were walking down the drive they heard a sound that startled them, and brought them to a halt—a muffled groan that seemed to come from no great distance on the left.
At once Pedro bounded into a clump of shrubbery near the edge of the drive, and uttered an eager yelp; and when his companions had joined him, and Sexton Blake had flashed on the light of his electric-lamp, they were amazed to see—and more than amazed to recognise—a man who was lying there gagged and bound, trussed up like a fowl.
"It is Inspector Widgeon!" exclaimed the lad.
"By Jove, so it is!" declared Sexton Blake.
They were right. The prisoner on the shrubbery was their old friend the Scotland Yard inspector, and when his fetters had been cut and the handkerchief taken from his mouth, and his rescuers had helped him to totter into the hall of the house, he indulged in a flow of language that was at first incoherent.
"Where are they?" he cried, growing a little calmer. "Where are the scoundrels?"
"They are not here," replied the detective. "Your assailants have disappeared. But what does this mean, Widgeon? What brought you to the Laburnums?"
"And what brought you here, Blake?"
"I asked the question first."
"Well, you won't get much of an answer," snapped Inspector Widgeon. "I meant to take you in with me when I called at your place this morning, but I changed my mind afterwards. I don't mind telling you, though, that I am on the track of a certain young lady' who disappeared, with a girl companion, from a certain house in London. After I left Baker Street I set to work on my own hook, and learned where the young lady had been staying—I had a clue to assist me in that—and ultimately found a cabby who had driven the girl and her companion to the Laburnums, Clanmore Gardens, Kew. I came here tonight to make sure that the cabby's information was correct, and as I was lurking about the house two men rushed out and attacked me, and gave me a stunning blow on the head. And I remembered nothing more until I came to my senses a few minutes ago."
"This is very interesting," said Sexton Blake. "And now let me ask if the young lady to whom you refer is Miss Sonia Ruthven?"
"She—she is!" gasped the inspector, staring in bewilderment.
"I thought so."
"Where is she, Blake? Is she here?"
"No; she and her friend have been carried off, and, no doubt, by Count Severine and an accomplice. Does that greatly surprise you?"
"Not very much, I admit. I have been warned against Count Severine."
"By Lady Melfort?" inquired the detective.
"No. I am not acting on behalf of Lady Melfort," Inspector Widgeon answered. "The matter was entrusted to Scotland Yard, under pledge of secrecy, and put into my hands."
"Before or after Miss Ruthven disappeared from Grosvenor Square?"
"Before. It was last night that I received instructions to find the girl; and today I made inquiries at Lady Melfort's residence, because her name had been mentioned to me as being a friend of Miss Ruthven. But how does it happen that you know so much?"
"Never mind about that," replied Sexton Blake. "You are working for one client, and I for another. You have declined to give me your confidence, and I won't ask for it again. For my part, however, I will he frank with you. I have nothing to conceal."
Continuing, the detective told briefly of the mysterious man who had called at Baker Street; of the message that the youth Brett had brought there late at night; and of all that had transpired since. And then, while Inspector Widgeon was expressing his amazement at the narrative, he was led into the dining-room, and asked if he could identify the person who was lying there unconscious.
"No, I can't," he said, at the first glance. "The man is a stranger to me. I have never seen him before."
"Are you sure that he is not the individual who appealed to Scotland Yard to find Miss Ruthven?" inquired tho detective.
"Yes; I am quite sure of that. Perhaps he is Count Severine?"
"No. The count is a much younger man."
"Then I am utterly at fault, Blake, as you are," declared the inspector. "This is a mystery."
"A mystery of the deepest kind," assented Sexton Blake, shrugging his shoulders. And yet you might be able to throw some light on it."
"I honestly could not, even if I were to tell you the name of my client. And that I cannot do."
"Well, suit yourself, Widgeon. I wish you luck, though I imagine that it will be I who will find the girl in the end."
There was an interval of silence. It had been a night of surprises, and Sexton Blake had seldom been more bewildered than he was now. It was not that the case itself was complex, for he held several threads which, he believed. would prove of value. What had roused his curiosity, and was now baffling him, were these two fresh mysteries that had cropped up. Mechanically, not aware that he was doing it, he took his pipe from his pocket, stuffed the bowl with tobacco, and set it alight.
"What about Lord Camelot?" suggested Tinker. "Inspector Widgeon may be acting for him."
"You are welcome to think so," murmured the inspector.
"Nonsense, my boy!" Sexton Blake said sharply. Your remark is a stupid one! Until this morning, Lord Camelot knew where the girl was; and after learning that she had disappeared, he came to Baker Street, with the intention, no doubt, of asking me to find her."
"I forgot that he knew," replied the lad.
Blake paced to and fro, his hands in his pockets, puffing a cloud of smoke. What did it all mean? He was less interested in Inspector Widgeon's unknown client—curious though that subject was in itself—than in this man of mystery who lay here insensible. There was an undercurrent, deep down, that he was keenly anxious to fathom. And Widgeon, naturally, felt much as the detective did.
"This beats me!" he declared.
"We are both at fault," Sexton Blake answered. "To a certain extent, the situation is fairly clear, though what I can surmise of it does not in the least tend to show what this man's object was. It would seem, however, that he had some reason of his own—some reason that had no connection with your client's motive, Widgeon—for wishing to find Miss Sonia Ruthven."
"I agree with you, of course. If only we had a clue to the man's identity! It is my opinion that he is a foreigner."
"That has been my opinion from the first. To resume, he arrived in England for the purpose of looking for the girl, and, having doubtless heard of me professionally, he came to my house this morning to obtain my assistance in his quest, and departed without seeing me. Meanwhile, I think we may safely infer, Count Severine had been keeping a watch on Lady Melfort's residence in Grosvenor Square, and thus he learned where Miss Ruthven and her friend went to after their secret flight to this house, which they had taken furnished. He probably followed them to Kew, came back to town to make arrangements for the plan he had formed, and then fell under the surveillance of this man of mystery, who, I imagine, suspected the count of having designs against the girl, and in the course of the day ascertained where he lived in London."
"I can guess the rest," put in Inspector Widgeon.
"You should be able to, with the lead I have given you," replied the detective. "It is to be assumed that when Count Severine returned to the Laburnums tonight, with his unknown accomplice, he was shadowed by this stranger. The two men effected an entrance to the house, and the stranger, having concluded that Miss Ruthven was here, and that she was in danger, sent me that urgent message by a boy, who came along on a bicycle. While he was keeping watch and waiting for me, a cry for help, or something of that sort, led him to break into the house, with the result that he received this wound. And subsequently the two girls were carried off by the count and his accomplice, who rifled the man's pockets and took his hat, because they knew who he was, and did not want his identity to be discovered."
"You have worked it out cleverly, Blake—and, no doubt, correctly. It is a most amazing and bewildering state of affairs. Having given Lady Melfort the slip, and come here only this morning, Miss Ruthven has fallen into the power of the very men she wished to hide from. I am certain that she and her friend have been kidnapped by Count Severine and an accomplice. But in what manner? How were they taken away?"
"I suggest that the kidnappers arrived in a motor-car, Widgeon. It was probably standing in the garden at the time when you had the misfortune to be—"
Sexton Blake broke off abruptly, his eye caught by something under the table that glittered. He stooped, picked Up a small, oblong gold locket, and snapped it open.
"What have you got there?" inquired Inspector Widgeon, in a voice in which there was a note of anxiety.
"Only a locket, which must have been lost by one of the young ladies," the detective answered.
"Anything in it?"
"Nothing at all. It is empty."
"Is there an inscription on it, Blake?"
"No; there is no inscription—no word, not a single letter."
"Perfectly plain, is it?" asked the inspector, in a tone of relief.
Sexton Blake, who had slipped the locket into his waist coat pocket, did not answer the last question, nor did he seem inclined to do so. He hesitated for an instant, and then, as he was about to speak, a low growl from the bloodhound called attention to a rumbling noise that was audible in the distance.
"Hark!" bade the detective.
"It sounds as if somebody was stealing our car," muttered Tinker.
The noise swelled rapidly nearer and louder; and when at length it ceased abruptly, out in the road, it appeared to be obvious that a motor vehicle of some kind had stopped in front of the Laburnums.
"What does that mean?" exclaimed Widgeon. "Who can be coming here at this hour of the night?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said the lad, "if Count Severine and his accomplice had come back to get the wounded man."
"It is possible that they have," Sexton Blake eagerly replied. "At all events, I can't think of any other explanation. We must be on our guard," he added.
And with that he drew his revolver, and led the way from the room.
A New Arrival—Pedro Makes Another Find—The Escape.
IF the arrivals were Count Severine and his accomplice? and it seemed likely that such was the case—would they not first look into the shrubbery, and discover the escape of the prisoner they had left there gagged and bound? And if they did so they would, of course, retreat at once.
This question promptly occurred to the detective, and as promptly he abandoned his intention of setting a trap for the men n the house. He shut the dining-room door, and extinguished the light in the hall; and then, having opened the front door to a narrow extent, he and his companions slipped out one by one, screened by the darkness. And they were none too soon, for as they paused in a group, just beyond the door, they heard footsteps crunching on gravel, and saw the figure of a single man approaching up the drive.
"Only one of them," whispered the lad.
"Cover him with your pistol, Blake!" urged Inspector Widgeon. "Be quick!"
Sexton Blake had the revolver in one hand, and was grasping the hound's collar in the other. He raised the weapon, levelled it, and then let his arm drop to his side.
"It is only Lord Camelot," he said, in a tone of disappointment.
He was right. It was the young lord who was approaching, and a moment later he stopped by the little party, peered at them closely, and recognised the detective.
"Ah, here you are, Mr. Blake!" he said gladly. "I was afraid I would miss you. I came out from town in a taxi cab as fast as I could."
"And how on earth did you know where to find me?" Sexton Blake asked, in surprise.
"I got the information when I went to your place, from your landlady. While I was knocking she popped her head out of the area door, and asked me what I wanted. And then she told me that somebody had brought you a message not long before—it seems that she had listened at the kitchen window—and that you and your assistant and the dog had gone off in your car to the Laburnums, Clanmore Gardens, Kew. So here I am."
"As I perceive," the detective said drily. "But why did you call at my house at so late an hour of the night? And why have you followed me here?"
"I—I am afraid I have been foolish and impulsive," Lord Camelot replied, in a faltering voice. "I have been in great distress all day, ever since I learned that Miss Ruthven had disappeared this morning from Lady Melfort's house. I wanted your help. I wanted you to find the girl as soon as possible, before any harm could come to her. You were not at home when I called this afternoon, so I went again tonight, late though it was. And I was so anxious to see you that I followed you to Kew. I hope you are not angry.'
"No; I am not angry," said Sexton Blake. "I know how you feel, and I can sympathise with you. But I regret that you did not go to your chambers, and wait until morning to see me, instead of doing this foolish thing. Now that you are here, however, I will take you into my confidence, and tell you that—"
"Look at Pedro!" interrupted Tinker. "What is he up to, guv'nor?"
The question drew general attention to the bloodhound, who had trotted aimlessly off a moment before; and was now sniffing and scratching at the double doors of the shed that was to one side of the house.
"He is after a rat," suggested Inspector Widgeon.
"No; it is more than that," answered the detective.
"Can it be possible that there's somebody in there?"
Pedro had now lifted his head, and was giving vent to a deep and angry bay; and the next instant, to the amazement of Blake and the others, there was a rattling, churning noise, the doors of the shed flew open with a crash, and out shot a big motor-car, its lamps not burning.
"Stop them!" bawled the lad. "Stop them!"
It would have been as easy to stop the wind. The car had gathered a fair impetus before it burst out of the shed, and, with increasing speed, it cut straight across a corner of the lawn, revealing to the half-dazed group, as it whizzed by them, the vague figures of two men and two other forms that were muffled in wraps.
"By heavens, the kidnappers!" gasped the inspector.
"Count Severine and his accomplice!" exclaimed Sexton Blake. "They have the two girls with them! Save Miss Ruthven!"
"Miss Ruthven!" cried Lord Camelot, in frantic distress. "Is Sonia there? After the scoundrels! After them!"
The clamour, swelling louder, mingled with frantic baying from the hound, who was in pursuit of the fugitives, followed by the detective and his companions. But not even Pedro could overtake the car, which had swung from the sward on to the gravelled drive, and kept the lead to the low gate, which it demolished as if it had been matchwood. It was out in the road now, and as it turned, almost grazing the taxicab that was standing there, a red flash was seen, and at the same instant were heard the crack of a revolver and a muffled explosion.
The dog, still baying, was the first to leap through the shattered gateway. He paused, and looked at his master, who had come next, and had hastened to the side of the taxicab.
"Are you hurt?" he demanded of the chauffeur.
"No, sir, I'm all right," replied the man, who was badly frightened. "They didn't fire at me. They shot at one of the tyres, and burst it."
"So you couldn't chase them," said Sexton Blake. "They think they are safe, but they have me to reckon with."
"There they go!" put in the young lord, as he hurried to the spot. "And Sonia with them! What is to be done, Mr. Blake? By heavens, what is to be done? This is maddening? That poor girl in the count's power! If a hair of her head is harmed—"
"Save your breath and come with me," interrupted the detective. "We stand more than a chance of catching the rascals, for my motor-car is close by. Come, Camelot! Be quick!"
It had all transpired in so brief a time that the car containing the kidnappers and their victims was by now no more than a hundred yards away. Running in the other direction, Sexton Blake reached the corner in the space of about twenty seconds, and whipped around it, and extinguished the lamps of his car, into which he then sprang. Pedro leapt after him, and on top of the dog piled Lord Camelot and Tinker, and while the three were sorting themselves out, the vehicle described a half-circle, and dived into Clanmore Gardens, and made a bee-line for Inspector Widgeon; who, more tardy than the others—he had not at once followed them—was now pelting along the middle of the street. He paused, and waved his arms.
"Stop, Blake!" he cried. "Stop and take me in!"
"Can't do it—no time!" shouted the detective. "Go back to house—send for police—take man to hospital! Get out of the way, you blockhead, or I'll—"
The rest of the sentence was drowned by an indignant howl of rage from Inspector Widgeon, who saved his toes from being crushed by an agile jump, as the car flashed by him. On it went like a meteor, past the crippled taxicab, and past the Laburnums, where the mysterious stranger lay; through Clanmore Gardens, and along a couple of similar streets, and then into the main road leading from Kew to Richmond. And now, with a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, Sexton Blake pointed ahead, calling attention to a moving object in the distance—a moving black dot that was briefly visible in the glow cast from a lamppost. It melted into the gloom, and was gone.
"That was the other car, on its way to Richmond," said the detective. "I had an idea that it would take this course, and I was right. If those scoundrels had meant to go through London they would have turned in that direction at first."
"Are you sure it was the right car we saw?" asked Lord Camelot.
"Yed, it could not have been any other, for its lamps were out; no light was playing ahead of it."
"Are we likely to overhaul it?"
"I think so. I am fairly confident."
"Then I'll try not to worry," said the young nobleman, in a tone of relief. "But the thought of Sonia in the power of those ruffians is almost more than I can bear. I love her, Mr. Blake."
"I know you do," murmured Sexton Blake. "I know more than you imagine I do, my dear fellow. But we won't speak of that now. You are, no doubt, curious to have an explanation of—"
"There's the car again, guv'nor," broke in the lad.
"I saw it," replied the detective, "and I could swear that it was a little nearer than it was before. We are doing well, my boy. We will resume our conversation later, Lord Camelot," he added. "I am going to put on more speed, and that will call for my undivided attention."
The Two Cars—A Cunning Trick—The End of the Chase.
AS a breeze had blown the mist entirely away, and as a silvery moon had now risen above the horizon, the chances were in favour of Sexton Blake, in spite of the fact that the car he was chasing had no lights, as was the case with his own car. He had extinguished the lamps so that he might get as near as possible to the fugitives, but it was evident before Richmond was reached, that they were aware of the fact that they were being pursued, or that they at least suspected it, from the rate of speed at which they drove. Heedless of the risk, however, the detective drove not only fast, but even a little faster; for when Kew Gardens had been passed he was within three hundred yards of the other car, and he further lessened the gap, during the race through the old town. At this late hour there were no trams, no 'buses or cabs, no traffic of any kind. Here and there constables appeared, and shouted indignantly, but no heed was paid to them by either pursued or pursuers.
Over Richmond Bridge went the two vehicles, and by St. Margaret's to Twickenham, and then by a course that followed the tram-lines towards Hampton. Meanwhile, in the last half-mile, the space between the cars had diminished to about two hundred yards, and had stuck at that; the fugitives did not gain, nor did the pursuers lose. And now, the strain having been relaxed, Sexton Blake took an easier grip of the wheel, and leaned back in a comfortable attitude.
"I know what that means," said Tinker. "You feel that you've as good as got the men."
"We haven't got them yet," replied the detective, "but there is about one chance in a hundred of their being able to give us the slip. I'm not anxious. I'll have them in the end, if I don't burst a tyre. They can't leave my car behind, and they can't swerve off to right or left without my seeing them. I'll wake them up presently, and they will either have to increase their speed, or let me come alongside of them."
"I wonder where they are bound for, guv'nor?"
"Possibly on an aimless course, my boy, though it is more likely that they have some destination in view—some place at which they have made arrangements for keeping the young ladies they have carried off."
"Why do you suppose they have been kidnapped?"
"The Count's object, I presume, is to try to force Miss Ruthven to marry him."
"It must be that, of course," put in Lord Camelot. "By heavens, I wish I had my hands on the scoundrel! But can there be any doubt as to one of them being Count Severine?"
"Not the slightest, in my opinion," Sexton Blake answered. "The count is in that car, and he probably has with him his friend Captain Sang, of the Ruritanian Embassy."
"And the two girls?"
"Oh, yes, they are there! Gagged and bound, I suspect, or perhaps drugged."
"What a daring outrage!" exclaimed the young nobleman. "I can scarcely credit it, Mr. Blake. Nor do I know much about it, as a matter of fact. What took you to Kew? What occurred before I joined you there?"
"Several things of an interesting nature," said the detective. "I'll tell you about them now, while I have the opportunity."
And continuing, he briefly related all that had happened, from the time he received the message at Baker Street to the arrival of the taxicab at the Laburnums; and the narrative, as may be imagined, both interested and bewildered Lord Camelot.
"There is a lot of mystery about this," he declared. "Three persons, acting independently of one another, appear to have been trying to find Miss Ruthven during the day. Yourself, Inspector Widgeon, and the stranger who has been hurt. I can't make head or tail of it."
"Nor can I, to be candid," replied Sexton Blake. "It is an extraordinary combination of circumstances, investing Miss Sonia Ruthven with a halo of romance."
"Poor Sonia! How she must be suffering, if she is conscious! By the way, how do you account for the scoundrels being in that shed all the time?"
"I have been waiting for you or Tinker to ask that question. The explanation is simple, I think. On arriving at the Laburnums the men ran their car into the shed, and subsequently, when they had placed the girls in it, and were ready to start, they discovered that something was wrong with the machinery. When I turned up with Tinker and the dog, and during the interval that followed, the men were trying to repair the defect, which they at length succeeded in doing. And they probably waited for some time after that, thinking it best to remain in hiding, until Pedro smelt them out, and bayed at them, and thus forced them to make a bold break."
"My word, to think that we had them cornered, and didn't know it!" exclaimed the lad.
"It is an aggravating reflection," said Sexton Blake. "I am pretty sure, however, that we are going to retrieve the chance we lost. The game is in our hands."
He paused, and bent his keen gaze on the other car, which was clearly visible in the moonlight. The fugitives were about the same distance ahead, and were running like the wind. For a few minutes no one in the pursuing vehicle spoke. The young lord had not made any allusion to the duel he had been prevented from fighting, but it was evident that any resentment he had nursed against the detective had abated.
The fleet air rushed by. Richmond was miles in the rear. Hampton loomed in front, and slid by in a blurred trail of gloom, and next came Sunbury. Then Shepperton, and the Thames, and a dash over the bridge. The pursuers had now gained perceptibly. No more than 150 yards divided the two cars, and this space gradually lessened. Terror must by now have marked for its prey the audacious villains who had given Inspector Widgeon a rap on the head, and seriously injured the mysterious stranger, and carried off Sonia Ruthven and her friend.
"They are heading for Chertsey," said the lad.
"It looks like it," assented Sexton Blake; "but I doubt if they will get that far."
"Will we soon overhaul them, do you think?" asked Lord Camelot.
"I predict," replied the detective, "that we will be alongside of them in the next mile."
He was wrong, however. When he increased his speed the fugitives did the same, having had some power in reserve, and thus the chase was prolonged, the intervening distance remaining at something less than one hundred yards. The straggling village of Chertsey was left behind, and from that point the two cars held to the narrow and winding road that leads through lonely country, to the little town of Staines. Still on they sped, now and again hidden from each other by the curves; and at length, when nearly half of the distance to Staines had been covered, the lad uttered a sharp exclamation.
He had observed in the road, not far ahead, half a dozen glittering objects and they were as quickly perceived by Sexton Blake, who at once realised what they meant, and tried to avert the danger; he decreased the speed—which prevented what might have been a nasty spill—but more than that he could not do. There was a sudden report, and the car, with one of its tyres burst, swerved to the left, ran into the hedge, and stopped.
"What caused that?" inquired Lord Camelot, as he and his companions jumped out.
"Glass," answered the detective. "Those scoundrels must have had some bottles with them, and they broke them up, and threw the fragments into the road."
"That's done it!" Tinker said angrily. "We have a spare tyre, but by the time we get it on those fellows will be out of our reach."
For several moments they looked at one another in keen disappointment, listening to the whizzing noise of the retreating car; and then, as the sound abruptly ceased, suggesting to them that the kidnappers had met with some disaster, they set off as fast as they could on foot, Sexton Blake and the lad with drawn revolvers. And when they had gone for more than a quarter of a mile—they had lost some little time before they started—Blake and Tinker swung round a curve, and saw the fugitive car within a dozen yards of them, standing in the middle of the road.
It was empty, deserted, and nothing could seen or heard of the occupants. Count Severine and his accomplice had disappeared, taking the two girls with them.
"What infernal luck!" cried Lord Camelot. "We should have had them just here but for our own mishap! They have burst a tyre!"
"It was not burst accidentally," said the detective, as he scrutinised it. A knife has been jabbed into it, I'll swear."
"A knife? Why would they have done that?"
"In order to deceive us. To make us believe that it was from compulsion, not from choice, that they abandoned the car here. It was a very cunning ruse."
"I can see through it, guv'nor," declared the lad. "At least, I think I can.'
"So can I," replied Sexton Blake. "I have a strong suspicion, and I will now try to ascertain if it is correct or not. Find them, Pedro!" he added, turning to the hound. "Hunt them up, old fellow! Where have they gone to?"
Pedro was an uncommonly sagacious animal, and, in such a case as this, it was not necessary to put him on the trail by giving him some clue that he could smell. Understanding what was expected of him, he sniffed about the road for a few seconds, and then trotted over to a gate, at which he scratched. He whimpered, and looked at his master, who opened the gate, and stepped through into a field, followed by Tinker and the young lord.
"Has he got the scent?" inquired the latter.
"Yes, and he will hold to it as far as it goes," the detective answered.
It was a short chase, and it ended as Sexton Blake had feared it would. With lowered muzzle, leading the way, the bloodhound trotted across the field, and slipped through a belt of trees and shrubbery, and paused on the gravelly foreshore of the Thames, at the edge of the water. He squatted there, and glanced up at the detective, and whined mournfully.
"I thought so," said Sexton Blake, shrugging his shoulders. "They have eluded us."
"How?" exclaimed the young nobleman. "What has become of them? Have they escaped by swimming?"
"They got away in a boat, my dear fellow. There are traces to show that one has been moored here."
"Yes, I see. There is a cleft in the gravel."
"Which somebody has attempted to smooth over, by the way," murmured the detective.
"We have certainly had a run of bad luck," grumbled Tinker, "and this is the knock-out."
"I don't regard it in that light, my boy."
"Why not, guv'nor?"
Sexton Blake did not reply. There was in his eyes a half-amused expression, a gleam of elation. All stood there in silence, straining their ears, looking up and down, and across the river; but not the faintest dip of oars was to be heard, there was no sign of a boat on the limpid surface of the water, which glowed like burnished silver in the rays of the moon.
"We should not have exposed ourselves," said the detective. "I hope we have not been seen. It is not likely, though, for we are in shadow."
And he made a gesture to his companions, who followed him through the trees and thickets, back to the field. Lord Camelot, who had been trying to control his feelings, now fairly broke down. He railed passionately against Count Severine, threatening what he would do to him; and then, with tears in his eyes, he deplored Sonia Ruthven's distressing plight.
"She is the only girl I ever loved, or ever will love!" he said hoarsely. "If I lose her, if she is forced to marry that ruffian Severine, I sha'n't care what becomes of me. I'll leave England, and go out to the Colonies, and—"
"Cheer up, my dear fellow!" broke in Sexton Blake, slapping him on the shoulder. "You are not going to lose Miss Ruthven. It is obvious, since the count and his accomplice had a boat ready for them here, that they have taken the girls to some place not far off—to a furnished cottage by the river, or, perhaps, to a houseboat. And, as they probably believe that they have deceived us by jabbing a hole in the tyre, and as it would not likely have occurred to them that my dog could have followed their scent to the water, we may assume that they are under the impression that they are quite safe. I'll ferret them out. I'll put you on their trail tomorrow, Tinker. Come along," he added, we'll return to our car, and get the spare tyre on it, and stop at the Laburnums on the way back to town."
The Search—Tinker's Mishap—The Dumb Messenger.
ON the following morning, while the stranger who had been injured at the Laburnums was lying unconscious in a hospital at Richmond, and the rural police were seeking for the owner of the motor-car that had been found abandoned on the road between Chertsey and Staines, Sexton Blake got into the correct attire for a call in Mayfair, and was conveyed in a hansom to Grosvenor Square, to have a talk with Lady Melfort. And meanwhile, Tinker, who had received certain instructions, had gone off to Waterloo with the bloodhound, and was on his way down to Staines by rail, alone in a first-class compartment.
"Let me see, what are my orders?" he said to himself. "I hope I haven't forgotten anything. I am to inquire about houseboats and furnished houses, and what I do next will depend on what I learn. If it comes to a trip on the river, I am to keep Pedro out of sight—it was on that condition I was allowed to bring him with me. It would not do for the dog to be seen; but it don't matter so much about me, as it is not likely that I could be identified by either of those scoundrels. That's what the guv'nor told me, and he ought to know. It would be better, all the same, if I was disguised."
As the lad had breakfasted early, and left Baker Street immediately afterwards, it was only ten o'clock in the morning when he arrived at Staines. He called upon all the house-agents in the little town, and then, going to the river, he interviewed various boatmen. But it was a blank cover that he drew, greatly to his disappointment. So far as he was able to learn, nobody had taken a furnished house or cottage in the vicinity during the past month; nor, at the present time, were there any houseboats lying between Staines and Chertsey.
"I had hoped for better luck," he reflected; "but it doesn't follow, from what I have been told, that Count Severine and his accomplice, and the kidnapped girls, are not in the neighbourhood. On the contrary, it is a hundred to one they are. I'll have a look round before I go home to report. I'll pull down to Chertsey, and pay somebody there to fetch the boat back."
It was a calm and beautiful day, with a purple haze in the air, and the prospect of a river trip was alluring to Tinker, who was soon afloat in a trim little craft that he had hired. With his back against a cushioned rest, and the bloodhound stretched flat in the stern in front of him, he bent leisurely to the oars until Staines had vanished behind him, when he relaxed his languid efforts.
"I'll take it easy," he thought. "There is no need to hurry."
Keeping his eyes open, and scanning both banks, he went on for two or three miles, alternately rowing and letting the boat drift at its own sweet will, and meanwhile observing nothing that appeared to call for more than a casual glance. He was now on a lonely reach of the Thames, and in mid-stream. An island loomed ahead, and when he had swung by the greater part of it, he happened to look over to the shore on his right, and there he perceived something that sent a thrill to his heart.
It was a white houseboat, nestled back in an inlet that was overhung by trees; and as the lad was regarding it curiously, feeling that he had made an important discovery, a splashing noise fell on his ear and caused him to look to the left, when he saw that he had just passed the lower point of the island, and that another boat, containing a single man, was gliding towards him from a distance of half a dozen yards.
"My word, here's the deuce to pay!" he muttered. "I'm in for it, and no mistake!"
The man was Count Severine, and as he shot a glance at Tinker—a glance of obvious recognition—Pedro rose up, and bared his teeth, and uttered a vicious snarl. And the next instant, in almost less time than it takes to tell, the count had jerked at the oars, and driven his craft broadside against the other one, which at once tipped over, and flung its occupants into the water. The count had unshipped an oar, and was on his feet, a sinister gleam in his eyes.
"Help, help!" burst hoarsely from Tinker's lips, though he' knew that there was no assistance to be had. "You scoundrel—"
The oar fell, choking the lad's voice, and beating him down beneath the surface. Another blow, aimed at Pedro, struck the dog with considerable force as he was swimming towards his young master; and a moment later, as Tinker rose and caught a glimpse of the bloodhound drifting away on the tide, the oar again descended on his head. As through a mist he saw the mocking, evil face of Count Severine glowering at him, and then, a wave of unconsciousness sweeping over him, he remembered nothing more.
IN the course of the day Sexton Blake saw Lady Melfort and Lord Camelot, and had a short talk with Inspector Widgeon at Scotland Yard, and went to the Richmond Hospital in the vain hope of getting some information from the injured man, who was still insensible, though the house surgeon stated that he would probably recover.
It was a day practically wasted, for when the detective returned to Baker Street—between six and seven o'clock in the evening—he had learned nothing to throw the least light on the mysterious case that had now completely absorbed him. It had taken such a grip of him, indeed, that for half an hour he sat thinking of it, wondering what was the secret of Sonia Ruthven's magnetic personality, before it occurred to him that there were some grounds for anxiety because of Tinker's prolonged absence.
"I had almost forgotten the lad," he said to himself, as a vague fear seized him. "I hope he has not come to grief. He went off after breakfast this morning, and he should have been back by—"
His reflections were cut short by a noise from the street. He heard a dull thump, and a sound of scratching, followed by low whining and yelping. He listened for a moment, while the sinister meaning of all this dawned upon him; and then, springing to his feet, he hastened from the room, and ran down the staircase to the hall, and opened the door. And the next instant Pedro was leaping upon him, and barking huskily, and licking his hand. There was a bruise on the dog's head, and it was evident that he had been immersed in water, and that he had come through some rough country, for his whole body was damp under a coating of dust, and a number of briars were sticking to him.
"Where is Tinker?" cried Sexton Blake. "Where is he, old fellow?"
By a mournful whimper, and a wistful glance from his brown eyes, Pedro gave ominous answer. He whined and yelped, and continued to fawn upon his master, who could not be blind to the significance of the hound's return under such circumstances. A throb of anguish coursed to his brain, and an icy clasp seemed to have fastened on his heart. "The worst has happened!" he groaned. "It can mean nothing else. Why did I let Tinker go on that dangerous errand? He doubtless found some clue that took him on the river, and led him into the clutches of Count Severine and his accomplice. The boat was upset, and Pedro escaped by swimming, and the poor lad must have been—"
Was it the dog what made that noise at the door, sir?" broke in the panting voice of the landlady, who had waddled to the top of the area steps. "'E woke me from a nap—I—I mean he disturbed me when I was putting the dinner in the oven. But 'e. 'asn't come 'ome alone, surely? Where is Master Tinker?"
"I don't know," replied the detective; making an effort to pull himself together. He is probably all right—I hope so. Take Pedro to the kitchen, and give him a good feed," he added. "Be quick, for I shall want him presently, when I come back with the motor-car."
"'E shall 'aye all 'e can eat, sir, and from 'is looks 'e needs it. But what of Master Tinker? Why didn't 'e—"
Mrs. Bardell paused, not taking the trouble to finish the sentence, for her master had left the house, and was hurrying up Baker Street as fast as he could, on his way to the garage in the Marylebone Road.
On the Scent—The Alarm in the Night—The Burning Houseboat.
WHEN Sexton Blake returned, in the course of a few minutes, the pallor of his complexion, and the hard, cold set of his features, were the only signs of the grief that was gnawing at his heart. He stopped only long enough to put a loaded revolver into his pocket, and then, taking the bloodhound into the car with him, he set off on his quest, with a vague plan of action in his mind.
"First to Staines," he reflected. "That will be the starting-point. I shall learn something there."
Impelled by the dread that he could not get rid of—a dread that was tempered by the most meagre glimmer of hope—he drove as he had seldom driven before. Heedless of constables who shouted at him, he winged his course down to Chiswick, and on to Hounslow, and from there by the long, dusty road to Staines, where he arrived after nightfall.
Having left the car at a garage near the station, he jumped into a cab, and was driven rapidly to the river; and in a short time, after making several fruitless inquiries, he found a man who stated that he had hired a boat to a lad who answered to Tinker's description, and that the craft had not yet been brought back. There was no room whatever for doubt, since the man identified Pedro as the lad's companion.
"I hope there is nothing wrong, sir," he continued. "I don't want to lose my property."
"You sha'n't suffer any loss," the detective told him. "Don't worry about that. Here is my card. It will satisfy you, I think. And now let me have a boat," he went on, after brief hesitation. "I am going to look for the boy."
A glance at the slip of pasteboard, with the famous name engraved upon it, made the man the obedient servant of Sexton Blake, who was soon seated in a comfortable boat, with the hound lying in front of him. With long, sweeping strokes he pulled away from the landing-stage, and melted into the gloom.
"Now for it!" he said to himself. "Would it have been wiser to have gone first to the police, and got their assistance? No, I think not. It will be time enough to make use of them after I have located the kidnappers, who are certainly somewhere between here and Chertsey. It will probably be difficult to find them, but I'll have a try for it. I will pull down one side of the river, and up the other. If that fails—as it may—I shall have to wait until morning."
It was a calm night, and a black one. There was no moon behind the sombre clouds that had overcast the sky and hidden the stars. The darkness was to the disadvantage of the detective, who was nevertheless resolved to go on with the search, as his suspense would not permit him to wait for daylight. He had at first counted on getting some help from Pedro, but had afterwards abandoned that idea because, if it was to be of any value, he must find the spot where the dog had swum ashore. And he judged it unlikely that he would be able to do that.
Leisurely, to the gentle dip of the oars, the boat slid down the Thames, keeping well in towards the right-hand bank, shrouded by a deep, purple gloom that the eye could penetrate for but a short distance. Now and then was heard the splash of a fish, or a plaintive whine from Pedro, who understood the meaning of this night voyage. There were no other sounds. For a couple of miles the little craft rippled on its course, while the uncanny quiet, and the fact that as yet not a gleam of light had been anywhere visible to him, were a source of tragic forebodings to Sexton Blake. They increased his apprehensions, and all but throttled the slender ray of hope to which he had been trying to cling.
"I must expect the worst," he thought. "More than once before I have given Tinker up for dead, and I have been wrong, but I fear that I have lost him this time. There is not a chance in a thousand that he can be alive. He has been drowned, murdered by Count Severine and his accomplice. By heavens, what a reckoning I will have with them! The poor boy's spirit will not call in vain for vengeance!"
A choking lump rose in his throat, and tears dimpled his eyes. For another quarter of a mile he pulled slowly on, perceiving to his left the dusky bulk of an island which he knew to be on a lonely reach of the Thames; and at length, as he was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that it would be useless to look for the kidnappers by night—he felt that they would be too shrewd to show a light—he heard from the near shore what sounded like a muffled cry.
"What could that have been?" he muttered.
The dog rose and whined, and uttered a low yelp. A short interval of tense, breathless silence followed, and then, as Pedro yelped again, there floated to the detective's ears, from no great distance, a shrill, confused clamour. And as he looked behind him, down the wooded bank of the river, he saw a lurid glow flushing and flickering through the foliage of the trees.
"Help!" a voice faintly called. "Help, help!"
"That must be Tinker!" exclaimed Sexton Blake, his heart giving a quick throb of joy. "He is alive, Pedro! I believe he is alive!"
The hound started baying with excitement, but became quiet at a word from his master, who, himself no less excited, was bending to the oars, feeling that he could save time by rowing on until he was nearer to the spot where his aid was needed. Hard and fast he pulled, driving the craft down stream, while the vague clamour continued to ring in his ears.
"It is the lad!" he told himself. "It must be!"
For fifty or sixty yards he pulled along the shore, tugging until his muscles cracked. Now the flushing glow grew brighter around him, staining the current to the hue of blood; and now, of a sudden, he came opposite to a narrow cutting, and saw beyond it, on a pond-like backwater of the Thames, a startling and terrifying sight. Here lay a white houseboat that was on fire. Crimson tongues of flame, shooting up from one end of it, revealed two dark forms that were struggling on the deck. And one of them, as could be seen, was Tinker.
"Let me go, you scoundrel!" he cried. "Help, help!"
"I am coming, my boy!" shouted the detective. "I am coming!"
Already he had swung his craft around, and sent it spinning through the narrow channel, into the widening backwater. Pedro, erect in the stern, was baying furiously; and as Sexton Blake pulled on, with strenuous strokes, the voices of the two combatants blended with other voices that were shrieking with terror.
"Be quick, guv'nor!" hoarsely urged the lad, who had seen the approaching boat and recognised its occupants.
"Hold on to him, my boy!" the detective replied. "Hold on! Don't let him escape!"
But there was still a space of twenty yards to be covered, and Tinker's assailant—the light showed him to be Count Severine—was making desperate efforts to break away, and promptly succeeded. He wrenched himself free of the lad, and sprang into the water and when Sexton Blake's craft grated against the houseboat, and Pedro and the detective leapt on board, the count was swimming lustily for the bank. Tinker, who had been knocked down, was scrambling to his feet, bruised and half-dazed.
"Good old Pedro!" he gasped, as the dog bounded. upon him with a joyous bark. "I never expected to see you again. There goes the villain!" he added. "I couldn't help it!"
"Let him go!" exclaimed Sexton Blake. "I'll get him when I want him. Where is his accomplice?"
"He hasn't been here, guv'nor!"
"And the girls? Where are they?"
There was no need to have put the question, for pitiful screams, appeals for help, told that the captives were nearby, and in danger. Count Severine had by now got ashore and disappeared, and without an instant's delay, with the dog at their heels, Tinker and the detective raced along the side deck to the other end of the houseboat—it was the end that was not on fire—and by a vigorous assault smashed in a door that gave them access to the saloon, where they found Sonia Ruthven and her friend Pauline Whitley, who were wild with fright.
"Save us!" they cried hysterically. "Oh, save us! Take us away!"
"Don't be alarmed," Sexton Blake told them. "The count has fled, and you have nothing to fear."
There was very little time for escape, however, such rapid strides had the conflagration made. The heat in the saloon was intense, and flames hissed at the little party, and sparks showered upon them, as they hastened to the other end of the craft, where the detective's boat had been made fast.
Pedro and the lad made their way to the bow, and the terrified girls seated themselves in the stern; and then, taking the oars, Sexton Blake bent to them lustily. He pulled across the backwater, and out through the_channel, and up the river, while in the rear the doomed houseboat blazed and crackled, and lurid volumes of smoke mounted to the crimson heavens. All was quiet in the immediate vicinity, but faint shouting, from far off, indicated that the fire had been discovered.
"There won't be much left of the boat by the time anybody gets to it," said the detective. "Its destruction will be a mystery."
And as he spoke he thought of the deeper mystery that he had not yet solved, though he felt that by what had happened tonight he was much nearer to the solution of it.
But he was in no hurry to try to lift the veil; he would stand a better chance, he concluded, by exercising tact and patience. Moreover he had something in his possession—he had found it at the Laburnums on the previous night—which he believed would lead to an interesting disclosure, when he had had time to inquire into the meaning of it.
Their terror having abated Sonia Ruthven and her friend listened to a brief account of the circumstances that had led to their rescue; and then they gave a graphic account of the manner in which they had been carried off, from the furnished house they had taken at Kew, by Count Severine and Captain Sang. While they were struggling with their captors, it appeared, the mysterious stranger had broken into the house, and had been assaulted and knocked down by Count Severine. It was obvious, from the agitation shown by Miss Ruthven when speaking of the man, that she knew who he was; but she did not enlighten Sexton Blake, nor did he attempt to force her confidence.
Tinker, in turn, told of his adventure on the river, and how, after losing consciousness in the water, he had come to his senses to find himself a prisoner on the houseboat, bound and gagged.
"I lay there all the afternoon," he went on. "I wasn't tied very tightly, and I kept tugging at my fetters, and gradually working them loose. At last I fell asleep, and when I awoke, and was trying to remember where I was, I heard a dull explosion. The oil cooking-stove in the kitchen must have blown up, and set the boat on fire. I knew that something had to be done, for I could see the glare of the flames, and the girls were screaming for help. By exerting all my strength I snapped the cords that bound my wrists, and in a trice I had my ankles untied, and then I opened the door and ran out on to the deck. Count Severine jumped at me, and I grabbed him by the throat, and we were fighting for all we were worth when you turned up. I was glad to see you, guv'nor, I can tell you."
"It was fortunate that I arrived when I did," Sexton Blake said gravely, "otherwise the situation might have had a tragic ending. Yonder are the lights of Staines," he added. "We shall soon be in the car, on our way to London."
"And what then?" asked Sonia Ruthven, in a troubled voice. "What are you going to do with us?"
"For the present," was the reply, "you and Miss Whitley must accept the hospitality of my house in Baker Street, where you will be quite safe."
A Morning Visit—Lord Camelot Wins—Blind Love.
"I DON'T know whether I've did right or wrong, but it's too late to think of that now. It can't be undid, not any more than all the King's 'orses and men could put 'Umpty Dumpty on the wall again, or whatever it was 'e fell off of."
The speaker was Sexton Blake's landlady, and she was standing in the hall, gazing doubtfully, with vague misgivings, at the back of Lord Camelot, whom she had just admitted to the house, partly because of his persuasive tongue, and partly because he had tipped her a half sovereign.
It was about ten o'clock in the morning and the detective had gone to call upon Lady Melfort, after sending Tinker with a message to Scotland Yard; and the fact that both were absent—and some other interesting information as well—had been imparted by Mrs. Bardell to the young nobleman, who could hardly restrain his impatience as he ascended the stairs. He rapped on the door of the consulting-room, and at once, without waiting for a response, he opened it and stepped in.
The bright sunshine, streaming through the windows, bathed the deep couch on which was seated Sonia Ruthven, a charming, ravishing picture of beauty. She did not speak. She caught her breath, and pressed her hand to her heart, as Lord Camelot came hesitatingly over to her. He was a handsome youth, and he had never appeared to better advantage than now. Well-groomed and immaculately dressed, with a pink carnation in his buttonhole, he was a suitor not easily to be resisted.
"Sonia!" he said again.
"You here!" murmured the girl. "Oh, this is wrong of you!"
"Are you not glad to see me? Are you angry with me?"
"You ought not to have come. I told you that we must not see each other again. But how did you find me?"
"The explanation is very simple," replied the young lord. "You are not aware, perhaps, that there is a statement in one of the morning papers to the effect that last night two young ladies were rescued by Mr. Sexton Blake from a burning houseboat between Staines and Chertsey."
"I wonder how that got into the paper?" said Sonia Ruthven, with an anxious expression. "I can guess, however. The man from whom Mr. Blake hired the boat must have heard us talking after we landed, and he told somebody at Staines, who was a correspondent for a London journal."
"Yes, that would account for it, Sonia. It was joyful news for me, for I have been terribly worried. I was at the Laburnums the night before last, and I was in the car with Sexton Blake and his assistant when they chased the kidnappers."
"I know that. So I have heard. It was very kind of you to take such an interest in me, Lord Camelot."
"It was more than interest, Sonia. It was—"
"Please don't. You must not talk like that. You had better call again, if you wish to see Mr. Blake. He is not at home."
"I am glad that he isn't. I came to see you, not him." There was a brief silence. Lord Camelot had stepped nearer to the couch, his eyes fixed wistfully on the girl's lovely face. Her lids dropped before his ardent gaze, and for a few seconds a spell seemed to be upon them both.
"Where is Miss Whitley?" inquired the youth, speaking with an effort.
"She is in her room, writing a letter," Sonia answered. "I will tell her to come in."
"No, don't disturb her."
"I would rather she was here. But—but I won't call her if you will go now."
"Do you want me to go?"
"I wouldn't say it if I did not mean it," was the low, faltering reply.
There was something in the girl's voice that held Lord Camelot there, that drew him a pace nearer. A dim intelligence, elusive as yet, was stirring within him.
"Don't make me go," he said pleadingly. "Don't ask me to. Be kind to me, if you can. Sonia, darling, I love you. I will always love you. I've got perseverance, if I haven't anything else, and I won't give you up. I can't live without you, there is no use in trying. Don't repulse me again, don't drive me away from you, don't tell me that we must be strangers. Won't you reward my love, my devotion, by-by—"
He paused, seeing the colour ebb and flush on Sonia's face; seeing in her eyes, which shone like stars, the new, strange light that she could not hide. He knew that by some miracle he had melted her icy coldness, realised that he had won her at last. He knelt by her, and she did not shrink from him. His arm slipped boldly around her waist, and with a little cry she yielded herself to him, and raised her quivering, ruby lips to meet his.
THOUGH they had been sitting there for no more than a quarter of an hour, side by side, with clasped hands, it seemed to these young lovers as if a lifetime of happiness had been compressed into that short space of time. Eyes spoke to eyes, flashing messages more eloquent than words.
"How wonderful that you should love me!" said Lord Camelot, in a tone of awe. "Is it really true?"
"Of course it is, Philip—how strange it seems to call you that!" the girl answered. "Yes, I have loved you from the first."
"You darling! Why would you not admit it?"
"Because—well, because I had reasons!"
"But it is all right now, Sonia. You will be my wife, won't you?"
"I have told you that I would. But—but I am afraid I have promised too hastily. You must give me time to consider."
"Don't talk like that. And don't look so serious."
"I can't help it. I am thinking of your father. I know something of his circumstances, and of his wish that you should marry Blanche Morgan, and of the reason for it. What a bitter disappointment it will be to him if you marry me! Have you, too, thought of this, Philip? Are you quite sure of your own mind? Do you realise that you will be taking for your wife a poor, humble girl with no social position, with no dowry to rehabilitate the fortunes of your noble family?"
"The fortunes of the noble family be hanged!" cried Lord Camelot. "I am going to marry for love, not for money, and I should love you just as much if you were a beggar-maid! Regret marrying you? Never in the world! I'll work for you, slave for you, be as happy as the day is long while I have you to—"
"You have conquered me," interrupted Sonia, smiling at him with eyes that were dim with unshed tears of emotion. "You are a dear, good boy, and I believe you mean every word you have said. I will be your wife, first of all because I love you, and partly because there are perils hovering near me from which I must escape. I need a protector, and he will be you. Take me away from here, Philip. Take Pauline and me away, and find a place for us where we will be safe until you can marry me. Oh, if anything should prevent that!"
"Nothing shall, I swear it! Nobody shall come between us. From this minute I am your protector as well as your lover. I will make you my wife just as soon as I can get a special licence, and, meanwhile, as you have suggested, I will find some place where you and Miss Whitley can stay. It will be only for a short time, though. I will have the licence by tonight, or by tomorrow morning. And now let us go, dearest, if you are ready. The sooner the better."
"Wait, Philip. I have more to say, in justice to you and to myself. Are you not afraid to take me on trust? I have been involved in so much mystery during the last few days that I should think you would be suspicious of me. There are things that you ought to know, and yet I cannot speak of them now."
"You need not," the young nobleman replied, with a glance of perfect confidence. "it is enough for me to know that you are the sweetest, and best, and purest of women. Are you satisfied now, dearest? Or are you going to raise more objections?"
"There is one more thing," said Sonia. "The one thing that I am determined to tell you."
"What is it?"
"It is about Count Severine—or Count Severine von Graf, to give him his proper title."
"What is the use of talking about him?"
"Because what I am going to tell you will clear up a mystery," the girl answered, in a hesitating voice. "I feel sure, Philip, that it was Count Severine who stabbed you down at Queen's Langley, and that he did it from jealousy. He had loved me for a long time. He came to England and sought for me, and by some means traced me down to the country. He was in the woods that morning, and he must have been near us while we were talking. I saw his face in the thickets just after I had left you, and I was so frightened that I ran away as fast as I could. The count did not pursue me, and that is why I have thought since that it was he who—"
"That will do, little woman!" broke in Lord Camelot, as he stopped Sonia's lips with a kiss. "Let us forget Count Severine. I knew that it was he who stabbed me—Sexton Blake told me so the other night. And now for our flight," he added. "Fetch Pauline, and tell her the good news; and then we'll be off, before Mr. Blake comes back."
"Oh, Philip, how lovely!"
And the girl's face was radiant as she rose to her feet.
Visitors—A Staggering Revelation—All Serene.
TINKER slipped into the bed-chamber and quietly shut the door, and glanced at his master, who was standing by the mirror.
"Aren't you soon coming!'F he asked.
"Just as soon as I am ready," coolly replied Sexton Blake.
"There are three people waiting for you now. The Earl of Vanquest arrived a minute ago."
"Ah, that adds to the interest of the occasion!"
"It will be interesting, you can bet. But I don't see why you take it so seriously. You are dressing up as if you were going to attend a levee."
"So I am, my boy. A little levee of my own."
"Well, I wish you would hurry up, guv'nor."
"I sha'n't be much longer. I have nearly finished."
Tinker grunted and withdrew, and the detective, who had overslept himself that morning, and had just got out of bed when visitors were announced, went on with his dressing, while a humorous smile lurked incessantly at the corners of his lips; but the smile had disappeared, and his expression was urbane and respectful, when he at length stepped into his consulting-room, wearing a black frock-coat and trousers, and a scarf with a black opal pin in it.
Not counting the lad—who was standing over by the window—there were three persons in the room, waiting for an audience, as they might have waited in the antechamber of royalty. One was Inspector Widgeon, another was the Earl of Vanquest, and the third was a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman, with a tawny beard and moustache, who wore a long, light overcoat over a suit of coarse tweeds, and was by no means distinguished-looking as far as sartorial appearances went. Sexton Blake bowed to the company in general, and turned to the earl, who rose and shook hands with him.
"I won't trespass on your time for more than a moment, Mr. Blake," he said. "My only excuse for disturbing you at this early hour is to inquire about my son. I have not been able to find him since I came up to town yesterday, though I have been to his chambers half a dozen times. I hoped that you might know something of him, as I have been informed that he has been with you on several occasions lately."
"That is quite right, sir," the detective replied. "I have some knowledge of your son, as it happens, and I will be happy to enlighten you if you will have a little patience, and excuse me while I speak to these gentlemen."
"Certainly!" assented Lord Vanquest; and he sat down again.
"I have been half expecting you, Widgeon," said Sexton Blake, turning to the inspector. Am I right in taking it for granted that your companion is the client of whom you have previously spoken to me?"
"He is," Inspector Widgeon answered truculently. "He is Mr. Seckenberg, a resident of Frankfort. He has travelled to England in response to a message from me, and I have brought him here this morning in order that he may be united to—"
"Pray let me explain!" interrupted the gentleman from Frankfort, speaking with a foreign accent. "I am the uncle, Mr. Blake, of the young lady you have known as Sonia Ruthven, and I have been trying to find her through your English police. I have learned that you rescued her from a perilous position two nights ago, and that you have since afforded her the shelter of your house. I have come to take her away, and I trust that you will let me see her at once."
"I should like to oblige you," said the detective, "but it is not in my power to do so. Yesterday morning, during my absence, your niece went off with her friend Miss Whitley, and their disappearance remained somewhat of a mystery until"—he paused, and took from his pocket an envelope—"I received this letter this morning,' he continued, with the ghost of a smile on his face. It is from Lord Camelot, and it contains a rather startling communication. At eight o'clock last night the young nobleman was married by special licence to Miss Ruthven, and they are now in Paris.'
For an instant a pin might have been heard to drop. The silence was so intense that it could be felt.
"My son married!" hotly exclaimed the Earl of Vanquest, as he sprang to his feet. "Confound the boy! How dared he do such a thing? He has disappointed all my hopes! I'll have nothing more to do with him! Married to this designing creature! He has had the madness to run away with a girl without means, without position, without—"
"Sir, you forget that you are speaking of my niece!" cried Mr. Seckenberg, who had turned purple with rage, and was in a mood to fling prudence to the winds.
"The deuce take your niece!"
"And the deuce take your boy! He is an infernal scoundrel! He has eloped with her Serene Highness the Princess Feodora of Saxe-Baden!"
"With—with a princess?" gasped the earl.
"Yes, a princess with forty thousand pounds a year in her own right!" shouted Mr. Seckenberg.
"Forty-thousand—a year! And—and who are you?"
"I will tell you, sir! I don't care who knows the truth now! I am Prince Carl Joachim, hereditary ruler of the German principality of Saxe-Baden! By this marriage my niece has brought indelible disgrace upon herself and me!" There was a brief interval of silence. The only calm person in the room was Sexton Blake, who had previously made a shrewd guess at the truth; for there had been a crest engraved on the locket he had found at the Laburnums, and without much trouble he had succeeded in tracing that crest to the reigning family of Saxe-Baden.
Inspector Widgeon and the lad were vastly excited, and the Earl of Vanquest was completely dazed by the revelation that had been made to him. As for his Illustrious Highness Prince Carl Joachim, he had for a time no words with which to express his feelings; and then, yielding to his temper, he strode to and fro, and shook his fist, and indulged in a tirade of abusive language that included Widgeon, the detective, and the earl. And when at length he had to stop, for want of breath, he was taken in hand by Sexton Blake, who tactfully cooled his passion, and pointed out to him that the marriage was an accomplished thing, and that it could not be undone without a scandal.
"I can understand what a shock this has been," he went on; "but there is a sensible way of looking at the matter which may not have occurred to your Highness. There is a great difference in rank between yourself and the Earl of Vanquest, I admit, but it is not an insuperable one."
"You forget that I am practically king," growled Prince Joachim.
"No, you are not quite that," the detective courteously replied. "You are of ancient lineage, and you rule over a small German state; but your position is much similar to that of the governor of a province, since you are subject to the Kaiser. The earl, on the other hand, holds an old title, and is the head of one of the oldest of English families. And like yourself, though on a smaller scale, he rules over vast lands, and has many tenants who may be compared to your subjects."
"Your language is impertinent, sir."
"I did not mean it to be so, I can assure you. I have merely tried to show you that there is no reason why you should feel that your niece, princess though she is, has disgraced herself or you by marrying the son of the Earl of Vanquest. Furthermore, there is no reason why you should not be on friendly terms with the young lord's father, and forgive the indiscretion of the young couple."
It was a very sensible little homily that Sexton Blake had preached, and Prince Carl Joachim, being a sensible man at bottom, could not but see the wisdom of it. He held out at first, and then, realising that there was nothing to do but make the best of the situation, he swallowed his pride, and consented to shake hands with the earl, who had by now recovered from his bewilderment, and was the happiest nobleman in England.
"A princess with 240,000 a year!" he reflected. "Bless the boy! How fortunate that old Morgan's daughter should have thrown him over!"
Such were the feelings of the Earl of Vanquest, while as for the prince, though he was not in a frame of mind to bless anybody, he became quite affable; and when he had been induced to accept one of the detective's prime cigars, and a whisky-and-soda, he told the whole story of the mysterious case that baffled Sexton Blake almost to the very end.
"My brother, Prince Rupert," he said, was more wealthy than myself. He lost his wife soon after his marriage, and his daughter, the Princess Feodora, when she had reached the age of fourteen, was sent to England to be educated. She made a number of friends in this country—one of them was Lady Melfort—and she remained here until a couple of years ago, when, on the death of her father, she returned to Saxe-Baden, having inherited an income of 240,000 a year, and a splendid old castle half a dozen miles from my own residence. We did not get on well together, Feodora and I. The restrictions of a court, and of her high position, were not to the girl's taste. She wearied of wealth and dignity, and at length, some few months ago, she went off abruptly, leaving me a letter, in which she stated that she was tired of pomp and ceremony, that she had gone to England with her English maid to lead a quiet life, and that she would come back when she felt inclined. What she has done since then I do not know, except that she has recently been living with Lady Melfort, who concealed her identity."
"After allowing her to lead her own life for so long a time," said the detective, "why did you suddenly take steps to have her found?"
"That was due to Count Severine von Graf," replied Prince Carl Joachim. "He is a native of Saxe-Baden, and he had been desirous of marrying my niece, who disliked him. Personally, I favoured the match, as I had a high opinion of the count; but I learned a short time ago that he was a scoundrel, and then, knowing that he was in London, and fearing lest the Princess Feodora should encounter him here, I concluded that she had better be brought home. So I entrusted the matter to Scotland Yard, and informed them that Lady Melfort would probably have some knowledge of the girl's whereabouts."
"Your Highness has cleared up the greater part of the mystery, but there is one point that is still obscure. Have you heard of the man who was found seriously injured in the house at Kew?"
"Yes, he has been described to me by Inspector Widgeon."
"And does your Highness know who he is?"
"I do, Mr. Blake. I have no doubt at all that the man is Captain Fritz Steinmarck, an old soldier who was steward to my brother, and served the Princess Feodora in the same capacity. It was he, I may tell you, who brought to me evidence which proved Count Severine to be a scoundrel. He was devoted to his young mistress, and he must have come to England without my knowledge, to search for my niece on his own account, because he was afraid that she might be persuaded to marry the count."
With this statement, which was the final explanation, Prince Carl Joachim paused. He emptied his glass, and rose.
"On the whole," he said, "I am not ill-pleased by the Princess Feodora's marriage. It is probably the best thing she could have done, and it is not a bad thing for me. She is a strong-minded, self-willed girl, and I am glad to be relieved of the responsibility of looking after her. I am going back to Germany tomorrow," he added, "and tonight, to show that I bear no resentment, I beg that you will all give me the pleasure of dining with me at the Ritz. I shall expect you at eight o'clock."
The invitation having been accepted, his Illustrious Highness departed with Inspector Widgeon, and they were shortly afterwards followed by the Earl of Vanquest. Left to themselves, Tinker and the detective discussed for half an hour the sensational revelations that had been made, and then the latter rose, and put on his hat.
"Where are you off to now?" asked the lad.
"To bring this interesting drama to a conclusion," replied Sexton Blake. "To ring down the curtain on the last act. I am going to deal with Count Severine von Graf, though not, unfortunately, as he deserves. I must be lenient with the scoundrel, so that the Princess Feodora's name may not be publicly coupled with his crimes."
"I shouldn't wonder if he had disappeared by now, guv'nor."
"I think not, my boy. If he is not at his chambers I shall know where to look for him. I have had him under observation for the past twenty-four hours."
The Tempter—Unmasked—Conclusion.
I DON'T know what to do, Severine; really I don't!"
"I have made it all clear to you, Blanche. Why should you hesitate?"
"If I could only be sure!"
"Sure of what?"
"That you honestly and truly love me for myself alone."
"Is it possible that you suspect me of being a fortune-hunter?"
"No, it is not that. But at times I have almost doubted your affection, when you have been cold in your manner. And—and then I have heard tales."
"Lies told by envious people."
"I hope so. Would you want to marry me if I was poor, Severine?"
"A thousand times yes, my charming one. I would marry you if you were in rags, without a penny."
The June sunlight, streaming into the luxurious drawing-room of Sir Midas Morgan's residence in Park Lane, shone on the millionaire's daughter and on Count Severine von Graf. Blanche Morgan, a dazzling picture of beauty, was reclining on a couch; and the young man, seated opposite, was leaning towards her with a soft, persuasive expression on his handsome face. He was apparently at his ease, untroubled, but a demon of fear was gnawing at his heart. He had remained in London far too long, he felt; but he had taken the risk—a risk that had hourly increased—for the sake of the high stake for which he was playing.
"You have no reason to doubt," he said. "You are the one and only woman for me. Never, until I met you, did I know what love was. I am your slave, your devoted admirer. Tell me that you believe in my affection."
"I—I think I do," the girl replied.
"And you love me, don't you"
"Oh, you know that, Severine! I have given you all my love, and I cannot bear the thought of losing you, of even parting from you."
"We need not part, dearest. Come with me. Give me your answer now, at once!"
"It is hard for me to decide. If you could only wait for a few weeks. Or if you could come back for me."
"Years might elapse before I should have a chance of coming back to England," Count Severine answered. "As I have explained to you, I have been offered through my Government—it is a mark of high honour—a diplomatic post at Buda-Pesth. I must leave tonight. I cannot postpone my departure for a single day. But I cannot, will not, leave without you."
"It will be a blow to my father, if I run away from home," the girl said sadly. "He is very fond of me.
"He will soon get over it, and will forgive us both. I don't like the idea of stealing you from him, but there is no other course. If I, with nothing but my disinterested love for you to recommend me, were to go to him, and ask for your hand, what would be the result? He would forbid me to see you again, and would place you out of my reach."
"Yes, Severine, that is true."
"It is the way of the world. I cannot blame your father. But he must not stand between our happiness. Come with me tonight. We will be married in Paris tomorrow, and will go on to Hungary by the Orient express. You will never regret it. I cannot keep you in luxury, darling, but at least I will be able to—"
"You forget that I have £4,000 a year of my own," interrupted Blanche Morgan.
"Ah, I had forgotten that!" murmured the young man. "It slipped my mind, as such sordid things always do. But what is your answer? Will you come and be my wife?"
"Will you always love me, and be kind to me?"
"Always, Blanche!"
"You won't tire of me, Severine?"
"Never, dearest!"
"Then I will come," declared the girl, her eyes melting to a look of passion. "Take me, Severine! I will trust to your vows, to your affection. Kiss me, and tell me again that you will—"
She paused abruptly, and Count Severine sprang to his feet. The door had been opened, and a servant had appeared.
"Mr. Sexton Blake!" he announced.
The door shut, and the detective, who was acquainted with both the millionaire and his daughter, came slowly across the room. Blanche Morgan looked at him curiously, and the count, pale to the lips, confronted him with a poorly-assumed air of defiance.
"My father is not at home, Mr. Blake," the girl said coldly.
"I do not wish to see your father," Sexton Blake answered. "My errand, which is a painful one, concerns you and this man. I would gladly spare you, but I cannot. To be cruel is sometimes to be kind, and it is best that you should know the truth at once. Count Severine von Graf has deceived you, Miss Morgan."
"Deceived me?"
"Yes, basely. He is a scoundrel, an adventurer, a fortune-seeker. He has had two strings to his bow, in case one should fail him. He has been trying to persuade a German princess to marry him, and has at the same time been making love to you. He has been after your money, that is all."
"It is impossible' I won't believe it."
"I think you will be compelled to. Let the count deny my accusations if he dare."
"Deny them, Severine!" cried Blanche Morgan. "Say that it is not true!"
Count Severine tried to speak, but there was terror in his soul, and the words of denial stuck on his lips. Glancing at him, the girl saw the stamp of guilt on his face, read the fear in his eyes. He had been unmasked, and she knew it; with a pitiful moan, stricken to the heart, she sank down on the couch and burst into tears.
"Confound you!" snarled the baffled man, glaring at the detective.
"Be careful how you talk to me," said Sexton Blake, in a biting tone, "or I shall be tempted to alter my decision. You are aware, of course, that it is in my power to send you to prison for a long term of years."
"Do your worst!"
"I am not going to do that, much against my will. You richly deserve to spend the rest of your life behind stone walls, but as that would drag the name of the Princess Feodora into publicity, and as I am anxious to spare her feelings. I have concluded to deal leniently with you. My mercy is conditional, however. You will leave England within twenty-four hours, and never come back. And henceforth you will be a man without a country, for if you ever put foot on the soil of Saxe-Baden, or anywhere on German territory you will be deprived of your liberty."
"What if I refuse to obey you?" asked Count Severine, his voice hoarse with suppressed rage.
"The alternative," replied the detective, "will be arrest, and trial, and conviction. Do you accept my terms?"
"Yes, if I must."
"That is understood, then. See that you abide by the agreement. And bear in mind, furthermore, that if ever I meet you abroad, in any respectable club or private house, I will denounce you for what you are, and will have you pitched out, neck and crop. And now go. Be off!"
One glance—a glance of murderous hatred—Count Severine von Graf shot at the man who had crushed him; and then, without a word, with no sign of gratitude for the mercy he had had no right to expect, he passed out of the room. The door swung to behind him, and then, his heart filled with pity for the victim of the count's treachery, Sexton Blake turned to the weeping, anguished girl, and offered her what poor consolation was in his power. And that was but little. Her grief was too fresh, too poignant, to be alleviated by sympathy.
THAT night Count Severine, whose tale of a diplomatic appointment at Buda-Pesth had been pure fiction, crossed the Channel to France, never again to be seen or heard of in London; and on the following day, after a brief interview with the detective, Captain Sang departed from the Ruritanian Embassy, and went back to his own country in disgrace. For him Sexton Blake felt some pity, knowing that the young man had weakly yielded to the persuasions of his evil friend, and after the first wrong step had been led into crimes which he had not contemplated at the outset.
It was not until the end of July, at the close of the season, that the Princess Feodora of Saxe-Baden and her British husband—she had deceived him in order to be sure that he loved her for herself alone—returned from their wedding-tour: and when they went down to Queen's Langley, at the invitation of the Earl of Vanquest, they found there, among other guests who had assembled to welcome them, Sexton Blake and Tinker and his Illustrious Highness Prince Carl Joachim: and there was also there, in a more humble capacity, the bride's devoted old steward, Captain Fritz Steinmarck, who had completely recovered from his injuries.
Meanwhile, Blanche Morgan, and her father had gone for a tour around the world in the millionaire's yacht, in the hope that a year's absence would heal the girl's broken heart, and bring joy into her life again, and permit her to think without regret of the unworthy man to whom she had given the priceless gift of her first love.
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