The Grand Babylon Hôtel
‘Bien, madame!’ The driver whipped up his horse, and the animal shot
forward with a terrific clatter over the cobbles. It appeared that this
driver was quite accustomed to following other carriages.
‘Now I am fairly in for it!’ said Nella to herself. She laughed
unsteadily, but her heart was beating with an extraordinary thump.
For some time the pursued vehicle kept well in front. It crossed the
town nearly from end to end, and plunged into a maze of small streets
far on the south side of the Kursaal. Then gradually Nella’s equipage
began to overtake it. The first carriage stopped with a jerk before a
tall dark house, and Miss Spencer emerged. Nella called to her driver to
stop, but he, determined to be in at the death, was engaged in whipping
his horse, and he completely ignored her commands. He drew up
triumphantly at the tall dark house just at the moment when Miss Spencer
disappeared into it. The other carriage drove away. Nella, uncertain
what to do, stepped down from her carriage and gave the driver some
money. At the same moment a man reopened the door of the house, which
had closed on Miss Spencer.
‘I want to see Miss Spencer,’ said Nella impulsively. She couldn’t think
of anything else to say.
‘Miss Spencer?’
‘Yes; she’s just arrived.’
‘It’s O.K., I suppose,’ said the man.
‘I guess so,’ said Nella, and she walked past him into the house. She
was astonished at her own audacity.
Miss Spencer was just going into a room off the narrow hall. Nella
followed her into the apartment, which was shabbily furnished in the
Belgian lodging-house style.
‘Well, Miss Spencer,’ she greeted the former Baroness Zerlinski, ‘I
guess you didn’t expect to see me. You left our hotel very suddenly this
afternoon, and you left it very suddenly a few days ago; and so I’ve
just called to make a few inquiries.’
To do the lady justice, Miss Spencer bore the surprising ordeal very
well.
She did not flinch; she betrayed no emotion. The sole sign of
perturbation was in her hurried breathing.
‘You have ceased to be the Baroness Zerlinski,’ Nella continued. ‘May I
sit down?’
‘Certainly, sit down,’ said Miss Spencer, copying the girl’s tone. ‘You
are a fairly smart young woman, that I will say. What do you want?
Weren’t my books all straight?’
‘Your books were all straight. I haven’t come about your books. I have
come about the murder of Reginald Dimmock, the disappearance of his
corpse, and the disappearance of Prince Eugen of Posen. I thought you
might be able to help me in some investigations which I am making.’
Miss Spencer’s eyes gleamed, and she stood up and moved swiftly to the
mantelpiece.
‘You may be a Yankee, but you’re a fool,’ she said.
She took hold of the bell-rope.
‘Don’t ring that bell if you value your life,’ said Nella.
‘If what?’ Miss Spencer remarked.
‘If you value your life,’ said Nella calmly, and with the words she
pulled from her pocket a very neat and dainty little revolver.
Chapter Nine TWO WOMEN AND THE REVOLVER
‘YOU--you’re only doing that to frighten me,’ stammered Miss Spencer, in
a low, quavering voice.
‘Am I?’ Nella replied, as firmly as she could, though her hand shook
violently with excitement, could Miss Spencer but have observed it. ‘Am
I? You said just now that I might be a Yankee girl, but I was a fool.
Well, I am a Yankee girl, as you call it; and in my country, if they
don’t teach revolver-shooting in boarding-schools, there are at least a
lot of girls who can handle a revolver. I happen to be one of them. I
tell you that if you ring that bell you will suffer.’
Most of this was simple bluff on Nella’s part, and she trembled lest
Miss Spencer should perceive that it was simple bluff. Happily for her,
Miss Spencer belonged to that order of women who have every sort of
courage except physical courage. Miss Spencer could have withstood
successfully any moral trial, but persuade her that her skin was in
danger, and she would succumb. Nella at once divined this useful fact,
and proceeded accordingly, hiding the strangeness of her own sensations
as well as she could.
‘You had better sit down now,’ said Nella, ‘and I will ask you a few
questions.’
And Miss Spencer obediently sat down, rather white, and trying to screw
her lips into a formal smile.
‘Why did you leave the Grand Babylon that night?’ Nella began her
examination, putting on a stern, barrister-like expression.
‘I had orders to, Miss Racksole.’
‘Whose orders?’
‘Well, I’m--I’m--the fact is, I’m a married woman, and it was my
husband’s orders.’
‘Who is your husband?’
‘Tom Jackson--Jules, you know, head waiter at the Grand Babylon.’
‘So Jules’s real name is Tom Jackson? Why did he want you to leave
without giving notice?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, Miss Racksole. I swear I don’t know. He’s my
husband, and, of course, I do what he tells me, as you will some day do
what your husband tells you. Please heaven you’ll get a better husband
than mine!’
Miss Spencer showed a sign of tears.
Nella fingered the revolver, and put it at full cock. ‘Well,’ she
repeated, ‘why did he want you to leave?’ She was tremendously surprised
at her own coolness, and somewhat pleased with it, too.
‘I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you.’
‘You’ve just got to,’ Nella said, in a terrible, remorseless tone.
‘He--he wished me to come over here to Ostend. Something had gone wrong.
Oh! he’s a fearful man, is Tom. If I told you, he’d--’
‘Had something gone wrong in the hotel, or over here?’
‘Both.’
‘Was it about Prince Eugen of Posen?’
‘I don’t know--that is, yes, I think so.’
‘What has your husband to do with Prince Eugen?’
‘I believe he has some--some sort of business with him, some money
business.’
‘And was Mr Dimmock in this business?’
‘I fancy so, Miss Racksole. I’m telling you all I know, that I swear.’
‘Did your husband and Mr Dimmock have a quarrel that night in Room 111?’
‘They had some difficulty.’
‘And the result of that was that you came to Ostend instantly?’
‘Yes; I suppose so.’
‘And what were you to do in Ostend? What were your instructions from
this husband of yours?’
Miss Spencer’s head dropped on her arms on the table which separated her
from Nella, and she appeared to sob violently.
‘Have pity on me,’ she murmured, ‘I can’t tell you any more.’
‘Why?’
‘He’d kill me if he knew.’
‘You’re wandering from the subject,’ observed Nella coldly. ‘This is the
last time I shall warn you. Let me tell you plainly I’ve got the best
reasons for being desperate, and if anything happens to you I shall say
I did it in self-defence. Now, what were you to do in Ostend?’
‘I shall die for this anyhow,’ whined Miss Spencer, and then, with a
sort of fierce despair, ‘I had to keep watch on Prince Eugen.’
‘Where? In this house?’
Miss Spencer nodded, and, looking up, Nella could see the traces of
tears in her face.
‘Then Prince Eugen was a prisoner? Some one had captured him at the
instigation of Jules?’
‘Yes, if you must have it.’
‘Why was it necessary for you specially to come to Ostend?’
‘Oh! Tom trusts me. You see, I know Ostend. Before I took that place at
the Grand Babylon I had travelled over Europe, and Tom knew that I knew
a thing or two.’
‘Why did you take the place at the Grand Babylon?’
‘Because Tom told me to. He said I should be useful to him there.’
‘Is your husband an Anarchist, or something of that kind, Miss Spencer?’
‘I don’t know. I’d tell you in a minute if I knew. But he’s one of those
that keep themselves to themselves.’
‘Do you know if he has ever committed a murder?’
‘Never!’ said Miss Spencer, with righteous repudiation of the mere idea.
‘But Mr Dimmock was murdered. He was poisoned. If he had not been
poisoned why was his body stolen? It must have been stolen to prevent
inquiry, to hide traces. Tell me about that.’
‘I take my dying oath,’ said Miss Spencer, standing up a little way from
the table, ‘I take my dying oath I didn’t know Mr Dimmock was dead till
I saw it in the newspaper.’
‘You swear you had no suspicion of it?’
‘I swear I hadn’t.’
Nella was inclined to believe the statement. The woman and the girl
looked at each other in the tawdry, frowsy, lamp-lit room. Miss Spencer
nervously patted her yellow hair into shape, as if gradually recovering
her composure and equanimity. The whole affair seemed like a dream to
Nella, a disturbing, sinister nightmare. She was a little uncertain what
to say. She felt that she had not yet got hold of any very definite
information. ‘Where is Prince Eugen now?’ she asked at length.
‘I don’t know, miss.’
‘He isn’t in this house?’
‘No, miss.’
‘Ah! We will see presently.’
‘They took him away, Miss Racksole.’
‘Who took him away? Some of your husband’s friends?’
‘Some of his--acquaintances.’
‘Then there is a gang of you?’
‘A gang of us--a gang! I don’t know what you mean,’ Miss Spencer
quavered.
‘Oh, but you must know,’ smiled Nella calmly. ‘You can’t possibly be so
innocent as all that, Mrs Tom Jackson. You can’t play games with me.
You’ve just got to remember that I’m what you call a Yankee girl.
There’s one thing that I mean to find out, within the next five minutes,
and that is--how your charming husband kidnapped Prince Eugen, and why
he kidnapped him. Let us begin with the second question. You have evaded
it once.’
Miss Spencer looked into Nella’s face, and then her eyes dropped, and
her fingers worked nervously with the tablecloth.
‘How can I tell you,’ she said, ‘when I don’t know? You’ve got the whip-
hand of me, and you’re tormenting me for your own pleasure.’ She wore an
expression of persecuted innocence.
‘Did Mr Tom Jackson want to get some money out of Prince Eugen?’
‘Money! Not he! Tom’s never short of money.’
‘But I mean a lot of money--tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?’
‘Tom never wanted money from anyone,’ said Miss Spencer doggedly.
‘Then had he some reason for wishing to prevent Prince Eugen from coming
to London?’
‘Perhaps he had. I don’t know. If you kill me, I don’t know.’ Nella
stopped to reflect. Then she raised the revolver. It was a mechanical,
unintentional sort of action, and certainly she had no intention of
using the weapon, but, strange to say, Miss Spencer again cowered before
it. Even at that moment Nella wondered that a woman like Miss Spencer
could be so simple as to think the revolver would actually be used.
Having absolutely no physical cowardice herself, Nella had the greatest
difficulty in imagining that other people could be at the mercy of a
bodily fear. Still, she saw her advantage, and used it relentlessly, and
with as much theatrical gesture as she could command. She raised the
revolver till it was level with Miss Spencer’s face, and suddenly a new,
queer feeling took hold of her. She knew that she would indeed use that
revolver now, if the miserable woman before her drove her too far. She
felt afraid--afraid of herself; she was in the grasp of a savage,
primeval instinct. In a flash she saw Miss Spencer dead at her feet--the
police--a court of justice--the scaffold. It was horrible.
‘Speak,’ she said hoarsely, and Miss Spencer’s face went whiter.
‘Tom did say,’ the woman whispered rapidly, awesomely, ‘that if Prince
Eugen got to London it would upset his scheme.’
‘What scheme? What scheme? Answer me.’
‘Heaven help me, I don’t know.’ Miss Spencer sank into a chair. ‘He said
Mr Dimmock had turned tail, and he should have to settle him and then
Rocco--’
‘Rocco! What about Rocco?’ Nella could scarcely hear herself. Her grip
of the revolver tightened.
Miss Spencer’s eyes opened wider; she gazed at Nella with a glassy
stare.
‘Don’t ask me. It’s death!’ Her eyes were fixed as if in horror.