The Secret of Chimneys
his. After that he seems to have just melted into the landscape.”
“Somebody must have kidnapped him,” said Bundle hopefully.
“In another day or two, I expect we shall have Scotland Yard dragging
the lake to find his dead body,” said her father gloomily. “It serves
me right. At my time of life, I ought to have gone quietly abroad and
taken care of my health, and not allowed myself to be drawn into George
Lomax’s wild-cat schemes. I——”
He was interrupted by Tredwell.
“Well,” said Lord Caterham irritably, “what is it?”
“The French detective is here, my lord, and would be glad if you could
spare him a few minutes.”
“What did I tell you?” said Lord Caterham. “I knew it was too good to
last. Depend upon it, they’ve found Fish’s dead body doubled up in the
goldfish pond.”
Tredwell, in a strictly respectful manner, steered him back to the
point of issue.
“Am I to say that you will see him, my lord?”
“Yes, yes. Bring him in here.”
Tredwell departed. He returned a minute or two later announcing in a
lugubrious voice:
“Monsieur Lemoine.”
The Frenchman came in with a quick, light step. His walk, more than his
face, betrayed the fact that he was excited about something.
“Good evening, Lemoine,” said Lord Caterham. “Have a drink, won’t you?”
“I thank you, no.” He bowed punctiliously to the ladies. “At last I
make progress. As things are, I felt that you should be acquainted with
the discoveries—the very grave discoveries that I have made in the
course of the last twenty-four hours.”
“I thought there must be something important going on somewhere,” said
Lord Caterham.
“My lord, yesterday afternoon one of your guests left this house in
a curious manner. From the beginning, I must tell you, I have had my
suspicions. Here is a man who comes from the wilds. Two months ago he
was in South Africa. Before that—where?”
Virginia drew a sharp breath. For a moment the Frenchman’s eyes rested
on her doubtfully. Then he went on:
“Before that—where? None can say. And he is just such a one as
the man I am looking for—gay, audacious, reckless, one who would
dare anything. I send cable after cable, but I can get no word as
to his past life. Ten years ago he was in Canada, yes, but since
then—silence. My suspicions grow stronger. Then I picked up one
day a scrap of paper where he has lately passed along. It bears an
address—the address of a house in Dover. Later, as though by chance,
I drop that same piece of paper. Out of the tail of my eye, I see this
Boris, this Herzoslovakian, pick it up and take it to his master.
All along I have been sure that this Boris is an emissary of the
Comrades of the Red Hand. We know that the Comrades are working in with
King Victor over this affair. If Boris recognized his Chief in Mr.
Anthony Cade, would he not do just what he has done—transferred his
allegiance? Why should he attach himself otherwise to an insignificant
stranger? It was suspicious, I tell you, very suspicious.
“But almost I am disarmed, for Anthony Cade brings this same paper to
me at once and asks me if I have dropped it. As I say, almost I am
disarmed—but not quite! For it may mean that he is innocent, or it may
mean that he is very, very clever. I deny, of course, that it is mine
or that I dropped it. But in the meantime I have set inquiries on foot.
Only to-day I have news. The house at Dover has been precipitately
abandoned, but up till yesterday afternoon it was occupied by a body
of foreigners. Not a doubt but that it was King Victor’s headquarters.
Now see the significance of these points. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Cade
clears out from here precipitately. Ever since he dropped that paper,
he must know that the game is up. He reaches Dover and immediately the
gang is disbanded. What the next move will be, I do not know. What
is quite certain is that Mr. Anthony Cade will not return here. But
knowing King Victor, as I do, I am certain that he will not abandon
the game without having one more try for the jewel. And that is when I
shall get him!”
Virginia stood up suddenly. She walked across to the mantelpiece and
spoke in a voice that rang cold like steel.
“You are leaving one thing out of account, I think, M. Lemoine,” she
said. “Mr. Cade is not the only guest who disappeared yesterday in a
suspicious manner.”
“You mean, Madame——?”
“That all you have said applies equally well to another person. What
about Mr. Hiram Fish?”
“Oh, Mr. Fish!”
“Yes, Mr. Fish. Did you not tell us that first night that King
Victor had lately come to England from America? So has Mr. Fish come
to England from America. It is true that he brought a letter of
introduction from a very well-known man, but surely that would be a
simple thing for a man like King Victor to manage. He is certainly not
what he pretends to be. Lord Caterham has commented on the fact that
when it is a question of the first editions he is supposed to have
come here to see he is always the listener, never the talker. And there
are several suspicious facts against him. There was a light in his
window the night of the murder. Then take that evening in the Council
Chamber. When I met him on the terrace he was fully dressed. _He_ could
have dropped the paper. You didn’t actually _see_ Mr. Cade do so. Mr.
Cade may have gone to Dover. If he did it was simply to investigate. He
may have been kidnapped there. I say that there is far more suspicion
attaching to Mr. Fish’s actions than to Mr. Cade’s.”
The Frenchman’s voice rang out sharply:
“From your point of view, that well may be, Madame. I do not dispute
it. And I agree that Mr. Fish is not what he seems.”
“Well, then?”
“But that makes no difference. _You see, Madame, Mr. Fish is a
Pinkerton’s man._”
“What?” cried Lord Caterham.
“Yes, Lord Caterham. He came over here to trail King Victor.
Superintendent Battle and I have known this for some time.”
Virginia said nothing. Very slowly she sat down again. With those few
words the structure that she had built up so carefully was scattered in
ruins about her feet.
“You see,” Lemoine was continuing, “we have all known that eventually
King Victor would come to Chimneys. It was the one place we were sure
of catching him.”
Virginia looked up with an odd light in her eyes, and suddenly she
laughed.
“You’ve not caught him yet,” she said.
Lemoine looked at her curiously.
“No, Madame. But I shall.”
“He’s supposed to be rather famous for outwitting people, isn’t he?”
The Frenchman’s face darkened with anger.
“This time, it will be different,” he said between his teeth.
“He’s a very attractive fellow,” said Lord Caterham. “Very attractive.
But surely—why, you said he was an old friend of yours, Virginia?”
“That is why,” said Virginia composedly, “I think M. Lemoine must be
making a mistake.”
And her eyes met the detective’s steadily, but he appeared in no wise
discomfited.
“Time will show, Madame,” he said.
“Do you pretend that it was he who shot Prince Michael?” she asked
presently.
“Certainly.”
But Virginia shook her head.
“Oh, no!” she said. “Oh, no! That is one thing I am quite sure of.
Anthony Cade never killed Prince Michael.”
Lemoine was watching her intently.
“There is a possibility that you are right, Madame,” he said slowly. “A
possibility, that is all. It may have been the Herzoslovakian, Boris,
who exceeded his orders and fired that shot. Who knows, Prince Michael
may have done him some great wrong, and the man sought revenge.”
“He looks a murderous sort of fellow,” agreed Lord Caterham. “The
house-maids, I believe, scream when he passes them in the passages.”
“Well,” said Lemoine. “I must be going now. I felt it was due to you,
my lord, to know exactly how things stand.”
“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Lord Caterham. “Quite certain you
won’t have a drink? All right then. Good night.”
“I hate that man with his prim little black beard and his eyeglasses,”
said Bundle, as soon as the door had shut behind him. “I hope Anthony
_does_ snoo him. I’d love to see him dancing with rage. What do you
think about it all, Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” said Virginia. “I’m tired. I shall go up to bed.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Lord Caterham. “It’s half-past eleven.”
As Virginia was crossing the wide hall, she caught sight of a broad
back that seemed familiar to her discreetly vanishing through a side
door.
“Superintendent Battle,” she called imperiously.
The superintendent, for it was indeed he, retraced his steps with a
shade of unwillingness.
“Yes, Mrs. Revel?”
“M. Lemoine has been here. He says—— Tell me, is it true, really
true, that Mr. Fish is an American detective?”
Superintendent Battle nodded.
“That’s right.”
“You have known it all along?”
Again Superintendent Battle nodded.
Virginia turned away towards the staircase.
“I see,” she said. “Thank you.”
Until that minute she had refused to believe.
And now——?
Sitting down before her dressing-table in her own room, she faced the
question squarely. Every word that Anthony had said came back to her
fraught with a new significance.
Was this the “trade” that he had spoken of?
The trade that he had given up. But then——
An unusual sound disturbed the even tenor of her meditations. She
lifted her head with a start. Her little gold clock showed the hour to
be after one. Nearly two hours she had sat here thinking.
Again the sound was repeated. A sharp tap on the window-pane. Virginia
went to the window and opened it. Below on the pathway was a tall
figure which even as she looked stooped for another handful of gravel.
For a moment Virginia’s heart beat faster—then she recognized the
massive strength and square-cut outline of the Herzoslovakian, Boris.
“Yes,” she said in a low tone. “What is it?”
At the moment it did not strike her as strange that Boris should be
throwing gravel at her window at this hour of the night.
“What is it?” she repeated impatiently.
“I come from the Master,” said Boris in a low tone which nevertheless
carried perfectly. “He has sent for you.”
He made the statement in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.
“Sent for me?”
“Yes, I am to bring you to him. There is a note. I will throw it up to
you.”
Virginia stood back a little, and a slip of paper, weighted with a
stone, fell accurately at her feet. She unfolded it and read:
“_My dear_ (Anthony had written),—_I’m in a tight place, but I mean to
win through. Will you trust me and come to me?_”
For quite two minutes Virginia stood there, immovable, reading those
few words over again and again.
She raised her head, looking round the well-appointed luxury of the
bedroom as though she saw it with new eyes.
Then she leaned out of the window again.
“What am I to do?” she asked.
“The detectives are the other side of the house, outside the Council
Chamber. Come down and out through this side door. I will be there. I
have a car waiting outside in the road.”
Virginia nodded. Quickly she changed her dress for one of fawn tricot,
and pulled on a little fawn leather hat.
Then, smiling a little, she wrote a short note, addressed it to Bundle
and pinned it to the pincushion.
She stole quietly downstairs and undid the bolts of the side door. Just
a moment she paused, then, with a little gallant toss of the head, the
same toss of the head which her ancestors had gone into action in the
Crusades, she passed through.
26
The 13th of October
At ten o’clock on the morning of Wednesday, the 13th of October,
Anthony Cade walked into Harridge’s Hotel and asked for Baron
Lolopretjzyl who was occupying a suite there.
After suitable and imposing delay, Anthony was taken to the suite
in question. The Baron was standing on the hearthrug in a correct