next morning I received this message—”
He fumbled in his pocket and produced a strip of paper, on which was hastily scrawled —
“From N.C.H. to L.L. Meet me in London on the sixth, Charing Cross Station.”
“It was, as you see, in French, and as it came I scribbled it down. I would have ignored it, but that night I got a message from Hyatt saying that N.C.H.. had discovered we shared their secret and had offered to pay us £5,000 each to preserve silence, and that as they would probably alter the code I should be a fool not to accept. So I got leave of absence and bought a suit of clothing, left Paris, and arrived in London the following night. A dark young man who said his name was Silinski met me at the station, and invited me to come home with him.
“He had a motorcar at the entrance of the station, and after some hesitation I accepted. We drove through the streets filled with people, for the theatres were just emptying, and after an interminable ride we reached the open country. Silinski drove the car and I was the only other occupant. I asked him where was Hyatt, and where we were going, but he refused to speak. When I pressed him, he informed me he was taking me to a rendezvous near the sea.
“We had been driving for close on three hours, when we reached a lonely lane. By the lights of the car I could see a steep hill before us, and I could hear the roar of the waves somewhere ahead.
“Suddenly he threw a lever over, and as the car bounded forward, he sprang to the ground with a mocking laugh.
“Before I could realize what had happened, the machine was flying down the steep gradient, rocking from side to side.
“I have sufficient knowledge of motorcar engineering to manipulate a car, and I at once sprang to the wheel and felt for the brake. But both foot and hand brake were useless. In some manner he had contrived to disconnect them.
“It was pitch dark, and all that I could hope to do was to keep the car to the centre of the road. Instinctively I knew that I was rushing to certain death, and, messieurs, I was! I was flying down a steep gradient to inevitable destruction, for at the bottom of the hill the road turned sharply, and confronting me, although I did not know this, was a stone sea wall.
“I resolved on taking my life in my hands, and putting the car at one of the steep banks which ran on either side, I turned the steering wheel and shut my eyes. I expected instant death. Instead, the car bounded up at an angle that almost threw me from my seat. I heard the crash of wood, and flying splinters struck my neck, and the next thing I remember was a series of bumps as the car jolted over a ploughed field.
“I had achieved the impossible. At the point I had chosen to leave the road was a gate leading to a field, and by an act of Providence, I had found the only way of escape.
“I found myself practically at the very edge of the sea, and in my first terror I would have given every sou I had to escape to France. All night long I waited by the broken car, and with the dawn some peasants came and told me I was only five miles distant from Dover. I embraced the man who told me this, and would have hired a conveyance to drive me to Dover, en route for France. I knew that N.C.H.. could trace me, and then I was anxious to get in touch with Hyatt and Moss. Then it was that I saw in an English newspaper that Moss was dead.”
He stopped and moistened his lips.
“M’sieur!” he went on, with a characteristic gesture, “I decided that I would come to London and find Hyatt. I took train, but I was watched. At a little junction called Sandgate, a man sauntered past my carriage. I did not know him, he looked like an Italian. As the train left the station something smashed the window, and I heard a thud. There was no report, but I knew that I had been fired at with an air-gun, for the bullet I found embedded in the woodwork of the carriage.”
“Did nothing further happen?” asked T.B.
“Nothing till I reached Charing Cross; then when I stopped to ask a policeman to direct me to the Central Police Bureau I saw a man pass me in a motorcar, eyeing me closely. It was Silinski.”
“And then?”
“Then I saw my danger. I was afraid of the police. I saw a newspaper sheet. It was a great newspaper — I wrote a letter — and sought lodgings in a little hotel near the river. There was no answer to my letter. I waited in hiding for two days before I realized that I had given no address. I wrote again. All this time I have been seeking Hyatt. I have telegraphed to Cornwall, but the reply comes that he is not there. Then in the newspaper I learn of his death. M’sieur, I am afraid.”
He wiped the drops of sweat from his forehead with a shaky hand.
He was indeed in a pitiable condition of fright, and T.B., upon whose nerves the mysterious “bears” were already beginning to work, appreciated his fear without sharing it.
There came a knock at the outer door of the office, and the editor moved to answer it.
There was a whispered conversation at the door, the door closed again, and the editor returned with raised brows.
“T.B,” he said, “that wretched market has gone again.”
“Gone?”
“Gone to blazes! Spanish fours are so low that you’d get a pain in your back if you stooped to pick them up.”
T.B. nodded.
“I’ll use your telephone,” he said, and stooped over the desk. He called for a number and after an interval —
“Yes — that you, Mainland? Go to 375 St. John Street, and take into custody Gregory Silinski on a charge of murder. Take with you fifty men and surround the place. Detain every caller, and every person you find in the house.”
He hung up the receiver.
“Now, my friend,” he said in French, “what shall we do with you?”
The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders listlessly.
“What does it matter?” he said, “they will have me — it is only a matter of hours.”
“I take a brighter view,” said T.B. cheerily; “you shall walk with us to Scotland Yard and there you shall be taken care of.”
But the Frenchman shrunk back.
“Come, there is no danger,” smiled T.B.
Eeluctantly the engineer accompanied the detective and the editor from the building. A yellow fog lay like a damp cloth over London, and the Thames Embankment was almost deserted.
“Do you think he followed you here?” asked T.B.
“I am sure.” The Frenchman looked from left to right in an agony of apprehension. “He killed Hyatt and he killed Moss — of that I am certain — and now—”
A motorcar loomed suddenly through the fog, coming from the direction of Northumberland Avenue, and overtook them. A man leaned out of the window as the car swept abreast. His face was masked and his actions were deliberate.
“Look out!” cried the editor, and clutched the Frenchman’s arm.
The pistol that was levelled from the window of the car cracked twice and T.B. felt the wind of the bullets as they passed his head.
Then the car disappeared into the mist, leaving behind three men, one half-fainting with terror, one immensely pleased with the novel sensation — our editor, you may be sure — and one using language unbecoming to an Assistant-Commissioner of Police, for T.B. knew that the mask was Silinski, and that the detectives even now on their way to St. John Street would find the cage empty and the bird flown.
XVIII. The Affair of the “Castilia”
There was no apparent reason for the