The Four Faces

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The darkness here was denser than it had been in the passage above, but
the lantern served its purpose. We were in a much narrower passage now,
so low that we had to stoop to make our way along it. The ceiling was
roughly hewn, so was the ground we walked upon. Half a dozen steps along
the rough ground and we stopped again. Facing us was a low, extremely
narrow door, apparently an iron door--it resembled the door of a safe.
Fitting a key into it, the gaunt man pushed it open, and one by one
we entered.

At once I became aware of a singular change in the atmosphere. In the
narrow, cavernous, obviously subterraneous little passage we had just
left the air had been humid, chill, and dank, with an unpleasant earthy
odour. Here it was dry and stuffy, as if heated artificially. So intense
was the blackness that I seemed almost to feel it. There was a dull
thump. Turning, I saw that the cadaverous man had shut this door too.
Just as I was wondering why he took such precautions something clicked
beside me, and the chamber was flooded with light.

For an instant the glare blinded me. Then, as I looked about me, the
sight that met my gaze made me catch my breath. Was this an Aladdin's
Palace I had suddenly entered? Had my brain become deranged, causing a
strange, an amazing hallucination? Or was I asleep and dreaming?

CHAPTER XXV

THE GLITTERING UNDERWORLD

Never shall I forget that astounding spectacle. Even as I think of it
now, it rises once more before me.

The room, though low, was very long and very broad; I guessed at once
that originally it must have been a cellar, or possibly a series of
cellars. Now as the brilliant electric rays from a dozen powerful
ceiling lamps shone down through their tinted shades, they lit up a
collection of treasure such as few indeed can have gazed upon.

Heaped upon trays on tables all about the room were unset precious
stones of every conceivable description, which glittered and
scintillated in the most wonderful way imaginable. Upon the floor, in
rough, uncovered boxes, heaps of gold bracelets and brooches, gold rings
and gold chains, gold ornaments and trinkets, and bits of miscellaneous
jewellery were piled high in inextricable confusion, as though they had
been tossed there to be thrown on to a waste heap. Upon the ground were
bars of gold, the thickness of a brick, ranged carefully in rows. At one
end of the room was a small smelting furnace, not now alight, and above
it an iron brazier. Upon the walls hung sets of furs, many seal-skin and
ermine, while at one side of the room, upon the ground, lay piled up
some thousands of silver spoons and forks, also silver drinking cups
and candlesticks, many silver salvers, and an endless assortment of
silver articles of every kind.

When at last I had recovered from my astonishment, I turned abruptly to
Francois, who stood at my elbow.

"This, I suppose," I said, speaking in a whisper, "is a sort of
clearing-house for stolen property."

He nodded.

"The largest in the whole of France"--he added a moment later, "the
largest, possibly, anywhere in Europe. Stolen goods come here from all
the Continental centres; also from Great Britain, the United States, and
even from Australia."

"But surely," I said, "the police know of this place?"

"They know that it exists, but they don't know where it is. You see how
implicitly I trust you, what faith I place in the honour of--a
gentleman."

"I think not," I corrected. "You know that my tongue is tied--because
you saved my life. That is why you trust me."

He smiled grimly.

"But why have you brought me here?" I asked, after a pause.

"For the reason I have named--to show how implicitly I trust you."

It was only then that a thought flashed in upon me.

"You say," I exclaimed sharply, "that jewellery stolen in Great Britain
sometimes finds its way here?"

"Most of the English stuff is got rid of in this room."

"And are you--do your--your 'clients' tell you where the 'stuff' comes
from?"

"Always," the gaunt man answered. "That is a condition of my taking it
off their hands. You will understand that large rewards are sometimes
offered for the return of property intact and uninjured."

I paused to collect my thoughts before speaking again, anxious not to
make a false step.

"Can you recollect," I said at last, "if jewellery taken from a country
house in Berkshire, England--the house is called Holt Manor--just after
Christmas, ever found its way here?"

The gaunt man reflected for a moment. Then, without speaking, he walked
across the room, unlocked the door of a little safe which was let into
the wall, took from the safe a fat, leather-bound ledger, opened it, and
ran his finger down a page.

"Yes," he said in his deep voice. "The property was valued at about
twelve or fourteen thousand pounds. I have here a list of the articles."

Turning, he peered oddly at me out of his strange eyes.

"May I see the list?" I asked quickly.

"Have you a reason for wanting to see it?"

"Yes. Some of the jewellery taken had been generations in the family. If
it is intact still, I may be able to get a fancy price offered for it,
or for some of it."

"_Bien_" he said. "Much of the stuff has been melted down, but not all."

I read carefully down the list, which, arranged neatly and
systematically, showed at once what had been melted down, and how it had
been disposed of, while a complete list was given of articles kept
intact. Among the latter I recognized several bits of jewellery which
Dulcie had greatly valued, and quickly I arranged with the gaunt man to
buy them from him then and there. After that the three of us sat talking
for a considerable time, and before the time arrived for me to leave I
knew beyond doubt that the jewellery I had caught sight of when Connie
Stapleton's bag had burst open in the train had been the jewellery, or
some of it, stolen on board the boat.

"Some day we may meet again," I said as I parted from Francois and his
companion, in the little greengrocer's shop.

"Some day we shall," the cadaverous man answered in a strange voice. He
extended his hand, and I shook it. A minute later I was in a taxi,
hurrying through the streets of Lyons towards the Perrache station.

As the express sped rapidly towards Paris, endless strange reflections
and conjectures crowded my brain. Was I acting wisely in thus returning
to the French capital, where I might so easily be recognized, seeing how
anxious I was that my friends in England should think me dead? I was--I
knew--though I did not admit it even to myself--returning to Paris
mainly in the hope that I might catch a glimpse of Dulcie. And yet if I
did see her, of what use would it be? Also, what should I do? Let her
recognize me, and the plan I had formed to get the scoundrels arrested
would most likely be spoiled at once--and more than ever I was now
determined to bring them to justice in the end.

I fell into a deep sleep, for I was tired out; I had slept little enough
during that night-long journey in the stolen car. When I awoke, the
train was steaming into Paris; an official, who had aroused me by
rubbing his hand upon my cheek, stood awaiting a _pourboire._

"Go to the Hotel Continental," I said in French to the driver of the
taxi into which I had just stepped with my newly-bought valise. "Get
there as quickly as you can."

That I was doing a mad thing in thus returning to the hotel, where in
all probability the members of the gang were still staying, I knew. But
a man in love hardly reckons with risks, and as I lay back in the taxi,
my brain awhirl, I knew that I was as desperately in love as it is
possible for man to be.

Paris--gay Paris--looked gloomy enough in the dull blue haze which hung
over and partly enveloped its deserted, dreary streets. Happening to
glance up at the windows of a house with green sun-shutters half open,
my eyes met those of a faded girl with touzled hair, peering down into
the street, and mechanically she ogled me. In disgust I averted my gaze,
hating, for the moment, my own sex, which made such women possible. On
and on the car rolled. Some revellers in dishevelled evening clothes,
their eyes round and staring, their faces ghastly in the morning light,
stumbled out beneath an archway above which a lamp burned dully with an
orange glow.

Everything and everyone seemed only half awake. The reception clerk at
the hotel was sulky and inclined to be argumentative. Yes, he was
positive, he said in reply to my inquiry, that nobody of the name of
Challoner was staying at the hotel,--no, nor yet of the name of
Stapleton. They had slept there the night before? Yes, that was quite
possible, but he was not concerned with people who had stayed there,
only with the people who were there then. He had no idea, he added, at
what time they had left, nor yet where they had gone--and did I need a
room, or didn't I? Because if I didn't I had better go away.

His impertinence annoyed me, but I had too much to think about to have
time to lose my temper. I told him I needed a room, and I sent up my
valise. A bath, a shave and a change of clothes braced me considerably,
and by the time I reached the coffee-room I felt thoroughly refreshed.

What adventures had befallen me since I had breakfasted in that room,
only forty-eight hours before, I reflected, as the waiter approached
with the _Figaro_. Breakfast was laid for a hundred or more, but barely
a dozen people were in the room. All were strangers to me, so I soon
became engrossed in the newspaper.

My attention was distracted by the waiter, who, again approaching,
turned up two chairs at my table.

"With all those tables empty," I said to him with a wave of the hand,
"you can surely put people elsewhere. I don't want strangers here."

He smiled pleasantly, showing extraordinarily white teeth.

"A gentleman and lady wish to sit at monsieur's table," he said, bowing
politely, and still smiling.

"Monsieur will not object?"

He seemed so amiable that I felt I couldn't be rude to him.

"But who are the lady and gentleman? And why did they specify this
table?" I asked, puzzled.

The waiter gave a little shrug, raising his eyebrows as he did so.

"How can I tell?" he answered. "They come to the door a moment ago,
while monsieur is reading his newspaper; they see monsieur; they speak
_ensemble_ in whispers for some moments, it would seem about monsieur;
and then they call me and tell me to serve their _dejeuner_ at
monsieur's table."

Hardly had he stopped speaking, when my gaze rested upon two people who
had just entered and were approaching.

One was the police official, Victor Albeury. The other was Dulcie
Challoner!

They greeted me with, I thought, rather exaggerated nonchalance as they
came up, then seated themselves, one on either side of me, Albeury
telling the waiter to "hurry up with the breakfast that he had ordered
five minutes ago."

I was puzzled, rather than surprised, at the matter-of-fact way that
Albeury and Dulcie conversed with me--few things astonished me now. Had
we all been on the best of terms, and met after being separated for half
an hour or so, they could hardly have been more composed. For five
minutes we discussed commonplace topics, when suddenly I noticed that
Albeury was looking at me very hard. Dulcie, too, seemed to have grown
curiously uneasy.

"Whereabouts is he?" Albeury said quickly in a low tone, glancing
sharply at Dulcie. The door was at the back.

"Gone," she whispered. She seemed greatly agitated.

"Mr. Berrington," Albeury said hurriedly, his eyes set on mine, "I
suspect that man. They all left last night. He arrived just before they
left. I happened to see Doris Lorrimer engaged in earnest conversation
with him."

"Of whom are you speaking?" I asked, not understanding.

"Of the waiter at this table--that polite, unctuous man I saw talking
to you. Listen. I have rescued Miss Challoner from Stapleton and her
accomplices. We are going to leave Paris for London in less than half an
hour; it's not safe for Miss Challoner to stay here longer. And you must
travel with us. It is imperative that you should. I can't say more to
you now, while that man is hanging about. Tell me quickly, before he
returns: what happened to you yesterday? Where were you last night?"

"Oh, Mike!" Dulcie interrupted, "if you only knew the mental agony I
have suffered, all that I endured last night--Mike, I dreamed that you
were dead, I dreamed that they had killed you!"

I stared at her, startled.

"They tried to," I almost whispered. "But they failed, and now I--"

"Mr. Berrington," Albeury cut in, "you must forgive my brusqueness--your
breakfast will be brought to you in a moment; when it is, don't eat it.
Make any excuse you like, but don't eat it."

"Good God!" I exclaimed, instantly guessing his thought, "surely you
can't suppose--"

"I can, and do suppose. More than that, I am practically certain that--"

He cut his sentence short, for Dulcie had signalled with her eyes. The
waiter had re-entered the room.

I breathed more freely when at last the three of us were on our way to
the railway station. Strange as it may seem, I had experienced some
difficulty in ridding myself of the officious attentions of the smiling,
smooth-tongued, extremely plausible waiter.

On board the steamer, in a corner of the saloon where none could
eavesdrop, I related to Dulcie how I had been bound, gagged, borne out
of the hotel upon the stretcher concealed beneath a sheet, and all that
had subsequently occurred that I felt justified in telling her. Of the
thieves' clearing-house in Lyons and my rescuer's connection with it,
also of the discovery of the whereabouts of her stolen property, I could
of course say nothing, my lips being in honour sealed.

A little later, as beneath the stars we slowly paced the deck--the sea
was wonderfully smooth for the end of February--Dulcie opened her heart
to me, as I had so long hoped she some day would.

"Oh, if only you knew," she suddenly exclaimed in an access of emotion,
after I had, for a little while, tried to draw her on to talk about
herself, "if only you knew all that I have been through, Mike, you would
be sorry for me!"

"Why don't you tell me everything, my darling?" I answered gently, and,
almost without my knowing it, I drew her closer to me. "You know--you
must know, that I won't repeat to a living soul anything you may say."

"Oh, yes, Mike, of course I know," she said, pressing my hands in hers,
as though she sought protection, "but there is--"

"There is what?"

She glanced to right and left, up the dark deck, and down it, then gave
a little shudder. But for ourselves, the deck was quite deserted.

"I hardly know," she almost whispered, and I felt her trembling
strangely. "Somehow I feel nervous, frightened. I feel as if some danger
were approaching--approaching both of us."

Again she looked about her. Then, as I spoke soothingly, she gradually
grew calmer.

"I was very, very fond of Connie Stapleton, you know," she said
presently, "and I thought that she liked me. That time, at Holt, when
you warned me to beware of her, I felt as if I hated you. She influenced
me so strangely, Mike,--I cannot explain how. Mike, my darling, I tell
you this now because somehow I feel you will forgive me, as at last it's
all over. It seems so odd now to think of it, but as I grew to love her
my love for you seemed to grow less--I knew from the first that she
detested my loving you so, and if I spoke much about you to her it
annoyed her. She wanted to destroy my love for you, Mike, but never, all
the time I have been with her, did I say a word against you. Do you
believe me when I tell you that?"

Later she told me that the woman had quite recently hinted at her doing
certain things she hardly dared to think about, and that, the very day
before, she had disclosed a horrible plan which she had formulated, in
which Dulcie was to play a very important part--a plan to do with a
robbery on a very extensive scale.

"Oh, Mike, Mike," she went on, "I must have been mad during these past
weeks to have listened to what she hinted at--I was mad, or else she had
completely hypnotized me. You remember Mr. Osborne's being taken to that
house in Grafton Street, and kept there in confinement, and the telegram
I received that was supposed to come from you? Well, I know now who it
was who kept him there a prisoner, and came to him in the dark, and
questioned him, and tried to get him to reveal information which he
alone could give. The man who did all that was--"

A footstep just behind us made us both turn quickly. A faint light still
shone along the almost dark deck. Before I could recognize the figure,
before I had time to speak, Dulcie had sprung suddenly forward and
gripped the muffled man by the arm.

"Father!" she exclaimed under her breath, with difficulty controlling
her emotion, "father, what are you doing here?"

CHAPTER XXVI

"THAT WOMAN!"

Sir Roland, whose appearance the cap pulled over his eyes had partly
disguised, made a motion with his hand, enjoining silence. Then, linking
Dulcie's arm in his, he walked slowly towards the saloon entrance. I
walked beside them, but for the moment nobody spoke.

We presently found ourselves in a small, deserted room, apparently a
card room. Here, after carefully shutting the door, Sir Roland seated
himself. Then he indicated the seats that he wished us each to occupy,
for he was rather deaf.

"It is unwise," he said, as he offered me a cigar, "ever to converse
privately on the deck of a steamer. Though I have travelled little by
sea, I know that on board ship, especially on a small boat like this,
voices carry in an extraordinary manner. Standing down wind of you, on
deck, some moments ago, I heard your remarks quite distinctly, in spite
of my deafness. I even recognized your voices--until then I did not know
you were on board."

"But why are you here, father?" Dulcie exclaimed. "When did you leave
England?"

"I crossed the night before last. Connie wired to me to come at
once--she said in her telegram 'most urgent,' though she gave no reason
for the urgency."

"And have you seen her? Where is she now?"

"I was to meet her in the lounge of the Hotel Bristol in Paris last
night. Punctually at nine o'clock, the time arranged, I arrived there. I
waited until nearly ten, and then a messenger arrived with a note. It
was from her. She said in it that she had been telegraphed for to return
to England, that she was leaving by the night boat. She expressed deep
regret, and said she hoped that I would come back to London as soon as
possible--and so here I am."

Again, for some moments, nobody spoke. Dulcie was the first to break the
silence.

"Father," she exclaimed impetuously, "are you really going to--are you
still determined to marry that woman?"

Sir Roland stared at her.

"'That woman'?" he said in surprised indignation. "Whom do you mean by
'that woman'?"

"Connie Stapleton, father," she answered, looking him full in the eyes.
"Have you the least idea who and what she is?"

Sir Roland gazed at her aghast. Then, obviously controlling himself:

"I know that she has done me the honour of accepting my offer of
marriage," he replied, with cold dignity. "More than that, I don't ask
to know; her circumstances don't interest me; my fortune is ample
for both."

Dulcie made a gesture of impatience.

"For goodness' sake, father," she exclaimed, "how can you talk like
that? Connie Stapleton is--"

She turned to me abruptly.

"Oh, Mike," she said in a tone of great vexation, "tell him
everything--I can't."

I cleared my throat to gain time to collect my thoughts. Sir Roland's
rather dull stare was set upon my face inquiringly, though his
expression betrayed astonishment and keen annoyance.

"It's just this, Sir Roland," I said at last, bracing myself to face an
unpleasant task. "You, Dulcie, and I too, have been completely taken in
by Mrs. Stapleton. We believed her to be as charming as she certainly is
beautiful, we thought she was a lady, we--"

"'Thought'!" Sir Roland interrupted, cold with anger. "I still consider
her to be--"

"Will you let me finish? I say we all thought that, I say we supposed
that Mrs. Stapleton was just one of ourselves, a lady, an ordinary
member of society. Then circumstances arose, events occurred which
aroused my suspicions. At first I tried to dispel those suspicions, not
only because I liked the woman personally, but because it seemed almost
incredible that such a woman, mixing with the right people, received
everywhere, could actually be what the circumstances and events I have
hinted at pointed to her being. But at last proof came along that Mrs.
Stapleton was--as she is still--a common adventuress, or rather an
uncommon adventuress, a prominent member of a gang of clever thieves, of
a clique of criminals--"

"Criminals!" Sir Roland stormed, bursting suddenly into passion. Often I
had seen him annoyed, but never until now had I seen him actually in an
ungovernable fury. "How dare you say the lady I am about to marry
is--is--"

"I have proofs, Sir Roland," I cut in as calmly as I could. "You may
doubt my word, you can hardly doubt the word of a famous Continental
detective. He is on board. I will bring him here now."

As I quietly rose to leave the room, I saw Sir Roland staring, half
stupidly, half in a passion still, from Dulcie to me, then back again at
Dulcie. Before he could speak, however, I had left the little room and
gone in search of Victor Albeury. He was not in his cabin, nor was he in
the smoking-room, where men still sat playing cards, nor was he in the
big saloon. On the forward deck I found him at last, a solitary figure
leaning against the stanchion rail, smoking his pipe, and gazing
abstractedly out across the smooth sea, his eyes apparently focussed
upon the black, far-distant horizon.

Gently I tapped him on the arm, as he seemed unaware of my approach.

"Well, Mr. Berrington," he said calmly, without looking round or moving,
"what can I do for you?"

"Please come at once," I exclaimed. "Sir Roland and Miss Challoner are
in the small saloon; we have been trying to explain to Sir Roland that
the woman Stapleton is an adventuress. Probably you don't know that she
is engaged to be married to Sir Roland. He won't believe a word we say.
We want you to come to him--to speak to him and open his eyes."

It was no easy matter, however, to get the old man to believe even
Albeury's calm and convincing assurance that Connie Stapleton belonged
to a gang of infamous people, some of whom we knew beyond question to be
cold-blooded assassins. It was due, indeed, largely to Albeury's
remarkable personality that in the end he succeeded in altering the
opinion Sir Roland had held concerning this woman of whom he was
evidently even more deeply enamoured than we already knew him to be.

"But she has been such a close friend of yours, Dulcie," he said at
last, in an altered tone. "If she is all that you now say she is, how
came you to remain so intimate with her all this time?"

"She has tricked me, father, just as she has hoodwinked you," she
answered, with self-assurance that astonished me. "And then she seemed
somehow to mesmerize me, to cast a sort of spell over me, so that I came
almost to love her, and to do almost everything she suggested. By
degrees she got me in her power, and then she began to make proposals
that alarmed me--and yet I was drawn to her still. Once or twice Mike
had warned me against her, but I had refused to believe his warnings. It
was only two days ago that the crisis came. She didn't ask me to do what
she wanted; she told me I _must_ do it--and then, all at once, the
scales seemed to fall from my eyes. At last her true nature was revealed
to me. It was an awful moment, father--awful!"

Far into the night the three of us remained talking. At last, when we
rose to separate, Albeury turned to me.

"I sleep with you in your cabin to-night, Mr. Berrington," he said
quietly. "And I have arranged that one of the stewardesses shall share
Miss Challoner's cabin. Nobody can tell what secret plans the members of
this gang may have made, and it's not safe, believe me it isn't, for
either of you to spend the night unprotected. Locks, sometimes even
bolts, form no barrier against these people, some of whom are almost
sure to be on board, though I haven't as yet identified any among the
passengers. You will remember that Lady Fitzgraham's cabin was ransacked
last week, though she was in it, and the door locked on the inside. And
poor Preston--we can't risk your sharing his fate."

These ominous warnings would assuredly have filled me with alarm, had
not Albeury's calmness and complete self-possession inspired me with a
strange confidence. Somehow it seemed to me that so long as he was near
no harm could befall either Dulcie or myself. Even Preston's presence
had never inspired such confidence as this clever and far-seeing
detective's presence had done ever since I had come to know him.

But nothing happened. When I woke next morning, after a night of sound
rest, the boat was steaming slowly into port.

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