The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

should be caught up in aLondon auction market in broad daylight by a band of foreign mercenariesand that my bids would be put out of competition just at the second thatmy client demanded all my shrewdness, my intelligence, and my power tofix a hard deal. And the abduction seemed only the more bitter to mebecause it had been so cunningly engineered by two of my own mostparticular and intimate "friends!"

  Eventually, however, some sounds did penetrate the box wherein I hadbeen concealed. I was conscious of heavy weights being moved along thesame floor and of a thump and rattle of noisy chains. Then I heard asharp crack, as if nails were being driven into the lid of the case inwhich I had been confined, and the whole structure began to quiver andcreak and groan under these blows, until, at length, so loud andterrifying was the noise that my head seemed to split with the rush ofblood and the pain.

  Fortunately, the hammer ceased sooner than I anticipated, and I becameconscious of the case being hoisted through the air, to fall swiftly onto some springy cart or waggon that was doubtless in waiting outside themart. A few minutes later the box itself began to shake, jolt, andrattle, and then I knew that I was being carried over some of the roughcobbled streets around Covent Garden. In the end, lulled by thismovement, that by-and-by became more regular and even, and also worn outby exhaustion from the struggle I had passed through, I must have slept,for when I next came to note my experiences I found that every movementhad ceased and that all now was dull and silent as the grave.

  What had happened?

  Half unconsciously I rose from my crouching posture in the box andplaced my hands high above my head. As I did so I was startled to catchthe bright gleam of a chisel, that just then was being inserted from theoutside, and all at once I heard some fresh blows from a hammer, whichmade me hope that at length the expected time of my deliverance hadcome, and that the lid of the case was in process of being forced opento set me free.

  A moment afterwards the wooden framework yielded with a crash. A floodof light poured into the box, rendering me for the time quite blind, forthe interior of the case had been perfectly dark. Directly, however, Irecovered myself from this I sprang out, and, to my chagrin, found thatI was only partially released, for I was now in a cellar about twentyfeet square, lit in the centre by a ship's lantern which depended fromthe ceiling by an iron chain. Unfortunately, too, I was not quickenough to see who it was that had struck off the lid, for almost thesame second as I emerged an iron door at the far end of the apartmentclosed with a crash, a key turned in the lock, and I heard a man'sfootsteps die away in the distance.

  Not to be baulked, I seized the hammer which he had dropped in hisexcitement, and with this beat upon the door.

  "Let me out," I shouted. "Let me out at once."

  A reply came more quickly than I expected.

  Almost immediately there followed the sounds of returning footsteps, andto my utter astonishment I heard a familiar voice cry: "Hugh! Hugh!"And the door was flung open, and no other than Doris Napier herselfrushed to my arms.

  Laughing and crying alternately, she could give me no coherent word ofexplanation then, but half led, half dragged me out of this strangehiding-place to a large apartment on the floor above, which, from thespecific kind of curiosities it contained, I recognised at once as oneof the showrooms of Peter Zouche, the Hunchback of Westminster.

  "By heaven!" I cried in amazement as I stopped suddenly close to theopen door near the street; and almost stupefied I surveyed the apartmentin Tufton Street in which I had been so often an honoured visitor, "andso this is the place of the man who has dared to abduct me in the open--is it? The Hunchback of Westminster! Well, now I know with whom Ishall have to reckon. He shall not find I am remiss." And I set myteeth hard.

  "Don't talk like that," pleaded Doris, laying a gentle detaining hand onmy arm and trying to lead me in the direction of the pavement."Remember Mr Zouche and Lord Fotheringay are both friends of yours, andrealise for once that you have had a very narrow escape with your life.You can have no idea of the peril you have been in."

  "No doubt," I returned grimly. "But that's scarcely the point just now,is it? You can leave me to deal with them--`friends' as you call them--or foes. What, dearest, I want to hear from you is this"--and I smiledinto her eyes--"On what mad pretext were you lured here? How did you,of all the sweet and helpful souls on God's earth, come to learn that Ihad been kidnapped--"

  "Father told me," she replied, with a blush--and she bent her head.

  "Colonel Napier! Your father told you," I ejaculated. "But how in thename of fate did he come to be mixed up in this affair, which may endanywhere--even an assize court."

  "Lord Fotheringay came and had a private chat with him in our flat atWhitehall Court," she explained. "That was about half-an-hour ago. Idon't know, of course, what passed between them, but suddenly fathercame to me and said that you were in great danger and had been rescuedby Mr Zouche's cleverness and the earl's quickness. He added, too,that somehow you had mixed yourself up in some terrible conspiracy whichhe had promised the earl, when he told him about it in confidence, thathe would not reveal to a soul, but that I might, if I cared for you asmuch as ever, and did really wish to help you, take a hansom here andrelease you from this cellar and tell you from him that, whatever youdo, you must instantly drop all connection with some man he called JoseCasteno?"

  "Thanks, but that's not enough," I answered hotly. "The truth is, I'veundertaken certain work for Casteno, and I shall carry it through.Believe me that, after all has been said and explained, it is ColonelNapier who has been made a puppet and not myself."

  "Yes," I went on; "I mean Lord Fotheringay and Peter Zouche," and I sawthe girl start and her face blanch. "Bah! you can never know what theyhave dared to do to me." And in a few graphic but incisive sentences Irecounted to her all my humiliating and baffling experiences in the martthat afternoon.

  "But perhaps," suggested Doris timidly when I had finished my passionateoutburst, "they did not mean anything unkind to you after all. Look atthe affair outside yourself. Perhaps great issues hang on the recoveryof those three old manuscripts, and it is really you who are, as theyassert, being made a tool of--to ruin them."

  "I don't care whether I am or not." I retorted savagely, pulling my hattightly across my temples. "I have seen Casteno, and I, who am usuallyreputed a fine judge of character by voice and face, like him, and Ishall not cease my association with him until I prove conclusively thathe is not worthy of my trust or assistance.

  "Besides, Doris," I went on earnestly, "this particular commission ofhis means everything that I really value in life--it means you! Don'tyou recollect, as keenly as I do, how the colonel has forbidden us to beformally engaged until I can point to at least a thousand pounds, whichI can tell him truthfully that I have made out of this new fantasticprofession of mine as a secret investigator? Well, listen to me. Ifall goes well I see my way now quite easily to make this amount out ofCasteno alone. Already he has handed me seven hundred and fifty pounds,and I can quickly run out other work on his behalf amounting to thatextra two fifty. As for Lord Fotheringay, he'll never be of anyprofessional use to me. Ever since he got back from America he's beenquite a different man to all of us who were his old friends. Somethingdreadful must have happened to him there. He's changed hideously forthe worse."

  And then I stopped suddenly. This casual reference to America recalledsomething to me (like casual references often do to all of us) that Ihad quite forgotten. It was nothing less than a connection with Americawhich both Lord Fotheringay and the dead priest, Father AlphonseCalasanctius, had in common. Could it--I now asked myself--could itreally happen that Don Jose Casteno had also come from that same SouthAmerican Republic--the Republic of Mexico? And could those fadedparchment rolls relate to some secret which the Earl of Fotheringay haddiscovered whilst he was in Mexico, and in regard to which he hadprocured the assistance of Zouche, one of the finest, most notedpalaeographists and experts in mediaeval cypher that the British Mus
eumhas ever employed?

  "I don't care," put in Doris firmly, "I don't care about this point ofview of yours. I've a strong intuition that no good will come to you orto me by your association with this foreigner, Casteno. Believe me atleast in this, that my father is not a man to speak or to act lightly,and he who really knows all, remember, says most solemnly that you mustgive this man's friendship up now--at once."

  "I won't," I snapped decisively.

  "For my sake," she pleaded, and her eyes were lustrous with unshedtears.

  "I have given my word," I repeated, throwing my shoulders back with aneffort.

  "Break it. It was obtained from you