The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

by fraud," suggested this gentlecasuist. "'Twould be no sin."

  "But the money," I cried, and the thought restored my determination toits full strength.

  Even Doris wavered. The temptation was indeed cruel.

  "The money will do us no good," she replied at length. "I prefer weshould wait."

  "But I don't," I retorted, setting my chin firmly and clenching myfists. "I am tired of being treated as a little less than your friend,dear heart, and a little more than an acquaintance. I want you--yourfather--ay, all the world," I went on wildly, "to recognise me as youraccepted lover. And inasmuch as Jose Casteno assists me to that end, Isay now, once and for all, that I will not give him up for your fatheror anybody else. Besides, aren't we told there's a tide in the affairsof men? Well, I now put my intuition boldly against yours--againstColonel Napier's--even against the vamped-up stories of the ugly oldHunchback of Westminster--and I say that this tide of fortune has atlast come to me, and that I will take it at the full flood no matter whomay raise their hand in protest."

  "You are quite determined?" gasped poor Doris, with a little shiver.

  "Quite," I answered, and my teeth again closed with a snap.

  "Then," said she, with a little gulp of terror, turning towards thedoor, "I--I must hurry back. I promised father that I would leave youat once if you refused, and I too must keep my word. Let me, however,whisper one word to you."

  And still burning with self-righteousness I bent down.

  "Mizpah," said she in a low voice, almost like a prayer: "The Lord watchbetween you and me when we are absent one from the other. Only He canprotect us both. Please heaven He will." And kissing me hurriedly onthe cheek she darted away.

  Next instant she had sprung into a passing hansom and had vanished frommy sight, leaving me for a second quite dumbfounded.

  CHAPTER FOUR.

  THE HOUSE AT HAMPSTEAD.

  Thus began my powerful fight for Don Jose Casteno's rights!

  Looking back to-day I, of course, can see quite clearly how very foolishand headstrong I then was, how I refused to be warned, even by the bestfriend man ever has--the woman who loves him. But there! we can all bewise after the event, can't we?

  Oddly enough though, I did not meet Casteno in my offices that day atmidnight as we had both so carefully arranged. True, I immediately mademy way to Stanton Street, and by then eight o'clock had actually boomedforth from Big Ben, but no sooner did I reach my desk than I foundthereon a telegram which had been despatched at 4:30 PM from the CharingCross Telegraph Office by the mysterious Spaniard, cancelling theappointment, and calling upon me to:

  "Come immediately to St Bruno's, Chantry Road, Hampstead. I knowall.--Casteno."

  As a consequence of this I was soon speeding half across London in thatswift ten-horse Panhard of mine, which had been given to me a monthpreviously in a burst of generosity by a foolish client, an old man,whom I had succeeded in delivering from a gang of needy blackmailerswithout scandal. Indeed, in less than an hour from receipt of hismessage, I had reached the long, winding, and secluded thoroughfarewhich he had specified.

  As a matter of fact, too, if anybody sought a spot where he could hideeffectually from police and public in London, he could never choose abetter or a more suitable district than the aristocratic portions ofHampstead. Much of the wild character of the heath still lingers inthose avenues, and the dwellers in those parts are curiously few,select, and quite indifferent to what goes on outside their own ken.

  St Bruno's, I discovered, was one of the finest of the many fine butsolitary-looking mansions that still exist in Chantry Road. It stood atthe far end of the thoroughfare in a _cul de sac_, in which but one gaslamp burned feebly, throwing into more striking relief the dense, darkcharacter of the surrounding trees and moss-grown pavement. The onlyentrance to the place I could find was a small oaken door in a loftywall of stone, like those we see built so often for the vestries of ourparish churches, and when I pulled an old and rusty iron bell-ring therewas a disquietening pause of some minutes before I heard the movement ofany servant. Even then the door itself did not open, but a small panelabout nine inches square was thrust apart at a point about the height ofthe average man and commanding a good view of the stranger's face andform.

  "What seek you, my son?" asked a clear, refined voice like a priest's,but when I answered; "Don Jose Casteno--he has sent for me," all waschanged. The space beyond seemed flooded with light--the door itselfwas thrown open wide--and I found myself being escorted by a man in thehabit of a Benedictine monk, across a flagged courtyard to a finebuilding, the entrance to which was commanded by two huge wooden doors.

  "This is the home of the Order of St Bruno," said my guide, who was oldand decrepit, apparently about sixty years of age. His tones were thoseof courteous conversation as used by a man of culture, and he swung toand fro an old lantern he was carrying to light my path as we bothwaited patiently for somebody inside the building to unbar thisformidable-looking entrance. "We St Bruno-ites," he added, "havehouses in many quarters--in Delhi for instance, in Sydney, in America--but this is our principal place."

  "Roman Catholic, of course," I remarked, buttoning up my overcoat, for Ifelt chilled after my brisk ride. "Or High Church?" I ventured as Isaw his bright eyes frown.

  "Not at all," the man returned with some asperity. "We are of neitherof those sects." But he never explained what their religion was. Justthen the doors of the main house opened and we were ushered into amagnificent hall, decorated with dark oak panels, and relieved half-wayby a finely-wrought gallery which ran on three sides of this spaciousapartment. On the fourth wall was a wrought-iron bracket on which stoodan immense statue of a woman carved out of white marble, decorated withrare exotic flowers, and cunningly lit by a series of candles, withreflectors which depressed all the light on features beautiful only withthe passionless splendour of a Venus de Milo.

  Down the centre of the hall was placed a long table, flanked on eitherside by forms, and headed by a chair or a small throne fashioned like anabbot's.

  As a matter of fact, I had barely time to take these details in beforethe brother who had first admitted me turned with a low bow and left me.My new guide who had now ushered me in was much younger--about thirty Iguessed--but he also was dressed in the same sombre habit of black asthe one who had first received me, save that his hood and girdle werewhite.

  No words passed between us, but, in a silence that was almost oppressivein so brilliantly illuminated and furnished a place, he escorted me downa long, richly-carpeted passage, hung with valuable classical picturesof a modern school, to a room at the far end, the door of which stoodinvitingly open. Here I was left, but as I turned to examine my newsurroundings, which suggested the rich, well-furnished library of somebibliophile of a generation ago, I was conscious of somebody stealing upbehind me.

  I turned quickly.

  It was Casteno, who, this time, was dressed in an ordinary Romancassock, and carried a biretta.

  "I'm glad that you have come so quickly," he said in those smooth, eventones, motioning me to a chair on the opposite side to one in which hesat close to the fireplace. "As I wired you, I was at the auction. Isaw you had failed."

  "Then why ever didn't you bid for the manuscripts yourself?" I cried inamazement. "Why did you let them go without a protest?"

  "I didn't," he answered quietly. "As a matter of fact, I was the manwho was got up to personate you, and I stopped the mad rush of bids, forI was satisfied, when I saw beyond all doubt that it was the Hunchbackof Westminster into whose hands those precious documents would fall, weshould win our way through in the end. At first I feared it would bethe other man."

  "Fotheringay?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "But they are intimate friends. They are acting together, hand andglove."

  "They may now, but they won't long," he returned significantly, fixinghis eyes in a dreamy way upon the fire.

  Then he roused himself with an effort
.

  "Look here," he went on quickly, as though he had suddenly arrived at amomentous decision, "don't let's beat about the bush. Let me come atonce to business. Don't bother me with a lot of questions. I can nowsee that you are simply exploding to put a lot of interrogatories to me,beginning with a demand for the reason why I came to you at all; how Idared to dress myself up exactly like yourself; what on earth hasColonel Napier to do with this business; and ending with a perfectlylegitimate request for my true reasons for having so strong and deadly ahatred against this man Fotheringay, whom I know, before he went out biggame shooting, you always believed was your most firm and ardent friend.

  "Well, just don't ask me,