by Sax Rohmer
But, even so, words had passed which had amply confirmed his suspicions; so much so that, whilst he listened, all but breathlessly, he was devising a scheme for capturing Sheard’s visitor, single-handed, as he left the house. Furthermore, he was devising a way out of the difficulty in the event of the captive proving to be another than Séverac Bablon.
The latter part of the duologue had puzzled him badly. The visitor seemed to have ceased talking altogether, and Sheard’s remarks had in some inexplicable way drifted into quite a different channel. They appeared to appertain to what had preceded them but remotely. The relation seemed forced.
Still the visitor said nothing. Sheard continued to talk, and in upon the mind of the detective shone a light of inspiration.
He detached the cunning little instrument, crawled across the lawn and slunk out at the gate. Then he ran around to the rear of the house. A narrow lane there was, and into its black mouth he plunged without hesitation.
The gate of the tradesmen’s entrance was unbolted.
Alden was perfectly familiar with the nightly customs of the Sheard establishment, and knew this to be irregular. He tilted his hat back and scratched his head reflectively.
Then, from somewhere down the road, on the other side of the house, came the sound of a curious whistle, an eerie minor whistle.
Like an Indian, Alden set off running. He rounded the corner as a car whirled into view five hundred yards further along, and from the next turning on the right. It stopped. One of its doors slammed.
It was off again. It had vanished.
Mr. Alden carefully extracted a cheroot from his case and lighted it with loving care.
CHAPTER XIV
ZOE DREAMS
If you know the Astoria, you will remember that all around the north-west side of the arcade-like structure, which opens on the Old Supper Room, the Rajah Suite, the Louis Ballroom, the Edwardian Banqueting Hall, and the Persian Lounge, are tiny cosy-corners. In one of these you may smoke your secluded cigar, cigarette or pipe, wholly aloof from the bustle, with its marked New Yorkist note, which characterises the more public apartments of the giant caravanserai.
There is a nicely shaded light, if you wish to read, or to write, at night. But you control this by a switch, conveniently placed, so that the darkness which aids reflection is also at your command. Then there is the window, opening right down to the floor, from which, if it please you, you may study the activity of the roofless ant-hill beneath, the restless febrility of West End London.
To such a nook Zoe Oppner retired, after a dinner but little enjoyed in solitary splendour amid the gaiety of one of the public dining-rooms. Her father had been called away by some mysterious business, too late in the evening for her to make other arrangements. So she had descended and dined, a charming, but lonely figure, at the little corner table.
In some strange way, she had more than half anticipated that Séverac Bablon would be there. But, although there were a number of people present whom she knew, the audacious Mr. Sanrack was not one of them.
Zoe had nodded to a number of acquaintances, but had not encouraged any of them to disturb her solitude. The long and tiresome meal dealt with, she had fled to the nook I have mentioned, and, with an Egyptian cigarette between her lips, lay back watching, from the perfumed darkness, the lights of London below.
The idea of calling upon Mary Evershed had occurred to her. Then she had remembered that Mary was at some semi-official function of her uncle’s, Mr. Belford’s. Sheila Vignoles would be at home, but Zoe began to feel too deliciously lazy to think seriously of driving even so short a distance.
In a big, cane lounge-chair packed with cushions she curled up luxuriously and began to reflect.
Her reflections, it is needless to say, centred around Séverac Bablon. Why, she asked herself, despite his deeds, did she admire and respect him? Her mind refused to face the problem, but she felt a hot blush rise to her cheeks. She was a traitor to her father; she could not deny it. But at any rate she was a frank traitor, if such a state be possible. Only that morning she had explained her position to him.
“Séverac Bablon,” she had maintained, “only makes you rich men do what you ought to do with some of your money! Even if the object weren’t a good one, even were it a ridiculous one, like making Dutchmen and Americans buy British airships, it does make you spend something. And that’s a change!”
Mr. Oppner was used to these outspoken critcisms from his daughter. He had smiled grimly, wryly.
“I guess,” had been his comment, “you’d stand up for the Bablon man, then, if he ever came your way?”
“Sure!” Zoe had cried. “You spend too much on me, and on Pinkertons, and not enough on people who really want it.”
“You ought to join the staff of the Gleaner, Zoe! They specialise in that brand of junk, and they’re in the popular market at the moment, too. They’ll win the next election hands down, I’m told.”
“Why don’t you start a fund for Canadian emigrants?” Zoe had proceeded. “You’ve made a heap of money out of Canada. Then you wouldn’t have to buy any airships, maybe!”
“I don’t have to! No Roman Emperor was watched closer’n me! If that guy gets me held up he’s earnin’ his money! Zoe, you’re a durned unnatural daughter!”
The thought of that conversation made her smile. To her it seemed so ridiculous that her father should guard his expenditure like one who has but a few dollars between himself and starvation. The gold fever was an incomprehensible disease to the daughter of the man who was more savagely bitten with it than almost any other living plutocrat.
Musing upon these matters, Zoe slept, and dreamed.
She dreamed that she stood in the gateway of an ancient city, amid a throng of people attired in the picturesque garb of the East. About her, the city was en fête. Before her stretched the desert, an undulating ocean of greyness, a dry ocean parched by a merciless sun.
Barbaric music sounded; the clashing of cymbals and quiver of strange instruments rendering it unlike any music she had ever heard. A procession was issuing from the gateway with much pomp. There were venerable, white-bearded priests, and there were girls, too, arrayed in festive garb, their hair bedecked with flowers. Their gay ranks, amid which the slow-pacing patriarchs struck a sombre note, passed out across the sands.
They were met by what seemed to be the advance guard of a great army. A man whose golden armour glittered hotly in the blazing sun descended from a chariot to receive them.
Then, amid music and shouting and the beating of drums, the procession returned, surrounding the chariot in which the golden one rode. It was filled to the brim with flowers.
As it passed in at the gate, the occupant stooped, took up a huge lily and threw it to Zoe. His eyes met hers. And, amid that panoply of long-ago, she recognised Séverac Bablon.
She dreamed on.
She lay in a huge temple, prone upon its marble floor, in the shadow of a pillar curiously carven. The lily lay beside her. Two men stood upon the other side of the pillar. She was invisible from where they were, and in low voices they spoke together, and Zoe listened.
“It overlooks the river,” said one. “Two sides of the garden are on streets as lonely as the middle of the Atlantic. A narrow lane joins and runs right down the back. We want six or eight men, as well as you and I.”
“What,” inquired the other (his voice seemed strangely familiar), “is the matter with Scotland Yard?”
A moment’s silence followed. Then:
“I didn’t want to call them in. Largely, I’m out for reputation.”
“Mostly,” came a drawling reply, “I’m out for business!”
A veil seemed to have taken the place of the carven pillar, a thin, dream-veil. Although, in her curious mental state, Zoe could not know it, this was the veil which separated dreamland from reality.
“Martin can come with us. The other two boys will have to hang on to the tails of Mr. Elschild and Sheard. We mustn’t neglect
the rest of the programme because this item looks like a top-liner. I asked Sullivan if he could draft me half-a-dozen smart boys for Wednesday evening, and he said yep.”
“More expense! What do you want to go and get men from a private detective agency for, when there’s official police whose business it is to do it for nothing?”
“I thought there’d be people there, maybe, with big names. If we’re in charge we can hush up what we like. If Scotland Yard had the job in hand there’d be a big scandal.”
“You weren’t thinkin’ of that so much as huggin’ all the credit! This blame man’ll ruin me anyway. I can see it. What have you found out about this house?”
“It’s called ‘The Cedars’ and it fronts on J —— Road. It’s just been leased to a Dr. Ignatius Phillips, who’s supposed to be a brain specialist. I’ve weighed up every inch of ground and my plan’s this: Two boys come along directly after dusk, and take up their posts behind the hedge of the back lane; ten minutes after, two more make themselves scarce on the west side and two more on the towing-path. There’s a thick clump of trees with some railings around, right opposite the door. You and I will hide there with Martin. We’ll see who goes in. There’s just a short, crescent-shaped drive, and only a low hedge. When everybody has arrived, we march up to the front door. As soon as it’s opened, in we go, a whole crush of us! The house will be surrounded — —”
“It sounds a bit on the dangerous side!”
“There’ll be plenty of us — four or five.”
“Make it six. He’s got such a crowd of accomplices!”
“Six of us, then — —”
“I wish you’d let Scotland Yard take it in hand.”
“As you please. It’s for you to say. But they have made so many blunders — —”
“You’re right! Hang the expense! I’ll see to this business myself!”
“Then we shall want rather more men than I’d arranged for. Suppose we go and ring up Sullivan’s?”
Zoe was wide awake now. A door shut. She sat up with a start. The darkness was redolent of strong tobacco-smoke, the smoke of a cheroot. She realised, instantly, what had happened —
Her father and Alden had entered the little room for an undisturbed chat and had not troubled to switch the light on. Many people like to talk in the dark; J.J. Oppner was one of them. Hidden amid the cushions of the big chair, she had not been seen. Since they had found the room in darkness, her presence had not been suspected. And what had she thus overheard?
A plot to capture Séverac Bablon!
Now, indeed, she was face to face with the hard facts of her situation. What should she do? What could she do?
He must be warned. It was impossible to think of seeing him a prisoner — seeing him in the dock like a common felon. It was impossible to think of meeting his eyes, his grave, luminous eyes, and reading reproach there!
But how should she act? This was Tuesday, and they had spoken of Wednesday as the day when the attempt was to be made. If only she had a confidant! It was so hard to come, unaided, to a decision respecting the right course to follow.
Laurel Cottage, Dulwich Village, that was the address which he had confided to her. But how should she get there? To go in the car was tantamount to taking the chauffeur into her confidence. She must go, then, in a cab.
Zoe was a member of that branch of American society which laughs at the theory of chaperons. There was nothing to prevent her going where she pleased, when she pleased, and how she pleased. Her mind, then, was made up very quickly.
She ran to her room, and without troubling her maid, quickly changed into a dark tweed costume and put on one of those simple, apparently untrimmed hats which the masculine mind values at about three-and-nine, but which actually cost as much as a masculine dress suit.
Fearful of meeting her father in the lifts, she went down by the stair, and slipped out of the hotel unnoticed.
“A cab, madam?”
She nodded. Then, just as the man raised his whistle, she shook her head.
“No thanks,” she said. “I think I’ll walk.”
She passed out across the courtyard and mingled with the stream of pedestrians. Right at the beginning of her adventure she had nearly blundered. She laughed, with a certain glee. It was novel and exhilarating, this conspiracy against the powers that be. There was something that appealed to the adventurous within her in thus being under the necessity of covering her tracks.
Certainly, she was a novice. It would never have done to lay a trail right from the hotel door to Laurel Cottage.
She walked into Charing Cross Station and approached the driver of the first vacant taxi that offered.
“I want to go to Dulwich Village.”
The man pulled a wry face. If he undertook that journey it would mean that he would in all probability have to run back empty, and then he would miss the theatre people.
“Sorry, miss. But I don’t think I’ve got enough petrol!”
“Oh, how tiresome.”
The American accent, now suddenly pronounced, induced him to change his mind.
“Should you want me to bring you back, miss?”
“Sure! I don’t want to be left there!”
“All right, miss. Jump in.”
“But I thought you hadn’t enough petrol?”
The man grinned.
“I didn’t want to be stranded right out there with no chance of a fare, miss!” he confessed.
Zoe laughed, good-naturedly, and entered the cab.
The man set off, and soon Zoe found herself upon unfamiliar ground. Through slummish localities they passed, and through popular suburbs, where all the activity of the West End prevailed without its fascinating, cosmopolitan glitter.
Dulwich Village was reached at last, and the cab was drawn up on a corner bearing a signpost.
“Which house did you want, miss?”
“I want Laurel Cottage.”
The taxi-man scratched his head.
“You see, some of the houses in the village aren’t numbered,” he said; “and I don’t know this part very well. I never heard of Laurel Cottage. Any idea which way it lies?”
“Not the slightest. Do you think you could find out for me?”
A policeman was standing on the opposite corner, and, crossing, the taxi-man held some conversation with him. He returned very shortly.
“It’s round at the back of the College buildings, miss,” he reported.
Again the cab proceeded onward. This was a curiously lonely spot, more lonely than Zoe could have believed to exist within so short a distance from the ever-throbbing heart of London. She began to wish that she had shared her secret with another; that she had a companion. After all, how little, how very little, she knew of Séverac Bablon. With all her romantic and mystic qualities Zoe was at heart a shrewd American girl, and not one to be readily beguiled by any man, however fascinating. She was not afraid, but she admitted to herself that the expedition was compromising, if not dangerous. If she ever had occasion to come again, she would confide in Mary and come in her company.
“This road isn’t paved, miss. I don’t think I can get any further.”
The cab, after jolting horribly, had come to a stand-still. Zoe got out.
“Is Laurel Cottage much farther on?”
“It stands all alone, on the left, about a hundred yards along.”
“Thank you. Please wait here.”
Zoe walked ahead. It was a very lonely spot. The cab had stopped before some partially-constructed houses. Beyond that lay vacant lots, on either side. In front, showed a clump of trees, and, at the back of them on a slight acclivity, a big house.
The night was fine but moonless. Save for the taxi-man and herself, it would seem that nothing moved anywhere about. She came up level with the trees. There was a kind of very small lodge among them, closely invested with ragged shrubs and overshadowed by heavier foliage.
Beyond, farther along the road, showed nothing but uninviting darkn
ess, solitude and vacancy. This then must be the place.
Zoe peered between the bars of the gate. No light was anywhere to be seen. The house appeared to be deserted. Could the cabman have made a mistake or have been misinformed?
Zoe carried a little case, containing, amongst a number of other things, a tiny matchbox. She extracted and lighted a match. There was no breeze, or she must certainly have failed to accomplish the operation.
Shading the light with her gloved hands, she bent and examined some half-defaced white characters which adorned the top bar of the gate; by which means she made out the words: —
LAUREL COTTAGE
There had been no mistake, then. She opened the gate, and by a narrow, moss-grown path through the bushes, came to the door. All was still. It was impossible to suppose the place inhabited.
No bell was to be found, but an iron knocker hung upon the low door.
Zoe knocked.
The way in which the sound echoed through the little cottage almost frightened her. It seemed to point to emptiness. Surely Laurel Cottage must be unfurnished.
There was no reply, no sign of life.
She knocked again. She knocked a third time.
Then the stillness of the place, and the darkness of the long avenue away up where the trees met in a verdant arch, became intolerable. She turned and walked quickly out on to the road again.
CHAPTER XV
AT “THE CEDARS”
Zoe was nonplussed. She was unable to believe that this deserted place was the spot referred to by Séverac Bablon. She still clung to the idea that there must be some mistake, though she had the evidence of her own eyes that the cottage was called Laurel Cottage.
The notion of writing a note and slipping it through the letter-box came to her. But she remembered that there was no letter-box. Then, such a course might be dangerous.
She looked gratefully towards the beam of light from the cab lamps. The solitude was getting on her nerves. Yes, she determined, she would write a note, and put it under the door. She need not sign it.
With that determination, she returned to where the taxi-man waited.
