CHAPTER XVII

IS SUSPICIOUS

They walked leisurely along the platform, d.i.c.k still carrying his suit-case, and at the end of it pa.s.sed down the sloping sub-way which leads to the Metropolitan Railway. For a moment they were out of sight, but directly I turned the corner I saw them again; they walked slower now, d.i.c.k evidently finding his burden rather heavy. At the pigeon-hole of the booking-office a queue of a dozen or so were waiting to buy tickets. The woman and d.i.c.k did not stop, however. I saw them pa.s.s by the queue, and then I saw the woman hold out tickets to the collector to be clipped, and as I took my place at the back end of the queue she and d.i.c.k pa.s.sed on to the Praed Street platform.

To what station should I book? I had no idea where they were going, so decided to go to High Street, Kensington, and pay the difference if I had to follow them further. There were still six people in front of me, when I heard the train coming in.

"Hurry up in front!" I called out in a fever of excitement, dreading that I might not get a ticket in time.

"All right, my man--don't shove!" the man immediately before me exclaimed angrily, pushing back against me. "This ain't the only train, you know; if you miss this you can catch the next!"

I believe he deliberately took a long time getting out his money.

Anyway, before I had bought my ticket the train had started. A moment later I stood upon the platform, watching, in a frenzy of despair, the red tail-light of the train containing d.i.c.k and the strange woman disappearing into the tunnel.

I felt literally beside myself. What in the world had I done! I had deliberately let the strange woman take d.i.c.k away with her, without having the remotest idea where she was going or why she had, to all intents, abducted the boy. It was awful to think of--and I alone was entirely to blame! Then the thought came back to me that I had told d.i.c.k to have no fear, a.s.suring him that I would be near him all the time.

What would the headmaster say who had confided him to my care? Worse, what would Sir Roland say when I confessed to him what I had done?

These and other maddening thoughts were crowding into my brain as I stood upon the platform, dazed, and completely at a loss what to do, when somebody nudged me. Turning, I recognized at once the man in the snuff-coloured suit who had told me so rudely "not to shove," and had then dawdled so while buying his railway ticket. I was about to say something not very complimentary to him, when he spoke.

"I trust you will forgive my apparent rudeness a moment ago at the booking-office," he said in a voice I knew quite well, "but there's a method in my madness. I am Preston--George Preston."

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, the sudden revulsion of feeling almost overpowering me. "But do you know what has happened--do you know that Sir Roland Challoner's son I had charge of has--"

"Don't distress yourself, Mr. Berrington," he interrupted rea.s.suringly, "I know everything, and more than you know, but I rather feared that you might see through this disguise. I have been loafing about Paddington station for nearly an hour. The lady I expected to see arrived just after seven, and took up her position under the clock. Then I saw you and the lad arrive; I saw you recognize the woman; I saw you put yourself out of sight behind the pile of trunks, and talk earnestly to the lad for a few moments, and I guessed what you were saying to him.

I walked right past you in the sub-way, and intentionally made you miss this train, because it is inexpedient that you should follow those two.

I know where they are going, and Mr. Osborne knows too; I needn't trouble to explain to you here how I come to know all this. The thing you have to do now is to come with me to my house off Regent Street, where Mr. Osborne awaits us."

Never in my life, I suppose, have I felt so relieved as I did then, for the mental pain I had endured during these few minutes had been torture.

Indeed, I felt almost indignant with Preston for his having made me suffer so; but he explained that he had revealed himself to me the moment he felt justified in doing so. Suddenly a thought occurred to me.

"Do you know," I asked him quickly, "anything of a telegram sent to Eton this morning, apparently by Sir Roland, saying that Miss Challoner had been taken suddenly ill, and requesting that his son might be sent home to Holt at once?"

"Yes, I know, because--I sent it."

"_You_ sent it!"

"Yes--though I didn't write it. Mrs. Stapleton wrote it. She gave it to her chauffeur, who was in the hall at the Rook Hotel, and when she was gone he asked me if I would mind handing it in, as I had intentionally told him I was going to the post office. I was a chauffeur, too, at the time, chauffeur to 'Baron Poppenheimer,' whom I drove down this morning in his car ostensibly to see the beautiful widow. 'Baron Poppenheimer'

was, of course, Mr. Osborne. The widow was not at 'The Book' when we arrived--we knew she wouldn't be, and, of course, you know where she was, she was at the house in Hampstead where you found Miss Challoner when you called there this morning; she arrived home about two o'clock, however, and while 'Baron Poppenheimer' was making himself agreeable to her--your friend Mr. Osborne is a most splendid actor, and ought to have been in the detective force--I was making headway with her chauffeur out in the garage. Yes, Mr. Berrington, you can set your mind at rest--Miss Challoner is perfectly well. I wonder if by chance you telephoned to Holt this afternoon."

"I tried to."

"And you couldn't get through? The line was out of order?"

"Yes."

"Good!" Preston exclaimed, his small, intelligent eyes twinkling oddly.

"That is as I thought. One of Gastrell's accomplices set the line out of order between three and five this afternoon. When the line comes to be examined the electrician will, unless I am greatly mistaken, find the flaw at some point between Holt Stacey and Holt Manor--if you should happen to hear, you might tell me the exact point where they find that the trouble exists. My theories and my chain of circ.u.mstances are working out splendidly--I haven't as yet made a single false conjecture.

And now come along to my house, and I'll tell you more on the way."

Osborne sat in Preston's sitting-room, smoking a long cigar. He no longer wore the disguise of "Baron Poppenheimer," or any disguise, and upon our entry he uttered an exclamation.

"By Jove, Mike," he said, "you are the very man we've been wanting all day. Where did you disappear to last night?" And turning to Preston he added, "Were you right? Did he follow the widow and Miss Challoner home last night?"

"Yes," I answered for him, "I did. Did you see Dulcie at Gastrell's last night?"

"I should say so--and we saw you gazing at her. You nearly gave yourself away, Mike; you did, indeed. You ought to be more careful. When we saw you follow them out of the room, we knew, just as though you had told us, that you meant to follow them home. And what about the boy?" he said, addressing Preston. "Did he turn up? And was he met?"

"Yes, just as I expected; but he wasn't met by Sir Roland's butler, of course. He was met by Doris Lorrimer--you have probably noticed her, that dark, demure, quietly dressed girl who was at Connie Stapleton's dinner party at 'The Rook,' and at Gastrell's last night."

"You don't mean to say that she, too, is one of Gastrell's accomplices!"

Jack exclaimed. "It seems impossible--looking like that!"

"I have suspected it for some time. Now I am sure. She has taken d.i.c.k Challoner to Connie Stapleton's house in Hampstead. It's one of the headquarters of the set, though, of course, the princ.i.p.al headquarters are at 300 c.u.mberland Place. How furious Lord Easterton would be if he knew! He suspects nothing as yet, I think."

"But how do you know that Doris Lorrimer has taken the boy to that Hampstead house?" Osborne asked quickly; "and why has she taken him?"

"The gang have kidnapped him--it was Connie Stapleton's idea--in order to get the reward they feel sure Sir Roland will offer for his recovery.

How I know where Doris Lorrimer has taken him is that Connie Stapleton's chauffeur, with whom I fraternized this afternoon in Newbury, happened to mention that his mistress had told Miss Lorrimer to be under the clock at Paddington at seven-fifteen this evening to meet the man with the parcel,' as she said, and then to take the 'parcel' to her house in Hampstead! I won't tell you until later how I come to know the kidnapping was Mrs. Stapleton's idea; I have a reason for not telling you--yet."

"You certainly are a marvel, George," Jack said, as he blew a cloud towards the ceiling. "We seem to be well on the way now to running these scoundrels to ground. I shall be glad to see them convicted--right glad."

"We are 'on the way'--yes," Preston answered, "but you'll find it a longer 'way' than you expect, if you are already thinking of convictions. You don't know--you can't have any idea of--the slimness of these rogues if you suppose we are as yet anywhere near running them to ground. Just look how clever they have already been: first there is the fire in Maresfield Gardens and the discovery of the stabbed and charred body, for you may depend upon it that fire was meant to conceal some crime, probably murder, by destroying all traces, including that body which ought by rights to have been entirely consumed; then there is the robbery at Holt Manor; then the affair in Grafton Street, with yourself as the victim; then the murder of Sir Roland's gardener, Churchill--all these const.i.tute mysteries, undiscovered crimes, and now comes this business of kidnapping Sir Roland's young son."

We talked at considerable length, discussing past and present happenings, and arranging our future line of action. Preston was immensely interested in the cypher messages unravelled by d.i.c.k--I had brought the cuttings with me to show to him and Jack. The reference to the date of the coming of age of Cranmere's son, considered in connection with the questions about Cranmere's seat, Eldon Hall, put to Osborne during his mysterious confinement in Grafton Street, made the detective almost excited. The unravelling of those cyphers was, he said, perhaps the most important discovery as yet made. Indeed, he believed that our knowledge of these messages might simplify matters Sufficiently to lead directly to the arrest of at any rate some members of the gang at a much earlier date than he had previously antic.i.p.ated.

"It is clear," he said, as he put the cuttings into the envelope again and handed them back to me, "that Gastrell and company contemplate a coup of some sort either on the day Lord Cranmere's son comes of age, or on one day during the week of festivities that will follow. 'Clun Cross.' We must find out where Clun Cross is; probably it's somewhere in Northumberland, and most likely it's near Eldon Hall. I suppose, Osborne, that you are invited to the coming of age, as you know Cranmere so well?"

"Yes, and I mean to go. But Berrington isn't invited; he doesn't know Cranmere."

"He probably knows what he looks like, though," Preston answered, laughing--he was thinking of his impersonation of the Earl, and his wonderful make-up. "I am not invited either, professionally or otherwise, so that Mr. Berrington and I had better go to Bedlington and put our heads together there, for something is going to happen at Eldon Hall, Osborne, you may take my word for that. We mustn't, however, forget that last cypher message: 'Osborne and Berrington suspect; take precautions.' 'Precautions' with such people may mean anything. I am firmly of opinion that poor Churchill's a.s.sa.s.sination was a 'precautionary' measure. It was on the afternoon before that murder, remember, that Churchill found the paste buckle at the spot where a grey car had been seen, left deserted, on the morning of the robbery at Holt.

It was on the afternoon before that murder that he brought the buckle to Miss Challoner, told her about the grey car he had seen, which, he said, led him to suspect something, and asked to have the afternoon off. It was on that same afternoon that Mrs. Stapleton happened to motor over to Holt, and while there was told by Miss Challoner all about the finding of the buckle, also all about Churchill's secret suspicion about the car, and his asking to have the afternoon off, presumably to pursue his inquiries. And what happened after that? Don't you remember? Mrs.

Stapleton telephoned from Holt to the Book Hotel in Newbury and talked to someone there--her maid, so she said--for five minutes or more, talked to her in Polish. Now, does anything suggest itself to either of you? Don't you think it quite likely that Mrs. Stapleton, hearing from Miss Challoner all about what had happened, telephoned in Polish certain instructions to somebody in Newbury, most likely one of her accomplices, and that those instructions led, directly or indirectly, to Churchill's being murdered the same night, lest he should discover anything and give information? One thing I am sure of, though--Mrs. Stapleton's chauffeur is an honest man who does not in the least suspect what is going on; who, on the contrary, believes his mistress to be a most estimable woman, kind, considerate, open-handed. I found that out while a.s.sociating with him to-day as a fellow-chauffeur."

It was nearly nine o'clock before we went out into Soho to dine. Preston told us that he had arranged to call at Willow Road for d.i.c.k between ten and half-past. The three of us were to go to Hampstead and represent ourselves as being instructed by Sir Roland to take the boy away.

Preston himself would, he said, represent himself as being an Eton master, and Doris Lorrimer was to be closely cross-questioned as to who had authorized her to meet the boy and take him to Hampstead and--

Well, Preston had thoroughly thought out his plan of action down to the smallest detail, and during dinner in the little restaurant in Gerrard Street, to which he had taken us, he explained it to us fully. Briefly, his intention was to frighten Doris Lorrimer half out of her senses by threatening instant prosecution if she did not, then and there, make certain disclosures which would help on our endeavour to bring to justice the whole gang with which she was evidently a.s.sociated.

"But supposing," I hazarded, "we don't see Doris Lorrimer. Supposing we see only a servant, who a.s.sures us that we are mistaken, and that d.i.c.k isn't there. Supposing that Mrs. Stapleton, or even Gastrell, should confront us. What then?"

"I have carefully considered all those possibilities," Preston answered lightly as he refilled my gla.s.s, then Jack's, and then his own. "If anything of that kind should happen I shall simply--but there, leave it to me and I think you will be satisfied with the outcome. You must remember, Mr. Berrington, that I have been at this sort of thing over twenty years. Well, here's luck to our enterprise," and, raising his gla.s.s, he clinked it against our gla.s.ses in turn, then emptied it at a draught.

"And now," he said, preparing to rise, "we must be moving. We have rather a ticklish task before us, though I have no fear whatever as to its sequel, provided you leave most of the talking to me. In any case there must be no violence, remember. The only thing I regret is that the lad will most likely be asleep, so that we shall have to awaken him."

Punctually at half-past ten our taxi drew up outside the house numbered 460 Willow Road, Hampstead.