"I was in the hall when you called, and I heard you. Gastrell, Mrs.

Stapleton, and Miss Challoner were also in the house. They are there now, but to-night they go to Paris--they will cross from Newhaven to Dieppe. It was to tell you they were going to Paris that I wished to speak to you now--at least that was one reason."

"And what are the other reasons?" I asked, with an affectation of indifference that I was far from feeling.

"I want money, Mr. Berrington, that is one other reason," the stranger said quickly. "You can afford to pay for information that is worth paying for. I know everything about you, perhaps more than you yourself know. If you pay me enough, I can probably protect myself against these people who until yesterday were my friends, but are now my enemies. And I can put you in possession of facts which will enable you, if you act circ.u.mspectly, presently to get the entire gang arrested."

"At what time do the three people you have just named leave for Paris?"

I asked, for the news that Connie Stapleton and Dulcie were going to France together had given me a shock.

"To-night, at nine."

"Look here," I exclaimed, turning upon him sharply, "tell me everything you know, and if it is worth paying for I'll pay."

In a few minutes the stranger had put several startling facts into my possession. Of these the most important were that on at least four occasions Connie Stapleton had deliberately exercised a hypnotic control over Dulcie, and thus obtained even greater influence over her than she already possessed; that Jack Osborne, whom I had always believed to be wholly unsusceptible to female influence, was fast falling in love, or, if not falling in love, becoming infatuated with Jasmine Gastrell--the stranger declared that Mrs. Gastrell had fallen in love with him, but that I could not believe; that an important member of this notorious gang of criminals which mixed so freely in Society was Sir Roland's wastrel brother, Robert, of whom neither Sir Roland nor any member of his family had heard for years; and that Mrs. Stapleton intended to cause Dulcie to become seriously ill while abroad, then to induce Sir Roland to come to France to see her, and finally to marry him on the other side of the Channel in the small town where she intended that Dulcie should be taken ill. There were reasons, he said, though he would not reveal them then, why she wished to marry Sir Roland on the Continent instead of in England, and she knew of no other way of inducing him to cross the Channel but the means she intended to employ.

The man hardly stopped speaking when I sprang to my feet.

"How much do you want for the information you have given me?" I exclaimed, hardly able to conceal the intense excitement I felt.

He named a high figure, and so reckless did I feel at that instant that I told him I would pay the amount to him in gold--he had stipulated for gold--if he would call at my flat in South Molton Street at five o'clock on the following afternoon.

His expressions of grat.i.tude appeared, I must say, to be most genuine.

"And may I ask," he said, "what you propose to do now?"

"Propose to do!" I cried. "Why, go direct to Willow Road, of course, force an entrance, and take Miss Challoner away--by force, if need be."

"You propose to go there alone?"

"Yes. For the past fortnight I have somehow suspected there might be some secret understanding between Mr. Osborne and Mrs. Gastrell--they have been so constantly together, though he has more than once a.s.sured me that his intimacy was only with a view to obtaining her confidence. I don't know why I should believe your word, the word of a stranger, in preference to his, but now you tell me what you have told me I remember many little things which all point to the likelihood of your statement that he is in love with Mrs. Gastrell being true."

"I wouldn't go alone, Mr. Berrington," the stranger said in a tone of warning. "You don't know the people you have to deal with as I know them. If you would like to come to Paris with me to-night I could show you something that would amaze you--and you would come face to face there with Connie Stapleton and Miss Challoner, and others. Be advised by me, and do that. I am telling you to do what I know will be best for you. I don't ask you to pay me until we return to England."

I paused, uncertain what to decide. Thoughts crowded my brain.

Supposing, after all, that this were a ruse to entrap me. Supposing that Dulcie were not going to Paris. But no, the man's statements seemed somehow to carry conviction.

"If we cross by the same boat as they do," I said suddenly, "we shall be recognized."

He smiled grimly.

"Not if you disguise yourself as you did at Hugesson Gastrell's the other night," he said.

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "how do you know that?"

He looked to right and left, then behind him. n.o.body was near. Then, raising his hat, like lightning he pulled off his wig, eyebrows and moustache, whiskers and beard, crammed them into his jacket pocket, and, with his hat on the back of his head, sat back looking at me with a quiet smile of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Preston!" I gasped. "Good heavens, man, how do you do it?"

Producing his cigarette case, in silence he offered me a cigarette. Then he spoke--now in his natural voice.

"I always test my 'impersonations' when I get a chance of doing so," he said, "upon people who know me well, because if one can completely deceive one's friends it gives much confidence when one comes to serious business. Mr. Berrington, all I have just told you is absolute truth. I have found it all out within the last eleven hours. More than that, I am myself now one of the gang, and if I 'turn traitor' I shall be done to death by them just as certainly as I am sitting here. I flatter myself that I have arranged it all rather cleverly--I have succeeded in placing in confinement that man who shadowed you last night, without any member of the gang's knowing anything about his arrest or in the least suspecting it, and I have literally stepped into his shoes, for these clothes and boots that I am wearing are his. I believe the end of this abominable conspiracy is now within sight. To-night you must come with me to Paris on the boat that Miss Challoner, the woman Stapleton, Gastrell, and one or two others will cross by. I shall a.s.sume the disguise I have just removed. You will become once more Sir Aubrey Belston, we shall travel from Victoria in separate compartments, and on board the boat I shall casually mention to my 'friends' that Sir Aubrey Belston is on board. In Paris we ought to find out a lot--I have a friend there named Victor Albeury, who already knows a lot about this affair--and we shall, unless I am greatly mistaken. Now I must go home and get some hours of sleep, for I have been busy since we parted in the 'Tube' at Oxford Circus at midnight last night."

"But tell me," I exclaimed, my brain a whirl, "is what you told me really true: that Osborne has become a victim to the wiles of Jasmine Gastrell?"

"Absolutely. I have suspected as much for several weeks, and last night I discovered it to be an absolute fact. Mr. Berrington, when Osborne left us last night at Russell Square station he didn't return to his hotel. Would you believe it, he had an a.s.signation with the woman, and kept it? But what is more curious still is what you wouldn't believe when I told it to you some minutes ago--Jasmine Gastrell has fallen madly in love with Osborne! Isn't it astonishing? To think that an amazingly clever woman like that should let her heart get the better of her head. But it's not the first case of the sort that I have known. I could tell you of several similar instances of level-headed women of the criminal cla.s.s letting their hearts run away with them, and some day I will. But now I really must leave you. Go back to your place, pack as much luggage as you will need for a week or ten days--for we may be away that long--write Sir Aubrey Belston's name on the luggage labels in a disguised handwriting; send it to Victoria by messenger--not by your own man, as we must take no risks whatever--and come to me not later than six, and I will then again disguise you as Sir Aubrey Belston. You won't be followed by any member of the gang, for the man I am impersonating is supposed to be shadowing you. Connie Stapleton expects Alphonse Furneaux--that's the man who followed you last night, and whom I am now impersonating--to meet her at Victoria at a quarter past eight to-night.

You will get there a little later, and of course we must appear to be total strangers. Keep out of sight of the woman, and of Gastrell, and of anyone else you may see whom you remember seeing at c.u.mberland Place the other night. You can speak to anybody you like once we are on board the boat, but not before. The train leaves at nine. My! I am disappointed with Osborne, more disappointed and disgusted than I can tell you. And to think that if I had not made this discovery about him he might unwittingly have brought about some fearful tragedy so far as you and I are concerned! But I must really go," and, with a friendly nod, he rose and strolled away.

He had spoken rapidly, with hardly a pause, and as I watched him pa.s.s out of the park I wondered how he had managed to ingratiate himself with this gang of scoundrels. Only a day or two before we had discussed the advisability of informing Easterton of what was taking place nightly in the house in c.u.mberland Place which he had leased to Hugesson Gastrell, but we had come to the conclusion that no good end would be served by telling him, for were any complaint to be made to Gastrell he would of course declare that the people who gambled in the house were personal friends of his whom he had every right to invite there to play.

I returned to my flat, told my man what to pack, then went out again and walked aimlessly about the streets. A feeling of restlessness was upon me, which I could not overcome. Many strange things had happened since Christmas, but this, surely, was the strangest thing of all, that Jack Osborne, who had persuaded me to help him in his self-imposed task of tracking down these people, should actually have come under the spell of Jasmine Gastrell's beauty and undeniable fascination. I recollected now his saying, when, weeks before, he had spoken of Jasmine Gastrell for the first time, that everybody on board the ship had fallen in love with her, and that he himself had been desperately attracted by her. But I had thought that he spoke in jest; it had not occurred to me that he really thought seriously about the woman. Of late, however, his manner towards her had certainly been different, and I knew that night after night the two had spent the evening together, ending up with supper at one of the fashionable restaurants.

Then my thoughts drifted to Dulcie. What had come over her since she had formed this violent attachment for Connie Stapleton? In some ways she seemed unchanged, yet in other respects she was completely altered. For a brief ten days after we had become engaged I had seemed to be all in all to her. But from then onward she had appeared to come more and more under the influence of her friend, who seemed, in a sense, to be supplanting me in her affection. And now Preston had told me that several times Connie Stapleton had intentionally hypnotized Dulcie, no doubt for the purpose of obtaining greater control over her and still further bending her will to hers. I could not, under the circ.u.mstances, wholly blame Dulcie for what I had at first believed to be a change in her att.i.tude towards me. Far more readily could I blame her father for his monstrous infatuation for the widow.

And what could be the meaning of this sudden flitting to Paris? Preston had given the reason, had explained it in detail, but his theory was so horrible that I refused to believe it. Connie Stapleton might be, and obviously was, an adventuress, but surely a woman of such beauty, with such charm of manner and personality, and apparently so refined, could not actually be the monster Preston would have had me believe. The view I held was that Connie Stapleton and some of her accomplices for some reason found it expedient to forsake England for a little while-- Preston had a.s.sured me that they meant to remain upon the Continent for several weeks at least--and that the woman thought that by taking Dulcie with her she would be better able to persuade Sir Roland to cross the Channel, a thing he had done only once in his life, and that I had heard him declare he would never do again, so ill had he been on that occasion.

One of the first men I saw upon my arrival at Victoria in my disguise was Preston disguised as Alphonse Furneaux. With him were Connie Stapleton, Dulcie, Gastrell, and one or two men I did not remember having seen before. Doris Lorrimer was also there.

Obsequious officials were hurrying about doing their bidding, in antic.i.p.ation of generous _largesse_. Here and there little groups of pa.s.sengers stood staring at them, obviously under the impression that they must be people of some importance. Acting upon Preston's instructions I kept well out of sight until within a minute or two of nine o'clock, by which time the widow and her companions had entered their saloon carriage.

I had hardly stepped into my first-cla.s.s compartment, which was some way behind the saloon, and settled myself comfortably for the journey to Newhaven, when a lady, the only other occupant, suddenly exclaimed:

"Aubrey, don't you recognize me, or are you intentionally cutting me?"

I glanced across at her. She was a woman of middle age, obviously a lady, well dressed, but not good-looking. Hastily recovering my presence of mind, I answered quickly:

"I beg your pardon. Please don't think me rude; I was worrying about a trunk of mine that I think has been left behind, and for the moment I didn't see you"--she was seated on the opposite side, in the corner farthest from me.

"Of course I don't think you rude, you foolish boy," she exclaimed gaily. "How could I? And how are you, dear? and where are you going? I had no idea you had already returned from your travels."

"I got back only last week," I said, feeling my way cautiously. "How well you are looking. Let me see, when was it we last met?"

She broke into a ripple of laughter.

"Oh, Aubrey," she exclaimed, "what a wag you are! When are you going to grow up, I wonder. Now, do be serious and answer that question I put to the last night we were together."

This was awful. The train had only just started, and here I was face to face with a woman evidently an intimate friend of Sir Aubrey Belston's, who for aught I knew might insist on talking to me and cross-questioning me all the way to Newhaven. I decided to take the bull by the horns.

"Look here," I exclaimed, becoming suddenly serious, "don't let us talk about that any more. The answer I gave you that night was final. I have thought the whole thing over carefully, and, much as I should like to, I can't change my mind."

She stared at me, evidently dumbfounded. I thought she looked rather frightened. Her lips parted as if she were going to speak again, then shut tightly. A minute or more pa.s.sed, during which time she kept her head averted, gazing out into the darkness. And then all at once, to my horror, she burst into tears, and began sobbing hysterically.

The sight of a woman in tears always affects me strangely. I rose from my seat and went over to her, and, now seated facing her, endeavoured by every means I could think of to soothe her.

"Don't cry--oh, please don't," I said sympathetically. "It isn't my fault, you know; I would do anything I could for you, I am sure you know that, but what you ask is impossible."

"But _why_ is it impossible?" she suddenly burst out impetuously, looking up into my face with tear-stained eyes. "Give me a good reason for your refusal and I won't say a word more."

Oh, if only I knew what it was she had asked Sir Aubrey that night--what it was she wanted him to do. Never in my life before had I been in such an awful predicament. And then suddenly it flashed upon me that some day she would for certain meet the real Sir Aubrey Belston again, and what would happen then when she referred to this meeting in the train and he stoutly denied--as of course he would--meeting her at all? What mischief might I not unwittingly be doing? What havoc might I not be creating? If only I could discover her name it might in some way help me to get out of this terrible tangle.