The train was slowing down now. Presently it stopped. We were at Croydon. The door opened and other travellers entered our compartment.

Putting some of my belongings on to my seat, I pa.s.sed into the corridor and entered a smoking compartment.

The man seated opposite me was buried in a newspaper. Some moments after the train had started again, he lowered it, and I saw his face. At once he raised his eyebrows in recognition; then, extending his hand, greeted me most cordially.

I was face to face again with Hugesson Gastrell!

CHAPTER XXI

A CHANNEL MYSTERY

n.o.body could have seemed more friendly or more thoroughly pleased to see me again than Hugesson Gastrell as he grasped me heartily by the hand, expressing surprise at our meeting so unexpectedly.

On the night I had talked to him at c.u.mberland Place, when I was masquerading for the first time as Sir Aubrey Belston, I had experienced a growing feeling of revulsion against him, and now as he took my hand the same feeling returned and I could not dispel it, for the thought had flashed in upon me: could it be that I was shaking hands with a man whose hand was stained with blood? I had, of course, no proof that Gastrell had committed murder, but in face of what Harold Logan had told Sir Roland Challoner and myself upon his death bed, added to other things I knew, it seemed well within the bounds of possibility that--

"And are you crossing to France?" he inquired, cutting my train of thought.

"Yes," I answered mechanically.

"Going to Paris?"

"Yes."

"Why, how capital!" he exclaimed. "You must make one of our party on the boat, and when we land. Connie Stapleton will be delighted to meet you again, Sir Aubrey; she is on this train, and so are other mutual friends. Connie was speaking of you not half an hour ago."

"Indeed?" I said, feeling that I must say something.

"Why, yes. Try one of these cigars, Sir Aubrey," he added, producing a large gold case from his inside breast pocket.

I had to take one, though I hated doing it. I tried to look him in the face as I did so, but I couldn't. It was not that I feared he might recognize me, for I did not--experience had proved to me that my disguised appearance and voice were most effectual. But there was something about the man that repelled me, and I hated meeting his gaze.

The noise of the train caused us presently to relapse into silence, and, picking up my newspaper, I tried to read. My thoughts were too deeply engrossed, however, to allow me to focus my attention on the printed page. Could it really be possible, was what I kept wondering, that this smooth-spoken, pleasant-mannered man was actually a criminal? Again Harold Logan's dying eyes stared into mine; again I saw him struggling to speak; again I heard those ominous words, almost the last words he had spoken before his spirit had pa.s.sed into Eternity:

"Hugesson Gastrell--don't forget that name, Sir Roland. You may some day be glad I told it to you."

I shuddered. Then I remembered Preston's warning and the part I had to play. Up to the present, Gastrell suspected nothing--of that I felt positive; but let the least suspicion creep into his brain that I was not the man he believed he had been speaking to--

Instantly I pulled myself together. For Dulcie's sake even more than for my own I must exercise the utmost care. Her life as well as mine might depend upon the skill and tact I must exercise during the next few hours, possibly during the next few days. I felt I would at that moment have given much to be able to look into the future and know for certain what was going to happen to me, and, most of all, to Dulcie, before I returned to England.

Well it was for my peace of mind that that wish could not be gratified.

On board the boat, rather to my surprise in view of what had happened and of what Gastrell had just said to me, I saw nothing of Gastrell or of any of his companions, including Preston. Apparently one and all must have gone to their cabins immediately upon coming on board.

It was a perfect night in the Channel. Stars and moon shone brightly, and a streak of light stretched away across the smooth water until it touched the sky Hue far out in the darkness. For a long time I stood on deck, abaft the funnel, smoking a cigar, and thinking deeply. I had turned for a moment, for no particular reason, when I thought I saw a shadow pa.s.s across the deck, then vanish. I saw it again; and then again. Stepping away from where I stood, hidden by a life-boat, I distinctly discerned three figures moving noiselessly along the deck, going from me. Curiosity prompted me to follow them, and to my surprise I saw them disappear one after another down the hatchway leading to the steerage. As they must, I felt certain, have come out through the saloon door, this rather puzzled me.

It was past midnight when, at last, I went below. The saloon, smoking-room and alleyways were deserted and almost in darkness. No sound of any sort was audible but the rhythmic throbbing of the engines. The boat still travelled without the slightest motion.

Hark!

I stopped abruptly, for I had heard a sound--it had sounded like a gasp.

Hardly breathing, I listened intently. Again I heard it--this time more faintly. It had seemed to come from a cabin on my left, a little further forward.

I stood quite still in the alleyway for several minutes. Then, hearing nothing more, I went on to my own cabin.

But somehow, try as I would, I could not get to sleep. For hours I lay wide awake upon my bunk. What had caused that curious sound, I kept wondering, though I tried to put the thought from me. And who had those men been, those three silent figures pa.s.sing like spectres along the deck, and what had they been doing, and why had they gone down into the steerage?

I suppose I must at last have fallen asleep, for when I opened my eyes the sea had risen a good deal, and the boat was rolling heavily. Pulling my watch from beneath my pillow, I saw that it was nearly four--we were due into port at Dieppe before four. The timbers of the ship creaked at intervals; the door of my cabin rattled; I could hear footsteps on deck and in the alleyway beside my door.

"Have you heard the dreadful news, sir?" a scared-looking steward said to me as I made my way towards the companion ladder half an hour later--I had taken care to adjust my disguise exactly in the way that Preston had taught me to.

"No--what?" I asked, stopping abruptly.

"A saloon pa.s.senger has hanged himself during the night."

"Good G.o.d!" I exclaimed. "Who is it?"

"I don't know his name. He was in number thirty-two--alone."

"Thirty-two! Surely that was a cabin in the alleyway where I had heard the gasp, not far from my own cabin."

"Are you certain it was suicide?" I asked.

"Oh, it was suicide right enough," the steward answered, "and he must have been hanging there some hours--by a rope. Seems he must have brought the rope with him, as it don't belong to the boat. He must have come aboard intending to do it. My mate--he found him not half an hour ago, and it so scared him that he fainted right off."

"Have you seen the poor fellow? What was he like?"

"Yes. Most amazing thing, sir," the steward continued volubly, "but it seems he'd disguised himself. He'd got on a wig and false moustache and whiskers."

All the blood seemed to rush away from my heart. Everything about me was going round. I have a slight recollection of reeling forward and being caught by the steward, but of what happened after that, until I found myself lying on a sofa in the saloon, with the ship's doctor and the stewardess standing looking down at me. I have not the remotest recollection.

The boat was rolling and pitching a good deal, and I remember hearing someone say that we were lying off Dieppe until the sea should to some extent subside. Then, all at once, a thought came to me which made me feel sick and faint. While I had been unconscious, had the fact been discovered that I too was disguised? I looked up with a feeling of terror, but the expression upon the faces of the ship's doctor and of the stewardess revealed nothing, and my mind grew more at ease when I noticed that the few people standing about were strangers to me.

I saw nothing of any member of the group of criminals I now felt literally afraid to meet until the Paris express was about to start.

More than once I had felt tempted to alter my plans by not going to Paris, or by returning to England by the next boat. But then Dulcie had risen into the vision of my imagination and I had felt I could not leave her alone with such a gang of scoundrels--I might be leaving her to her fate were I to desert her now. No, I had started upon this dangerous adventure, and at all costs I must go through with it, even though I no longer had poor Preston to advise me.

"Ah, Sir Aubrey, we have been looking for you."

I turned sharply, to find at my elbow Connie Stapleton and Doris Lorrimer. The latter stood beside her friend, calm, subdued; Mrs.

Stapleton was in her usual high spirits, and greeted me with an effusive hand-shake.

"Hughie told us you were on board," she said, "and he says you are going to stay at our hotel. I am so pleased. Now, you must dine with us to-night--no, I won't take a refusal," she added quickly, as I was about to make some excuse. "We shall be such a cheery party--just the kind of party I know you love."

There was no way of escape, at any rate for the moment. Later I must see what could be done. My desire now was to keep, so to speak, in touch with the gang, and to watch in particular Dulcie's movements, yet to a.s.sociate on terms of intimacy with these people as little as possible.

We had not been long in the train, on our way to Paris, when someone--it was Dulcie who first spoke of it, I think--broached the subject which had created so much excitement on board--the suicide of the disguised stranger.

"I wonder if his act had any bearing upon this robbery which is said to have been committed on board between Newhaven and Dieppe," a man whom I remembered meeting at Connie Stapleton's dinner party, presently observed--I suddenly remembered that his name was Wollaston.