The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

I held the receiver in my trembling fingers in reflection. Nothing could be done. I had missed her – missed seeing Lola!

Surely my absence had been a great, and, perhaps, unredeemable misfortune.

"Very well," I said at last. "You know what to do to-night, Rayner?"

"Yes, sir."

"And I will be back in the morning."

"Very good, sir," responded my man, and I shut off. I paid my bill, went outside and lit up the big headlamps of the car. Then I drove slowly out of the yard, and out of the town, in the direction of Cromer.

It had been a close day, and the night, dark and oppressive, was overcast with a threatening storm. The dust swept up before me with every gust of wind as I went slowly along that high road which led towards the sea. I proceeded very leisurely, my thoughts full of my fair visitor.

Lola had called upon me! Why? Surely, after what had occurred, I could never have hoped for another visit from her.

Yes. It must be something of the greatest importance upon which she wished to consult me. Evidently she knew of my presence in Cromer – knew, possibly, of the efforts I was making to unravel the mystery of old Vernon Gregory.

Yet, I could only wait in impatience for the morrow. But would she return? That was the question.

The car was running well, but I had plenty of time. Therefore, after travelling five miles or so, I pulled up, took out my pipe and smoked.

I stopped my engine, and, in the silence of the night, strained my ears to catch the sound of an approaching motor-cycle. But I could hear nothing – only the distant rumble of thunder far northward across the sea.

By my watch I saw that it was nearly midnight. So I restarted my engine and went slowly along until I was within a couple of miles of Cromer, and could see the flashing of the lighthouse, and the lights of the town twinkling below. Then again I stopped and attended to my headlights, which were growing dim.

A mile and a half further on I knew that Rayner, down the dip of the hill, was lurking in the shadow. But my object in stationing myself there was to follow the mysterious cyclist, not when he went to keep his appointment, but when he left.

In order to avert suspicion, I presently turned the car round with its lights towards Norwich, but scarcely had I done so, and stopped the engine again, when I heard, in the darkness afar off, the throb of a motor-cycle approaching at a furious pace.

My lamps lit up the road, while, standing in the shadow bending as though attending to a tyre, my own form could not, I knew, be seen in the darkness.

On came the cyclist. Was it the man for whom I was watching?

He gave a blast on his horn as he rounded the corner, for he could no doubt see the reflection of my lamps from afar.

Then he passed me like a flash, but, in that instant as he came through the zone of light, I recognized his features.

It was Bertini, the mysterious friend of Jules Jeanjean.

I had but to await his return, and by waiting I should learn the truth.

I confess that my heart beat quickly as I watched his small red light disappear along the road.

CHAPTER IX

DESCRIBES A NIGHT-VIGIL

The gusty wind had died down.

In the silence of the night I listened to the receding noise of the motor-cycle as it swept down the hill into Cromer town, where I knew Rayner would be on the alert.

The sound died away, therefore I relit my pipe, and mounting again into the driver's seat, sat back thinking – thinking mostly of Lola, and my ill-luck at having missed her.

Before me, in the white glare of the lamps upon the road, where insects of the night, attracted by the radiance, were dancing to their deaths, there arose before me that sweet, perfect face, the face that had so attracted me. I saw her smile – smile at me, as she did when first we had met. Ah! How strange had been our friendship, stranger than novelist had ever imagined. I had loved her – loved as I had never loved before, and she had loved me, with that bright, intense look in her wonderful eyes, the woman's look that can never lie.

There is but one love-look. A man knows it by his instinct, just as does a woman. A woman knows by intuition that the fool who takes her out to the theatre and supper, and is so profuse in his protestations of undying admiration, is only uttering outpourings of vapid nonsense. Just so, a man meets insincerity with insincerity. The woman gets to know in time how much her vain, shallow admirer is good for, for she knows he will soon pass out of her life, while the man's instinct is exactly the same. In a word, it is life – the life of this, our Twentieth Century.

The man laughed at and derided to-day, is a hero ten years hence.

A few years ago Mr. John Burns carried a banner perspiringly along the Thames Embankment, in a May Day procession, and I assisted him. To-day he is a Cabinet Minister. A few years ago my dear friend, George Griffith, wrote about air-ships in his romance, The Angel of the Revolution, and everybody made merry at his expense. To-day airships are declared to be the chief arm of Continental nations.

Ah, yes! The world proceeds apace, and the unknown to-morrow ever brings its amazing surprises and the adoption of the "crank's" ideas of yesterday.

Lola had called to see me. That fact conjured up in my imagination a thousand startling theories.

Why?

Why had she called, after all that had passed between us?

I waited, waited for the coming of that mysterious cyclist, who arose from nowhere, and whose business with Jules Jeanjean was of such vast and secret importance.

The very fact of Jeanjean being in Cromer had staggered me. As I sat there smoking, and listening, I recollected when last I had heard mention of his name. Hamard – the great Hamard – Chief of the Sûreté of Paris, had been seated in his private bureau in the offices of the detective police.

He had leaned back in his chair, and blowing a cloud of tobacco-smoke from his lips, had said in French —

"Ah! Mon cher Vidal, we are face to face in this affair with Jules Jeanjean, the most ingenious and most elusive criminal that we have met this century in France. In other walks of life Jeanjean would have been a great man – a millionaire financier, a Minister of the Cabinet, a great general – a leader of men. But in the circumstances this arch-adventurer, who slips through our fingers, no matter what trap we set for him, is a criminal of a type such as Europe has never known within the memory of living man. Personally I admire his pluck, his energy, his inventiveness, his audacity, his iron nerve, and his amazing cunning. Truly, now, cher ami, he is a marvel. There is but one master-criminal, Jules Jeanjean."

That was the character given him by Monsieur Hamard, the greatest French detective since Lecoq.

And now this master-criminal was beneath the railway arch at Cromer meeting in secret a mysterious cyclist!

What evil was now intended?

I waited, my ears strained to catch every sound. But I only heard the distant rumble of the thunder, away across the North Sea, and, somewhere, the dismal howling of a dog.

I waited, and still waited. The sky grew brighter, and I grew perceptibly colder, so that I turned up my coat-collar, and shivered, even though the previous day had been so unusually warm. The car smelt of petrol and oil – a smell that nauseated me – and yet my face was turned to the open country ready to follow and track down the man who had swept past me to keep that mysterious tryst in the darkness.

Looking back, I saw, away to the right, the white shafts of light from the high-up lighthouse, slowly sweeping the horizon, flashing warning to mariners upon that dangerous coast, while, far away in the distance over the sea, I could just discern a flash from the lightship on the Haisboro' Sands.

In the valley, deep below, lay Cromer, the street-lamps reflecting upon the low storm-clouds. At that moment the thunder-storm threatened to burst.

Yet I waited, and waited, watching the rose of dawn slowly spreading in the Eastern sky.

Silence – a complete and impressive silence had fallen – even the dog had now ceased to howl.

And yet I possessed myself in patience, my ears strained for the "pop-pop" of the returning motor-cycle.

A farmer's cart, with fresh vegetables and fruit for the Cromer shops on the morrow, creaked slowly past, and the driver in his broad Norfolk dialect asked me —