The Mysterious Three

I crept out into the passage on tiptoe, walked a little distance along it, stopped, and listened again. Yes, there were voices in the hall. Two men were talking. At once I recognised that Sir Charles Thorold, and the man known as Davies, were engaged in earnest conversation in low tones. In the otherwise silent and deserted house, their words were distinctly audible.

“We must get a doctor – we must,” I heard the big fellow say deeply. “I thought at first the fellow was asleep, then that he was drunk. The pulse is hardly perceptible.”

“But how can we?” Thorold answered. “It isn’t safe. There would be inquiries, and if he should die there would surely be an inquest, and then – ”

He dropped his voice, and I could not catch the last words. Then Davies again spoke.

“I found this umbrella, and these gloves, on the table in his room,” I heard him say, “and there are two tea-cups on the table. Both have been used, used within the last half-hour, I should say. The tea in them is still warm, and the teapot is quite hot.” My heart stopped its beating. I put out an arm to support myself. A slight feeling of giddiness came over me. I broke out into a cold perspiration, for I had left my gloves and umbrella in the old man’s room!

My mouth turned suddenly dry, as I thought of the tea I had doctored with the drops from the flask, of which only a little was needed to send “a strong man to sleep – for ever.”

But Davies and Sir Charles were talking again, so I pulled myself together.

“How do you account for this umbrella and the gloves?” I heard Davies ask, and Thorold answered: “Let me have a look at them.”

They were silent for some moments.

“He has had some one there, that’s evident,” Sir Charles said. “Who on earth can it have been? This is an expensive umbrella, silk, and gold-mounted, and these gloves, too, are good ones. It’s extraordinary their owner should have forgotten to take them with him.”

“He may be in the house still,” answered Davies. “I hope, for his own sake, he isn’t,” Sir Charles said, in a hard voice. “Let us come and have a look at poor old Taylor. We shall find the keys in his pocket, anyway, and when we have attended to the other matter, we’ll go up and see Vera, and try to bring her to her senses with regard to Paulton. She must do it – hang it – she must! I hate the thought of it, but it’s my only chance of escape from this accursed parasite!”

Voices and footsteps died away. Once more the house was silent as death.

Truly, that deserted house was a house of mystery.

Chapter Nine

The Gentleman Named Paulton

On creeping back to her room, I found Vera awaiting me anxiously.

She, too, had heard the men talking, she had recognised her father’s and his companion’s voices, though unable to catch what was being said. I bent, and we exchanged kisses. In a few words I told her what had occurred, and explained the situation. I wanted to ask her about the man Davies; how she came to know him, and if she had known him long. There were other matters, too, that I wished to talk to her about, but there was no time to do so then.

Though I pride myself upon a rapidity of decision in moments of crises, and have misled the more ingenuous among my friends into believing that I really am a man of exceedingly strong character, who would never find himself at a loss if brought suddenly face to face with a critical problem, I don’t mind admitting that I am an invertebrate, vacillating creature at such times. Oh, no, I never lose my head. Don’t think that. But when instant decision is needed, and there are several decisions one might come to, I get quite “jumpy,” half make up my mind to take one course, half make up my mind to take the opposite course, and finally take the third, or it may be the fourth or fifth.

“Well, you had better get away at once, dear,” Vera urged quickly, when I had told her what I had heard below.

“But what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Oh, I know what I’m going to do,” she replied at once, “but I want to have your plan. I know, dear, you are never at a loss when ‘up against it,’ to use your own phrase. You have often told me so, or implied it.”

Now I did not entirely like her tone. There was a curious gleam in her eyes, which I mistrusted. I had noticed that gleam before, on occasions when she had been drawing people on to make admissions that they did not wish to make. She was rather too fond, I had sometimes thought, of indulging in a form of intellectual pastime that I have heard people who talk slang – a thing that I detest – call “pulling you by the leg.” The suspicion crossed my mind at that moment, that Vera was trying to “pull my leg” – and I frankly didn’t like it.

“This is no time for joking, Vera,” I said, for the “gleam” in her eyes had now become a twinkle. “This is a time for action – and very prompt action.”

I wondered how she could jest at such a moment. “That is why I want you to act,” she answered innocently, “and to act promptly. However, as I believe you have no idea what to do, Dick, I’m going to tell you what to do, and you must do it – promptly. Now, follow me. I know my way about this place.” She led me softly along the corridor, turned to the right, then to the left, and then to the left again. Presently we reached the top of a flight of steep, and very narrow wooden stairs.

“Follow me,” she whispered again, “and keep one hand on that rope,” indicating a cord that served as a bannister. “These stairs are slippery, or they always used to be. As a child, I used to fall down them every Sunday.”

We were on the first floor. The stairs continued to the ground floor. She turned suddenly.

“How about your gloves and umbrella?”

There was the curious look in her eyes again, so I paid no attention.

“Have you matches?” she asked, a moment later.

I struck one, and, stooping, we made our way along a narrow, dark passage, with a low ceiling. Five stone steps down into a damp, stone tunnel, about twenty feet in length, then to the right, and we came to a wooden door.

“Give me your keys,” she said.

I did so, and she unlocked the door. It led into a little stone-flagged yard. On three sides of it were high walls, walls of houses. The wall on the fourth side, only a few feet high, was surmounted by iron rails. Stone steps led up to the gate at the end of the rails. She opened the gate, re-locking it when we had passed out, and we stood in a stone-flagged cul-de-sac, about fifteen yards long, across the open end of which, the traffic of the street could be seen passing to and fro.

“And now,” she said, when we had reached the street, disobeying the injunction of Paulton, “you are going to tell me what I must do next.”

I hailed a taxi, and we drove off in it, discussing plans as we went along.

Then I secured a room for her in a comfortable little hotel I knew of, in a street off Russell Square. The difficulty that now arose, was how to get her luggage.

She told me all her things were packed, as she was to have left for Paris that night, alone. The order received from her father was, that she should remain in an obscure lodging near Rue la Harpe, the address of which, he had given her. There she would receive further instructions. These instructions, she told me, were to come either from her father, or from Paulton. She had strict orders not to communicate with Davies. Her luggage was in Brighton. Sir Charles and Lady Thorold had been staying in Brighton, and she had come up that morning. Paulton had met her at Victoria, and taken her in a cab direct to her father’s empty house in Belgrave Street. He had told her that if she dared go out before he came to her at ten that night, he would go to the police.

“But who is this man Davies?” I asked.

“A friend.”

“But cannot you tell me something more concerning him?” I demanded.

“At present, no. I regret, Dick, that I am not allowed to say anything – my lips are sealed.”

“And Paulton. Why obey him so subserviently?”

“Ah!” she sighed. “Because I am compelled.”

With these rebuffs, I was forced to be satisfied.

With regard to the plan for recovering her luggage, I rose to the occasion. After pondering the problem for a quarter of an hour, I suggested that she should write a note to her mother in Brighton, saying that Paulton had suddenly changed his plans, and that her luggage was wanted at once. It was to have been sent off at eight o’clock that night, when Paulton would meet it at Victoria, she had told me. The bearer of the note we would now send to Brighton – a District Messenger – would be instructed to bring the luggage back with him. I looked up the trains in the railway-guide, and found it would be just possible for the messenger to do this in the time. To avoid any mishap, I told the messenger to alight, on his return journey, at Clapham Junction, and bring the luggage from there, in a taxi, to the hotel near Russell Square.

We dined together upstairs, at the Trocadero– ah! how I enjoyed that evening! How delightful it was to sit tête-à-tête with her. Before we had finished dinner, word was brought to us that Vera’s luggage had arrived.

“I think I managed that rather well,” I said. “Don’t you?”

“No,” she answered, “I don’t.”

“No?”

“As you ask me, I may as well tell you that I think you could hardly have ‘managed’ it worse. You have simply put Paulton on my track.”

“But how?”