The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

She was a charming little person, sweet and dainty from head to foot. Dressed in a black coat and skirt, the former relieved with a collar of turquoise silk, and the latter cut short, so that her silk-encased ankles and small shoes were revealed. She wore a tiny close-fitting felt hat, and a boa of grey ostrich feathers around her neck.

Her countenance was pale with well-moulded features of soft sympathetic beauty, a finely-poised head with pretty dimpled chin, and a straight nose, well-defined eyebrows, and a pair of eyes of that clear blue that always seemed to me unfathomable.

I drew forward a chair, and she sank into it, stretching forth her small feet and displaying her neat black silk stockings from beneath the hem of her short skirt, which, adorned with big ball buttons, was discreetly opened at the side to allow freedom in walking.

"Well, and why did you not call again upon me in Cromer?" I asked in English, for I knew that she spoke our language always perfectly.

"Because – well, because I was unable," was her reply.

"Why did you not write?" I asked. "I've been waiting weeks for you."

"I know. I heard so," she said with a smile. "I am ve-ry sorry, but I was prevented," she went on with a pretty, musical accent. "That same evening I called upon you, I had to leave Cromer ve-ry hurriedly."

A strange thought flashed across my mind. Had her sudden departure been due to the theft at Beacon House? Had she been present then and lost her shoe?

I glanced at the shoes she wore. They were very smart, of black patent leather, with a strip of white leather along the upper edge. Yes, the size looked to me just the same as that of the little shoe which so exactly fitted the imprint I had made in the sand.

"Why did you leave so quickly?" I asked, standing before her, and leaning against the table, as I looked into the wonderful eyes of the chic little Parisienne.

"I was compelled," was her brief response.

"You might have written to me."

"What was the use, M'sieu' Vidal? I went straight back to France. Then to Austria, Hungary, and Russia," she answered. "Only the day before yesterday I returned to London."

"From where?"

"From Algiers."

Algiers! The mention of that town recalled the fact that it was the hiding-place of the notorious Jules Jeanjean.

"Why have you been in Algiers – and in August, too?"

"Not for pleasure," she replied with a grim smile. "The place is a perfect oven just now – as you may well imagine. But I was forced to go."

"Forced against your will, Lola, eh?" I asked, bending towards her, and looking her full in the face very seriously.

"Yes," she admitted, her eyes cast down, "against my will. I had a message to deliver."

"To whom?"

"To my uncle."

"Not a message," I said, correcting her. "Something more valuable than mere words. Is not that so?"

The Nightingale nodded in the affirmative, her blue eyes still downcast in shame.

"Where was your starting-point?" I asked.

"In St. Petersburg, a fortnight ago. I was given the little box in the Hôtel de l'Europe, and that night I concealed its contents in the clothes I wore. Some of them I sewed into the hem of my travelling-coat, and, and – "

"Stones they were, I suppose?" I said, interrupting.

"Yes, from Lobenski's, the jeweller's in the Nevski," she replied. "Well, that night I left Petersburg and travelled to Vienna, thence to Trieste, where I found my uncle's yacht awaiting me, and we went down the Adriatic and along the Mediterranean to Algiers. My uncle was already at home. The coup was a large one, I believe. Have you seen reports of it in the English papers?" she asked.

"Certainly," I replied. For a fortnight before I had read in several of the newspapers of the daring robbery committed at the shop of Lobenski, the Russian Court Jeweller, and of the theft of a large quantity of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The safe, believed to be impregnable, had been fused by an oxygen acetylene jet, and the whole of its contents stolen. From what Lola had revealed, it seemed that Jeanjean had had no actual hand in the theft, for he had been in Algiers awaiting the booty. But he always travelled swiftly after a coup.

"Did the papers say much about it?" asked Lola, with interest.

"Oh, just a sensational story," I replied. "But I never dreamt that you were in Russia, Lola – that you had carried the stones across Europe sewn in your dress!"

"Ah! It is not the first time, as you know, M'sieu' Vidal," she sighed. "There is always danger of some customs officer or agent of police recognizing me. But uncle says I am unsuspected, and hence the work is assigned always to me."

"And you have come to England to see me – eh? Why?" I asked, looking again into her clear blue eyes.

"I have come, M'sieu' Vidal, in order to ask a further favour of you – a request I almost fear to make after your great generosity towards me."

"Oh! Don't let us speak of that," I said. "It is all past and over. I only acted as any other man would have done in the circumstances, Lola!"

"You acted as a gentleman would act," she said. "But, alas! How few real gentlemen are met by a wretched girl like myself," she added bitterly. "Suppose you had acted as thousands would have done. Where should I be now? Spending my days in one of your female prisons here."

"Instead of which you are still the little Nightingale, who sings so blithely, and who is so inexpressibly dainty and charming," I said with a smile. "At the best hotels up and down Europe, Lola Sorel is a well-known figure, always ready to flirt with the idle youngsters, and to make herself pleasant to those of her own sex. Only they must be wealthy – eh?"

She made a quick movement as though to arrest the flow of my words.

"You are, alas! right, M'sieu' Vidal," she replied. "Ah, if you only knew how I hate it all – how day by day, hour by hour – I fear that I may blunder and consequently find myself in the hands of the police – if – "

"Never, if you follow your uncle, Jules Jeanjean," I interrupted. "And, I suppose, you are still doing so?"

She sighed heavily, and a hard expression crossed her pretty face.

"Alas! I am forced to. You know the bitter truth, M'sieu' Vidal – the tragedy of my life."

For a few moments I remained silent, my eyes upon her.

I knew full well the strange, romantic story of that pretty French girl seated before me – the sweet, refined little person – scarcely more than a child – whose present, and whose future, were so entirely in the hands of that notorious criminal.

Why had I not telegraphed to the Paris police on discovering Jeanjean's presence in Cromer? For one reason alone. Because his arrest would also mean hers. He had too vowed in my presence that if he were ever taken alive, he would betray his niece, because she had once, in a moment of despair and horror, at one of his cold-blooded crimes, threatened to give him away.

As she sat there, her face sweet and soft as a child's, her blue eyes so clear and innocent, one would never dream that she was the cat's-paw of the most ingenious and dangerous association of jewel thieves in the whole of Europe.

Truly her story was a strange one – one of the strangest of any girl in the world.

She noticed my thoughtfulness, and suddenly put out her little hand until it touched mine; then, looking into my eyes, she asked, in a low, intense voice —

"What are you thinking about?"

"I am thinking of you, Lola," I replied. "I am wondering what really happened in Cromer, back in the month of June. You are here to explain – eh? Will you tell me?"