The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

"Tell me more about yourself," I urged. "I'm greatly interested."

"What is there to tell you?" she cried, her eyes filling with bitter tears. "I am a thief – that's all. You are a guest here – and it is your duty to your host to keep me here, and call the police. Jules was watching on the stairs below. By this time he knows you have trapped me, and they have both escaped – without a doubt – escaped with the stuff I handed to them ten minutes ago."

"Jules? Who is he?" I asked quickly.

"Jules Jeanjean – my uncle," she replied.

"Jules Jeanjean!" I ejaculated, "that man!" for the name was synonymous for all that was audacious and criminal.

"Yes, M'sieur."

"And he is your uncle?"

"Yes. At his instigation I am forced to do these things against my will," she declared in a hard, bitter voice. "Ah, if only you knew – if you knew everything, M'sieur, I believe you would have pity and compassion for me – you would allow me one more chance – a chance to escape – a chance to try once more to break away from these hateful men who hold me in the hollow of their hands!"

She spoke so fervently, so earnestly, that her appeal sank deeply into my heart. By her despairing manner I saw that she hoped for no clemency, for no sympathy, especially from me, who had actually been suspected of the robbery in Copenhagen which she and her confederates had committed.

"What have you in that bag?" I asked, indicating the black silk bag beneath her coat.

She placed her small hand into it and slowly and shamefacedly drew forth a splendid collar of large pearls.

"I took it from the next room," she said briefly. "I will replace it if – if only you would allow me to get away," she added wistfully.

"And the other stuff you have stolen?"

"Ah! My uncle has it. He has already gone – carrying it with him!"

"Deserted you – and left you to your fate – as soon as he realized the danger," I remarked. "The coward!"

"Yes. But it was fortunate that you did not come out of this room – upon the stairs," she said.

"Why?"

"Because he would have killed you with as little compunction as he would kill a fly," she replied slowly.

"I quite believe that. His reputation is known all over Europe," I said. "Mine was, no doubt, a fortunate escape."

"Will you let me put these pearls back?" she asked eagerly.

"No. Leave them on the table. I will replace them," I said.

"Then, what do you intend doing with me?" she asked very seriously. "Only allow me to go, and I shall always be grateful to you, M'sieur – grateful to you all my life."

And with a sudden movement she took my hand in hers, and looked so earnestly into my eyes, that I stood before her fascinated by her wonderful beauty.

The scene was indeed a strange one. She pleaded to me for her liberty, pleaded to me, throwing herself wildly upon her knees, covering her face with her hands, and bursting into a torrent of hot, bitter tears.

My duty, both towards my host and towards the guests whose jewellery had been stolen by that silent-footed, expert little thief, was to raise the alarm, and hand her over to the police.

Yet so pitiful was her appeal, so tragic the story she had briefly related to me, so earnest her promise never to offend again, that I confess I could not bring myself to commit her to prison.

I saw that she was but the unwilling cat's-paw of the most dangerous criminal in Europe. Therefore, I gently assisted her to rise to her feet and began to further question her.

In confidence she told me her address in Paris – a flat in the Boulevard Pereire – and then, after nearly half an hour's further conversation, I said —

"Very well, Lola. You shall leave here, and I hope to see you in Paris very shortly. I hope, too, that you will succeed in breaking away from your uncle and his associates and so have a chance to live a life of honesty."

"Ah!" she sighed, gripping my hand with heartfelt thanks, as she turned to creep from the room, and down the stairs. "Ah! If I could! If I only could. Au revoir, M'sieur. You are indeed generous. I – I owe my life to you —au revoir!"

And, then? Well, she had slipped noiselessly down the winding stair, while I had taken the pearl necklace and replaced it in the room of Mrs. Forbes Wilson.

Imagine the consternation next morning, when it was discovered that burglars had entered the place, and had got clean away with jewellery worth in all about thirty thousand pounds.

I watched the investigations made by the police, who were summoned from Dumfries by telephone.

But I remained silent, and kept the secret of little Lola Sorel to myself.

And here she was, once again – standing before me!

CHAPTER XIV

WHEREIN CONFESSION IS MADE

"Well, Lola," I said at last, still holding her little hand in mine, "and why cannot you reveal to me the truth regarding the mystery of the death of Edward Craig?"

"For a very good reason – because I do not myself know the exact circumstances," was her prompt response, dropping into French. "I know that you have made an investigation. What have you discovered?"

"If you will be frank with me," I said, also in French, "I will be equally frank with you."

"But, have I not always been frank?" she protested. "Have I not always told you the truth, ever since that night in Scotland when you trapped me in your room. Don't you remember?"

"Yes," I replied in a low voice. "I remember, alas! too well. You promised in return for your liberty that you would break away from your uncle."

"Ah, I did – but I have been utterly unable, M'sieur Vidal," she cried quickly in her broken English. "You don't know how much I have suffered this past year – how terrible is my present position," she added in a tone of poignant bitterness.

"Yes, I quite understand and sympathize with you," I said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it, while she sat back in the big old-fashioned horse-hair arm-chair. "For weeks I have been endeavouring to find you – after you came to Cromer to call upon me. You have left the Boulevard Pereire."

"Yes. I have been travelling constantly of late."

"After the affair of the jeweller, Benoy – eh? Where were you at that time?"

"In Marseilles, awaiting my uncle. We crossed to Algiers together. Thence we went along to Alexandria, and on to Cairo, where we met our friends."

"It was a dastardly business. I read of it in the Matin," I said.

"Brutal – horrible!" declared the girl. "But is not my uncle an inhuman brute – a fearless, desperate man, who carries out, with utter disregard of human life, the amazing plots which are formed by one who is the master of all the criminal arts."

"Then he is not the prime mover of all these ingenious thefts?" I exclaimed in some surprise, for I had always believed Jules Jeanjean to be the head of that international band.