The Mysterious Three

I was panting with excitement. With an effort I controlled myself. It was clear to me that this woman knew a great deal. She might indeed be able to clear up the whole mystery of Houghton Park if she were paid enough, perhaps also the mystery connected with Château d’Uzerche.

Yes, I would humour her. If it became necessary, I would pay her the highest sum she might ask for, that I was in a position to pay. But first to meet my darling again. How I longed to see her once more, after all those mysterious happenings!

“How much do you want?” I asked abruptly.

She named an absurdly large sum. Eventually we came to terms, and I paid her in French notes.

“Très bien!” she said, as she stuffed the money into some queer corner in her brief skirt. “You are a gentilhomme, not like ze others. Mais oui.”

Then she rose, signalled to me with her eyes, and I followed her out of the room.

Chapter Nineteen

More Revelations

Eagerly I strode out after her.

We went a short distance along the road to the left, then turned again to the left and halted before a large white house. Up two flights of stairs she led me, along a short corridor, and through two rooms. She opened the door at the further end of the second room, and then motioned to me to enter.

Seated at a table, playing cards, were Paulton, Violet de Coudron, Vera Thorold and the Baronne. Violet and Vera were in evening gowns – Vera in turquoise blue. The sight of the Baronne sitting there, alive and uninjured, so astounded me that I remained speechless. Paulton sprang fiercely to his feet.

“Who brought you up here?” he exclaimed furiously. “Who?”

The door had remained open. A ripple of laughter behind me made me cast a hurried glance that way, and I saw Judith convulsed with amusement. She recovered her composure in a few moments, and came in.

“I have carried out my threat,” she said in French quickly, addressing Paulton. “You brought it entirely upon yourself by your niggardliness. Mr Ashton is generous – and a gentilhomme.”

Paulton clenched his fist.

“Yes,” the French girl went on, looking at him fearlessly, “you are quite right to restrain yourself. It would be a bad night’s work if a tragedy were to happen here. At the château it was different. You had it your own way there – up to a point.”

The man became blasphemous, and I saw Vera wince. Her eyes were set upon mine, in mute appeal.

The truth flashed in upon me. Paulton ran this private gaming establishment. The Baronne presumably was his partner. Judith was an accomplice. But the two girls? What part did they play? It was horrible finding Vera here, yet my faith in her never wavered. I knew she must be there against her will, that eventually she would explain all. And seeing what I had seen of Violet, I felt equally sure that circumstances which she too could not prevent were responsible for her presence.

I suppose most men who self-complacently term themselves “men of the world,” would have laughed outright at what they would have called my “blind belief in innocence,” had the circumstances been related to them. For here were two young girls mixing with the lost souls of Monte Carlo, and apparently enjoying themselves. On the face of it, my confidence seemed quixotic, I admit, but there are times when I trust my instinct rather than even circumstantial evidence. And up to now my instinct has generally proved correct.

This was no time for deliberate thought, however. I knew I must act quickly, and for once I was able to come to a decision with remarkable promptitude. Obviously Paulton and the Baronne were there in hiding. They knew they were liable at any moment to be arrested. And, thanks to Judith, I had discovered their place of concealment.

“You know there is a warrant out for the arrest of you both,” I said, facing them fearlessly. “I can at once inform the police of your whereabouts – or I can say nothing. It is for you to decide which I shall do.”

The Baronne looked at me, as I thought, imploringly.

“If Vera Thorold comes away with me at once, and you undertake never again to molest her, your secret will remain safe, so far as I am concerned. If you refuse to let her come, then you will be arrested at once.”

The tables were, indeed, strangely turned. A few days previously these two adventurers had held me at their mercy, and Faulkner too. Now I could dictate to them what terms I chose.

I saw a look of dismay enter Violet de Coudron’s eyes, and I guessed the reason of it. She and Vera had become close friends, and now Vera was to go from her. It seemed dreadful to leave a young, beautiful, refined girl like Violet in the control of these ghouls, yet I could not suggest their surrendering her too, for was she not the Baronne’s niece? And was the Baronne actually a Baronne – or was she merely an adventuress? I had looked up her name and family in the “Almanack de Gotha,” and she seemed to be all right, but still —

Then an idea came to me. I would, with Vera’s help, and Faulkner’s, try to steal the girl away if she should express a wish to leave those unhealthy and unholy surroundings. It would be almost like repaying Paulton and the Baronne in their own coin. These and other thoughts sped through my mind with great rapidity.

“Well,” I said quickly, addressing Paulton again, “what is your answer? Am I to betray your whereabouts, or not?”

He still hesitated, still loth to decide. Then suddenly he exclaimed abruptly —

“Take her. I shall be even with you soon, never fear. I shall be even with you in a way you don’t expect.”

I smiled, thinking his words were but a hollow taunt. Later, however, I also realised to the full that his had been no empty boast.

The two girls left the room, and both returned wearing hats and sealskin coats over their evening gowns. Then, linking my arm in that of my beloved, we descended the stairs together.

At last she was saved from that scoundrelly gang who seemed to hold her so completely in their clutches, she was still mine – mine!

At Judith’s suggestion we walked back to where the ball was in progress. As a matter-of-fact I was undecided how next to act. Besides, I wanted to see Faulkner, who was awaiting me.

So we went back, and seated with Vera and Judith, I had a long chat with the latter, about many things. She told me much that interested me. Paulton and the Baronne ran this establishment, as I had guessed, and often made it their headquarters. They had several assumed names. They had run similar secret gaming-houses in Paris, Ostend, Aix and elsewhere. In this particular house they lived in a big, well-furnished flat overlooking the harbour of Monaco. Vera and Violet had each a bedroom, and shared a sitting-room. Since they had met for the first time, some weeks previously, they had become great friends – in fact almost inseparable. Both had been staying at the Château d’Uzerche when the fire had broken out, and she, Judith, had been there too. It had been Vera’s voice we had heard calling for help before we suspected the alarming truth. She had been overcome by smoke in her own room – it was just before that she had called for help – and almost stifled. No lives had been lost. There had been only five servants at D’Uzerche that night, and they had all escaped. The Baronne had, it seemed, escaped by turning sharp to the right into a lumber-room, almost directly she had rushed out of the room. From the lumber-room she had scrambled through a skylight on to the roof, entered another skylight immediately above a rusty iron fire staircase, the existence of which everybody else had forgotten, and so made her way out of the building in safety.

I inquired about the man and woman struggling in the dark.

She smiled when I referred to this, and, pulling up her short sleeve – it reached barely to her elbow – displayed several horizontal streaks of a deep purple which looked like bruises.

“I was that woman,” exclaimed Judith quietly. “The man was Dago, and these are the marks his fingers left upon me when he gripped me and fought with me. Are you surprised I have to-night so readily betrayed his hiding-place?”

“Not so very readily,” I said, thinking of the sum of which she had mulcted me before she would speak at all.

Guessing my thoughts, she laughed.

“Still, m’sieur,” she said, “you will admit that you have received full value for your money, n’est-ce-pas?”

During this conversation, carried on in one of the ante-rooms within earshot of the music in the ballroom, Vera sat almost in silence. I grew to understand the woman Judith better, indeed almost to like her. She said little about herself, though I questioned her frequently concerning her own life. She seemed more inclined to talk of other people, and their doings. One thing I did gather was that she belonged to a gang of male and female adventurers, who probably stood at nothing when they had an end to gain. To this gang belonged also the Baronne, Paulton and Henderson. Whether Sir Charles Thorold was, or was not, in some way mixed up in this gang’s schemes I could not ascertain for certain, though several times I tried to. For about Sir Charles and Lady Thorold, Judith seemed unwilling to speak.

I had a long and confidential chat with Vera. Ah! that hour was perhaps full of the sweetest happiness of my life. She was mine – mine! It was past three in the morning when we paused for a few moments in our animated conversation. “Ah, here comes your friend,” exclaimed my sweet beloved.

Faulkner, passing the open door, had caught sight of us and strolled in. Violet de Coudron was with him. She looked dreadfully tired, I thought, though this did not greatly detract from her very exceptional beauty.

Briefly, I told Faulkner all that had happened.

“It is fortunate we are not conventional,” he said lightly, when I had outlined my plan. “What food for scandal some people would find in all this. I think, after all, that our visit here to-night has not been wholly unprofitable – eh? You may be surprised to hear that this new friend of mine” – and he indicated Violet de Coudron, seated beside him – “has arranged to leave the Baronne for good and all. She tells me she leads an awful life here, and that when Vera is gone – ”

“But you have known Vera only a few weeks,” I interrupted, addressing Violet.

“Yes,” she answered sadly, with her pretty accent, “and those are the only weeks of comparative happiness I have had. I couldn’t stay here with these people without her. I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Oh, if you only knew all I have been through – all I have been forced to endure since the Baronne adopted me!” And she hid her face in her hands.

“Adopted you!” I exclaimed. “You said you were the Baronne’s niece.”

“I said so – yes. I always said so, because she made me, and I passed always as her niece. But I am not. I can scarcely remember my parents. All I can recollect is that they were very poor – but oh, so kind to me! I remember their kissing me passionately one day, with tears streaming down their cheeks – it was evening, and nearly dark – and telling me that they had to go away from me, that probably we should never meet again in this world.”

“How old were you then?” I asked, much interested.