The Mysterious Three

Again that odd little advertisement arose in my thoughts. I would watch the front page of the Morning Post for a day or two. Perhaps another advertisement might appear that would help me.

Early next day I went and told Vera everything. I found her seated in the lounge on the right of the hall.

She listened eagerly, and I saw at once that the news excited her a good deal, yet to my surprise she made no comment, but changed the subject of conversation by remarking —

“Violet brought Frank Faulkner here yesterday evening. He is engaged to be married to her. He has broken off his engagement to Gladys Deroxe, and I am very glad he has,” she declared.

“Really,” I exclaimed. “Well, frankly I’m not surprised, for I believe he has been in love with Violet from the moment he first met her. But how did Miss Deroxe take it? Was there a dreadful scene?”

“Scene? There was no scene at all, it appears. What happened was simply this. Gladys discovered that Frank had brought Violet over from the Riviera, that she was staying here at his expense, and that he seemed to be extremely attentive to her. Now, a sensible girl would have asked her future husband, in a case of that sort, to come to see her and explain everything. That, certainly, is what I should have done.”

“And what did Miss Deroxe do?”

“Do? Good Heavens, she sat down then and there and wrote him a letter – oh! such a letter! He showed it to me. I have never in my life read anything so insulting. She ended by telling him in writing that she had never really cared for him, and that she hoped she would never see him again. In one place she wrote: ‘I might have guessed the kind of man you are by the kind of company you keep. I know all about your friend, Richard Ashton. He associates with dreadful people. I am only glad I have found you out before it was too late!’ Those were her words. So you see the kind of reputation you have acquired, my dear Dick.”

I laughed – laughed uproariously. I, “the associate of dreadful people,” I, a member of that hot-bed of conventions and of respectability, Brooks’s Club. The whole thing was delicious.

“When will Frank and Violet be here again?”

I asked presently, after we had ascended together to the private sitting-room.

“I’ve invited Frank to lunch. I told them you were coming. Frank has something important to tell you, he said.”

“Did he tell you what?”

“No. At least it had reference, he said, to the Château d’Uzerche, or to something that has been found there. To tell the truth, I was thinking of something else when he told me.”

“Dearest,” I said, some minutes later, my arm about her waist, “you remember my telling you I had taken a few of the coins I found in your father’s house. Well, yesterday I had them tested. They are not counterfeits. They are genuine.”

She looked at me curiously. Then, after a pause, she said —

“What made you think they might be counterfeit?”

“What made me think so? Seeing that I discovered with them a number of implements, etc, used apparently in the manufacture of base coin, my inference naturally was that the coins must have been false.”

Still she looked at me. Gradually her expression hardened.

“Dick,” she said at last, “you are deceiving me. You have deceived me all along. You told me you knew my father’s secret. Now you don’t know it – do you?”

“Indeed you are mistaken, quite mistaken, dearest,” I exclaimed quickly. “I know it well enough, but I don’t, I admit, know that part of it which bears upon these coins. I never pretended to know that part.”

It was a wild shot, but I felt I must say something in my defence.

I hated deceiving Vera in this way, as, indeed, I should have hated to deceive her in any way, but, playing a part still, I was driven to subterfuge. After all, I had never said I knew her father’s secret. She had jumped to the conclusion that I knew it, that day I had found her locked in the upper room in the house in Belgrave Street, and I had not disillusioned her. That was all.

The door of the sitting-room opened at that moment, we sprang apart as Faulkner and Violet entered. The pretty girl, in a blue serge coat and skirt, looked radiantly happy, and the happiness she felt seemed to increase her great beauty. I confess I had not before fully realised what a lovely girl she was.

“Ah, Dick, my dear fellow,” Faulkner exclaimed, grasping me by the hand, “I want you to congratulate me, old chap.”

“Oh, I do, of course,” I said at once. “I congratulate you doubly – on becoming engaged, and on breaking off your engagement.”

He made a quick little gesture of impatience.

“Oh, I don’t mean congratulations of that kind,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t ask you to waste your time in congratulating me upon anything so commonplace as an engagement of marriage. I want you to congratulate me upon something you don’t yet know.”

“Well, what is it?” I said impatiently. “Have you come into a fortune?”

“Right the very first time!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I have. I’ve inherited, quite unexpectedly, a very large fortune. But the odd thing is this. My benefactor is, or rather was, unknown to me. Until yesterday I had never even heard his name.”

“How wonderful! But how splendid!” I cried out. “Do tell me more about it. Tell me everything.”

“I will. And now prepare to receive a shock. The will leaving me this fortune was found in the safe discovered among the débris of Château d’Uzerche, after the fire?”

Chapter Twenty Four

A Further Tangle

Certainly, this was a most remarkable development. I listened without comment.

Yet when Faulkner had given me, at the luncheon table, all the details by way of “explanation,” as he put it, the tangle seemed even greater than before he had begun.

The will, dated three years previously, had been drawn up by a well-known firm of London lawyers. It was quite in order, and the testator’s name was Whichelo, Samuel Whichelo, formerly of Mexico City, merchant, but then resident at Wimbledon Common. The testator, who had been unmarried, left a few legacies to friends and servants, but practically the whole of his fortune he bequeathed entirely to Frank Faulkner, “in return for the considerable service he once rendered me.”

Faulkner had handed me a copy of the will – it was quite a short will. When I came to this sentence I naturally looked up.

“Ah!” I said, “then there is a method in the testator’s madness. But I thought you told me you had never even heard his name.”

“Until yesterday I never had heard it.”

“Then what was this ‘considerable service’ he says you rendered him?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Years ago, when I was knocking about the world – I was then about twenty – I chanced to find myself, one night, in the China Town of San Francisco. I had a friend with me, about my own age. Foolishly, we were exploring at night, alone – that is, without an interpreter or guide of any sort, which is about as risky a thing as any ordinary unarmed European can do in San Francisco, where you may still, I believe, find the scum of all the nations. Suddenly we heard a cry. A man was calling, ‘Au secours! Au secours!’ Without stopping to think, I rushed in the direction whence the cry came. It was repeated. It was in a house which I recognised, at a glance, as an establishment of doubtful repute. I must tell you that when I was twenty I was considered a first-rate boxer, and it may have been the confidence I felt in my ability to defend myself that made me rush, without hesitation, into that Chinese den. Cards and chits were scattered about the tables and on the floor, and nine or ten Chinamen were in the room, struggling furiously with a tall, dark man of powerful build, who was being rapidly overcome owing to the number of his assailants. Chinese oaths were flying about freely, and I saw a knife-blade flash suddenly into the air.”

He paused for a second, then continued —

“My blood was up. I felt as I feel sometimes now, that I didn’t care for anything or any one or what might happen to me. I rushed at the nearest Chinaman like a maniac – I believe he thought I was one. My first blow knocked him silly. Then, right and left I hit out. I was in perfect condition at that time. Down went the Chinamen one after another, as my blows caught them on the chin – I used to be famous for that chin-blow, I ‘specialised’ in it, so to speak. I detest boasting. I tell this only to you, because I think it may amuse you and explain my windfall. In less than two minutes I had stretched five of the Chinamen senseless with that chin-blow, and the remaining three or four, seized with panic, fled.”

“What then?” I asked.

“At once I led the man who had called for help out into the street. I saw he was pretty badly hurt, so with the help of my friend, who had now joined me again, I got him out of China Town, expecting to be set upon at any moment by friends of those Chinamen, thirsting for revenge. Though he had called ‘Au secours!’ he was not French, it seemed. He was British Portuguese, though he lived in Mexico, he told me later. We got him to the hospital. ‘I must have your name – I must have your name,’ he exclaimed quite excitedly, as I was leaving, I remember. ‘You have rendered me a service I shall never forget – never. You must come and see me to-morrow.’ I told him I could not do that, as I was leaving early next morning for Raymund, on my way to the Yosemite Valley. But I said I hoped we might meet again some day, and, as he insisted upon my doing so, I gave him a card with my address – my London club address. It was at the club that I found, yesterday morning, the communication from his lawyers.”

“And by Gad!” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “you deserve this ‘bit of luck,’ as you call it, Frank. I think you acted splendidly!”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t become emotional, old chap,” he said hurriedly. “If you knew how I hate gush, you wouldn’t.”

“It isn’t gush,” I answered. “What wouldn’t I have given to see you buckling up those Chinamen one after another. Splendid!”

I turned to Violet.