The Mysterious Three

To be shot in the back by a man standing upon a roof, with a scatter-gun, is not merely physically painful; it is, in addition, humiliating, because it also wounds one’s amour propre.

At once I decided not to tell Vera what had happened. She was kind, sympathetic, and for many other things I loved her, but instinctively I knew that she would laugh if I told her the truth, and I was in no fit state then to be laughed at.

Indeed, merely to laugh gave me pain – a great deal of pain. It seemed to drive a lot of little sharp spikes into the holes made by the pellets.

Doctor Agnew – for I had returned to town that night, being extremely anxious to see Thorold again – to whom I exposed my lacerated back, made far too light of the matter, I thought – far too light of it. He said the pellets were “just under the skin” – I think he murmured something about “an abrasion of the cuticle,” whatever that may mean – and that he would “pick them all out in half a jiffy.” I hate doctors who talk slang, and I hinted that I thought an anaesthetic might be advisable.

“Anaesthetic!” he echoed, with a laugh. “Oh, come, Mr Ashton,” Agnew added, “you must be joking. Yes – I see that you are joking.”

I had not intended to “joke.”

“Joking” had been the thought furthest from my mind when I suggested the anaesthetic. But, as he took it like that, and spoke in that tone, naturally I had to pretend I really had been joking.

Agnew picked out all the pellets, as he had said he would, “in half a jiffy,” and I must admit that the pain of the “operation” was very slight. I should, in truth, have been a milksop had I insisted upon being made unconscious in order to avoid the “pain” of a few sharp pin-pricks.

Next day I went to see my love, and found her in tears.

Her father was, alas, worse, His temperature had risen. At the hospital they feared the worst. All the previous night he had been delirious. The sister had told her that he had “said the strangest things,” while in that condition.

I tried to comfort her, but I fear my efforts had but little avail.

“Did they tell you what he said while he was delirious?” I asked quickly.

“They told me some of the things he said. He kept on, they declared, talking of some crime. He seemed to see things floating up before him, and to be trying to keep them from him. And he talked about gold, too, they said. He kept rambling on about gold – gold. The nurses didn’t like it. One of them, I saw, had been really frightened by his wild talk.”

This was serious. That a crime had been committed, in which Sir Charles Thorold had, in some way, been concerned, I had felt sure ever since that discovery in the house in Belgrave Street. It would be too dreadful if, while delirious, he should inadvertently make statements that might arouse grave suspicion.

Statements uttered by a man in delirium, could not, of course, be used as evidence in a Court of Law, but they might excite the curiosity of the hospital staff – they had, indeed, already done that – and though I am no believer in the foolish saying that women cannot keep a secret, I do know that a good many nurses are strangely addicted to gossip.

“We must, at any cost, stop his talking,” Vera declared very earnestly. “What can we do, Dick? What do you suggest?”

What could I suggest? How deeply I felt for her. It would, of course, be possible to keep him quiet by administering drugs, to deaden the activity of his brain, but the doctors would never agree to such a proposal. Besides, such a suggestion would arouse their curiosity; it might make them wonder why we so earnestly wished to prevent the patient talking.

They might jump at all sorts of wrong conclusions, especially as they knew Sir Charles to be the man whose name had recently figured so prominently in the newspapers on two occasions.

No, the idea of drugging him, to keep his tongue quiet, must be at once abandoned.

We had just come to that conclusion, when somebody knocked. A page-boy entered with a telegram, which Vera opened.

“No answer,” she said, and handed it to me.

The messenger retired. Scanning the telegram, I saw it ran as follows —

“Just heard terrible news. Also where you are. Returning at once. Engage rooms for me your hotel. – Mother.”

The telegram had been handed in at Mentone.

Vera seemed a good deal relieved at the thought of seeing her mother again. At this I was not surprised, for, in a sense, she had felt herself responsible for Lady Thorold’s evident ignorance of her husband’s mishap and illness. She had felt all along, she told me, that she should have kept in touch with her mother.

“If my father dies, without my mother having heard of his illness, I shall never forgive myself,” she had said to me once.

Lady Thorold arrived at the Grand Hotel next evening. She had travelled by the Mediterranean express without stopping, and had hardly slept at all. Nevertheless, she insisted upon going at once to the hospital, to see her husband.

He was a little better, the doctor told her. He had recovered consciousness for a short time that evening, and his brain seemed calmer. Several times, while conscious, he had asked why Lady Thorold did not come to him, and where she was. Her absence evidently disturbed him a good deal.

On leaving the hospital, I looked in at Faulkner’s club. He was in the hall, talking to the porter, and just about to come out.

“Ah, my dear Dick,” he exclaimed, “you’re the very man I want to see. How is Sir Charles?”

“A very little better,” I answered. “I have just come from the hospital. Lady Thorold is with him now.”

“Good. By the way, have you seen the tape news just in?”

“What news?”

He led me across to the machine at the further end of the hall, picked up the tape, and held it out at arm’s length. The startling words I read were as follows —

“The men whom the police are trying to arrest at Houghton Park to-day, shot three policemen dead, and seriously injured a fourth. A reinforcement of police has been summoned. Thousands of people have assembled in the Park, which surrounds the house, and hundreds are arriving hourly on foot, on bicycles, in carriages, and in cars.”

While we stood there, the machine again ticked. This was the message that came up —

“Houghton Park. Later: A number of bags of gold coin, mostly French louis, have just been found at Houghton Park. They were discovered by the police, concealed between the rafters and the roof. There are said to be several thousand pounds worth of these coins.”

So the mystery was slowly leaking out. I felt that everything must soon be known. How did those sacks of gold come to be hidden in the roof at Houghton? Who had concealed them there? Could it be the same gold I had seen in the house in Belgrave Street? And if so, had Whichelo…

I felt bewildered. What chiefly occupied my thoughts was the news of those policemen. Poor fellows! How monstrous they should not have been allowed to fire upon the murderers.

Too furious to speak, I left the club with Faulkner, and together we walked along Piccadilly, towards Bond Street. As we sauntered past the Burlington, a pair of laughing, dark eyes met mine, and at once I recognised – Judith!

“Ah, mon cher ami!” she cried, revealing her white teeth as she extended her well-gloved hand. She was gorgeously and expensively dressed, in the height of Paris fashion, and I noticed that all who passed us by – men and women alike – stared hard at her.

“Did you come back with Lady Thorold?” I asked – why, I hardly knew – when we had talked for some moments.

“Mais, oui,” she exclaimed. “We were together in Mentone, when I read in a newspaper about this dreadful affair. I had just heard from a friend here that Mademoiselle Vera was staying at the Grand Hotel, so I told Lady Thorold. She was désolée at the news about Sir Charles —pauvre homme– and said she must return at once to see him, and asked me if I would come with her. So I said, ‘Oh, yes.’ And here I am. Do you remember our evening together at the ball in Monte Carlo?” she ended, with a rippling, silvery laugh.

“Where are you staying?” Faulkner asked.

“I? At the Piccadilly Hotel. You must come to supper with me there. What night will you come?”

We made some excuse for not arranging definitely what night we would have supper with her, and I laughed as I thought of the two louis I had given the girl as a bribe to remove her mask, and of the sum I had afterwards paid her to take me to Vera. And now she was staying at the Piccadilly Hotel, and giving supper parties – the girl whom I had once believed to be Lady Thorold’s maid!

How strangely wags the world to-day!

As we all three emerged into Burlington Gardens, boys came rushing past with the latest edition of an evening paper.

“Ah, gran’ Dieu!” she cried, as she caught sight of the contents bills. For this was what we read on them —

HOUGHTON PARK.