The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

"Edward Craig!" she echoed, amazed. "How do you know? I – I mean —mon Dieu! – it's impossible!"

"It seems impossible, but it is, nevertheless, a fact, Lola," I declared in a low, earnest tone as I bent towards her. I had watched her face and, by its expression, knew the truth. "And you," I added, slowly, "have been aware of this all along."

"I – I – " she faltered in French, opening her big blue eyes widely, as the colour mounted to her cheeks in her confusion.

"No," I interrupted, raising my hand in protest. "Please do not deny it. You have known that Craig did not die, Lola. You may as well, at once, admit your knowledge."

"Certainement, I have not denied it," was her low reply.

"How did you know he was alive?" I asked.

"Well," and then she hesitated. But, after a few seconds' reflection, she went on: "After that affair at Lobenski's in Petersburg, I was leaving at night for Berlin, by the Ostend rapide, with some of the stolen stones sewn in my dress, as I told you, when, just as the train moved off from the platform, I fancied I caught sight of him. But only for a second. Then, when I came to consider all the facts, I felt convinced that my eyes must have deceived me. Edward Craig was dead and buried, and the man on the railway platform must have only borne some slight resemblance to him."

Was she deceiving me? I wondered.

"Have you since seen the same man anywhere else?" I asked her, seriously.

"Well, yes," she replied slowly. "Curiously enough, I saw the same person once in Paris, and again in London. I was in a taxi going along Knightsbridge on the afternoon of the day when I afterwards walked so innocently into the trap at Spring Grove. He was just coming out of the post-office in Knightsbridge, but did not notice me as I passed. I turned to look at him a second time, but he had gone in the opposite direction and his back was towards me. Yet I felt certain that he was actually the same man whom I had seen as the Ostend Express had left Petersburg. And now," she added, looking straight into my eyes, "you tell me that Edward Craig still lives!"

"He does. And he has been here – at this house – to-night!"

"At this house!" gasped the Nightingale, starting instantly to her feet, her face as pale as death.

"Yes. He has been standing on the lawn outside, peering in at this window, watching you seated at the piano," I explained.

"Watching me!"

"Yes," I replied. "And, if my surmise is correct, he is certainly no friend of yours. He has watched you during the coup in Petersburg, again in Paris, and in London, and now he has discovered your hiding-place," I answered. "What does it all mean?"

Deathly pale, with thin, quivering lips, and hands clasped helplessly before her, she stood there in an attitude of deadly fear, of blank despair.

"Yes," she whispered in a low, strained voice, full of apprehension. "I believed that he was dead, that – "

But she halted, as if suddenly recollecting that her words might betray her. Her bosom, beneath the laces of her corsage, rose and fell convulsively.

"That – what?" I asked in a soft, sympathetic voice, placing my hand tenderly upon her shoulder, and looking into her wonderful eyes.

"Oh! I – I – " she exclaimed in a half-choked voice. "I thought him dead. But now, alas! I find that my suspicions are well grounded. He is alive – and he has actually been here!"

"Then you are in fear of him – in deadly fear, Lola," I said. "Why?" And I looked straight at my dainty little friend.

She tried to make response, but though her white lips moved no sound escaped them. I saw how upset and overwrought she was by the amazing information I had conveyed to her.

"Tell me the truth, Lola – the truth of what happened in Cromer," I urged, my hand still upon her shoulder. "Do not withhold it from me. Remember, I am your friend, your most devoted friend."

She trembled at my question.

"If the dead man was not Edward Craig, then, who was he?" I asked, as she had made no reply.

"How can I tell?" she asked in French. "I thought it was Craig. Was he not identified as Craig and buried as him?"

"Certainly. And I, too, most certainly believed the body to be that of Craig," I answered.

For a few moments there was a dead silence. Then I repeated my question. I could see that she feared that young man's visit even more than she did either her uncle or the old scoundrel Vernon.

For some mysterious reason the fact that Craig still lived held her in breathless suspense and apprehension.

"Lola," I said at last, speaking very earnestly and sympathetically, "am I correct in my surmise that this man, whom both you and I have believed to be in his grave, is in possession of some secret of yours – some weighty secret? Tell me frankly."

For answer she slowly nodded, and next moment burst into a torrent of hot, bitter tears, saying, in a faltering voice, scarce above a whisper —

"Yes, alas! M'sieur Vidal. He – he is in possession of my secret – and – and the past has risen against me!"

CHAPTER XXVI

HOT-FOOT ACROSS EUROPE

By Lola's attitude I became more than ever mystified. I tried to induce her to tell me the exact position of affairs, but she seemed far too nervous and unstrung. The fact that Craig had found out her hiding-place seemed to cause her the most breathless anxiety.

That he knew some guilty secret of hers seemed plain.

It was eleven o'clock before I rose to go, after begging her many times in vain to tell me the truth. I felt confident that she could reveal the strange mystery of Cromer, yet she steadfastly refused.

"You surely see, Lola, that we are both in serious peril," I said, standing before the chair upon which she had sunk in deep dejection. "These daring, unscrupulous people must, sooner or later, make a fatal attack upon us, if we do not deliver our blow against them. To invoke the aid or protection of the police is useless. They set all authority at defiance, for they are wealthy, and the ramifications of their society extend all over Europe."

"I know," she admitted. "Vernon has agents in every country. I have met many of them – quite unsuspicious persons. My uncle has introduced me to people at whose apparent honesty and respectability I have been amazed."

"Then you must surely realize how insecure is the present position of both of us," I said.

"I do. But disaster cannot be averted," was her sorrowful response.

"Unless you unite with me in avenging the attack made upon us at Spring Grove."

"What is the use?" she queried. "They have all left London."

"What?" I exclaimed quickly. "You know that?"

"Yes," she replied. "I know they have."

"How?"

"By an advertisement I saw in the paper three days ago," she answered. "They use a certain column of a certain paper on a certain day to distribute general information to all those interested."

"In a code?"

"In a secret cipher – known only to the friends of M'sieur Vernon," she said. "They always look for his orders or his warnings on the eighteenth of each month. My uncle is back at Algiers."

"Where is Vernon?"