The Stretton Street Affair

Gabrielle Engledue! Who was the girl whose body, because of my false certificate, had been reduced to ashes in order to destroy all evidence of foul play? Who was she – and what was the motive?

If I could only ascertain the latter, then I might be able to reconstruct the crime slowly, piece by piece. But as far as I could see there was an utter absence of motive.

Long ago I had arrived at the conclusion that by the death of the unknown girl named Engledue, the unscrupulous financier had added some considerable sum to his bank balance. But how? His crafty unscrupulousness was shown by the manner in which his partner, to whom he owed a big sum, had been cleverly secretly killed by a hireling – a friend of the dead Despujol. Oswald De Gex posed to the world as an honest and upright man of business whose financial aid was welcomed cordially by all the hard-up States in Europe. He posed as a philanthropist, and as such earned a big reputation in those countries in which the operations of the all-powerful group he controlled were carried on.

But I knew his methods, and I sat staggered at the fact that the Corporation of the City of London were about to entertain him. Yet money counts always. Did not the Lord Mayor and Corporation once entertain the man who gave a service of gold communion-plate to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and who afterwards spent many years in one of His Majesty’s gaols?

My blood boiled within me when I read that announcement. Yet on calmer consideration, I resolved to still wait and watch.

I returned to London on the following Friday, and in the train I read of the splendid luncheon given on the previous day to the arch-criminal and the eulogistic speeches made by two English politicians and the two foreign Premiers.

Oswald De Gex was declared to be one of the greatest financiers of the age, and there was a hint that a certain Allied Government was about to enlist his efforts with a view to extricate it from national bankruptcy.

De Gex was a man who thought and spoke in millions. Accompanying the article was a photograph of him standing smiling beside the Lord Mayor as guest of the City of London. Oswald De Gex seldom allowed himself to be photographed, but some enterprising Press photographer had no doubt snapped him unawares.

His hesitation to be photographed – public man that he was – was but natural. Wherever you hear of people in the public eye, male or female, who will not allow their pictures to appear in the papers, you may always suspect in that hesitation a dread of the raking up of some hidden scandal. Many a face which has looked out upon us from a pictorial newspaper or a “back-page” of one’s daily journal, has caused its owner much terror, and in more than one instance a rush into obscurity to avoid the police.

Scotland Yard and the Paris Sûreté have many albums of photographs, and it is not generally known that each day their counterparts are searched for in the daily journals.

Oswald De Gex had on that memorable day become, against his will no doubt, a lion of London. One heard nothing of Mrs. De Gex. She was still at the Villa Clementini no doubt. Her name was never mentioned in the very eulogistic articles which innocent men of Fleet Street penned concerning the man of colossal finance. One can never blame Fleet Street for “booming” any man or woman. A couple of thousand pounds to a Press agent will secure for a burglar an invitation to dine at a peer’s table. Plainly speaking, in Europe since the war, real merit has become almost a back number. Money buys anything and anybody.

I fear that, young man as I still am, I am a fierce critic of the manners of our times. I learned my, perhaps, old-fashioned ideas from my father, an honest, upright, country parson, who loved to ride with the hounds, who called a spade a spade, and openly denounced a liar as such. He never minced matters, and stuck to his opinion, yet he was a pious, generous, open-hearted Englishman, who had no use for the “international financier,” who has lately become the pseudonym for a foreign adventurer.

The autumn days shortened and winter was approaching, for the east winds blew chill across the Thames into my room as I shaved before my window each morning. Mrs. Tennison was still in Lyons, and Harry Hambledon went each morning to his sordid work at the Hammersmith Police Court, either prosecuting or defending in small cases. His eloquence and shrewdness as an advocate had more than once been commented upon by the stipendiary, hence he was gradually working up quite a lucrative practice.

Things drifted along till the end of October. De Gex was living at Stretton Street, very occupied, I ascertained, in arranging a great development scheme for Liberia, that independent State in West Africa.

In the City he was constantly expressing his regret at the unfortunate deaths of his partners, Count de Chamartin, of Madrid, and the Baron van Veltrup, of Amsterdam, but he had expressed himself ready to carry the great deal through himself, though it involved the speculation of nearly two millions sterling.

I could hardly take up any newspaper – neither could you, my reader, for that matter – unless I saw De Gex referred to, under another name, of course. He went here and there, the guest of a Cabinet Minister, playing golf with a Leader of the House, or spending a week-end with a Duke, until it seemed that the world of Society had at last prevailed upon the mystery-man of millions to emerge from his shell and take up his position in Mayfair.

When I saw that he was the guest of certain hard-up members of the aristocracy, or of war profiteers, who, dropping their aitches, had bought ancestral homes, I merely smiled at the ignorance of those who were entertaining one of the greatest criminals in Europe.

In the watch I kept each evening upon the house in Stretton Street my friend Harry Hambledon assisted me. As we lurked in doorways in the vicinity, we saw the great ones of London Society, of both sexes, going and coming, for Oswald De Gex had now commenced to entertain upon a lavish scale. He gave smart dinner-parties and musical evenings, which the most exclusive set enjoyed.

One night, after it had grown dark, I sauntered along Park Lane, as was my habit, and having turned into Stretton Street noticed a rather shabbily dressed man, evidently a foreigner, descending the steps from De Gex’s door. He turned in my direction, and we came face to face.

In an instant I recognized him as the Spaniard, Mateo Sanz! He had never seen me before, therefore, when at a respectable distance, I turned and followed him along to a street off the Edgware Road, where he entered a third-class private hotel.

What, I wondered, was his object in visiting De Gex unless some other plot was in progress? I, however, did not intend, now that I knew the truth concerning the death of the Baron in Amsterdam, that the assassin should escape. Hence I took a taxi to Scotland Yard where I was interviewed by a detective-inspector to whom I revealed the hiding-place of the much-wanted criminal.

He thanked me, and then began to inquire what I knew concerning him. In return, I told him of my friendship with the great Spanish detective Rivero, and how, with the latter, I had seen Sanz at the station at Montauban.

Presently he rose, and telling me he would search for any request from the Spanish Government for the man’s arrest, he left me.

He returned a quarter of an hour later with some papers in his hands, and said:

“I find that the Madrid police have applied to us for this individual’s arrest, and here is his photograph,” and he showed me one similar to that which Rivero had sent me to Amsterdam.

I, of course, made no mention of Oswald De Gex, but it suddenly occurred to me that if Sanz were arrested De Gex might take fright, so I suggested that the Spaniard be kept under surveillance until the Spanish police were communicated with.

“I believe Señor Rivero suspects that Sanz is one of a very dangerous gang,” I said. “If so, it would be well to arrest them all.”

“Are the others in London, do you think?” asked the tall, dark-haired official of the Criminal Investigation Department.

“Ah! That I do not know,” was my reply. “I only know that Mateo Sanz is a very dangerous person, who has been wanted for several years.”

“Well, we thank you very much for your information, sir, and we shall act upon it at once,” he replied. And then I went along the stone corridor and out again into Parliament Street, well satisfied that I had, at last, placed one of the criminals in the hands of the police, who would, in due course, learn the true facts concerning Baron van Veltrup’s mysterious end.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

A CURIOUS STORY

At Scotland Yard they acted upon my suggestion, and at once sent a wireless message to Señor Rivero in Madrid, telling him of the discovery of the notorious Mateo Sanz.

In the meantime my curiosity was further aroused by a note sent to me by Mrs. Tennison’s servant, Mrs. Alford, next day, saying that Doctor Moroni had called at Longridge Road and that, finding Miss Gabrielle absent, he had put to her a number of questions concerning myself.

“As I promised you, sir,” the woman wrote, “I pleaded ignorance of everything. He was apparently astonished to find my mistress and Miss Gabrielle away. He asked me for their address, but I replied that they were moving from place to place on the Continent. He seemed most annoyed, and went away.”

I wondered what was his object in going to Longridge Road, if not for the purpose of some further evil work. Though he pretended friendliness towards Gabrielle, yet I knew that he was her enemy, just as he was mine.

Moroni was in London, hence he would no doubt visit De Gex. Hambledon was unknown to Moroni, therefore he watched in Stretton Street on the following night, and in his work of observation he was assisted by Norah, who had been told something of the strange circumstances, though of course not the whole amazing story.

Just before eleven o’clock Harry and his fiancée arrived at Rivermead Mansions in a taxi and told me that they had seen Moroni arrive at Stretton Street about half-past nine. He was admitted by a new and rather supercilious man-servant – for Horton did not now seem to be in the great man’s employ.

“Ten minutes afterwards Suzor arrived,” Harry said. “Then about half an hour later Moroni came out.”

“I was passing the house slowly when he came down the steps muttering fiercely to himself in Italian,” Norah said. “He took no notice of me, for he seemed extremely angry and excited. Indeed, as he left, he glanced back at the house, his hands clenched, and he seemed to invoke a curse upon it.”

“By Jove!” I gasped. “That’s interesting! The precious trio have perhaps quarrelled!”

“Perhaps,” said Hambledon. “And as a lawyer I venture to predict that if they really have we shall, ere long, obtain some very interesting disclosures.”

Norah stayed and had some supper, for we were all desperately hungry, and later on Harry saw her back to Richmond.

Three days later, in consequence of a message sent to me from the Hotel Cecil, I went home early from the office to Rivermead Mansions, and had only been in five minutes when the door-bell rang.

On opening it I found my expected visitor, Señor Rivero.

“Ah! my dear friend!” cried the good-humoured police official, as he wrung my hand warmly. “So I have found you at last! The taxi-man made a mistake in the address and took me further down the road. Well, so you have been doing good business for us – eh? You have found Mateo Sanz!”

“Yes. I recognized him,” I said.

“I have just been with Superintendent Risden, of Scotland Yard, and we have seen our friend whom we have wanted for so long. He is quite unsuspicious. But I am told that two days ago he visited the house of Mr. De Gex.”

“Yes, he is his friend, just as Despujol was,” I remarked.

“But I cannot understand that!” Rivero declared. “It seems incredible that a person of such high standing as Mr. De Gex should number bandits among his friends!”