The Secret House

He waited until he heard the door close after the detective; until he had watched him, from the window, step into his cab and be whirled away, then he unlocked the lower drawer of his desk, touched a spring in the false bottom, and took from a secret recess a small bundle of letters.

Many of the sheets of notepaper which he spread out on the table before him bore the strawberry crest of his grace the Duke of Ambury. The letters were all in the same sprawling handwriting; ill-spelt and blotted, but they were very much to the point. The Duke of Ambury, in his exuberant youth, had contracted a marriage with a lady in Gibraltar. His regiment had been stationed at that fortress when his succession to the dukedom had been a very remote possibility, and the Spanish lady to whom, as the letters showed, he had plighted his troth, and to whom he was eventually married in the name of Wilson (a copy of the marriage certificate was in the drawer), had been a typical Spaniard of singular beauty and fascination, though of no distinguished birth.

Apparently his grace had regretted his hasty alliance, for two years after his succession to the title, he had married the third daughter of the Earl of Westchester without – so far as the evidence in Poltavo's possession showed – having gone through the formality of releasing himself from his previous union.

Here was a magnificent coup, the most splendid that had ever come into the vision of the blackmailers, for the Duke of Ambury was one of the richest men in England, a landlord who owned half London and had estates in almost every county. If ever there was a victim who was in a position to be handsomely bled, here was one.

The Spanish wife was now dead, but an heir had been born to the Duke of Ambury before the death, and the whole question of succession was affected by the threatened disclosure. All the facts of the case were in Poltavo's possession; they were written in this curiously uneducated hand which filled the pages of the letters now spread upon the table in front of him. The marriage certificate had been supplied, and a copy of the death certificate had also been obligingly extracted by a peccant servant, and matters were now so far advanced that Poltavo had received, through the Agony column of the Times, a reply to the demand he had sent to his victim.

That reply had been very favourable; there had been no suggestion of lawyers; no hint of any intervention on the part of the police. Ambury was willing to be bled, willing indeed, so the agony advertisement indicated to Poltavo, to make any financial sacrifice in order to save the honour of his house.

It was only a question of terms now. Poltavo had decided upon fifty thousand pounds. That sum would be sufficient to enable him to clear out of England and to enjoy life as he best loved it, without the necessity for taking any further risks. With Doris Gray removed from his hands, with the approval of society already palling upon him, he thirsted for new fields and new adventures. The fifty thousand seemed now within his grasp. He should, by his agreement with Farrington, hand two-thirds of that sum to his employer, but even the possibility of his doing this never for one moment occurred to him.

Farrington, so he told himself, a man in hiding, powerless and in Poltavo's hands practically, could not strike back at him; the cards were all in favour of the Count. He had already received some ten thousand pounds as a result of his work in London, and he had frantic and ominous letters from Dr. Fall demanding that the "house" share should be forwarded without delay. These demands Poltavo had treated with contempt. He felt master of the situation, inasmuch that he had placed the major portion of the balance of money in hand, other than that which had been actually supplied by Farrington, to his own credit in a Paris bank. He was prepared for all eventualities, and here he was promised the choicest of all his pickings – for the bleeding of the Duke of Ambury would set a seal upon previous accomplishments.

He rang a bell, and a man came, letting himself into the room with a key. He was an Italian with a peculiarly repulsive face; one of the small fry whom Poltavo had employed from time to time to do such work as was beneath his own dignity, or which promised an unnecessary measure of danger in its performance.

"Carlos," said Poltavo, speaking in Italian, "Antonio has been arrested, and has been taken to Calais by the police."

"That I know, signor," nodded the man. "He is very fortunate. I was afraid when the news came that he would be put into prison."

Poltavo smiled.

"The ways of the English police are beyond understanding," he said lightly. "Here was our Antonio, anxious and willing to kill the head of the detective department, and they release him! Is it not madness? At any rate, Antonio will not be coming back, because though they are mad, the police are not so foolish as to allow him to land again. I have telegraphed to our friend to go on to Paris and await me, and here let me say, Carlos," – he tapped the table with the end of his penholder, – "that if you by ill-fortune should ever find yourself in the same position of our admirable and worthy Antonio, I beg that you will not send me telegrams."

"You may be assured, excellent signor," said the man with a little grin, "that I shall not send you telegrams, for I cannot write."

"A splendid deficiency," said Poltavo.

He took up a letter from the table.

"You will deliver this to a person who will meet you at the corner of Branson Square. The exact position I have already indicated to you."

The man nodded.

"This person will give you in exchange another letter. You will not return to me but you will go to your brother's house in Great Saffron Street, and outside that house you will see a man standing who wears a long overcoat. You will brush past him, and in doing so you will drop this envelope into his pocket – you understand?"

"Excellency, I quite understand," said the man.

"Go, and God be with you," said the pious Poltavo, sending forth a message which he believed would bring consternation and terror into the bosom of the Duke of Ambury.

It was late that night when Carlos Freggetti came down a steep declivity into Great Saffron Street and walked swiftly along that deserted thoroughfare till he came to his brother's house. His brother was a respectable Italian artisan, engaged by an asphalt company in London. Near the narrow door of the tenement in which his relative lived, a stranger stood, apparently awaiting some one. Carlos, in passing him, stumbled and apologized under his breath. At that moment he slipped the letter into the other's pocket. His quick eyes noted the identity of the stranger. It was Poltavo. No one else was in the street, and in the dim light even the keenest of eyes would not have seen the transfer of the envelope. Poltavo strolled to the end of the thoroughfare, jumped into the taxicab which was waiting and reached his house after various transferences of cabs without encountering any of T. B.'s watchful agents. In his room he opened the letter with an anxious air. Would Ambury agree to the exorbitant sum he had demanded? And if he did not agree, what sum would he be prepared to pay as the price of the blackmailer's silence? The first words brought relief to him.

"I am willing to pay the sum you ask, although I think you are guilty of a dastardly crime," read the letter, "and since you seem to suspect my bonafides, I shall choose, as an agent to carry the money to you, an old labourer on my Lancashire estate who will be quite ignorant of the business in hand, and who will give you the money in exchange for the marriage certificate. If you will choose a rendezvous where you can meet, a rendezvous which fulfills all your requirements as to privacy, I will undertake to have my man on the spot at the time you wish."

There was a triumphant smile on Poltavo's face as he folded the letter.

"Now," he said half aloud, "now, my friend Farrington, you and I will part company. You have ceased to be of any service to me; your value has decreased in the same proportion as my desire for freedom has advanced. Fifty thousand pounds!" he repeated admiringly. "Ernesto, you have a happy time before you. All the continent of Europe is at your feet, and this sad England is behind you. Congratulations, amigo!"

The question of the rendezvous was an important one. Though he read into the letter an eagerness on the part of his victim to do anything to avoid the scandal and the exposure which Poltavo threatened, yet he did not trust him. The old farm labourer was a good idea, but where could they meet? When Poltavo had kidnapped Frank Doughton he had intended taking him to a little house he had hired in the East End of London. The journey to the Secret House was a mere blind to throw suspicion upon Farrington and to put the police off the real track. The car would have returned to London, and under the influence of a drug he had intended to smuggle Frank into the small house at West Ham, where he was to be detained until the period which Farrington had stipulated had expired.

But the transfer of money in the house was a different matter. The place could be surrounded by police. No, it must be an open space; such a space as would enable Poltavo to command a clear view on every side.

Why not Great Bradley, he thought, after a while? Again he would be serving two purposes. He would be leading the police to the Secret House, and he would have the mansion of mystery and all its resources as a refuge in case anything went wrong at the last moment. He could, in the worst extremity, explain that he was collecting the money on behalf of Farrington.

Yes, Great Bradley and the wild stretch of down on the south of the town was the place. He made his arrangements accordingly.

CHAPTER XVIII

It was three days after the exchange of letters that Count Poltavo, in the rough tweeds of a country gentleman – a garb which hardly suited his figure or presence – strolled carelessly across the downs, making his way to their highest point, a great rolling slope, from the crest of which a man could see half a dozen miles in every direction.

The sky was overcast and a chill wind blew; it was such a day upon which he might be certain no pleasure-seekers would be abroad. To his left, half hidden in the furthermost shelter of the downs, veiled as it was for ever under a haze of blue grey smoke, lay Great Bradley, with its chimneys and its busy industrial life. To his right he caught a glimpse of the square ugly façade of the Secret House, half hidden by the encircling trees. To its right was a chimney stack from which a lazy feather of smoke was drifting. Behind him the old engine house of the deserted mines, and to the right of that the pretty little cottage from which a week before Lady Constance Dex had so mysteriously disappeared, and which in consequence had been an object of pilgrimage for the whole countryside.

But Lady Constance Dex's disappearance had become a nine days' wonder. There were many explanations offered for her unexpected absence. The police of the country were hunting systematically and leisurely, and only T. B. and those in his immediate confidence were satisfied that the missing woman was less than two miles away from the scene of her disappearance.

Count Poltavo had armed himself with a pair of field-glasses, and now he carefully scrutinized all the roads which led to the downs. A motor-car, absurdly diminutive from the distance, came spinning along the winding white road two miles away. He watched it as it mounted the one hill and descended the other, and kept his glasses on it until it vanished in a cloud of dust on the London road. Then he saw what he sought. Coming across the downs a mile away was the bent figure of a man who stopped now and again to look about, as though uncertain as to the direction he should take. Poltavo, lying flat upon the ground, his glasses fixed upon the man, waited, watching the slow progress with lazy interest.

He saw an old man, white-bearded and grey-haired, carrying his hat in his hand as he walked. His rough homespun clothing, his collarless shirt open at the throat, the plaid scarf around his neck, all these Poltavo saw through his powerful glasses and was satisfied.

This was not the kind of man to play tricks, he smiled to himself. Poltavo's precautions had been of an elaborate nature. Three roads led to the downs, and in positions at equal distances from where he stood he had placed three cars. He was ready for all emergencies. If he had to fly, then whichever way of escape was necessary would bring him to a means of placing a distance between himself and any possible pursuer.

The old man came nearer. Poltavo made a hasty but narrow survey of the messenger.

"Good," he said.

He walked to meet the old man.

"You have a letter for me?" he inquired.

The other glanced at him suspiciously.

"Name?" he asked gruffly.

"My name," said the smiling Pole, "is Poltavo."

Slowly the messenger groped in his pockets and produced a heavy package. "You've got to give me something," he said.

Poltavo handed over a sealed packet, receiving in exchange the messenger's.

Again Poltavo shot a smiling glance at this sturdy old man. Save for the beard and the grey hair which showed beneath the broad-brimmed, wide-awake hat, this might have been a young man.

"This is an historic meeting," Poltavo went on gaily. His heart was light and his spirits as buoyant as ever they had been in his life. All the prospects which this envelope, now bulging in his pocket, promised, rose vividly before his eyes.

"Tell me your name, my old friend, that I may carry it with me, and on some occasion which is not yet, that I may toast your health."

"My name," said the old man, "is T. B. Smith, and I shall take you into custody on a charge of attempting to extort money by blackmail."

Poltavo sprang back, his face ashen. One hand dived for his pistol-pocket, but before he could reach it T. B. was at his throat. That moment the Pole felt two arms gripping him, two steel bands they seemed, and likely to crush his arms into his very body. Then he went over with the full weight of the detective upon him, and was momentarily stunned by the shock. He came to himself rapidly, but not quickly enough. He was conscious of something cold about his wrists, and a none too kindly hand dragged him to his feet. T. B. with his white beard all awry was a comical figure, but Poltavo had no sense of humour at that moment.