Part 32 (1/2)

”Robbery?” I exclaimed. ”I have heard nothing about it. What was stolen?

and who was it stolen from?”

”Well,” he answered, ”the stories I have heard don't all tally, and one or two may be exaggerated. But there is no doubt about the robbery of Lady Fitzgraham's famous diamonds, which I have always heard were worth anything between thirty and forty thousand pounds. She was coming over to stay at the Emba.s.sy, and had them with her, it seems, in quite a small dressing-bag. I am told she declares she is positive the stones were in the bag, which was locked, when she went on board at Newhaven; yet early this morning they were missing, though the bag was still locked. The theory is that during the night someone must by some means have forced an entrance to the cabin--they declare the cabin door was locked, but of course it can't have been--in which she and her maid slept, have unlocked the bag and extracted the jewels. Lady Fitzgraham was travelling alone with her maid, I am told,” he ended, ”but Sir Aubrey Belston travelled with her part way from London to Newhaven.”

”You are talking to Sir Aubrey at this moment,” Connie Stapleton said quickly. She turned to me: ”Sir Aubrey, let me introduce Mr. Wollaston.”

”I beg your pardon,” Wollaston stammered, ”I had no idea--I know you by name, of course, but I have not before, I believe, had the pleasure of meeting you. It was Hughie Gastrell, whom I expect you know, who told me he had seen you in Lady Fitzgraham's compartment on the way to Newhaven.

I suppose Lady Fitzgraham didn't, by any chance, speak to you of her jewels--say she had them with her, or anything of that kind?”

”She didn't say a word about them,” I answered. ”Is she on this train?”

”Yes. Gastrell has gone to suggest to her that she should stay with us at the 'Continental,' and--”

”Sir Aubrey has just decided to stay there,” Mrs. Stapleton interrupted, ”and I have proposed that to-night we should all dine together.”

Conversation then reverted to the suicide and the robbery, and as Connie Stapleton's friends who shared the private car entered it, she introduced them to me. They seemed pleasant people enough, and, as the subject of conversation did not change, one after another they propounded ingenious theories to account for the way the robbery might have been committed. I noticed that they spoke less about the alleged suicide, and that when the subject was broached they confined their remarks chiefly to the question of the dead man's disguise, suggesting reasons which they considered might have prompted him to disguise himself. They ended by deciding there was no reason to suppose that the suicide and the robbery had any bearing on each other.

The run from Dieppe to Paris by express takes about three hours, and we were about half-way through the journey when Wollaston, who had been absent at least half an hour, re-entered our compartment in conversation with my recent travelling companion, whom I now knew to be Lady Fitzgraham. She hardly acknowledged my look of recognition, and out of the tail of my eye I saw Connie Stapleton glance quickly at each of us in turn, as though Lady Fitzgraham's unmistakable stiffness surprised her.

Now the train was running at high speed across the flat, uninteresting stretch of country which lies about thirty miles south of Rouen.

Presently the Seine came in sight again, and for some miles we ran parallel with it. We had just rushed through a little wayside station beyond Mantes, the train oscillating so severely as it rattled over the points that Dulcie, Connie Stapleton and Lady Fitzgraham became seriously alarmed, while other occupants of the car glanced apprehensively out of the windows.

”This car wants coupling up,” Gastrell exclaimed suddenly. ”At our next stopping place I'll complain, and get it done.”

The words had scarcely pa.s.sed his lips when the swaying increased considerably. All at once the brakes were applied with great force, the train began to slacken speed, and a moment later we knew that we had left the metals.

To this day it seems to me extraordinary that any of us should have escaped with our lives. We probably should not have done so had the land not been on a dead level with the rails at the point where the train jumped the track. As a result, the cars did not telescope, as is usual on such occasions, nor did they capsize. Instead, the locomotive dashed forward over the flat, hard-frozen meadow, dragging the cars behind it, then came gradually to a standstill owing to the steam having been shut off.

My first thought as soon as the train had stopped was for Dulcie. As I crawled along the car--for we had all been flung on to the ground--I came upon her suddenly. Pale as death, and trembling terribly, she stared at me with a scared expression, and so great was the wave of emotion which swept over me at that instant that I all but forgot my disguise in my wild longing to spring forward and take her in my arms and comfort her.

”Are you hurt?” I gasped, retaining only with the utmost difficulty the artificial tone I had adopted from the first, the tone poor Preston had coached me in until my accents, so he had a.s.sured me, exactly resembled those of Sir Aubrey Belston.

”No--no,” came her answer, in a weak voice, ”only shaken--but oh, the thirst this shock has given me is fearful. Is there anything I can drink?”

I looked about me. On all sides was a litter of hand-baggage that the accident had hurled pell-mell about the car. Beside me was a large dressing-bag lying on its side, partly open, the force of the blow as it was flung up against the woodwork having burst the lock. Thinking there might be something in it that I could give to Dulcie to relieve her burning thirst, I set the bag upright, and pulled it wide open.

As my gaze rested upon the contents of that bag, astonishment made me catch my breath. For the bag was half filled with jewellery of all descriptions jumbled up as if it had been tossed in anyhow--there had been no attempt at packing. During the brief moments which elapsed before I shut the bag, I noticed rings, brooches, bracelets, scarf pins, watches, hair combs and three large tiaras, all of them, apparently, set in precious stones--mostly emeralds, rubies and diamonds.

Hastily closing the bag, and fastening the clips to keep it shut, I left it where I had found it and was about to go in search of water, when the sight I saw made my heart nearly stop beating.

For at the end of the car, standing motionless, and looking straight at me, was Alphonse Furneaux! Almost as I returned his dull gaze the truth seemed to drift into my brain. Furneaux must have escaped from Preston's house, from the room where Preston had confined him. He must have discovered that Preston was impersonating him. He must have followed him from London, followed him on to the boat--

I dared not let my thoughts travel further. Horrible suspicions crowded in upon me. Could the man standing there staring at me be Preston's murderer? Was he aware of my ident.i.ty too, and, if so, had he designs upon my life as well? Had he told the gang I was now mixed up with of my disguise, and had they entrapped me in order to wreak vengeance? And that h.o.a.rd of jewellery I had so unwittingly discovered--had the man now standing there before me seen me looking at it?

CHAPTER XXII

THE THIN-FACED STRANGER