Part 42 (1/2)
”Murder? The newspapers said it was suicide.”
”Of course they did--it was arranged that they should. Now listen, Jack,” I continued seriously. ”We are on the eve of what may prove to be a tremendous tragedy, of an event that in any case is going to make an enormous sensation--nothing less than the capture, or attempted capture, of the whole of the notorious and dangerous gang that a short time ago you appeared to be so desperately anxious to bring to justice. These two men,” I indicated them, ”belong to the gang in the sense that they are employed by it; but they have now turned King's evidence.”
In a few words I outlined to him exactly what had happened. As I stopped speaking, Albeury interrupted.
”And if you will now listen, Mr. Osborne,” he said, ”you will hear a complete statement of facts which should interest you.”
With that he pulled a notebook out of his pocket, opened it, laid it flat on the escritoire and seated himself, producing his fountain pen.
Both men stood beside him.
Rapidly he cross-questioned them, writing quickly down in shorthand every word they spoke. Almost endless were the questions he put concerning the whole gang. One by one the name of each member of it was entered in the notebook, followed by an address which, the men declared, would find him--or her. The number of members, we thus discovered, amounted to over twenty, of whom no less than eight were women. Jasmine Gastrell's career was described in detail, also Connie Stapleton's, Doris Lorrimer's, Bob Challoner's, Hugesson Gastrell's, and the careers of all the rest in addition. The names of some of these were known to us, but the majority were not. Incidentally we now found out that Hugesson Gastrell had never been in Australia, nor yet in Tasmania, and that the story of his having been left a fortune by an uncle was wholly without foundation. The natural son of well-to-do people in Yorks.h.i.+re, he had been launched penniless on the world to make his way as best he could, and the rapidity with which he had increased his circle of acquaintance among rich and useful people from the time he had become a member of the gang had been not the least remarkable feature in his extraordinary career.
I shall never forget that cross-examination, or the rapidity with which it was conducted. In the course of a quarter of an hour many mysteries which had long puzzled us were revealed, many problems solved. The woman whose stabbed and charred body had been found among the _debris_ of the house in Maresfield Gardens burnt down on Christmas Eve was, it seemed, another of Gastrell's victims; he had stabbed her to death, and the house had been fired with a view to destroying all traces of the crime.
Questioned further, the elder of the two scoundrels went on to state that he had been in the house in Maresfield Gardens on the night that Osborne and I had called there, just before Christmas, the night we had driven up there from Brooks's Club on the pretext of Osborne's having found at the club a purse which he believed--so he had told the woman Gastrell--to have been dropped by Hugesson Gastrell. Other members of the gang had been in the house at the time, the man said,--just before we entered they had been in the very room into which Jasmine Gastrell had shown us when she had at last admitted us, which of course accounted for the dirty tumblers I had noticed on the table, and the chair that had felt hot when I sat in it. She had first opened the door to us, the man continued, under the impression that we were additional members of the gang whom she expected--our rings at the door had accidentally coincided with the rings these men would have given. Then, at once discovering her mistake, and recognizing Osborne's voice, she had deemed it prudent to admit us, thinking thus to allay any suspicion her unusual reception might otherwise arouse in us.
He told us, too, that the great cobra kept by Gastrell--he had owned it from the time it was a tiny thing a foot long--had once or twice been used by him in connection with murders for which he had been responsible--it was far from being harmless, though Gastrell had declared to us that night that it couldn't harm anybody if it tried.
Indeed, it seemed that his first intention had been to let it attack us, for he feared that our having recognized him might arouse our suspicion and indirectly lead to his arrest, and for that reason he had, while we were left in darkness in the hall, opened the aperture in the wall through which it was allowed to pa.s.s into the room into which Jasmine Gastrell had then admitted us. But a little later, deeming that the crime might be discovered in spite of all the precautions that he would have taken to conceal it, he had suddenly changed his mind, unlocked the door, and come to our rescue at the last moment.
The mysterious affair in Grafton Street had been arranged--they went on to say when threatened by Albeury with arrest if they refused to tell everything--by Hugesson Gastrell and two accomplices, the two men with whom Osborne had entered into conversation on the night of Gastrell's reception in c.u.mberland Place, and it was a member of the gang, whose name I had not heard before--the sole occupant of the house at the time--who had questioned Osborne in the dark. Upon the unexpected arrival of the police at Grafton Street this man had clambered through a skylight in the roof, crawled along the roofs of several houses, and there remained hidden until nightfall, when he had escaped down a ”thieves' ladder,” which is made of silk rope and so contrived that upon the thief's reaching the ground he can detach it from the chimney-stack to which it has been fastened. Jasmine Gastrell herself it was who had sent Dulcie the telegram signed with my name, her intention being to decoy me into the Grafton Street house, where I should have shared Osborne's unpleasant experience. It was Gastrell who had murdered Churchill. Who had murdered Preston on board the boat, they declared they didn't know, nor could they say for certain who had inserted in the newspaper the cypher messages disentangled by d.i.c.k, for Gastrell, Stapleton, Jasmine Gastrell, and other leaders of the gang were in the habit of communicating with their crowd of confederates by means of secret codes. Incidentally they mentioned that Connie Stapleton was in reality Gastrell's wife, and that Jasmine was his mistress, though Harold Logan, found in the hiding-hole at Holt, had been madly in love with her.
”There,” I said, turning to Jack Osborne as Albeury ended his cross-examination, ”now you've got it all in black and white. And that's the woman you've been fooling with and say you're going to marry--not merely an adventuress, but a criminal who has herself instigated common burglaries and has connived at and been an accessory to murders! You must be mad, Jack--stark, staring. For Heaven's sake get over your absurd infatuation.”
”It's not 'infatuation' on my side only, Mike,” he answered, with a curious look that came near to being pathetic. ”Jasmine is in love with me--she really is. It sounds absurd, I know, under the circ.u.mstances, but you know what women are and the extraordinary attachments they sometimes form--yes, even the worst of them. She's promised to start afresh, lead a straight life, if only I'll marry her; she has indeed, and, what's more, she'll do it.”
I heard Albeury snort, and even the scoundrels, who had stood by looking on and listening, grinned.
”In forty-eight hours she'll be arrested and sent to jail,” I said calmly. ”Don't be such an utter idiot, Jack!”
He sprang to his feet.
”Jasmine arrested!” he cried. ”My G.o.d, she shan't be! I'll go to her now! I'll warn her! I'll--”
”You'll do nothing of the sort,” Albeury interrupted. ”We've a trap set for the whole crew, more than twenty of them in all, and if you warn that woman she'll tell the rest and then--”
”Well, what?”
”Our plan will be defeated--more than that, the whole lot of us in this room will be murdered as sure as I'm sitting here. You've heard the truth about this gang from these two men. You know what a desperate crowd they are; what they'd be like if they get their backs against the wall you ought to be able to guess. Mr. Osborne, unless you pledge your solemn word that you'll not warn Jasmine Gastrell, I shall be forced to retain you here. Mr. Berrington has told you that I am an international police detective. I have, under the circ.u.mstances, the power to arrest you.”
Osborne was evidently terribly upset. For a minute he sat, thinking deeply. A glance showed how madly in love he obviously was with the woman. Looking at him, I wondered whether what he had said could by any possibility be true--that Jasmine Gastrell had really lost her heart to him. The idea, at first thought, seemed absurd, even grotesque, and yet--
Suddenly Jack looked up.
”Supposing,” he said, speaking with great deliberation, ”I pledge my solemn word that I won't warn her of what you intend to do, or give her any reason to suspect that such a plot exists, and that I undertake to take her abroad with me and keep her there for one year from now--I shall marry her at once--will you undertake that she shall leave the country unmolested, and be left unmolested?”
I looked inquiringly at Albeury.
”Yes,” he said at once. ”I agree to that--we both agree to it; that's so, Mr. Berrington?”
I nodded. A thing I liked about Albeury was that he made up his mind almost instantly--that he never hesitated a moment.