Part 47 (1/2)
”Ah! I regret, m'sieur, that I do not know,” replied the Frenchman.
”And yet,” he added, after a second's hesitation, ”I do not exactly regret. Perhaps it is best, after all, that I should remain in ignorance. But, Monsieur Biddulph, I would make one request on your wife's behalf.”
”On her behalf!” I gasped. ”What is it?”
”That you do not prejudge her. She has left you because--well, because she had good reason. But one day, when you know the truth, you will certainly not judge her too harshly.”
”I do not judge her harshly,” I protested. ”How can I, when I love her as devotedly as I do! I feel confident that the misfortunes she has brought upon me were not of her own seeking.”
”She very narrowly escaped the vengeance of those two a.s.sa.s.sins,”
Guertin said; ”how narrowly, neither you nor she will ever know. For months I have watched them closely, both here and in France and Germany, in order to catch them red-handed; but they have been too clever for me, and we must rely upon the evidence which that back-garden in Porchester Terrace will now yield up. The gang is part of a great criminal a.s.sociation, that society of international thieves of which one member was the man you knew as Harriman, and whose real name was Bell--now at Devil's Island for the murder of the rising young English parliamentary Under-Secretary Ronald Burke. The murder was believed to have been committed with a political motive, and through certain false evidence furnished by the man Pennington, a person named Louis Lessar, chief of the band, was first arrested, and condemned by the a.s.size Court of the Seine. Both were sent to Devil's Island for life, but recently Lessar escaped, and was daring enough to come to England as Mr. Lewis.”
”Lewis!” I gasped. ”That was the fellow with whom my wife escaped--the man who presided over the secret deliberations of the gang at their a.s.sembly at Stamford!”
”Yes. Once a British officer, he had been leader of the great criminal organization before his arrest. They were the most formidable in Europe, for they always acted on scientific principles, and always well provided with funds. Some of their coups were utterly amazing.
But on his arrest and imprisonment the society dwindled under the leaders.h.i.+p of Pennington, a low-bred blackguard, who could not even be loyal to his a.s.sociates.”
”Excuse me, sir,” remarked the sergeant, again shown into the room by Browning. ”Our C.I.D. men have been at work all day in the garden behind that house in Porchester Terrace. A big hole was found dug there, and already they've turned up the remains of two persons--a man and a woman. I ought to have told you that we had it over the telegraph at the station about an hour ago. Superintendent Mayhew and Professor Salt have been there to examine the remains recovered.”
”Two victims!” I exclaimed. ”The open grave found there was prepared for me!”
”No doubt,” exclaimed Guertin. ”When I first communicated with your Scotland Yard, they refused to believe my allegations against Reckitt and Forbes. But I had had my suspicions aroused by their actions in Paris, and I was positive. But oh! your police methods are so very painfully slow!”
Then the sergeant again withdrew.
”But of Pennington. Tell me more of him,” I urged.
”He was your worst enemy, and Sylvia's enemy also, even though he posed as her father. He wished her to marry Forbes, and thus, on account of her great beauty, remain the decoy of the gang. But she met you, and loved you. Her love for you was the cause of their hatred.
Because of her affection, she risked her life by revealing to me certain things concerning her a.s.sociates, whom she knew were plotting to kill you. The very man who was posing as her father--and who afterwards affected friends.h.i.+p for you--told that pair of unscrupulous a.s.sa.s.sins, Reckitt and Forbes, a fict.i.tious story of how Sonia--for that is her real name--had denounced them. This aroused their hatred, and they decided to kill you both. From what I heard afterwards, they entrapped you, and placed you in that fatal chair beside the venomous reptile, while they also tortured the poor girl with all the horrors of the serpent, until her brain became deranged. Suddenly, however, they became alarmed by discovering a half-witted lad wandering in the garden where the bodies of previous victims lay concealed, and, making a quick escape, left you and her without ascertaining that you were dead. Eventually she escaped and rescued you, hence their fear that you would inform the police, and their frantic efforts to secure the death of both of you. Indeed, you would probably have been dead ere this, had I not taken upon myself the self-imposed duty of being your protector, and had not Louis Lessar most fortunately escaped from Devil's Island to protect his daughter from their relentless hands.”
”His daughter!” I gasped, staring at him.
”Yes. Sonia is the daughter of Phil Poland, alias Louis Lessar, the man who was falsely denounced by Pennington as an accomplice in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the young Under-Secretary, Mr. Burke, on the Riviera.
After I had arrested her father one night at the house where he lived down near Andover, Pennington compelled the girl to pa.s.s as his daughter for a twofold reason. First, because he believed that her great beauty would render her a useful decoy for the purpose of attracting young men into their fatal net, and secondly, in order that Forbes should secure her as his wife, for it was realized how, by her marriage to him, her lips would be sealed.”
”But they all along intended to kill me.”
”Of course. Your life was, you recollect, heavily insured at Pennington's suggestion, and you had made over a large sum of money to Sonia in case of your demise. Therefore it was to the interests of the whole gang that you should meet with some accident which should prove fatal. The theft of the jewels of the Archd.u.c.h.ess delayed the conspiracy from being put into execution, and by that means your life was undoubtedly spared. Ah! monsieur, the gang recently led by Arnold Du Cane was once one of the most daring, the most unscrupulous, and the most formidable in the whole of Europe.”
”And my dear wife is actually the daughter of the previous leader of that criminal band!” I exclaimed apprehensively.
”Yes. She escaped with him because she was in fear of her life--because she knew that if she were again beneath her own father's protection, you--the man she loved--would also be safe from injury.
For Phil Poland is a strong man, a perfect past-master of the criminal arts, and a leader whose word was the command of every member of that great international organization, the wide ramifications of which I have so long tried in vain to ascertain.”
”Then Poland is a noteworthy man in the world of crime?”
”He is a very prince of thieves. Yet, at the same time, one must regard him with some admiration for his daring and audacity, his wonderful resourcefulness and his strict adhesion to fair play. For years he lived in France, Italy and Spain, constantly changing his place of abode, his ident.i.ty, his very face, and always evading us; yet n.o.body has ever said that he did a mean action towards a poor man.