Part 47 (2/2)

He certainly suffered an unjust punishment by that false accusation made against him by the man who was apparently jealous of his leaders.h.i.+p, and who desired to become his successor.”

”Then you are of opinion that my wife left me in order to secure my protection from harm?”

”I am quite certain of it. You recollect my meeting with her at the Hotel Meurice in Paris. She told me several things on that occasion.”

”And Pennington very nearly fell into your hands.”

”Yes, but with his usual cleverness he escaped me.”

”Where is he now? Have you any idea?” I asked.

”I have no exact knowledge, but, with the arrest of four of his accomplices, it will not be difficult to find out where he is in hiding,” he laughed.

”And the same may be said of Poland--eh?”

”No; on the contrary, while the man Pennington, alias Du Cane, is hated--and it will be believed by those arrested that he has betrayed them in order to save himself--yet Poland is beloved. They know it was Du Cane who made the false charge connecting Poland with Harriman, and they will never forgive him. The hatred of the international thief is the worst and most unrelenting hatred existing in the whole world.

Before Poland came to live in retirement here in England at Middleton, near Andover, his a.s.sociation consisted only of the most expert criminals of both s.e.xes, and he controlled their actions with an iron hand. Once every six months the members from all over Europe held a secret conference in one capital or another, when various tasks were allotted to various persons. The precautions taken to prevent blunders were amazing, and we were baffled always because of the widespread field of their operations, and the large number of experts engaged. The band, broken up into small and independent gangs, worked in unison with receivers always ready, and as soon as our suspicions were aroused by one party they disappeared, and another, complete strangers, came in their place. Premises likely to yield good results from burglary were watched for months by a constant succession of clever watchers, and people in possession of valuables sometimes engaged servants of irreproachable character who were actually members of the gang. Were their exploits chronicled, they would fill many volumes of remarkable fact, only some of which have appeared in recent years in the columns of the newspapers. Every European nationality and every phase of life were represented in that extraordinary a.s.sembly, which, while under Poland's control, never, as far as is known, committed a single murder. It was only when the great leader was condemned and exiled, and the band fell away, that Pennington, Reckitt and Forbes conceived the idea of extorting money by means of the serpent, allowing the reptile to strike fatally, and so prevent exposure. By that horrible torture of the innocent and helpless they must have netted many thousands of pounds.”

”It was you, you say, who arrested Poland down in Hamps.h.i.+re.”

”Yes, nearly three years ago. Prior to Harriman's arrest, I went there with my friend Watts, of Scotland Yard, and on that evening a strange affair happened--an affair which is still a mystery. I'll tell you all about it later,” he added. ”At present I must go to Porchester Terrace and see what is in progress. I only arrived in London from Paris two hours ago.”

I begged him to take me along with him, and with some reluctance he consented. On the way, Guertin told me a strange story of a dead man exactly resembling himself at Middleton village on the night of Poland's arrest. Arrived at the house of grim shadows, we found a constable idling outside the gate, but apparently n.o.body yet knew of what was transpiring in the garden behind the closed house. At first the man declined to allow us to enter, but, on Guertin declaring who he was, we pa.s.sed through into the tangled, weedy place where the lights of lanterns were s.h.i.+ning weirdly, and we could see men in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves working with shovel and pick, while others were clearing away the dead rank herbage of autumn.

In the uncertain light I saw that a long trench some four feet in depth had been dug, and into this the men were flinging the soil they carefully removed in their progress in a line backwards.

Beneath a tree, close to where was an open trench--the one prepared for the reception of my body--lay something covered with a black cloth. From beneath there stuck out a hideous object--a man's muddy patent-leather shoe!

Even while I stood amid that weird, never-to-be-forgotten scene, one of the excavators gave an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of surprise, and a lantern, quickly brought, revealed a human arm in a dark coat-sleeve embedded in the soil.

With a will, half-a-dozen eager hands were at work, and soon a third body--that of a tall, grey-haired man, whose face, alas! was awful to gaze upon--was quickly exhumed.

I could not bear to witness more, and left, gratified to know that the two fiends were already safely confined in a French prison.

Justice would, no doubt, be done, and they would meet with their well-merited punishment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

FURTHER REVELATIONS

If you are a constant reader of the newspapers, as probably you are, you will no doubt recollect the great sensation caused next day on the publication of the news of the gruesome find in that, one of the most aristocratic thoroughfares of Bayswater.

The metropolitan police were very reticent regarding the affair, but many of the papers published photographs of the scene of the exhumations, the exterior of the long-closed house, and photographs of the various police officials. That of Guertin, however, was not included. The famous investigator of crime had no wish for the picture of his face, with its eyes beaming benignly through his gold gla.s.ses, to be disseminated broadcast.

The police refused to make any statement; hence the wildest conjectures were afloat concerning the series of tragedies which must have taken place within that dark house, with its secluded, tangled garden.

As the days went by, the public excitement did not abate, for yet more remains were found--the body of a young, fair-haired man who had been identified as Mr. Cyril Wilson, a member of the Travellers' Club, who had been missing for nearly nine months. The police, impelled by this fresh discovery, cut down the trees in the garden and laid the whole place waste, while crowds of the curious waited about in the neighbourhood, trying to catch a glimpse of the operations.

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