The Wiles of the Wicked Part 41

and I added a promise to give him an extra gratuity for so doing.

"Very well, sir," he answered. I sat back, hiding my face in a newspaper for fear of being recognised in that great highway of business, while he went along Austin Friars to endeavour to discover whose offices she had entered.

Some ten minutes later he returned with the information that the lady had entered the office of a moneylender named Morrison.

The thought occurred to me that she was perhaps still endeavouring to raise the loan for Prince Ferdinand. If so, however, why had she left the _Bath Hotel_ and endeavoured to conceal her ident.i.ty under another name?

After twenty minutes or so she came out rather flushed and excited, stood for a moment in hesitation upon the kerb, and then giving her cabman an address was driven off. I, of course, followed, but judge my astonishment when the cab pulled up in Old Broad Street and she alighted at Winchester House. After a few moments she found the bra.s.s plate bearing my name, and ascending to my office, for what purpose I knew not, and, fearing to reveal my presence in London, I could not ascertain.

I sat there in the cab in full view of that row of windows, with their wire blinds bearing my name, an exile and a fugitive, wondering what might be the object of her visit. It was not, however, of long duration, but when she descended again she was accompanied by my secretary Gedge, who handed her into her cab and afterwards took his seat beside her. By his manner it was evident they were not strangers, and it became impressed upon me that, in those lost days of mine, I must have had considerable dealings with her and her princely employer.

They drove to the Liverpool Street Railway-Station, where she dispatched a telegram; then they lunched at Crosby Hall.

I feared, of courser to approach them sufficiently near to overhear their conversation, but I peered into the restaurant and saw them sitting at a table in earnest conversation, the subject of which was evidently myself.

It was a wearisome task waiting for her in Bishopsgate Street, but I lunched in a neighbouring public-house off a gla.s.s of sherry and a biscuit, while my cabman partook gladly of the homely "half-pint" at my expense, until at length they both came forth.

Gedge called her a cab, and then took leave of her, while I followed her back to the _Midland_, having successfully accomplished my first essay at watching her movements.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

TWO WORDS.

For two days the woman I was watching did not go out. I learnt from the chambermaid who, like all her cla.s.s, was amenable to half a sovereign in her palm, that she was unwell, suffering from a slight cold. Then I took the servant into my confidence, and told her that I was in the hotel in order to watch Mrs Slade's movements, giving her to understand that any a.s.sistance she rendered me would be well paid for.

I had an object in view, namely, to enter her room in her absence, and ascertain the nature of any letters or papers which might be in her possession. This I managed to effect, with the connivance of the chambermaid, on the following afternoon. Indeed, the chambermaid a.s.sisted me in my eager search, but beyond a few tradesmen's bills and one or two unimportant private letters from friends addressed to her at the _Royal Hotel_ at Ryde, I found nothing. The dispatch-box with the coronet was locked, and she carried the key upon her bangle. I made careful search through all her belongings, the chambermaid standing guard at the door the while, and in the pocket of one of her dresses hanging in the wardrobe I discovered a crumpled telegram.

I smoothed it out, and saw that it had been dispatched from Philippopolis, in Bulgaria, about three weeks before, and was addressed to "Mrs Grainger, _Royal Hotel_, Ryde." Its purport, however, I was unable to learn, for it was either in cipher, or in the Slav language, of which I had no knowledge whatever.

Again baffled, I was about to relinquish my search, when, in the pocket of a long driving-coat of a light drab cloth, I found a letter addressed to her at Ryde, and evidently forwarded by the hotel-clerk.

I caught sight of my own name, and read it through with interest.

"I suppose you have already heard from your friend Gedge, who keeps you in touch with everything, all the most recent news of Heaton," the letter ran. "It appears that he was found on the floor of one of the rooms at Denbury, with a wound in his head. He had suddenly gone out of his mind. The doctor said that the case was a serious one, but before arrangements could be made for placing him under restraint he had escaped, and nothing since has been heard of him. The common idea is that he has committed suicide owing to business complications. They are, to tell the truth, beginning to smell a rat in the City. The Prince's concessions have not turned out all that they were supposed to be, and by a side wind I hear that your friend's financial status, considerably weakened during the past few weeks, has, owing to his sudden and unaccountable disappearance, dropped down to zero. If you can find him, lose no time in doing so. Remember that he must not be allowed to open his mouth. He may, however, be still of use, for his credit has not altogether gone, and I hear he has a very satisfactory balance at his bankers. But find out all from Gedge, and then write to me."

There was neither signature nor address.

The words, "he must not be allowed to open his mouth," were, in themselves, ominous. Who, I wondered, was the writer of that letter?

The postmark was that of "London, E.C.," showing that it had been posted in the City.

I read it through a second time, then replaced it, and after some further search returned to my own room.

When the maid brought my hot water next morning she told me that Mrs Slade had announced her intention to leave at eleven o'clock; therefore I packed, and leaving slightly earlier, was enabled to follow her cab to Victoria Station, whence she travelled to Brighton, putting up at the _Metropole_. I pursued similar tactics to those I had adopted in London, staying in the same hotel and yet contriving never to be seen by her. She went out but seldom. Sometimes in the morning she would stroll beneath her pale mauve sunshade along the King's Road, or at evening take an airing on the pier, but she apparently lived an aimless life, spending her time in reading novels in her own apartment. As far as I could learn, she met no one there, and only appeared to be killing time and waiting. After a fortnight she moved along to Hastings, thence to Ilfracombe, and afterwards to Hull.

We arrived at the _North-Eastern Hotel_ at Hull one evening towards the end of August, having travelled by the express from London. Through nearly a month I had kept close watch upon her, yet none of her movements had been in the least suspicious. She lived well, always having her own sitting-room, although she had no maid. Those days of watchfulness were full of anxiety, and I had to resort to all sorts of ingenious devices to prevent observation and recognition.

The station hotel at Hull is comfortable, but by no means a gay place of residence, and for several days I wondered what might be her object in visiting that Yorks.h.i.+re port. The room adjoining her sitting-room on the second floor became vacant on the third day after our arrival, and I fortunately succeeded in obtaining it. She entertained no suspicion that I was following her, although I dogged her movements everywhere.

In Hull she only went out twice, once to a stationer's in Whitefriar-gate, and on the other occasion to the telegraph office. As at Brighton and Ilfracombe, she still appeared to be waiting in patience for the arrival of some one whom she expected.

About nine o'clock one evening, after she had remained nearly a week in Hull, always taking her meals in her own room and pa.s.sing her time in reading, I had returned from the coffee-room, and was about to go forth for a stroll, when suddenly I heard a waiter rap at her door and announce a visitor.

A locked door separated her sitting-room from mine, and standing by it, listening eagerly, I heard the sound of rustling paper, the hurried closing of a box, and her permission to show the visitor up.

A few minutes pa.s.sed in silence. Then I heard some one enter, and a man's voice exclaimed with a distinctly foreign accent--

"Ah, my dear Edna! At last! I feared that you would have left before my arrival."

"I expected you days ago," she answered, and I knew from the man's sigh that he had sunk wearily into a chair.

"I was delayed," he explained. "I had a narrow escape. Oustromoff has guessed the truth."

"What?" she gasped in alarm, "The secret is out?"

"Yes," he answered gruffly.

"Impossible!"

"I tell you it's the truth," he answered. "I escaped over the frontier by the merest chance. Oustromoff's bloodhounds were at my heels. They followed me to Vienna, but there I managed to escape them and travel to Berlin. I knew that there was a warrant out for me--Roesch sent me word that orders had been issued by the Minister of Police--therefore I feared to cross to England by any of the mail routes. I knew the police would be on the look-out at Calais, Antwerp, Ostend, Folkestone, and Dieppe. Therefore I travelled to Copenhagen, thence by steamer to Gothenburg, and rail to Christiania. I arrived by the weekly mail steamer from there only an hour ago."

"What a journey!" exclaimed the woman I had been watching so long and patiently. "Do you actually mean that you are unsafe--here, in England?"

"Unsafe? Of course. The Ministry have telegraphed my description to all police centres, with a request for my extradition."

"It is inconceivable," she cried, "just at the moment when all seemed safest, that this catastrophe should fall! What of Roesch, Blumhardt, and Schaefer?"

"Schaefer was arrested in Sofia on the day I left. Blumhardt escaped to Varna, but was taken while embarking on board a cargo-boat for England.

I tell you I had a narrow escape--a very narrow escape."

"Then don't speak so loud," she urged. "Some one might be in the next room, you know."

He rose and tried the door at which I stood. It was locked, and that apparently rea.s.sured him.

"Whom do you think informed the Ministry of Police?"

"Ah! at present no one knows," he responded. "What do you think they say?"

"What?"

"That some of your precious friends in London have exposed the whole thing."

"My friends? Whom do you mean?"

"You know best who are your friends," he replied, with sarcasm.

"But no one is aware of the whole facts."

"Are you absolutely certain?"