The Sign of Silence Part 49

"Then go along to Miss Shand, give her my official compliments and ask her to accompany us upon our expedition," he replied.

And upon his suggestion I at once acted.

Truly those moments were breathless and exciting. I could hear my own heart beat as I went along the hotel corridor to knock at the door of her room.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

FACE TO FACE.

We had, all four of us, ranged ourselves up under the wall of a big white house in the Chausee de Nieuport, which formed the south side of the racecourse, and where, between us and the sea, rose the colossal Royal Palace Hotel, when Fremy advanced to the big varnished oak door, built wide for the entrance of automobiles, and rang the electric bell.

In response there came out a sedate, white-whiskered man-servant in black coat and striped yellow waistcoat, the novel Belgium livery, but in an instant he was pinioned by the two detectives from Brussels, and the way opened for us.

"No harm, old one!" cried the detectives in French, after the man had admitted his master was at home. "We are police-agents, and doing our duty. We don't want you, only we don't intend you to cry out, that's all.

Keep a still tongue, old one, and you're all right!" they laughed as they kept grip of him. The Continental detective is always humorous in the exercise of his duty. I once witnessed in Italy a man arrested for murder. He had on a thin light suit, and having been to bed in it, the back was terribly pleated and creased. "Hulloa!" cried the detective, "so it is you. Come along, old dried fig!" I was compelled to laugh, for the culprit's thin, brown coat had all the creases of a Christmas fig.

The house we rushed in was a big, luxurious one, with a wide pa.s.sage running through to the Garage, and on the left a big, wide marble staircase with windows of stained gla.s.s and statues of dancing girls of the art nouveau.

Fremy, leaving his a.s.sistants below with the man-servant, and crying to Edwards to look out for anybody trying to escape, sprang up the marble steps three at a time, followed by the narrow-eyed Peruvian, while Phrida, clinging to my arm, held her breath in quick apprehension. She was full of fear and amazement.

I had had much difficulty in persuading her to accompany us, for she seemed in terror of denunciation. Indeed, not until I told her that Edwards had demanded her presence, had she consented.

On the first landing, a big, thick-carpeted place with a number of long, white doors leading into various apartments, Fremy halted and raised his finger in silence to us.

He stood glancing from door to door, wondering which to enter.

Then suddenly he stood and gave a yell as though of fearful pain.

In an instant there was a quick movement in a room on the right, the door opened and the woman Petre came forth in alarm.

Next second, however, finding herself face to face with me, she halted upon the threshold and fell back against the lintel of the door while we rushed in to encounter the man I had known as Digby, standing defiant, with arms folded and brows knit.

"Well," he demanded of me angrily. "What do you want here?"

"I've brought a friend of yours to see you, Mr. Cane," I said quietly, and Edwards stepped aside from the door to admit the Peruvian Senos.

The effect was instant and indeed dramatic. His face fell, his eyes glared, his teeth set, and his nails dug themselves into his palms.

"Mee-ster Cane," laughed the dark-faced native, in triumph. "You no like see Senos--eh? No, no. He know too much--eh? He watch you always after he see you with laidee in Ma.r.s.eilles--he see you in London--ha! ha! Senos know every-ting. You kill my master, and you----"

"It's a lie!" cried the man accused. "This fellow made the same statement at Huacho, and it was disproved."

"Then you admit you are not Sir Digby Kemsley?" exclaimed Edwards quickly. "You are Herbert Cane, and I have a warrant for your arrest for murder."

"Ah!" he laughed with an air of forced gaiety. "That is amusing!"

"I'm very glad you think so, my dear sir," remarked the detective, glancing round to where the woman Petre had been placed in an armchair quite unconscious.

Phrida was clinging to my arm, but uttered no word. I felt her fingers trembling as she gripped me.

"I suppose you believe this native--eh?" asked the accused with sarcasm.

"He tried to blackmail me in Peru, and because I refused to be bled he made a statement that I had killed my friend."

"Ah!" exclaimed the native. "Senos knows--he see with his own eyes. He see Luis and you with snake in a box. Luis could charm snakes by music.

Senos watch you both that night!"

"Oh! tell what infernal lies you like," cried Cane in angry disgust.

"You, the 'Red' Englishman, are well known in Peru, and so is your friend--the woman there, who help you in all your bad schemes," said Senos, indicating the inanimate form of Mrs. Petre. "You introduced her to my master, but he no like her--he snub her--so you send her to Lima to wait for you--till you kill him, and get the paper--eh? I saw you steal paper--big blue paper with big seals--from master's despatch-box after snake bite him."

"Paper!" echoed Edwards. "What paper?"

"Perhaps I can explain something," Fremy interrupted in French. "I learnt some strange facts only three days ago which throw a great deal of light on this case."

"I don't want to listen to all these romances," laughed Cane defiantly.

He was an astute and polished adventurer, one of the cleverest and most elusive in Europe, and he had all the adventurer's nonchalance and impudence. At this moment he was living in that fine house he had taken furnished for the summer and pa.s.sing as Mr. Charles K. Munday, banker, of Chicago. Certainly he had so altered his personal appearance that at first I scarcely recognised him as the elegant, refined man whom I had so foolishly trusted as a friend.

"But now you are under arrest, mon cher ami, you will be compelled to listen to a good many unpleasant reminders," Fremy remarked with a broad grin of triumph upon his round, clean-shaven face.

"If you arrest me, then you must arrest that woman there, Phrida Shand, for the murder of Marie Bracq in my flat in London. She was jealous of her--and killed her with a knife she brought with her for the purpose,"

Cane said with a laugh. "If I must suffer--then so must she! She killed the girl. She can't deny it!"

"Phrida!" I gasped, turning to my love, who still clung to me convulsively. "You hear what this man says--this vile charge he brings against you--a charge of murder! Say that it is not the truth," I implored. "Tell me that he lies!"

Her big eyes were fixed upon mine, her countenance blanched to the lips, and her breath came and went in short, quick gasps.

At last her lips moved, as we all gazed at her. Her voice was only a hoa.r.s.e, broken whisper.

"I--I can't!" she replied, and fell back into my arms in a swoon.

"You see!" laughed the accused man. "You, Royle, are so clever that you only bring grief and disaster upon yourself. I prevented Mrs. Petre from telling the truth because I thought you had decided to drop the affair."

"What?" I cried. "When your accomplice--that woman Petre--made a dastardly attempt upon my life at your instigation, and left me for dead.

Drop the affair--never! You are an a.s.sa.s.sin, and you shall suffer the penalty."

"And so will Phrida Shand. She deceived you finely--eh? I admire her cleverness," he laughed "She was a thorough Sport, she----"

"Enough!" commanded Edwards roughly. "I give you into the custody of Inspector Fremy, of the Belgian Surete, on a charge of murder committed within the Republic of Peru."

"And I also arrest the prisoner," added Fremy, "for offences committed in London and within the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg."

The man, pale and haggard-eyed notwithstanding his bravado, started visibly at the famous detective's words, while at that moment the two men from Brussels appeared in the room, having released the white-whiskered man-servant, who stood aghast and astounded oh the threshold. I supported my love, now quite unconscious, in my strong arms, and was trying to restore her, in which I was immediately aided by one of the detectives.

The scene was an intensely dramatic one--truly an unusual scene to take place in the house of the sedate old Baron Terwindt, ancient Ministre de la Justice of Belgium.