CHAPTER NINE

When they had left Ashstead Mansions safely behind, the detective turned down a side street, and, leading the young man under a convenient archway, dexterously whipped off the disguising beard and moustache and put them in a small bag he had brought with him.

“Now Richard is himself again, and can face the world in his own proper person,” he observed in a jocular tone. “I suppose we will separate here. I am going on to Hammersmith to see one of my smartest men and put him at once on the job of finding out what he can about Stormont and the man whom you originally knew as Whitehouse. Better be at my office about eight o’clock to-morrow. As soon as I have made you up, we will start.”

As they parted, Grewgus observed that he had better pay out all the outgoings, and Lydon could give him a cheque from time to time. “I expect it will run you into a pretty penny,” he said, “but from what you have said, I gather you don’t mind that. The thing certainly seems worth investigating. The fact of this fellow having two names is very suspicious. And whatever is going on, I have little doubt we shall be able to connect Stormont with it. It is impossible he can be ignorant of the fact that Whitehouse calls himself Glenthorne when he is away from Effington.”

Lydon went back to his rooms, and in the evening dined at the _Berkeley_ with a friend. The more he thought over the matter the more he congratulated himself on having gone to the solicitor, and through him to Grewgus, who impressed him as a man of remarkable capacity. What they had learned at Ashstead Mansions was enough to prove that there was some deep mystery about the occupants of Number 18, a mystery in which the owner of Effington Hall was obviously involved.

Whatever that mystery was, did Gloria and Mrs. Barnard know anything about it, or were they as ignorant as he was when he had first set foot in the fine old Tudor mansion where the rubicund profiteer posed as a man of business who had lately taken up the rôle of country gentleman?

Of Mrs. Barnard, he could not, of course, be sure. She was a singularly quiet, self-contained woman, not much given to general conversation. Considering the hours he had spent down at Effington, he had really seen very little of her. She seemed to play a very subordinate part in the life led there, her brother taking the lead in everything, impressing himself upon his guests, in his bluff, genial way, while she remained in the background.

She seemed, so far as he could judge, to be interested in two things--clothes and the local charities. And no doubt Stormont had put her on to the latter, in order to make a good impression in the neighbourhood, and disarm the critical attitude which is so often assumed against a new-comer.

Gloria he was convinced knew nothing and suspected nothing. He loved the girl with his whole heart and soul, with every pulse of his being, but even his great love would not have blinded him if he had observed anything suspicious or evasive about her. In all their intercourse together, she had been so perfectly frank, even with regard to the uncle whose kindness she so greatly appreciated. When she told him that Stormont was a financier, it was evident she was telling what she believed to be the truth. And about her early life with her parents in China she had been as open as a book. Whatever mystery there might be about Stormont himself, there was none about the brother who held a high position in one of the biggest banks in that far-off country.

She had shown him more than one letter from her parents, who kept up a constant correspondence with her, and he could see from what he read there was nothing suspicious about them. In the last one he read, there was an intimation that at any moment they might make up their minds to come to England for a brief holiday. Yes, there was no doubt everything was open and above-board with Jasper Stormont, her father.

The young man found himself wishing that visit would be paid soon. He could question a man more closely than he could a woman.

He was at Grewgus’ office at the appointed hour next morning. As before, there was nobody there but the detective himself. The staff did not put in an appearance till nine. In a very few minutes the disguise was effected, with a few additional touches which made it more complete.

When he had finished, Grewgus drew back and surveyed his handiwork with an air of pardonable pride. “If Miss Mayhew meets you face to face, she will never suspect you are the young man she met at Effington Hall. There was no recognition in Whitehouse’s glance last night, although I have no doubt he was suspicious of what we were doing there. I bet you he will have asked the porter a question or two by now. But that chap is no fool; he will know how to put him off.”

When Leonard looked in the glass which Grewgus handed him, he was bound to confess that a complete metamorphosis had been effected. There was no resemblance between this heavy-bearded creature and the good-looking lover of Gloria Stormont.

“Now I think we will be off,” observed Grewgus. “I have written a letter to my head clerk telling him I’m off to Paris, and giving him the address of the hotel we shall stay at. Of course it will not be the _Terminus_, that would hamper us too much. I shall only take you there for the purpose of identifying her; I shall watch her from elsewhere. To stay there would be fatal to our plans. If she is the person you believe her to be, she is naturally as sharp as a needle, and she would soon tumble to the fact that we were taking a suspicious interest in her.”

A short time later they had left London behind them and were on their way to Paris and Zillah Mayhew. It was a fairly empty train and they had a first-class compartment to themselves.

Grewgus proved himself a most entertaining companion, and told Lydon many interesting things in connection with himself and his profession, in the pursuit of which he took the keenest delight.

He was about fifty-five, he told the young man, who was surprised at the statement, for, with his clean-shaven face and keen, alert expression, he looked a good ten years younger. He had been fifteen years at Scotland Yard, and ten years on his own.

While at the Yard he had acquired a considerable experience of the underworld. He told him some wonderful stories of the wide ramifications of crookdom of all classes from the lowest to the most aristocratic, of high-class gangs directed by men who presented a most respectable appearance to the outside world, mixing in decent society, and adopting some well-known business or profession as a blind. He regaled him with some thrilling tales of how diamond had cut diamond, of the marvellous ingenuity with which certain professional detectives had got the better of their natural enemies, the criminals.

Since he had been in private practice, his experiences had been less thrilling. He did a good deal in divorce business, and he was applied to in many cases of blackmail.

“If this young woman turns out to be Elise Makris, as you suspect, we are likely to be up against a blackmailing gang here,” he observed. “And I should gather they pursue their activities chiefly abroad. You will remember the porter dropped the fact that Glenthorne was frequently out of England.”

They snatched a light meal at Boulogne and they got out at Amiens for a very welcome whisky and soda. The Paris train was pretty full, and there was no opportunity for further disclosures of a confidential nature. Just before they rolled into the station, Grewgus whispered in his companion’s ear:

“As you said I was to spare no expense, I sent a wire to an old ally of mine to meet the train. We have worked together very often, and he is a most useful fellow, being a splendid linguist. He can speak French like a native, even to its slang. It may be I shall have to watch more than one person, and he will come in handy for the other.”

Evidently Mr. Grewgus was going to do the thing thoroughly, and the young man was pleased that he had got hold of such a painstaking fellow. The man with whom he had made the appointment was waiting on the platform, a clean-shaven, smart-looking individual rather like Grewgus himself. He was introduced to Lydon by the name of Simmons.

“I think you and I, Mr. Lydon, will stay at the _Palace Hotel_; it is pretty handy to the other one. We will go there first and book our rooms, and then proceed to the _Terminus_. If we wait a bit in the great hall there, we shall be pretty certain to spot our quarry. We’ll take Simmons with us, as he will want to know her as well, in case he has to be put on the job later.”

They secured their rooms and then went on to the _Terminus_. The hall was very full, but they found room in a corner, an admirable situation where they could survey everybody at their leisure without attracting too much attention themselves.

They sat there a long time, and Lydon was beginning to fear that Miss Mayhew had changed her plans, gone to some other hotel than the one given in Stormont’s letter of instructions. But presently a familiar figure, dressed in the height of fashion, passed through the hall, and when near the exit, lingered as if she was waiting for some one. Lydon spoke to the detective in a low voice: “That is she, waiting at the end.”

The two men took stock of her. “Singularly handsome young woman,” commented Grewgus in the same cautious tones. “I suppose she is waiting for the man Edwards.”

But she was not. To Lydon’s surprise and relief, another familiar figure crossed the hall, joined her, and the two went out together. It was that of the woman he had known as Madame Makris, the tenant of the Villa des Cyclamens.

There was no mistaking her. He remembered too well that stout form, the still handsome face with its traces of youthful good looks, the Jewish cast of countenance. He imparted the information to Grewgus.

A satisfied smile stole over the detective’s countenance. “Well, this is a bit of the most splendid luck at the very start,” he said. “The mother, the blemish which I could not see from here, the pendant which I could see, I think we have found one of the most important things we wanted, at once. There can be no doubt, in face of those three things, that she is Elise Makris, or at any rate that that is one of possibly numerous aliases. Anyway, she is the woman who drove your friend to frenzy. I expect mother and daughter are devoted to each other, and hunt in couples wherever they can. The next thing is to find out what game they are after here.”

He whispered a few words to his colleague, Simmons, who rose and left the hall. “I have sent him to make an inquiry,” Grewgus explained. “He knows a few of the servants here, and, as I told you, he speaks French like a Frenchman.”

Simmons returned presently and related the result of his visit. “They give out they are Englishwomen, and are known as Mrs. and Miss Glenthorne. No man of the name of Edwards is staying here.”

“Ah, I thought she wouldn’t register as Miss Mayhew,” was the detective’s comment. “I suppose a different name for each job. Well, gentlemen, we’ve got as much here as we can for the present. I don’t think we’ll stay any longer. I propose we adjourn to a café, have a drink and discuss our future plan of action.”

They agreed with his suggestion. In their walk to a café close at hand, Grewgus did not speak much. His mind was no doubt busily working on the situation, and the best way of tackling it.

When they were half-way through their drinks, he spoke. “We can’t hope to do very much this evening. Now what I propose is this, Mr. Lydon. I know Paris rather thoroughly, although I daresay my friend Simmons knows it better. This isn’t exactly a pleasure trip you’ve come on, and you won’t want to spend more money than is absolutely necessary. We must have something to eat, for that light meal at Boulogne wasn’t very satisfactory.”

Lydon laughed. “I am in hearty agreement with you. The long journey has made me feel frightfully hungry.”

“Well, if we go to one of the swagger places, you’ll be charged through the nose. This is the city _par excellence_ of good cooking, and I can take you to a capital little restaurant close by where everything is excellent, and you’ll pay about a third of the price. Their wines are good and reasonable too.”

“I’m in your hands,” said the young man. “I should like you to take me along as soon as possible.” He noticed that Simmons did not appear to be included in the suggestion. The reason was explained when Grewgus turned to his colleague.

“It’s not likely we shall be fortunate enough to do much to-night, as I said just now. We have had one big bit of luck to start with which has saved us a lot of time and trouble. All the same we won’t let our vigilance sleep. I want you to start on the watch at once, Simmons, if this woman and her mother come back. We shall be at the _Restaurant Grice_ for at least a couple of hours. If in the meantime there is anything to report, come to us there. If we have gone, come to the hotel.”

The obedient Simmons finished his drink, rose up and went forth at once to obey his leader’s commands. After a final _apéritif_, Grewgus led his companion to the _Restaurant Grice_.

Here they had a most excellent meal, consisting of a good soup, a sole worthy of the _Café Royal_, followed by some tender veal. They drank with it a white wine recommended by Grewgus.

While they were eating, the detective dwelt regretfully on the vast difference between now and before the war. “If you knew the ropes, it was one of the cheapest places in the world to live in, and whatever you paid, you got splendid value for your money. Of course, very few of the English who came here _did_ know the ropes. I shouldn’t have known them but for a young fellow I met, a student in the Latin Quarter. Gad! What he didn’t know about Paris wasn’t worth knowing.”

After their dinner was over, they sat and smoked to the accompaniment of another bottle of white wine. Grewgus was not keen on spirits. They had promised to wait a couple of hours there in case Simmons had anything to report, and they were as comfortable here as they would have been in their hotel, more so perhaps.

During this period of waiting, Grewgus entertained his host with some more thrilling stories of crooks and crookdom. Lydon found himself much interested. Before he met this reminiscent person he had no idea that there was so much rascality in the world. According to Grewgus, every big city was teeming with it. On the whole, for what he called aristocratic crookdom he was inclined to give the palm to Nice, “where our friend Miss Mayhew appears to hail from,” he observed with a sardonic chuckle.

“She’s a member of some foreign gang, I suppose?” suggested Lydon. “She has a foreign look about her, although I heard her mother was an Englishwoman, apparently an English Jewess.”

Grewgus shook his head. “I should rather fancy an international one. Whitehouse is mixed up with her; we can’t assume him to be ignorant of his niece’s activities, if she is really his niece. Then there is the man Edwards, and of course Stormont, upon whose business she is here, according to that letter. Three Englishmen, you see. Decidedly an international gang by that.”

“What is your reading of it so far, Mr. Grewgus?”

“Well, we can’t say positively till I’ve found out what her game is here. But I should say she is one of the working members of the gang, and Edwards is another. Whitehouse and his friend are probably the controlling spirits who plan and engineer but never come into the open, never execute the dirty work.”

A few minutes before the two hours had expired, Simmons bustled in with an air of importance that told he had something of interest to communicate.

It was briefly this. Mother and daughter had returned to the hotel alone, an hour after they left it. The mother had gone upstairs; Miss Glenthorne had sat in the hall, evidently waiting for somebody. That somebody presently turned up in the shape of an opulent-looking Frenchman, thickly bearded and of middle age. The couple left together and drove to one of the most expensive restaurants in Paris.

Simmons followed them into the expensive restaurant, and had his dinner there, conceiving it to be his duty to spend money in order to watch them. From the waiter who attended on him, he learned that the Frenchman was an old customer, and a wealthy man. He was a partner in the big firm of jewellers, Dubost Frères, located in Marseilles. Every three months he made a trip to Paris to have dealings with firms in the same line of business. On these occasions, the waiter had been told, he brought with him several samples worth thousands of pounds. His name was Monsieur Léon Calliard.

With regard to the young woman, the waiter knew nothing about her. He fancied he recognized her as having been in the restaurant before during his period of service, but he could not say with whom. This was certainly the first time he had seen Monsieur Calliard in her company.

From the restaurant, where they quickly got through their dinner, Simmons followed them to a music-hall, where he had left them when he came to make his report.

“Nobody joined them in the music-hall, no Englishman who might be the man Edwards?” queried Grewgus when his colleague had finished his recital.

“No, so far, Edwards has not appeared upon the scene,” was the answer.

The detective looked at his client. “Looks like a case of blackmail, or perhaps robbery and blackmail,” was his comment. “Anyway the old game.”

“I didn’t know whether you would like to go and have a look at them yourself?” hazarded Simmons.

But Grewgus thought not. He would wait till to-morrow to get on the track of the man Edwards, that is, if he were taking an active part in the affair and still in Paris.