The Golden Face: A Great 'Crook' Romance

“A nice little lot this, eh? One of the very finest collections I’ve seen.”

On the table lay a pair of jewelers’ tweezers and a magnifying glass, therefore it was apparent that, as a connoisseur of gems, he had been estimating their value.

“By Jove!” I exclaimed. “They certainly are magnificent! Whose are they?”

“They once belonged to the dead Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey,” he replied; “but at present they belong to me!” He laughed grimly.

Inwardly I wondered by what means the priceless gems had fallen into his hands. He read my thoughts at once, for he said:

“You are curious, of course, as to how I became possessed of them. Naturally. Well, Hargreave, it’s a very funny story and concerns a real good fellow and, incidentally, a very pretty girl. Take a cigar, sit down, and I’ll tell you frankly all about it – only, of course, not a word of the facts will ever pass your lips – not to Lola, or to anybody else. Your lips are sealed.”

“I promise,” I said, selecting one of his choice cigars and lighting it, my curiosity aroused.

“Then listen,” he said, “and I’ll tell you the whole facts, as far as I’ve been able to gather them.”

What he recounted was certainly romantic, though a little involved, for he was not a very good raconteur. However, in setting down this curious story – a story which shows that he was not altogether bad, and was a sportsman after all – I have rearranged his words in narrative form, so that readers of these curious adventures may fully understand.

“How horribly glum you are to-night, dear! What’s the matter? Are you sad that we should meet here – in Paris?” asked a pretty girl.

“Glum!” echoed the smooth-haired young man in the perfectly fitting dinner-jacket and black tie. “I really didn’t know that I looked glum,” and then, straightening himself, he looked across the table à deux in the gay Restaurant Volnay at the handsome, dark-haired, exquisitely dressed girl who sat before him with her elbows on the table.

“Yes, you really are jolly glum, my dear Old Thing. You looked a moment ago as serious as though you were going to a funeral,” declared the girl. “The war is over, you are prospering immensely – so what on earth causes you to worry?”

“I’m not worrying, dearest, I assure you,” he replied with a forced smile, but her keen woman’s intuition told her that her lover was not himself, and that his mind was full of some very keen anxiety.

Charles Otley had taken her to a most amusing play at the Palais-Royal, a comedy which had kept the house in roars of laughter all the evening, and now, as they sat at supper, she saw that his spirits had fallen to a very low ebb. This puzzled her greatly.

Peggy Urquhart, daughter of Sir Polworth Urquhart, of the Colonial Service, who until the Armistice had held a high official appointment at Hong Kong, was one of the smartest and prettiest young women in London Society. She was twenty-two, a thorough-going out-of-door girl who looked slightly older than she really was. Her father had retired as soon as war was over, and they had come to England. By reason of her mother being the daughter of the Earl of Carringford, she had soon found herself a popular figure in a mad, go-ahead post-war set.

She had known Charlie Otley soon after she had left Roedene – long before they had gone out to Hong Kong – and now they were back they were lovers in secret.

Charlie, who had been a motor engineer before he “joined up” in the war and got his D.S.O. and his rank as captain, had done splendidly. On being demobilized he had returned to his old profession, taking the managership of a very well-known Bond Street firm.

The directors, finding in Otley a man who knew his business, whose persuasive powers induced many persons to purchase cars, and whose fearless tests at Brooklands were paragraphed in the daily newspapers, treated him most generously and left everything, even many of their financial affairs, in his hands.

Lady Urquhart was, however, an ambitious woman. She inherited all the exclusiveness of the Carringfords, and she was actively scheming to marry Peggy to Cis Eastwood, the heir to the estates of old Lord Drumone. It was the old story of the ambitious mother. Peggy knew this, and, smiling within herself, had pledged her love to Charlie. Hence, with the latitude allowed to a girl nowadays, she went about a good deal with him in London – to the Embassy, the Grafton, the Diplomats, and several of the smartest dance-clubs, of which both were members.

Though Otley was often at her house in Mount Street, and frequently met Lord Drumone’s fair-haired and rather effeminate son there, Peggy’s mother never dreamed they were in love. Both were extremely careful to conceal it, and in their efforts they had been successful.

The orchestra was at the moment playing that plaintive Hungarian gypsy air, Bela’s Valse Banffy, that sweet, weird song of the Tziganes which one hears everywhere along the Danube from Vienna to Belgrade.

“Look here, Charlie,” said the girl, much perturbed at what she had recognized in his handsome countenance. “Tell me, Old Thing, what’s the matter?”

“Matter – why, nothing!” he replied, laughing. “I was only thinking.” And he looked around upon the smart crowd of Parisians who were laughing and chatting.

“Of what?”

He hesitated for a second. In that hesitation the girl who loved him so fondly, and who preferred him to old Drumone’s son and a title, realized that he had some heavy weight upon his mind, and quickly she resolved to learn it, and try to bear the burden with him.

Since her return from China, with all its Asiatic mysteries, its amusements, and its quaint Eastern life, she had had what she declared to be a “topping” time in London. Her beauty was remarked everywhere and her sweet charm of manner appealed to all. Her mother, who had returned from her exile in the Far East, went everywhere, while her father, a hard, austere Colonial official who had browsed upon reports, and regarded all natives of any nationality or culture as mere “blacks,” was one of those men who had never been able to assimilate his own views with those of the nation to which he had been sent as British representative. He was a hide-bound official, a man who despised any colored race, and treated all natives with stern and unrelenting hand. Indeed, the Colonial Office had discovered him to be a square peg in a round hole, and at Whitehall they were relieved when he went into honorable retirement.

“Do tell me what’s the matter, dear,” whispered the girl across the table, hoping that the pair seated near them did not know English.

“The matter! Why, nothing,” again laughed the handsome young man. “Have a liqueur,” and he ordered two from the waiter. “I can’t think what you’ve got into your head to-night regarding me, Peggy. I was only reflecting for a few seconds – on some business.”

“Grave business – it seems.”

“Not at all. But we men who have to earn our living by business have to think overnight what we are to do on the morrow,” he said airily, as he handed his cigarette-case to her and then lit the one she took.

“But Charlie – I’m certain there’s something – something you are concealing from me.”

“I conceal nothing from you, dearest,” he answered, looking across the little table straight into her fine dark eyes. Then again he bent towards her and whispered very seriously: “Do you really love me, Peggy?”

In his glance was a tense eager expression, yet upon his face was written a mystery she could not fathom.

“Why do you ask, dear?” she said. “Have I not told you so a hundred times. What I have said, I mean.”

“You really mean – you really mean that you love me – eh?” he whispered in deep earnestness as he still bent to her over the table, his eyes fixed on hers. And he drew a long breath.

“Yes,” she answered. “But why do you ask the question in that tone? How tragic you seem!”

“Because,” and he sighed, “because your answer lifts a great weight from my mind.” Then, after a pause, he added: “Yet – yet, I wonder – ”

“Wonder what?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “I was only wondering.”

“But you really are tantalizing to-night, my dear boy,” she said. “I don’t understand you at all.”

“Ah! you will before long. Let’s go out into the lounge,” he suggested. “It’s growing late.”

So, having drained their two glasses of triple sec, they passed out into the big palm-lounge, which is so popular with the Parisians after the play.

Peggy and her parents had come to Paris in mid-December to do some shopping. Before she had been exiled to China, Lady Urquhart’s habit was to go to Paris twice each year to buy her hats and gowns, for she was always elegantly dressed, and she took care that her daughter should dress equally well.

Indeed, the gown worn by Peggy that night was one of Worth’s latest creations, and her cloak was an expensive one of the newest mode. They were staying at the Continental when Charlie, who had some business in Paris on behalf of his firm, had run over for three days really to meet in secret the girl he loved. That night Peggy had excused herself to her mother, saying that she was going out to Neuilly to dine with an old schoolfellow – a little matter she had arranged with the latter – but instead, she had met Charlie at Voisin’s, and they had been to the theater together.

Peggy, amid the exuberant atmosphere of Paris with its lights, movement and gaiety – the old Paris just as it was before the war – naturally expected her lover to be gay and irresponsible as she herself felt. Instead, he seemed gloomy and apprehensive. Therefore the girl was disappointed. She thought a good deal, but said little.

Though the distance between the Volnay and the Rue de Rivoli was not great, Charlie ordered a taxi, and on the way she sat locked in his strong arms, her lips smothered with his hot, passionate kisses, until they parted.

Little did she dream, however, the bitterness in her lover’s heart.

Next morning at eleven o’clock, as Peggy was coming up the Avenue de l’Opéra, she passed the Brasserie de la Paix, that popular café on the left-hand side of the broad thoroughfare, the place where the Parisian gets such exquisite dishes at fair prices. Charlie was seated in the window, as they had arranged, and on seeing her, he dashed out and joined her.

“Well?” she asked. “How are you to-day? Not so awfully gloomy, I hope.”

“Not at all, dearest,” he laughed, for his old nonchalance had returned to him. “I’ve been full of business since nine o’clock. I have an appointment out at La Muette at two, and I’ll have to get back to London to-night.”

“To-night!” she echoed disappointedly. “We don’t return till next Tuesday.”

“I have to be back to see my people about some cars that can’t be delivered for another six weeks. There’s a beastly hitch about delivery.”

“Well,” said the girl, as they walked side by side in the cold, bright morning. The winter mornings are always bright and clearer in Paris than in London. “Well, I have some news for you, dear.”

“What news?” he asked.

“Lady Teesdale has asked us up to Hawstead, her place in Yorkshire. In her letter to mother this morning she mentions that she is also asking you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. And, of course, you’ll accept. Won’t it be ripping? The Teesdales have a lovely old place – oak-paneled, ghost-haunted, and all that sort of thing. We’ve been there twice. The Teesdales’ shooting-parties are famed for their fun and merriment.”

“I know Lady Teesdale,” Otley said. “But I wonder why she has asked me?”

“Don’t wonder, dear boy – but accept and come. We’ll have a real jolly time.”

And then they turned into the Boulevard des Italiens and idled before some of the shops.

At noon she was compelled to leave him and return to her mother. He put her into a taxi outside the Grand Hotel, and then they parted.

Before doing so, the girl said:

“What about next Wednesday? Shall we meet?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Very well,” she exclaimed. “Wednesday at six – eh? I’ll come up to your rooms. We can talk there. I don’t like to see you so worried, dear. There’s something you’re concealing from me, I’m sure of it.”

Then he bent over her hand in a fashion more courtly than the “Cheerio!” of to-day, and standing on the curb watched the taxi speed down the Rue de la Paix.

“Ah!” he murmured aloud, drawing a deep sigh. “Ah! If she only knew! —if she only knew!”

He strode along the boulevard caring nothing where his footsteps led him. The gay, elegant, careless crowd of Paris passed, but he had no eyes for it all.

“Shall I tell her?” he went on aloud to himself. “Or shall I fade out, and let her learn the worst after I’m gone? Yet would not that be a coward’s action? And I’m no coward. I went through the war – that hell at Vimy, and I did my best for King and Country. Now, when love happens and all that life means to a man is just within my grasp, I have to retire to ignominy or death. I prefer the latter.”

Next morning he stepped from the train at Victoria and drove to his rooms in Bennett Street, St. James’s. He was still obsessed by those same thoughts which had prevented him from sleeping for the past week. His man, Sanford, who had been his batman in France, met him with a cheery smile, and after a bath and a shave he went round to his business in Bond Street.

He was of good birth and had graduated at Brasenose. His father had been a well-known official at the Foreign Office in the days of King Edward and had died after a short retirement. In his life Charlie had done his best, and had distinguished himself not only in his Army career, but in that of the world of motoring, where his name was as well known as any of the fearless drivers at Brooklands.

Otley was, indeed, a real good fellow, whose personality dominated those with whom he did business, and the many cars, from Fords to Rolls, which he sold for the profit of his directors paid tribute to his easy-going merriment and his slim, well-set-up appearance. Those who met him in that showroom in Bond Street never dreamed of the alert leather-coated and helmeted figure who tore round the rough track at Brooklands testing cars, and so often rising up that steep cemented slope, the test of great speed.

At six o’clock on the Wednesday evening he stood in his cosy room in Bennett Street awaiting Peggy. At last there was a ring at the outer door, and Sanford showed her in.

She entered merrily, bringing with her a whiff of the latest Paris perfume, and grasping his hand, cried:

“Well, are you feeling any happier?”

“Happier!” he echoed. “Why, of course!”

“And have you had Lady Teesdale’s letter?”

“Yes. And I’ve accepted.”

“Good. We’ll have a real good time. But the worst of it is Cis has been asked too!”

“I suppose your mother engineered that?”

“I don’t think so. You see, he’s Lady Teesdale’s nephew. And it’s a big family party. Old Mr. Bainbridge, the steel king of Sheffield, and his wife are to be there. She is a fat, rather coarse woman who has wonderful jewels. They say that old Bainbridge gave eighty thousand pounds for a unique string of stones, emeralds, diamonds, rubies and sapphires which belonged to the old Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, and which were sold in Paris six months ago.”

“Yes. I’ve always heard that the old fellow has money to burn. Wish I had!”

“So do I, Charlie. But, after all, money isn’t everything. What shall we do to-night?”

“Let’s dance later on – shall we?” he suggested, and she consented readily.

They sat by the fire together for half an hour chatting, while she told him of her doings in Paris after he had left. Then she rose and made an inspection of his bachelor room, examining his photographs, as was her habit. Ten years ago a girl would hesitate to go to a bachelor’s room, but not so to-day when women can venture wherever men can go.

On that same afternoon Sir Polworth Urquhart, returning home to Mount Street at six o’clock, found among his letters on the study table a thin one which bore a Hong Kong stamp. The superscription was, he saw, in a native hand. He hated the sly Chinese and all their ways.

On tearing it open he found within a slip of rice-paper on which some Chinese characters had been traced. He looked at them for a few seconds and then translated them aloud to himself:

“Tai-K’an has not forgotten the great English mandarin!”

“Curse Tai-K’an!” growled Sir Polworth under his breath. “After ten years I thought he had forgotten. But those Orientals are slim folk. I hope his memory is a pleasant one,” he added grimly as he rose and placed the envelope and the paper in the fire.

“A very curious message,” he reflected as he passed back to his writing-table. “It’s a threat – because of that last sign. I remember seeing that sign before and being told that it was the sign of vengeance of the Tchan-Yan, the secret society of the Yellow Riband. But, bah! what need I care? I’m not in China now – thank Heaven!”

As he seated himself to answer his correspondence, however, a curious drama rose before his eyes. One day, ten years ago, while acting as Deputy-Governor, he had had before him a criminal case in which a young Chinese girl was alleged to have caused her lover’s death by poison. The girl was the daughter of a small merchant named Tai-K’an, who sold all his possessions in order to pay for the girl’s defense.

The case was a flimsy one from the start, but in the native court where it was heard there was much bribery by the friends of the dead lover. Notwithstanding the fact that Tai-K’an devoted the whole of his possessions to his daughter’s defense, and that strong proof of guilt fell upon a young Chinaman who was jealous of the dead man, the poor girl was convicted of murder.

Sir Polworth remembered all the circumstances well. At the time he did not believe in the girl’s guilt, but the court had decided it so, therefore why should he worry his official mind over the affairs of mere natives? The day came – he recollected it well – when the sentence of death was put before him for confirmation. Tai-K’an himself, a youngish man, came to his house to beg the clemency of the great British mandarin. With him was his wife and the brother of the murdered man. All three begged upon their knees that the girl should be released because she was innocent. But he only shook his head, and with callous heartlessness signed the death-sentence and ordered them to be shown out.

The girl’s father then drew himself up and, with the fire of hatred in his slant black eyes, exclaimed in very good English:

“You have sent my daughter to her death though she is innocent! You have a daughter, Sir Polworth Urquhart. The vengeance of Tai-K’an will fall upon her. Remember my words! May the Great Mêng place his curse upon you and yours for ever!” And the trio left the Deputy-Governor’s room.

That was nearly ten years ago.

He paced the room, for his reflections even now were uneasy ones. He remembered how the facts were placed before the Colonial Office and how the sentence of death was commuted to one of imprisonment. For five years she remained in jail, until the real assassin committed suicide after writing a confession.

Yet like all Chinese, Tai-K’an evidently nursed his grievance, and time had not dulled the bitterness of his hatred.

But the offensive Chinaman was in Hong Kong – therefore what mattered, Sir Polworth thought. So he seated himself and wrote his letters.

CHAPTER XIV

THE VENGEANCE OF TAI-K’AN

At that moment Lola, who was shopping in London, entered and her father cut off quickly.

The girl glanced at me and smiled. Then she asked some question regarding the purchase of some cutlery, and on her father replying she left the flat.

After she had gone, he resumed the narrative, which was certainly of deep interest, as you will see.

He went on:

In the first week in January, a gay house-party assembled at Hawstead Park, Lord Teesdale’s fine old Elizabethan seat a few miles from Malton, not very far from Overstow. The shooting-parties at Hawstead were well known for their happy enjoyment. They were talked about in the drawing-rooms of Yorkshire and clubs in town each year, for Lady Teesdale was one of the most popular of hostesses and delighted in surrounding herself with young people.

So it was that Charlie Otley, on his arrival, met Peggy in the big paneled hall, and by her side stood young Eastwood, the fair-haired effeminate son of Lord Drumone. The party assembled at tea consisted of some twenty guests, most of them young. After dinner that night there was, of course, dancing upon the fine polished floor.

Before Lady Urquhart, Otley was compelled to exercise a good deal of caution, allowing young Eastwood to dance attendance upon Peggy while he, in turn, spent a good deal of time with Maud Bainbridge, the rather angular daughter of the steel magnate. Towards Mrs. Bainbridge and his hostess Charlie was most attentive, but all the time he was watching Peggy with the elegant young idler to whom Lady Urquhart hoped to marry her.

Now and then Peggy would glance across the room meaningly, but he never once asked her to dance, so determined was he that her mother should not suspect the true state of affairs. His position, however, was not a very pleasant one, therefore part of the time he spent in the great old smoking-room with his host, Sir Polworth, and several other guests, some of them being women, for nowadays the ladies of a country house-party invariably invade the room which formerly was sacred to the men.

When the dance had ended and the guests were about to retire, Otley managed to whisper a word to the girl he loved. He made an appointment to meet her at a secluded spot in the park near the lodge on the following morning at eleven.

She kept the appointment, and when they met she stood for a few moments clasped in her lover’s arms.

“I had such awful difficulty to get away from Cecil,” she said, laughing. She looked a sweet attractive figure in her short tweed skirt, strong country shoes and furs. “He wanted to go for a walk with me. So I slipped out and left him guessing.”

Her companion remained silent.

A few moments later they turned along a path which led to a stile, and thence through a thick wood of leafless oaks and beeches. Along the winding path carpeted with dead leaves they strolled hand-in-hand, until suddenly Otley halted, and in a thick hoarse voice quite unusual to him, said:

“Peggy. I – I have something to say to you. I – I have to go back to London.”

“To London – why?” gasped the girl in dismay.

“Because – well, because I can’t bear to be here with the glaring truth ever before me – that I – ”

“What do you mean?” she asked, laying her hand upon his arm.

“I mean, dearest,” he said in a low, hard voice, “I mean that we can never marry. There is a barrier between us – a barrier of disgrace!”

“Of disgrace!” she gasped. “Oh! do explain, dear.”

“The explanation is quite simple,” he replied in a tone of despair. “You asked me in Paris what worried me. Well, Peggy, I’ll confess to you,” he went on, lowering his voice, his eyes downcast. “I am not worthy your love, and I here renounce it, for – for I am a thief!”

“A thief!” she echoed. “How?”

“I’ve been hard up of late, and at the motor show I sold three cars, for which I have not accounted to the firm. The books will be audited next week and my defalcations discovered. I have no means of repaying the four thousand five hundred pounds, and therefore I shall be arrested and sent to prison as a common thief. That’s briefly the position!”

The girl was speechless at such staggering revelations. Charlie – a thief! It seemed incredible.

“But have you no means whatever of raising the money?” she asked at last, her face pale, while the gloved hand that lay upon his arm trembled.

“None. I’ve tried all my friends, but money is so difficult to raise nowadays. No, Peggy,” he added with suppressed emotion, “let me go my own way – and try to forget me. Now that I am in disgrace it is only right that I should make a clean breast of it to you, and then you alone will understand why I have made excuse to Lady Teesdale and left.”

“Oh, you mustn’t do that, dear,” she urged. “Stay over the week-end! Something will turn up. Do please me by staying.”

“I feel that I really can’t,” he answered. “I’m an outsider to have thus brought unhappiness on you, but it is my fault. I am alone to blame. You must have your freedom and forget me. I took the money to pay a debt of honor, thinking that I could repay it by borrowing elsewhere. But I find I can’t, therefore I must face the music next week. Even if I ran away I should soon be found and arrested.”