The Lost Million

But it was no dream. I myself had seen the Thing with my own eyes, while my own cheek only a few hours before had borne witness to its actual existence.

I saw how horrified she was at its reappearance, and what a terrible impression it had produced upon her already overwrought nerves. I knew that she would not again retire that night – and indeed, feeling that some unknown evil was present, I slipped on my clothes and spent the remainder of the night in an armchair, reading a French novel.

Dawn came at last, and as soon as the sun rose I descended, and went out for a long, invigorating walk beside the Rhone.

On my return I met Asta strolling alone under the trees in the Place near the hotel, and referred to the weird incident of the night.

“Ah, Mr Kemball, please do not recall it!” she implored. “It is too horrible! I – I can’t make out what it can be – except that it is a sign to us of impending evil.”

“A sign to us both,” I said. “But whom are we to fear?”

“Perhaps that woman.”

“Is she still in Lyons, I wonder?”

“Probably. About seven o’clock this morning Dad sent an express message to somebody. He called a waiter, and I heard him give the letter, with instructions that it was to be sent at once.”

I said nothing, but half an hour later, by the judicious application of half a louis to the floor waiter, I ascertained that the note had been sent to a Madame Trelawnay, at the Hôtel du Globe, in the Place Bellecour.

Trelawnay was, I recollected, one of the names used by the pseudo Lady Lettice Lancaster. Therefore, after my café au lait I excused myself, stepped over to the hotel, and there ascertained that Madame, who had been there for two days, had received the note, packed hurriedly, and an hour later had left the Perrache Station by the Paris express.

On returning I told Asta this, and at eleven o’clock we were again on the white dusty highway – that beautiful road through deep valleys and over blue mountains, the Route d’Italie, which runs from Lyons, through quiet old Chambéry, to Modane and the Alpine frontier. In Chambéry, however, we turned to the left, and ere long found ourselves in that scrupulously clean and picturesque summer resort of the wealthy, Aix-les-Bains.

Shaw, who was in the best of spirits, had laughed heartily over Asta’s adventure with the rat, and as we arrived at our destination he turned to me, expressing a hope that we all three would enjoy “a real good time.”

I had been in Aix several years before, and knew the life – the bains, the casino, the Villa des Fleurs, the fêtes and the boating on the Lac du Bourget, that never-ending round of gaiety amid which the wealthy idler may pass the days of warm sunshine.

And certainly the three weeks we spent at the old-fashioned Europe – in preference to a newer and more garish hotel – were most delightful. I found myself ever at Asta’s side, and noted that her beauty was everywhere remarked. She was always smartly but neatly dressed – for Shaw was apparently most generous in the matter of gowns, some of which had come from a well-known dressmaker in the Place Vendôme.

I wondered sometimes, as we sat together in the big salle à manger or idled together under the trees in the pretty garden, whether she still thought of poor Guy Nicholson – or whether she was really pleased when alone with me. One fact was quite plain – that the visit had wrought a beneficial change in her. Her large dark eyes were again full of life and sparkle, and her lips smiled deliciously, showing how she enjoyed the brightness and gaiety of life.

Shaw had met accidentally at the Grand Cercle a Frenchman he knew named Count d’Auray, who had a château on the edge of the Lake, and one day he went over to visit him, leaving us to have luncheon together alone.

As we sat on the verandah of the hotel to take our coffee afterwards, I glanced at her. Never had I seen her looking so charming. She was entirely in cream serge, relieved with the slightest touches of pale blue, with a large white hat, long white gloves, and white shoes, – the personification of summer itself. Ah, yes! she was exquisite, I told myself. Yet how strange that she should be the adopted daughter of a man who, though actually a Justice of the Peace, was nevertheless an undesirable.

Time after time had I tried to induce her to reveal to me the reason why Shaw went in such terror of arrest. But she would not betray his secret. For that I admired her – for was she not devoted to him? Did she not owe everything to his kindness and his generosity? Like many another man, I suppose he had been fooled or tricked by a woman, and had, in consequence, to lead a celibate life. In order to bring brightness and youth into his otherwise dull home, he had adopted little Asta as his daughter.

We had been speaking of a forthcoming fête on the following day when, of a sudden, she turned in her chair towards me, and with a calm, serious look upon her face said —

“Do you know, Mr Kemball, I am greatly worried?”

“Over what?” I asked quickly.

“Well, this morning, when I was walking back from the milliner’s, I saw Earnshaw – that woman’s husband. Fortunately, he did not see me. But she is, I suspect, here in Aix-les-Bains.”

“Why should you fear even if she is?” I asked.

“I – well, I really do not know,” she faltered.

“Only – to tell you in confidence – I believe some evil work is in progress – some base conspiracy.”

“What causes you to suspect that? You do not believe that your father is implicated in it?”

“How can I tell?” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I am filled with fear always – knowing in what peril he continually exists.”

“I know,” I said. “Why he does not act more judiciously I cannot think. At home, at Lydford, he is surely unsuspected, and in security.”

“I am always telling him so, but, alas! he will not listen.”

“You said that he is now under the influence of that woman.”

“I fear so,” was her low reply, as she sighed despairingly.

We rose and strolled out together to the car which was waiting to take us for a run over the hills and among the mountains by the Pont de la Caille to Geneva, seventy kilometres distant. The afternoon was glorious, and as we sat side by side we chatted and laughed merrily, both of us forgetting all our apprehensions and our cares.

Ah, yes! those days were truly idyllic days, for I loved her devotedly, and each hour I passed in her society the bond became stronger and more firmly forged.

But could she reciprocate my affection? Ay, that was the great and crucial question I had asked myself – yea, a thousand times. I dared not yet reveal to her the secret of my heart, for even still she thought and spoke of that honest, upright fellow whose untimely end was so enshrouded in mystery.

We dined at Geneva, in the huge salle à manger of the Beau Rivage, which overlooked the beautiful lake, tranquil and golden in the sunset, with Mont Blanc, towering and snow-capped, showing opposite against the clear evening sky. We strolled for half an hour on the terrace, where the English tourists were taking their coffee after dinner, and then, in the fading twilight, Harris drove us back again to Aix, where we arrived about ten o’clock, after a day long to be remembered.

Asta held my hand for a moment in the hall, raising her splendid eyes to mine, and then wishing me good-night, mounted in the lift to her room. Afterwards I went along to the fumoir to find Shaw, but could not discover him. Later, however, the hall-porter said he had complained of feeling unwell, and had gone to his room.

I threw myself into a cane chair in the hall, and lit a cigar, for it was yet early. I suppose I must have remained there perhaps half an hour, when a waiter brought me a note. Tearing it open, I found in it a scribbled message, in pencil, from Asta.

“There is danger, as I suspected,” she wrote. “Be careful. Do not approach us, and know nothing. Destroy this. – Asta.”

I crushed the letter in my pocket and dismissed the servant. What could it mean?

Not more than a quarter of an hour later, as I still sat smoking and pondering, a tall, dark-bearded, pale-faced, rather elegant-looking Frenchman, wearing the crimson button of the Legion d’Honneur in his coat, entered the hall from the street, and glancing round quickly, advanced to the bureau.

A moment later he came towards me and, halting, bowed and exclaimed in good English —

“Pardon, m’sieur, but I have the honour to speak with Monsieur Kemball. Is that not so?”

“That is my name,” I replied.

“I have something of importance to communicate to Monsieur,” he said, very politely, holding his grey felt hat in his hand and glancing quickly around. “May I speak with you privately?”

“Certainly,” I replied; and recollecting a small salon off the hall on the left, led the way thither, and switched on the light.

Then, when he had carefully closed the door and we were alone, he said with a pleasant smile —

“I had perhaps better at once introduce myself to Monsieur. I am Victor Tramu, inspector of the first division of the brigade mobile of Paris, and I have called at the risk of inconveniencing you to put a few questions concerning two associates of yours living in this hotel – namely, Monsieur Harvey Shaw and Mademoiselle Asta Seymour.”

“Associates!” I echoed resentfully. “They are my friends!”

The police-officer smiled as he caressed his silky brown beard – a habit of his.

“Excellent. Then certainly you will be able to give me the information I require.”

“Of what?”

“Of their recent movements, and more especially of their place of residence.”

I was silent, recollecting Asta’s injunctions to know nothing; but the man stood regarding me with calm, searching, impudent glance.

“By what right, pray, do you subject me to this cross-examination?” I demanded in French, full of resentment, as I stood in the centre of the room facing him.

“Ah! so Monsieur is disinclined to betray his friends, eh?” laughed Tramu, whom I afterwards found out to be one of the most famous detectives in France. “You arrived en automobile from Lyons together, and previously from Versailles,” he remarked. “In Lyons your friend Shaw met other of his associates, and again here – yesterday at the Villa Reyssac. You see, I know a good deal of what has transpired and what is just now in progress. Indeed, I travelled from Paris for that purpose.”

“Well, it surely does not concern me!” I exclaimed.

“Pardon. I must differ from Monsieur,” he said, bowing slightly, his hands behind his back. “I desire to know something concerning these persons – of where they live.”

“You had better ask them yourself,” I replied. “It is scarcely likely that I shall give information to the police concerning my friends,” I added, in defiance.

“Bien! Then shall I be frank with you, m’sieur? The fact is that we have suspicions, very grave ones, but we are not absolutely certain of their identity.”

“Then why trouble me?”

“Because you can so easily establish it beyond a doubt.”

“Well, Monsieur Tramu, I flatly refuse to satisfy your curiosity, or assist you against my friends,” I replied, and turned abruptly upon my heel to leave the room.

“Then it is to be regretted. In that case, Monsieur Kemball, you must please consider yourself under arrest as an accomplice and associate of the two individuals in question,” he said, very coolly but determinedly; and as he uttered the words two men, police-officers in plain clothes, who had evidently been listening without, opened the door unceremoniously and entered the apartment.

The situation was both startling and unexpected. I was now faced with a most difficult problem. I was under arrest; my silence had cost me my liberty!

Asta and her stepfather must also have both already fallen into the hands of the police, for were they not upstairs? Truly the coup had been very swiftly and cleverly effected, as it seemed were all coups made by the renowned Tramu, the trusted lieutenant of Monsieur Hamard of the Sûreté in Paris.

The misfortune so long dreaded by Asta had, alas! fallen.

What must the result be? Ay, what indeed! What could be the charge against them?

Chapter Twenty One

More Mystery

Ignorant of the fate of my friends, I was unceremoniously bundled into a fiacre and driven to the police bureau, where for nearly three hours I was closely questioned regarding my own identity and my knowledge of Harvey Shaw.

Aix-les-Bains being a gambling centre, it attracts half the escrocs in Europe; hence, stationed here and there are several of the smartest and shrewdest police officials which France possesses. At the hands of Victor Tramu and two of his colleagues I was subjected to the closest interrogation in a small bare room with threadbare carpet and walls painted dark green, the headquarters of the Sûreté in that district. The population of Aix in summer is much the same as that of Monte Carlo in winter – a heterogeneous, cosmopolitan collection of wealthy pigeons and hawks of both sexes and all nationalities.

From the thousand and one questions with which I fenced I tried to gather the nature of the offence of which Harvey Shaw was culpable, but all to no avail. I asked Tramu point-blank if he and his foster-daughter had been arrested, but no information would he give.

“I am asking questions – not you, m’sieur,” was his cold reply.

All the interrogation seemed directed towards ascertaining the hiding-place of Shaw in England.

“You knew him in England,” remarked Tramu, seated at a table upon which was a telephone instrument, while I stood between the two agents of police who had arrested me. “Where did you first meet him?”

“At a railway station.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“I had a message to deliver – a letter from a dead friend.”

Tramu smiled incredulously, as did also the two other officials at his side.

“And this dead friend – who was he?” asked the renowned detective.

“A man whom I had met on a steamer between Naples and London. He was a stranger to me, but being taken ill on board, I tried to do what I could for him. He died in London soon after our arrival.”

“His name?”

“Melvill Arnold.”

Victor Tramu stroked his brown beard.

“Arnold! Arnold!” he repeated. “Melvill Arnold – an English name. He was an Englishman, of course?”

“Certainly.”

“Arnold! Arnold!” he repeated, gazing blankly across the room. “And he was a friend of the suspect Shaw, eh?”

“I presume so.”

“Arnold!” he again repeated reflectively, as though the name recalled something to his memory. “Was he an elderly, grey-haired man who had lived a great deal in Egypt and was an expert in Egyptology eh?”

“He was.”

Tramu sprang to his feet, staring at me, utterly amazed.

“And he is dead, you say?”

“He is – he died in my presence.”

“Arnold!” he cried, turning to his colleagues. “All, yes. I remember now. I recollect – a most remarkable and mysterious mail. Dieu! what a colossal brain! What knowledge – what a staunch friend, and what a formidable enemy! And he is, alas! dead. Describe to me the circumstances in which he died, Monsieur Kemball,” he added, in a voice full of regret and sympathy.

In response, I briefly told him the story, much as I have related it in these pages, while all listened attentively.

“And he actually compelled you to burn the banknotes, eh?” asked the officer of the Sûreté. “He wilfully destroyed his fortune – the money which I had hoped to recover – the money which he – But, no! He is dead, so we need say no more.”

“Then you knew poor Arnold, Monsieur Tramu?” I remarked.

“Quite well,” laughed the brown-bearded man seated at the table. “For years the police of Europe searched for him in vain. He was far too wary and clever for us. Instead of enjoying the pleasures of the capitals, he preferred the desert and his studies of Egyptian antiques. He moved about so quickly, and with so many precautions, that we never could lay hands upon him. Indeed, it is said that he kept two ex-agents of police, whose duty it was to watch us, and keep him informed regarding our movements. His was, indeed, a master mind – a greater man than your associate, Harvey Shaw.”

“What were the charges against Arnold?” I asked eagerly. “Why were you so anxious to secure his arrest?”

“Oh, there were a dozen different charges,” he replied. “But now he is dead, let his memory as a very remarkable man rest in peace. Our present action concerns the man Shaw. Where did you visit him in England?”

“He visited me at my house, Upton End.”

“And you did not visit him?”

“I saw him twice at the Carlton Hotel in London, and once at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.”

“And you declare that you have no knowledge of his offences?” asked the official shrewdly.

“If I had, I certainly should not have accepted his invitation to come here on a motor-tour,” was my quick reply.

“And the girl? You mean to say that you have no suspicion of her offence?”

“Her offence!” I cried. “Tell me – I beg of you to tell me! – what allegation there is against her.”

“Ah, my dear m’sieur, of that you will know soon enough,” replied the detective, again stroking his beard. “I fear that, if your ignorance of the truth is not feigned, the revelations forthcoming will – well, greatly astonish you.”

“But surely Mademoiselle is not a criminal!” I cried, staring at him in dismay.

“Wait and hear the evidence against her.”

“I will not believe it.”

“Ah! because you are enamoured of her – eh, Monsieur Kemball?” exclaimed the great detective, with a shrewd twinkle in his large brown eyes. “A man is always loath to believe that his well-beloved can do wrong. Bien! I urge you to wait and see what the revelations bring forth – to carefully weigh over the hideous story before giving further thought to her.”

“I need no advice. Monsieur,” I protested angrily. “If you make allegations, you should surely tell me their nature.”

“That is for you to discover,” he answered, with a crafty smile. “You have refused to assist me; therefore I, in turn, refuse to satisfy your curiosity.”

“You have arrested me because I happen to be on friendly terms with this man and his daughter. Therefore surely I may be told the offence alleged against them,” I protested in anger.

“The fact you have revealed – namely, that Shaw and Melvill Arnold were friends – is quite sufficient to prove what I really suspected. The man’s identity is made entirely plain, even though you refused to give me information.”

“They are my friends,” I remarked resentfully.

“Perhaps they will be so no longer when you know the actual truth concerning them,” he said, smiling grimly.

“And what is this terrible charge against them, pray?”

“Have I not already told you that you will know quite soon enough?” was the prompt reply of the renowned detective, whose name was as a household word in France; and his two companions smiled.

The telephone bell rang, and one of them took up the receiver and listened.

Then he handed it to Tramu, who, from his words, I gathered, was speaking with the commissary of police at the Gare du Lyon, in Paris, asking that an incoming train should be carefully watched.

“Thank you. Advise me as soon as it arrives,” he added, and placing the receiver down, he rang off.

Again he returned to the attack, endeavouring to discover from me where in England Shaw had hidden himself. But I was just as evasive as he was himself. I was fighting for the woman I loved. I told him vaguely that they lived in the North of England in order to mislead him, but I declared I did not know their actual place of residence.

But he only smiled incredulously, replying —

“Monsieur is enamoured of Mademoiselle. I have watched you both for two days past, and I know that you are aware of her address in England.”

This man had actually been watching us, while we had been all unconscious of espionage! Fierce anger again rose within me. I admitted to myself that I had acted foolishly in associating with a man whom I knew to be a fugitive from justice; but it certainly never occurred to me that I might be subjected to such an ordeal as that I was undergoing.

Alternatively threatening, coaxing, warning, and gesticulating, Tramu, a past-master in the art of interrogation, cross-examined me until the first rose-flush of dawn showed through the window. But he obtained nothing more from me. I told him frankly that, as he refused to give me any information, I, on my part, would remain dumb.

His annoyance was apparent. He had expected me to meekly relate all I knew, but instead he found that I could be as evasive in my answers as he was clever in putting his questions. In turn quite half a dozen police officials entered the room and regarded me with considerable curiosity, until in anger I cried —

“This action of yours, Monsieur Tramu, is disgraceful! I know this is your abominable French police system, but I demand that word of my arrest be sent to the British Consul, with whom I shall lodge complaint.”

“My dear m’sieur,” laughed the man with the tiny red button in his lapel, “that will be quite unnecessary. I think at this late hour we may now! dispense with your further presence. You are free to go;” and addressing a man in uniform, he added, “Bring in the chauffeur.”

I turned upon my heel and left the room, but as I went along the corridor I saw at the farther end Harris seated between two uniformed officers.

Surely they would obtain no information from him, for he had only been engaged for the tour, and knew nothing further of Harvey Shaw or of Asta except – ah! he might know their address at Lydford!

So I shouted along the corridor to him:

“Harris! Don’t tell them Mr Shaw’s address in England, whatever you do.”

“Right you are, sir,” he replied cheerily. “This is a funny job, ain’t it, sir? They arrested me in bed.”

“Where’s Mr Shaw?”

“Don’t know, sir. I suppose he and Miss Asta are in here somewhere,” was his reply, as they ushered him into the room where the great Tramu awaited him.

On my return to the hotel the sleepy night-porter admitted me.

No; he had seen nothing of Monsieur Shaw or of Mademoiselle.

Hastily I ascended the stairs to our suite of apartments, but they were not there. The beds had not been slept in, but their baggage had been piled up – evidently by the police, in readiness for removal and examination. The drawers and wardrobes had evidently been searched after their arrest, for the rooms were in great disorder.

In my own room, during my absence, everything had been turned topsy-turvy. The lock of my steel dispatch-box had been broken and its contents turned out upon the bed. In France, when the police make a domiciliary visit, they certainly do it most thoroughly.

Was it possible that in examining the effects of Shaw and Asta the police had ascertained the address of their hiding-place in England?

I stood in the centre of the room gazing at the heap of papers and letters upon the bed, apprehensive and bewildered.

Returning below, I induced the big Swiss night-porter to rouse the manager; and some ten minutes later the latter came to me in trousers and coat, evidently not in a very good-humour at being disturbed.

He seemed surprised to see me there, and I said with a laugh —

“I suppose you believed I had been arrested?”

“Well,” he replied, “the police took you away.”

“For interrogation only,” I replied. “But I am in search of my friends.”

“And the police are in search of them also, I believe,” he replied abruptly. “It does no good to the reputation of the hotel to have such visitors, m’sieur.”

“Then they have not been arrested!” I cried in delight.

“No. Mademoiselle, I believe, must have recognised the inspector of the Sûreté from Paris as she was coming downstairs. She rushed back and told her father, and hastily seizing her dressing-case, while he took a small bag, they both descended the service stairs and made their exit by the back premises. There was a door below which is always kept locked, but Monsieur Shaw had somehow provided himself with a key in case of emergency, for we found it in the lock. When the police, after arresting you, went upstairs to take the pair, they found they had already flown. They must have rushed down to the station and caught the Paris night express, which was due just about the time they would arrive there.”