The Lost Million

“And the police are furious,” I said. “They must be.”

“They have, I believe, just missed a most important, capture.”

“What was the charge against them?” I inquired “Ah, they would not tell me,” was his reply. “They seemed to be acting with great caution and secrecy. They made a careful examination of everything, and only left about three-quarters of an hour ago.”

And with that I was compelled to remain satisfied.

Chapter Twenty Two

The Secret of Harvey Shaw

For three days I remained in Aix, awaiting some news or message from the fugitives – but none came.

Tramu called and saw me twice, evidently astounded at the channel of escape which Shaw had so cunningly prepared. He had, no doubt, obtained an impression of one of the servants’ master keys, and had one cut to fit the locked door which prevented visitors from passing out by any other way save by the front hall. He had anticipated that flight might be necessary, and the fact that he had prepared for it showed that he was both cunning and fearless.

Asta’s injunctions to me to say nothing showed plainly that they intended still to keep their hiding-place a secret. And if Shaw was the adventurer I believed, it was not likely that either he or she would carry anything by which to reveal their more respectable identity.

So at length, full of grave apprehensions, I left Aix, sickened by its music and summer gaiety, and travelled home, halting one night at the Grand in Paris, and duly arrived at the Cecil in London. There I found a batch of letters sent on to me from Upton End, and among them was a formal letter from a firm of solicitors called Napier and Norman, 129, Bedford Row, W.C., stating that they were acting for the late Mr Guy Nicholson of Titmarsh Court, and asking me to call upon them without delay.

Exercising caution lest I should be watched, I had immediately on arrival telephoned from my hotel bedroom to Lydford, but the response came back it a woman’s voice that “the master” and Miss Asta were still abroad. Therefore about noon on the morning following my return I went round to Bedford Row in a taxi, and was quickly shown into the sombre private room of an elderly, quiet-spoken man – Mr George Napier, head of the firm.

“I’m extremely glad you have called, Mr Kemball,” he said, as he leaned back in his chair. “I believe you were present at Titmarsh very soon after the unfortunate death of our client, Mr Guy Nicholson. Indeed, I remember now that we met at the inquest. Well, Mr Nicholson, with his father and grandfather! before him, entrusted his affairs in our hands, and, naturally, after his decease we searched his effects for any papers that were relative to his estate, or any private papers which should not fall into anybody’s hands. Among them we found this letter, sealed just as you see it, and addressed to you. He evidently put it aside, intending to post it in the morning, but expired in the night.”

And taking a letter from a drawer in his writing-table, he handed it across to me.

I glanced at the superscription, and saw that it was addressed ready for the post and that a stamp was already upon it.

“Poor Nicholson’s death was a most mysterious one,” I exclaimed, looking the solicitor full in the face; “I don’t believe that he died from natural causes.”

“Well, I fear we cannot get away from the medical evidence,” replied the matter-of-fact, grey-faced man, peering through his spectacles. “Of course the locked door was a most curious circumstance – yet it may be accounted for by one of the servants, in passing before retiring, turning the key. Or, as you suggested at the inquest, the servant who entered the library in the morning may have thought the door was locked. It might have caught somehow, as locks sometimes do.”

I shook my head dubiously, and with eager fingers tore open the message from the dead.

From its date, it had evidently been written only a few hours prior to his untimely end, and it read —

“Strictly Private.

“Dear Mr Kemball, – I fear, owing to the fact that I have promised Asta to take her motoring on Sunday, that I may not be able to keep my appointment with you. Since my confidential conversation with you, I have watched and discovered certain things at Lydford which cause me the keenest apprehension. Shaw is not what he pretends to be, and many of his movements are most mysterious. By dint of constant watching both while I have been guest there and also by night when they have believed me to be safely at home, I have ascertained several very remarkable facts.

“First. In secret and unknown to any – even to his gardeners – he sets clever traps for small birds, which he visits periodically at night, and takes away the unfortunate creatures he finds therein.

“Secondly. He is in the habit of going forth in the night and walking through Woldon Woods to a spot close to Geddington village, at the corner of the road from Newton, and there meeting a middle-aged man who frequently stops at the inn. Once I followed them and overheard some of their conversation. They were planning something, but what I could not make out. However, I feel sure that they both discovered my presence, and hence he seems in fear of me and annoyed whenever I visit Lydford.

“Thirdly. In his bedroom there is a cupboard beside the fireplace. The door is enamelled white, and at first is not distinguishable from the rest of the panelling. Examine it, and you will see that it is secured by two of the most expensive and complicated of modern locks. What does that cupboard contain? The contents are not plate or valuables, for there is a large fireproof safe downstairs. Some mystery lies there.

“Fourthly. Though he makes most clever pretences of devotion to Asta, he hates her. Poor girl, she loves him, and cannot see those black, covert looks he so often gives her when her back is turned. But I have seen them, and I know – at least, I have guessed – the reason.

“Fifthly. If you are a frequent guest there, you will hear him sometimes utter a strange shrill whistle for no apparent purpose, as though he does it quite unknowingly. But it is with a purpose. What purpose?

“I feel that Asta is in danger, and it is therefore my duty to protect her and elucidate the mystery of the strange conspiracy which I feel convinced is now in progress. It is to discuss these matters, and to combine to keep vigilant watch, that I am anxious to spend a few hours with you. Think carefully over these five points, and if I am unable to come on Sunday I will motor over on Monday about eleven in the morning.

“Meanwhile be careful not to show that you either know or suspect anything. I know Shaw suspects me, and therefore by some means I must remove his suspicions.

“That, however, will be a matter for us to discuss seriously when we meet.

“Asta has told me of a strange and extremely weird incident which occurred to her one night a little while ago in the house of a friend – the apparition of a black shadowy hand. I believe I have the solution of the mystery – a most remarkable and terrible one.

“I ask your assistance in this affair, and am eager to meet you to discuss it fully. Kindly destroy this letter. – Yours very sincerely, – “Guy Nicholson.”

I sat dumbfounded. It was just as I had believed. The man struck down so suddenly had discovered the actual truth! He had watched in patience and learned some strange and startling facts.

The reference to the hand filled my mind with the hideous recollection of what I had seen in that roadside inn at Arnay-le-Duc – and of Arnold’s strange warning. Who was Harford – the name I was to remember. Asta had told her lover of her own experience, and he had solved the mystery!

Yet he had not been spared to reveal it to me. His lips had been closed by death. The name of Harford was still unknown to me.

How long I sat there staring at the closely written letter in my hand I know not. But I was awakened to a consciousness of where I was by Mr Napier’s quiet voice exclaiming —

“I see that my late client’s letter has made a great impression upon you, Mr Kemball. I presume it is of a purely private character, eh?”

“Purely private,” I managed to reply. “It does not concern his affairs in any way whatsoever, and it is marked ‘strictly private.’”

“Oh, very well. I, of course, have no wish whatever to inquire into your private affairs with my dead client,” replied the solicitor. “I believed that it might contain something important, and for that reason hesitated to send it through the post.”

“Yes,” I said meaningly, “it does contain something important – very important, Mr Napier. Had this been placed in my hand in time, my poor friend’s life might have been saved.”

“What do you mean?” he asked quickly, staring at me across the table. “Have you evidence – evidence of foul play?”

“No evidence, but I find a distinct motive.”

“Anything upon which we could work in order to bring the culprit to justice – if Mr Nicholson did not really die a natural death?”

“I tell you he did not!” I cried angrily. “The village jury were impressed by the medical evidence, as all rustic juries are. Your client, Mr Napier, discovered another man’s secret, and the latter took steps to close his lips.”

“But can you prove this? Can you name the man?”

“Yes,” I said, “I can name the man. And one day I shall prove it.”

“You can! Why not place the matter in the hands of the police, together with what is revealed in that letter?” he suggested. “Allow me to act.”

“I shall act myself. At present it is not a matter for the police. Certain facts have come to my knowledge which, if told at Scotland Yard, would not be believed. Therefore at present I intend to keep my knowledge strictly to myself,” and replacing the dead man’s message in its envelope, I put it safely into my breast-pocket, and, taking leave of the solicitor, was soon in my taxi whirling along Holborn.

Why had Nicholson suspected that Shaw’s affection for his foster-daughter was only feigned? Why did he allege that Shaw hated her? Why was he in such mortal terror lest some evil should befall her?

Perhaps, after all, in watching so closely he had, as is so easy, discovered certain circumstances and misjudged them, for certainly as far as I could see Shaw was entirely devoted to the girl who had been his constant companion ever since her childhood days. Nevertheless, that strange letter, penned by the man whose intention it had been to reveal to me the secret of the weird shadow of the night, had caused me to determine to continue the vigil which had been so abruptly ended.

I, too, would watch closely as soon as I learnt of their hiding-place, as closely as the dead man had done. If Asta were in actual peril, then I would stand as her protector in place of the upright, honest young fellow who, it seemed, had lost his life in the attempt.

But the days, nay weeks, went on. September ended and October came with rain and chilly wind, and though I returned to Upton End, and frequently made inquiry over the telephone to Lydford, yet, though I wrote to Davis at the Poste Restante at Charing Cross, I could learn no news of them. They had descended those back stairs of the hotel at Aix, and disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed them up.

One day in the middle of October, with sudden resolve to carry out Nicholson’s injunction to investigate, I drove over to Lydford, and on arrival, about noon, found all smart and well-kept as though its owner were in residence.

I told a rather lame story to the housekeeper, who, knowing me, came to me in the long, chintz-covered drawing-room, the blinds of which were down. She had not heard from her master for a month past, the pleasant-faced woman explained. He was then in Aix. I said that I had left him there and returned to England, and was now anxious to discover where he was.

Then, after a brief chat, I exhibited my left forefinger enveloped in an old glove, and told her that on my way I had some engine-trouble and had hurt my finger.

“I believe Mr Shaw keeps up in his room a small medicine chest,” I said, for I recollected that he once told me that he kept one there. “I wonder if I might go up and try and find a piece of bandage.”

“Certainly,” replied Mrs Howard, and she led me upstairs to the apartment over the drawing-room, which I had come to Lydford for the purpose of examining. It was a large, airy, and well-furnished room, with a big book-case at one end and a canary in a cage at the window.

Without much difficulty she discovered the small black japanned box, containing various surgical drugs and bandages, and I at once sent her down to obtain a small bowl of warm water.

Then, the instant she had gone, I sought for the cupboard indicated by the dead man’s letter.

Yes, it was there, a long, narrow cupboard beside the fireplace, secured by two large locks of a complicated character such as one finds on safe or strongroom doors.

I bent and examined them thoroughly.

The bed, I noticed, was set so that the eyes of any one lying in it would be upon that door.

What secret could be concealed there? What had the dead man suspected? Ay, what indeed?

Chapter Twenty Three

“A Foreigner.”

I remained a long time attending to my damaged finger – which in reality had been injured a week before – at the same time thoroughly investigating the missing man’s apartment. Except for the cupboard, secured so mysteriously by those combination locks, there was nothing extraordinary about it. The outlook was pleasant across the wide undulating park, and the chairs with soft cushions and couch showed plainly that Harvey Shaw loved to take his ease.

In no hurry to depart, I chatted affably to Mrs Howard, wandering about the big, old-fashioned home, into regions I had never been before.

“Poor Mr Nicholson used to stay here sometimes, didn’t he?” I inquired presently, in a casual way.

“Oh yes, sir, the master used to delight in having the poor young gentleman here, sir. He used to have the blue room, nearly opposite Mr Shaw’s – the one which looks out over the front drive. Poor Mr Nicholson! We all liked him so much. Wasn’t it sad, sir?”

“Very sad, indeed,” I said. “The blow must nearly have broken Miss Asta’s heart.”

“Ah! It did, sir. At first I thought the poor child would have gone out of her mind. She was so devoted to him. Mr Shaw was also very fond of him, I know, for I once heard him say that he was the only man he would choose as Miss Asta’s husband.”

“When did he say that?”

“He was sitting in the smoking-room with a friend of his – one of the justices – Sir Gilbert Campbell, one evening after dinner, about a fortnight before the poor young gentleman died. I happened to be; passing and overheard his words.”

I pondered for a moment. Either Shaw was a past-master in the art of preparing a coup, or else Guy’s surmises were wrong. Here, in the intimacy of the family, it was declared that Shaw was devoted to Asta. Certainly my own observations went to confirm that supposition.

“I wonder who knows Mr Shaw’s whereabouts?” I said presently. “I want to communicate with him upon a very important matter.”

“Well, sir, it’s very funny that he hasn’t written to me. He’s never been silent so long before.”

“How long have you been with him?”

“Oh, about three years now, sir.”

Then together we descended the broad oak staircase, and I went forth into the beautiful gardens chatting with the old white-bearded head-gardener, and going through the grape and peach houses, all of which were most perfectly kept.

How strange, I reflected; what would this large staff of superior servants think if they knew the truth – that their master, a man of mystery, was a fugitive from justice – that he and Asta had crept down the back stairs of an hotel and disappeared into the night while the police had entered from the front.

As I drove back in the evening through those autumn-tinted lanes, with smiling meadows everywhere, I calmly reviewed the situation. After all, there was really no actually mysterious fact in Harvey Shaw having in his bedroom a cupboard so securely locked. He, upon his own admission, led a double life, therefore it was only to be supposed that he possessed a good many papers, even articles of clothing, perhaps, which he was compelled to hide from the prying eyes of his servants.

I recalled the whole of Guy’s letter, and found that the chief point was the fact that he had solved the weird mystery of that strange hand – that shadowy Something which I myself had witnessed, and against which I had been warned by Arnold.

What was it?

But I put aside the puzzle. My chief thought was of Asta. Where could she be? Why had she not sent me word in secret of her hiding-place? She had, by tacit agreement, accepted me as her friend, hence I was disappointed at receiving no word from her.

That night, after reading my London paper over a cigar, as was my habit, I left the library about eleven o’clock and retired to my room.

I must have been sound asleep when, of a sudden, the electrical alarm which my father years ago had had placed upon the door of the big safe in the library for greater security went off with a tremendous clatter, and I jumped up, startled.

Taking my revolver from a drawer in the dressing-table, I rang the bell in the servants’ quarters and switched on my electric hand-lamp. But already the household was alarmed, and the dogs were barking furiously at the intruders, whoever they were.

Accompanied by my man Adams, I descended the front stairs and, revolver in hand, entered the library, the window of which stood open, while below the safe door there lay upon the carpet a cheap bull’s-eye lantern with two cylinders containing gas and some other paraphernalia, showing that the thieves were men of scientific method, for their intention had, I saw, been to use the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe. The heads of some of the rivets had been removed and a small hole drilled through the chilled steel three-quarters of an inch thick.

All had gone well until they had touched the handle of the safe door, which had set off the alarm, the existence of which they had never suspected. Then their only safety lay in flight, and they had escaped, leaving behind them the objects I have enumerated.

Adams telephoned for the police, while Tucker came up from the Lodge, and I let loose the dogs and went outside into the drive. But, unfortunately, the thieves were already safely away, and were not likely to be caught, for in response to the telephonic message I was told that the rural constable was out on his beat, and was not expected back for another couple of hours.

We three men, with several of the maid-servants, stood outside on the lawn discussing the affair with bated breath in the dead stillness of the night when, of a sudden, we distinctly heard in the far distance down in the valley beyond the King’s Wood the starting of a motor-car and the gradual faintness of the sound as it receded along the high road.

“There they go!” I cried. “They came in a car, and it was awaiting them at the foot of the hill near the Three Oaks crossways.”

Then I rushed to the telephone instrument and spoke to the police-sergeant on duty in Newport Pagnell, asking him to stop any car approaching from my house, informing him what had occurred.

But half an hour later he rang up to tell me that no car had entered the town from any direction; therefore it was apparent that in preference to passing through Newport Pagnell it had been turned into one of the side roads and taken a cross-country route to some unknown destination.

I said nothing, but to me it was quite apparent that the object of the attempt upon my safe was the mysterious bronze cylinder, which I held in trust from Melvill Arnold.

When alone in the room I opened the safe with my key, and to my satisfaction saw the battered ancient object still reposing there, together with the letters and the translation of the hieroglyphics.

Once again I took out the heavy cylinder, the greatest treasure of the strange old fellow who had deliberately destroyed a fortune, and held it in my hand filled with wonder and bewilderment. What could it contain that would astonish the world? Surely nothing nowadays astonishes this matter-of-fact world of ours. We have become used to the demonstrations of wonders, from the use of steam to the development of aviation, the telephonic discovery and the application of wireless telegraphy.

How I longed to call in a blacksmith, cut through the metal, and ascertain what was therein contained. But I did not dare. I held the thing in trust for some unknown person who, on Thursday, the third day of November, would come to me and demand its possession.

All that I had been told of the misfortunes which had fallen upon its possessor, and the mysterious fate which would overtake any who attempted to tamper with it, flashed through my brain. Indeed, in such train did my thoughts run that I began to wonder if possession of the thing had any connection with the appearance of that mysterious hand.

Presently, however, I put the cylinder back into its place and relocked the safe, for the police from Newport Pagnell had arrived, and I bade them enter.

They made a minute examination of the room and took possession of the objects left behind by the intruders, but upon them no finger-prints could be found. My visitors were evidently expert thieves, for they had worn gloves. And they had, no doubt, been in the house a full hour before they had tried the safe handle and unconsciously set off the alarm.

Had they applied the powerful jet to the steel door, and fused a hole through it, then they might have accomplished their object without disarranging the alarm at all.

Next day, however, packing the cylinder, the old newspaper, and the letters in the bag, I took them up to London, where I placed them in a box in the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults in Chancery Lane. Afterwards I lunched at my club and returned again to Upton End the same evening.

Suddenly it occurred to me while I sat alone eating my dinner that night that if Harvey Shaw and Mrs Olliffe were actually friends then the latter would probably be aware of his whereabouts.

The suggestion aroused me to activity, and it being a fine bright evening with the prospect of a full moon later, I got out my thick motor-coat, packed a small bag, and after tuning up the car set out on the long run towards Bath.

My way lay through Fenny Stratford and Bicester, through Oxford, and down to Newbury. When I passed the Jubilee clock in the latter town it was a quarter-past two, while in the broad street of Marlborough, eighteen miles farther on, I stopped to examine the near tyre. It had, as I expected, a puncture. Therefore I leisurely put on my Stepney, and with thirty odd miles before me drove out upon the old highway over the hill through Calne, and up Black Dog Hill, to Chippenham, where in the market-place stood a constable, with whom I exchanged greetings.

There is a certain weird charm in motoring at night, when every town and village is dark and in slumber. Yet it is surprising how many people are out at an early hour. Even ere the first flush of dawn one finds sturdy men going to work with their day’s food in the bag upon their backs and teams of horses being driven to the fields.

It was nearly half-past five when I sped down the steep incline of Box Hill, and, slipping through Box Village and Batheaston, found myself winding round that leafy road with the city of Bath lying picturesquely below.

At six I was once again at the York House Hotel, and after a wash went for an early-morning stroll in the town. Then, after breakfast, I took my hat and stick and strolled out for nearly three miles along the road to the inn at Kelston, where I called for a glass of ale, and sat down to chat with the white-bearded landlord, who at once recognised me as having been a customer on a previous occasion.

For a long time, as I sat in the cosy little parlour, the table of which was dark and polished with the ale of generations spilt upon it, we chatted about the weather, the prospects of harvest, and the latest iniquity of taxation, until in a careless way I remarked —

“I suppose in summer you have lots of visitors down from London. – I mean the people who have big houses about here entertain a lot?”

“Oh, I dunno!” replied the old fellow, sipping his glass which he was taking with me. “The Joiceys do have a lot o’ visitors, and so do the Strongs, but Mrs Olliffe’s been away, an’ has only just come back.”