The Great God Gold

He trusted his men, but in “Red Mullet” he had confessed himself sadly disappointed.

“Revivalists and missionaries have a lot to answer for,” was one of his pet phrases.

Jim Jannaway, slipping the notes into his pocket-book without troubling to count them, put on his smart overcoat and well-brushed silk hat, and wishing his employer an airy “good-evening,” strolled out into the damp chilliness of Berkeley Square, where he hailed a hansom and drove away.

He had given the man an address in Knightsbridge, but as the cab was turning from the misty gloom of Berkeley Street into the brightness of Piccadilly several persons were waiting at the left-hand kerb in order to cross the road.

Among them he apparently recognised somebody, for in an instant he drew back and turned his head the other way.

Next second the cab had rounded the corner and was on its way along Piccadilly. Yet he knew that he had sat there for several moments in the full glare of the electric lights in front of the Ritz Hotel, and he felt convinced that he had been recognised by the very last person in the world that he desired to encounter.

Jannaway sat there breathless, staring straight before him into the yellow mist, his eyes glaring as though an apparition had arisen before him.

He tried to laugh away his fears. After all, it must be only fancy, he reflected. Somebody bearing a strange resemblance. It could not be she! Impossible. Utterly impossible.

But if it had been she in the flesh – if she had in that instant actually recognised him! What then!

He huddled himself in the corner of the cab, coward that he was, and shuddered at the recollections that crowded through his mind.

Would he ever have entered that hansom if he had known that it would carry him into such exposure – and worse?

But from Jim Jannaway’s lips there fell a short bitter laugh. Was not his life made up by narrow “shaves?” Had not he been in hundreds of tight corners before, and with his wonderful tact and almost devilish cunning wriggled out of what would have meant ruin and imprisonment to any other man.

He had been a born adventurer, ever since his day as a stable-lad down at Newmarket, and he had the habit of laughing lightly at his own adventures, just as he was laughing now.

Would he have laughed, however, if he had but known how that chance encounter was to result?

Chapter Twenty Five

The Girl and the Man

Gwen Griffin had appointed half-past eight as the hour to meet her mysterious friend “Red Mullet” outside the “Tube” station at the corner of Queen’s Road, Bayswater.

Immediately after dinner she had slipped up to her room, exchanging her silk blouse for a stuff one, and putting on her hat and fur jacket, went out, leaving her father alone in the study. He was – as now was his habit every evening – busy making those bewildering calculations, as he tested the various numerical ciphers upon the original Hebrew text of Ezekiel.

Through the damp misty night she hurried along the Bayswater Road, until she came within the zone of electricity around the station, where she saw the tall figure of her friend, wearing a heavy overcoat and dark green felt hat, awaiting her.

“This is really a most pleasant surprise, Miss Griffin,” he cried cheerily, as he raised his hat, and took her little gloved hand. “But – well, we can’t walk about the street in order to talk, can we? Why not drive to my rooms? You’re not afraid of me now – are you?” he laughed.

“No, Mr Mullet,” was her quick answer. “I trust you, because you have already proved yourself my good friend.”

Truth to tell, however, she was not eager to go to that place where she had spent those anxious never-to-be-forgotten days, yet, as he suggested it, she could not very well refuse. One thing was quite certain, she was as safe in his hands as in her own home.

Therefore, he hailed a “taxi” from the rank across the way, and they at once drove in the direction of the Marble Arch.

Hardly, however, had they left the kerb, when a second “taxi” upon the rank, turned suddenly into the roadway and followed them. Within, lolling back and well-concealed in the darkness, sat Jim Jannaway.

A quarter of an hour later, Mullet let himself in with his latch-key, and the girl ascended those carpeted stairs she recollected so well.

In his own warm room Mullet stirred the fire until it blazed merrily, and then helping the girl off with her jacket, drew up a chair for her, taking one himself.

Her sweet innocent face, frankness of manner, and neatness of dress charmed him again, as it had when he had been forced against his will to keep her prisoner there. As he gazed across at her, he, careless adventurer that he had been for years, a man, with a dozen aliases and as many different abodes, recollected their strange ménage.

“Well,” he said with a smile, “I was really delighted to get a note from you, Miss Griffin. You said in it that you wished to consult me. What about?”

“About several things, Mr Mullet,” answered the girl, leaning her elbow upon the chair arm and looking straight in his face. “First, I am very unhappy. My position is an extremely uncomfortable one.”

“How?”

“I have kept the promise of silence I gave you, and as a consequence Frank Farquhar, the man to whom I was engaged, has left me.”

“Left you!” he echoed. “He suspects something wrong – eh?”

She nodded in the affirmative.

“That’s bad, Miss Gwen – very bad!” he said with a changed countenance. “I know well what you must suffer, poor girl. You love him – eh?”

“Very dearly.”

“And I am the cause of your estrangement,” he remarked in a low sympathetic tone.

“Ah! it was not your fault, Mr Mullet,” she cried, “I know that. Do not think that I am blaming you. The real blackguard is that red-faced man and his accomplice – the man who enticed me here on such a plausible pretext.”

“I am also to blame. Miss Gwen,” replied the big fellow with the bristly red moustache. “A deep game is being played, and, alas! I am compelled to be one of the players. It is being played against your father.”

“I know that,” she said. “I overheard Doctor Diamond telling my father how you had furnished him with a copy of that document describing the remarkable discovery of Professor Holmboe.”

“Hush!” cried Mullet quickly, glancing at the door that stood slightly ajar. “There’s nobody here, for the man who usually does for me is ill. Yet we’d better not discuss that action of mine, Miss Gwen. I only did it in order to repay in part a great service the little Doctor has rendered me. So,” he added, “the Doctor took the copy to your father?”

“Yes. He had previously, through Mr Farquhar, consulted my father regarding the half-burnt fragments in his possession. But the other day he came, bearing the full document, which they discussed for a couple of hours or more. Now, Mr Mullet,” she said, “you have been a very good and kind friend to me; therefore, I’m wondering if you would render us a further service?”

“Anything in my power I will most willingly do,” replied the blasé man, seeking permission to light his cigarette.

“I first want to know,” she exclaimed, “who is that blackguard who came here and demanded to know my father’s business?”

“He’s a person of whom you need have no concern,” was his evasive reply.

“But he possesses a copy of the statement by Professor Holmboe?”

“He does. And he has instituted an active search in which three of the greatest scholars on the Continent are assisting, in order to ascertain the key to the cipher alleged by the Russian professor to exist in the prophecy of Ezekiel.”

“But does he possess any manuscript of the Professor’s relating to the cipher?” inquired the girl, eagerly.

“Ah! that I do not know,” was his answer, “as far as I’m aware, he does not.”

“Nothing definite has yet been ascertained, I suppose?”

“Nothing actually definite,” he said. “But you can tell your father that Erich Haupt believes that at last he has struck the right line of inquiry.”

“Haupt!” she repeated. “Who is he?”

“Your father will know him as the great professor of Leipzig. He is now staying at the Waldorf Hotel.”

“But – well, Mr Mullet,” she said with some hesitation. “Pardon me for saying so, but your friends seem a very unscrupulous and remarkable lot.”

“And they are just as influential as they are unscrupulous,” he laughed. Then growing serious next moment, he added with a sigh, “Ah! Miss Gwen, if you only knew all, you’d realise how very delighted I’d be to cut myself adrift from such a rascally association.”

“Why don’t you?” she asked, looking straight into his eyes. “This business of the treasure of Israel is surely a big and lucrative one. Why don’t you leave them, and join my father, Mr Farquhar, and Doctor Diamond?”

“Well – shall I tell you the truth, Miss Griffin?” he asked, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips as he contemplated the red end of his cigarette, “Because – well, because I dare not!”

“Dare not?”

“No,” he said in a strained voice. “You see my part has not been an altogether blameless one. Need I explain more than to say that very often, for my very bread, I have to depend upon these persons who are working against your father.”

The girl sighed, a painful expression crossing her brow.

“I wish I could help you, Mr Mullet,” she said seriously. “Can’t you possibly disassociate yourself from those scoundrels?”

He shook his head sadly.

The next instant she turned towards the door exclaiming:

“Hark! What was that? I heard a noise!”

“Nothing,” he laughed. “The window of the next room is open a little, and the wind has blown the door to.”

By this, she was reassured, even though she feared that the horrid red-faced man whose name he refused to tell her, might again reappear there as her inquisitor.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that your friends, whoever they are, are dishonourable men whose bread you are compelled to eat. Surely you are in a position quite as wretched as I am?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “But do me one favour, Miss Gwen. Never breathe to a soul that I’ve handed the copy of that document to the Doctor. If they knew that, they would never forgive me.”

“I will remain silent, and I’ll tell my father also to regard your action as confidential.”

“Tell Mr Farquhar also,” he urged.

“Ah!” sighed the girl. “Unfortunately I never see him now. He always meets my father at the Royal Societies Club – in order to avoid me.”

“Then there is an actual breach between you?”

“Yes,” she replied hoarsely. “He asked me certain questions, to which I could not reply without betraying you.”

“And you risked your love for a worthless fellow like myself!”

“Well? And did you not risk your liberty for my sake?” she asked. “Did you not protect me from that blackguard who would have struck me because I refused to answer his questions?”

“Oh, that was nothing, Miss Gwen. I am thinking of you.”

“Can you – will you assist my father?” she urged. “For myself I care nothing. But for my father’s reputation – in order to enhance it, and also that through him Israel shall recover her sacred relics, I am ready to sacrifice anything. Disassociate yourself from these men, and assist us, Mr Mullet. Do.”

“That is, alas! impossible,” was his slow response. “It would mean my instant ruin. Would it not be better if I remained in the enemy’s camp? Reflect for a moment.”

“I wish you could meet my father,” she said.

“Well, if he’d really like to see me, perhaps I might call upon him.”

“He wants so much to know you. He was only saying so when we sat together last night after dinner.”

“But you know, Miss Gwen, I’m not the sort of man that he would care to associate with.”

“You have been my friend and protector, Mr Mullet, and surely that is sufficient I have always found you a gentleman – more so than many others who pose as honest men.”

“Well,” he said. “I don’t pose. I’ve told you the simple truth.”

“And I admire you for it. You once said you’d tell me all about your own little daughter.”

He was silent for a moment, and she saw she had touched a tender chord in his memory.

“I’ll tell you about little Aggie one day; not now, please, Miss Griffin.”

“Well, tell me, then, why your friends are so antagonistic towards my father?”

“For several reasons. One is that the man you don’t like – the one with the red-face – is a fierce hater of the Jewish race. His own avarice knows no bounds, and he has sworn to recover the treasure of Israel if it still exists and when recovered he will break up and melt the sacred vessels and destroy the sacred relies in order to exhibit to the Jews his malice and his power.”

“Why, it would be disgraceful to desecrate such objects – even though he is a Gentile.”

“Certainly. But your father’s known leaning towards the Jews – his friendship with certain Rabbis, and the assistance he has once or twice rendered the Jewish community in London, have aroused the ire of this man, who is now his bitterest and most unscrupulous opponent.”

“Then you can assist us, Mr Mullet – if you will.”

“I fear that is impossible – certainly not openly,” was his reply. “Personally, I would not lift a finger to help one whose fixed idea is despoliation and desecration of the sacred objects. My sympathies, my dear Miss Gwen, are entirely with you in your own unfortunate position, and with your father in his strenuous efforts to discover the key to this cipher, and afterwards place the expedition to Palestine upon a firm business basis, the most sacred treasures to be handed over to their rightful owners, the Jews.”

“Why does this man, whose name you refuse to tell me, so hate the Jews?”

“Because, in certain of his huge financial dealings, they have actually ousted him by their shrewdness combined with honesty,” he answered. “It has ever been, and still is, the accepted fashion to cast opprobrium upon the Jews. Yet, in my varied career, I have often found a Jew more honest than a Christian, and certainly he never hides dishonesty beneath a cloak of religion in which he does not believe, as do so many of your so-called Christians in the City.”

“Then you are, like my father, an admirer of the Hebrew race?” she said, rather surprised.

“I am. In them as a class I find no cant or hypocrisy, no humbug of their clerical life as we have it, alas! apparent so often in our own churches, while among the Jews themselves a helpful hand is outstretched everywhere. They settle their own quarrels in their own courts of law and they adhere strictly to their religious teaching. Of course, there are good and bad Jews, as there are good and bad Christians. But with the anti-Jewish feeling so apparent everywhere throughout Europe, I have nothing in common.”

“And because of that, Mr Mullet, you will assist us – won’t you?” she urged.

The red-haired adventurer hesitated.

Chapter Twenty Six

In which a Desperate Game is Played

“To serve you, Miss Gwen, and to return a favour to my friend the Doctor, I’ll keep you informed of what transpires on our side,” he promised at last. “I’d like to call and see your father. When’s the best time?”

“He will be pleased to see you at any time you may appoint! Why not ring me up on the telephone – if you are not able to make an appointment now?”

“Very well,” he replied, “I will.”

He saw that she wanted to ask him something, but was hesitating, as though not daring to put her question.

At last she asked:

“Mr Mullet, will you not reveal to me in confidence who it is who is thus working against us?”

“A person of highest reputation as far as financial reputation in London goes, and of enormous influence. He has at his service every power that wealth can command.”

“And is he nameless?”

“Alas! he must be,” was “Red Mullet’s” decisive answer. The truth was that he feared to tell the girl, lest her surprise might lead her to expose the secret, which must at once reflect upon herself. He was glad that she had not recognised Challas from the many photographs which so constantly appeared in the illustrated papers.

A door somewhere in the small flat clicked again, but neither took any notice of it, attributing it to the wind from the open window.

They had no suspicion of an eavesdropper who had silently entered after them with the latch-key he possessed, and had just as silently left again, and crept down the stairs.

“Miss Gwen,” exclaimed her friend a few moments later, “I would really urge you to have a care of yourself. Your enemies evidently mean mischief. You have, by a blackguardly ruse, been parted from the man you love – hence you are defenceless.”

“Except for you – my true friend.”

“I may have to leave London suddenly, while at any moment, you may, if you are not careful, fall again into the net they will, no doubt, spread and cleverly conceal. They fear your father and his friends, and from him will demand a price for you – a price for your honour, most likely.”

“What do you mean?” she cried, starting, and staring at him.

“I am compelled to speak frankly, Miss Gwen; please forgive me,” he said. “I know these men, remember. I know they will hesitate at nothing in order to gain their dastardly ends. They will compel your father to pay the price – and it will be the relinquishing of the struggle, and the leaving of it to them.”

“We will never relinquish it!” declared the girl. “But do have a care of yourself,” urged the man with the bristly moustache in deep earnestness. “If you again fall into the hands of these two men, you will not, I fear, escape without disaster.”

“I know that, alas! only too well. I owe everything to your kindness and the pity you had for me. How can I ever sufficiently repay you?”

“You are now repairing me – repaying me with all you love most dearly. Your silence has cost you your lover.”

She sighed, and hot tears rose to her splendid eyes. He was quick to notice her sudden change, and deftly turned the conversation into a different channel.

Then, when he had smoked another cigarette, chatting the while, he reminded her to tell her father of Erich Haupt, and to say that he, “Red Mullet”, would call on the following day.

At last they descended together into the street, and at the corner of Oxford Street entered into a taxi-cab in which they drove back to Notting Hill Gate station.

There he raised his hat as she descended and hurried across into Pembridge Gardens, while he gave the man directions to return to his own chambers.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, aloud, as they went along the Bayswater Road with the horn “honking.”

“The whole situation is now a terribly complicated one. To throw in my lot with the Professor and his daughter would mean a ‘stretch’ for me, without a doubt. Challas is vindictive, because I allowed her to escape from his infernal clutches. He meant to serve her the same as he did that poor young German girl! Hang me! I may be an outsider, but I’m not going to stand by and see another woman fall a victim. Now what is the best game to play in the interests of Griffin and Diamond? Stand by, watch old Erich, and if he gets hold of anything tangible, give it to them at once. That’s the only way that I can see. Yet – yet I may already be suspected of playing a double game – and if I am, it means that I’ll be given away to the police at the first opportunity. No,” he added with great bitterness, “in this game Felix Challas and Jim Jannaway hold all the cards. Money talks here, and it does always,” he sighed.

And he sat back in his cab in a deep reverie. Already he was tired of London, though he had not set foot in it for three years. He was too near Challas. When absent on the Continent, he simply obeyed orders, and led the easy-going life of the cosmopolitan concession-hunter, always well-dressed, always apparently flush of money, always merry and prosperous-looking, and always outwardly, at least, presenting the appearance of a gentleman.

Here, in London, however, he was simply the cat’s-paw of an unscrupulous parvenu who cloaked his evil doings beneath the remarkable sanctity and generous philanthropy.

“It’s a blackguardly shame that poor little Gwen, a smart little girl and yet sweet and innocent as a child, should be parted from her lover like this!” he went on, still murmuring to himself. “No doubt this man Farquhar, whoever he is, doubts her. I’d do the same if the girl to whom I was engaged ran away from home, stayed away a few days, and then on her return refused to give any account of herself. Frank Farquhar isn’t a fool, and I admire him for that. I’m to blame for the whole thing,” he added with a bitter imprecation, “because I’m a coward and fear nowadays to face the music. Yes,” he went on, “Red Mullet is in fear of his enemies! It’s no good denying it. Hitherto he’s always defied them, even at the muzzle of a gun! But recently they’ve become just one too many for him!”

He paused and lit a cigarette. Then with a sudden gesture of despair he asked himself aloud: “How can I assist the little girl to get back her lover? Frank Farquhar is a good fellow, I’ve discovered. And he’s devoted to her. How can I compel him to believe in her?”

When he entered his chambers, he flung himself again into the armchair in which Gwen had sat.

“It would be a cursed shame if ever the sacred relics of Israel fell into the hands of such a blackguardly hypocrite as Challas. What does he care for their antiquity, or their religious significance? Nothing. The gold he’d melt down and sell at its market value per ounce, while the sacred objects of the Holy of Holies he would wantonly destroy, in face of the Jews and in order to laugh them to scorn. He shan’t do that! By Heaven! he shan’t. If the treasure is still there it shall be recovered by the Doctor and Griffin. I’ll help them, and I’ll still remain little Gwen’s protector, even if it costs me my liberty to do so. Besides – ”

His fierce words of determination were interrupted by a ring at the front door bell, and he went along the small hall to open it.

Jim Jannaway, in a light overcoat and crush hat, stood upon the mat.

“By Jove, Charlie!” he cried, “I’m jolly glad you’re at home, old chap!”

“Why?” asked Mullet admitting him, and closing the door.

“Well, my dear fellow,” he said in a breathless voice. “Something ugly has happened. You’ve been given away. Somebody has recognised that you’re back in London!”

“Who?” gasped the red-haired man.

“Ah! that we don’t know yet. The ‘boss’ has just sent me round to tell you to clear out at once – this instant!”

“H’m,” remarked “Red Mullet.” “Now that’s deuced funny! Why didn’t he keep his fears to himself, and let me take the consequences – eh?”

“Why, of course he wouldn’t do that. He never lets us down – you surely know him too well for that,” remarked the other.

“And he gives me the tip to clear out!” said Charlie Mullet. “It’s really very kind and considerate of him.”

“Well, my dear fellow. You don’t seem to appreciate his kindness very much.”

“I never appreciate the solicitude of my enemies, my dear Jim,” he replied with perfect nonchalance. “It’s my failing, I suppose.”

Jannaway disregarded the sarcasm, and said:

“I was with him only half an hour ago round in Berkeley Square, and he told me to come along at once to you, and urge you to get away. He gave me these for you,” and from his pocket he produced three thousand-franc notes.

“My dear Jim, both you and Felix seem to take me for a silly mug,” laughed Red Mullet defiantly, “but you must please remember that I’ve been mug-hunting too long to be bluffed like this. The exemplary Baronet is desirous that I should leave London, and sends you, his emissary, to give me timely warning. Well, my dear boy. I want no warning,” he said, for he was now on his mettle. “I shall simply remain here. If they send anybody from Scotland Yard – well, here’s a drink for them,” and he indicated the tantalus and glasses upon a side table.

“But surely you don’t wish to remain here, and give the whole game away!” cried Jannaway, anxiously, standing in the centre of the room, his hat pushed slightly to the back of his head.

“What does it matter to me? I never move without just cause. I’m growing rather sceptical in my old age. What proof have I of this extraordinary contretemps?”