The Mysterious Three

The problem now was, what to do next. My name, Richard Ashton, had become a sort of butt. Everybody knew it, had seen it in print twenty times during the past week. Mentioned by the comedian in a music-hall, it at once created laughter. I laughed myself – not uproariously, I admit – when a comedian at the Alhambra compared me to an albatross, thereby causing the entire audience to shake with merriment, and a stranger to turn to me with the remark —

“Richard Ashton! What a Nut, eh?”

Now the vulgar term “Nut” was in its infancy then, and new to me. I pawed the air in a vain endeavour to grasp the point of comparing me first to an albatross, and then to a nut. Nuts don’t grow on ash trees, or I might have thought the “ash” of “Ashton” bore some kind of relationship to a nut. Finally I gave it up, convinced that I must be deficient in a sense of humour.

Meanwhile, my beloved had disappeared. To my chagrin I ascertained at the hotel at Hampstead that a man had called on the day following my arrest, and that she had gone away with him, taking all her luggage.

A description of the man failed to help me to identify him. From it I decided, however, that it was not Sir Charles who had called for Vera, nor yet the mysterious Smithson. My natural inference, therefore, was that the fellow Paulton had discovered her hiding-place, and compelled her to go away with him.

I tried hard to put into practice my theory that it is useless to worry about anything, and for some days I remained passive, watching, however, the advertisement columns in the principal daily newspapers, for during our evening at the hotel, Vera had incidentally remarked that she had, while at Brighton, advertised for a bracelet she had lost, and by that means recovered it. I advertised for news of her. But there was no response.

On the Sunday, having nothing particular to do, I looked in during the afternoon at one of my usual haunts, Tattersall’s sale yard. I thought it probable I should there run across somebody or other I knew, and I was not mistaken. At the entrance I overtook a little man whose figure I could not mistake. The little sporting parson from a village outside Oakham was a great friend of mine, and he had told me that, whenever in town for a week-end he invariably went to Tattersall’s on the Sunday afternoon to see what horses were to be sold there next day.

“Not that I can afford to buy a horse, oh dear no!” I remembered him saying to me in the drawing-room at Houghton. “You know what parson’s families are. Mine is no exception to the rule!”

I had upbraided him for his lack of forethought, and he had chuckled, adding seriously that in his opinion the falling birth rate spelt the downfall of the Nation, a point upon which I had differed from him more than once.

“Hullo, Rowan!” I exclaimed, as I overtook him, and quietly slipped my arm into his from behind, making him start. “I see you spoke the truth that day.”

He was frankly delighted to see me. I knew he would be, for he is one of the few Rutlanders I have met who are wholly devoid of what some Americans term “frills.” I believe that if I were in rags and carrying a sandwich-board and I met little Rowan in the streets of London to-morrow, he would come up to me and grasp me by the hand. There are not many men of whom one can say that. I don’t suppose more than ten per cent, of my acquaintances, if as many, would look at me again if next week I became a pauper.

“What truth, and when?” he asked, in answer to my remark.

“Don’t you remember telling me,” I said, “I believe it was the last time we hunted together, that when in London you always do two things? You said: ‘I always attend service on Sunday morning, and Tattersall’s on Sunday afternoon.’ How is the old cob?”

“Getting old, Dick, getting old, like his master,” Rowan said with a touch of pathos. “I hear the Hunt talk of buying me another mount. It is good of them; very good. I am not supposed to know, of course.”

“And so you have come to find something up to your weight, eh?” I went on. He does not, I suppose, ride more than eight stone twelve in his hunting kit. He is the wiriest little man I have ever seen.

“No,” he answered. “I have come to have a last look at Sir Charles Thorold’s stud. It comes under the hammer to-morrow, as, of course, you know.”

“Thorold’s horses to be sold!” I exclaimed. “I had no idea. Then he has said good-bye to Rutland for good and all. I am sorry.”

“So am I, very. He is a man I have always liked. Naturally his name is in rather bad odour in the county just at present, but that does not in the least affect my own regard for him.”

“It wouldn’t,” I said to him. “You are not that sort, Rowan. It is a pity there are not more like you about.”

He changed the subject by asking if I had seen Sir Charles and Lady Thorold lately.

“I have not seen Lady Thorold since the Houghton affair,” I answered. “I have seen Sir Charles, but not to speak to.”

I recollected how I had caught a glimpse of him in that house in Belgrave Street.

“You have heard the latest about Miss Thorold, of course?” he said, as we passed into the Yard, which at this hour – about four o’clock – was crowded with well-dressed men and women.

“The latest? What do you mean?”

“Dear me,” he exclaimed, smiling. “Why, we country cousins know more than you men about town after all, sometimes. She’s at Monte Carlo.”

“At Monte? Vera Thorold!”

“Yes.”

“What is she doing there? Who is with her?”

“I don’t know who’s with her, or if any one is with her. She is pretty independent, as you know, and well able to take care of herself – a typical twentieth century girl.”

“But who told you she was at Monte?”

“Several people. Ah! there’s Lord Logan! He’ll tell us. He was speaking of her yesterday. He returned from the Riviera only a couple of days ago.”

Chapter Twelve

Gossip from the Sunshine

“Oh, yes, that’s right enough,” Lord Logan said, when we questioned him. “I saw her the night before I left. She was playing trente-et-quarante – and winning a bit, too, by Gad!”

He was an ordinary type of the modern young peer – well-set-up, unemotional, faultlessly groomed. He produced a gold cigarette case as he spoke, and held it out to me. I noticed that the cigarettes it contained bore his coat of arms.

“These cigarettes are not likely to be stolen from you,” I said lightly, indicating the coat of arms.

He smiled.

“You are right. I was the first to start the fashion – get ’em from Cairo every week – and now everybody’s doin’ it, haw, haw! I’ve got my cartridges done the same way. At some places where one shoots the beater fellers rob one right and left – the devils. I said to one of my hosts the other day, I said: ‘Your cartridge carriers are a lot of bally rogues.’ ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, bristlin’ up like a well-bred bull-dog. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you make ’em all turn out their pockets, and you’ll see,’ I said. And he did!”

“And what was in them?”

“In them? Damme, what wasn’t in them? My dear feller, every beater who had carried cartridges had a dozen or two cartridges in his pockets then – it’s a fact. And we’d done shootin’, and the beaters were goin’ home, so they couldn’t pretend they were just carryin’ the bally cartridges in their pockets to have ’em handy. But there wasn’t a cartridge of mine missing among the lot. They knew only too well they wouldn’t be able to sell to the local ironmonger cartridges with a coat of arms on ’em – eh what? And that’s why I now have my cigarettes tattooed in the same way. I believe my servants used to rob them by the hundred. They don’t now, except perhaps a handful to smoke themselves, and of course that’s only natural. What was it you were askin’ me just now? Ah, yes, about Vera Thorold. She seems to be a flyer.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“Oh, yes, I talked to her right enough. She did look well. Simply lovely. White cloth frock, you know. She’s all alone at Monte, stayin’ at the Anglais.”

“Did she say how long she’d be there?”

“No. I didn’t ask her. She was winnin’ the night I saw her. I never saw such devil’s luck – never. I lost over a thousand on the week, so I thought it time to pay my hotel bill – what?”

The three of us made the tour of Tattersall’s together, admiring, criticising, fault-finding. Among Thorold’s horses was the mare I had ridden on that last day I had been at Houghton. What a long time ago that seemed! I felt tempted to make a bid for her next day, she had carried me so well.

Then I thought again of my well-beloved. What an extraordinary girl she was! Ah! how I loved her. Why had she not told me that she meant to go to the Riviera? Why —

An idea flashed in upon me. I was getting bored with the mad hurry of London. This would be a good excuse for running out to the Côte d’Azur. Indeed, my chief reason for remaining in town had been that I believed Vera to be there still, either in hiding for some reason of her own, or, what I had thought far more likely, forced against her will by that blackguard Paulton to remain in concealment and keep me in ignorance of her whereabouts.

Instead of that she was “on her own” – how I hate that slang phrase – at Monte Carlo ‘winnin’ a fortune,’ as Lord Logan had put it.

“A strange world, my masters!” Never were truer words spoken. The longer I live the more I realise its strangeness. When I arrived at Monte Carlo by the day rapide from Paris, rain was pelting down in torrents, and a fierce storm was raging. Wind shrieked along the streets. Out at sea, lightning flashed in the bay, while the thunder rattled like artillery fire. I was glad to find myself in the warm, brilliantly-lit Hotel de Paris, and when, after dinner, I strolled into the fumoir, it was so crowded that I had difficulty in finding any place to sit.

Among the group of men close to whom I presently found myself, conversation had turned upon the pigeon-shooting at Monte. From their remarks I gathered that an important event had been decided that day, the Prix de – I forget what, but the prize appeared to be a much coveted cup, with a considerable sum in added money. This had been won, it seemed, by a Belgian Count, who had killed twenty-seven pigeons without a miss.

“Mais c’est épatant – vraiment épatant!” declared an excitable little Frenchman, as he pulled forward his chair. He went on to explain, with great volubility and much gesticulation, the difficulties that some of the shots had presented. This Frenchman, I gathered further, had backed the Belgian Count every time from his first shot to the last, and had in consequence won a lot of money.

Time was when trap-shooting appealed to me. I have shot pigeons at Monte, at Ostend, and here in England at Hurlingham at the Gun Club, also at Hendon, but it has always struck me as being a cold-blooded form of amusement – its warmest supporters can hardly call it sport. Not that there is more cruelty connected with pigeon-shooting than with game-shooting, as some would have us believe. Indeed, I have always contended that trap-shooting is less cruel than game-shooting, for pigeon-shooters are one and all first-rate shots – if they were not they would lose heavily and soon give up the game – with the result that the greater proportion of the birds shot at are killed outright, a thing that cannot be said of game, where one’s tailor sometimes takes out a licence.

But why is it, I wonder, that pigeon-shooters, considered collectively, are such dreadful-looking men? I have often wondered, and I am by no means the only man who has noticed this feature of pigeon-shooters. Glancing carelessly at the crowd seated near me now, it struck me forcibly that I had rarely set eyes on such a dissipated-looking set. Men of middle age, most of them, obese, fat-faced, with puffy eyes and sagging skin, they looked capable of any villainy, and might well have been addicted to every known vice.

One man in particular arrested my attention. His age was difficult to place. Lying, rather than sitting, back in a softly-padded leather chair, with crossed legs, and with one arm hanging loosely over the arm of the chair, he talked in a singularly ugly voice between his yellow teeth, which clenched a long cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth.

“Another twist, and he would have cleared the boundary,” he was saying to his companion, a good-looking English lad of five-or-six-and-twenty. “The second barrel cut him to pieces; it’s extraordinary what a lot of shot a blue-rock can carry away. How did you come out on the day?”

“Badly – shocking,” answered the young man. “I backed the guns to start with, and you know how badly the whole lot of you shot. Then I started backing the bird, and you began to kill every time. My luck was out to-day – dead out.”

I saw his friend smile.

“Dago was the one lucky man this afternoon, I should say,” the first speaker remarked presently. “But there – he’s always lucky.”

Instantly my interest was aroused. “Dago!” Could it be – surely – ?

“Yes, he’s lucky enough,” the other answered. Then, after a pause he added: “That’s a man I can’t stand.”

“Can’t stand? Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The fellow gets on my nerves. How does he live? Have you any idea?”

“You mean, what is his source of income? I’m sure I can’t tell you. But for that matter, how do half the men we meet here at Monte manage to live? It would not be well to ask. They have money, and that is the main thing. All we require is to transfer to our own pockets as much of it as we can.”

The young man looked at him thoughtfully for some moments, then said —

“Yes, I suppose so.”

The tone in which he spoke was ironical, but his companion didn’t notice it.

“Do you know Paulton well?” the elder man asked himself.

“As well as I care to. Why do you ask?”

“Only just out of curiosity. Many people form an unfavourable impression of him when they meet him first, and afterwards they come to like him.”

“That’s the reverse of my case,” answered the young man quickly. “The first time I met him I rather liked him, I remember. But after I had met him several times – well, I changed about him. He may be all right! I dare say he is. I suppose our personalities are not akin, as I have heard some one put it.”

“He’s a fine shot.”

“You are right. He is. I thought he would win the cup to-day.”

“The bird that knocked him out was badly hit. If he had killed it, he would have won second money.”

The young Englishman lay back, stretched himself, and yawned. “I’m getting fed up with this place,” he said at last. “I shall get back to England in a day or two. How long shall you remain here?”

“It depends – partly on Dago. We’re running a sort of syndicate together, you know – or probably you don’t know. He has to see one or two men here about it before we leave.”

“What sort of syndicate?”

“I am afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you – yet. I can tell you this – though, we have a lady interested in it, a very pretty girl. That ought to appeal to you,” and he laughed.

“Have I seen her?” the young man asked, looking at him curiously.

His companion pondered. Then suddenly he exclaimed —

“Why, yes – of course you have. She was playing trente-et-quarante the other night, and nothing could stop her winning. She won a maximum and went on and on, simply raking in the money. You and I were there together. I am sure you must remember.”

“That girl!”

The tone in which he uttered these words surprised me. Could it be Vera of whom they had been speaking? According to Lord Logan she had won heavily at trente-et-quarante. And if so, who was this man, this partner and friend of Dago Paulton’s? And what could the secret syndicate be in which both were interested?

I had my back to the door, and the middle-aged man who spoke between his teeth and was lying back in the lounge chair was almost facing me. Suddenly, a look of recognition came into his eyes – he had seen some one behind me enter, whom he knew.

“Ah, here is good old Dago,” he exclaimed. He held up his hand and signalled to him.

I had fitted a cigarette into my holder, struck a match, and lit up slowly, while I composed my thoughts. Now I half-turned to gaze upon this man of whom I had heard so much, and was now to see for the first time.

Chapter Thirteen

In the Web

I held my breath.

I should have recognised him at once from the panel portrait, though he looked some years older than when that photograph had been taken.

Of medium height, and rather broadly built, he had all the appearance of a gentleman. His hair was very short, with dark grey, rather deep-set eyes, and thick dark eyebrows. The hair was parted in the middle, and plastered down, but he was not in evening clothes, as were the men to whose conversation I had been listening.

He shook hands cordially with his friend, nodded to the good-looking young man, and called to the waiter to bring him a chair, those near by being all occupied. While waiting for the chair to be brought, he suddenly caught sight of me, evidently in recognition, for he turned quickly and spoke in a low tone to his friend, who at once glanced in my direction.

All this! “felt” rather than saw, for I was not looking directly at the two men.

Where had Paulton seen me before? That was the first thought that occurred to me, and of course I could not answer it. I had no recollection of having ever seen him previously. Suddenly, he crossed over to me.

“Mr Richard Ashton, I think?” he said in a genial tone, and with a smile.

“Yes,” I answered rather stiffly, none too pleased at his addressing me. I certainly had no wish to know him.

“My name’s Paulton,” he said, ignoring my coldness. “I’ve seen you before. You were pointed out to me one night at the Savoy. I want to introduce my friend. Henderson, let me present you to Mr Richard Ashton. Mr Ashton – Mr Henderson.”

It was done before I could say anything – before I could avoid it. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to pretend to appear pleased.

He asked me what I would drink, and I had to say something – though I hated drinking with the fellow. Put yourself in my place – drinking with a man who had tried in cold blood to kill me, and who had shot an innocent man dead! I felt it had been weak of me not to ignore his greeting and meet his look of recognition with a stony stare. But regret for a mistake was useless now. I had made a false step when I spoke to him, and I couldn’t suddenly, apparently for no reason, turn my back upon him.

A sudden terrific gust of wind shook the heavy windows, and a sheet of rain splashed against the panes like a great wave, distracting, for the moment, every one’s attention. A storm on the Riviera is always heavy and blustering.

“I have just come in,” Paulton said. “In all my life I don’t recollect such an awful storm as this, except once in the Jura, when I was out boar-shooting. How fortunate it didn’t start while the pigeon-shooting was on to-day.”

He turned to me suddenly.

“By the way, Ashton,” he said familiarly, “we have a mutual friend, I think.”

“Indeed?” I answered drily. “Who is that?”

“Sir Charles Thorold’s daughter, Miss Vera.”

I was astonished at this effrontery – so astounded that my surprise outweighed my feeling of indignation at the tone of familiarity in which he spoke of Vera. He might have been referring to some barmaid we both knew.

I think he detected my annoyance, but he said nothing. After a pause I replied, keeping myself in check —

“Is Miss Thorold a friend of yours?”

“A friend of mine? Rather. I should say so!”

He glanced across at Henderson, and they both smiled significantly. This was intolerable.

“I do know Miss Thorold,” I remarked, emphasising the “Miss Thorold,” “but I don’t remember that she has ever mentioned your name to me.”

“No, probably she wouldn’t mention it. Vera is discreet, if she is nothing else.”

The impertinence of this reply was so obvious, so pointed, that I knew it must have been intentional.

“Really, I don’t follow you,” I said icily. “What, pray, has Miss Thorold to say to you, and what have you to say to her?”

“Oh, a very great deal, I can assure you.”

“Indeed? How intensely interesting!”

“It is, very. Her flight from Houghton that night must have astonished you.”

I could bear the fellow’s company no longer. Emptying my tumbler, I rose with deliberation, and, excusing myself with frigid politeness, strode out of the fumoir.

In the vestibule I met the good-looking young Englishman. He had left the room soon after Paulton had entered. Now he came up and spoke to me.

“I hope you’ll forgive my addressing you,” he said in well-bred accents, raising his hat, “but I heard your name mentioned when Paulton introduced Henderson to you. May I ask if you are the Mr Richard Ashton?”

“It depends what you mean by ‘the’ Richard Ashton,” I answered. This young man attracted me; he had done so from the first.

“Do you happen to live in King Street, St. James’s?” he inquired abruptly.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then you’re the man I have for weeks past been wanting to meet. I believe you know Miss Thorold – Miss Vera Thorold.”

“I do.”

“She wants particularly to see you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me, or rather a friend of hers – to whom I am engaged to be married – did. They are together at the Alexandra Hotel, in Mentone. My friend is staying there with an aunt of mine.”

“Surely if Miss Thorold wished to meet me she could have written to me, or telegraphed,” I said rather frigidly.

“No. I think I ought to tell you that the man who introduced himself to you some minutes ago – the man Dago Paulton – has entire control over her – she goes in fear of him! She did not dare write to you, or even send you a wire. She knew that if she did he would find out. The lady to whom I am engaged told me this some days ago, and told me a great deal about you that had been told to her by Miss Thorold.”

“Do you mind telling me your name?” I said, looking at him squarely.

“Faulkner – Frank Faulkner. Paulton is a man of whom you ought to be very careful. He is really a scoundrel, that I don’t mind telling you. I have just been told by a man who really knows, that he has forced Miss Thorold to take an active interest in a rascally scheme of some kind that he and Henderson have devised. I am told by my lady friend – her name is Gladys Deroxe – that Miss Thorold tried her utmost to have nothing to do with it, but Paulton threatened to reveal something he knows concerning her father, so in the end she consented. Paulton has no longer a card for the Rooms; he was shut out last year for some reason, and he has lately been compelling Miss Thorold to go and play there in his place. Her luck at trente-et-quarante has been phenomenal, but all the money she has won he has of course at once taken from her, she is his factotum. I am very glad for her sake that you have come out. I suppose it was by accident you came? You didn’t expect to find her here – eh?”

“On the contrary,” I said, “I chanced to hear only last Sunday that Miss Thorold was staying on the Riviera – so I decided to come over at once,” I said.

“She knows that you are here, you know.”

“She knows? Why, who on earth can have told her?”

“I have just been telephoning to Miss Deroxe over at the Bristol at Beaulieu. Miss Thorold is there with her. I told them that a man named Ashton was here, and I described your appearance. Miss Thorold said at once it must be you. Unfortunately she leaves to-night for Paris, and Miss Deroxe goes with her.”

“But why is she going to Paris?” I exclaimed eagerly.

“Who? Miss Thorold? She’s acting on Paulton’s orders. Her visit has some mysterious bearing upon the scheme I have just spoken about.”

The door of the fumoir opened at that moment, and Paulton and Henderson came out into the vestibule. At once they must have seen Faulkner and myself conversing, and for an instant a look of anger flashed into Paulton’s eyes. The expression subsided quickly, and he and Henderson approached smiling calmly.

“I’m prepared to bet that I know what you two were talking about,” Paulton said lightly, addressing Faulkner. “You were talking of Vera. Ah! Am I wrong? No, I see I’m not. You have told our friend Ashton that she goes to Paris to-night. Well, you are mistaken. Information has reached me that there has been a landslip on the line beyond Beaulieu, and it is blocked in consequence.”