Again her wonderful dark eyes became fixed upon mine, as they had done on the previous day during the drive from the railway station.
“Don’t try to deceive me,” she said earnestly. “You will find it far better to confide in me.”
The words so astonished me that for the moment I could not reply. Then, all at once, a strange feeling of curiosity came over me. Why all this secrecy about the suit-case? I mentally asked myself. And what an odd idea to send me to Paris by that long roundabout sea route! What could be the reason?
“I am not deceiving you, Miss Rayne,” I said.
She only smiled and turned abruptly away.
Then, for the first time, I found myself wondering what could be these precious documents Rayne had told me the suit-case contained? That the suit-case was locked, I knew! He had not unlocked it since he had placed it in my charge in London two days before.
My employer gave me some money, and I started two hours later in the Fiat. As I sped along the broad road from Thirsk south towards York, with Paul beside me silent as ever, I could not get thoughts of Lola out of my mind.
Once more I saw her gazing up at me with that peculiar, anxious expression I had noticed when we had met in the passage, and I regretted that I had not prolonged our conversation then, and tried to find out what distressed her.
Several times I spoke to Paul, but he answered only in monosyllables.
We reached Newcastle in plenty of time, for the boat was not due to sail before early next morning, and I felt relieved at being at last rid of my uncongenial companion.
I had an evening paper in my pocket, and, to while away the time, I lay in my narrow berth and began to read. Presently my glance rested upon a paragraph which stated that two days before a dressing-case belonging to Lady Norah Kendrew disappeared in the most extraordinary manner from the hotel in London where she was staying. Exactly what happened had been related to the enterprising reporter by Lady Norah herself.
“My dressing-case containing all my jewelry was locked and on a table near my bed,” she said. “I went out of the room soon after half-past ten this morning, my maid, who has been with me eight years, remaining in the room adjoining to put some of my things away—the door between the rooms remained ajar, she says. Whether or not the jewel-case was still there when she herself went out to lunch at about one o’clock she cannot say, as she did not go into my bedroom again. She shut the door behind her when she went out of the sitting-room into the corridor, and locked it. I first missed the jewel-case when I returned to my room at about a quarter past three in the afternoon. The contents are worth twenty thousand pounds. It seems hardly possible that anybody could have entered the bedroom unheard while my maid was in the sitting-room with the door between the two rooms ajar, so my belief is that it must have been stolen between the time she went to lunch and the time I returned. I am offering a big reward for the return of the jewel-case with its contents intact.”
The paragraph interested me because of the hotel where the robbery—if robbery it was—had taken place, and the fact that I had happened to be in that hotel on the very day of the robbery!
“Ah, well,” I remember saying to myself, “if women will be so careless as to leave valuable property like that unguarded they must expect to take the consequences.”
Then my thoughts wandered from the newspaper, and I found myself wondering what Lady Norah Kendrew might be like—if she were young or old, plain or pretty, married or unmarried. And I suppose naturally that train of thought brought Lola once more into my imagination. I had, remember, to all intents, hardly seen her, and she had spoken to me only twice. Yet her personality literally obsessed me. That I was foolish to let it I fully realized. But how many of us can completely master our moods, our impulses and our emotions on all occasions?
The weather at sea remained fine, yet I found that long, slow voyage most tedious. I had nothing to do but read, for I could not disregard Mr. Rayne’s strict instructions that I must on no account let the suit-case out of my sight, and in consequence I could not leave my cabin.
I remember looking down at the suit-case protruding from under the berth and thinking it curious that documents should weigh so heavy. There must be a great many of them, I reflected, but even so. …
I bent down and pulled the suit-case right out and lifted it.
Indeed it was heavy—very heavy!
Then I began to think of something else.
I had the cabin to myself, which was pleasant, and I spent most of the day stretched out in my bunk. Oh, how I longed every hour for the terribly boring voyage to come to an end!
It was a lovely morning when at last we steamed into the estuary of the Seine, and I shall never forget how beautiful the river and its banks looked as I peered out through my port-hole and we crept up towards Rouen. My meals had all been served in my cabin during the voyage, as I could not well have taken the suit-case with me into the saloon.
Now I felt like a prisoner about to be released.
Mr. Rayne had told me to stop at the post-office in Rouen on my way from the boat to Paris, as I might, he said, find a letter or a telegram awaiting me. I had managed to pass the suit-case through the Customs, and now my heart beat faster as a letter was handed to me, for I recognized Lola’s handwriting; I had seen it only once before—that was on a letter she had asked me to post for her.
I hurriedly tore open the envelope, and this was what I read:
“Private. I have suspicion that the suit-case you have you should get rid of at once. Destroy this!”
Undated and unsigned, the letter bore no address. At once thoughts and conjectures of all sorts came crowding into my mind. Could it be that the suit-case contained stolen jewelry and not documents?
Instantly I guessed why Rayne had sent me to Paris with it by that roundabout route. He must either himself be the thief, I concluded, or an accomplice in the theft, and by placing the stolen property in my charge and smuggling it out of England by a circuitous route. …
One reflection led quickly to another. Paul, the valet, no doubt knew about his master’s private life—possibly was in his confidence. And if Rayne had committed the robbery he must be a professional crook. In which case, should the whereabouts of the stolen property be discovered, I should be arrested as an accessory to the crime! Clearly I had no time to lose if I wanted to safeguard myself. Even now the police, with their wonderful acumen, might be on my track!
I reached Paris at last, and as my taxi swung round from the Place Jeanne d’Arc into the Rue de Rivoli I began to feel extremely nervous.
In reply to my inquiry at the bureau of the smart Hôtel Ombrone I was told that I could be given a bed. Monsieur Duperré? Ah, monsieur had just gone out, but would be back soon, most likely.
I had been given the key of my room, and was about to enter the lift, when I noticed seated on a settee in the vestibule a well-dressed woman whose face seemed familiar. And then in a flash I recognized the lady who had been at Overstow Hall on the day I had arrived there!
She did not recognize me, or I concluded she did not, and naturally it was no business of mine to make any sign of recognition.
I had been in my room, I suppose, about two hours when the telephone bell rang.
“That Mr. Hargreave? The bureau speaking. Monsieur Duperré has come in and is coming up to you now.”
A minute later somebody knocked, and I called “Come in!” Then, to my amazement, who should enter but my old company commander in France in the early days of the war—Captain Vincent Deinhard, who later in the war had been court-martialed for misappropriating canteen funds and been subsequently cashiered! Altogether his Army record had been an exceedingly bad one.
Instantly I remembered the voice. It was Deinhard