by Sax Rohmer
CHAPTER XXI
A CORNER IN MILLIONAIRES
At the moment that Julius Rohscheimer's car turned into the Square, agirl, enveloped in a dark opera wrap, but whose fair hair gleamed as shepassed the open door, came alone, out of Lord Evershed's house, andentering a waiting taxi-cab, was driven away.
"Stop!" ordered Haredale hoarsely through the tube.
The big car pulled up as the cab passed around on the other side.
"Follow that cab."
With which the pursuit commenced. And Haredale found himself trembling,so violent was the war of emotions that waged within him. His deductionswere proving painfully correct. Through Mayfair and St. John's Wood thecab led the way; finally into Finchley Road. Fifty yards behind,Haredale stopped the car as the cab drew up before a gate set in a highwall.
Lady Mary stepped out, opened the gate, and disappeared within. Heedlessof the taxi-driver's curious stare, Haredale, a conspicuous figure inevening dress, with no overcoat and no hat, entered almost immediatelyafterwards.
Striding up to the porch, he was searching for bell or knocker when thedoor opened silently, and an Arab in spotless white robes saluted himwith dignified courtesy.
"Take my card to your master," snapped Haredale, striving to exhibit nosurprise, and stepped inside rapidly.
The Arab waved him to a small reception room, furnished with a wealth ofcurios for which the visitor had no eyes, and retired. As the manwithdrew Haredale moved to the door and listened. He admitted to himselfthat this was the part of a common spy; but his consuming jealousy wouldbrook no restraint.
From somewhere farther along the hall he heard, though indistinctly, afamiliar voice.
Without stopping to reflect he made for a draped door, knockedperemptorily, and entered.
He found himself in a small apartment, whose form and appointments, evento his perturbed mind, conveyed a vague surprise. It was, to all intentsand purposes, a cell, with stone-paved floor and plaster walls. Anantique lamp, wherein rested what appeared to be a small ball of light,unlike any illuminant he had seen, stood upon a massive table, which waslittered with papers. Excepting a chair of peculiar design and amagnificently worked Oriental curtain which veiled either a second dooror a recess in the wall, the place otherwise was unfurnished.
Before this curtain, and facing him, pale but composed, stood Lady MaryEvershed, a sweet picture in a bizarre setting.
"Has your friend run away, then?" said Haredale roughly.
The girl did not reply, but looked fully at him with something of scornand much of reproach in her eyes.
"I know whose house this is," continued Haredale violently, "and why youhave come. What is he to you? Why do you know him--visit him--shieldhim? Oh! my God! it only wanted this to complete my misery. I have, now,not one single happy memory to take away with me."
His voice shook upon those last words.
"Mary," he said sadly, and all his rage was turned to pleading--"whatdoes it mean? Tell me. I _know_ there is some simple explanation----"
"You shall hear it, Sir Richard," interrupted a softly musical voice.
He turned as though an adder had bitten him; the blase composure whichis the pride of every British officer had melted in the rays of thoseblue eyes that for years had been the stars of his worship. It was avery human young man, badly shaken and badly conscious of his display ofweakness, who faced the tall figure in the tightly buttoned frock-coatthat now stood in the open doorway.
The man who had interrupted him was one to arrest attention anywhere andin any company. With figure and face cast in a severely classic mould,his intense, concentrated gaze conveyed to Haredale a throbbing sense of_force_, in an uncanny degree.
"Severac Bablon!" flashed through his mind.
"Himself, Sir Richard."
Haredale, who had not spoken, met the weird, fixed look, but with aconsciousness of physical loss--an indefinable sensation, probablymental, of being drawn out of himself. No words came to help him.
"You have acted to-night," continued Severac Bablon, and Haredale,knowing himself in the presence of the most notorious criminal inEurope, yet listened passively, as a schoolboy to the admonition of hisHead, "you have acted to-night unworthily. I had noted you, Sir Richard,as a man whose friendship I had hoped to gain. Knowing your trials,and"--glancing at the girl's pale face--"with what object you sufferedthem, I had respected you, whilst desiring an opportunity to point outto you the falsity of your position. I had thought that a man who couldwin such a prize as has fallen to your lot must, essentially, be aboveall that was petty--all that was mean."
Haredale clenched his hands angrily. Never since his Eton days had suchwords been addressed to him. He glared at the over-presumptuousmountebank--for so he appraised him; he told himself that, save for awoman's presence, he would have knocked him down. He met the calm butimperious gaze--and did nothing, said nothing.
"A woman may be judged," continued the fascinating voice, "not by hercapacity for love, but by her capacity for that rarer thing, friendship.A woman who, at her great personal peril, can befriend another woman isa pearl beyond price. Knowing me, you have ceased to fear me as a rival,Sir Richard." (To his mental amazement something that was not of hismind, it seemed, told Haredale that this was so.) "It remains only foryou to hear that simple explanation. Here it is."
He handed a note to him. It was as follows:
"You have confided to me the secret of your residence, where I might see or communicate with you, and I was coming to see you to-night, but I have met with a slight accident--enough to prevent me. Lady Mary has volunteered to go alone. I will not betray your confidence, but our friendly acquaintance cannot continue unless you _instantly_ release my father--for I know that you have done this outrageous thing. He is ill and it is very, very cruel. I beg of you to let him return at once. If you admire true friendship and unselfishness, as you profess, do this to repay Mary Evershed, who risks irretrievably compromising herself to take this note--
"ZOE OPPNER."
"Miss Oppner, descending the stairs at Lord Evershed's in too greathaste," explained Severac Bablon, and a new note, faint but perceptible,had crept into his voice, "had the misfortune to sustain a slightaccident--I am happy to know, no more than slight. Lady Mary brought meher message. I commit no breach of trust in showing it to you. There isa telephone in the room at Lord Evershed's in which Miss Oppner remainsat present, and, as you entered, I obtained her spoken consent to dowhat I have done."
"Mary," Haredale burst out, "I know it is taking a mean advantage toplead that if I had not been so unutterably wretched and depressed Inever could have doubted, but--will you forgive me?"
Whatever its ethical merits or demerits, it was the right, the oneappeal. And it served.
Severac Bablon watched the reconciliation with a smile upon his handsomeface. Though clearly but a young man, he could at will invest himselfwith the aloof but benevolent dignity of a father-confessor.
"The cloud has passed," he said. "I have a word for you, Sir Richard.You have learnt to-night some of my secrets--my appearance, myresidence, and the identities of two of my friends. I do not regretthis, although I am a 'wanted man.' Only to-night I have committed agross outrage which, with the circulation of to-morrow's papers, willcry out for redress to the civilised world. You are at liberty to act asyou see fit. I would wish, as a favour, that you grant me thirty-sixhours' grace--as Miss Oppner already has done. On my word--if you careto accept it--I shall not run away. At the end of that time I will againoffer you the choice of detaining me or of condoning what I have doneand shall do. Which is it to be?"
Haredale did not feel sure of himself. In fact, the episodes of thatnight seemed, now, like happenings in a dream--a dream from which he yetwas not fully awakened. He glanced from Mary to the incomprehensible manwho was so completely different from anything he had pictured, fromanything he ever had known. He looked about the bare, cell-likeapartment, illuminated by t
he soft light of the globe upon the massivetable. He thought of the Arab who had admitted him--of the entireabsence of subterfuge where subterfuge was to be expected.
"I will wait," he said.
But in less than thirty-six hours the world had news of Severac Bablon.
At a time roughly corresponding with that when Mr. Aloys. X. Alden wasstanding, temporarily petrified with astonishment, in a certain room ofthe Hotel Astoria, two gentlemen in evening attire burst into aWandsworth police station. One was a very angry Irishman, the other aprofane Scot, whose language, which struck respectful awe to the heartsof two constables, a sergeant, and an inspector--would have done creditto the most eloquent mate in the mercantile marine.
He fired off a volley of redundant but gorgeously florid adjectives,what time he peeled factitious whiskers from his face and shook theirstickiness from his fingers. His Irish friend, with brilliant but lesselaborate comments, struggled to depilate a Kaiser-like moustache fromhis upper lip.
"What are ye sittin' still for-r?" shouted the Scotsman, and banged acard on the desk. "I'm Hector Murray, and this is John Macready ofMelbourne. We've been held up by the highwaym'n Bablon. Turrn out theforrce. Turrn out the dom'd diveesion. Get a move on ye, mon!"
The accumulated power of the three names--Hector Murray, John Macready,and Severac Bablon--galvanised the station into sudden activity, and anextraordinary story, a fabulous story, was gleaned from the excitedgentlemen. It appeared in every paper on the following morning, so itcannot better be presented here than in the comparatively simple formwherein it met the eyes of readers of the _Gleaner's_ next issue. Cutshave been made where the reporter's account overlaps the preceding, orwhere he has become purely rhetorical.
SIX FAMOUS CAPITALISTS KIDNAPPED
SEVERAC BABLON ACTIVE AGAIN
AMAZING OUTRAGE AT THE ASTORIA
Under these heads appeared a full and finely descriptive account of thehappenings already noticed.
DRAMATIC ESCAPE OF MR. MACREADY AND MR. HECTOR MURRAY
SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH MR. MURRAY
WHERE ARE THE MISSING MAGNATES?
IS SCOTLAND YARD EFFETE?
From Mr. Hector Murray ... our special representative obtained a full account of the outrage, which threw much light upon a mystery that otherwise appeared insoluble. After ... they entered the room at the Astoria, where they had agreed to discuss a plan of mutual action against the common enemy of Capital, Mr. Murray informed our representative that nothing unusual took place for some twenty minutes or half an hour. Baron Hague had just risen to make a proposal, when the lights were extinguished.
As it was a very black night, the room was plunged into complete darkness. Before anyone had time to ascertain the meaning of the occurrence, a voice, which our representative was informed seemed to proceed from the floor, uttered the following words:
"Let no one speak or move. Mr. Macready place your revolver upon the table." (Mr. Macready was the only member of the company who was armed, and, curiously enough, as the voice commenced he had drawn his revolver.) "Otherwise, your son's yacht, the _Savannah_, will be posted missing. Hear me out, every one of you, lest great misfortune befall those dear to you. Mr. Murray, your sister and niece will disappear from the Villa Marina, Monte Carlo, within four hours of any movement made by you without my express permission. Mr. Oppner, you have a daughter. Believe me, she and you are quite safe--at present. Baron Hague, Sir Leopold Jesson, and Mr. Rohscheimer, my agents have orders, which only I can recall to bring you to Carey Street. I threaten no more than I can carry out. Give the alarm if it please you ... but I have warned."
During this most extraordinary speech shadowy shapes seemed to be flitting about the room. The nature of the threats uttered had, for the time, quite unmanned the six gentlemen, which is no matter for surprise. Then, at a muttered command in what Mr. Murray informed our representative to have been Arabic, four lamps--or, rather, balls of fire--appeared at the four corners of the apartment. This bizarre scene, suggestive of nothing so much as an Eastern romance, was due to the presence of several Arabs in heavy robes, who had in some way entered in the darkness, and who now stood around the walls, four of their number holding in their brown hands these peculiar globular lights, which were of a kind quite new to those present. (An article by Mr. Pearce Baldry, of Messrs. Armiston, Baldry & Co., dealing with the possible construction of these lamps, appears on page 6.)
Immediately inside the open window stood a tall man in a closely buttoned frock-coat. He carried no arms, but wore a black silk half-mask. Mr. Rohscheimer at this juncture rendered the episode even more dramatic by exclaiming:
"Good heavens! It's Severac Bablon!"
"It is, indeed, Mr. Rohscheimer," said that menace to civilised society; "so that no doubt you will respect my orders. Mr. Macready, I do not see your revolver upon the table. I have warned you twice."
Mr. Macready, who is not easily intimidated, evidently concluding that no good could come of resistance at that time, threw the revolver on to the table and folded his arms.
"I give you my word," concluded Severac Bablon, "that no bodily harm shall come to any one of you so long as you attempt no resistance. What will now be done is done only by way of precaution. Any sound would be fatal."
At a signal to the Arabs the four lights were hidden, and each of the six gentlemen were seized in the darkness in such a manner that resistance was impossible. Each had a hand clapped over his mouth, whilst he was securely gagged and bound by men who evidently had the arts of the Thug at their fingers' ends. Mr. Murray informed our representative that so certain were they of Severac Bablon's power to perform all that he had threatened that, in his opinion, no one struggled, with the exception of Mr. Macready, who, however, was promptly overpowered.
It was then that they learnt how the Arabs and their master had entered. For each of the distinguished company, commencing with Baron Hague, was lowered by a rope to a window on the fifth floor and drawn in by men who waited there.
There is no doubt that access had been gained by means of a short ladder from this lower window; indeed, Mr. Murray saw such a ladder in use when, all having descended through the darkness, the last to leave--an Arab--returned by that means. Such was the dispatch and perfect efficiency of this audacious man's Eastern gang, that Mr. Murray and his friends were all removed from the upper apartment to the lower in less than seven minutes. It will be remembered that the south wing of the Astoria has lately been faced with dark grey granite, that it was a moonless night, and that the daring operation could only have been visible, if visible at all, from the distant Embankment. No hitch occurred whatever; Severac Bablon's Arabs exhibited all the agility and quickness of monkeys. It is illustrative of his brazen methods that he then removed the gags, and invited his victims to partake of some refreshments, "as they had a long drive before them."
Needless to say, they were all severely shaken by their perilous adventure; and this led to an angry outburst from Mr. Macready, who demanded a full explanation of the outrage.
"Sir," was the reply, "it is not for you to ask. As a final warning to you and to your friends--for the provisions I have made in your case are no more complete than those which I have made in the others--permit me to tell you that eight of the twelve men manning your son's boat including two officers--are under my orders. If any obstacle be placed in my way by you a wireless message will carry instructions, though I myself lie in detention, or dead, that the _Savannah_ be laid upon a certain course. That course, Mr. Macready, will not bring her into any port known to the Board of Trade. Shall I nominate the crew? Or are your
doubts dispersed?"
The insight thus afforded them to the far-reaching influence, the all-pervading power, of this arch-brigand whose presence in our midst is a disgrace to the police of the world, was sufficient to determine them upon a passive attitude. A gentleman who seemed very nervous then appeared, and skilfully disguised all six. Mr. Rohscheimer mentioned later to Mr. Murray that in this man he had recognised, beyond any shadow of doubt, a perruquier whose name is a household word. But this doubtless was but another clever trick of the master trickster.
In three parties of two, each accompanied by an Arab dressed in European clothes, but wearing a tarboosh, they left the hotel. Disguised beyond recognition, they were conducted to a roomy car of the "family" pattern, which was in waiting; the blinds were drawn down, and they were driven away.
At the end of a rapid drive of about an hour's duration, Messrs. Murray and Macready were requested by one of the three accompanying Arabs to alight, and were informed that Severac Bablon desired to tender his sincere apologies for the inconvenience to which, unavoidably, he had put them, and for the evils with which--though only in the "most sacred interests"--he had been compelled to threaten them. They were absolved from all obligations and at liberty now to take what steps they thought fit. With which they were set down in a lonely spot, and the car was driven away. As our readers are already well aware, this lonely spot was upon Wandsworth Common.
It is almost impossible to credit the fact that six influential men of world-wide reputation could thus, publicly, be kidnapped from a London hotel. But in this connection two things must be remembered. Firstly, for reasons readily to be understood and appreciated, they offered no resistance; secondly, the presence of so many Orientals in the hotel occasioned no surprise. A Prince Said Abu-el-Ahzab had been residing for some time in the apartments below those occupied by Mr. J. J. Oppner, and the members of his numerous suite are familiar to all residents. He and his following have disappeared, but a cash payment of all outstanding accounts has been left behind. It has been discovered that the light was cut off from one of the rooms occupied by the ci-devant prince, and the police are at work upon several other important clues which point beyond doubt to the fact that "Prince Said Abu-el-Ahzab" was none other than Severac Bablon.
During the next twenty-four hours the entire habitable world touched bycable service literally gasped at this latest stroke of the notoriousSeverac Bablon. Despite the frantic and unflagging labours of every manthat Scotland Yard could spare to the case nothing was accomplished. Thewife or nearest kin of each of the missing men had received a typedcard:
"Fear nothing. No harm shall befall a guest of Severac Bablon."
These cards, which could be traced to no maker or stationer, all hadbeen posted at Charing Cross.
Then, in the stop press of the _Gleaner's_ final edition, appeared thefollowing:
"Baron Hague, Sir L. Jesson, Messrs. Rohscheimer and Oppner have returned to their homes."
It is improbable that in the history of the newspaper business, evenduring war-time, there has ever been such a rush made for the papers asthat which worked the trade to the point of general exhaustion on thefollowing morning.
Without pausing here to consider the morning's news, let us return tothe Chancery Legal Incorporated Credit Society Bank.
"Move along here, please. Move on. Move on."
Again the street is packed with emotional humanity. But what a differentscene is this, although in its essentials so similar. For every face isflushed with excitement--joyful excitement. As once before, they presseagerly on toward the bank entrance; but this morning the doors are_open_. Almost every member of that crushed and crushing assembly holdsa copy of the morning paper. Every man and every woman in the crowdknows that the missing financiers have declined, firmly, to afford anyinformation whatever respecting their strange adventure--that they haverefused, all four of them, point blank either to substantiate or to denythe sensational story of Messrs. Macready and Murray. "The incident isclosed," Baron Hague is reported as declaring. But what care thedepositors of the Chancery Legal Incorporated? For is it not announced,also, that this quartet of public benefactors, with a fifthphilanthropist (who modestly remains anonymous) have put up between themno less a sum than three and a half million pounds to salve the wreckedbank?
"By your leave. Make way here. Stand back, _if_ you please."
Someone starts a cheer, and it is feverishly taken up by the highlywrought throng, as an escorted van pulls slowly through the crowd. It isbullion from the Bank of England. Good red gold and crisp notes. It isdead hopes raised from the dust; happiness reborn, like a ph[oe]nix fromthe ashes of misery.
"Hip, hip, hip, hooray!"
Again and again, and yet again that joyous cheer awakes the echoes ofthe ancient Inns.
It was as a final cheer died away that Haredale, on the rim of thethrong, felt himself tapped upon the shoulder.
He turned a flushed face and saw a tall man, irreproachably attired,standing smiling at his elbow. The large eyes, with their compellinglight of command, held nothing now but a command to friendship.
"Severac Bablon!"
"Well, Haredale!" The musical voice made itself audible above all thedin. "These good people would rejoice to know the name of that anonymousfriend who, with four other disinterested philanthropists, has sought tobring a little gladness into a grey world. Here am I. And there, on thebank steps, are police. Make your decision. Either give me in charge orgive me your hand."
Haredale could not speak; but he took the outstretched hand of the mostsurprising bandit the world ever has known, and wrung it hard.