The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

by William Le Queux

  CHAPTER XX

  ANOTHER DISCOVERY IS MADE

  On several occasions during the weary week that followed InspectorWarton called and saw me, but I always managed, by one subterfuge oranother, to evade the more pointed of his questions.

  The three men who had attacked Lola and myself that night knew from thepapers that we both still lived as witnesses against them.

  The nurses would not allow me to see the papers, but from Rayner Ilearnt that the more sensational section of the London Press hadpublished reports headed, "Novelist Found Shot." Indeed, a great manyreporters had called at the hospital, but had been promptly sent emptyaway.

  At last, one morning, I was declared convalescent and sufficiently wellto be removed to my chambers. Therefore Rayner ordered Stevens to bringhis taxi for me, and we left the hospital.

  Though still feeling far from well, I was all curiosity to see the housein Spring Grove by daylight, so we called at the police-station and astout sergeant of the T. Division accompanied us with the key, the placebeing still in the hands of the police.

  As we pulled up in that unfrequented side-road I saw how mysterious anddesolate the place was in the warm sunshine--an old red-brick Georgianhouse, with square, inartistic windows, standing solitary and alone,half covered by its ivy mantle, and surrounded by a spacious gardendotted with high trees, and neglected and overgrown with weeds.

  As we walked over the moss-grown flags leading to the steps, I noticedthe window I had smashed in making my entry that night.

  The constable unlocked the door and we found ourselves in a wide,spacious hall, its stone flags worn hollow and containing someold-fashioned furniture. The atmosphere of the house was musty andclose, and long cobwebs hung in festoons in the corners.

  The room on the right, the one in which I had been found, I rememberedwell. It was just the same as when I had stood there in the presence ofthe Master and the notorious Jules Jeanjean. Upon its brown threadbarecarpet were two ugly stains in close proximity to each other--the spotswhere both Lola and I had lain!

  I saw the wall against which I had stood in defiance. An eveningovercoat still lay upon a chair--the coat which old Gregory hadabandoned in his hurried flight, when Stevens, the taxi-driver, had soopportunely appeared upon the scene.

  "Nothing's been touched, sir," remarked the fat sergeant. "We've beenwaiting for you to see the place, and to tell us what you know."

  I exchanged glances with Rayner.

  "I know very little," I replied. "I simply fell in with a very dangerousset. They were evidently plotting something, and believing that I hadoverheard, attempted to put me out of the way."

  "And the lady?"

  "I imagine the same sort of thing happened to her. They considered sheknew too much of their movements and might betray them."

  "But what were they plotting?"

  "They spoke in French, so I couldn't catch."

  "Oh! They were foreigners--eh?" exclaimed the sergeant in surprise."Coiners or anarchists, perhaps."

  "Perhaps," I said. "Who knows?"

  "Ah. I've heard that two strangers have been seen up and down here inthe night time," continued the sergeant. "We've got their descriptionfrom a constable who's been doing night-duty. He says he'd know 'emagain. Once he saw a woman with 'em, and he believes it was the younglady now in the hospital."

  "He saw them together--eh?"

  "He says so."

  Then I changed the conversation, and I followed him from room to roomthrough the dirty, neglected house, which nevertheless, with slightsigns here and there, showed marks of recent occupation.

  Two of the beds in the upstairs rooms had been slept in, and there wasother evidence in both kitchen and dining-room that, as I had surmised,it had been the secret hiding-place of the man who posed in HattonGarden as a substantial and respectable dealer in precious stones.

  No doubt he came there late at night, and if he remained during the dayhe never went out.

  Surely the place was one where he might effectively conceal himself fromthe police; yet to live in such a house, and in that manner, certainlyshowed a daring and audacity unequalled. He, of course, never knew whena prospective tenant might come to visit it, or the agents in Hounslowmight send to inspect its condition.

  "You had a very narrow escape here, sir," said the sergeant as wedescended the stairs. "Will you step outside? I want to show yousomething."

  We all went out by the kitchen door into the weedy garden where, behinda low wall, lay a mound of newly-dug earth. By its side I saw a rough,yawning hole about five feet long by three broad.

  "That's the grave they'd prepared for you, sir, without a doubt! By gum!It was lucky that taxi-driver got up here just in time, or they'd haveflung you in and covered you up, dead or alive!"

  I stood aghast, staring at the hole prepared for the concealment--not ofmy body--but that of Lola. They had had no inkling of my expectedpresence, hence that prepared grave had been for her--and her alone!

  She had been invited there by old Gregory, who had intended that sheshould die, and ere morning broke all trace of the crime would have beenremoved.

  Yes. The fat sergeant spoke the truth. Had not Stevens fortunately cometo that house at the moment he did, we should both have been flung intothat gaping hole and there buried. In a week the weeds of the gardenwould have spread and all traces of the soil having been moved wouldhave been obliterated.

  How many secret crimes are yearly committed in the suburbs of London!How many poor innocent victims of both sexes, and of all ages, lieconcealed beneath the floors of kitchens and cellars, or in the backgardens of the snug, old-fashioned houses around London? Once, SevenDials or Drury Lane were dangerous. But to-day they are not half sodangerous to the unwary as our semi-rural suburbs. The clever criminalnever seeks to dissect, burn, or otherwise get rid of his victim save tobury the body. Burial conceals everything, and the corpse rapidlymoulders into dust.

  If the walls of the middle-class houses of suburban London could speak,what grim stories some of them could tell! And how many quiet,respectable families are now living in houses where, beneath thebasement floor, or in the little back garden, lie the rotting remains ofthe victim of some brutal crime.

  It is the same in Paris, in Brussels, in Vienna, aye, in every capital.The innocent pay the toll always. Men make laws and cleverer men breakthem. But God reigns supreme, and sooner or later places His handheavily upon the guilty.

  Ask any of the heads of the police of the European Powers, and they willtell you that Providence assists them to bring the guilty to justice. Itmay be mere chance, mere coincidence, vengeance of those who have beentricked, jealousy of a woman--a dozen motives--yet the result is everthe same, the criminal at last stands before his judges.

  The great detective--and there are a dozen in Europe--takes no kudosunto himself. He will tell you that his success in such and such a caseis due to some lucky circumstance. Ask him who controlled it, and hewill go further and tell you that the punishment meted out to theassassin by man is the punishment decreed by his Creator. He has taken alife which is God-given--hence his own life must pay the penalty.

  Rayner, as he looked into the hole which had been so roughly dug, wasinclined to hilarity.

  "Well, sir," he exclaimed. "It's hardly long enough for you, is it?"

  "Enough!" I said. "Had it not been for Stevens, I should have beenlying down there with the earth over me."

  "I was afraid I shouldn't get my fare," said the taxi-driver, simply. "Ididn't know you, sir, and I had four-and-sixpence on the clock--a lot tome."

  "And a good job, too," declared Rayner. "If it had only been a bob fareyou might have gone back to Acton and left Mr. Vidal to his fate."

  "Ah! I quite agree," Stevens said. "It was only by mere chance, as I hadpromised my wife to be home early that night, it being our wedding-day,and we had two or three friends coming in."

  "Then your wedding anniversary saved my life, Stevens!" I exclaimed.

  "Well, if
you put it that way, sir, I suppose it really did," he repliedwith a laugh. "But this preparation of a grave is a surprise to me. Theyevidently got it ready for the young lady--eh?"

  I paused. My blood rose against the crafty old Gregory and hisassociates. They knew of Lola's friendship with me, and they haddeliberately plotted the poor girl's death. They had actually dug agrave ready to receive her!

  Within myself I made a solemn vow that I would be even with the man whomthe mysterious Egisto had addressed as "Master."

  Surely I should have a strange and interesting story to relate to myfriend Jonet in Paris.

  I glanced at the surroundings. About the oblong excavation was a tangledmass of herbage, peas and beans with fading leaves, for it was in thecorner of a kitchen-garden, which in the fall of the previous year hadbeen allowed to run wild. And in such a position had the grave been dugthat it was entirely concealed.

  That it had been purposely prepared for Lola was apparent. She had beeninvited there to her death!

  Had it not been for my fortunate presence, combined with the fact thatStevens had called just at the opportune moment, then the dainty littlegirl who, against her will, was the cat's paw of the most daring anddangerous gang of criminals in Europe, would be lying there concealedbeneath that long tangle of vegetables and weeds.

  "The house has been to let for nearly three years," the sergeantinformed me. "But this hole has only been recently dug, a little over aweek, we think. It was probably on the evening previous to youradventure, sir."

  "Probably," I said, for the earth looked still fresh, though the rainhad caked it somewhat. Two spades were lying near, therefore, Iconjectured, the work had been accomplished by two men. The two I hadseen with Gregory, I presumed.

  "We're making inquiries regarding the intruders," the sergeant went on."I only wish Mr. Warton were here, but he had to go up to the Yard thismorning. Can't you give any description of the people you saw here?"

  "I thought you had described them, Stevens," I said, addressing thetaxi-driver.

  "So I have, sir. But in the dark I wasn't able to see very much."

  "Well," I exclaimed, in reply to the sergeant, "I, too, did not havemuch opportunity of seeing them. The electric light was switched off themoment I entered and I was shot by the aid of an electric torch. I hadno means of defending myself. I fired at the light at the time, it'strue, but the scoundrel evidently held it away from him, knowing that Imight shoot."

  I did not intend to assist the police. The Criminal InvestigationDepartment never showed very great eagerness to assist me in any of myinvestigations.

  "But you saw the men?"

  "Yes. As I have already told Inspector Warton."

  "What brought you here?"

  "I followed two of the men from Ealing."

  "I know. But for what reason did you follow them?"

  "Because I believed that I recognized them."

  "But you were mistaken, eh?" asked the fat sergeant as we still stood atthe edge of the grave.

  "I hardly know," I answered vaguely, "except that a dastardly attemptwas made upon my life because I had pried into the men's business."

  The sergeant was silent for a few moments, and I had distinct suspicionthat, from the expression upon his face, he did not believe me.

  Then he remarked in a slow, reflective tone--

  "I suppose, Mr. Vidal, you know that the young French lady who was foundhere has made a statement to Inspector Warton?"

  "What!" I gasped. "What has she told him?"

  "I don't know, except that he's gone up to Scotland Yard to-dayregarding it."

  I held my breath.

  What indiscretions, I wondered, had Lola committed!