For ten weary days Hugh Henfrey had lived in the close, frowsy-smelling house in Abingdon Road, Kensington, a small, old-fashioned place, once a residence of well-to-do persons, but now sadly out of repair.
Its occupier was a worthy, and somewhat wizened, widow named Mason, who was supposed to be the relict of an army surgeon who had been killed at the Battle of the Marne. She was about sixty, and suffered badly from asthma. Her house was too large for one maid, a stout, matronly person called Emily, hence the place was not kept as clean as it ought to have been, and the cuisine left much to be desired.
Still, it appeared to be a safe harbour of refuge for certain strange persons who came there, men who looked more or less decent members of society, but whose talk and whose slang was certainly that of crooks. That house in the back street of old-world Kensington, a place built before Victoria ascended the throne, was undoubtedly on a par with the flat of the Reveccas in Genoa, and the thieves’ sanctuary in the shadow of the cathedral at Malines.
Adversity brings with it queer company, and Hugh had found himself among a mixed society of men who had been gentlemen and had taken up the criminal life as an up-to-date profession. They all spoke of The Sparrow with awe; and they all wondered what his next great coup would be.
Hugh became more than ever satisfied that Il Passero was one of the greatest and most astute criminals who have graced the annals of our time.
Everyone sang his praise. The queer visitors who lodged there for a day, a couple of days, or more; the guests who came suddenly, and who disappeared just as quickly, were one and all loud in their admiration of Il Passero, though Hugh could discover nobody who had actually seen the arch-thief in the flesh.
On the Tuesday night Hugh had had a frugal and badly-cooked meal with three mysterious men who had arrived as Mrs. Mason’s guests during the day. After supper the widow rose and left the room, whereupon the trio, all well-dressed men-about-town, began to chatter openly about a little “deal” in diamonds in which they had been interested. The “deal” in question had been reported in the newspapers on the previous morning, namely, how a Dutch diamond dealer’s office in Hatton Garden had been broken into, the safe cut open by the most scientific means, and a very valuable parcel of stones extracted.
“Harry Austen has gone down to Surrey to stay with Molly.”
“Molly? Why, I thought she was in Paris!”
“She was—but she went to America for a trip and she finds it more pleasant to live down in Surrey just now,” replied the other with a grin. “She has Charlie’s girl living with her.”
“H’m!” grunted the third man. “Not quite the sort of companion Charlie might choose for his daughter—eh?”
Hugh took but little notice of the conversation. It was drawing near the time when he would go forth to meet Dorise at their trysting place. In anxiety he went into the adjoining room, and there smoked alone until just past eleven o’clock, when he put on his hat and went forth into the dark, deserted street.
Opposite High Street Kensington Station he jumped upon a bus, and at five minutes to midnight alighted at the Marble Arch. On entering the park he quickly found the seat he had indicated as their meeting place, and sat down to wait.
The home-going theatre traffic behind him in the Bayswater Road had nearly ceased as the church clocks chimed the midnight hour. In the semi-darkness of the park dark figures were moving, lovers with midnight trysts like his own. In the long, well-lit road behind him motors full of gaily-dressed women flashed homeward from suppers or theatres, while from the open windows of a ballroom in a great mansion, the house of an iron magnate, came the distant strains of waltz music.
Time dragged along. He strained his eyes down the dark pathway, but could see no approaching figure. Had she at the last moment been prevented from coming? He knew how difficult it was for her to slip away at night, for Lady Ranscomb was always so full of engagements, and Dorise was compelled to go everywhere with her.
At last he saw a female figure in the distance, as she turned into the park from the Marble Arch, and springing to his feet, he went forward to meet her. At first he was not certain that it was Dorise, but as he approached nearer he recognized her gait.
A few seconds later he confronted her and grasped her warmly by the hand. The black cloak she was wearing revealed a handsome jade-coloured evening gown, while her shoes were not those one would wear for promenading in the park.
“Welcome at last, darling!” he cried. “I was wondering if you could get away, after all!”
“I had a little difficulty,” she laughed. “I’m at a dance at the Gordons’ in Grosvenor Gardens, but I managed to slip out, find a taxi, and run along here. I fear I can’t stay long, or they will miss me.”
“Even five minutes with you is bliss to me, darling,” he said, grasping her ungloved hand and raising it to his lips.
“Ah! Hugh. If you could only return to us, instead of living under this awful cloud of suspicion!” the girl cried. “Every day, and every night, I think of you, dear, and wonder how you are dragging out your days in obscurity down in Kensington. Twice this week I drove along the Earl’s Court Road, quite close to you.”
“Oh! life is a bit dull, certainly,” he replied cheerfully. “But I have papers and books—and I can look out of the window on to the houses opposite.”
“But you go out for a ramble at night?”
“Oh! yes,” he replied. “Last night I set out at one o’clock and walked up to Hampstead Heath, as far as Jack Straw’s Castle and back. The night was perfect. Really, Londoners who sleep heavily all night lose the best part of their lives. London is only beautiful in the night hours and at early dawn. I often watch the sun rise from the Thames Embankment. I have a favourite seat—just beyond Scotland Yard. I’ve become quite a night-bird these days. I sleep when the sun shines, and with a sandwich box and a flask I go long tramps at night, just as others do who, like myself, are concealing their identity.”
“But when will all this end?” queried the girl, as together they strolled in the direction of Bayswater, passing many whispering couples sitting on seats. London lovers enjoy the park at all hours of the twenty-four.
“It will only end when I am able to discover the truth,” he said vaguely. “Meanwhile I am not disheartened, darling, because—because I know that you believe in me—that you still trust me.”
“That man whom I saw in Nice dressed as a cavalier, and who again came to me in Scotland, is a mystery,” she said. “Do you really believe he is the person you suspect?”
“I do. I still believe he is the notorious and defiant criminal ‘Il Passero’—the most daring and ingenious thief of the present century.”
“But he is evidently your friend.”
“Yes. That is the great mystery of it all. I cannot discern his motive.”
“Is it a sinister one, do you think?”
“No. I do not believe so. I have heard of The Sparrow’s fame from the lips of many criminals, but none has uttered a single word against him. He is, I hear, fierce, bitter, and relentless towards those who are his enemies. To his friends, however, he is staunchly loyal. That is what is said of him.”
“But, Hugh, I wish you would be more frank with me,” the girl said. “There are several things you are hiding from me.”
“I admit it, darling,” he blurted forth, holding her hand in the darkness as they walked. The ecstasy and the bliss of that moment held him almost without words. She was as life to him. He pursued that soul-deadening evasion, and lived that grey, sordid life among men and women escaping from justice solely for her sake. If he married Louise Lambert and then cast off the matrimonial shackles he would recover his patrimony and be well-off.
To many men the temptation would have proved too great. The inheritance of his father’s fortune was so very easy. Louise was a pretty girl, well educated, bright, vivacious, and thoroughly up to date. Yet somehow, he always mistrusted Benton, though his father, perhaps blinded in his years, had reckoned him his best and most sincere friend. There are many unscrupulous men who pose as dear, devoted friends of those who they know are doomed by disease to die—men who hope to be left executors with attaching emoluments, and men who have some deep game to play either by swindling the orphans, or by advancing one of their own kith and kin in the social scale.
Old Mr. Henfrey, a genuine country landowner of the good old school, a man who lived in tweeds and leggings, and who rode regularly to hounds and enjoyed his days across the stubble, was one of the unsuspicious. Charles Benton he had first met long ago in the Hotel de Russie in Rome while he was wintering there. Benton was merry, and, apparently, a gentleman. He talked of his days at Harrow, and afterwards at Cambridge, of being sent down because of a big “rag” in the Gladstonian days, and of his life since as a fairly well-off bachelor with rooms in London.
Thus a close intimacy had sprung up between them, and Hugh had naturally regarded his father’s friend with entire confidence.
“You admit that you are not telling me the whole truth, Hugh,” remarked the girl after a long pause. “It is hardly fair of you, is it?”
“Ah! darling, you do not know my position,” he hastened to explain as he gripped her little hand more tightly in his own. “I only wish I could learn the truth myself so as to make complete explanation. But at present all is doubt and uncertainty. Won’t you trust me, Dorise?”
“Trust you!” she echoed. “Why, of course I will! You surely know that, Hugh.”
The young man was again silent for some moments. Then he exclaimed:
“Yet, after all, I can see no ray of hope.”
“Why?”
“Hope of our marriage, Dorise,” he said hoarsely. “How can I, without money, ever hope to make you my wife?”
“But you will have your father’s estate in due course, won’t you?” she asked quite innocently. “You always plead poverty. You are so like a man.”
“Ah! Dorise, I am really poor. You don’t understand—you can’t!”
“But I do,” she said. “You may have debts. Every man has them—tailor’s bills, restaurant bills, betting debts, jewellery debts. Oh! I know. I’ve heard all about these things from another. Well, if you have them, you’ll be able to settle them out of your father’s estate all in due course.”
“And if he has left me nothing?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed the handsome girl at his side. “What do you mean?”
“Well——” he said very slowly. “At present I have nothing—that’s all. That is why at Monte Carlo I suggested that—that——”
He did not conclude the sentence.
“I remember. You said that I had better marry George Sherrard—that thick-lipped ass. You said that because you are hard-up?”
“Yes. I am hard-up. Very hard-up. At present I am existing in an obscure lodging practically upon the charity of a man upon whom, so far as I can ascertain, I have no claim whatsoever.”
“The notorious thief?”
Hugh nodded, and said:
“That fact in itself mystifies me. I can see no motive. I am entirely innocent of the crime attributed to me, and if Mademoiselle were in her right mind she would instantly clear me of this terrible charge.”
“But why did you go to her home that night, Hugh?”
“As I have already told you, I went to demand a reply to a single question I put to her,” he said. “But please do no let us discuss the affair further. The whole circumstances are painful to me—more painful than you can possibly imagine. One day—and I hope it will be soon—you will fully realize what all this has cost me.”
The girl drew a long breath.
“I know, Hugh,” she said. “I know, dear—and I do trust you.”
They halted, and he bent and impressed upon her lips a fierce caress.
So entirely absorbed in each other were the pair that they failed to notice the slim figure of a man who had followed the girl at some distance. Indeed, the individual in question had been lurking outside the house in Grosvenor Gardens, and had watched Dorise leave. At the end of the street a taxi was drawn up at the kerb awaiting him. Dorise had hailed the man, but his reply was a surly “Engaged.”
Then, walking about a couple of hundred yards, she had found another, and entering it, had driven to the Marble Arch. But the first taxi had followed the second one, and in it was the well-set-up man who was silently watching her in the park as she walked with her lover towards the Victoria Gate.
“What can I say to you in reply to your words of hope, darling?” exclaimed Hugh as he walked beside her. “I know full well how much all this must puzzle you. Have you seen Brock?”
“Oh! yes. I saw him two days ago. He called upon mother and had tea. I managed to get five minutes alone with him, and I asked if he had heard from you. He replied that he had not. He’s much worried about you.”
“Is he, dear old chap? I only wish I dared write to him, and give him my address.”
“I told him that you were back in London. But I did not give him your address. You told me to disclose nothing.”
“Quite right, Dorise,” he said. “If, as I hope one day to do, I can ever clear myself and combat my secret enemies, then there will be revealed to you a state of things of which you little dream. To-day I confess I am under a cloud. In the to-morrow I hope and pray that I may be able to expose the guilty and throw a new light upon those who have conspired to secure my downfall.”
They had halted in the dark path, and again their lips met in fond caress. Behind them was the silent watcher, the tall man who had followed Dorise when she had made her secret exit from the house wherein the gay dance was till in progress.
An empty seat was near, and with one accord the lovers sank upon it, Hugh still holding the girl’s soft hand.
“I must really go,” she said. “Mother will miss me, no doubt.”
“And George Sherrard, too?” asked her companion bitterly.
“He may, of course.”
“Ah! Then he is with you to-night?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, he is. Ah! Hugh! How I hate his exquisite and superior manners. But he is such a close friend of mother’s that I can never escape him.”
“And he still pesters you with his attentions, of course,” remarked Hugh in a hard voice.
“Oh! yes, he is always pretending to be in love with me.”
“Love!” echoed Hugh. “Can such a man ever love a woman? Never, Dorise. He does not love you as I love you—with my whole heart and my whole soul.”
“Of course the fellow cannot,” she replied. “But, for mother’s sake, I have to suffer his presence.”
“At least you are frank, darling,” he laughed.
“I only tell you the truth, dear. Mother thinks she can induce me to marry him because he is so rich, but I repeat that I have no intention whatever of doing so. I love you, Hugh—and only you.”
Again he took her in his strong arms and pressed her to him, still being watched by the mysterious individual who had followed Dorise.
“Ah! my darling, these are, indeed, moments of supreme happiness,” Hugh exclaimed as he held her tightly in his arms. “I wonder when we dare meet again?”
“Soon, dear—very soon, I hope. Let us make another appointment,” she said. “On Friday week mother is going to spend the night with Mrs. Deane down at Ascot. I shall make excuse to stay at home.”
“Right. Friday week at the same place and time,” he said cheerily.
“I’ll have to go now,” she said regretfully. “I only wish I could stay longer, but I must get back at once. If mother misses me she’ll have a fit.”
So he walked with her out of the Victoria Gate into the Bayswater Road and put her into an empty taxi which was passing back to Oxford Street.
Then, when he had pressed her hand and wished her adieu, he continued, towards Notting Hill Gate, and thence returned to Kensington.
But, though he was ignorant of the fact, the rather lank figure which had been waiting outside the house in Grosvenor Gardens now followed him almost as noiselessly as a shadow. Never once did the watcher lose sight of him until he saw him enter the house in Abingdon Road with his latchkey.
Then, when the door had closed, the mysterious watcher passed by and scrutinized the number, after which he hastened back to Kensington High Street, where he found a belated taxi in which he drove away.
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