Hugh Henfrey was at last face to face with the most notorious criminal in Europe!
The black-gloved hand of the wizened, bristly-haired old man was the hand that controlled a great organization spread all over Europe—an organization which only knew Il Passero by repute, but had never seen him in the flesh.
Yet there he was, a discreet, rather petulant old gentleman, who lived at ease in an exclusive West End street, and was entirely unsuspected!
When “Mr. Peters” admitted his identity, Hugh drew a long breath. He was staggered. He was profuse in his thanks, but “The Sparrow” merely smiled, saying:
“It is true that I and certain of my friends make war upon Society—and more especially upon those who have profiteered upon those brave fellows who laid down their lives for us in the war. Whatever you have heard concerning me I hope you will forgive, Mr. Henfrey. At least I am the friend of those who are in distress, or who are wrongly judged—as you are to-day.”
“I have heard many strange things concerning you from those who have never met you,” Hugh said frankly. “But nothing to your detriment. Everyone speaks of you, sir, as a gallant sportsman, possessed of an almost uncanny cleverness in outwitting the authorities.”
“Oh, well!” laughed the shrewd old man. “By the exercise of a little wit, and the possession of a little knowledge of the personnel of the police, one can usually outwit them. Curious as you may think it, a very high official at Scotland Yard dined with me here only last night. As I am known as a student of criminology, and reputed to be the author of a book upon that subject, he discussed with me the latest crime problem with which he had been called upon to deal—the mysterious murder of a young girl upon the beach on the north-east coast. His frankness rather amused me. It was, indeed, a quaint situation,” he laughed.
“But does he not recognize you, or suspect?” asked Hugh.
“Why should he? I have never been through the hands of the police in my life. Hence I have never been photographed, nor have my finger prints been taken. I merely organize—that is all.”
“Your organization is most wonderful, Mr.—er—Mr. Peters,” declared the young man. “Since my flight I have had opportunity of learning something concerning it. And frankly, I am utterly astounded.”
The old man’s face again relaxed into a sphinx-like smile.
“When I order, I am obeyed,” he said in a curious tone. “I ordered your rescue from that ugly situation in Monte Carlo. You and Miss Ranscomb no doubt believed the tall man who went to the ball at Nice as a cavalier to be myself. He did not tell you anything to the contrary, because I only reveal my identity to persons whom I can trust, and then only in cases of extreme necessity.”
“Then I take it, sir, that you trust me, and that my case is one of extreme necessity?”
“It is,” was The Sparrow’s reply. “At present I can see no solution of the problem. It will be best, perhaps, for you to remain where you are for the present,” he added. He did not tell the young man of his knowledge of Benton and his hostess.
“But I am very desirous of seeing Miss Ranscomb,” Hugh said. “Is there any way possible by which I can meet her without running too great a risk?”
The Sparrow reflected in silence for some moments.
“To-day is Wednesday,” he remarked slowly at last. “Miss Ranscomb is in London. That I happen to know. Well, go to the Bush Hotel, in Farnham, on Friday afternoon and have tea. She will probably motor there and take tea with you.”
“Will she?” cried Hugh eagerly. “Will you arrange it? You are, indeed, a good Samaritan!”
The little old man smiled.
“I quite understand that this enforced parting under such circumstances is most unfortunate for you both,” he said. “But I have done, and will continue to do, all I can in your interest.”
“I can’t quite make you out, Mr. Peters,” said the young man. “Why should you evince such a paternal interest in me?”
The Sparrow did not at once reply. A strange expression played about his lips.
“Have I not already answered that question twice?” he asked. “Rest assured, Mr. Henfrey, that I have your interests very much at heart.”
“You have some reason for that, I’m sure.”
“Well—yes, I have a reason—a reason which is my own affair.” And he rose to wish his visitor “good-night.”
“I’ll not forget to let Miss Ranscomb know that you will be at Farnham. She will, no doubt, manage to get her mother’s car for the afternoon,” he said. “Good-night!” and with his gloved fingers he took the young man’s outstretched hand.
The instant he heard the front door close he crossed to the telephone, and asking for a number, told the person who answered it to come round and see him without a moment’s delay.
Thus, while Hugh Henfrey was seated beside Mead as Mrs. Bond’s car went swiftly towards Kensington, a thin, rather wiry-looking man of middle age entered The Sparrow’s room.
The latter sprang to his feet quickly at sight of his visitor.
“Ah! Howell! I’m glad you’ve come. Benton and Molly Maxwell are deceiving us. They mean mischief!”
The man he addressed as Howell looked aghast.
“Mischief?” he echoed. “In what way?”
“I’ve not yet arrived at a full conclusion. But we must be on the alert and ready to act whenever the time is ripe. You know what they did over that little affair in Marseilles not so very long ago? They’ll repeat, if we’re not very careful. That girl of Benton’s they are using as a decoy—and she’s a dangerous one.”
“For whom?”
“For old Henfrey’s son.”
The Sparrow’s visitor gave vent to a low whistle.
“They intend to get old Henfrey’s money?”
“Yes—and they will if we are not very wary,” declared the little, bristly-haired old gentleman known as The Sparrow. “The boy has been entirely entrapped. They made one faux pas, and it is upon that we may—if we are careful—get the better of them. I don’t like the situation at all. They have a distinctly evil design against the boy.”
“Benton and Molly are a combination pretty hard to beat,” remarked Mr. Howell. “But I thought they were friends of ours.”
“True. They were. But after the little affair in Marseilles I don’t trust them,” replied The Sparrow. “When anyone makes a slip, either by design or sheer carelessness, or perhaps by reason of inordinate avarice, then I always have to safeguard myself. I suspect—and my suspicion usually proves correct.”
His midnight visitor drew a long breath.
“What we all say of you is that The Sparrow is gifted with an extra sense,” he said.
The little old man with the gloved hand smiled contentedly.
“I really don’t know why,” he said. “But I scent danger long before others have any suspicion of it. If I did not, you would, many of you who are my friends, have been in prison long ago.”
“But you have such a marvellous memory.”
“Memory!” he echoed. “Quite wrong. I keep everything filed. I work yonder at my desk all day. See this old wardrobe,” and he crossed to a long, genuine Jacobean wardrobe which stood in a corner and, unlocking it, opened the carved doors. “There you see all my plans arranged and docketed. I can tell you what has been attempted to-night. Whether the coup is successful I do not yet know.”
Within were shelves containing many bundles of papers, each tied with pink tape in legal fashion. He took out a small, black-covered index book and, after consulting it, drew out a file of papers from the second shelf.
These he brought to his table, and opened.
“Ah, yes!” he said, knitting his brows as he read a document beneath the green-shaded electric lamp. “You know Franklyn, don’t you?”
“Harold Franklyn?”
“Yes. Well, he’s in the Tatra, in Hungary. He and Matthews are with three Austrian friends of ours, and to-night they are at the Castle of Szombat, belonging to Count Zsolcza, the millionaire banker of Vienna. The Countess has some very valuable jewels, which were indicated to me several months ago by her discharged lady’s maid—through another channel, of course. I hope that before dawn the jewels will be no longer at Szombat, for the Count is an old scoundrel who cornered the people’s food in Austria just before the Armistice and is directly responsible for an enormous amount of suffering. The Countess was a cafe singer in Budapest. Her name was Anna Torna.”
Mr. Howell sat open-mouthed. He was a crook and the bosom friend of the great Passero. Like all others who knew him, he held the master criminal in awe and admiration. The Sparrow, whatever he was, never did a mean action and never took advantage of youth or inexperience. To his finger-tips he was a sportsman, whose chief delight in life was to outwit and puzzle the police of Europe. In the underworld he was believed to be fabulously wealthy, as no doubt he was. To the outside world he was a very rich old gentleman, who contributed generously to charities, kept two fine cars, and, as well as his town house, had a pretty place down in Gloucestershire, and usually rented a grouse moor in Scotland, where he entertained Mr. Howell and several other of his intimate friends who were in the same profitable profession as himself, and in whose “business” he held a controlling interest.
In Paris, Rome, Madrid, or Brussels, he was well known as an idler who stayed at the best hotels and patronized the most expensive restaurants, while his villa on the Riviera he had purchased from a Roumanian prince who had ruined himself by gambling. His gloved hand—gloved because of a natural deformity—was the hand which controlled most of the greater robberies, for his war upon society was constantly far-reaching.
“Is Franklyn coming straight back?” asked Howell.
“That is the plan. He should leave Vienna to-morrow night,” said The Sparrow, again consulting the papers. “And he comes home with all speed. But first he travels to Brussels, and afterwards to The Hague, where he will hand over Anna Torna’s jewels to old Van Ort, and they’ll be cut out of all recognition by the following day. Franklyn will then cross from the Hook to Harwich. He will wire me his departure from Vienna. He’s bought a car for the job, and will have to abandon it somewhere outside of Vienna, for, as in most of our games, time is the essence of the contract,” and the old fellow laughed oddly.
“I thought Franklyn worked with Molly,” said Mr. Howell.
“So he does. I want him back, for I’ve a delicate mission for him,” replied the sphinx-like man known as The Sparrow.
Mr. Howell, at the invitation of the arch-criminal, helped himself to a drink. Then The Sparrow said:
“You are due to leave London the day after to-morrow on that little business in Madrid. You must remain in town. I may want you.”
“Very well. But Tresham is already there. I had a letter from him from the Palace Hotel yesterday.”
“I will recall him by wire to-morrow. Our plans are complete. The Marquis’s picture will still hang in his house until we are ready for it. It is the best specimen of Antonio del Rincon, and will fetch a big price in New York—when we have time to go and get it,” he laughed.
“Is Franklyn to help the Maxwell woman again?” asked Mr. Howell, who was known as an expert valuer of antiques and articles of worth, and who had an office in St. James’s. He only dealt in collectors’ pieces, and in the trade bore an unblemished reputation, on account of his expert knowledge and his sound financial condition. He bought old masters and pieces of antique silver now and then, but none suspected that the genuine purchases at big prices were only made in order to blind his friends as to the actual nature of his business.
Indeed, to his office came many an art gem stolen from its owner on the Continent and smuggled over by devious ways known only to The Sparrow and his associates. And just as ingeniously the stolen property was sent across to America, so well camouflaged that the United States Customs officers were deceived. With pictures it was their usual method to coat the genuine picture with a certain varnish, over which one of the organization, an old artist living in Chelsea, would paint a modern and quite passable picture and add a new canvas back.
Then, on its arrival in America, the new picture was easily cleaned off, the back removed, and lo! it was an old master once more ready for purchase at a high price by American collectors.
Truly, the gloved hand of The Sparrow was a master hand. He had brought well-financed and well-organized theft to a fine art. His “indicators,” both male and female, were everywhere, and cosmopolitan as he was himself, and a wealthy man, he was able to direct—and finance—all sorts of coups, from a barefaced jewel theft to the forgery of American banknotes.
And yet, so strange and mysterious a personality was he that not twenty persons in the whole criminal world had ever met him in the flesh. The tall, good-looking man whom Dorise knew as the White Cavalier was one of four other men who posed in his stead when occasion arose.
Scotland Yard, the Surete in Paris, the Pubblica Sicurezza in Rome, and the Detective Department of the New York police knew, quite naturally, of the existence of the elusive Sparrow, but none of them had been able to trace him.
Why? Because he was only the brains of the great, widespread criminal organization. He remained in smug respectability, while others beneath his hand carried out his orders—they were the servants, well-paid too, and he was the master.
No more widespread nor more wonderful criminal combine had ever been organized than that headed by The Sparrow, the little old man whom Londoners believed to be Cockney, yet Italians believed to be pure-bred Tuscan, while in Paris he was a true Parisian who could speak the argot of the Montmartre without a trace of English accent.
As a politician, as a City man, as a professional man, The Sparrow, whose real name was as obscure as his personality, would have made his mark. If a lawyer, he would have secured the honour of a knighthood—or of a baronetcy, and more than probable he would have entered Parliament.
The Sparrow was a philosopher, and a thorough-going Englishman to boot. Though none knew it, he was able by his unique knowledge of the underworld of Europe to give information—as he did anonymously to the War Office—of certain trusted persons who were, at the moment of the outbreak of war, betraying Britain’s secrets.
The Department of Military Operations was, by means of the anonymous information, able to quash a gigantic German plot against us; but they had been unable to discover either the true source of their information or the identity of their informant.
“I’d better be off. It’s late!” said Mr. Howell, after they had been in close conversation for nearly half an hour.
“Yes; I suppose you must go,” The Sparrow remarked, rising. “I must get Franklyn back. He must get to the bottom of this curious affair. I fell that I am being bamboozled by Benton and Molly Maxwell. The boy is innocent—he is their victim,” he added; “but if I can save him, by gad! I will! Yet it will be difficult. There is much trouble ahead, I anticipate, and it is up to us, Howell, to combat it!”
“Perhaps Franklyn can assist us?”
“Perhaps. I shall not, however, know before he gets back here from his adventures in Hungary. But I tell you, Howell, I am greatly concerned about the lad. He has fallen into the hands of a bad crowd—a very bad crowd indeed.”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg