At the moment he had read the letter Mrs. Bond entered the room.
“Hallo! You’re down early,” she remarked. “And already had your letters, I see! They don’t generally come so early. The postman has to walk over from Puttenham.”
Then she took up her own and carelessly placed them aside. They consisted mostly of circulars and the accounts of Guildford tradesmen.
“Yes,” he said, “I was down early. Lately I’ve acquired the habit of early rising.”
“An excellent habit in a young man,” she laughed. “All men who achieve success are early risers—so a Cabinet Minister said the other day. And really, I believe it.”
“An hour in the early morning is worth three after dinner. That is why Cabinet Ministers entertain people at breakfast nowadays instead of at dinner. In the morning the brain is fresh and active—a fact recently discovered in our post-war days,” Hugh said.
Then, as his hostess turned to the hot-plate upon the sideboard, lifting the covers to see what her cook had provided, he re-scanned the letter which had been openly addressed to him. It was from Dorise:
“I refuse to be deceived any longer, I have discovered that you are now a fellow-guest with the girl Louise, to whom you introduced me. And yet you arranged to meet me at Farnham, believing that I was not aware of your close friendship with her! I have believed in you up to the present, but the scales have now fallen from my eyes. I thought you loved me too well to deceive me—as you are doing. Hard things are being said about you—but you can rest content that I shall reveal nothing that I happen to know. What I do know, however, has changed my thoughts concerning you. I believed you to be the victim of circumstance. Now I know you have deceived me, and that I, myself, am the victim. I need only add that someone else—whom I know not—knows of your hiding-place, for, by a roundabout way, I heard of it, and hence, I address this letter to you.—DORISE.”
Hugh Henfrey stood staggered. There was no mistaking the meaning of that letter now that he had read it a second time.
Dorise doubted him! And what answer could he give her? Any explanation must, to her, be but a lame excuse.
Hugh ate his breakfast sullenly. To Louise, who put in a late appearance, and helped herself off the hot-plate, he said cheerfully:
“How lazy you are!”
“It’s not laziness, Hugh,” replied the girl. “The maid was so late with my tea—and—well, to tell the truth, I upset a whole new box of powder on my dressing-table and had to clean up the mess.”
“More haste—less speed,” laughed Hugh. “It is always the same in the morning—eh?”
When the girl sat down at the table Hugh had brightened up. Still the load upon his shoulders was a heavy one. He was ever obsessed by the mystery of his father’s death, combined with that extraordinary will by which it was decreed that if he married Louise he would acquire his father’s fortune.
Louise was certainly very good-looking, and quite charming. He admitted that as he gazed across at her fresh figure on the opposite side of the table. He, of course, was in ignorance of the fact that Benton, who had adopted her, was a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, whose accomplice was the handsome woman who was his hostess.
Naturally, he never dreamed that that quiet and respectable house, high on the beautiful Surrey hills, was the abode of a woman for whom the police of Europe were everywhere searching.
His thoughts all through breakfast were of The Sparrow—the great criminal, who was his friend. Hence, after they rose, he strolled into the morning-room with his hostess, and said:
“I’ll have to go to town again this morning. I have an urgent letter. Can Mead take me?”
“Certainly,” was the woman’s reply. “I have to make a call at Worplesdon this afternoon, and Louise is going with me. But Mead can be back before then to take us.”
So half an hour later Hugh was driving up the steep High Street of Guildford on his way to London.
He alighted in Piccadilly, at the end of Half Moon Street, soon after eleven, and, dismissing Mead, made his way to Ellerston Street to the house of Mr. George Peters.
He rang the bell at the old-fashioned mansion, and a few moments later the door was opened by the manservant he had previously seen.
In an instant the servant recognized the visitor.
“Mr. Peters will not be in for a quarter of an hour,” he said. “Would you care to wait, sir?”
“Yes,” Hugh replied. “I want to see him very urgently.”
“Will you come in? Mr. Peters has left instructions that you might probably call; Mr. Henfrey, is it not?”
“Yes,” replied Hugh. The man seemed to possess a memory like that of a club hall-porter.
Young Henfrey was ushered into a small but cosy little room, which, in the light of day, he saw was well-furnished and upholstered. The door closed, and he waited.
A few moments after he distinctly heard a man’s voice, which he at once recognized as that of The Sparrow.
The servant had told him that Mr. Peters was absent, yet he recognized his voice—a rather high-pitched, musical one.
“Mr. Henfrey is waiting,” he heard the servant say.
“Right! I hope you told him I was out,” The Sparrow replied.
Then there was silence.
Hugh stood there very much puzzled. The room was cosy and well-furnished, but the light was somewhat dim, while the atmosphere was decidedly murky, as it is in any house in Mayfair. One cannot obtain brightness and light in a West End house, where one’s vista is bounded by bricks and mortar. The dukes in their great town mansions are no better off for light and air than the hard-working and worthy wage-earners of Walworth, Deptford, or Peckham. The air in the working-class districts of London is not one whit worse than it is in Mayfair or in Belgravia.
Hugh stood before an old coloured print representing the hobby-horse school—the days of the “bone-shakers”—and studied it. He awaited Il Passero and the advice which he had promised to give.
His ears were strained. That house was curiously quiet and forbidding. The White Cavalier, whom he had believed to be the notorious Sparrow, had been proved to be one of his assistants. He had now met the real, elusive adventurer, who controlled half the criminal adventurers in Europe, and had found in him a most genial friend. He was there to seek his advice and to act upon it.
As he reflected, he realized that without the aid of The Sparrow he would have long ago been in the hands of the police. So widespread was the organization which The Sparrow controlled that it mattered not in what capital he might be, the paternal hand of protection was placed upon him—in Genoa, in Brussels, in London—anywhere.
It seemed that when The Sparrow protected any criminal the fugitive was safe. He had been sent to Mrs. Mason in Kensington, and he had left her room against The Sparrow’s will.
Hence his peril of arrest. It was that point which he wished to discuss with the great arch-criminal of Europe.
That house was one of mystery. The servant had told him that he was expected. Why? What did The Sparrow suspect?
The whole atmosphere of that old-fashioned place was mysterious and apprehensive. And yet its owner had succeeded in extricating him from that very perilous position at Monte Carlo!
Suddenly, as he stood there, he heard voices again. They were raised in discussion.
One voice he recognized as that of The Sparrow.
“Well, I tell you my view is still the same,” he exclaimed. “What you have told me does not alter it, however much you may ridicule me!”
“Then you know the truth—eh?”
“I really didn’t say so, my dear Howell. But I have my suspicions—strong suspicions.”
“Which you will, in due course, impart to young Henfrey, I suppose?”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” was The Sparrow’s reply. “The lad is in serious peril. I happen to know that.”
“Then why don’t you warn him at once?”
“That’s my affair!” snapped the gentleman known in Mayfair as Mr. Peters.
“IF Henfrey is here, then I’d like to meet him,” Howell said.
It seemed as though the pair were in a room on the opposite side of the passage, and yet, though Hugh stood at some distance away, he could hear the words quite distinctly. At this he was much surprised. He did not, however, know that in that house in Ellerston Street there had been constructed a curious system of ventilation of the rooms by which a conversation taking place in a distant apartment could be heard in certain other rooms.
The fact was that The Sparrow received a good many queer visitors, and some of their whispered conversations while they awaited him were often full of interest.
The house was, in more than one way, a curiosity. It had a secret exit through a mews at the rear—now converted into a garage—and several other mysterious contrivances which were unsuspected by visitors.
“It would hardly do for him to know what we know, Mr. Peters—eh?” Hugh heard Howell say a moment later. It was the habit of The Sparrow’s accomplices to address their great director—the brain of criminal Europe—by the name under which they inquired for him. The Sparrow had twenty names—one for every city in which he had a cosy pied-a-terre. In Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, Marseilles, Vienna, Hamburg, Budapest, Stockholm and on the Riviera, he was, in all the cities, known by a different name. Yet each was so distinct, and each individuality so well kept up, that he snapped his fingers at the police and pitied them their red tape, ignorance, and lack of initiative.
Truly, Il Passero, the cosmopolitan of many names and half a dozen nationalities, had brought criminality to a fine art.
Hugh, standing there breathless, listened to every word. Who was this man Howell?
“Hush!” cried The Sparrow suddenly. “What a fool I am! I quite forgot to close the ventilator in the room to which the young fellow has been shown! I hope he hasn’t overheard! I had Evans and Janson in there an hour ago, and they were discussing me, as I expected they would! It was a good job that I took the precaution of opening the ventilator, because I learned a good deal that I had never suspected. It has placed me on my guard. I’ll go and get young Henfrey. But,” he added, “be extremely careful. Disclose nothing you know concerning the affair.”
“I shall be discreet, never fear,” replied his visitor.
A moment later The Sparrow entered the room where Henfrey was, and greeted him warmly. Then he ushered him down the passage to the room wherein stood his mysterious visitor.
The room was such a distance away that Hugh was surprised that he could have heard so distinctly. But, after all, it was an uncanny experience to be associated with that man of mystery, whose very name was uttered by his accomplices with bated breath.
“My friend, Mr. George Howell,” said The Sparrow, introducing the slim, wiry-looking, middle-aged man, who was alert and clean-shaven, and plainly but well dressed—a man whom the casual acquaintance would take to be a solicitor of a fair practice. He bore the stamp of suburbia all over him, and his accent was peculiarly that of London.
His bearing was that of high respectability. The diamond scarf-pin was his only ornament—a fine one, which sparkled even in that dull London light. He was a square-shouldered man, with peculiarly shrewd, rather narrow eyes, and dark, bushy eyebrows.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Henfrey,” he replied, with a gay, rather nonchalant air. “My friend Mr. Peters has been speaking about you. Had a rather anxious time, I hear.”
Henfrey looked at the stranger inquisitively, and then glanced at The Sparrow.
“Mr. Howell is quite safe,” declared the man with the gloved hand. “He is one of Us. So you may speak without fear.”
“Well,” replied the young man, “the fact is, I’ve had a very apprehensive time. I’m here to seek Mr. Peters’ kind advice, for without him I’m sure I’d have been arrested and perhaps convicted long ago.”
“Oh! A bit of bad luck—eh? Nearly found out, have you been? Ah! All of us have our narrow escapes. I’ve had many in my time,” and he grinned.
“So have all of us,” laughed the bristly-haired man. “But tell me, Henfrey, why have you come to see me so quickly?”
“Because they know where I’m in hiding!”
“They know? Who knows?”
“Miss Ranscomb knows my whereabouts and has written to me in my real name and addressed the letter to Shapley.”
“Well, what of that?” he asked. “I told her.”
“She tells me that my present hiding-place is known!”
“Not known to the police? Impossible!” gasped the black-gloved man.
“I take it that such is a fact.”
“Why, Molly is there!” cried the man Howell. “If the police suspect that Henfrey is at Shapley, then they’ll visit the place and have a decided haul.”
“Why?” asked Hugh in ignorance.
“Nothing. I never discuss other people’s private affairs, Mr. Henfrey,” Howell answered very quietly.
Hugh was surprised at the familiar mention of “Molly,” and the declaration that if the Manor were searched the police would have “a decided haul.”
“This is very interesting,” declared The Sparrow. “What did Miss Ranscomb say in her letter?”
For a second Hugh hesitated; then, drawing it from his pocket, he gave it to the gloved man to read.
Hugh knew that The Sparrow was withholding certain truths from him, yet had he not already proved himself his best and only friend? Brock was a good friend, but unable to assist him.
The Sparrow’s strongly marked face changed as he read Dorise’s angry letter.
“H’m!” he grunted. “I will see her. We must discover why she has sent you this warning. Come back again this evening. But be very careful where you go in the meantime.”
Thus dismissed, Hugh walked along Ellerston Street into Curzon Street towards Piccadilly, not knowing where to go to spend the intervening hours.
The instant he had gone, however, The Sparrow turned to his companion, who said:
“I wonder if Lisette has revealed anything?”
“By Jove!” remarked The Sparrow, for once suddenly perturbed. “I never thought of that!”
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