“You need not worry,” said the stranger to Hugh. “I am not your enemy, but a friend. I warn you that Marseilles is unsafe for you. Get away as soon as possible. The Spanish police have learnt that you have come here,” he went on as he strolled at his side.
Hugh was amazed.
“How did you know my identity?” he asked eagerly.
“I was instructed to watch for your arrival—and to warn you.”
“Who instructed you?”
“A friend of yours—and mine—The Sparrow.”
“Has he been here?”
“No. He spoke to me on the telephone from Paris.”
“What were his instructions?”
“That you were to go at once—to-night—by car to the Hotel de Paris, at Cette. A car and driver awaits you at the Garage Beauvau, in the Rue Beauvau. I have arranged everything at The Sparrow’s orders. You are one of Us, I understand,” and the man laughed lightly.
“But my bag?” exclaimed Hugh.
“Go to the hotel, pay your bill, and take your bag to the station cloak-room. Then go and get the car, pick up your bag, and get out on the road to Cette as soon as ever you can. Your driver will ask no questions, and will remain silent. He has his orders from The Sparrow.”
“Does The Sparrow ever come to Marseilles?” Hugh asked.
“Yes, sometimes—when anything really big brings him here. I have, however, only seen him once, five years ago. He was at your hotel, and the police were so hot upon his track that only by dint of great promptitude and courage he escaped by getting out of the window of his room and descending by means of the rain-water pipe. It was one of the narrowest escapes he has ever had.”
As the words left the man’s mouth, they were passing a well-lit brasserie. A tall, cadaverous man passed them and Hugh had a suspicion that they exchanged glances of recognition.
Was his pretended friend an agent of the police?
For a few seconds he debated within himself how he should act. To refuse to do as he was bid might be to bring instant arrest upon himself. If the stranger were actually a detective—which he certainly did not appear to be—then the ruse was to get him on the road to Cette because the legal formalities were not yet complete for his arrest as a British subject.
Yet he knew all about The Sparrow, and his attitude was not in the least hostile.
Hugh could not make up his mind whether the stranger was an associate of the famous Sparrow, or whether he was very cleverly inveigling him into the net.
It was only that exchange of glances with the passer-by which had aroused Hugh’s suspicions.
But that significant look caused him to hesitate to accept the mysterious stranger as his friend.
True, he had accepted as friends numbers of other unknown persons since that fateful night at Monte Carlo. Yet in this case, he felt, by intuition, that all was not plain sailing.
“Very well,” he said, at last. “I esteem it a very great favour that you should have interested yourself on behalf of one who is an entire stranger to you, and I heartily thank you for warning me of my danger. When I see The Sparrow I shall tell him how cleverly you approached me, and how perfect were your arrangements for my escape.”
“I require no thanks or reward, Mr. Henfrey,” replied the man politely. “My one desire is to get you safely out of Marseilles.”
And with that the stranger lifted his hat and left him.
Hugh went about fifty yards farther along the broad, well-lit street full of life and movement, for the main streets of Marseilles are alive both day and night.
By some intuition—why, he knew not—he suspected that affable little man who had posed as his friend. Was it possible that, believing the notorious Sparrow to be his friend, he had at haphazard invented the story, and posed as one of The Sparrow’s gang?
If so, it was certainly a very clever and ingenious subterfuge.
He was undecided how to act. He did not wish to give offence to his friend, the king of the underworld, and yet he felt a distinct suspicion of the man who had so cleverly approached him, and who had openly declared himself to be a crook.
That strange glance he had exchanged with the passer-by beneath the rays of the street-lamp had been mysterious and significant. If the passer-by had been a crook, like himself, the sign of recognition would be one of salutation. But the expression upon his alleged friend’s face was one of triumph. That made all the difference, and to Hugh, with his observation quickened as it had been in those months of living with daily dread of arrest, it had caused him to be seized with strong and distinct suspicions.
He felt in his hip pocket and found that his revolver, an American Smith-Wesson, was there. He had a dislike of automatic pistols, as he had once had a very narrow escape. He had been teaching a girl to shoot with a revolver, when, believing that she had discharged the whole magazine, he was examining the weapon and pulled the trigger, narrowly escaping shooting her dead.
For a few seconds he stood upon the broad pavement. Then he drew out his cigarette-case. In it were four cigarettes, two of which The Sparrow had given him when in London.
“Yes,” he muttered to himself. “Somebody must have given me away at Shapley, and now they have followed me! I will act for myself, and take the risks.”
Then he walked boldly on, crossed the road, and entered the big Hotel de Louvre et Paix. To appear unconcerned he had a drink at the bar, and ascending in the lift, called the floor-waiter, asked for his bill, and packed his bag.
“Ah!” he said to himself. “If I could only get to know where The Sparrow is and ask him the truth! He may be at that address in Paris which he gave me.”
After a little delay the bill was brought and he paid it. Then in a taxi he drove to the station where he deposited his bag in the cloak-room.
Close by the consigne a woman was standing. He glanced at her, when, to his surprise, he saw that she was the same woman who had been sitting in the cafe with a male companion.
Was she, he wondered, in league with his so-called friend? And if so, what was intended.
Sight of that woman lounging there, however, decided him. She was, no doubt, awaiting his coming.
He walked out of the great railway terminus, and, inquiring the way to the Rue Beauvau, soon found the garage where a powerful open car was awaiting him in the roadway outside.
A smart driver in a dark overcoat came forward, and apparently recognizing Hugh from a description that had been given to him, touched his cap, and asked in French:
“Where does m’sieur wish to go?”
“To the station to fetch my coat and bag,” replied the young Englishman, peering into the driver’s face. He was a clean-shaven man of about forty, broad-shouldered and stalwart. Was it possible that the car had been hired by the police, and the driver was himself a police agent?
“Very well, m’sieur,” the man answered politely. And Hugh having entered, he drove up the Boulevard de la Liberte to the Gare St. Charles.
As he approached the consigne, he looked along the platform, and there, sure enough, was the same woman on the watch, though she pretended to be without the slightest interest in his movements.
Hugh put on his coat, and, carrying his bag, placed it in the car.
“You have your orders?” asked Hugh.
“Yes, m’sieur. We are to go to Cette with all speed. Is not that so?”
“Yes,” was Hugh’s reply. “I will come up beside you. I prefer it. We shall have a long, dark ride to-night.”
“Ah! but the roads are good,” was the man’s reply. “I came from Cette yesterday,” he added, as he mounted to his seat and the passenger got up beside him.
Hugh sat there very thoughtful as the car sped out of the city of noise and bustle. The man’s remark that he had come from Cette on the previous day gave colour to the idea that no net had been spread, but that the stranger was acting at the orders of the ubiquitous Sparrow. Indeed, were it not for the strange glance the undersized little man had given to the passer-by, he would have been convinced that he was actually once again under the protection of the all-powerful ruler of the criminal underworld.
As it was, he remained suspicious. He did not like that woman who had watched so patiently his coming and going at the station.
With strong headlights glaring—for the night was extremely dark and a strong wind was blowing—they were soon out on the broad highway which leads first across the plain and then beside the sea, and again across the lowlands to old-world Arles.
It was midnight before they got to the village of Lancon, an obscure little place in total darkness.
But on the way the driver, who had told Hugh that his name was Henri Aramon, and who insinuated that he was one of The Sparrow’s associates, became most affable and talkative. Over those miles of dark roads, unfamiliar to Hugh, they travelled at high speed, for Henri had from the first showed himself to be an expert driver, not only in the unceasing traffic of the main streets of Marseilles, but also on the dark, much-worn roads leading out of the city. The roads around Marseilles have never been outstanding for their excellence, and after the war they were indeed execrable.
“This is Lancon,” the driver remarked, as they sped through the dark little town. “We now go on to Salon, where we have a direct road across the plain they call the Crau into Arles. From there the road to Cette is quite good and straight. The road we are now on is the worst,” he added.
Hugh was undecided. Was the man who was driving him so rapidly out of the danger zone his friend—or his enemy?
He sat there for over an hour unable to decide.
“This is an outlandish part of France,” he remarked to the driver presently.
“Yes. But after Salon it is more desolate.”
“And is there no railway near?”
“After Salon, yes. It runs parallel with the road about two miles to the north—the railway between Arles and Aix-en-Provence.”
“So if we get a breakdown, which I hope we shall not, we are not far from a railway?” Hugh remarked, as through the night the heavy car tore along that open desolate road.
As he sat there he thought of Dorise, wondering what had happened—and of Louise. If he had obeyed his father’s wishes and married the latter all the trouble would have been avoided, he thought. Yet he loved Dorise—loved her with his whole soul.
And she doubted him.
Poor fellow! Hustled from pillar to post, and compelled to resort to every ruse in order to avoid arrest for a crime which he did not commit, yet about which he could not establish his innocence, he very often despaired. At that moment he felt somehow—how he could not explain—that he was in a very tight corner. He felt confident after two hours of reflection that he was being driven over these roads that night in order that the police should gain time to execute some legal formality for his arrest.
Why had not the police of Marseilles arrested him? There was some subtle motive for sending him to Cette.
He had not had time to send a telegram to Mr. Peters in London, or to Monsieur Gautier, the name by which The Sparrow told him he was known at his flat in the Rue des Petits Champs, in the centre of Paris. He longed to be able to communicate with his all-powerful friend, but there had been no opportunity.
Suddenly the car began to pass through banks of mist, which are usual at night over the low marshes around the mouths of the Rhone. It was about half-past two in the morning. They had passed through the long dark streets of Salon, and were already five or six miles on the broad straight road which runs across the marshes through St. Martin-de-Crau into Arles.
Of a sudden Hugh declared that he must have a cigarette, and producing his case handed one to the driver and took one himself. Then he lit the man’s, and afterwards his own.
“It is cold here on the marshes, monsieur,” remarked the driver, his cigarette between his lips. “This mist, too, is puzzling. But it is nearly always like this at night. That is why nobody lives about here.”
“Is it quite deserted?”
“Yes, except for a few shepherds, and they live up north at the foot of the hills.”
For some ten minutes or so they kept on, but Hugh had suddenly become very watchful of the driver.
Presently the man exclaimed in French:
“I do not feel very well!”
“What is the matter?” asked Hugh in alarm. “You must not be taken ill here—so far from anywhere!”
But the man was evidently unwell, for he pulled up the car.
“Oh! my head!” he cried, putting both hands to his brow as the cigarette dropped from his lips. “My head! It seems as if it will burst! And—and I can’t see! Everything is going round—round! Where—where am I?”
“You are all right, my friend. Get into the back of the car and rest. You will be yourself very quickly.”
And he half dragged the man from his seat and placed him in the back of the car, where he fell inert and unconscious.
The cigarette which The Sparrow had given to Hugh only to be used in case of urgent necessity had certainly done its work. The man, whether friend or enemy, would now remain unconscious for many hours.
Hugh, having settled him in the bottom of the car, placed a rug over him. Then, mounting to the driver’s place, he turned the car and drove as rapidly as he dared back over the roads to Salon.
Time after time, he wondered whether he had been misled; whether, after all, the man who had driven him was actually acting under The Sparrow’s orders. If so, then he had committed a fatal error!
However, the die was cast. He had acted upon his own initiative, and if a net had actually been spread to catch him he had successfully broken through it. He laughed as he thought of the police at Cette awaiting his arrival, and their consternation when hour after hour passed without news of the car from Marseilles.
At Salon he passed half way through the town to cross roads where he had noticed in passing a sign-board which indicated the road to Avignon—the broad high road from Marseilles to Paris.
Already he had made up his mind how to act. He would get to Avignon, and thence by express to Paris. The rapides from Marseilles and the Riviera all stopped at the ancient city of the Popes.
Therefore, being a good motor driver, Hugh started away down the long road which led through the valley to Orgon, and thence direct to Avignon, which came into sight about seven o’clock in the morning.
Before entering the old city of walls and castles Hugh turned into a side road about two miles distant, drove the car to the end, and opening a gate succeeded in getting it some little distance into a wood, where it was well concealed from anyone passing along the road.
Then, descending and ascertaining that the driver was sleeping comfortably from the effects of the strong narcotic, he took his bag and walked into the town.
At the railway station he found the through express from Ventimiglia—the Italian frontier—to Paris would be due in twenty minutes, therefore he purchased a first-class ticket for Paris, and in a short time was taking his morning coffee in the wagon-restaurant on his way to the French capital.
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