Chapter THIRTEEN: An Affair in Fulham

What could we do save to leave the matter in the hands of the police?

In a couple of hours every police-constable in greater London would hear the description read over before going on duty, while search would be made of every hospital and every ambulance post.

We afterwards drove along to the offices of _The Times_ and _Morning Post_ in which we placed advertisements, begging the taxi-driver, who took a young lady from Queen’s Gate at eight o’clock on the evening in question to communicate at once with the nearest police-station.

There was no more to be done save to wait in patience.

How that day passed, or what I did, I cannot tell. My wife Illona might be in London as she said she intended. I re-read the letter I had found in Rome, in which she told me that if she dared she would call on me. If she dared? What could that mean?

She asked me to write to her at her club in London. But what club? In neither of her letters had she given me any address save that vague one “Lausanne.”

I knew the tree-lined city on the hill above the blue Lake of Geneva. But it was a large place in which to search for anyone. Yet if she were a traveler, as it seemed, she would no doubt be at one of the fifty or more hotels. And if she had assumed my name I might be able to discover her in the visitors’ list.

My first impulse was to go to Lausanne, but I remembered that she had stated her intention of coming to me in London. Hence I decided to wait.

Four days went by, but we could gather nothing concerning Joan. She had completely disappeared, and, like myself, her parents were beside themselves with grief.

In my excited state of mind I called on my friend Teddy Day and told him of Joan’s disappearance, though I withheld from him the secret of Illona’s existence. I told him of my romantic mission from the Little Countess to Roddy Owen, though I gave him no inkling of who the charming lady really was.

“She’s an adventuress, no doubt, old boy,” he declared, as he stretched his long legs out upon the hearthrug, and smoked his cigarette. “If she is received at the Embassy in Rome and elsewhere, she ought to be exposed. You ought not to allow her and her chaperon to go further.”

I discussed the situation from every angle. It was difficult to write to Sir Richard Kingscliffe. I could only wait until my duties took me again into Italy. Meanwhile, I knew that something very serious must have happened to Joan, and that I myself remained in some mysterious but deadly peril.

I was, I think, no coward; yet I had enemies on every hand. Since that never-to-be-forgotten night in Bloomsbury, when, because I tried to rescue a defenseless woman from the hands of a brute, I brought upon myself dire disaster, I seemed to have been hounded out of life.

When I reflected, I saw visions of the face of Lisely Hatten distorted horribly by hate, when she had made that brutal proposal to put out my eyes. And yet I was perfectly innocent, and, moreover, I was her friend.

Was it because of my friendship that she had spared me? Did she continue, by some subtle means, to evade doing what she and that man friend of hers had suggested? Had she relented, and allowed me to go with my eyesight unimpaired? Still, the effect on me of that unknown drug had remained, blotting out my consciousness for two whole years. Nevertheless, I had led another life, energetic, manly, tireless, as I sped hither to and fro between Downing Street and the capitals of Europe. I had once or twice contemplated consulting a doctor about it. But, like most young men, I had a silly terror of the medical profession, refusing medical aid, unless, perhaps, I had a touch of fever that sent me to bed.

Teddy was sympathetic and full of suggestions. Meanwhile, Mr. Gell, with all his influence in police circles, was daily active in searching for Joan.

Happily we had managed to keep the affair out of the papers save for the advertisement addressed to the taxi driver. But that told the public nothing.

On the fourth day after her disappearance a taxi driver named Cowley, living at Streatham Common, called at the Brixton Police Station and made a statement.

He had been passing along Queen’s Gate when a young lady had come out of a house and ordered him to drive to Wardour Street. At the door of the Cosmo Club a fair-haired young man, in evening dress, was waiting to meet her. They had had a short and very excited discussion, whereupon the young man had entered the taxi and told the man to drive to the Florida Club. There he set them down. And he knew nothing more.

This story was told to me by Mr. Gell, who ’phoned me to come over to Queen’s Gate at once. Together we went to Bruton Street, where we saw the commissionaire on duty, who apparently had no recollection of the incident. In the book was Joan’s signature as a member.

In the broad light of day the popular night haunt of society looked horribly tawdry and bizarre. Princes and nobles danced upon the glass floor, drank their wines, and ate rich foods at night beneath the glamor of shaded lights, while listening to the soft, seductive music of the highest paid orchestra in London. Yet the club looked strange and unreal as we interviewed the manager, while several foreign baize-aproned waiters were arranging choice flowers upon the tables for the coming night.

We failed to discover anything further than the signature of Joan as she had entered. The Florida was most exclusive. There was no subterfuge of membership, as there is in so many London dance-clubs--no joining by immediate payment of a subscription. Each member was an approved person, passed by the committee at its monthly meeting, just as at any other West End club. There were, indeed, men and women on the waiting list; hence it was a club almost as exclusive as the Carlton, White’s, the Travelers’, or the Devonshire.

We drew blank--a disappointing blank. We could discover nothing further than her rather faintly written signature--“Joan Gell”--in the big membership book, held by the old, white-moustached military commissionaire. Underneath her signature was that of a world-famous explorer, and above it was the scribble of a rather reckless young peer.

I wondered whether the explorer had known or had ever seen her. He was a member of the Junior United Service Club, so I called on him.

Alert, erect, and full of genuine bonhomie, the elderly traveler told me that he knew Joan by sight, that he had but a faint recollection of seeing her that evening.

“I have an idea I saw her dancing with a young, fair-haired man,” he told me as we sat together in the club. “He struck me as a young, empty-headed fool, but he was a very good dancer. They charlestoned well. That’s all I know. I left the Florida about half past one and went to the Travelers’ with Janning Chase, the stockbroker, for a final drink.”

That was all we could gather.

A dozen times I consulted with Teddy, but our conversation carried us no further.

Who, we wondered, was her fair-haired dancing-partner? Was it my enemy who pretended blindness?

Scotland Yard could obtain no clue. The most diligent inquiries were made of the staff of the Florida as regards the fair young man who was such an excellent dancer. But his identity could not be fixed. All the signatures of both members and their visitors on that night were carefully verified, but there was no fair-haired young man among those registered.

Yet Anthony Marsh, the explorer, whom I saw on two different occasions afterwards, remained certain that he had seen her with the young fellow whom he described.

The description struck me as very like that of Roddy Owen! If the latter was acquainted with my enemy, the woman Lisely Hatten, then might he not be one of the conspirators against me? Since I had realized my foolish failure to recognize the Little Countess, I held the romantic young bachelor in great distrust.

My first impulse was to call on him and demand an explanation of the events of that night when Joan was decoyed by the message purporting to come from me. But Teddy suggested remaining watchful, and I agreed with him.

“He doesn’t know me. Therefore I’ll follow him and see where he goes and what company he keeps,” he said. “I’ll watch to-night.”

And he did.

I went down to Queen’s Gate to hear if any news had been received, but there was nothing. A week had gone by, and my love was either held in some hateful bondage or was dead. The number of women and girls who disappear weekly in London is incredible; drugs and the white-slave traffic, alas! being responsible for many deserted homes.

We all entertained the worst fears, and yet we were powerless.

I got back to Sackville Street just after midnight, and, after smoking an hour over the evening paper, as was my habit, I was about to retire when Teddy entered.

“There’s some mystery about that fellow Owen,” he said, throwing himself into a chair wearily. “I don’t exactly know what has happened, but we ought to know something in the morning.”

“What do you mean?” I gasped.

“Well, I waited for an hour and a half outside Harrington Court until I saw him come out. He was in evening clothes, with a crush hat, and walked leisurely along down Grosvenor Place, where he made a call. But evidently the person he wanted was out.

“He then came back along Piccadilly to Scott’s, where he met a man accidentally, and they both had a meal down below. I sat in the next compartment to them. But their conversation was so low that I could not distinguish what they said. His friend was a big, round-faced, overdressed fellow, and they were evidently discussing something of an extremely confidential nature. After that they had coffee, then both strolled along Shaftesbury Avenue to Ham Yard, where they entered a little obscure club, which I know to be the resort of West End thieves and undesirables. It was pointed out to me once as one of the plague spots of London. Both of them went upstairs and remained there for over an hour. Then Owen came out accompanied by an ill-dressed, thin young fellow in dark clothes and a cap, who might have been a pickpocket--evidently a fellow of evil repute. Both got into a taxi in Shaftesbury Avenue, and I followed them in another taxi down to Rutland Gate. The young man left the taxi, and while it went on farther down the road, he sauntered along alone, his attention being fixed on an upper window of one of the largest houses.

“I stood back under a portico, so that he did not see me,” Teddy went on. “At last, after quite ten minutes, loitering near the house, he moved on, and rejoined Owen at the end of the road. Afterwards, they drove down to Fulham where, in a dark street, they descended. I dared not go near them. But my taxi driver, who was a discreet young fellow, and had entered into the spirit of the adventure, drew up so that they did not know they were being followed. I had just got to the corner of the street when I saw the flash of a pistol fired from a doorway at a figure that was ascending the steps. The shot rang out, and the figure reeled. But, not wishing to be mixed up with the affair, I stepped back into the taxi and drove with all speed to Sloane Square, where I left the vehicle. ‘There’s been murder done, I think, sir,’ said the taxi driver as I alighted, ‘and we’re far better out of it!’”

“Well,” I remarked, when he had finished his strange story, “there will surely be something in the papers about it to-morrow.”

“I think it is proved beyond all doubt that your friend Owen is an associate of undesirables. That club in Ham Yard has been several times raided by the police when in search of criminals,” Teddy said. “From what happened in Fulham they seem to be a pretty desperate lot!”

It was two o’clock before my watchful friend left, and I turned in.

Next morning I scanned the paper eagerly, but found nothing regarding the affair at Fulham.

The _Evening News_ that night, however, contained the following:

“Shortly before midnight a constable, on passing the Fulham Almshouses, heard the sound of a shot coming from Finlay Street, which runs down to the Fulham Football Ground. He hastened to the spot, but at first found nothing, though he heard the sound of a taxi being driven rapidly away, apparently in Bishop’s Park Avenue, which borders on the grounds of Fulham Palace.

“After a rapid search, in which he was joined by several passers-by, and by one or two alarmed residents in Finlay Street, the body of a young man was discovered at the foot of the steps leading up to the front door of the house number 246. A rapid examination by the light of the constable’s torch showed that he had received a bullet in the heart and was quite dead.

“The identity of the person who had fired the shot cannot, at present, be ascertained. The constable naturally at once made demand at the house as to its occupants; but the place proved to be empty and to let. As far as can be gathered, the man was shot by some unknown hand, and the affair is one of London’s mysteries of the night.

“The body was taken to the Fulham mortuary, and as result of police inquiries, and the taking of the dead man’s finger-prints, it has been definitely affirmed that he was in active association with the desperate gang of cat-burglars who have for a considerable time terrorized the West End of London, and constituted a great trouble to the police.

“It has been proved that the dead man’s name is Henry Wilson, alias ‘Tuggy,’ an ex-naval seaman, whose cat-like climbing had first earned him recognition with his mates. He returned from the Navy, and utilized his powers of climbing, by entering bedrooms in West End houses while their occupants were below at dinner or out for the evening, securing, in that way, enormous quantities of jewelry and other valuables. According to the finger-prints he left two months ago in a bedroom in one of the biggest houses in Park Lane, he appropriated thirty thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry, as well as fifty thousand pounds’ worth of negotiable securities, which he found in the unlocked safe of the wife of one of the most notable of British financiers.

“So clever was he in association with a great and most desperate criminal gang which had long troubled Scotland Yard, that only once was he convicted. He was sentenced at the Gloucester Assizes to three years’ imprisonment for a cat-burglary, with violence, at a big mansion at Leckhampton. Since his discharge the police are aware that he has been the catspaw of others, and responsible for many clever thefts which were amazing in their audacity.

“The identity of his assailant is being actively searched for, and the police are satisfied that, through certain channels already known, the murderer will be discovered.”