Chapter XXXV: Describes an Exciting Chase

Soon after nine o'clock on the following morning I strolled through the big booking-office of the Gare du Nord, in Paris, and out upon the platform.

The long green-painted restaurant car express for Calais--the morning mail to England--was already in waiting, and homeward-bound British tourists--some of the men in knickers and stockings and the womenkind in the usual tweed skirt and blouse--began to dribble in and seek the best places. The _maître d'hôtel_ of the restaurant was busy distributing his tickets for the first _déjeuner_, and blue-capped attendants were conducting passengers to seats previously reserved for them.

Perhaps the departure of no train in the world presents such a changeful picture of life as the Paris-London mail. I have travelled by it a great many times, both before and since, yet the scenes witnessed there always fascinate me. One sees the elegant Frenchwoman going _en voyage_ for the first time in her life, and dreading the fifty minutes of sea passage; the home-coming tourist, who believes he has had a holiday because he has put on nailed boots and attempted the fagging ascent of a Swiss mountain, or who has accomplished a tour of Italy, including Rome, in eight days; the youth who has just had his first taste of the much overrated pleasures of "Gay Paree," as he terms it; the uninterested business man; the home-going schoolgirl, personally conducted after the completion of her education; and the hardened traveller who knows which is the best seat in the train and has it, and who lifts his finger to the chief of the restaurant car and thus secures a little table to himself.

And amid the increasing bustle I was seeking for a man I had never seen--the mysterious Monsieur Smith.

A P. and O. boat had come into Marseilles on the previous day, and a crowd of her overland passengers had just arrived, eager to get a sight of "home" after perhaps years of exile. Huge quantities of baggage were being registered, and more than one Anglo-Indian carried his solar topee in his hand.

It was within ten minutes of the departure of the train, yet, although I walked up and down, I saw nobody that I knew. Who, among that crowd, was the man known in the Rue Pierre Charron as Monsieur Smith? One man, an elderly, grey-haired Englishman with a very red face, was seated in the corner of a second-class carriage immersed in the _Gaulois_. I passed and repassed, wondering if it were he. Among the hundred and fifty or so departing passengers there were, indeed, several of whom I entertained suspicion.

It was tantalising that I had not had an opportunity of getting a glimpse of him during the previous night. The words of my sweet-faced well-beloved rang in my ears. "I am unworthy of your love!" she had cried. Why had she made this confession? Why was she unworthy, if it were not that Francis Drayton had held, and still held, her fascinated?

My intention was to endeavour to see her again on my return to the Grand--to induce her to reveal to me the truth. Who was Louise Lorimer? Why had she been so cruelly assassinated, and who was the actual assassin? That she knew all this I was convinced. Behind her public life as a popular stage-favourite lay a mystery--one that it was her duty to me, her lover, to confess and to reveal.

For what purpose was she in Paris? As far as I knew she had no engagement there. My only conjecture was that she had come to the French capital to meet in secret the mysterious Mr Smith--the man who at that moment was, unknown to me, flying back to England. Who had warned him, I wondered? Whose voice had that been on the telephone?

My vigilant watch along the train remained unrewarded. No doubt the man Smith was there, but, not being acquainted with his appearance, I was unable to identify him.

My position at that moment was a most annoying and puzzling one.

The minutes were passing quickly. Most of the passengers had taken their seats, and people "seeing off" their friends were crowding about the carriages giving their parting injunctions to write, and wishing the travellers _bon voyage_.

I was standing near the luggage-trucks at the front of the train, and facing the barrier by which travellers gained access to the platform, when I suddenly saw a figure hurrying along in search of a seat. He was the usual late passenger, to be noticed at the departure of every train, and two conductors, seeing him, began to search the first-class carriages for a vacant place.

He was a rather stout man, in a light greenish drab overcoat of sack shape and a grey soft felt hat. He was clean-shaven, keen-faced, and beneath the overcoat he wore a dark blue suit, while on his nose he wore gold-rimmed pince-nez.

No second glance was needed to tell me the truth. I stood staring at him when I realised his identity.

The man approaching me was Frederick Stonor. His altered appearance to that he had presented weeks ago at Cromer gave me no cause to doubt that he was the Monsieur Smith of the Rue Pierre Charron, who had received over the telephone the urgent warning to escape. It was he who had been so openly charged with being a blackguard by Drayton on the previous night, he who had been so defiant, and so utterly heedless of his friend's bitter reproaches.

The fellow, who was Julian Little's secret friend, and whom Drayton had accused of using Daisy as a decoy in some ingenious but dastardly plot, was hurrying along the train, breathless and eager to get away from France. A little bearded man in neat black, and wearing a bowler hat, eyed him suspiciously. He was the agent of police, I knew, but, not having monsieur's description as a person "wanted," he allowed him to enter the train in search of a seat.

Cries of "En voiture, messieurs," were at that moment being raised by the porters. Should I mount the train and follow the fugitive? If I did so I should have no opportunity of further conversation with Daisy. But on an instant's reflection I began to query whether such attempt to see her was wise, having in view the fact that Drayton was in Paris. If I left for England after Stonor I should still have an opportunity of seeing Daisy on her return to London in a day or two.

Stonor's attitude told me that he was in fear, and it was this that decided me, for just as the train moved away I clambered up into one of the carriages. In the corridor I was at once pounced upon by a ticket examiner, and not having one, obtained from him a first-class ticket for London.

"M'sieur had plenty of time to obtain a ticket," he remarked, as he handed me the written voucher.

"I know," I replied; "but I did not decide to go until the last moment."

Then I wandered along the train, noted the compartment which the man from Scarborough had selected, and afterwards went along to the restaurant car, and there found a seat myself.

As I had anticipated, the fugitive did not come to lunch, and the journey to Calais was uneventful. Indeed, I saw nothing more of him until in the afternoon I watched him, his hat crushed down on his head, pacing the deck of the Dover boat, his countenance dark and heavy--essentially the face of a man with a secret.

His actions were those of a person who feared to be followed, and I was compelled to exercise the greatest caution not to betray in him any undue interest. At Calais Station, before embarking, I had sent an urgent telegram to Whitlock at Scotland Yard, but whether he would receive it in time to meet us at Charing Cross was an open question. Part of the time on board he spent chatting with one of the sailors, to whom he appeared to be giving some instructions, the nature of which was revealed when he landed.

Without luggage he had passed along the pier to where the Charing Cross train was in waiting and entered a compartment, when about ten minutes later the seaman with whom he had been talking upon the steamer came to the carriage accompanied by a telegraph boy, who handed him a message.

This he read, knit his brow slightly, and then, handing both the sailor and the boy each a tip, he got out of the carriage in which he had been so comfortably ensconced.

Receipt of that telegraphic message seemed to have altered his plans, for he sought out the station-master and of him made some inquiries, after which both men consulted a time-table pasted up near the refreshment bar. The fugitive, after some discussion with the guard, walked along the pier to Dover Town Station, and after half an hour's wait took train to Ashford. To follow was a precarious undertaking, but I resolved to risk it. It was evident he meant to avoid London, and keep some appointment. Ashford reached, he took another ticket, and after an hour's wait arrived in Guildford.

It was near ten o'clock when he entered the old-fashioned hotel in the steep, broad High Street. I continued past the place, and after the lapse of a short space I turned and entered the bar. The house is a favourite resort of motorists from London, who run down by that road, ever popular since the early days of cycling, which passes from Kingston through Ripley. It was therefore not surprising that several cars should be standing in the yard, or that a particularly fine Limousin should be awaiting its owner at the door.

Stonor was not in the bar, therefore I swallowed the drink I ordered and then explored the place. I had been there on a previous occasion, when my journalistic duties had taken me to the county town of Surrey, therefore I knew the quaint old place, with its wooden staircases, narrow passages, and odd nooks and corners.

Pushing open the door of the long, low coffee-room, I peered within, and there to my joy saw the man whom I had followed from Paris, seated with a clean-shaven man in motoring overcoat and muffler, with whom he evidently had an appointment. They were sitting opposite each other, engaged in earnest conversation. Before Stonor was a formidable plate of cold beef and pickles, which he was devouring with keen appetite, while his companion calmly smoked a big briar pipe.

The man, a perfect stranger to me, was rather refined, with the air and manners of a gentleman. What was the topic of discussion I could not possibly discover, for they were conversing in an undertone, fearing, no doubt, lest the rather shabby, splay-footed English waiter should overhear.

In silence I gently pulled back the door again and returned to the bar. My chase had been a close and hard one, and I hoped that, for that night at least, it was at an end.

Drayton's open denunciation had evidently alarmed him, in conjunction with the mysterious warning he had received over the telephone. His intention had been to escape to London, but he had received information which had brought him across country to that old-fashioned town wherein we now were.

My second telegram to Whitlock must have puzzled him, for a quarter of an hour after urging him to meet us at Charing Cross I had despatched a second wire telling him that I had changed my destination.

From where I stood in the bar I could keep a watchful eye upon anyone leaving the hotel, and it was not long before my vigilance was rewarded. Stonor and his motoring friend came forth and went out to the "forty" Limousin standing at the kerb.

As I watched I at once realised Stonor's intention, for opening the door he took from within a heavy frieze motor-coat, cap, and pair of goggles, which he assumed in place of his own thin overcoat and felt hat. The instant I saw that flight was intended I passed back through the hotel into the garage and of several men assembled there asked if there was a car to be hired for a run to London.

At first there was some demur, but presently one young chauffeur remarked that his master had left him there with the car, having been suddenly recalled by train to Exeter, and that if it would only occupy a few hours he was ready to take me for a consideration.

The consideration I fixed at "a fiver," and without further ado he went up to a fine, big open car, a "sixty" Mercédes to be exact, started the engine, and lit the headlights. Then, he having put on his overcoat and cap, I borrowed a coat of his master's, and just as we were seated side by side I saw the red car, in which was the fugitive, glide past the end of the yard on its way down the hill.