Chapter THIRTEEN

It had been such plain sailing up to the present, that Duberry’s chagrin was very great when he realized that he had been duped at the last moment. He hung about the station for the best part of an hour in the hope that Ramon would come on by a later train. But he waited in vain.

He distinctly had heard him ask for a ticket to the city. What was the cause of this sudden change of plan? Had Ramon, and his friend the butler, suddenly sensed the true significance of that action in offering his cigarette case, and arranged hastily to throw him off the track for the present? Did Ramon, all the time he was limping along to the station at Dalston, guess that he was being followed? Duberry blamed himself for having acted in a somewhat maladroit manner.

Knowing that he was bent on a shadowing expedition, he should have thought it all out better. He and Webber had presented too prosperous an appearance to be in keeping with the environment of that shabby public house. Ramon was handicapped by his evident weak vision from spotting the incongruity, but a sharp fellow like Dicks would be likely to have his suspicions aroused. Whether they would have to follow their quarry east or west, he and Webber ought to have disguised themselves as much as possible, have dressed themselves in shabby clothes, have passed themselves off as belonging to a lower class.

As he walked away from the station, he comforted himself with the reflection that Ramon had scored only a momentary triumph over him.

“He can’t escape me for long,” so ran his thoughts. “He puts in a daily appearance at his office, I suppose, and I have only to hang about till he comes out and follow him to his real home. Besides, after all, it may be quite untrue that they had any suspicion of us. That getting out at some intermediate station may not have been premeditated when he took his ticket. He evidently has friends who live in peculiar places. It may suddenly have occurred to him to pay one of them a visit.”

It also occurred to him that if Ramon actually was going back to his own home, he would hardly like to enter the house in the clothes he had worn at the public house, the cheap clothes which gave him the appearance of a not over-prosperous clerk. He certainly was carrying a suitcase with him. Had he gone to some place on the route in order to change, and come back to town by some other method of conveyance?

The next morning Duberry spent at Somerset House, searching certain files. The result of this investigation, along with others, was communicated to Aylmer a few days later, when the young man appeared at the offices in Bloomsbury in answer to a request for an interview, in which progress was to be reported.

“As you can guess, this sort of investigation takes a fair amount of time,” remarked Duberry as soon as the two men had exchanged greetings. “But in the few days I have been on the job, I flatter myself I have amassed a fairly valuable amount of information. I have had the assistance of a great friend of mine, a retired Scotland Yard official, who is kind enough to act as my honorary adviser when I solicit his help. And in one instance, of which I will tell you presently, he has rendered me incalculable service. Now I will narrate everything in proper order.”

He mentioned first the fact that, having ascertained from one of the tradespeople at Hampstead the name of Quentin’s bank, he had put through the medium of his own bankers an inquiry as to that gentleman’s position.

“My manager showed me the report he received. As I dare say you know, bankers use very guarded language in reference to inquiries about their customers, but it is always easy for another banker to read between the lines. The report, interpreted by an expert, comes to this--that Quentin is not the man of substance he appears to be; that no man doing business with him would be justified in trusting him beyond a very moderate extent. It’s a good thing, therefore, that he did not entrap you into letting him have any of your money.”

“You surprise me, I confess,” exclaimed Aylmer. “Of course, I did not look upon him as a man of considerable wealth, his inability to raise ten thousand pounds on his own went far to negative that. But I should certainly have said he was very well off. He paid heavy hotel bills at Ostend, and his style of living at Hampstead must have cost him a good deal. Everything was on a lavish scale.”

“He may be a spendthrift, lightly come, lightly go,” was Duberry’s answer. “Or, for all I know, he may deal with another bank, two or three perhaps, and only uses this one for his household expenditures. However, this particular manager doesn’t think much of him, and men of his profession are shrewd judges of financial standing. Anyway, that particular report would not justify you in lending him five hundred pounds, much less ten thousand.”

Duberry next gave him a detailed account of his proceedings with regard to the man Ramon, how he and Webber had tracked him to an obscure house in a mean street in Dalston, from thence to a dingy public house where Dicks, the butler, had joined him, of the ruse played with the aid of the cigarette case.

“It was here that my good old friend Webber proved of such inestimable service, through his long connection with Scotland Yard. But of this later. Following events in their proper sequence, I may tell you that I spent the next morning searching the files at Somerset House. You will probably guess my reason--to find the date on which the Quentins were married.”

Aylmer drew a deep breath. He would have preferred that Duberry’s zeal had not led him in this particular direction. “And you found it?” he asked in as careless a tone as he could assume. “About three years ago, speaking from my recollection of what she said.”

Had the carelessness of his manner been a little overdone, he wondered, and failed to impress this exceedingly sharp person? He fancied that Duberry gave him a very searching glance as he answered him.

“No, that is just what I did not do. Quentin is not a very common name, we know, still there were Quentins there. You gave me to understand that the lady mentioned three years as the date. To be on the safe side, I searched for five years. During that period no two people with ages corresponding to theirs--he is old enough to be her father, you say--were married.”

As he did not very well know what to say, having regard to his promise to Eileen, Aylmer remained silent.

He thought a look on Duberry’s face showed increased suspicion. “Are you surprised?” he asked blandly.

Aylmer roused himself to speak. “They gave me the impression, in common with others, of being fairly and squarely married. But, after all, it does not seem to me to be a matter of very great importance.”

Duberry smiled. “Excuse me, but I think it is in this respect, that it is evidence as to character, or, I should rather say, the want of it.”

There was no disputing this, and Aylmer did not attempt to do so. Duberry went on in his calm, logical way.

“It seems to me to throw a very vivid light on the manner of man Quentin is. If he is not married to this young woman, he is, to put it mildly, an exceedingly loose fish. If he is her husband, the ceremony must have been performed under another name. That would not help him in the least, since, apart from authors and actors, men who go about the world under two names are not reputable persons.”

The logic of this was inexorable. For a wild moment, it swept across Aylmer’s mind that, since Duberry knew the actual facts, he might as well tell the truth and acknowledge honestly that he knew as much as the detective had just discovered. But the recollection of Eileen’s tender voice, of her appealing eyes, when she had extracted from him a promise of secrecy, kept him silent.

Duberry was a good fellow, a kindly fellow, and, within certain limits, capable of understanding and sympathy. But he had not the “sixth sense,” the faculty of vision which would enable him to deal with a set of extraordinary and abnormal circumstances.

If he had told Duberry the truth, that Eileen had been entrapped into this sinister connection, partly through poverty and unhappiness, partly through gratitude, would that hardened man of the world credit the story for a moment? Would he not pity the younger man’s ignorance, and class the woman, whom he so adored, as a designing creature, intent on doing the best for herself? Duberry was clever, in a way subtle, but he lacked insight. Aylmer had inherited insight from his Spanish mother, and it helped him now.

Quentin might be all that Duberry thought of him, he had very little doubt that he was. But he was prepared to swear that Eileen was pure, that she never had been smirched by companionship with this extraordinary man, who, on the most merciful judgment, had been proved to be the associate of some individuals very open to suspicion.

After a brief pause, Duberry resumed his remarks. “I told you that my friend Webber, through his long connection with Scotland Yard, has rendered me the most incalculable service. He took those finger-prints in hand, had them developed. Through him we are able to get at some interesting facts in connection with Ramon.”

“The man with the limp, whom I saw entering The Laurels in a furtive way, and leaving the precincts in a way equally furtive,” interjected Aylmer.

“Exactly. Well, it seems that our friend is not unknown to the authorities. He is a Frenchman by birth. Ever since he has been under observation, he has had that limp, which, of course, must have been a tremendous handicap to him in his checkered career. His history, since he left France, is pretty well known to the authorities. He landed in this country when he was about seventeen years of age. He obtained a situation as clerk in a City house, and six months later was discharged for the embezzlement of small sums. They turned him loose and did not take the trouble to prosecute.”

Aylmer experienced a certain feeling of nausea. This foreign adventurer, who had started his commercial career by embezzling small sums from his employers, was closely connected with Quentin, and with Dicks, the butler.

“For three or fours years he was lost sight of. Then he was discovered as a clerk in a financial establishment, of rather questionable reputation--anyway, decidedly on the shady side. There was some trouble here; but again there was no prosecution. Probably it was not safe for them to prosecute, as he knew too much about them and might make damaging revelations.”

“A criminal adventurer, in short,” remarked Aylmer.

“Quite so. Criminality in the blood. Another lapse of a few years; by the way, I reckon him to be a man of about forty-five to fifty. This time his activities take the form of a bucket-shop. And here, after twelve months’ fairly successful trading, he comes into conflict with the authorities. A clear case of fraud, of misappropriated money. The judge remarks that it is a bad case and sentences him to three years.”

“In short, not only a criminal, but a hardened one,” cried Aylmer.

“Decidedly a hardened criminal, and, I should say, one of the type that would rather make a hundred pounds on the crook, than a thousand pounds on the straight. For, mark you, most of these high-class crooks have first-rate brains, but they exercise them in the wrong direction. Well, Ramon comes out, and very shortly after his release, sets up another bucket-shop--but this time under an English name. He goes on quite successfully for three years, keeping well within the limits of the law. Then, I suppose, temptation comes again, and he gets caught a second time. Not quite such a grave offense, but the previous conviction tells against him. On this occasion it is five years. So you see Scotland Yard has had excellent opportunities of getting his record and his finger-prints.”

“I wonder why he came to Hampstead in that guise,” observed Aylmer, perhaps a little irrelevantly. “Was he hiding from the police, do you think? And did Quentin and Dicks keep him safe there till it was safe for him to go?”

Duberry shook his head. “I don’t fancy so. Since he came out the second time, he appears to have been running fairly straight. Anyway, they have got nothing against him, although, of course, they don’t trust him. For a few years he lay fallow, proving one of three things: that he had put by a fair amount of money, that he had friends who assisted him, or that he was engaged in other profitable activities. His latest development is that he has blossomed out into a financial agent, with small offices and three clerks, of whom a typist is one. Scotland Yard is keeping a mildly observant eye upon him, no doubt in the expectation that one day he will fall into their clutches again.”

Apart from his general concern with the whole affair, Aylmer’s leanings towards the study of criminology caused him to take a deep interest in the career of this persistent wrong-doer.

“And to think that this has all come about from your visit to that little dingy public house in Dalston, and getting his finger-prints on the cigarette case. How I wish I had been with you!” he said fervently.

Duberry smiled. “It was a good thing you were not. Dicks would have smelt a rat at once. Even now I can’t make up my mind whether they tumbled to it or not. Well now, I have to come to the last thing of all, my tracking Ramon the following evening to his own home. There were no twistings and turnings as on the previous occasion. I followed him to a substantial residence, a little off Barnes Common, the sort of place a man would require a very decent income to keep up, something like twelve to fifteen hundred a year. A nice bit of ground attached to the house, and a good-sized garage.”

“Evidently, then, he has struck a good thing in the financial agency,” interjected Aylmer.

“It would appear so. I have since made discreet inquiries in the neighborhood. Nothing very definite seems to be known about him or his occupation, but he spends money freely and pays his tradespeople promptly. He has a wife, a quiet, lady-like little woman, who does the ordering and discharges the weekly bills. One child, a boy of about ten, who is a partial cripple. This is as far as I can get with Ramon.”

“He was sentenced in his own name on the first of those two occasions when he came into conflict with the law?” asked Aylmer. “In the second venture he carried on business under an English name. Now it appears he has reverted to his proper one. My friends the Peytons know him as Ramon.”

“Quite true,” replied Duberry. “The first conviction was many years ago, and the trial created no stir, was reported very briefly in the newspapers. Not one out of a hundred, perhaps a thousand people, would have noticed it. He is quite safe therefore, as regards the world at large, in reverting to the name of Ramon.”

“Well, as you say, we know all that there is to be known about this fellow. And we can conclude from his meeting with Dicks, that that apparently respectable person has some share in his present business activities. Now, what about the Quentins? Have you been able to discover their present whereabouts? The only clue we have is from Dicks, who declared that they were bound for Paris, adding that they did not intend to stay there for long. That might have been a deliberate lie, of course.”

Here Duberry had to confess himself at fault. He had correspondents in every capital, and he had given instructions to them to search the hotel registers for a couple of the name of Quentin. But, up to the present, the researches had been unsuccessful. He did not despair absolutely of locating them, but he pointed out that the Continent was a wide place, that Quentin appeared to have a very comprehensive knowledge of it, and that if he wanted to hide himself, it would not be a difficult task.

“Well, that is now the most important thing,” said Aylmer, feeling that the present interview was concluded. “The information you have got reflects the utmost credit on you. But my great aim is to find the Quentins.”

Duberry promised to use his best efforts in this direction. When Aylmer left the office, he found himself wondering if he had not acted a little rashly in consulting Duberry on the strength of a mere club acquaintance. The man lacked neither zeal nor intelligence. But, after all, he was only an amateur, had never been through the mill. Had he at his disposal the necessary machinery with which to put through an investigation of this kind? What he had found out was, admittedly, through the help of Webber. Would it not have been safer if he had gone, in the first instance, to one of those retired sleuth-hounds who had graduated in the experienced atmosphere of Scotland Yard? He had an uneasy conviction that Duberry would not succeed in tracking the Quentins.

When he reached home, his pulses beat as he saw a letter on the table, on the envelope the well-remembered handwriting of Eileen. Eagerly he tore it open, and devoured the contents, which were brief, despairing, and vague.

“My Dearest,--By now you will know of our sudden departure from England. You must believe me when I tell you that this is the first opportunity I have found of writing even this brief note. Martyn did see us that day, after all, and kept his knowledge up his sleeve for a time. Richard has gone back on the promises he made me, and there is now no hope of our coming together again. There is a barrier between us which cannot be removed. There is nothing left you but to forget our brief dream, so sweet while it lasted, but unsubstantial, like all dreams. And yet, I would not have you wholly forget. Think of me as one who loved you very truly, whose love for you will never grow cold, and whose heart is broken by the knowledge that we are separated forever. Do not try to seek me out, that would only add to my misery; for nothing can alter the inevitable.

“Your unhappy
“Eileen.”