# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 39/Number 3/The Unfamiliar Triangle

Extracted from Red Book Magazine, July 1922, pp. 91–96, 110, 112, 114. Accompanying illustrations by W. B. King may be omitted.
The greatest series of detective-mystery stories since The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”
The Unfamiliar Triangle
By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
Illustrated by W. B. King
This thrilling episode in a master detective's pursuit of an arch-criminal and his wife is narrated, at the start, by the wife Janet.
THIS, as near as I can remember, is a copy of the letter I received that wonderful third day of March:
137 Golden Square, London, W. C.
    Dear Madam:
    We beg to inform you that, under the will of the late William Soale, gardener, of Mayford, Surrey, you are entitled to a legacy of £250, free of duty.
    As the estate is so small, and the assets are chiefly in War Loan, we are in a position to pay you that sum at once, if you will favor us with a call, or your instructions. Faithfully,
Haskel & Hames.
No one could possibly realize what that money meant for me. I had been working for months at a small dressmaker's in Kensington, earning barely enough to keep myself, slinking to work in the morning and slinking home at night, terrified alike of Michael, the man whom I had once loved, and of Norman Greyes, the man who, without the slightest effort on his part, had attained such a strange and commanding influence over my thoughts and life. And now for a time, at least, I was free. With two hundred and fifty pounds, I could escape from London and hide.
None of the obvious places appealed to me in any way. After a great deal of consideration, I took a first-class passage to Marseilles, in the name of Janet Soale, on the slowest P. & O. boat I could find. I spent a moderate sum in replenishing my wardrobe, sewed a hundred pound note into my bodice, and started on my adventure.
I had made no effort to secure any special place in the dining saloon. Consequently the seat apportioned to me was in a somewhat remote corner, and my companions of that negative type who seem born to promenade the decks of steamers, point out perfectly obvious porpoises and passing ships to their fellow-passengers, and apparently disappear at the end of the voyage from the face of the earth. It was what suited me best. Day by day I breathed an atmosphere of repose.
Then the natural thing happened. My interest in life began to revive. I was young and strong. The sunshine, the salt air, the complete change, did their work. I made some slight change in my toilet one night, and arranged my hair differently. Half a dozen people made an excuse to come and talk to me that night on deck. I had as many offers of an escort to view the sights when we landed at Gibraltar on the following day. Men, however, made no appeal to me. I preferred to join a small party, mostly composed of people who sat at my table.
We wandered about the place in the usual disjointed fashion, striving to assume the tourist's intelligent interest in the jumble of Spanish remains, modern fortifications, burnous-clad Moors and preternaturally withered Spaniards.
Finally we wandered into the hotel for tea, served in a lounge which one of my traveled companions described as the very quintessence of spurious Orientalism. The room had a glass roof but no windows. It was adorned with artificial flowers rearing their heads from brass pots, with marble-topped tables and plush furniture. None of these things impressed me at the time, for a very adequate reason. I was steeped in amazement at something I saw in the face of the woman who had been its solitary occupant before our coming. She was moderately young, quietly but expensively dressed, of small but graceful figure and with large dark eyes. It was none of these personal characteristics, however, which compelled and riveted my attention. It was the fact that from her corner in the darkened room she was glaring at me with an expression of intent and deliberate malignity. To the best of my belief I had never seen her before; yet it was a clear and unmistakable fact that in this hotel room at Gibraltar I had suddenly come into contact with a woman who hated me.
We somehow or other found places at a table. My immediate neighbor was an elderly American gentleman who had once or twice spoken to me on the voyage, but who seemed to spend most of his time seeking former business associates. He had, he told me, been a manufacturer of boots and shoes in a place called Lynn. His name was Frank Popple.
“Say, are you acquainted with the lady in the corner?” he asked curiously.
I shook my head. “I have never seen her before,” I assured him.
“Is that so?” he replied incredulously. “I guess she isn't partial to strangers, then. Didn't you notice her looking kind of fierce?”
“I thought she had probably mistaken me for some one else,” I said.
Mr. Popple appeared to find the surmise possible.
“Fiery-tempered lot, these foreigners,” he remarked.
I received a further shock about an hour later, when I found the same woman ensconced in a corner of the tender which was to take us back to the steamer, surrounded by two much-belabeled steamer-trunks, a dressing-case, hatbox, and other feminine impedimenta. She scowled at me sullenly when we came on board; and acting entirely on impulse, I walked straight across to her.
“Have I offended you in any way?” I inquired. “It seems to me that we are strangers.”
She looked at me steadfastly. Her face, which normally must have been soft and pretty, had become hard and cold. Her eyes still told their tale of hatred.
“You are Janet Stanfield, are you not?” she asked.
“That is certainly my name,” I admitted, more puzzled than ever. “How did you know it?”
She looked at me in doubting silence. “I have seen your picture,” she said gloomily.
“Where?”
“In New York. He carried it with him.”
SHE turned deliberately away, as though determined not to enter into any further conversation. I found her unsociability to some extent a relief, but when I stepped on board again, my blessed peace of mind was gone. I relapsed into my former frame of mind and endeavored to keep away from everyone. Mr. Popple, however, refused to accept my plain hints. He dragged his chair over to my corner on deck.
“Mrs. Louisa K. Martin—that lady's name,” he informed me. “She comes from way out West, beyond Milwaukee. She is getting out at Marseilles.”
“I had forgotten all about her,” I replied mendaciously.
Mr. Popple scratched his chin thoughtfully. He was a large man, clean-shaven, with a ponderous jaw but kindly eyes, with little creases at the side. He seemed a little hurt at my lack of confidence.
“I'd give her a wide berth if I were you,” he advised. “Traveling about as much as I do, I've got kind of used to taking stock of people's expressions, and the way she looked at you was real mean.”
I declined to continue the conversation and announced my intention of going to bed. As I entered the music-room on the way to my cabin, there was a curious cessation of conversation. Mrs. Louisa K. Martin, who was seated in an easy-chair, very becomingly dressed in black, with a long rope of pearls around her neck, looked at me with steady insolence. I walked straight up to her chair. I knew that she had been saying things about me, and I was furious.
“Are you meeting my husband at Marseilles, Mrs. Martin?” I asked her.
I was sorry for the question directly the words had left my lips—sorry for her too, in a way. She turned deathly pale, and if looks could have killed, I should have been a dead woman She made no answer at all. I waited for a moment and then passed on to my stateroom.
IT must have been about ten o'clock that night when I heard a soft tapping at my door. I guessed at once who it was and I guessed rightly. It was Mrs. Louisa Martin, wrapped in a dressing-gown and with slippers on her feet. She closed the door carefully, and she put her fingers to her lips.
“We must be careful,” she whispered. “You were mad to speak of Michael openly.”
“Of my husband?”
She laughed contemptuously.
“He married me years before you,” she replied, “and another before either of us.”
I turned away from her, that she should not see the hate in my face. Some conviction of this sort had been growing upon me of late.
“When two women love the same man,” Louisa Martin continued, “they should forget everything when he is in danger I don't see love in your face,” she went on. “Then why are you here?”
“I see no reason why I should discuss that or any other subject with you,” I answered. “But as a matter of fact I had no idea that Michael was in Marseilles.”
I thought that she would have struck me. The fire of unbelief blazed in her eyes
“What are you doing on this steamer then?” she demanded.
“I came for a holiday trip,” I told her.
She leaned a little toward me. In the unshaded light of the cabin her face seemed wan, almost aged.
“Listen,” she said: “this is a matter of life or death for Michael. You heard through some one of his being in Marseilles. Tell me through whom.”
“I swear that I had no idea he was there,” I repeated.
“You fool!” she exclaimed. “Can't you see that you are probably followed—that the police are making use of you?”
“You are in the same position yourself,” I reminded her.
“Indeed I am not,” she assured me earnestly. “I was born in Marseilles. I have traveled there repeatedly. I know every corner and stone of the place. It was I who taught Michael that it was the finest hiding-place in the world for the educated criminal. It was I who took him where he is now.”
Our conversation was suddenly interrupted in a very unexpected fashion. My stewardess entered, with a thin blue strip in her hand.
“Wireless for you, Mrs. Soale,” she announced, addressing me by the name under which I had booked my passage.
“For me?” I repeated incredulously. “There must be some mistake. Nobody knows that I am on board.”
“It's Mrs. Soale, right enough,” the stewardess assured me. “There's no one else of that name among the passengers.”
I tore open the envelope. My companion watched me with glittering eyes. She could scarcely wait until the stewardess had departed.
“You liar!” she raged. “You see what you have done! You have laid a trail for the police to follow from London to Marseilles.”
She poured out abuse. I heard nothing. My whole attention was fixed upon these few words staring at me from the telegraph form:
“Dombey 31st March Genesis Louise”
I felt her wrist suddenly grip mine. She read the message over my shoulder.
“Get the code,” she whispered hoarsely. “Quick!”
“What code?” I demanded. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
I suppose she must have been convinced at last, for she dropped my wrist and hurried to the door.
“Wait here,” she ordered, snatching the message from my hand.
There was a heavy swell that night, and I was glad to sit down upon my bunk. She returned in a very few moments. Her cheeks were flushed. She handed me back the message. Underneath it she had penciled the interpretation:
“Danger 97 it must be dealt with promptly Louisa.”
I looked at it and shook my head.
Illustration: An elderly gentleman drove up. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “You are paying me a visit?”
“I suppose I am a fool,” I admitted, “but I can't understand a word.”
“You are a fool,” she agreed. “No wonder Michael never trusted you with a code! It means that some one dangerous must be traveling in Stateroom Ninety-seven, who must be dealt with promptly by me—Louisa—my name. Do you understand now?”
“But how could Michael know that I was on the steamer, and why should he have sent this message to me instead of to you?” I demanded.
“The chief of police at Marseilles has a copy of every passenger list of steamers leaving London and calling at Marseilles, forwarded overland,” she replied. “Michael has a friend in the Bureau. It is possible that I am being watched. He knew quite well that I should find you out, and that I should be of more use than you were likely to be..... Now to discover who's traveling in Stateroom Ninety-seven.”
She called to the steward, who was passing outside. He unhooked the door and looked in.
“Steward, can you tell me the name of the gentleman in Number Ninety-seven?” she inquired.
He shook his head.
“That's the other side of the ship, madam.”
She held out a treasury note.
“Please find out,” she begged.
He was back again in less than a minute.
“Mr. Popple, madam—an American gentleman,” he announced.
Even as he spoke, we heard a familiar and resonant voice outside.
“I put his plant down at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and I cleaned up the deal. Some push down our way, sir!”
Mr. Popple passed on. The woman whose name was Louisa stood looking at me.
“From the first I suspected him,” she whispered. “He must be Bill Lund, from Chicago. This commercial traveler business is his stunt.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
She smiled in a peculiar fashion.
“Obey Michael,” she answered softly....
The next morning, Mr. Popple came over and talked to me again. He had shown me from the first a considerable amount of attention, but his conversation had always been of the most ordinary kind. This morning, however, in the midst of a discussion on ladies' footwear, he broke off and addressed me different fashion.
“So you're making friends with the woman who looked as though she wanted to bite your head off at Gibraltar!” he remarked.
“I shouldn't have said so,” I replied cautiously
“She was in your stateroom last night, wasn't she?” he queried.
“For a moment or two,” I admitted. “Why not?”
He watched the smoke from his cigar thoughtfully.
“I guess you've got common-sense enough to take a word of advice,” he said. “Here it is. Keep out of it.”
“Keep out of what?” I demanded.
He shrugged his shoulders
“That's a fine shoal of porpoises,” he observed, looking over the side of the ship. “I don't know as I've ever seen a finer in these waters.”
“In other words—” I ventured, smiling.
“Incident closed,” he declared. “Maybe I've opened my mouth too wide as it is.”
But as a matter of fact he had not. The last few days had seen a wonderful change in me. I scarcely knew myself, scarcely realized the new thoughts with which I lived, the slow falling away of the spurious fancies which life with Michael had fostered. These few days, freed from the constant environment of the city with its sordid tasks and obligations, solitude in the great spaces with the sea and the wind and the stars, had been like a tonic to my soul. In plain words, my association with Michael had become loathsome to me. I was filled with a passionate desire to start life again as an honest woman.
So, although I knew now for certain that Mr. Popple was a detective, I said no word of this to Louisa, even though, during the next few hours, I witnessed an amazing development of their acquaintance. They sat together for several hours, and Louisa's beautiful eyes seemed every moment to become more eloquent. Without a doubt she had made up her mind to captivate him, and to all appearance she was succeeding.
I was walking up and down the deck with the doctor, and we heard scraps of their conversation as we passed—an assignation for the morrow evening at Marseilles, proposed boldly enough by Mr. Popple, and assented to by a timorous but eloquent flash of the eyes by Louisa. After dinner they took their coffee out on deck. Their heads were even closer together, their voices dropped. People, as they passed, began to smile. It was obvious that an affair was in progress. I was surprised, therefore, to hear Mr. Popple suddenly address the doctor, who had joined me again for a few minutes.
“Just one moment, Doc'.”
We stopped at once. Mr Popple seemed to rise with difficulty to his feet.
“Guess I am sick, Doc'. Just step round to my stateroom with me for a moment.”
Mr. Popple, suddenly very pale, swayed on his feet and clutched at the doctor's arm. I expected every moment to see him collapse. We all turned to Louisa. She shook her head, apparently as bewildered as the rest of us.
“We had just finished our coffee,” she explained, “when Mr. Popple, who had been talking a great deal, became silent. He spoke of a pain in his head, and I thought he seemed queer. Then he called out to the doctor. That is all I know about it.”
By degrees the others melted away. I sank into Mr. Popple's vacant chair. As soon as we were alone, Mrs. Louisa Martin looked at me covertly. There was a flash of triumph in her half-closed eyes.
“So!” she murmured. “I do not think that Mr. Popple will follow me about Marseilles.”
“Do you mean that you have poisoned him?” I gasped.
She looked at me with a queer little smile.
“Some,” she said, “prefer to shoot. I choose the way of safety.”
Then I knew that Michael had told her everything. In that moment, all that I had ever felt of love for him turned to hate....
Illustration: Janet was lying on the ground; Louisa leaned over her. Michael was already halfway through the trapdoor. Our pistols spoke together.....For a moment I think I went mad.
We entered the harbor at Marseilles late on the following morning, and drifted down on our way to the dock. We stood leaning over the side, waiting, prepared to land, but waiting for the gendarmes at the farther end of the gangway to give the word. Suddenly I felt a little thrill pass through my whole body. Notwithstanding the hot sunshine, I was so cold that I felt myself shivering. Leaning with his back to one of the wooden pillars was a man with tanned, almost swarthy skin, lean-faced with a hungry, wolflike droop of his thin lips. He was shabbily dressed even for a laborer, with a brown jumper, ragged blue trousers, boots devoid of laces, and a soiled tweed cap. It was more than a disguise—it was a metamorphosis; yet I knew Michael, and although he never glanced again in my direction, I knew that he had recognized me. I did then what was, under the circumstances, a foolish action. I made my way to where Louisa was standing, and I touched her on the arm.
“Look there,” I said, directing her attention cautiously toward the lounging figure.
She looked at him for a moment without interest. Then suddenly the change came into her face. Her lips were a little parted; the color was drained from her cheeks; her eyes were filled with the anticipation of evil things. She clutched at my arm.
“There is danger,” she muttered. “He has been obliged to flee. Alas, our week at the Villa exists no longer!”
A moment afterward there was a movement toward the gangway. I followed the others off the ship, and waited until a magnificent-looking functionary, smelling of garlic, had made mystic signs with a piece of chalk upon my modest trunk. The porter shouldered it and turned to me for instructions.
A carriage to the Hotel Splendide,” I directed.
I was on the point of entering it when I felt a touch upon my arm.
“He insists upon seeing you,” she whispered in a low tone. “Where are you going?”
“To the Hotel Splendide,” I told her with a sinking heart.
“I shall fetch you tonight at six o'clock.”
“Why does Michael want to see me?” I asked reluctantly.
“One does not ask Michael questions,” she answered with a sneer. “You should have found that out by this time.”
I felt as though an ugly cloud were looming over this wonderful holiday of mine, and I spent a restless and unsatisfactory afternoon, At six o'clock Louisa came for me in a small fiacre, and we drove slowly and with horrible jolts into one of the foulest seacoast slums one could imagine. I knew nothing at the time, but I discovered afterward that it was a region of evil repute throughout not only Marseilles but throughout Europe, a tawdry medley of cafés, flaunting women and rollicking groups of drink-inflamed men. I began to feel fear.
“Where are we going?” I demanded.
“To the only place where Michael can hide in safety,” Louisa replied. “Even the police of Marseilles would scarcely dare to seek him here.”
“It is not fit for us,” I muttered, with my eyes fixed upon the streets.
Louisa sneered.
“It is clear that you were never the woman for Michael,” she rejoined.
We stopped at last at the end of a dark and narrow street, a place so squalid and unsavory that I hesitated to leave the vehicle. Louisa, however, elbowed me out and half pushed, half conducted me along an entry, with a high wall on either side, a slimy place with the swish of waves distinctly audible. At the extreme end she pushed open a door on the left-hand side. We found ourselves in a café of the poorest class, with sanded floors and iron tables. A woman, fat and with a hideous face, stood behind the bar; whenever I desire to think of something horrible, I think of the stealthy, vicious faces of the men who first glared and then leered at us as we crossed the threshold.
Louisa went straight to the woman behind the bar and whispered in her ear. The woman, who had at least three or four chins, nodded ponderously and smiled, showing a row of yellow, discolored teeth. She glanced cautiously around the place, as though to make sure that no stranger was amongst her clientele. Then, with a fat, beringed finger, she beckoned us behind the counter and led us down some steps, along a passage, into a somber and fearsome-looking apartment tawdrily furnished, with a cracked gilt mirror upon the mantelpiece, walls reeking with damp, and some violet plush chairs of incredible shabbiness. In the corner was a bed, and upon it Michael was seated, still in his disguise of a French ouvrier, but with a new look upon his face—the hunted, desperate look of a man at bay. What I read in his eyes as the woman, with an evil chuckle, left us, made my blood run cold. I had the feeling that I was trapped.
“You devil!” he said to me slowly and menacingly. “It is you who have brought your damned lover-policeman here!”
“It is false,” I replied I came to Marseilles for a holiday only.”
“A holiday!” Michael repeated bitterly.
“A holiday!” the woman almost shrieked. “Hear her! But listen,” she added with a terrible smile. “There is time yet to show you how Michael and I deal with informers!”
Norman Greyes Takes Up the Story
DURING the third week of March, after a somewhat restless few months of travel in Egypt and Algeria, I reached Monte Carlo to find a telegram from my friend Rimmington, begging me to come at once to Marseilles. I realized that there could be but one reason for such a request, and in less than twelve hours I found myself with Rimmington and Monsieur Demayel, the chief of the Marseilles police, ransacking the contents of a small villa in the suburbs of Marseilles, which had lately been the scene of one of those crimes for which the place was fast gaining an unenviable notoriety.
I had had no conversation with Rimmington, and I had no idea why my help had been sought in this case, which appeared to have no special characteristics. The late inhabitant of the villa, a man of over seventy years of age, had been found twenty-four hours ago suffering from severe wounds about the head and in a state of collapse. He was lying in a neighboring hospital and was unlikely to recover. This much, however, was clear: he had been robbed of a large sum of money, the possession of which he had foolishly bragged about in a neighboring café, and there seemed to be but little doubt that the theft had been committed by a band of ill-doers who for the last few months had been the terror of the neighborhood. We went through the usual routine of examining the means by which entrance had been forced into the house, and hearing the evidence of the local gendarmerie. Afterward we drove to the police headquarters; and it was in Monsieur Demayel's private room there that Rimmington at last explained what had been puzzling me so much.
“You know, of course, Greyes,” he began, “what my having sent for you means?”
“Michael, I hope?”
Rimmington nodded. I could tell by the gleam in his rather cold gray eyes that he believed the end to be near at last.
“We traced him to Paris,” he said, “and afterward here. Almost immediately, as Monsieur Demayel will tell you, there was not only an increase in the number of crimes in the district, but there were evidences of a master-mind behind them all. Crime here had become brain-controlled. Monsieur Demayel told me, an hour or so ago, that thefts to the value of over eleven million francs had been committed within the last two months.”
“And the connecting link?” I questioned.
“Eight days ago,” Rimmington said, watching me closely, “Janet Soale sailed from Tilbury for Marseilles. The woman who was Michael's companion in New York, who goes by the name of Louisa Martin, after traveling from America to Havre, joined the same steamer at Gibraltar, having evidently chosen a circuitous route to avoid suspicion. Those two women are both on their way to Marseilles; they are due to arrive, in fact, tonight—and will be closely watched. Furthermore, I think that Monsieur Demayel can show you something of interest.”
Monsieur Demayel placed a leather-bound volume before me and pointed to an entry.
“This,” he explained, “is a small collection of dossiers which have never been verified.”
I read the few lines quickly:
    Henri Guy, French-Colonial, bachelor, 5 ft. 6 inches, morose, gray hair and beard, physical appearance described elsewhere, address, Villa Violette, Bandol. Has large correspondence, subscribes to English newspapers, among them “Golf Illustrated.” Has small car and has been seen on Hyères golf-links.
“And finally?” I asked.
“The person in question,” M. Demayel continued, “is reported to have changed at the Casino at Bandol last evening one of the mille notes stolen from the house we visited this afternoon.”
I glanced at my watch.
“How far is it to Bandol?” I inquired.
“Forty-seven kilometers,” the chief of the police replied, “and we should have been there by now, but my friend Mr. Rimmington here insisted upon waiting for you.”
I asked only one question on the way.
“You spoke of Janet Soale as coming out on the boat,” I said to Rimmington. “That was her name before she married Michael.”
Rimmington nodded.
“For some reason or other she has renewed it. It is possible that she has discovered something about Michael which I have suspected for some time.”
I controlled my voice as well as I could. I did not wish even Rimmington to know how much this meant to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I believe,” he replied, “that Michael was married many years ago to this woman, Louisa Martin. Janet Soale may have got to know of this. She may be coming out to try and discover the truth. It is certain that for many months she has not been in communication with Michael.”
The chief of the police gazed thoughtfully out of the window.
“It is a curious circumstance,” he remarked, “in the lives of most of the great criminals of modern days, that their end has been brought about by their exciting the jealousy of women. Here are two at the present moment on their way to Marseilles to visit the man whom you call Michael. Louisa Martin has been followed from New York by a United States detective who has been hunting Michael for years, and it was Janet Soale's visit to Marseilles which changed suspicion into conviction with our friend Rimmington here. My predecessor used always to say: 'Give the man rope. Follow the woman.'”
WE reached Bandol just before dusk and found the Villa Violette on the outskirts of the town—a secluded little house, built amongst some rocks on the extreme edge of the bay. We left the car in the road and took the path which led to the front door. Our summons was at once answered by a stout, good-humored-looking Frenchwoman, who shook her head regretfully when we inquired for Monsieur Guy.
“Monsieur is out in his automobile,” she told us. “He may return at any moment, or perhaps not at all tonight. It is most unfortunate. The gentlemen will leave a message?”
“We will come in and wait for a little time,” Demayel suggested
The woman did not remove her portly form from the threshold.
“That, alas, monsieur, is impossible!” she declared. “My master receives few visitors and he would not suffer anyone in the house.”
Monsieur Demayel touched her on the shoulder. He was looking curiously into her face.
“Madame,” he said, “I am Chef de la Sûreté of Marseilles, and I go where I choose. Furthermore, it seems that your face is familiar to me.”
She shrunk away. There was a malign look suddenly in her dark eyes.
“Chef de la Sûreté!” she muttered. “But who has done wrong here?”
We searched the sitting-room and dining-room of Monsieur Henri Guy, and we found nothing that might not have belonged to a French Colonial who had made a small fortune in sugar. But in his bedroom, covered over with a sheet and hidden behind a cupboard, I found a prize indeed. I found the golf-clubs which Stanfield had used when he had played against me at Woking. I drew from the bag the putter which had sealed my defeat, and even in that moment of triumph I felt a little thrill of pleasure when I realized its perfect balance.
“Our search is over,” I pronounced.
“Our search is not over,” Rimmington reminded me, “until we have found the man.”
We were there altogether for half an hour, during which time we searched the place closely. The small garage was empty, and Rimmington pointed out the six or eight empty tins which had evidently just been used.
“Filled up for a journey,” he remarked. “I don't think we shall see anything of our man today.”
We announced our intended departure. The housekeeper, who now seemed certain of her master's immediate return, did her best to persuade us to linger. Monsieur Demayel cut her short.
“Madame,” he said, “you will be so good as to consider yourself under surveillance. I shall leave a gendarme in the house with you. Tomorrow you will be examined. In the meantime, make no attempt to communicate with anybody.”
The woman burst into a torrent of furious complaints and abuse, lapsing into a French argot which was absolutely incomprehensible to me. Monsieur Demayel listened to her thoughtfully. Then he turned to the gendarme who had come with us from Marseilles.
“Do not let this woman out of your sight,” he ordered. “She is of the Maritime Quartier, where I suspect her master is in hiding by now.”
The gendarme saluted and laid his hand upon the housekeeper's shoulder. Suddenly she burst into a fit of laughter and pointed up the avenue.
“It is Monsieur who returns,” she announced. “Now what will you say to him—you who have ransacked his rooms and upset his house! Chief of the Police, indeed! La la!”
We stood by the front door, and I for my part was amazed. An elderly gentleman of highly respectable appearance drove up in a small car and lifted his soft felt hat to us courteously.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “You are paying me a visit?”
“You are Monsieur Guy?” Demayel inquired.
“That is certainly my name,” was the prompt reply.
“And this is your house?”
“I rent it subject to your pleasure, gentlemen.”
HE descended from the car and looked at every one of us inquiringly. I knew better than any other what a past master in the art of disguises Michael was; but I knew that this was not he.
“My name is Demayel,” the Chief announced. “I am the Chef de la Sûreté in Marseilles. You will be so good as to answer me a few questions.”
“Chef de la Sûreté!” the newcomer repeated, and if his amazement were feigned, it was very well feigned indeed.
“But certainly! You have lived here for how long?”
“For ten months, monsieur.”
“You changed a mille note at the Casino yesterday?”
“I certainly did.”
“From where did you obtain it?”
“From my desk, monsieur. It has lain there for weeks.”
“This is your only car?” I put in.
“But naturally,” was the prompt response. “There is no room in my garage for more than one.”
I excused myself for a moment and returned with the bag of golf-clubs
“These are perhaps yours?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“They were left by a former tenant,” he replied. “I know nothing of their use.”
I turned into the garage and wheeled out one of the rubber tires which were ranged against the wall.
“If you have no other car,” I asked him, “how is it that all the tires in your garage are like this one—two sizes larger than those on the car you were driving?”
He hesitated and turned his head. He knew then that it was the end. The gendarme was returning with a fat little man who wore no coat and waistcoat.
“This man keeps the café at the corner,” the former announced. “He knows his neighbor Guy well.”
“Is this Monsieur Guy?” Demayel asked.
The innkeeper was more than emphatic; he was vehement.
“Upon my soul, no!” he declared. “Monsieur Guy I know well. This gentleman is a stranger. Monsieur Guy left this morning in his car for Paris, one heard.”
Demayel turned to the pseudo Monsieur Guy.
“Well?”
The man shrugged his shoulders
“I have done what I was paid for,” he said sullenly. “I am at your disposal, gentlemen.”
“Close the place up,” Demayel directed the gendarme, “and take this woman and the man to Marseilles. Nothing more will happen here. As for us,” he went on, turning to Rimmington and myself, “we must now await the arrival of the steamer at Marseilles tonight. One of the two women, if not both, will lead us to the man we seek.”
WE dined that night, Rimmington and I, in a remote corner of a great bustling restaurant. Demayel had himself telephoned and ordered the table. The latter had promised to join us for coffee, but, before we reached that stage of our repast, we were surprised to see him coming hastily toward us, followed by a tall man of military bearing.
“Messieurs,” he said as he sat for a moment at our table, “a grave thing has happened. Let me explain briefly. The young man who has acted as my secretary for five years has absconded. It is proved that he has been in league with a great criminal organization ever since he has held his post. It is he, without a doubt, who warned the man whom you call Michael. Worse than that, his report to me that the Carlyon would not reach dock until tonight was a lie. She arrived this morning and landed her passengers this afternoon. My plans for having those two women watched have been rendered abortive.”
A surge of nameless fears suddenly rose up in my heart. I half rose to my feet. but Demayel waved me back.
“Listen,” he continued. “This much we know at present: The Englishwoman went first to the Hotel Splendide. At six o'clock this evening she was called for by the other woman, and they drove off alone. They were shadowed, fortunately, by Lund, the American detective who followed Louisa Martin over, and who reports that his life was attempted last night. This woman Martin, it seems, has an evil reputation. She has been in prison twice in her younger days in Paris, and she was tried for murder seven years ago. She is desperately cruel, but of desperate courage. reports that there is ill blood between the two women. He is convinced that the Englishwoman, Janet Soale, as she called herself on the steamer, has been decoyed into some place to meet Michael.”
“How far did he follow them?” Lund asked. “Where is he now?”
“He followed them into the worst quarter of Marseilles,' Demayel replied, “but as soon as he discovered their destination, he had the good sense to return for aid. They are in the one quarter of the city which I have not yet succeeded in clearing. We have hesitated many times when on the point of attempting a coup here. But tonight the attempt shall be made.”
“Let us start!” I exclaimed eagerly.
We moved toward the door.
“I deeply regret,” Demayel announced, “that this is an adventure on which I cannot accompany you. If I were to show myself in the Quartier, I should not only endanger your lives, but I should of an absolute certainty forfeit my own. Monsieur Santel here,” he added, turning to his companion, “will take command of the expedition. Lund is in one of the cars outside. A sufficient force of gendarmes have already penetrated secretly into the Quartier. It remains only for me to wish you good fortune.”
In the car which we found waiting for us, we passed from the broad thorough fares of the city to a region of increasing squalor and ugliness. Furtive eyes followed our automobile lustfully because it meant wealth. It was difficult to imagine that this was a street in a civilized city.
“One sees little of the law down here,” I remarked.
Our guide shrugged his shoulders
“The castaways of the world are to be found always in a great port,” he said. “We leave them alone when we can. This place is their safety-valve. When we are forced to come, we come as we have tonight—in hundreds.”
I realized what he meant when we descended, a few minutes later. At every corner of the little network of streets through which we pushed our way some apparent lounger whispered a word in Santel's ear. When at last we reached the end of a gloomy street, which terminated with the great iron gates of a shipyard, our guide turned and spoke to us.
“Follow me,” he directed, “and be discreet. Remember, a blow of the fist will send a hundred of these rats to their holes—but always look behind.”
We descended some small stone steps, passed along a narrow passage, and entered a café, the most dilapidated and filthy I have ever been in. There were a dozen men seated around, drinking, two or three asleep or drunk, one who covered up his face. A repulsive woman lolled across the counter and looked at us.
“In the name of the police, madame,” Santel whispered in her ear.
“At your service,” she replied, shrugging. “One has been here, perhaps, but he has gone.”
WE passed behind that counter, through a door, into a noisome house wrapped in utter darkness. Four other men seemed to have crept up to us like shadows, and we all had electric torches. Some of the rooms had been used for sleeping, some, apparently, for a filthy carouse. All were empty. At a certain point in the descent of some stone steps, we paused. Three of the men felt about for some time. Then an unsuspected door slowly swung open, a door which seemed to lead into a chasm, black and impenetrable. The man who had slipped past Santel and become our guide stretched up his hand and pulled down a long, thin ladder. One by one we descend into what seemed to be a great cellar. At the farther end was a kink of light from the room beyond, and a sound which for the moment made a madman of me—the sound of a woman crying. I stumbled across the uneven floor, but Santel caught hold of my arm.
“Be careful,” he muttered. “If our man is there and sees you, he will shoot. Let the others surround him. We have a plan.”
I scarcely heard him, but I held my breath and kept silence while some one attempted to find means of egress. We were there, seven of us, mad with the desire for this man's capture; yet for the first few moments the stone walls seemed to mock us. Lund was running his fingers round the chinks of what seemed to be the door, but could find no opening. Then suddenly, I heard Michael's voice. Cold and measured as ever, it seemed to me, though he must have known that he was in desperate straits.
“For the last time, Janet, the truth!” he said. “What has become of the money which was handed over to you—the price of the jewels? And why have you followed me to Marseilles?”
There was a moment's silence. It was terrible to hear how weak Janet's voice was.
“No one has given me any money,” she replied. “I have earned my own living since we parted.”
There was a peal of mocking laughter, and I knew that the other woman must have been standing over her.
“Liar!” Louisa exclaimed. “Tell us why you came to Marseilles, and why Rimmington, the English detective, has followed. Tell us who called your new lover, Norman Greyes, from Monte Carlo?”
“I know nothing of any of those things,” was the weak reply. “My uncle left me two hundred and fifty pounds—Soale, the gardener, who once worked for you, Michael. I came to Marseilles for a rest and a holiday.”
Again there was a peal of derisive laughter from Louisa Martin, followed by the soft ringing of an electric bell and a fierce oath from Michael. There was a moment's silence, the scurrying of feet, the flinging back of what sounded like a door. Michael's voice, when he spoke, had changed. Fear at last seemed to nave entered into him.
“You have had your chance, Janet,” he said. “I shall leave you to Louisa.”
Janet's pitiful voice was roused almost to a shriek.
“Don't leave me alone with her, Michael!” she implored. “She terrifies me!”
A fortunate madness seized me. I flung my whole weight against the door, and we fell into the place in a heap. The impression of those few moments will never fade from my memory. Janet, her feet and arms tied with cord, white and numb with fear, was lying on the ground; Louisa Martin, with the face of a Fury, and eyes filled with hate, leaned over her. Michael, with unrecognizable face but unforgetable eyes, was already halfway through a trapdoor. He raised his arm simultaneously with mine. Our pistols spoke together, and the sound of their report was followed almost immediately by the crashing of the trap-door. I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder; and for a moment I think I went mad. I was cutting the cords which bound Janet's hands and feet, talking to her foolishly, trying to keep back the faintness which threatened me. Then the mist came, and the room rocked. The last thing I remembered was Louisa Martin's laugh.
MY first visitor in the hospital, six weeks later, was Monsieur Demayel. He adopted a tone of apology.
“That man's escape, Sir Norman,” he confessed, “was a most deplorable incident.”
“How did he get away?” I inquired.
“He descended through the trapdoor from the room in which you found him,” Monsieur Demayel explained, “by means of a rope ladder, to a narrow inlet of the harbor, which at full tide is directly underneath. He secured the trapdoor behind him by means of a bolt, got into a petrol launch and apparently made his way across the bay. The launch was discovered next day upon the beach, and there is a theory that he was washed overboard by a heavy sea. At any rate he has not been seen or heard of since.”
“Louisa Martin?” I asked.
“Safe for seven years,” was the grim reply.
“And—the Englishwoman?”
Monsieur Demayel glanced suspiciously at the flowers by my bedside.
“She remained in Marseilles for some time. I do not know her present whereabouts.”
As soon as my visitor had gone, I sent for the nurse.
“From whom did these flowers come?” I inquired.
She smiled as does a Frenchwoman who scents a romance.
“Until you were out of danger,” she told me, “a very beautiful English lady called every day. A week ago she returned to England, but she left with the Sister an order on a florist for roses every day for a fortnight.”
“She left no note or message?”
“Nothing.”
“When can I leave for England?”
The nurse looked at me reproachfully.
“In a fortnight, if you behave,” she answered. “Perhaps never, if you work yourself into a fever.”
“Nurse,” I asked, “have you ever been in love?”
“It is not a fit question from a patient to his nurse,” she replied, with a pleasant little gleam in her eyes
“I need sympathy,” I explained, “but if you will not talk to me, I shall go to sleep.”
“The more you sleep,” she declared “the sooner you will be able to go to England.”
So I slept.
       “Michael's Wedding Gift,” a new episode in Mr. Oppenheim's fine series, will appear in our next issue.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 78 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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