CHAPTER XXIII CONFIDES THE STORY OF A TABLE

The discovery of Ernest's presence in the car was an entirely fresh development of the mystery. I had been ignorant of his acquaintance with Keppel, but that they were really close friends was evident by the rapid, rather apprehensive manner in which they were conversing.

I tried, and tried again, to overhear some of the words spoken; but in vain! Therefore I was compelled to remain in wonderment until the conclusion of that long and terribly tiring journey half across Europe.

Arrived at the Gare de Lyons in Paris, I entered a fiacre, and followed them across the city to the "Hôtel Terminus," that big caravansery outside the Gare St. Lazare, where they engaged four rooms on the first floor—a sitting-room and three bedrooms. Having taken every precaution to avoid being detected by either of them, I ascertained that the number of the sitting-room was 206. I at once engaged Number 205, the room adjoining, and ordered a light déjeuner to be taken there. I was faint, nervous, and tired after being cramped up for thirty hours, and was resting on the couch, when suddenly voices sounded in the next room, causing me to spring up and be on the alert in an instant.

Keppel and Ernest were speaking together,

"It's a risk, of course," the millionaire was saying in a low tone—"a great risk."

"But we've run greater in the course of this affair," the other responded. "You know how near to arrest I have been."

I held my breath. Arrest! What could he mean?

"It was fortunate that you escaped as you did."

"Thanks to you. Had you not concealed me on the Vispera, and taken me on that cruise, I should have now been in the hands of the police."

"But they seem to possess no clue," Keppel observed.

"Fortunately for us, they do not," answered the man to whom I had given my heart. And he laughed lightly, as though he were perfectly confident of his own safety. "It was that transfer of the notes at the Carnival ball that puzzled them."

They were speaking of poor Reggie's murder!

I held my ear close to the dividing door, straining to catch every word. I was learning their secret. The two men whom I had least suspected were actually implicated in that dastardly crime. But what, I wondered, could have been their motive in taking the poor boy's life? Certainly robbery was not the incentive, for to old Keppel sixty thousand francs was but a paltry sum.

Again I listened, but as I did so the woman entered, and shortly afterwards the two men left the room and went down the stairs.

In an instant I resolved to follow them. Before they had gained the entrance-hall I had put on my hat and descended. They took a cab and first drove up the hill behind St. Lazare to the Boulevard des Battignolles, alighting before a large house where, from an old concierge in slippers, Ernest received two letters. Both men stood in the doorway and read the communications through. I had followed in a cab. From their faces I could see that the letters contained serious news, and for some minutes they stood in discussion, as though undecided what to do.

At length, however, they re-entered the cab and drove back past the Opera, through the Rue Rivoli and across the Pont des Arts, turning into a labyrinth of narrow, dirty streets beyond the Seine, and stopping before a small, uninviting-looking hairdresser's shop. They were inside for some ten minutes or so, while I stood watching a short distance off, my head turned away so that they should not recognise me if they came out suddenly.

When they emerged they were laughing good-humouredly, and were accompanied to the door by a rather well-dressed man, evidently a hairdresser, for a comb protruded from his pocket, and his hair was brushed up in that style peculiar to the Parisian coiffeur.

"Good-day, messieurs," he said in French, bowing them into the fiacre, "I understand quite clearly. There is nothing to fear, I assure you—absolutely nothing!"

In that man's dark eyes, as he stood watching the cab as it drove off, was a strangely intense look. His face was triangular, with broad forehead and pointed chin. I imagined him to have a rather curious personality. Again I looked at his peculiarly brilliant eyes, and a strange truth flashed upon me. Yes, I remembered that curious expression quite distinctly.

He was the man who had worn the owl's dress in Carnival—the man who had returned to me the notes stolen from poor Reggie! He was an accomplice of the two men of whom I had never entertained the least suspicion.

The truth had been revealed in so amazing a fashion that I was completely staggered. Ernest was an assassin! Had he not admitted how near he had been to arrest, and congratulated himself upon his escape? Had not old Keppel aided him by concealing him on board the Vispera? Once, alas! I had in the roseate days of youth believed in the man who had made love to me; who had flattered and caressed me, and who had declared that I should be his always. Ah! how well I remembered it! How bitterly all the past came back to me. And yet, until that very hour of my discovery that he was an assassin I had never ceased to love him—never for a single instant. We women are strange creatures.

I re-entered the cab, but in the Boulevard St. Michel my driver unfortunately lost sight of the men I had told him to keep in view. They must, I think, have turned suddenly into one of the many side streets, and thus reached the Quai.

For a few moments I sat back in hesitation. Should I return at once to the hotel, or should I go boldly to that man whom I had so fortunately discovered, and charge him with having had in his possession the stolen notes? If I adopted the latter course, I saw that I should only raise an alarm, and the pair I was watching would undoubtedly get clear away. No. The old proverb that "murder will out" had once more asserted its truth. I had made a most amazing discovery, and now my love for Ernest as a man having been transformed to hatred of him as an assassin, I meant slowly to weave a web about the criminals, and when it was complete, I intended to give information to the police, and thus avenge the poor boy's death.

I drove to the nearest telegraph-office and wired to Genoa, urging Ulrica to come to Paris without delay, for I sorely needed the counsel of the woman who was my best friend.

Then I returned to the "Hôtel Terminus." As I heard no one in the sitting-room adjoining, I lay down to rest, sleeping soundly, for my nerves were unstrung, and I was utterly worn out by fatigue and constant watchfulness.

When I awoke it was past seven o'clock, and quite dark. There was still no movement in the sitting-room adjoining. I dressed, and went across to dine at the Duval, over at the corner of the Rue du Havre, preferring that cheap restaurant to the table d'hôte of the hotel, where I might possibly meet the three persons upon whom I was keeping watch.

An hour later, just as I was crossing the road to re-enter the hotel, I saw a man standing alone on the steps in hesitation. He wore a dark beard, and carried a long drab overcoat, such as men generally affect on race-courses; but notwithstanding his disguise, I perceived that it was Ernest. The beard made him look much older, and by the addition of a few lines to his face he had entirely altered his appearance. For some moments he puffed pensively at his cigar, then, glancing at his watch, descended the steps and strolled slowly along past the "Café Terminus," and continued to walk down the Rue du Havre as far as the Boulevard Haussmann, where he stopped before that popular rendezvous of Parisians, the "Grand Café."

After he had selected one of the tables, the last one towards the Madeleine, placed against the wall of the café, he ordered a coffee and liqueur. The night was bright, and the Boulevards, with their blazing globes of electricity, were full of life and movement.

From where I was sitting, at a small brasserie on the opposite side of the Boulevard, I watched him narrowly. He glanced up and down as though in constant expectation of meeting someone, and looked at his watch impatiently. He tossed off his liqueur at a single gulp, but his coffee remained untasted, for it was evident that he was in a state of deep agitation. He had feared arrest for the murder of Reginald Thorne, and had taken refuge secretly on the Vispera. Were not his own words sufficient to convince me of his guilt?

As I looked I saw him, while in the act of pretending to sip his coffee, bend down close to the marble table, which, after making certain that he was not observed, he scrutinised carefully. Twice he bent to look at it closely. Surely, I thought, there must be something of interest marked on that slab. Then he glanced at his watch again, paid, and strolled off down the Boulevard.

Whether to follow or whether to investigate that table, I was for the moment undecided; but I resolved upon the latter course. I crossed the road, made straight for the seat he had occupied, and as soon as I had ordered a dubonnet, proceeded to examine the table. Very quickly I discovered what had interested him. Scrawled in pencil upon the marble were some letters quite unintelligible, but evidently a cipher message. It was no more than this:

J. TABAC. 22.

Another inscription had been written there, but it had been lately erased by some previous customer, who had apparently dipped his finger in the drippings of beer or coffee, and smeared it across. The writing was not very easy to discern in the half-light, for the table was so placed as to be in the deep shadows. Was it possible that the person who had erased the first message had written the second? Could it be that this person was the man whom I had been watching?

I had seen him bend over that table mysteriously, first glancing round to make certain that no one was watching. Why had he thus betrayed fear, if that message was not one of importance? Goron, the great chef of the Paris sûreté, had told me, when I met him at dinner once in London, how the criminals of Paris were fond of making the tops of the café tables the means of communication, and how many a crime had been discovered by the police with the aid of the keys they possessed to certain secret codes.

I looked again at the initial, the word "tabac," and the number 22 scrawled on the marble before me, and was puzzled to know what they could convey. Had Ernest really written them? The letters were printed, in order, no doubt, to prevent any recognition of the handwriting. I remembered that he had sat with his hand upon the table, as though toying idly with the matches; and further, I noticed that the liquid with which the erasure had been made was not yet entirely dry. I touched it with my gloved finger and placed it to my nose. There was an odour of coffee.

Now, if Ernest had really written that cipher message, he had substituted his for the one he had found standing there. With what purpose? To whom was this unintelligible word addressed? Having regard to the fact that the tables of cafés are usually washed down by the waiters every morning, it seemed plain that the person to whom he intended to convey the message would come there that night. Indeed, he had constantly looked at his watch, as though in expectation of the arrival of someone.

I paid the garçon and left, returning some few minutes later to my previous place in front of the brasserie opposite, determined to wait and watch. The attendant brought me some illustrated papers, and while pretending to be absorbed in them, I kept my eye upon the table I had just vacated. A shabby, small, wizen-faced man in a silk hat, with a flat brim, passed and re-passed the spot where I was sitting, and, it seemed, eyed me rather suspiciously. But perhaps it was only my fancy, for when one is engaged in the work of bringing home to a criminal his crime, one is apt to look with undue suspicion upon all and sundry.

I think I must have been there nearly half an hour before a ragged, unkempt man, who had slunk past where I was seated and picked up several cigar-ends with a stick bearing a sharpened wire point, crossed over to the "Grand Café" and recommenced his search beneath the tables there. When he had secured some half-a-dozen cigar-ends, he moved quickly to the table in the shadow; and as he stooped, feigning to pick up a piece of unconsumed cigar, I saw that he glanced eagerly to see what message was written there.

Just at that moment the wizen-faced man who had evinced such an extraordinary interest in myself was standing idly upon the kerb close by, and was undoubtedly watching him.

The quick eyes of the old collector of cigar-ends apparently understood the message in an instant, for with back bent he continued his active search, betraying no further interest in that table in the shadow. If he had really gone there in order to ascertain the nature of the message, he concealed his real purpose admirably. Probably he was used to being watched by police agents. I saw him hobble along from café to café, his shrewd, deep-set eyes peering from beneath his shaggy brows, always in search of the small pieces of tobacco discarded by smokers.

With him also disappeared the shabby little man whose interest I had unwittingly aroused, and I remained alone, still irresolute and wondering.

I had paid, and was just about to rise and go, when of a sudden a smart victoria pulled up in front of the "Grand Café," and from it stepped a well-dressed woman, wearing a smart hat and an elaborate cape of the latest mode. Without hesitation she walked to the table in question and seated herself. In the darkness I could not distinguish her face, but I saw that even before the waiter could attend to her she had examined the table and read the message there written.

Was it, I wondered, intended for her?

The waiter brought what she ordered, a "bock," that favourite beverage with both Parisians and Parisiennes. I watched her narrowly, and at once saw something to convince me that the cipher was intended for her eye. She dipped her finger in the beer, and when no one was looking, drew it across the writing.

Was she young, or old, I wondered? She was settling her cape and chiffons preparatory to rising and re-entering her carriage; I also rose and crossed the road. As I stepped upon the asphalt on the opposite side, she crossed to where her smart carriage stood, brushing past me as she did so.

As the light fell across her face there was revealed to me a countenance with which I was only too familiar.

She was the woman who had usurped my place in Ernest's heart; the woman whom I had seen in his company at Monte Carlo; the woman who had laughed at me in triumph across the roulette table, because she knew that she held him beneath the spell of her insipid beauty.