Chapter Ten. The Lady from Mexico

As I rose, however, from my crouching position quite a startling climax to that morning’s adventure occurred. All at once I caught sight of the recess in which was concealed the steel box containing the manuscript forgeries, and I saw in a flash what an excellent move it would be for me to remove the thing to a place where I could conveniently lay hands upon it whenever I wanted it. In imagination I pictured the surprise of the Jesuit spies, for instance, when they had disgorged large sums to Master Paul downstairs, only to find, when the youth reached out for the deeds, they had vanished! Indeed, I am afraid I chuckled quite loudly when I whipped out my jack-knife and attacked the thin boarding that shut me off from this imitation treasure, so excellent did I conceive this act as a piece of pure inoffensive humour. Fate, too, aided me in the business, for in less than five minutes I had not only got at the precious casket but had forced the steel lid, taken out the forgeries and wrapped them up in a piece of canvas, which I placed in my pocket, and pushed the box back, but I had actually slipped out of my hiding-place and crept down the stairs to the shop, the front door of which luckily stood open.

In fact, it was not until I had got into a cab and was whirling away in the direction of Lambeth Bridge that I really appreciated what a daring thing I had done. Then I lay back in my seat and chuckled loudly.

Waterloo Station, as usual, was crowded with people hastening to one or other race meeting, a river excursion, or a boat special, but I managed to get a cosy corner in a first-class carriage of the express for Southampton, and was soon clattering through Vauxhall and Clapham Junction, hard on my journey to the Solent.

At first I admit I was too excited by the stirring scenes I had passed through to think of anything else—even Casteno’s mysterious sharpening of his dagger, his disappearance from my office, and the brutal slaughter of Colonel Napier’s spaniel. But the steady roar of the train, the ceaseless throb of the engine, soon calmed my mind and steadied my nerve, and I caught himself wondering what kind of girl could be this Camille Velasquon whom I had undertaken to meet. She could scarcely be an ordinary type of girl, I was certain, to be associated in any measure with José Casteno.

In point of fact, I eventually decided that she must be a very extraordinary girl altogether to cross from Mexico to England merely with certain valuable papers for that weird organisation of monks, the Order of St. Bruno. Further than that I don’t think I was able to make up my mind. All that suggested danger to her, an attempt at abduction, and so forth—which, remember, Casteno had warned me against—I own I could not appreciate. It is always hard to believe that perils like those lurk in this calm, peaceful England of ours. Yet they do, as I was destined to find very soon to my cost.

After this I supposed I must have napped for a time, for when next I looked out of the carriage window I found that the train was slowing its speed preparatory to entering Southampton. Luckily, the carriage I was in contained no other passengers, and I was able to pull myself together and munch a few biscuits before I had to hasten across the road outside the station and to march through the big dock gates, guarded by a burly constable, to that corner where incoming royal mail steamers are always berthed.

As it happened, the Atrato had not yet put in an appearance, and there were the usual crowds of anxious relatives, husbands, sweethearts, and loafers on the dock side, some brimming over with enjoyment at the prospect of near meetings with their loved ones, others looking nervous and fretful, as though they were the bearers of bad tidings to the returned exiles, or at all events feared the news which the incoming friends were carrying.

One woman in particular attracted my attention—a tall, commanding figure in black, in widow’s weeds, but with two of the most evil-looking eyes I had ever seen. Somehow this creature fascinated me. Her walk; her hands, which, luckily, were destitute of gloves; her expression on her thin, tightly-pressed lips; the cut of her chin when she raised her veil to get a better view of the approaching vessel, all told their striking yet deeply suggestive tale of character revealed by externals. And the tale was in every respect the same: the woman was bad, through and through.

“Who on earth can she have come to meet?” I asked myself, with the curiosity that besets most observant folk in crowds when an awkward pause has come and there is nothing to do but to wait with what patience one can find, eager to pick up any casual amusement. “Not a husband, certainly, nor a lover, for in that case she would never parade those sable garments with so much unction. It must be a friend of some sort, but then who would, or could, be a friend to so diabolical a creature as that is, even to look at?”

Just then the excitement of the boat’s arrival caught up the crowd, and I had all my attention engaged in my own work, in piloting myself well to the front, in rushing across the gangway on to the vessel, and by a judicious bribe of half-a-sovereign getting one of the stewards to conduct me straight away to the girl I was in search of—Miss Camille Velasquon—who greeted me with one of the prettiest and most honest of Spanish faces I had ever seen, and who shook my hand as warmly as though we had been friends in the long ago, for years and years. In age she could not, certainly, have been more than twenty, but there was a certain air of good style about her and her clothes that suggested wealth and a consciousness of considerable social importance.

“José telegraphed me and told me to rely on you,” she whispered in a low voice, “and I will. As a matter of fact, I have carefully studied all the other first-class passengers and there is no one amongst them whom we need fear, so we must look for enemies amongst the people on the dock side.”

“I think I can protect you all right,” I replied, with a smile as bright and infectious as her own. “But take my arm, look as though you belonged to me, as if we were brother and sister, in point of fact. What about your luggage?”

“That will be sent on,” she returned quickly, stepping out bravely beside me. “I arranged all that with the stewardess, who for the time will treat it as her own. I knew time pressed, and so I did all I could to facilitate my departure.”

“Then let us make the most of your foresight,” I said, and elbowing our way through the crowd the pair of us passed quickly out of the dock and soon hid ourselves in the refreshment room of the station, from which we passed rapidly to a slow train, which a porter explained would eventually land us in London, but would take four hours over the process.

“It is safety before speed we must study at this point,” I whispered to my companion; and we were just congratulating ourselves that we had got the carriage to ourselves as the guard’s whistle sounded, and had slipped out of Southampton with great discretion, when a most unexpected thing happened.

The carriage door opened suddenly, and in there stepped that evil-looking woman in black I had noted on the dock side.

The next instant the train rumbled off.

“Confound it,” I said to Miss Velasquon, “I never bargained for this. I think we had better change at the next station.”

Evidently the stranger heard my whisper, for she looked up.

“You may change, sir,” she said icily, “and I advise you to do so, but your companion won’t.” And her hands came together with a vicious snap.

“How—what the dickens do you mean?” I blurted out, and my eyes flashed fire.

“This,” the woman answered: “Miss Camille Velasquon, as it happens, is in my, not your, charge. Unfortunately, she is an escaped criminal lunatic, and it is my business, with the aid of some friends in the adjacent compartment, to convey her at once to Broadmoor Asylum.”