Chapter Five. The Wicked Mr Wilkinson

How my cosmopolitan friend, the Prince, was tricked by a woman, and how he was, entirely against his inclination, forced to run the gauntlet of the police at Bow Street at imminent risk of identification as Tremlett, form an interesting narrative which is perhaps best told in his own words, as he recounted it to me the other day in the noisy Continental city where he is at this moment in hiding.

An untoward incident, he said one afternoon as we sat together in the “sixty” on our way out into the country for a run, occurred to me while travelling from Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, to Bucharest, by way of Rustchuk. If you have ever been over that wonderfully-engineered line, which runs up the Isker defile and over the high Balkans to the Danube, you will recollect, Diprose, how grand is the scenery, and how full of interest is the journey across the battlefields of Plevna and the fertile, picturesque lands of Northern Bulgaria.

It is a corner of Europe practically unknown.

At Gornia, a small wayside station approaching the Danube, the train halts to take up water, and it was there that the mishap occurred to me. I had descended to stretch my legs, and had walked up and down the platform for ten minutes or so. Then, the signal being given to start again, I entered my compartment, only to discover that my suit-case, despatch-box, coat, and other impedimenta were missing!

The train was already moving out of the station, but, in an instant, my mind was made up, and, opening the door, I dropped out. My Bulgarian is not very fluent, as may be supposed, but I managed to make the dull station-master understand my loss.

He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and exhibited his palms in perfect ignorance. This rendered me furious.

Within my official-looking despatch-box were a number of valuable little objects, which I wished to keep from prying eyes my passport and a quantity of papers of highest importance. No doubt some clever railway thief had made off with the whole!

For a full ten minutes I was beside myself in frantic anger; but judge my amazement when presently I found the whole of my things piled up outside the station in the village street! They had been placed there by a half-drunken porter, who believed that I intended to descend.

Fortunately no one understood German or English, for the language I used was rather hem-stitched. My annoyance was increased on learning that there was not another train to Rustchuk—where I had to cross the Danube—for twenty-four hours, and, further, that the nearest hotel was at Tirnovo, eighteen miles distant by a branch line.

I was therefore compelled to accept the inevitable, and in the dirty, evil-smelling inn at Tirnovo—about on a par with a Russian post-house—I met, on the following day, Madame Demidoff, the queer-looking old lady with the yellow teeth, who, strangely enough, came from London.

She had with her a rather attractive young girl of about twenty, Mademoiselle Elise, her niece, and she told me that they were travelling in the Balkans for pleasure, in order to ascertain what that unbroken ground was like.

The first hour I was in Tirnovo and its rat-eaten “hotel” I longed to be away from the place; but next morning, when I explored its quaint terrace-like streets, built high upon a sleep cliff where the river below takes a sweep almost at right angles, and where dense woods rise on the opposite bank, I found it to be a town full of interest, its old white mosques and other traces of Turkish occupation still remaining.

To the stranger, Tirnovo is but a name on the map of the Balkans, but for beauty of situation and quaint interest it is surely one of the strangest towns in Europe.

The discomforts of our hotel caused me to first address the ugly old lady in black, and after luncheon she and her niece Elise strolled out upon the high bridge with me, and through the Turkish town, where the little girls, in their baggy trousers, were playing in the streets, and where grave-faced men in fezzes squatted and smoked.

Madame and her niece were a decidedly quaint pair. The first-named knew her London well, for when she spoke English it was with a distinctly Cockney accent. She said “Yers” for “Yes,” and “’Emmersmith” for “Hammersmith.” Mademoiselle was, however, of a type, purely Parisienne—thin, dark-haired, narrow-featured, with bright, luminous, brown eyes, a mouth slightly large, and a sense of humour that attracted me.

Both of them had travelled very extensively, and their knowledge of the Continent was practically as wide as my own. Both were, of course, much impressed by my princely position. It is marvellous what a title does, and how snobbish is the world in every quarter of the globe.

So interesting did I find the pair that I spent another day in Tirnovo, where, in the summer sunset, we were idling after dinner on the balcony overhanging the steep cliff above the river. Our salle-à-manger was half filled by rough, chattering peasants in their white linen clothes embroidered in red, and round pork-pie hats of fur, while our fare that night had been of the very plainest—and not over fresh at that.

But it was a distinctly curious incident to find, in that remotest corner of the Balkans, a lady whose residence was in the West End of London, and who, though a foreigner by birth, had evidently been educated “within the sound of Bow Bells.”

“I love Bulgaria,” the old lady had said to me as we had walked together down by the river bank that afternoon. “I bring Elise here every summer. Last June we were at Kazanlik, among the rose-fields, where they make the otto of rose. It was delightful.”

I replied that I, also, knew Servia, Bulgaria, and Roumania fairly well.

“Then your Highness is travelling for pleasure?” she inquired.

I smiled vaguely, for I did not satisfy her. She struck me as being a particularly inquisitive old busybody.

When next morning Mademoiselle Elise informed me that her aunt was suffering from a headache, I invited her to go for a stroll with me out of the town, to which she at once acceded.

Her smart conversation and natural neat waisted chic attracted me. She used “Ideale,” the very expensive Parisian perfume that to the cosmopolitan is somehow the hall-mark of up-to-date smartness. Her gown was well-cut, her gloves fresh and clean, and her hat a small toque of the very latest mode.

Idling beside her in the bright sunshine, with the broad river hundreds of feet below, and the high blue Balkans on every side about us, I spent a most delightful morning.

“We move down to Varna to-morrow, and then home by way of Constantinople,” she replied in French in answer to my question. “Aunt Mélanie has invited your Highness to our house in Toddington Terrace, she tells me. I do hope you will come. But send us a line first. In a month we shall be back again to the dreariness of the Terrace.”

“Dreariness? Then you are not fond of London?”

“No.” And her face fell, as though the metropolis contained for her some sad memory she would fain forget. Her life with that yellow-toothed, wizen-faced old aunt could not be fraught with very much pleasure, I reflected. “I much prefer travelling. Fortunately we are often abroad, for on all my aunt’s journeys I act as her companion.”

“You are, however, French—eh?”

“Yes—from Paris. But I know the Balkans well. We lived in Belgrade for a year—before the Servian coup d’état. I am very fond of the Servians.”

“And I also,” I declared, for I had been many times in Servia, and had many friends there.

They were a curious pair, and about them both was an indescribable air of mystery which I could not determine, but which caused me to decide to visit them at their London home, the address of which I had already noted.

At five o’clock that evening I took farewell of both Madams and her dainty little niece, and by midnight was in the Roumanian capital. My business—which by the way concerned the obtaining of a little matter of 20,000 francs from an unsuspecting French wine merchant—occupied me about a week and afterwards I went north to Klausenburg, in Hungary, and afterwards to Budapest, Graz, and other places.

Contrary to my expectations, my affairs occupied me much longer than I expected, and four months later I found myself still abroad, at the fine Hôtel Stefanie, among the beautiful woods of evergreen laurel at Abbazia, on the Gulf of Quarnero. My friend, the Rev. Thomas Clayton from Bayswater, was staying there, and as, on the evening of my arrival, we were seated together at dinner I saw, to my great surprise, Madame Demidoff enter with the pretty Elise, accompanied by a tall, fair-haired gentlemanly young man, rather foppishly dressed.

“Hulloa?” I exclaimed to my friend, “there’s somebody I know! That old woman is Madame Demidoff.”

“No, my dear Prince,” was my friend’s reply. “You are, I think, mistaken. That is the old Countess Gemsenberg, and the girl is her daughter Elise. She’s engaged to that fellow—an awful ass—young Hausner, the son of the big banker in Vienna, who died last year, leaving him thirty million kroners.”

“Do you really know this?” I asked, looking the Parson straight in the face.

“Know it? Why, everybody in this Hotel knows of their engagement. I’ve been here five weeks, and they were here before I arrived. They’re staying the season, and have the best suite of rooms in the place. The old Countess is, no doubt, very wealthy, and lives in Munich.”

Neither of the women had noticed me, and I remained silent.

What my friend had told me was certainly extraordinary. Why, I wondered had Madame represented herself as a woman of the middle-class, resident in a dull West End terrace? Why had Elise not admitted to me the truth? She had seemed so charmingly frank.

With an intention to remain unseen and observant I purposely avoided the pair that evening.

Next morning I saw Elise and young Hausner strolling together on the Strandweg, that broad path which forms the principal promenade, and runs along the rocky coast from Volosca to Icici. She was smartly dressed in cream serge, girdled narrow but distinctive, and wore a large black hat which suited her admirably, while he was in an easy suit of dark blue, a panama, and white shoes. They were talking very earnestly as they walked slowly on in the bright autumn sunshine with the blue Adriatic before them. He seemed to be telling her something very seriously, and she was listening without uttering a word—or, at least, she scarcely spoke while they were within my sight.

On returning to the hotel I stumbled upon Madame Demidoff, who, seated in the hall, was chatting with a tall, bald-headed, middle-aged man in dark brown tweed, who had every appearance of an Englishman. She had just given him a letter to read, and he was laughing heartily over it. Fortunately, however, she sat with her back to the door and, therefore, did not observe me. So I was enabled to make my exit without detection.

Half an hour later I pointed out the Englishman to the Parson, asking who he was.

“I don’t know,” was his reply. “I’ve never seen him before; a fresh arrival, I suppose.”

That day I lunched and dined in my private sitting-room, in order to avoid the pair, and continue my observations. That night I caught sight of Elise, whose exquisite gown of pale pink chiffon was creating a sensation among the well-dressed women, for the news of her engagement to the young millionaire banker made her the most-talked-of and admired girl in the great crowded hotel.

At eleven that night, when I believed that the ladies had gone to bed, I ventured downstairs to the fumoir. As I went along the corridor, I noticed Madame’s English friend, with his overcoat over his evening clothes, leaving the hotel for a stroll, while almost at the same moment Madame herself emerged from one of the rooms, and, without doubt, recognised me, I saw her start quickly, hesitate for a second, and then turn away in pretence that she had not noticed me.

Her attitude was distinctly curious, and therefore I made no attempt to claim acquaintance.

The mystery of the situation was, however, considerably increased when, next morning, I was surprised to learn that the Countess Gemsenberg had received bad news from Munich, that her husband had been injured in a lift accident, and that she and her daughter had left Mattuglie—the station for Abbazia, three miles distant—by the 8:48 train, young Hausner leaving by the same train.

From the servants I discovered that Madame and her daughter had spent half the night packing, and had not announced their departure until six that morning. No telegram had been received by either of the trio, which seemed to me a curiously interesting point.

Was it possible that Madame had fled upon recognising me? If so, for what reason?

The mystery surrounding the pair attracted me, and during the further fortnight I remained at the Stefanie, I made inquiries concerning them. It appeared that a few days after their arrival the Countess herself had told two German ladies of her daughter’s engagement to young Hausner, and that the latter would arrive in a few days. This news at once spread over the big hotel, and when the young man arrived he at once became the most popular person in Abbazia.

The Countess’s enemies, however, declared that one night in the hotel-garden she and Hausner had a violent quarrel, but its nature was unknown, because they spoke in English. Mademoiselle was also present, and instead of supporting her lover, took her mother’s side and openly abused him.

And yet next morning the pair were walking arm-in-arm beside the sea, as though no difference of opinion had occurred.

As for the Englishman in brown, I ascertained that he did not live there, but at the Quarnero, down by the sea. Those who heard him talk declared that the Countess addressed him as Mr Wilkinson, and that he was undoubtedly English.

Many facts I ascertained were distinctly strange. The more so when, on making inquiry through a man whom the Parson knew living at the Quarnero, I found that this Mr Wilkinson had left Abbazia at the same hour as his three friends.

I could see no reason why my presence at the Stefanie should create such sudden terror within the mind of the old lady with the yellow teeth. The more I reflected upon the whole affair, the more mysterious were the phases it assumed.

I recollected that the old lady, whoever she might be, lived at Number 10 Toddington Terrace, Regent’s Park, and I resolved to call and see her in pretence that I had not recognised her in Abbazia, and was unaware of her presence there.

Autumn gave place to winter, and I was still wandering about the Continent on matters more or less lucrative. To Venice Naples and down to Constantinople I went, returning at last in the dark days of late January to the rain and mud of London; different, indeed, to the sunshine and brightness of the beautiful Bosphorus.

One afternoon, while seated here in Dover Street, lazily looking forth upon the traffic, I suddenly made up my mind to call upon the old lady, and with that purpose took a taxi-cab.

As we pulled up before Number 10, I at once recognised the truth, for the green Venetian blinds were all down.

In answer to my ring, a narrow-faced, consumptive-looking woman, evidently the caretaker, opened the door.

“No, sir. Madame Demidoff and Elise left home again for the Continent a fortnight ago, and they won’t be back till the beginning of April.” She spoke of Elise familiarly without the prefix “Miss.” That was curious.

“Do you know where they are?”

“I send their letters to the Excelsior Hotel, at Palermo.”

“Thank you. By the way,” I added, “do you happen to know who is the landlord of these houses?”

“Mr Epgrave, sir. He lives just there—that new-painted house at the corner;” and she pointed to the residence in question.

And with that information I re-entered the cab and drove back to the club.

So Madame was enjoying the war in Sicilian sunshine! Lucky old woman. I had only been back in London a week, and was already longing for warmth and brightness again.

That night, seated alone, trying to form some plan for the immediate future, I found myself suggesting a flying visit to Palermo. The Villa Igiea was a favourite hotel of mine, and I could there enjoy the winter warmth, and at the same time keep an eye upon the modest old lady of Toddington Terrace, who appeared to blossom forth into a wealthy countess whenever occasion required.

The idea grew upon me. Indeed, a fortnight later, constant traveller that I am, I ran from Paris to Naples in the “sixty,” with Garrett, and shipped the car over to Palermo, where I soon found myself idling in the big white and pale green lounge of the Igiea, wondering how best to get sight of Madame, who I had already ascertained, was at the Excelsior at the other end of the town, still passing as Countess Gemsenberg. The pretty Elise was with her, and my informant—an Italian—told me in confidence that the young Marquis Torquato Torrini, head of the well-known firm of Genoese shipowners who was staying in the hotel, was head over heels in love with her, and that engagement was imminent.

I heard this in silence. What, I wondered had become of the young Austrian millionaire, Hausner?

I, however, kept my own counsel, waited and watched. The Parson also turned up a couple of days later and started gossip and tea-drinking in the hotel. But, of course, we posed as strangers to each other.

The Igiea being the best hotel in Palermo and situated on the sea, the blue Mediterranean lapping the grey rocks at the end of the beautiful garden, it is the mode for people at other hotels to go there to tea, just as they go to the “Reserve,” at Beaulieu, or the Star and Garter at Richmond.

I therefore waited from day to day, expecting her to come there. Each day I pottered about in the car, but in vain.

One morning, however, while passing in front of the cathedral, I saw her walking alone, and quickly seized the opportunity and overtook her.

“Ah! Mademoiselle!” I exclaimed in French as I raised my cap in feigned surprise and descended from the car. “Fancy, you! In Palermo! And Madame, your aunt?”

“She is quite well, thank you, Prince,” she replied; and then, at my invitation, she got into the car and we ran round the town. I saw that she was very uneasy. The meeting was not altogether a pleasant surprise for her; that was very evident.

“This place is more civilised than Tirnovo,” I laughed. “Since then I expect that you, like myself, have been travelling a good deal.”

“Yes. We’ve been about quite a lot—to Vienna, Abbazia, Rome, and now to Palermo.”

“And not yet to London?”

“Oh! yes. We were at home exactly eleven days. The weather was, however, so atrocious that Madame—my aunt, I mean—decided to come here. We are at the Excelsior. You are, of course, at the Igiea?”

And so we ran along through the big, rather ugly, town, laughing and chatting affably. Dressed in a neat gown of dove-grey cloth, with hat to match and long white gloves, she looked extremely chic, full of that daintiness which was so essentially that of the true Parisienne.

I told her nothing of my visit to Toddington Terrace, but presently I said:

“I’ll come to the Excelsior, and call on your aunt—if I may?”

I noticed that she hesitated. She did not seem at all desirous to see me at their hotel. I, of course, knew the reason. The old lady was not Madame Demidoff in Palermo.

“We will call and see you at the Igiea,” she said. “We have never been there yet.”

“I shall be delighted,” I answered her. “Only send me a note, in order that I may be in.”

Beyond the town we ran along beside the calm blue sea, with the high purple hills rising from across the bay.

Bright and merry, she seemed quite her old self again—that sweet and charming self that I had first met in that rough, uncouth Bulgarian town. After an hour, we got out and seated ourselves on the rocks to rest.

She was certainly not averse to a mild flirtation. Indeed—had she not already been engaged to Hausner, broken it off, and was now half engaged to the Marquis Torrini? She was nothing if not fickle.

“Yes,” she sighed at last, “I suppose we shall have to go back to humdrum London, before long. It is so much more pleasant here than in Toddington Terrace,” she added in her pretty broken English.

“Ah! Mademoiselle,” I laughed. “One day you will marry and live in Paris, or Vienna, or Budapest.”

“Marry!” she echoed. “Ugh! No!” and she gave her little shoulders a shrug. “I much prefer, Prince, to remain my own mistress. I have been too much indulged—what you in English call spoil-et.”

“All girls say that!” I laughed. “Just as the very man who unceasingly declares his intention to remain a bachelor is the first to become enmeshed in the feminine web.”

“Ah! you are a pessimist, I see,” she remarked, looking straight into my eyes.

“No, not exactly. I suppose I shall marry some day.”

“And you are engaged—eh?”

“No,” I laughed, “it hasn’t got so far as that yet. A single kiss and a few letters—that’s the present stage.”

“And the lady is Engleesh?”

“Ah! The rest must, for the present, remain a mystery, mademoiselle,” I laughed, wondering what the Marquis would say if he discovered us idling away the morning like that.

And so we chatted and laughed on, the best of friends. I tried to obtain some facts regarding her visit to Abbazia, but she was not communicative. Knowing that she was well aware of my visit to the Stefanie, I mentioned it casually, adding:

“You must have already left before my arrival.”

For an instant she raised her eyes to mine with a keen look of inquiry, but, finding me in earnest, lowered her gaze again.

At length I saw from my watch that we must move again, if we intended to be back to luncheon, therefore we rose and re-entering the car drove by the sea-road, back to the town. She seemed delighted with her ride.

“I’ll bring my aunt to call on you very soon,” she said, as we parted. “I will send you a line to say the day.”

“Yes, do, mademoiselle, I shall be greatly charmed. Au revoir!” and I lifted my hat as she gave me her tiny, white-gloved hand and then turned away.

Next afternoon, while in the car near the theatre, I saw her driving with a dark-bearded, well-dressed young man, whom I afterwards discovered was the Marquis.

She saw me raise my hat, blushed in confusion, and gave me a slight bow of acknowledgment.

That evening I made a discovery considerably increasing the puzzle.

I met the mysterious Mr Wilkinson face to face in the hall of the Hôtel de France, whither I had gone to pay a call upon some English friends who had just arrived.

Wearing the same brown suit, he passed me by and left the hotel, for he was unacquainted with me, and therefore unaware of my presence. From the hall-porter I learnt that “Mr James Wilkinson, of London”—as he had registered in the hotel-book—had been there for the past three days.

For four days I awaited Madame’s visit, but no note came from Elise. The latter was, no doubt, too occupied with her Italian lover. I could not write to her, as she had not given me the name by which she was known at the Excelsior.

Compelled, therefore, to play a waiting game, I remained with my eyes ever open to catch sight of one or other of the mysterious quartette. But I was disappointed, for on this fifth day I made inquiry, and to my utter dismay discovered that the same tactics had been adopted in Palermo as in Abbazia.

The whole four had suddenly disappeared!

Greatly puzzled, the Parson returned to London. I nevertheless remained in Italy until May, when back again I found myself, one bright afternoon about five o’clock, descending from the car outside the house in Toddington Terrace, my intention being to pay a call upon Madame Demidoff.

My ring was answered by a neat maidservant in smart cap and apron.

Next instant we stared at each other in speechless amazement. It was Elise!

Utterly confused, her face first flushed scarlet, and then blanched.

“You—you want to see Madame,” she managed to stammer in her broken English. “She isn’t at home!”

Beyond her, in the hall, stood the tall figure of a man, whom I at once recognised as the mysterious Wilkinson.

“But, mademoiselle,” I said, smiling, yet wondering, the motive of that masquerade. “I called also to see you.”

She drew herself up in an instant, replying with some hauteur:

“I think, m’sieur, you have made some mistake. We have never met before—to my knowledge.”

Her reply staggered me.

“When will Madame Demidoff return?” I inquired, amazed at this reception.

“To-morrow—at this hour,” was her rather hesitating reply.

“Then I shall be glad if you will give her my card, and say I will call,” I said; “that is if you still deny having met me in Tirnovo and in Palermo?”

“I really do not know what you are talking about, m’sieur,” she answered, and then, without further parley, closed the door in my face. I stood still, staggered.

Surely my reception at Toddington Terrace was the reverse of cordial.

Next afternoon at the same hour I called at Number 10, but there was no response to my ring, and the blinds were all down again. The place was deserted, for the tenants had evidently fled.

That same night as I sat in my rooms, a short, thick-set man, who gave the name of Payne, was ushered in.

“I think,” he said, “your Highness happens to know something of an old lady named Demidoff and her friends who live in Toddington Terrace?”

“Yes,” I replied, much surprised.

“Well,” he explained, “I’m a police officer, and I watched you go twice to the house, so I thought you knew something about them. Are they your friends?”

“Well, no; not exactly my friends,” I replied, very suspicious of my visitor. “I had never been nearer a man from Scotland Yard in all my life! Imagine my position, my dear Diprose!”

“Ah! that’s a good job. They seem to have been playing a pretty smart game on the Continent of late.”

“How? What was their game?” I asked eagerly.

“One that brought them in thousands a year. From the Italian and Austrian police, who are both over here, it seems that they worked like this: Old Madame Demidoff had a young and pretty French servant named Elise. On the Continent Madame took the title of countess, and Elise posed as her daughter. The latter flirted with wealthy young bachelors, and so cleverly did she play her cards, that in several instances they proposed marriage to her. Then, after the old woman had secretly spread the report of the engagement, there would suddenly appear on the scene Elise’s English husband—a well-known ex-convict named Wilkinson. This latter person would at once bluster, make charges against the unsuspecting young lover, threaten exposure, and end by accepting a thousand or two to preserve secrecy, none of the young elegants, of course, caring that it should be known how completely they had been ‘had.’ There are over a dozen different charges against them, the most recent being a coup in Palermo a few months ago, by which they blackmailed the young Marquis Torrini to the tune of nine thousand pounds.”

“I was in Palermo at the time, but I never knew that was their game.”

“Were you?” he cried in triumph. “Then you’ll identify them, won’t you? I arrested Madame Demidoff and Wilkinson at Parkeston Quay last night, as they were getting away to the Hook. The girl tried to get to Paris, but was followed and apprehended on landing at Calais early this morning. The Italian Government are asking for the extradition of the interesting trio, and the papers are already on their way over.”

I regretted having blurted forth the fact that I had known them in Palermo, for in the interests of justice—though terribly afraid of being recognised myself—I was compelled to identify Madame and Wilkinson at Bow Street next day.

She swore a terrible vengeance upon me, but at present I have no fear of her reprisals, for the Assize Court at Palermo a month ago condemned her to ten years’ imprisonment, while Wilkinson—whose past record was brought up—has been sent to Gorgona for fifteen years, and the dainty Elise, his wife, is serving seven years at Syracuse.

“But,” the Prince added: “By Jove! it was a narrow squeak for me. Old Never-let-go Hartley, of Scotland Yard, was in the Extradition Court. And I know he was racking his brains to remember where he had met me before.”