Chapter Twenty. The Man with the Crimson Button.

Pale and startled, she raised her finger in a gesture of silence, and we both stole noiselessly from the room, closing the door behind us.

Upon the thick carpet of the corridor we crept past Shaw’s door, and Asta disappeared into her own chamber, which adjoined, while I went on to mine.

I could not get that peculiar whistle out of my ears. It seemed as though it were a signal to somebody; yet though I went back to Shaw’s door and listened there for a full hour, I heard no sound of any movement. The room was in darkness, and he was, no doubt, already asleep.

When I turned in, I lay a long time thinking over the reason of Shaw’s friendship with the woman Olliffe. What Asta had told me only seemed to increase the mystery, rather than diminish it.

I must have dropped off to sleep about two o’clock, puzzled and fagged out by the long hours on the road, when I was suddenly awakened by hearing a loud, shrill scream.

I started up and listened. It was Asta’s voice shrieking in terror.

I sprang out into the corridor without a second’s hesitation and rapped upon the door, crying—

“What’s the matter. Let me in.”

In a few seconds she unbolted the door, and opening it I encountered her in a pale pink robe-de-chambre, her luxuriant chestnut hair falling about her shoulders, her large dark brown eyes haggard and startled, her hands clenched, her countenance white to the lips.

“What has happened, Miss Seymour?” I asked, glancing quickly around the room.

“I—I hardly know,” she gasped in breathless alarm. “Only—only,” she whispered, in a low voice, “I—I’ve seen the hand—the Hand of Death—again!”

“Seen it again!” I echoed; but she raised her finger and pointed to her father’s door.

“Tell me the circumstances,” I whispered. “There is something very uncanny and unnatural about this which must be investigated. Last night it appeared to me a hundred and twenty miles away, and now you see it to-night. Are you quite sure you saw it.”

I asked the latter question because it was still dark, and she had switched on the electric light.

“I felt a cold rough contact with my cheek, and waking saw the hand again! I burn a night-light—as you see,” and she pointed across to a child’s night-light in a saucer upon the washstand.

“And it vanished as before?”

“Instantly. I thought I heard a slight sound afterwards, but I must have been mistaken.”

“Yes,” I said, making a quick examination of the room, and looking beneath the bed. “There is certainly nothing here.”

I noted that the communicating door between her room and her father’s was still secured by the small brass bolt.

“Well,” I declared, “it is utterly inexplicable.” My voice evidently awakened Shaw, for we heard him tap at the door and ask in a deep, drowsy voice—

“What’s the matter in there, Asta?”

“Oh, nothing at all, Dad,” was the girl’s reply. “Only I fancy there must be a rat in my room—and Mr Kemball is looking for it.”

“Didn’t you scream?” he asked wearily.

“Yes,” I said, as she unbolted the door, and her father entered. “Miss Seymour’s scream woke me up.”

“Did you see the rat?” Shaw asked me.

“No,” I laughed, in an endeavour to conceal our fear. “I expect if there is one it has got away down its hole. I’ve searched, but can find nothing.”

“Ah!” growled the man awakened from his sleep. “That’s the worst of these confounded Continental hotels. Most of them are overrun with vermin. I’ve often had rats in my room. Well, dear,” he added, turning to Asta, “go to bed again, and leave your electric light on. They won’t come out then.”

The girl and I exchanged glances, and after a hearty laugh at the frightened spectacle we all three presented, we again parted, and I returned to my room.

What was the meaning of that inexplicable apparition of the hand? Why had the dying man warned me of it?

I could quite see Asta’s reluctance to tell her father what she had seen, knowing well how he—plain, matter-of-fact man—would laugh at her and declare that she had been dreaming.

But it was no dream. I myself had seen the Thing with my own eyes, while my own cheek only a few hours before had borne witness to its actual existence.

I saw how horrified she was at its reappearance, and what a terrible impression it had produced upon her already overwrought nerves. I knew that she would not again retire that night—and indeed, feeling that some unknown evil was present, I slipped on my clothes and spent the remainder of the night in an armchair, reading a French novel.

Dawn came at last, and as soon as the sun rose I descended, and went out for a long, invigorating walk beside the Rhone.

On my return I met Asta strolling alone under the trees in the Place near the hotel, and referred to the weird incident of the night.

“Ah, Mr Kemball, please do not recall it!” she implored. “It is too horrible! I—I can’t make out what it can be—except that it is a sign to us of impending evil.”

“A sign to us both,” I said. “But whom are we to fear?”

“Perhaps that woman.”

“Is she still in Lyons, I wonder?”

“Probably. About seven o’clock this morning Dad sent an express message to somebody. He called a waiter, and I heard him give the letter, with instructions that it was to be sent at once.”

I said nothing, but half an hour later, by the judicious application of half a louis to the floor waiter, I ascertained that the note had been sent to a Madame Trelawnay, at the Hôtel du Globe, in the Place Bellecour.

Trelawnay was, I recollected, one of the names used by the pseudo Lady Lettice Lancaster. Therefore, after my café au lait I excused myself, stepped over to the hotel, and there ascertained that Madame, who had been there for two days, had received the note, packed hurriedly, and an hour later had left the Perrache Station by the Paris express.

On returning I told Asta this, and at eleven o’clock we were again on the white dusty highway—that beautiful road through deep valleys and over blue mountains, the Route d’Italie, which runs from Lyons, through quiet old Chambéry, to Modane and the Alpine frontier. In Chambéry, however, we turned to the left, and ere long found ourselves in that scrupulously clean and picturesque summer resort of the wealthy, Aix-les-Bains.

Shaw, who was in the best of spirits, had laughed heartily over Asta’s adventure with the rat, and as we arrived at our destination he turned to me, expressing a hope that we all three would enjoy “a real good time.”

I had been in Aix several years before, and knew the life—the bains, the casino, the Villa des Fleurs, the fêtes and the boating on the Lac du Bourget, that never-ending round of gaiety amid which the wealthy idler may pass the days of warm sunshine.

And certainly the three weeks we spent at the old-fashioned Europe—in preference to a newer and more garish hotel—were most delightful. I found myself ever at Asta’s side, and noted that her beauty was everywhere remarked. She was always smartly but neatly dressed—for Shaw was apparently most generous in the matter of gowns, some of which had come from a well-known dressmaker in the Place Vendôme.

I wondered sometimes, as we sat together in the big salle à manger or idled together under the trees in the pretty garden, whether she still thought of poor Guy Nicholson—or whether she was really pleased when alone with me. One fact was quite plain—that the visit had wrought a beneficial change in her. Her large dark eyes were again full of life and sparkle, and her lips smiled deliciously, showing how she enjoyed the brightness and gaiety of life.

Shaw had met accidentally at the Grand Cercle a Frenchman he knew named Count d’Auray, who had a château on the edge of the Lake, and one day he went over to visit him, leaving us to have luncheon together alone.

As we sat on the verandah of the hotel to take our coffee afterwards, I glanced at her. Never had I seen her looking so charming. She was entirely in cream serge, relieved with the slightest touches of pale blue, with a large white hat, long white gloves, and white shoes,—the personification of summer itself. Ah, yes! she was exquisite, I told myself. Yet how strange that she should be the adopted daughter of a man who, though actually a Justice of the Peace, was nevertheless an undesirable.

Time after time had I tried to induce her to reveal to me the reason why Shaw went in such terror of arrest. But she would not betray his secret. For that I admired her—for was she not devoted to him? Did she not owe everything to his kindness and his generosity? Like many another man, I suppose he had been fooled or tricked by a woman, and had, in consequence, to lead a celibate life. In order to bring brightness and youth into his otherwise dull home, he had adopted little Asta as his daughter.

We had been speaking of a forthcoming fête on the following day when, of a sudden, she turned in her chair towards me, and with a calm, serious look upon her face said—

“Do you know, Mr Kemball, I am greatly worried?”

“Over what?” I asked quickly.

“Well, this morning, when I was walking back from the milliner’s, I saw Earnshaw—that woman’s husband. Fortunately, he did not see me. But she is, I suspect, here in Aix-les-Bains.”

“Why should you fear even if she is?” I asked.

“I—well, I really do not know,” she faltered.

“Only—to tell you in confidence—I believe some evil work is in progress—some base conspiracy.”

“What causes you to suspect that? You do not believe that your father is implicated in it?”

“How can I tell?” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I am filled with fear always—knowing in what peril he continually exists.”

“I know,” I said. “Why he does not act more judiciously I cannot think. At home, at Lydford, he is surely unsuspected, and in security.”

“I am always telling him so, but, alas! he will not listen.”

“You said that he is now under the influence of that woman.”

“I fear so,” was her low reply, as she sighed despairingly.

We rose and strolled out together to the car which was waiting to take us for a run over the hills and among the mountains by the Pont de la Caille to Geneva, seventy kilometres distant. The afternoon was glorious, and as we sat side by side we chatted and laughed merrily, both of us forgetting all our apprehensions and our cares.

Ah, yes! those days were truly idyllic days, for I loved her devotedly, and each hour I passed in her society the bond became stronger and more firmly forged.

But could she reciprocate my affection? Ay, that was the great and crucial question I had asked myself—yea, a thousand times. I dared not yet reveal to her the secret of my heart, for even still she thought and spoke of that honest, upright fellow whose untimely end was so enshrouded in mystery.

We dined at Geneva, in the huge salle à manger of the Beau Rivage, which overlooked the beautiful lake, tranquil and golden in the sunset, with Mont Blanc, towering and snow-capped, showing opposite against the clear evening sky. We strolled for half an hour on the terrace, where the English tourists were taking their coffee after dinner, and then, in the fading twilight, Harris drove us back again to Aix, where we arrived about ten o’clock, after a day long to be remembered.

Asta held my hand for a moment in the hall, raising her splendid eyes to mine, and then wishing me good-night, mounted in the lift to her room. Afterwards I went along to the fumoir to find Shaw, but could not discover him. Later, however, the hall-porter said he had complained of feeling unwell, and had gone to his room.

I threw myself into a cane chair in the hall, and lit a cigar, for it was yet early. I suppose I must have remained there perhaps half an hour, when a waiter brought me a note. Tearing it open, I found in it a scribbled message, in pencil, from Asta.

“There is danger, as I suspected,” she wrote. “Be careful. Do not approach us, and know nothing. Destroy this.—Asta.”

I crushed the letter in my pocket and dismissed the servant. What could it mean?

Not more than a quarter of an hour later, as I still sat smoking and pondering, a tall, dark-bearded, pale-faced, rather elegant-looking Frenchman, wearing the crimson button of the Legion d’Honneur in his coat, entered the hall from the street, and glancing round quickly, advanced to the bureau.

A moment later he came towards me and, halting, bowed and exclaimed in good English—

“Pardon, m’sieur, but I have the honour to speak with Monsieur Kemball. Is that not so?”

“That is my name,” I replied.

“I have something of importance to communicate to Monsieur,” he said, very politely, holding his grey felt hat in his hand and glancing quickly around. “May I speak with you privately?”

“Certainly,” I replied; and recollecting a small salon off the hall on the left, led the way thither, and switched on the light.

Then, when he had carefully closed the door and we were alone, he said with a pleasant smile—

“I had perhaps better at once introduce myself to Monsieur. I am Victor Tramu, inspector of the first division of the brigade mobile of Paris, and I have called at the risk of inconveniencing you to put a few questions concerning two associates of yours living in this hotel—namely, Monsieur Harvey Shaw and Mademoiselle Asta Seymour.”

“Associates!” I echoed resentfully. “They are my friends!”

The police-officer smiled as he caressed his silky brown beard—a habit of his.

“Excellent. Then certainly you will be able to give me the information I require.”

“Of what?”

“Of their recent movements, and more especially of their place of residence.”

I was silent, recollecting Asta’s injunctions to know nothing; but the man stood regarding me with calm, searching, impudent glance.

“By what right, pray, do you subject me to this cross-examination?” I demanded in French, full of resentment, as I stood in the centre of the room facing him.

“Ah! so Monsieur is disinclined to betray his friends, eh?” laughed Tramu, whom I afterwards found out to be one of the most famous detectives in France. “You arrived en automobile from Lyons together, and previously from Versailles,” he remarked. “In Lyons your friend Shaw met other of his associates, and again here—yesterday at the Villa Reyssac. You see, I know a good deal of what has transpired and what is just now in progress. Indeed, I travelled from Paris for that purpose.”

“Well, it surely does not concern me!” I exclaimed.

“Pardon. I must differ from Monsieur,” he said, bowing slightly, his hands behind his back. “I desire to know something concerning these persons—of where they live.”

“You had better ask them yourself,” I replied. “It is scarcely likely that I shall give information to the police concerning my friends,” I added, in defiance.

“Bien! Then shall I be frank with you, m’sieur? The fact is that we have suspicions, very grave ones, but we are not absolutely certain of their identity.”

“Then why trouble me?”

“Because you can so easily establish it beyond a doubt.”

“Well, Monsieur Tramu, I flatly refuse to satisfy your curiosity, or assist you against my friends,” I replied, and turned abruptly upon my heel to leave the room.

“Then it is to be regretted. In that case, Monsieur Kemball, you must please consider yourself under arrest as an accomplice and associate of the two individuals in question,” he said, very coolly but determinedly; and as he uttered the words two men, police-officers in plain clothes, who had evidently been listening without, opened the door unceremoniously and entered the apartment.

The situation was both startling and unexpected. I was now faced with a most difficult problem. I was under arrest; my silence had cost me my liberty!

Asta and her stepfather must also have both already fallen into the hands of the police, for were they not upstairs? Truly the coup had been very swiftly and cleverly effected, as it seemed were all coups made by the renowned Tramu, the trusted lieutenant of Monsieur Hamard of the Sûreté in Paris.

The misfortune so long dreaded by Asta had, alas! fallen.

What must the result be? Ay, what indeed! What could be the charge against them?