I

The thing which surprised me most about the unseen hand which seemed to be always with us was the way in which it disposed of the ladies' orchestra in the Crown Hotel at Bath. I met the pianiste in the street while I was waiting for instructions, and it was she who made the matter plain to me.

"I suppose you have heard that we have finished at the Crown for the present?" she asked.

I had been genuinely surprised to hear that this was the case, and I told her so. After a moment's hesitation, she unburdened herself of a secret.

"Please don't tell a soul," she begged, "except Miss Mindel and Mr. Cotton, if you want to. The fact of it is, the most extraordinary thing is taking us away. We have been offered, without a word of explanation, a hundred pounds between the four of us to go away for a month."

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed.

"It is perfectly true," she repeated. "A lawyer in the city brought the notes and an agreement, absolutely refusing a single word of explanation. We didn't worry very much, I can tell you. Twenty-five pounds isn't picked up every day, but I don't mind confessing that when I think about it, I get so curious it makes me positively ill. Miss Brown's theory is that it's one of these old cranks in the hotel, with more money than he knows what to do with, who hates music. On the other hand, the management has received no complaints, and there's nothing to prevent another orchestra taking our place next Monday."

I made my way to the lounge of the hotel where Leonard, Rose and I had arranged to meet for afternoon tea. We were having rather a quiet time, having already performed for a week at the local music hall with some success, and were now obeying instructions by staying on at our rooms and waiting for orders. There were too many people about for me to impart the news to them at that moment, so we fell to criticising the passers-by, an uninteresting crowd with one or two exceptions. There was a large but not unwieldly man, carefully dressed, with a walrus-like beard and moustache, heavy eyebrows and a surly manner, who was generally muttering to himself. His name was Grant, he was reputed to be over eighty, to be without a friend in the hotel, and to growl at every one who spoke to him. Every afternoon at half-past four he came in from a turn in his bath chair, and stumped past the orchestra with his finger to his ear. Then there was a frail, olive-skinned man, tall and gaunt, with wonderful black eyes, escorted every day to the baths and brought back again by a manservant who looked like a Cossack. His name was Kinlosti, and he was reported to have been an official at the Court of the late Tsar, and even to have accompanied him to Siberia. The third person, who interested us because we all detested her, was an enormously fat old lady, with false teeth, false grey ringlets, a profusion of jewellery, and a voice which Leonard said reminded him of the hissing of a rattlesnake. Her name was Mrs. Cotesham, she was stone deaf, and between her and Mr. Grant there was a deadly feud. They never spoke, but if glances could kill both would have been in their coffins many times a day. They both wanted the same chair in front of the fire, they both struggled for the Times after lunch, they ordered their coffee at the same moment, and whichever was served last bullied the waiter. They provided plenty of amusement for lookers-on and to the guests generally, but I think that the management, and certainly the waiters, were prepared to welcome the day they left the hotel. When the people had thinned out a little, and there was no one in our immediate vicinity, I told my two companions of the strange thing which had happened to the ladies' orchestra.

"It must have been Mr. Grant," Rose declared.

"I put my money on the old lady," Leonard decided.

But I knew that it was neither, for even while they were speaking the hall porter, who knew me by sight, had brought me a typewritten note, which he said had been left by hand. I tore it open and read. There was no address nor any signature. Neither was needed:

Apply at office of Crown Hotel for permission to give entertainments, commencing soon as possible.

I passed the note on to the others.

"We needn't speculate any more about that hundred pounds," I remarked.

There were no difficulties at the office. The next afternoon, at half-past four, we took the place of the departed orchestra. The change was pleasantly received by the majority of the guests. Mr. Grant, however, while Rose was still in the middle of her introductory pianoforte solo, stumped out of the room with his hand to his ear, and Mrs. Cotesham deliberately turned her chair round and sat with her back to us. On the other hand, Mr. Kinlosti, passing through the hall leaning on his servant's arm, on his way from his bath, caught sight of Rose at the piano and lingered. He whispered in his servant's ear, found a chair and a table, and seated himself in a dark corner. Presently the latter brought him from upstairs a pot of specially prepared tea and some cigarettes. He remained there throughout the whole of our performance, his eyes fixed upon Rose,—strange, uncanny eyes they were. The corner he had chosen was close to where we were playing, and the flavour of his Russian cigarettes and highly scented tea attracted Rose's attention, so that more than once she turned and looked at him. For the first time I saw a very faint smile part his thin lips.

"A conquest," I whispered to Rose, as I bent over her chair to move some music.

She made a little grimace.

"All the same," she said, "I'd love some of his cigarettes."

That evening, just before the time fixed for the commencement of our performance, another typewritten note was put into my hand, again unsigned and undated. This is what I read:

It is my wish that if a person of the name of Kinlosti should seek acquaintance with any of you, he should be encouraged. Particularly impress this upon Miss Mindel.

I took Leonard on one side.

"Leonard," I said, "our souls are trash, and what happens to us doesn't matter a damn. But read this!"

Leonard read it and swore.

"Can you get into touch with Thomson?" he asked.

"Only through the banker's address in London," I replied. "Where these typewritten notes drop from not a soul seems to know."

Rose came up and read the message over our shoulders. Her view of the matter was different.

"What fun!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps I shall get some cigarettes."

"You don't suppose we are going to allow this?" I asked hotly.

"Not for one moment!" Leonard echoed.

She laughed softly.

"You idiots!" she exclaimed. "Do you think I can't take care of myself? Or don't you trust me?"

"You know that it isn't that," I rejoined, "but neither Leonard nor I are willing to see you made a cat's-paw of."

"Russians don't know how to treat women," Leonard put in.

She became serious, but she remained very determined.

"Anyhow," she said, "I know how to treat Russians, so please leave me alone. Remember that I, too, am under contract to Mr. Mephistopheles Thomson, and although I love you both, you're not my guardians."

That was the end of the matter, so far as we were concerned. When we commenced our performance, Kinlosti was established in the dark corner, his coffee and a whole box of his inevitable cigarettes before him. His dinner clothes were severe and unadorned, but three wonderful black pearls shone dully in his shirt front. The lounge was more than ordinarily full, for our previous week's performance in Bath had brought us some popularity. Mr. Grant, however, again stumped out of the place, muttering rudely to himself as he passed us, and the old lady turned her back and tried by means of an ear trumpet to enter into conversation with any one who was unfortunate enough to be near. These two were the only exceptions, however. The rest of the audience was unmistakably friendly.

Leonard and I were to learn something that night of the subtlety of a woman's ways. No one who had been watching could have said that she deliberately encouraged this mysterious admirer. On the other hand, she returned his bold glances with something which I had never seen in her eyes before, something indefinably provocative, certainly with no shadow of rebuke. Her acceptance of his overt admiration was in itself a more significant thing than the frank smiles of a more easily accessible siren. By the time I started off round with the plate for the usual silver collection, I was in such a temper that I found it difficult to pause even for a moment as I reached his corner. He laid a ten-shilling note upon the little pile of silver, and also placed an envelope there. I saw with gathering anger that it contained something heavy, and that it was addressed to Miss Mindel.

"I have ventured," he said, in a very low and extraordinarily pleasant voice, "to offer for the young lady's acceptance, in return for her delightful music, a little souvenir from the country in which I have lived all my life."

"Miss Mindel does not accept presents from strangers, sir," I said, returning him the envelope.

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, stretched out his hand for his jade-headed stick, and, leaning heavily upon it, crossed the floor towards the spot where Rose was seated at the piano, playing soft music. Notwithstanding his lameness, his bow, as he approached her, would have done credit to a courtier.

"May I be allowed," he said, "to congratulate you upon your very delightful singing and playing? It has given so much pleasure to an invalid whose life just now is very monotonous, that I am venturing to ask your acceptance of this little trifle, a souvenir from a great country, now, alas! stricken to the earth."

Rose opened the envelope, and held in her hand a quaint ring in which was a black stone. I leaned over her. It was engraved with the royal arms of the Romanoffs, and at the top was a small 'N.'

"I thank you very much indeed," she replied, smiling up at him, "but I could not possibly accept so valuable a gift."

"Will you believe me," he persisted, "that the ring has little, if any, intrinsic value. It is an offering which an artist in a small way might at any time be permitted to present to such gifts as yours."

He passed on towards the lift with a little bow which included all of us, and somehow or other the ring was on Rose's finger, and whether we liked it or not she had accepted it. After that we saw a great deal of Mr. Kinlosti. He was never obtrusive and yet he was persistent. On the day following the presentation of the ring, we somehow found ourselves lunching with him. On the day after that we used his car, and on the following day, although both Leonard and I protested, he took Rose out for a drive alone. She came home sooner than we had expected and was a little silent for the rest of that day. At supper time she took us into her confidence.

"Mr. Kinlosti," she said, "told me a very strange story this afternoon. Parts of it were so horrible that it made me shiver. It seems he was one of the few members of the household who accompanied Nicholas to Siberia. He got away just before the final tragedy."

"What was his excuse for leaving his master?" I asked, a little coldly.

We were all three in the parlour of our lodging house, and quite alone. Nevertheless, Rose lowered her voice as she answered me.

"The Tsar entrusted him with the knowledge of where a portion of the Crown jewels were secreted. He was to find them, raise money, and try and bribe the Siberian Guards. He found the jewels all right, but not until Nicholas and the whole of his family had been assassinated."

"What did he do with the jewels?" Leonard asked.

"He has not told me so in so many words, but I believe that he has them here," she replied. "He told me they were still in his possession and he held them in trust for the Romanoffs. The terrible part of the business for him is that he has been tracked all over Europe by Bolshevist agents, who claim that the jewels belong to the Russian State."

"Why did he tell you all this?" I enquired, with growing suspicion.

Rose shook her head.

"Perhaps to account for the fact that he seemed so nervous all the time," she suggested. "He started whenever another motor car passed us, and as long as we were in Bath itself he watched the faces on the pavements, as though all the time he were looking for some one. He told me that when first he arrived here he suspected even the masseurs at the baths."

"I still don't see why he was so confidential with you," Leonard grumbled.

"He likes me," she acknowledged, with a demure smile. "In fact, if he tells the truth, he likes me very much. Don't look so black, please," she went on, with a glance at our faces. "Remember I am only obeying orders."

That phrase cost us a good deal of uneasiness during the next few days. Whenever we performed, Kinlosti sat in his corner, watching and listening. In the intervals, he came and made timid and courteous conversation. Without going so far as to say that he pursued Rose, he certainly took up a great deal of her time. On the fourth afternoon I received another typewritten note, handed to me again from the porter's office without any intimation as to its source. There was only a line or two:

Miss Mindel should show some curiosity as to the Crown Jewels. Mr. Kinlosti would probably like to show them to her.

Within half an hour Rose made her request. Both Leonard and I were within a few yards, and we saw the sudden terror in his face, heard his almost hysterical refusal.

"No one has ever seen them," he told Rose, "since they first came into my possession. I do not dare even to look at them myself. Directly my rheumatism permits me to move without pain, I shall acquit myself of the trust. It weighs upon me night and day."

With that the matter would have been ended, so far as Leonard and myself were concerned. Rose, however, took it differently. For the rest of that afternoon we were able to appreciate fully the guile of our little companion. She received Kinlosti's refusal in silence. Presently she developed a headache and refused to talk. She sat with her shoulder turned away from him while she played and never once glanced in his direction while she sang. At the close of our performance, he came up and whispered to her earnestly. She shook her head at first and then turned to me.

"Mr. Kinlosti is going to show me something in his sitting room. Please come with us."

For the first time I saw the Russian in this sallow-faced invalid. His lips curved into a snarl and for a moment he glared at me. The fit of anger was gone in a moment, before Rose had even observed it. With a little courteous gesture towards her, he turned and limped towards the lift. We followed, and he led us into his suite on the first floor.

"Do not be frightened of John," he enjoined, as he opened the door. "John is the guardian of my treasure, and he is obsessed with the idea that there are thieves in this hotel."

From the appearance of John, it seemed as though any adventurous thieves would have had a pretty poor time. He was seated with folded arms upon a hard, straight-backed chair. On a table by his side, only partially concealed by a large handkerchief, was an obvious revolver. There was also a glass of strong brandy and water. He rose to his feet at our entrance, but his bearing was grim and unfriendly. His master talked to him for a few moments in his own language, apparently trying to assure him of the harmlessness of our presence. John, however, remained sulky. Kinlosti crossed to the farthest corner of the room, took a key from his pocket, a key which seemed to be attached to a band of snakelike silver which encircled his leg, and unfastened an ordinary black tin dispatch box, which stood on the floor. From this he drew out a coffer of some almost black-coloured wood, with brass clamps. He held it up towards Rose.

"Even for you, my dear young friend," he said, "I may not raise the lid, but I show you this much of your desire. This is one of the coffers which for eleven hundred years has held the ceremonial jewels of the Russian Royal Family. There were at one time five of them. This is the one that remains."

"Mayn't I have just one little peep inside?" Rose pleaded.

We heard John's heavy breathing, and Kinlosti scarcely waited even to answer her. He thrust the coffer back into the box and locked it.

"It is impossible," he pronounced. "I do not bear this trust alone. In the spirit I fear that I break it already. You will rest here for a little while, mademoiselle?"

If this was meant as a hint to me, it was of no avail. I stood by Rose's side and she shook her head.

"You will not let me make you some of our own Russian tea?" he begged.

"Bring me some downstairs," she suggested. "I should love the tea, if it isn't too much trouble, and I will come over and sit in your corner."

In the corridor, on our way down, we met the malevolent Mrs. Cotesham, who paused, leaning on her stick, and watched Rose and her companion with the hungry glare of the professional scandalmonger. Kinlosti hurried past her with a little shiver, and Rose laughed gaily as she descended the stairs.

"I believe that you have a penchant for Mrs. Cotesham," she declared.

"She is the most horrible old lady I have ever seen anywhere," he said fervently. "They tell me that she is over ninety, and that she has but one joy in life—to make where she can mischief and trouble and unhappiness. She comes here every year, and every servant hates her. Even the managers would keep her away if they could, but she has bought shares in the hotel and has interest with the directors."

"The old man Mr. Grant is nearly as bad," Rose remarked.

"Him I know nothing of," Kinlosti replied, "save that he is one of those who have surely lived too long."

Leonard and I left Rose to her tête-à-tête and took a seat in the lounge. A few yards from us, the little daily comedy which never failed to amuse the onlookers was in progress. Mr. Grant was seated in the easy chair affected by Mrs. Cotesham. She came stumping along from the lift and stopped about a foot from the chair.

"This man has taken my chair!" she exclaimed in a loud voice, for the benefit of every one. "I left a book in it."

Mr. Grant continued to read through his heavy spectacles, unmoved. She struck the side of his chair with her stick.

"I want my chair," she repeated.

Mr. Grant half turned round.

"What does the woman want?" he snarled. "This isn't her chair. It's an hotel chair. I found it empty and I sat down. I am going to stay."

"Where's my book?" Mrs. Cotesham demanded, handing him the end of her ear trumpet.

"I threw it on the lounge," he shouted. "There it is. Now don't bother me any more."

"He calls himself a gentleman!" the old lady declared, shaking with fury.

"Never called myself anything of the sort in my life," he snapped.

I rose, and wheeled the easy chair in which I was sitting to the side of Mr. Grant's.

"Will you sit here, madam?" I ventured. "It is as near your favourite position as possible."

She pushed her speaking trumpet almost into my face.

"Say that again, young man," she directed.

I repeated it at the top of my voice. She nodded and subsided into the chair.

"I don't like having to sit near such people," she said, "but I prefer this side of the fireplace."

Her neighbour looked out of the corner of his eye.

"I wish the pestilential old woman would stay up in her room," he growled. "I hate her next me."

She handed him her speaking trumpet.

"Say that again, will you?" she invited. "I don't like people talking about me when I can't hear what they say."

Mr. Grant shut his book with a snap, rose to his feet and hobbled across to a distant part of the lounge.

"That old woman ought to be locked up," he declared at the top of his voice. "She's a damned nuisance to everybody!"

He found another seat and recommenced his book. Mrs. Cotesham, with a purr of content, settled herself down in the chair which he had vacated, stretched out her feet upon the footstool and looked around triumphantly.

"I've been to a good many hotels in my life," she confided to every one within hearing, "but I never met a man who called himself a gentleman, with such disgusting manners!"

Leonard and I strolled away presently to find Rose. It was time for us to go back to our rooms and change for the evening performance. We found her with Kinlosti in his corner, and the air above them overhung with a thin cloud of blue tobacco smoke. Kinlosti was smoking furiously and talking hard. Rose welcomed our approach, I thought, with something almost like eagerness.

"It is time to go, I am sure," she declared, springing to her feet.

Her companion broke off in the middle of a sentence and frowned.

"We speak together to-night, then?"

She shook her head at him, smiling all the time though, and with that little tantalising look in her eyes which Leonard and I both knew so well.

"I am not sure," she replied. "The management will complain if I talk so much with one of the guests, but I will play 'Valse Triste' for you. Au revoir!"

We had almost left the hotel—we were on the outside steps, indeed—when the hall porter caught me up. I saw at once what he was carrying. It was one of the now familiar typewritten letters. This time I asked him a point-blank question.

"Look here," I said, with my hand in my trousers pocket, "this is the third note I have received from my friend in this fashion. I want to know how they come into your possession. Who leaves them at the bureau?"

The man saw the ten-shilling note in my hand but he only shook his head. I believe that he was perfectly honest.

"I would tell you in a minute if I knew, sir," he declared, "but to tell you the truth I have never seen one delivered. All three I have picked up from the desk in my office, evidently left there when my back was turned for a moment."

"You haven't any idea who leaves them there, then?" I persisted.

"Not the slightest, sir," the man assured me.

"Keep a good lookout," I begged him, "and let me know if you do find out. There may be another one—I can't tell—but I'll double this ten shillings if you succeed."

The man thanked me and withdrew. We three crossed to the less frequented side of the road. I walked in the middle, with Rose and Leonard on either arm. We read the note together:

If the box Miss Mindel saw in Kinlosti's room was of purple leather, with gold clasps and corners, let the first item in your repertoire to-night be the Missouri Waltz. If it was a box of any other description, play the selection from "Chu-Chin-Chow."

"Well, I'm damned!" Leonard exclaimed.

"Be careful," I advised. "Thomson's probably underneath these paving stones."

Rose shivered a little.

"Do you think he wants to steal the jewels, Maurice?" she asked me.

"Oh, no!" I answered. "He probably wants to borrow them to wear at the Lord Mayor's show!"

She made a grimace.

"That's all very well, Mr. Lister," she said, with a great attempt at hauteur, "but will you kindly remember that you two are not in at this show? It is I who seem to be chosen as principal accomplice. I am not exactly infatuated with Mr. Kinlosti, but I don't want him to lose his jewels."

"I bet you a four-pound box of chocolates he does lose them," Leonard observed.

Rose sighed.

"Anyhow," she murmured, "we shall have to play 'Chu-Chin-Chow' to-night."

Leonard and Rose played a selection from "Chu-Chin-Chow" that evening as well as they could with an extemporised rendering. Rose played the piano, Leonard the violin, and I pretended to be turning over the pages of the music, although all the time I was engaged in a furtive search of the crowded lounge for some sign of our patron or a possible emissary. There were the usual little groups about, and a more harmless or obvious set of people I don't think I ever came across. Mrs. Cotesham was seated with her back to us, with a shawl arranged around her head so as to still further deaden sound, and ostentatiously reading a novel. Mr. Grant had stumped past us on his way to the billiard room, muttering to himself, before the first few bars of our little effort had been played. The others were nearly all known to us by name or reputation. There seemed something uncanny in the thought that somewhere or other were ears waiting for the message our selection conveyed. We were half-way through the "Cobbler's Song" when, without the slightest warning, Rose, who was facing the staircase, broke off abruptly in her playing. I caught sight of her face, suddenly pale, upturned towards the head of the staircase, followed the direction of her gaze, and was myself stricken dumb and nerveless. At the top of the staircase John was standing, holding out a terrified, struggling figure almost at arm's length. The fingers of his right hand seemed to be clasped around the neck of his unfortunate victim, while with his left hand he held him by the ankle. This was all in full view of the lounge. There were shrieks from the women, and some of the men, amongst them myself, hurried towards the staircase. We were too late, however, to be of any practical use. John, who seemed like a man beside himself with passion, suddenly swung the prostrate form of his captive a little farther back, and then dashed it from him down the stairs. A little cry of horror rippled and sobbed through the tense air. The man lay on the rug at the bottom of the stairs, a crumpled-up heap, motionless and without speech.

There were shrieks from the women, and some of the men, amongst them myself, hurried towards the staircase. Page 64.