The Golden Face: A Great 'Crook' Romance. Le Queux William

done so when the sound of men’s voices in a room adjoining came to me – the door between the rooms stood partly open.

      “Are you certain, Rudolph,” one of the men was saying, “that this new chauffeur of yours is the man for the job?”

      “Have I ever made a mistake in summing up a man?” I heard Rayne answer. “I always trust my judgment when choosing a new hand.”

      Where, before, had I heard the first speaker’s voice? I knew that voice quite well, yet, try as I would, I could not for the life of me place it.

      “Yes,” the first speaker replied; “but, remember, in this case we are running an enormous risk. If the least hitch should occur – ”

      They lowered their voices until their talk became inaudible, and presently I heard one of them go out of the room. After waiting a minute longer I left the room and went along the short passage, which I now knew must lead to the room where I had heard them talking.

      Rayne was alone, standing on the hearthrug with his back to the big, open firegrate.

      “Did you send for me, sir?” I inquired.

      “I did, Hargreave,” he replied in a friendly tone. “I sent for you because I want you to go to Paris to-night. You will take with you the suit-case you still have in your possession, and as you will go by a trading steamer from Newcastle, the voyage will take you some days. The suit-case contains valuable documents, so you must on no account let it out of your sight, even for a minute, from the time you leave here until you hand it over personally to the gentleman I am sending you to – Monsieur Duperré. He is staying at the Hôtel Ombrone, that very smart and exclusive place in the Rue de Rivoli. He will give you a receipt, which you will bring back to me here at once, coming then by the ordinary route. You won’t go by train to-day to Newcastle; you will drive yourself there in the Fiat. Paul will go with you and drive the car back.”

      He went on to give me one or two minor instructions, and then ended: “That’s all, Hargreave.”

      I was walking back along the passage when Rayne’s pretty daughter Lola came out of the room I had first entered. She must have come out expressly to meet me, because when close to me she stopped abruptly, glanced to right and left, and then asked me quickly in an undertone:

      “Is my father sending you on any journey, Mr. Hargreave?”

      Again her wonderful dark eyes became fixed upon mine, as they had done on the previous day during the drive from the railway station.

      “Don’t try to deceive me,” she said earnestly. “You will find it far better to confide in me.”

      The words so astonished me that for the moment I could not reply. Then, all at once, a strange feeling of curiosity came over me. Why all this secrecy about the suit-case? I mentally asked myself. And what an odd idea to send me to Paris by that long roundabout sea route! What could be the reason?

      “I am not deceiving you, Miss Rayne,” I said.

      She only smiled and turned abruptly away.

      Then, for the first time, I found myself wondering what could be these precious documents Rayne had told me the suit-case contained? That the suit-case was locked, I knew! He had not unlocked it since he had placed it in my charge in London two days before.

      My employer gave me some money, and I started two hours later in the Fiat. As I sped along the broad road from Thirsk south towards York, with Paul beside me silent as ever, I could not get thoughts of Lola out of my mind.

      Once more I saw her gazing up at me with that peculiar, anxious expression I had noticed when we had met in the passage, and I regretted that I had not prolonged our conversation then, and tried to find out what distressed her.

      Several times I spoke to Paul, but he answered only in monosyllables.

      We reached Newcastle in plenty of time, for the boat was not due to sail before early next morning, and I felt relieved at being at last rid of my uncongenial companion.

      I had an evening paper in my pocket, and, to while away the time, I lay in my narrow berth and began to read. Presently my glance rested upon a paragraph which stated that two days before a dressing-case belonging to Lady Norah Kendrew disappeared in the most extraordinary manner from the hotel in London where she was staying. Exactly what happened had been related to the enterprising reporter by Lady Norah herself.

      “My dressing-case containing all my jewelry was locked and on a table near my bed,” she said. “I went out of the room soon after half-past ten this morning, my maid, who has been with me eight years, remaining in the room adjoining to put some of my things away – the door between the rooms remained ajar, she says. Whether or not the jewel-case was still there when she herself went out to lunch at about one o’clock she cannot say, as she did not go into my bedroom again. She shut the door behind her when she went out of the sitting-room into the corridor, and locked it. I first missed the jewel-case when I returned to my room at about a quarter past three in the afternoon. The contents are worth twenty thousand pounds. It seems hardly possible that anybody could have entered the bedroom unheard while my maid was in the sitting-room with the door between the two rooms ajar, so my belief is that it must have been stolen between the time she went to lunch and the time I returned. I am offering a big reward for the return of the jewel-case with its contents intact.”

      The paragraph interested me because of the hotel where the robbery – if robbery it was – had taken place, and the fact that I had happened to be in that hotel on the very day of the robbery!

      “Ah, well,” I remember saying to myself, “if women will be so careless as to leave valuable property like that unguarded they must expect to take the consequences.”

      Then my thoughts wandered from the newspaper, and I found myself wondering what Lady Norah Kendrew might be like – if she were young or old, plain or pretty, married or unmarried. And I suppose naturally that train of thought brought Lola once more into my imagination. I had, remember, to all intents, hardly seen her, and she had spoken to me only twice. Yet her personality literally obsessed me. That I was foolish to let it I fully realized. But how many of us can completely master our moods, our impulses and our emotions on all occasions?

      The weather at sea remained fine, yet I found that long, slow voyage most tedious. I had nothing to do but read, for I could not disregard Mr. Rayne’s strict instructions that I must on no account let the suit-case out of my sight, and in consequence I could not leave my cabin.

      I remember looking down at the suit-case protruding from under the berth and thinking it curious that documents should weigh so heavy. There must be a great many of them, I reflected, but even so…

      I bent down and pulled the suit-case right out and lifted it.

      Indeed it was heavy – very heavy!

      Then I began to think of something else.

      I had the cabin to myself, which was pleasant, and I spent most of the day stretched out in my bunk. Oh, how I longed every hour for the terribly boring voyage to come to an end!

      It was a lovely morning when at last we steamed into the estuary of the Seine, and I shall never forget how beautiful the river and its banks looked as I peered out through my port-hole and we crept up towards Rouen. My meals had all been served in my cabin during the voyage, as I could not well have taken the suit-case with me into the saloon.

      Now I felt like a prisoner about to be released.

      Mr. Rayne had told me to stop at the post-office in Rouen on my way from the boat to Paris, as I might, he said, find a letter or a telegram awaiting me. I had managed to pass the suit-case through the Customs, and now my heart beat faster as a letter was handed to me, for I recognized Lola’s handwriting; I had seen it only once before – that was on a letter she had asked me to post for her.

      I hurriedly tore open the envelope, and this was what I read:

      “Private. I have suspicion that the suit-case you have you should get rid of at once. Destroy this!”

      Undated and unsigned, the letter bore no address. At once thoughts and conjectures of all sorts came crowding into my mind.