"Ah! and it may now be too late, Cross," said the lady in question, who had been standing by all the time. Then, addressing me, she said--
"The whole affair seemed most mysterious, sir, therefore I went round and saw the inspector of police this morning, and told him briefly of our strange visitors. I"m rather glad they"re gone, for one never likes unpleasantness in a hotel. Yet, of course, the fault cannot be that of the hotel-keeper if he takes in an undesirable."
"Of course not. But what view did the inspector hold?"
"Inspector Deane merely expressed the opinion that they were suspicious persons--that"s all."
"So they seem to have been," I remarked, without satisfying her as to who I really was. My story there was that I had business relations with Mr. Lewis, and had followed him there in the hope of catching him up.
We were in the manageress"s room, a cosy apartment in the back of the quaint old hostelry, when a waitress came and announced Inspector Deane. The official was at once shown in, whereupon he said abruptly--
"The truth is out, Miss Hammond, regarding your strange visitors of last night." And he glanced inquiringly at myself.
"You can speak openly before this gentleman," she said, noticing his hesitation.
"The fact is, a circular-telegram has just been sent out from Scotland Yard, saying that by the express from Edinburgh due at King"s Cross at 10.45 last night the Archd.u.c.h.ess Marie Louise, niece of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, was a pa.s.senger. She had been staying at Balmoral, and travelled south in a special saloon. When the luggage came to be collected a dressing-case was missing--it evidently having been stolen in transit by somebody who had obtained access to the saloon while on the journey. The corridor was open between York and London, so that the restaurant could be reached, and it is believed that the thief, or thieves, managed to pa.s.s in un.o.bserved and throw the bag out upon the line to some confederate awaiting it. The bag contained a magnificent diamond necklet--a historic heirloom of the Imperial family of the Hapsburgs--and is valued at fifty thousand pounds!"
"And those people who met here were the thieves!" gasped the manageress, turning instantly pale.
"Without a doubt. You see, the Great Northern main line runs close by us--at Essendine. It may be that the thieves were waiting for it near there--waiting for it to be dropped out in the darkness. All the platelayers along the line are now searching for the bag, but we here are certain that the thieves spent the night in Stamford."
"Not the thieves," I said. "The receivers."
"Exactly."
"But the young foreigner has it!" cried the boots. "He and his friend set off for London with it."
"Yes. They would reach London in time to catch one of the boat-trains from Victoria or Charing Cross this morning, and by this time they"re safely out of the country--carrying the necklet with them. Ah!
Scotland Yard is terribly slow. But the delay seems to have been caused by the uncertainty of Her Highness as to whether she had actually brought the dressing-case with her, and she had to telegraph to Balmoral before she could really state that it had been stolen."
"The two men, Douglas Winton and his friend, came here in a motor-car," I remarked. "They had evidently been waiting somewhere near the line, in order to pick up the stolen bag."
"Without a doubt, sir," exclaimed the inspector. "Their actions here, according to what Miss Hammond told me this morning, were most suspicious. It"s a pity that the boots did not communicate with us."
"Yes, Mr. Deane," said the man referred to, "I"m very sorry now that I didn"t. But I felt loath to disturb people at that hour of the morning."
"You took no note of the number of either of the three cars which came, I suppose?"
"No. We have so many cars here that I hardly noticed even what colour they were."
"Ah! That"s unfortunate. Still, we shall probably pick up some clue to them along the road. Somebody is certain to have seen them, or know something about them."
"This gentleman here knows something about them," remarked the manageress, indicating myself.
The inspector turned to me in quick surprise, and no doubt saw the surprise in my face.
"I--I know nothing," I managed to exclaim blankly, at once realizing the terrible pitfall into which I had fallen.
"But you said you knew Mr. Lewis--the gentleman who acted as president of that mysterious conference!" Miss Hammond declared, in all innocence.
"I think, sir," added the inspector, "that the matter is such a grave one that you should at once reveal all you do know. You probably overlook the fact that if you persist in silence you may be arrested as an accessory."
"But I know nothing," I protested; "nothing whatever concerning the robbery!"
"But you know one of the men," said Cross the boots.
"And the lady also, without a doubt!" added the inspector.
"I refuse to be cross-examined in this manner by you!" I retorted in anger, yet full of apprehension now that I saw myself suspected of friendship with the gang.
"Well, sir, then I regret that I must ask you to walk over the bridge with me to the police-station. I must take you before the superintendent," he said firmly.
"But I know nothing," I again protested.
"Come with me," he said, with a grim smile of disbelief. "That you"ll be compelled to prove."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MORE STRANGE FACTS
Compelled against my will to accompany the inspector to the police head-quarters in the High Street, I made a statement--a rather lame one, I fear.
I concealed the fact that the lady of the previous night"s conference was my wife, and explained my visit to Stamford, and my inquiries at the George, by the fact that I had met the man Lewis abroad, and had had some financial dealings with him, which, I now suspected, were not altogether square. So, hearing that he had motored to the north, I had followed, and had inquired at several of the well-known motoring hotels for news of him, being unsuccessful until I had arrived at Stamford.
This story would, of course, not have held water had Miss Hammond, the manageress, been present. Happily, however, she had not accompanied me, hence I was able to concoct a somewhat plausible excuse to the local superintendent.
"Then you actually know nothing concerning these people?" he asked, regarding me shrewdly.
"Nothing beyond the fact of meeting Lewis abroad, and very foolishly trusting in his honesty."
The superintendent smiled. I think he regarded me as a bit of a fool.
Probably I had been.
"They are a clever gang, no doubt," he declared. "The Archd.u.c.h.ess"s necklace must have been stolen by some one travelling in the train.
I"ve been on to Scotland Yard by telephone, and there seems a suspicion because at Grantham--the last stopping-place before London--a ticket-collector boarded the train. He was a stranger to the others, but they believed that he had been transferred from one or other of the branches to the main line, and being in the company"s uniform they, of course, accepted him. He collected the tickets _en route_, as is sometimes done, and at Finsbury Park descended, and was lost sight of. Here again the busy collectors came and demanded tickets, much to the surprise of the pa.s.sengers, and the curious incident was much commented upon."
"Then the bogus collector was the thief, I suppose?"
"No doubt. He somehow secured the dressing-bag and dropped it out at a point between Grantham and Essendine--a spot where he knew his accomplices would be waiting--a very neatly-planned robbery."
"And by persons who are evidently experts," I said.
"Of course," replied the grey-haired superintendent. "The manner in which the diamonds have been quickly transferred from hand to hand and carried out of the country is sufficient evidence of that. The gang have now scattered, and, for aught we know, have all crossed the Channel by this time."