"I refuse to be deceived any longer, I have discovered that you are now a fellow-guest with the girl Louise, to whom you introduced me. And yet you arranged to meet me at Farnham, believing that I was not aware of your close friendship with her! I have believed in you up to the present, but the scales have now fallen from my eyes. I thought you loved me too well to deceive me--as you are doing. Hard things are being said about you--but you can rest content that I shall reveal nothing that I happen to know. What I do know, however, has changed my thoughts concerning you. I believed you to be the victim of circ.u.mstance. Now I know you have deceived me, and that I, myself, am the victim. I need only add that someone else--whom I know not--knows of your hiding-place, for, by a roundabout way, I heard of it, and hence, I address this letter to you.--DORISE."
Hugh Henfrey stood staggered. There was no mistaking the meaning of that letter now that he had read it a second time.
Dorise doubted him! And what answer could he give her? Any explanation must, to her, be but a lame excuse.
Hugh ate his breakfast sullenly. To Louise, who put in a late appearance, and helped herself off the hot-plate, he said cheerfully:
"How lazy you are!"
"It"s not laziness, Hugh," replied the girl. "The maid was so late with my tea--and--well, to tell the truth, I upset a whole new box of powder on my dressing-table and had to clean up the mess."
"More haste--less speed," laughed Hugh. "It is always the same in the morning--eh?"
When the girl sat down at the table Hugh had brightened up. Still the load upon his shoulders was a heavy one. He was ever obsessed by the mystery of his father"s death, combined with that extraordinary will by which it was decreed that if he married Louise he would acquire his father"s fortune.
Louise was certainly very good-looking, and quite charming. He admitted that as he gazed across at her fresh figure on the opposite side of the table. He, of course, was in ignorance of the fact that Benton, who had adopted her, was a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, whose accomplice was the handsome woman who was his hostess.
Naturally, he never dreamed that that quiet and respectable house, high on the beautiful Surrey hills, was the abode of a woman for whom the police of Europe were everywhere searching.
His thoughts all through breakfast were of The Sparrow--the great criminal, who was his friend. Hence, after they rose, he strolled into the morning-room with his hostess, and said:
"I"ll have to go to town again this morning. I have an urgent letter.
Can Mead take me?"
"Certainly," was the woman"s reply. "I have to make a call at Worplesdon this afternoon, and Louise is going with me. But Mead can be back before then to take us."
So half an hour later Hugh was driving up the steep High Street of Guildford on his way to London.
He alighted in Piccadilly, at the end of Half Moon Street, soon after eleven, and, dismissing Mead, made his way to Ellerston Street to the house of Mr. George Peters.
He rang the bell at the old-fashioned mansion, and a few moments later the door was opened by the manservant he had previously seen.
In an instant the servant recognized the visitor.
"Mr. Peters will not be in for a quarter of an hour," he said. "Would you care to wait, sir?"
"Yes," Hugh replied. "I want to see him very urgently."
"Will you come in? Mr. Peters has left instructions that you might probably call; Mr. Henfrey, is it not?"
"Yes," replied Hugh. The man seemed to possess a memory like that of a club hall-porter.
Young Henfrey was ushered into a small but cosy little room, which, in the light of day, he saw was well-furnished and upholstered. The door closed, and he waited.
A few moments after he distinctly heard a man"s voice, which he at once recognized as that of The Sparrow.
The servant had told him that Mr. Peters was absent, yet he recognized his voice--a rather high-pitched, musical one.
"Mr. Henfrey is waiting," he heard the servant say.
"Right! I hope you told him I was out," The Sparrow replied.
Then there was silence.
Hugh stood there very much puzzled. The room was cosy and well-furnished, but the light was somewhat dim, while the atmosphere was decidedly murky, as it is in any house in Mayfair. One cannot obtain brightness and light in a West End house, where one"s vista is bounded by bricks and mortar. The dukes in their great town mansions are no better off for light and air than the hard-working and worthy wage-earners of Walworth, Deptford, or Peckham. The air in the working-cla.s.s districts of London is not one whit worse than it is in Mayfair or in Belgravia.
Hugh stood before an old coloured print representing the hobby-horse school--the days of the "bone-shakers"--and studied it. He awaited Il Pa.s.sero and the advice which he had promised to give.
His ears were strained. That house was curiously quiet and forbidding.
The White Cavalier, whom he had believed to be the notorious Sparrow, had been proved to be one of his a.s.sistants. He had now met the real, elusive adventurer, who controlled half the criminal adventurers in Europe, and had found in him a most genial friend. He was there to seek his advice and to act upon it.
As he reflected, he realized that without the aid of The Sparrow he would have long ago been in the hands of the police. So widespread was the organization which The Sparrow controlled that it mattered not in what capital he might be, the paternal hand of protection was placed upon him--in Genoa, in Brussels, in London--anywhere.
It seemed that when The Sparrow protected any criminal the fugitive was safe. He had been sent to Mrs. Mason in Kensington, and he had left her room against The Sparrow"s will.
Hence his peril of arrest. It was that point which he wished to discuss with the great arch-criminal of Europe.
That house was one of mystery. The servant had told him that he was expected. Why? What did The Sparrow suspect?
The whole atmosphere of that old-fashioned place was mysterious and apprehensive. And yet its owner had succeeded in extricating him from that very perilous position at Monte Carlo!
Suddenly, as he stood there, he heard voices again. They were raised in discussion.
One voice he recognized as that of The Sparrow.
"Well, I tell you my view is still the same," he exclaimed. "What you have told me does not alter it, however much you may ridicule me!"
"Then you know the truth--eh?"
"I really didn"t say so, my dear Howell. But I have my suspicions--strong suspicions."
"Which you will, in due course, impart to young Henfrey, I suppose?"
"I shall do nothing of the sort," was The Sparrow"s reply. "The lad is in serious peril. I happen to know that."
"Then why don"t you warn him at once?"
"That"s my affair!" snapped the gentleman known in Mayfair as Mr.
Peters.
"IF Henfrey is here, then I"d like to meet him," Howell said.
It seemed as though the pair were in a room on the opposite side of the pa.s.sage, and yet, though Hugh stood at some distance away, he could hear the words quite distinctly. At this he was much surprised. He did not, however, know that in that house in Ellerston Street there had been constructed a curious system of ventilation of the rooms by which a conversation taking place in a distant apartment could be heard in certain other rooms.
The fact was that The Sparrow received a good many queer visitors, and some of their whispered conversations while they awaited him were often full of interest.