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 a.s.sociates, 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 ident.i.ty."
"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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sociate 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 Surete 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?
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
MORE MYSTERY.
Ignorant of the fate of my friends, I was unceremoniously bundled into a fiacre and driven to the police bureau, where for nearly three hours I was closely questioned regarding my own ident.i.ty and my knowledge of Harvey Shaw.
Aix-les-Bains being a gambling centre, it attracts half the _escrocs_ in Europe; hence, stationed here and there are several of the smartest and shrewdest police officials which France possesses. At the hands of Victor Tramu and two of his colleagues I was subjected to the closest interrogation in a small bare room with threadbare carpet and walls painted dark green, the headquarters of the Surete in that district.
The population of Aix in summer is much the same as that of Monte Carlo in winter--a heterogeneous, cosmopolitan collection of wealthy pigeons and hawks of both s.e.xes and all nationalities.
From the thousand and one questions with which I fenced I tried to gather the nature of the offence of which Harvey Shaw was culpable, but all to no avail. I asked Tramu point-blank if he and his foster-daughter had been arrested, but no information would he give.
"I am asking questions--not you, m"sieur," was his cold reply.
All the interrogation seemed directed towards ascertaining the hiding-place of Shaw in England.
"You knew him in England," remarked Tramu, seated at a table upon which was a telephone instrument, while I stood between the two agents of police who had arrested me. "Where did you first meet him?"
"At a railway station."
"Under what circ.u.mstances?"
"I had a message to deliver--a letter from a dead friend."
Tramu smiled incredulously, as did also the two other officials at his side.
"And this dead friend--who was he?" asked the renowned detective.
"A man whom I had met on a steamer between Naples and London. He was a stranger to me, but being taken ill on board, I tried to do what I could for him. He died in London soon after our arrival."
"His name?"
"Melvill Arnold."
Victor Tramu stroked his brown beard.
"Arnold! Arnold!" he repeated. "Melvill Arnold--an English name. He was an Englishman, of course?"
"Certainly."
"Arnold! Arnold!" he repeated, gazing blankly across the room. "And he was a friend of the suspect Shaw, eh?"
"I presume so."
"Arnold!" he again repeated reflectively, as though the name recalled something to his memory. "Was he an elderly, grey-haired man who had lived a great deal in Egypt and was an expert in Egyptology eh?"
"He was."
Tramu sprang to his feet, staring at me, utterly amazed.
"And he is dead, you say?"
"He is--he died in my presence."
"Arnold!" he cried, turning to his colleagues. "All, yes. I remember now. I recollect--a most remarkable and mysterious mail. _Dieu_! what a colossal brain! What knowledge--what a staunch friend, and what a formidable enemy! And he is, alas! dead. Describe to me the circ.u.mstances in which he died, Monsieur Kemball," he added, in a voice full of regret and sympathy.
In response, I briefly told him the story, much as I have related it in these pages, while all listened attentively.
"And he actually compelled you to burn the banknotes, eh?" asked the officer of the Surete. "He wilfully destroyed his fortune--the money which I had hoped to recover--the money which he--But, no! He is dead, so we need say no more."
"Then you knew poor Arnold, Monsieur Tramu?" I remarked.
"Quite well," laughed the brown-bearded man seated at the table. "For years the police of Europe searched for him in vain. He was far too wary and clever for us. Instead of enjoying the pleasures of the capitals, he preferred the desert and his studies of Egyptian antiques.