The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation, J. S. Fletcher [best fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

of names conveys nothing—except for future reference. For the present we must wait. But—in any way you can—keep your eyes open. There's one thing you can do—there was a lady in here last night who took Room 265 and left it at midnight to go away in a motor-car which your night-porter got for her. I particularly want to see the chambermaid who attended that lady. Let me see her privately—I've a question to ask her."

"She shall be sent up to your sitting-room as soon as I've found her," responded the manager. "This is the servants' breakfast-hour, but—"

"Send her up there after nine o'clock," said Allerdyke. "In the meantime
I've another inquiry to make elsewhere."

He found Gaffney and sent him round to the garage from which Miss Celia Lennard had obtained her midnight car, with instructions to find the chauffeur who had driven her, and to get from him what information he could as to her movements subsequent to the rencontre at Howden.

"Don't excite his suspicions," said Allerdyke, "but pump him for any news he can give you. I want to know what became of her."

Gaffney speedily returned, fully informed of Miss Lennard's movements up to a certain point. The chauffeur had just got back, and was about to seek the bed from which he had been pulled at one o'clock in the morning. He had taken the lady to York—only to find that there was no train thence to Edinburgh until after nine o'clock. So she had turned into the Station Hotel at York, to wait, and there he had left her.

There was little of importance in this, but it seemed to indicate that Miss Lennard was certainly about to travel North, and that her hurried departure from the hotel was due to a genuine desire to reach her ultimate destination as speedily as possible. While Allerdyke was wondering if it would be worth while to follow her up, merely because she had been a fellow-passenger with his cousin, the manager came to him with another telegram.

"That lady we were talking about," he said, laying the telegram before Allerdyke, "has just sent me this. I thought you'd like to see it as you were asking about her."

Allerdyke saw that the message was addressed to the manager, and had been dispatched from York railway station three-quarters of a hour previously.

"Please ask chambermaid to search for diamond shoe-buckle which I believe
I lost in your hotel last night. If found send by registered post to Miss
Lennard, 503_a_, Bedford Court Mansions, London."

Allerdyke memorized that address while he secretly wondered whether he should or should not tell the manager that the missing property was in his possession. Finally he determined to keep silence for the moment, and he handed back the message with an assumption of indifference.

"I should think a thing of that sort will soon be found," he observed.
"Look here—never mind about sending that chambermaid to me just now;
I'll see her later. I'm going to breakfast."

He wondered as he sat in the coffee-room, eating and drinking, if any of the folk about him knew anything about the dead man whose body had been quietly taken away by the doctors while the hotel routine went on in its usual fashion. It seemed odd, strange, almost weird, to think that any one of these people, eating fish or chops, chatting, reading their propped-up newspapers, might be in possession of some knowledge which he would give a good deal to appropriate.

Of one fact, however, he was certain—that diamond buckle belonged to Miss Celia Lennard, and she lived at an address in London which he had by that time written down in his pocket-book. And now arose the big (and, in view of what had happened, the most important and serious) question—how had Miss Celia Lennard's diamond buckle come to be in Room Number 263? That question had got to be answered, and he foresaw that he and Miss Lennard must very quickly meet again.

But there were many matters to be dealt with first, and they began to arise and to demand attention at once. Before he had finished breakfast came a wire from Mr. Franklin Fullaway, answering his own:—

"Deeply grieved and astonished by your news. Am coming down at once, and shall arrive Hull two o'clock. In meantime keep strict guard on your cousin's effects, especially on any sealed package. Most important this should be done."

This message only added to the mass of mystery which had been thickening ever since the early hours of the morning. Strict guard on James's effects—any sealed package—what did that mean? But a very little reflection made Allerdyke come to the conclusion that all these vague references and hints bore relation to the possible transaction mentioned in the various telegrams already exchanged between James Allerdyke and Franklin Fullaway, and that James had on him or in his possession when he left Russia something which was certainly not discovered when Gaffney searched the dead man.

There was nothing to do but to wait: to wait for two things—the result of the medical investigation, and the arrival of Mr. Franklin Fullaway. The second came first. At ten minutes past two a bustling, quick-mannered American strode into Marshall Allerdyke's private sitting-room, and at the instant that the door was closed behind him asked a question which seemed to burst from every fibre of his being—

"My dear sir! Are they safe?"

CHAPTER V THE NASTIRSEVITCH JEWELS

Allerdyke, like all true Yorkshiremen, had been born into the world with a double portion of caution and a triple one of reserve, and instead of answering the question he took a leisurely look at the questioner. He saw before him a tall, good-looking, irreproachably attired man of from thirty to thirty-five years of age, whose dark eyes were ablaze with excitement, whose equally dark, carefully trimmed moustache did not conceal the agitation of the lips beneath. Mr. Franklin Fullaway, in spite of his broad shoulders and excellent muscular development, was evidently a highly strung, nervous, sensitive gentleman; nothing could be plainer than that he had travelled from town in a state of great mental activity which was just arriving at boiling-point. Everything about his movements and gestures denoted it—the way in which he removed his hat, laid aside his stick and gloves, ran his fingers through his dark, curly hair, and—more than anything—looked at Marshall Allerdyke. But Allerdyke had a habit of becoming cool and quiet when other men grew excited and emotional, and he glanced at his visitor with seeming indifference.

"Mr. Fullaway, I suppose?" he said, phlegmatically. "Aye, to be sure! Sit you down, Mr. Fullaway. Will you take anything?—it's a longish ride from London, and I daresay you'd do with a drink, what?"

"Nothing, nothing, thank you, Mr. Allerdyke," answered Fullaway, obviously surprised by the other's coolness. "I had lunch on the train."

"Very convenient, that," observed Allerdyke. "I can remember when there wasn't a chance of it. Aye—and what might this be that you're asking about, now, Mr. Fullaway? What do you refer to?"

Fullaway, after a moment's surprised look at the Yorkshireman's stolid face, elevated his well-marked eyebrows and shook his head. Then he edged his chair nearer to the table at which Allerdyke sat.

"You don't know, then, that your cousin had valuables on him?" he asked in an altered tone.

"I know exactly what my cousin had on him, and what was in his
baggage, when I found him dead in his room," replied Allerdyke drily.
"And what that was—was just what I should have expected to find.
But—nothing more."

Fullaway almost leapt in his chair.

"Nothing more!" he exclaimed. "Nothing more than you would have expected to find! Nothing?"

Allerdyke bent across the table, giving his visitor a keen look.

"What would you have expected to find if you'd found him as I found him?" he asked. "Come—what, now?"

He was watching the American narrowly, and he saw that Fullaway's excitement was passing off, was being changed into an attentive eagerness. He himself thrust his hand into his breast pocket and drew out the papers which had been accumulating there since his arrival and discovery.

"We'd best be plain, Mr. Fullaway," he said. "I don't know you, but I gather that you knew James, and that you'd done business together."

"I knew Mr. James Allerdyke very well, and I've done business with him for the last two years," replied Fullaway.

"Just so," assented Allerdyke. "And your business—"

"That of a general agent—an intermediary, if you like," answered
Fullaway. "I arrange private sales a good deal between European sellers
and American buyers—pictures, curiosities, jewels, antiques, and so on.
I'm pretty well known, Mr. Allerdyke, on both sides the Atlantic."

"Quite so," said Allerdyke. "I'm not in that line, however, and I don't know you. But I'll tell you all I do know and you'll tell me all you know. When I searched my cousin for papers, I found this wire from you—sent to James at St. Petersburg. Now then, what does it refer to? Those valuables you hinted at just now?"

"Exactly!" answered Fullaway. "Nothing less!"

"What valuables are they?" asked Allerdyke.

"Jewels! Worth a quarter of a million," replied Fullaway.

"What? Dollars?"

Fullaway laughed derisively.

"Dollars! No, pounds! Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, my dear sir!" he answered.

"You think he had them on him?"

"I'm sure he had them on him!" asserted Fullaway. He, in his turn, began to produce papers. "At any rate, he had them on him when he was in Christiania the other day. He was bringing them over here—to me."

"On whose behalf?" asked Allerdyke.

"On behalf of a Russian lady, a Princess, who wished to find a purchaser for them," replied the American promptly.

"In that case—to come to the point," said Allerdyke, "if my cousin James had that property on him when he landed here last night and it wasn't—as it certainly wasn't—on him when I found him this morning—-he's been robbed?"

"Robbed—and murdered that he might be robbed!" answered Fullaway.

The two men looked steadily at each other for a while. Then Allerdyke laid his papers on the table between them.

"You'd better tell me all you know about it," he said quietly. "Let's hear it all—then we shall be getting towards knowing what to do."

"Willingly!" exclaimed the American. He produced and spread out a couple of cablegrams on which he laid a hand while he talked. "As I have already said, I have had several deals in business with Mr. James Allerdyke. I last saw him towards the end of March, in town, and he then mentioned to me that he was just about setting out for Russia. On April 20th I received this cable from him—sent, you see, from St. Petersburg. Allow me to read it to you. He says. 'The Princess Nastirsevitch is anxious to find purchaser for her jewels, valued more than once at about a quarter of million pounds. Wants money to clear off mortgages on her son's estate, and set him going again. Do you know of any one likely to buy in one lot? Can arrange to bring over myself for buyers' inspection if chance of immediate good sale. James Allerdyke.' Now, as soon as I received that from your cousin I immediately thought of a possible and very likely purchaser—Mr. Delkin, a Chicago man, whose only daughter is just about to marry an English nobleman. I knew that Mr. Delkin had a mind to give his daughter a really fine collection of jewels, and I went at once to him regarding the matter. In consequence of my interview with Mr. Delkin, I cabled to James Allerdyke on April 21st, saying—"

"This is it, no doubt," said Allerdyke, producing the message of the date mentioned.

"That is it," assented Fullaway, glancing across the table. "Very well, you see what I said. He replied to that at once—here is his reply. It is, you see, very brief. It merely says, 'All right—shall wire details later—keep possible buyer on.' I heard no more until last Thursday, May 8th, when I received this cablegram, sent, you see, from Christiania. In it he says: 'Expect reach Hull Monday night next. Shall come London next day. Arrange meeting with your man. Have got all goods.' Now those last four words, Mr. Allerdyke, if they mean anything at all, mean that your cousin was bringing these valuable jewels with him; had them on him when he cabled from Christiania. And if you did not find them when you searched him—where are they? Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds' worth!"

Allerdyke took the three cablegrams from his visitor and carefully read them through, comparing them with the dates already