The Great God Gold Part 19

"But my daughter's lover is in Denmark," the Professor protested.

"That is what you have been led to believe," remarked the inspector with an incredulous smile. "Girls are very cunning, I have two myself, sir."

"But you will help me, will you not?" urged the old gentleman earnestly.

"No effort shall be spared to discover your daughter, sir," answered the rosy, clean-shaven man seated at his desk. "I'll report the matter to our superintendent at once. Do you," he added, "happen to know what dress she was wearing? I will want a close description of it, also the laundry mark on her underlinen. Your servants will, no doubt, be able to supply the latter. Perhaps I'd better step round with you and see them."

So the inspector at once accompanied the Professor back to Pembridge Gardens, and there was shown some of the girl's clothes with the laundry mark upon them. Afterwards he left, leaving the old man in the highest state of apprehension.

He put aside all thought of the inquiry upon which he had been engaged.

His sole thought was for the safety of his child.

Meanwhile Jim Jannaway and Sir Felix Challas were still in deep consultation in the privacy of that quiet, sombre study in Berkeley Square.

"Erich left for Paris by the nine o'clock service this morning," Jim was saying. "He wants to consult some early ma.n.u.script in the National Library, he says."

"He's a decidedly clever old fossil," declared the Baronet, knocking the ash off his cigar, "and I'm convinced he's on the right track. If we can only keep these other people off, mislead them, or put them on a false scent, we shall win."

"Erich has done that already," laughed the other. "He's been down to Oxford and pretended to study certain ma.n.u.scripts, knowing well that Griffin's researches must lead him there. By putting Griffin on a false scent he's simply tangling him up. Oh! yes, I agree, Erich Haupt is a wary old bird."

"Then he is now making investigations in various quarters with the sole object of misleading Griffin, eh?" laughed Sir Felix. "Really, it's quite comical."

"Yes, and he lets drop just sufficient information to excite the curiosity of the officiate of the various libraries and place them on the _qui vive_. He does that, so that they shall inform Griffin."

"Excellent!" declared the Baronet. "As soon as he returns from Paris I must see him. I wonder if the secret record really does exist? If it does, then, by Jove! I'll hold the key to the whole Jewish religion.

But one thing is quite evident, my dear Jim, we must crush out all this opposition with a firm, relentless hand. You understand?"

"I quite follow," remarked the great financier's unscrupulous "cat's-paw."

And they continued the discussion of the present rather insecure situation.

Sir Felix Challas wore his mask with marvellous cleverness. The world-- the people who read of him in the newspapers--never suspected that the man whose name so often headed subscription lists for charitable objects, and whose handsome donation was the signal for a hundred others, was an unscrupulous schemer. His had been the hand that, by clever financial juggling in which some other person was always the princ.i.p.al, had brought ruin to thousands of happy homes. He had, indeed, if the truth were told, climbed to the pedestal of notoriety and esteem, over the bodies of the men, both capitalists and workmen, he had, with such innate cunning, contrived to ruin.

The strange story told by that shabby Dane as he sat in the gorgeous room of the Grand Hotel in Paris, had attracted him from the very first.

Here was a chance of getting the better of his natural enemies, the Jews. Ah! how he hated them! Yes. He would search, and if he found any of those sacred relics, his intention was to laugh in the face of the whole Hebrew community and hold the discovery up to the derision of the Christians.

What mattered it to him that the Dane had died in penury in that obscure hotel near the Gare du Nord? His secret agent, who had watched the poor fellow from the moment he left the Grand Hotel, had informed Sir Felix of the man's tragic end, but he had only smiled with evident satisfaction. The agent had ascertained that the present doc.u.ment had not been found among the dead man's possessions, hence the Baronet believed that the man, before his death, had destroyed it. It was a blow to him when he discovered that certain fragments of it had been carefully preserved by Doctor Diamond. It meant that opposition had arisen--a very serious opposition which he must forcibly crush down.

"Charlie returns from Brussels to-day, doesn't he?" the Baronet was asking.

"Yes. He ought to be back in his rooms by now. And he'll find the girl there. I've left him definite instructions how to act."

"The girl must be sworn to silence," Sir Felix said with heavy brow.

"She must a.s.sist us. We must compel her."

Jim Jannaway nodded. From instructions given by the man before him his eyes had already been opened, and ten minutes later he left the house, the Baronet's last words being:

"Remember, Jim, there's millions in this business. We mustn't lose it for the sake of that chit of a girl, however innocent and pretty she may be. Understand that!"

An hour previously Gwen Griffin, struggling slowly back to consciousness, found that, straight before her, was a square window over which was drawn a smoke-blackened, brown holland blind. The gas was still burning, although the grey wintry day had dawned some hours ago.

She was lying upon the bed in a fairly big room, still dressed, but with her clothes torn, as they had been in the desperate struggle of the previous night. Slowly and painfully she rose, and as she slipped off the bed she felt her limbs so weak and trembling that she could scarcely stand.

She caught sight of her dishevelled self in the long mirror of the wardrobe, and her own reflection startled her. All the horrors of that struggle crowded upon her. She put up her hands and pushed her thick dark hair from her white fevered brow.

"Where am I?" she cried aloud. "What will dad think?"

She staggered to the door, but found it locked and bolted from the outside. Then she went to the window and pulling aside the blind judged by the light that it must be about eleven o'clock in the morning. She tried to open the window but the sashes had been screwed together. The outlook was upon a blank wall.

Before the gla.s.s she rearranged her disordered dress, and sinking upon the side of the bed tried to recollect all that had occurred. But her head throbbed, her throat burned, and all the past seemed uncertain and indistinct.

The only fact which stood out clear in her mind as she sat there, inert and helpless, was the bitter truth which the man had spoken. The scoundrel who had represented himself to be "Captain Wetherton," the friend of her lover, had showed himself in his true colours. He had brought her there for one dastardly purpose alone--to ruin her in Frank's esteem.

She wondered what had really occurred--and while wondering, and dreading, she burst into a flood of bitter tears.

At one moment she made up her mind to batter down the door, or smash the window. But if she did that, she would, she feared, bring forth that man now so hateful to her.

She detested him. No. Rather would she starve and die there than ever look upon his blackguardly face again. The fellow was a coward, a vile scoundrel who had taken advantage of her eagerness to meet her lover, and had matched his brute strength against hers.

What should she do? How could she ever face Frank again?

She must have been carried there and placed upon that bed. She must, too, have lain for fully twelve hours in blank unconsciousness.

What had she done, she wondered, that this shameful trick should be played upon her? Alas! she had read accounts in the newspapers of how young girls had been decoyed and betrayed in our great world of London.

Ah! it was no new thing she knew. Yet how long, she asked herself, was her imprisonment to continue? How long before she would be able at least to rea.s.sure her father of her safety?

For a full hour she sat in bitter tears, alone, disconsolate, and full of grave apprehension, until of a sudden she heard a footstep outside the door.

She held her breath. Horror! It was that man again.

The bolts were withdrawn, the door opened, and on the threshold stood a man, much taller, thinner and slightly older than the false "Captain Wetherton," a pale-faced man she had never seen before.

"Hullo!" he asked, looking her straight in the face. "How are you this morning, my dear? You haven't had any breakfast, I suppose?"

"I want none, sir," was her haughty reply. "I only wish to leave this place. I was entrapped here last night."

"Unfortunately, my dear girl, I know nothing about last night," replied the man. "I returned from the Continent only this morning. These happen to be my chambers, and I find they now contain a very charming tenant!"

She looked at him with her big eyes.

"I hope, sir, you do not intend to add further in suit to that which I have already received here," she said in a voice of bitter reproach, holding her torn silk blouse together with her hand.

He noticed the state of her dress, and saw what a fierce struggle must have taken place between her and Jim Jannaway.

"My dear girl," he said in a rea.s.suring tone, "providing you are reasonable, and don't create a scene, my intention is to treat you with the deference due to every lady."

"Is that your promise?" asked the girl in breathless eagerness.

"It is my promise--but upon one condition," said the man in a slow voice. And then she detected in his closely set eyes a strange look that she had not hitherto noticed.