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Sign of Silence, The

<h2 class="gap3">CHAPTER XXX.</h2> <h3>FACE TO FACE.</h3> We had, all four of us, ranged ourselves up under the wall of a big white house in the Chausee de Nieuport, which formed the south side of the racecourse, and where, between us and the sea, rose the colossal Royal Palace Hotel, when Frémy advanced to the big varnished oak door, built wide for the entrance of automobiles, and rang the electric bell. In response there came out a sedate, white-whiskered man-servant in black coat and striped yellow waistcoat, the novel Belgium livery, but in an instant he was pinioned by the two detectives from Brussels, and the way opened for us. "No harm, old one!" cried the detectives in French, after the man had admitted his master was at home. "We are police-agents, and doing our duty. We don't want you, only we don't intend you to cry out, that's all. Keep a still tongue, old one, and you're all right!" they laughed as they kept grip of him. The Continental detective is always humorous in the exercise of his duty. I once witnessed in Italy a man arrested for murder. He had on a thin light suit, and having been to bed in it, the back was terribly pleated and creased. "Hulloa!" cried the detective, "so it is you. Come along, old dried fig!" I was compelled to laugh, for the culprit's thin, brown coat had all the creases of a Christmas fig. The house we rushed in was a big, luxurious one, with a wide passage running through to the Garage, and on the left a big, wide marble staircase with windows of stained glass and statues of dancing girls of the art nouveau. Frémy, leaving his assistants below with the man-servant, and crying to Edwards to look out for anybody trying to escape, sprang up the marble steps three at a time, followed by the narrow-eyed Peruvian, while Phrida, clinging to my arm, held her breath in quick apprehension. She was full of fear and amazement. I had had much difficulty in persuading her to accompany us, for she seemed in terror of denunciation. Indeed, not until I told her that Edwards had demanded her presence, had she consented. On the first landing, a big, thick-carpeted place with a number of long, white doors leading into various apartments, Frémy halted and raised his finger in silence to us. He stood glancing from door to door, wondering which to enter. Then suddenly he stood and gave a yell as though of fearful pain. In an instant there was a quick movement in a room on the right, the door opened and the woman Petre came forth in alarm. Next second, however, finding herself face to face with me, she halted upon the threshold and fell back against the lintel of the door while we rushed in to encounter the man I had known as Digby, standing defiant, with arms folded and brows knit. "Well," he demanded of me angrily. "What do you want here?" "I've brought a friend of yours to see you, Mr. Cane," I said quietly, and Edwards stepped aside from the door to admit the Peruvian Senos. The effect was instant and indeed dramatic. His face fell, his eyes glared, his teeth set, and his nails dug themselves into his palms. "Mee-ster Cane," laughed the dark-faced native, in triumph. "You no like see Senos—eh? No, no. He know too much—eh? He watch you always after he see you with laidee in Marseilles—he see you in London—ha! ha! Senos know every-ting. You kill my master, and you——" "It's a lie!" cried the man accused. "This fellow made the same statement at Huacho, and it was disproved." "Then you admit you are not Sir Digby Kemsley?" exclaimed Edwards quickly. "You are Herbert Cane, and I have a warrant for your arrest for murder." "Ah!" he laughed with an air of forced gaiety. "That is amusing!" "I'm very glad you think so, my dear sir," remarked the detective, glancing round to where the woman Petre had been placed in an armchair quite unconscious. Phrida was clinging to my arm, but uttered no word. I felt her fingers trembling as she gripped me. "I suppose you believe this native—eh?" asked the accused with sarcasm. "He tried to blackmail me in Peru, and because I refused to be bled he made a statement that I had killed my friend." "Ah!" exclaimed the native. "Senos knows—he see with his own eyes. He see Luis and you with snake in a box. Luis could charm snakes by music. Senos watch you both that night!" "Oh! tell what infernal lies you like," cried Cane in angry disgust. "You, the 'Red' Englishman, are well known in Peru, and so is your friend—the woman there, who help you in all your bad schemes," said Senos, indicating the inanimate form of Mrs. Petre. "You introduced her to my master, but he no like her—he snub her—so you send her to Lima to wait for you—till you kill him, and get the paper—eh? I saw you steal paper—big blue paper with big seals—from master's despatch-box after snake bite him." "Paper!" echoed Edwards. "What paper?" "Perhaps I can explain something," Frémy interrupted in French. "I learnt some strange facts only three days ago which throw a great deal of light on this case." "I don't want to listen to all these romances," laughed Cane defiantly. He was an astute and polished adventurer, one of the cleverest and most elusive in Europe, and he had all the adventurer's nonchalance and impudence. At this moment he was living in that fine house he had taken furnished for the summer and passing as Mr. Charles K. Munday, banker, of Chicago. Certainly he had so altered his personal appearance that at first I scarcely recognised him as the elegant, refined man whom I had so foolishly trusted as a friend. "But now you are under arrest, mon cher ami, you will be compelled to listen to a good many unpleasant reminders," Frémy remarked with a broad grin of triumph upon his round, clean-shaven face. "If you arrest me, then you must arrest that woman there, Phrida Shand, for the murder of Marie Bracq in my flat in London. She was jealous of her—and killed her with a knife she brought with her for the purpose," Cane said with a laugh. "If I must suffer—then so must she! She killed the girl. She can't deny it!" "Phrida!" I gasped, turning to my love, who still clung to me convulsively. "You hear what this man says—this vile charge he brings against you—a charge of murder! Say that it is not the truth," I implored. "Tell me that he lies!" Her big eyes were fixed upon mine, her countenance blanched to the lips, and her breath came and went in short, quick gasps. At last her lips moved, as we all gazed at her. Her voice was only a hoarse, broken whisper. "I—I can't!" she replied, and fell back into my arms in a swoon. "You see!" laughed the accused man. "You, Royle, are so clever that you only bring grief and disaster upon yourself. I prevented Mrs. Petre from telling the truth because I thought you had decided to drop the affair." "What?" I cried. "When your accomplice—that woman Petre—made a dastardly attempt upon my life at your instigation, and left me for dead. Drop the affair—never! You are an assassin, and you shall suffer the penalty." "And so will Phrida Shand. She deceived you finely—eh? I admire her cleverness," he laughed "She was a thorough Sport, she——" "Enough!" commanded Edwards roughly. "I give you into the custody of Inspector Frémy, of the Belgian Sureté, on a charge of murder committed within the Republic of Peru." "And I also arrest the prisoner," added Frémy, "for offences committed in London and within the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg." The man, pale and haggard-eyed notwithstanding his bravado, started visibly at the famous detective's words, while at that moment the two men from Brussels appeared in the room, having released the white-whiskered man-servant, who stood aghast and astounded oh the threshold. I supported my love, now quite unconscious, in my strong arms, and was trying to restore her, in which I was immediately aided by one of the detectives. The scene was an intensely dramatic one—truly an unusual scene to take place in the house of the sedate old Baron Terwindt, ancient Ministre de la Justice of Belgium. I was bending over my love and dashing water into her face when we were all suddenly startled by a loud explosion, and then we saw in Cane's hand a smoking revolver. He had fired at me—and, fortunately, missed me. In a second, however, the officers fell upon him, and after a brief but desperate struggle, in which a table and chairs were overturned, the weapon was wrenched from his grasp. "Eh! bien," exclaimed Frémy, when the weapon had been secured from the accused. "As you will have some unpleasant things to hear, you may as well listen to some of them now. You have denied your guilt. Well, I will tell Inspector Edwards what I have discovered concerning you and your cunning and dastardly treatment of the girl known as Marie Bracq." "I don't want to hear, I tell you!" he shouted in English. "If I'm arrested, take me away, put me into prison and send me over to England, where I shall get a fair trial." "But you shall hear," replied the big-faced official. "There is plenty of time to take you to Brussels, you know. Listen. The man Senos has alleged that you stole from the man you murdered a blue paper—bearing a number of seals. He is perfectly right. You sold that paper on the eighth of January last for a quarter of a million francs. Ah! my dear friend, you cannot deny that. The purchaser will give evidence—and what then?" Cane stood silent. His teeth were set, his gaze fixed, his grey brows contracted. The game was up, and he knew it. Yet his marvellously active mind was already seeking a way out. He was amazingly resourceful, as later on was shown, when the details of his astounding career came to be revealed. "Now the true facts are these—and perhaps mademoiselle and the man Senos will be able to supplement them—his Highness the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, about two years ago, granted to an American named Cassell a valuable concession for a strategic railway to run across his country from Echternach, on the eastern, or German, frontier of the Grand Duchy, to Arlon on the Belgian frontier, the Government of the latter State agreeing at the same time to continue the line direct to Sedan, and thus create a main route from Coblenz, on the Rhine, to Paris—a line which Germany had long wanted for military purposes, as it would be of incalculable value in the event of further hostilities with France. This concession, for which the American paid to the Grand Duke a considerable sum, was afterwards purchased by Sir Digby Kemsley—with his Highness's full sanction, he knowing him to be a great English railroad engineer. Meanwhile, as time went on, the Grand Duke was approached by the French Government with a view to rescinding the concession, as it was realised what superiority such a line would give Germany in the event of the massing of her troops in Eastern France. At first the Grand Duke refused to listen, but both Russia and Austria presented their protests, and his Highness found himself in a dilemma. All this was known to you, m'sieur Cane, through one Ludwig Mayer, a German secret agent, who inadvertently spoke about it while you were on a brief visit to Paris. You then resolved to return at once to Peru, make the acquaintance of Sir Digby Kemsley, and obtain the concession. You went, you were fortunate, inasmuch as he was injured and helpless, and you deliberately killed him, and securing the document, sailed for Europe, assuming the identity of the actual purchaser of the concession. Oh, yes!" he laughed, "you were exceedingly cunning and clever, for you did not at once deal with it. No, you went to Luxemburg. You made certain observations and inquiries. You stayed at the Hotel Brasseur for a week, and then, you were afraid to approach the Grand Duke with an offer to sell back the stolen concession, but—well, by that time you had resolved upon a very pretty and romantic plan of action," and he paused for a moment and gazed around at us. "Then robbery was the motive of the crime in Peru!" I exclaimed. "Certainly," Frémy replied. "But I will now relate how I came into the inquiry. In the last days of January, I was called in secret to Luxemburg by the Grand Duke, who, when we sat alone together, informed me that his only daughter Stephanie, aged twenty-one, who was a rather erratic young lady, and fond of travelling incognito, had disappeared. The last heard of her was three weeks before—in Paris—where she had, on her return from Egypt, been staying a couple of days at the Hotel Maurice with her aunt, the Grand Duchess of Baden, but she had packed her things and left, and nothing more had been heard of her. Search in her room, however, had revealed two letters, signed 'Phrida,' and addressed to a certain Marie Bracq." "Why, I never wrote to her in my life!" my love declared, for she had now regained her senses. "His Highness further revealed to me the fact that his daughter had, while in Egypt, made the acquaintance at the Hotel Savoy on the Island of Elephantine, of the great English railroad engineer, Sir Digby Kemsley, who had purchased a railway concession he had given, and which he was exceedingly anxious to re-purchase and thus continue on friendly terms with France. His daughter, on her return to Luxemburg, and before going to Paris, had mentioned her acquaintance with Sir Digby, and that he held the concession. Therefore, through her intermediary, Sir Digby—who was, of course, none other than this assassin, Cane—went again to Luxemburg and parted with the important document for a quarter of a million francs. That was on the eighth of January." "After the affair at Harrington Gardens," Edwards remarked. "Yes; after the murder of Marie Bracq, he lost no time in disposing of the concession." "It's a lie!" cried the accused. "That girl there killed her. I didn't—she was jealous of her!" My love shrank at the man's words, yet still clinging to me, her beautiful countenance pale as death, her lips half parted, her eyes staring straight in front of her. "Phrida," I said in a low voice, full of sympathy, "you hear what this man has alleged? Now that the truth is being told, will you, too, not speak? Speak!" I cried in my despair, "speak, dearest, I beg of you!" "No," she sighed. "You—you would turn from me—you would hate me!" And at her words Cane burst into a peal of harsh, triumphant laughter. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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