第61章
"This I sent to The Times with one of Gathercole's cards and, as you know, it was printed.My next step was to find suitable lodgings between Chelsea and Scotland Yard.I was fortunate in being able to hire a furnished flat, the owner of which was going to the south of France for three months.I paid the rent in advance and since I dropped all the eccentricities I had assumed to support the character of Gathercole, I must have impressed the owner, who took me without references.
"I had several suits of new clothes made, not in London," he smiled, "but in Manchester, and again I made myself as trim as possible to avoid after-identification.When I had got these together in my flat, I chose my day.In the morning I sent two trunks with most of my personal belongings to the Great Midland Hotel.
"In the afternoon I went to Cadogan Square and hung about until Isaw Kara drive off.It was my first view of him since I had left Albania and it required all my self-control to prevent me springing at him in the street and tearing at him with my hands.
"Once he was out of sight I went to the house adopting all the style and all the mannerisms of poor Gathercole.My beginning was unfortunate for, with a shock, I recognised in the valet a fellow-convict who had been with me in the warder's cottage on the morning of my escape from Dartmoor.There was no mistaking him, and when I heard his voice I was certain.Would he recognise me Iwondered, in spite of my beard and my eye-glasses?
"Apparently he did not.I gave him every chance.I thrust my face into his and on my second visit challenged him, in the eccentric way which poor old Gathercole had, to test the grey of my beard.For the moment however, I was satisfied with my brief experiment and after a reasonable interval I went away, returning to my place off Victoria Street and waiting till the evening.
"In my observation of the house, whilst I was waiting for Kara to depart, I had noticed that there were two distinct telephone wires running down to the roof.I guessed, rather than knew, that one of these telephones was a private wire and, knowing something of Kara's fear, I presumed that that wire would lead to a police office, or at any rate to a guardian of some kind or other.Kara had the same arrangement in Albania, connecting the palazzo with the gendarme posts at Alesso.This much Hussein told me.
"That night I made a reconnaissance of the house and saw Kara's window was lit and at ten minutes past ten I rang the bell and Ithink it was then that I applied the test of the beard.Kara was in his room, the valet told me, and led the way upstairs.I had come prepared to deal with this valet for I had an especial reason for wishing that he should not be interrogated by the police.On a plain card I had written the number he bore in Dartmoor and had added the words, 'I know you, get out of here quick.'
"As he turned to lead the way upstairs I flung the envelope containing the card on the table in the hall.In an inside pocket, as near to my body as I could put them, I had the two candles.How I should use them both I had already decided.The valet ushered me into Kara's room and once more I stood ins the presence of the man who had killed my girl and blotted out all that was beautiful in life for me."There was a breathless silence when he paused.T.X.leaned back in his chair, his head upon his breast, his arms folded, his eyes watching the other intently.
The Chief Commissioner, with a heavy frown and pursed lips, sat stroking his moustache and looking under his shaggy eyebrows at the speaker.The French police officer, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his head on one side, was taking in every word eagerly.The sallow-faced Russian, impassive of face, might have been a carved ivory mask.O'Grady, the American, the stump of a dead cigar between his teeth, shifted impatiently with every pause as though he would hurry forward the denouement.
Presently John Lexman went on.
"He slipped from the bed and came across to meet me as I closed the door behind me.
"'Ah, Mr.Gathercole,' he said, in that silky tone of his, and held out his hand.
"I did not speak.I just looked at him with a sort of fierce joy in my heart the like of which I had never before experienced.
"'And then he saw in my eyes the truth and half reached for the telephone.
"But at that moment I was on him.He was a child in my hands.