“But of Pennington. Tell me more of him,” I urged.
“He was your worst enemy, and Sylvia’s enemy also, even though he posed as her father. He wished her to marry Forbes, and thus, on account of her great beauty, remain the decoy of the gang. But she met you, and loved you. Her love for you was the cause of their hatred. Because of her affection, she risked her life by revealing to me certain things concerning her associates, whom she knew were plotting to kill you. The very man who was posing as her father—and who afterwards affected friendship for you—told that pair of unscrupulous assassins, Reckitt and Forbes, a fictitious story of how Sonia—for that is her real name—had denounced them. This aroused their hatred, and they decided to kill you both. From what I heard afterwards, they entrapped you, and placed you in that fatal chair beside the venomous reptile, while they also tortured the poor girl with all the horrors of the serpent, until her brain became deranged. Suddenly, however, they became alarmed by discovering a half-witted lad wandering in the garden where the bodies of previous victims lay concealed, and, making a quick escape, left you and her without ascertaining that you were dead. Eventually she escaped and rescued you, hence their fear that you would inform the police, and their frantic efforts to secure the death of both of you. Indeed, you would probably have been dead ere this, had I not taken upon myself the self-imposed duty of being your protector, and had not Louis Lessar most fortunately escaped from Devil’s Island to protect his daughter from their relentless hands.”
“His daughter!” I gasped, staring at him.
“Yes. Sonia is the daughter of Phil Poland, alias Louis Lessar, the man who was falsely denounced by Pennington as an accomplice in the assassination of the young Under-Secretary, Mr. Burke, on the Riviera. After I had arrested her father one night at the house where he lived down near Andover, Pennington compelled the girl to pass as his daughter for a twofold reason. First, because he believed that her great beauty would render her a useful decoy for the purpose of attracting young men into their fatal net, and secondly, in order that Forbes should secure her as his wife, for it was realized how, by her marriage to him, her lips would be sealed.”
“But they all along intended to kill me.”
“Of course. Your life was, you recollect, heavily insured at Pennington’s suggestion, and you had made over a large sum of money to Sonia in case of your demise. Therefore it was to the interests of the whole gang that you should meet with some accident which should prove fatal. The theft of the jewels of the Archduchess delayed the conspiracy from being put into execution, and by that means your life was undoubtedly spared. Ah! monsieur, the gang recently led by Arnold Du Cane was once one of the most daring, the most unscrupulous, and the most formidable in the whole of Europe.”
“And my dear wife is actually the daughter of the previous leader of that criminal band!” I exclaimed apprehensively.
“Yes. She escaped with him because she was in fear of her life—because she knew that if she were again beneath her own father’s protection, you—the man she loved—would also be safe from injury. For Phil Poland is a strong man, a perfect past-master of the criminal arts, and a leader whose word was the command of every member of that great international organization, the wide ramifications of which I have so long tried in vain to ascertain.”
“Then Poland is a noteworthy man in the world of crime?”