"So?" Baron Poppenheimer answered. "I will read your palms for you now, if you will, I am sure."
He took my right hand, flattened it, palm upward, on his knee, studied it closely for a moment or two, then, after a few moments' silence, began to talk fluently and rapidly. The things he told me about myself, things I had done, even things I had only thought, made me almost gape with amazement. Then he took my left hand, examined both sides of it closely through his monocle, and continued his disclosures. He told me to within a day or two how long I had been engaged to be married, and described Dulcie's appearance to the life; he even went so far as to tell me exactly how she talked. For some moments I wondered if Preston could have coached the Baron in my movements; then I remembered that the Baron had told me things about myself of which Preston knew nothing.
"And that is all I have to tell you, my dear Mike," the "Baron" suddenly exclaimed in quite a different voice. I sprang back in my chair as I looked up sharply. Jack Osborne had pulled off his black, curly wig, and sat laughing loudly. Preston too was considerably amused.
"Yes, George," Jack said at last, "that disguise will do; you certainly are a marvel in the art of 'make-up.' If I can deceive Mike Berrington, who is one of my oldest friends, I shall be able to hoodwink anybody. Now you had better try your hand on Mike. What sort of person do you propose to turn him into? I have told you that he is an excellent actor, and can mimic voices to perfection."
Osborne then explained why he had telegraphed to me. Preston had made a discoverya rather important discovery. Exactly what it was they would not tell me then, but Preston had suggested that on that very night the three of us should visit Easterton's house in Cumberland Place, where Gastrell's reception had taken place, wearing effectual disguises which he would attend to, and see for ourselves what there was to be seen. It was Osborne, I now learned for the first time, who had effected the introduction between Hugesson Gastrell and "Lord Cranmere"the actual Lord Cranmere had been consulted by Jack on the subject of his being impersonated, and when Jack had outlined to him his plan and told him why the detective, Preston, wished to impersonate him, Lord Cranmere had entered into the spirit of the thing and given his consent. He had, indeed, expressed no little alarm when Jack had told him how the mysterious, unseen individual at the house in Grafton Street had cross-questioned him with regard to Eldon Hall, Cranmere's place in Northumberland, the whereabout of the safe that Cranmere had bought ten months previously, the likelihood of there being a priests' hiding-hole at Eldon, and so on.
"The whole idea regarding to-night, and our plan of action, originates with Preston," Jack said to me. "He believesin fact, he is almost surethat Gastrell and his associates know nothing of him by repute as a detective, also that they don't know him by sight, or by name either. He says, however, that they believe they are now personally acquainted with Lord Cranmere, upon whose property we think they have evil designs. 'Lord Cranmere' is now, in turn, going to introduce to Gastrell and his associates two particular friends of his. Those friends will be 'Baron Poppenheimer' andwho is Cranmere's other friend to be, George?" he inquired, looking up at Preston.
"'Sir Aubrey Belston,'" Preston answered at once. "Mr. Berrington is not at all unlike Sir Aubrey, in build as well as in feature."
"'Baron Poppenheimer' and 'Sir Aubrey Belston,'" Jack said, "who in private life are Jack Osborne and Michael Berrington. And if George disguises you and coaches you as well as he did me, I undertake to say that nobody will suspect that you are not actually Sir Aubrey Belston."