“Very well,” I replied. “Is there any message?”
“None. Just deliver it to him. But to nobody else, remember,” he ordered.
So according to his instructions I duly arrived at the remote house at the hour arranged, and delivered the bag to the old man, who welcomed me and gave me a whisky-and-soda, which I found very acceptable after my long tramp from Maldon station. Tarrant was not alone, for I distinctly heard a man’s voice calling him just before he opened the door to me.
Recollecting that the old fellow had been in gaol, I was full of curiosity as to what was intended. I certainly never believed it to be so highly ingenious and dastardly as it eventually proved to be.
About a month passed uneventfully, save that I spent many delightful hours in Lola’s company. Her father had purchased another two-seater car—a “sports model” Vauxhall—and on several occasions I took him for runs in it about Yorkshire. Naturally he knew little about cars himself, but relied upon my knowledge and judgment. In addition to the Rolls and the Vauxhall I also had an “Indian” motor-cycle for my own personal use, and found it very useful in going on certain rapid missions to York and elsewhere. But the abandonment of the “A.C.”—which had, by the way, been regarded as a mystery by the Press—hurt me considerably.
Duperré had been absent from Overstow ever since the day we had left for Edinburgh, but as the bright autumn days passed I found myself more and more in love with the dainty girl whose father was a master-criminal.
Nevertheless, I felt that Duperré’s wife kept eager watch upon both of us. Perhaps she feared that I might tell Lola some of my adventures. As for Rayne, he was often out shooting over neighboring estates, for he was a good shot and highly popular in the neighborhood, while at Overstow itself there was some excellent sport to which now and then he would invite his local friends.
Rayne possessed a marvelous personality. When at home he was the typical country gentleman, a good judge of a horse and in his “pink” a straight rider to hounds. None who met him would have ever dreamed that he was the shrewd, crafty cosmopolitan whose evil machinations and devilish ingenuity made themselves felt in all the capitals of Europe, and whose word was law to certain dangerous characters who would not hesitate to take human life if it were really necessary to evade arrest.
His outstanding cleverness, however, was that he never revealed his own identity to those who actually carried out his devilish schemes. The circle of cosmopolitan malefactors who were his cat’s-paws only knew Monsieur and Madame Duperré—under other names—but of Rudolph Rayne’s very existence they were nearly all ignorant. Money was, I learnt, freely paid for various “jobs” by agents engaged by the man I had once known as Captain Deinhard, or else by certain receivers of stolen goods in London and on the Continent, who were forewarned that jewels, bonds or stolen bank-notes would reach them in secret, and that payment must be made and no questions asked.
Late one evening Duperré returned unexpectedly in a hired car from Thirsk. We had finished dinner, and I chanced to be with Rayne in the library, yet longing to get to the old-fashioned drawing-room with its sweet odor of potpourri, where Lola was, I knew, sitting immersed in the latest novel.