Sir Felix Challas wore his mask with marvellous cleverness. The world—the people who read of him in the newspapers—never suspected that the man whose name so often headed subscription lists for charitable objects, and whose handsome donation was the signal for a hundred others, was an unscrupulous schemer. His had been the hand that, by clever financial juggling in which some other person was always the principal, had brought ruin to thousands of happy homes. He had, indeed, if the truth were told, climbed to the pedestal of notoriety and esteem, over the bodies of the men, both capitalists and workmen, he had, with such innate cunning, contrived to ruin.
The strange story told by that shabby Dane as he sat in the gorgeous room of the Grand Hotel in Paris, had attracted him from the very first. Here was a chance of getting the better of his natural enemies, the Jews. Ah! how he hated them! Yes. He would search, and if he found any of those sacred relics, his intention was to laugh in the face of the whole Hebrew community and hold the discovery up to the derision of the Christians.
What mattered it to him that the Dane had died in penury in that obscure hotel near the Gare du Nord? His secret agent, who had watched the poor fellow from the moment he left the Grand Hotel, had informed Sir Felix of the man’s tragic end, but he had only smiled with evident satisfaction. The agent had ascertained that the present document had not been found among the dead man’s possessions, hence the Baronet believed that the man, before his death, had destroyed it. It was a blow to him when he discovered that certain fragments of it had been carefully preserved by Doctor Diamond. It meant that opposition had arisen—a very serious opposition which he must forcibly crush down.
“Charlie returns from Brussels to-day, doesn’t he?” the Baronet was asking.
“Yes. He ought to be back in his rooms by now. And he’ll find the girl there. I’ve left him definite instructions how to act.”
“The girl must be sworn to silence,” Sir Felix said with heavy brow. “She must assist us. We must compel her.”
Jim Jannaway nodded. From instructions given by the man before him his eyes had already been opened, and ten minutes later he left the house, the Baronet’s last words being:
“Remember, Jim, there’s millions in this business. We mustn’t lose it for the sake of that chit of a girl, however innocent and pretty she may be. Understand that!”
An hour previously Gwen Griffin, struggling slowly back to consciousness, found that, straight before her, was a square window over which was drawn a smoke-blackened, brown holland blind. The gas was still burning, although the grey wintry day had dawned some hours ago.
She was lying upon the bed in a fairly big room, still dressed, but with her clothes torn, as they had been in the desperate struggle of the previous night. Slowly and painfully she rose, and as she slipped off the bed she felt her limbs so weak and trembling that she could scarcely stand.