Were rumours already afloat, I wondered?
Had the ever-active Jonet at last succeeded in establishing the secret hiding-place of the notorious Jules Jeanjean—the prince of European jewel-thieves?
CHAPTER XXVII OPENS A DEATH-TRAP
The Villa Beni Hassan, a great red-and-white house of Moorish architecture, with three large domes, and many minarets, and long-arched windows of stained glass, I found standing high up, facing the azure sea, amid a wonderful tropical garden full of tall, feathery palms, dark oleanders, fiery pointsettias, and a perfect tangle of aloes, roses, giant geraniums and other brilliant flowers.
A high white wall hid it from the dusty highway, its position being between the road and the sea with spacious, well-kept grounds sloping away down to the golden beach. Truly it was a princely residence, one of the finest in the picturesque suburbs of Algiers. That afternoon beneath the blazing African sun, shining like burnished copper, all was still in the fiery heat, which, after the coolness of autumn in England, seemed overpowering.
At length the ricketty fiacre pulled up before great gates of ornamental iron-work, the tops of which were gilded, and on ringing, a gigantic Arab janitor in blue and gold livery appeared from the concierge's lodge, and salaamed.
In Arabic my companion explained that we wished to see the Comte, whereupon he opened the gates, and on foot we proceeded up the winding, well-kept drive, bordered by flowers, and shaded by palms of various species. On our left, across a sun-baked lawn, in the centre of which a big handsome fountain was playing, I caught sight of an aerial mast of iron lattice nearly a hundred feet high, and across from it to another similar mast were suspended four thin wires, kept apart by wooden crosses.
I held my breath. I was actually upon the domain of the most daring criminal known to the European police.
"There are the wires of the wireless station," the detective exclaimed. "But why, M'sieur, do you wish to see the Comte?" he asked with sudden curiosity.