The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

by William Le Queux

"Yes, do," she urged, clinging closely to him, her frail frame trembling, for she was still upset and unnerved.

"Well, last January, I was staying with my mother at the Hôtel Adlon, in Berlin, for though I have a place near Monmouth called Huttoft Hall, left to me by my father, Sir Alexander Craig, I am constantly on the Continent. As a bachelor I prefer life abroad, and indeed, at that time, I had not been in England since I came of age, four years before. At the hotel, I found Lola staying with her uncle—that man!" and he pointed to Jeanjean—held there prisoner. "He called himself Dr. Paul Arendt, and gave himself out to be a Belgian from Liège. He was very affable, and we became on friendly terms, while my mother took a great fancy to Lola. After about ten days or so an English friend of Arendt's, a young man named Richard Perceval, arrived, and we three men went about Berlin, and saw the sights and the night-life, a good deal together. This went on for nearly three weeks, Lola and I becoming very fast friends. At last, however, her uncle being suddenly recalled to Paris, we were compelled to part, though we constantly exchanged letters. From Berlin, my mother moved to Cannes, and I followed her. We spent February and March on the Riviera, and then went north to the Italian Lakes, the most lovely spot in Europe in the springtide." He paused and, turning to the girl, said, "Now, Lola, will you explain what happened?"

The man under arrest again fought violently for freedom. His face was flushed with exertion, his long teeth clenched, his black eyes starting wildly from his head. Now that the villainous old man he had obeyed as master was dead, he saw that he must, at all hazards, save himself.

From his grey lips there issued a torrent of abuse, and the most fearful maledictions, in the French tongue.

Lola, requested by her lover to speak, held her breath for a moment, and then, with an effort, calming the flood of emotion that arose within her, said in her pretty English—

"After we met in Berlin, I, at my uncle's orders, ingratiated myself with Lady Craig, for the purpose of ascertaining whether she had with her jewellery of any value. Meanwhile, finding that Edouard had become very friendly with me, he at once instituted inquiries and found that Lady Craig was widow of Sir Alexander Craig, Knight, who had died leaving his only son possessor of a great fortune and a large estate near Monmouth. He also, through inquiries made by Vernon, found that Edouard had not been in England since he came of age. Vernon and my uncle met secretly one day at Frankfort, whereupon the crafty old man elaborated an ingenious plan which, within a few days, was put into execution. Among Vernon's wily confederates was a very smart, gentlemanly young man named Richard Perceval, who had been an actor, and who was the same height and much the same build as Edouard. This man came to our hotel in Berlin, but with what object I was, then, entirely ignorant. I now know that the reason he joined us was in order to carefully watch Mr. Craig's manners, his gait, his style of dress, and all his idiosyncrasies. While Edouard was unaware of it, he took many snapshots of him in secret, and one day for a joke they both went to a photographer's and had their portraits taken, the object of my uncle and Perceval being to obtain a thoroughly good likeness of M'sieur Craig. After three weeks, however, their preparations being completed, though I, of course, had no suspicion as to what was intended, we left Berlin and returned to Paris."

"To Brussels," interrupted the notorious criminal. "Be correct, at least." And his face broadened in an evil grin.

"To Brussels first, and then next day to Paris," Lola went on. "For some weeks nothing was done, it seems. I had constant letters from Edouard, who was at Beau Site, at Cannes, and I frequently wrote to him there. Then I accompanied my uncle to Algiers, where we remained some time, our movements being always sudden and always uncertain. My uncle, at Algiers, was engaged with his wireless telegraphy, sending and receiving messages from nowhere. Meanwhile, old Vernon's wits were at work and he laid his plans for a great coup. He took Richard Perceval to Cromer, then dull, sleepy, and out-of-season, the young man arriving there as his nephew, Edward Craig. He possessed an exact counterpart of M'sieur Craig's wardrobe, his hair was cut in the style you see Edouard wearing it, and by means of certain small but expert touches to his countenance, so artistic as not to be discernible, he had become transformed into the exact counterpart of the owner of Huttoft. Early in June we returned from Algiers to Paris, and my uncle, leaving me, went to London. Then, when he returned to the Boulevard Pereire three days later, I noticed a great change in him. He seemed greatly incensed with the Master."

"Had they quarrelled?" I inquired eagerly.

"Yes, over the division of the profits arising from the theft, in the month of March, of four hundred thousand francs' worth of diamonds, and pearls from a Paris jeweller named Benoy, while he was in a motor-car in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Vernon, he told me, had sold the stones and had retained three-fourths of the plunder. My uncle was furious and vowed most terrible vengeance. Next day, he sent me from Paris direct to Norfolk with a letter to Vernon. On arrival in Cromer I was utterly astounded to meet Perceval in the street dressed as Edouard Craig and presenting an exact likeness to him! Perceval, however, did not see me, and I went to Beacon House, delivered the letter to the old man, obtained a reply, returned to London, and next day to Paris. From my uncle, who became more incensed than ever against Vernon on receipt of the reply to his letter, I managed to elicit what was intended. This was that Vernon, knowing that Edouard lived always on the Continent, and had not been home for four years, had devised a devilish plan by which Perceval, representing himself to be the owner of Huttoft, was to obtain from his late father's lawyers, a reputable firm whose address is in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the deeds relating to the great Huttoft estate, as well as a quantity of family jewels, and raise a large mortgage upon the property from a well-known firm of money-lenders. The preliminary negotiations with the latter had already been opened, and it was only a question of days when the bogus Edouard Craig, already practised in the art of forging the signature of the real M'sieur Craig, would present himself to his late father's solicitors. The deep cunning of the whole plot, and the fine and elaborate detail in which it had all been worked out, held me aghast. If carried out, it was expected that fully seventy thousand pounds would be neatly netted and the bogus Craig would disappear into thin air!"