The Stretton Street Affair

by William Le Queux

I walked back to my hotel, my thoughts occupied by the beautiful girl who had suddenly so possessed me. Before me, by day and by night, rose visions of the lovely countenance of that strange, half-bewildered expression which was so pathetic and so mysterious. I recollected her sweet smiles when we had talked in her mother’s drawing-room in Longridge Road, and I knew that my admiration had already ripened into love.

But it was all so mysterious, so incredible indeed, that I hardly dared reflect upon those amazing events of the immediate past.

The name of the great financier, De Gex, was one to conjure with all over Europe. Since my night’s adventure in Stretton Street I had learnt much concerning him. His nationality was obscure. He posed as an Englishman, but at the same time he was a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Greek. His financial tentacles were spread throughout Europe. Fabulously wealthy, he held a controlling interest in a number of banks and great industrial concerns, and it was said that he knew the capitals of the world as a milkman knows the streets of his particular suburb.

Behind the smoke-clouds of great events his intriguing figure followed unseen, unheralded, influencing dynasties through his secretaries and agents—one of whom was Prime Minister of a foreign kingdom—and financing bankrupt states.

Now and then he emerged from the retirement of the Villa Clementini and would go to Paris, Brussels, or Rome, and there entertain most lavishly Ministers and aristocrats of various nations, and frequently give them presents at the dinner-table.

One man declared to me that Oswald De Gex was the friend of mighty persons and the moulder of mighty events. He was a man of mystery who quietly and in secret juggled the destinies of nations in his gilded fingers. Wherever money has the power to speak there Oswald De Gex would be found smiling an inscrutable mysterious smile, but always the centre of intrigue and adventure.

To outwit and expose such a man I was determined.

Back in the hotel I stood at the window of my room, gazing out across the busy plaza upon the fine Ministerio de la Gobernacion, with its great clock upon the façade. The Gateway of the Rising Sun is ever a scene of animation, and the more so on a “fiesta,” which it happened to be that day.

I stood there looking blankly out upon the centre of Madrid life. It was irksome to be compelled to remain in the hotel during the daytime for fear of recognition by the man Suzor. Why had he held that secret meeting with the widow of the wealthy Count Chamartin? Hambledon had certainly acted with discretion and promptitude in following the lady in black to her home in Segovia. Could the Frenchman’s visit to Madrid be in any way connected with the affair at Stretton Street?