The Stowmarket & Albert Gate Mystery. Louis Tracy
You know, of course, the manner of the last Sultan's death?"
Brett nodded.
"And you have heard, no doubt, something of the precautions taken by the present Sultan to safeguard his life against the attacks of possible assassins?"
"Yes," said Brett.
"Well, these have been redoubled of late, and the man never goes out that he is not in the most abject state of fear. He is a pitiful sight, I assure you. I saw him less than a fortnight ago, driving to the Mosque on Friday, and his coachman evidently had orders to go at a gallop through the streets, whilst not only was the entire road protected by soldiers, but every house was examined previously by police agents. There is something in the wind of more than usual importance in the neighbourhood of Yildiz Kiosk just now, I am certain. I suppose you did not chance to see any mention of the fact that Hussein-ul-Mulk, the Sultan's nephew, has recently fled from Turkey, and is now under the protection of the French Government?"
"Yes, I noticed that."
"You don't seem to miss much," was Gaultier's sharp remark, pausing in his narrative to light a cigar.
"One of my few virtues is that I read the newspapers."
The train was slowing down as it neared the town station in Calais, and Gaultier's voice could be momentarily heard above the diminishing rattle.
"Well," he said, "I happen to know Hussein-ul-Mulk, and if we find out where he lives in Paris I will introduce you to him."
Brett looked at the slumbering Frenchman out of the corner of his eye. The man appeared to be dozing peacefully enough, but the alert barrister had an impression that his limbs were not sufficiently relaxed under the influence of slumber. Indeed, he felt sure that the Frenchman was wide awake and endeavouring to catch the drift of their conversation.
"I will be most pleased to meet your friend, Captain Gaultier," he said, "and lest it should slip your memory I will give you a reminder."
He opened his card-case and wrote on the back of a card: "Grand Hotel. Breakfast 11.30. No more at present."
The quick-witted King's messenger read and understood.
"It seems to me," he went on, "that he is the very man for your purpose. Though he is not in favour at Court just now he has plenty of friends in the various departments, and he could give you letters which would be certain to secure you some excellent orders. I suppose you are going to the East as the result of the rumoured intention of the Turkish Government to reconstitute the navy."
Brett made a haphazard guess at Gaultier's meaning.
"Yes," he said, "we ought to place a good many thousand tons with them."
Gaultier leant forward to strike a match and glanced at their companion. For some indescribable reason he shared Brett's views concerning this gentleman, and immediately started a conversation of general significance. They soon discovered that they had several mutual acquaintances, and in this way they passed the dreary journey to Paris pleasantly enough.
At the Gare du Nord, their knowledge of French methods enabled them to get quickly clear of the octroi, as neither of them had any baggage which rendered their presence necessary at the Custom-house. The Frenchman, who seemed to be thoroughly revived by the air of his beloved Paris, hurried out simultaneously with themselves. He had no difficulty in hearing Brett's directions to a cabman. Gaultier entered another vehicle.
Brett was the first away from the station. He fancied he saw his French travelling companion hastily whisper something to a lounger near the exit, so he suddenly pulled up his voiture, gave the driver a two-franc piece and told him to go to the Grand Hotel and there await his arrival. The cab had halted for the moment in the Rue Lafayette, at the corner of the Place Valenciennes, and the cabman, recognizing that his fare was an Englishman and consequently mad, drove off immediately in obedience to orders.
Though nearly six o'clock in the morning, it was quite dark, but as Brett walked rapidly back towards the station he had no difficulty in picking out Gaultier, who occupied an open vehicle. Some little distance behind came another, and herein the barrister thought he recognized the man to whom the Frenchman in the train had spoken. By this time many other cabs were dashing out of the station-yard, so Brett took the chance that he might be hopelessly wrong.
He hailed a third vehicle and told the driver to follow the other two, which were now some distance down the Rue Lafayette. Not until the three cabs had crossed the Place de l'Opera and passed the Madeleine could Brett be certain that the occupant of the second was following his friend Gaultier. Then he chuckled to himself, for this was surely a rare stroke of luck.
Quickly reviewing the possibilities of the affair, he came to the conclusion that the travelling Frenchman really understood little, if any, English, but that he had caught the name of the fugitive from the Sultan's wrath and had forthwith betrayed an interest in their conversation which was, to say the least, remarkable. At the exit from the Gare du Nord the stranger had readily enough ascertained Brett's destination, but he clearly regarded it as important that Gaultier—the man who claimed Hussein-ul-Mulk as a friend—should be tracked, and had given the necessary instructions to the confederate who awaited his arrival.
Although Gaultier had not said as much, Brett guessed that his destination was the British Embassy in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. The route followed by the cabman led straight to that well-known locality. The Frenchman in the second cab evidently thought likewise, for, at the corner of the Rue Boissy he pulled up, and Brett was just in time to give his driver instructions to go ahead and thus avoid attracting undue notice to himself.
Gaultier turned into the Embassy, and Brett himself halted a little further on. Dismissing his cocher with a liberal fare, he walked rapidly back, and saw the spy enter into conversation with the night porter on duty. The latter personage, however, was clearly a trustworthy official, for he loudly told the other to be off and attend to his own affairs.
Then followed a most exciting and perplexing chase through many streets, and it was only by the exercise of the utmost discretion that Brett finally located his man at a definite number in the Rue Barbette, a tiny thoroughfare in the Temple district.
By this time dawn was advancing over Paris, and the streets were beginning to fill with early workers. He inquired from a passer-by the most likely locality in which he could find a cab, and the man civilly conducted him to the Rue de Rivoli. Thence he was not long in reaching the Grand Hotel, where he found the astonished cocher of his first vehicle still safeguarding his bag and arguing fiercely with a porter that he had unquestionably obeyed the Englishman's instructions.
Tired though he was, Brett did not fail to scrutinize the list of arrivals at the hotel on the preceding Tuesday. He instantly found the entry he sought. The arrival of "Mr. and Mrs. John Talbot, London," was chronicled in the register with uncompromising boldness. Hastily comparing the writing in Talbot's letter with that of the visitors' book, Brett was at first staggered by their similarity, but he quickly recognized the well-known signs which indicate that a man who himself writes a bold and confident hand has been copying the signature of another with the object of reproducing it freely and with reasonable accuracy. There are always perceptible differences in the varying pressure of the pen and the distribution of the ink.
Allowance had evidently not been made for the fact that Englishmen almost invariably write their names very badly in Continental hotel registers, owing to their inability to use foreign pens. The man who not only forged Mr. Talbot's name, but also supplied him with a wife, laboured under no such disadvantage. Indeed, Talbot himself would probably not have written his own name so legibly.
"That is all right," said Brett wearily, traversing a corridor to gain his room. "Now, I wonder if there is any connexion between Hussein-ul-Mulk and the Rue Barbette."
CHAPTER VII
THE HOUSE IN THE RUE BARBETTE