12: Mr. Louis Vandelius

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RICHARD immediately recognised one of these men as the man he had seen trying on boots that afternoon at the store whereat he had purchased his rubber-soled shoes. But this man remained silent; so did his similarly armed companion. It was a third man, big and formidable as the others, who advanced out of the darkness and spoke.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” he demanded sternly. “Answer!”

“I came to call upon Mr. Vandelius,” said Richard promptly. “Why are you threatening me with firearms?”

“There is only one authorised way into this park, and you didn’t come in by that!” retorted the man. “How did you come in? Don’t trifle now, if you don’t want a bullet through you! We stand no nonsense here!”

There was a curiously grim menacing note in his inquisitor’s voice which convinced Richard that these were not idle threats, and he determined to tell the truth.

“I climbed over the park wall,” he began. “I----”

“And that you couldn’t do without assistance!” interrupted the man. “Who helped you?”

“My man-servant,” replied Richard.

“Where is he?”

“Gone back to the town. If you will let me explain----”

“I’m asking you to explain all along! Answer my first question!---Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“May I give you my card?” asked Richard. “You will see----”

“Keep your hands where they are!” commanded the man. “You may be armed, for all I know. Now---where is your card?”

“Left-hand top-pocket of my waistcoat,” growled Richard. “I’m not armed!”

“That’s well for you,” said the other. He drew out his captive’s card-case, found a card, and held it to the light. “Mr. Richard Marchmont, eh?” he read aloud. “Jermyn Street. Any relation of Henry Marchmont of Bedford Row.”

“His nephew,” said Richard.

The man put the card in his own pocket and returned the card-case to its former receptacle. But the discovery of Richard’s name and his asserted relationship with Henry brought no modification in the sternness of his tone and manner.

“Well---and what do you want here?” he asked again. “Quick, now!”

“I’ve told you---I came to see Mr. Vandelius,” replied Richard.

“People who come to see Mr. Vandelius don’t climb over walls, and they don’t wear tennis shoes on damp autumn nights! If you wanted to see Mr. Vandelius, why didn’t you seek admission in the ordinary way, at the entrance gate?”

“Because I didn’t think I should get it, if you must know,” said Richard. “So I came in after my own fashion!”

“And at your own peril! Why do you want to see Mr. Vandelius?”

“I want to ask him if he can tell me anything of the whereabouts and the safety of Mr. Lansdale and his daughter----”

“What business is that of yours?” interrupted the man sharply. “Say!”

“Not to you!” retorted Richard. “To your master, if you like---if Mr. Vandelius is your master!”

“You will not see Mr. Vandelius, nor will he know you are here unless you answer my question,” said the man. “Answer plainly---is there anyone who knows you’re here, except your man-servant?”

“No!---no one!” asserted Richard.

“You have not been seeing the local police?---talking to them----”

“I’ve never been near the local police. No one knows I’m here, I tell you, except my valet. He won’t say a word to anyone---if I am safely back at the hotel by eleven o’clock. If I am not----”

“Well---what then?”

“Then he’ll go to the local police superintendent, and tell him that I’m here, and why!” answered Richard. “So that’s that! You’d better let me see your master.”

The man hesitated a moment; then he seemed to make up his mind.

“Very well!” he said. “Follow me! These men will walk alongside you; you’ll remember that you’re in their custody. This way!”

He turned swiftly; the bright light was extinguished; Richard, only just able to see the leader’s figure in the semi-darkness, found himself threading an intricate path which led through thick shrubberies towards the house. Presently the four men emerged from these upon a lawn; there the light grew better, and Richard saw that they were approaching the lighted part of the long range of buildings. But as they drew closer, the leader turned along another path; this led to the ruins which Richard had seen that morning from the hillside. Through a doorway in them they passed into what appeared to be a long vaulted passage; at the farther end an obviously modern entrance confronted them. And here the man who had done all the talking turned on his prisoner.

“I can’t say if Mr. Vandelius will see you personally or not,” he said in his usual stern accents. “But he’ll say what is to be done with you. You’ll wait here!---and remember that you’re in the charge of these men. If you attempt to make off, or anything of that sort, all the worse for you! I’ve warned you before, though, that we stand no nonsense!”

Richard’s blood began to stir in his veins.

“Look you here!” he said suddenly. “I’ve told you of my orders to my man. If I’m not back at my hotel, safe and sound, by eleven o’clock, you’ll have the local police in this place before midnight! Now you go and tell that to your master---and be damned to you!”

The man made no answer. He passed through a door and closed it behind him, and Richard, seeing an antique chair close by, sat down, drew out his cigarette case and began to smoke, paying no more attention to his guards than if they were stone images. Five minutes, ten minutes passed; then the door was suddenly opened again and his interrogator looked out and motioned to him.

“Come this way!” he said peremptorily. “Alone!”

Richard rose promptly enough and passing through the door found himself in another long passage, which, from its furnishings, obviously belonged to the modern part of the house. His guide, without further word to him, walked swiftly along this until he came to a door at the extreme end; this he opened without any preliminary knock, and standing aside, motioned Richard to enter. And Richard obeyed his gesture, not without a sudden quickening of his pulses---he was, at any rate, within the secret centres of this strange place at last, and perhaps sooner than he had thought to be.

The room was a small one; evidently a luxuriously fitted smoking-room; the atmosphere was heavy with the aromatic odour of choice cigars. There were three men in it, grouped around a fire of oak logs; cigar boxes, decanters, glasses, were ranged on a table near them. Two of these men Richard recognised at once as Crench, the Chancery Lane solicitor, and Garner, his friend: each gave him a nod of recognition to which he made a formal, silent response. He knew them for nothing but subordinates; his whole attention was given at once to the third man, whom he felt to be the controlling spirit in what had already seemed the aspect of an extraordinary and perhaps sinister mystery---Mr. Louis Vandelius.

Mr. Vandelius sat on the left-hand side of his bright fire, in a deep easy chair; a short, stoutish man, dark of hair and complexion, with a pair of peculiarly bright black eyes, a high white forehead, and an expression, at that moment, of interest and curiosity. He rose slightly from his seat as Richard entered, bowed politely, and waved a slender hand to a chair exactly opposite his own.

“Mr. Richard Marchmont?” he said in a low, musical voice, and with great suavity of manner. “Please to be seated. I think you are already acquainted with these gentlemen, Mr. Marchmont?---Mr. Crench; Mr. Garner.”

“I have met both gentlemen: they know well who I am,” replied Richard. He took the chair which Vandelius indicated, and looked frankly at the man whose house he had invaded. “So,” he continued, “I dare say they have given you some explanation of my presence here.”

Vandelius smiled, showing a set of very fine white teeth.

“I should prefer to hear your own, Mr. Marchmont,” he said. “I understand from my servants that you came in rather an irregular fashion, eh?---climbed the wall, I think? That----”

“There was no other course open to me,” interrupted Richard. “I believed---I may have been wrong---that if I sent in my card you wouldn’t see me. And----”

“Quite wrong!” said Vandelius. “I would have seen you. Well, I see you now. What is the matter, Mr. Marchmont? But I am forgetting my duties---a glass of wine, now?”

“Thank you, no, if you don’t mind,” replied Richard. “Mr. Vandelius,” he went on steadily, “I want to ask you a plain question. Are Mr. Lansdale and his daughter under your roof?”

Vandelius smiled again.

“They are, Mr. Marchmont,” he replied. “They are in my house.”

“As prisoners?”

“Say guests, Mr. Marchmont, guests! Prisoners, no!”

“I shall be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Vandelius! I received a letter from Miss Lansdale late last night in which she told me that she and her father were prisoners in a house the whereabouts of which she was ignorant of. She suggested I might ascertain her whereabouts from the postmark. I saw that the postmark was Malbourne. I came here; I chanced to see Mr. Crench in one of your cars. I made some guarded inquiries---which, Mr. Vandelius, have so far respected your privacy---and I came to the conclusion that Miss Lansdale and her father were here. I want to know if Miss Lansdale is---safe?”

Vandelius had nodded his head at various points of this speech; he now nodded it with an expression of indulgence.

“Miss Lansdale is quite safe,” he said. “As safe as if she were under her own roof, or, rather, far safer! But, Mr. Marchmont, since you are so frank, I too will be candid. What is your particular interest in this young lady?”

“I have no objection to telling you that,” answered Richard. “Miss Lansdale and I are engaged to be married.”

Vandelius bowed his head sympathetically.

“Is her father aware of it?” he asked.

“He may be now---since he and his daughter have been thrown together here,” replied Richard. “He was not---that is, he wasn’t at the time of his disappearance.”

Vandelius remained silent a moment, watching his visitor.

“If what one reads in the newspapers is correct, Mr. Marchmont,” he replied suddenly, “Mr. Lansdale is suspected, by police and public, of having murdered your uncle!”

“I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Richard.

“It would be a very nasty thing for you to believe if you are in love with his daughter---who is a very nice, beautiful girl!” observed Vandelius, again showing his teeth. “But I should be greatly delighted and infinitely relieved if you could give me some grounds for not believing it! As the thing has been worked up by the press and the police, there is something very like a prima facie case against this very unfortunate Lansdale!”

“But you don’t believe it yourself?” said Richard bluntly. “Do you?”

Vandelius waved his cigar.

“I am not often asked what I believe, Mr. Marchmont!” he replied, smiling. “If I am, I remain silent. Evidence is evidence---facts are facts. I believe you have a proverb, you practical English people, to the effect that facts are ugly things. Sometimes, yes, they are---very ugly!”

“Why is Mr. Lansdale hidden?” demanded Richard. “That’s no good! It’s only made the police consider him guilty. Innocent men don’t hide!”

“Yet you consider him innocent?” said Vandelius. “Well, my friend, what you mean is that innocent men ought not to have any necessity to hide. But sometimes a wholly innocent man---as in this case---is wrongly suspect. Then it is a question of expediency as to whether he should hide himself, or let his friends hide him---or remain in the full light, eh?”

“I say---the full light!” said Richard.

“Um---yes!---but perhaps you have never been locked up in a police cell, or confined in a detention prison!” remarked Vandelius good-humouredly. “You have not much chance of doing anything for yourself in those places, and if you are in them, your friends can’t do much for you, either, Mr. Marchmont. In Mr. Lansdale’s case---somebody had to do something!”

“I conclude that it is you who offer that mysterious reward of ten thousand pounds, through Mr. Crench?” suggested Richard.

Vandelius waved his cigar again---unconcernedly.

“Well, between us, as gentlemen, yes, Mr. Marchmont,” he replied. “You see, if the real murderer of your uncle---please accept my sincere condolences on the sad fate of so estimable a man as I am sure Mr. Henry Marchmont was!---if, I say, we can detect and convict the really guilty man, why, then, Lansdale is cleared! He steps out into the daylight---free!”

“That is your object in having him here, and in offering that reward, then?” demanded Richard, going to his point.

Vandelius affected a momentary interest in his cigar. After carefully removing the ash from it, he looked across at his visitor with a sudden confidential smile.

“Mr. Marchmont,” he said, “I know you---as a cricketer! I have seen you play cricket---several times---at Lord’s and at the Oval. All cricketers are men of honour! The cricket field is the nursery of honourable conduct; it breeds gentlemen. So---I will take you into my confidence---the confidence of Louis Vandelius!---I will tell you why Lansdale is here, why his daughter is here----”

A slight warning cough from Crench interrupted him. The lawyer was shaking his head.

“I’m not sure that that’s advisable, Mr. Vandelius,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t think I’d----”

But Vandelius frowned and waved his hand with a peremptory gesture.

“Mr. Marchmont is engaged to Miss Lansdale!” he said. “I decide to give Mr. Marchmont my confidence!”