The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 2

"Impostors!" growled Rohscheimer uneasily. "Don't you think they've been invited, then?"

"Well, who shut those doors?" muttered Haredale, leaning across the little table the better to observe what was going forward.

"You don't mean----" began Rohscheimer, and broke off, as the orchestra dashed through the coda of the waltz and ceased.

For stark amazement froze the words upon his tongue.

Coincident with the last pair of dancers performing their final gyration and the hum of voices a.s.suming a louder tone, each of the men standing around the walls produced a brace of revolvers and covered the particular group nearest to him!

The conversational hum rose to a momentary roar, and ceased abruptly.

The horns of taxi-cabs pa.s.sing below could be plainly heard, and the drone and rattle of motor-buses. Men who had done good work in other emergencies looked down the gleaming barrels, back to the crowds of women--and had no inspiration, but merely wondered. n.o.body moved. n.o.body fainted.

"Held up!" came, in p.r.o.nounced Kansas, from somewhere amongst the crush.

"Quick!" whispered Haredale. "We're overlooked! Through the conservatory, and----"

"Pardon me!"

Rohscheimer and Haredale turned, together, and each found himself looking directly into the little ring of a revolver's muzzle. A tall, slim figure in faultless evening dress stood behind them, half in the shadows. This mysterious stranger had jet black hair, and wore a black silk half-mask.

The melodramatic absurdity of the thing came home strongly to Haredale.

But its harsh reality was equally obvious.

"Perhaps," continued the masked speaker, in a low, refined voice, and with a faint, elusive accent, "you will oblige me, Mr. Rohscheimer, by stepping forward so that your guests can see you? Sir Richard Haredale--may I trouble you?"

Rohscheimer, his heavy features slightly pale, rose unsteadily.

Haredale, after a rapid glance about him, rose also, with tightened lips; and the trio moved forward into full view of the a.s.sembled company.

"The gentlemen surrounding you," said the man in the mask, slightly raising his voice, "are all sworn to the Cause which I represent. You would, perhaps, term them anarchists!"

An audible shudder pa.s.sed through the a.s.semblage.

"They are desperate men," he continued, "indifferent to death, and would, without compunction, shoot down everyone present--if I merely raised my hand! Each of them is a social pariah, with a price upon his head. Let no man think this is a jest! Any movement made without my permission will be instantly fatal."

_Dzing!_ went the bell of a bus below. _Grr-r-r!_ went the motor in re-starting. _OO-oo! OO-oo!_ came from the horn of a taxi-cab. And around the wall stood the silent rank with the raised revolvers.

"I shall call upon those gentlemen whom I consider most philanthropic,"

resumed the musical voice, "to subscribe to my Cause! Mr. Rohscheimer, your host, will head the list with a diamond stud, valued at one thousand guineas, and two rings, representing, together, three thousand pounds! Place them on that pedestal, Mr. Rohscheimer!"

"I won't do it!" cried the financier, in rising cadence. "I defy you!

I----"

"Cut it!" snapped Haredale roughly. "Don't be such a cad as to expose women----" He had caught sight of a pretty, pale face in the throng, that made the idea of these mysterious robbers opening fire doubly, trebly horrible. "It goes against the grain, but hand them over. We can do nothing--yet!"

"Thank you, Sir Richard!" said the masked spokesman, and waved aside the hand with which Haredale proffered his own signet ring. "I have not called upon you, sir! Mr. Hohsmann, your daughters would feel affronted did you not give them an opportunity of appearing upon the subscription list! The necklace and the aigrette will do! I shall post, of course, a formal receipt to Hamilton Place!"

And so the incredible comedy proceeded--until thousands of pounds' worth of jewellery lay upon the pedestal at the foot of a bronze statuette of Pandora!

"The list is closed!" called the spokesman. "Doors!"

Open came the doors at his command, and revealed to those who could see outside, a double rank of evening-dress bandits.

"The company," he resumed, "will pa.s.s out in single file to the white drawing-room. Mr. Rohscheimer--will you lead the way?"

In sullen submission out went Rohscheimer, and after him his guests--or, rather, his wife's guests--until that whole brilliant company was packed into the small white room. Someone had thoughtfully closed the shutters of the windows giving on Park Lane, and securely screwed them; so that, when the last straggler had entered, and the door was shut, they were in a trap!

"Listen, everybody!" came Haredale's voice. "Keep cool! You fellows by the door--get your shoulders to it!"

At his words, the men standing nearest to the door turned to execute these instructions, and were confronted by the following type-written notice pinned upon the white panels:--

"A detailed subscription list will appear in the leading papers to-morrow, and it will doubtless relieve and gratify subscribers to learn that _the revolvers were not loaded_!"

There was little delay after that. Within sixty seconds the door was open; within three minutes the wires were humming with the astounding news.

Tom Sheard, his work completed, was about to leave the _Gleaner_ office, when--

"Sheard!" shouted the news editor from an upper landing. "Amazing business at Rohscheimer's in Park Lane! Robbery! Brigands! Terrific! Off you go! Taxi!"

And off went Sheard without delay.

He entered Park Lane, to find that part of the thoroughfare adjacent to the financier's house packed with vehicles of all sorts and sizes. Women in full dress, pressmen, policemen, loafers, were pouring out and rushing in to Mr. Rohscheimer's residence! Never before was such a scene witnessed at that hour of the night in Park Lane.

As he pa.s.sed under the awning, pressing his way towards the steps, he encountered an excited young gentleman who wore a closed opera hat, but was evidently ignorant of his interesting appearance. This young gentleman he chanced to know, and having rectified the irregularity in his toilet, from him he secured some splendid copy.

"You see, I just dropped in to take a look round, and as I strolled up a mob of jokers jumped out of a cab just in front of me, and we all crawled in together, sort of thing. I happened to notice a footman going upstairs and two of the jokers I spoke about behind him. They were laughing, and so forth, and he was just on the first landing, when they nabbed him from behind--positive fact!--and threw the chap down on his face! I'm thinking it's a poor kind of joke when the other two fellows jolly well n.o.bble _me_! Before I know what's up, I'm pushed into an anteroom or somewhere, and I hear these chaps banging the front door and running upstairs! I should have sung out like steam, only they'd handcuffed me wrong way round and tied a beastly cork arrangement in my mouth!

"Just before I burst a blood-vessel it occurred to me that I might as well keep quiet; so I sat on the floor listening; but I didn't hear anything for what seemed like an hour! Then there was a mob of fellows came downstairs--and the door opened. They seemed to slip out in twos and threes from what I could gather, and by the time they'd nearly all gone a perfect pandemonium broke out, upstairs and down!

"The servants--who'd all been locked in the cellar--got out first. Then Haredale came bounding downstairs, and, luckily for me, heard me kicking at the door. Then everybody was rushing about! Rohscheimer was bawling in the telephone! Some other chap was rushing for a doctor--for Adeler, who got knocked on the head in the library. Now here's the wretched police arresting everybody who looks as though he'd been in the Army!

That's all the beastly description anyone can give! They suspected d.i.c.k Langley the minute they saw him, because he's got a military appearance!

And I shouldn't be surprised to hear that they'd arrested every fellow in the Guards' Club!

"Here's the thing, though: they've all got clean away! With about forty thousand pounds' worth of jewellery! It's a preposterous sort of thing, isn't it?"

Sheard agreed that it was the most preposterous sort of thing imaginable; and, leaving his excited acquaintance, he set out to seek further particulars. But very few were forthcoming.

As to the manner in which the clique had obtained admission, that called for little explanation. They had simply presented themselves, armed with invitations, singly and in small parties, whilst dancing was in progress, and in a house open to such mixed society had been admitted without arousing suspicion. There was little that was obscure or inexplicable in the coup; it was an amazing display of _force majeure_, an act of stark audacity. It pointed to the existence in London of a hitherto unsuspected genius. Such was Sheard's opinion.

From an American guest, who had kept perfectly cool during the "hold-up," and had quietly taken stock of the robbers, he learnt that, exclusive of the spokesman, they numbered exactly thirty; were much of a similar build, being well-set-up men of military bearing; and, most extraordinary circ.u.mstance, were facially all alike!

"Gee! but it's a fact!" declared his informant. "They all had moderate fair hair, worn short and parted left-centre, neat blonde moustaches, and fresh complexions, and the whole thirty were like as beans!"

Two other interesting facts Sheard elicited from Adeler, who wore a white bandage about his damaged skull. The whole of the guests victimised were compatriots of their host.

"It is from those who are of my nation that they have taken all their booty," he said, smiling. "This daring robber has evidently strong racial prejudices! Then, each of the victims had received, during the past month threatening letters demanding money for various charities.

These letters did not emanate from the inst.i.tutions named, but were anonymous appeals. The point seems worth notice."

And so, armed with the usual police a.s.surance that several sensational arrests might be expected in the morning, Sheard departed with this enthralling copy hot for the machines that had been stopped to take it.