The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 35

He did.

The Stetson appeared from the window, and a pair of keen grey eyes fixed themselves upon the door wherein Sheard was lurking.

A rapid calculation showed the pressman where lay his best chance.

Darting across the road, he dived, rabbit-like, into the burrow of the Tube, got his ticket smartly, and ran to the stairway. With his head on a level with the floor of the booking-offices he paused.

An instant later the canoe-shaped brogues came clattering down from above. The American took in the people in the hall with one comprehensive glance, got a ticket without a moment's delay, and jumped into a lift that was about to descend.

Two minutes afterwards Sheard was in a cab bound for the house of Severac Bablon. The New Journalism is an exciting vocation.

He discharged the cabman at the corner of Finchley Road, and walked along to No. 70A.

Opening the monastic looking gate, he pa.s.sed around a trim lawn and stood in the porch of one of those small and picturesque houses which survive in some parts of red-brick London.

A man who wore conventional black, but who looked like an Ababdeh Arab, opened the door before he had time to ring. He confirmed Sheard's guess at his Eastern nationality by the manner of his silent salutation.

Without a word of inquiry he conducted the visitor to a small room on the left of the hall and retired in the same noiseless fashion.

The journalist had antic.i.p.ated a curious taste in decoration, and he was not disappointed. For this apartment could not well be termed a room; it was a mere cell.

The floor was composed of blocks--or perhaps only faced with layers of red granite; the walls showed a surface of smooth plaster. An unglazed window which opened on a garden afforded ample light, and, presumably for illumination at night, an odd-looking antique lamp stood in a niche.

A littered table, black with great age and heavily carved, and a chair to match, stood upon a rough fibre mat. There was no fireplace. The only luxurious touch in the strange place was afforded by a richly Damascened curtain, draped before a recess at the farther end.

From the table arose Severac Bablon, wearing a novel garment strangely like a bernouse.

"My dear Sheard," he said warmly and familiarly, "I am really delighted to see you again."

Sheard shook his hand heartily. Severac Bablon was as irresistible as ever.

"Take the arm-chair," he continued, "and try to overlook the peculiarities of my study. Believe me, they are not intended for mere effect. Every item of my arrangements has its peculiar note of inspiration, I a.s.sure you."

Sheard turned, and found that a deep-seated, heavily-cushioned chair, also antique, and which he had overlooked, stood close behind him. An odd perfume hung in the air.

"Ah," said Severac Bablon, in his softly musical voice, "you have detected my vice."

He pa.s.sed an ebony box to his visitor, containing cigarettes of a dark yellow colour. Sheard lighted one, and discovered it possessed a peculiar aromatic flavour, which he found very fascinating. Severac Bablon watched him with a quizzical smile upon his wonderfully handsome face.

"I am afraid there is opium in them," he said.

Sheard started.

"Do not fear," laughed the other. "You cannot develop the vice, for these cigarettes are un.o.btainable in London. Their history serves to disprove the popular theory that the use of tobacco was introduced from Mexico in the sixteenth century. These were known in the East generations earlier."

And so, with the mere melody of his voice, he re-established his sovereignty over Sheard's mind. His extraordinary knowledge of extraordinary matters occasioned the pressman's constant amazement. From the preparations made for the reception of the Queen of Sheba at Solomon's court in 980 B.C. he pa.s.sed to the internal organisation of the Criminal Investigation Department.

"I should mention," said Sheard at this point, "that an attempt was made to follow me here."

Severac Bablon waved a long white hand carelessly.

"Never mind," he replied soothingly. "It is annoying for you, but I give you my word that you shall not be compromised by _me_--come, luncheon is waiting. I will show you the only three men in Europe and America who might a.s.sociate the bandit, the incendiary, with him who calls himself Severac Bablon."

He stood up and gazed abstractedly in the direction of the garden. In silence he stood looking, not at the garden, but beyond it, into some vaster garden of his fancy. Sheard studied him with earnest curiosity.

"Will you never tell me," he began abruptly, "who you are really, what is the source of your influence, and what is your aim in all this wild business?"

Severac Bablon turned and regarded him fixedly.

"I will," he said, "when the day comes--if ever it does come." A shadow crept over his mobile features.

"I am a dreamer, Sheard," he continued, "and perhaps a trifle mad. I am trying to wield a weapon that my fathers were content to let rust in its scabbard. For the source of the influence you speak of--its emblem lies there."

He pointed a long, thin finger to the recess veiled with its heavy Damascus curtain.

"May I see it?"

The quizzical smile returned to the fine face.

"Oh, thou of the copy-hunting soul," exclaimed Severac Bablon. "A day may come. But it is not to-day."

He seized Sheard by the arm and led him out into the hall.

"Look at these three portraits," he directed. "The three great practical investigators of the world. Mr. Brinsley Monro, of Dearborn Street, Chicago; Mr. Paul Harley, of Chancery Lane; and last, but greatest, M.

Victor Lemage, of Paris."

"Is Duquesne acting under his instructions?"

"M. Lemage took charge of the case this morning."

Sheard looked hard at Severac Bablon. Victor Lemage, inventor of the anthroposcopic system of identification, the greatest living authority upon criminology, was a man to be feared.

Severac Bablon smiled, clapped both hands upon his shoulders, and looked into his eyes.

"It is the lighter side of my strange warfare," he said. "I revel in it, Sheard. It refreshes me for more serious things. This evening you must arrange to meet me for a few moments. I shall have a 'scoop' to offer you for the _Gleaner_. Do not fail me. It will leave you ample time to get on to Downing Street afterwards. You see, I knew you were going to Downing Street to-night! Am I not a magician? I shall wire you. If, when you ring at the door of the house to which you will be directed, no one replies, go away at once. I will then communicate the news later. And now--lunch."

CHAPTER XVIII

A WHITE ORCHID

Whoever could have taken a peep into a certain bare-looking room at Scotland Yard some three hours after Sheard had left Finchley Road must have been drawn to the conclusion that the net was closing more tightly about Severac Bablon than he supposed.

Behind a large, bare table, upon which were some sheets of foolscap, a metal inkpot, and pens, sat Chief Inspector Sheffield. On three uncomfortable-looking chairs were disposed Detective Sergeant Harborne, he of the Stetson and brogues, and M. Duquesne, of Paris. Stetson and brogues, as became a non-official, observed much outward deference towards the Chief Inspector in whose room he found himself.

"We may take it, then," said Sheffield, with a keen glance of his shrewd, kindly eyes towards the American and the celebrated little Frenchman, "that Bablon, when he isn't made up, is a man so extremely handsome and of such marked personality that he'd be spotted anywhere.

We have some reason to believe that he's a Jew. The head of the greatest Jewish house in Europe has declined to deny, according to M. Duquesne, that he knows who he is, and"--consulting a sheet of foolscap--"Mr.

Alden, here, from New York, volunteers the information that H. T.

Sheard, of the _Gleaner_, went to see Bablon this morning. We are aware, from information by Sir Leopold Jesson, that this newspaper man is acquainted with B. But we can't act on it. We understand that Bablon has a house in or near to London. None of us"--looking hard at Alden--"have any idea of the locality. There are two rewards privately offered, totalling 3,000--which is of more interest to Mr. Alden than to the rest of us--and M. Duquesne is advised this morning that his Chief is coming over at once. Now, we're all as wise as one another"--with a second hard look at his French confrere and Alden--"so we can all set about the job again in our own ways."