The Sins of Severac Bablon Part 42

He handed a note to him. It was as follows:

"You have confided to me the secret of your residence, where I might see or communicate with you, and I was coming to see you to-night, but I have met with a slight accident--enough to prevent me. Lady Mary has volunteered to go alone. I will not betray your confidence, but our friendly acquaintance cannot continue unless you _instantly_ release my father--for I know that you have done this outrageous thing. He is ill and it is very, very cruel. I beg of you to let him return at once. If you admire true friendship and unselfishness, as you profess, do this to repay Mary Evershed, who risks irretrievably compromising herself to take this note--

"ZOE OPPNER."

"Miss Oppner, descending the stairs at Lord Evershed's in too great haste," explained Severac Bablon, and a new note, faint but perceptible, had crept into his voice, "had the misfortune to sustain a slight accident--I am happy to know, no more than slight. Lady Mary brought me her message. I commit no breach of trust in showing it to you. There is a telephone in the room at Lord Evershed's in which Miss Oppner remains at present, and, as you entered, I obtained her spoken consent to do what I have done."

"Mary," Haredale burst out, "I know it is taking a mean advantage to plead that if I had not been so unutterably wretched and depressed I never could have doubted, but--will you forgive me?"

Whatever its ethical merits or demerits, it was the right, the one appeal. And it served.

Severac Bablon watched the reconciliation with a smile upon his handsome face. Though clearly but a young man, he could at will invest himself with the aloof but benevolent dignity of a father-confessor.

"The cloud has pa.s.sed," he said. "I have a word for you, Sir Richard.

You have learnt to-night some of my secrets--my appearance, my residence, and the ident.i.ties of two of my friends. I do not regret this, although I am a 'wanted man.' Only to-night I have committed a gross outrage which, with the circulation of to-morrow's papers, will cry out for redress to the civilised world. You are at liberty to act as you see fit. I would wish, as a favour, that you grant me thirty-six hours' grace--as Miss Oppner already has done. On my word--if you care to accept it--I shall not run away. At the end of that time I will again offer you the choice of detaining me or of condoning what I have done and shall do. Which is it to be?"

Haredale did not feel sure of himself. In fact, the episodes of that night seemed, now, like happenings in a dream--a dream from which he yet was not fully awakened. He glanced from Mary to the incomprehensible man who was so completely different from anything he had pictured, from anything he ever had known. He looked about the bare, cell-like apartment, illuminated by the soft light of the globe upon the ma.s.sive table. He thought of the Arab who had admitted him--of the entire absence of subterfuge where subterfuge was to be expected.

"I will wait," he said.

But in less than thirty-six hours the world had news of Severac Bablon.

At a time roughly corresponding with that when Mr. Aloys. X. Alden was standing, temporarily petrified with astonishment, in a certain room of the Hotel Astoria, two gentlemen in evening attire burst into a Wandsworth police station. One was a very angry Irishman, the other a profane Scot, whose language, which struck respectful awe to the hearts of two constables, a sergeant, and an inspector--would have done credit to the most eloquent mate in the mercantile marine.

He fired off a volley of redundant but gorgeously florid adjectives, what time he peeled fact.i.tious whiskers from his face and shook their stickiness from his fingers. His Irish friend, with brilliant but less elaborate comments, struggled to depilate a Kaiser-like moustache from his upper lip.

"What are ye sittin' still for-r?" shouted the Scotsman, and banged a card on the desk. "I'm Hector Murray, and this is John Macready of Melbourne. We've been held up by the highwaym'n Bablon. Turrn out the forrce. Turrn out the dom'd diveesion. Get a move on ye, mon!"

The acc.u.mulated power of the three names--Hector Murray, John Macready, and Severac Bablon--galvanised the station into sudden activity, and an extraordinary story, a fabulous story, was gleaned from the excited gentlemen. It appeared in every paper on the following morning, so it cannot better be presented here than in the comparatively simple form wherein it met the eyes of readers of the _Gleaner's_ next issue. Cuts have been made where the reporter's account overlaps the preceding, or where he has become purely rhetorical.

SIX FAMOUS CAPITALISTS KIDNAPPED

SeVERAC BABLON ACTIVE AGAIN

AMAZING OUTRAGE AT THE ASTORIA

Under these heads appeared a full and finely descriptive account of the happenings already noticed.

DRAMATIC ESCAPE OF MR. MACREADY AND MR. HECTOR MURRAY

SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH MR. MURRAY

WHERE ARE THE MISSING MAGNATES?

IS SCOTLAND YARD EFFETE?

From Mr. Hector Murray ... our special representative obtained a full account of the outrage, which threw much light upon a mystery that otherwise appeared insoluble. After ... they entered the room at the Astoria, where they had agreed to discuss a plan of mutual action against the common enemy of Capital, Mr. Murray informed our representative that nothing unusual took place for some twenty minutes or half an hour. Baron Hague had just risen to make a proposal, when the lights were extinguished.

As it was a very black night, the room was plunged into complete darkness. Before anyone had time to ascertain the meaning of the occurrence, a voice, which our representative was informed seemed to proceed from the floor, uttered the following words:

"Let no one speak or move. Mr. Macready place your revolver upon the table." (Mr. Macready was the only member of the company who was armed, and, curiously enough, as the voice commenced he had drawn his revolver.) "Otherwise, your son's yacht, the _Savannah_, will be posted missing. Hear me out, every one of you, lest great misfortune befall those dear to you. Mr. Murray, your sister and niece will disappear from the Villa Marina, Monte Carlo, within four hours of any movement made by you without my express permission. Mr. Oppner, you have a daughter. Believe me, she and you are quite safe--at present. Baron Hague, Sir Leopold Jesson, and Mr. Rohscheimer, my agents have orders, which only I can recall to bring you to Carey Street. I threaten no more than I can carry out. Give the alarm if it please you ... but I have warned."

During this most extraordinary speech shadowy shapes seemed to be flitting about the room. The nature of the threats uttered had, for the time, quite unmanned the six gentlemen, which is no matter for surprise. Then, at a muttered command in what Mr. Murray informed our representative to have been Arabic, four lamps--or, rather, b.a.l.l.s of fire--appeared at the four corners of the apartment. This bizarre scene, suggestive of nothing so much as an Eastern romance, was due to the presence of several Arabs in heavy robes, who had in some way entered in the darkness, and who now stood around the walls, four of their number holding in their brown hands these peculiar globular lights, which were of a kind quite new to those present. (An article by Mr. Pearce Baldry, of Messrs. Armiston, Baldry & Co., dealing with the possible construction of these lamps, appears on page 6.)

Immediately inside the open window stood a tall man in a closely b.u.t.toned frock-coat. He carried no arms, but wore a black silk half-mask. Mr. Rohscheimer at this juncture rendered the episode even more dramatic by exclaiming:

"Good heavens! It's Severac Bablon!"

"It is, indeed, Mr. Rohscheimer," said that menace to civilised society; "so that no doubt you will respect my orders. Mr.

Macready, I do not see your revolver upon the table. I have warned you twice."

Mr. Macready, who is not easily intimidated, evidently concluding that no good could come of resistance at that time, threw the revolver on to the table and folded his arms.

"I give you my word," concluded Severac Bablon, "that no bodily harm shall come to any one of you so long as you attempt no resistance. What will now be done is done only by way of precaution. Any sound would be fatal."

At a signal to the Arabs the four lights were hidden, and each of the six gentlemen were seized in the darkness in such a manner that resistance was impossible. Each had a hand clapped over his mouth, whilst he was securely gagged and bound by men who evidently had the arts of the Thug at their fingers' ends. Mr. Murray informed our representative that so certain were they of Severac Bablon's power to perform all that he had threatened that, in his opinion, no one struggled, with the exception of Mr. Macready, who, however, was promptly overpowered.

It was then that they learnt how the Arabs and their master had entered. For each of the distinguished company, commencing with Baron Hague, was lowered by a rope to a window on the fifth floor and drawn in by men who waited there.

There is no doubt that access had been gained by means of a short ladder from this lower window; indeed, Mr. Murray saw such a ladder in use when, all having descended through the darkness, the last to leave--an Arab--returned by that means. Such was the dispatch and perfect efficiency of this audacious man's Eastern gang, that Mr.

Murray and his friends were all removed from the upper apartment to the lower in less than seven minutes. It will be remembered that the south wing of the Astoria has lately been faced with dark grey granite, that it was a moonless night, and that the daring operation could only have been visible, if visible at all, from the distant Embankment. No hitch occurred whatever; Severac Bablon's Arabs exhibited all the agility and quickness of monkeys. It is ill.u.s.trative of his brazen methods that he then removed the gags, and invited his victims to partake of some refreshments, "as they had a long drive before them."

Needless to say, they were all severely shaken by their perilous adventure; and this led to an angry outburst from Mr. Macready, who demanded a full explanation of the outrage.

"Sir," was the reply, "it is not for you to ask. As a final warning to you and to your friends--for the provisions I have made in your case are no more complete than those which I have made in the others--permit me to tell you that eight of the twelve men manning your son's boat including two officers--are under my orders. If any obstacle be placed in my way by you a wireless message will carry instructions, though I myself lie in detention, or dead, that the _Savannah_ be laid upon a certain course. That course, Mr.

Macready, will not bring her into any port known to the Board of Trade. Shall I nominate the crew? Or are your doubts dispersed?"

The insight thus afforded them to the far-reaching influence, the all-pervading power, of this arch-brigand whose presence in our midst is a disgrace to the police of the world, was sufficient to determine them upon a pa.s.sive att.i.tude. A gentleman who seemed very nervous then appeared, and skilfully disguised all six. Mr.

Rohscheimer mentioned later to Mr. Murray that in this man he had recognised, beyond any shadow of doubt, a perruquier whose name is a household word. But this doubtless was but another clever trick of the master trickster.

In three parties of two, each accompanied by an Arab dressed in European clothes, but wearing a tarboosh, they left the hotel.

Disguised beyond recognition, they were conducted to a roomy car of the "family" pattern, which was in waiting; the blinds were drawn down, and they were driven away.

At the end of a rapid drive of about an hour's duration, Messrs.

Murray and Macready were requested by one of the three accompanying Arabs to alight, and were informed that Severac Bablon desired to tender his sincere apologies for the inconvenience to which, unavoidably, he had put them, and for the evils with which--though only in the "most sacred interests"--he had been compelled to threaten them. They were absolved from all obligations and at liberty now to take what steps they thought fit. With which they were set down in a lonely spot, and the car was driven away. As our readers are already well aware, this lonely spot was upon Wandsworth Common.

It is almost impossible to credit the fact that six influential men of world-wide reputation could thus, publicly, be kidnapped from a London hotel. But in this connection two things must be remembered.

Firstly, for reasons readily to be understood and appreciated, they offered no resistance; secondly, the presence of so many Orientals in the hotel occasioned no surprise. A Prince Said Abu-el-Ahzab had been residing for some time in the apartments below those occupied by Mr. J. J. Oppner, and the members of his numerous suite are familiar to all residents. He and his following have disappeared, but a cash payment of all outstanding accounts has been left behind. It has been discovered that the light was cut off from one of the rooms occupied by the ci-devant prince, and the police are at work upon several other important clues which point beyond doubt to the fact that "Prince Said Abu-el-Ahzab" was none other than Severac Bablon.

During the next twenty-four hours the entire habitable world touched by cable service literally gasped at this latest stroke of the notorious Severac Bablon. Despite the frantic and unflagging labours of every man that Scotland Yard could spare to the case nothing was accomplished. The wife or nearest kin of each of the missing men had received a typed card:

"Fear nothing. No harm shall befall a guest of Severac Bablon."

These cards, which could be traced to no maker or stationer, all had been posted at Charing Cross.

Then, in the stop press of the _Gleaner's_ final edition, appeared the following:

"Baron Hague, Sir L. Jesson, Messrs. Rohscheimer and Oppner have returned to their homes."