The Stretton Street Affair Part 42

"Why not go to the police?" suggested Mrs. Tennison.

"Because the whole circ.u.mstances are so strange that, if I related them at Scotland Yard, I should not be believed," was my reply. "No.

I, with my friend Mr. Hambledon, must carry on our inquiries alone. If we are sufficiently wary and active we may, I hope, gather sufficient evidence to elucidate the mystery of your daughter's present mental condition, and also the reason why a similar attempt was made upon myself."

"Well, Mr. Garfield," exclaimed the charming, elderly lady with a sigh, "I only hope you will be successful in your quest after the truth. This blow upon me is, I confess, a most terrible one. It is so distressing to see my poor child in such an uncertain state of mentality. Sometimes, as I have told you, she is quite normal, though she has no knowledge of what occurred to her. And at other times she is painfully vague and often erratic in her actions."

"She must consult Professor Gourbeil, the great alienist, at Lyons. He has a wide knowledge of the symptoms and effects of orosin."

The poor lady sighed, and with tired, sad eyes looked upon her daughter, who had sunk into a chair with her pointed chin resting upon her palms.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Garfield, I am not rich," she said in a low earnest tone. "I will give most willingly all I possess in order that my poor child be restored to her normal senses. But I have very little in these post-war days, when everything is so dear, and taxation strangles one, in face of what they told us during the war that they were making England a place fit for heroes to live in! It seems to me that they are now making it fit for Germans and aliens to live in."

"My dear Mrs. Tennison, our discussion does not concern politics," I said, anxious for the future of the graceful girl whom I had grown to love so dearly, even though her brain was unbalanced. At first I regarded it as strange that being fellow-victims of Oswald De Gex and his desperate, unscrupulous accomplices--who included the a.s.sa.s.sin Despujol--I had been drawn towards her by some unknown and invisible attraction. But when I a.n.a.lysed my feelings and surveyed the situation calmly I saw that it was not more extraordinary than in any other circ.u.mstances when a man, seeing a woman who fulfills all his high ideals, falls desperately in love with her and worships at her shrine.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

THE DEATH-DRUG

It was July.

The London season, later in these modern days, was already on the wane. The Derby and Ascot had been won, in glorious weather. There had been splendid cricket at Lord's, fine polo at Hurlingham, and Henley Week had just pa.s.sed. London Society was preparing for the country, the Continental Spas, and the sea, leaving the metropolis to the American cousins who were each week invading London's big hotels.

I was back at Francis and Goldsmith's hard at work as I had been before my strange adventure, while Harry was busy at his legal work in the police courts.

From our windows looking across the Thames between the trees on the towing path we had a wide view of the river with the chimneys of the factories on the opposite bank. On the right was Putney, the starting place of the University Boat Race, and on the left the great reservoirs and the bend of the river behind which lay Mortlake, the finish of the boat-race course. Each morning, when I rose and dressed, I looked out upon the wide and somewhat uninteresting vista, racking my brains how to further proceed with my campaign against the great intriguer who could, by his immense wealth, juggle with dynasties.

With Mrs. Tennison I had become on very friendly terms. Fearing to reveal myself as having taken that bundle of Bank of England notes as a bribe, I held back from her what had actually happened to me on that fateful night. But I had become a frequent guest at Longridge Road, and often spent many delightful hours with Gabrielle, who at times seemed quite in her normal senses.

Yet, at others, she became vague and spoke in awed tones about what she had seen--"all red, green and gold." And often I sat at home smoking and wondering what she had seen that had so impressed her.

Often, too, I discussed it with Mrs. Tennison and with Harry Hambledon, but neither of us could suggest any solution of the mystery.

Mrs. Tennison, on account of the slump in securities owing to the war, was, I knew, in rather straitened circ.u.mstances. When I again suggested a visit to the great specialist in Lyons she shook her head, and told me frankly that she could not afford it. De Gex had, it seemed, sought his victims among those who had been ruined by the war.

She had, however, told me that her brother, a shipping agent living in Liverpool, who was Gabrielle's G.o.dfather, was deeply interested in her.

I suggested that she should write to him and urge that, as a last resort, Gabrielle should consult Professor Gourbeil. The latter had been successful in restoring to their normal mental condition patients who had been infected with orosin, that most dangerous and puzzling of the discoveries of modern toxicologists.

Mrs. Tennison had acted upon my advice. Had I been in a financial position to pay Gabrielle's expenses to Lyons I would have done so most willingly. But my journey to Spain had depleted my resources, and though I had those Bank of England notes still reposing in a drawer at home, I dared not change one of them lest by such action I should have accepted and profited upon the bribe which De Gex had so cleverly pressed upon me.

In the first week of July Mrs. Tennison wrote to me, and that evening I went over to see her after leaving the office in Westminster.

It was a hot dry night when London lay beneath its haze of sun-reddened dust after a heat spell, parched and choked.

Gabrielle was out at the house of one of her school friends, hence, we sat alone together in the cool drawing-room--a room which was essentially that of a woman of taste and refinement.

A few seconds after I had entered, a tall, grey-haired man came in, whereupon Mrs. Tennison introduced him as her brother Charles from Liverpool.

The man glanced at me sharply, and then, smiling pleasantly, took my hand.

"I have come up to see my sister regarding poor Gabrielle," he said, when we were seated. "I understand that you have experienced similar symptoms to hers, and have recovered."

"I have not completely recovered," I replied. "Often I have little recurrences of lapse of memory for periods from a few moments to a quarter of an hour."

"My sister has told me that you believe that poor Gabrielle and yourself are fellow-victims of some plot."

"I am certain of it, Mr. Maxwell," I replied. "And I have already devoted considerable time and more money than I could really afford in an attempt to solve the mystery of it all."

"Can you explain the whole circ.u.mstances?" he asked. "I am deeply interested in my unfortunate niece."

"I can relate to you a few of the facts if you wish to hear them," was my reply. I certainly had no intention of telling him all that I knew, or of the death and cremation of the mysterious Gabrielle Engledue--whoever she might have been.

So I explained practically what I had told his sister. I also described how Professor Vega at Madrid had told me of the two cures effected by Professor Gourbeil, of Lyons.

"My sister tells me that you suggest Gabrielle should consult him,"

Mr. Maxwell said. "But she has consulted so many specialists. Doctor Moroni has been most kind to her. He took her to doctors in Paris and in Italy, but they could do nothing."

"Well, I think that as Professor Gourbeil has cured two persons of the deadly effects of the drug Miss Tennison should see him," I remarked.

"I quite agree. It is for that reason I have come to London," he said.

"I understand that you, Mr. Garfield, take a personal interest in my niece, therefore I want to ask you a favour--namely, that if I pay the expenses would you accompany my sister and her daughter to Lyons?"

"Willingly. But I will pay my own expenses, please," was my prompt reply.

At first he would not hear of it, until I declined to go unless I went independently, and then we arranged for our departure.

Four days later we descended at the big busy Perrache station at Lyons from the lumbering _rapide_ which had brought us from Paris, and entered the Terminus Hotel which adjoins the platform. Later, from the concierge, we found that Professor Gourbeil of the Facultes des Sciences et de Medecine, lived in the Avenue Felix Faure, and I succeeded over the telephone in making an appointment with him for the following day at noon.

This I kept, going to him alone in order to explain matters.

I found him to be a short, florid-faced man with a shock of white hair and a short white beard. His house was a rather large one standing back in a well-kept garden full of flowers, and the room in which he received me was shaded and cool.

I told him of Professor Vega's recommendation, whereupon he exclaimed in French:

"Ah! I know Professor Vega. We met last year at our conference in Paris--a very brilliant man!"

Then, as briefly as I could, I explained how the deadly drug orosin had been surrept.i.tiously administered to Gabrielle and myself, and its effects upon us both.

"Orosin!" exclaimed the old savant, raising his thin hands. "Ah! There is not much hope of the lady's recovery. I have known of only two cases within my experience. The effect of orosin upon the human brain is mysterious and lasting. It produces a state of the brain-cells with which we cannot cope. A larger dose produces strong homicidal tendencies and inevitable death, and a still larger dose almost instantaneous death."

I told him how we both had lost all sense of our surroundings for weeks, and how we were both found at the roadside, she in Hampshire and I in France.

"You were both victims of some plot; that is evident. Of course you have invoked the aid of the police?"

I did not reply. I certainly feared to seek the a.s.sistance of Scotland Yard.