The Place of Dragons: A Mystery

CHAPTER XXVII
OPENS A DEATH-TRAP

The Villa Beni Hassan, a great red-and-white house of Moorish architecture, with three large domes, and many minarets, and long-arched windows of stained glass, I found standing high up, facing the azure sea, amid a wonderful tropical garden full of tall, feathery palms, dark oleanders, fiery pointsettias, and a perfect tangle of aloes, roses, giant geraniums and other brilliant flowers.

A high white wall hid it from the dusty highway, its position being between the road and the sea with spacious, well-kept grounds sloping away down to the golden beach. Truly it was a princely residence, one of the finest in the picturesque suburbs of Algiers. That afternoon beneath the blazing African sun, shining like burnished copper, all was still in the fiery heat, which, after the coolness of autumn in England, seemed overpowering.

At length the ricketty fiacre pulled up before great gates of ornamental iron-work, the tops of which were gilded, and on ringing, a gigantic Arab janitor in blue and gold livery appeared from the concierge's lodge, and salaamed.

In Arabic my companion explained that we wished to see the Comte, whereupon he opened the gates, and on foot we proceeded up the winding, well-kept drive, bordered by flowers, and shaded by palms of various species. On our left, across a sun-baked lawn, in the centre of which a big handsome fountain was playing, I caught sight of an aerial mast of iron lattice nearly a hundred feet high, and across from it to another similar mast were suspended four thin wires, kept apart by wooden crosses.

I held my breath. I was actually upon the domain of the most daring criminal known to the European police.

"There are the wires of the wireless station," the detective exclaimed. "But why, M'sieur, do you wish to see the Comte?" he asked with sudden curiosity.

"To ask him a plain question," was my brief and, I fear, rather snappish reply. "But tell me," I added, "have you ever seen his niece here visiting him?"

"Mademoiselle Sorel, M'sieur means. Yes, certainly. She has often been here – young, about nineteen —très petite, and very pretty. She lives in Paris."

"Yes. When was she here last?"

"Ah! I have not seen her here for several months," replied the man in the shabby straw hat. "I saw the Comte only yesterday. I was in Mustapha Pasha when he went past in his grey automobile. He had with him the tall elderly Englishman who sometimes visits here, a M'sieur Vernon, I think, is his name."

"Vernon!" I exclaimed with quick satisfaction. "Is he here?"

"I believe so, M'sieur. He was here yesterday."

As he uttered the words we turned the corner, and the great white Moorish house, with the broad dark-red bands upon the walls, and dark-red decorations over the arched corridors, came into view.

Boldly we approached the front door, before which was a great arched portico lined with dark-blue tiles, delightfully cool after the sun without. Yet scarcely had we placed our feet upon the threshold when a tall servant, with face jet-black and three scars upon his cheeks, his tribal marks, stood before us with a look of inquiry, silently barring our further passage.

Beyond we saw a cool courtyard, where vine were trailing overhead, and water plashed pleasantly into a marble basin.

Again the detective explained that we wished to see the Comte d'Esneux, whereupon the silent servant, bowing, motioned us to enter a small elegantly furnished room on the left of the courtyard, and then disappeared, closing the door after him.

The room, panelled in cedar-wood, was Moorish in character, the light filtering in through long windows of stained glass. Around the vaulted ceiling was a symmetrical device in Arabesque in gold, red and blue, while about the place were soft Moorish divans and silken cushions, with rich rugs on the floor, and a heavy brass arabesque lamp suspended from the centre of the ornamented ceiling. The place was full of the subtlest perfume of burning pastilles, and, in a cabinet, I noted a collection of rare Arab gold and silver jewellery.

And this was the home of the motor-bandit of the Forest of Fontainebleau – the man who had shot dead the Paris jeweller, Benoy, with as little compunction as he killed a fly.

I strode around the room, bewildered by its Arabian Nights aspect. Truly Jules Jeanjean lived in a style befitting an Eastern Prince.

"Hush!" I exclaimed, and we both listened to a loud crackling. "That," I said, "is the sound of wireless telegraphy. A message is being sent out across the sea."

Jeanjean was evidently in a room in the vicinity.

Suddenly the noise ceased. The door-keeper, who had not asked our names, had evidently sent in the message that two strangers desired to see his master.

But it was only a pause, for in a few seconds the message was resumed. I could easily distinguish the long and short cracks of the spark across the gap, as the electric waves were sent into the ether over the Mediterranean to Europe.

I happen to know the Continental Morse code, for I had dabbled in wireless telegraphy two years before. So I stood with strained ears trying to decipher the tapped-out message. I heard that it was directed to some station the call-letters of which were "B. X." But the message was a mere jumble of letters and numerals of some pre-arranged code.

I listened attentively till I heard the rapid short sound followed by four long sounds, and another short one, which indicated the conclusion of the message.

Then we both waited breathlessly. Who was B. X., I wondered?

I felt myself upon the verge of a great and effective triumph. I would give Jeanjean into custody upon a charge of murder, and if Vernon were still there, he should also be captured at the point of the revolver.

Those seconds seemed hours.

In a whisper I urged my companion to hold himself in readiness for a great surprise, and to have his revolver handy – which he had.

I laughed within myself at the great surprise the pair would have.

The heavy atmosphere of the room where, from a big old bowl of brass with a pierced cover, ascended the blue smoke of perfume being burnt upon charcoal ashes, became almost unbearable. The pastilles as burnt by the Orientals is pleasing to the nostrils unless some foreign matter be mixed with them, or the smoke is not allowed to escape. In this case the round-headed stained glass windows were fully twelve feet from the ground, had wire-work in front of them, and apparently did not open. The designs of dark-blue, purple, red and yellow were very elegant, and they were probably very ancient windows brought from some fairy-like palace of the days before the occupation of Algeria by the French.

Again I gazed around the delightfully luxurious apartment, so essentially Moorish and artistic. Amid such surroundings had lived Lola – the girl who had fled from me and disappeared.

What would the world say when it became known that that magnificent house, almost indeed a palace, was the home of the man of a hundred crimes, the daring and unscrupulous criminal, Jules Jeanjean?

I was listening for a repetition of the wireless signals to B.X., but could distinguish nothing. Probably he was receiving their reply, in which case there would be no sounds except in the head-telephones.

"Mon Dieu!" gasped my companion, whose name he had told me was Fournier. "This atmosphere is becoming suffocating!"

I agreed, and tried to extinguish the fire within the brazier. Unfortunately I failed to open the lid, which was held down by some spring the catch of which I could not detect.

Indeed, the thin column of blue smoke grew darker and denser, as we watched. The room became full of a perfume which gradually changed to a curious odour which suffocated us.

We both coughed violently, and upon me grew the feeling that I was being asphyxiated. My throat became contracted, my eyes smarted, and I could only take short, quick gasps.

"Let's get out of this," I exclaimed, reaching to open the door.

But it was locked.

We were caught like rats in a trap.

In an instant we both realized that we were imprisoned, and began to bang violently upon the heavy doors of iron-bound and unpolished oak, shouting to be let out. The fool of an Arab had secured us there while he went to announce our visit to his master.

I took up a small ebony and pearl coffee-table inlaid with a verse from the Koran, and raising it frantically above my head, attacked the locked door. But when it struck the oak it flew into a dozen pieces. Fournier took up a small chair with equally futile result, and then in silence we exchanged glances.

Could it be, that on our approach to the house, we had been recognized by the owner and invited into that room which, with its rising fumes, was nothing less than an ingenious death-trap.

I remembered the sinister grin upon the villainous black face of the silent servant.

Again and again we attacked the door, for we knew that our lives depended upon our escape. We shouted, yelled and banged, but attracted no attention. We threw things at the windows, but they were protected by the wire-work.

Then a sudden thought occurred to me.

Swiftly I bent down and examined the large keyhole. The key had been taken and, it seemed to me, the heavy bolt of the lock had been shot into a deep socket in the framework of the door.

Without a word I motioned Fournier to stand back, and finding that the barrel of my revolver was, fortunately, small enough to insert into the keyhole, I pushed it in and pulled the trigger.

A loud explosion followed, and splinters of wood and iron flew in all directions. The bolt of the lock was blown away and the door forced open.

Next second, with revolvers in our hands, we stood facing two black faced servants, who drew back in alarm as we rushed from that lethal chamber.

Fournier, excited as a Frenchman naturally would be in such circumstances, raised his weapon and shouted in Arabic that he was a police-officer, and that all persons in that house were to consider themselves under arrest. Whereupon both men, Moors they were most probably, fell upon their knees begging for mercy.

My companion exchanged some quick words with them, and they entered into a conversation, while at the same moment, casting my eyes across the beautiful, blue-tiled, vaulted hall, I looked through an open door into the room which the Count d'Esneux used for his experiments in wireless.

At a glance I recognized, by the variety of the apparatus, the size of the great spiral transmitting helix, by the pattern of the loose-coupled tuning inductance, the big variable condensers, those strange-looking circular instruments of zinc vanes enclosed in a round glass, used for receiving, the electrolytic detector, and the big crystal detector, a gold point working over silicon, carborundum, galena, and copper pyrites – that the station must have a very wide range. The spark-gap was bigger than any I had ever before seen, while there was a long loading coil enabling any distant station using long wave-lengths to be picked up, as well as the latest type of potentiometer, used to regulate the voltage and current supplied to the detectors.

At a glance I took in the whole arrangement, placed as it was, upon a long table beneath a window of stained glass at the further end of that luxurious little Moorish chamber. Apparently no cost had been spared in its installation, and I fully believed that with it the notorious criminal could communicate with any station within a radius of, perhaps, two thousand miles.

Fournier had questioned the native servants rapidly, and received their replies, which were at first unsatisfactory. I saw by the fear in their faces that he had threatened them, when suddenly one of them excitedly made a statement.

"Diable!" cried the detective in French, turning to me. "The Count recognized us, and had us locked in that death-chamber while he and the Englishman, M'sieur Vernon, got away!"

"Escaped!" I gasped in dismay. "Then let us follow."

A quick word in Arabic, and the two servants, without further reluctance, dashed away along the big hall, through several luxuriously-furnished rooms full of soft divans, where the air was heavy with Eastern perfumes and the decorations were mostly in dark red and blue. Then across a small cool courtyard paved with polished marble, where another fountain plashed, and out to the sun-baked palm-grove which sloped from the front of the house away to the calm sapphire sea.

Excitedly the men pointed, as we stood upon the marble terrace, to a white speck far away along the broken coast of pale brown rocks, a speck fast receding around the next point, behind which was hidden the harbour of Algiers.

"By Gad!" I cried, gazing eagerly after it, "that's a motor-boat, and they are making for the town! We mustn't lose an instant or they will get away to some place of safety."

So together we dashed back to the road as fast as our legs could carry us, and drove with all possible speed back to the town, in order to reach the harbour before the fugitives could land.

CHAPTER XXVIII
DESCRIBES A CHASE

The driver, with the southerner's disregard of the feelings of animals, lashed his weedy horse into a gallop, as up-hill and down-hill we sped, back to the town.

Entering the city gate, the man scattered the dogs and foot-passengers by his warning yells in Arabic, until at last we were down upon the long, semi-circular quay, our eager eyes looking over the blue, sun-lit sea.

No sign could we discern of the motor-boat, but Fournier, with his hand uplifted, cried —

"See! Look at that white steam-yacht at the end of the Mole – the long, low-built one. That belongs to the Count. Perhaps he has already boarded her!"

I looked in the direction my companion indicated, and there saw lying anchored about half a mile from the shore a small white-painted yacht, built so low that her decks were almost awash, with two rakish-looking funnels, and a light mast at either end with a wireless telegraph suspended between them. The French tricolour was flying at the stern.

From the funnels smoke was issuing, and from where I stood, I could see men running backwards and forwards.

"She's getting under weigh," I cried. "The fugitives must be aboard. We must stop them."

"How can we?" asked the Frenchman, dismayed. "Besides, why should we – except that we were nearly suffocated in that room."

"That man you know as the Comte d'Esneux is the most dangerous criminal in all Europe," I told him. "To the Prefecture of Police in Paris – to you in Algiers also – he is known as Jules Jeanjean!"

"Jules Jeanjean!" choked out the man in the shabby straw hat. "Is that the actual truth, M'sieur?"

"It is," I replied. "And now you know the cause of my anxiety."

"Why, there is a reward of four hundred thousand francs for his capture, offered by companies who have insured jewels he has stolen," he cried.

"I know. Now, what shall we do?" I asked, feeling myself helpless, for at that moment I saw the motor-boat draw away from the yacht, with only one occupant, the man driving the engine. It had turned and was speeding along the coast back in the direction of the villa, white foam rising at its elevated bows.

"What can we do?" queried my companion. "That yacht is the fastest privately owned craft in the Mediterranean. It is the Carlo Alberta, the Italian torpedo-boat built at Spezzia two years ago. Because it did not quite fulfil the specifications, it was disarmed and sold. The Count purchased her, and turned her into a yacht."

"But surely there must be some craft on which we could follow?" I exclaimed. "Let's see."

We drove down to the port, and after a few rapid inquiries at the bureau of the harbour-master, found that there was lying beyond the Mole, a big steam-yacht belonging to an American railway magnate named Veale. The owner and some ladies were on board, and he might perhaps assist the police and give chase.

Quickly we were aboard the fast motor-boat belonging to the harbour authorities, but ere we had set out, the Carlo Alberta, with long lines of black smoke issuing from her funnels, had weighed anchor and was slowly steaming away.

Silas J. Veale, of the New York Central Railroad, a tall, very thin, very bald-headed man in a smart yachting suit, greeted us pleasantly when we boarded his splendid yacht. When he heard our appeal he entered into the adventure with spirit and gave the order to sail at once.

Beside us, on his own broad white deck, he stood scanning the low-built, rapidly disappearing Carlo Alberta through his binoculars.

"Guess they'll be able to travel some! We'll have all our work cut out if we mean to keep touch with them. Never mind. We'll see what the old Viking can do."

Then he shouted another order to his captain, a red-whiskered American, urging him to "hurry up and get a move on!"

As we stood there, three ladies, his wife and two daughters, the latter respectively about twenty-two and twenty, all of them in yachting costumes, came and joined us, eagerly inquiring whither we were bound.

"Don't know, Jenny," he replied to his wife. "We're just following a couple of crooks who've got slick away in that two-funnelled boat yonder, and we mean to keep in touch with them till they land. That's all."

"Then we're leaving Algiers!" exclaimed the younger girl regretfully.

"Looks like it, Sadie," was his reply. "The police have requested our aid, an' we can't very well refuse it." Then turning to me he exclaimed, "Say, I wonder where they're making for?"

"They are the most elusive pair of thieves in Europe," I replied. "They are certain to get away if we do not exercise the greatest caution."

The ladies grew most excited, and as the vessel began at last to move through the water, the chief officer shouting at her men, the girl whose name was Sadie, a smart, rather good-looking little person, though typically American, exclaimed to me, as she fixed her grey eyes on the fleeing vessel —

"Do you think they are faster than we are?"

"I fear so," was my reply. "But your father has promised to do his best."

"What crime is alleged against the men?" inquired Mrs. Veale, in a high-pitched, nasal tone.

"Murder," replied Fournier, in French, understanding English, but never speaking it.

"Murder!" all three ladies echoed in unison. "How exciting!"

And exciting that chase proved. Old Mr. Veale entered thoroughly into the spirit of the adventure. With Fournier, I took off my coat and, descending to the engine-room, assisted to stoke, we having put to sea short-handed, three men being ashore. Amateur stoking, of course, is not conducive to speed, but Veale himself, his coat also off, and perspiring freely, directed our efforts.

Still our speed was not up to what it should have been. Therefore the owner of the yacht went along to the storeroom, and dragging out sides of cured bacon, chopped them up, and with the pieces fed the furnaces, until we got up sufficient steam-pressure, and were moving through the calm, sun-lit waters at the maximum speed the fine yacht had attained on her trials.

As the golden sun sank away in the direction of Gibraltar, the fugitive vessel held on her course to the north-east, straight to where the nightclouds were rising upon the horizon. Far away we could see the long line of black smoke lying out behind her upon the glassy sea. And though we had every ounce of pressure in our boilers, yet with heart-sinking we watched her slowly but very surely, getting further and further away from us, growing smaller as each half-hour passed.

The fiery sun sank into the glassy sea, and was followed by a wonderful crimson afterglow, which shone upon our anxious faces as, ever and anon, we left our work in the stifling stokehold, and went on deck for a breath of fresh air.

Fournier's face was grimy with coal-dust, and so was mine, while Veale himself also took his turn in handling the shovel.

The chase was full of wildest excitement, which was certainly shared by the three ladies, to whom the hunting of criminals was a decided novelty.

With the aid of a whisky and soda now and then, and on odd ham sandwich, we worked far into the night.

The captain reported that before darkness had fallen the Carlo Alberta had, according to the laws of navigation, put up her lights. But an hour after the darkness became complete she must have either extinguished them or had passed through a bank of mist. For fully half an hour nothing was seen of the lights, though most of the men on board were eagerly on the watch for a sight of them. Suddenly, however, they again reappeared.

Then our captain, after consultation with Mr. Veale, decided to try a ruse. He extinguished every light in the ship, but still held on his course, following the distant yacht. For quite an hour we went full-speed ahead with all lights extinguished, keeping an active look-out for shipping, or for obstacles.

We did this in order that the fugitives should believe we had given up the chase. Though their vessel was so fast, it was apparent that something must have happened to them, for they had not drawn away from us so far as we had expected. An ordinary steam-yacht, however swift she may be, can never hold her own with a destroyer.

"Guess she's got engine-trouble," remarked the American captain as I stood with him upon the bridge, peering into the darkness. "We may overhaul her yet if you gentlemen keep the furnaces a-going as you have been. Hot job, ain't it?"

"Rather," I laughed. "But I don't mind as long as we can get alongside that boat." And then I returned to my place in the stokehold, perspiring so freely that I had not a stitch of dry clothing upon me.

Half an hour later I was again on deck for a blow, and saw that the fugitive steamer had perceptibly increased the distance between us. Had her engines been working well she would, no doubt, have been well out of sight two hours after we had left Algiers. Yet, as it was, we were still following in her wake, all our lights out, so that in the darkness she could not see us following.

The whole of that night was an exciting one. All of us worked at the furnaces with a will, pouring in coal to keep up every ounce of steam of which our boilers were capable. No one slept, and Mrs. Veale, now as excited as the rest, brought us big draughts of tea below.

In the stokehold the heat became unbearable. I was not used to such a temperature, neither were the railway magnate nor the detective. The latter was all eagerness now that he knew who was on board the vessel away there on the horizon.

"She's making for Genoa, I believe," declared the captain, towards four o'clock in the morning. "She's not going to Marseilles, that's very evident. If only we had wireless on board we might warn the harbour-police at Genoa to detain them, but, unfortunately, we haven't."

"And they have!" I remarked with a grin.

Dawn came at last, and the spreading light revealed us. From the two low funnels of the escaping vessel a long trail of black smoke extended far away across the sea, while from our funnel went up a whirling, woolly-looking, dunnish column, due to our unprofessional stoking.

All the bacon had been used, as well as other stores, to make as much steam as possible, yet even though the Carlo Alberta had plainly something amiss with her engines, we found it quite impossible to overhaul her.

The day went past, long and exciting. The captain held to his opinion that our quarry was making for Savona or Genoa. The weather was perfect, and the voyage would have been most enjoyable had not the race been one of life and death.

To Veale and his party I related some of the marvellous exploits of the criminal pair, and told how cleverly they had escaped us from the Villa Beni Hassan. I described the dastardly attempt made upon my life, and that of Lola, and my narrative caused every one on board to work with a will in order to break up the desperate gang.

As we had feared, when night again fell the vessel we were chasing showed no lights. Only by aid of his night-glasses could our captain distinguish her in the darkness, but fortunately it was not so cloudy as on the previous night, and the moon shone from behind the light patches of drifting vapour much, no doubt, to Jeanjean's chagrin, for it revealed their presence and allowed us to still hang on to them.

Our American captain was a tough-looking fellow, of bull-dog type, and full of humorous remarks concerning the fugitives.

I recollected what Lola had told me in regard to her uncle's wireless experiments with a friend of his in Genoa. Yes. Finding themselves pressed by us they, no doubt, intended to land at that port. How devoutly we all wished that their engines would break down entirely. But that was not likely in a boat of her powerful description. Yet something was, undoubtedly, interfering with her speed.

The second day passed much as the first. We were already within sight of the rocky coast near Toulon, and in the track of the liners passing up and down between Port Said and Gib'. We passed two P. and O. mail steamers, and a yellow-funnelled North German Lloyd homeward bound from China. Still we kept at our enemies' heels like a terrier, though the seas were heavy off the coast, and a strong wind was blowing.

Fournier suffered from sea-sickness, so did Mr. Veale's second daughter, but we kept doggedly on, snatching hasty meals and performing the monotonous, soul-killing work of stoking. The run was as hard a strain as ever had been put upon the engines of the Viking, and I knew that the engineer was in hourly dread of their breaking down under it.

If she did, then all our efforts would be in vain.

So he alternately nursed them, and urged them along through the long, angry waves which had now arisen.

Another long and weary night passed, and again we both steamed along with all lights out, a dangerous proceeding now that we were right in the track of the shipping. Then, when morning broke, we found we were off the yellow Ligurian coast, close to Savona, and heading, as our captain had predicted, for Genoa. The race became fiercely contested. We stood on deck full of excitement. Even Fournier shook off his sea-sickness.

Soon the high, square lighthouse came into view through the haze, and we then put on all the speed of which we were capable in a vain endeavour to get closer to the fugitives. But again the black smoke trailed out upon the horizon, and suddenly rounding the lighthouse, they were lost to view.

At last we, too, rounded the end of the Mole, and entered the harbour where the Carlo Alberta had moored three-quarters of an hour earlier. Fournier instantly invoked the aid of the dock police and, with them, we boarded the vessel, only, alas! to find that its owner and his English guest had landed and left, leaving orders to the captain to proceed to Southampton.

The vessel was, we found, spick and span, luxuriously appointed, and tremendously swift, though, on that run across the Mediterranean, one of the engines had been under repair when the Count and his friend had so unexpectedly come on board, and the other was working indifferently.

The captain, a dark-bearded, pleasant-faced Englishman from Portsmouth, believed that his master had dashed to catch the express for Rome. He had, he said, heard him speaking with Mr. Vernon as to whether they could catch it.

"Did they use the wireless apparatus on board?" I asked quickly.

"Once, sir," was the captain's reply. "The Comte was in the wireless cabin last night for nearly an hour. He's always experimenting."

"You don't know if he sent any messages – eh?"

"Oh, yes. He sent some, for I heard them, but I didn't trouble to try to read the sounds."

Therefore, having thanked Mr. Veale and his family, I set forth, accompanied by Fournier and the two Italian police officers, to the railway station up the hill, above the busy docks.

Eagerly I asked one of the ticket-collectors in Italian if the Rome express had gone, knowing well that in Italy long-distance trains are often an hour or more late.

"No, Signore," was his reply. "It is still here, fifty-five minutes late, from Turin." Then glancing down upon the lines, where several trains were standing in the huge, vaulted station, he added: "Platform number four. Hurry quickly, Signore, and you will catch it."