The Stretton Street Affair/Chapter 14

spring morning was grey and rather threatening as I left the Hôtel de la Paix in Madrid and walked from the Puerta del Sol past the smart shops in the Carrera de San Jeronimo and across the broad handsome Plaza de Canovas, in order to meet Hambledon at a point which he had indicated in the Retiro Park.

Late on the previous night I had arrived in the Spanish capital, and while Hambledon was at the Palace Hotel in the Plaza de Canovas I had gone to the Paix in the Puerta del Sol. I had been in Madrid only once before in my life, and as I walked through the gay thoroughfares I recalled that proud saying of the Madrileños: “De Madrid al cielo y en el cielo un ventanillo para ver á Madrid” (From Madrid to Heaven, and in Heaven a loophole to look at Madrid). The Spanish capital to-day is indeed a very fine city, full of life, of movement, and of post-war prosperity.

Crossing the Prado, where the trees were already in full leaf, I took that straight broad way which led past the Royal Academy, and again crossing the Calle de Alfonso XII came to the Alcahofa fountain, the Fountain of the Artichoke, near which I waited for the coming of my friend.

I stood there upon ground that was historic, and as I gazed around upon that sylvan scene, I wondered what would be the result of our long journey from Rivermead Mansions. That beautiful park which, in the seventeenth century, had been laid out with such taste by the Conde-Duque de Olivares, the favourite of Philip IV, had been the scene of innumerable festivals which swallowed millions of money, and gave rise to many biting “pasquinas” and “coplas.” To-day it is the Hyde Park of Spanish Society. There all the latest Paris fashions are seen at the hour of the promenade, and everybody who is anybody in Spain must be seen walking or riding along its picturesque paths.

I had not long to wait for Hambledon, for after a few moments his familiar sturdy figure came into sight.

“Well, Hughie!” he exclaimed, as we sank upon a seat together. “There’s some deep game being played here, I’m certain!”

“What game?” I asked quickly.

“Ah! I can’t yet make it out,” he replied. “But I’ll tell you what’s occurred. Suzor, on arrival, went to the Ritz, where he has a private suite, and after I had watched him safely there I took up my quarters at the Palace on the other side of the Square, and started to keep a watch upon our friend. I got the concierge at the Ritz to do something for me for which I paid him generously, so as to pave the way for information concerning Suzor, in case we may want it.”

“Good,” I said. “There’s nothing like making friends with a concierge. He knows everything about the visitors to his hotel, and about their friends also.”

“Well, on the first day Suzor did not go out at all. But on the second morning at about eleven o’clock, he came forth very smartly dressed, and strolling along the Calle de Alcalá turned into the Gran Café where an elderly lady dressed in black was awaiting him. She was Spanish, without a doubt. He greeted her with studied courtesy and then sat down opposite her at the little table and ordered apératifs. They conversed together in low, earnest tones. She seemed to be questioning him, while he gave rather hesitating replies. It seemed to me that he had come to Madrid in order to meet her. Therefore when after about half an hour they parted, I followed the lady. She took a cab and drove to the North Station, where she took a ticket for Segovia which I found was about sixty miles from here. I, of course, entered another compartment of the train and in about three hours we reached our destination. At the station she was met by a handsome young girl, who began to ply her with questions to which the elder woman replied in monosyllables as the pair ascended the pretty tree-lined boulevard that led into the picturesque town perched as it is upon a rock between two streams. Half-way up the Passeo, just prior to entering the ancient city so full of antiquities, the two ladies went in the gates of a large white house, evidently the residence of someone of importance. Unseen, I watched the door as it was opened by a man-servant who bowed to them as he admitted them. Afterwards I passed into that most venerable city of Castile where I found a hotel called the Europeo, where I ordered a meal. The waiter spoke broken English, and when I described the big white house in the Passeo Ezequiel González and inquired who lived there he replied that it was the Condesa de Chamartin with her niece Señorita Carmen Florez. The Countess was the widow of an immensely wealthy Spaniard who had died leaving most of his money away from his wife. There were rumours afloat both in Segovia and in Madrid—where he had had a fine house—that the widow was now in quite poor circumstances. Yet the Conde de Chamartin had been one of the richest men in Spain. Then I came back and telegraphed to you in Paris.”

“What has Suzor done since?”

“Practically nothing. He hardly ever goes out in the daytime, which shows me that he is no stranger in Madrid. Yet almost every evening after dinner he goes alone to one or other of the theatres, or to the variety show at the Trianon. Last night he was at Il Trovatore, at the Teatro Real.”

“Alone?”

“Always alone.”

“Then why has he come here, to Madrid?” I queried.

“In order to meet the Condesa de Chamartin.”

“But he has already met her. She came from Segovia to keep that appointment, hence one would think he would have returned to Paris by this time.”

“We can only watch,” Hambledon replied. “I will continue my surveillance, but you had better be seen about as little as possible. He might meet and recognize you. Should I discover anything, or should I want to see you, I will either telephone to you at your hotel, or we will meet again—at this spot.”

Thus it was arranged, and half an hour later we parted.

I walked back to my hotel, my thoughts occupied by the beautiful girl who had suddenly so possessed me. Before me, by day and by night, rose visions of the lovely countenance of that strange, half-bewildered expression which was so pathetic and so mysterious. I recollected her sweet smiles when we had talked in her mother’s drawing-room in Longridge Road, and I knew that my admiration had already ripened into love.

But it was all so mysterious, so incredible indeed, that I hardly dared reflect upon those amazing events of the immediate past.

The name of the great financier, De Gex, was one to conjure with all over Europe. Since my night’s adventure in Stretton Street I had learnt much concerning him. His nationality was obscure. He posed as an Englishman, but at the same time he was a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Greek. His financial tentacles were spread throughout Europe. Fabulously wealthy, he held a controlling interest in a number of banks and great industrial concerns, and it was said that he knew the capitals of the world as a milkman knows the streets of his particular suburb.

Behind the smoke-clouds of great events his intriguing figure followed unseen, unheralded, influencing dynasties through his secretaries and agents—one of whom was Prime Minister of a foreign kingdom—and financing bankrupt states.

Now and then he emerged from the retirement of the Villa Clementini and would go to Paris, Brussels, or Rome, and there entertain most lavishly Ministers and aristocrats of various nations, and frequently give them presents at the dinner-table.

One man declared to me that Oswald De Gex was the friend of mighty persons and the moulder of mighty events. He was a man of mystery who quietly and in secret juggled the destinies of nations in his gilded fingers. Wherever money has the power to speak there Oswald De Gex would be found smiling an inscrutable mysterious smile, but always the centre of intrigue and adventure.

To outwit and expose such a man I was determined.

Back in the hotel I stood at the window of my room, gazing out across the busy plaza upon the fine Ministerio de la Gobernacion, with its great clock upon the façade. The Gateway of the Rising Sun is ever a scene of animation, and the more so on a “fiesta,” which it happened to be that day.

I stood there looking blankly out upon the centre of Madrid life. It was irksome to be compelled to remain in the hotel during the daytime for fear of recognition by the man Suzor. Why had he held that secret meeting with the widow of the wealthy Count Chamartin? Hambledon had certainly acted with discretion and promptitude in following the lady in black to her home in Segovia. Could the Frenchman’s visit to Madrid be in any way connected with the affair at Stretton Street?

A new and highly interesting feature had arisen in the fact which I had only recently discovered, that Suzor had apparently travelled with me from York to London on that well-remembered afternoon with some set and distinct purpose. He had been most affable, and he had told me all about himself—a story which I now knew to be fictitious. In return, I suppose I had told him something about myself, but the exact conversation had long ago escaped my memory.

I had had no suspicion that the man who had posed as an important official of one of the best known of French banking corporations was in any way associated with the mysterious Oswald De Gex, until I had seen him meet in secret the girl with whom I had fallen so violently in love.

I tried to analyse my feelings towards Gabrielle Tennison, but failed utterly. I loved her, and loving her so well, I now set my whole soul upon elucidating the mystery.

Truly, the problem was most puzzling, presenting further complications at every turn.

Through the day I idled about the big hotel, occupying my time in writing letters and reading the papers. The café below in the late afternoon was crowded, for on the day of a fiesta Madrid is always agog with life and movement.

When night fell and I ate my solitary dinner in the big restaurant, where I specially ordered an olla with garbanoz, a dish so dear to the Spanish palate and which cannot be procured beyond the confines of King Alfonso’s kingdom. The waiter aided me, of course, and he smiled contentedly when I gave him his propina.

Around me there dined as smart a set of people as those who frequented the Carlton in London, and perhaps the toilettes were even more elaborate. In certain feminine details the West End can be eclipsed both by modern Madrid and Bucharest, while Paris remains where she has ever been, the inventor of feminine fashion and the alluring City of Light.

In Madrid to-day one has all the pre-war prosperity combined with post-war extravagance. The latest mode of the Rue de la Paix is seen at the Ritz in Madrid almost before it is seen at Armenonville, and it becomes only second-hand when it has filtered through Dover Street—or “Petticoat Lane,” as that thoroughfare is termed by truculent London bachelors.

After dinner I spent an hour at the gay Café Iberia, in the Carrera de San Jeronimo, and returned early to the hotel.

As I entered the concierge met me with a note. It was from Harry Hambledon, written an hour before, urging me to meet him at the Gato Negro Café (The Black Cat), in the Calle del Principe.

I lost no time in keeping the appointment, and on meeting my friend, he whispered excitedly:

“Suzor has a visitor. He arrived at the Ritz at six o’clock, and they have dined together. He is a well-dressed man of between forty and fifty, rather sallow-faced, and has given his name at the hotel as Henri Thibon, rentier, of Bordeaux.”

“Aged nearly fifty—sallow?” I echoed. “Are his features of a rather Oriental cast—a dark, handsome man with deep-set eyes and a dimple in the centre of his chin?” I asked eagerly.

“Yes. That just describes him.”

“De Gex!” I gasped. “Then he is here!”

“After dinner they went out to the Trianon. They are there now.”

“Then we will watch them return to the Ritz,” I said.

We spent an hour together in the café, after which we rose and walked through the well-lit streets and along beneath the trees of the Prado until we came to the great plaza where, opposite the Neptune fountain, the fine hotel stands back behind its gardens.

We both halted against the colossal fountain, the waters of which were plashing into the great basin, and found that from where we were standing we had a good view of the entrance to the hotel. That the theatres were over was proved by the number of cars and taxis that were depositing people in evening-dress who had come to the Ritz to supper. Hence we had not long to wait before we distinguished Suzor and his companion, both in dinner-jackets, strolling on foot across the Plaza from the Calle de Cervantes in the direction of the hotel.

In an instant I recognized the form of the mysterious owner of the house in Stretton Street.

“Yes!” I cried. “I’m not mistaken! But why is he here under the name of Thibon? Without a doubt he is known in Madrid. Why should he seek to conceal his identity?”

“We are here to discover the motive of his journey from Italy. According to his passport he arrived from Irun. But if he had come direct from Italy he would have come from the south—from Barcelona, most probably.”

“He has a house in Paris. No doubt he has followed his friend Suzor from there. It will be interesting to watch.”

As I spoke the pair passed up the steps of the hotel and were lost to sight, therefore we turned and retraced our steps along the wide Carrera de San Jeronimo to my hotel where, for an hour, Hambledon sat in my room discussing the situation.

He suggested that he should move from the Palace Hotel to the Ritz, which was only just opposite. At first it seemed a good idea, but on reflection I did not agree, because I feared lest he might be recognized by Suzor. De Gex, of course, would not know him, but with Suzor the danger of recognition was always great. If either realized that they were being watched, all chances of solving the problem would instantly disappear. Only by secret and patient watchfulness could we discover the motive of that amazing affair near Park Lane, and again the truth of what actually occurred on that fateful November night.

“There is no doubt some further devil’s game is in progress here,” I declared, as Harry sat upon my bed smoking a cigarette, while I was stretched in an easy-chair. “And it is up to us to discover what it is, and whether it has any bearing upon the plot against poor Gabrielle Tennison.”

“Yes,” agreed Hambledon. “We must watch all their actions, for it is now evident that this fellow Suzor is deeply implicated in the conspiracy, whatever its nature.”