Part 3

"The Tsar entrusted him with the knowledge of where a portion of the Crown jewels were secreted. He was to find them, raise money, and try and bribe the Siberian Guards. He found the jewels all right, but not until Nicholas and the whole of his family had been assassinated."

"What did he do with the jewels?" Leonard asked.

"He has not told me so in so many words, but I believe that he has them here," she replied. "He told me they were still in his possession and he held them in trust for the Romanoffs. The terrible part of the business for him is that he has been tracked all over Europe by Bolshevist agents, who claim that the jewels belong to the Russian State."

"Why did he tell you all this?" I enquired, with growing suspicion.

Rose shook her head.

"Perhaps to account for the fact that he seemed so nervous all the time," she suggested. "He started whenever another motor car passed us, and as long as we were in Bath itself he watched the faces on the pavements, as though all the time he were looking for some one. He told me that when first he arrived here he suspected even the masseurs at the baths."

"I still don't see why he was so confidential with you," Leonard grumbled.

"He likes me," she acknowledged, with a demure smile. "In fact, if he tells the truth, he likes me very much. Don't look so black, please," she went on, with a glance at our faces. "Remember I am only obeying orders."

That phrase cost us a good deal of uneasiness during the next few days. Whenever we performed, Kinlosti sat in his corner, watching and listening. In the intervals, he came and made timid and courteous conversation. Without going so far as to say that he pursued Rose, he certainly took up a great deal of her time. On the fourth afternoon I received another typewritten note, handed to me again from the porter's office without any intimation as to its source. There was only a line or two:

Miss Mindel should show some curiosity as to the Crown Jewels. Mr. Kinlosti would probably like to show them to her.

Within half an hour Rose made her request. Both Leonard and I were within a few yards, and we saw the sudden terror in his face, heard his almost hysterical refusal.

"No one has ever seen them," he told Rose, "since they first came into my possession. I do not dare even to look at them myself. Directly my rheumatism permits me to move without pain, I shall acquit myself of the trust. It weighs upon me night and day."

With that the matter would have been ended, so far as Leonard and myself were concerned. Rose, however, took it differently. For the rest of that afternoon we were able to appreciate fully the guile of our little companion. She received Kinlosti's refusal in silence. Presently she developed a headache and refused to talk. She sat with her shoulder turned away from him while she played and never once glanced in his direction while she sang. At the close of our performance, he came up and whispered to her earnestly. She shook her head at first and then turned to me.

"Mr. Kinlosti is going to show me something in his sitting room. Please come with us."

For the first time I saw the Russian in this sallow-faced invalid. His lips curved into a snarl and for a moment he glared at me. The fit of anger was gone in a moment, before Rose had even observed it. With a little courteous gesture towards her, he turned and limped towards the lift. We followed, and he led us into his suite on the first floor.

"Do not be frightened of John," he enjoined, as he opened the door. "John is the guardian of my treasure, and he is obsessed with the idea that there are thieves in this hotel."

From the appearance of John, it seemed as though any adventurous thieves would have had a pretty poor time. He was seated with folded arms upon a hard, straight-backed chair. On a table by his side, only partially concealed by a large handkerchief, was an obvious revolver. There was also a glass of strong brandy and water. He rose to his feet at our entrance, but his bearing was grim and unfriendly. His master talked to him for a few moments in his own language, apparently trying to assure him of the harmlessness of our presence. John, however, remained sulky. Kinlosti crossed to the farthest corner of the room, took a key from his pocket, a key which seemed to be attached to a band of snakelike silver which encircled his leg, and unfastened an ordinary black tin dispatch box, which stood on the floor. From this he drew out a coffer of some almost black-coloured wood, with brass clamps. He held it up towards Rose.

"Even for you, my dear young friend," he said, "I may not raise the lid, but I show you this much of your desire. This is one of the coffers which for eleven hundred years has held the ceremonial jewels of the Russian Royal Family. There were at one time five of them. This is the one that remains."

"Mayn't I have just one little peep inside?" Rose pleaded.

We heard John's heavy breathing, and Kinlosti scarcely waited even to answer her. He thrust the coffer back into the box and locked it.

"It is impossible," he pronounced. "I do not bear this trust alone. In the spirit I fear that I break it already. You will rest here for a little while, mademoiselle?"

If this was meant as a hint to me, it was of no avail. I stood by Rose's side and she shook her head.

"You will not let me make you some of our own Russian tea?" he begged.

"Bring me some downstairs," she suggested. "I should love the tea, if it isn't too much trouble, and I will come over and sit in your corner."

In the corridor, on our way down, we met the malevolent Mrs. Cotesham, who paused, leaning on her stick, and watched Rose and her companion with the hungry glare of the professional scandalmonger. Kinlosti hurried past her with a little shiver, and Rose laughed gaily as she descended the stairs.

"I believe that you have a penchant for Mrs. Cotesham," she declared.

"She is the most horrible old lady I have ever seen anywhere," he said fervently. "They tell me that she is over ninety, and that she has but one joy in life--to make where she can mischief and trouble and unhappiness. She comes here every year, and every servant hates her. Even the managers would keep her away if they could, but she has bought shares in the hotel and has interest with the directors."

"The old man Mr. Grant is nearly as bad," Rose remarked.

"Him I know nothing of," Kinlosti replied, "save that he is one of those who have surely lived too long."

Leonard and I left Rose to her tête-à-tête and took a seat in the lounge. A few yards from us, the little daily comedy which never failed to amuse the onlookers was in progress. Mr. Grant was seated in the easy chair affected by Mrs. Cotesham. She came stumping along from the lift and stopped about a foot from the chair.

"This man has taken my chair!" she exclaimed in a loud voice, for the benefit of every one. "I left a book in it."

Mr. Grant continued to read through his heavy spectacles, unmoved. She struck the side of his chair with her stick.

"I want my chair," she repeated.

Mr. Grant half turned round.

"What does the woman want?" he snarled. "This isn't her chair. It's an hotel chair. I found it empty and I sat down. I am going to stay."

"Where's my book?" Mrs. Cotesham demanded, handing him the end of her ear trumpet.

"I threw it on the lounge," he shouted. "There it is. Now don't bother me any more."

"He calls himself a gentleman!" the old lady declared, shaking with fury.

"Never called myself anything of the sort in my life," he snapped.

I rose, and wheeled the easy chair in which I was sitting to the side of Mr. Grant's.

"Will you sit here, madam?" I ventured. "It is as near your favourite position as possible."

She pushed her speaking trumpet almost into my face.

"Say that again, young man," she directed.

I repeated it at the top of my voice. She nodded and subsided into the chair.

"I don't like having to sit near such people," she said, "but I prefer this side of the fireplace."

Her neighbour looked out of the corner of his eye.

"I wish the pestilential old woman would stay up in her room," he growled. "I hate her next me."

She handed him her speaking trumpet.

"Say that again, will you?" she invited. "I don't like people talking about me when I can't hear what they say."

Mr. Grant shut his book with a snap, rose to his feet and hobbled across to a distant part of the lounge.

"That old woman ought to be locked up," he declared at the top of his voice. "She's a damned nuisance to everybody!"

He found another seat and recommenced his book. Mrs. Cotesham, with a purr of content, settled herself down in the chair which he had vacated, stretched out her feet upon the footstool and looked around triumphantly.

"I've been to a good many hotels in my life," she confided to every one within hearing, "but I never met a man who called himself a gentleman, with such disgusting manners!"

Leonard and I strolled away presently to find Rose. It was time for us to go back to our rooms and change for the evening performance. We found her with Kinlosti in his corner, and the air above them overhung with a thin cloud of blue tobacco smoke. Kinlosti was smoking furiously and talking hard. Rose welcomed our approach, I thought, with something almost like eagerness.

"It is time to go, I am sure," she declared, springing to her feet.

Her companion broke off in the middle of a sentence and frowned.

"We speak together to-night, then?"

She shook her head at him, smiling all the time though, and with that little tantalising look in her eyes which Leonard and I both knew so well.

"I am not sure," she replied. "The management will complain if I talk so much with one of the guests, but I will play 'Valse Triste' for you. Au revoir!"

We had almost left the hotel--we were on the outside steps, indeed--when the hall porter caught me up. I saw at once what he was carrying. It was one of the now familiar typewritten letters. This time I asked him a point-blank question.

"Look here," I said, with my hand in my trousers pocket, "this is the third note I have received from my friend in this fashion. I want to know how they come into your possession. Who leaves them at the bureau?"

The man saw the ten-shilling note in my hand but he only shook his head. I believe that he was perfectly honest.

"I would tell you in a minute if I knew, sir," he declared, "but to tell you the truth I have never seen one delivered. All three I have picked up from the desk in my office, evidently left there when my back was turned for a moment."

"You haven't any idea who leaves them there, then?" I persisted.

"Not the slightest, sir," the man assured me.

"Keep a good lookout," I begged him, "and let me know if you do find out. There may be another one--I can't tell--but I'll double this ten shillings if you succeed."

The man thanked me and withdrew. We three crossed to the less frequented side of the road. I walked in the middle, with Rose and Leonard on either arm. We read the note together:

If the box Miss Mindel saw in Kinlosti's room was of purple leather, with gold clasps and corners, let the first item in your repertoire to-night be the Missouri Waltz. If it was a box of any other description, play the selection from "Chu-Chin-Chow."

"Well, I'm damned!" Leonard exclaimed.

"Be careful," I advised. "Thomson's probably underneath these paving stones."

Rose shivered a little.

"Do you think he wants to steal the jewels, Maurice?" she asked me.

"Oh, no!" I answered. "He probably wants to borrow them to wear at the Lord Mayor's show!"

She made a grimace.

"That's all very well, Mr. Lister," she said, with a great attempt at hauteur, "but will you kindly remember that you two are not in at this show? It is I who seem to be chosen as principal accomplice. I am not exactly infatuated with Mr. Kinlosti, but I don't want him to lose his jewels."

"I bet you a four-pound box of chocolates he does lose them," Leonard observed.

Rose sighed.

"Anyhow," she murmured, "we shall have to play 'Chu-Chin-Chow' to-night."

Leonard and Rose played a selection from "Chu-Chin-Chow" that evening as well as they could with an extemporised rendering. Rose played the piano, Leonard the violin, and I pretended to be turning over the pages of the music, although all the time I was engaged in a furtive search of the crowded lounge for some sign of our patron or a possible emissary. There were the usual little groups about, and a more harmless or obvious set of people I don't think I ever came across. Mrs. Cotesham was seated with her back to us, with a shawl arranged around her head so as to still further deaden sound, and ostentatiously reading a novel. Mr. Grant had stumped past us on his way to the billiard room, muttering to himself, before the first few bars of our little effort had been played. The others were nearly all known to us by name or reputation. There seemed something uncanny in the thought that somewhere or other were ears waiting for the message our selection conveyed. We were half-way through the "Cobbler's Song" when, without the slightest warning, Rose, who was facing the staircase, broke off abruptly in her playing. I caught sight of her face, suddenly pale, upturned towards the head of the staircase, followed the direction of her gaze, and was myself stricken dumb and nerveless. At the top of the staircase John was standing, holding out a terrified, struggling figure almost at arm's length. The fingers of his right hand seemed to be clasped around the neck of his unfortunate victim, while with his left hand he held him by the ankle. This was all in full view of the lounge. There were shrieks from the women, and some of the men, amongst them myself, hurried towards the staircase. We were too late, however, to be of any practical use. John, who seemed like a man beside himself with passion, suddenly swung the prostrate form of his captive a little farther back, and then dashed it from him down the stairs. A little cry of horror rippled and sobbed through the tense air. The man lay on the rug at the bottom of the stairs, a crumpled-up heap, motionless and without speech.

II

I was one of those who helped to carry the unfortunate victim of John's fury into the manager's office. He appeared to be a man of about medium height and build, dressed in the severest clerical clothes. I remembered having seen him arrive on the previous day. We laid him upon a sofa and left him there while one of us telephoned for a doctor. Out in the lounge, every one was grouped around the stairs, where Kinlosti was talking to John. The veins of the latter's temples were still standing out, but he was rapidly calming down. He spoke in a loud voice, so that every one might hear.

"That man is a thief in disguise," he shouted. "You will find burglar's tools in his pocket and a revolver. He came into the room where I was guarding my master's property, pretended to have mistaken the room, and tried to slip in behind me. I was too quick for him. He has followed us from Russia, that man. My master will tell you."

The manager, who had been lingering in the background, came down the stairs.

"The man's story may be true," he said. "Two of the maids saw him hanging about. They heard the altercation, and there is a chloroformed handkerchief in the sitting room."

"I have a valuable box there," Kinlosti explained, "which it is my servant's duty to guard. It contains property which belongs to the dead."

"All the same," one of the bystanders observed, "one does not treat even a thief like that. The man's neck is probably broken."

Kinlosti seemed to have lost his nervousness in this minute of crisis.

"I beg," he said to the manager, "that you will await the doctor's verdict before you send for the police. If the man is not seriously injured, he got no more than his deserts. It was John's duty to guard what he was guarding with his life."

"Here is the doctor," the manager announced.

Half a dozen of us followed the manager and the doctor back to the room where we had carried the injured man. When we opened the door, however, we were faced with a great surprise. There was a current of cold air, the window was wide open, the sofa was empty! To all appearance, a miracle had happened. We examined the ground below the window and found traces of where a man had stepped out. To those of us who had seen the fall, the thing grew more wonderful the more we thought of it.

"I think," the doctor pronounced, "that this is more a case for the police."

Kinlosti shook his head.

"I do not think," he said drily, "that the police of Bath are likely to be of much service in this matter."

"You have a suspicion, perhaps?" the manager asked.

Kinlosti smiled a little bitterly.

"I know the people who have been following me," he replied, "who would follow me around the world until I am quit of my trust. They are Jugo-Slav Jews, boneless and bloodless as the worm that you cut in two only to find of dual life. No Bath policeman will ever lay hands upon that seemingly reverend gentleman."

"At the same time," the manager said a little stiffly, "I shall give information. It appears that he wrote for a room a week ago, from a vicarage near London, and signed himself 'The Reverend Edward Cummings.'"

"You will find that vicarage a myth," Kinlosti observed, "as much a myth as the Reverend Edward Cummings himself."

The sensation died away. We all drifted back to our places. At the manager's earnest request we recommenced our programme, but I am quite sure that no one listened, for the buzz of conversation almost drowned the sound of our instruments. The manager carried on an earnest conversation with Kinlosti in his corner, greatly, apparently, to the latter's distress. After our first essay we attempted no more music. Leonard went off to speak to some friends in the lounge. I was talking to Rose and showing her a paragraph in the evening paper, when Kinlosti approached.

"It is very distressing," he said. "Because of this unfortunate happening, the manager has asked me to leave the hotel. Every place in Bath is full, and my cure is not complete."

I showed him the paragraph in the paper.

"You may not be able to go," I pointed out. "It seems that there is every possibility of a railway strike being declared to-night."

He glanced at the paragraph and returned the paper to me unmoved.

"It would not affect me," he said. "I travel everywhere by car. I think after what has happened I shall go. In London I can acquit myself of my trust. I see that the person who is empowered to take over my responsibility is back in London a few days sooner than he was expected."

I looked at the paragraph underneath the one which I had indicated, which announced that a royal personage had returned to London a few days earlier than intended, owing to the threatened strike.

"To-morrow," Kinlosti continued quietly, "I shall order my car and depart. It will perhaps be better. If things get worse, they may commandeer the petrol. I will rid myself of this responsibility and either return or try Harrogate. You three will come up and have a bottle of wine with me and some sandwiches?"

Rose, to my joy, was quite firm in her refusal. She returned with him to his corner, however, and they sat there with their heads very close together whilst Leonard and I fidgetted about in the lounge. A period of quietude had followed the excitement of the last half-hour. Mr. Grant had apparently fallen asleep in his easy chair. Mrs. Cotesham watched him malevolently through her horn-rimmed spectacles.

"What a pity for a man to make such ugly noises when he's asleep!" she remarked to her neighbour. "I wish some one would wake him up. He's disturbing the whole room."

Mr. Grant opened one eye, then the other. Finally he sat up.

"Madam," he shouted, as she raised her trumpet to her ear, "you forget that I am not like you--deaf!"

"I don't care whether you are or not," she replied. "I'm glad I woke you up. Bed's the place for you."

"A coffin's the place for you," Mr. Grant muttered under his breath. "How are you going to get away from here, ma'am?" he continued, raising his tone. "I hear your rooms are let from to-morrow."

"I sha'n't ask you for a place in your car," she answered. "Very likely I sha'n't go. They can't turn me out."

"I don't think they'll miss the opportunity," her interlocutor retorted, with a sardonic smile.

She laid her speaking trumpet in her lap.

"I sha'n't listen to you any more," she declared. "You're a rude old man. If it interests any one else to know what will become of me, I have relatives in Bristol who will be only too glad for me to pay them a visit."

"They'll be gladder to get rid of her," Mr. Grant observed, looking around for sympathy.

At that moment the hall porter touched me on the shoulder. The inevitable note was thrust into my hand.

"I found this on my desk just now, sir," he announced, in answer to my look of enquiry. "Sorry I can't tell you how it got there."

I opened it and read:

You will terminate your engagement at the Crown this evening. Proceed to London to-morrow, where you will find rooms taken for you at the Mayfair Hotel. Accept any offer you may receive of a lift to London, individually or collectively.

I showed Leonard the note, and hurried away to the manager's office. He made no difficulty about letting us go; in fact, I gathered that half the residents in the hotel were hurrying away by motor car, fearing a general confiscation of petrol. He detained me just as I was leaving the room.

"Queer affair, that attempted robbery, Mr. Lister," he remarked.

"Extraordinary," I agreed.

"I notice you people seem quite friendly with Mr. Kinlosti," he continued. "Do you know if it is true that he is related to the late Tsar?"

"I have no idea," I answered. "All that he has told us is that he was a member of the household."

"He may be a nobleman, and I dare say he is," the manager went on, a little nervously, "but I don't care about people at my hotel with a savage manservant like his and half a million pounds' worth of jewels. Bath isn't the place for that sort of thing. My clients like a quiet life."

"No doubt," I answered. "Anyhow, he's leaving to-morrow."

"Prince or no prince, I am glad to hear it," was the heartfelt reply. "People ought to deposit valuables like that in a bank. They're simply asking for trouble when they cart them about the country. It's a thing I've very seldom done to a client, but I told Mr. Kinlosti this evening that I should be glad for him to leave as soon as convenient."

I went back to the corner where I had left Rose. My disquietude increased as I approached. Both she and her companion were quite unconscious of my coming. Kinlosti was leaning forward, talking earnestly, and Rose was listening with a queer and unfamiliar look in her eyes. Leonard suddenly gripped me by the arm and led me a little distance away.

"Maurice," he confided, "that fellow Kinlosti is making love to her."

"If I thought so!" I muttered, clenching my fists.

"But she's letting him," Leonard groaned. "What the mischief can we do? We've no hold over her. Owing to that silly bargain we made, she doesn't dream that either of us care a snap of the fingers about her, except as a little pal and a partner. It's all clear sailing for that unwholesome brute."

My anger died away, but a very solid determination was there in its place.

"Leonard," I said, "we aren't going to leave her, and whatever happens, we'll know more about that fellow before many days have passed."

I retraced my steps then and went up to them. There was certainly a change in Rose's face. Kinlosti looked up at me a little impatiently.