CHAPTER XXIX
WE MEET MR. ISAACS
Quitting the wayside station, and walking down a short lane, we cameout upon Watling Street, white and dusty beneath the afternoon sun.We were less than an hour's train journey from London but foundourselves amid the Kentish hop gardens, amid a rural peace unbroken.My companion carried a camera case slung across her shoulder, butits contents were less innocent than one might have supposed. Infact, it contained a neat set of those instruments of the burglar'sart with whose use she appeared to be quite familiar.
"There is an inn," she said, "about a mile ahead, where we canobtain some vital information. He last wrote to me from there."
Side by side we tramped along the dusty road. We both were silent,occupied with our own thoughts. Respecting the nature of mycompanion's I could entertain little doubt, and my own turned uponthe foolhardy nature of the undertaking upon which I was embarked.No other word passed between us then, until upon rounding a bendand passing a cluster of picturesque cottages, the yard of theVinepole came into view.
"Do they know you by sight here?" I asked abruptly.
"No, of course not; we never made strategic mistakes of that kind.If we have tea here, no doubt we can learn all we require."
I entered the little parlour of the inn, and suggested that teashould be served in the pretty garden which opened out of it uponthe right.
The host, who himself laid the table, viewed the camera casecritically.
"We get a lot of photographers down here," he remarked tentatively.
"No doubt," said my companion. "There is some very pretty sceneryin the neighbourhood."
The landlord rested his hands upon the table.
"There was a gentleman here on Wednesday last," he said; "an oldgentleman who had met with an accident, and was staying somewherehereabouts for his health. But he'd got his camera with him, andit was wonderful the way he could use it, considering he hadn't gotthe use of his right hand."
"He must have been a very keen photographer," I said, glancing atthe girl beside me.
"He took three or four pictures of the Vinepole," replied thelandlord (which I doubted, since probably his camera was a dummy);"and he wanted to know if there were any other old houses in theneighbourhood. I told him he ought to take Cadham Hall, and he saidhe had heard that the Gate House, which is about a mile from here,was one of the oldest buildings about."
A girl appeared with a tea tray, and for a moment I almost fearedthat the landlord was about to retire; but he lingered, whilst thegirl distributed the things about the table, and Carneta askedcasually, "Would there be time for me to photograph the Gate Housebefore dark?"
"There might be time," was the reply, "but that's not the difficulty.Mr. Isaacs is the difficulty."
"Who is Mr. Isaacs?" I asked.
"He's the Jewish gentleman who bought the Gate House recently. Lotsof money he's got and a big motor car. He's up and down to Londonalmost every day in the week, but he won't let anybody takephotographs of the house. I know several who've asked."
"But I thought," said Carneta, innocently, "you said the oldgentleman who was here on Wednesday went to take some?"
"He went, yes, miss; but I don't know if he succeeded."
Carneta poured out some tea.
"Now that you speak of it," she said, "I too have heard that theGate House is very picturesque. What objection can Mr. Isaacshave to photographers?"
"Well, you see, miss, to get a picture of the house, you have topass right through the grounds."
"I should walk right up to the house and ask permission. Is Mr.Isaacs at home, I wonder?"
"I couldn't say. He hasn't passed this way to-day."
"We might meet him on the way," said I. "What is he like?"
"A Jewish gentleman sir, very dark, with a white beard. Wearsgold glasses. Keeps himself very much to himself. I don't knowanything about his household; none of them ever come here."
Carneta inquired the direction of Cadham Hall and of the Gate House,and the landlord left us to ourselves. My companion exhibitedsigns of growing agitation, and it seemed to me that she had muchado to restrain herself from setting out without a moment's delayfor the Gate House, which, I readily perceived, was the place towhich our strange venture was leading us.
I found something very stimulating in the reflection that, rashthough the expedition might be, and, viewed from whatever standpoint,undeniably perilous, it promised to bring me to that secretstronghold of deviltry where the sinister Hassan of Aleppo sosuccessfully had concealed himself.
The work of the modern journalist had many points of contact withthat of the detective; and since the murder of Professor Deeping Ihad succumbed to the man-hunting fever more than once. I knew thatScotland Yard had failed to locate the hiding-place of theremarkable and evil man who, like an efreet of Oriental lore, obeyedthe talisman of the stolen slipper, striking down whomsoever laidhand upon its sacredness. It was a novel sensation to know that,aided by this beautiful accomplice of a rogue, I had succeeded wherethe experts had failed!
Misgivings I had and shall not deny. If our scheme succeeded itwould mean that Deeping's murderer should be brought to justice.If it failed-well, frankly, upon that possibility I did not dare toreflect!
It must be needless for me to say that we two strangely met allieswere ill at ease, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. Weproceeded on our way in almost unbroken silence, and, save for acouple of farm hands, without meeting any wayfarer, up to the timethat we reached the brow of the hill and had our first sight of theGate House lying in a little valley beneath. It was a small Tudormansion, very compact in plan and its roof glowed redly in therays of the now setting sun.
From the directions given by the host of the Vinepole it wasimpossible to mistake the way or to mistake the house. Amidwell-wooded grounds it stood, a place quite isolated, but sotypically English that, as I stood looking down upon it, I foundmyself unable to believe that any other than a substantial countrygentleman could be its proprietor.
I glanced at Carneta. Her violet eyes were burning feverishly, buther lips twitched in a bravely pitiful way.
Clearly now my adventure lay before me; that red-roofed homesteadseemed to have rendered it all substantial which hitherto had beenshadowy; and I stood there studying the Gate House gravely, for itmight yet swallow me up, as apparently it had swallowed Earl Dexter.
There, amid that peaceful Kentish landscape, fantasy danced andhorrors unknown lurked in waiting...
The eminence upon which we were commanded an extensive prospect,and eastward showed a tower and flagstaff which marked the site ofCadham Hall. There were homeward-bound labourers to be seen in thelanes now, and where like a white ribbon the Watling Street layacross the verdant carpet moved an insect shape, speedily.
It was a car, and I watched it with vague interest. At a pointwhere a dense coppice spread down to the roadway and a lane crossedwest to east, the car became invisible. Then I saw it again, nearerto us and nearer to the Gate House. Finally it disappeared amongthe trees.
I turned to Carneta. She, too, had been watching. Now her gaze metmine.
"Mr. Isaacs!" she said; and her voice was less musical than usual."His chauffeur, who learned his business in Cairo, is probably theonly one of his servants who remains in England."
"What!" I began--and said no more.
Where the road upon which we stood wound down into the valley andlost itself amid the trees surrounding the Gate House, the carsuddenly appeared again, and began to mount the slope toward us!
"Heavens!" whispered Carneta. "He may have seen us--with glasses!Quick! Let us walk back until the hill-top conceals us; then wemust hide somewhere!"
I shared her excitement. Without a moment's hesitation we bothturned and retraced our steps. Twenty paces brought us to aspot where a stack of mangel wurzels stood at the roadside.
"This will do!" I said.
We ran around into the field, and crouched where we coul
d peer outon the road without ourselves being seen. Nor had we taken up thisposition a moment too soon.
Topping the slope came a light-weight electric, driven by a man who,in his spruce uniform, might have passed at a glance for a verydusky European. The car had a limousine back, and as the chauffeurslowed down, out from the open windows right and left peered thesolitary occupant.
He had the cast of countenance which is associated with the besttype of Jew, with clear-cut aquiline features wholly destitute ofgrossness. His white beard was patriarchal and he wore gold-rimmedpince-nez and a glossy silk hat. Such figures may often be metwith in the great money-markets of the world, and Mr. Isaacs wouldhave passed for a successful financier in even more discerningcommunities than that of Cadham.
But I scarcely breathed until the car was past; and, beside me, mycompanion, crouching to the ground, was trembling wildly. Fiftyyards toward the village Mr. Isaacs evidently directed the man toreturn.
The car was put about, and flashed past us at high speed down intothe valley. When the sound of the humming motor had died tosomething no louder than the buzz of a sleepy wasp, I held out myhand to Carneta and she rose, pale, but with blazing eyes, andpicked up her camera case.
"If he had detected us, everything would have been lost!" shewhispered.
"Not everything!" I replied grimly--and showed her the revolverwhich I had held in my hand whilst those eagle eyes had beenseeking us. "If he had made a sign to show that he had seen us, infact, if he had once offered a safe mark by leaning from the car, Ishould have shot him dead without hesitation!"
"We must not show ourselves again, but wait for dusk. He must haveseen us, then, on the hilltop, but I hope without recognizing us.He has the sight and instincts of a vulture!"
I nodded, slipping the revolver into my pocket, but I wondered if Ishould not have been better advised to have risked a shot at themoment that I had recognized "Mr. Isaacs" for Hassan of Aleppo.