Yvonne Yale had spent a tiring and a busy day shopping with her mother. It was not a relaxation which she often allowed herself. Mrs. Yale took shopping very seriously, and would follow a will-o’-the-wisp of a five-shilling bargain through enticing marshes of other departments where scarcely a weed grew which was not labelled twenty-five shillings.
After dinner, Mrs. Yale announced the fact that she was dead tired; she implied the further fact that the exertions of the day, shared by her daughter, had not effected her, and that the energy dissipated by Mrs. Yale herself was sufficient for two.
She went to bed, leaving Yvonne half a dozen letters to answer--letters which regretted the inability of Mrs. Yale to settle an account, but promised “next month,” not only to clear off existing liabilities, but to extend her scope of patronage.
Yvonne’s self-respect led her to tone down the letters, to make them less optimistic as to the future and less vague as to the present. She finished her work at half-past eleven, and signed her mother’s name with a flourish, enclosed the letters in envelopes, and placed them on the hall table ready for posting.
She made her customary round of the house--their one servant was in bed at that hour--and went to her room feeling depressed and worried. She could not trace her state of mind to any particular course, and she told herself that the reason was purely physical. She undressed in record time, jumped into bed, switched out the light, and her head had hardly touched the pillow before she was asleep.
How long she had been sleeping she could not tell, but something woke her with a start. The room was dark, the only light being that from the lamp in the street below. She was wide awake, and her reasoning faculty told her that something must have occurred--there must have been some extraordinary noise to have brought about this condition of wakefulness.
She lay perfectly still--listening. For a long time she heard nothing and saw nothing; then for a moment she saw a tiny streak of bright light in the room.
Before she could touch it her wrist was grasped, and a long, bony hand closed over her mouth.
“Be silent!” said a voice in her ear. “If you make a noise I will kill you!”
She felt a grip on her throat, and lay paralysed with terror; she had neither the will nor the ability to scream.
At last she found her voice.
“Take what you want and go,” she said.
“Where do you keep your jewels?” said the man who held her, in a low voice.
The ghost of a smile, in spite of the tragic situation, dawned on Yvonne’s face.
“In the top drawer of my bureau,” she said, and might have added: “such as they are”; but even her sense of humour could not rise equal to the occasion.
The man muttered some words in a language which she could not understand; but she gathered that he was addressing the second man in the room, for two there were undoubtedly.
Then with a sickening sense of danger she realised that the language was Chinese.
She heard the soft “hush” of the drawer as it opened, she saw the flash of light as the men swept it over her belongings. Then the man at the drawer spoke over his shoulder. There was a quick exchange of words, then:
“Get up!” said the man by her side shortly.
There was nothing to do but obey. She rose from her bed and stood on the floor shaking in every limb. She was thankful for the darkness which perhaps hid the full extent of her danger.
“You have a bracelet somewhere,” said the man who had spoken first. “It was given to you by young De Costa. Where is it now?”
The girl made no reply. She was dismayed when she realised that Talham’s deception had been discovered, and she felt herself a guilty party to the deception.
“I have not got it,” she said.
“Who has?” The voice was sharp and authoritative.
“Captain Talham has it,” she said, before she realised that she was betraying the strange man. He was nothing to her, yet even in the moment of her peril, she understood that perhaps she might be endangering him, and was sorry she had spoken.
There was a little silence, then:
“Put on your clothes!” said the man.
“Why?” she asked startled.
“Don’t argue. You can dress in the dark. Put on your clothes. If you can’t I’ll turn on the light.”
She groped for her clothes, thankful to dress in the dark, and the man walked over to the door.
“Remember,” he said as his vice-like grip released her arm, “any attempt to raise an alarm will result in your immediate death; there are no men in this house as I know. Captain Talham, on whom you may unreasonably depend, is quite unconscious of your present predicament. I am going to take you away from here, and I swear to you that you shall not be harmed. Are you going to take my word?”
“There is no alternative,” answered the girl.
With trembling hands she drew on her clothes. That she should be dressing herself in the presence of two Chinamen--for a Chinaman the first speaker was, in spite of his perfect English--did not strike her at the moment as being so much a subject for dismay, as to what would happen after she had dressed.
There was a heavy cloak hanging in the wardrobe of the room. She drew this on over her other things, and, twisting her hair into a knot at the top of her head, fixed a hat over what she knew was a most appalling untidiness.
“It may not be necessary,” said the man, “to tell you that any cry will bring your mother and the maid--in which case I shall destroy not only you, but the people you alarm.”
He guided her past her mother’s door, down the stairs and into the street.
A little distance from the door was a motor-car. The second man went out, and at a signal the car drew across the road to the door of the house.
She was hustled inside, and the two men sprang in after her. With a jerk the car started upon the most adventurous journey that Yvonne Yale had ever taken in her short, and until then, uneventful, career.
Just as the car passed out of sight, a taxi came flying round the corner, and pulled up at the door of Mrs. Yale’s dwelling. Two men got out and made straight for the door. The first of these was Tillizinni. He had his hand upon the knocker when he felt the door yield to his touch, and he pushed it open.
He turned to the pale-faced Talham.
“My God!” he said. “They’ve been here!”
He slipped a revolver from his hip pocket, and went up the stairs, two at a time, for Talham had found the switch which controlled the stair light.
Tillizinni guessed that the best bedroom would be at the back, and that Mrs. Yale would occupy it.
He knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?” asked a muffled voice.
“Open, please!” said Tillizinni. “I am an officer of police, and I want to see you very urgently.”
Mrs. Yale came out to the light of the detective’s lamp and presented an unhappy figure.
“Which room does your daughter occupy?” asked Tillizinni.
She recognised Talham with an embarrassed smile.
“My daughter is in the next room.” She led the way and knocked at the door; but again there was no necessity for knocking--the door was half open. She entered, followed without invitation by Tillizinni, who was too anxious as to the girl’s safety to stand upon ceremony.
The bed was empty. He put his hand inside--it was still warm. A quick glance round at the open drawers gave evidence of the visitors’ presence.
There was no time to be lost.
“Your daughter has been kidnapped,” he said. “You must arouse your servants. I will send a policeman to you.”
Into the street again came the two men, and Tillizinni lifted one of the lamps from the taxi and examined the roadway. There had been a sharp shower of rain half an hour previous, and the tracks of the other car were plainly visible.
He ran along the roadway carrying the lamp, and reached the thoroughfare which ran to the north and south. There was no evidence that the car had taken either direction. He crossed the road, the taxi-cab following in his rear. Yes, here it was again--the broad band had gone straight on. They would be making now for Portland Place.
At this point a policeman appeared, and Tillizinni gave him an order that set the man running back to the house in Curzon Street. Then Tillizinni went back to the cab, and the taxi went straight ahead at full speed, slowing at the point where Portland Place cut across the route.
The streets were newly washed. Indeed, the great thoroughfare was at that moment in the hands of the scavengers with their hoses and their squeegees. There would be no definite track here, and Tillizinni, after a search, saw sufficient evidence to show him which direction the car had taken.
At Oxford Circus a policeman had seen it. It had turned eastward, and had gone straight along Oxford Street in the direction of Holborn.
“Speed up!” said Tillizinni to the driver. “There’s just a chance they may have a puncture, and we may overtake them.”
He rejoined the silent Talham in the cab.
“I’ll never forgive myself,” said the big man. He sat with his hands clasped together, and his face set.
“My dear chap, it’s not your fault.”
Tillizinni laid his hand on the other’s shoulder. He had a genuine affection for this eccentric giant with his irrepressible oratory and his calm disregard for convention.
“It’s a damned bracelet,” said Talham bitterly. “All the wealth and all the secrets of Ts’in are too inadequate compensation for one moment of misery she may suffer.”
Tillizinni made no reply. Like a white light it suddenly dawned upon him that this man, the last man in the world that he would have imagined, was smitten with love.
The tense agony in Talham’s voice, the attitude of absolute dejection--he sat huddled in a corner of the cab--spoke eloquently of his agony.
At Holborn Bars a City policeman had seen a car passing swiftly eastward, and yet again, and farther on at the Mansion House, a patrolling sergeant was able to direct them toward Gracechurch Street.
They lost the scent at Tower Hill. Two cars had come along at about the same moment, probably one from Eastcheap. One had crossed Tower Bridge and gone southward; the other had continued its way eastward. Unfortunately both had been of similar make.
Tillizinni was in a dilemma.
“We’ll take the east road,” he said, after a moment’s thought; “that is the more likely route.”
A moment later the cab was following the trail of an empty car on its way to Harwich to meet the morning boat.
