Chapter TWENTY-FOUR: Some Plain Facts

I ate a hasty sandwich, drank a glass of sherry at the club, and then took a taxi to a small, rather shabby office in a narrow street off High Street, Kensington, the registry of marriages for the district.

The affable clerk whom I saw was disappointing, however.

“If you call at the registry at Somerset House, you can obtain a copy of the entry made here, sir,” he replied.

As I went in, I had been followed by two couples about to be wedded, attended by two witnesses. Both were of the working class, happy young men with their smiling brides. I glanced around, but to me the cheerless surroundings were entirely unfamiliar. I did not remember ever having been there before.

An hour later I was at Somerset House, amid a bustling throng of solicitors’ clerks and curiosity-mongers, to whom every now and then a blue slip of paper was handed out, a certified copy of a marriage, birth, or death. Every such event occurring in Great Britain, on the high seas, or abroad, in which a British-born subject is concerned, is registered in those ponderous volumes preserved there.

In accordance with the directions, I filled up a form, paid the nominal fee, and awaited the result.

Imagine the tension of those moments. It was to be decided once and for all if Illona was actually my wife!

Full of keen anxiety I could hardly contain myself, as I paced up and down before the long window looking out on the great paved courtyard. It was growing late, and the office was soon closing, hence a dozen or so clerks, obviously from lawyers’ offices, being known to the officials, asked favors familiarly.

At last my name was called, and the dark blue slip handed to me--the copy of the registry of my marriage.

I scanned it breathlessly as I turned away from the counter. It was certified to be a true copy of an entry made in the marriage register of the Borough of Kensington on April the eighteenth, the year before, in which I had apparently described myself as:

“_Lionel George Chetwynd Hipwell, bachelor, age 29_, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, son of Charles Augustus Chetwynd Hipwell, gentleman.”

on the occasion of my marriage to

“_Elizabeth Mary Illona Patrick, spinster, age 39_, of Stafford Road, Notting Hill, daughter of William Henry Patrick, grocer, deceased.”

So my wife was the daughter of a tradesman, who followed the honorable calling of grocer, and her age was now forty, just ten years older than my own. Her abode, as given, was not altogether a salubrious quarter, for Stafford Road, I knew, was on the border of a wretched slum. Perhaps it was her hiding-place from the police!

I read and re-read that confounding document many times. There was no doubt. There it was in black and white to hold in any court of law.

Illona was my legal wife!

My hands were tied. In every quarter I looked, I could see no way out of the _impasse_. All my efforts on Joan’s behalf were unavailing. And further, how could I confess myself a thief to Mr. Gell, or even to my father?

Back at Sackville Street I took the piece of manuscript music from the drawer into which I had thrown it. Lisely had sent me warning, it was true. But which was my real friend, Lisely or my unpresentable wife?

That point I had to decide. I sat in the chair where Illona had sat, and pondered until darkness fell. Within my sight was the unsuspicious-looking old leather-bound volume containing Lady Rathgormly’s pearls. Again I took them out and re-examined them. They were certainly magnificent. I looked at the key to that ingenious musical cipher, and saw how cleverly it was arranged, so that each day or each week it could be altered according to arrangement. And who would suspect a roll of manuscript music passing through the post, from hand to hand, to be a communication between members of a criminal association?

Teddy Day looked in just as I was dressing and eagerly inquired who the “old bird” was that he found me entertaining. “A bit of a has-been, wasn’t she?” he laughed in his good-humored way, as he sat on the side of my bed and watched me manipulating my tie.

“Yes,” I said. “She’s a woman I met in Vienna some months ago. She’s looking for a missing friend and called to ask my advice.”

And with that explanation he was satisfied. Then he forced me to dine at the Piccadilly with him, and we went to a revue afterwards, though so little interested in the latter was I that I don’t remember the name of the piece or the theatre where it was played.

My own thoughts were of Joan. The hateful woman who called herself my wife knew the truth; but for spite she had refused to reveal a single fact. In that, she had not shown herself as my friend, hence could Lisely’s secret warning be actually true? Was it for that reason that she had succeeded in preventing my meeting Illona?

This theory struck me as the correct one. Yet, when I reflected that I had all unconsciously received training, and had become an expert purloiner of women’s jewels, I was staggered. Suppose possession of those pearls was traced to me, what explanation could I offer?

Such a scandal would be appalling, more especially in regard to my high official capacity as a servant of His Majesty’s Foreign Ministry.

The more I pondered, the more dangerous the situation became. I had foes without doubt, and how did I know from hour to hour that I might not be anonymously denounced? I had not even the opportunity to pay my enemies the price of their silence.

That night when I returned, Bruce having retired, I again took out the pearls, and found a small cardboard box without any mark upon it. I placed them inside, and, having made a neat packet, sealed it with plain black wax, and was about to address them to their owner, when an idea suddenly struck me. Instead of doing so, and risking the displeasure of the man of mystery they called His Excellency, I would take them to Lausanne with me, and make them an excuse for calling on him.

My diplomatic valise being immune from Customs examination at Calais, or at the Swiss frontier at Vallorbe, nobody would know that I had taken them out of the country, and if I deposited them with Nicholas Sarasti, as he called himself, my responsibility would then be at an end.

Next day I rang up Mr. Gell, as usual. He had heard nothing of Joan, though he had another appointment at Scotland Yard at noon. I dined with my father at the House that night, and afterwards spent an hour in the Lobby with my friend Cecil Duncombe, Parliamentary Secretary to the Foreign Office, retiring early; for I had to be up and on my journey on the morrow.

At eleven next morning I left Victoria Station by the Simplon-Orient service, which runs daily by way of Calais, Paris, Lausanne, and up the Rhône Valley to Brigue, and thence on to Italy--Milan, Venice, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sofia, to Stamboul--that hot and dusty three day journey which I knew so well. There were few passengers beyond Paris. After eating my dinner in the _wagon-restaurant_, I retired to bed, to be awakened by the conductor at the Swiss frontier, at half-past five in the morning.

Soon after six o’clock I alighted into the great new station of Lausanne--one of the finest and cleanest in all Europe, to find that the little steamer across the beautiful Lake of Geneva would not leave for another hour. With its fringe of high mountains, whereon still remained the snows of the past winter, the lake lay blue and sparkling in the sunlight. I went into the big buffet, and took my morning coffee. Afterwards I took a taxi and drove down to the little landing-stage at Ouchy, surrounded as it is by shady trees and pretty gardens, so well known to the summer tourist.

Soon the small white steamer, which traverses the lake, to and fro, to the French shore half a dozen times a day, set out. I found the morning air gloriously fresh after the oppressive heat of the narrow, rolling sleeping-car.

As we left the Swiss shore, to cross the eight mile stretch of water, coming down from the Rhône, I could just discern, far away in the grey distance on the left, the grim walls and turret of the historic Castle of Chillon, while the white clusters of houses on the lake-side showed Vevey, and the popular English resort, Montreux. The morning was beautiful, the sky was cloudless, and on every side, the Alps stood forth in all their rugged grandeur--a panorama of lake and mountain, perhaps one of the finest in all Europe.

Shortly afterwards we reached the little landing-stage of Evian-les-Bains, world-famed for its mineral springs, and for its fine Casino which, under the same management as the Municipal Casino at Nice, is devoted to baccarat. Unlike the garish, uproarious town of Nice, Evian is a rural, select resort, where people go for repose and for the cure. Upon the green hill-side, half hidden in the trees, the great white façades of the _hôtels-de-luxe_ could be seen, each over-looking the quiet little town, and the wide expanse of placid water beyond.

Up to one of them, the Hôtel Royal, I took a taxi, and, after inquiring of the _concierge_, I soon discovered Lord Oxenwood, a grey-haired, aristocratic figure in a drab lounge suit, taking his coffee _al fresco_ beneath a tree, upon the wide flower-embowered terrace. With him sat my friend Bob Ludlow, his private secretary.

“Hulloa, Hipwell!” exclaimed the Foreign Secretary, with a laugh. He was one of Britain’s leading statesmen, who had arisen since the war, to uphold the nation’s prestige abroad. And he had done so, notwithstanding all the insidious political intrigues of certain of the Powers.

Outwardly he was a most charming and unassuming man. But in politics he was stern, unbending, and relentless, as the League of Nations well knew.

“Up early this morning, eh?” he laughed meaningly. And after I had handed him the dispatch box, secured by a great black seal which bore the bold arms of Great Britain, he invited me to join him at coffee.

It was a delightful spot. In the trees the birds were loud in their songs, while beyond the stone balustrade there stretched the broad, placid lake, opalescent at that early hour, its waters unflecked, save for the sail of a stone-barge, and a little streak of distant smoke showing the steamer on its way up from Geneva to Montreux, and on to Bouveret, at the head of the sixty-mile-long stretch of waters.

As I chatted with Bob Ludlow I inhaled with delight the fresh air of the French lake-side after the stuffiness of Piccadilly. Each time I traveled, I enjoyed the change of air, whether the invigorating atmosphere of Paris, the _dolce far niente_ of Rome, the fun-impelling air of Vienna, or the keen mountain air of Berne.

While I chatted with Ludlow, the great statesman opened the dispatch box with his key, adjusted his gold pince-nez, and slowly digested the contents of the papers, one after another.

The waiter had brought me my coffee, and as I smoked, Lord Oxenwood, with the gold pencil attached to his watch chain, scribbled from time to time remarks in the margin of the documents he was perusing.

“We must write a dispatch to Paris presently, Ludlow,” he remarked suddenly. “And you must take it by the mail to-night, Hipwell,” he said, turning to me.

“I’ll come back from Lausanne at six, sir,” I said, “and I can catch the Orient back to Paris.”

“Yes, do. You’re a living time-table of Continental travel,” laughed the grey-haired Foreign Secretary. “What a wonderful tourist conductor you’d make!”

“Yes, Lionel,” said my friend Ludlow. “You’d make quite a success of a round-the-world trip, I’m sure.”

“Well, I only know my routes and times, as every one of my corps knows them. It is part of our training to travel to a given point in the quickest possible time, isn’t it?” And, turning to Lord Oxenwood, I added, “If I had had the dispatch in Lausanne a couple of hours ago, I could have been in Paris to-night.”

“It is not quite so urgent,” was the great Englishman’s reply. “If you leave to-night, you will be at the Paris Embassy in the morning. That will be quite early enough for Lord Thornbury to receive my instructions.”

And he sipped his coffee, gazing thoughtfully across the lake to the peaks of the distant Jura in the haze. The man whose shoulders bore the heavy burden of Britain’s complications with the Powers in those days of sedition and revolution, sighed wearily. And then, after a few moments, he scribbled some further memoranda on the back of a document. He was there for rest and recreation, but alas! his brain was ever at work. Intricate questions of policy and evasion reached him daily from the representatives of His Majesty at the various capitals; hence he was practically as busy as when he was at the Foreign Office, except for those daily conferences, and the approval of the answers given to questions put in the House.

On glancing at my watch I saw that in a quarter of an hour the boat would leave on the return journey to Lausanne and, making my excuse, I caught it.

Just after eleven o’clock I walked up the hill from the railway station along the Avenue de la Gare, in search of the house where, in secret, lived the notorious criminal, Felix Zuroff, known in his hiding-place as Nicholas Sarasti.