The Sins of Severac Bablon E-Book

Sax Rohmer

• Herausgeber: anamsaleem
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Sins of Severac Bablon is a thrilling crime novel from the author who would go on to pen the beloved Fu Manchu series. In this story, criminal mastermind Severac Bablon sets out to balance the scales of social justice by extorting a series of affluent victims and forcing them to donate vast sums of money to a variety of charitable causes.

Leseprobe

The Sins of Severac Bablon 

Sax Rohmer

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CHAPTER I

TO INTRODUCE MR. JULIUS ROHSCHEIMER

"There's half a score of your ancestral halls," said Julius Rohscheimer, "that I could sell up to-morrow morning!"

Of the quartet that heard his words no two members seemed quite similarly impressed.

The pale face of Adeler, the great financier's confidential secretary, expressed no emotion whatever. Sir Richard Haredale flashed contempt from his grey eyes--only to veil his scorn of the man's vulgarity beneath a cloud of tobacco smoke. Tom Sheard, of the Gleaner, drew down a corner of his mouth and felt ashamed of the acquaintance. Denby, the music-hall comedian, softly whistled those bars of a popular ballad set to the words, "I stood in old Jerusalem." 

"Come along to Park Lane with me," continued Rohscheimer, fixing his dull, prominent eyes upon Sheard, "and you'll see more English nobility than you'd find inside the House of Lords!"

"What's made him break out?" the comedian whispered, aside, to Adeler. For it was an open secret that this man, whose financial operations shook the thrones of monarchy, whose social fêtes were attended by the smartest people, was subject to outbursts of the kind which now saw him seated before a rapidly emptying magnum in a corner of the great restaurant. At such times he would frequent the promenades of music-halls, consorting with whom he found there, and would display the gross vulgarity of a Whitechapel pawnbroker or tenth-rate variety agent.

"'S-sh!" replied the secretary. "A big coup! It is always so with him. Mr. Rohscheimer is overwrought. I shall induce him to take a holiday."

"Trip up the Jordan?" suggested Denby, with cheery rudeness.

The secretary's drooping eyelids flickered significantly, but no other indication of resentment displayed itself upon that impassive face.

"A good Jew is proud of his race--and with reason!" he said quietly. "There are Jews and Jews."

He turned, deferentially, to his employer--that great man having solicited his attention with the words, "Hark to him, Adeler!"

"I did not quite catch Mr. Sheard's remark," said Adeler.

"I merely invited Mr. Rohscheimer to observe the scene upon his right," explained Sheard.

The others turned their eyes in that direction. Through a screen of palm leaves the rose-shaded table lights, sparkling silver, and snowy covers of the supper room were visible. Here a high-light gleamed upon a bare shoulder; there, a stalwart male back showed, blocked out in bold black upon the bright canvas. Waiters flitted noiselessly about. The drone of that vocal orchestra filled the place: the masculine conversation, the brass and wood-wind--the sweeter tones of women, the violins; their laughter, tremolo passages.

"I'm observing it," growled Rohscheimer. "Nobody in particular there."

"There is comfort, luxury, there," said Sheard.

The financier stared, uncomprehensively.

"Now look out yonder," continued the other.

It was a different prospect whereto he directed their eyes.

The diminuendo of the Embankment lamps, the steely glitter of the waters beyond, the looming bulk of the bridge, the silhouette shape of the On monolith; these things lay below them, dimly to be seen from the brilliant room. Within was warmth, light, and gladness; without, a cold place of shadows, limned in the grey of discontent and the black of want and desolation.

"Every seat there," continued Sheard, as the company gazed vaguely from the window, "has its burden of hopelessness and misery. Ranks of homeless wretches form up in the arch yonder, awaiting the arrival of the Salvation Army officials. Where, in the whole world, can misery in bulk be found thus side by side with all that wealth can procure?"

There was a brief silence. Sheard was on his hobbyhorse, and there were few there disposed to follow him. The views of the Gleaner are not everybody's money. 

"What sort of gas are you handing us out?" asked Rohscheimer. "Those lazy scamps don't deserve any comfort; they never worked to get it! The people here are moneyed people."

"Just so!" interrupted Sheard, taking up the challenge with true Gleaner ardour. "Moneyed people! That's the whole distinction in two words!" 

"Well, then--what about it?"

"This--that if every guest now in the hotel would write a cheque for an amount representing 1 per cent. of his weekly income, every man, woman, and child under the arch yonder would be provided with board and lodging for the next six months!"

"Why do it?" demanded Rohscheimer, not unreasonably. "Why feed 'em up on idleness?"

"Their idleness may be compulsory," replied Sheard. "Few would employ a starving man while a well-nourished one was available."

"Cut the Socialist twaddle!" directed the other coarsely. "It gets on my nerves! You and your cheques! Who'd you make 'em payable to? Editor of the Gleaner." 

"I would suggest," said Sir Richard Haredale, smiling, "to Séverac Bablon."

"To who?" inquired Rohscheimer, with greater interest than grammar.

"Séverac Bablon," said Sheard, informatively, "the man who gave a hundred dollars to each of the hands discharged from the Runek Mill, somewhere in Ontario. That's whom you mean, isn't it, Haredale?"

"Yes," assented the latter. "I was reading about it to-day."

"We had it in this morning," continued Sheard. "Two thousand men."

"Eh?" grunted Rohscheimer hoarsely.

"Two thousand men," repeated Sheard. "Each of them received notes to the value of a hundred dollars on the morning after the mill closed down, and a card, 'With the compliments of Séverac Bablon.'"

"Forty thousand pounds!" shouted the millionaire. "I don't believe it!"

"It's confirmed by Reuter to-night."

"Then the man's a madman!" pronounced Rohscheimer conclusively.

"Pity he doesn't have a cut at London!" came Denby's voice.

"Is it?" growled the previous speaker. "Don't you believe it! A maniac like that would mean ruination for business if he was allowed to get away with it!"

"Ah, well!" yawned Sheard, standing up and glancing at his watch, "you may be right. Anyway, I've got a report to put in. I'm off!"

"Me, too!" said the financier thickly. "Come on, Haredale. We're overdue at Park Lane! It's time we were on view in Park Lane, Adeler!"

The tide of our narrative setting in that direction, it will be well if we, too, look in at the Rohscheimer establishment. We shall find ourselves in brilliant company.

Julius's harshest critics were forced to concede that the house in Park Lane was a focus of all smart society. Yet smart society felt oddly ill at ease in the salon of Mrs. Julius Rohscheimer. Nobody knew whether the man to whom he might be talking at the moment were endeavouring to arrange a mortgage with Rohscheimer; whether the man's wife had fallen in arrears with her interest--to the imminent peril of the family necklace; or whether the man had simply dropped in because others of his set did so, and because, being invited, he chanced to have nothing better to do.

These things did not add to the gaiety of the entertainments, but of their brilliancy there could be no possible doubt.

Jewish society was well represented, and neither at Streeter's nor elsewhere could a finer display of diamonds be viewed than upon one of Mrs. Rohscheimer's nights. The lady had enjoyed some reputation as a hostess before the demise of her first husband had led her to seek consolation in the arms (and in the cheque-book) of the financier. So the house in Park Lane was visited by the smartest people--to the mutual satisfaction of host and hostess.

"Where's the Dook?" inquired the former, peering over a gilded balustrade at the throng below. They had entered, unseen, by a private stair.

"I understand," replied Haredale, "that the Duke is unfortunately indisposed."

"Never turns up!" growled Rohscheimer.

"Never likely to!" was Haredale's mental comment; but, his situation being a delicate one, he diplomatically replied, "We have certainly been unfortunate in that respect."

Haredale--one of the best-known men in town--worked as few men work to bring the right people to the house in Park Lane (and to save his commission). This arrangement led Mr. Rohscheimer to rejoice exceedingly over his growing social circle, and made Haredale so ashamed of himself that, so he declared to an intimate friend, he had not looked in a mirror for nine months, but relied implicitly upon the good taste of his man.

"Come up and give me your opinion of the new waistcoats," said Rohscheimer. "I don't fancy my luck in 'em, personally."

Following the financier to his dressing-room, Haredale, as a smart maid stood aside to let them pass, felt the girl's hand slip a note into his own. Glancing at it, behind Rohscheimer's back, he read: "Keep him away as much as ever you can."

"She has spotted him!" he muttered; and, in his sympathy with the difficulties of poor Mrs. Rohscheimer's position, he forgot, temporarily, the difficulties of his own.

"By the way," said Rohscheimer, "did you bring along that late edition with the details of the Runek Mill business?"

"Yes," said Haredale, producing it from his overcoat pocket.

"Just read it out, will you?" continued the other, "while I have a rub down."

Haredale nodded, and, lighting a cigarette, sank into a deep arm-chair and read the following paragraph:

"A FAIRY GODMOTHER IN ONTARIO

"(From our Toronto Correspondent) 

"The identity of the philanthropist who indemnified the ex-employees of the Runek Mill still remains a mystery. Beyond the fact that his name, real or assumed, is Séverac Bablon, nothing whatever is known regarding him. The business was recently acquired by J. J. Oppner, who will be remembered for his late gigantic operation on Wall Street, and the whole of the working staff received immediate notice to quit. No reason is assigned for this wholesale dismissal. But each of the 2,000 men thus suddenly thrown out of employment received at his home, in a plain envelope, stamped with the Three Rivers postmark, the sum of one hundred dollars, and a typed slip bearing the name, 'Séverac Bablon.' Mr. Oppner had been approached, but is very reticent upon the subject. There is a rumour circulating here to the effect that he himself is the donor. But I have been unable to obtain confirmation of this."

"It wouldn't be Oppner," spluttered Rohscheimer, appearing, towel in hand. "He's not such a fool! Sounds like one of these 'Yellow' fables to me."

Haredale shrugged his shoulders, dropping the paper on the rug.

"A man at once wealthy and generous is an improbable, but not an impossible, being," he said.

Rohscheimer stared, dully. There were times when he suspected Haredale of being studiously rude to him. He preserved a gloomy silence throughout the rest of the period occupied by his toilet, and in silence descended to the ballroom.

The throng was considerable, and the warmth oppressive at what time Mrs. Rohscheimer's ball was in full swing. Scarcely anyone was dancing, but the walls were well lined, and the crush about the doors suggestive of a cup tie.

"Who's that tall chap with the white hair?" inquired Rohscheimer from the palmy corner to which Haredale discreetly had conveyed him.

"That is the Comte de Noeue," replied his informant; "a distinguished member of the French diplomatic corps."

"We're getting on!" chuckled the millionaire. "He's a good man to have, isn't he Haredale?"

"Highly respectable!" said the latter dryly.

"We don't seem to get the dooks, and so on?"

"The older nobility is highly conservative!" explained Haredale evasively. "But Mrs. Rohscheimer is a recognised leader of the smart set."

Rohscheimer swayed his massive head in bear-like discontent.

"I don't get the hang of this smart set business," he complained. "Aren't the dooks and earls and so on in the smart set?"

"Not strictly so!" answered Haredale, helping himself to brandy-and-soda.

This social conundrum was too much for the millionaire, and he lapsed into heavy silence, to be presently broken with the remark:

"All the Johnnies holding the wall up are alike, Haredale! It's funny I don't know any of 'em! You see them in the sixpenny monthlies, with the girl they're going to marry in the opposite column. Give me their names, will you--starting with the one this end?"

Haredale, intending, good-humouredly, to comply, glanced around the spacious room--only to realise that he, too, was unacquainted with the possibly distinguished company of muralites.

"I rather fancy," he said, "a lot of the people you mean are Discoveries--of Mrs. Rohscheimer's, you know--writers and painters and so forth."

"No, no!" complained the host. "I know all that lot--and they all know me! I mean the nice-looking fellows round the wall! I haven't been introduced, Haredale. They've come in since this waltz started."

Haredale looked again, and his slightly bored expression gave place to one of curiosity. 

CHAPTER II

"THIRTY MEN WHO WERE ALL ALIKE"

The room was so inconveniently crowded that dancing was a mere farce, only kept up by the loyal support of Mrs. Rohscheimer's compatriots. The bulk of the company crowded around in intermingling groups, to the accompaniment of ceaseless shuffling and murmuring which all but drowned the strains of the celebrated orchestra. But lining the wall around was a rank of immaculately groomed gentlemen who seemed to assume a closer formation as Haredale, from behind the palms, observed them.

In two particulars this rank excited his curiosity.

The individuals comprising it were, as Rohscheimer had pointed out, remarkably alike, being all of a conventional Army type; and they were unobtrusively entering, one behind the other, and methodically taking up their places around the room!

Even as he watched, the last man entered, and the big double doors were closed behind him!

"What's this, Haredale?" came a hoarse whisper from Rohscheimer. "Where are these Johnnies comin' from? Does Mrs. R. know they're here?"

"Couldn't say," was the reply. "But it would be a simple matter for a number of impostors to gain access to the house whilst dancing was in progress, provided they came in small parties and looked the part."

"Impostors!" growled Rohscheimer uneasily. "Don't you think they've been invited, then?"

"Well, who shut those doors?" muttered Haredale, leaning across the little table the better to observe what was going forward.

"You don't mean----" began Rohscheimer, and broke off, as the orchestra dashed through the coda of the waltz and ceased.

For stark amazement froze the words upon his tongue.

Coincident with the last pair of dancers performing their final gyration and the hum of voices assuming a louder tone, each of the men standing around the walls produced a brace of revolvers and covered the particular group nearest to him!

The conversational hum rose to a momentary roar, and ceased abruptly. The horns of taxi-cabs passing below could be plainly heard, and the drone and rattle of motor-buses. Men who had done good work in other emergencies looked down the gleaming barrels, back to the crowds of women--and had no inspiration, but merely wondered. Nobody moved. Nobody fainted.

"Held up!" came, in pronounced Kansas, from somewhere amongst the crush.

"Quick!" whispered Haredale. "We're overlooked! Through the conservatory, and----"

"Pardon me!"

Rohscheimer and Haredale turned, together, and each found himself looking directly into the little ring of a revolver's muzzle. A tall, slim figure in faultless evening dress stood behind them, half in the shadows. This mysterious stranger had jet black hair, and wore a black silk half-mask.

The melodramatic absurdity of the thing came home strongly to Haredale. But its harsh reality was equally obvious.

"Perhaps," continued the masked speaker, in a low, refined voice, and with a faint, elusive accent, "you will oblige me, Mr. Rohscheimer, by stepping forward so that your guests can see you? Sir Richard Haredale--may I trouble you?"

Rohscheimer, his heavy features slightly pale, rose unsteadily. Haredale, after a rapid glance about him, rose also, with tightened lips; and the trio moved forward into full view of the assembled company.

"The gentlemen surrounding you," said the man in the mask, slightly raising his voice, "are all sworn to the Cause which I represent. You would, perhaps, term them anarchists!"

An audible shudder passed through the assemblage.

"They are desperate men," he continued, "indifferent to death, and would, without compunction, shoot down everyone present--if I merely raised my hand! Each of them is a social pariah, with a price upon his head. Let no man think this is a jest! Any movement made without my permission will be instantly fatal."

Dzing! went the bell of a bus below. Grr-r-r! went the motor in re-starting. OO-oo! OO-oo! came from the horn of a taxi-cab. And around the wall stood the silent rank with the raised revolvers. 

"I shall call upon those gentlemen whom I consider most philanthropic," resumed the musical voice, "to subscribe to my Cause! Mr. Rohscheimer, your host, will head the list with a diamond stud, valued at one thousand guineas, and two rings, representing, together, three thousand pounds! Place them on that pedestal, Mr. Rohscheimer!"

"I won't do it!" cried the financier, in rising cadence. "I defy you! I----"

"Cut it!" snapped Haredale roughly. "Don't be such a cad as to expose women----" He had caught sight of a pretty, pale face in the throng, that made the idea of these mysterious robbers opening fire doubly, trebly horrible. "It goes against the grain, but hand them over. We can do nothing--yet!"

"Thank you, Sir Richard!" said the masked spokesman, and waved aside the hand with which Haredale proffered his own signet ring. "I have not called upon you, sir! Mr. Hohsmann, your daughters would feel affronted did you not give them an opportunity of appearing upon the subscription list! The necklace and the aigrette will do! I shall post, of course, a formal receipt to Hamilton Place!"

And so the incredible comedy proceeded--until thousands of pounds' worth of jewellery lay upon the pedestal at the foot of a bronze statuette of Pandora!

"The list is closed!" called the spokesman. "Doors!"

Open came the doors at his command, and revealed to those who could see outside, a double rank of evening-dress bandits.

"The company," he resumed, "will pass out in single file to the white drawing-room. Mr. Rohscheimer--will you lead the way?"

In sullen submission out went Rohscheimer, and after him his guests--or, rather, his wife's guests--until that whole brilliant company was packed into the small white room. Someone had thoughtfully closed the shutters of the windows giving on Park Lane, and securely screwed them; so that, when the last straggler had entered, and the door was shut, they were in a trap!

"Listen, everybody!" came Haredale's voice. "Keep cool! You fellows by the door--get your shoulders to it!"

At his words, the men standing nearest to the door turned to execute these instructions, and were confronted by the following type-written notice pinned upon the white panels:--

"A detailed subscription list will appear in the leading papers to-morrow, and it will doubtless relieve and gratify subscribers to learn that the revolvers were not loaded!" 

There was little delay after that. Within sixty seconds the door was open; within three minutes the wires were humming with the astounding news.

Tom Sheard, his work completed, was about to leave the Gleaner office, when-- 

"Sheard!" shouted the news editor from an upper landing. "Amazing business at Rohscheimer's in Park Lane! Robbery! Brigands! Terrific! Off you go! Taxi!"

And off went Sheard without delay.

He entered Park Lane, to find that part of the thoroughfare adjacent to the financier's house packed with vehicles of all sorts and sizes. Women in full dress, pressmen, policemen, loafers, were pouring out and rushing in to Mr. Rohscheimer's residence! Never before was such a scene witnessed at that hour of the night in Park Lane.

As he passed under the awning, pressing his way towards the steps, he encountered an excited young gentleman who wore a closed opera hat, but was evidently ignorant of his interesting appearance. This young gentleman he chanced to know, and having rectified the irregularity in his toilet, from him he secured some splendid copy.

"You see, I just dropped in to take a look round, and as I strolled up a mob of jokers jumped out of a cab just in front of me, and we all crawled in together, sort of thing. I happened to notice a footman going upstairs and two of the jokers I spoke about behind him. They were laughing, and so forth, and he was just on the first landing, when they nabbed him from behind--positive fact!--and threw the chap down on his face! I'm thinking it's a poor kind of joke when the other two fellows jolly well nobble me! Before I know what's up, I'm pushed into an anteroom or somewhere, and I hear these chaps banging the front door and running upstairs! I should have sung out like steam, only they'd handcuffed me wrong way round and tied a beastly cork arrangement in my mouth! 

"Just before I burst a blood-vessel it occurred to me that I might as well keep quiet; so I sat on the floor listening; but I didn't hear anything for what seemed like an hour! Then there was a mob of fellows came downstairs--and the door opened. They seemed to slip out in twos and threes from what I could gather, and by the time they'd nearly all gone a perfect pandemonium broke out, upstairs and down!

"The servants--who'd all been locked in the cellar--got out first. Then Haredale came bounding downstairs, and, luckily for me, heard me kicking at the door. Then everybody was rushing about! Rohscheimer was bawling in the telephone! Some other chap was rushing for a doctor--for Adeler, who got knocked on the head in the library. Now here's the wretched police arresting everybody who looks as though he'd been in the Army! That's all the beastly description anyone can give! They suspected Dick Langley the minute they saw him, because he's got a military appearance! And I shouldn't be surprised to hear that they'd arrested every fellow in the Guards' Club!

"Here's the thing, though: they've all got clean away! With about forty thousand pounds' worth of jewellery! It's a preposterous sort of thing, isn't it?"

Sheard agreed that it was the most preposterous sort of thing imaginable; and, leaving his excited acquaintance, he set out to seek further particulars. But very few were forthcoming.

As to the manner in which the clique had obtained admission, that called for little explanation. They had simply presented themselves, armed with invitations, singly and in small parties, whilst dancing was in progress, and in a house open to such mixed society had been admitted without arousing suspicion. There was little that was obscure or inexplicable in the coup; it was an amazing display of force majeure, an act of stark audacity. It pointed to the existence in London of a hitherto unsuspected genius. Such was Sheard's opinion. 

From an American guest, who had kept perfectly cool during the "hold-up," and had quietly taken stock of the robbers, he learnt that, exclusive of the spokesman, they numbered exactly thirty; were much of a similar build, being well-set-up men of military bearing; and, most extraordinary circumstance, were facially all alike!

"Gee! but it's a fact!" declared his informant. "They all had moderate fair hair, worn short and parted left-centre, neat blonde moustaches, and fresh complexions, and the whole thirty were like as beans!"

Two other interesting facts Sheard elicited from Adeler, who wore a white bandage about his damaged skull. The whole of the guests victimised were compatriots of their host.

"It is from those who are of my nation that they have taken all their booty," he said, smiling. "This daring robber has evidently strong racial prejudices! Then, each of the victims had received, during the past month threatening letters demanding money for various charities. These letters did not emanate from the institutions named, but were anonymous appeals. The point seems worth notice."

And so, armed with the usual police assurance that several sensational arrests might be expected in the morning, Sheard departed with this enthralling copy hot for the machines that had been stopped to take it.

When, thoroughly tired, he again quitted the Gleaner office, it was to direct his weary footsteps towards the Embankment and the all-night car that should bear him home. 

Crossing Tallis Street, he became aware of a confused murmur proceeding from somewhere ahead, and as he approached nearer to the river this took definite form and proclaimed itself a chaotic chorus of human voices.

As he came out on to the Embankment an extraordinary scene presented itself.

Directly in his path stood a ragged object--a piece of social flotsam--a unit of London's misery. This poor filthy fellow was singing at the top of his voice, a music-hall song upon that fertile topic, "the girls," was dancing wildly around a dilapidated hat which stood upon the pavement at his feet, and was throwing sovereigns into this same hat from an apparently inexhaustible store in his coat pocket!

Seeing Sheard standing watching him, he changed his tune and burst into an extempore lyric, "The quids! The quids! The golden quids--the quids!" and so on, until, filled with a sudden hot suspicion, he snatched up his hat, with its jingling contents, hugged it to his breast, and ran like the wind! 

Following him with his eyes as he made off towards Waterloo Bridge, the bewildered pressman all but came to the conclusion that he was the victim of a weird hallucination.

For the night was filled with the songs, the shouts, the curses, the screams, of a ragged army of wretches who threw up gold in the air--who juggled with gold--who played pitch-and-toss with gold--who ran with great handfuls of gold clutched to their bosoms--who pursued one another for gold--who fought to defend the gold they had gained--who wept for the gold they had lost.

One poor old woman knelt at the kerb, counting bright sovereigns into neat little piles, and perfectly indifferent to the advice of a kindly policeman, who, though evidently half dazed with the wonders of the night, urged her to get along to a safer place.

Two dilapidated tramps, one of whom wore a battered straw hat, whilst his friend held an ancient green parasol over his bare head, appeared arm-in-arm, displaying much elegance of deportment, and, hailing a passing cab, gave the address, "Savoy," with great aplomb.

Fights were plentiful, and the available police were kept busy arresting the combatants. Two officers passed Sheard, escorting a lean, ragged individual whose pockets jingled as he walked, and who spoke of the displeasure with which this unseemly arrest would fill "his people."

Presently a bewildered Salvation Army official appeared. Sheard promptly buttonholed him.

"Don't ask me, sir!" he said, in response to the obvious question. "Heaven only knows what it is about! But I can tell you this much: no less than forty thousand pounds has been given away on the Embankment to-night! And in gold! Such an incredible example of ill-considered generosity I've never heard of! More harm has been done to our work to-night than we can hope to rectify in a twelvemonth! 

"Of course, it will do good in a few, a very few, cases. But, on the whole, it will do, I may say, incalculable harm. How was it distributed? In little paper bags, like those used by the banks. It sent half the poor fellows crazy! Just imagine--a broken-down wretch who'd lived on the verge of starvation for, maybe, years, suddenly has a bag of sovereigns put into his hand! Good heavens! what madness!"

"Who did the distributing?"

"That's the curious part of it! The bags were distributed by a number of men wearing the dark overcoats and uniform caps of the Salvation Army! That's how they managed to get through with the business without arousing the curiosity of the police. I don't know how many of them there were, but I should imagine twenty or thirty. They were through with it and gone before we woke up to what they had done!"

Sheard thanked him for his information, stood a moment, irresolute; and turned back once more to the Gleaner office. 

* * * * *

Thus, then, did a strange personality announce his coming and flood the British press with adjectives.

The sensation created, on the following day, by the news of the Park Lane robbery was no greater than that occasioned by the news of the extraordinary Embankment affair.

"What do we deduce," demanded a talkative and obtrusively clever person in a late City train, "from the circumstance that all thirty of the Park Lane brigands were alike?"

"Obviously," replied a quiet voice, "that it was a 'make-up.' Thirty identical wigs, thirty identical moustaches, and the same grease-paint!"

A singularly handsome man was the speaker. He was dark, masterful, and had notably piercing eyes. The clever person became silent.

"Being all made up as a very common type of man-about-town," continued this striking-looking stranger, "they would pass unnoticed anywhere. If the police are looking for thirty blonde men of similar appearance they are childishly wasting their time. They are wasting their time in any event--as the future will show."

Everyone in the carriage was listening now, and a man in a corner asked: "Do you think there is any connection between the Park Lane and Embankment affairs, sir?"

"Think!" smiled the other, rising as the train slowed into Ludgate Hill. "You evidently have not seen this."

He handed his questioner an early edition of an evening paper, and with a terse "Good morning," left the carriage.

Glaringly displayed on the front page was the following:

WHO IS HE?

"We received early this morning the following advertisement, prepaid in cash, and insert it here by reason of the great interest which we feel sure it will possess for our readers:

"'On Behalf of the Poor Ones of the Embankment, I thank the following philanthropists for their generous donations:"

(Here followed a list of those guests of Mrs. Rohscheimer's who had been victimised upon the previous night, headed with the name of Julius Rohscheimer himself; and beside each name appeared an amount representing the value of the article, or articles, appropriated.) 

"'They may rest assured that not one halfpenny has been deducted for working expenses. In fact, when the donations come to be realised the Operative may be the loser. But no matter. "Expend your money in pious uses, either voluntarily or by constraint."

"'(Signed) Séverac Bablon.'"

The paper was passed around in silence.

"That fellow seemed to know a lot about it!" said someone.

None of the men replied; but each looked at the other strangely--and wondered. 

CHAPTER III

MIDNIGHT--AND THE MAN

The next two days were busy ones for Sheard, who, from a variety of causes--the chief being his intimacy with the little circle which, whether it would or not, gathered around Mr. Julius Rohscheimer--found himself involved in the mystery of Séverac Bablon. He had interviewed this man and that, endeavouring to obtain some coherent story of the great "hold up," but with little success. Everything was a mysterious maze, and Scotland Yard was without any clue that might lead to the solution. All the Fleet Street crime specialists had advanced theories, and now, on the night of the third day after the audacious robbery, Sheard was contributing his theory to the Sunday newspaper for which he worked.

The subject of his article was the identity of Séverac Bablon, whom Sheard was endeavouring to prove to be not an individual, but a society; a society, so he argued, formed for the immolation of Capital upon the altars of Demos.

The course of reasoning that he had taken up proved more elusive than he had anticipated.

His bundle of notes lay before him on the table. The news of the latest outrage, the burning of the great Runek Mills in Ontario, had served to convince him that his solution was the right one; yet he could make no headway, and the labours of the last day or so had left him tired and drowsy.

He left his table and sank into an arm-chair by the study fire, knocking out his briar on a coal and carefully refilling and lighting that invaluable collaborator. With his data presently arranged in better mental order, he returned to the table and covered page after page with facile reasoning. Then the drowsiness which he could not altogether shake off crept upon him again, and staring at the words "Such societies have existed in fiction, now we have one existing in fact," he dropped into a doze--as the clock in the hall struck one.

When he awoke, with his chin on his breast, it was to observe, firstly, that the MS. no longer lay on the pad, and, secondly, on looking up, that a stranger sat in the arm-chair, opposite, reading it!

"Who----" began Sheard, starting to his feet.

Whereupon the stranger raised a white, protesting hand.

"Give me but one moment's grace, Mr. Sheard," he said quietly, "and I will at once apologise and explain!"

"What do you mean?" rapped the journalist. "How dare you enter my house in this way, and----" He broke off from sheer lack of words, for this calm, scrupulously dressed intruder was something outside the zone of things comprehensible.

In person he was slender, but of his height it was impossible to judge accurately whilst he remained seated. He was perfectly attired in evening-dress, and wore a heavy, fur-lined coat. A silk hat, by an eminent hatter, stood upon Sheard's writing-table, a pair of gloves beside it. A gold-mounted ebony walking-stick was propped against the fireplace. But the notable and unusual characteristic of the man was his face. Its beauty was literally amazing. Sheard, who had studied black-and-white, told himself that here was an ideal head--that of Apollo himself.

And this extraordinary man, with his absolutely flawless features composed, and his large, luminous eyes half closed, lounged in Sheard's study at half-past one in the early morning and toyed with an unfinished manuscript--like some old and privileged friend who had dropped in for a chat.

"Look here!" said the outraged pressman, stepping around the table as the calm effrontery of the thing burst fully upon him. "Get out! Now!" 

"Mr. Sheard," said the other, "if I apologise frankly and fully for my intrusion, will you permit me to give my reasons for it?"

Sheard again found himself inarticulate. He was angrily conscious of a vague disquiet. The visitor's suave courtesy under circumstances so utterly unusual disarmed him, as it must have disarmed any average man similarly situated. For a moment his left fist clenched, his mind swung in the balance, irresolute. The other turned back a loose page and quietly resumed his perusal of the manuscript.

That decided Sheard's attitude, and he laughed.

Whereat the stranger again raised the protestant hand.

"We shall awake Mrs. Sheard!" he said solicitously. "And now, as I see you have decided to give me a hearing, let me begin by offering you my sincere apology for entering your house uninvited."

Sheard, his mind filled with a sense of phantasy, dropped into a chair opposite the visitor, reached into the cabinet at his elbow, and proffered a box of Turkish cigarettes.

"Your methods place you beyond the reach of ordinary castigation," he said. "I don't know your name and I don't know your business; but I honestly admire your stark impudence!"

"Very well," replied the other in his quiet, melodious voice, with its faint, elusive accent. "A compliment is intended, and I thank you! And now, I see you are wondering how I obtained admittance. Yet it is so simple. Your front door is not bolted, and Mrs. Sheard, but a few days since, had the misfortune to lose a key. You recollect? I found that key! Is it enough?"

"Quite enough!" said Sheard grimly. "But why go to the trouble? What do you want?"

"I want to insure that one, at least, of the influential dailies shall not persistently misrepresent my actions!"

"Then who----" began Sheard, and got no farther; for the stranger handed him a card--

SÉVERAC BABLON

"You see," continued the man already notorious in two continents, "your paper, here, is inaccurate in several important particulars! Your premises are incorrect, and your inferences consequently wrong!"

Sheard stared at him, silent, astounded.

"I have been described in the Press of England and America as an incendiary, because I burned the Runek Mills; as a maniac, because I compensated men cruelly thrown out of employment; as a thief, because I took from the rich in Park Lane and gave to the poor on the Embankment. I say that this is unjust!"

His eyes gleamed into a sudden blaze. The delicate, white hand that held Sheard's manuscript gripped it so harshly that the paper was crushed into a ball. That Séverac Bablon was mad seemed an unavoidable conclusion; that he was forceful, dominant, a power to be counted with, was a truth legible in every line of his fine features, in every vibrant tone of his voice, in the fire of his eyes. The air of the study seemed charged with his electric passion.

Then, in an instant, he regained his former calm. Rising to his feet, he threw off the heavy coat he wore and stood, a tall, handsome figure, with his hands spread out, interrogatively.

"Do I look such a man?" he demanded.

Despite the theatrical savour of the thing, Sheard could not but feel the real sincerity of his appeal; and, as he stared, wondering, at the fine brow, the widely-opened eyes, the keen nostrils and delicate yet indomitable mouth and chin, he was forced to admit that here was no mere up-to-date cracksman, but something else, something more. "Is he mad?" flashed again through his mind.

"No!" smiled Séverac Bablon, dropping back into the chair; "I am as sane as you yourself!"

"Have I questioned it?"

"With your eyes and the left corner of your mouth, yes!" Sheard was silent.

"I shall not weary you with a detailed exculpation of my acts," continued his visitor; "but you have a list on your table, no doubt, of the people whom I forced to assist the Embankment poor?"

Sheard nodded.

"Mention but one whose name has ever before been associated with charity; I mean the charity that has no relation to advertisement! You are silent! You say"--glancing over the unfinished article--"that 'this was a capricious burlesque of true philanthropy.' I reply that it served its purpose--of proclaiming my arrival in London and of clearly demonstrating the purpose of my coming! You ask who are my accomplices! I answer--they are as the sands of the desert! You seek to learn who I am. Seek, rather, to learn what I am!" 

"Why have you selected me for this--honour?"

"I overheard some remarks of yours, contrasting a restaurant supper-room with the Embankment which appealed to me! But, to come to the point, do you believe me to be a rogue?"

Sheard smiled a trifle uneasily.

"You are doubtful," the other continued. "It has entered your mind that a proper course would be to ring up Scotland Yard! Instead, come with me! I will show you how little you know of me and of what I can do. I will show you that no door is closed to me! Why do you hesitate? You shall be home again, safe, within two hours. I pledge my word!"

Possessing the true journalistic soul, Sheard was sorely tempted; for to the passion of the copy-hunter such an invitation could not fail in its appeal. With only a momentary hesitation, he stood up.

"I'll come!" he said.

A smart landaulette stood waiting outside the house; and, without a word to the chauffeur, Séverac Bablon opened the door and entered after Sheard. The motor immediately started, and the car moved off silently. The blinds were drawn.

"You will have to trust yourself implicitly in my hands," said Sheard's extraordinary companion. "In a moment I shall ask you to fasten your handkerchief about your eyes and to give me your word that you are securely blindfolded!"

"Is it necessary?"

"Quite! Are you nervous?"

"No!"--shortly.

There was a brief interval of silence, during which the car, as well as it was possible to judge, whirled through the deserted streets at a furious speed.

"Will you oblige me?" came the musical voice.

The journalist took out his pocket-handkerchief, and making it into a bandage, tied it firmly about his head.

"Are you ready?" asked Séverac Bablon.

"Yes."

A click told of a raised blind.

"Can you see?"

"Not a thing!"

"Then take my hand and follow quickly. Do not speak; do not stumble!"

Cautiously feeling his way, Sheard, one hand clasping that of his guide, stepped out into the keen night air, and was assisted by some third person--probably the chauffeur--on to the roof of the car!

"Be silent!" from Séverac Bablon. "Fear nothing! Step forward as your feet will be directed and trust implicitly to me!"

As a man in a dream Sheard stood there--on the roof of a motor-car, in a London street--and waited. There came dimly to his ears, and from no great distance, the sound of late traffic along what he judged to be a main road. But immediately about him quiet reigned. They were evidently in some deserted back-water of a great thoroughfare. A faint scuffling sound arose, followed by that of someone lightly dropping upon a stone pavement.

Then an arm was slipped about him and he was directed, in a whisper, to step forward. He found his foot upon what he thought to be a flat railing. His ankle was grasped from below and the voice of Séverac Bablon came, "On to my shoulders--so!"

Still with the supporting arm about him, he stepped gingerly forward--and stood upon the shoulders of the man below.

"Stand quite rigidly!" said Séverac Bablon.

He obeyed; and was lifted, lightly as a feather, and deposited upon the ground! It was such a feat as he had seen professional athletes perform, and he marvelled at the physical strength of his companion.

A keen zest for this extravagant adventure seized him. He thought that it must be good to be a burglar. Then, as he heard the motor re-started and the car move off, a sudden qualm of disquiet came; for it was tantamount to burning one's boats.