William Le Queux - The Place of Dragons - A Mystery

My thoughts were of Lola. Phew! Had ever man such a strange reverie as I had in those moments when I halted, pretending to look into the shop-window of the jeweller at the corner – yet all the time watching in the direction of the door of the post-office!

To go back would betray recognition, so I was compelled to go forward – to the hotel.

I did not, however, allow the grass to grow beneath my feet. That night, instead of dining at the hotel, I ate a sandwich in the bar of the Albion , and soon discovered that the man I had seen passing Cromer Church was living in apartments in the Overstrand Road, the aristocratic quarter of Cromer, close to the Doctor's steps.

I had kept careful watch all the evening. First, quite unconcernedly, he had strolled along the East Cliff, past the seat where the man, now dead, had sat early on that fatal morning. I had followed, and had watched.

He paused close by, ostensibly to light a cigarette with a patent lighter, then, after covertly making observations, he went on away to the edge of the links, and up the path near the Links Hotel , where he gained the Overstrand Road.

The evening was clear and bright, the sundown across the North Sea a blaze of crimson and gold. There were many promenaders along that well-trodden path, yet it required the exercise of all my cunning to escape the observation of the shrewd and clever man I was following.

At eight o'clock he entered his lodging. Half an hour later, as I lounged past, I saw him seated at dinner between two elderly women, laughing with that easy-going cosmopolitan air – that foreign charm of his, which had carried him through so many strange adventures.

Then I waited – waited until dusk deepened into night. Silent, and without wind, the summer air was fresh and invigorating after the oppressiveness of the day. The street-lamps were lit, yet I still remained watching, and ever on the alert.

The Norfolk constabulary were observing the old, slow, stereotyped, routine methods of police investigation, as I had expected them to do.

I alone had scented the clue to the mystery.

Not a sign had been seen of the cunning old fugitive. Telegrams had been dispatched by the dozen. Scotland Yard had been, of course, "informed," but information from the country is there but lightly considered. Therefore, in all probability, the shrewd old man, who had so cleverly imposed upon the good people of Cromer, was by that time across the Channel.

But, would he leave that splendid treasure of his behind?

All through that evening I waited in patience in the Overstrand Road – waited to see if Jules Jeanjean would come forth again.

At half-past ten, when the moon was shining brightly over the calm sea, I saw him come out, wearing a soft grey felt hat and light drab overcoat. He laughed at the neat maid who opened the door for him, and instinctively put his hand to his hat to raise it, as foreigners so often do.

Instead of walking towards the town, as I had expected, he turned in the direction of Suffield Park, the pretty suburb of Cromer, and actually passed within a few yards of where I was crouching behind the laurel hedge of somebody's front garden.

I allowed him to get some distance ahead, then, treading lightly upon my rubber heels, swiftly followed.

He made in the direction of the great Eastern Railway Station, until he came to the arch where the line crosses the road, when from the shadow there crept silently another figure of a man.

At that hour, and at that point, all was deserted. From where I stood I could see the lights of the great Links Hotel high up, dominating the landscape, and nearer were the long, slowly-moving shafts of extreme brilliance, shining from the lighthouse as a warning to mariners on the North Sea.

Jules Jeanjean, the man of a hundred adventures, met the stranger. It was a tryst, most certainly. Under the shadow of a wall I drew back, and watched the pair with eager interest. They whispered, and it was apparent that they were discussing some very serious and weighty matter. Of necessity I was so far away that I could not distinguish the features of the stranger. All I could see was that he was very well dressed, and wore dark clothes, a straw hat, and carried a cane.

Together they walked slowly in the shadow. Jeanjean had linked his arm in that of the stranger, who seemed young and athletic, and was talking very earnestly – perhaps relating what had occurred at the inquest that afternoon, for, though I had not seen him there, I suspected that he might have been present.

I saw Jeanjean give something to his companion, but I could not detect what it was. Something he took very slowly and carefully from his pocket and handed it to the young man, who at first hesitated to accept it, and only did so after Jeanjean's repeated and firm insistence.

It was as though the man I had recognized that afternoon in Cromer was bending the other by his dominant personality – compelling him to act against his will.

And as I stood there I wondered whether after all Jeanjean had actually recognized me when we met in Church Square – or whether he had been struck merely by what he deemed a chance resemblance, and had passed me by without further thought.

Had he recognized me I do not think he would have dared to remain in Cromer a single hour. Hence, I hoped he had not. The fact would render my work of investigation a thousandfold easier.

Presently, after a full quarter of an hour's conversation, the pair strolled together along the moonlit road back towards the town, which at that hour was wrapped in slumber.

By a circuitous route they reached the narrow street at the back of the house where old Mr. Gregory and his nephew had lived, and, after passing and repassing it several times, returned by the way they had come.

Near the railway bridge, where Jeanjean had first met the stranger, both paused and had another earnest conversation. More than once in the lamplight I had caught sight of the man's face, a keen face, with dark moustache, and sharp, dark eyes. He had a quick, agile gait, and I judged him to be about eight-and-twenty.

Presently the two walked out beyond the arch, and I saw the younger man go behind a hedge, from which he wheeled forth a motor-cycle that had been concealed there. They bade each other adieu, and then, starting his engine, the stranger mounted the machine, and next moment was speeding towards Norwich without having lit his lamp, possibly having forgotten to do so in his hurry to get away.

The Frenchman watched his friend depart, then, leisurely lighting a cigarette, turned and went back to the house in Overstrand Road where he had taken up his temporary abode.

It was half-past two when the night-porter at the Hôtel de Paris admitted me, and until the sun had risen over the sea, I sat at my open window, smoking, and thinking.

The discovery that Jules Jeanjean was in that little East Coast town was to me utterly amazing. What was his business in Cromer?

A wire to the Sûreté in Paris, stating his whereabouts, would, I knew, create no end of commotion, and Inspector Treeton would no doubt receive urgent orders by telegram from London for the arrest of the seemingly inoffensive man with the jaunty, foreign air.

The little town of Cromer, seething with excitement over the mysterious murder of Edward Craig, little dreamed that it now harboured one of the most dangerous criminals of modern times.

Next day, in the hotel, I was asked on every hand my opinion in regard to the East Cliff murder mystery. The evidence at the inquest was given verbatim in the Norwich papers, and every one was reading it. By reason of my writings, I suppose, I had earned a reputation as a seeker-out of mystery. But to all inquirers I now expressed my inability to theorize on the affair, and carefully preserved an attitude of amazed ignorance.