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Updated: June 21, 2025
Could it really be possible, was what I kept wondering, that this smooth-spoken, pleasant-mannered man was actually a criminal? Again Harold Logan's dying eyes stared into mine; again I saw him struggling to speak; again I heard those ominous words, almost the last words he had spoken before his spirit had passed into Eternity: "Hugesson Gastrell don't forget that name, Sir Roland.
And this thought, I must say, perplexed me as much as any. Hugesson Gastrell was said to have spent the whole of his life, until six months previously, in Australia and Tasmania. If that were so, then how did he come to have so large a circle of friends, or at any rate of acquaintances acquaintances, too, of such distinction and high position?
We dined at a round table, and almost facing me were two unintelligent-looking women I had heard their names, but the names conveyed nothing to me. These women, both past middle age, somehow had the appearance of being extremely rich. They sat on either side of Hugesson Gastrell, whose conversation appeared to be amusing them immensely.
I wonder if it is the man I met in Geneva and that you say you met on board ship. When did you land?" "Yesterday, at Southampton. Came by the Masonic from Capetown." "And where did Gastrell come from?" "Capetown too. I didn't notice him until we were near the end of the voyage. He must have remained below a good deal, I think." I paused, thinking.
An arrow shot at random, it proved a lucky shot, for the maid answered at once: "Mrs. Stapleton isn't dressed yet, sir; but Mr. Gastrell can see you, I expect. What name shall I say?" I was shown into a small morning room, and there I waited for, I suppose, five minutes. At last I heard footsteps approaching, and in a moment Gastrell entered.
To right and left I looked along the road, but the blackness was as dense as the blackness of the sky above. The lamps of the car had been extinguished. Now the only light visible was the glow of the electric torch. For a moment it flashed upon a face, and on the instant I recognized Gastrell, also a man I knew by sight though not by name.
That locket Sir Roland had appropriated in order that the dead man's identity might not be traced and the family name tarnished. Jasmine Gastrell must of course be aware of his identity? Did she suspect that I knew his name, and could this be an attempt to entrap me into revealing that I knew it? "That is a question difficult to answer," I said guardedly.
Upon our arrival at the "Continental" I discovered that Gastrell and Connie Stapleton's friends numbered no less than twelve, without counting Lady Fitzgraham or myself, so that in all we were sixteen. Of the people I had met before, whom I believed to be members of the gang, only Jasmine Gastrell was absent. What most puzzled me was what the reason could be they had all come to Paris.
In point of fact I, too, mistrusted this man Gastrell. Though he had looked me so straight in the eyes when, two hours before, he had calmly assured me that I was mistaken in believing him to be "his namesake in Geneva," as he put it; still, as I say, I felt convinced he was the same man. "Good," Osborne answered in a tone of satisfaction. "Come, we will start at once."
There was the incident, for instance, of Sir Harry Dawson's declaring in a letter written to Lord Easterton from the Riviera that he had never met Gastrell, never heard of him even, though Lord Easterton had Gastrell's assurance that he knew Sir Harry Dawson and had intended to call upon him on the evening he had unwittingly entered Lord Easterton's house, which was next door.
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