The Place of Dragons by William le Queux — Read

I stood there aghast, staggered, open-mouthed. The man was walking slowly towards the house whence issued the gay _chanson_, the house where, in the great bay window, shone a bright light across the tiny strip of lawn which separated it from the roadway.

I watched him like a man in a dream. As he approached the house he trod lightly on tip-toe, unaware of my presence behind the bushes. In a flash the recollections of that strange affair by the North Sea, in Cromer, recurred to me. I remembered that green-painted seat upon the cliff, where the coast-guard, in the early dawn, had found him lying dead, of his strange disguise, and of the coroner's inquiry which followed. I remembered too, all too well, the puzzling incidents which followed; the presence of the notorious Jeanjean in that quiet little cliff-resort; the disappearance of the man of master-mind; the discovery of his hoard of gold and gems, and how, subsequently, it had been spirited away in a manner which had absolutely flabbergasted the astute members of the Norfolk Constabulary, unused as they were to cases of ingenious crime.