"Well," he explained, "it's giving things away a bit, but to one's
lawyer I don't know as it matters. I'm a kind o' provider of men as
can be trusted to give any one a clout on the side of the 'ead and no
questions arst. I could lay my hand at the present moment on some
titty of 'em, good to give any ordinary person a dom'. Why, the third
night after yon chap'd come to me, I'd twenty-five of 'em out, all
asking the same question, at ten bob a time. It cost 'im a bit."
"But where on earth did he get the money?" Aaron Rodd asked. "He was
broke when we met him first."
"I financed him," Jacob Potts confessed. "I tell you the idea fair
tickled me. I found the coin and he paid me back like a gentleman. I
only sends 'em out now when we're slack with other work, but whenever
we 'ave a little affair doing, whatever the cost may be, we always
commence it the same way--''Ave you read Stephen Cresswell's poems?'
'No,'--and then biff!"
The publican leaned back in his chair and his fat body shook with
laughter. He mopped the tears from his eyes with a big red bandanna
handkerchief.
"To think of meeting 'im 'ere!" he murmured weakly. "You see, we 'as
our jokes even in the serious professions. Not that I ever let my boys
go too far," he concluded, "and I keep 'em out of trouble as much as I
can. That's why I want to know the law about this sea business."
Aaron Rodd read him extracts from the volume he had brought back, and
explained several doubtful points. The publican's face was a little
grave when he had finished.
"I ain't at all sure," he decided, "that I fancy trusting any of my
best boys with this job, and I loathe foreigners, any way."
"Well, I won't ask you any questions," Aaron Rodd said, "but if you
want any free advice, here it is. You've made plenty of money. I
should keep friends with the law, if I were you. You can't employ such
a band of ruffians as you've been talking about, and not find a wrong
'un amongst them now and then."
"If one o' my lads," Jacob Potts declared solemnly, "was to squeal, I
tell you the rest would be on 'im like a pack of fox'ounds on a fox.
They'd tear 'im limb from limb, that's wot they'd do."
"That wouldn't do you a great deal of good if you were in prison,"
Aaron Rodd reminded him. "However, you know the law now."
"I know it, and I ain't sweet on the job," Mr. Jacob Potts confessed.
"'Owsomever! Good morning to you, Mr. Rodd, and much obliged. You'll
add your little bit on to my quarterly account.... Wot 'o, another
client!" he added. "I'm toddling."
He shook hands with his adviser and reached the door just as it was
opened and Henriette entered. He stood for a moment as though
stupefied. Then, as he disappeared through the doorway, he turned
round and winked solemnly at Aaron.
"Wishing you good morning, guv'nor!" he said as he closed the door.
Curiously enough, as on that first morning when, they had met in the
Embankment Gardens, a little ray of wintry sunshine, which had stolen
in through the dusty, uncurtained windows, lay between them. Aaron
Rodd, whose first impulse had been one of joy at this unexpected visit,
stopped suddenly in his progress across the room. There was something
so entirely different about her, a change so absolute and mystifying.
The faintly supercilious deportment and expression of the young woman
of the world, carrying herself so easily and with such natural grace
and self-possession, seemed to have deserted her. She was suddenly a
frightened child seeking for shelter, and with a lightning-like effort
of imagination he seemed to see her flying for sanctuary from those
terrors of which he had already warned her.
"Is anything wrong?" he enquired quickly--"anything fresh, I mean?"
She sank into his chair. She was panting a little, as though she had
been hurrying.
"I am afraid!" she confessed. "I am terrified! Give me your hand to
hold, and listen."
She gripped his strong fingers. They both almost held their breaths.
There was no sound except the distant rumble of traffic. By degrees
she grew calmer.
"You are not worrying about my errand?" he asked anxiously. "You know
what happened to me?"
"It isn't that," she told him simply. "That was all planned
beforehand. You didn't mind?"
"Of course not," he assured her.
"It is something which happened before I came to England," she went on,
"something terrible, something from which it seems to me I can never
escape. Listen.... I must tell you one day--I shall tell you now.
Leopold has always been fortunate, but the luck went against me one
day. I was face to face with detection. I had the whole of the jewels
in my possession. I was confronted with the worst. I hadn't time to
think. I killed the man who would have brought ruin on all of us,
and--and, on me, worse than ruin.... Do you hear?--I killed him!"
Aaron Rodd sat speechless. She seemed so small and delicate-looking.
It was incredible!
"He was a great man, a colonel in the Prussian Guards. He had high
connections, some of them Belgian. The threats of his people reached
my ears even before I had escaped. They swore to get me back into
Belgium, and if I were once there, God knows what would happen to me!
At first, when I reached London, I felt safe. I managed to become
attached to the household of Madame. Surely in London was sanctuary!
And lately I have felt different. This man--I will not tell you his
name--he is connected even with the family of Madame herself. I begin
to fear that they have suspicions. The Princess has been cold to me
lately. There are several others in the household who seem to look
askance at me. I have had letters from relatives in Belgium, inviting
me to go back. Some of them, I know, have been forgeries. During the
last few days I have been followed about. Only yesterday there was a
little fog. I was in the square, near the corner of Brook Street.
Suddenly I heard swift footsteps just behind me, there was a whistle, a
taxicab drove up by the kerb. There was a man in it, sitting back in
the corner. I saw his face--it was cruel, horrible! I could hear
another man running from out of the fog towards me. I knew what they
wanted--to thrust me into the taxicab. And just at that moment I
shrieked, and two strangers came from one of the big houses and I clung
to them. The taxicab drove off and the man seemed to melt away. The
two gentlemen thought I was mad. They escorted me to another taxicab.
Since then I dare not move alone."
"How did you come here?" he asked.
"In one of Madame's cars. It waits for me outside. Even at the corner
of this street there were two men who frightened me. To-day my week of
service is up with Madame. She has not encouraged me to stay longer.
She looks at me with the eyes of suspicion. And at the Milan Court I
am afraid! My grandfather is so old--the world is finished for him.
And Leopold is so cold and mysterious. He comes and goes with never a
word.... There! You see what has happened to me!" she exclaimed, with
a little quaver in her tone. "I have lost my nerve. And I have been
brave, Monsieur Aaron Rodd--believe me, I have been brave."
"Of course you have," he answered encouragingly, "and of, course you
will continue to be brave. You must not fancy things. Believe me, you
are safe here--safe, at least, against being sent back to Belgium
against your will. The fears for you and about you----"
"Well, what are they?" she interrupted anxiously. "Tell me about them?"
"These diamonds," he continued slowly. "If I might venture to say so,
it seems to me that your brother is making a mistake in dragging you
into the affair at all. We could have done our business with him and
left you out of it."
"But he is watched every hour of the day," she explained. "They cannot
find the jewels, and they can prove nothing against him unless they do
find them, but they know very well that soon he must dispose of them,
and they never willingly let him out of their sight. Besides, we are
all to share in the proceeds. Why should we not take a little of the
risk? Oh, believe me," she went on eagerly, "I can face anything that
comes to me through the jewels. It is the other thing I am afraid of.
I cannot speak even to you of that awful moment. The man who guessed
our secret--he offered silence. We were alone...."
She broke off suddenly, absolutely incapable of speech. She was white
almost to the lips. Her eyes were filled with reminiscent horror. He
leaned over and took her hands once more a little clumsily in his.
"Don't think of it," he begged. "That part of it, at any rate, is done
with. One must fight for what one has, for the sake of others."
"I know--I know!" she agreed, trying to smile at him. "But tell me
again--there isn't any way, is there, that the Belgian authorities--I
suppose they do still control their own law-courts--could be cajoled
into having me sent back? I am frightened. I begin to wonder whether
these men, who I am sure have been watching me, are emissaries from the
foreign police."
He smiled reassuringly.
"Not a chance," he declared. "They have something else to do just now.
Believe me, you are frightening yourself about nothing. If you are
being watched, and I should think it extremely probable that you are
being watched, it is simply because you are living under the same roof
as your brother and because you are an exceedingly likely medium for
the disposal of the jewels."
"If I were sure that that was all!" she murmured.
"It is all," he told her confidently. "There! Besides, in that other
case, remember that you are not friendless. I don't think I need tell
you," he went on, a little awkwardly, "that if there were any way I
could help, any way I could ensure your safety, it would make me very
happy."
"I think that I felt that," she answered softly. "I think that that is
why I came to you. Leopold has gone to one of his hiding-places--I do
not know where--and he will not be back for several days. Please do
not go far away. Be where I can telephone to you, or come."
"I wouldn't ask anything better," he promised.
Her eyes glowed for a moment. She gave him her hand impulsively, and
he was dizzy with the strangeness and the joy of it. He had been so
long debarred from intercourse with her sex that femininity was making
a late but extraordinarily subtle appeal to him. He found himself,
even in the moment when he was studying the colour of her eyes,
counting the wasted years of his life, remembering with a sick regret
the lines upon his face, the streak of grey in his hair.
"You are going back now to the Milan?" he enquired.
"From here. You could not----?"
"Of course I could," he assented eagerly, taking down his hat. "I
promised to meet our friend Cresswell there."
"That ridiculous Poet!" she laughed. "Whatever made him a friend of
yours?"
"He would tell you Fate," was the smiling reply. "Harvey Grimm would
tell you a sense of humour. I really don't know what I could say about
it. He isn't a bad fellow."
"You are sure you have no more business to attend to?" she asked
earnestly. "I can sit and wait quite patiently while you finish."
He sighed as he closed his desk.
"I am afraid my office itself is rather a farce," he told her. "As a
lawyer I have been a failure. My only client passed you on the stairs
as he went out."
She heard him a little incredulously.
"That seems so strange," she observed. "I am sure that you are clever."
"The majority of the world seems to have come to a different
conclusion," he sighed, as he stood on one side to let her pass out.
"Here comes your client back again," she whispered. "I will wait for
you upon the landing."
Mr. Jacob Potts came puffing up the stairs. He beckoned mysteriously
to Aaron Rodd and drew him on one side.
"Guv'nor," he whispered, "'ave you got any pals in this building?"
"I don't know that I have, particularly," was the somewhat doubtful
reply. "Why?"
"Gave me quite a turn," Mr. Potts confessed. "There's two of my boys
below, two of them who are on that job I came to consult you about."
"They are probably shadowing you," Aaron Rodd suggested.
"I'd give 'em shadow, if they tried that game on!" Mr. Jacob Potts
asserted truculently. "'Owsomever, you've got the office, if there's
any pals of yourn about.... If you've any fancy, sir," he added, as he
turned away, "for seeing a little bout to-night down at my place, I've
arranged for that young fellow I spoke about to come down and put 'em
on with Canary Joe. 'Arf-past nine, and no questions arst of a friend."
"I'll remember," the other promised.
"Won't keep you longer," Mr. Potts observed, turning heavily away.
"There's other clients than me about this morning, wot 'o!"
He turned back from the doorway and indulged in a huge and solemn wink.
"'Arf-past nine," he called out, "nothing charged for admission, but
the salt air down Wapping way encourages the thirst, which is good for
the trade. Bring a pal, if you've a mind."
Aaron waited until his client had reached the first landing before he
rejoined Henriette. They drove in what was, to him, unaccustomed
splendour to the Milan, and parted in the little hall.
"It is foolish," she said, as she held out her hand, "but I feel better
because I have been frank with you. Sometimes my fears seem so unreal,
and then sometimes I close my eyes and I get these horrible little mind
pictures. Ah, but you do not know the terror of them! This is
England, though, and that was what they all said--'In England you will
be safe.' Tell me you are sure that I am safe?"
"Absolutely," he declared confidently.
She waved her hand to him from the lift, and he proceeded to the
smoking-room in search of Cresswell.
* * * * *
The poet, having received forty pounds from his publishers, was
thoroughly disposed towards a frivolous evening. He was consequently a
little dismayed when, as they sat at dinner that same evening, Aaron
Rodd, who had been a little distrait, suggested an alteration in their
evening's entertainment.
"I wonder," he said, "if, instead of going to the 'Empire,' you would
care to see a bout between Canary Joe and a youthful barman who I
understand possesses genius?"
The poet made a wry face.
"I am rather fed up with biffing just now," he confessed, "but Canary
Joe--why, that's old man Potts' protégé."
Aaron nodded.
"The affair is to take place in a room at the back of his
public-house," he observed.
Cresswell sipped his wine and considered. His attitude was obviously
unfavourable.
"I am in the humour," he declared, "for a more enervating atmosphere,
the warmth and comfort of the Empire lounge, the charm of feminine
society--even from a distance," he added hastily. "I am feeling human
to-night, Aaron Rodd--very human."
"It is possible," his companion continued slowly, "that an
adventure----"
The poet's manner changed.
"More than anything in the world I am in the humour for an adventure,"
he asserted eagerly.
"Then I think we will see Canary Joe," Aaron Rodd decided. "You shall
be my guide."
The long taxi-ride would have been a little depressing but for the
poet's uproarious spirits. He sang himself hoarse and filled the
vehicle with cigarette smoke. They reached at last a region of small
streets all running one way; in the background a vision of lights,
suspended apparently from nowhere, the sound of an occasional siren,
the constant, sometimes overpowering odour of river-side mud. When at
last the taxicab came to a standstill, they were near enough to the
river to hear its rise and fall against a little bank of shingle. From
behind the closely-drawn windows of the public-house, one side of which
seemed to abut on to the river-side, came the sound of many voices.
They dismissed the taxicab and pushed open the swing-doors. The poet,
who had been complaining bitterly of thirst on the way down, led the
way to the counter.
"Two whiskies and sodas, Tim," he ordered. "Where's the guv'nor?"
The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
"Up in the room, getting things to rights," he announced. "If you take
my advice, Mr. Cresswell, you'll slip in there as soon as you've had
your drink. There'll be a crowd when the gong goes, and they're a
tough lot to struggle with for seats."
Aaron glanced around. The room was filled with a motley throng of
river-side loafers, with here and there a sprinkling of sailors. One
huge Dutchman, in a soiled nautical uniform, was already furiously
drunk. The two young men slipped up the stairs, to which the poet led
the way, and passed through the door into the further apartment, just
as the Dutchman's truculent eye fell upon them.
"Shouldn't wonder if we didn't tumble across something in the way of an
adventure here," the poet remarked cheerfully. "We ought to have
changed our clothes. Hello, here's the boss."
Mr. Jacob Potts, on his way down the long, dimly lit room, came to a
sudden standstill. His expression scarcely confirmed the welcome which
the heartiness of his invitation earlier in the day had promised. He
glanced at the two visitors in something like dismay. Nothing,
however, could damp the poet's spirits.
"We've come down to see the scrap, guv'nor," he declared.
"If you have," Mr. Jacob Potts replied, with something which sounded
threatening in his tone, "you're welcome. If so be that you've any
other reason for your coming, maybe a word of advice from me wouldn't
be out of place, and that word's git."
"When we've seen the scrap and not before," Cresswell chuckled. "Do
you know that it cost the best part of a quid to get down here,
guv'nor? Bring 'em in and let's see what stuff they're made of."
Jacob Potts looked at the speaker doubtfully.
"You've 'ad a drop, young fellow, you 'ave," he muttered.
"Trenchantly and convincingly put, old chap," the poet replied,
steadying himself by the back of the chair. "My dear friend and I are
making an evening of it."
Mr. Potts' face cleared a little.
"Boys will be boys," he assented amiably, "and there's none of you the
worse for a drop o' good liquor on board. Fact is I'm a bit jumpy
to-night," he confessed. "My boys have got a little game on--to-night
of all nights! Did you happen to notice," he asked anxiously, "if that
goll-darned Dutchman was down there?"
"There is a son of Holland in the bar," the poet replied, "in a
glorious state of inebriation. He is seeking for some one to destroy.
Tell you the truth, we fled before him. His eye rested upon us and he
scowled."
Mr. Jacob Potts lifted a blind and stared out towards the river.
"That's his steamer lying there," he muttered. "I wish to God he'd get
aboard her!"
Aaron Rodd moved softly to his side.
"Is this little game you spoke of," he enquired--"the game your boys
have on to-night--the one which brought you up to consult me about
maritime law this morning?"
"It is," Jacob Potts admitted, "and wot about it?"
Aaron Rodd shrugged his shoulders. Before he could reply, however, a
gong sounded. The door of the room was thrown open and a surging mob
from the bar streamed in.
"Front seats," yelled the poet, making a dive forward, but Aaron caught
him firmly by the arm.
"Stephen," he whispered, "there's something up here to-night. We may
have to come into it. Let's get seats by the door, where we can slip
out quietly. I'm not joking."
Considering all things, Cresswell was wonderfully amenable. They stood
on one side and let the crowd rush past them and eventually found two
seats against the side wall, within a few yards of the door. Mr. Jacob
Potts seemed for the moment to have forgotten their existence. He was
standing in the middle of the little ring, which was roped off on a
raised platform, stamping with his heel upon the floor. There were
shrill whistles and cries of "Order."
"Gents," Mr. Potts announced, "this is a light-weight scrap, twelve
rounds, between our old friend Canary Joe and a youngster I found in
Craven Street--Jimmy Dunks."
He pointed first towards a pimply-faced young man, with flaxen hair
brushed smoothly down over his forehead, attired in scarlet
knickerbockers and a pink vest, over which heterogeneous attire he had
thrown a soiled, light-coloured ulster. His opponent wore a thin
flannel vest, a pair of dilapidated golfing knickerbockers and the
remains of a dressing-gown. They both arose and made awkward
salutations. Canary Joe was evidently the favourite, but Mr. Potts
himself led the applause for his opponent.
"Fair do's, gents," he begged. "This young 'un's a stranger, but from
what I've seen of 'im I believe 'e's out to do 'is best, and we none of
us can't do more."
There were a few more preliminaries and the two young men faced one
another. They moved round for a moment like cats, amidst an almost
breathless silence. Then there were one or two wild plunges, a little
more cautious sparring, and a yell of applause as the young man in the
golfing knickerbockers landed his right very near his opponent's mouth.
"Don't you treat 'im too light, Canary," they yelled from the back.
"Keep your eye on 'is left."
There was a brief pause at the end of the first round. Canary Joe sat
scowling at his opponent as he received the attentions of his second.
The next round, although without decisive effect, was more vigorous;
the third produced a black eye each. The audience settled down to
enjoy itself. Suddenly the door at the back of the room was opened and
from somewhere below came the sound of a gong struck three tunes.
There were little murmurs of annoyance, disjointed oaths and growls
from various quarters, but, without a single moment's hesitation, at
least a score of the audience rose to their feet and made for the door.
Aaron Rodd and his companion watched them as they slunk by. The poet
was exceedingly interested.
"Someone's going to get a biffing to-night," he confided. "I wonder
what it's all about."
Aaron acted on an inexplicable impulse.
"Let's go and see," he suggested.
The poet rose at once to his feet. He was ready enough, if a trifle
dubious.
"They won't want us butting in," he remarked. "All the same, we might
see a little of the fun. It will be more like the real thing than
this."
They passed down the few stairs into the bar. Several of the men had
paused for a drink, but others had already slunk out into the street.
Following on the heels of the hindmost, Aaron Rodd and his companion
found themselves almost swallowed up in a sudden fog which had rolled
in from the river. From somewhere in the midst of the chaos they heard
a quick, authoritative voice.
"Joe, you and half a dozen of you take the corners of the street. Hold
up anything that tries to come down. Start a fight amongst yourselves
if there are coppers about. You others come out on the wharf."
"That Dutchman's in this, I'll swear," the poet whispered. "Let's try
and find our way down to the river. I know where the gate is."
Almost as he spoke, a heavy hand descended upon his shoulder, and a
dark, evil face was thrust almost into his.
"Look here, guv'nor," the man said, "you mayn't be after any 'arm down
'ere but it's one o' them nights we don't need strangers around. You
tumble? The old man's wolves are out and they've a nasty way of
snapping anything that comes along."
"What's the game, Sid?" the poet asked engagingly. "We're only here
for a bit of sport."
"Never you mind what the game is," was the terse reply. "You get back
and watch those two chickens scratching one another's faces."
There was a moment's silence. Then from a few yards off came the sound
of a slight moan, as from a person suffocating.
"What's that?" Aaron Rodd demanded sharply.
"Never you mind what it is," was the swift reply from their unseen
adviser. "Take your carcases inside, if you want to keep them whole."
He vanished in the fog. Aaron Rodd gripped his companion's arm.
"Stephen," he muttered, "that was a woman's voice!"
"Sounded like it," the poet assented. "Have you got your electric
torch in your pocket?"
"Yes!"
They heard the rattle of a key in the gate which led out on to the
wharf. For some time it refused to turn. Again they heard the moan,
and Aaron's blood ran cold.
"I can't stand this, Stephen," he whispered hoarsely. "Come on."
"One moment," the poet answered. "They can't get the gate open. I
don't believe the guv'nor's on to this. Stay where you are for a
minute."
He hurried back, tore up the stairs and into the dimly lit room, filled
still with breathless expectancy. It was the end of another round,
during which Canary Joe had obtained some slight advantage. The poet
walked straight up the room, regardless of the growls which assailed
him, and touched its presiding spirit upon the shoulder.
"Guv'nor," he said, "you told me, when we had dealings, that you'd
never taken on any job in which there was a woman to be harried."
"That's right, boy," Jacob Potts agreed.
"There's a woman in the game to-night, a woman who has been brought
down here by some of your lot, and who is down there now, either
drugged or half conscious. They are trying to get her on the
Dutchman's steamer."
"How do you know it's a woman?" was the brief demand.
"I tell you we both heard her groan," the poet insisted.
Jacob Potts rose to his feet.
"Boys," he said, addressing the belligerents, "and gents, there will be
a ten minutes' interval. Sorry, but it's business. Joe will serve the
drinks, which for this occasion only will be free."
The ten minutes' interval, softened by the promise of free drinks,
displeased no one. Jacob Potts, still in his shirt-sleeves, strode out
of the place, through the front room of the public-house and out into
the street, where a queer, unnatural silence Seemed to reign.
"There ain't no woman about 'ere!" he exclaimed.
Aaron Rodd suddenly flashed his torch. The iron gate was closed.
There was no one before it. They could hear the sound of men's
footsteps a few yards away on the old wooden wharf.
"They've just gone through," Aaron whispered fiercely. "Come on!"
Jacob Potts produced a key from his pocket and swung the gate open.
"If you fellows have made a fool of me," he muttered, "there'll be
trouble, but if my boys have let me in, there'll be hell!"
Just as he finished speaking they once more heard the faint, smothered
cry from in front, followed by a man's oath. They saw the flashing of
a light and heard the fall of a rope from the wharf into the river.
Jacob Potts quickened his pace.
"Turn on that glim o' yours, guv'nor," he growled, "and mind where
you're going. 'Ullo there?"
There was a confusion of answering voices.
"It's the guv'nor!" they heard some one say.
Then the light of Aaron Rodd's torch flashed upon the short, wooden
dock, and upon the half-dozen men grouped at the top of the crazy steps
at its furthest extremity. One of them came back. It was the man who
had warned the poet and Aaron.
"Guv'nor," he said earnestly, "this ain't your show. You leave us
alone and get back to the fight."
"That be damned!" Jacob Potts replied firmly. "It's no job of yourn to
tell me wot to do. You know very well there's just one thing I stick
at, and I asks you a plain question, Sid, and a plain answer expected.
Is that bundle you're carrying a woman, or ain't it?"
"It's a woman," the man proclaimed doggedly, "and it's going on board
the 'Amsterdam.'"
The answer of Jacob Potts was bellicose and unprintable. He strode
along the little wharf, followed by Aaron Rodd and Cresswell. Behind
came the man called Sid, his face darker and more evil than ever, his
breath coming short with anger.
"Boys," Jacob Potts exclaimed, "drop that! You hear me? Women ain't
in the game. You've all been told that."
There was a moment's hesitation. Then they heard the voice of their
leader, hoarse and vicious.
"Get on with it, boys. It's going to be the river for any one who
stands in our way to-night."
There were six of them altogether, besides Sid. Three of them moved
now towards the steps, below which a boat was bobbing up and down.
Another man was seated in it, holding to the side by a boat-hook, and
the three men at the top of the steps were carrying something. Sid and
the other two turned round.
"Guv'nor," the former began----
There was a sickening crash as Jacob Potts' fist caught him almost in
the mouth. He rolled over and up again on to his feet, remaining
warily out of reach, but after that one blow easily able to keep his
assailant occupied. Aaron Rodd had sprung for the steps, and received
a blow on the side of the head from one of the other men which sent him
reeling almost into the river.
"Get her aboard," Sid cried out. "We can tackle this lot. No one can
get down the street. The boys'll see to that."
Then there was a fierce, ugly silence for several moments. Jacob
Potts, winded from the first, the river on either side of him and
murder in the man's face whom he fought, panted and groaned with every
fresh movement. Aaron Rodd found himself suddenly in a new world, a
new uplifting instinct sending the blood tingling through his veins.
He was fighting, a thing he had never done since his school-days,
fighting with long, swinging blows, making scarcely an effort to
protect himself, fighting in an atmosphere indescribable, the thirst
for blood hot in his veins, with one desire throbbing in his heart--to
kill or throw into the river the man who kept surging up towards him.
It was a vicious face, fair-complexioned once, but dark now with engine
grease, with bleary eyes, mouth wide open all the time, disclosing a
broken row of hideous sickly-looking teeth. But for the man's evil
life he would have disposed of his opponent with his first few blows,
for he had been in his day a bruiser of some repute, but Aaron Rodd
knew no pain, felt no fear, and he was the first conqueror. Through
sheer fortune, hitting wildly with all his strength, his long right arm
landed full on the point of his assailant's jaw. The man went over
with a sickening crash. Sid, who was sparring still with Jacob Potts,
leaned for a moment downwards.
"Lay her down in the boat and come up, one of you," he shouted.
"Bill's done in. Get down and let the other boys through. They're at
the gate. We'll finish off these blighters then."
One of the men, who had been stepping into the boat, turned back.
Suddenly there was a scream from below and Aaron Rodd knew that his had
been no dream. The voice was Henriette's.
"Help! Help!" she cried.
Her voice was smothered but Aaron Rodd's shout rang through the night.
"We're here, Henriette! We'll rescue you. Hold on."
Then there was the sound of a mighty splash. The poet, who had
suddenly closed with his man, had got him to the very edge of the
wharf. Apparently one or both had lost their balance. For a moment
the fighting ceased. Every one listened. A few yards away they could
hear the long, level strokes of a man swimming--one man only. Then
Jacob Potts' voice broke the tense silence.
"I'm--I'm done," he moaned.
Aaron Rodd, who had been waiting for the two men running up the steps,
swung round. A peaceful man all his life, he was suddenly a fiend. He
seized the electric torch from his pocket and brought it down with all
his strength on the head of Jacob Potts' opponent. The man fell over
with scarcely a cry, just as the publican reeled backwards. The
realisation of what had happened gave him a moment's extra strength.
"You've done him, sir," he faltered. "Can you keep those other two off
for a moment whilst I get my wind? That brute--hit me--below the belt.
I forgot he wouldn't fight fair. Mind this little one. He'll trip
you."
Aaron Rodd turned almost with a laugh to meet his two assailants. It
seemed to him that there was a new joy in the world. He whirled the
torch over his head, missed the skull of the nearest of the new-comers
and brought it crashing on to his shoulder. At the same time he
himself received a fierce blow from the second man, staggered, tripped
and recovered himself. The whole place went round. He put his hands
up for a moment before his head, felt them battered down, struck wildly
again and again. One of his blows went home with a sickening thud and
the joy of it thrilled him. Both men were closing in upon him,
however. On the other side of the wharf they could hear the gate being
rattled. There was a low whistle, twice repeated. The man from the
boat shouted.
"Climb the gate, boys."
"There's more of 'em," Jacob Potts gasped. "Keep it up for a moment,
Mr. Rodd. I'm coming in to help you."
Then there was another hush, ominous, in a sense mysterious. There was
a sound which conveyed little enough to Aaron Rodd, but which the
others recognised promptly enough--the long, mechanical swing of oars.
Without a second's hesitation, Aaron's two assailants turned and ran,
fleet-footed and silent, off the wharf, and vanished somewhere in the
darkness. The gate was rattled no more and from up the street came the
sound of flying footsteps. Jacob Potts began to sob.
"It's the police--the river police! That ever I should be glad to
welcome 'em! Get down to the boat, Mr. Rodd. My God, what's come to
you, sir!"
Aaron Rodd walked from one side of the quay to the other like a drunken
man. There were all manner of stars in front of him. He gripped hold
of the rope and stole down the steps. He was suddenly steadied by a
great excitement. With a black shawl torn back from her head in that
last struggle, her feet and hands tied together, the remains of a gag
hanging from her mouth, her face livid, her eyes full of horrible fear,
lay Henriette. She saw him swaying over her, gripping the end of the
rope, his face streaming with blood but with all manner of things in
his eyes, and she made a little movement, tried to hold up her hands,
tried even to smile.
"Oh, thank God! Thank God!"
The sound of the oars was no longer audible. A long boat, crowded with
men in dark uniform, came gliding out of the shadows. A boat-hook
gripped the side of the quay. The poet, looking like a drowned
retriever, stood up in the bows and cheered lustily. One of the
uniformed men, who seemed to be an inspector, flashed a lantern upon
the scene.
"What's wrong here?" he asked quickly.
Aaron Rodd kneeled upon the slippery steps and pointed to the girl.
One of the men clambered into the boat and cut the ropes. They half
carried her up on to the wharf. The policemen followed. They flashed
lanterns around. The man Sid was lying on his side, motionless. Aaron
Rodd's first assailant was tying in a doubled-up heap, moaning to
himself. Mr. Jacob Potts was just beginning to recover himself.
"So you're in this, are you, Potts?" the inspector remarked grimly.
"The boys broken loose, eh?"
"Just a little scrap," the publican groaned.
Then Aaron Rodd was suddenly aware of a new sensation. He felt a pair
of warm arms thrown around his neck. The poet, who had been shaking
himself like a dripping dog, sprang to his side. The sky came down and
the planks beneath his feet seemed jumping towards his throat. But
Aaron Rodd, though the world around him was fading fast from his
consciousness, had found new things and he was quite happy.
_Chapter V_ _The Mysterious Assistant_
Abraham Letchowiski stood in the doorway of his small but brilliantly
lit shop in one of the broad thoroughfares leading out of the Mile End
Road, and beamed upon the Saturday night passers-by. He was, in his
way, a picturesque looking object--patriarchal, almost biblical. He
wore a long, rusty-black frock-coat, from which the buttons had long
since departed, but which hung in straight lines about his tall, spare
form. His dishevelled grey beard reached to the third button of his
waistcoat. His horn-rimmed spectacles were pushed back to his
forehead. Every now and then he harangued a likely-looking couple in
mild and persuasive accents.
"Young shentleman, shtop von minute. Bring the beautiful young lady
inside. I am selling sheap to-night, very very sheap. Young
shentleman, you want a real diamond ring? I have the sheapest diamond
rings in the vorld. I am Letchowiski, the gem merchant. You bring
your moniesh to me. You get better value than anyvere in Vitechapel or
the Vest End. Come inside, my tears."
A few of the passers-by answered him with chaff. One or two of the
more forward of the girls threw him a kiss. Old father Letchowiski on
a Saturday night was a familiar feature of the dingy marketing
thoroughfare, but to-night more than one fancied that his heart was not
in it. Presently, during a lull, he turned back into his shop,
fingered lovingly a few of his wares, gewgaws of the most glaring
description, and then turned to a small boy who stood behind the
counter, a remarkable, cross-eyed youth, standing little higher than
the counter, with black hair, a narrow face and sallow complexion.
"David, you call me the moment anyone puts their head in the shop. You
hear? Call loudly."
"All right, granfer," the boy replied. "Can I go to the door and shout
at them?"
"If you like," the old gentleman agreed tolerantly. "If you sell
anything, perhaps I give you a little commission."
A beatific smile spread over the boy's face as he scrambled under the
counter. Abraham Letchowiski opened a door which led into the rear of
the premises, drew aside the curtain and peered for a moment back again
through the shop into the street, over the head of the small boy, who
with outstretched hands was making the night hideous with cries of
fervid invitation. Then he dropped the curtain, descended two stairs,
passed through a small, ill-ventilated sitting-room, the table of which
was laid for a homely meal, on through another door, and along a dark
passage. Through a further door at the end came a chink of brilliant
light. He knocked twice softly and stepped inside. A man with a
tired, livid face, his clothing covered by a long smock, heavy
spectacles disfiguring his features, was stooping over a tiny lathe.
The soft whir of a dynamo from a corner purred insistently. A
brilliant droplight from the ceiling was lowered almost over the bench.
Something glittered in the white hands of the workman as he turned
around with a little start.
"Letchowiski!" he muttered. "Well?"
"Finish for to-night," Letchowiski whispered imploringly. "All the
evening I have been uneasy. Just now I stand in my doorway and I shout
my wares and my eyes search. There is a man in the clothing shop
opposite. He pretends to deal with Hyam for a suit, but I see him
often with his eyes turned this way. He is like the man of whom you
have told me--the man Brodie."
The artificer did not hesitate for a moment. He looked in the mirror
opposite to him and straightened a little more naturally the coal black
hair which only an artist could have arranged. With his foot he
stopped the dynamo. From a cupboard opposite to him he brought out a
dozen cheap watches and spread them around. One of these he proceeded
with neat fingers to take to pieces.
"It is well to be careful, Abraham Letchowiski," he agreed softly. "Go
back to the shop. Is supper ready?"
"There is a little cold fish upon the table," Letchowiski replied. "It
is useless to wait for Rosa. We will sit down, you and I, when you
wish."
A faint flicker of disgust crossed the face of the listener. He
watched the disappearing figure of the old man. Then he half closed
his eyes.
"It is the end," he reminded himself softly. "All that remains is to
get away."
Mr. Harvey Grimm took off his overalls and looked at himself carefully
in the glass. He was wearing a well-worn blue serge suit, a flannel
shirt and collar, a faded wisp of blue tie. His black hair was
plastered down on to his forehead, ending on one side in a little curl,
after the fashion of the neighbourhood. The man was so consummate an
actor that his very cast of features seemed to have assumed a Semitic
aspect. He readjusted his spectacles, busied himself at the bench for
a few more minutes, covered over the dynamo, and finally made his way
stealthily into the shop. He paused for a moment with his hand upon
the counter, listening to the old man who stood in the doorway. His
fingers played with a tray of atrocious-looking pieces of cut-glass,
set in common brass. Abraham Letchowiski, in one of his pauses for
breath, glanced around and saw him.
"You have finished?" he asked eagerly.
"Finished," was the quiet reply. "Let us eat together."
The jeweller abandoned his place, which was promptly taken by the small
boy.
"You go and have your supper, granfer," he begged. "I do some good
business."
"Aren't you hungry?" the old man asked affectionately.
The small boy shook his head.
"I rather stay here and do business," he declared. "Young shentleman
went by just now wants diamond ring to give to the lady. He promised
to come back."
They left him standing upon the threshold, eager and expectant, and
took their places in the musty little room before the fragment of cold
fish, at which Harvey Grimm glanced for a moment in disgust. They had
barely settled down before the door was thrown vigorously open. A
tall, dark young woman, dressed in all the finery of the neighbourhood,
swung into the room. She held out her cheek to her grandfather, but
her bold black eyes rested upon Harvey Grimm.
"What a supper!" she exclaimed scornfully. "And after I've been away
for nearly ten days, too! You don't expect me to eat this, do you?"
"Sit down, my dear, and take a little," the old man begged nervously.
"If I had been sure that you had been coming--but we are never sure of
you, Rosa. We expected you last Saturday, but you never came."
"Pooh! that is your own look-out," the girl declared. "You are rolling
in money, grandfather, and you live like a pauper. I wonder your young
men stay," she added, showing a row of white teeth as she beamed upon
Harvey Grimm. "I'm sure I shouldn't, unless you treated me better than
this."
"If you like, my dear," Abraham Letchowiski suggested, "I will go out
and buy some fruit."
She pushed him back in his place.
"Sit still," she ordered. "I will eat with you what there is.
Afterwards we will see."
They proceeded with their very scanty meal. The girl talked loudly
about her situation in the great tailoring establishment, dwelt on the
fact that she had just been made forewoman over one of the departments,
invited their admiration of the cut of her skirt, standing boldly up,
with her arms akimbo, to display the better the allurements of her
luxurious figure, her eyes flashing provocatively the whole of the
time. Harvey Grimm, who had been at first silent and unresponsive,
seemed suddenly to fall a victim to her charms. He met her more than
half-way in the flirtation which she so obviously desired. They were
seated arm in arm, whispering together, his lips very close to her
flushed cheek, when the little door leading to the shop was suddenly
opened. Paul Brodie stood there, looking down upon them, and behind
him another man, also in plain clothes.
There was a brief and somewhat curious silence. The two new-comers
seemed content with a close scrutiny of the dingy, odoriferous
apartment. It was Abraham Letchowiski who first spoke. He rose to his
feet and leaned over the table. The hand which lowered his spectacles
on to his nose was shaking.
"Vat you vant here?" he demanded.
"Sorry to disturb you, sir," Brodie said pleasantly, bowing towards
Rosa. "We want to search your premises. Don't be alarmed. Unless you
have something to conceal we shall do you no harm, and we'll take care
of all your treasures."
"But who are you, then?" the old man persisted. "Vy should you search
my premises? I have done nothing wrong. I have lived honest always."
"That's all right," Brodie declared soothingly. "We ain't going to
hurt you any."
"You know me, Mr. Letchowiski," the other man observed. "My name's
Bone--John Bone. I am the detective attached to the police-station
around the corner. We won't worry you any more than we're obliged to,
but on this gentleman's information we are bound just to have a look
round."
"But my pizness--it' will be ruined!" Abraham Letchowiski cried,
wringing his hands. "If my customers know, they will never believe
again that I am an honest man. I shall be ruined! They will come no
more near my shop!"
"Nothing of the sort," the detective assured him. "I have only left
one man outside and he is in plain clothes. We can search this room
and the bedroom and your workshop, without attracting anyone's
attention. Come, Mr. Letchowiski, you and I know one another."
The old man was still vociferous in his expressions of dismay.
"I am seventy-three years old," he moaned. "I have never been in
trouble. I am honest, just as honest as a man can be."
"Then keep your hands exactly as they are now," Brodie told him. "So!"
With the ease of experience he ran his fingers over the old man's
clothing, searching him from head to foot.
"Well, I never!" Rosa exclaimed, her eyes flashing angrily. "Fancy
treating an old man like that! Is anyone going to try to do it to me,
I should like to know? They'll feel my fingernails, if they do."
"It will not be necessary," John Bone replied politely. "We watched
you enter."
"What you looking for?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of
her anger.
"Ah!" the detective murmured. "Is this your assistant, Mr.
Letchowiski?" he went on.
Harvey Grimm rose slowly to his feet and held out his hands.
"I am not an assistant of anybody's," he declared, and his voice seemed
to have undergone an extraordinary change. "My name is Ed. Levy, and I
am a skilled watchmaker."
John Bone searched him briefly from head to foot. All the while,
Brodie was going round the apartment. Cupboards were peered into,
ornaments turned upside down, the boards and walls tapped, every
possible hiding-place ransacked. John Bone disappeared for a few
minutes up the stairs, and they heard his heavy tramp in the bedroom
above. As soon as he had returned, the two men made their way towards
the inner door.
"Come with us down to the workshop, Abraham Letchowiski," the detective
invited.
"Vot you want me for?" the old man asked querulously.
"Never mind. Come along with us. We may have questions to ask."
They disappeared, the old jeweller groaning in the rear. As they
passed through the door, Paul Brodie glanced for a moment back. The
young man, who had called himself Ed. Levy, had passed his arm once
more through Rosa's. Their faces were close together. An amorous grin
had parted the young man's lips and he was whispering in the girl's
ear. Brodie smiled at his half-conceived suspicion, as he turned away.
Rosa and her grandfather's assistant were left alone.
"What you think?" she asked him. "Has grandfather been doing anything,
eh?"
"Not he," was the confident reply. "Abraham Letchowiski is too old and
too clever to run such risks at his time of life. Besides, he has
plenty of money."
Rosa assented. She was apparently convinced of her grandfather's
probity.
"You're right," she declared. "He has got plenty of money, and no one
to leave it to except David and me. A nice dowry for me, eh?"
"Lucky girl!" Harvey Grimm sighed.
"These young men--they know it," she went on. "There's Mr. Hyam, from
opposite, and the two Solomons. But I don't like them--they're too
clumsy. I like you."
He held her hand tighter. She presented for his examination her
fingers, exposing a very large and brilliant ring and a massive gold
bracelet.
"I love jewellery," she confided. "Isn't that beautiful? Some day you
give me a ring, eh, and I wear it--which finger you like me to wear it
on?"
"Some day," he promised, "when I am earning a little more, I will give
you a jewel that will make all the girls in your workshop mad with
envy."
"If you want to earn more money," she asked, "why do you work for
grandfather? All the young men make jokes about him. He never pays
anyone half what they are worth."
Harvey Grimm nodded mysteriously.
"You wait," he told her. "I never stay long anywhere. I am a
journeyman repairer. I earn more money that way. I have about
finished here now."
"To-night," the girl whispered, "you take me to a cinema palace.
There's a fine one at the corner of the street. If you like," she
added with a sigh, "I pay for my own seat."
He hesitated for a moment. Then he smiled.
"We will start directly these men have gone," he promised, "and I will
pay for both."
"That is better," she acquiesced, with an air of relief. "It is always
better for the gentleman to pay. Tell me," she went on, a little
abruptly, "what do they look for, these men? They are a long time in
the workshop."
"It is always the same," he told her. "Wherever I go, I find it.
There are always robberies, day by day, up in the West End, and they
think there is nowhere else the stones can be brought and sold but in
this neighbourhood. Every little jeweller's shop from here to the far
end of the Mile End Road is ransacked. This is the second time they
have visited us."
"Then they are very foolish people," Rosa declared. "Grandfather
wouldn't buy anything that was stolen. He is too nervous. He has no
courage. Yet," she went on thoughtfully, "if he is really as rich as
they say he is, one wonders how he makes it all out of this poky little
shop."
Harvey Grimm nodded his head many times in wise fashion.
"A very clever man, Abraham Letchowiski," he declared. "Oh, I know
many things! Those brooches he sells hundreds of at a shilling
each--they cost one halfpenny. The engagement rings with the rubies or
sapphires--you take your choice--nine shillings he charges for those,
tenpence halfpenny they cost him. Money comes soon when one can
persuade people to buy. Then he lends money everywhere, when it is
safe. Many of these tradespeople in the street owe him money. Hush!
They are coming back. After the cinema, perhaps, we have a little
supper together, eh?"
She hugged his arm affectionately, which was precisely what he meant
her to do. The entrance of the three men found them engaged in amorous
whisperings. Brodie scarcely glanced in their direction. He was
frowning sullenly.
"Just a few minutes in the shop, Mr. Letchowiski," the detective said,
"and we'll move on and leave you in peace."
They passed up the two steps and through the little door, which they
closed behind them. Harvey Grimm for a moment seemed to forget his
companion. He rose to his feet and stealthily crept to the curtained
window. He stood there, peering through a chink into the shop. It was
becoming difficult now to retain that wonderful composure. The hand
which had stolen into his trousers pocket was tightly clenched upon a
small, hard object.
"Why do you watch there?" Rosa demanded petulantly. "Come back to me.
Grandfather will be here directly."
Her new admirer made no reply. His eyes were riveted upon Paul Brodie,
who held in his hands the little tray, piled with abominable gewgaws.
Presently he set it down again upon the counter. Harvey Grimm bit his
lip until the blood came.
"Why do you bother about those stupid men?" she protested. "Come back
here, or I shall come to you."
He heard her rise with a great rustle. He felt the odour of patchouli
and cheap sachets about him. She crept to his side just as the shop
door opened and the two men went out. Then he turned and kissed her
full on the red, pouting lips. She giggled hysterically for her
grandfather had just pushed open the curtained door and was standing
looking down upon them. He stamped his foot, shook his head and raised
his hands.
"You kiss my granddaughter--you?" he cried.
Harvey Grimm held out his finger. The old man suddenly stopped. He
crossed the room towards his high-backed chair and sank back with a
little sigh of relief.
"I am too old for excitement like this," he mumbled. "I am getting
very old."
Rosa turned towards him.
"Mr. Levy is going to take me to a picture palace, grandfather," she
announced. "Would you like me to call and ask Mr. Hyam to come across
and sit with you?"
The old man shook his head.
"No, no!" he replied. "It would mean coffee for two and I have no
money. You go to the cinema with Mr. Levy and enjoy yourself, my dear.
These men have terrified me. I am old--too old. I shall go to
Deucher's and get some coffee by myself. Come and get your supper," he
cried through the open door to the boy. "I will come into the shop for
a little time."
The boy came reluctantly from behind the counter and pushed past his
cousin and her escort into the sitting-room. Rosa turned back to speak
to him for a minute and Harvey Grimm was alone in the shop. He
stretched out his hand towards the tray of gewgaws, and a little shower
of its contents slipped into his overcoat pocket. Presently Rosa
reappeared, drawing on her gloves.
"We go now," she declared. "Walk slowly out of the shop. I like Mr.
Hyam to see us, from opposite. He is always bothering me to go out
with him. I like you best. There! This way."
They made a very deliberate progress along the crowded street until
they reached the cinema palace. Harvey Grimm paid for sixpenny seats,
and sat arm in arm with Rosa in an atmosphere which seemed to reek of
fried fish, rank tobacco smoke and cheap scent. His left hand held her
purposely ungloved fingers inside her muff. His right hand toyed with
forty thousand pounds' worth of diamonds thrust into common settings
which sometimes pricked his fingers. When the performance was over
they left, still arm in arm.
"Rosa," he announced, "to-night I give you a treat. I tell you a
secret as well. I am leaving your grandfather's. I have a much better
place. I have saved money, too."
She clung to him in unrestrained affection.
"How much?" she whispered.
"Never mind," he replied. "Maybe three hundred pounds, maybe more.
To-night I have the spending fit upon me. We take a taxicab and we
drive together up west. I give you some supper at the Monico."
She drew a little breath of delight. Suddenly she was serious.
"Let us go by the Tube," she suggested. "We shall save three shillings
towards the supper. You can buy me a bottle of scent with that."
He laughed and handed her into the taxicab which he had already hailed,
directed the man to drive to the Monico and stepped in by her side.
"I can buy you a bottle of scent all right," he assured her, "and in
here, don't you see, we are quite alone, Rosa. In the restaurant there
will be people."
"We might have had the taxicab home," she sighed, her head upon his
shoulder.
"Listen," he explained, "after supper I pay for your taxicab, if you
will, but I must leave you. I have to see a man on business at
half-past eleven. It is my new employer."
For a moment she drew away and looked at him doubtfully.
"On business at half-past eleven?" she repeated. "What is your
business? Are you an honest man, Ed. Levy, eh?"
"I am as honest as your grandfather," he answered, "and listen, I am
clever. I can make money--make it quickly."
She sat a little closer to him and with her own fingers drew his arm
around her waist.
"Shall we be married soon?" she whispered. "Grandfather must die some
day soon, and there's no one knows how much money he's got. David and
I will have it all."
"We'll talk about that," Harvey Grimm promised.
At a few minutes after twelve on the following morning, Harvey Grimm,
very spruce and very debonair, pushed open the swing-doors of the small
smoking-room of the Milan, and crossed the room with the obvious
intention of proceeding towards the bar. A little welcoming chorus
assailed him from a circular lounge in the right-hand corner of the
room. Seated there were four of his friends whom at first he scarcely
recognised. There was Aaron Rodd with his arm in a sling, a piece of
sticking-plaster on his forehead and a thick stick by his side; the
poet, with a bandaged head and a shade over his eye; Henriette, looking
a little fragile but very animated; and her brother, still in uniform,
leaning back in an easy chair by her side. Harvey Grimm stared at them
all in blank and ever-increasing astonishment.
"Has there been an earthquake?" he asked, as he shook hands and
exchanged greetings with everybody, "or have I, in my country
seclusion, missed a scrap?"
"You have missed the scrap of your life," Cresswell replied eagerly.
"You have saved your skin at the expense of untold glory."
"Tell me about it," the new-comer begged, as he took his place in the
little circle.
"Where can one find words?" the poet began expansively. "It was an
Homeric sight, a battle royal! It took place in the darkness, upon a
slippery wooden wharf, with the black waters of the river beneath, and
murderous parasites assailing us on every side. It was an epic of
biffing, the glorious triumph of the unfit over the river-side apache.
And let me tell you this, my friend Harvey--for an untrained fighter
the world doesn't hold a man who can hit so quickly and so hard as our
newly established hero, Mr. Aaron Rodd. I have decided that he has
earned immortality. I am composing a poem which I shall dedicate to
him."
"Could I hear what it was all about?" Harvey Grimm asked meekly.
"Me," Henrietta sighed.
Then they told their story, all of them in turn, except Brinnen,
supplying details. Towards the end, however, the poet took up the
running and finished alone.
"His face," the latter declared, gripping Aaron Rodd by the arm, "was
like a pastel in white chalk against the soft background of velvety
blackness. Heaven lit the burning light in his eyes. The swing of his
right arm was like the pendulum of fate----"
"Oh, keep this rot for the poem!" Aaron Rodd interrupted forcibly. "If
you want to gas, what about your own swim to the river police-station?"
"A series of truly Homeric episodes," the poet assented, with a gentle
sigh. "My pen shall give them immortality. I shall not forget to
allude to the part which I, too, played in this drama of fog and river.
The water was very cold," he added, suddenly finishing his cocktail.
"And our friend from the country?" Brinnen asked quietly. "How has he
fared?"
There was a breathless silence. Harvey Grimm nodded slightly. He
glanced around the room, of which they were the only occupants. Both
doors were closed.
"All is well," he announced softly. "I returned last night. The
business is finished."
"How much?" Brinnen enquired eagerly.
"There will be forty-five thousand pounds. I could not draw it all
last night, but it will be paid within a week. I have nine thousand
with me. Six of that I will hand over at any moment you please."
"There is no one in the room," Brinnen murmured suggestively.
Harvey Grimm drew out a pocket-book, ran some notes through his
fingers, and passed them over to Brinnen. Once more the latter glanced
around the room. Then with his left hand he produced from the pocket
of his coat a necklace of brilliants, one of which, the centre one,
seemed to shine with a faint, rosy light.
"Better see what you can do with that," he remarked, tossing it lightly
across.
Harvey Grimm held the necklace for a moment in his fingers before he
slipped it into the concealment of his pocket. During that moment he
caught an impression of Henriette's eyes, full of amazement, fixed upon
it. She turned towards her brother.
"Leopold," she exclaimed wonderingly, "I do not remember----"
He brushed her words aside.
"You have not seen all," he told her significantly.
Harvey Grimm rang the bell.
"I warn you," he said, "that it will be a few days before I can abandon
civilisation again, even for a task like this."
Brinnen moved uneasily in his chair.
"It is work, this," he pointed out, "which carries with it a special
urgency. Remember that its results will last for a lifetime."
"Quite true," was the somewhat grudging admission. "It also means
great risks. I have been as near the end of things, within the last
twenty-four hours, as I care to be."
The waiter appeared with a tray full of cocktails. Harvey Grimm
accepted his and leaned back in his chair with a beatific aspect.
"This," he murmured, "is one of the decadent luxuries denied to me in
my country seclusion. Like many other things in life, it is almost
worth while to lose it for a time, for the sake----"
He broke off in his speech. They all leaned a little forward in their
chairs. From a side door at the further end of the apartment, leading
to the private suites in the hotel, a lift man suddenly appeared, with
a valet upon his heels. They crossed the room with almost feverish
haste. They were obviously distressed. A small boy followed, a moment
or two later, with face as pale as death. There was a confused murmur
of voices just outside the glass door leading to the main portion of
the hotel, and a moment afterwards they reappeared with the manager
between them, all talking excitedly at the same time. Then the door
opened once more and a woman, tall and dark, in a long dressing-gown of
green silk, rushed in. She threw out her hands towards the manager.
"Send for the police!" she cried. "My husband--he is murdered! ... and
my jewels--they are all stolen! The police, do you hear?"
They all vanished through the distant door, the woman clinging to the
manager's arm and talking excitedly all the time. The little party
looked at one another.
"That was Madame de Borria, the wife of the South American
millionaire," Harvey Grimm said slowly.
"The woman who wears the necklace with the rose diamond!" Henriette
exclaimed breathlessly.
Then there was a queer, tense silence. Captain Brinnen lifted his
glass to his lips and finished his cocktail.
"There is more than one rose diamond in the world," he observed coolly.
_Chapter VI_ _Paul Brodie Strikes_
Mr. Jacob Potts, blowing very hard, and with his tongue protruding from
the corner of his mouth, finished an elaborate signature, patted his
waistcoat pocket, in which he had just deposited a cheque, laid down
the pen, and, leaning back in his chair, crossed his legs. He was once
more occupying the distinguished position of being Aaron Rodd's only
client.
"I never thought to do it," he declared. "I never thought to part with
'The Sailor-boys' while I was, so to speak, in the prime of life. It's
'aving the lads turn agin me that's done it. It shows, Mr. Rodd," he
added impressively, "what money will do in this world."
"Financially," Aaron Rodd reminded him, "you are independent,
absolutely independent of work."
"I know, but what's a man to do?" Mr. Potts replied with a sigh.
"There was plenty down there always to keep me occupied, and those
lads--well, I could have sworn to their running straight till that
blarsted Dutchman came along. I tell you, Mr. Rodd," he went on, "I've
done some deals in my life, and I've been up against propositions where
money didn't seem much object. I've 'ad jobs brought to me which I
wouldn't allow my lads to tackle, where they, in a manner of speaking,
thrust a blank cheque down under my nose, but I never in my born days
knowed money chucked about like them as was at the back of that
Dutchman was willing to chuck, it about. Why, for an ordinary job, if
my boys got a tenner apiece they thought themselves on velvet. From
wot Tim, my barman, told me, and he generally noses out wot there is
going abaht, there was two 'undred quid for each of those boys if they
got the young woman on board. No wonder they were kind of off their
chumps!"
"Where exactly did they mean to take her?" Aaron Rodd asked.
Mr. Jacob Potts grinned.
"I bet she knows, sir, and I should 'ave thought she'd told you before
this," he replied. "Give every man 'is due, I say, and for an amateur
that 'ad no more idea than a babe unborn how to put up his dukes, I
must say you did fairly let into 'em, Mr. Rodd. I never seed a man
lose 'old of 'imself so, in a manner of speaking, and as for that young
gent as writes poetry, why, I'd make a bruiser of 'im in six months.
'E don't seem to feel pain.... And bein' as we're on the subject of
that scrap, sir, are you above taking a word of advice from an old man?"
"I certainly am not," Aaron Rodd assured him.
"If I was you, I should go a bit quiet with the young lady and 'er
friends," Jacob Potts said seriously. "I've nowt straightforward to
tell agin 'em, and that's a fact, but a bit here and a bit there is
good enough for a man with a level head. There's three or four of 'er
kidney in this country, and, if I'm not greatly mistook, they're wrong
'uns."
"I can't think that the young lady comes altogether under that
designation," Aaron Rodd protested stiffly. "At the same time, Mr.
Potts, I must admit that her associations are mysterious."
"Steer clear of them, sir, and take an old man's advice," the
ex-publican begged. "I've 'ad things 'inted to me about them that I
shouldn't like altogether to put into words----"
Aaron Rodd saw his client out and found an old friend ascending the
staircase. Harvey Grimm was whistling softly to himself, his hat was
at its usual jaunty angle, his violets were as fresh as ever, his
clothes as carefully brushed. Only his expression was different. He
was almost serious. He took Aaron by the arm.
"Put on your hat, my friend," he said. "We will walk for a little
time."
Aaron obeyed and they made their way down to the Embankment Gardens.
"Listen," Harvey Grimm began, looking around to be sure that no
passers-by were within hearing distance, "there is such a thing as
tempting Fate a little too far. I think we have come to the point when
we had better draw in."
"Explain yourself, please," his companion begged.
"During the last few weeks," Harvey Grimm proceeded, "I have broken up
and cut into different shapes nearly a hundred thousand pounds' worth
of diamonds. I have actually handled nearly eighty thousand pounds in
money. You and I are fifteen thousand pounds each to the good. Our
friends want to go on. Frankly, I've got the funks. I'd like to cry
off for a time."
"That doesn't sound like you," Aaron remarked.
"Perhaps not," his friend admitted. "All the same, I've no fancy for
thrusting my neck into the noose. Brodie doesn't even know it himself,
but he was hot on the scent last time, He found out, somehow or other,
the very house in which I was living. We were in the same room. He
even had me searched. Once I saw him stare. I thought it was all up.
Then his suspicion passed. It was just the way one of the Jewish girls
down there had accepted me which put him off, but I tell you, Aaron, it
was touch and go. Then the diamonds themselves--there was a stroke of
genius there of which I am proud. I hadn't long to do it either.
Where do you think I hid them?"
"No idea."
"Of course you haven't! Listen. I had set them roughly, in common
brass fittings, like a pile of common brooches that were being sold,
and I mixed them all up together, let them lie there on the counter of
the little jeweller's shop where I have been doing my work and where I
was hiding. Brodie took up some and let them fall through his fingers.
I tell you that was the closest shave of my life!"
"I think we should be wise to drop it," Aaron declared earnestly. "We
are off the rocks now, Harvey. I am content with what I've got."
"That's how I'm feeling," the other assented, "and yet there's this
last necklace. It seems rather playing it low-down on Brinnen not to
get rid of that for him. You see, unless it's broken up quickly, it's
more dangerous stuff to handle than the others."
"Why?" Aaron demanded.
"Don't be foolish," Harvey Grimm admonished, a little impatiently.
"There's the hotel where it was stolen, right in front of you. Here am
I with the necklace, a hundred yards away. There's Brinnen on the same
floor. There's Madame de Borria--why, it's a dare-devil piece of work,
anyway."
"You don't mean that it's Madame de Borria's necklace you've got?"
Aaron Rodd groaned.
"Of course it is!" Harvey Grimm replied, a little testily. "You saw it
yesterday, didn't you? There it is in my overcoat pocket, the pocket
nearest you, at the present moment."
Aaron Rodd paused abruptly before a bench and sat down. It was quite
close to where he had first seen Henriette.
"Look here," he said, "for God's sake, Harvey, jump into a taxi at
Charing-Cross there and take the thing off somewhere."
"Take it off?" was the grim response. "I'd give a cool hundred to be
rid of it at this minute. The trouble is that if I make a single move
in the direction of any of my haunts, the whole thing will be blown
upon."
"You mean that you are being followed?"
"Brodie hasn't been fifty yards away from me since nine o'clock,"
Harvey Grimm muttered. "Madame de Borria saw him yesterday, just after
the theft, and he persuaded her to put the matter into his hands. See
that window--the end one but three on the top storey but two?"
Aaron looked up to where the spotless white front of the Milan gleamed
through the budding trees.
"I see it," he admitted.
"That is the window of Madame de Borria. Now count five windows to the
left and one down--that is my room. Now up again, and two on to the
right, and you come to the apartments of Captain Brinnen, known to Paul
Brodie as the redoubtable Jeremiah Sands. When you add to these
geographical coincidences the fact that the necklace is at the present
moment in my pocket, and that I can't move a yard without being
followed, you will understand that one needs all one's wits this
morning. We are getting just a little near the bone."
"Nearer than you imagine, perhaps," Aaron Rodd whispered. "Here's
Brodie."
Harvey Grimm was, for a moment, curiously still. His frame seemed to
have stiffened into a sort of rigid attention. One felt that his brain
was working with the same concentrated force. He neither moved nor
looked in the direction which his companion had indicated. Instead he
leaned a little further back in the corner of the seat and lit a
cigarette.
"One needs to remember," he murmured, "that it is really quite a long
time since I have seen this unwelcome intruder upon our privacy."
Brodie came strolling along the asphalt walk, puffing out his cheeks
and gazing about him, as though exercise and an interested
contemplation of the river were the sole reason for his peregrinations.
He appeared to recognise the two men only in the act of passing them.
He at once stopped short and greeted them in his usual hearty fashion.
"Pleasant little spot, this, for an hour's recreation," he declared.
"I was thinking about you, by the by, Grimm, as I walked along."
"I am flattered," was the calm reply. "I should have thought that all
your attention would have been engrossed upon the little affair over
yonder. I understand that Madame de Borria has placed the recovery of
her necklace in your hands. Quite a feather in your cap, my friend, if
you succeed."
Brodie glanced casually at the block of buildings in front.
"Yes," he assented, "I have that on my mind, of course. By the by,
were you going back to your rooms, by any chance?"
"I was on my way there."
"Come, that's fortunate. With your permission, we will walk along
together."
The two men rose and they all strolled along towards the hotel.
"Curiously enough," Brodie went on, "I was wondering whether I should
be likely to run up against you to-day, Grimm. We wanted to ask your
advice, Inspector Ditchwater and I, about that little affair the night
before last. You heard the particulars, I suppose?"
"I was in the smoking-room," Harvey Grimm admitted, "when Madame came
running down in her dressing-gown. Naturally, we heard the story told
a good many times."
"Just so! Madame, it seems," the detective continued, "heard nothing,
knew nothing, until late in the morning, when her maid told her that
the floor valet was unable to obtain admittance to her husband's room.
She at once stepped through the communicating door and found him still
unconscious, with the necklace missing."
"Has he recovered yet?" Harvey Grimm enquired. "Is he able to give any
account of what happened?"
"I saw him for a few minutes last night," Brodie replied. "He seemed
still very dazed and confused, but he talked quite coherently. His
story is simple enough and doesn't help us much. He was fast
asleep--he can't even say at what hour--when he was awakened by the
thrusting of a gag into his mouth and a bandage over his eyes. He
thought at first it was a nightmare and he tried to spring out of bed.
He was held down, however, quite firmly, and something placed under his
nose which made him feel just as though, to use his own words, he was
sinking back to sleep again. He remembers nothing more until the
morning, when he was found by his wife. The moment they released the
gag he was violently sick, and the room certainly smells ethery."
"What about the necklace?"
"Well, the necklace, for some reason or other, seems to have been kept
in a tin dispatch-box in his room. It was locked, of course, but the
keys were under his pillow, a fact which the thief, whoever it was,
seems to have known. The box was simply opened and the necklace taken."
"It all sounds as though the thief must have been some one staying in
the hotel," Aaron observed.
The detective smiled pleasantly upon him. They had left the Gardens
now and were approaching the back entrance to the Milan.
"The legal mind, Mr. Rodd," he remarked--"the legal mind. Yes, I may
say that we have come to that conclusion ourselves, Ditchwater and I.
Some one staying in the hotel, we think."
They passed through the mahogany doors and Brodie rang the bell for the
lift.
"By the by, Grimm," he suggested, "have you any objection--you have so
often asked me to have a look at your rooms here?"
"Delighted, I'm sure," the other assented cheerfully. "We had better
get out on the restaurant floor and take the lift on the other side of
the café. I am afraid you won't see them at their best just now. I
only returned yesterday from a week's absence."
"That so?" Brodie murmured. "Say, these little trips away from town
are very pleasant! I don't seem to be able to get away from my work
often enough. Not that I've been doing much good," he confessed
dolefully, "during the last few months. Things have been going rather
against me, Grimm. I've put in a lot of work and it don't seem to have
panned out according to expectations."
"Too bad!" Harvey Grimm sympathised. "You're up against a genius,
though, Brodie--there's no question about that."
Paul Brodie nodded solemnly.
"I tell you, sir," he declared, "that Jeremiah Sands is more than a
genius. He has the devil's own luck, too, and I have come to the
conclusion," he added, dropping his voice to a confidential undertone,
"that the young lady is almost as clever as he is. I don't mind
admitting," he went on, as they passed through the café and stood
waiting for the other lift, "that at one time, Grimm, I was inclined to
think that you'd put it over me--that little affair of the faked
diamond, you know, when we tried to make a scoop in Mr. Rodd's office.
I have changed my mind, though. Jerry Sands was too clever ever to
walk into a trap like that. I guess I did you an injustice there,
Grimm, and you, Mr. Rodd. Things have been a bit better with you
lately, though, haven't they?" he wound up, a little abruptly.
Aaron Rodd raised his eyebrows. He had the air of one who considered
the last remark impertinent.
"Have they?" he observed coolly.
"No business of mine, of course," Brodie went on. "Say, is this your
floor, Grimm?"
The lift had come to a standstill and they stepped out.
"My rooms are this way," the latter announced.
The little party traversed a corridor, at the further end of which
Harvey Grimm threw open a door, leading through a small entrance-hall
into an octagonal sitting-room, having a pleasant outlook on the
Thames. A man was standing with his back towards them, gazing out of
the window. He turned around at their entrance.
"Ah, our friend Ditchwater!" Brodie murmured. "You know Inspector
Ditchwater, don't you, Grimm?"
"I know him, certainly," Harvey Grimm replied, frowning, "but I can't
imagine what the mischief he is doing in my rooms?"
"Perhaps I ought to have explained," the detective said apologetically.
"We have taken the liberty, Grimm, of making a few slight
investigations in your apartments."
"The devil you have!" their tenant exclaimed, gazing through the
half-open door into the inner room. "Is that the reason why my bedroom
seems all upside down?"
"Probably," the detective admitted--"quite probably. You see," he
continued, "you are, in your way, my friend, an exceedingly interesting
person to the police in this country, as you were at one time, I
believe, to the police of New York. When a little affair such as we've
been talking about happens only, as it were, a few yards away from your
rooms, why, naturally, we've some interest in your doings."
"Have you anything against me?" Harvey Grimm asked quietly.
"A few questions," the other murmured. "See here, Grimm," he went on,
with a sudden change of tone, "you've been absent from town for exactly
nine days, until yesterday morning. Just where have you spent those
nine days?"
Harvey Grimm moved to the sideboard and helped himself to a cigarette
from an open box.
"Well," he observed, "I'm hanged if I can see that that's anybody's
business except my own."
"I will admit, sir," Brodie proceeded, "that there is, at the present
moment, not the slightest necessity why you should answer that
question--it is, in fact, a matter slightly removed from the immediate
object of our visit this morning--and yet it is a question which I am
going to press upon you, and which, should you feel so disposed, Mr.
Grimm, you might possibly answer with great benefit to yourself. The
long and short of it is this. Is it worth your while to put yourself
right with the authorities and with me, or isn't it? I tell you, as
man to man, I have a theory of my own about you and your
disappearances."
"I should have thought," Harvey Grimm remarked, after a brief pause,
"that Inspector Ditchwater, having made himself so free with my
apartments, would have been in a position to have told you everything
himself. However, come this way."
He led them into the bedroom. A portmanteau, not wholly unpacked, was
open upon the stand.
"My portmanteau," he pointed out, "which, as you have doubtless already
ascertained from the hall-porter, came back with me the night before
last. There's the label."
Mr. Brodie turned it over and examined it.
"Exford," he murmured.
"Just so," Harvey Grimm assented. "Now what about those two sets of
fishing-rods there?"
The detective fingered the label and read the address aloud.
"'_Mr. Harvey Grimm, The Crown Hotel, Exford._'"
"That, of course," Harvey Grimm continued drily, "is not evidence, as
the label is in my own handwriting, but you will find that the golf
clubs there bear a railway label, I think."
The detective turned the bag around and nodded.
"Very interesting," he admitted, "but Exford--at this time of the year!"
"You're no sportsman, Brodie," Harvey Grimm said reproachfully, "or
you'd know all about the March trout. Just a moment. Come back into
the sitting-room."
He led the way, searched for a moment on the sideboard and threw a
Daily Mirror on to the table. Brodie adjusted his eyeglasses. In the
left-hand corner of one of the inner pages was a small picture of a man
fishing, and underneath:--
_Fine catch of Mr. Harvey Grimm, a London sportsman, in the River
Ex, last Monday._
"Quite a good likeness, too," the detective observed, as he laid down
the newspaper. "Say, this is very interesting, Grimm! It disposes
altogether of one of my theories. I had no idea that you possessed
such simple tastes. I've done a little sea-fishing myself. Well,
well! Still--now, Ditchwater!--you got back in time last night to help
yourself to Madame de Borria's necklace!"
It was all an affair of seconds. Ditchwater had suddenly caught Harvey
Grimm's two arms from behind whilst Brodie's hand had dived into his
coat pocket. The necklace glittered upon the table. There was a
moment's intense silence. Brodie was breathing quickly. There was a
gleam of triumph in his eyes.
"Dear me," Harvey Grimm exclaimed, "fancy your finding that!"
The detective bent over his prize.
"The middle diamond is, without doubt," he announced, "a rose diamond.
Quite a peculiar red light. Ditchwater, step round to Madame de
Borria's rooms. Ask her if she will be so good as to come here at
once."
The inspector disappeared. Harvey Grimm relit his cigarette, took off
his overcoat in a dazed way, threw it over the back of a chair, and
hung up his hat.
"I shouldn't bother to do that, Grimm," the detective advised him
quietly. "I am afraid we shall have to ask you to come and pay us a
little visit. You've got plenty of common sense, I know. It isn't
necessary, I suppose, to tell you that there are a couple more men in
the corridor?"
"I've no idea of making a fool of myself," Harvey Grimm replied, "but
do you mind if I help myself to a whisky and soda? Your methods are a
little nerve-shaking."
The detective stepped in front of the sideboard.
"Say, I don't believe for a moment, Grimm," he said, "that you're up
against it badly enough for that, but I don't think I'd worry about a
drink just now."
"Mix it for me yourself, then," the other suggested.
The detective hesitated for a moment, and then did as he was asked,
keeping his back, however, to the sideboard, and reaching first for the
whisky and then for the soda-water.
"Say when?" he invited courteously, with his hand on the siphon.
"That'll do nicely. Thank you, Brodie. Your very good health!"
Harvey Grimm drained the tumbler and set it down. Almost as he did so,
there was a knock at the door, the sound of voices and Madame de Borria
entered. The detective had just time to throw a newspaper over the
necklace before she appeared.
"You sent for me?" she exclaimed, turning at once to Brodie. "Tell me,
have you news of my necklace?"
"Do you mind just running over its points once more?" Brodie asked.
She made a little grimace.
"I wrote it all out for Scotland Yard," she reminded him patiently.
"The stones are very fine but without any special character. There are
sixty-three of them, almost equal in size until you come to the front.
It is the front that is so wonderful. The middle stone is a rose
diamond, the only one in the world which flashes a natural pink cross.
There is nothing else like it. The two on either side are slightly
pink, and there is one yellow one, two places from the middle stone.
But it is the middle stone, Mr. Brodie, that is worth all the rest put
together. It is the most wonderful in the world. Please do not keep
me in suspense."
The detective lifted the newspaper from the table. It was seldom that
he permitted himself any emotion. There was a slight gesture of
triumph, however, as he turned towards the woman. She literally sprang
upon the necklace, turned it over, gazed at it blankly for a moment and
flung it back upon the table.
"You brought me here to look at this!" she exclaimed
contemptuously--"and after you have heard my description, too! Why, my
necklace has twice as many stones, and my rose diamond has the flash of
the cross!"
Both Brodie and the inspector stood for a moment as though stupefied,
incapable of speech. Harvey Grimm threw his cigarette into the hearth.
"Madame de Borria," he said, "I should, perhaps, add my apologies to
those which our good friend there is engaged in framing. The necklace
is mine, or rather it is entrusted to me for sale. I am well aware
that it does not resemble yours, which I have often seen and admired.
Mr. Brodie, however, in his excessive zeal, gave me no time for
explanations. He descended upon my rooms, seized the necklace from my
overcoat pocket--scarcely a likely receptacle, I think, for stolen
goods," he added, with a little expostulatory grimace--"and sent off
for you."
The lady turned almost savagely upon the detective.
"So this is the way," she said, "you conduct your affairs, Mr. Paul
Brodie! You insult a harmless gentleman whom no one but an idiot could
mistake for a thief, you drag me from my room to look at a necklace
which does not resemble mine in the slightest, and meanwhile the thief
gets further and further away," she added, with biting sarcasm. "Oh,
you are very busy, are you not, catching him! You are very near that
two thousand pounds!"
She stamped her foot and turned away. Brodie opened the door for her.
His attitude was apologetic--almost cringing.
"Madame de Borria," he said, "I'm sorry. But two necklaces! Who could
conceive such a thing! Rest assured, however, that this is not the
end."
She strode away without another word. Brodie came back into the room.
He fingered the brim of his hat thoughtfully.
"Say, are you in the habit of carrying valuable necklaces about with
you in your overcoat pocket, Grimm?" he asked.
Harvey Grimm took up his stand very deliberately on the hearthrug.
"I am," he announced. "I also occasionally wear a coronet instead of a
hat, and a suit of armour instead of pyjamas. I do these things
because I choose, and because it's damned well no one else's business
except my own."
"So you're going to take that tone, are you?" Brodie observed
thoughtfully.
"Between ourselves, I think it's time I did," was the prompt reply.
"The sooner you make up your mind that I am a harmless individual, the
better. I told you openly, within twenty-four hours of making your
acquaintance upon the steamer, that I was an expert in precious stones.
That is how I make my living, and it is perhaps as reputable a way as
yours. The necklace which you have had the impertinence to accuse me
of stealing, is entrusted to me for sale, and if at any time there was
any real reason for me to disclose the name of the owner, I would do
so. At present, however, I consider that I have humoured you far
enough. You will oblige me by leaving my rooms at once and taking
Inspector Ditchwater with you."
"So that's the line, eh?"
"That is the line," Harvey Grimm assented, "and what are you going to
do about it?"'
"Personally," Inspector Ditchwater decided, turning towards the door,
"I am going to wish you good-morning and offer you my apologies, Mr.
Grimm. We seem to be always in the wrong when we act upon Mr. Brodie's
information, and the report I'm going to make to head-quarters will
perhaps save you any further trouble."
Brodie's face was imperturbable. He accepted the situation, however,
and followed Ditchwater from the room. The two men left behind
listened to their retreating footsteps. Harvey Grimm threw himself
into an easy chair.
"So that's that," he observed. "An exciting quarter of an hour, eh,
Aaron?"
"I am bewildered," Aaron Rodd admitted. "I don't understand, even now.
Wasn't it Madame de Borria's necklace, then?"
"That one wasn't!"
"You don't mean to say that you've got two necklaces?"
"Feel in the other pocket," Harvey Grimm directed him.
Aaron obeyed. From the right-hand pocket of the overcoat which was
hanging over the chair, he drew out a second and more beautiful
necklace. As he held it before him, the cross flashed out from the
rose diamond in the centre.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. "You mean to say that it was here all the
time?"
"Of course it was. I told you that I was in a tight corner. He never
gave me a chance to hide it. I knew these rooms would be searched.
Fortunately, he chose the left-hand pocket of my overcoat instead of
the right."
"What are you going to do with it?" Aaron asked breathlessly.
Harvey Grimm glanced at the clock. It was a quarter to one.
"You shall see," he replied. "Just open the door, will you? I think I
heard some one ring. Put the necklace away first--in that drawer will
do."
Aaron did as he was told. A short, dark man, dressed with extreme
care, pushed past him into the room. It was the husband of Madame de
Borria.
"I have come," he announced. "How is the good Mr. Grimm, and what is
the news this morning?"
"The news is," Harvey Grimm told him, "that the detective your wife
employed has been up here, searching for the necklace."
"Marvellous!" the little man declared, rolling himself a cigarette
nervously. "How sagacious! What foresight! But as to results eh...?"
Harvey Grimm, with a little sigh of relief, thrust his hand into the
drawer, produced the necklace and handed it to the South American.
Mr. de Borria's face glowed with satisfaction.
"I have had a leetle trouble with Madame," he announced, "but it is
past. She agreed at last eagerly to the advertisement. You have seen
it?"
Harvey Grimm nodded.
"Two thousand pounds reward and no questions asked," he murmured.
Mr. de Borria drew from his pocket a battered and soiled cardboard box,
into which he proceeded to stow the necklace.
"I make a package here, as you see," he pointed out. "I have received
an anonymous note which makes a demand upon my honour that, if I accede
to its terms, I destroy it. It is destroyed!"
"The letter----?" Harvey Grimm began.
Mr. de Borria tapped his forehead.
"In the air--in my brain," he exclaimed. "What does it matter? It is
destroyed. I go to the place named, I produce the two thousand
pounds--behold!--and the necklace is mine."
He laid a pocket-book upon the table and drew out a sheaf of notes,
which he carefully counted into two heaps. One he pushed towards
Harvey Grimm, the other he replaced in his pocket. Then he smiled. He
had the engaging smile of a child.
"So!" he pronounced. "We are all happy and contented. Madame my wife
will wear her necklace to-night and once more rejoice. I shall have
that thousand pounds in my pocket which is so necessary for a man like
myself in this your great city of gallantry and happiness. And you, my
dear Mr. Harvey Grimm, who played the burglar and assisted me in my
little scheme, you, too, have a thousand pounds. So! Now that all is
well, shall we visit the little lady down in the American Bar?
Afterwards, I will take a taxi just to nowhere, and I will come back in
another taxi from nowhere. I shall break into my wife's rooms, and she
will hold out her arms to me, and she will have her necklace, and I
have got my thousand pounds. _Enfin_! Let us descend."
Harvey Grimm took up his hat and Aaron Rodd followed suit.
"It seems to me," Aaron remarked, as he brought up the rear of the
little procession, "that the only man who gets nothing out of this is
Mr. Brodie!"
_Chapter VII_ _The Infidelity of Jack Lovejoy_
Cresswell and Aaron Rodd were dining with Captain Brinnen and his
sister at a corner table in the Milan Restaurant. Harvey Grimm had
once more left them for an unknown destination, and they were all aware
that the period of his absence would be this time more than ever one of
strain. As though by general consent, however, the conversation did
not touch once upon personal matters. They spoke a good deal of the
war. Brinnen himself was roused by sundry reflections into a momentary
bitterness, an expression of that peculiar irritation common to many of
his country-people, notwithstanding their underlying gratitude.
"You people in England," he declared, "you have no perceptions, no
brains with which to combat a perfectly-developed system of espionage;
nothing but an infinite complacency, an infinite stupidity. The people
who hate you walk in your midst, unharmed. Even if they are pointed
out, your officials shrug their shoulders and smile in a superior
fashion. 'They can do us no harm,' they assure you. 'There are
reasons why we prefer to leave them alone.' And you are at war, you
people! Ah, if only you would realise it!"
"You are quite right," Aaron Rodd admitted. "We have grown too
accustomed to look upon espionage and secret service as the _bonne
bouche_ of the novelist. I suppose they do exist."
"They not only exist," Brinnen continued, "but they are becoming a very
important factor in the progress of the war. Look at this room. Did
you ever see a more cosmopolitan gathering! There are Belgians,
Russians, Americans. The two young men who have just come in are
Roumanians, over here no one knows why. This, however, I could tell
you. If England takes no heed of their presence, Germany does. They
will be watched by Germany until they leave, and, for all your army of
censors, Germany will know, day by day, just what they do. And, even
nearer to us, I could give your Secret Service a very useful piece of
advice concerning the young man at the third table from here, with the
lady in white spangles."
Aaron Rodd and the poet both glanced cautiously in the direction
indicated. A tall, clean-shaven young man, dark, with big black eyes,
a mass of sleekly-brushed black hair and rather puffy cheeks,
good-looking in a stagy sort of way, was entertaining an artistically
decorated young ornament of the musical comedy stage.
"You know him, perhaps?" Brinnen enquired.
Both men shook their heads.
"He is always about here," Cresswell remarked, "generally in the bar."
"He is an American actor," Brinnen continued. "His name on the
programmes is Jack Lovejoy. His real name is Karl Festonheim, and he
was born in Cologne. His father and his grandfather, his mother and
his grandmother, were Germans. He married a German wife--a negligible
affair, perhaps, as the matrimonial arrangements of those sort of
people are inclined to be, but still it shows his tendencies. The man,
like many thousands of others, calls himself an American because he
went there as a boy and has lived there ever since. Yet every relative
he has lives in Germany, every spark of real feeling such a person may
happen to possess, is German, he eats like a German, he lives like a
German, he even talks like one. Yet that young man has no difficulty
about passports. He can live in London, listen to the secret voices of
your nation, and make his way unhindered and unharmed over to Germany
whenever he chooses."
"There are, of course, many technical difficulties," Aaron Rodd pointed
out, "in dealing with naturalised Americans, whatever the country of
their birth."
"You are very punctilious over here," Captain Brinnen observed, with
fine sarcasm. "However, I give that young man as an instance because I
know that certain information concerning the whereabouts of three of
your cruisers, earlier in the war, was conveyed by him to the German
Admiralty. I cannot prove this, but I know it. I also know that
while, if you speak to him, he will tell you that he is out of a job,
that the war has played the deuce with musical comedy, he has refused
three parts within the last month, on some pretext or another, because
he is better occupied."
Stephen Cresswell sat up in his place. An expectant light shone in his
eyes.
"An adventure!" he murmured.
"If you, sir," Brinnen remarked, "could develop the sagacity of a
French or German Secret Service man, and fasten upon the life of that
young man, you would probably gain the adventure which you seek."
"I am the very man for the task," the poet declared eagerly. "I have
stuck like a leech to my friend Aaron Rodd here, in the hopes of
travelling with him a little way into the land where adventures are as
plentiful as gooseberries. The only one to which he has introduced me
has been highly satisfactory, in its way," he declared, bowing to
Henriette, "and the remembrance of it will be a happiness to me all my
life, but one cannot live on one adventure alone. I am eager for more.
I claim that young man, Rodd, do you hear? I claim him."
"He is yours," the other acquiesced grimly. "Poor fellow! One is
almost inclined to pity him."
Cresswell smiled in superior fashion.
"My dear fellow," he said, "you are, without doubt, a man of energy and
brains, but what you lack is initiative. Initiative is the gift
vouchsafed to genius. I have genius, therefore I have initiative. To
you, the affair connected with this young man appears at present to be
as impenetrable as a blank wall. You would not know where to start.
Wait. You shall watch my methods."
"In the meantime," Henriette whispered, gazing intently towards the
doorway, "behold, Madame de Borria and her recovered necklace!"
They all turned their heads. The South American woman was on her way
through the room and around her neck flashed the light from her
wonderful necklace. Aaron Rodd leaned a little forward in his chair.
"She is soon wearing it again," he remarked.
Brinnen shrugged his shoulders.
"Why not? It was lost only for a few hours. Madame had the good sense
to follow her husband's advice and to offer that greatest of lures to
the educated thief--a reward and no questions asked. Madame deserves
to have recovered her necklace--and it becomes her well.... Shall we
take our coffee outside?"
They all rose to their feet and left the restaurant together. The poet
thrust his arm through Brinnen's and led him on one side, talking
earnestly. Aaron was left alone for a few minutes with Henriette.
They found a corner as far as possible from the strains of the
over-persistent band.
"It is three months to-day," he reminded her, "since I saw you first in
the gardens of the Embankment."
"What a memory!" she murmured. "And I, like the very forward person
you have since discovered me to be, made tentative overtures to you
with the object of discovering whether you were a lawyer not too
squeamish about your clients or their business."
His face hardened a little.
"Are we coming soon," he asked, "to the end of your stock--or rather
your brother's stock of jewels?"
"Why?" she whispered, looking up at him with slightly contracted
eyebrows.
"Because I am tired of it," he declared frankly, "tired of it in
connection with you, that is to say. I spend whole days, sometimes, in
a positive state of terror. Luxury is a small thing compared with
freedom and life. You have had over forty thousand pounds now. Why
don't you take your grandfather somewhere away into the country? Even
if you have to be content with half that sum, you could live on it and
be safe. Let your brother go his own way. It isn't really worth
while, Henriette."
She looked at the point of her slipper carefully for a moment. She
wore a perfectly plain black velvet gown, and only a single pearl
hanging from a strip of black velvet around her neck. Her fingers were
ringless. Even her hair was arranged in the simplest of coils, yet
there was no one else in the room quite like her.
"Henriette," he went on, leaning over her, "if you don't speak I shall
make a fool of myself."
She started, and looked timorously into his eyes. Then as quickly she
looked away again. Her hands clasped the arms of her chair. She
seemed suddenly interested in the orchestra.
"Say--what you were going to say," she begged.
"You know," he obeyed, almost roughly. "I am nearly forty years old.
I have no money except the ten or fifteen thousand pounds I have made
by helping to dispose of your stolen jewels, and I'm sick of it all,
sick of it because I've found something in life worth living
differently for. You know what that is. Leave your brother to live
his own life. Bring your grandfather and come away somewhere,
Henriette, and marry me. It sounds absurd, doesn't it," he went on, a
little wistfully, "but in a way you've been so kind to me. You must
have known."
She suddenly laid her hand upon his. It was a delightful little
gesture.
"Please don't say any more just now," she implored. "I shall remember
every word that you have said, and I don't think I have ever felt so
much like----"
"Like what?"
"Doing what you ask," she continued quickly. "There! Just now--for a
little time--we must think of other things. You see, here comes my
brother and Mr. Cresswell. Whatever is Mr. Cresswell going to do?
Look!"
The American actor and his companion had taken seats almost opposite to
them. Suddenly Cresswell left his host's side and crossed the room
towards them. With a slight bow he addressed Lovejoy. Brinnen, who
had strolled over to where his sister and Aaron Rodd were seated,
smiled a little cynically.
"What you call, in your expressive language, rather the methods of a
bull in a china shop," he observed. "I fancy that we shall see our
friend return, a little chastened."
"You don't know Stephen," his friend murmured. "He has more confidence
than any other man on earth. Look!"
A waiter had been summoned to bring a chair. The poet was seated now
next the young lady, to whom he had just been introduced. They were
all three chatting amiably. A waiter was receiving an order for coffee
and liqueurs.
"That is what he calls initiative," Henriette whispered.
"The first steps are easy," Brinnen remarked, "and, after all, one must
remember that Lovejoy is by no means a clever person. He is conceited
and bumptious. Well, at any rate we must wish Mr. Cresswell luck."
"I was just asking your sister," Aaron said abruptly, "whether we were
almost coming to the end of your hidden stores."
The young Belgian glanced around for a moment quickly and flicked the
ash from his cigarette.
"Why?"
"Because I am beginning to fear the risk more every day for your
sister's sake," Aaron continued steadily. "Our friend Mr. Brodie has
made a good many mistakes but he is not an entire fool. Grimm admitted
only the other day that he had tracked him down to the very place where
he recuts the diamonds--had been within a few feet of them."
"Nothing came of it, though," Brinnen observed, frowning.
"It may not be so every time," Aaron Rodd persisted. "I was trying to
persuade your sister to be content with small things. Your grandfather
is very old. Think what the shock would be to him if anything were to
happen to either of you. Put what you have left in a safe deposit, if
you like, for a time, and start again disposing of them when things
have blown over a little."
The brother and sister exchanged glances which to Aaron were
inexplicable.
"What does Mr. Harvey Grimm say about it?" the former asked.
"Oh! Grimm will go on till he drops," Aaron Rodd declared.
"Adventure, danger, whatever the cost, is the spice of life to him.
But he is just a man alone. It's a different thing when a girl like
your sister is concerned. It is for her sake that I want to see the
thing closed up."
Brinnen dropped his eyeglass and rubbed it for a moment with his
handkerchief.
"You seem to take a great interest in my sister, Mr. Rodd," he said
calmly.
"I have just asked her to marry me," Aaron Rodd replied bluntly.
Brinnen turned slowly around. He was suddenly like his grandfather.
His eyebrows were a little uplifted. His expression was the expression
of one who listens to some unthinkable thing.
"Absurd!" he muttered.
"It is nothing of the sort," Aaron Rodd answered simply. "If your
sister has been guiltily concerned in your adventurous life, I, too,
have turned myself into a receiver of stolen property. We are in the
same boat, only I want to get her out of it. I have asked her to marry
me and come over to America. We could start life again on what I have."
She leaned over suddenly and spoke to her brother in a low tone, and in
a language which was strange to Aaron Rodd. His expression changed a
little as he listened. Then the waiter appeared with their coffee and
liqueurs. When they were served and he had left, Captain Brinnen
reopened the subject.
"I gather that you yourself, Mr. Rodd," he observed, "have hankerings
towards the humdrum life, the life of honesty and the virtues and that
sort of thing."
"I have tried for many years to make an honest living," Aaron replied
shortly. "The only time I ever crossed the line was long ago, when
Harvey Grimm and I were in America. It wasn't anything very serious
then. Our present transactions have been my only other essay. I come
of an old-fashioned New England family, and however one may laugh at
their principles and the narrowness of their outlook, I have those
principles in my blood, and, frankly, I hate this life. If it's bad
for me, it's worse for your sister. I want to take her away."
"I will consider what you have said, Mr. Rodd," Brinnen replied. "For
the present we will, if you please, abandon the conversation."
A little glance of entreaty from Henriette closed Aaron's lips. They
spoke of general things for a few moments. Then Captain Brinnen rose
to his feet.
"I am afraid that I must take my sister away now, Mr. Rodd," he
announced. "She has an engagement for this evening. But before we
leave," he added, holding out his hand, "whatever I may feel concerning
the proposals you have made, I should like once more to express my
thanks for your great courage the other night. My sister and I owe you
more than we can ever repay."
"Your sister," Aaron said, with a boldness which surprised him, "can
repay me if she will."
She looked into his eyes, and they seemed to him larger and softer than
he had ever seen them. There was a little quiver at her lips, too,
even though her words were light ones.
"You are growing into a courtier, Mr. Rodd," she murmured. "Au revoir!"
They passed up the stairs and Aaron sank back in his chair. There was
a certain satisfaction mingled even with his disappointment. At least
he had spoken his mind. Then the little group on the other side of the
way arose, and the poet, catching his eye, beckoned to him in friendly
fashion.
"This," the poet declared, as Aaron approached, "is my friend Aaron
Rodd. Aaron, allow me to present you to a lady whom you have often
worshipped from a distance, Miss Pamela Keane."
Aaron, who had no idea who Miss Pamela Keane was, bent over her hand
and cursed the poet under his breath. The latter, who was thoroughly
enjoying himself, laid his hand upon Lovejoy's shoulder.
"And also to my friend Mr. Jack Lovejoy," he continued. "Lovejoy is
the one man in London who makes me wish that I could write for the
musical comedy stage. One has one's limitations, alas!"
There followed a few minutes' desultory conversation. Then Miss Pamela
Keane picked up a wonderful collection of golden trifles and turned
towards the exit.
"We shall meet again, Mr. Cresswell," she said, smiling upon him. "Do
bring Mr. Rodd with you, if he cares to come. Au revoir!"
She turned away, followed by Lovejoy. The poet linked his arm through
Aaron's and demanded another liqueur.
"You didn't really know the fellow, did you?" Aaron asked curiously.
"Not I," he replied, "but, as I have told you many times, I am a born
adventurer. I am equal to any situation. Have I ever mentioned that I
am also something of a snob?"
"I don't seem to remember the confession."
"Well, I am. I have an aunt who is the wife of a baronet. I make use
of her occasionally. In the days of my more abject poverty I used to
go there for a free meal when I had a black coat. She is by way of
being a patroness of the arts, entertains all sorts of jumbled up
parties. In all probability Mr. Lovejoy has either been asked to one
of them or wishes he had. Hence my self-introduction. 'Mr. Lovejoy,'
I say in my best manner, 'I believe I had the pleasure of meeting you
at my aunt's, Lady Sittingley's?' He hesitates, and I can see that I
have him fixed. He hasn't the least intention of ever denying that he
was there, although he doesn't know me from Adam. And there you are,
you know. It's the natural spirit of the adventurer."
"What was that about going on there to-night?" Aaron enquired.
"We are both going, my boy," was the cheerful reply. "Miss Pamela
Keane is entertaining a few friends to _chemin de fer_ at her flat in
Buckingham Gate. I have explained that I do not play, but we are going
to look in for a glass of wine and a chat. As a matter of fact, I just
want to cast my eye over Lovejoy's friends, do you see?"
"There's no need for me to come," Aaron Rodd protested.
"There is every need," the poet insisted, watching the arrival of the
liqueurs with satisfaction. "I like companionship. I like some one
with whom to compare impressions after such a visit as this. You may
notice something which has escaped me."
Aaron frowned a little wearily.
"Captain Brinnen was probably talking quite at random," he remarked.
"Lovejoy doesn't seem to me to be the type of man who'd take a serious
interest in anything except his own pleasures."
"Quite right," the other agreed shrewdly, "but he might reasonably take
an interest in the means of procuring those pleasures. And as to our
jewel-collecting friend talking at random, I don't believe it. A man
with a face and a character like his doesn't chatter. We'll just
spruce up here a bit and follow them right along...."
The two men spent the next two hours in entirely different fashion.
Stephen Cresswell made a host of new friends with marvellous facility,
flirted with many pretty but unnamed ladies, ate _pâté de foie gras_
sandwiches and drank champagne as though it were his first meal of the
day. Aaron, on the other hand, found the customary stiffness of his
manner only intensified by the Bohemianism of his fellow-guests. The
women, with their laughing eyes, their frankly flirtatious speeches,
their general air of good-fellowship and lack of reserve, seemed to him
simply intolerable. Every time he thought of Henriette, he hated his
surroundings and longed for the solitude which, notwithstanding his
efforts, he was only partially able to achieve. To escape the new
acquaintances whom the poet was continually bringing up to him, he even
played for an hour. Afterwards, when the rooms became more crowded, he
escaped into a corner and sat looking on. It was exactly the sort of
gathering he had expected--a good many young ladies from the stage with
their escorts, a strong element of the betting fraternity, a theatrical
agent or two, and a sprinkling of those nameless people, always well
dressed, always mysterious, who seem to pass through life so easily
without toiling or spinning. He was just deciding that, so far as the
object of their visit was concerned, the evening had been wasted, when
Pamela Keane came suddenly across the room and sat down by his side.
"I want to talk to you, Mr. Rodd," she said, throwing herself back in a
chair and displaying an amazing amount of white silk stocking.
"You are very kind," he murmured.
"Mr. Cresswell tells me that you are a lawyer?"
"That is so," Aaron admitted, a little startled.
"Where are your offices?"
"Seventeen Manchester Street, Adelphi," he replied, "third floor."
"Can I come and see you at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning?"
"With pleasure!"
"Good! I'll be there. Not a word to Jack, mind. Come and have a
glass of champagne."
He drank his glass of champagne and watched his companion drink three.
Then she floated off to greet some new-comers and Aaron made his
escape. The poet called him up in the hall.
"The usual sort of crowd here," he remarked, as they left the house.
"Pretty hot lot, some of those bookmakers and jockeys, but I didn't see
a soul whom I'd ever suspect of getting off his own little run. What
about you?"
"Come and see me at twelve o'clock to-morrow morning," was all the poet
could get out of his companion that night....
Miss Pamela Keane was marvellously punctual. In a blue serge costume
straight from Paris, a hat which was a marvel of simplicity, a
wonderful veil and a wave of perfume, she swept into Aaron Rodd's room
the next morning as eleven o'clock was striking. He handed her the
clients' chair, into which she sank, a little breathless.
"Say, this is some climb," she remarked. "Don't you have any elevators
in your offices on this side?"
"Plenty," he assured her. "I have a very small practice and these are
out-of-the way premises."
She lifted her veil. Her face was thick with powder and her eyes
seemed to him artificially brightened. There was some stuff which he
didn't understand upon her lashes, and in contradistinction to these,
to him, somewhat ghastly allurements, her expression was hard, her
tone, as she spoke, almost rasping.
"See here, Mr. Rodd," she began, "I have come to talk to you about Jack
Lovejoy. Know anything about me?"
"Nothing," he confessed.
"I don't suppose you've ever seen me on the stage, even?"
"Never!"
"So much the better. I didn't want to go to one of these
know-everybody-and-everything theatrical lawyers, who call you 'my
dear' and promise you the earth. Well, I married a millionaire over in
the States, and I fixed things so that he couldn't get rid of me
without it costing him something. I've got an income of five thousand
pounds a year, Mr. Rodd, and though that ain't the earth, it's useful."
"Naturally," he assented.
"I've done more than I should like to tell you for Jack Lovejoy," she
went on. "Of course, we live together, and we're as much married as
the law allows. He'd got nothing but what he was earning, and that
wasn't much, when I took him up. Now he's got his motor-car and
anything he wants. I'm not a changeable woman. I'm older than he is,
of course, but I'm barely forty, and all I wanted of Jack was that he
should play the game. He's not doing it, Mr. Rodd."
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly. The question of
Lovejoy's infidelities appeared to him profoundly uninteresting.
"I'll tell you how I know," she went on. "We had a little trouble a
month ago and I've waited for him to come to me for his cheque since,
instead of handing it over. He hasn't been and he's had all the money
he wanted. He's getting it from somewhere. What I want to know is
where?"
Aaron was a little more interested.
"Betting? Card playing?" he suggested.
She waved her hand scornfully.
"I know the firm with whom he does his betting, and he owes them a tidy
sum already. And as to card playing, why, any of 'em would clean him
out in no time. He hasn't the brains of a rabbit. It's a woman. He
goes to see her every day at six o'clock. I've found that out for
myself, and I've found out the direction he goes in. For the rest I
have come to you."
"To me?" Aaron exclaimed, a little startled.
"Yes! It's part of your job, ain't it? Supposing it was a divorce I
wanted, I should have to go to a lawyer, shouldn't I? I'm not
imagining you hang about street corners yourself, but you've got to
employ some one to have him watched, and you've got to begin this
afternoon. I can give you a start all right from luncheon time. He'll
bring me anywhere I say--Milan Grill-room, to-day, at two o'clock. We
shall leave there, perhaps, at half-past three, and he'll drive me
home. From that point he'll have to be watched. He may come in for an
hour or he may not, but it's where he goes to afterwards that I want to
know. Will you take this job on, Mr. Rodd?"
"With pleasure," he agreed. "It's a little out of my line but I think
I can arrange it."
"Then that's that," the lady remarked, rising. "I've got to be at my
dressmaker's at half-past. Ring me up when you've anything to report."
Aaron Rodd bowed his client down the stairs, went back to his office
and threw the windows wide open. Then he telephoned for the poet.
"I am going to do a disgraceful thing," he told him, upon his arrival.
"I'm going to betray a client's confidence."
"Would it well out easier with the help of a matutinal?" the poet
suggested, with a glance at the clock. "My throat's as dry as a
lime-kiln this morning."
Aaron shook his head and told the story.
"Now get at it," he enjoined, as he bundled him out. "It's your job,
not mine, and I have a letter to write...."
The poet, a few days later, paid an afternoon call. He rang the bell
of a flat in Northumberland Court, enquired for Mrs. Abrahams, and
after a moment's hesitation was shown into a small drawing-room in
which half a dozen people were seated. The lady who was evidently a
hostess, a large, Jewish-looking woman, rose from her place on the
couch and regarded him with mingled distrust and curiosity. The poet,
however, who had seen Jack Lovejoy in a corner of the room, was not in
the least abashed.
"You haven't forgotten me, I hope, Mrs. Abrahams?" he said, bending
gallantly over her hesitating hand. "I met you at my aunt's, Lady
Sittingley's, and you were kind enough to say that I might come and see
you sometime. I ventured to bring you the small offering I promised
you--my poems, bound now, I am thankful to say, with a little more
dignity than when we last met."
Mrs. Abrahams' face cleared slightly but she remained somewhat
disturbed.
"Of course! You are Mr. Cresswell, aren't you, the poet? I remember
the curious stories there were about the beginning of your popularity.
You have really brought me that book? How charming of you!"
"I have promised myself this pleasure for a long time," Cresswell
assured her.
"Let me see," she went on, making room for him by her side, "when was
it that I met you at your aunt's?"
"I have no memory, even for such inspiring events," he confessed
ingenuously, "but I think it was about three months ago."
She sighed gently.
"This terrible war," she murmured, "makes it difficult to remember
anything. You will have some tea, Mr. Cresswell? Let me introduce you
to Professor David."
The poet bowed to his neighbour and glanced around the little circle,
winding up with a nod to Lovejoy, who seemed hopelessly out of place.
They were, for the most part, a very gloomy and serious little company.
"I interrupted an interesting conversation, I am sure," the poet
declared genially. "May it not continue?"
There was a moment's rather awkward silence and Mrs. Abrahams sighed.
"Alas!" she said, "I am afraid there was nothing original about our
conversation this afternoon. It was the war--always the war."
Cresswell balanced his plate upon his knee, sipped his tea and talked
commonplace nonsense for a quarter of an hour. Then he got up to leave.
"Coming my way, Lovejoy?" he enquired.
The young actor hesitated for a moment and then acquiesced. Mrs.
Abrahams bade them both farewell. She extended to neither of them any
invitation to return.
"Rather a heavy sort of crowd for you, isn't it?" Cresswell asked, as
they descended in the lift.
"Mrs. Abrahams was kind to me when I first came to London," Lovejoy
remarked, a little vaguely. "I promised I'd look in there some day and
I happened to be near this afternoon."
"Just so," the poet murmured, as they paused at the corner of the
street. "So long!"
Jack Lovejoy stepped into a taxi and was driven away westwards.
Cresswell crossed the road, turned into Whitehall, made his way into a
block of public buildings, and after half an hour's delay was shown
into the presence of an important-looking gentleman, who bade him take
a seat and peered at him doubtfully over the top of his eyeglasses.
"Sir Lionel," his visitor began, "I have come to you because I have
some information which should be exceedingly valuable to the home
branch of the Secret Service."
"Young man," the official replied, "you are the fifteenth caller within
the last few hours who has brought me information guaranteed to save
the Empire."
"Lucky number, the fifteenth," the poet remarked cheerfully. "Do you
happen to know Mrs. Abrahams of Northumberland Court?"
"I know her slightly," Sir Lionel admitted. "She is a friend of
several members of the Cabinet."
"Why isn't she interned?" Cresswell demanded. "She is a German."
"Her husband was born in England."
"But she is a red-hot German, all the same," the young man persisted.
"I have been making enquiries about her myself and I find that for
years before the war she was doing nothing but run down the culture and
customs of this country as compared with Germany."
The official shrugged his shoulders.