Mr. Van Torp arrived in London alone, with one small valise, for he
had sent his man with his luggage to the place in Derbyshire. At
Euston a porter got him a hansom, and he bargained with the cabman to
take him and his valise to the Temple for eighteenpence, a sum which,
he explained, allowed sixpence for the valise, as the distance could
not by any means be made out to be more than two miles.
Such close economy was to be expected from a millionaire, travelling
incognito; what was more surprising was that, when the cab stopped
before a door in Hare Court and Mr. Van Torp received his valise from
the roof of the vehicle, he gave the man half-a-crown, and said it was
'all right.'
'Now, my man,' he observed, 'you've not only got an extra shilling,
to which you had no claim whatever, but you've had the pleasure of a
surprise which you could not have bought for that money.'
The cabman grinned as he touched his hat and drove away, and Mr. Van
Torp took his valise in one hand and his umbrella in the other and
went up the dark stairs. He went up four flights without stopping
to take breath, and without so much as glancing at any of the names
painted in white letters on the small black boards beside the doors on
the right and left of each landing.
The fourth floor was the last, and though the name on the left had
evidently been there a number of years, for the white lettering was of
the tint of a yellow fog, it was still quite clear and legible.
MR.I. BAMBERGER.
That was the name, but the millionaire did not look at it any more
than he had looked at the others lower down. He knew them all by
heart. He dropped his valise, took a small key from his pocket, opened
the door, picked up his valise again, and, as neither hand was free,
he shut the door with his heel as he passed in, and it slammed behind
him, sending dismal echoes down the empty staircase.
The entry was almost quite dark, for it was past six o'clock in the
afternoon, late in March, and the sky was overcast; but there was
still light enough to see in the large room on the left into which Mr.
Van Torp carried his things.
It was a dingy place, poorly furnished, but some one had dusted the
table, the mantelpiece, and the small bookcase, and the fire was laid
in the grate, while a bright copper kettle stood on a movable hob. Mr.
Van Torp struck a match and lighted the kindling before he took off
his overcoat, and in a few minutes a cheerful blaze dispelled the
gathering gloom. He went to a small old-fashioned cupboard in a corner
and brought from it a chipped cup and saucer, a brown teapot, and a
cheap japanned tea-caddy, all of which he set on the table; and as
soon as the fire burned brightly, he pushed the movable hob round with
his foot till the kettle was over the flame of the coals. Then he took
off his overcoat and sat down in the shabby easy-chair by the hearth,
to wait till the water boiled.
His proceedings, his manner, and his expression would have surprised
the people who had been his fellow-passengers on the _Leofric_, and
who imagined Mr. Van Torp driving to an Olympian mansion, somewhere
between Constitution Hill and Sloane Square, to be received at his own
door by gravely obsequious footmen in plush, and to drink Imperial
Chinese tea from cups of Old Saxe, or Bleu du Roi, or Capo di Monte.
Paul Griggs, having tea and a pipe in a quiet little hotel in Clarges
Street, would have been much surprised if he could have seen Rufus Van
Torp lighting a fire for himself in that dingy room in Hare Court.
Madame Margarita da Cordova, waiting for an expected visitor in her
own sitting-room, in her own pretty house in Norfolk Crescent, would
have been very much surprised indeed. The sight would have plunged her
into even greater uncertainty as to the man's real character, and it
is not unlikely that she would have taken his mysterious retreat to be
another link in the chain of evidence against him which already seemed
so convincing. She might naturally have wondered, too, what he had
felt when he had seen that board beside the door, and she could hardly
have believed that he had gone in without so much as glancing at the
yellowish letters that formed the name of Bamberger.
But he seemed quite at home where he was, and not at all uncomfortable
as he sat before the fire, watching the spout of the kettle, his
elbows on the arms of the easy-chair and his hands raised before him,
with the finger-tips pressed against each other, in the attitude
which, with most men, means that they are considering the two sides of
a question that is interesting without being very important.
Perhaps a thoughtful observer would have noticed at once that there
had been no letters waiting for him when he had arrived, and would
have inferred either that he did not mean to stay at the rooms
twenty-four hours, or that, if he did, he had not chosen to let any
one know where he was.
Presently it occurred to him that there was no longer any light in
the room except from the fire, and he rose and lit the gas. The
incandescent light sent a raw glare into the farthest corners of the
large room, and just then a tiny wreath of white steam issued from the
spout of the kettle. This did not escape Mr. Van Torp's watchful eye,
but instead of making tea at once he looked at his watch, after which
he crossed the room to the window and stood thoughtfully gazing
through the panes at the fast disappearing outlines of the roofs and
chimney-pots which made up the view when there was daylight outside.
He did not pull down the shade before he turned back to the fire,
perhaps because no one could possibly look in.
But he poured a little hot water into the teapot, to scald it, and
went to the cupboard and got another cup and saucer, and an old
tobacco-tin of which the dingy label was half torn off, and which
betrayed by a rattling noise that it contained lumps of sugar. The
imaginary thoughtful observer already mentioned would have inferred
from all this that Mr. Van Torp had resolved to put off making tea
until some one came to share it with him, and that the some one
might take sugar, though he himself did not; and further, as it was
extremely improbable, on the face of it, that an afternoon visitor
should look in by a mere chance, in the hope of finding some one in
Mr. Isidore Bamberger's usually deserted rooms, on the fourth floor of
a dark building in Hare Court, the observer would suppose that Mr. Van
Torp was expecting some one to come and see him just at that hour,
though he had only landed in Liverpool that day, and would have been
still at sea if the weather had been rough or foggy.
All this might have still further interested Paul Griggs, and would
certainly have seemed suspicious to Margaret, if she could have known
about it.
Five minutes passed, and ten, and the kettle was boiling furiously,
and sending out a long jet of steam over the not very shapely toes of
Mr. Van Torp's boots, as he leaned back with his feet on the fender.
He looked at his watch again and apparently gave up the idea of
waiting any longer, for he rose and poured out the hot water from the
teapot into one of the cups, as a preparatory measure, and took off
the lid to put in the tea. But just as he had opened the caddy, he
paused and listened. The door of the room leading to the entry was
ajar, and as he stood by the table he had heard footsteps on the
stairs, still far down, but mounting steadily.
He went to the outer door and listened. There was no doubt that
somebody was coming up; any one not deaf could have heard the sound.
It was more strange that Mr. Van Torp should recognise the step,
for the rooms on the other side of the landing were occupied, and a
stranger would have thought it quite possible that the person who
was coming up should be going there. But Mr. Van Torp evidently knew
better, for he opened his door noiselessly and stood waiting to
receive the visitor. The staircase below was dimly lighted by gas, but
there was none at the upper landing, and in a few seconds a dark form
appeared, casting a tall shadow upwards against the dingy white paint
of the wall. The figure mounted steadily and came directly to the open
door--a lady in a long black cloak that quite hid her dress. She wore
no hat, but her head was altogether covered by one of those things
which are neither hoods nor mantillas nor veils, but which serve women
for any of the three, according to weather and circumstances. The
peculiarity of the one the lady wore was that it cast a deep shadow
over her face.
'Come in,' said Mr. Van Torp, withdrawing into the entry to make way.
She entered and went on directly to the sitting-room, while he shut
the outer door. Then he followed her, and shut the second door behind
him. She was standing before the fire spreading her gloved hands to
the blaze, as if she were cold. The gloves were white, and they fitted
very perfectly. As he came near, she turned and held out one hand.
'All right?' he inquired, shaking it heartily, as if it had been a
man's.
A sweet low voice answered him.
'Yes--all right,' it said, as if nothing could ever be wrong with
its possessor. 'But you?' it asked directly afterwards, in a tone of
sympathetic anxiety.
'I? Oh--well--' Mr. Van Torp's incomplete answer might have meant
anything, except that he too was 'all right.'
'Yes,' said the lady gravely. 'I read the telegram the next day. Did
you get my cable? I did not think you would sail.'
'Yes, I got your cable. Thank you. Well--I did sail, you see. Take off
your things. The water's boiling and we'll have tea in a minute.'
The lady undid the fastening at her throat so that the fur-lined cloak
opened and slipped a little on her white shoulders. She held it in
place with one hand, and with the other she carefully turned back the
lace hood from her face, so as not to disarrange her hair. Mr. Van
Torp was making tea, and he looked up at her over the teapot.
'I dressed for dinner,' she said, explaining.
'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, looking at her, 'I should think you did!'
There was real admiration in his tone, though it was distinctly
reluctant.
'I thought it would save half an hour and give us more time together,'
said the lady simply.
She sat down in the shabby easy-chair, and as she did so the cloak
slipped and lay about her waist, and she gathered one side of it over
her knees. Her gown was of black velvet, without so much as a bit of
lace, except at the sleeves, and the only ornament she wore was a
short string of very perfect pearls clasped round her handsome young
throat.
She was handsome, to say the least. If tired ghosts of departed
barristers were haunting the dingy room in Hare Court that night, they
must have blinked and quivered for sheer pleasure at what they saw,
for Mr. Van Torp's visitor was a very fine creature to look at; and if
ghosts can hear, they heard that her voice was sweet and low, like an
evening breeze and flowing water in a garden, even in the Garden of
Eden.
She was handsome, and she was young; and above all she had the
freshness, the uncontaminated bloom, the subdued brilliancy of
nature's most perfect growing things. It was in the deep clear eyes,
in the satin sheen of her bare shoulders under the sordid gaslight; it
was in the strong smooth lips, delicately shaded from salmon colour to
the faintest peach-blossom; it was in the firm oval of her face, in
the well-modelled ear, the straight throat and the curving neck; it
was in her graceful attitude; it was everywhere. 'No doubt,' the
ghosts might have said, 'there are more beautiful women in England
than this one, but surely there is none more like a thoroughbred and a
Derby winner!'
'You take sugar, don't you?' asked Mr. Van Torp, having got the lid
off the old tobacco-tin with some difficulty, for it had developed an
inclination to rust since it had last been moved.
'One lump, please,' said the thoroughbred, looking at the fire.
'I thought I remembered,' observed the millionaire. 'The tea's good,'
he added, 'and you'll have to excuse the cup. And there's no cream.'
'I'll excuse anything,' said the lady, 'I'm so glad to be here!'
'Well, I'm glad to see you too,' said Mr. Van Torp, giving her the
cup. 'Crackers? I'll see if there're any in the cupboard. I forgot.'
He went to the corner again and found a small tin of biscuits, which
he opened and examined under gaslight.
'Mouldy,' he observed. 'Weevils in them, too. Sorry. Does it matter
much?'
'Nothing matters,' answered the lady, sweet and low. 'But why do you
put them away if they are bad? It would be better to burn them and be
done with it.'
He was taking the box back to the cupboard.
'I suppose you're right,' he said reluctantly. 'But it always seems
wicked to burn bread, doesn't it?'
'Not when it's weevilly,' replied the thoroughbred, after sipping the
hot tea.
He emptied the contents of the tin upon the coal fire, and the room
presently began to smell of mouldy toast.
'Besides,' he said, 'it's cruel to burn weevils, I suppose. If I'd
thought of that, I'd have left them alone. It's too late now. They're
done for, poor beasts! I'm sorry. I don't like to kill things.'
He stared thoughtfully at the already charred remains of the
holocaust, and shook his head a little. The lady sipped her tea and
looked at him quietly, perhaps affectionately, but he did not see her.
'You think I'm rather silly sometimes, don't you?' he asked, still
gazing at the fire.
'No,' she answered at once. 'It's never silly to be kind, even to
weevils.'
'Thank you for thinking so,' said Mr. Van Torp, in an oddly humble
tone, and he began to drink his own tea.
If Margaret Donne could have suddenly found herself perched among the
chimney-pots on the opposite roof, and if she had then looked at his
face through the window, she would have wondered why she had ever felt
a perfectly irrational terror of him. It was quite plain that the lady
in black velvet had no such impression.
'You need not be so meek,' she said, smiling.
She did not laugh often, but sometimes there was a ripple in her fresh
voice that would turn a man's head. Mr. Van Torp looked at her in a
rather dull way.
'I believe I feel meek when I'm with you. Especially just now.'
He swallowed the rest of his tea at a gulp, set the cup on the table,
and folded his hands loosely together, his elbows resting on his
knees; in this attitude he leaned forward and looked at the burning
coals. Again his companion watched his hard face with affectionate
interest.
'Tell me just how it happened,' she said. 'I mean, if it will help you
at all to talk about it.'
'Yes. You always help me,' he answered, and then paused. 'I think I
should like to tell you the whole thing,' he added after an instant.
'Somehow, I never tell anybody much about myself.'
'I know.'
She bent her handsome head in assent. Just then it would have been
very hard to guess what the relations were between the oddly assorted
pair, as they sat a little apart from each other before the grate.
Mr. Van Torp was silent now, as if he were making up his mind how to
begin.
In the pause, the lady quietly held out her hand towards him. He saw
without turning further, and he stretched out his own. She took it
gently, and then, without warning, she leaned very far forward, bent
over it and touched it with her lips. He started and drew it back
hastily. It was as if the leaf of a flower had settled upon it, and
had hovered an instant, and fluttered away in a breath of soft air.
'Please don't!' he cried, almost roughly. 'There's nothing to thank me
for. I've often told you so.'
But the lady was already leaning back in the old easy-chair again as
if she had done nothing at all unusual.
'It wasn't for myself,' she said. 'It was for all the others, who will
never know.'
'Well, I'd rather not,' he answered. 'It's not worth all that. Now,
see here! I'm going to tell you as near as I can what happened, and
when you know you can make up your mind. You never saw but one side of
me anyhow, but you've got to see the other sooner or later. No, I know
what you're going to say--all that about a dual nature, and Jekyll and
Hyde, and all the rest of it. That may be true for nervous people, but
I'm not nervous. Not at all. I never was. What I know is, there are
two sides to everybody, and one's always the business side. The other
may be anything. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Sometimes
it cares for a woman, sometimes it's a collector of art things,
Babylonian glass, and Etruscan toys and prehistoric dolls. It may
gamble, or drink, or teach a Sunday school, or read Dante, or shoot,
or fish, or anything that's of no use. But one side's always the
business side. That's certain.'
Mr. Van Torp paused, and looked at his companion's empty cup. Seeing
that he was going to get up in order to give her more, she herself
rose quickly and did it for herself. He sat still and watched her,
probably because the business side of his nature judged that he could
be of no use. The fur-lined cloak was now lying in the easy-chair, and
there was nothing to break the sweeping lines of the black velvet from
her dazzling shoulders to her waist, to her knee, to her feet. Mr. Van
Torp watched her in silence, till she sat down again.
'You know me well enough to understand that,' he said, going on. 'My
outside's my business side, and that's what matters most. Now the
plain truth is this. My engagement to Miss Bamberger was just a
business affair. Bamberger thought of it first, and suggested it to
me, and he asked her if she'd mind being engaged to me for a few
weeks; and she said she wouldn't provided she wasn't expected to marry
me. That was fair and square, anyway, on both sides. Wasn't it?'
'It depends on why you did it,' said the lady, going to the point
directly.
'That was the business side,' answered her companion. 'You see, a big
thing like the Nickel Trust always has a lot of enemies, besides a
heap of people who want to get some of it cheap. This time they put
their heads together and got up one of the usual stories. You see,
Isidore H. Bamberger is the president and I only appear as a director,
though most of it's mine. So they got up a story that he was operating
on his own account to get behind me, and that we were going to quarrel
over it, and there was going to be a slump, and people began to
believe it. It wasn't any use talking to the papers. We soon found
that out. Sometimes the public won't believe anything it's told, and
sometimes it swallows faster than you can feed to it. I don't know
why, though I've had a pretty long experience, but I generally do know
which state it's in. I feel it. That's what's called business ability.
It's like fishing. Any old fisherman can judge in half an hour whether
the fish are going to bite all day or not. If he's wrong once, he'll
be right a hundred times. Well, I felt talking was no good, and so did
Bamberger, and the shares began to go down before the storm. If the
big slump had come there'd have been a heap of money lost. I don't say
we didn't let the shares drop a couple of points further than they
needed to, and Bamberger bought any of it that happened to be lying
around, and the more he bought the quicker it wanted to go
down, because people said there was going to be trouble and an
investigation. But if we'd gone on, lots of people would have been
ruined, and yet we didn't just see how to stop it sharp, till
Bamberger started his scheme. Do you understand all that?'
The lady nodded gravely.
'You make it clear,' she said.
'Well, I thought it was a good scheme,' continued her companion,
'and as the girl said she didn't mind, we told we were engaged. That
settled things pretty quick. The shares went up again in forty-eight
hours, and as we'd bought for cash we made the points, and the other
people were short and lost. But when everything was all right again we
got tired of being engaged, Miss Bamberger and I; and besides, there
was a young fellow she'd a fancy for, and he kept writing to her that
he'd kill himself, and that made her nervous, you see, and she said if
it went on another day she knew she'd have appendicitis or something.
So we were going to announce that the engagement was broken. And the
very night before--'
He paused. Not a muscle of the hard face moved, there was not a change
in the expression of the tremendous mouth, there was not a tremor in
the tone; but the man kept his eyes steadily on the fire.
'Oh, well, she's dead now, poor thing,' he said presently. 'And that's
what I wanted to tell you. I suppose it's not a very pretty story, is
it? But I'll tell you one thing. Though we made a little by the turn
of the market, we saved a heap of small fry from losing all they'd put
in. If we'd let the slump come and then bought we should have made a
pile; but then we might have had difficulty in getting the stock up to
anywhere near par again for some time.'
'Besides,' said the lady quietly, 'you would not have ruined all those
little people if you could help it.'
'You think I wouldn't?' He turned his eyes to her now.
'I'm sure you would not,' said the lady with perfect confidence.
'I don't know, I'm sure,' answered Mr. Van Torp in a doubtful tone.
'Perhaps I wouldn't. But it would only have been business if I had.
It's not as if Bamberger and I had started a story on purpose about
our quarrelling in order to make things go down. I draw the line
there. That's downright dishonest, I call it. But if we'd just let
things slide and taken advantage of what happened, it would only have
been business after all. Except for that doubt about getting back
to par,' he added, as an afterthought. 'But then I should have felt
whether it was safe or not.'
'Then why did you not let things slide, as you call it?'
'I don't know, I'm sure. Maybe I was soft-hearted. We don't always
know why we do things in business. There's a great deal more in the
weather where big money is moving than you might think. For instance,
there was never a great revolution in winter. But as for making people
lose their money, those who can't keep it ought not to have it.
They're a danger to society, and half the time it's they who upset the
market by acting like lunatics. They get a lot of sentimental pity
sometimes, those people; but after all, if they didn't try to cut in
without capital, and play the game without knowing the rules, business
would be much steadier and there would be fewer panics. They're the
people who get frightened and run, not we. The fact is, they ought
never to have been there. That's why I believe in big things myself.'
He paused, having apparently reached the end of his subject.
'Were you with the poor girl when she died?' asked the lady presently.
'No. She'd dined with a party and was in their box, and they were the
last people who saw her. You read about the explosion. She bolted
from the box in the dark, I was told, and as she couldn't be found
afterwards they concluded she had rushed out and taken a cab home. It
seemed natural, I suppose.'
'Who found her at last?'
'A man called Griggs--the author, you know. He carried her to the
manager's room, still alive. They got a doctor, and as she wanted
to see a woman, they sent for Cordova, the singer, from her
dressing-room, and the girl died in her arms. They said it was heart
failure, from shock.'
'It was very sad.'
'I'm sorry for poor Bamberger,' said Mr. Van Torp thoughtfully. 'She
was his only child, and he doted on her. I never saw a man so cut up
as he looked. I wanted to stay, but he said the mere sight of me drove
him crazy, poor fellow, and as I had business over here and my passage
was taken, I just sailed. Sometimes the kindest thing one can do is
to get out. So I did. But I'm very sorry for him. I wish I could do
anything to make it easier for him. It was nobody's fault, I suppose,
though I do think the people she was with might have prevented her
from rushing out in the dark.'
'They were frightened themselves. How could any one be blamed for her
death?'
'Exactly. But if any one could be made responsible, I know Bamberger
would do for him in some way. He's a resentful sort of man if any one
does him an injury. Blood for blood is Bamberger's motto, every time.
One thing I'm sure of. He'll run down whoever was responsible for
that explosion, and he'll do for him, whoever he is, if it costs one
million to get a conviction. I wouldn't like to be the fellow!'
'I can understand wishing to be revenged for the death of one's only
child,' said the lady thoughtfully. 'Cannot you?'
The American turned his hard face to her.
'Yes,' he said, 'I can. It's only human, after all.'
She sighed and looked into the fire. She was married, but she was
childless, and that was a constant regret to her. Mr. Van Torp knew it
and understood.
'To change the subject,' he said cheerfully, 'I suppose you need
money, don't you?'
'Oh yes! Indeed I do!'
Her momentary sadness had already disappeared, and there was almost a
ripple in her tone again as she answered.
'How much?' asked the millionaire smiling.
She shook her head and smiled too; and as she met his eyes she
settled herself and leaned far back in the shabby easy-chair. She was
wonderfully graceful and good to look at in her easy attitude.
'I'm afraid to tell you how much!' She shook her head again, as she
answered.
'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp in an encouraging tone, 'I've brought some
cash in my pocket, and if it isn't enough I'll get you some more
to-morrow. But I won't give you a cheque. It's too compromising. I
thought of that before I left New York, so I brought some English
notes from there.'
'How thoughtful you always are for me!'
'It's not much to do for a woman one likes. But I'm sorry if I've
brought too little. Here it is, anyway.'
He produced a large and well-worn pocket-book, and took from it a
small envelope, which he handed to her.
'Tell me how much more you'll need,' he said, 'and I'll give it to
you to-morrow. I'll put the notes between the pages of a new book and
leave it at your door. He wouldn't open a package that was addressed
to you from a bookseller's, would he?'
'No,' answered the lady, her expression changing a little, 'I think he
draws the line at the bookseller.'
'You see, this was meant for you,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'There are your
initials on it.'
She glanced at the envelope, and saw that it was marked in pencil with
the letters M.L. in one corner.
'Thank you,' she said, but she did not open it.
'You'd better count the notes,' suggested the millionaire. 'I'm open
to making mistakes myself.'
The lady took from the envelope a thin flat package of new Bank of
England notes, folded together in four. Without separating them she
glanced carelessly at the first, which was for a hundred pounds, and
then counted the others by the edges. She counted four after the
first, and Mr. Van Torp watched her face with evident amusement.
'You need more than that, don't you?' he asked, when she had finished.
'A little more, perhaps,' she said quietly, though she could not quite
conceal her disappointment, as she folded the notes and slipped them
into the envelope again. 'But I shall try to make this last. Thank you
very much.'
'I like you,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'You're the real thing. They'd call
you a chief's daughter in the South Seas. But I'm not so mean as all
that. I only thought you might need a little cash at once. That's
all.'
A loud knocking at the outer door prevented the lady from answering.
She looked at Mr. Van Torp in surprise.
'What's that?' she asked, rather anxiously.
'I don't know,' he answered. 'He couldn't guess that you were here,
could he?'
'Oh no! That's quite out of the question!'
'Then I'll open the door,' said the millionaire, and he left the
sitting-room.
The lady had not risen, and she still leaned back in her seat. She
idly tapped the knuckles of her gloved hand with the small envelope.
The knocking was repeated, she heard the outer door opened, and the
sound of voices followed directly.
'Oh!' Mr. Van Torp exclaimed in a tone of contemptuous surprise, 'it's
you, is it? Well, I'm busy just now. I can't see you till to-morrow.'
'My business will not keep till to-morrow,' answered an oily voice in
a slightly foreign accent.
At the very first syllables the lady rose quickly to her feet, and
resting one hand on the table she leant forward in the direction of
the door, with an expression that was at once eager and anxious, and
yet quite fearless.
'What you call your business is going to wait my convenience,' said
Mr. Van Torp. 'You'll find me here to-morrow morning until eleven
o'clock.'
From the sounds the lady judged that the American now attempted to
shut the door in his visitor's face, but that he was hindered and that
a scuffle followed.
'Hold him!' cried the oily voice in a tone of command. 'Bring him in!
Lock the door!'
It was clear enough that the visitor had not come alone, and that Mr.
Van Torp had been overpowered. The lady bit her salmon-coloured lip
angrily and contemptuously.
A moment later a tall heavily-built man with thick fair hair, a long
moustache, and shifty blue eyes, rushed into the room and did not stop
till there was only the small table between him and the lady.
'I've caught you! What have you to say?' he asked.
'To you? Nothing!'
She deliberately turned her back on her husband, rested one elbow on
the mantelpiece and set one foot upon the low fender, drawing up
her velvet gown over her instep. But a moment later she heard other
footsteps in the room, and turned her head to see Mr. Van Torp enter
the room between two big men who were evidently ex-policemen. The
millionaire, having failed to shut the door in the face of the three
men, had been too wise to attempt any further resistance.
The fair man glanced down at the table and saw the envelope with his
wife's initials lying beside the tea things. She had dropped it there
when she had risen to her feet at the sound of his voice. He snatched
it away as soon as he saw the pencilled letters on it, and in a moment
he had taken out the notes and was looking over them.
'I should like you to remember this, please,' he said, addressing the
two men who had accompanied him. 'This envelope is addressed to my
wife, under her initials, in the handwriting of Mr. Van Torp. Am
I right in taking it for your handwriting?' he inquired, in a
disagreeably polite tone, and turning towards the millionaire.
'You are,' answered the American, in a perfectly colourless voice and
without moving a muscle. 'That's my writing.'
'And this envelope,' continued the husband, holding up the notes
before the men, 'contains notes to the amount of four thousand one
hundred pounds.'
'Five hundred pounds, you mean,' said the lady coldly.
'See for yourself!' retorted the fair man, raising his eyebrows and
holding out the notes.
'That's correct,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling and looking at the lady.
'Four thousand one hundred. Only the first one was for a hundred, and
the rest were thousands. I meant it for a little surprise, you see.'
'Oh, how kind! How dear and kind!' cried the lady gratefully, and with
amazing disregard of her husband's presence.
The two ex-policemen had not expected anything so interesting as this,
and their expressions were worthy of study. They had been engaged,
through a private agency, to assist and support an injured husband,
and afterwards to appear as witnesses of a vulgar clandestine meeting,
as they supposed. It was not the first time they had been employed on
such business, but they did not remember ever having had to deal with
two persons who exhibited such hardened indifference; and though the
incident of the notes was not new to them, they had never been in a
case where the amount of cash received by the lady at one time was so
very large.
'It is needless,' said the fair man, addressing them both, 'to ask
what this money was for.'
'Yes,' said Mr. Van Torp coolly. 'You needn't bother. But I'll call
your attention to the fact that the notes are not yours, and that I'd
like to see them put back into that envelope and laid on that table
before you go. You broke into my house by force anyhow. If you take
valuables away with you, which you found here, it's burglary in
England, whatever it may be in your country; and if you don't know it,
these two professional gentlemen do. So you just do as I tell you, if
you want to keep out of gaol.'
The fair man had shown a too evident intention of slipping the
envelope into his own pocket, doubtless to be produced in evidence,
but Mr. Van Torp's final argument seemed convincing.
'I have not the smallest intention of depriving my wife of the price
of my honour, sir. Indeed, I am rather flattered to find that you both
value it so highly.'
Mr. Van Torp's hard face grew harder, and a very singular light came
into his eyes. He moved forwards till he was close to the fair man.
'None of that!' he said authoritatively. 'If you say another word
against your wife in my hearing I'll make it the last you ever said to
anybody. Now you'd better be gone before I telephone for the police.
Do you understand?'
The two ex-policemen employed by a private agency thought the case was
becoming more and more interesting; but at the same time they were
made vaguely nervous by Mr. Van Torp's attitude.
'I think you are threatening me,' said the fair man, drawing back a
step, and leaving the envelope on the table.
'No,' answered his adversary, 'I'm warning you off my premises, and
if you don't go pretty soon I'll telephone for the police. Is that a
threat?'
The last question was addressed to the two men.
'No, sir,' answered one of them.
'It would hardly be to your advantage to have more witnesses of my
wife's presence here,' observed the fair man coldly, 'but as I intend
to take her home we may as well go at once. Come, Maud! The carriage
is waiting.'
The lady, whose name was now spoken for the first time since she had
entered Mr. Van Torp's lodging, had not moved from the fireplace since
she had taken up her position there. Women are as clever as Napoleon
or Julius Caesar in selecting strong positions when there is to be an
encounter, and a fireplace, with a solid mantelpiece to lean against,
to strike, to cry upon or to cling to, is one of the strongest.
The enemy is thus reduced to prowling about the room and handling
knick-knacks while he talks, or smashing them if he is of a violent
disposition.
The lady now leant back against the dingy marble shelf and laid one
white-gloved arm along it, in an attitude that was positively regal.
Her right hand might appropriately have been toying with the orb of
empire on the mantelpiece, and her left, which hung down beside her,
might have loosely held the sceptre. Mr. Van Torp, who often bought
large pictures, was reminded of one recently offered to him in
America, representing an empress. He would have bought the portrait if
the dealer could have remembered which empress it represented, but the
fact that he could not had seemed suspicious to Mr. Van Torp. It was
clearly the man's business to know empresses by sight.
From her commanding position the Lady Maud refused her husband's
invitation to go home with him.
'I shall certainly not go with you,' she said. 'Besides, I'm dining
early at the Turkish Embassy and we are going to the play. You need
not wait for me. I'll take care of myself this evening, thank you.'
'This is monstrous!' cried the fair man, and with a peculiarly
un-English gesture he thrust his hand into his thick hair.
The foreigner in despair has always amused the genuine Anglo-Saxon.
Lady Maud's lip did not curl contemptuously now, she did not raise
her eyebrows, nor did her eyes flash with scorn. On the contrary,
she smiled quite frankly, and the sweet ripple was in her voice, the
ripple that drove some men almost crazy.
'You needn't make such a fuss,' she said. 'It's quite absurd, you
know. Mr. Van Torp is an old friend of mine, and you have known him
ever so long, and he is a man of business. You are, are you not?' she
asked, looking to the American for assent.
'I'm generally thought to be that,' he answered.
'Very well. I came here, to Mr. Van Torp's rooms in the Temple,
before going to dinner, because I wished to see him about a matter of
business, in what is a place of business. It's all ridiculous nonsense
to talk about having caught me--and worse. That money is for a
charity, and I am going to take it before your eyes, and thank Mr. Van
Torp for being so splendidly generous. Now go, and take those persons
with you, and let me hear no more of this!'
Thereupon Lady Maud came forward from the mantelpiece and deliberately
took from the table the envelope which contained four thousand one
hundred pounds in new Bank of England notes; and she put it into the
bosom of her gown, and smiled pleasantly at her husband.
Mr. Van Torp watched her with genuine admiration, and when she looked
at him and nodded her thanks again, he unconsciously smiled too, and
answered by a nod of approval.
The fair-haired foreign gentleman turned to his two ex-policemen with
considerable dignity.
'You have heard and seen,' he said impressively. 'I shall expect you
to remember all this when you are in the witness-box. Let us go.'
He made a sweeping bow to his wife and Mr. Van Torp. 'I wish you an
agreeable evening,' he said.
Thereupon he marched out of the room, followed by his men, who each
made an awkward bow at nothing in particular before going out. Mr. Van
Torp followed them at some distance towards the outer door, judging
that as they had forced their way in they could probably find their
way out. He did not even go to the outer threshold, for the last of
the three shut the door behind him.
When the millionaire came back Lady Maud was seated in the easy-chair,
leaning forward and looking thoughtfully into the fire. Assuredly no
one would have suspected from her composed face that anything unusual
had happened. She glanced at her friend when he came in, but did not
speak, and he began to walk up and down on the other side of the
table, with his hands behind him.
'You've got pretty good nerves,' he said presently.
'Yes,' answered Lady Maud, still watching the coals, 'they really are
rather good.'
A long silence followed, during which she did not move and Mr. Van
Torp steadily paced the floor.
'I didn't tell a fib, either,' she said at last. 'It's charity, in its
way.'
'Certainly,' assented her friend. 'What isn't either purchase-money or
interest, or taxes, or a bribe, or a loan, or a premium, or a present,
or blackmail, must be charity, because it must be something, and it
isn't anything else you can name.'
'A present may be a charity,' said Lady Maud, still thoughtful.
'Yes,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'It may be, but it isn't always.'
He walked twice the length of the room before he spoke again.
'Do you think it's really to be war this time?' he asked, stopping
beside the table. 'Because if it is, I'll see a lawyer before I go to
Derbyshire.'
Lady Maud looked up with a bright smile. Clearly she had been thinking
of something compared with which the divorce court was a delightful
contrast.
'I don't know,' she answered. 'It must come sooner or later, because
he wants to be free to marry that woman, and as he has not the courage
to cut my throat, he must divorce me--if he can!'
'I've sometimes thought he might take the shorter way,' said Van Torp.
'He?' Lady Maud almost laughed, but her companion looked grave.
'There's a thing called homicidal mania,' he said. 'Didn't he shoot a
boy in Russia a year ago?'
'A young man--one of the beaters. But that was an accident.'
'I'm not so sure. How about that poor dog at the Theobalds' last
September?'
'He thought the creature was mad,' Lady Maud explained.
'He knows as well as you do that there's no rabies in the British
Isles,' objected Mr. Van Torp. 'Count Leven never liked that dog for
some reason, and he shot him the first time he got a chance. He's
always killing things. Some day he'll kill you, I'm afraid.'
'I don't think so,' answered the lady carelessly. 'If he does, I hope
he'll do it neatly! I should hate to be maimed or mangled.'
'Do you know it makes me uncomfortable to hear you talk like that? I
wish you wouldn't! You can't deny that your husband's half a lunatic,
anyway. He was behaving like one here only a quarter of an hour ago,
and it's no use denying it.'
'But I'm not denying anything!'
'No, I know you're not,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'If you don't know how
crazy he is, I don't suppose any one else does. But your nerves are
better than mine, as I told you. The idea of killing anything makes
me uncomfortable, and when it comes to thinking that he really might
murder you some day--well, I can't stand it, that's all! If I didn't
know that you lock your door at night I shouldn't sleep, sometimes.
You do lock it, always, don't you?'
'Oh yes!'
'Be sure you do to-night. I wonder whether he is in earnest about the
divorce this time, or whether the whole scene was just bluff, to get
my money.'
'I don't know,' answered Lady Maud, rising. 'He needs money, I
believe, but I'm not sure that he would try to get it just in that
way.'
'Too bad? Even for him?'
'Oh dear, no! Too simple! He's a tortuous person.'
'He tried to pocket those notes with a good deal of directness!'
observed Mr. Van Torp.
'Yes. That was an opportunity that turned up unexpectedly, but he
didn't know it would. How could he? He didn't come here expecting to
find thousands of pounds lying about on the table! It was easy enough
to know that I was here, of course. I couldn't go out of my own house
on foot, in a dinner-gown, and pick up a hansom, could I? I had one
called and gave the address, and the footman remembered it and told my
husband. There's nothing more foolish than making mysteries and giving
the cabman first one address and then another. If Boris is really
going to bring a suit, the mere fact that there was no concealment as
to where I was going this evening would be strong evidence, wouldn't
it? Evidence he cannot deny, too, since he must have learnt the
address from the footman, who heard me give it! And people who make no
secret of a meeting are not meeting clandestinely, are they?'
'You argue that pretty well,' said Mr. Van Torp, smiling.
'And besides,' rippled Lady Maud's sweet voice, as she shook out the
folds of her black velvet, 'I don't care.'
Her friend held up the fur-lined cloak and put it over her shoulders.
She fastened it at the neck and then turned to the fire for a moment
before leaving.
'Rufus,' she said gravely, after a moment's pause, and looking down at
the coals, 'you're an angel.'
'The others in the game don't think so,' answered Mr. Van Torp.
'No one was ever so good to a woman as you've been to me,' said Maud.
And all at once the joyful ring had died away from her voice and there
was another tone in it that was sweet and low too, but sad and tender
and grateful, all at once.
'There's nothing to thank me for,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'I've often
told you so. But I have a good deal of reason to be grateful to you
for all you've given me.'
'Nonsense!' returned the lady, and the sadness was gone again, but
not all the tenderness. 'I must be going,' she added a moment later,
turning away from the fire.
'I'll take you to the Embassy in a hansom,' said the millionaire,
slipping on his overcoat.
'No. You mustn't do that--we should be sure to meet some one at the
door. Are you going anywhere in particular? I'll drop you wherever you
like, and then go on. It will give us a few minutes more together.'
'Goodness knows we don't get too many!'
'No, indeed!'
So the two went down the dismal stairs of the house in Hare Court
together.