Well, he determined, with the ferocious resoluteness of a dogged soul,
to follow Lord Dolmer’s advice. He said to himself that there ought to
be no special difficulty in doing so, since only three days had passed
since he first saw this creature whom he was enjoined to forget.
He walked slowly along Piccadilly, down Regent Street, and through
Trafalgar Square to his little office in Adelphi Terrace. Some trifling
business awaited him there, and this occupied him till the hour of
luncheon. He then went out and lunched, as his custom was, at Gatti’s.
Richard’s usual mode of life was extremely simple. His office, a single
small room, was on the third-floor of No. 4, Adelphi Terrace. On the
fourth-floor he had a bedroom, rather larger than the office, and quite
commodious enough for the uses of a young bachelor who had no fancy
tastes. When occasion needed he used the office as a sitting-room.
All his meals he took out of doors. His breakfasts, which cost him
fourpence, he consumed at a vegetarian restaurant hard by; his
luncheons and dinners were eaten at Gatti’s. Frequently at the latter
establishment he would be content with a dish of macaroni and half a
pint of bitter, at an expenditure of eightpence--a satisfying repast.
His total expenses were thus very small, and hence, although his income
was irregular and fluctuating, he nevertheless continually saved money.
It was seldom that less than one hundred pounds stood between him and
the workhouse. In case of necessity he could have lived for a whole
year, or even two years, on one hundred pounds. So he was always in an
independent position. He could always afford not to bend the knee to any
employer or client. He was, in fact, just what he looked, a shrewd and
confident man, successful and well dressed, who knew how to take care of
himself. He spent more on his wardrobe than on anything else, and this,
not because he was a coxcomb, but from purely commercial motives. He
accepted the world as he found the world, and he had learnt that clothes
counted.
All afternoon he did nothing but idle about in his office, wondering
whether by that time Lord Dolmer had told Simon Lock of the barren
result of his inquiries, and wondering also what the upshot of their
interview would be. At seven he dined at Gatti’s. At eight he returned
to Adelphi Terrace, and ascended directly to his bedroom. Opening the
window wide, he placed an easy-chair in front of it, lighted a pipe, and
sat down to perpend upon things in general.
Richard had chosen this bedroom because of its view. It looked out at an
angle on the river Thames, stateliest and most romantic of busy streams.
It is doubtful if any capital in Europe, unless it be Buda-Pesth, the
twin city on the blue Danube, can show a scene equal in beauty to the
Thames Embankment and the Thames when the hues and mysteries of sunset
are upon them. This particular evening was more than commonly splendid,
for after a day of heavy rain the clouds had retreated, and the sun
burst out in richest radiance. The red jury-sails of the barges as they
floated up-stream with the flowing tide took on the tints of the ruby.
The vast masonry of Waterloo Bridge and of Somerset House seemed like
gigantic and strange temples uncannily suspended over the surface of
the glooming water. In the west Westminster Bridge and the Houses of
Parliament stood silhouetted in profound black against the occidental
sky. The sky was like Joseph’s coat there, but in the east it was like a
maiden’s scarf.
Up from the Embankment rose the hum and roar and rattle of London’s
ceaseless traffic. The hansoms had lighted their starry lamps, and they
flitted below like fireflies in the shadows of a wood. No stranger could
have guessed that they were mere hackney vehicles plying at the fixed
rate of two miles for one shilling, and sixpence for every subsequent
mile or part of a mile.
‘Yes,’ Richard mused, ‘this is all very well, and I am enjoying it, and
nothing could be very much better; but the fact remains that I haven’t
earned a cent this blessed day. The fact also remains that I am a bit of
a frost. Further, and thirdly, the fact remains that the present state
of affairs must be immediately altered.’
His pipe went out.
‘I’ll look in at the Empire,’ he said.
Now, by what process of reasoning a young man who, on his own
confession, had drawn a blank day could arrive at the conclusion that
the proper thing to do was to go to the Empire we cannot explain. But so
it was. He looked at his watch. The hour was nine-fifteen. Half an hour
yet, for no self-respecting man-about-town ever thinks of entering the
Empire before a quarter to ten! At this point Richard probably fell
into a doze. At any rate, a knock on his bedroom-door had to be repeated
several times before it attracted his attention.
‘What is it?’ he answered at length.
‘A person to see you, sir,’ said a feminine voice, not without asperity.
‘A person to see me! Oh! ah! er!... Show him into the office. I’ll be
down directly.’
He descended to the third-floor, and, instead of the Somerset House
acquaintance whom he had expected, he found the very last person that by
all the laws of chance ought to have been in his office--he found Mrs.
Bridget.
Mrs. Bridget turned round and faced him as he went into the
little paper-strewn room. She was dressed in black alpaca, with a
curiously-shaped flat black bonnet. Her hands, which were decently
covered with black gloves, she held folded in front of her.
Richard said nothing at first. He was too astounded, and--shall we
say?--pleased. He scented what the reporters call ‘further revelations’
of an interesting nature.
‘Good-avenin’,’ said Bridget; ‘and can ye see a lady privately?’
‘Certainly,’ said Richard, ‘I can see you privately; but,’ he added,
with a mischievous smile, ‘I’m afraid our interview won’t amount to much
unless you’re more communicative than you were this morning.’
‘Bless and save ye, sir! ’tis not meself that wants ye--’tis her.’
‘Her?’
‘The misthress sent me up to find out whisht whether ye could be seen.’
‘Miss Craig is outside?’
‘The same, sir. Ye’ll see her?’
‘See her? Naturally I will see her. But--but--how did you discover my
address?’
By this time they were hurrying down the multitudinous steps to the
ground-floor.
‘Sure, we called at the Williamson Company, and they said you’d left and
they didn’t know your address. And then we came out, and who should we
see but Mr. Puddephatt leading a pony. ’Twas the Virgin’s own miracle!
“Hullo!” he says, lifting his hat.
“Puddephatt,” says my mistress----’
The recital was never finished, for at that moment they reached the
front-door. In the roadway stood the Décauville motor with lights
gleaming. By the side of the Décauville stood Teresa Craig enveloped in
a gray mackintosh.
Richard’s face showed his intense pleasure at the most unlooked-for
encounter.
‘Miss Craig,’ he said eagerly, ‘I hope you are in no trouble. Can I be
of any assistance?’
She glanced at him coldly, inimically.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ she replied with bitterness, and then looked about--the
little street was deserted--‘I have come to seek an explanation from
you. If you are an honourable man you will give it. And I have come,
much against my inclination, to ask a favour. Bridget, take care of the
motor.’
She swept imperially before him into the portals of the house.
‘Mr. Redgrave,’ said Teresa, in a tone which clearly indicated that she
meant to lead the conversation, ‘we have not seen each other since I was
so foolish as to faint in the--the shed.’
They sat together in Richard’s little office. It was not without
difficulty that he had induced her even to sit down. Her demeanour was
hostile. Her fine, imperious face had a stormy and implacable look--a
look almost resentful, and Richard felt something of a culprit before
that gaze. He met her eyes, however, with such bravery as he could
muster.
‘Not since then,’ he assented. ‘I trust you are fully recovered, Miss
Craig.’
Ignoring the utterance of this polite hope, she resumed:
‘I have to thank you for the service you rendered on Saturday night.’
‘It was nothing,’ he said, in a voice as cold and formal as her own.
‘It was everything,’ she corrected him gravely. ‘I might have lost my
life but for you.’
‘I am happy to have been of any assistance,’ he said. But his thoughts
ran: ‘She hasn’t come to London to tell me this. What the deuce, then,
has she come for?’
‘Bridget tells me you had an interview with my father that night. May I
ask what passed?’ Teresa continued.
‘You have not seen your father since then?’ said Richard.
‘I have not.’ Her voice seemed momentarily to break.
‘Or doubtless he would have told you?’
‘Doubtless.’
Richard determined to try a bold stroke.
‘I understood from Mr. Craig that he wished our interview to be strictly
confidential.’
‘What?’ she cried. ‘From me? From his daughter?’
She stood up, suddenly angry.
‘If, indeed, you are his daughter,’ said Richard quietly.
Her eyes blazed, and her hands shook; but she collected herself, and
smiled bitterly:
‘You, then, have heard that silly rumour?’
‘By chance I heard it,’ he admitted.
‘And you believe it?’
‘I neither believe it nor disbelieve it. What has it to do with me?’
‘Exactly,’ she said; ‘a very proper question. What has it to do with
you? Listen, Mr. Redgrave. I have the most serious reasons for asking
you to tell me what passed between yourself and my father on Saturday
night.’
A look of feminine appeal passed swiftly across her features. Fleeting
as it was, it sufficed to conquer Richard. A minute ago he had meant to
dominate her. Now he was dominated.
‘I will tell you,’ he said simply, and told her--told her everthing
without any reservation.
‘Then my father did not accuse you of being a professional spy?’ she
demanded when Richard had finished.
‘No,’ said Richard, somewhat abashed.
‘He did not accuse you of having entered our house under entirely false
pretences?’
‘No,’ said Richard, still more abashed.
There was a silence.
‘I wonder,’ she said calmly, glancing out of the window, ‘I wonder why
he did not.’
She made the remark as though she were speculating privately upon a
curious but not very important point.
‘Miss Craig!’ he exclaimed, with an air of being affronted.
I read in a famous book the other day,’ she went on, ‘these words: “A
murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted
on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is
always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his
vileness pervades every moment of his life.”’
‘Do you mean to insinuate,’ said Richard, forced to defend himself,
‘that I am a professional spy?’
‘I not only mean to insinuate it, I mean to assert it,’ she announced
loftily, and then continued more quickly: ‘Mr. Redgrave, why did you
come to spy on us? For two whole days I trusted you, and I liked you.
But that night, as soon as I saw you behind me in the shed, the truth
burst upon me. It was that, more than anything else, that caused me
to faint. Why did you do it, Mr. Redgrave? My father liked you;
I--I--I----’ She stopped for a moment. ‘Surely a man of your talents
could have found a profession more honourable than that of a spy?’
She looked at him, less angry than reproachful.
‘I am a private detective,’ said Richard sullenly, ‘not a spy. My
business is perfectly respectable.’
‘Why trouble to play with words?’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘We took
you for a gentleman. In our simplicity we took you for a gentleman.’
‘Which I trust I am,’ said Richard.
‘Prove it!’ she cried.
‘I will prove it in any manner you choose.’
‘I accept your promise,’ she said. ‘I have travelled up to London
to make an appeal to you to abandon this inquiry which you have
undertaken--at whose instance I know not.’
‘I cannot abandon it now,’ he said mischievously.
‘Why?’ she queried.
‘Question for question,’ he retorted. ‘How did you discover that I was a
professional spy, as you call it?’
‘Bah!’ she replied. ‘Simply by asking. When I got your address, the rest
was easy. So you decline to be a gentleman in the manner that I suggest?
I might have anticipated as much. I might have known that I was coming
to London on a fool’s errand. And yet something in your face hinted to
me that perhaps after all----’
‘Miss Craig,’ he said earnestly, ‘I cannot, abandon the inquiry now,
because I have already abandoned it. I came down to London this morning
with the intention of doing nothing more in the matter, and by noon
to-day I had informed my clients to that effect.’
‘I was not, then, mistaken in you,’ she murmured.
To his intense astonishment there was the tremor of a sob in that proud
voice.
‘Not entirely mistaken,’ he said, with a faint smile.
‘What induced you to give up the business of spying upon us?’ she asked,
looking at him.
‘How can I tell?’ he answered; ‘conscience, perhaps, though a private
detective is not supposed to possess such a thing. Perhaps I did it
because I reciprocated your sentinents towards me, Miss Craig.’
‘My sentiments towards you?’
‘Yes,’ he said audaciously. ‘You said just how that you liked me.’
Instead of taking offence, she positively smiled. She had the courage of
a guileless heart.
‘And let me tell you, Miss Craig,’ he went on, and his earnestness
became passionate, ‘that I will do anything that lies in my power to
serve you. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care what trouble you are
in; count on me.’
‘How do you know that I am in trouble?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said; ‘I merely feel it Miss Craig, let me help you.’
‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ she replied evasively.
He jumped up and seized her hand, the small hand, browned by summer
sunshine.
‘Let me help you,’ he repeated.
‘If you knew,’ she said, hiding her face, ‘what trouble I am in!’
He saw that she was crying. She drew away her hand impulsively.
‘I will help you!’ he exclaimed; ‘the spy the scorned spy, insists on
helping you. No, tell me.’
‘Let me go,’ she said. ‘I came to London to entreat your silence and
inaction. I went about the affair in a strange and silly way, but it
happens that I have succeeded. You have promised to do nothing further.
That suffices Let me go.’
‘You shall not go,’ he almost shouted; ‘I tell you you shall not
go until you have confided in me. I owe you some reparation, and I
positively insist on giving it.’
She raised her face and gazed at him.
‘I am the child of all misfortune,’ she said ‘as my country is the most
unfortunate of countries. Mr. Redgrave, my father has disappeared.’
‘Oh!’ he said, as if to say, ‘Is that all?’
‘And I dare not search for him.’
‘They told me at the bank that he had gone on his annual holiday.’
‘Then you inquired at the bank?’ she asked swiftly.
‘It was my last act of spying,’ he said. ‘Why dare you not search for
your father, Miss Craig?’
‘Because--because I might find more than I wished to find.’
‘You talk in riddles,’ he said firmly. ‘We can do nothing here; let us
go back to Hockiffe.
I will accompany you, and on the way you shall answer my questions. I
have many to put to you. Leave everything to me; imagine that I am your
brother. I have often laughed at the man’s phrase to a woman, “I would
lay down my life for you,” but at this moment I feel what it means.
Do not mistake me; do not think I am talking wildly. Perhaps I have a
better idea of your trouble than you think. But, in any case, you must
trust me as you trusted me when first you saw me. You must rely on me.
Come, let us go.’
She rose and moved towards the door, ‘Thanks,’ she said, nothing more
than that--‘thanks.’
In one part of his mind Richard wondered at himself, in another he felt
curiously and profoundly happy.