THE BAYSWATER BOARDING-HOUSE
Some time previous to these remarkable events, Marshall Allerdyke,
being constantly in London, and having to spend much time on business
in the Mansion House region, had sought and obtained membership of the
City Carlton Club, in St. Swithin's Lane, and at noon of the day
following the arrival of the Princess Nastirsevitch, he stood in a
window of the smoking-room, looking out for Appleyard, whom he had
asked to lunch. In one hand he carried a folded copy of the reward
bill, which Blindway had left at the Waldorf Hotel for him, and while
he waited--the room being empty just then save for an old gentleman who
read _The Times_ in a far corner--he unfolded and took a surreptitious
glance at it, chuckling to himself at the thought of the cupidity which
its contents and promises would arouse in the breasts of the many
thousands of folk who would read it.
"Fifty thousand pounds!" he thought, with high amusement. "Egad, some of
'em 'ud feel like Rothschild himself if they could shove that bit in
their pockets--they'd take on all the airs of a Croesus!"
The thought of the Rothschild wealth made him lift his eyes and glance
through the window at the gate of the quiet, ultra-respectable
establishment across the way. Allerdyke, like all men of considerable
means, had a mighty respect for wealth in its colossal forms, and he
never visited the City Carlton, nor looked out of its smoking-room
windows, without glancing with interest and admiration at the famous
Rothschild offices, immediately opposite. It amused him to speculate and
theorize about the vast amounts of money which must needs be turned over
in theory and practice within those soberly quiet walls, to indulge in
fancies about the secrets, financial and political, which must be
discussed and locked up in human breasts there--to him the magic address,
New Court, St. Swithin's Lane, was as full of potential mystery as the
Sphinx is to an imaginative traveller. He glanced at its gates and at its
sign now with an almost youthful awe and reverence--the reverence of the
man of considerable wealth for the men of enormous wealth--and while his
eyes were thus busy a taxi-cab came along the Lane, stopped by the
entrance to New Court, and set down Mrs. Marlow.
Allerdyke instinctively shrank back within the curtains of the
smoking-room window. There was no reason why he should have done so. He
had no objection to Franklin Fullaway's secretary seeing him standing in
a window of the City Carlton Club; he knew no reason why Mrs. Marlow
should object to be seen getting out of a cab in St. Swithin's Lane. Yet,
he drew back, and, from his concealed position, watched. Not that there
was anything out of the ordinary to watch. Mrs. Marlow, who looked
daintier, prettier, more charming than ever, paid her driver, gave him a
smiling nod, and tripped into New Court, a bundle of papers in her
well-gloved hand.
"Business with Rothschild's, eh?" mused Allerdyke.
"Well, I daresay there's a vast lot of folk in this city who do business
across there. Um!--smart little woman that, and no doubt as clever as
she's smart. I'd like to know--"
Just then the ancient hall-porter of the club (who surely missed his
vocation in life, and should have been a bishop, or at least a dean)
ushered in Appleyard, whom Allerdyke immediately beckoned to join him
amongst the window-curtains.
"I say!" he whispered, with a side glance at _The Times_-reading old
gentleman, "you remember me telling you yesterday about the
lady-secretary of Fullaway's--Mrs. Marlow?--what a smart bit she looked
to be. Eh?"
"Well?" replied Appleyard. "Of course, what about her?"
"She's just gone into Rothschild's across there," answered Allerdyke.
"Come here, this corner; she'll be coming out before long, no doubt, and
then you'll see her. As I told you about her, I want you to take a look
at her--she's worth seeing for more reasons than one."
Appleyard allowed himself to be drawn into the embrasure. He waited
patiently and in silence--presently Allerdyke dug a finger into his ribs.
"She's coming!" he whispered. "Now!"
Appleyard looked half-carelessly across the street--the next instant he
was devoutly thanking his stars that since boyhood he had sedulously
trained himself to control his countenance. He made no sign, gave no
indication of previous acquaintance, as he watched Mrs. Marlow's svelt
figure trip out of New Court and away up St. Swithin's Lane; his face
was as calm and unemotional, his eyes as steady as ever when he turned
to his employer.
"Pretty woman," he said. "Looks a sharp 'un, too, Mr. Allerdyke. Well,"
he went on, turning away into the room as if Mrs. Marlow no longer
interested him. "I got those two reports for you--shall I tell you about
them now?"
"Aye, for sure," replied Allerdyke. "Come into this corner--we'll have a
glass of sherry--it's early for lunch yet. Those reports, eh? About
Fullaway and Delkin, you mean?"
"Just so," said Appleyard, settling himself in the corner of a lounge and
lighting the cigarette which Allerdyke offered him. "They're ordinary
business reports, you know, got through the usual channels. Fullaway's
all right, so far as the various commercial agencies know--nothing ever
been heard against him, anyhow. The account of himself and his business
which he gave to you is quite correct. To sum up--he's a sound man--quite
straight--on the business surface, which is, of course, all we can get
at. As for Delkin, that's a straight story, too--anyway, there's a
Chicago millionaire of that name been in town some weeks--he's stopping
at the Hotel Cecil--has a palatial suite there--and his daughter's about
to marry Lord Hexwater. All correct there, Mr. Allerdyke, too--I mean as
regards all that Fullaway told you."
"Well, there's something in knowing all that, Ambler, my lad,"
answered Allerdyke. "You can't get to know too much about the folks
you're dealing with, you know. Very good--we'll leave that now. What
d'ye think o' this?"
He unfolded and held up the reward bill, first looking as fondly at it as
a youthful author looks at his first printed performance, and then
glancing at his manager to see what effect it had upon him. And he saw
Ambler Appleyard's sandy eyebrows go up in a definite arch.
"Fifty thousand!" muttered Appleyard. "Whew! It's a stiff figure, Mr.
Allerdyke. You've put a thick finger in that pie, I'm thinking!"
"One half from the Princess; twenty thousand from me; five thousand from
the singing lady," whispered Allerdyke. "That's how it's made up, my lad.
And naught'll please me better than to see it paid out--that's a fact!"
"You'll have some triers," said Appleyard, with an emphatic wag of the
head. "Make no mistake about that! Fifty thousand! Gosh!--why, anybody
that's got the least clue, the slightest idea--and there must be
somebody--'ll have a go in for all he or she's worth!"
"Let 'em try!" exclaimed Allerdyke. "The welcome man's the chap that
enables us to recover and convict. Here, shove that bill in your pocket,
and read it at your leisure--there's something to think about in what it
says, I promise you."
Appleyard went away from the club an hour and a half later, thinking hard
enough. But he was not thinking about the reward bill. What he was
thinking about, had been thinking about from the moment in which
Allerdyke had drawn him into the smoking-room window and pointed her out
to him, was--Mrs. Marlow. For Appleyard knew Mrs. Marlow well enough, but
(always those buts in life, he reflected with a cynical laugh as he
threaded his way back to Gresham Street) he knew her by another
name--Miss Slade. And now he was wondering why Miss Slade or Mrs. Marlow
had two names, and why she appeared to be one person as he knew her in
private life, and another as he had seen her that very morning.
On Appleyard's first coming to town in the capacity of sole manager of
the London warehouse of Allerdyke and Partners, Limited, he had set
himself up in two rooms in a Bloomsbury lodging-house. He knew little of
London life at that time, or he would have known that he was thus
condemning himself to a drab and dreary existence. As it was, he quickly
learnt by experience, and within six months, having picked up a
comfortable knowledge of things, he transferred himself to one of those
well-equipped boarding establishments in the best part of Bayswater,
wherein bachelors, old maids, young women, widowers, and married couples
without encumbrance, can live together in as much or as little friendship
and intercourse as pleases their individual tastes. Ambler Appleyard took
his time and selected the likeliest place he could find after much
inspection of many similar places. His salary of a thousand a year (to
which was to be added a handsome, if varying commission) enabled him to
pick and choose; the house which he did choose, in the immediate
neighbourhood of Lancaster Gate, was of the luxurious order; its private
rooms were models of the last thing in comfort, its public rooms were
equal to those of the best modern hotels. If you wanted male society, you
could find it in the smoking-room and the billiard-room; if you desired
feminine influences there was a pleasing variety in the drawing-room and
the lounges. You could be just as much alone, and just as much in company
as you pleased--anyway, the place suited Ambler Appleyard, and there he
had lived for two and a half years. And during a good two of them, the
young lady whom he knew as Miss Slade had lived there too.
With Miss Slade, Appleyard, as fellow-resident in the same house, was on
quite friendly terms. He sometimes talked to her in one of the
drawing-rooms. He knew her for a clever, rather brilliant young woman,
with ideas, and the power to express them. It was evident to him that she
had travelled and had seen a good deal of the world and its men and
women; she could talk politics with far more knowledge and insight than
most women; she knew more than a little of economic matters, and was
inclined, like Appleyard himself, to utilitarianism in all things
affecting government and society. But of herself she never spoke
directly; all Appleyard knew of her concerns was that she was engaged in
business of some nature, and went to it every morning as regularly and
punctually as he went to his. He judged that whatever her business was
she must be well paid for it, or must possess means of her own; nobody,
man or woman, could possibly live at that boarding-house, or private
hotel, as its proprietors preferred to call it, for anything less than
four guineas a week. Well--here was the explanation of Miss Slade's
business; she was evidently private secretary to Mr. Franklin Fullaway,
and competent to do business at a place like Rothschild's. And why
not?--yet ... why did she call herself Miss Slade at the boarding-house
and Mrs. Marlow in her business capacity?
"And yet why shouldn't she?" asked Appleyard of himself. "A woman's a
right to do what she likes in that way, and she isn't necessarily
deceitful because she passes as a single woman in one place and a widow
in another. I daresay she could give a very good reason for all this--but
who's got any right to ask her for one? Not me, certainly!"
He had no intention of asking Miss Slade anything when he left the City
for Bayswater that evening, but chance threw him into her immediate
company in one of the lounges, where, after dinner, they met at a table
on which the evening newspapers were laid out. As Miss Slade picked up
one, Appleyard picked up another--certain big, strong letters on the
front sheets of both gave him an opening.
"Have you read anything about this affair?" he asked, with apparent
carelessness, pointing to a row of capitals. "This extraordinary
murder-robbery business which is becoming the talk of the town? Murders
of three people--theft of nearly three hundred thousand pounds' worth of
jewels--and fifty thousand pounds reward! It's colossal!"
Miss Slade, without showing the slightest shade of interest, shook her
head.
"I don't read murders," she answered. "Fifty thousand pounds reward!
That's an awful lot, isn't it?"
"Worth trying for, anyway!" replied Appleyard. He gave her a sly look,
and smiled grimly. "I think I'll try for it," he said. "Fifty thousand!"
"How could any one try unless he or she's some clue?" she asked. "If you
don't know anything about it, or any of the persons concerned, where
would you begin?"
"There are plenty of persons named in these accounts about whom one could
find something out, at any rate," replied Appleyard, tapping the
newspaper with his finger. "There's a Russian Princess with a sneezy sort
of name; a Yorkshire manufacturer named Allerdyke; an American man called
Franklin Fullaway--all seem to be well-known people in town. You ever
hear of any of them?"
Miss Slade turned a face of absolute indifference on him and the paper to
which he was pointing.
"Never," she answered calmly. "But I daresay I shall hear of them
now--for nine days."
Then she went off, with her own newspaper, and Appleyard carried his to a
corner and sat down.
"That's a lie!" he said to himself. "And a woman who will tell a lie as
calmly and quietly as that will tell a thousand with equal assurance and
cleverness. She--"
There he stopped. In the doorway Miss Slade had also stopped--stopped to
speak to another resident, a man, about whom Ambler Appleyard had often
wondered as keenly as he was now wondering about Miss Slade herself.