HILDA was the first to make a movement. She rose and passed quickly
round the table to the apparently stricken girl.
“Kitty,” she said quietly, “remember you are among friends here—friends,
who will not permit any person or thing to harm you.” She laid a
reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder.
The host also rose, signing to Colin and West to follow him from the
room. But just then Kitty let her hands fall from her face. No longer was
it pale, for the shock of fear was past, and her cheeks glowed with
honest indignation.
“Mr. Risk, please don’t go away,” she said a little unsteadily. “I don’t
wish any one to go away. I’m so sorry to upset everything like this—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Risk said gently. “As my sister has just
remarked, we are your friends, and we are all ready and anxious to serve
you. You really want us to remain?”
“Please.” She turned to Hilda. “I want you to read it aloud,” she said,
pointing to the note.
Hilda picked up the paper, and she, too, flushed as her eyes took in the
pencilled words.
“The beast!” she muttered under her breath. She took West’s seat which he
had vacated for her.
“This note,” she announced, “has neither address nor signature. It has
evidently been pencilled by a person under the influence of rage,
illness, or—alcohol. It asks:—’Do your new friends know where you got
the money that brought you to London?’ . . . That is all.”
Colin went ruddy, half rose, and subsided with mingled feelings—anger at
the insult to Kitty, dread lest for her sake he should be forced to
confess to sending her the hundred pounds, and a sudden recognition that
not so long ago he had held a similar piece of paper bearing an anonymous
message in pencil.
“And now,” said Kitty in a steadier voice, though she was pale again,
“will you, please, tell them all you know about me, Hilda; all I have
told you about myself.”
The host poured a little wine into a glass and set it before her, saying:
“My dear Miss Carstairs, I want to know only one thing. Who is the
unspeakable cad who wrote that?”
Kitty took a sip and smiled faintly. “If you can be bothered listening
to my rather unpleasant little story, which I want Hilda to tell,” she
said slowly, “I think you may guess the writer’s name. At least, I can
think of only one person who would do such a thing—”
“Symington!” burst from Colin’s lips.
“The gentleman who, unfortunately, has never called here,” said Risk
quietly.
“Of course, it can be no other,” cried Hilda, in unwonted excitement.
Colin was on his feet. “Mr. Risk, will you excuse—” he was beginning
when Sharp entered.
“Mr. Symington,” the servant intimated, “wishes to speak with Miss
Carstairs on the ’phone.”
There were blank looks until Hilda, with recovered coolness, said—
“Sharp, will you tell Mr. Symington that Miss Carstairs is afraid of
contamination, even over the wire.”
“Very good, Hilda,” her brother remarked. “Have you got it clearly,
Sharp?”
“Yes, sir,” the servant answered, and calmly repeated the words. Then he
went out.
Risk turned to Colin, who was still standing and gave a nod, murmuring:
“All right, Hayward, we’ll excuse you. Good luck!”
Colin bowed to the ladies, and with a curious set look on his face left
the room.
Hilda glanced at her brother, but said nothing. Kitty was feeling a
little hurt, and, perhaps, a little relieved also. Why should Colin have
wanted to escape hearing her story? On the other hand, it would,
perhaps, be less trying to hear it told without his presence.
“Let’s have coffee in the study, John,” said Hilda suddenly, “and I’ll
try to do what Kitty asks. I do think you and Anthony ought to know how
abominably she has been treated, especially as one of her wretched
persecutors seems to be losing his head and getting to work again.”
“Personally,” said Risk, “I confess to acute curiosity. In two minutes
we shall do as you suggest, Hilda. Meanwhile, Miss Carstairs, let us try
to come to some agreement with West about the play.”
It was a tactful suggestion, for Kitty was requiring a change of thought
rather badly just then.
Later, as they were passing to the study, Sharp got a word with his
master in the hall.
“Mr. Hayward asked me to tell you, sir, that he was making a call at the
Kingsway Grand Hotel, but that he did not expect to be long in
returning.”
“Very well. . . . Did he ask for anything before he left the house?”
“A flexible cane, sir, which I chanced to be able to provide.”
Risk nodded, and looking serious, was about to follow his guests, when a
thought seemed to strike him.
“Sharp, did Mr. Symington make any response to the message?”
“He did, sir.”
“What did he say?”
Sharp hesitated, “Well, sir,” he replied at last, solemnly, “I should say
he contaminated the wire, sir!”
* * * * *
In common justice it should be stated here that Alexander Symington was
not a faithful slave to alcohol. As a rule he kept the upper hand. A
full record of his adult life, however, would show that at long intervals
and at times of extreme excitement, he lost his grip, fell, and simply
wallowed. His collapse on this occasion was probably the result of his
converting a hundred Zeniths into nearly five hundred pounds sterling.
With pockets full of notes and gold, and with the sure prospect of being
able to refill them as soon as emptied—refill them over and over again—it
is small wonder that he became reckless in an abnormal degree. At all
events, the money was not in his pockets for an hour when, with the
assistance of a couple of fellows no finer-souled than himself, he
entered upon a bout of dissipation as wild as it was varied. Even Kitty
was forgotten. . . .
And now he was in process of “coming to himself”—and a very unpleasing
process it was. Physically, though weakened, he was less disorganized
than might have been expected; mentally, however, his state was that of
extreme annoyance with himself and savage resentment against the world in
general, and two persons in particular. He could not remember all the
idiotic acts he had committed in the course of those crazy days and
nights, but he was clearly and disagreeably aware that besides
squandering four hundred and seventy pounds, he had presented his two
boon companions with a hundred Zeniths apiece for no reason or purpose
that he could soberly name. He was further tormented by the bitter
reflection that he had wasted ten valuable days. For all he knew, Kitty,
in that period, might have put herself beyond his reach for good and all.
Also he had lately received from Corrie a somewhat peremptory note
requesting him to report progress, and breathing a novel and unpleasant
spirit of independence.
It was in this harassed condition, and with a still clouded intelligence,
that he had obeyed the two impulses in the direction of Kitty, of which
we have seen the results—so far. And now, not so many minutes after the
telephone episode, he was already cursing himself for a silly fool, and
asking what madness was upon him that he should have as good as warned
the girl against himself.
He had determined to spend this evening in the sitting-room of his suite
reserved in the Kingsway Grand Hotel, a hostelry largely patronized by
unattached gentlemen with money to burn. An hour ago he had dined very
lightly and temperately, but the reaction from the previous
over-indulgence had soon afterwards demanded more stimulant, and a pint
bottle of champagne stood on a small table convenient to his easy chair.
He was expecting his two friends, but hoping that something—a motor
accident, fatal, for choice—might yet prevent them from turning up. It
would be many a day before he forgave these two, for although he had
freely presented them the Zeniths, he now regarded them about as kindly
as if they had robbed him.
He lit a cigarette with an unsteady hand, took a mouthful of wine and lay
back in his chair, sluggish of body, sullen of soul. When, a moment
later, he heard the door open, he swore under his breath, but did not so
much as turn his head. He anticipated a greeting as the door was shut—a
bluff greeting of the “What ho” order; wherefore the words that came
after a brief pause were something of a shock.
“You swine!”
He started up to see “young Hayward” standing over him, with a look in
his eyes that boded anything but goodwill.
Colin was full of fury, but it was the frigid sort.
“What the deuce do you want?” said Symington at last, and his hand stole
behind him. His recent pleasure-hunt had included visits to one or two
rather queer corners of London town, down by the docks.
“What you want is a thrashing,” answered Colin, “and I’m here to give it
you.”
Symington’s complexion went from scarlet to grey.
“What the —— do you mean by intruding here? If you don’t clear out—”
His hand went up with a glitter. “Out of this, you young fool, or by—”
Swish! Like a flash the whangee cane smote his knuckles. With a cry he
let drop the weapon. Colin kicked it across the room.
Hissing with wrath and pain, Symington sprang up and made a dash for the
bell. No use! He was seized by the collar, shaken vigorously, then
dragged to the table in the centre of the room, from which the dessert
had not been removed. Mercilessly he was thrown across it, his face in a
dish of raisins, and in that undignified position, vainly struggling, he
received a most painful chastisement.
Often afterwards Colin, whose weight and muscle were nothing exceptional,
would wonder how on earth he had managed to handle successfully a heavy
man like Symington; but love and hate combined with honest rage gave him,
for the time being, the strength of three, and moreover his victim was
flabby after a long debauch.
The noise of the caning coupled with the involuntary exclamations of the
sufferer were, however, not long in attracting attention, and a knock on
the door warned Colin that it was time to desist. Putting his whole
heart into a final cut, which brought forth a yelp of anguish, he loosed
his grip, saying rather breathlessly—
“That is the reply to your anonymous notes, Mr. Symington, and if you
want to call the police now, pray do so.”
A waiter, mouth open, was staring from the doorway.
Symington stood up, his expression devilish. He had a fruit knife in his
hand—a frail, pretty thing, yet pointed. He lunged at his enemy’s face.
Again the cane swished, and the knife fell to the floor.
“Gentlemen,” gasped the waiter.
“Well?” inquired Colin. “Is it to be the police?”
“Damn you! Get out of this! I’ll make you sorrier than any police judge
could do.”
“Very well,” said Colin, turning to the door. “In the meantime,” he
added, over his shoulder, “if I were you, I’d get the waiter to remove
the raisins from your chin and left eyebrow.” With that, perhaps the
unkindest cut of all, he went out, leaving Symington almost beside
himself with passion.
As for the waiter, the unfortunate creature was so tactless as to smile
at the raisins, and two days later he was dismissed from the hotel
service.
As soon as he reached the street, Colin realized that he was shaking all
over. “What a rage I must have been in!” he said to himself, half
gladly, half ruefully.
“Well, I guess he won’t trouble Kitty again, and I don’t see how he’s
going to get at me.”
But Colin did not know Symington, or he would have, at least, qualified
his confidence. As a matter of fact, by thrashing the man he had simply
turned a cad into a blackguard. But he drove back to Aberdare Mansions
feeling that he had been able to do something for his beloved after all,
though she must never know of it, and he arrived there happier than he
had been for months.
Risk met him in the hall with a quizzical smile.
“Found him out, I suppose, Hayward?”
“That’s for you to do, Mr. Risk,” was the blithe reply. “I found him in,
and I fancy he’ll not move far to-night, at all events.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Risk, his eyes on the cane, “you whacked the
beggar!”
“To the best of my ability.” Colin found his hand being shaken.
“It was splendid, Hayward,” Risk said gravely, “and we must hope it was
also wise. Now we’ll forget about it for the present. Come along and
have your coffee. We have heard Miss Carstairs’ story, and West and I
are her willing servants, till she comes to her own. But, of course, she
must not know we are working for her, and she must, if possible, be
induced to forget those ugly little incidents of to-night—or, at any
rate, be prevented from dwelling on them.”
A couple of hours later, the night being exquisite, Colin walked home
with Kitty, West escorting Hilda.
“Mr. Risk is giving you plenty to do, isn’t he?” Kitty remarked, making
an effort to shake off the feeling of restraint that had come upon her on
finding herself alone with Colin.
“Yes,” said Colin, who was hampered by a similar sensation. “But he’s
worth working for. He has given me a chance that I might have sought in
vain all my life. But never mind about me, Kitty,” he went on. “I wish
very much to know what you—or rather Miss Risk—told the others while I
was absent to-night.”
“I think I’d rather not talk about it,” she said, after a short pause.
“Mr. West, or Mr. Risk, will tell you, if you really want to know.”
“Kitty, why do you say that, and in such a tone?”
“Why did you go away almost as soon as I asked Hilda to tell my story?”
“Why? Well, because—” he hesitated—“because it suddenly occurred to me
that—that there was a thing I must attend to,” he concluded lamely.
“Good heavens, Kitty, you surely didn’t imagine that I was anything but
keen to hear your story! Ever since I learned you were in London I’ve
been wondering how the great change came about.”
His earnestness overcame her doubts.
“I’m a horrid thing, Colin,” she declared self-reproachfully, “but I
wanted to make sure that you did not despise me—”
“Despise you!”
“—for running away from Dunford, and for accepting the kindness of
strangers as I have done.”
“What an absurd idea, Kitty! I won’t tell you how glad I was to hear you
were in London and in the care of such friends. Show that you trust me a
little better by telling me how it all came about. By the way, have you
heard from Dunford since you left?”
She shook her head. “I sent my aunt my address, and told her I was all
right, but she has not answered. Well, I’m not so surprised at that as
at not hearing from Sam, the postman. It was he who helped me to get
away—”
“Won’t you begin at the beginning?”
“Very well—only you must promise not to discuss it afterwards. It’s not
a pretty story, Colin, and only in self-protection did I ask Hilda to
tell it to-night. Well, here it is.”
She told it simply and in few words, and he heard her to the end without
a single interruption. Now and then, indeed, when her voice wavered, he
would have given all his future to have taken her for one moment into his
arms. The incident of the £100 brought a flush to his face, while he
blessed the thought that had caused him to send her the means for escape;
but the tale of her uncle’s hideous treachery turned him ghastly with
wrath and pity.
“And so,” she finished, “the journey that started so miserably ended most
wonderfully, and here I am with all my dreams come true”—she gave a small
rueful laugh—“except one. For I used to dream of being brave and
independent and even adventurous; and now—”
“Oh, Kitty, thank God you didn’t arrive in London alone!” he exclaimed.
“I do,” she returned softly. “I was a little fool to imagine I could
ever have stood alone and made my own way. I’m self-supporting now with
my typing, but that’s all thanks to Hilda. Colin, did you ever hear of
anything so wonderful as the way things have turned out for me? Do you
know, once or twice I’ve thought it might all have been planned out by
Mr. Risk—that he, for my father’s sake, might have been secretly watching
over me. . . . Some day, when I know him better, I’ll ask him straight
about the £100. Don’t you think I might do that?”
“Certainly,” said Colin cheerfully. “And so now you are perfectly happy,
Kitty?”
“Yes, I am!” she answered, with just a trace of defiance. She was not
going to admit that there was something lacking, and perhaps she was not
quite sure what the “something” was. And, of course, it was nothing to
her that Colin, earlier in the evening, had appeared to be greatly taken
with Hilda—and Hilda’s lovely eyes!
Later, he mentioned that West and he desired to take her and Hilda to a
theatre on the coming Friday. Kitty had already been to several
theatres, yet, somehow, the prospect thrilled her more than it had done
prior to previous visits, though her acceptance of the invitation, given
subject to Hilda’s approval, was little more than polite.
They were nearly home when Colin said rather diffidently—
“I’ve promised not to discuss Dunford or the people there, but, Kitty,
I’d just like to hear that you are no longer afraid of that wretched
worm, Symington.”
After a moment she replied: “No, Colin. For that moment, at dinner, I
was afraid, horribly afraid, I admit. But I’ve got over it. For what
can the man do?”