HE left behind him a pandemonium of sound and a scintillation of
flickering diamonds. He found the girl waiting for him in the darkness.
“Br-r-r! It’s cold!” she shivered.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“At the little hotel opposite the British Consulate,” she said. “It
isn’t much of a place, but it was the only room I could get—at the
price.”
“You’d better not go there,” he said. “I’ll send for your boxes in the
morning. Give me those clothes.”
He took them from her and put them under his arm, and she fell in by his
side.
“I am glad to be out of it,” she said breathlessly, taking his arm;
“it’s a dog’s life. I was going to quit to-morrow. Those boys have been
following me round ever since I came to Tangier. I don’t think I’d
better go back to my hotel, anyway,” she said after a moment; “they’re a
pretty tough crowd, these Spaniards, and though I don’t understand their
beastly language, I know just what kind of happy holiday they’re
planning for me.”
They were in the town, passing up the street of the mosque, when she
asked him:
“Where are you taking me?”
“To the Continental,” he said.
“Like this?” she said in dismay, and he laughed.
“I have an office in this street,” he said; “you can go in and dress.
I’ll wait for you outside.”
He showed her into the tiny room which served as the headquarters of the
Angera Gold Mining Syndicate, and sat on the irregular stone steps,
waiting until she was dressed. Presently she came out, a presentable and
an attractive figure.
“I have just thought,” he said, “that you had better to go the
Central—I am staying at the Continental and it wouldn’t look nice.”
“I’ve been thinking something of the sort myself,” she said. “What about
my broken engagement? Were you joking when you said you would pay? I
hate talking about money, but I am broke—Jose owes me a week’s salary.”
“I’ll make good the money to-morrow,” he said. “I can give you a tenner
now.”
“What is the idea?” she asked him again. “I’ve read a lot of books, and
I know the knight errant business backwards. You don’t strike me as
being a something-for-nothing man.”
“I’m not,” he said coolly. “It occurred to me when I saw you on the
stage, that you might be useful. I want a person in Paris I can
trust—somebody who could look after my interests.”
“I’m not a business woman,” she said quickly. “I hate business.”
“Business is done by men,” said he significantly. “And there are a few
men I want you to keep track of. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“I see,” she said at last. “It is better than I thought.”
He did not trouble to ask her what she had thought, or what she imagined
he had planned, but saw her into the hotel, arranged for a room, and
walked slowly back to the Continental. He was in the vestibule of that
hotel before he remembered that he had left an eminent King’s Counsel
and Member of Parliament smoking his cigar in a _loge_ of the Tangier
circus.
* * * * *
“I missed you,” said Maxell the next morning. “When you remembered and
came to pick me up, I was on my way back—we must have passed somewhere
in the little Sok. What happened last night?”
“Nothing much,” said Cartwright airily. “I went round and saw the girl.
She was very amusing.”
“How amusing?” asked the other curiously.
“Oh, just amusing.” Vaguely: “I found her annoyed by the attention which
was being paid to her by a veritable Spanish hidalgo.”
“And you sailed in and rescued her, eh?” said Maxell. “And what happened
to her after she was rescued?”
“I saw her home to her hotel, and there the matter ended. By the way,
she leaves by the _Gibel Musa_ for Gibraltar this morning.”
“Hm!” Maxell looked absently at the letter he had in his hand, folded it
and put it away.
“Is the mail in?” asked Cartwright, interested, and Maxell nodded.
“I suppose you’ve had your daily letter from your kiddie?”
Maxell smiled.
“Yes,” he said, “it is not a baby letter, but it is very amusing.”
“How old is she?” asked Cartwright.
“She must be nine or ten,” said the other.
“I wonder if it is just coincidence, or whether it is fate,” mused
Cartwright.
“What is a coincidence?” asked the other.
“The fact that you’ve got a kid to look after, and I’m in a sort of way
responsible for a bright lad. Mine is less interesting than yours, I
think. Anyway, he’s a boy and a sort of cousin. He has two fool parents
who were born to slavery—the sort of people who are content to work for
somebody all their lives and regard revolt against their condition as an
act of impiety. I’ve only seen the kid once, and he struck me as the
sort who might break loose from that kind of life and take a chance.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have interested myself in him.”
“How far does your interest extend?” asked Maxell curiously. “You’re not
the sort of person, I should imagine, who would take up the unfortunate
poor as a hobby.”
“Not a something-for-nothing man, in fact,” laughed Cartwright. “I’ve
been told that twice in twenty-four hours.”
“Who was the other person—the actress?”
Cartwright roared with laughter and slapped the other on the knee.
“You’re a good guesser,” he said. “No, I am not a something-for-nothing
person. I’m one of those optimists who plant fir cones so that I shall
have some good firewood for my old age. I don’t know what sort of a man
Timothy will make, but, as I say, he shapes good, and anyway, you and I
are in the same boat.”
“Except this,” said Maxell, “that from what you say, you aren’t
particularly interested in your protégé, and you don’t really care
whether he shapes good or shapes bad.”
“That’s true,” admitted Cartwright. “He’s an experiment.”
“My little girl is something more than that,” said Maxell quietly;
“she’s the only living thing I have any real affection for—she is my
dead brother’s child.”
“Your niece, eh? Well, that gives you an interest which I have not. I
never had a niece and I should just hate to be called uncle, anyway.”
Their conversation was interrupted at this point by the arrival of a
small man dressed in his best clothes. On his brow was a frown which was
intended to be terrible, but was slightly amusing. Jose Ferreira had
dressed and prepared himself for an interview which, as he had described
to his friends, could not fail to be at once “terrifying and vital.”
For, as he had said: “This man has sliced my life!”
He began his speech to Cartwright as he had rehearsed it.
“_Estoy indignado——_”
But Cartwright cut him short with an expression of mock fear.
“_Horroroso!_ You are indignant, are you? Well, come, little man, and
tell me why you are indignant.”
“Señor,” said the man solemnly, “you have put upon me a humiliation and
a shame which all my life I shall regret.”
The conversation was in Spanish, but Maxell was an excellent Spanish
scholar.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked, before Jose, still labouring under the
sense of his wrongs, could get going again.
“Listen to him and discover,” mocked Cartwright. “I have taken from his
incomparable company its joy and its gem.”
“In other words, the amiable Miss O’Grady,” said Maxell.
“Yes, yes, señor,” broke in Jose. “For me it is ruin! The money I have
spent to make my company perfect! It is financed by one who is the
greatest man in Tangier and it is his son who tells me that, unless I
bring back this lady—for me there is the street and the gutter,” he
wept.
Maxell looked slyly at his companion.
“There’s another chance for you to plant a fir cone,” he said. “Can’t
you find some use for this gentleman?”
But Cartwright was not smiling.
“Señor Ferreira,” he said crisply, “you are, as all Spain knows, a thief
and a rogue. If you associate with bigger thieves and bigger scoundrels,
that is your business. I can only tell you that you may think yourself
lucky I did not bring this case before the Spanish Consul. I assure you,
you would never have put your foot in Tangier again after the stories I
have heard about you.”
The little Spaniard was open-mouthed and impressed. He was also a little
frightened. Cartwright’s accusation had been at a venture, but he argued
that it was scarcely likely that, in an establishment of the description
which Mr. Ferreira controlled, there could have been no incidents which
reflected upon the manager.
“Everything which is said about me is a lie!” said the little man
vigorously. “I have lived a life of the highest virtue! To-day I
complain to the British Consul, and we shall see!”
“Complain,” said Cartwright.
“This chance I will give you.” Señor Ferreira wagged a fat, stumpy
finger. “Restore to me Miss O’Grady, and the matter shall go no
farther.”
“Miss O’Grady has left Tangier,” said the other calmly, “so it is clear
to you that I cannot restore her.”
“She has not left,” vociferated the Spaniard. “We had a man to watch the
boat leaving for the _Gibel Musa_ and she did not leave the pier.”
“She left the beach,” explained Cartwright patiently; “she was rowed out
by a boatman from the Cecil. At this moment she is half-way to
Gibraltar.”
Mr. Ferreira groaned.
“It is ruin for me,” he said. “Perhaps for you also,” he added
ominously. “I can do no less than depart for Paris to lay this matter
before my excellent patron, Señor Don——”
Cartwright jerked his head to the door.
“Get out,” he said, and turned his attention to the newspaper which he
had picked up from the table.
Maxell waited until the little man had gone, still seething with his
“indignado,” then turned to Cartwright.
“This is rather a serious matter, Cartwright; what has happened to the
girl?”
“Didn’t you hear? I have sent her to Gibraltar,” said Cartwright. “I
wouldn’t leave a dog in that company. And from Gibraltar she goes home
by the first P. & O.,” he said briefly.
“Hm!” said Maxell for the second time.
“What the devil are you ‘hming’ about?” snarled his companion. “The girl
is gone. I shall not see her again. It was an act of charity. Do you
disapprove?”
“I’m sorry,” said Maxell. “I didn’t know you felt so bad about it. No, I
think you’ve done the girl a very good turn. But in these days one
doesn’t expect——”
“Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, Maxell,” said Cartwright
sententiously, “for he shall not be disappointed. I don’t suppose that
the proprietor, whoever he is, cares a snap of his fingers about the
matter—it is his infernal son who will fire the adorable Jose.”
* * * * *
That afternoon the two men had an interview on the outskirts of the town
with a very plainly dressed Moor, who came to them so cautiously that
the observers might have been pardoned if they thought he was a
criminal. In the eyes of the divine rulers of Morocco he was something
more than a criminal, because he was an emissary of El Mograb, the
Pretender. There was a price upon the messenger’s head, and his caution
was, therefore, commendable. He brought a letter from El Mograb to
Cartwright, and it was a message of cheer.
Maxell and his friend had gone out early in the afternoon and had waited
two hours under a scorching sun for the courier to arrive. For a man of
law, the fact that he was coquetting with the Sultan’s enemy did not
distress Maxell, who knew the history of the country too well to worry
very much about Sultan or Pretender. The Sultan’s reign, marked with the
turbulence of people and the self-indulgence of monarch, was already
doomed. His uncle, El Mograb, a born leader of men and captain of seven
thousand well-armed soldiers, was but waiting the psychological moment
to strike; and Adbul, with his motor-cars and brass bedstead, his
geegaws and his frippery, would disappear into the limbo which is
especially reserved for extravagant and unstable rulers.
The news from El Mograb was good. It reconfirmed the concession which
one of his shereefs had made on his behalf, and sent a message in
flowery Arabic—a message of thanks to the man who had supplied him with
the very necessary rifles.
“That was news to me,” said Cartwright as they rode back to the town. “I
didn’t know you were gun-running, Maxell, or that you were so solid with
El Mograb.”
“I like El Mograb,” said Maxell. “He’s one of the many Moors who have
impressed me. You mustn’t forget that I have been visiting Morocco since
I was a boy and most of the chiefs are known to me personally. I knew El
Mograb’s brother, who was killed at Tetuan, and when he was a favourite
in court circles he entertained me at Fez.”
“What is his word worth?” asked Cartwright carelessly.
“It is worth all the contracts that ever went to Somerset House for
stamping,” said the other with emphasis. “I think you can go ahead with
your scheme.”
Cartwright nodded.
“I’ll go back to London and raise the money,” he said. “We shall want a
couple of millions eventually, but half a million will do to go on with.
You had better be with me in the big scheme, Maxell. There is nothing to
lose for you. You’ll be in on the ground floor. What is the good of your
pottering about with your little Company—I mean the Parent Company?”
“I have faith in that,” said Maxell. “I know just the amount of my
indebtedness.”
“You’re a fool,” said the other shortly. “The big scheme may mean
millions to you, and I shall want your help and guidance.”
Maxell hesitated. The lure was dazzling, the prize was immense. But it
meant risks which he was not prepared to take. He knew something of
Cartwright’s financial methods; he had seen them in their working, and
had done not a little on one occasion to save Cartwright from the
consequences of his own cleverness. Yet, as he argued, Cartwright would
have no difficulty in raising the money from the general public, and his
presence on the board would certainly be a guarantee against his
companion departing from the narrow path.
Although it was not generally known that he was associated in any of
Cartwright’s enterprises, there had been a whisper of an inquiry in
influential quarters, and it had been hinted to him that, on the whole,
it would be better if he kept himself aloof from the gentleman who,
admirable business man as he was, had a passion for enterprises which
occasionally verged upon the illegal. But those influential quarters had
not whispered anything in the shape of a definite promise that his
welfare was entirely in their keeping and that his future would not be
overlooked.
He was an ambitious man, but his ambitions ran in realisable directions.
The services he had rendered to the Government were such as deserved a
recognition, and the only question was what form that recognition would
take? His knowledge of languages qualified him for an important
appointment under the Foreign Office; but the Foreign Office was a close
preserve and difficult to break into. There were too many permanent
officials who regarded the service as a family affair, and were jealous
of patronage outside their own charmed circle.
He went in to lunch that day to find Cartwright reading a telegram which
he folded up and put into his pocket upon the other’s appearance.
“My little friend has arrived in Gibraltar,” said Cartwright.
Maxell looked at him curiously.
“What happens now?” he demanded.
“Oh, I’m sending her home.”
Cartwright’s voice was brisk and he spoke in the manner of a man
referring to a topic too unimportant to be discussed.
“And after?” pursued Maxell, and the other shrugged his shoulders.
“I have given her a letter of introduction to a friend of mine,” he said
carelessly. “I have one or two theatrical interests in town.”
Maxell said nothing, and could have dismissed the matter as lightly as
his companion, for the girl’s future scarcely interested him.
She had been but a figure on the stage; her personality, her very
appearance, left no definite impression. But if he was not interested in
the girl, he was interested in Cartwright’s private mind. Here was a man
of whom he could not know too much. And somehow he felt that he had
hardly cracked the surface of Cartwright’s character though he had known
him for years, and though they were working together to a common end.
The way of a man with a maid is wonderful, but it is also instructive to
the cold-blooded onlooker, who discovers in that way a kind of creature
he has never met before; a new man, so entirely different from the
familiar being he had met in club or drawing-room as to be almost
unrecognisable. And he wanted to know just this side of Cartwright,
because it was the side on which he had scarcely any information.
“I suppose you won’t see her again?” he said, playing with his knife and
looking abstractedly out of the window.
“I shouldn’t think so,” said Cartwright, and then, with a sudden
irritation: “What the devil are you driving at, Maxell? I may see the
girl—I go to music-halls, and it is hardly likely I should miss her.
Naturally I am interested in the lady I have rescued from this kind of
thing”—he waved his hand vaguely toward Tangier Bay—“and she may be
useful. You don’t mean to say _you’re_ struck on her?”
He tried to carry war into the enemy’s camp and failed, for Maxell’s
blue eyes met his steadily.
“I hardly know what she looks like,” he said, “and I am not likely to
fall in love with a lady who left absolutely no impression upon me.”
* * * * *
He left next day on the boat for Cadiz, _en route_ to Paris and London,
and he and Cartwright had as a fellow-passenger a shabby little man
whose belongings were packed in an American-cloth suit-case inscribed in
flourishing capitals, evidently by the owner, “Jose Ferreira.”
Mr. Ferreira spent most of his time on the ship’s deck, biting his nails
and enlarging his grievance against the unconscious Cartwright.