JUNE went swiftly down New Cross Street to the Strand. Until
she reached that garish sea of traffic she dare not look back lest hot
on her heels should be Uncle Si. Such a discovery was not at all likely
she well knew; the feeling was therefore illogical, yet she could not
rid herself of it until she was merged in the ever-flowing tide.
Taking refuge at last in a jeweller’s doorway from the maelstrom of
passers by, June had now another problem to face. The Van Roon must
find a home. But the question of questions was--where?
Apart from William and Uncle Si, and her chance acquaintance, Mr.
Keller, she did not know a soul in London. Mr. Keller, however, sprang
at once to her mind. Yet more than one reservation promptly arose
in regard to him. She knew really nothing about him beyond the fact
that he was a man of obviously good address, belonging to a class
superior to her own. He was a man of the world, of a certain breeding
and education, but whether it would be wise to trust a comparative
stranger in such a matter seemed exceedingly doubtful to a girl of
June’s horse sense. Still there was no one else to whom she could turn.
And recalling the circumstances of their first meeting, if one could
ignore the means by which it had come about, there was something oddly
compelling, something oddly attractive, about this Mr. Keller.
In the total absence of other alternatives, June found her mind drawn
so far in the direction of this man of mystery that at last she took
from her purse a slip of paper on which he had written his name and
address: “Adolph Keller, No. 4, Haliburton Studios, Manning Square,
Soho.”
Could she trust him with the care of a Van Roon? Now that she had
been a witness of its terrible effect on Uncle Si, she was forced to
ask whether it would be right to trust any man with such a talisman.
Luckily, the world was not peopled exclusively with Uncle Sis. She
would have to trust somebody with her treasure, that was certain; and,
after all, there was no reason to suspect that Mr. Keller was not an
honest man.
She was still in the jeweller’s doorway, wrestling with the pros and
cons of the tough matter, when a passing bus displaying the name
Victoria Station caught her eye. In a flash came the solution of the
problem.
Again she entered the sea of traffic, to be borne slowly along by the
slow tide as far as Charing Cross. Here she waited for another bus to
Victoria. The solving of the riddle was absurdly simple after all. What
place for her treasure could be safer, more accessible than a railway
station cloak room?
She boarded Bus 23. But hardly had it turned the corner into Whitehall
when a thin flicker of elation was dashed by the salutary thought
that her brain was giving out. The cloak room at Charing Cross,
from the precincts of whose station she had just driven away, was
equally adapted to her need. Along the entire length of Whitehall and
Victoria Street she was haunted by the idea that she was losing her
wits. A prolonged scrutiny of her pale but now collected self in a
confectioner’s window on the threshold of the London and Brighton
terminus was called for to reassure her. And even then, for a girl
so shrewd and so practical, there remained the scar of a distressing
mental lapse.
It did not take long to deposit the parcel in the cloak room on the
main line down platform. But in the act of doing so, occurred a slight
incident which was destined to have a bearing on certain events to
follow. When a ticket was handed to her, she could only meet the charge
of three pence with a ten shilling note.
“Nothing smaller, Miss?” asked the clerk.
“I’m afraid I haven’t,” said June, searching her purse, and then
carefully placing the ticket in its middle compartment.
“You’ll have to wait while I get change then.”
“Sorry to trouble you,” June murmured, as the clerk went out through a
door into an inner office. Ever observant and alert, she noticed that
the clerk was a tallish young man, whose freely curling fair hair put
her in mind of William, and that he wore a new suit of green corduroy.
The likeness to William gave _bouquet_ to her politeness, when
the young man returned with the change. “Sorry to give you so much
trouble,” she said again.
“No trouble, miss.” And Green Corduroy handed the change across the
cloak room counter with a frank smile that was not unworthy of William
himself.