This is what actually happened, towards midnight of that very day,
within a stone’s-throw of Claridge’s Hotel, in Brook Street, Mayfair.
George Tarlyon and I had been of the same company for dinner and then
bridge at a house in Brook Street. Towards midnight a gap in the bridge
allowed us to slip away, which we did. Tarlyon had parked his car
outside Claridge’s, and thither we walked.
Now Brook Street at that hour is undecided between a state of coma and
one of glittering abandon; which means that the deathly silence is every
now and then shattered by rich automobiles hurling themselves and lovely
ladies all covered in pearls and chrysoprase into the bosom of
Grosvenor Square. Claridge’s, of course, has music, so that youth may
dance. But of pedestrians along Brook Street there are less than a few
... and of young men in gents’ evening wear running furiously after
limousines there is a noticeable scarcity. He simply tore past us, that
young man, in the middle of the road, a few yards behind a swiftly going
car. The car stopped towards Grosvenor Square, and somehow the young man
seemed to disappear. We were more than fifty yards away, and could not
determine whether it was a man or a woman who emerged from the car and
entered the house, but it looked like a fat little man. Then the car
slid away. The pursuing young man had disappeared.
“He can’t have been doing it for fun,” said Tarlyon.
“Perhaps he’s gone to have a bath,” I suggested. For it was a very warm
night, and running after motor-cars must have been a wet business.
“We’ll see,” said Tarlyon. We retraced our steps up Brook Street, and
passed the house into which the occupant of the car had disappeared. It
was a house like another, dark and silent; and as it stood almost at the
corner we went round the corner into Grosvenor Square; at least, we
were rounding the corner when a young man in a great hurry collided into
us.
“Ah!” said Tarlyon.
“Sorry,” said the stranger. I was right about the running--it had made
his face very wet.
“So it’s you!” said Tarlyon.
“Good-evening, gentlemen,” said the Armenian, with a sort of furious
courtesy. “If you will excuse me, I am in a hurry.” He made to pass us.
“We noticed it,” said Tarlyon. “In fact, we noticed nothing else.”
“Damn!” snapped the Armenian. “So you saw me running?”
“So did he,” I murmured, looking up Brook Street. A policeman was
sauntering towards us.
“If you don’t want to be asked any questions by the arm of the law,”
Tarlyon suggested, “you had better take a turn round the square with
us.”
“I won’t move,” the stranger muttered passionately. “I have found him at
last--I won’t move.”
“But neither will he,” I soothed him. “He’s gone into the house....”
“Did you see him go in?”
We nodded.
“Ah, but His Excellency is clever!” said the Armenian viciously.
We grabbed hold of him and hauled him round the square.
“Now,” said Tarlyon, “what’s all this Excellency nonsense?”
“_He_ doesn’t think it’s nonsense,” the young man muttered grimly.
“Look here,” I said, “either this is a plot or it is not a plot. In
either case you’ll look rather an idiot, so----”
“You’d better confide in us,” Tarlyon finished. “We, being English, have
great sympathy with oppressed peoples----”
“I have noticed it,” said the Armenian grimly. He was obviously a
well-educated young man.
We had him walking between us, and he never even pretended that he liked
our company.
“I suppose,” said Tarlyon cattishly, “you’ve got bombs all over you.”
“Sir!” snapped the Armenian.
“Sir to you,” said Tarlyon.
“I was merely going to say,” said the Armenian, “that in my opinion you
are a fool. Do I look the kind of man to carry bombs? I favour the
revolver.”
“Oh, do you?” said I. Sarcastic I was, you understand.
He looked at me with those large, devilish eyes.
“And one shot,” he said gently, “is always enough....”