"Do you know, Hughes, I can't help thinking that something serious has
happened to Tibbie. The letter Lady Scarcliff received was posted in
Glasgow, but of course that was only a blind. She's in London
somewhere. I told Wydcombe to-day that they ought to advertise and
offer a reward for her."
His suggestion suddenly gave me an idea. In the pockets of the unknown
man in Charlton Wood I had found the key to a cipher which he had
evidently used to correspond with his friends. Why should I not through
the medium of the papers open up some correspondence? Would anyone
reply?
"You know how erratic Tibbie always is," I remarked. "I've perhaps
known her longer than you have. She was always the same, even as a
girl--the despair of the old viscount."
"And yet she is very charming, don't you think so?" asked the man whom
she declared to be one of her bitterest enemies.
"Delightfully amusing," I agreed. "The set she mixes with spoils her.
If she could only sever herself entirely from Cynthia's friends she
would be a very different woman."
"Oh, she'll marry some day and settle down," laughed Winsloe. "I used
at one time to hear that you were likely to be the lucky man."
"I think not," was my quick reply, somewhat annoyed at his remark. "I
can't afford to marry," whereat he laughed, as though in disbelief of my
poverty.
He questioned me with a subtle ingenuity worthy of a counsel at the
criminal bar, but my replies were all of them empty ones, while at the
same time I was watching him narrowly, noting that this warm
friendliness was merely assumed, and that beneath that veneer of good
fellowship was a fierce and bitter antagonism that I had never before
suspected. Ever since Scarcliff had introduced us eighteen months ago
we had been very good friends, and had seen quite a good deal of each
other on the Riviera the previous season. I was staying at the
Metropole at Monte Carlo, while he was at the Hermitage.
He seemed to have many friends there, well-dressed men whom I did not
know. But one's acquaintances on the Riviera are generally somewhat
doubtful, and need not be recognised beyond the confines of the
Principality. He became one of Jack's most intimate friends. They
often went over to Paris together, and on such occasions it was believed
that young Lord Scarcliff played baccarat at a certain private house in
the Avenue Kleber and lost considerable sums. Tibbie had told me so in
confidence, but Jack naturally never mentioned his losses. If this were
true, then it looked very much as though Ellice Winsloe was a shark, as
my friend Domville declared him to be.
In a London club a white shirt and well-cut evening clothes enables many
a scoundrel to pass himself off as a gentleman. Few young men who come
into their inheritance and lead the fevered life of the West End escape
the traps laid for them by those well-dressed blackguards who pose as
friends and advisers, and at the same time cleverly contrive to pluck
the pigeon. By some clever ruse or other they get him into their power,
threatening exposure or the police for some fancied offence, and then
the question of hush-money is mooted and the rest is so very easy. The
fly is caught in the net, and the spiders grow fat at their leisure.
Ask any official at Scotland Yard, and what he will reveal to you
regarding this will surely astound you.
Sitting with Winsloe and listening to his clever chatter I was rather
amused than otherwise. Inwardly I laughed at his shrewd but futile
efforts to obtain from me something concerning Tibbie.
We smoked a cigar, and about ten o'clock strolled along to the Empire,
where we took a turn round the crowded grand circle. Variety
performances, however, possess but little attraction for me, and we soon
went out again. In the vestibule a fair-moustached, bald-headed man in
evening dress greeted my companion effusively, exclaiming,--
"Why, Ellice--actually! My dear old fellow, how are you?--how are you?"
and he wrung his hand in warmest greeting.
"And you, Sidney! Who'd ever thought of finding you in town again?
Why, I thought you were still somewhere up the Zambesi."
"Got back yesterday, my dear fellow. And not sorry either, I can tell
you. The surveying for the new railroad was a far tougher job than I
anticipated. I went down with fever, so they sent me home on six
months' leave."
"But you're all right now," Winsloe said, and then introduced his friend
as Sidney Humphreys who, he explained, had been out in Africa in
connection with the Cape to Cairo railway.
"Where are you fellows going?" asked the newcomer.
"Home, I think," Winsloe replied. "Hughes doesn't care for ballets."
"Come round to my rooms and see the curios I've brought back," he urged.
"I've still kept on the old chambers. The things I've got were mostly
dug out of the ruins of an ancient city--relics of the time of King
Solomon, I believe. You're fond of antiques, Ellice, so come and spend
an hour and have a look at them. You'll be interested, I promise you,
and I'd like to know your opinion."