INDISCRETION
The expression on Henson's usually benign countenance would have startled
such of his friends and admirers as regarded him as a shining light and
great example. The smug satisfaction, the unctuous sweetness of the
expansive blue eyes were gone; a murderous gleam shone there instead. His
lips were set and rigid, the strong hand seemed to be strangling the
bedclothes. It wanted no effort of imagination to picture Henson as the
murderer stooping over his prey. The man had discarded his mask
altogether.
"Oh," he said, between his teeth, "you are a clever fellow. You would
have made an excellent detective. And so you have found out where Van
Sneck is?"
"I have already told you so," Littimer said, doggedly.
"How many days have you been hanging about Brighton?"
"Two or three. I came when I heard that Chris was ill. I didn't dare to
come near the house, at least not too near, for fear of being seen. But I
pumped the doctor. Then he told me that Chris was dead, and I risked it
all to see the last of her."
"Yes, yes," Henson said, testily; "but what has this to do with
Van Sneck?"
"I was looking for Van Sneck. I found that he had been here. I discovered
that he had left his rooms and had not returned to them. Then it occurred
to me to try the hospital. I pretended that I was in search of some
missing relative, and they showed me three cases of bad accidents, the
victims of which had not been identified. And the third was Van Sneck."
Littimer told his story with just the suggestion of triumph in his voice.
Henson was watching him with the keenest possible interest.
"Do you know how Van Sneck got there?" he asked.
Littimer nodded. Evidently he had heard most of the story. Henson was
silent for some little time. He was working out something in his mind.
His smile was not a pleasant one; it was nothing like his bland platform
smile, for instance.
"Give me that black book," he said. "Do you know how to work the
telephone?"
"I daresay I could learn. It doesn't look hard."
"Well, that is an extension telephone on the table yonder worked in
connection with the main instrument in the library. I like to have my own
telephone, as it is of the greatest assistance to me. Turn that handle
two or three times and put that receiver to your ear. When the Exchange
answers tell them to put you on to O,017 Gerrard."
Littimer obeyed mechanically, but though he rang and rang again no answer
came. With a snarling curse Henson dragged himself out of bed and crossed
the room, with limbs that shook under him.
He twirled the handle round passionately.
"You always were a fool," he growled, "and you always will be."
Still no reply came. Henson whirled angrily, but he could elicit no
response. He kicked the instrument over and danced round it impotently.
Littimer had never seen him in such a raging fury before. The language of
the man was an outrage, filthy, revolting, profane. No yelling, drunken
Hooligan could have been more fluent, more luridly diffuse.
"Go on," Littimer said, bitterly. "I like to hear you. I like to hear the
smug, plausible Pharisee, the friend of the good and pious, going on like
this. I'd give fifty years of my life to have just a handful of your
future constituents here for a moment."
Henson paused suddenly and requested that Littimer should help him into
bed.
"I can afford to speak freely before you," he said. "Say a word against
me and I'll crush you. Put out a hand to injure me and I'll wipe you off
the face of the earth. It's absolutely imperative that I should send an
important telephone message to London at once, and here the machine has
broken down and no chance of its being repaired for a day or two. Curse
the telephone."
He lay back on his bed utterly exhausted by his fit of passion. One of
the white bandages about his throat had started, and a little thin stream
of blood trickled down his chest. Littimer waited for the next move. He
watched the crimson fluid trickle over Henson's sleeping-jacket. He could
have watched the big scoundrel bleeding to death with the greatest
possible pleasure.
"What was Van Sneck doing here?"
The voice came clear and sharp from the bed. Littimer responded to it as
a cowed hound does to a sudden yet not quite unexpected lash from a
huntsman's whip. His manliness was of small account where Henson was
concerned. For years he had come to heel like this. Yet the question
startled him and took him entirely by surprise.
"He was looking for the lost Rembrandt."
But Littimer's surprise was as nothing to Henson's amazement. He lay flat
on his back so that his face could not be seen. From the expression of it
he had obtained a totally unexpected reply to his question. He was so
amazed that he had no words for the moment. But his quick intelligence
and amazing cunning grasped the possibilities of the situation. Littimer
was in possession of information to which he was a stranger. Except in a
vague way he had not the remotest idea what Littimer was talking about.
But the younger man must not know that.
"So Van Sneck told you so?" he asked. "What a fool he must have been! And
why should he come seeking for the Rembrandt in Brighton?"
"Because he knows it was there, I suppose."
"It isn't here, because it doesn't exist. The thing was destroyed by
accident by the police when they raided Van Sneck's lodgings years ago."
"Van Sneck told me that he had actually seen the picture in Brighton."
Henson chuckled. The noise was intended to convey amused contempt, and it
had that effect, so far as Littimer was concerned. It was well for Henson
that the latter could not see the strained anxiety of his face. The man
was alert and quivering with excitement in every limb. Still he chuckled
again as if the whole thing merely amused him.
"'The Crimson Blind' is Van Sneck's weak spot," he said. "It is King
Charles's head to him. By good or bad luck--it is in your hands to say
which--you know all about the way in which it became necessary to get
Hatherly Bell on our side. All the same, the Rembrandt--the _other_
one--is destroyed."
"Van Sneck has seen the picture," Littimer said, doggedly.
"Oh, play the farce out to the end," Henson laughed, good-humouredly.
"Where did he see it?"
"He says he saw it at 218, Brunswick Square."
Henson's knees suddenly came up to his nose, then he lay quite flat again
for a long time. His face had grown white once more, his lips utterly
bloodless. Fear was written all over him. A more astute man than Littimer
would have seen the beads standing out on his forehead. It was some
little time before he dared trust himself to speak again.
"I know the house you mean," he said. "It is next door to the temporary
residence of my esteemed friend, Gilead Gates. At the present moment the
place is void--"
"And has been ever since your bogus 'Home' broke up. Years ago, before
you used your power to rob and oppress us as you do now, you had a Home
there. You collected subscriptions right and left in the name of the
Reverend Felix Crosbie, and you put the money into your pocket. A certain
weekly journal exposed you, and you had to leave suddenly or you would
have found yourself in the hands of the police. You skipped so suddenly
that you had no time even to think of your personal effects, which you
understood were sold to defray expenses. But they were not sold, as
nobody cared to throw good money after bad. Van Sneck got in with the
agent under pretence of viewing the house, and he saw the picture there."
"Why didn't he take it with him?" Henson asked, with amused scorn. He was
master of himself again and had his nerves well under control.
"Well, that was hardly like Van Sneck. Our friend is nothing if not
diplomatic. But when he did manage to get into the house again the
picture was gone."
"Excellent!" Henson cried. "How dramatic! There is only one thing
required to make the story complete. The picture was taken away by
Hatherly Bell. If you don't bring that in as the _dénouement_ I shall be
utterly disappointed."
"You needn't be," Littimer said, coolly. "That is exactly what did
happen."
Henson chuckled again, quite a parody of a chuckle this time. He could
detect the quiet suggestion of triumph in Littimer's voice.
"Did Van Sneck tell you all this?" he asked.
"Not the latter part of it," Littimer replied, "seeing that he was in the
hospital when it happened. But I know it is true because I saw Bell and
David Steel, the novelist, come away from the house, and Bell had the
picture under his arm. And that's why Van Sneck's agent couldn't find it
the second time he went. Check to you, my friend, at any rate. Bell will
go to my father with Rembrandt number two, and compare it with number
one. And then the fat will be in the fire."
Henson yawned affectedly. All the same he was terribly disturbed and
shaken. All he wanted now was to be alone and to think. So far as he
could tell nobody besides Littimer knew anything of the matter. And no
starved, cowed, broken-hearted puppy was ever closer under the heel of
his master than Littimer. He still held all the cards; he still
controlled the fortunes of two ill-starred houses.
"You can leave me now," he said. "I'm tired. I have had a trying day, and
I need sleep; and the sooner you are out of the house the better. For
your own sake and for the sake of those about you, you need not say one
word of this to Enid Henson."
Littimer promised meekly enough. With those eyes blazing upon him he
would have promised anything. We shall see presently what a stupendous
terror Henson had over the younger man, and in what way all the sweetness
and savour of life was being crushed out of him.
He closed the door behind him, and immediately Henson sat up in bed. He
reached for his handkerchief and wiped the big beads from his forehead.
"So the danger has come at last," he muttered. "I am face to face with
it, and I knew I should be. Hatherly Bell is not the man to quietly lie
down under a cloud like that. The man has brains, and patience, and
indomitable courage. Now, does he suspect that I have any hand in the
business? I must see him when my nerves are stronger and try and get at
the truth. If he goes to Lord Littimer with that picture he shakes my
power and my position perilously. What a fool I was not to get it away.
But, then, I only escaped from the Brighton police in those days by the
skin of my teeth. And they had followed me from Huddersfield like those
cursed bloodhounds here. I wonder--"
He paused, as the brilliant outline of some cunning scheme occurred to
him. A thin, cruel smile crept over his lips. Never had he been in a
tight place yet without discovering a loophole of escape almost before he
had seen the trap.
A fit of noiseless laughter shook him.
"Splendid," he whispered. "Worthy of Machiavelli himself! Provided always
that I can get there first. If I could only see Bell's face afterwards,
hear Littimer ordering him off the premises. The only question is, am I
up to seeing the thing through?"