NEWS FOR MRS. WALSINGHAM
By that time it was very seldom that Mrs. Walsingham ever left the
office alone; on four days out of the five Richard and his car were
waiting for her and the habitués of Abbotsbury House and the Norfolk
Street pavement had grown accustomed to seeing her whisked off as if
she were some personage of high degree. She and young Mr. Shrewsbury
at that time, indeed, were enjoying themselves a good deal in each
other’s society. It was very much pleasanter, during those warm summer
days, to get into a luxuriously-fitted car and to escape from London
to some country town twenty or thirty miles away, there to dine amidst
sylvan and shady surroundings, and afterwards to spin back in the
cool and purpling twilight, than to be obliged to dress and to dine
at fashionable hotels and restaurants, wherein not all the artifice
in the world could produce the semblance of what an hour’s journey
could give. This daily arrangement had come to be a fixed one--evening
after evening Mr. Shrewsbury’s car slid away into one or other of the
home counties, and later at night was to be seen outside the flats in
which Mrs. Walsingham resided, waiting until its owner had smoked the
cigarette to which he was always invited when he had safely brought
Mrs. Walsingham home.
But on the afternoon of Richard’s visit to Acacia Mansions, Mrs.
Walsingham waited in vain for him--waited, that is to say, for half an
hour. There was no settled arrangement between them as to his coming,
but it had grown to be such a part of the day’s routine that she had
fully expected him, and at five o’clock was in readiness to leave with
him. But when, at half-past five, there were no signs of him and no
message, Mrs. Walsingham left the office and set out for her favourite
restaurant. After what she called a long business day, she liked to
dine as near six o’clock as possible, and it was not within her scheme
of things that anybody or anything should interfere with her dinner. So
she made her way along the Strand towards Leicester Square and Soho:
she would dine leisurely, she said to herself, and go home, secure in
the knowledge that Richard would present himself at the flat sooner or
later in the evening. She was in no wise surprised that he had not come
for her at five o’clock; he was engaged, she concluded, with Captain
Burgoyne.
The thought of Captain Burgoyne suggested another thought to Mrs.
Walsingham, who had just then reached the neighbourhood of Charing
Cross. She glanced at her watch, turned and, retracing her steps a
little way, entered a jeweller’s shop. It was a quiet high-class
establishment, the windows of which were set out with expensive goods,
but it was decorated, though unobtrusively, with three gilt balls, and
was, in fact, the business place of a fashionable pawnbroker in whose
breast many secrets were safely locked.
There was no one in the outer shop when Mrs. Walsingham entered, save
the proprietor and some assistants, and at sight of her the proprietor
came round the counter and ushered her into a private room at the
back of the premises. Mrs. Walsingham dropped into the chair which he
politely offered her and unsnapped the patent catch of the bag which
she carried.
“I want to pay you the interest on that loan, Mr. Wiertz,” she said.
“It’s just about due, isn’t it?”
“Next week, I think,” replied Mr. Wiertz. “You want to renew, again?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Walsingham. She produced a purse from her bag
and drew out some bank-notes. Mr. Wiertz sat down at a desk and began
to write. Suddenly he turned and looked at his visitor with an air of
polite meditation.
“I was thinking of writing to you, Mrs. Walsingham,” he said. “It was
about those diamonds. Let’s see. I lent you a thousand on them two
years ago, didn’t I? Yes--well, they are worth seven or eight times
that, you know.”
“Of course, I know,” answered Mrs. Walsingham, regarding him steadily.
“But they’re worth more. They’re worth every penny of ten thousand,
at the lowest computation, Mr. Wiertz: I had them valued by three
different people. Well, and what about them, and why were you going to
write to me?”
“I wanted to know if you’d sell them,” answered Mr. Wiertz. “It just so
happens that I could do with them. I could make use of them at once.
It’s a pity they should lie there in my safe doing nothing. I’ll give
you eight thousand for them.”
“No!” answered Mrs. Walsingham, promptly.
“No?” said Mr. Wiertz. “Dear me!--wouldn’t you rather have eight
thousand, cash down, than let them lie unseen and go on paying me
interest?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” replied Mrs. Walsingham. “They’re quite safe where
they are, and there they can stop until I want them. And as I say,
they’re worth every penny of ten thousand.”
“I might go to nine thousand,” suggested Mr. Wiertz.
“Not for sale--at any rate, not now,” said Mrs. Walsingham firmly. “I
might want them--if I do, I’ll redeem them pretty quick, Mr. Wiertz. If
I don’t--well, then, we’ll talk business.”
“I mightn’t have an opening for them then,” remarked Mr. Wiertz. “Just
now I have.”
Mrs. Walsingham crackled her bank-notes.
“Diamonds,” she said, “can always make openings for themselves. How
much is the interest, Mr. Wiertz?”
Mr. Wiertz fidgeted amongst his papers.
“Supposing I could get you the ten thousand you think they’re worth?”
he said. “What do you say to that, Mrs. Walsingham?”
Mrs. Walsingham laughed merrily and shook her head.
“I say that it shows that you believe them to be worth more than ten
thousand,” she answered. “No, I’m not going to sell, at present, Mr.
Wiertz. Those stones are quite safe in your keeping, and when I want
them I’ll find the money to redeem them within an hour. Now, this
interest?”
Mr. Wiertz sighed and consulted a book.
“Well you know your own business best,” he observed. “But I wouldn’t
pay interest on a loan of a thousand pounds for which I’d lodged
security that’s worth, worth----”
“Let’s say ten thousand, Mr. Wiertz,” said Mrs. Walsingham, with
another silvery laugh. “I dare say you wouldn’t. But--I will.”
Mr. Wiertz presently let his visitor out by a private door into an
alley which communicated with the Strand. And as Mrs. Walsingham
tripped out of the alley upon the crowded side-walk, a man who was
coming along from the direction of Trafalgar Square caught sight of
her, half-paused, looked again, and then slowly turned and followed
her. The turning was done in a careless, pointless fashion that would
not have attracted attention from any one; for a moment the man paused,
to look into a shop-window, as if he had seen something there that
aroused curiosity; then he sauntered forward, with Mrs. Walsingham some
twenty yards ahead of him. She was wearing a large black feather in her
smart hat; the man made a mental note of it in case he should lose her
for a moment. But he was a tall, long-limbed fellow, who could take one
lounging step to her three quick ones, and it was an easy task to keep
his quarry in sight.
Mrs. Walsingham pursued a steady course along King William Street
and Green Street into Leicester Square, and eventually plunged into
Soho, and disappeared in a certain café, past which the pursuer lazily
strolled with inspecting eyes. He sized the place, its possibilities,
and its prices up in one all-seeing glance.
“Well, I guess a dollar will just about cover what I’m likely to lay
out in that spot,” he mused, as his slow step slackened to a halt. “And
anyway, it’s time I ate, so I’ll turn in and see where she’s got to.
For that’s her sure!”
Without more ado he pulled down over his eyes the big slouch hat
which surrounded his head like an over-sized halo, and, pushing open
the swing doors, entered the restaurant. His first glance at the
softly-lighted interior showed him Mrs. Walsingham, who, seated at the
table which had come to be regarded as hers by right of long custom,
was bending over a menu card, and explaining to her usual waiter that
she had been away for the last week or two. And thus engaged, she did
not notice the stranger, who slipped past and took a seat a little way
off, with his face in the shadow. Secure now of not losing her, he sat
back and inspected her at his leisure, Mrs. Walsingham remaining all
unconscious that she was being so examined.
“That’s her, sure pop!” said the stranger to himself. “That’s all
right. And she looks flourishing enough, too.”
Mrs. Walsingham had made considerable progress with her dinner before
she became aware of the man’s presence. She was not given to staring
about her, having other and more important matters to attend to, and it
was only by accident that she happened to look at the particular corner
in which her pursuer had placed himself. There had been but few people
in that part of the place; now a noisy group of young foreigners,
men and women, came in, hungry and hilarious, and a waiter turned up
an additional light. It struck full on the stranger’s face, and Mrs.
Walsingham, happening to turn at the sudden glare, looked straight at
him as he looked straight at her.
For several seconds the two regarded each other steadily; then Mrs.
Walsingham looked down at her plate and calmly went on with her dinner.
But the man, stealing a glance at her now and then, knew that she had
recognized him; he knew also that she knew that he had recognized her.
He waited and watched for a sign. And Mrs. Walsingham gave none. Nor
did she show any sign of perturbation, or of alarm, or confusion; she
continued to eat and drink as quietly as if nothing had happened, and
if her eyes happened to turn in the stranger’s direction, they remained
as expressionless as if they rested on a statue.
But the watcher knew very well that Mrs. Walsingham was contemplating
something, and that that something related to him, and he continued to
watch without seeming to do so. And at last, while she was trifling
with her coffee and her _crème de menthe_, he saw her take from her
bag a tiny memorandum tablet, on a leaf of which she scribbled a
line or two. Then she folded the torn-out leaf into a neat roll, and
with a calm stare at the stranger across the room, laid it on the
outer edge of the table at which she was sitting. The stranger’s left
eyelid flickered imperceptibly. A few moments later he nodded to his
waiter, paid his bill, and slowly lounged out. Mrs. Walsingham was
engaged in studying the pages of a continental journal as he passed
her table--when she looked up again the rolled-up scrap of paper had
disappeared. And presently, she, too, paid for her entertainment, and
walked out with her usual languid grace.
The stranger walked with swifter steps when he was once clear of the
restaurant. He made for the corner of the street, and there unrolled
the note and read what Mrs. Walsingham had written.
“Go into Soho Square, and wait for me at the corner of Greek Street.”
The stranger smiled and tore the bit of paper into fragments as he
strode off.
“I knew she’d be curious,” he muttered. “Well, that was a lucky chance.”
There was no verbal greeting between them when she presently joined
him. He lifted his hat, and she gave him a sharp nod, and they
instinctively turned towards a quiet corner of the square.
“That was sheer luck,” he said. “I was looking for you. I’d looked
three days.”
“And why?” she asked.
“Because I’ve got something to tell you,” he answered. “Maybe you know
it. Maybe you don’t. You see, I’ve come straight from there. Well, it’s
just this, whether you know it or not. He’s--dead.”
He thought she was going to fall, for she turned white to the lips,
and he put out his hand to clutch her. But then he saw her set her
lips, and in a second the colour came back, and she turned on him with
glittering eyes.
“Prove to me that that’s true--true!” she said in a low, intense voice.
“And I’ll--I’ll----”
“What?” he said.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” she answered. “I will!”
The man scratched his chin.
“It’s true enough,” he answered, with a short laugh. “He was shot dead
in a scrap at Carville--that’s in Nevada--six weeks ago. I was there--I
saw it. Prove it? Well, I suppose you’d take a letter or a cable from,
say, the sheriff, as proof! He was going under his own name. It’s quite
true. Of course, I didn’t know where you were, and there was no one
else to let you know.”
“Give me that sheriff’s name,” she said. “Here--write it down--the
address, too.”
The man scribbled a line or two in the notebook she held out to him.
She glanced at it and thrust it into her bag.
“Meet me here at this time to-morrow,” she said. “And--here, I dare say
you’ll find that useful.”
She pushed a bank-note into his hand, and without staying to hear more,
turned away and hurried in the direction of Oxford Street and to the
nearest post-office. When she came out, ten minutes later, she hailed a
taxi-cab and bade the driver go to her flat. At her own door her maid
met her and gave her a meaning look.
“Mr. Shrewsbury’s in the drawing-room,” she said. “He’s just come.”