AN UNSATISFACTORY INTERVIEW
Before I was up the next morning I was informed that Fritz was waiting
outside the door of my room. I had him shown in, and he stood
respectfully by my bedside.
"Sir," he said, "I have once more discovered Mr. Delora."
"Fritz," I answered, "you are a genius! Tell me where he is?"
"He is at a small private hotel in Bloomsbury," Fritz declared. "It is
really a boarding-house, frequented by Australians and Colonials. The
number is 17, and the street is Montague Street."
I sat up in bed.
"This is very interesting," I said.
Fritz coughed.
"I trusted that you would find it so, sir," he admitted.
I thought for several moments. Then I sprang out of bed.
"Fritz," I said, "our engagement comes to an end this morning. I am
going to pay you for two months' service."
I went to my drawer and counted out some notes, which Fritz pocketed
with a smile of contentment.
"I am obliged to give up my interest in this affair," I said, "so I
cannot find any more work for you. But that money will enable you to
take a little holiday, and I have no doubt that you will soon succeed
in obtaining another situation."
Fritz made me a magnificent bow.
"I am greatly obliged to you, sir," he announced. "I shall take
another situation at once. Holidays--they will come later in life. At
my age, and with a family, one must work. But your generosity, sir,"
he wound up, with another bow, "I shall never forget."
I dressed, and walked to the address which Fritz had given me. As I
stood on the doorstep, with the bell handle still in my hand, the door
was suddenly opened. It was Delora himself who appeared! He shrank
away from me as though I were something poisonous. I laid my hand on
his shoulder, firmly determined that this time there should be no
escape.
"Mr. Delora," I said, "I want a few words with you. Can I have them
now?"
"I am busy!" he answered. "At any other time!"
"No other time will do," I answered. "It is only a few words I need
say, but those few words must be spoken."
He led the way reluctantly into a sitting-room. There were red plush
chairs set at regular intervals against the wall, and a table in the
middle covered by papers--mostly out of date. Delora closed the door
and turned toward me sternly.
"Captain Rotherby," he said, "I am quite aware that there are certain
people in London who are very much interested in me and my
doings. Their interests and mine clash, and it is only natural that
they should plot against me. But where the devil you come in I cannot
tell! Tell me what you mean by playing the spy upon me? What business
is it of yours?"
"You misunderstand the situation, sir," I answered. "More than ten
days ago you left me in charge of your niece at Charing Cross, while
you drove on, according to your own statement, to the Milan Hotel. You
never went to that hotel. You never, apparently, meant to. You have
never been near it since. You have left your niece in the centre of
what seems to be a very nest of intrigue. I have the right to ask you
for an explanation of these things. This morning I have a special
right, because to-day I have promised to go away into the country, and
to take no further interest in your doings."
"Let us suppose," Delora said dryly, "that it is already to-morrow
morning."
"No!" I answered. "There is something which I mean to say to you. You
need not be alarmed. The few words I have to say to you are not
questions. I do not want to understand your secrets,--to penetrate the
mystery which surrounds you and your doings. I will not ask you a
single question. I will not even ask you why you left your niece in
such a fit of terror, and have never yet dared to show your face at
the Milan."
"A child would understand these things!" Delora exclaimed. "The Milan
Hotel is one of the most public spots in London. It is open to any one
who cares to cross the threshold. It is the last place in the world
likely to be a suitable home for a man like myself, who is in touch
with great affairs."
"Then why did you choose to go there?" I asked.
"It was not my choice at all," Delora answered. "Besides, it was not
until I arrived in London that I understood exactly the nature of the
intrigues against me."
"At least," I protested, "you should never have brought your niece
with you. Frankly, your concerns don't interest me a snap of the
fingers. It is of your niece only that I think. You have no right to
leave her alone in such anxiety!"
"Nor can I see, sir," Delora answered, "that you have any better right
to reproach me with it. Still, if it will shorten this discussion, I
admit that if I had known how much trouble there was ahead of me I
should not have brought her. I simply disliked having to disappoint
her. It was a long-standing promise."
"Let that go," I answered. "I have told you that I have handed in my
commission. I have nothing more to do with you or your schemes,
whatever they may be. But I came here to find you and to tell you this
one thing. Felicia says that you are her uncle, she scouts the idea
of your being an impostor, she speaks of you as tenderly and
affectionately as a girl well could. That is all very well. Yet, in
the face of it, I am here to impress this upon you. I love your niece,
Mr. Delora,--some day or other I mean to make her my wife,--and I will
not have her dragged into anything which is either disreputable or
against the law."
"Has my niece encouraged you?" Delora asked calmly.
"Not in the least," I answered. "She has been kind enough to give me
to understand that she cares a little, and there the matter ends.
Nothing more could be said between us in this state of uncertainty.
But I came here for this one purpose. I came to tell you that if by
any chance Felicia should be mistaken, if you play her false in any
way, if you seek to embroil her in your schemes, or to do anything by
means of which she could suffer, I shall first of all shake the life
out of your body, and then I shall go to Scotland Yard and tell them
how much I know."
"About Mr. Tapilow, also?" Delora asked, with a sneer.
"Do you think I am afraid to take the punishment for my own follies?"
I asked indignantly. "If I believed that, I would go and give myself
up to-morrow. Louis can give me away if he will, or you. I don't care
a snap of the fingers. But what I want you to understand is this.
Felicia is, I presume, your niece. I should have been inclined to have
doubted it, but I cannot disbelieve her own word. I think myself that
it is brutal to have brought such a child here and to have left her
alone--"
"She is not alone," Delora interrupted stiffly. "She has a companion."
"Who arrived yesterday," I continued. "She has spent some very bad
days alone, I can promise you that."
"I have telephoned," Delora said, "twice a day--sometimes oftener."
I laughed ironically.
"For your own sake or hers, I wonder," I said. "Anyhow, we can leave
that alone. What I want you to understand is this, that if there is
indeed anything illegal or criminal in your secret doings over here,
you must take care that Felicia is safely provided for if things
should go against you. She is not to be left there to be the butt of a
great criminal action. If I find that you or any of your friends are
making use of her in any way whatever, I swear that you shall suffer
for it!"
Delora smiled at me grimly. He seemed in his few dry words to have
revealed something of his stronger and less nervous self.
"You terrify me!" he said. "Yet I think that we must go on pretty well
as we are, even if my niece has been fortunate enough to enlist your
sympathies on her behalf. Never mind who I am, or what my business is
in this country, young man. It is not your affair. You should have
enough to think about yourself in this country of easy extradition. My
niece can look after herself. So can I. We do not need your aid, or
welcome your interference."
"You insinuate," I declared indignantly, "that your niece is one of
your helpers! I do not believe it!"
"Helpers in what?" he asked, with upraised eyebrows.
"God knows!" I exclaimed, a little impatiently. "What you do, or what
you try to do, is not my business. Felicia is. That is why I have
warned you."
"Am I to have the honor, then?" Delora asked, with a curl of his thin
lips,--
"You are," I interrupted, "if you call it an honor, although to tell
you frankly, as things are at present, I am not inclined to go about
begging too many different people's permission. If it were not that my
brother Dicky has just written over from Brazil to ask me to be civil
to you and your niece, you wouldn't have left this place so easily."
"Your brother!" Delora said, looking at me uneasily. "Say that
again."
"Certainly!" I answered. "My brother Dicky, who is now out in Brazil,
and who has written to me about you. You met him there, of course?" I
added. "He stayed with you at--let me see, what is the name of your
place?" I asked suddenly.
"Menita," Delora answered, without hesitation. "Now you mention it, of
course I remember him! If he has written you to be civil to us, you
can do it best by minding your own business. In a fortnight's time I
shall be free to entertain or to be entertained. At present I am on a
secret mission, and I do not wish my work to be interfered with."
I moved toward the door.
"I have said all that I wish to say," I remarked. "If I hear nothing
from you I shall come back to London in fourteen days."
"You will find me with my niece," Delora said, "and we shall be happy
to see you."
I left him there, feeling somehow or other that I had not had the best
of our interview. Yet my position from the first was hopeless. There
was nothing for me to do but to keep my word to Felicia and let things
drift.
I drove to the club on my way to the station, where I had arranged for
my baggage to be sent. As I crossed Pall Mall I met Lamartine. He was
standing on the pavement, on the point of entering a motor-car on
which was piled some luggage.
"So you, too, are leaving London," I remarked, stopping for a moment.
He looked at me curiously.
"I am going to Paris," he said.
"A pleasure trip?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Not entirely," he said. "Only this morning I made a somewhat
surprising discovery."
"Concerning our friend?" I asked.
"Concerning our friend," Lamartine echoed.
He seemed dubious, for a moment, whether to take me into his
confidence.
"You have not found Delora yet?" I asked.
"Not yet," he answered. "And you?"
"I have seen him," I admitted.
"Are you disposed to tell me where?" Lamartine asked softly.
I shook my head.
"I have finished with the affair," I told him. "I finish as I
began,--absolutely bewildered! I know nothing and understand
nothing. I am going down into the country to shoot pheasants."
Lamartine smiled.
"I," he remarked, entering the car, "am going after bigger game!"