THE MEETING
"There!" he said to himself, as he passed downstairs, "I am just as big a
fool as she is. She followed me to make a clean breast of everything, and
I send her back with a request to keep her lips sealed. Yet I am angry
with her for the risk she is taking!"
He reached the hall and was about to cross the foyer when he caught the
words, "Gentleman thrown out of a cab," uttered by a handsome girl,
cheaply but gaudily attired, who was making some inquiry at the bureau.
He stopped and searched for a match. Then he became interested in the
latest news, pinned in strips on the baize-covered board of a "ticker."
The girl explained to an official that she had witnessed an accident that
evening. She was told that a gentleman who lived in the hotel was hurt.
Was he seriously injured?
The hotel man, from long practice, was enabled to sum up such inquirers
rapidly.
"Do you know the gentleman?" he inquired.
"No--that is, slightly."
"Well, madam, if you give me your card I will send it to his friends. They
will give you all necessary information."
She became confused. She was not accustomed to the quiet elegance of a
great hotel. The men in evening dress, the gorgeously attired ladies
passing to elevator or drawing-room, seemed to be listening to her. Why
did the bureau keeper speak so loudly? Then the assurance of the Cockney
came to her aid.
"I don't see why there should be such a fuss about nothing," she said. "I
don't know his people. I saw the gentleman pitched out of a cab and was
sorry for him, so I just called to ask how he was."
She angrily tossed her head, and stared insolently at an old lady who came
to inquire if there were any letters for the Countess of Skerry and Ness.
"No letters, your ladyship," said the man. "And you, miss, must either
send a personal message or see the manager."
The young woman bounced out in a fury, and Brett followed her, silently
thanking the favouring planets which had sent him down the stairs at the
very moment when the girl was proffering her request to the clerk.
Fortunately, the weather was better now. There was a clear sky overhead,
and the streets looked quite cheerful after the steady downpour, London's
myriad lamps being reflected in glistening zigzags across the wet
pavement.
The girl did not head towards the busy Strand, but walked direct to
Charing Cross station on the District Railway.
The barrister thought she intended to go somewhere by train. He quickened
his pace in order to be able to rapidly obtain a ticket and thus keep up
with her. Herein he was lucky. To his surprise, she passed out of the
station on the embankment side.
He followed, and nowhere could he see her. Then he remembered the steps
leading to the footpath along the Hungerford Bridge. Running up these
steps he soon caught sight of the young woman, who was walking rapidly
towards Waterloo.
A man of the artisan class stared at her as she passed, and said something
to her. She turned fiercely.
"Do you want a swipe on the jaw?" she demanded.
No, he did not. What had he done, he would like to know.
"You mind your own business," she said. "Where am I goin', indeed. What's
it got to do with you?"
The episode was valuable to the listening barrister. It classified the
anxious inquirer after Hume's health.
Her abashed admirer hung back, and the girl resumed her onward progress.
The man was conscious that the gentleman behind him must have heard what
passed. He endeavoured to justify himself.
"She's pretty O.T., she is," he grinned.
"Do you know her?" said Brett.
"I know her by sight. Seen her in the York now an' then."
"She can evidently take care of herself."
"Ra--ther. Don't you so much as look at her, mister, or off goes your
topper into the river. She's in a bad temper to-night."
Brett laughed and walked ahead. On reaching the Surrey side the girl made
for the Waterloo Road. There she mounted on top of a 'bus. The barrister
went inside. He thought of the "man with black, snaky eyes," who "took
penn'orths" all the way from the Elephant to Whitehall.
And now he, Brett, took a penn'orth to the Elephant. The 'bus reached that
famous centre of humanity, passing thence through Newington Butts to the
Kennington Park Road.
In the latter thoroughfare the girl skipped down from the roof, and
disdaining the conductor's offer to stop, swung herself lightly to the
ground. The barrister followed, and soon found himself tracking her along
a curved street of dingy houses.
Into one of these she vanished. It chanced to be opposite a gas-lamp, and
as he walked past he made out the number--37.
Externally it was exactly like its neighbours, dull, soiled, pinched, old
curtains, worn blinds, blistered paint. He knew that if he walked inside
he would tread on a strip of oilcloth, once gay in red and yellow squares,
but now worn to a dirty grey uniformity. In the "hall" he would encounter
a rickety hat-stand faced by an ancient print entitled "Idle Hours," and
depicting two ladies, reclining on rocks, attired in tremendous skirts,
tight jackets, and diminutive straw hats perched between their forehead
and chignons--in the middle distance a fat urchin, all hat and frills,
staring stupidly at the ocean.
In the front sitting-room he would encounter horse-hair chairs, frayed
carpet, and more early Victorian prints; in the back sitting-room more
frayed carpet, more prints, and possibly a bed.
Nothing very mysterious or awe-inspiring about 37 Middle Street, yet the
barrister was loth to leave the place. The scent of the chase was in his
nostrils. He had "found."
He was tempted to boldly approach and frame some excuse--a hunt for
lodgings, an inquiry for a missing friend, anything to gain admittance and
learn something, however meagre in result, of the occupants.
He reviewed the facts calmly. To attempt, at such an hour, to glean
information from the sharp-tongued young person who had just admitted
herself with a latchkey, was to court failure and suspicion. He must bide
his time. Winter was an adept in ferreting out facts concerning these
localities and their denizens. To Winter the inquiry must be left.
He stopped at the further end of the street, lit a cigar, and walked back.
He had again passed No. 37, giving a casual glance to the second floor
front window, in which a light illumined the blind, when he became aware
that a man was approaching from the Kennington Park Road. Otherwise the
street was empty.
The lamp opposite No. 37 did not throw its beams far into the gloom, but
the advancing figure instantly enlisted Brett's attention.
The man was tall and strongly built. He moved with the ease of an athlete.
He walked with a long, swinging stride, yet carried himself erect He was
attired in a navy blue serge suit and a bowler hat.
The two were rapidly nearing each other.
At ten yards' distance Brett knew that the other man was he whom he
sought, the murderer of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, the human ogre whose mission
on earth seemed to be the extinction of all who bore that fated name.
It is idle to deny that Brett was startled by this unexpected rencontre.
Not until he made the discovery did he remember that he was carrying the
stick rescued from the mud of Northumberland Avenue.
The knowledge gave him an additional thrill. Though he could be cool
enough in exciting circumstances, though his quiet courage had more than
once saved his life in moments of extreme peril, though physically he was
more than able to hold his own with, say, the average professional boxer,
he fully understood that the individual now about to pass within a stride
could kill him with ridiculous ease.
Would this dangerous personage recognise his own stick?--that was the
question.
If he did, Brett could already see himself describing a parabola in the
air, could hear his skull crashing against the pavement. He even went so
far as to sit with the coroner's jury and bring in a verdict of
"Accidental Death."
In no sense did Brett exaggerate the risk he encountered. The individual
who could stab Sir Alan to death with a knife like a toy, hurl a stalwart
sailor into the middle of a street without perceptible effort, and bring
down a horse and cab at the precise instant and in the exact spot
determined upon after a second's thought, was no ordinary opponent.
Their eyes met.
Truly a fiendish-looking Hume-Frazer, a Satanic impersonation of a fine
human type. For the first and only time in his life Brett regretted that
he did not carry a revolver when engaged in his semi-professional affairs.
The barrister, be it stated, wore the conventional frock-coat and tall hat
of society. His was a face once seen not easily forgotten, the outlines
classic and finely chiselled, the habitual expression thoughtful,
preoccupied, the prevalent idea conveyed being tenacious strength. Quite
an unusual person in Middle Street, Kennington.
They passed.
Brett swung the stick carelessly in his left hand, but not so carelessly
that on the least sign of a hostile movement he would be unable to dash it
viciously at his possible adversary's eyes.
He remembered the advice of an old cavalry officer: "Always give 'em the
point between the eyes. They come head first, and you reach 'em at the
earliest moment."
Nevertheless, he experienced a quick quiver down his spine when the other
man deliberately stopped and looked after him. He did not turn his head,
but he could "feel" that vicious glance travelling over him, could hear
the unspoken question: "Now, I wonder who _you_ are, and what you want
here?"
He staggered slightly, recovered his balance, and went on. It was a
masterpiece of suggestiveness, not overdone, a mere wink of intoxication,
as it were.
It sufficed. Such an explanation accounts for many things in London.
The watcher resumed his interrupted progress. Brett crossed the street and
deliberately knocked at the door of a house in which the ground floor was
illuminated.
Someone peeped through a blind, the door opened as far as a rattling chain
would permit.
"Good evening," said Brett.
"What do you want?" demanded a suspicious woman.
"Mr. Smith--Mr. Horatio Smith."
"He doesn't live here."
"Dear me! Isn't this 76 Middle Street?"
"Yes; all the same, there's no Smiths here."
The door slammed; but the barrister had attained his object. The other man
had entered No. 37.