Îäíàæäû âå÷åðîì, êîãäà åìó áûëî ïÿòíàäöàòü, îí ñèäåë çà óðîêàìè, ñòàðàòåëüíî íå îáðàùàÿ íà íèõ âíèìàíèÿ. Îí ïîñòóêèâàë êàðàíäàøîì ïî ùåêå, îòêðûâàÿ è çàêðûâàÿ ðîò, è âûâîäèë íèñõîäÿùóþ è âîñõîäÿùóþ ãàììû. Åãî ëîêîòü, ëåæàâøèé íà ñòîëå, âíåçàïíî ñîñêîëüçíóë. Îñòðèå êàðàíäàøà âîíçèëîñü â öåíòð åãî ëåâîé ëàäîíè è ñëîìàëîñü. Îí ïðèæàë ïàëåö ê ðàíå, ÷òîáû îñòàíîâèòü êðîâü, è ïîáåæàë â âàííóþ çà ðòóòíî-õðîìîâûì ïëàñòûðåì, ÷òîáû ïåðåâÿçàòü ðàíó. Îí íå äîãàäàëñÿ âûòàùèòü çàíîçó, è ðàíà çàæèëà. Êîãäà ñòðóï îòïàë, ïîä ìàëåíüêèì áåëûì øðàìîì ñòàëî âèäíî åäâà çàìåòíîå ñåðîâàòîå ïÿòíûøêî. Ñ ãîäàìè ïîòîêè êðîâè â åãî òåëå ïåðåìåùàëè ýòî ïÿòíûøêî ñî ñêîðîñòüþ îäíà ìèëëèàðäíàÿ äþéìà â ñåêóíäó.
Êîãäà åìó áûëî 18 ëåò, îí ïîòåðÿë ðåçåö íà ôóòáîëüíîì ïîëå, ñïîòêíóâøèñü è óïàâ íà âåäðî ñ âîäîé. Ñòîìàòîëîã âêðóòèë åìó â ÷åëþñòü çóá èç õðîìîêîáàëüòîâîãî ñïëàâà. Ñî âðåìåíåì èç-çà äàëüíåéøèõ âèçèòîâ ê ñòîìàòîëîãó ó íåãî ïîÿâèëîñü 23 ïëîìáû.
Êîãäà åìó áûë 21 ãîä è îí ðàáîòàë íàä äîêòîðñêîé äèññåðòàöèåé, èç-çà îãðîìíîãî êîëè÷åñòâà ìåëêîãî øðèôòà ó íåãî óõóäøèëîñü çðåíèå. Îêóëèñò ïðîïèñàë åìó î÷êè â ñòàëüíîé îïðàâå.
 äâàäöàòü ÷åòûðå ãîäà îí óñòðîèëñÿ íà õîðîøóþ ðàáîòó èíæåíåðîì-õèìèêîì. Îí ëþáèë ñâîþ ðàáîòó è ñêó÷àë ïî íåé, êîãäà ïðèõîäèëîñü ïîäîëãó îòñóòñòâîâàòü. Ïîýòîìó ó íåãî ïîÿâèëàñü ïðèâû÷êà êàæäûé äåíü íà îáåä ñúåäàòü ïîìèäîð, ïîñûïàííûé ñîëüþ. Èç-çà ýòîãî â åãî îðãàíèçìå íàðóøèëñÿ êèñëîòíî-ùåëî÷íîé áàëàíñ. Ýòî îòðàçèëîñü íà ñòàëüíûõ äóæêàõ åãî î÷êîâ è íà ëèöå â òåõ ìåñòàõ, ãäå îíè ñîïðèêàñàëèñü ñ êîæåé.
Êîãäà åìó áûëî äâàäöàòü øåñòü, î÷êè çàïîòåëè, è îí íåïðàâèëüíî ïðî÷èòàë ïîêàçàíèÿ íà öèôåðáëàòå. Ïîñëåäîâàâøèé çà ýòèì âçðûâ èñïîðòèë åìó ñëóõ. Îí ñòàë ïîëüçîâàòüñÿ ñëóõîâûì àïïàðàòîì.
 äâàäöàòü ñåìü ëåò îí æåíèëñÿ. Öåðåìîíèÿ áûëà ñ äâóìÿ êîëüöàìè, è íåâåñòà ðåøèòåëüíî íàäåëà çîëîòîå êîëüöî íà äðîæàùèé áåçûìÿííûé ïàëåö åãî ëåâîé ðóêè. Ó íåãî áûëà ïðèâû÷êà ïîñòóêèâàòü êîëüöîì ïî çóáàì, êîãäà îí ïîãðóæàëñÿ â ðàçäóìüÿ. Êàçàëîñü, ýòî ïîìîãàëî åìó ñîñðåäîòî÷èòüñÿ. Íî æåíà ðàç çà ðàçîì ñïðàøèâàëà: «Òåáå îáÿçàòåëüíî ýòî äåëàòü?» (Ýòî äåéñòâîâàëî åé íà íåðâû, êàê è ìíîãèå äðóãèå åãî ïðèâû÷êè.) «Òû äåëàåøü ýòî òîëüêî äëÿ òîãî, ÷òîáû ñâåñòè ìåíÿ ñ óìà?» È îíà ñåðäèòî íà÷èíàëà æåâàòü æâà÷êó. Êîãäà åìó áûëî òðèäöàòü... Áûëî 10 óòðà. Íèêîëàñ Êåéí, äîêòîð ôèëîñîôèè, ñèäåë çà ñâîèì ñòîëîì. Ïåðåä íèì ñòîÿëà ïðîáëåìà, è îí ðàññåÿííî ïîñòóêèâàë îáðó÷àëüíûì êîëüöîì ïî çóáàì.
Çà ýòó ñåêóíäó êóñî÷åê ãðàôèòà, êîòîðûé çà ïÿòíàäöàòü ëåò ïðîäâèíóëñÿ íà ïîëäþéìà ïî åãî ëàäîíè ê ïàëüöàì, ñäâèíóëñÿ åùå íà îäíó ìèëëèàðäíóþ äîëþ äþéìà. Äîêòîð Êåéí çàìåð. Îí íà÷àë ñëûøàòü ãîëîñà â ñâîåé ãîëîâå.
Ïåðâûì áûë æåíñêèé ãîëîñ, è äàæå ñêâîçü ìåòàëëè÷åñêèé èñêàæåííûé çâóê äîêòîð Êåéí óëîâèë â íåì ñîíëèâîñòü. — Áèëë?
Ïàóçà. Çàòåì æåíùèíà çàãîâîðèëà ñíîâà. Òåïåðü åå ãîëîñ çâó÷àë áîäðî.
 åå ãîëîñå ñëûøàëñÿ ãíåâ è ëåãêîå ïðåçðåíèå.
— Ïîñòàâü ÷àñû íà ìåñòî, äóðàê.
Åå ãíåâ âíåçàïíî ñìåíèëñÿ ñòðàõîì.
“ Íåò! Ïîæàëóéñòà, ïîæàëóéñòà, äîðîãàÿ! ß îáåùàþ, ÷òî áîëüøå íèêîãäà åãî íå óâèæó...
Íåïðèÿòíûé çâóê ìåòàëëà î êîñòü. Äîëãèé áóëüêàþùèé âçäîõ. Òèøèíà.
À çàòåì ÷åëîâåê, áîëåçíåííî ïðîèçíîñÿùèé: “Áîæå. ×òî ÿ íàäåëàë?”
È ýòî áûëî âñå.
Âî âðåìÿ äðàìû, êîòîðóþ ïîäñëóøàë äîêòîð Êåéí, êóñî÷åê ãðàôèòà ñäâèíóëñÿ íà äåâÿòü ìèëëèàðäíûõ äþéìà. Îí áîëüøå íå ðàáîòàë.
Äîêòîð Íèêîëàñ Êåéí îãëÿäåëñÿ, ïðîâåðÿÿ, íå ñìîòðèò ëè êòî-íèáóäü èç êîëëåã íà íåãî ñ ïîäîçðåíèåì. Âñå áûëè çàíÿòû ñâîèìè äåëàìè. Ñ îáëåã÷åíèåì âçäîõíóâ, îí ñïðÿòàëñÿ çà ëèñòîì áóìàãè è îçàäà÷åííî íàõìóðèëñÿ.
Ëþáîïûòíî, ïîäóìàë îí, ÷òî ýòî çà èñòîðèÿ ñ ãîëîñàìè. ß ÷òî, ñõîæó ñ óìà? Èëè ýòè ãîëîñà áûëè íàñòîÿùèìè? Ìîæåò, ÿ äåéñòâîâàë êàê ðàäèîïðèåìíèê è ïîéìàë êàêóþ-òî ïåðåäà÷ó. Òàêîå ñëó÷àëîñü — ñ òî÷èëüùèêîì íîæåé, êîãäà êðèñòàëëû êàðáîðóíäà èç åãî òî÷èëüíîãî êàìíÿ îñåäàëè íà ìåòàëëè÷åñêèõ ïëîìáàõ â åãî çóáàõ è äåéñòâîâàëè êàê êðèñòàëëû ãàëåíèòà, êîòîðûå èñïîëüçîâàëèñü â ñòàðûõ êðèñòàëëè÷åñêèõ ðàäèîïðèåìíèêàõ. Íî â ïîñëåäíåå âðåìÿ ÿ íå òî÷èë íèêàêèõ íîæåé. Äàæå â ïåðåíîñíîì ñìûñëå.
Íà êàêîå-òî âðåìÿ îí îñòàâèë ýòî çàíÿòèå è âåðíóëñÿ ê ðàáîòå. Íî ïåðåæèòîå ñëèøêîì ñèëüíî åãî ðàññòðîèëî. Îí îòëîæèë áóìàãè è, ñîñëàâøèñü íà ãîëîâíóþ áîëü, óøåë äîìîé.
Óòðåííåå ñîëíöå è îñåííèé âîçäóõ áûëè òàêèìè áîäðÿùèìè, ÷òî ê òîìó âðåìåíè, êàê îí äîáðàëñÿ äî äîìà, ó íåãî áûëî ïî÷òè ïðàçäíè÷íîå íàñòðîåíèå. Æåíà áû óäèâèëàñü. Ïî÷åìó áû íå óäèâèòü åå, ïðåäëîæèâ ïðîâåñòè îñòàòîê ýòîãî ÷óäåñíîãî äíÿ çà ïèêíèêîì? Îíè äàâíî íèêóäà íå âûáèðàëèñü. Íàäî áû çàãëàäèòü ñâîþ âèíó çà òî, ÷òî òàê äîëãî åå èãíîðèðîâàë.
Îí îòêðûë äâåðü ñâîèì êëþ÷îì.  äîìå áûëî òèõî. Çàòåì îí óëûáíóëñÿ, óñëûøàâ íåæíûé õðàï ñâîåé âîçëþáëåííîé. Îí íà öûïî÷êàõ âîøåë â ñïàëüíþ. Îíà ëåæàëà íà ñïèíå, îäíà ðóêà ëåæàëà ðÿäîì ñ î÷êàìè â ðîãîâîé îïðàâå íà òåëåôîííîì ñòîëèêå, à äðóãàÿ, êàçàëîñü, óêàçûâàëà íà ÷àñû íà êîìîäå. Ïîñòåïåííî îíà îñîçíàëà, ÷òî îí ðÿäîì. Íå îòêðûâàÿ ãëàç, îíà ïðîøåïòàëà: «Áèëë?»
“I don’t know.” Rex was nibbling at his nails; he could not be cured of this ugly habit. “Only Luke is a good fellow—in a way. Rather a tightwad.”
“What is a tightwad?” she asked, her steady eyes on him.
“Well—I mean—he’s not terribly generous with his own money. He gives tips and things, but somehow I’ve never been able to get into the market in time to benefit. My own fault, of course.”
He tried to avoid her gaze, but she was the stronger character.
“Have you been borrowing money again?” she asked, and he wriggled uncomfortably.
“No—what rot! Only Danty and I had a scheme…”
She looked round at that moment. Somehow she knew that the dark-eyed Danton Morell was watching them. Danton was rather a dear and she had come to rely upon him. He seemed to sense her trouble now, and detaching himself from the group of which he was a silent member, made his way toward her.
“Oh, shut up, Peggy. Don’t talk to Morell about it. If you’re going to make a scene…”
With a shrug he turned and left her as Danty came up.
Danty, that splendid man of the world, was amused at her fears. He was on the borderline of forty, a handsome, entertaining bachelor, and she had come to know him through Rex.
“No, I don’t think he has been borrowing. Rex is an improvident devil who will be broke for the next ten years. Then he will settle down and be terribly successful. Your young man is rather late.”
She knew instinctively that he did not like Luke Maddison; she had always known this. Luke, she told herself, was rather a prig in his way. He was “county”—was related to or friendly with almost every great family in England. Only once had he spoken disparagingly of Danton.
“Where did he spring from? I’ve never heard of him before,” he asked.
She might have told him that Danton had spent the greater part of his life in the Argentine, but she had stiffened at the disparagement of her brother’s friend—and hers. And then Luke had made it worse.
“He’s a rum bird. I shouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those light-fingered fellows who are known to the police—if one only made inquiries.”
“You had better make inquiries,” she said icily.
This was before she had taken the plunge and had sent an ecstatic Luke Maddison to his house walking on air.
As she listened to Danton she was looking absently at the solitaire diamond ring which was the outward and visible sign of her engagement.
“… Rex is volatile and a bit unstable—sometimes there is nothing too bad he can say about Maddison. Sometimes nothing too good. Hullo, here’s our blessed host!”
Luke Maddison came through the vestibule with long strides. He paused to strip his overcoat and take off his silk hat, which he almost threw at an attendant, and took one step toward the door. As he did so his foot slipped sideways on the marble floor and he would have fallen unpleasantly but for the hand that suddenly gripped his arm.
The man who held him must have been unusually strong, for he literally, and in the most effortless fashion, lifted Luke Maddison bodily and placed him on his feet. Luke turned with a half smile of dismay and found himself looking into a hard, lined face, the colour of teak; into two unsmiling eyes, expressionless. -“Thank you—awfully!” - The stranger nodded.
“It might have been a very nasty fall. I’m greatly obliged to you!”
“Not at all,” said the unknown.
He was in evening kit, a perfectly fitted man; you saw the ghost of an efficient valet behind him. Maddison saw lines in the face which were not entirely nature’s handiwork. He could not know that the two scars which disfigured the right cheek of his helper were souvenirs of an encounter with the late Lew Selinski of New York City. Lew used a knife when he was annoyed and he had been very annoyed with the well-dressed man when he had left his mark upon his enemy’s face.
“I am glad I was here. Fortunately, I always wait in the lobby when I am expecting people to dinner. Good-night.”
He half turned away as though he objected to the attention he had called to himself, and Luke went in to his party full of apologies.
Two lives touched at the Carlton that January night—touched and went looping away one from the other, to touch again in a moment of crisis. Rough roads they were: a bitter, heart-aching road for one, a methodical hell for the less favoured, to be tramped with that cynical smile with which “Gunner” Haynes met every misfortune.
Luke Maddison saw life like that—a bewildering mass of crossing and parallel paths. If he fell into error it was in believing that his own was the straight-as-a-ruler highway to which and from which all other paths inclined or diverged.
Eight generations of gentlemen bankers, all gently bred and belonging to the class which produces statesmen and commanders by divine right of appointment, were responsible for his wealth and his six feet of good-looking humanity. He was fair, blue eyed, straight of back, in his happier moments irresponsible. He was extravagant, a free spender of money and an idealist, which means that he was spendthrift of the material which keeps men in the City solid and comfortable. Something of a gambler, he took chances at which his more conservative friends might shudder. Yet, as somebody said, “With half a million of gilt-edged securities on deposit, who could not gamble to a ten per cent. margin?”
Gunner Haynes, whose strong arm had saved him from a fractured wrist or worse, had no collateral worth speaking about. His principal assets were an immaculate dress suit, a cultured voice, and perfect manners, which more than overcame the handicap represented by his lean, dark, sinister face. He lived God knew where, but was to be seen at such of the best hotels as did not know him for an expert jewel thief.
They called him “Gunner” because of certain happenings in New York City. It was said, but never proved, that he was the man who bumped off Lew Selinski, that notorious gang leader, and shot his way through Lew’s gunmen to the safety represented by a cattle boat which sailed from the Hudson River an hour after the police reserves answered a riot call.
Nobody had ever seen him with a pistol in England; but the detectives who arrested him a year after his return to his native land fully expected gun play and came armed.
When he came up for trial, nobody came near him: not his pretty wife or his best friend Larry Vinman. Larry was a prince of confidence men, young, good-looking, plausible.
There might be excellent reason why Larry should not wish to draw attention to himself by appearing in court; no reason why Millie should not write or do something. She had a thousand pounds in hard cash; a good lawyer could have been briefed; but when the Gunner sent for her, she had left the lodging they had occupied. He never saw her again. A few months before his release from prison he heard that she had died in a workhouse infirmary.
The Gunner’s smile when he heard this was a grim one. He always smiled when he was hurt—and as he smiled now, his heart was one great throbbing wound.
So he came from prison, and in due course to the Carlton Hotel, where Mr. Luke Maddison was celebrating his engagement. Of Luke he knew nothing—what had brought him there was a jewel box which a rich American lady kept in the hotel safe all day and in her bedroom between 9 P.M. and 1 A.M. Gunner Haynes had taken a room on the same floor.
“I really am at your feet and prostrate,” said Luke, not for the first time in the course of the dinner. “The truth is, my car hit a taxicab sideways—it was the cabby’s fault—and up came an officious Robert and must take down all particulars very laboriously in his little book! Why don’t they teach policemen to write shorthand?”
“My dear, it doesn’t matter—really.”
Margaret’s voice was a little weary. Everything and everybody was going wrong to-night. Even Danty was distressed about something and was not his usual self. Luke was late; he had made an acrobatic entrance, performing wild gyrations in the arms of a strange gentleman. What had upset Danty? She had seen his face turn a sickly white when Luke came in. Rex was grumpy and silent, scarcely speaking to Lady Revellson on his left. And Luke had insisted on sitting next to her, after she had arranged the table, with the result that everybody at the table was in his or her wrong place.
“If that fellow hadn’t been on the spot I should certainly have broken something—I couldn’t possibly have saved myself. It has been trying to snow and I must have got some caked on the sole of my shoe—I walked the last hundred yards or so. The car was caught in a traffic jam in Piccadilly Circus.…”
“What was he like—in appearance?”
Danton’s voice sounded a little hoarse, as though he were speaking from a dry throat.
“Who—the man who held me up?” And when the other nodded Luke went on: “A dark-looking fellow—I thought he might be a German—two scars across his right cheek—the sort of wound that duelling students love to acquire. I remember when I was at school in Bonn…”
Danton was not listening now. Two scars across the right cheek! Then he had not been mistaken. The question was, had the Gunner recognized him? It was seven years since they had met—Danton had been clean shaven and rather towheaded in those days. Millie Haynes used to call him “the gold-hair boy” in the days of her fascination. He had grown a moustache and darkened his hair down since then—he no longer filled the police description of Larry Vinman. He made the change long after he had thrown over Millie and left her to drift to a workhouse infirmary. It had been rendered necessary by the success of a trick which had left an Australian squatter poorer by eight thousand pounds, and the subsequent activities of Scotland Yard’s confidence squad.
Gunner Haynes! He breathed a little faster. Down his back ran a cold shiver of apprehension. Suppose he had recognized his old friend; suppose he packed a gun, suppose he was waiting out there in the lobby…
Danty wiped his moist forehead, caught the eye of his hostess, and, with an appealing glance for permission, left his seat.
“Just remember I had to telephone,” he mumbled as he passed her.
He went down the broad steps into the palm court. The Gunner was not there. He crossed the court into the lobby—empty. There were two lobbies, one in Haymarket, the other in Pall Mall. They were connected by a passage, and down this he went silently.
As he came to the second vestibule he saw his man and drew back. Gunner was stepping into the elevator and his back was half turned to the watcher.
It was he; there was no question of it. Gunner Haynes! The lift door closed on him. Danton looked around. He recognized the quiet-looking gentleman who was lounging by the revolving door.
“You’re the hotel detective, aren’t you?” he asked.
(When Danty Morell was plain Larry Vinman he knew most hotel detectives by sight and could guess the others.)
“Yes, sir—anything wrong?”
“Who was that man?”
The detective told him. It was one of the assumed names that the Gunner invariably used, and the heart of Mr. Morell leaped.
“Like hell he is! Number 986 is his room, eh? He’s Gunner Haynes and he’s after jewellery. Get Scotland Yard—they’ll check him up in a second. But my name doesn’t come into this, do you understand?”
He left the man busy at the telephone exchange and went back to the party, exulting.
It was too good a secret to be kept. Moreover, he loved an audience; he had the table’s breathless attention for five minutes.
“He’s got a room here, number 986. I know the fellow rather well—I was very friendly with the district attorney in New York and he showed me his portrait. One of the most dangerous men in New York—a gunman. I hope there is no trouble. I recognized him as soon as I saw him, but I had to go out and make sure.”
“What have you done?”
Luke’s face was troubled. He was on the soft side, as Danty knew.
“Naturally I put the hotel detective on his track—I left him ’phoning the Yard.”
Luke Maddison fetched a long sigh.
“Poor devil!” he said.
Margaret shook her head at Danty helplessly.
“You’ve spoiled Luke’s evening,” she said, and her fianc; winced at the mild sarcasm.
“Not a bit, only—will you excuse me?”
He was gone before the astonished girl could protest.
“How like Luke—and how everything fits into the scheme of this wretched evening!” she said.
“Where has he gone?” Danty was momentarily alarmed.
She shrugged milky shoulders.
“What does one do? Bail him out? Give him money for his breakfast—something horribly philanthropic,” she said.
Luke went straight to the second vestibule and into the elevator.
“Where is number 986?” he asked, as the lift went up.
The attendant stopped the lift on the fourth floor and pointed to the door. For a second only did Luke Maddison hesitate, the door handle in his grasp, and then he turned and walked into the room.
The occupant of the room was standing by the window, his back to the visitor.
“Well, sir?”
He did not look round, and Luke realized that he was being viewed through the medium of a mirror which was fixed on a bureau in an angle of the wall.
Luke closed the door behind him.
“If you’re Gunner Haynes, I advise you to clear out,” he said in a low voice. “If you’re not, I owe you an apology.”
Haynes swung round at the mention of his name.
“Oh!” he said. A pause, and then: “I am greatly obliged to you.”
“Have you any money?”
Another pause.
“Yes—I have all the money I want. Thank you.”
The Gunner was smiling, his underlip pouted. Something had amused him in his secretive way.
“Thank you—I think I understand. I wasn’t quite sure if it was Larry. After big pickings, eh?”
All this was Greek to Maddison. He saw the Gunner pick up an overcoat from the footrail of the bed, and then the door was thrown open and a big man strode in, followed by two others. There was authority in his voice.
“Hullo, Gunner!” - The Gunner nodded.
“;’Lo, Sparrow—you carry your age very well!”
The big man chuckled.
“Don’t I?” His hands passed quickly round the hips of his prisoner. “Got a gat?” he asked, in the friendliest way.
“No, sir.” The Gunner was still smiling. “The legend that I carry a lethal weapon dies very hard. My condition of disarmament would earn three hearty cheers from the League of Nations.”
The big detective snapped handcuffs on his quarry; then he looked shrewdly at Luke.
“This man hasn’t anything belonging to you, Mr. Maddison?” he asked.
Luke was staggered to discover that he was known.
“No—I am sorry to say,” he said.
“Mr. Maddison—I’ll remember that name,” said the Gunner, and gave a friendly nod to Luke as they hustled him from the room.
“Poor devil!” said Luke Maddison for the second time that night, and went back to his party.
This time Margaret Leferre did not accept his apologies, and when he told her where he had been, her face grew as white as Danty Morell’s.
It was fully three weeks before that little rift was closed.
CHAPTER II
The storm that swept on London found at least two people unprepared. Luke Maddison was cheery. He had been formally forgiven—the marriage was to be quiet, and only a few guests were to be invited. He had only a few minutes before arranged his train reservations—no secretary should perform that sacred duty!
His heart would have sung a gay song even if every thick flake of snow burned as it touched his face. The flower girl shifted the strap of her basket from one shoulder to another and gazed with dismay upon the tumbling white fog that descended upon St. James’s Street, blotting out every landmark. You could not see from one side of the street to the other. Almost instantly the ground was thick where the white flakes lay. But for their asthmatic engines one would not have known that such things as motor busses were passing.
Snow covered the violets in her basket, soaked into the thin shawl about her shoulders, and even when she sought shelter in the doorway of a bank, followed her in gusty showers.
Two men brushed past her into the bank. She offered a bunch of flowers automatically. The younger of the two did not notice her; the middle-aged man with the trim moustache gave her a quick, appraising glance and stopped.
“Hullo, honey—busy?”
She did not reply. He hesitated a moment, and then the door swung open and the impatient voice of the young man called him inside.
At that moment Luke Maddison came striding down the street, swinging a light cane. He wore no overcoat and his shoulders already carried a white blanketting.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl shivering in the doorway, checked his stride and came up to her.
“My dear, you look cold! My heart keeps me terribly warm—and if you think I am making love to you, I’m not! I want a flower, and you shall have a present, and then you and I will drift away and we shall be dead to one another—born and dead in this freezy moment! Buy a wreath!”
He took a banknote out of his pocket and dangled it before her eyes laughingly. And then he had a slight shock.
She was pretty—which flower girls, outside of musical comedy, are not; her figure was frail, her skin flawless.
Yet she was poorly dressed; bore in her person all the evidence of penury.
“Here’s a better one.”
He put the note in his pocket and produced another, scribbled a line or two on the back of it.
“That’s the name and address of my company—if, when you try to change it, the police say that it is stolen, refer them to me.”
She did not answer, but looked from the note in her cold hands to its giver. It was for a hundred pounds! When she looked up he was gone.
The swing doors of the bank opened again and the two men came out. She crumpled the note in her hand, dismayed, exhilarated, and, in one respect, disappointed. It was then she saw the young man’s face. It was deathly pale and he was breathing quickly—this was noticeable, for the weather was cold.
“By God, that was a horrible coincidence, Danty—suppose he’d come in——”
“Shut up, you fool!”
The elder of the two shot a glance at the flower girl. She was arranging her violets.
“But if he had—— He said he was going out of town before the settlement.”
He was trembling violently: the flower girl might have seen that if she were observant. Danty’s dark eyes roved the streets for a taxi; they rested momentarily on the flower girl. She was pretty, but at the moment her face was vacant. More interested in her flowers than in unintelligible scraps of conversation, he supposed.
“Now see here, Rex, there’s nothing to worry about. You could easily explain that Margaret…”
His voice sank to an indistinguishable mutter of sound. The girl heard the word “settlement” used several times, and “carry over” and “account.” Also “Margaret” was mentioned twice, and “Luke.”
“… fix it, don’t worry!” Danty patted the other on the back. She decided that she did not like “Danty.” “Here’s a cab!”
The younger man signalled and sprinted out to the taxi. The other went at a more leisurely pace. He dropped something onto her flowers—a visiting card.
“Come along about nine and have a drink,” he murmured.
She took the card before his eyes, glanced at the name and deliberately tore it up.
He was rather annoyed when he joined his companion.
“Mr. Danton Morell, 907 Half Moon Street,” she read. It was a name to remember.
And then she saw a huge figure loom out of the mist of swirling flakes, and instinctively knew that he was going to speak to her. Why she should think this she did not know—he might very well be going into the bank.
He was big in every way. Until he ranged alongside her, his height did not seem extraordinary. Till his length was gauged, the breadth of his shoulders was not remarkable. He stood six feet four in his stockinged feet. His face was dark and broad and unattractive; he had a short, bull neck and a deep, rich, husky voice.
He walked slowly, almost lethargically, through the snow, his hands behind him, his hard felt hat on the back of his head, the ragged cigar, that was burning unevenly, gripped in his teeth.
The flower girl thought he was going to turn into the bank after all: instead, he stood squarely before her and looked down at her. The expression in those slits of eyes was blank. He might have his attention entirely absorbed by her; he might be trying to remember something.
And then he spoke huskily.
“You’re no child of the poor!”
There was something so friendly, so good-humoured in his voice, that she laughed.
“Nor a wrongdoer either,” she said demurely, and his big face folded into a delighted smile.
“You’re nearly the first that ever gave me the right answer,” he said. “Now I’ll ask you another: Where in the City of London is that text carved in stone?”
The flower girl was almost scornful.
“Why, over the entrance of the Old Bailey—‘Protect the Children of the Poor and Punish the Wrongdoer.’;”
He nodded.
“You’ve won a butter cooler, but you can have your pick of the board. Keepin’ to the general knowledge paper, who and what am I? For the correct answer you get a pint of peanuts and free admission to the Zoo.”
She looked at him with a certain demure solemnity that delighted him.
“You are Detective Inspector Horace Bird—you are called ‘The Sparrow.’;”
He doubled forward and his face went purple with silent laughter.
“You’re free of the fair! Now let me do a little bit of classy detective work, like the well-known Mr. What’s-his-name of Baker Street. Your name is Mary Bolford, you’re a reporter on the staff of the Daily Post-Herald, and you’re doing a stunt called ‘A day in the life of a flower girl.’ Don’t deny it! Your editor pointed you out an hour ago an’ asked me to keep an eye on you. How’s that for deduction? Come and have some tea and I’ll tell you the story of my life.”
He shifted his cigar to the offside of his face, lifted the strap of the basket from her shoulder, and together they tramped through the slush down St. James’s Street. Even in the midst of their own discomforts, pedestrians turned their heads to look back after the enormous man with a basket of violets under his arm.
“I bet you’ll suffer for this,” he rumbled. “Wet through—no? I hope you are wearing warm undies. Why are undies indelicate and sable coats ladylike? Ask me. It’s one of the mysteries. Good-afternoon, Tom.” He stopped a man who was trying to pass him quickly, his head bent as though to avoid the drift of wind-borne snow.
“Good-mornin’, Mr. Bird—cold, isn’t it?”
“It’s colder waitin’ outside the staff entrance of Hoyce & Drake, Tom. Pretty girl, eh, Tom? I’ll bet your wife wouldn’t think so. Don’t do it, Tom, or I’ll come along and blind you! So-long!”
“Horrific!” she murmured as the man hurried away.
“I have to be,” he said complacently. “It’s the only language they understand. What’s that word again—horrific? That’s a good one. Go straight in, Miss Bolford.”
They turned into the tea shop and Mary Bolford smelt the warmth and hot-cakeness of the place and sighed luxuriously.
“Order anything you like up to fourpence,” said the Sparrow. “I’ve only just had lunch, so you’ll excuse me if I stop at the tenth mince pie.”
He seemed to pay no attention to the rest of the people in the long tea room, and yet——
“That feller over there in the corner is Sam Larber, the con man. Times are bad and suckers are scarce. There ought to be a cold weather fund for confidence men. It takes sunshine to bring out human foolishness. That girl who’s with him is Lisa Keane—she’s no Sister of Mercy! See that red-haired young feller who’s hidin’ behind the newspaper? I got him nine months at the London Sessions for knockin’ off motor cars—‘knockin’ off’ means ‘pinchin’;’—excuse my French.”
“What do you think of this?”
She unfolded a piece of crinkly paper and spread it on the marble top of the tea table.“I don’t think of hundred-pound notes—I dream of ’em,” he said, and added, in his inconsequential way: “That’s because he’s goin’ to be married. I saw him holdin’ it up before your eyes and thought he was tryin’ to create a good impression. I was a bit hurt. Mr. Maddison never struck me as bein’ a vamp. And then I suddenly knew what it was all about.”
She might be a reporter, but she was feminine.
“Whom is he marrying?” she asked.
“A lady. That was her brother who was talkin’ to another gentleman in the doorway. Danty!—he’s no lady! What Rex loses on the swings he borrows from the roundabouts. The bookmakers have an insurance on his life—they hate the idea of anything happenin’ to their annuity. And when he goes into the City all the sharks file their teeth. He’s easy money—somebody else’s money. Is that libel or slander?”
“Both—if I printed it,” she smiled.
The waitress came—she drank the hot tea gratefully. Mr. Bird sat munching cakes with great earnestness. A big plate of confectionery steadily vanished.
“I’m a big man and have to keep my spirits up,” he explained. “Mince pies are a kind of dope to me. After I’ve had a dozen I get sort of intoxicated and all my troubles disappear. After I’ve had twenty I go mad and tear up the pavement.”
Mercifully he stopped at the seventh.
“What am I to do with this hundred pounds?” she asked. “I feel that I have obtained money by false pretenses!”
“I saw a couple of good evenin’ dresses at Cecilia et Cie’s,” he said. “It’s a Modes et Robes shop in Bond Street—and if you ask me why ‘Modes et Robes’ I’ll say ‘desist.’ There was one dress with spangles on it—wear that an’ you’d get a reputation for fastness that’d get you the first prize at Brooklands——”
“Who is Danty?”
She was in a new world; had been in it exactly a quarter of an hour. She went on quickly:
“I know his name—Danton Morell: he gave me his card.”
Mr. Bird nodded.
“He would: he’s that kind of philanthropist. ‘Call round any evenin’ when the servants have gone to the pictures.’ Danty is clever. I’m one of the few people who know how clever he is. Some day I’ll take a stick to him and he’ll be in the market for a new head.”
And then he began to talk about people—the shifting population of the West End. The men and women who came and went; the mild old gentleman who had a suite at the Cercle Hotel all the year round but spent his time travelling to and from New York playing cards with the light hearted and gullible. Of strange men who did nothing for a living and had no visible means of support yet stayed at the best hotels. He called them “the once-a-year men.”
“They go after one coup and that keeps ’em. They’re the highest paid tale tellers in the world. Kiplin’ and what’s-his-name Shaw? They never get the price that’s paid to these fellers.”
“I suppose you are always getting new experiences?” she said.
Mr. Bird sighed. -“I think I know all that is to be known about the dirty ways of crooks,” he said. But he was wrong.
That night he was called to number 342, Brook Street. Assisted by the white-faced Mr. Danton Morell, he burst open the door of a bedroom, and there he found Rex Leferre, dead by his own hand. He lay on the floor, a revolver by his side: the quick-eyed Danty saw the note scribbled in pencil on small sheets of paper torn from a telephone message block, and his hand closed over the paper. An hour later Margaret Leferre, pale and lovely in her silken negligee, read the message the detective had not seen.
Margaret darling, I have lost. For months I have been gambling. To-day I took a desperate step on the advice of Luke Maddison. He has led me to ruin—money is his god. I beg of you not to trust him. He has led me from one act of folly to another. God bless you.
Rex.
She read the pitiful message again and again. Luke Maddison: the man she was to marry in a week!
CHAPTER III
For two days Margaret Leferre moved in a world of hideous unreality. Strange people interviewed her: a tall, big-framed man, who was strangely sympathetic in his heavy way, a bank manager who talked wildly and incomprehensibly until Danty appeared and whisked him off.
One thunderous fact hammered night and day at her weary brain—Rex was dead by his own hand, and the man she was to marry, the man who, frantic with anxiety, was calling three times a day and being refused admission to her, was the cause. Money was his god!
It was hard to adjust her views of him, harder still to comprehend the callous brutality that had sent a young soul wandering into the eternal night.
This engagement of hers had been a thing of natural growth: the families had been friends for years; she had known Luke Maddison since she was a child. There had been no sudden meeting, no violent kindling of a consuming flame—she hardly remembered the time she did not like him, and could not place her finger upon the month and the year when liking was love.
This was the real calamity of her situation if only she could realize it. She remembered now all that Ronnie had said of him—he was a “tightwad.” She had always thought Luke was generous to a point of imbecility. But that was the facet he presented to her—men knew better. She set her teeth and brought herself to asking a question of Danty, who had come strangely near to her in these ugly days. Danty shrugged his shoulders.
“I am afraid it is a fact—Maddison thinks too much about money. I saw him the other day, and the only thing he said about Rex was how lucky for everybody it was that Rex was insured.”
(Here he spoke the truth, for Luke had referred to the insurance as a protection against the girl being saddled with her brother’s debts.)
“He is fanatical on the point. Naturally he doesn’t appear that way to you. You are his second obsession.” He saw her wince and went on quickly: “That is a horrible thing to say, but it is true—except that I am not so sure that at the moment you aren’t the first.”
It was after this that her cold hatred of the man whose name she was to bear began to take definite shape. She could not know how much this almost insane resentment owed its growth to the ingenuity of her new counsellor.
Danty was clever—diabolically ingenious. He thought quickly, planned quickly, acted as he planned. The idea came to him on the night of Rex’s death. It seemed too fantastic for accomplishment. He allowed the whirling nebula of it to retain its shapelessness until he had sounded her. If she loved Maddison in the proper way, she would take a view charitable to his intentions; she would indorse, however half-heartedly, the conventional mercy of a coroner’s jury and put Rex’s letter in the category of his minor derangements. This would have dissolved the nebula of Mr. Morell’s plan to nothingness. But he found Margaret in a mood to believe the worst, receptive, indeed eager. And then the nebula solidified into form.
“Money is his god,” was his text; he worked harder on that theme than he had ever worked in the days when he lived on the credulity of chance-found strangers. All the tricks of his profession, all the eloquent persuasions which can be best exercised by innuendo rather than bald statement, all the craft of suggestion—they were exercised.
“At the moment, I should imagine he is so keen to marry you that he would sacrifice every penny he has. I honestly believe that if you asked him to assign you his fortune—as of course you could in your antenuptial contract; I mean, it is frequently done—he would sign without hesitation. He would hate it afterwards, and I dare say the honeymoon wouldn’t be over before he induced you to reassign every penny to him. I often wonder what some of these overgenerous lovers would feel like if their wives refused to be so accommodating.”
She stared past him through the window. She was lovely; it was not the bold loveliness of Millie Haynes, who died in an infirmary, but something so delicate and unblemished that it caught his breath. He allowed his eyes to rove the field of her physical perfections. He was gambling on her strength of character—on Luke Maddison’s weakness. There was something of the weakling in Luke or he was greatly mistaken—and Mr. Danton Morell was seldom wrong in his appraisement of men.
“It is almost incredible,” she said slowly. “If I thought…”
The nebula had not only solidified, it was shaped.
“About money being Maddison’s god?” His tone was one of surprise: he was almost hurt that his characteristic of her fianc; was not as patent to her as to himself. “Good Lord! I could give you a dozen proofs.”
He supplied, not a dozen, but sufficient. Danty’s inventive power needed the least stimulation.
“I know a man in Norfolk, one of Maddison’s best friends. Maddison was landed with a block of shares in an oil field that had practically run dry. One night he asked this fellow to dinner, and before the night was over had transferred nearly a hundred thousand perfectly worthless shares to a man who trusted him as—well, as you trust him! Another case—and this was common property in the City—was a man who…”
The second lie came as glibly as the first. It was all very crude and on a balanced mind must have produced no effect but scornful unbelief. A week before, had he dared presume upon the mushroom friendship, he would have found himself on the wrong side of the door. But Rex lay shrouded in a mortuary chamber and a coroner’s officer was already gathering twelve good men and true to pass judgment on the mind that had willed a revolver to explode.
Danty saw the red lips grow straighter.
He had a servant who was a sometime confederate. Pi Coles had been a card sharper until Providence smote his hands with rheumatoid. He was an undersized little man, completely bald, with a face wrinkled with pain and age. To him Danty confided most of his thoughts—but obliquely, for he never mentioned names.
“It’s queer, Pi, how the mugs fall for any good story! Do you remember when you and I were on the same landing in Strangways Jail? Doesn’t seem eight years ago, and here am I in society, giving advice to people with hundreds of thousands—people who know the top-notchers!”
“You always was a gentleman, Larry—I’ve never known you when you didn’t dress for dinner,” said the sycophantic Pi.
“Not so much of the ‘Larry,’;” warned Mr. Morell.
He could sit in his comfortable room and muse on the favours which fate had shown to him. His position was not altogether unique—had not a famous confidence man once been the guest of an Illustrious Foreign Personage and been presented at one of the few European courts as a friend of Royalty?
It was the third day following the tragedy. The twelve good men and true were to be assembled that afternoon. It was not the happiest day in Danty’s life. A message came to him the night before from Luke Maddison, and there was something peremptory , almost unfriendly, in the summons; and what it was all about Danty knew too well, only he had hoped that his presence at the bank one snowy afternoon had been unobserved by the cashier.
Luke had his office in Pall Mall, an out-of-the-way place for a man engaged in financial transactions; but Maddison’s Bank had owned the site on which the modern building stood for two hundred years, and that modest room overlooking Waterloo Place had been the “master office” from those far-off days when they overlooked a country vista.
Luke had been at his office since eight o’clock, an hour before the arrival of the staff, and here his bearded manager found him, sitting at his table, his head in his hands, his personal letters unopened.
Maddison looked up with a start as the manager entered.
“Hullo!” he said awkwardly. “Is there anything wrong?”
There were many things wrong from the point of view of Mr. Stiles, that shrewd man of affairs. He laid a small sheaf of papers on the table and detailed the contents of the documents briefly.
“Here are four or five transactions that ought to be closed to-day, Mr. Maddison. I am rather worried about them. The Gulanga Oil accounts should be settled. We made a very considerable loss there.”
Luke nodded impatiently.
“Settle it,” he said. “No message from—from Miss Leferre?”
It was a stupid question to ask, for he had a private ’phone and he knew that any message that came from Margaret would be put through to him direct.
The manager shook his head gloomily.
“A bad business, sir. I have not spoken to you about it because I realize how badly you must be feeling. The Northern and Southern have been on the ’phone again this morning about that check—you remember they queried the signature yesterday?”
“Yes, yes.” Luke’s usually gentle voice was harsh. “Tell the manager it is all right.”
“I told him yesterday, as a matter of fact.” Mr. Stiles was inclined to linger on a subject which was hateful to the other. In desperation Luke reverted to the question of the Gulanga Oil Concession, and for once Mr. Stiles’s fatherly interest in the business irritated him.
“Of course, sir, I know that Maddison’s is as sound as a bell of brass, but there is no getting away from the fact that we have been making rather heavy losses during the past six months, and I am afraid I shall have to call upon your reserves. Personally,” he went on, oblivious of Luke’s growing resentment, “I have always believed we made a mistake in not selling out to a joint stock concern. In private banking businesses the personal security plays too big a part for my liking——”
Mercifully the house ’phone rang at that moment. Luke snatched up the receiver and listened with a frown.
“Yes, show him in, please.” And, as he replaced the receiver: “I am seeing Mr. Morell and I do not wish to be interrupted,” he said.
Mr. Stiles made a little grimace. He had been all his life in the firm of Maddison & Sons, and he did not feel called upon to disguise his dislike of the caller.
“There is something about that fellow that I dislike very much, Mr. Maddison. I hope we are not going to carry his account?”
Luke shook his head and nodded toward the door.
Mr. Danton Morell came into an atmosphere which he, sensitive in such matters, realized was charged with hostility. Nevertheless he was his smiling self, and laid his carefully brushed silk hat upon the table. Luke did not fail to notice that he wore a mourning tie, and that, for some reason, was a further strain upon his jangled nerves. “Sit down, will you?” His manner and voice were brusque. “You were a friend of poor Rex’s?”
Danty inclined his head sorrowfully.
“Yes, I was completely in his confidence,” he said. “I think I told you the day following his unfortunate——”
Luke cut short the recollection.
“Were you so much in his confidence that you accompanied him to the Northern and Southern Bank three days ago when he cashed a check for eighteen thousand five hundred pounds?”
Danty opened his eyes wide in well-simulated surprise.
“Why, of course,” he said. “Rex had made very heavy losses in the City, and I advised him to see you. I understood you gave him a check for that amount——”
“Did he tell you that?” Luke’s blue eyes did not leave the man’s face.
“Certainly. Why, what was wrong? I saw the check myself.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, and then:
“Did you see him sign it?” asked Luke deliberately.
Danty’s gaze did not falter.
“I am afraid I do not understand you,” he said evenly. “I saw him endorse it——”
“My name was forged to it. I did not give Rex a check for that amount. I have been making inquiries. I find that he was heavily involved in a derelict West African gold-mining syndicate, most of the shares of which you bought for a song less than a year ago. He has been buying these shares on margin and they have been steadily dropping in value. On the day he paid you eighteen thousand five hundred pounds there came another demand for a larger amount.”
Danty’s heart sank though he gave no visible evidence of his perturbation. This man knew more than he had dreamed could be known. Here was a crisis in Mr. Morell’s affairs which might easily lead him to ruin and undo all those fine schemes of his.
“I do not exactly know what you are suggesting,” he said. “My interest in the company is a very slight one, and I was horrified when I learned that Rex had been gambling in the shares. I give you the fullest permission to make any investigation you wish.”
Luke opened the drawer of his desk and took out a check. From where he sat Danty thought the signature was a tolerably good forgery. He had thought so when Rex had brought the check to him. It is the simplest thing in the world to forge a name, and so far as he had been able to judge there were no flaws in Rex Leferre’s essay in that dangerous game.
“You realize what is wrong with this check?” asked Luke.
The other shook his head.
“Are you suggesting that I knew the check was forged?” he asked.
Before he could reply there was a tap at the door and Luke looked up angrily.
“Come in,” he said.
It was the apologetic manager.
“I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Maddison, but will you see Mr. Bird of Scotland Yard?”
In spite of his self-possession Danty half rose from his seat. The Sparrow was the last man in the world he wanted to meet that morning.
CHAPTER IV
Luke thought for a minute.-“Just a moment.”
He rose and opened the door leading to the corridor.
“I shall want to see you again about this check, Mr. Morell,” he said.
“Why not see me now?”
It was a challenge, but Luke Maddison could sense its insincerity.
“Mr. Bird has come to see me on quite another matter,” he said. “In due course we will interview him together.”
He closed the door on his visitor as the Sparrow was shown in through the other door. Mr. Bird came heavily into the room and favoured every corner with a long scrutiny. He seemed disappointed—as though he expected to find something or somebody who was not present.
“Havin’ a visitor, Mr. Maddison? I thought I saw somebody come in whilst I was waiting in the street outside.”
Luke nodded curtly.
“Mr. Danton Morell,” he said. “Do you know him?”
The Sparrow smiled.
“As one knows the Lord Mayor—from a distance. I’m humble. You never find me bargin’ in on society. I’ve had one dress suit seventeen years an’ wear it twice a year—once for the Police Dinner and once to give the moths a cold.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
The Sparrow’s wide smile grew wider.
“His name an’ address—an’ that’s as much as any policeman wants to know about anybody. Bad business, this young Leferre case, Mr. Maddison. You don’t want to appear in it, I suppose?”
Luke looked at him, startled.
“I? How on earth do I come into it?”
Mr. Bird coughed.
“Well, you do and you don’t,” he said. “I happened to search the body an’ the room. I found three loose checks on the Northern & Southern Bank—that’s where you keep your private account, ain’t it? An’ this——”
Very leisurely he took out a fat and worn leather case from his pocket, laid it flat on the desk and rummaged in the inside. After a while he found what he was looking for—two folded sheets of paper, evidently torn from a school exercise book. He smoothed these flat and Luke saw a succession of signatures, one under the other: “Luke Maddison—Luke Maddison.”
“Looks almost as though you’d been scribblin’ absentmindedly.” The detective’s shrewd eyes were on the young banker. “But at the same time I couldn’t imagine a business man like you doin’ anything so silly! If you’ll excuse the liberty. I called at the Northern & Southern Bank yesterday afternoon, but they were reticent—‘reticent’ is a good word—an’ referred me to you. But by an underhanded an’ despicable trick I found that young Mr. Leferre cashed a check the other day for eighteen thousand.”
Luke broke in here.
“Yes—I gave him a check for that amount.”
The Sparrow was frankly skeptical.
“Did you now? Maybe you’d like to show me the counterfoil of that check?”
For a second Luke was taken aback.
“If there were any reason for doing so, I could,” he said coldly, “but I see no reason.”
Mr. Bird was not abashed; he leaned his huge arms on the table, and when he spoke his voice was very serious.
“I’ve no right to ask—I’m not the sort of man who would attempt to pull a bluff on a gentleman like you. I’ll put my cards on the table. That check was met in notes and I want to know where those notes went. There’s a bird in London I want to catch. I’ve got one of the best little cages for him that was ever built, an’ whilst it’s empty so is my heart. If that check was a forgery it might get the deceased a bad name, but it would make it very easy for me to pull in a certain man for ‘uttering’—I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Maddison: I want that man’s finger prints so much that I wonder I don’t knock him down in the street an’ take ’em!”
Luke’s eyes were averted: he gave no sign until the detective had finished.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said. “The check was drawn by me and signed by me.”
Mr. Bird rose with a sigh.
“You’re too kind to the criminal classes, Mr. Maddison,” he said. “No wonder Gunner Haynes thinks you’re a good feller—six months he got yesterday for bein’ a suspected person. What a man! When I tried to pump him about your friend he wouldn’t let on that he knew him even.”
“Morell?” Luke was thrown off his guard, as he saw by the Sparrow’s grin.
“That’s the name. What’s the use of talkin’ at cross-purposes? He’s the——”
“I know nothing about Morell.” Luke was emphatic. “He was a friend of Rex’s—of Mr. Leferre’s. I’d rather not discuss him.”
The Sparrow sighed again, gathered up the papers on which the unfortunate Rex had practised the signature, and stuffed them back in his pocketbook.
“Nobody helps the police,” he said dolefully. “All hands are against the natural guardians of the children of the poor. I’ll be getting along.”
He offered a limp hand and went heavily out of the room. The door had hardly closed upon him before the telephone bell rang, and for the first time since the tragedy Luke heard the voice of the woman he loved.
“Will you see me to-morrow, Luke?” Her voice was very low.
“Now, if I may—darling, let me come to you now!”
But her level voice denied him.
“To-morrow—after this ghastly business. Luke, did Rex owe you any money?”
The unexpectedness of the question threw him off his balance, and when Luke Maddison was flurried he was invariably incoherent, for the same reason as others are incoherent in the circumstances—he thought too quickly for speech.
“Yes—but it isn’t worth discussing. He was heavily insured, you know, and I don’t think the policy is invalidated.…”
He heard the quick breath and grew panic-stricken.
“I was thinking of you—that there was no need to worry about his affairs. He owes me practically nothing.
“Will you see me to-morrow?”
Before he could reply he heard the click of the hook being depressed.
CHAPTER V
“I see no reason in the world why the wedding should be postponed, Luke.”
The hideous business of coroner’s inquisition was only a day old, and an accountant’s statement that the dead boy’s affairs were involved was accepted and no details were asked.
Margaret Leferre could not understand herself; her own calm astonished her. Had she ever loved this suave man who stood before her, apparently agreeing, as though Rex were his dearest friend? Sometimes she was afraid that he would read her loathing of him in her eyes—she was amazed to find herself telling him now, with the greatest calmness and in a tone that was sadly sweet, that she saw no reason why the ceremony should be postponed.
“My poor darling!”
He took her in his arms, and she did not resist. Rather, she raised her cold lips to his, and hated herself. But the Judas kiss was his, not hers—that was a tattered comfort.
“There is nothing in the world I would not do to make life a little more smooth for you,” he was saying. “If money could buy you happiness I would beggar myself!”
She smiled faintly at this. Here was a man ready to betray his gods.
He had ruined Rex; he had always hated him. She remembered half-forgotten phrases of his, little irritated comments upon Rex’s carelessness in financial matters.
He put her at arm’s length and scrutinized her a little sadly. The pallor and the soft shadows beneath her eyes gave her an unearthly loveliness.
“Naturally I’ve been worried sick. What a fool I was on the ’phone to talk of insurances—it was indecent. I just didn’t know what to say——”
“Luke, are you awfully rich?”
She was always staggering him with questions like that.
“Why—yes, I suppose I am. The bank isn’t doing terribly well—on the trading side. We are merchants as well, you know—but I have over half a million private fortune. I thought you knew.”
She smiled faintly.
“I have never asked you. I’m worried about—poverty. We have been poor—desperately. My father left us nothing, poor dear. It must be wonderful to be so rich—to have command of money—never to be bothered about bills, never to feel the frantic urge to go out and earn something.”
He was regarding her in open-eyed astonishment.
“But I never knew, my dear, how awful! I thought you had an income?”
She shook her head. This time she was not acting.
“If money will give you a sense of security, and of course it will, I’ll—why, I’d give you control of every cent I have in the world——”
He saw her incredulous smile and was angry with himself, as though in that gesture of unbelief he detected some reservation, some gesture of insincerity in his offer.
“Why not? Thousands of men put all their property in their wives’ names. It is a sane thing to do—it keeps a man steady and it will make us really partners. Wait.”
He was at the ’phone—as eager, as enthusiastic as a boy pursuing some new and delightful idea.
“Luke, is that your lawyer you’re calling?”
Conscience overwhelmed her with a sudden fear; she realized for the first time the enormity of her treachery and was terrified.
“Yes, Hilton—it is Luke Maddison speaking… you had the draft of the antenuptial contract? Well, include everything! You have the list of my securities?;… Yes, all. And the cash in bank—everything. My interest in Maddison’s… no, I’m not mad!”
“You are!”
She was standing by him now, her face white as death. The words came tremulously.
“You’re mad, Luke—I didn’t mean it.”
He smiled and kissed her, and there was something in his eyes that made her shrink back—something that recalled the words of Danton Morell.
“You are his first obsession at the moment!”
She stood there, her hands gripped, her breath coming quickly and more quickly, and heard him override the protests which came from the other end of the wire. Presently he hung up the ’phone and turned to her, a smile of triumph on his flushed face.
“You are Maddison’s!” he said grandly. “Lock, stock, and barrel, darling—I am what old Bird calls a child of the poor.”
Even she could not realize that he was speaking prophetically.
CHAPTER VI
To what end was life moving for Luke Maddison? In his rosy dreams he saw nothing but the smooth path of it. For him there must come, in a cycle of pleasant inevitability, years that were to be made up of amusing house parties, Ascots, Deauvilles, Lidos. He would wander at will from St. Moritz to Cannes, from Cannes to town; there would be a make-believe of business, with the indispensable Mr. Stiles mumbling his forebodings, but the bank would go on whether Luke was there or not.
He had trodden these ways before—but alone. Now he was to have his heart’s desire. It was almost unthinkable that she would be with him—all the time, in all the places, in all the seasons. Margaret Leferre stood for womanhood in excelsis. Not the weakling woman that had been so favoured of the poets; she was to be something more than a wife. Here was a comrade to be trusted. Toward her he felt a tenderness more poignant because of the shadow of sorrow in which she lay. She was definitely a charge now, someone to be protected, to be shielded.
On the morning of his marriage he went to his office at the earnest solicitation of his manager. There were certain documents which demanded his personal attention. He went with the greater alacrity since his lawyer had called at his flat that morning to protest hopelessly (since the deed was signed the day before) against the antenuptial agreement.
“Luke, I’m beginning to think that you’re the biggest kind of fool that I’ve met in my professional career. Yes, yes, I know that Margaret is the sweetest girl in the world and the most trustworthy—all the decency of the Leferres seems to have run to her side—but don’t you realize what an awful mess you may be making of things? Suppose she died without making a will—I know it’s a ghastly suggestion—I tell you I know it is—but suppose——”
“I’ll suppose nothing so horrible, Jack!” said Luke hotly.
They were boyhood friends, he and the keen-faced young lawyer who overlooked his affairs.
“I believe that a wife should have a share in her husband’s fortune——”
“A share!” snarled Jack Hulbert. “You dam’ fool, she’s got it all!”
They came as near to quarrelling as they had ever done.
It did not soothe Luke’s irritation that Mr. Stiles was in his most pessimistic mood.
“We can cut our losses, but it is going to cost you a lot of money,” he said gloomily; “and after this, Mr. Maddison, I hope you’re going to leave well enough alone. Speculation is all very well for——”
“I know, I know!” Luke’s nerves were a little on edge. “I quite agree to cut out speculation—the truth is, I was led rather against my will to take up these options.”
He could not confess that his amazing lapse had been due directly to poor Rex. Mr. Stiles would hardly have believed that his shrewd young employer could have been led into dealings so remote from the normal business of the firm by a youth with no particular experience in the markets. Yet this had been the truth.
“What are our losses?” asked Luke.
Mr. Stiles had the exact amount.
“Ninety-seven thousand six hundred and forty pounds,” he said impressively, and Luke smiled.
“I happen to know that I am worth considerably more than that,” he laughed. “In fact, Stiles, I am a much richer man than I thought.”
He “happened to know” because, for the purpose of the ante-marriage bond, it had been necessary to make an equally exact schedule of his holdings.
“All right, send a check, I will sign it.”
Mr. Stiles went out, and Luke made a rapid examination of the papers that remained to be signed.
He was meeting Margaret at the registrar’s office at two o’clock. Danty was to be there—he frowned at the thought, but had not objected. Danty, in some mysterious way, had ingratiated himself into Margaret’s confidence; perhaps, thought Luke, it was his close friendship with Rex which had made this not only possible but almost inevitable. There was to be no bridesmaid; the second witness was to be Mr. Stiles.
His hand was on the bell push to summon the manager to remind him of his duty when the bearded man came in.
“Do you want to see a man named Lewing?” he asked.
“Lewing? Who is he?”
From Mr. Stiles’s expression of disparagement he gathered that Lewing was not of any great account.
“He’s a queer customer,” said Stiles. “I’d have sent him off, only he said that he came from Gunner somebody who evidently knows you.”
For a moment Luke was puzzled. Gunner? He knew a man who was in the artillery…
Then in a flash he remembered Gunner Haynes. He had forgotten all about the unfortunate hotel thief whom he had tried to save—had not even read in the newspapers what had been his fate.
“Show him in.”
The man who followed Stiles into the room was tall and spare of build. His deep-set eyes had in them a furtiveness that was almost animal. He glanced quickly round the room, and it almost seemed to Luke that he was pricing every article within view against the night when he might enter and take away such movables as would show him a profit.
“Mornin’, sir.”
He held his head downwards and sideways, looking up from under his heavy and untidy eyebrows.
“Like to speak to you private, sir,” he said in his husky voice.
Luke glanced at the manager and signalled him to leave the room. Mr. Stiles left with the greatest reluctance.
“Sit down, will you?”
Not taking his eyes from Luke’s face, the visitor stretched out a hand and drew a chair to him.
“Well?”
The visitor sat down.
“Gunner’s got three moon for bein’ a suspected,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “The Sparrer spoke up for him, but the beak handed out the three moon. The Gunner’s appealin’ to the sessions.”
Luke nodded.
“He has got three months’ hard labour and is appealing? I hope he gets off. Did he send you to me?”
Lewing nodded slowly. He had the appearance of a man who was lying and expected to be found out at any moment.
“Yes. A few quid would do him a bit of good. He wants a mouthpiece. The Sparrer says he’ll get off—an’ the Sparrer knows.”
“Who is the Sparrow?”
A slow smile dawned on Mr. Lewing’s face.
“He’s a busy—a detective. Bird by name——”
Luke nodded. He remembered Mr. Sparrow, whose activities were apparently not wholly confined to inquests.
“I was inside meself—for breakin’ an’ enterin’,” confided Lewing, “but they couldn’t prove nothin’ so I got out. But me an’ the Gunner’s like brothers. He was in the next cell to me at Brixton an’ he told me to pop up an’ have a talk with you—a few quid would help him.”
Luke was puzzled. His acquaintance with the redoubtable gunman who called himself Haynes was a slight one, but it had struck him, during their brief interview in the Carlton, that the Gunner had the manners and certainly the vocabulary of a gentleman, and that this mean sneak-thief who was looking at him stealthily from the other side of the table was hardly the type of man in whom the Gunner would confide his commissions.
Luke felt in his pocket and took out a few pound notes.
“I suppose you know Mr. Bird very well?” he asked as he counted the money.
The man grinned. “The Sparrer? I should say so! He’s always goin’ on about the children of the poor—but he’s always laggin’ ’em! He pretends there’s a lot of poor people who are sufferin’ because of the likes of—” he was about to say “me” but changed his mind—“of fellers who go on the crook. That’s silly. If you can’t do work you’ve got to do something: you can’t starve. The last time the Sparrer started talkin’ to me about it I says: ‘Look here, Mr. Bird, why don’t you go after the children of the rich an’ make ’em pay their whack to these children of the poor?’ He couldn’t answer me. He was dumbfounded. I’m always beatin’ people in arguments.”
He seemed rather proud of this accomplishment; was not without his vanities, even if he had to lie about his triumphs.
“Here is ten pounds. Give that to your friend. I can’t help him much more. I’d like to know what happens to him, and he can write to me here.”
A dirty hand like the talon of a bird shot out and clutched the money into a ball.
“If you see the Dicky, don’t tell him I called—the Sparrer, I mean. Some calls him one thing an’ some another. An’, governor, if you ever want to see life or bring any other swells to see it, you might pop down to Rotherhithe one night. Ask for Harry Sidler—I got it writ down somewhere.”
He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a dirty-looking card. Amused, Luke took it and read:
Harry Sidler,
next door The Cap and Bells.
Beneath was the inscription:
Best prices given for old iron.
Lewing was staring at him, his teeth showing in a mirthless grin.
“Old iron!” he chuckled hoarsely. “That’s not bad! If you want to see the children of the pore—that’s the place to see ’em!”
He rose from his chair and with a nod stole across the room and vanished through the half-opened doorway. Vanished from life, thought Luke, but in this he was mistaken.
CHAPTER VII
That morning had been one of great mental distress to Margaret Leferre. Three times she had taken up the telephone to call Luke; three times she had put down the instrument. And then Mr. Danty Morell had called. Almost she did not receive him. She was in that state of mind when his appearance gave an ugliness to reality of which she would rather have remained unconscious.
Daybreak had come to her after a night of dreams; horrid dreams of the dead Rex, of Luke, of lawyers gabbling through the esoteric terms of a marriage deed. And out of all these disturbing dreams one fact had emerged: she hated Luke—hated him with an intensity that overbalanced all reason. She tried to recall the time when he had meant everything in the world to her, when her pulse quickened at the sound of his voice and the day seemed a little brighter for his presence. Desperately, and for the sake of her own dwindling self-respect, she endeavoured to recapture those hours when he was as a very god to her. She tried to find excuses for him, and in doing so she was unconsciously fanning the flame of her resentment. She had grown to hate herself for the tremendous treachery she contemplated. It made matters no easier that she found herself committed to a conspiracy with a man who a few months before had been a stranger.
In this mood Danton found her. He was soberly attired; even in his black silk hat there was rather a suggestion of memorial service than wedding.
She began without preliminary; she was so far involved that there was no need for pretense.
“I can’t go through with this, Danton,” she said—she had never taken kindly to “Danty,” and after a few embarrassed attempts to carry off the familiarity she compromised with the more stately Christian name. “I have made up my mind to call up Luke and tell him. It is horrible—I can’t do it.”
He was too clever to attempt a contest. Moreover, he had expected an eleventh-hour penitence.
“Exactly what is horrible?” he asked. “There are certain horrible aspects of the affair which have rather depressed me. Naturally I cannot discuss those with you, but—well, it is rather horrible that you hate him and must sacrifice yourself. When Luke told me that the honeymoon was to be spent in Paris I didn’t like it. Though why you should go on a honeymoon at all I don’t know. You remember the Fletcher girl who broke her leg as she was stepping into the carriage? Naturally one hates suggesting things, but—I know a doctor who would certify a sprained ankle.…”
She shook her head, but obviously she was thinking over this suggestion. She must have the climax of the drama at once. Must at the very door of the registrar’s office tell Luke the truth about the marriage—or there must be no marriage. With the ink still fresh on the antenuptial contract she must tell him that she had deliberately set herself to ruin him. There must be no lingering—a quick finale whilst the hatred was not within her, before some sentimental spirit of mercy undid the work and left her tied to a man she secretly loathed.
Danty saw her weakening. There was need to flog her animosities to fullest activity. He had a weapon to his hand: he had most carefully reserved this to the last.
“I suppose you wonder why I am so bitter about Maddison,” he said.
There was no reason in the world why he should suppose anything of the sort. He had left her with no doubt in her mind that he hated Luke for more reasons than she could remember. He was too skilful a strategist to have suggested that he regarded Luke Maddison as a rival. That would have removed him from the sphere of disinterested friendship and discounted every move he made, every argument he employed. And yet, with every day that passed, he found it more and more difficult to conceal his growing passion for her. She was so different from the women he had known, so far removed from the Millie Haynes type; a lady, one of the class against which he had warred incessantly. He had to school himself to maintain the r;le of platonic friend. A single false move would have brought him to disaster.
“I hate him because I loved Rex,” Danty continued, “and he will never leave Rex alone. The poor boy is not beneath the earth before he makes the most shocking accusation against him——”
“What?” She was on fire again.
“Forgery! You wouldn’t believe it possible, but Luke told me confidentially that a few days before Rex’s death he had forged a check for eighteen thousand. A stupid accusation, as I told him—for I was with Rex when the check was given to him by Luke Maddison.”
She sat motionless, her chin held up, a new light in her eyes.
“He said that?” She spoke in so low a voice that she was almost inaudible. “That Rex forged——but he couldn’t have! How beastly!”
He saw her lip quiver and knew that it was his moment. Bending toward her, he began to speak, quickly, eagerly. He spoke of things which in other moments she would have instantly resented, and she listened unmoved: in her cold fury she became elemental—somewhere within her a weak, protesting voice told her that she should not listen, but it grew weaker and subsided into a murmur of unease.
At two o’clock she stepped from her car at the door of the Marylebone registrar’s office, and Luke, waiting in the room of that official, turned to greet the palest bride that had ever entered those commonplace portals.
She spoke not at all, only answered the questions that were put to her. With a shudder she felt the ring slip upon her finger.
It was all over so quickly that she could not believe that the first act of her vengeance was played. Somebody put a pen into her hand, and a squat forefinger showed her the place where she must sign her name. For a long time she held the pen, and when she wrote it wavered in her fingers and the scrawled signature looked like nothing she had ever seen.
Leaving for Paris that night—the Meurice, or was it the Bristol? There was some confusion in her mind about these details; anyway, they did not matter if she kept her courage. The two o’clock wedding had been an inspiration. She went back to her house—Luke was coming to dinner; they were to leave immediately after to catch the night boat from Southampton.
“Wife! It’s wonderful—unbelievable!”
Luke’s voice was tremulous. They were alone in her pretty little drawing room, and he was sitting by her side, his arm around her. She was very still and unyielding, but he thought that he understood this.
Luke was bubbling over with excitement—he was like a boy who had received a new and wonderful present.
“I say, did you see that queer-looking man standing on the pavement as we came out? A fellow named Lewing—a thief of some kind. I wonder if he came to pick pockets? I’ll bet he did; touched his hat to me as I came out.”
She was not listening, and, after he had gone, could remember nothing that he had said except something about Rex. It was indecent of him to mention the boy. Danty rang her up, but she would not see or receive him. She must go through now without help. Luke was coming at seven, At six she called him on the telephone, and had one panicky moment when she feared that he had already left his flat and could not be found. Then she heard his voice.
“Darling, isn’t it odd? I can’t believe it—I still think of myself as a crusty old bachelor——”
“Luke, I want you to do something for me.” She found her voice at last. “No—no, don’t interrupt. It’s a big thing. I don’t want to go away to-night, not for a day or two. I want to be alone, not to see you. My nerves are in a terrible state; I think I am on the verge of a breakdown.”
As she went on, he listened with a growing sense of alarm and dismay. And yet he was not thinking of himself.
“I’ve been a selfish brute. Of course, darling, I quite understand.”
The conversation did not occupy five minutes of time; he could hardly realize what was happening, to what he was agreeing, before he was sitting at his writing table staring blankly at the telegraph forms by which he was to cancel so many pleasant arrangements.
Danty, waiting at Waterloo Station with a full view of the barrier, watched the mail-boat passengers filter through to the platform. He saw the barrier close and the red tail lights of the train disappear into the darkness, and went home humming a little song, for Mr. and Mrs. Luke Maddison were not among the passengers.
CHAPTER VIII
The general manager of Maddison’s Bank was not a man who could easily be taken by surprise. He had the fatalistic qualities which are peculiar to all men engaged in the business of finance. The vagaries of markets, the incidence of bank rates, and the fluctuations of trade left him unmoved. He had once been held up by an armed robber and did not so much as change colour.
Yet he stared with amazement and was physically incapable of coherent speech when he saw Luke Maddison walk through the outer office toward his private room.
“It’s all right, Stiles,” smiled Luke: “You’re not seeing a ghost.”
Mr. Stiles recovered his speech.
“I thought—um——”
“You thought I was on my honeymoon, but I’m not,” said Luke as he preceded the manager to his room.
He stopped on the threshold at the sight of a burly figure disposed in the easiest armchair.
“Mr. Bird called, and I was—er—I thought you wouldn’t mind if I saw him in your office.”
Luke Maddison was already shaking hands with his visitor.
“Thought you might turn up,” said the Sparrow cheerfully. “I noticed you weren’t on the honeymoon express.”
Luke laughed.
“You were at Waterloo, I suppose?”
“Me and about fourteen crooks various,” said the detective, “but only two of us interested in the boat train. All the rest were low, common luggage pinchers, but they didn’t stay long. Me and him held on to the Paris Limited till it went out.”
“Who was the ‘him’?” asked Luke, but Mr. Sparrow was not informative.
“Nothing wrong, Mr. Maddison? Yes, I know that your good lady is far from well, but nothing serious?”
It was queer to hear Margaret referred to as “a good lady,” and Luke found himself laughing quietly.
“I come up to see you about a cheap little lob-crawlin’ roustabout,” explained the Sparrow. “If it’s not asking you to betray a criminal’s confidence, I’d like to know what brought Lewing to you yesterday?”
Luke hesitated. He was loath to say anything which might get the man or his principal into trouble.
“He didn’t come for money perhaps—on behalf of the Gunner?” Mr. Bird was watching him keenly. “I thought so. The Gunner’s appealin’, that’s true, an’ I think he’ll get away with it. I was discussin’ it in the exercise yard at Brixton Prison, and this Lewing must have been walking round and overheard. What did you give him?”
As nearly as he could recall Luke gave him the gist of the interview. The Sparrow was amused.
“The Gunner wouldn’t talk to a man like Lewing. Haynes belongs to what the newspaper writers call the aristocracy of crime. If you’ll prosecute I’ll pull him in.”
But Luke was in no sense agreeable to such a course.
“All right—leave him. He’ll go around workin’ against the children of the poor till one day he’ll fall an’ I shall be on top of him.”
The phrase again attracted Luke’s attention, and he asked a question. The Sparrow pursed his thick lips.
“People like you, Mr. Maddison, don’t understand. Look out of your window now”—he pointed, and Luke walked to the window. “See that girl—typist or somep’n. Two pound a week. She’s one of a family of six (I’m makin’ all this up) an’ lives in Bermonsey. Every hand’s against her. You don’t think so? I’m tellin’ you. They rob her, they lay in wait for her. They crowd round busses an’ pinch her purse. Maybe some smart-lookin’ lad asks her to go to the pictures—then one evenin’ she’ll go to supper in a flash night club. See that man? Old feller? Brought up a family on nothin’—he’s a workin’ carpenter by his bag. Do you know what they’ll do to him? They’ll get him tight, pinch his
tools, and turn out his pockets. That’s why I’m drawin’ so much a week—for protectin’ the children of the poor. Do you get that?”
“But I thought that thieves only went after the rich?” said Luke.
Mr. Bird guffawed.
“What have the rich got? Their money’s in safes. They’ve servants and telephones, and the law’s on their side. A thief would rather rob the poor than rob anybody. They’re helpless. I’ll tell you, Mr. Maddison, you’ve no idea what the poor are like, and you’ve no idea of what the rats are like. I could take you to a place in South London where they live in herds—little wicked thieves—just like in books. Livin’ together in cellars and old warehouses. They’d hold your face down in the river mud till you were dead—that’s if they had twenty pounds to split between four of ’em.”
Luke shivered.
“It doesn’t seem possible.”
Mr. Bird smiled broadly.
“I hope you’ll never know how possible it is—what about that Lewing?”
Luke shook his head, and the Sparrow, heaving himself from the chair, grunted his disapproval of such mercy.
“He’s one of the worst. Breakin’ an’ enterin’, did he tell you? He’s got the heart of a worm—he wouldn’t break or enter anything more dangerous than a veal an’ ham pie! He’s a shore thief—I’ll tell you all about it one day.”
During the talk Stiles had appeared in the doorway twice. He was obviously worried; frowned at Bird, and by such signs as Luke understood signified his desire for an early interview. The detective was hardly out of the office before Stiles came in.
“That check you signed yesterday for ninety-seven thousand—the bank manager says he wants to see you urgently. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, after I had told him you were still in town.”
Luke frowned.
“But it was on my private account,” he said.
“That is exactly what I told him. I explained that you were transferring that amount to the bank account, but he says he must see you.”
The bank was not very far distant, and ten minutes later Luke was in the manager’s office. He had first to receive the congratulations of that official and to explain his presence in town. Margaret was feeling better—he had telephoned to her early that morning, and her message was reassuring.
“Now about this check, Mr. Maddison.” The manager became suddenly businesslike. “You realize, of course, that it cannot be honoured?”
“What?” Luke looked at him incredulously and the manager laughed.
“Sounds queer, doesn’t it? Especially queer to me when I realize that I am talking to the head of Maddison’s Bank; but it is a fact. It is the merest formality, of course, but you as a banker will realize that banking is based upon formalities——”
“Will you please tell me what you mean?” said Luke impatiently. “I have six hundred thousand——”
“You had,” smiled the manager; “but you seem to forget, Mr. Maddison, that you settled all your money and your securities on your wife!”
And then it dawned upon Luke Maddison that he was a penniless man. His smile grew broader, his chuckle became a roar of laughter in which the manager joined.
“That is the best joke I’ve heard.” Luke wiped his eyes. “Of course, I had forgotten. I will see Mrs. Maddison”—he lingered on the words—“and ask her to oblige me with a check for the amount.”
“Early,” warned the manager. “You know, of course, that I must return this check unless I have her authority to pay?”
If Luke Maddison’s smile was a little contemptuous, he was justified by his own standards.
He did not even trouble to see Margaret at once. Before lunch he remembered and telephoned.
“I want to see you, darling,” he began.
“Why?” It was difficult to disguise the suspicion she felt.
“I want you to sign a little document,” he said gaily.
So that was it! Danty had warned her. Only she had never dreamed that she would be asked to renounce her marriage portion so soon.
“A document?”
“I want you to transfer some money to me,” he said. “It is the merest formality—I’ve discovered that I have rather less than I need.”
She thought quickly.
“Very well, come to the house at three o’clock.”
He forgot that the bank closed at three-thirty and agreed. After all, it did not greatly matter if the check was returned. It was merely a transference from his personal account to the bank’s.
He was, true to his methods, five minutes late, when he was shown into her little sitting room. The first thing that struck him was that she was dressed. He had pictured her resting in her negligee—in bed even. She was not as pale as she had been. It was when he went to take her in his arms that he had his first shock.
“Don’t kiss me—please!”
It was not a request; it was a peremptory command.
“Why—what is wrong, darling?”
She shook her head impatiently.
“Please tell me what you want.”
Her tone turned him cold. It was hard, almost antagonistic. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses.
Stammering like a schoolboy, he told her in disjointed sentences of the situation which had arisen, and she listened and did not speak until he stopped.
“Ninety-seven thousand pounds,” she said. “A tenth of that would have saved Rex.” He could only stare at her uncomprehendingly.
“It was rather dreadful to see a man make a god of money, Luke, and to know that for its sake he is willing to sacrifice even a young life.”
To him her voice sounded like the clang of a bell; to herself it hardly seemed that it was she who was speaking. “And to accuse this poor dead boy of forgery—to add that infamy to the other!”
“I—you are speaking of me?” he said in a whisper. She nodded.
“Of you. I knew that you were coming to get your money back—that is why I did not go with you to France. I wanted it to happen here. Here, where I have friends and can meet you on even terms.”
A pause, and then:
“Luke, I am giving you no money. You gave it to me—it is mine. Not a penny can you have—not a penny!”
She wished he would speak during the silence that followed. She wished he would rave, curse her, do all the things that were consistent with her picture of him. But he said nothing. He was not even looking at her, but was studying the pattern of the carpet. Presently he jerked up his head.
“Good-bye,” he said, and turned on his heel.
She heard the door close on him, and then there came to her a realization that made her brain reel. She loved him.
CHAPTER IX
Áëåô ñòðåëêà, 1-8 ÷àñòü
© Copyright: Âÿ÷åñëàâ Òîëñòîâ, 2026
Ñâèäåòåëüñòâî î ïóáëèêàöèè ¹226060200878
Ñâèäåòåëüñòâî î ïóáëèêàöèè ¹226060200878
Ðåöåíçèè