The dinner party, which I arranged for in the Milan restaurant, was, on the whole, a great success. My sister played hostess for me and confessed herself charmed with Eve, as indeed was every one else. Mr. Parker's stories kept his end of the table in continual bursts of merriment. One little incident, too, was in its way exceedingly satisfactory. Mr. and Mrs. Samuelson were being entertained by some friends close at hand, and they appeared very much gratified at the cordiality of our greeting. I talked with Mr. Samuelson during the evening, and I felt that, so far as he was concerned at any rate, not a shadow of suspicion remained in his mind as to my two guests.
We sat a long time over dinner. Eve was between a cousin of mine—who was a member of Parliament, a master of foxhounds, and in his way quite a distinguished person—and the old Earl of Enterdean, my godfather; and they were both of them obviously her abject slaves. No one seemed in the least inclined to move and it was nearly eleven o'clock before we passed into the private room I had engaged, where coffee and some bridge tables awaited us. We broke up there into little groups. I left Eve talking to my sister and was on my way to try to get near her father when the Countess of Enterdean, a perfectly charming old lady who had known me from boyhood, intercepted me.
"My dear Paul," she said, "I cannot thank you enough for having given us the opportunity of meeting these most delightful Americans, and I really must tell you this—I had meant to keep it a secret, but from you I cannot; I knew all the time that the name of Bundercombe was familiar to me, and suddenly it came over me like a flash! Directly I asked Mr. Bundercombe in what part of America his home was, of course it was all clear to me. What a small world it is! Do you know," she concluded impressively, "that it was just these two people, Mr. Bundercombe and his daughter, who were so amazingly kind to Reggie when he was out in the States on his way to Dicky's ranch!"
I was for a moment absolutely thunderstruck.
"Did you—er—remind Mr. Bundercombe of this?" I asked.
She shook her head. She had the pleased smile of a benevolent conspirator.
"I will tell you why I did not, Paul," she explained. "Reggie is in town— just for a few days. I have sent him a telephone message and he is wild with delight. He has only just arrived from Scotland; but I told him Mr. Bundercombe and his daughter were here, and he is rushing into his clothes as fast as he can and is coming round. It will be so delightful for him to meet them again, and I really must try to think myself what I can do to repay all their kindness to Reggie."
I felt completely at my wit's end! I saw the whole of my little scheme, which up to now had proved so successful, threatened with instant destruction. Lady Enterdean passed on, probably to take some one else into her confidence. I crossed the room to the little group surrounding my friend, and as soon as I got near him I touched him on the shoulder.
"Just one word with you, Mr. Bundercombe," I begged.
The little circle of men let him through with reluctance. I passed my arm through his and led him out toward the foyer.
"You seem," I declared bitterly, "to have chosen the most unfortunate personality! I wish to goodness you had remained Mr. Parker! This infernal name of yours, Bundercombe, has got us into trouble."
"In what way?" he asked quickly.
"Lady Enterdean has just been to me," I told him. "She has a son who has been traveling in the States and who was wonderfully entertained by two people of the name of Bundercombe in the very place you told me to say you came from."
"Well, that goes all right!" Mr. Parker remarked complacently. "We're getting the credit for it."
"Precisely," I admitted. "The only trouble is that Lady Enterdean has just telephoned to her son to come down at once and renew his acquaintance with you and Eve."
Mr. Parker whistled softly. His face had become a blank.
"My! We do seem to be up against it!" he confessed uneasily.
"The young man," I continued, "will be here in ten minutes—perhaps sooner—prepared to grasp you both by the hand and exchange reminiscences."
Mr. Parker shook out a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead.
"Kind of warm out here!" he remarked. "I'll just have to talk to Eve for a minute or two."
He had no sooner left me than I found I was absolutely compelled to devote myself to one or two of my guests who wished to play bridge, and others of whom I had seen little at dinner time. I kept looking anxiously round and at last the blow fell! The door opened and Lord Reginald Sidley was announced. He looked eagerly round the room.
"Hope you don't mind my butting in, old chap!" he said as he shook hands with me. "The mater telephoned that old Bundercombe and his daughter were here, so I just rushed round as quick as I could. Regular bricks they were to me out West! I don't see them anywhere."
I glanced round the room. Just at that moment a waiter from the restaurant presented himself. He brought me a card upon a salver.
"The gentleman asked me to give you this, sir," he announced.
I picked it up. On the back of a plain visiting card were a few hasty words, scrawled in pencil:
"So sorry—but Eve is not feeling quite herself and begged me to take her home at once quietly. My respects and apologies to you and all your delightful guests."
I read it out and passed it to Reggie. His face fell.
"If that isn't a sell!" he exclaimed. "Fancy your knowing them! Isn't MissBundercombe a topper!"
"She is certainly one of the most charming young women I ever met in my life," I admitted.
"I am glad, at any rate," Lady Enterdean declared, "that they have found their way to London. I shall make a point of calling on them myself tomorrow. Now, Paul, you must go and play bridge. They are waiting for you. Don't bother about me —I'll amuse myself quite well strolling round and talking to my friends." I made up a rubber of bridge, chiefly with the idea of distracting my thoughts. Presently, while my partner was playing the hand, I rose and crossed the room to the sideboard for some cigarettes. I found Lady Enterdean peering about with her lorgnette fixed to her eyes, apparently searching for something.
"Lost anything, Lady Enterdean?" I asked.
"A most extraordinary thing has happened, my dear Paul!" she declared, resting her hand on the bosom of her gown. "I am perfectly certain it was there a quarter of an hour ago—my cameo brooch, you know, the one that old Sir Henry brought home from Italy."
"Too large to lose anyway," I remarked cheerfully as I joined in the search.
We pulled aside a table and I almost collided with one of my most distinguished guests—Sir Blaydon Harrison, K.C.B. Sir Blaydon also, with an eyeglass in his eye, was moving discontentedly backward and forward, kicking the carpet.
"Silly thing!" he observed as he glanced up for a moment. "That little diamond charm of mine has slipped off my fob. I saw it as we crossed the foyer from the restaurant."
"Why, what has happened to us all!" my sister joined in. "Look at me—I've lost my pendant! Paul, did you give us too much to drink, or what?"
I am not sure that this was not the most awful moment of my life! A cold shiver of fear suddenly seized me. I looked from one to the other, speechless. If appearances had gone for anything at that moment I must indeed have looked guilty.
"Most extraordinary!" I mumbled.
"Oh! the things will turn up all right, without a doubt," Lady Enterdean declared good-humoredly. "Could we have a couple of waiters in and search properly, Paul? My knees are a little too old for this stooping."
"If you'll please all wait a few minutes," I begged earnestly, "I'll go out and make inquiries. Sir Blaydon, take my place in that rubber of bridge—there's a good fellow. I'll have the restaurant searched too. Don't mind if I am away a few minutes."
I hurried out. As soon as the door of the private room was closed I made for the entrance of the restaurant as fast as I could sprint. Without hat or coat I jumped into a taxi, and in less than ten minutes I was mounting the stairs of Number 17, Banton Street, with the hall porter blinking at me from his office. I scarcely went through the formality of knocking at the door. Mr. Parker and Eve were both standing at the table, their heads close together. At the sound of my footsteps and precipitate entrance Mr. Parker swung round. One hand was still behind him. Upon the table a white silk handkerchief was lying.
"My dear fellow!" he exclaimed. "My dear Walmsley! What has happened?"
I opened my lips and closed them again. It really seemed impossible to say anything! Mr. Parker's expression had never been so boyish, so earnest, and yet so wistful. Eve was quivering with some emotion the nature of which I could not at once divine. I felt very certain, however, that she had been remonstrating with her father.
"Don't keep us in suspense, my dear fellow!" Mr. Parker implored. "What has gone wrong? Eve and I were just—just talking over your delightful party."
"And looking over the spoils!" I said grimly.
I went a little farther into the room, Mr. Parker, with a sigh, abandoned his position. He unclosed the fingers of his hand and removed the silk handkerchief. I saw upon the table my aunt's brooch, my sister's pendant and Sir Blaydon Harrison's diamond pig. I said not a word. I looked at them and I looked at Mr. Parker. He smiled weakly and scratched his chin.
"I didn't do so badly," he essayed apologetically. "To tell you the truth,I really hadn't meant—"
"Never mind what you meant!" I interrupted. "Please give me those things back again at once!"
Eve dropped them into the handkerchief, twisted them up and passed them across to me.
"I told daddy it was rather a mean trick," she sighed; "but really, you know, no people ought to carry about their valuables like that! It was trying us a little too high, wasn't it? And dear Reggie—did he arrive?"
For the first time I was really angry with Eve.
"If you will allow me," I said, "I will pursue this conversation to-morrow morning."
I tore downstairs, jumped into the waiting taxi and returned to the Milan. I entered the private room with a grave face. Evidently I was only just in time. The rubber of bridge had been broken up and my guests were standing about in little groups talking. I closed the door behind me and held up my hand.
"Blanche," I announced—"Lady Enterdean—I am delighted to say I have recovered everything."
"My dear boy, how wonderfully clever of you!"
Lady Enterdean exclaimed. "How relieved I feel! Most satisfactory, I am sure."
She sat down promptly. There was a little murmur of voices. My guests gathered round me. I drew a long breath and continued on my mendacious career.
"I have been closeted with the manager," I explained. "It was one of the underwaiters—the little dark one who brought in the coffee. The temptation seems to have been too much for him. He confessed directly he was questioned. He has restored everything and I thought it best to have him simply turned off without any fuss. Here is your pig, Sir Blaydon; your pendant, Blanche; your brooch, Lady Enterdean. I am exceedingly sorry you should have had any anxiety—but all's well that ends well!" I wound up weakly.
Every one was talking cheerfully. The great topic now was one of ethics: Had I acted properly in not charging the waiter? Fortunately some one discovered a little later that it was twelve o'clock and my little party broke up.
I was not altogether surprised to receive, on the following morning beforeI had finished breakfast, a visit from Reggie.
"Cheero!" he said brightly as he seated himself in my easy-chair and tapped the end of one of my cigarettes upon the tablecloth. "I haven't been up so early for months, but I had to find you before you went out— about these Bundercombes."
"What about them?"
"I want their address, of course," Reggie continued. "The mater wants to call this afternoon and I'm all for seeing Miss Bundercombe again. Ripping girl, isn't she?"
"Then prepare yourself for a disappointment, my friend," I advised, glancing at the clock. "They left for Paris by the nine o'clock train this morning."
Reggie stared at me blankly.
"Gone already?"
I nodded and invented a little difficulty with my coffee pot.
"Theirs was only a flying visit," I explained. "I was lucky to get hold of them for my dinner."
"I'm hanged if I understand this!" Reggie remarked, looking at me suspiciously. "Why, I spent the best part of three weeks with them in that Godforsaken hole out West, and they were as keen as mustard on my taking them round London. How long have they been here?"
"Not long," I answered. "Sure you won't have some coffee?"
Reggie ignored the invitation.
"They've got my address and there are the directories," he continued. "The funny part of it is, too, that I heard from Mrs. Bundercombe a week or so ago, and she never said a word about any of them coming over."
"They seem to have made their minds up all of a sudden," I explained."They spoke of it as quite a flying trip."
Reggie coughed and stared for a moment at the end of his boot.
"Can't understand it at all!" he repeated. "Devilish queer thing, anyway!I say, Paul, you're sure it's all right, I suppose?"
"All right? What do you mean?"
"Between you and me," he went on—"don't give it away outside this room, you know—but there have been rumors going about concerning an American and his pretty daughter over here—regular wrong 'uns! They've been up to all sorts of tricks and only kept out of prison by a fluke."
"You're not associating these people, whoever they may be, with Mr. andMiss Bundercombe?" I asked sternly.
Reggie gazed once more at the point of his boot.
"The thing is," he remarked, "are your friends Mr. and Miss Bundercombe at all?"
"Don't talk rot!"
"It may be rot," Reggie admitted slowly, "or it may not. By the by, where did you meet them?"
"If you don't mind," I answered, "we won't discuss them any longer."
"At least," Reggie insisted, "will you tell me this: Where have they been staying in London? I shall go there and see whether they have left any address for letters to be forwarded."
"I shall tell you nothing," I decided. "As a matter of fact I am finding you rather a nuisance."
Reggie picked up his hat.
"There is something more in this," he said didactically, "than meets the eye!"
"Machiavellian!" I scoffed. "Be off, Reggie!"
I had tea with Eve that afternoon and broached the subject of Reggie's visit as delicately as I could.
"You remember Lord Reggie Sidley?" I asked.
"Lord Reggie what!" Eve exclaimed.
"Sidley," I repeated firmly. "He spent three weeks with you out at your home in Okata. His threatened arrival last night was the cause of your father's precipitate retreat, and yours."
"Oh, that young man!" Eve remarked airily. "Well, what about him?"
"He has been round to see me this morning," I told her—"wanted your address."
She sighed.
"London will be getting too hot for us soon!" she murmured. "Am I engaged to him or anything?"
"Eve," I said, "when are you going to let me announce our engagement?"
"Our what?" she demanded.
"Engagement," I repeated. "I have proposed to you two or three times. I will do it again if you like."
"Pray don't!" she begged. "You are not going to tell me, are you," she added, looking at me with wide-open eyes, "that I have accepted you?"
"You haven't refused me," I pointed out.
"If I haven't," she assured me, "it has been simply to save your feelings."
I gulped down a little rising storm of indignation.
"You must marry sometime. Eve," I said. "There isn't any one in America, is there?"
"There are a great many," she assured me. "It was to get away from them, as much as anything, that I came over with father on this business trip."
"Business trip!" I groaned.
"Oh! I dare say it all seems very disgraceful to any one like you—you who were born with plenty of money and have never been obliged to earn any, and have mixed with respectable people all your life!" she exclaimed. "All the same, let me tell you there are plenty of charming and delightful people going about the world earning their living by their wits—simply because they are forced to. There is more than one code of morals, you know."
I flatter myself that at this point I was tactful.
"My dear Eve," I reminded her, "you forget that I have joined the gang—I mean," I corrected myself hastily, "that I have offered to associate myself with you and your father in any of your enterprises. I am perfectly willing to give up anything in life you may consider too respectable. At the same time I must say there are limits so far as you are concerned."
She pouted a little.
"I hate being out of things," she said.
"No need for you to be, altogether!" I continued.
"Now if I could institute a real big affair in the shape of a bucketshop swindle, in which your father and I could play the principal parts and you become merely a subordinate, such as a typist or something—what about that, eh?"
"It doesn't sound very amusing for me," she objected. "How much should we make?"
"Thousands," I assured her, "if it were properly engineered."
"I think," she said reflectively, "that father would be very glad of a few thousands just now. He says the market over here, for such little trifles as we have come across, is very restricted."
I groaned under my breath. In imagination I could see Mr. Parker bartering with some shady individual for Lady Enterdean's cameo brooch! I reverted to our previous subject of conversation.
"Eve," I went on, "I hate to seem tedious—but the question of our engagement still hangs fire."
"You persistent person!" she sighed, "Tell me, if I married you would all those people we met last night be nice to me?"
"Of course they would," I assured her. "They are only waiting for a word from you. I think they must have an idea already. I am not in the habit of giving dinner parties with a young lady as guest of honor."
She was thoughtful for a few moments, and her eyes lit up with reminiscent humor.
"Dear me!" she murmured. "If only they knew! They hadn't any suspicions, I suppose, about those—those little trifles?"
"None," I replied. "I put it all on to a waiter."
"How clever of you! You really do seem to be a most capable person—and so masterful! I begin to fear that some day you'll have your own way."
Her eyes laughed at me. There was something softly provocative in them—a new and kinder light. I bent over her and kissed her. She sat quite still.
"Mr. Walmsley!"
"It's usual among engaged couples," I pleaded.
"Is it!" she remarked coldly. "Doesn't the man, as a rule, wait to be quite sure he is engaged?"
"Not in this country," I declared: "I have heard that Americans are rather shy about that sort of thing. Englishmen——"
"Oh, bother Englishmen!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot. "I don't believe a word I've ever heard about them. I suppose now I shall have to marry you!"
"I don't see any way out of it," I agreed readily.
She held up her finger. The door was quietly opened. Mr. Parker entered.
He was followed by the most utterly objectionable and repulsive-looking person I have ever set eyes on in my life—a young man, thin, and of less than medium height, flashily dressed in cheap clothes, with patent boots and brilliant necktie. His cheeks were sallow; and his eyes, deeply inset, were closer together than any I have ever seen.
"My dear," Mr. Parker exclaimed, "let me present Mr. Moss—my daughter, sir; Mr. Walmsley—also one of us. I have been privileged," Mr. Parker continued, dropping his voice a little, "to watch Mr. Moss at work this afternoon; and I can assure you that a more consummate artist I have never seen—in Wall Street, at a racetrack meeting, or anywhere else."
Mr. Moss smiled deprecatingly and jerked his head sideways.
"The old un's pretty fly!" he remarked, as he laid his hat on the table.
"I am very glad to know Mr. Moss, of course," Eve said; "but I am not in the least in sympathy with the—er—branch of our industry he represents. You know, daddy, it's much too dangerous and not a bit remunerative."
"To a certain extent, my dear," her father admitted, "I am with you. Not all the way, though. One needs, of course, to discriminate. Personally I must admit that the nerve and actual genius required in finger manipulation have always attracted me."
Mr. Moss paused, with his glass halfway to his lips. He jerked his head in the direction of Mr. Parker.
"He is one for the gab, ain't he?" he remarked confidentially to me.
For the life of me, at that moment I could not tell whether to leave the room in a fit of angry disgust or to accept the ludicrous side of the situation and laugh. Fortunately for me, perhaps, I caught Eve's eye, in which there was more than the suspicion of a twinkle. I chose, therefore, the latter alternative. Mr. Moss watched us for a moment curiously.
"What might your line be, guvnor?" he asked as he set down his glass.
"Oh, anything that's going," I replied carelessly. "City work is rather my specialty."
"I know!" Mr. Moss exclaimed quickly. "Slap-up offices; thousands of letters a day full of postal orders; shutters up suddenly—and bunco! Fine appearance for the job!" he added admiringly.
Eve sat down and began to laugh softly to herself. She had a habit of laughing almost altogether with her eyes in a way that expressed more genuine enjoyment than anything I have ever realized. She rocked herself gently backward and forward. Mr. Moss looked at us both a little suspiciously.
"Seem to be missing the joke a bit—I do!" he remarked.
Eve sat up and was instantly grave.
"It is your clear-sighted way of putting things," she explained softly."You seem to understand people so thoroughly."
"I don't generally make no mistake about the number of beans in the game," Mr. Moss observed in a self-congratulatory tone. "I can tell a crook from a mug a bit quicker than most."
"I have suggested to Mr. Moss, my dear," Mr. Parker intervened, turning toward us with beaming face, "just a little early dinner—say, at Stephano's—just as we are, you know. Will this be agreeable to you?"
"Certainly!" Eve assented promptly.
"Mr. Moss will tell us some of his little adventures," Mr. Parker continued, with satisfaction. "Considering that he has had twelve years' continual work, I think you'll all agree with me that his is a wonderful record. He has been compelled to enter into a little involuntary—er— retirement only once during the whole of that time."
Mr. Moss looked a little puzzled.
"He means lagged, don't he?" he remarked, a light breaking in on him. "Only once in my life—and that for a trifling beano—a lady's bag and a couple of wipes. I tell you it's no joke nowadays, though. They do watch you! The profession ain't what it was."
"You will come with us, won't you, Mr. Walmsley?" Eve begged, turning to me.
"I shall be delighted," I answered, with strenuous mendacity. "Did you say Stephano's, or what do you think of one of these places closer at hand? I was told of a little restaurant in Soho the other day, where the cooking is remarkable."
"I'm all for Stephano's," Mr. Moss declared, grinning; "and the sooner the better. One of the neatest pieces of business I ever did in my life I brought off there in the old bar. To tell you the truth, I'm getting a bit peckish."
"There is no reason," Mr. Parker agreed, "why we should not dine at once.It is very nearly seven o'clock. What do you say?"
"Yoicks! Tally-ho, for the Strand!" Mr. Moss exclaimed, with spirit.
We started off—four in a taxi. It was Mr. Moss who, with florid politeness, handed Eve to her seat; and it was Mr. Moss who entertained us on the way with light conversation.
Luigi's face, when he met the Parkers and myself at the entrance of the restaurant, was a study. His polite bow and smile of welcome seemed suddenly frozen on his face as his eyes fell upon Mr. Moss. Mr. Moss was still wearing his hat, which was a black bowler with a small brim, set at a jaunty angle a little on one side and affording a liberal view of his black curls underneath. His linen failed completely to stand the test of the clear, soft light of the restaurant, and one might have been excused for entertaining certain doubts with regard to the diamond pin in his mauve tie and the ring that flashed from his not overwhite hand as he tardily removed his headgear.
"Bit of all right—this place!" Mr. Moss remarked, handing his hat toLuigi. "Who'll have a short one with me before we feed?"
Luigi passed the hat from the tips of his fingers to a subordinate. He showed us a table quite silently, handed the menu over to amaître d'hôteland promptly departed. Looking round a little nervously I could see him gazing at us from his sanctum over the top of the blind!
"Mr. Moss, I see, has American tastes," Mr. Parker declared. "He likes anapéritifbefore dinner. Leave it to me, please."
Mr. Parker ordered a somewhat extensive dinner. Throughout the meal we listened to a series of adventures in which the hero was always Mr. Moss. We heard of wonderful hauls and wonderful escapes; detectives outwitted— exploits that reminded me more of the motor bandits of Paris than of our own sober capital.
Mr. Parker's attention never flagged. Halfway through the meal Mr. Moss suddenly put down his knife and fork. He broke off in the middle of a fascinating narration of an episode during which he had ju-jutsued one detective, knocked another down, locked them both in an empty room, and strolled away with a cigar abstracted from the case of one of them and his pockets full of uncut emeralds. With his mouth open he was gazing fixedly across the room. There was a considerable change in his tone.
"'Ware 'tec'!" he said sharply.
We all looked in the direction he indicated, and we all recognized Mr. Cullen, who was apparently returning with interest our observation. I saw a grim smile upon his lips as he disappeared for a moment behind the menu card. For a man who had in his time treated detectives in such a cavalier way, Mr. Moss' change of color and subdued manner was a little extraordinary. He cheered up, however, after a little while.
"Our friend Cullen," Mr. Parker murmured, "seems to have taken quite a fancy to this restaurant."
"Used to be on my lay," Mr. Moss remarked. "He's much too big a duke now for the street, though. They say he gets nearly all the high-class forgery and swindling cases."
"We have come into contact with him ourselves," Mr. Parker observed genially. "Seems to me there's a kind of want of snap about him compared with our American detectives; but I dare say he knows his business."
"Is your father really enjoying this?" I asked Eve.
"He absolutely loves it!" she replied.
I sighed.
"And I think," she added suddenly, "you are behaving beautifully—I almost love you for it."
I looked at her quickly and I felt rewarded for all I had gone through. Her attitude toward me was subtly different. Somehow I felt that I was being permitted a glimpse of the real Eve. Her eyes were soft; she patted my hand under the table. I could almost have shaken hands with Mr. Moss!
"What about a music hall afterward?" I proposed in the fullness of my heart. "Shall I send for stalls at the Alhambra?"
My proposal was received with unanimous approval. Our departure from the restaurant a few minutes later evoked almost as much comment as our arrival. Mr. Moss led the way, his hands in his trousers pockets and a large cigar, pointing toward the ceiling, protruding from the corner of his mouth. His slight uneasiness with regard to the whereabouts of his hat having been dispelled by its appearance before we finished our meal, he placed it on his head at its usual angle before we left the room.
Mr. Parker took his arm as they passed out, and I saw Mr. Cullen's eyes follow them from behind his newspaper. The two got into a taxi and Eve and I followed them in another, an arrangement that Mr. Moss appeared to regard with disfavor. Eve's hand stole into mine as we drove off.
"Do you know," she said seriously, "I think it's perfectly horrid to drag you about in such company! It's all very well for us, because we belong and we are in a strange city; but I saw some of your friends look at you and whisper. They must think you are mad!"
"So long as you are in it, dear," I assured her, "I don't care where I go or with whom."
"You don't look like that a bit, you know!" she sighed.
"As for the rest," I went on, "if you are really sorry for me—why, then, end it! Your father could spare us for a little time."
I could see she was becoming serious again. Lights flashed upon her face. I felt a sudden wave of pity mingled with my love for her. After all, there were times when her anxiety must have been almost insupportable.
"Eve, dearest," I whispered, "you must let me take you away from this. You must! You are too good and sweet ever to mix with these people—to live this life."
She half closed her eyes for a moment. When she looked at me again she was laughing.
"You're a dear boy!" she said. "Now help me out, please. We have arrived." We found four stalls reserved for us near the front at the music hall; and, after settling a slight preliminary difficulty, owing to Mr. Moss' reluctance to parting with his hat, we sat down to enjoy the performance. Mr. Moss seemed a little disappointed, too, that his bright and snappy order for drinks to the powdered official who showed us to our places was not at once executed; but otherwise he made himself very much at home.
We had been there perhaps half an hour when I saw a sudden change in his demeanor, which was almost at once reflected in the serious expression that had stolen into Mr. Parker's benign countenance. An old gentleman, white-haired, with rubicund face and a jovial air, had taken the seat next to them. He had the appearance of having come from the country and of having spent a happy day in town. Even from where I sat I could see protruding from his breast-pocket a brown leather pocketbook.
I watched them as though fascinated. The change in Mr. Moss was amazing. His reckless air of enjoyment had departed. He was still smoking, but he was all alert, like a cat ready to spring. Mr. Parker, too, was interested. I saw him whisper something in Mr. Moss' ear and I felt a cold foreboding of what was going to happen.
"I'm for a drink !" Mr. Moss declared in a rather loud tone. "Come on, guv'nor!"
They both rose. The old gentleman drew in his legs to let them pass. Though I watched with fixed eyes I was absolutely unable to follow their movements, but when they had passed the old gentleman I could see from where I sat that his pocketbook was gone.
"Did you see that?" I whispered to Eve.
She shook her head.
"The old gentleman's pocketbook," I groaned; "they've got it!"
Eve for a moment sat quite still; she, too, seemed nervous. I was looking away again at the retreating figures of Mr. Parker and Mr. Moss. Suddenly my heart sank. I saw the old gentleman spring to his feet and hurry after them; and I saw, too, at the end of the line of stalls, Mr. Cullen and a companion standing, waiting. I rose quickly to my feet.
"I'm afraid there's going to be some trouble," I said to Eve. "Let me go and see if I can help. It looks as though the whole thing were a trap."
I followed quickly. It is only fair to Mr. Cullen to say that he conducted the affair with great discretion and with every consideration for the feelings of the management. He stopped Mr. Parker and Mr. Moss as they reached the end of the line of stalls.
"Please come with me," he said. "I have something to say to you outside."
Mr. Moss showed signs of an attempt to escape. He stooped for a minute as though to run, but a kick from Mr. Parker induced him to alter his mind.
"Wotcher want?" he asked belligerently.
The old gentleman had now reached them, red-faced and incoherent. He addressed himself to Mr. Cullen, and I no longer had any doubt whatever that the affair was a plant of the detective.
"I've been robbed of my pocketbook!" he exclaimed. "One of these two has got it—brushed up against me just now on the way out of the stalls. Where's the manager?"
Only a few people in the immediate vicinity were conscious that anything at all unusual was happening. The promenade just at that particular spot was almost deserted.
"This gentleman is certainly mistaken," Mr. Parker declared with dignity."Neither my friend nor myself knows anything about his pocketbook."
"I am sorry," Mr. Cullen said politely, "but I shall have to trouble you to come with me to Bow Street at once—and you, too, sir," he added, addressing the old gentleman. "I am a police officer and we will go into the matter there. You will agree with me that it is well not to make a disturbance here. I have two assistants with me."
He indicated by a little gesture two men who had emerged from somewhere in the background.
"I will go with the utmost pleasure," Mr. Parker consented. "At the same time this gentleman has obviously been drinking and his charge is absurd."
It was precisely at this moment that I felt something hard pressed against my hand. With a dexterity that was nothing short of miraculous, Mr. Parker, who apparently was standing with his hands in his pockets, had suddenly forced one of them through some secret opening in his coat.
In those few seconds it seemed to me I lived a year. I had no time to think—no time to realize that if I failed nothing could save my appearance at Bow Street on the following morning as a common pickpocket. I gripped the pocketbook from his hand and, without changing a muscle, dropped it into the yawning overcoat pocket of the bucolic gentleman.
The moment was over and passed. Mr. Parker, with a movement forward, had covered my proceedings. I had been face to face with death years before, but I had never felt quite the same thrill.
"This way, gentlemen, if you please," Mr. Cullen directed softly.
"You will not object to my accompanying you?" I asked.
"Certainly not," Mr. Cullen replied; "I, in fact, am not sure that it would not be my duty to ask you to come."
"One moment!" I begged.
Mr. Cullen paused.
"The gentleman who made this charge," I went on, "seems to me to be in a very uncertain condition. Might I suggest that, before you commit yourself to taking these people to the police station, you just make sure he really has been robbed of his pocketbook?"
"Had it here," the old gentleman declared; "right in this pocket! Look for yourself—gone!"
"The old gentleman scarcely seems to me," I remarked, "to be in a fit condition to know which pocket it was in."
Mr. Cullen, who had been walking carefully between him and the other two, smiled in a superior way.
"Please feel in all your pockets," he told his accomplice.
The old gentleman obeyed. Suddenly he stopped short. A blank expression came into his face.
"What have you got there?" I asked.
He brought it out with ill-concealed reluctance. It was, without doubt, the pocketbook. I shall never forget Mr. Cullen's face! He was bereft of words. He stared at it as though he had seen it come up through the floor. Mr. Moss simply stood with his mouth open. Mr. Parker alone appeared unmoved by any emotion of surprise. His manner was serious—almost dignified.
"I want you to take this from me straight, Mr. Cullen," he said. "I am not a man who loses his temper easily, but you're trying us a bit high."
Mr. Cullen remained for a moment or two speechless. He looked at me and drew a long breath. I knew perfectly well what he was thinking. He had had a man on either side of Mr. Parker and Mr. Moss. The only person who could have transferred that pocketbook was myself. I could see him readjusting his ideas as to my moral character.
"Mr. Parker—gentlemen," he said, removing his hat, "pray accept my apologies. You are free to return to your seats whenever you choose. This gentleman was evidently mistaken," he added, speaking with withering sarcasm and turning sharply toward his coadjutor. "You oughtn't to come to these places in your present condition, sir. Take my advice and get along home at once."
The bucolic gentleman, who had completely lost his appearance of inebriety, mumbled a few incoherent words and departed. After his departure Mr. Parker assumed a more genial attitude.
"Well, well! I suppose you only did your duty, sir," he remarked, with a resigned sigh. "We were on our way to the bar. Will you join us, Mr. Cullen?"
I did not hear the detective's reply, but somehow or other we all drifted there. Mr. Moss at once found an easy-chair, which he pronounced to be "a bit of all right" and in which he assumed an easy and elegant attitude. Mr. Parker, Mr. Cullen, and I completed the circle, which now included a professional gutter-thief, a disappointed detective, Mr. Parker and myself. It was a unique moment in my life!
The wine affected the spirits of no one except, perhaps, Mr. Moss; and him, when we finally broke up our party, we thought it advisable to get rid of in quick order. To my surprise Mr. Parker seemed in a particularly despondent frame of mind. He needed pressing even to come to supper.
"You were quick-witted, Walmsley," he admitted as we rolled away in the car, "quick-witted, I'll admit that; but you were dead clumsy with your fingers! I could see what you were doing from the back of my head."
"Really!" I murmured. "Well, I suppose that sort of thing is a gift. I only know that I hope I may never have to do it again."
Mr. Parker sighed.
"I fear," he said, "that your troubles with us will soon be over. Eve has been telling me about that young idiot of an Englishman who visited the Bundercombes out in Okata. If there was one man whose name I thought I was safe to make use of it was Joe Bundercombe!"
"It seems," I admitted, "to have been an unfortunate choice. What do you think of doing about it?"
Mr. Parker apparently had no immediate answer ready for me. During our brief ride in the motor and in the early stages of supper he was afflicted by a taciturnity that made him almost negligible as a companion. And then suddenly a light broke over his face. He had the appearance of a shipwrecked mariner who suddenly catches sight of land in the offing. His lips were a little parted, his boyish face all aglow.
"Walmsley, my dear fellow!" he exclaimed. "Eve, dear! The problem issolved! Raise your glasses and drink with me. Here's farewell to Mr.Joseph H. Parker and Miss Parker. And a welcome to Mr. and MissBundercombe, of Okata!"
"That's all very well," I said; "but Reggie will be on your track."
Mr. Parker beamed on Eve and me.
"We shall see!" he declared didactically.
The next morning at twelve o'clock I took a taxi-cab round to Banton Street. The hall porter, who was beginning to know me well, seemed a little surprised at my appearance.
"Is the young lady upstairs?" I asked.
He was distinctly taken aback.
"Mr. Parker and his daughter have gone," he told me. I stopped on my way to the stairs.
"Gone?" I repeated.
"Went off this morning," he continued; "two taxi-cabs full of luggage."
"Aren't they coming back?"
"No signs of it."
"Did they leave any address?"
"None!"
"Are you sure?" I persisted. "Please ask at the office."
The porter left me for a moment, but returned shaking his head.
"Mr. Parker said there would be no messages or letters, and accordingly he left no address."
I turned slowly away. The hall porter followed me. He was drawing something from his waistcoat pocket.
"I wouldn't do a thing," he declared, "to get Mr. Parker into any trouble —for a nicer, freer-handed gentleman never came inside the hotel; but I don't know as there's much harm in showing you this, being as you're a friend. I picked it up in the sitting room after they'd gone."
He held out a cablegram. Before I realized what I was doing, I had read it. It was handed in at New York:
"Look out! H——sailed last Saturday!"
"Pretty badly scared of H——he was!" the hall porter remarked. "Ten minutes after that cablegram came they were hard at it, packing."
I gave the man a tip and drove back to my rooms, where I spent a restless morning, then lunched at my club and returned to the Milan afterward, only in the hope that I might find there a note or a message. There was nothing, however. Just as I was starting to go out the telephone bell rang. I took up the receiver. It was Eve's voice.
"Is that Mr. Walmsley?"
"It is," I admitted. "How are you, Eve?"
"Quite well, thank you."
"Still in London?"
"Certainly. Would you like to come and have tea with me?"
"Rather!" I replied enthusiastically. "Where are you?"
"Hiding!"
"That's all right," I replied. "I shan't give it away. Where shall I find you?"
"Well," she said, "we talked it over and decided that the best hiding place was one of the larger hotels. We are at the Ritz."
"I'll come right along if I may."
"Very well," she agreed. "Ask for Mr. Bundercombe."
I groaned under my breath, but I made no further comment; and in a very few minutes I presented myself at the Ritz Hotel. I was escorted upstairs and ushered into a very delightful suite on the second floor. Eve rose to meet me from behind a little tea-table. She was charmingly dressed and looking exceedingly well. Mr. Bundercombe, on the other hand, who was walking up and down the apartment with his hands behind his back, was distinctly nervous. He nodded at my entrance.
"How are you, Walmsley?" he said. "How are you?"
"I am quite well, sir, thank you," I replied, a little stupefied.
"Say, I'm afraid we are making a great mistake here," he went on anxiously. "We've slipped a point too near to the wind this time."
"If you'll allow me to tell you exactly what I think," I ventured, "frankly I think you have made a mistake. There's that matter of Reggie Sidley. He was worrying me all yesterday morning to find out where you were, and when I evaded the point he told me straight that he didn't believe you were the Bundercombes at all. He is always in and out of this place, and if he sees your name on the register—or his mother, Lady Enterdean, sees it—it seems to me it's about all up!"
"A piece of bravado, I must admit," Mr. Parker muttered—"a piece of absolute bravado! But there's the young woman who's responsible!" he added, shaking his fist at Eve. "I may have suggested our coming to your party as the Bundercombes, but it was Eve's idea that we put up this little piece of bluff. Now I'm all for Paris!" he went on insinuatingly.
At that precise moment I felt that there was nothing I wanted so much as to get Eve away from the Ritz, and I fell in with the scheme.
"We'll all go," I suggested. "I haven't had a week in Paris for a long time."
Eve handed me my tea.
"Don't count me in!" she begged. "I never felt less inclined to move from anywhere. If being Eve Bundercombe means living at the Ritz I think I'd rather go on. The life of an adventuress is, after all, just a little strenuous and I am tired of living on the thin edge of nothing."
"Perhaps, before you know where you are," Mr. Bundercombe remarked gloomily, "you'll be living on the thin edge of a little less than nothing!"
There was a knock at the door. We all looked at one another. A magnificent person with powdered hair, breeches and silk stockings presented himself.
"Lord Reginald Sidley!" he announced.
In walked Reggie. He was correctly attired for calling and he carried a most immaculate silk hat in his hand. I fully expected to see him drop it on the floor, but he did nothing of the sort. He laid it upon a small table, paused for one second to shake his fist at me, and advanced toward Eve with both hands outstretched.
"At last I have found you, then!" he exclaimed. "Miss Bundercombe! Well, I am glad to see you!"
"Hello, Reggie!" she answered sweetly. "What a time you've been looking us up."
He was taken aback.
"Well, I like that!" he gasped. "And—how are you, Mr. Bundercombe?"
"Glad to see you!" Mr. Bundercombe replied cheerlessly.
The meeting had taken place and I seemed to be the only person in the room who was suffering from any sort of shock. Reggie was still holding one of Eve's hands and was almost incoherent.
"Come, I like that! I like that!" he exclaimed. "A long time looking you up indeed! Why didn't you let me know you were here? There hasn't been a line from you or from your father. We couldn't believe it when we heard that you had been at the dinner the other evening. I was never so disappointed in my life!"
I gripped Mr. Bundercombe by the arm and led him firmly to one side.
"Look here," I said, "is your name Bundercombe?"
"It is," he admitted gloomily.
"Are you a millionaire?" I persisted.
"Multi!" he groaned.
"Then what the blazes—what the——"
I stopped short. Once more the door was opened—this time without the formality of a knock. If Mr. Bundercombe had seemed anxious and depressed before it was obvious now that the worst had happened. All the cheerful life seemed to have faded from his good-humored face. He had literally collapsed in his clothes. Even Eve gave a little shriek.
Upon the threshold stood Mr. Cullen, and by his side a lady who might have been anywhere between fifty and sixty years old. She was dressed in a particularly unattractive checked traveling suit, with a little satchel suspended from a shiny black leather band round her waist. She wore a small hat that was much too juvenile for her; and from the back of it a blue veil, which she had pushed on one side, hung nearly to the floor. Her complexion was very yellow; she had a square jaw; and through her spectacles her eyes glittered in a most unpleasant fashion. Her greeting was scarcely conciliatory.
"So I've got you at last, have I? Say, this is a pretty chase you've led me! Do you know I've had to desert my post as president of the Great Amalgamated Meeting of the Free Women of the West to come and look after you two? Do you know that three thousand women had to listen to a substitute last Thursday?—and after I'd spent two months getting my facts for them! Do you know that you're the laughing-stock of Okata?"
"No one asked you to come, mother," Eve remarked with a sigh.
"Asked me to come, indeed!" the newcomer retorted. "Look at you both! I've heard all about your doings. This gentleman by my side has told me a few things. I'll talk to you presently, young woman. But say, is there anywhere on the face of this earth such a miserable, addle-headed lunatic as that man whom it's my misfortune to call my husband?"
She shook her fist at Mr. Bundercombe, who seemed to have become still smaller. Then she looked at me, and at Reggie, who was standing with his mouth wide open. She fixed upon us as her audience.
"Look at him!" she went on, stretching out her hands. "There's a respectable American for you! For thirty years he works as a man should— for it's what a man's made for—and thanks to his wife's help and advice he prospers. Look at him, I ask you! A baby can see that he hasn't the brains of a chicken. Yet there he stands—Joseph H. Bundercombe, of Bundercombe's Reapers, with eight million dollars' worth of stock to his name!"
I saw Reggie's eyes go up to the ceiling and I knew he was dividing eight million dollars by five. An expression almost of reverence passed into his face as he achieved the result. We none of us felt the slightest inclination to interrupt. Mrs. Bundercombe's long, skinny forefinger drew a little nearer to her victim. Then she coughed—the short, dry cough of the professional speaker—and continued:
"Wouldn't you believe that was success enough for any reasonable mortal? Wouldn't you say that, with a wife holding an honored and great position in the State, and his daughter by his side, he'd settle down out there and live a respectable, decent life? Not he! First of all he wants to travel.
"What does he do, then, but take up what he calls a hobby! He buys and gloats over every silly detective story that was ever written; practises disguises and making himself up, as he calls it; takes lessons in conjuring; haunts the police courts; consorts with criminals—in short, behaves like a great overgrown child in his own native city, where the name of Bundercombe—from the feminine standpoint—realizes everything that stands for freedom and greatness. The time came when it was necessary for me to put down my foot once and for all. I called him to me.
"'Joseph Henry Bundercombe,' I said,'there must be an end to this!' 'There shall be,' he promised. The next day he and Eve, my misguided stepdaughter, were on their way to Europe; and I am credibly informed they cheated a commercial traveler at cards on the way to New York. That I find him at liberty now, it seems to me, is entirely owing to the clemency and kindness of this gentleman, who recognized my description at Scotland Yard and brought me here."
"Say, all I'm prepared to admit about that is that it was somehow fortunate," Mr. Bundercombe remarked with a sudden revival of his old self, "that it fell to my lot to have Mr. Cullen investigate some of my small adventures!"
"Mr. Bundercombe," said Cullen severely, "I think you will do well to listen to your wife and to take her advice. There are one or two of these little affairs, you must remember, that are not entirely closed yet."
Mr. Bundercombe sighed. He adopted an attitude of resignation.
"Well, Cullen," he replied, "if my career of crime is really to come to an end I don't want to bear you any ill will. We'll just take a stroll downstairs and talk about it."
Mrs. Bundercombe, with a quick movement to the left, blocked the way.
"That means a visit to the bar!" she declared. "I know you, Mr. Bundercombe. You'll stay right here and listen to a little more of what I've got to say. Who this gentleman may be I don't at present know," she went on, turning suddenly upon me; "but I am agreeable to listen to his name if any one has the manners to mention it."
"Walmsley, madam," I told her quickly, "Paul Walmsley. I have the honor to be engaged to marry your stepdaughter."
Mrs. Bundercombe looked at me in stony silence. Twice she opened her lips, and I am quite sure that if words had come they would have been unkind ones. Twice apparently, however, her command of language seemed inadequate.
"So you're going to marry an Englishman," she said, glaring at Eve.
"I am going to marry Mr. Walmsley, mother," Eve agreed sweetly. "He has been such a kind friend to us during the last few days—and I rather fancy I shall like living on this side."
"Dear me! Dear me! I hadn't heard of this!" Mr. Bundercombe remarked with interest. "You and I will go downstairs and have a little chat about it, Mr. Walmsley."
He made another strategic movement toward the door, which was promptly and effectually frustrated by his wife.
"No, you don't!" Mrs. Bundercombe prohibited. "I've a good deal more to say yet. I haven't been dragged over the ocean three thousand miles to have you all slip away directly I arrive. A nice state of things indeed! My husband, Joseph H. Bundercombe, a suspect at Scotland Yard, followed everywhere by detectives; and my daughter——"
"Stepdaughter, please," Eve interrupted.
"Stepdaughter then!—talking about marrying a man she's probably known about twenty-four hours and met at a bar or in a thieves' kitchen, or something of the sort! If you must marry an Englishman," she continued with rising voice, "why don't you marry Lord Reginald Sidley there? His father is an earl, anyway."
"His uncle's one," Reggie put in gloomily, jerking his head toward me."Old Walmsley's all right."
Eve patted his hand.
"Good boy!" she said. "You know I never encouraged you—did I, Reggie?'"
"Encouraged me!" he protested. "I think, on the whole, you said the rudest things to me I ever heard in my life—from a girl, anyway. I imagine," he added, taking up his hat, "that it's up to me to leave this little domestic gathering."
"I'll see you out," Mr. Bundercombe declared with alacrity.
Mrs. Bundercombe, with her eyes steadily fixed upon her husband, stepped back until she blocked the doorway.
"My dear Hannah!"
"Your dear nothing!" she interrupted ruthlessly.
"You just sit down by the side of your daughter there and let me tell you both what I think of you and what I'm going to do about it."
"I think," I suggested, "a little taxi drive——Your mother and father no doubt have a great deal to say to one another, and you can receive your little lecture later."
Eve assented at once; and Mrs. Bundercombe, for some reason or other, only entered a faint protest against our departure. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon and the streets were crowded with every description of vehicle. The sun was still warm; there was a faint pink light in the sky— a perfume of lilac in the air from the window-boxes and flower-barrows. I took Eve's fingers in mine and held them. I think she knew that something in the nature of an inquisition was coming, for she sat very demure, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.
"Eve," I asked, "how about Mrs. Samuelson's jewels?"
"They were returned to her from 'a repentant criminal,'" Eve murmured.
"And the forged banknotes made by the young man in the Adelphi?"
"They were all destroyed as fast as father could buy them," she explained."He has found the boy a post now with some printer in America."
"And the two thousand pounds at the gaming club—that first night?"
"Daddy made it three and sent it to a hospital. He thought it would do them more good."
"You know, you're a shocking pair!" I said severely.
"Paul," she sighed, "you never can know how dull it was at Okata."
"I'm jolly glad it was!" I told her. "It gives me a better chance—doesn't it?"
"And we'll give daddy a good time whenever we can?" she pleaded.
"Always," I promised. "He's one of the best!"
"He's so clever, too!"
"Clever, without a doubt," I admitted, "only I think perhaps we might get him to use his talents in a more orthodox way. By the by," I added, putting my head out of the window, "I think it's getting a little chilly."
I ordered the taxi closed and we returned to the hotel. The hall porter drew me on one side confidentially.
"Mr. Bundercombe and the other gentleman, sir," he announced, "are waiting for you in the bar."