Mr. Steppe had a house in Berkeley Square which he rented from its lordly owner. Beryl had dined there before, and it had been a baffling experience, for in no respect did the personality of the tenant find an opportunity of expressing itself. The furnishings and the color schemes of the landlord had been left as they had been found, and since the atmosphere of the place was late Victorian, Mr. Steppe was unconformable to his surroundings.
Beryl thought of him as a Sultan amidst samplers.
Sir John Maxton was talking to him when they were announced. One of the greatest advocates at the bar, Maxton was tall, slender, esthetic. His gentle manner had led many a confident witness into trouble. He had a reputation at the bar as a just and merciless man; a master of the art of cross-examination.
"The doctor told me you were likely to be here," he said, when she had escaped from Steppe's thunderous civilities. "I hoped Ronnie would have come—have you seen him lately?"
"Only for a few minutes on Monday. I met him in the park. I didn't know you were a friend of his, Sir John?" Maxton's lips curled. Beryl wondered if he was trying to smile, or whether that twitch indicated something uncomplimentary to Ronnie.
"I'm more than a friend—and less. I was one of the executors of his father's will. Old Bennett Morelle was my first client and I suppose I standin loco parentisto Ronnie by virtue of my executorship. I have not seen him for quite a year. Somebody told me that he was scribbling! He always had a bent that way—it is a thousand pities he didn't take the law seriously—an occupation would have kept him out of mischief."
"Has Ronnie been called to the bar?" she asked in astonishment. Maxton nodded.
"Just before the war, but he has never practiced. I hope that the newspaper connection will keep him busy."
"But Ronnie works very hard," she asserted stoutly. "He has his company work, he is a director of several and chairman of one I believe." Maxton looked at her with the faintest shade of amusement in his eyes.
"Of course," he said drily, "that is an occupation." He lowered his voice. "Do you mind if I am ill-bred and ask you if you have known our host very long?"
"A few years." He nodded.
Beryl, glancing across at her father and Steppe, saw that the doctor was talking earnestly. She caught Steppe's gaze and looked back to Sir John.
"I have been fighting a case for him—rather a hopeless proposition, but we won. The jury was wrong, I think, in giving us a verdict. I can say this because the other side have entered an appeal which is certain to succeed."
Jan Steppe must have heard the last sentence.
"Huh? Succeed? Yes, perhaps—it doesn't matter very much. I had a verdict, a disqualified winner is still a moral winner, huh, doctor? You used to be a racing man, what do you think?"
Dinner was announced whilst the doctor was disclaiming any knowledge of the turf or its laws. The dinner was exquisite in its selection and brevity. Mr. Steppe had one special course which none of the others shared. He invited them and showed no regret when they refused. A footman brought a silver dish piled high with steaming mealy cobs. He took them in his hands and gnawed at the hot corn. It was probably the only way that mealies could be eaten, she told herself—no more inelegant an exhibition than the sword-swallowing man[oe]uvre which followed the serving of asparagus.
"Sault?" Mr. Steppe was wiping his fingers on his serviette. "You asked me once before, Beryl—where was it? In the park. No, I haven't seen him. I very seldom do. Strange man, huh?"
The butler had attended more frequently to Dr. Merville's wine glass than to any other of the guests. His gloom had disappeared and he was more like the cheerful man Beryl remembered.
"Sault is a danger and a menace to society," he said.
Steppe's brows lowered but he did not interrupt.
"At the same time he can exercise one of the most beneficent forces that nature has ever given into the care of a human being."
"You pique my curiosity," said Maxton, interested. "Is he psychic or clairvoyant—from your tone one would imagine that he had some supernatural power."
"He has," nodded Merville. "I discovered it some time ago. He lodges with a woman named Colebrook in a very poor part of the town. Mrs. Colebrook suffers from an unusual form of heart disease. She had a seizure one night and Sault came for me. You will remember, dear, when I was called out in the middle of the night—a year ago. The moment I examined the woman, who was unconscious, and in my opinionin extremis, I knew that nothing could be done. I applied the remedies which I had brought with me, and which I had thought, from his description of the seizure, would be necessary, but with no effect. Sault was terribly upset. The woman had two daughters, one bed-ridden. His grief at the thought that she would die without her daughter seeing her, was tragic. I think he was going upstairs to bring the girl down, when I said casually that if I could lend the patient strength to live for another hour, she would probably recover. What followed, seems to me even now as part of a fantastic dream."
Beryl's elbow was on the table, her chin in her palm and she was absorbed. Maxton lay back, his arm hanging over the back of his chair, weighing every word; Steppe, his hands clasped on the table, his head bent, skeptical.
"Sault bent down and took the inert hands of the woman in his—just held them. Remember this, that she was the color of this serviette, her lips gray. I wondered what he was doing—I don't know now. Only her face went gradually pink and her eyes opened."
"How long after he took her hands?" asked Maxton.
"Less than a minute I should think. As I say, she opened her eyes and looked around and then she nodded very slowly. 'What do you think of that, Dr. Merville?' she said."
"She knew you, of course?"
"She had never seen me in her life. I learned that afterwards. Sault dropped her hands and stood up. He was looking ghastly. Not a vestige of color. I said to him: 'Sault, what is the matter, and he answered in a cockney whine, that was 'h'less and ungrammatical—Sault never makes an error in that respect—'It's me 'eart, sir, I get them attacks at times—haneurism.'"
"Sault?"
Steppe's face was puckered into a grimace of incredulity.
"Go on, please, father!" urged the girl.
"What came after was even more curious. Mrs. Colebrook got up quite unaided, sat down in a chair before the fire and fell fast asleep. Sault sat down, too. I gave him some brandy and he seemed to recover. But he did not speak again, not even to answer my questions. He sat bolt upright in a wooden chair by the side of the kitchen table—all this happened in the kitchen. He didn't move for a long time and then his hands began to stray along the table. There was a big work basket at the other side and presently his hands reached it and he drew it toward him. I watched him. He took out some garment, I think it was a night dress belonging to one of the girls. It was unfinished and the needle was sticking into it—he began to sew!"
"Good God!" cried Maxton. "Do you suggest that on the touching of hands the two identities changed?"
"I suggest that—I assert that," said the doctor quietly, and drank his wine.
"Rubbish!" growled Steppe. "What did Sault say about it?"
"I will tell you. Exactly an hour after this extraordinary transference had been made, I saw Mrs. Colebrook going pale. She opened her eyes and looked at me in a puzzled way, then at the daughter, a pretty child who had been present all the time. 'I always 'ave these attacks, sir,' she said, 'a haneurism the doctors call it!'"
"And Sault?"
"He was himself again, but distressingly tired and wan."
"Did he explain?"
The doctor shook his head.
"He didn't understand or remember much. The next day out of curiosity I called at the house and asked him if he could sew. He was amused. He said that he had never used a needle in his life, his hands were too big."
Beryl sat back with a sigh. "It doesn't seem—human," she said.
The doctor had opened his mouth to reply when there was a crash in the hall outside and the sound of a high, aggressive voice. Another second and the door was thrown violently open and the man lurched in. He was hatless and his frock coat was covered with the coffee-colored stains of wet mud. His cravat was awry and the ends hung loose over his unbuttoned waist-coat. A stray lock of black hair hung over his narrow forehead. He strode into the center of the room and with legs apart, one hand on his hip and the other caressing his long, brown beard, he surveyed the company with a sardonic smile.
"Hail! Thieves and brother bandits!" he said thickly. He spoke with a slight lisp. "Hail! Head devil and chief of the tribe! Hail! Helen—"
Steppe was on his feet, his head thrust forwards, his shoulders bent. Maxton saw him and started. There was something feline in that crouching attitude. "You drunken fool! How dare you come here, huh!"
Mr. Moropulos snapped his fingers contemptuously. "I come, because I have the right," he said with drunken gravity, "who will deny the prime minister the right of calling upon the king?" he bowed and nearly lost his balance, recovering by the aid of a chairback.
"Go to my study, Moropulos, I will come out with you," Steppe had gained control of himself, but the big frame was trembling with pent rage.
"Study—bah! Here is my study! Hail, doctor, man of obnoxious draughts, hail, stranger, whoever you are—where's the immaculate Ronnie? Flower of English chivalry and warrior of a million flights—huh?"
He bellowed his imitation of Steppe's grunt and chuckled with laughter.
"Now, listen, confederates, I have done with you all. I am going to live honest. Why? I will tell you—"
"Moropulos!" Beryl turned quickly toward the door. She knew before she saw the stolid figure that it was Sault. Moropulos turned too.
"Ah! The faithful Ambrose—do you want me, Sault?" His tone was mild, he seemed to wilt under the steady gaze of the man in the doorway. Ambrose Sault beckoned and the drunken intruder shuffled out, shamefaced, fearful.
"Quite an interesting evening," said Sir John Maxton as he closed the car door on the Mervilles that night.
Two days later Sir John Maxton made an unexpected call upon the doctor and it occurred to him that he might also have made an unwelcome appearance; for he interrupted a tête-à-tête.
"I thought I should find the doctor in. Well, Ronnie, how are you after all these years?"
Ronnie was relieved to see him—that was the impression which the lawyer received. And Beryl, although she was her sweet, equable self, would gladly have excused his presence. Maxton had an idea that he had surprised them in the midst of a quarrel. The girl was flushed and her eyes were unusually bright. Ronnie's countenance was clouded with gloom. Sir John was sensitive to atmosphere.
"No, I really won't stay, I wanted to have a chat with the doctor about the extraordinary story he told us the other night. I was dining with the Lord Chief and some other judges last night and, without mentioning names, of course, I repeated the story. They were remarkably interested, Berham says that he had heard of such a case—"
"What is all this about?" asked Ronnie curiously. "You didn't tell me anything, Beryl. Who, what and where is the 'case'?"
"Mr. Sault," she said shortly.
"Oh, Sault! He is an extraordinary fellow—I must meet him. They say that he cannot read or write."
"Is that a fact?" Sir John Maxton looked at the girl.
"Yes—I believe so. Ronnie on the contrary is in the way of becoming a famous writer, Sir John."
"So I hear." He wondered why she had so deliberately and so abruptly brought the conversation into another channel.
Ronald Morelle, for his part, was not inclined to let the subject drift. "It is quaint how that coon intrigues you all," he said, "oh, yes, he is colored. You haven't seen him, John, or you wouldn't ask that question."
"I have seen him; it did not appear to me that he was colored—he has a striking face."
"At any rate, he seems to have struck you and Beryl all of a heap," said Ronnie smiling. "Really I must meet him. Are you going, Sir John?" Maxton was taking his farewell of the girl. "Because if you are, I'll walk a little way with you. 'Bye, Beryl."
"Goodbye, Ronnie," she said quietly.
Once in the street Maxton asked: "What is the matter with you and Beryl?"
"Nothing—Beryl is just a little grandmotherly. She went to the theatre last night with some people and she spotted me in a box."
"I see," said Sir John drily, "and of course you were not alone in the box."
"Why on earth should I be?" demanded the other. "Beryl is really unreasonable. She swore that my friend was a girl she had seen me with in the park."
"And who was it—is that a discreet question?"
"No it isn't," said Ronnie instantly. "I don't think one ought to chuck names about—it is most dishonorable and caddish. The lady was a very great friend of mine."
"Then I probably know her," said Sir John wilfully dense. "I know most of the people in your set, and I cannot imagine that you would be scoundrel enough to escort the kind of girl you couldn't introduce to me or Beryl or any other of your friends."
"I give you my word of honor," Ronnie was earnest, "that the lady was not only presentable, but is known personally to you. The fact is, that she had a row with her fiancé, a man I know very well, a Coldstreamer, and I was doing no more than trying to reconcile them—bring them together you understand. She was dreadfully depressed, and I got a box at the theatre with the idea of cheering her up. My efforts," he added virtuously, "were successful. Beryl said that it was a girl—the daughter of a dear friend of mine, she had seen me talking with in the park."
"What dear friend of yours was this?"
"I don't think you've met him," parried Ronnie.
"Did she have trouble with her fiancé, too?" asked Sir John innocently. "Really, Ronnie, you are coming out strong as a disinterested friend of distressed virgins! If I may employ the imagery and language of an American burglar whom I recently defended—Sir Galahad has nothing on you!"
"You don't believe me, John," said Ronnie injured.
"Of course I cannot believe you. I am not a child. You had some girl with you, some 'pick up', innocent or guilty, God knows. I will assume her innocence. The sophisticated have no appeal for you. There was a girl named East—a chorus girl, if I remember rightly—"
"If you're going to talk about that disgraceful attempt to blackmail me, I'm finished," said Ronnie resigned.
"Why didn't you charge her and her brother with blackmail? They came to me—"
"Good lord, did they? I'll break that infernal blackguard's neck!"
"When will you meet him?" Ronnie did not answer.
"They came to me and I knew that the story was true. The brother, of course,isa blackmailer. He is levying blackmail now and you are paying him—don't argue, Ronnie, of course you are paying him. You said just now that you would break his neck, which meant to me that you see him frequently—when he comes to draw his blood money. If it were a case of blackmail, why did you not prosecute? The mere threat of the prosecution would have been sufficient to have sent him to ground—it struck me that the girl was acting under the coercion of her brother, and I do not think you would have had any trouble from her. Ronnie, you are rotten." He said this as he stopped at the corner of Park Lane and Piccadilly, and Ronnie smiled nervously.
"Oh come now, John, that is rather a strong expression."
"Rotten," repeated the lawyer. He screwed a monocle in his eye and surveyed his companion dispassionately. "Chorus girls—shop girls—the mechanics of joy who serve Madame Ritti—that made you jump, eh? I know quite a lot about you. They are your life. And God gave you splendid gifts and the love of the sweetest, dearest girl in this land."
"Who is this?" asked the young man slowly.
"Beryl. You do not need to be told that. Search the ranks of your light women for her beauty, Ronnie."
A girl passed them, a wisp of a girl on the borderline of womanhood. She carried a little bag and was hurrying home from the store where she was employed. Even as he listened to the admonition of his companion, Ronnie caught her eyes and smiled into them—she paused and looked round once—he was still watching her.
"I am afraid I must leave you, John, I've a lot of work to do, and you are quite mistaken as to my character—and Beryl." He left the lawyer abruptly and walked toward the gates of the park where the girl had stopped, ostensibly to tie a shoe-lace.
Sir John saw her pass leisurely into the park; a few seconds later Ronnie had followed. His time was his own, for Evie Colebrook was working that evening, the annual stocktaking was in progress, as she had told him when they were at the theatre on the previous night.
"Rotten!" repeated Maxton, and stalked gloomily to his club.
Mr. Ronald Morelle's flat was on the third floor of a block that faced busy Knightsbridge. His library was a large and airy room at the back and from the open casements commanded an uninterrupted view of the park. It was a pleasant room with its rows of bookshelves and its chintzes. The silver fireplace and the rich Persian rugs which covered the parquet were the only suggestions of luxury. There were one or two pictures which François had an order to remove when certain visitors were expected. The rest were decent reproductions with the exception of a large oil painting above the mantelpiece. It was a St. Anthony and was attributed to Titiano Vecellio. The austere saint loomed darkly from a sombre background and was represented as an effeminate youth; the veining of the neck and shoulders was characteristically Titian, so too was the inclination of a marble column which showed faintly in the picture. Titiano's inability to draw a true vertical line is well known and upon this column, more than upon other evidence, the experts accepted the picture as an early example of the fortunate painter's work.
Ronnie was indifferent as to the authenticity of the picture. The dawning carnality on Anthony's lean face, the misty shape of the temptress—Titian or his disciple had reduced to visibility the doubt, the gloating and the very thoughts of the Saint.
A black oak table stood in the center of the room and a deep Medici writing chair was placed opposite the black blotting-pad. It pleased Ronnie to imitate those ministers of state who employed this color to thwart curious-minded servants who, with the aid of a mirror, might discover the gist of outward correspondence.
It was nearing midnight when the sound of Ronnie's key in the lock sent his sleepy servant into the lobby. Ronnie stood in the hall tenderly stripping his gloves. "Has anybody been?"
"No, m'sieur."
"Letters?"
"Only one, m'sieur. An account."
He opened the library door and Ronnie walked in. He switched on the light of his desk lamp and sat down. "I have not been out all the evening, François."
"No, m'sieur."
"I came home after dinner and I have not left this room, do you understand?"
"Perfectly, m'sieur."
"Have we any iodine—look for it, damn you, don't gape!"
François hurried out to inspect the contents of the bathroom locker, where were stored such first aid remedies as were kept in the flat. Ronnie looked at his hand and pulled back the cuff of his coat; three ugly red scratches ran from the wrist to the base of the middle fingers. His lips pursed angrily. "Little beast," he said. "Well?"
"There is a bottle—would m'sieur like a bandage?"
"It is not necessary—have you a cat in the flat?—no, well get one tomorrow. You need not keep it permanently. I don't think there will be any trouble. Bring me a hand-mirror from my dressing-table—hurry."
He lifted the shade from the table lamp and, in the mirror, examined his face carefully. His right cheek was red, he imagined finger-marks, but the fine skin had not been torn.
"I have had a quarrel with a lady, François. A common girl—I do not think she will make any further trouble, but if she does—she does not know me anyway."
Ronald's love-making had ended unpleasantly, and he had left the dark aisles of the park in a hurry, before the scream of a frightened girl had brought the police to the spot.
"I was expecting m'sieur to telephone me saying that I might go home," said François. He lodged in Kensington, and sometimes it was convenient for Ronnie, that he should go home early. Two women came in the morning to clean the flat and he usually arrived in time to carry in his master's breakfast from the restaurant attached to the building.
"No, I didn't telephone. Take this glass back and bring me the evening newspapers. That is all. You can clear out."
When the front door closed upon his valet, Ronnie got up and, walking to the window, pulled aside the curtains. The casement was open and he sat down on the padded window-seat, looking out into the darkness. He was not thinking of his night's adventure, being something of a philosopher. The sordidness and the vulgarity of it, would not distress him in any circumstances. He was thinking of Beryl and what John Maxton had said. He knew that she liked him, but he had made no special effort to foster her affection or to evolve from their relationship one more intimate. By his code, she was taboo; lovemaking with Beryl could only lead to marriage, and matrimony was outside of his precarious plans. It pleased him to ponder upon Beryl—perhaps she was in love with him. He had not considered the possibility before. That women only differed by the hats they wore was a working rule of his; but it was strange that the influence he exercised was common to girls so widely separated by birth, education and taste as Beryl was from Evie Colebrook—and others.
Self-disparagement was the last weakness to be expected in Ronald Morelle, and yet, it was true to say that he had restricted his hunting for so long to one variety of game, that he doubted his ability to follow another.
His father had been an enthusiastic hawker, one of the remaining few who followed the sport of kings, and Ronnie invariably thought of his adventuring in terms of falconry. He was a hawk, enseamed, a hawk that swung on its rigid sails, waiting on until the quarry was sprung. Sometimes the quarry was not taken without talons to rend and tear at the embarrassed falcon—he felt the wounds on his hand gingerly. But a trained hawk respects the domestic fowl, even the folk of the dovecot may coo at peace whilst he waits on in the sky. Beryl—? She was certainly lovely. Her figure was delectable. And her mouth, red and full—a Rossetti woman should not have such lips. Was it Rossetti who painted those delicately featured women? He got up and found a big portfolio filled with prints. Yes, it was Rossetti, but Beryl's figure was incomparably more delicious than any woman's that the painter had drawn. He came back to the window, staring out into the night, until, in the gray of dawn, the outline of trees emerged from the void. Then he went to bed and to sleep. He did not move for five hours and then he woke with a horrible sense of desolation. He blinked round the room and at that instant the clock of a church began to strike—the quarters sounded—a pause.
"Toll—toll—toll—toll—toll—toll—toll—toll—toll." Nine o'clock! With a scream of fear he leaped out of bed, sweating, panic-stricken, forlorn. Nine o'clock! "No—no—Christ—no!"
François, an early arrival, heard his voice and rushed in. "M'sieur," he gasped.
Ronald Morelle was sitting on his bed, sobbing into his hands.
"A nightmare, François—a nightmare—get out, blast you!" But he had had no nightmare, could recall nothing of dreams, though he strove all day, his head throbbing. Only he knew that to hear nine o'clock striking had seemed very dreadful.
"I saw your friend Ronald Morelle today," said Moropulos, sending a writhing ring of smoke to the ceiling. Sprawling on a big morris chair, his slippered feet resting on the edge of a fender, he watched the circle break against the ceiling. A pair of stained gray flannel trousers, a silk shirt and a velvet coat that had once been a vivid green; these and an immense green silk cravat, the color of which showed through his beard, constituted his usual morning negligee.
Ambrose Sault, busy with the body of an unfinished safe, which in the rough had come from the maker's hands that morning, released the pressure of his acetylene lamp and removed his goggles before he replied.
He was working in shirt and trousers, and his sleeves were rolled up, displaying the rope-like muscles of his arm. He looked across to his indolent companion and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Mr. Ronald Morelle is neither a friend nor an acquaintance, Moropulos. I don't think I have ever seen him. I have heard of him."
"You haven't missed much by not knowing him," said Moropulos, "but he's a good-looking fellow."
He flicked the ash of his cigarette on to the tiled hearth. "Steppe is still annoyed with me." Sault smiled to himself.
"You think he is justified? Perhaps. I was terribly drunk, but I was happy. Some day, my dear brother, I shall get so drunk that even you will not hold me. I move towards my apotheosis of intoxication certainly and surely. Then I will be irresistible and I shall have no fear of those brute arms of yours." He sucked at the cigarette without speaking for a long time. Sault went back to his work.
"I have often wondered!" said Moropulos at last.
"What?"
"Whether it would have been better if I had followed the advice of my head man that morning I pulled you aboard the sloop. You remember Bob the Kanaka boy? He wanted to knock you on the head and drop you overboard; you were too dangerous, he said. If a government boat had picked us up and you had been found on board as well as—certain other illicit properties, I should have had a double charge against me. I said 'no' because I was sorry for you."
"Because you were afraid of me," said Sault calmly, "I knew you were afraid when I looked into your eyes. Why do you speak of the islands now—we haven't talked about the Pacific since I left the boat."
"I've been thinking about you," confessed Moropulos with a quick sly glance at the man. "Do you realize how—not 'curious'—what is the word?"
"Incurious!" suggested Sault, and Moropulos looked at him with reluctant admiration.
"You are an extraordinaryhombre, Sault. Merville says you have thevocabulaire—that is English or something like it—of an educated man. But to return—do you realize how incurious I am? For example, I have never once asked you, in all our years of knowing one another, why you killed that man?"
"Which man?"
Moropulos laughed softly. "Butcher! Have you killed so many? I refer to the victim for whose destruction the French government sent you to New Caledonia."
Sault stood leaning his back against the table his eyes fixed on the floor. "He was a bad man," he said simply, "I tried to find another way of—stopping him, but he was clever and he had powerful friends, who were government officials. So I killed him. He hired two men to wait for me one night. I was staying at a little hotel on the Plassy Road. They tried to beat me because I had reported this man. Then I knew that the only thing I could do was to kill him. I should do it again."
Moropulos surveyed him from under his lowered brows. "You were lucky to escape 'the widow', my friend," he said, but Ambrose shook his head.
"Nobody was executed in those days; capital punishment had not been abolished, but the Senate refused to vote the executioner his salary. It had the same effect. I was lucky to go to New Caledonia. Cayenne is worse."
"How long did you serve?"
"Eight years and seven months," was the reply.
Moropulos made a little grimace. "I would sooner die," he said and lit another cigarette. Deep in thought he smoked until Ambrose made a move to pick up his Crooke's glasses.
"Don't work. I hate to see you—and hate worse to hear you. What do you think of Morelle?"
"I don't know him; I have heard about him. He is not a good man."
"What is a good man?" Moropulos demanded contemptuously. "He is a lover of ladies, who isn't? He is a cur too. Steppe walks on him. He is scared of Steppe but then everybody is, except you and I." Ambrose smiled.
"Well, perhaps I am—he is such a gorilla. But you are not."
"Why should I be? I am stronger than he."
Moropulos looked at the man's bare arms. "Yes—I suppose it comes down to that. The basis of all fear, is physical. When will the safe be finished?"
"In a week. I am assembling the lock at home. I shall make it work to five letters. The only word I can spell. I shouldn't have known that, but I heard a man spell it once—on the ship that brought me home. He was a steerage passenger and he used to take his little child on the deck when it was fine, and the little one used to read Scripture stories to him. When she came to a hard word, he spelled it. I heard one word and never forgot it."
"I'll be glad when the thing is finished," the Greek meditated. "We have a whole lot of papers that we never want to see the light of day, Steppe and I. We could destroy them, but they may be useful, correspondence that it isn't safe to keep and it isn't wise to burn. You are an ingenious devil!"
In the Paddington directory, against "Moropulos, 49 Junction Terrace," were the words, "mining engineer." It was a courtesy status, for he had neither mined nor engineered. Probably the people of Junction Terrace were too occupied with their own strenuous affairs to read the directory. They knew him as one who at irregular periods was brought home in the middle of the night singing noisily in a strange language. Cicero's oration was Greek to Cassius; the melodious gibberish of Mr. Moropulos was Greek to Junction Terrace, though they were not aware of the fact. No. 49 was a gaunt, damp house with a mottled face, for the stucco had peeled in patches and had never been renewed. Moropulos bought it at a bargain price and made no contingency allowance for delapidations. The windows of the upper floors were dingy and unwashed. The owner argued that as he did not occupy the rooms above, it would be wicked waste of money to clean the windows. Similarly he dispensed with carpets in the hall and on the stairs.
His week-ends he spent in more pleasing surroundings, for he had a cottage on the borders of Hampshire where he kept hens and grew cabbage-roses and on Sundays loafed in his garden, generally in his pajamas, to the scandal of the neighborhood. He had a whimsical turn of mind and named his cottage, "The Parthenon", and supported this conceit by decorating his arcadian groves with plaster reproductions of the great figures of mythology, such figures as Phidias and Polycletus and Praxiteles chiselled. He added to this a wooden pronaos which the local builder misguidedly surmised was intended for the entrance to a new cinema. When they discovered that the erection had no other purpose than to remind Moropulos of departed Hellenic splendors, the grief of the villagers was pathetic.
Here he was kept, reluctantly, tidy. He owned a small American car which supplied him the transportation he required, and made his country home accessible. It was Friday, the day he usually left town, but he had lingered on, hoping to see some tangible progress in the construction of the safe.
"You never seem to get any further," he complained. "You have been fiddling with that noisy lamp for two hours, and, so far as I can see, you've done nothing. How long will it be before anything happens?" and then before Sault could reply he went on: "Why don't you come to my little Athens, Sault? You prefer to stay in town. And you are a man of brains! Have you a girl here, eh?"
"No."
"Gee! What a time that fellow Ronnie must have! But they will catch him some day—a mad father or a lunatic fiancé, and ping! There will be Ronnie Morelle's brains on the floor, and the advocates pleading the unwritten law!"
"You seem to know a lot about him?"
Moropulos ran his fingers through his beard and grinned at the ceiling. "Yes—I can't know too much. We shall have trouble with him. Steppe laughs at the idea. He has him bound to his heel—is that the expression, no? Well, he has him like that! But how can you bind a liar or chain an eel? His very cowardice is a danger."
"What have you to be afraid of?" asked Sault. "So far as I can make out, you are carrying on an honest business. It must be, or the doctor wouldn't be in it." His tone was sharp and challenging. Moropulos had sufficientnousnot to accept that kind of challenge.
"I can understand that you have papers that you wish to keep in such a way that nobody but yourselves can get at them. All businesses have their secrets."
"Quite so," agreed the Greek and yawned.
"Ronnie will pay," he said, "but I am anxious that I should not be asked to contribute to the bill. I have had a great deal of amusement watching him. The other night I was in the park. I go there because he goes. I know the paths he uses. And there came with him a most pretty young lady. She did not know him."
"You guessed that?"
"I know, because later, when she complained, she did not know his name. Ronnie!" he mused. "Now I tell you what I will undertake to do. I will make a list, accurate and precise, of all his love affairs. It will be well to know these, because there may come a day when it will be good to flourish a weapon in this young man's face. Such men marry rich women."
Sault was working and only muttered his reply. He was not then interested in Ronnie Morelle.
He stayed on in the house long after Moropulos had dragged himself to his room and had dressed for the journey. So absorbed was he in his task that the Greek left without his noticing. At seven o'clock he finished, put away his tools in a cupboard, threw a cloth over the safe, and went out, locking the door behind him.
Both Steppe and Moropulos had urged him to live in the house, but though he had few predilections that were not amenable to the necessities of his friends, Sault was firm on this point. He preferred the liberty which his lodgings gave him. Possibly he foresaw the difficulties which might arise if he lived entirely with the Greek. Moropulos had a vicious and an uncertain tongue; was tetchy on some points, grotesquely so, on the question of Greek decadence, although he had lived so long away from his native country that English was almost his mother tongue. Sault could be tactful, but he had a passion for truth, and the two qualities are often incompatible.
A bus carried him to the end of the street where he lodged, and he stopped at a store on the corner and bought a box of biscuits for Christina. She was secretary and reader to him, and he repaid her services with a library subscription and such delicacies as she asked him to get for her. The subscription was a godsend to the girl, and augmented, as it was, by an occasional volume which Evie was allowed to bring from the store library by virtue of her employment, her days were brightened and her dreams took a wider range than ever. The driving force of learning is imagination. By imagination was Christina educated.
Evie sometimes said that she did not understand one half of the words that Christina used. To Mrs. Colebrook her daughter was an insoluble enigma. She associated education with brain fever and ideas above your station, and whilst she was secretly proud of the invalid's learning, she regarded Christina's spinal trouble as being partly responsible for the abnormality. Mrs. Colebrook believed in dreams and premonitions and the sinister significance of broken picture wires. It was part of her creed that people who are not long for this world possess supernatural accomplishments. Therefore she eyed Christina's books askance, and looked upon the extra library subscription as being a wild flight in the face of Providence. She expressed that view privately to Ambrose Sault.
"You have come at a propitious moment, Sault Effendi," said Christina solemnly as he came in. "I have just been taking my last look at the silvery Bosphorus. My husband, taking offense at a kiss I threw to the handsome young sultan as he rose beneath my latticed window, has decreed that tonight I am to be tied in a sack and thrown into the dark waters!"
"Good gracious," said Ambrose. "You have been in trouble today, Christina."
"Not very much. The journey was a lovely one. We went by way of Bergen—and thank you ever so much for that old Bradshaw you got for me. It was just the thing I wanted."
"Mr. Moropulos kindly gave it to me—yes—Bergen?"
"And then to Petrograd—the Czars were there, poor people—and then to Odessa, and down the Black Sea in—oh, I don't know. It was a silly journey today, Ambrose—I wasn't in the heart for a holiday."
"Is your back any worse?"
She shook her head. "No—it seems better. I nearly let myself dream about getting well. Do you think that other idea is possible? We can borrow a spinal carriage from the Institute but mother hasn't much time, and besides, I couldn't get down those narrow stairs without a lot of help. Yes—yes, yes! I know it is possible now. But the chariot, dear Ambrose?"
"I've got it!" he chuckled at her astonishment, "it will come tomorrow. It is rather like a motor-car for I have to find a garage for it. In this tiny house there is no room. But I got it—no, it didn't cost me a great deal. Dr. Merville told me where I could get one cheap. I put new tires on and the springs are grand. Christina, you will be—don't cry, Christina, please—you make me feel terrible!" His agitation had the effect of calming her.
"There must be something in this room that makes people weep," she gulped. "Ambrose—Evie is just worrying me to death."
"What is wrong?"
She shook her red head helplessly. "I don't know. She is changed—she is old. She's such a kid, too—such a kid! If that man hurts her," the knuckles of her clenched hand showed bone-white through the skin, "I'll ask you to do what you did for mother, Ambrose, give me strength for an hour—" her voice sank to a husky whisper, "and I'll kill him—kill him—"
Sault sat locking and unlocking his fingers, his eyes vacant. "She will not be hurt. I wish I were sure it was Ronald Morelle. Steppe has only to lift his finger—"
They heard the sound of Mrs. Colebrook's heavy feet on the stairs and Christina wondered why she was coming up. She had never interrupted their little talks before.
"Somebody to see you, Christina, and I'm sure it is too kind of you, miss, and please thank the doctor. I'll never be grateful enough for what he did—"
Ambrose Sault got up slowly to his feet as Beryl came into the room.
"I wonder if you really mind my coming—I am Beryl Merville."
"It is very good of you, Miss Merville," said Christina primly. She was ready to dislike her visitor; she hated the unknown people who called upon her, especially the people who brought jelly and fruit and last year's magazines. Their touching faith in the virtues of calves'-foot and fruit as a panacea for human ills, their automatic cheerfulness and mechanical good-humor, drove her wild. The church and its women had given up Christina ever since she had asked, in answer to the inevitable question: "Yes, there are some things I want; I'd like a box of perfumed cigarettes, some marron glace and a good English translation of 'Liaisons Dangereux'."
She loathed marron glace and scented tobacco was an abomination. Her chief regret was that the shocked inquirer had never heard of "Liaisons Dangereux". Christina only knew of its existence from a reference in a literary weekly which came her way.
Beryl sensed the hidden antagonism and the cause. "I really haven't come in a district visitor spirit," she said, "I'm not frightfully sorry for you and I haven't brought you oranges—"
"Grapes," corrected Christina. "They give you appendicitis—mother read that on the back page of 'Health Hints'. Sit down, Miss Merville. This is Mr. Sault." She nodded to Ambrose.
"Mr. Sault and I are old acquaintances," she said. She did not look at him. "I have to explain why I came at all. I know that you are not particularly enthusiastic about stray visitors—nobody is. But my father was talking about you at lunch today. He has never seen you, but Mr. Sault has spoken about you and, of course, he does know your mother. And father said: 'Why don't you go along and see her, Beryl?' I said, 'She would probably be very annoyed—but I'll take her that new long wordy novel that is so popular. I'm sure she'll hate it as much as I."
"If it is 'Let the World Go', I'm certain I shall," said Christina promptly, "but I'd love to read it. Let us sneer together." Beryl laughed and produced the book.
It seemed an appropriate moment for Ambrose to retire and he went out of the room quietly; he thought that neither of the girls saw him go, but he was mistaken. Christina Colebrook was sensitive to his every movement, and Beryl had really come to the house to see him.
On her way home she tried to arraign herself before the bar of intelligence, but it was not until she was alone in her room that night that she set forth the stark facts of her folly. She loved Ronald Morelle, loved him with an intensity which frightened her; loved him, although he was, according to all standards by which men are judged, despicable. He was a coward, a liar, a slave to his baser appetites. She had no doubt in her mind, when she faced the truth, that the stories which had been told of him were true. The East girl—the pretty parlormaid who had begun an action against him.
And yet there was something infinitely pathetic about Ronald Morelle, something that made her heart go out to him. Or was that a case of self-deception too? Was it not the beautiful animal she loved, the sleek, lithe tiger—alive and vital and remorseless? To all that was brain and spirit in her, he was loathsome. There were periods when she hated him and was bitterly contemptuous of herself. And in these periods came the soft voice of Ambrose Sault, whispering, insinuating. That was lunacy, too. He was old enough to be her father; was an illiterate workman, an ex-convict, a murderer; when her father had told her he had killed a man she was neither shocked nor surprised. She had guessed, from his brief reference to New Caledonia, that he had lived on that island under duress. He must have been convicted of some great crime; she could not imagine him in any mean or petty rôle. A coarse-handed workman, shabby of attire—it was madness to dream and dream of him as she did. And dreams, so Freud had said, were the expressions of wishes unfulfilled. What did she wish? She was prepared to answer the question frankly if any answer could be framed. But she had no ultimate wish. Her dreams of Ambrose Sault were unfinishable. Their ends ran into unfathomable darkness.
"I wonder if he is very fond of that red-haired girl?" she asked her mirror. Contemplating such a possibility she experienced a pang of jealousy and hated herself for it.
Jan Steppe came back from Paris on the eve of her birthday. He called at the house the next morning, before she was down, and interviewed Dr. Merville; when Beryl went in to breakfast, two little packages lay on her plate. The first was a diamond shawl pin.
"You are a dear, daddy!" She went round the table and kissed him. "It is beautiful and I wanted one badly."
She hurried back to her place. Perhaps Ronnie had remembered—?
She picked up the card that was enclosed and read it. "Mr. Steppe?"
Her father shot a quick glance at her. "Yes—bought it in Paris. He came in person to present it, but left when he found that you were not down—rather pretty." This was an inadequate description of the beautiful plaque that flashed and glittered from its velvet bed.
"It is lovely," she said, but without warmth. "Ought I accept—it is a very expensive present!"
"Why not? Steppe is a good friend of ours; besides, he likes you," said the doctor, not looking up from his plate. "He would be terribly hurt if you didn't take it—in fact, you cannot very well refuse."
She ran through her letters. There was a note from Ronnie, an invitation to a first night. He said nothing about her birthday.
"Oh, by the way, some flowers came. I told Dean to put them in your room. I have been puzzling my head to remember when I told him the date of your birthday. I suppose I must have done so, and, of course, he has the most colossal memory."
"Who, father?"
"Sault. He must have got up very early and gone to the market to get them. Very decent of him."
She went out of the room with an excuse and found her maid in the pantry. She had filled a big bowl with the roses. There were so many that only room for half of them had been found.
"The others I will put in the doctor's room, Miss," said the maid.
"Put them all in my room, every one of them," demanded Beryl.
She selected three and fastened them in her belt before she went back to the breakfast room. The doctor laughed.
"I've never seen you wearing flowers before—Sault would be awfully pleased."
This she knew. That was why she wore them.
Evie Colebrook came home at an unusually early hour and the girl on the bed looked up in surprise.
"I heard mother talking to somebody, but I had no idea it was you, Evie. What is the matter—has your swain another engagement?"
"My swain, as you call him, is working tonight," said Evie, "and it is so hot that I thought I would come home and get into my pajamas."
"Mother has been talking about your eccentric tastes, with particular reference to pajamas," said Christina. "She thinks that pajamas are indelicate. In her young days girls weren't supposed to have legs."
"Father wore pajamas."
"Father also drank. Mother thinks that the pajamas had something to do with it. She also thinks that book reading was a contributary cause."
"What terrible jaw-breaking words you use, Christina. Father did read a lot, didn't he?"
"Father was a student. He studied, amongst other things, race horses. Do you know who father was?" Evie stared at her expectantly.
"He was a carpenter, wasn't he?"
"He was the youngest son of the youngest son of a lord. Take that look off your face, Evie; there is no possibility of our being the rightful heiresses of the old Hall. But it is true; he had a coat of arms."
"Then why did he marry mother?"
"Why do people marry anybody?" demanded Christina. "Why did grandfather marry grandmother? Besides, why shouldn't he have married mother? He was only a cabinet maker when he met her. She has told me so. And his father was a parson, and his mother the Honorable Mrs. Colebrook, the daughter of Lord Fanshelm. There is blue blood in your veins, Evie."
"But really, Christina," Evie's voice was eager and her eyes bright, "you are not fooling; is it true? It makes such an awful difference—"
Christina groaned. "My God, what have I said?" she asked dramatically.
"But really, Christina?"
"You are related so distantly to nobility that you can hardly see it without a telescope," said Christina, "I thought you knew. Mother used always to be talking about it at one time. My dear, what difference does it make?"
Evie was silent.
"A man doesn't love a girl any more because she has a fifth cousin in the House of Lords; he doesn't love her any less because her mother takes in laundry, and if her lowly origin stands in the way of his marriage, and he finds that really she is the great grandaughter of a princess, he cannot obliterate her intermediate relations."
"What's 'intermediate'?"
"Well, mother and father, and the parson who got into trouble through drinking, and his wife who ran away with a groom."
Evie drew a long sigh.
"Where is your swain?" she asked. "I don't like that word 'swain,' it sounds so much like 'swine'."
"I hope you will never see the resemblance any clearer," said Christina. "My swain is working, too. I shouldn't take off that petticoat, if I were you, Evie; he may come in and you can see your knickers through that dressing-gown."
"Christina!"
"I hate mentioning knickers to a pure-minded girl," said Christina, fanning herself with a paper, "but sisters have no secrets from one another. Ambrose, if that is who you mean, is very busy these days."
"Do you call him Ambrose to his face?" asked Evie curiously, and her sister snorted.
"Would you call Julius Cæsar 'Bill' or 'Juley' to his face; of course not. But I can't think of him as Ambrose Sault, Esquire, can I?"
"I don't understand him," said Evie. "He seems so dull and quiet."
"I'll get him to jazz with you the next time you're home early," said Christina sardonically.
"Don't be so silly. Naturally he isn't very lively being so old."
"Old! He is lively enough to carry me downstairs as though I were a pillow and wheel me for hours at a time in that glorious chariot he got for me! And he is old enough—but what is the good of talking to you, Evie?"
Presently her irritation passed and she laughed. "Tell me the news of the great world, Evie; what startling happenings have there been in Knightsbridge?"
"I can tell you something about Mr. Sault you don't know," Evie was piqued into saying. "He has been in prison." Christina turned on her side with a wince of pain.
"Say that again."
"He has been in prison." A long pause.
"I hoped he had," Christina said at last. "I believe in imprisonment as an essential part of a man's education—who told you?"
"I'm not going to say."
"Ronald Morelle—aha!" She pointed an accusing finger at the dumbfounded Evie.
"I know your guilty secret! The 'Ronnie' you babble about in your sleep is Ronnie Morelle!"
"Wh—what makes you—it isn't true—it is a damned lie—!"
"Don't be profane, Evie. That is the worst of druggists' shops, you pick up such awful language. Mother says you can't work amongst pills without getting ideas in your head."
"I never talk in my sleep—and I don't know Ronnie Morelle—who is he?"
Evie's ignorance was badly assumed. Christina became very thoughtful. She lay with her hand under her cheek, her gray eyes searching her sister's face.
"Would Ronnie be impressed by your distant relationship with nobility?" she asked quietly. "Would it make such an awful difference if he knew about the coat of arms in father's Bible? I don't think it would. If it did, he isn't worth worrying about. What is he?"
"Didn't Mr. Sault tell you?" asked Evie hotly. "He seems to spend his time gossiping about people who are a million times better than him—"
"Than he," murmured Christina, her eyes closed.
"He is a nasty scandal-mongering old man! I hate him!"
"He didn't say that Ronnie had been in prison," Christina's voice was gentle. "All that he said was that the only 'Ronnie' he knew was Ronald Morelle. He did not even describe him or give him a character."
"How absurd, Christina! As if old Sault could give Mr. Morelle 'a character'! One is a gentleman and the other is an old fossil!"
"Old age is honorable," said Christina tolerantly, "the arrogance of you babies!"
"You're half in love with him!"
"Wholly," nodded Christina. "I love his mind and his soul. I am incapable of any other kind of love. I never want a man to draw my flaming head to his shoulder and whisper, that until he met me, the world was a desert, and food didn't taste good. It is because Ambrose Sault never paws me or holds my hand or kisses me on the brow in the manner of a father who hopes to be something closer, that I love him. And I shall love him through eternity. When I am dead and he is dead. And I want nothing more than this. If he were to die tomorrow, I should not grieve because his flesh means nothing to me. The thing he gives me is everlasting. That is where I am better off than you, Evie. You have nothing but what you give yourself. You think he gives you these wonderful memories which keep you awake at nights. You think it is his love for you that thrills you. It isn't that, Evie. Your love is the love of the martyr who finds an ecstatic joy in his suffering."
Groping toward understanding, Evie seized this illustration. "God loves the martyr—it isn't one-sided," she quavered and Christina nodded.
"That is true, or it may be true. Does your god love you?"
"It is blasphemous to—to talk of Ronnie as God."
"God with a small 'g'."
"It is blasphemous anyhow. Ronnie does love me. He hasn't silly and conventional ideas about—about love as most people have. He is much broader-minded, but he does love me. I know it. A girl knows when a man loves her."
"That is one of the things she doesn't know," interrupted Christina. "She knows when he wants her, but she doesn't know how continually he will want her. He is unconventional, too? And broad-minded? The broad-minded are usually people who take a generous view of their own shortcomings. Is he one of those unconventional souls who think that marriage is a barbarous ceremony?"
"Who told you that?" Evie was breathless from surprise.
"It isn't an unique view—broad-minded men often try to get narrow-minded girls to see that standpoint."
"You're cynical—I hate cynical people," said Evie, throwing herself on her bed, "and you have all your ideas of life out of books, and the rotten people who come in here moaning about their troubles. You can't believe writers—not some writers—there are some, of course, that give just a true picture of life—not in books, but in articles in the newspapers. They just seem to know what people are thinking and feeling, and express themselves wonderfully."
"Ah—so Ronnie writes for the newspapers, does he?"
Evie's indignant retort was checked by a knock on the door.
"That is Mr. Sault—can he come in?"
"I suppose so," answered Evie grudgingly. She got off the bed and tied her dressing-gown more tightly. "I don't really show my legs through this kimono do I, Christina?"
"Not unless you want to—come in!"
Ambrose Sault looked tired. "Just looked in before I went to my room," he said. "Good evening, Evie."
"Good evening, Mr. Sault."
Evie's dressing-gown was wrapped so tightly as to give her a mummified appearance.
"I saw the osteopath today and I've arranged for him to come and talk to you tomorrow," said Ambrose, sitting on the edge of the bed at the inviting gesture of Christina's hand.
"I will parley with him," she nodded. "I don't believe that he will make a scrap of difference. I've seen all sorts of doctors and specialists. Mother has a list of them—she is very proud of it."
"I'm only hoping that this man may do you some good," said Ambrose, rubbing his chin meditatively. "I have seen some wonderful cures—in America. Even Dr. Merville believes in them. He says that if you build a sky-scraper and the steel frame isn't true, you cannot expect the doors to shut or the windows to open. I'm sorry I am so late, but the osteopath was dining out, and I had to wait until he came back. He hurt his ankle too, and that took time. I had to give him a rubbing. He is the best man in London. Dr. Duncan More."
She did not take her eyes from his face. Evie noticed this and discounted Christina's earlier assertion.
"Will it cost a lot of money?" asked Christina.
"Not much, in fact very little. The first examination is free. He doesn't really examine you, you know. He will just feel your back, through your clothes. I asked him that, because I know how you dislike examinations. And if he doesn't think that you can be treated, and that there is a chance of making you better, he won't bother you any more."
"I don't believe in these quack doctors," said Evie decidedly. "They promise all sorts of cures and they only take your money. We have a lot of those kind of remedies at the store, but Mr. Donker, the manager, says that they are all fakes—don't tell me that an osteopath isn't a medicine. I know that. He's a sort of doctor, but I'll bet you he doesn't do any good."
"Cheer up, Job!" said Christina. "Faith is something. I suppose you mean well, but if I took any notice of you I'd give up the struggle now."
"I don't want to depress you, you're very unkind, Christina! But I don't think you ought to be too hopeful. It would be such an awful—what's the word, come-down for you."
"Reaction," said Sault and Christina together and they laughed.
Sault went soon after and Evie felt that a dignified protest was called for.
"There is no reason why you should make me look like a fool before Sault," she said hurt. "Nobody would be happier than I should be if you got well. You know that. I'm not so sure that Mr. Sault is sincere—"
"What?"
Christina leaned upon her arm and her eyes were blazing.
"You can say that he is old and ugly, if you like, and shabby and—anything. But don't dare to say that, Evie—don't dare to say that he isn't sincere!"
Evie lay awake for a long time that night. Christina was certainly a strange girl—and when she said she did not love Sault, she was not speaking the truth. That was just how she had felt, when Christina had hinted that Ronnie was not sincere. Only she had been too much of a a lady to lose her temper. About old Sault, too! What did he do for a living? She must ask Christina.
Mr. Jan Steppe sat astride of a chair, his elbows on the back-rest, his saturnine face clouded with doubt.
"It certainly looks like a very ordinary safe to me, Sault. Do you mean to say that an expert could not get inside without disturbing the apparatus, huh?"
"Impossible," replied Sault. "I have filled the top chamber with water and I have tried at least a thousand combinations and every time I put the combination wrong, the safe has been flooded."
He twisted the dials on the face of the unpretentious repository, until he brought five letters, one under the other, in line with an arrow engraved on the safe door. He was a long time doing this and Steppe and the Greek watched hm.
"Now!" said Sault.
He turned the handle and the door swung open. The contents were two or three old newspapers and they were intact.
"What is the code word?" Steppe peered forward. "Huh—why did you choose that word, Sault?"
"It is one of the very few words I can spell. Besides which, each letter is different."
"It is not an inappropriate word," said Moropulos amused, "and one easy to remember. I intend pasting a notice on the safe, Steppe, explaining frankly that unless the code word is used, and if any other combination of letters is tried, indeed, if the handle is turned, whilst the dial is set at any other word than the code word, the contents of the safe are destroyed. This may act as a deterrent to promiscuous burglars."
Steppe fingered his stubbly beard. "That will be telling people that we have something in the safe that we want to keep hidden, huh?" he said dubiously, "a fool idea!"
"Everybody has something in his safe that he wants to keep hidden," said the other coolly.
"Now let me try—shut the door, Sault, that is right." Steppe got out of the chair to spin the dials. "Now we will suppose that I am some unauthorized person trying to find a way of opening the safe. So!"
He turned the handle.
"Open it."
Sault worked at the dials and presently the door swung open. The newspapers were saturated and an inch of water at the bottom of the safe splashed out and into a bath-tub that Sault had put ready.
"How about cutting into the safe? Suppose I am a burglar, huh? I burn out the lock or the side, and don't touch the combination?"
"I have left a hole in one side of the safe," said Sault, and pointed to a rubber plug that had been rammed into a small aperture.
With a pair of pincers he pulled this out and a stream of water spurted forth and was mostly caught in the can he held.
"That has the same effect," he explained. "The water is pumped at a pressure into the hollow walls of the safe. The door is also hollow. When the water runs out, a float drops and releases the contents of the upper chamber. In the case of the door, the float operates the same spring that floods the safe when the handle is turned."
Steppe scratched his head. "Perfect," he said. "You have experimented with the acid?"
Sault nodded. "Both with sulphuric and hydrochloric," he said. "I think hydrochloric is the better."
Steppe turned to the Greek. "You had better keep it here," he said, and then: "Will it be ready today? I want to get those Brakpan letters out of the way. I needn't tell you, Sault, that the code word must be known only to us three, huh? I don't mind your knowing—but, you, Moropulos! You have got to cut out absinthe—d'ye hear? Cut it out—right out!" His growl became a roar that shook the room and Moropulos quailed.
"It is cut out," he said sulkily. "I am confining my boozing to the 'Parthenon'. I've got to have some amusement."
"You have it, if all I hear is true," said Steppe grimly. "Give Sault a hundred, Moropulos. It is worth it. What do you do with your money, Sault? You don't spend it on fine clothes, huh?"
"He goes about doing good," said Moropulos, with a good-natured sneer. "I met him in Kensington Gardens the other day, wheeling an interesting invalid. Who was she, Sault?"
"My landlady's daughter," replied the other shortly.
"No business of yours, anyhow," growled Steppe. "You've met Miss Merville, huh? Nice lady?"
"Yes, a very nice lady," said Sault steadily. He pushed back his long gray hair from his forehead.
"Pretty, huh?"
Sault nodded and was glad when his employer had departed.
"Steppe is gone on that girl," said Moropulos. "He'd have brained you, if you had said she wasn't pretty!"
"He wouldn't have brained me," said Sault quietly.
"I suppose he wouldn't. Even Steppe would have thought twice about lifting his hand to you. He's a brute though, I saw him smash a man in the face once for calling him a liar—at a directors' meeting. It was an hour before the poor devil knew what had happened. Yes, she is pretty. I see her riding some mornings, a young Diana—delicious. I'd give a lot to be in Steppe's shoes."
"Why?"
Moropulos rolled a cigarette with extraordinary rapidity and lit it. "Why? Well, if he wants her, he'll have her. Steppe is that kind. I don't suppose the doctor would have much to say in the matter. Or she, either."
Sault picked up an iron bar from the table. It was one of four that he had brought for the purpose of strengthening the safe, and it was nearly an inch in diameter.
"I think she would have something to say," he said, weighing the bar on the palms of his hands.
And then, to the Greek's amazement, he bent the steel into a V. He used no apparent effort; the bar just changed its shape in his hands as though it had been made of lead.
"Why did you do that?" he gasped.
"I don't know," said Ambrose Sault, and with a jerk brought the steel almost straight.
"Phew!"
Moropulos took the bar from his hand.
"I shouldn't like to annoy you seriously," he said. He did not speak of Beryl again.