“I will be perfectly frank with you,” he said with an amazingly good attempt at breezy honesty. “All of my friends are not particularly nice people, and if they had any idea that you were likely to play them false, not even the consideration of tapping your vast wealth would restrain them from putting you out of the way.”
“There is such a thing,” said Westerham, lightly,“as killing the goose which lays the golden eggs.”
“Yes,” said the captain, gravely, “but even a supply of golden eggs may be retained at too dear a price.
“However,” he went on with an air of gaiety, “this is rather too serious a matter to consider to-day. I simply intended to throw out a kindly hint.”
“I'm sure you are very good,” said Westerham with a fine sarcasm. “I had not looked for you to be so completely considerate.”
“I am sorry,” said the captain, “to ask you to a meal which goes ill with your present position, but, truth to tell, as the evening is always a busy time with us, we find it more convenient to discuss our plans over high tea.”
He took out his watch and looked at it thoughtfully. “If we start now we shall be at Herne Hill at about five o'clock—that will suit us admirably.” “Very well,” said the baronet, picking up his hat, “I am ready to go when you are.”
At the hall door Sir Paul stopped and looked out into the street, and was in the act of hailing a passing cab when the captain stayed his hand.
“Oh, no,” he said, with a quiet laugh; “we take no cabs to Herne Hill from here. You will find it far more convenient to take a tram when there is a possibility that your movements are being followed with attention.”
Without another word he led the way down the Embankment, and on to Westminster Bridge, where the two men took a car to the Elephant and Castle.
From this point the captain took an omnibus,and twenty minutes later they were in the pretty and innocent and homely suburb of Herne Hill.
Stepping ahead with quick and unhesitating strides, Melun led the way up a long avenue, and turned into the gate of a pleasant garden, in which there stood a substantial red-brick house.
On his ringing the bell the door was opened by a German man-servant, and a moment later they were shown into a prettily-furnished drawing-room of the suburban type.
From a seat by the fire there arose an elderly lady dressed in decorous black silk. This was the hostess, Mrs. Bagley. Her face was broad and flat, and she had a pair of little black eyes that danced and glinted. Her grey hair was neatly parted beneath a black lace cap. Altogether she looked a particularly respectable middle-aged British matron. Her aspect, indeed, was so completely precise and prim, that when he turned from shaking hands with her, Sir Paul was almost taken aback at the utter contrast which the other woman in the room presented to Mrs. Bagley.
The other woman must in her time have been out of the common beautiful. She was beautiful even now, though her eyes were very tired and her face when in repose was hard and set. Her hair would have at once aroused suspicion that it was dyed, for it was lustrous and brilliant as burnished copper. But the suspicion would have been without justification, in the same way as would have been the notion that the very pronounced colour on the woman's cheeks was artificial too.
“Madame Estelle,” said Melun, by way of introduction, and his heavy-lidded eyes glancedquickly from the red-haired woman to Sir Paul. He noted with considerable satisfaction that the baronet was evidently much struck by the beauty of Estelle.
The third occupant of the room was a tall young man of the most unpleasant appearance.
He had very light blue eyes, closely set together, and a large, red, hawk-like nose. His hands were large and red, with immense knuckles and brutal, short, stubbed nails. Westerham took one of the huge red hands with a little shudder. It was cold and clammy and strong as a vice.
“If ever,” thought the baronet to himself, “I have touched the hand of a murderer, I have touched one now.”
The tall young man sat down by the window and carefully watched the baronet with his narrow, light blue eyes. The quick gaze of the elderly matron glinted and flashed all over Westerham's face. The captain looked at him sidelong. The red-haired woman alone gazed at him openly and frankly with eyes that were almost honestly blue.
There was a little pause while conversation hung fire. There was nothing for this curious collection of human beings to talk about except the baronet himself, and on this subject their tongues had to be silent as long as he remained.
Suddenly the door opened, and a portly man with a sallow, greasy face came quickly in. He stood still, with his hand on the panel of the door, and gave a short, quick gasp which caused the captain to look at him sharply.
And schooled as he was against the betrayal ofany feeling, Westerham himself nearly uttered an exclamation, for the man who had entered the room so suddenly was the fat man out of whom he had knocked the sense the night before.
The fat man closed the door behind him gently, and came into the centre of the room.
“Sir Paul,” said Captain Melun, “allow me to present Mr. Bagley. Mr. Bagley is the manager of a branch of a great bank, and acts as our financier.”
Mr. Bagley's sallow and greasy countenance broke into a hideously affable smile. Westerham found himself shaking hands with the man who held Lady Kathleen's secret.
The pause which followed this introduction became so embarrassing that Mrs. Bagley suggested that they should go in to tea; and in a cheerful dining-room Westerham found himself looking curiously at the collection of tea and coffee pots, whisky decanters, bacon and eggs, and muffins and cakes, which were spread promiscuously on the clean white tablecloth.
The conversation turned on many things, but for the most part upon the weather. When the little party had eaten and drunk their fill the captain rapped sharply on the table.
There was complete silence, in which Melun rose, and having first closed the window he afterwards opened the door to satisfy himself that no one listened without.
He then returned to his seat at the table and spoke quickly and in a low voice.
“I have told you,” he said rapidly,“how I met Sir Paul.”
The baronet could not resist the luxury of a sardonic little smile.
Melun saw it and winced, but went boldly on with his subject.
“It is quite excusable,” he said, “for the richest man on the earth to desire to indulge his whims, and if we can assist Sir Paul to humour his, to his own advantage and ours, then so much the better for us all. The terms which Sir Paul has offered are generous to a degree, while the risks we run are slight. Sir Paul has not pressed us in any way. He desired in return for the money he was about to hand over to us to make the acquaintance—of my friends. He has now met them, and I trust that he is at least satisfied.”
Westerham bowed.
“For the present, therefore,” the captain continued, “there remains nothing to be said and nothing to be done. We, of course, have several things to discuss, and I am sure that Sir Paul will not take it amiss if we ask him to excuse us. It is quite impossible for him to take part in our counsels. There is no immediate hurry, but still we must talk matters over before it is much later.”
Westerham rose to his feet. Truth to tell, he desired to shake off the dust of Herne Hill, not so much to enable Captain Melun's extraordinary friends to discuss their plans, but because he was sufficiently bored to wish to leave them.
To Westerham's surprise, however, Mme. Estelle rose too.
“My carriage is, I think, waiting for me,” she said in an almost gentle voice,“and if Sir Paul will allow me I will drive him back.”
Melun gave both the red-haired woman and the baronet a distinctly ugly look. He was, indeed, about to raise some objection when Mme. Estelle spoke again.
“I will see you to-morrow,” she said, turning quickly towards him.
Melun bit his lips, but said nothing, though he followed her and the baronet out of the room and saw them to the carriage, which was a well-appointed, quiet little brougham drawn by a well-bred bay.
Westerham was somewhat puzzled by all that had taken place, but he had, at any rate, quickly divined that Mme. Estelle stood in no particular fear of Melun, and both for reasons of vanity and policy he determined to show her that he himself could, as a matter of fact, exercise some authority over the evil-looking captain.
Westerham thrust his head out of the carriage as it was driving away and said sharply to Melun, “I shall expect you to-morrow at noon.”
For quite a while they drove north in silence. It was not, indeed, until they were passing through Regent Street that Mme. Estelle turned to Westerham and spoke the first word.
“Forgive my being so blunt,” she said, “but I think you are playing an exceedingly dangerous game.”
“What it is possible for a woman to do is possible for me to do,” said Westerham.
The woman sighed. “Ah, yes, possible,” she said,“and yet with you and with me things are quite different. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose—I have nothing to lose at all.”
They drove on again in silence—a long silence, during which Westerham turned many things over in his mind, and the conclusion he came to was that it would be well to have this woman for his friend.
They were driving past the graveyard of the St. John's Wood Chapel when he turned to her almost sharply and said, “Are you sure that I have nothing to gain?”
Mme. Estelle turned and looked at him quickly, and her eyes were startled; the brilliant colour had left her face.
“What do you mean?” she cried. “You are Sir Paul, aren't you?”
“Madam,” said Westerham, almost gently, “I'm sorry if I startled you. Those who run great risks always imagine that the greatest object of every other person is to accomplish their downfall. I assure you that no such motive prompted me in making the bargain I have made with Melun.”
“Then,” said the woman, “you can have no aim unless it be mere idle curiosity?”
Westerham said nothing for the moment, but five minutes later, as though he were resuming a conversation which had been abruptly broken off, he said, “I am not so sure.”
The carriage had now passed out of the Finchley Road into a quietcul-de-sac, and had drawn up before a high wooden door let into a garden wall.
Westerham assisted Mme. Estelle to alight. She asked him to ring the bell, which he did, and a second later the garden door opened by some unseen agency.
When she had stepped into the garden, Mme.Estelle beckoned to Westerham to follow her, and he stepped into the garden and stood beside her.
She closed the door to, glanced over her shoulder to see that she was not observed, and then caught Westerham by the coat.
“Sir Paul,” she cried in a low voice, “you are a young man. Do not destroy your life for a piece of folly. Cut yourself adrift from this while there is still time.”
Westerham took her hand and looked at her kindly. “Thank you,” he said; “thank you very much. But I am not only moved by folly to go on with this business. Some day I may explain to you. I do not know that I particularly care for going on, but there is no drawing back now.”
Westerham made his way back to Walter's in a slightly happier frame of mind. He liked to see his difficulties plain before him rather than to be hemmed about with mysteries that he could not understand. And difficulty seemed to be piling itself upon difficulty.
Much, of course, remained to be explained. He was not sure of the different parts which the weirdly associated people whom he had met that afternoon played in Melun's game. He could, however, make a guess, and his shrewd guess was not so wide of the mark.
Bagley, as he had learned from Melun, was the smug manager of a branch of a considerable banking firm. His wife, of course, explained herself. The young man Crow, with the large, cruel, red hands, was probably Melun's principal striking force in times of trouble. The captain himself, he imagined, furnished the brains, while Bagley supplied the finance.
But what of Mme. Estelle? That she had her part allotted to her in the strange drama unfolding itself Westerham could not doubt. But what part?
Some parts that he could conceive were almost too unpleasant to think of. Putting the thing at its best, he could not imagine that Mme. Estelle acted as less than a lure.
But what tie bound her to Melun? What tie kept her within the confines of this strange collection of human beings?
For a moment Westerham's heart grew light within him. It was possible that the tie was connected with Captain Melun. Was she his wife? If he could but establish that, then the captain's boast that he would marry Lady Kathleen was vain indeed.
Westerham decided to inquire.
He was most eager to discover the ways in which Melun and his confederates worked. If he had, indeed, been free to follow his course of curiosity unfettered he would have gone steadily forward until he had discovered the uttermost of their wrong-doing. He was, however, from the outset balked by the problem presented by Lady Kathleen, and he realised at once that it was upon the solution of this that he must set his whole mind.
Sir Paul was, indeed, confronted by a very Gordian knot of problems. He laughed a little as he made the simile to himself, until he reflected that he was not an Alexander armed with a sword who could disperse the problems at one blow. His, indeed, would be the laborious task of unravelling them one by one; nor could he see any better way than by beginning at the very beginning, which, so far as he was concerned, meant a full knowledge of Melun's intimates and surroundings.
He was quick to see that, with all the possibilities offered by a great organisation of crime, Melun must of necessity have a certain number of hardier spirits than those represented by Bagley,Mme. Estelle, or even Crow to do his rough-and-ready work. Westerham resolved to know these rough-and-readier spirits at once.
That night he did nothing except to wander down to Downing Street and stand for a little while thinking over matters at the corner of Whitehall. He stood there, indeed, for an unwise length of time, so that at last he drew upon himself the attention of the constable stationed on point duty. Perceiving this Westerham turned and walked back to his hotel, where he did his best to amuse himself by aimlessly meandering through the pages of various newspapers.
Knowing, too, that Lady Kathleen stood sufficiently in the world's eye to merit the attention of the Press, Westerham instinctively turned towards those columns which deal with the doings of Society. Nor was his search unrewarded, for before long he came across a paragraph which set forth that the Prime Minister and his daughter, the Lady Kathleen Carfax, would in two days' time give a great reception at Lord Penshurst's official residence in Downing Street.
“Now,” said Westerham to himself, “I shall see to what extent Melun speaks the truth. For, unless he is a liar, I will go to that reception myself.”
Therefore he sat down and wrote a note to Melun requesting him to call after lunch the next day.
In due course Melun came, and Westerham proceeded to speak to him on the lines he had mapped out for himself the day before. Much, indeed, to the captain's discomfort, he advanced his theorythat Melun had confederates of an entirely different type from the Bagleys and Mme. Estelle.
“In fact,” said the baronet, fixing his unpleasantly cold sea-green gaze on Melun's shifting eyes, “it is practically useless for you to dispute my arguments, and if you have any hope of my fulfilling my part of the bargain you had better introduce me to them without delay.”
Melun laughed. It was a habit of his to laugh when embarrassed.
“Really,” he said with a slightly bantering air, “you are almost too swift for me. Believe me, you are dangerously quick. It is most unwise for a man to plunge suddenly into an acquaintance with the various kinds of undesirable people which it is my misfortune to know.
“They are rather touchy about their privacy, and they are apt actively to resent intrusion. I should leave them alone. Personally, I dislike fuss of every description, but especially the kind of fuss which hurts physically.”
Then he caught a slight sneer on Westerham's mouth and reddened a little. He reddened still more when the baronet said shortly, “I thought so.”
Melun's composure, however, returned to him almost instantly. “Come, come,” he said, “it is foolish to be nasty to your friends. We all have our little failings. I have mine. Yours, it seems, is rashness; mine may be timidity. It is purely a question of constitution.”
“Constitution,” said Westerham, grimly,“is largely a question of degrees of force. On this occasion I think that force will win. Please understand me distinctly that, however rash you may think me, however foolish my haste may appear, I am determined to see the rest of your organisation without further delay.”
Melun shrugged his shoulders.
“So be it,” he said; “we shall want a couple of caps, and you will have to turn your collar up. Not even the comparatively humble bowler is particularly acceptable in Limehouse.”
“Limehouse!” exclaimed Westerham. And he smiled a pleased little smile to himself. Events were developing themselves in a sufficiently melodramatic way to be entertaining. “Limehouse,” he said again. “I was there yesterday.”
Melun drew in his breath sharply and bared his teeth in an unpleasant snarl.
“Have you been spying?” he asked coarsely.
“I don't spy,” said Westerham, coldly.
And that was sufficient.
The two men ate a rather gloomy dinner in the small hotel. Conversation lagged, for as yet they had not much in common. Each of them, however, from a different point of view, was soon to have far too much in common with the other.
Towards eight o'clock Melun rose and suggested that they should be going. Westerham provided him with a cap, and having pulled their coat collars about their ears, they climbed on board one of the Blackwall motor omnibuses.
On this they travelled as far as Leman Street, where Melun descended from the omnibus roof. Westerham followed at his heels.
They then took a tram, and for what seemed to Westerham an interminable time they travelledslowly eastward along the Commercial Road. Presently a great white tower threw into greater blackness the surrounding black of the murky sky. Westerham, as the result of his recent experiences in the East End, knew the tower to be that of Limehouse church.
Here they again alighted, and Melun walked quickly down that curious street which is known as Limehouse Cut.
Gas lamps standing at long intervals threw a very feeble and flickering light upon the small, low-built shops which traverse its western side. The light, however, was sufficient to show the curious hieroglyphics which proclaimed the tenants of those shops to be Chinese.
At the bottom of Limehouse Cut Melun turned sharp to the right, and in a little space set back from the road Westerham found himself surveying yet another of the queer little hieroglyphic-ridden shops. But there was a difference, for whereas the others were low built, this was some four storeys high. The door, too, instead of being glass-panelled, was of solid wood, and apparently of great strength.
On this Melun knocked sharply with his knuckles nine times, the first three raps being slow, the second three raps being slow, and the last three raps being quick and decisive.
Almost immediately the door swung noiselessly inwards, while from behind its corner appeared the searching, slumberous eyes of a great nigger.
The nigger was about to let Melun pass when he saw Westerham, and with a mighty arm barred the way.
“All right, all right,” said Melun, quickly. “You don't suppose that I am fool enough to bring a man here whom I cannot trust. Let him in at once.”
The negro shuffled back and allowed Westerham to squeeze himself into the narrow passage.
It was intensely dark, so the negro lifted the lantern, the slide of which had been placed hard against the wall, and held it on a level with Sir Paul's head, looking at him long and narrowly.
Then he gave a little coughing groan and shambled down the passage.
At the end of the passage the huge negro opened a second door, which swung back upon its hinges as easily and as swiftly as the first. Westerham passed into the room, and with a little thump of his heart realised, with a knowledge born of long experience of the Pacific coast, that he was in an opium den of quite unusual dimensions.
The long room ran parallel with the front of the house, but must have been some thirty feet longer than the front of the house itself. On either side and at both ends there were tiers of bunks. From three or four of them came a little red glow where some besotted fool still sucked at his pipe.
No pause, however, was made here. The negro crossed the room and opened a third door, which admitted them into a small passage. At the end of this a fourth door was opened, and Melun and Westerham stepped suddenly into a blaze of light.
Looking quickly about him, Westerham judged himself to be in a working-man's club. Half a dozen men were playing pool at a dilapidated table, while round about were little groups of men playingdominoes or cards. Framed notices set forth various rules, while at one end of the room stretched a bar.
The negro, still with the light in his hand, stood aside watching Melun uneasily. Westerham was quick to observe that he had his hand on his hip-pocket. And his smile was slightly amused and slightly anxious as one of the players looked up and gave a little cry, his cue falling from his hand and his hand going quickly to his hip also.
But Melun was first, and the revolver which he had whipped out covered the man's breast.
The man's cry aroused the instant attention of the others, and for a few moments there was what can only be described as a sort of hushed hubbub.
“All right,” said Melun in a rougher voice than Westerham had yet heard him use. “All right. Don't get scared. Don't worry. It is a new chum!”
Westerham, standing very straight, stood smiling at the astonished men before him.
The negro had set his lantern down, and was passively leaning with his back against the door.
A little man with a bullet-head and a red face got up from his seat at the end of the room and came forward with short, quick, jerky steps.
“Is this going to be a meeting?” he asked.
Melun nodded. “A meeting,” he said, “but not an oath. That I already have administered in part. The new chum is silent.”
“It is most irregular,” grumbled the man with the bullet-head.
“Never you mind,” said Melun in a hectoring voice,“it is my affair, and not yours.”
“It is our business that you bring him here,” mumbled several of the men.
“Don't you bother about things which do not concern you,” rapped out Melun, “until I have had my say. I have said this is to be a meeting, and I am waiting to give my explanation.”
At this several men turned and dragged forward a long trestle table, while others quickly set chairs about it; Melun seated himself at its head, beckoning to Westerham to seat himself at his right hand.
Still smiling, Westerham looked with his oddly disconcerting gaze along the row of faces before him. Melun, he reflected, must have searched London to have found such an exhibition of evil passions.
The men did not look at him; they looked at Melun, warily and anxiously.
“In times past,” said Melun, shortly, “you have found it just as well to trust to me. The shares of any spoils we have won have always been fairly adjusted.”
For the most part the men nodded assent.
“I have told you,” Melun continued, “that at the present time I have on hand a bigger deal than any I have yet attempted. If it comes off it will mean a cool quarter of a million.”
Westerham drew in his breath quietly; he was learning the facts indeed. The magnitude of what Melun must have at stake almost staggered him. He knew well enough that if Melun spoke to these men of a quarter of a million, the sum at which he was really aiming must be far greater.
“All right. Don't get scared. It is a new chum!”“All right. Don't get scared. It is a new chum!”
“All right. Don't get scared. It is a new chum!”
“Now, most of you,” Melun went on, “know that to pull off a thing of this sort capital is required. Our capital has run low. I have, however, been fortunate in securing the interest of this gentleman, who is more than able to furnish us with all the money I need to settle the deal.
“I may tell you that he is not new to our kind of work, only hitherto he has gone on his own.”
The men round the table nodded approval, and Westerham, while he marvelled at Melun's audacity, flushed a trifle angrily. It was unpleasant to be tarred with the same brush as these fellows. But he saw that he must sit it through.
“Now, the very fact that this gentleman has taken part in this sort of business before,” Melun went on boldly, “made him suspicious of our good faith, and he asked for an actual demonstration that we were a working concern, and he would not be satisfied until I had proved it to him. I should, of course, have asked your permission to bring him here first, but the matter is most urgent. The fate of the whole thing may have to be settled to-morrow night.”
He paused, and Westerham's blood began to run quickly through his veins.
To-morrow night! To-morrow night the Prime Minister and Lady Kathleen gave their great reception.
To-morrow night! Sir Paul wondered what connection there might be between Downing Street and Limehouse. Melun, however, continued to speak in the same suave tones.
“To-morrow, as I say,” he declared,“may settle the whole affair. Before to-morrow night I have to show this gentleman—whose name, I may inform you, is James Robinson—that we are really in earnest.
“Mr. Robinson,” he cried, turning towards Westerham, “are you satisfied?”
“I am,” said Westerham, in a very quiet voice, allowing himself just enough of American drawl to catch some of the quick ears of his listeners.
“From the States?” asked the man who sat next to him.
Westerham nodded.
Melun gave Westerham's interrogator a look as though he resented any attempt at conversation; and to prevent any further questioning he rose abruptly from the table.
The rest of the men remained seated except the bullet-headed man, who, as Melun vacated his chair, slipped into his place. They were apparently about to discuss other matters, and were following the ordinary course of procedure.
Seeing Melun rise, the negro, who all this time had been leaning against the door, lifted up his lantern again and showed them out.
They passed through the opium den, and so into the little passage, when, as the negro was fumbling at the door, Westerham heard a long, piercing scream.
It came again louder and shriller than before. There was a dreadful note of fear in it. It was the scream of a terrified girl.
Westerham whipped round on his heel towards Melun.
“What is that?” he asked sharply.
Melun shrugged his shoulders.
From Melun Westerham turned to the negro, whose teeth were bared in a wide grin.
“What is that?” Westerham demanded of him.
But the negro took his cue from Melun and merely shrugged his shoulders.
Then there came the scream again, louder and more terror-stricken than before. Westerham did not hesitate.
Before the negro had time to utter any protest he had snatched the lantern from his hand and was racing up the stairs.
Again came the scream, and Westerham blundered up the second flight, the negro and Melun hard upon his heels.
On the second landing there was no longer any doubt as to where the cries came from. Westerham dashed at the door, only to find it locked. In a second he had his shoulder against the crazy panel, and the door went in with a crash, disclosing a frowsy little sitting-room somewhat in disorder. All about was spread signs of a meal. Two girls—Westerham judged them to be young East EndJewesses—were huddled in a corner, while a man, whom Westerham at once recognised as a sailor, stood swaying drunkenly over them.
He had his hand at the man's collar in a moment, and swung him heavily backwards.
The negro, his face quivering with passion, blocked the doorway, knife in hand.
It was Westerham's turn to use firearms now, and he covered the man with as certain and as deadly an aim as that which had extorted the confession of Captain Melun on theGigantic.
The girls ceased to scream, but clung together, crying and looking at Westerham in an appealing way with eyes blurred with tears.
Melun thrust the negro aside and brushed into the room.
“You fool!” he said to Westerham, shortly, “this is enough to bring the whole crowd about your ears.”
Westerham laughed. He had known what in Western parlance is called a “rough house” before, and was prepared for all emergencies. As usual, too, when he found himself in an emergency, he was cool and smiling to the point of insolence.
“You forget,” he said to Melun, “that there is a window in this room, and beyond the window is the street. You forget, too, that one good man is worth all that crowd you seem so much afraid of. I am going to take these girls away.”
The drunken sailor, who had by this time half-recovered his senses, sat on the floor, blinking at Westerham and cursing steadily.
Melun took one quick look at Westerham's unpleasantly bright and steady gaze, and againshrugged his shoulders. But this time the shrug indicated assent.
“Very well,” he said.
Westerham again turned to the negro. “Drop that knife,” he ordered.
“Not me!” said the negro.
“Drop it!” said Westerham again.
And the man dropped it.
He turned to the shivering girls. “Come along,” he said, “let's get out of this while there is time.”
Rising unsteadily to their feet, and still clinging together, the girls moved towards the door.
“Follow me down closely,” said Westerham, and then he thrust the nozzle of his six-shooter against the negro's breast.
“Right about,” he said, “and down the stairs before me.”
Melun he ignored altogether, and the captain brought up the rear. In this wise they went down the stairs.
The hubbub, however, had attracted the attention of the men below, and two or three of them were now gathered together in the darkness of the passage, swearing angrily.
Westerham, who had taken the lantern from the negro, swung it aloft.
“Permit me to show you a light,” he cried.
They blinked as the lantern dazzled their eyes, but they did not blink so much that they failed to catch the glint of the weapon Westerham carried.
“You dog, Melun!” cried one of them, “is this your friend that is to help us all? If he goes on at this rate he will land us all in gaol.”
Melun, however, by this time saw who was thebetter man, and felt that at the present pinch he was wise to stand by Westerham.
So he cursed the men roundly and ordered them back, asking them, with pleasant oaths, how long it was since they had ceased to have faith in him.
To this altercation Westerham paid no heed. He contented himself that at his direction the negro opened the door. The girls he told to wait for him outside.
On the threshold he turned about and faced the angry men.
“The sooner you people come to recognise,” he said, “that while I am here I shall do things in my own way so much the better for you. I am not in the habit of being interfered with by scum such as yourselves.”
He purposely gave the negro a push, which sent him rolling back into the passage; then he went out and drew the door after him with a slam.
Once in the street, Melun broke into a torrent of rebuke. Westerham was of no mind to listen to him and cut him short. Turning to the girls, he said:
“Walk whichever way you have to go, and I will follow and see that you are not molested.”
The girls would have hung round him to thank him, but he ordered them to walk on quickly, and then taking Melun's arm in the grip of his hand, he followed them till they had gained the main road.
There he did not even take the trouble to nod the girls good-bye, but bundled Melun into a tram running westward.
They were alone on the top of the car, and Melunendeavoured to speak again, but Westerham told him roughly to be silent.
He said no word, indeed, until they were back in the hotel. The captain was beyond protesting; he appeared dazed and cowed by the swiftness with which Westerham had wrested his authority from him and practically fought his way out of Limehouse.
In the little sitting-room, Westerham with great precision poured out a couple of whisky-and-sodas and handed Melun a cigar.
“You will not understand me the better by sulking or skulking,” he said. “I would suggest to you that even if you are not one you had better try to be a man.”
Melun winced, and was about to reply angrily, when Westerham again cut him short.
“Listen to me,” he said sharply. “I realise that while I am associated with you for my own ends I shall have to close my eyes to a great many matters not exactly permitted by the law of this country. That contingency, however, I was from the first prepared to face. There are, however, certain things which you had better at once understand I do not permit.”
“You do not permit!” Melun almost yelled.
“That I do not permit,” repeated Westerham, coldly. “And one of them is such a scene as I have witnessed to-night.”
His sea-green eyes were now blazing, and his mouth was shut like a trap.
“I have been introduced as your friend,” he continued,“and therefore I propose to visit Limehouse whensoever I choose.”
“But you cannot,” cried Melun.
“Oh, yes, my dear man, but I can, and, what is more, I mean to. You had better leave that to me. I already see that I am more qualified to deal with those ruffians down yonder than you are. I am not the least alarmed by their blustering, however much you may be.
“And so,” he went on, “I would have you understand clearly and without any mistake that I will have no women fetched into that den of iniquity on any pretext whatsoever. You understand me?”
Melun nodded feebly. He was completely crushed and beaten.
“Henceforward, too,” Westerham continued, “I am going to adopt a different attitude towards you. Once, I confess, I had a few uneasy feelings that, with what you are pleased to call your ‘endless resources,’ you might do me some injury. A good many people disappear in London, and I fancied for a little while I might become one of the lost ones, but, heavens! it is amazing to think that I should ever have felt the least disquiet. You and your precious friends are cowards, every one of you.
“However, we will leave that subject now and proceed to another which is of more importance and interest to me.”
Draining his whisky-and-soda, Westerham leaned back in his chair and smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes, keeping his gaze on the pale and cowering Melun.
Then he reached out for the newspaper, in which during the afternoon he had read that the PrimeMinister was to give a reception on the morrow. Folding it carefully so as to mark the place, Westerham laid the paper down beside Melun and tapped the all-important paragraph with a quick, incisive finger.
“I would recall to your mind,” he said to the captain, “that I explained to you on theGiganticthat my sole object in returning to London was to make the acquaintance of the girl in the picture—the girl you informed me was the Lady Kathleen Carfax. Now I find you, even on this short acquaintance, such a braggart that I am inclined to doubt everything you say. So I am going to test your boast that you know Lady Kathleen, and that you have theentréeto Lord Penshurst's house. Did you lie to me on that matter or did you not?”
“I did not,” said Melun, with some signs of returning spirit.
In his excitement he would indeed have leapt from his chair, but Westerham gave him a little push in the chest which sat him down again.
“Not so fast,” he said, “you are here to listen to what I have to say.
“You tell me,” he continued, after a slight pause, “that what you said was true. In that case I demand as part of our bargain that you should take me to Lord Penshurst's to-morrow night.”
Melun became livid. “I will never do it,” he cried.
“You will not?” inquired Westerham with a little laugh.“Surely it was part of our agreement that you should introduce me to all your friends. If you fail to keep that agreement, then I shall fail to keep mine; and I fancy that some of the authorities will be extremely interested in what I shall be able to tell them.”
Melun looked helplessly and almost pleadingly at Westerham. “But what you ask now,” he complained, “is quite impossible.”
“Why?”
Melun mumbled, and Westerham's quick mind instinctively found the right reason for the captain's distress. He debated whether he should mention the Hyde Park affair of the night before. Had Bagley told him? He was doubtful. And if Bagley had not told then the revelation might be awkward. He had no wish to drive Melun so hard that he would turn and become obstinately intractable.
Moreover, if he said anything then he would certainly never discover from Melun what hold he had upon Lady Kathleen and her father. It would be better, he reflected, to smooth matters over and let events take their own course. In following his method, he felt assured the opportunity of fathoming the mystery must inevitably come to him.
So when he spoke next to Melun it was a little less curtly. “You will hardly deny,” he said, “that your presence in Lord Penshurst's house must be unwelcome. Do you hesitate to take me there because you think that in so doing I might possibly be tarred with the same brush as yourself?”
“What do you mean?” asked Melun, savagely, and there crept into his eyes an embarrassed, even a hunted look.
“I meant nothing at all except that, in spite of everything, you must make it convenient to have me included among the guests.”
Melun appeared to think deeply for a few moments and then nodded acquiescence. “Very well,” he said grumpily, and closed the matter for that night.
On the following evening Melun arrived at the Walter's Hotel sleek and smiling. His face was as smooth as his shirt-front, and his manner as pleasant as the cut of his coat.
Westerham met him in the hall and nodded to him with an almost friendly smile. Presently they drove down to Downing Street.
When Lady Kathleen had entered into possession of No. 10 as hostess she had turned the rather dowdy old house upside down, and decorators and upholsterers had done all they could to make the old-fashioned building pleasant and graceful.
It was now about half-past ten, and the crush was very great. The Prime Minister, handsome and white-bearded, stood apart with Lady Kathleen to receive the guests.
As Melun pressed forward his gaze darted in all directions as though in the endeavour to find the eyes of friends or at least acquaintances. And many men nodded to him and many women smiled on him.
Though he had been away from England so long, all Westerham's knowledge of great social events came back to him, and he followed Melun easily and unembarrassed by the scores of eyes which looked at him with questioning and admiration.
For his immense height alone attracted attention, while wherever his strange, bright, sea-greenglance fell there was left behind a little recollection which would never be quite effaced.
As he skilfully edged his way nearer to the Prime Minister, Westerham suffered a little pang of remorse. It occurred to him that he was taking Lady Kathleen at a somewhat unfair advantage. He had even half a mind to draw back, fearing lest his unlooked-for appearance might cause her an embarrassment which might become obvious to all beholders, but he reflected that a girl who had displayed such courage and such coolness was more than likely to be equal to the occasion. None the less, he endeavoured, so far as he could, to soften the shock of their meeting, and to this end he looked over the heads and shoulders of the tightly-packed people before him, seeking Lady Kathleen's eyes.
Suddenly her wandering glance met his fixed one, and for a second Westerham's heart softened within him as he saw her pupils momentarily shrink and then dilate as though with terror. But the contraction and dilation of her pupils were so swift that no one but an expectant observer would have noted the change. Her face paled a little and then flushed, and Westerham, from the long-continued habit of studying people's emotions, realised with distress that it was the flush of fear rather than the flush of confusion.
By this time Melun had won his way to the Prime Minister's hand, and Westerham followed him closely. Lord Penshurst lifted his shrewd old eyes to Westerham's face with a long, searching gaze. And over his face there swept a sudden change of expression. As Melun had whisperedhis name the old man's face had taken a hard and almost dogged look, but instantly it softened, and he looked at Westerham long with something akin to wondering pity in his eyes.
Westerham smiled back frankly, laughing a little to himself at the change in the Prime Minister's expression. He was quick to see that Lord Penshurst had evidently regarded him at first as an enemy, as a man to be avoided, as a man introduced by Melun for some sinister motive. Then suddenly, from the very honesty and openness of Westerham's face, the Premier had changed about to the opinion that he was Melun's dupe—that he was a new pigeon fit for the captain's plucking. For Westerham by this time had not a shadow of a doubt that Lord Penshurst was only too intimately acquainted with the extent of Melun's evil doings.
With Lady Kathleen, however, things were otherwise. Westerham had noted that to the other man she had merely bowed, but to him she held out her hand, and for a second grasped his warmly.
The all-observant Prime Minister glanced sidewise at his daughter, and his mobile face changed again in its expression to one of astonishment. Westerham saw the dry old lips tighten in the white beard, and was somewhat taken aback. He guessed, and guessed rightly enough, that Lady Kathleen had not told him of her effort to save her father's honour.
So great was the crush that Westerham had no time to say any word to Lady Kathleen—at least not then. But as he moved away he was conscious that the dark, shining eyes followed him with a little look of appeal.
He was so certain of this that he turned his head about and found his instinct true; so he nodded back with a little friendly smile as though he had known her for many years. It was a smile which seemed to say, “Very well, I will see you by-and-by.”
Melun intercepted the smile and scowled, and almost immediately moved back in a further endeavour to gain Lady Kathleen's side.
Westerham wandered aimlessly to a doorway, and there, following the immemorial privilege of bored young men at a dance or a crush, leant against the lintel and surveyed the scene before him with slightly tolerant amusement.
In half an hour or so the people had thinned a little; all the guests had made their bows, and some of them had even taken their departure.
It was then that Westerham noticed Lady Kathleen and the Prime Minister standing a little apart conversing earnestly in whispers, and at the same time doing their best not to attract attention.
From the corner of his eye Westerham saw Lady Kathleen flush once or twice and was conscious that the Prime Minister stabbed him two or three times with his shrewd old eyes.
Then Melun sauntered up to them, and succeeded in detaching Lady Kathleen from her father. They moved away together, and Westerham wondered what ill-begotten scheme Melun was furthering now. For another ten minutes, therefore, he hung idly in the doorway till he saw Melun come back alone and take the Prime Minister on one side. They were conversing rapidly, and Westerham could plainly see that Lord Penshurstwas by no means pleased. There was, indeed, on his face an expression of cold rage such as Westerham had never seen on any man's face before. Melun, too, appeared a trifle disconcerted, and this was a joy to Westerham, for he was right in supposing that Melun had hoped to see fear rather than anger in Lord Penshurst's face.
Westerham was, however, not so interested in this conversation as he was in the finding of Lady Kathleen, so he moved across the room and through the doorway in search of the Premier's daughter.
The room beyond was crowded, and Westerham passed on to a third room in which there were fewer people. Still he could discern no signs of Lady Kathleen.
But just ahead of him he saw the dark entrance to what apparently was a landing. He moved towards this, and found himself suddenly face to face with her. She was sitting almost huddled up in a little chair at the foot of the staircase.
As she saw him approach she lifted up both her hands as though to thrust him away, and her face from deadly white flushed to a bright crimson.
“No, no!” she cried in a low tone, “let matters rest as they are. I shook hands with you just now, but I did not know that you had come—with that man.”
“You think he is my friend?” asked Westerham, gently.
“How can I doubt it?” asked Lady Kathleen.
“Well,” said Westerham, with a quiet little laugh, “I admit that he appears to be, but that is to suit my purpose and to gain my own ends.”
“I thought so,” she murmured.
“Yes, yes,” replied Westerham, quickly, “but don't misunderstand me—my ends may be selfish, but they are not criminal.”
Lady Kathleen started violently.
Westerham glanced about him to see that they were unobserved; he found that they were quite alone.
“I must speak quickly,” he said, “as I know it is impossible for you to stay here long, but please hear me out.
“That night,” he nodded in the direction of the Park, “I knew nothing. I do not know very much now, except that I have discovered a connecting link between Bagley and Melun. Why they persecute you and your father I do not know; I wish I did, for I would then, perhaps, be able to help you. These men are knaves and cowards, and they are also fools. I do not want to boast, but one good man could easily defeat them. Why not tell me what troubles you?”
Lady Kathleen looked at him appealingly and doubtfully, then she rose to her feet.
“I must not. I do not know who you are, or even what your name is, and although you seem to be Melun's friend, I feel that I might trust you; but, oh! if you were persecuted as we are persecuted you would trust no man.”
Westerham was about to persuade her further, but at this moment her father came quickly through the doorway.
“Kathleen!” he cried.
The girl started up and caught her father's arm. The old man turned quickly towards Westerham; his face was ablaze with passion.
“As for you, sir,” he cried in a low voice, “leave my house, leave my house at once.”
Westerham threw out a deprecating hand.
“If you will only hear me, Lord Penshurst.”
“I have told that scoundrel Melun that I will have no further dealing with him or any of his crew.”
“But I—” urged Westerham.
“Be silent,” cried the Prime Minister in a voice of suppressed fury. “Do you think that you have not heaped sufficient dishonour on my head already? But there is a point beyond which you shall not go. I will not have my house and my daughter degraded in this way.”
It took all Westerham's self-control to master himself now. It cut him like a whip to feel himself regarded as of the same breed as Melun. But he saw it would be utterly useless and would only provoke a scene to argue with the bitter old man. So, making a formal little bow to Lady Kathleen, he left them.
In the outer room he found Melun; he took him by the arm and said very quickly, “Come along, I want to speak to you.”
Melun gave him one almost quizzical look and accompanied him without speaking.
As a matter of fact, he found it rather awkward to say anything at all, and did not attempt to break the silence in which Westerham drove back to the hotel.
Westerham himself was baffled, and yet he had ascertained one thing which was likely to be of infinite use to him. He had discovered that there was, without doubt, a definite connection between the game which Melun was playing and Bagley's attempt to steal Lady Kathleen's diamonds.
That was sufficient for the night.
Still his impatience, or perhaps one had better say his desire, to get at the actual facts prompted him to take Melun into Walter's Hotel and subject him to a close cross-examination.
Melun, however, had recovered from his perturbation of the night before, and, moreover, was apparently intoxicated by the effect of rubbing shoulders with the great ones of the earth at the Prime Minister's reception. Therefore he was in a far less tractable frame of mind than was pleasant to Westerham. The captain, indeed, had got back that self-possession and cool audacity ofwhich he had made such good use on theGigantic. Westerham realised this at once, and at the outset dealt very gently with Melun.
“Don't you think,” he began softly, “that you had better make a clean breast of it?”
“Not at all,” answered Melun. “I have no desire to shock you, and a man who is disturbed by the yelling of a couple of girls is not likely to take what I might tell him in a particularly cool manner.”
Westerham's bright, sea-green eyes hardened.
“I have told you,” he said in a more menacing tone, “that if you want to indulge in villainy you have got to keep women out of it. Now, whatever your scheme may be, it cannot be of very particular magnitude unless it has to do with the Premier. I fail to see where Lady Kathleen comes into the matter at all.”
“Perhaps you do,” Melun answered, “but then you are unacquainted with the details, and I don't propose to enlighten you. I agreed to betray the secrets of the prison house, or rather to let you see how my friends work, but I did not agree to tell you of every piece of business in which I was engaged.”
“On this occasion, I fancy,” said Westerham, “you will find it convenient to unburden your mind.”
But Captain Melun only laughed. “Not so,” he said.
Westerham was as near to exasperation as he ever allowed himself to get.
“I don't want to coerce you,” he remarked grimly.
“You had better not try,” Melun answered. “There is one thing which apparently you have not taken into your calculations. You forget that Lord Penshurst—I admit that your suspicions of a tie between us are correct—is quite as much interested in keeping me silent as I am in keeping silent myself.”
Westerham had foreseen this point, and was prepared with an answer.
“You forget,” he said, “that it might suit my convenience to become Lord Penshurst's friend.”
“Have a care,” cried Melun, angrily; “you don't know what you say.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Westerham.
“I mean,” said Melun, softly, “that I can strike back where it will hit you most.”
Instinctively Westerham clenched his hands.
“Possibly,” he said, “but you cannot blackmail me, and though since I met you first I knew you were a blackmailer, I did not know you aimed so high as to blackmail the Prime Minister.”
He paused for a few moments before he spoke again; when he did his voice was even and low; but Melun did not like the ring in it.
“In fact,” Westerham resumed,“I have seen enough to convince me that what you are after must be very big game indeed. What it is, of course, I do not know, and it would simply be idle on my part to pretend that I did. But I have the capacity of being infinitely patient, and sooner or later I shall find out. I will not press you because I think that I should simply land myself into difficulties, which would make matters harder than they are.”
He rose and walked over to the door, and held it open. “For the present,” he said, “you may go, but if I were you I would not fail to appear when you are sent for.”
Melun took up his hat and stick and laughed lightly.
“It suits me very well,” he said, “to come when I am bid, but possibly you may not find me quite so pliant in the future. Good-night!”
Going straight up to his room, Westerham slept like a child till about six o'clock. He preferred to do his clear thinking in the early morning. Now he thought long and hard for two hours. He argued the matter out with himself in all its respects, and though he had determined not to take a bold course with Melun on the previous night, he was now convinced that the only way was to take a bold course with Lady Kathleen.
He had not seen Dunton among the guests at the reception, but, of course, there could be no doubt that Lady Kathleen was well acquainted with that entirely charming and honest, if somewhat vacuous, young peer.
It was therefore with the intention of revealing his identity to Lady Kathleen and explaining the whole position to her that about noon he made his way down Whitehall and rang the queer little bell of No. 10 Downing Street.
As he waited on the door-step, however, he was a little disconcerted to observe that the blinds were drawn down, and immediately the door was opened he instinctively knew that the house was, for his purpose at least, empty.
None the less, he asked for Lady Kathleen, onlyto be met with the grave reply that her ladyship had left that morning by motor car for Trant Hall, in Hertfordshire.
Without any display of discomposure Westerham nodded the man his thanks for the information and retraced his steps to the hotel. The departure of Lady Kathleen to some slight extent unsettled his mind. He reflected that perhaps he had been a little too hasty in his decision to tell her everything.
There was the possibility that she would disbelieve him, and the possibility, moreover, that she would tell her father; and if she told her father there was the further possibility that the Premier would be adamant in his refusal to disclose his troubles. And in that case he would be absolutely baulked. Westerham was a keen judge of character, and he saw that if her father refused to speak Lady Kathleen would refuse to speak too.
Then indeed he would be in a quandary, for he would be entirely cut off from those whom he wished to befriend, even if he did not excite their active hostility.
Upon these reflections he instantly decided to alter his mind, comforting himself on this score with the dictum that it is only the dead who never change.
But though he decided to withhold his identity, he was resolved to make one last effort to induce Lady Kathleen to confide in him.
With this idea he turned back, not to his hotel, but to his rooms in Bruton Street, from which he had been absent for so long without explanation.
There he was met on the threshold by the entirelyimmaculate and discreet servant with whom the youthful, but worldly-wise, Lord Dunton had provided him.
The man's eyes revealed nothing. He merely bowed and waited, with that urbane silence which characterises the best kind of English servant.
The man's face, indeed, expressed no surprise even at the rather shabby clothes which Westerham was wearing, though Westerham himself knew well enough that he must have remarked them.
“While I am getting into other things,” he said, “you had better telephone round for my car.”
The man bowed. It was the first time that his extraordinary new master had thought of using the very magnificent motor car which he had casually bought in the course of an afternoon's walk. In about twenty minutes Westerham came out of his room again, looking, if not altogether a different man, at least a better-dressed one.
Westerham was conscious that his servant surveyed him with approval as he offered him lunch. He accepted it, as he was hungry; moreover, he knew that he could reach Trant Hall well within two hours, and he had no desire to arrive too soon. The chauffeur, also supplied by Lord Dunton, was the same manner of man as his valet. Westerham appreciated the fact, but was not as thankful as he became later, when he discovered that a silent and discreet and civil chauffeur was a distinctly uncommon type of human being.
Having made up his mind as to his immediate course of action, Westerham thought no more about the matter. It was not his habit to think what he should say when he met a certain man or a certainwoman. He believed in the inspiration of the moment; and his inspiration was seldom wrong.
About four o'clock the chauffeur informed him that they were nearing Trant Hall, and then it occurred to Westerham that it might possibly be unwise to make too bold an entry into the grounds. In consequence he stopped at the lodge and inquired for Lady Kathleen.
Her ladyship, he was told, had not many minutes before called there herself. She was believed to be now on her way to the deer park. Having asked where this lay, Westerham got out of the car and proceeded on foot down the leafy avenue. At the end of the avenue there was a high wall, in which there was a break. A flight of stone steps led up to the break, and these he climbed.
On the top he paused, being struck by the remarkable beauty of the scene. For from the wall the green turf sloped downwards, while before him and on either side stretched a magnificent forest of giant beech trees.
He had taken the precaution to inquire whether it were possible for Lady Kathleen to return from the deer park by any other route, and had received an answer in the negative. Therefore he decided it would be waste of time for him to go in search of her, seeing that she must come back by the same way.
Meanwhile he sat down on the top of the steps, and, lighting a cigarette, gave himself over to patient waiting.
Some thirty minutes passed before he caught a glimpse of a moving figure amid some distant trees. The figure grew in size and in distinctness of outline,and then he saw Lady Kathleen coming slowly towards him.
Her face was bent on the ground, and her whole figure seemed for the moment old and bowed. Her appearance, indeed, gave him a little pang of sorrow.
He realised that when she saw him she must suffer some slight shock. That, however, was inevitable, and so he sat waiting for her to raise her head.
Presently, as she came nearer the wall, she lifted up her eyes, and a little cry escaped her lips as she saw Westerham sitting there. She stopped dead in her walk and stood still, holding her hand against her heart.
Westerham knew that she must have time to recover before he spoke, so he merely removed his hat and, moving forward, stood bareheaded before her.
A little of her old spirit came back to her as she looked up at him. There was almost a glimmer of amusement in her eyes, but whatever humour she might have felt at his appearance was drowned in her obvious anxiety. She might well have been angry with him, but she kept her sad composure.
“Do you think,” she asked, with an appealing gesture of her hands, “it is quite fair to torment me in this way?”
“You would not ask me that,” said Westerham, “if you did believe me to be an honest man.”
She passed her hand rather wearily across her forehead.
“I hardly know,” she said in a slightly shaky voice,“exactly what to think.”
She lifted her eyes again to his as though to search him through and through.
“At any rate,” asked Westerham, with a smile, “have you a sufficiently good opinion of me to grant me just a few moments to say something?”
“It seems I cannot help myself,” she said, with a pained little laugh.
“Lady Kathleen,” he answered earnestly, “you are very much upset. I assure you that if you will only hear me out you will not regret it—at least you may rest assured that you will be free from any insult or annoyance.
“It will take me some few minutes to explain,” he went on, “and so I think it would be best for you to sit down.”
Without waiting for an answer he took her by the hand and led her gently to the steps. She sank down on them with a heavy sigh.