The three diners lingered for only a short time over their dessert. Afterwards, they passed together into a very delightful library on the other side of the round, stone-paved hall. Hilditch excused himself for a moment.
“I have some cigars which I keep in my dressing-room,” he explained, “and which I am anxious for you to try. There is an electric stove there and I can regulate the temperature.”
He departed, closing the door behind him. Francis came a little further into the room. His hostess, who had subsided into an easy-chair and was holding a screen between her face and the fire, motioned him to, seat himself opposite. He did so without words. He felt curiously and ridiculously tongue-tied. He fell to studying the woman instead of attempting the banality of pointless speech. From the smooth gloss of her burnished hair, to the daintiness of her low, black brocaded shoes, she represented, so far as her physical and outward self were concerned, absolute perfection. No ornament was amiss, no line or curve of her figure other than perfectly graceful. Yet even the fire's glow which she had seemed to dread brought no flush of colour to her cheeks. Her appearance of complete lifelessness remained. It was as though some sort of crust had formed about her being, a condition which her very physical perfection seemed to render the more incomprehensible.
“You are surprised to see me here living with my husband, after what I told you yesterday afternoon?” she said calmly, breaking at last the silence which had reigned between them.
“I am,” he admitted.
“It seems unnatural to you, I suppose?”
“Entirely.”
“You still believe all that I told you?”
“I must.”
She looked at the door and raised her head a little, as though either listening or adjudging the time before her husband would return. Then she glanced across at him once more.
“Hatred,” she said, “does not always drive away. Sometimes it attracts. Sometimes the person who hates can scarcely bear the other out of his sight. That is where hate and love are somewhat alike.”
The room was warm but Francis was conscious of shivering. She raised her finger warningly. It seemed typical of the woman, somehow, that the message could not be conveyed by any glance or gesture.
“He is coming,” she whispered.
Oliver Hilditch reappeared, carrying cigars wrapped in gold foil which he had brought with him from Cuba, the tobacco of which was a revelation to his guest. The two men smoked and sipped their coffee and brandy. The woman sat with half-closed eyes. It was obvious that Hilditch was still in the mood for speech.
“I will tell you, Mr. Ledsam,” he said, “why I am so happy to have you here this evening. In the first place, I desire to tender you once more my thanks for your very brilliant efforts on my behalf. The very fact that I am able to offer you hospitality at all is without a doubt due to these.”
“I only did what I was paid to do,” Francis insisted, a little harshly. “You must remember that these things come in the day's work with us.”
His host nodded.
“Naturally,” he murmured. “There was another reason, too, why I was anxious to meet you, Mr. Ledsam,” he continued. “You have gathered already that I am something of a crank. I have a profound detestation of all sentimentality and affected morals. It is a relief to me to come into contact with a man who is free from that bourgeois incubus to modern enterprise—a conscience.”
“Is that your estimate of me?” Francis asked.
“Why not? You practise your profession in the criminal courts, do you not?”
“That is well-known,” was the brief reply.
“What measure of conscience can a man have,” Oliver Hilditch argued blandly, “who pleads for the innocent and guilty alike with the same simulated fervour? Confess, now, Mr. Ledsam—there is no object in being hypocritical in this matter—have you not often pleaded for the guilty as though you believed them innocent?”
“That has sometimes been my duty,” Francis acknowledged.
Hilditch laughed scornfully.
“It is all part of the great hypocrisy of society,” he proclaimed. “You have an extra glass of champagne for dinner at night and are congratulated by your friends because you have helped some poor devil to cheat the law, while all the time you know perfectly well, and so do your high-minded friends, that your whole attitude during those two hours of eloquence has been a lie. That is what first attracted me to you, Mr. Ledsam.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” Francis commented coldly. “The ethics of my profession—”
His host stopped him with a little wave of the hand.
“Spare me that,” he begged. “While we are on the subject, though, I have a question to ask you. My lawyer told me, directly after he had briefed you, that, although it would make no real difference to your pleading, it would be just as well for me to keep up my bluff of being innocent, even in private conversation with you. Why was that?”
“For the very obvious reason,” Francis told him, “that we are not all such rogues and vagabonds as you seem to think. There is more satisfaction to me, at any rate, in saving an innocent man's life than a guilty one's.”
Hilditch laughed as though amused.
“Come,” he threatened, “I am going to be ill-natured. You have shown signs of smugness, a quality which I detest. I am going to rob you of some part of your self-satisfaction. Of course I killed Jordan. I killed him in the very chair in which you are now sitting.”
There was a moment's intense silence. The woman was still fanning herself lazily. Francis leaned forward in his place.
“I do not wish to hear this!” he exclaimed harshly.
“Don't be foolish,” his host replied, rising to his feet and strolling across the room. “You know the whole trouble of the prosecution. They couldn't discover the weapon, or anything like it, with which the deed was done. Now I'll show you something ingenious.”
Francis followed the other's movements with fascinated eyes. The woman scarcely turned her head. Hilditch paused at the further end of the room, where there were a couple of gun cases, some fishing rods and a bag, of golf clubs. From the latter he extracted a very ordinary-looking putter, and with it in his hands strolled back to them.
“Do you play golf, Ledsam?” he asked. “What do you think of that?”
Francis took the putter into his hand. It was a very ordinary club, which had apparently seen a good deal of service, so much, indeed, that the leather wrapping at the top was commencing to unroll. The maker's name was on the back of the blade, also the name of the professional from whom it had been purchased. Francis swung the implement mechanically with his wrists.
“There seems to be nothing extraordinary about the club,” he pronounced. “It is very much like a cleek I putt with myself.”
“Yet it contains a secret which would most certainly have hanged me,” Oliver Hilditch declared pleasantly. “See!”
He held the shaft firmly in one hand and bent the blade away from it. In a moment or two it yielded and he commenced to unscrew it. A little exclamation escaped from Francis' lips. The woman looked on with tired eyes.
“The join in the steel,” Hilditch pointed out, “is so fine as to be undistinguishable by the naked eye. Yet when the blade comes off, like this, you see that although the weight is absolutely adjusted, the inside is hollow. The dagger itself is encased in this cotton wool to avoid any rattling. I put it away in rather a hurry the last time I used it, and as you see I forgot to clean it.”
Francis staggered back and gripped at the mantelpiece. His eyes were filled with horror. Very slowly, and with the air of one engaged upon some interesting task, Oliver Hilditch had removed the blood-stained sheath of cotton wool from around the thin blade of a marvellous-looking stiletto, on which was also a long stain of encrusted blood.
“There is a handle,” he went on, “which is perhaps the most ingenious thing of all. You touch a spring here, and behold!”
He pressed down two tiny supports which opened upon hinges about four inches from the top of the handle. There was now a complete hilt.
“With this little weapon,” he explained, “the point is so sharpened and the steel so wonderful that it is not necessary to stab. It has the perfection of a surgical instrument. You have only to lean it against a certain point in a man's anatomy, lunge ever so little and the whole thing is done. Come here, Mr. Ledsam, and I will show you the exact spot.”
Francis made no movement. His eyes were fixed upon the weapon.
“If I had only known!” he muttered.
“My dear fellow, if you had,” the other protested soothingly, “you know perfectly well that it would not have made the slightest difference. Perhaps that little break in your voice would not have come quite so naturally, the little sweep of your arm towards me, the man whom a moment's thoughtlessness might sweep into Eternity, would have been a little stiffer, but what matter? You would still have done your best and you would probably still have succeeded. You don't care about trifling with Eternity, eh? Very well, I will find the place for you.”
Hilditch's fingers strayed along his shirt-front until he found a certain spot. Then he leaned the dagger against it, his forefinger and second finger pressed against the hilt. His eyes were fixed upon his guest's. He seemed genuinely interested. Francis, glancing away for a moment, was suddenly conscious of a new horror. The woman had leaned a little forward in her easy-chair until she had attained almost a crouching position. Her eyes seemed to be measuring the distance from where she sat to that quivering thread of steel.
“You see, Ledsam,” his host went on, “that point driven now at that angle would go clean through the vital part of my heart. And it needs no force, either—just the slow pressure of these two fingers. What did you say, Margaret?” he enquired, breaking off abruptly.
The woman was seated upon the very edge of her chair, her eyes rivetted upon the dagger. There was no change in her face, not a tremor in her tone.
“I said nothing,” she replied. “I did not speak at all. I was just watching.”
Hilditch turned back to his guest.
“These two fingers,” he repeated, “and a flick of the wrist—very little more than would be necessary for a thirty yard putt right across the green.”
Francis had recovered himself, had found his bearings to a certain extent.
“I am sorry that you have told me this, Mr. Hilditch,” he said, a little stiffly.
“Why?” was the puzzled reply. “I thought you would be interested.”
“I am interested to this extent,” Francis declared, “I shall accept no more cases such as yours unless I am convinced of my client's innocence. I look upon your confession to me as being in the worst possible taste, and I regret very much my efforts on your behalf.”
The woman was listening intently. Hilditch's expression was one of cynical wonder. Francis rose to his feet and moved across to his hostess.
“Mrs. Hilditch,” he said, “will you allow me to make my apologies? Your husband and I have arrived at an understanding—or perhaps I should say a misunderstanding—which renders the acceptance of any further hospitality on my part impossible.”
She held out the tips of her fingers.
“I had no idea,” she observed, with gentle sarcasm, “that you barristers were such purists morally. I thought you were rather proud of being the last hope of the criminal classes.”
“Madam,” Francis replied, “I am not proud of having saved the life of a self-confessed murderer, even though that man may be your husband.”
Hilditch was laughing softly to himself as he escorted his departing guest to the door.
“You have a quaint sense of humour,” Francis remarked.
“Forgive me,” Oliver Hilditch begged, “but your last few words rather appealed to me. You must be a person of very scanty perceptions if you could spend the evening here and not understand that my death is the one thing in the world which would make my wife happy.”
Francis walked home with these last words ringing in his ears. They seemed with him even in that brief period of troubled sleep which came to him when he had regained his rooms and turned in. They were there in the middle of the night when he was awakened, shivering, by the shrill summons of his telephone bell. He stood quaking before the instrument in his pajamas. It was the voice which, by reason of some ghastly premonition, he had dreaded to hear—level, composed, emotionless.
“Mr. Ledsam?” she enquired.
“I am Francis Ledsam,” he assented. “Who wants me?”
“It is Margaret Hilditch speaking,” she announced. “I felt that I must ring up and tell you of a very strange thing which happened after you left this evening.”
“Go on,” he begged hoarsely.
“After you left,” she went on, “my husband persisted in playing with that curious dagger. He laid it against his heart, and seated himself in the chair which Mr. Jordan had occupied, in the same attitude. It was what he called a reconstruction. While he was holding it there, I think that he must have had a fit, or it may have been remorse, we shall never know. He called out and I hurried across the room to him. I tried to snatch the dagger away—I did so, in fact—but I must have been too late. He had already applied that slight movement of the fingers which was necessary. The doctor has just left. He says that death must have been instantaneous.”
“But this is horrible!” Francis cried out into the well of darkness.
“A person is on the way from Scotland Yard,” the voice continued, without change or tremor. “When he has satisfied himself, I am going to bed. He is here now. Good-night!”
Francis tried to speak again but his words beat against a wall of silence. He sat upon the edge of the bed, shivering. In that moment of agony he seemed to hear again the echo of Oliver Hilditch's mocking words:
“My death is the one thing in the world which would make my wife happy!”
There was a good deal of speculation at the Sheridan Club, of which he was a popular and much envied member, as to the cause for the complete disappearance from their midst of Francis Ledsam since the culmination of the Hilditch tragedy.
“Sent back four topping briefs, to my knowledge, last week,” one of the legal luminaries of the place announced to a little group of friends and fellow-members over a before-dinner cocktail.
“Griggs offered him the defence of William Bull, the Chippenham murderer, and he refused it,” another remarked. “Griggs wrote him personally, and the reply came from the Brancaster Golf Club! It isn't like Ledsam to be taking golfing holidays in the middle of the session.”
“There's nothing wrong with Ledsam,” declared a gruff voice from the corner. “And don't gossip, you fellows, at the top of your voices like a lot of old women. He'll be calling here for me in a moment or two.”
They all looked around. Andrew Wilmore rose slowly to his feet and emerged from behind the sheets of an evening paper. He laid his hand upon the shoulder of a friend, and glanced towards the door.
“Ledsam's had a touch of nerves,” he confided. “There's been nothing else the matter with him. We've been down at the Dormy House at Brancaster and he's as right as a trivet now. That Hilditch affair did him in completely.”
“I don't see why,” one of the bystanders observed. “He got Hilditch off all right. One of the finest addresses to a jury I ever heard.”
“That's just the point,” Wilmore explained “You see, Ledsam had no idea that Hilditch was really guilty, and for two hours that afternoon he literally fought for his life, and in the end wrested a verdict from the jury, against the judge's summing up, by sheer magnetism or eloquence or whatever you fellows like to call it. The very night after, Hilditch confesses his guilt and commits suicide.”
“I still don't see where Ledsam's worry comes in,” the legal luminary remarked. “The fact that the man was guilty is rather a feather in the cap of his counsel. Shows how jolly good his pleading must have been.”
“Just so,” Wilmore agreed, “but Ledsam, as you know, is a very conscientious sort of fellow, and very sensitive, too. The whole thing was a shock to him.”
“It must have been a queer experience,” a novelist remarked from the outskirts of the group, “to dine with a man whose life you have juggled away from the law, and then have him explain his crime to you, and the exact manner of its accomplishment. Seems to bring one amongst the goats, somehow.”
“Bit of a shock, no doubt,” the lawyer assented, “but I still don't understand Ledsam's sending back all his briefs. He's not going to chuck the profession, is he?”
“Not by any means,” Wilmore declared. “I think he has an idea, though, that he doesn't want to accept any briefs unless he is convinced that the person whom he has to represent is innocent, and lawyers don't like that sort of thing, you know. You can't pick and choose, even when you have Leadsam's gifts.”
“The fact of it is,” the novelist commented, “Francis Ledsam isn't callous enough to be associated with you money-grubbing dispensers of the law. He'd be all right as Public Prosecutor, a sort of Sir Galahad waving the banner of virtue, but he hates to stuff his pockets at the expense of the criminal classes.”
“Who the mischief are the criminal classes?” a police court magistrate demanded. “Personally, I call war profiteering criminal, I call a good many Stock Exchange deals criminal, and,” he added, turning to a member of the committee who was hovering in the background, “I call it criminal to expect us to drink French vermouth like this.”
“There is another point of view,” the latter retorted. “I call it a crime to expect a body of intelligent men to administer without emolument to the greed of such a crowd of rotters. You'll get the right stuff next week.”
The hall-porter approached and addressed Wilmore.
“Mr. Ledsam is outside in a taxi, sir,” he announced.
“Outside in a taxi?” the lawyer repeated. “Why on earth can't he come in?”
“I never heard such rot,” another declared. “Let's go and rope him in.”
“Mr. Ledsam desired me to say, sir,” the hall porter continued, “to any of his friends who might be here, that he will be in to lunch to-morrow.”
“Leave him to me till then,” Wilmore begged. “He'll be all right directly. He's simply altering his bearings and taking his time about it. If he's promised to lunch here to-morrow, he will. He's as near as possible through the wood. Coming up in the train, he suggested a little conversation to-night and afterwards the normal life. He means it, too. There's nothing neurotic about Ledsam.”
The magistrate nodded.
“Run along, then, my merry Andrew,” he said, “but see that Ledsam keeps his word about to-morrow.”
Andrew Wilmore plunged boldly into the forbidden subject later on that evening, as the two men sat side by side at one of the wall tables in Soto's famous club restaurant. They had consumed an excellent dinner. An empty champagne bottle had just been removed, double liqueur brandies had taken its place. Francis, with an air of complete and even exuberant humanity, had lit a huge cigar. The moment seemed propitious.
“Francis,” his friend began, “they say at the club that you refused to be briefed in the Chippenham affair.”
“Quite true,” was the calm reply. “I told Griggs that I wouldn't have anything to do with it.”
Wilmore knew then that all was well. Francis' old air of strength and decision had returned. His voice was firm, his eyes were clear and bright. His manner seemed even to invite questioning.
“I think I know why,” Wilmore said, “but I should like you to tell me in your own words.”
Francis glanced around as though to be sure that they were not overheard.
“Because,” he replied, dropping his voice a little but still speaking with great distinctness, “William Bull is a cunning and dangerous criminal whom I should prefer to see hanged.”
“You know that?”
“I know that.”
“It would be a great achievement to get him off,” Wilmore persisted. “The evidence is very weak in places.”
“I believe that I could get him off,” was the confident reply. “That is why I will not touch the brief. I think,” Francis continued, “that I have already conveyed it to you indirectly, but here you are in plain words, Andrew. I have made up my mind that I will defend no man in future unless I am convinced of his innocence.”
“That means—”
“It means practically the end of my career at the bar,” Francis admitted. “I realise that absolutely: Fortunately, as you know, I am not dependent upon my earnings, and I have had a wonderful ten years.”
“This is all because of the Hilditch affair, I suppose?”
“Entirely.”
Wilmore was still a little puzzled.
“You seem to imagine that you have something on your conscience as regards that business,” he said boldly.
“I have,” was the calm reply.
“Come,” Wilmore protested, “I don't quite follow your line of thought. Granted that Hilditch was a desperate criminal whom by the exercise of your special gifts you saved from the law, surely his tragic death balanced the account between you and Society?”
“It might have done,” Francis admitted, “if he had really committed suicide.”
Wilmore was genuinely startled. He looked at his companion curiously.
“What the devil do you mean, old chap?” he demanded. “Your own evidence at the inquest was practically conclusive as to that.”
Francis glanced around him with apparent indifference but in reality with keen and stealthy care. On their right was a glass division, through which the sound of their voices could not possibly penetrate. On their left was an empty space, and a table beyond was occupied by a well-known cinema magnate engaged in testing the attractions in daily life of a would-be film star. Nevertheless, Francis' voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.
“My evidence at the coroner's inquest,” he confided, “was a subtly concocted tissue of lies. I committed perjury freely. That is the real reason why I've been a little on the nervy side lately, and why I took these few months out of harness.”
“Good God!” Wilmore exclaimed, setting down untasted the glass of brandy which he had just raised to his lips.
“I want to finish this matter up,” Francis continued calmly, “by making a clean breast of it to you, because from to-night I am starting afresh, with new interests in my life, what will practically amount to a new career. That is why I preferred not to dine at the club to-night, although I am looking forward to seeing them all again. I wanted instead to have this conversation with you. I lied at the inquest when I said that the relations between Oliver Hilditch and his wife that night seemed perfectly normal. I lied when I said that I knew of no cause for ill-will between them. I lied when I said that I left them on friendly terms. I lied when I said that Oliver Hilditch seemed depressed and nervous. I lied when I said that he expressed the deepest remorse for what he had done. There was every indication that night, of the hate which I happen to know existed between the woman and the man. I have not the faintest doubt in my mind but that she murdered him. In my judgment, she was perfectly justified in doing so.”
There followed a brief but enforced silence as some late arrivals passed their table. The room was well-ventilated but Andrew Wilmore felt suddenly hot and choking. A woman, one of the little group of newcomers, glanced towards Francis curiously.
“Francis Ledsam, the criminal barrister,” her companion whispered,—“the man who got Oliver Hilditch off. The man with him is Andrew Wilmore, the novelist. Discussing a case, I expect.”
The little party of late diners passed on their way to the further end of the room, leaving a wave of artificiality behind, or was it, Andrew Wilmore wondered, in a moment of half-dazed speculation, that it was they and the rest of the gay company who represented the real things, and he and his companion who were playing a sombre part in some unreal and gloomier world. Francis' voice, however, when he recommenced his diatribe, was calm and matter-of-fact enough.
“You see,” he continued, argumentatively, “I was morally and actually responsible for the man's being brought back into Society. And far worse than that, I was responsible for his being thrust back again upon his wife. Ergo, I was also responsible for what she did that night. The matter seems as plain as a pikestaff to me. I did what I could to atone, rightly or wrongly it doesn't matter, because it is over and done with. There you are, old fellow, now you know what's been making me nervy. I've committed wholesale perjury, but I acted according to my conscience and I think according to justice. The thing has worried me, I admit, but it has passed, and I'm glad it's off my chest. One more liqueur, Andrew, and if you want to we'll talk about my plans for the future.”
The brandy was brought. Wilmore studied his friend curiously, not without some relief. Francis had lost the harassed and nervous appearance upon which his club friends had commented, which had been noticeable, even, to a diminishing extent, upon the golf course at Brancaster. He was alert and eager. He had the air of a man upon the threshold of some enterprise dear to his heart.
“I have been through a queer experience,” Francis continued presently, as he sipped his second liqueur. “Not only had I rather less than twelve hours to make up my mind whether I should commit a serious offence against the law, but a sensation which I always hoped that I might experience, has come to me in what I suppose I must call most unfortunate fashion.”
“The woman?” Wilmore ventured.
Francis assented gloomily. There was a moment's silence. Wilmore, the metaphysician, saw then a strange thing. He saw a light steal across his friend's stern face. He saw his eyes for a moment soften, the hard mouth relax, something incredible, transforming, shine, as it were, out of the man's soul in that moment of self-revelation. It was gone like the momentary passing of a strange gleam of sunshine across a leaden sea, but those few seconds were sufficient. Wilmore knew well enough what had happened.
“Oliver Hilditch's wife,” Francis went on, after a few minutes' pause, “presents an enigma which at present I cannot hope to solve. The fact that she received her husband back again, knowing what he was and what he was capable of, is inexplicable to me. The woman herself is a mystery. I do not know what lies behind her extraordinary immobility. Feeling she must have, and courage, or she would never have dared to have ridded herself of the scourge of her life. But beyond that my judgment tells me nothing. I only know that sooner or later I shall seek her out. I shall discover all that I want to know, one way or the other. It may be for happiness—it may be the end of the things that count.”
“I guessed this,” Wilmore admitted, with a little shiver which he was wholly unable to repress.
Francis nodded.
“Then keep it to yourself, my dear fellow,” he begged, “like everything else I am telling you tonight. I have come out of my experience changed in many ways,” he continued, “but, leaving out that one secret chapter, this is the dominant factor which looms up before me. I bring into life a new aversion, almost a passion, Andrew, born in a tea-shop in the city, and ministered to by all that has happened since. I have lost that sort of indifference which my profession engenders towards crime. I am at war with the criminal, sometimes, I hope, in the Courts of Justice, but forever out of them. I am no longer indifferent as to whether men do good or evil so long as they do not cross my path. I am a hunter of sin. I am out to destroy. There's a touch of melodrama in this for you, Andrew,” he concluded, with a little laugh, “but, my God, I'm in earnest!”
“What does this mean so far as regards the routine of your daily life?” Wilmore asked curiously.
“Well, it brings us to the point we discussed down at Brancaster,” Francis replied. “It will affect my work to this extent. I shall not accept any brief unless, after reading the evidence, I feel convinced that the accused is innocent.”
“That's all very well,” Wilmore observed, “but you know what it will mean, don't you? Lawyers aren't likely to single you out for a brief without ever feeling sure whether you will accept it or not.”
“That doesn't worry me,” Francis declared. “I don't need the fees, fortunately, and I can always pick up enough work to keep me going by attending Sessions. One thing I can promise you—I certainly shall not sit in my rooms and wait for things to happen. Mine is a militant spirit and it needs the outlet of action.”
“Action, yes, but how?” Wilmore queried. “You can't be always hanging about the courts, waiting for the chance of defending some poor devil who's been wrongfully accused—there aren't enough of them, for one thing. On the other hand, you can't walk down Regent Street, brandishing a two-edged sword and hunting for pickpockets.”
Francis smiled.
“Nothing so flamboyant, I can assure you, Andrew,” he replied; “nor shall I play the amateur detective with his mouth open for mysteries. But listen,” he went on earnestly. “I've had some experience, as you know, and, notwithstanding the Oliver Hilditch's of the world, I can generally tell a criminal when I meet him face to face. There are plenty of them about, too, Andrew—as many in this place as any other. I am not going to be content with a negative position as regards evildoers. I am going to set my heel on as many of the human vermin of this city as I can find.”
“A laudable, a most exhilarating and delightful pursuit! `human vermin,' too, is excellent. It opens up a new and fascinating vista for the modern sportsman. My congratulations!”
It was an interruption of peculiar and wonderful significance, but Francis did not for the moment appreciate the fact. Turning his head, he simply saw a complete stranger seated unaccountably at the next table, who had butted into a private conversation and whose tone of gentle sarcasm, therefore, was the more offensive.
“Who the devil are you, sir,” he demanded, “and where did you come from?”
The newcomer showed no resentment at Francis' little outburst. He simply smiled with deprecating amiability—a tall, spare man, with lean, hard face, complexion almost unnaturally white; black hair, plentifully besprinkled with grey; a thin, cynical mouth, notwithstanding its distinctly humourous curve, and keen, almost brilliant dark eyes. He was dressed in ordinary dinner garb; his linen and jewellery was indeed in the best possible taste. Francis, at his second glance, was troubled with a vague sense of familiarity.
“Let me answer your last question first, sir,” the intruder begged. “I was seated alone, several tables away, when the couple next to you went out, and having had pointed out to me the other evening at Claridge's Hotel, and knowing well by repute, the great barrister, Mr. Francis Ledsam, and his friend the world-famed novelist, Mr. Andrew Wilmore, I—er—unobtrusively made my way, half a yard at a time, in your direction—and here I am. I came stealthily, you may object? Without a doubt. If I had come in any other fashion, I should have disturbed a conversation in which I was much interested.”
“Could you find it convenient,” Francis asked, with icy politeness, “to return to your own table, stealthily or not, as you choose?”
The newcomer showed no signs of moving.
“In after years,” he declared, “you would be the first to regret the fact if I did so. This is a momentous meeting. It gives me an opportunity of expressing my deep gratitude to you, Mr. Ledsam, for the wonderful evidence you tendered at the inquest upon the body of my son-in-law, Oliver Hilditch.”
Francis turned in his place and looked steadily at this unsought-for companion, learning nothing, however, from the half-mocking smile and imperturbable expression.
“Your son-in-law?” he repeated. “Do you mean to say that you are the father of—of Oliver Hilditch's wife?”
“Widow,” the other corrected gently. “I have that honour. You will understand, therefore, that I feel myself on this, the first opportunity, compelled to tender my sincere thanks for evidence so chivalrously offered, so flawlessly truthful.”
Francis was a man accustomed to self-control, but he clenched his hands so that his finger nails dug into his flesh. He was filled with an insane and unreasoning resentment against this man whose words were biting into his conscience. Nevertheless, he kept his tone level.
“I do not desire your gratitude,” he said, “nor, if you will permit me to say so, your further acquaintance.”
The stranger shook his head regretfully.
“You are wrong,” he protested. “We were bound, in any case, to know one another. Shall I tell you why? You have just declared yourself anxious to set your heel upon the criminals of the world. I have the distinction of being perhaps the most famous patron of that maligned class now living—and my neck is at your service.”
“You appear to me,” Francis said suavely, “to be a buffoon.”
It might have been fancy, but Francis could have sworn that he saw the glitter of a sovereign malevolence in the other's dark eyes. If so, it was but a passing weakness, for a moment later the half good-natured, half cynical smile was back again upon the man's lips.
“If so, I am at least a buffoon of parts,” was the prompt rejoinder. “I will, if you choose, prove myself.”
There was a moment's silence. Wilmore was leaning forward in his place, studying the newcomer earnestly. An impatient invective was somehow stifled upon Francis' lips.
“Within a few yards of this place, sometime before the closing hour to-night,” the intruder continued, earnestly yet with a curious absence of any human quality in his hard tone, “there will be a disturbance, and probably what you would call a crime will be committed. Will you use your vaunted gifts to hunt down the desperate criminal, and, in your own picturesque phraseology, set your heel upon his neck? Success may bring you fame, and the trail may lead—well, who knows where?”
Afterwards, both Francis and Andrew Wilmore marvelled at themselves, unable at any time to find any reasonable explanation of their conduct, for they answered this man neither with ridicule, rudeness nor civility. They simply stared at him, impressed with the convincing arrogance of his challenge and unable to find words of reply. They received his mocking farewell without any form of reciprocation or sign of resentment. They watched him leave the room, a dignified, distinguished figure, sped on his way with marks of the deepest respect by waiters, maitres d'hotels and even the manager himself. They behaved, indeed, as they both admitted afterwards, like a couple of moonstruck idiots. When he had finally disappeared, however, they looked at one another and the spell was broken.
“Well, I'm damned!” Francis exclaimed. “Soto, come here at once.”
The manager hastened smilingly to their table.
“Soto,” Francis invoked, “tell us quickly—tell us the name of the gentleman who has just gone out, and who he is?”
Soto was amazed.
“You don't know Sir Timothy Brast, sir?” he exclaimed. “Why, he is supposed to be one of the richest men in the world! He spends money like water. They say that when he is in England, his place down the river alone costs a thousand pounds a week. When he gives a party here, we can find nothing good enough. He is our most generous client.”
“Sir Timothy Brast,” Wilmore repeated. “Yes, I have heard of him.”
“Why, everybody knows Sir Timothy,” Soto went on eloquently. “He is the greatest living patron of boxing. He found the money for the last international fight.”
“Does he often come in alone like this?” Francis asked curiously.
“Either alone,” Soto replied, “or with a very large party. He entertains magnificently.”
“I've seen his name in the paper in connection with something or other, during the last few weeks,” Wilmore remarked reflectively.
“Probably about two months ago, sir,” Soto suggested. “He gave a donation of ten thousand pounds to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and they made him a Vice President.... In one moment, sir.”
The manager hurried away to receive a newly-arrived guest. Francis and his friend exchanged a wondering glance.
“Father of Oliver Hilditch's wife,” Wilmore observed, “the most munificent patron of boxing in the world, Vice President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and self-confessed arch-criminal! He pulled our legs pretty well!”
“I suppose so,” Francis assented absently.
Wilmore glanced at his watch.
“What about moving on somewhere?” he suggested. “We might go into the Alhambra for half-an-hour, if you like. The last act of the show is the best.”
Francis shook his head.
“We've got to see this thing out,” he replied. “Have you forgotten that our friend promised us a sensation before we left?”
Wilmore began to laugh a little derisively. Then, suddenly aware of some lack of sympathy between himself and his friend, he broke off and glanced curiously at the latter.
“You're not taking him seriously, are you?” he enquired.
Francis nodded.
“Certainly I am,” he confessed.
“You don't believe that he was getting at us?”
“Not for a moment.”
“You believe that something is going to happen here in this place, or quite close?”
“I am convinced of it,” was the calm reply.
Wilmore was silent. For a moment he was troubled with his old fears as to his friend's condition. A glance, however, at Francis' set face and equable, watchful air, reassured him.
“We must see the thing through, of course, then,” he assented. “Let us see if we can spot the actors in the coming drama.”